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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6361795" data-attributes="member: 4937">Ok.  So?  Relationship with the faction can be tracked in the same way and would have the same tangible benefit.  One could easily imagine complicating the Savage Tide situation by allowing the PC's to work for both sides, and working out the consequences of that.You don't need mechanics for anything.  You don't even need rules.  My kids play RPGs without formal rules all the time.  However, there are times that rules strengthen rather than detract from play.   There is fundamentally nothing wrong with the DM cataloging how various actions might strengthen or weaken a relationship with a faction, tracking that in terms of faction points, and using that as a guideline in how to roleplay a faction.   Could you just wing it?  Sure, but you could just wing combat too.Just off the top of my head, Fallout 2 features a section where you build up faction relationships with a group of competing crime families.  Most actions involving gaining points with one and losing them with another, but it was possible with a bit of planning to build up enough points with all three to become a 'made man' in all three families.  I'm quite sure its not a new concept.  Savage Tide was just the first time I'd seen a really compelling PnP implementation.  There may however be earlier examples I'm not aware of.  Anything intelligent is going to be inherently niche.  All while it may require a lot of intelligence to make an elegant and accessible game, I think it's ridiculous to arguing that accessible is the definition of smart.That's funny, because I find the reverse.  A game like Witcher2 or ME2 certainly presents the interaction in greater visual and audible richness and more nuanced acting by the NPCs', but in terms of richness of presentation I don't think we've topped some of the old school adventure games like 'The Longest Journey' or 'Grim Fandango'.  The graphics have more pixels in them and sometimes (but not always) the amount of script has increased, but that's about it.  And in terms of richness of the RP interface and depth of characterization, we stalled out at something like Torment: Planescape and have never yet bettered that.  I like ME2 as much as the next guy - I've got 150+ hours replaying the game as different classes - but honestly its a big step back from ME1 in terms of storytelling within a CRPG.   But even though the BG/P:T style interfaces work, they have a limitation that I don't think existed in the older text driven interfaces and that is they are basically telling you what to say and how to interact with someone.   They really bring front and center how limited our RP options are at present.  Fundamentally, you could only play one of two predetermined characters in the whole ME system, and it really wasn't possible to bring your own choices to the table.  ME1 is like watching a good science fiction summer blockbuster, but nothing brought out for me just how limited the RP options really were like replaying it and even more so seeing how little impact I was actually having in ME2.  ME3 only reinforced that.ME2 certainly dumbed down the system with reduced numbers of play styles, reduced choices, reduced open world, and a fixed rote episodic structure that really prevented the same richness of interaction you could have in ME1.  More characters with less meaningful interaction with each wasn't an improvement (the only ME2 character the equal of the ME1 characters was probably Mordin Solus, who I admit is great).  They had to simplify things in order to reach the console gamer crowd with its shorter attention span, simpler control interface, and narrower expectations concerning problem solving.So, 'fancy', yes I'd buy that.  But 'smart', not so much.If you are doing things no one else has ever done, that's a revolution.  I would have thought you would have wanted to argue how revolutionary DW is.  Actually, you did argue that DW was revolutionary.   More on that latter.I'm reserving judgment until I get actual experience with the game, but on first blush I can see my reaction to it going either way.  I agree however that its harder for an PnP to really dumb itself down because so much depends on the GM.   I like some of the goals, and I think the rules do a good job teaching GMing in a structured way that few if any games have attempted.   But rather its a smart game rather than just a smart designer, I'm not sure. I can't really control that.  I'm not faking anything.   I was genuinely surprised and didn't understand what you mean (or how it was even possible).  Turns out it appears you didn't mean what you said.  All this defensiveness sans an explanation makes it look like you are deflecting and moving the goal posts. Err... no.   It has to do with consequences of failure, and it need not be fiat if you mean by that 'without rule' rather than 'by rule'.  You are the one that said, "It is totally untrue that failure pushes you into more danger in other RPGs."  I think what you mean is that every fortune mechanic in a process simulation doesn't bring immediate important consequences, which is true.  One could argue that made each individual dice roll meaningful where it wasn't necessarily the case that every dice roll would be meaningful, but again that's mistaking small mechanical features for the core of play.  Having every fortune mechanic that fails lead to complication doesn't necessarily heighten the importance of avoiding failure, or necessarily implies greater encouragement to allow players to fail in their goals.  We have to step back from the picture a bit and see what it looks like after a few actions have been proposed.  Failing in a hack and slash and taking a negative consequence isn't inherently more consequential than failing to hit and then getting hit by a monster.   We could argue about elegance and speed of resolution, and those are important points, but they don't mean that one is more or less dangerous and tense than the other.Simple analysis?  Maybe you are making a mistake in assuming analysis is simple.  I don't agree you are doing a good job with yours.  Don't mistake individual rolls for the process.  DW encourages you to eliminate, "You both fail, so nothing happens."   Great for as far as that goes, but that doesn't imply that it is untrue that failure pushed you into more danger in older RPGs.    Actually I didn't claim I didn't like DW mechanics.  I claimed I had mixed feelings about the rules.  For example, I'm not sure I like the formal 'move' based structure.  I know why they did it, but I'm not sure I like it.  Fronts no more guarantee that you'll make a big impact on the world than playing an adventure path would.  They certainly are not a one word proof that DW inherently allows for a bigger impact on the world than any other game system.  (I suppose if you equated a published module with a system and then defined a system down to only that sorts of modules and styles of campaign, and then made a straw man of that, but then, that's back to your inability to compare equivalent parts...)  Fronts certainly are an interesting concept to organize your thoughts around and I like how they encourage the GM to make NPC's proactive rather than passive, but all of this is tangential to your thesis.    Your claim was, "In DW you make more impact on the world than old RPGs. Vastly more."  You did not say, "In DW you could sometimes make the same huge impact as you sometimes could in some RPGs", which is the proposition you are now defending.   You did not say, "In my experience with DW, you make more impact on the world than in the games I played 20 years ago.", which is presumably what you really meant.   You claimed that as an absolute fact, playing DW you'd make more impact on the game world than in old games, and based on my experience with old games if that was the truth, then I really really wanted to know what possibilities that it opened up that wasn't present in games I played or run because it lay outside the powers of my imagination to conceive what that great change was, but whatever it was, I wanted it in my games.Now you are just going, "Oh yeah, because... FRONTS!  Seriously, man, I can't explain it and oh yeah..uh... FRONTS!"Whatever.Well seeing as 100% of the RPGs I played 20 years ago had these things in 100% of the games, I'm really having a hard time understanding your math.  How is it much more likely than things that I had all the time?  What is your definition of 'sometimes'?  I don't think I was that atypical of old school play.   Of the 5 or so other groups I encountered prior to leaving high school, they were all doing mostly that same sort of thing often at epic scales.   My high school/college group played a D&D game where we not merely changed the political map of the FR through PC action, but actually changed the physical map as well, fought off alien invasions and settled alien worlds.   Later in college I talked to a player who'd been in a high concept D&D game that covered 1000's of years of game time, where the PC's were responsible for changing the climate, the rise and fall of empires, causing species to go extinct, and so forth.  Sepulchrave’s 'Tales of Wyre' sets an extremely high bar in terms of PC ability to impact a setting, but save for the fact that it reads like a game played by philosophy majors it's not that out of line of my experiences as a kid.  You are doing a very poor job of convincing me DW routinely tops that or anything else.</blockquote>

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