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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7644199" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>[MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - a thoughtful post about PF2. I'll suggest, at least half-seriously, that you write a brief review! I think your take will shed some interesting light that many other reviews will not.</p><p></p><p>I think the idea of <em>overcoming challenges</em> is rather complex, or at least multi-faceted, in the RPG context. In what I suspect might turn into a long-ish post, I'll try and work through four examples I know well from experience.</p><p></p><p>4e D&D clearly involves the PCs confronting challenges; and, as players, one central goal is to overcome them. It says so right on the tin: <em>the world needs heroes</em>. And heroes overcome challenges and thereby make things better in the world. It's the GM's job to frame the challenges. At least as I have played 4e the players have quite a role to play in establishing the fictional context and components for the GM in framing those challenges, by the way they build their PCs and thereby hook them into the cosmological conflicts of the setting. In the actual play, it's the <em>trying</em> to overcome that takes precedence - in combat working through your character's mechanical possibilities, in combat and moreso in non-combat looking for ways to engage and leverage the fiction. You can get a lot of fun game in before you find out whether or not you actually succeeded in overcoming; and you get XP for trying (in skill challenges, and for the foes you bested in a combat even if you lost it overall) and not just for succeeding. This is a significant contrast with AD&D.</p><p></p><p>The maths of 4e tend to make PC success the norm. I therefore think it's not strongly <em>gamist</em> in the classic D&D sense. There is a tactical optimisation element in combat; but at least as I've experienced it a lot of the pleasure is in finding out how the victory transpires, what this reveals about the characters, what the costs are, as well as a lot of fun fantasy colour.</p><p></p><p>Burning Wheel involves the PCs confronting challenges or obstacles, because they are <em>fighting for what they believe</em>. The game incentivises <em>trying</em> through a combination of its fate point award rules (which are triggered by playing to your character's goals/personality rather than by winning) and its advancement rules (which require taking on impossible obstacles as well as possible one) and its approach to failure (which is one of the earlier articulations of "fail forward" ie failure is by reference to intention, not task, and so propels the story forward by setting up new obstacles).</p><p></p><p>The maths of BW make failure commonplace. For this reason, among others, it's very gritty compared to 4e. There is undoubtedly a lot of scope in BW for skilled play - the player in my group who plays a super-tactical sorcerer in 4e is, in BW, the best at scripting both for Duel of Wits and Fight! (BW's social and melee resolution frameworks) and is very good at optimising his chekcs to get PC advancement without too much PC setback. But at least for me both as GM and player what I enjoy is the story and character dimension. I find at a system that it really lets the character come to life in play.</p><p></p><p>Prince Valiant is at its heart about playing knights. Mostly when we play Prince Valiant in our group its 3 players, all knights (one started as a squire but got knighted in play). There is another member of the group who occasionally joins us for Prince Valiant and plays a wandering entertainer, but the action is still oriented around knightly deeds with the entertainer a companion of theirs. There are undoubtedly challenges in the sense of jousts to be fought, maidens to be rescued, boars to be hunted, etc but the emphasis of play is on <em>participating</em> in these challenges in a knightly fashion, not winning them. The PCs in my game have probably lost as many jousts as they've fought but that hasn't stopped them advancing (a lot of XP - called Fame in the system - are earned for participation and others are eanred for performing valiant or noteworthy deeds; that doesn't requre winning).</p><p></p><p>There is really no gamist aspect to Prince Valiant. It is mechanically very simple and is all about making choices for your PC and finding out what happens. Even though failure is quite common it is not at all gritty because the consequences of failure tend not to be severe either in the fiction or the system, and you don't fail to be a good knight just because you lost a joust or two!</p><p></p><p>Finally Classic Traveller. This doesn't really involve <em>challenges</em> at all. The PCs aren't heroes, aren't knights, and aren't fighting for what they believe. As we play it, it's about taking on missions from patrons who - given the PCs' histories and skill-sets - have a reason to seek them out. It's also about accounting and buying and selling so as to try and meet the upkeep costs on your spaceship. It can get gritty, but not with the same emotional intensity as Burning Wheel. Of course there are obstacles in the way of the PCs getting what they want - that's pretty much the mininum for any sort of story - but they aren't what play is about. And there's little room for skilled play in Traveller of the sort that figures in BW and 4e, simply because of how the mechanics work - you're just declaring actions and hoping to roll well while adding a bonus that you have no control over (PC gen is largely random and PC growth during play is close to nil).</p><p></p><p>When I look at the PF2 text Campbell quoted - <em>A roleplaying game is an interactive story where one player, the Game Master (GM), sets the scene and presents challenges, while other players take the roles of player characters (PCs) and attempt to overcome those challenges. Danger comes in the form of monsters, devious traps, and the machinations of adversarial agents, but Pathfinder also provides political schemes, puzzles, interpersonal drama, and much, much more</em> - that seems to me to actually describe Prince Valiant rather well, and also 4e D&D, even though those two systems produce very different play experiences. From this I infer that while no doubt true of PF2 it doesn't take us very far in understanding what the PF2 play experience will be. I'd start with <em>how common is loss?</em>, and <em>what are the consequences for loss?</em> as questions whose answers can vary wildly across RPGs and the answers to which will help tell us a bit more about how PF2 plays.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7644199, member: 42582"] [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - a thoughtful post about PF2. I'll suggest, at least half-seriously, that you write a brief review! I think your take will shed some interesting light that many other reviews will not. I think the idea of [I]overcoming challenges[/I] is rather complex, or at least multi-faceted, in the RPG context. In what I suspect might turn into a long-ish post, I'll try and work through four examples I know well from experience. 4e D&D clearly involves the PCs confronting challenges; and, as players, one central goal is to overcome them. It says so right on the tin: [I]the world needs heroes[/I]. And heroes overcome challenges and thereby make things better in the world. It's the GM's job to frame the challenges. At least as I have played 4e the players have quite a role to play in establishing the fictional context and components for the GM in framing those challenges, by the way they build their PCs and thereby hook them into the cosmological conflicts of the setting. In the actual play, it's the [I]trying[/I] to overcome that takes precedence - in combat working through your character's mechanical possibilities, in combat and moreso in non-combat looking for ways to engage and leverage the fiction. You can get a lot of fun game in before you find out whether or not you actually succeeded in overcoming; and you get XP for trying (in skill challenges, and for the foes you bested in a combat even if you lost it overall) and not just for succeeding. This is a significant contrast with AD&D. The maths of 4e tend to make PC success the norm. I therefore think it's not strongly [I]gamist[/I] in the classic D&D sense. There is a tactical optimisation element in combat; but at least as I've experienced it a lot of the pleasure is in finding out how the victory transpires, what this reveals about the characters, what the costs are, as well as a lot of fun fantasy colour. Burning Wheel involves the PCs confronting challenges or obstacles, because they are [I]fighting for what they believe[/I]. The game incentivises [I]trying[/I] through a combination of its fate point award rules (which are triggered by playing to your character's goals/personality rather than by winning) and its advancement rules (which require taking on impossible obstacles as well as possible one) and its approach to failure (which is one of the earlier articulations of "fail forward" ie failure is by reference to intention, not task, and so propels the story forward by setting up new obstacles). The maths of BW make failure commonplace. For this reason, among others, it's very gritty compared to 4e. There is undoubtedly a lot of scope in BW for skilled play - the player in my group who plays a super-tactical sorcerer in 4e is, in BW, the best at scripting both for Duel of Wits and Fight! (BW's social and melee resolution frameworks) and is very good at optimising his chekcs to get PC advancement without too much PC setback. But at least for me both as GM and player what I enjoy is the story and character dimension. I find at a system that it really lets the character come to life in play. Prince Valiant is at its heart about playing knights. Mostly when we play Prince Valiant in our group its 3 players, all knights (one started as a squire but got knighted in play). There is another member of the group who occasionally joins us for Prince Valiant and plays a wandering entertainer, but the action is still oriented around knightly deeds with the entertainer a companion of theirs. There are undoubtedly challenges in the sense of jousts to be fought, maidens to be rescued, boars to be hunted, etc but the emphasis of play is on [I]participating[/I] in these challenges in a knightly fashion, not winning them. The PCs in my game have probably lost as many jousts as they've fought but that hasn't stopped them advancing (a lot of XP - called Fame in the system - are earned for participation and others are eanred for performing valiant or noteworthy deeds; that doesn't requre winning). There is really no gamist aspect to Prince Valiant. It is mechanically very simple and is all about making choices for your PC and finding out what happens. Even though failure is quite common it is not at all gritty because the consequences of failure tend not to be severe either in the fiction or the system, and you don't fail to be a good knight just because you lost a joust or two! Finally Classic Traveller. This doesn't really involve [I]challenges[/I] at all. The PCs aren't heroes, aren't knights, and aren't fighting for what they believe. As we play it, it's about taking on missions from patrons who - given the PCs' histories and skill-sets - have a reason to seek them out. It's also about accounting and buying and selling so as to try and meet the upkeep costs on your spaceship. It can get gritty, but not with the same emotional intensity as Burning Wheel. Of course there are obstacles in the way of the PCs getting what they want - that's pretty much the mininum for any sort of story - but they aren't what play is about. And there's little room for skilled play in Traveller of the sort that figures in BW and 4e, simply because of how the mechanics work - you're just declaring actions and hoping to roll well while adding a bonus that you have no control over (PC gen is largely random and PC growth during play is close to nil). When I look at the PF2 text Campbell quoted - [I]A roleplaying game is an interactive story where one player, the Game Master (GM), sets the scene and presents challenges, while other players take the roles of player characters (PCs) and attempt to overcome those challenges. Danger comes in the form of monsters, devious traps, and the machinations of adversarial agents, but Pathfinder also provides political schemes, puzzles, interpersonal drama, and much, much more[/I] - that seems to me to actually describe Prince Valiant rather well, and also 4e D&D, even though those two systems produce very different play experiences. From this I infer that while no doubt true of PF2 it doesn't take us very far in understanding what the PF2 play experience will be. I'd start with [I]how common is loss?[/I], and [I]what are the consequences for loss?[/I] as questions whose answers can vary wildly across RPGs and the answers to which will help tell us a bit more about how PF2 plays. [/QUOTE]
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