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I suppose you could separate backstory from roleplaying, but I find this an unlikely scenario. Theoretically you could write a 2 page backstory and then be a total rollplayer. Theoretically the more you write a backstory to make a character will have no influence on roleplaying more or better.. but the odds are you wrote your backstory to contribute to your character to make your roleplaying better and easier.
Actually, the most common use for a long backstory, in my experience, is to attempt to leverage some kind of unearned mechanical bonus or sidestep some of the campaign's character creation parameters.
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Exactly.
Watch out for descriptions of having travelled the length and breadth of the globe, interacting with myriad cultures.
Because you can bet your life that player will be trying to claim fluency in every language under the sun, and that he should just be assumed to know everything about everything, regardless of whether he has a single rank in the skill.
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I'll agree with you there...bit I think for different reasons.THIS is exactly what I would like to see from PF, and it relates to things I said earlier.
Kudos Paizo.
And it is the least excited I've been for any book they've put out in that particular line.
I'm hoping it isn't the jump the shark moment, but I was also worried about advance race and that mostly worked out.
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I think the excitement generated by Ultimate Campaign will be very dependent on how long someone's been gaming, and how deeply they've invested in the AP line, third-party publishers or other systems that already cover these topics.
There were similar comments made about the Game Master's Guide, some saying that it was the least useful and least referenced book to date.
If you already ran RotRL, then getting the Haunts rules in GMG wouldn't be much of a game-changer. Similarly, if you've run Kingmaker, the upcoming settlement-building rules may seem like a retread. But Paizo can't assume that everyone is playing the APs, and even if they did, the GMs would often be the only one in the group to own the material.
With all the Core Rules line, I try to keep an open mind, and imagine if they would be useful to a player or GM who has come to PF as their first RPG. If you do that, it looks like a good read.
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Since UltCamp is going to be a GM side book, it's going to get a barrage of 5/4-star reviews, because GMs usually don't flip out if something is +3 while it should be +4.
I mean, NPC Codex has chopswil obsessively seeking out errors on the "68 skill points, 1 unspent" level and nobody gives a damn, while Ultimate Magic's Antagonize had people demand returns and asking for the designer responsible to be fired . Figures, GMs and players are two very different target crowds.
I am curious and hopeful about Ultimate Campaign. It is nice to have someone make a mechanical frame work to help me define a characters interaction with the world around them. It gets tiring and well, overwhelming, to make my own.
I hope they revisited some of their AP mechanics, because Kingdom Building was easy to break. My group did it by accident really, so we just let it fade into the background. (We had to work hard to not break it at a certain point.) I am glad they tried it though, I just think that magic item generation became a little tooo uber, tooo easily.
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I am curious and hopeful about Ultimate Campaign. It is nice to have someone make a mechanical frame work to help me define a characters interaction with the world around them. It gets tiring and well, overwhelming, to make my own.
I'm interested in seeing it too.
I'm expecting something along the lines of the old Central Casting accessories, or the tables in the Talsorian Cyberpunk RPG.The dilemma with such a tool is making it generic enough to be useful in any campaign, while still having it be detailed enough to bother with.
Some may consider the use of a random generator to be a crutch, but everyone needs to be shaken out of their rut once in a while, and there is a danger that players go dip their bucket in the same dry well every time.
And a GM has to make up many more characters than a player ever will.
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to the OP. do you think the existence of Ultimate Campaign is going to pull the game more towards the "attract rollplayer" end of the spectrum (since its extra rules and mechanics)? Or is it going to make PF culture more roleplayer friendly (since its all about backstory/offscreen time)?
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I think the mental exercise involved in forcing oneself into making sense of random input is often invigorating and breaks you out of a rut.
The human mind tends to repeat itself; neurons created from past experiences form stronger paths, and when faced with the same task will more often fire along the path of least resistance.
Changing the terms of the task fool the brain into the possibility of forming new neuron pathways, and expanding ones knowledge, rather than fossilising old habits.
I'm reminded of Watchmen's Ozymandias channel-surfing a wall of TVs, to get a better feel for the true mood of the world, than if he'd stayed glued to the one news channel.
That's true in more than just creating an RPG character. It can work for creative arts and writing, or practical tasks.
Think of it as a Rorschach blot for the jaded mind.
The existence of infinite or nigh-incalculable combinations of options can sometimes be the opposite of liberating; it can be overwhelming, and some can freeze when faced with too much choice.
Put a player on the spot, to create a PC, with no context to go on, and what do they do? Everyone has a wishlist of 'character tropes I might like to try one day'. Which one of the hundreds of possibilities do I choose?
Especially if the group plays a hardball style, where building the 'wrong' kind of character could get you mocked or the PCs TPKed?
Break the task down into manageable specific chunks, and it becomes less daunting.
"Make a music-themed oracle from Rahadoum" is a far less open-ended instruction than "Make a PC!", and can be done in a fraction of the time, with less false starts.
Okay. What would you think would be the effect of releasing a hypothetical mechanics-heavy book focussing on background/offscreen elements wrt your thesis of: game system "culture" affects the way people (in general) play?
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I suppose you could separate backstory from roleplaying, but I find this an unlikely scenario.
I've seen plenty of quality RP with backstory-lite characters, and plenty of poor RP from the alternative. Enough to make me suspect that any correlation that exists in either direction is relatively weak.
I tend to avoid an excessive focus on backstory myself in favor of developing the character through play.
@Steve Geddes: the problem is that it's an accessory book and not a Core book. But I think if it becomes popular enough it could have a positive impact on roleplaying.
Even though it's very rules heavy, with a 'mechanics not flavor' focus? (It's subsystems about background story/offscreen time - ie a mechanical attempt to boost the roleplaying elements - not the in-world fiction and so forth you were mentioning earlier).
Doesnt that contradict your original thesis?
@John Kretzer what about that book do you think that you and I differ on as to why we're looking forward to it?
I might have been assuming there...so bear with me.
You think this would be a good rulebook because it will allow you to do things you previously could not do. Yes?
That you need mechanics to aid in Role playing. Yes?
I am already doing those things in the games I run and play in. Why I am looking forward to this book is that it will change the perceptions of the game. Also they might have better guidelines on how to handle these things in the game than I currently do.
But I don't NEED this book to RP. I don't NEED this book to handle downtime activities(which actualy take up a good chunk of my game). I don't NEED to have rules to RP. As a matter of fact I can find those to be stupidly restictive to RP also incredibly open to abuse.
So wehy do you need mechanics to RP?
are we getting into a paradox now about what if a system has heavy mechanics to encourage roleplaying and how does that affect the mechanics heavy vs rp heavy continuum?
I dont see it as a paradox, but I wondered what you thought the outcome would be. On the one hand rules-heavy systems (by assumption) tend to attract people less interested in roleplaying. On the other, if they publish mechanical gadgets designed to enhance roleplaying will that counteract that? Adjust how the rollplayers roleplay? Attract more roleplayers instead?
It's not a trap (I disagree with you, but have no interest persuading you you're wrong). I'm just curious how you'd view such a development.
So you think the likely effect (with the usual "just speculating like CNN" caveat) would be a kind of "dilution" of rollplayers in that game's community? As they continued doing their thing but the roleplay-incentivising book drew in some roleplayers?
I have to imagine most players of a mech heavy would just ignore that book and instead pick up another book of new classes and options.
This is another reason my personal experiences tend to lead me astray. If I decide to try a new system I buy every book available, irrespective of whether I think I'm going to use it or not. I suspect the "normal" gamer is more discerning, as you suggest here, but I never take that into account when I'm armchair analysing.
As usual, you assumed too much and incorrectly John :P
Can you point out where I have assumed anything besides this time...which I pointed it out to start with?
As to the rest of your post...
Ok so we are hoping for the same thing. That is great. Though I am just tired of people coming on these boards and give the same crap line of "D&D is about killing things and looting". Yup that is about the same as saying VtM is "About killing things than getting all emo about it".
Both are due to mispercceptions...both has about as much to do with reality.
I still stand by system does not matter as much as who you play with. RPGs are alway will be what you make of them.
I can't dig through every thread but you've responded to a misunderstanding of my position a number of times on threads. It's not an insult, just something I've seen a few times.
Yes I think we both misunderstand each others posts at times....though oddly I don't think we are at odds as much as you might think.
For instances this thread...my position has been to your orginal post is while system may play a part...who you play and your past experience with play atleast a equal or larger part on your influence of Role vs Roll.
So my question is simple...do the people who you play with and past experience influence on the scale between Role vs Roll at all?
For instance if new player played in my game which is heavy on the RP....does the system matter as much?
Well of course the people you play with can have an impact on how much you RP vs. rollplay. Nothing I've said has been in contradiction to this as the argument about system impact is not in opposition to whether a group has an impact on a person's RP factor. A number of of factors can go into someone's level of roleplaying that work congruently and not necessarily all competing for which one is the sole one affecting them.
So just to understand your point better...and so maybe we can my point.
You said the structure of books influence the culture around the game...in your OP.
My position is that how many new players actualy read the book(s) first? I know just about everybody I played with did not go out and buy the book and read it...and than played. So really how is does this build a culture?
Personaly I think...there is no one culture that defines any RPG. As pointed out in my area the D&D/PF culture is much stronger in Role while the VtM is strongly aligned with the Roll cultures.
Now can a system have a impact...sure but I have seen alot of people who hate D&D hate it more due how the GM ran the game than the actual system used.
An example I know somebody said the hate D&D because the GM would not let them do x that is outside the rules. And well since he was one of those Jerk GMs he would not budge. Than that player tried another system....with a better GM and loves that system.
Is it the systems why they don't like D&D and veiw it as Rollplay...or was it the GM?
My point is that I really think due to the fact many players don't read the books...especialy new players that the actual system play less of a role in this than who you play with and what your experienmce is.
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I mean, NPC Codex has chopswil obsessively seeking out errors on the "68 skill points, 1 unspent" level and nobody gives a damn, while Ultimate Magic's Antagonize had people demand returns and asking for the designer responsible to be fired . Figures, GMs and players are two very different target crowds.
I think any errors picked up by chopswil and others are valuable, in getting a second print of the book tidied up, or some errata posted on the boards, so the work shouldn't be dismissed. We should be grateful that someone has the time (and the OCD?) to sieve through such a crunchtastic text.
When it comes to Antagonise, though, I believe the objections come just as loud from the GMs as players, since an NPC with that feat makes for one bitter, acrimonious encounter, whereas if a player gets hold of the tactic...? The GM may as well flush his campaign down the toilet.
This illustrates what is a huge problem with any mechanics for social interaction.
A player who finds out about the Antagonise effect, will see nothing wrong with ramping up the modifiers and milking it to death, encounter after encounter after encounter after encounter…..
Yet if a PC is affected, even once, by the same tactic, the players scream murder.
Same with maxed Bluff, Diplomacy, glibness…the goalposts for what constitutes acceptable outcomes, acceptable odds, are dependent on who’s the giver and who’s the receiver.
GM: “In the minute it takes you to cut through his guards, the minister has been telling you how this is all a grave misunderstanding….<roll>…Oh wow, 55! That’s a good one….plus his equipment bonus for wearing fancy pantaloons, so….yes. Inigo Montoya, you are now the best friend and ally of The Six-Fingered Man. You realise how he has been slandered, and want to defend him from these foul accusations.”
Player: “WHAT?! NO WAY. THAT IS ****ING STUPID! HE KILLED MY FATHER! HE DESERVES TO DIE!”
The Six-Fingered Man: “I hear that murdering Dread Pirate Roberts is loose in the palace. A true patriot would hunt him down and bring me his head…”
Player: “NO! THIS BLOWS! YOU’RE CHEATING!”
GM: “Dude, chill out. You saw my roll. Those are the rules. The same rules you used, to scam Wesley a free raise dead and restoration from Miracle Max. I didn’t see any coin changing hands, there. You should have be out of pocket at least 5000gp, but you scammed the old boy, good and proper.”
Player: “I’M NOT DOING IT! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”
GM: “Calm down. It’s only a game.”
Player: “HE KILLED MY FATHER! I SAW HIM, WITH MY OWN EYES! I’D NEVER SIDE WITH HIM!”
GM: “Dude, I rolled a 55. A fifty. five. He could get you to French kiss Fezzik, with a roll like that.”
Unless we dispense of the expectation, that players can simply declare their PCs immune to any social mechanics, despite expecting all NPCs to roll over for them, you’ll never have social mechanics worth spit.
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This illustrates what is a huge problem with any mechanics for social interaction.
A player who finds out about the Antagonise effect, will see nothing wrong with ramping up the modifiers and milking it to death, encounter after encounter after encounter after encounter…..
Yet if a PC is affected, even once, by the same tactic, the players scream murder.
Same with maxed Bluff, Diplomacy, glibness…the goalposts for what constitutes acceptable outcomes, acceptable odds, are dependent on who’s the giver and who’s the receiver.
I've played in games where social interaction mechanics have worked really well, just not D&D or Pathfinder. In games using Fate, for example, you can set up social conflicts where each side sets the stakes, and those stakes can involve changing someone's mind about something. So I could play Darth Vader, and set up a conflict with Luke, and tell him that if I win, he joins the Dark Side. Generally, you can bail out of a conflict that's going badly by compromising something (Luke's player gives up and jumps off a balcony rather than letting himself get converted), but if you go all the way with it you can get taken out and wind up with a different perspective. I think it works because you go into the conflict knowing the potential outcomes rather than having someone just come up to you, roll Bluff, and then expect you to go off and murder Han Solo based on some lie someone told you. It also helps that each roll in combats like that gets played as part of the argument, so your potential change of heart has some more foundation.
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To address the OP's point concerning game systems creating a culture for certain kinds of players, I'd agree with that to an extent. Well, I can't really say for sure about a game system fostering a culture, but I do think that the system that a group plays does have an impact on how the session or the campaign is played. I wouldn't go so far as to say that any group playing D&D is going to focus entirely on hacking and slashing, and one playing V:tM is going to become an amateur theater company over time, but in my experience the game system tends to give subtle pushes toward certain gaming styles just by virtue of what it supports and doesn't support.
Personally, I'm much more interested in storytelling than character optimization, but my group is more moderate - we have people who enjoy both equally and a guy who really prefers character optimization to storytelling. We play a lot of Pathfinder and a lot of Fate (different games using the same system). When we play Pathfinder, nearly every encounter we have ends in a fight - I would say 70% of the campaign has taken place in combat rounds. Likewise, every story ends with a boss fight. There is character development, there are storylines for individual PCs, and we focus on the story elements as much as I can get away with, but the game really supports the tactical aspects better. In combat, I can try out weird stunts or creative uses of spells to try to take an enemy out, but often I find that this kind of thinking is discouraged - I can try something creative with a really low chance of success, or I can just throw out another fireball.
When we play Fate with the same group, I think the storytelling comes out a lot more. Combat is a much lower percentage of the game session, problems are often not solved with combat, and we have more scenes that focus on investigation, character development, etc. I think this is because the system supports these differences - spending Fate points encourages players to tie personal character motivations into actions, and social combat is handled the same way as physical combat, meaning that the two are (or should be) equally fulfilling as methods of resolution. This isn't to say that Fate is objectively better (though I prefer it) - when physical combat does happen, it isn't as robustly supported by rules as it would be in Pathfinder.
So I do think that, everything else being equal, a game system does have an impact on the style of game that's played by a group, though it's a fairly subtle one and the players won't necessarily find their philosophy as to what constitutes the perfect game session changed. It's similar to Ron Edwards' point in his "System Does Matter" essay, though there he was talking about arguments that all game systems are equally good in the hands of a good group. Here, I'd say that story gamers are going to include storytelling in their games no matter what they're playing, but the system they choose will support them to a varied extent and may shift their emphasis over time.
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In scenarios, PCs often face villainous NPCs entrenched in a web of intrigue and influence, with pawns all over the place.
Have you ever tried to build one as a PC, using the social skills ?
Talk about some PC/NPC social imbalance there.
In the case of 'Godfather' NPCs, or a Machiavellian 'power behind the throne, I agree, the official rules are often ignored, on the grounds that these connections have taken years or even decades to build, and are outside the scope of the typical campaign, which takes PCs from zero to hero, before they learn to shave.
The pimply, '18 year old Archmage' trope existed in D&D before J.K. Rowling ran with it.There's another reason the 'social combat' assumptions get handwaved for The Evil Vizier; the scenario writer is usually savvy enough to have thought about the motivations of the various parties, and what they desire.
The BBEG doesn't need the short-term effects of the various skills, since he is actually offering (or perceived to be offering) something of perceived long-term value to the minion.
Lieutenant A willingly serves BBEG B, to ruin Victim C, because he believes he will benefit from the vacant estates, and take the hand of Damsel D....this is a far cry from a player declaring, "I want the NPC to do me a favour. I'll Diplomacy him."
And that's why the BBEG has such a rotten Wealth By Level chart, because he's blown all the loot he could have spent on combat bling, to grease the palms of various people.
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To follow on from that last post, because I don't know if I was clear, the most common PC usage I see for social skills is to force an NPC into some one-sided arrangement which benefits only the PCs and would normally make no sense for the NPC to consider (and which any PC would shoot down in seconds, if it were offered to them, regardless of the NPC's skill roll).
"I'll use Diplomacy, to get these goods cheaper." Yeah, okay, but how are you spinning it? What are you offering in return? Do you ever offer anything in return? If this merchant sells at cost price to anyone who bats their eyelashes at him, how does he stay in business?
Do you try this at Walmart? Does it work? If I put $50 of goods through the scanner, then compliment the teller on her lovely eyes, she'll say 'Ooh, you silver-tongued devil! Call it $30.'?
However, if you offer the other person something of perceived value, or a promise of future services, there's actually something to bargain over.
Telling the tailor that you're buying a fine suit, because you've been recently promoted, and if you like the quality of his goods, you'll suggest to your patron that this business be picked to supply the whole King's Musketeers....that's something the NPC can work with. It may be a pile of BS, but he makes a decision whether he can afford to give the discount, as a gamble against future trade. If it works out, it was worth every penny. If it doesn't come to anything, well at least he can face his wife, and claim he made a business decision based on something more than just 'Well he seemed like a nice guy...'.
Similarly, "I Diplomacied the bandits; they're giving themselves up."
Really? They agreed to hand themselves over, for torture and execution?
Alternatively, "I negotiated with the bandits; they agreed to cease their activities, in exchange for immunity from prosecution."
That sounds far more likely. Both sides are getting something they want.
Diplomacy should not be for forcing NPCs to accept any old crap you want. It should be for allowing you to persuade NPCs to listen to what you have to offer. What you're offering still has to make sense.
Sounds like people are using diplomacy incorrectly more than the skill is designed wrong. If a group is treating diplomacy as mind control, then they probably should rethink how they are interpreting the game rules.
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Very likely.
Though the main reason for the post was to address black raven's point about NPC masterminds also bypassing the rules.
They do, but that's because the relationship is so often less than equal.
Darth Vader doesn't personally greet every trooper on the Death Star, to get the opportunity to Diplomacise them into another day's service.
And Trooper THX1138 doesn't consider he and Vader are cool with each other. He keeps his head down, and views it as a job, to send credits back to his wife and kids, and keep his aging mother on his military health plan.
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"I'll use Diplomacy, to get these goods cheaper." Yeah, okay, but how are you spinning it? What are you offering in return? Do you ever offer anything in return? If this merchant sells at cost price to anyone who bats their eyelashes at him, how does he stay in business?
Do you try this at Walmart? Does it work? If I put $50 of goods through the scanner, then compliment the teller on her lovely eyes, she'll say 'Ooh, you silver-tongued devil! Call it $30.'?
A lot of good stuff in that post but not this bit.
Non-barter sales are a product of retail-chains and absent-management.
Haggling has a long and noble history.
'Computer says no' is pretty recent.
And I don't think diplomacy should just be a roll. You need to give a rationale of what you're doing and the angle you're going with. You may personally not be that smooth but if you at least try it gives an idea of what you're doing.
I agree with you completely here. But that is why having mechanics to handle social/RP situration can just take the Role out of it and replace it with Roll. This is why I am leery of systems with robust mechanics dealing with Social siturations.
In my games I generally have my players RP first than have them roll(if I feel the roll is even neccessary at that point) and might modfied the roll depending on the RP. Now if a player's character the kind who haggles over copper pieces...I generally just roll for those siturations.
Now there is reverse way to handle it which is Roll first than RP the results which I find interesting.
But just having the players Roll dice I think is kinda of missing the point.