NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5451198" data-attributes="member: 15538">That is certainly NOT the only way. RPGs will tell you what is doable or not, primarily through what there are rules for. If you want to take this action, and the GM explains the penalties and modifiers, it will be clear this a sub-optimal action. That is the beauty of rules. It is also the downfall of GM improvisation, unless the GM and the players all agree on what is feasible. I'm a big fan of using systems in loose and creative ways, but that can easily go too far. If you find yourself thinking, "Why do I need rules at all?" the answer is probably that you don't. But I like having rules.I have no idea where you are getting your assumptions. Seeing newbies as wide-eyed "cinematic" roleplayers with a romantic view of combat is, I think, a narrow view of the newbie population, extremely narrow. Someone who reads LOTR isn't necessarily going to have the same view of the fantasy genre as someone who saw the film first. Someone who grew up playing WoW is not necessarily going to expect that any and all "cool" actions are going to be effective; a few tough raids will rub off any such misunderstandings. Someone who prefers Kingdom of Heaven to Conan the Barbarian is going to have a different view. Someone who prefers The Matrix to CTHD is probably likely to intuit that the actions in the Matrix are linked to specific powers that must be learned. Decades of history suggest you are wrong. Vampire was extremely newbie friendly. It had a flexible game system, but what really drew people in were the sourcebooks. The New Word of Darkness is probably less newbie-friendly, precisely because it is more abstract, less codified; more optional, less core.It is a common myth that newbies love improvisation and rules-lite gaming. A certain minority do; they temperamentally prefer it, and figure that out early on. But most do not. Rules-lite gaming is the equivalent to writing blank verse; anyone can do it, but doing it well requires considerable skill. To be able to act intuitively, to respond realistically or cinematically, to be able to produce narration on the fly... those are the skills of an advanced player. They require practice, and they require building blocks. And most often, those building blocks are things like pre-built encounters to study, playing and experiencing games of various types to learn about tone and philosophy, mastering rules so you can understand how different actions relate to each other. To most newbies, introducing them to gaming through rules-lite gaming is like inviting someone out to a fantastic new restaurant, then taking them to one of the restaurants where you have to pick your own ingredients. If they know what the ingredients do and how to combine them, great! If not... shoot, they'd probably rather just grab some cheese fries.</blockquote>

Verification