Jared Rascher
Explorer
Lots of games have subsystems for resolving conflicts that don't utilize their normal round to round resolution. 4th Edition and Star Wars Saga have Skill Challenges. Savage Worlds has various sub-systems for chases, mass combat, and social conflicts. Mutants and Masterminds has challenges to model events that might take a certain number of successes instead of just automatically working.
Some of these are great, and use similar rules to the main system resolutions, and some of them feel a little less intuitive and counter to the flow of the normal game. But regardless of how well presented these sub-systems are, there is one similarity to all of them. They take a certain amount of player buy in.
By way of anecdote, I was running a session of Mutants and Masterminds 3e a few weeks ago, where the game started with the group chasing a supervillain that they were clued in about, and the villain was already flying through the city trying to get away.
There is a subsystem that was presented in the same vein as the challenge system already in the game that was detailed in one of the Threat Reports that detailed chases. I decided to use these rules. Basically, it would see if the PCs could catch up to the already fleeing villain in order to beat them into submission and drag them back to jail. It wasn't suppose to take long, and the chase was suppose to be the main action.
Long story short, I had a hard time with player buy in. Several players had it in mind that if they moved faster than the villain, they automatically caught up with the villain. When I mentioned that the chase rules represented dodging through alleyways, feinting one direction and moving another, I was met with the simple explanation that the one of the PCs moved faster, could make a perception check to find the villain, and could phase through buildings, so they would automatically win the chase.
This was before I even got a chance to start describing what the villain was doing in the chase, what skills and powers they were using, or asking what the PCs are doing. Heck, I'd give them bonuses for stuff like passing through buildings or any other logical or good ideas. But the skepticism was already up and running as soon as a subsystem was mentioned.
I've got good players. They like to roleplay and come up with plans and describe their actions, so it's not that. It just seems like subsystems automatically kick at least some of them into "skeptic" mode.
I'm almost certain that once we got up and running with descriptions and the like, things would work fine. In fact, later in the night, we used the challenge system, not for a chase, but for physical trials that didn't have to do with combat, and it went great.
So I guess what I'm wondering is:
As a player, what makes you leery of sub-systems to resolve various situations in an RPG?
Is it possible that if you trust the GM, you might have fun with the subsystem, even if you aren't sure that the sub-system might not be 100% needed in the system?
Do subsystems that you don't like ruin your enjoyment of the evening, or is it something you might sublimate in case the GM and/or another player might enjoy the subsystem?
I am totally not against some parts of the game not working for people, I'm just kind of wondering what exactly triggers "a bridge too far," and at what point are you so sure that you can't enjoy a subsystem that bugs you enough that it would override something that works for another player at the table?
Some of these are great, and use similar rules to the main system resolutions, and some of them feel a little less intuitive and counter to the flow of the normal game. But regardless of how well presented these sub-systems are, there is one similarity to all of them. They take a certain amount of player buy in.
By way of anecdote, I was running a session of Mutants and Masterminds 3e a few weeks ago, where the game started with the group chasing a supervillain that they were clued in about, and the villain was already flying through the city trying to get away.
There is a subsystem that was presented in the same vein as the challenge system already in the game that was detailed in one of the Threat Reports that detailed chases. I decided to use these rules. Basically, it would see if the PCs could catch up to the already fleeing villain in order to beat them into submission and drag them back to jail. It wasn't suppose to take long, and the chase was suppose to be the main action.
Long story short, I had a hard time with player buy in. Several players had it in mind that if they moved faster than the villain, they automatically caught up with the villain. When I mentioned that the chase rules represented dodging through alleyways, feinting one direction and moving another, I was met with the simple explanation that the one of the PCs moved faster, could make a perception check to find the villain, and could phase through buildings, so they would automatically win the chase.
This was before I even got a chance to start describing what the villain was doing in the chase, what skills and powers they were using, or asking what the PCs are doing. Heck, I'd give them bonuses for stuff like passing through buildings or any other logical or good ideas. But the skepticism was already up and running as soon as a subsystem was mentioned.
I've got good players. They like to roleplay and come up with plans and describe their actions, so it's not that. It just seems like subsystems automatically kick at least some of them into "skeptic" mode.
I'm almost certain that once we got up and running with descriptions and the like, things would work fine. In fact, later in the night, we used the challenge system, not for a chase, but for physical trials that didn't have to do with combat, and it went great.
So I guess what I'm wondering is:
As a player, what makes you leery of sub-systems to resolve various situations in an RPG?
Is it possible that if you trust the GM, you might have fun with the subsystem, even if you aren't sure that the sub-system might not be 100% needed in the system?
Do subsystems that you don't like ruin your enjoyment of the evening, or is it something you might sublimate in case the GM and/or another player might enjoy the subsystem?
I am totally not against some parts of the game not working for people, I'm just kind of wondering what exactly triggers "a bridge too far," and at what point are you so sure that you can't enjoy a subsystem that bugs you enough that it would override something that works for another player at the table?