Game Fundamentals - The Illusion of Accomplishment

[jmucchiello]

BTW, jmucchiello, are you honestly claiming that you averaged 20+ combatants in the fight at the same time, AND your fights averaged 30 minutes (or so) AND you had the depth of tactical choices that you would get in 3e? Really?

No, I said that such a combat could take 25-30 minutes. Granted 25-50% of the combatants were sluphs (4e calls them minions) and unlike what someone else wrote I wasn't counting henchmen as it's been too long since I've used them. We switched to 2e rather early and henchmen became passé. So most combatants were controlled by the DM.

But, we certainly had 4+ combats in 4 hours regularly and that included time to move between rooms and waste time listening at doors and reciting Monty Python scripts. (Heavy MP sessions had fewer combats, I'll admit.) I'll also admit that was when we had 6 players who were heavily involved in combat tactics and were able to keep the MP down during actually combat time. In fact that group steered away from heavy role-play since that usually resulted in the most MP.

 

[jmucchiello]

Choice density how often in "game world time" do I get to choose the actions of my character its almost 1 round = 1 minute... so any choices or options or die rolls I make covers the whole of that one minute for the character. That is choice density in action. (pretend I said a to hit and whatever choices are appropriate to cover the actions of a whole minute)

There are times when I miss the 1 minute round. One of the last 2e sessions we had I remember vividly one of the players stating something to the effect of "I dash around the corner up the ramp and leap off the ziggurat onto the levitating mage". With a shorter round he would have been around the corner one round and on the ramp the next. But here he was able to make a heroic dive at the chanting mage and fall short 15 feet because he didn't realize how far away from the ramp the mage actually was. But still it must have looked cool.

 

[The Shaman]

. . . [M]y preference for RPGs is that playing by the rules deliver a compelling situation of conflict which, via its resolution, will produce a compelling story (compelling for the participants, that is - I don't think my RPG play produces stories that would be very compelling for spectators).

I think the rules of a game can help to reinforce genre conceits, but from what I've seen games which attempt to "deliver a compelling situation of conflict" are often so narrowly constituted as to miss what is for me the real strength of tabletop roleplaying games, which is the ability to create and explore an alternate universe.

To that end I prefer rules which model the physics of the game-world, and let the conflicts and resolutions come from the interactions of the adventurers with the game-world, not the rule book.

 

[pemerton]

Shaman, thanks for that very clear statement of your preferences as a player. I'd sort-of guessed as much from your other posts, but it helps me, at least, to see it clearly stated.

I used to prefer rules-as-physics in the way you describe, but a lot of experience with Rolemaster has pushed me in a different direction. I wouldn't say that I now dislike Rolemaster, and I certainly don't disavow the decades of gaming pleasure it gave me, but (to be blunt) I would be perfectly happy never to GM it again.

I think your point about narrow constitution in more conflict-focused mechancis is a fair one. For me, 4e offers enough breadth to keep me satisfied, at least for now: there are humanoids, empires, "points of light", gods, demons etc. I have played games where more mundane (in the metaphysical sense) and human society-centred features of the world were prominent, such as political borders, public administration, exchange rate of gold between different economic centres, etc. I haven't tried this sort of stuff in 4e yet, and am not sure how it would go handling it. I doubt the system can handle exchange rates. I think skill challenges with Bluff, Diplomacy and History might handle public administration, but with the potential for a loss of detail (but maybe not - hard to tell until you try!).

 

[Hussar]

Taking this in perhaps a little different direction. Hopefully.

Over the past several years, we've seen games moving away from the traditional form of RPG's and games in general by granting greater and greater levels of editorial control to the players. In traditional games, and in older versions of D&D, players had little or no editorial control. Granted, editorial control was being handed over to the players in the 80's with games like the 007 RPG where you could spend ((I forget the exact term for it)) action points in order to alter a scene to make it more like a Bond movie - add in some trash cans to throw in the way of your pursuers, that sort of thing.

Could the erosion of the "turn" as a distinct unit simply be another step away from traditional game forms? Instead of "twitch gaming" being catered to, is this not simply a fairly logical step for games to take? After all, there's no particular need for RPG's to follow in the steps of wargames or board games where each player's game is relatively distinct. It's just been done that way because it's always been done that way.

Not that it's wrong to have the "turn" as a distinct unit, just that it's not a requirement.

 

[Garthanos]

which is the ability to create and explore an alternate universe.

Take joy the parts you like the most are all yours not the games.
Never seen a game that creates or explores pretty sure the creating was mine and my players and like-wise the exploring ours ... narration and description.

And no I am not so interested in accounting exercises. (tracking every last ration how long it takes to manufacture x or y and the precise exploitable value a trader gets by travelling from place x to place y and similar). Nor am I thrilled when very crappy rules try to enforce bad models of human behavior... for the sake of genre conventions or not.

For myself mechanics sheesh put them in there place let them help me visualize conflicts in a vivid compelling and fair way.. then get off the bloody screen.

 

[firesnakearies]

Now look at the main complaint one hears about 4e from LostSoul, one of the posters on these boards who clearly has a lot of play experience with indie games: potential incoherence in 4e's relationship between challenge and player narrative entitlements. This is a complaint that (in my view) arises from some of the areas of lurking incoherence I've noted in 4e's design, where it straddles traditional and indie approaches.

(emphasis mine)


I liked this whole post a lot, and thought you had some very interesting things to say. I didn't entirely understand what you meant by the bolded phrase above, though, and I'd really like to. Could you explain that in greater depth, please?