Tropes that need to die

[howandwhy99]

Another one: the belief that playing a game is telling a story and best described in the vocabulary of literature. Not to mention the absolutist devotion and pejorative behaviors of said believers. The simple thought is so blindingly wrong it is difficult to know where to begin. A story is the expression of a pattern. Playing a game is the learning of this pattern through pattern recognition. Games are memory tests like puzzles.

 

[Mallus]

Another one: the belief that playing a game is telling a story and best described in the vocabulary of literature.

I'm quite fond of this one.

Not to mention the absolutist devotion and pejorative behaviors of said believers.

Can you show me on this doll where the Narrativist touched you?

A story is the expression of a pattern.

This sounds like literary criticism written by a robot (though it *is* smoking a Gauloises and wearing a beret!).

Playing a game is the learning of this pattern through pattern recognition. Games are memory tests like puzzles.

Most games are rather more, or at the very least can be described better than as mere memorization and pattern-recognition, no? Particularly RPG's, where success at a task can often be dependent on how amusing or outlandish the solution is/is described.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm quite fond of this one. Can you show me on this doll where the Narrativist touched you?

And that's fine, if you accept that your belief is a belief.

Most games are rather more, or at the very least can be described better than as mere memorization and pattern-recognition, no? Particularly RPG's, where success at a task can often be dependent on how amusing or outlandish the solution is/is described.

Mere and better? If you have a metric for judging this, you are already relying on patterns. RPGs, role playing as the act of recognizing human behavioral patterns and demonstrating this recognition, are best understood in the vocabulary of games rather than those of stories. Success in RPGs is correctly demonstrating such recognition. If the pattern is humor, than the game or portion thereof is about recognizing such. Outlandishness operates similarly.

To your other comment, how do you differentiate between robotic behavior and human behavior?

 

[jonesy]

If the pattern is humor, than the game or portion thereof is about recognizing such.

Any portion? How big of a portion?

Anything and everything is or has or can be seen as a pattern. When the pattern of a solution for a puzzle is what the players own imagination can create and the DM's imagination can accept then the scope of the pattern becomes so all-inclusive as to be meaningless and useless for defining anything.

Other than just your imagination.

 

[The Shaman]

Particularly RPG's, where success at a task can often be dependent on how amusing or outlandish the solution is/is described.

Some rpgs, yes.

Feng Shui is a roleplaying game, but all roleplaying games are not Feng Shui.

 

[WizarDru]

Feng Shui is a roleplaying game, but all roleplaying games are not Feng Shui.

DUDE. You just blew my mind.

 

[howandwhy99]

Any portion? How big of a portion?

Yes, any portion. As big as the portion within the borders of the game as created by the designer. As for any game the scope of these borders should be known by the players. This is delineated in the rule set.

Anything and everything is or has or can be seen as a pattern. When the pattern of a solution for a puzzle is what the players own imagination can create and the DM's imagination can accept then the scope of the pattern becomes so all-inclusive as to be meaningless and useless for defining anything.

Other than just your imagination.

Yes, everything is within a pattern. For a game, limiting the scope of the game's pattern only by the totality of human expression of those playing is a monumental task for a designer. Limiting scope to a social role or roles within the game is far easier.

 

[Barastrondo]

Beowulf doesn't need to out benchpress the Hulk to be impressive, nor need he be Aquaman. The emphasis of the poem -- what actually makes Beowulf impressive to the intended audience -- is that he does what he ought to do. And anyone can do what they ought, if they (like Beowulf) are willing to pay the price.

I know. But that's not what I'm talking about. The discussion of motivation, or of being challenged: those are entirely separate issues. I'm not talking about wanting fighters and non-supernatural characters to be the baddest guys in the room because that's the player motivation, or for power fantasy. I'm certainly not talking about jacking them up to hyperbolic levels like high-end superhero comics. I'm talking about them mechanically fitting the feel of the works they're inspired by. In many cases, ruling that they should be held to a specific plateau of "fantastic" while other characters in the same game world are not doesn't look right. That's why I don't support it as the rule.

All you have to do is to apply the same logic to Magic users: "Fireball" may just be a big Molotov cocktail, the "magic missile" was fired from a crossbow and Fly spells only work in special magic areas that yo will find once in your adventuring career. This is the type of wizard you would expect in a story with "realistic fighters", a Con Man that claims to have magic powers but is mostly bluff and bluster.

Sure. Like I said, I have no issue with handling things this way in a game where everyone's subject to comparable limitations. I mainly have some issues with the double standard.

 

[Umbran]

Ladies and gents,

It's okay to say that you don't like "magic shops" in game, or that you think the old saw of everyone meeting in a bar is so overdone as to make you nauseous. But when you get to the level of, "I think the way some others think about playing RPGs in general" should die, then you're leaning over the line into being kind of a jerk.

So, please, keep it short of telling others they're doing it wrong. Thanks.

 

[Lanefan]

It is powerful. But powerful and overpowered are two different things. Multiply all spellcasting times in 3E by a factor of ten and magic will still be powerful. And so will mages. But weapon wielders will have much more of a place.

Sorry, but no they won't.

Most spells in 3e have an effective casting time of 0, in that the casting both starts and resolves on the caster's initiative with extremely limited opportunity to interrupt.

Multiplying 0 by a factor of 10 still leaves ... 0.

That said, if spell casting in 3e actually *took* time - say, for an average spell you start casting on your initiative then take 5 or 10 or some arbitrary number off your initiative to determine when you resolve, with any intervening initiatives having an opportunity to interrupt you (and while you're at it do away with combat casting; if the caster is interrupted at all the spell is lost) - then you're on to something.

Lanefan