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Character play vs Player play
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6422017" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I'm personally expressing doubt about the utility of the "storygame" label. I mostly see it used (not by you in this thread) to label games they don't play and don't like, typically as part of a "purity of RPGing" agenda.</p><p></p><p>I don't agree. The distinction between "charm" and "dominate" is a somewhat recent one. If you look back at materials associated with early D&D play, it was generally taken for granted that a charmed character would follow the instructions of the mage who charmed him/her/it. This is why charming a troll (regeneration!) or charming an ochre jelly (immune to most attacks) was considered a clever move.</p><p></p><p>But if you didn't, or don't, play charm this way, the point can be made using domination, or rulership, or some comparable ability, as an example.</p><p></p><p>I've got nothing against distinguishing different approaches and techniques, but I think some care is needed in using them to characterise systems, as opposed to episodes of play and particular players'/group's approaches. To give a low-grade but nevertheless genuine example, I played a lot of "collaborative" Traveller and D&D back in the early-to-mid-80s - rolling random dungeons and encounters, rolling up random patrons and encounters for Traveller characters, etc. Not the most high-brow play of all time, but it's one of the things we were doing with those systems. </p><p></p><p>And in my AD&D games, players exerted primary control over their henchmen. They also got to decide their own PC backstory, including friends, family etc.</p><p></p><p>As I've mentioned upthread, I don't think that Circles in BW, or Resource generation in BW, are radically different from certain fairly standard approaches to Streetwise checks. I remember, 20 years ago, players rolling Streetwise checks for their Rolemaster PCs to meet up with drug dealers in the seedier parts of town; or rolling Administration checks to meet up with imperial officials. Circles isn't identical to that, but it's not some wild deviation either. It's a fairly natural extension/development.</p><p></p><p>In Rolemaster, too, we used social skills as one way of resolving conficts between PCs. It wasn't as systematic as BW's Duel of Wits, and in part because of that relied heavily on a sense of "fairness" between players, but again it was something we were doing with the system. I don't think it means that we weren't RPGing, though.</p><p>I don't think anyone is denying that you played, and play, as you did/do.</p><p></p><p>I think the point is that your approach isn't, and has not really been, of the essence of RPGing in contrast to something else. When [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] or someone else says "RPGers have always been doing this" he doesn't mean that <em>all </em>RPGers have always been doing it, but that <em>some</em> RPGers have always been doing it, and aren't any less RPGers for all that.</p><p></p><p>In other words, if people who describe themselves as RPGers, using rules systems labelled as RPGs, for over 30 years of the 40 years that the hobby has existed, have been doing things like allowing players to specify PC backtory/family/friends etc, allowing Streetwise checks to meet up with desired NPCs, having GM accept player suggestions for backstory input, fetc, then I think that the door has shut on trying to say that those things are antithetical to RPGing.</p><p></p><p>I think that [MENTION=6779310]aramis erak[/MENTION] is correct that a strong degree of player/PC identification, if not over the long term of the game (eg Ars Magica troupe play) then at least within the confines of a particular episode of play, is pretty central to RPGing. But the sorts of approaches to play being discussed in this thread don't confict with that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6422017, member: 42582"] I'm personally expressing doubt about the utility of the "storygame" label. I mostly see it used (not by you in this thread) to label games they don't play and don't like, typically as part of a "purity of RPGing" agenda. I don't agree. The distinction between "charm" and "dominate" is a somewhat recent one. If you look back at materials associated with early D&D play, it was generally taken for granted that a charmed character would follow the instructions of the mage who charmed him/her/it. This is why charming a troll (regeneration!) or charming an ochre jelly (immune to most attacks) was considered a clever move. But if you didn't, or don't, play charm this way, the point can be made using domination, or rulership, or some comparable ability, as an example. I've got nothing against distinguishing different approaches and techniques, but I think some care is needed in using them to characterise systems, as opposed to episodes of play and particular players'/group's approaches. To give a low-grade but nevertheless genuine example, I played a lot of "collaborative" Traveller and D&D back in the early-to-mid-80s - rolling random dungeons and encounters, rolling up random patrons and encounters for Traveller characters, etc. Not the most high-brow play of all time, but it's one of the things we were doing with those systems. And in my AD&D games, players exerted primary control over their henchmen. They also got to decide their own PC backstory, including friends, family etc. As I've mentioned upthread, I don't think that Circles in BW, or Resource generation in BW, are radically different from certain fairly standard approaches to Streetwise checks. I remember, 20 years ago, players rolling Streetwise checks for their Rolemaster PCs to meet up with drug dealers in the seedier parts of town; or rolling Administration checks to meet up with imperial officials. Circles isn't identical to that, but it's not some wild deviation either. It's a fairly natural extension/development. In Rolemaster, too, we used social skills as one way of resolving conficts between PCs. It wasn't as systematic as BW's Duel of Wits, and in part because of that relied heavily on a sense of "fairness" between players, but again it was something we were doing with the system. I don't think it means that we weren't RPGing, though. I don't think anyone is denying that you played, and play, as you did/do. I think the point is that your approach isn't, and has not really been, of the essence of RPGing in contrast to something else. When [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] or someone else says "RPGers have always been doing this" he doesn't mean that [I]all [/I]RPGers have always been doing it, but that [I]some[/I] RPGers have always been doing it, and aren't any less RPGers for all that. In other words, if people who describe themselves as RPGers, using rules systems labelled as RPGs, for over 30 years of the 40 years that the hobby has existed, have been doing things like allowing players to specify PC backtory/family/friends etc, allowing Streetwise checks to meet up with desired NPCs, having GM accept player suggestions for backstory input, fetc, then I think that the door has shut on trying to say that those things are antithetical to RPGing. I think that [MENTION=6779310]aramis erak[/MENTION] is correct that a strong degree of player/PC identification, if not over the long term of the game (eg Ars Magica troupe play) then at least within the confines of a particular episode of play, is pretty central to RPGing. But the sorts of approaches to play being discussed in this thread don't confict with that. [/QUOTE]
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