Not always played that way, but yeah, I think the definition of roleplaying games is to have a game with roleplaying.
Otherwise, you're playing a different type of game.
It doesn't surprise me that you think this way as I have said before that the 2d20 system is more akin to playing a board game like Risk more than it is a roleplaying game.
You're veering very close to "one-true-wayism" here - just because it isn't how you like to play RPGs, doesn't mean it's wrong.
The difference here is that the way you like to play is catered for in abundance. The way I like to play gets shouted down as "having fun wrong" by people who play your way.
I'm sure some will agree. There are all types. But, I think that good roleplaying is the highest experience a person can have with a roleplaying game.
RPGs aren't Yahtzee. They aren't computer RPGs either.
No, they're not. I don't know why you'd think you needed to bring them up.
Thing is, there are different definitions of "good roleplaying", which is something that you've reverted to dismissing (after a good long string of posts where we seemed to actually be communicating).
Having a player be so attached to a character that he plays him like a real person is generally the goal. Sure, that person can do super human things, sometime--which can be a true thrill.
Been there, done that. It isn't the only way to do things.
RPG characters shouldn't be the extra lives a person gets when playing a Computer RPG.
"Extra lives" haven't really been a thing in computer games since the 1980s. Computer RPGs tend to have a singular character for a player to focus their attentions on (and maybe a party of computer-controlled NPCs to order about, at least for single player ones), and death means reloading from the last place the game auto-saved.
Thing is... that approach has almost no bearing on my perspective. I like a few computer RPGs, but not many, because I prefer the flexibility of tabletop RPGs. A computer RPG needs to have truly exceptional world-building, characters, and storyline to grab me. The last ones I completed were the Mass Effect trilogy.
My perspective isn't that. My perspective is - as I pointed out in my last post - more akin to an author determining a character's actions, than an actor playing a character. The author puts the character into situations where conflict (of some kind) can occur, often against the character's best interests. The character takes actions that aren't advantageous, because people don't always make logical decisions (this is, IMO, the biggest issue I've encountered with actor-stance RPing - players who play their characters without flaws or attachments because they don't want to be inconvenienced).
Author-stance games, like Fate, tend to encourage characters to be played with flaws, because those flaws encourage and incite conflict and drama. The outcome is game rules built on the concepts of story-telling, rather than the idea of emulating reality.
This is why your Threat Mechanic doesn't work for me. When a character is heroic, he's punished, or the group is punished, later on.
Both "heroic" and "punished" are subjective in this context.
For me, the heroic actions are the ones against terrible odds, in perilous situations. The hero is not inherently heroic when he cuts down a half-dozen ill-equipped 'villainous minions'. He's heroic when he fights for his life against impending doom. For me, the measure of a heroic character is now how they are when everything's fine, but how they are when everything is awful.
Similarly, "punished" isn't the word I'd use. Difficult situations are good, because they present an opportunity for the above - for a character to be tested and pressured.
I take the Joss Whedon approach to characters - that they aren't interesting unless they're suffering. I like the characters my players have. But I want them to suffer, because uneventful picnics aren't the stuff thrilling adventures are made of. My players know this and embrace it.
This approach suits 'author stance' games better than it suits 'actor stance' ones - in an 'actor stance' game, the player is too close to the character to willingly imperil that character. It produces things like the perception that a character with a family is a vulnerable one (because the GM can exploit the family for drama)
Yes, buying extra dice (etc) with Threat raises the stakes. The difference here is that I see that raising of stakes as desirable, while you see it as punishment. You also seem to constantly assume that the GM will save all his points for one big turn of the screw at the end, rather than spending at a measured pace throughout the adventure, or varying his use of Threat as things progress (spend hard in one scene, tension raises... the scene that follows, the tension is reduced because there's less Threat left... until we start to build again).
You hit the nail on the head. You're describing characters as playing pieces, like extra lives in a computer game, where all you have to do is reload your last save.
I'm talking about emotional involvement that delivers (what I would argue is) a superior game experience.
And I disagree with your assertion as to what makes a superior game experience - it may be your preferred approach, but that does not make it universally and objectively better.
Most games, including d20 based one, can be scaled. How much you roll over your target gives you your "successes".
For example, for every 5 points rolled over the target, the character obtains a success.
This isn't pure scaling, though. Momentum isn't just used to "succeed better" (though that is one of its uses). It can also be used to take additional, tangential actions, expand the scope of the action taken, or achieve a variety of other beneficial effects. Similarly, complications that can occur (on natural 20s rolled) don't indicate failure, but rather a problem that has occurred independent of success or failure (yes, you've hit, but in the process you've left yourself exposed). Players can choose to buy off that immediate complication for two Threat if they wish (avoid something bad now for something bad later), but it's an element that adds greater variety of outcome to each roll.
I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan. I LOVED the D6 WEG game. Like Mongoose's Conan, I bought every supplement and rulebook ever published for that game, in all editions. The new FFG Star Wars dicing system turns me off, big-time. Thus, I have not purchased the game.
And, all I'm seeing here is that the design philosophy about the new Conan game is exactly my impression from reading the playtest rules--nothing about the game's rules jive with how I like to play or what I consider good game mechanics.
Which is all fine. But there's a difference between "I don't like this" and "this is bad" which a lot of your posts (barring the more recent ones in this thread) tend to skip past. Personally, I love the FFG Star Wars RPGs, and they're my favourite incarnation of Star Wars RPG - they hit all the buttons I want them to hit.
That's kind of the issue here. I have no problem with you not liking the game. My self-esteem is solid enough that I can accept people not liking everything that I do. I have more of an issue with people conflating personal tastes and quality.
