What's your style?

[The Crimson Binome]

The NPCs will be priviledged to construe it the "correct" way, or the way the world "really is", because they have the immense advantage of sharing the perceptions and world-model of the individual who is actually deciding how the game world "really is".

Fair enough, but that's really more of an issue for pick-up and convention games. Once you've played under a given GM for a couple dozen hours, a player should be able to get on the same page about how things work in this world.

I mean, unless the GM is intentionally being obtuse and hiding their experimental results from the players, but nothing can stop a dishonest GM from running a game poorly.

 

[steenan]

Recently, I play mostly Fate- and Apocalypse World-based games. I also like Cortex+, Strike and the newest iteration of World of Darkness.

In general, I like games that:
- Focus strongly on the PCs, with rules that reflect their dramatic importance
- Use rules to facilitate conversation between the players and co-creation of a dramatic story, not simulation of the fictional world
- Give players robust mechanical tools that allow them to shape what happens in the game
- Give the GM solid rules for running the game (instead of giving nebulous advice and encouraging to ignore rules)

 

[Klem]

Yes, me too. Unfortunately, too many games, not enough time.

life is too short to try all games! especially if they create new games every day...

 

[Zhaleskra]

Why do they bother to turn up, then? As opposed to, say, reading a book or watching a movie?

Why don't the GM and "players" write a book or movie when there is no possibility of character death? See, I can make ridiculous statements too.

 

[Balesir]

Fair enough, but that's really more of an issue for pick-up and convention games. Once you've played under a given GM for a couple dozen hours, a player should be able to get on the same page about how things work in this world.

I really don't see that a couple of dozen hours will make much difference. The world is full of people who have lived in the same world for at least most of their lives, and yet still have radically different models of how the world works (as seen in the current political divides that seem to be getting wider, not narrower).

Let me put it this way: unless the players can hold a different view from the GM about how the game world works and eventually be proven right about that view, I don't think the situation is "fair" or "unbiased" in any meaningful way at all.

I mean, unless the GM is intentionally being obtuse and hiding their experimental results from the players, but nothing can stop a dishonest GM from running a game poorly.

Experimental results? I don't get where you are coming from, here - can you explain?

Why don't the GM and "players" write a book or movie when there is no possibility of character death? See, I can make ridiculous statements too.

Very droll, but not really on the mark as a comparison. I was responding to a statement that the players "had no vote" in the story - which is the case also with a book of film. I didn't think that Saelorn meant literally that - I guessed s/he was probably speaking in hyperbole - but I still commented on the actual words used as a way of questioning the actual intent behind them.

This quote, on the other hand, takes a grab at some concepts/principles that I have not mentioned, do not even think are a very good idea, and seem to come from some sort of bizarre vision of dysfunctional play that you have in your mind. I have no idea why you thought it a reasonable comparison, but I could probably conjure up a few imaginary straw-man visions of dysfunctional loathing, if you're interested?

 

[TwoSix]

I'll play anything. The whole point of learning about different play styles, for me, is to be able to analyze games I enter and figure out what I need to do to maximize enjoyment. Don't play OD&D like it's FATE, don't play FATE like it's OD&D.

The one thing I do carry over from game is a focus on conflict over logistics or preparation. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, and new character sheets are free no matter the system.

 

[Umbran]

I am, for the most part, gaming-omnivorous. I am only rarely concerned about what system I'm playing under - I care more about the overall concept of the game, who is running it, and who is playing in it. Unless you're playing something truly egregious (like F.A.T.A.L.) I can make my peace with the system.

This is bolstered by the fact that I'm the GM for my group, such that I don't get to play very often in general.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I really don't see that a couple of dozen hours will make much difference. The world is full of people who have lived in the same world for at least most of their lives, and yet still have radically different models of how the world works (as seen in the current political divides that seem to be getting wider, not narrower).

In the real world, there is a true way that the world is, and people disagree about it (both in general, and in every detail). Everyone is wrong about something, but they move on as though they're actually right, and they still manage to interact with the world in a meaningful way. Not knowing the truth, and trying to put it all together based on observations, is an important part of the real-world experience, and you lose that whenever you try to play in a world that you have created.

NPCs don't know the actual truth of the world with any more certainty than the PCs do. They're all just guessing, based on observations and circumstances.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Fair enough, but that's really more of an issue for pick-up and convention games. Once you've played under a given GM for a couple dozen hours, a player should be able to get on the same page about how things work in this world.

Once you've played with a given GM for a couple dozen hours in a given world and setting you should be able to get on the same page as the GM?

I don't know about you - but to me eight three hour sessions or six four hour sessions is an entire season of Monsterhearts. It's at least two entire campaigns of Grey Ranks or My Life With Master.

A couple dozen hours, however you slice it, is very much a non-trivial amount of time. It's about the amount of time it takes me to watch the Lord of the Rings plus all the Star Wars films (I probably use the prequels as nap time).

And you're telling me that doing things your way that's about as long as it takes to reach a meaningful baseline? Thanks, but I value my time more than that (and I'm posting on ENWorld!) And you make better use of time by lowering the overheads. One way to do that is not to give NPCs makework mechanics to invent the fiction that two NPCs interacting are going to roll it all out.

Edit:

In the real world, there is a true way that the world is, and people disagree about it (both in general, and in every detail). Everyone is wrong about something, but they move on as though they're actually right, and they still manage to interact with the world in a meaningful way. Not knowing the truth, and trying to put it all together based on observations, is an important part of the real-world experience, and you lose that whenever you try to play in a world that you have created.

That only happens if there is a single creator with 100% arbitrary authority. One of the key facts of a shared fictional universe created in play is that no one knows the whole truth, and that includes the GM. So far from losing that experience when you have a shared fictional universe you get a deeper and richer layered version of it because like the real world a lot of minds rather than one singular one have gone into creating it and you are occasionally going to get across each other as no one has 100% of the understanding.

And that goes twice over when you have resolution mechanics that go beyond pass/fail and themselves add to the worldbuilding as they do in a whole lot of modern games. Even the GM gets surprised fairly regularly.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That only happens if there is a single creator with 100% arbitrary authority. One of the key facts of a shared fictional universe created in play is that no one knows the whole truth, and that includes the GM. So far from losing that experience when you have a shared fictional universe you get a deeper and richer layered version of it because like the real world a lot of minds rather than one singular one have gone into creating it and you are occasionally going to get across each other as no one has 100% of the understanding.

Yes, this is a description of the major difference between traditional RPGs and modern collaborative storytelling RPGs. Traditional RPGs have a single creator with 100% authority, and nothing exists in that world unless that authority agrees to it; this allows for certainty that the world is consistent, even in the background that never appears on-screen, at least to the degree that the GM is competent and trustworthy. (This mirrors our real world and most fictional worlds, which have one consistent authority on how everything works - the laws of physics - and where anyone disagreeing with that authority is simply mistaken). The trade-off is that the GM can never be surprised about anything within the setting (though they'll still be plenty surprised by the choices that the players make), and that nobody else gets to share in the joy of world-building.

This is my style. This is the kind of game I will play. The opposite of my style would be something like Monsterhearts, or FATE, which I have absolutely zero desire to be in the same room with.