Celebrim's Second Law of RPGs states, "How you prepare to play a game and how you think about a game has a bigger influence on the game than the rules." I'm rather fond of that observation, and I find it holds.
I think saying that you value your prep over the rules of play speaks volumes.
Would it? I think you get things backwards. Detailed monster stats and spell effects are the product of how people played D&D and not the result of it. People made the maps before they made the other things. They needed the other things because they had maps.
Besides, those are the easy parts of prep. Most of the work doesn't go into those things for most of the things I do in most systems.
What distinction are you making between “product of play” and “result of play”? I’m not following that at all.
Maps and monster stats are needed to play D&D. They’re elements of play that are foundational. You can get away without them from time to time, especially maps, but generally speaking, you need to have this stuff. Armor class, hit points, saves, abilities… how does D&D work without that stuff? You need to determine what monsters are where and have this information at hand for play.
That need to prepare influences how play can go.
Procedures of play is what isn't written down in the rules. It's things that vary from whether or not you count the roll if the dice falls off the table, to whether or not the DM draws maps, to whether or not PC's write out 4 page backstories, to whether you RP in 1st person or 3rd person, to what filters does the group apply to determine what a valid proposition is and how skill rolls are called at the table. It's a thing very different than the rules and which most tables are not even consciously aware of. Most games don't actually change play by changing the rules, but by changing how people think about playing.
Actually, many games explicitly provide procedures of play. They tell you exactly how they’re meant to be played and why, and of the potential impact if you choose to change something. And I’m not talking about table rules like dice off the table and that kind of stuff… I mean as fundamental as establishing how difficult a proposed task will be and essential things like that.
The two aren't separatable. There isn't this either/or distinction you are trying to make. Imagine Star Wars as a campaign. Do you think it matter's if Luke's player knows that Darth Vader is his father from the beginning? Which do you think is more exciting from the player's perspective, setting up all his own story beats or discovering them as he explores the setting? I think it's better if the player just signals his orphan status as an opportunity to explore fairy tale themes, and then let's the GM come up with his past generally with the consent of the player - "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you want me to mess with you?", sort of thing. And I really hope that the player said 10 out 10, because making Leia a secret sister is so Greek Tragedy, "Yikes!".
Sure, I’m not advocating for predetermine elements. That’s why I only mentioned the first film. We only know the backstory we need to know for Luke’s journey to be meaningful.
My mentioning of Beats was in relation to the Heart RPG. They’re player chosen goals. They’re generally pretty broad, either in description or in applicability. I’m not talking about a player writing their character’s whole story arc ahead of time.
Again, the two aren't separable. The setting backstory isn't the opposite of player empowerment. What the characters do about whatever is always what an RPG is about. But, finding out what their characters are and what they care about is an aesthetic of play that 80% of gamers do not give a flip about. Most players have no interest in roleplaying out their feelings in melodramatic scenes and are already pretty sure what they care about and aren't interested in particularly in RPing out moral or ethical angst, or deciding what relationship that they are going to have with other characters (PC's or NPC's). Most players do not want that as a focus of play. But regardless of what system you are playing, all players have access to that sort of RP if that's what they want. If your aesthetic enjoyment is exploration of character, and you are in a group - like say Critical Roles group - where you have quality improv actors that can do those scenes, well go for it. But you as a GM aren't really in control of that. You aren't the person animating the characters. You don't get to create Raistlin and give him personality and drive and put him into those scenes. That's on the player.
I don’t know where you get your figures from… they sound like you’re just making them up. Many players want play to focus on their characters. Many games set out to do exactly that.
If you don’t like it, that’s fine. But you don’t get to say that it’s impossible. I mean, I’ve done it… many people have done it. That you choose not to believe it doesn’t make it untrue.
Your improv when you one page no longer covers the questions you need to answer and you have to answer things on the fly.
Why would improv contradict anything? Certainly having a detailed 40 pages or more means there’s more to contradict? It seems self evident to me.
I'm not even going to derail the response by dignifying that. But if you'd back up and look at some of my specific objections rather than assuming I don't know things, you might have more interesting things to say. The fact you immediate go on to say, "I didn't suggest that anyone should do that.", just tells me you are too busy playing "gotcha" to even follow along.
Here’s me saying exactly that:
The players don't have to introduce the specific problem, and certainly don't need to know the solution ahead of time.
No one is suggesting that players craft an entire story for their characters, start to finish. No one is suggesting that the GM won’t have to contribute. I’ve clearly been saying it’s about the three elements come together… the players, the GM, and the rules.
So? What's your point? You think that's not trad RP? You think that's not the result of trad preparation? You think that's not the result of GM driven storytelling?
In fact, that's hardcore GM driven storytelling. I have a player that would get furious over me pulling that stunt early in a campaign because it works entirely against the session zero preparation. This is something we joke about a lot in the current campaign - "The Mandalorian" is a show about a bounty hunter that doesn't actually follow the character until the end of his bounty hunting career. It never actually bothers to try to explore the premise, and instead becomes a quest-based fantasy right off the bat. If I pulled the stunt of promising a Bounty Hunting game after table agreement that that is what we wanted to do, and then in the first adventure put the characters in a moral dilemma where they either had to give up bounty hunting and go rogue or else be complete SOBs, I'd have several very unhappy players. They'd get over it. They'd go along with me screwing the campaign over like that. But it wouldn't make them very happy. I think I know what my players are trying to achieve better than you do.
Well as I said, if the player said they wanted to be cold-blooded, then testing how cold-blooded seems appropriate.
There has to be some risk in this type of game. If everyone gets to decide beforehand exactly who their character is and always will be, then I don’t know what’s left to be discovered in play.
Taking the things the players indicate they want to focus on and making them central to play is what I’ve been talking about.
There is no disagreement here over that though. It's not a point of debate or something that separates your position from tradition RPing.
I’d say trad is more prone to it. Or, at the very least, more prone to being utterly indifferent about what’s important to the players.
Backstory is character sheet. And you can put Reads Latin or History on your character sheet, but it's up to the GM usually to figure out how to make that relevant.
I mean that they are actually fields on the character sheet. You have to fill them out just as you do the other attributes of your character.
Backstory isn’t required in many games. Hit points, alignment, skills… those are required. Backstory is usually optional.
In the three games I mentioned, the players mist provide those details.
Sure. But I find your argument increasingly incoherent.
I’m sure.
I’m having trouble following yours. Is it that player driven play is not possible? Or that it’s only possible through traditional play?
Then you'd have strongly GM driven play, or at the least, it would be at least as strongly GM driven as my play is.
How so? I can’t comment on your play since you’ve not said what game you’re playing. So I need to rely on you to explain the difference.
I’m not speaking about your game. My stance is simply that there are games that allow for the players to be the primary driving factor.
This is such an arbitrary distinction. As for Temple of Elemental Evil, I'm not particularly fond of the adventure as written, as it's a pretty simplistic dungeon crawl. There is a thread around here somewhere where I talk about changes I'd make to the adventure that would allow it to achieve it's aesthetic of play, but also provide for the sort of complex literary scenarios that would allow for more RPing.
It’s not an arbitrary distinction at all. I don’t have a strong say about what goes on in my D&D game. That doesn’t make it bad… I’m fine with it. I didn’t sign up for it expecting to really drive play. The story of the game, such as it is, is not about my character. It’s not about any of the characters, really… it’s about the threat of the Temple, and trying to stop it. That goal was set before we began play, and that’s what the game will be about for the duration. It’s very specific.
Whenever a GM is called to invent something mid-play, there is always the conscious or unconscious temptation to invent what the GM thinks would be good for the game. For example, if the game has a big combat encounter, and the PC's are doing well, the GM experiences the temptation to say invent some reinforcements or some new challenge in the middle of the combat to make it exciting because the combat was supposed to be dramatic. Games the strongly encourage the GM to invent things on the fly then to strongly become dependent on Illusionism, where the game the players think they are playing isn't the game they are actually playing. As an example of Illusionism, imagine if the BBEG had no hit points but was always defeated on the seventh round of combat. It's Illusionism if the GM keeps asking for damage inflicted and marking it down as if that was relevant to the game actually being played. There is a whole theory of how to be a good GM that depends heavily on perpetrating those sorts of deceptions on the players.
I think this depends on the game. Many games offer specific principles for the GM to follow that would make this kind of thing against the rules, or at least against the expectations of play.
Other games don’t comment on that one way or the other.
I know which type of game would leave me more concerned about it.
