Why Do You Hate An RPG System?

[Zhaleskra]

People are abbreviating the Forge GNS theory's three "models" of play.

G - Gamism - focusing on the game as a game
N - Narrative - focusing on the "story", thus "Nar"
S - Simulation - focusing on the simulated reality.

So far I think I've only seen Narrative abbreviated.

 

[Celebrim]

Sorry, I'm kinda new here. What is "Nar," please?

Short for "Narrativist". Briefly, it means a game that has (or at least intends to have) as it's central aesthetic of play the creation of Story. In theory, if you main aesthetic of play is experiencing a story, then a Narrativist game will better met your goals of play than one that is more focused on say tactical combat and has Challenge as a primary aesthetic of play.

I should note that the term "Narrativist" came out of a theory called GNS that I don't actually subscribe to, and so I'm using the term in a very slightly different way than it's original creator.

 

[prabe]

Short for "Narrativist". Briefly, it means a game that has (or at least intends to have) as it's central aesthetic of play the creation of Story. In theory, if you main aesthetic of play is experiencing a story, then a Narrativist game will better met your goals of play than one that is more focused on say tactical combat and has Challenge as a primary aesthetic of play.

I should note that the term "Narrativist" came out of a theory called GNS that I don't actually subscribe to, and so I'm using the term in a very slightly different way than it's original creator.

Thanks. I ... wasn't expanding as a word but attempting to parse it as an initialization. While they're not my preferred type of RPG, I more or less what they're at least trying to be about.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Amusingly to me... the thing that people here are decrying about FATE-- the idea that players don't really "play their characters" and instead go fishing for every opportunity to activate their Aspects (even when they make no sense either for how their character behaves or the story at large)-- is actually my answer to this original question...

...which is that I don't "hate" any game systems... I only "hate" the players who use them.

If a person who doesn't like FATE and the like find their reason to be that this supposedly Narrative game incentivizes players to ignore the story and just Aspect-fish... I'd contend that's the fault of the players who are playing FATE, not the system itself. If you are playing FATE because you actually like the story and narrative aspect of gaming that the system is providing... you won't actually DO the things that the people who dislike it think occurs. You WON'T go Aspect-fishing, because you realize that the story is meant to come first, and you'll only use the mechanics to enhance it, not to override it. Which of course feeds right into some of my other posts on the D&D forum about players who can't help but try to "win" in RPGs. Which to me, Aspect-fishing is one of those things-- deliberately going against the game (in spirit if nothing else) because the rules "allow" you to, and thus make you try and "win" the game. If you care more about "winning" every roll and Aspect-fish in all manner of ridiculous ways to get bonuses to help you "win" every roll... that tells me you don't really want to play FATE in the first place and you probably shouldn't be.

Thus for me... I find it's almost always the other players not buying in to the game being played that is the cause of my "hate". The right players who wish to use a system as it is meant to be used to produce the results it is meant to evoke can usually make any system work... but the wrong players will destroy the game from within.

 

[prabe]

Amusingly to me... the thing that people here are decrying about FATE-- the idea that players don't really "play their characters" and instead go fishing for every opportunity to activate their Aspects (even when they make no sense either for how their character behaves or the story at large)-- is actually my answer to this original question...

...which is that I don't "hate" any game systems... I only "hate" the players who use them.

If a person who doesn't like FATE and the like find their reason to be that this supposedly Narrative game incentivizes players to ignore the story and just Aspect-fish... I'd contend that's the fault of the players who are playing FATE, not the system itself. If you are playing FATE because you actually like the story and narrative aspect of gaming that the system is providing... you won't actually DO the things that the people who dislike it think occurs. You WON'T go Aspect-fishing, because you realize that the story is meant to come first, and you'll only use the mechanics to enhance it, not to override it. Which of course feeds right into some of my other posts on the D&D forum about players who can't help but try to "win" in RPGs. Which to me, Aspect-fishing is one of those things-- deliberately going against the game (in spirit if nothing else) because the rules "allow" you to, and thus make you try and "win" the game. If you care more about "winning" every roll and Aspect-fish in all manner of ridiculous ways to get bonuses to help you "win" every roll... that tells me you don't really want to play FATE in the first place and you probably shouldn't be.

Thus for me... I find it's almost always the other players not buying in to the game being played that is the cause of my "hate". The right players who wish to use a system as it is meant to be used to produce the results it is meant to evoke can usually make any system work... but the wrong players will destroy the game from within.

My own major problem with FATE (and the other "narrative" games I've played, and probably the ones I haven't) is that as a player you want your character to fail, or accept a Compel, or otherwise be unsuccessful or suboptimal, so that you can power up. No character wants to fail or be suboptimal. There is a misalignment of the player's and the character's priorities and desires.

The way that Compels in FATE seem like the GM stealing character agency is probably different.

That said, I don't hate FATE. I wouldn't choose it to run or play, but I'd probably join a game.

 

[Zardnaar]

Apathy usually, mild dislike of Vampire.

Not really a fan of RPGs in general being honest. Most genres don't interest me just D&D and Star Wars. I own Numenera and have played some others but it's to hard here even if you like them.

 

[Celebrim]

...which is that I don't "hate" any game systems... I only "hate" the players who use them.

I think that that is actually a pretty solid answer. Many enjoyable games depend on having a functional table contract that serves to set standards for how you think about playing the game, and how you think about playing a game is often much more important to the actual process and results of play than the rules are.

So I get where you are coming from, but at the same time I also think that you are handwaving away a powerful observation about flaws in a game.

Take D&D 3.5, a game system that I mostly like and which many people have as one of if not their favorite game system. But D&D 3.5 implicitly depends on finding a table contract where everyone either agrees to not break the game for a given value of "breaking the game" or at least agrees to create a character that breaks the game to roughly the same degree. And most Supers systems by reputation (full disclosure, I haven't played a Supers system) have the same reputation. For example, an optimized Speedster can often break the game.

However, the fact that you can enjoy the game and play the game as intended does not at the same time mean that the flaw that the table contract is working around doesn't exist. D&D 3.5 being a game system which heavily prioritizes the aesthetic of Challenge, and yet at the same time has absolutely no balance what so ever, is in fact incoherent design that works against its own ambitions as a game and people who point out that D&D 3.5 is an incoherent design are not wrong just because at a particular table you had an enjoyable game because everyone agreed to optimize their PC's to the same level and the GM was able to provide a challenge scaled to the power level that the table had agreed on.

If a person who doesn't like FATE and the like find their reason to be that this supposedly Narrative game incentivizes players to ignore the story and just Aspect-fish... I'd contend that's the fault of the players who are playing FATE, not the system itself. If you are playing FATE because you actually like the story and narrative aspect of gaming that the system is providing... you won't actually DO the things that the people who dislike it think occurs. You WON'T go Aspect-fishing, because you realize that the story is meant to come first, and you'll only use the mechanics to enhance it, not to override it. Which of course feeds right into some of my other posts on the D&D forum about players who can't help but try to "win" in RPGs. Which to me, Aspect-fishing is one of those things-- deliberately going against the game (in spirit if nothing else) because the rules "allow" you to, and thus make you try and "win" the game. If you care more about "winning" every roll and Aspect-fish in all manner of ridiculous ways to get bonuses to help you "win" every roll... that tells me you don't really want to play FATE in the first place and you probably shouldn't be.

Nonetheless, if you go and look at an example of play that involves one of the actual designers of the game running it, for example, the Tabletop game hosted by Wil Wheaton and guest starring Felicia day and Ryan Macklin, and you analyze the play involved I think you'll find that it absolutely is incoherent in the way that I described. It was watching that video that convinced me that I wasn't doing it wrong, and that in fact all the problems I was seeing and experiencing were inherent in the system. Is John Rodgers - who absolutely dominates that session - doing it wrong? I feel bad for Felicia Day because she I think actually tried to play it 'right' but got absolutely no traction from the system. And Wil Wheaton, saw his desired aesthetic of play get taken from him because he failed to have John Rodger's system mastery (which involves all those aspect fishing things you say people won't do.) If those aren't the "right players" then who is?

 

[JeffB]

My own major problem with FATE (and the other "narrative" games I've played, and probably the ones I haven't) is that as a player you want your character to fail, or accept a Compel, or otherwise be unsuccessful or suboptimal, so that you can power up. No character wants to fail or be suboptimal. There is a misalignment of the player's and the character's priorities and desires.

I'm only mildly familiar with FATE (the jargon drives me nuts so I haven't been able to get into it), but Dungeon World as another example of narrative game, does give you an experience point when you completely fail a roll. However, you are deep doo-doo if that happens. I don't see that as being an issue for DW- players trying to fail in order to get more XP and level up. Not to mention, some traditional skill based games also work off of a failure being an experience builder.

I'm with @DEFCON 1 - this is a player /playstyle issue, not the game's issue- narrative games require a certain amount of "buy in" and if a player goes in with a D&D/PF/CRPG "gaming the system" attitude- it's probably going to be no fun, and you will "break" and/or ruin the game.

This is also why I have not had issues with systems that people seem to think are "broken" or completely unbalanced (RIFTS/Palladium for example). It's a player/playstyle issue with exploiting the system, or the GM allowing it to be exploited.

 

[prabe]

Agreed about speedsters having a tendency to break Supers games. I have a friend ... with a gift fot finding system exploits, and in Supers games he tends to default to speedsters. How much of that is because he likes the comics featuring them, instead of because he can break the game by playing them, is ... impossible for me to discern from outside his head.

Also, I think just about every table playing a TTRPG is going to have some sort of agreement about how optimized the characters are going to be, and how optimized the play is going to be.

 

[Bawylie]

The few times I’ve hated an RPG system were due to human error.