Let's Talk About "Intended Playstyle"

[soviet]

It means more than that. It means one is "dogmatic in expressing their opinion" or to "firmly or unduly adhere to one's opinion." I've never heard anyone described as being opinionated in a positive manner.

Games aren't people though, right? Games are art. Art should have something to say.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What do you think about the topic of "intended playstyle"? Or, "opinionated" games, if you will? What is a good example of a game, in your opinion, that had a strong intended playstyle and managed to support it in its overall design? What ones tried and failed? Is it a worthy design goal? Why, or why not?

Context: My 2 favorite RPG systems are HERO and 3.5Ed D&D.

My experiences with HERO go all the way back to when it was introduced as Champions, and over time, I’ve gotten to where I can essentially model whatever I want in it.

With 3.5Ed, I think D&D found its sweet spot of a myriad of options coupled with retaining most of the sacred cows that made D&D stand out from other FRPGs.

So, I like both types of game systems.

Basically, I’ll play almost any FRPG. But if I want to play D&D in particular, I’m looking to play 3.5Ed or its closest cousins (Pathfinder, Arcana Evolved, True20, FantasyCraft, Midnight 2Ed, and so forth).*

There’s a couple other games that I treat similarly, like Paranoia!, Deadlands, and Traveller. If I’m designing a campaign for almost anything else, though, I’m reaching for HERO.

CAVEAT: if I know of an extant game that already models what I’m thinking about, I WILL check it out to see if it would work better than what I could do in HERO. For example, if I really wanted to run a RIFTS game, I probably wouldn’t want to use HERO to do it. Modeling the difference between Damage and MegaDamage is a headache I don’t want.**





* I did figure out a way to do D&D 1-4Ed in HERO, but I never ran it beyond a couple of simulations. The point of the design was to let players run the D&D race & class combinations they preferred regardless of original edition within one rules framework. The issues with doing so were more on the player side than the mechanics.

** I have given it some thought, figured out some possible solutions, and rejected them all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Context: My 2 favorite RPG systems are HERO and 3.5Ed D&D.

My experiences with HERO go all the way back to when it was introduced as Champions, and over time, I’ve gotten to where I can essentially model whatever I want in it.

With 3.5Ed, I think D&D found its sweet spot of a myriad of options coupled with retaining most of the sacred cows that made D&D stand out from other FRPGs.

So, I like both types of game systems.

Basically, I’ll play almost any FRPG. But if I want to play D&D in particular, I’m looking to play 3.5Ed or its closest cousins (Pathfinder, Arcana Evolved, True20, FantasyCraft, Midnight 2Ed, and so forth).*

There’s a couple other games that I treat similarly, like Paranoia!, Deadlands, and Traveller. If I’m designing a campaign for almost anything else, though, I’m reaching for HERO.

CAVEAT: if I know of an extant game that already models what I’m thinking about, I WILL check it out to see if it would work better than what I could do in HERO. For example, if I really wanted to run a RIFTS game, I probably wouldn’t want to use HERO to do it. Modeling the difference between Damage and MegaDamage is a headache I don’t want.**





* I did figure out a way to do D&D 1-4Ed in HERO, but I never ran it beyond a couple of simulations. The point of the design was to let players run the D&D race & class combinations they preferred regardless of original edition within one rules framework. The issues with doing so were more on the player side than the mechanics.

** I have given it some thought, figured out some possible solutions, and rejected them all.

I hear you. I've been working on a design and mechanics compilation and synthesis for years that basically lets me model anything I care to with the Level Up 5e rules as a base.

 

[MGibster]

Games aren't people though, right? Games are art. Art should have something to say.

Again, opinionated means more than just having an opinion. And I'm just going to leave it at that.

 

[aramis erak]

What is the intended playstyle, and how does the game enforce it?

Key tropes of BW play:

• GM builds adventures based upon on-the-character-sheet goals set by players
• All actions need to specify goal separate from method to accomplish it
• Players can back down if the difficulty is too hard. Uses their turn, but nothing else
• GM expected to state difficulty AND "If this fails…" clause BEFORE rolls are committed to.
• Detailed single-table conflict systems (multiple: Fight, Range and Cover, Duel of Wits)
• Very non-detailed combat option with single opposed roll resolution. It's called "Bloody Versus."
• Non-martial combat (Duel of Wits) common
• conflict winner gets goal, loser gets a concession scaled to how much progress they had made.
• Let it Ride: You never double up a given roll. EG: Infiltrating the castle: You roll once, and the GM compares it to each foe en route.
• Use it to raise it; above 4th rank of skill, must use it at a task you cannot normally succeed at to raise it. Help, FoRKs, tool bonuses, condition bonuses adjust the needed difficulty for a given experience category, so, functionally, you have to accept a non-success task failure to advance
• Expendable points to modify rolls - some before (Persona, Deeds), one after (Fate - open end the 6's.) Collectively called Artha; Dice from Artha don't adjust how hard a given tasak is for experience, so Artha's the only way to not fail and still count for the hardest difficulty.
• Say Yes or Roll the Dice.
• Anything affecting a character sheet needs a roll, player agreement is NOT enough.

Aside from the specific conflicts, Burning Empires is the same game.
BE Conflicts include: Duel of Wits (identical to BW), Battle, I Corner Him And Stab Him With My Knife, Invasion.
Battle is mass combat, ICHaSHWMK is personal combat but is different from BW's Fight or Range & Cover. Invasion is a metagame.
BE adds:

• Very limited rolling, so
  • lots more "say yes"
  • Bloody Versus much more palatable to players
• Scene budgets
• players frame half the scenes
• Roll budgets per scene
• PVP at 4-5 players with GM
• built in metaconflict (Invasion by a Go'a'uld-like species)
• two conflict system invocations per session limit: one called for by the GM, one framed or converted by the players.

The BE setting, the Iron Empires, was originally inspired by Classic Traveller and Stargate, plus an unfiltered-through-traveller additional dose of Dune.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

CAVEAT: if I know of an extant game that already models what I’m thinking about, I WILL check it out to see if it would work better than what I could do in HERO. For example, if I really wanted to run a RIFTS game, I probably wouldn’t want to use HERO to do it. Modeling the difference between Damage and MegaDamage is a headache I don’t want.

I had to step away from my iPad before I could actually complete my thought. RIFTS is an example of a mechanic that is difficult to model in HERO.

But there’s also games that have mechanics that I can figure out how to model pretty easily, but I don’t bother trying because the system as a whole does such a good job of modeling the underlying fiction that it would be pointless for me to use HERO to do it. It would be kind of like using a Swiss Army knife to do surgery instead of a scalpel.

 

[zarionofarabel]

What is the intended playstyle, and how does the game enforce it?

Player driven sandbox.

BW enforces said playstyle by having the primary focus of play being PC Goal Completion, as opposed to the more traditional GM Quest Completion that dominates much of the hobby. While other games can be played using PC Goal Completion as the primary format, they rarely feature it (I know V5 does, but it's not mechanically enforced) and as far as I have experienced, never enforce it. It's expressed explicitly in the rulebook that the job of the GM in BW is to challenge the PCs as they try to complete their stated goals. The job of the players is to come up with interesting goals that are tied to the world and ongoing narrative that they will work towards completing. This dynamic between players choosing goals to complete and the GM doing nothing but putting obstacles in their way, makes the game function as a player driven sandbox. If you play BW a different way, you are literally doing it wrong according to what the rulebook lays out as the procedures you are supposed to use when playing BW. I think the rulebook even states that not following the procedures in the rulebook means you are playing it wrong. It has a "positive reinforcement" approach to help incentivize the players as there is a very specific form of XP that can be earned, but only by overcoming challenges tied to a PCs goals. Said XP is integral to how certain aspects of PC advancement works so missing out on gaining said XP is a big deal. So yeah, hands down BW is a system built to foster and facilitate a very specific playstyle, the infamous "player driven sandbox" and it achieves it's goal exceedingly well. To this day, considering how often I see folks discussing how to properly run player driven sandbox games, I am flabbergasted that BW isn't the talk of the town and it's methodology hasn't become the industry gold standard. Oh well.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Player driven sandbox.

BW enforces said playstyle by having the primary focus of play being PC Goal Completion, as opposed to the more traditional GM Quest Completion that dominates much of the hobby. While other games can be played using PC Goal Completion as the primary format, they rarely feature it (I know V5 does, but it's not mechanically enforced) and as far as I have experienced, never enforce it. It's expressed explicitly in the rulebook that the job of the GM in BW is to challenge the PCs as they try to complete their stated goals. The job of the players is to come up with interesting goals that are tied to the world and ongoing narrative that they will work towards completing. This dynamic between players choosing goals to complete and the GM doing nothing but putting obstacles in their way, makes the game function as a player driven sandbox. If you play BW a different way, you are literally doing it wrong according to what the rulebook lays out as the procedures you are supposed to use when playing BW. I think the rulebook even states that not following the procedures in the rulebook means you are playing it wrong. It has a "positive reinforcement" approach to help incentivize the players as there is a very specific form of XP that can be earned, but only by overcoming challenges tied to a PCs goals. Said XP is integral to how certain aspects of PC advancement works so missing out on gaining said XP is a big deal. So yeah, hands down BW is a system built to foster and facilitate a very specific playstyle, the infamous "player driven sandbox" and it achieves it's goal exceedingly well. To this day, considering how often I see folks discussing how to properly run player driven sandbox games, I am flabbergasted that BW isn't the talk of the town and it's methodology hasn't become the industry gold standard. Oh well.

BW from everything you've said here is very restrictive because of its tight focus. It puts a lot of pressure on the Players to constantly be coming up with stuff they want to do, which is is creatively exhausting for a lot of Players IME and hard to sustain. And it places severe restrictions on what the GM can include, because it makes them essentially (from my perspective) an employee who works for the players and is discouraged from making a living world (because everything has to relate directly to the Players and their "story"), something which many sandbox GMs greatly enjoy, myself included.

If you want what BW offers, and very importantly nothing else ever out of your game, it sounds wonderful. If you want a world to explore and engage with that has a presence outside of your character, or you're a GM who enjoys worldbuilding without having to be exclusively reactive, I'm not sure BW is the best game for you.

Again, based on what you're saying here. I've not read or played Burning Wheel.