Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[Micah Sweet]

My view is that this claim of bias is false. Ron Edwards's essay on simulationism is the most insightful thing I've ever read about how RM, RQ, Pendragon and games in the general vein work - far more insightful, for instance, than anything I ever read on the official ICE Rolemaster forums.

What the Forge does assert is that simulationist RPGing won't satisfy non-simulationist priorities (such as "story" or "drama") - which is something that you appear to agree with!, as per this post:

Quite true. My priorities are decidedly sim.

 

[innerdude]

Exploratory question for you, @bloodtide -- how many years have you participated in the RPG hobby, and what systems have you used?

Truly just curious, wanting to get a sense of where you're coming from. What types of GMs have you played with in your earliest participation in the hobby? Were there common traits/sensibilities those GMs had that you felt like were important?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I want to reiterate this point too. In contrasting styles of game, it can sometimes come across that everything in story games is Sturm und Drang - at a fever pitch all day, every day.

Of course it isn't. Who could take it? When I say I want every single scene to be meaningful, I don't mean that it has to be Hamlet's soliloquy or the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. I just mean it should relate somehow to the larger issues.

To some extent, all gamers do this - at least all I'm aware of. I don't know of anyone who, when restocking adventuring supplies, plays out every single interaction with every single merchant. "Have you any genuinely 10' poles, my good man? That one looks to be nine and a half!" Nor, as the old joke goes, does anyone feel the need to have their character go looking for the bathroom!

Nor do story games have to breathlessly address the highest and most noble of themes at all times. Like, my group's archetypical game is a group of criminals reminiscent of Burn Notice - infiltrating and taking down criminals much nastier than ourselves for fun and profit. (And, in some cases, reluctantly saving the world along the way - it's where we keep our stuff!)

The basic idea is that I want the game to flow like fiction - everything supporting the narrative, not spending a moment on anything that doesn't support it in some way. That's all I mean by "meaningful" or "dramatic".

Sure, Dungeon World has soft moves too, like "unwelcome news", nothing is happening, but it is conveying that a problem lies ahead! It could be pretty mundane, like the tavern you are carousing in just ran out of ale!

 

[bloodtide]

It has nothing to do with any kind of triggering. I'm telling you, and others are telling you, that your assessment is objectively false.

Nothing even slightly resembling that happens in any game I've ever been in since grade school. You keep asserting this, and we keep telling you it isn't so. Not because it's insulting, but because it isn't so.

You know what is starting to be a bit insulting? You implicitly accusing people of either lying or being deeply mistaken about their own games, which you know nothing about!

Well, I have seen it in many games. I might be the only person world wide who has ever seen it in many games. So what I'm saying is not false.

I'm fairly certain I never called you out by name and said you do anything...

Once again, you miss the point. I'm telling you as a simple fact what happens at my table, and you think I'm taking it as an accusation.

Thought I was just pointing out that your game is just one table.

Fudging the dice makes no sense in Fate! We want the variations and twists they provide.

Ok, so lets say that is true for that one game I know nothing about.

In every single post you make on this topic.

It would help if you Quote them. If I say "Bob rolls his d20 with his left and and that is wrong", please quote that.

How nice of you to tell me what I'm missing. Here's what you're missing: Everything you're saying about story games is wrong. You're assuming we're playing a D&D dungeon crawl badly, when we aren't even trying to do that at all.

I'm posting in the hope that you will eventually say something actually constructive to the conversation; or failing that, to head off other people from the same mistakes.

Well, it sure is constructive when you say everything I post is wrong.

Exploratory question for you, @bloodtide -- how many years have you participated in the RPG hobby, and what systems have you used?

Truly just curious, wanting to get a sense of where you're coming from. What types of GMs have you played with in your earliest participation in the hobby? Were there common traits/sensibilities those GMs had that you felt like were important?

34 years. And, well, D&D 0E to 5E plus BECMI, Gamma World, Boot Hill, Traveler, Paranoia, Grups, Star Wars D6 and D20 and FF, White Wolf, Call of Chtulu, Car Wars, Toon, Marvel Super Heroes, Champions, Rifts, Star Frontiers, Star Trek Adventures, Bubblegumshoe and Savage Worlds. Various Doctor Who/Timelords, Robotech, or such depending on who owned the license when. Maybe more?

I'm a self taught DM with no mentors. (check out the old times thread for crazy stories about the Time Before Time).

So what common traits/sensibilities do I think are important in a DM? Feels like this question should be a whole thread itself. Focus, love of the game, dedication, self awareness, intelligence seem like a good start.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Note though this is not "third" option: that third option is the DM and players all agreeing on the emergent(secret railroad). It's not true "emergence" as the DM and players all have agendas that they will use to shape and change the game. The Dm can just alter game reality at will to fit their agenda. The players will amazingly have thier character do or not do things based on the agendas. And should there be a dice roll that is not liked, it will just be changed. That is all secret railroading.

Having an agenda for play is not secret railroading. If it was, then every game would be a railroad because there's always some kind of agenda for play.

For example, in my campaign of Spire, the characters were members of a revolutionary group devoted to fighting the ruling class of High Elves in the city of Spire. That's their overall agenda.

So, given that... tell me how the campaign went. It's a railroad, right? Tell me what happened.

If every encounter is meaningful, and none are anything esle, then this goes back to Player Characters can die any time any round any way. And people say they don't want that....

No, people are saying that PC death is not the only consequence that has meaning. That encounters can matter beyond just PC survival. That you fail to see that despite the many times it's been pointed out doesn't change that.

Yes, again Character Death and Quest Failure are separate and different. Except that Character Death also means you failed the quest too.

Not necessarily. In the Heart RPG, characters often will die (or otherwise have their adventuring career end) when they achieve their ultimate goal.

Randomness is the whole point of dice, and the whole combat system. If your going to rule no player character death for an encounter, why even use the combat rules? By your own set play style nothing will happen? Is it really that much fun to just sit back an win combat after combat, after you made it impossible for your character to loose?

So here you are basically siting "system says" as an element of combat. But when it was used to explain other elements of play, you don't even know what it means.

Think of how combat works and how uncertain it is. Now apply that to other areas of play. For both the GM and the players. Ignore the idea that the GM can just do whatever they want whenever... some games and gamers actually frown on that.

Imagine if there were rules everyone was expected to follow for how characters interacted socially.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Note though this is not "third" option: that third option is the DM and players all agreeing on the emergent(secret railroad). It's not true "emergence" as the DM and players all have agendas that they will use to shape and change the game. The Dm can just alter game reality at will to fit their agenda. The players will amazingly have thier character do or not do things based on the agendas. And should there be a dice roll that is not liked, it will just be changed. That is all secret railroading.

Secret? Railroading? No no. This is all up front and out in the open! For example, read the Dungeon World rules. The GM ALWAYS follows very specific principles of play and has a clear specified agenda. All of play is the conversation between the equal participants. At most this GM might have as-yet-unrevealed prep. Maybe a front which hasn't tolled a doom yet, or a danger placed ahead on the map. Obviously players will also surprise the GM as well, but one of the principles is that what comes next must follow, it's got to flow in some way from the existing fiction or build on it.

If every encounter is meaningful, and none are anything esle, then this goes back to Player Characters can die any time any round any way. And people say they don't want that....

But this sounds like death is all that's meaningful to you.

Yes, again Character Death and Quest Failure are separate and different. Except that Character Death also means you failed the quest too.

Right, so quest failure is meaningful! 4e for instance has quests as an important part, failing one is fictionally and mechanically significant.

Randomness is the whole point of dice, and the whole combat system. If your going to rule no player character death for an encounter, why even use the combat rules? By your own set play style nothing will happen? Is it really that much fun to just sit back an win combat after combat, after you made it impossible for your character to loose?

Well, there's 2 answers, or more. Could be resources. Could be rising tension. Or maybe all fights are serious plot points which merit potentially catastrophic outcomes.

Think of it this way, how often IRL do deadly fights happen? Generally the stakes have to be pretty high to go there!

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

In the real world the Paris salons of the 1920s included among their attendees White Russians in exile. Some of these people has lost all or most of their wealth due to their flight. None of them ever lost their wealth due to a lightning bolt spell! So I'm not sure how the latter is more realistic than the former.

This is interesting because, to me, it brought up the possibility/probability that there are games out there where your wealth isn't something owned, but something along the lines of political/social clout. Something where your ability to bounce back from defeats is based on you owing/being owed debts - you may have thousands of gold coins, but if your friend Countess von Orkenstein has been replaced and only your connection to her network was through her you may be SOL.

Or, speaking of political situations, having thousands of coins minted under a previous regime. 'Well, since the Baron has been replaced and they've replaced the coins... well, best I can do is give you coppers on the gold for the metal value of the coins...'

 

[The Shadow]

@bloodtide
Let's start over, okay? I've been trying to think of a combat example from my games to share with you, but it's difficult, as my group generally likes to avoid combat through sneakiness and trickery. But here's one that may possibly help.

In a fantasy version of Renaissance Italy, my character Ludovico is a spy having tea with his rival spy and femme fatale Chloe. As they banter, Ludovico's friend Marco is sneaking in the back to poison one of their dishes (a sedative to which Ludovico has previously taken the antidote).

Marco flubs his Stealth roll, and decides to "succeed at a cost". He adds the poison to the dish, but gets caught coming out the back by Chloe's boy-toy, a guard captain who's a notorious duelist and a deadly swordsman.

Marco's agenda here is to get away clean, and more broadly to help head off a war that would trash our home city, which Chloe is trying to incite.

Rather than get hauled off to jail on trumped-up charges, Marco thinks quickly and challenges the guy to a duel! A daring move, as Marco, while a great shot, hardly knows which end of a sword to hold.

The guard captain, as the challenged, gets to choose the weapon. (Technically he could have refused the duel, as he was performing his official duty, but Marco knew he wouldn't.) Naturally, he chooses swords.

Marco's player knows he has essentially no chance of winning this duel, barring truly extraordinary luck. So he concentrates his efforts on trying to minimize the amount of harm he takes before he can yield without dishonor.

Baked into the rules of Fate is that player characters cannot die without their player's consent. (With one exception we don't need to go into here.) No possible result on any string of die rolls can force Marco's death.

That doesn't mean characters can't get really severely abused, though! At stake here is, well, any number of things depending on how things go: Marco could be so severely wounded that he'd be drastically reduced in effectiveness for an entire story arc (quite a number of sessions), and/or end up in jail until he escaped or, more likely, his friends busted him out.

The fight goes about how you'd expect: The guard captain utterly dominates Marco. Wounds him, disarms him, humiliates him. Then Marco's player makes another daring move: He yields - then, on his knees, deliberately says something to enrage the guy.

Marco's player rolls Provoke and succeeds beautifully! The guard captain, enraged beyond all reason, stabs Marco brutally! Then his own men tackle and arrest him for the dishonor of attacking a defeated and unarmed opponent. Marco, IIRC, spends a Fate point to help get out of Dodge before anyone notices him again. If he'd failed there, he might yet have been arrested.

Marco's wounds, if left untreated, would have hindered him for a very long time. Thankfully his bodyguard Jurgen is pretty good at patching people up, and the three characters together can cast a minor healing ritual... Even so, Marco had a couple sessions of not being anything like his best.

You see, the point of the fight wasn't so much, "Who wins?" and certainly not "Do I live?" It was about, "Do I stay out of jail?" and, more remotely, "Do we stop the war?" It was also a bit about, "How badly am I going to get hurt?" but really even that mattered mainly for, "Do we stop the war?"

In this kind of play, a Fight roll, a Provoke roll, a Stealth roll, or what have you, are at the service of the central questions of play. Survival, on this view, isn't that interesting. What's interesting is, "Do you achieve your goals?" and "What are you willing to do to achieve them?" Marco proved he was willing to take a sword through his guts!

Even the goal of "Do we stop the war?" is at the service of even larger goals. Things like, "Who's going to make the best ruler of our city, and what are we willing to do to make that happen?" Along with more personal goals of the characters.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You may well be right. Maybe we do need to draw lines between different types of gaming - even though there will inevitably be types that straddle the lines. (Types of gaming rather than types of game, because people can and do adapt games to their use that might not be ideal.)

Absolutely. As an example you can see some Fate-like elements in games that are otherwise not very much in that zone.

(As to the latter, well, there's usually not too much useful discussion that can be had there because some people are so wedded to particular systems that they will keep pounding nails with that wrench no matter what and insist its a fine hammer).

Trying to come up with neutral non-snarky terms... "Sim gaming" or even "traditional gaming" as opposed to "story gaming"?

Trad gaming is already a term-of-art so it obviously has some use. I mean, you're going to get semantic arguments from people no matter what.

I like this analogy. Though as I mention above, there are definitely people who pound in nails with a wrench and seem to have fun!

If you're really, really comfortable with the wrench...

The reverse is true as well - a lot of what they want is detrimental to what I want. I can get around it fine... though in fairness, that's partly because I (like everyone else in the early days) played that way because it was what was there.

Absolutely. There are desires in gaming where the pieces of rope don't meet in the middle (and I don't think the people who insist on keeping trying are doing themselves many favors). The hardest thing for people in this hobby to learn sometimes is that people who genuinely have different desires what to get out of a game, and can do so without being in the wrong.

(Of course about one time in three when you make that argument, you'll get "But that's not an RPG" or, at best, the slightly more accurate and charitable "That's not an RPG to me.")

 

[Thomas Shey]

To some extent, all gamers do this - at least all I'm aware of. I don't know of anyone who, when restocking adventuring supplies, plays out every single interaction with every single merchant. "Have you any genuinely 10' poles, my good man? That one looks to be nine and a half!" Nor, as the old joke goes, does anyone feel the need to have their character go looking for the bathroom!

I've heard stories of people doing this; its usually perceived as an excuse to "roleplay" everything, with the suspicion its a way to keep the spotlight on them All The Time.