An essay on gamestyles to aid in discussion, and recruitment of like-minded players

[Interesting Character]

RPGs have grown quite a bit since their invention, but we still haven't really explored much of what can be done with this artform. One of the things that do not get really discussed much or very productively is style of gameplay, and a large part of this I feel is the lack of a structure to really describe gameplay is a useful way. I also feel that RPGs are an artform and deserve the same kind of scientific and logical analysis that other artforms benefit from.

Some of you may immediately think that this is pointless or just plain dumb. However, having had bad experiences with people who seemed to think I must be either a noob or a complete idiot simply because I didn't know what their expectations were, which they saw as the "obvious" and only way to truly play. Of course their expectations would only be reasonable for a certain kind of gameplay but not for any other kinds of gameplay. This could have been easily avoided if only there was a way to say they were playing X style, but there isn't really any way to say that right now, not in a way that is useful. I desire to fix that.

Often players boil down things to a scale of combat vs intrigue. This does not even rate as an over-simplication. It is not even a good place to start on the journey of exploring the range of gameplay styles.

So I am going to start from scratch. This is of course a rough sketch of things that will need to be refined over the years of discussion and analysis.

Before we get to that though, there is something that needs to be understood, and that is that people can have different directions of thinking (for lack of better term). Basically, when given a bunch of information, people gain an understanding of all the information by analyzing small pieces, and each piece that is understood builds a framework that affects how one understands following pieces of information. Information is generally prioritized differently by different people. Of course, this is all done subconsciously and as we get information. This is also why people notice things when watching a moving or reading a book a second or even third time, that they missed the first time.

The best example I can think of is type of audience. One type of audience understands characters (in the sense of them as people, their emotions and social relations) first, then they build their understanding of events on top of their understanding of character (and thus see how the characters emotionally relate to events), and then lastly build an understanding of the world state surrounding these events.

The second audience type understands the world state first (where everything is, the rules of the world, how things work, what can and can not be done, etc), from which they then build an understanding of events (and thus see how the events can happen and what likely outcomes are possible), and then lastly they come to understand characters.

(Though really, it more like a 5 step process, understanding characters, understanding how characters emotionally connect with and respond to and handle events, understanding events, understanding how events are shaped by world state and world rules, understanding how the world works)

Stories are of course driven by drama, and drama comes from the characters. We care about a story when we emotionally connect with the characters and care about what happens to them which generally comes from us emotionally connecting with characters which in turn comes from us understanding the characters.

This leads to the first audience type, the drama-only crowd. These audience members see the drama really easy and are thus unimpeded by inconsistencies in the workings of the world, and in some cases actually like when the world has paradoxes as that increases the awe and amazingness (this comes naturally from the fact that awe and wonder comes from things being not understood. See Brandon Snaderson's laws of magic which really apply to far more than just magic. Basically, the ability for a story to satisfactorily resolve a problem depends on the audience's understanding of how the problem was solved. If you solve a problem with magic, then that magic must be understood. However, understanding something drains all the wonder and awe from that thing. Getting wonder and awe therefore must be something ill-understood yet not used to directly solve problems.).

The second type of audience however, are the details and drama crowd. They need the world to make sense and not have paradoxes because their understanding of the world is the start from which they come to understand the characters and thus the drama, and when the world is inconsistent and full of paradoxes, they never get to really build a good understanding of the world and that hinders their ability to enjoy the story because each paradox breaks the story's immersion, because on a fundamental level the audience member goes "what? That contradicts X from earlier. What is going on?" and thus such a person must actually work at and intentionally try to set aside such issues to keep on watching or reading.

The drama-only crowd rarely has this problem because they do not need an understanding of the world to get the drama. When you see a story where someone does something impossible because they suddenly felt more emotional, the drama crowd eats it up because it is dramatic and they understand the emotions behind it and connect with the character from that extra emotional feeling. The details+drama crowd however has a problem with it because they know the character can't win that that way and is eagerly awaiting the character to find some sneaky way around that obstacle only to have the obstacle suddenly not matter and then they are left wondering why it worked. (I recently tried a new mobile game and a cutscene had this very problem, in which a character tried only to shoot someone but their bullets stopped matrix-style, then after a bit of talk of how useful that power is, they then just shot that person and killed them 20 seconds after demonstrating that they couldn't shoot them. No explanation given here, and it just leaves one wondering how you can shoot what can't can not be shot. Note to prospective GMs and writers, do not do this.)

You could basically say that drama folks understand that the hero felt X and thus did Y, while the details folks understand that the hero did Y and thus must have felt X.

Why is this important? (aside from the fact that knowing one's audience helps a GM/writer make their game more compelling and awesome) Because there is a similar difference splitting gameplay styles into two groups, though with the gameplay styles it is less an innate issue than an issue of how one is introduced to, and think about, what it means to play RPGs. I consider myself lucky as I was introduced to extremes in many directions from the very beginning, particularly in this regard in which my first two game were complete opposites.

This distinction in gameplay style groups I reference, I call the milieu/mechanics split. This split comes from thinking of things in terms of form and function and whether or not there is a mismatch between them.

In a video game, especially older ones, form and function were basically unrelated. For example, in Balduer's Gate, when you encounter a table, it looks like a table, it is called a table, but functionally, it is nothing but a low wall. You can't break the leg off to make a torch or improvised mace, you can't burn it, you can't flip it over for cover, you can't shove it against a door to block it closed, you can't place over a pressure plate to avoid stepping on the pressure plate. Basically, in Balduer's Gate, a player does not think of a table like a table, they think of it as a low wall that is called a table.

Strategy, tactics, and problem-solving all come from our understanding of an object's functional behavior, not it's form. Form really only matters in recognition and communication. When an object's functional behavior is different from the real world equivalent, then players obviously think differently about it when solving problems or forming tactics. A complication arises from this as people are good at recognizing patterns, and when a pattern is recognized in the functioning of all, or at least most, objects in a an environment, then a new object will often be expected to match that pattern, and thinking in terms of the limitations and possibilities of those patterns becomes habit. This is why most video gamers can see a bar with strangely placed icons on the top or bottom of a screen and immediately understand that it is a compass with waypoints marking the direction to things that are likely to be points of interest or quest objectives, except red ones which will be enemies. Players of video games understand this because it is a pattern learned and perpetuated among games which leads them to expect that, even in a new otherwise unfamiliar game.

A tabletop RPG does not require such a difference between form and function. In fact, the biggest strength of tabletop RPGs is that they can have the form and function of objects match with, and be as realistic as, such objects in the real world, something that computers still can't do very well. But many players who have built up habits of thinking about the game in a similar fashion to videogames, will continue to think of object's functionality differently, even when enemies do stuff that breaks those expectations (because it is very common for enemies to do things that players can't) so players that think this way rarely get broken out of those habits that shape their tactics and problem-solving, even when playing with players of the other way of thinking.

Thus you get players who think about objects like a videogamer (mechanics type), and players who think about objects like real world objects (milieu type).

This applies to abilities and character capabilities as well. Looking at 3.x spells and abilities, sometimes you'll notice strange or arbitrary restrictions even ones that make no sense. These come from having made a spell/ability that was supposed to allow an effect but for which thinking of it like it is real results in exploits or tactics that ended up being overpowered but which would be too simple to really claim it has a high powered effect. Using prestidigitation to create a temporary baseball to play catch with a couple street urchins for example, is reasonable and simple for a cantrip, but once you start throwing that ball into people's faces when they try to cast a spell to interrupt their spell, suddenly it seems too much for a cantrip. This issue is nearly impossible to resolve reasonably, requiring to either accept simple and cheap things to be used creatively and to an effect on par with much greater powers or to limit things in artificial and arbitrary ways.

Interestingly, I have encountered players who can play freeform (playing without any game mechanics at all) in the milieu way and yet the moment you pull out a rulebook, they go straight into the mechanics way of thinking. (there are more than a few who say that mechanics should be played in the mechanics way, but that is oh so very incorrect. Rules can be played from either perspective and indeed Gygax himself called it playing the game vs playing the rules, but that is not the topic at hand. I may write an article about that later)

Now that the big split is handled, things can be broken down into a two axis spectrum.

One axis is ordered vs open-ended structure, and the other axis is setting vs story.

A true sandbox game is the extreme of open-ended and setting. Basically a world is presented and players simply interact with that world as they desire, whether it be to take on a quest or to just run around doing stupid stuff, like breaking the world's economy or getting rid of all the world's goats. Those who want to be free to go off and do their own thing or to simply explore a world rather than a specific story, want this kind of game.

Then you have the cinematic game, the extreme of structure and story. This style of game mimics pretty closely a video game on paper. The story is a mostly preset story that players will be railroaded along. Players certainly get to influence the story, but the story will in general follow a predetermined path. This is what most game modules and adventure paths are for. In some cases, GMs will even explicitly have "cut-scenes" where the player's control is removed entirely for a bit of story narration before giving the players back control to let choose how to respond. Those who want to play the encounters and such but want the general gist of the story told to them, or to have a clear path to follow, want this kind of game.

Next is the pure dungeon crawl, structure and setting. This is the style of game where you have a "dungeon," or more accurately, any kind space where players choose where to go next, and along the way they have encounters, but with little or no story main story and what story their is takes a back seat to the action. This game is about the more game-like aspects, like exploring, puzzle-solving, fighting, loot, etc. This is also the style where the difference between milieu and mechanics players is the most clear. The so-called "old school" dungeon crawls were milieu type players in this style, that is why they kept 10' poles, string, and other items modern players ignore, because mechanics type players go "a trap! I have the anti-trap skill!" while milieu type players go "a pressure plate! Probably a trap. Isn't there a bench in that last room we can put over the pressure plate?" This style is the one where the milieu vs mechanics distinction is so vast that it feels like two unrelated games even when using the exact same rulebook.

Lastly, open-ended story. There are two different ways to approach this extreme. One way is that of a storytelling game, where the players are cooperatively crafting a story, with the players having a great deal of influence on the world and setting and often make choices based on what would be most interesting for the story rather than the character (in some cases there may not even be a GM at all, and many rule systems built specifically for this tend towards mechanics about narrative controls rather than mechanics about what a character can do). The other way is what I call "pure roleplay," in which players have the highet amount of freedom in making choices as their characters but still have no influence on the world or setting beyond the actions of their characters, and in which the whole point is to explore the world and story almost as though the story is happening to the players via their characters. This is the style for those who want to try being [insert protagonist here] but doing it better, and without doing all the stupid things we find ourselves yelling at the book/movie about when we know the character is about to do something dumb. The two different styles at this extreme of the spectrum seem to stem from whether the players are thinking from the character's perspective, or from a meta perspective about the character, this meta-milieu or in-milieu thinking can be seen as a minor influence elsewhere on the spectrum, but at this extreme is where it really divides things to a significant degree.

So in recap, we have milieu vs mechanics divide, a two axis spectrum, and the meta vs in-character divide. I didn't put the two divides as spectrums because they are not really spectrums as they are less about preference and more about how a player thinks, the direction they think in and nearly everyone falls pretty clearly into one side or the other.

None of these styles are the single best way to play. The proper way of playing can be argued to be what the designers intended and expected as they wrote the game, but that doesn't invalidate playing a style contrary to the rule system's design.

I present this as a way to talk about, explore, and think about different ways of playing and hopefully help folks discuss what kind of game they are looking to play or run. Because it is much easier to say "I'm running a milieu type dungeoncrawl with moderate lethality" and have everyone looking to play realize that there will be minimal overarching story and that they'll need to dig out 10' poles rather than the anti-every-single-trap skill.

So what do you folks think? Any major distinctions in style you think I missed? Anything that you think can be explained better?

[Interesting Character]

In theory, session 0 should be enough, but that is theory. Sure it works when folks already have similar ideas, but 3 things.

First, having the proper language and terminology greatly helps and shortens communications. Also, this allows making a simple statement to weed out who will even want to go to session 0. Session 0 assumes people there will play, rather than determining who is going to play.

Second, there are some expectations that are so much a part of someone's worldview, they don't even realize the assumptions they make because of it. This has been a problem before. There are players out therewho think it is an arcane caster's job to identify potions and who think anyone that doesn't understand that is a complete idiot or unfamiliar with the concept of rpgs, which is obviously rollplaying, and for whom there is no real connection between their character sheet and their character. I asked what the expectations were because they asked a specific role to be filled and I wanted to make sure I filled it. It never occured to them that I might have never played a caster that needed to identify potions before, and so my sorcerer didn't like potions as she saw them as inferior, and thus couldn't identify them. They really had a problem with after they found out. Of course, they also forgot to tell me that anything tactical was handled out of character and skipped any "superfluous" roleplay that might get in the way of moving on to the next encounter. I've played many styles and this was so far out there, I'm still shocked that people actually play that way, and yet for them, ot was so normal they didn't even consider that they might need to mention it.

Thirdly, it makes it a lot easier to contemplate and understand the various styles and thus easier to look at them as different movie genres, something to try to see if the different styles can also be enjoyed rather than sticking to just one style without trying much of the full spectrum of possibilities.

And well, Fourth, the additional styles being explicit hopefully puts a bulwark against the ever increasing single-mindedness of the major elements of the community shrinking down to a very few and very narrow styles. At least on the part of what one sees publicly. The last few milieu players I saw were a small at home group.

To make an analogy, it is like hollywood claiming that only superhero movies are movies. Other genres are just not recognized or in rare cases a b rated indy film might show up in a different genre but are getting harder to find.

To me, this is a problem. I'm sure most of the people here would consider it a problem if hollywood and other aaa movies wee only ever superhero films. Movies as an artform, and just as simple entertainment, are capable of so much more.

When I got into rpgs, every group was vastly different. But for the last decade or so, it has felt like everything has become standardized.

Roleplay is an artform, the gm is the author, the players are the audience. Seeing it all so heavily reduced is in my opinion the worst thing to happen to the industry.

The first step in expanding the scope of rp is making the vast spectrum of possibilities easier and more clear to discuss.

There are reasons I hate 5e and pf2, but who could understand why but those who understand the difference between, as Gygax put it, playing the rules vs playing the game. I have yet to have someone explain that difference except for the guy who writes The Alexandrian, no one else. I've had many who claim to understand, but they never demonstrate understanding nor even describe the difference.

[Gorbacz]

Why do you "hate" 5e and PF2? Did you ever get a chance to play either of them?

[Interesting Character]

I played 5e and the pf2 playtest, and watched a bit of play with the final pf2 rules. That said, my dislike of them is more structural then details. They kept the things I dislike about 3.x but got rid of a great deal of what I liked about 3.x (much of which was intact in pf1).It is hard to explain, but let me try.

3.x has many things I actually do not like (like classes), but on a more fundamental level it has one thing that is hard to find and does it much better than anything else (though gurps is probably the second best of what I'm familiar with), especially modern games. That thing is it's rules association, both individually and as a general whole. If you are not sure what it means for mechanics to be associated, read this article by the Alexandrian:http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mec hanics-a-brief-primer though he references mostly decision-making, I'm going beyond that to the link between numbers and the world milieu.

In essence, 3.x provides a framework which is a bit like having a grid laid down to more easily draw straight lines and keep things in the desired proportions. This grid matters not to the final image, but makes it easier to create that final image. Of course, as rpgs are primarily about communication, the grid makes it easier because you can use the grid for reference (imagine talking someone through putting a puzzle together. Being able to say "that piece goes in the top left of grid space D7" makes it a lot easier.).

5e/pf2 do not provide this grid, because in those games, the mechanics are about playing through encounters rather than communicating the world, communicating the world is left entirely to the GM to figure out on their own with minimal aid. They are in essence, focused on something entirely different from 3.x.

To quote Alexandrian,

Quote:

In a roleplaying game, even if you're fighting, the reasons why you're fighting are frequently important.

...

It's often the abilities that a creature has outside of combat which create the scenario. And not just the scenario which leads to combat with that particular creature, but scenarios which can lead to many different and interesting combats. Noonan, for example, dismisses the importance of detect thoughts allowing a demon to magically penetrate the minds of its minions. But it's that very ability which may explain why the demon has all of these minions for the PCs to fight; which explains why the demon is able to blackmail the city councillor that the PCs are trying to help; and which allows the demon to turn the PCs' closest friend into a traitor.

With 3.x, things are in the mechanics for reasons other than use during an encounter. These types of things are the first to be eliminated when trying to simplify combat.

5e and pf2 make combat faster, smoother, and in some cases more interesting, but as those are not and never have been my goal in using a system, those things really don't matter much to me.

Another example, in 3.x, Einstein was, at best, a lvl 5 character. To be able to concretely say that comes from the high level of association between the rules and the milieu. I can't really tell you what Einstein would be in 5e nor pf2. Heck, certain members of Paizo stay away from mechanically defining anything beyond the players and monsters because to them it would interfere with the GM's creativity, and indeed I have met GMs who liked getting away from 3.x for this very reason. They don't like having anything defined because to them, it suddenly feels they are handcuffed. To continue the grid analogy, some people either can't turn off grid-snap (when placing something, it snaps itself to exactly fit the grid), or hate trying to turn off grid snap, thus a grid feels more like shackles to them. To me, I have no problems turning off grid snap and using the grid purely as reference, and is exactly what I want. Others are fine with the grid snap and enjoy it.

For me, that grid is the only reason I bother with mechanics at all, without that, freeform is closer to what I want than any system can possibly be, therefore, any system that doesn't have and support such a high level of association is not what I want from the system.

Also note how I say system rather than game. That is because to me, the game is the roleplay, the system is an aid to the game, not the game itself.

For other styles, such as dungeoncrawls, the system is the game, and attaining and using system mastery is usually one of the goals.

The Alexandrian has a bunch of awesome articles, all of which are worth the read but a few in particular are good additional reading to understanding my preferred playstyle.
https://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/creations.html
I linked his old creations should you desire to poke around, but the ones relevant to my preferred style and what I tried to describe in this post are: Calibrating your expectations, Revisiting encounter design, Dissociated mechanics (linked above as well), and Rules vs rulings.

I do want to be clear here, the other styles are just as valid, but they play out differently, they feel different in play, and they have different "mindsets" involved in enjoying them. The key thing here though is that the difference between the styles is not something that can be found in the mechanics, it is something else entirely.

---
I'm not really sure where to put this example, but it may help.

In 3.x, the numbers have objective intrinsic meaning, regardless of the lvl of the characters interacting with the objects those numbers are representing.

For example, in 3.x, a lock having a DC of 30 means that only a master locksmith can pick it, or create it, and a lvl 40 is a unique masterpiece lock made by the Einstein of locksmiths. Doesn't matter what was rolled by the player trying to pick it. In 5e/pf2, no such statement can be made. What makes something truly in the realm of masters is rather fluid (especially in Golarion, in which superhuman people are commonplace[lvl 6+ is superhuman in pf1, and since pf1 has clearly shown that lvl6+ is not hard to find in Golarion, the same obviously continues in pf2, it is just harder to tell the difference now]).

Heck, in some crpgs these days, a falling apart rusty lock can have such a high DC that a lvl 1 character can't possibly break/pick it, but it will have that DC because the players are high lvl when they encounter it.

[Joana]

Your last example about the lock is explicitly the case in P2e as well. Look at the Simple DCs: a Master lock has a DC of 30, and Legendary one has a DC of 40, exactly like your 3.x example.

Even if you go to level-based DCs, the DC is based on the level of the locksmith who created the lock, not of the PC trying to pick it.

Quote:

You can also use the level-based DCs for obstacles instead of assigning a simple DC. For example, you might determine that a wall in a high-level dungeon was constructed of smooth metal and is hard to climb. You could simply say only someone with master proficiency could climb it, and use the simple DC of 30. Or you might decide that the 15th-level villain who created the dungeon crafted the wall, and use the 15th-level DC of 34. Either approach is reasonable!

In neither case does the level of the PC who encounters the lock come into play, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

[Interesting Character]

Skills are the easiest place to see what I'm trying to say, but also the place where association is strongest, and thus likely to be the last place any association would be removed from (hence it being my "extreme" example from crpgs).

I'm not claiming the newer games have lost all association, only that they are significantly less associated and have a more limited scope (which impacts the usefulness of any association they retain).

[Gorbacz]

Apart from what Joana said, numbers in 3.x very quickly lose any intrinsic meaning.

The game tells you that DC 35 is for climbing a slippery overhang or ceiling with handholds only. It tells you that a perfectly smooth, flat vertical (or inverted) surface cannot be climbed.

Then along comes a high level PC with +40 to Climb - easily achievable by stacking bonuses and modifiers. Now, what can they do with their average roll of 50? Nothing beyond what DC 35 can. Even if with some short-term buff, their roll would be 60, they still can't achieve anything beyond what that one tiny little table in the rulebook tells you.

This comes from the fact that in 3.X, there's the default assumption that non-magical means can only achieve peak ordinary real-world human capabilities. Anything beyond that requires magic. The designers likely assumed that DC 35 is a number that's very hard to reach for a PC.

Except it isn't. A competently built PC will hit these numbers many times over. Apart from a few skills that scale (and even then, they scale badly), most skills feature a hopelessly naive table with DCs for what you can achieve. But you're beyond and past this table many times over and yet, you can't achieve anything that would amount to spider climb because of designers.

A lot of printed adventures discard this right off the bat, providing arbitrary DCs that have no grounds in the core rulebook yet exist only so that the skill check could be a challenge to PCs at that level.

The numbers game in 3.x falls apart so quickly that it isn't even funny. Both 5e and PF2 handle this problem differently but largely avoid the "you can only jump this high even if your skill check is 70, thank you for investing so much in this skill, but it's useless beyond 35" problem which makes numbers 3.x have so little intrinsic meaning beyond early levels that you risk people getting frustrated with how little can they achieve.

[John Woodford]

IIRC, Glenn Blacow was writing about this sort of thing forty years ago (four-way split), and the simulationist/narrativist/gamist breakdown is from before the turn of the century. That is, people have been discussing this for quite some time. I recommend that the OP check out the previous work and consider whether (and how) their commentary differs from it.

[Interesting Character]

Gorbacz, this is heavily affected by what is mentioned in the Calibrating your expectations essay. Basically, anyone over level 5 is superhuman, and you are very unlikely to have met even a level 4 person in the real world.

That said, the DCs for things real world people can achieve is just the foundation. From this foundation you can judge what it should be like for a demigod of such skill that they can do things no human can.

For example,
CLIMB
How about a natural rock face and the need to jump from one wall section to the next? That not only requires a successful jump check but also a successful climb check to catch the other side with a DC of 45, or 50 when slippery and wet. Boom, a DC 50 climb check required straight from the book with perfectly ordinary circumstances.

A perfectly smooth and featureless wall shouldn't be climbable by a person, demigod or not, without something beyond mere skill. You need to be able to grip a wall to climb it regardless of skill.

I also think you've forgotten all the other things that can affect the check. Try that slippery overhang in the middle of a hurricane with a torrent of water and hail coming down and with high speed winds and very high speed gusts. Do you really thing that the DC is going to remain a mere DC 35? Heck no. The water and hail and wind are all going to raise the DC significantly, and every gust of extra high speed wind will require a check to not be blown off. The DCs in this case are going be somewhere around 50 or so. Add in enemies trying to knock them off, or them trying to rush for extra increases to the DC. Or try catching your self on a brick wall for a DC 45, or catch another falling character while you are on that slippery overhang in a hurricane for an extra +10 to the DC.

The basic DCs given in the book are not the sum total of what DCs you should be facing.

Climbing a brick wall in the middle of a hurricane and on a short deadline with enemies below trying to shoot you down. Your +40 climb bonus suddenly faces a chance of failure. Using bonuses and magic is exactly what should be done to make it "easy" for a character and being "easy," or even certain, is precisely because of how superhuman their skill is.

Personally, I can think of cases where I'd make walls with a higher DC based on these basic foundations. For example, a wall with a pattern on it of ledges only 1/16 inch deep and at intervals that'd be a stretch to reach from one to the next would have a base DC of 40 or even 45. The character would basically be climbing via their fingernails.

JUMP
Additionally, nothing limits your max jump height.

The wording about vertical reach (in 3.5) is not the best and therefore confusing, but read it carefully and you'll note it is about how high you can reach without jumping and is thus simply the base height upon which your jump height builds from, so if you can reach 8' without jumping than a jump check to reach a 10' ledge would only need you to jump 2' for a DC of 8. Though PF1 doesn't mention base height for some reason.

3.x and PF1 mention your max movement, but neither states that you can't make a jump over a longer distance, only that you can't move more than your maximum speed (not your base speed) in a round. As a jump check is part of movement, if you are running, you have a maximum speed of 4x your base speed, and even just a hustle of 2x your base speed vastly increases your max speed for the round (up to 60' for a standard human). An all out run for a standard human gives a 120' maximum movement for the round, requiring a Jump check of over 120 to exceed this distance. If you managed that somehow, the GM is not limited to restraining you from jumping a greater distance, only that you can't move further in that round, in which case the obvious course of action is that the following round is when you'd land, completing the jump using some of the 2nd round's movement.

THEREFORE
So, I am not at all seeing how these numbers fall apart. Not at all. None of my examples here require artificial inflation of DCs.

LASTLY
I do not see any need to make every check a challenge for whatever level the PCs are at. To me, that alone is contrary to the association of the rules to the world. Besides, it is not required, because it would then be a challenge to a PC who kept that skill maxed out, but what about characters who focused elsewhere? Not every PC is going to be an awesome acrobat, and putting in an obstacle with DCs based on the presumed PC's level is only to split the party into those who are awesome acrobats and those who are not.

This split should only happen when the entire intent is built around having the party split up (such as if one PC is supposed to get somewhere difficult to open the way for everyone else), in which case, a character being superhuman at a skill when everyone else is not is exactly why they are doing something, in which case, there are plenty of ways to make it challenging without artificially inflating DCs. As I clearly pointed out in the climb examples above.

If the party is not splitting up, or perhaps lacks a superhuman at a particular skill, then any jump checks should obviously not be extreme anyway, since untrained PCs are going to find perfectly ordinary DCs a challenge.

Edit: I additionally think that changing DCs to be challenging is bad because it undermines the feeling of being superhuman and also undermines the entire point of leveling. If you need a roll of 10+ regardless of your level, then why have levels? But the former is the more significant in my opinion, if you are a superhuman demigod of jumping, a 20' gap should not be challenging just because the module author wants an obstacle. If the module author wants a jump to challenge the party's superhuman acrobat, then they should make it a jump that every player can easily see is a ridiculous jump that only superhuman being could jump, in which case, the superhuman player then gets to feel like a demigod when they actually succeed.

But if a jump of 20' is challenging no matter your level, then being high level will never feel like a demigod, because doing demigod things will never happen, because ordinary things will always get inflated to challenge what should be a superhuman, making those superhumans nothing more than ordinary humans.

[Artofregicide]

You should try playing the published PF2e rules. I was skeptical myself, and had seen them played on video and podcast. But reading the CRB and playing changed my mind.

PF1e is still my favorite, but 2e is pretty good.

Also, a lot of the things you've brought up are addressed in the rules. But if you don't like 2e, that's okay too.

*le shrug*

[Interesting Character]

Oh I will if I get the chance in person, but that won't change anything.

When Harry Potter was translated into german, did it make the story better or worse? Did it change the word count? The former is an obvious "no" while the latter is an obvious "probably."

The game is the same, different systems have no impact on the essence/soul of the game, the performance of the gm, but it does change how we interact with the game, communicate about the game, and most importantly, think about the game.

Do you solve problems by looking at your character sheet or maybe finding some mechanic you can use? Or do you imagine the world and environment your character is in and look for things you might actually do if you were actually there? Do you think the concept of "mechanical balance" could ever apply to the latter?

[Gorbacz]

But what is the game? How do we define it?

[Interesting Character]

How would you define freeform roleplay?

[Gorbacz]

A game without rules. Yes, it's a contradiction, but not really, if you think about it.

[PFRPGrognard]

Don't let the trolls get you, OP. Play the game you want to play.

[thejeff]

Interesting Character wrote:

Oh I will if I get the chance in person, but that won't change anything.

When Harry Potter was translated into german, did it make the story better or worse? Did it change the word count? The former is an obvious "no" while the latter is an obvious "probably."

The game is the same, different systems have no impact on the essence/soul of the game, the performance of the gm, but it does change how we interact with the game, communicate about the game, and most importantly, think about the game.

Do you solve problems by looking at your character sheet or maybe finding some mechanic you can use? Or do you imagine the world and environment your character is in and look for things you might actually do if you were actually there? Do you think the concept of "mechanical balance" could ever apply to the latter?

A bad translation can definitely make a story worse. It's unlikely that a good one would make it better, but it's possible.

It's not at all clear to me that different systems leave the game the same. Different systems certainly work better for different game genres. Call of Cthulhu is one of my favourite systems for its genre, but I wouldn't play high fantasy adventure in it.

As for the final question - mechanical balance certainly does apply to the latter. Mechanics that don't well represent how you think what you think of doing will work will fail you. A totally freeform roleplay can have the same problem, but there it's based on a mismatch between your understanding and the GM's understanding (or other player's understanding), rather than between your understanding and the rules.

That's one of the reasons rules heavy games are common and why players tend to use those rules to guide their actions: The rules are their window onto how the game world works.

[TwilightKnight]

One thing to remember is that for most people, gaming is a recreation. A chance to escape the intricacies of real life for a while and just enjoy yourself. They do not want to do an in-depth psychological analysis of what they want out of the game beyond have some fun. So, anything beyond a very basic evaluation of do you want more role-play, more roll-play, or a relatively equal balance is likely to elicit glossy eyes and a blank stare. I wish you luck in your effort to plume the depths of the human psyche, I'm sure game designers and a few hard-core gamers will appreciate it, but for the majority of the rest of us we'll be over here just rolling some dice :-D

[Interesting Character]

thejeff wrote:

As for the final question - mechanical balance certainly does apply to the latter. Mechanics that don't well represent how you think what you think of doing will work will fail you. A totally freeform roleplay can have the same problem, but there it's based on a mismatch between your understanding and the GM's understanding (or other player's understanding), rather than between your understanding and the rules.

There is a difference between using rules to communicate more clearly vs basing understanding on rules.

The Alexandrian article Rules vs Rulings, he gives examples of "old school" vs "new school" in which the difference is about what is described and what the players are interacting with.

You see, players can interact with the rules, or they can use the rules to interact with the fictional world. There is a difference.

An example is disabling a trap. When interacting with rules, a player looks at the system for the anti-trap skill or ability, something explicitly detailed as for dealing with traps and takes that as the way of dealing with traps, to the point of not even considering alternatives.

On the other hand, a player interacting with the world does not see "a trap," but rather it is a trip wire, or a pressure plate, or a trap door, or holes with darts, or something like that, upon which they consider what is available in the world, such as jumping over it, placing a bench over it to walk across, using a table to shield against the darts, triggering it from a distance, etc. In this, some cases might require a check, but not necessarily an anti-trap check, such as the "jumping over it" example I gave.

The big difference is in the scope of thinking. In the former, you could strip out all flavor/fluff and the game could still be played since none if the thinking nor creativity is from the fictional world, but in tje latter, the flavor/fluff can't be removed because all the interactions, the problem solving, the understanding of things, are all based on the flavor/fluff and without it, the mechanics would be meaningless.

Quote:

A bad translation can definitely make a story worse. It's unlikely that a good one would make it better, but it's possible.

Incorrect. A translation does not change the story. It might make it harder or easier to understand the story, but it does not change it. Changing the story is never a translation. Lion King is not a translation of Shakespeare.

Quote:

It's not at all clear to me that different systems leave the game the same.

Imagine a room with a window on each side. The windows are different systems, the stuff inside the room is the game. Looking through each window has a different perspective, but the windows do not change the stuff within the room.

Quote:

Different systems certainly work better for different game genres.

Mostly correct, though I wouldn't so much as say genre really. 3.x can handle a romance in the medival ages as easily as a Sherlock Holmes adventure. That said, different systems can indeed be shaped to handle a particular style or certain traits of the story, such as superheroes vs down-to-earth normal people. But systems can also be harder or easier to use for interacting with the fiction vs interacting with the system itself.

A mechanically balanced game will be easier play in a boardgame style, but harder to use for communicating about the fictional world.

4e makes an excellent example. When I played 4e, never was anything described by mechanics nor numbers except combat-stuff and a couple skills, meaning that we were not actually playing 4e except for the combat encounters. The rest of the time, we were playing purely freeform.

[Interesting Character]

TwilightKnight wrote:

One thing to remember is that for most people, gaming is a recreation. A chance to escape the intricacies of real life for a while and just enjoy yourself. They do not want to do an in-depth psychological analysis of what they want out of the game beyond have some fun. So, anything beyond a very basic evaluation of do you want more role-play, more roll-play, or a relatively equal balance is likely to elicit glossy eyes and a blank stare. I wish you luck in your effort to plume the depths of the human psyche, I'm sure game designers and a few hard-core gamers will appreciate it, but for the majority of the rest of us we'll be over here just rolling some dice :-D

A gm needs to understand this to be a great gm, otherwise they can only be good for those with similar tastes and terrible for everyone else.

Besides, most players don't see the difference because it has never been truly shown to them. A gm with some understanding of this can show them a new way to play. And while many are fine to ignore anything unfamiliar to them, many will want to try new things.

But the biggest part here is to put a stopgap in thinking the thinking that it can boiled down to "role-play vs rollplay" because A) it can't, and B) because big companies like paizo only worry about making money and thus drive things towards a simple equation that they can most easily profit from. Playing an rpg like a boardgame is simpler and easier to make products for, and also is the same kind of art as any other game. However, playing the other way, the way in which a system is naught but an unnecessary but useful tool, is a new kind of art, a kind of art worthy of recognition as something distinct from normal games.

It also helps in laying the foundation for teaching how to be a GM on a "professional" level, much like being a professional violinist vs an amateur fiddler.

[thejeff]

Interesting Character wrote:

thejeff wrote:

A bad translation can definitely make a story worse. It's unlikely that a good one would make it better, but it's possible.

Incorrect. A translation does not change the story. It might make it harder or easier to understand the story, but it does not change it. Changing the story is never a translation. Lion King is not a translation of Shakespeare.

It doesn't change the basic plot, but it can definitely change the experience of reading the story. The words and phrasing used can do a lot for characterization, as the simplest example.

Interesting Character wrote:

thejeff wrote:

It's not at all clear to me that different systems leave the game the same.

Imagine a room with a window on each side. The windows are different systems, the stuff inside the room is the game. Looking through each window has a different perspective, but the windows do not change the stuff within the room.

Except the game system does change the stuff in the room. When a character tries to do something, we resolve that attempt using the game mechanics. Different systems will lead to different outcomes from the same actions (or at least different chances of outcomes) and thus to different stories. Experienced players will know what works in that system and thus prioritize appropriate actions.

Which is good if the system you're using matches what you want to play.

Take something like Shadowrun, with its famously deadly combat system and compare it to Feng Shui's over the top martial arts combat. (Ignoring the setting differences, for the sake of argument.) The mechanics don't support Feng Shui style fights in Shadowrun. The windows lead to different rooms.

Interesting Character wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Different systems certainly work better for different game genres.

Mostly correct, though I wouldn't so much as say genre really. 3.x can handle a romance in the medival ages as easily as a Sherlock Holmes adventure. That said, different systems can indeed be shaped to handle a particular style or certain traits of the story, such as superheroes vs down-to-earth normal people. But systems can also be harder or easier to use for interacting with the fiction vs interacting with the system itself.

A mechanically balanced game will be easier play in a boardgame style, but harder to use for communicating about the fictional world.

4e makes an excellent example. When I played 4e, never was anything described by mechanics nor numbers except combat-stuff and a couple skills, meaning that we were not actually playing 4e except for the combat encounters. The rest of the time, we were playing purely freeform.

I suppose I'd agree that 3.x can handle a medieval romance or Holmes mystery roughly as well, mostly because it would handle both poorly. (Assuming we mean D&D 3.0, 3.5 and PF1 here, not anything based on that original d20 chassis. You might be able to make a good Holmes or romance system out of it, but it would be a different game.)

Of course if you're just going to run it freeform and ignore the mechanics except for combat, then it doesn't matter. Neither of those genres is high on combat.

[Interesting Character]

thejeff wrote:

It doesn't change the basic plot, but it can definitely change the experience of reading the story. The words and phrasing used can do a lot for characterization, as the simplest example.

What you describe is not translation, but interpretation. A translation remains true to the original as best as possible, an interpretation alters the presentation of the original according to influence outside the original work.

Thus, if the characterization is altered, it was because the interpreter chose to alter it, whatever the reason or result.

thejeff wrote:

Different systems will lead to different outcomes from the same actions.

Only when improperly used, or if designed purely for boardgame style. 4e for example.

If used right, you'll get a result that can fit nicely. This is tricky sometimes, because some systems aren't designed for everything, requiring the gm to infer or extrapolate from the raw. For example, a system with no normal people stats will naturally require extrapolation to find appropriate values for normal people.

People often make the mistake of trying to fit expectations to the defined scope of a system. 3.x is an excellent example in which people think that conan or aragorn must be level 20 characters because they are the elite characters of their stories and 3.x goes up to level 20, but this is incorrect. Therefore, if someone tries to stat up conan as a lvl 20 character, it won't work, not because the system fails but because the players don't use it right. Even gandalf was at best a lvl 5 character (some might say 6-7 during lotr.)

thejeff wrote:

I suppose I'd agree that 3.x can handle a medieval romance or Holmes mystery roughly as well, mostly because it would handle both poorly.

Actually, 3.x would handle them very well, if used properly. However, if you think Sherlock is 10+ levels, then you are not only very mistaken but will also find your game failing to perform as desired.

thejeff wrote:

Assuming we mean D&D 3.0, 3.5 and PF1 here.

Pf1 tends to be more powerful compared to 3.x, and less detailed our of combat. While it is pretty close, I do not consider it as equal to 3.x.

Quote:

You might be able to make a good Holmes or romance system out of it, but it would be a different game.

Of course it would. The whole point is that on the non-boardgame side of things is not a single game but a medium, with each campaign a unique game, and each gm a unique genre.

[thejeff]

Interesting Character wrote:

thejeff wrote:

It doesn't change the basic plot, but it can definitely change the experience of reading the story. The words and phrasing used can do a lot for characterization, as the simplest example.

What you describe is not translation, but interpretation. A translation remains true to the original as best as possible, an interpretation alters the presentation of the original according to influence outside the original work.

Thus, if the characterization is altered, it was because the interpreter chose to alter it, whatever the reason or result.

Maybe because the translator wasn't as good a writer as the author and either didn't understand or couldn't convey the nuances the author did? Sometimes there aren't good ways to convey it subtly in the other language.

Translation isn't simple. Literal word for word translation is often hilariously inaccurate. Idioms, slang, word choices, all of this can convey character in ways that are very subtle, but effective. And very hard to carry over into another language - you need to understand intellectually what the auther was trying to do and then find parallels in the other language.

Interesting Character wrote:

thejeff wrote:

I suppose I'd agree that 3.x can handle a medieval romance or Holmes mystery roughly as well, mostly because it would handle both poorly.

Actually, 3.x would handle them very well, if used properly. However, if you think Sherlock is 10+ levels, then you are not only very mistaken but will also find your game failing to perform as desired.

I find it hard to conceive of any game system handling Holmes well. I've never seen mechanics that would work for Holmes without simply being "roll well and I'll tell you the answer". The stories rely on Holmes knowledge of just the right details and his brilliance in putting them together. The first you can kind of simulate in a game, but for the second you can't rely on players to be brilliant - or the GM to have set up the mystery just right.

When I said it would be a different game, I meant a different game system - something based on d20/3.x, but not actually 3.x, not that you'd be playing a different campaign.

Interesting Character wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Different systems will lead to different outcomes from the same actions.

Only when improperly used, or if designed purely for boardgame style. 4e for example.

I think we're talking past each other here, not helped by you cutting my examples. Are Shadowrun and Feng Shui inherently "boardgame style" because they're designed for different genres and are designed for different expectations? Combat plays out very differently in each, because they're aiming for different genre expectations.

Unless that's what you mean by "improperly used"? Acting based on one genre's assumptions in a game designed for another? That wasn't how I understood you earlier.

[Interesting Character]

-3.x is not a game, it is a tool. To use a metaphor, there are many different types and styles of hammers, but they can all hammer a nail, some might be awkward or less effective but they can all do it.

3.x is particularly special as it is so broad in what it can handle. It covers a smotth spectrum from everyday people to demigods. It has vast references for environmental effects and other things beyond combat that could be used in a game.

Things like the listing of weapons are not the system, they are setting details. Most d20 based games are mostly just altering setting specific details with only minor adjustments to the system itself.

Even so, 3.x can stand on it's own and cover a great deal. The lack of tables regarding personal relationships doesn't make it terrible at romances.

-As for Holmes detective stories, 3.x's solid ties to the world make it the best option for this kind of game. Making a player feel brilliant without just handing them the answers is a difficult task, especially if they are not used to solving such things on their own. But those who watch detective stories and try to get the answers before they are revealed will be harder. Regardless of the player's experience with crime solving, the ability to be detailed and precise about the world is a massive benefit to such an endeavour, and no system does it as well and as easily as 3.x.

-Shadowrun vs Feng Shui

Never heard of Feng Shui before you.

Shadowrun has gone through major revisions, so no idea if my limited experience is close to yours, but from what I've experienced with the system, it would be fairly simple to use for crouching tiger, hidden tiger type combat if one wanted.

However, as I pointed out, some cases need more gm work than others. That is because there is the system, then there is the setting content. These are separate things, but most do not see the division between them. An example is taking 3.x core books only, then for asian theme I could take bastard sword for katanas, longswords for wakizashis, or just make new stats that fit and feel right such as making naginatas a polearm with reach, slashing dmg, d10 at medium size, x3 crit multiplier, around 5-10 lbs (5 is closer to reality, but 10 fits closer to other polearms in the system).

So, if you are expecting me to use any system for anything without any work, then you are mistaken. I would first understand the system itself, free of any fluff or setting specific components, and measure them against real world expectations and scaling. Then select the range most suitable to the desired campaign, select what setting content can be ported over directly, then fill in the rest of what I need.

Another way this works, especially with pass/fail/crit systems, is to realize that I as gm control the descriptions. What does it really mean when a sword has a +3 enhancement? I can describe it as unnatural sharpness, or a subtle homing effect, or an effect of being harder than other metals and thus cutting them, or a reflection of force to reduce recoil from hitting a solid object and focusing that hitting force at the edge of blade. What does it mean to be hit for 10 dmg? I can say you got the wind knocked out you, or I can say you went sailing into the wall, or I can say you a massive gash across your torso that is bleeding profusely.

Most people build expectations based on the setting and the default genre, without really seeing just how easy it would be to adjust things with a simple shift in descriptive style. The trick is making sure players have the right expectations. If they expect superheroes and you give them ww2 with no super stuff, then you're going to have a problem.

[TwilightKnight]

Interesting Character wrote:

A gm needs to understand this to be a great gm, otherwise they can only be good for those with similar tastes and terrible for everyone else.

This may be true with respect to a home game (maybe), but much less so in organized play due to its episodic nature and high likelihood of only playing with people once for a few hours and never again. If you cannot be a “great” GM without catering to the play style of your players, then it is equally true that players cannot be great without being aware of the style of their GM and catering to that as well. Gaming is a compromise, a social contract between the players and the GM that they will be a good steward of the cooperative play and will meet each other somewhere in the middle of style preferences.

[Interesting Character]

This two way street you talk of is illusion. It is like a magician ( the real world kind). A magician may involve the audience in their trick, but the magician is doing all the magic, and the audience interacting with the trick makes it all the more magical. A gm is likewise weaving an illusion for the players, and the players getting to interact with that illusion makes it all the more real, but like the magician's magic, the illusion is all the gm's doing.

If you have yet to experience that wonder of being drawn into another world, then you have yet to do more than play at a boardgame facsimile of something far deeper, like listening to a clattering pebble and calling it an orchestra without understanding the true power of a real symphony.

Pfs is fun, but it is nothing to what a rpg can be. Yet some people are stubborn and so assured that they know all it can be when they have never seen it, a great gm can see what the players are trying for, what they desire, and can craft that into the game as hook then draw them deeper into something beyond what they have before experienced.

Ernest Hemingway wrote:

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

The same is true of many things, including rpgs. I've had great gms. Most are nothing in comparison. Sadly, most are blindly unaware of the true heights a gm can reach. I want to not only change that, but to inspire others to get there, and to help them do it.

Step one, break the tunnel vision. What is so commonly seen from gms, especially in places like pfs, is so narrow and limited, yet so many defend it like it's the holy grail or something. No belief that there could be anything worthwhile beyond it.

If all you've known is a two way street of rough equality, then you've never experienced anything beyond a boardgame with story.

Play freeform for a while. Analyze the experience and how your problem solving strategies and the ways you express creativity differ from your mechanical games. That'll be at least a hint of what more it can be. Then again, maybe you'll get lucky and have a great gm.