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Lightning Lord posted:For the same reason he doesn't do it as a comic with actual art, lettering or coloring, because then it would be judged on those standards 
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Feb 22, 2018 21:03
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I feel like you could pretty easily hack up Law's Out into a fair Dune/courtly politics game.
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Feb 22, 2018 21:07
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:I mean sure, I can see liking whatever part of his characterisation (he appears in the BG games and is fine), but as a whole he is the most "boring guy tells you about his totally badass d&d character" motherfucker ever Greenwood literally wrote that Elminster hangs out with him sometimes in a piece of official material. He's involved in everything and everything is about him. He is the worst character of all time. I was incredibly happy when Forgotten Realms got blown the gently caress up in 4th edition, and Elminster was basically disintegrated.
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Feb 22, 2018 21:48
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What's FantasyCraft like. A couple friends mentioned it to me as a possible game to run but I don't know anything about it beyond it being d20.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:14
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hyphz posted:I can see how establishing threats makes the narrative fairer, but not how it helps with the game aspect. It might eliminate problems with preparation, I suppose. If the players can choose not to face the threat while still achieving a goal, that works, but that can’t always be the case. If the players know in advance that the guy’s using a poisoned blade that doesn’t stop them thinking I’m an rear end in a top hat for giving him it, and heck, I can’t see the narrative value of doing so at the point of combat either (a poisoned blade and a regular knife both kill you). Literally in all my life I have never run into the players like the ones you keep describing. It sounds increasingly like the problem is that you're playing with the shittest players imaginable. EDIT: Let's turn this on you dude. You're in my AW game and in a fight I tell you that the guy you're fighting's put some weird poison on his knife. Would you blame me personally for putting that guy in the game? Down With People fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Feb 22, 2018 |
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Feb 22, 2018 22:14
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hyphz posted:I can see how establishing threats makes the narrative fairer, but not how it helps with the game aspect. It might eliminate problems with preparation, I suppose. If the players can choose not to face the threat while still achieving a goal, that works, but that can’t always be the case. If the players know in advance that the guy’s using a poisoned blade that doesn’t stop them thinking I’m an rear end in a top hat for giving him it, and heck, I can’t see the narrative value of doing so at the point of combat either (a poisoned blade and a regular knife both kill you). What stops the GM in any game giving an enemy a poisoned knife? Can you give concrete examples of the rules that other games have that you think are missing in Apocalypse World? Not vague abstract stuff, but actual rules mechanics that you say prevent players from thinking the GM is being unfair.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:27
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Down With People posted:Literally in all my life I have never run into the players like the ones you keep describing. It sounds increasingly like the problem is that you're playing with the shittest players imaginable. It’s not just for his existence, though. Ok, so say you do that. I’m playing a guy who’s supposed to be the group badass. The guy with the knife is blocking our only exit. I roll, it’s Risky/Moderate or whatever, and get a fail forward. I win but get cut with the poison blade. Now, the group needs to get me an antidote. The upgrades they were planning to spend their money on and the next session where they would investigate the lead on the enemy conspiracy which is fascinating all the players are now all postponed in favour of wandering around looking for doctors. The players are pissed off. And yea, I might keep quiet out of politeness, but I’d want to ask, “why you have to give that guy poison? He could still have fought me with a regular knife but the consequences wouldn’t have buggered the pacing.”
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Feb 22, 2018 22:37
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hyphz posted:It’s not just for his existence, though. Haha, wow. Just... maybe sign up for a PbtA game, a one-shot somewhere. The Gauntlet on G+ runs a lot of them. It's clear you have no idea how they're played, and I don't think any explanations here will help.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:40
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You really seem to want to be playing Descent, or at least, an RPG both a) strict budgeting of what opposition the GM is entitled to put in front of the players, and b) clear rules about what constitutes challenge and task resolution. The vast majority of games don't even get b) right, let alone implement a). For example, eve Strike!, which clearly tells the GM not to do stuff like make the player roll several checks to accomplish a single goal like sneaking into a room, doesn't have a system for how many rolls the GM should impose in the course of an encounter or adventure. Sorry man but you have Frank Trollman levels of suspicion for anything and everything the GM does.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:43
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hyphz posted:It’s not just for his existence, though. since you're mixing up AW and Blades, i'll answer this from the Blades angle finding a doctor to cure your poison doesn't cost coin, it takes a downtime activity, of which you will get 2 per person in the crew. a poisoned knife and a regular cut have no mechanical difference, they both leave Harm, and getting that Harm fixed is done the same way regardless. also if your team has a person with the physicker ability then this becomes even easier to fix
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Feb 22, 2018 22:44
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"i'm not poisoned, i'm not poisoned" i continue to insist as I slowly shrink and transform into the Kwisatz haderach
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Feb 22, 2018 22:45
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hyphz posted:It’s not just for his existence, though. First, the bolded section: AW is not a game where spending money on upgrades is really a thing. Also, in many AW games the PCs are at odds with each other, or certainly not an adventuring group, so your character dying of poison might not even be a big deal to them. Second, I repeat my previous question. What actual rules do other games have, that AW doesn't, to prevent your scenario here from happening?
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Feb 22, 2018 22:51
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Speaking of Blades in the Dark, I had a ton of fun GMing it and my players had a ton of fun playing it but I definitely swept some rules under the rug, and maybe this thread can tell me what I was supposed to do. Some of them I know how I'm supposed to use them and just forgot (clocks, non-physical harm) but I don't really get effect. Like position is great, I understand it perfectly, and I used it constantly but I felt like most rolls didn't have effect make sense. As I understand it, an action that calls for a roll is broken into three parts--the result of the die (either success at your stated goal, success but also bad things happen, or bad things happen without success), the position (how bad are the bad things that happen on failure or partial success) and effect (how much of your stated goal do you accomplish on a success). But I felt like the vast majority of rolls were pretty binary success/failure. Like, either the guard saw them sneaking or they didn't. Either their gunshot hit the mook or it didn't. Either they pick the lock or they don't. Position and die roll make perfect sense for all those actions but I dunno how I was supposed to apply effect to them.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:52
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Flavivirus posted:Haha, wow. Just... maybe sign up for a PbtA game, a one-shot somewhere. The Gauntlet on G+ runs a lot of them. It's clear you have no idea how they're played, and I don't think any explanations here will help. To be fair, people with prior experience were warning everyone not to get bogged down in discussing this particular topic with hyphz, there's just too much of a perspective disconnect for anybody to make anything resembling a breakthrough or for hyphz to suddenly have an epiphany, other than perhaps that these games are not what they're looking for in an rpg.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:54
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Serf posted:since you're mixing up AW and Blades, i'll answer this from the Blades angle Ok, that’s a specific case though. Just substitute any failure resulting in a side quest for the poisoned knife. I mean, if your favourite TV show pulled that kind of crap, teasing the entire secret of the island for the last episode of the series and then the punchman gets stuck with poison by a peasant and the episode is just running around hospitals then being ready to investigate after that, wouldn’t you think it was a hack? Wouldn’t you think the author didn’t know what the reveal was going to be and fudged it? If the games are supposed to be narrativist, why can’t players criticise the narrative?
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Feb 22, 2018 22:55
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cheetah7071 posted:Speaking of Blades in the Dark, I had a ton of fun GMing it and my players had a ton of fun playing it but I definitely swept some rules under the rug, and maybe this thread can tell me what I was supposed to do. Some of them I know how I'm supposed to use them and just forgot (clocks, non-physical harm) but I don't really get effect. Like position is great, I understand it perfectly, and I used it constantly but I felt like most rolls didn't have effect make sense. As I understand it, an action that calls for a roll is broken into three parts--the result of the die (either success at your stated goal, success but also bad things happen, or bad things happen without success), the position (how bad are the bad things that happen on failure or partial success) and effect (how much of your stated goal do you accomplish on a success). But I felt like the vast majority of rolls were pretty binary success/failure. Like, either the guard saw them sneaking or they didn't. Either their gunshot hit the mook or it didn't. Either they pick the lock or they don't. Position and die roll make perfect sense for all those actions but I dunno how I was supposed to apply effect to them. Well, you can find small ways to make a lesser or greater level of effect give some detriment or bonus. Before the roll, think about the stakes and what the intended outcome is. Then think of what a slightly worse and slightly better version of that is, while still giving the player the core thing they want. If you can't think of something, it is ok not to worry about effect on some rolls.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:56
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thefakenews posted:First, the bolded section: AW is not a game where spending money on upgrades is really a thing. Also, in many AW games the PCs are at odds with each other, or certainly not an adventuring group, so your character dying of poison might not even be a big deal to them. Also, you would never ever be in a situation where you have to spend barter or you will die, nor would you be in a situation where the whole group would be saving up all of their barter so they can buy something. You would also never be in a situation where the only way to 'advance the story' is to spend a whole bunch of barter at once chasing down 'leads' or whatever. EDIT: I mean hyphz my man i'm willing to believe you opened up AW and looked at the pages but you clearly didn't read it.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:57
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hyphz posted:Ok, that’s a specific case though. Just substitute any failure resulting in a side quest for the poisoned knife. Apocalypse World is a game, not a TV show. The gameplay isn't, and isn't supposed to be, exactly like a TV show. And, for the third time, please provide an example of actual mechanics from another game that would stop this from happening. E: this is a good faith request, not a gotcha, I sincerely want to understand what kind of explicit rule you are looking for.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:00
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cheetah7071 posted:Speaking of Blades in the Dark, I had a ton of fun GMing it and my players had a ton of fun playing it but I definitely swept some rules under the rug, and maybe this thread can tell me what I was supposed to do. Some of them I know how I'm supposed to use them and just forgot (clocks, non-physical harm) but I don't really get effect. Like position is great, I understand it perfectly, and I used it constantly but I felt like most rolls didn't have effect make sense. As I understand it, an action that calls for a roll is broken into three parts--the result of the die (either success at your stated goal, success but also bad things happen, or bad things happen without success), the position (how bad are the bad things that happen on failure or partial success) and effect (how much of your stated goal do you accomplish on a success). But I felt like the vast majority of rolls were pretty binary success/failure. Like, either the guard saw them sneaking or they didn't. Either their gunshot hit the mook or it didn't. Either they pick the lock or they don't. Position and die roll make perfect sense for all those actions but I dunno how I was supposed to apply effect to them. you understand what effect represents, and it seems like you used it pretty much how you're going to use it when you start out. standard effect is fine since that's going to cover the vast majority of situations. but effect is one of those things that can determine how much effort it is going to take to solve a problem. like if you attempt to pick a lock used by a faction with a higher Tier than you, your effect could suffer because of that. they got good locks! this might mean that one successful roll necessitates another because the lock is just that complex or because its taking you longer than normal due to a weird design. conversely, you could have great effect if you have a particularly effective approach or tool. if you're facing off against some sort of horrible water demon and you grab one of the sparking wires from the cultists' generator and hit the demon with those your effect might be pushed up to great. or if your effect was going to be limited because demons are badass, then you can push yourself up to standard again. this is really important when it comes to clocks, since effect level determines how many ticks you add to them. but the thing about Blades is that the more you run it, the more this stuff starts to make sense to you. and you don't need to understand it at first to have a good time, or ever really. the system works just fine without getting into the granularity of effect, and as long as you can understand position you'll be golden in most situations.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:02
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hyphz posted:Ok, that’s a specific case though. Just substitute any failure resulting in a side quest for the poisoned knife. in Blades, dealing with the Harm you've taken would not be an episode. it would be a scene. a montage at best. and in TV, sometimes characters do get sidelined by bad injuries, if you want to play it that way, that works too. could be an excuse to pick up another character and play them, have the spotlight fall on a guest star for an episode
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Feb 22, 2018 23:04
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hyphz posted:I mean, if your favourite TV show pulled that kind of crap, teasing the entire secret of the island for the last episode of the series and then the punchman gets stuck with poison by a peasant and the episode is just running around hospitals then being ready to investigate after that, wouldn’t you think it was a hack? Wouldn’t you think the author didn’t know what the reveal was going to be and fudged it? You will never accomplish this in a million years, but there are plenty of games from the 1990s that cater to your tastes.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:08
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Serf posted:you understand what effect represents, and it seems like you used it pretty much how you're going to use it when you start out. standard effect is fine since that's going to cover the vast majority of situations. but effect is one of those things that can determine how much effort it is going to take to solve a problem. like if you attempt to pick a lock used by a faction with a higher Tier than you, your effect could suffer because of that. they got good locks! this might mean that one successful roll necessitates another because the lock is just that complex or because its taking you longer than normal due to a weird design. conversely, you could have great effect if you have a particularly effective approach or tool. if you're facing off against some sort of horrible water demon and you grab one of the sparking wires from the cultists' generator and hit the demon with those your effect might be pushed up to great. or if your effect was going to be limited because demons are badass, then you can push yourself up to standard again. Cool so the BitD-y way to handle, say, fighting ghosts would be "using arcane weapons/tools increases your effect" rather than "you can't fight them without arcane weapons" which is what I actually did in game. cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Feb 22, 2018 |
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Feb 22, 2018 23:08
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cheetah7071 posted:Speaking of Blades in the Dark, I had a ton of fun GMing it and my players had a ton of fun playing it but I definitely swept some rules under the rug, and maybe this thread can tell me what I was supposed to do. Some of them I know how I'm supposed to use them and just forgot (clocks, non-physical harm) but I don't really get effect. Like position is great, I understand it perfectly, and I used it constantly but I felt like most rolls didn't have effect make sense. As I understand it, an action that calls for a roll is broken into three parts--the result of the die (either success at your stated goal, success but also bad things happen, or bad things happen without success), the position (how bad are the bad things that happen on failure or partial success) and effect (how much of your stated goal do you accomplish on a success). But I felt like the vast majority of rolls were pretty binary success/failure. Like, either the guard saw them sneaking or they didn't. Either their gunshot hit the mook or it didn't. Either they pick the lock or they don't. Position and die roll make perfect sense for all those actions but I dunno how I was supposed to apply effect to them. So, off the top of my head - The guard doesn't see the players sneak by; the guard catches a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye and is alerted, but doesn't know where they are, how many there are, and what they're doing; the guard sees them and sounds the alarm. The gunshot hits the mook and hurts him; the shot hits the mook and (leaves him vulnerable to a follow-up attack/knocks his weapon out of his hand/knocks him over but doesn't cause major harm); the gunshot does not hit the mook. The players pick the lock and get in scot-free; the players pick the lock, but leave traces of their activity for the guards to notice, or break their lockpicks; the players pick the lock and open the door straight into the guards' mess hall. The various *World games definitely benefit from a good improvisational ability on the part of the GM. Thefakenews' advice on consequence is just as important as thinking up consequences, however - if you can't come up with something that advances the story, deepens the mood, or is just plain interesting, just don't roll. E: drat, you guys are on top of things today.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:10
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cheetah7071 posted:Cool so the BotD-y way to handle, say, fighting ghosts would be "using arcane weapons/tools increases your effect" rather than "you can't fight them without arcane weapons" which is what I actually did in game. this is actually a matter for discussion, but only with the people in your game. it contributes to the tone and mood you want to evoke in the game. i would settle on how dark/gritty/rough you want the game to be before playing, or deal with these matters as they come up. Blades fully supports both those methods, with the former being less punishing and more swashbuckling and the latter being grittier and giving the supernatural a more dangerous vibe. either way works, you just get to decide as a group how you want it to play.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:13
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Zerilan posted:What's FantasyCraft like. A couple friends mentioned it to me as a possible game to run but I don't know anything about it beyond it being d20. FantasyCraft is a d20 fantasy game made by the Spycraft guys. As such it's a reasonably well designed but extremely dense and fiddly game. I would describe it as the ultimate expression of someone sitting down and saying "I'm gonna fix 3.X so it works right!" and it does, but the way it goes about doing that adds a lot of different layers of stuff and while I don't feel like it's unnecessarily complex, I also feel like a lot of the information is presented in unintuitive ways that require a lot of flipping back and forth to crosscheck stuff and so the actual effort required to come to terms with how everything works is more tedious than it needs to be. It does a lot of things pretty well imo, martial characters get a decent enough array of impactful abilities and options that don't feel like lovely afterthoughts, the mandatory overelaborate weapon list actually attempts to give all the various flavors of weapons characteristics and capabilities to meaningfully differentiate them, feats aren't utterly insufferable, the default race selection gives you the standard orcs and elves but also lets you play dragons, giants, ogres, lizard people, tree people, and warforged/golems...I would say that if what you and your friends want is a robust and decently designed d20 fantasy game with a lot of crunch and you absolutely can'd stand 4E D&D for whatever reason it's probably the best option that exists.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:17
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Halloween Jack posted:So your ideal RPG is one where the PCs have no real agency, but the GM is an auteur who perfectly maintains the illusion of such while railroading the party through a story that they all enjoy, equally. Well no, the PCs should have agency. I’m not sure why “a story that they all enjoy” requires railroading, or why a modern trend called “narrative gaming” would be about anything other than creating a story the players enjoy. 
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Feb 22, 2018 23:23
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Serf posted:this is actually a matter for discussion, but only with the people in your game. it contributes to the tone and mood you want to evoke in the game. i would settle on how dark/gritty/rough you want the game to be before playing, or deal with these matters as they come up. Blades fully supports both those methods, with the former being less punishing and more swashbuckling and the latter being grittier and giving the supernatural a more dangerous vibe. either way works, you just get to decide as a group how you want it to play. I probably had a mismatch there but it ended up okay because I made ghost-killing tools really easy to get so ghosts mostly ended up being "check off one load" and then we're on track for swashing buckles
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Feb 22, 2018 23:42
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cheetah7071 posted:Cool so the BitD-y way to handle, say, fighting ghosts would be "using arcane weapons/tools increases your effect" rather than "you can't fight them without arcane weapons" which is what I actually did in game. Either works fine, depending on the approach and what you're going for tone-wise.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:43
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rumble in the bunghole posted:Either works fine, depending on the approach and what you're going for tone-wise. Also, arcane poo poo is weird and varied enough that you're entirely in your rights to say that sure, icing No-Throat Bennie when he's been haunting in your territory without paying protection is just 'mark off some eletroplasmic ammo', while icing The Black Hand, the ghostly slasher of Silkshore, is gonna require a cool Arcane weapon just because he's hard as nails.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:51
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hyphz posted:Well no, the PCs should have agency.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:52
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I'm getting the feeling that hyphz's discussion isn't really "about" pbta
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Feb 22, 2018 23:56
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Flavivirus posted:Just... maybe sign up for a PbtA game, a one-shot somewhere. This is probably the best advice you're going to get.
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Feb 23, 2018 00:07
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hyphz posted:Well no, the PCs should have agency. Well, in your example you said that the players would be upset that something unexpected happened that interferes with the main goal the PCs are pursuing. Unexpected events loving up a plan is something that happens in stories, and how the characters deal with it is part of the story. But you're saying that nothing should hinder the PCs from just being able to investigate a conspiracy.
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Feb 23, 2018 00:11
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Kai Tave posted:FantasyCraft is a d20 fantasy game made by the Spycraft guys. As such it's a reasonably well designed but extremely dense and fiddly game. I would describe it as the ultimate expression of someone sitting down and saying "I'm gonna fix 3.X so it works right!" and it does, but the way it goes about doing that adds a lot of different layers of stuff and while I don't feel like it's unnecessarily complex, I also feel like a lot of the information is presented in unintuitive ways that require a lot of flipping back and forth to crosscheck stuff and so the actual effort required to come to terms with how everything works is more tedious than it needs to be. Thanks. In a similar vein, I hear about Shadow of the Demon Lord a lot which is also d20 I think. What does it do well relative to other d20 options?
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Feb 23, 2018 00:16
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Zerilan posted:Thanks. In a similar vein, I hear about Shadow of the Demon Lord a lot which is also d20 I think. What does it do well relative to other d20 options? -the math is sane and only uses d20s and d6s -boons/banes are a great system that almost eliminates the swinginess of advantage/disadvantage and also there are no stacking bonuses -spellcasters can't dominate the game -no dead levels, martials get very effective abilities and the path system lets you make all sorts of cool combinations -lots of good systems for horror/grimdark gaming, but those are easily ignored if you want -strong core themes and flavor -the author is a writing machine and has put out tons of useful supplements that add all sorts of things to the game -you can play as a mecha pilot
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Feb 23, 2018 00:36
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Serf posted:-you can play as a mecha pilot Also theres a cool as hell mecha game made using the system.
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Feb 23, 2018 00:38
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kingcom posted:Also theres a cool as hell mecha game made using the system. Speaking of LANCER, there hasn't been a new update in a while but that's because the creator has apparently been working on a fairly extensive overhaul to the rules based on feedback and his own dissatisfaction with how certain systems have been playing out in practice: quote:Hey all! quote:I'm going to also mention briefly that I'll be cleaning up a lot of the more 'finicky' systems in this update, such as critical damage, disabling individual systems, etc. This is being replaced (along with heat) with some new statuses and a new system which is a CRITICAL gauge. I think it'll be both way more interesting, easier to use, and more flavorful in general. quote:Posting an addendum here - Update's coming along, but it's a fairly major overhaul of the game (drastically for the better in my opinion) that doesn't fundamentally change too much but makes systems both simpler and easier to use. This will require some more play-testing and balancing to get right but it's such a good departure from some of the wonkier parts of the old system that I think it will go over really well. He also mentioned that his work on Kill 6 Billion Demons precludes him from taking the lead on artwork for the final version and that part of the funding for the game when it's launched will be for commissioning artwork, but that he'll still be contributing a few pieces here and there. He actually posted this on his tumblr page just the other day: 
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Feb 23, 2018 00:44
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Zerilan posted:What's FantasyCraft like. A couple friends mentioned it to me as a possible game to run but I don't know anything about it beyond it being d20. It's a different branch of d20 that diverges far more heavily from D&D 3.5 than Fantasy Craft does. In general it tends to be slightly crunchier - classes and species tend to give you a bit more, and feats are somewhat more robust. The equipment system has a lot more customization, and there's heavy brakes put on building wealth (as a certain amount gets automatically expended on your lifestyle). Magic items are done through a separate reputation / renown economy that can also be used to get contacts and holdings. Characters have action dice each session that can be used to boost rolls or spent to "activate" critical successes and enemy critical failures. Melee combat generally has more options you can unlock through feats or specialization, and combat maneuvers are skill-based. Magic is more skill roll / mana-based - characters get more spells up-front, but wait longer to get access to high-level spells. On the GM's end, monsters are built on a point-based system that determines their XP value. There are baked-in optional rules to modify campaigns or to adjust an adventure's difficulty. It's gotten a little dated at this point, but it's basically a more refined and dramatically retuned version of d20. It's still a very similar game at the core, but a lot of the systems have been essentially rebuilt from scratch with a lot of the knowledge that had been gained about the system at the time.
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Feb 23, 2018 01:17
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hyphz posted:Well no, the PCs should have agency. This blog post by Vincent Baker (the designer of AW) outlining his general design philosophy seems relevant: quote:As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of an rpg's rules is to create the unwelcome and the unwanted in the game's fiction. The reason to play by rules is because you want the unwelcome and the unwanted - you want things that no vigorous creative agreement would ever create. And it's not that you want one person's wanted, welcome vision to win out over another's - that's weak sauce. (*) No, what you want are outcomes that upset every single person at the table. You want things that if you hadn't agreed to abide by the rules' results, you would reject. Vincent believes that if you want a ruleset to actually do something -- to produce a story that you couldn't have created more easily through freeform RP -- you have to be open to the real possibility that it will produce a result that nobody at the table is happy with in the moment, because just using rules to choose between outcomes is toothless if all of those outcomes are equally satisfying anyway. AW's design reflects that. In other words, creating a story the players enjoy is not the sole priority, at least for a simple definition of "enjoy" -- sometimes following the rules will disrupt everyone's plans and ideas for the way the story will progress in a way that nobody would have chosen, and that (as Vincent sees it) is a major reason for having rules at all. Note that he also makes a point in the comments that playing successfully by any set of formal rules requires the group to have a functional social dynamic to begin with, and it sounds like your group may have some problems with that. To actually take a stab at answering the question that seems to be on your mind, though: your players should be able to tell you're not purposely screwing them over when bad things happen because you will often be just as unhappy with the outcome as they are. That's not really some kind of AW-specific or indie-specific thing, either: you don't normally cackle in glee when you're running a D&D game and there's an unexpected PC death, right? If anything, you're probably kind of uneasy about it, and players should be able to pick up on that, regardless of the ruleset. Thuryl fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Feb 23, 2018 |
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Feb 23, 2018 01:18
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Thuryl posted:Vincent believes that if you want a ruleset to actually do something -- to produce a story that you couldn't have created more easily through freeform RP -- you have to be open to the real possibility that it will produce a result that nobody at the table is happy with in the moment, because just using rules to choose between outcomes is toothless if all of those outcomes are equally satisfying anyway. AW's design reflects that. In other words, creating a story the players enjoy is not the sole priority, at least for a simple definition of "enjoy" -- sometimes following the rules will disrupt everyone's plans and ideas for the way the story will progress in a way that nobody would have chosen, and that (as Vincent sees it) is a major reason for having rules at all. Note that he also makes a point in the comments that playing successfully by any set of formal rules requires the group to have a functional social dynamic to begin with, and it sounds like your group may have some problems with that. That's.. rather surreal, but does put a very interesting spin on the whole thing. I mean, honestly, it seems to be saying that the uneasiness I feel if I think about running these systems is intentional, which seems very unusual (and a bit at odds with systems like Fellowship where the GM is supposed to, at least partially, create the overlord as a character they resonate with even if they are doomed to lose) My knee-jerk reaction though is that there's unwelcome stuff (the ten goblin guards outside the door to the inn) and there's UNWELCOME stuff (Tiamat flying towards the level 1 party). A player getting stabbed with a poison dagger is unwelcome, but a boring and badly paced story is UNWELCOME. I mean, I do not actually see any aspect of the rules which checks the "compellingness" of a situation before it is introduced, and if you argue that the GM is supposed to do this as part of the Principles, then it seems to be something that could be done in freeform as well.
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Feb 23, 2018 01:37
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