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<blockquote data-quote="chaochou" data-source="post: 6042606" data-attributes="member: 99817"><p>The OP ends with some large-scale questions, and I'm not sure I'm going to write enough - or clearly enough - to explain my views. Anyway, here goes.</p><p></p><p>Fundamentally I want rules to do two things - to create tense, dramatic situations (crises) and to provide a resolution system which while resolving one moment of crisis creates a new one.</p><p></p><p>In traditional RPGs - D&D and RQ and Traveller and CoC and their offspring - 'character creation' does not require the creation of 'character'. It creates resources and numbers representing competency.</p><p></p><p>So the GM has to create some threat and is then reliant on player buy-in in order for the characters to care enough to engage with it. That caring is, in my experience, often pretty artificial. When that problem is solved the GM creates a new problem and relies on player buy-in to care enough about it to do something about it. And so on.</p><p></p><p>We've all experienced these stilted and awkward moments. Like you're playing Call of Cthulhu and sit around saying 'Why do a dilettante, an archaeologist, a pilot and a professor care about this submarine that's just disappeared off the coast of Innsmouth?'</p><p></p><p>Right there the game is foundering. It has no direction. It requires a sort of wheedling pressure from the GM and a numb acceptance from the players to get the game started because the players have 'characters' but no character. And without character you can't produce drama.</p><p></p><p>What if we reverse this process? What if instead of creating a guy with Driving and Carousing, a player creates a guy whose uncle is a naval officer disappeared while on some top secret expedition, another creates a character who has evidence of a lost city off the coast of Innsmouth but has just had his funding cut because the university think he's crazy. And so on. The GM looks at what the players have created and thinks to himself 'If I put a missing submarine off the coast of Innsmouth we've got an interesting situation.'</p><p></p><p>Then the game starts automatically because the players have created all the context in which the situation becomes interesting for them.</p><p></p><p>What that all leads into is that the cornerstone of situation and drama is character. I want games and rules which create characters, not lists of competency numbers and resources (be it hit points or spells or equipment) with character as an optional extra. I want real people with real problems and real goals straight out of character creation.</p><p></p><p>Importantly, I want those problems and goals to have weight. I've played too many games where, say, a player says he's a kleptomaniac and steals stuff when there's no real risk or impact to doing so but bottles it when it might actually matter. Where a character is deathly afraid of spiders right up to the point where he isn't. Bad roleplaying? Maybe. But to me, that's not the point. A system that allows such play is structurally weak. Characterisation, imo, should have mechanical consequences.</p><p></p><p>The second thing I want is a resolution system that provides drama, tension and the opportunity for the unknown to happen irrespective of what method a player chooses to solve their immediate problem.</p><p></p><p>In combat you know your abilities and you pretty much know the stakes. Many games treat social situations and exploration as 'freeform'. What that means to me is that as a player the rules of the game and the stakes are now invisible. When you can't see what's at stake you're just fumbling in the dark. Some players like that.</p><p></p><p>But I don't actually enjoy the deus ex machina power it gives me as a GM. If constraints breed creativity I think this is just as true of GMing as playing.</p><p></p><p>I was running a game yesterday and there was a scene where a character stumbled into a backroom in a bar and found the local mafia beating up someone she knew. She wanted the prisoner dead, the prisoner wanted to use her as leverage with the mafia, the mafia wanted the prisoner's boss.</p><p></p><p>We set-up a mini-game on a board showing allegiances, trust and outcomes. Then she, the gangster and the prisoner used oratory, intimidation, charm and other skills to move their pieces and to re-describe the board in order to angle for what they wanted over five rounds of 'social combat'. This scene was as tense as any fight scene would have been and had the full attention of the rest of the group. It worked because all of us could see the stakes and the impact of what was being said as PC and NPCs negotiated.</p><p></p><p>In that situation the numbers mattered, the rolls mattered and what everyone said mattered. All those ingredients worked together to produce a plausible outcome in which no-one quite got what they wanted, with a new situation for both the character and NPCs - each with new problems and agendas.</p><p></p><p>I hope this is illustrates the other thing I want - rules which use the goals and beliefs of the PCs and NPCs so that a scene where you try to talk your brother's killer down from a ledge is just as tense and involved as fighting him to the death.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="chaochou, post: 6042606, member: 99817"] The OP ends with some large-scale questions, and I'm not sure I'm going to write enough - or clearly enough - to explain my views. Anyway, here goes. Fundamentally I want rules to do two things - to create tense, dramatic situations (crises) and to provide a resolution system which while resolving one moment of crisis creates a new one. In traditional RPGs - D&D and RQ and Traveller and CoC and their offspring - 'character creation' does not require the creation of 'character'. It creates resources and numbers representing competency. So the GM has to create some threat and is then reliant on player buy-in in order for the characters to care enough to engage with it. That caring is, in my experience, often pretty artificial. When that problem is solved the GM creates a new problem and relies on player buy-in to care enough about it to do something about it. And so on. We've all experienced these stilted and awkward moments. Like you're playing Call of Cthulhu and sit around saying 'Why do a dilettante, an archaeologist, a pilot and a professor care about this submarine that's just disappeared off the coast of Innsmouth?' Right there the game is foundering. It has no direction. It requires a sort of wheedling pressure from the GM and a numb acceptance from the players to get the game started because the players have 'characters' but no character. And without character you can't produce drama. What if we reverse this process? What if instead of creating a guy with Driving and Carousing, a player creates a guy whose uncle is a naval officer disappeared while on some top secret expedition, another creates a character who has evidence of a lost city off the coast of Innsmouth but has just had his funding cut because the university think he's crazy. And so on. The GM looks at what the players have created and thinks to himself 'If I put a missing submarine off the coast of Innsmouth we've got an interesting situation.' Then the game starts automatically because the players have created all the context in which the situation becomes interesting for them. What that all leads into is that the cornerstone of situation and drama is character. I want games and rules which create characters, not lists of competency numbers and resources (be it hit points or spells or equipment) with character as an optional extra. I want real people with real problems and real goals straight out of character creation. Importantly, I want those problems and goals to have weight. I've played too many games where, say, a player says he's a kleptomaniac and steals stuff when there's no real risk or impact to doing so but bottles it when it might actually matter. Where a character is deathly afraid of spiders right up to the point where he isn't. Bad roleplaying? Maybe. But to me, that's not the point. A system that allows such play is structurally weak. Characterisation, imo, should have mechanical consequences. The second thing I want is a resolution system that provides drama, tension and the opportunity for the unknown to happen irrespective of what method a player chooses to solve their immediate problem. In combat you know your abilities and you pretty much know the stakes. Many games treat social situations and exploration as 'freeform'. What that means to me is that as a player the rules of the game and the stakes are now invisible. When you can't see what's at stake you're just fumbling in the dark. Some players like that. But I don't actually enjoy the deus ex machina power it gives me as a GM. If constraints breed creativity I think this is just as true of GMing as playing. I was running a game yesterday and there was a scene where a character stumbled into a backroom in a bar and found the local mafia beating up someone she knew. She wanted the prisoner dead, the prisoner wanted to use her as leverage with the mafia, the mafia wanted the prisoner's boss. We set-up a mini-game on a board showing allegiances, trust and outcomes. Then she, the gangster and the prisoner used oratory, intimidation, charm and other skills to move their pieces and to re-describe the board in order to angle for what they wanted over five rounds of 'social combat'. This scene was as tense as any fight scene would have been and had the full attention of the rest of the group. It worked because all of us could see the stakes and the impact of what was being said as PC and NPCs negotiated. In that situation the numbers mattered, the rolls mattered and what everyone said mattered. All those ingredients worked together to produce a plausible outcome in which no-one quite got what they wanted, with a new situation for both the character and NPCs - each with new problems and agendas. I hope this is illustrates the other thing I want - rules which use the goals and beliefs of the PCs and NPCs so that a scene where you try to talk your brother's killer down from a ledge is just as tense and involved as fighting him to the death. [/QUOTE]
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