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hyphz posted:Ok, but if the heroes can upend all of the established principles in the fiction, how can you “follow it” while running for them? So you're saying you object to the very idea of a game where the PCs are modern bank robbers, because banks are hard to rob? And your objection to the Dimmer Sisters score is effectively the same?
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Jan 9, 2018 00:06
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hyphz posted:I see what you mean, but it avoids the original issue which is how, with no map, the GM decides how many obstacles to spawn before success. In Danger Patrol the game locks that number in the rules and makes every threat a separate encounter so there are no pacing errors caused by that. Most narrative games either don’t do it at all or use a clock so the numbers are predictable.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:08
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SO GUYS Are there any Japanese table top games/games in general I should look into if I was a fan of Kamigakari and Double Cross? If it helps, I'm a big fan of how they let you mix and match thematic elements to make a character.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:16
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hyphz posted:Ok, but if the heroes can upend all of the established principles in the fiction, how can you “follow it” while running for them? the players are not upending poo poo. they are acting within the established parameters of the fiction, using the tools the game gives them. you are supposed to go hard against them, knowing that they have the toolkit to deal with your stuff. if you're looking for hard-and-fast rules on how much you should put in front of the players, you're not going to find them. the game doesn't need them because you are following the fiction as it has been established by the group in the example, the gm leads the players to their objective because they score a critical on the roll. that seems good enough to get them where they're going pretty quick. and moreover, it has a section at the end asking you how you would do things differently. it is asking you to do some work and think about how you would handle other situations using the tools the game has established for you
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Jan 9, 2018 00:21
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Leraika posted:SO GUYS I can't give specific recommendations based on your examples, but people here speak pretty highly about Tenra Bansho Zero http://www.tenra-rpg.com/
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Jan 9, 2018 00:22
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Tenra is neat, though the system itself is... very 90s, having run a fair deal of it. But it does let you do a lot of mixing and matching of different "packages" to make a character.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:24
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Leraika posted:SO GUYS Shinobigami
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Jan 9, 2018 00:28
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Yeah, I'm a big fan of Tenra, should have mentioned that, though I find the fate bookkeeping to be a little more fiddly than I'd like in a tabletop game. I don't know anything about Shinobigami, but I've heard that it's a pvp-oriented game; is that true?
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Jan 9, 2018 00:32
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Covok posted:Form user JordanPro ran a game for me and another form user where, by the end, my character blew his own brains out because he had become a cyborg ruling in army but his opponent, another player character, successfully convinced him he was a slave in machines and since he always sought freedom he killed himself. I thought it was a loving great game and I really liked how it all turned out. I played a game where my character successfully trapped a villain in a psychic reality she created, and to make sure he didn't get out, voluntarily had another PC break her neck. All without any forewarning for the GM that's what we were planning. Definitely not something I'd do as a habit, but I've had a few bad ends for characters that just followed from the story we were creating.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:36
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Emy posted:So you're saying you object to the very idea of a game where the PCs are modern bank robbers, because banks are hard to rob? And your objection to the Dimmer Sisters score is effectively the same? I object to "integrity of the world" being seen as the primary GM guidelines for running a game about robbing modern banks, because by that integrity there should be no way to successfully rob a bank. I mean, who hasn't read a news story about a bank heist or a hack or something and just said "seriously, that worked!?". If we feel that the integrity of the real world is being violated when we read about it, then it sure as heck violates the integrity of fiction! The objection to the Dimmers is similar - they're described as having a "legendary house" (and yes they are also listed as Tier 2 so the book contradicts itself again) and the way it's written would suggest that technically a world with integrity allows for no success. remusclaw posted:They are not upending the fiction, part of fiction is that there are these characters, protagonists we will call them, or maybe heroes, that drive the story forward, and who often can, depending on the sort of story being told, do things that other people dare not do. RPG's in general, outside of the groggiest take on Call of Cthulhu perhaps, are telling these sort of stories. No, that's part of the way fiction is generally written. But the author of Blades did not include any weaknesses that PCs could play into in his very brief description of the Dimmer Sisters' house. If he had done so, I would have been much less likely to be having this thread. The GM can make them up, but they are surely not following the fiction if they do, because there is none leading there. Serf posted:if you're looking for hard-and-fast rules on how much you should put in front of the players, you're not going to find them. the game doesn't need them because you are following the fiction as it has been established by the group What fiction was he following when he made up the music room, the ghost, the presence of a piano, the subvertability of the ghost.. literally anything in that scene? covok posted:When I am doing things, I try to gauge my players interest. I also use my own interest. If the party is split, I also try to give consideration to time. Ok, that's cool. And I appreciate you had a player who wanted their character to go out with a bang. But do you think there has even been a case where, because a player was interested in something, it ended up with you spending more time on it and their character suffering a negative consequence which they would not have had if the player had been less interested? covok posted:I mean, I ran chuubos once and that's a game where everyone is just living life day by day in a tiny little town and most advantageous involved two people talking about their relationships and having strange dreams and Wacky Adventures with the gravekeeper. Chuubo's is another game I'd love to try, I presume you're talking about the Pastoral mode though? I can see how that mode works because it's more or less admitting from the start that you're just RPing for the pleasure of RPing those characters in that setting and nothing particular needs to happen. But if you were running one of the Adventure or Techno modes it seems to start having the same problem again, bad stuff can happen to the PCs, and the players will want to avoid it. I was really disappointed when I read through the GMD campaigns and saw that you start with some really cool iconic-sounding characters and then the campaign turns out to be all about how quickly you can get them warped, hung and in some cases literally mutilated. Like hey I want to play Rinley because she sounds like an awesome energetic comedy trickster character and then 2/3rds of the way through she ends up breaking down in horrified tears because she's just learned she can be physically poisoned by having the wrong dream.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:38
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hyphz posted:I object to "integrity of the world" being seen as the primary GM guidelines for running a game about robbing modern banks, because by that integrity there should be no way to successfully rob a bank. I mean, who hasn't read a news story about a bank heist or a hack or something and just said "seriously, that worked!?". If we feel that the integrity of the real world is being violated when we read about it, then it sure as heck violates the integrity of fiction! It's not the integrity of the real world that's violated when bank robbers are successful, it's your expectations. Adjust your loving expectations.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:45
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Shut the gently caress up you insufferable arsehole.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:46
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Yeah, this is your little peccadillo. Your experiences/expectations are not universal.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:49
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hyphz posted:What fiction was he following when he made up the music room, the ghost, the presence of a piano, the subvertability of the ghost.. literally anything in that scene? You seem to think "follow the fiction" means "refer only to things that have been written down". It doesn't mean that. Following the fiction means that you take account of what is established as true about the world and events in the game and do something that logically and cogently follows from that. Based on what the book says (although I don't think the setting in book should be taken as absolute truth of any game, and the book only constitutes part of the fiction if everyone has agreed it does), and what has been established in play, the GM has decided that all of the thing narrated in that scene make sense and fit logically with established facts. That is following the fiction. Edit: it's the exact same logic a GM uses in preparing content prior to play. What fits and makes sense here? thefakenews fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 00:50
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hyphz posted:
genre expectations, previous information about the sisters people made up, ideas the players have, general imagination and game mechanics quote:Ok, that's cool. And I appreciate you had a player who wanted their character to go out with a bang. But do you think there has even been a case where, because a player was interested in something, it ended up with you spending more time on it and their character suffering a negative consequence which they would not have had if the player had been less interested? yeah loads of times. Negative consequences are good if it's interesting and something the players are on board with. That's what makes interesting stories.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:54
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I feel like I'm losing my mind. It's a problem that the world doesn't say that a bank actually can be broken into, and similarly since the Dimmer Sisters house is rumored to be inescapable, the GM has license to throw as many obstacles in the path of the players into order to make sure that nobody really does get out of there alive, because that's what the fiction says. This feels like the intersection of the hyperrealism and hyperliteralism of 2017, where you really cannot hide in the corners of the Oval Office because it is oval, and transparency in building the wall means it needs to be made out of plexiglass.
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Jan 9, 2018 00:57
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hyphz posted:I object to "integrity of the world" being seen as the primary GM guidelines for running a game about robbing modern banks, because by that integrity there should be no way to successfully rob a bank. I mean, who hasn't read a news story about a bank heist or a hack or something and just said "seriously, that worked!?". If we feel that the integrity of the real world is being violated when we read about it, then it sure as heck violates the integrity of fiction! isn't this solely a problem with you? like, by your own statement, banks *are* robbed, so your lack of ability to believe that banks can be robbed in the fiction is solely a problem you have to fix. What's possible and believable in the fiction in a RPG is a factor of the game genre and the players. It's quite true that if your group don't find bank robbery believable then obviously you can't rob a bank in that game, but .. isn't that fine? If you want to run a game about bank robbery, but you don't find bank robbery plausible EVEN IN FICTION, then you're kind of stuck and I don't know how a game's going to help with that.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:00
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http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/958369/robbers-steal-p10m-silver-jewels-cash-via-sewer-tunnel-in-baguioquote:Robbers broke into a local silver shop through a sewer tunnel and stole P10 million worth of silver jewelries and cash at the Mines View Park during the wee hours of the weekend, a police report showed.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:06
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hyphz posted:What fiction was he following when he made up the music room, the ghost, the presence of a piano, the subvertability of the ghost.. literally anything in that scene? the fiction that dictates those things as possible stuff that could be found in a ghost-warded house of witches. its not hard to do if you're capable of even the slightest iota of creative thought
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Jan 9, 2018 01:08
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thefakenews posted:You seem to think "follow the fiction" means "refer only to things that have been written down". It doesn't mean that. And how can it be "established" before the game, other than by being written down in advance of the game? xiw posted:Isn't this solely a problem with you? like, by your own statement, banks *are* robbed, so your lack of ability to believe that banks can be robbed in the fiction is solely a problem you have to fix. Banks are robbed. But even most actual bank robberies don't seem plausible except in hindsight. That's a problem when you have to make up how hard it is to rob a bank and are supposed to do so based only on what seems plausible, without hindsight. gradenko_2000 posted:And similarly since the Dimmer Sisters house is rumored to be inescapable, the GM has license to throw as many obstacles in the path of the players into order to make sure that nobody really does get out of there alive, because that's what the fiction says. Or it would if "follow the fiction" was the only guideline they were following, which is what people seem to be saying. But that's not the question. The question is how many obstacles they should throw in to a) get the players out of there alive, but also b) make it not so easy that it's totally at odds with those rumors existing. Serf posted:the fiction that dictates those things as possible stuff that could be found in a ghost-warded house of witches. its not hard to do if you're capable of even the slightest iota of creative thought Possible that those things would exist, sure. Plausible that a ghost bound by experts could be subverted by a bunch of random footpads? Much trickier to argue. Plausible that they would then find the valuable thing they were looking for, in the huge mansion, in 2 minutes flat? Ummm. hyphz fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 01:26
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Mr.Misfit posted:Hyphz is asking weird hypothetical questions about PbtA games and Blades in the Dark because he can´t get his brain around the fact that there can be concepts around rpgs that "follow from the fiction" and asks for examples but hasn´t gotten too many to apply to his situation because he´s a realism and plausibility-inspired dnd-gm. Also the Wire as done by BitD was awesome to read. Thank you for that *thumbs_up* Blades in the Dark is good but PBTA sucks so even if his reason is baffling and psychotic he's on the right track
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Jan 9, 2018 01:29
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And in conclusion, it is impossible to play BitD and there have been no successful games of it.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:31
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dwarf74 posted:And in conclusion, it is impossible to play BitD and there have been no successful games of it. The one I was in died. Well RIP
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Jan 9, 2018 01:31
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hyphz posted:And how can it be "established" before the game, other than by being written down in advance of the game? Maybe the group agreed that the setting details in the Blades book are part of the fiction. Maybe the GM has come up with stuff and has notes. Maybe there was session 0 where everyone talked about the world their expectations. Maybe the group came up with them during play. There are a ton of ways to establish the fiction. In the example from the Blades book, it is clear that the game has been going on for some time, since the crew is Tier II, so there was plenty of time for fiction to be established. quote:Possible that those things would exist, sure. Plausible that a ghost bound by experts could be subverted by a bunch of random footpads? Much trickier to argue. Plausible that they would then find the valuable thing they were looking for, in the huge mansion, in 2 minutes flat? Ummm. The example in the book doesn't take place over two minutes. Do you understand the difference between task resolution and scene/conflict resolution? The screen time is compressed vs a room by room dungeon crawl, but it doesn't mean time didn't pass in the fiction.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:35
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hyphz have you ever ran a game that wasn't a module?
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Jan 9, 2018 01:36
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hyphz posted:Banks are robbed. But even most actual bank robberies don't seem plausible except in hindsight. That's a problem when you have to make up how hard it is to rob a bank and are supposed to do so based only on what seems plausible, without hindsight. I don't know what you mean by 'without hindsight' here. If you don't know anything about crimes and don't understand how a bank robbery can work or don't watch heist movies to get inspiration, then running a game about a bank robbery is going to be a poo poo time for you . But this is a solvable problem - if you want to run bank robberies, watch heist movies, read about bank robberies, discuss ideas with your players, etc etc. This will change what seems plausible to you, and provide lots of useful details for you to use when running the game. A lot of RPGS include lists of material to watch for inspiration to play the game, I know AW has a couple of pages of suitable material to get you in the mind for what kind of things you want to see in the game.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:37
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hyphz posted:Banks are robbed. But even most actual bank robberies don't seem plausible except in hindsight. That's a problem when you have to make up how hard it is to rob a bank and are supposed to do so based only on what seems plausible, without hindsight. What in the actual gently caress.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:41
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hyphz posted:Banks are robbed. But even most actual bank robberies don't seem plausible except in hindsight. That's a problem when you have to make up how hard it is to rob a bank and are supposed to do so based only on what seems plausible, without hindsight. Why is this difficulty easier to overcome if I am preparing a D&D 5E adventure? thefakenews fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 01:41
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thefakenews posted:Why is difficulty easier to overcome if I am preparing a D&D 5E adventure? i can answer this for him "because D&D provides hardness rules and ect and therefore you know how hard your character has to hit to break a door"
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Jan 9, 2018 01:43
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Elfgames posted:i can answer this for him "because D&D provides hardness rules and ect and therefore you know how hard your character has to hit to break a door" If a "plausible" plan for robbing a bank is simply "break the door", I can come up with an appropriate difficulty for that in Blades just as easily as looking up hardness in the DMG.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:47
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me earlier today: you know, maybe I was a bit harsh saying that guy's understanding of player/GM interactions is sociopathic and implying he has fundamental problems understanding non-toxic behavior in RPGs me catching up on this thread: ahahaha welp
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Jan 9, 2018 01:48
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Elfgames posted:hyphz have you ever ran a game that wasn't a module? No. I tend to lose a lot of confidence at the old statement from the Ab3 rants - "think about the worst book ever published; it's better than the best thing you ever wrote.." thefakenews posted:Why is this difficulty easier to overcome if I am preparing a D&D 5E adventure? I had to think about this but unfortunately, the answer turns out to be "because caster supremacy". Unless that vault's owned or made by a 20th level wizard there's a way in. (And I don't like caster supremacy, but it seems relevant here.) Or because the setting is medieval and banks aren't necessarily super secure (remember in the original example I said a modern bank, not one that would show up in the canon BitD setting) thefakenews posted:The example in the book doesn't take place over two minutes. Do you understand the difference between task resolution and scene/conflict resolution? The screen time is compressed vs a room by room dungeon crawl, but it doesn't mean time didn't pass in the fiction. Mmm. I can understand time passing if the players are waiting for the solar eclipse or something like that, but using a "time passes" skip over when the players are in what could be a fascinating and unusual environment would seem a bit disappointing to me as a player at least.
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Jan 9, 2018 01:58
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hyphz posted:No. I tend to lose a lot of confidence at the old statement from the Ab3 rants - "think about the worst book ever published; it's better than the best thing you ever wrote.." This is one of the the worst inspirational statements you could have taken to heart. It's nonsense and a lie, throw it in the trash immediately.
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Jan 9, 2018 02:12
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hyphz posted:No. I tend to lose a lot of confidence at the old statement from the Ab3 rants - "think about the worst book ever published; it's better than the best thing you ever wrote.." This isn't true and you've let this irrational fear warp your thinking in deeply unhealthy ways
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Jan 9, 2018 02:13
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Hyphz, I'm running a Dungeon World PbP, where I make stuff up with each post. It started with a pretty tense action scene with high stakes. I'm happy to link you and walk you through my thinking. You can also see interaction with the PC, both in terms of setting expectations, understanding expectations, and interacting when we're not aligned. What you're so afraid of--that PCs need to be "fairly" challenged but not defeated--is not only not true, but it's not even true within traditional D&D. You can fudge rolls and make non optimal moves on the part of monsters to give the PCs a better chance, and a whole lot of DMs do, and we all know that DMs sometimes do,and we all manage to have fun playing D&D anyway. LogicNinja fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 02:17
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hyphz posted:No. I tend to lose a lot of confidence at the old statement from the Ab3 rants - "think about the worst book ever published; it's better than the best thing you ever wrote.."  Most modules and adventures are complete trash friend. Go with your own material even if that means you are copy pasting stuff from a movie or book you like. Also whats AB3?
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Jan 9, 2018 02:20
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lol who the heck reads something like that "the worst book ever is better than ANYTHING you've ever written you idiot, you absolute fool" statement and takes it to heart rather than going "hmm this sounds suspiciously like something a stupid loving rear end in a top hat would say."
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Jan 9, 2018 02:20
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That person deserves to go to book jail where all they get to read is Ready Player One for ten years straight.
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Jan 9, 2018 02:21
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Being insanely depressed and having no self-confidence is chill
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Jan 9, 2018 02:22
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kingcom posted:Also whats AB3? A series of rants on RPGNet from a long time ago telling of play sessions with the absolute worst players you could imagine. Also, stdh.txt
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Jan 9, 2018 02:24
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