'We don't need all these other sports, they can be easily approximated within football. Rugby and basketball? Well the goalkeeper is allowed to pick up the ball. Marathon running? There's quite a lot of running in football actually. Chess? Well there are tactics here too, the execution of a grand strategy. Snooker? You mean the aiming of a ball into a target, perhaps around obstacles? Covered. Swimming? Well sometimes the pitch is waterlogged. Boxing? Well sometimes players get concussed heading the ball.'
Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs
- Thread starter Snarf Zagyg
- Start date
clearstream
(He, Him)
Simple questions to ask include
"What happens if a Soccer forward picks up the ball and play is allowed to continue?"
"Is, in that case, no game being played?"
MHRP uses Distinctions, yes. I'm not sure what that has to do with "metacurrency" though.
Aldarc
Legend
Play the non-trad games people here are talking about and find out.
Allowed by whom?
Might I suggest Other Worlds, written by yours truly?Play the non-trad games people here are talking about and find out.
Which, in all seriousness, contains a lot of practical discussion about how to approach a more Story Now playstyle from the perspective of someone used to trad gaming - because that is exactly the journey me and my group went on. I'm not a Story Now hippie who eschews traditional gaming*; I enjoy both, for different reasons. Currently I am GMing some WFRP 1e while drafting an Other Worlds supplement, for example.
*Edit: And to be clear, neither is anyone else in this discussion as far as I have seen.
Show me the work.
Until someone shows me the work, I don't believe it can be done.
I mean, let's look at the structure of two of the most important AW moves: Seduce/Manipulate, and Go Aggro. Here's Vincent Baker unpacking the latter (AW p 284):
For moves that let one PC directly attack or control another PC, it’s important to trade decision-making back and forth between
the players. It’s especially important to give the victim decisions to make or the power to influence outcomes when the attacker
wins:
Seduce or manipulate [basic]
When you try to seduce or manipulate someone
Then roll+hot
For an NPC
On a hit they ask you to promise something first [MC’s decision]
And do it if you promise [player’s decision]
On a 7–9 they need some concrete assurance [MC’s decision]
And do it if you provide some [player’s decision]
For a PC
On a 10+ both
On a 7–9 choose 1 [attacker’s decision]
• if they do it, they mark experience [defender’s decision]
• if they refuse, it’s acting under fire [defender’s decision]
On a miss the MC can make as hard and direct a move as she likes [MC’s decision]
Look through the moves, you’ll see this pattern over and over. Pass decision-making to the victim, the defender, the loser. Nobody should get to win and win, nobody should have to lose and get cut out of the action.
Here's the former:
When you go aggro on someone, roll+hard. On a 10+, they have to choose: force your hand and suck it up, or cave and do what you want. On a 7–9, they can instead choose 1:
• get the hell out of your way
• barricade themselves securely in
• give you something they think you want
• back off calmly, hands where you can see
• tell you what you want to know (or what you want to hear)
Going aggro means using violence or the threat of violence to control somebody else’s behavior, without (or before) fighting. If the character has the drop on her enemy, or if the enemy won’t fight back, or if the character is making a show of force but isn’t disposed to really fight, it’s going aggro.
The structure of this is that the player gets to decided what is wanted; the controller of the character gets to choose between options if the player rolls 7+; the GM gets to decide what happens on a 6-.
How does 5e D&D emulate these moves?
And how does 5e D&E emulate the difference between action declarations that trigger player-side moves - and hence are apt to generate an irrevocable outcome - and those that don't, and hence are apt to prompt a soft move from the GM that steps up the tension? (A feature of AW which, upthread, you described as "the absolute basics".)
I just don't see how it can be done.
I don't think I'm a hippie. I tend to think of most of my RPGing as fairly conventional FRPGing, in terms of its themes and tropes. When my RPGing is not FRPGing, most of it is still pretty conventional (eg noting in my Classic Traveller play or Cthulhu Dark play would shock anyone,).
But I'm not really into "trad" RPGing, if that means RPGing based heavily around the GM generating framing and consequences by reference to pre-authored material ("notes") or extrapolations from that stuff in the moment of play. The closest I've come in recent years is Torchbearer, but Torchbearer has certain key elements - twists, conflict compromises, town events, and similar - that are not based around notes or a GM-determined "adventure" but rather put player-authored Beliefs, Goals and Relationships at the centre of things.
This isn't an attack on trad play: it's just a statement of my own preferences and habits in RPGing.
Also, having mentioned Beliefs, Goals and Relationships: these are what introduce evaluation/normativity into Torchbearer, just as it is part of AW. This is another thing that I don't see how 5e would emulate.
I sometimes get the sense in more trad quarters of the internet that D&D has a sort of magnetic effect - either each newly proposed game is so close to D&D that it's basically the same ('Just add a SAN mechanic to d20 and we're good') or so different from D&D that it's a category error ('This isn't an RPG it's an MMORPG/board game/storygamer trick). D&D so defines the genre in their mind that the broader spectrum of playstyles just cannot be computed.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while some trad-only gamers may never have tried different flavours, almost everyone who plays non-trad would have got their start with D&D or similar (and may well still play them in addition).
That's not to say that sticking to trad is bad. If you find something you like and keep doing it, that's awesome. But it is to say that those talking about the things non-trad can do that trad really can't, are doing so from a position of experience with both sides of the fence.
Similar Threads
