Proclamation

[fusangite]

Wait - wargames are reptiles? Or is D&D the reptile? Does this have anything to do David Icke?

Is it just me, or is this the silliest analogy ever?

http://www.davidicke.com/ - look at it! It's all *about* reptiles! And that must mean that wargames and/or D&D are tools of the ILLUMINATI!

Now it all makes sense.

You just continue to impress the hell out of me The Universe. I love David Icke stuff. It's great fun. If you search really hard, you can even find an article attacking me written by Icke supporters.

In the last Mutants & Masterminds game I played, I actually ran a fifth columnist in the league of shape-shifting space lizards secretly controlling the earth. There is great RP fodder, as well as just funny stuff in the Icke corpus. Did you know he was the former leader of the UK Green Party?

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I dunno, commentary about sending my soldiers to concentration camps wasn't particularly fun, and I was thinking more about some dude in a poorly sewn Starfleet uniform spitting on people in Klingon while doing his power sheets in SFB Which, I suppose, is more fuel for the "moderation" rally. Everything's ok in little bits, but Nazi jokes aren't funny and I find the idea of engaging in wargames with guys spitting on me in their pajamas to be a little nonplussing.

Okay, yeah, that would be a little disturbing. I was just thinking of all the fun I've had "getting into character" and putting on accents in the middle of Twilight Imperium games, or barking random Japanese phrases while sending my fleets in to strike in Axis & Allies...

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Thank God my experiences with 'other systems' have been radically different than yours.

Oh, I'm not knocking non-d20 games, there are some I'm quite fond of (Alternity, Earthdawn, and Shadowrun, to name a few). My main non-d20 peeve is World of Darkness, which I have never once seen run in any fashion that seems to even remotely resemble the stated intentions of the creators of the game. Maybe running around playing 3rd-generation blooded trenchcoat-and-missile launcher clad death machines who hide in the shadows for no apparent reason because they're invincible and can walk in daylight yet are also mysteriously depressed and brooding despite being capable of single-handedly defeating Superman while bound, tied, and gagged is fun for some people, but don't count me as one of them. When I played World of Darkness, I was hoping to be terrorized out of my tortured, cursed mind- but didn't get anything even close to it. (And I've played with about five different Storytellers, all of which did about the same...)

Now, World of Darkness has some major flaws in it that prevents the game from really being "what it could (and should) be", and these are enough to prevent me from ever wanting to actually run a game in the setting, despite how fond I am of the themes and many of the ideas behind the game.

But perhaps my problem is that most of my experience has been with young gamemasters who have a hard time thinking of ways to keep the game interesting outside of frequent hack and slash (and seldom very challenging hack and slash at that). And the fact that I have extremely high standards for gamemastering (I've only played with one DM, in any game, who has ever managed to hold my attention for more than two sessions before I've felt forced to get back "behind the screen").

But yes, a big part of what I enjoy about D&D has been the "return to the grid". I'm a perfectionist by nature, and a lover of variables, mathematics, and the "simulation" aspects of RPG's, so the mathematical harmony of 3e and the d20 system has impressed me more than any other RPG I've encountered... most have either too much in the way of rules and statistics, or too little- d20 is just right. Gimme my miniatures, my grids, my oodles of prestige classes and feats, your huddled masses...

 

[mythusmage]

But reptiles continue to exist ...

(snip)

And why shouldn't they? After all, just because a new life form appears does not mean the older must disappear.

The same with pastimes. The appearance of RPGs does not mean wargames must go away. Each has their niche, each has their purpose. Neither can fill the other's role, nor should they be expected to.

Wargames were first developed to fill a perceived need. RPGs grew out of wargames, but soon found a new purpose. In a sense RPGs developed a niche that had not existed before. These days RPGs straddle two worlds. They are, to use the original meaning of the word, amphibious. They have two lives, and by trying to occupy two worlds at once they fail at both. If D&D (for instance) wishes to succeed as an RPG it must stop being a wargame.

"But what about those who like to bash things?"

You can still do that in an RPG, it simply can't be as mechanical as in wargame. In so far as RPGs model the fog and uncertainties of life things cannot be as transparent as they are in wargaming.

I think it's time to start a new thread on this subject. This one has helped me gather my thoughts and clarify matters. So look for one on the subject of RPGs and Storytelling.

 

[Reynard]

Let's take metagaming, for example. Lots of people are against metagaming as a rule, because they've seen it used solely for the purpose of "let's win". If the goal of a game is to have the characters defeat a conflict using only the knowledge obtained in game, then some things discussed at the table between players are off limits.

But metagaming is a tool, and it doesn't have an agenda of its own. What if you take player knowledge and use it to set up a situation for your character that reveals something about their personality, or lets you explore a situation you're interested in? Some people would say you're violating the "let's just roleplay" idea, and some wouldn't.

I don't want to totally derail the thread, but this is one of the smartest things said here in recent memory. I am of the opinion that metagaming -- of all the aspects of playing any game -- has the greatest potential to ensure that everyone at the table actually has fun, which is the whole point after all. Unfortunately, metagaming always gets saddled with a negative connotation when it is no more or less likely to be problematic than any other aspect of play. What it does allow us to do, though, is think about what our characters are doing, planning to do, and just did in the context of a game -- and the goal of that game experience, which varies widely between campaigns and groups -- and make decision, react and/or otherwise roleplay in a manner that benefits the whole game experience.

Example: The party has cornered the bandit leader, all his cronies dead, at the edge of forest cliff. The fighter in front has a big honking greatsword and has initiative. Everybody is jazzed -- they've been hunting this guy for weeks now, and it has finally come time to pay the piper. And that is when the fighter's player charges and bull-rushes, instead of makes a power attack. Down the bandit leader goes, disappearing from sight. No body is recovered. Now, if the fighter's player did this because he thought it would be cool, he was metagaming, because he was thinking about his options from a mechanical standpoint, not a 'purely role-playing' one, but still ended up doing soemthing cooler than saying "I roll to hit." Or, if the player was thinking "I like this villain, and so does the GM. i am gonna give him an out. maybe he'll take it, maybe he won't." he was metagaming, because he was thinking about how much cooler it will be when the villain reappears, bigger, badder and madder than ever. neither of these reasons for metagaming meant less roleplaying or cheating or dumbosity, as seems synonymous with the term.

 

[fusangite]

These days RPGs straddle two worlds. They are, to use the original meaning of the word, amphibious. They have two lives, and by trying to occupy two worlds at once they fail at both. If D&D (for instance) wishes to succeed as an RPG it must stop being a wargame.

"But what about those who like to bash things?"

You can still do that in an RPG, it simply can't be as mechanical as in wargame. In so far as RPGs model the fog and uncertainties of life things cannot be as transparent as they are in wargaming.

I think it's time to start a new thread on this subject. This one has helped me gather my thoughts and clarify matters. So look for one on the subject of RPGs and Storytelling.

Mythusmage,

No offense but you're not clarifying. You are embarassing yourself. D&D is incontrovertible evidence you can hybridize an RPG and a wargame. Are you saying everybody's experience of it being both is invalid, that we're all in some kind of fugue state that enables us to believe we're role playing when we're really not?

I roleplayed and fought a miniatures battle in my Monday night game not two hours ago. Are you saying that I didn't do that?

Back to the evolution metaphor, are you saying amphibians are failed species? 'Cause there seem to be a bunch still around that are doing just fine.

By the way, great statement about metagaming SweeneyTodd; have you ever checked out my thread on metatextual gaming in the archive?

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I haven't seen that thread about metatextual gaming -- could you post a link? I'm really interested in that stuff, possibly because I'm just not good at immersion and don't enjoy it, so I have to find my fun within roleplaying using other tools.

I think the thing about metagaming is that it really isn't anything more than a player making a decision as a player. I don't see any inherent problem in that unless it violates the social contract and thus disrupts play -- but any disruptive action is bad.

I'm guessing that early on in the hobby, there was a situation where the goal of the game was to win, and the social contract included "Play your character realistically." If the two conflicted, and you did something to win that violated character consistency, it was both metagaming and against the social contract. Somewhere along the way, those two things got conflated into being one thing, and people figured discouraging one would get rid of both.

Then again, maybe people just don't notice metagame actions unless they're also violating the social contract. Because social contract's usually implied, "Hey, you're metagaming!" is the easiest way to cry foul.

 

[pogre]

(snip)
If D&D (for instance) wishes to succeed as an RPG it must stop being a wargame.

Gosh, I hope D&D can succeed as an RPG...

pssst - it's the numero uno RPG by a wide margin my friend!

 

[mythusmage]

Gosh, I hope D&D can succeed as an RPG...

pssst - it's the numero uno RPG by a wide margin my friend!

Is it succeeding? If it is, is it as an amphibious beast, or despite it? How much more sucessful could it be if it became a true RPG, instead of the dual natured creature it is?

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I agree with Mythusmage.

I resent it when D&Ders try to tell me that if I want a roleplaying game (D&D started roleplaying games!) I should go play another game such as Exalted.
But that's what it's come down to.