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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7474003" data-attributes="member: 42582">But many wargames required decisions to be made about starting positions. I play an old Avalon Hill tile game (Mystic Wood) with my kids, and the first step in that game is laying out the tiles.The setup for some RPGs is more complex than for most boardgames, but that's a matter of degree. And of course you can play D&D without the GM-side set-up, by using the random dungeon and random encounter talbes in the AD&D DMG. And I've played other RPGs - Classic Traveller, Cortex+ Heroic - with no, or almost no, GM-side setup, in the case of Traveller using the random tables and extrapolating/ad libbing as needed, and in the case of the latter making up relevant fictional elements as we go along.I think you're trying to generalise a feature of traditional D&D play across all RPGs, and trying to draw a distinction between RPGs and other somewhat similar game forms (some wargames, some board games) that is not there. If you want to identify what is distinctive about RPGs in general, and/or what distinguishes different ways of playing RPGs, its the presence of a shared fiction, and the ways of engaging and establishing that fiction, that are key. (And the GM prepares an adventure is one, but only one way, of establishing some fiction.)That's why I used the word "typically". PC gen, as I already said, is part of set-up, not play in the strict sense - generating a Traveller PC also generates a whole lot of fiction (mostly PC backstory). And I don't agree with you about inspiration in 5e - it does correlate to something in the fiction, namely, the character trying harder or being lucky or otherwise benefitting from a moment of inspiration. (I know some people think it's a weak mechanic of that sort, because while the recharge is connected to PC motivations etc the expenditure is not; I personally don't agree with that criticism, and in its basic structure don't see it as wildly different from the "artha" rules in Burning Wheel, which accrue fate points etc via playing to the PC's traits and allow them to be spent as the player chooses.)But look at it this way: a game in which every player move, or even most player moves, was an establishing of fiction that did not play out via a game piece which is a distinct character within that fiction, wouldn't be a RPG. It would be some sort of shared world creation game, or shared storytelling game.I think you are using a more liberal notion of creating a shared fiction than I am. Or, perhaps, are excluding some things from RPGing that should be in.My knowledge of computer games is weak, and of board games is a bit better but not terrific, but I'll try and stake out some parameters:A computer game like WoW or EQ does not involve a shared fiction. It's all just flavour text, but the actual game moves are purely mechanically mediated. The computer doesn't need to "imagine" anything about a fictional world; it just applies mechanical rules to mechanically defined game states. (Some people think that this is also true of 4e, and hence that 4e is not a RPG. I thnk the conception of RPGs that underpins that criticism is reasonably sound, but that those critics are simply wrong about 4e, mostly because they've missed the importance of 4e's keywords as mechanics-to-fiction mediators.)A board game like Talisman or Mystic Wood is in much the same situation. There is flavour - "You're at the river" or "You're lost in the forest" - but a player can't play the fiction. Eg in Mystic Wood there is no option for a character stuck at a dead end to hack through the woods at the risk of blunting his/her sword or tiring him-/herself out. Whereas in a RPG, that sort of thing is permitted - that's the literal meaning of the "you can try anything" slogan often used to describe RPGs.EDIT: This later post is also on point:I think by describing the set up for a RPG as "creating a completely new game every single time" you are begging the question in your favour!Let's put to one side those moments of RPGing that don't require GM-side prep (although in my experience there are many of them). I don't actually see the difference that you do between drawing a map, establishing other setting elements, etc, and laying out the tiles in a tile game.In both situations, the rules that establish and govern player moves remain the same. The tiles (in the boardgame), or the setting elements (in the RPG) simpy set parameters of adjudication. In Mystice Wood, my knight can't move from one forest tile to the next if no path connects them. (That's a mechanical rule, with flavour text laid over it.) In D&D, my naked figher can't move from the floor to the ceiling if the wall is coated in ice. (That's a result of the fiction, plus mechanical features of the game such as that players of fighters don't have a mechanical option to trigger miracles.) In another D&D game, it won't be a naked fighter in an ice-wall room; it will be a mud-covered barbarian and the sentencing judge - but the resolution principles remain the same (does the fiction allow the barbarian to persuade the judge to acquit? is there some mechanical rule - such as a divine intervention rule - that allows the player of the barbarian to inject some new element into the fiction?)Of course the adjudication in a RPG is often far more intricate than in a boardgame. And it draws on the fiction in a way that boardgame adjudication does not. And that fiction can vary widely from table to table and campaign to camapgin and rulebook to rulebook. But that just takes us back to the role of the shared fiction in RPGing!</blockquote>

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