Players choose what their PCs do . . .

[pemerton]

am I completely off base, here?

Not [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], but I had this thought in response: a lot of RPGers seemed to dislike Marvel Heroic RP because it didn't answer the question "Who is stronger? The Hulk or the Thing?"

And because it allowed Emma Frost's player to spend a point to put her d6 strength into a pool, which then gave her player the chance (however modest) to do better than The Hulk's player with d12 strength in the pool, they complained that it let Emma Frost beat The Hulk in an arm wrestle.

All of which just showed a failure to understand how the game works. In MHRP, if it's obvious to everyone at the table that Emma Frost can't beat The Hulk in an arm wrestle, then no conflict is framed, no pools built, no dice rolled. Conversely, if Emma's player puts her d6 strength into the pool and also her d10 Telepathy then maybe she can beat The Hulk in an arm wrestle by making him act as if he's no stronger than a 2 year old baby.

Moral of the story: if the group's sense of genre and fictional possibility is strong and shared, then that is what guides framing and the boundaries of the possible; and then we only need mechanics to decide who's vision of what is possible prevails. Those mechanics might reflect aspects of the protagonists and/or antagonists in some fashion (qv 4e D&D combat; most MHRP; PbtA though mostly on the protgonist side only) or may not (qv 4e skill challenges; MHRP rolls vs the Doom Pool; quite a bit of Hero Quest revised; etc). Either way they're not models of anything. They're fiction-generation/confirmation devices.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, one did.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], but I had this thought in response: a lot of RPGers seemed to dislike Marvel Heroic RP because it didn't answer the question "Who is stronger? The Hulk or the Thing?"

I just took one look at the multicolored charts and gave it up... I may be thinking of an earlier version.

But, I agree: one appeal of a licenced RPG is "to see what the stats really are," and for a genre RPG theres an appeal in "doin' it right!" - subverting or defying genre conventions that rub you the wrong way, like why should the big dumb barbarian get the princess? Why is the sorcerer necessarily evil?

they complained that it let Emma Frost beat The Hulk in an arm wrestle.
All of which just showed a failure to understand how the game works.

And how the comics work. Less nominally powerful characters pull something and get away with showing up some much more powerful character at his thing.

(And the Hulks STR is notionally unlimited, he's stronger than the Thing, when angry enough. Hulk v Thor is not so straightforward.)

Moral of the story: if the group's sense of genre and fictional possibility is strong and shared, then that is what guides framing and the boundaries of the possible; and then we only need mechanics to decide who's vision of what is possible prevails. Those mechanics might reflect aspects of the protagonists and/or antagonists in some fashion (qv 4e D&D combat; most MHRP; PbtA though mostly on the protgonist side only) or may not (qv 4e skill challenges; MHRP rolls vs the Doom Pool; quite a bit of Hero Quest revised; etc). Either way they're not models of anything. They're fiction-generation/confirmation devices.

I feel like that's "modelling genre" or "modeling a genre story" or even modeling genre bits, assumptions, & tropes.

 

[pemerton]

I just took one look at the multicolored charts and gave it up... I may be thinking of an earlier version.

That sounds like 1980s TSR Marvel Super Heroes. MHRP has no charts of any colour. It's a relatively straightforward but surprisingly intricate dice pool system. (Dice are d4 to d12, and express attributes, whether enduring - like the Hulk's strength - or fleeting, like the Hulk's telepathically implanted belief that he is a 2 year old baby; dice pool success is determined by adding two dice, and the effect of success is determined by choosing a third die which takes effect based on size, not result. Many but not all special abilities involve dice pool manipulation.)

I feel like that's "modelling genre" or "modeling a genre story" or even modeling genre bits, assumptions, & tropes.

What I would quibble with in what you say is the word model. And in that quibbling I'm not taking issue with your post on its own terms, but in the context of the discussion with [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] about minions.

I'll start with a non-RPG example to try to illustrate my thinking: a recipe for chocolate cake - take these ingredients, prepare them in such-and-such a way, combine them in such-and-such a way, and then bake the resulting mixture for this long at this temperature - is not a model of a chocolate cake.

This isn't true of all recipes/instructions: for instance, the instructions that come with a typical box of Lego not only tell you how to build the whatever-it-is, but do so by providing a visual model of what it is you are trying to build. A route marked on a map also not only instructs you how to get from A to B, but visually models at least some of the geographic aspects of the process of doing so. A musical score also is both a recipe and a model (obviously as a model more specialised than maps and Lego instructions).

But a chocolate cake recipe is dissimilar from these other sorts of recipes. It lacks the characteristics (of representation of what is being produced; of isomorphism to the product or the process of production; etc) that would make it a model.

I'm somewhat labouring this analogy because I think it goes directly to the point about minion mechanics, or the MHRP mechanics for The Hulk and the Thing that produced the complaints I mentioned.

On the published MHRP character sheets both those characters are rated at d12 strength. Each also has additional relevant text on his PC sheet:

The Thing
SFX: Haymaker. Double Godlike Strength for an action, then add second-highest rolling die from that action to the doom pool.

The Hulk
SFX: Rage-Fueled Might. Add a die equal to your emotional stress to the doom pool to include your emotional stress in your next action. If your opponent includes your emotional stress in a reaction dice pool, step it up.

SFX: Hulk Smash! Against a single opponent, double a Gamma-Charged Genetics die. Remove the highest-rolling die and add another die to your total.

SFX: Strongest There Is! In a reaction against an opponent with a Strength power trait, spend 1 PP or step up your emotional stress to add a die equal to the opponent’s Strength to your dice pool.

Limit: Limitless Anger. When the doom pool includes at least 2d12 or you take emotional trauma, move all stress and trauma to the doom pool and activate Rampaging Hulk.

Rampaging Hulk
When Hulk loses control, his strength and power escalate beyond the limits of any other hero, but he becomes an almost mindless catastrophic force. While manifested, the Rampaging Hulk uses the current doom pool in place of an Affiliation die for all dice pools, similar to a Large Scale Threat. Dice added to or spent out of the doom pool affect the Rampaging Hulk’s power. The Rampaging Hulk’s dice may be targeted like a Large Scale Threat’s Affiliation dice with successful actions against him reducing the doom pool. If the doom pool is reduced to two dice, the Rampaging Hulk reverts back to Banner and all emotional stress and trauma are recovered.​

That additional text does not establish a model of anything, be that a character or a genre or a trope. But each is an element of a recipe - each sets out a process that ., when incorporated into other aspects of the resolution system such as dice pool building and Doom Pool mainpulation, will lead to results in the fiction that conform to our expectations in resepct of these characters and how their endeavours should turn out.

Likewise a minion's 1 hp is not a model of that minion's (imagined) toughness. It's an element of a recipe - it tells you that, on a successful hit, we're to narrate a fiction that involves the minion having been dispatched. It's not the whole of the receipe - other elements of the recipe include such principles as don't use mid-paragon minions in mid-heroic encounter building. If you ignore that element of the recipe then of course you'll get silly stuff like "glass jaw ninja" ogres - ogres who dance around and are almost impossible for their mid-heroic opponents to hit, but who fall down at the first touch.

I think the notion that mechanics can be a recipe without being a model - as I said in my earlier post, that mechanics can simply be fiction generation devices or fiction confirmation devices - is fundamental to appreciating the workings of most of the RPGs (including 4e D&D) that have been mentioned in this thread. Even Classic Traveller has resolution systems that as far as I can tell aren't meant to be models of anything, like the NPC reaction table.

 

[Sadras]

I've bolded your two uses of the story. In the sort of RPGing @Campbell is describing there is no the story.

I think you can exchange the story for the party's course of action and [MENTION=75787]GrahamWills[/MENTION]'s issue will still stand. I don't think differentiating story now or running a module/AP assists the debate between Grahamwills and Campbell when speaking about players prioritising their own characters (to be faithful to the concept) over everything else.

A player should not be prioritizing their character above all us. What they should be prioritizing is following the fiction, playing to find out, and being a fan of all the main characters (PCs). A player does not get to protect his character, push the story where he would want it, dictate how other players are allowed to interact with his character. He or she owes the other players a chance to follow their character on its journey even if that means the character might suffer, be changed in fundamental ways, or even die or be removed from play. By pushing hard for what your character wants you are making the game fun for everyone else.

I agree with this. The options you listed:
(1) character might suffer;
(2) be changed in fundamental ways;
(3) die;
(4) removed from play.

The above requires much roleplaying maturity, particularly options (3) and (4) as some players become too attached to their creations, in the same way some GM's become to protective of theirs (be it NPCs, planned outcomes, settings...etc).

In the context of 5e, and I'm not sure what experience you have with that, I would say (2), possibly (1) might see an increase or change in personality traits. Using GrahamWills's example, the paladin might defer to the rest of the party's judgement for the course of action followed, with the risk of incurring a personality change or a further flaw - perhaps even a temporary loss in Inspiration.

 

[pemerton]

I think you can exchange the story for the party's course of action and [MENTION=75787]GrahamWills[/MENTION]'s issue will still stand. I don't think differentiating story now or running a module/AP assists the debate between Grahamwills and Campbell when speaking about players prioritising their own characters (to be faithful to the concept) over everything else.

About a week ago upthread [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] posted this:

My own falling out with 4e is due to a couple things. All the resolution mechanics are built around a team of PCs working in tandem where my favored approach is a collection of individuals with their own needs and desires that are sometimes allies, sometimes rivals, and occasionally enemies.

So Campbell is rejecting the notion of the party's course of action. The idea of the party isn't essential to RPGing.

(1) character might suffer;
(2) be changed in fundamental ways;

<snip>

In the context of 5e, and I'm not sure what experience you have with that, I would say (2), possibly (1) might see an increase or change in personality traits. Using GrahamWills's example, the paladin might defer to the rest of the party's judgement for the course of action followed, with the risk of incurring a personality change or a further flaw - perhaps even a temporary loss in Inspiration.

As I understand it - and maybe there's a gap in my understanding - 5e doesn't have the mechanical resources to easily implement this sort of intra-group conflict and its ramifications.

In my Classic Traveller game - which is built around team/party play - when the players (as their PCs) can't agree then I have them dice off: opposed 2d6 checks with a bonus to each side reflecting how many nobles it has and how much Leadership expertise it has. That is pretty light-touch (eg compared to a Burning Wheel Duel of Wits): it doesn't dictate any change to the character other than that s/he agreed to go along with what the others wanted to do. But I nevertheless imagine it would be regarded as too forceful for most 5e tables.

 

[Sadras]

So Campbell is rejecting the notion of the party's course of action. The idea of the party isn't essential to RPGing.

Well this is fine, you've moved from story now to discuss character relationships.

As I understand it - and maybe there's a gap in my understanding - 5e doesn't have the mechanical resources to easily implement this sort of intra-group conflict and its ramifications.

Agree it does not, my intention is to implement mechanical resources.
As the characters rise in levels I feel the need to increase the stakes, other than PC death, mission failure and in-game narrative loss with no mechanical consequence which allows for it to be ignored. And there is too much history to just abandon our 5e D&D for a game that possesses the necessary tools. This is the game I intend to run all the way to level 20 for once in my life. So I'm here borrowing, stealing and pillaging ideas!

In my Classic Traveller game - which is built around team/party play - when the players (as their PCs) can't agree then I have them dice off: opposed 2d6 checks with a bonus to each side reflecting how many nobles it has and how much Leadership expertise it has. That is pretty light-touch (eg compared to a Burning Wheel Duel of Wits): it doesn't dictate any change to the character other than that s/he agreed to go along with what the others wanted to do. But I nevertheless imagine it would be regarded as too forceful for most 5e tables.

Maybe, I do not know. Personally I think your way of handling things is fine. I think maybe once (in my some 30 year experience of RPGing) has the table ever resorted to a dice off.

 

[pemerton]

As the characters rise in levels I feel the need to increase the stakes, other than PC death, mission failure and in-game narrative loss with no mechanical consequence which allows for it to be ignored. And there is too much history to just abandon our 5e D&D for a game that possesses the necessary tools. This is the game I intend to run all the way to level 20 for once in my life. So I'm here borrowing, stealing and pillaging ideas!

My tentative suggestion (tentative because I'm a random commentator on a message board, not an observer of let alone a participant in your game) would be to look for ways to connect in-game narrative loss (or success) to the mechanical scope of action. By chance earlier today I was re-reading bits of a thread from late last year and saw the following post that I made to which you responded:

the players were happy with the result and that the decisions they had taken had paid off (like bringing the father along and a few others).

The presence of the father is interesting because of the very many different ways it might factor into adjudication. Some examples:

* Because the father is with you, persuasion is a superior option to what it otherwise might have been;

* Because the father is with you, persuasion is a viable option which it otherwise would not have been;

* Because the father is with you, when you try to persuade there are some moves open to you (eg playing on filial loyalty; threatening to executive him; etc) which otherwise wouldn't be possible.​

Different approaches prioritise different sorts of engagement with the fiction, and different approaches to play. Thus, the first approach tends to reward a sort of puzzle-solving or resource-maximisation style ("Cool, we got the thing - in this case the dad - that will give us a bonus!"). The second and third might reward that, if the possibilities that are opened up are mechanically advantageous. But they might also shift the emphasis to something else - eg making it possible to play on filial loyalty, or threaten to execute the father, might not change the maths but change the thematic weight of what is going on in play.

I think that 5e probably makes it fairly hard to change characters as a result of choices. But I don't think it makes it hard to change the mechanical scope of action as a result of choices. That just requires centring some aspects of fictional positioning that are perhaps not always centred in 5e play. If the fictional positioning is allowed to "cascade" then you can get quite interesting and perhaps even powerful unfolding of stakes and choices and consequences without needing to introduce new mechanical systems. It probably won't give you PCs with a rich inner life (of the sort that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is looking for) but it may give you PCs who make thematically meaningful choices whose consequences can be seen etched on the surface of the gameworld.

In my experience some, even many, GMs, are hesitant to follow the fiction in this way. That is, they tend to set parameters for the mechanical scope of choice independent of the elements of fictional positioning I'm pointing to, and also tend to cabin the consequences of choices rather than allow the fictional positioning to "cascade". Further in my experience, this hesitation seems to have two main causes: (1) a desire for control over what is happening in the fiction (something like the "story advocacy" Campbell has referred to upthread); (2) a fear of what will happen - eg loss of certainty over how to frame challenges and adjudicate actions - if the fiction is allowed to take its own course.

If you do not have that sort of hesitation, then I reiterate my tentative suggestion (that little bit less tentatively!). If you do have such hesitation, then a further tentative thought would be that it may be hard to continue in that way and yet achieve the increase in meaningful stakes that I take you to be looking for.

None of the above is intended in the form of judgement or prediction or criticism (qv reasons why all comments are tentative). It's a sincere attempt to respond to what you have posted in the context of 5e D&D as best I understand that system.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That sounds like 1980s TSR Marvel Super Heroes.

'MSH' yes, that's what I was thinking of.

What I would quibble with in what you say is the word model. And in that quibbling I'm not taking issue with your post on its own terms, but in the context of the discussion with Lanefan about minions.

So, I'm OK with the use of the word model, in general, and in the way I was using it, obviously. I'm also fine with, say, a wargamer talking about modeling a specific sort of cannon used in the Battle of Trafalgar.

When Lan or Saelorn or someone like that says something like 'model the world' or 'model a hobgoblin in the fiction,' though, I have an issue. You can't model something that doesn't exist. You can model 'the fiction,' but you're literally modeling /fiction/, so I'd say MHRP models the fiction churned out by Marvel, from the snippet you posted, pretty well. But it doesn't "model the actual STR of the Thing," because The Thing only exists as fiction, not as a thing with any actual strength.

(Also, from that snippet, seems the Hulk is totally stronger than The Thing, so IDK what anyone's grousing about from that angle.)

That additional text does not establish a model of anything, be that a character or a genre or a trope. But each is an element of a recipe - each sets out a process that ., when incorporated into other aspects of the resolution system such as dice pool building and Doom Pool mainpulation, will lead to results in the fiction that conform to our expectations in resepct of these characters and how their endeavours should turn out.

I'm not sure I buy the logic that using a system to generate an analog of a fictional story in a very different medium isn't 'modeling' in some reasonable sense. But I do see the distinction you're drawing, if not the importance nor the validity of using or not using certain words to convey that distinction.

Likewise a minion's 1 hp is not a model of that minion's (imagined) toughness.

The way I see, it's part of a model of a genre. In this genre, heroes dispatch some foes very quickly, both to illustrate the prowess of the hero, and because said foes aren't too important to the story in any other way.

I think the notion that mechanics can be a recipe without being a model - as I said in my earlier post, that mechanics can simply be fiction generation devices or fiction confirmation devices

I'd draw the same distinction by saying modeling fiction instead of modeling something imagined in that fiction as if it had a real existence that model could be verified against.

I'd tie it back to the idea of 'simulationism,' as often used around here, as really being about the compromises made, particularly in wargaming, between a playable game and an accurate simulation - that is, simulationism prefers games that accept being worse games in the way that simulations must be worse games in order to be better (more accurate) simulations, in spite of simulating nothing by which such accuracy could be established.

So Campbell is rejecting the notion of the party's course of action. The idea of the party isn't essential to RPGing.

I guess this points up the obvious, but easily overlooked inference that there's a spectrum between competitive games and cooperative games.

As I understand it - and maybe there's a gap in my understanding - 5e doesn't have the mechanical resources to easily implement this sort of intra-group conflict and its ramifications.

Nor does it have great mechanical resources for functioning as a cooperative game. 5e, like TSR era D&D, makes a pretty poor example of anything, except the primacy of the GM's role, I suppose.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I've bolded the word game. I think this can be parsed in two ways. The first is this: a fiction does not need to have some internal consistency that extends beyond what is portrayed or implied. My favourite example of this is the elves in Lorien - what do they eat? And where does it come from?

In the context of RPGing, one standard response is: but what if the PCs decide to start a business trading food to the elves of Lorien? My response would be: for my part, if my 4e D&D game starts involving trading food to the elves something has gone wrong; and if it comes up in the context of Burning Wheel play then we will just use the generic economic activity economic rules. And then narrate the appropriate fiction around that. Either way I don't need a working model of elven agronomics.

Right, most fiction, especially fantasy and sci fi and similar speculative fiction, will tend to fall apart the more you prod at it like that. It needs internal consistency in what is shown, as you say, but beyond that, it's probably best kept vague.

The second parsing is: the mechanics for a RPG do not need to present a universal model for determining what occurs in the ficiton. In some RPGs they purport to: Rolemaster is my own preferred example of such a game. Classic Traveller comes close in some places. This creates a certain aesthetic in play. But I think it's obvious that it's not the only possible aesthetic. As you (hawkeyefan) say, the requisite fiction can just be established via standard storytelling technqiues.

Yeah, the reason a goblin has lower stats than a dragon is due to their status in genre fiction and mythology. But, they're really more about how these creatures interact with the PCs because that's where the game is being played. If someone needs to know who would win between a goblin and a dragon, stats aren't needed. The GM should simply rely on genre to make the decision.

Stats are simply the middle man in this transaction, and there is no need for the middle man.

I think this relates to the discussion of minions because their designation as such is due to their relationship to the PCs. My experience with 4E is very limited, but minions were one of the things I really liked about the system because it was a mechanical expression of what we see all the time in genre fiction....the hordes of underlings. I don't think that the minion stats are meant to reflect the creature's overall place in the world, just how they compare to the PCs.

If the PCs are accompanied by some townsfolk they've rescued from the gnoll invasion, I don't think that the mechanics dictate that a townsfolk could take out a gnoll minion with one hit. That's just silly.

I really think that's how all stats are meant to be viewed, ultimately. They're there to help you establish the fiction, not to dictate the fiction. Obviously, opinions will vary, but that one always strikes me as a bit odd.