Different philosophies concerning Rules Heavy and Rule Light RPGs.

[Thomas Shey]

Exactly. Gaming is social and it's definitely not the game's fault if there is a dysfunctional group. Any game can fall victim to that!

That requires assuming a game structure can't mitigate or make specific problems worse. This is very much contrary to my experience.

 

[Arilyn]

That requires assuming a game structure can't mitigate or make specific problems worse. This is very much contrary to my experience.

Most games, light or heavy, have advice on table expectations. There may be particular challenges that are attached to certain game styles, but I don't believe that any one style is prone to more problems. If problems crop up, shouldn't the table expectations be encouraged and enforced?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Most games, light or heavy, have advice on table expectations. There may be particular challenges that are attached to certain game styles, but I don't believe that any one style is prone to more problems. If problems crop up, shouldn't the table expectations be encouraged and enforced?

It should. My position is that a game system can be a positive or negative contributor to that.

 

[Piperken]

You seem to be missing the point.



Well, allow me to repeat - this is NOT ABOUT STORY.

Maybe I'm jumping the chasm twice because I have to go back and get a piece of equipment. Maybe I am jumping a totally separate chasm two months and three sessions of play later in the story, that just happens to be the same width because that's the way the GM made it.

Why you are jumping another chasm of the same width is not material. The fact is that the desired consistency is that, barring some meaningful difference, the two should still be mechanically the same. And a player should be able to guess that a narrower chasm will be bit easier, and a wider chasm harder - that the mechanics of jumping are pretty much set and predictable.

Now, there are playstyles in which players aren't looking for that - in which an obstacle is there for its narrative valence. In that kind of play, we probably wouldn't stipulate an exact width of the chasm, and instead would describe it in terms that fit the moment. But the desire for this consistency doesn't come out of such playstyles. In the playstyles that call for this consistency, the drama of the moment is a result of, not an input to, the scene.

What the table really wants to know, did Umbran make a hup sound the second time?

 

[Umbran]

That requires assuming a game structure can't mitigate or make specific problems worse. This is very much contrary to my experience.

It should. My position is that a game system can be a positive or negative contributor to that.

So, is it the fault of the ice cream if someone who is lactose intolerant eats it?

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the players to choose games that work for them, and to do their best to be good people to play with, and to choose not to play with each other if they really are incompatible.

Again, watch Wil Wheaton sit down with the games designers and players with more system mastery, and more importantly more "rizz", and see how that works out. I've participated in worse Con games than that one, but they weren't committed to film.

Well, you raise a major point here - the situation Wil was in was not a normal play experience. It was a performance. You are supposed to be prepared before you begin a performance. And if he was approaching Fate looking for a Trad experience, the people he was working with had not prepared him properly for performance. Putting him in that position was unfair to him, and should not be expected to produce the game's nominal play experience.

There is no RPG that one can expect a brand-new player to perform first time out as well as one who has developed system mastery. If Wil hadn't ever played D&D, and was tossed in playing 3e with D&D designers, there's no reason to think the result would have been any better a performance.

This is the converse of "Just don't play with bad GMs." While true, it isn't very relevant to the real world where no one is perfect at playing and no group is filled with perfect players.

Going back to this - perfection is not required, and one bad example is not evidence that it is.

Not all games are for all people. Nor is any game going to be at its best when you are not experienced with it - even "perfect players" (whatever that means) need experience with a system to fully understand how it operates, and how to find the fun in it.

Heck, the first time I tried to run D&D was an abject failure. I was like 12 years old, I'd played Tunnels and Trolls quite a bit with my eldest brother running the game, and then played D&D a few times with him as DM when he came home for a Christmas break. He went back to college, and I poured over the books, and then tried to pick up the game where he'd left off.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a DM's screen yet. And, in the moment, with my friends all looking at me to continue the adventure we'd been playing... I just could not find the to-hit tables in the DMG. Not for the life of me. I got completely flustered, flipping all over though the book. I think I almost cried, and we just had to stop.

A little time, a little more preparation, and the next try we got through it. We were 12 - not a one of us a "perfect player", and I still made errors. We all did. And no, what we produced wasn't suitable as a performance to please an audience, but we had a good time.

 

[Umbran]

On the fairness/bias issue - perhaps I'm misunderstanding what others mean by those terms, but to me I feel like there are a number of RPGs I GM which don't require me, as GM to, be unbiased at all, nor to be fair except in the basis sense of following the procedures set out in the rules.

I'm thinking of Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Prince Valiant, 4e D&D and others.

I am frequently at odds with pemerton on stuff, but not this time.

One traditional D&D experience works with an assumption that the module/adventure defines the world reality before play begins, and that reality and the rules are inviolate once play commences, with the GM being a "neutral" arbiter or referee between the players and the scenario.

But not all games work that way. Not even all D&D styles work that way. We can find many games these days in which the defined scenario is not the entire reality the players will face - to the point where there's games that have no predefined reality at all.

In these games, the role of the GM is NOT as a neutral arbiter or referee. The GM is instead more of a participant, and having their own intention in play is required, or play cannot progress.

I find it a bit of sophistry to refer to these two cases using the same word, as if the connotations of the word apply equally to both cases, when they do not.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, is it the fault of the ice cream if someone who is lactose intolerant eats it?

To a degree, if they don't know its liable to be a problem. Not everyone who plays a given game comes in knowing what effects it has on the personal dynamic of their group, and not every group is going to be good at working around whatever issues it may bring to them. On the opposite end, it may be written to minimize those particular problems.

A tool doesn't have "fault" in the sense of intention, but its design can still help or hurt situations.

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the players to choose games that work for them, and to do their best to be good people to play with, and to choose not to play with each other if they really are incompatible.

As I've noted before when this sort of sentiment is expressed, there's an all-or-nothing assumption here that I don't think reflects the degree of problems that actually come up in most gaming groups; they're severe enough to cause problems, but that doesn't mean they're severe enough to warrant throwing people over the side.

 

[Faolyn]

That requires assuming a game structure can't mitigate or make specific problems worse. This is very much contrary to my experience.

But is that really the fault of the system? It's more like it's just not the right system for the group.

 

[Faolyn]

To a degree, if they don't know its liable to be a problem. Not everyone who plays a given game comes in knowing what effects it has on the personal dynamic of their group, and not every group is going to be good at working around whatever issues it may bring to them. On the opposite end, it may be written to minimize those particular problems.

Can you give some examples? Because I'm not sure what you're talking about for this part.

 

[Aldarc]

Well, you raise a major point here - the situation Wil was in was not a normal play experience. It was a performance. You are supposed to be prepared before you begin a performance. And if he was approaching Fate looking for a Trad experience, the people he was working with had not prepared him properly for performance. Putting him in that position was unfair to him, and should not be expected to produce the game's nominal play experience.

There is no RPG that one can expect a brand-new player to perform first time out as well as one who has developed system mastery. If Wil hadn't ever played D&D, and was tossed in playing 3e with D&D designers, there's no reason to think the result would have been any better a performance.

Yeah, I never got the impression from the Fate Core episode of Tabletop that Wil Wheaton wasn't having fun playing the game. He seemed to be enjoying the fact that he was actually rolling well for the first time in his life and doing the sorts of things that his character concept was designed to do. He was also happy that his fellow players were doing cool things. He also seemed to enjoy creating game details when asked by the GM.

I suspect that the negative reading that Wil Wheaton is frustrated by Fate may be projected on to him by someone who is decidedly biased against Fate and has repeatedly made a lot of bold claims in the past against Fate. Maybe just maybe that colors their perception of the game. Like Wil Wheaton here positively describes his experience with Fate and this episode. He could by hyping his own content, but I also don't see sufficient reason to doubt his words.