Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

[Thomas Shey]

The basic problem is, in any even vaguely realistic sense, the guy who can move and react 2-10x faster than everyone else is so utterly out of their league in every respect that they cannot reasonably be engaged with on a meaningful basis (though there might be some tricks you could employ to negate this advantage). So, as soon as your game espouses any sort of simulationist agenda in which even a vague sense of things corresponding to reality coupled with such an ability is part of the game, you will run into this. Either it needs to be a trope "all vampires are blindingly fast and thus normal humans are as sheep to them." or this sort of combat ability needs to be super limited or mostly unavailable for some other reasons, etc. The problem of course is that players will always try to find a way to take something really powerful and get around its limitations in game systems that are at all gamist, and/or where other aspects of the game make such correspond with an agenda.

There are ways to hose it down some, though. Notably, later editions of SR, instead of having most of the actions before the actions of the single-action (or even multiple but slower) opponents, had them occur after. It was still a pretty notable benefit, but not as utterly crippling to be on the wrong end of.

So it was bad in the sense that it undermined game play. Now, if how well you fight wasn't really that important, and the game focused on something else entirely, or every PC did the same thing, then it wouldn't really be a problem. This is pretty well explicated by considering it a gamist/HCS agenda mismatch.

It has to be really focused in other areas, however, and you can't make it any kind of choice whether to do it or not if it is partly focused on combat, otherwise the lack of it becomes a trap option.

(Its not a coincidence that I only know one superhero game that tried to represent superspeed that way, and it was notoriously called out for it).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Or it's as simple as saying one player getting 4 turns while another gets 1 isn't fun for the another.

Let's not forget that they not only get 4 to 1, they get their four first.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Boffer combat doesn't involve a randomizing element, no. There are different ways of handling damage (calling numbers, versus immediate disable of any limb hit, and others). I haven't played in rock/paper/scissors larps. Even then I can imaging a fairly clear line of demarcation between things that can be fully enacted, and things that have to be randomized because of safety or real-world impossibility.

But of course, in practice that's true of social interactions, too, unless people are playing characters visually and knowledgeably similar to themselves.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To me, the question is: should an RPG be run like a LARP?

I don't think it should. For the simple reason that it prevents players from playing characters they can't embody. No everyone plays these games to be an actor. If you run for actors, it'll work. But for those of us who don't, or unless your players are always willing to "be on" it won't work. You have a super-smart player...who can never play a less smart character. You have a super-persuasive player...who can never play a less persuasive character. I like player skill up to a point. But I like players being able to try characters different from themselves more.

This is commonly my view too, but you frequently get people who's response is, when stripped down to the ground "I don't care. The primary purpose in the game is the social interactions done between the actual players and the GM, and if that fairness interferes with that, then we'll just have to do without that fairness." There's really no answer to that; its an unbridgeable gulf.

 

[Lanefan]

LARPs and TTRPGs are very different beasts. When participating in a LARP there is necessarily a type of total immersion, you literally ARE your character, physically. There may be conventions related to resolving things that people cannot obviously risk doing, like lethal combat and whatnot, but the WHOLE IDEA is to play out the action as closely as possible to reality, any other action is simply a 'kludge' that is required because we're in the real world still.

Still no reason not to at least try to LARP what one can at the table, which includes nearly all social situations.

The situation in a TTRPG is entirely different. It is quite possible, and IMHO often quite desirable to have uniform resolution processes. It really IS quite odd when they don't exist. I mean, odd in the sense that social situations, for example, in D&D aught to be as potentially lucrative and also dangerous as anything else, but yet we just say what happened, no hard adjudication at all. Its actually pretty weird when you think about it. I mean, why not just resolve combat that way too? lol.

We don't and can't resolve combat that way due to a) the players' own sense of self-preservation and b) the criminal codes of nearly every country in the world.

So, for combat we need an abstraction; and that's what the game rules give us. It also turns out to be handy for the game rules to give us abstractions for other physical activities e.g. elimbing walls, jumping crevasses, sneaking around guards, and so forth.

What we don't need an abstraction for is talking.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Still no reason not to at least try to LARP what one can at the table, which includes nearly all social situations.

We don't and can't resolve combat that way due to a) the players' own sense of self-preservation and b) the criminal codes of nearly every country in the world.

So, for combat we need an abstraction; and that's what the game rules give us. It also turns out to be handy for the game rules to give us abstractions for other physical activities e.g. elimbing walls, jumping crevasses, sneaking around guards, and so forth.

What we don't need an abstraction for is talking.

Yeah, that was apparently unclear as I wrote it, obviously people cannot bash each other with maces to resolve combat. I meant, why wouldn't we resolve combat by talking? Why is it different from any other type of conflict?

 

[Lanefan]

The point to me is it is downright odd to think that it wouldn't make sense to have uniform mechanics.

I don't have nearly the same fondness fo runiform mechanics that you seem to, in that even when mechanics are required I prefer they be bespoke to the thing they are trying to absrtact rather than shoehorned into a unified system that generally doesn't do as good a job as would bespoke mechanics.

Again, why if you don't want to use rules in one area of the game, do you want to use them in another? Its all 'resolving conflict' in the final analysis (and even more ultimately, deciding how things progress).

Sure, TO ME, it is like a carpenter who only uses power screw drivers indoors and drives all screws outdoors by hand. Its a bit odd...

Where what I prefer is a system that maps to a carpenter having a full bag of tools, in each case using the tool that is best for the job at hand, and sometimes realizing that in fact no tools are required for this particular job as it can either be done by hand or doesn't need a carpenter in order to get done.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's very YMMV thing. To some it absolutely does. I'm fine with very rules light social rules like occasional simple skill rolls, albeit even those may sometimes produce jarring results, but extensive social rules like Exalted 2e's social combat rules are poison to immersion for me. If you constantly need to interrupt the natural and intuitive flow of conversation to deal with the rules then that's not great.

I can see how the scale of the mechanics may impact this to some extent, so that's a fair point. Some people will find heavy mechanics in this area to be distracting to what they want to do. I generally find heavy mechanics to be distracting overall, so I don't think I was considering a game with extensive social mechanics so much as some social mechanics.

Yes, it is subjective. But it also means that lack of extensive social rules is a feature to some people rather than a flaw. And this is far from rare sentiment.

Yeah, we agree here. The initial comment was in response to @Lanefan who said:

The game doesn't fall apart when things move into purely RPed social stuff, it more just gets out of the way - like it should.

And I was pointing out how "should" is probably not correct, because for some people and some games, that very much is the game falling apart. Emphasis above mine.

That there are multiple ways this may work, not should work, is not at all what I'm disagreeing with. Quite the opposite.

I don't think the GM can ever be truly "neutral" arbiter. Though this doesn't mean they necessarily need to make decisions based on directing the 'story' in some particular direction. (Though that's fine too.) If the GM has a good mental image of the NPCs, they can simply aim to portray them with integrity. The NPC react to what the PCs say according to their nature. And sure, what that exactly means is a judgment call, but GMing is full of judgement calls.

Some folks absolutely claim the GM should be neutral. I agree with you that it's not something that's really possible, or at least, I think it's more difficult than is worth the effort. I mean, if you want neutral, there are easier ways to get it.

I think when it comes to the output of actions, the GM very much is directing the story. They may not be doing so toward some predetermined path, but they are determining in the moment how things will go. Which is fine....some amount of that is to be expected. I just like when there is input from the system as well as the GM and the players. Some amount of input beyond just the GM's conception of the NPC or situation.

But as above, these are matters of preference.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, that was apparently unclear as I wrote it, obviously people cannot bash each other with maces to resolve combat. I meant, why wouldn't we resolve combat by talking? Why is it different from any other type of conflict?

Partly because - and think about real life for a moment - most of the time a combat (or test of skill) ends up hard-resolving one way or another: someone wins, someone loses, or the skill-test succeeds or fails; and either way it's done and over.

But how often in reality does a social situation ever hard-resolve like that? Not very, I'd posit, which is why we have constructs like votes and polls and so forth to push things forward when such is essential. Most social situations otherwise tend to soft-resolve if they resolve at all - I mean, how often have you gone out with a friend for a beer, got into a friendly debate or chat over something, and had that chat or debate never come to an actual resolution before you went home for the night?

What this means is that having mechanics that can generate hard-resolves for physical things (combat, tests of skill, etc.) are far more reflective of reality than are mechanics that want to generate hard-resolves for social situations.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So, for combat we need an abstraction; and that's what the game rules give us. It also turns out to be handy for the game rules to give us abstractions for other physical activities e.g. elimbing walls, jumping crevasses, sneaking around guards, and so forth.

What we don't need an abstraction for is talking.

My view is that me talking to my friends about pretend events has as much in common with any important, high-stakes social interaction as rolling dice does with actual combat.