King Lear is just English words put in order: Expertise, Knowledge, and RPGs

[Fenris-77]

@Celebrim On the topic of 'being stuck on the idea that the meta game proceeds logically from the rules' the opposite is actually true. Perhaps that might sometimes be true, but I was neither stating it nor expecting it as a general statement. Sometimes IMO, and remember I've just begun to organize my thoughts on this, the lack of specific rules constraint on proposition type A will result in different tables realizing very different methods of adjudicating that proposition. Or that lack might result in that proposition returning what is described above as a syntax error. That process is not logical though, and depends a lot on the table contract and expectations for play, as well as how authority is split at that table.

 

[Celebrim]

...I know it is at least possible to think about (to pick two examples) Call of Cthulhu and Dungeons & Dragons differently while playing them.

It's also entirely possible to not think about them differently while playing them. Indeed, it's quite possible for a well geared party of CoC investigators to play CoC as if it was D&D, with a dungeon and kicking down the door, killing the monsters and taking their stuff. Heck it's even possible to have 'wizards' in CoC not play that different than wizards in D&D by carefully providing to would be spell-casters the limited number of spells that are useful to PC wizards in CoC. Conversely, it's possible to play D&D like CoC by having monsters of a CR above that expected by the normal expectations of play in D&D, and having an expectation that monsters are defeated by research and cunning and not through direct confrontation. And depending on what the GM sets up for play, and how the party is willing to approach it, what game system you are using won't necessarily matter that much.

 

[Fenris-77]

To bring the notion of constraints on propositions back, the genre expectations, both via the system and players, would to some extent work against those two examples. They aren't impossible, but there are far more likely complications involved, which I submit would be true of playing a lot of RPGs 'against type'. In the case of CoC played as D&D, for example, the following constraints might complicate the endeavor:

1. The genre expectations built into the game rules aren't completely built to support this type of play, so some counter to expectation results could occur on a regular basis.
2. The GM and his share of the authority at the table might not be in favor and could impose various constraints on the necessary propositions and also via adjudication.
3. Not all the players might agree on this different set of expectations and might not 'play along' when it comes to changing the necessary propositions and adjudication.
4. The avatars for CoC aren't purpose built for this type of play and also might return counter to expectation (i.e suboptimal I suppose) results.

I realize that none of these conditions need apply if everyone is on board, but my point is more about how many changes you have to make to support the idea. The constraints on multiple levels work against it, or at least could work against it. This has strayed away a little from propositions, and I'll give some thought to exactly what that part looks like.

This isn't about you being right or me wrong, just about trying to figure the extent to which it makes sense to use the vocabulary I'm talking about.

 

[Celebrim]

I realize that none of these conditions need apply if everyone is on board, but my point is more about how many changes you have to make to support the idea.

Not as many as you think. To turn CoC into D&D you really only have to think about as as a GM as D&D.

So if you are a preparing a D&D adventure, what do you do:

a) You ensure that the encounters are fair and somewhat balanced.
b) You ensure that there is a reward in defeating the monster in the form of useful treasure - such as magic items they can actually use, and readable spell books containing spells that they can cast without going immediately insane.
c) You tend to create a dungeon filled with traps and monsters.
d) You tend to encourage explicitly or implicitly your players to optimize for combat to and carry heavy military grade weaponry like a team of commandos. In particular, you let the players build their own characters and allow them to buy weaponry out of a book using just a price list.
e) You tend to have 4-8 'investigators' forming a party.

If you do that with CoC, you'll end up with something that looks a lot like D&D.

Meanwhile, to turn D&D into CoC, you just:

a) Ensure the encounters are with overwhelming foes.
b) Ensure all the treasure is cursed and not only useless to the adventures, but down right dangerous to them.
c) Focus on the dungeon as build up to a the solitary dire challenge to be faced, feeding clues to the adventurers about the foe and building a sense of foreboding if possible.
d) Discourage your players from optimizing for combat by either forbidding combat tweaks, or giving them pre-made characters, and allowing them to arm themselves only with light civilian weaponry.
e) Have only 3-4 adventurers in the party.

Although I've never fully gone either way, the fact that there is a strong overlap between say 5e BRP Call of Cthulhu and 3e D20 D&D is something I've observed first hand. And, based on some of the scenarios I've read, the "Pulp" style CoC is at least half-way to D&D, and I've heard of system optimized combat tweaks exploiting generous (but entirely reasonable per RAW) rulings by CoC GMs to play recognizably "D&D" games. In essence, CoC as D&D is just Monty Haul CoC, and D&D as CoC is just Killer DM D&D with a particular aesthetic. Monty Haul and Killer DM games within the same system are surely the same games with the same rules, just with different processes of play based really only on differences between how much of a "break" the GM feels he ought to give the players.

 

[Fenris-77]

I find it a little bit frustrating that you snip my post but reply to the most obvious parti in an obvious way. I said I know its possible, and it is. But the fact that its possible isnt the point. It's the amount of dicking about you have to do to.make it possible. That indexes exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[Celebrim]

I find it a little bit frustrating that you snip my post but reply to the most obvious parti in an obvious way. I said I know its possible, and it is. But the fact that its possible isnt the point. It's the amount of dicking about you have to do to.make it possible. That indexes exactly what I'm talking about.

I think we are talking past each other. The point of my post wasn't that it was possible. The point of my post was the lack of "dicking about" (as you put it) you have to do to make it possible.

So for example, you say the "genre expectations built into the game rules" present a barrier, and my counter to that is that for the most part, the genre expectations aren't built into the game rules - they are built into the examples of play. It's the examples of play - the adventures - that determine most of how the genera functions. If you put a decently armed, combat optimized party up against deep ones or ghouls, it will play a lot like adventurers versus orcs. The SAN loss won't be crippling, and can be recovered as a reward of successfully winning the adventure.

As far as the "GM and his share of authority at the table", both systems work off of Rule Zero and assume basically unlimited authority. If anything, from what I can tell, more successful CoC GMs rely heavily on illusionism techniques to keep the game going than do D&D DMs, but again - that's a process of play whether the GM feels empowered to change the setting behind the curtain in response to narrative needs.

And so forth.

 

[Umbran]

I think we are talking past each other.

Probably.

Would you care for some constructive criticism? Honest here - a bit about how the communication can tend to go a little wrong? I'd like to see this discussion succeed, and there's a bit that might be useful...

 

[Celebrim]

So, we may be approaching adding an extra issue here....So, here's the added issue - the difference between the rules, and the presentation of the rules. What are we referring to when we speak about "the system"?

I don't think it is an added issue, so much as it was an example of the system coloring how the participants thought about play. The system is the text. In AD&D, the difficulty of the text and the freedom that DMs felt to add or subtract from it or just ignore it when it was handy to do so, led to the text playing an even smaller role than usual. And, further, the text could be and was read as endorsing this interpretation of the text.

As soon as you say "in practice" you are speaking about metarules, not rules, aren't you?

It certainly sounds like I should be, but in practice, I'm not sure that I am.

For one thing, I think there is a canonical answer to the question of what happens when you flash ankle at the guard that the designer expected to be applied in such situations, and it's certainly as clear or clearer than the designer's intentions with regard to surprise, initiative and weapon speed factors. That answer is on page 63 of the DMG, and it is in essence pretty much how you'd expect to handle this situation in any edition of D&D. The DM makes an encounter reaction check for the guard adjusted by the PC's charisma (and possibly by the NPC's personality, if known). The PC then opens a parley, the success or difficulty of which will be broadly determined by the degree of success in that initial reaction roll. The DM takes on the persona of the guard, judges for himself what the degree of success indicates, and in some fashion RPs out the encounter.

Compared to applying the rules exactingly when a 10th level ranger with a hand axe +4 in one hand and a torch wielded as a weapon in the other, wearing plate mail, attacked a mixed group of goblins, orcs and bugbears some of whom have missile weapons, from 6" away in semi-darkness, while a tribal caster is targeting the Ranger with a spell, and the leader of said foes being armed with a longsword of quickness +2, this is simplicity itself. I dare say most groups dispensed with weapon speed factors, odd initiative complexities that resulted from different weapon types, segments, oddities in the surprise rules, the rule that let fighters make level attacks per round against foes with less than one HD, weapon versus AC modifiers, and just rolled a D20. Some of them may have even dispensed with the distances and charge rules.

This is why I said I'm not sure which the system has more difficulty with, and why I feel the need to say things like "in practice". In practice, reaction rolls were rare at the tables I played at - though this one situation where I think the oft forgotten rule would have been remembered because it was needed. In practice, combat was typically simplified and streamlined so that it played something like the simplified system used in 2e or 3e. One way or the other both systems give you an answer. I can't imagine an experienced DM being stuck on either problem. Nor do I think it particularly likely that the RAW would hold sway all the time, which I don't think the RAW intended to anyway.

But to me, it's less important what the rules say, than how individual tables would have handled the encounter routinely and whether they even considered whether they were breaking the rules to have done so. If the DM routinely went straight to RP without a reaction roll, that's one process of play. If the DM only allows a victory through social interaction, if he calls out ahead of time in his preparation that it is a possibility, otherwise combat must be employed, that's another process of play. If first person RP is avoided all together, with or without a reaction roll, well that's another process of play. And it's not clear to me that any are not by the rules.

 

[aramis erak]

Well, there's a difference between what the players are willing to engage in, and what I, as a GM, would allow. I hope I tend to set what I allow evenly - just because Player A is willing and eager to do more, I wouldn't want to require they do more.

There's also the issue of whether or not the group is willing to use social skills of the character in place of pure RP vs individuals willingness to do so.

And, of course, the old saw of dumpstatting Cha and using one's own social skills to succeed in social actions despite the character being definitionally incapable. The problem is that it really did happen.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*