Why we like plot: Our Job as DMs

[pawsplay]

So, terminology aside, does that mean we agree?

If we can't agree on terminology, we really can't agree. ... But I think we are trying to approach the same idea. I think "purposeful activity" or even just "activity" might possibly be the terms I would use. Victory conditions implies termination as well as competition, even if that's not a literal requirement of that phrase, and even just pursuing a goal implies some kind of singularity, when play may begin with a rather general aim and goals may be discovered during play. Does purposeful activity sound like it might describe what you are thinking of?

 

[Raven Crowking]

If we can't agree on terminology, we really can't agree. ...

If you use the term "red" to mean what I call "blue", we can both agree so long as we understand that the definition we are agreeing to is that used by the other. My agreeing with you that a stop sign is red does not mean that I am denying it to be blue by my definition. Nor does your accepting that it is what I call blue making you somehow colour blind.

IMHO, "purposeful activity" is too vague (there is a purpose to my reading a book or watching a movie).....but I don't care as long as we agree to a meaning.

I would argue that each game session, and/or each adventure is a discrete game, with its own (often unique) victory conditions, and that the overarching campaign is a framework in which those discrete games take place. This is similar to the idea that each round of The Prisoner's Dilemna is a distinct game, but when you know that you are going to play multiple rounds with the same players, the winning strategy changes.

"Objective fullfillment" offers the same problem as "purposeful activity": It fails to imply that the objective/purpose is contested or difficult. But, again, I am not married to the terminology, and will happily adopt your term for the purposes of discussion, so long as we agree as to what the term means.


RC

 

[pawsplay]

"Objective fullfillment" offers the same problem as "purposeful activity": It fails to imply that the objective/purpose is contested or difficult. But, again, I am not married to the terminology, and will happily adopt your term for the purposes of discussion, so long as we agree as to what the term means.

Does it have to be contested or difficult? Is it not possible to have an easy and elementary RPG?

 

[Hussar]

Basic D&D admits no differences between two fighters with identical ability scores. Mechanical differences do not constitute a personality.

How does this conflict with what I said. Just because two characters are mechanically identical does not mean that they have the same role. One could have an entirely different personality than the other. Role assumption assumes that they will and an RPG assumes that you will choose to play your character differently. And that this difference will come out during play.

There is no way to make a persona affect how I play Monopoly. And certainly nothing in Monopoly presumes that I will change my persona in any way in order to play.

Probably, but it hasn't stopped you from playing fast and loose with definitions. I don't know with certainty what "role assumption" means to you. I know that in my view, role assumption implies freedom of choice. Yet you do not seem to believe real choice is a prerequisite. Hence, the controversy.



There was a causal event, a natural consequence, and continuity. Hence, it is a narrative. "Jail" is an imaginary place, so it's certainly not a literal depiction of events.

Abstract does not mean imaginary. While I agree that abstraction can be used to determine narrative events, they have to be an abstraction of something. If there are no literal events to depict, how can you have any sort of narrative. While I can abstract a combat scene using all sorts of mechanics, that abstraction still maps onto a narrative, logically consistent scene. You cannot have that in Monopoly.

The fact that going out during the day will kill you is precisely what makes Vampire an RPG. Going outside is a meaningful choice with logical consequences. Not being able to go outside, literally, would be a characteristic of a boardgame or some kind of narrative game, not an RPG. Imagine trying to tell a story where a vampire could literally not commit suicide by exposure to sunlight, because sunlight destroys vampires who are exposed to it. No sense at all.

Again, I claim shenanigans here. "Go outside and you die" is effectively the same as not allowing you to go outside. If you go outside, you are ejected from the game. How is that not a prohibition?

"Unlimited choices" is not a prerequisite for an RPG at all. Unlimited choice, singular, is. The state of being able to choose. The specific options are always, necessarily, limited. A PC should be able to take any choice, not every choice. A character cannot draw a revolver if he doesn't have one. But if he has a revolver, he can draw it unless something makes it impossible.

How is that splitting a hair? Either a player is entitled to make a choice, or they aren't. You are free to argue that an RPG does not truly require freedom of action, but I do not understand how you can argue there is no difference between a limitation of the game and a limitation imposed on a character within a story. I, personally, am not constrained in an way if my vampire cannot go out during the day, but if you say my vampire cannot commit suicide by sunbathing, you are restricting me, personally.

I would argue that there is no difference here. "If you go outside in daylight, you may no longer play this game" is no different than, "If you don't want to play this game, quit". The player always has the choice to not play.

How is there any difference from kicking the table and knocking over all the chess pieces and "if you do this you cannot play anymore"?

In any game, you always have the choice to not play.

 

[Ariosto]

Hussar, are you trying to argue that Vampire: the Masquerade is not an RPG because players take the roles of vampires???

"Jump into molten steel and you die" is just as much the same as "If you jump into molten steel you may no longer play this game", and as little different from "If you don't want to play this game, quit."

So, can we by Hussar's definition have an RPG in which characters are vulnerable to anything at all? Or would even Superman: the Wish Fulfillment be ineligible because Soupy has a weakness for kryptonite?

Man, much of the time I think even you don't know what the cheese-it you're arguing.

 

[pawsplay]

How does this conflict with what I said. Just because two characters are mechanically identical does not mean that they have the same role. One could have an entirely different personality than the other. Role assumption assumes that they will and an RPG assumes that you will choose to play your character differently. And that this difference will come out during play.

There is no way to make a persona affect how I play Monopoly. And certainly nothing in Monopoly presumes that I will change my persona in any way in order to play.

Unless the board is very large, playing Monopoly will require a change in persona, and unless you are an early 20th century hotel investor in New Jersey, your behavior will be influenced by the premise of the game. You need something more than "assume an imaginary role" to have an RPG.

Again, I claim shenanigans here. "Go outside and you die" is effectively the same as not allowing you to go outside. If you go outside, you are ejected from the game. How is that not a prohibition?

Because you can go outside and die.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Does it have to be contested or difficult? Is it not possible to have an easy and elementary RPG?

Imagine if you will, a line on which the degree of difficulty toward meeting the game's goals are arrayed from 1 to 10 (almost certain to almost impossible). You can have a game anywhere in that range, but not in 0 or 11 (certain success or certain failure to meet the goals).


RC

 

[Hussar]

Pawsplay - I believe that we're coming at this from opposite ends.

For you, you look at the prohibition to commit suicide for the PC and say that that prohibition makes the game no longer an RPG. I look at it as, this is an act that is totally out of character for a character in this game, and as such will almost never come up in play, thus it's effectively the same as flat out ruling you can't do it.

An option that no one exercises is no different than no option at all, IMO.

From what you are saying, if I add a rule to D&D that says you may not have your PC fall on his own sword, that makes D&D no longer an RPG. I disagree, obviously. I think that the odds are fantastically small that you will ever fall on your own sword in D&D (at least deliberately, without adding in critical fumble tables ). As such, I have no problem saying, "You cannot commit suicide with your character" and still have an RPG.

I believe that should clear up Ariosto's apparent lack of reading comprehension abilities as well.

As far as role assumption, I think you are conflating role with class or profession. Fighter is no more a role than accountant. That's not who you are, it's just what you do. What differentiates two D&D fighters with identical stats and equipment?

To me, the difference is the roles that the players assume for those characters. One might be a noble knight and the other a gutter brawler. One might adhere to a code of conduct, the other swears fealty to a liege. On and on. The role that you assume with these two characters has little or nothing to do with class.

That brings us back to Monopoly. You do not assume any role in Monopoly. The game certainly does not expect you to. You play as yourself all the time. The fictional job of hotel builder is there, but, it in no way has any impact on how you play the game. There's no more role in Monopoly than Chess. I'm certainly not expected to act like Sun Tsu or Kasperov when I play chess. I might immitate some of their tactics, but, that's about it.

I'm certainly not expected to act like Donald Trump when I play Monopoly either.

Now, I can, but, the game does not place this expectation on me at all. I can be entirely myself, making decisions without any guidance from the role I have assumed. There is no more role assumption in Monopoly than in Snakes and Ladders.

 

[Hussar]

Imagine if you will, a line on which the degree of difficulty toward meeting the game's goals are arrayed from 1 to 10 (almost certain to almost impossible). You can have a game anywhere in that range, but not in 0 or 11 (certain success or certain failure to meet the goals).


RC

Heh. And this is the crux of our disagreement. I have no problem with a game which has 0 or 11 built into the mechanics. The goal of the game becomes divorced from the events within the game, true, but, it's still a game nonetheless.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Heh. And this is the crux of our disagreement. I have no problem with a game which has 0 or 11 built into the mechanics. The goal of the game becomes divorced from the events within the game, true, but, it's still a game nonetheless.

(1) I don't believe, based on our previous posts, that we mean the same thing by "goal", and

(2) If we do, then we definitely disagree, as I don't think of reading a book as a game (which it would be, AFAICT, under your definition).


RC