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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8300244" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>My interest in skilled play as an agenda arises in the following fashion: there are some RPGs that <em>won't work properly</em>, as in, <em>will deliver unhappy play experiences</em>, if not approached in the spirit of - which is to say, <em>with an orientation towards</em> - playing with technical skill.</p><p></p><p>What the technical skill is may vary from game to game. The Gygaxian skills of patient, imaginative engagement with architecture and geography are the best known, I think. As I've been blathering on about a bit, I've recently discovered an obscure RPG - The Green Knight - that rests on a very different set of skills. (There's an argument that they're less technical than some gameplaying skills; but they still demand adopting author rather than actor stance at some crucial moments.)</p><p></p><p>Because these RPGs put demands on the participants - referee/GM and players - that are different from what I'm typically looking for, it serves my interests as a RPGer to be able to identify and discuss them as a discrete category of game.</p><p></p><p>Why does The Green Knight demand technical skill in a way that Prince Valiant does not? A character in Prince Valiant who acts dishonourably is fair game for the GM in terms of scene-framing, and may even suffer debuffs in action resolution. But the player is fully able to keep playing, and the rules for the award of Fame (the system's analogue of XP) even discuss how dastardly as well as chivalrous acts can earn Fame as long as they are publicly known and hence generate notoriety.</p><p></p><p>Whereas a character in The Green Knight who commits dishonourable acts will soon end up with 20 Dishonour and lose the game. This is what happened to my girls when the played - they only made it through two encounters but couldn't go on. Whereas my other group were able to progress handily - some of that was because they had three rather than two PCs (which makes the maths of the game a bit easier) but mostly it was because of their skill as gameplayers and RPGers which meant they were able to quickly get a good grasp on the way the fiction and system interacted and thereby manage their Dishonour quite comfortably.</p><p></p><p>The loss conditions in classic D&D aren't quite as stark as The Green Knight - as well as the clear-cut zero hit points, there is the slighly more amorphous <em>having a largely boring time in the dungeon and leaving with little or no treasure</em>. But they're real nevertheless. Whereas Prince Valiant simply doesn't have loss conditions like this.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8300244, member: 42582"] My interest in skilled play as an agenda arises in the following fashion: there are some RPGs that [I]won't work properly[/I], as in, [I]will deliver unhappy play experiences[/I], if not approached in the spirit of - which is to say, [I]with an orientation towards[/I] - playing with technical skill. What the technical skill is may vary from game to game. The Gygaxian skills of patient, imaginative engagement with architecture and geography are the best known, I think. As I've been blathering on about a bit, I've recently discovered an obscure RPG - The Green Knight - that rests on a very different set of skills. (There's an argument that they're less technical than some gameplaying skills; but they still demand adopting author rather than actor stance at some crucial moments.) Because these RPGs put demands on the participants - referee/GM and players - that are different from what I'm typically looking for, it serves my interests as a RPGer to be able to identify and discuss them as a discrete category of game. Why does The Green Knight demand technical skill in a way that Prince Valiant does not? A character in Prince Valiant who acts dishonourably is fair game for the GM in terms of scene-framing, and may even suffer debuffs in action resolution. But the player is fully able to keep playing, and the rules for the award of Fame (the system's analogue of XP) even discuss how dastardly as well as chivalrous acts can earn Fame as long as they are publicly known and hence generate notoriety. Whereas a character in The Green Knight who commits dishonourable acts will soon end up with 20 Dishonour and lose the game. This is what happened to my girls when the played - they only made it through two encounters but couldn't go on. Whereas my other group were able to progress handily - some of that was because they had three rather than two PCs (which makes the maths of the game a bit easier) but mostly it was because of their skill as gameplayers and RPGers which meant they were able to quickly get a good grasp on the way the fiction and system interacted and thereby manage their Dishonour quite comfortably. The loss conditions in classic D&D aren't quite as stark as The Green Knight - as well as the clear-cut zero hit points, there is the slighly more amorphous [I]having a largely boring time in the dungeon and leaving with little or no treasure[/I]. But they're real nevertheless. Whereas Prince Valiant simply doesn't have loss conditions like this. [/QUOTE]
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