Why Do You Hate An RPG System?

[Blue]

There's nothing meta- about wanting to be the very best, like no one ever was. That is entirely an in-character motivation, for certain characters. And there's nothing stopping an NPC from sharing that motivation, either.

At best, we might infer that training is less efficient of a teacher than on-the-job experience, or else we'd expect improvement-motivated individuals to spend time training instead of going on adventures. That's still an unproven assumption, though, since the rules don't concern themselves with non-adventurers.

Let me know when you want to get back to addressing the point we're talking about, which has to do with mechanical rewards for specific types of play. Something that you were very against in FATE, but seem not to be able to address in D&D.

FATE: Act like you said your character acts and we're reward you mechanically.
D&D: Kill monsters and we'll reward you mechanically.

Again, the prevelance of the murderhobo concept shows that rewards really do change how many play their characters.

 

[Beleriphon]

Never played Rifts or even read it, but remember when it was a hot game. My brother in law who owns a comic/game store couldn't keep it on the shelves. He personally hated the system, but loved the revenue he was collection from the fans.

I played it extensively in highschool. I think my favourite character was a Mega Juicer who could deal and receive megadamage without hightech weapons or power armour. I have fond memories of the games and playing RIFTS on our lunch but the system is stupid as hell.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

RIFTS is a glorious hot mess. Chock full of great ideas, generally poorly implemented. Can be a blast with the right group, though.

One of the guys I played with had ADHD, and delivered a killer, in character line as his Juicer interrupted another player who was droning on:

”Tick-tock, m*-f*, you still here?”

 

[The Crimson Binome]

FATE: Act like you said your character acts other people think your character would act, and we'll reward you mechanically.
D&D: If you actually use your fighting skills, you'll get better at fighting.

There, I fixed it for you.
“Fixing” others’ posts isn‘t exactly polite.

 

[Blue]

There, I fixed it for you.

You are saying my aspects were written by others?

That isn't true and you know it.

If a GM doesn't understand your aspect, you talk to them. Just like any other issue. It only comes up as a problem if the DM is a jerk (a problem in any game) or the player is a bad actor and trying to game the system.

And you still dodged the question about mechanical rewards affecting many roleplayers.

 

[Ratskinner]

And I don't want the players (or their characters) to feel as though the GM is doing it. I want it to feel as though the world is doing it.

Feeling that way is totally legit, this is a leisure activity so do what you want. But keep in mind. Even if it feels like the world is doing it....its still the DM. He's just doing it when you aren't looking. So its not some inherent property of the Fate rules that the DM can set you up or put you in a situation, he does it in D&D (or any rpg for that matter), too. Plenty of D&D adventures begin with the DM basically "setting up" the PCs outside their control.

If I want to use DM's fiat to put something in, I put something in; I don't need any of the PCs to have anything on their sheet allowing me to put it in.

Fate doesn't change that. In this respect, aspects are just a way of signalling what it is they want to see. You can still put it snake cultists, even if nobody has an aspect about snakes/snake cultists. You just won't be compelling anybody's aspects to do it. You also face the risk, which I see plenty of in D&D play, of "missing the mark" and putting out a hook with the wrong bait on it. This usually takes the form of the players groaning when they uncover the central plot or theme of the adventure/dungeon. Although I've even seen it happen when players are asking questions like "That's it? No [insert monster/challenge preference here]? Are there any other places we can check out rumors?"

... I think what it comes down to is that it started feeling as though there was too much dissonance between the language of the rules talking about the game being character-focused, and the actual rules turning out to be story-focused. Also, since I consider the characters to belong to the players, not the GM, I don't really like the GM yanking them around so overtly.

Both of those are totally legit as well, AFAICT. I don't see characters as very differentiated from the story, so it doesn't bother me much.

Cheers

 

[prabe]

Feeling that way is totally legit, this is a leisure activity so do what you want. But keep in mind. Even if it feels like the world is doing it....its still the DM. He's just doing it when you aren't looking. So its not some inherent property of the Fate rules that the DM can set you up or put you in a situation, he does it in D&D (or any rpg for that matter), too. Plenty of D&D adventures begin with the DM basically "setting up" the PCs outside their control.

FATE is pretty explicit about it being a transaction, though. Also, in my campaigns, the parties go looking for things to do, and they find them. I don't believe I have ever "set up the PCs." Everything that happens to/around the PCs, I try to make as at least a reasonable consequence of something that has happened (often something the PCs have done). As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'm a less antagonistic GM than it's clear FATE expects/requires.

Fate doesn't change that. In this respect, aspects are just a way of signalling what it is they want to see. You can still put it snake cultists, even if nobody has an aspect about snakes/snake cultists. You just won't be compelling anybody's aspects to do it. You also face the risk, which I see plenty of in D&D play, of "missing the mark" and putting out a hook with the wrong bait on it. This usually takes the form of the players groaning when they uncover the central plot or theme of the adventure/dungeon. Although I've even seen it happen when players are asking questions like "That's it? No [insert monster/challenge preference here]? Are there any other places we can check out rumors?"

There are other (better, I'd argue) ways for the players to signal what they want to see. My players give me backstories. After at least skimming them, I put things in front of them that tie to their backstories. There has not to date been any disappointed groaning at the tables I run. Later, I can tie things back to previous story arcs and do the same thing.

Both of those are totally legit as well, AFAICT. I don't see characters as very differentiated from the story, so it doesn't bother me much.

The characters belong to the players; the world belongs to the GM; the story belongs to the table.

Cheers!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You are saying my aspects were written by others?

I'm saying that the player knows how their own character would act, to a much greater degree than anyone else at the table does; and that a player doesn't need a mechanical reward to act in-character. The incentive is either unnecessary (because you were going to do that thing anyway), or it's actively harmful (if it actually does convince you to do something that they wouldn't otherwise do). There is no theoretical good that can possibly come from it.

And you still dodged the question about mechanical rewards affecting many roleplayers.

You're the one claiming XP is some sort of meta-game reward in D&D, rather than a logical representation of in-game causality. Some players play combat-enthusiasts because that's who they want to play, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

 

[Blue]

You're the one claiming XP is some sort of meta-game reward in D&D, rather than a logical representation of in-game causality. Some players play combat-enthusiasts because that's who they want to play, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

This started because you claimed that Fate points were a reward or bribe. Which is it, but to no more degree than every other game out there that grants rewards for particular activity.

Either mechanical rewards for specific actions ("meta-game rewards" in the terminology you have been using) are bad, in which case FATE and D&D are the same, or they are not, in which case FATE & D&D are the same. I don't really care which you pick for yourself, as long as you are consistent.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

This started because you claimed that Fate points were a reward or bribe. Which is it, but to no more degree than every other game out there that grants rewards for particular activity.

Either mechanical rewards for specific actions ("meta-game rewards" in the terminology you have been using) are bad, in which case FATE and D&D are the same, or they are not, in which case FATE & D&D are the same. I don't really care which you pick for yourself, as long as you are consistent.

Here's a consistent perspective:

Meta-game rewards are bad in every RPG where they show up, such as in FATE. If experience points in D&D were some sort of meta-game reward for the player, then they would fall into the same category.

They aren't, though. There's absolutely nothing meta- about the concept of experience. It's a rule which represents an internal reality of the game world, which every character in that world can observe and understand.