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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8319384" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Right, so what you can do is note that traditional games combat systems GENERALLY (certainly 5e does, so let it be a given) handle this by providing extremely detailed process mechanics which provide costs, objective measures of progress/victory ([USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] calls them 'win cons', I probably should too) and a strong formalized version of the principles of play (IE no GM fudging die rolls etc. although even 5e gets pretty soft on that, so it is partly on DM's shoulders there).</p><p></p><p>So, way back in the early days (and here I am relying on 'I was there, I talked to game designers, hung out with them, playtested, and built a few non-published games of my own') this fact was noted. It was concluded that this highly detailed mechanics, rigid structure, attempting to get as close as practical gamist considerations would allow to an 'accurate model of reality' was going to produce that ineffable 'best possible RPG system'. Thus platform systems were born. And, to a degree, it can work. However, what was discovered was no one game could possibly encompass subsystems with all these characteristics which reasonably covered all the bases. Either the game became enormously complex and unwieldy, or you insufficiently constrained things and it devolved right back to pure GM fiat adjudication and nothing was gained. Again, the idea of a modular 'platform system' was, for a brief few years, touted as the cure. GURPS would have a module for EVERYTHING but you only ever needed to use the ones that mattered to your specific situation. They would be infinitely detailed and the referee was expected to provide all the 'grist' (IE stat blocks of NPCs equipment, maps, etc.) in the infinite detail required to make that work. It never really did work, GURPS and its ilk have largely faded, though the dream has never 100% died (I see that Cypher System is a reincarnation of this idea, it kind of disappoints me to see that Monte Cook has learned nothing from the last 40 years of RPG design). </p><p></p><p>ONLY when game designers finally came up with the fully fledged Story Game, a game which mediates the agenda and fictional desires of the participants and builds its resolution mechanics on THAT instead of 'action resolution' do you find games which escape from this conundrum which plagued us for about the first 20 years of RPG design. When games like Sorcerer finally appeared, which really is one of the earliest to fully articulate this concept, this was the beginning of the ability of an RPG to really handle any situation. </p><p></p><p>So, now, I could show you games, like PACE, which is IIRC about 8 pages long and most of that is explanatory and not really rules, that can do any genre, WITHOUT HACKING AT ALL. Absolutely any situation of any kind, whatsoever, can be handled in PACE. It makes no distinction at all. The process is pure, its fiction first, everything is explicit, a social situation, a combat, etc. They are all the same in essence and mechanics, and they are all just as definitively adjudicated under the rules, one as the other, with equal structure. </p><p></p><p>All that is left are genre, tone/texture/milieu, the specific agenda and principles that a given game is aimed at, and adjustments to the process and mechanics which operationalize those things. Conceptually all these games basically do the same thing. While you may SORT OF be able to achieve it on a limited basis in a traditional model RPG, you won't ever get an 8 page game which does that for every possible fiction the game can produce. It will simply never happen IMHO, and the vast catalog of actual RPGs which have been produced since 1974 bears me out on this. There are some games that are 'transitional' or 'on the edge', but they are distinctly non traditional IMHO.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8319384, member: 82106"] Right, so what you can do is note that traditional games combat systems GENERALLY (certainly 5e does, so let it be a given) handle this by providing extremely detailed process mechanics which provide costs, objective measures of progress/victory ([USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] calls them 'win cons', I probably should too) and a strong formalized version of the principles of play (IE no GM fudging die rolls etc. although even 5e gets pretty soft on that, so it is partly on DM's shoulders there). So, way back in the early days (and here I am relying on 'I was there, I talked to game designers, hung out with them, playtested, and built a few non-published games of my own') this fact was noted. It was concluded that this highly detailed mechanics, rigid structure, attempting to get as close as practical gamist considerations would allow to an 'accurate model of reality' was going to produce that ineffable 'best possible RPG system'. Thus platform systems were born. And, to a degree, it can work. However, what was discovered was no one game could possibly encompass subsystems with all these characteristics which reasonably covered all the bases. Either the game became enormously complex and unwieldy, or you insufficiently constrained things and it devolved right back to pure GM fiat adjudication and nothing was gained. Again, the idea of a modular 'platform system' was, for a brief few years, touted as the cure. GURPS would have a module for EVERYTHING but you only ever needed to use the ones that mattered to your specific situation. They would be infinitely detailed and the referee was expected to provide all the 'grist' (IE stat blocks of NPCs equipment, maps, etc.) in the infinite detail required to make that work. It never really did work, GURPS and its ilk have largely faded, though the dream has never 100% died (I see that Cypher System is a reincarnation of this idea, it kind of disappoints me to see that Monte Cook has learned nothing from the last 40 years of RPG design). ONLY when game designers finally came up with the fully fledged Story Game, a game which mediates the agenda and fictional desires of the participants and builds its resolution mechanics on THAT instead of 'action resolution' do you find games which escape from this conundrum which plagued us for about the first 20 years of RPG design. When games like Sorcerer finally appeared, which really is one of the earliest to fully articulate this concept, this was the beginning of the ability of an RPG to really handle any situation. So, now, I could show you games, like PACE, which is IIRC about 8 pages long and most of that is explanatory and not really rules, that can do any genre, WITHOUT HACKING AT ALL. Absolutely any situation of any kind, whatsoever, can be handled in PACE. It makes no distinction at all. The process is pure, its fiction first, everything is explicit, a social situation, a combat, etc. They are all the same in essence and mechanics, and they are all just as definitively adjudicated under the rules, one as the other, with equal structure. All that is left are genre, tone/texture/milieu, the specific agenda and principles that a given game is aimed at, and adjustments to the process and mechanics which operationalize those things. Conceptually all these games basically do the same thing. While you may SORT OF be able to achieve it on a limited basis in a traditional model RPG, you won't ever get an 8 page game which does that for every possible fiction the game can produce. It will simply never happen IMHO, and the vast catalog of actual RPGs which have been produced since 1974 bears me out on this. There are some games that are 'transitional' or 'on the edge', but they are distinctly non traditional IMHO. [/QUOTE]
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