Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 4511805" data-attributes="member: 3192">This is one of the more popular examples for disliking portions of 4E's combat system.  Consistency under a referee or judge's discretion vs. player's gaming as Gods to the world is the difference.  Entailment is intended through game design to remove referee bias wherever possible.  Players who ask DMs to skip those rolls are asking for DM judgment to prevail over published game design.  Players who ask to design the world on the fly while playing, and then have that authority determined via a mechanic, are stepping out of character to win a different kind of game.  They are swapping storytelling for role-playing.  If "game-mechanically-distributed" rules are "NAR", then no game can not be called a storygame.  For all values that qualify as "playing your character".  That's includes #2 & #3.  Adding storytelling into RPGs where it wasn't before does not redefine all RPGs that did not include it.  Removing role-playing type #2 from a game has historically made it a theatre improv game.  Getting rid of both 2 & 3 means you might FLGSs selling bicycle repair manuals under the heading RPG have redefined the hobby.  The act of telling a story isn't role-playing as any CRPG player can tell you.The problem is, you are not overcoming the challenge through role-play.  You are playing a narrative allocation game.  And as I've shown not all rulesets equate to narrative distribution.  Blind Monopoly, or any game's modeled fiction merely referenced by its players, must always become a storytelling game by that characterization.I haven't read more than a few snippets of Donald Davidson's work, but I have read a good bit of WVO Quine's which he is referencing here..  The issue that I have (relating to our discussion) is not Davidson's attempt to assign phrase attribution or his attempts at signifying either the performance or not of said phrase in a work referencing both.  My dispute is over specifically taking common sense language usage, like "telling a story" and attributing it to "taking action", while claiming it doesn't fall under theatre acting.  Yes, if you really want to claim all action includes expression, then you can start claiming all existence is telling a story.  If you want to claim all games including a player-directed avatar (thereby falling into Davidson's language logic problem) are role-playing games, you can do that too.  Yes, the difference between role-playing and playing a single avatar boardgame is a matter of degrees when it comes to defining RPGs in the english-speaking, language-creating community.  Does determining what is an RPG get confusing, as in computer RPGs?  Of course.  Everyone probably has a difficult time categorizing between Action, Adventure, and RPG computer games.  But no one would be so confused that using a cheat program to give your PC "God-Mode" is still "playing the role of the PC".  Cheating at role-playing games is cheating at playing the role, whether the rules allow include it or not.  Difficulties at attributing referenced expressions doesn't change that.  It's because we all have a very strong idea of what it means to be a person.  We know what taking on the role of another person means too.  And that surpassing the abilities of that person is no longer taking on their role.I bought the 1-90 White Dwarf CD a couple of years ago for Christmas.  I don't agree with a lot of Pulsipher's writings, but he does understand role-play by its' fundamental attribute: learning in a role by taking it on one's self.  For the Forum response in question: (spoilered for length)[sblock]I really must protest the general philosophy of the article "Be aware and take care" (DRAGON #79). The level of caution and precaution advised in that article may be conducive to efficient game-playing, but can only hinder good role-playing. For one thing, if I were to believe that the guidelines Mr. Pulsipher offers were of value, then they should be followed for every character. But these suggestions are so activity restrictive (You should always . . ., etc.) that I would end up playing the same character over and over. Worse yet, that character would be a paranoid, neurotically cautious, pessimistic cretin with a reputationfor irrational behavior. The "Whom do you trust?" section shows not only the paranoia of Mr. Pulsipher's characters, but a flagrant display of illogic. What happens when a character drinks holy water of the opposite alignment? Nothing, unless the character (or drinker) is somehow endowed with the power of an Outer Plane, or the Positive or Negative Material Plane. It's just not powerful enough to detect the subtle energies of Prime Material alignments.  And since they'd probably taste the same to everybody (though evils might find good holy water too sickly sweet, and goods might be a little more revulsed at the taste of evil holy water), you couldn't really tell by their facial expressions. And putting those manacles on that farmer would be more likely to make him distrust you. Or at least wonder whether or not he was better off in the dungeons of the Evil Count What's-his-face.Magical sleeping bags? If it weren't for that, the section on camps wouldn't be too bad for a specific character. If this form of caution is in character for the fighter or whatever that you've created, then by all means go ahead. Otherwise, it's a bit too much like work. Besides, you could probably sleep in your armor, it'd just be incredibly uncomfortable. If your character will put up with this sort of self-abuse, fine. I believe most fighters would, unless they were in plate mail or weren't very adventurous anyway.The section on "playing" the DM, while falling just short of cheating, is hardly in the spirit of the game. Using the tactics outlined here would cripple any chance of roleplaying on the players' parts. If the characters had a hard time with a given monster, they would probably comment on it to one another afterwards. If they had an easy time, they would be grateful to their gods.They would not be constantly complaining about their lot to the all-powerful deity known only as .DM.. Anyway, it's fairly obvious to the DM whether or not the characters are having a hard time, based on damage taken, length of melees, etc. Carping about imagined hardships would put me off fudging in a minute, and if it kept up they might find themselves up against more than they can handle, so they can tell the difference in the future. I usually only kill people when they do something stupid and that fits the bill.Lastly, and most importantly, the really good role-player is self-limiting. This means that if a certain action seems in character or simply the logical outcome of a given situation, then even if that action might hurt the character.s chances for survival slightly (I don.t expect ultimate sacrifices from anyone), the player will take that course of action. For example, if I was playing a fighter of near-barbarian temperament, and I thought this guy would be proud of and like to show off his battle-scars, I might have this character disdain clerical healing for all but the most grievous of injuries, so that he has natural scars to show off. Another example might be a Champions- style martial artist, who after a failed kick is struck by an attack. If it seems likely that the attack hit in the leg, the player might assume that using the legs for kicking would be quite painful and therefore inaccurate. The character might refrain from using his martial kick at least for the duration of the battle or until it can be tended to, settling instead for the lower-damage martial punch.Let me make it clear that I am not completely opposed to Mr. Pulsipher.s article, lest people think that I prefer characters who charge blindly into danger with no precautions and as many limitations as humanly possible. Many of the ideas in the article were good ideas, but all of them should not be used by any one character or group. Adventurers should be as varied as any other group. Some will be cautious, maybe in the extreme, and others will be equally careless. The important thing is that they should be individuals, and their players should be concerned with role-playing, not milking any given situation for every last copper, while pursuing a paranoid obsession with minimizing damage. [I'm leaving off the name][/sblock]If you read that carefully, I bet you'd agree that much of the writer's actions could be called tyrannical.  I don't think he understands what being an objective Referee in a fair gaming environment means.  I would never hire him to judge at a tournament convention like the very popular Goodman's Games tournament, not to mention WotC's annual GenCon D&D tournament. I understand you believe role-player's don't want Pulsipher's kind of RPG.  Which is fine as I feel he talks far more about a particular style of play relevant mostly under his own GMing.  But to deny that RPGers do not want to test themselves in-character vs. "just saying" a good story for them to face?  I think you need to look at the behaviors of the 10's of millions of players of computer-simulated RPGs.  How many of those players engage in (the oft-misnomered) "RP" sections?  Do I understand many players do want to go through great adventures?  Yes, of course.  But the degree of challenge one wants to overcome to achieve it is a preference.  To claim it's all just telling a story or that all their games are "NAR" challenges is insulting to most RPGers IMO.I believe, what we have now is a schism similar to what D&D faced with wargamers in the 70's.  Is D&D a wargame?  Yes, if you don't mind it being so broad in scope.  Do we call D&D, World of Darkness, GURPs, or Shadowrun Wargames?  No, because we are a separate community branched off of it.  RPGs didn't get to redefine wargaming because it didn't fit in the box anymore.   Indie Gamers and the Big Model believers don't get to redefine the tabletop RPG community because their games don't fit in it's box anymore.  I call them hybrids.  Distorting the actual, commonly used terminology of RPGs for over 3 decades doesn't change that fact.  It actually requires one to deny 10 million WoW players are role-players.  How on earth are you going to change people's use of the term outside the TTRPG hobby in the face of that?  What's happening instead is a line of ridiculous phrasings as I mentioned early in this thread (I believe it was this thread).  Things like "D&D is a form of literature" - Wikipedia.  "RPGs are a type of media" - another forum.   It's not rocket science, it's comical.</blockquote>

Verification