An explanation why some people don't like playing around optimization


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Ok I found this video and I really think people should check it out. Are Video Games About Their Mechanics? It talks about video games but really can easily apply to tabletop RPGs. I think this guy put it quite well as he talks about game mechanics and the harm they can sometimes do to their game. Lets discuss and keep it civil.

Scarab Sages

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Speaking as someone who

- has long been frustrated with exactly what this guy's talking about
- has been severely unnerved by what I've observed over the past 10 years as a descent into decadence in gaming, and even the damage its potentially done to my own mind
- has long been frustrated by my seeming inability to communicate/get the upper hand in communicating what I and others know we are seeing
- knows far more about psychology, linguistics, political science, and general sociology than is truly healthy for my autistic mind
- just had a longer post sent to oblivion by my present Internet problems (I tried copy and paste; it didn't take)

I'll try to keep this simple rather than composing a dissertation:

- I respect the guy's effort on all fronts, but I feel the message falls short (then again, I got tired of it midway through, and may not be the true target audience).

- The thing that bothers me most about "the Stormwind Fallacy" is the very fact that it was not only written, but became popular, when I feel that it's basic message as I understand it ("dividing roleplaying and mechanics into antagonistic poles, when you should be viewing the game holistically, is a fallacious mindset") ought to be so instinctively obvious as to not be worth writing about.

- In keeping with the guy's thesis that the problem is caused by a pitfall in established thinking, I'll suggest what I see as a big problem: Inappropriately-allotted faith in a longstanding Western belief that reductionism leads to ultimate truth. There's a good solid place for reductionism (I utilize it in my reasoning often enough), but it certainly isn't in fantasy gaming, which wouldn't exist at all were it not for expansivist thinking (it started with games as simple as chess, then got wildly more baroque from there). Another serious problem I see is the ascent of aggressive anti-intellectualism in the public sphere (at least in the English-Internet-dominating USA) over the past 30 years, and the downright Evil "creative play is kid's stuff, grown-ups impress people with how efficient they are at generating large numbers in some form" prejudice.

- This may all be a MASSIVE overreach in what we're really talking about, and perhaps I should stick to my original complaint regarding talk of "optimization:" Optimizing for WHAT? Everything's situational in tabletop gaming, everything has an opportunity cost, and you can't be optimum for everything. Yes, you might be able to have a system that's so narrow in scope that you CAN expect to "optimize" a character, but that's exactly what tabletop gaming isn't about - and that distinction is only going to become MORE important in the age of computer/video games, since the ability to go further off the charted path than you ever could in an electronic game will become the defining feature that makes analog tabletop games relevant.


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Jaçinto wrote:
Ok I found this video and I really think people should check it out. Are Video Games About Their Mechanics? It talks about video games but really can easily apply to tabletop RPGs. I think this guy put it quite well as he talks about game mechanics and the harm they can sometimes do to their game. Lets discuss and keep it civil.

I didn't get the same message you did at all. I heard no mention of anything suggesting that mechanics "do harm to their game", simply that focusing too much on the game's mechanics may hinder your capability to fully enjoy other elements(namely the story).

But a game IS its mechanics. The story, world, or "context" is an important part for keeping you interested, but a game is still a game without any of those things.

Portal is a masterpiece of game design even if you take out GlaDOS and all of the other background story elements.

The addition of all those elements elevates the game to an engrossing, engaging piece of art, but it is a perfectly serviceable, even very good GAME without any of that.

I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
- This may all be a MASSIVE overreach in what we're really talking about, and perhaps I should stick to my original complaint regarding talk of "optimization:" Optimizing for WHAT? Everything's situational in tabletop gaming, everything has an opportunity cost, and you can't be optimum for everything. Yes, you might be able to have a system that's so narrow in scope that you CAN expect to "optimize" a character, but that's exactly what tabletop gaming isn't about - and that distinction is only going to become MORE important in the age of computer/video games, since the ability to go further off the charted path than you ever could in an electronic game will become the defining feature that makes analog tabletop games relevant.

This seems to be based on a misunderstanding on what optimization is.

Optimization is indeed all about "optimizing for WHAT?"

Pick a thing you want to be good at.

Set about making yourself good at that thing using the game mechanics provided.

That is optimization, plain and simple.

You can optimize for certain styles of combat, for being the best Diplomat, Alchemist, or Underwater Basket Weaver you could ever be, or anything else the game allows you to do.

Saying "you can't be optimum for everything" is something that, in your own words, ought to be so instinctively obvious as to not be worth writing about.


I just realized that I posted part 2 but not part 1 of it. Again it is talking about video games but I think it applies to any game with story in it.
Part 1 video link
Sorry about that.

Rynjin, what is trying to be said, in some part is that yes mechanics are fine but in a game with such massive in depth story, mechanics should be about how to make a game work rather than just all the game is. Story says why X happens. Mechanics say how to actually make X happen with the input device you are using such as a controller or dice and paper. It's like an old Penny Arcade strip I saw years ago where one person kept skipping all the cutscenes to get to the next fight and disregarded the story. He said he just wanted to get to killing the next big monster with ice, or something like that. When the other character asked wouldn't he like to know WHY he was killing the monster with ice, he just responded by saying because it is immune to fire. See, yes you need both and they are both great things, but when when you make these games purely about the mechanics, the story can get left behind and be forgettable which just tells the writers "Why bother?" since you are just going to ignore their story so you can get to the next action scene. I am not trying to change people's minds here. I am just trying to get people to understand why there is this attitude against the munchkins/powergamers/fluff and story is meaningless, etc... crowd.

Since I am bad at judging my tone in text, if I came off as rude or condescending in there then I apologize in advance as it is not my intention. I was trying to come off in a calm rational tone.


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I'll have to look at it later. Lack of head-phones, and my fiance's asleep atm and I'd rather not wake her up (very, very bad idea). I CAN comment on IHIYC though.

IHIYC wrote:
- In keeping with the guy's thesis that the problem is caused by a pitfall in established thinking, I'll suggest what I see as a big problem: Inappropriately-allotted faith in a longstanding Western belief that reductionism leads to ultimate truth. There's a good solid place for reductionism (I utilize it in my reasoning often enough), but it certainly isn't in fantasy gaming, which wouldn't exist at all were it not for expansivist thinking (it started with games as simple as chess, then got wildly more baroque from there). Another serious problem I see is the ascent of aggressive anti-intellectualism in the public sphere (at least in the English-Internet-dominating USA) over the past 30 years, and the downright Evil "creative play is kid's stuff, grown-ups impress people with how efficient they are at generating large numbers in some form" prejudice.

Welcome to 'murica and it's increasingly idiotic school system that was designed in the 1940s by a guy who went to Poland to study their school system, which was designed to produce docile factory workers. Add in the idiocy behind "No child left behind", that while noble an idea, produces the exact opposite in practice, and you've got the perfect system for producing shallow, docile sheep stuck in a state of consumer frenzy.

But this is something I've been raging about since I noticed it after my parents yoinked me out of the established school system and shoved me into a charter school. May have missed out on the "high school experience", but it was probably one of the best things they could've done for me. Regardless, dead horse that I've pounded into a pulp long ago, I'll rave no more.

Cut funding to schools with low test scores... wtf...

edit: I'm going off memory here. Might have been another country... Prussia perhaps. Somewhere in that area that started with a "p". Point still stands.

Scarab Sages

@Rynjin: I know of NOBODY who truly objects to mechanics - I love taking ideas from myth, legend, esoterica, and other games and creating D&D/Pathfinder mechanics for them - but the dismissive "it's subordinate or irrelevant" attitude toward everything but visible mechanics is precisely the problem being talked about. You are, if I am not mistaken, demonstrating the Stormwind Fallacy, or possibly some deeper version of it. In some other game, the mechanics may be the sum total of the game - but not THESE games. These games are like table salt: without sodium AND chlorine TOGETHER, it holds no nutritional value. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, substance without mechanics is lame, and mechanics without substance is blind.

As for your response to optimization, the point is that I'm reacting to a longstanding fallacy that if you DON'T create the character a certain way (optimized to a certain narrow end), it can't possibly be "effective," and the proof is in the pudding: That simply isn't true. Like I kind of said, I'm opposing a "militant reductionist" attitude that reflexively scoffs at any possibility or mindset it sees beyond a comparatively narrow scope. It's like matryoshka dolls: One mentality can comfortably accommodate both itself and the other, the reverse is not true, and believe it or not, I physically feel that every time I feel pressured to flip to a more restrictive gaming language, which is almost all the time, and that's poison for me.

Artemis Moonstar wrote:

Cut funding to schools with low test scores... wtf...

There was a fantastic article years ago when No Child Left Unrecruited was still considered current events that explored what would happen if you applied the same system to the military - it's lost in the abyss, but the easy-to-remember part was "the worse a unit performs in combat, the fewer guns we'll give it."

I've read the historical article you're referring to. Me, I had a privileged K-12 education (an eclectic array of Golden Age-Silicon Valley private schools until my sophomore year of high school, then an arts magnet for my first public school experience) that ended in a Hindenburg-like anticlimax (an "only-game-in-town" rural New Mexico high school whose principle at the time was - I am not making this up - a former used-car salesman), followed by a college that, while very good for what it does, is wholly unsuited for me (I've just finished trying the only other logistically viable school at my disposal and it SUCKS; the teachers and classes were fine, but everything else about it goes out of its way to make students' lives harder; it's almost like Alpha Complex), and I'm stuck there until further notice. Anyways, reconciling the two cosms, let alone successfully recovering what I've lost, REQUIRES a strong sense of fantasy.


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I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
@Rynjin: I know of NOBODY who truly objects to mechanics - I love taking ideas from myth, legend, esoterica, and other games and creating D&D/Pathfinder mechanics for them - but the dismissive "it's subordinate or irrelevant" attitude toward everything but visible mechanics is precisely the problem being talked about. You are, if I am not mistaken, demonstrating the Stormwind Fallacy, or possibly some deeper version of it. In some other game, the mechanics may be the sum total of the game - but not THESE games. These games are like table salt: without sodium AND chlorine TOGETHER, it holds no nutritional value. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, substance without mechanics is lame, and mechanics without substance is blind.

The Stormwind Fallacy is that the two things are INCOMPATIBLE (Roleplay/Story vs Optimization/Mechanics).

And I'm not sure how you got that I was saying anything besides mechanics were "subordinate or irrelevant", since I said the context elevates the game, but the fact of the matter is that at its core, a game IS its mechanics.

You can model this very easily.

When you play Pathfinder using Golarion, are you playing Pathfinder? Yes. This is the baseline assumption.

When you play Pathfinder using another setting, such as Forgotten Realms, are you still playing Pathfinder? Yes, you're using the Pathfinder game (its mechanics) in a different context.

When you play "Pathfinder" using Golarion, but Shadowrun's ruleset, are you still playing Pathfinder?

No, you're playing Shadowrun.

The mechanics are the game, full stop. It is a body with functioning organs that shows the signs of perfect health.

That doesn't change the fact that a mind (or story/setting/characters/all that jazz) is necessary for the body/game to be truly called ALIVE rather than merely functional.

Scarab Sages

Know what? I think we're getting somewhere!

That last part sounds reasonable, but the first part makes it clear we've got a miscommunication going on there (but now it's much more minor!) - I can't speak for anyone else, but to me, which rules system you use, and what you refer to as "the game" if you want to get REALLY technical, is not the point. Regarding your examples, they lead me to suggest that what we should call "The Game" is, from all perspectives save a corporate lawyer's, modular - "Pathfinder Golarion" may in fact be a "different game" from "Shadowrun Golarion," as would "Shadowrun Shadow Earth," "Pathfinder Shadow Earth," "Shadow Earth 3.0," "TORG Golarion," "TORG Planescape," "2nd Edition D&D Eberron," "World of Darkness PARANOIA," et cetera. Think of how the Might & Magic games all ran on an interface very similar to that of DOOM, but those are quite different games, aren't they?


I guess we should first ask the question; are we playing a game because it's mechanics are fun or because it has a great story? If the mechanics are why you are playing that game then optimization is clearly not a bad thing... on the other hand if it's the story you wish to play through then yes optimization is horrible toward the experience.

I am reminded of Star Wars: the Old Republic MMO. It has eight fully developed story paths and it is built on a rather typical MMO mechanic system. I started playing it when it went free play and I fell in love with a couple of the excellent stories; BUT I always had the horrible grinding mechanic common to MMOs getting in my way of enjoying the story. Eventually I gave up trying to experience those stories and it makes me sad, but it wasn't worth it to plow through countless hours of grinding to level just so I could play through the next chapter. In this case you DEFINITELY have mechanics getting in the way.

In a game like Civilization V however the story is clearly NOT why I play the game; I play for the mechanics here. It really doesn't even have a story beyond the vague story of your civilizations rise or fall.


@HIYC: Wish you luck buddy. Seriously do.

@Rynjin: I'm dying to know what you consider free-form RP then.

Edit: Uber ninja'd


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There's no point to a game without good mechanics. If you put all your effort into the story, and neglect the gameplay, you have made a poor game, despite how amazing the story may be.

Which is why I consider game design to be harder (but more fun!) than directing a movie, writing a novel, and so forth...but maybe I'm just biased. =)

Artemis Moonstar wrote:


@Rynjin: I'm dying to know what you consider free-form RP then.

Cooperative storytelling.

Fun, but not a game.

It's basically the fine distinction between a game, and "play". It's very hard to concretely distinguish between them, but the distinctions are there.

The main principle is that a game has rules, play does not.

EX: When you played with action figures as a child, and made up stories, and fought battles, and all that. That was play.

When you play with action figures as an adult, make up stories, have concrete limitations to what can and cannot be done, and roll dice to determine outcomes of actions, that is a game.

Scarab Sages

@Rynjin: I don't think anyone's disputing you there. Like continental drift, I'm positive we're no longer talking about the same thing - but that's actually helpful!

Aranna wrote:

I guess we should first ask the question; are we playing a game because it's mechanics are fun or because it has a great story?

In most electronic games, we don't see any conflict; we know what we're getting into. I can enjoy games without story just fine (depending; I don't care for racing games, and I view games like Sonic The Hedgehog as "reverse novels" where the game gives you action and spectacle, and it's up to your imagination to fill in story). The conflict comes, ultimately, from "if we're going to play a game together, we have to agree what game we're playing together."

Is this, perhaps, a "eureka" moment? This may be the cause of the conflict: More or less because of online games, people no longer have control over who they game with (something tabletop gaming was always much better able to handle, even with "living campaigns"), and they consequently aren't really playing the same game - the true gamers are forced to play with the true philistines, and we all ultimately get caught in the crossfire. Being a xenopolitan autist and all, I actually look forward to an era without social norms, but perhaps many in the present world aren't quite ready for that.


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Aranna wrote:

I guess we should first ask the question; are we playing a game because it's mechanics are fun or because it has a great story? If the mechanics are why you are playing that game then optimization is clearly not a bad thing... on the other hand if it's the story you wish to play through then yes optimization is horrible toward the experience.

I am reminded of Star Wars: the Old Republic MMO. It has eight fully developed story paths and it is built on a rather typical MMO mechanic system. I started playing it when it went free play and I fell in love with a couple of the excellent stories; BUT I always had the horrible grinding mechanic common to MMOs getting in my way of enjoying the story. Eventually I gave up trying to experience those stories and it makes me sad, but it wasn't worth it to plow through countless hours of grinding to level just so I could play through the next chapter. In this case you DEFINITELY have mechanics getting in the way.

In a game like Civilization V however the story is clearly NOT why I play the game; I play for the mechanics here. It really doesn't even have a story beyond the vague story of your civilizations rise or fall.

I agree. To me the game is the mechanics. You can attach a story to several different mechanics, and the story might need some tweeking, but on many occasions the story can remain true to itself. If I say we are playing Pathfinder people will assume I am using the d20 rule set. If I run the same story, and I say we are playing Pathfinder, but I use the ruleset for Shadowrun the players will likely accuse me of false advertising.

PS: I also hate grinding. I am playing final fantasy 1 for the NES, and I want to advance the plot. To make this easier I am using a cheat which gives me more XP than normal, and does not split XP between party members.


If you define game as rules set, then yes the game is the mechanics. Thus it makes sense to only say you're playing PF if you're using the PF rules. (Which does raise the question: Is today's game of PF with all the splat books and everything the same game as a 2009 CRB game?)

OTOH, I know of people who've played the same game over multiple versions of D&D, with continuous characters and setting throughout. Different mechanics, but not different games - with a different sense of the word game.


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I find my mechanic issue is that I have always been the type to question rules. Like, when a power or feat says it does X, I am the first one to say why and then explore it. I'm the guy that tries to explain how magic actually works rather than just "The game says this is how it works, just take it." Skills, feat progression, save and attribute progression, etc... I always ask why and try to explore that. Mechanics are needed but I prefer when they actually fit with the story. Less X happens because we say so and more X happens because Y reason.

Having trouble putting what I mean to words because of how my mind works but I'm trying here. If it doesn't seem to make sense, pardon me because this is hard at times to make my thoughts make sense to anyone but me.

See, saying games are the mechanics is a fallacy to me because I see it more as KINDS of games are the mechanics. Sometimes the mechanics are there to explain how parts of the story are supposed to work. When you have a story based game, the mechanics need to work in tandem with each other and not conflict. Sometimes there are games where the story (including power and class descriptions) and the mechanics don't flow together at all and then you have a problem. Also when the mechanics, which again are important, totally overshadow the story then what is the story even there for at that point?

See when a game teaches you to focus so hard on the mechanics that it is all you see when you do anything in the game, and the only parts sticking to your mind in the adventure is when you get to apply your system mastery then something has failed. It's like...ok lets see if I can make this make sense. Take a TV signal. Assume purely mechanics or crunch here and your only show would be the test pattern. If the mechanics is all that mattered then that should be good enough for you as it is displaying the mechanics of the system. The fluff or story would be in applying it to make an actual entertainment program. Disregarding the story/fluff is like saying the only thing that matters in a TV show is did the colours and noises come through ok and were you able to manipulate the vertical and horizontal and stuff rather than the actual content. Ok I hope I use these next words correctly. The mechanics are just supposed to be the medium or vehicle to convey the story in these sorts of games. They are just there to get you from A to B but the story is there to tell you WHY you are going from A to B.

I think what I am trying to say is yes mechanics are important but the problem is they are being over emphasized more and more these days over the rest of the games we play. So when we have a game where only one person at the table is solely mechanics driven and keeps saying things like useless fluff and the rest are story driven and just using the mechanics to tell their story, it is like a big slap in the face to everyone that wants to actually immerse into the story. See, this is very much a story based game with mechanics that are just supposed to help you tell your story. If that is not how your group plays though, that is fine. I almost never see people saying "Don't look at the mechanics" but I do, very often see people saying "Ignore the fluff, it's useless." It's not useless and speaking in such an absolute about it is an offence to story based gamers and the people that write fiction of any kind. We're not saying you need to change but we are saying please respect our play style too and just as valid because we do accept yours as valid even though we don't like it.

System mastery and focusing just on the mechanics becomes such a problem for us because then you get the player that is just focused on building to beat the next area and essentially skipping the story scenes for just "Just point on my map where to go and who to kill." without ever really caring about the why. The why part is what makes a story engaging. Good stories, the kind that immerse you in and make you want to take part are all about the Why, not the How.

I feel like I am not making sense as I read this but at the same time I feel like I am. Sorry again but my thinking process is quite odd I am told.


Rynjin wrote:

There's no point to a game without good mechanics. If you put all your effort into the story, and neglect the gameplay, you have made a poor game, despite how amazing the story may be.

Which is why I consider game design to be harder (but more fun!) than directing a movie, writing a novel, and so forth...but maybe I'm just biased. =)

Artemis Moonstar wrote:
@Rynjin: I'm dying to know what you consider free-form RP then.

Cooperative storytelling.

Fun, but not a game.

It's basically the fine distinction between a game, and "play". It's very hard to concretely distinguish between them, but the distinctions are there.

The main principle is that a game has rules, play does not.

EX: When you played with action figures as a child, and made up stories, and fought battles, and all that. That was play.

When you play with action figures as an adult, make up stories, have concrete limitations to what can and cannot be done, and roll dice to determine outcomes of actions, that is a game.

I've never played any completely free-from RPGs, but I've played some pretty rules-light ones and I didn't find them at all like cooperative storytelling. The games I've seen that come closest to cooperative storytelling have narrative mechanics to drive that. Not really free form at all. Or even rules-light, in some cases.

I've certainly, even within older D&D frameworks, spent entire sessions in roleplay without any dice rolled or mechanics used. In some cases those sessions and the roleplayed interaction was as crucial to the campaign as any mechanics heavy combat.

I would much rather ditch mechanics and play a campaign out free-form, than ditch the story and all the fluff and just play straight mechanics. That may be too reductive to be meaningful though.


I wouldn't consider the mechanics to equal "the game." To me when someone refers to the game, they're talking about all of the elements combined. This is especially true for role-playing games. If you take an amazing RPG, such as Dragon Age, and remove all of the story elements, you're left with a very boring game.

Why is my character here? Why is my character fighting these enemies? What is the point of this?

This argument is as old as games. When I play a RPG, I really get into the story and enjoy seeing it unfold. In contrast, I had friends that would play early games and rename their characters "Potrules" or whatever.

Some people are into the story of a game. It can grab their attention to the point where they care about the characters and get happy/sad at their accomplishments/failures.

Other people skip all of the cut scenes or "talking parts" so they can get back to fighting the enemies and getting new gear.

In the past, the 1st kind of people would make fun of the 2nd kind of people for being shallow. More recently, the message of tolerance and everyone should be able to play the game for whatever reasons they want has been pushed quite a bit. As such, the 2nd type of people are fighting back against the 1st type, calling them elitists or drama club members, etc.

When it comes to TTRPGs, if both of these type of people are in the same group, you're going to have some clashes and issues with the campaign.

Scarab Sages

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I think some people are misinterpreting what is actually meant by those saying "That's just flavour", "Flavour can be changed.", and interpreting this to mean that the speakers want to play games with limited or no flavour.

When what they are actually trying to do, is to play with the mechanical building blocks of the game, so they can more easily create characters who are a better fit for the campaign setting, as it is officially described.

Example: Several years ago, I was in a forum discussion (possibly the beta test of either the bard or the cleric, or maybe it was 'The Non-Generic Cleric' crowdbuilt excercise, I forget which), in which we were discussing how different kinds of deities would require different kinds of worship, and therefore, different kinds of followers, and therefore, different kinds of priesthood.
It was argued by one side (including me) that the Cleric class, as written, was poor at representing the priesthood of non-militaristic deities, because its traditional Crusader/Knights Templar roots kept encouraging people to ladle more and more combat abilities onto the chassis, to the point it was provably better at killing things than any martial class (see 'CoDzilla').
Clearly, this wasn't appropriate for deities of Love, Art, Music, Craftsmanship, Commerce, etc. Nor did it make sense that deities whose portfolios covered explicit class roles, such as the God of Thieves, the Goddess of Arcane Magic, should be served by a priesthood who weren't even members of the favored demographic (or had to gimp themselves with clunky multiclassing).
Solutions were posted, to give clerics more appropriate abilities, but it was difficult to get away from the core problem of the class itself. Domains don't cut it. Changing one spell per spell level, or one or two 3/day domain abilities doesn't change a divine murdermachine into a patron of the arts, a pacifist diplomat, or a stealthy sacred agent.

So we asked 'Why do priests even have to be clerics, anyway?'.
Wouldn't Shelyn's priesthood be largely Bards? Or Enchanters?
Shouldn't a God of Thieves have a congregation... of thieves? And grant divine powers and protection, when needed...to thieves?

And the butthurt that caused, you would not believe.
"Bards can't be priests! Only clerics are priests! It says clerics are priests in the class description! The bard description doesn't allow them to be priests! Bards are arcane casters! Arcane casters can't be priests! Arcane casters can't cast cleric spells! Only clerics can cast cleric spells! Priests cast cleric spells! The only kind of priests are clerics! Read the flavor text!"

And our counter-argument was that 'That text is not the be-all and end-all for that class. It is not meant to be a straightjacket. It is not meant to forbid perfectly valid character backgrounds from seeing play.'
"Flavour text is fine, as examples that can be built upon and expanded."
"Flavour text is mutable. It should change to fit the established facts of a campaign setting, or the genre being represented."

This went on for page after page; people were genuinely upset that we could even suggest anything other than a priest caste made up of 100% homogenous clerics. And they were adamant that it could not be allowed because of flavour text. Flavour text from a generic rulebook, which directly worked against flavour material from the setting, and which directly hindered these priests carrying out their deities' portfolio.

The people actively trying to support the backround material of Golarion (or other favorite gaming or literary settings), were the ones looking past generic, default class descriptions, to play with the mechanical moving parts of the game rules, and reconfigure them in ways that allowed established canon to work.
And the people arguing against the attempt to support canon, were the ones so firmly entrenched in flavor text, that they had no room to maneuver. The ones arguing 'Flavor Text Must Be Enforced!" were the ones arguing for all priests, of all religions, to be virtually identical.


I'm not talking about the people that say flavour text is an example, I am talking about the people that say to disregard it completely or call it wrong. This example just now popped into my head and I am not sure how well it works. The flavour text is like a lake. Big and lots of places to float your boat in but you are still in that lake. You can put your boat anywhere in it, fish anywhere, etc... Then you have someone with their boat in a tree because "Don't try to limit me." There is lots of room to fiddle with the flavour, like lets say class descriptions but they shouldn't be totally ignored. They are trying to explain what the majority of members of said class are with giving you room to play what you want in.


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now that i think about it, a rogue could technically be a priest if they wanted, they just wouldn't have spells, and at the same time, a slayer with a high sleight of hand could choose to perform card tricks for tips instead of picking pockets, for legally acquired funds.

in fact, i remember building a "Barbarian" as in the class, who was a "Samurai" in flavor and title. and a "Slayer" as in the class who was a "Knight" in flavor and title


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Edit: I'm not quite satisfied with what I'm saying here. There is the "core" of the intent, but I'm not an art guy and I'm expressing myself poorly. I will try to do so better tonight, when I have more time to reflect upon it.

I checked out the video, and the discussion sound interesting so I thought I might chime in.
Videogames are a fairly new form of entertainment still going through its infancy. The same can “arguably” be said about RPGs. But in the base, what differentiates these games from other forms of art is the mechanics; without mechanics, it does not qualify as a game.
Now, the dissonance the author of the video talks about stems from greater importance/memorability of “mechanical” elements vs “story” elements. This is, I believe, a BAD separation, and indicates the poor quality of game design we are still experiencing. What distinguishes a game from a movie is the mechanics, and the mechanics (and agency taken thereof) should always be pointing back to the art (be it visual, narrative, conceptual, etc.). We shouldn’t see videogames as “interactive movies”, or “3d paintings”, we really need the mechanics to point to what is important: the interactivity and feedback provided to the player. The mechanical elements must lead back to the themes.

RPGs (at least some of them) do enshrine this into their construction. Dungeon World is a good example: every action you take is solely to advance the narrative. From the beginning the game designers hammer this into your head, both for players and GMs, that each mechanic exists to point back to the narrative. Now, it’s still very vague, certainly too vague to make a video game out of it, but it gets the basic idea: the mechanics are part of the art. Mechanics are to games as paint is to a painter, as an actor is to a director, as a word is to a writer: a tool to express your art.

Some systems try to tell of specific themes and ideas. Dungeon World is generic, but it is a “fundamental” unit of controlled interactive story. Others don’t focus on a particular “form” (such as the narrative, the visual, etc) but rather on themes and ideas. The various Warhammer RPGs that I’ve explored (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2ed, Dark Heresy, etc.) explore, in their mechanics, the notion of the weakness of humanity, our struggle against a universe that does not care, and our struggle between sacrificing our “selves” for greater power. This is reflected in the gameplay, where combat is brutal & difficult, healing is hard, death is (relatively) easy, where magic can corrupt and destroy you. While the representation isn’t perfect, the warhammer RPGs do a fairly good job of using their mechanics to convey a theme.

And this is the difficulty with games; while a lot of folks dislike the dissonance that can be created between mechanics and story, we are still looking at games like they were a book or a movie, and in that way we cannot be satisfied. Both in design, in criticism and in play.
Anyway, sorry if this comes off as a bit weird, but I thought it is worth saying. Pathfinder itself isn’t a best case scenario; it’s both a “generic” system and one focused on a specific world, witch makes it difficult to focus on singular artistic elements or themes (beyond perhaps “the mind is greater than the body”).
As for the whole optimisation issue, it’s no problem for me as long as everybody is having fun. The only way to not optimize is to play completely randomly (the best system I’ve seen for that is Dungeon crawl classics) and that only leads to random narrative and incoherent themes (it’s still entertaining though). Anyway, hope this is intereting to most.


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Excellent points williamoak.

I think I bungled up my previous ones in what I wanted to say but couldn't find the correct words. Yes the mechanics are essential to the game but, in a role playing or story based game, they shouldn't be the thing that sticks out the most in your memory. Knowing the rules of how a game works is essentially to be able to enjoy the story. You shouldn't separate the two at all. What good is a story in a novel when the mechanics of proper spelling and grammar are ignored? But you shouldn't solely look at a novel as just the spelling and grammar rules but what they are used to convey.

When I say why I think some people dislike the optimizers is because I don't have a better word to explain these types of people. The ones that say the mechanics are all that matters and the story is second to that or lower. The ones that are just about winning and completion rather than enjoyment of the world and story that the mechanics allow you to play in the game world.

I can appreciate a challenging and active boss fight but you need to know why you were having that fight. It means so much more when you can understand why you were doing it rather than just to get loot and exp so you can get more powers. I like to know why the boss is a problem and doing what it does, why someone had me fight them, and why I would be the one to take up the task.

I have to say I love that this is being calm and civil so far and I hope I did not just jinx things.


Ok, the stuff is stuck in my head, but I guess my general conclusion in my reflexions is this:

People only perceive games as art if they include past forms of artistic expression, such as narrative, visual arts, etc. Until we accept mechanics as an individual form of artistry, equal to painting, music, narrative, etc., we will always find dissonance.

To Jacinto:

I think we might be going in different directions. Right now, I'm really unconcerned by the nitty-gritty of the game, but more the philosophical concepts. It's getting weird and I've already got over 1000 words down, so I might be working on this for a bit.

Sovereign Court

Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.

Silver Crusade

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Hama wrote:
Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.

And piles of scrap metal aren't art, they're piles of scrap. But they end up in art museums anyway. Must mean people have different definitions of art.


Hama wrote:
Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.

Duchamp might argue otherwise. Or maybe he was just trolling the art world with the fountain.

-MD


Ok my mind is all over the place. I'm just gonna sit back and read and take in what people are saying instead of tryng to sort my scrambled thoughts into words.


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Ideally, I'd think you'd want the game mechanics to inexorably lead to the types of stories you're trying to tell. The old Victory Games "James Bond 007" game did this perfectly -- some of the mechanics were incredibly wonky, but if you actually followed the rules, you pretty much always ended up with an experience that seemed like it came right out of a James Bond movie. In that case, the mechanics meshed seamlessly with the flavor.

In the case of Pathfinder, the mechanics don't really lead to the stories that the APs describe, and so on; you often end up having to work against them to get the story to work. That's not Paizo's fault by a long shot -- I love their adventures, I just feel that starting with 3.5 edition wasn't the best mechanical chassis to tell them with, because it too often leads places where the APs don't go.

In a perfect world, the mechanics would work with the precision and power of a mechanical bull, with no part out of place and no malfunctions and no O&M needed, and the flavor over them would be so seemless that you'd think you were looking at a real animal. Unfortunately, no such high-fantasy RPG has ever been designed that I know of.

Sovereign Court

Riuken wrote:
Hama wrote:
Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.
And piles of scrap metal aren't art, they're piles of scrap. But they end up in art museums anyway. Must mean people have different definitions of art.

Sorry I don't see random crap as art. I can smash a dozen eggs in a bowl. spill some gasoline in there and light it on fire, and then smash the bowl and put it all in a cardboard box, but that is not art.


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Kirth Gersen wrote:

Ideally, I'd think you'd want the game mechanics to inexorably lead to the types of stories you're trying to tell. The old Victory Games "James Bond 007" game did this perfectly -- some of the mechanics were incredibly wonky, but if you actually followed the rules, you pretty much always ended up with an experience that seemed like it came right out of a James Bond movie. In that case, the mechanics meshed seamlessly with the flavor.

In the case of Pathfinder, the mechanics don't really lead to the stories that the APs describe, and so on; you often end up having to work against them to get the story to work. That's not Paizo's fault by a long shot -- I love their adventures, I just feel that starting with 3.5 edition wasn't the best mechanical chassis to tell them with, because it too often leads places where the APs don't go.

In a perfect world, the mechanics would work with the precision and power of a mechanical bull, with no part out of place and no malfunctions and no O&M needed, and the flavor over them would be so seemless that you'd think you were looking at a real animal. Unfortunately, no such high-fantasy RPG has ever been designed that I know of.

Also, the more you do that, the more limited and focused the kinds of games you could play with that system would be. People play APs and even more railroaded campaigns with PF. People also play wide open sandbox campaigns with PF. Along with everything in between and some others off in strange directions.

That's a feature and it's part of the broad appeal. The other approach is also a feature, but it does get you a narrower appeal.


Muad'Dib wrote:
Hama wrote:
Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.
Duchamp might argue otherwise. Or maybe he was just trolling the art world with the fountain.

I think I'd agree that mechanics aren't art. Any more than the rules of a sonnet or a haiku are art.

The games we make using those rules can be art.


Tormsskull wrote:

I wouldn't consider the mechanics to equal "the game." To me when someone refers to the game, they're talking about all of the elements combined. This is especially true for role-playing games. If you take an amazing RPG, such as Dragon Age, and remove all of the story elements, you're left with a very boring game.

Why is my character here? Why is my character fighting these enemies? What is the point of this?

I think you misunderstand what I mean.

The game without the "fluff" is still a game. The fact that you lack motivation and context is a side point. It is still a game. It still WORKS. You can play it without those things, however odd and abstract that would be.

However. without those things it is a very POINTLESS game.

The "fluff" gives the game meaning, and identity. Dragon Age without Ferelden isn't Dragon Age, it's Generic Computer RPG #1001018 which is still a functional but boring game.

A game is, essentially, only part of a finished work. It needs to be married to a context to be "more than a game" for lack of a better phrase.

Like, take the Dragon Age example. Generic Computer RPG #1001018 is the game, Dragon Age is the finished product.

However, you can take Generic Computer RPG #1001018 (the game) and place it in a different context to make a different game.

Good example of this: Fallout New Vegas.

New Vegas is essentially Fallout 3. The game is basically the same, with a few minor tweaks.

The finished product, however, is entirely unique.

Videogames work a bit different from TRPGs since they're harder to separate out. You know what, that was a bad example, let's go deeper.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It had a mod that basically deconstructed everything down to its basic elements, the pure game "Generic First person Fantasy Title", and then added an entirely new context to it.

It's still Oblivion, but it is certainly a completely new, completely unique complete work.

The confusion here stems from the distinction between a game and a game. Since we call the finished product a game, it becomes hard for people to divorce that perception of the finished product being the game, and anything less than that NOT the game.

But IMO it's important to be able to do that, so you know exactly what they're criticizing.

I can love a finished product without necessarily loving the game. There are some games out there that when you really think about them as a game, they're some extremely boring, repetitive, sometimes even downright TERRIBLE games.

Borderlands is a good example (of repetitive, not necessarily boring or terrible).

But the context, the feel, the pure fun of interacting with the world in conjunction with your friends...I love the finished product.


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Hyperdimension Neptunia, Excellent Finished product with an extremely unique take on making fun of the gamer community, but the game engine it uses is crappy, outdated and barely any different from the old engines used for the Tales of (Insert fancy word here) and Grandia Franchiseses

it doesn't matter what poor outdated engine you run your game on as long as the finished product actually appeals to people and doesn't frustrate them.


thejeff wrote:
Muad'Dib wrote:
Hama wrote:
Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.
Duchamp might argue otherwise. Or maybe he was just trolling the art world with the fountain.

I think I'd agree that mechanics aren't art. Any more than the rules of a sonnet or a haiku are art.

The games we make using those rules can be art.

In general I would agree with you thejeff. However a guitar is something that makes art, but one look at a Gibson ES-335 you realize it's more than just a tool. A Volvo is just a car but can the same be said about an Aston Martin Vanquish?

So can game rules transcend into Art? Maybe in theory. I'm not sure I've seen it yet but then again art is subjective.

-MD


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Snorter wrote:
I think some people are misinterpreting what is actually meant by those saying "That's just flavour", "Flavour can be changed.", and interpreting this to mean that the speakers want to play games with limited or no flavour.

I don't think it is that, I think its that some people place more importance on the descriptive text than others. I've never been a fan of "you can just ignore the descriptive text or make up your own, as long as you don't change the mechanics."

The descriptive text is usually a good summary of what the mechanics are supposed to represent. If the mechanics and the descriptive text are not in sync, I'd prefer to change the mechanics to match the descriptive text than the other way around.

But it really all comes down to your play style and preferences. A lot of things I hear people suggest on the forums would never fly at a real game.

Rynjin wrote:
I think you misunderstand what I mean.

Its probably due to the terminology you're using. Game engine versus "the game."


Tormsskull wrote:
Snorter wrote:
I think some people are misinterpreting what is actually meant by those saying "That's just flavour", "Flavour can be changed.", and interpreting this to mean that the speakers want to play games with limited or no flavour.

I don't think it is that, I think its that some people place more importance on the descriptive text than others. I've never been a fan of "you can just ignore the descriptive text or make up your own, as long as you don't change the mechanics."

The descriptive text is usually a good summary of what the mechanics are supposed to represent. If the mechanics and the descriptive text are not in sync, I'd prefer to change the mechanics to match the descriptive text than the other way around.

But it really all comes down to your play style and preferences. A lot of things I hear people suggest on the forums would never fly at a real game.

Rynjin wrote:
I think you misunderstand what I mean.

Its probably due to the terminology you're using. Game engine versus "the game."

I would not say they would not fly in real game. They might not be the game everyone wants to play however depending on what the suggestion was. Many of these "suggestions" are taking place at someone's table, even the suggestions that won't fly at my table.


Muad'Dib wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Muad'Dib wrote:
Hama wrote:
Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.
Duchamp might argue otherwise. Or maybe he was just trolling the art world with the fountain.

I think I'd agree that mechanics aren't art. Any more than the rules of a sonnet or a haiku are art.

The games we make using those rules can be art.

In general I would agree with you thejeff. However a guitar is something that makes art, but one look at a Gibson ES-335 you realize it's more than just a tool. A Volvo is just a car but can the same be said about an Aston Martin Vanquish?

So can game rules transcend into Art? Maybe in theory. I'm not sure I've seen it yet but then again art is subjective.

-MD

Which means that a Volvo, despite your dismissal, may well be a masterpiece. :)

Scarab Sages

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Auren "Rin" Cloudstrider wrote:
now that i think about it, a rogue could technically be a priest if they wanted, they just wouldn't have spells, and at the same time, a slayer with a high sleight of hand could choose to perform card tricks for tips instead of picking pockets, for legally acquired funds.

This may be a derail, but I'd much rather the clerical 'spell list' were a list of 'divine favours', that characters of any class could call on, in payment for services rendered. Or the deity themselves could take the initiative to throw the PC a boon, if they are (knowingly or not) completing said deity's goals.

"That's the third time a shoggoth's broken us out of jail. And then eaten the jail. And the town."
"Nothing to do with me, I assumed you did it."
"I've been thinking...Are we...the Bad Guys?"

I'd be happy to see the back of the cleric as a class, entirely.
It doesn't exist in any historical or literary source that I'm aware of, except those explicitly based on the D&D franchise, and actively hinders the representation of many genres.
Even mythic traditions with active, squabbling, intercessionary deities, such as the Greco-Roman pantheon, don't possess any servants resembling a D&D cleric. They have warriors and sages, backed up with divine patronage. Jason, Perseus, Atalanta, Oddyseus, Achilles, all were blessed by the gods, but not one of them cast a spell in their lives, and sometimes that patronage came with a downside, such as the enmity of their patron's rivals.

If you wanted to go to the extremes of high level and/or Mythic play, you have examples such as Wonder Woman, who everyone would agree is 'favored by the Olympian Gods', to a superhuman level, but no-one would conder her a clerical spellcaster, or divine character at all, in D&D terms.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote:
Muad'Dib wrote:
Hama wrote:
Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.
Duchamp might argue otherwise. Or maybe he was just trolling the art world with the fountain.

I think I'd agree that mechanics aren't art. Any more than the rules of a sonnet or a haiku are art.

The games we make using those rules can be art.

I think there are exceptions to the rule. Ars Magica.. for instance, the casting rules and the magic system are themselves a work of literary art, and the atmosphere of the game setting is literally baked into them with it's liberal use of Latin derived terms. Amber Diceless's game terms are literally carved from the setting itself and really can't be filed down and used elsewhere without the near total rewrite the Shadow and Gossamer folks did, which created another baked in set of rules.


LazarX wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Muad'Dib wrote:
Hama wrote:
Mechanics aren't art. They are mechanics.
Duchamp might argue otherwise. Or maybe he was just trolling the art world with the fountain.

I think I'd agree that mechanics aren't art. Any more than the rules of a sonnet or a haiku are art.

The games we make using those rules can be art.

I think there are exceptions to the rule. Ars Magica.. for instance, the casting rules and the magic system are themselves a work of literary art, and the atmosphere of the game setting is literally baked into them with it's liberal use of Latin derived terms. Amber Diceless's game terms are literally carved from the setting itself and really can't be filed down and used elsewhere without the near total rewrite the Shadow and Gossamer folks did, which created another baked in set of rules.

Possibly. As Muad'Dib said above, some tools can be works of art in themselves.

Though we're actually approaching a serious philosophical debate here: Possibly the difference between art and art forms? Painting is an art form. Even a bad painting is considered art, just bad art. OTOH, some specific things, despite not being examples of a type normally considered art, transcend that and become art on their own.

I'm not sure you're talking about the same thing I am though. When I said "game", I meant the actual performance art, if you will, of a particular instance of the game being played, probably over multiple sessions, not anything about separating rules and setting

I haven't actually played Ars Magica, but ADRGP is one of my favorites. Despite what you say, it's also probably the game I've seen played with the most house ruled changes and in a very broad range of different settings. Practically every game I've been in has rewritten the powers to one extent or another, even if they were set in Amber. It's common to do because the rules are so simple and run on GM interpretation rather than mechanical interaction.


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I know this subject has been covered ad nauseum on several forums, and it's been a discussion for decades of optimized vs. story, 'useless' vs. "flavor". I can remember having discussions such as these for almost every iteration of D&D, except maybe 1st ed. I definitely do think it's perception vs. playstyle.It used to be the battle of the 'hack & slash" vs. the "storytellers", back in 1st edition, and I think that still goes on today in RPG's, just under different guises/names. I think that the stigmas have become more polarizing, with the folks who optimize and enjoy that sort of game being called min/maxers, powergamers, munchkins, etc, by the folks who engross themselves in the story, who are labeled as theatre majors, spotlight hogs, storytellers, etc,. I think that it is a balancing act for DM's to successfully satisfy both types of gamers, and especially so during organized play. Hence maybe the semi-animosity between some gamers of both types towards each other, especially during organized play? When DM'ing those, I noticed that there are the types that practically fall asleep when reading the flavor text, and only perk up when they get to to whatever they're keyed for, and then in turn there are the ones who are asking questions about the flavor text and the stage set around them. Each one seems to grate on the other, even if only a little; one get perturbed with the other for either; wasting time between fights, or not paying attention and just asking if every NPC is acting hostile. I apologize if I went a bit off-tangent here, but it's something I've noticed when the subject of optimization comes up. That and the sheer amount of splat books that are now released for games(seemingly since 3e), which is the elephant in the room IMHO, but that would be for another post.


I got lucky with my group. We like both styles of play and our DM is good about mixing them. So we have a lot of background, but we also get to KILL IT WITH FIRE! (usually literally since we have a dragonblood sorceress who excels at fireballs). I generally try to balance both types of game styles in my own games. There are things to fight and there are times when you need to ask about the scenery to solve a puzzle or something.


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The basic issue that a lot of people seem to have problems tackling is that the mechanics you choose for your game fundamentally informs how the players (everyone involved, not just players, but players and GM for TTRPG's) interact with the game.

One of the primary issues with video games (I'll get to TTRPG's next) is that the mechanics of the actions used for acting within the game world often have nothing to do with the plot of the game. In the Final Fantasy series your choices rarely have any impact on the story. Indeed your choices are usually purely cosmetic and your interaction is purely a pass/fail on whether the story continues or not. You end up with two game modes:

1) Full story and the player becomes a passive observer, other then occasionally pressing (A)
2) The player is the active participant and the story is on pause until the next objective is met

There have been some advancements, but primarily due to the limits of technology players are only ever meeting pre-set objectives in video games. The story is being told to them. In some deeper games, multiple stories are created with branching moments where a player chooses between them, but often it's fairly obvious and it still isn't really player control.

Transitioning to TTRPG's, Pathfinder doesn't have any rules that directly relate to the plot. There are rules for killing monsters. There are rules for climbing walls. There are rules for talking to NPC's, but only in a pass/fail method, not in a plot directing concept. The rules of Pathfinder push you to consider how you will defeat monsters. The rules themselves do not ask you to consider WHY you are defeating monsters though.

The WHY in PF is left up to the GM and players to determine for themselves, with no mechanical considerations inherent to the game. This is why it feels like there is a disconnect, because there is very literally nothing connecting the two aspects of the game.

There are other games that exist that directly put into mechanics the WHY. Burning Wheel for example requires that each player put several plot advancing goals on their character sheet. When the player pushes those goals they receive rewards that can improve their characters or help them achieve those goals.

Another aspect of Pathfinder is that it doesn't have anything that determines consequences. This is entirely up to the GM and players. You killed a monster, but what does that mean in the game world? Nothing, unless you agree that it does.

Fiasco takes a different approach. At the end of each scene someone is responsible for determining whether a scene ends with a positive or negative outcome. These positive and negative outcomes get distributed as dice which oppose each other. Each player rolls their collected dice at the end and comes up with a result tally. That tally (measured mostly as a distance from zero) determines that nature of your characters story ending. The game tells you if something good or bad happens. As a player, you then get to describe what is good or bad in the eyes of your character.

Pathfinder is a system that is primarily concerned with combat. Sure there is technically only one chapter assigned to combat, but a lot of text in the other chapters is either concerned with sub-rules about combat, or a method of determining characteristics that will then be used primarily in combat. If you want Pathfinder to be a more plot driven game, you need to add rules that actually interact with how the plot is driven.


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Irontruth wrote:

Transitioning to TTRPG's, Pathfinder doesn't have any rules that directly relate to the plot. There are rules for killing monsters. There are rules for climbing walls. There are rules for talking to NPC's, but only in a pass/fail method, not in a plot directing concept. The rules of Pathfinder push you to consider how you will defeat monsters. The rules themselves do not ask you to consider WHY you are defeating monsters though.

The WHY in PF is left up to the GM and players to determine for themselves, with no mechanical considerations inherent to the game. This is why it feels like there is a disconnect, because there is very literally nothing connecting the two aspects of the game.

There are other games that exist that directly put into mechanics the WHY. Burning Wheel for example requires that each player put several plot advancing goals on their character sheet. When the player pushes those goals they receive rewards that can improve their characters or help them achieve those goals.

Another aspect of Pathfinder is that it doesn't have anything that determines consequences. This is entirely up to the GM and players. You killed a monster, but what does that mean in the game world? Nothing, unless you agree that it does.

Fiasco takes a different approach. At the end of each scene someone is responsible for determining whether a scene ends with a positive or negative outcome. These positive and negative outcomes get distributed as dice which oppose each other. Each player rolls their collected dice at the end and comes up with a result tally. That tally (measured mostly as a distance from zero) determines that nature of your characters story ending. The game tells you if something good or bad happens. As a player, you then get to describe what is good or bad in the eyes of your character.

Pathfinder is a system that is primarily concerned with combat. Sure there is technically only one chapter assigned to combat, but a lot of text in the other chapters is either concerned with sub-rules about combat, or a method of determining characteristics that will then be used primarily in combat. If you want Pathfinder to be a more plot driven game, you need to add rules that actually interact with how the plot is driven.

While narrative mechanics certainly work for some people, they're not actually necessary to play a more plot or character driven game. I prefer and have played many such in many non-narrative based systems: Various editions of D&D/PF, CoC, Champions, Amber all come to mind. Just because the mechanics focus on combat doesn't mean the game has to. Amber probably worked the best because the mechanics mostly get out of the way, despite still being focused on conflict.

At the same time, I've never been fond of the narrative mechanics I've seen, despite them being supposedly aimed at the style I prefer. I like to immerse in the character as much as I can and make decisions for him and based on his understanding. Most of the narrative mechanics break me out of that: Deciding what happens as a result of my actions isn't a character decision. Especially when that involves deciding what other people do or how they react.


You've learned to manage the game without mechanics. That's fine. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. There is an inherent problem with that as advice or as game design though...

It requires that the person have skills and knowledge about how to run a game without using a game system, and not everyone has that knowledge and skill.

An Amish person can build a really good barn. They would find modern power tools annoying and offensive. Even though those power tools would make their job easier, they are perfectly happy to do things their way.

The analogy to you is that you know how to run your game without those mechanics. That's fine. But YOUR specific skill to be able to do that is irrelevant to a conversation about how mechanics impact play.

Pathfinder does have a focus on combat. The game itself does encourage optimization. These are inherent qualities about Pathfinder. Just because you've learned skills that minimize or subvert these qualities does not mean that they have disappeared.

As to narrative mechanics, you have spent a career in roleplaying learning how to manage games without them. Therefore they are inherently disruptive to your games, because these mechanics weren't born out of your play sessions, they came from someone else. You would need to abandon the habits and skills you've come to rely on and just let the mechanics do their job.

Besides, what you're saying is highly anecdotal. To counter, I've played lots of games that do include narrative mechanics and had massive success with them. Mythender, Fiasco, Fate (Dresden Files, Bulldogs!), Dungeon World, Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies, Epyllion, Carolina Death Crawl, Dread, Blowback, Sorcerer, Burning Wheel, Burning Empires, Marvel, Cortex Plus, Chronica Feudalis, Technoir, Sixth World, Dogs in the Vineyard... just to name a couple.

I've never found immersion to be that compelling of an argument. I ALWAYS know that I'm me. I ALWAYS know that I'm just sitting around a table with friends. I ALWAYS know that I have pencils/paper/dice/cards in front of me (to varying degrees). I make my decisions on what is fun for ME, because I am more important than my character. If I made decisions from the standpoint of my characters, I wouldn't get into half of the crazy, messed up and amazing situations that they get into.

Also notice, in my first post I didn't say you HAD to use a game that uses narrative mechanics. And clearly my post is not directed at YOU, because you aren't here in this thread lamenting how Pathfinder doesn't meet your needs. If PF meets your narrative needs, more power to you. Have an amazing game. I know that I do (with PF) on a regular basis.

I also know that sometimes I want a game with direct narrative influence baked into the system. Those times, Pathfinder does not meet my needs.

Just because there are certain truths about how mechanics interact with play does not mean that it's good/bad. It just is. Knowing and recognizing those facts makes changing and adapting the game to suit our needs easier.

I've always found the concept of "mechanics getting out of the way" to be curious. If you want a game that "gets out of the way" why are you playing a game at all? Why not just go systemless and have NOTHING in your way? Or at least go with a game that has a much shorter rule book, so you don't have to ignore as much of the game.

Liberty's Edge

Everyone optimizes their characters. When you assign your stats, or roll anything other than 3d6 in order, you're optimizing. When you choose a class, you're optimizing. When you pick feats, you're optimizing.

Some people simply optimize to a greater or a lesser degree than other people.


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ShadowcatX wrote:

Everyone optimizes their characters. When you assign your stats, or roll anything other than 3d6 in order, you're optimizing. When you choose a class, you're optimizing. When you pick feats, you're optimizing.

Some people simply optimize to a greater or a lesser degree than other people.

As everyone is aware and as someone feels obligated to point out every time it comes up.

Liberty's Edge

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thejeff wrote:
ShadowcatX wrote:

Everyone optimizes their characters. When you assign your stats, or roll anything other than 3d6 in order, you're optimizing. When you choose a class, you're optimizing. When you pick feats, you're optimizing.

Some people simply optimize to a greater or a lesser degree than other people.

As everyone is aware and as someone feels obligated to point out every time it comes up.

Well did you also know that you could save 15% on your insurance in 15 minutes by switching to Geico?


I don't create plots for any of my games

I create situations

Plot is what happens when good players meet those situations


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Terquem wrote:

I don't create plots for any of my games

I create situations

Plot is what happens when good players meet those situations

Technically, Situations are plot points. The Plot is what happens depending on the choices your players make while meeting those situations. A plot point is a significant event (read situation) within a plot (read story) that spins the action (Choices made) around in another direction.

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