Different philosophies concerning Rules Heavy and Rule Light RPGs.

[TiQuinn]

Yeah, I never got the impression from the Fate Core episode of Tabletop that Wil Wheaton wasn't having fun playing the game. He seemed to be enjoying the fact that he was actually rolling well for the first time in his life and doing the sorts of things that his character concept was designed to do. He was also happy that his fellow players were doing cool things. You also seemed to enjoy creating game details when asked by the GM.

I suspect that the negative reading that Wil Wheaton is frustrated by Fate may be projected on to him by someone who is decidedly biased against Fate and has repeatedly made a lot of bold claims in the past against Fate. Maybe just maybe that colors their perception of the game. Like Wil Wheaton here positively describes his experience with Fate and this episode. He could by hyping his own content, but I also don't see sufficient reason to doubt his words.

Thank you, I thought I was going crazy there. I watched that video and did not see anything that struck me that he was frustrated or not having fun.

 

[Umbran]

A tool doesn't have "fault" in the sense of intention, but its design can still help or hurt situations.

Was someone arguing otherwise, such that this point needed stressing.

Like, yeah, if you pick up a power saw not knowing what you were doing, the results may vary. This is controversial?

As I've noted before when this sort of sentiment is expressed, there's an all-or-nothing assumption here that I don't think reflects the degree of problems that actually come up in most gaming groups; they're severe enough to cause problems, but that doesn't mean they're severe enough to warrant throwing people over the side.

I think that would depend upon what you consider "problems".

There should be no shame in noting that two people's agendas or styles at the table aren't compatible, any more than noting that their musical tastes differ such that they really shouldn't go to concerts together.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But is that really the fault of the system? It's more like it's just not the right system for the group.

Sometimes. Sometimes the system is simply malformed, even for its apparently intended use. Nothing says a system can't be just flat out badly designed in one or more places (and occasionally this is true with systems that are really well designed in other areas). I can think of one well known system that had a set of notoriously perverse incentives in the way character generation and advancement was designed, and that design problem had knock-on effects for even people theoretically in its target audience.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Can you give some examples? Because I'm not sure what you're talking about for this part.

In Storypath there's a resource usually called Momentum. Its a metacurrency used for a variety of purposes in challenges, and as might be guessed from the name, builds up over a scene (combat or not) and allows the scene to finish successfully and hopefully with a flourish.

The kicker is, its a group resource as a default. Which is fine if you've got a group that's very well tuned to sharing spotlight and activity, but if your group runs more to the individualistic, its just asking for some people to overuse it and others to both underutilize it (to the detriment of play as a whole) and/or potentially resent the overuse of others.

Now, if you are very aware of your group and how it leans, this is easy to fix (treat it as an individual rather than group resource), but not everyone is that self-aware about their group dynamics; look at posts around here sometime and it'll be abundantly clear that's just not a talent every GM and player has. So its easy to walk into a problem the group would not have in a system without metacurrency, or the more common versions of that which are individualized.

That isn't a case of a flaw in the system, per se (I reference one of those in my other post to you) but its a case where a mismatch is not the fault of the gaming group either, just inexperience and the fact not all groups have a strong understanding of their social dynamics (often because they haven't needed to with their initial choices of system(s)).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Was someone arguing otherwise, such that this point needed stressing.

Given that was my only initial statement, I sort of felt so. It was the statement you seemed to object to.

Like, yeah, if you pick up a power saw not knowing what you were doing, the results may vary. This is controversial?

Among some people it seems to be.

I think that would depend upon what you consider "problems".

There should be no shame in noting that two people's agendas or styles at the table aren't compatible, any more than noting that their musical tastes differ such that they really shouldn't go to concerts together.

I don't disagree with that in principal, but how incompatible they need to be before someone has to go as compared to trying to reach an accommodation seems to, shall we say, vary considerably, and in the more extreme cases seems to be presented by people who either are, to be blunt, awfully fussy, have had the benefit they've been able to pick and choose players without any outside limitations on that, or both.

 

[dragoner]

People are going to play what they want to play, and that likely means the latest iteration of D&D.

 

[Thomas Shey]

People are going to play what they want to play, and that likely means the latest iteration of D&D.

If you're looking at the hobby as a whole, almost a tautology.

 

[Umbran]

Given that was my only initial statement, I sort of felt so. It was the statement you seemed to object to.

I objected to what read like implied responsibility. That a person can use a tool poorly is not controversial. That a tool can be designed with a few guards against misuse, and presented with instructions on proper use, is not controversial.

That ultimately it is the tool's fault if it is used when it shouldn't, though - that I push back on.

Among some people it seems to be.

Is there a post to that effect that you're responding to that I may have missed? Or are these "some people" not in evidence in these pages?

I don't disagree with that in principal, but how incompatible they need to be before someone has to go as compared to trying to reach an accommodation seems to, shall we say, vary considerably..

As it should. Like, you know, people vary considerably. We should not expect them to somehow be uniform on these issues.

...and in the more extreme cases seems to be presented by people who either are, to be blunt, awfully fussy, have had the benefit they've been able to pick and choose players without any outside limitations on that, or both.

Perhaps that is true. So what?

If someone is "awfully fussy" isn't it better if they are up-front and clear about their needs and boundaries, rather than expecting folks to try at length to work around their fussiness to no avail?

 

[Faolyn]

Sometimes. Sometimes the system is simply malformed, even for its apparently intended use. Nothing says a system can't be just flat out badly designed in one or more places (and occasionally this is true with systems that are really well designed in other areas). I can think of one well known system that had a set of notoriously perverse incentives in the way character generation and advancement was designed, and that design problem had knock-on effects for even people theoretically in its target audience.

Sure, some games are just badly written. But that's not quite the same as saying "this game is bad because it doesn't work with our group."

 

[Umbran]

Sure, some games are just badly written. But that's not quite the same as saying "this game is bad because it doesn't work with our group."

Agreed. If one wants to argue that a game is poorly designed, or poorly written, the argument should be of the form, "Here's what the game says it is about. Here's what the rules as presented actually do. They don't match."

The issue of, "I have a player of Type Y in my group, so this game didn't work well for us," doesn't actually support the idea that game is poorly made.