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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6415981" data-attributes="member: 4937">I snipped out two critical words so that I could agree with the whole statement.All of that is true, but it doesn't mean that the character isn't being challenged.  Generally speaking, when we speak of a character being challenged, we aren't talking specifically about challenges to the character's beliefs and motivations - something that I think the "Indie" gamer crowd felt quite keenly.   In an RPG, when we speak of a character challenge we usually mean something that is overcome by recourse to the character's abilities, rather than the player's abilities as a diplomat, tactician, or problem solver.  So for example, a puzzle door which must be overcome by a character succeeding on a Knowledge (Puzzles and Enigmas) check is a character challenge, where as a puzzle door that requires the players figure out the combinations that the different levers have to be sat at is a player challenge.   This is pretty obvious I think in a cRPG because we recognize in the cRPG that we are shifting to a minigame to be played by the player, rather than resolving whether the door opens with a pass/fail mechanic that references whether or not you have a character with at least a 75 in lockpicking.  Of courses, some minigames can be both character challenges and player challenges.  Traditional RPG combat is of this sort.  You have to rely as a player on your character's combat abilities, but skillful deployment of those abilities and coordination between the players can improve your odds of a favorable outcome or reduce the amount of resources lost or committed during the combat.  And in that sense, the character of the Bloodbowl player is being challenged during the game.   Can "Whiff Windtail" the Gutter Runner pass his 2+ agility roll now that you are out of rerolls?  Can that Black Orc Blocker actually manage to pick up the ball, go for it twice and score for the win?   Often victory or defeat in Blood Bowl comes down to being able to pull off those sorts of character challenges, where the player challenge is figuring out the least likely to fail path to success.   Sure there is no expectation that the character has a developed personality (though it might) but there is I should point out not necessarily any expectation that Black Dougal has a developed personality in a game of D&D beyond being 'the thief'.   Can Black Dougal perform an disarm traps check to stop the room from flooding?  Failing that can he find the secret door and open the lock to escape?   You don't have to play D&D as if the characters had independent motivation from the player, backstories, or personalities.   Some groups just don't.   Which I think gets back to Wick's complaint.   D&D has no real expectation that a character's beliefs will be challenged.  It cares very little about the character of the character.   You can play it as if the character of the character is very important, but Wick argues that if you don't have to play it that way, it's not an RPG.  I don't agree, but I also don't agree that character challenge is unique to RPGs.  It's one of those things that is probably essential to RPGs (I'm trying to think of a counter example, but failing), but is not the unique and defining element of an RPG any more than story itself is (lots of things have stories that aren't RPGs).  Bloodbowl has adopted some RPG-like elements to provide for RPG like open ended game play.   But it is not I think an RPG just because it shares one or several elements with an RPG.  What's missing in Bloodbowl is the idea of personification.  I may create a sort personality for Whiff Windtail, Warren Doom, Prince Charming and Angelina Balerina (and many other players I've had over the years).  I may even describe and add flavor to his moves on the game board to entertain myself.  But I'm never really acting out a role.  My relationship to the pieces remains basically the same as my relationship to the pieces on a chess board, save that since these pieces can persist from game to game, you develop something of an attachment to them.  Now something like Bloodbowl or Necromunda shares so much in common with RPGs that I think it would take very few steps to turn them into an RPG, but then again, I don't think it takes many steps to turn a theater game into an RPG or chess into an RPG.  So I don't think it is going to turn out that the definition of an RPG is really complicated.  It's a game with certain features.  We know it when we see it.   We have some differences in the fuzzy edges but I think on the whole we can tell ravens from writing desks.   It's just going to be a matter of figuring out how to reify that understanding.</blockquote>

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