Flavour First vs Game First - a comparison

[Raven Crowking]

What's the difference?

Have you ever seen The Deerhunter, Deliverance, or Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth?

The first two are satisfying without being fun.

The third is fun without being satisfying.

D&D ultimately should be both, but when there is a choice between the two to be made, satisfying wins (for me; YMMV) every time. (Same with film & literature, for that matter!)


RC

 

[BryonD]

I disagree. Unless you're usually in jail in Monopoly for an hour of game-time, getting no chance to do anything at all.

If part of monopoly was simulating a real fear of being imprisoned, then the rules as they stand would suck.

I want my fantasy rpgs to do a vastly better job of creating the feel of facing threats of harm and the appropriate consequences than monopoly does of simulating real estate finances and white color crime.

To have something happen that *should* take a character out of play, but have the rules intervene and keep the character going is so obviously contrived and directly contrary to the cause and effect of the setting I desire, that it is anti-fun. It is much more fun to "sit and suck" in an engaging game story that makes sense, than to keep fighting knowing that the only reason you are going is that the effect that hit you was modified away from what it should be for a completely non-story purpose.

Of course you would rather make your save and stay involved. But the fun does not start and end there. On a scale of 1 to 10, when engaged in a 3e style system: 10, when "sit and suck" in a 3E style system: 7, when engaged in a 4e style system knowing that cause and effect doesn't work the way it should: 5. Sit and suck is less fun than play, but still more fun than the world not working right.

I've got no dispute with someone claiming it isn't that way for them. But it most absolutely is for me and my group.

 

[Fenes]

Have you ever seen The Deerhunter, Deliverance, or Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth?

The first two are satisfying without being fun.

The third is fun without being satisfying.


RC

Can't say I have seen anyone of those. However, when it comes to games, if a game is not satisfying, then it's not fun for me, and if a game is not fun it's not satisfying for me.

 

[Hussar]

I don't understand how my quote fits in your post.

You said that these mechanics are not doing it for you. You don't like them. Thus, this is something you are not willing to sacrifice. Unless I'm misquoting you, and I don't mean to, or I'm misunderstanding, which is entirely possible. You find the mechanics too intrusive (is that the right word?)

Again, it comes down to what I said, you are not willing to sacrifice your point of view on what is the right way for hit points and healing to work in order to make the game work. And that's perfectly fine. I'm saying that some people are a bit more flexible with what doesn't work and aren't quite a fussed about what boils down to a flavor issue if it actually works better at the table.

I look at the hit point thing like this: at the end of the adventuring day, the cleric is going to heal up the party anyway. At most, you spend one day resting. Natural healing doesn't enter into the equation in the vast majority of cases. So, why screw around about it? Why not build that right into the game? If we're going to play that way anyway, just add it in and be done with it.

Since it works out the same at the end, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Obviously there's some variation in mileage going on here.

If you do not have fun - for whatever reason - you lose at D&D since that's the goal of the game.

Absolutely true.

I guess what I'm saying is that if this game-vs.-flavour issue can affect even something as simple as initiative, on the larger scale this might be a no-win discussion. The designers build what works for them; we tweak it until it works for us. Then we argue about it.

Also absolutely true.

 

[LostSoul]

All far more analagous to going to jail in Monopoly than a "You Lose" card in the Community Chest. Which is what is being ignored, as ProfessorCirno correctly points out.

Actually, going to Jail in Monopoly is a good thing if what you want to do is win the game (instead of roll dice, move your guy around, and pay out rent). Even when you are in jail, you are still actively participating in the game.

If the card said, "Go watch TV until the Banker says you can come back", that might be more like D&D death.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Have you ever seen The Deerhunter, Deliverance, or Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth?

The first two are satisfying without being fun.

The third is fun without being satisfying.

D&D ultimately should be both, but when there is a choice between the two to be made, satisfying wins (for me; YMMV) every time. (Same with film & literature, for that matter!)


RC

Like Fenes, I have seen neither of them.

I suppose I am using the term "fun" in the sense of "entertaining" or "enjoyment. I can't see how a movie that was fun to me wasn't satisfying.

Have you seen Death Race? Paperthin plot, "unrealistic" premise. Still very fun and thus satisfying to me.

The Dark Knight - Complex plot, interesting characters, a somewhat unrealistic premise, all in all a movie that brought me fun and satisfied me (and certainly more so then Death Race ). I wouldn't find myself able to distinguish between fun and satisfaction here, and I can't certainly think of any kind of definition of "fun" that wouldn't leave me some satisfaction.

 

[BryonD]

You said that these mechanics are not doing it for you. You don't like them. Thus, this is something you are not willing to sacrifice. Unless I'm misquoting you, and I don't mean to, or I'm misunderstanding, which is entirely possible. You find the mechanics too intrusive (is that the right word?)

It seems to me you are saying that I like soccer, but your version doesn't allow contact with the ball and I'm not willing to "sacrifice" actually touching the ball in order to keep playing. The word sacrifice just doesn't fit.

Again, it comes down to what I said, you are not willing to sacrifice your point of view on what is the right way for hit points and healing to work in order to make the game work. And that's perfectly fine. I'm saying that some people are a bit more flexible with what doesn't work and aren't quite a fussed about what boils down to a flavor issue if it actually works better at the table.

I don't see that as a fair assessment at all. I could turn your buzz words on their head and say that 4E fans are not flexible enough to deal with the reasonable cause and effect to play in a game the works right. But that wiuld be just as unreasonable as your characterization of my position. The bottom line is that we want very different things.

It is not a flavor thing. It is a mechanics things. I wasn't describing the flavor, I was making a simple analogy for how it actually works out. It is a mechanics thing, and it works vastly worse at the table.

I look at the hit point thing like this: at the end of the adventuring day, the cleric is going to heal up the party anyway. At most, you spend one day resting. Natural healing doesn't enter into the equation in the vast majority of cases. So, why screw around about it? Why not build that right into the game? If we're going to play that way anyway, just add it in and be done with it.

Since it works out the same at the end, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Obviously there's some variation in mileage going on here.

But it doesn't work out the same in the end. And it is a million miles apart on how it works out along the way toward the end.

Natural healing has nothing to do with my issue. (I guess it could, but the presumption that the cleric will take care of it I do agree with).

I'm frustrated with the very question of why not just build it into the game. I mean, 9 time out of 10 the characters win, so why not just build that into the game? You don't build fighters spontaneously healing their own wounds into the game because fighters do not spontaneously heal wounds.

Why not give orcs a 1 in 10 chance of bursting into flame every round? After all, the wizard is going to fireball them eventually. It works out the same in the end. I'm not flexible enough to accept this change.

 

[Hussar]

Can't say I have seen anyone of those. However, when it comes to games, if a game is not satisfying, then it's not fun for me, and if a game is not fun it's not satisfying for me.

I believe RC is trying to say that an RPG must be more meaty than simply fun.

Again, it's totally a mileage may vary sort of thing. I love the crap out of fun movies. While I'm not against something like The Deerhunter, or Deliverance, given the fact that i'm going to be doing this every week for several hours at a time, I'll go with fun over substance.

I want my fantasy rpgs to do a vastly better job of creating the feel of facing threats of harm and the appropriate consequences than monopoly does of simulating real estate finances and white color crime.

Now here we have a bit of a disconnect. I feel that it's the DM's job of creating the feel of the game. The mechanics are just tools for resolving actions, nothing more. If the tools don't allow me to resolve the actions without forcing a player to go watch TV for three hours, then those tools are not good.

Heck, I added AP's to my Savage Tide game specifically for this. Then tied the AP's to the character's backgrounds (referencing background gains you AP's) to ensure that a particular feel was kept. So long as you have AP's in my game, you cannot die. Any attack that takes you below -10 costs you all your current AP's and leaves you stable at -9. It is possible to die, but, difficult. And certainly far more difficult than standard 3e which I find way too lethal.

 

[LostSoul]

I think I might have to quote out of order to see if I get where you're coming from. Maybe I'm off-base; if so, sorry about that!

To have something happen that *should* take a character out of play, but have the rules intervene and keep the character going is so obviously contrived and directly contrary to the cause and effect of the setting I desire, that it is anti-fun. It is much more fun to "sit and suck" in an engaging game story that makes sense, than to keep fighting knowing that the only reason you are going is that the effect that hit you was modified away from what it should be for a completely non-story purpose.

How do you define what should happen?

Should I die right away when poisoned? What if I'm hit with a Finger of Death or Disintegrate? What if the hit point mechanics say that, if the magic killing ray doesn't drop me to -x hit points, I'm not dead? Does that mean the magic ray didn't work the way it should, or that I wasn't actually hit by it?

I want my fantasy rpgs to do a vastly better job of creating the feel of facing threats of harm and the appropriate consequences than monopoly does of simulating real estate finances and white color crime.

Maybe that's it: you want the game system to make you feel the fear that your character does.

...when engaged in a 4e style system knowing that cause and effect doesn't work the way it should: 5. Sit and suck is less fun than play, but still more fun than the world not working right.

I still don't see why cause and effect doesn't work the way it should. I think the game is abstract enough so that the players can make cause and effect or the world work for them.

What it doesn't do is put the player in the mind of the character. There's an extra step there, when you use the mechanics. You still have to describe what the hell just happened in the fiction. Maybe that extra step is what's off-putting about 4e.

I've got no dispute with someone claiming it isn't that way for them. But it most absolutely is for me and my group.

That's cool.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Maybe that's it: you want the game system to make you feel the fear that your character does.

I know everyone feels and acts differently, but I know that in my group, that just will never work. If a game becomes to deadly and uncontrolled, we just stop seeing a character as important. We would distance ourselves from them. They become nothing more than a game piece with no "emotional" attachment.

"Oh, look, my character just died. Hmm. Didn't look like the Monk/Sorcerer build worked. I think we need a real Wizard more. so I'll make an Evoker next - who cares for Illusions or Enchantments anyway. So - standard 25 point buy and wealth by level? Entry level my last characters level -1 as usual halfway to next level as usual?"