A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[pemerton]

He knows and likes the same game I do.

From this thread I get the sense you know and like DitV and some PbtA games. What else?

(And what system was the bathing RPG using?)

 

[Numidius]

From this thread I get the sense you know and like DitV and some PbtA games. What else?

(And what system was the bathing RPG using?)

The bathing system was Symbaroum, so more of a shame for its cool setting full of possible conflicts and stuff.

We shared the interest for Gumshoe, Blades in the Dark, AW .... later on I understood he likes to tinker with games and make them his own thing, one true wayly

 

[pemerton]

The bathing system was Symbaroum, so more of a shame for its cool setting full of possible conflicts and stuff.

This is the first time of heard of Symbaroum - I just Googled it and skimmed a rpg.net review.

I tend to be wary of RPGs where the main hook is setting, and (perhaps unfairly) your experience with this system is not changing that! If you've never read Ron Edwards' essay about setting in rpgs, you might find it interesting.

 

[Numidius]

In

The bathing system was Symbaroum, so more of a shame for its cool setting full of possible conflicts and stuff.

We shared the interest for Gumshoe, Blades in the Dark, AW .... later on I understood he likes to tinker with games and make them his own thing, one true wayly

I enjoyed a lot Marvel Heroic (Fantasy).
Have an ages long barely ongoing campaign of Warhammer, from first to second ed, skipped third, maybe will continue with Zweihander.
I'm collecting all printed stuff I can find of BW and Luke Crane in general.
Have a love/hate affair with both D&D and Trollbabe by Edwards (also Elfs! So funny, long ago...)
I know for sure one of my oldest friends still owns a copy of classic Traveller bought in the late 80's

....

 

[Numidius]

Yes the system is a very skimmed down sort of d20, not bad btw. Lethal combat. But I really despise turn based, movement rated, grid-a-like combat.

Char gen is fast and cool. The setting is small, realistic and different. The fluff for cities and locations is very playable from the get go. It had quite a good interest here in Italy.

Thanks for the link. I probably read it many years ago... repetita juvant

This is the first time of heard of Symbaroum - I just Googled it and skimmed a rpg.net review.

I tend to be wary of RPGs where the main hook is setting, and (perhaps unfairly) your experience with this system is not changing that! If you've never read Ron Edwards' essay about setting in rpgs, you might find it interesting.

 

[Numidius]

Actually Symbaroum RAW says: backgrounds for Pc, as well with Goals for Pc and Party.
The Gm did not allow neither of them... first warning of badwrongfun coming went unheard by me

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not sure how you're disagreeing with me: I said that it is the GM, not the player, who determines the degree of detail in which the gameworld can be explored. And you seem to have just elaborated on that point.

I was disagreeing with the "And as far as exploring the gameworld, you can't do that in as much detail as you like, at least in a GM-decides game". I have just been in too many games where the GM decides and the players are free to explore. I understand the argument you are making. i don't think it reflects the reality at a table like this. Now it might not be to your taste. But in a GM decides game, the players still play a significant role shaping the level of exploration detail. You are just limited, essentially in most cases, by doing so through your character. But within that constraint you are free to try anything you want. My personal experience of this, is it genuinely feels like I am exploring a real world in as much detail as possible.

 

[Numidius]

Marvel Heroic Fantasy, man, I have to tell you, liked it on paper, not so much at the table for a classic fantasy style rpg, but I found it excellent for a hex crawl, a kind of game that never inspired me before. [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

 

[Lanefan]

That said, consider most things with a serialized format. Generally there are multiple points of dramatic conflict throughout a series. There will dramatic conflict that is the forefront of the episode. There will be dramatic conflict in the backdrop of the episode. (Usually A, B, and maybe C plots.) There will be dramatic conflict centered around lengthy character arcs. There will be dramatic conflict centered around narrative or story arcs. There will be dramatic conflict between characters. This drama will overlap, crisscross, and branch. Some storylines will naturally slow down in favor of other storylines. Over the long term, we are not looking at a plateau, but, rather, a mountain range containing peaks, valleys, and hills.

And this - a long-running TV series - is a far better point of comparison than a movie; and what you say here is quite right: the drama is a) going to have numerous sources and b) will rise and fall as it hits those peaks, valleys, hills and so forth.

All those sources of drama are, one hopes, present in a decently run/played RPG as well. My point is that if they're all running full blast all the time without any valleys or lulls (which is how I more or less read/interpret [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's desires) then it's liable to lose its lustre after a while. Same is true of a movie (which I here will use as a comparison): if it's nothing but high action and explosions from start to finish then to the majority of the audience it's most likely going to become tiresome partway through.

Without valleys and lulls there can't really be any peaks. The peaks are what are (most often) remembered later, but the valleys are just as important both to set up the peaks and to provide a respite from them.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure. I think the people I play with enjoy our games too - certainly no one is forcing them to set aside every second Sunday afternoon and come along to our sessions.

I hope not, anyway.

But even then, there's going to be some sessions that just work better than others, for one, some, or all of a whole variety of possible reasons.

I suggest that your account of films is confusing cause and effect - it's not that films are time limited and hence show highlights; it's that films want to tell well-paced stories and hence show only selected events in the (notional) lives of their (fictional) subjects.

You say "selected events", I say "highlights", and I think we mean the same thing.

Of course there are real-time films, like some of Andy Warhol's, but I find it hard to believe that more than a handful of people has ever watched all 5 hours of Warhol's Sleep.

Merely proving that corner cases exist in all arenas.

Good RPGing also involves management of pacing - not by retrospective editing (given the way RPG fiction is created) but by managing scene-framing and transitions. (Even if this is as simple as Moldvay Basic's no play, only healing, happens between dungeon raids.) I don't want to RPG doing the laundry, cleaning my character's teeth, or collecting wood for a campfire. I find managing resources rather tedious, and prefer RPGs where that's not really a consideration (this is one respect in which Traveller shows its age, design wise - your suggestion that you have to do this suggest you don't have much familiarity with the many RPGs where that's not true).

Which comes right back to the thread topic: realism. Is it realistic to think your PC archer ought to be keeping track of how many arrows she has left? Yes. Can this tracking become tedious? Yes. Is the associated tedium enough reason in itself to forego the tracking and lose the associated realism? No.

Don't get me wrong - I don't want to roleplay doing the laundry either. But I completely disagree with Moldvay's "no play between raids" mantra; what happens during downtime can be just as much fun as what happens in the field.

I am interested in exploring characters, but that precisely requires generating situations that force choices in the way I've described.

Perhaps, perhaps not. A character can be just as deeply explored through detailed in-character conversations and interactions with other PCs and-or NPCs even if these convrsations and-or interactions carry no "pressure" at all.

And as far as exploring the gameworld, you can't do that in as much detail as you like, at least in a GM-decides game - you can only do it in the detail the GM likes!

If I-as-player keep asking questions and drilling down into the details it's on the GM to have answers, whether they be prepped or made up on the fly. And I will keep asking questions until I'm satisfied with the level of detail provided, which will always vary depending on the specific situation at hand.

To use your famous angel feather in the marketplace example: if I-as-player had the short-term goal of not leaving this marketplace until I'd found somethng that could help me sort out my brother, I'd probably be asking you-as-GM for (via having my PC wander around the whole market) a quick rundown of the type of wares of every vendor in the place other than those only selling basic food and drink. From that rundown I (thinking as my PC) would come up with an idea of which vendors might have something that could suit my needs, and start interacting with those on a more detailed level until I found what I was after...assuming it was there to be found at all.

In my experience, this means that the actual fiction produced by way of RPGing is less compelling, qua fiction, than that which is written by more professional authors with the opportunity to edit.

The fact that it is produced spontaneously by and for the participants goes a long way in overcoming this issue. In that sense, I see it as similar to making one's own music.

When read after the fact by an uninvolved third party, yes - the fiction produced by a typical RPG is very likely not going to be up to the standard of...well, anything, really; no matter how well the tale is written. But most of the fun for the participants lies in the act of creating the fiction and seeing it develop, which as you say mitigates or even eliminates the quality issue.

But in any event, the particpant-audience aspect seems rather orthogonal to the question of whether RPGs can't sustain drama.

I'm not sure it's that orthogonal. It's far more dramatic and personal to be actually involved in something - be it acting in a stage play, playing a sport, playing an RPG - than it is to be a spectator to the same event.

I've been running periodic RPG sessions for about 30 years without much interruption, so maybe close to a thousand in all; and haven't experienced the problem you hypothesie.

Either you've been beyond-the-bounds lucky or you're not seeing the valleys between the peaks.