RPG Combat: Sport or War?

There are two different extremes in arranging fights. One is like war and the other is like a sporting event. Sporting events are supposed to be fair contests between roughly equal forces. On the other hand, war is the epitome of unfair competition.

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Jeffro Johnson introduced me to this topic, which was discussed in an ENWorld forum. If your game doesn't involve much combat this discussion may not mean a lot to you.

Strategem: a plan or scheme, especially one used to outwit an opponent or achieve an end

Any GAME implies fairness, equality of opportunity. Knightly jousting tournaments were combat as sport. We don't have semi-pro soccer teams playing in the Premier League, we don't have college basketball teams playing the NBA, because it would be boringly one-sided. People want to see a contest where it appears that both sides can win. And occasionally the weaker side, the underdog if there is one, wins even when they're not supposed to.

An obvious problem with combat as sport, with a fair fight, is that a significant part of the time your players will lose the fight. Unless they're really adept at recognizing when they're losing, and at fleeing the scene, this means somebody will get dead. Frequent death is going to be a tough hurdle in most campaigns.

The objective in war is to get such an overwhelming advantage that the other side surrenders rather than fight, and if they choose not to surrender then a "boring" one-sided massacre is OK. Stratagems are favored in war, not frowned upon. Trickery (e.g. with the inflation of the football) is frowned upon in sports in general, it's not fair, it's cheating.

Yet "All's fair in love and war." Read Glen Cook's fantasy Black Company series or think about mercenaries in general, they don't want a fair fight. They don't want to risk their lives. They want a surrender or massacre. The Black Company was great at using stratagems. I think of D&D adventurers as much like the Black Company, finding ways to win without giving the other side much chance.

When my wife used to GM first edition D&D, she'd get frustrated if we came up with good stratagems and strategies and wiped out the opposition without too much trouble. She felt she wasn't "holding up the side." She didn't understand that it's not supposed to be fair to the bad guys.

Think also that RPG adventures are much like adventure novels: we have to arrange that the players succeed despite the odds, much as the protagonists in a typical novel. In the novel the good guys are often fabulously lucky; in RPGs we can arrange that the players encounter opposition that should not be a big threat if the players treat combat as war rather than as a sport.

I'm not saying you need to stack the game in favor of the players, I'm saying that if the players do well at whatever they're supposed to do - presumably, in combat, out-thinking the other side -then they should succeed, and perhaps succeed easily. Just like Cook's Black Company.

contributed by Lewis Pulsipher
Photo © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5

 

[Sunseeker]

I guess I don't see how high levels are special in this regard. I agree that random encounters are boring, but they're boring at low level as much as high level.

I mean, sure, ideally every fight should matter, but realistically, you're going to fight some groups of kobolds and orcs and wolves at low level for simple fact that that's what you've got to deal with at those levels. Low-level play is conceptually different I think in some ways to high-level play, and I'm not saying high-level play should be Castles & Kingdoms either. The threats you deal with, the events you resolve, the people you help, it scales with your level. You're simply not saving kingdoms and planets as low level adventurers, you're j

4e certainly had a higher production cost than usual. There were just more plain many more folks working on it, for instance.

Totally agree there, though it seems they've managed to keep up the quality, which is nice.

Doubt that was the case with 4e. I'm thinking it was appealing to the right target audience (new, younger players), but it too brutally alienated some of the existing ones, and they turned on it, viciously.

Yeah, it's unfortunate how fans are willing to do that.

I rather like the 13A solution, the 'campaign loss.'

I am not familiar, explain?

Sure. As they say in indie (now, apparently): "to find out what happens."

I suppose I don't see the need for the dice for that. Good or bad turns of events can be entirely replicated with solid roleplay.

I'm not sure that's so different from 4e at low level. You just might've started to notice it after playing for a year or two. The same might've been true if you'd played 1-10 twice in a year or two.

*shrug* maybe it was just the way we played, maybe it's the way we've always played. Contextually, I've always disliked high-level combat. The implications of the general power level of the player character call for something more than the books offered. But it was still the easiest to manage.

4e, though, was dreadfully easy to run. Pick up even an indifferent module, or just a sample encounter of the right level out of the MM(3!), and an indifferent DM could run an enjoyable enough little game for an hour or two. A campaign calls for more creativity and interest, but more of it can be provided by the players, as well, both through the agency of the elaborate character-creation & advancement options, and just by being 'good players.'

I know, it's why I wish I could get more people into 4E. It's so easy! Even from a play perspective I find 4E dramatically easier.

That's a horrid formula considering the way D&D advancement has always worked: more and more resources as you level, 'quadratically' more for traditional casters.

To support that kind of pacing, a fixed resource pool, upon which increasingly 'expensive' powers draw upon would make more sense.

Actually, I was thinking that with fights of more significance, they would simply be larger, singular fights.
Take MMO dungeon design. Clearing the trash before the boss is what you do at low levels. Fighting the boss is what you would do at high levels. IMO. It's a longer, more complex fight that involves a drastically higher amount of power on both sides, and utilizing a variety of mechanics to keep people on their toes and burning resources.

Take an old-school mana system, a simple one, casting a spell of level X costs X mana & spell levels are 1-9 over 20 levels, stats capping at 20 like in 5e... but mana is innate, it doesn't improve with level.
Say, it's set at Caster-stat mod + Con mod. So probably 5 or so at first level, up to 10 (20 in each stat) at the highest levels. At 1st level you'll likely be able to cast at least 3 spells/day, maybe 4 or 5. But, at 20th, you'll be able to bust out just one 9th level spell, with a point left over for your morning application of Mage Armor.

The spell-point system is probably the closest D&D ever came to a "mana bar" and frankly...I wish they had kept it! It makes so much more sense to me to have developed a certain "well" of power over your years as a caster such that you can either cast a lot of small things, a few big things, or bix it up as you feel the need. I understand why this is unbalancing (imagine casting 9+ 9th-level spells in a row!) but I certainly find such a system far more attractive and coherent than the spell-slot system.

Or at least I wish they'd mixed it up a bit, ya know some classes using one system, other classes using another. Again..difficult to balance, but much more interesting.

That would fit the (now that you mention it) very intuitive pacing implied by many, many things being a meaningful challenge to a 1st-level party - "Oh no! A band of Kobolds! Sleep!" "Oh no! Zombies! Magic Missile!" "Oh no, a 20' pit! Feather Fall!" etc... - yet very few meaningful challenges at higher level. "Hmm.. A [/i]'Stone[/i] Giant? If it's still alive on my turn, I'll cast Ray of Frost..." "

It's not that you shouldn't ever fight a squad of Archons at high level because you happen to be Hell's invading force against Heaven, it's just that these are powerful, sentient, magical creatures you're fighting. That's so much more everything than fighting packs of wolves, bands of kobolds or groups of bandits.

I may come from a more video-gaming perspective, but I think it's an area D&D is sorely missing out on in order to appease certain groups of people who believe that TTRPGs are somehow "different" from their digital counterparts. The idea of "solo" and "elite" and "solo elite" monsters in 4e was a very solid design decision, and I feel that 5E D&D lacks something from its absence.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't know what you're talking about here.

That much is apparent, so I'll try to explain it all again using different words.

Imagine the game world. As the DM, you have approximate knowledge of everything in that world, and you can discern details about specific areas if you think about them. You know where all of the cities are, and which nations are moving against which other nations. You may not know off the top of your head whether someone will be selling an enchanted canoe on Market Street in Baldur's Gate at 7am next Sunday, but you have the ability to figure that out if you think about it for a little while, and you may need to figure it out if a PC goes there at that time and wants to buy an enchanted canoe. If such a person exists, then you also know exactly what their name is, and what they look like. You have to know these things, in case the player asks. You know everything about the world, because you need to know everything in order to do your job (to play the NPCs, and adjudicate uncertainty in resolving actions).

Now, imagine how many level 13 encounters are in that world. How many rooms in all of the world contain allied creatures that might potentially be hostile to the PCs, and would offer that level of challenge if they came across the party? This is information which you possess, as the DM. You have to be able to determine what's in any given room, in case a player asks. An approximation is fine for the purposes of this example.

My guess is that there aren't many rooms which contain hostile level 13 encounters, as a percentage of total rooms within the game world. The concentration may be somewhat higher if you examine a region where frost giants live, or if you only look at a specific demi-plane, but the baseline likelihood if you just enter a room at random is probably less than one percent. It's hard to imagine what a world would look like if level 13 encounters were commonplace, especially if level 12 and level 14 encounters were equally as common.

There are two ways that the party might come across a level 13 encounter: 1) They could chance across one of those locations, in the course of their adventures; 2) You could decide that the next location they visit will contain the enemies you want them to fight, regardless of what would have been in that location if they hadn't visited.

The first option is unlikely, but not out of the question, especially if the PCs are engaged in a quest which takes them near those previously-mentioned regions of higher concentrations. If four frost giants constitute a level 13 encounter, and the PCs accept a quest to find out what happened to the last Elven emissary to the frost giants, then it's probable that they may find themselves in a room with four hostile frost giants at some point during their quest. They may also find themselves in a room with one angry frost giant, or with a hundred.

The second option is illegal. You are not allowed to decide that. It is a violation of the rules of the game, and a violation of your obligation to the players. Your job as DM is to play the NPCs, and resolve uncertainty in action resolution. Allowing a level 13 encounter to be wherever the PCs happen to show up is a violation of that first task. The NPCs can't decide to be there, based on information that they don't know (that the PCs will be there, or that the PCs are controlled by players in the real world who would be entertained by the combat). That is a textbook example of illegal meta-gaming, in exactly the same way as if a PC stocks up on alchemist's fire because the player saw your notes and became aware that trolls were in the area. When you force an encounter in such a manner, you damage the integrity of the game in exactly the same way.

This is like saying that when I invite a friend to play backgammon, I am disregarding his/her agency to play chess.

We're not talking about backgammon or chess. We're talking about role-playing games. If you invite a friend to play a role-playing game, but then you play your characters as though they were chess pieces, then your friend has every reason to be annoyed at you.

 

[pemerton]

Imagine the game world. As the DM, you have approximate knowledge of everything in that world, and you can discern details about specific areas if you think about them. You know where all of the cities are, and which nations are moving against which other nations.

In the past two years I've GMed two 4e campaigns, a MHRP campaign, a Cortex Fantasy campaign, an AD&D game, a Burning Wheel campaign, and recently started a Traveller campaign.

What you posit here was not true of me in any of those games. And I don't know of any rulebook that says otherwise. Eg Gygax's DMG expressly states that the GM will develop the world as the game goes along and so needs more material.

There are two ways that the party might come across a level 13 encounter: 1) They could chance across one of those locations, in the course of their adventures; 2) You could decide that the next location they visit will contain the enemies you want them to fight, regardless of what would have been in that location if they hadn't visited.

The first option is unlikely, but not out of the question, especially if the PCs are engaged in a quest which takes them near those previously-mentioned regions of higher concentrations.

<snip>

The second option is illegal. You are not allowed to decide that. It is a violation of the rules of the game, and a violation of your obligation to the players. Your job as DM is to play the NPCs, and resolve uncertainty in action resolution. Allowing a level 13 encounter to be wherever the PCs happen to show up is a violation of that first task.

Where do you believe this rule to be stated? I've never read it.

The 4e PHB describes the role of the GM thus (p 8):

The Dungeon Master has several functions in the game.

* Adventure Builder: The DM creates adventures (or selects premade adventures) for you and the other players to play through.

* Narrator: The DM sets the pace of the story and presents the various challenges and encounters the players must overcome.

* Monster Controller: The Dungeon Master controls the monsters and villains the player characters battle against, choosing their actions and rolling dice for their attacks.

* Referee: When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and adjudicate the story. . . .

The DM’s job is to provide a framework for the whole group to enjoy an exciting adventure. That means challenging the player characters with interesting encounters and tests, keeping the game moving, and applying the rules fairly.​

And here's what I found in the 5e Basic PDF (pp 2, 4):

One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game’s lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters . . .

The adventure is the heart of the game, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. An adventure might be created by the Dungeon Master or purchased off the shelf, tweaked and modified to suit the DM’s needs and desires. In either case, an adventure features a fantastic setting, whether it’s an underground dungeon, a crumbling castle, a stretch of wilderness, or a bustling city. It features a rich cast of characters: the adventurers created and played by the other players at the table, as well as nonplayer characters (NPCs). Those characters might be patrons, allies, enemies, hirelings, or just background extras in an adventure. Often, one of the NPCs is a villain whose agenda drives much of an adventure’s action.​

Nothing here prohibits the GM deciding - for instance - that the 13th level PCs suddenly find themselves confronted by some 13th level challenge (an angry angel, a demonic assassin, or whatever else the GM thinks makes sense relative to the established ficiton), even if they PCs are hanging out in the village of Hommlet rather than the icy wastes of the frost giants.

Besides these accounts of the role of the GM, which appear to contradict your posited "rule", tjhere is another point: the idea that RPGing invovles nothing more than the players narrating their PCs moving across a pre-authored landscape, hoping to encounter the stuff that might be fun (relative to their PCs' levels, backstories, capabilities, etc) is in my view incredibly narrow. It doesn't correlate to how I have been GMing for the past 30+ years - which involves a much more active role for the GM, deliberately (and not at all covertly) framing the players, via their PCs, into situation that will immediately engage them, and oblige them to make hard choices for their PCs.

Given what my players expect from the games I run, if I didn't do that - if I adopted the approach you advocate - then I would be failing my obligation to my players, and frankly probably would not have anyone wanting to play in my games.

 

[Arilyn]

That much is apparent, so I'll try to explain it all again using different words.

Imagine the game world. As the DM, you have approximate knowledge of everything in that world, and you can discern details about specific areas if you think about them. You know where all of the cities are, and which nations are moving against which other nations. You may not know off the top of your head whether someone will be selling an enchanted canoe on Market Street in Baldur's Gate at 7am next Sunday, but you have the ability to figure that out if you think about it for a little while, and you may need to figure it out if a PC goes there at that time and wants to buy an enchanted canoe. If such a person exists, then you also know exactly what their name is, and what they look like. You have to know these things, in case the player asks. You know everything about the world, because you need to know everything in order to do your job (to play the NPCs, and adjudicate uncertainty in resolving actions).

Now, imagine how many level 13 encounters are in that world. How many rooms in all of the world contain allied creatures that might potentially be hostile to the PCs, and would offer that level of challenge if they came across the party? This is information which you possess, as the DM. You have to be able to determine what's in any given room, in case a player asks. An approximation is fine for the purposes of this example.

My guess is that there aren't many rooms which contain hostile level 13 encounters, as a percentage of total rooms within the game world. The concentration may be somewhat higher if you examine a region where frost giants live, or if you only look at a specific demi-plane, but the baseline likelihood if you just enter a room at random is probably less than one percent. It's hard to imagine what a world would look like if level 13 encounters were commonplace, especially if level 12 and level 14 encounters were equally as common.

There are two ways that the party might come across a level 13 encounter: 1) They could chance across one of those locations, in the course of their adventures; 2) You could decide that the next location they visit will contain the enemies you want them to fight, regardless of what would have been in that location if they hadn't visited.

The first option is unlikely, but not out of the question, especially if the PCs are engaged in a quest which takes them near those previously-mentioned regions of higher concentrations. If four frost giants constitute a level 13 encounter, and the PCs accept a quest to find out what happened to the last Elven emissary to the frost giants, then it's probable that they may find themselves in a room with four hostile frost giants at some point during their quest. They may also find themselves in a room with one angry frost giant, or with a hundred.

The second option is illegal. You are not allowed to decide that. It is a violation of the rules of the game, and a violation of your obligation to the players. Your job as DM is to play the NPCs, and resolve uncertainty in action resolution. Allowing a level 13 encounter to be wherever the PCs happen to show up is a violation of that first task. The NPCs can't decide to be there, based on information that they don't know (that the PCs will be there, or that the PCs are controlled by players in the real world who would be entertained by the combat). That is a textbook example of illegal meta-gaming, in exactly the same way as if a PC stocks up on alchemist's fire because the player saw your notes and became aware that trolls were in the area. When you force an encounter in such a manner, you damage the integrity of the game in exactly the same way.
We're not talking about backgammon or chess. We're talking about role-playing games. If you invite a friend to play a role-playing game, but then you play your characters as though they were chess pieces, then your friend has every reason to be annoyed at you.

Illegal? In my years running games, I have fudged dice rolls, moved encounters around, changed monsters' hp on the fly, and invited players to add elements to the world. I have never been fined, or had my books confiscated. I generally have happy players...

Seriously, what you are describing is a way to approach role playing games, not the only way, by far. I like my games to follow strong narrative beats, as do my players. We enjoy telling stories, and I don't want pieces of plastic to have the final say. I understand your position, however. You, and presumably your players, prefer a more simulationist (not sure if that's a term you would agree with) style. There are many approaches to game play, which is what causes such heated debates on the forums!

I do have one question. Are you willing to change something on the fly, if you realize you made a mistake? For example, I was running a mystery scenario, and I had a player start to close in on my solution, when another player announced that that was impossible because of...and my heart sank because he was right. I had a hole in my story, so had to improvise another solution. This all happened in play and players were none the wiser. What would you have done?

One more note, which is kind of off topic. In regards to fudging dice rolls, I find DnD games are the only ones where I have to do this. The d20 is so swingy.

 

[Jhaelen]

Okay, now it's getting weird...

The second option is illegal. You are not allowed to decide that. It is a violation of the rules of the game, and a violation of your obligation to the players. Your job as DM is to play the NPCs, and resolve uncertainty in action resolution.

That's utter nonsense and a rather limited view of a DM's job, imho.

As a DM I consider it my main duty to provide an entertaining gaming experience. Often this means to provide interesting and challenging encounters for the PCs. I'm actually quite fond of using 'Schroedinger encounters': I don't decide on the exact nature of the encounter until the PCs' actions guide them there.

There's one thing that I don't ever do, though: fudging dice rolls.
I always roll dice in the open and stick to their results. Anything else I'd consider cheating.
It's one thing to mess with the game world or storyline, but a completely different thing to mess with actual game mechanics.

If you want (although you surely don't have to), you can even find somewhat logical explanations for the presence of high-level encounters where they wouldn't be if the PCs weren't present:
One is their reputation: high level adventurers are widely and well known to almost everyone. Wherever they linger, they're sure to attract the attention of similarly high level npcs.
Another is destiny: at least in fantasy settings, this is standard fare: the PCs were simply _meant_ to have this encounter there!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In the past two years I've GMed two 4e campaigns, a MHRP campaign, a Cortex Fantasy campaign, an AD&D game, a Burning Wheel campaign, and recently started a Traveller campaign.

What you posit here was not true of me in any of those games.

Of those games, between one and three might charitably be considered actual role-playing games, if played correctly. Based on what you have said, and based on the other games you list alongside them, I'm inclined to believe that you did not play those as such.

And I don't know of any rulebook that says otherwise. Eg Gygax's DMG expressly states that the GM will develop the world as the game goes along and so needs more material.

Gary stopped contributing before Second Edition. If he has ever given any indication of understanding his characters as living people within the game world, and making decisions from their perspective, then it is not known to me. Everything I have read indicates that he treats them either as game pieces for the players to manipulate, or as mere characters in a story, as the situation warrants. He is not a recognized authority on the activity of role-playing.

Nothing here prohibits the GM deciding - for instance - that the 13th level PCs suddenly find themselves confronted by some 13th level challenge (an angry angel, a demonic assassin, or whatever else the GM thinks makes sense relative to the established ficiton), even if they PCs are hanging out in the village of Hommlet rather than the icy wastes of the frost giants.

There's the part where the DM is supposed to play all of the characters other than the PCs, and the part where characters are prohibited from acting on knowledge they do not possess. Between those two rules, there is no room for the DM to introduce these characters in a place where they would not be.

Given what my players expect from the games I run, if I didn't do that - if I adopted the approach you advocate - then I would be failing my obligation to my players, and frankly probably would not have anyone wanting to play in my games.

It's entirely probable that your players share your tests when it comes to gaming. I mean, Fourth Edition did fairly well for itself by most objective measures, and even FATE has its strong adherents. It is no reflection whatsoever upon a role-playing game if non-role-players find some way to enjoy it in their own way.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Illegal? In my years running games, I have fudged dice rolls, moved encounters around, changed monsters' hp on the fly, and invited players to add elements to the world. I have never been fined, or had my books confiscated. I generally have happy players...

It's still cheating, even if your players are happy with it. Rules are still rules, even if you have more fun when you break them. The only question here is whether you're even still playing the same game, after you break the rules, or whether your broken rules constitute a new game of their own.

Regardless, if your game involves altering the world based on out-of-game factors - meta-gaming - then it is not a role-playing game in any meaningful sense. Meta-gaming and role-playing are mutually exclusive. One cannot exist in the presence of the other.

I do have one question. Are you willing to change something on the fly, if you realize you made a mistake? For example, I was running a mystery scenario, and I had a player start to close in on my solution, when another player announced that that was impossible because of...and my heart sank because he was right. I had a hole in my story, so had to improvise another solution. This all happened in play and players were none the wiser. What would you have done?

That's a tough question, and it's impossible for me to say without knowing the specifics. The last time I made such a mistake, it was with a switch puzzle, and I described the initial situation incorrectly such that it couldn't be solved. From what I recall, as soon as I realized my error, I confessed to the player and we hand-waved that the character figured out the solution after a short period of time - which is exactly what would have happened, if I hadn't made that error. Honesty when running a game is more important than maintaining the illusion of control.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As a DM I consider it my main duty to provide an entertaining gaming experience. Often this means to provide interesting and challenging encounters for the PCs. I'm actually quite fond of using 'Schroedinger encounters': I don't decide on the exact nature of the encounter until the PCs' actions guide them there.

That doesn't sound like you're honestly presenting the world or any of the characters in it. That sounds like you're just making up whatever, and you don't actually care whether or not it makes sense.

If you want (although you surely don't have to), you can even find somewhat logical explanations for the presence of high-level encounters where they wouldn't be if the PCs weren't present:

That's rationalization, and it doesn't help at all. If you can argue equally well for why there's an ogre in the next room, or why a dragon would be there, then there's no way for you to figure out what's actually there. It's a failure of the DM to properly role-play all of the NPCs in the world, although it is one which can be mitigated by rolling randomly on a table to simulate the results of having determined such things objectively. A random result is closer to an objective result than a result which is intentionally contrived.

One is their reputation: high level adventurers are widely and well known to almost everyone. Wherever they linger, they're sure to attract the attention of similarly high level npcs.
Another is destiny: at least in fantasy settings, this is standard fare: the PCs were simply _meant_ to have this encounter there!

These are good points, which I had neglected to mention before. When making an honest determination of where to find a level 13 encounter within the game world, one of the many factors is that an NPC might direct them toward the PCs, as befits their reputation. That's not meta-gaming, because it's based on information that the character making that decision actually would know.

As for the topic of fate, if you have an omniscient force within the game world that is contriving these unlikely coincidences, then you are justified in meta-gaming in order to facilitate role-playing that omniscience. Just keep in mind that the existence of fate necessarily precludes the possibility of free will, and the characters are likely to be upset about it if they ever figure out what's going in.

 

[pemerton]

There's the part where the DM is supposed to play all of the characters other than the PCs, and the part where characters are prohibited from acting on knowledge they do not possess. Between those two rules, there is no room for the DM to introduce these characters in a place where they would not be.

Where are these rules stated? And where is it stated that the GM is not allowed to exercise authorship powers (rather than just move pre-existing or randomly-generated pieces around a pre-existing or randomly-generated board)?

The answer is - nowhere. Because they're not rules. I quoted the text from 4e and 5e that contradicts them. If you want, I can quote you text from Traveller rulebooks that does likewise. And Burning Wheel. And AD&D. (I'm pretty sure I can find it in Tunnels & Trolls and Rolemaster too.)

If you can argue equally well for why there's an ogre in the next room, or why a dragon would be there, then there's no way for you to figure out what's actually there.

Here's one way: whichever would be fun! A technique GMs have been using since 1974 or thereabouts.

Of those games, between one and three might charitably be considered actual role-playing games, if played correctly. Based on what you have said, and based on the other games you list alongside them, I'm inclined to believe that you did not play those as such.

<snip>

It is no reflection whatsoever upon a role-playing game if non-role-players find some way to enjoy it in their own way.

This is almost too consdescending for words.

Here's a quote from Burning Wheel HQ:

Burning Wheel Headquarters Beliefs and Instincts
Listed here are a series of thoughts we’d like to share about what we do, how and why we do it.

* We make games. Primarily we make roleplaying games, but regardless of labels, we make games that are played together with friends, face to face. . . .

* We ******* love roleplaying games. If you ask us, you’ll hear us go on and on about how and why we love them. . . .

* We make games we want to play and we play them as much as we can before releasing them. Corollary to that, we play by the rules we design, and design our rules to be used. A game cannot be experienced through reading it, and though our games often come in the form of books, they are no exception to this truism. We hope you play them.

* We are game designers first and put game design above all else. We love the medium, the concepts, theories and practices. Through our designs we also participate in a cultural conversation and thriving community. We hold the pursuit of and conversation about game design above politics, identity, fashion or money.

* Each of our games is an attempt to say something new about the art of roleplaying games and game design in general. Each of our games is an iteration of the last, built on the experience of players at the table in an attempt to advance the state of the art in a small way.​

It's possible that Luke Crane and friends are confused about the nature of RPGing - but it seems more likely that your conception is overly narrow, picking out one way of RPGing which is not now, and never has been, dominant, as if it were the only thing that counted.

What characterises a game as an RPG? (1) The players play individual characters rather than units, and so the personal perspective/experiences of those characters becomes important to play; and (2) the fiction of the ingame situation matters to resolution. Anything beyond that is about taste and style.

 

[billd91]

This is almost too consdescending for words.

Almost? You're way too charitable.