Chess is not an RPG: The Illusion of Game Balance

[prosfilaes]

Amber Diceless Roleplaying

For me, Amber is one of the prototypes of the concept "roleplaying game" in my head. That's part of the frustration of this argument, is that I, as I suspect the vast majority of people do, have a prototype-based idea of what a roleplaying game is; for me, an RPG is something that is like D&D or GURPS or Amber, though that's making explicit what's implicit, and not nearly so simple or limited. Aggressive declaration that these things aren't RPGs is frustrating, because it's simply outside the bounds of discussion; this things are RPGs, the question is does the definition cover them.

(Which is not meant personally: I can certainly discuss the categorization without rancor. I can understand that Celebrim's definition of RPG may not include Amber. It's the dogmatic assertion of a definition that doesn't fit the prototypes in my head that's frustrating.)

 

[Janx]

I might dispute that. I have seen folks having a great time playing 4e as a straight up tactical combat skirmish game dungeon crawl, with not a scrap of story. Just, "Oh, hey, a monster, kill it and take its stuff!" The game, with all of its detailed movement rules and strategizing of how to get powers to play off each other, seems quite well suited for it. So I don't see where *wholly* storygame comes from.

In any case, did you just see us address how the really successful games serve more than one agenda? D&D is pretty much the poster child for successful game, in any edition, whcih would mena it isn't *wholly* any one thing. Didn't you just see Celebrim and I go over how GNS terminology can be *limiting*. Taking games and putting them into pigeonholes is limiting in the same sense.

If you need a definition of "storygame" for your theoretical considerations, that's fine. But we should resist the urge to shove games *wholly* into one bin or another, because, to be honest, they usually don't fit nearly as well as one would like to believe.

Not only that but H&W's made a number of statements like the one you quoted that don't jibe with my understanding of those editions.

Which means, he's basing his whole argument on his OPINION on how those games were and not the many varied realities of how people used them.

4e was widely criticized for being more of a tactical board game and less and RPG. 1E was not a procedurally generated world run off of tables.

Those statements aren't true for everybody, but they were true for plenty of people such that H&W's facts are called into question.

 

[Bedrockgames]

5e is a storygame that, yes, could be rejiggered into a roleplaying game, but has no rules for doing so as of yet.

Sorry but neither 5E nor 4E are story games. 4E is highly focused, but I don't think it is about giving players narrative control so much as tactical control. 5E is pretty much a standard roleplaying game with a dusting of borrowed elements from the narrative end of the spectrum (but little more than you'd find in games like Savage Worlds or the new Doctor Who), but it is also quite the traditional RPG as well. I think it is meant to appeal to a broad audience so naturally there is a little bit of everything for everyone. But it isn't Fiasco.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Welp. This is a long thread, and my replies reach quite far back. John Wick is self-contradictory, and any time you define D&D as not an RPG you need to check your definitions. Now getting into the meat of this thread (far more than in the John Wick article):

For example, #2 - this can be okay *if* your struggle with that minion is as crucial to events as the struggle with the Big Bad. Superman is off slugging it out with General Zod, while Jimmy Olsen struggles with a minion - if Jimmy wins, he gets to turn off the Device of Doom! Balancing really hefty mechanical differences like superman/Jimmy Olsen can be met with adventure design.

To me this is symptomatic of bad GMing for multiple reasons.
1: It's patronizing to Jimmy Olsen's player. Negative play experience.
2: It's very very railroady in all the worst ways. The DM literally has to plot in advance what Superman and Olsen are going to do.
3: It requires either Superman to be carrying an idiot ball or mind control. Because Superman could negligently deal with the minion with a simple breath before turning back to Zod. Or Zod could try to zap Olsen in a textbook villain move.

The way you are proposing the adventure design to work is an adventure design that dictates the actions of the PCs. So yes, you can write an adventure that batters the players into submission and forces them to take their assigned roles rather than to try to solve things at any other level. But this means that the imbalance is forcing you to write really bad railroading adventures. So how is this a good thing?

Every edition? I don't think so. 1e and 2e rather fail on the whole "balance" thing.

1e is actually fairly well balanced but that's because it's an adventure about dungeon crawling with a time limit in which everyone is expected to take a pack of hirelings with them, and the wizard will be hiding behind the hireling wall at low level. 2e ... isn't. Because it largely removes the hirelings, the dungeon walls, the wandering monster checks, and a lot of other factors.

There is a lot of subtle balance in 1e - the wizard may be weak at 1st level, but the most powerful thing on your character sheet isn't your abilities but your war dogs (and fighters need armour). By 5th level when the wizard is catching up, the minion wall is no longer other than cannon fodder making naked physical power much more useful. 7th level? The wizard should pull ahead - but that's when the fighter gets an extra attack, turning into that much more of a blender. 9th level the wizard actually does pull ahead - for one level before you enter the endgame and the fighter gets a castle and army.

Move into 2e and all this goes away. The Hirelings are rare, meaning the wizard goes splat easily and has no melee power at all at low levels - and the frequent absence of dungeon walls makes them even more vulnerable. Wandering monsters almost go away meaning that 8 hour rests without schlepping back to town are practical. I could go on.

But we also don't want cookie-cutter PCs that were just using the exact same point buy as the last PC.

Then mix up your point buy choices. No one is forcing you to always pick the same.

Of course not, if everyone is special no one is.

I wish people would stop quoting that cartoon supervillain.

The array you give has an average value of 12.
4d6 drop lowest has, if I recall correctly, an average of 12.24

So, I'm not sure how that's a "stomp". Taken straight, 4d6 drop lowest is, of course, more likely to generate high numbers - but it is also more likely to generate *low* numbers.

Not all stats are equal for all characters. More highs and more lows normally means more power where you need it.

I dunno. I gotta go with Celebrim on this one. If randomness was truly being sought, then why is randomness only mitigated in one direction - ever upward? And, considerably upward.

If we look at Ron Edwards on Fantasy Heartbreakers (homebrew D&D house rules professionally published - this was written in the 2e era) we notice "All of them except one have randomized attribute systems, but also an extensive set of secondary attributes which serve to homogenize the actual Effective values (i.e., those used in play)."

i like the idea rifts RPG put forward. Life isn't balanced, why should the RPG world be?

Because otherwise you end up with a game like Rifts?

Agreed. I've long had that thought about GNS - it is one of the reasons why I feel it is an interesting and occasionally useful framework for theoretical consideration, but it should not be applied to *real world* use very strictly.

One thing I'd point out here is that ENWorld is literally the only forum I know of where GNS is still taken seriously. It was an interesting idea but even Ron Edwards gave up on it. Story-games certainly has en masse.

The 1999 WotC survey gave us another framework we could use - a story/combat and strategy/tactics approach we could use. And the fact that we can do this supports your point that these aren't incompatible.

A much better system - and one that maps pretty well to Robin Laws' player types.

Sorry but neither 5E nor 4E are story games. 4E is highly focused, but I don't think it is about giving players narrative control so much as tactical control. 5E is pretty much a standard roleplaying game with a dusting of borrowed elements from the narrative end of the spectrum (but little more than you'd find in games like Savage Worlds or the new Doctor Who), but it is also quite the traditional RPG as well. I think it is meant to appeal to a broad audience so naturally there is a little bit of everything for everyone. But it isn't Fiasco.

Absolutely correct.

To expand slightly, a Story Game was originally an RPGwith a defined end point because a whole lot of people said that this was one reason Paul Czege's My Life With Master couldn't possibly be an RPG and those who liked it were more interested in the game than the name. 4e and 5e are both open ended leveling up games. Currently there is a tendency for it to be a tribal banner.

 

[Celebrim]

For me, Amber is one of the prototypes of the concept "roleplaying game" in my head. That's part of the frustration of this argument, is that I, as I suspect the vast majority of people do, have a prototype-based idea of what a roleplaying game is; for me, an RPG is something that is like D&D or GURPS or Amber, though that's making explicit what's implicit, and not nearly so simple or limited. Aggressive declaration that these things aren't RPGs is frustrating, because it's simply outside the bounds of discussion; this things are RPGs, the question is does the definition cover them.

Again, as I said I am fuzzy about whether Amber is an RPG or a story game, and I'd be happily convinced either way.

I think it is safe to say that neither you nor I know the definition of an RPG. All we can do is make lists of things we think are RPGs, and things we think are not RPGs. Our lists will probably not match up exactly. After that we can only try to explain why we think that this or that belongs on the list.

"Whose Line is it Anyway" is one of my opening examples. I declare that the games played on "Whose Line is it Anyway" are not RPGs. I do not think that it would occur to anyone to list them as RPGs or to say of them naturally that they were playing RPGs. While there is a theoretical connection to Dungeons and Dragons, I think it is safe to say that the sort of play that always occurs in Dungeons and Dragons need not and might never occur in WLiiA, and conversely the sort of play that always occurs in the theater games on WLiiA need not and might not ever occur in Dungeons and Dragons. With me so far?

As a side note to this, whatever our definition of RPG is, it has to include Dungeons and Dragons as the first and archetypal example. If our definition doesn't do that, then I suggest that the definition might define something, but its appropriation of the term RPG is inappropriate. In fact, I believe that Wick was actually offering a definition of "story game" and incorrectly labeled his definition RPG. One reason I believe that is I'm inclined to think that the theater games in "Whose Line is it Anyway" do fit under Wick's definition, and do exclude Dungeons & Dragons. Wick declaring his preference for story games over RPGs is perfectly acceptable, and had he done so, I think he would have provoked a bit less nerd rage (not that anything fails to provoke at least a little nerd rage). But by misusing the term RPG to apply it to a story game, he confused himself and his readers.

(Which is not meant personally: I can certainly discuss the categorization without rancor. I can understand that Celebrim's definition of RPG may not include Amber. It's the dogmatic assertion of a definition that doesn't fit the prototypes in my head that's frustrating.)

I'm not even asserting I have the definition of an RPG. I'm not sure a really definitive and useful definition exists. All I'm trying to do is show why I think Amber might be outside of it by noting that in my limited experience with it, it shared with theater games a need to resolve action by appealing to the narrative preferences of the players and not by appealing to the rules. The lack of a fortune mechanic and the consequent lack of any unknown quality, the sort of arbitrariness involved in deciding how to apply mechanics, the dramatic empowerment of the gamemaster to just decide the outcome without recourse, all struck me as being very much an elaborate theater game. I think that I'm prepared to suggest that any game without a fortune mechanic is not an RPG because its that fortune mechanic that critically ensures the potential for failure and weakness of all the players, but I'd love to hear your take on it.

I think my definition would be something like:

a) Is there a fiction that is important to the resolution? (Chess: no, no one need really think of the game as representing a battlefield)
b) Are you playing a role? (Chess: no, you are directing a large number of pieces, none of which you are required to identify as you)
c) Is there a fortune mechanic, such that you can offer propositions within the fiction without certainty of success? (Chess: Hmmm... Taken as a whole the game itself could be taken as a fortune mechanic, weighted so that it was more likely that the player of greater skill would win, but on the whole, no.)

Now, by this definition, what would it take to make chess a RPG?

a) There would need to be a fiction, what some have helpfully called "the game board". Chess's existing game board is not a fiction, but it would be easy to imagine chess played on a game board that was a fiction - having multiple perhaps connectable boards and some sort of 'fog of war' mechanic so that you never knew exactly what would be on the next board.
b) Each player would need to play a single role: That's fairly easy. We just distribute a knight, bishop, castle, or some sort of balanced fairy piece to each player.
c) There would need to be fortune mechanics.: Again, that would be fairly easy. We could just assign a random chance of succeeding at capturing or resisting capture to all the pieces. Obviously, some work would be required to actually make this interesting and not merely a game of random chance, perhaps by giving each piece the ability to absorb hits or having a chance of pulling off some sort of fairy alternate move (knights stretching to move an extra space, castles bowling over two pieces at once, bishops shifting to an adjacent color, etc).

I assert, at that point, chess is an RPG. And I think critically, it meets H&W's definition as well.

UPDATE: It just occurred to me that if you only have 'a' and 'c', then what you have is a wargame. And it is precisely the invention of 'b' in the context of a wargame that is credited with the invention of the RPG.

 

[Umbran]

You can't split the word up. Role playing game is a phrasal noun (essentially a single word made up of two or more words - bus stop is a single word, even though there is a space there and the words bus and stop can stand on their own). In order to define role playing game, you cannot break it into its component words, any more than you could define bus stop by defining the words individually. English isn't Latin.

Well, you can start by splitting it up - at the bus stop, there is a bus, and stopping involved, and that's useful to know. But you must then remember that the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts.

 

[Hussar]

Well, you can start by splitting it up - at the bus stop, there is a bus, and stopping involved, and that's useful to know. But you must then remember that the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts.

Exactly. If you split up bus stop, you might think that it means that the bus can no longer move, or has ceased to function in some way. Bus stop is meant to be treated as a single word grammatically.

Trying to break up RPG dives down the same rabbit hole.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again, as I said I am fuzzy about whether Amber is an RPG or a story game, and I'd be happily convinced either way.

An RPG. There are two definitions of Storygame I'm aware of - and Amber certainly doesn't fit the first and I don't think it fits the setting.
1: A game that comes from a certain corner of the RPG community.
2: A game from the RPG family (whichever side of the line it falls on) that has a predefined end point and you can't continue after that point because the setup no longer makes sense, and is not just a module for a larger game.

So to expand on the second, My Life With Master has one of the PCs fighting it out with The Master as the signal for the endgame - and the mechanics lead inexorably to that fight. Without the Master, any and all mechanics that are specifically about the relationship with the master no longer make sense. The characters survive - but unless they immediately find a new master you need a different ruleset. Fiasco is a five act structure on a highway to hell. But after the epilogue the rules no longer make any sense at all - and this is built into a game. Montsegur 1244 and Grey Ranks are similar - in another RPG they might be modules - but the game has been entirely written round that module.

I don't believe Amber has any such defined end point other than that it's PVP. So it doesn't fit type 2.

"Whose Line is it Anyway" is one of my opening examples. I declare that the games played on "Whose Line is it Anyway" are not RPGs. I do not think that it would occur to anyone to list them as RPGs or to say of them naturally that they were playing RPGs. While there is a theoretical connection to Dungeons and Dragons, I think it is safe to say that the sort of play that always occurs in Dungeons and Dragons need not and might never occur in WLiiA, and conversely the sort of play that always occurs in the theater games on WLiiA need not and might not ever occur in Dungeons and Dragons. With me so far?

With you on your conclusion. But Hillfolk is definitely an RPG.

As a side note to this, whatever our definition of RPG is, it has to include Dungeons and Dragons as the first and archetypal example.

Yup (if we use RPG as shorthand for Tabletop Role-Playing Game).

In fact, I believe that Wick was actually offering a definition of "story game" and incorrectly labeled his definition RPG.

"a game in which the players are rewarded for making choices that are consistent with the character’s motivations or further the plot of the story."

Arkham Horror is neither and RPG nor a Story-game. It gives the characters two simple motivations (stop the Elder God, stay alive) and rewards for that. And someone playing a Fishmalk is regrettably rewarded despite not having consistent motivations.

How about "A game where you are expected to make moves outside the direct scope of the game's mechanics, and where your moves are informed by intangibles like your character's motivations"?

I think that I'm prepared to suggest that any game without a fortune mechanic is not an RPG because its that fortune mechanic that critically ensures the potential for failure and weakness of all the players, but I'd love to hear your take on it.

You're in that case taking out a range of games I consider RPGs. Like Montsegur 1244. The argument here would appear to be that they are roleplaying but not roleplaying Games?

I think my definition would be something like:

a) Is there a fiction that is important to the resolution? (Chess: no, no one need really think of the game as representing a battlefield)
b) Are you playing a role? (Chess: no, you are directing a large number of pieces, none of which you are required to identify as you)
c) Is there a fortune mechanic, such that you can offer propositions within the fiction without certainty of success? (Chess: Hmmm... Taken as a whole the game itself could be taken as a fortune mechanic, weighted so that it was more likely that the player of greater skill would win, but on the whole, no.)

And you've just included a wide range of tabletop wargames where you are playing the general and the fiction is important.

I assert, at that point, chess is an RPG. And I think critically, it meets H&W's definition as well.

UPDATE: It just occurred to me that if you only have 'a' and 'c', then what you have is a wargame. And it is precisely the invention of 'b' in the context of a wargame that is credited with the invention of the RPG.

But you can add b without making it an RPG. Fog of War rules for one.

I'm going to say that what's critical is the corollary to A. That you can use the logic of the fiction to take actions the writers of the rules have not considered. And it's stepping round the rules that is credited with the invention of the RPG.

 

[Hussar]

Celebrim I'm not sold on the single role thing though. It's pretty common for players to have more than one role in an rpg. Controlling multiple characters isn't that rare. Note are adjunct characters like familiars or the like.

 

[Janx]

a) Is there a fiction that is important to the resolution? (Chess: no, no one need really think of the game as representing a battlefield)
b) Are you playing a role? (Chess: no, you are directing a large number of pieces, none of which you are required to identify as you)
c) Is there a fortune mechanic, such that you can offer propositions within the fiction without certainty of success? (Chess: Hmmm... Taken as a whole the game itself could be taken as a fortune mechanic, weighted so that it was more likely that the player of greater skill would win, but on the whole, no.)

I see where you're going with it, and it's a fine observation that D&D came from a war game. The scale of player focus/command& control transitioned from army to squad to individuals. once one player controlled on character, its a simple leap to "acting like that character" aka Role Playing.

I do have a nitpick. Feature C, Fortune. I don't think that's the right concept. a game doesn't have to use random chance (ex. dice) to resolve a conflict. Chess obviously uses initiative (if it's your turn, you win the fight when you move into another square). Other games use numeric rank (I have a 5, you have a 4, I win).

It's less about certainty of success, and more about "there's a system that exists to resolve failure or success in specific ways"

Which is sort of the difference between Improv Theatre, and Games (capital G meaning activities with rules).