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Judgement calls vs "railroading"
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7087870" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense to me at all!</p><p></p><p>The last board game I bought for my family was <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3201/lord-rings-confrontation" target="_blank">LotR: The Confrontation</a>. That game with instructions that tell me how to play the game. Without the instructions, how would I know how to play it?</p><p></p><p>The first RPG I ever owned was Traveller, but it in fact doesn't have instructions for how to play the game. It has instructions for building PC, and starships, and planets; but doesn't actually explain how to play the game. Which meant that I couldn't play it. I build characters, and designed starships, and even ran the odd combat; but I didn't actually play Traveller.</p><p></p><p>The second RPG I owned was Moldvay Basic. Unlike Traveller, it <em>did</em> have instructions on how to play the game: the players build PCs, the GM designs a dungeon, and the PCs then explore the dungeon within a space-and-time structured framework (movement rates, wandering monster checks, etc) hoping to defeat monsters and recover treasure. I was able to play that game; and was then able to take that experience and apply it, in some fashion, to playing Traveller.</p><p></p><p>Every RPGer was told by someone, somewhere, at some time, how to play the game - they didn't come into the world already in possession of that knowledge. And RPG rulebooks that don't actually say how the game is to be played assume that the player already knows.</p><p></p><p>I don't think so. (I mean, the publishers might <em>assert</em> this, because they want to make sales; but the actual design of the game doesn't really bear this out.)</p><p></p><p>Moldvay Basic was designed to accommodate one style, which the rulebooks sets out in detail: classic dungeoneering. Gyagx's AD&D was designed to accommodate one style, which the rulebooks articulate intermittently, probably most clearly in the section towards the end of the PHB on "Successful Adventures".</p><p></p><p>2nd ed AD&D is a strange game: it keeps basically all the elements of Gygaxian AD&D, adds on a stat-check based skill system that is mostly mechanically inconsistent with the Gygaxian mechanics (eg chances to open doors, to find secret doors, for thieves to pick pockets, etc), and then publishes a whole series of modules that don't seem to make picking pockets, opening doors or even cooking food for that matter very significant aspects of play. To the extent that it has a design, it is (i) to enable players to build PCs that have a fair bit of colour, and (ii) to enable the GM to run a game in which the (limited because inherited from Gygaxian skilled play) mechanics play at best a modest role in determining how things pan out. It suits the late-80s/90s GM-driven approach pretty well, but not much else that I can see.</p><p></p><p>3E I can't comment on, and 5e I won't. But 4e also doesn't really set out to support multiple styles of play. It pushes back very hard against GM management of the fiction during combat, for instance, simply because of the range and depth of resources that it gives players (via PC build elements, action points, etc). [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] has posted an anecdote about his first 4e session (which I will try to get right), where he played a fighter whose first round action was a charge across the room, then an attack with a strong (daily or encounter) power, then an action point to enable a second attack with a strong (daily or encounter power - which ever one was left), as a result of which the BBEG was dead. (Without knowing the actual PC build, I will speculate that base damage was 1d8+5, so that the two powers, one 2w and one 3w, would do 5d8+10, or around 30 average damage, which with a bit of luck is enough to kill a typical 1st or 2nd level NPC/monster.) The GM got quite upset, because this wasn't what s/he had had planned for the encounter: s/he was not expecting the deployment by a player of his action resolution resources to make such a significant impact on the fiction independently of GM mediation.</p><p></p><p>Now one person's "lack of support" is another person's "look what I can do with a nudge, a wink and a few house rules" - but that is equally true of BW. Drop the Belief rules, the artha (- "fate point") rules, and the GMing principles, and what you've got is a Traveller-style lifepath PC build system with a RQ or RM-style ability/skill system and brutal combat system. I'm sure there's someone out in the world playing that game, just as there have been people (eg me) who have used RM to run a game that is closer in style to BW.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7087870, member: 42582"] I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense to me at all! The last board game I bought for my family was [url=https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3201/lord-rings-confrontation]LotR: The Confrontation[/url]. That game with instructions that tell me how to play the game. Without the instructions, how would I know how to play it? The first RPG I ever owned was Traveller, but it in fact doesn't have instructions for how to play the game. It has instructions for building PC, and starships, and planets; but doesn't actually explain how to play the game. Which meant that I couldn't play it. I build characters, and designed starships, and even ran the odd combat; but I didn't actually play Traveller. The second RPG I owned was Moldvay Basic. Unlike Traveller, it [I]did[/I] have instructions on how to play the game: the players build PCs, the GM designs a dungeon, and the PCs then explore the dungeon within a space-and-time structured framework (movement rates, wandering monster checks, etc) hoping to defeat monsters and recover treasure. I was able to play that game; and was then able to take that experience and apply it, in some fashion, to playing Traveller. Every RPGer was told by someone, somewhere, at some time, how to play the game - they didn't come into the world already in possession of that knowledge. And RPG rulebooks that don't actually say how the game is to be played assume that the player already knows. I don't think so. (I mean, the publishers might [I]assert[/I] this, because they want to make sales; but the actual design of the game doesn't really bear this out.) Moldvay Basic was designed to accommodate one style, which the rulebooks sets out in detail: classic dungeoneering. Gyagx's AD&D was designed to accommodate one style, which the rulebooks articulate intermittently, probably most clearly in the section towards the end of the PHB on "Successful Adventures". 2nd ed AD&D is a strange game: it keeps basically all the elements of Gygaxian AD&D, adds on a stat-check based skill system that is mostly mechanically inconsistent with the Gygaxian mechanics (eg chances to open doors, to find secret doors, for thieves to pick pockets, etc), and then publishes a whole series of modules that don't seem to make picking pockets, opening doors or even cooking food for that matter very significant aspects of play. To the extent that it has a design, it is (i) to enable players to build PCs that have a fair bit of colour, and (ii) to enable the GM to run a game in which the (limited because inherited from Gygaxian skilled play) mechanics play at best a modest role in determining how things pan out. It suits the late-80s/90s GM-driven approach pretty well, but not much else that I can see. 3E I can't comment on, and 5e I won't. But 4e also doesn't really set out to support multiple styles of play. It pushes back very hard against GM management of the fiction during combat, for instance, simply because of the range and depth of resources that it gives players (via PC build elements, action points, etc). [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] has posted an anecdote about his first 4e session (which I will try to get right), where he played a fighter whose first round action was a charge across the room, then an attack with a strong (daily or encounter) power, then an action point to enable a second attack with a strong (daily or encounter power - which ever one was left), as a result of which the BBEG was dead. (Without knowing the actual PC build, I will speculate that base damage was 1d8+5, so that the two powers, one 2w and one 3w, would do 5d8+10, or around 30 average damage, which with a bit of luck is enough to kill a typical 1st or 2nd level NPC/monster.) The GM got quite upset, because this wasn't what s/he had had planned for the encounter: s/he was not expecting the deployment by a player of his action resolution resources to make such a significant impact on the fiction independently of GM mediation. Now one person's "lack of support" is another person's "look what I can do with a nudge, a wink and a few house rules" - but that is equally true of BW. Drop the Belief rules, the artha (- "fate point") rules, and the GMing principles, and what you've got is a Traveller-style lifepath PC build system with a RQ or RM-style ability/skill system and brutal combat system. I'm sure there's someone out in the world playing that game, just as there have been people (eg me) who have used RM to run a game that is closer in style to BW. [/QUOTE]
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