System matters and free kriegsspiel

[Numidius]

I guess I could as, is Prince Valiant FKR? Or FKR-adjacent?

I'll try. Do players need to take into account extra diegetic, out of fiction stuff, looking at their char sheets, rules, follow procedures, in order to play the game?
If yes, then no FKR.

 

[aramis erak]

Why are vegans wasting their time asking about something they don't like and won't like? Do they think the steak eaters are having badwrongfun?

To be blunt, Some definitely do. Both the metaphorical and the literal. But the metaphor is problematic.

In Alaska, and several other US states, "Vegan" has huge sociopolitical baggage which isn't comparable to the Traditional RPG crowd, nor, largely, to the storygame crowd, either. Many people in Alaska claiming to be vegan are very political about animal rights, and also tend to be animal rights activists, especially in Alaska, where most families consume game meat or game fish at least monthly. And many of those moved to Alaska specifically to object to the hunting, fishing, commercial meat, commercial dairy, and commercial fishing industries.

Oregon it's less so... but still, many who stick to the vegan "No animal products in my food" do get hostile reactions, especially if east of I-5...

Back to the gaming side.

Ignoring the bad metaphor... All 6 or 7 playstyle camps have their extremists who think the others are doing it wrong and are a bad influence on the industry, and some of that subset in each preach that.

Personally, I don't like FKR, and don't trust GMs who don't want me knowing the rules. I think Gygax's rule zero should definitely go the **** away as bad. I have no issue with groups agreeing to modified rules; I run my houserules changes past groups before using them. I want players to make decisions on game state issues every bit as much as on story state issues.

Are they doing it wrong? No. But often, they're describing it wrong.

Design cannot not matter. FKR is game design. There's no avoiding it. Stating it's not design is like saying fish aren't matter.

And this is highlighting a problem with the OSR crowd, the ultralight rules crowd, and the FKR crowd: The appearance of self-delusion by the adherents. Many of them can't or won't engage on a meaningful level in terms that Trad and/or Storygamers can grok. Or (as we've seen in thread) give answers that are meaningful only to their in-group, but meaningless outside.

 

[S'mon]

I'm ok with it, but it's nice to know certain things. As a Vulcan I'd know how reliable my nerve pinch is, for example. Sure, in the show it just works but the GM might feel that a roll is required. As a player these things are good to know, and not for some gamey reason, but for a sense of how my world works.

I think as a player I'd understand that my attempt at a Nerve Pinch won't necessarily succeed, but I'd expect that if I successfully get in position & apply a nerve pinch to an unaware human, the human will collapse. So I'd expect any conflict resolution roll (etc) to take place before the pinch is actually applied. If the GM lets me apply the pinch but then gives the human target a saving throw, that's going to take me out-of-genre and feel immersion breaking - ie, poor GMing.

If the GM says "OK Subcommander Tolok, you go to nerve pinch NPC Captain Kirk, but something warns him and at the last minute he twists aside, grabbing your arm!" - well that seems absolutely fine. If my 'Exalted Redshirt' or 'Dragon' Romulan Subcommander PC is going up against NPC Captain Kirk, I ought to have a pretty good idea of how things are likely to go down...

 

[S'mon]

Are they doing it wrong? No. But often, they're describing it wrong.

I feel like I've made some pretty good attempts to describe what I do, only to be repeatedly stonewalled by at least one poster (to the extent I've now had to add to my ignore list). The feeling of repeatedly bashing head against brick wall is no fun.

Is it surprising that different people with different play goals may use the same or similar words to describe different things? And that this can lead to misunderstandings? That seems perfectly normal & to be expected, to me. What I struggle with is when people refuse to allow those misunderstandings to be resolved, and keep doubling down on them even when the other side says "No, that's not what we/they meant at all".

 

[aramis erak]

I feel like I've made some pretty good attempts to describe what I do, only to be repeatedly stonewalled by at least one poster (to the extent I've now had to add to my ignore list). The feeling of repeatedly bashing head against brick wall is no fun.

Is it surprising that different people with different play goals may use the same or similar words to describe different things? And that this can lead to misunderstandings? That seems perfectly normal & to be expected, to me. What I struggle with is when people refuse to allow those misunderstandings to be resolved, and keep doubling down on them even when the other side says "No, that's not what we/they meant at all".

When a subgroup adopts a terminology to mean something different from the parent group, it's problematic. Ron Edwards being amonst the worst offenders on that score. Simply put, we'd all be better off if we had a common lexicon.
We don't, and that really doesn't reflect well on the minority/outlier sub-group when they use jargon in discussions with the wider audience.

 

[Numidius]

Do you have actual play you can post about?

Here are two Cthulhu Dark actual play posts, and one for Wuthering Heights (which I know you have seen).

The final line in the first Cthulhu Dark post is this: I don't think there's anything that CoC does that Cthulhu Dark can't do with a much smaller character sheet (name, occupation, and a sanity die in front of you) and a more powerful and flexible system.

To me, that seems consistent with what FKR people say. But maybe I've misunderstood them?

That's a step from rules medium/heavy to ultra light. There is another step from formalized ultra light to FKR.

Not necessarily because it needs even less rules, but because rules are not what is shaping the game a priori.

 

[Aldarc]

I'll try. Do players need to take into account extra diegetic, out of fiction stuff, looking at their char sheets, rules, follow procedures, in order to play the game?
If yes, then no FKR.

So if I look at my character sheet (likely just a note card) when playing Risus to remind myself how I ranked my clichés with dice does it stop becoming FKR?

 

[S'mon]

When a subgroup adopts a terminology to mean something different from the parent group, it's problematic. Ron Edwards being amonst the worst offenders on that score. Simply put, we'd all be better off if we had a common lexicon.
We don't, and that really doesn't reflect well on the minority/outlier sub-group when they use jargon.

What jargon are you thinking of, in the context of this thread?

Edit: I agree it's not good to take someone else's existing developed jargon/term-of-art, and use it to mean something else. Edwards did that when he twisted the GDS Threefold Model to create his GNS. And much woe was wreaked thereby. But I've not seen anything comparable here.

 

[Numidius]

So if I look at my character sheet (likely just a note card) when playing Risus to remind myself how I ranked my clichés with dice does it stop becoming FKR?

Yes.

Edit: Yeah, I think so. If your table relies on numbers of dice to inform their choices, and there is a formalized set of player facing rules they expect to follow in order to proceed in the game, then, as I understand it, it is not FKR.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes.

So Risus is not FKR? Or does its FKR status quantumly fluctuate based upon whether I am looking or not looking at my character sheet?