RPG systems are a journey, not the destination.

[dirtypool]

We never had any issues where having one set of dice per player caused any serious impediments to play.

[Interesting Character]

dirtypool wrote:

The definition I quoted suggests in its primary entry for 'art form' that for something to be considered an art form it must be recognized as a medium that is part of the Academic Tradition known as the Fine Arts. There are academies, colleges, conservatories and accrediting bodies that do actually determine what mediums are included in the Fine Arts curricula.

I'd like to point out that many if the things the GM does are things considered art. A GM is in large part a writer for example, and writing stories is an art.

There are also now art degrees for composite works that used to be new and unrecognized as art on their own yet built on existing artforms, and after a bit of social adjustment to the new form, became an art degree. Film and videogames are both now considered art.

GMing a rpg is much like film and videogames in that it is a composite built on art.

Additionally, I'd say that even if rpg is not considered an art form, there is the question if whether it should be added to the list of art forms. I contend that it should.

I've been spreading around the idea as much as possible, and yes, have even stated that I'd love to see a degree program in GMing rpg, along with all the academic study of it to refine it as an artform.

[Tristan d'Ambrosius]

The GM is in large part an arbitrator of the rules same as a basketball referee. Should a ref be considered an artist?

[dirtypool]

I think you're all getting a bit hung up on my parsing of the dictionary definition of the word Art Form. Multiple people hurling exceptions and justifications for why it is an art form at me when I never said it wasn't.

I stated that the primary definition included the clause about being considered one of the fine arts - which would by that definition make RPG's as an art form debatable.

Yes videogames are now a part of many collegiate fine arts programs, but it wasn't 30 years ago - you just had to get a plain old BA rather than a BFA.

The idea however that there should be a degree program in how to be a Gamemaster? It seems a little silly to me to develop an academic curriculum around that particular role of the gaming hobby. Designing RPG's makes sense to an extent, but just Gamemastering? What kind of course work should a degree in hobbyism entail?

[World's most interesting Pan]

The joke I was trying to make is that Socrates didn't consider a chef an artist. Times change and so does the definition of art. It ever expands like our language and culture.

Lets get back to talking about RPG systems and our experiences, because we got some topic drift that's likely to just keep being circular.

Degrees of success has become a very popular mechanic in TTRPGs. Which system does it best for you?

[Interesting Character]

Tristan d'Ambrosius wrote:

The GM is in large part an arbitrator of the rules same as a basketball referee. Should a ref be considered an artist?

This is an incorrect statement. Not only are there the "storygames" where the rules are more metagame rules rather than rules about the events in the game, but also, the idea that all rules must be followed exactly all the time is also incorrect. Not only is there rule 0 and rule of cool, but there are playstyles where something like the rule for unstable platform would only be used sometimes and not every single case where it could be argued that it'd apply.

Additionally, a basketball referee doesn't get involved in the game itself, they stay out of it unless a rule is broken, but a GM is the game. The GM shapes the whole campaign and is the single biggest impact on the game. The GM is far more of an entertainer than a referee. The GM immerses the player in the fictional world and brings the NPCs to life ideally making the players forget entirely about the real world, just like the best movies immerse the viewers.

There is no sports referee that does anything remotely like that.

[Interesting Character]

dirtypool wrote:

Designing RPG's makes sense to an extent, but just Gamemastering? What kind of course work should a degree in hobbyism entail?

I wouldn't call it a degree in hobbyism any more than call music degree a hobbyism just because an amateur guitar player plays for their friends only.

The coursework would entail a lot of existing classes, particular in writing and acting, the other arts about crafting compelling stories, characters, etc, and the presentation of fiction to an audience. I'd probably make minor adjustments to such classes, but they'd do as-is.

Additionally, a few classes in psych, such as counseling, to help with A) recognizing player types and learning to engage players in the way that best works for each player, and B) for acting as arbiter and resolving disagreements and other player frictions.

And I would add lots of practice in improvisation.

Add some history classes about the origins and older game styles and the evolution of the games over time, not to mention some general history for establishing patterns of how empires rise and fall, how individuals impact societies on a large scale, and plenty more about various cultures and how they develop and evolve. Not to mention a bunch more for the inspiration and knowledge that can be drawn from for developing unique fictions.

Some game design classes for the inevitable situations where a GM needs to adjust the rules to fit a particular campaign or to make rulings for when players do something not explicitly covered by the rules. Also shows how different rules types and philosophies work for different kinds of experiences for the players.

Lastly would be mostly custom classes about various techniques for handling things easily (many rules are hard or easy to use based more on the techniques utilized rather than the rule itself. Tracking Initiative for example can be made easy in many ways, but using other ways can make initiative a hassle that people would rather avoid) and in particular preparation and other rules such as "don't prep plots!" and why they exist and how to know when to break them.

[Interesting Character]

World's most interesting Pan wrote:

Degrees of success has become a very popular mechanic in TTRPGs. Which system does it best for you?

D20, because it isn't just a degree of success, but rather is "how good did the character do" separately from "how good does the character need to do to succeed?" and thus can easily inform and inspire the fiction around the resolution. Thus, simply failing by 5 does not automatically mean you suck, it just means that you needed to do far better.

[dirtypool]

“Interesting Character” wrote:

D20, because it isn't just a degree of success, but rather is "how good did the character do" separately from "how good does the character need to do to succeed?"

The D20 system did not have rules for degrees of success - lots of people online have written house rules to include it, but almost all of those were just charts. If the system itself has to be house ruled to include it - then the system cannot have handled it best because the system did not handle it at all.

Pathfinder 2 has degrees of success, for example, and it doesn’t just define that you needed to do better when you fail by 5 - a specific effect triggers on a failure, a worse on a critical failure, a better on a success, and an amazing effect on a critical success.

Personally I rather like Chronicles of Darkness’ degrees implementation, where exceptional successes impose positive conditions, and failures can be turned into dramatic failures that skew the narrative but provide experience to the player.

[Tristan d'Ambrosius]

Interesting Character wrote:

This is an incorrect statement.

This is how we're doing this? Okay.

Interesting Character wrote:

Not only are there the "storygames" where the rules are more metagame rules rather than rules about the events in the game, but also, the idea that all rules must be followed exactly all the time is also incorrect. Not only is there rule 0 and rule of cool, but there are playstyles where something like the rule for unstable platform would only be used sometimes and not every single case where it could be argued that it'd apply.

There are also not story games where the adjudication of the rules of the game for the players is vitally important to the players. Who does that arbitration? The GM. Rule 0 and the Rule of Cool you say? In so many games who is the arbitrator of these rules? Who has the finally say? Particularly if, as you postulate later, they are the game? It's the GM, right? So they arbitrate the 2 most important rules of the game? So they are in large part an arbitrator of the rules of the game deciding what play violates Rule 0 and the Rule of Cool much like a ref decides what violates the rules on traveling.

Interesting Character wrote:

Additionally, a basketball referee doesn't get involved in the game itself, they stay out of it unless a rule is broken, but a GM is the game. The GM shapes the whole campaign and is the single biggest impact on the game. The GM is far more of an entertainer than a referee. The GM immerses the player in the fictional world and brings the NPCs to life ideally making the players forget entirely about the real world, just like the best movies immerse the viewers.

The GM is the game? That is an incorrect statement The game is the game. What separates D&D from Pathfinder from World of Darkness from Chronicles of Darkness from Traveller, from Rifts, from Bluebeard's Bride, from KULT? It is the rules of the game. The game itself.

The GM can do all those things but if players aren't there is there a game. So the players can be the game because without them there is no game. Without players there is no game. Without players to play agreed upon rules there is no game. And most of the rules I've read say a GM is another player at the table Not some godlike figure. Not separate. Not the game.

[World's most interesting Pan]

dirtypool wrote:

“Interesting Character” wrote:

D20, because it isn't just a degree of success, but rather is "how good did the character do" separately from "how good does the character need to do to succeed?"

The D20 system did not have rules for degrees of success - lots of people online have written house rules to include it, but almost all of those were just charts. If the system itself has to be house ruled to include it - then the system cannot have handled it best because the system did not handle it at all.

Pathfinder 2 has degrees of success, for example, and it doesn’t just define that you needed to do better when you fail by 5 - a specific effect triggers on a failure, a worse on a critical failure, a better on a success, and an amazing effect on a critical success.

Personally I rather like Chronicles of Darkness’ degrees implementation, where exceptional successes impose positive conditions, and failures can be turned into dramatic failures that skew the narrative but provide experience to the player.

Do you prefer to let the dice set the terms like genesys or the numbers like in PF2?

[Haladir]

World's most interesting Pan wrote:

The joke I was trying to make is that Socrates didn't consider a chef an artist. Times change and so does the definition of art. It ever expands like our language and culture.

Lets get back to talking about RPG systems and our experiences, because we got some topic drift that's likely to just keep being circular.

Degrees of success has become a very popular mechanic in TTRPGs. Which system does it best for you?

I really like how the "degress of success" mechanic works in "Powered by the Apocalypse" RPGs and in other systems that were derived from and/or influenced by PbtA design:

There is a dice roll or a playing card draw, and the resolution falls into one of three buckets...

Full success: You get what you want.

Partial success: You get some of what you want OR you get what you want and there's a complication.

Miss/Fail: You don't succeed and there's a complication OR you get what you asked for but not what you wanted.

This provides a very different play experience than in traditional RPGs where the resolution mechanic is "pass/fail". The magic of these systems is in the middle bucket: Success with a complication, which is what's going to happen statistically most of the time. It's those complications that drive the narrative forward.

While Pathfinder 2e does have a "degrees of success" mechanic, I don't find it nearly as compelling as the PbtA-derived three-tier approach. In PF2, the "success with complication" aspect is missing: PF2's degrees of success are "Stunning success/success/failure/catastrophic failure".

I don't like the "pass/fail" binary resolution because the "fail" state is nearly always "nothing happens." You don't hit the target; you don't find the clue; you don't change the NPC's mind. The fail state is pretty much "lose a turn," and the failure rarely drives the story. "Oh, Krag didn't find the secret door that we players all know has to be there? OK, Lyllia also looks for secret doors."

And the PF2 system still feels fundamentally like a "pass/fail" binary to me... just that each of "pass" and "fail" states has an "extra" mechanic: something extra-good on a "stunning success" and something extra-bad on a "catastrophic failure."

And, yes, I know that the PF2 GameMastery Guide provides some optional rules that go into how to adapt PF2 to incorporate something like PbtA's "success with complication" mechanic, but it's not baked into the game and there doesn't seem to be much support for that option.

[dirtypool]

World's most interesting Pan wrote:

Do you prefer to let the dice set the terms like genesys or the numbers like in PF2?

I’d honestly argue that the narrative dice mechanic makes each roll so modular that it is somewhat separate from the degree of success metric employed by other games.

Even though both are set by the numbers - the DC for a skill or task in PF2 and the one success achievement threshold in Genesys - one is about degrees of success or failure why the other is an array of conditions that can exist simultaneously and spend toward different in game effects.

[Interesting Character]

Tristan d'Ambrosius wrote:

Interesting Character wrote:

This is an incorrect statement.

This is how we're doing this? Okay.

Quote:

Is there something wrong with that? I stated a belief that you are wrong and privided evidence to support my position. How else would I do that, call you names?

Quote:

So they are in large part an arbitrator of the rules of the game deciding what play violates Rule 0 and the Rule of Cool much like a ref decides what violates the rules on traveling.

I never said they don't referee, only that it is secondary to their purpose. Refereeing rules for a basketball game is the entire reason for a referee being there, the beginning and end of their job, they do nothing else. But for a GM, their primary task is providing entertainment and refereeing the rules is just a small part of how they do that job.

Do you truly not see how a gm does more than referee rules?

Quote:

The GM is the game? That is an incorrect statement The game is the game. What separates D&D from Pathfinder from World of Darkness from Chronicles of Darkness from Traveller, from Rifts, from Bluebeard's Bride, from KULT? It is the rules of the game. The game itself.

Without the GM, you have nothing. Even "GMless" games still have the job of GM, they just switch the task from a dedicated person to the players which fundementally prevents roleplay because the players no longer play a role in a world beyond their control and instead are more collaborative storytelling instead.

The GM makes the game fun or not, the GM makes the game immersive or not, the GM makes the NPCs likeable or not, the GM makes the experience, the mechanics are just an interface to that fictional world and should never take center stage but rather should fade into the background, just like how when writing the specific symbols you use to represent letters and words and language disappear into the background in favor of the message you try to convey.

Take away the GM and you take away the fundemental core of what those games are, and leave nothing worth playing.

[qoute]but if players aren't there is there a game.

Yes. It's pointless, like having a movie playing in an empty movie theater or a videogame running with no one at the controls, but yes there is a game there.

[Interesting Character]

dirtypool wrote:

“Interesting Character” wrote:

D20, because it isn't just a degree of success, but rather is "how good did the character do" separately from "how good does the character need to do to succeed?"

The D20 system did not have rules for degrees of success -

The rules were mostly implicit, but still there.

And there were plenty of cases where things were explicitly defined as different effects depending on outcome of the roll.

But it doesn't have to be explicit, nor does it need to be arbitrary things like "critical" nor "yes-but/no-and" in order to be degrees of success, nor does it need to apply to every single roll, just most of them.

[TriOmegaZero]

Implicit rules are not actually part of the game.

[avr]

Shadowrun 4e's count up the number of dice which rolled 5+, that's your number of successes (& the World of Darkness equivalent) works for me as a measure of success/failure. The versions where you vary the target number for a success are less good unless you're awesome at maths or you don't care about the odds.

[Tristan d'Ambrosius]

Tell me Interesting Character if you have a GM but no other players do you actually have a game?

[avr]

On ICs point on solo adventures I actually agree with them there - people play solitaire, or single-player computer RPGs and those are games.

[dirtypool]

Interesting Character wrote:

The rules were mostly implicit, but still there.

And there were plenty of cases where things were explicitly defined as different effects depending on outcome of the roll.

But it doesn't have to be explicit, nor does it need to be arbitrary things like "critical" nor "yes-but/no-and" in order to be degrees of success, nor does it need to apply to every single roll, just most of them.

Going to stop you right there. The topic broached by Pan was about modern degrees of success mechanics, which ones we enjoy and which ones we don’t. Implicit rules in older editions that you as a player we’re able to suss out from the “implications” of the system but the literal designers of the game did not expressly define would not as they say “meet the brief” for this topic.

Do you have any thoughts on degree of success mechanics that are expressly included in the core rules of a Roleplaying system?

[dirtypool]

avr wrote:

On ICs point on solo adventures I actually agree with them there - people play solitaire, or single-player computer RPGs and those are games.

That is not however what he said. He said that if you had a GM/DM but no players you still had a game.

Solitaire is a game meant to be played solo, as are single player computer games. A tabletop Roleplaying game where the only active participant is the GM is just a narrative experience that no one will ever see except the person who wrote it.

[avr]

dirtypool wrote:

avr wrote:

On ICs point on solo adventures I actually agree with them there - people play solitaire, or single-player computer RPGs and those are games.

That is not however what he said. He said that if you had a GM/DM but no players you still had a game.

Solitaire is a game meant to be played solo, as are single player computer games. A tabletop Roleplaying game where the only active participant is the GM is just a narrative experience that no one will ever see except the person who wrote it.

And people do that. I can dig out a few examples on these boards - mainly from playtests or from showing off their awesome PF character build. It doesn't appeal to me, but obviously there are those who feel otherwise.

[Haladir]

dirtypool wrote:

avr wrote:

On ICs point on solo adventures I actually agree with them there - people play solitaire, or single-player computer RPGs and those are games.

That is not however what he said. He said that if you had a GM/DM but no players you still had a game.

Solitaire is a game meant to be played solo, as are single player computer games. A tabletop Roleplaying game where the only active participant is the GM is just a narrative experience that no one will ever see except the person who wrote it.

In story-game circles, RPGs that are designed to be a solo experience are often called "journaling games." Playing them is more of a writing exercise than a traditional game.

An example that's getting a lot of buzz right now is Thousand Year Old Vampire. (I have it on PDF, but I strongly covet the print version.)

[dirtypool]

avr wrote:

And people do that. I can dig out a few examples on these boards - mainly from playtests or from showing off their awesome PF character build. It doesn't appeal to me, but obviously there are those who feel otherwise.

If you are building a character that is not in an active campaign or rolling that character through scenarios - you are engaging with the game as a player. Notice that you are having to expand beyond IC’s original statement to give it credence. To make it work it has to be a different type of game or a different aspect of the Roleplaying experience.

How often do you hear of someone writing a session with multiple encounters, sitting down at their table and acting solely as the gamemaster, running that session without players? That is what was claimed.

[thejeff]

avr wrote:

dirtypool wrote:

avr wrote:

On ICs point on solo adventures I actually agree with them there - people play solitaire, or single-player computer RPGs and those are games.

That is not however what he said. He said that if you had a GM/DM but no players you still had a game.

Solitaire is a game meant to be played solo, as are single player computer games. A tabletop Roleplaying game where the only active participant is the GM is just a narrative experience that no one will ever see except the person who wrote it.

And people do that. I can dig out a few examples on these boards - mainly from playtests or from showing off their awesome PF character build. It doesn't appeal to me, but obviously there are those who feel otherwise.

But even in those cases, it's not really a GM with no players, but someone playing both the GM and player roles.

There are also some narrative style games that lack a single GM, but pass the hat around depending on circumstances. Or that shift a majority of what we traditionally think of as the GM's job to players with various mechanics.

[Haladir]

thejeff wrote:

There are also some narrative style games that lack a single GM, but pass the hat around depending on circumstances. Or that shift a majority of what we traditionally think of as the GM's job to players with various mechanics.

Very true! There are a bevy of TTRPGs that don't have a GM role. The traditional responsibilities of the GM rest with the rules of the game itself and/or are shared among players themselves.

Examples of GM-less games that come to mind are The Final Girl, Lovecraftesque, or the games in the "No Dice No Masters" family (examples include Dream Askew, Flotsam: Adrift Among the Stars, Unincorporated, Sleepaway, and BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home.)

[avr]

They may be acting as GM and player, but it's still just the one person. I am comfortable calling this 'GM only'.

Haladir's games designed for this are obviously better for the purpose. There's a playthrough here. There are people who do this though with PF, or with Starfinder as in this most recent example.

[dirtypool]

avr wrote:

They may be acting as GM and player, but it's still just the one person. I am comfortable calling this 'GM only'.

The players you are talking about may be acting as GM and player.

The players IC was talking about are not based on this description that prompted my reply:

“Interesting Character” wrote:

Yes. It's pointless, like having a movie playing in an empty movie theater or a videogame running with no one at the controls, but yes there is a game there.

You are debating a point with me that I’m not actually arguing as I’m responding to IC who waxes poetically about the role of the GM as if it was a sacred duty passed from generation to the next - he wasn’t talking about solo games or story-games. He was supporting the argument that the GM is the most important aspect of TTRPG’s by saying is there are players but no GM the game doesn’t exist but if there is a GM but no players it does.

[Interesting Character]

dirtypool wrote:

He was supporting the argument that the GM is the most important aspect of TTRPG’s by saying is there are players but no GM the game doesn’t exist but if there is a GM but no players it does.

First, I'll respond to this and one other thing only.

So,

To clarify, if what the GM provides is missing, there is no game. This means that the players collectively doing the GM's job counts as there being a GM.

As for having a GM and no players...

If there is a dancer in a field somewhere dancing yet unseen by anyone else, are they still dancing?

If an xbox is plugged in and turned on with a program running and the camera spinning around a character as it runs the idle animation again because there is no one playing it, does it stop being a game?

[Interesting Character]

As for the importance of the GM, or at least the GM's duties, to an RPG...

There is a difference between the rules amd the activity referred to as "a game." For different games the rules have a different role in the activity of the respective game.

The most common role of rules is to define the activity that is the game and govern that activity. I call this the "strict adherence" role, since the point is for players to strictly adhere to the rules.

For example, in chess, what the players say to each other is not part of the game. If a player flourishes the pieces from one square to the next, that is also not the game. The shape and look and name of the pieces are also not the game.

Some people like to play rpgs in this why. They can't actually do so, for reasons I'll get to, but they can come close.

However, many players, I think it's safe to say Haladir is an example, do not play for this purpose of simply adhering to the rules, for there is a narrative that is important, important in a way that does not apply to chess and this narrative is the goal of these other players.

There are two major directions these other players can go.

First is "storytelling games" or "storygames" as haladir calls them. These games are about creating a narrative collectively with the other players. You could entirely remove the mechanics and the players coukd still hang around collectively creating a story. They use rules as support, but the rules are not the focus of the game, the narrative is.

The second is what I call "pure or true roleplaying" and are about players exploring/experiencing the narrative through their character. The only creator here is the GM, and again you can remove the rules without losing the focus of the game which is for the players to experience and explore the narrative.

Now there is a scale between these points, but that is beside the point.

Take DnD and strip it of any and all ficton, all the fluff. Name the classes "class a," "class b," etc and similarly rename everything so it no longer references a fictional world or narrative. All the mechanics are unchanged, but can you play it? Would you play it? Now remove the GM. Can you still play it? What tokens do you "atk?" What determines whether you should? Answers are no one and nothing. The GM handles all that. Without the GM there is nothing for you to achieve, and no point in doing anything.

The difference between "rpgs" and all other games, such as chess, monopoly, and poker. is that the narrative is the point of the game, and removing the narrative removes something of such vital importance that there is for all intents and purposes no game.

And who provides the narrative? In cases where narrative creation is not the point, it is the GM providing the narrative.

Additionally, the GM is so fundamental to the game, that in switching from one system to another, how much you like the GM still impacts your enjoyment of the game to the same degree. For example, if you love playing with "Eric" the GM in DnD, then switching to gurps will still see that same enjoyment for the most part. If "Eric" can draw you in and immerse you in the fictional world, then he can do that regardless of whether you play dnd or gurps. Likewise, if hate when "Adam" runs a game, there is no system that you can switch to that would make it fun when "Adam" is the GM.

So, yes, I consider the GM to be fundamental and vital. These games are about the "narrative" and the GM makes that narrative and makes it immersive and compelling.

When you read a book and fall in love with the characters, world, and plot, it makes you want to know more, to keep reading. The same is true of rpgs, and it is the GM that provides those things because no set of mechanics can ever provide them.

[dirtypool]

“Interesting Character” wrote:

As for having a GM and no players...

If there is a dancer in a field somewhere dancing yet unseen by anyone else, are they still dancing?

If an xbox is plugged in and turned on with a program running and the camera spinning around a character as it runs the idle animation again because there is no one playing it, does it stop being a game?

The dancer is still performing the task of dancing, the Xbox is still performing the task of reading data packets with its laser.

If the GM doesn’t have players, they are sitting at a table with a stack of notes and books

“Interesting Character” wrote:

The difference between "rpgs" and all other games, such as chess, monopoly, and poker. is that the narrative is the point of the game, and removing the narrative removes something of such vital importance that there is for all intents and purposes no game.

And who provides the narrative? In cases where narrative creation is not the point, it is the GM providing the narrative.

You are aware of these things called “Adventure Paths,” correct? If the GM runs a published adventure - how “vital” was their narrative creation to the existence of the game.

“Interesting Character” wrote:

If "Eric" can draw you in and immerse you in the fictional world, then he can do that regardless of whether you play dnd or gurps. Likewise, if hate when "Adam" runs a game, there is no system that you can switch to that would make it fun when "Adam" is the GM.

Or Eric is really good at running structured encounters in the D20 style and Adam is great at more of a sandbox political narrative storytelling system style - and you’re just suggesting there is an evergreen trait of all GM’s because you think GMing is some ineffable skill that is gifted unto the players by the true power at the table.

“Interesting Character” wrote:

When you read a book and fall in love with the characters, world, and plot, it makes you want to know more, to keep reading. The same is true of rpgs, and it is the GM that provides those things because no set of mechanics can ever provide them.

Again, you are on the website for Paizo a company whose claim to fame came from publishing Adventure paths where the characters, world, and plot are already created for the GM. There have also been table based world, plot, and NPC creation mechanics in D&D since the 70’s

“Interesting Character” wrote:

I notice that you give neither evidence nor reasoning. Do you expect me to take you seriously when you can't make a case for refuting me?

I’m frankly getting tired of this tendency of you to make these sweeping opinion as fact statements without providing evidence of your own and then crying foul when the other person doesn’t respond to your unsupported statement with academic rigor and evidence. If you want an evidence based debate - 1. Present your argument in the manner you want others to communicate theirs and 2. Start a thread of your own to explore it.

The OP of this thread started this one to avoid the threadjack in another post. They asked several posts ago that we discuss degree of success mechanics.

Do you have an opinion on the topic the OP was wanting to discuss?

[thejeff]

The Xbox and its discs is a game in the same sense a pile of Pathfinder rulebooks and an adventure path is a game.

Add a player to the Xbox and you have a game in progress. Add a GM and some players to the pile of books and you have a game in progress. Just add a GM and you don't.

[Interesting Character]

Quote:

The dancer is still performing the task of dancing,

Exactly my point. The audience doesn't make the dance. Readers don't make the book. And for the xbox, there is a difference between reading a data disc of the latest news headline vs music/game, and yet, either way once again, the audience doesn't make the game even though the game is interactive.

Quote:

You are aware of these things called “Adventure Paths,” correct? If the GM runs a published adventure - how “vital” was their narrative creation to the existence of the game.

You are aware that APs can't be run by a robotic computer? The videogames took a great deal of additional work and still have massive restrictions compared to the table, not to mention being a very different experience vs the table.

Even in running an AP, the GM does a lot of work in bringing that AP to life, to making it immersive and exciting.

Imagine someone reading the Harry Potter books in a bland monotone with no feeling vs listening to Jim Dale read the books. Big difference. Then remember that the GM has to integrate the PC's personal existence into the narrative with room for personal character growth, and also has to write all the dialogue themselves on the fly, and has to make it interesting to ;isten to and make the characters feel real. If the GM can't do these things, there really isn't any point.

Quote:

Or Eric is really good at running structured encounters in the D20 style and Adam is great at more of a sandbox political narrative storytelling system style

No, just no. You are massively missing the point here. A "bad" gm is bad at running the game period, regardless of which system they run. Things like having compelling characters has nothing to do with system, nor structured vs sandbox, but everything to do with the experience. The GM is a performer the entire time.

Capabilities regarding structured encounters vs sandbox is orthogonal to the performance of the GM. It's like playing Zelda on the original hardware at full speed vs playing it on an emulator without controller support and tons of bugs that crash the game all the time. The emulator problems are not problems with Zelda, they are problems with interacting with the emulator.

Likewise, a GM that is terrible at being a GM is going to be terrible regardless of the campaign or system.

Are you truly incapable of recognizing those facets of what the GM does that is common between structured encounters and sandbox?

Quote:

Again, you are on the website for Paizo a company whose claim to fame came from publishing Adventure paths where the characters, world, and plot are already created for the GM. There have also been table based world, plot, and NPC creation mechanics in D&D since the 70’s

You are way off base here.

In the words of Megamind, "PRESENTATION!" It is about presentation, bringing that world to life, making the characters relatable and compelling, immersing the players in the world.

APs have a place certainly. Not everyone has the ability to spend 20 hours a week on crafting a cohesive story, and not everyone can improve a story either.

But whether you use an AP or randomly created content or carefully crafted homebrew, that is just the "materials" from which the GM constructs the experience.

And to be honest, most GMs are not, and will never be, great. Just like how most kids that learn an instrument will never be good enough to be a musician, but can entertain their friends from time to time. GMing is the same way.

If you can't see what the difference is between an ok GM and an amazing GM given the same materials, then I seriously doubt you have ever experienced what truly makes an rpg more than a boardgame, and if that's the case, then I pity you for missing out on what could be the greatest experience of your life.

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I’m frankly getting tired of this tendency of you to make these sweeping opinion as fact statements without providing evidence of your own and then crying foul when the other person doesn’t respond to your unsupported statement with academic rigor and evidence.

I have presented evidence and examples. I'm not sure how you can fail to understand that. Sure I can understand disagreeing with my opinion, but how can you really say that I don't provide evidence when the majority of what I write is evidence?

Also, my statements aren't as sweeping as you make them out to be.

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Do you have an opinion on the topic the OP was wanting to discuss?

That's how we got here. I said d20 has my favorite degree of success mechanics, which are implicit and inherent, because in d20, the roll tells you how good you did entirely separately from how good you need to do in order to succeed, that is inherently a degree of success system. Any such syste, that results in a measure of how well a character does separate from how well the character needs to do to accomplish a task is inherently a degree of success system. It is implicit so maybe isn't as obvious as taking a bat to the face, but it is not only still there, but it can't be removed without making fundamental changes, much like the changes from pf1 to pf2.

[dirtypool]

“Interesting Character” wrote:

The audience doesn't make the dance. Readers don't make the book.

The players of a Roleplaying game - and I need you to really pay attention here - are NOT AN AUDIENCE for the GM’s story. They are there to play a game by making active choices that can change the very nature of the encounter. If you think that they are there to observe what you do then you are doing it wrong.

“Interesting Character” wrote:

Are you truly incapable of recognizing those facets of what the GM does that is common between structured encounters and sandbox?

Are you truly incapable of recognizing those facets of what the GM does that are distinctly different between games that feature different styles of play? The idea that there is only an objectively good GM who can run games in all systems and an objectively bad GM who can’t run a game in any system and there is no spectrum beyond is such a reductive attitude.

Speaking of reductive...

“Interesting Character” wrote:

If you can't see what the difference is between an ok GM and an amazing GM given the same materials, then I seriously doubt you have ever experienced what truly makes an rpg more than a boardgame, and if that's the case, then I pity you for missing out on what could be the greatest experience of your life.

I’ve played tabletop roleplaying games for a quarter century, I’ve had countless amazing experiences and never once played a single RPG as if it were a board game. The idea that I have to recognize your perspective to appreciate the hobby I love is absolutely reductive of any experience other than your own.

I will thank you to make no more assumptions about who I am, how I play or what my table looks like.

“Interesting Character” wrote:

I have presented evidence and examples. I'm not sure how you can fail to understand that. Sure I can understand disagreeing with my opinion, but how can you really say that I don't provide evidence when the majority of what I write is evidence?

The majority of what you write is your opinion in circular language that frankly is difficult to parse anything from. When pressed you just repeat it more fervently (which is not, in fact, evidence.). When someone expresses a counter opinion you simply say “no” and then restate your opinion - again this is not evidence. The only evidence you actually point to seems to be Alexandrians articles about the D20 system and that is a rarity.

“Interesting Character” wrote:

That's how we got here. I said d20 has my favorite degree of success mechanics, which are implicit and inherent, because in d20, the roll tells you how good you did entirely separately from how good you need to do in order to succeed

D20 - the 3.X system does NOT have a degree of success mechanic. Multiple people have told you that. Multiple people have disagreed with the notion that the implications you think you see are not there. Just as multiple people have disagreed with your view that a lone GM equals a full game.

Do you have something factual to add, something concrete you can point to? If it isn’t in the book, it isn’t an actual mechanic of the game and is thus invalid. Otherwise - take your off topic GM worship to your own thread because this back and forth is ridiculous.

Stop derailing threads to try to convince the rest of us that you know more about the games we all have been playing.

[Tristan d'Ambrosius]

But d20 has no degrees of success outside of Crit success which contributes nothing storywise.