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Dragon Reflections #11 - The Sorcerer Speaks!
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7758222" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Gygax's discussion of "Successful Adventuring" at the end of his PHB (before the Appendices) fits this model exactly. It is all framed in metagame terms - ie as advice to players getting ready to play a game, not as advice to players in the play of their PCs - and it talks about choosing a party who will work well together (not in personality terms, but in terms of abilities and alignments) with well-matched spell load outs, equipment lists, magic items etc.</p><p></p><p>By contemporary standards it is closer to wargaming than "I am my character" RPGing.</p><p></p><p>Probably the best-known RPGs to tackle this issue head-on in their PC-gen rules are Fate (with the requirement to build in Aspects that relate the PC to other PCs) and Dungeon World (with the requirement to build in Bonds that relate the PC to other PCs).</p><p></p><p>There are other PCs that tackle this formally in their rules, or informally in their player and GM advice (eg Burning Wheel as an example of the latter).</p><p></p><p>I think D&D still assumes that it will all be handled at the level of social contract.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure about <em>why</em> we play; but certainly rules/system (ie <em>how</em> we play) can need revisiting.</p><p></p><p>Of the systems I am actively GMing at the moment, the one that best handles physical separation of the PCs is Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic.</p><p></p><p>This way of framing the issue begs the question, though - namely, that there <em>are</em> party goals. In my BW game there aren't really party goals in that sense; and in a session of In a Wicked Age that I GMed there weren't party goals at all.</p><p></p><p>Both action resolution mechanics (how does PC A's action affect possibilities/consequences for PC B?) and GM framing techniques matter. If A's actions don't/can't affect B, then we don't really have a collective game but rather a series of parallel games; and if GM framing is managed in the traditional "track the squares moved, tick off the turns spent" manner of D&D then the framing issues become insuperable as well.</p><p></p><p>I don't know about InSpectres except by reputation (it is one of the games Ron Edwards uses to illustrate points in <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html" target="_blank">this essay</a>). But in the games I run, there is a difference between <em>group goals</em> and <em>group fun</em>. Group fun is important, in the sense that there needs to be some sharing of "days in the sun", opportunities to impact the fiction, etc. Burning Wheel gives advice to both players and GMs in this respect.</p><p></p><p>But I don't think this means that there have to be <em>group goals</em> in the sense of <em>a common goal among the PCs</em>. There can be, but there needn't be. Edwards gives a description of one alternative approach <a href="http://adept-press.com/wordpress/wp-content/media/setting_dissection.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Make player-characters in [a chosen setting]. In doing so, drive this into your brain: <em>f*** "the adventurer."</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <ul style="margin-left: 20px"> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Not all types of characters described in the character creation options are OK. They need to be characters who <em>would </em>definitely be at that location, not just someone who <em>could </em>be there. They have something they ordinarily do there, and are engaged in doing it.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">All characters, player-characters too, have lives, jobs, families, acquaintances, homes, and everything of that sort. Even if not native to that location, they have equivalents there.<br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Player-characters do not comprise a “team.” They are who they are, individually. Each of them carries a few NPCs along, implied by various details, and those NPCs should be identified. It is helpful for at least one, preferably more of them to be small walking soap operas.</li> </ul><p></p><p>This probably can't work for D&D, but that's because of system features of D&D (eg its emphasis on combined-arms combat resolution as the core of the system) rather than RPGing per se.</p><p></p><p>The last session I GMed (a fortnight ago) was Cthulhu Dark. It was a one-off, and by default based in a single place (a contemporary Australian group's conception of between-the-wars Boston). It didn't exemplify everything Edwards described, but the PCs weren't part of a team - we had a reporter investigating a story about financial scandals in the shipping industry, a legal secretary working in a firm representing one of the shipping companies, and a longshoreman who wanted to get paid. (Some of the backstory was GM authored, but most of it was player authored). As GM part of my job was to manage scenes - establishing them and transitioning between them - to keep the PCs involved, to try and throw them together, and even when they weren't thrown together to establish connections between their storylines that generated a shared momentum at the table even if, in the fiction, the individual PCs weren't necessarily cognisant of it.</p><p></p><p>That may well be so. In which, case, though, I'm not clear it's write to call the article in this Dragon magazine "profound". If the players don't want individualised or non-team-based RPGing, then suggestions that players build their PCs with inividual concerns and goals in mind seem misconceived and potentially disruptive.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7758222, member: 42582"] Gygax's discussion of "Successful Adventuring" at the end of his PHB (before the Appendices) fits this model exactly. It is all framed in metagame terms - ie as advice to players getting ready to play a game, not as advice to players in the play of their PCs - and it talks about choosing a party who will work well together (not in personality terms, but in terms of abilities and alignments) with well-matched spell load outs, equipment lists, magic items etc. By contemporary standards it is closer to wargaming than "I am my character" RPGing. Probably the best-known RPGs to tackle this issue head-on in their PC-gen rules are Fate (with the requirement to build in Aspects that relate the PC to other PCs) and Dungeon World (with the requirement to build in Bonds that relate the PC to other PCs). There are other PCs that tackle this formally in their rules, or informally in their player and GM advice (eg Burning Wheel as an example of the latter). I think D&D still assumes that it will all be handled at the level of social contract. I'm not sure about [I]why[/I] we play; but certainly rules/system (ie [I]how[/I] we play) can need revisiting. Of the systems I am actively GMing at the moment, the one that best handles physical separation of the PCs is Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic. This way of framing the issue begs the question, though - namely, that there [I]are[/I] party goals. In my BW game there aren't really party goals in that sense; and in a session of In a Wicked Age that I GMed there weren't party goals at all. Both action resolution mechanics (how does PC A's action affect possibilities/consequences for PC B?) and GM framing techniques matter. If A's actions don't/can't affect B, then we don't really have a collective game but rather a series of parallel games; and if GM framing is managed in the traditional "track the squares moved, tick off the turns spent" manner of D&D then the framing issues become insuperable as well. I don't know about InSpectres except by reputation (it is one of the games Ron Edwards uses to illustrate points in [url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html]this essay[/url]). But in the games I run, there is a difference between [I]group goals[/I] and [I]group fun[/I]. Group fun is important, in the sense that there needs to be some sharing of "days in the sun", opportunities to impact the fiction, etc. Burning Wheel gives advice to both players and GMs in this respect. But I don't think this means that there have to be [I]group goals[/I] in the sense of [I]a common goal among the PCs[/I]. There can be, but there needn't be. Edwards gives a description of one alternative approach [url=http://adept-press.com/wordpress/wp-content/media/setting_dissection.pdf]here[/url]: [indent]Make player-characters in [a chosen setting]. In doing so, drive this into your brain: [I]f*** "the adventurer."[/I] [List][*]Not all types of characters described in the character creation options are OK. They need to be characters who [I]would [/I]definitely be at that location, not just someone who [I]could [/I]be there. They have something they ordinarily do there, and are engaged in doing it. [*]All characters, player-characters too, have lives, jobs, families, acquaintances, homes, and everything of that sort. Even if not native to that location, they have equivalents there. [*]Player-characters do not comprise a “team.” They are who they are, individually. Each of them carries a few NPCs along, implied by various details, and those NPCs should be identified. It is helpful for at least one, preferably more of them to be small walking soap operas.[/list][/indent] This probably can't work for D&D, but that's because of system features of D&D (eg its emphasis on combined-arms combat resolution as the core of the system) rather than RPGing per se. The last session I GMed (a fortnight ago) was Cthulhu Dark. It was a one-off, and by default based in a single place (a contemporary Australian group's conception of between-the-wars Boston). It didn't exemplify everything Edwards described, but the PCs weren't part of a team - we had a reporter investigating a story about financial scandals in the shipping industry, a legal secretary working in a firm representing one of the shipping companies, and a longshoreman who wanted to get paid. (Some of the backstory was GM authored, but most of it was player authored). As GM part of my job was to manage scenes - establishing them and transitioning between them - to keep the PCs involved, to try and throw them together, and even when they weren't thrown together to establish connections between their storylines that generated a shared momentum at the table even if, in the fiction, the individual PCs weren't necessarily cognisant of it. That may well be so. In which, case, though, I'm not clear it's write to call the article in this Dragon magazine "profound". If the players don't want individualised or non-team-based RPGing, then suggestions that players build their PCs with inividual concerns and goals in mind seem misconceived and potentially disruptive. [/QUOTE]
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