Second, combat is the type of situation in which a character is most likely to die, and thus the time the players are most encouraged to do whatever they can to survive and thus naturally requires more mechanics to handle all the possibilities players might come up with. Other systems can avoid this because they are not trying to describe any possible action, rather they are designed for decisions to be made purely from the mechanics.
For example, dnd is designed so that traps are intended for players to handle with narrative descriptions, meaning they may not need anti-trap skill at all, while most other games have traps with the idea of being countered by the anti-trap skill and not someone being smart enough to use a bench to safely bypass a tripwire.
Emphasis added
Um... no.
While your assertion may be true for the small subset of non-D&D games you may have played personally, that assertion is demonstrably false in general.
And I would counter that 3.x/OGL play is specifically designed to be played to take advantage of the mechanics. (e.g "I move to the opposite side of the opponent to get a flanking bonus and Sneak Attack.")
I have not studied. I have no fancy citing to link to. I've been playing TTRPGs since I was a kid, through all editions of D&D but also several super hero systems, GURPs, Palladium, Cyberpunk, Car Wars, Paranoia, older and newer Runequest editions, White Wolf and a couple others I'm probably forgetting.
In short, everything I'm about to say is anecdotal and should be suitably ignored because of it.
Playstyles seem to boil down to 2 different types regardless of system. On one end of the spectrum you have players and GMs who like the players to be TOLD what happens, and on the other end you have groups where the players enjoy TELLING what happens. Let me elaborate.
Some groups enjoy a higher degree of player agency. Sure, in a PF 1e game you don't know EXACTLY what quirks an individual mite could have as a level 1 adventurer, but with a proper Knowledge check you might know the basics that you need Cold Iron to deal full damage against them. This gives you, the character, a modicum of control, even if it is just PERCEIVED control (the GM is still managing to overall narrative). You KNOW one way of defeating your enemy that you can pretty much count on.
Going back to a classic example from my own gaming life, my old HS group famously played a 1e game where the DM presented us with 2 skeletons with black, scorched bones, plated with a thin layer of metal in places. We go, "so... they're skeletons?" and the DM smiles and goes "they're LIKE skeletons..." We proceeded to have our level 4 lunches handed to us.
My point is, in that situation we players were just reacting to whatever the DM told us. We had only enough control to suggest what our characters did. Outside of basic attack and damage, we didn't have any say in HOW our characters accomplished the tasks we said they were doing. The game was more or less dictated to us by the DM and his rulings.
I personally prefer games with player agency and knowing the exact mechanic for how my character does things. I like reliability; Craft checks will always work like "x" and yield "y" result, your spell will always do "x", and so on. I dislike having the DM/GM rule on my own character's actions for me.
It's MY character; let ME decide what I do and how I do it.
This translates up to the narrative that the game produces. Some players prefer to be passive. They want to sit there, watching the game like some barely-interactive laser-based TV show from the 90's or one of those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books: they mostly want to be entertained with pre-set story fed to them a chunk at a time with little to no input on the outcome.
Other players, myself included, want to create right alongside with the person running things. Sure, the DM/GM still decides what super villain to throw on the table, what city your mission is in this week and so on, but I want my hero's actions to have an impact, to sway the story one way or another. Maybe, because of MY actions, the X-Tinction Event or the House of M DOESN'T happen? Maybe because I led my three ninja brothers directly to the Foot lair the Shredder doesn't throw himself off the top of a building?
This choice of engagement is a social contract, between players and game runner, and has NOTHING to do with the system, however it is then reinforced and strengthened by the mechanics of the system chosen. If you just want to show up, roll some dice and get entertained, maybe don't jump into a game of Amber. On the other hand if you want total player agency and lots of mechanics so that you, not your GM, determines how you accomplish most anything in the game, playing Basic D&D is likely a poor decision.
Would you rather the DM/GM TELL you what happens, or would you rather tell THEM what happens? Again, this is a spectrum and YMMV. Also, again, this is all anecdotal so feel free to ignore this like the editorial speed bump it is and keep going.
There may be something to it, but I'm not sure that's a good way to express it. It's pretty dismissive of people who don't play your way.
Or more subtly don't get their player agency in the same way you prefer.
PF1 lets you roll to know that mites take full damage from cold iron. Some narrative based games have mechanics that would let you decide that they had a weakness to Cold Iron. That's even more agency, right?
Even beyond that the agency that PF1 mechanics give you is very focused on encounter level actions. You know the mechanics for spells and what the chances are with attacks and all that. The GM still has all the world control and can often walk you to the predetermined end without ever messing with the mechanics.
Conversely in a rules lite game, the mechanics won't be so concrete, but that doesn't mean you can't have agency. The Amber game you mention is a great example. Minimal mechanics, lots of room for the GM to decide what happens, but as it plays out, it usually winds up with more player agency than I've seen in PF or D&D.
My general point is that other than the specifics of "what happens when I try this ability", player agency has little to do with mechanics. The GM can tell you what happens in any kind of system and you can tell them in any kind of system. It's a social contract.
The exception to this would some narrative systems that explicitly put some of that control in player hands.
I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear DJ Jazzy thejeff. You're right; player agency has little to do with mechanics beyond the arena that those mechanics govern. If the mechanics only govern encounter level situations, that's what they enable players to control. You said that perfectly.
Note though that I said "regardless of system" before I gave my, and you're right it sounds kind of dismissive, "you're either told what happens or you're telling what happens" types of groups. I still think that holds though - regardless of the crunch of the system, this seems to be what most, if not all games boil down to.
If you have fun at one end of the spectrum or another, I shouldn't judge. I do sometimes and, once more I apologize. I'm human and sometimes my petty ego gets in the way, trying to be "right" about something that's just a matter of opinion. To anyone that I offended with my tone I'm sorry.
I do want to stress though; it's a spectrum.
Some players want TOTAL agency and their GMs are willing to give it; I had some White Wolf/Vampire games go that way. Then again, some players really DO want to just be entertained. I had one person in one of the PF campaigns I'm running ACTUALLY phrase it like that; he just wants to show up, roll some dice and be entertained with whatever I come up with.
More often than not, players fall somewhere between those 2 extremes. I myself enjoy the PF system but, in that system, I like coming up with my character's backstory, right down to creating the settlement I come from, making some level 1 NPCs, and then building a whole life for my character when they're NOT spending 15 minutes/day adventuring.
I like describing how my character is working on a pair of leather boots or a masterwork backpack as the PCs ride between adventure sites; I ask if I can make up interesting details for magic items; now that my character is making his OWN magic items, I'm constantly trying to reimagine the wondrous items he's crafting to make them more "me."
I think this is true of me, regardless of the system I'm in. My second favorite rule system is the Advanced Marvel Super Heroes circa 1985. While you can play as an established Marvel hero/heroine, I prefer making my own. Once made, they have these things called "power stunts" where you can sort of individualize the effects of your power.
Like, if you have Fire Control that means you can literally control fire. There's some suggested stunts in the book, like creating writing in the sky or reducing the heat in an area. When I used to play MSH I would spend HOURS trying to conceptualize how adding little quirks and twists to my character's powers could produce lots of different power stunts!
Other players play in different ways and obtain their fun in different levels of engagement. It IS a social contract and that contract exists regardless of the mechanics of the game.
I think the only time you have an issue in acquiring and retaining players in a game isn't with the rule set but in how you present and enforce that contract. I recently had a DM for a 5e game said he wants to be very reactive to us players and let us "reason things out" for ourselves. He then proceeded to literally tell us where our characters were going before we'd decided to go there and made rulings that nullified every attempt we made at "reasoning" out ways to avoid our obviously superior foes.
So, to summarize: regardless of system, players and game runners are going to fall somewhere on a spectrum of player engagement and DM/GM control. This placement should be honestly presented and agreed upon in the social contract of gaming between all parties involved. Once established, if you want to keep your players or your DM/GM, work towards sticking to that accord or be transparent about your desire to diverge from it.
And, again, I don't want to give the impression of dismissiveness or judgement here. Everyone should pursue the level of fun through engagement that is right for them. There's no one way to play these games folks and I have no right to think otherwise.
I'm not even sure it's a spectrum really. Maybe multiple spectrums?
I've played with people who were focused on the tactical combat side of the game - who love the mechanical agency a crunchy system gives them there, but didn't really care about the larger plot and were perfectly happy being railroaded to the next conflict.
And others who were the opposite - focused on agency in plot and characterization choices outside of combats, but not invested in the tactical side at all. Even among those, some were purely self-directed sandboxy types, others wanted a juicy plot to get their teeth into (that's more my side, personally). Some were into the kind of crafting or other formal downtime activities like starting businesses or claiming land. Others found that a distraction from the fun adventuring.
As well as more purely audience type players.
It's a broad mess and trying to balance a game so that a given mix of player types can all enjoy it is an art.
Social contracts and session zeroes are all great and everything, but they cant accomplish the goal of making a great gaming group. You are only going to figure that out through play.
For example, some folks think a role playing game means being the character of Lothar the fighter. You are only playing the game if you act like how Lothar would act, see things the way Lothar sees them. For other folks they are interested in how Lothar got here. What are his motivation for the things he does? What are the long term goals and implications in Lothar's world of success and failure?
Some want the journey and others want the destination. Many want both!
The first player is looking to experience the minute details of being Lothar. The second is more interested in the world Lothar lives in. Some want some level of each. Both extremes are role playing in my opinion, and neither is exclusive of the other.
You can ask any gamer if they play the rules or play the game and 9/10 of them will answer but not meet your definitions. Role playing games are too nuanced to boil down to single terms. That and gamers are notorious for not agreeing on any damn thing...
My advice is know yourself. What exactly do you want from your games? Stop trying to make everyone else play the way you do. Find the players that already play the way you do. Also, its never going to be a 100% match. Ever. You need to learn a certain level of compromise. Everyone has their own comfort zone of compromise. Within it, you will find a great gaming group.
Oh and for Gods sake stop joining long term campaigns with people you dont know. Start small and work your way up. You are not going to find perfection from a pick up group. You need to work at it until you find good enough. Dont let perfect be the enemy of good either folks.
A role-playing game has several aspects that all the players at the table and the GM (if the game has a GM) need to agree upon at the start if the game is going to be a success.
All of these need to be discussed during Session Zero before you start playing.
1) The ruleset that we are all agreeing to use. Pathfinder 1e? D&D 5e? Dungeon World? Blades in the Dark? Into the Odd? Labyrinth Lord?. Everyone has to be on the same page there or it's a nonstarter.
2) CATS: Concept, Aim, Tone, Subject Matter. This is where you get buy-in from everyone at the table on what what we are going to be playing.
Concept: At a high level, what the game is going to be about.
Aim: What the GM/players are hoping to accomplish with this game.
Tone: General tone of the game: Heroic? Comedic? Tragic? Depserate? A combination?
Subject Matter: Specific elements that will be explored in the course of the game. This is also where content warnings should be raised.
For example...
The GM of an example game perhaps said/ wrote:
This game is going to be the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path from Paizo, converted to the RPG Blue Rose 2e, which itself uses the Adventure Game Engine (AGE). I will be making some changes to the modules as-written to de-emphasize combat scenes, and may be changing some other plot elements as I see fit.
The concept of the game: The city of Kintargo in Cheliax has enjoyed decades of relative freedom from the diabolical aspects of the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune. But no more: In response to an uprising elsewhere in Cheliax, the tyranical Lord-Mayor Barzalai Thrune was recently appointed to replace the much-beloved Mayor Bainilus. Thrune has been issuing unjust edict after unjust edict, sowing fear and hatred among the populace. The PCs will become a rebel faction fighting for the heart and soul of the city in an effort to oust Thrune from power.
The aim of the game: I want to explore running an underground rebellion against a clearly evil and tyrannical regime. I want the game to de-emphasize traditional D&D-style combat in favor of building relationships, organizing a rebel movement, making allies, and the compromises that such an organization has to make to achieve its overall goal. The emphasis on relationship-building is why I want to use Blue Rose instead of Pathfinder. While fighting can and will break out, it's going to be short, brutal, and deadly: Generally, if you find yourself in a fight, you've probably made a grave mistake somewhere.
The tone of the game is serious, but not without moments of levity. I want to use occasional humor and lighter slice-of-life scenes to counterbalance the heaviness of living under a tyrant. I also want this game to be a story of good triumphing over evil, but with enough gray areas to keep things interesting and not always clear-cut.
The subject matter will also be pretty heavy, and may include political oppression, capture of political prisoners, arbitrary arrests, corrupt judicial proceedings, public executions, problematic allies, and double-agents.
This sound good to you folks?
3) Table culture: What are the practices that that GM and players use to make sure everyone is on the same page, everyone is having fun, the spotlight is shared, etc. This includes the establishment of safety tools before play begins and some sort of debrief/feedback tools at the end of session. A big question to establish at the beginning is: How much narrative control do the players have over scenes? What are the conventions of scene-framing? How do we determine whether players are speaking in-character or out-of-character? How much metagame info will the GM share with players: i.e. will there be scenes shown to the players but not the characters?
Once everyone is in agreement with these fundamental principles, then play can start in earnest.
My second favorite rule system is the Advanced Marvel Super Heroes circa 1985.
Ooh! FASERIP! I haven't played that game since... 1987? (My high school group played TSR's Marvel Super-Heroes a little, but we ended up converting the campaign to Champions, as it had more customizable powers.)
*First, Sauron as both weaker and more powerful. You say you make this claim because of the magic in dnd is different, except the spells and their descriptions in d20 are fluff, not mechanics and therfore not relevant. That said, many of the things Gandalf does can be well represented by spells in 3.x, such as pyrotechnics, daylight, light, hold portal, burning hands (flash), etc. Sauron is not more powerful than d20, for he does nothing beyond that of a demigod which is well covered by d20, even without going to epic level supplements.
*Second rules vs rulings. Good mechanics can make rulings easier and more consistent. There is an underlying generality in d20 that makes it easy to see what a ruling should be. Consider the example I gave of the crafting sword contest, the generality of d20 makes it fairly obvious what the rules would be for that if there were rules, so making a ruling is obvious. This is not just for the gm, but also for players, who can more accurately guess what can and can't be reasonably handled and how and thus what their likely chances are. Often in other crunchy games, if something isn't is not explicitly allowed, then there is no reference for what a player's chances are for success as it basically boils down to the gm's whim with no reference at all, and while a good gm won't mess it up too bad, the lack of any reference at all tends to discourage trying anything weird. As for less crunchy games, the benefits of using rules are not really present aside from absolving the gm of arbitrarily deciding when PCs fail, at which point you might as well not even use the book for anything but the setting.
Further, this is not quite what I'm looking for but it is close and often goes hand-in-hand. How players think is the issue. For example, tipping a table over for cover. This is a sensible action, but it requires thinking in terms of what is possible in the world. However, for a lot of players, thinking in terms of the world at the same time as using mechanics is either difficult or uncomfortable, hence players favoring lite systems with fewer rules or heavy "balanced" systems, the former being those that think in terms of the world while the latter instead think in terms of the mechanics and never flip a table without an explicit rule saying they can do so and how. There are plenty of mix players, but these players switch back and forth rather than using rules at the same time as thinking in terms of narrative world. And by that I mean they will handle non-mechanical situations, such as talking to NPCs while thinking in terms of narrative world, but the moment an obvious mechanic applies they stop thinking in terms of the narrative world and simply default to the mechanics instead.
*Third, needing a feat for intimidate. You mention needing a feat to use intimidate as part of another action. Well, I'd call that evidence in support of what I said earlier, that paizo is favoring the popular "play the rules" style of play, and also that paizo has from the beginning been drifting away from the established foundations of d20. They don't design things to merely represent whatever the player tries and instead is building closer to system mastery designs and "balance."
In any case, my statement on your real world example still stands and has not been negated in any way.
*Jump, explicit link to real results, the swinginess of d20. Technically should be 3d6, but a single d20 is a close analogue and with a flat probability curve makes the extremes more common which increases the chance for the more interesting situations that come from extreme results. Use the d20 for more common interestingly non-standard results, or 3d6 for better approximation of reality. The average and range of each are approximately the same. Dnd is a game after all, and some adjustments were made to increase the fun, but that doesn't totally negate the foundation it was built on.
Also, check other numbers, and actually check them out, such as break down door DCs, environmental effects, etc.
The calibrating expectations article goes deep into this aspect. If you read it, you'd know there is a lot more than just jump.
*Crafting example, not in the rules. My example of a sword making contest works because that is how the underlying system works. I didn't have to guess nor make an arbitrary choice in the example. The underlying foundation of d20 makes it quite clear. Anyone who understands the d20 system and needed to make a crafting contest can easily see this obvious method for handling it. It is exactly what would be expected if there were official rules for it.
*Flanking being designed to be focused on mechanics. This is not true. I have experience in real world melee fighting, both actual martial arts and for fun larping. Flanking is a real thing. It is actually harder to defend against multiple opponants, and the difficulty is at it's highest when they are directly opposite sides of you. The flanking rules aren't even specific rules, they are simply a reference saying that when flanked the attackers should get the standard circumstance bonus of +2. Granted there are well defined rules for when that bonus applies, and these well defined rules are an adjustment to keep the game running smotther as without well defined rules for when the bonus applies or not, you'd constantly have the players trying to convince the gm that the should get the bonus. Making it clear cut when the bonus applies and when it doesn't, curtails a lot of detrimental tangents about whether players should be getting a bonus or not for ganging up on the same guy. Is it a bit too restrictive on when you get the bonus, certainly, but yet it is still a good comprimise for achieving a fun game.
*Player agency and types of agency. Player agency isn't singular, it has a scope of where players can apply agency. For example, players being able to have their characters do whatever they want is a different kind of agency from the players being able to impact the narrative world outside the control of their characters, such as naming the next town they get to or choosing whether the locals are bothered by kobolds or goblins. So, player agency has both depth (how much agency) and scope (where they can apply agency). When the scope of player agency is limited to just the actions of their characters but is deep, then that is focused on roleplay, but if they instead have agency on the world beyond their characters, then the game is more of a storytelling game. Lastly, if they have very little agency outside combat tactics, then it is more of a combat game than anything else, despite any story.
Halo is a videogame with story, but it is not an rpg. The game is not about choosing what the Master Chief does to impact the course of events, in fact, the player does not impact the story in any way (except for one comment in Halo 4 where the dialogue changes a single phrase depending on whether you noted the status of the ship just after waking up). The game of Halo is shooting stuff. So where does the story fit in? The story is happening in the background and gives context to why you are shooting aliens, but the gameplay is entirely about shooting aliens. Taking away the shooting aliens and you'd have nothing but a movie. The exact same thing can happen at the table, and many players tend to do this automatically if rules are too crunchy.
On the flip side are choose-your-own-adventure books. These books give the reader some control over where the story goes, usually focused on choosing what the protagonist does.
I consider a "pure roleplaying game" (for lack of better terminology) to be the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure with very deep player agency limited in scope to the character in the player's control. Reducing the depth of that agency (such as by railroading the story) or expanding the scope (by giving players control beyond their character's action) changes the game to something other than pure roleplay, despite still being labeled as rpgs. An important distinction to understand if building a group.
*I was mentioned that one should know what they want from the game. However, being able to communicate this to others is important in finding a good group that will play your way. Hence me wanting to communicate the style I want to play and support better more distinct terms for various gamestyles.
*Agreeing on ruleset. There are different ways of using the same rules, so you can't simply agree on the system, but also need to agree on how the system will be used. Heck, this entire thing is about the fact that a ruleset can be used in different ways.
*concept/aim, types of concept and types of aim. If you asked multiple people to make a list of different types of concepts and different possible aims, you'd find that there would be patterns and distinctions which are different between different people, leading to very different lists and things on those lists that others would claim weren't valid.
*Really though, The Alexandrian says this stuff better than me. Until you guys refute the points directly, I don't think this will go anywhere productive. I'm very curious to see if anyone will actually directly refute the points as brought up and supported in Alexandrian's articles, Calibrating your Expectations and Rules vs Rulings. Both of which can be found on the Creations page I linked earlier. For example, jeff says d20 isn't linked to the world like my jump example, but doesn't actually give any supporting evidence, and yet the Calibrating Expectations article runs the numbers on several stats and examples, aka, is supporting evidence.
*A major motivation for me here, is that I'm making a system of my own focused on the playstyle I'm describing, so being able to say what the system is designed for and make it clear is of course important. Having people claim a system is terri le because they are not using it for what it is designed for is rather bad, like complaining about a hammer not screwing in screws.
But perhaps when I get the full draft together, maybe you can read and get an idea of what I'm going for.
My advice is know yourself. What exactly do you want from your games? Stop trying to make everyone else play the way you do. Find the players that already play the way you do. Also, its never going to be a 100% match. Ever. You need to learn a certain level of compromise. Everyone has their own comfort zone of compromise. Within it, you will find a great gaming group.
Kind of hard to find players of a specific style if you can not describe the style you are looking for.
Also, there is no reason to limit one's self to a single style.
My advice is know yourself. What exactly do you want from your games? Stop trying to make everyone else play the way you do. Find the players that already play the way you do. Also, its never going to be a 100% match. Ever. You need to learn a certain level of compromise. Everyone has their own comfort zone of compromise. Within it, you will find a great gaming group.
Interesting Character wrote:
Kind of hard to find players of a specific style if you can not describe the style you are looking for.
Yes, I know. Which, is why the best way to find out is to play.
Interesting Character wrote:
Also, there is no reason to limit one's self to a single style.
I have played, and do play. But there is more than just compromise. Compromise implies that people have one way they want to play and just have to not be prickly about things being their way. This is entirely different from aiming for different styles, the latter being more akin to choosing whether to play chess or checkers. Further, sometimes essential elements of a style is incompatible with other styles, meaning that comprise in such a case means not bothering to try to play in a particular style.
Now, I have experienced a style of play that has been a dozen times more satisfying than the style that most players I meet play. But the difference in style is not about the mechanics as I've played the same system in both ways.
So, if I want to get a few people to try out this other style, or to even ask if someone is interested in this other style, I need to be able to communicate what the style is. Especially as most players I come across are like Haladir, and think the basic premise of the different style is invalid. Haladir above countered my claim about the rules being secondary to the game itself, he claimed that the mechanics are the game. Notice that he did not say it was a preference, because he doesn't see it as a preference. To him, it is inherent in the very concept of having a system that the system must be the focus of the game. That is how he presents it, and how he forms all his arguments.
How can I get someone to understand and try out a style if they can't even accept the style as a valid way of playing?
How can I get someone to understand and try out a style if they can't even accept the style as a valid way of playing?
You can't. If someone doesn't accept it as a valid way of playing, all the logic in the world isn't going to get them to try it out.
If you run into someone like that, recognize that they aren't someone who wants to play with you, and keep looking for someone who does accept that style as valid. Other people don't owe you any of their time and attention, so when they say "no", that's your answer.
You can't browbeat people into doing things your way unless you have some kind of financial or emotional power over them. It may work with your family or your employees, but it's not going to work with people who are associating with you voluntarily.
*Crafting example, not in the rules. My example of a sword making contest works because that is how the underlying system works. I didn't have to guess nor make an arbitrary choice in the example. The underlying foundation of d20 makes it quite clear. Anyone who understands the d20 system and needed to make a crafting contest can easily see this obvious method for handling it. It is exactly what would be expected if there were official rules for it.
Not the point. It's easy to improvise rules for a sword making contest. As it would be to have one in pretty much any system that had any crafting skill system at all. Opposed skill checks are kind of a basic thing pretty much anywhere.
D20 isn't better at it and it might be worse than some, since there's no degrees of success mechaFor example, jeff says d20 isn't linked to the world like my jump example, but doesn't actually give any supporting evidence, and yet the Calibrating Expectations article runs the numbers on several stats and examples, aka, is supporting evidence.nic. By the rules, either both craftsmen succeed at a masterwork sword or they don't. No way to distinguish between a narrow success with a 20 and a master getting a 40 - they both end up with masterwork swords.
Interesting Character wrote:
Jump, explicit link to real results, the swinginess of d20. Technically should be 3d6, but a single d20 is a close analogue and with a flat probability curve makes the extremes more common which increases the chance for the more interesting situations that come from extreme results. Use the d20 for more common interestingly non-standard results, or 3d6 for better approximation of reality. The average and range of each are approximately the same. Dnd is a game after all, and some adjustments were made to increase the fun, but that doesn't totally negate the foundation it was built on.
3d6 isn't significantly better. The variation in competition tends to be a few feet. The randomness in the game overwhelms the skill in a way it doesn't in real life. It's the very foundation of the game that doesn't match reality
And we see this often enough in game - where it's pretty common for people with what our calibrated expectations tell us are really high real world level skills fail, while barely trained amateurs succeed, just thanks to the random number generator being huge compared to the skill numbers.
This is part of why PF has a Take 10 rule, just to let the skilled act as if they're reliably competent.
Or take something apparently simple like an arm wrestling contest. Simple opposed strength checks would seem appropriate, right? But then the frail old grandma is going to beat the brawny barbarian far more often than she should. He's only got a +5 advantage or so.
Interesting Character wrote:
For example, jeff says d20 isn't linked to the world like my jump example, but doesn't actually give any supporting evidence, and yet the Calibrating Expectations article runs the numbers on several stats and examples, aka, is supporting evidence.
I can't really give more examples of it not matching here, since that wasn't my point. The point was the most skills don't have anything nearly as measurable to look at as jump. They're mostly used in opposition to each other or as sort of vaguely assigned DCs that are hard to map to anything real.
Jump is the exception because it's nice and simple with a direct relation of skill check result to feet jumped.
You can't browbeat people into doing things your way unless you have some kind of financial or emotional power over them. It may work with your family or your employees, but it's not going to work with people who are associating with you voluntarily.
You are missing the point. There is a difference between asking a guy to drive a car and him saying "no" vs him saying "what car?"
I'm not trying to browbeat anyone, but they can not say "yeah, I'll drive that car" if they can't even see the car.
Thus, I'm trying to be able to reveal the car so they can see it and then they can actually decide whether to try it or not. Else, it isn't a choice at all, since they can't agree to try it if they can't see it.
So, if I understand what you are saying, people like Haladir can't "see" your "car" even though they are "automotive engineers" and have a great deal of experience and knowledge about "cars".
They can see other "cars" but not the one you can see?
Not the point. It's easy to improvise rules for a sword making contest. As it would be to have one in pretty much any system that had any crafting skill system at all. Opposed skill checks are kind of a basic thing pretty much anywhere.
But the improve is not just simple and obvious, but it fits smoothly beyond just a single check.The example I gave goes far beyond simply deciding who wins. A large part of that is because this,
Quote:
D20 isn't better at it and it might be worse than some, since there's no degrees of success.
...
By the rules, either both craftsmen succeed at a masterwork sword or they don't. No way to distinguish between a narrow success with a 20 and a master getting a 40 - they both end up with masterwork swords.
is false. There are degrees of success. That is the who point of the numbers, degrees of success is an emergent result of how the numbers are connected to reality.
Look at the example I gave, not only does it fit and make sense, you can look at the numbers as having meaning beyond success/fail and that inherently gives you degrees of success without needing any additional mechanics to explicitly call it out.
This builds and follows naturally from how d20 works. Other systems however, might be able to rule 0 a contest, the result will not give you a foundation fir anything else, so if you decided to do something else you need to build a new ruling from scratch because nothing about "success" gives you any foundation for anything else.
D20 has a numerical basis that is connectedto the world and makes it work together so well that a ruling can still be so tied in that it is point for other rulings to build upon.
Quote:
3d6 isn't significantly better. The variation in competition tends to be a few feet. The randomness in the game overwhelms the skill in a way it doesn't in real life. It's the very foundation of the game that doesn't match reality
And we see this often enough in game - where it's pretty common for people with what our calibrated expectations tell us are really high real world level skills fail, while barely trained amateurs succeed, just thanks to the random number generator being huge compared to the skill numbers.
This is part of why PF has a Take 10 rule, just to let the skilled act as if they're reliably competent.
Or take something apparently simple like an arm wrestling contest. Simple opposed strength checks would seem appropriate, right? But then the frail old grandma is going to beat the brawny barbarian far more often than she should. He's only got a +5 advantage or so.
Did you bother reading the article? The article shows this isn't a problem.
Granted, it isn't perfect, but it is nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be, but it is a game for fun. It isn't meant to be a perfect simulation, but it is very good at it, good enough to rely on in the ways I have shown.
Also, if you read the article, you'd see how it isn't just skill checks. Things like encumbrance and strength scores have this matching as well.
As for grandma vs the barbarian, did you account for the strength penalties from aging? How about the skillful technique since arm wrestling is not at all purely strength vs strength? Also, in 3d6, +5 is a massive difference. A +5 vs the grandma is a 98.15% chance of beating the grandma. That is not at all a glaring problem in numbers.
So, if I understand what you are saying, people like Haladir can't "see" your "car" even though they are "automotive engineers" and have a great deal of experience and knowledge about "cars".
They can see other "cars" but not the one you can see?
Pretty much. He can't accept the mechanics not being the focus of the game, because he doesn't see it, he doesn't see how it would work, he doesn't understand it, so it isn't a real possibility to him, it just doesn't follow "how the universe works" according to his mind's eye. That is why he so vehemently argues agaist rules being useful but ultimately secondary and unrequired to the game.
Given the banter we have had, do you really think he could even try playing my style if he wanted to just see what it was like?
So, if I understand what you are saying, people like Haladir can't "see" your "car" even though they are "automotive engineers" and have a great deal of experience and knowledge about "cars".
They can see other "cars" but not the one you can see?
Pretty much. He can't accept the mechanics not being the focus of the game, because he doesn't see it, he doesn't see how it would work, he doesn't understand it, so it isn't a real possibility to him, it just doesn't follow "how the universe works" according to his mind's eye. That is why he so vehemently argues agaist rules being useful but ultimately secondary and unrequired to the game.
I never said that game mechanics should be the focus of the game. I'm saying that mechanics are the framework through which you play the game and are inseparable from the play experience. Good/appropriate mechanics enhance the genre elements of the game: they emphasize what the game is supposed to be about and deemphasise what it isn't about. When there's a good match, the mechanics pretty much fall away so that the focus is the game, not the rules. IOW, the rules are there to support the game, but the rules themselves matter: They are baked in to how you approach and play the game. With different rules, you have a different game, even if you're using the same characters, plot elements, etc.
It's like Descartes' "mind/body duality" theory of mind: He believed that the human mind and body were separate things entirely and that a mind existed apart from the body. Today's understanding is that the mind is an emergent property of the physical structures of the human body, and thus the two are inseparable.
If I understand your argument (and, 120 posts in, I am still not sure I do) your idea of "play the game" is for the players to state their actions in-character, using only what their characters can see and interact with, and with no consideration to the rules or mechanics of the RPG system/rules your're playing. It's then up to the GM to determine whether and how to engage and apply the rules to determine the outcome of the players' stated actions. (This is, in a nutshell, OSR-style play.)
CrystalSeas: Thanks for the "automotive engineer" analogy. I don't know if that's a proper analogy, but I would consider myself a very experienced role-playing gamer, a solid RPG adventure designer, a dilettante RPG system designer, and a student of RPG design theory who's read many different takes on the subject. I've never (as yet) been paid for any of this, so I like to think of myself as more of an "advanced amateur."
...and I like to think I know what I'm talking about:
* I've been playing and GMing RPGs for nearly 40 years.
* In that time, I have played and/or run north of 150 different RPG systems.
* I have read at least that number of RPGs I haven't yet brought to the table.
* I have played in or run campaigns of 6 or more sessions of at least 30 different RPGs. (Possibly more—30 was the number I could come up with after about five minutes of thinking about the question.)
* The system I have the most experience with is OGL/3.x, having played that system for about 15 years (2000-2015). (I've played D&D 3.0, Iron Heroes, D&D 3.5, d20 Modern, PF 1e, Mutants & Masterminds, Call of Cthulhu d20, Star Wars d20, Castles & Crusades, and 13th Age... not to mention several D&D "retro-clones" that re-created earlier editions of D&D using the OGL.)
* I have read a LOT of books on RPG design, too many to list here.
* I have had long discussions, whether online, via videochat, or in person, with dozens of RPG designers regarding the theory and practice of RPG design theory. Many of these designers work outside of the D&D family of games.
* I have written and begun playtesting of three new RPGs. Two are in alpha testing and are not quite ready for the public. The one that is public is Ultraviolet World
Interesting Character: Please understand that I find it somewhat insulting when you make up your own arbitrary definitions of terms that are generally understood as terms of art in the RPG design field, and then accuse me of misusing those terms because they don't conform to your personal definitions.
I am legitimately trying to understand what you mean, but I am having a very difficult time following your argument. Your argument seems to rest on contradictory premises that undercut each other.
And you keep referring to The Alexandrian blog as if it is the be-all and end-all of RPG best practices. While I have no beef with that author, he is coming at the subject from a very particular point of view with a focus on a narrow sliver of RPG design space. You appear to be taking much of what the author presents as universal advice on all RPGs. But the advice simply does not apply to games that are based on a different game design philosophy.
Your arguments all seem to be completely locked into and OGL/3.5 approach, while at the same time you state that players should not be focusing their efforts on the rules themselves. And I find that self-contradictory: The OGL/3.5 ruleset was specifically designed such that players need to be fully cognizant of the rules to play their characters effectively. The complexity of the ruleset encourages a "character build" minigame where the player needs to craft their character build choices to hit certain power ranks at certain character levels or they're not "pulling their weight."
Now, I get that this playstyle rankles you, and that you wish to move away from the "playing the rules" mentality.
But please understand this is the style of play the OGL/3.5 ruleset is specifically designed to encourage. If you try to take an OSR playstle approach using OGL/3.5 rules, you aren't playing the game in the way the system was designed: You are setting yourself and your players up for a situation where the rules detract from the kind of play you want to encourage, and you'll find yourself frequently having to ignore/selectively apply the existing rules or write your own subsystems to handle what you want to do.
Game design matters. Rulesets matter. Your playstyle matters. To get the best experience out of an RPG, you need to choose a ruleset that encourages the genre elements and the style of play that you want to have/provide for your players.
IDK, about this car that folks cant see. I think its more trying to convince us that a boat is a car. When we complain that the boat sits on the trailer and doesnt go anywhere, we are being told we are focusing too much on transportation.
Also, if you cant get any ground with this bunch of folks (who love RPGs so much they spend time out of their day discussing it on forums), I'd give up any chance of a word, phrase, or simple sentence to recruit players with any solid understanding of expectations.
to recruit players with any solid understanding of expectations.
I would guess that getting into games run by the person who wrote the blog is the best option until he's able to communicate his thoughts more clearly.
to recruit players with any solid understanding of expectations.
I would guess that getting into games run by the person who wrote the blog is the best option until he's able to communicate his thoughts more clearly.
Well, he's specifically said that doesn't work except with players who are new to RPGs.
Because we're already too set in our ways to understand how it's supposed to be done, apparently.
If I understand your argument (and, 120 posts in, I am still not sure I do) your idea of "play the game" is for the players to state their actions in-character, using only what their characters can see and interact with, and with no consideration to the rules or mechanics of the RPG system/rules your're playing. It's then up to the GM to determine whether and how to engage and apply the rules to determine the outcome of the players' stated actions. (This is, in a nutshell, OSR-style play.)
This is how I read him too.
And I like to play in that style and generally enjoy the RPGs most that way.
It's the part where he claims D20 is the only/best RPG for that style, that really breaks me. But I think we've worn him down to the point of it not being any actual D20 game, but some hypothetical ur-d20 that might not even use a d20, since he's been talking about 3d6 instead in some recent replies to me.
If I understand your argument (and, 120 posts in, I am still not sure I do) your idea of "play the game" is for the players to state their actions in-character, using only what their characters can see and interact with, and with no consideration to the rules or mechanics of the RPG system/rules your're playing. It's then up to the GM to determine whether and how to engage and apply the rules to determine the outcome of the players' stated actions. (This is, in a nutshell, OSR-style play.)
This is how I read him too.
And I like to play in that style and generally enjoy the RPGs most that way.
It's the part where he claims D20 is the only/best RPG for that style, that really breaks me. But I think we've worn him down to the point of it not being any actual D20 game, but some hypothetical ur-d20 that might not even use a d20, since he's been talking about 3d6 instead in some recent replies to me.
I really enjoy OSR-style play!
Sitting on my RPG bookshelf at the moment are: Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook, Esoteric Enterprises, Electric Bastionland, The Black Hack, Troika!, Mörk Borg, Macchiato Monsters, and for the sake of completeness, the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook (TSR, 1978), AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide (TSR, 1979) and AD&D Monster Manual (TSR, 1977). I also have a bunch of printed OSR modules and supplements that I won't bother listing.
My point was: If you want to run an OSR-style RPG, you should use a system that encourages and supports that style of play... like any of the above.
My point was: If you want to run an OSR-style RPG, you should use a system that encourages and supports that style of play... like any of the above.
How does the OP go about an OSR style in D20? I know, I know, it doesn't line up, but for the OP it does. That is the nut they are trying to crack. (Assuming they would agree they want OSR style which I've a sneaking suspicion they wont)
If I understand your argument (and, 120 posts in, I am still not sure I do) your idea of "play the game" is for the players to state their actions in-character, using only what their characters can see and interact with, and with no consideration to the rules or mechanics of the RPG system/rules your're playing. It's then up to the GM to determine whether and how to engage and apply the rules to determine the outcome of the players' stated actions. (This is, in a nutshell, OSR-style play.)
This is how I read him too.
And I like to play in that style and generally enjoy the RPGs most that way.
It's the part where he claims D20 is the only/best RPG for that style, that really breaks me. But I think we've worn him down to the point of it not being any actual D20 game, but some hypothetical ur-d20 that might not even use a d20, since he's been talking about 3d6 instead in some recent replies to me.
I really enjoy OSR-style play!
Sitting on my RPG bookshelf at the moment are: Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook, Esoteric Enterprises, Electric Bastionland, The Black Hack, Troika!, Mörk Borg, Macchiato Monsters, and for the sake of completeness, the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook (TSR, 1978), AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide (TSR, 1979) and AD&D Monster Manual (TSR, 1977). I also have a bunch of printed OSR modules and supplements that I won't bother listing.
My point was: If you want to run an OSR-style RPG, you should use a system that encourages and supports that style of play... like any of the above.
It's weird for me, because while that's (part of) the style the modern "OSR" talks about, it was never really my experience with the actual old school games - especially AD&D.
I found it more in lighter games like Call of Cthulhu and later Amber.
My AD&D experience was with AD&D as an incomplete rules-heavy game, which needed to be patched with complex house rules to cover the missing bits in the same kind of detail as the existing rules. Or to fix broken existing rules.
Most of the OSR retro-clone folks go back either to the original 1974 edition of D&D ("OD&D" or "D&D 0e") or to the 1981 Tom Moldvay edition "Basic/Expert (B/X) D&D". These systems are much simpler and mechanically cleaner than AD&D, but had some weird arbitrary limitations on what character options you could play. Those weird limitations are what drew so many players to AD&D.
An aspect of playing RPGs that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves is the concept of table culture. These are the unspoken guidelines and expectations that vary from group to group. Table culture affects aspects of play like the etiquette of who brings snacks, how much "rules lawyering" is tolerable, how much in-character play is expected, how much jokiness or out-of-game conversation is allowed, whether it's okay to check your phone when your character isn't in the spotlight, etc.
Most of the OSR retro-clone folks go back either to the original 1974 edition of D&D ("OD&D" or "D&D 0e") or to the 1981 Tom Moldvay edition "Basic/Expert (B/X) D&D". These systems are much simpler and mechanically cleaner than AD&D, but had some weird arbitrary limitations on what character options you could play. Those weird limitations are what drew so many players to AD&D.
An aspect of playing RPGs that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves is the concept of table culture. These are the unspoken guidelines and expectations that vary from group to group. Table culture affects aspects of play like the etiquette of who brings snacks, how much "rules lawyering" is tolerable, how much in-character play is expected, how much jokiness or out-of-game conversation is allowed, whether it's okay to check your phone when your character isn't in the spotlight, etc.
And to a great extent, especially in those older games, how much you go for house rules vs one-off rulings.
An aspect of playing RPGs that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves is the concept of table culture. These are the unspoken guidelines and expectations that vary from group to group. Table culture affects aspects of play like the etiquette of who brings snacks, how much "rules lawyering" is tolerable, how much in-character play is expected, how much jokiness or out-of-game conversation is allowed, whether it's okay to check your phone when your character isn't in the spotlight, etc.
One group I played with for about 5 years had a core of 3 players and a GM, with three other folks who were somewhat less reliable about being there.
A couple of those floating players could shift the table culture 180 degrees, especially if they were playing at the same time.
It had nothing to do with the rules, the game, the story, or the GM. The atmosphere at the table was very different when either one of them showed up. It wasn't that they were intentionally disruptive, or that they were not fun to play with. But they had extremely different expectations of "how the game was played" and were always pushing to get the rest of us to follow their interpretation of the rules exactly.
An aspect of playing RPGs that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves is the concept of table culture. These are the unspoken guidelines and expectations that vary from group to group. Table culture affects aspects of play like the etiquette of who brings snacks, how much "rules lawyering" is tolerable, how much in-character play is expected, how much jokiness or out-of-game conversation is allowed, whether it's okay to check your phone when your character isn't in the spotlight, etc.
And to a great extent, especially in those older games, how much you go for house rules vs one-off rulings.
Very true!
I can't tell you how many old-school players will swear up and down on a stack of Bibles that rolling a natural 20 in combat indicated some sort of critical hit, but that's not in the rules at all in any of OD&D, AD&D, or B/X D&D!
That was such a common house-rule that WotC codified it in the OGL/3.0!
My AD&D experience was with AD&D as an incomplete rules-heavy game, which needed to be patched with complex house rules to cover the missing bits in the same kind of detail as the existing rules. Or to fix broken existing rules.
So I have a craptastic copy of the 197x DMG and have read through most of it at least once about 5 or 6 years ago. And, iirc, Gygax expressly says that's the way to play AD&D. Your campaign, your rules. Don't play my game, play yours.
IC: Is this how you consider "playing the game?" (It's pretty close to my style of play, TBH!)
Those examples confuse me. :)
In the first, the PC states they know Joe BBEG likes traps. And then there is a trap.
In the second, the PC states they know Joe BBEG isn't the type to use traps. And then there isn't a trap.
In the third, the PC states they Joe BBEG doesn't like traps, but references that's a "detail established earlier, different than above so we can show a different example of failure".
Are those all intended as previously established or is the PC establishing the first two cases, but not the last for some reason?
I suspect, though I could be wrong, that those wouldn't appeal to IC. They're too meta, too focused on intent, deliberately setting up choices and consequences. I suspect that IC wants the players/PCs to be focused on the world as it exists.
My AD&D experience was with AD&D as an incomplete rules-heavy game, which needed to be patched with complex house rules to cover the missing bits in the same kind of detail as the existing rules. Or to fix broken existing rules.
So I have a craptastic copy of the 197x DMG and have read through most of it at least once about 5 or 6 years ago. And, iirc, Gygax expressly says that's the way to play AD&D. Your campaign, your rules. Don't play my game, play yours.
Amiright?
Not sure what you're asking. I don't think Gygax explicitly said to either patch the game with specific house rules or to just make up one off rulings when something isn't covered, which was the distinction I was making here.
I'd have to go check what the actual text says. There's some form of Rule Zero, I'm sure, if that's what you're saying.
IC: Is this how you consider "playing the game?" (It's pretty close to my style of play, TBH!)
Those examples confuse me. :)
In the first, the PC states they know Joe BBEG likes traps. And then there is a trap.
In the second, the PC states they know Joe BBEG isn't the type to use traps. And then there isn't a trap.
In the third, the PC states they Joe BBEG doesn't like traps, but references that's a "detail established earlier, different than above so we can show a different example of failure".
Are those all intended as previously established or is the PC establishing the first two cases, but not the last for some reason?
I suspect, though I could be wrong, that those wouldn't appeal to IC. They're too meta, too focused on intent, deliberately setting up choices and consequences. I suspect that IC wants the players/PCs to be focused on the world as it exists.
Another thing to mention: Thiefy's player is remembering all the details from previous games. Stick with me here:
I run one campaign of PF 1e where, ostensibly we're supposed to meet 1/week on a Thursday from 7-10 pm. Firstly we don't anymore b/c 2020. However when we were we'd sometimes skip a week or 5.
Then, when we DID sit down to game there's usually about 15-20 minutes of BS while I get set up. We maybe get in 2.5 hours of actual game play. During that time it's such a brief window no one usually takes notes, not even me.
On top of THOSE details, there's also the fact that, despite me saying over and over that I like embedding clues and callbacks into the plot the players pretty much treat the game like a beer-and-pretzels type event. They don't really remember a lot of those subtle plot details from 3-8 sessions ago.
So in the instance of Thiefy, as the GM I'd be all like "What's that look like?" and they'd be like "I roll a Perception check. Did I find the plans?" because they wouldn't be trying to recall some obscure detail about how the boss likes or dislikes using traps from that one time in Cool Ass Dragon City.
THEY, the PLAYERS, wouldn't remember. They've maybe gone a couple months from that detail to now; they are adults with mortgages, kids, stressful jobs and such; it's now several months into the RL apocalypse type times. Needless to say the players might not recall the trap detail.
But THIEFY would! Should I penalize the players for forgetting about the boss' affinity for traps and use the binary "you find a trap with your perception check" or "you don't find the trap; roll a Fort save vs poison"? Or, should I be something like this:
Me: what's that look like, how is Thiefy searching the desk?
Player: Umm... I make a Perception check to search
Me: ok, but... (checks my own campaign outline) remember that thing back in Cool Ass Dragon City, where the boss went out of his way to hire those trapsmiths?
Player nods, unsure
Me: Ok, well, Thiefy seems to recall something about that fact. Are you sure you want to go poking around...
Player: oh right... the NIGHTMARE poison! Ok, I'll check for traps first
Me: You can do that but just bear in mind; searching for traps will take 1-4 rounds. Based on the guard schedules the might be here any minute
Player: I'm still checking; I don't want none of that Nightmare juice...
And the scene might progress from there.
See, the more I rely on the cleverness of my PLAYERS versus the hyper-skilled adventurers and sometimes genius-level intellects they're playing, the more I will be disappointed by the inevitable difference between the 2, you get what I'm saying?
Jenn the programmer with social anxiety isn't super outgoing or glib; her level 4 Bard however is
Mike is an ex-Navy guy; he's spent a great deal of his adult life in either submarines or machine shops. He's playing a nature-loving swamp druid however who has spent HER whole life meticulously cataloguing every plant there
Erik is a 7th grade science teacher - very smart and analytical, but specifically aware of how things work in the really real world. His Ratfolk investigator/wizard however is a freaking EINSTIEN level creative thinker/problem solver who wears magic lenses that see into other spectrums, go microscopic or telescopic at a command and allow him to perceive things with ridiculous detail
All of these are players who vary greatly from the PCs they play. The humans in RL may not have the skills, knowledge or capabilities for mental leaps that their characters have.
This is why, using PF, I abstract everything to skill checks, ability checks, or I prompt them myself with some of that detail. The mechanics are there, the crunch is there in PF 1e to simulate those leaps.
Sometimes I'll just assume based on a passive check the character would succeed in some measure and just narrate the result. Other times I prompt the player a bit like in the example above. Still other times I might call for a skill check or something but follow the "fail forward" method; they find the plans or whatever but the guards heard them.
Finally, if it's a really difficult action which the PC isn't particularly suited for I might call for a straight-up roll and let the consequences fall where they may.
My own key takeaway from the article is a philosophy I try to employ always - players exist to take actions and change the world their characters inhabit. I exist to deliver the world's reaction to being changed.
If I'm dumb enough that the ONLY way to move the plot forward is for Thiefy to get the plans from the boss' office, I'm gonna HAVE Thiefy get those plans. The CONSEQUENCE of him obtaining those plans however is my job to provide. Does Thiefy pull it off scot free? Do the guards or the boss catch him in the act? Was there a secret trained wardog asleep in the corner the whole time, and just as Theify crouches and feels the plans secured to the underside of the desk he realizes he's staring into the slavering jaws of a hell hound?
My AD&D experience was with AD&D as an incomplete rules-heavy game, which needed to be patched with complex house rules to cover the missing bits in the same kind of detail as the existing rules. Or to fix broken existing rules.
So I have a craptastic copy of the 197x DMG and have read through most of it at least once about 5 or 6 years ago. And, iirc, Gygax expressly says that's the way to play AD&D. Your campaign, your rules. Don't play my game, play yours.
Amiright?
Not sure what you're asking. I don't think Gygax explicitly said to either patch the game with specific house rules or to just make up one off rulings when something isn't covered, which was the distinction I was making here.
I'd have to go check what the actual text says. There's some form of Rule Zero, I'm sure, if that's what you're saying.
I'd be interested in what it says specifically. I won't even argue with your followup.... er... at least I promise not to be a #### about it.
:D
I'd look it up myself but my coverless hardcopy is in a box somewhere in my parent's basement or attic.
My point was: If you want to run an OSR-style RPG, you should use a system that encourages and supports that style of play... like any of the above.
How does the OP go about an OSR style in D20? I know, I know, it doesn't line up, but for the OP it does. That is the nut they are trying to crack. (Assuming they would agree they want OSR style which I've a sneaking suspicion they wont)
On the contrary, the capacity to play OSR in D20 depends on the distinction I'm trying to clarify. So yea, this sums up the problem quite nicely.
I'm not certain I agree with all elements of OSR, but it's close enough, especially for this discussion.
Quote:
I never said that game mechanics should be the focus of the game. I'm saying that mechanics are the framework through which you play the game and are inseparable from the play experience. Good/appropriate mechanics enhance the genre elements of the game: they emphasize what the game is supposed to be about and deemphasise what it isn't about. When there's a good match, the mechanics pretty much fall away so that the focus is the game, not the rules.
Not quite what I meant. Yes, the mechanics falling away is an important part of what I'm trying to convey, but there is still a difference in how the mechanics impact your focus.
To use Halo as an example. Halo is a first person shooter. It has story, a good, engaging, and compelling story. But the game itself is about shooting aliens. When the player encounters a grunt, the player may not be thinking about how much dmg the pistol does, but the player does think of the grunt as a target, a thing to be shot. The player does not see a character with a name, a family or clan, motivations, likes and dislikes, etc. Narratively, the grunt has all those things, but they are irrelevent to the game of shooting aliens, and so those things do not get considered by the player because the player is there to shoot aliens, not to play an rpg.
Things in dnd or any other tabletop game have two parts, the narrative form, and the function. In Balduar's Gate, the tables in the tavern may look like tables, but they function like low walls. So in playing Balduar's Gate, a player thinks according to function. They don't bother trying to flip any table because the tables do not function that way. But the advantage of tabletop is that the function of objects can sync with the form and thus function like the real world thing it represents. But players do not always consider the object functioning like the real world object, instead they think in terms of game-like functioning. So even though flipping the table is actually possible at the table, a player that gets stuck in the rules thinks of the table as a set piece, a non-interactive object unless the rules explicitly call out the object, and even then, only the function the rules explicitly mention.
When you think of a table in terms of what real tables can do, the mechanics do not matter in choosing what to do, but if you think of a table in terms of what the mechanics allow, then the mechanics are essential.
Quote:
It's like Descartes' "mind/body duality" theory of mind: He believed that the human mind and body were separate things entirely and that a mind existed apart from the body. Today's understanding is that the mind is an emergent property of the physical structures of the human body, and thus the two are inseparable.
The distinction here is that with one perspective, the mechanics are integral to the game and can't be separated, but the other perspective does not rely on the rules and can be separated. Unlike the human mind, the truth with rpgs is subjective, not objective. Seeing them as only one way is a limitation in your thinking, not a limit of the game or the world.
Quote:
If I understand your argument (and, 120 posts in, I am still not sure I do) your idea of "play the game" is for the players to state their actions in-character, using only what their characters can see and interact with, and with no consideration to the rules or mechanics of the RPG system/rules your're playing. It's then up to the GM to determine whether and how to engage and apply the rules to determine the outcome of the players' stated actions. (This is, in a nutshell, OSR-style play.)
Sort of, but not quite. The ability to play that way is easier in the fashion I'm trying to describe, but frreform also fits your description and does so better even than what I promote since the gm could apply mechanics black-box style according to your description.
People have a shape or direction of thinking. There are a lot of aspects of thinking that could be one way, or another, and which way a person sides with lays the groundwork for a massive amount of personality, morality and how the person thinks and understands the world. This is why people tend towards being drama only or drama+details type of audience. The latter need the details to enjoy the drama, while the drama folks do not. The difference is that they think in opposite directions.
In rpgs, most think in one perspective when it comes to mechanics, and find it difficult, uncomfortable, or even impossible to see mechanics from any other perspective. This is why most people either favor rules-lite to freeform or crunchy systems that seem more minitures combat than rpg, because like you, they can only see mechanics in one single way.
Consider reading a book. Does the language the book is written in matter to telling the story? Not really. You can translate it to any language and it would still be the same story, but some languages could be better or worse, as some languages may not have good terms for certain concepts and thus require longer and more complex sentances than other languages which can say the same thing with just a word. On the other hand, those with the other perspective are better described as peom authors, a major aspect if not the whole point, is the language patterns, such as ryming, in which the language matters because changing the language loses that which makes it a poem. Things just won't ryme when translated into another language. Thus, are you looking at the story, or the peom? For one, the language doesn't matter to the goal of the work, while in the other it is essential.
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Please understand that I find it somewhat insulting when you make up your own arbitrary definitions of terms that are generally understood as terms of art in the RPG design field, and then accuse me of misusing those terms because they don't conform to your personal definitions.
I wasn't making accusations. It is a natural part of language drift. I was trying to clarify that I was using the term in a literal sense rather than idiomatic sense. And yes, there is a literal sense, it is when you take the meaning of the composite parts together and not the altered defintions that have drifted from the literal meaning due to cultural use.
I make no claim that the terms are wrong, though I disagree with what they generally mean now, I don't call it wrong. Sometimes the way the world works will lead to things you don't agree with. In any case, I don't have better terms than the literal meaning, so I used it for the original meaning and tried to clarify that I had done so.
There was nothing arbitrary about it.
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And you keep referring to The Alexandrian blog as if it is the be-all and end-all of RPG best practices.
Not at all, but he does seem to understand the perspective and he is much better than me at conveying concepts and putting things into words. I'm autistic, words are not my purview.
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You appear to be taking much of what the author presents as universal advice on all RPGs. But the advice simply does not apply to games that are based on a different game design philosophy.
What you are missing is that there is another layer entirely which changes what does and does not matter. From one perspective, the mechanics are integral, but from the other perspective, the mechanics do not.
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Your arguments all seem to be completely locked into and OGL/3.5 approach, while at the same time you state that players should not be focusing their efforts on the rules themselves. And I find that self-contradictory:
Frankly I can indeed see why it seems that way, but other systems do not do what d20 does, which makes them terrible as examples. Kind of hard to use a system as an example when it does not do what I'm trying to show. And I can't use my system as I do not have it put together in a shareable format yet (it's a bunch of scattered notes at the moment and some elements are not yet set in stone).
Of course, this does seem to have split into two separate topics, the distinction of perspectives and why d20 is the best for this other perspective, though if you understand one, the other follows.
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. The complexity of the ruleset encourages a "character build" minigame where the player needs to craft their character build choices to hit certain power ranks at certain character levels or they're not "pulling their weight."
This is so utterly false that it isn't funny. And not even a matter of the distinction I'm trying to show. If you think characters need to be carefully built to meet certain requirements for "pulling their weight" then you are missing out on 70% of all the possibile things the system could acomplish, even without understanding the distinction I'm trying to show. To think of this as the way to play 3.x is in fact probably as close to actually being "wrong" as you can possibly get.
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If you try to take an OSR playstle approach using OGL/3.5 rules, you aren't playing the game in the way the system was designed:
I really wonder how carefully you read the rules. Most players don't actually read the rules cover to cover. They usually learn from others as they play instead, and thus often learn wrong. This is not just rpgs but also card games and boardgames as well. A good example is what happens when you land on free parking in Monopoly. It is amazing how many people think the official rules let you collect money, but that's actually just a very common thing that was learned wrong.
There are many facets of 3.x that are flat out ignored and unknown to most players, even to the point of impacting how wotc designed modules after the first few got berated hard for following the rules.
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Because we're already too set in our ways to understand how it's supposed to be done, apparently.
I wouldn't say experienced players are incapable, just as normal human nature, the more familiar people are with thinking about something in a particular way, the more difficult it becomes for them to learn to think in a radically different way about that familiar thing. This is a general trait that goes beyond just games.
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It's the part where he claims D20 is the only/best RPG for that style, that really breaks me. But I think we'e worn him down to the point of it not being any actual D20 game, but some hypothetical ur-d20 that might not even use a d20, since he's been talking about 3d6 instead in some recent replies to me.
There are two points to address here, the second I will address first. There is a difference between the core foundation of d20 and the various systems built on it. Whether there is a Monk class is not part of the core game that is d20, it is a character option fit for only certain settings. Most players do not distinguish between the core game and mere player options. That would be a mistake. I have from the beginning been talking about the core foundation of d20 and never claimed to be about a single specific d20 system. Additionally, the d20 system is named after the d20, but not dependant on it being a d20. Even more, a system using a d20 does not make a game a d20 system based game. 5e for example is not d20, despite using a d20 as the main check die.
The first point however, d20 being the best comes from it being casually simulationist, which is ideal for using mechanics for communication and description. A system that is not simulationist at all can not effectively be used to ease communication nor description since nothing in the mechanics is tied specifically to the "laws of physics" of the narrative world and therefore depends entirely on the gm to tie the check results to the narrative.
If you don't understand how to play without the rules being the game, then naturally the crunchiness would seem to work against the narritive focus. It is the fact that how one uses the rules can be different that enables the rules to not be used as the game itself, an essential element of this discussion.
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I can't tell you how many old-school players will swear up and down on a stack of Bibles that rolling a natural 20 in combat indicated some sort of critical hit, but that's not in the rules at all in any of OD&D, AD&D, or B?X D&D!
Like I said above, most do not learn the rules from reading the rulebooks. Hence their idea fo the game is often heavily skewed.
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[article on perception]
I'll address this later. I've written enough at the moment.
Hoo boy. I think I understand your points even less that I thought I had earlier.
To be frank, I have no idea what you are trying to express.
I think that I will concede that your perspective on the design, theory, and practice of RPGs is completely alien and inscrutable to lesser minds like my own
I am bowing out of this conversation to have fun playing hippie story-games with like-minded folks.
Consider the game of chess. What is the role of the rules in the game? Why have the rules? What purpose do they serve?
A simplified answer is that in chess, the rules define a playspace, a "grid/system of behaviour." In chess, the point (and goal of the players) is to learn and master the playspace and it's limitations and then use that mastery to achieve a game state that means victory.
I call that the gamist perspective. Master the system to achieve a desired game state.
Now, let's compare that to freeform. There are actually a few possible player goals, but none of them are about mastery of a system. The players fall onto a 2d spectrum. The four corners of that spectrum are,
1, (storycrafter) to make a story that is a great story, usually according to the same standards as being an author of a book. Choices will be made, not based on the character's motivations, but rather based on what makes a good story.
2, (the joker) to have fun doing stuff one can't do in real life, like swinging on chandeliers for example. The goal is not about character motivations, but rather about what the player thinks is cool or funny.
3, (the role player) to immerse one's self in the role of the character, to experience what it is like to be that character. The goal actually is to act on the character's motivations, and to experience what happens as a result.
4, (the controller) to exert control over the world, to face obstacles and defeat them, to feel capable, victorious, and most especially empowered in a way that one rarely achieves in the real world.
For obvious reasons, none of the player goals in freeform roleplay are about mechanics.
As said before, the reason to include mechanics in a freeform game are to aid in communication and description of the narrative world. How strong is your character? There is no easy answer, and it normally takes a bit of back-and-forth for everyone to have a roughly similar idea of how strong a character is. This can be solved by writing a table listing various strengths, as then it becomes simple and quick to answer how strong a character is, you just state which listing on the table best matches. Number the listings and you basically have a numerical spectrum of strength. Once everyone knows the table, how strong a character is can be answered with a number instead of a conversation.
This has value due to how the ability to make choices drastically increases the need for understanding one's capabilities.
In harry potter, the readers do not have a complete list of spells known by harry. The readers don't need such a list, they don't need to know what spells harry could choose to use, they only need to know which one he actually uses. But when one has to make the choice themself, suddenly, there is a need to know what the options are and a reasonable idea of why one choice might be better or worse than another.
Thus, a player needs to know what a character's capabilities are in far greater depth than a mere passive reader.
This alone, without considering any other benefit, gives a reason to have "mechanics" and "stats," as they define in simple terms what a character can do and to communicate that capability easily and with reasonable precision.
These stats would of course "look" like the stats in a chess game, but their use is entirely different. The use of stats here is not about defining a playspace to be mastered.
Kind of, though I'll point out that the vast majority of so-called "free form" rpgs aren't actually completely without rules. They're more rules light. Not so codified as something like PF, but enough to have a decent idea of your capabilities. In your Harry Potter example - players would need to know what spells their characters have learned and perhaps some measure of how skilled they were on a broom - but not how many hexes they could move on a broom in a round or what their turn radius was, like they might get in a crunchier game.
What you get is more of a frame of reference than strict values.
But I might be anticipating.
I'd also likely quibble with the 4 corner types of players, but I'm not sure if that's going to be relevant to the general thrust of the argument, so I'll reserve that, other than to say that some players are in fact focused on the system mastery aspect, but they're not likely to be found in more freeform games, because they won't enjoy them as much.
I understand to play a role, you need stats to help define choices and boundaries. However, I dont understand how that negates a playspace. The second you draw a box it becomes a game.
If this situation was playing in a Powered by the Apocalpyse RPG, the transcription wrote:
Player: Against my better judgement, I drop back in to that discussion forum to see how it's going.
GM: Okay. It looks like the poster you'd been arguing with has taken a different approach and appears to be talking in terms of Ron Edwards' 'GNS Theory of Role-Playing Game Design.' You feel the siren-song of somebody being wrong on the Internet on a subject you hold dear, and desperately want to set them straight. I'm going to call this a compulsion effect. If you give in to the compulsion, and re-engage, mark XP and start typing. If you want to try to resist, you'll need to Gird Your Mind. What do you do?
Player: Ugh. I attempt to resist the compulsion and steel my will to close the forum window and head over to Twitter instead.
GM: Okay! Roll plus Sharp.
Player: rolls:2d6 ⇒ (2, 1) = 3 plus 1 is a four. Solid miss.
GM: Okay. <reads the Move> 'On a miss, choose one from the list: a) You force yourself away but it's a struggle with yourself: Fill your Stress track. b) You give in to the compulsion and gain +1 ongoing for the scene while you do exactly what it wants, or c) You come to your senses sometime later, not quite sure of what you might have done. What do you do?
Player: With a burst of sudden rhetorical insight, I start typing frantically. I'll show him!
Okay, maybe that was a bit cheeky, but the above is an illustration of how game mechanics and the narrative reinforce each other in the narrative-focused framework of an RPG that uses the PbtA framework.
I think we are now in game design theory.
I'm greatly simplifying the following: There are multiple books written on the topic and also a number of criticisms, and this is akin to the five-paragraph essay about a 1200-page book.
The GNS theory of RPG design breaks design along three axes: Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist
IC: You are pretty much on the mark when it comes to the gamist perspective: A gamist is trying to use the rules to win.
A narrativist is trying to use the rules to tell a compelling story.
A simulationist is trying to use the rules to simulate a series of events.
Any RPG is going to have values on all of the axes. The shape of game and how it plays out at the table is going to vary depending on how much emphasis the designers put on each of the thee axes.
And I'd like to go on, but I have a game to run in an hour and need to eat dinner!
Okay, maybe that was a bit cheeky, but the above is an illustration of how game mechanics and the narrative reinforce each other in the narrative-focused framework of an RPG that uses the PbtA framework.
I think we are now in game design theory.
I'm greatly simplifying the following: There are multiple books written on the topic and also a number of criticisms, and this is akin to the five-paragraph essay about a 1200-page book.
The GNS theory of RPG design breaks design along three axes: Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist
IC: You are pretty much...
You may have forgotten, but you already brought up GNS back when this thread first started and he dismissed it then.
And I usually just roll a will save - less typing. :)
Um, have any of you ever played with no rules at all, no dice, no mechanics, no character sheets, just a circle of chairs and talking through the game? (table rules, such as excluding explicit content, do not count)
As adults in a choose-your-own-adventure style game I mean.
