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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6963092" data-attributes="member: 85870">I only read the first 6 pages, so if some of this has been covered in pages 7-15, please forgive me . . . or don't forgive me and hurl insults and rotten fruit my way, whichever suits your fancy.&nbsp;&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />This is actually an interesting hypothetical. For instance, would I personally be willing to play a game where every check ever made would be a straight &quot;2d6, keep the highest die and discard the lowest&quot; but there were absolutely ZERO modifiers to the roll, EVER? Want to make a climb check? 2d6, keep the highest, no modifiers. Make a hand-to-hand attack? 2d6, keep the highest, no modifiers. Roll a straight Intelligence check? 2d6, keep the highest, no modifiers. And every other player was under the exact same constraints. No matter which skills we chose, which weapons we chose, there would be no differentiation. Or perhaps we need some basic differentiation, so let's say you roll 2d4, keep the highest if &quot;untrained,&quot; roll 2d6 and keep the highest if &quot;trained.&quot; There are no other differentiators for player characters.Would I actually want to play that game?Frankly, the answer would be, &quot;No. Not if I have no other avenue for controlling the destiny of my character.&quot; And believe me, it's almost painful for me to say that, because I am a staunch advocate of character-driven, actor-stance, &quot;verisimilitudinous&quot; roleplaying.Now, the alternative to giving control to players through their characters mechanically is to give them control over the fiction directly.There's some basic implications about the nature of a &quot;game world&quot; using a highly generic system like the one I hypothesized. Taken in a vacuum, a system of that nature seems to imply that &quot;All things considered, everyone is equally good or bad at a particular skill under nearly any circumstance.&quot; And we recognize from a &quot;real world&quot; perspective that this certainly isn't the case. All things considered, Computer Programmer A and Computer Programmer B may have a lot of &quot;equal skill&quot; overlaps in some cases, but will have radically different skill levels in others.Would such a game even remotely approach a &quot;classic&quot; roleplaying experience? Or is it aiming for a different experience? Without true mechanical differentiation, the only &quot;locus of control&quot; becomes over the fiction itself. At that point does it basically come down to &quot;fictional token passing&quot; or &quot;conch sharing&quot; between players and GM to ask for any potential circumstantial bonus? Genericized, unoptimized systems seem like they would dramatically shift the dynamics of play. This type of thing pushes things dramatically toward a &quot;shared storytelling&quot; model, since &quot;control of the fiction&quot; becomes what matters, not control of the mechanics/dice/character abilities. There's a fairly deep fundamental question at work here, which is, &quot;How much 'game' must actually exist in a Role Playing Game for it to appropriately and recognizably produce an experience that is fundamentally different from shared storytelling?&quot; And once a minimum level of &quot;game&quot; is reached, optimization will occur. It just will. It's human nature. I've long felt that at their most basic core, the so-called &quot;narrativist&quot; and &quot;gamist&quot; impulses are fundamentally at odds, but that an RPG presents a unique avenue for merging those two impulses into a single shared social dynamic.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 6963092, member: 85870"] I only read the first 6 pages, so if some of this has been covered in pages 7-15, please forgive me . . . or don't forgive me and hurl insults and rotten fruit my way, whichever suits your fancy. :) This is actually an interesting hypothetical. For instance, would I personally be willing to play a game where every check ever made would be a straight "2d6, keep the highest die and discard the lowest" but there were absolutely ZERO modifiers to the roll, EVER? Want to make a climb check? 2d6, keep the highest, no modifiers. Make a hand-to-hand attack? 2d6, keep the highest, no modifiers. Roll a straight Intelligence check? 2d6, keep the highest, no modifiers. And every other player was under the exact same constraints. No matter which skills we chose, which weapons we chose, there would be no differentiation. Or perhaps we need some basic differentiation, so let's say you roll 2d4, keep the highest if "untrained," roll 2d6 and keep the highest if "trained." There are no other differentiators for player characters. Would I actually want to play that game? Frankly, the answer would be, "No. Not if I have no other avenue for controlling the destiny of my character." And believe me, it's almost painful for me to say that, because I am a staunch advocate of character-driven, actor-stance, "verisimilitudinous" roleplaying. Now, the alternative to giving control to players through their characters [I]mechanically[/I] is to give them control over the [I]fiction directly.[/I] There's some basic implications about the nature of a "game world" using a highly generic system like the one I hypothesized. Taken in a vacuum, a system of that nature seems to imply that "All things considered, everyone is equally good or bad at a particular skill under nearly any circumstance." And we recognize from a "real world" perspective that this certainly isn't the case. All things considered, Computer Programmer A and Computer Programmer B may have a lot of "equal skill" overlaps in some cases, but will have radically different skill levels in others. Would such a game even remotely approach a "classic" roleplaying experience? Or is it aiming for a different experience? Without true mechanical differentiation, the only "locus of control" becomes over the fiction itself. At that point does it basically come down to "fictional token passing" or "conch sharing" between players and GM to ask for any potential circumstantial bonus? Genericized, unoptimized systems seem like they would dramatically shift the dynamics of play. This type of thing pushes things dramatically toward a "shared storytelling" model, since "control of the fiction" becomes what matters, not control of the mechanics/dice/character abilities. There's a fairly deep fundamental question at work here, which is, "How much 'game' must actually exist in a Role Playing Game for it to appropriately and recognizably produce an experience that is fundamentally different from shared storytelling?" And once a minimum level of "game" is reached, optimization will occur. It just will. It's human nature. I've long felt that at their most basic core, the so-called "narrativist" and "gamist" impulses are fundamentally at odds, but that an RPG presents a unique avenue for merging those two impulses into a single shared social dynamic. [/QUOTE]

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