# Improvisation vs "code-breaking" in D&D



## pemerton (Oct 10, 2015)

This post is a response to some posts in this thread.



howandwhy99 said:


> How can you not remember D&D before the 90s? OD&D was 10-15 years of the most hard-nosed, number-crunching, rule tweaking, nerd-filled gamers as ever existed. (Well, barring some 1970s wargamers.) But we were not well-formed, socially fit, artistic, nuanced expressers! Creating a narrative held no game challenge for us. You can't lose telling a story! (which is why those that can never be a game). We were gamers! Everyone of us.





Starfox said:


> As much as Howandwhy99 vs. the world is an entertaining spectator sport, I must still intrude to mention that you're discussing from such different perspectives that any progress is impossible.
> 
> Howandwhy99 sees the game from an idealized gamist standpoint. The game is a series of maps containing obstacles to overcome. This is is a completely legit approach - extreme perhaps, but completely functional.
> 
> His opponents see this as so extreme as to be nonfunctional



Clearly D&D can be played as if it were an offline version of World of Warcraft. I'm pretty sure that [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] agrees with that.

I think it's also clear that D&D can be played without treating the goal of play being to generate a story (in any interesting or rich sense of "story"). I'm pretty sure that [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] agrees with that too - eg when you look at modules like C1 or G1 the goal of play isn't to generate a story; it's for the players to beat the dungeon.

But Howandwhy99's assertions go far beyond this, and that is what makes them false.

*First*, the fact that you _can_ play D&D without aiming at producing a story doesn't mean that before the 1990s no one played the game with the aim of producing a story. I know, myself, that when I was GMing Oriental Adventures in 1986 an important goal of play was creating a story (roughly along the lines of a B samurai movie). And clearly there were FRPGers much before then playing in the same way: Lewis Pulsipher talks a lot about different styles, including story-oriented styles, in articles written for White Dwarf in the late 70s/early 80s. (Here is a thread from last year discussing some of Pulsipher's ideas.)

*Second*, the fact that D&D can be played as an offline version of WoW doesn't mean the GM doesn't need to improvise. The need to improvise - by coming up with content, by inventing the backstories and motivations of randomly encountered monster/NPCs, etc is so self-evident it's bizarre that it needs to be pointed out. Celebrim pointed to the example of play in Gygax's DMG. I will point to the example of play in Moldvay Basic, pp B60 and B28:

DM (rolling for wandering monsters): "OK. . . . A secret door . . . in the south wall opens, and two hobgoblins stroll in . . . ."

. . .

Silverleaf steps forward with both hands empty, in a token of friendship, and says "Greetings, noble dwellers of the deep caverns, can we help you?" . . .

The DM decides that Silverleaf's open hands and words in the hobgoblins' language are worth +1 when checking for reaction. Unfortunately the DM rolls a 4 (on 2d6) which, even adjusted to 5, is not a good reaction. The hobgoblins draw their weapons, but don not attack. . . .

The largest of the hobgoblins shouts, in his language, "Go away! You're not allowed in this room!"

"It's okay; Gary sent us," Silverleaf answers.

"Huh?" the hobgoblin wittily responds.

The DM rolls a new reaction with no adjustments. The roll is a 3; the hobgoblins charge.​
There are at least three occurrences of GM improvisation in this example of play.

(A) The GM decides to allow a +1 bonus to the reaction roll. This is not stated in the rules on p B24 ("The DM can always choose the monster's reaction to fit the dungeon, but if he decides not to do this, a DM may use the reaction table below to determine the monster's reaction").

(B) The GM has to twice interpret the meaning of the phrase "Hostile, possible attack" which is the entry on the reaction table for a result of 3 to 5 - the first time the hobgoblins parley, the second time they attack.

(C) When the hobgoblins are parleying but with a hostile orientation, the GM has to make up what they say - in this case, the instruction to the PCs to leave the room.​
And here is some discussion on content improvisation from Roger Musson's essay on dungeon-building in a relatively early White Dwarf (no 27, 1981):

[A]ssuming that you have the corridors and rooms already mapped, there is a very good alternative to improvisation: the Emergency Room Register . . . If players move into an area that you haven't populated, and open a room, select a room randomly from the appropriate list in the Emergency Room Register. . . . It is true that if they had opened the door three down on the right instead of the door they were at, it would have made no different to what they would have found, but as long as they don't know that, it won't hurt them. . . .

I used to keep a goodies bag of unlocated odds and ends, which I would dip into in two sorts of circumstances: one, if players were having such a sad time of it that I actually felt sorry for them; two, if a player searched in a hiding place which was so clever that I wished I'd thought of it myself. Should you follow this practice, never admit to ti. Now that I've admitted it, I shall abandon it. In _D&D_ it isn't necessary to play by the book, but it is essential that the players shall always think you are.​
Basically, Musson is happy with the GM placing a pre-written but as-yet unlocated _challenge _in front of which ever door the PCs happen to open; but regards GM-improvised _rewards_ as a type of rules-breaking that shouldn't be admitted to. Whether on thinks he is right or wrong in these judgments, it clearly shows that various types of improvisation were taking place before 1990, as well as discussion about the dynamics and proper scope of GM improvisation.

*Third*, even when playing gamist, dungeon crawling D&D, quite often the players have to engage in reasoning which is not "code-breaking" reasoning, but reasoning about the internal logic of the shared fiction - for example, thinking through motivations, relationships etc of the NPCs and monsters.

An example of this sort of thing figuring in GMing advice is found in another Roger Musson's essay (White Dwarf no 25, 1981):

What are the ingredients that the DM should provide to make his dungeon interesting? If the game is to generate the same interest as a novel, it must have the same ingredients: characters and plot. . . .

The characters generate plots, into which the players may step. The characters and plots together generate the contents of the dungeon. . . .

The true NPC should be as active as the player-characters. If NPCs are to appear credible, they ought to be doing something . . . And it is when the plans and activities of NPCs and those of the player-characters interact that the best games of _D&D_ result.​
This is not advocating storytelling as a goal of play. But it is advocating the use of fictional characters, and their motivations and their deeds, as not just a backdrop to play ("This dungeon was built by a crazed wizard") but as the actual subject matter of play - PCs interacting with NPCs, which means both GM and players reasoning about the imagined lives of these imagined beings. That is obviously not code-breaking and not algorithmic.

Even if a module has no NPCs of note (as is mostly true of C1) the players might still have to reason about the motivations of NPCs to help beat the module - for instance, in C1 it is helpful for players to get a sense of the logic of the place as a tomb/shrine built by an ancient culture. This sort of reasoning isn't purely code-breaking either.

And even if a module has not even a hint of story - eg S2, White Plume Mountain - the players might still have to reason about the fiction in a non-algorithmic/code-breaking way and the GM adjudicate that. In S2 this can include things like ways of flooding the inverted ziggurat room, or surfing doors down the frictionless passage over the super-tetanus pits.

*These three elements of D&D* - it's potential for story, the need for the GM to improvise, the importance of the fiction as an ingredient of play which is not simply algorithmic in its workings - have been there from the beginning. They didn't just spring into existence when White Wolf started publishing in the late 1980s.


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## Campbell (Oct 10, 2015)

These days I prefer games like Apocalypse World, Circle of Hands, and Burning Wheel over D&D. When I was running D&D 4e I used play techniques taken from those games to drift it towards the type of game I prefer. What I feel often gets missed in the context of these discussions is the fundamental nature of the type of play engendered by these games. I think the way we talk about games like Apocalypse World, and way pemerton, Manbearcat, me, and others played D&D 4e is flawed because it misses the real point of play.

I'll be using Apocalypse World as a stand in here for games that have similar goals of play.

When I'm playing Apocalypse World I am not in it for the story or narrative whatever those things mean. Instead, I'm playing to advocate for my PC who I am required to play as if they were a real person with real wants, real needs, and real goals. When I'm running Apocalypse World I am required to make the Apocalypse World seem real, make the character's lives not boring, and play to find out what happens. Anything I say that is not in service to those three things means I'm cheating the players out of playing the game.

Let's talk about what this actually looks like. As a player, I am playing a character who wants the sort of things that real people would want. That means food, security, emotional connections, a sense of community, whatever. It is my job to go after those things with intent. If I don't I am not playing the game. Now, we wouldn't want these things to be easy. That's where the Master of Ceremonies (MC - read GM) comes in. Their job is to make the world seem real, put obstacles in the way of what my character wants, and have the discipline to not have a stake in the way events unfold.

At its heart Apocalypse World is about players playing real people making difficult decisions in difficult situations. Scene framing is simply a tool used to make that happen. We don't play out the boring bits because that's not what the game is about. Within the scope of play (scene, conflict, whatever) I'm making decisions for my character to get them what they want. Where Apocalypse World differs from AD&D is in scope and goals of play. Rather than the dungeon where I try to get treasure while not being killed by monsters, play exists in emotionally charged situations where I'm trying to get what my character wants. Whatever the differences might be I am still advocating for my PC. From my viewpoint, it is not a fundamentally different enterprise.

The fundamental desire that sparked games like Apocalypse World was the desire to make games that were about something, games that reflected human experience in a meaningful way. They still wanted their games to be games.  The basic argument is that you can create emotionally compelling games that are still fun to play.

I'll close with this quote from Apocalypse World that feel sums up the goal of play:


			
				Vincent Baker - Apocalypse World said:
			
		

> Everything you say, you should do it to accomplish these three, and no other. It’s not, for instance, your agenda to make the players lose, or to deny them what they want, or to punish them, or to control them, or to get them through your pre-planned storyline (DO NOT pre-plan a storyline, and I’m not ing around). It’s not your job to put their characters in double-binds or dead ends, or to yank the rug out from under their feet. Go chasing after any of those, you’ll wind up with a boring game that makes Apocalypse World seem contrived, and you’ll be pre-deciding what happens by yourself, not playing to find out.
> 
> Play to find out: there’s a certain discipline you need in order to MC Apocalypse World. You have to commit yourself to the game’s fiction’s own internal logic and causality, driven by the players’ characters. You have to open yourself to caring what happens, but when it comes time to say what happens, you have to set what you hope for aside.
> 
> The reward for MCing, for this kind of GMing, comes with the discipline. When you find something you genuinely care about — a question about what will happen that you genuinely want to find out — letting the game’s fiction decide it is uniquely satisfying.


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## Balesir (Oct 10, 2015)

I'm glad this thread has been separated from the previous one, where I think it was essentially threadcrapping somewhat. I worry slightly that the same, time-worn rabbit holes will be plummeted down as we have seen before, but it's an intriguing topic, so let's have another go...



pemerton said:


> Basically, Musson is happy with the GM placing a pre-written but as-yet unlocated _challenge_ in front of which ever door the PCs happen to open; but regards GM-improvised _rewards_ as a type of rules-breaking that shouldn't be admitted to.



I'm going to nitpick a bit, here , because I think there is an essence to what Musson was trying to get at that is often not recognised - in fact, I'm not at all sure it was recognised at the time, either.

Placing pre-planned challenges before the characters has an important difference from placing pre-planned rewards that relates to player behaviour. A more analogous pairing might be placing (prepared) rewards for things you, as GM, _like_ and placing additional challenges or increasing difficulty for things you _don't like_. As soon as the players realise that either of these is going on, it may change their behaviour from engaging with the game-world to engaging with the GM in a toadying and sycophantic manner (in ther sense that they start trying to please the GM by whatever route works, not that they begin making comic-book addresses of adulation).

I think this is the essence of what Musson was getting at with the "never let the players find out" comment. What is important is that the players continue to engage with the game world, not with the GM. Whatever techniques are used must not compromise that position.



pemerton said:


> *Third*, even when playing gamist, dungeon crawling D&D, quite often the players have to engage in reasoning which is not "code-breaking" reasoning, but reasoning about the internal logic of the shared fiction - for example, thinking through motivations, relationships etc of the NPCs and monsters.



I am rather more sympathetic to [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]'s general point on this one. Code-breaking, at least in the pre-computer age, was about divining what the user of the code was trying to communicate in some language. Informed reasoning about their intent and situation was thus part of the "code-breaking". The entire enterprise of science is, in a similar sense, "code-breaking"; it is an attempt to work out what is going on "behind the screen". If certain assumptions about (NPC) motivations and intentions cause other observations in the game to "make sense", then it is not unlike looking at a coded message and finding that assuming a certian sequence of letters to represent a particular port makes other things in the code fall into place. "Decoding" people's motivations is indeed, I would say, a form of "code-breaking". The problem may arise, as I mentioned above, when it ceases to be the NPC's motivations that are being decoded and becomes the GM's motivations that are the topic of investigation.



pemerton said:


> Even if a module has no NPCs of note (as is mostly true of C1) the players might still have to reason about the motivations of NPCs to help beat the module - for instance, in C1 it is helpful for players to get a sense of the logic of the place as a tomb/shrine built by an ancient culture. This sort of reasoning isn't purely code-breaking either.
> 
> And even if a module has not even a hint of story - eg S2, White Plume Mountain - the players might still have to reason about the fiction in a non-algorithmic/code-breaking way and the GM adjudicate that. In S2 this can include things like ways of flooding the inverted ziggurat room, or surfing doors down the frictionless passage over the super-tetanus pits.



I left these together since I think they are both, at root, examples of the same failing in RPG setup. That failing is cultural code assumtion. In other words, they assume that particular trigger terms or concepts hold specific meanings to those trying to decode the situation; specifically, they expect (or even require) that the GM and players have the same cultural associations and assumptions about particular concepts.

The first assumes that the players have a specific set of assumptions about what "a tomb/shrine built by an ancient culture" might be expected to include. Why such assumptions, based as they will almost certainly be on the history of this human-inhabited world, should predetermine the valid assumptions in a world with a myriad of fantasy races is anyone's guess.

The second assumes that "friction" (and, indeed, "frictionless") have implications understood by those educated in the modern western scientific paradigm - again, in a fantasy world in which "magic" is assumed to be a valid part of the workings of the universe.

These are a bit like puzzles commonly referred to as "cryptic crosswords". They only really work as valid puzzles if you happen to know a cute little set of code phrases and assumptions concerning how these particular puzzles work. They are, in a sense, "code-breaking", but it is assumed that the basic ruleset underlying the code is known to the person attempting the breaking. If it is not, then they will find the patterns of the code meaningless (not to mention, most likely, totally uninteresting).


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## Manbearcat (Oct 10, 2015)

pemerton said:


> But Howandwhy99's assertions go far beyond this, and that is what makes them false.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...






Balesir said:


> The problem may arise, as I mentioned above, when it ceases to be the NPC's motivations that are being decoded and becomes the GM's motivations that are the topic of investigation.




Putting these together as they dovetail with my position on this.  

I am understanding of (but not sympathetic to) the purity (with respect to decoding the causal logic of the system and then making informed extrapolations) that howandwhy has been advocating for some time.  However, my problem with his thesis is the disproportionate signal to noise ratio of a classic D&D game.  It makes consistently sussing out information and then using it in a wieldy fashion (to make predictions/extrapolations with a high level of confidence) a losing proposition a fair portion of the time.  There seems a built-in assumption on his part that a skilled GM is capable of moving those proportions deeply in favor of the signal.  I agree that part of the job of a quality GM is (a) maintaining a level of internal consistency (temporally, spatially, continuity, et al) despite the deep abstractions inherent to the system and (b) properly telegraphing/foreshadowing (either at the build stage or impromptu in the moment as required).  However, there is a hefty portion of gameplay (both in the content generation/"introducing elements into the shared imaginary space" phase and in the long-term maintenance of continuity phase) that is subject to factors external to the GM (eg various player input and varying degrees of attentiveness by all of the tables' participants).  

Finally, (and likely most important) there are a large number of cognitive biases that the GM may unwittingly introduce into the fiction (again either at the build stage or the impromptu stage) that in turn introduces noise which must be sifted through and/or may compound prior established noise.  There are a lot of physics and biological anomalies (or utter incoherencies) embedded into the genre of a D&D setting.  GMs regularly handwave these or exacerbate them (by introducing further incoherence due to extrapolating from them) due to their complete misunderstanding of how mundane phenomena/interactions work in the real world.  How is a player who is bent on tightly constraining causal logic (rather than just going with it and using genre logic) supposed to "break this code?"  



Campbell said:


> When I'm playing Apocalypse World I am not in it for the story or narrative whatever those things mean. Instead, I'm playing to advocate for my PC who I am required to play as if they were a real person with real wants, real needs, and real goals. When I'm running Apocalypse World I am required to make the Apocalypse World seem real, make the character's lives not boring, and play to find out what happens. Anything I say that is not in service to those three things means I'm cheating the players out of playing the game.
> 
> Let's talk about what this actually looks like. As a player, I am playing a character who wants the sort of things that real people would want. That means food, security, emotional connections, a sense of community, whatever. It is my job to go after those things with intent. If I don't I am not playing the game. Now, we wouldn't want these things to be easy. That's where the Master of Ceremonies (MC - read GM) comes in. Their job is to make the world seem real, put obstacles in the way of what my character wants, and have the discipline to not have a stake in the way events unfold.




Part of the beauty I have found in recent game design is the honesty and transparency (of which Baker was at the forefront of).  Honesty about the implications of a singular GMing technique/resolution mechanic/play procedure on the aesthetics of play and on the participants' disposition toward one another, honesty about the complete requirement of the usage of genre logic and the (sometimes tangled) mesh of it with causal logic, transparency about where and how abstraction aids in the facilitation of functional play, how/when/why to properly telegraph, how simple system coherency can support a paradigm rather than forcing the players to fight against/work around the system.

Most of it puts the RPG issues of "Every GM, regardless of how amazingly proficient they might be, is fallible so how can we help reduce their cognitive workload during play?" and "how do we design games so we can consistently say that we got what we were looking for/expecting after an RPG session" at the forefront.  Those are admirable and proper design goals in my opinion.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 10, 2015)

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], for the sake of example, I'll use Tic-Tac-Toe again to describe the differences between games, puzzles, and stories. 

Tic-Tac-Toe is a game when someone seeks to accomplish an objective within its design.
It is a puzzle when someone seeks to solve its underlying pattern by deciphering it.
It is a story when someone uses it to communicate a message.
--

First, all games are pattern designs. This isn't under debate. It is the base entry point into game culture making it different from others like narrative culture. 

As I explain in the example above, to play a pattern as a game is to actually attempt to achieve objectives within it. In the case of D&D this is done by proxy. In order for this to happen successfully a player must attempt to decipher the design which is a consequence of taking actions. However, most game play happens for the player in their mind as they decipher out their own perception of the pattern before moving the game. This is called strategy, the act all games are designed to engender.

Second, improvising a story cannot occur during the playing of a game because improvised storytelling is an act of invention, while game playing is the act of discovery through interaction. Storytelling will always be limited to resulting in a pattern after the fact. Playing a game means deciphering a pattern in the moment. Therefore, the act of reading is like playing a game, while expressing interferes with it.

Third, all games must have an actual existing pattern in place prior to play. This is the game people will be playing. This need becomes obvious when we remember a game cannot be played without rules in use throughout, the mental pattern accompanying that of the field of play. 

As I believe you probably already know, a pattern is only a game for us because we are understanding it as such. This is exactly the same as how sequential patterns are often considered narratives because people willfully comprehend them to be, not because they actually are so. We are engaging with things outside ourselves, but limiting ourselves to a finite set of ideas when addressing them as either a game or story (or anything else). 

To clarify, story and game cultures are two separate sets of ideas affixed to actualities by people currently understanding them as such. In neither case are these objects (game boards, pieces, mental processes, etc.) actually "truly" a game or story.
--

Now to your points, 

1. Since its publication many people have not played D&D as a game, and since the 80s en masse as a functional game. That is well known. That you wanted to tell a story and yet play a game, that you continue to confuse the two acts does not couevidence of your position. On the contrary, it is evidence of your confusion. Treating a game design as not a game is not proof it isn't a game.


2. A referee in D&D moves, measures and relates portions of the current state of the hidden game to those players who are playing it. They are not players themselves as they do not have any playing pieces on the board. Like any referee they are not there to create anything, only to generate out via calculation results. Specific to D&D, these results include, but are not limited to, To Hit dice roll results, Saving Throw dice rolls, Ability Score dice rolls, and yes, map creation dice rolls. 

At no point are referees to interfere with the game, as you say "improvise" by moving stuff around, removing or adding pieces as not directed to under the rules. This is paramount for every ref. The result of doing otherwise is akin to gaslighting the players and discounting the game. 

In other words, not only does no GM ever need to improvise during a campaign, they are interfering with the game if they do. That Gary left many mechanical necessities of the game up to DMs to determine prior to play doesn't change this fact. After all, most of what he wrote wasn't known game rules, but suggestions for generating the hidden design to be gamed. This covers all the examples you give as neither of us know what mechanics the GM in your examples was using to determine the results. 

As to Mr. Musson's bad advice, see my response to 1. Evidence of someone not running D&D as a game is not evidence D&D isn't one. And I'd assume Mr. Musson would be happy with not randomly rolling monsters to populate his dungeon and wandering monster tables too thereby removing the game of players seeking out monsters, avoiding them, etc. as well as playing the dungeon as a maze.


3. First off, let's drop The Forge "narrative theory is dogma" schtick. 

--There is no such thing as "gamism". - The last thing anyone needs is more "isms" in their life. Treat a pattern as a game you are playing a game. Treat it as something else and you're engaged in something else.

--"Shared fiction" never occurs in any game. - There is no such thing as actual fiction or nonfiction except as one culture's ideas of how they understand their world. In stark contrast, games require actual designs which must exist throughout the playing of a game. Remove the design and a game can't be played.

--There are never "fictional characters" in games. - What I believe you are thinking of are game constructs meant to be gamed. 

So, FYI, NPCs and their behaviors as contained within their statistical design just like every other game component. They can be gamed through code breaking --the act of mastering a game-- and manipulating the game design. These statistics are largely in AD&D books, but mechanics like reaction rolls, alignment charts, racial relations, morale, loyalty, and plenty of other bits and pieces throughout the early published games do exist. But they are limited as to what the cover, I agree. You desire more depth of pattern complexity within the game subsystem these rules cover. That's admirable, so do I. But this does not mean NPCs aren't pieces of games. It simply means not much in the way of mechanical suggestions were published. 

The example of reasoning you mention sounds like players attempting to decipher the social situational patterns of your story creating and treat them like a game. As stories being created are non-repeating narrative sequences being formed into a pattern it is _impossible_ to game them. At best, stuff like that should only be done ironically.

And I see Mr. Musson is clearly misguided about D&D. "Make a plot for the players to follow" when refereeing a cooperative strategy game. That's a horrible idea.

So, all your examples about NPCs refer to game components not improvisation. Or with S2 to the generated game board. All these things must be on the GMs map behind the screen and tracked by them just like any referee running any other game. That was in the rules until the deluded people publishing 2e moved the rules in front of the screen and turned D&D into a half-assed broken game.



pemerton said:


> *These three elements of D&D* - it's potential for story, the need for the GM to improvise, the importance of the fiction as an ingredient of play which is not simply algorithmic in its workings - have been there from the beginning. They didn't just spring into existence when White Wolf started publishing in the late 1980s.



Well you're just trying to persist a falsehood. Remember, White Wolf declared their product to not be about gaming, but a game about storytelling. It split the hobby through the 90s and since then that crew of storytellers have not only attempted to rewrite history and the other side out of existence, but they are attempting to write games out of existence too. Heck, gaming and roleplaying are practically the opposite act of storytelling. Just read any history book (that hasn't been whitewashed by critical theorists practicing a highly suppressive variety of narrative absolutism).


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## Zak S (Oct 10, 2015)

Campbell said:


> Apocalypse World.... I'm playing to advocate for my PC who I am required to play as if they were a real person with real wants, real needs, and real goals. ... I am playing a character who wants the sort of things that real people would want. That means food, security, emotional connections, a sense of community, whatever.




That's funny because I tend to like D&D better than AW for exactly the same reason.

I can't imagine a walking around needing "emotional connections" or "a sense of community" (those things are free and always have been, even in the post-Apocalpse) but I know I don't want to be killed--especially by spider priests.

When I play AW, I feel like I'm being placed in a position where I have to pretend I care about things I so don't care about like whether a made up community has an interesting-enough looking food supply. ("We keep snakes in a sealed-off ice cream truck and breed them and eat them!" "Cool! Way to push the story forward!" Dude I could do this all day and still not care.)

In D&D I just don't want to die. Relatable.




> At its heart Apocalypse World is about players playing real people making difficult decisions in difficult situations.



(that's every RPG)



> The fundamental desire that sparked games like Apocalypse World was the desire to make games that were about something, games that reflected human experience in a meaningful way. They still wanted their games to be games.  The basic argument is that you can create emotionally compelling games that are still fun to play.




No, the fundamental desire that sparked games like AW is everybody else was playing games like D&D and felt they already "meant something" and "reflected the human experience" and were "compelling" and the authors of those games just didn't feel that way yet because they didn't relate to the way the resolution system related to these things.

So they made a different game.


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## pemerton (Oct 10, 2015)

Balesir said:


> I'm going to nitpick a bit, here , because I think there is an essence to what Musson was trying to get at that is often not recognised - in fact, I'm not at all sure it was recognised at the time, either.
> 
> Placing pre-planned challenges before the characters has an important difference from placing pre-planned rewards that relates to player behaviour.
> 
> ...



That seems like a plausible reading of his comment.



Balesir said:


> Code-breaking, at least in the pre-computer age, was about divining what the user of the code was trying to communicate in some language. Informed reasoning about their intent and situation was thus part of the "code-breaking". The entire enterprise of science is, in a similar sense, "code-breaking"; it is an attempt to work out what is going on "behind the screen". If certain assumptions about (NPC) motivations and intentions cause other observations in the game to "make sense", then it is not unlike looking at a coded message and finding that assuming a certian sequence of letters to represent a particular port makes other things in the code fall into place.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



With these, on the other hand, I want to counter-nitpick.

At this point, "code-breaking" seems to have just become a synonym for "reasoning".

I agree that the frictionless corridor in WPM assumes that the players have some sort of contextual familiarity with a particular trope/idea. The same is true of all the old chess rooms, the metal/electricity/magnet/lodestone tricks and traps, and so on. Plus many door traps and pit traps (some of the more baroque examples of latter even depend on familiarity with the particular FRPG-ism of the pit trap).

But they still require GM improvisation or non-algorithmic adjudication: for instance, if you write some sort of wacky electricity trap into your dungeon, when the players start trying to circumvent it by wrapping their hands in (hopefully insulating) cloth or using 10' poles or whatever, you are going to have to deal with those efforts.

Some of that involves shared tropes, and to that extent from the player side can degenerate into "playing the GM". But a lot of it is about understanding and adjudicating fictional positioning - eg if the players are going to use a 10' pole wrapped in cloth as an insulated trap-prodder, the GM has to adjudicate how much cloth they can get from tearing up their cloaks, how hard it is to wrap it around a 10' pole etc.

In the thread I forked from,  [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] was describing this as the "freeform" aspect of an RPG. The way I think of it is this: in a  RPG, unlike in a boardgame, _fictional positioning matters_. And sometimes - in fact, _often_ - adjudicating the fictional positioning requires non-algorithmic judgments on the part of the GM.

I think an interesting and hugely important feature of the Vincent Baker-influenced games that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has mentioned (I don't play much "powered by the Apocalypse", but am currently running a Burning Wheel campaign) is that they have found a way to try and regiment the adjudication of fictional positioning: namely, it is factored into the _framing_ of action resolution, as an input into a relatively structured and abstract system of action resolution (eg in BW, it forms part of the negotiation around obstacles and advantage dice as well as intent-and-task), and then the actual outcome is determined purely by rolling the dice to chooses between the player's preferred outcome and the GM's alternative narration of failure.

In my view (and somewhat ironically, given that  [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] derides them as non-game storytelling), this is a huge part of how these games are able to have the sort of focus-on-the-fictional-stakes aspect that Campbell describes, without degenerating into either playing the GM or adversarial GMing. They are much less hostage to that sort of degeneracy than were earlier systems that hadn't benefitted from this design insight.

Classic D&D certainly didn't have this sort of apparatus for regimenting the adjudication of fictional positioning, and (but for a brief attempt with 4e's skill challenges) it still doesn't. So GM adjudication of fictional positioning not just in framing but in actually determining outcomes remains pretty crucial. From the GM side, this is why advice repeatedly stresses the need for the GM to be _neutral_ - the GM should be trying to reason within the fiction without fear or favour towards the players. From the player side, this isn't code-breaking in any special sense. It's just reasoning about the fiction as if it were real.



Manbearcat said:


> I am understanding of (but not sympathetic to) the purity (with respect to decoding the causal logic of the system and then making informed extrapolations) that howandwhy has been advocating for some time. However, my problem with his thesis is the disproportionate signal to noise ratio of a classic D&D game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Finally, (and likely most important) there are a large number of cognitive biases that the GM may unwittingly introduce into the fiction (again either at the build stage or the impromptu stage) that in turn introduces noise which must be sifted through and/or may compound prior established noise.  There are a lot of physics and biological anomalies (or utter incoherencies) embedded into the genre of a D&D setting.  GMs regularly handwave these or exacerbate them (by introducing further incoherence due to extrapolating from them) due to their complete misunderstanding of how mundane phenomena/interactions work in the real world.  How is a player who is bent on tightly constraining causal logic (rather than just going with it and using genre logic) supposed to "break this code?"



All true.

For present purposes, what I want to point out is that _extrapolating from causal logic_ is not "code-breaking" in any meaningful sense of that term. It is just reasoning - what I have called _reasoning about the fiction as if it were real_. The idea that this can take place without the GM having to engage in improvisation is completely implausible.

Just to stick to my insulated-by-wrapping-a-10'-pole-in-torn-garments-electricity-trap-prodder: even if we gloss over  Manbearcat's point about physical/biological anomalies so as to accept that the GM and players are on the same page about how electricity traps and insulated prodders of them work, there is still improvisation required. Eg the GM might have to decide the % chance that the insulating cloth comes unwrapped, that the whole thing catches fire from a spark resulting from arcing electricity, etc. If the players have declared that they wet their cloth in water so as to dampen the prospects of fire on the pole, then the GM further has to improvise the balance between the fire-dampening properties of wet cloth and its increased electrical conductivity.

The game doesn't, even in principle, have any rules for making these adjudications, and can't - because there is no in-principle limit on the number of moves that the players might make by exploiting the fictional positioning of their PCs.

This is why I regard the invention of abstract scene-focused resolution - which uses fictional positioning only to shape the details of the dice pool and the consequences that the dice choose between - as such a breakthrough in RPG design. It's very hard for me to envisage going back from that.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 10, 2015)

Manbearcat said:


> However, my problem with his thesis is the disproportionate signal to noise ratio of a classic D&D game.  It makes consistently sussing out information and then using it in a wieldy fashion (to make predictions/extrapolations with a high level of confidence) a losing proposition a fair portion of the time.  There seems a built-in assumption on his part that a skilled GM is capable of moving those proportions deeply in favor of the signal.



In D&D, it isn't the skilled GM so much as the design of the game which keeps signal to noise ratio low. The game is built so abstractions are only at the most base part and likely never to be encoutnered. I'm willing to bet everything you understand as an abstraction in D&D isn't so at all, but a _score_ meant to be assigned to an aggregated design which enables simplification of common results just waiting for players to pick it apart through in game ingenuity and find the game inside. 



> I agree that part of the job of a quality GM is (a) maintaining a level of internal consistency (temporally, spatially, continuity, et al) despite the deep abstractions inherent to the system and (b) properly telegraphing/foreshadowing (either at the build stage or impromptu in the moment as required).  However, there is a hefty portion of gameplay (both in the content generation/"introducing elements into the shared imaginary space" phase and in the long-term maintenance of continuity phase) that is subject to factors external to the GM (eg various player input and varying degrees of attentiveness by all of the tables' participants).



Both tracking player additions to the design during a session and game content generation prior to each session can add up. But as long as the code that is the game is both relatively small, yet widespread in its coverage the work is simple math. However, I find generation requirements are primarily kept low because prep and play are all done in small portions at a time. Each session's game generation prep results in more accumulated design for players to play, but each actual play session only covers whatever small portion players can manage to mess with given real world time limits. So not only is the prep amount largely constant (though extraordinary teams could be considered more burdensome), but very highly complex games are made possible to challenge players at higher levels later in the campaign. 



> Finally, (and likely most important) there are a large number of cognitive biases that the GM may unwittingly introduce into the fiction (again either at the build stage or the impromptu stage) that in turn introduces noise which must be sifted through and/or may compound prior established noise.  There are a lot of physics and biological anomalies (or utter incoherencies) embedded into the genre of a D&D setting.  GMs regularly handwave these or exacerbate them (by introducing further incoherence due to extrapolating from them) due to their complete misunderstanding of how mundane phenomena/interactions work in the real world.  How is a player who is bent on tightly constraining causal logic (rather than just going with it and using genre logic) supposed to "break this code?"



Thank god for Gary and random tables. These tools not only organize everything, but randomly rolling on them removes huge amounts of potential, as you say, cognitive bias and you never know what you're going to get. And really, in depth accounting for physics and biology designs by a multidimensional cellular automata code are bread and butter for the game.


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## N'raac (Oct 10, 2015)

Actually, I see a lot of players, who I will suggest view the game much like howandwhy99, who have no intention of playing a "real person" making difficult decisions in a difficult situation.  Rather, they are playing a cipher, a plastic playing pawn which attempts to adopt the most tactically advantageous approach to every situation.

These are the players whose characters, faced with the choice of accepting a d6 roll on which 1 means "gain substantial wealth" and 6 means "die horribly" will keep rolling until one of the two results is attained, as "vast wealth" will provide the player a pawn with  more power in the game, while "horrible death" just means he starts out a new pawn.  How many "real persons" want to sign up for Russian Roulette?  Their pawn is not a "character" - it has no emotions, no human flaws or foibles, no principals or goals, beyond "maximize advantage in game".

No thanks.  I can play the Dungeon board game, the D&D board game, or any number of other games where I ruthlessly seek mathematical advantage to win, under the terms of victory set out by the rules.  To view D&D purely as a tactical exercise makes it a "game", but D&D is not solely a game.  It is a Role Playing Game.  Remove the "character" from the character, and it is just a game.  A 'G', not an RPG.

The GM does not role play the PC's - that is the role of the players.  But it is his role to place the characters in situations where the characters are challenged.  If we reduce this to mere 'G', we challenge only their tactical skills, and the powers of the characters.  But a good GM will also challenge the players to role play their characters - what is more important to him, protecting the innocent or destroying the evil?  Will he sacrifice his principals for power or wealth?  What happens when the stereotypical threatened village is brought to life as a PC's childhood home?

In a pure 'game' view, my character (PAWN) should be an orphan with no real principals or objectives beyond personal safety, power and wealth.  The GM will use any ethics, principals, personal connections, etc. as leverage to prevent the achievement of 'winning' the game.  In an RPG, the GM will use those character flaws, foibles and background elements to bring life to the characters and the game.  How much more satisfying to not only achieve victory, but to do so without compromising the character's principals.

In a pure game, the choice will be "lose or sacrifice your principals".  In a good RPG, the challenge is often not merely to win, but to win within those principals.

In a game, the constraints of a Paladin's code will disadvantage him constantly.  In an RPG, challenges to his principals and ethics will be as, or more, enjoyable and challenging as challenges to his strength at arms, and his sterling reputation and past acts of charity and benevolence will return to his benefit in unexpected ways.

If I wanted a board game, I'd go to the closet and get a board game.  I play an RPG for a different purpose.


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## Zak S (Oct 10, 2015)

pemerton said:


> This is why I regard the invention of abstract scene-focused resolution - which uses fictional positioning only to shape the details of the dice pool and the consequences that the dice choose between - as such a breakthrough in RPG design. It's very hard for me to envisage going back from that.



This is baffling:

You like mechanics that blur out fictional positioning advantages to a die advantage because why? Otherwise the player and GM might have to agree on the physics of the game? Otherwise the player might have to trust the GM they agreed to spend hours of their life playing with?


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## Maxperson (Oct 10, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> [MENTION=42582]
> 1. Since its publication many people have not played D&D as a game, and since the 80s en masse as a functional game. That is well known. That you wanted to tell a story and yet play a game, that you continue to confuse the two acts does not couevidence of your position. On the contrary, it is evidence of your confusion. Treating a game design as not a game is not proof it isn't a game.




Games have rules, but also goals.  One of the goals of D&D is to create a mutual story through game play. The DM isn't telling a story.  The players aren't telling a story.  However, a story is created by the interaction between the players and the DM.  That's an intended function of RPGs.




> A referee in D&D moves, measures and relates portions of the current state of the hidden game to those players who are playing it. They are not players themselves as they do not have any playing pieces on the board. Like any referee they are not there to create anything, only to generate out via calculation results. Specific to D&D, these results include, but are not limited to, To Hit dice roll results, Saving Throw dice rolls, Ability Score dice rolls, and yes, map creation dice rolls.




I have tons of pieces on the board.  I have monsters, NPCs, dungeons, and more.  I also take part in game play through interaction with the players.  I am not a pure referee.  If I was, I would have no ability to interact or create.



> At no point are referees to interfere with the game, as you say "improvise" by moving stuff around, removing or adding pieces as not directed to under the rules. This is paramount for every ref. The result of doing otherwise is akin to gaslighting the players and discounting the game.




DMs are not referees.  They act in small part as one as one of their many jobs, but being only a referee is not the function of a DM and never has been.



> In other words, not only does no GM ever need to improvise during a campaign, they are interfering with the game if they do. That Gary left many mechanical necessities of the game up to DMs to determine prior to play doesn't change this fact. After all, most of what he wrote wasn't known game rules, but suggestions for generating the hidden design to be gamed. This covers all the examples you give as neither of us know what mechanics the GM in your examples was using to determine the results.




I gave you a bunch of Gary quotes that prove you wrong about Gary's position, but you ignored those because you had no other recourse.  Your choices were to ignore them, or admit you were wrong and you are unable to do the latter.


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## Zak S (Oct 10, 2015)

N'raac said:


> a good GM will also challenge the players to role play their characters




A good GM will entertain the players and him or herself for a long time. Period.

If the players:
-A) aren't pushing their characters RPwise
and
-B) they would enjoy it if they did
...then the GM will push the players to do that. If both A and B aren't true, the GM doesn't have to do that and can focus on one of the other zillion things that can make a game fun.


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## Zak S (Oct 10, 2015)

N'raac said:


> Actually, I see a lot of players, who I will suggest view the game much like howandwhy99, who have no intention of playing a "real person" making difficult decisions in a difficult situation.  Rather, they are playing a cipher, a plastic playing pawn which attempts to adopt the most tactically advantageous approach to every situation.




This is still a "difficult situation" (even the chess king is in a difficult situation) and 
tactical advantage is about survival and survival is deeply emotional.

This why tactical games can be fun: the stakes are you die and stop playing.

I'm real. You're real. All our characters are equally fake. The really angsty character is no more "real" than the smart, tactical one.

Many, perhaps most, mart tactical characters who are played as pawns acquire characteristics, ideas, tics, over time and become more fully-rounded characters as they go on.

"Real" is not the word you want here. "Complex" might be. But, hell, not even everyone real is complex.


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## Maxperson (Oct 10, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Thank god for Gary and random tables. These tools not only organize everything, but randomly rolling on them removes huge amounts of potential, as you say, cognitive bias and you never know what you're going to get. And really, in depth accounting for physics and biology designs by a multidimensional cellular automata code are bread and butter for the game.




Do you randomly roll for every word that comes out of an NPC's mouth?  Is every single possible word or response preset by you?  If the answer to those is no, then you improvise.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 10, 2015)

Please post with more content if you want me to respond to you. Simply saying "No, no no, you're wrong!" isn't doing anything.



Maxperson said:


> I gave you a bunch of Gary quotes that prove you wrong about Gary's position, but you ignored those because you had no other recourse.  Your choices were to ignore them, or admit you were wrong and you are unable to do the latter.



Think of it. You have a social phenomenon. The most popular game in the world as of the early 80s. And there's an academic and cultural revolution going on, postmodernism, which just happens to be about eradicating any kind of thinking that pertains to treating life like a game. And guess what your game is really similar too? Yeah, they put him through the wringer. They even got him to claim skill games were RPGs. None of those quotes are relevant to D&D. Sorry.



Maxperson said:


> Do you randomly roll for every word that comes out of an NPC's mouth?  Is every single possible word or response preset by you?  If the answer to those is no, then you improvise.



I clarify until the players understand the design behind the screen each of them are privy too. I can do this all day long if necessary, it still isn't me playing the game. Actually, that isn't either one of us playing the game. They play the game by telling me where to move the pieces. I move them on their behalf because I have access to the whole board. I impartially relate the results of the game design they are allowed to know given the new position

--This is why   [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is still obviously confused by what I'm telling him. There is no "fictional positioning" in a game. Games have actual locations that must exist for a game to be played. I don't have any of the problems he suggested because the results aren't up to me.


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## pemerton (Oct 10, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> all games are pattern designs. This isn't under debate.



Yes it is.

When I ask my 6 year old daughter, "What are you doing" and she replies "Playing a game", what she almost always means by "playing a game" is that she is pretending to be doing something imaginary. For instance, she might be piling wood chips onto a park bench, pretending that she is making cakes for sale in her cake shop; or pretending that she is a pet-store owner and that her older sister is her English-speaking pet cat.

This sort of play, which is I think pretty common for human children - it is part of how they learn to make sense of the world, and is one form of _roleplaying_ within the literal meaning of that term. And it has basically nothing in common with tic tac toe. It certainly doesn't involve "code-breaking".



howandwhy99 said:


> to play a pattern as a game is to actually attempt to achieve objectives within it. In the case of D&D this is done by proxy.



What is the proxy? And what is it a proxy for?



howandwhy99 said:


> improvising a story cannot occur during the playing of a game because improvised storytelling is an act of invention, while game playing is the act of discovery through interaction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> "Shared fiction" never occurs in any game.



Improvising a story can happen during the playing of some games. For instance, when my daughter is playing at making cakes and offering them for sale in her cake shop she might improvise a story - for instance, by asking me what sort of cake I would like to buy, then going through the process of "making" it (ie gathering up wood chips) and then delivering the "cake" to me (ie by bringing me a handful of wood chips roughly shaped into a circular pile and then requiring me to "eat" the cake, which involves holding the woodchips near to my mouth, saying "yum yum yum" and then dropping the wood chips back onto the ground).

That's a story only in a pretty degenerate sense - there is no real rising action, and the conclusion is foregone - but it is a structured sequence of events which are improvised during the playing of the game. And it involves a _shared fiction_ - my daughter and I jointly imagine that she is a baker, that she is bringing me a cake, and that I eat it. Those events are not real - hence _fictional_. And the imagining of them is joint - hence _shared_.



howandwhy99 said:


> That you wanted to tell a story and yet play a game, that you continue to confuse the two acts does not couevidence of your position. On the contrary, it is evidence of your confusion.



I would retort that it is evidence of your desire to use the word "game" with a narrowness that is not borne out by its actual meaning.

My daughter, who describes her improvisational role playing and storytelling as a game, isn't abusing the English language.

But in fact I didn't want to _tell a story_. I wanted to _create a story by way of RPGing_. In the context of RPGing, those are importantly different things. The difference can be illustrated by pointing to the well-known pitfall in children's games - there is no device for adjudicating between competing desires as to "what happens next". That is because children's games lack any way of differentiating _creating_ from _telling_. Whereas in the sort of RPG that I enjoy this is achieved by allocating different functions to different participants - GMs who frame scenes, players who introduce character motivations, desires and attempted actions; by using mechanical systems (mostly dice) to select between competing desires as to "what happens next"; and by using a combination of rules and conventions to maintain the integrity of the resulting shared fiction which then constrains both downstream scene-framing and downstream action declarations.

You may not enjoy that sort of RPGing, but it is not confused. And it is very obviously intimately related to the sort of RPGing that Gygax invented. It uses many of the same devices that D&D pioneered - a differentiation between player and referee roles; dice for action resolution; continuity of the shared fiction - while adding in some innovations of its own.



howandwhy99 said:


> all games must have an actual existing pattern in place prior to play. This is the game people will be playing. This need becomes obvious when we remember a game cannot be played without rules in use throughout, the mental pattern accompanying that of the field of play.



This is not actually true except as some sort of ideal.

Do you play Monopoly? Because I have a 9 year old as well as a 6 year old daughter, I do. Modern Monopoly sets ship with a "speed die" which is rolled together with the traditional two dice. The "speed die" can mandate that an additional move be taken at the end of the turn, but the rules for using the speed die don't explain how this is to be reconciled with the rule that rolling doubles grants another turn. I hadn't noticed this until it actually came up in play, so we (or I, as the adult participant who noticed the issue) improvised a house rule - the special "speed die" move is implemented at the end of rolling again for the doubles.

Nor do the speed die rules say what happens to the special moves if you go to jail on your turn. Again, I improvised a house rule: because going to jail negates other downstream elements of a turn, I decided that it negates the downstream requirements of the speed die result. (This means that it can often be a good thing to go to jail, because paying $50 to get out of jail is a better result than having to resolve the special "speed die" move.)

I am not a wargamer, but many of those I have RPGed with have been pretty serious wargamers. For several years back in the early-to-mid-90s they use to play Empires and Arms every week. In one of their Empires and Arms games a question arose around how to adjudicate some particular element of Poland's neutral status - the rules weren't clear. They decided on an ad hoc solution for the moment and to otherwise put the issue to one side. The Empire and Arms group then broke up a few months later when the development of the game had led one of the players (maybe playing Austria? memory fades) to make a move that exploited this "gentlemen's agreement" around Poland, leading to acrimony and recriminations and fallings out.

The point is that the game was able to proceed with a less-than-complete ruleset, patched over by improvisation and ad hoc rulings. The fact that the game broke down over this some months later doesn't mean that a game wasn't being successfully played in the intervening period.



howandwhy99 said:


> A referee in D&D moves, measures and relates portions of the current state of the hidden game to those players who are playing it. They are not players themselves as they do not have any playing pieces on the board. Like any referee they are not there to create anything, only to generate out via calculation results. Specific to D&D, these results include, but are not limited to, To Hit dice roll results, Saving Throw dice rolls, Ability Score dice rolls, and yes, map creation dice rolls.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> not only does no GM ever need to improvise during a campaign, they are interfering with the game if they do



To me, this is asserting some sort of ideal as if it were actual.

For instance, in AD&D, what damage does a PC take from falling 100' into water? What difference does it make if the PC deliberately dives, or rather is pushed over a cliff by an enemy? Does the DEX of the PC make a difference (eg does it permit a more elegant dive)? Gygax's published books don't answer this question, but I can guarantee it has come up at literally thousands of tables playing D&D.

Another example: in any version of classic D&D, how long does it take to hack through a standard dungeon door using a battle axe? And what difference does this activity make to the chances of wandering monsters during that time? No answer to these questions is found in any of the books either, but once again literally thousands, perhaps 10s or even 100s of thousands of GMs, have had to answer these questions over the lifetime of D&D play.

I can tell you how they have, in fact, come up with answers. They have made decisions that extrapolate, as best they are able, from some combination of the existing rules (for falling; for damaging objects with siege weapons; etc) and their own understanding of the causal processes involved (the furthest I personally have ever jumped into a pool of water is about 50' or 60'; I've never cut down a door with an axe, but have split wood for a fireplace; so those are the experiences I would draw upon).

I don't know what label you use to describe that process of rules invention. Most posters on these boards call it improvisation. Various D&D texts have talked about adjudicating things or actions that the rules don't cover.



howandwhy99 said:


> At no point are referees to interfere with the game, as you say "improvise" by moving stuff around, removing or adding pieces as not directed to under the rules.



But this is not the sort of improvisation that [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], or I, or Roger Musson, is talking about. (Except for the bit about adding rewards - which, as I noted and as [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] has further discussed, he regards as problematic or at least irregular in some fashion.)

Celebrim has been emphasising the need to make up rules, similar to my previous paragraph. Roger Musson is interested in giving practical advice to GMs for when the players get to the edge of the map or get to parts of the map for which the referee has not yet written up any descriptions. That is what his Emergency Room Register is for.

Musson clearly regards the ideal as one in which the GM has fully prepared the map and key. But he recognises that human time, energy and ingenuity is finite, and is offering advice for what to do when those limitations mean that not everything has been written up.



howandwhy99 said:


> NPCs and their behaviors as contained within their statistical design just like every other game component. They can be gamed through code breaking --the act of mastering a game-- and manipulating the game design. These statistics are largely in AD&D books, but mechanics like reaction rolls, alignment charts, racial relations, morale, loyalty, and plenty of other bits and pieces throughout the early published games do exist. But they are limited as to what the cover, I agree. You desire more depth of pattern complexity within the game subsystem these rules cover. That's admirable, so do I. But this does not mean NPCs aren't pieces of games. It simply means not much in the way of mechanical suggestions were published.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So, all your examples about NPCs refer to game components not improvisation. Or with S2 to the generated game board. All these things must be on the GMs map behind the screen and tracked by them just like any referee running any other game.



Again, you state an ideal as if it were actual.

In the real world, GMs don't think of everything. How many 10s of thousands of tables have played through White Plume Mountain? How many solutions have been invented to deal with the ziggurat room, with the frictionless corridor, with the platforms hanging over hot mud?

It is literally impossible for a GM to anticipate and preplan for all those solutions, which know no limits except those of human ingenuity.

Likewise for NPCs. I stated an example of NPC reactions from Moldvay Basic. What _is_ the bonus for a friendly greeting in a hobgoblin's language? What does "hostile" mean? When do hostile NPCs attack? These things are not detailed for most NPCs in the game. In Moldvay's example, the GM could have decided that the "hostile" hobgoblins surround the PCs and call upon them to surrender while sending for reinforcements. Nothing in the game mechanics indicates that that would have been the wrong decision; hence nothing indicates that the actual course of events was the right decision.

What happens if Silverleaf, to try and pacify the hobgoblins, offers to marry the hobgoblin leader's oldest daughter? Does that increase or decrease the likelihood of attack? How important is marriage to hobgoblins? What are their dowry practices? None of that is answered by the game rules. A GM would have to make it up, doing his/her best to extrapolate from what is written (eg in AD&D hobgoblins are said to hate elves, but I don't recall anything similar in Moldvay Basic).



howandwhy99 said:


> "Make a plot for the players to follow" when refereeing a cooperative strategy game. That's a horrible idea.



I don't know what exactly you have in mind by _making a plot for the players to follow_, but given that neither I nor Roger Musson advocate anything that would fall under that description, I'm not too worried about it.

Musson does advocate putting interesting and interrelated things into the dungeon. And connected to this, he encourages having a dungeon backstory which the PCs (and hence the players) might discover, and hence take advantage of. For instance, if the players learn that the dungeon was designed by a college of magic whose leading figures subsequently had a falling out, they might try to find an NPC belonging to one of the factions who will then help them deal with the NPCs of the opposing faction.

I personally find RPGing more fun when the imagined situations into which I frame the PCs (and thereby the players) relates to the dramatic needs that they have established for their PCs. For instance, when I started my Burning Wheel game, one of the PCs had as a Belief _that he needed to find magical antecedents that he could use to help enchant artefacts to tame his demon-possessed brother_. Thus, the opening scene that I described had the PC in a bazaar in Hardby, where a peddler was claiming to have various magical and esoteric trinkets for sale, including an angel feather from the Bright Desert.

None of these techniques is about "making a plot for the players to follow".



howandwhy99 said:


> Since its publication many people have not played D&D as a game
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I assume you have a copy of the (original) Fiend Folio. Have a look in the index - you'll see Roger Musson's name next to quite a few of those monsters.

The idea that he was misguided about D&D is absurd. He was clearly a major figure in the early years of British D&D play, up there with others like Donald Turnbull and Lewis Pulsipher.

In your somewhat snide remarks about what you would assume, you run together two things that Musson, quite reasonably, distinguishes: procedures for content generation, and procedures of play.

Musson, in the series of articles that I referenced, has a very interesting discussion of how to populate a dungeon, and the balance between random generation and GM choice. He talks about his own experience using a variety of methods (including an early computer program for content generation that he wrote himself and that was in use by other British D&D players also). He recommends a mixture of random and non-random generation of content, in many ways similar to Tom Moldvay in the Basic Rules (the GM places denizens who are integral to the dungeon backstory, and then randomly generates the rest). One important idea suggested by Musson and not found in Moldvay is to randomly generate a list of monsters, and a list of treasures, and then to deliberately place them so that the GM can achieve a deliberate rather than randomly determined balance between risk and reward.

On the issue of "dungeon as maze", Musson has a very sophisticated discussion of dungeon design techniques - both dungeon geometry and various tricks - that can increase the likelihood of PCs (and thereby players) getting lost. It is far superior to anything on the topic found in any book I have read published by TSR or WotC.

These techniques of dungeon geography and content generation are mostly quite separate from the question of basic play procedure. Musson regards dungeon exploration as the core of D&D play, and has a brief discussion of the technique of scouting expedition (in which the PCs prepare mostly defensive and informational spells) followed by an assault/looting expedition - but this does not add anything of significance to Gygax's discussion in the closing pages of his PHB.

Nothing about this sort of play procedure requires that the GM randomly generate the dungeon contents. It's clear, for instance, that Gygax didn't randomly generate all his dungeon contents. The famous Fraz Urb'luu room and imprisoned gods room in Castle Greyhawk are enough to make that clear - those rooms weren't the results of rolling randomly on tables. He came up with them because he thought they would be fun for the players.

This is why Musson doesn't favour strictly random content generation - he thinks that it reduces the likelihood of the dungeon being interesting to explore, and hence undermines the pleasure in playing the game.

That _many people have not played D&D as a game_ may be true, for some very restricted meaning of _game_. But Roger Musson is manifestly not one of those people.



howandwhy99 said:


> story and game cultures are two separate sets of ideas affixed to actualities by people currently understanding them as such. In neither case are these objects (game boards, pieces, mental processes, etc.) actually "truly" a game or story.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I don't understand any of these statements, but as far as I can tell they don't bear upon anything that I am saying.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 10, 2015)

[MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION], you do realise that Ron Edwards is not remotely a postmodernist, and that his approach to story and (what he calls) premise is thoroughly modernist.

If one wanted to apply a postmodernist critique to Edwards, one would begin by pointing out that he classified The Dying Earth RPG as a system that facilitates narrativism, although it does not involve addressing a _premise_ in his sense of that notion.

Because I'm not a postmodernist, I'll leave that deconstructive task to someone else. I prefer to slightly reconstruct the notion of _narrativism_ so that it fits the examples that Edwards puts forward (including The Dying Earth). In my experience it's often the case in social theorising that formal definitions are put forward that don't actually capture the interesting phenomena the theorist is pointing to. (Eg Durkheim falls foul of this in his definition of "social rules" in The Rules of Sociological Method. If it can happen to a genius like Durkheim, I can easily forgive it in Edwards.)


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## Campbell (Oct 10, 2015)

Zak S,

You make some compelling points. I fell into some of the same unfortunate rhetorical traps that the guys who created the sort of games I tend to like made back in the day. At the end of the day we're looking at games that are trying to be about different things than D&D is about, but are still fundamentally role playing games. Using words like Story Now, Narrativism, etc. was entirely counterproductive to communicating what we are all trying to do - play games with different goals. 



howandwhy99 said:


> Well you're just trying to persist a falsehood. Remember, White Wolf declared their product to not be about gaming, but a game about storytelling. It split the hobby through the 90s and since then that crew of storytellers have not only attempted to rewrite history and the other side out of existence, but they are attempting to write games out of existence too. Heck, gaming and roleplaying are practically the opposite act of storytelling. Just read any history book (that hasn't been whitewashed by critical theorists practicing a highly suppressive variety of narrative absolutism).




I think you couldn't be more wrong about this thing we are doing. We use unfortunate rhetoric at times, but this thing we are doing is absolutely about playing games. Players are after different things and GMs/refs/whatever utilize different techniques, but we are absolutely interested in playing games as games. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is we are not who you think we are. I view Vampire - The Masquerade* at best as a dysfunctional game. The GM priorities are completely askew and lead to an experience for players where there is no real ground to make decisions and strive for the things their character should want in a way that actually shapes outcomes. I wanted to like Vampire. I totally wanted to play a *game* about trying to not become a monster. That's not what Vampire is. I'm not really sure if it is or isn't a game. I simply know the play techniques (used as directed) left me feeling like I had no impact on play.

This thing I like to do is so fundamentally different from that thing people who play Vampire as directed do I have trouble seeing how anyone can associate the two. I have visceral and violent reaction every time I see anything like The Golden Rule, calls for keeping players in the dark so you can pull off a big reveal, fudging, etc. It's far too pervasive in our hobby for my tastes. 

I guess this is me taking far too many words to say I like games, and am not really that interested in story or narrative. I just prefer games that utilize slightly different play techniques.


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## pemerton (Oct 10, 2015)

Zak S said:


> This is baffling:
> 
> You like mechanics that blur out fictional positioning advantages to a die advantage because why? Otherwise the player and GM might have to agree on the physics of the game? Otherwise the player might have to trust the GM they agreed to spend hours of their life playing with?



I think your bafflement is at least partly the result of not having read everything that I wrote. In the following self-quote, I've bolded the bit that you seem to have missed:



pemerton said:


> I think an interesting and hugely important feature of the Vincent Baker-influenced games that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has mentioned (I don't play much "powered by the Apocalypse", but am currently running a Burning Wheel campaign) is that they have found a way to try and regiment the adjudication of fictional positioning: namely, *it is factored into the framing of action resolution*, as an input into a relatively structured and abstract system of action resolution (eg in BW, it forms part of the negotiation around obstacles and advantage dice as well as intent-and-task), and then the actual outcome is determined purely by rolling the dice to chooses between the player's preferred outcome and the GM's alternative narration of failure.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> This is why I regard the invention of abstract scene-focused resolution - which uses fictional positioning only to shape the details of the dice pool and *the consequences that the dice choose between* - as such a breakthrough in RPG design. It's very hard for me to envisage going back from that.



One reason I like it is because it allows the fiction to be incorporated into resolution without having to decide what the % chance is of a 10' pole catching fire from arcing electricity, or any of the other billion extrapolations that I'm not capable of performing with any genuine competence or neutrality.

Another reason I like it is because it makes the adjudication of fantastic stuff - where the _physics of the game_ may be utterly opaque - easier to adjudicate. This isn't such an issue in Burning Wheel, which is pretty gritty, but is a big deal in something like 4e or Marvel Heroic RP. In MHRP, for instance, War Machine and Titanium Man were able to have an aerial battle that took them from Washington, DC to Florida without me having to pull out a map or worry about air speeds or prevailing winds.

In 4e, it made it possible to determine whether or not a high level chaos sorcerer was able to use his magic to seal off the Abyss. And an example that is not really about fantastic stuff, but is about NPC reactions and motivations where the "physics" may also be very opaque: it allowed determining whether a sorcerer surreptitiously knocking over servants bringing in jellies for dessert, as a demonstration of how one might go about fighting a gelatinous cube, contributed to or worked against the PCs' overall goals in a social interaction.

TL;DR: the phrase _blurring out_ is not one that I accept. I used the word _regimenting_ deliberately.


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## Campbell (Oct 10, 2015)

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION], you do realise that Ron Edwards is not remotely a postmodernist, and that his approach to story and (what he calls) premise is thoroughly modernist.
> 
> If one wanted to apply a postmodernist critique to Edwards, one would begin by pointing out that he classified The Dying Earth RPG as a system that facilitates narrativism, although it does not involve addressing a _premise_ in his sense of that notion.
> 
> Because I'm not a postmodernist, I'll leave that deconstructive task to someone else. I prefer to slightly reconstruct the notion of _narrativism_ so that it fits the examples that Edwards puts forward (including The Dying Earth). In my experience it's often the case in social theorising that formal definitions are put forward that don't actually capture the interesting phenomena the theorist is pointing to. (Eg Durkheim falls foul of this in his definition of "social rules" in The Rules of Sociological Method. If it can happen to a genius like Durkheim, I can easily forgive it in Edwards.)




I think we need to stop talking about the way Edwards, and others were talking and thinking about games 10+ years ago unless we are talking about the games they were making back then. Even then we have to be careful, because the initial set of essays were formative. They provided grounds for discussion that resulted in games that don't correlate directly to the initial theory. I'm part of the Indie+ community on Google+, have watched John Harper's design talk Hangouts, and have read some of Vincent Baker's recent theory posts. There is very little mention of story or narrative. It's all focused on we want a game where players do x - how do we get there?

Here's a relatively recent (about a year ago) post from Vincent Baker's blog that I feel better represents the contemporary indie community:


			
				Vincent Baker said:
			
		

> Hey, some RPG theory, how about? While we're waiting for me to actually make something.
> 
> A game has procedures. Procedures are things like "on your turn, choose a legal card from your hand and play it," "when your character gets into a fight, roll 2d6 and add your Combat Value," and "to make your meeple on the screen jump, push the A button."
> 
> ...


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## pemerton (Oct 10, 2015)

Campbell said:


> I view Vampire - The Masquerade* at best as a dysfunctional game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



My experience with V:tM is less than my experience with AD&D 2nd ed, but my response to the latter (and to the little V:tM that I have played) is the same as yours.

For reasons that I don't understand, given that it's been pointed out more than once in previous threads,  [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] seems not to realise that the Forge (and the games that it gave rise to) is founded in profound hostility to V:tM, AD&D 2nd ed and that predominant late-80s-through-90s style of play. (This hostility saw its climax in the notorious "brain damage" episode.)

As to interest in story or narrative, for my own part I am interested in them this way: I want my FRPGing to feel like there are dramatic stakes, and character arcs, that at least tolerably resemble B movies in the genre, or Claremont-style superhero comics. If a FRPG can't fairly reliably produce that sort of experience, I don't really want to GM or play it. 

I have had the sort of experience I want playing two sorts of games. One is playing RQ, Stormbringer or similar BRP engines in tightly-designed tournament scenarios, in which rich pre-written PC backstories make contact with the pre-written scenario, driven by very skilled GM descriptions and characterisations of NPCs. I'm not a good enough GM in those respects to run such scenarios myself, and the degree of pre-writing required makes them unsuitable, in my view, for campaign play. (Too much work, not enough player input.)

The other is running games in a scene-framing style, with GM decision-making around scene-framing driven by formal or informal player cues. (I've often mentioned that the mid-80s Oriental Adventures, with its PCs embedded in a world of families, and honour, and the Celestial Bureaucracy, was what opened my eyes to this.) I've run this sort of game using AD&D and RM, but for the sorts of reasons I've stated in this thread I think there are better mechanics for doing what I want, and those are what I now use.


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## pemerton (Oct 10, 2015)

Campbell said:


> I think we need to stop talking about the way Edwards, and others were talking and thinking about games 10+ years ago unless we are talking about the games they were making back then. Even then we have to be careful, because the initial set of essays were formative. They provided grounds for discussion that resulted in games that don't correlate directly to the initial theory.



Well, I only posted about Edwards/the Forge because another poster brought it into the thread.

In some ways my comparison of Edwards to Durkheim is facile - only one of them is a giant of social theory - but I've nevertheless made it deliberately.

There are many things wrong with Durkheim's social theory (in my view, perhaps most importantly, he has no theory of the state and he badly needs one for parts of his theory to work). But it is still a source of powerful insights, and if someone trying to understand contemporary industrial/urban society had the choice between reading nothing or reading Durkheim, I would recommend Durkheim every time.

For me, Edwards was the first author I read writing about RPGs who actually theorised my experiences and helped me understand what I was trying to do, and why certain received techniques (eg nearly every bit of advice I'd ever read in any RPG book ever) were obstacles to that.

I am not a game designer, and so I don't read Edwards from the perspective of someone looking for advice on how to make a game (in that respect, I've got every reason to think that Vincent Baker is superior). For me, he is a source of GMing advice. And personally, the only better advice I have read is Luke Crane's. (Robin Laws has interesting things to say in HeroWars/Quest, for instance, but I couldn't understand it until I had read Edwards' take on it.)

The other thing that Edwards has done, for me, is to enable me to reread the advice from Gygax and Lewis Pulsipher and work out what they were getting at, why it worked for them, and why it was no good for me (given that I was not and am not interested in the Gygaxian "skilled play" approach to FRPGing).

Anyway, that's why I personally regard Edwards as important, despite whatever flaws and limitations he might have.


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## S'mon (Oct 10, 2015)

Cool thread. 

@howandwhy, I don't think cultural Marxist Critical Theory is to blame for people using D&D to Tell Stories.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 10, 2015)

pemerton said:


> howandwhy99 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, you're saying this first thing and then ignoring all my discussion of it at the end.



> When I ask my 6 year old daughter, "What are you doing" and she replies "Playing a game", what she almost always means by "playing a game" is that she is pretending to be doing something imaginary. For instance, she might be piling wood chips onto a park bench, pretending that she is making cakes for sale in her cake shop; or pretending that she is a pet-store owner and that her older sister is her English-speaking pet cat.
> 
> SNIP



Your daughter sounds amazing. This is the point though, What rules is your daughter following for any of her pretending? What win/loss conditions is she acting under? What predefined game objectives does she seek? How does she score points? I'm sorry, but your daughter is simply using "game" to mean something that has nothing to do with playing games. But hey, a word is a label. She can use it for whatever she wants and that's fine. But let's not obfuscate it in order to conform gaming into storytelling. You've just wrote at considerable length about only the latter. 



> The point is that the game was able to proceed with a less-than-complete ruleset, patched over by improvisation and ad hoc rulings. The fact that the game broke down over this some months later doesn't mean that a game wasn't being successfully played in the intervening period.



The player's had a broken game system. The circle of the game had one element missing. That sucks. That doubly sucks in the middle of a game, because it could invalidate the game. It doesn't sound like it did, but maybe one player believed Poland was to operate one way while another believe in a second interpretation? But what happened was it crashed to a head what could have been good game play throughout strengthening the players.

What you claim obviously did not happen. The players played around by avoiding the glaring hole in the game until one was probably put in a position where they had to lose something or bring the issue to the fore. Who knows how unbalancing and interfering to play it was before that point? And just as you say, "acriminoy and recriminations and fallings out." That sucks.



> I don't know what label you use to describe that process of rules invention. Most posters on these boards call it improvisation. Various D&D texts have talked about adjudicating things or actions that the rules don't cover.



You say you can't conceive of a game that covers everything a player could ever possibly attempt, so a GM doesn't need to improvise. Let's try. What's the smallest possible example of a game design you can think of that covers everything any player could ever attempt to do within a game design? 

My thinking? "If the game piece is moved, it moves in any manner as described. If anything else is moved, it doesn't." The design is an opaque piece on an undefined board. That's it. (have a pencil ready)

We have Superman. As long as the player doesn't attempt stuff like "The NPC says hello" or "The magic cloak flies over to my character", then everything attempted by the player is tracked as happening by the DM as they furiously take down all the details the player elucidates to put them in the now wildly increasing game. Without any prior design, this will soon get out of hand as simply too much needs to be written down to be put into the game, but we're talking about the smallest possible  game design that still covers everything anyone could ever attempt in a game prior to play. 




> Musson clearly regards the ideal as one in which the GM has fully prepared the map and key. But he recognises that human time, energy and ingenuity is finite, and is offering advice for what to do when those limitations mean that not everything has been written up.



The first part gives me hope, the second dashes it away. Not everything the players will think of will be on the gameboard. Of course. But there are already rules for miles miles of binary answers to player attempts. We randomly generate a large game space on the map, areas that are not on the map are not on the map. We've removed all kinds of potential discoveries which might have been, but now aren't when players go looking for them. 



> It is literally impossible for a GM to anticipate and preplan for all those solutions, which know no limits except those of human ingenuity.



That's a nice fantasy, but it's clearly wrong. There are no limits potentially. There are limits right now. 

Here's the thing we both know. Nothing can ever be put into the game without it first being designed. That's why we have literally a million books with every possible item given statistics for one game or another. 

You say again rules cannot be made that cover everything players can imagine. But remember the game pieces are patterns, designs that had to already be added to the game. No matter what, whatever is on the game board already has to be accounted for with everything else on it. That's more than enough, that's everything. Anything more is a hole in the game. Anything more means more rules must have been added. That which lies outside the design is added by the player just like any other situational puzzle, but not to their knowledge. Just keep digging for specifics until the design has all the game stats as are covered. And a good game, like D&D, has broad systems covering most of the spheres of all human ideas. Think of a dictionary. It's big, but it's not infinite. It's easier to great a huge canvas covering seemingly everything than one might think.



> What _is_ the bonus for a friendly greeting in a hobgoblin's language? What does "hostile" mean? When do hostile NPCs attack?
> SNIP
> What happens if Silverleaf, to try and pacify the hobgoblins, offers to marry the hobgoblin leader's oldest daughter? Does that increase or decrease the likelihood of attack? How important is marriage to hobgoblins? What are their dowry practices?



I've never heard of the friendly greeting gesture bonus, but perhaps it's in Molday. Otherwise if there is no bonus, there isn't a bonus. Bonuses are supposed to come from measures of the game design anyway, not abstract stuff. 

Agreed about Hostile, if you are using the Reaction roll it needs to refer to something in your game. The result of Hostile behavior needs to be designed before it can be interacted with. But rather than building a logic system, generate a game pattern instead. Than look at the behavior of the creation and what patterns it exhibits. Basically everything in the game world is exhibiting a behavior. For monsters, this can be quite a lot as they are usually very complex designs. But once you know all those behaviors plot them on your Alignment chart. How creatures of different alignments act to destroy something in the game could fall under hostile. Balance it, create nuances for each monster design. Playtest. Plus, hostile is a word and Gary doesn't go into his design. So use the term for whatever is in yours.

When do hostile NPCs attack? Well I would think this goes right back to behaviors statted as Alignment again, plus whatever all the variations do for what is exhibiting the behavior - some monster variances, probably a personality system if you use AD&D. All kinds of stuff. 

Marriage and dowry both fall under trade. 
Attacks I covered above. 
Culture is by monster type, but it's simply mass numbers of creatures behaving as one, something I find best aggregated into a single stat block, IMO



> I don't know what exactly you have in mind by _making a plot for the players to follow_, but given that neither I nor Roger Musson advocate anything that would fall under that description, I'm not too worried about it.
> 
> SNIP
> SNIP
> ...



Now those are some interesting ideas by him. Much better than the arbitrariness that short circuits players ability to play games. You see, what you relate about non-random adventure placement is going to bring arbitrary results into the pattern the players are playing. That's the referee disabling the players being able to play the game again. In the "random" case of dice rolls it isn't the randomness that matters so much as the variable pattern distribution the roll collapses into as part of the game. Yes, the roll is a determination of possible results. But it is more a derivation of the design manifested, the pattern being deciphered by the players. Not an indeterminacy at all, like when referees interfere.

The interesting part of a game is that it is design which can be gamed. Not that it looks cool. It sounds like Musson is saying he wants what amounts to contemporary fluff, while the goal of good game design is to get rid of fluff and instead enable players to interact with it as part of the game.


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## Maxperson (Oct 10, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Think of it. You have a social phenomenon. The most popular game in the world as of the early 80s. And there's an academic and cultural revolution going on, postmodernism, which just happens to be about eradicating any kind of thinking that pertains to treating life like a game. And guess what your game is really similar too? Yeah, they put him through the wringer. They even got him to claim skill games were RPGs. None of those quotes are relevant to D&D. Sorry.




You don't just get to arbitrarily declare his quotes as being forced upon him when they disagree with you, and not forced when they do......wait.....you haven't actually shown any that support you.



> I clarify until the players understand the design behind the screen each of them are privy too. I can do this all day long if necessary, it still isn't me playing the game. Actually, that isn't either one of us playing the game. They play the game by telling me where to move the pieces. I move them on their behalf because I have access to the whole board. I impartially relate the results of the game design they are allowed to know given the new position




It is you playing the game.  You seem to be under the mistaken impression that if you don't play the game in the same way that they do, you aren't playing the game.  That's a very wrong idea.  The DM is every bit a player.  He just plays by different rules in a different role.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 10, 2015)

Campbell said:


> I think you couldn't be more wrong about this thing we are doing. We use unfortunate rhetoric at times, but this thing we are doing is absolutely about playing games. Players are after different things and GMs/refs/whatever utilize different techniques, but we are absolutely interested in playing games as games.
> 
> I guess what I'm trying to say is we are not who you think we are. I view Vampire - The Masquerade* at best as a dysfunctional game. The GM priorities are completely askew and lead to an experience for players where there is no real ground to make decisions and strive for the things their character should want in a way that actually shapes outcomes. I wanted to like Vampire. I totally wanted to play a *game* about trying to not become a monster. That's not what Vampire is. I'm not really sure if it is or isn't a game. I simply know the play techniques (used as directed) left me feeling like I had no impact on play.
> 
> ...



Okay. I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush. So I don't know who is caught in the confusion. I know there are games where a lot of what designs are in place, like in 3e-5e, allow for a great deal of game play ...until the rules run out. There is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a DM and why 3 people are a required minimum. And why GM game maps have to be made before hand. Or why players use mapping as a strategy. Or why everything Ability Scores aren't attributes, but a ranked game ability. Or... 

I'd be interested in hearing what games you like and what you're looking for. Though I guess I don't know much of what's called an RPG that is new out there.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 10, 2015)

S'mon said:


> Cool thread.
> 
> @howandwhy, I don't think cultural Marxist Critical Theory is to blame for people using D&D to Tell Stories.



Of course not, "Game Studies" is. That narrative critical theory treats most everything as a narrative is why we have lost games as a culture.


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## Umbran (Oct 10, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Well, I only posted about Edwards/the Forge because another poster brought it into the thread.




I think Edwards and The Forge are relevant in another respect: Howandwhy99, like Edwards in GNS theory, speaks as if he's mistaken his framework for looking at RPGs for The Truth.

Forge theory has some moderate utility as a framework in which we can consider game design, and game play.  A person can gain some insight using it as a lens though which we consider our hobby.  And, if we view it as one framework, of many possible such frameworks, when we hit something that doesn't sit comfortably within Forge theory, we can switch to some other way of thinking about RPGs.

If, however, we hammer a stake in the ground, and say, "This is *THE WAY*,"  we run into a host of issues, both in the theory and in the act of discussing the theory.

Conversation of Howandwhy's thoughts would go differently (and, I expect, far more fruitfully) if, instead of saying, "A game is *this*, and if you're doing anything other than exactly *this*, you aren't playing a game," he said, "Consider, for sake of argument, that the 'game' part of RPGs was *this*.  What would that imply?"


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## Campbell (Oct 10, 2015)

Here's a way to think about scene framing. Each scene is dungeon, but instead of a dungeon it is an emotionally compelling situation to play through. Instead of players trying to get treasure guarded by monsters, they are trying to get the things their characters want from people and things that stand in their way. In this situation the DM is both a game designer and a referee. However, they are not game designer when they are being a referee. They are not a referee while they are being a game designer. Framing a scene is game design in motion - you are describing and creating a mental model of what's happening in the moment for players to interact with, but you are not adjudicating stuff. Once a scene is framed things have been established (both externally and internally) and we play to find out if players get what they want - we use the rules to do this stuff. When the player's do something the DM who is now a referee responds based on what's been established. Introducing new content at this point is rigging the game and bad refereeing. Once the scene is resolved our DM is now once again a game designer. Think of it is not one single module being played, but many modules being created and then played over the course of a single session.

This stuff is hard stuff, and requires a phenomenal amount of discipline. I personally find it much harder than running a game of Basic D&D. That's why having a game's agenda and principles are so important. They guide the design judgments you are making is a matter of play and help to mitigate biases. I also find this sort of play very rewarding, because the scenarios are directly relevant to what's gone on before in a way that few adventure modules serve to do. Generally when I run a scene framed game I am mentally exhausted, but deeply satisfied.

I know Zak S and howandwhy will probably say that creating content before hand helps to eliminate biases in the content, but the thing about the sort of play I enjoy is that I want certain principled biases in content creation, but not like when were actually playing the game (which happens after framing). Personally I believe that why matters more than who or when in content creation. Design does need to happen before play, but for me what matters is what guides design. Why are there more demons in this random encounter table? Why is this duke moving against this count?


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## Campbell (Oct 10, 2015)

Here's a statement to mull over. A GM can be a referee, a game designer, and a player. He cannot be any more than one at a given time. Also try replacing cannot with should not.


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## Maxperson (Oct 10, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Okay. I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush. So I don't know who is caught in the confusion. I know there are games where a lot of what designs are in place, like in 3e-5e, allow for a great deal of game play ...until the rules run out. There is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a DM and why 3 people are a required minimum. And why GM game maps have to be made before hand. Or why players use mapping as a strategy. Or why everything Ability Scores aren't attributes, but a ranked game ability. Or...




No game maps ever have to be made.........ever.  They are useful, but not in any way required.  I usually only make maps for dungeons, and I've had campaigns with no dungeons in them.


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## Maxperson (Oct 10, 2015)

Campbell said:


> Here's a statement to mull over. A GM can be a referee, a game designer, and a player. He cannot be any more than one at a given time. Also try replacing cannot with should not.




He is always more than one.  He is a player/whatever at all times.  The rules declare him to be a player, so he is.


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## N'raac (Oct 10, 2015)

Zak S said:


> This is still a "difficult situation" (even the chess king is in a difficult situation) and
> tactical advantage is about survival and survival is deeply emotional.




I don't see too many chess players getting emotional about "Check".  I suppose if there were a 7 figure price at stake, though.



Zak S said:


> This why tactical games can be fun: the stakes are you die and stop playing.




In most RPG's, your character dies and you make a new one.



Zak S said:


> I'm real. You're real. All our characters are equally fake. The really angsty character is no more "real" than the smart, tactical one.
> 
> Many, perhaps most, smart tactical characters who are played as pawns acquire characteristics, ideas, tics, over time and become more fully-rounded characters as they go on.




In a "pure game" model, there is no reason for those pawns to become characters (rounded or not, well or otherwise) and plenty of reasons not to.  Anything constraining the ability to choose the most taxctically effective approach is to be avoided.



Zak S said:


> "Real" is not the word you want here. "Complex" might be. But, hell, not even everyone real is complex.




"Real" is the word I want.  As in "behaves like a real person, not a pawn on a game board or a cypher".



howandwhy99 said:


> Your daughter sounds amazing. This is the point though, What rules is your daughter following for any of her pretending? What win/loss conditions is she acting under? What predefined game objectives does she seek? How does she score points? I'm sorry, but your daughter is simply using "game" to mean something that has nothing to do with playing games. But hey, a word is a label. She can use it for whatever she wants and that's fine. But let's not obfuscate it in order to conform gaming into storytelling. You've just wrote at considerable length about only the latter.




Funny - a lot of people would say she is playing a game, but few or none would suggest she is telling a story, at least in my experience.

At its most basic, RPG's are simply games (There's that word again!) of "Let's Pretend" with pre-defined rules to avoid the "I shot you" "no, you missed" dilemma that often applied in the first edition of LP.



howandwhy99 said:


> I've never heard of the friendly greeting gesture bonus, but perhaps it's in Molday. Otherwise if there is no bonus, there isn't a bonus. Bonuses are supposed to come from measures of the game design anyway, not abstract stuff.




I see plenty of games in progress where the GM decides that a specific action or situation provides a bonus or penalty.  There's also no shortage of games that explicitly note the GM's responsibility to assess likelihood of success, which subsumes bonuses and penalties, or specifically that bonuses or penalties should be adjudicated by the GM.    [I recall a game many years back when the DM's mantra was "DM stands for Die Modifier", actually.]



howandwhy99 said:


> The interesting part of a game is that it is design which can be gamed. Not that it looks cool. It sounds like Musson is saying he wants what amounts to contemporary fluff, while the goal of good game design is to get rid of fluff and instead enable players to interact with it as part of the game.




Do you have any comprehension of the difference between "opinion" and "fact"?  Your way is not The One True Way.

For that matter, even "what is fluff and what is rule" can be debated.  A spell that does a bunch of damage (specified rolls) to a group of targets (area defined) seems sufficiently defined for the game.  Until we wonder whether the paper on the nearby table catches fire.  If the spell is a fireball, probably.  If it is Barrage of Arrows, likely not.  But prior to the paper on the table being questioned, it did not matter.


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## pemerton (Oct 11, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> What rules is your daughter following for any of her pretending? What win/loss conditions is she acting under? What predefined game objectives does she seek? How does she score points? I'm sorry, but your daughter is simply using "game" to mean something that has nothing to do with playing games.



There are no win/loss conditions. No predefined game objectives. That's my point.

Wargamers don't have a monopoly on the use of the word _game_. Dictionary.com gives me, as the first entry under "game", _an amusement or pastime._ My daughter is undoubtedly engaging in an amusement or pastime.

It's not an amusement or pastime I'd particularly recommend to anyone who's not either a child or that child's parent - but that doesn't stop it being a game!



howandwhy99 said:


> What you claim obviously did not happen. The players played around by avoiding the glaring hole in the game until one was probably put in a position where they had to lose something or bring the issue to the fore.



I don't understand - what I claim _did_ happen ("the game was able to proceed with a less-than-complete ruleset, patched over by improvisation and ad hoc rulings") and you even restate it back to me ("The players had a broken game system . . . [and] played around by avoiding the glaring hole").

_Playing around by avoiding the glaring hole_, on the basis of a gentlemen's agreement, is a form of improvisation. It may or may not be the form of improvisation that you are hostile too, but it is undoubtedly a form of improvisation.

Dictionary.com gives me, for "improvisation", _the art or act of . . . composing, uttering, executing or arranging anything without previous preparation_. In the gameplay that I described an issue about Poland's neutrality arose in the course of play. And, without previous preparation, my friends negotiated an ad hoc way of handling it, which included, as you put it, _playing around by avoiding the glaring hole_. That is, to say, without previous preparation they _made an arrangement_. Which is to say, they improvised.

Now, had that happened at the (purely hypothetical) Empires and Arms world championships, it would probably be regarded as a pretty unhappy turn of events. You might expect the organisers of a world championship to plug that sort of gap. (Though sometimes they don't: consider the famous underarm bowling incident by Australia vs NZ in 1981)



howandwhy99 said:


> You say you can't conceive of a game that covers everything a player could ever possibly attempt



I never said that. There are any number of games that cover everything that a player could ever possibly attempt. My favourite is backgammon. I'm not such a big fan of tic tac toe (noughts and crosses where I come from).

All I've said is that D&D is not one of those games, and cannot be, because of the fact that fictional positioning matters to resolution.



howandwhy99 said:


> there are already rules for miles miles of binary answers to player attempts.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I have played thousands of hours of utterly mainstream FRPGs, mostly Moldvay Basic, AD&D both 1st and 2nd edition, Rolemaster.

None of them had rules that would give the GM more than the most general guidance on how to adjudicate a PC's proposal of marriage to a hobgoblin. Saying that _marriage and dowry both fall under trade_ doesn't take me anywhere. D&D has no trade rules in either AD&D or B/X. Rolemaster does have buying and selling rules, but they don't cover marriage and dowry even for humans, let alone hobgoblins.

What does it mean to say that _culture is by monster type . . . something best aggregated into a single stat block_? What does a _culture_ stat block even look like? AD&D doesn't provide any examples (unless you are talking about number appearing, % in lair, and some of the demographic information in the Monster Manual - none of which tell me anything about marriage customs).

Even your description of monster hostility simply fails to connect any experience I have ever had or heard of in playing D&D. _[O]nce you know all those behaviors plot them on your Alignment chart_. What does this mean? How do I, as a GM, come to "know all those behaviours"? In the real world, none of this information exists in the degree of specificity you suggest for really existing human beings, despite all the efforts of anthropologists, sociologists and historians. How is it to be done for hobgoblins? What would the result look like? And how would it tell us when a 3 or 5 on the reaction dice triggers verbal aggression, and when it triggers attack?

This is why I say that you describe some sort of ideal as if it were actual.

Of course, if you radically restrict the scope of possible moves - for instance, hobgoblins just ignore PCs who make offers of marriage, all hostile reactions result in attack, etc - you can start to solve some of these problems. But many players of D&D, and of other RPGs, would see this as eliminating much of what is appealing about the game.



howandwhy99 said:


> what you relate about non-random adventure placement is going to bring arbitrary results into the pattern the players are playing. That's the referee disabling the players being able to play the game again.



Here is my rough guess for the number of players whose play of the game consisted in extrapolating from what is encountered in the dungeon backwards to the GM's technique for randomly stocking the dungeon: zero.

I'm happy to accept that this is only a rough guess, and may be subject to modest variation upwards. (Obviously not downwards.) But I think it's pretty close to accurate.

Hence, the number of players whose play of the game was spoiled by a referee deliberately placing an interesting room, like the Fraz Urb'luu room or the imprisoned gods room, I think was also pretty close to zero. By all accounts Rob Kuntz was one of the great dungeoneers of all time, and he seems to have enjoyed rather than suffered from Gygax's inclusion of those rooms in Castle Greyhawk.



howandwhy99 said:


> It sounds like Musson is saying he wants what amounts to contemporary fluff, while the goal of good game design is to get rid of fluff and instead enable players to interact with it as part of the game.



Backgammon has no "fluff". Chess, despite the evocative names given to the playing pieces, has no "fluff". Most players of D&D think that it is a strength of the game that it has what you are calling "fluff", and that that "fluff" matters to the play of the game.

This is why, in Moldvay's example of play, the GM grants Silverleaf's player a bonus to the reaction roll for the friendly greeting. Because the hobgoblins aren't simply tokens on a board, like backgammon pieces or chess pawns. Part of the conceit of the game is that they are people, who care about things like friendly greetings. I personally don't call that "fluff". I call it an element of the shared fiction, which contributes to the fictional positioning of the PCs, and hence to the resolution of the players' declared actions.


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## pemerton (Oct 11, 2015)

Campbell said:


> Here's a way to think about scene framing. Each scene is dungeon, but instead of a dungeon it is an emotionally compelling situation to play through. Instead of players trying to get treasure guarded by monsters, they are trying to get the things their characters want from people and things that stand in their way. In this situation the DM is both a game designer and a referee. However, they are not game designer when they are being a referee. They are not a referee while they are being a game designer. Framing a scene is game design in motion - you are describing and creating a mental model of what's happening in the moment for players to interact with, but you are not adjudicating stuff. Once a scene is framed things have been established (both externally and internally) and we play to find out if players get what they want - we use the rules to do this stuff. When the player's do something the DM who is now a referee responds based on what's been established. Introducing new content at this point is rigging the game and bad refereeing. Once the scene is resolved our DM is now once again a game designer. Think of it is not one single module being played, but many modules being created and then played over the course of a single session.
> 
> This stuff is hard stuff, and requires a phenomenal amount of discipline. I personally find it much harder than running a game of Basic D&D.
> 
> ...



This triggered a few thoughts in me. 

I talk about playing a scene-framed game, but mostly that is to try and convey the gist of how I run my game, and to establish the contrast with either the dungeon approach (which seems to be something of a ENworld norm) or the adventure path approach (which is, I think, the other ENworld norm and also the trigger for this thread).

Compared to serious scene-framing GMs, though, my scene-framing is pretty flabby, and I rely pretty heavily on fairly standard tropes to carry quite a bit of the weight in the scenes I frame. So I wouldn't say that I feel mentally exhausted at the end of the game, but that might be because I'm lazy in my GMing.

Another way in which I'm a lazy scene-framing GM is that often I leave the consequences of failure at least somewhat implicit in the framing of the action declaration, rather than always spelling it out. For instance, in a recent Burning Wheel session the PCs had just arrived at the ruined tower in the Abbor-Alz where the mage PC had spent time in his younger (pre-play) days. That PC was hoping to find _the Falcon's Claw_ in the ruins of the tower - as the note on his character sheet read, "The Falcon’s Claw is a mundane, run of the mill mace Jobe had made 12 years ago and abandoned in the tower. Probably looted by the orcs years ago, it is made of nickel silver and has a frieze pattern of falcons’ beaks around the head and also a falcon’s claw at the base (i.e. a spike). Probably never to be seen again, let alone to be enchanted to become the Sceptre of The Blue."

A scavenging check was made, and failed. So instead of finding the Falcon's Claw, the PCs found some cursed arrows (especially good for shooting elves) that matched the broken arrow one of the elven PCs wears on a cord around his neck - the arrow that slew that character's former master. These arrows were found in the ruins of what had been the mage PC's older brother's private workroom. It was already established - as a central element of the PC's backstory - that his brother was demon-possessed and on the side of darkness rather than light; and that the demon possession had occurred during the events that led to the ruin of the tower. This was the first indication in play, though, that the brother's connection to the dark side might precede those events.

This possibility was always implicit in the fiction, and close to the surface, given the various PC backstories and the way these had started to flesh out in prior sessions. But it wasn't made express until I had to narrate failure.

Besides laziness, I see this sort of management of the balance between explicit and implicit consequences of failure as a way of managing the balance between player agency and suspense. If I was GMing for strangers, I would probably have to be more explicit more of the time.

The other thing I do, which is probably easier with friends than it would be with strangers, is poke and prod the players with out-of-game comments as they debate about action declaration options. For me, this is as important as a way of trying to make the stakes clear and weighty as is the more formal description of the fictional situation. This is also part of why I find GMing Basic D&D, or "skilled play" more generally, so hard. It depends upon the GM exercising a type of neutrality towards the players that I'm not really capable of.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 11, 2015)

N'raac said:
			
		

> Funny - a lot of people would say she is playing a game, but few or none would suggest she is telling a story, at least in my experience.
> 
> At its most basic, RPG's are simply games (There's that word again!) of "Let's Pretend" with pre-defined rules to avoid the "I shot you" "no, you missed" dilemma that often applied in the first edition of LP.



Pretending is not a game like running is not a game. Yet running in races at the Olympic Games is gaming. Why? Because they preset the pattern on the field, start the timer, and enable the runners to run in a game. In fact, most competitive games are race games of one type or another.

Similarly, pretending in D&D is a game for the players because they competing and/or cooperating with other players and themselves to accomplish ends within a predefined game - the pattern preset behind the screen. Player can test and better their fantasizing because it is done within a game.



> For that matter, even "what is fluff and what is rule" can be debated. A spell that does a bunch of damage (specified rolls) to a group of targets (area defined) seems sufficiently defined for the game. Until we wonder whether the paper on the nearby table catches fire. If the spell is a fireball, probably. If it is Barrage of Arrows, likely not. But prior to the paper on the table being questioned, it did not matter.



Sufficiently defined means that spell's design has taken into account all elements within the design of the game. If there were a table and paper in the game, then they had to have been designed prior to placement. They shouldn't simply have Saving Throws either, but AC, HP, STR, CON, DEX, Alignment, and the rest.



pemerton said:


> There are no win/loss conditions. No predefined game objectives. That's my point.
> 
> Wargamers don't have a monopoly on the use of the word _game_. Dictionary.com gives me, as the first entry under "game", _an amusement or pastime._ My daughter is undoubtedly engaging in an amusement or pastime.
> 
> It's not an amusement or pastime I'd particularly recommend to anyone who's not either a child or that child's parent - but that doesn't stop it being a game!



Yeah, dictionaries can be poor at learning how people are using terms. Or in how they present those definitions. Your definition hardly helps anyone when attempting to understand what a game is. Something that amuses can hardly be considered complete.



> I don't understand - what I claim _did_ happen ("the game was able to proceed with a less-than-complete ruleset, patched over by improvisation and ad hoc rulings") and you even restate it back to me ("The players had a broken game system . . . [and] played around by avoiding the glaring hole").
> 
> _Playing around by avoiding the glaring hole_, on the basis of a gentlemen's agreement, is a form of improvisation. It may or may not be the form of improvisation that you are hostile too, but it is undoubtedly a form of improvisation.
> 
> ...



The players were playing a broken game, but chose to play it broken. That's hardly fun. You claimed it was a functional game just after demonstrating it was not. That they had to stop the game, improvise a solution, one that did not fix the game back into a system, and apparently led to the whole going done in flames, does not prove your point that improvisation is part of games. 

And check out the article on the 81 underarm bowling incident. The action was covered by the rules and perfectly legitimate. It's simply no one had figured it out before.



> I never said that. There are any number of games that cover everything that a player could ever possibly attempt. My favourite is backgammon. I'm not such a big fan of tic tac toe (noughts and crosses where I come from).
> 
> All I've said is that D&D is not one of those games, and cannot be, because of the fact that fictional positioning matters to resolution.



And I said fictional positioning doesn't occur in D&D because of the map as gameboard the DM uses behind the screen. In fact, it never occurs in any game. So I have clearly shown D&D is, or at least was by the rules, one of "those" games meaning an actual game.

...But you know what, of course the game is limited. It occurs to me you think anything and everything anyone actually does can be part of playing D&D. They are limited to attempted actions of a playing piece. And Players can only ever move pieces on the game board via the referee. By rule they can't get up, move around the screen, and slide a token or whatever else is tracking location around the maze. That's clearly not allowed by the rules, so, like any game, actions taken outside of a game aren't part of it.



> I have played thousands of hours of utterly mainstream FRPGs, mostly Moldvay Basic, AD&D both 1st and 2nd edition, Rolemaster.
> 
> None of them had rules that would give the GM more than the most general guidance on how to adjudicate a PC's proposal of marriage to a hobgoblin. Saying that _marriage and dowry both fall under trade_ doesn't take me anywhere. D&D has no trade rules in either AD&D or B/X. Rolemaster does have buying and selling rules, but they don't cover marriage and dowry even for humans, let alone hobgoblins.
> 
> ...



So I'm trying to help you out. You said you don't have anything for these elements in your games and the players wanted them. My suggestions are all possible for game systems to include in your game. 

To your specific questions,
Culture is behavior, so technically all the rules governing pieces and the board are being referred to. For hobgoblins specifically their behavior can be treated as a whole with a single statblock, just like any unit's. It is an aggregate, but then you can talk about how "all hobgoblins" behave. 

Marriage is a contract by my understanding, something well established in the history of game design already, but regardless define what marriage is in game terms and assign it to hobgoblins. Put it on an appropriate table for random rolling too. If creatures don't have marriage rites, they don't have them.

Game pieces are in large part defined by their behaviors. Plot all of those on the Alignment Chart according to design per alignment type. Is it lawful, neutral, or chaotic? This has nothing to do with "really existing human beings". This is a game. You only ever need to cover its design. Once you know all the behaviors in the game assign them to pieces with an alignment score. For all non-PC pieces this will cover their behavior. It can be further refined by other stats like intelligence, wisdom, charisma, strength, constitution, dexterity, % in lair, morale, loyalty, and so on. All of these define, limit, what these elements can do.



> Here is my rough guess for the number of players whose play of the game consisted in extrapolating from what is encountered in the dungeon backwards to the GM's technique for randomly stocking the dungeon: zero.



You're joking. Stocking a dungeon according to a game design pattern is a time honored tradition of D&D. What are you talking about?



> Backgammon has no "fluff". Chess, despite the evocative names given to the playing pieces, has no "fluff". Most players of D&D think that it is a strength of the game that it has what you are calling "fluff", and that that "fluff" matters to the play of the game.
> 
> This is why, in Moldvay's example of play, the GM grants Silverleaf's player a bonus to the reaction roll for the friendly greeting. Because the hobgoblins aren't simply tokens on a board, like backgammon pieces or chess pawns. Part of the conceit of the game is that they are people, who care about things like friendly greetings. I personally don't call that "fluff". I call it an element of the shared fiction, which contributes to the fictional positioning of the PCs, and hence to the resolution of the players' declared actions.



Let's not talk in conceits. What you are saying is you are creating an imagined narrative with other people. Which is why you don't want or have any use for the vast body of design suggestion in our hobby which amount to rules for a boardgame behind a screen. You want rules for who gets to resolve a conflict between two conflicting storytellers' narratives.  Those are story "games", not roleplaying games and nothing remotely enabling players to play a game - to decipher the pattern, to actually achieve game states in such, and score points. To win or to lose.


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## Campbell (Oct 11, 2015)

Here's my take: Games and play are different things. When I'm shooting some hoops with friends we're playing, but we are not like playing a game. Once I'm challenging a friend to take the same shots I'm making we're playing a game. Now the activity has purpose and structure. Now we're doing things we wouldn't normally do if we weren't playing a game. That's the fundamental difference in my mind. Game design is a form of mind control. It subverts what we would normally do if left to our own devices. When we play games we collectively let the object of the game become our priority.

Games are not always about pattern recognition. Here's a game: I tell you a joke. You build on my joke and improve it. I then do the same. You get the drift. We can even assign points and declare a winner and loser after 3 rounds, but we don't have to in order for it to be a game. That totally depends on what we are trying to do.

That being said there's a significant value in unstructured play that's different from what we get out of games. I don't really think it's our place to say people should only play games, and not just play. If I sit down with a group of friends we can role play without playing a role playing game. That's a totally cool thing to do. It's more common than playing role playing games actually. Kids do it all the time. It's done on tons of venues across the internet by people totally uninterested in role playing games. Some groups will drift back and forth between just role playing and playing a role playing game, and that's also a totally cool thing to do. When we stop dungeon exploration in a game of Basic D&D dungeon crawling to have a chat with a stable hand that has nothing to do with us getting treasure we're taking a break from playing a role playing game. We're totally still role playing, but in a totally unstructured way. That's a totally cool thing to do if your group is into it. I'm not particularly into it.

To put it another way : sometimes playing poker is about playing poker. Other times playing poker is really about chilling. I still feel there's value in talking about poker as a game.


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## Maxperson (Oct 11, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Pretending is not a game like running is not a game. Yet running in races at the Olympic Games is gaming. Why? Because they preset the pattern on the field, start the timer, and enable the runners to run in a game. In fact, most competitive games are race games of one type or another.
> 
> Similarly, pretending in D&D is a game for the players because they competing and/or cooperating with other players and themselves to accomplish ends within a predefined game - the pattern preset behind the screen. Player can test and better their fantasizing because it is done within a game.




You seem to be ignoring all of the definitions of game.  That's bad as it implies quite a bit of narrow mindedness.  One of the definitions of game is an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.  So yes, pretending is a game like cops and robbers as children, as are games with strict rules like chess or tic tac toe, and games that include both like RPGs.



> Yeah, dictionaries can be poor at learning how people are using terms. Or in how they present those definitions. Your definition hardly helps anyone when attempting to understand what a game is. Something that amuses can hardly be considered complete.




No.  They're pretty good at including the varied definitions of a word like game.  You're just really bad at admitting that there is a definition of game that has been used by billions of people over the centuries, is still used by billions of people, and is different from what you want game to mean.



> And I said fictional positioning doesn't occur in D&D because of the map as gameboard the DM uses behind the screen. In fact, it never occurs in any game. So I have clearly shown D&D is, or at least was by the rules, one of "those" games meaning an actual game.




Theater of the mind was used for decades.  3e kind of ruined that, but I played in 3e games where theater of the mind was still used.  Game boards are not required in any edition of the game.



> ...But you know what, of course the game is limited. It occurs to me you think anything and everything anyone actually does can be part of playing D&D. They are limited to attempted actions of a playing piece. And Players can only ever move pieces on the game board via the referee. By rule they can't get up, move around the screen, and slide a token or whatever else is tracking location around the maze. That's clearly not allowed by the rules, so, like any game, actions taken outside of a game aren't part of it.




Not one action taken as part of the rules of a game take place outside of it.  They are all part of the game.  When a referee at a football game makes a call, he does so via game rules and the both the call and the ruling are part of the game. You know what actions happen during a game session, but are outside of playing the game of D&D?  Ordering pizza or Chinese food.



> To your specific questions,
> Culture is behavior, so technically all the rules governing pieces and the board are being referred to. For hobgoblins specifically their behavior can be treated as a whole with a single statblock, just like any unit's. It is an aggregate, but then you can talk about how "all hobgoblins" behave.




There is no behavior that "all hobgoblins" exhibit.



> Marriage is a contract by my understanding, something well established in the history of game design already, but regardless define what marriage is in game terms and assign it to hobgoblins. Put it on an appropriate table for random rolling too. If creatures don't have marriage rites, they don't have them.




Why would I ever randomly roll marriage when I can just pick it or not?



> Game pieces are in large part defined by their behaviors. Plot all of those on the Alignment Chart according to design per alignment type. Is it lawful, neutral, or chaotic?




Alignment can not and does not ever limit actions.  A creature, NPC or PC can and does have the ability to act outside of alignment.  It's not a straight jacket, but rather vague descriptor of the general feelings of that individual.  Plotting by alignment is a waste of time.



> This has nothing to do with "really existing human beings". This is a game. You only ever need to cover its design. Once you know all the behaviors in the game assign them to pieces with an alignment score. For all non-PC pieces this will cover their behavior. It can be further refined by other stats like intelligence, wisdom, charisma, strength, constitution, dexterity, % in lair, morale, loyalty, and so on. All of these define, limit, what these elements can do.




This fails.  As I said above, alignment fails to cover anywhere near all behaviors.



> You're joking. Stocking a dungeon according to a game design pattern is a time honored tradition of D&D. What are you talking about?




Once I graduated high school and matured a bit, I realized that randomly rolling monsters in a dungeon resulting in a great deal of nonsense matches.  You virtually always ended up with creatures that wouldn't be caught dead living together in a confined space and would have killed each other off.  I choose every creature when I design a dungeon.  I plan out their living arrangements, reasons for interaction, etc.  I even pick half of the treasure, including magic items.  The only reason I roll for the other half is that it is fun to roll things, not because some chart is necessary.


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## N'raac (Oct 11, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Pretending is not a game like running is not a game. Yet running in races at the Olympic Games is gaming. Why? Because they preset the pattern on the field, start the timer, and enable the runners to run in a game. In fact, most competitive games are race games of one type or another.




I, and several others, are using the word "game" as it is defined in the English language.  It seems you wish to redefine the words, which makes communication quite difficult.  Like, in a D&D game, deciding that whether an attack hits or misses will be resolved by opposed percentile rolls, rather than a d20 versus a target number.  This can certainly work, but if only the DM is using that definition, the game will fall apart rapidly as the players continue rolling d20s.



howandwhy99 said:


> Similarly, pretending in D&D is a game for the players because they competing and/or cooperating with other players and themselves to accomplish ends within a predefined game - the pattern preset behind the screen. Player can test and better their fantasizing because it is done within a game.




I could just as easily say that "A game has predefined victory conditions which, once achieved, results in the end of the game."  That's not D&D - there are no predefined victory conditions, like "kill the hobgoblin chieftan" (the players might just as easily define a "win" as chasing off the hobgoblins, teaching them and the nearby Elves to live co-operatively for the best interests of both, allying with the hobgoblins to wipe out the elves, or enslaving the hobgoblins (whether for the elves, or enslaving the elves as well) or "whoever reaches 12th level first wins".  In fact, some would say the absence of a clearly defined victory condition and/or game ending means RPG's are not games, but pastimes, hobbies or simply play, much like the bakery example.



howandwhy99 said:


> Sufficiently defined means that spell's design has taken into account all elements within the design of the game. If there were a table and paper in the game, then they had to have been designed prior to placement. They shouldn't simply have Saving Throws either, but AC, HP, STR, CON, DEX, Alignment, and the rest.




The problem with your theory is that the continuous introduction of new elements by players and GM's alike makes it impossible to have all interrelationships predefined.  Hence, judgment is used to improvise (or we get the wonderful "you can't attempt that because it is not in the rules/module").



howandwhy99 said:


> Yeah, dictionaries can be poor at learning how people are using terms. Or in how they present those definitions. Your definition hardly helps anyone when attempting to understand what a game is. Something that amuses can hardly be considered complete.




It is only you that views "complete" as an essential prerequisite.  By the definition, I am not sure any RPG can ever be considered "a game".



howandwhy99 said:


> The players were playing a broken game, but chose to play it broken. *That's hardly fun.* You claimed it was a functional game just after demonstrating it was not. That they had to stop the game, improvise a solution, one that did not fix the game back into a system, and apparently led to the whole going done in flames, does not prove your point that improvisation is part of games.




Emphasis added.  Why did they continue playing for months if it was "not fun"?  



howandwhy99 said:


> And check out the article on the 81 underarm bowling incident. The action was covered by the rules and perfectly legitimate. It's simply no one had figured it out before.




From my quick read, many had figured it out.  A deliberate choice was made to bowl in that manner as it prevented the other team getting the points needed to tie or win.  Not that far off running out the clock in many timed sports.  It seems a lot like an RPG rather than a traditional competitive game/sport, actually, in that it was rules-legal, but simply not done as it was viewed as unsportsmanlike.  In fact, one tournament noted on Wiki had banned the practice - akin to a house rule.



howandwhy99 said:


> And I said fictional positioning doesn't occur in D&D because of the map as gameboard the DM uses behind the screen. In fact, it never occurs in any game. So I have clearly shown D&D is, or at least was by the rules, one of "those" games meaning an actual game.




First, the fact that "you said" anything does not deem it to be correct.  You seem to limit the term "fictional positioning" to spatial relationships.  Even there, the map does not indicate whether the Hobgoblin has his sword high in the air to bring it crashing down, or low to the ground to slash at his foe's leg.  It certainly does not indicate the "fictional positioning" which may influence negotiations with the Hobgoblins.  What do the rules say the modifiers are if these Hobgoblins know the PC's previously wiped out a neighbouring tribe?  Nothing.  They certainly do not rule whether that neighbouring tribe were allies (logically making these Hobs less friendly) or enemies (so perhaps we have ingratiated ourselves), much less whether the Hobgoblins should be better disposed to us because we removed a competitor tribe, or worse disposed because they may well be next.  Now, add in the manner in which the PC's approach the hobgoblins (perhaps threatening, or maybe negotiating with what a great thing we did to help them).

If the game must be fully designed to be "a game", show us these rules.  Even if you are sufficiently psychic to predict and document predefined rules for all possible actions and interactions, that demonstrates only that this is how you play the game - not that anyone who plays differently is no longer playing D&D (much less no longer playing a game), or that your way is the One True Way and all others are having badwrongfun if they play differently.



howandwhy99 said:


> ...But you know what, of course the game is limited. It occurs to me you think anything and everything anyone actually does can be part of playing D&D. They are limited to attempted actions of a playing piece. And Players can only ever move pieces on the game board via the referee. By rule they can't get up, move around the screen, and slide a token or whatever else is tracking location around the maze. That's clearly not allowed by the rules, so, like any game, actions taken outside of a game aren't part of it.




Show me any edition that says:

 - Players cannot move a "playing piece" (many groups use miniatures and players move their own miniatures);
 - there must be a screen;
 - there must be a maze;
 - the maze must be mapped (I recall a great RPG that noted you don't really need a map if nothing interesting happens between key locations - the wandering players simply locate a key location at random, and having located it know how to return to it *).

You have said all of these things are "clearly not allowed by the rules", so please cite the rule book and page number where these clear prohibitions are stated.  Any edition of D&D will do.

* That would also be a perfectly valid "game rule" and would effectively preclude activity in the corridors/useless spaces in between.  We would have to improvise if we decided we want them to become important (eg. "as we head from the throne room to the sleeping quarters, I will attack the Wizard  because I think he is a Doppelganger").  In a traditional game, we would say "you can't attack in the corridors" or even "you can't attack a player's character" because this would be written in the rules.  In an open ended RPG, we can and do think outside the box and improvise the results.



howandwhy99 said:


> To your specific questions,
> Culture is behavior, so technically all the rules governing pieces and the board are being referred to. For hobgoblins specifically their behavior can be treated as a whole with a single statblock, just like any unit's. It is an aggregate, but then you can talk about how "all hobgoblins" behave.




Being as it is simple, please provide an example of such a stat block.  In a traditional wargame, all hobgoblin units will indeed behave the same way.  But under the rules of a traditional wargame, either detailed rules for parlay will exist, or you cannot parlay.  And in such a game, you cannot suggest marriage as a negotiating element unless the game provides rules for same.  RPG`s are not traditional wargames.  The first rule of an RPG is that improvisation is not only possible, but essential.  

If we were successful in reducing everything to a random roll by charting everything, we no longer even need a GM.  We can just decide what we do, look up the appropriate chart, roll the dice and move on.  The lack of ability, or even desire, to reduce everything to a probability table creates the need for improvisation, which creates the need for a GM.



howandwhy99 said:


> Game pieces are in large part defined by their behaviors. Plot all of those on the Alignment Chart according to design per alignment type. Is it lawful, neutral, or chaotic? This has nothing to do with "really existing human beings". This is a game. You only ever need to cover its design. Once you know all the behaviors in the game assign them to pieces with an alignment score. For all non-PC pieces this will cover their behavior. It can be further refined by other stats like intelligence, wisdom, charisma, strength, constitution, dexterity, % in lair, morale, loyalty, and so on. All of these define, limit, what these elements can do.




And we return to  "playing pawns, not playing characters".  We have a game, but not a role playing game, as we have removed the roles to play.

You're joking. Stocking a dungeon according to a game design pattern is a time honored tradition of D&D. What are you talking about?




howandwhy99 said:


> Let's not talk in conceits. What you are saying is you are creating an imagined narrative with other people. Which is why you don't want or have any use for the vast body of design suggestion in our hobby which amount to rules for a boardgame behind a screen. You want rules for who gets to resolve a conflict between two conflicting storytellers' narratives.  Those are story "games", not roleplaying games and nothing remotely enabling players to play a game - to decipher the pattern, to actually achieve game states in such, and score points. To win or to lose.




And the wheel comes full circle...  What you describe is a game, not a role playing game.  I`ve long since lost count of the number of RPG rules I have read that include the statement , for the new RPGer, that you don`t win or lose an RPG, yet your definition requires we win or lose.  The fact that storyteller games exists demonstrates that your definition of a "game" is just that - *your* definition only.  Not that of many of us posting, and not that of the English language.  

Enjoy your game (whatever it may be).  With the limitations you have placed on it, it is not an RPG, such as D&D.  But I like playing a board game (hidden board or otherwise) every now and then too.


----------



## S'mon (Oct 11, 2015)

:howandwhy, do you consider the Prussian Free Kriegsspiel to count as a 'game'? Here you have defined victory conditions, but the 'rules' are essentially 'the judge decides'. Does that count as a game?


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## Zak S (Oct 11, 2015)

N'raac said:


> I don't see too many chess players getting emotional about "Check".




Then we play with real different people.




> In most RPG's, your character dies and you make a new one.



Yesm and in any game you lose and play again.

But you'd much rather not lose.




> In a "pure game" model, there is no reason for those pawns to become characters (rounded or not, well or otherwise) and plenty of reasons not to.  Anything constraining the ability to choose the most taxctically effective approach is to be avoided.




A game CONSISTS OF things that limit your tactical choices.

If you're playing soccer you can't use your hands unless you're a goalie but then you need to hang out back field.

If you're playing D&D you can't always Detect Evil unless you're a paladin but then you need to act lawful.

You can nitpick these specific examples but: 

your character's personality and style is one example of a challenge your tactical expertise must overcome.




> "Real" is the word I want.  As in "behaves like a real person, not a pawn on a game board or a cypher".




Lots of real people behave tactically in tactical situations but still have personalities and lives. So this makes no sense.


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## Maxperson (Oct 11, 2015)

Zak S said:


> your character's personality and style is one example of a challenge your tactical expertise must overcome.




There is no "must" there.  I have played characters with no tactical expertise at all.  It's rather enjoyable just doing whatever seems fun whether it's the most tactically sound move or not.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 11, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> There is no "must" there.  I have played characters with no tactical expertise at all.  It's rather enjoyable just doing whatever seems fun whether it's the most tactically sound move or not.



Obviously I can't speak for [MENTION=90370]Zak S[/MENTION], but I took him to be referring to _your_ tactical expertise (the actual expertise of you, the player), not the (imagined) tactical expertise of your PC.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 11, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Stocking a dungeon according to a game design pattern is a time honored tradition of D&D. What are you talking about?



Stocking a dungeon by random roll is a time honour tradition. So is the GM making up rooms, creatures, tricks and traps, etc, non-randomly.

What I claimed is that _the number of D&D players who have reasoned backwards, from encounters to the GM's random stocking table_, is approximately zero. The GM's random table is not something that most D&D players are trying to work out.



howandwhy99 said:


> It occurs to me you think anything and everything anyone actually does can be part of playing D&D.



I'm not sure what you mean here. There is a reading of your sentence that is true; here it is: _Anything and everything a human being can do in the real world is a permissible action declaration by a D&D player_. In addition, _anything and everything that a human being might do in an imaginary magical world is at least a candidate to be a permissible action declaration by a D&D player_.

I also assert: as a matter of actual history, and the practice of D&D game design, _the action declarations typically preceded the writing of rules to handle them_. The design of D&D's rules was ad hoc and reactive, triggered by actual players at actual tables making action declarations for their PCs.



howandwhy99 said:


> Marriage is a contract by my understanding, something well established in the history of game design already, but regardless define what marriage is in game terms and assign it to hobgoblins. Put it on an appropriate table for random rolling too. If creatures don't have marriage rites, they don't have them.
> 
> Game pieces are in large part defined by their behaviors. Plot all of those on the Alignment Chart according to design per alignment type. Is it lawful, neutral, or chaotic? This has nothing to do with "really existing human beings". This is a game. You only ever need to cover its design. Once you know all the behaviors in the game assign them to pieces with an alignment score. For all non-PC pieces this will cover their behavior. It can be further refined by other stats like intelligence, wisdom, charisma, strength, constitution, dexterity, % in lair, morale, loyalty, and so on. All of these define, limit, what these elements can do.





howandwhy99 said:


> Ability Scores aren't attributes



I think this is probably the most fundamental point at issue.

I think that adjudicating D&D has always had everything to do with "really existing human beings". And that ability scores have almost always been treated as _attributes_

For instance, when Gygax says (in his DMG, p 104) that a GM, when playing monsters, should "[c]onsider also cunning and instinct", Gygax is not reminding the GM to have regard to particular game mechanics. The GM is expected to use knowledge of the real world - how, in the real world, people and creatures of varying intelligence and ingenuity respond to various sorts of situations.


----------



## Maxperson (Oct 12, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Obviously I can't speak for [MENTION=90370]Zak S[/MENTION], but I took him to be referring to _your_ tactical expertise (the actual expertise of you, the player), not the (imagined) tactical expertise of your PC.




I don't see the difference.  If my character is not good tactically, then it would be extraordinarily bad roleplay to be at my best with tactics and overcome his deficiencies.  Therefore, I am also going to intentionally be not that good tactically.  The imagined expertise of my PC is critical to how I will behave tactically.  I will never overcome the PC's tactical limitations, because I'm not supposed to.


----------



## N'raac (Oct 12, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Then we play with real different people.




If you find people who are emotionally impacted by the "danger" the King is in because they are placing themselves in the shoes of the King, I suppose so.  Now, if you also then decide your King panics and makes a less than optimal move as a consequence (rather than YOU panicking about the prospect of losing the game and moving the king in a less than optimal manner), then we're getting into a role playing game.  But chess is not designed as an RPG.



Zak S said:


> Yesm and in any game you lose and play again.




In most games as in "classic board games", when the player loses, he is out of the game until a new game begins.  D&D does not have to end for me to play again - the game continues and I rejoin it.



Zak S said:


> But you'd much rather not lose.




Actually, a heroic death in D&D (or a very much in character and meaningful death) can be a marvelous capstone to a character's career.  Insipidly creeping along making "the best tactical choice in each situation" is infinitely worse.  In chess, there is no such thing as a "heroic death", though, as there is no personality to the playing pieces, and no sentimental attachment to them.



Zak S said:


> your character's personality and style is one example of a challenge your tactical expertise must overcome.




Playing within the character's personality and style is a challenge I embrace.  If that means his tactics are not as sound (or at least not the same) as my own, so be it.  I've enjoyed playing numerous characters, with numerous flaws, and seen many others enjoy the game, and create memorable gaming moments, in similar fashion.  Some that come to mind:

 - the character designed specifically to believe, and expound on, old wives' tales.  On his first outing, he charged an Umber Hulk.  "How, exactly, are you facing it?"  "Why, looking it straight in those four eyes (as best I can with my two), just as any TRUE warrior would - so it can see I have no fear of it!"  I knew exactly what Umber Hulks do.  I fully expected to be denied a save (my dice, however, were also role playing well and threw a '1').

 - "While the rest of you search the rest of the room, I will search the featherbed - start by checking it carefully for lumps with my back!"  [There turned out to be a ghoul on the overhead canopy - but my character was a lazy smartalec, so what are you gonna do?

 - I've had more than one character for whom I've tracked initial and ongoing reactions to party members, and who then unconsciously make choices in combat on that basis (sure, I know the warrior doesn't need my help as much as the thief/wizard, but the thief/wizard ticks my character off and the warrior does not) - I recall a specific encounter when one character moved from "a danger to himself and others - we should kick him to the curb" to "you have a problem with him, you have a problem with me" - because that character made a pretty lousy tactical choice, but one that showed he had guts and heart.

 - the character is "impetuous, impulsive and impatient", so I roll willpower-type rolls (this wasn't a D&D game) if he tries to hold an action, or to avoid taking the first action that comes to mind, even if a moment's thought shows it to be sub-optimal.

 - the Overconfident character (not mine - I was running the game) in a Superhero game who challenged an opponent with a rep to "One on one combat - if you're brave enough".  The opponent, in game world, would never refuse such a challenge - but was also known to be more than powerful enough to challenge the whole team.  [The player insisted on making a willpower-type check to convince himself to dodge, at one point, so he could stay in the fight].  Actually, I recall the same player being asked his DCV (equates to how hard he is to hit).  He specified a low figure, and someone else called him on it.  "Well, it's really twice that - but this nobody (a completely unknown opponent to player and character) can't be a threat to ME!"  Those date back well over a decade, maybe two, and are still cited in our games.

I could keep citing recollections for pages.  Those are CHARACTERS, not playing pawns.  "I never make a tactical error" characters may sometimes be appropriate, but they're not all that fun.  Can you name, say, three from fictional source material?



Maxperson said:


> There is no "must" there.  I have played characters with no tactical expertise at all.  It's rather enjoyable just doing whatever seems fun whether it's the most tactically sound move or not.




BINGO



Maxperson said:


> I don't see the difference.  If my character is not good tactically, then it would be extraordinarily bad roleplay to be at my best with tactics and overcome his deficiencies.  Therefore, I am also going to intentionally be not that good tactically.  The imagined expertise of my PC is critical to how I will behave tactically.  I will never overcome the PC's tactical limitations, because I'm not supposed to.




This is a classic dichotomy between ROLE PLAYING and "Roll Playing".  The roll player will minimize his character's drawbacks.  The Role Player embraces them.  Out of character activity because it's tactically sound is the epitome of horrible role playing.


----------



## howandwhy99 (Oct 12, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> Not one action taken as part of the rules of a game take place outside of it.  They are all part of the game.  When a referee at a football game makes a call, he does so via game rules and the both the call and the ruling are part of the game. You know what actions happen during a game session, but are outside of playing the game of D&D?  Ordering pizza or Chinese food.



You are ignoring the role of a referee (umpire, etc.) in a game. They stop the game, usually, to make a call. It can be done while the game continues on, but the actual players who are playing the game to achieve goals in it need to be informed of the judgment calls. Of course, most players are refereeing themselves and others too, but neutral referees are used - as in D&D - to insure adherence to the rules.



S'mon said:


> :howandwhy, do you consider the Prussian Free Kriegsspiel to count as a 'game'? Here you have defined victory conditions, but the 'rules' are essentially 'the judge decides'. Does that count as a game?



Kreigsspiel is a great game. "Free" Kriegsspiel isn't a game the same way the Calvinball isn't a game. People can attempt to treat such as an illusion as a game, but as I said before to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], most folks wouldn't play such as an actual game except ironically.

Like two old folks playing Chess where the dog knocks pieces off the board and no one notices.



N'raac said:


> I could just as easily say that "A game has predefined victory conditions which, once achieved, results in the end of the game."  That's not D&D - there are no predefined victory conditions



But there are points scored and definitive endgame conditions for every player and the campaign itself. Specifically, retirement or loss of character individually and as a whole). 

If you defined games as exclusively needing a winner determined, then perhaps Name Level could be assigned for each player. I think this could be detrimental to cooperative (not collaborative) games. D&D is after all not about winning, but about succeeding. About players actually improving themselves according to the test which is the game design. IMnshO, D&D's initial design is at the heart of what games are. Quite unlike group storytelling.

Judgement refers to assessing the state of the game board according to the rule pattern preset. New DM material comes from die roll generation to determine outcomes. All new player material need only be defined as needed to deal with the current action, with all the rest abstracted.



> Emphasis added.  Why did they continue playing for months if it was "not fun"?



 Neither of us could know, right? Because they still so wanted to play a game, even a broken one? Because no one knew how to fix it without ruining the game, (i.e. the mechanical balance)?



> First, the fact that "you said" anything does not deem it to be correct.  You seem to limit the term "fictional positioning" to spatial relationships.  Even there, the map does not indicate whether the Hobgoblin has his sword high in the air to bring it crashing down, or low to the ground to slash at his foe's leg.  It certainly does not indicate the "fictional positioning" which may influence negotiations with the Hobgoblins.  What do the rules say the modifiers are if these Hobgoblins know the PC's previously wiped out a neighbouring tribe?  Nothing.  They certainly do not rule whether that neighbouring tribe were allies (logically making these Hobs less friendly) or enemies (so perhaps we have ingratiated ourselves), much less whether the Hobgoblins should be better disposed to us because we removed a competitor tribe, or worse disposed because they may well be next.  Now, add in the manner in which the PC's approach the hobgoblins (perhaps threatening, or maybe negotiating with what a great thing we did to help them).



You're questions make no sense. You're asking where are the rules for "this behavior" in a game that doesn't have those game elements as having that behavior? 



> Show me any edition that says:
> 
> - Players cannot move a "playing piece" (many groups use miniatures and players move their own miniatures);
> - there must be a screen;
> ...



#1. Of course, the pattern behind the screen can be drawn out in front if players can receive all that information under the rules. This is well known. Players can attempt to take actions like movement, but they still require the referee to determine if such attempts are possible. That the player moves the piece is partly like players rolling the dice. But minis also enables players to more fine tune their description attempts for how they want to move.

#2







			
				AD&D DMG p.7 said:
			
		

> *Preface*
> What follows herein is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee.



This is most blatantly obvious when we recognize the rest of the world understands game walkthroughs to beat computers games as cheating rather than attempting to play the game for one's self.

#3 & #4







			
				OD&D bk3 said:
			
		

> 3. The underworld
> Before it is possible to conduct a campaign of adventures in the mazey dungeons, it is necessary for the referee to sit down with pencil in hand and draw these labyrinths on graph paper.





			
				OD&D bk3 said:
			
		

> The referee must do several things in order to conduct wilderness adventure games. First, he must have a ground level map of his dungeons, a map of the terrain immediately surrounding this, and finally a map of the town or village closest to the dungeons (where adventurers will be most likely to base themselves)




Also, boardgames are mazes because they represent a geometric design for a game. Some folks can toss the chess board aside and still continue the game because the pattern is in their imagination. Something every D&D player struggles to do better.



> Being as it is simple, please provide an example of such a stat block.



I believe 2e finally included in the statblocks cultural behavior like alignment for reaction checks, ability scores, organization, % in lair, environment, morale, and loyalty adjustments. Monster Manual 1977 included all kinds of social organizational designs in the descriptions. Those are suggestions for a DM to use in their design. Many are very good.




> And we return to  "playing pawns, not playing characters".  We have a game, but not a role playing game, as we have removed the roles to play.



Maybe you don't know about roleplaying in the 50s-70s after the war, but it wasn't about fictional personas. D&D is the iconic RPG as the term roleplaying was used in army wargame simulations. They taught soldiers their role. D&D is a game where players improve their ability to perform their role (class) by mastering the game system it refers to. They can prove this and increase needed class abilities to more easily overcome and accomplish higher level challenges and objectives by scoring points relating to their roleplaying. 

Improvising a personality wasn't part of roleplaying in the RPG community until the 80s. Personality stuff was also fun to do, but like in any game it can interfere with a person trying to play a game.



> Enjoy your game (whatever it may be).  With the limitations you have placed on it, it is not an RPG, such as D&D.  But I like playing a board game (hidden board or otherwise) every now and then too.



I'm glad I could help you learn more about where the hobby we're in comes from and what D&D is. I too, am not trying to stop you from having fun your way - collaboratively telling stories with your friends.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 12, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Stocking a dungeon by random roll is a time honour tradition. So is the GM making up rooms, creatures, tricks and traps, etc, non-randomly.



Read my signature from another board:

Why we need DMs to play D&D
"Although it has been possible for enthusiasts to play solo games of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by means of 'Wilderness Adventures', there has been no uniform method of dungeon exploring, for the campaign referee has heretofor been required to design dungeon levels. Through the following series of tables (and considerable dice rolling) it is now possible to adventure alone through endless series of dungeon mazes! After a time I am certain that there will be some sameness to this however, and for this reason a system of exchange of sealed envelopes for special rooms and tricks/traps is urged. These envelopes can come from any other player and contain monsters and treasure, a whole complex of rooms (unfolded a bit at a time), ancient artifacts, and so forth. All the envelope should say is for what level the contents are for and for what location, i.e. a chamber, room, 20' wide corridor, etc. Now break out your copy of D&D, your dice, and plenty of graph paper and have fun!"
_--The Strategic Review Vol. 1 No. 1_

This is why D&D is listed as requiring 3 people to play minimum. 1 as a referee, and at least 2 to be a cooperative game between multiple players. Like cooperative Mastermind.



> What I claimed is that _the number of D&D players who have reasoned backwards, from encounters to the GM's random stocking table_, is approximately zero. The GM's random table is not something that most D&D players are trying to work out.



Well that's a hell of a claim you couldn't possibly back up. How do you prove by reference every player playing in every D&D game ever? I mean, that is stuff even people do when playing videogames, primary stuff. Like recognizin the patterns in levels of Pac-Man or Tetris or BBEGs to beat them. But you just the need to make sweeping generalizations about the D&D population for 40 years? What's your purpose for starting this thread?

I'll get to the rest of your post tomorrow.


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## pemerton (Oct 12, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Read my signature from another board
> 
> <snip sig>
> 
> This is why D&D is listed as requiring 3 people to play minimum. 1 as a referee, and at least 2 to be a cooperative game between multiple players. Like cooperative Mastermind.



That doesn't seem to me to address my point, which is that from the beginning of D&D GMs have stocked dungeons other than by random methods.



howandwhy99 said:


> Well that's a hell of a claim you couldn't possibly back up.



It's conjecture, but conjecture based on a long experience playing the game, talking to others who play the game, reading magazines about playing the game, etc.

Your post is literally the first time I've heard it suggested that part of the aim of play, as a player, is to reason backwards to the GM's random table for stocking the dungeon. Partly because players would assume that not all of the dungeon was randomly stocked. Partly because having that information doesn't really help with exploring the dungeon, where what matters is _actuals_ - what things are in which rooms - rather than _likelihoods_.


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## pemerton (Oct 12, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> I don't see the difference.  If my character is not good tactically, then it would be extraordinarily bad roleplay to be at my best with tactics and overcome his deficiencies.



This depends very much on table expectations. I can think of many tables where part of the tactics of playing a tactically poor character is finding opportunities for his/her tactical ineptness to manifest itself in play.



N'raac said:


> This is a classic dichotomy between ROLE PLAYING and "Roll Playing".  The roll player will minimize his character's drawbacks.  The Role Player embraces them.  Out of character activity because it's tactically sound is the epitome of horrible role playing.



I tend to find this rather judgemental, especially from someone who has fairly recently posted criticism of someone else in this thread for "one true way-ism".

I prefer a game in which drawbacks for the character aren't drawbacks for the player but, rather, opportunities for the player.

Roger Musson had begun to work out this approach in 1981, when he wrote "I believe that the restrictions on some character classes, though they might be viewed as disadvantages, are more the reverse. Restrictions make it easier to play "in character" by dictating necessary attitudes. A paladin should be noted by his largesse and flamboyant acts of charity; these make him more interesting than a stereotyped fighting man."

If you roleplaying really bumps into or cuts across your "roll playing" then, to me, that tends to suggest that your mechanics aren't really doing their job of facilitating the desired play.


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## Maxperson (Oct 12, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> You are ignoring the role of a referee (umpire, etc.) in a game. They stop the game, usually, to make a call. It can be done while the game continues on, but the actual players who are playing the game to achieve goals in it need to be informed of the judgment calls. Of course, most players are refereeing themselves and others too, but neutral referees are used - as in D&D - to insure adherence to the rules.




The game is never stopped unless the game is rained out or something.  What they do is stop the time clock and/or active play, but not the game itself.  Rulings are a part of the game, as are instant replays, and so on.  The DM is also not purely a referee.  That's one of his many roles, and a minor one at that, but it's not who he is.  Most of the DM's roles do not involve judgment calls or rulings.



> #2This is most blatantly obvious when we recognize the rest of the world understands game walkthroughs to beat computers games as cheating rather than attempting to play the game for one's self.




Computer games are not sit down RPGs and cannot be used as a comparison.  Apples and oranges.



> #3 & #4
> 
> Also, boardgames are mazes because they represent a geometric design for a game. Some folks can toss the chess board aside and still continue the game because the pattern is in their imagination. Something every D&D player struggles to do better.




I have run improv dungeons with no preset map, coming up with stuff on the fly in my head, and I rarely map out wilderness.  Despite those claims in those quotes, they are not required.



> Maybe you don't know about roleplaying in the 50s-70s after the war, but it wasn't about fictional personas. D&D is the iconic RPG as the term roleplaying was used in army wargame simulations. They taught soldiers their role. D&D is a game where players improve their ability to perform their role (class) by mastering the game system it refers to. They can prove this and increase needed class abilities to more easily overcome and accomplish higher level challenges and objectives by scoring points relating to their roleplaying.




So what.  That D&D can be used like that does not make that the intent of the game.  From day 1, D&D has been about taking on a persona and creating a mutual story, as well as all the rest.



> Improvising a personality wasn't part of roleplaying in the RPG community until the 80s. Personality stuff was also fun to do, but like in any game it can interfere with a person trying to play a game.




And yet Gygax and his players did so before then with D&D.



> I'm glad I could help you learn more about where the hobby we're in comes from and what D&D is. I too, am not trying to stop you from having fun your way - collaboratively telling stories with your friends.




Where the hobby comes from has no relevance.  If where things came from meant that you were that thing still, we would all still be single cell creatures in sludge, despite being human.  D&D is not a war game, even if its roots came from war games.


----------



## Maxperson (Oct 12, 2015)

pemerton said:


> This depends very much on table expectations. I can think of many tables where part of the tactics of playing a tactically poor character is finding opportunities for his/her tactical ineptness to manifest itself in play.




I'm not sure how this disagrees with what I said.  If you are roleplaying the tactical ineptness, you are not using good tactics to overcomes the deficiency.



> Roger Musson had begun to work out this approach in 1981, when he wrote "I believe that the restrictions on some character classes, though they might be viewed as disadvantages, are more the reverse. Restrictions make it easier to play "in character" by dictating necessary attitudes. A paladin should be noted by his largesse and flamboyant acts of charity; these make him more interesting than a stereotyped fighting man."
> 
> If you roleplaying really bumps into or cuts across your "roll playing" then, to me, that tends to suggest that your mechanics aren't really doing their job of facilitating the desired play.




He's talking about people who pick a class or other ability with a restriction and then do everything in their power to avoid that restriction with their "roleplay".  He's not talking about what you just wrote, which is roleplaying the restriction.


----------



## howandwhy99 (Oct 12, 2015)

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure what you mean here.
> SNIP
> I also assert: as a matter of actual history, and the practice of D&D game design, _the action declarations typically preceded the writing of rules to handle them_. The design of D&D's rules was ad hoc and reactive, triggered by actual players at actual tables making action declarations for their PCs.



That's what some did and still do, improvising rules on the spot. But maybe the player is telling you something not covered or covered only algorithmically. If the game code doesn't cover it at all, then like any dynamic situational puzzle it's "irrelevant, so okay" If it is possible within the game, then the DM clarifies until they hit design specifics. This could be broad or narrow. (I remember we've gone over this before) 

P1: "I combat these hairy barkers!"
Ref: "How do you do that exactly?"
P1: "We go up and swing our swords into their gullets"
Ref: "You mean into the 'hairy barker' stomachs specifically? Where do you think this is on them? 
P1: "No, just anywhere I can hack them into pieces"
Ref: "Okay, which of the three do you move to so...



> I think this is probably the most fundamental point at issue.
> 
> I think that adjudicating D&D has always had everything to do with "really existing human beings". And that ability scores have almost always been treated as _attributes_
> 
> For instance, when Gygax says (in his DMG, p 104) that a GM, when playing monsters, should "[c]onsider also cunning and instinct", Gygax is not reminding the GM to have regard to particular game mechanics. The GM is expected to use knowledge of the real world - how, in the real world, people and creatures of varying intelligence and ingenuity respond to various sorts of situations.



I agree with part of what you are saying, but certainly not Gary wanting players to "just make stuff up" after working at extraordinary length to create a balanced game system for players to play. To break the game. 

D&D for many long years since its inception used the Human scale as the template for the game. That's because it assumed humans would be playing it. They could then ascertain instinctively what scores given to measures of underlying designs meant and what general relative deviations scores could plausibly mean during play. This allowed them to understand and have reasonable predictions of behaviors like in any game from the DM's descriptions.

This is why the 3-18 bell curve of Ability Scores refers to the span of adult human abilities the player can use. It's why Common is "Human". Why Humanity is the dominant race. And why all the classes in the game are human classes and have no limit for humans. Their infinity is the game's infinity, while Demi-human's infinities top out earlier when they attempt to role play human classes (normally top out). 

I don't know if you recall, but Ability scores not being Attributes was a big debate when I joined the hobby in the mid to late 1980s. The diehards in Milwaukee were adamant that Ability Scores were in no way attributes. It never matters if you pretend a personality or not (many then players didn't and still don't -"That's not what role playing is!"), so players never needed to act according to the listed ability scores as attributes. If you roll low INT or WIS or CHA, a player is playing with weaker game abilities. They are just like every other ability on the record sheet. No one has to play stupidly, foolishly, or meekly. Such play has a history of interfering with those trying to play the actual game. 

Most every old schooler gets this. That D&D is a game to be treated like a game is surviving evidence of what I'm relating to you of my own experiences.

Now When it comes to NPCs, suggested mechanics covering their behavior were growing in the D&D game as books were published until the early/mid-80s. That's when Gary was gone frequently and eventually left TSR. There are suggested answers to how existing rules worked in The Dragon and other places. That lots of DMs simply hand-waved whole swaths of the game away or were confused by the rules or didn't know they had to make the rules was common when I started. But these things were still supposed to be done to make D&D a functional game. 2e as a matter of fact screwed it all up by telling the players the "rules" (enabling rule lawyering).

I feel I could go on, but I'm guessing you won't give up on your "the whole history of D&D is as an improv story making game, not a strategy game like wargames". As if.


----------



## ExploderWizard (Oct 12, 2015)

N'raac said:


> Actually, I see a lot of players, who I will suggest view the game much like howandwhy99, who have no intention of playing a "real person" making difficult decisions in a difficult situation.  Rather, they are playing a cipher, a plastic playing pawn which attempts to adopt the most tactically advantageous approach to every situation.
> 
> These are the players whose characters, faced with the choice of accepting a d6 roll on which 1 means "gain substantial wealth" and 6 means "die horribly" will keep rolling until one of the two results is attained, as "vast wealth" will provide the player a pawn with  more power in the game, while "horrible death" just means he starts out a new pawn.  How many "real persons" want to sign up for Russian Roulette?  Their pawn is not a "character" - it has no emotions, no human flaws or foibles, no principals or goals, beyond "maximize advantage in game".




A shrewd player will not risk losing to a coin flip if the game doesn't demand it. I play D&D as a game and the game is still viable as long as your character survives. Thus as a player, I have a stake in wanting my character to survive, so I will make decisions that make survival more likely whenever possible. 

Remember, in an old school game, dying meant a re-roll at level one, effectively starting all over. I think you would find fewer avid old school game players willing to take that gamble than "real" role players in more modern games in which the loss of a character merely results in a replacement of equal standing. 



pemerton said:


> When I ask my 6 year old daughter, "What are you doing" and she replies "Playing a game", what she almost always means by "playing a game" is that she is pretending to be doing something imaginary. For instance, she might be piling wood chips onto a park bench, pretending that she is making cakes for sale in her cake shop; or pretending that she is a pet-store owner and that her older sister is her English-speaking pet cat.
> 
> This sort of play, which is I think pretty common for human children - it is part of how they learn to make sense of the world, and is one form of _roleplaying_ within the literal meaning of that term. And it has basically nothing in common with tic tac toe. It certainly doesn't involve "code-breaking".
> 
> What is the proxy? And what is it a proxy for?




I would say that your daughter is most certainly role playing in the purest sense but not really playing a game. Either activity can be done without the other. Games were played long before there were rpgs, and children have role-played since the dawn of time even without an actual game being played.


----------



## Maxperson (Oct 12, 2015)

ExploderWizard said:


> A shrewd player will not risk losing to a coin flip if the game doesn't demand it. I play D&D as a game and the game is still viable as long as your character survives. Thus as a player, I have a stake in wanting my character to survive, so I will make decisions that make survival more likely whenever possible.
> 
> Remember, in an old school game, dying meant a re-roll at level one, effectively starting all over. I think you would find fewer avid old school game players willing to take that gamble than "real" role players in more modern games in which the loss of a character merely results in a replacement of equal standing.
> 
> ...




All it takes to be a game is to be an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.  That's a long standing definition of game.


----------



## howandwhy99 (Oct 12, 2015)

pemerton said:
			
		

> That doesn't seem to me to address my point, which is that from the beginning of D&D GMs have stocked dungeons other than by random methods



It goes directly to your point. And all the proof I need for mine. People cannot play D&D without a design to be deciphered in place prior to play. Gary is saying this explicitly here for those who want to play it as a solo game. A solo "story game" could presumably have a "DM/Player" make everything up on blank paper. No game is required for such non-game practices. No code breaking is necessary for improv'ing. But game players cannot do this, so other people are called on to populate the random results tables so the solo gamer doesn't know the results beforehand according to the system Gary provides in newsletter insert.



> Your post is literally the first time I've heard it suggested that part of the aim of play, as a player, is to reason backwards to the GM's random table for stocking the dungeon. Partly because players would assume that not all of the dungeon was randomly stocked. Partly because having that information doesn't really help with exploring the dungeon, where what matters is actuals - what things are in which rooms - rather than likelihoods.



Maybe you never really thought about why there are so many random tables in D&D or never really knew. Maybe you never really played with hardcore wargame RPGers who understood why D&D was designed as it was for the first 25 years? I don't know. If you still don't believe or get it, See Dungeon! the boardgame for some of this D&D mechanic in action (and more).



Maxperson said:


> The game is never stopped unless the game is rained out or something.  What they do is stop the time clock and/or active play, but not the game itself.  Rulings are a part of the game, as are instant replays, and so on.  The DM is also not purely a referee.  That's one of his many roles, and a minor one at that, but it's not who he is.  Most of the DM's roles do not involve judgment calls or rulings.



Well, you're wrong about everything above.



> From day 1, D&D has been about taking on a persona and creating a mutual story, as well as all the rest.



What you're expressing is a widespread falsehood. And what this thread is about proving the obvious invalidity of. 



> D&D is not a war game, even if its roots came from war games.



Roleplaying was part of wargaming for decades, long before the _hobby_ of wargaming learned about it and took the term up for D&D and its ilk. That's why the name of the hobby is roleplaying, not storytelling. Gary repeated such stuff his whole life.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 12, 2015)

ExploderWizard said:


> I would say that your daughter is most certainly role playing in the purest sense but not really playing a game. Either activity can be done without the other. Games were played long before there were rpgs, and children have role-played since the dawn of time even without an actual game being played.






Maxperson said:


> All it takes to be a game is to be an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.  That's a long standing definition of game.



I have said it before, but it deserves to be said again. Game culture is being whitewashed out of existence by attempts to redefine it as storytelling, primarily now by people in enterprises like "game studies" and other narrative absolutists.

I fully believe this will continue until gamers in mass stand up and demand this censorship masquerading as bigoted falsehoods stop.


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## Umbran (Oct 12, 2015)

Campbell said:


> Here's a statement to mull over. A GM can be a referee, a game designer, and a player. He cannot be any more than one at a given time. Also try replacing cannot with should not.




This is the same logical failure that GNS makes, considering player agendas.

Real people have several balls in the air at once, several things they are doing, several things they want, several things they need to do, and they don't often fall out into very clear priorities.  We need to deal with that reality.


----------



## Umbran (Oct 12, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> I have said it before, but it deserves to be said again. Game culture is being whitewashed out of existence by attempts to redefine it as storytelling, primarily now by people in enterprises like "game studies" and other narrative absolutists.




You know that sounds like conspiracy theory, right?



> I fully believe this will continue until gamers in mass stand up and demand this censorship masquerading as bigoted falsehoods stop.




With respect, in my experience those who want a "pure game" experience like you describe simply slip on over into things that aren't called role-playing games - board games, wargames, and some computer games typically give them what they are looking for.  All the tactical decision making, none of the mucking about with story.  

The "Role playing" portion of things really does imply some level of story to most folks, and that's something you'll probably just have to learn to live with.  

As a final note, the hyperbolic and inflammatory rhetoric is going to get you nowhere mighty fast. The next time you refer to folks as "bigoted" over having a different idea of what's a good way to pretend to be an elf, you're apt to be reported, and then you're apt to not like the result.  You may blame the moderators for this, but  do remember that *you* are the one who is slapping on the negative labels.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 12, 2015)

Umbran said:


> You know that sounds like conspiracy theory, right?



You know the Forge was a community attempting to rewrite not just RPGs but all game culture in a closed community not allowing dissent, right?



> With respect, in my experience those who want a "pure game" experience like you describe simply slip on over into things that aren't called role-playing games - board games, wargames, and some computer games typically give them what they are looking for.  All the tactical decision making, none of the mucking about with story.
> 
> The "Role playing" portion of things really does imply some level of story to most folks, and that's something you'll probably just have to learn to live with.
> 
> As a final note, the hyperbolic and inflammatory rhetoric is going to get you nowhere mighty fast. The next time you refer to folks as "bigoted" over having a different idea of what's a good way to pretend to be an elf, you're apt to be reported, and then you're apt to not like the result.  You may blame the moderators for this, but  do remember that *you* are the one who is slapping on the negative labels.



Thank you for the reminder. Yes, the world has changed, but history has not.  And yes, I knew when I typed the word a very charged word. But I'm not using it against anyone here or groups here, but towards people who are actually engaged in such a duplicitous act. A call to arms isn't a light act. I'll be sure to exclude it in the future.


----------



## N'raac (Oct 12, 2015)

EDIT:  UGH!  Sorry for the huge post!



howandwhy99 said:


> You are ignoring the role of a referee (umpire, etc.) in a game. They stop the game, usually, to make a call. It can be done while the game continues on, but the actual players who are playing the game to achieve goals in it need to be informed of the judgment calls. Of course, most players are refereeing themselves and others too, but neutral referees are used - as in D&D - to insure adherence to the rules.




The traditional role of a referee (umpire etc.) is to adjudicate between two competing interests, such as the two sports teams on the field.  In an RPG, there is only a single team on the field - the players, through their characters.  Their opposition cannot stand up and call for a ruling - they are fictional.  This is where we get the "killer DM" stereotype, the DM who treats the challenges he places as a measure of his own skills, and becomes an adversary to the players.

The wargame referee from which the DM evolved was also a neutral third party arbitrating rule disputes between two players (or teams) engaged in the game.  The DM is much more a game participant (albeit one with a very different role) than the classic referee or umpire. 



howandwhy99 said:


> Kreigsspiel is a great game. "Free" Kriegsspiel isn't a game the same way the Calvinball isn't a game. People can attempt to treat such as an illusion as a game, but as I said before to  @_*pemerton*_, most folks wouldn't play such as an actual game except ironically.




Interestingly from the terminology perspective, Kreogsspiel began as "Instructions for the Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame".  IOW, it was viewed as the façade of a game, but not actually a game, by its own designers.  You posit that the manner in which many play D&D makes it "no longer a game".  I wonder when we pass the marker by which the creator of Kreogsspiel would perceive it being transformed into a game.



			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> Kriegsspiel in its original form was not particularly popular among the Prussian officer corps; The rules were cumbersome and games took much longer than the battles that they were supposed to represent. It was not until 1876 that General Julius von Verdy du Vernois had the idea of placing more power in the hands of the gamemaster in order to speed up the game and reduce the number of rules. von Verdy's “Free” Kriegspiel did away with many of the movement and combat rules in order to save time, giving the duty of deciding the effects of orders and combat to the gamemaster. This allowed players to play a game in real time, giving the players a better feel for the tension of actual combat. To retain military accuracy, von Verdy emphasized the necessity of using military experts as gamemasters. The new “Free” Kriegspiel soon gained more popularity than its predecessor (now known as “Strict” Kriegsspiel”); The Prussian (later German) General Staff used it both for its internal exercises and as a training tool.




Reading this history, it seems like the move to "Free" Kriegsspiel is extremely similar to the evolution of the classic wargame into D&D and other role playing games.  It is interesting that you classify this evolution as moving away from "a game", especially as I suspect the original Kriegsspiel designer would likely have perceived "Free" Kriegsspiel as more of a game than his own model.  It being 64 years later, his views cannot actually be known, of course.

I note other games by the same name exist, though I presume the reference to "Free" Kriegsspiel indicates we are discussing the original and its evolution.



howandwhy99 said:


> But there are points scored and definitive endgame conditions for every player and the campaign itself. Specifically, retirement or loss of character individually and as a whole).




First, one criticism of the experience model in early versions of D&D was that the gaining of "points" (xp) often failed to correspond to successes of the characters.  For example, if their goal was to protect the local village from the depredations of nearby monster tribes, they were rewarded for killing and looting the monsters.  But they could also earn both xp and gold for killing the villagers and looting their village.  They would not, however, be rewarded as well for driving off the monsters, and not at all for negotiating a peace treaty between the village and the monsters which could allow both to become far more prosperous.

Where are these defined "endgame conditions"?  Many games, especially from OD&D to AD&D 2e, had no plan for an "end" to the game.  Characters continued adventuring more or less in perpetuity, gaining higher and higher levels.  At about 9 - 11 level (dependent on the class), advancement became extremely slow.  3e accelerated level gains, and also capped them, setting a target for character retirement, but not a campaign goal, however by that point, I suggest the game had evolved from the roots you are focused on.

Finally, from the player's perspective "dead character" and "retired character" have pretty similar outcomes - the player creates and brings in a new character.  We certainly don't tally up victory points and declare a player "the winner" at the end of the typical campaign, even when it has "an end" rather than just dying out.



howandwhy99 said:


> If you defined games as exclusively needing a winner determined, then perhaps Name Level could be assigned for each player. I think this could be detrimental to cooperative (not collaborative) games. *D&D is after all not about winning*, but about succeeding. About players actually improving themselves according to the test which is the game design. IMnshO, D&D's initial design is at the heart of what games are. Quite unlike group storytelling.




Emphasis added - this is commonly presented as a reason why D&D (and other RPG's) differ markedly from games people are more familiar with - they lack a defined endpoint, defined conditions of victory and a defined winner.



howandwhy99 said:


> Neither of us could know, right? Because they still so wanted to play a game, even a broken one? Because no one knew how to fix it without ruining the game, (i.e. the mechanical balance)?




So your interpretation, then, is that this group continued for months despite the fact no one was having any fun.  That seems highly unlikely to me.  I would also note that the detractors of each and every edition of D&D typically point to some element which they refer to as "broken".  Presumably, then, the game you are playing is just as objectively "broken"* as the game played by those in the anecdote.

* Which is to say, not at all.  That people are still playing and enjoying it means, at least to me, that it cannot objectively be "broken".



howandwhy99 said:


> You're questions make no sense. You're asking where are the rules for "this behavior" in a game that doesn't have those game elements as having that behavior?




[grammarnazi]Might we apply another "non-game's" rules?  "You're" means "You are".  I believe you are seeking a possessive which would be "your".[/grammarnazi]

To the reality, you have claimed the DM must adjudicate solely from the rules.  The examples I provided can all be easily envisioned as arising in a game, and have no defined rules for adjudication in D&D, although greater structure has evolved over time.  The jump to social skills in 3e is, IMO, the clearest example of a jump in evolution, but still leaves considerable judgment required by the DM.  The only game I can think of where there is a rule given for dealing with matters which are not covered by the rules is Toon, which quite simply states there are two possibilities - a thing will happen, or it will not, so flip a coin.  Every other game instructs the GM to exercise best judgment in assigning probabilities to results and adjudicating the outcome.



howandwhy99 said:


> Judgement refers to assessing the state of the game board according to the rule pattern preset. New DM material comes from die roll generation to determine outcomes. All new player material need only be defined as needed to deal with the current action, with all the rest abstracted.




My hobgoblin example provided the state of the game board, saw the players take what I think most of us would consider a reasonable, permissible action and asked how you would apply the rules to set the die roll required and the possible outcomes.  No such rules exist.  GM improvisation is used to resolve such situations, with greater or lesser rules guidance depending on the rules set in use.



howandwhy99 said:


> #1. Of course, the pattern behind the screen can be drawn out in front if players can receive all that information under the rules. This is well known. Players can attempt to take actions like movement, but they still require the referee to determine if such attempts are possible. That the player moves the piece is partly like players rolling the dice. But minis also enables players to more fine tune their description attempts for how they want to move.




You said the players cannot move the tokens, by the rules.  Now you are saying they can, but the action might be interrupted by factors unknown to them.  It seems like the rules are much less clear-cut than you initially asserted.



howandwhy99 said:


> #2This is most blatantly obvious when we recognize the rest of the world understands game walkthroughs to beat computers games as cheating rather than attempting to play the game for one's self.




Gygax's introduction to the 1e DMG, if read literally, indicates that no one who DM's a game (and thus needs to read the DMG) may ever play in a game again, as he has seen the DMG.  I believe Gary himself played in others' games, and that some of his players ran their own games.  In any event, it was in response to my request you cite a rule requiring a screen, not a rule requiring the DM have knowledge the players lack (whether rules knowledge, a precept of that 1e intro that many gamers dispute, or campaign knowledge such as the location, strength and other details of adversaries).



howandwhy99 said:


> I believe 2e finally included in the statblocks cultural behavior like alignment for reaction checks, ability scores, organization, % in lair, environment, morale, and loyalty adjustments. Monster Manual 1977 included all kinds of social organizational designs in the descriptions. Those are suggestions for a DM to use in their design. Many are very good.




The fact my hobgoblin scenario (and those raised earlier) cannot be easily resolved by that statblock seems to pretty clearly indicate that this is not the statblock you previously described, which would permit easy adjudication/mechanical resolution of any interaction with the creature described in that statblock, sticking entirely to the rules with no improvisation required of the DM.



howandwhy99 said:


> Maybe you don't know about roleplaying in the 50s-70s after the war, but it wasn't about fictional personas. D&D is the iconic RPG as the term roleplaying was used in army wargame simulations. They taught soldiers their role. D&D is a game where players improve their ability to perform their role (class) by mastering the game system it refers to. They can prove this and increase needed class abilities to more easily overcome and accomplish higher level challenges and objectives by scoring points relating to their roleplaying.






			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the Oxford English Dictionary offers a definition of role-playing as "the changing of one's behaviour to fulfill a social role", in the field of psychology, the term is used more loosely in four senses:
> 
> To refer to the playing of roles generally such as in a theatre, or educational setting;
> 
> ...




What you are describing strikes me as the first definition, which is role playing, but is not a game.  D&D evolved from wargames (where players direct tactical units) to a game where the player controlled a single individual, which better fits the second definition of taking on the role of another person, in this case a fictional person created by the player.  Such a fictional person, properly role played, will not be a pawn or playing piece, but will come to life through the role playing of the player.  To me, at least, that is the "RP" in "RPG".  

I can easily play Talisman, Dungeon or the D&D board games like Wrath of Ashardalon as a Game (no RP required or desired).  At least to me, a true RPG goes beyond that "G" to add "RP".  If we extract the "G", we remove the classical "game" element of rules as mechanics for adjudicating success and failure, and move to a pure collaborative theatre exercise (which can still be a "game" in many senses of the word), a very basic example being the "Bakery" game referred to some ways above.



howandwhy99 said:


> Improvising a personality wasn't part of roleplaying in the RPG community until the 80s. Personality stuff was also fun to do, but like in any game it can interfere with a person trying to play a game.




I think the personality became a matter of greater focus as time wore on (let's remember that the first edition of D&D was published in 1974 and, if not the first RPG, is generally considered the first commercially available RPG.  The first widely available edition was published in 1977, which was the first opportunity for the game to move outside the circle of wargamers.  There is not a lot of pre-'80's RPG history to address, just its ancestors and historical roots in wargaming).  The old Rogues Gallery book published some characters with CHARACTER.  That was back in the Holmes Basic/1st print AD&D books, published in 1980 for AD&D.  Perhaps the characters presented therein, with their somewhat limited personality sketches, may have lead to the gamers with whom you were familiar back in the '70s adopting personalities for their characters for the first time (speculation just because of your and the book's timing), but that in no way indicates that other groups did not play characters with CHARACTER in the '70s.  It does indicate that the founders of the game were playing characters with personalities, as that is where these characters were drawn and adapted from.

Being one of those who bought The Rogues Gallery off the shelf back in 1980, I have my own history with the hobby to draw on.  It bears noting, however, that I came to the hobby with no wargaming roots and preconceptions.



howandwhy99 said:


> Why we need DMs to play D&D
> "Although it has been possible for enthusiasts to play solo games of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by means of 'Wilderness Adventures', there has been no uniform method of dungeon exploring, for the campaign referee has heretofor been required to design dungeon levels. *Through the following series of tables (and considerable dice rolling) it is now possible *  [1] to adventure alone through endless series of dungeon mazes! After a time I am certain that there will be some sameness to this however, and for this reason a system of *exchange of sealed envelopes for special rooms and tricks/traps is urged. * [2] These envelopes can come from any other player and contain monsters and treasure, a whole complex of rooms (unfolded a bit at a time), ancient artifacts, and so forth. All the envelope should say is for what level the contents are for and for what location, i.e. a chamber, room, 20' wide corridor, etc. Now *break out your copy of D&D* [3], your dice, and plenty of graph paper and have fun!"
> _--The Strategic Review Vol. 1 No. 1_




Emphasis and references added.  I would note:

1.   The reference to a large volume of dice rolling indicates this is a change from the manner in which a living DM would have generated a dungeon.  This implies an expectation that DM's typically used their own improvisation and judgment in designing and stocking dungeons, even back in 1975 when this article would have been published.  This is wholly inconsistent with your random table model - the tables here are clearly perceived as differing from the activity of a DM, even in the days of the game's infancy.

2.   This "sealed envelope" mechanism reinforces the role of the DM in creating interesting and challenging encounters which simply cannot be simulated by any random roll mechanism.  It also indicates that players were expected to possess the skills, and the rules knowledge, of a DM.  It is players exchanging these sealed envelopes, but DMs creating their contents, so members of these various groups are acting as DM's for other groups while acting as players in their own groups.  Of course, this was in 1975 - the DMG was not published until 1979, so the article writer could not incorporate Gary's intro.

3.   This again suggests that the players have access to the full rules, including those relevant to the DM.  Again, about four years before Gary's intro to the DMG saw print.

Overall, this also reinforces the need for a DM who does more than just roll dice and consult random tables, as even this simulation is expected to fail without adding the improvisation of a DM.  That it is rarely if ever used (certainly from the late 1970's to now, in my experience) further demonstrates the failure of simple random tables to emulate a "true D&D experience".  This is, as you say, why the game requires a DM, not just players.



			
				howandwhy99 said:
			
		

> Well that's a hell of a claim you couldn't possibly back up. How do you prove by reference every player playing in every D&D game ever? I mean, that is stuff even people do when playing videogames, primary stuff. Like recognizin the patterns in levels of Pac-Man or Tetris or BBEGs to beat them. But you just the need to make sweeping generalizations about the D&D population for 40 years? What's your purpose for starting this thread?




Pemerton's claim matches my experience as well.  I invite anyone who has ever extrapolated the DM's monster placement and/or dungeon design random table from game play to post their contrary experience.  @_*pemerton*_ also acknowledges there may be some statistical error in his sample.  If your model is widespread, it seems like examples of such extrapolations should be similarly widespread.



pemerton said:


> I tend to find this rather judgemental, especially from someone who has fairly recently posted criticism of someone else in this thread for "one true way-ism".




It does depend largely on definitions and every table will vary in its desired balance of "RP" to "G".  However, in my view, there is a point where the RP faces into such obscurity that we have only "G", a mechanistic and tactical exercise.  One example is the suggested use of random charts for every aspect of dungeon design.  Another is where the characters are mere ciphers - pawns lacking personality - and not Characters.  At the other end of the continuum, the "G" fades away and we move to live theater.  One example of this is the DM who ignores any mechanics of social skills (limited in older editions to reaction rolls; 3e added skills like Diplomacy, Intimidate and Bluff) in favour of pure role playing of such interactions.  That impacts only one element.  A broader example would return us to the resolution mechanics of "let's pretend", where there are no dice, only player consensus as to the results of any given effort.



pemerton said:


> I prefer a game in which drawbacks for the character aren't drawbacks for the player but, rather, opportunities for the player.




If they are drawbacks for the player in the sense that they reduce the fun, I agree.  However, often the fun is in playing the drawbacks of the character, not just the strengths.  I enjoy playing my impatient and impulsive character because, while often less than tactically perfect, his impetuous tactics are fun.  Ditto my berserker highlander who stares that Umber Hulk right in the eyes, and does not know the Monster Manual stats rhyme and verse, even if I myself am 100% conversant with the monster's stats.  A steady stream of "I avert my eyes in the manner that provides the greatest save bonus with the least to hit penalties and pick the best tactic every time because I am a robot lacking any personality" is not nearly as memorable, and (perhaps because) it is not nearly as fun.



pemerton said:


> Roger Musson had begun to work out this approach in 1981, when he wrote "I believe that the restrictions on some character classes, though they might be viewed as disadvantages, are more the reverse. Restrictions make it easier to play "in character" by dictating necessary attitudes. A paladin should be noted by his largesse and flamboyant acts of charity; these make him more interesting than a stereotyped fighting man."




This is quite true.  It requires the DM view those restrictions as challenges, not as impediments.  If, instead, we present the Paladin with no-win situations (either he compromises his principals or he/the party dies; refusal to act dishonourably guarantees defeat; Paladin's Dilemma where every choice violates the code and causes a fall from grace) or just sweep his beliefs under the rug when they become inconvenient (routine "the Paladin leaves the room, whereupon we begin torturing the prisoner"; the Evil characters have lead shields so the Paladin never notices they are evil; "my code doesn't require me to do anything about my friends being completely dishonourable"), then there is no point playing such a character.

Superman doesn't kill.  Instead, he finds alternatives to succeed without killing, even when they are difficult or inobvious.  If we instead write Superman into a scenario where he either kills or loses ("well, since you refused to kill Lex Luthor, Earth is destroyed"), we violate the character.  This is no different from designing a game world where the Paladin can never succeed.  If you don't want LG characters, run a world where LG behaviour equals losing.  If you want to encourage less bloodthirsty characters, they must achieve positive results from less bloodthirsty solutions (not "every prisoner we take betrays us; every enemy we spare comes back to attack us again; every helpless prisoner we rescue backstabs us").  I'm always amazed by GM's who will complain bitterly that their players don't follow genre tropes, when they ensure that every instance of such tropes results in adverse consequences (not only no benefits, but a penalty).

Flanking provides a bonus, so players try to flank.  Using a weapon with which one is not proficient imposes a penalty, so players avoid using such weapons.  If honourable behaviour provides bonuses, players will be inclined to play honourable characters.  If honourable behaviour virtually always results in the character being taken advantage of, expect a lot more backstabbers and murderhobos in your PC group.



pemerton said:


> If you roleplaying really bumps into or cuts across your "roll playing" then, to me, that tends to suggest that your mechanics aren't really doing their job of facilitating the desired play.




I would say if role playing results in challenges (it doesn't have to result in bonuses), it makes the game more fun.  That, in itself, is a reward - bonuses not required.   But if it results in failure, plain and simple, then role playing will simply disappear.  Like the dinosaurs, it simply could not survive in that environment.


----------



## Bleys Icefalcon (Oct 12, 2015)

pemerton said:


> First, the fact that you can play D&D without aiming at producing a story doesn't mean that before the 1990s no one played the game with the aim of producing a story. I know, myself, that when I was GMing Oriental Adventures in 1986 an important goal of play was creating a story (roughly along the lines of a B samurai movie). And clearly there were FRPGers much before then playing in the same way: Lewis Pulsipher talks a lot about different styles, including story-oriented styles, in articles written for White Dwarf in the late 70s/early 80s.




Somehow, with a very few exceptions, the narrative and story has always been the very top priority for my gaming groups - going all way way back to Chainmail, more than 30 years back.  The world we are creating and the rich history and stories has been the main reason we keep playing.  I am now on (argubaly) my third generation of players, of our 5 players (myself included), four are 20-26 years of age - with me the old fuddy duddy.  And as luck would have it the group is gelling very well, as no one is really the min/max, uber build, rules lawyer type.  The story we are building and the development of the characters, their wants needs, desires, personality and goals, that is our priority, not so much "Who can do the most possible damage".  This is not to say my people aren't competative, they like to go first, they like to gain advantage, and they do utilize spells, skills, feats and abitlies to make their characters unqiue and powerful.  It's just that this takes a backseat to the narrative, a narrative they help write.


----------



## N'raac (Oct 12, 2015)

hmmm...shorter, but not a lot shorter...



ExploderWizard said:


> A shrewd player will not risk losing to a coin flip if the game doesn't demand it. I play D&D as a game and the game is still viable as long as your character survives. Thus as a player, I have a stake in wanting my character to survive, so I will make decisions that make survival more likely whenever possible.
> 
> Remember, in an old school game, dying meant a re-roll at level one, effectively starting all over. I think you would find fewer avid old school game players willing to take that gamble than "real" role players in more modern games in which the loss of a character merely results in a replacement of equal standing.




Really?  What motivated all those "roll randomly - many you get a huge powerup and maybe you get killed" magic items and artifacts, then?  These are an artifact of the "if the character dies, I'll just roll up another one - my character LOVES Russian roulette" mentality.



ExploderWizard said:


> I would say that your daughter is most certainly role playing in the purest sense but not really playing a game. Either activity can be done without the other. Games were played long before there were rpgs, and children have role-played since the dawn of time even without an actual game being played.




Much of the problem with this aspect of the thread is defining "game".  She is certainly not engaged in a "game" with rules to adjudicate success and failure, a defined beginning and end, and set victory conditions.  In that sense, I agree this is not a "game".  In my particular view, she is at the "RP" extreme of the continuum and is engaged in improvisational theater - "RP" with no "G".



Maxperson said:


> All it takes to be a game is to be an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.  That's a long standing definition of game.




With all respect, and full acknowledgement this is an accurate dictionary definition, I don't find it a helpful definition in the context of this discussion.  In fairness, that is more likely because I (and, I think some others) are restricting the terms "Game" to "Game with mechanical rules" than because we are correctly using the more broad, and more technically correct, definition of a "game".



howandwhy99 said:


> It goes directly to your point. And all the proof I need for mine. People cannot play D&D without a design to be deciphered in place prior to play.




To the extent this is true, it does not mean that there is nothing to the game other than a design to be deciphered which is in place prior to play, or even that this is a, much less THE, defining feature of an RPG.  



howandwhy99 said:


> Gary is saying this explicitly here for those who want to play it as a solo game. A solo "story game" could presumably have a "DM/Player" make everything up on blank paper. No game is required for such non-game practices. No code breaking is necessary for improv'ing. But game players cannot do this, so other people are called on to populate the random results tables so the solo gamer doesn't know the results beforehand according to the system Gary provides in newsletter insert.




Our extract from Strategic Review provides a perfect example of the random results tables being used by (and thus viewed and known by) the players to play the game without a DM.  In fact, the failing called out in that article arises solely due to the absence of DM improvisation in the form of special rooms.



howandwhy99 said:


> Maybe you never really thought about why there are so many random tables in D&D or never really knew. Maybe you never really played with hardcore wargame RPGers who understood why D&D was designed as it was for the first 25 years? I don't know. If you still don't believe or get it, See Dungeon! the boardgame for some of this D&D mechanic in action (and more).




I’ve played more than one iteration of Dungeon!  It is not D&D, largely because it lacks both role playing (character personality, not tactical planning) and DM improvisation.



howandwhy99 said:


> Well, you're wrong about everything above.
> 
> What you're expressing is a widespread falsehood. And what this thread is about proving the obvious invalidity of.




Umbran addresses this better than I will.  I will simply say that I don’t find any of the above likely to persuade me to the superiority of your viewpoint.



howandwhy99 said:


> Roleplaying was part of wargaming for decades, long before the _hobby_ of wargaming learned about it and took the term up for D&D and its ilk. That's why the name of the hobby is roleplaying, not storytelling. Gary repeated such stuff his whole life.




Actually, the absence of a consistent definition of “roleplaying” is at least as big an impediment to this discussion as the lack of a consistent definition of “game”.



Umbran said:


> With respect, in my experience those who want a "pure game" experience like you describe simply slip on over into things that aren't called role-playing games - board games, wargames, and some computer games typically give them what they are looking for.  All the tactical decision making, none of the mucking about with story.




EXAMPLE:  Dungeon! Board game.



Bleys Icefalcon said:


> Somehow, with a very few exceptions, the narrative and story has always been the very top priority for my gaming groups - going all way way back to Chainmail, more than 30 years back.  The world we are creating and the rich history and stories has been the main reason we keep playing.  I am now on (argubaly) my third generation of players, of our 5 players (myself included), four are 20-26 years of age - with me the old fuddy duddy.  And as luck would have it the group is gelling very well, as no one is really the min/max, uber build, rules lawyer type.  The story we are building and the development of the characters, their wants needs, desires, personality and goals, that is our priority, not so much "Who can do the most possible damage".  This is not to say my people aren't competative, they like to go first, they like to gain advantage, and they do utilize spells, skills, feats and abitlies to make their characters unqiue and powerful.  It's just that this takes a backseat to the narrative, a narrative they help write.




Not to age you,  but Chainmail is over 40 years now – Strategic Review turned 40 this year, and OD&D hit 40 last year.  Makes me feel old, I’ll admit.  But maybe that’s because I don’t want to admit (to myself) that I am getting old, if not there already.  Sigh…

Anyway, emphasis added above.  This matches my group, and I think it also indicates why a lot of gamers remain in the hobby when board games, card games, etc. come and go much more rapidly.  It also emphasizes, however, that we have our preferences and others have different preferences.

I referred to role players and roll players a bit above.  I prefer a certain balance between the two.  Your group’s balance sounds like it matches my own, but that’s largely because:

(a)	Both elements are there;
(b)	My balance is perfect, so if you are having fun you must use the same balance

Now, item (b) is a pretty facetious way of simply stating that I project my preferences on you, possibly without even realizing it.  Maybe your game is more focused on mechanical roll playing than mine, or maybe I would be a rules-lawyering min/maxer in your group because you are way more focused on the role play and story elements.  I doubt we will ever know, because I suspect we will never game together.

But we all fall at various places on the continuum between “Role Play/character personality/story” and “Game/mechanics/tactics/rules mastery”.  At some point on the continuum (different for each of us, to some extent), we move so far towards the one that the other just isn’t there any more and we are playing a pure “Game” (Dungeon!) or just “Role Playing” (bakery; improve theater).

To me, the evolution of Wargame to Role Playing Game was a shift along that continuum moving out of pure “Game” to embrace “Role Playing” to some extent.  I do not believe for a minute that the early Gygax or Arneson tables lacked “story” and “personality”.  There was little, or nothing, magical about those early rules sets.  It was the addition of role playing, in my opinion, that differentiated that infant D&D from its wargaming ancestors, and allowed it to survive, and flourish, over the last 40+ years.


----------



## Manbearcat (Oct 12, 2015)

pemerton said:


> All true.
> 
> For present purposes, what I want to point out is that _extrapolating from causal logic_ is not "code-breaking" in any meaningful sense of that term. It is just reasoning - what I have called _reasoning about the fiction as if it were real_.




Agreed.  That was me extending a minor olive branch for the sake of trying to expedite some form of communication here.  The barrier is already steep enough as is.  

But in truth, the starting point of all of this is the mental gymnastics required to go from (the obviously accurate) "reasoning" to full-blown cryptanalysis, so its probably not even healthy for clarity to allow for that.  But if you're going to jump down the rabbit hole, you have to start somewhere.  Where that common ground (no matter how shaky) might be, I wouldn't even venture a guess.



pemerton said:


> The idea that this can take place without the GM having to engage in improvisation is completely implausible.




I would go with "preposterous", but if you want to throttle it back to "implausible", then be my guest 

Preposterous is the idea that you can remove GMing cognitive biases with content generation tables that are absolutely EMBEDDED with bias (from choice of which stock tables to use or if homebrew generation then decisions on frequency and type) and with resolution mechanics with swathes of procedures (some mentioned upthread by you and others) that are either incoherent with respect to each other or are outright missing, therefore REQUIRING GM INTERVENTION (the kind of which loads play down with the GM's cognitive biases) so the game might move forward at all.

Every single game with a human referee involved (even with the most clean and minimalist procedures possible) will introduce some measure of cognitive bias, therefore reducing the signal to noise ratio away from pure signal.  You can guarantee a proportionate increase in noise the less clean, the less minimalist the ruleset/procedures of play are and the more involved the human referee must be.

I give you...the freaking National Football League pre Roger Goodell and post Roger Goodell (and the reason why fans are losing their minds left and right and why "Deflategate" became a thing at all).


----------



## howandwhy99 (Oct 12, 2015)

N'raac said:


> SNIP
> The DM is much more a game participant (albeit one with a very different role) than the classic referee or umpire.



Obviously you're wrong. But naysaying isn't helping anyone here. I agree with everything prior to this, but not this. I'm guessing you knew that before you posted. I know I can get off track too, but let's both try and stick close to relevant points. I have to say, this long post is too long to bother with, if you end up responding to every fruitless detail.



> Interestingly from the terminology perspective, Kreogsspiel began as "Instructions for the Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame".  IOW, it was viewed as the façade of a game, but not actually a game, by its own designers.  You posit that the manner in which many play D&D makes it "no longer a game".  I wonder when we pass the marker by which the creator of Kreogsspiel would perceive it being transformed into a game.



when we remove the improv during a game. So the pattern of the field of play and rules can be deciphered through play.



> Reading this history, it seems like the move to "Free" Kriegsspiel is extremely similar to the evolution of the classic wargame into D&D and other role playing games.  It is interesting that you classify this evolution as moving away from "a game", especially as I suspect the original Kriegsspiel designer would likely have perceived "Free" Kriegsspiel as more of a game than his own model.  It being 64 years later, his views cannot actually be known, of course.



You just said in the previous quote, "IOW, it was viewed as the façade of a game, but not actually a game, by its own designers."



> First, one criticism of the experience model in early versions of D&D was that the gaining of "points" (xp) often failed to correspond to successes of the characters.  For example, if their goal was to protect the local village from the depredations of nearby monster tribes, they were rewarded for killing and looting the monsters.  But they could also earn both xp and gold for killing the villagers and looting their village.  They would not, however, be rewarded as well for driving off the monsters, and not at all for negotiating a peace treaty between the village and the monsters which could allow both to become far more prosperous.



I'm skipping this. I've dealt with it in other threads as have others. But I agree in principle the XP rewards need to better reflect roleplaying the selected class.



> Where are these defined "endgame conditions"?



 We've both been in D&D for some time I take it. I'm not hunting down quotes about how losing your character, retiring it, or reaching highest (name) level means a player has finished the game and needs to roll up a new one to start playing again.



> Finally, from the player's perspective "dead character" and "retired character" have pretty similar outcomes - the player creates and brings in a new character.  We certainly don't tally up victory points and declare a player "the winner" at the end of the typical campaign, even when it has "an end" rather than just dying out.



But victory points are there. XP score. Since it's a cooperative game no one's declared "the winner". 



> So your interpretation, then, is that this group continued for months despite the fact no one was having any fun.  That seems highly unlikely to me.  I would also note that the detractors of each and every edition of D&D typically point to some element which they refer to as "broken".  Presumably, then, the game you are playing is just as objectively "broken"* as the game played by those in the anecdote.



I don't see how discussing this gets us anywhere. I *guess* they'd rather play a game that wasn't broken. you said the system was incomplete. That they still wanted to play possibly speaks to all sorts of stuff. Desperation? The quality of the partial design remaining?



> * Which is to say, not at all.  That people are still playing and enjoying it means, at least to me, that it cannot objectively be "broken".



And yet the game system is incomplete. Maybe you mean "unfun"?



> To the reality, you have claimed the DM must adjudicate solely from the rules.  The examples I provided can all be easily envisioned as arising in a game, and have no defined rules for adjudication in D&D, although greater structure has evolved over time.  The jump to social skills in 3e is, IMO, the clearest example of a jump in evolution, but still leaves considerable judgment required by the DM.  The only game I can think of where there is a rule given for dealing with matters which are not covered by the rules is Toon, which quite simply states there are two possibilities - a thing will happen, or it will not, so flip a coin.  Every other game instructs the GM to exercise best judgment in assigning probabilities to results and adjudicating the outcome.



So Toon is a game that covers every player attempt and the others are broken. Go figure. 



> My hobgoblin example provided the state of the game board, saw the players take what I think most of us would consider a reasonable, permissible action and asked how you would apply the rules to set the die roll required and the possible outcomes.  No such rules exist.  GM improvisation is used to resolve such situations, with greater or lesser rules guidance depending on the rules set in use.



As I said before, the books are suggestions, not an all encompassing design. There are multiple suggestions covering the same areas even. And of course the obligatory - DMs are never allowed to improvise in D&D.



> You said the players cannot move the tokens, by the rules.  Now you are saying they can, but the action might be interrupted by factors unknown to them.  It seems like the rules are much less clear-cut than you initially asserted.



Maybe you didn't understand. I said they could not move the tokens on the gameboard behind the screen. Do you think players can do the same in mastermind? If players can receive the info from part of the design, the ref might draw it out. Moving tokens is not them telling a story, but making attempts the referee can clarify as the players demonstrate. Read what I wrote again. You're making me repeat myself and this is all too much naysaying and repetition for me to want to continue.



> Gygax's introduction to the 1e DMG, if read literally, indicates that no one who DM's a game (and thus needs to read the DMG) may ever play in a game again, as he has seen the DMG.  I believe Gary himself played in others' games, and that some of his players ran their own games.  In any event, it was in response to my request you cite a rule requiring a screen, not a rule requiring the DM have knowledge the players lack (whether rules knowledge, a precept of that 1e intro that many gamers dispute, or campaign knowledge such as the location, strength and other details of adversaries).



Your first sentence is actually true. But, unlike his further assertions, a DM should use different codes for different campaigns to change it up. 

I take it you didn't miss all the DM screens published for every version of D&D? Do you not know why they were there? Like why all the modules had maps for tracking locations? Is any of the mere existence of this stuff proof for you?



> The fact my hobgoblin scenario (and those raised earlier) cannot be easily resolved by that statblock seems to pretty clearly indicate that this is not the statblock you previously described, which would permit easy adjudication/mechanical resolution of any interaction with the creature described in that statblock, sticking entirely to the rules with no improvisation required of the DM.



Of course, I'm not going to reveal my hard worked for code online, so every potential player can see it. That I use many rules from the suggestions in the books isn't wrong, but Gary left a lot up to individual DMs.



> What you are describing strikes me as the first definition, which is role playing, but is not a game.  D&D evolved from wargames (where players direct tactical units) to a game where the player controlled a single individual, which better fits the second definition of taking on the role of another person, in this case a fictional person created by the player.  Such a fictional person, properly role played, will not be a pawn or playing piece, but will come to life through the role playing of the player.  To me, at least, that is the "RP" in "RPG".



This isn't actual history. Roleplaying is learning a social role as done in the army for decades before D&D. That many of those guys were also in the hobby wargaming community and likely offered is where the name came from. A person doesn't need to protray someone else when performing a social role, so that's why the different term exists at all. Meaning it is seperate from acting. The RP element in RPGS like D&D is scoring points in your role.



> I think the personality became a matter of greater focus as time wore on (let's remember that the first edition of D&D was published in 1974 and, if not the first RPG, is generally considered the first commercially available RPG.



D&D is the first RPG. By my understanding Kriegspiel was a wargame.



> 1.   The reference to a large volume of dice rolling indicates this is a change from the manner in which a living DM would have generated a dungeon.  This implies an expectation that DM's typically used their own improvisation and judgment in designing and stocking dungeons, even back in 1975 when this article would have been published.  This is wholly inconsistent with your random table model - the tables here are clearly perceived as differing from the activity of a DM, even in the days of the game's infancy.



You're ignoring all the dozens and dozens of tables for the DM to roll on in D&D? I prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what a DM is for and you choose to forget the DM does have to roll all that stuff up? 



> 2.   This "sealed envelope" mechanism reinforces the role of the DM in creating interesting and challenging encounters which simply cannot be simulated by any random roll mechanism.  It also indicates that players were expected to possess the skills, and the rules knowledge, of a DM.  It is players exchanging these sealed envelopes, but DMs creating their contents, so members of these various groups are acting as DM's for other groups while acting as players in their own groups.  Of course, this was in 1975 - the DMG was not published until 1979, so the article writer could not incorporate Gary's intro.
> 
> 3.   This again suggests that the players have access to the full rules, including those relevant to the DM.  Again, about four years before Gary's intro to the DMG saw print.



One player can stop playing in another person's game of Mastermind and run another game for someone else. Other people can send you a code, sealed, to play a game of D&D, but there's no referee to run it, so the player rolls him or her self. 

And Gary used hidden information, maybe even a screen before D&D was even published. That I'm not bothering to find some absolute statement of its need in the the OD&D stuff, so much of it published piecemeal, is me not caring enough to prove this well known fact 40 years later.


> Overall, this also reinforces the need for a DM who does more than just roll dice and consult random tables, as even this simulation is expected to fail without adding the improvisation of a DM.  That it is rarely if ever used (certainly from the late 1970's to now, in my experience) further demonstrates the failure of simple random tables to emulate a "true D&D experience".  This is, as you say, why the game requires a DM, not just players.



And of course I said no such thing. A DM is referee, not an improvisor.


----------



## Aenghus (Oct 12, 2015)

ExploderWizard said:


> A shrewd player will not risk losing to a coin flip if the game doesn't demand it. I play D&D as a game and the game is still viable as long as your character survives. Thus as a player, I have a stake in wanting my character to survive, so I will make decisions that make survival more likely whenever possible.
> 
> Remember, in an old school game, dying meant a re-roll at level one, effectively starting all over. I think you would find fewer avid old school game players willing to take that gamble than "real" role players in more modern games in which the loss of a character merely results in a replacement of equal standing.




On the other hand, old school dungeons often had a lot of death traps, cursed magic items and the occasional overpowered monster if you explored it and just being in the dungeon risked death by wandering monster even if you stayed at the entrance. There was risk all around, often arbitrary risk with no foreshadowing or way of figuring out the right answer beforehand. 

The extreme reactions to all this risk were either becoming massively risk adverse and minimizing the number of decisions or die rolls that could result in PC death, at the cost of constant paranoia and exhaustive standard operating procedures, and missing out on lots of content that the players labelled "too dangerous to explore", or embracing the madness and pressing every button, taking every risk. Barring fudging, the latter style resulted in a lot of dead PCs and the occasional massive jackpot when win or die gambles paid off big. As usual, I suspect most players occupied the middle ground between these two extremes.

The thing is, some players just aren't invested in their PC surviving, they can always introduce a new PC, they want something else, for instance, poking the gameworld and seeing what happens, the bigger a reaction the better. Not every player sees character level as a game score.

Myself, I'm highly risk adverse, value PC survival, and I hated old school dungeons as it was impossible to avoid many risks, and DMs often didn't understand players who tried to avoid some of the risks.


----------



## Umbran (Oct 12, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> You know the Forge was a community attempting to rewrite not just RPGs but all game culture in a closed community not allowing dissent, right?




You know that it is literally impossible to rewrite an open culture in a *closed* subset community, right?  Within a closed group, you can at best rewrite the culture of the closed group.  This is obvious in how the Forge *utterly failed* to rewrite all game culture.  The world today plods along rather like it did before the Forge, just with a few extra game designs out there.  

And, as already noted, I don't see how your current approach is really any different than theirs.  You don't seem to allow any room for dissent either.  Your writing is very, "my way is the only Truth," much like Edwards was before he realized his own model was not his favorite any more, which kind of put the lie to how his theory was The One.



> Thank you for the reminder. Yes, the world has changed, but history has not.




With respect, you are not the accepted arbiter of history.  Many people have pointed out how your view of history is inaccurate.  Moreover, you have failed to establish that, even if your history was accurate, that this history forms the definitions we need to use forevermore.  It is just as (and likely more) reasonable to say that in the early history of RPGs, the authors actually knew very little about the subject, as it was new, and we would be best served to apply the greater understanding time has granted us to inform our designs and play going forward.



> But I'm not using it against anyone here or groups here, but towards people who are actually engaged in such a duplicitous act.




This is a largely anonymous community - how do you know you're not referring to someone here?

Let us be very clear on this - calling people liars is generally a Bad Move.  You don't seem to allow for the difference between "being duplicitous" and "being wrong" or the even less problematic, "have a different opinion/preference in a space with no objective fact".  You speak as if anyone who disagrees with you actually knows you are correct, and is lying - you need to do a lot of work to establish that guilt before throwing around such accusations.


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## Celebrim (Oct 12, 2015)

howandwhy99 has left me no evidence based approach to proving points, since he's elsewhere asserted that neither Gygax, nor the specifics of the Blackmoor and Greyhawk, nor the rules of the game can be appealed to to prove that D&D is not what he says it is.  Since none of those things define D&D in his mind, there isn't any evidence based approach that can conflict with his internal definition.  Thus, when he says that it's obviously wrong that a DM is any more than a referee and doesn't participate in the game, I can't appeal to quoting the 1e DMG, since apparently that rules he appeals to so often as the source of the pattern are obviously wrong as well.  Nor can I appeal to a scholarly work like Peterson's 'Playing at the World' (on my bookshelf at home) which is based off the notes of the Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns.

But consider the usual circumstance the DM may find himself in.

In one room, there is a band of kobolds.  Operating very much like a board game, limited to propositions only available to a player in Nethack and with no concern for fictional position but heavy concern for tactical positioning, the party enters into the room, conducts a tactical fight with the kobolds in full accordance with the rules and finishes the kobolds off quickly with a horn of blasting.  All of this is the sort of game H&W claims is 'real D&D' and requires no improvisation.  Well and good, but...

This later circumstance being very noisy, the DM examines the game board to see whether it has any side effects.   He notes that a mere 150' away down a corridor is a black dragon and by die roll it is sleeping.  He now wonders whether the horn of blasting might have wakened the dragon.  Further, he wonders what upon waking the dragon will do.   Will it hide and seek to ambush whatever has disturbed it?  Will it cast its darkness spell to cover its lair.  Will it cautiously and stealthily investigate the source of the noise?  Will it bellow its anger in a trumpet blast and lash its tail with such fury that causes the very walls to shake?  Upon engaging the PC's, will it rush forward to bite and claw, or will it hold back and apply its breath weapon?  Will it instead cast sleep to try to disrupt the party?

What mechanical pattern exists to answer these questions regarding the dragon's behavior?   Is the DM now even playing D&D to wonder whether the dragon is now awake?  Since the DM has not anticipated a loud noise nearby and not written the percentage chance a horn of blasting has to wake a dragon at 50 paces, does he cease to play D&D if the dragon wakes?  And if the dragon wakes, does he cease to play D&D if he decides to cast a spell, use melee attacks, cast a breath weapon, or try to bully the PC's into relinquishing their treasure?  

In other words, is it only D&D if the DM is omnipotent and omniscient, as this is the only circumstances where D&D could be played and meet H&Y's definition.  While it's perfectly valid to imagine the DM having full understanding of a game board as limited as Mastermind - how much is there to it - it's ludicrous to imagine any DM being in full possession of D&D's game board at all times, or to imagine that DM's simply crank the handle of a game engine the way a piece of software does, or that any DM in the entire history of the game has every truly done so.

The game cannot remotely be played without improvisation.  For all his ranting, no attempt to show such a comprehensive game engine external to a DM ever existed has been made.  One thing is clear, the 1977 rules set didn't contain such an engine.   H&W has us believe that the real D&D is obviously one that exists only in his head.  How exactly this situation came about, I'm not sure, but I'm willing to guess that it came about through improvisation.  I'm willing to bet that H&W began play of D&D sometime between 1975 and 1980, or else was accepted into a table that began in that period and had its roots in war gaming - and that this table had no direct connection to the Wisconsin group.  This is roughly the time my cousin began play in central Arkansas, having met an old school punch card computer programmer who had ran into the game some years before while in college.  At the time, the rules of D&D were very incomplete, were badly written, badly organized, sometimes contradictory, contained numerous errors, and cross referenced other TSR rule sets that were hard to come by.  If you wanted to play at all during this period, you had to improvise heavily to create a functioning set of house rules based on what you assumed that the designers were doing when playing.  Remember, how you prepare to play and how you think about playing an RPG is more important than the rules.   Apparently at H&W's table, the improvised version of D&D was one of many early forks off D&D that moved the game in a somewhat odd direction (Peterson records several contemporary and predecessors to D&D that were occurring at wargaming conventions, most of which do not in fact meet H&W's definition of game as some had no rules engine at all beyond referee improvisation).  In this version of D&D the DM's purpose was merely mechanical.  A limited number of game pieces were defined, and they had no fictional positioning as we'd understand the term.  The boards of this game were pregenerated and prepopulated, and the game was played as purely an open ended tactical wargame with apparently even less meta-story than Nethack.  While the PC's could propose anything they wanted, it was the DM's job to continue to refine the player proposition down until it was a simple defineable tactical move - "go 3" closer to the orc and attack".  Any interaction with the setting was meaningless unless predefined, and players acting under these constraints soon adopted very straight forward propositions.

And while I'd argue that even under those constraints, there is a significant amount of improvisation going on and nothing much like "code breaking" (which I agree with pemerton is a term that apparently only means decision making), the goal of this play was clearly to reduce the DM's role as much as possible to neutral arbiter of a wargaming scenario.  

Despite the illusionism of pretending that the DM wasn't making arbitrary choices and therefore couldn't possibly be an unbiased rules engine, H&W's group was happy with this and enjoyed it.  So you can imagine his dismay no doubt when TSR steadily produced materials that didn't conform to his groups definition of D&D.  You can also see why H&W repeatedly refers to the need to convert the official published materials of D&D in order to first play the game.  Because the official published materials don't limit themselves to this neat tightly confined little world, and have to first be converted into something more resembling Nethack before they can be played.  The 'real D&D' - by which he means merely what he was used to at the time - was being killed by... real D&D.

UPDATE: After closely reading the thread, I realize I've erred in giving H&W too much benefit of the doubt.  He now claims that he was introduced to D&D post 1985.  By this point, TSR has published works like 'Dragonlance', and had gone as far as producing chapters of novels based on the text of adventure modules.  The idea that story isn't part of an RPG, to the extent it ever existed anyway since it's easy to prove that Blackmoor started with story first and added rules later, is well and dead.


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## Umbran (Oct 12, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> howandwhy99 has left me no evidence based approach to proving points




Much like Edwards in this as well, hey what?  It can be (and has been) argued that Edwards' reliance on his theoretical structure, without grounding in empirical evidence, was the source of many of the flaws in his work.

Back in 1999, WotC did market research, and it did reveal some segmentation of players, but it wasn't quite on the G/N/S axes.  I'd much rather see a form based on that empirical discovery than one worked out in theory, trying to wedge real-world play activity into it after the fact.


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## Bleys Icefalcon (Oct 12, 2015)

N'raac said:


> Not to age you, but Chainmail is over 40 years now – Strategic Review turned 40 this year, and OD&D hit 40 last year. Makes me feel old, I’ll admit. But maybe that’s because I don’t want to admit (to myself) that I am getting old, if not there already. Sigh…




God Blessit - no one is supposed to run those figures in their head.  I am old...   I feel thin, stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread...


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## Celebrim (Oct 12, 2015)

A very brief history of the origin of RPGs.

The modern RPG was created by Dave Arneson using ideas developed by David Wesely and Gary Gygax, who in turn had many inspirations.  Gygax would then formalize Arneson's play into a set of published rules that became known as D&D.

Wesely was an avid reader of professional wargaming theory.  Unlike the amateur games of the day, professional games were still heavily dependent on arbitration.  A typical scenario was a sort of 'play by memo', which participants in separate rooms and a judge reading all the proposed moves sent to them.  Because the proposed moves were supposed to be identical to real world orders and courses of action, they weren't constrained to an abstract board or set of codified rules.  The orders were read by a panel of expert judges, that would then respond with the consequences of the actions.   Wesely organized a rather short series of chaotic games of this sort with himself as the judge which, despite the complete lack of rules or anything like a mastermind pattern, were very well received and highly influential.   In particular, Arneson - who'd become bored with the dreary sameness of moving pieces about in normal wargame scenarios - was taken with the idea of running a more freeform game in the style Wesely had introduced for a medieval setting where the participants were various knights, bishops, and other influential persons, with himself as the judge and after a session or two Gygax's Chainmail used to adjudicate combat between the various parties, their armies and retainers, and invading forces.  The early focus of the game was largely economic, but the longer the group played the more they enjoyed playing out the choices and actions of the individual personalities they'd assumed and the more personal the action became.

Thus, right from the start, even before something like D&D can be said to exist, the interest of play was primarily personal and story driven.  Indeed, the game was invented as a story framework for generating scenarios, which would be improvised by a referee and judged in large part by fiat.  

Because Gygax's Chainmail had a fantasy supplement, and because Arneson was becoming bored with the economic aspect of fantasy kingdom management, one especially memorable scenario had the major participants in the story leave behind their armies and delve into a ruined castle filled with monsters.   Although it never fully eclipsed the rest of play, exploration of the dungeons of Castle Blackmoor rapidly became the most popular part of the Blackmoor game and dominate focus of play.  D&D had effectively been born.  Gygax observed one session and was immediately taken with the potential of the game.  He set up his own campaign in Castle Greyhawk using his children as the first playtesters, and immediately set out to create a marketable set of rules.  

There was never a point in any of this that it didn't depend almost entirely on improvisation.  Neither Gygax or Arneson said, "Before I can play I need a regularized content generation system produced by a decipherable mechanical pattern, and I need to make my decisions in such a way that the players can reverse engineer the rules of the system."   Gygax and Arneson largely made up everything as they went along, and while Gygax at least leaned toward formalizing a sharable rules set, all of D&D's early rules sets Chainmail/OD&D/Basic/AD&D relied heavily on DM improvisation _and said so._.  The game rules aren't shy about the fact that DM's will need to be able to improvise solutions and content.


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## Zak S (Oct 13, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> I don't see the difference.  If my character is not good tactically, then it would be extraordinarily bad roleplay to be at my best with tactics and overcome his deficiencies.  Therefore, I am also going to intentionally be not that good tactically.  The imagined expertise of my PC is critical to how I will behave tactically.  I will never overcome the PC's tactical limitations, because I'm not supposed to.




Exactly my point:

Your choice of tactics is limited to the ones your limited PC could make, but within that you have a wide range of possible interesting choices--and this is good and fun.

These games involve creativity within restraints which make for interesting choices, the PCs imaginary limits (psychological, physical and situational) are such restraints.


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## Celebrim (Oct 13, 2015)

The 1st edition AD&D DMG was published in 1979, about 5-6 years before H&W would be introduced to the hobby, but apparently some time after the hobby had been ruined by the notion that the DM was something more than just a referee and the game generally ruined by the fact that it was no longer an exalted grand game of Mastermind or Fairy Chess.

When describing how a novice DM was to set a campaign in motion on page 87, that clueless noob E. Gary Gygax had the temerity to describe the game thusly:



> "On the other hand, there is nothing to say that you are not capable of creating your own starting place; just use whichever method is best suited to your available time and more likely to please your players.  Until you are sure of yourself, lean upon the book.  *Improvisation might be fine later*, but until you are completely relaxed as a DM, don't run the risk of trying to "wing it" *unless absolutely necessary.*"




But although this information is hidden away on page 87, there is an even more startling suggestion made on page 9 in the introduction as practically one of the first things that is said.  

And that suggestion is simply this - the DM should suspend the rules of the game if they are getting too much in the way of the player's well conceived goals.  In other words, not only is the DM told that he may put his finger on the scales with partially, but actually that he should, and not only that but he should be doing so in the service of creating a particular narrative.  Read this little bit of 'blasphemy':



> For example, the rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil the game by interfering with an orderly expedition.  You have set up an area full of clever tricks and traps, populated it with well thought out creature complexes, given clues about it to pique players' interest, and the group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of imagination and equipment that they will need to face and overcome the imagined perils.   They are gathered together and eager to spend an enjoyable evening playing their favorite game, with the expectation of going to a new strange area and doing their best to triumph.....But, Lo!  Everytime you throw the "monster die" is a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party's strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area...Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monster indicated by the die.




What's this!  The players are in danger of not reaching your newly created interesting sublevel of some dungeon somewhere that you labored over?  The players' plans for the evening might be frustrated?  Just fudge the dice says the writer!  Suspend the rules.  Don't just allow the players to fail because the dice say so; act partially toward the players and don't even mention that nasty that would have depleted their resources.  

Who does this guy think he is, and just what would he know about RPGs?


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## Zak S (Oct 13, 2015)

N'raac said:


> If you find people who are emotionally impacted by the "danger" the King is in because they are placing themselves in the shoes of the King, I suppose so.



Yes. Precisely my point



> Now, if you also then decide your King panics and makes a less than optimal move as a consequence (rather than YOU panicking about the prospect of losing the game and moving the king in a less than optimal manner), then we're getting into a role playing game.




But this is only relevant to our conversation if you assume that the threshold for "realness" of a character (and therefore as a human) is that they panic under pressure.

Not all real humans do, therefore not all "real" characters do.




> In most games as in "classic board games", when the player loses, he is out of the game until a new game begins.  D&D does not have to end for me to play again - the game continues and I rejoin it.




Yes, but not with the same character picking up in the same place, therefore you don't play in exactly the same way.

A character represents a WAY to play in the campaign (as Frodo, a hobbit from the shire for example). PC death means you lose that and that is a fate players famously very often seek to avoid. Many people would rather lose a game of chess than a treasured character in D&D, because they are as "real" as characters in angstgames.



> Actually, a heroic death in D&D (or a very much in character and meaningful death) can be a marvelous capstone to a character's career.




The word "can" makes this sentence true.



> Insipidly creeping along making "the best tactical choice in each situation" is infinitely worse.




The adverb "insipidly" here makes this sentence a piece of disturbing onetruewayism and retroactively explains all your other comments.

It looks like what you're trying to say is:

"I have a preference for games that encourage angsty characters and the way I express this preference is by saying other people's less angsty characters aren't 'real' or that the playstyle of these players is 'insipid' or 'not fun' despite the fact that absolute nothing backs this up at all. It's just my taste ."



> "I never make a tactical error" characters may sometimes be appropriate,



This is outside the scope of the discussion--we are talking about characters that make mistakes only when the player does, not characters that are infallible. And they're super fun.
Batman, Elektra, James Bond...



> This is a classic dichotomy between ROLE PLAYING and "Roll Playing".



LOL at anyone saying that in 2015.

I get that you have had bad experiences at the table with people who are into playing tactically clever PCs and have been unable to also give those characters personalities in a way that interests you, but it's not rational to generalize to everyone's experience from your own.

Simply put:

A lot of people apparently handle this way better than whoever you were playing with that made you come to such a bizarre conclusion about the entire world. You can assume they don't exist and I made them up, but I can't imagine what possible motive I could have to do that. I'm not going to log onto a forum just to pretend something is fun that totally isn't fun, I don't get anything out of that.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 13, 2015)

Umbran said:


> You know that it is literally impossible to rewrite an open culture in a *closed* subset community, right?  Within a closed group, you can at best rewrite the culture of the closed group.  This is obvious in how the Forge *utterly failed* to rewrite all game culture.  The world today plods along rather like it did before the Forge, just with a few extra game designs out there.



Except is doesn't as can be evidenced by a new "discipline" used to study games as "games have never been studied before", which begins by not treating them actual games, but as narratives. Mass cultural conformity and suppression of ideas.



> And, as already noted, I don't see how your current approach is really any different than theirs.  You don't seem to allow any room for dissent either.  Your writing is very, "my way is the only Truth," much like Edwards was before he realized his own model was not his favorite any more, which kind of put the lie to how his theory was The One.



Edwards has disavowed The Big Model as wrong? That's news.

I"m not seeking to propose a model on how all games everywhere should be thought of and spoken of, a complete redefining of game terms instead of an honest canvasing of their use. History has been forgotten. Most people I know in the hobby for only 10-15 years have no understanding at all of why any of the things that used to be in the game could ever be conceived as being needed. Why is it mandatory for play to use dice? maps? minis? hidden information? note passing? awarding XP? 

Don't listen to me, if you wish. But don't pretend RPGs are what the Forge sought to subvert them into "all along".



> With respect, you are not the accepted arbiter of history.  Many people have pointed out how your view of history is inaccurate.  Moreover, you have failed to establish that, even if your history was accurate, that this history forms the definitions we need to use forevermore.  It is just as (and likely more) reasonable to say that in the early history of RPGs, the authors actually knew very little about the subject, as it was new, and we would be best served to apply the greater understanding time has granted us to inform our designs and play going forward.



With respect, we are all the arbiters of history. It is up to each and every one of us to insure things like this contemporary cultural genocide against gamers and game culture doesn't occur.



> This is a largely anonymous community - how do you know you're not referring to someone here?



Of course I don't. This is a public forum open to everyone. But by my reading I'm not referring to anyone here.



> Let us be very clear on this - calling people liars is generally a Bad Move.  You don't seem to allow for the difference between "being duplicitous" and "being wrong" or the even less problematic, "have a different opinion/preference in a space with no objective fact".  You speak as if anyone who disagrees with you actually knows you are correct, and is lying - you need to do a lot of work to establish that guilt before throwing around such accusations.



I agree plenty of pepole are simply uneducated and believing in falsehoods about "gaming", the lie that it is "making stuff up". And while I believe the vast majority of people simply take what is at hand and enjoy it for what it is, unknowingly perpetuating falsehoods doesn't mean these shouldn't be contradicted and corrected.


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## Maxperson (Oct 13, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Well, you're wrong about everything above.




Seriously?  I give reasoning and examples and you respond with "Nuh, uh!"?  Nice.  



> What you're expressing is a widespread falsehood. And what this thread is about proving the obvious invalidity of.



It has never been false and nothing in this has even remotely come close to proving that it is.  You keep making unsubstantiated claims, and they yelling "Nuh uh!" at the evidence that shows you to be wrong, but that's about it.



> Roleplaying was part of wargaming for decades, long before the _hobby_ of wargaming learned about it and took the term up for D&D and its ilk. That's why the name of the hobby is roleplaying, not storytelling. Gary repeated such stuff his whole life.




I quoted him saying otherwise.  He owned the company, so no one could have forced him to say those things.


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## Maxperson (Oct 13, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> I have said it before, but it deserves to be said again. Game culture is being whitewashed out of existence by attempts to redefine it as storytelling, primarily now by people in enterprises like "game studies" and other narrative absolutists.
> 
> I fully believe this will continue until gamers in mass stand up and demand this censorship masquerading as bigoted falsehoods stop.




This his has been a definition of games for centuries.  It's not something new that "storytellers" have come up with.


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## Maxperson (Oct 13, 2015)

N'raac said:


> With all respect, and full acknowledgement this is an accurate dictionary definition, I don't find it a helpful definition in the context of this discussion.  In fairness, that is more likely because I (and, I think some others) are restricting the terms "Game" to "Game with mechanical rules" than because we are correctly using the more broad, and more technically correct, definition of a "game".




This is why it's relevant.  Howandwhy is trying to set up RPGs as being rules only with no improv, theater or other aspects.  The definition I provided is used in conjunction with the definition dealing with rules when it comes to RPGs.  It's not one or the other and I'm calling attention to that definition, because it's part of D&D, and therefore, part of any discussion dealing what what kind of game D&D is.


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## RedShirtNo5.1 (Oct 13, 2015)

Gary Gygax said:
			
		

> Two major adventuring areas were thus solidly in play early on 1973. There were the castle ruins and its dungeons and there was the city, with key places that players’ characters would likely visit indicated by color: red for a tavern or inn, gold for a money changer or gemner, gray for a weapon and arms dealer, green for a merchant, blue for a temple, purple for the place of a potent wizard, etc. *Other areas around the city were developed on the spot as the need arose. As a matter of fact, all of the adventures in the City of Greyhawk were “winged”, created from whole cloth on the spot,* for being so immersed in the game it was quite easy to create exciting encounters, and play character roles suitable for such a fantasy city.




The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.


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## Maxperson (Oct 13, 2015)

RedShirtNo5.1 said:


> The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.




Gary's advice in the 1e DMG was also for the DM to just change rules and rolls that he didn't like or didn't make things more exciting for the players.  Rules took a backseat to story in his games.


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## Campbell (Oct 13, 2015)

Umbran said:


> This is the same logical failure that GNS makes, considering player agendas.
> 
> Real people have several balls in the air at once, several things they are doing, several things they want, several things they need to do, and they don't often fall out into very clear priorities.  We need to deal with that reality.




Those statements were put out not as conclusions, but as something to consider and discuss.

Here's my take: We very much do need to deal with that as a reality. Cognitive biases, emotional responses, and conflicting priorities are very much a real thing. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to tame that jumbled mess. Principled play is important precisely because of this reality. We're never really going to eliminate cognitive biases, and I'm not entirely sure we should. Still there definitely is value in mitigating them sometimes.

I feel like when you let one part of running the game have too dramatic an impact on the others it starts to mask deficiencies. The pain I feel when I frame a boring scene or design a lopsided combat encounter is important, and lessening that impact in adjudication hinders my ability to see that.  Likewise if I mask a poor ruling by changing up content midstream it's hard for me to see that impact in a meaningful way that will improve my rulings in the future. Pain is part of the process. I might slightly improve play in the moment, but it hurts my ability to improve the way I run the game in the long term. It's all about being as honest as I can with myself, honing my skills, and improving the bell curve of play.


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## pemerton (Oct 13, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> What's this!  The players are in danger of not reaching your newly created interesting sublevel of some dungeon somewhere that you labored over?  The players' plans for the evening might be frustrated?  Just fudge the dice says the writer!  Suspend the rules.  Don't just allow the players to fail because the dice say so; act partially toward the players and don't even mention that nasty that would have depleted their resources.





Maxperson said:


> Gary's advice in the 1e DMG was also for the DM to just change rules and rolls that he didn't like or didn't make things more exciting for the players.



Although Gygax didn't use contemporary terminology, I think it's tolerably clear that when he talks about suspending the rules he is talking about _content introduction_ rather than _action resolution_. For instance, in the passage about wandering monsters that Celebrim quoted, he says it would be contrary to the precepts of the game to have the monster turn up but then fudge the combat.

In a later passage on managing play, he does canvass alternatives to PC death on zero hp, but stresses that they must still give effect to the monster's victory in combat. So the options would be unconsciousness or maiming in lieu of death. This is an early version of the 4e/5e rule that zero hp can be unconsciousness rather than death. (And the benefit is meant to be confined to players who played well but got unlucky - so there's a GM gatekeeper role that's absent in 4e/5e, and which also sits oddly with [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]'s conception of the GM's function.)

Somewhat similarly, when Gygax emphasises the priority of the GM's judgment in the game, I think he is mostly emphasising the role of the GM in adjudicating fictional positioning. I don't think he is saying that the GM is entitled to engage in some sort of dice-roll-ignoring free-for-all.



howandwhy99 said:


> People cannot play D&D without a design to be deciphered in place prior to play.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Maybe you never really thought about why there are so many random tables in D&D or never really knew.



With respect, this is a non-sequitur.

No one is disputing that D&D depends upon the GM to manage backstory - drawing maps, generating content etc. But in Gygaxian "skilled play" the goal of play isn't to work out _what method the GM used to create all this stuff_. The goal, rather, is to work out _the details of this stuff_. From the players' point of view it is irrelevant whether the GM chose to put a troll in room 3 of level 4, or whether that was the result of a random roll.

The function of the random tables is to help the GM generate content. But - to repeat - having played this game for over 30 years, and having read a lot of material for it (including material going back to the 1970s before I started playing) I have never heard it suggested that the goal of play is for the players to work out what random tables the GM is using to generate content.


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## Celebrim (Oct 13, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Although Gygax didn't use contemporary terminology, I think it's tolerably clear that when he talks about suspending the rules he is talking about _content introduction_ rather than _action resolution_. For instance, in the passage about wandering monsters that Celebrim quoted, he says it would be contrary to the precepts of the game to have the monster turn up but then fudge the combat.




I agree.  And as a general rule, I'd not assert a book says something unless I had a specific passage in mind.

From Gygax's perspective, the DM is free to introduce or not introduce anything he wants.  But he wants the DMs he's coaching to follow the rules once something is in play.  Notably, at one point he mentions that the players will expect him to do so.  I think the idea here is that not having a combat so that you can do something more exciting is a good thing.  But wasting time on a combat that doesn't have a doubtable outcome is a bad thing on several levels.  For Gygax, as much as anything, rewarding players for winning such a combat would be wrong, as it removing value from any of the player's other victories by causing them to doubt whether they'd earned them.

Of course, by removing a meaningless low reward random encounter from the dungeon simply to speed the players into the depths for the purposes of a particular expedition, he's still in some since making the whole foray easier.  The wandering encounter might be replaced in play time by an even more challenging prepared encounter, but the prepared encounter would still have been there.  They way to the treasure has has been made easier and purposely so.

In that sense, Gygax really is fudging the system for the purposes of promoting what he sees as D&D's core story - overcoming challenges and earning the treasure through wits and skillful play.  Notice the marker he considers to be the important sign that wandering monsters should be suspended - the players have well and skillfully prepared for the expedition.  They got all their stuff together.  They made appropriate plans.  It would it appear be bad DMing to overthrow such well laid plans by mere random chance.



> No one is disputing that D&D depends upon the GM to manage backstory - drawing maps, generating content etc. But in Gygaxian "skilled play" the goal of play isn't to work out _what method the GM used to create all this stuff_. The goal, rather, is to work out _the details of this stuff_. From the players' point of view it is irrelevant whether the GM chose to put a troll in room 3 of level 4, or whether that was the result of a random roll.




Well said.  Equally, Gygax seems unconcerned with when the content is prepared, except that he believes (correctly I'd assert) that creating high quality content is difficult and as such, as much as possible it should be prepared before hand rather than in play.  In the particular passage I quoted, Gygax doesn't say you shouldn't improvise.  He just suggests that until you are experienced, you should not wing it unless you absolutely have to.    

Fundamentally, I agree that it is difficult or impossible to avoid bias when a DM improvises.  I'm not a proponent of relying on improvisation.  But preparing things between sessions is not total defense against bias, or against poor quality material, or against DM's trying to manipulate player choices unduly.  From the player's point of view, it's irrelevant whether a room was populated in the DM's head 30 seconds ago, or whether the DM populated it 3 hours ago.  In many cases, it's the exact same mental procedure, and the main thing that has changed is the time pressure that the DM is under.

No process of play or preparation can protect completely against bad DMing.


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## Maxperson (Oct 13, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Although Gygax didn't use contemporary terminology, I think it's tolerably clear that when he talks about suspending the rules he is talking about _content introduction_ rather than _action resolution_. For instance, in the passage about wandering monsters that Celebrim quoted, he says it would be contrary to the precepts of the game to have the monster turn up but then fudge the combat.
> 
> In a later passage on managing play, he does canvass alternatives to PC death on zero hp, but stresses that they must still give effect to the monster's victory in combat. So the options would be unconsciousness or maiming in lieu of death. This is an early version of the 4e/5e rule that zero hp can be unconsciousness rather than death. (And the benefit is meant to be confined to players who played well but got unlucky - so there's a GM gatekeeper role that's absent in 4e/5e, and which also sits oddly with [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]'s conception of the GM's function.)




Knocking a PC unconscious instead of killing the PC is fudging combat.  Gygax was consistent.  The game has rules, but don't let the rules rule you, you rule the rules.  Change them if they interfere with you.  That's improvisation, and it's also against what Howandwhy has been saying a game is.  The players can't know or track back things in a game where the rules can change on the fly, and in D&D the DM has always been able to change the rules on the fly.



> Somewhat similarly, when Gygax emphasises the priority of the GM's judgment in the game, I think he is mostly emphasising the role of the GM in adjudicating fictional positioning. I don't think he is saying that the GM is entitled to engage in some sort of dice-roll-ignoring free-for-all.
> 
> With respect, this is a non-sequitur.




It's also a Strawman.  Nobody has said D&D is supposed to be a dice-roll-ignoring free-for-all, but the DM can ignore the dice when they get in the way of the game's excitement.  Story is part of the game's excitement.



> No one is disputing that D&D depends upon the GM to manage backstory - drawing maps, generating content etc. But in Gygaxian "skilled play" the goal of play isn't to work out _what method the GM used to create all this stuff_. The goal, rather, is to work out _the details of this stuff_. From the players' point of view it is irrelevant whether the GM chose to put a troll in room 3 of level 4, or whether that was the result of a random roll.




The goal was to have fun playing a character with a personality, goals, desires and more, who explores and overcomes challenges, and as a result wins treasure and the princess.  



> The function of the random tables is to help the GM generate content. But - to repeat - having played this game for over 30 years, and having read a lot of material for it (including material going back to the 1970s before I started playing) I have never heard it suggested that the goal of play is for the players to work out what random tables the GM is using to generate content.




I agree.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Oct 13, 2015)

Umbran said:


> You know that sounds like conspiracy theory, right?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Absolutely seconded. In fact I'm going to go one step further. There is nothing wrong with the principles [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] is claiming for some games. But D&D was founded on the absolute rejection of those principles. It was founded on Arneson playing Braunstein rejecting his role as students' revolutionary leader and instead playing "con artist pretending to be from the CIA". In other words fundamentally rejecting his soical role and pushing at the boundaries to see what could be done.

And Braunstein itself was a freeform LARP. A game with adjudication and without rules. And D&D came out of the GM losing control of his game.

It was further cemented through the Castles and Crusades society and Arneson's group rejecting their massed battles and instead going for stealing magic swords off each other and counting coup in a way not covered by the rules to the point Gygax visited to ask them wtf they were doing. Because they were fundamentally rejecting the social roles built into the game in favour of what they found more interesting.

Board games and computer games are frequently as Howandwhy99 describes (indeed Papers Please might be the platonic ideal of such a game). Team Sports, especially American Football, also work that way a lot. D&D on the other hand was founded on rejecting that paradigm.


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## Maxperson (Oct 13, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> From Gygax's perspective, the DM is free to introduce or not introduce anything he wants.  But he wants the DMs he's coaching to follow the rules once something is in play.  Notably, at one point he mentions that the players will expect him to do so.  I think the idea here is that not having a combat so that you can do something more exciting is a good thing.  But wasting time on a combat that doesn't have a doubtable outcome is a bad thing on several levels.  For Gygax, as much as anything, rewarding players for winning such a combat would be wrong, as it removing value from any of the player's other victories by causing them to doubt whether they'd earned them.
> 
> Of course, by removing a meaningless low reward random encounter from the dungeon simply to speed the players into the depths for the purposes of a particular expedition, he's still in some since making the whole foray easier.  The wandering encounter might be replaced in play time by an even more challenging prepared encounter, but the prepared encounter would still have been there.  They way to the treasure has has been made easier and purposely so.




I don't think that's what he meant by that passage.  What I think he was talking about was fun.  If the DM has prepared an exiting castle of dread that the players are going to love, don't ruin the game by hitting the players with combats that are going to bore them or slow them down from reaching the excitement.  They're looking forward to reaching the castle, so random encounters, whether easy or hard, are going to take away from that.



> Fundamentally, I agree that it is difficult or impossible to avoid bias when a DM improvises.  I'm not a proponent of relying on improvisation.  But preparing things between sessions is not total defense against bias, or against poor quality material, or against DM's trying to manipulate player choices unduly.  From the player's point of view, it's irrelevant whether a room was populated in the DM's head 30 seconds ago, or whether the DM populated it 3 hours ago.  In many cases, it's the exact same mental procedure, and the main thing that has changed is the time pressure that the DM is under.




What sort of bias do you think a DM has when improvising?


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## S'mon (Oct 13, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> H&W has us believe that the real D&D is obviously one that exists only in his head.  How exactly this situation came about, I'm not sure, but I'm willing to guess that it came about through improvisation.  I'm willing to bet that H&W began play of D&D sometime between 1975 and 1980, or else was accepted into a table that began in that period and had its roots in war gaming - and that this table had no direct connection to the Wisconsin group.  This is roughly the time my cousin began play in central Arkansas, having met an old school punch card computer programmer who had ran into the game some years before while in college.  At the time, the rules of D&D were very incomplete, were badly written, badly organized, sometimes contradictory, contained numerous errors, and cross referenced other TSR rule sets that were hard to come by.  If you wanted to play at all during this period, you had to improvise heavily to create a functioning set of house rules based on what you assumed that the designers were doing when playing.  Remember, how you prepare to play and how you think about playing an RPG is more important than the rules.   Apparently at H&W's table, the improvised version of D&D was one of many early forks off D&D that moved the game in a somewhat odd direction (Peterson records several contemporary and predecessors to D&D that were occurring at wargaming conventions, most of which do not in fact meet H&W's definition of game as some had no rules engine at all beyond referee improvisation).  In this version of D&D the DM's purpose was merely mechanical.  A limited number of game pieces were defined, and they had no fictional positioning as we'd understand the term.  The boards of this game were pregenerated and prepopulated, and the game was played as purely an open ended tactical wargame with apparently even less meta-story than Nethack.  While the PC's could propose anything they wanted, it was the DM's job to continue to refine the player proposition down until it was a simple defineable tactical move - "go 3" closer to the orc and attack".  Any interaction with the setting was meaningless unless predefined, and players acting under these constraints soon adopted very straight forward propositions.
> 
> And while I'd argue that even under those constraints, there is a significant amount of improvisation going on and nothing much like "code breaking" (which I agree with pemerton is a term that apparently only means decision making), the goal of this play was clearly to reduce the DM's role as much as possible to neutral arbiter of a wargaming scenario.
> 
> Despite the illusionism of pretending that the DM wasn't making arbitrary choices and therefore couldn't possibly be an unbiased rules engine, H&W's group was happy with this and enjoyed it.  So you can imagine his dismay no doubt when TSR steadily produced materials that didn't conform to his groups definition of D&D.  You can also see why H&W repeatedly refers to the need to convert the official published materials of D&D in order to first play the game.  Because the official published materials don't limit themselves to this neat tightly confined little world, and have to first be converted into something more resembling Nethack before they can be played.  The 'real D&D' - by which he means merely what he was used to at the time - was being killed by... real D&D.




That was a nice story. 
It could form the basis of an interesting retro-stupid ironic Heartbreaker like Encounter 
Critical, only with more charts and much less roleplaying.


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## S'mon (Oct 13, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> ...Mass cultural conformity and suppression of ideas...
> ...this contemporary cultural genocide against gamers and game culture...




 Now I'm thinking you must be a troll from grognards.txt or somesuch. This is just too 
extreme.


----------



## N'raac (Oct 13, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Obviously you're wrong.




Obviously you're wrong.



howandwhy99 said:


> But naysaying isn't helping anyone here.




That one you got right.. 



howandwhy99 said:


> I agree with everything prior to this, but not this.




Unsurprising.  The umpire/referee does not design a playing field or make tactical decisions for the opponents.  Play does not stop while one team or player asks how a rule should be applied.  All of these activities are examples of how the DM is more a participant than any umpire/referee.



howandwhy99 said:


> when we remove the improv during a game. So the pattern of the field of play and rules can be deciphered through play.




This is the opposite of what happened with Kreigsspiel.  The original designer labelled it “not a game” and provided no improv.  The later designers added improv and it was perceived as moving towards, not away from, being a game.  The opposite of your premise that improv is not consistent with “a gane”.

You just said in the previous quote, "IOW, it was viewed as the façade of a game, but not actually a game, by its own designers."



howandwhy99 said:


> But victory points are there. XP score. Since it's a cooperative game no one's declared "the winner".




The absence of a winner is a difference between RPG’s and “games” commonly cited by RPG designers and authors.  “A winner” is a requirement in some widely held definitions of “game”.  They aren’t the only valid definitions, but neither is yours.



howandwhy99 said:


> And yet the game system is incomplete. Maybe you mean "unfun"?




D&D is also incomplete.  And I mean “broken”.  Some people enjoy figuring out how to break the game, making a broken game more fun to them.



howandwhy99 said:


> So Toon is a game that covers every player attempt and the others are broken. Go figure.




That is the only logical conclusion which can be reached based on your definitions.



howandwhy99 said:


> As I said before, the books are suggestions, not an all encompassing design. There are multiple suggestions covering the same areas even. And of course the obligatory - DMs are never allowed to improvise in D&D.




Your view on the prohibition against improve has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked above, so no point reiterating that here.  I will however, note that the only way to turn those suggestions into an all encompassing design is to improvise as gaps arise.



howandwhy99 said:


> I take it you didn't miss all the DM screens published for every version of D&D? Do you not know why they were there? Like why all the modules had maps for tracking locations? Is any of the mere existence of this stuff proof for you?




Screens were a means of hiding information, including module design and even die rolls.  Many gamers find secret rolls inappropriate if we are to “let the dice fall where they may”, and roll in the open.  Why are they published?  Because many GM’s use them as both shields and references (they all have reference tables, not just sight blockers with nice pictures), and therefore they could generate revenue.  Maps are also illustrations to provide greater description in less space, and I didn’t tend to draw on mine in 25+ years of GMing.



howandwhy99 said:


> Gary left a lot up to individual DMs.




Indeed he did.  As cited repeatedly above, he knew no rule set could cover all possibilities, nor was it even desirable, so he expected DMs to improvise.



howandwhy99 said:


> D&D is the first RPG. By my understanding Kriegspiel was a wargame.




The designer’s title said it was not a game.  I credit his interpretation over yours.



howandwhy99 said:


> You're ignoring all the dozens and dozens of tables for the DM to roll on in D&D? I prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what a DM is for and you choose to forget the DM does have to roll all that stuff up?




You are ignoring or misinterpreting their purpose.  They are there to assist the DM in generating content, often by stimulating ideas.  They are not there to replace the DM’s role as content designer. Rolling a Vorpal Sword held by a first level adversary would mean “roll again” rather than “lucky players” in most well run games.  The exceptions would soon see the appellation “Monty Haul” added.



howandwhy99 said:


> One player can stop playing in another person's game of Mastermind and run another game for someone else.




Are you now saying Gary’s intro was wrong, or simply less than universal? 



Zak S said:


> But this is only relevant to our conversation if you assume that the threshold for "realness" of a character (and therefore as a human) is that they panic under pressure.




That is not the only possible means of effecting a realistic character.  Perfection, however, is far from realistic.



Zak S said:


> A character represents a WAY to play in the campaign (as Frodo, a hobbit from the shire for example). PC death means you lose that and that is a fate players famously very often seek to avoid. Many people would rather lose a game of chess than a treasured character in D&D, because they are as "real" as characters in angstgames.




Some players seek to avoid character death.  Others are quite prepared to take great risk for potentially great reward.  This is covered in detail above.  



Zak S said:


> It looks like what you're trying to say is:
> 
> "I have a preference for games that encourage angsty characters and the way I express this preference is by saying other people's less angsty characters aren't 'real' or that the playstyle of these players is 'insipid' or 'not fun' despite the fact that absolute nothing backs this up at all. It's just my taste ."




It looks like you are saying one cannot have a personality without being angsty.  My taste in RPG’s is definitely for characters with personalities, and not simple pawns on the board.  That is my preference for RPG’s.  That someone may prefer to reduce the RPG to a boardgame is fine – I also like  a lot of boardgames.  But a boardgame has different goals than an RPG, which is a common “introduction to new gamers” topic in RPG books.  If I want a boardgame, I will play a boardgame.  If the goal was to play an RPG, that is what I came to play.



Zak S said:


> This is outside the scope of the discussion--we are talking about characters that make mistakes only when the player does, not characters that are infallible. And they're super fun.
> Batman, Elektra, James Bond...




“infallible” typically means “cannot lose”.  The potential these characters will lose makes their stories worth reading.  They are highly competent. They are not infallible.



Zak S said:


> I get that you have had bad experiences at the table with people who are into playing tactically clever PCs and have been unable to also give those characters personalities in a way that interests you, but it's not rational to generalize to everyone's experience from your own.




I can accept your statement as long as I classify most of the Internet as “not rational”.  Your own experiences are generalized into discussions here and in the AP thread, for example.


----------



## S'mon (Oct 13, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Although Gygax didn't use contemporary terminology, I think it's tolerably clear that when he talks about suspending the rules he is talking about _content introduction_ rather than _action resolution_.




Yes - Gygax advocates nuance in using procedures for content generation, but is pretty 
strongly anti-fudging in action resolution. At most he's ok with the occasional PC left for 
dead rather than slain outright, as something the GM can just decide.


----------



## Celebrim (Oct 13, 2015)

S'mon said:


> It could form the basis of an interesting retro-stupid ironic Heartbreaker like Encounter Critical, only with more charts and much less roleplaying.




At one time, I considered evolving Fairy Chess into an RPG.  You'd take a piece.  It would have certain moves.  Maybe it would have some special moves 4e style that would recharge over time.  Things could take a certain number of hits, and have a certain chance of attacking successfully, and so forth.   Monsters would be fairy chess pieces of their own.   The dungeon would be a vast complicated board.   I think that game would meet H&W's definition of a true RPG.   Ironically, I'm not entirely sure it would meet my definition of it.

I think a good example of what H&W thinks a true RPG and how it should play is the RPG introduced by the game Card Hunter, both as the play of that game (which resembles an elaborate sort of fairy chess) and as the meta-story that the game is about.  Now, I don't actually consider Card Hunter a true RPG, but in the color background for the game (which is very well done BTW) the players supposedly playing the game do consider it a true RPG.   I can't help but hear H&W's posts in the voice of the power gaming veteran Card Hunter ex-champion cousin in that game, who is continually bemoaning that kids these days don't understand that the game is meant to be a true test of skill and not some sort of mere fun.  There's even one Card Hunter adventure where the cousin is excited because the perfect DM has been invented - a computer.


----------



## howandwhy99 (Oct 13, 2015)

N'raac said:


> Obviously you're wrong.



I"m not seeing anything to respond to here for the last few posts. I mean, you refuse to wonder why 1000s of books with weighted stats for an intricate design pattern were published for a game and choose to call them story instead.

Again, 
A game is a pattern players play to achieve objectives within them.
A puzzle is a pattern puzzlers puzzle to solve.
A story is a fiction storytellers make up

Puzzles and games are similar because players must have a design to interpret. Whereas storytelling is a different culture altogether. That you blindly deny any and all evidence tot he contrary that D&D is a game, not collaborative storytelling means there's nothing left for us to share.


----------



## Umbran (Oct 13, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> At one time, I considered evolving Fairy Chess into an RPG.  You'd take a piece.  It would have certain moves.  Maybe it would have some special moves 4e style that would recharge over time.  Things could take a certain number of hits, and have a certain chance of attacking successfully, and so forth.   Monsters would be fairy chess pieces of their own.   The dungeon would be a vast complicated board.   I think that game would meet H&W's definition of a true RPG.   Ironically, I'm not entirely sure it would meet my definition of it.




So... Robo Rally?


----------



## Zak S (Oct 13, 2015)

N'raac said:


> That is not the only possible means of effecting a realistic character.  Perfection, however, is far from realistic.



In the case we're describing, a character's tactical choices are only perfect if the player's are and the player is as imperfect as all humans.



> Some players seek to avoid character death.  Others are quite prepared to take great risk for potentially great reward.  This is covered in detail above.



Yes, but the point is your assertion that highly tactical players always treat their PCs as disposable bits (and therefore somehow less "real" than angstgame PCs)that they're unattached to and not invested in  is totally wrong.

You're exaggerating your own preferences and pretending/assuming they cover the whole human race.

That is what we were discussing.



> My taste in RPG’s is definitely for characters with personalities, and not simple pawns on the board. That is my preference for RPG’s. That someone may prefer to reduce the RPG to a boardgame is fine – I also like a lot of boardgames.




You have an Excluded Middle fallacy here, which ignores a very common situation:

A player ISN'T playing Apocalypse World but is instead playing D&D and playing tactically WHILE STILL playing a character with a lot of personality. Much like real-life soldiers try to engage in encounters tactically while still possessing personalities.

This happens all the time and for reasons you're leaving unexplained you're either unaware that this happens or pretending it doesn't.


It looks like you are saying one cannot have a personality without being angsty.  My taste in RPG’s is definitely for characters with personalities, and not simple pawns on the board.  That is my preference for RPG’s.  That someone may prefer to reduce the RPG to a boardgame is fine – I also like  a lot of boardgames.  But a boardgame has different goals than an RPG, which is a common “introduction to new gamers” topic in RPG books.  If I want a boardgame, I will play a boardgame.  If the goal was to play an RPG, that is what I came to play.



“infallible” typically means “cannot lose”.  The potential these characters will lose makes their stories worth reading.  They are highly competent. They are not infallible.



> “infallible” typically means “cannot lose”. The potential these characters will lose makes their stories worth reading. They are highly competent. They are not infallible.




EXACTLY like the PCs we are describing.

If all tactical players were infallible, you couldn't pit them against each other in contests because neither side would ever lose, and you can.




> I can accept your statement as long as I classify most of the Internet as “not rational”.




Most of the internet isn't rational.



> Your own experiences are generalized into discussions here and in the AP thread, for example.




I don't know what you're trying to say here. 

You are claiming a common kind of player/PC combination (tactical player who plays a tactical PC with lots of plausible personality) doesn't exist. This directly contradicts observable reality. It isn't rational. It is like saying trees don't exist. 

I don't know why you're doing this, other than you're own experiences have been limited and it compels you to make hyperbolic statements in order to exaggerate a personal preference for games like AW into something that sounds more profound and objective than it actually is.

I never did that or anything like it.


----------



## Celebrim (Oct 13, 2015)

Umbran said:


> So... Robo Rally?




I own Robo Rally, and yes, it would be I think the same sort of game, but cooperative rather than competitive.  With either an RPG style referee or else, like Robo Rally, a tillable set of boards or some other means of generating content.

But, while I love Twonky and company, I don't think Robo Rally is much of an RPG.


----------



## Celebrim (Oct 13, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> I"m not seeing anything to respond to here for the last few posts.




You wouldn't.  



> I mean, you refuse to wonder why 1000s of books with weighted stats for an intricate design pattern were published for a game and choose to call them story instead.




I'm not refusing to wonder that.  I'm wondering if you could give us a few examples of those "1000s of books", because I have no idea what you are talking about.  What does "weighted stats" mean in this context?   What "intricate design pattern" are you referring to?


----------



## howandwhy99 (Oct 13, 2015)

pemerton said:


> With respect, this is a non-sequitur.
> 
> No one is disputing that D&D depends upon the GM to manage backstory - drawing maps, generating content etc. But in Gygaxian "skilled play" the goal of play isn't to work out _what method the GM used to create all this stuff_. The goal, rather, is to work out _the details of this stuff_. From the players' point of view it is irrelevant whether the GM chose to put a troll in room 3 of level 4, or whether that was the result of a random roll.



"Skilled play"? "code breaking" 
Do you believe in either of those things or just like air quoting? 

Deciphering the mental pattern of a game is a mental gaming. It requires actual ability
Performing the physical pattern of a game is physical gaming. It too requires actual ability
Inventing anything isn't a game at all.

And most importantly, the method is the details. There is no difference.

No DM is "managing backstory". DMs are expressing the design behind the screen. Generating the map, the stats, everything is calculating the code of the game from algorithm to function - to map.

The goal of D&D (most gaming really) is to figure out the pattern of the game to achieve points within it. High XP scores in D&D represent highly proficient players. If you have any desire to be good at D&D as a player, you need to pay attention to the what the DM is saying. Or likely a monster will come along and kill your character while you're not paying attention. That's not a "competitive DM" delusion. The DM isn't even allowed to make stuff up. It's the game design progressing forward as game time is spent at the table - the key resource of D&D.



> The function of the random tables is to help the GM generate content. But - to repeat - having played this game for over 30 years, and having read a lot of material for it (including material going back to the 1970s before I started playing) I have never heard it suggested that the goal of play is for the players to work out what random tables the GM is using to generate content.



In what fever dream are predetermined random tables unavoidably necessary in order to collaboratively invent a story? And yet they have been for D&D for decades. Because storytelling isn't gaming.

The process I am telling you, the process of actual game playing and D&D, requires all the published products D&D resulted in for decades:

The need for referee maps - dungeon geomorphs, monster & treasure assortments, even campaign settings.
The need for modules - wargame-like situational puzzles balanced to the game's design and campaign map (gameboard)
The need for dice - Variance determiners expressing alterable odds through game playing
The need for a screen - hiding the generated code behind a screen with player attempts to move about within and decipher it.
The need for memory / mapping by players - of course learning is the primary behavior of all games and puzzles. Player mapping / note taking are strategies for playing the game well.

I don't think you want to pay D&D. I don't think you want to play games. You've been convinced that narratives are what you want by narrative absolutists. Please stop perpetuating the myth stories are game, play or D&D.


----------



## Umbran (Oct 13, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Except is doesn't as can be evidenced by a new "discipline" used to study games as "games have never been studied before", which begins by not treating them actual games, but as narratives. Mass cultural conformity and suppression of ideas.




"We don't need no education.  We don't need no thought control.  ... Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone!" is what you're going for here?

Well, Pink Floyd is all well and good, but the song shows an extreme misunderstanding of academia.  Really, if you want *conformity*, the last place you want it ensconced is in academic studies - the only way for an academic to stand out is to have something new and different.  

Plus, "mass cultural conformity"?  Have you somewhere presented a citation that there's some significant number of folks actually majoring in "game studies", and that they are *all* in this purported narrative-first form?  Or did you just pull it up out of nowhere?  



> Edwards has disavowed The Big Model as wrong? That's news.




Edwards switched from GNS to Big Model.  While BM does include several aspects of GNS, it also tosses out several aspects of the earlier theory, in favor of new ideas.  In making that switch, there's an admission that GNS was not, "Teh Troof!" as he had effectively asserted for years prior to that.  



> I"m not seeking to propose a model on how all games everywhere should be thought of and spoken of, a complete redefining of game terms instead of an honest canvasing of their use.




Every time you are told that "game" doesn't mean what you assert, you reject it, and you insert your own very narrow definition.  I don't see how you can consider that an "honest canvasing of their use", when you reject any use but your own.



> History has been forgotten. Most people I know in the hobby for only 10-15 years have no understanding at all of why any of the things that used to be in the game could ever be conceived as being needed. Why is it mandatory for play to use dice? maps? minis? hidden information? note passing? awarding XP?




Have you considered that your own understanding of history may be a tad limited or inaccurate?  Or that they have no understanding of why they are needed because we have learned in years past that they aren't, in fact, strictly *needed*?  



> But don't pretend RPGs are what the Forge sought to subvert them into "all along".




From my own experience, and from the rather cogent testimony of others (Celebrim, for example) it seems pretty obvious to me that RPGs have always been multi-faceted, rather than single-faceted as you present.  The Forge didn't actually generate anything new - everything in GNS theory existed well before Edwards came on the scene.  And The Forge didn't even get all of it!

So, no "pretending", but there's way more to the RPG story than what you present.  Sorry.

I am not dogmatic as to what framework I (or anyone) uses to look at the facets of games.  In fact, I strongly advise that you consider that analysis of games is akin to the Blind Men and the Elephant.  



> With respect, we are all the arbiters of history. It is up to each and every one of us to insure things like this contemporary cultural genocide against gamers and game culture doesn't occur.




Hyperbole.  Save "genocide" for when people actually die, please and thank you.

Or, do you just want to go ahead and Godwin the thread already, to get it over with?


----------



## Umbran (Oct 13, 2015)

Campbell said:


> I feel like when you let one part of running the game have too dramatic an impact on the others it starts to mask deficiencies. The pain I feel when I frame a boring scene or design a lopsided combat encounter is important, and lessening that impact in adjudication hinders my ability to see that.  Likewise if I mask a poor ruling by changing up content midstream it's hard for me to see that impact in a meaningful way that will improve my rulings in the future. Pain is part of the process. I might slightly improve play in the moment, but it hurts my ability to improve the way I run the game in the long term. It's all about being as honest as I can with myself, honing my skills, and improving the bell curve of play.




If I, as GM, was the only one feeling the pain, I'd agree with you.  Certainly, continuous improvement and adjustment is a thing a GM should shoot for.  

But, no matter how much theory I talk here, I'm ultimately a fairly practical and service-oriented GM.  I don't want a table of six players to have a lousy night because I can't find another way to learn from my mistakes.


----------



## Manbearcat (Oct 13, 2015)

Campbell said:


> I think we need to stop talking about the way Edwards, and others were talking and thinking about games 10+ years ago unless we are talking about the games they were making back then. Even then we have to be careful, because the initial set of essays were formative. They provided grounds for discussion that resulted in games that don't correlate directly to the initial theory. I'm part of the Indie+ community on Google+, have watched John Harper's design talk Hangouts, and have read some of Vincent Baker's recent theory posts. There is very little mention of story or narrative. It's all focused on we want a game where players do x - how do we get there?




This thread has left this post in the dust, but I have a second and wanted to respond to this.

I know this is the direction that the indie movement is going today, and I understand the impetus to do so.  That being said, I hold that there will always be value in examining play priorities.  It is important not just at the design phase, but also for each and every participant at the table both before and during play.  Generally speaking, recognition that one component of one thing can complement or be at odds with another thing is very valuable.  Zooming in further still, understanding how one system cog or one genre trope or one behavioral approach coheres or conflicts with another is essential if you are aiming for producing as much seamless functionality (with respect to whatever your play priorities are) as possible in your table experience.

Fundamental engineering precepts apply to games (be it American Football or TTRPGs) as much as they do building a structure or deconstructing the chain of events that led to a catastrophic loss.  A forensic knowledge base helps you to broadly understand the spectrum of phenomena at work.  You can then dig down deeper to their component parts and evaluate interactions.  Now you can apply that understanding to create.  

Even if the Forge did not create a better understanding of play priorities (and a wariness of their competing interests/tensions) or how specific GMing techniques (eg GM Force/Illusionism) impact play with respect to those play priorities, the approach to introspection, analysis, and transparency was, and remains, valuable and relevant.


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## N'raac (Oct 14, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Yes, but the point is your assertion that highly tactical players always treat their PCs as disposable bits (and therefore somehow less "real" than angstgame PCs)that they're unattached to and not invested in  is totally wrong.




The "perfect tactic every time and no personality" player and the "power or death - throw the dice lemming character" player are two examples of the "character is but a pawn" mentality I find weakens the game, not commonly found in combination.  That doesn't mean good tactics and good role playing are polar opposites.  It does mean that determining one's actions consistently based solely on what gives the best mechanical bonus, rather than based on the character himself, is poor role playing, and boring to boot, in my view.



Zak S said:


> It looks like you are saying one cannot have a personality without being angsty.




You are the one who brought "angst" in.  When I said "actually having a personality, rather than being a cipher geared solely around the best mechanical bonuses", you decided that meant an angsty character.  "A feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general" is hardly the only personality that can cause one to select less than optimal choices.  A simple respect for life, or bias against certain types of creatures, can cause similar decisions.  Impatience, prejudices, pride, overconfidence, underconfidence, fears, empathy - plenty of things can drive suboptimal tactical decisions.



Zak S said:


> Most of the internet isn't rational.




Well, we have agreement on something, at least.



Zak S said:


> I don't know why you're doing this, other than you're own experiences have been limited and it compels you to make hyperbolic statements in order to exaggerate a personal preference for games like AW into something that sounds more profound and objective than it actually is.




Thank you for telling me my personal preference for a game I have never read or played.  I might have lived my entire life not knowing that I clearly preferred a game I`ve never even seen.  [Oh, wait, looking it up someone on another board just linked in a kickstarter for a game using that engine.  I see nothing in my quick perusal that suggests angst as a core mechanic or requirement, but I`ll assume you know more about it than I - you could not know less.]¸ Pretty sure I have seen the mechanics before, too.

It can`t be a game, can it?  It clearly requires improvising!



Zak S said:


> I never did that or anything like it.




Not sure what you are claiming you never did anything like, but OK.


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## Campbell (Oct 14, 2015)

Umbran said:


> If I, as GM, was the only one feeling the pain, I'd agree with you.  Certainly, continuous improvement and adjustment is a thing a GM should shoot for.
> 
> But, no matter how much theory I talk here, I'm ultimately a fairly practical and service-oriented GM.  I don't want a table of six players to have a lousy night because I can't find another way to learn from my mistakes.




We're probably going to have to agree to disagree here. This is a big part of the reason why I prefer disciplined scene framed play with a robust set of tools and why I largely have given up on preparing adventures. There's simply too much dependence between the various parts. If I frame a boring scene, that's just a small part of play and we can move on.

Part of this come down to who I am as a person. In the moment without the guidance of my principles I'm not really all that capable of determining what the best path forward is. I'm simply too emotionally invested in the fiction and the game, and I wouldn't have it any other way. When we're down in the thick of the game, I don't like knowing exactly what's going to happen anymore than the players. That's where the fun is. 

I'm absolutely an active participant when I run games. I tend to think of the meat of play like an experienced veteran sparring with a novice fighter. The novice is totally trying to win, but the veteran is trying to get the novice to react. He's trying to challenge the novice, give him a fighting chance without giving any easy breaks. Without discipline and principled fighting the veteran would knock the novice's block off because of the power disparity between them and because it is still very much a fight. 

Quick Note: Before we move on let me clarify that I'm not attempting to say anything about my players' skill level here. I'm commenting on the power disparity. GMs have an entire world at their disposal and players just have their characters. When GMing I'm very much throwing metaphorical jabs and some stronger punches at my players and I expect them to raise to punch back in ways I wouldn't see coming. I need to pull my punches, but I'm still fighting. I'm not really talking about combat here - just the fiction and play space. With disciplined GMing and the right games I totally get to eat a bit of my cake.

Part of the reason I'm so adamant that we can play games we get compelling drama out of is that I've seen it happen. I've experienced it almost constantly. We aren't like telling stories though. It just happens through principled play.

There's also the bit where we don't always want what emerges from play to be the sort of thing we would do if left to our own devices. I mean that's why I like a lot of different games. I want radically different experiences. Part of surrendering yourself over to the game a little bit is getting unexpected drama *and* game play.


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## Campbell (Oct 14, 2015)

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION],

I totally get the value of breaking things down into their component parts. I think it's just being done at the micro level by individual designers in individual games. There's less overt criticism, but you definitely see elements of it in people like Vincent Baker calling for people to look at their games as games. What I was trying to bring home was that we've gotten a lot better at describing the sort of play we are after.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 14, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Plus, "mass cultural conformity"?  Have you somewhere presented a citation that there's some significant number of folks actually majoring in "game studies", and that they are *all* in this purported narrative-first form?  Or did you just pull it up out of nowhere?



Gaming and game culture has existed for millenia. That culture is being erased in favor of a fundamentalist one based upon narratives as an inevitability. Games are real, of course. Not fiction or non-fictions at all. The source of a puzzle or game is irrelevant to it being a pattern people can attempt to game or puzzle out. Read references online on what Game Studies is and how Game Theory "has nothing whatsoever to do with games". Again, as if. Storytelling has nothing to do with games. Pattern recognition and actions taken to achieve objectives within a game pattern are the historical basis for what all games are. Or at least were, before the narrative disinformation revolution.



> Edwards switched from GNS to Big Model.  While BM does include several aspects of GNS, it also tosses out several aspects of the earlier theory, in favor of new ideas.  In making that switch, there's an admission that GNS was not, "Teh Troof!" as he had effectively asserted for years prior to that.



GNS at least had to pay incoherent lipservice to the culture it was seeking to overturn in their revolution. One they more than they are willing to erase from memory. It's a response to a previous, honest, but uncomprehending flawed theory called GDS before it. No one is "changing their mind" here. Big Model is the dogma.



> Every time you are told that "game" doesn't mean what you assert, you reject it, and you insert your own very narrow definition.  I don't see how you can consider that an "honest canvasing of their use", when you reject any use but your own.



Any honest person rejects the usurpation of one culture by another. The community having a "revolution" by a few rewriting falsely the language of others to conform them to the previous true believers' certainties.



> Have you considered that your own understanding of history may be a tad limited or inaccurate?  Or that they have no understanding of why they are needed because we have learned in years past that they aren't, in fact, strictly *needed*?



That most everyone responding is largely devoid of historical understanding of games seems obvious. Of course my understanding has limits. But rationalizing history to fit storytelling beliefs doesn't mean millions of people didn't hold beliefs 180 degrees different. We *need* modules to play D&D. It can't be done without them. We *need* a map behind the screen for players to play. We *need* those screens to hide that map and other secret information to be parceled out as the game progresses. We *need* games to play before we can play them.



> From my own experience, and from the rather cogent testimony of others (Celebrim, for example) it seems pretty obvious to me that RPGs have always been multi-faceted, rather than single-faceted as you present.  The Forge didn't actually generate anything new - everything in GNS theory existed well before Edwards came on the scene.  And The Forge didn't even get all of it!
> 
> So, no "pretending", but there's way more to the RPG story than what you present.  Sorry.
> 
> I am not dogmatic as to what framework I (or anyone) uses to look at the facets of games.  In fact, I strongly advise that you consider that analysis of games is akin to the Blind Men and the Elephant.



 People have tried to understand what D&D was and how to play it from the beginning. That's true of any game. But the Forge promoted intentional myopia towards games in an agenda-driven,"all encompassing theory". People found god there in dogma and sought to convert others. That games can be (mis)treated as collaborative storytelling isn't under debate.

Games aren't fictions.



> Hyperbole.  Save "genocide" for when people actually die, please and thank you.
> 
> Or, do you just want to go ahead and Godwin the thread already, to get it over with?



You're a mod, man. Think of what you're asking posters to do before asking questions like that. 

I'm using that term appropriately exactly as it was defined.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Oct 14, 2015)

The revisionist history in the community makes me wonder some times.  Sure, back in the day, gamers weren't on the internet, or even a BBS, and weren't 'connected' like today.  But it's not like we were completely un-connected, you had The Dragon, and 'zines and the like, you went to conventions.  There was a community and it did have norms and stereotypes and expectations.

Maybe there are folks only speculating about what things were like back then, or who were in groups that were genuinely isolated or terribly avante-garde, or who got a really nice set of rose-colored glasses for their mid-life crises, or view their past experiences in light of their current theories about the hobby.  

IDK.  I can't explain it.


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## pemerton (Oct 14, 2015)

S'mon said:


> Gygax advocates nuance in using procedures for content generation, but is pretty strongly anti-fudging in action resolution. At most he's ok with the occasional PC left for dead rather than slain outright, as something the GM can just decide.





Maxperson said:


> Knocking a PC unconscious instead of killing the PC is fudging combat.



Yes an no. The relevant passage is on p 110 of Gygax's DMG (emphasis added):

Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty *that still takes into account what the monster has done*.​
I have bolded of the final clause because I think it is key. The GM is not fudging the combat in terms of who wins and who loses. _Within the context of the combat resolution itself_, there is no fudging. What the GM is doing is changing the consequence of losing the combat, from _PC death_ to _reasonably severe penalty to the PC_.

The most important thing, from the point of view of the "skilled play" which Gygax advocates, is that the GM is not changing the balance between failure and success - it's just that the failure is being ameliorated from death (= wish or Raise Dead) to unconsciousness or maiming (= Cure Blindness, Regeneration or something similar).


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## pemerton (Oct 14, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> "Skilled play"? "code breaking"
> Do you believe in either of those things or just like air quoting?
> 
> <snip>
> ...



For me this is another non sequitur moment.

What makes you think that I am talking about collaboratively inventing a story? I have never said that that is what I do when I play D&D. You are projecting that onto me. Read [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s posts to see the sort of play that is what I aim for (though as I said upthread I think my game is probably flabbier than [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s).

And of course I believe there is such a think as Gygaxian "skilled play" - the quotes are used because it is a term of art, and the _skill_ involved is rather distinct (and doesn't exhaust the sorts of skills that a player might bring to RPGing). Though personally I'm not very good at it as a GM or player. (I lack the patience.)

But none of this has any bearing on whether the goal of play is for the players to reconstruct, by extrapolation from their play experiences, the GM's random tables. As I have said, and as other posters in this thread have agreed, that has never been a goal of mainstream D&D play. Gygax nowhere talks about it in his DMG. Look at his comments on NPC random tables, for instance (p 100):

It is often highly desirable, if not absolutely necessary, to have well developed non-player characters (NPCs). In order to easily develop these personae, the tables below are offered for consideration. Note that the various facts and traits are given in a sequence which allows the character to develop itself - with judicial help from the DM. Thus, Alignment, Appearance, Possessions, and then General Tendencies are given. The first three will, of necessity, modify the fourth, and the latter will similarly greatly modify the other traits.

The personae of special NPCs should be selected . . . . Other NPCs can be developed randomly, or by a combination of random and considered selection.​
Notice that, just as with dungeon design, Gygax expects the GM to use a mix of random selection and choice - with random selection mostly being for ease of generation for unimportant NPCs.

I'm not sure what you think "special NPCs" means, by the way, but it is pretty clear to me that it means NPCs that are important to the backstory of the dungeon, in the sort of fashion that Roger Musson talks about.



howandwhy99 said:


> The process I am telling you, the process of actual game playing and D&D, requires all the published products D&D resulted in for decades:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't think you want to pay D&D. I don't think you want to play games. You've been convinced that narratives are what you want by narrative absolutists. Please stop perpetuating the myth stories are game, play or D&D.



You've been playing D&D since 1985, yes? In that case, I've been playing for 3 years more than you (1982). I think I have a pretty good idea of whether or not I want to play D&D, or any other role playing game.

Sometime I use maps. Sometimes not. My players occasionally draw maps, but not very often. In my Burning Wheel campaign, for instance, I just lay out my GH maps on the table and we all look at them, to work out where the players are, and where they might want to go to. This may not be the sort of game you want to play, but it is a game in the sense of an amusement or pastime. It involves dice, and character sheets, and pretty intricate action resolution mechanics.

I have not been "convinced that narratives are what I want by narrative absolutists"! That's absurd. I started playing D&D because I enjoyed fantasy tropes, and fanatasy stories, and wanted to play a game that would allow me to partake of them. (Just as the foreword to Moldvay Basic promises.) Oriental Adventures - a D&D book published in the mid-80s - really showed me the way to get what I wanted. (Which was _not_ the "skilled play" of Gygax or Moldvay.)

And I am not perpetuating any myth that stories are games. For a start, games are _activities that take place in the real world_ whereas stories are _tellings or retellings of imagined events_. But some games generate stories. Sometimes as a byproduct, sometimes by design. I prefer the latter. Which isn't the same thing as "collaboratively inventing stories". Luke Crane has designed a game which will, by design, generate stories without the need for collaborative invention. (He's a clever guy, though he built on the designs of others.)


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## Manbearcat (Oct 14, 2015)

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION],
> 
> I totally get the value of breaking things down into their component parts. I think it's just being done at the micro level by individual designers in individual games. There's less overt criticism, but you definitely see elements of it in people like Vincent Baker calling for people to look at their games as games. What I was trying to bring home was that we've gotten a lot better at describing the sort of play we are after.




No I got you.  I was mostly just using your post as a springboard to respond generally to the "revise the history of RPGs to remove/discount the Forge's influence on theory and analysis" theme I've seen in the gaming community (definitely on these boards) or by specific commenters.  

Were the Simulationist essays incomplete or unfair?  I have an opinion (for when I put my sim GM hat on for Classic Traveller), but I'll leave it to ardent process-sim folks as an uncertain number of them have strong opinions on the subject.

Was the moderation heavy-handed?  Edwards had severe disdain for threadcrapping, coat-racking, or topic drift and inserted himself rather prolifically when this occurred.  There are a lot of forums I've followed, or engaged with, over the years where the moderation approach is similar.  They tend to have pretty focused, technical discourse.

And the "brain-damaged" stuff?  I do have an opinion on this.  "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" is a pretty well established cultural meme for a reason.  With considerable time, practice, and emotional investment, it is an inevitability that mental frameworks ossify, cognitive biases develop and regiment behavior (eg "put on blinders"), and muscle memory causes a subject to resort to prior fundamentals in times of acute stress.  This is a very real, very uniform aspect of human cognition.  We are all subject to this and manage our own battles with it.  Unlearning a tenured paradigm (whether it be martial, mental, or emotional) and learning and applying a new one in its stead is extraordinarily difficult.  

Something as "simple" (eg lacking a certain quality of emotional investment/backing) as a golf swing or sleep behavior is amazingly difficult to unlearn and retool.  And it runs both ways regarding TTRPGs (eg not just the inability to run games alternative to D&D).  Folks who grew up solely on White Wolf games (without exposure to D&D) would have a difficult time internalizing the GMing principles and techniques inherent to running a pure D&D Basic dungeon crawl.  Same thing goes for folks who only ran Story Now engines like Dogs and then were forced to run a game like Classic Traveller.  

Instead of recognizing that utterly obvious reality, people freak out about brain-damaged (certainly detractors because it was a very expedient way to brand their hated enemy as a monster!).  The Forge existed.  It wasn't some weird revolution attempting to infect the cultural bloodstream of TTRPGs with a Story Now pathogen.  Edwards was just some dude on the internet, not a GNS bogeyman imposing a YOU WILL ONLY RUN NARRATIVE GAMES OR YOU WILL FACE THE WRATH OF OUR GNS JACKBOOTS directive.  Follks explored and analyzed past and present systems, techniques, play priorities and posited some alternative approaches.  Done.  Oh and I guess they stirred up the natives something fierce in the doing.


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## Zak S (Oct 14, 2015)

N'raac said:


> The "perfect tactic every time and no personality" player



Yeah but we aren't discussing this kind of player.

We're discussing "best tactic the player could think of every time plus personality" player. which you seem to keep forgetting.


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## Umbran (Oct 14, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> That culture is being erased in favor of a fundamentalist one based upon narratives as an inevitability.




I will repeat, in different words (and large letters, in case somehow it is getting missed): CITE PLEASE.

You have asserted this happening, but have offered no evidence, much less proof.  The mere existence of a school curriculum you do not like does not equate to what you're suggesting here.



> Read references online




No.  You are making the assertion.  You provide the proof.  Stop trying to shift the burden of researching and proving your own points onto others, please.

This is why I said earlier that you sound like a conspiracy theorist.  You are using all the techniques seen in conspiracy theory.  If the thing exists as you say, you should be able to direct us at concrete evidence for it.  Rant and rail all you want, your position is not sound without *evidence*.  Assertion is inadequate.



> No one is "changing their mind" here. Big Model is the dogma.




Sure they did change their minds.  They had GNS.  Now, they have Big Model.  They are related, but not the same - that means there was change.  There was thus a change in minds.



> Any honest person rejects the usurpation of one culture by another.




Arguments of the form, "If you do not agree with me you are mentally or morally flawed," have little to no place in polite discussion.  

That being said, what you say here is historically very much untrue.  Typically, the ones being usurped reject it.  The usurpers are generally all for the usurpation!  Generally, most people not within either of those groups don't give much of a hoot.  All are quite honest.  They simply have different cares and concerns.

Moreover, if your entire culture requires that everyone within it and outside it adhere to one very specific definition, and the culture dies without that definition... it isn't much of a culture.   Healthy robust cultures exist regardless of definitions - like Pluto, which exists as a physical object whether or not we call it a planet.  It is a weak, fragile culture that cannot survive a change of definitions.  I would have to question whether such a thing really counts as a "culture" at all.



> That most everyone responding is largely devoid of historical understanding of games seems obvious.




That seems an odd statement, given that Celebrim has given a very clear and cogent history of the games in question that very much defies your categorization.



> People have tried to understand what D&D was and how to play it from the beginning. That's true of any game. But the Forge promoted intentional myopia towards games in an agenda-driven,"all encompassing theory".




Except the Forge was not "all narrative, all the time".  The Forge allows that gamism is an entirely fair agenda.  It even advocates making sure you focus on a particular agenda.  Game for sake of game is fine.  Game for sake of simulation is fine.  Game for sake of narrative is fine.  After the Forge came up with this, some folks found that narrative was under-served in game culture.  Chess, backgammon, dominoes, and pretty much every other game produced before the 1970s serves the game agenda.   Some folks merely decided to build some things that served other agendas.

They embraced the power of "and".  You do not.  I think most of us fail to see how this makes *them* myopic.



> You're a mod, man. Think of what you're asking posters to do before asking questions like that.




I am not asking you to do anything.  I'm asking if you *want* to do something - I am asking if that thought, that analogy, is in your head.  If it was, it would be nice if you got to it sooner, rather than later.



> I'm using that term appropriately exactly as it was defined.




Do not quote wikipedia pages that do not really support you.  Specifically in the section, "In Practice":

"It involves the eradication and destruction of cultural artifacts, such as books, artworks, and structures, and the suppression of cultural activities that do not conform to the destroyer's notion of what is appropriate."

This is *NOT* occurring.  There is no destruction of cultural artifacts - nobody is out there burning chessboards, or copies of Hoyle's.  Producing new cultural artifacts that are not chess or Hoyle's does not constitute destruction.  There is no suppression of cultural activities - nobody is busing into board game gamedays shouting, "Stop!  Stop!  This must all stop!  There is not enough *STORY* in the room!", and nobody is stopping my boardgame-designing friend from designing and publishing games that are all about tactical placement of pieces, and not about any narrative.  Teaching new ideas, and playing new kinds of games, does not constitute suppression of the old ones.

If your form of games aren't attractive, that's not an act of destruction on the part of those who make ones that are attractive.  

You have a culture?  If you want it to survive, it is up to you to propagate it.  Failure of others to do that work for you does not constitute usurpation.  Thus, people teaching "game studies" that you don't agree with is not cultural genocide, by the definition you yourself present.  So, please stop using the hyperbolic term.

Not that you've even actually established that "game culture" as you describe it is actually declining.  Again: CITE PLEASE.  Your assertion is not sufficient.


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## Balesir (Oct 14, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Read references online on what Game Studies is and how Game Theory "has nothing whatsoever to do with games".



I found this entire post quite bizarre, but I want to comment on this specific bit as Game Theory is something that I have studied to some degree as part of a Masters in Economics and Finance. The idea that Game theory is part of some sort of "attack" on a pre-existing culture of gaming is, I'm afraid, preposterous.

Game Theory is a theory of economics concerned with analysing the way that people behave when trying to optimise outcomes for themselves. Specifically, it looks at situations where several people make decisions all at once and the outcome relies on the combination of decisions made by all "players". This analysis is obviously applicable to games that involve more than one player making simultaneous decisions that combine to determine an outcome, as well as applying to the behaviour of economic agents. A couple of interesting observations arise from this:

1) The main reason that Game Theory applies to several games is precisely that many games work on the conceit that they represent or simulate a "real life" situation. Since their earliest inception as training for adult life - a role they still fulfil among immature animals, including humans - games have commonly been based on the "fiction" that the actors in the games are pursuing "adult" activities.

2) Game theory is not really applicable to D&D as [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] would have it, since the players are playing cooperatively and the GM is not a player in the Game Theory sense that (s)he is not making decisions...

Game Theory, just to be clear, has nothing whatsoever to do with stories or storytelling. Its relationship to games is also quite incidental.


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## Balesir (Oct 14, 2015)

pemerton said:


> With these, on the other hand, I want to counter-nitpick.



That seems only fair 



pemerton said:


> At this point, "code-breaking" seems to have just become a synonym for "reasoning".



I don't agree, because I think there is a key element required for "code-breaking" that is a hidden pattern or set of "facts". There is reasoning required in situations where all of the information on which reasoning is to be based is either clear and open or not amenable to pattern identification. If the dice tables used to generate results were openly displayed (like the weather tables in Formula De, for example), you would have a game requiring reasoning (and with stochastic variables to make the reasoning interesting) but with no discernable "code" capable of being "broken". The code, if there is one, is already "broken" and laid out before the players.

It's still a game, though, and it still requires reasoning.



pemerton said:


> I agree that the frictionless corridor in WPM assumes that the players have some sort of contextual familiarity with a particular trope/idea. The same is true of all the old chess rooms, the metal/electricity/magnet/lodestone tricks and traps, and so on. Plus many door traps and pit traps (some of the more baroque examples of latter even depend on familiarity with the particular FRPG-ism of the pit trap).
> 
> But they still require GM improvisation or non-algorithmic adjudication: for instance, if you write some sort of wacky electricity trap into your dungeon, when the players start trying to circumvent it by wrapping their hands in (hopefully insulating) cloth or using 10' poles or whatever, you are going to have to deal with those efforts.



First off, let me say that I don't think RPGs are feasible without any GM improvisation or judgement calls during play whatsoever. For some styles of play - including most that I enjoy - I think the reduction of GM _rules_ improvisation during play is a worthwhile goal, but that doesn't mean it can be eliminated entirely.

In the case of "whacky electricity traps" and such like, though, I think a rod is made for the GM's back. Trying to say as a sort of shortcut to "rules" that something is "just like the real world, but, y'know, with allowances for magic..." is a recipe for muddle and pain. Leaving aside for a moment that most players and GMs - me included - don't really understand the behaviour of high-voltage electricity half as well as they think they do, the fact that any PC solution is quite likely to involve the interaction of magic with said high-voltage electricity is simply asking for adjudications to be needed that have nothing to go on beyond bias and flawed extrapolation.


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## pemerton (Oct 14, 2015)

[MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] - your comments on game theory are well made. I don't understand what the mathematical theory of payoffs in interactive contexts has to do with The Forge, or D&D.



Balesir said:


> In the case of "whacky electricity traps" and such like, though, I think a rod is made for the GM's back. Trying to say as a sort of shortcut to "rules" that something is "just like the real world, but, y'know, with allowances for magic..." is a recipe for muddle and pain.



No disagreement with that, but surely you agree that the _muddle and pain_ you describe is pretty core to a whole swathe of classic D&D tropes? The point I was trying to make was a descriptive one, not a normative one - namely, whether it's good or bad that RPGing involve that sort of improvisation, classic D&D certainly did, and hence it's simply wrong to assert that an absence of improvisation is of the essence of D&D.



Manbearcat said:


> Were the Simulationist essays incomplete or unfair?  I have an opinion



So do I. They're spot on. I've GMed hundreds (probably thousands) of hours of Rolemaster. I've played plenty of Cthulhu and Runequest. Edwards _gets_ those games, both in his account of purist-for-system (= process) sim, _and_ in his account of high concept (= "play through the GM"s story") sim. He captures what's good about them, and also what the limits are on the sort of play experience that they offer.


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## Zak S (Oct 14, 2015)

"This assumption about all gaming ever is accurate because it holds for all gaming I've been present during and all anecdotes about games I choose to believe" is not real scientific.

The problem with Forge theory isn't the theory so much (it's wrong but so are lots of others)--it's the tradition of  really unrigorous anti-debate it spawned in the clique around it. The willingness to go along with any idea so long as it was expressed nicely by the right people without ever like watching other people's actual play vids to check if it made sense.


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## Aenghus (Oct 15, 2015)

I can sometimes find the process of discerning a DM's style and biases as analogous to code-breaking, especially when the DM is opaque and refuses to discuss the game or how s/he runs it. DMs often exhibit patterns in their decision making and players can sometimes gain an advantage in the game by discerning those patterns. 

For instance, a game where the DM will likely fudge the saving throws of save or die-type spells cast at significant enemies in the first round or two of combat. Such spells are best used at the start of a fight, assuming they have a chance of working, but not if they don't They also tend to be significant daily resources, which become wasted resources in such circumstances.l

Another is where the DM likes using monster types who happen to have a predictable weak saving throw. Loading up on spells targeting the weak save can be an effective choice.

It's no accident that both my examples above use spellcasters. Spellcasters can quickly change spell loadout to take advantage of changing circumstances, and making wise or fortuitous choices can produce big payoffs. 

Conversely, players of spellcasters who don't look for patterns or anticipate weak saves, vulnerabilities, resistances and immunities could end up casting spells effectively at random, and be much less efficient.

Players who are starved of information on which to make choices often resort to such tactics. Some DMs don't like such code breaking - the best way I've found to do this is to reduce the payoff by giving the players more information so they can make informed choices.


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## innerdude (Oct 15, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> A story is a fiction storytellers make up



Who are these eponymous "storytellers" of which you speak, who clearly should never participate in an RPG session lest they sully the purity of your gaming experience? 

Oh wait....that would be me. And you. And [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], and [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION], and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], and _every single player who's ever sat down at a game table._

We are a race of storytellers. Story (the sequential arrival of events in their course) and narrative (the assignment of meaning and purpose to a given story) are so deeply ingrained into our human psychology we don't even have an alternative, rational way of expressing ideas with value-based meanings. It's like metaphors. Human language simply cannot exist without metaphor (and I know this because these really smart guys said so).

Do you really not want your players to give any consideration to fiction, story, narrative, during an RPG session? At the end of a session, you want their sum total thought process to be nothing more than, "Dang, we played that game well tonight, and I feel successful as a result"? That's it? That's all you EVER want your players to get out of it? It almost sounds as if one of your own players were to say ANYTHING about "how cool the story of Drew the Fictional Paladin is" in one of your games, you'd cut him off at the knees and force him into another group.

I think you're going to be repeatedly and terribly disappointed that the vast, vast majority of the people you associate with in this hobby are going to utterly reject your view outright. If you don't want people to inject story and narrative into your precious roleplaying games, maybe you'd better stop doing it with, you know, REAL PEOPLE and stick to doing it on a computer. Because doing it with REAL PEOPLE is always, always going to involve story and narrative. Not because it's some kind of affront to RPGs as an entertainment genre, but because we simply can't help ourselves.


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## Manbearcat (Oct 15, 2015)

pemerton said:


> So do I. They're spot on. I've GMed hundreds (probably thousands) of hours of Rolemaster. I've played plenty of Cthulhu and Runequest. Edwards _gets_ those games, both in his account of purist-for-system (= process) sim, _and_ in his account of high concept (= "play through the GM"s story") sim. He captures what's good about them, and also what the limits are on the sort of play experience that they offer.




While my time running sim-oriented games isn't insignificant (more than a little high concept with Cthulu and Dread - which is something of a tweener to be honest - and a chunk of PfS with Classic Traveler), I don't remotely have your experience GMing them.  Nonetheless, that is my takeaway from the essays as well.  However, as I noted, my relative disinterest in the subject leads me to gladly defer to someone with a more informed and impassioned perspective than my own.



innerdude said:


> We are a race of storytellers. Story (the sequential arrival of events in their course) and narrative (the assignment of meaning and purpose to a given story) are so deeply ingrained into our human psychology we don't even have an alternative, rational way of expressing ideas with value-based meanings.




Great post and this is amusing.  Every time this topic comes up for debate, this point you've written above manifest in my head in one iteration or another.  



Campbell said:


> Here's a statement to mull over. A GM can be a referee, a game designer, and a player. He cannot be any more than one at a given time. Also try replacing cannot with should not.




I've done a moment or two of mulling.  I think replacing _should be wary of_with _cannot _is the way to go here.  Again, this goes back to competing priorities (agenda and aesthetics), conflict of interest, and agency.  The abridged version:

Game Designer:  The part where the GM has to bridge a minor gap in, or open-ended portion of, the resolution mechanics or make an exception-based call (hopefully informed by robust guidance - specific beats general or a principle like "drive play toward conflict" - or templates).  The top priority here is likely to ensure expeditious table handling time, the minimization of cognitive workload for the GM (now and for the future as the precedence has been established), the preservation of pacing, and seamlessness and intuitiveness with the rest of the ruleset (machinery, aesthetics, and agenda).

Referee:  Faithfully observe the fictional positioning, be aware of tendencies toward confirmation bias and work to mitigate them, aim for neutrality, and (whenever possible) endeavor to expand options for action declarations rather than contract them.

Player:  Push hard/advocate for your guy/gal/monster/thing.  Promote the having of a good time by all participants while experiencing maximal agency in the achievement of a sought objective.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 15, 2015)

pemerton said:


> For me this is another non sequitur moment.
> 
> What makes you think that I am talking about collaboratively inventing a story? I have never said that that is what I do when I play D&D. You are projecting that onto me.
> 
> ...



As I said, you started this thread. We can talk about how D&D was designed. What games are. Why all the elements of D&D came from wargames meant to enable, not disable strategic thinking by players. What I am not here to do is tell anyone they should or should not have fun for themselves. You don't want a game? Where players are tested for their own personal abilities? That they themselves must think and discover what is the underlying game design? Well okay. You want an amusing pastime for "telling or retelling imagined events", as you put it. Alright, but why talk about it if you simply disagree? It is not a game and it's only interfering with fixing the RPG hobby.



Umbran said:


> Except the Forge was not "all narrative, all the time".  The Forge allows that gamism is an entirely fair agenda.  It even advocates making sure you focus on a particular agenda.  Game for sake of game is fine.  Game for sake of simulation is fine.  Game for sake of narrative is fine.  After the Forge came up with this, some folks found that narrative was under-served in game culture.  Chess, backgammon, dominoes, and pretty much every other game produced before the 1970s serves the game agenda.   Some folks merely decided to build some things that served other agendas.
> 
> They embraced the power of "and".  You do not.  I think most of us fail to see how this makes *them* myopic.



As I demonstrated before, how we treat something matters for what we are actually doing with it. When games are not treated as games, but narratives, then that person is not playing a game. No matter how many rules others may be perceiving them as following.

If I pick up a Rubic's Cube and use it as a puppet before a child saying, "Here comes Mr. Colorful!", I am not solving a puzzle. The entire culture and terminology of puzzles do not need to be redefined to accept this "agenda". Games begin and end as designs to enable players to decipher their underlying pattern in order to achieve objectives within them. That includes D&D as well. 



			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> Not that you've even actually established that "game culture" as you describe it is actually declining.  Again: CITE PLEASE.  Your assertion is not sufficient.



Read what Wikipedia is currently calling a "roleplaying" game 


			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> A role-playing game (RPG and sometimes roleplaying game) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development.



There are no fictions in games. 



Balesir said:


> I found this entire post quite bizarre, but I want to comment on this specific bit as Game Theory is something that I have studied to some degree as part of a Masters in Economics and Finance. The idea that Game theory is part of some sort of "attack" on a pre-existing culture of gaming is, I'm afraid, preposterous.



That's because I said Game Studies, not Game Theory. And whitewashing due to ignorance is not often understood as an attack by those perpetuating it. Also, I'll revise that to those who typically use the term "Game Studies" rather than others as there are other people like me who are unwilling to treat games as narratives. For me, that especially includes RPGs.



			
				Balesir said:
			
		

> Game Theory is a theory of economics concerned with analysing the way that people behave when trying to optimise outcomes for themselves. Specifically, it looks at situations where several people make decisions all at once and the outcome relies on the combination of decisions made by all "players".



Game Theory is not exclusively studying simultaneous action. Otherwise what you said is a solid definition of game playing - Players attempting to achieve objectives within a pre-existing design. Finite games put a border around this commonly to balance challenges to players and limit interference, but game play as behavior is still possible outside of games too, of course.



			
				Balesir said:
			
		

> 2) Game theory is not really applicable to D&D as howandwhy99 would have it, since the players are playing cooperatively and the GM is not a player in the Game Theory sense that (s)he is not making decisions...



The players in D&D game a design hidden behind a screen receiving information about it as relayed by an impartial referee. (very similar to Mastermind). That Game Theory doesn't cover the behaviors of referees is obvious. _They aren't playing the games._



			
				Balesir said:
			
		

> Game Theory, just to be clear, has nothing whatsoever to do with stories or storytelling. Its relationship to games is also quite incidental.



That _Game_ Theory may be the only theory referring to actual games and game play is historically rooted.



innerdude said:


> SNIP



This is what narrative absolutism looks like. A single school of philosophy taken as inevitabilist dogma. He even references Lakoff as if it wasn't a theory. Narrative reductionism may have been started by the French Post-Structuralists (and I like the french, even admire the philosophies there), but narratives should never be understood as dogma in and of themselves. No one is _actually_, _inevitably_ telling stories. There's no such thing as storytelling. Your whole post seeks to denigrate others. Of course I don't want anyone to treat RPGs or D&D as a story. It's a game and neither gaming nor roleplaying having anything whatsoever to do with stories.


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## Maxperson (Oct 15, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> As I said, you started this thread. We can talk about how D&D was designed. What games are. Why all the elements of D&D came from wargames meant to enable, not disable strategic thinking by players. What I am not here to do is tell anyone they should or should not have fun for themselves. You don't want a game? Where players are tested for their own personal abilities? That they themselves must think and discover what is the underlying game design? Well okay. You want an amusing pastime for "telling or retelling imagined events", as you put it. Alright, but why talk about it if you simply disagree? It is not a game and it's only interfering with fixing the RPG hobby.




D&D played as it was designed to be, a game that tells an interactive story though game play IS all of those things.  Well, except for the part about discovering the underlying game design.  35 years of playing board games, card games, RPGs, sports and video games, and I've never once met someone who tries to figure that out.



> As I demonstrated before, how we treat something matters for what we are actually doing with it. When games are not treated as games, but narratives, then that person is not playing a game. No matter how many rules others may be perceiving them as following.




False Dichotomy.  Those are not the only two alternatives.  You can also play a GAME that has a NARRATIVE, such as D&D.



> If I pick up a Rubic's Cube and use it as a puppet before a child saying, "Here comes Mr. Colorful!", I am not solving a puzzle.




Correct.  You are playing a game that involves roleplaying.  Just because it's a Rubic's Cube doesn't mean that the puzzle is the only thing you can do with it.



> Read what Wikipedia is currently calling a "roleplaying" game
> There are no fictions in games.




So the answer is no, you are not going to provide any sort of evidence to back up your claims.


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## Campbell (Oct 15, 2015)

Zak S said:


> "This assumption about all gaming ever is accurate because it holds for all gaming I've been present during and all anecdotes about games I choose to believe" is not real scientific.
> 
> The problem with Forge theory isn't the theory so much (it's wrong but so are lots of others)--it's the tradition of  really unrigorous anti-debate it spawned in the clique around it. The willingness to go along with any idea so long as it was expressed nicely by the right people without ever like watching other people's actual play vids to check if it made sense.




I have some of my own issues, but most of it comes down to both boosters and detractors taking the Essays too seriously and not placing them in the particular context they were born out of. 

The Forge was born in a very particular environment. There was a community of indie game designers that were deeply deeply unsatisfied with the role playing games of the 1990's. When Vampire came out it took the tabletop role playing game culture by storm. It basically defined the new normal. Metaplot, illusionism, and GMs telling their players a story became what tabletop role playing games were about. Shadowrun, Deadlands, Lengend of the 5 Rings, Planescape, Ravenloft, You Name It - they were all basically trying to _out Vampire_ Vampire. Role playing not roll playing was the clarion call of RPGdom. 

It's with that particular environment in mind that The Essays should be read. The Forge was a movement to produce games that were games, but still covered much of the same ground. The purpose of The Essays was to provide a basis of discussion for designing new games, and they had a particular audience. They were biased as hell, but they really weren't meant for general consumption. It was meant to be a given that most of the audience didn't like Vampire and its effect on the hobby. The Essays also weren't meant to cover games like AD&D played in a Gygaxian fashion. It wasn't really the purpose of the discussion that was going on. The interest was all in designing new games with a particular bent. The whole enterprise was very punk rock. Independently created, independently published, reactionary and dismissive of the then current mainstream.

The Forge was also very formative. The Big Model came about in an environment where game designers were making the games that proved they could totally design a game. It was very much a moment in history where people were writing stuff to figure out what this thing could be. Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Life With Master were very much experimental and the result of inexperienced designers starting to find their footing. They were good games, but not like mature games. 

A lot of time was spent defining what things were and what things were not. Unfortunately this has a really chilling effect. The way the agendas were presented made it appear like they were mutually exclusive, rather than a matter of priority. It could have really done with agile programming style "These are the things we value more. We still value these other things - we just value them less."  rhetoric. Some of terminology used was also deeply unfortunate. Labeling "Step on Up" as gamism totally makes it seem like you're not interested in games as games. Likewise Narrativism and Story Now are too closely associated with the language of a play style that most indie RPGs were a reaction against. Antagonism towards different sorts of games also closed off a lot of discussion and possible design space. It took  a lot for me to realize that Vampire - The Requiem 2nd Edition was totally my jam.

Historical context is important here. The Forge was what it was. We got a lot out of it, but it's a good thing it's not really a thing anymore. There's a time and place for movements and identity politics. A lot of what the Forge brought to our culture is still important though - focusing on actual play, being able to identify and verbalize what we want out of games, demanding functional and questioning assumptions are all very important things. Most importantly, we got some very good games out of it. That's the biggest thing.

I think what gets lost in a lot of these discussions both in my crowd and outside of it is that at the end of the day we are talking about games and stuff. They games I play and the way I play them affects the people I play them with. It shouldn't directly impact you. I'm not telling people what they should do. I'm just talking about a thing I do that I sometimes take way too seriously. 

 [MENTION=90370]Zak S[/MENTION], I want to thank you for your perspective. I totally appreciate that you are sharing your perspective and not negating other people's experiences. This thread has been really weird for me. I personally feel a kinship with you OSR folks. I like the independence, the advocacy for an overlooked play style, and the willingness to question assumptions. At the end of the day I appreciate the opportunity to clarify and reflect on why I like the games I like, and also a chance to step outside of my own bubble a little.  






It was also formative.


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## Campbell (Oct 15, 2015)

I really wish we would stop talking about D&D as if it were one game, rather than the many games with the same name it is. Playing Gygaxian AD&D dungeon bashing is a fundamentally different experience than a 2nd Edition Planescape game, which is also a fundamentally different game from scene framed  4e play. I feel like it helps immensely to be specific. For instance, I like the first and the last of those although I feel like Mentzer's BD&D is the better game for dungeon bashing.

Also, can we stop playing the word game? Playing around with definitions and the like does little too get to the heart of the matter.


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## pemerton (Oct 15, 2015)

Zak S said:


> "This assumption about all gaming ever is accurate because it holds for all gaming I've been present during and all anecdotes about games I choose to believe" is not real scientific.



Sure.

I'm not sure who this is aimed at. If there are Rolemaster players out there who thinks that Edwards _doesn't_ get them, no one is stopping them posting. But here is one relevant bit of data. Edwards says says

The causal sequence of task resolution in Simulationist play must be linear in time. . . . The few exceptions have always been accompanied by explanatory text, sometimes apologetic and sometimes blase. . . . [An] example is rolling for initiative, which has generated hours of painful argument about what in the world it represents in-game, at the moment of the roll relative to in-game time.​
A quick mental count tells me that RM has half-a-dozen published initiative systems, mabye more. All trying to deal with the relationship between mechanical action economy and ingame causal processes. And GMing Rolemaster (where I used my own homebrew initiative variant!), one of the recurring issues that causes breakdown in the correlation between mechanical outcomes and fictional positioning is the initiative and action economy system. (Burning Wheel is very process sim in its detailed melee mechanics, and it uses an interesting technique of simultaneous declaration plus second-by-second time-tracking to handle the initiative issue. There are some similar systems in print for Rolemaster, but BW via its declaration rules and its armour rules solves some issues that confront the RM version.)

I also think that Edwards is very clear about the key features of action resolution systems that depart from sim. He writes:

Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things:

* Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. .  . .

* Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.

* More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.​
That was written in mid-2003, and already captures everything that was ever said in all the debates around "dissociated" mechanics. And does so in a way that doesn't take a stand on whether the features Edwards' describes are aesthetically desirable or not - he just points them out as features of some RPGs that tend to be well-suited to certain approaches to play. And clearly, given what he'd already written about sim play, aren't well-suited to other approaches to play.

Again, maybe there are all these 4e players out there who think that what Edwards says there is a radical misdescription of their game. No one is stopping them posting.

No theory of human aesthetic experience is going to resonate as true with everyone. My test for any critic - and Edwards's essays are _criticism_ - is whether what they write resonates with me, and provides me with new insights that help me make better sense of my experience. Edwards does that.



Zak S said:


> The problem with Forge theory isn't the theory so much (it's wrong but so are lots of others)--it's the tradition of  really unrigorous anti-debate it spawned in the clique around it.



I've never met or interacted with Ron Edwards, or Vincent Baker, or Paul Czege, or Clinton R Nixon, or Luke Crane, or . . .

I only know them from their writings which, as I said above, I use as GM advice. They've served as better advice, to me, than nearly anything else I've read. (Ch 8 of Tom Moldvay's Basic, and Robin Laws in his various HeroWars/Quest books, are the only things that come close.)



Campbell said:


> The Forge was born in a very particular environment. There was a community of indie game designers that were deeply deeply unsatisfied with the role playing games of the 1990's. When Vampire came out it took the tabletop role playing game culture by storm. It basically defined the new normal. Metaplot, illusionism, and GMs telling their players a story became what tabletop role playing games were about. Shadowrun, Deadlands, Lengend of the 5 Rings, Planescape, Ravenloft, You Name It - they were all basically trying to _out Vampire_ Vampire. Role playing not roll playing was the clarion call of RPGdom.
> 
> It's with that particular environment in mind that The Essays should be read. The Forge was a movement to produce games that were games, but still covered much of the same ground. The purpose of The Essays was to provide a basis of discussion for designing new games, and they had a particular audience. They were biased as hell, but they really weren't meant for general consumption.



I never played Vampire more than a few times. I played quite a bit of AD&D 2nd ed (almost always as my "second" game, back in university days when I had a lot of spare time), and a lot of those people did play Vampire.

But I didn't need Edwards to tell me that railroads and metaplot suck! I already knew that from AD&D 2nd ed experiences: both the first and the last AD&D 2nd ed games I was involved in broke up because of GM's trying to assert control in the face of players who weren't interested in just going along with whatever the GM was narrating. I was never bothered by "roleplaying not rollplaying" because I knew that my Rolemaster (hence dice-heavy) game was more serious from the story/theme point of view than any of the AD&D 2nd ed and Vampire games that I was involved in or new about. And back in the same period when the group I played with had time to go to local conventions, we would win prizes for best team and best individual performances. We never saw any conflict between rolling the dice to find out what happens, and expressing the character of the PC by engaging the ingame situation. 

I found the Forge - and, in particular, Edwards's essays - by following some links (probably from a thread either here or on rpg.net) in 2004. The prose was somewhat tortured, and the terminology a bit baroque, but it made sense to me. It helped me clarify some issues that I had with Rolemaster, which I continued to play for another 5 years. Reading the endgame rules in Czege's Nicotine Girls helped me achieve a more indie-style endgame for that campaign, within the RM framework (and far more sentimental than anything that Czege would seem to be interested in).

When the RM campaign finished and I decided I wanted to try a new system, 4e had just come out. Edwards essay from 2003 (quoted earlier in this post) did a much better job than the 4e designers of setting out the workings of that system. Without Edwards, Robin Laws in HeroWars/Quest and Luke Crane in the Burning Wheel books I doubt that I could have run a successful 4e campaign for 6 years and 30 levels.

I'm not offended that other people don't find insight the same places I do. That's normal. People are looking for different things, and come to critical writers with their own experiences and expectations.

But that doesn't mean that I'm going to deny the importance Edwards' essays have had for my own RPGing.


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## pemerton (Oct 15, 2015)

Campbell said:


> I really wish we would stop talking about D&D as if it were one game



This is why I try to use descriptions like Gygaxian "skilled play", or 4e scene-framing play, or AP-style GM-driven play.

It's not always simple, though, because it's hard to get descriptions that are agreed upon between people who do and don't enjoy a particular sort of play. For instance, most posters on these boards treat sandbox/railroad as a spectrum. Whereas I think that there are approaches to play (eg scene-framing) that aren't located on that notional spectrum. And I also tend to find a lot of sandbox-y play to be rather railroad-y by my standards, because of the relative importance of the GM's conception over that of the players as far as content introduction is concerned.


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## pemerton (Oct 15, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> As I said, you started this thread. We can talk about how D&D was designed. What games are. Why all the elements of D&D came from wargames meant to enable, not disable strategic thinking by players.



I am talking about those things. [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] and I have both quoted extensively from the major treatise by one of those designers - Gyagx's DMG. I have also quoted from a major participant in the early days in the UK - Roger Musson. Your response is to ignore those quotes, or assert that they also display ignorance of what D&D is.

You also have a tendency to state very broad generalisations as if they have very specific meanings, which makes it hard to follow what you are saying.

For instance, because _I_ denied that it has ever been a part of mainstream play for the players to try to work out what the random tables are that the GM is using, _you_ assert that I am denying that D&D involves strategic thinking by players. As if the only form of strategic thinking that a D&D player might engage in would be reasoning backwards from encounters experienced and dungeons mapped to the GM's random tables.

Here is Gygax on the strategic thinking that the players should engage in (PHB pp 107-109 ):

_et an objective_ for the adventure. Whether the purpose is so simple as to discover a flight of stairs to the next lowest unexplored level or so difficult as to find and destroy on altar to an alien god, some firm obiective should be established and then adhered to as strongly as possible. . . 

_A map is very important because it helps assure that the party will be able to return to the surface._ . . .

_Avoid unnecessary encounters._ This advice usually means the difference between success and failure when it is followed intelligently. Your party has an objective, and wondering monsters are something which stand between them and it. . . .

[/i]Do not be sidetracked.[/i] A good referee will have many ways to distract an expedition, many things to draw attention, but ignore them if at all possible. The mappers must note a11 such things, and another expedition might be in order another day to investigate or destroy something or some monster, but always stay with what was planned if at all possible, and wait for another day to handle the other matters. This not to say that something hanging like a ripe fruit ready to be plucked must be bypassed, but be relatively certain that what appears to be the case actually is. . . .

_If the party becomes lost, the objective must immediately be changed to discovery of a way out._ If the group becomes low on vital equipment or spells, it should turn back. The same is true if wounds and dead members have seriously weakened the group's strength. . . .

On the other hand, if the party gains its set goal and is still quite strong, some other objectives can be established, and pursuit of them can then be followed.​

There is nothing in there about trying to work out what system of dungeon generation the GM is using. And all that advice would be equally sound whether the GM determined everything in the dungeon randomly, or made up all the rooms and their contents quite deliberately, using random determination only for wandering monsters.



howandwhy99 said:


> You don't want a game? Where players are tested for their own personal abilities? That they themselves must think and discover what is the underlying game design? Well okay. You want an amusing pastime for "telling or retelling imagined events", as you put it. Alright, but why talk about it if you simply disagree? It is not a game and it's only interfering with fixing the RPG hobby.



As I've posted more than once now, I am not looking for an amusing pastime for "telling or retelling imagined events". I am looking for a game which, in virtue of being played, _will generate stories_ - that is to say, will give rise to a telling of imagined events which has a tolerably recognisable dramatic content and structure.

Even Gygax, in the passage I quoted, is referring to imagined as well as real things. The maps he talks about, for instance, are real, but the "alien gods" are imaginary. And the players are meant to think of them in imaginary terms - eg it matters to the play of the game whether an altar is to an "alien god" or an ordinary god, and players are expected to engage with those differences.

Where my preference differs from Gygaxian skilled play is that I am not that interested in the sort of dungeon exploration and strategy that he describes. The rules of the systems I prefer have different purposes.

For reasons I don't understand - maybe you're not familiar with them? - you seem to think that those systems don't involve game play in the sense of _testing the player's personal abilities_. (Which is what Edwards called "stepping on up". So you seem to agree with him at least on that point.)

Here is a self-quote from an actual play post:



pemerton said:


> It then came to the drow sorcerer's turn. In an email a few days ago the player had told me that he had a plan to seal off the Abyssal rift created by the tearing of the Demonwebs and the killing of Lolth, that relied upon the second law of thermodynamics. Now was the time for him to explain it. It took quite a while at the table (20 minutes? Maybe more? There was a lot of interjection and discussion). Here is the summary version:
> 
> * The second law of thermodynamics tells us that time and entropy are correlated: increases in entropy from moment to moment are indicative of the arrow of time;
> 
> ...



How is that not a game? There is a rules structure. There is dice rolling to find out what happens (so in that respect it resembles gambling). There is the making of decisions by a player so as to change the probabilities, and those decisions include elements of resource management (in this case, trading of healing surges for bonuses). The player is also having to think about, and within the context of, the fiction - which is the same sort of game-playing as is involved in my daughter setting up her imaginary cake shop. For instance, the player has had to come up with an in-fiction rationale for how he can pull off the stunt that he wants to pull off. This belongs to that time-honoured D&D category of "the creative use of spells".

You say that I'm interfering with the fixing of the RPG hobby. I think what I've quoted shows that I'm pretty squarely part of the RPG hobby!


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## Zak S (Oct 15, 2015)

pemerton said:


> And does so in a way that doesn't take a stand on whether the features Edwards' describes are aesthetically desirable or not - he just points them out as features of some RPGs that tend to be well-suited to certain approaches to play. And clearly, given what he'd already written about sim play, aren't well-suited to other approaches to play.




The problem isn't anything he says about "Gamist""Sim" or "Nar" play. It's that these categories are arbitrary and insufficient to cover the field. Like dividing all animals into "Cats" "Pigs and hedgehogs" and "Slippery animals".

Lots of cat enthusiasts have got a lot out of GNS and, previously, the 3fold model, but the fact remains it's not much of a theory. It's a very partial list of observations of what some kinds of gamers do sometimes (especially the kinds of gamers who liked the essays).

So it offers a poor view of reality and TONS of the theory, criticism and game assumptions that came out of it was an impediment to anybody who wasn't a cat enthusiast.



> My test for any critic - and Edwards's essays are _criticism_ - is whether what they write resonates with me, and provides me with new insights that help me make better sense of my experience. Edwards does that.



This is what EVERY FAN says about Forge theory when you point out it happens to be wrong. This solipsistic and non-reality-based legacy of conversation is why people hate Forge "theory". People say stuff that is provably untrue, then when you call them on it they go "Well I'm like, allowed to have an opinion, man"

If you make an assertion like Ron does, for example:

"You can't serve two GNS goals simultaneously in the same instance of play" and then watch AP vids and find out, wait, no, you can TOTALLY do that and people do it all the time. (And Ron has personally been unable to explain any criteria to judge this by which it isn't true.)

Then you have an_ inaccurate sociological theory. _Objectively.

And instead of doing what Vincent Baker did and going "Ok, it's 2015, GNS helped me but it was wrong" people cling to it or ideas that only make sense if you assume it.

And the rest of us still have to see these goofball categories that nobody can thoroughly defend or define in the middle of conversations we're having where we actually try to (and do) get real game stuff done. And there's still postForgies running around who trust and believe each other more than anyone else because they once believed in a now-known-to-be crackpot theory together while instead that experience should have humbled them and made them realize they didn't have all the answers.


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## pemerton (Oct 15, 2015)

Zak S said:


> People say stuff that is provably untrue



What do you think I'm saying in this thread that is provably untrue?



Zak S said:


> then when you call them on it they go "Well I'm like, allowed to have an opinion, man"



What do you think you're "calling me on"? Upthread you called a view I expressed baffling. I replied with an explanation, and you ignored that reply.

So it's quite unclear to me what your problem is with my posts in this thread.



Zak S said:


> "You can't serve two GNS goals simultaneously in the same instance of play" and then watch AP vids and find out, wait, no, you can TOTALLY do that and people do it all the time. (And Ron has personally been unable to explain any criteria to judge this by which it isn't true.)
> 
> Then you have an_ inaccurate sociological theory. _Objectively.
> 
> And instead of doing what Vincent Baker did and going "Ok, it's 2015, GNS helped me but it was wrong" people cling to it or ideas that only make sense if you assume it.



What do you think I'm clinging to? Where have I said anything in this thread about pursuing two GNS goals simultaneously in the same instance of play? It's not something I have a view on or care very much about.

That said, I don't think it would be a very big technical challenge to define "pursuing goals" and "same instance of play" to make it true by definition. There are at least two devices that Edwards uses to facilitate this: (i) because the GNS analysis takes as a premise that all play involves exploration, and so any time anyone points to simultaneously being both (say) S + G the retort can be made that it's just exploration-heavy G; (ii) because he emphasises the "predominant" or "overall" goal of play, if I point (say) to the episode of play I quoted upthread, where the player is trying to make clever bonus-creating moves so as to realise the dramatic goal of sealing the Abyss and say that looks like it might be both G + N, Edwards can retort that only one (perhaps N, perhaps G) is the predominant goal of play.

This is partly why I didn't describe it as a sociological theory in my post. I described it as criticism.



Zak S said:


> game assumptions that came out of it was an impediment to anybody who wasn't a cat enthusiast.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> And the rest of us still have to see these goofball categories that nobody can thoroughly defend or define in the middle of conversations we're having where we actually try to (and do) get real game stuff done. And there's still postForgies running around who trust and believe each other more than anyone else because they once believed in a now-known-to-be crackpot theory together while instead that experience should have humbled them and made them realize they didn't have all the answers.



I'm sorry that my thread and posts are getting in the way of you doing real work, and that the games I'm playing at the moment (BW, 4e) are impeding your RPGing. I just thought I was a guy posting on a D&D board having fun running a couple of campaigns.


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## Neonchameleon (Oct 15, 2015)

Zak S said:


> The problem isn't anything he says about "Gamist""Sim" or "Nar" play. It's that these categories are arbitrary and insufficient to cover the field. Like dividing all animals into "Cats" "Pigs and hedgehogs" and "Slippery animals".
> 
> Lots of cat enthusiasts have got a lot out of GNS and, previously, the 3fold model, but the fact remains it's not much of a theory. It's a very partial list of observations of what some kinds of gamers do sometimes (especially the kinds of gamers who liked the essays).




We agree absolutely here.

The point, however, and why GNS is still used by people like [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and the Big Model is more or less irrelevant is that GNS had focussing power and could let people communicate. It's wrong, and it's deeply flawed (including claiming that incoherence is _automatically_ wrong - people aren't pure). GNS had a number of smart things to say about narrativism, some smart things to say about gamism _to the people in that community_ (i.e. those in the WW subculture who looked down on D&D in the late 90s/early 00s but found that WW games did not suit what they wanted out of them) and its discussion of simulationism is ... bad.

Which means that GNS was a useful tool in a number of cases that claimed to be much more than it was. And there are few other theories that have done that.

The Big Model on the other hand more or less sank like a stone because although GNS was wrong, it was in places clarifying (like a set of lenses focussed on a certain point). The Big Model is not even wrong. It predicts precisely nothing except "Different people do things different ways". (Well, yes. It's true. But it steps back from how and why). The only use of it is as a pallette cleanser after GNS.

The problem is that no one has produced a better model that's widely known than the Forge's.


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## Maxperson (Oct 15, 2015)

pemerton said:


> I also tend to find a lot of sandbox-y play to be rather railroad-y by my standards, because of the relative importance of the GM's conception over that of the players as far as content introduction is concerned.




That I'm really curious about.  Would you explain that further?


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## Bleys Icefalcon (Oct 15, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Whereas storytelling is a different culture altogether. That you blindly deny any and all evidence tot he contrary that D&D is a game, not collaborative storytelling means there's nothing left for us to share.




OK, I am going to jump in again.  Guys, it's not either/or, not if it's done right.  It's BOTH - the best games/campaigns/groups that I have ever been a part of for greater than 30 years now is when it IS a game and it IS collaborative storytelling - at the same time.


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## Maxperson (Oct 15, 2015)

Bleys Icefalcon said:


> OK, I am going to jump in again.  Guys, it's not either/or, not if it's done right.  It's BOTH - the best games/campaigns/groups that I have ever been a part of for greater than 30 years now is when it IS a game and it IS collaborative storytelling - at the same time.




Bingo.  This is what I think pretty much everyone but Howandwhy gets and has been saying.


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## Celebrim (Oct 15, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Gaming and game culture has existed for millenia.




I guess that depends on what you mean by "game culture".  For most of human history, "game culture" meant the culture of gambling.  If you looked in a 19th century dictionary, the word "gamer" meant an athlete.   In some cases it meant a hunter.   Games are ancient and gaming as a pastime is ancient, but the modern gaming culture only really dates make to the mid 20th century and was popularized by companies like Avalon Hill.   Before that, it would be hard to say that there was a culture of gaming, because there wasn't a large group of people that shared cultural artifacts and treated gaming as a central activity of their lives.



> That culture is being erased in favor of a fundamentalist one based upon narratives as an inevitability.




Despite the shortness of the sentence, there are four problems with that statement.  First, you don't seem to have a clue what the word "fundamentalist" means.  And secondly, if you go back and look at the development of the theory of games, the notion that games inevitably are based on a fiction isn't a new one.  Roger Callois made the observation in 1961, before RPGs even could be said to have existed.  Thirdly, I don't think anyone is arguing that narratives are the inevitable result of the play of all games.  Parcheesi for example doesn't seem to have a story component to it.   Among other things, it lacks anything that might be called 'characters', nor would it's board be mistaken for a 'setting' nor does its play end up creating through transcription anything like a plot or narrative.   It's components of play have no correspondence to the components of a story.   Even in the case of an RPG, I don't think anyone is arguing that a story is inevitable.  All that is being argued is that story is not nor was not seen even from the beginning to be incompatible with playing a game.  And fourthly, there is really no sign that any culture is being erased.  Not only is it the case that there is today a vibrant culture continuing under the OSR, but there is now deep scholarly study on how RPGs where developed and played during their earliest period as a thing of historical relevance.  But perhaps more importantly, when you actually do look at that information regarding the history of how RPGs were played, it is you who are out of step with the culture of gaming and you that are trying to do violence to it.



> Games are real, of course. Not fiction or non-fictions at all.




I'm not sure what you mean by this.   Books are of course real as well, but I can still classify them as fiction or non-fiction.   But games never can be non-fiction in the sense that a book can be, where as they often are fictitious in the same sense that a book can be.   The game of chess is a fictitious battle.  When you play a wargame based on say Gettysburg or Waterloo, you are creating a new fictitious version of that battle separate from the reality of the actual battle.  Within the space of the game, you are creating an alternative reality.  The simpler and more abstract that reality, the less correspondence it has to any real thing, but in the case of games which have a component of simulation - which almost all wargames inherently do - you are also attempting to learn something about the actual reality.   It's not a coincidence that RPGs are developed out of wargaming simulation, and in particular developed out of a desire to make that simulation more all encompassing and not simply confined to a fictitious battlefield.



> The source of a puzzle or game is irrelevant to it being a pattern people can attempt to game or puzzle out.




Sure, but this statement is so broad as to be meaningless.  The game 'Pac Man' is a pattern that people can puzzle out.  The game 'Mrs Pac Man' is not such a game, but rather requires a very different approach since the ghosts don't follow a mechanical pattern.  Instead of puzzling out the pattern and devising a superior strategy, Mrs Pac Man requires reflexes and spontaneity because the designers got rid of an analyzable pattern on purpose so that each game would be different than all other ones.  



> Read references online on what Game Studies is and how Game Theory "has nothing whatsoever to do with games". Again, as if. Storytelling has nothing to do with games.




Game Theory does have nothing whatsoever to do with games, and in general classical game theory can't actually be applied to games.  You very much appear to be someone that has heard about things and developed your own private theories about what those terms mean without actually studying them or closely investigating them.  And now you are discovering that other people don't share your private theories, and are claiming that Gygax doesn't know anything about RPG's and von Neumann doesn't know anything about Game Theory and you have no idea how ridiculous you sound.



> Pattern recognition and actions taken to achieve objectives within a game pattern are the historical basis for what all games are.




That's absolutely false, but even if I was to accept this as true for the purposes of argument, this statement would do no harm whatsoever to the notion that RPGs are both actions taken to achieve objectives within a set of rules in a particular fictional environment (what you call the board, and I gather together with the rules the "game pattern") and also that by doing so you are creating a narrative.  



> Or at least were, before the narrative disinformation revolution.




You keep throwing out these terms with no evidence and no definitions and nothing to point to.  What in the heck are you talking about or do you even know?   Seriously, Dragonlance was published before there was ever anything like Forge.  Braunsteins were being played long before GNS or Vampire: The Masquerade.   People were making up games like C&S because D&D paid in their mind too little attention to "who you were" as opposed to merely "what you could do", 10 years before you even are introduced to RPing.   For someone claiming to defend "gaming culture" you are profoundly ignorant regarding what that culture actually is.  At first I thought you were some sort of uber-Grognard, but you are actually a noob that didn't even get into gaming until the mid-80's.  You seem to have made the fundamental mistake that because concepts were new to you in your limited experience, that they were in any way new to people who had been playing since the time you were in diapers.  GNS has nothing at all to do with whether or not people wanted to have game plus story at the same time.   If anything, you are here advancing GNS far more than I am.  GNS argued that you couldn't have game and story at the same time, something I felt was as ridiculous then as your argument now is.



> Any honest person rejects the usurpation of one culture by another. The community having a "revolution" by a few rewriting falsely the language of others to conform them to the previous true believers' certainties.




First, I'd happily usurp other people's culture with my own if I could, though I'd rather that they willingly embraced my opinions, beliefs, desires, and culture.   But I haven't a clue regarding what "revolution" you are talking about.  I have long been critical of Forge Theory and GNS.  But GNS by and large has not been very influential over how or what the average game plays, nor is it even possible for GNS to reach back in the past and alter what people have played.



> That most everyone responding is largely devoid of historical understanding of games seems obvious.




To whom?  The only one here consistently devoid of any historical understanding and evidence is yourself.   You haven't made a single citation.  You haven't pointed to a single historical event.  You have no historical understanding at all.



> Of course my understanding has limits.




That's the understatement of the year.



> But rationalizing history to fit storytelling beliefs doesn't mean millions of people didn't hold beliefs 180 degrees different.




Where are these people?  Show me these millions?  Don't you realize that you are speaking to a cross section of gamers that represent hard core D&D players with roots going back in some cases to the very beginning of the game?  Haven't I shown rather thoroughly that none of those millions were represented at the tables of Arneson and Gygax?  Statistically speaking, your millions wouldn't seem to exist.  What evidence do you wish to present for the millions of people that you have just invented in your head?  



> We *need* modules to play D&D.




No we don't.  Modules weren't invented as part of D&D play until half a decade after D&D play began, and even then they weren't invented to be the means and focus of play, but as a means of sharing, recording and communicating the basis of prior play.  They are strictly speaking optional supplements.  You don't need a module to play D&D.   Indeed, the module is a restriction on play that very much tends to give D&D a very specific story form.  Quite a few people who prefer less narrative in their games tend to eschew modules.   What modules actually are is something that by 1985, by the time you get involved in gaming, very common supplemental material available to novice DMs that had become for some tables the focus of play.   But we don't need them, and quite a few tables did without them.   Moreover, modules don't demonstrate that RPGs aren't narratives.  Quite the contrary, without modules, it would be rather hard to prove on the basis of textual evidence that RPGs are narratives as all we'd be left to cite would be transcriptions of play, and reliable and complete transcriptions of play are very rare.   But showing that Desert of Desolation or DL1 has a narrative is trivially easy.



> It can't be done without them.




Simply false.



> We *need* a map behind the screen for players to play.




Again, simply false.  We only need a map if we wish to communicate to another person the space in which a game is occurring.  But quite a few games I've played didn't have maps, and more over its trivially easy to show that since the beginning of play a significant number of events occur outside of or off any prepared map.  Quite often you have encounters that just occur in an abstract space like, "On a road", with no map given to the DM to use and every expectation that if the physicality of the terrain plays any role in the encounter at all that the DM will improvise a map as needed.



> We *need* those screens to hide that map and other secret information to be parceled out as the game progresses.




This is a typical example of you taking a specific tool and implement for being the broad and general case.  You could make a reasonable argument that we need a secret keeper who keeps secret the information and parcels out that information to the players as the game progresses, but you can't make the case that that secret keeper needs a physical screen to hide the information.  The screen is merely one specific sort of tool that is entirely optional.   I've known plenty of DMs even ones running dungeon crawls that did without one and simply relied on players not to peek, or simply set on the sofa while everyone else was across the room, or simply used a long dining room table.  

While we are on this subject, lets return to your equally bad statement that the goal of any game is to "score points".   No it isn't.  Not all games even have the goal of winning, but even if we did assume that all games had the goal of winning, not every game would equate winning with "having the most points".   Winning a game of chess has nothing to do with "points".  Chess has a completely different goal of play than taking points.  Points have been invented as a way to quantize who has the advantage, but people will gamble away piece advantage in chess precisely because the goal of play isn't to gain points.  Uno isn't won by taking points.  Golf is won by avoiding points.  So even if we assumed that D&D was a game that had the goal of "winning the game", in no fashion are we to conclude that winning the game is necessarily the same as scoring points of some sort.  Perhaps scoring points is how you define winning D&D, but its not how the game itself defined 'winning' - which by the way is a rather odd notion given that D&D doesn't define how it ends.   I would argue that to the extent D&D defines winning at all, it defines it as, "When everyone at the table is satisfied that the game is complete."   Exactly what satisfies a group that this is the time to stop and declare victory is going to vary from group to group, but since you formerly argued that modules are necessary for play, I think a good argument could be made that "when the module is complete" is a very common definition of "winning D&D".  And yet, if that is the definition of winning, it has nothing to do with how many points you scored.



> We *need* games to play before we can play them.




Ok sure.  But this does no harm to the statement D&D was invented as a game with a story engine way back in 1973 when Ron Edwards was memorizing multiplication tables and had probably never even imagined an RPG.  So what does GNS have to do with any of this?  Why don't we just confine ourselves to looking at those modules you claim are so necessary to play and see what they tell us about whether D&D has a story?  Let's begin with UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave, shall we?



> Games aren't fictions.




In 1961, Caillois in his highly influential book 'Les jeux et les hommes' defined games as being a human activity that was fun, circumscribed, uncertain, non-productive, governed by rules, and fictitious.   More to the point, a game is a form of play, and play is always fictitious.  "A play" is literally a piece of fiction.  The theatrical definition of "a play" and the verb "to play" have a common origin.  To play is to exercise ones imagination.   To game is to exercise that imagination in a manner circumscribed by goals and rules, but despite goals and rules it still remains a fiction.


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## Celebrim (Oct 15, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> That I'm really curious about.  Would you explain that further?




pemerton is an advocate of 'no myth' and for the DMing creating content in response to the player's declared goals and actions.  In this way, he thinks by improvising in reaction to the players, the DM is prioritizing the players interests and desires for the setting over his own.   Ironically, I find pemerton's methods more railroad-y than traditional open sandbox play and much more prone to illusionism (and DM rationalizing his biases), but if we open up that argument between pemerton and myself again we're going to need a new thread.


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## Celebrim (Oct 15, 2015)

For the portion of the thread that isn't being ridiculous, just out of my own curiosity, in your opinion which of the two games is more like an RPG:

a) A game of Cops and Robbers.  A group of 5th graders get together to play a game of cops and robbers.  The robbers pretend to commit crimes.  The cops pretend to solve the crimes and chase the robbers.  Play is largely free form, with the winner being declared depending on whether the robbers get away.  Whenever a group of cops and robbers contend over whether something happens or not, for example whether the cop can kick down a door that the robber is holding closed, or whether the cop can shoot a particular robber, a game of 'rock-paper-scissors' is declared.

b) The actual game 'Mice and Mystics'.   For those of you that haven't played this, it's something like a stripped down version of D20 where you play through a single prepared module cooperatively without a referee.   Monsters move and act mechanically according to some simple rules, and all interaction with the environment is defined explicitly from encounter to encounter.   Boxed text associated with a particular character is read periodically by the players to set the scene, but mostly the game is played as a tactical wargame.


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## Neonchameleon (Oct 15, 2015)

I'm afraid that all I can say to that is "Which parent is more like the child?"

That said, the addition of rock-paper-scissors into scenario A makes it IMO more like most tabletop RPGs.


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## Umbran (Oct 15, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> There are no fictions in games.




"Game" is a natural language word, not technical jargon.  There are many definitions.  Bernard Suits would probably agree with you, but Wittgenstein probably would not.  And those are just the philosophers, not the natural users of the word.

You don't own the definition of "game".  Yours is one definition of many.  Thus, your repeated assertion is not terribly constructive, as it is only true for those who are using your particular definition of the word.


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## Celebrim (Oct 15, 2015)

The problem is that H&W occasionally seems to equate Ludology (that is 'game studies') with mathematical Game Theory as if he's not really aware that there is a difference.  

I would love to think that H&W is actually in his own fashion engaged in the Ludology/Narratology debate, but I very much get the impression he's largely unaware that such a thing exists much less what is actually being debated.  I don't get the impression that the thinks of games as being art forms at all, and his assertion that they are always and exclusively "code breaking" seems to suggest he would resist that classification as well.


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## Umbran (Oct 15, 2015)

Zak S said:


> T
> This is what EVERY FAN says about Forge theory when you point out it happens to be wrong. This solipsistic and non-reality-based legacy of conversation is why people hate Forge "theory".




Except, it is reality based.  "I get use out of it," *is* reality.  It is a small chunk of someone's local reality, sure, but it is still reality.  Dismissing the value others have found just because you don't like it is the non-reality-based step here.

There is *nothing* valuable to a theory except in its use.  If someone gets good use out of GNS theory, then it is useful.  A thing does not need to be perfect to be useful - a hammer does not drive screws very well,but I have one in my toolbox, regardless.

That Mr Edwards made claims far beyond its actual usefulness is irrelevant.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 15, 2015)

Campbell said:


> I really wish we would stop talking about D&D as if it were one game, rather than the many games with the same name it is. Playing Gygaxian AD&D dungeon bashing is a fundamentally different experience than a 2nd Edition Planescape game, which is also a fundamentally different game from scene framed  4e play. I feel like it helps immensely to be specific. For instance, I like the first and the last of those although I feel like Mentzer's BD&D is the better game for dungeon bashing.
> 
> Also, can we stop playing the word game? Playing around with definitions and the like does little too get to the heart of the matter.



Do you remember the debate on these boards about 10-12 years ago about how the basic act of a game was not "resolution"? Where Forgites were spilling "the truth" about how all games were two or more alternative narratives in conflict and all rules were meant to resolve which was selected? What Edwards did was place all games in a philosophy of narrative-only ideas. All of game culture where designers focused on enabling pattern recognition and game mechanics as mathematical designs was either ignored or shamed.

Edwards would call the "Memory" game the act of telling a story rather than a game meant to test a player's memory.


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## Celebrim (Oct 15, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> Do you remember the debate on these boards about 10-12 years ago about how the basic act of a game was not "resolution"? Where Forgites were spilling "the truth" about how all games were two or more alternative narratives in conflict and all rules were meant to resolve which was selected? What Edwards did was place all games in a philosophy of narrative-only ideas. All of game culture where designers focused on enabling pattern recognition and game mechanics as mathematical designs was either ignored or shamed.




Leaving aside the fact that I don't know exactly what you mean by "enabling pattern recognition" and "game mechanics as mathematical designs", I see those two things as being fundamentally describing the same thing from two different perspectives.   One guy is holding a trunk; one guy is holding a giant ear; it's clear to me that if you step back that they'll both see they've got an elephant.  One guy says, "I'm trying to achieve a certain victory condition, and I'm making my decisions on the basis of the mathematical probability that my decision will succeed given what I know of the rules and game state."  And one guy says, "I'm trying to achieve a certain story goal, and I'm making decisions on the basis of what I think will affirm my desired narrative outcome over another one."   And I tend to go, "Oh, you guys are playing an RPG!"   Unlike the 'Forgites', I don't see the rules as creating an either/or situation.   We have both a process of resolution, and that repeated process is creating a story that is guided by players desire and implemented by player agency as provided for by the rules.

As for the "ignoring and shaming" part of that, early in Forge's theorizing "gamist" wasn't part of the theory.  It wasn't accepted in the community that playing the game for the game itself was something that was valid or even something anyone actually did.   This just goes to show just how far behind in some ways The Forge was in its theory some of the practical work that had been done by ludologists studying video games.  They eventually did come around when one of their own advanced 'game' as a valid aesthetic of play in a convincing manner and got people to change their mind, but there were I agree a lot of people early on the community that had really dumb and impractical models of play.

But even then, I don't think Edwards would claim "memory" was an RPG.  He was making a theory of RPGs; not a theory of games generally.


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## Zak S (Oct 15, 2015)

pemerton said:


> What do you think I'm saying in this thread that is provably untrue?




I didn't mention you specifically--I am talking about the culture of sucky debate the Forge engendered by growing out of a culture surrounding a bad theory. I'm not talking about you, the topic of my post was why people don't like the Forge's legacy.


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## Zak S (Oct 15, 2015)

Neonchameleon said:


> Which means that GNS was a useful tool in a number of cases that claimed to be much more than it was.




Yes but people still talking about it now after it's been disproved is destructive.

Like inarticulately crying all day instead of saying what you actually want is a fine strategy when you're a month old but still doing it when you're 17 doesn't help anybody.

Forge theory and vocabulary is, in 2015, a bad thing that makes conversations slower and worse.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 15, 2015)

pemerton said:


> You also have a tendency to state very broad generalisations as if they have very specific meanings, which makes it hard to follow what you are saying.



I think we're working from different vocabularies. That's why this thread might be useful rather than perhaps a "calling out"?



> Here is Gygax on the strategic thinking that the players should engage in (PHB pp 107-109 ):
> 
> _et an objective_ for the adventure. Whether the purpose is so simple as to discover a flight of stairs to the next lowest unexplored level or so difficult as to find and destroy on altar to an alien god, some firm obiective should be established and then adhered to as strongly as possible. . .
> 
> ...



What you are quoting is strategic advice for the players. It's like reading a strategy guide for Chess or any other wargame. It's isn't rules, but helpful insight for playing the game more capably. 

1. As he is saying, Players set their objectives in D&D, not the DM. The DM must not change anything regardless of these decisions.

2. Recording what you learn (mapping) is generally useful in any game so heavily focused on memory, D&D a code breaking game, but not a requirement of play.

3. Avoiding encounters is only one goal. Seeking out encounters, even specific creatures is a large part of D&D too. Both require players to decipher the maze they are in based on all sorts of factors the DM is using. Population density. Environmentally-preferred habitats by creatures. % in lair vs. out wandering. Etc. This is directly the players "trying to work out what system of dungeon generation the GM is using".

4. "A good referee will have many ways to distract an expedition, many things to draw attention, but ignore them if at all possible." (Gygax) - This doesn't mean the GM is actively improvising actions in competition with the players (though it is known Gary would do things like that). It means the map will be filled with game challenges, but new discoveries on it can be as much a source of distraction as interest. Succeed at what you have prepared yourself to succeed at. I.e. Stay Focused, as general play advice.

5. Gaming the maze is exactly why delving is what D&D players do. They run from encounters, they take short trips into dungeons as they need to cover all the needs their characters have to survive and succeed. Getting lost, even on a grassy plain, can be days or weeks of difficulty and use up all sorts of hard won wealth. (Hell, with OS you could die in a big enough field even with no wandering encounters)

6. If you have an easy success, peek around. All information the DM is giving is treasure. (They are revealing what is possible within the system even in world design alone).



> There is nothing in there about trying to work out what system of dungeon generation the GM is using. And all that advice would be equally sound whether the GM determined everything in the dungeon randomly, or made up all the rooms and their contents quite deliberately, using random determination only for wandering monsters.



Everything the DM does to create that map is rule following. Everything the DM is allowed to tell the players is from that map. The system is the game. It is an algorithm that results in a function map in which the playable pattern is inherent. Everything the players do to game the game as a design is deciphering those repeating patterns the DM uses to generate a design. (And in so many, many ways, how the proverbial "dungeon" is stocked)

Players are playing a massive grand strategy system that enables results in many minor skirmishes, treasure finds, magic explorations, dialogues, and chances for, well, outright robbery. That's because it isn't a simulation of "everything" anyone could ever think of, but solely systems covering everything relevant to the roles (class) players are expected to play. Their improvement through play of the game is directly related to their game score, per role, and thereby level. This is why Munchkins are people who showed up at a game with a 9th level character without no working understanding of the game. They didn't play that character in a game which led them to increasing their own game mastery of it. They just showed up at another gaming group claiming the character was legitimate. (That no campaign should use the same system wasn't en vogue then I believe, given the proclamation of the official "real D&D" AD&D rules to allow tournament and cross group play. I don't believe that is functionally possible.)

Quite frankly, I don't see how any of the advice you listed could in any way be considered credible in an entirely improvised game that had no underlying design for players to game. What are you seeing in those points?



> As I've posted more than once now, I am not looking for an amusing pastime for "telling or retelling imagined events". I am looking for a game which, in virtue of being played, _will generate stories_ - that is to say, will give rise to a telling of imagined events which has a tolerably recognisable dramatic content and structure.



Fair enough. 



> Even Gygax, in the passage I quoted, is referring to imagined as well as real things. The maps he talks about, for instance, are real, but the "alien gods" are imaginary. And the players are meant to think of them in imaginary terms - eg it matters to the play of the game whether an altar is to an "alien god" or an ordinary god, and players are expected to engage with those differences.



Players' imagination in D&D are being tested. That's because their capability to imagine a highly complex design and remember it directly relates to their ability to play the game successfully. Don't pay attention, and you lose out. All the things Gary is referring to are real things in that they are really on a gameboard before play begins. If you want an "Alien God" you need to design what deity and alien mean in your game prior to play - or the players during campaign creation, if they want it added. In that way D&D is a symbolic language referring not to our world, but the game world/board. All the common language is jargon to it.



> Where my preference differs from Gygaxian skilled play is that I am not that interested in the sort of dungeon exploration and strategy that he describes. The rules of the systems I prefer have different purposes.
> 
> For reasons I don't understand - maybe you're not familiar with them? - you seem to think that those systems don't involve game play in the sense of _testing the player's personal abilities_. (Which is what Edwards called "stepping on up". So you seem to agree with him at least on that point.)



All game play is skill play. That is the purpose of game design, to enable players to improve themselves against the structure of the game.

Playing many Indie games to achieve ends within their designs may enable actual game play for players seeking those ends. I think it's a case by case judgment. But almost all of those games' rules do not refer to a design to be played by the players, but a collaborative narrative to be invented by all participants. The games can be very tight, well balanced systems. But they are still storygames focusing on making up stories which are not part of the game system rather than playing the actual game which is. 

The key difference here is invention rather than discovery. D&D players are involved endless Eureka moments as their comprehension of the underlying pattern comes together over and over. That the design is so gargantuan in 1000 hour games (wargames too) of such complexity is the pleasure of such moments.  That happens by learning the game through play. (The game of Chess, card games, boardgames, etc...) That everything that ever happened in the entire length of the campaign informs, relates, and may even effect everything else that ever happens for the rest of the campaign is the awe inspiring accomplishment of D&D design.   ---Something missing in non-design, improv sessions called games.



> Here is a self-quote from an actual play post:
> SNIP



What game time and entropy (chaos) are in the D&D game should be understood by the DM for their own system. That may sound like a non sequitur, but if you've been building functional D&D world designs, you know these come up. The result of the effect your player is proposing is still limited to what is possible within the system. If it isn't, the Player's explanation would need to be described until such terms are covered by the game and then proper results could be determined. If "entropy" is already a design element in the game, one that can be swapped out according to game rules, then those suppositions by the player were him sussing out the pre-existing game design. However, I'm guessing they weren't so. That you were simply adding an untested, unbalanced game effect into the system by the player's rationale rather than what was possible in the game. 

While there is a lot of terminology in your story about what happened, symbols that could relate to design elements, playing a broken game system until anyone involved "just makes it up" is still disabling of game play. That this was a basic understanding of what all games could not do was not missed by Gygax. I think this understanding not only enabled him to use previous and create highly insightful game mechanics, but also drove him to create as many encompassing subsystems as he did.

Just for fun, my understanding would be absolute entropy is not just the end of time, but the end of everything. Entropy of is the absencing of stuff. It's like coming to the edge of the universe. There isn't even space beyond. There is no "beyond". IMO, such a powerful effect would require very high level ability and not be "swappable" for alternate game damage or conditions or however the system you used worked. (Terminology generalizations aren't the actual design for D&D anyways, but useful abstractions for fast calculations by the DM. There is supposed to be an actual design pattern underlying those scores and abilities)



> How is that not a game? There is a rules structure. There is dice rolling to find out what happens (so in that respect it resembles gambling). There is the making of decisions by a player so as to change the probabilities, and those decisions include elements of resource management (in this case, trading of healing surges for bonuses). The player is also having to think about, and within the context of, the fiction - which is the same sort of game-playing as is involved in my daughter setting up her imaginary cake shop.



There is no game design the rules are referring to, the field of play. The actual design upon which a person moves themselves (a sport) or a piece of the design. Cards are their own field. So too are game boards and the pieces upon them. I feel like in your game players are projecting their desires and gaming for the right to have their imaginings be added to the "game", i.e. narrative. They are not attempting to decipher, discover, and game the system based upon their current understanding of it. 

Can such actual gaming happen in part with a partial system? Yes, but any game that allows players to add elements to it is about adding rules specifically, not "narrative content". That way new rules can be accounted for by players in planning their future strategies. Not to mention new rules cannot usually contradict old rules. 

A new spell or weapon in D&D would require the DM to assign all the design elements for it to be covered by the rules. Take a new weapon for example, Size, shape, weight, substance, length, sharpness/pointedness/flatness, hit points, AC, saves, etc., etc. And then the player needs to playtest the item in the system to see how it ranks compared to others. Not to mention how it was created in the game world and the costs commonly involved, material components, crafting effects tools must do... Like everything else in D&D, that stuff can be later abstracted for quick judgements. We know it requires steel, at this level we don't need to get hung up on the quality of the steel. (I got carried away here)



> For instance, the player has had to come up with an in-fiction rationale for how he can pull off the stunt that he wants to pull off. This belongs to that time-honoured D&D category of "the creative use of spells".



No, every caster casting a spell is learning the effects of what that spell does in a particular game situation based upon the current design of the board behind the screen. Gravity pulls the ice wall down on people. We know the stats for the people, for the ice wall, and how high it was cast above them (ask when necessary). In a highly complex game there may be several more factors for the DM to keep track of too. But that scale is up to the individual DM. Creativity for D&D players means doing something in a personally novel way and learning what that means in the pre-existing game, not making stuff up and playing a game for the right to say it.  The former increases player knowledge of viable game strategies and is vital to scoring (XP) as a player.

To me, what is sounds like you were doing applied to D&D was allowing a player to create a spell without study, cost, or time requirement - which is built in to so you can do work out of session to test the balance of such. Or whether they could even create such a level of effect in the first place.



> You say that I'm interfering with the fixing of the RPG hobby. I think what I've quoted shows that I'm pretty squarely part of the RPG hobby!



I'm saying the RPG hobby has been usurped by the story making hobby. Anyone can choose to look for recognition of that fact and stop perpetuating it.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 15, 2015)

Bleys Icefalcon said:


> OK, I am going to jump in again.  Guys, it's not either/or, not if it's done right.  It's BOTH - the best games/campaigns/groups that I have ever been a part of for greater than 30 years now is when it IS a game and it IS collaborative storytelling - at the same time.



Well for the first dozen years of the hobby D&D had nothing whatsoever to do with stories, but was a game. That it was terribly dysfunctional under 2e and then dysfunctionally designed, however well-meaningly, and then finally dropped from the D&D brand altogether doesn't mean D&D the game applies to what you're saying. It doesn't.

_edited for clarity_


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## Zak S (Oct 15, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Dismissing the value others have found just because you don't like it is the non-reality-based step here.




Incorrect:

Forge theory doesn't just make claims about what some people experienced. It makes broad claims about how all games work.
For example: "It's impossible to equally serve multiple GNS goals (at all) simultaneously in one instance of play" 




> There is *nothing* valuable to a theory except in its use.




And its use has slowed down hundreds if not thousands of conversations about games, delayed useful insights and elevated and encouraged people who have bad ideas and can't make good things. It's use has been a disaster.



> That Mr Edwards made claims far beyond its actual usefulness is irrelevant.




It's super-relevant and here's why:

Since his theory was wrong and it can be proved, everyone who believed it or encouraged the community arounf it SHOULD be considered someone who is less trustworthy and less reliable (like having believed in a flat-earth theory) than other people in a conversation. Their ideas should be considered less important, their contributions should be weighted as less relevant. They should only be taken seriously after publicly going "Ok, that whole flat-earth thing was a bad idea and I shouldn't have believed it, encouraged it in others, it was bad for the community as a whole".

Instead in many cases the opposite happened--postForgies were just numerous enough (and just over-represented in online discussion enough, for obvious reasons) to create a clique of folks who saw having believed in this flat earth theory as a mark of sophisticated IndieNess rather than an embarassment and that legacy continues today.

Everyone should be LESS likely to believe any proposition floated by a person who once believed and encouraged Mr Flat Earth whereas in many cases folks are MORE likely to believe them--and this is a bad outcome for the game community.


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## Celebrim (Oct 15, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Incorrect:
> 
> Forge theory doesn't just make claims about what some people experienced. It makes broad claims about how all games work.
> For example: "It's impossible to equally serve multiple GNS goals (at all) simultaneously in one instance of play"




I don't agree with everything you say, but I do agree with that.  

Forge's grand theory of RPGs wasn't intended to describe what people had experienced inclusively, but rather defined from the basis of theory the limits of what people could experience.  A succession of bad words were invented to then belittle and slander anyone that claimed to experience anything other than what they were supposed to experience, and in essence anyone that claimed to be running (for example) process simulation and to have story goals that were being successfully met by that system was mocked as being self-deluded.  System mattered, thus how you approached play or how you thought about play didn't matter but instead was limited by the system.  If something didn't fit the theory, it had to be deconstructed, diminished, and ultimately denigrated.  No one in the history of gaming of any prominence has developed more synonyms for 'badwrongfun', nor been considered a credible commentator despite the games he was producing and not because of them, than Ron Edwards.  

That was the bad side of the Forge culture and it should not be overlooked just how corrosive it was when it was at full bore.

But, for all of that, I do think that some good things came out of the Forge's work.  They did either invent or introduce me to a lot of useful terminology that they'd coopted for talking about games - agency for example - that I otherwise didn't have.   I think it's possible to employ at least some Forge speak in a constructive manner, without endorsing the larger theory or its specifics.  And some of the Indy games that came out of that dialogue did invent or formalize new techniques and methods of play resolution that are really valuable in some cases and for some purposes.  And while I don't strictly believe in "System Matters" the way Forge defined it, I think it did cause people to take harder looks at what there system was actually achieving and thinking about what it was intended to achieve in a way that was rare and more sporadic in the first 10-15 years of game design.  I'm not sure that the degree to which all of that is positive can be appreciated unless you go back and look and older designs and also how people talked about older design.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 15, 2015)

Umbran said:


> "Game" is a natural language word, not technical jargon.  There are many definitions.  Bernard Suits would probably agree with you, but Wittgenstein probably would not.  And those are just the philosophers, not the natural users of the word.



If Wittgenstein included the mind as part of The world in his Tractatus, I doubt it. I feel he was trying desperately to "climb back into the world" with his later stuff. As the references of D&D are as much to imaginings of the Ref as to the board outside him/her, I don't feel there is a dichotomy. One can be the aid to the other as long as one retains a pattern identity.

Bernard Suits is new to me, but looks perfectly applicable. 



> You don't own the definition of "game".  Yours is one definition of many.  Thus, your repeated assertion is not terribly constructive, as it is only true for those who are using your particular definition of the word.



We all own definitions. I'll agree, everyone's definitions are only true for those who share a worldview, but I too could smurf the word game into anything I want it to be. As a label it has boundless applications. All of which makes languages a balance between a wondrous utility and being mockingly useless. I feel my definition is more applicable to more games for what players historically want from games. 

But no philosophy is to be an absolute. That is treating it as a god. That is the problem with deliberate disinformation campaigns like Edwards'. Not only do I believe he actually believes in his extremist point of view. He has no air for anything outside it. Games are one of the things historically that required reception and manipulation. But for him, science is about inventing narratives, history is inventing narratives, politics are invented narratives, economics is invented narratives. There is no "outside narrative theory" in his theory. He's a Foucouldian power ethicist. A person who sees any trivia game or code breaking game or anything with an impartial referee as inherently tyrannical.   So the entire practice of games as predictive enterprises is dutifully erased in a massive jumble of near incomprehensible jargon.


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## Zak S (Oct 15, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> I don't agree with everything you say, but I do agree with that.
> 
> Forge's grand theory of RPGs wasn't intended to describe what people had experienced inclusively, but rather defined from the basis of theory the limits of what people could experience.  A succession of bad words were invented to then belittle and slander anyone that claimed to experience anything other than what they were supposed to experience, and in essence anyone that claimed to be running (for example) process simulation and to have story goals that were being successfully met by that system was mocked as being self-deluded.  System mattered, thus how you approached play or how you thought about play didn't matter but instead was limited by the system.  If something didn't fit the theory, it had to be deconstructed, diminished, and ultimately denigrated.  No one in the history of gaming of any prominence has developed more synonyms for 'badwrongfun', nor been considered a credible commentator despite the games he was producing and not because of them, than Ron Edwards.
> 
> ...




Then what needs to happen going forward, now, in 2015, is everybody who encouraged the Forge should go "I'm sorry this was a mistake, I won't ever refer to Forge terminology ever again, it's connected to a toxic hellbroth of bad assumptions used by _very_ bad people to _very_ bad ends--or at least as bad as "Talking about games" can get.".

Whether or not the theory that the four elements were Earth Air Fire and Water helped anyone back in the day,  we know it isn't true NOW, and the way to move forward into a smarter discussion of games (and new, better game designs) involves admitting that and not constantly going "Ok, well D&D is an Earth game with Fire assumptions and...." and dragging the conversation back to the Middle Ages.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 15, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> Thirdly, I don't think anyone is arguing that narratives are the inevitable result of the play of all games.



That's exactly what the borders are for the Big Model. In it, Tetris is scene shifting to create a narrative, or some such BS.



> Even in the case of an RPG, I don't think anyone is arguing that a story is inevitable.



Roleplaying is treated as a synonym for storytelling by that crowd. Not performing a social role.



> > Games are real, of course. Not fiction or non-fictions at all.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by this.



Games are simply patterns existent in the world which we treat accordingly within the culture of games. We decipher the pattern to achieve goals in it. "Race you to that tree!" or per your own history of the term "game": Betting on the odds of a random even with a design to it. Atheletes vying against each other in contests with predefined goals to be achieved. Hunters seeking game. All of these things are real, not expressions of truth or falseness. It's language which can get in the way.



> Sure, but this statement is so broad as to be meaningless.



I'm saying source doesn't matter. A garden maze is a made up game real as it is, but so is a forest when we treat it like game. 



> But I haven't a clue regarding what "revolution" you are talking about.  I have long been critical of Forge Theory and GNS.  But GNS by and large has not been very influential over how or what the average game plays, nor is it even possible for GNS to reach back in the past and alter what people have played.



(I take this to have meant "game(r) plays")
The indie population at large found god somehow and needed to tell others what to believe, what they were *really* doing. "You're telling a story!" That it is steeped in revolutionary phrases and banners is obvious. What are they revolting against? What must be overturned?



> No we don't.  Modules weren't invented as part of D&D play until half a decade after D&D play began



The first was Palace of the Vampire Queen 1975, TSR's first was in Blackmoor Supplement 2. 

Of course we need modules to play. In the early years people ran the same modules many times over having to get more creative with them to challenge the same players again. The Keep on the Borderlands in the icy north. Lost in a jungle. Etc.



> This is a typical example of you taking a specific tool and implement for being the broad and general case.  You could make a reasonable argument that we need a secret keeper who keeps secret the information and parcels out that information to the players as the game progresses, but you can't make the case that that secret keeper needs a physical screen to hide the information.  The screen is merely one specific sort of tool that is entirely optional.   I've known plenty of DMs even ones running dungeon crawls that did without one and simply relied on players not to peek, or simply set on the sofa while everyone else was across the room, or simply used a long dining room table.



You wanted evidence of intention in the design of D&D. Screens are evidence. Modules are evidence. Quotes in responses to other posters in this thread include more evidence. That you deny screens and other game components as unnecessary doesn't disprove their need in the actual game.



> Perhaps scoring points is how you define winning D&D, but its not how the game itself defined 'winning' - which by the way is a rather odd notion given that D&D doesn't define how it ends.   I would argue that to the extent D&D defines winning at all, it defines it as, "When everyone at the table is satisfied that the game is complete."   Exactly what satisfies a group that this is the time to stop and declare victory is going to vary from group to group, but since you formerly argued that modules are necessary for play, I think a good argument could be made that "when the module is complete" is a very common definition of "winning D&D".  And yet, if that is the definition of winning, it has nothing to do with how many points you scored.



Each player scores points separately. Each succeeds individually. The game is cooperative because players can work together to score points better when working as a group. The game is a cooperative game, not a collaborative one. And if you've played modules you know modules aren't "episodic" but continually transitioning as the game is played. Even if you clear a dungeon level, you need to fight to keep the monsters from repopulating it. The modules never go away, but are simply tightly balanced designs within the larger game. (of course, so too are the PCs, monsters, treasure...)



> Ok sure.  But this does no harm to the statement D&D was invented as a game with a story engine way back in 1973 when Ron Edwards was memorizing multiplication tables and had probably never even imagined an RPG.  So what does GNS have to do with any of this?



The redefining of an RPG as a storygame, to the point even you don't seem to remember or understand what RPGing is.



> Why don't we just confine ourselves to looking at those modules you claim are so necessary to play and see what they tell us about whether D&D has a story?  Let's begin with UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave, shall we?



Okay, but that is well known as being a campaign destroying module. "You are trapped in ice for 1000s of years". Wow! We might as well just quit the game. Maybe someone could have come from a previous time and then began class training when they arrived in the campaign, pre-game stuff, but UK1's design is a campaign ender.



> In 1961, Caillois in his highly influential book 'Les jeux et les hommes' defined games as being a human activity that was fun, circumscribed, uncertain, non-productive, governed by rules, and fictitious.   More to the point, a game is a form of play, and play is always fictitious.  "A play" is literally a piece of fiction.  The theatrical definition of "a play" and the verb "to play" have a common origin.  To play is to exercise ones imagination.   To game is to exercise that imagination in a manner circumscribed by goals and rules, but despite goals and rules it still remains a fiction.



Games are fantasy because they include people, the ideas in their minds. Fiction is a term about stories. 



> But even then, I don't think Edwards would claim "memory" was an RPG.  He was making a theory of RPGs; not a theory of games generally.



Check it over again, The Big Model claims to be a theory on what every game is. If you can't find it, ask someone in the know.


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## pemerton (Oct 15, 2015)

Neonchameleon said:


> its discussion of simulationism is ... bad.



For whom? As I've already posted, I'm a 20-year Rolemaster player, and so am pretty familiar with pretty hardcore sim. And I think the discussion of sim is pretty insightful. It helped me steer through a lot of recurring and tricky issues that come up in process-sim play.


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## pemerton (Oct 15, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> I don't think anyone is arguing that narratives are the inevitable result of the play of all games.  Parcheesi for example doesn't seem to have a story component to it.   Among other things, it lacks anything that might be called 'characters', nor would it's board be mistaken for a 'setting' nor does its play end up creating through transcription anything like a plot or narrative.   It's components of play have no correspondence to the components of a story.   Even in the case of an RPG, I don't think anyone is arguing that a story is inevitable.  All that is being argued is that story is not nor was not seen even from the beginning to be incompatible with playing a game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Celebrim, the above are not the only points in your post I agree with but they're the main ones.

The stuff about modules, maps and screens I especially relate to. I have played D&D using modules and not-using modules. The encounter "on a road" or "in an inn" or "in the upper floor of the wizard's tower" is very typical. And I think I've used a GM screen once in the hundreds of sessions that I've GMed - otherwise I use the various techniques you describe if I have anything I want to keep secret from the players.



Maxperson said:


> That I'm really curious about.  Would you explain that further?





Celebrim said:


> pemerton is an advocate of 'no myth' and for the DMing creating content in response to the player's declared goals and actions.  In this way, he thinks by improvising in reaction to the players, the DM is prioritizing the players interests and desires for the setting over his own.   Ironically, I find pemerton's methods more railroad-y than traditional open sandbox play and much more prone to illusionism (and DM rationalizing his biases)



 [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], Celebrim is basically right but a few extra comments:

My "advocacy" isn't in the form of _you should do this_ but more _some people do this_. Particularly during some of the discussions around 4e, it was common to see posts explaining why 4e is not an RPG that took for granted approaches to RPGing (including that the GM sets all the backstory and fiction-to-mechanics correlation in advance) that aren't universal.

My game isn't fully "no myth". Eg in my BW game we are using the Greyhawk maps; in my 4e game we use the default 4e backstory (Dawn War etc) plus the regional map from the module Night's Dark Terror. The non-mythiness is more in the details of backstory (town details, NPC and PC backstories, etc).

I don't fully follow Celebrim's comment about "the DM rationalising his biases", but in my case my players know my biases pretty well. That's why they tend to build PCs who are oriented towards engaging with supernatural threats like undead and demons. That said, system makes a difference here. My BW game has much more human politics than my 4e one, because BW has better mechanics than 4e for handling relatively mundane social conflict.

Anyway, tying this back to railroading: in his AP thread, [MENTION=6673408]Zak[/MENTION]S defined "railroading" along the lines of "the constraints on play become a problem". The constraint on play introduced by typical sand-boxing is that the players have to engaged the content the GM has pre-written for them. For me that's a problem.


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## pemerton (Oct 15, 2015)

Zak S said:


> I didn't mention you specifically--I am talking about the culture of sucky debate the Forge engendered by growing out of a culture surrounding a bad theory. I'm not talking about you, the topic of my post was why people don't like the Forge's legacy.



OK - I misunderstood.

From my point of view the Forge legacy is some good games and some very useful GMing advice.


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## Zak S (Oct 15, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Anyway, tying this back to railroading: in his AP thread, @_*Zak*_S defined "railroading" along the lines of "the constraints on play become a problem". The constraint on play introduced by typical sand-boxing is that the players have to engaged the content the GM has pre-written for them. For me that's a problem.



If your player's aren't interested in challenge or problem solving (other than in the sense that 'make up something interesting with almost no constraints' is a problem to be solved and a challenge) than this makes sense. A puzzle isn't usually a puzzle unless someone else sets it up--the solver has too much information.

Feeling "railroaded" is like feeling "too cold"--there is almost no theoretical minimum where someone is "wrong" to say they feel railroaded. It's just that someone who feels too cold when in the midst of the sun or who feels railroaded when the GMs says "There's a giant frog 3 miles to the west, not that you have to do anything about it, it's just there" is just WAY MORE SENSITIVE than the average gamer.

That's ok. There are games for those gamers.


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## Zak S (Oct 15, 2015)

pemerton said:


> OK - I misunderstood.
> 
> From my point of view the Forge legacy is some good games and some very useful GMing advice.




From my POV the Forge legacy is 1 game that postForge people tend to like (Apoc World) a couple hacks of it, over a hundred games so bad that even people in that crowd don't ever seem to play them, one game that seems to be really bad and confusing but was sold really well by extraordinary effort and production values (Burning Wheel) and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of terrible terrible terrible comments, accusations, threats, derailments, threadcraps, evasions, prejudices, bigotries, cronyisms and attacks encouraged by the philosophy of the Forge itself ("jerks at your table aren't the jerks' fault, it's the game's fault", "Never assume good faith from non-Forgies") snaking through the last 10 years of game discussion like a length of razor wire hiding in a bowl of pasta because people just don't want to admit they made a big mistake 10 years ago and formed lasting social ties based on that mistake.

Take away the Forge and we wouldn't have...one lasting game postForgies like. We probably could've had Vincent Baker without the Forge so I count the Forge a net loss on every level.


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## Umbran (Oct 16, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Forge theory and vocabulary is, in 2015, a bad thing that makes conversations slower and worse.




In my experience, at least around here, that is because some folks who have decided they don't like Forge Theory come in and spend time trying to get you to stop talking about it.  Kind of like warlord discussions on these boards right now.  It is bad for social reasons, not for technical ones.

If, instead, you just let folks who find it useful go ahead and use it without putting up a fuss, the discussion can go along quite well.


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## Zak S (Oct 16, 2015)

Umbran said:


> In my experience, at least around here, that is because some folks who have decided they don't like Forge Theory come in and spend time trying to get you to stop talking about it.  Kind of like warlord discussions on these boards right now.  It is bad for social reasons, not for technical ones.
> 
> If, instead, you just let folks who find it useful go ahead and use it without putting up a fuss, the discussion can go along quite well.



"The reason the Earth-Air-Fire-Water theory of physics messes up conversations is because people keep disagreeing with it."

No. Forge theory is inaccurate. People should stop alluding to it. People who are alluding to it should be viewed as unreliable and arguments built on it can't ever be accurate.


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## Umbran (Oct 16, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Incorrect:
> 
> Forge theory doesn't just make claims about what some people experienced. It makes broad claims about how all games work.




So what?  Who cares?

You ever see someone eat a slice of pizza, but leave the crust behind, 'cause it isn't so nice?   When you eat an orange, don't you leave the rind behind?  Or, say I have a pocketknife.  I don't drink wine, so the corkscrew on it is completely useless.  But, several other things on the pocketknife work just fine, and I can ignore the corkscrew.  Thus, the thing overall still has value.

Who on Earth told you that folks having a discussion using GNS theory must use *ALL* of it?  Or, did the simple idea of _editing_ never occur to you?


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## Zak S (Oct 16, 2015)

Umbran said:


> So what?  Who cares?
> 
> You ever see someone eat a slice of pizza, but leave the crust behind, 'cause it isn't so nice?   When you eat an orange, don't you leave the rind behind?  Or, say I have a pocketknife.  I don't drink wine, so the corkscrew on it is completely useless.  But, several other things on the pocketknife work just fine, and I can ignore the corkscrew.  Thus, the thing overall still has value.
> 
> Who on Earth told you that folks having a discussion using GNS theory must use *ALL* of it?  Or, did the simple idea of _editing_ never occur to you?




Because NO part of it is worthwhile, though, even if it might've had some therapeutic value for some gamers.

It is like phrenology: even if phrenology incidentally had some good impact on some person's life (it taught them to make precise measurements or use a protractor or read a chart), all arguments drawn from these principles are bad as they rest on faulty premises.

And most of what we do on game forums is discuss what's true and false. So if the conversation is about what actually works and what actually doesn't, then the person who starts using phrenological ideas is not making a good argument and this should be pointed out and they should stop so that we can move on and real progress can be made.

As articulated, in its strong form, GNS is simply wrong. It makes bad predictions that don't match reality.

In its weak form (where we ignore what it says and just use the buzzwords) it simply says "Some gamers like different things in games" which is what every other theory of games says.

So there's no part of it that's useful. It is all rind.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Forge theory is inaccurate. People should stop alluding to it. People who are alluding to it should be viewed as unreliable and arguments built on it can't ever be accurate.



I disagree with this, for basic methodological reasons.

Newton's physics is inaccurate, and is certainly false, yet people using it can send rocket ships to the moon. Ptolemy's astronomy is even more false (assuming degrees of falsehood make sense) but my understanding is that 19th century American nautical almanacs were prepared using Ptolemaic methods of calculation.

In the social sphere, most 19th and early 20th century sociology theories are false theories, in the sense that they assert generalities that don't hold and they make particular claims about historical events that aren't true. Some of those theories are nevertheless very powerful and full of useful insight.

In the case of mathematical physics, the main reason for the utility of falsehoods is because numbers that are wrong, and that are generated by way of a model that is not at all correct, might nevertheless be approximately equal to the correct numbers.

In the case of sociology, a theory whose generalities don't hold and which makes some mistaken historical claims might still be powerful and insightful because some of its generalities and interpretations hold for a more narrow set of cases, or because - while it misunderstands the nature of some phenomenon - it nevertheless has a lot of true and insightful things to say about that phenomenon.



Zak S said:


> one game that seems to be really bad and confusing but was sold really well by extraordinary effort and production values (Burning Wheel)



What does "seems to be really bad" mean here, other than "I don't like it" or "I don't want to play it?"


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Because NO part of it is worthwhile, though, even if it might've had some therapeutic value for some gamers.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> As articulated, in its strong form, GNS is simply wrong. It makes bad predictions that don't match reality.



I pointed to two predications above, though, that do match reality.

Edwards correctly predicts that initiative will be a big issue in hard-sim games like Rolemaster and Runequest. He makes a similar prediction about hit locations. And, in fact, when you look at the play communities for those games, and the sorts of debates they have, and the sorts of supplemental rules that get published, he's right. And he's right about the particular fault-lines that emerge.

I also pointed to his discussion of techniques that are more common in G and N games than sim games. That one paragraph, as I said, encapsulates the whole of the 4e-era debate about "dissociated" mechanics.

The subject matter of these predictions may not be important to you - I get the sense (maybe wrong?) that you're not into hard-sim games of the RM/RQ sort, and that nor are you into 4e. But because I am into those games (and hence into BW, which is a sort of meld of the two styles), those predictions are relevant to me.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

Zak S said:


> If your player's aren't interested in challenge or problem solving (other than in the sense that 'make up something interesting with almost no constraints' is a problem to be solved and a challenge) than this makes sense. A puzzle isn't usually a puzzle unless someone else sets it up--the solver has too much information.



My players are interested in challenges, and also problem solving. I posted an actual play example upthread, where the challenge was "Seal the Abyss" and the problem to be solved was "Within the play space defined by (i) the 4e mechanics and (ii) the current fictional situation, how can I generate enough bonuses on my d20 roll to have a decent chance of making 41 starting with a base +20?"

The relationship between challenges and problem solving, and sandboxing or non-sandboxing, is orthogonal as far as I can see.



Zak S said:


> Feeling "railroaded" is like feeling "too cold"--there is almost no theoretical minimum where someone is "wrong" to say they feel railroaded. It's just that someone who feels too cold when in the midst of the sun or who feels railroaded when the GMs says "There's a giant frog 3 miles to the west, not that you have to do anything about it, it's just there" is just WAY MORE SENSITIVE than the average gamer.



Sure, given the financial success of Paizo's APs obviously I'm more sensitive than the average gamer.

But I don't think it's hard to see the issue. Having the GM mention all his/her giant frogs 3 miles to the west sucks up time, attention and energy at the table. And that time, attention and energy is not being devoted to stuff that the players have signalled their interest in.


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## Maxperson (Oct 16, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> pemerton is an advocate of 'no myth' and for the DMing creating content in response to the player's declared goals and actions.  In this way, he thinks by improvising in reaction to the players, the DM is prioritizing the players interests and desires for the setting over his own.   Ironically, I find pemerton's methods more railroad-y than traditional open sandbox play and much more prone to illusionism (and DM rationalizing his biases), but if we open up that argument between pemerton and myself again we're going to need a new thread.




I tend to fall in-between I think.  I have proactive players who set goals, but while I improv a lot, I don't need to improv it all.  If they tell me they want to infiltrate the palace as nobles from another land, I go with it.  I will also set up other plot hooks, such as the princess plotting to kill the duke she's supposed to marry.  If the PCs ask the right questions, they can discover it.  If they don't, the plot goes on without them and I don't force it on them.  If they discover it they can go with it or ignore it.  If they ignore it, it goes on without them.  

The DM planning things is not railroading.  It's only railroading if the plots are forced on the players in a way that they cannot avoid.


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## Zak S (Oct 16, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Newton's physics is inaccurate, and is certainly false, yet...



Ron Edwards is no Isaac Newton. He isn't even Robin Laws.

Phrenology isn't Newtonian physics. And games aren't nearly complicated enough to need a "good enough" tier of design and GMing rules.



> What does "seems to be really bad" mean here, other than "I don't like it" or "I don't want to play it?"




For Burning Wheel?

1. People who do play it seem to be confused by the system and are always dropping parts of it or ignoring them or having to consult Luke to clarify them.

2. The system, when not hand-sold or supported by the author, isn't very popular on its own. It isn't an ambassador for itself. This isn't bad by itself but it does suggest something's rotten in Denmark.

3. The people who do like it don't tend to be real exciting or interesting people.

4. Huge parts of it are explicitly (explicitly: the author said so) designed to prevent abusive GMing and play practices which should actually be dealt with interpersonally rather than trying to systematize them away. The game has a huge overhead of rules that merely exist because Luke's game group was/is disfunctional and he made rules to route around that rather than dealing with it.

5. Played RAW it plays like the best comedy game ever written.

Now you could say that 1 applies to D&D but definitely not 2 or 3. And all 5 together? That's a thing.

I could be nuts here but everything I've observed suggests BW is exactly as popular as the players are close to Luke Crane and his (massive and dedicated and long-running) personal advocacy for it.


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## Zak S (Oct 16, 2015)

pemerton said:


> I pointed to two predications above, though, that do match reality.
> 
> Edwards correctly predicts that initiative will be a big issue in hard-sim games like Rolemaster and Runequest....



And phrenology predicts people with the biggest heads aren't babies. ALL the predictions made by a theory have to be correct, not some cherry-picked ones.

But if you point out Rolemaster isn't necessarily "sim" in any way you have to turn the car around.


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## Zak S (Oct 16, 2015)

pemerton said:


> My players are interested in challenges, and also problem solving. I posted an actual play example upthread, where the challenge was "Seal the Abyss" and the problem to be solved was "Within the play space defined by (i) the 4e mechanics and (ii) the current fictional situation, how can I generate enough bonuses on my d20 roll to have a decent chance of making 41 starting with a base +20?"
> 
> The relationship between challenges and problem solving, and sandboxing or non-sandboxing, is orthogonal as far as I can see.




Incorrect:

Puzzle-solving requires constraints and as we've said before different contraints feeling too heavy are what makes for railroading.



> But I don't think it's hard to see the issue. Having the GM mention all his/her giant frogs 3 miles to the west sucks up time, attention and energy at the table. And that time, attention and energy is not being devoted to stuff that the players have signalled their interest in.




Depends entirely on whether the GM mentioning giant frogs makes your players interested or not. My players tend to be into the stuff I make up. But it's not for everyone.


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## Maxperson (Oct 16, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> I think we're working from different vocabularies. That's why this thread might be useful rather than perhaps a "calling out"?
> 
> What you are quoting is strategic advice for the players. It's like reading a strategy guide for Chess or any other wargame. It's isn't rules, but helpful insight for playing the game more capably.
> 
> ...




I don't see how they wouldn't be credible in an improvised game.  In an improvised game players can set their own objectives, map the dungeon, avoid encounters, leave to rest, and so on.  All of his advice can be used in games that are more story driven.


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## Maxperson (Oct 16, 2015)

pemerton said:


> My "advocacy" isn't in the form of _you should do this_ but more _some people do this_. Particularly during some of the discussions around 4e, it was common to see posts explaining why 4e is not an RPG that took for granted approaches to RPGing (including that the GM sets all the backstory and fiction-to-mechanics correlation in advance) that aren't universal.
> 
> My game isn't fully "no myth". Eg in my BW game we are using the Greyhawk maps; in my 4e game we use the default 4e backstory (Dawn War etc) plus the regional map from the module Night's Dark Terror. The non-mythiness is more in the details of backstory (town details, NPC and PC backstories, etc).
> 
> I don't fully follow Celebrim's comment about "the DM rationalising his biases", but in my case my players know my biases pretty well. That's why they tend to build PCs who are oriented towards engaging with supernatural threats like undead and demons. That said, system makes a difference here. My BW game has much more human politics than my 4e one, because BW has better mechanics than 4e for handling relatively mundane social conflict.




Okay.  That clears things up a bit.  I do have to say I have the same weakness as you when it comes to encounters.  I've actually had to focus and remember to use other things than undead and demons this campaign that we just started.



> Anyway, tying this back to railroading: in his AP thread, [MENTION=6673408]Zak[/MENTION]S defined "railroading" along the lines of "the constraints on play become a problem". The constraint on play introduced by typical sand-boxing is that the players have to engaged the content the GM has pre-written for them. For me that's a problem.




This lost me again.  By definition a sandbox game doesn't have those constraints.  The DM may have lots of content all over the place, but the players are free to engage or ignore it as they see fit and if they want, go into areas not yet developed by the DM.  That's why there is so much improv in a sandbox game.

Why is it that you think players are forced to engage DM content in sandbox games?


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 16, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> I don't see how they wouldn't be credible in an improvised game.  In an improvised game players can set their own objectives, map the dungeon, avoid encounters, leave to rest, and so on.  All of his advice can be used in games that are more story driven.



In D&D the players are capable of gaming the system. Their decisions go directly to it, even if at all points they are unsure what what choices are immediately available. They are always working on suppositions, but they are seeking to discern the code as much as game it.

"There's more mountain to the east, so I bet the dungeon expands that way. We just haven't found it. Plus all those stupid bat-like creatures keep coming from that way and they seem to have hundreds of them. Either there's a hidden lair, a passage off this level, or something else I'm not thinking of." 
---- None of that is "talking about the fiction"

In a story-focused game, IME all Gary's advice wouldn't be advice for playing a game. I'm asking how others can hold that to be true though. At best, maybe it's suggestions for what kind of narrative we should create today on a blank page. It isn't talking about how to excel or at least not lose at playing the game system. For the large part, the storytelling rules are about finding who gets to tell the story next or how they may tell it.  There's been a lot of interesting design in how that can done, but the "fiction" and the system are separate. They aren't considered the same thing.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Ron Edwards is no Isaac Newton. He isn't even Robin Laws.



Of course not - obviously so for Newton!


Zak S said:


> Burning Wheel?
> 
> 1. People who do play it seem to be confused by the system and are always dropping parts of it or ignoring them or having to consult Luke to clarify them.
> 
> ...



I don't know how I heard of BW - maybe from Dan Davenport's review on rpg.net, but maybe I read that after I bought it? I remember that I bought it (revised ed) from my local RPG shop because I'd heard of it, it sounded interesting, and it was relatively cheap. (Maybe $40 - Australian dollars - for two books.)

Anyway, the tagline for that review is "If you've ever wanted to combine the powerful emotions and epic grandeur of Lord of the Rings with the brutally detailed combat of RuneQuest, then boy, do I have the game for you!" That's a reasonable fit for me and my group.

On your points:

(1) The systems are meant to be optional/flexible. I think in this respect your comparison to D&D is apt.

(2) The popularity of the system with others isn't a big deal for me - I ran Rolemaster for 20 years, after all, and that is now a system that I think has very little following.

(3) You might well find me an unexciting or uninteresting person. I suspect so would Vincent Baker and Paul Czege, for that matter. I don't know that anyone finds me very exciting. The main people who tend to find me interesting are fellow academics, or non-academics who are interested in political/social/philosophical ideas.

(4) I haven't experienced this yet, unless you mean the rules for Beliefs and Instincts, or maybe the Trait Vote - in which case I haven't found it a "huge overhead". The biggest overhead in the system, as I experience it, is in the advancement rules, which are a bit like RQ's but with more bookkeeping. To date, the payoff in comparison to RQ is that the advancement rules mean that players don't always have an incentive to make their dice pool as big as it could be - which deals with a whole lot of issues that arise when there is no incentive for the players not to maximise their dice.

(5) I haven't encountered this yet either. I find in play that it is very gritty, especially in comparison to 4e. Maybe there's something that I'm missing?

(6) I've never met Luke Crane or interacted with him (unless he posts anonymously).



Zak S said:


> But if you point out Rolemaster isn't necessarily "sim" in any way you have to turn the car around.



Have you played very much Rolemaster?

RM can be played in a manner that Edwards would call "vanilla narrativism". I know, because I've done it. For 20 years. It's also incredibly heavy sim. (What Edwards would call "purist for system".) These sim elements can cause issues when running the game in what Edwards would call "vanilla narrativist" style. I know that too, because I've experienced it. Reading Edwards actually helped me sort it out.

The fact that Edwards thinks a game can't be both S + N is not important to me (maybe he would label the sort of game I played "vanilla narrativist with a heavy exploratory chassis" - I don't know, and it's also not really that important to me). What was helpful to me was that the tensions he identified between some of the tendencies of the system and some of the things my group was doing with it are real, and his discussion of those tensions helped me manage and resolve some of them in play.



Zak S said:


> ALL the predictions made by a theory have to be correct, not some cherry-picked ones.



On that measure every social theory ever produced is worthless. I think it's the wrong standard. It's even the wrong standard for mathematical physics - a system might produce false predictions, because there is some phenomenon present that the system doesn't account for, yet otherwise be broadly sound.

For instance, classic electromagnetism predicts that atoms can't exist with a nucleus of positively charged particles, because the particles would repel one another. In fact, it turns out that that prediction is wrong, because there is another force at work - the strong nuclear force - that was not know to the theorists of classical electromagnetism. That doesn't make their theory worthless. It doesn't even make it wrong.

In the field of sociology, Durkheim makes predictions about the relationship between law and widely distributed attitudes that are, in general, false. At a minimum, he doesn't account for colonial/post-colonial contexts in which laws are parachuted in by an external authority. His theory of technocratic law-making is also poorly developed. Still, I think most people who live in industrial economies who want to understand some of the basic dynamics (political, economic, social) of the societies they live in could do a lot worse than read Durkheim.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> I tend to fall in-between I think.  I have proactive players who set goals, but while I improv a lot, I don't need to improv it all.  If they tell me they want to infiltrate the palace as nobles from another land, I go with it.  I will also set up other plot hooks, such as the princess plotting to kill the duke she's supposed to marry.  If the PCs ask the right questions, they can discover it.  If they don't, the plot goes on without them and I don't force it on them.  If they discover it they can go with it or ignore it.  If they ignore it, it goes on without them.
> 
> The DM planning things is not railroading.  It's only railroading if the plots are forced on the players in a way that they cannot avoid.



What you describe is the sort of approach to GMing that I generally try to avoid. Eg I don't work out stuff that "goes on without the players" which they can discover if their PCs ask the right questions. 

That's just the sort of thing that I said, upthread, is too railroad-y for my tastes (my approac is that, if the PCs "ask the right questions", then in response I'll work out some stuff that is happening.). Of course tastes differ.



Maxperson said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In a typical sandbox game, if the players don't engage the GM's content then there is no game. The GM might generate a lot of content all over the place, but the players aren't free to engage _none_ of it yet still be playing the game.

That said, at a certain point the sandbox you describe could bleed into a type of "no myth" play. If, in fact, all the content the GM is generating is improvised in response to hooks and signals provided by the player, then that's not the sort of thing I find railroad-y. But I don't think that's what is typically meant by "sandbox", either.



Zak S said:


> Puzzle-solving requires constraints and as we've said before different contraints feeling too heavy are what makes for railroading.



In my post to which you replied I used the phrase "problem solving". Are you treating "puzzle-solving" and "problem-solving" as synonyms?

As I said, I think that sandboxing and problem-solving are basically orthogonal. Most problem-solving in RPGs is either mechanical/technical, or involves interacting with the fiction. I don't see that sandboxing has any special connection to the presence or absence of mechanical/technical problem solving. Nor does it have any special connection to interacting with the fiction, does it? Sandboxing is a method for generating fiction, but not for adjudicating interactions with it when it acts as a constraint within which problems are solved.


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## Zak S (Oct 16, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Of course not - obviously so for Newton!



Point is Edwards theories are irrelevant dross, not Newtonian  "useful approximations"



> I don't know how I heard of BW - maybe from...




If you'd like to insist Burning Wheel's not a hilariously bad game, I'm not gonna argue with you. I laid out my case. It seems monstrously ill-conceived on all levels to me and Luke Crane's own tales of how disfunctional his game group powerfully indicate that GNS appealed to him because he was trying to find a way around the obvious conclusion that he had a lot of jerks in his game group by blaming the system.



> Have you played very much Rolemaster?




Yup.

The thing about RM is, like many systems Ron called "simulationist" is that they simply are systems with a lot of detail.

The simulatory detail is there to provide a wider range of tactical ("gamist") options and so that actions taken in pursuit of these goals have legible narrative effects--not just for its own sake. This 3-way interaction is something Forgies never got. The elephant has a weight (sim) so we know if it's a good tactic to drop it on the villain (game) and what you'll have to do to lift it onto him (story).



> What was helpful to me was that the tensions he identified between some of the tendencies of the system and some of the things my group was doing with it are real, and his discussion of those tensions helped me manage and resolve some of them in play.




"Phrenology helped me learn to use a ruler".

There are way smarter, faster, more accessible ways to talk about games which are connected to WAY FEWER TOXIC PRACTICES AND PEOPLE than GNS. Use them instead.


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## Zak S (Oct 16, 2015)

pemerton said:


> As I said, I think that sandboxing and problem-solving are basically orthogonal.



Yes and I already pointed out this is wrong because there's a connection.

I'm going to point it out again:

You said a sandbox is too constraining because there's GM-created content. I'm simply making a side-note: GM-created content is necessary for certain kinds of puzzle and problem-solving to occur.

You can't, for example, have a riddle to be solved using players skill using only stuff the player invented. Then there' nothing to puzzle out--the player has all the information.

The same goes for any complex encounter with hidden-but-findable info. If the GM doesn't invent content, the character of solving via player skill (a murder mystery for instance, or a complex trap with clues) ceases to exist. There's no_ thing_ to be uncovered.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> What you are quoting is strategic advice for the players.



Yes. I know that.



howandwhy99 said:


> Players set their objectives in D&D, not the DM. The DM must not change anything regardless of these decisions.



Yes, I know he is saying that. If it's true that you started playing D&D in 1985, then I was familiar with this particular approach to play (especially from the writings of Lewis Pulsipher) before you started playing the game.



howandwhy99 said:


> Everything the DM is allowed to tell the players is from that map.



The thing is, this is not literally true. Most GMs label the rooms on the map, and then have a separate bit of paper on which they right down the details, under the relevant labels. And different GMs write down differing degrees of detail.

Suppose, for instance, that the GM doesn't write down the colour of the roof. What happens if the players ask "What colour is the roof?"? The GM can't answer that it is colourless. S/he has to make something up. And making up that stuff can have downstream consequences. For instance, suppose s/he tells the players that the roof is grey in colour. And suppose the players know that the belly of a lurker above is typically grey in colour. The players can then try to have their PCs trick NPCs into not entering the room - "Don't go in there - look up at the roof - that's actually a lurker above!" Which is to say, the improvised detail might actually matter to gameplay down the line.



howandwhy99 said:


> In D&D the players are capable of gaming the system. Their decisions go directly to it, even if at all points they are unsure what what choices are immediately available. They are always working on suppositions, but they are seeking to discern the code as much as game it.
> 
> "There's more mountain to the east, so I bet the dungeon expands that way. We just haven't found it. Plus all those stupid bat-like creatures keep coming from that way and they seem to have hundreds of them. Either there's a hidden lair, a passage off this level, or something else I'm not thinking of."
> ---- None of that is "talking about the fiction"



Also, none of that is about trying to work out what method the GM used to generate that content. And it in no way depends on whether the GM generated the content randomly or non-randomly. (Except that if the GM has in fact just rolled a lot of bat-like creatures as wandering monsters than the players could form a hypothesis about their being a lair or passage which is, in fact, just wrong.)



howandwhy99 said:


> Seeking out encounters, even specific creatures is a large part of D&D too. Both require players to decipher the maze they are in based on all sorts of factors the DM is using. Population density. Environmentally-preferred habitats by creatures. % in lair vs. out wandering. Etc. This is directly the players "trying to work out what system of dungeon generation the GM is using".



Yes, the players need to learn that hill giants live in hills, that fire giants live in volcanoes etc. But they don't need to learn whether the GM put these fire giants in this volcano because s/he rolled on the "volcanic regions encounter table" or because s/he thought it was a good idea.



howandwhy99 said:


> Everything the DM does to create that map is rule following.



No. There is no rule that tells the GM whether or not s/he can place a monster and/or a treasure in this room or in that. (And Gygax expressly encourages the GM to manage treasure placement so as to avoid too much.)



howandwhy99 said:


> All the things Gary is referring to are real things in that they are really on a gameboard before play begins. If you want an "Alien God" you need to design what deity and alien mean in your game prior to play



Neither of those sentences is true. The altar to the alien god is on the "gameboard", but the alien god need not be. The GM is allowed to place the altar, then make up stuff after the event. In the real world, this is actually how a lot of GMs invent a lot of stuff!



howandwhy99 said:


> it isn't a simulation of "everything" anyone could ever think of, but solely systems covering everything relevant to the roles (class) players are expected to play. Their improvement through play of the game is directly related to their game score, per role, and thereby level.



Note that in classic D&D there is no "game score" that is role-relative. All players earn XP in exactly the same ways (enemies defeated, loot collected).



howandwhy99 said:


> I don't see how any of the advice you listed could in any way be considered credible in an entirely improvised game



It wouldn't be. For instance, that advice would have very little relevance for the players in my game.

It can have relevance for a game in which improvisation takes place, however. For instance, none of that advice becomes invalidated if the GM improvises rules for swimming, for jumping, for using insulated poles to try and disarm electricity traps, etc. Because none of that advice has any bearing on the action resolution mechanics.



howandwhy99 said:


> That everything that ever happened in the entire length of the campaign informs, relates, and may even effect everything else that ever happens for the rest of the campaign is the awe inspiring accomplishment of D&D design.   ---Something missing in non-design, improv sessions called games.



What makes you think that things that happen in the length of a campaign in "non-design, improv sessions called games" can't affect anything or everything else that ever happens? I've had experiences that contradict this.

For instance, in an early session of my 4e game the gods gave one of the PCs the task of rebuilding the Rod of Seven Parts. That has affected a great deal else of what has happened in the campaign.



howandwhy99 said:


> What game time and entropy (chaos) are in the D&D game should be understood by the DM for their own system. That may sound like a non sequitur, but if you've been building functional D&D world designs, you know these come up.



I think this claim is in tension with your claim that "it isn't a simulation of everything that anyone could ever think of". I have never had the second law of thermodynamics come up in over 30 years of GMing until one of my players thought of it and brought it into the game!



howandwhy99 said:


> The result of the effect your player is proposing is still limited to what is possible within the system. If it isn't, the Player's explanation would need to be described until such terms are covered by the game and then proper results could be determined.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



By your measure craps is not a game, given that it has no board or "design". Yet if anything counts as _gaming_, surely craps does!

In the system I was using, the basic rules are quite clear: the player has to roll a d20, add relevant bonuses, and reach a pre-defined target number. The target number is read from a chart with three columns. The GM has to choose which column (Easy, Medium or Hard) is used. I chose the Hard column, for exactly the same reasons that you say "such a powerful effect" and "such a level of effect". The player then generated bonuses to the roll by making choices which the system permits to be made - in this particular case, spending resources (healing surges/hit points). The system is not _broken_ - where did it break?



howandwhy99 said:


> you were simply adding an untested, unbalanced game effect into the system by the player's rationale rather than what was possible in the game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I feel like in your game players are projecting their desires and gaming for the right to have their imaginings be added to the "game", i.e. narrative.



The player is rolling to find out whether or not the PC succeeds at his attempt to seal the Abyss. At that level of description, it's not different from rolling to see whether or not the PC succeeds in hitting an orc in melee.

I don't know why you say the effect is unbalanced. Where is the lack of balance? I also don't see why you say it is not possible in the game. One of the explicit uses of Arcana skill, per the game rules, is to manipulate magical effects.

As I posted upthread, this is the 4e analogue to creative spellcasting. You may be familiar with the rule in the AD&D books that a Light spell can be cast on a creature's eyes to blind it. Where do you think that rule came from? What would you have done, a GM, the first time a player attempted that? The rulebooks wouldn't have given you an answer.



howandwhy99 said:


> I'm saying the RPG hobby has been usurped by the story making hobby. Anyone can choose to look for recognition of that fact and stop perpetuating it.



I think the notion of "usurpation" has no work to do here. Suppose it's true that more people enjoy playing my way than your way. And, as seems likely, that many more again prefer playing adventure paths than prefer either your way or my way. That's not a "usurpation" of anything. It's just people engaging in the hobbies they enjoy.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

Zak S said:


> You said a sandbox is too constraining because there's GM-created content. I'm simply making a side-note: GM-created content is necessary for certain kinds of puzzle and problem-solving to occur.



"No myth" uses GM-created content too. But it is created in a different way, at a different time in the play process.

That difference matters to sandbox vs no myth. It isn't relevant to most problem-solving. (As you say, there are certain kinds of puzzles and problems that it might be relevant to. They're a small subset of the totality, though.)


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## Maxperson (Oct 16, 2015)

pemerton said:


> What you describe is the sort of approach to GMing that I generally try to avoid. Eg I don't work out stuff that "goes on without the players" which they can discover if their PCs ask the right questions.
> 
> That's just the sort of thing that I said, upthread, is too railroad-y for my tastes (my approac is that, if the PCs "ask the right questions", then in response I'll work out some stuff that is happening.). Of course tastes differ.




How!?!?  If the plot goes on without them, by definition it cannot be a railroad since the PCs are not on it and have not been forced onto it.  

I run a living, breathing world.  The rest of the world does not cease to exist just because the PCs cannot see it.  Things put into motion play out as they will.  Only PC intervention will alter those things.  If they choose to intervene, things play out differently.  If they choose not to intervene in the assassination attempt on the king's life, the assassination attempt goes forward without them.  That's not railroading.  It's the opposite of railroading.



> In a typical sandbox game, if the players don't engage the GM's content then there is no game. The GM might generate a lot of content all over the place, but the players aren't free to engage _none_ of it yet still be playing the game.




Yes they are.  It's called coming up with their own goals.  At that point, I have to improv until I have time to prepare better for the path they have decided to go down.



> That said, at a certain point the sandbox you describe could bleed into a type of "no myth" play. If, in fact, all the content the GM is generating is improvised in response to hooks and signals provided by the player, then that's not the sort of thing I find railroad-y. But I don't think that's what is typically meant by "sandbox", either.




All a sandbox is, is a game where the PCs decide what they do and just go.  No limits.  That does not mean no DM preparation.  Once I see the direction they are taking it, I will prepare things along those lines.  If halfway through they zig when I thought they would zag and leave for something new, I improv some more and make new plans based on the new direction of the PCs.  

So will you please explain HOW planning things with no rails is railroading?


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## Celebrim (Oct 16, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> That's exactly what the borders are for the Big Model. In it, Tetris is scene shifting to create a narrative, or some such BS.




First of all, again, the Big Model doesn't apply to Tetris.  I went back and looked, and three different sources all agree that The Big Model is a theory of RPGs, and not games generally.   Besides which, you aren't even correctly describing The Big Model.  Besides which, you are the one that keeps dragging The Big Model into this discussion.   As far as I'm concerned it is a complete red herring.  You keep refusing to discuss RPG's as they actually exist pre 1985 without reference to The Big Model based solely on the cultural artifacts that existed at that time without referencing The Big Model or any other irrelevant anachronistic theory.

The biggest irony in this whole thread is you are The Big Model's biggest proponent. 



> Games are simply patterns existent in the world which we treat accordingly within the culture of games.




Stitch heap tense snobbish mint of adamant reading ergo earthy knee scattered symptomatic chance.  

Or in other words, I'm having a really hard time extracting any meaning from most of your sentences.  If conversation was pattern decipherment, your part of it reads like it came from a random number generator.  



> The first was Palace of the Vampire Queen 1975, TSR's first was in Blackmoor Supplement 2.




These were extremely rare items.  How do you think people played the game without access to these things?  Do you think that people were only playing "Temple of the Frog" and "Palace of the Vampire Queen"?   The truth is, that not only do we not need modules, but that many people didn't play with anything that could be neatly classified as an adventure.  That isn't to say that they didn't have adventures, but rather that something like "Temple of the Frog" is quite obviously an attempt to impose and communicate an overall narrative structure via a specific situation ("a strange cult", "a baroness needs rescuing").  



> You wanted evidence of intention in the design of D&D. Screens are evidence. Modules are evidence. Quotes in responses to other posters in this thread include more evidence. That you deny screens and other game components as unnecessary doesn't disprove their need in the actual game.




This is a bit of knotted up nonsense that twists back on itself and ends up nowhere.  To the extent that screens and modules provide evidence of anything about the design of D&D, they provide no evidence that the design of D&D is equivalent to "code breaking" or "pattern discovery".  Nor have you provided that evidence by analyzing screens or modules as actual products to prove they have the features you claim or the purpose you assert.  I own both a 1st edition and a 2nd edition DM's screen, and actually still use.  I don't need them to run an RPG (and have ran 1e AD&D without a DM's screen many times), but they are handy as a means of quickly looking up rules without stopping play.   Any feature of them that you think proves that the game isn't meant to have improvisation or a narrative, feel free to cite without worry as to whether I could confirm your observation.   

Nor have you addressed the fact that the game was played before screens and modules existed, and played by many groups that did not have them.  Disproving the necessity of screens and modules only requires a single counter-example.   If the game was played successfully even once without them, they are not necessities.  I have provided the counter example.  I can easily show that there is no feature of a DM's screen which you would point out as essential to play, which cannot be replaced or done without without harm to the game and I'm sure we can get many people who will confirm that they also have played the game without modules or DM's screens well before 1985.  My denial is backed up by actual evidence, something you are decidedly adverse to providing and show no signs of even recognizing.



> And if you've played modules you know modules aren't "episodic" but continually transitioning as the game is played. Even if you clear a dungeon level, you need to fight to keep the monsters from repopulating it. The modules never go away, but are simply tightly balanced designs within the larger game. (of course, so too are the PCs, monsters, treasure...)




Of course modules are episodic.  They have beginnings and they have ends.  They are generally loosely connected to other modules and can be played as stand alone adventures or parts inserted in practically any order to an existing campaign.   The mere fact that the setting of the module could be dynamic and changing doesn't make modules less self-contained, or mean that many were not close ended (the foozle is destroyed, the foozle is restored to its rightful owner, etc.).  A campaign that consisted solely of playing through modules, which since you insist modules are necessary components, would have to describe all possible campaigns, would inherently have an episodic nature.  The events described in the module would inherently reach a conclusion, and the module would cease to contain relevant content.  Of course, the big irony is that you are continually describing improvisation - something you claim the game doesn't have - when describing how modules are played.   

Propostion #1: The vast majority of published modules do not contain references to dungeon areas be repopulated once cleared.  A DM that repopulated a dungeon area and repurposed it would be inherently engaged in improvisation.   In some cases, where modules are at least partially event based and not entirely location based ("Worldshaker", "Needle", "Day of Al'Akbar", "Saber River") such repopulation is meaningless because its the events that drive the story not the locations.   
Proposition #2: Off the top of my head, the only published module that mentions repopulating the dungeon over time is B2 keep on the borderlands (and I'll have to check that just to make sure I'm not confusing text in B2 with text in the DMG, which notably wasn't intended as a relevant rules text for playing B2).  But to the extent that any module mentions a dungeon repopulating over time, they generally do not detail the exact process by which that would occur, leaving it again up to improvisation by the DM to decide how and when a dungeon is repopulated.
Proposition #3: Repurposing a module like B2 to set it in the icy north or tropical jungle clearly requires DM improvisation.  No mechanical engine for doing that is given to the DM, and even the idea that B2 should be converted to a different setting is improvisation.



> The redefining of an RPG as a storygame, to the point even you don't seem to remember or understand what RPGing is.




I don't define story games as RPGs.  Nor do I define theater games as RPGs.  Story games to my mind lack essential features that would make them qualify as RPGs.  And I was playing an RPG last night.   But unlike you, I've actually repeatedly demonstrate that what I say an RPG is, is what the rules of the game say an RPG is, what the creators of the game say an RPG is, and what this historical record says an RPG is, and is congruent with how RPGs are actually defined in a dictionary or encyclopedia article.  You on the other hand have engaged in the same silliness the people pushing The Big Model, of defining your own invented terms and then asserting that everyone conformed to your model.  But you don't actually find people thinking about the game in the way you are here asserting, nor do you find the language that you claim defines a game used in the games you are describing.  Your "millions of people" are entirely figments of your imagination.

So here is a challenge for you.  Explain in a non garbly gook way in what manner you consider an RPG differs from a wargame.  Or more specifically, what feature(s) do you add to a wargame to make it an RPG?   Because your theory of games seems to argue that there is no non-ephemeral difference between an RPG and mastermind or tic-tac-toe.  



> Okay, but that is well known as being a campaign destroying module.




So?  You are now evading and spinning.  It's a module.  Unlike your hypothetical modules, the text of UK1 is a tangible bit of historical evidence.  We can cite it.   We can quote it.  The fact that you don't like the module doesn't mean you get to dismiss it as an example cultural artifact.   UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave wasn't written by Ron Edwards or anyone that had been exposed to The Big Model.  It can't have been created by revolutions real or imagined in the 1990's.  It's a cultural artifact of no later than 1983 and perforce had to have been created by a gaming culture that existed prior to that time.  Again, what does that cultural artifact tell us about the gaming culture as it existed in 1983?  What does that cultural artifact tell us about the game that the creators of the game wanted the players to play?  

UK1's design is not a campaign ender.  

There is in your complaint that finding that you've been in a demiplane for 100 or 1000 years is a campaign ender, a remarkable hidden admission.  If the design of UK1 had been, "The lovers must be rescued in 48 hours time or everyone suddenly dies", then this would have been a design that literally had the potential to be a campaign ender.  Many parties might go in, hit the time limit, and suddenly die.  In your terms, they would have failed to properly analyze the pattern, missing the clues such as the waterfall that time distortion was in effect.  But arriving back in the world 40 or 1000 years later isn't a campaign ender in any literal way.  Points were still scored.  The player's token has not been removed from the game.  If the game is nothing more than "code breaking" arriving back in the real world 1000 years later is not harmful to the game and not problematic.   The only reason that it could be considered problematic is in fact if up to that point, the campaign was creating a narrative and that narrative has now been disrupted, broken, and invalidated by the change of setting.   The only real complaint that could lead to claiming that returning to the real world 1000 years later is a problem is because the existing story of the campaign is then ruined.

The cultural artifacts of 1983 indicate that DMs were expected to improvise, that adventures placed characters in a situation that had an expected narrative arc, and that the designers and players of the game expected their adventures to create a story.

And if we boil out your invented garbly gook about "code breaking" and other irrelevant novel language, you are continually affirming that.


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## Celebrim (Oct 16, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> How!?!?  If the plot goes on without them, by definition it cannot be a railroad since the PCs are not on it and have not been forced onto it.




You are going to find that pemerton liberally sprinkles the description of his techniques with Forge terminology.  But that when you get down to it, pemerton is not actually describing techniques that correspond in any tight way to the terminology as Forge defined it.  In fact, from his examples, the game pemerton actually plays and the techniques he actually describes using are bog standard DM preparation and resolution.  Indeed, even when pemerton actually employs systems intended to empower certain agendas of play, pemerton actually ends up employing them in slightly different ways that end up being functionally not that different from anyone who wasn't consciously trying to be Forge-y.

Burning Wheel can be played, and I imagine usually is, as a bog standard fantasy heartbreaker.  

You might then be inclined to wonder what in the world is going on here.   I know I have many times.

Celebrim's Second Law of Roleplaying (tm) says, "How you think about playing a system is more important than the rules system itself."  What I think actually happened is that reading some Forge essays revolutionized how pemerton thought about playing and preparing to play a game and set him off in new directions.  I don't know much about his pre-Forge preparation or style (but the fact that he played RM for 20 years tells you a lot), but his post Forge preparation and scene adjudication sounds remarkably familiar to a lot of things I've seen done going back to at least the early 90's.  However, rather than describing his normal play in the normal terms that ought to characterize it, he stays stuck in Forge-isms because it was those things that caused him to question his earlier techniques and develop new largely system independent approaches.  But I've heard him describe the process of creating a dungeon backstory while preparing for play as "no myth", and call linear process-sim resolution as "Story First" drama techniques.  So that he describes sandboxes as railroads because there exists content the PC's don't choose to engage with doesn't surprise me either.  

Whatever works for him to help him frame the way he thinks about the game.   It seems to be working for all that it baffles me what he means 90% of the time.  I think that the answer might be, compared to how he formally thought about adjudicating play, he's _more_ improvisational, or more outcome focused and less system focused, and so forth.   Its broadened his palette apparently and made him happier with his game, so I'm good with it.

Point is, I think we make far too big a deal about the labels we use.  In practice, what most DMs actually do is a lot like what all DMs actually do, whether they want to call it a 'sandbox' or a 'railroad' or not.   The players don't stay at your table if you can't run a fun game.


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## Maxperson (Oct 16, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> You are going to find that pemerton liberally sprinkles the description of his techniques with Forge terminology.  But that when you get down to it, pemerton is not actually describing techniques that correspond in any tight way to the terminology as Forge defined it.  In fact, from his examples, the game pemerton actually plays and the techniques he actually describes using are bog standard DM preparation and resolution.  Indeed, even when pemerton actually employs systems intended to empower certain agendas of play, pemerton actually ends up employing them in slightly different ways that end up being functionally not that different from anyone who wasn't consciously trying to be Forge-y.
> 
> Burning Wheel can be played, and I imagine usually is, as a bog standard fantasy heartbreaker.
> 
> ...




Very well said.  

I am moving more and more towards the improv end of things.  Not so much because I don't want to prepare or feel that prep is bad, but because I have less and less time to prepare for the games coming up.  

I do agree that we make a bigger deal about labels than is necessary, but when one person is using a label in the complete opposite manner as the rest of us, it's going to cause confusion.  Labels do mean things.  It's how we know what an orc is vs. an ogre with a single word.


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## Aenghus (Oct 16, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> How!?!?  If the plot goes on without them, by definition it cannot be a railroad since the PCs are not on it and have not been forced onto it.
> 
> I run a living, breathing world.  The rest of the world does not cease to exist just because the PCs cannot see it.  Things put into motion play out as they will.  Only PC intervention will alter those things.  If they choose to intervene, things play out differently.  If they choose not to intervene in the assassination attempt on the king's life, the assassination attempt goes forward without them.  That's not railroading.  It's the opposite of railroading.
> 
> ...




I'm not Pemerton, but I've seen sandboxes go wrong before, at least in the eyes of the players, in a variety of ways. This isn't to say that these things are happening in your game, but I've seen them happen in others to the detriment of those games.

First, a sandbox game can hinder communication between the DM and the players. DMs who run sandboxes often won't talk about issues of style and genre, as they want the players to explore the sandbox and discover the content rather than discuss it beforehand. This can make player experiences more "authentic" but it also risks the players rejecting some or all of the content for various reasons (thematic, aesthetic, ethical, being boring, depressing, over the top, unrealistic etc etc). Such rejection can't help but impact the DM negatively even when they deal with it well rather than defensively.

The DM is aware of lots of content of various sorts just waiting for the players to encounter it, and being human probably wants them to interact with at least some of it. DMs who like to run sandboxes tend to be worldbuilders and gain enjoyment from it in and of itself. Meanwhile the players have imperfect information on the potentially small subset of content they hear of or encounter, and that together with individual player agendas can result in players ignoring, burning down or running away from lots of content. If the DM is unwilling to move more fitting content into the path of the players, the players can by dumb chance continue to evade anything interesting to them for extended periods of time. DM frustration often leads them to railroad players into content at this point. 

The railroading in part comes from issues of style and genre, where what's happening in the background  propels the gameworld in directions the players aren't interested and the DM is. The events happening in the gameworld on and off camera may not engage the players. Preventing such events may require styles of play the players want to avoid e.g. intrigue and skullduggery, backstabbing and treachery, wheeler and dealer politics, hack and slash dungeons, high society hobnobbing etc etc. The players are technically free to interfere with game events, but this doesn't mean they want to or would enjoy such play if it happened. And again, this damages communication when player complaints over game events are met with the response "You could have done something to prevent it", thus discouraging them from providing honest feedback in future.

P.S. how do I do mentions properly, following the FAQ instructions doesn't seem to work.


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## Campbell (Oct 16, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> You are going to find that pemerton liberally sprinkles the description of his techniques with Forge terminology.  But that when you get down to it, pemerton is not actually describing techniques that correspond in any tight way to the terminology as Forge defined it.  In fact, from his examples, the game pemerton actually plays and the techniques he actually describes using are bog standard DM preparation and resolution.  Indeed, even when pemerton actually employs systems intended to empower certain agendas of play, pemerton actually ends up employing them in slightly different ways that end up being functionally not that different from anyone who wasn't consciously trying to be Forge-y.
> 
> Burning Wheel can be played, and I imagine usually is, as a bog standard fantasy heartbreaker.
> 
> ...




We tend to think about what constitutes system in different ways. To you system is all about the artifacts of play (character sheets, dice, and numerical representations of stuff). For me it includes directives on how to play the game, and I think those directives are the most crucial area of design because it has the biggest impact. None of that stuff (including the artifacts of play) is like binding for individual groups. We can easily play Ars Magica (as in using whatever artifacts of play and directives serve the kind of game we want to play) without like playing Ars Magica (following directives and using all artifacts of play that apply).  Basically, we have different ideas as to what counts as playing a particular game as designed.

What you said still struck a chord with me. Here's the thing - the indie RPG community didn't invent a new way to play role playing games. They attempted to capture a way to play role playing games people had been using since role playing games were like a thing and create a set of games that were more suited to that way of playing. When John Harper was play testing Apocalypse World and read the How To MC chapter he was like "Isn't that just the way you GM?". It was nothing special for a lot of people because they were already like playing a game based on D&D of their own design that utilized the same set of techniques and procedures. Vincent Baker acknowledges this directly in the text of Apocalypse World. 

The same is true of Ars Magica and Vampire. They had successfully captured a different way people had already been playing role playing games.  The Ravenloft and Dragonlance modules are probably the earliest published form of this. The play techniques they utilized were something a lot of people were already doing, including a popular way to play Champions. Monte Cook totally played Champions this way, and has a post on his site I could dig up. Current games that use these play techniques (the ones in Vampire - not Apocalypse World and Sorcerer) include Numenera and Shadow of the Demon Lord. It's not a way to play the game that I like very much, but people were already doing it.

This sort of thing is important to acknowledge. The indie community totally did a poor job of communicating this from the start, and tried to appear way to avant garde. We were like making a statement man!


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## Celebrim (Oct 16, 2015)

Aenghus said:


> I'm not Pemerton, but I've seen sandboxes go wrong before, at least in the eyes of the players, in a variety of ways. This isn't to say that these things are happening in your game, but I've seen them happen in others to the detriment of those games.




I'm one of the leading theorists of "sandboxes aren't inherently better than linear adventures and can go wrong in just as many ways".  I've been pushing the term "rowboat world" on the community for years now, and been trying my best to convince people that railroading techniques aren't always bad things just things you can misuse or overuse.

But that doesn't mean that I think sandboxes and railroads are equivalent things, particularly just because we can draw parallels to them like: "they both can go bad", "one of the ways they can go bad is players failing to engage with the content", or "both can have dungeons in them". 



> The DM is aware of lots of content of various sorts just waiting for the players to encounter it, and being human probably wants them to interact with at least some of it.




You have no idea how much it frustrates me irrationally, that players rationally prefer to go in straight lines rather than wander about in curling loops simply to bash into additional dangerous prepared encounters that lie to either side. 

Or the pain when players decide its better to just burn down a lovingly crafted haunted house than explore it.   

Or the disappointment when players decide to effectively declare a status quo antebellum, rather than root there foes out of the dungeon you spent 20 hours making.

The closest a player can come to understanding that is when the PC they've been running for 5 years dies to a series of bad dice rolls.   



> If the DM is unwilling to move more fitting content into the path of the players, the players can by dumb chance continue to evade anything interesting to them for extended periods of time.




If content isn't dense enough, then it won't even be dumb chance.  Either way, you've got a rowboat world that needs to be solved with more content density, more content bleed and less compartmentalization, and more consciously created breadcrumbs.



> DM frustration often leads them to railroad players into content at this point.




At which point it ceases to be a sandbox.  



> The railroading in part comes from issues of style and genre, where what's happening in the background propels the game world in directions the players aren't interested and the DM is.




This is invariably a problem when it happens regardless of what technique the GM employs.  You can go full on "no myth", utilize scene framing to cut out the boring parts, and let players set the narrative goals and even situations, and yet if you the GM are uninterested in running the sort of stories the players are interested in exploring, the table has a problem and it's not a problem any amount of system or technique can solve.  GNS would call this a conflict of creative agenda and pretend its a system problem, but the conflicts can really arise at pretty much any level.   So much Forge is just, "My GM is a jerk.", or "My GM has low skill.", or "My GM isn't interested in running the game that I want him to run.", but "System is going to make it all right."  Not only is that wrong, but there wasn't enough attention paid to, "The player is a jerk.", "The player has low skill.", or "What the player wants is boring to everyone but the player."

In actual play, if no one finds it boring, it doesn't matter whether its more or less of a railroad than a sandbox.   The rails don't matter if no one tries to get off.  The improvisational Sargasso sea stays fresh as long as the players are awed by the novelty of play.


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## Celebrim (Oct 16, 2015)

Campbell said:


> We tend to think about what constitutes system in different ways. To you system is all about the artifacts of play (character sheets, dice, and numerical representations of stuff).




I think you are slightly misreading me here.  I'm not sure it matters too much to this conversation, but that's not the way I think about system, and I'm telling you that now in case it comes up later.



> For me it includes directives on how to play the game, and I think those directives are the most crucial area of design because it has the biggest impact.




Ok, my first response to that is, "Yes, you are absolutely right.  That's a direct consequence of Celebrim's Second Law.  Even if you present a complete rules set, if you don't tell players how to play, and if you don't show and tell GMs what to prepare and what to do during play, at best you've actually produced multiple parallel games that will be played in many different ways as groups improvise techniques.  And at worst, you haven't produced a game at all, and no one will play it because even if everyone knows the rules, no one will know how."  

However, my second response is, "Strictly speaking, those directives regarding how to prepare for play, and how to think about playing your game, aren't actually part of the system of the game.  The system is a complete game without those directives.  The system of the game is the part of the game that describes mechanical process resolution."   Ultimately, those directives are just suggestions by the designer how to approach the game if you want to play the same game that they intend.  It's not however wrong to take the same system and repurpose it to a completely different game by ignoring the suggestions.   This is a concept Edwards never fully grasped.

What's very important and so often overlooked is just how well Gygax understood that D&D was more than its system, and just how well D&D - particularly 1e D&D - defined by example how the game could be played.  Note, not the way the game would or should be played which Gygax left up to the group, but the way that it could be played.  (Let's leave aside for now Gygax's vacillation on this topic and sometimes difficulty in expressing his preference for moderation leading to him simultaneously expressing two extreme dichotomies as if they didn't contradict each other.)  More so than any other early game system, D&D created those examples of play.  "Here is a module.  You can use this to play D&D in a functional manner."  Or consider the very lengthy example of play in the 1e DMG which remains relevant to this day.



> Basically, we have different ideas as to what counts as playing a particular game as designed.




Again, I'm not sure that we do.  I'm just insisting that the definition of the game's system be kept distinct from these other things, so that we can note how system differs from these directives about how to think about the game precisely because I think they are different and that difference is not appreciated as much as it should be.



> The same is true of Ars Magica and Vampire. They had successfully captured a different way people had already been playing role playing games.




I am very glad you brought these two up, because here we very much disagree and in a way that gets down to the heart of what I'm saying.

The V:tM original rulebook is a work of art in its presentation.  And it's in many ways a very original work with what could potentially be a functional and innovative rules system.  But when you closely examine it, what you discover is that there is an almost complete disconnect between the examples of play, and what the system provides for and how the system is likely to be used.   The author does an absolutely terrible job telling the player how to use the system to create the game that the gamebook seems to provide for.   On obvious way that it goes horribly wrong is that the examples of play all involve a single character.  But presumably, we aren't intended or expected to play the game with only a GM and a single character (which would be about the only way to play the game the book describes).   So the real terrible failure of the V:tM rules is it creates a game that no one played in the manner described by the book.  People invented for themselves ways of playing the game and ways of thinking about the game, and were often innovative and had a lot of fun.  They played gothic super heroes.  They played magical mafia lords.  They played D&D or Top Secret with vampires.  But none of those were game described by the book or the game the author seemed to intend to create, which ostensibly was a game about exploring the loss of humanity, dealing with ones inner monsters, the descent into madness and depravity, and the possibility of redemption.  And to the extent that the game was supposed to be about that, the system didn't naturally support it and lead people in that direction so without lots and lots of examples of play, it was never going to get where it said it was going for.

People captivated by the game described by the book, were likely going to be rudely disappointed by what most people actually played.  

Wraith is even a stronger and more extreme example.


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## Campbell (Oct 16, 2015)

No Myth isn't about prep. It's a fancy way to say: "I'm not going to commit to anything until it sees play". It's not really anymore complicated than that. It's about allowing the course of the game to take the lead over your prep. It's also not really binary. We might have different sorts of prep that have varying levels of myth. Some prep could be definitely true, some prep could be true unless something happens. Some prep might be true. There are varying levels of myth you could prep to. Saying you run a No Myth game is saying most of your prep falls into one level. This can change throughout a game. A given piece of prep might gain more mythiness as the result of what happens in play. Prep is ongoing. It doesn't just happen outside of play, but also during play. As we're resolving a scene I'm adjusting my prep and prepping for the next scene or constructing a mental map as it were. It's about setting a place for play - defining what's in question. 

Here's an example. Let's say I'm running a game of D&D. I decide the dragon Fersyxavan wants to take over the Goderlands. This is relatively firm prep. I also decide that he'll offer something one of the PCs want if they'll help him unless they are immediately hostile. I also decide if that happens Fersyxavan will respond with some sort of violence directed towards someone they care about. I also decide Fersyxavan might be pliable to working with the Goderlands if they provide tribute. I also decide Fersyxavan might have an army of kobold followers. I'm not committed to either though. There's also a lot I'm not saying yet. Where did this dragon come from? What exactly is he capable of? Is he willing to commit mass murder to get what he wants? Why does he want to rule the Goderlands? This are questions that will impact the scope of play. I probably have some ideas, but I commit to them in various degrees.


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## Umbran (Oct 16, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Point is Edwards theories are irrelevant dross, not Newtonian  "useful approximations"




Actually, the point is that _you feel_ Edwards' theories are irrelevant dross...

Let us be clear - with, say, Newtonian mechanics, we can do an experiment with something approaching objective measurements, and test whether the theory matches the real world.  That mechanism is not readily available for RPGs at reasonable cost.  So, we are left with opinions.  I *agree* with you that GNS has significant shortcomings.  However, we cannot say with any level of confidence how close to reality GNS (or any other paradigm) is, because *nobody* has the data.  It is all *opinions*.  It would be wondrous if you spoke as if you recognized that fact.

But, here's the thing you may be missing - the utility of GNS is not necessarily driven by it being particularly accurate.

I will turn to tarot cards as an example.  As a physicist, I know darned well that the random draw of cards from a deck has no relation to how a person's life will turn out - as a model for the universe and the future, there's nothing accurate about a tarot deck.  However, it is also demonstrable that a tarot reading can be an effective problem-solving tool.  How is that possible?

It proves useful by taking you outside of your own head, and, for a time, allowing your thoughts to be driven by an outside logic and framework.  Tarot cards can assist you in thinking outside the box, taking you outside your mental ruts, and forcing you to think about interactions and interrelations you wouldn't consider on your own.  Sometimes, to generate ideas, it does not matter much what framework of approach you use, so long as you pick one.

Thus, you get things like FATE.  It is pretty clear that the game is *not* really a Forge design.  It is similarly clear, however, that considering Narrative as a major force we could bring to the fore *is* part of its design.  But, instead of trying to take on narrative alone, as GNS in full would have you do, it takes Narrative and Game and does a pretty good job of aligning them.  The Game portion is not particularly deep, but it is formed such that doing the Game-appropriate thing and the Narrative-appropriate thing are not at odds, and is an award-winning design that probably would not have arisen had the Forge and GNS theory never happened.


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> pemerton is not actually describing techniques that correspond in any tight way to the terminology as Forge defined it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What I think actually happened is that reading some Forge essays revolutionized how pemerton thought about playing and preparing to play a game and set him off in new directions. I don't know much about his pre-Forge preparation or style (but the fact that he played RM for 20 years tells you a lot), but his post Forge preparation and scene adjudication sounds remarkably familiar to a lot of things I've seen done going back to at least the early 90's.  However, rather than describing his normal play in the normal terms that ought to characterize it, he stays stuck in Forge-isms because it was those things that caused him to question his earlier techniques and develop new largely system independent approaches.



It's not a secret, and I've posted about it often enough.

I discovered my preferred approach to GMing and play more generally around 1986, GMing Oriental Adventures. The Forge didn't revolutionise my play. It did give me useful tools for analysing my play. And, as I've posted in this thread, it was helpful for resolving some practical issues in running Rolemaster. Some of those techniques are what informs the design of Burning Wheel, which combines 80s-style heavy process sim (infinitely long skill lists, lots of derived attributes playing various baroque mechanical roles, a combat system with active defences, hit location, wound penalties, etc) with indie-style system elements to help drive character-and-situation based play.

Rolemaster has the process sim elements that breathe life into character and situation, but lacks the system elements. Which, in my experience, can cause some problems. (Eg when following the mechanical details of framing and resolving a situation starts to lead the experience at the table away from what was significant about the characters and situation into mere minutiae.) The Forge essays helped me identify in a clear way what was going on with some of this, and then to handle it.



Celebrim said:


> I've heard him describe the process of creating a dungeon backstory while preparing for play as "no myth", and call linear process-sim resolution as "Story First" drama techniques.



I don't really know what you're talking about here. I certainly don't know what you have in mind by a "dungeon backstory". I don't use many dungeons, and the backstory beyond some initial framing is generally developed during play.

But even in this thread I've made it clear that my game is not fully no-myth. Eg in my BW game we have the GH maps.

Many things are matters of degree. The default approach to GMing on ENworld is heavy world-building. (Perhaps by proxy - using a published campaign setting.) The default assumption is that the richer and more developed the GM's world is in advance of play, the better the game.

My best experiences come from the opposite approach: very light worldbuilding (eg in my BW game we have the GH maps, and not much else prior to play), and developing the world through play.



Maxperson said:


> If the plot goes on without them, by definition it cannot be a railroad since the PCs are not on it and have not been forced onto it.
> 
> I run a living, breathing world.  The rest of the world does not cease to exist just because the PCs cannot see it.  Things put into motion play out as they will.  Only PC intervention will alter those things.  If they choose to intervene, things play out differently.  If they choose not to intervene in the assassination attempt on the king's life, the assassination attempt goes forward without them.  That's not railroading.  It's the opposite of railroading.
> 
> ...



Yes. I know all this. I'm not confused about how you run your game. All I'm saying is that that is not my preferred approach, because of the way it prioritises the GM's concerns and preferences in respect of the fiction.

For me, the key concern in play is not so much the freedom or power enjoyed by the PCs, as the freedom and power enjoyed by the _players_. In your game the PCs are free to do what they want, but subject to what exists in the gameworld. What I am talking about is the way the gameworld is created.

Now if your sandbox is in fact a game in which the GM generates content more-or-less in the course of play, in response to player-expressed cues and interests, it's probably no different from how I run my game. But that doesn't seem to me to be what you're describing (eg because you're describing a gameworld which has a whole lot of stuff going on that is not part of the actual events of playing the game).


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## pemerton (Oct 16, 2015)

Campbell said:


> the indie RPG community didn't invent a new way to play role playing games. They attempted to capture a way to play role playing games people had been using since role playing games were like a thing and create a set of games that were more suited to that way of playing.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> This sort of thing is important to acknowledge. The indie community totally did a poor job of communicating this from the start, and tried to appear way to avant garde. We were like making a statement man!



I've never thought of myself as part of an "indie community". To the extent that I have observed such a community from the outside (eg reading Forge threads, reading some rpg.net threads) I think my gaming would be regarded as pretty banal by many or most members of that community.

But I've always regarded as obvious that the Forge wasn't about inventing new ways to play, but rather about describing, in a certain abstract and systematised way, various ways in which RPGs are played, and trying to design some games to suit that.

In my own case, I've always made it clear that the Forge helped me make sense of what I was doing, and thereby to do it better. It didn't teach me how to frame scenes, but it did teach me the vocabulary to describe "scene-framing" as a technique.



Campbell said:


> No Myth isn't about prep. It's a fancy way to say: "I'm not going to commit to anything until it sees play".
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It's also not really binary.



Yes. I assume all this is obvious.

In some other threads discussing some issues similar to this one I've made clear my dislike of "secret backstory" - ie backstory known only by the GM, and not accessible to the players in the course of resolution - having a bearing on action resolution. To me that comes very close to the GM roleplaying with him-/herself.

Whereas in [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game that sort of secret backstory - eg the assassination plot - seems pretty important.

I think my game is better for me. I hope that Maxperson is playing a game that is good for Maxperson.

The point of distinguishing between them isn't to establish that one is better than the other in some non-relativised sense. It's to make it clear that advice or rules or techniques that work for Maxperson won't work for everyone (and likewise for me).

In the context of threads about GMing advice, which are fairly common on ENworld, it's also about making it clear what range of approaches is available. So it's also about saying "Hey, I'm doing this thing and it works for me. If you're having trouble with what you're doing or something's not working for you, maybe this will be some help."


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## Maxperson (Oct 16, 2015)

pemerton said:


> I've never thought of myself as part of an "indie community". To the extent that I have observed such a community from the outside (eg reading Forge threads, reading some rpg.net threads) I think my gaming would be regarded as pretty banal by many or most members of that community.
> 
> But I've always regarded as obvious that the Forge wasn't about inventing new ways to play, but rather about describing, in a certain abstract and systematised way, various ways in which RPGs are played, and trying to design some games to suit that.
> 
> ...




I just want to chime in with, everything in my game is knowable and accessible.  I'm just not always going to stuff a card in the pocket of a PC that says, "The king is going to be killed at midnight. Beware the owls three."  If they don't talk to people and/or miss the clues, they aren't going to know about the attempt.


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## Campbell (Oct 16, 2015)

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION],

What follows is entirely my own perspective on what mechanics bring to the table. It's totally cool to see things differently. I'm simply laying out biases - where I come from. We probably agree in more areas than we disagree, but I'm still going to lay the whole thing out on the table.

I think there is more than a difference in mental models going on here. I think the way we talk about these things matters. When you give the mechanical bits and pieces as separate things you give them independent value and consideration that I don't believe they should have. They only have value in a particular context. Something like them might have value in other contexts, but not independently of them. Here that context is the game we are sitting down to play. Outside of play they have no value. I don't believe mechanics can be judged independently of a particular game. They might be judged based on some other game you have in mind and their possible fitness for that game, but not independently.

Consider the layout of a book. You might value the artistry of the layout. You might take ideas from it how to lay out your own book, but from a design standpoint the layout only has value in communicating the content of the book and should be judged in that context. A layout does not have an independent existence. It exists to serve its content. Similar layouts might serve the needs of different books, but they also totally belong to their books and should be celebrated for what they are.

There's a reason why I refer to the mechanical bits and bobs as artifacts of play. First, they are the tools we use to play the game and the vestigial remains of playing the game. Also, they are not the game, and should not be mistaken for it. They represent things and help us communicate about things, but they are not those things. Your character sheet is not your character. Your prep is not the world, fiction, play space, whatever, etc. The mechanics are not the game. They are tools used to play the game. Their value is entirely contextual.

Their contextual value is however tremendous. A character sheet helps us to say things about our characters in a concise way. It aids us in the play of the particular game we are playing right now, and serves as a helpful reminder after play how things have changed for the character. Experience points serve as a way to communicate to a player that they are playing the game well however we choose to define it. After play they serve as evidence of how well a given player played their character. The moves in Apocalypse World serve as a way to quickly communicate what happens when a player has their character do a thing. The stuff I write down away from the table serves as a reminder and prompt for what situations to present in play, and afterwards I can look at it and reflect on what actually happened.

This is huge because it helps to make play functional. It provides a way to talk about the things that are actually involved in playing the game - presenting situations, having our characters do things in response to those things, finding out what happens and how the world is changed. Like an effective layout they help us do the things we were going to do anyway in the process of playing the game. They tell us nothing about the what and the how. Don't get this twisted - I think they should be developed in tandem with the rest of the game to ensure they effectively communicate what the game is about and serve as useful tools for doing so. I'm just saying they derive their value from the rest of the game, not as a thing unto itself.

Play procedures and directives tell us the what and the how. Play procedures are the how and directives are the what, but the conceptual bleed here is pretty high. When your character does something that corresponds to a skill, roll 1d20+ skill and succeed if you beat the TN is an obvious play procedure. To do it - you have to do it is also a play procedure, although less obviously so. Play your character as if they were a real person is an obvious directive. Introduce your character by name, look, and outlook going around one at a time bleeds at the edges because it involves both how and what. 

Together these form the meat of any game. This is where we get to things that shape the game and get us to do things we would not do if left to our own devices. That's crucial to me. If I just wanted to role play and not play a role playing game I wouldn't need this stuff. I want an experience where I have actual stuff to go after from either side of the GM's seat, where I get to subvert the stuff I as a person value and instead value other things. I also want to be told how to go about it so that with different games I can go about it in different ways. I want play to represent a skill we can improve at so we're not just doing a thing to do it. Sometimes that's deciphering puzzles and managing resources in a dungeon bash. Other times its finding a place in the world, playing a character as a person who wants things and goes after them with vigor in Apocalypse World while trying to outsmart the people who have what I want as played by a semi-adversarial MC.


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## Campbell (Oct 16, 2015)

Separate post because I wanted to address this separately. When I talk about playing a game, but not like playing it I'm not making a negative value judgement on the game being played. Quite the opposite. Changing softer play procedures and directives is as much an act of game design as creating a new playbook for Apocalypse World, making long rests take a week in a safe place in 4e, creating a new character sheet, or even rewriting skill resolution. People should be proud of these games they have designed and value the work they have put in to do so.

This is probably not the most popular thing to say, but I believe Rein-Hagen simply made a game that had a compelling premise that utilized a set of play procedures that I believe make for poor play and do not live up to what the game sold itself as. He gets credit for the things he got right, but does not deserve credit for the design work of people who liked the conceptual underpinnings that designed or hacked if you prefer compelling games out of it. The credit for those endeavors should go to the people who did so, and I would love to hear about *their games*. The credit for Apocalypse World belongs to Vincent Baker. The credit for Dungeon World belongs to Sage Latorra and Adam Koebel for the design work that took them from Apocalypse D&D to what Dungeon World has become. The prior work is important to the endeavor, but the end result is due to their creativity, ingenuity, and labor. All design is iterative, but the actual game should be judged on its own in its specific context.


    [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION],

This is an area where I get a little sketchy about my D&D 4e games. I like the games I used material from it to play, but I'm not entirely sold on it as a game.  When I played it I utilized a set of very deliberate hacks. Some involved the artifacts of play (changing the rest cycle, cutting out vast swathes of assumed content, using skill challenge hacks, hacking in a set of relationship mechanics). I also used a set of play procedures and goals for play that dramatically shaped the result of play. I enjoyed those games, but I don't know how much credit I can give them for it. I also don't see the tweaks I made to play procedures as fundamentally different in scope to those I made to the mechanics. They were all game design, not professional game design, but game design none the less.


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## Campbell (Oct 16, 2015)

Sorry for the wall of text, folks.  What I was trying to say was mechanics are like contextually useful, but should not be mistaken for the thing we are doing in play and how we go about doing it. I believe that this is fertile design space and bears equal if not more consideration, and it's a good thing to have games that approach this from different angles. I do have a personal bugaboo about taking what I call the artifacts of play as a fetish and making play about them instead of the things they represent. I believe play happens in the conversation we have about the play space (fiction or mental model depending on who you talk to).

I also have a little bit of hate in my heart for Vampire: The Masquerade. Luckily, I now have the 2nd Edition of Vampire - The Requiem which does everything I ever wanted out of V:tM. I'm overly strident about this in a way I probably shouldn't be, in the same way I'm often more competitive than I should be.

I want to clarify something here: My opinions on Vampire - The Masquerade are strong, but I don't think by any stretch that it is a bad thing that it was written. I'm not a fan of the pervasive effect it had in the community, but don't mistake my criticism for the idea that I can impose the things I value on the community as a whole. The idea that we need to serve as gatekeepers as to what games people are allowed to design or like or play is totally not something I want to say. Our hobby is diverse, and I view that in a positive light.

I think criticism of that style of play is useful and was sorely needed. It was taken too far at times, and is part of the reason I'm glad that my corner of the hobby moved on from The Forge. The point of that criticism should be to understand why certain games don't work for us and encourage new games that we can totally jam out on, and not to deny a part of the hobby the sort of play they like or attempt to excommunicate them because they like different things. 

Where the OSR has been effective it's because of celebration of this thing they really like and think other people would like too if they gave it a shot. We really need more of that in general. Here's why more people should play Apocalypse World - you can get together with friends and play a game where you are all dangerous, capable people trying to carve out your own piece of a world that's gone to . You get to be a vital part of a community that needs to reestablish itself after society just hit the reset button. Do you push it towards oblivion or build something new? Let's play to find out.

As an aside for [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]: Have you taken a look at Stars Without Number? It's a totally cool space exploration RPG that is designed for the sort of play experience it sounds like your after. In between sessions part of GM prep involves a phase where you use random charts to figure out what's going on in the galaxy. It's a cool little game.


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## pemerton (Oct 17, 2015)

pemerton said:


> In some other threads discussing some issues similar to this one I've made clear my dislike of "secret backstory" - ie backstory known only by the GM, and not accessible to the players in the course of resolution - having a bearing on action resolution. To me that comes very close to the GM roleplaying with him-/herself.
> 
> Whereas in [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game that sort of secret backstory - eg the assassination plot - seems pretty important.





Maxperson said:


> I just want to chime in with, everything in my game is knowable and accessible.  I'm just not always going to stuff a card in the pocket of a PC that says, "The king is going to be killed at midnight. Beware the owls three."  If they don't talk to people and/or miss the clues, they aren't going to know about the attempt.



Unless I'm misunderstanding pretty badly, though, in your game that backstory may not be accessible _in the course of the resolution to which it matters_.


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## Zak S (Oct 17, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Actually, the point is that _you feel_ Edwards' theories are irrelevant dross...




No, there's no "feel" in it.

Edwards theories predict things that do not happen. The parts that are true are duplicated in older and newer theories (different people like different games) the parts that are unique to the theory are provably wrong.

This is observable reality. Not "feeling".



> Let us be clear - with, say, Newtonian mechanics, we can do an experiment with something approaching objective measurements, and test whether the theory matches the real world.  That mechanism is not readily available for RPGs at reasonable cost.




Totally wrong.

You can take a person who (unless they are lying about their own taste for some inscrutable reason) says they want thing x. Take one who wants thing y. Film them both being satisfied at the same moment in a game in their separate things. Ask them if that's what happened.

To the degree we can be sure any preferences in sociology are true, we can be sure a game can satisfy all 3 GNS goals simultaneously in one instance of play. (For any given value of "instance" from a 3 second spurt to a whole campaign.)

So: Edwards. Is. Wrong.

The ONLY limit on our ability to say that is the limit of sociology itself (sans people being hooked up to wires)--that is: it is vulnerable to a mass conspiracy of everyone involved lying to get a given result, including people who have no investment in the outcome either way.



> However, we cannot say with any level of confidence how close to reality GNS (or any other paradigm) is, because *nobody* has the data.  It is all *opinions*.  It would be wondrous if you spoke as if you recognized that fact.




You're completely wrong here. The flaws in GNS are not subjective or fudgable, they're _objective and totalizing._

GNS makes ABSOLUTE predictions not "X usually happens" but "X and Y CAN NEVER happen together". This means all you need is ONE counterexample to disprove it. There's no opinion in it.

The theory "strawberries don't exist" is wrong as soon as you find a strawberry. The theory 3 kinds of fun can't happen at once is disproved as soon as that happens ever in human history.



> But, here's the thing you may be missing - the utility of GNS is not necessarily driven by it being particularly accurate.




Yes, it's a good way to identify people who aren't very rigorous or thoughtful.



> I will turn to tarot cards as an example.




This is back to the "phrenology taught me to use a protractor" thing. *By which standard NO idea is so stupid you shouldn't just keep saying it over and over.*

Yes, people can learn from dumb pseudoscience. But it doesn't mean that having believed in the dumb pseudoscience doesn't mark them as unreliable.

People who ever believed in GNS should be treated like people who not only once, as adults, had a passionate belief for phrenology, but actually helped phrenologists spread their worldview.



> Thus, you get things like FATE....design that probably would not have arisen had the Forge and GNS theory never happened.




Great example! FATE is the worst imaginable result of a game theory. If people had realized GNS was bunk, maybe we never would have had FATE and all the terrible things FATE spawned, like the harassment campaigns, the terrible business practies hidden under halo-polishing, the nepotistic relationship between Evil Hat and other folks in the RPG-o-sphere, the creepy Tipper-Gore-esque attack on Kingdom Death, the hours upon hours of bored would-be-players and the unimaginably horrible generic artwork which, once seen can never be unseen and, once made, can never be unmade. I can think of no worse outcome for RPGs than the existence of FATE, since, unlike FATAL, it is actually popular enough to make money for the toxic people involved with it.


You just proved exactly my point: the world would be a better place without GNS.


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## Campbell (Oct 17, 2015)

Personally, I don't get FATE - like at all. When I look at it I have no idea what to actually do with the thing. It doesn't really tell how I'm supposed to run it or what I'm supposed to do with it. There's absolutely no context - it feels like mechanics for their own sake. If I'm basically designing a game from whole cloth in order to use it why exactly do I need FATE?


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## Zak S (Oct 17, 2015)

Campbell said:


> Personally, I don't get FATE - like at all. When I look at it I have no idea what to actually do with the thing. It doesn't really tell how I'm supposed to run it or what I'm supposed to do with it. There's absolutely no context - it feels like mechanics for their own sake. If I'm basically designing a game from whole cloth in order to use it why exactly do I need FATE?




You need FATE so when you design a third-rate setting that's basically your two favorite settings glued together with terrible drawings you can say there's a system under the hood and then have a relatively big Indie-RPG company help promote your Kickstarter that'll never deliver to an audience of people who were gullible enough to believe GNS back in the day and so will pretty much buy anything up to- and including- any given bridge you might claim to have lying around.


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## Maxperson (Oct 17, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Unless I'm misunderstanding pretty badly, though, in your game that backstory may not be accessible _in the course of the resolution to which it matters_.




You use some terms strangely.  You're going to have to explain what you mean by "in the course of resolution" in order for me to answer that.


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## Celebrim (Oct 17, 2015)

Campbell said:


> Personally, I don't get FATE - like at all. When I look at it I have no idea what to actually do with the thing. It doesn't really tell how I'm supposed to run it or what I'm supposed to do with it. There's absolutely no context - it feels like mechanics for their own sake. If I'm basically designing a game from whole cloth in order to use it why exactly do I need FATE?




What I really didn't get about FATE, and this hopefully is clearer in the context of the above discussion, is that it's a document that goes out of its way to hype about how it is all about dramatic role-play, but in its examples of play there seems to be no expectation that the players are engaging with the game as a drama or in any fashion immersed in the experience at all.  

As I understood and understand the attraction of an RPG, it's like the attraction of reading a good book, except that instead of being an observer of the characters in the book or even getting to see the world through their eyes, you get to be an actual participant in the book and make choices along the way.  It's like a "Choose your Own Adventure" book with millions of endings and where you could crib in new ideas for what you do at the bottom of the page and the new pages would appear.  And yet despite seemingly affirming that view of what playing an RPG should be like, when the book provides examples of play, "IT'S JUST NOTHING LIKE THAT!!!"  There is no emersion at all.  The approach of the players in the game is largely gamist in nature, seemingly completely unconcerned with characterization, describing actions by their characters in a third person pawn stance, with no dramatic dialogue occurring either between PCs and NPCs or between PCs.  There is no evidence of improvement in drama at all, and if the examples of play are accurate, then the examples of play show the system isn't adding anything to the game that any very basic system would provide.  

And what it does seem to bring from Forge is a certain pretentiousness as if they've discovered that RPGs can be stories and no one has ever implemented or experienced that before.


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## Nagol (Oct 17, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> What I really didn't get about FATE, and this hopefully is clearer in the context of the above discussion, is that it's a document that goes out of its way to hype about how it is all about dramatic role-play, but in its examples of play there seems to be no expectation that the players are engaging with the game as a drama or in any fashion immersed in the experience at all.
> 
> As I understood and understand the attraction of an RPG, it's like the attraction of reading a good book, except that instead of being an observer of the characters in the book or even getting to see the world through their eyes, you get to be an actual participant in the book and make choices along the way.  It's like a "Choose your Own Adventure" book with millions of endings and where you could crib in new ideas for what you do at the bottom of the page and the new pages would appear.  And yet despite seemingly affirming that view of what playing an RPG should be like, when the book provides examples of play, "IT'S JUST NOTHING LIKE THAT!!!"  There is no emersion at all.  The approach of the players in the game is largely gamist in nature, seemingly completely unconcerned with characterization, describing actions by their characters in a third person pawn stance, with no dramatic dialogue occurring either between PCs and NPCs or between PCs.  There is no evidence of improvement in drama at all, and if the examples of play are accurate, then the examples of play show the system isn't adding anything to the game that any very basic system would provide.
> 
> And what it does seem to bring from Forge is a certain pretentiousness as if they've discovered that RPGs can be stories and no one has ever implemented or experienced that before.




Fate plays more towards shared authorship.  It isn't about dramatic role play (though it doesn't get in the way much), it is about shared creation of a genre-appropriate dramatic narrative.  The mechanics of play -- aspects, fate points, consequence negotiation, etc. are there to provide the tools a table can use to construct a resolution to a scene and develop the next framing.   

It is pretty good at what it does.  I like to run it, but I dislike playing it.


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## Celebrim (Oct 17, 2015)

Nagol said:


> Fate plays more towards shared authorship.




Yes, that's exactly my point.  With a very few exceptions, most everything produced out of the Indy gaming scene reads and plays like the goal of gaming is to recreate the experience of being on a team working together on a B rate movie script.  It's systems that would seem designed to let you act out the role of being a struggling screen writer, working with other struggling screen writers to get a script made to a deadline.  The systems seem to think that the process of documenting a story is the same as the process experiencing a story as if any methodology that loosely could be said to 'create a story' is the same as experiencing the story.  



> I like to run it, but I dislike playing it.




So what's the point of empowering the players to have a greater role in the authorship of the story if it doesn't make the game more fun for the players?


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 17, 2015)

pemerton said:


> The thing is, this is not literally true. Most GMs label the rooms on the map, and then have a separate bit of paper on which they right down the details, under the relevant labels. And different GMs write down differing degrees of detail.
> 
> Suppose, for instance, that the GM doesn't write down the colour of the roof. What happens if the players ask "What colour is the roof?"? The GM can't answer that it is colourless. S/he has to make something up. And making up that stuff can have downstream consequences. For instance, suppose s/he tells the players that the roof is grey in colour. And suppose the players know that the belly of a lurker above is typically grey in colour. The players can then try to have their PCs trick NPCs into not entering the room - "Don't go in there - look up at the roof - that's actually a lurker above!" Which is to say, the improvised detail might actually matter to gameplay down the line.



It is literally true it must be part of the pattern designed. As I've said before, if something is not part of that game system, the rigorously balanced dynamic design the players are actually supposed to be playing, then it is up to the players. They still need to add material that is actually possible within the design, but color is an easy one. Incorrect suppositions made by the players is part of any game play - i.e. people engaged in code breaking.



> Also, none of that is about trying to work out what method the GM used to generate that content. And it in no way depends on whether the GM generated the content randomly or non-randomly. (Except that if the GM has in fact just rolled a lot of bat-like creatures as wandering monsters than the players could form a hypothesis about their being a lair or passage which is, in fact, just wrong.)



Random is not what matters. Repeating a code, a pattern is what matters. Dice rolls in D&D are not in the game to create randomness, but be a representation of actual variance in the design. And you know players are judging content based on encountering prior design. I think you just don't want to admit how RPG face to face and online have been played for decades. "We're pretty far underground in the mad wizards dungeon. And it gets tougher every level. I'm guessing those little guys over there are probably tougher than they look to make it down here."



> Yes, the players need to learn that hill giants live in hills, that fire giants live in volcanoes etc. But they don't need to learn whether the GM put these fire giants in this volcano because s/he rolled on the "volcanic regions encounter table" or because s/he thought it was a good idea.



If anyone cared at all why some game constructs are more commonly persisting in some environments than others, than the stocking design matters. This directly feeds to thoughts we can abstract into "Where can my game construct persist?"



> No. There is no rule that tells the GM whether or not s/he can place a monster and/or a treasure in this room or in that. (And Gygax expressly encourages the GM to manage treasure placement so as to avoid too much.)



Have you ever looked at the rules for stocking dungeons? Dungeons stock by level. As well as environment. All sorts of stuff is possible for different games. And yes, Gygax had all sorts of bad advice in the DMG.



> Neither of those sentences is true. The altar to the alien god is on the "gameboard", but the alien god need not be. The GM is allowed to place the altar, then make up stuff after the event. In the real world, this is actually how a lot of GMs invent a lot of stuff!



The altar needs to be designed to be in the game. So does the alien god, if it in any way affects what that alter can do, why it came about, etc. And pointers to where they constructs are located are in map keys. 



> Note that in classic D&D there is no "game score" that is role-relative. All players earn XP in exactly the same ways (enemies defeated, loot collected).



This is about artful interpretation, but I agree the early D&D game didn't reward roleplaying so much as killing and gaining treasure. That Fighters and Thieves are rewarded is obvious. Later XP was given for figuring out magic items even casting spells for the M-U. Clerics had it worse off, but can be rewarded for the clerics stuff which slowly came later in AD&D.



> It wouldn't be. For instance, that advice would have very little relevance for the players in my game.
> 
> It can have relevance for a game in which improvisation takes place, however. For instance, none of that advice becomes invalidated if the GM improvises rules for swimming, for jumping, for using insulated poles to try and disarm electricity traps, etc. Because none of that advice has any bearing on the action resolution mechanics.



Improvisation has no business by any referee in any game. And there are no such things as "resolution mechanics".



> What makes you think that things that happen in the length of a campaign in "non-design, improv sessions called games" can't affect anything or everything else that ever happens? I've had experiences that contradict this.
> 
> For instance, in an early session of my 4e game the gods gave one of the PCs the task of rebuilding the Rod of Seven Parts. That has affected a great deal else of what has happened in the campaign.



Because there is no game deal to deal with, of course. Taking a piece in chess affects the game. Your example isn't referring to anything occurring in a game. You're referring to the obviously non-game Fiction from "storygames".



> I think this claim is in tension with your claim that "it isn't a simulation of everything that anyone could ever think of". I have never had the second law of thermodynamics come up in over 30 years of GMing until one of my players thought of it and brought it into the game!



Damage is hardly new to D&D.



> By your measure craps is not a game, given that it has no board or "design". Yet if anything counts as _gaming_, surely craps does!



Craps is betting based upon players/betters code breaking the odds pattern of a 2d6 die roll. If you can figure out the odds, you can bet with greater regular success (or worse, if your into Forge dogma). It's gaming by deciphering a code like any other game. There's more to Craps, but honestly it looked kind of dull.



> In the system I was using, the basic rules are quite clear: the player has to roll a d20, add relevant bonuses, and reach a pre-defined target number. The target number is read from a chart with three columns. The GM has to choose which column (Easy, Medium or Hard) is used. I chose the Hard column, for exactly the same reasons that you say "such a powerful effect" and "such a level of effect". The player then generated bonuses to the roll by making choices which the system permits to be made - in this particular case, spending resources (healing surges/hit points). The system is not _broken_ - where did it break?



The Player improvised a game effect that never referred to the game design. You made a judgement call without reference to anything. You didn't dig down to where get to where the player actually refers to the game design. And then measure. The effects sounds like the consequences were made up by the player too. Remember, to be any kind of game player the player is always referring to the game system or actually engaging with it, not a fiction. The actual game map (board, field of play, pattern, etc.) is the actual design being played - i.e. deciphered.



> The player is rolling to find out whether or not the PC succeeds at his attempt to seal the Abyss. At that level of description, it's not different from rolling to see whether or not the PC succeeds in hitting an orc in melee.
> 
> I don't know why you say the effect is unbalanced. Where is the lack of balance? I also don't see why you say it is not possible in the game. One of the explicit uses of Arcana skill, per the game rules, is to manipulate magical effects.
> 
> As I posted upthread, this is the 4e analogue to creative spellcasting. You may be familiar with the rule in the AD&D books that a Light spell can be cast on a creature's eyes to blind it. Where do you think that rule came from? What would you have done, a GM, the first time a player attempted that? The rulebooks wouldn't have given you an answer.



Where is the balance? The game doesn't sound balanced in the first place. What is the effect? How effective is it compared to other effects in the game? This is balancing a new spell and you put it in 3 boxes - easy, average, hard. What are you juding from? And skills, i.e. "Checks" aren't game mechanics. Game mechanics are mathematical constructs. 

And your last question is again, "What happens when a player doesn't something that isn't covered by the rules?" I answered above. The rules in the books are suggestions, not a complete system (which is obvious to good designers who read them). A complete, balanced system - the code - needs to be in place before every campaign a DM runs. 



> I think the notion of "usurpation" has no work to do here. Suppose it's true that more people enjoy playing my way than your way. And, as seems likely, that many more again prefer playing adventure paths than prefer either your way or my way. That's not a "usurpation" of anything. It's just people engaging in the hobbies they enjoy.



The Forge was one person's prejudicial philosophy used to shame people and rewrite game terminology. It shames anyone and everyone who plays games as activities for Pattern Recognition and Code Breaking and deludes them into thinking they are "shared expression".* Anyone who's played any game from Chess to Magic: The Gathering can gather that.

*Notice you air quoting the basic act of playing a game in this thread title. 



			
				Pemerton - another post said:
			
		

> As I said, I think that sandboxing and problem-solving are basically orthogonal. Most problem-solving in RPGs is either mechanical/technical, or involves interacting with the fiction. I don't see that sandboxing has any special connection to the presence or absence of mechanical/technical problem solving. Nor does it have any special connection to interacting with the fiction, does it? Sandboxing is a method for generating fiction, but not for adjudicating interactions with it when it acts as a constraint within which problems are solved.



IME, sandboxing is old school players try to remember what D&D was before it was taken from them and whitewashed over. The term comes from videogames though, so maybe there is some new cross over? As the game board is the actual mechanical design of the game, moving it inherently requires problem solving/code breaking to play it to objectives well. 

Remember, there is no such thing as fiction in a game! It is fiction which is orthogonal to game playing. You're completely backwards on why people play RPGs that those online inherently get, roleplaying has nothing at all to do with stories or character portrayal. CRPGs are really the same dynamic game board patterns only without referees.


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## Umbran (Oct 17, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> So what's the point of empowering the players to have a greater role in the authorship of the story if it doesn't make the game more fun for the players?




Well, that seems like a pretty big overgeneralization - "I don't like to play it" goes to, "it doesn't make the game more fun for the players" in general?  I don't see the logical foundation of that step.

I have games I'm perfectly happy to run, and players have a good time when I do run it, but I wouldn't much care to play myself.  And, vice versa - some games I'm happy to play, but please don't ask me to run them.  Heck, I know GMs who never take a player's role at all - they dislike playing all games!


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## Umbran (Oct 17, 2015)

Campbell said:


> Personally, I don't get FATE - like at all. When I look at it I have no idea what to actually do with the thing. It doesn't really tell how I'm supposed to run it or what I'm supposed to do with it. There's absolutely no context - it feels like mechanics for their own sake. If I'm basically designing a game from whole cloth in order to use it why exactly do I need FATE?




Well if what you looked at was the FATE SRD, or FATE Core, it is important to remember is a *core*, without a world, without a genre.  It is like an engine without the rest of the car, and doesn't pretend to be otherwise.  The Core is intended for the GM who wants to put together his or her own game around an engine.  

If you instead look at one of the FATE-based games (Dresden Files, Atomic Robo, for example) you get a lot more context and play examples in the rulebook.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 17, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> First of all, again, the Big Model doesn't apply to Tetris.  I went back and looked, and three different sources all agree that The Big Model is a theory of RPGs, and not games generally.



That's great news. That's not what I was told repeatedly from people on that site 10 years ago. 
You know, that's really funny. The reason I first heard about the Forge was as part of a story about some crazy guy online who was claiming all games were actually just "scenery shifting" (and wasn't being ironic). You've never heard that about them before?



> Besides which, you aren't even correctly describing The Big Model.



Then let's not talk about it. I'm fine with that.



> howandwhy99 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I said in my Tic-Tac-Toe example earlier in this thread: a game is only a game if we treat it as such. Gaming is its own unique culture. Storytelling is too. Both are great, but their ideas largely have no crossover. I'm not willingly going to let one be painted over by another no matter how self certain a group of true believers may be. 

To explain the quote: Games are pattern designs. They actually exist as such, whether it be in the world outside or minds or the piece of reality which is called fantasy which is our minds. These patterns can be puzzled out as puzzles. They can also be played as games by deciphering the pattern to achieve objectives within them. This means a garden maze is a game when treated so. As is a forest. So, my point was, the origins of games do not come from people. They are games when treated as part of game culture.



> These were extremely rare items.  How do you think people played the game without access to these things?  Do you think that people were only playing "Temple of the Frog" and "Palace of the Vampire Queen"?



DMs drew their own mazes prior to play. This is required by the rules since 1974. Just see my post to MaxPerson upthread. This was mandatory, just like any wargame requires terrain.



> This is a bit of knotted up nonsense that twists back on itself and ends up nowhere.  To the extent that screens and modules provide evidence of anything about the design of D&D, they provide no evidence that the design of D&D is equivalent to "code breaking" or "pattern discovery".



No one needed to be told that. It's the basic act of playing game that anyone in wargames knew instictively. Unless you also believe playing Axis & Allies is "collaborative storytelling" with the game "author". (Hint: It's a dynamic pattern that enables players to decipher it so they might achieve objectives more capably within it.)



> Disproving the necessity of screens and modules only requires a single counter-example.   If the game was played successfully even once without them, they are not necessities.



Games can't be played without game rules. The campaign map (maze) - a portion of which is a module - must be drawn by the DM before anyone could even think to play it (i.e. engage in solving to one or more objectives).  Screens hide this maze players are mapping on the other side. And as I keep saying, these mazes are the actual game design.



> Of course modules are episodic.  They have beginnings and they have ends.



Of course they aren't. They change the entire length of the campaign. Even if you clear the entire dungeon level, time passes and wandering monsters will come by and make lairs. Even if you collapse the entire level you still have a level of dirt and stone for players to dig through. It never goes away.



> Propostion #1: The vast majority of published modules do not contain references to dungeon areas be repopulated once cleared.  A DM that repopulated a dungeon area and repurposed it would be inherently engaged in improvisation.   In some cases, where modules are at least partially event based and not entirely location based ("Worldshaker", "Needle", "Day of Al'Akbar", "Saber River") such repopulation is meaningless because its the events that drive the story not the locations.



  The vast majority of published "modules" today aren't. They are single sequence stories for players to follow. There is no game element to them. And DMs were told to restock the DMs map per the rules of the game. Every DM needs to use rules for this, a pattern of restocking, to allow players to undestand what it's happening and why. And these rolls are not improvisation when following pre-existing rules. And "event based" modules are railroads, or presumed rails at best.



> Proposition #2: Off the top of my head, the only published module that mentions repopulating the dungeon over time is B2 keep on the borderlands (and I'll have to check that just to make sure I'm not confusing text in B2 with text in the DMG, which notably wasn't intended as a relevant rules text for playing B2).  But to the extent that any module mentions a dungeon repopulating over time, they generally do not detail the exact process by which that would occur, leaving it again up to improvisation by the DM to decide how and when a dungeon is repopulated.



Yeah, the process needs to be predetermined by the DM. I mean, they had to stock the game board the first time with monsters and treasure, right? That wasn't to be arbitrary.



> Proposition #3: Repurposing a module like B2 to set it in the icy north or tropical jungle clearly requires DM improvisation.  No mechanical engine for doing that is given to the DM, and even the idea that B2 should be converted to a different setting is improvisation.



Yes. You're right here. That players needed different or redesigned game scenarios they knew too well, so a different pattern could be played, is true. This occurs between campaigns clearly.



> I don't define story games as RPGs.  Nor do I define theater games as RPGs.  Story games to my mind lack essential features that would make them qualify as RPGs.  And I was playing an RPG last night.   But unlike you, I've actually repeatedly demonstrate that what I say an RPG is, is what the rules of the game say an RPG is, what the creators of the game say an RPG is, and what this historical record says an RPG is, and is congruent with how RPGs are actually defined in a dictionary or encyclopedia article.  You on the other hand have engaged in the same silliness the people pushing The Big Model, of defining your own invented terms and then asserting that everyone conformed to your model.  But you don't actually find people thinking about the game in the way you are here asserting, nor do you find the language that you claim defines a game used in the games you are describing.  Your "millions of people" are entirely figments of your imagination.



Millions of game players who play games other than RPGs. RPGs have been a confused enterprise since Gary poorly explained what he was doing and then 2e happened. 



> So here is a challenge for you.  Explain in a non garbly gook way in what manner you consider an RPG differs from a wargame.  Or more specifically, what feature(s) do you add to a wargame to make it an RPG?   Because your theory of games seems to argue that there is no non-ephemeral difference between an RPG and mastermind or tic-tac-toe.



Back in '79-'80 D&D became known to people other than in the hobby, people whose opinions mattered. Postmodernism was hitting common culture at the as same time holding many of the same prejudiced certainties folks like Edwards and the Forge have today. It was considered, "If D&D is a 'role playing' game, how aren't all games role playing games? All games define a social role, 'chess player' for instance, and allow players to improve in those roles, right?" It's hard to dispute that. Wargames are about roleplaying generals under the definition of roleplaying from the 70s. So D&D is a wargame (and is) albeit a cooperative one which offers three different roles separate from one another. This made it something new. It later slowly shifted in AD&D to all roles being more fully supported. Something where players roleplayed in different directions and needed to learn to work together to achieve different goals.



> So?  You are now evading and spinning.  It's a module.



All I am saying is UK1 is a flawed design which doesn't work with the game.



> UK1's design is not a campaign ender.



D&D uses calendar maps. That's what all those early modules publications functionally (or dysfunctionally) were. When you extend off the map we are leaving the game. 1000s years in the future is like thinking we can reset the Chess board based on calculations of what it will look like 100,000s of moves in the future. Time to start a new campaign.



> If the design of UK1 had been, "The lovers must be rescued in 48 hours time or everyone suddenly dies", then this would have been a design that literally had the potential to be a campaign ender.



That's true too. 



> If the game is nothing more than "code breaking" arriving back in the real world 1000 years later is not harmful to the game and not problematic.



The game is dynamic, not situational. If you sit in the dungeon as a player, you are spending the primary resource of the game: time. Sooner or later you will see events occurring due to the pregenerated timeline made before every session, the scenario. 



> The cultural artifacts of 1983 indicate that DMs were expected to improvise, that adventures placed characters in a situation that had an expected narrative arc, and that the designers and players of the game expected their adventures to create a story.



Obviously I strongly disagree. I'm guessing you're not interested why D&D is designed as it is. So I'm thinking not much is to be gained by continually responding. If you have further questions, I will answer them. Otherwise, have a good weekend.


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## Umbran (Oct 17, 2015)

Nagol said:


> Fate plays more towards shared authorship.  It isn't about dramatic role play (though it doesn't get in the way much), it is about shared creation of a genre-appropriate dramatic narrative.  The mechanics of play -- aspects, fate points, consequence negotiation, etc. are there to provide the tools a table can use to construct a resolution to a scene and develop the next framing.




From there, it is important to add - there's more than one way to get dramatic narrative.  If you build action characters, you get dramatic action.  If you build social characters, you get dramatic role-play.  It ends up being all about how you choose your aspects.  If they are about who you are, you get more support for dramatic role play.   If they are about what you can do, you get more support for dramatic action.


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## Nagol (Oct 17, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> <snip>
> 
> So what's the point of empowering the players to have a greater role in the authorship of the story if it doesn't make the game more fun for the players?




*Shrug* it depends on the players and what they like, of course.  The players I've had (once I understood the system sufficiently to properly describe it) enjoy that form of play.

I prefer engaging with my character and its attempts to engage the environment more than manipulating the game environment directly.  You can approach FATE in that way, but you leave a lot on the table if you do.


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## howandwhy99 (Oct 17, 2015)

Campbell said:


> As an aside for [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]: Have you taken a look at Stars Without Number? It's a totally cool space exploration RPG that is designed for the sort of play experience it sounds like your after. In between sessions part of GM prep involves a phase where you use random charts to figure out what's going on in the galaxy. It's a cool little game.



I've looked at it before. It's a "skill check game", i.e. a "Check game". In other words, a game based on a mechanic that is in no way a game mechanic. There are no such things as "checks" in games. 

But those are only some of what the text calls its "system". It actually does include pieces for potential game boards designs which are required to be put together prior to play, though I don't know if the designer actually knows why, how such are balanced, or that the pieces themselves have to come from a deeper design.

Another issue is he doesn't know what he's supposed to be designing for a game to be a roleplaying game. Character as personality (attributes!?) and stories have nothing to do with either roleplaying or games.

Ultimately it is only a partial game system, so it's a broken game at best with plenty of "rules" which needs to be stripped away as they don't refer any kind of actually existing design. But it could be fixed. It looks like it was a lot of work and a passion project. To his credit, it's a hell of a lot closer to an actual game than (almost) everything else with the RPG label.



> There's a reason why I refer to the mechanical bits and bobs as artifacts of play. First, they are the tools we use to play the game and the vestigial remains of playing the game. Also, they are not the game, and should not be mistaken for it. They represent things and help us communicate about things, but they are not those things. Your character sheet is not your character. Your prep is not the world, fiction, play space, whatever, etc. The mechanics are not the game. They are tools used to play the game. Their value is entirely contextual.



You're so completely wrong, you have idea what playing a game is. You're still stuck in "games are fiction, and narratives, and we create them, and..." That's all dogma and not the first through last reasons why anyone ever plays a game. 

Here are some clues for you:

The game is the actual design either in our brain, on a board, or elsewhere. 
Moving in a game is referring to the actual movements of pieces on a gameboard. It is actual manipulation of the pattern.
A player record sheet is simply a series of scores referring to a small portion of the game behind the screen for the DM. Those scores refer to current designs in the game.
They only behavior required of at least every single game is pattern recognition, for the players this begins by being conjured up in the imagination and checking it with prior imaginings. 
Experience Points are the scores for individual D&D players. Like all games they track actual accomplishments in the world the design is but a part of. This is blatantly obvious in sports, but brain sports like D&D are just as real.
The mechanics are parts of the actual design that is the game and manifested in things like gameboards and game pieces. Just like a Rubik's Cube is an actual thing, it is a puzzle when we attempt to discover its underlying solution. It is also a game whenever we attempt to accomplish a goal within it alone. (Meaning more people treat Rubik's Cubes like games than puzzles than not when seeking just an end in them.)
Scoring occurs whenever goals are achieved within a game. It is very similar to solving a puzzle, but players simply solve a part. Moving a a Rubik's Cube so one side is all same color is scoring in the game trying to get all sides the same color. (As this goal is not solving the underlying pattern, this isn't puzzle solving) In this way, moving a Rubik's Cube to attain a full side is scoring - whether tracked or not - as it is the improving progress towards the predetermined objective of all sides the same color. Mix that side up again and that score would be lost as what it referred to stops being the case.



> What I was trying to say was mechanics are like contextually useful, but should not be mistaken for the thing we are doing in play and how we go about doing it.



And you are completely wrong to believe that and then think you know the first thing about games.



> I do have a personal bugaboo about taking what I call the artifacts of play as a fetish and making play about them instead of the things they represent.



 Of course, you want games to be "fictions" so you can tell a story, not play a game. FYI, code breaking is game play.  And there are no such thing as stories or fictions.


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## Celebrim (Oct 17, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> That's great news. That's not what I was told repeatedly from people on that site 10 years ago.




First, if you were told that, then they were wrong.  The Big Models official documentation, the Wikipedia entry, and the web domain dedicated to the The Big Model all indicate that it is a theory of RPGs and not a theory of games generally.  I suppose some people might have tried to experimentally extend the concepts in the model to non-RPGs, but at this point I don't trust you to accurately report a conversation, so I have no idea what you may have been told.



> You know, that's really funny. The reason I first heard about the Forge was as part of a story about some crazy guy online who was claiming all games were actually just "scenery shifting" (and wasn't being ironic). You've never heard that about them before?




I know what "scenery shifting" means.  And I know that it is a term appropriated from stage craft.  But again, at this point I have no reason to trust you to relate any anecdote accurately, so I have no idea what this "crazy guy" was trying to explain to you or what you took from that.  In any event, googling "scenery shifting" and RPGs, Forge, and "The Big Model" does not return a lot of results so this "crazy guy" was clearly not trying to explain something central to any of the major proposed theories.  I think either you or perhaps the person you were in a conversation wit were misremembering a term and reporting a very incomplete versions of an explanation of "framing a scene" and the relationship of a game engine to adjudicating changes of a game state.  That language could be applied to just about every game, though in most cases I think it would be pointlessly over complicating the description.    



> I said in my Tic-Tac-Toe example earlier in this thread: a game is only a game if we treat it as such.




I don't think that is well established or accepted, and its a very novel rather 'post-modern' view of what a game is.  Even if we say something is a game, it doesn't become a game any more than saying a tail is a leg makes it a leg.  Saying that a forest is a game doesn't make it a game.  I think that there is a general agreement among game theorists that a game has certain features, and if it has these features it is a game even if we do not play it.  And with perhaps a bit less agreement, if it lacks these features, even if we make a play of it, then it isn't a game - although this assertion depends on the definition of play and whether it is different than game (a proposition complicated by the historical switch in meaning of the two terms back in the 14th century).



> Gaming is its own unique culture. Storytelling is too. Both are great, but their ideas largely have no crossover. I'm not willingly going to let one be painted over by another no matter how self certain a group of true believers may be.




I don't even know what you mean by all of this, and whatever you may mean by it, it appears to be a rather strained and overcomplicated way of explaining yourself.  Games are independent of the culture of gaming.  A game remains a game regardless of how we culturally respond to it.  A story is a story whether or not there is any culture of story telling.  Culture is what we believe about things.  It isn't the thing itself.   And of course, there can be a cultural crossover between stories and games.  You earlier asserted that video games were the true inheritors of a RPGs before they became corrupted.  But of course we can respond to a video game as both a story and a game, and a story can be in the form of a game and a game can be in the form of a story.  A game like Mass Effect, or Fallout, or Grim Fandango, or Skyrim, or Witcher III or even something like Nethack is both a game and has a story.  And because it is a game, the playing of the game creates a particular story unique to that play experience.  Things may happen in the game that don't happen in other plays of the game.  And naturally, as both a game and a story, designers of video games draw on ideas from games, from game design, and from stories, and theories about narration.  And when these things are well done, the story and the game interact with each other in ways that are immersive, compelling, and artistic. 

And no one is painting over anything.  No serious game designer creating an RPG or game with RPG elements is going to tell you, "Because I can tell a good story, I can do without good gameplay." as if tedious or pointless game play didn't diminish the experience, nor would any one say, "Because I have good game play, that game play is automatically diminished by story elements."  And generally speaking, the creation of Mass Effect didn't paint over the culture of book lovers nor get lots of books thrown into the fire as pointless, nor did it paint over the culture of game lovers and cause gaming to be abandoned as a past time.  Nor do I think there are very many people who have this as a goal.



> To explain the quote: Games are pattern designs.




Just stop there.  What is a "pattern design"?  You are employing a term of art with a meaning known only to you.  When I hear pattern design, the first thing I think of is embroidery.  



> They actually exist as such, whether it be in the world outside or minds or the piece of reality which is called fantasy which is our minds.




There seems to be some grammatical errors in that sentence that makes your meaning unclear.  Most of it I can guess at, but to make sure I understand you, "Fantasy" is in our mind, but it is not literally the mind itself.  



> These patterns can be puzzled out as puzzles.




Perhaps.  But this is unnecessarily complicating the description.   When I play a game like Bloodbowl or Chess, and I make a tactical decision in the game, I don't think of the process of figuring out what to do next as puzzling out a pattern.  I only think of patterns as being highly relevant to the decision making process when the game contains some sort of predictable pattern, such as a shooting game where the waves come in predictable patterns, or a side scrolling platformer where obstacles always appear in the same way every time the game is run.  Is the game is randomized and in particular highly randomized, then I don't think of myself as puzzling out a pattern at all, because the game is unpredictable and all I'm doing from moment to moment is responding to the currently observable game state.



> They can also be played as games by deciphering the pattern to achieve objectives within them.




Again, by 'pattern' you just seem to mean the current game state.  You don't actually mean 'pattern' in its normal usage as a repeated and reoccurring feature or the process of making something repeating and reoccurring.  Or perhaps you are using "pattern" as a synonym for "formula" or "function"?



> This means a garden maze is a game when treated so.




No, or at least, only if you mean something other or more than what you actually wrote. A garden maze doesn't become a game until we give some additional features to it, like a goal, "Get to the center of the maze" or "Get to the center of the maze as fast as possible."  Usually we also implicitly or explicitly have rules of some sort, like, "Don't kill the other players." and "Don't like climb over the hedges.", and so forth.  Only after we have made "the garden maze game" is it a game.   But the garden maze itself is never a game in and of itself.  It is at most, a component of the game.



> As is a forest.




Again, the forest is never a game itself.  It is at most a component of a game once a game has been created like "Hide and seek".  "Hide in seek" is never the forest.  It is just something you could play in the forest.



> So, my point was, the origins of games do not come from people. They are games when treated as part of game culture.




So that's nonsense, and even more obviously nonsense than your assertion that a forest is a game if you treat it as such.  Culture comes from people.  Games comes from people.  They are both things created by people.  A game remains a game even if it has no culture and there is no cultural response to it.  I have no idea what you mean by "culture" in this context.  And the only game I can think of that is claimed not to have come from people, is the Mayan sacred ball game.  Now that was a gaming culture, but its pretty obviously not the same gaming culture that exists now.  I have no idea what you mean by a "gaming culture" as it is pretty evident that the culture of say football, fantasy football, and chess are different.  I think you are using "culture" as a loose and perhaps inappropriate synonym for some other word or idea.



> DMs drew their own mazes prior to play.




Stop.  Again, DM's could be said to have drawn maps prior to play, but they could not necessarily be said to have drawn mazes.  A map is not necessarily a maze, and usually isn't.  A maze has distinctive topological features.  A maze is a puzzle or game only if it has certain goals and rules we apply to it.  The purpose of the map was not necessarily the same as the purpose of a maze, nor where the same rules and goals applied to it.  It's perfectly possible to have an RPG map which doesn't have the purpose, "Explore this map.", because it is possible to have an RPG map which only documents what is already observable and communicated to the player, and it is possible to have an RPG map which lacks obstacles to navigate around.  B2 actually has maps like this when documents the Keep that is on the borderlands, and the taverns and so forth.   They are places where play can occur, but they aren't intended to be mazes. 



> This is required by the rules since 1974. Just see my post to MaxPerson upthread. This was mandatory, just like any wargame requires terrain.




Moreover, we know for a fact that not all RPG play occurs on a map.  Leaving aside this assertion you make about the rules explicitly requiring it, whether they did or not, we know that not all activities occurred on a map.  For example, the 13th level of Castle Greyhawk had a chute trap that deposited you on the other side of the world.  At one point in the trap was activated and two players landed in what would become Kara Tur.  At the time, no map existed for where you landed when the chute dropped you off, and there is no evidence that any maps were created for the characters adventures returning back to Greyhawk.  The players were off the map and had been moved off the map by the map.  But play didn't stop because of that.  So clearly play didn't have to occur on a map, and therefore the map isn't mandatory.  

More to the point, right from the start, the main claim I've been arguing with you is your assertion that RPGs (in their true form) have no improvisation.  But it's quite clear you don't believe that.  Because not only do you describe DMs drawing their own map, which is clearly improvisation, but its clear that since the very beginning of RPGs, DMs have been prepared to and at times instructed to improvise maps during the middle of play.



> No one needed to be told that. It's the basic act of playing game that anyone in wargames knew instictively. Unless you also believe playing Axis & Allies is "collaborative storytelling" with the game "author". (Hint: It's a dynamic pattern that enables players to decipher it so they might achieve objectives more capably within it.)




No, but I don't claim Axis and Allies is an RPG either.  I claim Axis and Allies is a wargame.  And once again, you've made no attempt to actually show that Axis and Allies is "code breaking" or "pattern design".  I play Axis and Allies, and I don't think of it in those terms tuitively or intuitively.  I really just don't think "pattern design" is a good synonym for decision making.



> Games can't be played without game rules.




At last we agree on something.  But this would seem to contradict your earlier assertions about what a game is.



> The campaign map (maze)




Again not synonyms.  Maze isn't even an RPG term of art the way that "dungeon" is for historical and cultural reasons.  And many games do quite well without "campaign maps" at all.  You don't actually need a campaign map to play D&D, and Greyhawk began without one.  When it found a need for a world map, EGG mentally borrowed a map of the United States for the purpose, placing the City of Greyhawk IIRC where Chicago would be and working from there.  But RPGs don't need a campaign map.  I could probably blow your mind by asserting that they don't need a map at all, although they aren't well suited to long term play without creating maps because eventually they need a more tangible description of the place the game is happening.



> - a portion of which is a module -




No.  A module is not merely a portion of a map.  For one thing, the module can be played by itself, which would make its maps (if any) the whole map.  For another, a module has many features other than possibly having a map.   Module is a description of a scenario that usually has maps because things normally happen in places where it matters what the shape of that place is.



> must be drawn by the DM before anyone could even think to play it (i.e. engage in solving to one or more objectives).




Again, just no.  It's possible to begin play and even continue play without a map.  Heck, it's often the case that play takes place off the map or I have to improvise a map because where it is taking place has not been mapped.  There are many cases where this is true:

a) The actual space the scenario takes place in isn't particularly relevant, or interesting, and if it ever becomes relevant it would be easy to improvise a map.   A good example would be starting a campaign with an encounter that is simply "on a road" or "in a tavern' or "in the street".   I can begin play with, "You are travelling down the King's Highway, seeking your fortune in the great cosmopolitan city of Talernga, when - as you round a bend in a wooded area - a group of scruffy looking men walk out of the woods ahead of you.  They are wearing armor and carrying weapons such as a peasant militia might have, but in ill-repair.  Nonetheless, they seem confident and their evident leader - holding a morning star in two hands hails you by saying, "Top 'o the morning to ye, my lairds.  I be Captain Jenkins, and these be my brave men and true.  We are collecting tolls for the use of this road which you are travelling on, and we hope you will cooperate."   And that's a perfectly good scenario even if I haven't mapped the road, or the campaign world, or the city of Talernga, and even if the MM doesn't assert that there is a percentage chance bandit leaders will be armed with morningstars.
c) Quite often, even if I do have a map of a region, I'll detailed at 30 miles to the inch or 5 miles to the inch, and that scale is utterly useless when the party has an encounter in a forest, desert, settled farmland, or anything else.  So even if I decide that it matters that I have a map of the immediate environs of the encounter, I'm still going to have to improvise that map.  But I don't actually need the map until the party interacts with the scenario in a way that a map actually matters.  If the encounter is in grasslands, and the encounter occurs over a small region, I don't really need a map.  Or if the encounter ends up being non-hostile, then I really don't care about the tactical positioning of the various factions that are interacting.  I just have a scene that happens in a space. 
d) In the case of something like an encounter in the high astral or far ethereal, there is often literally no terrain to begin with, so there is no need for a map at all.  And I'm not going to create maps for whenever a character goes traipsing off into the Dreamlands for a short duration, to try to spy on a sleeping character or cozen someone sleeping into revealing information to them.  Ditto for going into the Ethereal to seek a spirit to negotiate with, or anything of that sort.
e) Quite often, in wilderness trek, an unplanned encounter will occur that implies the existence of a lair of some sort - a cave, a ruined castle, a village, a mine, a den, a bog, a graveyard, a hollow tree, a boat, or who knows what.  When that happens, it may become necessary to just make up a map on the spot.  There is no pattern to what I might make up.  It's in fact, patternless.  It's probably not a maze in many cases.  It's a tangible place for the encounter to happen in.



> Screens hide this maze players are mapping on the other side.




If you are trying to say that one of the jobs of the GM is to be the secret keeper, and withhold information from the players until they discover it, then I agree.  However this would contradict somewhat the idea that the only purpose of a GM is to be a referee, because in most games it is not the purpose of the referee to be the secret keeper.  And in some games, players and not referees are the secret keepers.  And in your Mastermind example, it is not clear to me that the secret keeper is a referee.  And again, what secret is being kept isn't necessarily and often isn't a maze.  And likewise, what may be hiding the information from the players is not necessarily a screen.  The screen is in fact not mandatory.  



> And as I keep saying, these mazes are the actual game design.




Then you are wrong.  A map is not a game design.  A map is at most a mere component of a game.



> Of course they aren't. They change the entire length of the campaign.




I have no idea what that means?



> Even if you clear the entire dungeon level, time passes and wandering monsters will come by and make lairs.




Maybe.



> Even if you collapse the entire level you still have a level of dirt and stone for players to dig through. It never goes away.




Maybe.  It's entirely possible to have a dungeon that literally goes away once left.  An example would be a dungeon that was occurring entirely within the dream of some powerful being, or a dungeon on a demiplane that is collapsing, or a dungeon falling into the negative elemental plane and as such will be disintegrated soon.  You are taking things that are merely the way things usually work and insisting that they are mandatory features.   And you are wrong.



> The vast majority of published "modules" today aren't.




We aren't talking about "today".  At no point have I cited a modern module.  All the modules that I'm talking about would have been available to you when you were introduced to the game in the mid-80's.  All of them are part of the culture of gaming of the mid-80's.   All of them are modules and are recognized as such.  All of them are part of what creates the template for our notion of what a module is.  I  have no idea where you get your notion of what a module is.



> They are single sequence stories for players to follow. There is no game element to them.




That's false and that's also false.  Unlike you, I'm presenting examples.  You are making crap up again.



> And DMs were told to restock the DMs map per the rules of the game.




Where?  Give me a citation?   And what are the rules for stocking or restocking a map?  Again, give me a citation.  I'm pretty darn familiar with the texts of 1e publications, so I have some ideas where your vague ideas might be coming from, but I think once you give me a citation I'll be able to prove that those "rules" don't actually involve any sort of pattern or mechanism, and at best are vague and non-mandatory advice.



> Every DM needs to use rules for this, a pattern of restocking, to allow players to undestand what it's happening and why.




No they don't.  Investigating restocked dungeons isn't even a major component of RPGs ever.



> And these rolls are not improvisation when following pre-existing rules.




Which rules, and what if those rules are improvised?  And even if there are suggestions regarding how to create content, in no manner is a DM required to follow them or even his own algorithms.



> And "event based" modules are railroads, or presumed rails at best.




They can be, but so for that matter can a map.  They are not always railroads, and even if railroads it's not clear under any definition - including yours - that they aren't games.



> Yeah, the process needs to be predetermined by the DM. I mean, they had to stock the game board the first time with monsters and treasure, right?




No.



> That wasn't to be arbitrary.




Do you even know what the word arbitrary means?



> Millions of game players who play games other than RPGs. RPGs have been a confused enterprise since Gary poorly explained what he was doing and then 2e happened.




Yes, but they are still playing games.  Your contention earlier was that games were being destroyed.



> All I am saying is UK1 is a flawed design which doesn't work with the game.




In your opinion.  In mine, I'd say it's an overlooked masterpiece of design that works very well with the game, albeit it is not a design that works well with every player since - as the module admits - it's not a design that will suit players that prefer to solve all problems with combat.



> D&D uses calendar maps.




What is a "calendar map"?  Do you mean a calendar?  Do you mean a timeline?



> That's what all those early modules publications functionally (or dysfunctionally) were.




So S1 Tomb of Horrors is a calendar map?



> When you extend off the map we are leaving the game.




What? So, if I don't have a map of the round in the future after this one, then I'm leaving the map and need to start to a new campaign?



> 1000s years in the future is like thinking we can reset the Chess board based on calculations of what it will look like 100,000s of moves in the future. Time to start a new campaign.




No, not really.  That's a terrible analogy.  It's actually more like thinking the campaign has moved to a new part of the map, one which the DM has just constructed.  No DM actually ticks off all the events round by round that are going on where the PC's aren't.



> The game is dynamic, not situational. If you sit in the dungeon as a player, you are spending the primary resource of the game: time. Sooner or later you will see events occurring due to the pregenerated timeline made before every session, the scenario.




Wait.. every session has both a pregenerated map and a pregenerated timeline?  Greyhawk sure as heck didn't start with a pregenerated timeline.   What are you talking about?  Some groups do quite well with no pregenerated timeline at all.  I once spent a summer running an open dungeon crawl in the Greyhawk style for "whoever comes" at a gaming story in a very old school style, and I assure you we had no modules and no pregenerated timeline.  



> Obviously I strongly disagree. I'm guessing you're not interested why D&D is designed as it is.




LOL.  I'm the one continually quoting the elements of D&D's design and how it came about and why, and you are the one making crap up.


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## Celebrim (Oct 17, 2015)

I've already responded to you at length, but a few things in your other post just leapt out as obvious nonsense.



howandwhy99 said:


> I've looked at it before. It's a "skill check game", i.e. a "Check game". In other words, a game based on a mechanic that is in no way a game mechanic. There are no such things as "checks" in games.




Don't the third and fourth sentences of that paragraph contradict the second?  Either it is the case that it is a "skill check game" or else it is the case that there are no checks in games, but both can't be true.  And you've no way shown that a skill check can't be a game mechanic.  For that matter, since you earlier asserted that games were things we treated as games, so can't it be true that if we treat something with skill checks as a game, it's a game.  If it isn't a game, what is it?



> You're so completely wrong, you have idea what playing a game is. You're still stuck in "games are fiction, and narratives, and we create them, and..." That's all dogma and not the first through last reasons why anyone ever plays a game.




Lots of people are playing something that looks an awful lot like a game.  If it isn't a game, what is it?  And it sure seems like what you are actually saying here is actually, "That's not the first through last reasons why _I_ ever play a game."  It's pretty clear lots of people play games for reasons that aren't congruent with your reasons.



> [*]Moving in a game is referring to the actual movements of pieces on a gameboard. It is actual manipulation of the pattern.




No, you've got it backwards.  The pieces on the gameboard are merely tokens or markers of the game state.  There is a pretty good way to prove that.  Two chess masters with the requisite skill can play a game of chess blindfolded.  If we blindfolded those players and took away the board, they would still be able to play the game, not knowing that the board had been removed an the game was going on purely in their shared imaginary space.



> [*]The mechanics are parts of the actual design that is the game and manifested in things like gameboards and game pieces.




At this point, you just fully agreed with the guy that you disagreed with.  Yes, the pieces and the gameboards are just manifestations of the game and markers of it, and not the game itself.



> [*]Scoring occurs whenever goals are achieved within a game.




Many games don't keep score.  Certainly puzzles tend to not keep score.  They are either solved or not.



> In this way, moving a Rubik's Cube to attain a full side is scoring - whether tracked or not - as it is the improving progress towards the predetermined objective of all sides the same color. Mix that side up again and that score would be lost as what it referred to stops being the case.




As a quibble, if you are familiar with how a Rubik's cube is solved, making more than one side of the same color doesn't in fact indicate progress toward the objective of all sides of the same color.  That's not actually how you make progress in solving a Rubik's cube, and in fact to make progress would require 'mixing that side up again'.  Moreover, a scoring system for a Rubik's cube is irrelevant to the puzzle, but if you made one (as for an AI system that needed to puzzle out how to solve the cube), it wouldn't depend on the number of solved sides.



> FYI, code breaking is game play.




No, actually it's not.  Not by any common definition of game play.  Not even by your definition.   Even by your definition, we'd have to think of code breaking as game play before it would be game play.  The British group trying to crack the enigma code were not playing a game.   I suppose by your definition if they thought about it as a game, then it would have been a game but by most definitions of game in common use, that's not true.  Most games are played for fun, have limited duration, refer to a fictitious space in which the game occurs, and so forth.  In the novel "Ender's Game", OSC plays on this fact that we can believe something to be a game, but it not actually in fact be a game because it actually lacks necessary features a game has - like fiction.   You're definition of what a game is tends to be incomplete.   Code breaking in and of itself isn't a game and isn't game play.  And it's quite possible to have game play that isn't code breaking.   At best, you could claim game play is analogous to code breaking, although I'm not completely convinced about that either.  Code breaking requires an underlying regular structure.  But people can reasonably disagree over whether or not playing a slot machine (or anything similar to it) is a game, and even things that have more player agency (meaning some) than playing a slot machine don't seem to me to be always pattern analysis but simply decision making because the underlying game doesn't have a pattern that repeats.  And while I'd like to think all game play involved decision making, but there are some games like Shoots and Ladders that lack decision making but are still commonly called games.



> And there are no such thing as stories or fictions.




That's an obvious nonsensical statement.  Quite obviously, the dungeon, all of its contents, the game world, and the characters therein are all fictions.  And quite obviously, stories actually exist.


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## Balesir (Oct 18, 2015)

Zak S said:


> You can take a person who (unless they are lying about their own taste for some inscrutable reason) says they want thing x. Take one who wants thing y. Film them both being satisfied at the same moment in a game in their separate things. Ask them if that's what happened.



You seem to be greatly invested in the "absolute proof" of wrongness in GNS; I hope you gain some joy from that. It probably makes what I'm going to say pointless from your perspective, but I will do so anyway for the benefit of others who may read this.

GNS, as I understood it, said that an individual approaches an instance of play with an agenda. They rarely, if ever, approach such an instant with more than one agenda, and the resolution of that instance will either fulfil their agenda satisfactorily from their point of view or it won't. I find that this is true of me, but I don't rule out that others may carry simultaneous agendas into an instance of play; maybe you do, yourself.

Showing that different individuals can approach an instance of play with different agendas, however, does nothing to disprove the original idea. Can different people approach an instance of roleplaying (or, for that matter, any instance of life in general) with differing agendas? Yes, of course they can. I don't need a YouTube video or any form of testimony to see that; it's obvious. The same person approaching an instance with more than one agenda is, I think, rather rarer. Or maybe I'm just very unusual.



Celebrim said:


> What I really didn't get about FATE, and this hopefully is clearer in the context of the above discussion, is that it's a document that goes out of its way to hype about how it is all about dramatic role-play, but in its examples of play there seems to be no expectation that the players are engaging with the game as a drama or in any fashion immersed in the experience at all.
> 
> As I understood and understand the attraction of an RPG, it's like the attraction of reading a good book, except that instead of being an observer of the characters in the book or even getting to see the world through their eyes, you get to be an actual participant in the book and make choices along the way.  It's like a "Choose your Own Adventure" book with millions of endings and where you could crib in new ideas for what you do at the bottom of the page and the new pages would appear.



That is *an* attraction of an RPG. This is an area where I agree with Edwards quite a bit. Immersionism seems to be particularly prone to being seen as the "be all and end all" of roleplaying; I could hardly disagree with that more.

Immersion, first-person story viewing/participation is certainly one valid mode of roleplaying which seems to be enjoyed by many people (including me, from time to time). But *it is not the only way*.



howandwhy99 said:


> Even if you clear the entire dungeon level, time passes and wandering monsters will come by and make lairs. Even if you collapse the entire level you still have a level of dirt and stone for players to dig through. It never goes away.



Wait, now I am confused. Are these "wandering monsters", "lairs", "passing time" and "dirt and stone" part of some fiction that doesn't exist, or do you have some layers of dirt and stone and such in your garden that the players have to dig through?? If your game has no fiction and no story, then these comments just don't seem to make sense...


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## Zak S (Oct 18, 2015)

Balesir said:


> You seem to be greatly invested in the "absolute proof" of wrongness in GNS; I hope you gain some joy from that.




WOW. That is quite possibly the creepiest rhetorical technique I have ever seen employed in the history of human conversation.



> GNS, as I understood it, said...




You didn't read it all the way through then and just cherry-picked the parts of GNS that pretty much match what every other game theory says ("different people like different things in games") . Edwards explicitly goes much further and says no instance of play can simultaneously equally satisfy 2 completely different agendas. This is a provably inaccurate statement.

Go back and read the essays. Or just ask Ron. He's said "It's impossible to satisfy two different creative agendas simultaneously" repeatedly he's said that. He's totally wrong.


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## pemerton (Oct 18, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> You use some terms strangely.  You're going to have to explain what you mean by "in the course of resolution" in order for me to answer that.



I'll give two examples: one is from the 4e DMG, the other I'm making up myself.

(1) The PCs are negotiating with an NPC who is their social superior ("the Duke"). The GM has decided that one feature of the Duke  is that he doesn't respond well to threats from his social inferiors. Hence, any attempt to use the Intimidate skill in the course of the scene in which this negotiation is resolved will count against the PCs (and thereby the players - within the technical apparatus of 4e, it is an automatic failure in the skill challenge). The GM is also ready to tell the player that if they make a successful Insight check to try and ascertain the personality and motivations of the Duke, one of the things they can work out is that he doesn't respond well to threats.

(2) The PCs come to a wall. Their detection spells tell them that, behind the wall, is the item they are searching for. In the GM's notes is a record that the wall contains a magical portal that will open only if the codeword is spoken. The PCs (and hence the players) can only learn the codeword by getting a document from somewhere else in the building. So the players cannot succeed in their current confrontation with the wall until they go through a whole lot of other episodes and confrontations to find the secret code.

(1) is an example where the players can fail in their action declaration for a reason they don't know - namely, the GM's decision about the personality of the Duke. But _within the course of the resolution to which the Duke's personality matters_ they can learn the relevant information. For me, that is about as far as I want to go with "secret backstory".

(2) is an example where the players can fail in their action declaration (of various attempts to break through the wall, etc) for a reason they don't know - namely, that a special code word is needed to open the magical portal. Even if, during the course of their attempt to have their PCs get through the door, the players learn that a codeword is needed _they can't learn the codeword_ without heading off into some other set of episodes and encounters. That is the sort of "secret backstory" that I personally don't like in a game.

I get the sense that in your GMing you have stuff that is more like (2) as well as stuff that is more like (1). Certainly, I think the typical sandbox probably has stuff like (2). And [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]'s whole theory of D&D seems to include that it must have stuff like (2) or it doesn't count as an RPG.


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## Maxperson (Oct 18, 2015)

pemerton said:


> I'll give two examples: one is from the 4e DMG, the other I'm making up myself.
> 
> (1) The PCs are negotiating with an NPC who is their social superior ("the Duke"). The GM has decided that one feature of the Duke  is that he doesn't respond well to threats from his social inferiors. Hence, any attempt to use the Intimidate skill in the course of the scene in which this negotiation is resolved will count against the PCs (and thereby the players - within the technical apparatus of 4e, it is an automatic failure in the skill challenge). The GM is also ready to tell the player that if they make a successful Insight check to try and ascertain the personality and motivations of the Duke, one of the things they can work out is that he doesn't respond well to threats.
> 
> ...




I do use a mix of 1 and 2.  The only thing I'll add is that I never have a situation where something can only be learned one way like your example 2.  I may have only planned one way, but I'm open to other ways.  Legend lore, speaking with dead on the skeleton down the hall, and so on.  I like when the players get creative and surprise me with something I haven't thought of.


----------



## pemerton (Oct 18, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> I never have a situation where something can only be learned one way like your example 2.  I may have only planned one way, but I'm open to other ways.  Legend lore, speaking with dead on the skeleton down the hall, and so on.  I like when the players get creative and surprise me with something I haven't thought of.



The stuff you describe is the sort of way that (2) starts to drift towards (1). Over time, in my own GMing, I've tended to increase this degree of drift.


----------



## Balesir (Oct 18, 2015)

Zak S said:


> WOW. That is quite possibly the creepiest rhetorical technique I have ever seen employed in the history of human conversation.



OK. It wasn't meant to be; if you have that much invested in attacking a thing I genuinely hope that you get something positive out of it. Maybe the archaic phrasing spooked you - I may have been reading too much Aubrey and Maturin, recently?



Zak S said:


> You didn't read it all the way through then and just cherry-picked the parts of GNS that pretty much match what every other game theory says ("different people like different things in games") .



Well, you would know better than I what I have and haven't read, but I'm pretty sure I read it all the way through. More than once. (And, for the avoidance of doubt, yes, that was meant sarcastically).

What I took away from it was that the possible "agendas" or "sources of fun" were worth considering in an RPG. These include the glee of winning a gamble, game or puzzle, the glee of pushing a character agenda and seeing if it "sticks" and the glee of exploring a brand new world that is unknown to you. Maybe there are more - though I have seen none claimed as yet with much real force. Systems tend to support these agendas differentially.



Zak S said:


> Edwards explicitly goes much further and says no instance of play can simultaneously equally satisfy 2 completely different agendas. This is a provably inaccurate statement.



I don't see how this specific statement of "what Edwards said" to be provably inaccurate at all, actually. The phrasing "equally satisfy" is inherently unprovable without massive assumtions and investment in measurement technology.



Zak S said:


> Go back and read the essays. Or just ask Ron. He's said "It's impossible to satisfy two different creative agendas simultaneously" repeatedly he's said that. He's totally wrong.



This statement, on the other hand, _*is*_ provably false. I would think it is most likely false, in fact, although I am not at all sure that Ron ever said it and I have never seen any real "proof" for myself. But, if you want to claim that _this_ is wrong, go ahead - I'll happily acquiesce.

For what it's worth, the reason I haven't seen any "proof of wrongness" of this stuff is that I haven't looked for it, since I don't consider the GNS stuff to have the status of a hypothesis, let alone a "theory", as such. I hadn't put the words together, but [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s calling it "criticism" seems entirely apposite, to me. As such, it is useful and contains tools that help when I consider a system element or instance of actual play, but I wouldn't give it any predictive or normative authority. As a descriptive system, it's useful, but as a proscriptive system it's not.


----------



## howandwhy99 (Oct 18, 2015)

Balesir said:


> Wait, now I am confused. Are these "wandering monsters", "lairs", "passing time" and "dirt and stone" part of some fiction that doesn't exist, or do you have some layers of dirt and stone and such in your garden that the players have to dig through?? If your game has no fiction and no story, then these comments just don't seem to make sense...



The game uses labels referring to an actual design. There are actual pieces and a grid in the pattern which is the chessboard and pieces. Maybe a chess king may resemble a person who's king , but it's not what is being referred to. It's to the piece in a game. Same as a troll in D&D.



Celebrim said:


> > I said in my Tic-Tac-Toe example earlier in this thread: a game is only a game if we treat it as such.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think that is well established or accepted, and its a very novel rather 'post-modern' view of what a game is.



Treating a shoe as a flower pot or a door stop gets us treating the shoe as something else. Games are a recognizable culture of ideas. Treating a design in the world as a game, namely a pattern we attempt to manipulate to achieve objectives -inherently already existing in that pattern - is playing that real world element as a game. 



> > To explain the quote: Games are pattern designs.
> 
> 
> 
> Just stop there.  What is a "pattern design"?  You are employing a term of art with a meaning known only to you.  When I hear pattern design, the first thing I think of is embroidery.



A design of a game is like a mathematical model. That it is playable as a game means it has a pattern underlying its design.



> > They actually exist as such, whether it be in the world outside or minds or the piece of reality which is called fantasy which is our minds.
> 
> 
> 
> There seems to be some grammatical errors in that sentence that makes your meaning unclear.  Most of it I can guess at, but to make sure I understand you, "Fantasy" is in our mind, but it is not literally the mind itself.



These patterns actually are taken to exist. Whether outside our minds on football fields or inside our minds (what I call fantasy) when we imagine the chess game we play. 

As an aside, I take D&D to be a fantasy RPG because it is meant to largely challenge players' ability to imagine the referee described design which they need to remember and master.



> > These patterns can be puzzled out as puzzles.
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps.  But this is unnecessarily complicating the description.   When I play a game like Bloodbowl or Chess, and I make a tactical decision in the game, I don't think of the process of figuring out what to do next as puzzling out a pattern.



This was first to say, "If we treat it as a puzzle, we engage in puzzling out an underlying pattern". The following sentence of my previous post (quoted below) was how we treat these same codes as games. When we play games like Chess we are discerning the pattern of possible moves and locations on the board. We are thinking about future outcomes based upon understood movements of the pieces. That's deciphering what possible outcomes lie ahead given the current state the game. That's only possible in a pattern.



> Is the game is randomized and in particular highly randomized, then I don't think of myself as puzzling out a pattern at all, because the game is unpredictable and all I'm doing from moment to moment is responding to the currently observable game state.



Randomness is about expressing a variable pattern. This is what dice do in D&D. They are randomizers within which the pattern of odds can be predicted. Fair dice have the prescribed distribution pattern for the game they are design for. We can judge can attempt to judge how difficult a foe is in D&D combat by seeing how regularly they hit, their average damage, and so on. Even though these are random results, the die rolls are bulit to be predictable.



> Again, by 'pattern' you just seem to mean the current game state.  You don't actually mean 'pattern' in its normal usage as a repeated and reoccurring feature or the process of making something repeating and reoccurring.  Or perhaps you are using "pattern" as a synonym for "formula" or "function"?



Personally, I use an algorithm like in Conway's game of life. Only it's multidimensional rather than 2D. That algorithm is a code and generates a function map just like any game map. When I say pattern I mean all the possible outcomes of that algorithm that constitutes the possible game design generated. The algorithm is not all encompassing, but it is ongoing as long as it is progressed forward. (an Infinite Game)

For all games, I mean the term simply mean deciphering the repeating code of the game so I can manipulate pieces of it to achieve objectives within it. That this is often a spatial pattern is more obvious, but it isn't solely one game state or another.



> > This means a garden maze is a game when treated so.
> 
> 
> 
> No, or at least, only if you mean something other or more than what you actually wrote. A garden maze doesn't become a game until we give some additional features to it, like a goal,



Exactly. A game is deciphering/manipulating a pattern to achieve an objective, aka a goal. If we treat the garden maze as a game, then we are gaming. 

All of which directly goes against definitions that games are collaborative creations. That definition loses almost everything built up over centuries of ideas constituting game culture. Gaming and puzzling are acts of discovery, not invention.



> Games comes from people.  They are both things created by people.  A game remains a game even if it has no culture and there is no cultural response to it.



I disagree. The design outside ourselves is the game to be played. It doesn't matter where it came from. 



> I have no idea what you mean by "culture" in this context.  And the only game I can think of that is claimed not to have come from people, is the Mayan sacred ball game.  Now that was a gaming culture, but its pretty obviously not the same gaming culture that exists now.  I have no idea what you mean by a "gaming culture" as it is pretty evident that the culture of say football, fantasy football, and chess are different.  I think you are using "culture" as a loose and perhaps inappropriate synonym for some other word or idea.



Culture: A common set of thoughts and/or behaviors shared by a group of creatures. 

The history of playing games has accumulated a culture of common ideas and practices. A culture that is highly unique in comparison to storytelling. When we treat a pattern in the world as a game as understood within the culture of ideas I am calling game culture we are treating that pattern as a game.

But I understand you to be treating games as existent without people's understanding of them as part of the design.



> Stop.  Again, DM's could be said to have drawn maps prior to play, but they could not necessarily be said to have drawn mazes.  A map is not necessarily a maze, and usually isn't.



 That's one of the wonderful things about D&D. It treats *everything* as a game. It understands that a forest is maze. So is a barren field. The sky. That these can be measured, statted for difficulty depending on objective, and put in a game is just like any maze. 

What the first game should have included is a way to balance whatever map the DM drew for difficulty. That came later with advanced.



> B2 actually has maps like this when documents the Keep that is on the borderlands, and the taverns and so forth.   They are places where play can occur, but they aren't intended to be mazes.



B2's keep is a perfect example of how terrain matters as design. That entire map can be used in a wargame where the Chaotic PCs the chaos horde against the "lawful dungeon" of the humans. It is a maze with walls and floors and ceilings and rooms, pathways, all sorts of stuff. Wargames treat all elements of the map / board / table very seriously. They are usually competitive, so all those elements are balanced as well as possible. In D&D they are balanced by power level in the world.



> Moreover, we know for a fact that not all RPG play occurs on a map.
> SNIP
> At the time, no map existed for where you landed when the chute dropped you off, and there is no evidence that any maps were created for the characters adventures returning back to Greyhawk.  The players were off the map and had been moved off the map by the map.  But play didn't stop because of that.



In truth play did stop when the pieces were taken off the board. I'm running Greyhawk now so this I know. Stories about the Castle talk about how Gary started with just ruins and 1 level, then 2, 3, and so on as people joined and delved deeper going back tothe top to get fresh supplies, 10' poles, "dungeon carts" and the like. A relatively safe place compared to the danger of the dungeons. Later wilderness was added. Then Greyhawk City was drawn (in multiple sizes).  Then the surrounding territory. And yes, even the world roughly.

And story goes the few PCs who went "down the chute to China" (Cathay?) had to use Outdoor Survival to travel back overland to return to Greyhawk. But do people handwave stuff? I'm not blind. I handwave checkmate all the time.  ...makes that game easier.



> More to the point, right from the start, the main claim I've been arguing with you is your assertion that RPGs (in their true form) have no improvisation.  But it's quite clear you don't believe that.  Because not only do you describe DMs drawing their own map, which is clearly improvisation, but its clear that since the very beginning of RPGs, DMs have been prepared to and at times instructed to improvise maps during the middle of play.



Have you played many wargames? Everything is balanced out before play. The game board, what the pieces are worth, how fast they are, their damage ability, reach, vision, etc. etc. 

D&D is not like that, D&D is that. We are not here to improvise a situation, but to fit all the pieces in the pre-existing design that we are to repeat so the players might treat it like a game (code to decipher) rather than a story. 

If you remember AD&D and the 80s you remember that new spells had to be balanced to the system. That magic items were balanced to the dungeon level, monsters and traps too. That rules existed for how creatures treated each other when they encountered each other, whether PC vs NPC during a session or NPc vs NPC during prep. It may not have been how you did it, but generating a scenario prior to each session wasn't an unknown activity in SE WI.



> No, but I don't claim Axis and Allies is an RPG either.  I claim Axis and Allies is a wargame.  And once again, you've made no attempt to actually show that Axis and Allies is "code breaking" or "pattern design".  I play Axis and Allies, and I don't think of it in those terms tuitively or intuitively.  I really just don't think "pattern design" is a good synonym for decision making.



It isn't decision making, it's pattern recognition. Do we as players see those forces building up on our flank? Can we determine a reliable number of troops and what type in order to cross the Atlantic and gain a foothold in Europe? That stuff is the code breaking of play.

D&D is a wargame, only with more roles that can be played. And cooperatively, a design predating most co-op boardgames. Roleplaying in D&D comes from Wargame Simulations done post-WWII in the U.S. military. Live action wargame simulations were called roleplaying. (They took it from the highly successful German program of training kids into battlefield officers during the war)



> > Games can't be played without game rules.
> 
> 
> 
> At last we agree on something.  But this would seem to contradict your earlier assertions about what a game is.



Rules are what lead to patterns. In the case of people, the patterns of behavior performed during the game.



> Again not synonyms.  Maze isn't even an RPG term of art the way that "dungeon" is for historical and cultural reasons.  And many games do quite well without "campaign maps" at all.  You don't actually need a campaign map to play D&D, and Greyhawk began without one.



For movement to be a game, it must have a map. And that map is being treated as an actual maze because it is treated as a pattern in a mathematical model. This happens in miniature too, but I know few people zoom down past 5' scale. All of which helps greatly when you want to game the game design rather than engage in "fictional positioning".



> > a portion of which is a module -
> 
> 
> 
> No.  A module is not merely a portion of a map.



That's what I said. The "map" is a game board and weighted and statted accordingly. Like any decent module should be.



> For one thing, the module can be played by itself, which would make its maps (if any) the whole map.



 Some modules are campaign starter modules, like B2. That contains both lawful, neutral, and chaotic areas - all roughly in balance with each other. And players can travel between them all. B1 on the other hand is a pure chaotic dungeon. The players need a place to retreat back to or it is too dangerous/difficult to play as is.



> For another, a module has many features other than possibly having a map.



That is simply the map key. The key to each room. With elements inside each which refer to their own maps.



> Again, just no.  It's possible to begin play and even continue play without a map.



No. The rules of a game are the pattern. Players can't move pieces around the gameboard without the gameboard in place. Players cannot take actions within the pattern of the rules without rules in place.



> a) The actual space the scenario takes place in isn't particularly relevant, or interesting, and if it ever becomes relevant it would be easy to improvise a map.



 Think of why we have game boards in the first place. They allow the designer to balance the game by game elements. Go down a dungeon level and the game gets harder. 

Same thing with wilderness exploration. The difficulties are already on the map. Go through the forest and it is likey to be much harder. Don't follow a path and you are likely to get lost. If you actually want to find a swamp rat, than you'll need to actually go to a swamp on the map. If there aren't any on the map, then it currently isn't an option. "There's no swamps around for days of walking." 

If you were to improvise this, then you haven't been tracking movement, time, food and water expenses, general wear and tear on travelling items like a wagon. And on and on. That's the game, man. Faster horses means something in the game. It's not handwaved.



> c) Quite often, even if I do have a map of a region, I'll detailed at 30 miles to the inch or 5 miles to the inch, and that scale is utterly useless when the party has an encounter in a forest, desert, settled farmland, or anything else.



In part you will need to generate a lower scale map. That's understood. 30 miles per inch is very far zoomed out. Zooming in scale is exactly reversing how you generated the area. You there is a specific density of trees here. A slope level to the terrain. What the climate is. What trees are in the area. Flora & Fauna. Wandering monster checks from those. Including density of Encounter-level creatures. And non-encounter level ones for food too. It adds up, but once practiced for awhile interesting rules are found for a balanced game. When I zoom in the terrain the results are random by preset elements (so many trees in this size area). There are different methods to maintain the design.



> d) In the case of something like an encounter in the high astral or far ethereal, there is often literally no terrain to begin with



I use different designs. But space is still space. Positioning exists and is tracked even if it's just the PCs and their exit "pools?"



> e) Quite often, in wilderness trek, an unplanned encounter will occur that implies the existence of a lair of some sort - a cave, a ruined castle, a village, a mine, a den, a bog, a graveyard, a hollow tree, a boat, or who knows what.  When that happens, it may become necessary to just make up a map on the spot.  There is no pattern to what I might make up.  It's in fact, patternless.  It's probably not a maze in many cases.  It's a tangible place for the encounter to happen in.



Lairs are rooms in the maze. They are made up beforehand if they are on the map. Many creatures have their own unique cultures which speaks to what they use as a lair, even build as lairs. 



> If you are trying to say that one of the jobs of the GM is to be the secret keeper, and withhold information from the players until they discover it, then I agree.  However this would contradict somewhat the idea that the only purpose of a GM is to be a referee, because in most games it is not the purpose of the referee to be the secret keeper.  And in some games, players and not referees are the secret keepers.  And in your Mastermind example, it is not clear to me that the secret keeper is a referee.  And again, what secret is being kept isn't necessarily and often isn't a maze.  And likewise, what may be hiding the information from the players is not necessarily a screen.  The screen is in fact not mandatory.



The DM has the fog of war covering the whole design generated out. Players only experience the portion as per their abilities. You could call this secret keeping, but it's more information revealing IMO. This is to be done impartially as a referee. They aren't manipulating the game on their own behalf, only on behalf of the players. 

And yes, while a screen is highly useful to hide all this information, something or anything that is ultimately -- the removal of the players from being able to access the hidden information, is necessary. Call it a proverbial "screen" then.  



> > Of course they aren't. They change the entire length of the campaign.
> 
> 
> 
> Then you are wrong.  A map is not a game design.  A map is at most a mere component of a game.



Dungeon levels are continually changing as the timeline is progressed down. In part by the players, in part due to the design of the game. Modules are those levels. They change the entire length the campaign is played.



> > Even if you collapse the entire level you still have a level of dirt and stone for players to dig through. It never goes away.
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe.  It's entirely possible to have a dungeon that literally goes away once left.  An example would be a dungeon that was occurring entirely within the dream of some powerful being, or a dungeon on a demiplane that is collapsing, or a dungeon falling into the negative elemental plane and as such will be disintegrated soon.  You are taking things that are merely the way things usually work and insisting that they are mandatory features.   And you are wrong.



You got me. IMG, if you disintegrate stuff, it's gone. And there are other means too. I guess an entire module could ultimately be "completed" this way.



> I  have no idea where you get your notion of what a module is.



Wargame modules.



> > And DMs were told to restock the DMs map per the rules of the game.
> 
> 
> 
> Where?  Give me a citation?   And what are the rules for stocking or restocking a map?



Booklet 3 Underworld & Wilderness Adventures p6
Moldvay/Cook B/X under dungeon mastering
AD&D Appendix C for generating monsters in dungeons and outdoors



> Which rules, and what if those rules are improvised?  And even if there are suggestions regarding how to create content, in no manner is a DM required to follow them or even his own algorithms.



A referee must follow the rules. And like any code behind the screen, all rules are selected prior to play, that's a given. The basic scheme for D&D is the rule for increasing difficulty, like how dangerous a 1st level area vs. a 2nd one, just like with monsters, or traps, or...



> Do you even know what the word arbitrary means?



Arbitrary - "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system."
I'm right there with ya.



> What is a "calendar map"?  Do you mean a calendar?  Do you mean a timeline?



I mean the key to the map in the old modules. It could cover both time and location.



> So S1 Tomb of Horrors is a calendar map?



It's not much of one, but yes. There's not much, but reactivity there. Being a tomb and all there's no wandering monsters to a future timeline with.



> What? So, if I don't have a map of the round in the future after this one, then I'm leaving the map and need to start to a new campaign?



You need to generate more of course. The DM Generates the map in scale, depth, and timeline to an extent the players shouldn't reach an end in that session. Pragmatically judged really.



> No DM actually ticks off all the events round by round that are going on where the PC's aren't.



Seconds in psionics, minutes in combat, 10 minutes in dungeon exploration, also hours, days, weeks, months, years. Oh hell yeah the game clock is being tracked. Time is the #1 resource the players use. And they choose how much or little to use throughout the game. And time occurs elsewhere in the game too. Generating a scenario of possible future events if the PCs don't interact with them is also map content they can later explore.

-----------------------------



Celebrim said:


> > I've looked at it before. It's a "skill check game", i.e. a "Check game". In other words, a game based on a mechanic that is in no way a game mechanic. There are no such things as "checks" in games.
> 
> 
> 
> Don't the third and fourth sentences of that paragraph contradict the second?   Either it is the case that it is a "skill check game" or else it is the case that there are no checks in games, but both can't be true.



It was not meant to be confusing. To be clear, there are no checks in games because "Checks" are not game mechanics in any way. They don't refer to any actual game design. The results, the number required, it's all completely arbitrary in the moment. There's no code to decipher. There's no game there.



> And you've no way shown that a skill check can't be a game mechanic.  For that matter, since you earlier asserted that games were things we treated as games, so can't it be true that if we treat something with skill checks as a game, it's a game.



It isn't a pattern, it can't be gamed. It's a person arbitrarily making up a rule on the fly. "Roll X number or higher on.... This die, because I just made that up". At best that's gaming the DM which would make them a player. This is why games have consistent rules in the first place, to keep crap like that from happening.



> If it isn't a game, what is it?



It's not discovery, it's invention. Let's make stuff up! That's not deciphering a code which game rules are designed to enable. No one is engaged in game play there.



> Two chess masters with the requisite skill can play a game of chess blindfolded.  If we blindfolded those players and took away the board, they would still be able to play the game, not knowing that the board had been removed an the game was going on purely in their shared imaginary space.



Communicated fantasies of the pattern which is Chess. That's exactly what I'm saying. They are only able to play because they share the same pattern in their minds. It still exists, but in the fantasy space of the mind. Because it is in the mind doesn't mean it has anything to do with creating a story.



> > The mechanics are parts of the actual design that is the game and manifested in things like gameboards and game pieces.
> 
> 
> 
> At this point, you just fully agreed with the guy that you disagreed with.  Yes, the pieces and the gameboards are just manifestations of the game and markers of it, and not the game itself.



Same pattern? Same game. That is the game itself in both cases.



> Many games don't keep score.  Certainly puzzles tend to not keep score.  They are either solved or not.



I don't count puzzles as games, but they are very, very close. In puzzle solving advancement towards discovering the final solution of the puzzle could be tracked pragmatically. That would be scoring in a puzzle tournament.



> As a quibble, if you are familiar with how a Rubik's cube is solved, making more than one side of the same color doesn't in fact indicate progress toward the objective of all sides of the same color.  That's not actually how you make progress in solving a Rubik's cube, and in fact to make progress would require 'mixing that side up again'.  Moreover, a scoring system for a Rubik's cube is irrelevant to the puzzle, but if you made one (as for an AI system that needed to puzzle out how to solve the cube), it wouldn't depend on the number of solved sides.



I'm thinking you're right here. Scoring for a puzzle until it is solved doesn't make sense. It isn't changing the puzzle to a predetermined outcome. It's discovering the underlying pattern, solving the code, of the design which is really what puzzle solving is after. Scoring is better for tracking accomplishments in games. In a cooperative game like D&D scoring can be for advancement in understanding its design. In competitive games players compete against each other within a finite, bounded contest where it is the final score that matters, but the current score which shows current progress.



> In the novel "Ender's Game", OSC plays on this fact that we can believe something to be a game, but it not actually in fact be a game because it actually lacks necessary features a game has - like fiction.



It's not a fiction in Ender's Game either because it isn't about creating a story, but winning a game. It's not even a fantasy game like D&D where it must be imagined in the mind by the players, but a computer simulation, which a lot of guys at the Forge refused to believe were games for several years, all computer games I mean. 



> You're definition of what a game is tends to be incomplete.   Code breaking in and of itself isn't a game and isn't game play.  And it's quite possible to have game play that isn't code breaking.   At best, you could claim game play is analogous to code breaking, although I'm not completely convinced about that either.  Code breaking requires an underlying regular structure.  But people can reasonably disagree over whether or not playing a slot machine (or anything similar to it) is a game, and even things that have more player agency (meaning some) than playing a slot machine don't seem to me to be always pattern analysis but simply decision making because the underlying game doesn't have a pattern that repeats.  And while I'd like to think all game play involved decision making, but there are some games like Shoots and Ladders that lack decision making but are still commonly called games.



Finding a common definition for the word game is something of a dead end road. Candyland has no decision making, but does include pattern recognition about colors, location, and numbers. Shoots & Ladders includes pattern recognition in order to finish it as well.


----------



## Maxperson (Oct 18, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> The game uses labels referring to an actual design. There are actual pieces and a grid in the pattern which is the chessboard and pieces. Maybe a chess king may resemble a person who's king , but it's not what is being referred to. It's to the piece in a game. Same as a troll in D&D.
> 
> Treating a shoe as a flower pot or a door stop gets us treating the shoe as something else. Games are a recognizable culture of ideas. Treating a design in the world as a game, namely a pattern we attempt to manipulate to achieve objectives -inherently already existing in that pattern - is playing that real world element as a game.
> 
> A design of a game is like a mathematical model. That it is playable as a game means it has a pattern underlying its design.




At this point we understand what your personal definition of game is.  However, you have yet to show evidence that your definition is the only or true definition of game and not just your personal belief.  We on the other hand have shown much evidence that there are different ways to define what a game is and some of them don't match up to your view and have existed for far longer than RPGs have.



> This was first to say, "If we treat it as a puzzle, we engage in puzzling out an underlying pattern". The following sentence of my previous post (quoted below) was how we treat these same codes as games. When we play games like Chess we are discerning the pattern of possible moves and locations on the board. We are thinking about future outcomes based upon understood movements of the pieces. That's deciphering what possible outcomes lie ahead given the current state the game. That's only possible in a pattern.




When I play D&D, I make the decisions for my character based on who my PC is, not necessarily what the best tactical move is.  I also usually don't make my move based on what I think the other people in the fight are going to do next or as a result.  There are too many variables in D&D to both with that most of the time.



> Randomness is about expressing a variable pattern. This is what dice do in D&D. They are randomizers within which the pattern of odds can be predicted. Fair dice have the prescribed distribution pattern for the game they are design for. We can judge can attempt to judge how difficult a foe is in D&D combat by seeing how regularly they hit, their average damage, and so on. Even though these are random results, the die rolls are bulit to be predictable.




But what do they predict?  Hell of the players can ever figure that out.  It's not like they know which tables I'm using or if I'm even using a table at all.  A player trying to figure that out is wasting his time, which is probably why in over 30 years of playing, I've never seen it tried.



> Exactly. A game is deciphering/manipulating a pattern to achieve an objective, aka a goal. If we treat the garden maze as a game, then we are gaming.




That's one type of game, yes.



> That's one of the wonderful things about D&D. It treats *everything* as a game. It understands that a forest is maze. So is a barren field. The sky. That these can be measured, statted for difficulty depending on objective, and put in a game is just like any maze.




I've used hundreds of fields over the decades and statted out 0 of them.  Why?  Because they don't have or need stats.  It's a field.  You walk through it.   



> B2's keep is a perfect example of how terrain matters as design. That entire map can be used in a wargame where the Chaotic PCs the chaos horde against the "lawful dungeon" of the humans. It is a maze with walls and floors and ceilings and rooms, pathways, all sorts of stuff. Wargames treat all elements of the map / board / table very seriously. They are usually competitive, so all those elements are balanced as well as possible. In D&D they are balanced by power level in the world.




You can use it as a wargame, or you can use it for other purposes.  So what.  Being able to play it one way doesn't make it that way for every purpose.  You can also use B2 to create a mutual story and it would still be a game.



> D&D is not like that, D&D is that. We are not here to improvise a situation, but to fit all the pieces in the pre-existing design that we are to repeat so the players might treat it like a game (code to decipher) rather than a story.




This is simply not true as a universal fact.  YOU use D&D like that, but I do not.  We both are playing the game of D&D.  D&D is flexible in that as a game, it can be played in multiple different ways.  Your way is not better or worse, nor is it the only way to be playing D&D as a game. 



> If you remember AD&D and the 80s you remember that new spells had to be balanced to the system. That magic items were balanced to the dungeon level, monsters and traps too. That rules existed for how creatures treated each other when they encountered each other, whether PC vs NPC during a session or NPc vs NPC during prep. It may not have been how you did it, but generating a scenario prior to each session wasn't an unknown activity in SE WI.




Spells were never balanced.  They were just less imbalanced in 1e and 2e.  And yes, while there were rules for creatures and encounters, they were not used in all situations.  The DM had the leeway to alter the rules as he saw fit and use or not use them at his desire.  

It isn't decision making, it's pattern recognition. Do we as players see those forces building up on our flank? Can we determine a reliable number of troops and what type in order to cross the Atlantic and gain a foothold in Europe? That stuff is the code breaking of play.



> D&D is a wargame, only with more roles that can be played. And cooperatively, a design predating most co-op boardgames. Roleplaying in D&D comes from Wargame Simulations done post-WWII in the U.S. military. Live action wargame simulations were called roleplaying. (They took it from the highly successful German program of training kids into battlefield officers during the war)




D&D, despite its roots, has never been a wargame.  You can use it that way, but that has never been its sole role or function.  Saying D&D is a wargame is like saying people are monkeys.  Roots =/= current function.



> No. The rules of a game are the pattern. Players can't move pieces around the gameboard without the gameboard in place. Players cannot take actions within the pattern of the rules without rules in place.




D&D has worked without maps and gameboards since it came out.  Theater of the Mind is a real way to play the game.



> Same thing with wilderness exploration. The difficulties are already on the map. Go through the forest and it is likey to be much harder. Don't follow a path and you are likely to get lost. If you actually want to find a swamp rat, than you'll need to actually go to a swamp on the map. If there aren't any on the map, then it currently isn't an option. "There's no swamps around for days of walking."
> 
> If you were to improvise this, then you haven't been tracking movement, time, food and water expenses, general wear and tear on travelling items like a wagon. And on and on. That's the game, man. Faster horses means something in the game. It's not handwaved.




I haven't bothered to track food, water and general expenses in years.  As for your swamp rat example, that's also wrong.  Just because there isn't a swamp on the map that is large enough to be mapped, doesn't mean that there aren't small bog areas not on the map, but close by that contain swamp rats.  I improvise places like that all the time.



> In part you will need to generate a lower scale map. That's understood. 30 miles per inch is very far zoomed out. Zooming in scale is exactly reversing how you generated the area. You there is a specific density of trees here. A slope level to the terrain. What the climate is. What trees are in the area. Flora & Fauna. Wandering monster checks from those. Including density of Encounter-level creatures. And non-encounter level ones for food too. It adds up, but once practiced for awhile interesting rules are found for a balanced game. When I zoom in the terrain the results are random by preset elements (so many trees in this size area). There are different methods to maintain the design.




I don't need to generate lower scale maps, and those few times when I do, I usually just pick terrain features.  I don't use preset random tables.



> The DM has the fog of war covering the whole design generated out. Players only experience the portion as per their abilities. You could call this secret keeping, but it's more information revealing IMO. This is to be done impartially as a referee. They aren't manipulating the game on their own behalf, only on behalf of the players.




I don't have the whole design generated out.  I usually just create an outline and fill in the details as I go.  We're still playing a game.



> A referee must follow the rules. And like any code behind the screen, all rules are selected prior to play, that's a given. The basic scheme for D&D is the rule for increasing difficulty, like how dangerous a 1st level area vs. a 2nd one, just like with monsters, or traps, or...




I'm not a referee.  I'm a DM, and DMs can alter, add or remove rules as they see fit.  There is not a single rule that I "must" follow.  Nor am I prevented from altering, adding or removing rules after game play begins.  The rules say I can play that way.



> It was not meant to be confusing. To be clear, there are no checks in games because "Checks" are not game mechanics in any way. They don't refer to any actual game design. The results, the number required, it's all completely arbitrary in the moment. There's no code to decipher. There's no game there.




Yes there is.  It may not be your style of game, but your style of game is not the only type of game in the world.  What's more check DCs are not arbitrary at all.  While they happen in the moment, they are based on reason, which prevents them from being arbitrary.



> It isn't a pattern, it can't be gamed. It's a person arbitrarily making up a rule on the fly. "Roll X number or higher on.... This die, because I just made that up". At best that's gaming the DM which would make them a player. This is why games have consistent rules in the first place, to keep crap like that from happening.



I use checks all the time and have never once use them arbitrarily.  I consider about how hard the check is based on all the circumstances involved, then based on the check rules I will assign a non-arbitrary well-reasoned number to it.  Then you have to roll equal to or higher than that number.


----------



## Zak S (Oct 18, 2015)

Balesir said:


> OK. It wasn't meant to be; if you have that much invested in attacking a thing I genuinely hope that you get something positive out of it.




Like everyone else here including you, I am saying what I think to be the truth about games in a forum committed to discussion of games. So quit it with the creepy pop psychology tangent.



> > He's said "It's impossible to satisfy two different creative agendas simultaneously" repeatedly
> 
> 
> 
> This statement, on the other hand, _*is*_ provably false.



Great, so I am right, and you are wrong and GNS is wrong and everyone who has ever promoted it should apologize for slowing down human progress.




> ...although I am not at all sure that Ron ever said it and I have never seen any real "proof" for myself.



He's said it many times, it's the whole main point of GNS theory, it's the only things that makes it not identical to every other typology of playstyles gamers come up with, here's an example:


(rest of the conversation available on request.)



> For what it's worth, the reason I haven't seen any "proof of wrongness" of this stuff is that I haven't looked for it




So you're publicly promoting ideas you haven't actually vetted to see if they're true--that seems profoundly irresponsible if you care as much about a conversation about what works and doesn't in games as going to
all the trouble to register on a forum and type about it would indicate. @_*Ranes*_ @_*chaochou*_


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## Ranes (Oct 18, 2015)

Zak, I'm not sure why you're calling me out but, for what it's worth, I gave Balesir XP not because of anything he said that you might think took issue with you, per se, but for his reasoning. For what it's worth, I agree with 99.999 (recurring) of what I have read in terms of your truck with Edwards/Forge/GNS but that isn't entirely incompatible with my appreciation of the rigour Balesir applied in the post to which I responded or indeed those aspects of his post with which I was familiar and do concur.

Meanwhile, great discussion. As you were...


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## Balesir (Oct 18, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Like everyone else here including you, I am saying what I think to be the truth about games in a forum committed to discussion of games. So quit it with the creepy pop psychology tangent.



If I knew what you were on about I'd promise to avoid it in future, but since I don't know, I can't promise. If it helps, I'll retract my wishing you joy of your campaign against Forgeist ideas, or whatever.



Zak S said:


> Great, so I am right, and you are wrong and GNS is wrong and everyone who has ever promoted it should apologize for slowing down human progress.



Well, that doesn't follow from what I said at all, but if Forge/GNS ideas offend you I suggest you ignore them. They are not about to go away, since some folk (like me and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I think) find them useful, but no-one is making them mandatory.



Zak S said:


> He's said it many times, it's the whole main point of GNS theory, it's the only things that makes it not identical to every other typology of playstyles gamers come up with, here's an example:
> View attachment 71217
> (rest of the conversation available on request.)



I would be interested to see the next bit of the conversation, since you offer it, since you seem to have inadvertently cut off the most interesting and possibly relevant part of Edwards' answer, in that shot.



Zak S said:


> So you're publicly promoting ideas you haven't actually vetted to see if they're true--that seems profoundly irresponsible if you care as much about a conversation about what works and doesn't in games as going to all the trouble to register on a forum and type about it would indicate.



Good grief, if I felt the need to "vet" every idea or concept for roleplaying games I ever discussed, I daresay I would never discuss any at all! And I'm not "promoting" GNS, merely saying that I found it thought provoking and useful. Any "proof" to the contrary that there might be of the veracity of every claim ever made on the Forge is not going to change the fact that I found GNS to be thought provoking, to relate to my own RPG experience and to be useful in thinking about systems for roelplaying games. When I pick a system to use for a game I run, I now give some thought to how that system might help (or hinder) the sorts of fun I have in mind to be generated in that game. It's not the only consideration, but its one that I find useful to consider. No amount of "proof" that GNS is "wrong" will change that usefulness.


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## Zak S (Oct 18, 2015)

Balesir said:


> If I knew what you were on about I'd promise to avoid it in future, but since I don't know, I can't promise. If it helps, I'll retract my wishing you joy of your campaign against Forgeist ideas, or whatever.



When _you _say what _you_ think I don't call it a "campaign" or say "Oh I see you seem to have an IDEA  I hope you have FUN with that" I just respond to the idea. That's what people should do. Expect people to post ideas and then respond to them rationally. What you believe is what you believe, not a "campaign". It's really gross to try to set up a rhetorical frame where you're just talkin' on the webz when you say your ideas and the other guy is somehow engaging in some kind of inexplicably strident project when they say their idea. Kind of a passive-aggressive version of "You mad bro?"

If you can admit that this is kind of not an ok thing to do and just be like "Ok, I'll stop, I'll just respond to your ideas and not try to toss in random needling psychobabble" then I would be happy to respond to the rest of your comments.

If you can't, then basically it looks like each comment you make will simply escalate until this is a pointless internet fight that goes nowhere and doesn't illuminate ideas.


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## chaochou (Oct 18, 2015)

Zak S said:


> If you can't, then basically it looks like each comment you make will simply escalate until this is a pointless internet fight that goes nowhere and doesn't illuminate ideas.




Oh, the irony.


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## Maxperson (Oct 18, 2015)

Zak S said:


> Great, so I am right, and you are wrong and GNS is wrong and everyone who has ever promoted it should apologize for slowing down human progress.



You have yet to show anything close to you being right.  Just because one claim is false, that does not mean the entire theory is false.  There have been errors with the theory of evolution, but if we extend your logic, just because there was a single error at some point in the theory, the entire theory of evolution is wrong and everyone who has every promoted it should apologize for slowing down human progress.  

Your rabid anti-GNS rhetoric doesn't help you at all, and in fact it hurts your arguments since your rhetoric just taints any points that you make.  Rein it back a bit and just argue with evidence of your claims.


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## Zak S (Oct 18, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> You have yet to show anything close to you being right.  Just because one claim is false, that does not mean the entire theory is false.



But the claim that multiple creative agendas can't be simultaneously satisfied is the ONLY unique thing about GNS.

The other claims ("different people like different things in games", "different games promote different playstyles") are already made in other theories before and since, for example the 3fold model (which, as dumb as GNS, proposes only 3 categories that don't matchthe 3 GNS categories and neither has thought to fix that) and Robin Laws 7 kinds of gamers (which is much better but not perfect) and the 8-way model proposed by people studying videogames (which are not 100% RPG-relevant but are way better and very helpful and make no extreme and disproved claims).

Nothing UNIQUE to GNS is true.

Saying "GNS theory is good if you just remove the false claims" is like claiming concrete-flavored ice cream is good because you still get the cone and the whipped cream on top. 



> Your rabid anti-GNS rhetoric doesn't help you at all, and in fact it hurts your arguments since your rhetoric just taints any points that you make.



There's no rhetoric here, just a lot of me pointing out facts. And it doesn't in any way hurt my claim, it just bugs people more worried about tone-policing than facts, and those people: whatever. Nothing good ever comes of that.


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## Maxperson (Oct 18, 2015)

Zak S said:


> But the claim that multiple creative agendas can't be simultaneously satisfied is the ONLY unique thing about GNS.
> 
> The other claims ("different people like different things in games", "different games promote different playstyles") are already made in other theories before and since, for example the 3fold model (which, as dumb as GNS, proposes only 3 categories that don't match GNS and neither has thought to fix that) and Robin Laws 7 kinds of gamers (which is much better but not perfect) and the 8-way model proposed by people studying videogames (which are not 100% RPG-relevant but are way better and very helpful and make no extreme and disproved claims).
> 
> Nothing UNIQUE to GNS is true.




It doesn't need unique things to be right about a lot of what it says.  It has been a very long time since I went over GNS.  I really didn't care for it all that much.  Not because I thought it was wrong, though it is wrong about that claim, but because I just don't care enough about play theory to get into it.  I play the game in the way that is fun for me and my group and I don't need to know why we play the way we play.



> There's no rhetoric here, just a lot of me pointing out facts. And it doesn't in any way hurt my claim, it just bugs people more worried about tone-policing than facts, and those people: whatever. Nothing good ever comes of that.




I'm talking about when you say things like, people should apologize for wasting the time of humanity.  That sort of comment doesn't do anything but hurt you.  The argument you made above is much better and even if people disagree with you, at least it comes off as reasoned and polite, rather than rabid.


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## Zak S (Oct 18, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> It doesn't need unique things to be right about a lot of what it says.  It has been a very long time since I went over GNS.  I really didn't care for it all that much.  Not because I thought it was wrong, though it is wrong about that claim, but because I just don't care enough about play theory to get into it.  I play the game in the way that is fun for me and my group and I don't need to know why we play the way we play.



So quit worrying what I say then.




> I'm talking about when you say things like, people should apologize for wasting the time of humanity.  That sort of comment doesn't do anything but hurt you.




"Incites Maxperson to tone-police you" and "Hurt you" are not synonyms.

Please do not extrapolate from your own feelings ("I wish this person would stop talking about things they believe to be true") to real-world externalities ("This person has somehow hurt themself by talking in a way I don't like").

I do 100% think that if you say an untrue thing in public or promote one, you should apologize to everyone for wasting their time. And I think you do a disservice to humanity if you don't. Whether you, Maxperson, believe that doesn't matter at all.

There are two counter-arguments being offered to my position "GNS is wrong and so folks should stop talking about it," and they are the polar opposites of each other:

"Let people talk about these provably inaccurate GNS ideas because you can just ignore them they affect nothing"
and
"GNS may be wrong but it's had an effect on things like for example GNS resulted in FATE"

So the folks making these claims need to sort out which one they believe--is GNS insignificant or not? I happen to think the effect has been both significant and terrible.

Literally bad things have happened to real people because the folks who believed in this dumb theory of games never got together and admitted they made a big mistake and shouldn't really be trusted when it comes to games. It is not the worst idea ever suggested in games, but it is perhaps the one which has had the worst long-term impact in recent memory.

This negative impact is, I'd argue, real and measurable. And if you disagree what you do is ask for evidence of that, not play tone-police.


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## Maxperson (Oct 18, 2015)

Zak S said:


> So quit worrying what I say then.




Hey.  I was just trying to help you, but if you'd rather sound like someone who is rabid and deserves to be ignored, then keep on going the way you are!  You're doing a great job at it.


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## Celebrim (Oct 19, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> Hey.  I was just trying to help you, but if you'd rather sound like someone who is rabid and deserves to be ignored, then keep on going the way you are!  You're doing a great job at it.




Speaking for myself, I'd never make this judgment of anyone.

Besides, while I see Zak S as arguing something tactlessly at times, I don't necessarily disagree with his reasoning.  I'm much more willing to overlook failures of style, than failures of substance.


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## Campbell (Oct 19, 2015)

Ron was wrong about not being able to serve multiple creative agendas with the same game. That should be taken as a given at this point, especially because Ron's own games always served multiple creative agendas in actual play. Ron was wrong about a lot of things and still is wrong about a lot of things. That's something you should take up with him and people that still advocate single agenda design or who claim capital-N Narrativist games are the only games worth playing. I don't see a lot of that going on anymore though. It certainly has never really been evident in the actual design of games which at the end of the day is what should matter. The games we play and the ways we actually play them say a whole lot more than the flawed ways we talk about them.


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## Umbran (Oct 19, 2015)

Zak S said:


> And it doesn't in any way hurt my claim, it just bugs people more worried about tone-policing than facts, and those people: whatever. Nothing good ever comes of that.




Well, actually a lot of good can come of tone policing, when done properly.  Most commonly, a discussion where there's a chance of folks actually listening to each other can be the result.

Tone policing is problematic in discussions of rights and privilege, when it is inappropriately invoked by someone with privilege to redirect otherwise civil discussion of a real problem to how the privileged person is, in some way, a victim being attacked.  But, that's not the issue at hand.  We don't have social power imbalances at stake, merely opinions about one framework for thinking about how we pretend to be elves.  

Here, if you don't watch your tone, what happens is you engage everyone's emotions (including your own), instead of their intellects.  Being aggressive will not convince anyone who is not already in agreement with you.  An aggressive stance makes the discussion about ego - about who will back down, rather than about what's actually correct.  This is basic human behavior, and is a necessary part of effective writing - every piece has an expected audience, and if you do not shape your writing to suit your audience, the resulting communication failure can't be blamed on the audience.  

Moreover, the site as a whole has, as it's #1 rule, "Keep it civil."


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## Zak S (Oct 20, 2015)

You have many mistaken assumptions up there @_*Umbran*_ the major one being that the goal of these conversations is to persuade the kind of people who respond more to  (imagnined ) tone than to facts. What a person like that thinks isn't very relevant since they're, by definition , not thinking rationally.

Whats important is any rational 3rd party lurking or reading can always see the facts side by side with the misinformation so nobody rational is misled by bad information.


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## Umbran (Oct 20, 2015)

Zak S said:


> You have many mistaken assumptions up there [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] the major one being that the goal of theseconversations is to persuade the kind of people who respond more to  (imagnined ) tone than to facts.




No.  I do not assume the goal.  I assume the *audience*.  Since you are posting on EN World, the audience is, perforce, EN World.  You cannot avoid that audience.  And while you say you intend another audience... well, we will deal with that presently.



> What a person like that thinks isnt very relevant since theyre, by definition , not thinking rationally.




This is not the planet Vulcan.  Everyone thinks irrationally from time to time.  Everyone responds to tone.  The perfectly rational audience is a myth.  Even an audience that does not currently have a strong opinion on the matter will respond to the tone of your argument, as well as the content.  



> Whats important is any rational 3rd party lurking or reading can always see the facts side by side with the misinformation so nobody rational is misled by bad information.




Oh, this was not a good, rational statement on your part.  

First off, this is _ad hominem_, specifically Bulverism.  You think they are wrong, come up with a psychological reason they are wrong (in this case, the vague "irrationality"), and then use that to dismiss them without having to properly deal with their points.  In a rational argument, you address the logic of the positions, not the persons of the speakers, as the nature or mental state of the speaker does not itself inform you if the speaker is correct.

You have, recently in the discussion, also stepped afoul of "argument from fallacy" - having found one element of GNS that is not true, you discount the whole.  This, also, is not logically sound.  Each element needs to be found faulty on its own - there is no guilt by association here.

You have, arguably, also fallen prey to "proof by assertion" - repeating the same point many times, without substantive change, as if that makes it any more correct or compelling by repetition.

Lastly, we have as an excuse for it all, an appeal to the well-being of an audience we do not actually know is present.  Does it seem "rational" to you to carry on a discussion for 20+ pages to serve people who may not even be there? Moreover, while you claim to be targeting only a rational audience, they'd have to discard much of your presentation due to these, and a few other, logical fallacies - if you are targeting this supposed audience, you are failing to do it well.


Overall, we see many illogical elements to your own presentation, such that we cannot really call your position supremely rational based on what you write.  This leads us to two possibilities:

1) You yourself are rational, but make irrational arguments.  Then, others may also be rational, but make irrational arguments, and you must accept the possible rationality of the others.

2) You yourself are not particularly rational on this topic.

Either way, the result is that you should treat them with respect.


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## Zak S (Oct 20, 2015)

Umbran said:


> No.  I do not assume the goal.  I assume the *audience*.  Since you are posting on EN World, the audience is, perforce, EN World.  You cannot avoid that audience.




Like any broadcast, not everyone who CAN read me is relevant to what I'm saying. Anyone can read a post asking who wants to play Shadowrun at my house next week, only people who actually can are relevant.

Likewise: people who think irrationally may be able to read what I write, only people who think rationally are going to productively contribute. Whether you say I "succeed" or"fail" in my message can only be judged in regard to this goal.



> Everyone thinks irrationally from time to time. Everyone responds to tone.



I don't believe that in the present case:

-discussing RPGs (something not very important)
-online via typing
-with strangers

...that set encompasses "everybody". If you would make that bold and aggressive accusation against everyone, you need to prove it. It's pretty easy to talk about RPGs online without getting emotional.



> First off, this is ad hominem, specifically Bulverism. You think they are wrong, come up with a psychological reason they are wrong (in this case, the vague "irrationality"),




You are wholly incorrect.

I was addressing the specific point made "tone policing can be good" (specifically in online discussion about games, specifically in this one). This argument was made under a faulty assumption: that my goal was to PERSUADE the kind of people who can be dissuaded in a game discussion online by a tone they dislike. ("Ignoring facts and being dissuaded by tone by no means vaguely fits the definition of "irrational behavior". )

I then explained this was not my goal because I am unconcerned with such people. Therefore it is irrelevant to my goal.

Yours is a wholly rational argument and has nothing to do with an ad hominem.  You misperceived the target audience for my statements.

Your counter-argument, relying on the bizarre assumption that ALL people can be dissuaded by tone in online RPG discussions is unproved.

And, burden of proof is on the accuser and in this case you're accusing everyone of being irrational, so prove it.



> You have, recently in the discussion, also stepped afoul of "argument from fallacy" - having found one element of GNS that is not true, you discount the whole.




This is also incorrect.

I correctly identified 2 parts of GNS:

The part that makes predictions about creative agendas.

The part that rehashes what other game theories say.

The first part is fallacious (proved with evidence), the second part is redundant (proved, with evidence).

Therefore the theory is useless. The only new thing it does fails.

I also pointed out it was WORSE than useless since the effects following from it have been bad (FATE, etc)

In order to refute this idea you don't falsely claim this is the so-called "fallacy fallacy" (addressing only one part of what I said) you must either:

-Point out positives of GNS that outweigh the negatives, giving evidence.
or
-Contest the negatives, giving evidence.



> You have, arguably, also fallen prey to "proof by assertion" - repeating the same point many times, without substantive change, as if that makes it any more correct or compelling by repetition.




This assessment of my motives is incorrect. Sometimes (as above) it's necessary locally to repeat yourself otherwise a false assertion is on a webpage WITHOUT the refutation of that false assertion  appears on the same page (even though the false assertion was previously refuted).

Before assuming a negative motive, the correct procedure is to ask a question. If you see my repeating myself, simply say "Zak, why did you repeat that?" and I'll tell you.



> Lastly, we have as an excuse for it all, an appeal to the well-being of an audience we do not actually know is present. Does it seem "rational" to you to carry on a discussion for 20+ pages to serve people who may not even be there?




Absolutely. People don't let errors and false accusations stand in a newspaper or blog entry just because you aren't sure anyone might check them. The truth is important.

And, frankly, the presence of other sane folks' reading RPG conversations besides the 2-3 talking at the moment is not exactly a wild conjecture.



> while you claim to be targeting only a rational audience, they'd have to discard much of your presentation due to these, and a few other, logical fallacies




You are asserting but not proving I have made logical errors. I haven't, though. All the things you claimed were logical errors weren't because you made faulty assumptions.

It's important to always be respectful of people online of course, (never, for instance, scold them for their_ tone_ of all things, or imply the act of participating in a discussion is part of some zealous "campaign" or that merely registering facts and opinions in a neutral way is "rabid") but a massive part of respect includes not lying to them.


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## Zak S (Oct 20, 2015)

Also, this whole discussion of tone is the result of goal-post moving:

"But GNS tho..."
"People shouldn't talk about GNS because it's a flawed theory and has cause lots of problems"
"Flawed in your opinion"
"Nope, flawed objectively, here's evidence"
"Ok, sure, but, like it's had good effects"
"In reality, the bad effects are numerous, here's a list of some"
"Ok, but parts were good..."
"None of these 'good parts' are specific to GNS. Pretty much all RPG theories have these same "good parts"."
"Ok, sure, but, like, your tone..."
"Being dissuaded by tone  is irrational..."
"Ok, sure but everyone's irrational when talking games online..."

Like, you want to believe that, ok. But this whole discussion comes at the tail end of me saying GNS has been an engine for organizing and to some degree weaponizing parts of the online RPG community's gullibility and I don't see anything in this thread which suggests otherwise.


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## Maxperson (Oct 20, 2015)

Zak S said:


> The first part is fallacious (proved with evidence), the second part is redundant (proved, with evidence).
> 
> Therefore the theory is useless. The only new thing it does fails.




Do you think about what you post before you post it?

I have a theory.  My theory is that dogs can fly to the moon, use rocks rich in iron to grow to 30 feet tall, are mammals, have four legs and breathe in order to live.

Now according to you, because two of those things are provably false, dogs are not mammals, they don't have four legs and don't need to breathe.  

It just doesn't work that way.  That you have found some flaws in the theory doesn't mean that the rest of the theory is incorrect.  If you make the claim that the whole thing is false, you have to prove each and every little part of it false with real evidence and reasoning, not wild claims.


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## Zak S (Oct 20, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> I have a theory.  My theory is that dogs can fly to the moon, use rocks rich in iron to grow to 30 feet tall, are mammals, have four legs and breathe in order to live.
> 
> Now according to you, because two of those things are provably false, dogs are not mammals, they don't have four legs and don't need to breathe.
> 
> It just doesn't work that way.  That you have found some flaws in the theory doesn't mean that the rest of the theory is incorrect.




Strawman.

I said GNS was *worthless, *as is your theory.

Your theory proposes new things and old things. The new things are false and the old things were *true but already known*. Nobody needs your "theory of dogs"._ The only parts that were worth anything are old and existed before your theory--just like GNS._

An the fact is since _every crackpot theory in the world contains some random true observation_ basically what you're saying is there's no such thing as a theory so stupid we shouldn't discuss it. Like, again, (I have to repeat this because you didn't catch it the first time) _your argument would defend phrenology, eugenics, the flat earth theory, the steady state theory, spontaneous generation, Lamarckianism and pretty much every other piece of crackpottery in the world._

So, no, you're totally wrong.


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## chaochou (Oct 20, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> I have a theory. My theory is that dogs can fly to the moon, use rocks rich in iron to grow to 30 feet tall, are mammals, have four legs and breathe in order to live.




I saw 30-foot dog fly to the moon yesterday. So that's now proven with evidence. Anyone saying otherwise is clearly irrational.


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## Zak S (Oct 20, 2015)

chaochou said:


> I saw 30-foot dog fly to the moon yesterday. So that's now proven with evidence. Anyone saying otherwise is clearly irrational.




Typing the words isn't evidence obviously--but you are allowed to claim you have it. If someone wanted to contest that you then what they do is ask for footage with time stamps, etc.

If you'd like to contest (for example) my screenshot of Ron Edwards saying stuff that makes no sense, then go ahead.

So far nobody's contested any of the evidence, so this little bit of snark isn't really a relevant point.


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## chaochou (Oct 20, 2015)

Zak S said:


> My screenshot of Ron Edwards saying stuff that makes no sense *to me but which I've yet to provide any evidence to prove is wrong* demonstrates nothing.
> 
> So far * people have contested my empty claims*, but I've *simply talked over them while repeating my claims or making new and even sillier ones, again without providing any evidence whatsoever.*




FTFY.


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## innerdude (Oct 20, 2015)

The better analogy here would be the theories of psychology posited by Freud.

No serious psychologist gives any real credence to the totality of Freud's theories. But it doesn't change the fact that some of his basic constructs (id, ego, superego, etc.) became mileposts, or reference markers, for explorations into further research into human psychology.

Though the theories themselves are largely considered untrue, they provided a foundation, or baseline set of semantics on which to base further postulations. And no one apologizes for having participated in developing or evolving the theories, or having at one time believed them, or feels that somehow they've been a detriment to human progress, or that anyone who ever said anything positive about Freudian psychology EVER in the history of mankind should somehow be ashamed of themselves. 

That's basically my approach GNS. I agree that the totality of GNS as a whole is at best a tenuous attempt at stringing together half-baked thoughts and self-referential definitions into some vaguely coherent theory. At its worst it self-righteously asserts its own veracity and presents its tenets as some grand theory from which we must all partake or forever be doomed to participate in bandwrongfun gaming. It's a mess, and I pretty much disagree with nearly all of its "top level" claims. In a lot of ways, it feels like Edwards is somehow trying to come to some rational grip with the fact that White Wolf games were wildly popular at the time, and he hated them, and the theory was somehow supposed to support and justify his own personal biases.......

That said, it has a few things I find interesting. 

The Forge's "simulationist" theory is hmmm, how to say it without sounding overly negative, okay never mind, it's total crap. Edwards is clearly trying to build on some previous theories and differentiate it from the other two GNS "pillars," but it mostly just comes across as half-baked. It has definite undertones of, "Well, I don't really know how this works, it's something I've not experienced myself, but I can imagine it working this way because _these reasons_." His idea behind "High Concept Sim" is about the only thing that feels even remotely useful, but even then I think it's much more related to "story" approaches to gaming than "simulation," but Edwards can't possibly allow any hint of this "simulation garbage" to seep into his precious "narrativism." 

It's my impression that much of the theory around "gamist" approaches are correct in principle, but basically miss the point entirely as applied to what makes a working, mainstream RPG, namely that Ron seems to think that "gamism" _solely in and of itself _is a totally valid approach to playing RPGs.....and I vehemently disagree with that assertion. Which is also why I disagree with [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]'s approach to RPGs as well; RPGs have a "game" component, but if they don't have something else they're not a true RPG.

I think the general concept of "narrativist" theory/Story Now/player authorship is generally the strongest component---probably because it's the one they were trying to fix the hardest---but I have absolutely no desire to play any of the "narrativist" games the theorizing actually produced (Life With Master, Dogs in the Vineyard, etc.). I can see wanting to incorporate certain small "narrativist" components into mainstream RPGs.....but a wholesale "narrativist" game has almost zero resemblance to the kinds of traditional RPGs I enjoy. What does that mean exactly? I'm not sure. 

So, in summary*: as a whole, GNS's broad-based claims are simply untrue. But I occasionally see bits and pieces and individual concepts here and there that can be useful under very specific applications, or might form an interesting basis for specific, situational mechanics in a traditional RPG format. And despite the theory's categorical untruths, it does provide a milepost, or marker for future exploration.

*Minor addendum--Other than the "White Wolf players are brain damaged" comment, I'm not familiar with any other controversy caused by The Forge and its adherents. There's some implication from Zak that Evil Hat was somehow responsible for creating some negativity in the industry. Can someone enlighten me?


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## Zak S (Oct 20, 2015)

chaochou said:


> FTFY.




You're completely wrong again:

Someone directly questioned whether Ron ever claimed no 2 creative agendas could be fulfilled at once...







...the screenshot features him saying exactly that thing....









So, Chaochou, you should apologize to everyone reading for your terrible mistake. And [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] should apologize for supporting it.


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## D'karr (Oct 20, 2015)

Nope, no apologies here, but please continue.  It is quite entertaining to see.


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## Zak S (Oct 20, 2015)

innerdude said:


> But it doesn't change the fact that some of his basic constructs (id, ego, superego, etc.) became mileposts, or reference markers, for explorations into further research into human psychology.



GNS has no such markers. Everything that might count as a "marker" was already in the (dumb) Threefold Model. The ONLY thing you could say about GNS was that somewhere along the line someone decided "narrativism" was a thing--but that's not a Freud amount of progress. That tiny upside must be weighed against the Everest of downside the theories have had.

Also, when Freud developed his theories--_there were no better ones_. GNS was developed _long after _much smarter people had made and done much smarter things.

GNS is like if people decided to go full Freudian _tomorrow._ What would that mean? That would mean those were not smart people and they do not care about reason or evidence or facts.



> There's some implication from Zak that Evil Hat was somehow responsible for creating some negativity in the industry. Can someone enlighten me?



Absolutely, but it's probably off-topic and dramatic so I'll message you and anyone else interested.


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## N'raac (Oct 21, 2015)

That reminds me...



Zak S said:


> He's said it many times, it's the whole main point of GNS theory, it's the only things that makes it not identical to every other typology of playstyles gamers come up with, here's an example:
> View attachment 71217
> (rest of the conversation available on request.)






Balesir said:


> I would be interested to see the next bit of the conversation, since you offer it, since you seem to have inadvertently cut off the most interesting and possibly relevant part of Edwards' answer, in that shot.




I don't recall seeing the rest of the screenshot.  Did I overlook it?


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## Zak S (Oct 21, 2015)

N'raac said:


> I don't recall seeing the rest of the screenshot.  Did I overlook it?



Nah, at that point Balesir was passive-aggressively needling and I said "Hey, stop doing that, it's not ok, I don't want to go on with this conversation with you if you're going to do that" and then Balesir bowed out.

If you would like to see the rest of the conversation I can post it, it's embedded in a long back and forth about a billion things.


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## Parmandur (Oct 21, 2015)

So, many of you guys have been playing longer than I have been alive ('85 model), and I only got in the game with 3.5 really.

I am no post-modernist, hippie-dippie deconstructionist type: not to get into ot, but I am rather on the right edge of the spectrum all around.  No interest in Forge stuff.

This "games are only code-breaking" hypothesis is clearly nonsense, given the etymology of the word "game" and how it is used in every day language, and by gamers.  [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] did an amazing job breaking down the history, and what the original designers of the game thought.

Inventing a new definition of a word and insisting everyone else abide by it is not how language works.


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## Umbran (Oct 21, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> Inventing a new definition of a word and insisting everyone else abide by it is not how language works.




There is a philosophical thing here - prescriptive language vs descriptive language.  Language where a single authoritative definition is primary, and language where practical use is primary.  Howandwhy is very prescriptive, as is Zak S in his way.  Many of the rest of us are more descriptive, proof is in the overall pudding, types.


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## Zak S (Oct 21, 2015)

Umbran said:


> There is a philosophical thing here - prescriptive language vs descriptive language.  Language where a single authoritative definition is primary, and language where practical use is primary.  Howandwhy is very prescriptive, as is Zak S in his way.  Many of the rest of us are more descriptive, proof is in the overall pudding, types.




This is not accurate. it seems like just a sort of sidelong way of saying "We have proof (in the pudding) you don't".

I have described (descriptively) bad outcomes to using GNS terminology and pointed to proof (in and out of pudding) of real world bad outcomes created by using it.

Everyone in the thread has pretty much Prescribed (i.e. recommended) ways of speaking, very much including you, Umbran. I prescribe not using GNS language because of the extensive proof of it leading to disastrous outcomes.


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## Parmandur (Oct 21, 2015)

Umbran said:


> There is a philosophical thing here - prescriptive language vs descriptive language.  Language where a single authoritative definition is primary, and language where practical use is primary.  Howandwhy is very prescriptive, as is Zak S in his way.  Many of the rest of us are more descriptive, proof is in the overall pudding, types.





Well, that's what I find so weird: I can get behind the prescriptive approach, but to do so it is important to use correct definitions, and not make them up.

Zak has a point; GNS is unhelpful.


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## Maxperson (Oct 22, 2015)

Umbran said:


> There is a philosophical thing here - prescriptive language vs descriptive language.  Language where a single authoritative definition is primary, and language where practical use is primary.  Howandwhy is very prescriptive, as is Zak S in his way.  Many of the rest of us are more descriptive, proof is in the overall pudding, types.




I'm curious here, but just how does one decide which of the many definitions of something is authoritative?  I don't go through the dictionary reading it, but I've seen a whole lot of words in dictionaries and I can't remember a word with a single definition.


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## Parmandur (Oct 22, 2015)

Maxperson said:


> I'm curious here, but just how does one decide which of the many definitions of something is authoritative?  I don't go through the dictionary reading it, but I've seen a whole lot of words in dictionaries and I can't remember a word with a single definition.





I'd say it's a both-and situation, leaning on the democracy of the dead: the definitions are descriptive, but to have a discourse with actual communication the terms fo need to be mutually understood, and hence prescribed to one degree or another.

 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and his daughters play match any traditional use or definition of game just as much as Mastermind; as does throwing craps.


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## pemerton (Oct 26, 2015)

innerdude said:


> The Forge's "simulationist" theory is hmmm, how to say it without sounding overly negative, okay never mind, it's total crap. Edwards is clearly trying to build on some previous theories and differentiate it from the other two GNS "pillars," but it mostly just comes across as half-baked. It has definite undertones of, "Well, I don't really know how this works, it's something I've not experienced myself, but I can imagine it working this way because _these reasons_." His idea behind "High Concept Sim" is about the only thing that feels even remotely useful, but even then I think it's much more related to "story" approaches to gaming than "simulation," but Edwards can't possibly allow any hint of this "simulation garbage" to seep into his precious "narrativism."



I'll post again: I have a lot of experience in playing the sort of systems that Edwards calls "purist for system simulationism" - predominantly Rolemaster, but also various BRP-type games (Runequest, Stormbringer etc).

And as I posted upthread, Edwards discussion on those systems correctly identifies their aspirations and their points of vulnerability - his honing in on initiative is particularly apposite here.

Here is another passage of his from the simulationism essay, which is relevant to just about every alignment and paladin thread ever generated on ENworld:

Consider the behavioral parameters of a samurai player-character in Sorcerer and in GURPS. On paper the sheets look pretty similar: bushido all over the place, honorable, blah blah. But what does this mean in terms of player decisions and events during play? I suggest that in Sorcerer (Narrativist), the expectation is that the character will encounter functional limits of his or her behavioral profile, and eventually, will necessarily break one or more of the formal tenets as an expression of who he or she "is," or suffer for failing to do so. No one knows how, or which one, or in relation to which other characters; that's what play is for. I suggest that in GURPS (Simulationist), the expectation is that the behavioral profile sets the parameters within which the character reliably acts, especially in the crunch - in other words, it formalizes the role the character will play in the upcoming events. Breaking that role in a Sorcerer-esque fashion would, in this case, constitute something very like a breach of contract.​
In a current alignment thread, I (and some other posters) have said that we prefer an approach to alignment, paladin codes etc where the _player_ is the principal determiner of what the code requires. The response we get from some (yet other) posters is that this is broken, is allowing paladins to get away with (literal) murder, etc.

They are applying the approach to alignment that Edwards identifies with GURPS. I (and the other posters) are adopting an approach to alignment with corresponds with the one that Edwards calls _narrativist_. I'm not too fussed about terminology, but the differences of approach are real. There is no way that I want to either run, or play in, a game of the GURPs alignment variety. But clearly some other ENworlders do not want any sort of approach to "behavioural parameters" except that.


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## TwoSix (Oct 28, 2015)

Umbran said:


> There is a philosophical thing here - prescriptive language vs descriptive language.  Language where a single authoritative definition is primary, and language where practical use is primary.  Howandwhy is very prescriptive, as is Zak S in his way.  Many of the rest of us are more descriptive, proof is in the overall pudding, types.



All of my gish friends agree with you.


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## Celebrim (Oct 28, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Here is another passage of his from the simulationism essay, which is relevant to just about every alignment and paladin thread ever generated on ENworld:
> 
> Consider the behavioral parameters of a samurai player-character in Sorcerer and in GURPS. On paper the sheets look pretty similar: bushido all over the place, honorable, blah blah. But what does this mean in terms of player decisions and events during play? I suggest that in Sorcerer (Narrativist), the expectation is that the character will encounter functional limits of his or her behavioral profile, and eventually, will necessarily break one or more of the formal tenets as an expression of who he or she "is," or suffer for failing to do so. No one knows how, or which one, or in relation to which other characters; that's what play is for. I suggest that in GURPS (Simulationist), the expectation is that the behavioral profile sets the parameters within which the character reliably acts, especially in the crunch - in other words, it formalizes the role the character will play in the upcoming events. Breaking that role in a Sorcerer-esque fashion would, in this case, constitute something very like a breach of contract.​




This is a complete tangent, but this is yet another reason why I disagree with Ron Edwards as a designer and commentator, and for me the quote does the opposite of bolster your point.  

What gets me about the assumption Edwards makes is that it assumes I write Bushido on a sheet because it isn't a an expression of who the character is.  It assumes that the who the real person is, invariably is found in their relinquishing of honor, morality, dignity and so forth and that is what makes for an interesting story.  (See Sorcerer.)  The real "you" in this case is the one that abandons what they believe, what they hold dear, in favor of something easy because - as Ron Edwards makes clear explicitly - they fear "suffering for failing to do so".  It's as if I put Bushido on my character sheet because I don't really plan on playing that character at all, but with the assumption that it's inevitably going to fail because it reaches "functional limits of his or her behavioral profile".  I put it on my sheet not to explore what it would be like to adhere to an idealistic code, but to express my disgust with such a thing.  It's as if everyone that ever played a Paladin did so with the desire for the Paladin to fall because they believed good or honor was dysfunctional.  

Of course the person playing someone with a code of honor of some sort expects to suffer at times because of that code.  That's the point.  The true character of the person isn't revealed when they depart from the code, but in how they suffer for it.  If you don't intend to suffer for it, you shouldn't have it on your sheet in the first place because it doesn't actually in any meaningful way define who the character is.  You should have a quirk on your character sheet that reads something like, "Always speaks of Bushido as if he believed in it and lived it, but doesn't really."

I suggest that in GURPS, the expectation is that character will encounter hardship resulting from his behavioral profile, and NOT necessarily break one or more formal tenets as an expression of who he or she "is", and possibly (but not necessarily) suffer for doing so.  I didn't realize telling a story and prioritizing the telling of a story required me to expect all honor to be false or frailty. 

But then again, his definitions in that paragraph are so slippery that it's not even clear he knows what he's talking about.  What he calls 'narrativism' looks to me like 'exploration of character or theme' and a sort of what he elsewhere calls simulationism.  Exactly how you clearly and cleanly separate character and story from setting I've never been sure.   Is "Dare to Dream" really so different than "Story First"?  What sort of story about a fictional world (and every work of fiction is set in a fictional world) isn't daring to dream?  Even a game like Fiasco has a "Dare to Dream" component to it of being someone other than who you are.  

It has always seemed to me that the above definition of narrativism is actually not defining a desire for story, but defining incidental properties of a setting or properties of a character within a setting and then claiming this is the one true way to get a story.



> In a current alignment thread, I (and some other posters) have said that we prefer an approach to alignment, paladin codes etc where the _player_ is the principal determiner of what the code requires. The response we get from some (yet other) posters is that this is broken, is allowing paladins to get away with (literal) murder, etc.




Well, in theory, yes, it could.  And I wouldn't be terribly surprised from my experiences to find things rise to that level of hypocrisy, even if with particular groups or players it didn't.   

But, more to the point, I see it as a fundamentally poor simulation of what it means to be and how you would experience being a paladin, which you would expect to create stories that poorly resemble how someone with a deep commitment to their beliefs would behave.  This is because the player's experience of "being a Paladin" will fundamentally be the experience of being your own source of truth, whereas the character he is playing fundamentally has the belief and has the experience that he is not his own source of truth.  The fundamental experience of the Paladin is that he's in humble submission to some higher power.   The fundamental experience that the player who determines for himself what the code requires is of being ones own highest power.  You can't reasonably expect to create stories which resemble stories about paladins, if the character is fundamentally at odds with the character of a paladin.  

If you actually want that experience, then by all means play a CG champion and not one that is Lawful.  A CG champion is of course free to reevaluate his beliefs or act inconsistently simply because he sees what he has formerly done or what he would be inclined to do is non-functional.  But this is a fundamentally different experience from a player that has decided to commit to a code.  

What Ron Edwards claims is a matter of system to me strikes me as really being what D&D would consider a matter of alignment.  It's an expression of some core beliefs about how the world really works.  He's expressing the core belief that a story lacks certain positive attributes (typically called "mature" or something of the sort by Edwards), if it does not express that the world works the way he wants it to.  One aspect of this approach conceived from Edwards ideal of what Narrativism means, is that seems to encourage the GM to create an explicitly perverse universe which acts to entrap or ensnare anyone that holds to a belief in an impossible situation, ostensibly to create drama.  Techniques of this sort even have names (though I forget exactly what the terminology is), but in effect what they are is a sort of anti-providential nature to the universe, such that the universe always perversely twists to disprove any assertion of nobility or goodness with the expectation that caught in such a trap the character will relinquish their "immature" beliefs in favor the "mature" beliefs Edwards seems to admire.  Especially if Sorcerer is any guide, I'm not sure his idea of maturity is compatible with mine.

This assumption I even see tainting my more experienced players who have no "nar" background, but not tainting my inexperienced player.  My inexperience player playing a 'Paladin' does what he believes to be right, because that's who he really is.  He's not faking it by playing the character.  And every time he's in the process of trying to decide what the right thing is to do, my more experienced players are screaming at him, "Shut up.  Don't do it.  Don't be involved".  Why?  Because they think that regardless of what the Paladin does, the game universe as represented by me is going to hate him for it and I'm going to take every single opportunity to make him pay for adhering to any standard of basic decency.  This is the viewpoint of the GM not as the God of the game world, nor even as neutral impersonal referee, but as its Satan.  

And it doesn't matter how many times that being merciful is received with gratitude, expressions of honor result in admiration, expressions of truth are repaid with trust, purity is paid with invulnerability, valor wins the day, a self-sacrifice earns someone's loyalty, and so forth, the long time players still have the ingrained belief that the DM's role is to play 'gotcha' to anyone with a code of honor and to break them and make them suffer.   I'm not saying that he doesn't sometimes suffer for his beliefs or that the character is always played wisely and makes the right choices - he's lately been overly brash and vainglorious, and suffered for it, not because I wanted it that way but because that's usually what happens when you split the party.  But the universe as created by me isn't actively out to renounce him or his beliefs, and to the extent that there are agents that despise everything he stands for there are forces of good who favor him balancing that.


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## Balesir (Oct 28, 2015)

I still have nowhere near the time required to explain what, in the GNS essays, I find to be unique (other than the "one agenda at a time" thing), but I can make a brief comment on this:



Celebrim said:


> But, more to the point, I see it as a fundamentally poor simulation of what it means to be and how you would experience being a paladin, which you would expect to create stories that poorly resemble how someone with a deep commitment to their beliefs would behave.



I think this illustrates well the first of two fundamental misunderstandings you seem to be assuming about Edwards' idea of "Nar" play. The idea is not to "simulate" what it is to be a paladin. That would be Simulationism, which he already says expects the paladin to stick to the code in order for the player to experience something of "paladinism".

Edwards' Narrativism is, like his Gamism, something different. It requires the player to inject something of themselves; in Gamism it's their skill, but in Narrativism it's their beliefs. The player states what they think it means to be a paladin, and it's the job of all the other players (including the GM) to show how following this code will, inevitably and eventually, lead to them doing something "un-paladin-y".

This idea of the story-world deliberately challenging the character does nt come from Edwards, incidentally. Bob McKee - who has way more story credibility than either Edwards or (most certainly) I - explains this in his book "Story". To make a story, here's all you need to do:

- Have a character with a "dramatic need", which is just something they will go to effort to achieve

- Have the character try to meet that need by the simplest, easiest route possible.

- *Think of a reason - any reason - why this will not work*.

- Have them try a slightly more difficult route to fulfil the need.

- Think of a reason why *that* won't work.

- Repeat this cycle until a crisis is reached and Story happens.

I have seen this work for scenarios as various as a young tribesman trying to impress his beloved and a young woman deciding she wants a cigarette (yes, really - that one turned into a murder story...)

If this is how Robert McKee recommends generating a story, it's good enough for me.


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## Celebrim (Oct 28, 2015)

Balesir said:


> Edwards' Narrativism is, like his Gamism, something different. It requires the player to inject something of themselves...




How is it possible to play a character and not inject something of myself?



> ; in Gamism it's their skill, but in Narrativism it's their beliefs.




But then, you are not playing a character.  You are playing yourself.   And while it's perfectly fine to play yourself, and arguably the majority of gamers are only functionally able to play themselves, if you are playing yourself it is ridiculous and meaningless to label the beliefs of the character as being anything other than your own beliefs.  



> The player states what they think it means to be a paladin, and it's the job of all the other players (including the GM) to show how following this code will, inevitably and eventually, lead to them doing something "un-paladin-y".




I have no idea how any of that follows, but I sure as heck don't agree there is some sort of social contract to undermine other player's characterization.  

Rather, when I acting as either a player or a GM state my intention to personify a Paladin in the game, what I'm stating is that this what I think it means to be a paladin (as approved by the GM, whoever that may be) and it is my job to show all the other players at the table how very paladin-y my character is.  In the case of a Paladin it will be by following a code which we all agreed was very Paladin-y.  I never assume either as a player or a GM that the point is to get characters to act in a way that is out of character, much less that it is an inherent nature of moral codes that they fail which is what you seem to be saying here.

Nor do I see how this invariably leads to a story, or how it more invariably leads to a story than some other approach.   And at some level it's a bit ridiculous.  If I'm playing myself, rather than a Paladin, and injecting my own beliefs rather than the Paladins, then of course the result won't be a Paladin because I'm not one.  And the whole exercise in then calling this character a Paladin is insane, and one wonders why in the world you'd bother to do it.  



> - Have a character with a "dramatic need", which is just something they will go to effort to achieve
> 
> - Have the character try to meet that need by the simplest, easiest route possible.
> 
> ...




But regardless of the utility of this, this is not remotely what you have outlined earlier in the context of explaining "nar".  Closer to what you have outlined is - "Repeat this cycle until the character with the dramatic need fails or betrays themselves."   Nor for that matter does I think your archetype really describe all or even most stories, much less describe what I think it is a good plan of attack for creating a good story.  In order to fit this design to stories, we are going to have to adopt very vague and generous definitions of the above ideas.  Nor for that matter, if we are to accept that this is the means of generating stories, is it in any way obvious that it's not applicable to what Edwards describes as the "sim" approach of contractually agreeing to play a character.


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## pemerton (Oct 28, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> this is yet another reason why I disagree with Ron Edwards as a designer and commentator, and for me the quote does the opposite of bolster your point.
> 
> What gets me about the assumption Edwards makes is that it assumes I write Bushido on a sheet because it isn't a an expression of who the character is.  It assumes that the who the real person is, invariably is found in their relinquishing of honor, morality, dignity and so forth and that is what makes for an interesting story.  (See Sorcerer.)
> 
> ...





Celebrim said:


> How is it possible to play a character and not inject something of myself?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I don't see how your reiteration of a preference for playing alignment in what Edwards calls the GURPS/simulationist style, and your expressed distaste for what Edwards calls the Sorcerer/narrativist style, shows that he is wrong to distinguish those two styles as reflecting significant differences of play approach within the RPGing community. To me it seems to reinforce the point that he has identified and relatively accurately described an important difference in play approaches.

I also think you have misunderstood Edwards comment about bushido (or chivalry, or whatever) in Sorcerer et al.

The point is not that any moral code must be shown to be false. The point of the sort of play approach he points to is that characters are subject to stress, and hence change. Your example of _suffering_ for a code could easily be incorporated into that approach - the initial descriptor, which is expected to be placed under stress by play, might be something along the lines of  _keeping to my oaths is no problem for me_.

This also reinforces the point I made upthread, in response to [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION], that Ron Edwards is not any sort of post-modernist. His conception of _story_, and of the role of _character_ within a story, is thoroughly modernist: the character has some sort of dramatic need, circumstances conspire to thwart the straightforward satisfaction of that need, and in overcoming those circumstances the character comes to realise that his/her initial conception of what s/he needed, and what his/her situation was, was in some sense incomplete or deficient. So at the resolution of the story, when the character has reached some sort of resolution in relation to the initial need, that resolution may be something which - at the beginning - the character would not even have recognised as speaking to his/her situation and his/her need. (In the more tragic version, the character ends up in a situation which s/he might - at the start - have counted as resolution, but in light of the changes to the character is now deeply inadequate or unsatisfying in some fashion.)


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## Celebrim (Oct 28, 2015)

pemerton said:


> I don't see how your reiteration of a preference for playing alignment in what Edwards calls the GURPS/simulationist style...




I'm not even talking about a preference for playing *alignment*.  Alignment has here been a very incomplete short hand for *character*.  Nothing that I've said even when I use terminology from a specific game should in any way be construed to be system specific.  Fiasco generally presumes this same sort of "contract", and does not presume that the character will necessarily or inevitably grow or change as the result of his experiences.  This contract that you will play a character that has whatever traits you label the character with, however you label the character, is inherent in roleplaying.  If you don't intend to abide by your traits, don't bother writing them down, because what the heck do they mean in that case anyway? 

Yes, I am familiar with games that allow characters to have very fluid and evolving traits.  But even they only assume that traits will be tested.  They don't assume that a trait will necessarily be abandoned.  They merely allow it to be changed if the player (or the table) decides to.  

The stance that you should be redefining your character all the time, it's that stance that strikes me as being oddly parallel to an alignment stance in D&D.  It's not that I think it's impossible or unreasonable to play a character that is vacillating, unconsidered in his beliefs, and unprincipled and whose beliefs would fluctuate on an almost daily basis with his moods and feelings.  It's merely the idea that you have or even should if you want story that I find bizarre.



> ...and your expressed distaste for what Edwards calls the Sorcerer/narrativist style, shows that he is wrong to distinguish those two styles




Nonsense is distinguishable from sense, but that doesn't make nonsense an actual thing.  

To the extent that I see something meaningful in what you are calling the Narrativist style, it appears to be asking the question, "What would I do?" as opposed to, "What would the character do?"

But while that is a meaningful distinction, the first is a strict subset of the second.  It's not a contradiction nor incompatible.  The first person is playing a character whose beliefs/strictures/code/moral attributes/descriptors happen to correspond to his own, which a person playing the later could do just as well without feeling he's changed styles.  Moreover, two players at the table could simultaneously play in the same game using the same system and created a shared story.  Or the same person could play a character like himself for a while, and switch to a character unlike himself.  This makes his distinction here at most a slight change in stance, and by in large a meaningless change in stance, because as I said most players end up playing themselves anyway even without meaning to and ultimately in the long run end up gravitating game after game to a character with recognizable traits.  I mean this is something that is so common 'Knights of the Dinner Table' satirizes it.  



> The point is not that any moral code must be shown to be false. The point of the sort of play approach he points to is that characters are subject to stress, and hence change.




Obviously, any play approach characters are subject to stress and may be subject to change.  But equally in any play approach a character may be subject to stress and find in that validation of his beliefs.  Or the character could finish the story still oblivious.  Subject to change doesn't mean that they will change or must.  Change in the sense of departing from what one formally believed is not a necessary component of anyone's story.


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## Balesir (Oct 29, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> How is it possible to play a character and not inject something of myself?



It may very well not be, but some agendas for play treat the injection of self as desirable and intentional, rather than an unfortunate inevitability. This is one fault line along which styles of play divide, since you can't treat something as both desirable and undesirable at the same time.



Celebrim said:


> But then, you are not playing a character.  You are playing yourself.



I don't think it's that cut and dried; you are playing an aspect of yourself, maybe, in control of a different body and sensory apparatus. Or a set of ideas you have toyed with and wish to adopt in order to explore more forcefully.

Taking the case of the paladin, I may have no desire to be paladin-ly myself, but I have views on what being a paladin would involve - what the outlook and aspirations of a paladin should be. And I may wish to experiment with adopting those aspirations and that outlook in a "safe" environment.



Celebrim said:


> I have no idea how any of that follows, but I sure as heck don't agree there is some sort of social contract to undermine other player's characterization.



Other than that I don't think it necessarily amounts to "undermin(ing an)other player's characterisation", part of what Edwards is saying is that Nar play *does* involve just such a social contract. That's one of the features that makes it different from Sim or Gam aimed play. Deliberately putting difficult or "interesting" choices in the path of a character that relate to their stated beliefs _is_ an expected part of Nar play, as I understand it.



Celebrim said:


> But regardless of the utility of this, this is not remotely what you have outlined earlier in the context of explaining "nar".  Closer to what you have outlined is - "Repeat this cycle until the character with the dramatic need fails or betrays themselves."



You have narrowed down on what I think amounts to a straw man, here. Dramatic need failing or the character betraying themselves, while possible, are very much the extreme end of what is expected to happen. More usually, the character's beliefs or aims tend to be modified, or to mutate. This is a commonplace of drama in general. The character's personality and credo might be expected to mature - to become more tempered by adversity.

This might work better if described by example, and I realised recently that something similar has been happening in the 4E game I GM. It's not a great example, but it's a real one, and one I have seen first hand.

One of the characters in the game is a paladin. I have not enforced any sort of "paladin's code" as GM, relying on the player wanting to play a paladin. At lower levels, the character was very clearly rote and/or dogma driven. The catch phrase - somewhat tongue in cheek - was formed "thinking lets doubt in!" 

As play has continued through 26 levels (so far), however, the characters beliefs have tempered and been modified by circumstances. The discovery that the fate of the souls of all who die is at stake has led him to back the wizard and engage in negotiations and even an uneasy alliance with agents of Vecna (and, arguably, with Vecna himself). Our paladin has learned, the hard way, the benefits of tolerance*. And yet, he is most certainly no less a paladin; he is pursuing a quest to prevent the souls of all who die from falling into the hands of a demon lord, and I can scarcely think of a more paladinly quest than that! Nevertheless, it's still fair to say that his whole outlook and "code" have been altered in the process.

*: As an aside, some years ago I had a moment of clarity when Piers Benn pointed out, in a book I was reading, that "tolerance" in no sense implies "agreement". You don't tolerate what you agree with - that would be silly - you tolerate what you _disagree_ with. And yet, tolerance is most assuredly a virtue. Our paladin has learned tolerance - and I think the players have learned something of it, too. It has not caused the betrayal of his paladin's code - it has become a part of it.



Celebrim said:


> Nor for that matter does I think your archetype really describe all or even most stories, much less describe what I think it is a good plan of attack for creating a good story.  In order to fit this design to stories, we are going to have to adopt very vague and generous definitions of the above ideas.



I don't claim it's the only way to generate stories, and I agree that it's more art than science, but I merely point out that someone far more qualified to talk about stories than I recommends the technique. And, in my experience, it works surprisingly well.



Celebrim said:


> Nor for that matter, if we are to accept that this is the means of generating stories, is it in any way obvious that it's not applicable to what Edwards describes as the "sim" approach of contractually agreeing to play a character.



It seems obvious to me, because Sim _tends_ to be poorly disposed to the situation being deliberately manipulated in order to present obstacles to the character. This is a technique for making a story, not for exploring an imagined world; the world warps in order to make the story happen. This tends to be anathema (for good, internally consistent reasons) for games not deliberately run to promote a Nar agenda.


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## pemerton (Oct 29, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> This contract that you will play a character that has whatever traits you label the character with, however you label the character, is inherent in roleplaying.  If you don't intend to abide by your traits, don't bother writing them down, because what the heck do they mean in that case anyway?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



It is not true that _this contract that you will play a character that has whatever traits you label the character with, however you label the character, is inherent in roleplaying_. That's the point of the Edwards passage, in distinguishing two different approaches to RPGing.

From Burning Wheel (rev ed), pp 56-57:

[By] stating a Belief . . . you are letting other players know you want situations revolving around that theme . . . You might not even succeed, but playing out that struggle is what the game is all about.

Beliefs are meant to be conflicted, challenged, betrayed and broken. Such emotional drama makes for a good game. . . .

A player may change his character's Beliefs as he sees fit. Characters are meant to grow and change through play. Changing Beliefs is a vital part of that growth. However, . . . if [the GM] feels the player is changing a Belief to wriggle out of a difficult situation and not as part of character growth, he may delay the change until a time that he sees as appropriate.​
The point of these character traits is not to constrain the players' play of their PCs, but to signal the sorts of situations that the players wants the GM to frame their PCs into.

This also relates to the point about _stress_. The whole point of play in the narrativist/"Sorcerer" style is for the GM to frame the PCs into situations which _will_ stress their beliefs and _will_ oblige them to change. If the player asks "What would the character do?", there should be no answer that can simply be read off the character's traits - if there is such an answer, the GM hasn't done his/her job properly. Which isn't to say that the character is asking "What would I do?" Rather, by choosing what the character does do the player is shaping the character's traits; which is the reverse of the causal sequence posited in what Edwards calls the simulationist/"GURPS" style.


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## Celebrim (Oct 30, 2015)

Balesir said:


> It may very well not be, but some agendas for play treat the injection of self as desirable and intentional, rather than an unfortunate inevitability.




As I said, playing yourself is a subset of the agenda and requirement to play your character.  If you are playing yourself, then injecting yourself into the character is entirely appropriate because that is who your character is.  Injecting something of yourself into a part, regardless of the part, is also an inevitability but not necessarily an unfortunate one.  In the same way that different actors might portray Hamlet or any other character in slightly different ways, so long as they stayed true to the character and did a good job of acting, you'd say that although different each actor saw the character clearly and did a good job.  The variation would be desirable, and not unfortunate, allowing you to see different possible sides of the same role and allowing you to admire what each actor brought to the role.

The only time injecting yourself into a character is undesirable is when it is thoughtless and in particular, when the portrayal is now at odds to who the character is established to be.  

I would not call out "playing yourself" and "playing the character" as being very big differences in approach.  The big difference in approach is whether you are playing a character - that is, you are constrained by the personality and beliefs of the character in some fashion - or playing a pawn or playing piece, where the character has no particular beliefs or personality and is simply pushed around "a board" to obtain a victory.  Unlike the first distinction, this is actually a contrasting agenda of play which is potentially in tension.  As I said, you can have two players at the table, one playing themselves and another playing a character, and both will be perfectly peachy keen happy.  Neither is interfering with what the other wants.  But if you have someone playing a character and someone playing a pawn, then that can be a source of tension.  In practice though, this is partially mitigated by the fact that you almost never encounter someone that is purely playing their character in one way, but as a mixture of character, themselves, and pawn.

As far as which is better, I will advance the controversial position that "playing a character" is a higher level of skill than "playing a pawn" and as such is more desirable in a player.  The reason for this is that players will evaluate DM's as playing at a higher level of skill if they play characters rather than pawns, and do not inject themselves into every character but rather make characters distinctive.  I've played for 30 years and never yet met the player that didn't make that judgment of my play, and never yet met the player who wasn't appreciative of me bringing NPC's to life in that fashion.  By the rule that you should reciprocate by behaving in the way you want others to behave, playing a character is better than playing a pawn.   Not because playing as a pawn is wrong, but because it requires more skill.  Indeed, the highest levels of skill are seen in players that both play characters, and who possess a high degree of ability at keeping those characters alive and succeeding at their goals.  Because ultimately, what the game asks of the players is for them to play protagonists in adventures, and that is what a 'reader' usually wants to see in the protagonists.



> This is one fault line along which styles of play divide, since you can't treat something as both desirable and undesirable at the same time.




As I said, "playing yourself" and "playing a character" is not incompatible.



> Other than that I don't think it necessarily amounts to "undermin(ing an)other player's characterisation", part of what Edwards is saying is that Nar play *does* involve just such a social contract. That's one of the features that makes it different from Sim or Gam aimed play. Deliberately putting difficult or "interesting" choices in the path of a character that relate to their stated beliefs _is_ an expected part of Nar play, as I understand it.




You are conflating two completely separate things.  I agree that deliberately putting difficult or interesting choices in the path of a character that relate to their stated beliefs is more of a Narratavist technique than a Simulationist technique, although in practice this can be highly blurred.  For example, my current campaign would be identified by Edwards as Sim, but because we created character backstories that implied particular conflicts in the character's background, the very fact that the game universe exists as described in those backstories means those backstories are continually catching up to the characters in various ways and challenging their beliefs, loyalties, and desires.  So the line between Nar and Sim is here blurred in practice in a way that it isn't in theory.  Again, the biggest problem with the theory is it thinks that there can only be one thing going on at a time.  (And why that is clearly and wholly wrong is something I have an essay idea for.)

However, putting interesting challenges to a player's beliefs and loyalties in their path is by no means stating that you expect a particular outcome to those challenges.   If you did, then effectively you'd have a railroad with to some extent pre-scripted results.  In fact, in most story's characters don't have mutating beliefs.  It's not the normal way a story is written for a character to abandon their basic nature.  The 'reader' normally will receive this as bad writing, and will normally lose empathy for the character.

You can usually tell which characters the author intends to have a personality crisis, and in which areas when a character is introduced.  That's because usually the character whose beliefs are going to evolve over the course of the story are the ones introduced with fundamental contradictions in their character's beliefs that will have to be resolved once the character is placed in crisis.   Bilbo is introduced to the reader as someone chosen to go on a heroic adventure, who is a coward.  Only his pride initially is the major motivation for pretending to be brave, though he isn't.   He just doesn't want people to think badly of him.  And this is going to have to be resolved one way or the other over the course of the story.  Ultimately the contradictions are resolved and Bilbo becomes almost purely brave and humble - at which point the character becomes stable and basically resists any temptation to change that thereafter comes along.  Likewise, when Han Solo is introduced, he's introduced as a cocky criminal who over the course of the movie is placed in heroic situations.  At the end of the movie, he has to choose which path to continue.   That's a contradiction that has to be resolved.

Generally, the reader 'hopes' that the conflict will be resolved favorably in the case of a sympathetic protagonist, and is surprised (and in some cases even disappointed) when the conflict is resolved favorably in the case of a non-sympathetic character.  Author's usually deal with this problem by having the non-sympathetic character redeem themselves only in death.

But it's not the case that we know ahead of time which way contradictions are going to be a resolved, and its likewise not the case that every character needs to change in this fashion.  The character without contradictions we don't expect to change.  There is nothing about their character that is compelling that change.  Instead, particularly if the character is heroic, we expect to see their character validated.  If we see changes in their basic nature driven by challenges they face, they become tragic characters and we certainly don't expect every hero to become a tragic hero - nor is there any particular reason why they should.

If a character is playing an honorable Bushido and has no contradictions in his character, I would never expect that either the player or the GM expects his character to be anything other than a paragon honorable Bushido and that every challenge thrown at him would do anything other than give that character a moment to shine and prove his worth.   If a player signaled an intention to play a character that evolved, I'd expect them to do so by stating character traits that were in tension - greedy and honorable, for example.  That signals an intention to be placed in situations where you have to choose between the two traits, and that is also well and good.  

I'm sorry, but I don't see your Paladin as very Paladin-y.  I'd be disappointed in the play.   While I fully agree regarding your understanding of the word tolerance, because tolerance is actually a sort of mercy, and mercy a sort of love - I wouldn't expect a Paladin to actually have to come to that belief, nor would I expect them as a paragon of virtue, to do anything but get wiser.  A Paladin without tolerance would be LN, and not LG.  A Paladin that fails to show tolerance is fallen or falling, and this is a typical trajectory we see in characters destined for that fate - noble but contradictorily also intolerant.   But wisdom would not mean compromising, nor does tolerance actually mean compromise, indifference, negligence, or weakness.  That isn't to say necessarily that I see your Paladin as a non-Paladin at this point, but whether I would depends on whether he's come to some belief in the utility or necessity of evil.  Your outline doesn't touch on that sufficiently to judge. 



> It seems obvious to me, because Sim _tends_ to be poorly disposed to the situation being deliberately manipulated in order to present obstacles to the character. This is a technique for making a story, not for exploring an imagined world; the world warps in order to make the story happen. This tends to be anathema (for good, internally consistent reasons) for games not deliberately run to promote a Nar agenda.




I agree regarding the difference between the two approaches you describe here.  I disagree that Nar and Sim imply differences in how a character is played or what is expected of a character in play.  Either equally can expect evolution of a character, and neither necessarily expects a particular outcome.  Nar neither expects cowards to become brave, nor does it expect Paladins to necessarily fail.  Nar is not invested in how the story happens, only that a story does happen.  Claiming that the story is only good if Paladins necessarily fail is not a position on how to play RPGs, but a position on the meaning of life itself and as such is more akin to having an 'alignment' (IRL) than it is to a particular approach to playing a game.


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## Celebrim (Oct 30, 2015)

pemerton said:


> It is not true that _this contract that you will play a character that has whatever traits you label the character with, however you label the character, is inherent in roleplaying_....






> However, . . . if [the GM] feels the player is changing a Belief to wriggle out of a difficult situation and not as part of character growth, he may delay the change until a time that he sees as appropriate.




It would appear your own evidence contradicts your theory that the contract to play your character doesn't exist in Burning Wheel.   At best you could state that Burning Wheel expects all characters to have contradictory and conflicting initial beliefs, which will be resolved in some fashion through play.  That is, it explicitly exists as an engine for creating a very specific sort of story.  However I disagree that it lacks the expectation that the player will play the character, and further that this expectation that all characters are conflicted is in any way required of all nar approaches, much less that Burning Wheel requiring all characters to be conflicted in any way justifies Edwards claim in his essay.

Seriously, pemerton, one of us is going to have to block the other one if this keeps up.  We are both too damn sure of our own beliefs, and I know that yours read like poorly considered nonsense to me, and I suspect you must think the same of me.   I take no real joy in discussing or debating anything with you, and half the time I have no idea how you get from A to B.  Moreover, I'm not sure either of us has content that we share that is of any use to the other.


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## Umbran (Oct 30, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> If you don't intend to abide by your traits, don't bother writing them down, because what the heck do they mean in that case anyway?




I'm going to try to inject something that might be useful.

You write them down for several reasons that amount overall to the fact that you can't observe change if you don't know the initial state.  Drama, in a nutsell, is about going from A to B, so you have to know where A is.

Moreover, it is less that you don't intend to abide by your traits, and is rather more that since play is not pre-determined, you don't know which ones will change in what way, and their interactions impact the course of play.  If you don't write them down, you don't have anything to play with!

This might be best seen in a game called "Odyssey: Journey and Change".  Some might call it questionably a role-playing game, and as much or more a story-telling game, but it still has the relevant bits for this discussion.  The character is defined by a number of two-word traits, and in the course of play you will likely remove and replace those words.  At any given moment, you abide by the list, but action then forces you to change the list.



> We are both too damn sure of our own beliefs, and I know that yours read like poorly considered nonsense to me, and I suspect you must think the same of me.




If you are not coming into the discussion to *learn*, then there's not much point in discussing.  And certainly, if you are not enjoying it, you should stop.  There is no point scoring - there will be no "loss" if you fail to respond to a post, and the other guy gets the last word.

As for the latter, I think that's at least in part an issue of how your writing styles interact.  You both get very wordy, and tend to wander over topics - as a third party, at least, it becomes difficult to figure out what points either of you are trying to make much of the time.  You also both tend to get very theoretical, and it is not always clear if the things you two seem deeply concerned with are really issues in practical play for anyone other than yourselves.  You both seem to be strongly purists, and I am not at all convinced real play follows either of your prescriptions tightly enough to support your positions.


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## Aenghus (Oct 30, 2015)

Some players enjoy Capital "D" Drama and make a point of wringing every last drop of Drama out of a character. Some such drop characters like an empty juicebox once they have run out of juice. After all, there's always a new PC concept or ten, as yet untapped for Drama.

Other players exist who don't enjoy "Drama" in and of itself and are content to run a character more or less as initially conceived as long as they are permitted to do so. They may learn and develop in small incremental ways but massive change is neither expected nor wanted.

It can get confusing when a PC happens  to have lots of Big "D" Dramatic potential, but his or her player isn't interested in investigating it. Players often haven't enough self-knowledge to indicate how much or how little Drama they want from a character, and what areas of roleplay are preferred, acceptable or unacceptable. So you can end up with a situation where a referee throws lots of Drama at such a player, who fumbles or rejects it, and probably results in a real world drama of misunderstandings and crossed signals.

IMO making players choose between their fun and in-game success is invidious and something to be strenuously avoided.


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## pemerton (Oct 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> You both seem to be strongly purists, and I am not at all convinced real play follows either of your prescriptions tightly enough to support your positions.



Umbran, I'm still in the room!

On "purism": I don't think it can be true _both_ that my game is not distinguishable from Celebrim's (or anyone elses) _and_ that my game is something that Celebrim (and others) reject. I know the latter to be the case, from threads like this one, plus a billion 4e threads, plus this thread, plus, plus, plus. Hence I infer that there _is_ a difference.

My own view is that Edwards, in some of the passages I've already quoted in this thread, identifies some of the broad differences of technique and approach involved.

If you want to know what my actual play looks like, I've got plenty of posts on these boards - mostly 4e but also BW and MHRP.



Celebrim said:


> It would appear your own evidence contradicts your theory that the contract to play your character doesn't exist in Burning Wheel.



The passage you quote as the contradictory evidence doesn't say anything about "playing your character". It talks about "wriggling out of a difficult situation". This is because _difficult situations_ are intended to be at the heart of the game. The game awards "artha" - BW's term for fate/hero points - in the following circumstance (among others):

If a player comes to a point in the story where his Beliefs, Instincts and traits conflict with a decision he must make - a direction in which he must go - and he plays out the inner turmoil, the conflict within his own guts, in a believable and engaging manner, then he earns a persona point.​
This reinforces that the "contract" of the game is not to stick to character, but to engage with the dramatic pressures upon the character and actually play out the resulting transformation.



Umbran said:


> it is less that you don't intend to abide by your traits, and is rather more that since play is not pre-determined, you don't know which ones will change in what way, and their interactions impact the course of play.  If you don't write them down, you don't have anything to play with!



This is the bit of Umbran's post that I gave XP for.


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## Umbran (Oct 30, 2015)

pemerton said:


> On "purism": I don't think it can be true _both_ that my game is not distinguishable from Celebrim's (or anyone elses) _and_ that my game is something that Celebrim (and others) reject.




In the realm of, "not being able to tell what your point is," what you say here is an example.

I didn't say you were indistinguishable.  That word never appeared. I said that you both spoke like purists - if I said one of you was Chaotic Neutral, and the other Lawful Neutral, you'd both be purists, but entirely distinguishable.  And each of you would reject the other's theory of How Things Really Work.  And, for both of you, what you spoke about would not match most people's everyday experience (if we take the standard that most people in the world are actually Neutral/unaligned).

I don't see how you got to your statement with mine as referent.  So, I can't see what the point really is.



> If you want to know what my actual play looks like, I've got plenty of posts on these boards - mostly 4e but also BW and MHRP.




What your actual play looks like is secondary.  I'm comparing your *theory discussion* with actual play - not at your tables, but at the vague 'average table'.

Basically, I'm suggesting that when you two go at it, your lines get so rarified that they lose the more general thread of, "doing things to make the table fun".  Much like Edwards, in that sense.


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## pemerton (Oct 31, 2015)

Umbran said:


> for both of you, what you spoke about would not match most people's everyday experience (if we take the standard that most people in the world are actually Neutral/unaligned).
> 
> <snip
> 
> What your actual play looks like is secondary.  I'm comparing your *theory discussion* with actual play - not at your tables, but at the vague 'average table'.



What my actual play looks like isn't secondary to me, though. It's pretty central.

It's central in at least two ways. First, it's what I'm trying to improve, and many posters on ENworld offer useful advice and commentary.

Second, it contributes to my understanding of what is possible in RPGing, in the simple sense that _if I've done it, then I know it can be done_.

It's not my goal, as a poster, to articulate anyone else's experience of RPGing, except in the sense of contesting characterisations of what is _essential_ to RPGing that are overly narrow. Some of that contestation takes the form of posting my own experience. Some of it takes the form of posting passages from rulebooks, Dragon magazines etc (eg in a recent paladin thread one poster asserted that alignment debates were a new thing; my response was to post some alignment debate articles from late 70s through mid 80s Dragon).

I tend to think that, once you notice that these multiple ways of RPGing exist, about 90% of threads around "problem players", alignment and paladins, "dissociated mechanics", railroading and the like can be seen to have, at their base, differences of preference as to RPGing techniques. That's why I think it is helpful to identify and talk about different techniques. Instead of telling people that they're bad roleplayers, we can talk about different ways of achieving different RPG experiences.

But you can notice these differences of technique, and talk meaningfully about them, without actually wanting to use them. I don't care if anyone takes the same approach as me, or not. I'm just inviting them to note that these other things exist, and in many cases have existed for as long as the hobby has been around (or nearly so).


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## Aiwendil (Nov 1, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> With a very few exceptions, most everything produced out of the Indy gaming scene reads and plays like the goal of gaming is to recreate the experience of being on a team working together on a B rate movie script.




I realize this is from way back in the thread (which I am only slowly reading through), but I just had to thank you for so perfectly encapsulating exactly the way I feel about most narrativist games, and FATE in particular, in that one sentence.


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## Neonchameleon (Nov 1, 2015)

Aiwendil said:


> I realize this is from way back in the thread (which I am only slowly reading through), but I just had to thank you for so perfectly encapsulating exactly the way I feel about most narrativist games, and FATE in particular, in that one sentence.




And even as a fan of Fate I'm not going to disagree with that assessment of either Fate or Cortex+  (I am going to say that second rate movie is better than two thirds of Holywood's output, but that's a side issue). But that's only one strand -the Apocalypse World family manages to be more immersive than anything else I've played.


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## Umbran (Nov 2, 2015)

Neonchameleon said:


> And even as a fan of Fate I'm not going to disagree with that assessment of either Fate or Cortex+




I agree.  I had a really cool experience with FATE Accelerated used for a horror/dreamscape game that had some far better than B-grade themes and character development.


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## pemerton (Nov 5, 2015)

A friend has been cleaning out his old RPG stuff, and so I acquired and have been reading a copy of _The Traveller Book_. This is a compilation and slight update of the classic black books, dated 1982 (my copy of the black books is dated 1977).

One of the areas of updating is in the "how to play" text. The original black books are rather sparse in this respect, although they do have some things to say:

The scenario resembles a science-fiction novel, in that some basic goal or purpose is stated, and the adventure occurs as the group strives to achieve the goal. (Book 1, p 2)

A group involved in playing a scenario or a campaign can make their adventures more elaborate, more detailed, more interesting with the input of a great deal of imagination. . . .

One very interesting source of assistance . . . is the existing science fiction literature. Virtually anything mentioned in a story or article can be transferred to the _Traveller_ environment. . . . with imagination being the only limit. (Book 3, p 44)​
_The Traveller Book_ is a bit more elaborate. There is this on adventure design and play (pp 1, 9, 12, 123):

The referee presents the situation while the players are themselves the characters in this unfolding novel of the moment. Working together as a team, the players solve the riddles set out before them and play out the situation. All action takes place in the imagination of the players as they sit around the table and discuss the fictional events swirling around them. . . .

The enjoyment and interest of *Traveller* come from both the individual creation of imaginative futuristic scenes and from the participation in groups that react to these surroundings. . . .

*Traveller* is set against that background drawn from adventure oriented science fiction. The scope and breadth of this game are limited only by the imagination and skill of the players and their referee. . . . [A]lmost any situation which occurs in a science fiction novel, movie or short story can be recreated with only a little work on the part of the referee. . . .

Most *Traveller* adventures come from the referee's own imagination. Each new world is an opportunity for the referee to present a new situation to the players . . .

A scenario is like a science fiction novel; the players are given some specific goal and the adventure occurs as they try to attain it. . . . Create a scenario as you would a story, with something to be achieved and difficulties strewn in the path of that goal. Scenarios can be as complex as the referee feels necessary, ranging from the simplest plot devices to complex adventure worthy of a great adventure writer. . . .

The choreographed novel involves a setting already thought out by the referee and presented to the players; it may be any of the above settings [starship, building, natural feature, world], but contains predetermined elements. As such, the referee has already developed characters and settings which bear on the group's activities, and they are guided gently to the proper locations. Properly done, the players never know that the referee has manipulated them to a fore-ordained goal.​
There is this on encounters (pp 98-99):

Encounters are the prime focus in *Traveller*. Through them, player characters meet and interact with non-player characters (NPCs), events, animals, and other interesting phenomena. The direction and the tone of adventures is inevitably influenced by the type of individuals encountered in the course of the adventurer's travels. . . . During the course of an encounter, the referee builds the situation, presents any appropriate reactions, and administers any activity that may be called for. . . .

Encounters with non-player characters serve as the referee's vehicle for direction and input during adventures. The proper presentation of non-player characters can provide players with transportation, information, or other assistance if reactions are appropriate. Non-player characters can also use violence (or the threat of violence) to redirect activity toward more reasonable goals. . . .

At times, the otherwise routine encounter may be used by the referee to further the events of the adventure. . . .

Often, the player characters acquire a goal and then proceed to accomplish it. In the course of this activity, they are necessarily thrown into contact with a wide variety of individuals who are somehow related to the mission. . . . Such encounters . . . are generated by the referee as required.​
And there is this on player characters (pp 1, 9-10, 14):

The rules also instruct the reader in the techniques of generating unique fictional characters with specific attributes and skills . . . 

As role-players, readers assume the identities of their imaginary characters, seeing the future through those eyes and reacging as the captain of a starship, a down-and-out spacehande, an Imperial courier, or some other future adventurer. . . .

A character has a past and can be more than just a series of numbers on a sheet of paper. . . .

During the first adventuring session . . . take a moment to determine a little background data. Why are the characters where they are, and why are they together? Working out this background data will help the players get into their roles. A close examination of the characters themselves can often help with this. Are several of the characters former navy personnel? Obviously they met in the service and became friends, deciding to seek their fortunes after they were all discharged on the same planet. Perhaps the characters are distantly related, or have mutual friends, or are old schoolchums. A little imagination can come up with a reason why these people want to try a group effort, and will give the players some clues to later behaviour.​
The role of imagination is emphasised a great deal: it's there in 1977, and recurs repeatedly in 1982. Likewise the idea of taking inspiration from science fiction literature.

But in the 1982 text, a conception of the referee as making the pre-eminent contribution to the direction of the player begins to emerge pretty strongly ("fore-ordained goal", "reasonable goals", "direction", etc). The idea of players playing their PCs in accordance with a character backstory also emerges clearly ("a character has a past", "background data", "clues to later behaviour", etc).

The idea of a _shared fiction_ is pretty clearly there in the 1982 text, and of RPG play having some fairly intimate connection to creating or participating in a story.


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## pemerton (Nov 6, 2015)

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] - I noticed you've been reading a sandboxing/railroading/sdcene-framing thread and thought you might be interested in the post above. The stuff from 1982's _The Traveller Book_ about the centrality of encounters, together with the uncertainty over whether its the function of encounters to let the players drive things or instead let the GM manipulate the players, could easily be found in any mainstream roleplaying book from the last decade.

As part of my friend's RPG cull I also got a copy of Best of White Dwarf Scenarios 3, which includes "Irilian", the city and adventure published over 6 episodes from no. 42 to no. 47. In the first episode (WD 42, 1983), the action commences with the PCs witnessing an orcish ambush of a dwarven caravan.

The writing assumes without comment that the PCs will aid the dwarves. After statting out the dwarves and orcs and giving some tactical commentary, it has the following:

If the party successfully aids the dwarfs, they will be thanked . . . and asked to act as guards . . . for a (negotiable) percentage of the value of the goods in the caravan . . . The percentage should be enough to convince the party that honesty is the best policy . . . The party should accept the offer.​
I haven't read the next five parts yet, but I'm not expecting the foot to come off the railroaded "story" accelerator. The first part, for instance, concludes with the city gates being locked so the caravan can't get in, a group of undead pursuing the caravan, and

a figure beckoning the party . . . dressed in a black shroud, the cowl of which is thrown back to reveal a death's head. The wind, whipping madly at the shroud, will show beneath, black armour emblazoned with a skull.​
Naturally this sinister-looking figure is a NG cleric of the local undead-hating death god! The adventure clearly wants to trick the players, or at least generate doubt as to this NPC's intentions, but also proceeds on the assumption that the caravan and PCs will take shelter in this NPC's graveyard redoubt.

This scenario combines the "hook" which the players are assumed to accept with an assumption that the PCs are rootless wanderers who have no knowledge of the local environment (at another point the writer says that "From conversations with the dwarfs and the owners of the Trading Post, the party will be able to learn the following about Irilian"), and have no other reason for being or for acting outside of these quasi-mercenary yet quasi-heroic hooks that come their way.

The "hook" could be straight from any WoTC adventure module, and I imagine wouldn't be out of place in at least some of Paizo's APs. The idea that the PCs are essentially strangers in the gameworld, such that they no know more than the players do, as doled out by the GM, _but need that knowledge to succeed in the adventure_, is another aspect of play that I think remains pretty common. Though the particular style of "trick" with the death cleric I think belongs more to the 90s style of adventure, that takes some pleasure in making the players (and PCs) look like incompetent dolts, than to the more recent WotC-style; I don't know if Paizo uses that sort of device in its APs or not.

Of course this sort of stuff is a million miles from classic dungeon crawling, but that distance had already been traversed by the early 1980s.


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## S'mon (Nov 6, 2015)

Hi  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - yeah my sandbox Wilderlands 5e sword & sorcery sandbox game is going very well (up to session 44 - http://smons.blogspot.co.uk/ - NSFW) - for hints & tips I recently tried Googling "D&D sandbox", and mostly got links to ENW threads I'd posted in. 
One reason this game is so compelling is the Dramatist content derived from my prior 4e Wilderlands game ca 2010, the whole Neo-Nerath vs Barbarian Altanians theme based on real-world ethnic conflict (I was thinking both 1990s Balkans & South Africa) gives it a lot more dramatic depth in play.

I ran Irillian back in the 1980s, it's a linear adventure set in a sandbox-detailed city. By 1990s standards the railroading is mild. Still it might be best to ignore the adventure and just use the city.
Paizo APs do not take pleasure in making players look stupid from what I've seen; Americans generally have low tolerance for such shenanigans. 

Re Traveller, I've never had any idea how to run it, other than published scenarios (I ran the intro Travelle the New Era adventure, which was ok). I have the same block with Star Wars, Call of Cthulu, and other non-D&D genres.


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## Parmandur (Nov 7, 2015)

Traveller seems to be a pretty dfair example of got how inadequate the Forge theory labels are, and how bizarre the claim about "games are only code breaking, period" really is.


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## innerdude (Nov 7, 2015)

pemerton said:


> ... snip a major chunk of interesting and relevant text ...
> 
> The idea of a _shared fiction_ is pretty clearly there in the 1982 text, and of RPG play having some fairly intimate connection to creating or participating in a story.




Yeah, this pretty much wholly debunks [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]'s ongoing theories.

The only real defense against this would be to say, "The creator of Traveller was wrong, and didn't know what he was doing, and anyone who listens to him or gives any credence to what he says is just as wrong."


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## pemerton (Nov 7, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> Traveller seems to be a pretty dfair example of got how inadequate the Forge theory labels are



What have you got in mind?

From the point of view who has found the Forge categories useful, I think of Traveller as pretty hardcore sim, with a very strong purist-for-system component. But I'm interested to hear what you think is being missed or misdescribed here.

In his Sim essay, Edwards says this about Traveller:

I just realized that the original Traveller, or at least one way to play it, represents an example of this approach. Star system and planet creation are written right into the process of play, such that adventures and missions become not only a means of enjoying and improving characters, but also a means of enjoying and basically mapping the game-space. This is very distinct from later versions of Traveller ["specifically in its mid-80s through mid-90s form"], which were emphatically High Concept with a Setting emphasis. (Oh, and just for credit where it's due, I should also mention that Traveller pioneered the mechanics of overt character-creation-as-play.)​
Like [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], I've tended to find Traveller a challenging game to play and run. (Though very easy to build PCs for!)


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## S'mon (Nov 7, 2015)

pemerton said:


> Like [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], I've tended to find Traveller a challenging game to play and run. (Though very easy to build PCs for!)




I guess now that I understand sandboxing a bit better these days I might be able to make Classic Traveller work. The big issue I found was that it seemed to be two different games:

(a) What these days we'd call a hexcrawl sandbox across the galaxy, wonderfully reproduced in the 1980s computer game 'Elite'

(b) A mission-of-the-week game where Patrons sit in Starports and hire you to do pre-detailed adventures.

I guess I'd always thought of Traveller as being 'really' about (b), the missions, which then wastes all the procedural content generation. And as an adventure-of-the-week game it looks a bit bland. But maybe if I created a Traveller sandbox the way I do for D&D it'd be a good game. 
One problem I see with Traveller sandboxing is that it seems to be "all Sim, no Gamism" - no XP to advance your PCs; not even a clear link between money and power since there isn't really gear or magic items that unlocks at particular wealth levels. You're expected to pretty much stick with the merchant ship you began with and your income goes to paying off the mortgage, ie you adventure just to maintain the status quo!


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## pemerton (Nov 7, 2015)

S'mon said:


> I guess now that I understand sandboxing a bit better these days I might be able to make Classic Traveller work. The big issue I found was that it seemed to be two different games:
> 
> (a) What these days we'd call a hexcrawl sandbox across the galaxy, wonderfully reproduced in the 1980s computer game 'Elite'
> 
> (b) A mission-of-the-week game where Patrons sit in Starports and hire you to do pre-detailed adventures.



I _think_ that (a) and (b) may have been expected to interact to a high degree - ie the patron missions weren't pre-generated, and would send you off on something of a hex-crawl.

The 1982 book certainly draws (what it seems to think is) an important distinction between ordinary patron encounters and pre-written scenarios.



S'mon said:


> as an adventure-of-the-week game it looks a bit bland.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> One problem I see with Traveller sandboxing is that it seems to be "all Sim, no Gamism" - no XP to advance your PCs; not even a clear link between money and power since there isn't really gear or magic items that unlocks at particular wealth levels. You're expected to pretty much stick with the merchant ship you began with and your income goes to paying off the mortgage, ie you adventure just to maintain the status quo!



I agree with this diagnosis. It's a bit bland. The stakes never really seem to reach even Star Trek weekly TV levels, let alone Star Wars levels.

I think that some of the ways that Burning Wheel approaches this sort of ultra-gritty, adventure-just-to-keep-heads-above-water style of game might be applicable to Traveller. In lieu of XP, you'd want some sort of character trait/relationship driven meta-game currency.


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## S'mon (Nov 7, 2015)

pemerton said:


> I think that some of the ways that Burning Wheel approaches this sort of ultra-gritty, adventure-just-to-keep-heads-above-water style of game might be applicable to Traveller. In lieu of XP, you'd want some sort of character trait/relationship driven meta-game currency.




I think I would avoid metagame resources, but I would want a sim-dramatist tone with a lot of emphasis on NPC relationships and interactions. I did run a Traveller: The New Era PBEM many years ago, Sector Antaris (PCs on a diplomatic mission for a private survey corporation, establishing links with isolated world Nuevos Akaeros) that was quite successful because it emphasised character interactions - it stalled a bit due to me not grokking the starship combat rules, always a bete noir of mine. The good stuff was pretty much freeform.


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## Parmandur (Nov 7, 2015)

In that Traveller has elements that you can label "Simulationist" (pretty hardcore, true), bit is also deeply invested in "Narrativist" elements (also pretty hardcore), but the game play itself is highly abstract, fast-paced and fun; one might say Gamey.

The tripartite division is too generalized, actual RPGs designed outside of that paradigm do not for categorization as easily as those folks thought.


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## Parmandur (Nov 7, 2015)

innerdude said:


> Yeah, this pretty much wholly debunks   [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION]'s ongoing theories.
> 
> The only real defense against this would be to say, "The creator of Traveller was wrong, and didn't know what he was doing, and anyone who listens to him or gives any credence to what he says is just as wrong."






I am not sure where  [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] got his basic definition of words, since it contradicts both dictionaries and the definitions provides by all of the founders of the hobby?



Unless he wants to argue that Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and Marc Miller were Marxist theorists working to undermine the norms of "gamer culture."


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## howandwhy99 (Nov 8, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> I am not sure where  [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] got his basic definition of words, since it contradicts both dictionaries and the definitions provides by all of the founders of the hobby?
> 
> 
> 
> Unless he wants to argue that Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and Marc Miller were Marxist theorists working to undermine the norms of "gamer culture."



FYI, D&D is designed based upon wargaming theory from the 60s and early 70s. All of which has clearly been expunged from the hobby and none of which you could ever find in the Big Model. That model isn't even about games, but collaborative storytelling.


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## Neonchameleon (Nov 8, 2015)

howandwhy99 said:


> FYI, D&D is designed based upon wargaming theory from the 60s and early 70s. All of which has clearly been expunged from the hobby and none of which you could ever find in the Big Model. That model isn't even about games, but collaborative storytelling.




FYI D&D is based on a subversion of wargaming from the 60s and early 70s - one in which Arneson in particular rejected the official victory conditions, routes to victory, and roles imposed by the game. If your definitions have anything at all to do with wargaming theory from back then, D&D stands as a stark rejection of them.

And the Big Model is a theory of RPGs not wargames anyway. And is so broad a theory that it can cover anything from wargames to cooking brunch - which is why it is useless as a practical theory.


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## S'mon (Nov 8, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> In that Traveller has elements that you can label "Simulationist" (pretty hardcore, true), bit is also deeply invested in "Narrativist" elements (also pretty hardcore), but the game play itself is highly abstract, fast-paced and fun; one might say Gamey.
> 
> The tripartite division is too generalized, actual RPGs designed outside of that paradigm do not for categorization as easily as those folks thought.




I haven't seen any Dramatist or Narrativist elements at all in Traveller design. The 
Patrons-mission thing is arguably more Gamey than Simulationist, but overall Traveller looks like hardcore Sim design to me. GDW was always big on Simulation, you see it in Twilight: 2000 and their other games. In The New Era it overwhelmed the game play, as written the players are expected to be calculating Bingo Fuel points and stuff which I can't imagine is fun for most players - and since players had to do this stuff on pocket calculators not advanced computers, not really 'realistic' - though a good emulation of 1960s 'imperial' sf!


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## Parmandur (Nov 8, 2015)

S'mon said:


> I haven't seen any Dramatist or Narrativist elements at all in Traveller design. The
> 
> Patrons-mission thing is arguably more Gamey than Simulationist, but overall Traveller looks like hardcore Sim design to me. GDW was always big on Simulation, you see it in Twilight: 2000 and their other games. In The New Era it overwhelmed the game play, as written the players are expected to be calculating Bingo Fuel points and stuff which I can't imagine is fun for most players - and since players had to do this stuff on pocket calculators not advanced computers, not really 'realistic' - though a good emulation of 1960s 'imperial' sf!





Speaking as someone who studied English literature, the math is not hard (can't speak to the New Era fiasco).  As the quotes [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] surfaced show, the narrative was a big focus, the primary one.  The theory nonsense is too...dividing in approach.


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## S'mon (Nov 8, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> Speaking as someone who studied English literature, the math is not hard (can't speak to the New Era fiasco).




Oh, Classic Traveller math was ok - they didn't worry about sublight fuel consumption.


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## pemerton (Nov 8, 2015)

S'mon said:


> Iplayers had to do this stuff on pocket calculators not advanced computers, not really 'realistic'





S'mon said:


> Classic Traveller math was ok - they didn't worry about sublight fuel consumption.



Although the use of vector addition for starship combat manoeuvring has some of the same features. The players have to do all this by visual simulation rather than the sophisticated computing that their PCs presumably have access to (even allowing for the relative primitiveness of Traveller's computer technology).


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## Balesir (Nov 9, 2015)

Celebrim said:


> As I said, playing yourself is a subset of the agenda and requirement to play your character.  If you are playing yourself, then injecting yourself into the character is entirely appropriate because that is who your character is.



What I am trying to explain is something that is difficult to put into words since it deals with mental agendas, intent and the ways in which we may seek a "buzz" or mental stimulation from roleplaying. If you are merely going to pick at the semantics in order to "prove" any view but your own wrong, then nothing I can say will change the situation, so I'll stop.

I'll simply state that I believe that Edwards did a good job in identifying three agendas that are clearly, once understood, quite distinct and self-contained (although they can be blended in the same person, and even in the same game, as Edwards said). I would be very open to anyone coming up with a fourth, but I have yet to see it.



S'mon said:


> One problem I see with Traveller sandboxing is that it seems to be "all Sim, no Gamism" - no XP to advance your PCs; not even a clear link between money and power since there isn't really gear or magic items that unlocks at particular wealth levels. You're expected to pretty much stick with the merchant ship you began with and your income goes to paying off the mortgage, ie you adventure just to maintain the status quo!



I think the lack of gamist reward cycles is what makes Traveller one of two truly pure Sim games, actually, and I like them both. The other is HârnMaster.

Play with both systems is interesting to me, because finding a good focus for Sim play can be tricky, as you seem to be saying here. I have generally found that it helps to go back to the source - exploration.

Pick an aspect or a specific to explore - in general terms this can be setting, situation, character or even system - and make it interesting, with some complexity and/or secrets to be found. Then let the players play and use the system to facilitate the exploration. I don't mean set up incipient conflict, necessarily (as you would to encourage Nar or Gam play), but just agree an interesting area to play with. Examples I have used:

- Traveller had an intriguing supplement called "Pocket Empires" containing Simmy rules on running a planet or a small empire. I set the players up as the noble "family" with wealth and resources in the "Milieu 0" setting, unpopular with the new Emperor and with every incentive to leave and form a private empire in the (randomly generated) space beyond.

- In HârnMaster, a small group of friends are all Shek-Pvar (mages) of some experience living in a wilderness "cottage"/chantry. One night one of them gets a spectacular blowback with some very "interesting" effects. The players play the characters who did not get the blowback, exploring their situation... (This was a one-off for a Con)

- The players play members of a military unit. The character generation system is used to generate missions that they are sent on, each one a situation to explore.

The focus is on the exploration itself, so it helps if there is something interesting to explore.


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## S'mon (Nov 10, 2015)

Balesir said:


> I think the lack of gamist reward cycles is what makes Traveller one of two truly pure Sim games, actually, and I like them both. The other is HârnMaster.
> 
> Play with both systems is interesting to me, because finding a good focus for Sim play can be tricky, as you seem to be saying here. I have generally found that it helps to go back to the source - exploration.
> 
> ...




That seems like excellent advice, yes. My Traveller Starter Set says "Take a Science Fiction Odyssey to the Distant Worlds of the Galaxy" - and Traveller's procedural content generators seem ideally set up for exploration, much more than for the 'mercenary strike team mission' which I think is typical of Patron play.


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## Balesir (Nov 10, 2015)

S'mon said:


> That seems like excellent advice, yes. My Traveller Starter Set says "Take a Science Fiction Odyssey to the Distant Worlds of the Galaxy" - and Traveller's procedural content generators seem ideally set up for exploration, much more than for the 'mercenary strike team mission' which I think is typical of Patron play.



This makes me think that the "patron" style play was a sort of pandering to gamist sensibilities, and as such I would see it as a mistake, for Traveller as written. Add some sort of "experience" system, though, and you could have a gritty gamist vehicle. Some of the calls for "character advancement" systems, and some of the houserules I saw to provide such a thing, suggest that there may well have been folk enjoying just such a game. This would fit nicely into what Edwards calls "drift".

The exploration of Setting (the "Odyssey to the Distant Worlds of the Galaxy") is clearly a leading possibility, but I mentioned a couple of Situation explorations above, rigorously applying the random determination for encounters and worlds leads to an exploration of System (which, frankly, sounds like what [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] is proposing, leavened with a dose of gamism in the individual encounters) and I think explorations of Character cover most immersionist play. I had originally discounted Colour, the last of Edwards' RPG elements, as a focus of exploration, but on reflection I'm not sure I was right to. I can see an exploration of the game world where adding description and details of the character experience - either given to the player(s) by the GM in immersive play or created collaboratively - could make for an enjoyable excercise, from a certain perspective.

So, my suggestion would be modified to: focus on exploration of anything you like. Classifications under which to find inspiration about an exploratory focus might usefully be the elements of an RPG given by Edwards: Setting, Situation, Character, System and Colour. Any of the classifications could yield a suitable focus for exploration.


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