What is your Game About?

[Aus_Snow]

Doesn't really matter. You could lump them altogether, and the same would still be true. The WoD role-playing stats were simply gamed around. The games would have largely played the same if the stat didn't exist. When that wasn't the case, as for example with 'Wraith: the Oblivion', the game as originally envisioned was more or less treated as unplayable and any gameplay that did occur (at least that I saw) was more like Planescape than a ghost story.

Then yeah, YMDV. Fair enough.

Is that theoretical on your part, or have you played in multiple groups?

Neither. It's based on actual play experiences, but with only one group. So I'm not sure how you might choose to categorise that. Either way. I've found that Humanity is indeed the defining trait in Vampire: the Masquerade. Desperately holding onto it, toying with letting it go, exploring what it even means, when it's (most likely) slipping out of your grasp and/or drifting across definitions and void, inevitably. 'A roleplaying game of personal horror'; isn't that what it says on the tin? Well, that happens to match my only experiences with it. This was some years ago now, but I certainly remember that much clearly enough.

I suspect a 'Hope' stat in a theoretical post apocalyptic game would work much the same way. "My character is filled with hope. See it says so right here. Now lets move along."

Dunno. As I said, Mr. Wick and I would be at odds, on many a topic. You might be right, but until I try it out, I can't be entirely sure, I guess.

However, I do know that the Traits, Passions and Glory parts of the Pendragon system [can] work *superbly* well, so it's actually pretty much feasible that a Hope stat could do the trick, if handled right, and used with the right group, obviously (this goes for any game).

 

[Hussar]

I could really hammer Mr. Wick because his whole attitude rubs me wrong, but I'd probably be considered rude and overly aggressive for doing so.

Instead, I'll focus on this in hopefully a more gentle way.

If something cannot fail but be discovered, then there is no exploration really going on. What you have instead is narration. Your game becomes being about you narrating to the players with that as but passive participants. If you really want your game to be about discovery and exploration, you must make the game have many features which are very unlikely to be discovered and you must be content with that.

A D&D adventure states that the DC for discovering X is Y. Each time period spent searching gives a +1 bonus to the roll. X will be found, given enough time. Are the players passive or not?

What you really need in an adventure which is about exploration and discovery is that the players ought to be able to discover something - even if it isn't what they are looking for; and, it ought to be possible to discover everything - even if its rather unlikely to happen in any particular order. If you only hide things so well that its clear to the player that the thing was meant to be found, there really won't ever be any rush of discovery or joy pertaining to doing so. There might possibly be joy at the thing discovered, but the act of exploring and discovering will have no real meaning in your game.

I have no idea where these concepts are coming from based on what I wrote. Why is it that having a goal in a game suddenly means that there is no surprise? I mean, it's called the Temple of Doom for a reason. It's there, somewhere in the jungle. (or the desert or whereever) If the heroes go there to find the Lost Temple of Tharizdun, well by gosh, they're likely going to find it aren't they?

Why is tripping over things by accident somehow more rewarding than actually finding what you are looking for? Since most RPG's are set up that the players at least have a chance of winning, finding what they are looking for is a pretty achievable goal I would think.

 

[diaglo]

my game? it is not just my game. if he wanted to ask for the individual's response:

the question should read why are you playing a game?

if he was curious about the game the individual plays in with a group it should read:

what does your group play?


basically i am agreeing with Umbran. group play is multilayered.

 

[Hussar]

Again, surprise surprise, I disagree.

Upthread, Celebrim mentioned Sanity scores in Call of Cthulu. To me, this actually does perfectly define what CoC is about. If you were to reduce CoC to a one word or short phrase descriptor, I would do it thusly:

Impending, inevitable doom.

Nothing your character can do can change that. You will fail. The longer you play, the greater the chance is that your character will succumb to the terrors of the beyond until that chance eventually reaches one. How better to tell players that than have what effectively becomes a "count down" stat on their character sheet. When this stat reaches a certain point, which it always, always will, you succumb.

To me, while there is no "doom" stat specifically on the character sheet, the Sanity score is exactly that. It's a countdown that will inevitably reach zero. The best you can hope for as a player is putting off the inevitable, but, you can never, ever beat it.

Again, to me, this is a perfect example of what John Wick is talking about.

 

[Ariosto]

Loss of sanity is an effect of messing with Lovecraft's uncanny horrors. There's a similar effect of long immersion in the horrors of senseless war in 3:16. But the actual premise of the game is in the deeds producing those effects. Likewise, the activity of going into dungeons to steal the hoards of dragons produces experience points in old D&D -- and to some players that game is "about" attaining ever higher levels.

 

[Hussar]

Loss of sanity is an effect of messing with Lovecraft's uncanny horrors. There's a similar effect of long immersion in the horrors of senseless war in 3:16. But the actual premise of the game is in the deeds producing those effects. Likewise, the activity of going into dungeons to steal the hoards of dragons produces experience points in old D&D -- and to some players that game is "about" attaining ever higher levels.

Totally agree.

Actually, I would say that the core of D&D has always been about attaining ever higher levels. You kill stuff to get stronger so you can kill bigger stuff is the basis of the core of the D&D experience. And it works. Heck, a bajillion WOW players can't all be wrong.

Again, if you were to boil down Lovecraft it's the horror of the unknown. The mind-shattering horror of the unknown and unknowable. You start out a fairly stable hero and spiral downward into madness, never to return.

That captures both Lovecraft and the game's essence pretty well IMO.

 

[Ariosto]

The "Hatred of Earth" (or whatever it's called) rating in at least the free version of 3:16 seems to me pretty open-ended in its consequences, even if taken as the drive to destroy that I recall is given as standard. I think it would be perfectly fine to take some other approach to the alienation (having in mind Haldeman's The Forever War and its lesser sequel Forever Free).

In fact, I think it would be better to leave that response wide open. Demobilization would add (to my mind) an interesting aspect to the game.