NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6205914" data-attributes="member: 42582">As per my response to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] above - is this happening before play or during play? Before play and I can handle it, although too much of it might make ask why I'm not changing systems. During play and it's going to suck - because now every action declaration is subject to some form of arbitration based on the GM's conception of whether or not it is bad for the game.I think this is pretty similar to what I've just said. I don't want arbitration to depend on how the GM feels from moment to moment about whether what I'm trying to do is good or bad for the game (whatever exactly that means!).The concept (or, at least, the term) was introduced by me (post 1352), as part of an explanation of why I wouldn't want to frame scenes that are simply for the dispensing of backstory. And speaking in funny voices is exactly the sort of thing I meant by it - various forms of mere colour manifested in the play of a PC - so [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] got my meaning perfectly.Unless they can actually change the fiction, these things are just more colour. In a scene which is simply for the dispensing of backstory, then these things can't change the fiction, and hence are of no interest to me.There is no contradiction.Consider the player who has his/her PC do action X rather than action Y because s/he thinks that would be a fun sort of character to play; or because s/he thinks that the sort of thing a character of his/her PC's particular type might do. That player is metagaming - drawing upon considerations that do not exist within the gameworld as experienced by the PC - but is still, in my view, playing his/her PC. To generate a contradiction you have to add in additional content, such as "playing one's character requires only attending to what is known to have been experienced by the PC in the gameworld". That is a very strict construal of "playing one's character". I don't accept it, and I don't believe I've ever played with anyone who does.I don't see how you can be a charming con man if you have Duping but not Seduction or something similar. I also agree that a ruthless bastard could have different skill sets from what I described, but I didn't assert otherwise - I didn't say that that was the only skill set from which you could reliably read striking contours of personality.The fellow with vast social skills was in some ways a ruthless bastard and a user but not merely a manipulator - for instance, he wanted to be loved and respected (as a lawyer, a wizard, a member of high society - I have only given a snapshot of his total skill set). But it is true that part of what is informing my reading of personality from skill set is knowing that a player has built a PC with these skills so as to use them in play - which then tells me something about the sorts of ingame situations they are looking for and likely to try and instigate themselves.What stands out for me in both these replies is the assumption that "the character may not understand why the effect ended", that "the PC's beliefs are role-played in his belief that "luck" on his part is "divine guidance" by the Raven Queen".As the scene unfolded at my table, the character knew why the effect ended - the Raven Queen had ended it. It is not about his religious beliefs which may or may not be true. It is about the truth of is religious convictions as demonstrated by his treatment at the hands of providence. While I respect that [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] does not want to talk about this, for me this is a huge difference in fundamentals of theme and genre - it is the difference between epic, romantic fantasy like Tolkien, or John Boorman's Excalibur, or the film Hero; and modernist fantasy which on matters of religion and providence is fundamentally cynical (or, at best, non-comittal), such as Lovecraft or REH's Conan.There is something that I want in my game, that is part of playing a character in that game, which cannot be achieved under the strictures you impose, because the type of "solipistic" way in which you are interpreting personality and its interactions with the world is itself (whether true or false in reality - I'm not here to debate Aquinas vs Descartes) genre-and-theme-specific. I've used the religous example because I think it makes the point particular vivid, but for me it generalises to any sort of heroic fantasy.I'm also struck by the assertion that the player's playing of his PC in this way "has no effect on gameplay/game resolution". It has a fundamental effect! It's not mere colour; it further establishes the basic fictional positioning of the paladin, which in turn frames what is feasible in terms of action resolution, and what sorts of conflicts I might frame to engage the player of that PC.  As a gameplay technique, I also note that it's the complete opposite of the GM imposing fictional positioning via secret backstory, which I've noted upthread can have a deprotagonising effect. It's the player contributing to new backstory via establishing his own PC's fictional position via overlaying the colour on a particular mechanical outcome. That's pretty core to "indie" play. It's an example of what I mean when I refer to "player-driven" play.Outsiders etc are just more instances of the sort of thing I mean by "clerical magic" ie magic-wielding beings whose magic is sourced in a god. By "the working of the divine" I mean things like gods protecting their worshippers, brining relief to the suffering, etc, via their direct influence over events in the world.In a process-simulation system, in which the roll of the dice is a model for the causal processes of the gameworld, the devout paladin is just as much hostage to the vagaries of fortune as is the most irreligous thief. S/he can use his/her spells as tools, of course, but where is the hand of the divine at work independently of the paladin? The mechanics, under a process-simulation interpretation, rule that out from the get-go. Of coures, you could say that one of the things the dice rolls are modelling are divine providence - but then the rogue is as likely to benefit from providence as the paladin! (This is another version of the Conanesque cynicism I mentioned upthread.)I'd be interested in what you regard as more pertinent examples. Until I know what you've got in mind, I don't know whether I would agree that (i) they are typical, and/or (ii) that they are bad.</blockquote>

Verification