"Oddities" in fantasy settings - the case against "consistency"

[Shardstone]

In roleplaying games, Consistency is a spice; add it to taste. Not all games or game worlds need to be consistent, they simply need to be either engaging or fun (and sometimes these are not the same thing).

 

[Alzrius]

Well, you're welcome to that, I think it is highly restrictive and got boring FAST. I mean, I played 1000's of hours of Gygaxian style D&D back in the '70s where this sort of reasoning seems to be rooted. I simply have ZERO interest in going back and revisiting all that! Nor do I think that sort of 'skilled play' where you 'earn your character' is really all that it is cracked up to be. It turned out most of it was figuring out the DM, etc. The stories that resulted were random and crappy for the most part too. We DID have fun, but we were also 15 and doing it for the first time.

I disagree; starting out with a character that's already everything you want them to be absolutely KILLS my motivation to keep playing that character. There's little left to explore about them, as their most salient characteristics are already established. More often than not, it seems to lead to the player becoming bored with the character when they find out that they aren't being regarded as the most important person in the campaign, and which then leads to awkwardness when they decide they want to retire the character (or said character dies) and the same impact that they were striving to make now leads to a void in how things unfold. I've played so many games where characters were all bringing something special to the table, and just like Syndrome noted, it meant that none of them were...or at least, not enough to be worth remembering, since (as I noted before) it's actions in game that seem to make the most impact, not your character's backstory.

Again, I can give you a whole raft of similarly interesting stories just from our last BitD campaign! I really do not mean to imply that I think one way of playing is 'better' or 'worse' than another. OTOH I remain unconvinced that this sort of example really explains the kind of play you are describing, because if it did you'd be playing how I play now, where this stuff is delivered often. I think the actual experience being aimed at is more low key play? I'm not sure. I mean, I understand the idea of 'organic character growth', but its hugely hampered by the total detachment from setting and fiction that the technique you're outlining implies.

It's not so much "low key play" as it is a notation that what a character does (not in general, but in terms of actual events that they partake in over the course of play) is vastly more important than what they are. Characters who want to overturn convention, at least insofar as their characters go, tend to be more focused on the latter, even though the former has been (in my experience) what really resonates with people. Particularly so when it's something achieved rather than something they simply start out with. And it's easier (again, IME) to achieve something in the setting when the setting's conventions are well-understood as something to be utilized, rather than being seen (wrongly, I'd venture) as a straitjacket.

You can have a bewilderingly diverse array of options via sticking to the conventions of the campaign world, which is what makes it so bizarre when I hear people talking about it like it's some sort of antithesis to engaging, dynamic play. Yes, some options will be closed off, but that's good thing! Boundaries, when presented alongside a wealth of existing options, tends to abet creativity, rather than restrict it. Just ask everyone who's complained about high-level wizards being able to do everything and make the rest of the party irrelevant.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Oh sorry, missed that.


I mean you can make it "work" if you radically change it. Adding dragonborn to Middle-Earth would be a significant change, adding D&D like magic would warp it beyond recognition. You could have a setting like that, but it would no longer be Middle-Earth as we know it.

Isn't there a 5e version of ToR or something like that? Seems like it worked for them! I agree that if you simply applied the sort of kitchen-sink generic assumptions that most D&D games are based on that it will not look a ton like ME. OTOH I don't think a wizard or cleric would necessarily have to be all that thematically problematic. You're probably a rare individual with a specific backstory, but beyond that? Magic, even explicit blasty-magic, DOES exist in ME without a doubt. I'd find the most issues in terms of the thematics of ME. I mean, Charm Person would seem to be a heinous crime in Tolkien's moral system (as it would be in our real world).

 

[niklinna]

There's a step missing there, that being the invitation to play in that game. If this is being asked of me before the invitation is extended my answer might very well be different than if asked after I've been invited in; as my perspective has changed from neutral observer or analyst to (in theory) active player with a vested interest.

That's my assumption, yes; she's proposing it because that's what she thinks she'll enjoy running. As GM, why would I propose anything to the players before I'm 100% committed to it myself? And once I'm 100% committed, why would I present it in any other way than, more or less, "Here's my idea, wanna play?".

Play in the vein of Burning Wheel does not expect the GM to have everything 100% committed to an idea before involving players. Active players with vested interests are also expected to have some input into the whole setup.

I take it, then, that Torchbearer* isn't big on setting exploration/discovery? It's an important aspect of a campaign for me-as-player, which is why I ask.

You could do Torchbearer without the players filling in any detail on the world, but you'll be fighting the system in certain ways. For example, you'll be confined to declaring Belief, Creed, Goal, Instinct, and Wises in line with what the GM has provided. But that's likely what you are already doing with character back story in the games you've been playing, so I'd guess that wouldn't be an issue. Others with more experience (GMing as well) can probably answer that better.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I take it, then, that Torchbearer* isn't big on setting exploration/discovery? It's an important aspect of a campaign for me-as-player, which is why I ask.

* - I've been seriously meaning to check TB out but haven't got to it yet.

Oh, exploration is big in TB, but the players can establish the locations of certain communities or locations which relate to PCs origins and background, that's most of it. In our game there was a rough map generated by the GM-to-be, and then we established where the various types of community were, like the city, the crossroads, the outpost, etc. We didn't establish the adventure locations though, that I remember, though we might have had some input into their general location. We also decided which places we would try to explore, so if one wasn't interesting, we just didn't go there.

 

[Shardstone]

People who pretend like changing the base 5E game to a new genre or world is an impossible feat are demonstrating a (nonoffensive) ignorance to game design.

The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying is the 5E version of TOR 2E. The classes in it are levels 1-10 and are dirt simple. A lot of the mechanics are taken from TOR 2E and moderatlly adjusted. All in all, it isn't a difficult conversion to make.

I've worked on and made plenty of published and nonpublished 5E materials. The core of the game is six stats, HP (actually optional btw), and d20 + mods. Even classes are optional (see Batman: Gotham City Roleplaying).

Anyone who states that making a game like 5E fit Middle-Earth is not viewing the objective reality of the situation. Before the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying debuted, I used to run Middle-Earth 5E games. I did it by limiting classes, subclasses, and races. Because an early Unearthed Arcana put out a Martial Ranger, I used that, Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Monk, Barbarian. But even if we had used magical classes, many of their features or subclasses can be easily reflavored to fit Middle-Earth. Gandalf plainly uses spells like Speak With Animals, Summon Beast, Light, and you can even argue Scorching Ray against the Nazgul. You could easily argue that most of the vanilla half-caster Ranger's spells are just wisdoms the Ranger has picked up, not real spellcraft.

It isn't hard. The only people who think it's hard are people who refuse to accept that 5E is not the hard-defined game they think it is. That's why we have 5E spin-off games for just about every genre, from supers to scifi to cyberpunk.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I disagree; starting out with a character that's already everything you want them to be absolutely KILLS my motivation to keep playing that character. There's little left to explore about them, as their most salient characteristics are already established. More often than not, it seems to lead to the player becoming bored with the character when they find out that they aren't being regarded as the most important person in the campaign, and which then leads to awkwardness when they decide they want to retire the character (or said character dies) and the same impact that they were striving to make now leads to a void in how things unfold. I've played so many games where characters were all bringing something special to the table, and just like Syndrome noted, it meant that none of them were...or at least, not enough to be worth remembering, since (as I noted before) it's actions in game that seem to make the most impact, not your character's backstory.

Well, in what I would call pretty 'hard' Narrativist character-centered play there's no 'everything you want them to be'. I mean, first of all I am constructing a character to be interesting and where who and what they are, and where that leads, is NOT well-determined. Everything is in fact up for grabs, so to speak, and its all wanting to be explored. What would bore me is generic fighting man Joe 43 with the basically almost the same stats as every other D&D fighter and nothing else to them at all. I don't even know where to start, what would be interesting about this guy vs the 400 other characters of this class that I have already played in 7 versions of D&D? Not that I can't possibly FIND something, but why can't I start with some actual questions? Some things that give me a point of departure? I'm not going to be bored by a good character concept!

And it isn't that these types of character's backstories are some huge thing that dominates play either. I think some of you all might want to play some of these games a bit (or a bit more, or with people that know how to run them already maybe)? These notions are a bit strange compared with the actualities of most games I play in.

It's not so much "low key play" as it is a notation that what a character does (not in general, but in terms of actual events that they partake in over the course of play) is vastly more important than what they are. Characters who want to overturn convention, at least insofar as their characters go, tend to be more focused on the latter, even though the former has been (in my experience) what really resonates with people. Particularly so when it's something achieved rather than something they simply start out with. And it's easier (again, IME) to achieve something in the setting when the setting's conventions are well-understood as something to be utilized, rather than being seen (wrongly, I'd venture) as a straitjacket.

Yes, well, both are important, and I think there's some odd ideas about what goes on. I mean, I think I've described my BitD character from the one BitD game I played in. It was a good year almost of play, so we got in a lot of sessions and fully tapped out our characters. Mine was actually pretty tame, but we explored the nature of his origin, he developed his skills into a kind of almost spirit warrior kind of guy, and did a LOT of stuff along the way. He ended up killing his ex-buddy/rival, hooking up with a cult enforcer woman, taking care of many orphans (and training some of them as crew minions) and eventually figuring out that he wanted revenge on the Emperor, something that he was not really ever going to get, or at least it was outside the scope of play, leading to a 'ride off into the sunset' sort of scenario.

You can have a bewilderingly diverse array of options via sticking to the conventions of the campaign world, which is what makes it so bizarre when I hear people talking about it like it's some sort of antithesis to engaging, dynamic play. Yes, some options will be closed off, but that's good thing! Boundaries, when presented alongside a wealth of existing options, tends to abet creativity, rather than restrict it. Just ask everyone who's complained about high-level wizards being able to do everything and make the rest of the party irrelevant.

Well, I don't necessarily disagree with that as a possibility, but why are so many people here so hostile to the idea of character concepts created by players? I find it quite peculiar.

 

[MGibster]

Well, I don't necessarily disagree with that as a possibility, but why are so many people here so hostile to the idea of character concepts created by players? I find it quite peculiar.

Who is hostile towards the idea of character concepts created by the players? Creating character concepts is kind of what I expect players to do. It's difficult to play a game without them taking that step.

 

[niklinna]

You can have a bewilderingly diverse array of options via sticking to the conventions of the campaign world, which is what makes it so bizarre when I hear people talking about it like it's some sort of antithesis to engaging, dynamic play. Yes, some options will be closed off, but that's good thing! Boundaries, when presented alongside a wealth of existing options, tends to abet creativity, rather than restrict it. Just ask everyone who's complained about high-level wizards being able to do everything and make the rest of the party irrelevant.

When conventions of the game world can be worked out during and as part of the process of creating charcters, things are different. It's not an antithesis to engaging, dynamic play—it's another way of getting engaging, dynamic play.

There's nothing wrong with making up characters by sticking to established conventions. But by the very same exact token, there's nothing wrong with making up characters as part of the dialogue of creating those conventions.

Edit: Typo.

 

[Alzrius]

Well, in what I would call pretty 'hard' Narrativist character-centered play there's no 'everything you want them to be'. I mean, first of all I am constructing a character to be interesting and where who and what they are, and where that leads, is NOT well-determined. Everything is in fact up for grabs, so to speak, and its all wanting to be explored. What would bore me is generic fighting man Joe 43 with the basically almost the same stats as every other D&D fighter and nothing else to them at all. I don't even know where to start, what would be interesting about this guy vs the 400 other characters of this class that I have already played in 7 versions of D&D? Not that I can't possibly FIND something, but why can't I start with some actual questions? Some things that give me a point of departure? I'm not going to be bored by a good character concept!

The question of whether or not the character is a "generic fighting man" strikes me as being less important than what this character does over the course of the campaign. You say that a narrativist style of play allows for the character to not be well-determined, but that doesn't strike me as being specific to narrativism; literally nothing about what a character will do (which, again, strikes me as the most important aspect of play) is determined beforehand. Regardless of their stats, the character is going to be as different from their predecessor characters as you make them. Even if certain abilities from other classes, races, etc. are closed off to them, that strikes me as far and away less important than what they can achieve during the life of a campaign. You'll still be talking about how they united the Seven Kingdoms to overthrow the Demon God and founded a new bloodline decades from now, long after you've forgotten exactly what their stats were.

And it isn't that these types of character's backstories are some huge thing that dominates play either. I think some of you all might want to play some of these games a bit (or a bit more, or with people that know how to run them already maybe)? These notions are a bit strange compared with the actualities of most games I play in.

I would suggest the opposite, in point of fact. Leaving aside that overturning convention before play even begins basically puts the backstory front-and-center from the get-go (since at that point there's nothing else about the character to establish their dynamic when the game's first session gets going), the idea that "you'll like this thing you don't like if you find someone who does the thing you don't like well" strikes me as a poor principle. Yes, it's good to try new things, but it's also good to respect the idea that people simply don't like what you like, and that they're not wrong for doing so. If you don't eat meat, repeatedly insisting that such-and-so's hamburgers are the best thing ever and that you absolutely have to try them comes across as insensitive more than anything else.

Yes, well, both are important, and I think there's some odd ideas about what goes on. I mean, I think I've described my BitD character from the one BitD game I played in. It was a good year almost of play, so we got in a lot of sessions and fully tapped out our characters. Mine was actually pretty tame, but we explored the nature of his origin, he developed his skills into a kind of almost spirit warrior kind of guy, and did a LOT of stuff along the way. He ended up killing his ex-buddy/rival, hooking up with a cult enforcer woman, taking care of many orphans (and training some of them as crew minions) and eventually figuring out that he wanted revenge on the Emperor, something that he was not really ever going to get, or at least it was outside the scope of play, leading to a 'ride off into the sunset' sort of scenario.

And it's nice that you had a blast, but in all honesty that doesn't sound like it proves the idea of overturning convention very much. If anything, it shows that you don't need to do so in order to run an interesting character, since most of the specifics that you relate regarding his origin and his powers could be easily utilized without having to contravene the setting. You can have an interesting/mysterious background without it having to directly contravene how things work (recall what I said before, about how even exceptions to the rules can be defined in the context of the rules), the same with developing powers, etc.

Well, I don't necessarily disagree with that as a possibility, but why are so many people here so hostile to the idea of character concepts created by players? I find it quite peculiar.

I don't think anyone is hostile to the idea of character concepts created by players. I think they have a problem with (or at least a suspicion toward) players specifically designing characters whose concepts break the conventions of the setting they (the players) know that they'll be playing in. And it's one that I share, since as I noted before, someone who designs a character whose central conceit is "the rules don't apply to me (even where other PCs are concerned)" tends to raise big red flags.