That paragraph deserves to be in the FRPG Designer's Bible.
The D&D Experience (or, All Roads lead to Rome)
- Thread starter Mercurius
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That paragraph deserves to be in the FRPG Designer's Bible.
I completely agree.
But I would like to embellish that even magical systems can suffer from arbitrariness, in-game and meta-game.
* * *
Welcome to the Dr Phyl Show! Today, we have a very special guest. He is a "living spell". Ladies and gents, please put your hands together for 'Beguiling Strands'.
Dr Phyl: So Beguiling Strands, you describe yourself as "strands of subtle magic that weave through your foes like a spider’s web".
BS: Yes, Dr Phyl, that's absolutely right. With all my scintillating colors and gleaming lights, I can really confuse people, you know? I can hurt them mentally, and they move away from me.
Dr Phyl: I see. Yet your first name is 'Beguiling', right? The definition of beguile is to deceive or charm. Yet you hurt and push people away from you. Don't you think your parents misnamed you?
BS: Now look here, I won't stand here idly while you criticize my parents. So maybe they misnamed me, so what?
Dr Phyl: Well, is that fair to you? When you introduce yourself, you're already giving the wrong impression. One might call them 'careless' in the way they named you.
BS: Careful, Phyl. I might just push you away.
Dr Phyl: Yes, let's discuss that-- your nature to always push people away from you. Now I've had flashlights shined in my face before. I've seen incoming car headlights. I might step back. I may cover my eyes and be dazzled for a moment. I might cower. I might run off the left or the right. Why is that you only and always feel the need to move people away from you? Why don't they react in other ways to your confusing lights?
BS: Are you calling me a one-trick pony!?
Dr Phyl: I don't know, ARE you a one-trick pony? I'm trying to visualize this, and I just don't understand it. Realistically, people have different reactions to the same stimuli. Yet you're the exception... have you met other magic lights before? Are they also so single-minded in their effects?
BS: I don't know. I never met any other lights, mundane or magical.
Dr Phyl: I see. So you're parents named you 'Beguiling' even though you're really not. They only taught you to do one single thing, over and over. And they never really compared you to other lights to see if you were reaching your natural potential. Is that a fair assessment?
BS: Hmm...
Dr Phyl: Is it possible to meet your parents and ask them why did this to you, why they put in this straightjacket, so to speak?
BS: No, you can't meet my parents. They are unreachable, and they are protected by a loyal legion of fans. I've never heard them acknowledge that kind of criticism.
Dr Phyl: That is unfortunate. I would like to free you from this self-constrained limitation. You have so much more in you to give to the world! You could move people up and down and left and right, if you just let yourself!
BS: NO! no! NO! All I can do is hurt and push. Hurt and push! That's all I want to do. That's all I will ever doooooooo....!!!!! [runs away, crying blue droplets of light]
Dr Phyl: That's it for today. Next time, I will interview another living spell, 'Hypnotism'. Hypnotism can seize momentary control of peoples' mind. You'd think that Hypnotism would revel in his almost unlimited potential. And yet, when Hypnotism invades someone's mind, he likes to do only one of exactly two things: attack somebody, or move. Why isn't Hypnotism more creative than that? Didn't his parents teach him to explore his full potential as an hypnotic power, or did they raise him to do only two arbitrary tasks? Is he misnamed? Is he a robot? I will try to find out!
Raven Crowking
First Post
Good stuff!
If you are playing a game which imposes metagame restrictions on the PC's actions, and you then play out those restrictions by putting statements of the metagame restrictions in the mouths of the PCs, then yes, you will get a silly game. Does anyone actually play this way?
In a game with metagame mechanics, it can be true both that in the gameworld, something is possible and that as the game is resolved, that thing will not happen, because some metagame constraint restricts what will happen in the fiction.
It doesn't both me that you don't want to play this sort of game. It does both me when you say that any playing of the game this way must be half-baked.
First, if jumping comes up so often in the game, it might be bad game design to issue only 3 "jump" tokens.
Second, if the players and GM aren't interested in coming up with narrations that explain why, in game, things are happening as they are, maybe they shouldn't play a game with metagame mechanics.
Also, with all due respect: I'm not the one who said you should enjoy the way I play. Rather, you're the one who said that the way I play must involve half-baked narration. It's your claim about the way I play that I'm disputing.
And now you're telling me that as well as half-baked, I'm delusional in thinking that I can play a game in which there is a separation between gameworld and metagame, and between PC and player, such that metagame constraints simply are not interpreted as reflecing particular facets of the ingame physics.
I suppose all the players of The Burning Wheel (with it's "let it ride" rule), HeroWars/Quest (which, like 4e, involves metagame constraints and requires interpretation of mechanical outcomes to be settled from moment to moment in play), Maelstrom Storytelling, etc, etc are delusional too!
Obviously the only non-delusional players are those who play with hard-core simulationist mechanics!
Are you really saying, then, that there cannot be a viable RPG that uses metagame mechanics to govern physical interaction?
Or by should do you mean should, if I'm going to play it?
And how much weight should I put on the word "model"? Obviously, a game which handles jump checks by issuing "jump" tokens has already decided not to have mechanics that model ingame physical systems, and instead to resolve jump checks by instead using a metagame mechanics to distribute the right to narrate whether or not any successful jump actually happens in the gameworld.
I'm pretty sure that you're not meaning to deliberately beg any questions or denigrate my playstyle. But this is a thread in which I'm being told that I'm delusional in thinking I can play a game with metagame mechanics that isn't half-baked in its narration!
pawsplay
Hero
He never said that, only that your metagame mechanics should not violate the physics you imagine for your game world.
Raven Crowking
First Post
Yep.
The degree to which this is not true is, by and large, the degree to which the players have to make decisions in spite of their roles, rather than because of their roles. I.e., they have to step outside of their role-based view of the game milieu and into the meta-game view in order to act in accordance with the rules.
RC
Pemetron, perhaps you extrapolated "delusional" to reflect on your entire 4E game, but I was referencing the jumping scenario only. I wrote earlier that I thought '3 jumping cards' was a bad example for carrying the entire weight of the argument, but you vouched for it, so I went with it all the way. Now I think it's falling apart over red herrings. Perhaps you should tackle the Beguiling Strands post instead? Also, please don't polarize the issue as either 4E-as-is or "hard-core simulationist mechanics". Nobody framed it that way.
Lalato
Adventurer
Can someone please explain to me where this jumping scenario comes from? This has me utterly confused.
As for Beguiling Strands. "A strand of scintillating colors and gleaming lights clouds your enemies minds and forces them to move away." That's the description in the compendium. The crunchy part of is that the enemies are pushed 3 squares and take some minor psychic damage.
I've always seen it as the enemies are so entranced by the strands that they follow it for a short distance. But the effect isn't powerful enough to lead them very far away. When they snap out of the trance, there is a psychic backlash that causes them to take a minor amount of damage.
I don't see what the problem is here... or why you bring it up as an example (of what?).
As for Beguiling Strands. "A strand of scintillating colors and gleaming lights clouds your enemies minds and forces them to move away." That's the description in the compendium. The crunchy part of is that the enemies are pushed 3 squares and take some minor psychic damage.
I've always seen it as the enemies are so entranced by the strands that they follow it for a short distance. But the effect isn't powerful enough to lead them very far away. When they snap out of the trance, there is a psychic backlash that causes them to take a minor amount of damage.
I don't see what the problem is here... or why you bring it up as an example (of what?).
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