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

[Thomas Shey]

RPGs are group games. They're cooperative. Having a player decide their character is going to attack, steal from, or otherwise harm the other members of the group goes against the very nature of the game because they are not being cooperative.

I have to point out a game can be group oriented and still competitive. I've seen any number of RPGs that included some degree of inter-player conflict over the years, right from back at the start of the hobby. Sometimes its okay (when kept to an appropriate level and when people can separate character from player issues) sometimes its not, but its not intrinsically counter to how RPGs work (and in fact, some of them--Amber Diceless Roleplaying comes to mind) assume a certain amount of it right from the get go. Its an issue of group style and convention, not a law of the hobby.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But that's of course your take on it (and to be clear, you have a right to feel as you do). There's always going to be a variety of degrees of lumping/splitting people like or don't, but the point was, you don't have to have rules for NPCs and other entities be significantly different than PCs; that's a choice as a consequence of other priorities.

(And I'm fussy about the issue I brought up because its very, very common for people, especially here, to assume D&D assumptions even when a thread, as this one, is addressing general RPGs. That narrows the perspective a way I do not think is benign.)

I would love it if D&D wasn't the default assumption here, as I make exclusively non-D&D games, non-d20 games myself. But the reality I think is to communicate that is just a natural fallback in conversation because over 90 percent of the topics here are related to D&D (probably more)

And sure, I agree with your point. I was trying to say throughout my posts both could be done. I used anima as an example of a more deeply engineered game on that front

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have to point out a game can be group oriented and still competitive. I've seen any number of RPGs that included some degree of inter-player conflict over the years, right from back at the start of the hobby. Sometimes its okay (when kept to an appropriate level and when people can separate character from player issues) sometimes its not, but its not intrinsically counter to how RPGs work (and in fact, some of them--Amber Diceless Roleplaying comes to mind) assume a certain amount of it right from the get go. Its an issue of group style and convention, not a law of the hobby.

that is true, but competitiveness just tends in my experience to make balance a bigger consideration. I run my own game called Ogre Gate (which actually does a lot of the things I am arguing against, so I am being a little hypocritical here). But because of the nature of the system and setting it attracts a range of players, people who like RP, people who want a bit of story, people who want exploration of a world and people who are what I called "Magic Card style optimizers" (and I don't mean the latter as an insult). When you have that last group of players present, people who will pull every lever that gives them an advantage, it can take some finesse to manage and make sure they are getting the level of competition they want, while the RP people and ensemble people are getting what they want. At least that has been my experience

 

[Thomas Shey]

that is true, but competitiveness just tends in my experience to make balance a bigger consideration. I run my own game called Ogre Gate (which actually does a lot of the things I am arguing against, so I am being a little hypocritical here). But because of the nature of the system and setting it attracts a range of players, people who like RP, people who want a bit of story, people who want exploration of a world and people who are what I called "Magic Card style optimizers" (and I don't mean the latter as an insult). When you have that last group of players present, people who will pull every lever that gives them an advantage, it can take some finesse to manage and make sure they are getting the level of competition they want, while the RP people and ensemble people are getting what they want. At least that has been my experience

Yeah, but frankly, that's again an issue of how much power gap exists in the system in the first place. There are plenty of games I can think of that even though there's some power imbalances that matter, they don't matter nearly as much when two PCs have it out because a lot of times the tricks involved are either not personal, or are taking advantage of traits that mostly exist in NPCs. You've got to have a heck of a gap in RuneQuest or Savage Worlds before the stronger character can be blase about the weaker for example.

 

[Faolyn]

I have to point out a game can be group oriented and still competitive. I've seen any number of RPGs that included some degree of inter-player conflict over the years, right from back at the start of the hobby. Sometimes its okay (when kept to an appropriate level and when people can separate character from player issues) sometimes its not, but its not intrinsically counter to how RPGs work (and in fact, some of them--Amber Diceless Roleplaying comes to mind) assume a certain amount of it right from the get go. Its an issue of group style and convention, not a law of the hobby.

Then that, I'd say, is something that's built into the game. The players are expected to make characters with conflict.

But in (A)D&D, which is what Lanefan is playing, that's not the case.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Then that, I'd say, is something that's built into the game. The players are expected to make characters with conflict.

But in (A)D&D, which is what Lanefan is playing, that's not the case.

This is table dynamics, not system based. It all comes down to what the group is comfortable with.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, but frankly, that's again an issue of how much power gap exists in the system in the first place. There are plenty of games I can think of that even though there's some power imbalances that matter, they don't matter nearly as much when two PCs have it out because a lot of times the tricks involved are either not personal, or are taking advantage of traits that mostly exist in NPCs. You've got to have a heck of a gap in RuneQuest or Savage Worlds before the stronger character can be blase about the weaker for example.

Sure every system is different in this respect

 

[Lanefan]

Do you mean it's accepted by the enslaved?

No, it's accepted by the societies doing the enslaving. Example: real-world Roman Empire.

 

[Lanefan]

I think it would be a fascinating design challenge to make a setting where every PC option is fully immersed in the setting fiction. Every class is a particular group or faction or specific embodied methodology of learning. I've actually been noodling around with that idea the past few months, mostly because it's so different from my normal "class-as-metagame" approach.

I just wouldn't do that with the existing PHB classes, mostly because they have so much baggage around them already.

Some classes are much more amenable to this than others.

It'd be easy to fit the various caster classes into this model, and Monks have kind of been there since day one anyway; but I can't see how you can slot something like Fighter into this, as pretty much anyone can learn how to fight.

 

[Lanefan]

RPGs are group games. They're cooperative.

In my view RPGs are group games only in that they are games played by a group of people. Cooperation within that group, though often desireable, is not an enforced requirement. It's optional.

Well. I admit I'm making an assumption here, that you all are gaming all as a smallish group of 4-6 players plus a GM. If you're in some sort of West Marches thing where there's like twenty players who all drop in and out of the game whenever they want and are only working together in the sense that you happen to be at the table at that moment, then that's a different thing. I still wouldn't work with that fighter, because I couldn't trust him.

I've never done the West Marches style to that extent. That said, we're all friends outside the game and thus largely know what to expect from each other.

Wow, that's a disturbing take on the situation. I'm pretty sure that most orcs, even "rabid monster" orcs, would be much better off, much happier, being free in dangerous country than a slave. This is bordering on the "we have to forcibly educate the savages so they can be part of civilized society because we know better than they do" colonial BS that has plagued so much of real history.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if orcs captured your characters and kept you as charmed slaves "for your own good, because it's dangerous out there," you'd hate it and do everything you could do to break the charm.

If I'm charmed I don't know I'm charmed and thus have no reason to try to break said charm. Now if-when the charm wears off, that's a different story; but who knows - I might decide on my own at that point that this ain't so bad, given the alternatives.

And this is the most disturbing line of all. "Gone through."

As in, have seen come and go.

They've gone through two Thieves as well, this trip. One died at the first possible opportunity and his replacement is about to leave the party as soon as they get back to town and divide treasure (she's not leaving without - at least - her share!).

And here you don't realize that probably most players have some attachment to their characters--enough to care about them as characters rather than as disposable pawns. If I wanted to play a character I didn't care actually about, I'd play a video game.

Care about the character while it lasts and give it all you got but also - particularly at low level - be ready to let it go at a moment's notice. The campaign is quasi-permanent. Characters within it are far more temporary; which comes back to my usual comparitive analogy of a sports franchise: the franchise is quasi-permanent but individual players on the team come and go over the years.