quote:
Crunch is a 'thing' because people are fallible.
Not for me. It's not a matter at all of not trusting GMs to handle everything perfectly. I've honestly never seen a game in which common sense didn't still apply, and yes, sometimes people disagree. That's.. one of the things GMs are for, but it's not something that's ever going to be filled in with some perfect set of rules that actually covers every possibility.
For me, Crunch is just... that's what the
game is. I can make stuff up, sure, but that's not a game. Games don't just `need structure' - they
are structures. If we take all the crunch out of, let's say, chess... we have a board and a pile of pieces. Does it matter that the board has alternately colored squares, or that there are two different colors of pieces? Can the horse-shaped pieces fly? Can those pointy ones shoot lasers from their eyes? Do the pointy ones even
have eyes? Why can't the little guys hop off the board and run around on the table?
...Quite frankly, as soon as you decide answers to any of those, even if it's just going to apply for the next half hour -- you're creating crunch, and giving structure to your game.
I can make up stories, yes. I can even make up a story with somebody else. And that can be fun sometimes. But it's a different thing than playing a game.