FORKED - Game Fundamentals - Player Trust, Your GM, and Cake

[UngainlyTitan]

I think the biggest argument in favour of a balanced game is this:

It's pretty easy for someone who is incompetent (meaning not competent, and intended to be devoid of any badness) at an aspect of a game to emulate someone who is being a jerk.

This might be the DM who doesn't realise that Tiamat isn't a good match for their level 15 party, the powergamer who doesn't understand that instakilling every opponent is going to make the game less fun, or the roleplayer who insists on taking a laundry list of roleplaying-oriented character options to the detriment of their characters ability to progress through any of the adventures they're presented with.

And that's something that the rules can help with. So why should they not?

I do not quite agree, the powergamer who games with out regard to anyone else at the table and the person that spends an hour buying a beer in character and uses all their feats on rp stuff will cause trouble irrespective of the rules as will the DM who launches Tiamat at the low level party.

By the way, IMHO and all that, but, players who play in their own way without regard to the rest of the group and with out regard to the requirement that everybody else (including the DM) is having fun is being a jerk.

What balanced rules do is make it easier to DM. I requires less prep to give all the players face time if all characters are similarly compentent at all aspects of the game. It also makes the game experience more consistient across DMs.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I think I'm probably a rules fan.

On the repeatability issue, HeroQuest hardwires this into the rules - players can only use abilities to augment other abilities (a bit like a secondary check in a 4e skill challenge) if doing so would be fun at the table, and repetition is not fun. The rules also note, as an exception, the situation in which the constant repetition is itself a running gag.

I'm a rules fan myself, I must be, given the amount of HERO and 3e I've played/run, though I'm rather ambivalent about them.

The system I used most recently, Mutants & Masterminds, is pretty crunchy, particularly char gen, being based on 3e D&D. But it adds extra effort and hero points on to this, which are very open ended. In fact hero points can allow players to receive a 'hint, clue or bit of help from the GM' or even edit the environment, though a warning is attached - "The GM may also veto uses of editing that ruin the adventure or make things too easy on the players. Inspiration is intended to give the players more input into the story and allow their heroes chances to succeed, but it shouldn't be used as a replacement for planning and cleverness, just a way to enhance them."*

Despite the schizophrenia of this approach, it arguably simulates superhero comics pretty well. Events proceed in a fairly consistent fashion until the writer writes himself into a hole and needs to give the protagonist a new power or have unexpected help appear or somesuch. Just as the PCs can rely on their character sheet abilities until things get too tough, then use hero points/extra effort.


*A surprisingly gamist tone for a superhero game.

 

[Mallus]

It doesn't have to be the Rules as Written, but a set of rules so people know where to start. Without that starting point, players are often at a disadvantage.

Having a starting point, a basic agreed upon of frame of reference is a good thing. But I think it's a mistake to spend a whole campaign within the framework you initially set, particularly if you're under the impression that you're going to head off potential trust issues by doing do.

Where were you three years ago?

I was here, dropping science/dispensing wisdom... .

I know some people who, you let them do it once and it's a houserule for the rest of the campaign.

I'm not a big fan of that attitude... mainly because it makes the kind of play I prefer more-or-less impossible.

... and I've seem players get upset because I let Player A do something, and Player B's been wanting to do that but has withheld because they were policing themselves.

Can I ask you: what did you do after Player B got upset?

 

[fanboy2000]

Can I ask you: what did you do after Player B got upset?

The blow, thankfully, happened after the game. After everyone was gone, I let Player B rant at me about Player A until he calmed down on his own. I briefly explained my reasoning, and things were fine.

It was, strange. Like I said, I'm used to players jumping on any and all opportunities to munchkin. The response to what Player A wanted to do was supposed to be "me too!" Or "Oh, can I?" When it wasn't, I was thrown off guard.

 

[Mallus]

And yet, consistency is regarded as a great virtue by a heckuva lot of rpgers. Gamists need it to make informed decisions. Simulationists need it to feel like they are living in a world that makes sense. Rules-fans, and I believe there are a great many of those in rpg-dom, it's the only explanation for the damn length of the things, love consistency.

The thing is, I like consistency too. But I'm more interested in consistency in tone, characterization, NPC reactions, etc. Personally, I don't find strict adherence to whatever rules are in place delivers the kind of consistency I'm after.

I hear you about the need for a consistent enough mechanical framework in order to make informed tactical decisions. But if you're mechanical framework is too consistent, you miss out on a lot of the cool, wahoo moments that give RPG play it's charm. This, BTW, is the most persuasive argument against 4e I've found (and I like 4e).

As for simulationists... well, to be honest, I can never figure out what they're after. They claim they're after realism, or verisimilitude, a reasonable in-game world that promotes easy identification. But what they actually advocate is running the game world based a series of simple algorithms that invariable yield absurd results after a while. A short while. It seems less like a call for realism than a call to be playing early 1980's computer games.

To my mind, the only way to create a halfway-believable simulation vis a vis the in-game world is to ditch formal rules entirely, and handle everything through exposition and fiat. Formal rules will always produce silly results.

And this is the polar opposite of consistency.

I like to think of it as 'consistency+' (ie consistency + the occasional batsh*t maneuver).

Despite the schizophrenia of this approach, it arguably simulates superhero comics pretty well.

I think M&M does a great job.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Good post, Mallus.

The thing is, I like consistency too. But I'm more interested in consistency in tone, characterization, NPC reactions, etc. Personally, I don't find strict adherence to whatever rules are in place delivers the kind of consistency I'm after.

This strikes a chord with me. In superhero gaming, I want a rules-set that does a decent job of simulating comics and yet I've never found one that comes anything like close enough for my taste, so I do a kind of half-assed job with GM rulings. They mostly seem to be an unholy blend of real world sim, comics sim, failed real world sim and just plain wonkiness.

I feel that it ought to be possible to achieve the kind of thing you're talking about with rules. After all rules of style are just another set of rules. But it seems to be harder than it looks. I should really have a go at writing my own, but I'm too lazy.

To my mind, the only way to create a halfway-believable simulation vis a vis the in-game world is to ditch formal rules entirely, and handle everything through exposition and fiat. Formal rules will always produce silly results.

Totally agree with this too. I had an identical thought a while back. The only way you can produce results that don't jar with the participants' sense of what is real is if the participants just decide the results.

 

[pemerton]

Doug, for supers have you looked at HeroQuest? It's not at all tactical, but is tactical combat essential to supers play?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I keep my player's trust by trying not to be a prick. This often involves listening to them. I've found, on the whole, the rules themselves don't offer me much help in the 'not being a prick' department.

Yeah, I agree with not being a prick. I listen to my players. But there's only so much listening you can do before you just have to put your foot down for the good of the entire game.

And when I need to put my foot down, it is much easier for me to say "No, you can't have 500 hitpoints because the rules say so" than it is "No, you can't have 500 hitpoints because I don't think it'll be very much fun." I find my friends react better to the former than the latter. In the latter case, they are thinking "Of course it'll be fun, monsters won't be able to kill me. I'll be super tough!"

I find most players aren't very good at considering the impact of their actions on the rest of the group. In fact, with my players, they see each advantage they have over the rest of the group as part of the benefit they get for putting in the extra effort to come up with the idea.

In the really good RPG campaigns I've played in, most of the most-good stuff occurred in a place outside of the rules, in a magic land of ad-hoc rulings, fiat, negotiation between DM and players, and pure, unadulterated 'Aw Hell, that's sounds cool, go for it!'.

Trust between the people at the table makes this possible. Formal rule systems, and the agreement to follow them more-or-less to the letter... not so much. The best part of these games is going outside the rules, making a game out of unfettered --partially fettered?-- imagination. If i wanted to play a great game where everyone follows the rules, I'd being playing chess.

It can be, I'll give you that. Sometimes the coolness comes from that one time cool maneuver. However, I think it's because I've played SO many different RPGs so often that I've found that the things people come up with are often similar to each other.

Over the years, I've seen like 30 people all decide that something like "I make the roof fall on his head", "I grab his arms so he can't attack anymore", "I trip him using the carpet", "I push him into the pit", and similar things are extremely original ideas that should succeed in bypassing an entire encounter.

The thing is, people don't go outside the rules because it's cool, at least most of the time. They go outside of the rules to gain a benefit that the rules don't offer them. Most of the time the benefit (at least in combat) that they are looking for is an increase in damage up to and including instant defeat of the enemy.

And in these situations, you run into a problem(the same problem that occurs in most of the stock 3.5 edition rules): If a move is that much better than "just attacking" then you need to make it have a much lower chance of working or a reason you can't do it every time. Otherwise, it becomes the default move for everyone.

For example, if you have a move that can completely incapacitate an enemy, you've won. So, for that move to be balanced, it needs to have approximately the same chance of defeating an enemy as a normal attack does. So, if a normal attack has a 50% chance of hitting for an average of 10 damage and the enemy has 50 hitpoints, it takes on average 10 rounds to defeat the enemy.

You need to have approximately the same number of rounds to beat an enemy using the "I grab the enemy and pin him so he can't fight back"(or "I shoot the ceiling to have it fall on him and pin him to the ground" or whatever special idea someone comes with with to win immediately) special rule. Which means you need to have only a 10% chance of succeeding if you allow someone to use that as a maneuver. And even then, normal attacks have basically 0% chance of defeating the enemy before round 3(if they hit every time and roll maximum damage, they still only defeat the enemy once they have lowered him to 0 hitpoints). So, that still makes the theoretical "I win" rule more powerful. So, you have to lower it's chance to hit even further(especially if you are playing a game that might allow someone to increase the accuracy of the special maneuver). If you are using a d20, you can only lower it to 5%.

So, basically, you have to tell someone coming up with a special move "Alright, roll a d20, if you roll a natural 20, you win, otherwise nothing happens". In which case, no one takes the option. If you make it better than that, then anyone with a head for numbers tries it over and over again.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Sure... but that doesn't address all the myriad ways a DM can be a prick while following the letter (if not exactly the spirit) of the rules. In that light, the rules might offer some help, but not much given the broader context.

No, it does not. However, if you have nearly infinite ways to be a prick while following the rules and nearly infinite ways to be a prick while breaking the rules, eliminating half of them still does reduce the number of ways the DM can be a prick. And if we assume the DM isn't actually TRYING to be a prick and might just be doing it accidentally or without realizing it, then it further lowers the chance that your DM will be a prick.

No... well, maybe once more, tops. First off, it ceases being a cool, creative trick if you do it all the time. It becomes routine, shtick. I'm more interested in trying wacky new solutions, not winning with old, canned ones.

I'm in agreement. But when every move becomes a wacky solution, it feels like they are all old, canned ones. They have to be rare, and they have to be the result of something that can't be done every combat. Pushing someone into a pit of lava can't be done every combat, so it feels special. Any move that someone can pull off in an open plain with just the equipment they normally carry around SHOULD be old and canned.

It is the fact that the average move is old and canned that makes creative tricks special.

Second, I'm a big believer in players being self-policing when it comes to game balance. I'm not out to make it harder for the DM/GM to run the game. If they let me use a game balance-defying stunt once, I'm not going to run their faces in it by trying to do it again and again.

Maybe not again and again, but most players will eventually get a sense of how often you are willing to let them attempt something. And they'll try it exactly that often.

Besides, the average player doesn't really care about game balance. They don't think "Maybe I shouldn't try that move again, the other players won't like it if I'm constantly beating the enemies in one hit". They are thinking "That was awesome, I managed to beat that enemy so much quicker using that move. I'm going to try it again next time."

 

[Hussar]

I find most players aren't very good at considering the impact of their actions on the rest of the group. In fact, with my players, they see each advantage they have over the rest of the group as part of the benefit they get for putting in the extra effort to come up with the idea.

I would include GM's in this category as well. There are more than a few horror stories on the net, as well as in my own personal experience, that point to problems at the table being due to the GM not being quite as good at "winging it" as he or she might think.