Winning and losing in RPGs...

[Umbran]

I'm not sure that really changes my argument, though, because those end state conditions aren't really related to success/failure.

Ah.
Didn't even bother to note the example in which I explicitly say otherwise.
Didn't bother to ask a single question. No curiosity demonstrated. No apparent desire to explore examples given.

Not much of a discussion here.
Have a good afternoon.

 

[Pedantic]

Are you generally a competitive person? And have you ever run RPGs?

I've been almost exclusively a GM on and off for the last 15 years. My current group has been playing for 3. I play a lot of games that are competitive, but I'm not especially highly ranked at any of them. I design and playtest board games regularly as well.

I don't think I'd describe myself generally as competitive, but I really like games and I don't like seeing them played badly. It's one thing to not understand a system, it's quite another to not care about understanding it.

 

[overgeeked]

I've been almost exclusively a GM on and off for the last 15 years. My current group has been playing for 3. I play a lot of games that are competitive, but I'm not especially highly ranked at any of them. I design and playtest board games regularly as well.

I don't think I'd describe myself generally as competitive, but I really like games and I don't like seeing them played badly. It's one thing to not understand a system, it's quite another to not care about understanding it.

So you’re a regular referee for RPGs, not competitive, and know something about game design. Okay. So how can you not get that it is absolutely trivial for the referee to be a neutral arbiter? As you said, “It's quite difficult to trust the same entity with playing the opposition and handling resolution fairly.” At a guess you are that hard-to-imagine neutral arbiter a few hundred times a session.

 

[Pedantic]

So you’re a regular referee for RPGs, not competitive, and know something about game design. Okay. So how can you not get that it is absolutely trivial for the referee to be a neutral arbiter? As you said, “It's quite difficult to trust the same entity with playing the opposition and handling resolution fairly.” At a guess you are that hard-to-imagine neutral arbiter a few hundred times a session.

My complaints are many.

The biggest problem though is that play often isn't about using the rules to get a desired outcome, or problem solving the current board state, so much as negotiating with me about what should be possible. That can all too easily veer even further into negotiating with me about what the opposition should be capable of or should do.

I obviously know how to play under adverse conditions, and I'd love to get my players more invested in a system with rules they can use effectively, but I've got the friends I've got. It's just too easy for the gameplay to slip into a weak and boring kind of gameplay, or stop feeling like a game at all, especially with 5e.

 

[overgeeked]

My complaints are many.

The biggest problem though is that play often isn't about using the rules to get a desired outcome, or problem solving the current board state, so much as negotiating with me about what should be possible. That can all too easily veer even further into negotiating with me about what the opposition should be capable of or should do.

I obviously know how to play under adverse conditions, and I'd love to get my players more invested in a system with rules they can use effectively, but I've got the friends I've got. It's just too easy for the gameplay to slip into a weak and boring kind of gameplay, or stop feeling like a game at all, especially with 5e.

To me, that sounds like the literal beating heart of an RPG. The game is the conversation. That conversation centers what’s possible in the fiction. That’s basically the one (or one of the few) unique thing(s) about this style of game. And you don’t like that?

 

[Pedantic]

To me, that sounds like the literal beating heart of an RPG. The game is the conversation. That conversation centers what’s possible in the fiction. That’s basically the one (or one of the few) unique thing(s) about this style of game. And you don’t like that?

Not the bit I care about, really. I draw a pretty hard line between "gathering more information about the board state" by asking the GM questions about the world and situation and then deploying rules to resolve it the way you'd like. I like RPGs because they're such a great a source of new and interesting situations to keep playing in. The bit where we design the rules to play in those situations on the fly sucks and I'd prefer to do without it.

I'm a medicocre designer, and that's with the benefit of time and testing, instead of doing it in the moment.

 

[overgeeked]

Not the bit I care about, really. I draw a pretty hard line between "gathering more information about the board state" by adding the GM questions about the world and situation and then deploying rules to resolve it the way you'd like. I like RPGs because they're such a great a source of new and interesting situations to keep playing in. The bit where we design the rules to play in those situations on the fly sucks and I'd prefer to do without it.

I'm a medicocre designer, and that's with the benefit of time and testing, instead of doing it in the moment.

Wild. I'm literally the opposite. I struggle to deal with rules that are move involved than maybe one side of a sheet of paper. I'd much rather do things ad hoc in the moment from general principles and move on. Any time spent looking up or learning the rules is time better spent on actually playing the game, which is the conversation and the fiction, not the rules or mechanics. Gimme a basic task-resolution mechanic and clocks/countdowns and I'm set. The rest just gets in the way.

 

[prabe]

Are you generally a competitive person? And have you ever run RPGs?

I am a very competitive person--part of the reason I very much prefer cooperative board games at this point is that I do not like who I am when I'm competing--and almost all of my TRPGing these days is as GM. You know my tastes and preferences well enough, I think, to know that I want more/stronger player-facing rules than you do, specifically so there's space for good/bad play; one of the primary reasons I detest things like Compels in Fate or Intrusions in Cypher is that they're ... nothing the players can do anything about by playing better. In fact, the better the players play, the more likely the GM is to use those things against the players. The reason I don't like Inspiration (or Luck in Tales of the Valiant) being given "for good roleplaying" is a combination of that being not-mechanical and something connected to my feeling that something judged and scored is less of a pure sport than something that is timed and/or measured. (The competitors are real athletes, the competition is real, it's an aesthetic preference, not a judgment on people or fans.)

--I know I'm not the person you asked, but a different answer seemed as though it might be helpful.

 

[Pedantic]

Wild. I'm literally the opposite. I struggle to deal with rules that are move involved than maybe one side of a sheet of paper. I'd much rather do things ad hoc in the moment from general principles and move on. Any time spent looking up or learning the rules is time better spent on actually playing the game, which is the conversation and the fiction, not the rules or mechanics. Gimme a basic task-resolution mechanic and clocks/countdowns and I'm set. The rest just gets in the way.

I don't know why you'd want to play a game about it at that point, better just to do collaborative storytelling outright.

Plus the rules are kind of the point; it should be fun to use them and know about them. If it's not, then they should be different. I like rules; if there aren't really any and I'm just making stuff up, then it's kind of a waste of the "game" part of the activity.

 

[overgeeked]

I am a very competitive person--part of the reason I very much prefer cooperative board games at this point is that I do not like who I am when I'm competing--and almost all of my TRPGing these days is as GM.

So how do you prevent yourself from just going beast mode and winning as the referee? How do you maintain that neutral arbiter that's required for these games to work?

You know my tastes and preferences well enough, I think, to know that I want more/stronger player-facing rules than you do, specifically so there's space for good/bad play; one of the primary reasons I detest things like Compels in Fate or Intrusions in Cypher is that they're ... nothing the players can do anything about by playing better. In fact, the better the players play, the more likely the GM is to use those things against the players. The reason I don't like Inspiration (or Luck in Tales of the Valiant) being given "for good roleplaying" is a combination of that being not-mechanical and something connected to my feeling that something judged and scored is less of a pure sport than something that is timed and/or measured. (The competitors are real athletes, the competition is real, it's an aesthetic preference, not a judgment on people or fans.)

Yeah, that's almost completely alien to me. RPGs aren't sports or competitions, so there's zero need for scoring or winning, etc. Certainly not in any faux-objective sense. Same with "playing better." Don't think you could even if you tried. It just doesn't compute. I'm very much more on the improv and FAFO end of the spectrum. First time I saw things like the "rules" for improv and the PbtA branch of RPGs it was like a dozen things I'd had floating around in my head suddenly clicked into place. Which is weirdly also why I love the OSR so much. Gimme a dozen random tables and a table of players and let's go.

--I know I'm not the person you asked, but a different answer seemed as though it might be helpful.

No worries. Thanks for the reply.