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Simulation vs Game - Where should D&D 5e aim?
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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6299216" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>OK, but my experience is that leads to one of two requirements, in D&D. Either (a) the opposition to the PCs has to be extraordinarily deficient in "merit", or (b) the PCs die a lot, simply due to the expression of the law of large numbers.</p><p></p><p>What is actually required for a "PCs win only on merit against challenging foes" system is that the most common form(s) of conflict should not end with one side dying. I have never found that D&D - because of it's stated objective of being a game about "adventurers" - handles situations with an abundance of such conflicts well.</p><p></p><p>"Action Adventure" movies are well known for having contrived scripts and exceptionally fragile "mooks" for just this same reason. Our conception of "adventurers" as people who cheerfully face deadly challenges on an everyday basis, while a fun conceit for entertainment purposes, actually flies in the face of reality on several levels. If we want a harsh light of "reality" in terms of equality of opposition and likelihood of death, we have to pick other genres of video entertainment, such as soap operas, social dramas or investigative stories. The same is true of RPGs.</p><p></p><p>On the "Game of Thrones" question, the RPG system best suited to that sort of play seems to me to be Universalis. With no GM and characters built, controlled and killed off at requirement by the players (using game currency), I think a GoT-style story could work well with Universalis.</p><p></p><p>And, for what [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is apparently looking for, HârnMaster would work well. There is a reason that the published Hârn adventures tend heavily toward the detective mystery, social "situation" and "day in the life" type topics. Fighting in HM tends to be very deadly, so it tends to happen as the climax of a tense resolution, rather than as a commonplace, in scenarios for the system that work. This isn't due to contrivance - it's just that characters tend to be "out of it" for a while after combat happens, which means that fighting generally happens "at the end" - whether that "end" is a climax or an anticlimax...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6299216, member: 27160"] OK, but my experience is that leads to one of two requirements, in D&D. Either (a) the opposition to the PCs has to be extraordinarily deficient in "merit", or (b) the PCs die a lot, simply due to the expression of the law of large numbers. What is actually required for a "PCs win only on merit against challenging foes" system is that the most common form(s) of conflict should not end with one side dying. I have never found that D&D - because of it's stated objective of being a game about "adventurers" - handles situations with an abundance of such conflicts well. "Action Adventure" movies are well known for having contrived scripts and exceptionally fragile "mooks" for just this same reason. Our conception of "adventurers" as people who cheerfully face deadly challenges on an everyday basis, while a fun conceit for entertainment purposes, actually flies in the face of reality on several levels. If we want a harsh light of "reality" in terms of equality of opposition and likelihood of death, we have to pick other genres of video entertainment, such as soap operas, social dramas or investigative stories. The same is true of RPGs. On the "Game of Thrones" question, the RPG system best suited to that sort of play seems to me to be Universalis. With no GM and characters built, controlled and killed off at requirement by the players (using game currency), I think a GoT-style story could work well with Universalis. And, for what [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is apparently looking for, HârnMaster would work well. There is a reason that the published Hârn adventures tend heavily toward the detective mystery, social "situation" and "day in the life" type topics. Fighting in HM tends to be very deadly, so it tends to happen as the climax of a tense resolution, rather than as a commonplace, in scenarios for the system that work. This isn't due to contrivance - it's just that characters tend to be "out of it" for a while after combat happens, which means that fighting generally happens "at the end" - whether that "end" is a climax or an anticlimax... [/QUOTE]
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