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Character play vs Player play
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6447283" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>As with [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], so with me - what you assert here is not true when I GM a game, and I would not want to play in a game in which it was true.</p><p></p><p>I did once play in a game in which the GM decided to send the PCs forward in time 100 years, as best I can tell because it would sever all the connections that we as players had built up between our PCs and the gameworld, thereby leaving us dependant on the GM to feed us plot and fictional details. I already had time pressures that were making it hard to stick in this game, and when the GM did this it pretty much settled the matter for me - the game wasn't worth sticking around in after that point. (I believe that after I left the game didn't last much longer with the remaining players.)</p><p></p><p>I don't believe I have ever met (in the flesh) or played with someone who would enjoy the food critic & soup scenario that you described at the top of the thread.</p><p></p><p>I also don't belive I've ever met (in the flesh) or played with someone who would be upset because the GM said "yes" to boxes in an otherwise non-descript alley. Including the guy with the climbing PC, becaus that PC is sitll going to be the first choice to climb up the pile of stacked boxes.</p><p></p><p>I think these remarks all suggest a fairly narrow conception of what fanasy RPGing can involve. I don't really feel they describe my games.</p><p></p><p>For instance, I've had PCs pursue (and gain) magistracies; defend racial inclusiveness in their wizard's guilds; oppose the spread of slavery; become lords of cities, thereby redeeming a family's lost honour; establish temples; uphold their conceptions of what makes for a good world against cosmological forces that have different ideals; etc.</p><p></p><p>I don't just assume that my players will turn up to the game with unconnected, value-neutral "adventurers" who are tools of exploration and war to be pointed at whatever evildoer I as GM, in the guise of Elminster or whomever, tells them to take down. I exepct my players to bring PCs with their own motivations, goals, backstories, and hopes for the world. My job is then to provide them with situations and adentures that they can engage and thereby express and pursue those various histories and values that are central to their PCs.</p><p></p><p>As I've already posted on this thread, the RPG book that really led me to this sort of approach was the original (1986) Oriental Adventures.</p><p></p><p>I'm going to find a better way to run the infiltration.</p><p></p><p>Disguise abilities, <em>disguise self</em>, polymorph etc have been part of the game since very early days (eg all are present in the AD&D PHB). It's not as if infiltration is some aberrant strategy within the framework of the game.</p><p></p><p>If an individual GM says "I don't like GMing infiltration scenarios, so don't build an illusionist or ninja at my table", that's one thing. But to suggest that the difficulty of running such things is a general reason not to allow them is just dismissing a pretty fundamental suite of PC build options that have been there nearly since day 1.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I am with GMforPowergamers on this one. These references to "improv theatre", for me, carry the same dismissive tone as typical references to "storygames".</p><p></p><p>The post to which GMfPG replied with reference to a "spectrum" asserted that:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">In RPGs, the generally accepted paradigm is that the DM gets to control scene framing, the actions of the NPCs and the results of your actions. You roleplay your character reacting to these elements. Some games agree to play the games in a much more "improv" style where the DM is more of a story moderator than a DM. That's fine, but it is definitely not the common style.</p><p></p><p>I don't accept this paradigm. The actions of NPCs are sometimes controlled by the GM, but not always - eg if the players use social skills or enchantment magic. The results of the player's action declarations are adjudicated by the GM but are notsolely under his/her control - the action resoution mechanics play a big roll in dictating those outcomes. And players have a role far beyond "roleplaying their characters reacting to these elements". By playing their PCs, they play the major role in shaping the development of the shared fiction.</p><p></p><p>From my point of view, the games that Majoru Oakheart describes seems like railroads in which the players have no job to do but roll the dice in combat, and add a bit of colour by narrating their PCs response to events over which neither PC nor player has any real control - the monologues on pipe tobacco discussed someway upthread.</p><p></p><p>If that was all that RPGing involved, I would have never got into the hobby, let alone stuck with it for over 30 years.</p><p></p><p>I have much the same resonse to this idea that the guild's plot is some endgame thing that can't be revealed early. If the players want to infiltrate the guild, then from my point of view that becomes the focus of play. (Or, if I don't want to run an inflitration scenario beecause I think it is hard, I would say so upfront - I have not done this for infiltration, but have done this for mass-combat, telling the player in question I am not capable of or interesting in running a wargame, so he won't get the units of soldiers he wants, and will have to find some other way of pursuing his PC's goals.)</p><p></p><p>Not to mention, there are so many ways to run an infiltration scenario, or any other sort of scenario for that matter, in which the mixture of backstory revealed and backstory concealed keeps the players on their toes, going forward but never 100% sure what lies ahead. In the guild case, it can be as simple as the PCs coming into the guild-leaders chambers only to find him or her just killed with a knife in the back, and the window open with curtains fluttering. The PCs can now search the room, or chase the assassin, or split the party and try and do both. (And if the GM doesn't want them to split the party there are fairly simple techniques to accomplish that too, using both ingame and metagame considerations.)</p><p></p><p>This is how I approach tournament games (not that I've attended a tournament for many years now!) As a player, you buy into the pre-authored situation as part of the price of admission. The flipside is that the scenario should be pretty good - better than what you might churn out running a session with no prep after a hard week at the office! And of course you get to try out new systems and experience a wider range of GMs.</p><p></p><p>But the idea that all of RPG play should be like convention play - pre-packaged scenarios for pre-packaged PCs with everything driven by the GM - isn't a view I subscribe to. Adding to that, I've played in convention games where the players have had the freedom to come up with their own responses to the key problem posed by the scenario - I'm thinking of a Cthulhu freefrom where we had to decide which PC would receive the angelic power that would let us escape from the clutches of a demon; and of a Rolemaster game where the main opponent was a demon who was my PCs' father, and also where my PCs and one of the other PCs had had a (now ended affair), that had left her (unknwon to my PC) pregnant, and in which a time-dilation room brought on that character's labour.</p><p></p><p>In both these scenarios members of my team won best roleplayer prizes for particular characters, and I'm pretty confident that part of what drove that was that we went beyond merely emoting and adding colour, but also took control of the scenario (within the limited scope that was fesasible) and made something out of the pre-packaged material that was our own.</p><p></p><p>I really think that the most fun RPGing, both as a player and as GM, is active rather than reactive and passive.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6447283, member: 42582"] As with [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], so with me - what you assert here is not true when I GM a game, and I would not want to play in a game in which it was true. I did once play in a game in which the GM decided to send the PCs forward in time 100 years, as best I can tell because it would sever all the connections that we as players had built up between our PCs and the gameworld, thereby leaving us dependant on the GM to feed us plot and fictional details. I already had time pressures that were making it hard to stick in this game, and when the GM did this it pretty much settled the matter for me - the game wasn't worth sticking around in after that point. (I believe that after I left the game didn't last much longer with the remaining players.) I don't believe I have ever met (in the flesh) or played with someone who would enjoy the food critic & soup scenario that you described at the top of the thread. I also don't belive I've ever met (in the flesh) or played with someone who would be upset because the GM said "yes" to boxes in an otherwise non-descript alley. Including the guy with the climbing PC, becaus that PC is sitll going to be the first choice to climb up the pile of stacked boxes. I think these remarks all suggest a fairly narrow conception of what fanasy RPGing can involve. I don't really feel they describe my games. For instance, I've had PCs pursue (and gain) magistracies; defend racial inclusiveness in their wizard's guilds; oppose the spread of slavery; become lords of cities, thereby redeeming a family's lost honour; establish temples; uphold their conceptions of what makes for a good world against cosmological forces that have different ideals; etc. I don't just assume that my players will turn up to the game with unconnected, value-neutral "adventurers" who are tools of exploration and war to be pointed at whatever evildoer I as GM, in the guise of Elminster or whomever, tells them to take down. I exepct my players to bring PCs with their own motivations, goals, backstories, and hopes for the world. My job is then to provide them with situations and adentures that they can engage and thereby express and pursue those various histories and values that are central to their PCs. As I've already posted on this thread, the RPG book that really led me to this sort of approach was the original (1986) Oriental Adventures. I'm going to find a better way to run the infiltration. Disguise abilities, [I]disguise self[/I], polymorph etc have been part of the game since very early days (eg all are present in the AD&D PHB). It's not as if infiltration is some aberrant strategy within the framework of the game. If an individual GM says "I don't like GMing infiltration scenarios, so don't build an illusionist or ninja at my table", that's one thing. But to suggest that the difficulty of running such things is a general reason not to allow them is just dismissing a pretty fundamental suite of PC build options that have been there nearly since day 1. I am with GMforPowergamers on this one. These references to "improv theatre", for me, carry the same dismissive tone as typical references to "storygames". The post to which GMfPG replied with reference to a "spectrum" asserted that: [indent]In RPGs, the generally accepted paradigm is that the DM gets to control scene framing, the actions of the NPCs and the results of your actions. You roleplay your character reacting to these elements. Some games agree to play the games in a much more "improv" style where the DM is more of a story moderator than a DM. That's fine, but it is definitely not the common style.[/indent] I don't accept this paradigm. The actions of NPCs are sometimes controlled by the GM, but not always - eg if the players use social skills or enchantment magic. The results of the player's action declarations are adjudicated by the GM but are notsolely under his/her control - the action resoution mechanics play a big roll in dictating those outcomes. And players have a role far beyond "roleplaying their characters reacting to these elements". By playing their PCs, they play the major role in shaping the development of the shared fiction. From my point of view, the games that Majoru Oakheart describes seems like railroads in which the players have no job to do but roll the dice in combat, and add a bit of colour by narrating their PCs response to events over which neither PC nor player has any real control - the monologues on pipe tobacco discussed someway upthread. If that was all that RPGing involved, I would have never got into the hobby, let alone stuck with it for over 30 years. I have much the same resonse to this idea that the guild's plot is some endgame thing that can't be revealed early. If the players want to infiltrate the guild, then from my point of view that becomes the focus of play. (Or, if I don't want to run an inflitration scenario beecause I think it is hard, I would say so upfront - I have not done this for infiltration, but have done this for mass-combat, telling the player in question I am not capable of or interesting in running a wargame, so he won't get the units of soldiers he wants, and will have to find some other way of pursuing his PC's goals.) Not to mention, there are so many ways to run an infiltration scenario, or any other sort of scenario for that matter, in which the mixture of backstory revealed and backstory concealed keeps the players on their toes, going forward but never 100% sure what lies ahead. In the guild case, it can be as simple as the PCs coming into the guild-leaders chambers only to find him or her just killed with a knife in the back, and the window open with curtains fluttering. The PCs can now search the room, or chase the assassin, or split the party and try and do both. (And if the GM doesn't want them to split the party there are fairly simple techniques to accomplish that too, using both ingame and metagame considerations.) This is how I approach tournament games (not that I've attended a tournament for many years now!) As a player, you buy into the pre-authored situation as part of the price of admission. The flipside is that the scenario should be pretty good - better than what you might churn out running a session with no prep after a hard week at the office! And of course you get to try out new systems and experience a wider range of GMs. But the idea that all of RPG play should be like convention play - pre-packaged scenarios for pre-packaged PCs with everything driven by the GM - isn't a view I subscribe to. Adding to that, I've played in convention games where the players have had the freedom to come up with their own responses to the key problem posed by the scenario - I'm thinking of a Cthulhu freefrom where we had to decide which PC would receive the angelic power that would let us escape from the clutches of a demon; and of a Rolemaster game where the main opponent was a demon who was my PCs' father, and also where my PCs and one of the other PCs had had a (now ended affair), that had left her (unknwon to my PC) pregnant, and in which a time-dilation room brought on that character's labour. In both these scenarios members of my team won best roleplayer prizes for particular characters, and I'm pretty confident that part of what drove that was that we went beyond merely emoting and adding colour, but also took control of the scenario (within the limited scope that was fesasible) and made something out of the pre-packaged material that was our own. I really think that the most fun RPGing, both as a player and as GM, is active rather than reactive and passive. [/QUOTE]
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