Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[N'raac]

I think it's more about the player than the character. That is, the PC is a vessel for the player's own beliefs, and the die roll simply indicates the direction of change in the situation. The PC need not fail nor succeed in order to achieve your goals for play (dealing with those "problematic aspects of human interaction").

This comes back, to me, to the earlier discussion of Weather Sense. Weather Sense is a character ability to have advance knowledge of the upcoming weather. If the character has the ability to dictate the weather, that is a different matter. If the player, not the character, can dictate the weather, that is yet another. If there are both player and character resources, I think they would properly be segregated. It should be possible for the player to dictate the weather and the character to be unable to even predict it.

The addition of player resources is, to me, the first departure from "old school" (OS) gaming. OS gaming would have me control my character, and nothing else. The world around my character would be outside his and my control, except to the extent he can directly influence it. He can cause an Orc to turn from "alive" to "dead", or a potion bottle to be broken, by his own actions. He cannot cause the Orc to be dead because a lightning storm kills him, or a potion bottle to fall from a table and break due to a sudden wind (absent character abilities to cause such results). Only through in-character actions can the player direct the narrative.

Newer (and this is a relative term) games then add some measure of player resources. Hero points were a common example. Now the players could control elements their characters could and did not. Commonly, the term "metagame" would arise.

It seems like some definitions of Indie game push this even further - the player's role is more significant than the character's. He rolls skills that are ostensibly on the character's sheet, but he's really authoring the story, not running the character.

This seems a continuum from "player running character in the narrative" to "player as joint author of the story".

Perhaps the next step is to remove individual control of a character from the player and make the character group a resource of the players as a whole, so [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] could decide to dictate Quinn's actions for a time, rather than Theren's, because he wants to advance or alter an aspect of the narrative best addressed with arcane skills rather than martial or nature skills. Maybe we even leave the "player characters" behind and assume control of different characters (eg. we are finding the war council interesting, so when the adventuring party leaves, we don't follow them, but rather run the game from the perspective of the war council, or a subset of its members).

 

[Ahnehnois]

The addition of player resources is, to me, the first departure from "old school" (OS) gaming.

I don't really agree with that. As others have noted from time to time, early D&D fighters could look forward to a keep at high level, which seems like something to reward the player rather than a manifestation of the character's skill and ability.

But if anything, I think the idea of roleplaying strictly from the perspective of the character and having mechanics strictly emulate in-world phenomena is a "new" school idea. To me, revising D&D is about chipping off all the metagame elements from the block until we are left with a beautiful, metagame-free sculpture. No meta, just the game.

2e had tremendous and illogical (and metagame) divisions of character abilities designed to enforce class-based niches, which were broken to some extent with 3e's multiclassing and skills/feats, and were gradually broken down even more as classes grew in flexibility and diversity over its life. Strongly metagame abilities did pop up not in the core rules so much as in a few late supplements, but that to me would be more where 3e lost its way and abandoned its initial goals rather than an example of some "new" school thinking.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It seems like some definitions of Indie game push this even further - the player's role is more significant than the character's. He rolls skills that are ostensibly on the character's sheet, but he's really authoring the story, not running the character.

This seems a continuum from "player running character in the narrative" to "player as joint author of the story".

Perhaps the next step is to remove individual control of a character from the player and make the character group a resource of the players as a whole, so @sheadunne could decide to dictate Quinn's actions for a time, rather than Theren's, because he wants to advance or alter an aspect of the narrative best addressed with arcane skills rather than martial or nature skills. Maybe we even leave the "player characters" behind and assume control of different characters (eg. we are finding the war council interesting, so when the adventuring party leaves, we don't follow them, but rather run the game from the perspective of the war council, or a subset of its members).

You don't mean that some definitions of Indie game push this even further. You mean that some Indie games do. Which they do. Fiasco, notably, where you are far more an author than in character (Fiasco is an awesome game btw) - and every other GMless game out there (of which there are a few). As for making the character group a resource of players as a whole, I don't think that any games do this directly. But there are plenty where, as in Fate based games (or Monsterhearts) you can try to influence the other PCs through metagame mechanics such as offering them a Fate Point for a compel. You can also have weird setups like the Fiasco playset "All the damn time" in which you are all playing the same time traveller but at different ages.

And your last idea is simply "Troupe play" as has been used since the very earliest days of D&D and features prominently in Ars Magica.

 

[LostSoul]

@N'racc , that is a pretty good analysis. Not all indie games work that way; some have a more traditional distribution of authority.

 

[pemerton]

if the die rolls do not indicate a failure on the part of the PC when unsuccessful, then logically they also do not indicate any success on the part of the PC when successful.

I am setting the backstory based on success or failure of your rolls.

I don't really feel the force of "logically".

For instance, Burning Wheel's action resolution rules require each declared action to be framed in terms of intent and task. If the check succeeds, the PC succeeds at the task and achieved the players' intent. If the check fails, the GM narrates the consequence, and is encouraged to focus on failure of intent rather than failure of task.

Is that illogical?

Why should the goal be symmetry? The goal is for an action resolution system that ensures player protagonism driving events without the need for large dollops of GM force. The approach you are suggesting seems to be putting the GM solely in charge of consequences whether the player succeeds or fails on his/her check. Which seems at odds with the goal I just stated, so why would I run my game that way?

Once again, I don't really see how these examples of running games in a different style are contributing to our understanding of the particular style under investigation. I would find it more helpful if you explained what you think follows from your examples?

That is, the "die roll creates circumstances" logic indicates that the PC neither succeeds nor fails based on his own skills - the die roll indicates something else.

Again, this is your logic. It is not the logic that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] was using. He was using the logic where, on a successful check, the PC gets the player's declared intent and task, and on a failed check the GM gets to narrate consequences, including circumstances that explain why the PC does not get intent (even though perhaps s/he still got task).

My point is simply that there seems no way to have an actual social challenge under this model.

Of course there is - if the players don't escalate to combat, there will not be combat. In my current 4e game, 5 of the past 6 encounters have been resolved via social means, because the players did not want to fight the people they were dealing with (a diabolist and its dragon mount; the leadership of the shrine of the kuo-toa; Blibdoolpoolp; devils sailing the river Lathan; the death hag keeper of the Worm Bridge over that river). The only combat was one that I as GM initiated, when some kuo-toa ambushed the PCs as they were flying down a tunnel above an Underdark river.

If there is no predetermined conception of what activities might successfully resolve the matter, why was my Orc Belch resolution method so roundly and consistently dismissed?

Unless, apparently, the half orc wants to use his belching skill - I find it odd that this is so clearly wrong

If you want to use this, go to town. What you're discovering is that most of your fellow posters don't think this contributes well to epic fantasy fiction. In other words, people aren't objecting on theoretical grounds. They simply find it puerile. Presumably you don't agree, but iIndividual taste is what it is.

but converting a negotiation into an execution is just standard, even good, play.

Again, taste is what it is. If you and those you're playing with find what [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] and [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] did to be in poor taste, you'll probably have fewer negotiations escalate to violence.

But these points about taste don't bear upon playstyle as it is being discussed in this thread.

From all I see, they can simply pick any skill desired (with the possible exception of Perform: Belch) and, if their roll is successful, it will advance them to success.

I still don't see why you say this. Can you point to a particular example that shows someone "simply picking any skill desired"? As opposed to "decaring an action that engages with the current fictional situation so as to transform it in some desired fashion"?

if another player had objected to the attempt on the Chamberlain's life, would that mean Quinn's enchantment would fail? Which successful rolls can players override, and which can they not?

<snip>

Why is it OK for players to "say no despite the dice"; "override the rules"?

There seems to be confusion here. If someone want to stop Quinn's violence, they need to declare an action. For instance, [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] used an action to try and stop my character (Thurgon) from dealing damage to the Court Mage/Dryad.

would it have been OK for sheadunne (or someone else) to have redirected that challenge to violence/combat

I tried to, but [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] stopped me (by making me run too low on hit points to continue my combat trajectory).

I come back to a certain sameness. Had matters begun with Quinn ensorcling the Chamberlain successfully, dominating him utterly, their objective of getting the Chamberlain to grant them access to the King would still require several more successes, and if my Orc chose to Belch his way in, this could not simply have had them summarily dismissed, as we had not yet failed enough checks. We even know up front how many more successes we need, and how many more failures we can absorb.

To me, this "sameness" is the same sameness as "Nearly all novels have double-digit pages and require the protagonist to suffer in some fashion before achieving a measure of reconciliation" or "Nearly all combat require multiple attack and damage rolls to resolve" or "All roleplaying sessions involve quite a while of sitting around and talking".

How is any of this "sameness" objectionable, as opposed to more-or-less constitutive of the activity being undertaken?

 

[pemerton]

The addition of player resources is, to me, the first departure from "old school" (OS) gaming.

I don't really agree with that. As others have noted from time to time, early D&D fighters could look forward to a keep at high level, which seems like something to reward the player rather than a manifestation of the character's skill and ability.

But if anything, I think the idea of roleplaying strictly from the perspective of the character and having mechanics strictly emulate in-world phenomena is a "new" school idea.

Ahnehnois, I agree with your first paragraphs but not your second. The two RPGs that are perhaps the best at "having mechanics strictly emulate in-world phenomena" are Runequest and Classic Traveller. And both date from the late 70s. What is an example of an RPG from the late 80s onward that is as austere, either in ambition or in accomplishment, as either of those two games? (There may be some, but I don't know them.)

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ahnehnois, I agree with your first paragraphs but not your second. The two RPGs that are perhaps the best at "having mechanics strictly emulate in-world phenomena" are Runequest and Classic Traveller. And both date from the late 70s. What is an example of an RPG from the late 80s onward that is as austere, either in ambition or in accomplishment, as either of those two games? (There may be some, but I don't know them.)

Indeed. The new school approach I'd argue isn't that games emulate in-world phenomena, but that games don't bother and instead make sure that the outcomes are approximately right to match the source fiction or world, sliding straight over the phenomena and concentrating on outcomes. It's something shared by Fate, Fiasco, Feng Shui, and 4e.

That said, from the late 80s onwards? I'm going to cite GURPS.

 

[Hussar]

N'raac, I'd also point out that "Player resources" was what OS gaming was all about. You didn't have any mechanics, to speak of, to engage when the players wanted to, so, disarm a trap. It was all about leveraging the player's ability to discern the nature of the trap, and then essentially free form some manner of disarming that trap. It was 100% from the player's POV and not from the character's at all.

Forcing the scene to be resolved by the character, rather than the player, is what the game has developed into from that baseline. First they added in thief abilities to find and remove traps - where the player now uses his character's abilities to remove the trap, and does not have to narrate any action other than, "I look for traps".

That's been carried forward from AD&D into the 3e and 4e skill systems.

But, I have to admit that reading that Ahn has played to level 37 and never seen caster imbalances, I'm utterly stunned as to how. How in the world can a level 37 fighter possibly come even close to a level 37 caster? Good grief, that level 37 caster is, for all intents and purposes, a god. You must have the strangest players in the world.

 

[pemerton]

That said, from the late 80s onwards? I'm going to cite GURPS.

OK, I've heard of GURPS but in my mind had it earlier. I've got a copy of Man-to-Man or one of the similar early books on my shelf, and you've motivated me to go and check the publication date!

 

[Ahnehnois]

But, I have to admit that reading that Ahn has played to level 37 and never seen caster imbalances, I'm utterly stunned as to how. How in the world can a level 37 fighter possibly come even close to a level 37 caster? Good grief, that level 37 caster is, for all intents and purposes, a god. You must have the strangest players in the world.

At level 37, the player of an arcane spellcaster can essentially kiss his character goodbye if a credible enemy gets within reach. Conversely, a fighter is drowning in defenses. Epic level play is essentially about trading and countering spells (artillery) while the ground forces move in. Typically, all the magic cancels out and the battles are won by real damage.

For example, I had one fight where an epic level dragon with some superior invisibility spell snuck up on the players and started attacking them with a rod that instantly kills them of old age, only to fall to the half-dragon fighter with some ridiculous epic sword.