The D&D Experience (or, All Roads lead to Rome)

[BryonD]

expound on something??!!??)

And you know, being asked to explain it to you for the 28th time now so that next week you can again claim that the point has never been made gets really old.

 

[BryonD]

And if you can't come up with ingame reasons why jumping won't work - the chasm's too wide, the wind too strong, the ground too slippery, the PC's legs too tired, etc, etc - then you probably shouldn't be playing that game.

True.

Also, if you want the mechanics to do what the narrative says and not be required to make up narrative to do what the mechanics say, then, this also is a very good reason not to play that game.

A lot of people make this very sound choice.

 

[pemerton]

He never said that, only that your metagame mechanics should not violate the physics you imagine for your game world.

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.

If there is a choice between a mechanic that causes absurd results, and one that does not do so, you should obviously choose the least absurd unless you're in it for comedy.

Because an absurd mechanic, sooner or later, leads to absurd interpretation simply because, if the mechanic is absurd, all of the non-absurd interpretations rely on things such as unlikely coincidence, which become absurd as they pile up.

<snip>

The point of role-assumption is not to make choices on the basis of an over-arching narrative, but to make choices based upon the role assumed.

<snip>

So, again, if there is a choice between a mechanic that causes absurd results, and one that does not do so, you should obviously choose the least absurd unless you're in it for comedy.

I'm not sure what is being asserted here. The most natural reading, for me, entails that HeroWars/Quest, or even The Riddle of Steel, is not a RPG, or is at odds with the point of a RPG. Is that's what is intended?

Why do I say that this entailment holds? Because in both those games, in a swordfight, how well a PC does against an NPC will depend, in part, on the relationship (emotional/spiritual/political/etc) between PC and NPC. And not because the designers of the game think that, in the world according to its physics, connections produce toughter sword swings. It's because part of the point of both games is to reflect the significance of emotional/spiritual/political stakes directly in the mechanics.

On the issue of absurdity - there is nothing absurd about 3 jump cards. It is completely conceivable that an adventurer might succeed at overcoming only 3 challenges per day/session/encounter/etc by jumping - because all the other chasms are too big, or too wet on the approach, or the adventurer is too fatigued, or whatever. In a game based on jump card, part of the point of the game is to require players and GM to produce narrations that explain these ingame constraints that bring the world of the game into conformity with the metagame-determined possibilities. This applies equally to narrating the relationship-influenced swordfight described above - in a fight in which the PC is doing better because of the augment provided by relationship attributes (in HeroWars/Quest) or by Spiritual Attributes (in TRoS), the ingame situation has to be described as one in which that PC strikes truer, or harder, or luck turns against the foe and the NPC slips, or fails to parry, or . . .

And yes, this may require the player to adopt the position of author rather than actor (for anyone interested in a sophisticated discussion of various stances in an RPG, and how they related to immesion, see here). But it doesn't follow from that that the game is absurd or not a RPG.

That's why I asked earlier, when it was said that a RPG should do this or that, the assertion was that it should do this, if Raven Crowking (or Pawsplay, or whomever) is to enjoy it - which I have no reason to doubt is true - or if the assertion was that if it doesn't do this it is failing as a RPG - which I have no reason to suppose is true, given that many great RPGs don't handle physical interactions in the gameworld by using mechanics that model those interactions, but instead by using mechanics that set the constraints of narrating ingame events.

 

[pemerton]

True.

Also, if you want the mechanics to do what the narrative says and not be required to make up narrative to do what the mechanics say, then, this also is a very good reason not to play that game.

A lot of people make this very sound choice.

BryonD, I've never said that your game is half-baked or that you're delusional in thinking it can deliver a satisfying RPG experience.

I'm not saying that now.

I'm just trying to defend my game against the accusation that it is half-baked or that I am delusional.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm not sure what is being asserted here. The most natural reading, for me, entails that HeroWars/Quest, or even The Riddle of Steel, is not a RPG, or is at odds with the point of a RPG. Is that's what is intended?

No.

Why do I say that this entailment holds? Because in both those games, in a swordfight, how well a PC does against an NPC will depend, in part, on the relationship (emotional/spiritual/political/etc) between PC and NPC. And not because the designers of the game think that, in the world according to its physics, connections produce toughter sword swings. It's because part of the point of both games is to reflect the significance of emotional/spiritual/political stakes directly in the mechanics.

And there's your physics. As long as it produces the intended results, you're golden.

On the issue of absurdity - there is nothing absurd about 3 jump cards. It is completely conceivable that an adventurer might succeed at overcoming only 3 challenges per day/session/encounter/etc by jumping - because all the other chasms are too big, or too wet on the approach, or the adventurer is too fatigued, or whatever.

It's absurd because the ease of jumping depends on how many times you do it. It would not be absurd of the number "jump cards" somehow scaled to your character's narratively-presumed ability or deservingness. The limited number of jump cards in a narration-heavy game is problematic for the exact same reason that a flat 50% chance for everyone to make a jump is problematic in a simulation-test-heavy game; the chance of success doesn't have to do with... anything. Except some arbitrary notion arrived at by the designer.

 

[Raven Crowking]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]: Pawsplay has already covered this pretty well, but I would like to add that your "most natural reading" seems to indicate something to do with the correspondence between role assumption (what I wrote about) and whether or not something is a role-playing game.

You seem to be inferring that if a game has elements that interfere with, or counter, role-assumption, that it is not or cannot be a role-playing game. You then seem to wish to shift that inference on to others (myself in particular).

But that inferrence is your own, sir.

As far as mechanics which lead to absurd results ("That's the fifth nuke this week that's acted...strangely!"), I fully stand by my statement. IF your goal is not comedy, THEN you should avoid them. You may not be able to for other reasons; for example, playability might force you to accept a degree of potential absurdity. You might also be going for comedy (Toon, Paranoia, some beer & pretzels D&D), or you might disagree that being able to jump successfully only three times per day is absurd.


RC

 

[BryonD]

BryonD, I've never said that your game is half-baked or that you're delusional in thinking it can deliver a satisfying RPG experience.

I'm not saying that now.

I'm just trying to defend my game against the accusation that it is half-baked or that I am delusional.

How does this respond or in any way relate to what I said?

 

[BryonD]

On the issue of absurdity - there is nothing absurd about 3 jump cards. It is completely conceivable that an adventurer might succeed at overcoming only 3 challenges per day/session/encounter/etc by jumping - because all the other chasms are too big, or too wet on the approach, or the adventurer is too fatigued, or whatever. In a game based on jump card, part of the point of the game is to require players and GM to produce narrations that explain these ingame constraints that bring the world of the game into conformity with the metagame-determined possibilities.

I have negative interest in playing in a game that works the way you describe here. You like it. That is cool.


"Absurd" is kinda a loaded word. But will you at least agree that this is a perfect example of the narrative being forced to obey the mechanics?

Why are there three cards? Because of some narrative basis? No, the premise of the discussion is that this is a mechanical constraint.

What if a character spends twenty consecutive days in a hilly, region with lots of chasms. And every day he finds the need to jump over chasms frequently. Would it not get funny to you that it always becomes impossible to jump after three successes? If you were reading a book or watching a show and that pattern appeared, would you not find that odd?

What if someone needed to jump the same two chasms five times a day for twenty days? Does being forced to invent a constant reasons why not ever start to seem contrary to the point of a role playing game?

It does to me. It does in a real hurry. If there IS a reason, then cool, there is a reason. But running out of cards which have zero implicit narrative meaning being a justification becomes, in my view, something that could reasonably be called absurd.

If you were going to write a novel, would you put this kind of constraint on the action?

I guess "absurd" strongly depends on context. If you WANT to play a game with this type of constraint, then NOT using them would be absurd. But if you want to play a narrative dominant RPG, then forcing this kind of mechanical dominance onto it would be absurd. The two sides can both exist.

I see you saying it is ok because there *could* be reasons why someone couldn't jump more than three times. But, no one is disputing that there could be reasons. (And you keep suggesting the problem is related to having trouble making up reasons. I assure you that is way off the mark. I am quite confident that pawsplay and RC could give you a list of 100 unique reasons for not being able to jump if they felt motivated, and I know I could.)

But, the thing is, just as there *could* be reasons that no more than three occur in a specific given day, there *could* also be reasons that four, or eight, or nineteen are possible in that day. We are not saying that a limit of three can't happen. But you are saying that any number exceeding three can't happen. You are the one eliminating possibilities and saying that no justification which *allows* jumping more than three times may be included. We have all of the above, lets see what makes sense at the time. You have a prejudged absolute of three before your players ever open their mouths.

We don't look at the world as arbitrarily deterministic.

There is the old, very basic concept. You flip a normal coin three times and get heads all three times. What is the odds of getting heads on the fourth flip? The correct answer is 50%. In your game the odds of a fourth heads is 0% because you have used up the three heads for the day. You can make up reasons why it keeps landing on tails the rest of the day. I can too. But I REALLY don't want to.

And just as each coin flip is independent, it is very rational for each jump to be independent. A guy jumps four times in a row and you want to declare him too tired on the fourth. Cool. A guy jumps three times in a row, rests for five hours and tries to make an easier jump. Your system demands that he can't. Yes, you can invent a reason. But the reality of your system is that that events are not independent. You are making up a reason NOT because your understanding of the narrative makes that right, but because this coin flip is not independent of the three other, otherwise remote and unrelated coin flips.

Your correct claim that non-absurd narrative justifications can be shoe-horned back onto the mechanical demands does nothing to change that the non-independence of events carries a level of absurdity with it.

Again, if you WANT that game experience, then for THAT game experience there is nothing absurd about it. Your approach is absolutely a role playing game experience. Immersion is absolutely possible by your approach.
But I don't buy the idea that arbitrary mechanical dominance provides the same opportunity for quality of narrative experience. If narrative immersion was the true top goal, then forgetting mechanics as much as possible would be a key part of pursuing that goal. That is NOT a claim that narrative immersion over mechanics is better, more fun, or any of that. But it is a claim that you can't have it both ways.

 

[Lalato]

I still don't understand what all this talk regarding jump cards is about. Seems like a great debate about nothing. Are the jump cards supposed to represent Vancian magic? If so, then I guess I'm getting it.

If someone could actually talk about the thread topic... that would be great.

 

[LostSoul]

BryonD, I think that's a good summation of why someone would avoid a game like Prime Time Adventures.

For me, I can see why having a "Jump x 3" resource would work for a specific game, and why it wouldn't work at all for another game. I changed Martial Encounter Powers to work off of fictional triggers instead of once per encounter in my 4E hack because I wanted a specific sort of game. I can see why once per encounter can work better for the assumed game play of 4E.

I guess that's why I think that mechanics should satisfy one goal: forcing players to make the kinds of choices that the game is about. Fictional triggers do that in my game. They wouldn't in another.

That's also why I think talk about "metagame" mechanics is kind of pointless; all mechanics work at the player - the metagame - level. Mechanics enable players to make choices that have different values. The key is to make sure that your mechanics allow players to make the kinds of choices that they want to make. I think all successful RPGs do this; AD&D is full of these kinds of mechanics, as is PTA and Star Wars d6 and Mage (some games I've had experiences with).

edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to ask! ByronD, I have a lot of trouble understanding your posts - a failure of mine, I think because what we want from RPGs is fundamentally different. (RC has no problem understanding your posts, and his explanations of your posts clear up everything to me - but that might be because I've met RC in real life, and I know where he's coming from. Discussion over the internets is difficult!)

My question is simple: I'm not sure what you mean by "narrative". How does that work in terms of an RPG?