Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8299151" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think you are somewhat reversing cause and effect here. Or at least neglecting the role of time and hence of development and learning.</p><p></p><p>Traveller is published in 1977 (I'm working from what I think is a second printing). Burning Wheel revised is published in 2005 (at least, that's the date on my third printing). Any attempt to compare the way the games state their rules, including principles and techniques, has to have regard to that fact.</p><p></p><p>In the early days of RPGing the rules were not complete. This is because (i) assumptions were made about the expectations that would be brought to the game, and/or (ii) the designers simply didn't notice all the rules they were using, and/or (iii) they didn't know how to reduce those rules to writing. And a further important (iv) was that there were received expectations about how to state the role of the referee (received from wargaming and from D&D).</p><p></p><p>Hence Traveller both (a) tells us that the role of the referee is to administer the rules for a consistent world, similar to a wargame or free kriegsspiel referee, and (b) tells us (in various somewhat elliptical ways) that the role of the referee is to provide interesting situations that will incite the players to action. Presumably Marc Miller didn't actually believe he was doing both these inconsistent things. But it seems he didn't know how to write down what he was doing. It may even be that he was <em>embarrassed</em> to say too much about the <em>instigating </em>role of the referee precisely because this would conflict with received understandings of how a wargame referee should behave. (Ron Edwards talks about a similar problem in some early self-consciously "story now" RPGs, like Prince Valiant, <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html" target="_blank">in this essay</a>, under the somewhat unfortunate label of "the timid virgin".)</p><p></p><p>Looking at the rulebook that I've just taken out of my backgammon set, it has a diagram that tells us how to set up the game board, together with some explanatory text, and then it tells us "the object of the game" which is to move one's pieces around the board in the direction from one's opponent's inner table to one's own. It then sets out the detailed rules of play (ie for rolling, moving, hitting and bringing pieces back into play) before getting on to bearing off. It then tells us that a game is won when either players bears off all of his/her pieces first.</p><p></p><p>What is missing in Traveller is a statement of the overall goal of play (is it to imagine life in the Far Future? to experience exciting stories of the Far Future? - the game's subtitle is Science Fiction Adventure in the Far Future, but it's not clear how well get to <em>adventure </em>if the referee is simply a neutral arbiter); and any explanation of how the game is to be set up (there are rules for PC gen, and there are rules for random encounters including random patron encounters, but there is nothing analogous to the "first session" rules in AW and DW, or the analogous rules for setting up the starting situation found in Baker's In A Wicked Age); and if we think of action resolution as the counterpart of moving, hitting and re-entering in backgammon, those rules are incomplete too (eg what is the referee expected to say happens next if a check fails - more generally, what is the place of failed checks in the context of Science Fiction Adventure in the Far Future?).</p><p></p><p>The reason that Luke Crane's rulebook addresses these matters with a degree of thoroughness and consistency that is missing from Classic Traveller isn't that the need was any greater; but rather than (i) he was <em>aware of </em>the need, and (ii) had the benefit of 25+ years of thinking about what actually addressing them would look like. An important part of (ii) was the he could abandon the wargame inheritance of "neutral referee" without shame or awkwardness.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8299151, member: 42582"] I think you are somewhat reversing cause and effect here. Or at least neglecting the role of time and hence of development and learning. Traveller is published in 1977 (I'm working from what I think is a second printing). Burning Wheel revised is published in 2005 (at least, that's the date on my third printing). Any attempt to compare the way the games state their rules, including principles and techniques, has to have regard to that fact. In the early days of RPGing the rules were not complete. This is because (i) assumptions were made about the expectations that would be brought to the game, and/or (ii) the designers simply didn't notice all the rules they were using, and/or (iii) they didn't know how to reduce those rules to writing. And a further important (iv) was that there were received expectations about how to state the role of the referee (received from wargaming and from D&D). Hence Traveller both (a) tells us that the role of the referee is to administer the rules for a consistent world, similar to a wargame or free kriegsspiel referee, and (b) tells us (in various somewhat elliptical ways) that the role of the referee is to provide interesting situations that will incite the players to action. Presumably Marc Miller didn't actually believe he was doing both these inconsistent things. But it seems he didn't know how to write down what he was doing. It may even be that he was [I]embarrassed[/I] to say too much about the [I]instigating [/I]role of the referee precisely because this would conflict with received understandings of how a wargame referee should behave. (Ron Edwards talks about a similar problem in some early self-consciously "story now" RPGs, like Prince Valiant, [url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html]in this essay[/url], under the somewhat unfortunate label of "the timid virgin".) Looking at the rulebook that I've just taken out of my backgammon set, it has a diagram that tells us how to set up the game board, together with some explanatory text, and then it tells us "the object of the game" which is to move one's pieces around the board in the direction from one's opponent's inner table to one's own. It then sets out the detailed rules of play (ie for rolling, moving, hitting and bringing pieces back into play) before getting on to bearing off. It then tells us that a game is won when either players bears off all of his/her pieces first. What is missing in Traveller is a statement of the overall goal of play (is it to imagine life in the Far Future? to experience exciting stories of the Far Future? - the game's subtitle is Science Fiction Adventure in the Far Future, but it's not clear how well get to [I]adventure [/I]if the referee is simply a neutral arbiter); and any explanation of how the game is to be set up (there are rules for PC gen, and there are rules for random encounters including random patron encounters, but there is nothing analogous to the "first session" rules in AW and DW, or the analogous rules for setting up the starting situation found in Baker's In A Wicked Age); and if we think of action resolution as the counterpart of moving, hitting and re-entering in backgammon, those rules are incomplete too (eg what is the referee expected to say happens next if a check fails - more generally, what is the place of failed checks in the context of Science Fiction Adventure in the Far Future?). The reason that Luke Crane's rulebook addresses these matters with a degree of thoroughness and consistency that is missing from Classic Traveller isn't that the need was any greater; but rather than (i) he was [I]aware of [/I]the need, and (ii) had the benefit of 25+ years of thinking about what actually addressing them would look like. An important part of (ii) was the he could abandon the wargame inheritance of "neutral referee" without shame or awkwardness. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants
Top