4E and RPG Theory (GNS)

[ironvyper]

They may know it's a good idea to do A (follow tactics) but their heart says to do B (follow character definition). That's the whole problem.

Which is a problem that real people have to face all the time, and thus part of what makes the game more immersive and fun. When u take those out of the game u take away a huge part of the escapism that makes the game fun.

Also tactics are ultimately about your character surviving. So if your playing a character who you think is really torn up about not dying screaming on the end of some creatures sword or claws.... well that character needs to go find a cleric of the mind and pay for a couple sessions to get over thier depression.

This isnt even a game issue in my opinion its a character issue. Some characters, namely palidans and other religious types might have moments where they need to decide whether save some innocent or win the fight but if u dont like those issues then dont play one of those characters.

And even then this is really a problem created by a superficial view of any situation rather then taking a serious look at these sorts of things from a characters perspective. For instance, remind the palidan in your party that whoever he's trying to save instead of winning the monsters are just gonna chase the innocents back down and kill or capture them again if they beat the PC's. So being tactical in a fight nearly allways is playing your character as your character.

 

[marune]

So being tactical in a fight nearly allways is playing your character as your character.

It was my personal reasoning before I met RPG theory.

However, both as a DM and a player I have seen too many times players justyfing sub-optimal combat behavior by "I follow my character personality / background / whatever".

BTW, a RPG where combat behavior is driven by those is possible, even thought I don't want D&D to work that way.

 

[ironvyper]

well when u see some player say something stupid like that remind him being your character is knowing your in life and death situations all the time and being hit with a sword or bitten by something HURTS. And dying SUCKS, even with ressurection magic. So any real portrayal of the character would involve them trying not to be hurt or killed as much as humanly possible.

That sort of reasoning would be like a soldier choosing to leave his body armor and rifle at home because he thinks pistols are cool. Just gently remind the player that he doesnt have to be a moron because its KOOL.

 

[S'mon]

Which one bother you ?

I asked you to explain why you think that should be the preferred approach.

Mind you I don't actually know what "vanilla" Narrativism is. I know what Edwards meant by Narrativism as of ca 2005 (though I prefer the old threefold GDS model), but the more I read the Forge the less interesting it gets so I haven't been there recently.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

I wish I had the books so that I could participate in this thread in a meaningful way. As is stands, all I can do is debate the merits of GNS theory (which I enjoy, but ultimately I feel that GNS theory is completely inadequate for te task that it sets out for itself). I will check back in after 6/6.

 

[S'mon]

OTOH, I would recommend to Skeptic to maybe take this thread to Story-Games.com or Knife Fight. Or, play a few sessions and start an AP thread at The Forge.

Sounds like good advice to me.

Re 3e, I do think there were particular Gamist demands in that edition with its CR/EL-balancing approach that did cause problems for Nar or Sim agendae:
1. PC-build-for-combat optimisation heavily encouraged, failure to do so punished by death.
2. PC optimum tactics in combat heavily encouraged, failure to do so punished by death.

I had a Nar oriented player very unhappy in the high level 3e game I ran because of this. In an earlier edition like 1e #1 didn't come up much, and #2 could easily be dealt with by dialing back the monster lethality - XP came from treasure so was largely divorced from monster power. In 3e changing any parameter such as monster EL has a big knock on effect in eg XP gained, loot generated, and so on, making tinkering to suit such a play style much harder. Dunno about 4e yet!

 

[marune]

I asked you to explain why you think that should be the preferred approach.

Mind you I don't actually know what "vanilla" Narrativism is. I know what Edwards meant by Narrativism as of ca 2005 (though I prefer the old threefold GDS model), but the more I read the Forge the less interesting it gets so I haven't been there recently.

Vanilla = without relaying much or any at all on System.

Why ?

Because I want D&D to fill the gamism niche and that I think that many players (both newcomers and old-timers that suffered from "bad" DMs) would enjoy a lot more vanilla Nar than Sim at the adventure level.

 

[Harlath]

He's attempting to transgress the boundaries towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum RPGs.

Nice Sokal reference sir! Also brings up a sensible point about using clearly defined and mutually understood language in a debate.

 

[amethal]

I'm not very familiar with GNS, but is the argument that GNS theory shows 4th edition to be a "bad" game?

And does the same apply to other editions?

'Cos if the world's most popular roleplaying game has been a bad game from day 1 then I'd prefer to think that actually its GNS which is a bad theory.

When I play my character, I do the things that my character would do. And since my character is a bad ass adventurer who regularly finds himself in life or death situations, he generally does whatever is the most tactically sound thing to do.

Sometimes, his belief system causes him to do something else instead, making an encounter harder than it otherwise would be.

If it happens occasionally, those are generally some of the high points of the campaign.

If it happens more often, then the character has to rethink his beliefs, creating its own conflict which I also find good fun.

For example, my last character was CG whereas the other 2 party members were N. We were fighting EVil, (with a capital EV - that's how rotten those scoundrels were!) and the bad guys were regularly using anti-good spells. The two neutral members were shrugging them off, but I was suffering.

As a result, my character thought long and hard about becoming CN (to put it into metagame terms), which was an interesting process.

 

[marune]

I'm not very familiar with GNS, but is the argument that GNS theory shows 4th edition to be a "bad" game?

And does the same apply to other editions?.

Yes and Yes.

The "bad" comes from incoherence, which can be explained as a game promoting different kind of play in a confusing way.

The good news is that it will be easier in 4E than in 3E to fix it.

'Cos if the world's most popular roleplaying game has been a bad game from day 1 then I'd prefer to think that actually its GNS which is a bad theory.

First, that theory didn't exist when D&D was built with incoherence in the first time.

Second, many groups have sucessfully managed the incoherence in a way specific to their preferences.

Third, much of the table problems brought here and much of the endless debates done here are derived from this incoherence.