Flavour First vs Game First - a comparison

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Do I have to post a Youtube video with me asking "but why" and rolling a d20 simultaneously? It's not like I'm talented enough to join the circus or anything - I just don't think that asking "why" is a barrier to playing the game.

I personally think that most of the "don't think about it" responses are just a variation of "don't criticize our game system". Asking a question doesn't have to lead to more question asking until your head explodes. Being defensive about the question, and feeling a sense of insecurity is probably a more powerful motivation for putting the breaks on the question asking. When the Wizard of Oz was encouraging the adventuring party to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, he wasn't worried about their heads exploding. He was worried about himself.

That's because people ask "but why" only in a particular question. They ask "how is it working in the game world". If it was just a "but why" question and I can point you to the reason why it works that way - because it works better that way at the game table! That is the reason. You can make up all kinds of reasons in the game-world, but that won't answer the question. That's why you eventually have to stop asking the question.

 

[gizmo33]

That's because people ask "but why" only in a particular question. They ask "how is it working in the game world". If it was just a "but why" question and I can point you to the reason why it works that way - because it works better that way at the game table! That is the reason. You can make up all kinds of reasons in the game-world, but that won't answer the question. That's why you eventually have to stop asking the question.

So the answer to the question "why does it work this way in the game world" is "I don't know." I would think that would pretty much end the questions. Talking about the game table is an answer to another question AFAICT.

Now on the internet I wouldn't be surprised to find the asker going to some other thread or another poster and repeating the question. Maybe somebody somewhere knows how a certain exploit can be described convincingly as non-magical within a game world. IME people are generally bad at admitting when they don't know something (school typically trains you to not do this), and will try to talk around it first with a bunch of weird and contradictory statements. It wouldn't surprise me if the people whose heads you're concerned about exploding are just trying to make sure the answer is really "I don't know." after sifting through a lot of what is often probably obfuscation.

 

[Scribble]

Do I have to post a Youtube video with me asking "but why" and rolling a d20 simultaneously? It's not like I'm talented enough to join the circus or anything - I just don't think that asking "why" is a barrier to playing the game.

It's a barrier if for some reason you need all of those questions answered before you can use the system, and no matter what you continuously ask more and more questions.

It's not a barrier to me. In fact I like those questions because they allow me to roam in my answers. It gets annoying when someone out there decides the official answer.

I don't care if you want to answer them all really. More power to you if you want to spend your time answerign them. But to claim that a system is somehow flawed because it hasn't answered EVERY possible but why... is a bit reaching.

 

[GlaziusF]

Some people think the earth is flat, and some people conflate their opinions with facts. There's no objective basis for discussing whether or not a shot clock is "right" or "wrong" completely absent of context (which is appears is the case here).

A right thing fulfills the purpose it sets out to fulfill.

The purpose of a game is to satisfy its players. The purpose of paying to watch a game is to be satisfied by watching it.

More players were satisfied with (you could even say "enjoyed") the new shot-clock-enabled basketball, and more people were satisfied by watching it.

Therefore, basketball with the shot clock is more right than basketball without the shot clock. Is it the most right basketball could ever be? Who the hell knows? But you can't use "it won't be perfect yet" as an excuse not to make a change.

Similarly, satisfaction implies a certain completion. An accomplishment, if you will. This has been out in idea space since Aristotle. Accomplishment is the result of a series of meaningful choices, many of which are meaningful actions. A "game" where a player makes no meaningful choices has no accomplishment and is not satisfying.

 

[GlaziusF]

Maybe somebody somewhere knows how a certain exploit can be described convincingly as non-magical within a game world.

Hey go check the end of that thread there's a surprise.

SPOILERS:

Everybody's powers have the same unified source: Destiny. Y'know, that thing you're going to start realizing at level 21, and once fully realized, you shuffle off this PC coil? Yeah, that Destiny.

 

[Scribble]

Hey go check the end of that thread there's a surprise.

SPOILERS:

there is no spoon.

 

[pemerton]

there is (IMHO) a big difference between abstracting hit points (because wound location/severity simulation runs into a lot of difficulties in actual practice) and saying fighter powers are not magical, but sure as heck seem supernatural, because they are not magical in the traditional way.....just don't think about it.

There is a difference between abstracting subsystems, and major abstraction of what the characters themselves represent.

Having to decide whether your character is tired or not, or is covered in blood or not, and having to decide whether your fighting techniques are super-powered or the mix of skill and luck (controlled by the player, not the character) can be both very important to your "immersion" in the character.

It's funny you mention hit points, which are the original and ultimate "don't think about it" game construct.

I guess I agree with Spatula and Mustrum rather than Raven Crowking. Hit points are part of my PC just as much as powers. It doesn't matter to me that neither directly represents an ingame property, but rather is a metagame regulator of descriptions of ingame events.

 

[Scribble]

However, there is (IMHO) a big difference between abstracting hit points (because wound location/severity simulation runs into a lot of difficulties in actual practice) and saying fighter powers are not magical, but sure as heck seem supernatural, because they are not magical in the traditional way.....just don't think about it

Not really.

Fighter powers are not magical in the "traditional way" They are not effected by things that effect magic in the d&d world, nor are they achieved in the same way. Their source is the martial power source. What is it? You can decide for yourself, but whats important is it's not the same thing as the arcane power source, or the divine power source. Maybe they're supernatural, maybe not. This might even be a source of speculation and legend in your campaign!

Saying "don't think so hard" is short for: I don't need to know the exact workings of said source in the same way I don't need to know exactly how bat guano helps you create a blast of fire.

All thats needed is the knowledge of: There is a source of power called martial power, and some people can tap into it, and how it is effected by other parts of the game.

if you WANT to get into detail about exactly what it is, you can, just like you can write a whole essay about how said bat guano interacts with magicum particles to create heat and force, but that's up to you. It doesn't hinder the game if you don't.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The measure of the success of a game is how much people at the table enjoy it. No other metric is more important than that. I don't care how well it evokes a fantasy story, if the game is not enjoyed by everyone at the table, it is a failure.

So to tease out more of what I did this morning: why do I play D&D instead of, say, A Link to the Past (which, for my milage, is one of the Best Games Ever (tm))? I could go fire up my old SNES right now and have the time of my life scuttling around Hyrule whacking things with a sword. The game works perfectly, the story is there enough to justify it, I don't have to worry about anyone else, and I have no pre-prep work to do. I just flip on my game and I'm there, enjoying myself.

In fact, I've got a D&D game scheduled for this Sunday. Why don't I say I'd rather play A Link to the Past? Surely I won't have any headaches trying to play 4e without a minis board. I won't have to travel the hour to get to where we're gaming. I won't have to put up with some weird friend tension. I won't even have to get dressed in the morning. I could just wake up, play the game for an hour or so, get bored, and do something else. Maybe look for a better job or surf ENWorld and amuse myself in theoretical design debates. All are plenty of enjoyment for me.

So why am I going to D&D?

Because D&D offers me something, in the gameplay, that none of that does: the ability to evoke a story with friends.

So why isn't this important? It is, essentially, the justification of the existence of, if not the entire PNPRPG industry, at LEAST of D&D.

I don't play D&D just to have fun. I'm a 21st century digital boy. I've got a lot of toys (apologies to Bad Religion). I'm lousy with fun. Furthermore, I'm of legal drinking age, and have ready availability of a legal hallucinogen, so I can make staring at the wall and giggling fun. More fun than D&D could ever be in it's wildest, wettest, most scantily clad dreams.

What makes me choose D&D over these other toys is not "fun." It is a particular style of rarely-had fun that I very much enjoy: interactive, spontaneous storytelling.

Wherever D&D fails to deliver me that, it fails to deliver me the brand of fun I am seeking, and so I'll either seek it elsewhere, or just content myself with a decade-plus old videogame and save myself some time and effort.

In sacrificing everything on the altar of "game-first" you forget that the game itself is "story-first." Without Legolas and Conan, there never would have been a D&D.

Again, this is not a fluff vs crunch debate. You are right, you can have perfectly acceptable, even good mechanics that started as flavour. But, typically, if you start from a flavour standpoint, then bolt on mechanics, you are ingnoring how it plays out at the table.

Actually, your argument seems to be fluff-and-crunch at its core because you specifically argue that starting from fluff gives you bad crunch, while starting from crunch gives you good crunch and can fudge the fluff. I'm arguing that crunch and fluff are two things that you need to get right, regardless of which one you start with.

It's not a case of good mechanics vs bad mechanics - it's a case of mechanics inspired by an attempt to emulate some flavour concept, causing the game to be less enjoyable during play.

Any mechanic that causes the game or the play to be less enjoyable is a bad mechanic. It doesn't really matter what the reason behind it is, it's bad. A flavor concept can give you some dynamite rules. Heck, that's basically what a class is -- a flavor concept.

You bring up the Random Strumpet Table. There's a good idea. Mechanically fine - it causes no major malfunctions in the game, flavour wise perfectly acceptable for the idea of D&D, and causes no major problems at the table. I got no beef with that. I think it was a flavour first mechanic - but, that's a quibble, and it doesn't really matter. It causes no malfunctions at the table. It passes.

But, if you look at the mechanics that DO cause malfunctions at the table, I think you will find that they are primarily driven from a flavour first concept. That the creators of the mechanics are trying to bring out some bit of flavour into the game without stopping and considering how that will actually function at the table.

The mechanics that cause problems come from all sorts of places, and 4e is no stranger to any of the "problems" you bring up. A bad mechanic is a bad mechanic, and trying to muddle out the motives of dead and aged gaming designers is pointless when addressing the problem of bad mechanics.

Though I think the fact that two rational people can look at one mechanic and one person think it's "flavor-based" and another think it's "game-based" means that your terms are probably too vague to be useful in the first place.

At the highest level of "Why am I doing this?", the game and the flavor, the fluff and the crunch, become one experience that compliments itself. It helps me tell a story in a way that isn't clunky or difficult.

A lot of people who have rejected 4e do so because the "flavor" they're looking for has failed to be supported, while it could be supported with earlier editions. The ability to ban paladin and the inability to ban healing surges scratches the surface of part of why this is.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I agree with the healing criticism. However, I think the falling criticism is not really about character hit points...

Perhaps, but perhaps not. Hit points are overloaded in that they measure physical damage as well as the ability to turn serious damage into less serious damage (through either skill, luck or whatever). However, I don't see where skill or luck is going to help you if you fall 200 feet. All of that damage is straight to the head - unless obviously you are of high enough level to survive (and continue fighting actually at one's peak ability too). The UA fix is exactly that. An inelegant solution to cover such a situation. The issue is in the disconnect between the hit points mechanic, its flavour and the myriad of anomalies that follow from that disconnect.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise