True 20 - Who here has played it, and what was your experience?

[Hjorimir]

Don't recall ever saying always, but by all means put words in my mouth.

Okay, so you're saying that you need to have a fallback? Which is it? If you don't need to have the fallback, why are you arguing that Conviction is a necessity (your words, I can go look up the quote if you'd prefer).

And of course the vast majority of Tr20 games will have it, fantasy or not. Right.

The base assumption is that the core rules form the foundation of the game. Sure, you could take the power out, but I've seen DMs do the same for Raise Dead in their campaigns.

And I do. What is it you'd like?

I'd like to express my opinion to influence characterization, which I did. I'm not sure of what your point was here.

Since I've yet to see anyone explain one, "whatever" indeed.

Because the game is enriched through characterization. It is a role-playing game. Gandalf was far more interesting as Gandalf than he would have been if he was played as Ian McKellan and the movie was enriched for his efforts.

Another reason, is that when characters are different from the players, which characterization establishes, it helps create objectivity and downplayes the sense of GM versus player. If I kill a player character it shouldn't be a big deal and certainly nothing that the player takes personally.

So I encouage strong characterization because I find it enjoyable for the above reasons.

There's a "whatever" for you.

 

[Jim Hague]

As I said, in this context I simply disagree; the issue is the net availability of the resource; whether its being reduced to Y value because of punishiment or increased to X value makes, in practice, no difference to the effect, or the reaction most people have to it.

Here's the thing - disagree all you like, Thomas, but punishment requires a punitive element, not a lack of reward. You can keep making up definitions all you like, but it's going to seriously damage any points you're trying to make if you go for the crazy moon language version of a word instead of the commonly-accepted definition.

Spycraft, originally, had some of the same issues you perceive...or so I thought. However, in play, the 'fix' (if it can be called such) is simple: reward prior to action. That encourages people to do what's in character for their playing piece. Further, the false problems you see are alleviated by something simple, like this:

"Well, I'd like to help the rest of the group get Timmy out of the well, bu Dr. Harris is too lazy to really lend a hand, so he's going to complain about his bad back instead."

In this case, Harris' Vice is that he's Lazy. With the simple incorporation of the Virtue and Vice in description, boom, problem solved.

 

[Thomas5251212]

Well, I don't think tabletop RPGs are workable without a fair bit of communication, anyway. Mind you, I could see an argument that since human beings are not, in general, very good at communication in the first place, adding anything else to communicate is perhaps an unnecessary and undesirable risk.

I'm not sure I'd call it a risk, but when it comes to something as relatively subjective and internal as characterization, I don't expect anything that turns heavily on effective communication in this area to go well.

It might be an interesting idea to sort of borrow an idea from some of the FATE-based games under development (Dreden FIles and Far West -- developer's blogs are a wonderful thing) that allow you to trade fate point refresh rate for extra stunts (basically, skill specializations). I wonder how it'd work out if you allowed a character to dispense with their nature (virtue and vice) in order to increase their refresh rate for conviction from one point per day to two points per day? They'd be giving up the chance to obtain conviction in mid-adventure, but they would not have the issue you find with the mechanism.

I'd have to look over the mechanism carefully to even guess; my suspicion would be that under some circumstances you can reap extra Conviction enough faster than this that it'd be problematic, but I could be in error here. I'm also not entirely clear on how much Conviction you typically have, which makes a difference if you hit a situation where you need to burn through it fast for any reason.

I think my experiences just must have been very different than yours. But I do find your viewpoint very interesting, and this conversation has given me a lot to think about. Thanks!

And thanks for the civil and thoughtful responses.

 

[Thomas5251212]

Well, it's an opinion!


Things I discussed are not a tangent because they were germane to the topic at hand.

So you say.

You've been around since 2005, so I'd think that here at ENWorld the idea is that if you want to disagree attack the position, not the person.

Pot, kettle.

 

[Hjorimir]

Pot, kettle.

Laf.

 

[Thomas5251212]

Okay, so you're saying that you need to have a fallback? Which is it? If you don't need to have the fallback, why are you arguing that Conviction is a necessity (your words, I can go look up the quote if you'd prefer).

Needing to have it present on the average, and needing to have it always are not the same things. Again, if you think they are, I don't know what to say to you.

The base assumption is that the core rules form the foundation of the game. Sure, you could take the power out, but I've seen DMs do the same for Raise Dead in their campaigns.

I'm really finding it hard not to be insulting to someone that assumes that a raise dead like power will be present in the majority of True20 games, in a system that's designed to be cross genre and therefor useable in settings where potentially no powers will be available at all.

Because the game is enriched through characterization. It is a role-playing game. Gandalf was far more interesting as Gandalf than he would have been if he was played as Ian McKellan and the movie was enriched for his efforts.

And that's again a GM deciding his view of characterization is what matters, and the players can take second place. Since that's what I'm objecting to here, that's not, to me, any useful purpose being served, and its frequently doing harm.

Another reason, is that when characters are different from the players, which characterization establishes, it helps create objectivity and downplayes the sense of GM versus player. If I kill a player character it shouldn't be a big deal and certainly nothing that the player takes personally.

Since the people I've seen take character death hardest are usually those most into their characters (to those for whom its just a token, there's always another character to come along) I don't believe this actually serves this function.

So I encouage strong characterization because I find it enjoyable for the above reasons.

There's a "whatever" for you.

And I don't find that sufficient to justify it. What more is it you'd like?

 

[Thomas5251212]

Here's the thing - disagree all you like, Thomas, but punishment requires a punitive element, not a lack of reward. You can keep making up definitions all you like, but

No, in practice it doesn't. That may be how it seems to the person doing so, but its not how it seems to someone at the other end. If you have a group of roleplayers who all feel that they're doing what they should with their characters, and some of them recieve metagame benefits for doing so, and others don't, I don't doubt for a moment that the latters will percieve themselves as being punished for their play. Any argument otherwise is, frankly, semantic, and has little to do with how its actually recieved or the practical effect.

Spycraft, originally, had some of the same issues you perceive...or so I thought. However, in play, the 'fix' (if it can be called such) is simple: reward prior to action. That encourages people to do what's in character for their playing piece. Further, the false problems you see are alleviated by something simple, like this:

Can you explain what you mean about "reward prior to action" here? I'm not getting it I'm afraid.

"Well, I'd like to help the rest of the group get Timmy out of the well, bu Dr. Harris is too lazy to really lend a hand, so he's going to complain about his bad back instead."

In this case, Harris' Vice is that he's Lazy. With the simple incorporation of the Virtue and Vice in description, boom, problem solved.

I suspect that only helps in the simple and easily identified cases; otherwise it just turns on whether the GM finds the characterization for the reason for the action credible or not, something that otherwise would be a non-issue in the scene.

 

[Thomas5251212]

Laf.

I just find it strange that I'm having no problem having a discussion with either Jim or Father of Dragons, both of whom clearly disagree with me (and I've disagreed with Jim elsewhere too) but somehow, yours turns acidic. One might ask what the only different element is...

 

[Hjorimir]

I just find it strange that I'm having no problem having a discussion with either Jim or Father of Dragons, both of whom clearly disagree with me (and I've disagreed with Jim elsewhere too) but somehow, yours turns acidic. One might ask what the only different element is...

The difference is that they're nice enough to put up with your sanctimonious attitude; I'm not.

 

[Thomas5251212]

The difference is that they're nice enough to put up with your sanctimonious attitude; I'm not.

What was that about not attacking the person again?