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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7716939" data-attributes="member: 42582">No. It's a way of trying to get a handle on it.The rationale for playing Dragonlance is pretty different from the rationale for playing (say) Castle Amber.Or, to move beyond D&amp;D, the rationale for playing CoC is pretty different from the rationale for playing T&amp;T. Sure, both involve declaring actions for your 3-to-18-statted player character, but beyond that the similarities start to end.Apart from anything else, part of enjoying CoC is playing out your PC's descent into madness. Whereas in T&amp;T going mad is a loss-condition.No doubt there are individual RPGers who have drifted these games away from their defaults (and so play CoC to &quot;beat the dungeon&quot; and play T&amp;T to explore the life and times of their delvers) but the basic gist of the games, as written and as played in acccordance with tehir default orienations, is pretty discernible and pretty different.What baffles me is the recurrent assumption that every RPGer is trying to do the same thing - roughly, play some sort of cross between Tomb of Horrors and Dead Gods. From this follows the assumption that differences in system don't make any difference to play experience, and that there is some single skill called &quot;GMing&quot; which is portable from Molvay Basic to DitV to Rise of the Runelords.That assumption was false in the late 70s (as Lewise Pulsipher was aware of in his writings then) and is still false today.The difference between T&amp;T and CoC has nothing to do with &quot;hardcore&quot; vs &quot;wannabe&quot;. Or the difference between Moldvay Basic and 4e. If you try and play 4e using your Moldvay Basic premises and procedures (exploration, 10' poles, avoiding roles whenever possible, etc) your game will just break down. And vice versa - if you try and play Moldvay Basic using your 4e premises and procedures (bold engagement with situations, assumptions about the importance of PC mechanical abilities to action resolution, etc), you'll just lose.They're different games that happen to be RPGs. Something like the way in which chess and backgammon are different games that happen to be boardgames.The only people doing that are those who want to put a ban on talking about different ways of RPGing, by insisting (aginst all the evidence) that all RPGers are really doing the same thing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7716939, member: 42582"] No. It's a way of trying to get a handle on it. The rationale for playing Dragonlance is pretty different from the rationale for playing (say) Castle Amber. Or, to move beyond D&D, the rationale for playing CoC is pretty different from the rationale for playing T&T. Sure, both involve declaring actions for your 3-to-18-statted player character, but beyond that the similarities start to end. Apart from anything else, part of enjoying CoC is playing out your PC's descent into madness. Whereas in T&T going mad is a loss-condition. No doubt there are individual RPGers who have drifted these games away from their defaults (and so play CoC to "beat the dungeon" and play T&T to explore the life and times of their delvers) but the basic gist of the games, as written and as played in acccordance with tehir default orienations, is pretty discernible and pretty different. What baffles me is the recurrent assumption that every RPGer is trying to do the same thing - roughly, play some sort of cross between Tomb of Horrors and Dead Gods. From this follows the assumption that differences in system don't make any difference to play experience, and that there is some single skill called "GMing" which is portable from Molvay Basic to DitV to Rise of the Runelords. That assumption was false in the late 70s (as Lewise Pulsipher was aware of in his writings then) and is still false today. The difference between T&T and CoC has nothing to do with "hardcore" vs "wannabe". Or the difference between Moldvay Basic and 4e. If you try and play 4e using your Moldvay Basic premises and procedures (exploration, 10' poles, avoiding roles whenever possible, etc) your game will just break down. And vice versa - if you try and play Moldvay Basic using your 4e premises and procedures (bold engagement with situations, assumptions about the importance of PC mechanical abilities to action resolution, etc), you'll just lose. They're different games that happen to be RPGs. Something like the way in which chess and backgammon are different games that happen to be boardgames. The only people doing that are those who want to put a ban on talking about different ways of RPGing, by insisting (aginst all the evidence) that all RPGers are really doing the same thing. [/QUOTE]

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