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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs
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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9201854" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>It doesn't seem silly to me because I experience that sometimes I start to do X and in a split-second have a change of heart. Picture a person holding someone against the wall, raising their fist, shouting - "<em>Tell me where you were last night!?</em>", and when that person spits back "<em>Get f***ed!!</em>" - then at the very last second punches that raised fist hard into the wall... right by their head. Did the aggressor know when they raised their fist that they were going to punch face or wall? It's plausible to me that they did not.</p><p></p><p>But this isn't a question about when a character realistically knows what, solely: it's a question about what mechanic best yields the distinct play. In the world of the Apocalypse, emotional violence is wedded to physical violence. It's so obvious that it sometimes gets overlooked, but games are symbolic. In my example, no one was really shouted at, nor will they (or any wall) be punched. What is represented, symbolically, by Go Aggro? In that respect I found [USER=7040941]@Emberashh[/USER]'s assessment of PbtA as genre emulation to offer a useful lense.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I feel what is lacking from this concept of "meta" is that the word is most useful (in my view) when it is thought of as "across games". So that it is metagaming to bring knowledge from one game into another (per your Frildo example), but it is not metagaming to think about how your character in the current game ought to act. Were the latter metagaming, then every character act would count as metagaming because in a TTRPG <em>characters never act of their own volition</em>. A player always must contemplate and voice actions, and in doing so all sorts of cases that I feel sure few would describe as metagaming may arise in which they must clarify intent. I mention this because I think to accurately make use of the genre emulation assessment above, it's important to be clear about what is included in play of the current game, and what is beyond that.</p><p></p><p>Also overlooked, possibly, is that PbtA does not assume that moves are only used by player characters on non-player characters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 9201854, member: 71699"] It doesn't seem silly to me because I experience that sometimes I start to do X and in a split-second have a change of heart. Picture a person holding someone against the wall, raising their fist, shouting - "[I]Tell me where you were last night!?[/I]", and when that person spits back "[I]Get f***ed!![/I]" - then at the very last second punches that raised fist hard into the wall... right by their head. Did the aggressor know when they raised their fist that they were going to punch face or wall? It's plausible to me that they did not. But this isn't a question about when a character realistically knows what, solely: it's a question about what mechanic best yields the distinct play. In the world of the Apocalypse, emotional violence is wedded to physical violence. It's so obvious that it sometimes gets overlooked, but games are symbolic. In my example, no one was really shouted at, nor will they (or any wall) be punched. What is represented, symbolically, by Go Aggro? In that respect I found [USER=7040941]@Emberashh[/USER]'s assessment of PbtA as genre emulation to offer a useful lense. I feel what is lacking from this concept of "meta" is that the word is most useful (in my view) when it is thought of as "across games". So that it is metagaming to bring knowledge from one game into another (per your Frildo example), but it is not metagaming to think about how your character in the current game ought to act. Were the latter metagaming, then every character act would count as metagaming because in a TTRPG [I]characters never act of their own volition[/I]. A player always must contemplate and voice actions, and in doing so all sorts of cases that I feel sure few would describe as metagaming may arise in which they must clarify intent. I mention this because I think to accurately make use of the genre emulation assessment above, it's important to be clear about what is included in play of the current game, and what is beyond that. Also overlooked, possibly, is that PbtA does not assume that moves are only used by player characters on non-player characters. [/QUOTE]
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