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Consequence and Reward in RPGs
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7716339" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I just went back and did a quick review of my old <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355801-DMing-philosophy-from-Lewis-Pulsipher" target="_blank">Lewis Pulsipher thread</a> and didn't see any posts from you in it . . . judge not until ye have at least dipped your toe into the water!</p><p></p><p>Like I said in that thread, the stuff about how to run dungeon crawls is good advice (I think) but not apposite to me, because I suck at that and don't do it. But what I would call the "anti-railroading" stuff is (in my view) first rate, and still influences how I think about RPGing and GMing.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Here, I'm with Ratskinner. If we still get to finish the dungeon, albeit with a new PC, then how was it "harder"? In effect we're talking about tournament play with unlimited retries. That might test certain skills, but - without being told more - I'm not seeing how it makes things <em>more difficult</em> or <em>less forgiving</em>.</p><p></p><p>And if the "death stalking them at every turn" is meant to be <em>emotionally</em> draining for the players, then - in the right circumstances - so might any other form of story loss.</p><p></p><p>If the "easier" games are meant to be ones where the PCs (and thus their players) just go on a tour of the GM's world/story idea - which might be one way of understanding the original DL modules, or at least some of them - then that doesn't create a challenge, but clearly it's not <em>meant</em> to, and so it's hardly a criticism of "gameworld tourism" RPGing that it doesn't give rise to the same sorts of game-play challenges that dungeon crawling does.</p><p></p><p>I agree with this, and think it is consistent with what I've just typed. Those aren't "setting tourism" RPGs, but they're not wargame-y dungeon-crawling type RPGs either. The challenge of playing well is framed and located in a completely different element of play.</p><p></p><p>I mean, the consequence for playing The Dying Earth badly is that everyone thinks your would-be Vancian dialogue sucks. That seems to have as big a potential to be a major consequence as making a mistake in the mapping of a room that gets a party member killed. (I mean, there are whole hosts of ENworld posters who object to "speak my PC's words" social resolution because it requires others at the table to judge the dialogue of the player. I think some of those posters would find The Dying Earth very demanding!)</p><p></p><p>I wrote all the above before getting to this post. It answers the question - where is the challenge? And the response it prompted in me was - there are other RPGs that are pretty different from a classic dungeoncrawl that can also generate a challenge that is something like this.</p><p></p><p>Reading you (Libramarian's) post, rereading my old thread, and thinking about these comments is making me feel more that - at least as far as RPGs go (I know nothing about video games and very little about board games) - the main contrast I would want to draw would be between "setting/story tourism" RPGing (which can come in different forms) and "player decisions really matter to outcomes" RPGing (which also can come in different forms).</p><p></p><p>Naturally that framing reflects my own interests. And in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?531049-Judgement-calls-vs-quot-railroading-quot" target="_blank">a recent thread</a> my way of thinking about this contrast proved controversial with some posters!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7716339, member: 42582"] I just went back and did a quick review of my old [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?355801-DMing-philosophy-from-Lewis-Pulsipher]Lewis Pulsipher thread[/url] and didn't see any posts from you in it . . . judge not until ye have at least dipped your toe into the water! Like I said in that thread, the stuff about how to run dungeon crawls is good advice (I think) but not apposite to me, because I suck at that and don't do it. But what I would call the "anti-railroading" stuff is (in my view) first rate, and still influences how I think about RPGing and GMing. Here, I'm with Ratskinner. If we still get to finish the dungeon, albeit with a new PC, then how was it "harder"? In effect we're talking about tournament play with unlimited retries. That might test certain skills, but - without being told more - I'm not seeing how it makes things [I]more difficult[/I] or [I]less forgiving[/I]. And if the "death stalking them at every turn" is meant to be [I]emotionally[/I] draining for the players, then - in the right circumstances - so might any other form of story loss. If the "easier" games are meant to be ones where the PCs (and thus their players) just go on a tour of the GM's world/story idea - which might be one way of understanding the original DL modules, or at least some of them - then that doesn't create a challenge, but clearly it's not [I]meant[/I] to, and so it's hardly a criticism of "gameworld tourism" RPGing that it doesn't give rise to the same sorts of game-play challenges that dungeon crawling does. I agree with this, and think it is consistent with what I've just typed. Those aren't "setting tourism" RPGs, but they're not wargame-y dungeon-crawling type RPGs either. The challenge of playing well is framed and located in a completely different element of play. I mean, the consequence for playing The Dying Earth badly is that everyone thinks your would-be Vancian dialogue sucks. That seems to have as big a potential to be a major consequence as making a mistake in the mapping of a room that gets a party member killed. (I mean, there are whole hosts of ENworld posters who object to "speak my PC's words" social resolution because it requires others at the table to judge the dialogue of the player. I think some of those posters would find The Dying Earth very demanding!) I wrote all the above before getting to this post. It answers the question - where is the challenge? And the response it prompted in me was - there are other RPGs that are pretty different from a classic dungeoncrawl that can also generate a challenge that is something like this. Reading you (Libramarian's) post, rereading my old thread, and thinking about these comments is making me feel more that - at least as far as RPGs go (I know nothing about video games and very little about board games) - the main contrast I would want to draw would be between "setting/story tourism" RPGing (which can come in different forms) and "player decisions really matter to outcomes" RPGing (which also can come in different forms). Naturally that framing reflects my own interests. And in [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?531049-Judgement-calls-vs-quot-railroading-quot]a recent thread[/url] my way of thinking about this contrast proved controversial with some posters! [/QUOTE]
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