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I've been reading The Elusive Shift and apparently there was a camp that was strongly in favour of keeping players distanced from the rules in the early days of RPGs. They were also in favour of doing all the dice rolls for the players, not letting people know their hit points etc.
Very little of that seems to have survived into modern RPGs, including the OSR. The closest I can think of is Unknown Armies keeping exact HP from players. Well, that and Paranoia (and Paranoia's "the players aren't allowed to know the rules!" may have had an element of satirising those arguments. Certainly, Costik was involved in debates in the fanzines at the time).
What do people think of it as a concept? I'm intrigued by it, but I can see a lot of players pushing hard back against it.
If you can manage it, I can see a much stronger case for keeping setting details from players.
Although a pet hate is that 90s thing of keeping setting secrets from the GM. (Bonus points for those games that failed to complete their planned print schedule and left large numbers of questions unanswered. I'm looking at you Fading Suns).
Very little of that seems to have survived into modern RPGs, including the OSR. The closest I can think of is Unknown Armies keeping exact HP from players. Well, that and Paranoia (and Paranoia's "the players aren't allowed to know the rules!" may have had an element of satirising those arguments. Certainly, Costik was involved in debates in the fanzines at the time).
What do people think of it as a concept? I'm intrigued by it, but I can see a lot of players pushing hard back against it.
If you can manage it, I can see a much stronger case for keeping setting details from players.
Although a pet hate is that 90s thing of keeping setting secrets from the GM. (Bonus points for those games that failed to complete their planned print schedule and left large numbers of questions unanswered. I'm looking at you Fading Suns).