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Worlds of Design: Golden Rules for RPGs
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<blockquote data-quote="RareBreed" data-source="post: 8838794" data-attributes="member: 6945590"><p>To each group their own, but I do not buy into this concept. </p><p></p><p>I started my gaming "career" playing historical American Civil War and Napoleonic wargames, followed by "modern" (circa early 1980s) microarmor. In these wargame systems, the concept of morale is pivotal. You don't need to kill your enemies if you can rout them. And shaken or suppressed soldiers are almost as good.</p><p></p><p>But trying to get a player character to be afraid, or panic voluntary is nigh impossible. And I also don't believe in rewarding the players with brownie points for "good roleplaying" by accepting such consequences voluntarily. Both the Fate and 2d20 system in Conan try to emulate this by for example having "Doom" points which, by suffering some kind of bad consequence now, you can have fortune smile on you later. I prefer systems that bake in the concept of psychology into the system (Pendragon, Fellowship of the Ring and Twilight 2000 come to mind).</p><p></p><p>Call me a simulationist, but I prefer emergent roleplaying that doesn't always follow the imagined narrative in the player's (or GM's) head. After all, most PC's want to be the uber hero that saves the day, that doesn't bat an eyelash staring down an army all by himself, and otherwise following the myriad tropes of being "bad ass" and cool. </p><p></p><p>But if you have rules that take away player agency depending on some situations, players start to realize they can't do everything they want. They may panic, or suffer anxiety, or give in to a rage and do something they wish they hadn't. This is all the more important in game systems where you buy "disadvantages" or flaws of some sort to get extra points. Some systems allow you to "override" this loss through stress points. Basically you have to sacrifce something to overcome the character's mental state and regain agency. And perhaps that is my biggest beef with the concept of never taking away a player's agency: where is the sacrifice? Where is overcoming the limitations that would otherwise be imposed on the character?</p><p></p><p>One of the most memorable campaigns I played was a Vietnam era game using the Phoenix Command system. The players were American troops (in one campaign marines, in another SEALs, and in yet another, members of the 173rd Airborne brigade LRRPs). What was fascinating was that we played it very simulationist style (as befitting a system like PCCS), and despite what some may think, the stories that emerged out of the simulationist combat was far more real and poignant than so-called narrative systems where players and GM's drive the story to their liking.</p><p></p><p>The reason is that due to morale, and stressful situations, players panicked and had to make some horrible choices under duress. The players (not just the characters) learned to fear combat. Was the villager VC? Did the little boy running towards them carry a grenade? Maybe because our gaming group all started out playing wargames, the concept of losing agency was not viewed as stripping one of freewill. </p><p></p><p>If the argument is that games are supposed to be fun and an escape from the constraints and limitations of the real world, I will argue that roleplaying isn't only about escapist fun, it can also be a tool used to explore possibilities we otherwise could not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RareBreed, post: 8838794, member: 6945590"] To each group their own, but I do not buy into this concept. I started my gaming "career" playing historical American Civil War and Napoleonic wargames, followed by "modern" (circa early 1980s) microarmor. In these wargame systems, the concept of morale is pivotal. You don't need to kill your enemies if you can rout them. And shaken or suppressed soldiers are almost as good. But trying to get a player character to be afraid, or panic voluntary is nigh impossible. And I also don't believe in rewarding the players with brownie points for "good roleplaying" by accepting such consequences voluntarily. Both the Fate and 2d20 system in Conan try to emulate this by for example having "Doom" points which, by suffering some kind of bad consequence now, you can have fortune smile on you later. I prefer systems that bake in the concept of psychology into the system (Pendragon, Fellowship of the Ring and Twilight 2000 come to mind). Call me a simulationist, but I prefer emergent roleplaying that doesn't always follow the imagined narrative in the player's (or GM's) head. After all, most PC's want to be the uber hero that saves the day, that doesn't bat an eyelash staring down an army all by himself, and otherwise following the myriad tropes of being "bad ass" and cool. But if you have rules that take away player agency depending on some situations, players start to realize they can't do everything they want. They may panic, or suffer anxiety, or give in to a rage and do something they wish they hadn't. This is all the more important in game systems where you buy "disadvantages" or flaws of some sort to get extra points. Some systems allow you to "override" this loss through stress points. Basically you have to sacrifce something to overcome the character's mental state and regain agency. And perhaps that is my biggest beef with the concept of never taking away a player's agency: where is the sacrifice? Where is overcoming the limitations that would otherwise be imposed on the character? One of the most memorable campaigns I played was a Vietnam era game using the Phoenix Command system. The players were American troops (in one campaign marines, in another SEALs, and in yet another, members of the 173rd Airborne brigade LRRPs). What was fascinating was that we played it very simulationist style (as befitting a system like PCCS), and despite what some may think, the stories that emerged out of the simulationist combat was far more real and poignant than so-called narrative systems where players and GM's drive the story to their liking. The reason is that due to morale, and stressful situations, players panicked and had to make some horrible choices under duress. The players (not just the characters) learned to fear combat. Was the villager VC? Did the little boy running towards them carry a grenade? Maybe because our gaming group all started out playing wargames, the concept of losing agency was not viewed as stripping one of freewill. If the argument is that games are supposed to be fun and an escape from the constraints and limitations of the real world, I will argue that roleplaying isn't only about escapist fun, it can also be a tool used to explore possibilities we otherwise could not. [/QUOTE]
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