Why do RPGs have rules?

[AbdulAlhazred]

When we're talking about imagining a fiction together, I'm not sure that an assurance of that sort is possible, is it?

I'm reminded of this from Edwards:

not everyone is necessarily a whiz at addressing Premise even when they try. If they were, we'd see a hell of a lot more great novels, comics, movies, and plays than we do. Signs of "hack Narrativism" include backing off from unexpected opportunities to address Premise or consistently swinging play into parody versions of the issues involved. I don't see any particular reason to bemoan or criticize this bit of dysfunction; all art forms have their Sunday practitioners. . . .​

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why role-play for this purpose? Why this venue, and not some more widely-recognized medium like writing comics or novels or screenplays? Addressing Premise can be done in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of artistic media. To play Narrativist, you must be seizing role-playing, seeing some essential feature in the medium itself, which demands that Premise be addressed in this way for you and not another. What is that feature? If you can't see one, then maybe, just maybe, you are slumming in this hobby because you're afraid you can't hack it in a commercial artistic environment. Maybe you even hang with a primarily-Simulationist group, with the minimal levels of satisfaction to be gained among them, because it's safe there.​

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But let's say you do answer that question, and hold your head up as a Narrativist role-playing practitioner, addresser of Premise. Fine - now you have to ask yourself whether you can handle artistic rejection. That's right, no one might be interested in you. This is exactly what all aspiring directors, screenwriters, novelists, and other practitioners of narrative artistry face. In which case, you'll have to decide whether it's because your worthy vision is unappreciated and should seek new collaborators, or because your vision is simply lacking. It's not an easy thing to deal with.​

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But let's say that's all resolved too, and you are holding the brass ring: successful and fulfilling Narrativist play with a great bunch of fellow participants, fine and exciting content from your and the others' work, and the sense of worthy artistry. Now for the final conundrum: what will you sacrifice to sustain it? Maybe your spouse is tired of the time you spend on this; maybe you and a fellow group member get a little too close; maybe you decide your art would be even better if your best friend's sorry ass was no longer gumming up the group's work. Can you make those sorts of choices? Can you live with the results?​

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Good luck with it.​

I see this as Edwards applying the techniques of narrativism ON THE PLAY OF A NARRATIVIST GAME, lol. Its kind of a meta-joke about meta-play. Well, also real commentary, but rather clever. TOO clever, perhaps, Ron? hahaha.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But what if Bruno wasn’t a replacement PC? What if he was an NPC that you wanted to introduce as a potential foil or perhaps ally for the party.

Is that somehow less contrived?

Less contrived than Bob and Bruno? Yes. It could still feel somewhat contrived but if you introduce Bruno mere minutes (or even seconds) after Bob plops Bruno's character sheet on the table it could hardly feel more contrived.

That's an example of something that's both contrived and good for play. If you're looking for something that's both contrived and bad, surely you don't need me to tell you. Just Google "contrived narrative movies" and argue with the movie critics. Here's a start: Contrived Coincidence - TV Tropes

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Alternately the outcome could be narrated by, say, a dice mediated method where the player's success in passing a check grants them the right to describe it, and failure grants the GM the right to describe it. Other options may well exist too.

[polite cough] Um, you're describing a rule. You know, the thing @pemerton said was a "needless intermediary."

 

[Lanefan]

So what if this is the default mode of play?

Then all is probably good.

“Relevant in some way” doesn’t necessarily mean “tailored specifically to”.

Yet "tailored specifically to" is what keeps getting pushed here; to their goals, their beliefs, their agendae, etc. I'm pushing back.

"Relevant in some way" covers a huge amount of ground. Any adventure, for example, could be said to be relevant to a very wide swath of characters if only because the odds are good that those characters will be a) richer when they come out and b) potentially better at what they do.

But that aside… how is it less coincidental that everywhere the PCs wander to, there’s trouble of some sort brewing? Why is that not contrived?

What if play wasn’t about a group of “adventurers” wandering around seeking treasure or things to kill?

Then it'd be a different game, certainly. I mean, I think I could run a half-decent politics/intrigue/diplomacy game where any violence was done off-screen by arm's-length hirelings and the focus of play was much more "talky", but I'd probably get bored of it after a while.

That said, the general conceit of the settings I run is that in most places there's always trouble of some sort brewing, and while the PCs can (and very likely will) deal with some of it there's no way in hell they can deal with all of it. Hence, there's other adventurers out there; and adventuring is in most cultures a known way of making a very risky living...or dying real fast.

I mean, the idea of adventurers is itself incredibly contrived. I believe in the past you even shared a play example involving an adventurers’ guild where the training of new adventurers was a thing.

That seems incredibly contrived to me.

I can see how it would; and yet to me it fits in with the general underlying conceits of the setting. There's either real or potential trouble everywhere, on scales local, global, and everything in between.

It would be more contrived, for example, were the world's only hotbed of adventuring to always be right where the PCs happen to be at any given time.

I would expect your game involves a good amount of this, no? You talk about hooks and the like, and you talk about using old modules, inserted into play. It mostly seems to involve goals given to the players by the GM.

It does, at such times when the players don't generate goals of their own. It's a give and take - they'll start with a small-scale GM-given goal usually along the lines of "clear that place out" (I always pretty much dictate what the campaign's first adventure will be, just to get things started), and if they latch on to something during that adventure and follow it up then I'm in react mode.

And then there's the solo campaign I ran for my SO during lockdown. For that one we rolled up a new party (same setting and world as before,and that group will integrate with the main game someday) and then I counted how many published modules I have here. Once this (frighteningly big!) number was determined she rolled a die of that size, with the result showing what module we'd start with. And so I ran The Gauntlet, which I'd otherwise never have run as on previous read-through I'd been highly underwhelmed (and yes, it lived down to that impression in play).

Perhaps where this sense of contrivance comes from? When the players form their own goals that aren’t given by the GM, the GM needs to then craft stuff beyond what they’ve already prepared.

I don't think so. If they come up with their own goals I'm happy to "craft stuff beyond what [I've] already prepared". I mean, if out of the blue they decide one day they want to try and overthrow the Emperor then I'll suddenly have to pay a lot more attention than I otherwise would have to what makes said Emperor tick, who-what guards him, what he does each day-week-month, and all that.

Contrivance here would be their suddenly deciding to take on the Emperor one day and having said Emperor show up without warning right in their path the next day.

 

[aramis erak]

Exactly! For instance, we can ask ourselves what characteristics the ideal Trade system would have in Classic Traveller. The answers will NOT INVOLVE realism to very great extent, and will not involve economic simulation AT ALL. The main successful traits will be that the system produces marginal gains for the PCs involved, in fact that it should, ideally NOT be sufficient to support them, certainly not in any style.

You've been playing it poorly, then. It can, for a pure cargo J1 design, make reasonable money. Passengers are a liability and financial drain. If you get a ship in CGen, sell it. Use it as capital to build a pure-cargo 300 or 400 Td Bk2 ship, and it's going to average a few hundred credits per cargo ton.
Use J2, and you triple the number of destinations. Always go where the mods are best. Always use a broker.
Short routes can be generally profitable to the level of Cr100 to 200 per ton, after salaries, op costs, monthly payment, fuel, and docking fees.
A pure cargo J1 >199 Td ship can make do on freight alone; costs are Cr800 per Td on a 14 day schedule.
Add a factor at either end, and a warehouse, and you can get this down to Cr700 per cargo Td... via a 10 day schedule. If doing LASH the costs are a bit higher, but you can get a 9 day schedule... and push the costs down even further. You do, however, need 3 lighters for one ship on a good run.

Two system LASH route:
Lighter 1 is on ship, Lighter 3 and ship on world A; lighter 2 on world B.
Week 1: ship (with lighter 1 full) goes to world B. World B factor loads lighter 2. Factor at A looks for a bargain.
Day 8: ship swaps lighter 1 for 2 at B.
Day 9-17: ship jumps for B, Factor at A fills lighter 3. B Factor looks for bargain at B
Day 17, ship arrives at A, swaps lighter 2 for lighter 3.
day 18 jump for B
Day 26, swap for a refilled lighter 1, leave 3
Day 27, jump for A
and so on. Note that the 8th day is to allow for the listed time variability, the extra day for loading the fuel, doing the nav.

It should largely prevent them from settling down into a fixed 'trade route' or schedule, since that would become dull and routine, and inhibit the exploration of the Universe that is a thrust of the game.

There's a JTAS article about how to pick your route.

Now, if one is willing to tramp, sooner or later, under book 2, you get a good run, and instead of a "pay the bills and grow the speculation fund" you get a sudden large influx. I've had several cases where crews worked up to a couple MCr in the spec fund, and that with each PC getting one shar of the profits, the ship's fund getting 2. Do note: one needs about KCr100 to be able to leverage the speculative trade effectively for a Type A; about KCr150 for a

If you are using B7 characters with Bk2, Trader skill 1 allows you to see 1d of the 2d on the Actual Value Table before committing. This makes it far more likely to not sell at a loss. At Trader 3, take the couple hours to find out which destination has the best sum of 1st die roll and modifiers.

If using book 7, you don't have the spikes in base value, due to the uniform price, but the margin is, with broker 1 and trader 1, often about Cr1400 gross increase, for about Cr300 per ton profit. Bk7 is the default for MT, TNE, T4, and T5; T20 is a Bk2 variant. GT is its own thing, and GTFT is yet another thing. MgT (Mongoose) is yet another thing unto itself, but like Bk2, speculation and tramping maximize profits.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Less contrived than Bob and Bruno? Yes. It could still feel somewhat contrived but if you introduce Bruno mere minutes (or even seconds) after Bob plops Bruno's character sheet on the table it could hardly feel more contrived.

That's an example of something that's both contrived and good for play. If you're looking for something that's both contrived and bad, surely you don't need me to tell you. Just Google "contrived narrative movies" and argue with the movie critics. Here's a start: Contrived Coincidence - TV Tropes

But that kind of thing can happen. I can certainly understand how if it happens all the time, it can put some folks off, but I would make two comments on that.

One, I don't think that the story now type games I play have a very high instance of this. It's not about things somehow in some unexpected way connecting back to the characters... it's about the characters actively seeking out the things they seek out. No one watches Kill Bill and wonders why the Bride is always running into the people who betrayed her, do they? Shes actively seeking them out!

Second, I think that whatever happens instead of the perceived contrived thing is just as likely to be contrived. So instead of arriving in town with a specific goal in mind, the party arrives with nothing in mind... but then things come up! Because of course they do. Hooks spring up all about... this NPC has a favor to request, and that NPC has lore about a nearby site, and another wants his brother rescued from the Brotherhood of the Ebon Hand. If we don't go to the nearby caves, eventually the goblins will attack the town!

No one's worried about the fact that strange things always happen when the PCs are around! That's all considered happenstance and isn't contrived at all!

My view is that the PCs are gonna do interesting things. There are going to be events happening no matter what.... that's the point of play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Then all is probably good.

Yet "tailored specifically to" is what keeps getting pushed here; to their goals, their beliefs, their agendae, etc. I'm pushing back.

I would say that "relevant to what the players want" is the important thing. Not all characters at all times, necessarily, but generally the focus of play is going to be about something that's relevant to one or more characters.

"Relevant in some way" covers a huge amount of ground. Any adventure, for example, could be said to be relevant to a very wide swath of characters if only because the odds are good that those characters will be a) richer when they come out and b) potentially better at what they do.

That's because you're using the goals of GP and XP. If that's all that play is about, then sure. But we're talking about games where that's not the focus. The play is meant to be about more than that. Sure, character wealth may be a goal, or my be relevant toward achieving a goal, but there are going to be other goals beyond that.

Then it'd be a different game, certainly. I mean, I think I could run a half-decent politics/intrigue/diplomacy game where any violence was done off-screen by arm's-length hirelings and the focus of play was much more "talky", but I'd probably get bored of it after a while.

Who says there's no fighting? No need to go to such extremes. There's still plenty of fighting and action in most of the games I run and the games I play. It's just not the only thing.

That said, the general conceit of the settings I run is that in most places there's always trouble of some sort brewing, and while the PCs can (and very likely will) deal with some of it there's no way in hell they can deal with all of it. Hence, there's other adventurers out there; and adventuring is in most cultures a known way of making a very risky living...or dying real fast.

And that to me is so much more contrived than what I'm talking about.

You're annoyed about some potential instances of coincidence. Moments of contrivance. Yet you're perfectly fine with your world revolving around the gaming activities that you want it to.... that killing things and taking their loot is not only viable, but common. A contrived world.

What if the characters were not pigeonholed into this idea of "adventurers" in the traditional D&D mold? What if they were something else?

I can see how it would; and yet to me it fits in with the general underlying conceits of the setting. There's either real or potential trouble everywhere, on scales local, global, and everything in between.

It would be more contrived, for example, were the world's only hotbed of adventuring to always be right where the PCs happen to be at any given time.

Who says the PCs have to go anywhere? I've had several campaigns that took place in one city.

Who says that where they may be is the only hotbed of adventuring? Why would that be the case?

It does, at such times when the players don't generate goals of their own. It's a give and take - they'll start with a small-scale GM-given goal usually along the lines of "clear that place out" (I always pretty much dictate what the campaign's first adventure will be, just to get things started), and if they latch on to something during that adventure and follow it up then I'm in react mode.

And then there's the solo campaign I ran for my SO during lockdown. For that one we rolled up a new party (same setting and world as before,and that group will integrate with the main game someday) and then I counted how many published modules I have here. Once this (frighteningly big!) number was determined she rolled a die of that size, with the result showing what module we'd start with. And so I ran The Gauntlet, which I'd otherwise never have run as on previous read-through I'd been highly underwhelmed (and yes, it lived down to that impression in play).

So why not work with the players (especially in a one on one game) to come up with goals, and then instead of running a randomly selected module, craft adventures that relate specifically to the characters they've made?

I don't think so. If they come up with their own goals I'm happy to "craft stuff beyond what [I've] already prepared". I mean, if out of the blue they decide one day they want to try and overthrow the Emperor then I'll suddenly have to pay a lot more attention than I otherwise would have to what makes said Emperor tick, who-what guards him, what he does each day-week-month, and all that.

Exactly. That's what I'm talking about. Focus on the stuff that's relevant to the characters' goals, relevant to their morals, their drives. Let the play tell us about these characters. This opens up a whole bunch of opportunities.

Contrivance here would be their suddenly deciding to take on the Emperor one day and having said Emperor show up without warning right in their path the next day.

Do you think that anyone is actually suggesting this?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

[polite cough] Um, you're describing a rule. You know, the thing @pemerton said was a "needless intermediary."

And we're right back to anything you and someone else agree upon as a way of playing a game, is a rule! I mean, surely ANY process or arrangement as to how something will actually be decided in an RPG has a 'rule-like character' to it. The "needless intermediary" was intended to illustrate that we need not write such things down, humans are good at arranging such things. Kids do it every day. Heck, my sister and I heard of the very IDEA of D&D and made up such a thing on the spot and started playing, with no written rules at all. We just got some dice and wrote down stuff that sounded cool.

IIRC I made a room, and it had giant hornets in it, and they stung my sister's character to death, and then we started over!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yet "tailored specifically to" is what keeps getting pushed here; to their goals, their beliefs, their agendae, etc. I'm pushing back.

"Relevant in some way" covers a huge amount of ground. Any adventure, for example, could be said to be relevant to a very wide swath of characters if only because the odds are good that those characters will be a) richer when they come out and b) potentially better at what they do.

There's a WIDE range of possibilities here, don't start excluding the middle!

Nor is there some requirement that any given situation address ALL of the characters in a highly immediate way. Like my example of Takeo and the score where we got rid of the Oni. Dealing with spiritual stuff was relevant to the Whisper, a type of character who specializes in the ghost field. So both Takeo and Skewth are taken care of, and Tal Rajan did some political wheeling and dealing, I forget all the details now, but he was definitely engaged. Beaker, I don't remember what he did (he was the bomb-throwing alchemist type) but I guess he was at least having fun!

That's a typical scenario for a score in BitD. Even if its not clearly right up every character's alley, it will at least be "the crew is doing a score, and you're in on it", and next week, or during DT or info gathering, maybe you'll be THE ONE. I mean, if you never are, the GM is slacking or something.

Honestly, we often did 2 or even 3 scores in parallel in a lot of sessions. We would do some crossover, but Takeo would go kill his rival, Skewth was opening up some sort of intradimensional gateway, and I think Tal Rajan was marrying several wives all at once! Beaker went with Skewth, IIRC, and explodiated some nasties.

 

[loverdrive]

When we're talking about imagining a fiction together, I'm not sure that an assurance of that sort is possible, is it?

Eh, kinda? Like, first, the "standards of quality" are inherently lower, as you by default have higher investment in the process (and the characters, and the Premise), and, second, while guaranteeing that every single story will be great, it is possible to guarantee that the moment it will start to suck, we can pull back and reasses.