I apologize for being imprecise. I should have said that in the BW example the character's political affiliation was determined by a game mechanic, rather than by a roll.
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I apologize if by not mentioning your examples I came across as not valuing your contribution to the thread.
Thanks for the apologies, which really are above and beyond!
I wasn't worried about being undervalued (a colleague at an old workplace use to refer to my "healthy sense of self-regard"), but am keen to bring the discussion into serious territory that hopefully can be more productive.
As
@Campbell appeared to be questioning if there were any references to "mood tables" in the thread, referencing a small number of pertinent examples of the sorts of mechanics
@Oofta was referring to seemed sufficient.
I think the "mood tables" is intended as a reference to
@loverdrive's PbtA move posted upthread - it's the only thing mentioned that looks even remotely like a table - but that's still a gross mischaracterisation. I've pointed to Wuthering Heights as coming closer to having "mood" rules, but no one seems to have followed up on that. In that spirit of howling into the wind,
here's a link to my Wuthering Heights actual play experience, which shows how that system played out for me and two friends.
I stated there is a clear demarcation between mechanics that affect the character physically, and mechanics that determine the character's internal mental state. In the sense that you can (I think*) describe any mechanic, and we would probably all agree on which side of the line it lay.
I don't think I agree with this. In 4e D&D the Deathlock Wight has a Horrific Visage which causes psychic damage and a push (ie the victim recoils in horror). Is that mental or physical? In Rolemaster Companion III (published 1988), the Depression Critical Strike table has the following result for a 46-50 'A' crit result:
Stunned for 5 rounds. Mild depression. -5 to all actions for 1 minute. Is that mental or physical? In Burning Wheel a character who takes more than a superficial wound has to make a Steel check. If the check is failed, and the hit was to the arm, the character drops whatever they were holding; if to the leg, the character falls either to one knee or prone (depending on the degree of failure of the Steel check). Is that mental or physical?
I think insisting on a strong mental/physical divide can pose significant issues both for RPG design and RPG adjudication.
I don't think it is banal in this case because we're not talking about the fiction we're talking about your reaction to the fiction. It's not make-believe about your character, it's (as I understand it) make-believe about you.
If I find out that you have a fear of abandonment and a hair-trigger temper, I would definitely count that as "learning" or "discovering" something about you.
But if it turns out that my D&D character has those same characteristics (regardless of whether it was decided by myself, somebody else, or a lifepath generator) then I just don't personally see that as "learning" or "discovering" anything, regardless of it's source, except in the (banal) sense that I didn't know it in the moments before it was decided. But it's not like that truth previously existed* and I'm only now learning it.
And maybe it's a super cool bit of fiction, and I'll lean into that fiction with my roleplaying. But just because somebody else made it up doesn't really make it feel different to me. I didn't learn anything about my character.
And I can agree that maybe it's something I wouldn't have thought of myself, so there is value in having other people (or mechanics) contributing to the project every now and then. I can see the argument for why one might want character creation/development driven by something other than just the player. But other than, perhaps, minor annoyance if I don't like the feature that has been imposed upon me, it's all the same to me; I just don't see significant difference between character traits I choose and those that are given to me. I still didn't learn anything about my character.
This is the part I just don't get. What am I not understanding?
I can only speak for myself. And perhaps am drifting into repetition.
It's true that all RPGing is concerned with shared fictions - as
@Ovinomancer said, that's banal. But there are multiple ways of encountering a fiction about one's character. One can author it. One can be told it by someone else. And - in RPGing - one can have it generated via a process that is not quite either, or rather, is a type of authorship that is not the immediate result of anyone's intentions.
A simple set of examples, where the fiction is about my PC falling:
* I can declare, speaking as my PC, I jump over the edge - eg I'm a high level fighter in the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and think I have a better chance of surviving the fall than beating the approaching giants.
* The GM can declare The ground beneath you gives way, and suddenly you're falling - eg the GM has determined that I've stepped on and triggered a pit trap. I did this once as adjudication of a skill challenge failure, GMing 4e D&D.
* Another way the preceding example might happen, but with less GM decision-making: the system is classic D&D; the GM has written up the dungeon map and key, which includes notes about a concealed pit trap in a corridor; the player declares movement for their PC which means they walk directly over the concealed pit trap; the GM, by reference to the prepared map and key, declares the ground beneath you gives way and suddenly you're falling.
* A roll-based resolution process can generate the result You fall over the edge without anyone at the table deciding, in the moment, that this is what will happen. An example: the system is 4e D&D; the current setting is the Glacial Rift; the PC is adjacent to the edge of the rift; the GM rolls a hit for a frost giant that has a Push 1 effect; the player fails the saving throw that is permitted for forced movement into damaging terrain; thus, the PC falls over the edge.
Any and all of these can be exciting. But when I choose to jump, the excitement
form me is probably not so much
that I'm falling but rather
will I survive? When the GM decides that the PC falls, as in my skill challenge example, that can be shocking or exciting for the player but it wasn't for me as GM, because I'd already decided it was going to happen. In the dungeon-crawling case the GM has less leeway but is still not going to be surprised: they authored the pit. Part of the point of dice roll resolution, at least it seems to me, is that everyone can be caught by surprise: the interplay of decisions, established fiction, and mechanical constraints dictates new outcomes.
Emotional/social aspects of resolution can be similarly varied:
* I decide that my PC is keen on another character - eg in my Prince Valiant game the player of Sir Justin and the player of Sir Morgath both decided their PCs were keen on the Lady Violette, and they competed for her hand.
* The GM decides that my PC is keen on another character - eg this happened in my Prince Valiant game, when I used the Incite Lust effect on Sir Morgath as he rescued Lady Lorette of Lothian and carried her in his arms. The player had seen it coming, but was steeling himself to succeed on an opposed check: he hadn't necessarily anticipated the fiat Special Effect.
* A check is made to determine how I respond to another character, or the parameters of that response - eg in Prince Valiant (again) when Lady Lorette appealed to Sir Gerren to lower the drawbridge so that she might enter the castle, I rolled her pool of Presence + Glamourie against Sir Gerren's Presence enhanced by 2 morale dice (for being a stalwart Marshall defending his castle against an advancing force). On the occasion Sir Gerren held firm; but later, when Lady Lorette tried to seduce him while they were out hunting, his resolve failed (ie the player rolled poorly). Which did not endear him to his (then) fiancée.
In Prince Valiant this is all fairly light-hearted and pulp-y. In a system like Burning Wheel, which doesn't have the middle option but does have the first and last, it's all a bit more serious and can be emotionally pretty demanding. As I tried to explain upthread with reference to the Steel mechanic, the aim of the BW systems is to make you as the player of your character feel the same sense of emotional pull and weight that your character is feeling in the fiction. This includes, at least in principle (of course different tables will have different views about the limits of good taste) the possibility of being seduced by someone who you wouldn't have expected to fall for.
So for me, the difference across different methods is mostly about the
experience that accompanies the establishing of the fiction. What does it make me feel? How does it bind me deeper into the inhabitation of my character?
