Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[Thomas Shey]

I sort of understand the urge against division here, in that it's both potentially demeaning ("you're doing something that isn't really roleplaying!") and alienating to a subset of an already fairly small hobby, but it's very frustrating that we must constantly state our commonplaces (and inevitably get pushed to more and more extreme versions of them) every time we try to discuss these things. The usual form this seems to take is someone saying "that problem is solved by X" when X is antithetical to what I was trying to achieve and ran into a problem with at the start. Then you have to explain why X is an inappropriate solution, and the discussion becomes about trying to wear away at the commonplaces you were starting from instead of proceeding toward trying to resolve the design problem.

I suppose, I'm really just saying that I don't think we're playing the same games (sometimes even in cases where we're literally using the same rules), and that we might benefit from more splitting. I find myself routinely put in common company with people more OSR inclined than I actually am, because we're both talking to a tradition that is comparatively more incompatible with what we're doing. Even though, if I and that other party were in discussion alone, we'd find plenty to litigate just between ourselves.

Yup. As we've noted in the past, best I can tell you and I are (in the old GDS sense) both pretty gamist, and want some system to dig our teeth into. But from what I can tell, I'm far willing to engage with metamechanics to direct story in the process of engaging with those mechanics than you are (I'd characterize it, again using the old GDS terms as being far more willing to pursue dramatism in conjunction with my gamism than you), but from people who consider the game and mechanical aspects of a game an impediment (as compared to, well, at least a big part of the point) we can look very similar.

 

[Lanefan]

Would you say the following:

A Porsche 911 GT3 has a 7 speed PDK dual-clutch transmission and a flat 6 naturally aspirated engine...except not really, because any owner can have the gearbox changed and an alternative engine put in (even if the lack of integration of the new gearbox and engine creates a mess of the 911 GT3 driving experience)...so therefore, the Porsche 911 GT3 engineers effectively have "no say."

If you wouldn't say that...then why would you say the same thing about another engineering endeavor; a game?

I'd say it because a typical game is a helluva lot easier to successfully kitbash than is a Porsche 911 GT3, at least for an average Joe like me.

Also, if we're now looking at RPGs as "engineering endeavours" all I can do is wonder what happened to the design-in-the-basement hobby we once had.

 

[Thomas Shey]

At the point in time I read the baseline / core GNS essays on the Forge (sometime around 2016) I would have called myself a gamist/simulationist hybrid, with slight leaning to simulationism.

I personally didn't find the core essays to be terribly biased against simulationism, and as far as I can tell, Ron Edwards had quite a bit of personal affinity for Runequest, which is a veritable poster child for the "sim" agenda. I didn't review any of the broader forum discussions, though, so I can imagine there may have been some strident, ardent communiques decrying simulationism by other participants.

It was not helped that Edwards and the Forgeites decided to lump genre emulation in with world simulation. I know I harp on this, but I don't think people understand how putting the former in with the latter seriously harms the utility of the term and model for a lot of people because reifying genre tropes is very much what they don't want to be doing. There's some attempt to distinguish between the two in terms of "process sim" and such, but it still requires people to embrace something as a superset of their preferences that seem very antithetical to those preferences to them.

(I'd argue that, in part, this is because genre emulation tends to weirdly be kind of a red-headed stepchild is focus discussion; GNS folks focused on narr didn't seem to want it, but neither do most people who think of themselves as focused on simulation. And it obviously doesn't, per se, have anything to do with gamism (though a gamist agenda can serve it).

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

This is overtly what Eclipse Phase does, and I suspect many borderline transhumanist games take a similar tact.

 

[bloodtide]

@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.

Well, if your playing a non combat game...and not a game that says 'non-combat' on page 11......but where the players choose to play a game a set way: as you said they do....then sure you won't have any player character death. But you pick a combat example, so questions:

Is there really a game rule that says "your character gets beat up so badly, you can't play the character for three game sessions" or something like that? Kinda sounds worse then character death? Does the player just sit there and do nothing? Does the player just leave the game and say "Well, see you guess in a month when I'm allowed to play again".? Does the player just giggle and make "twin brother Fred Two" character that is exactly like the main character....but is not?

The same question would be about being stuck in jail: does the player just not play?

Your combat example seems...easy. I guess some of it was hard? But it seems like the player got everything to work out? "Everything works out" so, feels like an auto win. I get the 'fate point' is special, but guess it was just lucky the player(s) had that? Same way, well guess it was lucky the body guard was a 20th level healer? It feels like a lot of set ups to make sure the Player Character never fails.

Secret? Railroading? No no. This is all up front and out in the open! For example, read the Dungeon World rules.

I am not talking about rules. Most combat games have rules for character death. I'm talking about where everyone...players and DM...all agree "no character death". Now the DM is free the "Linearly Lead" (to not say the R word) and do anything to get to the end of the job/quest/mission/etc. So it's not like the DM will have 25 archers shoot 50 arrows and then say "they all miss..hehe", it's more he will say "oh, there are only four archers and will roll a dozen times and pick the rolls of two and then say "they all missed".....see it "looks" like his is playing the game.

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

Odd, I don't remember typing it? I'm sure I said it was the biggest, best and most traumatic and most dramatic.

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

Well, my example was a railroad of no character death.

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.

Ok? There are many other lesser bad things that can happen to a PC other then death. Assuming your game both has negative effects and the players/DM have chosen to use them.

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.

I'm really not clear on what "system says" even is.....

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.

So I imagine uncertain social interactions?

 

[Cadence]

Is there really a game rule that says "your character gets beat up so badly, you can't play the character for three game sessions" or something like that? Kinda sounds worse then character death? Does the player just sit there and do nothing? Does the player just leave the game and say "Well, see you guess in a month when I'm allowed to play again".? Does the player just giggle and make "twin brother Fred Two" character that is exactly like the main character....but is not?

1e without a Cleric in the party - and so everyone has a backup character or two ready while there other recovers? It feels like some on here played games where that was the norm.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I guess this is the "factory default" question? I can say a car is "factory default" only if you never ever change anything on the car. But I'm not sure where your examples is going?

I feel like your out on some way far out tangent. I don't care at all about what other people think of anything.

But I guess your doing a version of my Bicycle Example, that I use when people tell me "D&D is broken" or "monks are weak" or "whatever is whatever because of the game rules". My response is my Bicycle Example. That is how you choose to use the rules effects the game. You get a Bicycle, carry it over to a trail full of deep thick mud. You set the bike down, get on it and sink and get stuck in the mud: then say "the Bicycle is Broken". It's not the bike, it's how you are using it.

But what are you getting at?


I for one would LOVE to have this so called Middle point. If someone could give it to me.

As you can see I run an extremely Hard Fun Old School Unfair Unbalanced game. It drives lots of players away. And drives drama up to 11, for he makesexample Jill is one of my regular players: her husband hates the way I run the game and refuses to game with us. So he makes weekly drama as he follows his wife around to rant, complain and be toxic(until the game starts and I can toss him out).

I love the True Randomness of Anything can happen. I even hold it up as an alternative to all other fiction.

I also find Character Death any time makes players care more about their character AND has them pay attention during the game at all times.

But, where is the middle ground?

Honestly? If you want just a completely divorced from any previous context answer? In neither Blades in the Dark, nor in Dungeon World, nor Torchbearer2, three 'narrative' type games that I've played recently, nor in 4e D&D as I ran it for 10 years (as a pretty narrative game), was death literally mechanically 'off the table', nor was there ever any agreement between participants that it would be off the table. In BitD if your Harm reaches level 4, you DIE, plain and simple. Its not THAT hard! Harms stack, so if I am full up at level 2 harm, and I get more level 2 harm, that's it! Level 2 is a pretty ordinary consequence too! Heck, serious threats dish an AUTOMATIC level 2 harm every time they get to move! (it might even be level 3 depending on the relative power of the threat and the PC). You do have armor and the ability to resist, so normally you can kind of mitigate the harm strategically and make it through, but not always. You can also 'trauma out' in BitD, 4 traumas, you're a jellyfish, no coming back. Trauma CANNOT be removed from your PC either, its a ticking 'you are done playing this character' 4 tick clock (there are ways to add a 5th tick).

In Dungeon World, you have hit points. MANY monsters can simply do damage to you as a GM hard move! Some of them bypass armor and other nasty stuff too, and armor is only so good. I don't think DW is generally a super deadly game, but there aren't actually hard and fast rules about that. The rules are more like the GM is supposed to be a 'fan' of the characters and make their lives dangerous, etc. You could certainly interpret that as "kill them unless they really work to survive!" It would be a particular spin on that game, but I don't think it would be 'wrong'. (nor is our less generally lethal play).

Torchbearer2 is actually pretty hard to survive! Its a rather brutal game to be honest. I mean, dying is not going to happen like "gank! you were fine, now you're dead!" (I guess it is technically possible) but death is simply a condition! You can certainly be killed by, say, losing a fight with a tough monster (one with a might of 4 or higher would likely kill you if you badly lost a kill conflict fight to it). My first PC actually got ganked in a fight!

Death is thus perfectly well on the table in all of these games, and its supposed to be. However, its VERY likely if you do get killed, there will be at least something dramatic about it. In BitD you're probably in a pretty epic fight, trying to help your buddies carry out some score that they need to pull off for reasons that are important to them. In Dungeon World, you probably die trying to fulfill a bond, or an alignment statement, or fending off a campaign front doom, or something like that. TB2, meh, maybe you just die in the muck, but its kinda the point of that game...

 

[The Shadow]

Is there really a game rule that says "your character gets beat up so badly, you can't play the character for three game sessions" or something like that? Kinda sounds worse then character death? Does the player just sit there and do nothing? Does the player just leave the game and say "Well, see you guess in a month when I'm allowed to play again".? Does the player just giggle and make "twin brother Fred Two" character that is exactly like the main character....but is not?

The character is still playable, just less effective. Characters can take up to three Consequences - mild, moderate, and severe. (These can be physical or mental.) Each of these is an aspect that opponents can potentially use against you. Mild consequences go away very quickly, moderate ones after a session, severe ones can take multiple sessions.

We managed to turn Marco's severe consequence into a moderate one with healing. So for the next session, an opponent could have used his "Bandaged Gut" against him, which potentially could be rather dangerous. (It would have given a bonus to hit and wound him, perhaps, or the pain might cause him to miss a crucial bit of repartee. Which in our games can be lethal in itself!)

The same question would be about being stuck in jail: does the player just not play?

Of course he plays! He'd be chatting up the guards, trying to manipulate them, for example. Maybe he'd even learn something interesting in the process.

Plus, knowing our GM, all sorts of interesting things would have happened while he was in jail. Maybe a local noble makes him an offer he can't refuse or the like.

Your combat example seems...easy. I guess some of it was hard? But it seems like the player got everything to work out? "Everything works out" so, feels like an auto win. I get the 'fate point' is special, but guess it was just lucky the player(s) had that? Same way, well guess it was lucky the body guard was a 20th level healer? It feels like a lot of set ups to make sure the Player Character never fails.

None of it was automatic. I said Jurgen was "pretty good", not that he was amazing. He had to make a roll to get Marco's wound on the mend, and it was not an easy one.

Marco had the Fate point no doubt from a Compel, but I don't recall what from and it would take us rather far afield at this point.

What sounds easy? Obviously I did a fair amount of compression. There were a number of 'rounds' of combat, but I don't remember all the details any more.

Never fails? Did you miss that Marco got caught by the guard captain? That he got humiliated and badly wounded? He did achieve his objective of not getting jailed, but it cost him. And yes, we did succeed in preventing the war, but that's because our planning, deviousness, and skulduggery paid off.

Ludovico's attempt to poison Chloe failed miserably. Worse, she managed to administer a sedative to him!

GM: "You start to go woozy. You have time to say a sentence or two before you pass out."

Ludovico, in his most charming tones: "It's been a pleasure meeting you at last, cousin!"

Thankfully Jurgen managed to definitively wipe the floor with Chloe's other boy-toy and burst in before she could do anything nefarious to Ludovico.

That also was by no means guaranteed. Why are you assuming that because it was successful overall, therefore it was easy?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Quite true. My priorities are decidedly sim.

But, and definitely not saying this to be critical, our ideas of what SIM is and can be are very different. I humbly submit that what you are calling sim, the 'simulation of real life' (at least some significant 'authentic' aspects of it) is simply beyond any of us, you, me, the greatest GMs, writers, etc. in all of history could barely do it, if at all. In terms of RPGs, the sheer complexity of the task of dealing with understanding a world and all the interrelationships and details that it would actually be made up of, and which would give it its realistic character, is simply unfeasible. What we ACTUALLY can accomplish, IMHO, is something like 'genre sim', that is emulating some particular genre in its style, tropes, and other characteristic elements. There may also be other possible flavors of sim in this sense, but they all share the characteristic that certain particular sorts of elements are being injected into the game for purposes of "making it like something else" (possibly another instance of an RPG as I would argue that modern D&D is often essentially a simulationist enterprise, simulating D&Ds of past decades).

Now, I think there are elements you are looking for that are specific. I am not so sure they are really 'sim', and in fact I almost think they might be described as a specific type of characterization. I say this because I don't think increasing the 'realistic nature' of this play is going to actually make it work better.

 

[Pedantic]

Yup. As we've noted in the past, best I can tell you and I are (in the old GDS sense) both pretty gamist, and want some system to dig our teeth into. But from what I can tell, I'm far willing to engage with metamechanics to direct story in the process of engaging with those mechanics than you are (I'd characterize it, again using the old GDS terms as being far more willing to pursue dramatism in conjunction with my gamism than you), but from people who consider the game and mechanical aspects of a game an impediment (as compared to, well, at least a big part of the point) we can look very similar.

Yeah, I'm probably best described as on the other end of the G arc. Simulation is a useful and often necessary condition to play the delightfully unbounded game TTRPGs offer. If I'm completely candid, I would straight up not describe many of the things that happen in TTRPGs as "games" in the sense I usually use the term. The optimization cases are trivial or the outcomes are too random for player decision making to matter. Gaming, ideally, is about struggling to wrestle a system with clear rules but uncertain outcomes into the shape you want.