The Philosophy of Roleplaying Games

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DoctorWhat: Nov 18, 2011; A little privacy, please?

Notahippie posted:

I think that approach is necessary, though, because there are creeps and clueless people and bad-faith actors in the community who will use the rules-as-written as a club or who will just not do a good job of avoiding the worst cases.

I think sex can absolutely be a positive part of an RPG group, and can be handled maturely and in an inclusive way, but I think that's not true for every group. I also think that in general it's better to start with an approach that is maximally inclusive, and use "lines and veils" type discussion to expand what's possible.

I suspect that a system that leans into sexuality by centering mechanical elements for will create uncomfortable situations for some players more than one doesn't integrate sex into the system as much as others. Does that make AW a bad game? Not at all! It's probably awesome for the right group. But would I personally require a higher degree of trust in a group before I'd play that compared to most other games? 100%

From a "philosophy of games" orentation, that's a problem - as a design philosophy, I think designers should actually deliberately be designing to prevent the worst-case scenarios, because I think the potential negative impact of a bad-faith actor using your game to skeeve on somebody is worse than the lost opportunity of people who wouldn't otherwise think about incorporating sex into their game not incorporating it.

Communicating the expectations and tone of a game is important, I agree. I see the value of your holisitic standpoint, where the content of games and the tendencies of tabletop culture to harbor bad actors cannot be extricated from one another. And you're also right that it's not just bad actors - it's less-experienced players, and players with less-developed empathic instincts and players with neurodivergence, who are also ill-served.

But I think that designers should not be entirely beholden to preventing a worst-case scenario at the expense of expressive and challenging game design. Eventually, at some point, the actual players have to be responsible for their experiences, and there's a point where, after X-Cards and careful introductions regarding the subject matter and respect for one another, you can't keep blaming game designers for bad players.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:03

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 11:50

Notahippie: Feb 4, 2003; Kids, it's not cool to have Shane MacGowan teeth

Mr. Maltose posted:

The problem with this, and Olivia Hill has said this in much greater detail (For example, there's a full page about it in iHunt), is that you can design and design around worst case scenarios and those scenarios will still happen because a person who wants to violate the trust of the group will do so no matter what the subject matter is or what rules are in place. For example, this entire hellconversation happened because someone was rightfully wary of using Dungeon World because Adam Kobel is human garbage, but what he did to demonstrate that was to be a bad faith actor in a game that had nothing to do with these things! Bad faith actors by nature will act in bad faith, and trying to make the bad faith proof game isn't really possible.

Yep, that's true, and of course you can take the discussion too far and get into Tipper Gore territory where the only okay game is My Little Pony: The RPG. But I assert that designers can't use that truth to ignore issues of how sexuality or other forms of inclusion are incorporated into their mechanics, and should design with an eye to making it harder to make people uncomfortable. There are a lot of judgment calls involved here and I don't think you can say "this is objectively where the line is" but for me the way that AW not just includes sex in the mechanics but builds it into the character development is an error. It's not FATAL, but I still think the designers could have done better.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:03

Ilor: Feb 2, 2008; That's a crit.

Leperflesh posted:

I'm gonna pick on you a little, llor, but please don't take it personally;

Nah, it's all good, and I'm cool being used as the example if it generates good discussion.

Also, FWIW I am prone to hyperbole. Yes, I fully understand and accept there are people who do not engage in sex (willingly or unwillingly) for a variety of reasons. But I think my central point (that sex is far more common an activity in our world than murderous violence) is a valid one. In the realm of human experience, having sex is far more familiar to the vast majority of people than bloody-minded violence.

I totally get it if people don't want to include sex as a theme in their games, and I have no problem with that. Like I said, that's a great use of the X card. But there's an awful lot of huffiness about how this sort of thing should never be included in games ever, which I just find ridiculous given the other themes with which RPGs deal. If you don't trust the people at the table to be respectful of issues you might have with any theme that might crop up at a table, then don't game with them.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:04

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Notahippie posted:

Yep, that's true, and of course you can take the discussion too far and get into Tipper Gore territory where the only okay game is My Little Pony: The RPG. But I assert that designers can't use that truth to ignore issues of how sexuality or other forms of inclusion are incorporated into their mechanics, and should design with an eye to making it harder to make people uncomfortable. There are a lot of judgment calls involved here and I don't think you can say "this is objectively where the line is" but for me the way that AW not just includes sex in the mechanics but builds it into the character development is an error. It's not FATAL, but I still think the designers could have done better.

I'm not sure what you mean by having sex be "built into the character development." Could you elaborate?

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:05

DoctorWhat: Nov 18, 2011; A little privacy, please?

Leperflesh posted:

Yeah agreed. There's a discussion to be had about whether "all your characters are HOT" is feeding into unhealthy attitudes about sex, but I see that as separate from "anyone who sees the sex stuff in AW and immediately rejects it from their pile of games to play is being silly/taking it too seriously/sadly repressed/etc."

My position is, of course there's room for sex in RPGs, and presumably many RPGs - some written by Goons in these forums even - that include sex themes in a healthy and mature way, and of course it's cool and fine and good for people to play them. Of particular value are games that are inclusive of the full panoply of gender identities and experiences (which is not the same as "includes sex").

However, it's also 100% OK for anyone of any age or background or game group type to make the judgement call that they do not want sex themes at their table, regardless of whether a specific sex move is easy to ignore from the rules or not, and it's not cool to imply, however obliquely, that perhaps they're just being prudish and if they had a more European attitude, they'd get over it.

100% on the same page with you here.

Mr. Maltose posted:

The problem with this, and Olivia Hill has said this in much greater detail (For example, there's a full page about it in iHunt), is that you can design and design around worst case scenarios and those scenarios will still happen because a person who wants to violate the trust of the group will do so no matter what the subject matter is or what rules are in place. F
[ ]
Bad faith actors by nature will act in bad faith, and trying to make the bad faith proof game isn't really possible.

This is a much more succinct and clear version of my position too, and I was gonna mention iHunt but got lazy.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:05

Serf: May 5, 2011

Nessus posted:

Well I can't, because they already know about Apocalypse World, and they know what PBTA means, and now those systems have a halo effect for them. They may very well just be grognard-rear end idiots who actually want to play Pathfinder until the forest makes use of them, but they seem to articulate desires to the effect of "Boy, I'd really like to create a set of rules that emulated a Metal Gear-esque technothriller environment! Especially if they were simple and flexible!"

seems like they may just need to get over it?

Sodomy Hussein posted:

Typical depictions of sex in HBO are extremely problematic. Its most popular show is a mess on this topic in particular, and almost every HBO show does male gazey-as-hell sex. So, it's really not the rhetorical mark you want to be hitting to convince anyone that AW handles sex in a non-garbage way. That is not to say I'm not open to some other comparison that raises way less alarm bells.

again, i agreed with all this. is there some other game you know of that you think handles the topic of human sexuality in a way that you do like?

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:06

Zeerust: May 1, 2008; They must have guessed, once or twice - guessed and refused to believe - that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return.

Serf posted:

in what way?

I've never been bothered by the playbook Specials, but I definitely feel that shows like Game of Thrones have an incredibly sophomoric and exploitative approach to sex, soit's not a flattering comparison.

Personally, I'd never thought to draw a line between Apocalypse World and prestige TV. It's a game about being messy people having messy relationships in a world where everything is going away. Some of the mess can be a consequence of two characters sharing an intimate moment. It doesn't shove it in your face or give you a whole dice rolling process, it just says 'You decided to do this? Okay, this happens'. It isn't there to titillate or exploit. It's there to help create moments of drama between adults.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:08

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Serf posted:

seems like they may just need to get over it?

Ah yes, of course; why didn't I think of that.

It does seem like putting some thought in how we can kind of bridge the cognitive gap between people who, on the one hand, strongly desire what are clearly narrative experiences, and on the other hand, are deeply marinated in D&D/PF, would be helpful.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:13

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

Ilor posted:

Nah, it's all good, and I'm cool being used as the example if it generates good discussion.

Also, FWIW I am prone to hyperbole. Yes, I fully understand and accept there are people who do not engage in sex (willingly or unwillingly) for a variety of reasons. But I think my central point (that sex is far more common an activity in our world than murderous violence) is a valid one. In the realm of human experience, having sex is far more familiar to the vast majority of people than bloody-minded violence.

I totally get it if people don't want to include sex as a theme in their games, and I have no problem with that. Like I said, that's a great use of the X card. But there's an awful lot of huffiness about how this sort of thing should never be included in games ever, which I just find ridiculous given the other themes with which RPGs deal. If you don't trust the people at the table to be respectful of issues you might have with any theme that might crop up at a table, then don't game with them.

Yeah I guess where I'm coming from is: familiarity with the subject isn't a determinator of appropriateness or comfort with the subject. I'm highly familiar with taking a poo poo daily and have zero personal experience with exploring alien worlds, but one of those is something I wanna do in an RPG and the other is something I don't. That's a reductio ad absurdum of course, but I'm hopefully making a useful point... being personally familiar with violence doesn't decide how or whether I want to do violence in my roleplaying games, nor whether violence (or anything else) is being presented in a healthy vs. unhealthy way.

Aside from that:
It still looks to me like the only origin of "should never be included in games ever" is one quote of Sodomy Hussain, who appears to not have intended it that way based on their confusion or disclaiming of what was meant by it.

Sodomy Hussain, perhaps you could clear this up: do you think/did you intend to say that there's no place for sex in games?

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:14

Notahippie: Feb 4, 2003; Kids, it's not cool to have Shane MacGowan teeth

Mr. Maltose posted:

I'm not sure what you mean by having sex be "built into the character development." Could you elaborate?

Just that it's on your character sheet and has a mechanical as well as RP impact.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:15

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Nessus posted:

Ah yes, of course; why didn't I think of that.

It does seem like putting some thought in how we can kind of bridge the cognitive gap between people who, on the one hand, strongly desire what are clearly narrative experiences, and on the other hand, are deeply marinated in D&D/PF, would be helpful.

I mean, if the simple existence of Apocalypse World is enough to stop them from ever rolling 2d6 and adding a stat then the problem probably can't be solved by the Better Mousetrap of gaming.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:15

Serf: May 5, 2011

Zeerust posted:

I've never been bothered by the playbook Specials, but I definitely feel that shows like Game of Thrones have an incredibly sophomoric and exploitative approach to sex, and it's not a flattering comparison.

Personally, I'd never thought to draw a line between Apocalypse World and prestige TV. It's a game about being messy people having messy relationships in a world where everything is going away, some of the mess can be a consequence of two characters sharing an intimate moment.

It doesn't shove it in your face or give you a whole dice rolling process, it just says 'You decided to do this? Okay, this happens'. It isn't there to titillate or exploit. It's there to help create moments of drama between adults.

yeah, the sex moves are way more tame in terms of their mechanics than people seem to think. like the battlebabe's is literally "nothing happens" because the battlebabe is too cool and aloof to have a moment of vulnerability with another person (which can be a downside in the event that a sex move would have a positive effect)

it definitely does evoke the feeling of a mid-to-high budget tv serial (prestige tv is a dumb term and i don't think it would apply to apoc world anyways), and i think that the "why to play" section lays that out for you. its not going for highbrow art

Nessus posted:

Ah yes, of course; why didn't I think of that.

It does seem like putting some thought in how we can kind of bridge the cognitive gap between people who, on the one hand, strongly desire what are clearly narrative experiences, and on the other hand, are deeply marinated in D&D/PF, would be helpful.

you could instead introduce them to blades in the dark? which i believe does credit apocalypse world as an inspiration, so that well might be poisoned. there's fate, i guess? the resistance system? other options exist if they for some reason can't overcome this odd aversion

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:16

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

e: nm

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jul 22, 2020

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:20

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Serf posted:

you could instead introduce them to blades in the dark? which i believe does credit apocalypse world as an inspiration, so that well might be poisoned. there's fate, i guess? the resistance system? other options exist if they for some reason can't overcome this odd aversion

I actually haven't heard of Resistance in this context, what's that?

I think honestly a lot of it is that the brand is "PBTA" vs. "2DIDI" or "2D6" or whatever, which is stupid, but we're talking about humans here.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:21

Ilor: Feb 2, 2008; That's a crit.

Leperflesh posted:

Yeah I guess where I'm coming from is: familiarity with the subject isn't a determinator of appropriateness or comfort with the subject. I'm highly familiar with taking a poo poo daily and have zero personal experience with exploring alien worlds, but one of those is something I wanna do in an RPG and the other is something I don't.

Yes, and if you go back and read my original post on the topic, you'd see me positing that perhaps one of the reasons people don't want sex in their games is because it's too familiar (like taking poo poo daily, which I agree makes for a terrible RPG experience), and therefore does not provide any sense of escapism. Like, "Ugh, I'm not getting laid in real life and my parents are constantly on me about meeting someone and having kids already and my last relationship was a disaster and gently caress I don't even want to deal with that in my elf-games."

Let me give you another example: Red Markets is described by its author as "a poverty simulator with zombies to keep the theme from getting too real." That game can be brutal and mistakes are costly. Setbacks are common, and it's easy to come out worse off than you started if even one thing goes too pear-shaped. I find it an engaging and mechanically/thematically interesting game. But I'm not sure someone for whom food insecurity was a daily issue would relate to it in the same way.

Does that make more sense?

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:26

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Nessus posted:

I actually haven't heard of Resistance in this context, what's that?

I think honestly a lot of it is that the brand is "PBTA" vs. "2DIDI" or "2D6" or whatever, which is stupid, but we're talking about humans here.

Recognizing the people that put work into things that you are using to springboard your own creative efforts is good and not bad I would think.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:28

Serf: May 5, 2011

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Could you expand on how DW gets it wrong? And which of the good examples are good if I'm weaning people (including myself) off of D&D? Fellowship I got but seems way too LotR-centered.

dungeon world, imo, hews too close to trying to recapture the feeling of d&d and it doesn't quite work with pbta. rolling for damage and some classes getting shafted on options are big issues, but to me "defy danger" is the biggest stumbling block because its just such a poorly-written move that is going to get referenced all the time. allowing a character to use any stat to defend themselves sounds great on paper, but what it means is that players will generally just use their best stat. and since you could argue that a ton of things trigger it you'll be rolling it all the drat time. when i ran monster of the week we would get quite a lot of use our of act under pressure, but since it operates off of +cool and not every stat, the pcs were incentivized to use other moves more often because +cool wasn't always great for them, and it led to a wider variety of moves being used.

the gming advice in dungeon world is top-notch, i highly recommend all of that, just like the gming section in apoc world is drat useful. but dungeon world is like a creaky old house in terms of pbta tech now. you can live in it, but its drafty and could collapse on you

sadly i think fellowship is my go-to fantasy pbta game at the moment. but if you're willing to step outside of some of the normal assumptions of a d&d-alike you could test the waters with something like rhapsody of blood which is more castlevania but does some fun stuff with pbta mechanics. if anyone else has some good fantasy pbta to recommend i'm in the market myself

Nessus posted:

I actually haven't heard of Resistance in this context, what's that?

I think honestly a lot of it is that the brand is "PBTA" vs. "2DIDI" or "2D6" or whatever, which is stupid, but we're talking about humans here.

resistance system is the what powers spire and now heart. d10 based with other die sizes thrown in as well. i'm really loving my spire campaign at the moment but if you want to see the system at its best check out heart, which just rules

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:31

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

e: nm

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jul 22, 2020

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:34

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

Ilor posted:

Yes, and if you go back and read my original post on the topic, you'd see me positing that perhaps one of the reasons people don't want sex in their games is because it's too familiar (like taking poo poo daily, which I agree makes for a terrible RPG experience), and therefore does not provide any sense of escapism. Like, "Ugh, I'm not getting laid in real life and my parents are constantly on me about meeting someone and having kids already and my last relationship was a disaster and gently caress I don't even want to deal with that in my elf-games."

Let me give you another example: Red Markets is described by its author as "a poverty simulator with zombies to keep the theme from getting too real." That game can be brutal and mistakes are costly. Setbacks are common, and it's easy to come out worse off than you started if even one thing goes too pear-shaped. I find it an engaging and mechanically/thematically interesting game. But I'm not sure someone for whom food insecurity was a daily issue would relate to it in the same way.

Does that make more sense?

Ahhh, yeah I totally get it now, I was reading it the opposite way somehow. Yeah. For people that have experienced traumatic violence, the near-ubiquitous violence in an RPG can be "too close to home" in a similar way that sex can be, and that would go for the grinding poverty theme in Red Markets too. Makes sense.

Basically anything that pokes at someone's personal vulnerabilities has at least the potential to be uncomfortable or worse, for them.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:38

Serf: May 5, 2011

Absurd Alhazred posted:

The GMing advice in DW looked in some ways close to how I was treating my current D&D campaign anyway, and I did like the treatment of towns, how they could be NPCs in their own right.

definitely. that concept gets expanded in monster of the week, with rules for treating locations as characters that can inform the moves you use on the player characters when they are in them. stuff like how if a location has the "maze" descriptor you should use moves like "separate them" more to evoke the feeling of getting lost in a confusing structure

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:42

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Serf posted:

resistance system is the what powers spire and now heart. d10 based with other die sizes thrown in as well. i'm really loving my spire campaign at the moment but if you want to see the system at its best check out heart, which just rules

Oh cool. Heart did look very impressive.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:44

Lurks With Wolves: Jan 14, 2013; At least I don't dance with them, right?

I'm just going to second Serf regarding Dungeon World's main problem being Defy Danger. There's other problems with the core moveset, but having your core "I don't know, I guess use this move to accomplish something" move be incredibly easy to only roll using your best stats by just artificially limiting how you roleplay is a real problem. Add that to D&D just having a bad set of core stats which Dungeon World copies and you start to have a real problem.

(And then there's a bunch of smaller issues like how HP is boring or how levels and a lot of the core level-up moves aren't interesting enough to justify the amount of levels you have, but I don't want to just turn this into the Dungeon World thread.)

Also, even if you don't want to run something in the "an evil overlord rises up, adventurers need to stop them" mold, I would recommend looking at Fellowship 2e just to see what I mean about Defy Danger being a bad multi-stat move. There, each stat you could use in with a move has clear fictional positioning for when to use it specifically and gives clear enough consequences to prevent people from clinging to their best stat at all times.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:47

Zeerust: May 1, 2008; They must have guessed, once or twice - guessed and refused to believe - that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return.

Serf posted:

yeah, the sex moves are way more tame in terms of their mechanics than people seem to think. like the battlebabe's is literally "nothing happens" because the battlebabe is too cool and aloof to have a moment of vulnerability with another person (which can be a downside in the event that a sex move would have a positive effect)

I think this gets massively undersold in these discussions, actually, in that for many playbooks having sex is a bad idea. it�s not optimal play that gets you a mechanical high five. For some characters all it does is generate complications or put you at someone�s mercy. Or like you said, for one playbook it�s literally meaningless. The Specials are designed to incite drama and create entanglements, if the players feel comfortable engaging with them. They lose nothing if they don�t.

The �maturity� element of the discussion is interesting to me because I personally think AW is very mature in its approach, not exactly in the sense people are using, but in the sense that it�s very matter-of-fact about it. �Sometimes someone will have sex. It happens. This is the consequence if they do.� It doesn�t chuckle nastily in your face about it, it gives you a matter-of-fact summary of how each character archetype reacts in an extremely vulnerable moment.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:48

Zorak of Michigan: Jun 10, 2006

Ilor posted:

Yes, and if you go back and read my original post on the topic, you'd see me positing that perhaps one of the reasons people don't want sex in their games is because it's too familiar (like taking poo poo daily, which I agree makes for a terrible RPG experience), and therefore does not provide any sense of escapism. Like, "Ugh, I'm not getting laid in real life and my parents are constantly on me about meeting someone and having kids already and my last relationship was a disaster and gently caress I don't even want to deal with that in my elf-games."

Let me give you another example: Red Markets is described by its author as "a poverty simulator with zombies to keep the theme from getting too real." That game can be brutal and mistakes are costly. Setbacks are common, and it's easy to come out worse off than you started if even one thing goes too pear-shaped. I find it an engaging and mechanically/thematically interesting game. But I'm not sure someone for whom food insecurity was a daily issue would relate to it in the same way.

Does that make more sense?

Ilor, you're doing a good job running Red Markets, but I've concluded that I respond to it the way I responded to the movie Synecdoche, New York: this is well done, it shows the signs of someone putting a lot of thought and care into it, and I respect the creative talent involved, but I don't see how it's entertainment. My problem isn't food insecurity, which thankfully I've never suffered from, but that I am a materialistic person IRL who spends a lot of time tinkering with budgets to afford all the things I want to do or buy. Red Markets just adds zombies and a lot of failure to the things I do anyway.

I always come at issues of content and inclusion because my own two triggers are way out in left field. I'm a white cishet from the middle class, and I have no history of trauma from sex, violence, etc. I was chased and bitten by a dog when I was four, though, so I hear a barking dog and it's an instant adrenaline dumping fight-or-flight response. Ask me how much I love hearing my coworkers' dogs in the background of conference calls. Also, I was adopted as a tiny little infant, and I found out watching an episode of goddamn Ranma 1/2 in college that I can be triggered by trying to treat birth parent stuff as funny. The point of all this isn't that I need sympathy, it's that until you get to know someone a bit, you have no idea what content areas might ruin the fun for them. A little consideration on all sides goes a long way.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:48

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

e: nm

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jul 22, 2020

# ? Apr 30, 2020 22:48

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

I'll also say if you're worried about being stuck in the LotR framework you could take a look at the other framework playbooks for Fellowship, especially the Horizon. It still might not be a perfect fit for your group, but it does open up other avenues of play.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:00

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

e: nm

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jul 22, 2020

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:03

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

It's in the Inverse World book but I don't know if it's available as it's own thing elsewhere. There's enough other material in there to make a purchase worthwhile, especially the Boat playbook because every party should have a dope team vehicle.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:07

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

e: nm

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jul 22, 2020

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:09

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Yeah, that's the one. The Boat is a Team Playbook so it's basically a second character sheet the entire group gets a say in. It's extremely good.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:12

Ilor: Feb 2, 2008; That's a crit.

Zorak of Michigan posted:

Ilor, you're doing a good job running Red Markets, but I've concluded that I respond to it the way I responded to the movie Synecdoche, New York: this is well done, it shows the signs of someone putting a lot of thought and care into it, and I respect the creative talent involved, but I don't see how it's entertainment.

Hahahahaha. Thanks, man, I appreciate the compliment. And if RM isn't doing it for you, we can certainly switch it up to something else. You know I'm easy.

Zorak of Michigan posted:

I always come at issues of content and inclusion because my own two triggers are way out in left field.

Can confirm, our dog is super chill and still freaks Zorak out. I've even seen him visibly tense around my parents' miniature teacup Yorkie, which arguably isn't even a real dog.

I don't have that same visceral reaction to anything environmental, so it's hard for me to wrap my head around. So I just accept it. But I think that's why it's important to have stuff like the X Card in play - because especially when playing with randos you have literally no idea if something you do or say in a game is going to affect someone adversely. And for what it's worth, I tagged an X Card for the first time in a game at GenCon last year because I was uncomfortable with particular semi-in-character racist language. You just never know what peoples' issues are, so it's good to give people an out and always be respectful.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:13

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

e: nm

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jul 22, 2020

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:14

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Rhapsody of Blood looks like such a blatant ripoff of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night that I wonder how they didn't get sued.

That's...kind of the point of it.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:17

Notahippie: Feb 4, 2003; Kids, it's not cool to have Shane MacGowan teeth

Ilor posted:

I don't have that same visceral reaction to anything environmental, so it's hard for me to wrap my head around. So I just accept it. But I think that's why it's important to have stuff like the X Card in play - because especially when playing with randos you have literally no idea if something you do or say in a game is going to affect someone adversely. And for what it's worth, I tagged an X Card for the first time in a game at GenCon last year because I was uncomfortable with particular semi-in-character racist language. You just never know what peoples' issues are, so it's good to give people an out and always be respectful.

I think it's awesome that the RPG community, which doesn't have a great reputation for social skills, is more advanced than any other community I can think of in figuring out how to actually operationalize tools for helping people deal with flagging discomfort in conversation. I'm considering introducing a version of the X Card to my IRL office if I can figure out the right way to do it.

# ? Apr 30, 2020 23:17

Ilor: Feb 2, 2008; That's a crit.

Notahippie posted:

I'm considering introducing a version of the X Card to my IRL office if I can figure out the right way to do it.

Manager: "Bob, we need to talk about your contract deliverables time-table..."
Bob: "Nope. I'm X-ing out of this one."
Manager: "..."

(this would be glorious.

)

# ? May 1, 2020 00:10

grassy gnoll: Aug 27, 2006; The pawsting business is tough work.

Nessus posted:

Well I can't, because they already know about Apocalypse World, and they know what PBTA means, and now those systems have a halo effect for them. They may very well just be grognard-rear end idiots who actually want to play Pathfinder until the forest makes use of them, but they seem to articulate desires to the effect of "Boy, I'd really like to create a set of rules that emulated a Metal Gear-esque technothriller environment! Especially if they were simple and flexible!"

May I interest you in Tactical Espionage Action?

# ? May 1, 2020 00:40

neonchameleon: Nov 14, 2012

There's one thing people haven't mentioned about Apocalypse World's sex moves. Sex sells. So does controversy. Vincent Baker was hardly an unknown when he created his weird post-apocalyptic game thanks to Dogs in the Vineyard (and to a lesser extent Poison'd and kill puppies for satin) and a whole lot of theory but he was hardly a big player in the RPG market. One of his deliberate design decisions was to deliberately over-write Apocalypse World in a way he knew about 10% of his potential audience would absolutely hate. But they'd hate it in ways they'd talk and complain about and that would effectively be his advertising budget. Apocalypse World 2e is a lot less overwritten in my experience because it didn't need it.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Could you expand on how DW gets it wrong? And which of the good examples are good if I'm weaning people (including myself) off of D&D? Fellowship I got but seems way too LotR-centered.

Other people have mentioned Defy Danger - but it's also a lot less visceral than a good PBTA game should be, and far too concerned with relatively ridiculous move lists, consequence free damage, and levelling up. It also doesn't have things I really appreciate in Apocalypse World like two separate moves for attacking to show your risk/reward approach and you make choices on 10+ as well as 7-9, making AW combat inherently more interesting than just picking a target, rolling a range or melee attack roll, and only actually deciding anything more than a choice of target on a 7-9. The analogy I use to describe it is it's as if someone took a car from the 1970s, took a ridiculous overpowered crotch-rocket of a motorbike from the early 2010s, and just pulled the engine and transmission out of the crotch-rocket and welded it in a car. To people used to the car it feels odd but fast because an overpowered crotch-rocket still has a lot of power and the 1970s car is pretty light because it lacks modern safety features. But it still handles like a 1970s car with weird acceleration.

Honestly in terms of lightweight non-tactical D&D it was certainly preferable to AD&D, 3.X, or trying to use 4e for non-tactical purposes when it came out in 2012/13 but it's mediocre enough that I think I prefer 5e for my rules-relatively-light non-tactical D&D and I definitely prefer 13th Age.

# ? May 1, 2020 02:02

EthanSteele: Nov 18, 2007; I can hear you

Yeah, one of the worst things a lot of pbta games do is have a generic "overcome" move like Defy Danger that you use if none of the other moves fit and it pretty much always comes down to them thinking about players going "I want to make this move" instead of doing things and having moves trigger. Monsterhearts is so good because it has like 4 moves and they're all tight as hell, any pbta game I see with 14 basic moves and one of them is "overcome" or other general thing it immediately turns me off of it because it's results in play ending up as using that generic move with your best stat.

# ? May 1, 2020 02:30

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

e: nm

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jul 22, 2020

# ? May 1, 2020 02:30

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 11:50

hyphz: Aug 5, 2003; Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.; Unlockable Ben

So, follow up philosophy question: does RPing implicitly require the GM to also hold social power in the group?

I see a lot of posts and get told a lot of times to �just tell them to stop or kick them out�, but what if the response is �dude, we like them more than we like your game, put up with it or play something else, or I guess leave if you�re really bothered�.

# ? May 1, 2020 05:03

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Philosophy of Roleplaying Games

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