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

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, I said dice pool systems can be more involved, and that can certainly cloud things (Vampire would be an example of a game where I found it rather difficult to have a sense before rolling how good my chances are).

You and everyone else.

What I men by can't figure out the probabilities, is the player is gauging more by the situation itself than by the numbers, and so they aren't sitting there tallying them to arrive at a clear probability. This is just a matter of preference. Personally I find it a better play experience when a player doesn't know they have a 10% chance, but rather have a sense that the chance is rather low. To me that matches more how I experience life in general.

The issue I always have with this is people's sense of "what rather low" is can vary too much.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, obviously IRL we don't know what the probabilities are, but we have a fairly good handle on RELATIVE risk, which is harder to gauge.

To me that is what certain dice pools capture. I have a sense of what my actual long jump max might be, but a physics with a tape measure probably could set a number to it. If I am in a root chase in a relatively realistic game and encounter a gap between buildings that is 32 feet, I wouldn't probably know the exact distance by looking and I probably wouldn't know that exceeds the max record for a human long jump. It is about how doable it looks to me, and I might be overconfident and make that leap not realizing it is a doomed effort

Also one area these things with probability really break down in RPGS is it is really hard to capture real world physics in a game system. I've played some heavy realism games and they mostly achieve a good degree of plausibly (probably good enough for most people). But I don't think you'd be able to take real world situations and match probabilities to what they are in the game itself. But for me I am not even looking for that. Most of my campaigns are closer to movie logic. When they are realistic, they are realistic in the way Goodfellas is.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The issue I always have with this is people's sense of "what rather low" is can vary too much.

Again, if you like dealing in concrete numbers and everyone having a shared sense of objective probability, this approach might not be a fit for you. For me it is how I prefer to game. I find over time, as a group gets to know one another, they start to understand what 'rather low' means for one person. But the sense of what is 'rather low', because it is language and not numbers, going vary from person to person to a degree.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You and everyone else.

When I first played Vampire, I was mainly a Ravenloft GM. But we played every game, and some of the games at the time, had wild ways of figuring out success or strange subsystems. This didn't tend to phase me and most people I think. Something about the way vampire dealt with successes, just didn't connect with me, but part of that was I was coming at it as a player, not a GM or someone who had all the books (I read Vampire the Masquerade when it came out, thought it was refreshing and interesting, but I wasn't going to run it, and I wasn't huge into the modern vampire genre, so I didn't invest the time with the mechanics that I might have if it were more in my wheelhouse). However someone in my group loved it, ran it all the time, so I was in a number of regular vampire campaigns. He clearly got the way success worked, as did a number of other people at the table who were more invested in the game. Part of it was I didn't really expend the mental energy on it that I did for other systems. Add to that, I was a Ravenloft GM, and there was a degree of competition between those two settings and fandoms

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You're not alone, its a trend I've seen in other places but it seriously puts me off. I don't insist on everything stacking indefinitely (the Shadow of the Demon Lord boon/bane approach is okay to me) but the "Once you've gotten this much benefit or problem nothing else matters" is a nonstarter to me.

Yeah, I just like the way it cuts against the whole 'process sim' kind of mentality of game design. It really doesn't bring a lot to the table in a more narrative focus to have a bazillion different factors that reflect fiction vs "how much tension should their be in this scene?" So, obviously these sorts of system design things wrap back into the whole agenda and theory thing. I certainly would think that a game intended to simulate something, say mountain climbing expeditions, would have to have a long list of factors that could be relevant at various points.

 

[Garthanos]

The issue I always have with this is people's sense of "what rather low" is can vary too much.

Interestingly I believe there have been game design studies to determine how frequent of failure is frustrating and they came back with the old adage 2 out of 3 aint bad. I would not be surprised if they didnt investigate other perceptual parameters.

 

[overgeeked]

Interestingly I believe there have been game design studies to determine how frequent of failure is frustrating and they came back with the old adage 2 out of 3 aint bad. I would not be surprised if they didnt investigate other perceptual parameters.

And then there are people who play Souls games.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To me that is what certain dice pools capture. I have a sense of what my actual long jump max might be, but a physics with a tape measure probably could set a number to it. If I am in a root chase in a relatively realistic game and encounter a gap between buildings that is 32 feet, I wouldn't probably know the exact distance by looking and I probably wouldn't know that exceeds the max record for a human long jump. It is about how doable it looks to me, and I might be overconfident and make that leap not realizing it is a doomed effort

Also one area these things with probability really break down in RPGS is it is really hard to capture real world physics in a game system. I've played some heavy realism games and they mostly achieve a good degree of plausibly (probably good enough for most people). But I don't think you'd be able to take real world situations and match probabilities to what they are in the game itself. But for me I am not even looking for that. Most of my campaigns are closer to movie logic. When they are realistic, they are realistic in the way Goodfellas is.

Right, so as I mentioned to @Thomas Shey I think this gets back into the agenda thing. So, for the most part, I like playing games that are more 'movie physics' and probably don't generally include situations that read as "you must jump the 32 foot gap" but more "this is a dangerous looking gap, jumping it is going to be HARD!" If you fail, the answer in fiction might be "well, it was more than hard, it was impossible!" This is one of those areas where things can get funny, like with 4e and battlemaps, you have a grid, you have this objective measure. This means actually that 4e combats weirdly interpret things a bit differently than an SC likely would. Games are quirky though, and it still manages to work.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I just like the way it cuts against the whole 'process sim' kind of mentality of game design. It really doesn't bring a lot to the table in a more narrative focus to have a bazillion different factors that reflect fiction vs "how much tension should their be in this scene?" So, obviously these sorts of system design things wrap back into the whole agenda and theory thing. I certainly would think that a game intended to simulate something, say mountain climbing expeditions, would have to have a long list of factors that could be relevant at various points.

I don't think its even virtuous in a game sort of fashion, as it leads to degenerate processes.

 

[Garthanos]

And then there are people who play Souls games.

Including my son... there is a problem with the question though and that includes how much and what exactly counts as a success and can you have lesser successes that build up. Beating my old score in many games is a success for instance.