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Designing games around the players is a coward’s choice
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May 3, 2020 06:47
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 03:14 |
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GNS has historical value in understanding why certain games are the way they are, but was written from a biased perspective and has some notable omissions (for example, it almost totally ignores questions of author/character stance and so on) that it shouldn't be used as a standalone classification system. Unfortunately(?) there's no easy way for any reclassification of RPGs to spread throughout the overall community. One option I've seen is PCPS (Procedures, Components, Players, Setting) which makes no real philosophical judgements whatsoever and is just attempting to be a common list of tags to apply to a game, the same way you'd tag a board game with things like 'worker placement', 'uses dice'.
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May 3, 2020 07:05
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GNS is about creative agendas, not classifying players or even games. This misunderstanding is why it always seemed more controversial than it is. People want to say Burning Wheel is X and D&D is Y, and they try to use GNS for it, and it doesn't work, so they say GNS sucks. GNS does suck for that! It's like saying that toilet paper makes a bad toothbrush. Yep! It sure does! With understanding what it is doing, it's fair to say that it is incomplete - one might want to introduce new categories to the 3, or subdivide the 3 more finely. And that's totally fair. E.g. most streaming and podcasts might have a creative agenda about creating an interesting story with lots of goofs for the consumption of others, which certainly isn't in the original GNS. What I see a lot though is people saying "GNS is an oversimplification" and then not even making the attempt to create a more complicated model. People post like the creative agendas of various tables are too numerous and distinct to possibly classify and any attempt is foolish, but I don't really believe that. Another criticism I have is that I think it's not only acceptable but common to have one creative agenda during a certain phase of the game and a totally different one during another phase. Original GNS makes no allowance for that, and I designed Strike! partly to explore that. Strike! is very much about playing to find out what happens, and the whole game (even the combat) is designed around that, but then the combat is also designed so that you can play to win. So the game expects you to be swapping creative agendas as you go along and has mechanics to help flow one into the other. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 15:17 on May 3, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 15:14
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 17:55
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hyphz posted:Fair enough on not being e/n. We just need a hot philosophical topic I guess. GNS was a useful set of critiques around the turn of the Millennium when the World of Darkness was considered to be cool about how it didn't provide what it promised and how there was actually something to be learned from D&D however musty AD&D 2e looked at the time. It doesn't need redeeming because it lead to some really good things. It doesn't want redeeming because as of 2010 (with Spirit of the Century and Apocalypse World in play - and yes Fate Core is better than SotC) almost all the good parts of GNS have been turned from theory to practice and we can refer to games doing things well rather than abstract theory. If you want player types, Robin Laws' list, which is based on the old WotC survey are better. And they don't even count the emotional engagement group.
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May 3, 2020 18:53
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Absurd Alhazred posted:No, I'm cool with not having a conversation with you about it. We've already discussed racism in D&D and its derivatives here and in the industry thread before that was unsuccessfully moved here, DW and Five Torches Deep and Pathfinder and everything remotely D&D adjacent seems to have very similar issues, but for some reason that doesn't elicit the same reaction from you, and I neither know nor care why.
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May 3, 2020 19:20
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 19:34
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I think, as has been said, GNS was very useful when it was first written, because short of one short-lived British zine - Interactive Fantasy in the mid-90s, no-one was really writing about this stuff.
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May 3, 2020 20:15
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 04:24
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And that’s understandable. I completely get the pro- arguments. But it neglects that there are a significant number of players for whom “the system is reluctant to provide a specific answer” is immediately responded to with “then it fails”. It’s immersion, or one of the many definitions of simulationism. In a coherent world there would be price tags, there would be an amount a PC could bench. Having to say “I don’t know” breaks the illusion of a full functioning world. Also the last argument is one that’s railed against a lot. In the real world things have price tags, but that doesn’t stop people using the “is it generally in my affordability range” strategy if they can afford to do so.
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May 4, 2020 15:35
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i'm pretty sure there are grognardy bullshit games that have an answer for every question for people who want to spend 1/3 of every session cross-referencing graphs to see how long their character can hold their piss or whatever. but i don't know if anyone is making them anymore
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May 4, 2020 15:50
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Serf posted:i'm pretty sure there are grognardy bullshit games that have an answer for every question for people who want to spend 1/3 of every session cross-referencing graphs to see how long their character can hold their piss or whatever. but i don't know if anyone is making them anymore Every one of those games that prints prices for everything, ignores inflation. A true grognard "let's implement an economy in the reference section of this RPG" fails at multiple levels to actually implement a functional modern-looking or even medieval economy. At best, they print prices and then give scaling values depending on settlement size or something like that, recognizing that there are price differences based on rarity and demand; but they're all very "unrealistic" in that they don't even account for price changes across time, much less seasonal pricing, the effects of competing currency markets, the effects of shifting supply chains of precious metals used in coinage (for the pre-modern settings), etc. The model where a character can or can't afford things based on a more nebulous "wealth" score or roll are far more realistic than the ones that pretend that a ten foot pole is always 2cp.
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May 4, 2020 16:28
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hyphz posted:And that’s understandable. I completely get the pro- arguments. But it neglects that there are a significant number of players for whom “the system is reluctant to provide a specific answer” is immediately responded to with “then it fails”. No, come on. No way. When you have a player who wants to lift a heavy thing, they refuse to let it be a strength roll? They insist that you tell them the exact weight of the thing so they can see if it is over or under their character's PB max deadlift? I don't believe it. I believe a lot of poo poo about your group, but I don't think they actually get mad at having to make a strength check to lift a portcullis or whatever.
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May 4, 2020 16:32
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 16:37
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Serf posted:i'm pretty sure there are grognardy bullshit games that have an answer for every question for people who want to spend 1/3 of every session cross-referencing graphs to see how long their character can hold their piss or whatever. but i don't know if anyone is making them anymore shh you’re going to summon the Spirit of Rolemaster
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May 4, 2020 16:58
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Things don't have the same price tags with time and in all stores. You go to the store in the better part of town, price changes; you cross the county line, price changes; the fishing haul this morning was bad, price changes. There's a plague, some prices don't change, but suddenly there's a supply problem and a black market. To use a recent RL example, bog roll and hand sanitizer.
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May 4, 2020 17:07
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 17:08
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Most of these correct too far in the opposite direction, though. When you lift something, you don't really know how heavy it is, but you can still go down the gym and lift a measured weight. When you buy something, you don't automatically know why the price is what it is, but you can still read it on the tag. And when you're looking down the road, granted you don't know exactly how many feet it is, but you do get a sense of it from looking that is not easily conveyed in words less than the given measurements. It's not about precisely modelling everything, it's about being able to "be the eyes and ears" of the PCs.
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May 4, 2020 17:56
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 18:13
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hyphz posted:It's not about precisely modelling everything, it's about being able to "be the eyes and ears" of the PCs.
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May 4, 2020 18:25
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hyphz posted:Most of these correct too far in the opposite direction, though. When you lift something, you don't really know how heavy it is, but you can still go down the gym and lift a measured weight. When you buy something, you don't automatically know why the price is what it is, but you can still read it on the tag. And when you're looking down the road, granted you don't know exactly how many feet it is, but you do get a sense of it from looking that is not easily conveyed in words less than the given measurements. It's not about precisely modelling everything, it's about being able to "be the eyes and ears" of the PCs. i can't estimate sizes, distances and weights in real life, i'm sure not gonna do it in an rpg unless i have a very good reason to
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May 4, 2020 18:44
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Yeah? You have the time in the middle of an adventure to tell the Demon Lord Hexxxkaattath to wait a moment, you need to go to the gym, but if you could borrow one of the skeleton warriors to simulate not only weight but the amount of stress you're under, to compare the musclefeel of trying to lift the bars vs. a set of measure weights? While the image is hilarious (and especially so since it reminds me of Shadowrun Sixth World which had weight-based carrying capacity, but spectacularly failed to give weights to any of the equipment - and then did provide the weight of several monsters) it still misses the point that while how much you can bench in the gym might not exactly map to your ability to lift the bars, it still exists. If a player asks "so how much can my PC bench?" and the only answer is "Uh I dunno" then it's a dealbreaker for at least some players. quote:The only relevant information is whether or not you can buy it right now, and how it will affect the rest of your purchases later, which you do not know yet. And you wouldn't be able to read it on a tag in faux medieval times, because you'll usually talk to a merchant, who in many cases will haggle with you, further obfuscating the issue. Fixed price for wares in a shop is a modern innovation. FATE is a generic system which has several modern settings.
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May 4, 2020 18:51
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 19:00
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hyphz posted:While the image is hilarious (and especially so since it reminds me of Shadowrun Sixth World which had weight-based carrying capacity, but spectacularly failed to give weights to any of the equipment - and then did provide the weight of several monsters) it still misses the point that while how much you can bench in the gym might not exactly map to your ability to lift the bars, it still exists. If a player asks "so how much can my PC bench?" and the only answer is "Uh I dunno" then it's a dealbreaker for at least some players. Yeah, but the stats you'd use to calculate how much you can lift are still abstractions that don't necessarily line up with what these characters are like. The party thief has 14 Strength and is trained in Athletics because he wants to be good at climbing up buildings. The cleric of Kord has 14 strength and is trained in Athletics because she clanks around in heavy armor all day and participates in the shot put every year at the Holy Games. Which one is better at a deadlift? ... Well, if you stick to a table and never deviate, they can lift the exact same amount even though that feels a bit weird. Of course none of this is saying that you shouldn't have rough guidelines for how strong Might +3 actually is, or that games like Shadowrun Sixth World aren't editing messes that keep stats around when they don't actually make things clearer. Boiling things down to an exact formula that needs to be tracked is just a bit much.
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May 4, 2020 19:05
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hyphz posted:While the image is hilarious (and especially so since it reminds me of Shadowrun Sixth World which had weight-based carrying capacity, but spectacularly failed to give weights to any of the equipment - and then did provide the weight of several monsters) it still misses the point that while how much you can bench in the gym might not exactly map to your ability to lift the bars, it still exists. If a player asks "so how much can my PC bench?" and the only answer is "Uh I dunno" then it's a dealbreaker for at least some players. respond with "how much to you think they can bench?" if that's not good enough for them, they can just deal with the fact that the game isn't interested in those questions
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May 4, 2020 19:25
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Serf posted:if that's not good enough for them, they can just deal with the fact that the game isn't interested in those questions That's the attitude that gets me. When you "deal with" something it's usually in exchange for something else or because there is no other choice. In a game there's always the choice of not playing, so what's the something else in exchange?
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May 4, 2020 19:41
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 19:45
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hyphz posted:If a player asks "so how much can my PC bench?" and the only answer is "Uh I dunno" then it's a dealbreaker for at least some players. The answer isn't "I dunno," it's "the amount your character can deadlift in a gym isn't something this game's mechanics model any more than it models your exact word-per-minute reading comprehension rate or your immune system's precise ability to fight off this year's most common strain of the common cold. If it really matters that much to you, decide on what seems appropriate knowing what you know about the range of ability scores in this game, just know that in the stress and chaos of an action scene you're still going to be rolling Strength checks to move heavy things, because what you can do in a gym and what you can do under stress and time pressure are not the same thing."
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May 4, 2020 19:47
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hyphz posted:That's the attitude that gets me. When you "deal with" something it's usually in exchange for something else or because there is no other choice. In a game there's always the choice of not playing, so what's the something else in exchange? or they could deal with it by coming to the realization that the question "how much can my character bench" is unimportant to the system in question and generally pretty dogshit as a thing to be concerned about. most reasonable, non-toxic players would be able to slide right past those details because they're not important to the game
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May 4, 2020 19:48
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"How can I let my players communicate with each other if I don't know exactly how far their individual voices travel in distances that can be measured in 5 foot squares both in open air and enclosed spaces????" The answer is : Very easily, you just never think about. You're just making up stuff to be confused about because you just personally enjoy games that simulate as much as possible, and you have no interest in learning anything else.
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May 4, 2020 19:50
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Absurd Alhazred posted:A fun game. A game that is fun, to play, because it focuses on the things that are fun, about playing, a game, like kicking down dungeon doors or solving puzzles or spending a week infiltrating a criminal organization or dropping a moon on a planet and absolutely not getting exact measurements for how much it would cost you to bench exactly 200 pounds right now at Demon Lord Hexxxkaattath's Pay as You Pound Gym & Bathhouse And to reinforce that, maybe you have some players who want exact weights and measurements because for some reason that's fun for them. Some grogs get into that poo poo. If you're personally not finding that fun, then the issue isn't a question of the right way to play or the philosophy of the game - it's a mismatch between what you want to get out of the game and what your players want. That can only be resolved by talking with your players and coming up with an approach that's fun for everyone... no amount of rules or technical guidance or let's play DM training is going to fix a mismatch between what's fun for you and what's fun for your players. If that's the issue at your table, then you have to deal with it by talking to your players about it.
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May 4, 2020 19:51
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 19:52
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Notahippie posted:And to reinforce that, maybe you have some players who want exact weights and measurements because for some reason that's fun for them. Some grogs get into that poo poo. If you're personally not finding that fun, then the issue isn't a question of the right way to play or the philosophy of the game - it's a mismatch between what you want to get out of the game and what your players want. That can only be resolved by talking with your players and coming up with an approach that's fun for everyone... no amount of rules or technical guidance or let's play DM training is going to fix a mismatch between what's fun for you and what's fun for your players. If that's the issue at your table, then you have to deal with it by talking to your players about it. I can't improve on this but I can add two things to it. 1) This sort of gaming requires a GM who is going to keep an entire detailed fictional world in their brain with numbers and measurements and all that stuff you've been asking about. You've made it clear that GMing that sort of game makes you uncomfortable, so we're steering you away from it. If your gaming group really want this experience, you should not GM for them, full stop. 2) Because so many descriptions of your gaming group make them sound toxic, I have to ask whether this is really their agenda, or just a club they use to drive toward disfunctional play that allows them to win. Do they crave unlimited setting detail, or only ask for it when they're told they fail at something? This is important because refusing to accept that your PC failed is not a valid play style for a tabletop FPG, and those people need to either grow up or go play computer games where they can savescum to their hearts' content.
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May 4, 2020 20:04
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hyphz posted:That's the attitude that gets me. When you "deal with" something it's usually in exchange for something else or because there is no other choice. In a game there's always the choice of not playing, so what's the something else in exchange? In Chess, do you "deal with" the fact that you don't know the name of your King, or what the physical and mental barriers are that prevent your Bishops from moving off their diagonal paths? Of course not, because you play the game before you and don't worry too much about the abstractions its made. What's throwing you off is that you're trying to pierce the illusion that a game models a reality, in specific places, because previous or other games have added particular details that aren't in this particular illusion. The "something else" is that this is a game, and here are the parameters and expectations and possibilities within the gamespace. Do you want to play this game, or not? In this game, we don't need to know exactly how much things cost or exactly how much a character can deadlift. Those aren't relevant. Please stop insisting they are, or demanding those details. I'm talking to your players here. You are asking me what color my rook's eyes are. Ought I to know? Ought I to try to answer? I can answer but it will not benefit you in your play. At worst, if I answer, you may draw incorrect conclusions about the nature of our game from that answer. If you ask me again tomorrow what color my rook's eyes are, and I tell you something different than I did today, will you try to hold that against me? How about you just make your next move, so we can continue playing a nice game of chess? You keep arguing that your players can reasonably ask for details that they or their characters would know, like, exactly what is the price of this can of beans in this shop. In truth you can choose to give them a precise answer, or roll for it. But like the color of your rook's eyes, that information cannot benefit them in this game's rules, because their characters also don't have exact amounts of money in their bank accounts, because the game's rules have intentionally removed from the GM or players' responsibilities, the tedious tasks of tracking their bank accounts and/or creating a believable and functional economic system with pricing for goods established in real decimal numbers. You ought not to bend the rules to create those absolutes, doing so adds to your burden of preparation and detracts from the mechanics of abstracted purchasing power. You must convince your players that this is the case: precise measurements, in this game, require you to do more work than you want to do, or ought to do; create established facts that you have to track and account for; and actively undermine the abstracted rules mechanisms that the game is built upon. If you or your players cannot accept these explanations, then yeah, the "other choice" is to reject the system and play something else. I assure you, though, that the RPG systems that establish precise measurements and prices and bank accounts, are all failing in various ways to model a believable and consistent reality. They are accepted by you and your players only because of long familiarity, not because they do a better job of simulating a reality. They don't.
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May 4, 2020 21:16
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 21:35
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Leperflesh posted:
Somebody on one of LTATWPiat's grog lets play threads once said "Every system designed to be a 'realistic' game at some point departs from simulating reality and starts to simulate the designer's idea of reality" and I really liked that claim.
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May 4, 2020 21:54
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 22:11
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hyphz posted:That's the attitude that gets me. When you "deal with" something it's usually in exchange for something else or because there is no other choice. In a game there's always the choice of not playing, so what's the something else in exchange? You should at some point tell a like, positive story or summarized play situation here - not revealing details but just because you keep coming out with this hostage situation poo poo. It sounds like you're getting hazed weekly by the Midnight Society.
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May 4, 2020 22:27
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Leperflesh posted:In Chess, do you "deal with" the fact that you don't know the name of your King, or what the physical and mental barriers are that prevent your Bishops from moving off their diagonal paths? Of course not, because you play the game before you and don't worry too much about the abstractions its made. Sure, but for most RPGs "you might as well be playing a board game" is a negative comparison. The idea is that you can do anything, but this kind of hurts that a fair bit. quote:You keep arguing that your players can reasonably ask for details that they or their characters would know, like, exactly what is the price of this can of beans in this shop. In truth you can choose to give them a precise answer, or roll for it. But like the color of your rook's eyes, that information cannot benefit them in this game's rules, because their characters also don't have exact amounts of money in their bank accounts, because the game's rules have intentionally removed from the GM or players' responsibilities, the tedious tasks of tracking their bank accounts and/or creating a believable and functional economic system with pricing for goods established in real decimal numbers. You ought not to bend the rules to create those absolutes, doing so adds to your burden of preparation and detracts from the mechanics of abstracted purchasing power. But that's where things get more difficult. If I have 300 gold available and the merchant wants 250, it's silly to say that instead I have to make a roll and if the roll goes badly then I can't buy it anyway for some reason. If the room is 30 foot wide, and the enemy's 25 foot away, and my speed is 25 foot/round, then I know I have that much leeway if I need to run. It's not a case of bending the rules to create absolutes; it's a case of the rules denying absolutes that would reasonably be there, and removing them causing trouble with visualisation.
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May 4, 2020 23:11
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 03:14 |
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for the record, the first fixed price price tag is said to have been invented in 1861 (though Sumerians played around with the idea of fixed pricing, and there's evidence of fixed pricing being used in Japanese stores in the 16 and 1700s) according to the internet
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May 4, 2020 23:21
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