Purpose of RPG Rules

"The purpose of a roleplaying game's rules--any given rule, any individual rule in a roleplaying game--the purpose of that rule is to get the players to say or do something interesting. . . .

There are a million things that roleplaying rules do that are not to get the players to say something interesting, and those are bad rules."

-Vincent Baker, in "How to Design a Roleplaying Game that Doesn't Suck" presentation at Ropecon 2013.


​Or, he adds, they can make what is said interesting.