My article, why Balance is incompatible with some ways of playing RPGs.


Homebrew and House Rules

51 to 78 of 78 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Silver Crusade

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

D&D is and was a tactical wargame with some cops and robbers sprinkled on the top. There are dozens of RPGs out there which were designed from grounds up under different philosophies, with rules, acting and narration reinforcing each other way more than in D&D. Heck, many of these were designed as critique of D&D. If I were you, I would try those games instead of trying to force a square peg into a round hole.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
TheAlicornSage wrote:

You are missing a couple points though.

Just because I'm disagreeing with you, doesn't mean I'm failing to comprehend what you're saying.

There's no rule about talking and what things can be conversed about between player and GM in Pathfinder. Yet you'll often find direct references to things that should or shouldn't be said, which means that the rules do implicitly dictate some of what is said. Any examples of play are full of conversations between GM and player, implying talking isn't just permitted, but expected.

Another game I've played is The Quiet Year. You're not allowed to talk during it, unless it's your turn to take an action. Others can express support or disapproval of your portion of the story, but they have to do so through the game's mechanics, which are all silent, hence the name.

Just because you don't realize something is a mechanic, doesn't mean it isn't part of the game.

And you're wrong about the Perfect Knowledge of chess. Yes, the movement of a piece is perfectly defined in the game's rules, but the impact of that movement (this is the part you aren't acknowledging) is not perfectly known.

Player A moves his pawn forward one space. Does that mean the Queen is trapped? Or maybe in two more moves the Bishop will get sacrificed to protect something? Does it mean Player A is going to lose soon? We would need to know the context of the game and some of this is attempting to predict the future, which not every player will be equally as good at doing.

The human element of a roleplaying game is explicitly part of the game. It's called out multiple times in a rulebook like Pathfinder (and most other games), and most games carve out significant aspects of the game as being open to interpretation.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

So this,

Quote:


Board games can create stories as well.

is not the same thing at all. Stories from board games is playing mechanics and then making up a story to explain the results. This is what Gygax called "playing the rules... missing the spirit of the game."

A lot of people play this way, because it is the familiar way to play a game, but this way is not the intent of DnD (until 4e anyway).

You're drifting into "badwrongfun" territory. It doesn't matter if Gygax said it too. I'd even argue that it's a poor interpretation.

An RPG's mechanics should inspire story. I know of lots of mechanics that do inspire and aid in the story telling process, so claiming that story can't derive from mechanics is factually false. I would even go so far to say that if an RPG has zero mechanics that inspire story telling, it isn't a very well designed one, because I know a lot of games that do.

I agree with you that playing a game like Pathfinder from a purely mechanical approach can be dry and dull. Sometimes the mechanics can be applied too directly without consulting the details and using those to inform the fiction. For an interesting take on how to create a better gaming conversation, I would reference Apocalypse World (and it's many clones). In that game it's actually a rule that you're supposed to play the game as a conversation. When a sentence or phrase in the conversation is similar to a mechanically defined one, it triggers the mechanical rule. Then a roll is made, the results interpreted, and you return to the conversation about the fiction from there.

I have a big table, we can have as many as 10 people at it. For our recently Pathfinder campaign a friend and I co-GMed, so 2 GMs and 8 players. With that many players, you tend to have to add a lot of enemies to make things interesting. Our combats often took 4-8 rounds, 2-3 attacks per person, that's (4x8x2) 64-160 player attacks per combat, with 3-4 combats per night (4 combats, 4 rounds, 8 players 2 attacks each is 256 attack rolls per night). I get tired and drained by trying to describe all of these, so I often default into "hit" and "miss", moving onto the next person. I'd only describe significant killing blows (bandit #8 is not significant) or critical hits/misses.

Right now we're switching to a Blades in the Dark clone (Scum and Villany to be specific) and the rolls are much fewer. Maybe 1 roll per player per 15 minutes of play time. So we spend much more time describing each action and its consequences.

So, I could make Pathfinder more exciting by describing every single roll in great detail, but I find there are just too many rolls to do that meaningfully 100% of the time.

The rules you choose will impact how you tell the story. They can impact different people differently as well.

Edit: Something to add, I think it is useful to look at how abilities and mechanics fit into the overall structure of the game (I just disagree with you that the human element isn't part of the game, or how you are defining it). When looking at open ended abilities, it's actually possible to see why there is such an imbalance in how people perceive things like classes in Pathfinder.

A wizard (or sorcerer, cleric, druid, etc) have a big ability, spellcasting, that gives them access to a myriad of abilities whose impact is largely determined by human interpretation. Conversely, a class like the Fighter has access to almost no ability that is driven by human interpretation (you could argue that the feats and how they're combined is human interpretation, but the consequences of those feats is largely defined within the game).

Giving "underpowered" classes access to methods of interacting with the game world that are exclusive to them AND open to human interpretation would go a long way to achieving a sort of balance between them.


Let me try this,

In chess, you can change the fluff all you want and it won't change the game so long as the mechanics stay the same.

In an rpg, the reverse is true, you can change the mechanics without changing the game, so long as the fluff remains.

Deriving a story from chess, you take the mechanical choices and adapt the fluff to match the mechanics.

In an rpg, you don't derive a story, as the story is the seed, and you adapt use of the rules to match the story.

======
Aside from that, you can take rules designed for an rpg as described above and instead use those rules to play like chess instead. There is nothing wrong with that, and it can be fun in it's own, if different, way.

The error is in believing that the chesslike way of playing is somehow the only way, or the proper way, or worse, to believe that the difference is not significant enough to acknowledge and discuss as a completely different game, despite shared rules.

======
In an rpg, the rules should not be the source of the story. Any inspiration they give is good, but merely a bonus beyond the purpose of the rules.

======
It is not about describing the rolls, and in fact, simply falling back on describing the rules is the default for playing like chess. It is seeing the mechanics as the game and merely layering fluff on top. AKA, missing the point.

======
Basically, when playing, initially without rules or mechanics, players say their characters try some things. But it is more fun if the player doesn't choose the result. But if the gm chooses the result, bad feelings can occur as players feel the gm is being unfair, but also it is difficult for the gm to remain consistent, especially for detail oriented players.

So what to do? Use dice. But using dice to solve this problem doesn't mean we should change the focus of play away from the character to the dice. The dice help keep the focus on the characters, and away from arguements about how the gm is favoring one player or not.


7 people marked this as a favorite.
TheAlicornSage wrote:


In an rpg, the reverse is true, you can change the mechanics without changing the game, so long as the fluff remains.

I vehemently disagree with this statement.

Simple proof, I'll propose a rule change: Wizards no longer can cast spells and they aren't replaced with anything. We're not changing the fluff, they're still masters of magic, but they can't cast spells any more, mechanically.

A game will play out massively different with that change. I'm not saying this is a good change, or will make the game better, but it serves as an example that changing mechanics will change the story you tell. A wizard will no longer actually be a master of magic, regardless of how much we attempt to say he is, if he can't actually use any.

Different mechanics create different emphasis through different means, such as:


  • creating certain elements of the fiction
  • restricting certain elements of the fiction
  • rewarding certain styles of play or actions
  • punishing certain styles of play or actions
  • creating conditions for certain events to happen in the fiction

Different games use mechanics that do any or all of these things to different degrees. It's why Apocalypse World feels different from Vampire, which feels different from Pathfinder, which is different from GURPS, which is different from Dread. You can't tell the exact same kind of story with each of these games, because the mechanics will influence the story in different ways. You can tell similar kinds of stories, but they won't be the same.

In fact, I challenge you to find a game designer who doesn't think mechanics of the game influence the stories that game can tell. If they didn't, they wouldn't design different kinds of games. It would all just be derivations of D&D. And no, not all games are derivations of D&D.

I am not engaging in a dice versus roleplaying debate. This is deeper than that. If you think that is what I'm debating, please let me know what part is leading you to that idea so I can clear it up, because it isn't my intent to engage with that element of the discussion at all.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
TheAlicornSage wrote:
Let me try this,

It doesn't matter now many times or in how many variations you explain your position. There will always, always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be people who disagree with you. It isn't because they don't understand what you're trying to say or are misinterpreting your intentions or whatever. Sometimes it is, but most of the time people understand exactly what point you're trying to make and the opinion you're opining. They understand. They just don't agree with you.

TheAlicornSage wrote:
In an rpg, the reverse is true, you can change the mechanics without changing the game, so long as the fluff remains.

This isn't even a matter of opinion. This is objectively incorrect. A game's rules influence the experience of playing it. This is truth. Playing Exalted would feel entirely different if its resolution mechanics were based on a percentile die. Playing Shadowrun would feel entirely different if its resolution mechanics were based on d20. Playing Rogue Trader would feel entirely different if its resolution mechanics were based on a dice pool system. Gamefeel is a thing. Look it up.

Why do you think game designers use different mechanics for different games? Do they just not understand that the mechanics are unimportant the way that you do? Or is it that the mechanics actually do matter and that different mechanics encourage or incentivize different things in play?

TheAlicornSage wrote:
In an rpg, the rules should not be the source of the story. Any inspiration they give is good, but merely a bonus beyond the purpose of the rules.

You are the only one who's talking about that.

TheAlicornSage wrote:
It is not about describing the rolls, and in fact, simply falling back on describing the rules is the default for playing like chess. It is seeing the mechanics as the game and merely layering fluff on top. AKA, missing the point.

The mechanics of a well-designed game are designed specifically to work in concert with tone, themes and other "fluff" of the game in order to incentivize players and Game Masters to make the kinds of decisions that create certain kinds of stories. To ignore this and assume that mechanics are a crutch in every possible circumstance is actually missing the point.

TheAlicornSage wrote:

Basically, when playing, initially without rules or mechanics, players say their characters try some things. But it is more fun if the player doesn't choose the result. But if the gm chooses the result, bad feelings can occur as players feel the gm is being unfair, but also it is difficult for the gm to remain consistent, especially for detail oriented players.

So what to do? Use dice. But using dice to solve this problem doesn't mean we should change the focus of play away from the character to the dice. The dice help keep the focus on the characters, and away from arguements about how the gm is favoring one player or not.

You like your games without too many levels of abstraction and I understand that. I have a higher tolerance for abstraction than you do. You like games your way, I like games my way, and other people like games their ways. What you think is fun is not necessarily what other people think is fun, and anyway fun is all subjective so I don't even understand what it is you're arguing about. Because, again, just because someone disagrees with you about an entirely subjective subject doesn't mean that they don't understand what you're talking about. It just means that they don't agree with you.


Well, I have read through this thread twice now and I still don't know what the topic is. Can someone please explain?


Boomerang Nebula wrote:
Well, I have read through this thread twice now and I still don't know what the topic is. Can someone please explain?

It starts back over here, originally as a disagreement between myself and TheAlicornSage, and that over time involved a few other posters, wherein I eventually realized that we were talking past each other and that the best option was to agree to disagree, which he evidently didn't accept.


Neurophage wrote:
Boomerang Nebula wrote:
Well, I have read through this thread twice now and I still don't know what the topic is. Can someone please explain?
It starts back over here, originally as a disagreement between myself and TheAlicornSage, and that over time involved a few other posters, wherein I eventually realized that we were talking past each other and that the best option was to agree to disagree, which he evidently didn't accept.

Thanks for the background. This discussion is already complex enough without me adding to it so I think I will stay out of it.


Quote:
Simple proof, I'll propose a rule change:

You already missed the point, before even starting.

Here you are starting with rules again, and that is the problem. You need to step back from the rules. Set them aside. Without the rules, what remains?

Seriously. What do you think remains once the rules have been completly eliminated?

Note, mechanics have a feel, but that is feel of the mechanics, not the game. Playing chess in a creepy house can put you on edge, but it isn't the game itself that feels creepy. Same difference with rpgs and mechanics. The choice of mechanics doesn't affect the game, but it certainly can affect the player. Not to mention that issue of what purpose the mechanics are meant to serve. But all that can come after establishing what remains when the mechanics are removed.


When someone understands but disagrees, then they talk about the same thing, not completely different things.

I.E.
1 "The sky looks blue."
2 "Looks more reddish purple to me."

See, they both discuss the color of the sky. That is what simply disagreeing looks like. Both sides talk about the same thing.

===
As for above, I'm not seeing much in the way of people talking about what I'm talking about.

Quote:
You are the only one who's talking about that.

I was referencing a bunch of what followed this,

Quote:
An RPG's mechanics should inspire story.

===

Quote:
The mechanics of a well-designed game are designed specifically to work in concert with tone, themes and other "fluff" of the game...

Aye, but this part is like frosting on a cake, but certainly not the cake itself.

===

Quote:
...in order to incentivize players and Game Masters to make the kinds of decisions that create certain kinds of stories.

This is backwards. The rules aren't there to dictate the kind of story. That is the GM's job. Selecting mechanics comes after deciding on the kind of story (and several other details about such).

===

Quote:
You like your games without too many levels of abstraction...

This isn't about level of abstraction. This is about the place the rules have in the game. This is about the difference between playing the game and playing the rules.

For example, can you tell me why Halo (the video game) is not an RPG?


Boomerang Nebula wrote:
Well, I have read through this thread twice now and I still don't know what the topic is. Can someone please explain?

Just in case,

Gygax said that there was playing the game, but that some would play the rules but without recognizing the spirit of the game, they wouldn't be playing the game rather they'd only be playing the rules.

So what's the difference? The topic is about the answer to this question.

Silver Crusade

7 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Alicorn Sage, I think you've got your cake analogy backwards. The cake is the mechanics and rules. Everything else is the frosting/icing/filling. Without the rules and mechanics, you have a story, but no game. With just the rules and mechanics, you have a game, but not a very good one. Bring the cake (the rules and mechanics) together with the frosting (everything else) and you have something worth eating (playing).

The problem most of us have is that you keep telling us to quit paying so much attention to the rules and mechanics, because they don't really matter. Well, to most of us, they are the foundation of the game. I don't eat a plate of frosting, or a plate of frosting with a little cake mixed in.

Please stop telling me that I'm not allowed to have fun the way I do, which is figuring out how to make the mechanics work better. I find this far more important to my enjoyment than the story.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
TheAlicornSage wrote:

You already missed the point, before even starting.

Here you are starting with rules again, and that is the problem. You need to step back from the rules. Set them aside. Without the rules, what remains?

Seriously. What do you think remains once the rules have been completly eliminated?

You have have competitive storytelling, which is a type of a game but certainly not the one most RPGs are. You can have a rules-free campaign setting, but not a game similar to DnD/PF.


TheAlicornSage wrote:


Gygax said that there was playing the game, but that some would play the rules but without recognizing the spirit of the game, they wouldn't be playing the game rather they'd only be playing the rules.

So what's the difference? The topic is about the answer to this question.

And I'm pretty sure everyone else has been saying that there doesn't need to be a difference. There doesn't need to be this huge separation between a game's rules and what stories can be told through it so long as the game and, by extension, its rules are designed well. Because in a well-designed game, the rules and the story are intertwined because the designers designed the rules to fit with the spirit of the game.

TheAlicornSage wrote:
This is backwards. The rules aren't there to dictate the kind of story. That is the GM's job. Selecting mechanics comes after deciding on the kind of story (and several other details about such).

What you're disagreeing with isn't what I said. Of course you pick what kind of stuff you want to be doing before you decide what mechanics you're using. That's why having access to a bunch of different systems is helpful. If I want to run a fast-paced, quick-and-dirty cyberpunk campaign, I'm not going to grab Shadowrun if I already have Cyberpunk 2020 or Interface Zero. If I want to run a fantasy game about larger-than-life heroes changing the course of history and fate nearly every arc, then I'm not going to grab D&D 5E if I have access to Exalted. But you choose those systems because of how their rules feel when in use.

Not every game should be used for telling every story. Sure, you can hammer in nails with the handle of a screwdriver if you really try, but that seems kind of counter intuitive when you have a hammer sitting right next to you.

Shadow Lodge

TheAlicornSage wrote:

When someone understands but disagrees, then they talk about the same thing, not completely different things.

I.E.
1 "The sky looks blue."
2 "Looks more reddish purple to me."

See, they both discuss the color of the sky. That is what simply disagreeing looks like. Both sides talk about the same thing.

Thats probably because most people disagree with your fundimental premise and idea, not because they don't understand your points.

I.E.

TheAlcornSage: "The sky looks blue."

Other Folks: "Sure, blueish. Maybe some purple or grey in there. It has to do with spectrums, different gases, and the way the eye and brain recieve and interpret information. If wemwhere on a different planet with different factors, who knows, maybe it would look green normally."

TheAlcornSage: "No, no, no. Look past all that, and what else remains? Forget A and B, it's all about C. The sky looks blue because <stuff>. That's really all there is to it."

Other Folks: "Pretty sure that is not how that works. Maybe a little, in some cases, but not in general."

TheAlcornSage: "You just don't get my meaning."

Anyway, I disagree wwith your assertion, but I have no desire to "troll" the topic, so Ill bow out. Good luck finding your answer.


TheAlicornSage wrote:
Quote:
Simple proof, I'll propose a rule change:

You already missed the point, before even starting.

Here you are starting with rules again, and that is the problem. You need to step back from the rules. Set them aside. Without the rules, what remains?

Seriously. What do you think remains once the rules have been completly eliminated?

Note, mechanics have a feel, but that is feel of the mechanics, not the game. Playing chess in a creepy house can put you on edge, but it isn't the game itself that feels creepy. Same difference with rpgs and mechanics. The choice of mechanics doesn't affect the game, but it certainly can affect the player. Not to mention that issue of what purpose the mechanics are meant to serve. But all that can come after establishing what remains when the mechanics are removed.

You said that I can change the mechanics without changing the game. Please tell me how removing spells from the Wizard class will result in the same stories as a the Wizard class with spells. You're making the claim that this change is irrelevant, can you illuminate me as to how your claim applies to this situation?

If mechanics are irrelevant to the story, than the story that takes place with this mechanical change should be roughly the same whether it is made or not.

Quote:
In an rpg, the reverse is true, you can change the mechanics without changing the game, so long as the fluff remains.

That's the quote right there. I'm not changing any of the introductory text to the Wizard class, the fluff. I'm not changing how I'll talk about the class as GM, and if a player asks me "What's a prototypical magic-using class?" I'll tell them it's the Wizard (even though he can't cast any magic).

Please take this example and explain how the stories that take place after this change won't be affected by it.

Let's say that the party is hunting down a villain, a 12th level Wizard, will the story that results from these mechanics be the same?


Redelia wrote:

Alicorn Sage, I think you've got your cake analogy backwards. The cake is the mechanics and rules. Everything else is the frosting/icing/filling. Without the rules and mechanics, you have a story, but no game. With just the rules and mechanics, you have a game, but not a very good one. Bring the cake (the rules and mechanics) together with the frosting (everything else) and you have something worth eating (playing).

The problem most of us have is that you keep telling us to quit paying so much attention to the rules and mechanics, because they don't really matter. Well, to most of us, they are the foundation of the game. I don't eat a plate of frosting, or a plate of frosting with a little cake mixed in.

The entire point is that rpgs are both vastly different and well worth playing when rules are nothing but frosting. Uses thd same mechanics, but vastly alters the gameplay. Mechanics being frosting is also the original design goal of d20, hence a lot of the balance issues, because when mechanics are frosting, balance isn't important.

Quote:
Please stop telling me that I'm not allowed to have fun the way I do, which is figuring out how to make the mechanics work better. I find this far more important to my enjoyment than the story.

I'm not telling you that. Unlike Gygax, I think playing the rules has its own merits worth playing. I'm just tired of everyone who thinks mechanics are cake just because they never played any different and they can't wrap their head around how to play with mechanics being frosting.

I want to play with mechanics being frosting, but there aren't any good ways of saying as much in an ad without people thinking completely freeform.


necromental wrote:
TheAlicornSage wrote:

You already missed the point, before even starting.

Here you are starting with rules again, and that is the problem. You need to step back from the rules. Set them aside. Without the rules, what remains?

Seriously. What do you think remains once the rules have been completly eliminated?

You have have competitive storytelling, which is a type of a game but certainly not the one most RPGs are. You can have a rules-free campaign setting, but not a game similar to DnD/PF.

Why competetive?

In any case, rules-free is different, but you can keep that difference while using rules.


Without a game system, you're looking at free form story telling. Not many people are good at that, so they use a game system that builds, constrains, directs and guides play into a certain style.

I like to think of myself as moderately creative, but I don't deal well with a blank page. I need something there to get me going. That's why I use game systems, because not only do they tell me what is possible in the game world, it tells me what isn't possible. Those freedoms and constraints give my mind something to work with.

When I want a different style of story, I don't shoehorn my favorite system into it (though sometimes I experiment with that to learn more about the process of design and story telling). Instead, I pick another system I like that fits better.

Example: My favorite game of all time is Mythender. It's a game about over the top action, you roll giant piles of dice and kill gods. It mimics big fights, like the final battle in Avengers.

Right now I'm writing a scenario about a group of special ops agents who need to infiltrate the Soviet embassy in March of 1961. Mythender would be a poor fit for this scenario. I want a game about stealth and espionage, not epic battles between godlike beings.

I do have two games that fit the theme pretty well: Dark and Blades in the Dark. Blades is designed for a group of individuals to form a gang and pull of various jobs, typically around thievery. It could work, but I want a grittier, more close up feel of the action, which I think Dark provides. If the game were more about the group and their exploits, I would use Blades, but I want to focus in on the assignment, and Dark lets me do that.

So, I have to convert a game about ~15th century thieves into one about 20th century spies and covert ops specialists. There's still some work to be done, but since the overall goal of slipping in under cover of darkness and remaining undetected is the primary goal, I'm not going to have to work that hard.


TheAlicornSage wrote:
Redelia wrote:

Alicorn Sage, I think you've got your cake analogy backwards. The cake is the mechanics and rules. Everything else is the frosting/icing/filling. Without the rules and mechanics, you have a story, but no game. With just the rules and mechanics, you have a game, but not a very good one. Bring the cake (the rules and mechanics) together with the frosting (everything else) and you have something worth eating (playing).

The problem most of us have is that you keep telling us to quit paying so much attention to the rules and mechanics, because they don't really matter. Well, to most of us, they are the foundation of the game. I don't eat a plate of frosting, or a plate of frosting with a little cake mixed in.

The entire point is that rpgs are both vastly different and well worth playing when rules are nothing but frosting. Uses thd same mechanics, but vastly alters the gameplay. Mechanics being frosting is also the original design goal of d20, hence a lot of the balance issues, because when mechanics are frosting, balance isn't important.

And many people play that way, although I'm not certain why these people choose PF, where rules are decidedly not the frosting. 5e is much closer to rules as frosting and balance doesn't matter approach. Also a myriad other RPGs. You have been told that, but you dismiss it.

Quote:

I'm just tired of everyone who thinks mechanics are cake just because they never played any different and they can't wrap their head around how to play with mechanics being frosting.

I want to play with mechanics being frosting, but there aren't any good ways of saying as much in an ad without people thinking completely freeform.

We get what you mean. Again. But we are recommending the other RPGs because some of them are designed with that idea in mind. I tried playing Warhammer 40k through a d20 conversion. It was ok but the rules didn't mesh with what you expected from a 40k story. Then we tried Dark Heresy and guess what - rules were great for experiencing WH universe. It's the same argument here. You can play rules as frosting in PF, but it's a lot harder than playing that way with an RPG that started with that premise.

And one other thing, I play PF because I want a very crunchy, player choice driven experience. I don't want to try your variants, not because I don't understand them, but because they are simply not what I want to play.

Sovereign Court

TheAlicornSage wrote:


I want to play with mechanics being frosting, but there aren't any good ways of saying as much in an ad without people thinking completely freeform.

Frosting play should be your end goal, not your starting point. I dont have a clear idea about exactly what you want from RPGs, but I bet if we sat down at the table and tried it out id understand better. I think you should game as much as possible and eventually you'll close in on a group that is a better fit.


Irontruth wrote:
Without a game system, you're looking at free form story telling. Not many people are good at that, so they use a game system that builds, constrains, directs and guides play into a certain style.

That is the GM's job, doesn't need to be rules to do that. Most people can do just fine with freeform if they are given plenty of details about what their characters see/hear/feel/etc. Generally, it is character creation where this becomes an issue for most people. Being in a situation and deciding what to do about it is far easier.

Storytelling games are the ones that are a bit trickier, because it isn't simply handling a situation as though you were there, instead you have to develop things beyond simply taking action.

Quote:
I like to think of myself as moderately creative, but I don't deal well with a blank page.

What blank page? The GM tells you that the thief you were chasing went through the door, and going through it, you are now in a room with three doors and you can hear cruel laughing on the other side of one door. What does your wizard do now? This is not a blank page.

Character creation might suffer from this blank page issue a bit, but that is not the purpose of the rules.

Quote:
That's why I use game systems, because not only do they tell me what is possible in the game world, it tells me what isn't possible. Those freedoms and constraints give my mind something to work with.

This aspect of the rules will never work well because a living breathing world is far too complicated to model with a system of rules that is even remotely playable. Why do you think the rulebooks so strongly encourage the GMs to adjust and adapt things to the situation? Because the designers do not expect to be able to cover everything.

Quote:
When I want a different style of story, I don't shoehorn my favorite system into it (though sometimes I experiment with that to learn more about the process of design and story telling). Instead, I pick another system I like that fits better.

Not everyone does this, but also what part of the rules are you looking at to determine what fits? That is different for different people as well. Often people go with what they are familiar with, regardless of suitability.

Of course, most aspects of a system really don't affect suitability at all, such as deciding to use a d20, a d12, a d100, or even a pile of d6s as the base dice roll. Nearly all the parts of a system that affects suitability for a particular story is in the names, descriptions, and player options rather than basic mechanics. Doesn't make it any less a valid consideration though, if you are concerned with using existing stuff only/primarily. Often, the options and such are described to add fluff, but that fluff isn't actually part of the mechanics.


necromental wrote:

...

And many people play that way, although I'm not certain why these people choose PF, where rules are decidedly not the frosting. 5e is much closer to rules as frosting and balance doesn't matter approach. Also a myriad other RPGs. You have been told that, but you dismiss it.

...

I don't have a direct way to describe why one would use d20/PF, so I'll show it with a train of logic.

Let's say we are all playing a freeform. We have characters and an idea of what can happen in the story world. But some players are getting antsy about inconsistencies that keep cropping up, and some think the GM is favoring his GF more than the other players.

So when a character attempts an action, and the bbeg wants to make the character fail. SO does the character succeed or fail? How can we do this without the GM biasing towards certain players?

Well we need an impartial judge. How about flipping a coin? That would be impartial. But flipping a coin certainly isn't consistent (in terms of world results). The coin also doesn't take the character's capabilities into account, nor the difficulty of the task. If we want to have our resolution system account for character capability and task difficulty, then we need to measure character capability and task difficulty (and anything else we would like to account for) and then replace the coin flip with something that can use those measurements so the results favor strong skill/easy tasks more than weak skill/difficult tasks.

Thus we get a simulationist system. Of course simulationism gets bloated quickly, slows down gameplay, and as happened with original DnD, you end up with lots of different individual rules.

The great thing that d20 did, was it struck a good balance between simulation and ease of use, partly by unifying the mechanics across the board, making the rules easier to use and less intrusive on gameplay.

Thus, for someone who wants to use rules as frosting, a system like d20 is preferable.

One of my complaints about PF is that it doesn't seem like the designers understood this and so they seem to have confused mechanical goals at times, with a lot of the new stuff geared towards rules based play, but still have a lot of the rules remaining from the base d20 that is geared towards rules as tools. Interestingly enough, despite the shifted focus of the PF design, they still did a few good things for the rules as tools philosophy, such as combining spot/listen into perception.

But seriously, looking at the rules as being tools to remove GM bias, add tension (by adding uncertainty), add consistency, and aid communication leads to very different play compared to treating the rules as the game, yet still benefits from a midweight system.


Oh, try this,
The way of playing I'm trying to distinguish is to make decisions and play as though playing freeform*, but using a system to resolve conflicts, and aid communication.

But also without being a storytelling game. And by not-a-storytelling-game, I'm meaning that the role of the player in story development being strictly as a protagonist, and not anything to do with what the protagonist encounters or otherwise can't control.


Pan wrote:
TheAlicornSage wrote:


I want to play with mechanics being frosting, but there aren't any good ways of saying as much in an ad without people thinking completely freeform.
Frosting play should be your end goal, not your starting point. I dont have a clear idea about exactly what you want from RPGs, but I bet if we sat down at the table and tried it out id understand better. I think you should game as much as possible and eventually you'll close in on a group that is a better fit.

I have yet to find online players who actually form groups. Thus far, everyone comes together for a game, but don't stick together for other games. Maybe I don't frequent the right places (very possible as pbp gaming is about the only online social anything that I do).

As for in-person groups, I haven't found a single person that plays in my area, even in checking the comic shops and such.


Redelia has left the chat room.
:)

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
TheAlicornSage wrote:
Redelia wrote:


Please stop telling me that I'm not allowed to have fun the way I do, which is figuring out how to make the mechanics work better. I find this far more important to my enjoyment than the story.

I'm not telling you that. Unlike Gygax, I think playing the rules has its own merits worth playing. I'm just tired of everyone who thinks mechanics are cake just because they never played any different and they can't wrap their head around how to play with mechanics being frosting.

It's not that I can't wrap my head around how, it's that I can't wrap my head around why. I've never 'played any other way' and I have no desire to, because I'm enjoying the game the way it is. I'm sure you don't mean this, but the ways you're phrasing things really come across with a note of 'Stop playing the way you're playing, because this other way is the right way.'


TheAlicornSage wrote:
Of course, most aspects of a system really don't affect suitability at all, such as deciding to use a d20, a d12, a d100, or even a pile of d6s as the base dice roll. Nearly all the parts of a system that affects suitability for a particular story is in the names, descriptions, and player options rather than basic mechanics. Doesn't make it any less a valid consideration though, if you are concerned with using existing stuff only/primarily. Often, the options and such are described to add fluff, but that fluff isn't actually part of the mechanics.

This is a deep lack of understanding of what is possible through game design. If you think this is true, there isn't anything left to talk about.

51 to 78 of 78 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Homebrew and House Rules / My article, why Balance is incompatible with some ways of playing RPGs. All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules