# Worlds of Design: What Defines a RPG?



## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

What differentiates a RPG from a boardgame? _The fiction matters to resolution_.

What differentiates a RPG from a wargame? _The non-referee participants plays a single figure rather than a unit, a tank, a vessel, etc_.

Put these together and I would say that a RPG is a game in which the non-referee participants play single persons (typically one each, but sometimes more than one each). Their 'moves" in the game consist primarily in saying what those persons do. And the resolution of those moves - which are declared actions, quite a bit like a wargame - depends at least in part on the fiction that all the participants agree is part of the ingame situation.

Compared to @lewpuls I think that cooperation is not so important (consider RPGing with one player and one GM/referee; or an Apocalypse World game where the PCs "hang out" in the same place but don't really work together), and nor is character improvement (Classic Traveller is a well-known example which has no "internal" improvement, only money and gear; and it's possible to play Traveller with the money and gear being in a net outflow rather than inflow!).

The more that a non-GM/referee participant's move can be adjudicated without engaging with the fiction of _what is the participant's character doing_, the more we're getting away from RPGing I think. But this is tricky, because it clearly makes no sense to suggest that D&D is not a RPG, yet it's possible to get quite a long way in resolving some D&D combats without ever having to think much about the fiction at all!


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## volanin (Jan 22, 2021)

One of the best definitions I've seen comes from TheAngryGM: What defines a Tabletop RPG is that its rules are _fiction-first_ instead of _mechanics-first_. To put it simply:

In _fiction-first rules_, your actions are only bound by the fiction of the game. You can decide to do anything that fits the situation, and then you check the rules to see which one better suits your action. This is only possible because we have one or more human GMs to adjudicate these actions (even in GMless games, where everyone is technically a GM).

In _mechanics-first rules_, your actions are bound by the game mechanics. First you look at the rules, and then you decide your action based on what the rules allow you to do. We have this in boardgames and videogames (even electronic RPG games, although they do have avatars, progressive improvement and cooperation).



> The GM also allows the players to try to do “anything” that could be done in the current situation. Some regard this freedom-of-action (extreme player agency) as the defining aspect of RPGs, and it’s certainly vital; but think of a story RPG where the linear plot (typical of stories) forces players to do just what the story calls for. That’s not freedom of action. Yet story form may be the most common form of tabletop RPG.




This was almost on target, but I have to disagree on the "linear plot" argument. Even in the most railroaded of games, with a very linear story, you have _fiction-first_ characteristics. As long as I'm not breaking the story, no GM would be against me trying to swing from a chandellier to hit an enemy, or trying to seduce the empress. And that's why linear Tabletop RPGs and linear Electronic RPGs feel so different.


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## Umbran (Jan 22, 2021)

Yeah, I'm sorry, but... the OP has some major flaws.

Specifically, I want to call out "Progressive Improvement".  By that measure, if you play one session of a game, it fails to be an RPG.  I reject that notion entirely as being nonsensical.

I submit that RPGs are a genre of game.  And much like genres of fiction, they benefit from an inclusive approach to definition.  List a bunch of elements that are common in RPGs.  If a game has enough of the elements (for some value of "enough"), it is an RPG.  It does not need to have _all_ the tropes.  It may even be missing some that you personally feel are important.  So, while progressive improvement is common, and even desirable, it isn't _necessary_.

Also note that being an RPG doesn't mean a game isn't also something else.  Just as in fiction, where you can have things like the "space-western", games can fit multiple genres at once - they aren't mutually exclusive.  Maybe an RPG is _also_ a storytelling game, or _also_ a board game, or _also_ a computer game, or _also_ a tactical wargame.

This can remove a whole lot of angst from your conversation.  Embrace the power of "and", rather than "exclusive-or".


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## Umbran (Jan 22, 2021)

I will add that the desire to draw strong lines around RPGs has, historically, seemed to be less about wanting to actually understand our hobby, and more to do with gatekeeping and tribalism. 

If it makes you _feel_ good (or perhaps smug) to say, "Those people aren't playing an RPG, they are playing a storytelling game," then that definition is about your feelings, not about the games.


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## DemoMonkey (Jan 22, 2021)

_"I will add that the desire to draw strong lines around RPGs has, historically, seemed to be less about wanting to actually understand our hobby, and more to do with gatekeeping and tribalism."_

You say that as if it's a bad thing.


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## DemoMonkey (Jan 22, 2021)

So, would "Honey Heist" be an RPG by the above definition?


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## Umbran (Jan 22, 2021)

DemoMonkey said:


> _"I will add that the desire to draw strong lines around RPGs has, historically, seemed to be less about wanting to actually understand our hobby, and more to do with gatekeeping and tribalism."_
> 
> You say that as if it's a bad thing.




Yes.  Yes I do.


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## dragoner (Jan 22, 2021)

Umbran said:


> "Those people aren't playing an RPG, they are playing a storytelling game," then that definition is about your feelings, not about the games.



It is also terminology co-opted by alt right, white supremacists, fascists, and such; and as such, sort of a call out to them, fellow travelers. So people that use such terminology should not be surprised when it elicits a harsh and negative reaction. I come here to game, and relax, not remember or re-live what happened to my family in the 1940's. If someone wants to discuss an idea similar to storytelling, then the onus on them is to come up with new terminology, but that is also wandering into a minefield.

Per OP, my definition is a game in where you play a role. Now that could be Clue, according to KISS or scientific parsimony, and I don't care? Fine with me, it is what one makes of it, and I sincerely wish one has fun. I also think you should make the character you want to play because it could be the last character you ever play, and why waste time with doing something else? That is important.

I know others do not feel this way, and that is fine too, because I am not trying to be some "fun fuehrer" and tell people how to play their games. I guess one does have to make up some sort of controversy, to have something to talk about though.


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## Umbran (Jan 22, 2021)

dragoner said:


> I know others do not feel this way, and that is fine too, because I am not trying to be some "fun fuehrer" and tell people how to play their games. I guess one does have to make up some sort of controversy, to have something to talk about though.




So, this comes across... badly.  "I'm not telling you what to do, but I _AM_ going to denigrate your discussion as made-up controversy."  Maybe you don't realize how this will read as rather passive-aggressive and judgmental, and thus helping to create the very controversy you say is made-up.


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## dragoner (Jan 22, 2021)

Umbran said:


> So, this comes across... badly.  "I'm not telling you what to do, but I _AM_ going to denigrate your discussion as made-up controversy."  Maybe you don't realize how this will read as rather passive-aggressive and judgmental, and thus helping to create the very controversy you say is made-up.



So? Maybe it is that way to you, except some of us are from outside the western hemisphere. Try to see the way people outside might look at things.


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## Lord Mhoram (Jan 22, 2021)

To me the original post is one step removed form of Edition-warrior speak.

Instead of "This edition is the real game and this other edition isn't" it's "This game is an RPG and that one one isn't"


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## Dire Bare (Jan 22, 2021)

dragoner said:


> So? Maybe it is that way to you, except some of us are from outside the western hemisphere. Try to see the way people outside might look at things.



What does your hemisphere, East or West, have to do with you being passive-aggressive and judgmental, accusing folks of "making up controversy"?


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## Dire Bare (Jan 22, 2021)

Lord Mhoram said:


> To me the original post is one step removed form of Edition-warrior speak.
> 
> Instead of "This edition is the real game and this other edition isn't" it's "This game is an RPG and that one one isn't"



Yeah.

It reminds me of the conversations discussing whether RPGs, and other games, are forms of art. Some folks get REALLY caught up in insisting they are not, in any way, shape, or form, artistic endeavors.


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## dragoner (Jan 22, 2021)

Dire Bare said:


> What does your hemisphere, East or West, have to do with you being passive-aggressive and judgmental, accusing folks of "making up controversy"?



How would I know? I am not a mind reader. Try to confront what I said, or follow der kommissar there and attack me personally. /shrug


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## MGibster (Jan 22, 2021)

Umbran said:


> I will add that the desire to draw strong lines around RPGs has, historically, seemed to be less about wanting to actually understand our hobby, and more to do with gatekeeping and tribalism.



I tend to favor your power of "and", rather than "exclusive-or" stance.  I once went to a murder mystery part at a friend's house and we all dressed up and played roles.  I wouldn't typically think of that as a role playing game, but why not?


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## zarionofarabel (Jan 22, 2021)

I disagree with the progression part. Let's see...

Classic Traveller has none even over long term play, if I remember correctly. Classic Traveller lacks any rules for progression, or so I was told by an old Traveller grognard.

Mutants & Masterminds characters generally don't progress. The PCs are created at a certain power level and stay there forever. The GM does have the option of increasing the power level if they wish, but steady increases in character ability is not part of a normal campaign.

To me it seems the OP is focused on RPGs being D&D, and those that aren't D&D, somehow, aren't RPGs.


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## billd91 (Jan 22, 2021)

zarionofarabel said:


> I disagree with the progression part. Let's see...
> 
> Classic Traveller has none even over long term play, if I remember correctly. Classic Traveller lacks any rules for progression, or so I was told by an old Traveller grognard.
> 
> ...



Classic Traveller does - at least as of the 1981 printing (I am not certain about 1977). Book 2 covers experience and improving characters over time.

But I generally agree that a means of progressively improving a player's avatar should be unnecessary for an RPG as a defining characteristic. It may be really useful as a player satisfying characteristic because it kind of sucks to play the same character session after session with no sense of making progress toward a better character - be it in skill, inherent characteristic, gear, or prestige. But I don't think it makes sense to require the presence of systemic improvement to qualify as an RPG. Plus, it completely torpedoes the idea that How to Host a Murder parties are RPGs when they pretty clearly are - you have a character/avatar you play via LARP, you have a challenge to overcome (solve the mystery or get away with it) - they're just defined as one-shots and have relatively little replay value.


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## GrahamWills (Jan 22, 2021)

*#1 Avatars*
I agree that an RPG has as a core concept the idea of a _role_ -- "avatar" is a more clear testament of this. Adding the word "pure" in front of that seems overly restrictive, given the link explaining what the OP means by "pure" and the statement "if it dies/is destroyed, the player loses". Clear examples of RPGs where an avatar being destroyed is an expected part of the game and would not be considered a loss are _Paranoia_ and _Pendragon_. In the later, your avatar is a family -- I think the OP would regard this as an "impure avatar". I'm also not happy ruling out games like Toon that have no avatar death and no concept of "losing" that lasts more than 5 minutes of game time. For me, all the qualifications the OP adds eliminate valid examples, or render his critical concept off "loss" trivial to the point of meaningless.

*#2 Progressive Improvement*
This rule would eliminate pretty much every game I have played at a convention. It would make Gen Con "not an RPG" convention. It would mean that if I decided to run a campaign (like a James Bond spy drama) where the fun was in solving problems and finding the bad guys, and no-one ever "levels up", that the game would not be defined as an RPG. This is obviously silly. Just drop this criterion.

*#3 Co-operation*
Not much info given on the OP's point of view except maybe " if it’s player vs player, it’s more or less a board/card game in concept". Apart form defining any one-on-one game as "not roleplaying" (e.g GUMSHOE one-on-one), it also eliminates DramaSystem, which is brutally PvP and has given me some of the best RPG experiences I have enjoyed at a convention, so ... this criterion has to drop also.

*#4* *GMed opposed adventure*
The OP apparently has no experience of RPGs where the role of the GM rotates or is shared  (e.g Fiasco) or he believes those are not RPGs. Since he limits RPGs in #3 to purely co-operative among players, that fits with the notion that a non-player must be the opposition. However, the converse is true -- if the players are allowed be sometimes non-cooperative, then they can provide oppositions. He does make that point in his notes and so his position combines the two into a belief that an RPG requires a defined group of cooperative players against an adversarial GM, and that the roles are fixed. I do not see how giving the players a chance to create opposition prevents a game from being an RPG, so just as I reject #3, I reject this narrow definition of opposition as requiring a GM.
On the other hand, I do agree that opposition is needed. Conflict is at the heart of drama, and roleplaying, I believe, needs to embody drama, so I'm in agreement that opposition is needed. "Adventure" is a very general term, so I have no problems with that!

*In summary*
Removing the parts of the definition that rule out many games that are sold as, and generally regarded as RPGs, we are left with:

*An RPG is an activity where players control avatars and through them are challenged by opposition*.

Not terrible, I think. But it misses out the identification with the avatar that makes a difference between and RPG and RPG-like boardgames like Gloomhaven. Would it be too much of a stretch to say that for an RPG the player is more concerned with the internal state of the avatar, whereas for other games they are more concerned with external state?


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## GrahamWills (Jan 22, 2021)

One way to help clarify definitions is to look at examples. Let's take the game Arkham Horror, and have one player run the rules, bring out the decks and monsters and so on. Let's also say that player also decides that when they draw cards, they'll draw two and choose whichever card is more fun in their opinion. I pick this example, because this is how we play it, and have a ton of fun doing so!

Is this a roleplaying game? If not, why not?
(no wrong answers here -- I'm torn myself as to the answer and I'm interested in how people feel!)


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## Campbell (Jan 22, 2021)

GrahamWills said:


> Not terrible, I think. But it misses out the identification with the avatar that makes a difference between and RPG and RPG-like boardgames like Gloomhaven. Would it be too much of a stretch to say that for an RPG the player is more concerned with the internal state of the avatar, whereas for other games they are more concerned with external state?





While it's definitely true for me personally, I do not think that's really fair. Early D&D does not presume any meaningful level of personal identification with the character.


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## Umbran (Jan 22, 2021)

MGibster said:


> I once went to a murder mystery part at a friend's house and we all dressed up and played roles.  I wouldn't typically think of that as a role playing game, but why not?




What? That's a basic larp, right there.


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## MGibster (Jan 22, 2021)

Umbran said:


> What? That's a basic larp, right there.



That's 100% true.  I don't think most of the other participants would have thought of it in those terms though.  Even as a long time D&D player _I_ didn't think of it that way at the time. It's kind of like how some people who love video games don't recognize "casual" games as real video games.


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## Umbran (Jan 22, 2021)

billd91 said:


> It may be really useful as a player satisfying characteristic because it kind of sucks to play the same character session after session with no sense of making progress toward a better character - be it in skill, inherent characteristic, gear, or prestige.




I think that's kind of assuming the conclusion, though - it sucks to not progress when you _expect_ to progress.

I've recently absorbed the rules for the Sentinel Comics RPG.  It doesn't have progression.  Mind you, you can _totally recreate your character_ every six sessions or so, if the narrative warrants it in your mind.  They'll be the same basic power level, but the character does not need to be _the same_ forever.  You can make the character change to meet the way things have turned out.


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## Arilyn (Jan 22, 2021)

RPGs are really broad. There are GMless systems, solo RPGs, games with one player and one GM. There are the "gentle" RPGs, focussed on journeys and helping. Troupe play allows players control over more than one character. Styles vary in how much players can contribute to the setting. 

We all "know" what constitutes an RPG, and other than the arguments that Umbran pointed out are used to win arguments, I'm not sure that there is a hard and fast definition.


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## MNblockhead (Jan 22, 2021)

It is always interesting to see how some casual attempts at definitions can quickly get emotional and wrapped up in the politics du jour.

Reminds me of grammar discussions and debates between descriptionists and prescriptivists, except I'm increasingly seeing pushback against attempts to define things at all, regardless of whether your are trying to provide a definition as you think it should be or just trying to describe what you observe.


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## Lord Mhoram (Jan 22, 2021)

zarionofarabel said:


> To me it seems the OP is focused on RPGs being D&D, and those that aren't D&D, somehow, aren't RPGs.



I've felt that same bias from his articles before. An example is assuming the only fail state is death or removal of character, when lots of RPGs have non-death fail states.


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## dragoner (Jan 22, 2021)

Arilyn said:


> RPGs are really broad.



It is a big tent. Many of these discussions fall to the side of either theory, or practice. Myself, I find practical is better.



MNblockhead said:


> It is always interesting to see how some casual attempts at definitions can quickly get emotional and wrapped up in the politics du jour.



Our long national nightmare is over.

Nevertheless, when one side hijacks terms, and uses them for decades, it is not surprising when others look at their background. Maybe I'm missing some subtle nuance of the english language though, it would not be the first time.

I remember back in the 90's when this started as Vampire The Masquerade said they were cooler than everyone else as they were storytelling, which elicited a hostile response from people such as Dave Nielsen, line dev of GDW's Traveller New Era back then.


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## MichaelSomething (Jan 22, 2021)

Wouldn't early forms of D&D not count then? Since players could have multiple characters in a single game, or end up running an organization with dozens of followers?


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## dragoner (Jan 22, 2021)

Everything counts in large amounts. D&D's 3/4+ market share means it is always relevant, imo.


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## pemerton (Jan 23, 2021)

MichaelSomething said:


> Wouldn't early forms of D&D not count then? Since players could have multiple characters in a single game, or end up running an organization with dozens of followers?



I touched on this in my post upthread.

I think the key thing is not _how many _"avatars" but rather that the avatar(s) figure(s) in play _as individuals_. So even if a player is playing a PC plus entourage of henchmen etc, those characters figure in play - both the fiction and the mechanical processes of resolving the player's "moves" - as individuals, not as a _squad_, _unit_, _ vessel_, etc.

I don't think RPGIng is wargaming (quite the contrary, as anyone who knows my posting history would realise!) but the historical influence of, and derivation from, single figure wargaming is pretty fundamental I think.


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## Puddles (Jan 23, 2021)

It’s an interesting question. I come from a wargamer background, and there are some wargames that stray incredibly close to RPGs. Take Inquisitor by Games Workshop for example. Players control fighters as individuals, usually controlling 4 each (a leading Inquisitor and their 3 henchmen). There is a GM who creates the scenarios and comes up with rulings on the fly. The characters are created by the players and are encouraged to come up with backstories for them. Actions are declarations and fights play out in an initiative order.

Or take one of the Warhammer Quest games - these are more board games than wargames, but players form a team together, each controlling a single fighter. They explore dungeons (or space dungeons as in Blackstone Fortress), they gain loot, exp, level up, try to beat the GM or the game.

For me, the thing that both these games lack, is the fighters can never move off the table. I can’t just make my fighter pack up and walk in a random direction - or at least there are no rules to adjudicate what happens if I do. These games have campaigns, but they are sporadic and episodic in comparison to an RPG. They are a series of snapshots strung together rather than a single continuing narrative that never needs to take pause.

So for me, an RPG is just a wargame where you can move “off” the battlefield, and go wherever you like.


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## pemerton (Jan 23, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I don't think RPGIng is wargaming (quite the contrary, as anyone who knows my posting history would realise!)





Puddles said:


> So for me, an RPG is just a wargame where you can move “off” the battlefield, and go wherever you like.



This is why I don't think RPGing is wargaming.

_Moving off the battlefield_ is a description of what happens in the fiction. But what actually happens at the table, in the real-world play of the game? What sorts of things do the participants have to do to play a RPG? There are different answers to these questions associated with different approaches to RPGing, but they all involve departures of one sort or another from some of the basic elements of wargaming.


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## dragoner (Jan 23, 2021)

It's funny, I used to joke that Squad leader was my first RPG because it had a blank leader chit one would run through a bunch of missions to improve and keep score. Except of course the truth is that nobody would actually call Squad Leader a RPG. Same as if one walked up to people playing Hive or Catan and said that they were not playing an RPG the reply would be "So?"

So really, it seems that the what is an RPG statement is mostly about edge cases. Having a definition can be good for utility, is that what is happening here?


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## pemerton (Jan 23, 2021)

dragoner said:


> So really, it seems that the what is an RPG statement is mostly about edge cases. Having a definition can be good for utility, is that what is happening here?



I don't find the discussion all that useful in the abstract - other than as a random pastime - but I think the question _what is RPGing_ can be pretty helpful in prompting reflection on RPGing techniques. I have found reading answers to that question - especially but not only from Ron Edwards and Vincent Baker - have had a significant impact on how I approach GMing, and RPGing more generally. They have improved my play.

EDIT: I should add - _what is RPGing_ is a question that admits of multiple answers, although a reasonable degree of overlap is to be expected. But I do think that helpful answers take as their topic _stuff that real people do in the real world_, not stuff that imaginary people do in the worlds of our imaginations.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 23, 2021)

DemoMonkey said:


> _"I will add that the desire to draw strong lines around RPGs has, historically, seemed to be less about wanting to actually understand our hobby, and more to do with gatekeeping and tribalism."_
> 
> You say that as if it's a bad thing.





Umbran said:


> Yes.  Yes I do.



Likewise. Gatekeeping and tribalism have not done RPGs any favors.


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## Umbran (Jan 23, 2021)

dragoner said:


> How would I know? I am not a mind reader. Try to confront what I said, or follow der kommissar there and attack me personally. /shrug




*Mod Note:*
You've just earned yourself a trip out of this thread.


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## loverdrive (Jan 23, 2021)

My definition of role-playing games is very simple: a game with a focus on characters, where said characters get explored _(what would Roderic do?)_ and developed _(how these events would change Roderic?)_. That's it.

Opposition, progression or number of characters is irrelevant.


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## MichaelSomething (Jan 23, 2021)

So Descent counts as an RPG, right??


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## pemerton (Jan 23, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> My definition of role-playing games is very simple: a game with a focus on characters, where said characters get explored _(what would Roderic do?)_ and developed _(how these events would change Roderic?)_. That's it.
> 
> Opposition, progression or number of characters is irrelevant.



My hesitation about this definition is that it tends to define a wargame-y, "skilled play" dungeoncrawl as not RPGing: in that sort of play the character is a game-piece but not really an object of focus beyond that, and doesn't really get explored. And changes in the gamepiece (level gain, in that sort of play) are not driven by events in any meaningful way - "beating" the dungeon will earn the same XP whatever the actual pathway of events that leads to that outcome.


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## billd91 (Jan 23, 2021)

Dire Bare said:


> What does your hemisphere, East or West, have to do with you being passive-aggressive and judgmental, accusing folks of "making up controversy"?



Maybe nothing, but I don’t have a problem with questioning the topic since these “controversies” are fodder for rampant gatekeeping.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 23, 2021)

zarionofarabel said:


> Mutants & Masterminds characters generally don't progress. The PCs are created at a certain power level and stay there forever. The GM does have the option of increasing the power level if they wish, but steady increases in character ability is not part of a normal campaign.




Uhm, while superhero games are _absolutely_ the genre that most often is used at static advancement (and where its most justified), that's absolutely not the default for M&M, which ordinarily gives out a power point per session, and a PL every 15 power points.  It only presents static characters as an option.

I'd suspect you've internalized the way you're used to playing as the default for that system, and its not.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 23, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Likewise. Gatekeeping and tribalism have not done RPGs any favors.




I'd go as far as to describe it as a plague on discussion on the topic.


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## loverdrive (Jan 23, 2021)

pemerton said:


> My hesitation about this definition is that it tends to define a wargame-y, "skilled play" dungeoncrawl as not RPGing: in that sort of play the character is a game-piece but not really an object of focus beyond that, and doesn't really get explored. And changes in the gamepiece (level gain, in that sort of play) are not driven by events in any meaningful way - "beating" the dungeon will earn the same XP whatever the actual pathway of events that leads to that outcome.



Well, I don't consider beating dungeons with gamepieces instead of characters role-playing, and, frankly, I don't think that anyone out there seriously does.

And even in plain dungeoncrawling, characters are important, even if the changes are as simple as "orcs killed my buddies and now I hate their green guts!".


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 23, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Well, I don't consider beating dungeons with gamepieces instead of characters role-playing, and, frankly, I don't think that anyone out there seriously does.
> 
> And even in plain dungeoncrawling, characters are important, even if the changes are as simple as "orcs killed my buddies and now I hate their green guts!".




I'd suggest that a large number of people have spent much of the lifespan of D&D "beating dungeons with gamepieces (tokens)" in practical terms.  Once you start getting into how much distinct personality you have to add to characters over your own to be playing in a roleplaying game,  it goes to some particularly sticky places.


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## pemerton (Jan 23, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Well, I don't consider beating dungeons with gamepieces instead of characters role-playing



Fair enough!



loverdrive said:


> and, frankly, I don't think that anyone out there seriously does.



On this I think I agree with @Thomas Shey - I think it's a pretty common approach to the play of D&D.


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## DemoMonkey (Jan 23, 2021)

Whether you are roleplaying in a game,  is not the same thing as whether it is a roleplaying game.

(No, that's not nonsense. Bear with me.)

I will roleplay in ANY game, if you define "roleplaying" as "playing a role". Naming myself ? Speaking in character? Making choices based on the situation and other people at the table, as if I was the persona I've assumed?

I've done that in RISK, for goodness sake. It's not universal in my gaming circles, but it's certainly not unique.

So if you want to make a meaningful definition of roleplaying game it (paradoxically) needs to have criteria other than "can be roleplayed" and "is a game".


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## Hussar (Jan 23, 2021)

I have to admit, that I've tried to push a somewhat different approach to defining RPG's because, as is seen here, trying the traditional methods (RPG's aren't board games because of this, they aren't war-games because of that) get bogged down in all sorts of counter examples.

To me, an RPG is a game design engine.  Unlike virtually any game out there, you cannot simply play an RPG.  You need to go through several steps - character creation, campaign creation, setting creation - before you can even begin to actually sit down and play.  

In any board game, I read the rules, set up the board and start play.  I don't need to do anything else before I start play besides learning the rules and setting up the table.  Everything that I am going to use in that game will be included in that game. 

None of that is true of an RPG.  Telling someone that you are playing Settlers of Catan or Advanced Squad Leader tells them pretty much everything they need to know.  They can pretty accurately describe what your game will look like, at least at the outset.

I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition on Tuesday.  What is my game going to look like?


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## zarionofarabel (Jan 23, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Uhm, while superhero games are _absolutely_ the genre that most often is used at static advancement (and where its most justified), that's absolutely not the default for M&M, which ordinarily gives out a power point per session, and a PL every 15 power points.  It only presents static characters as an option.
> 
> I'd suspect you've internalized the way you're used to playing as the default for that system, and its not.



They must have changed that in the newer editions. The default for M&M was PL 10, and that's where the PCs stayed unless the whole group agreed on an increase in PL.


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## Twiggly the Gnome (Jan 23, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> I'd suggest that a large number of people have spent much of the lifespan of D&D "beating dungeons with gamepieces (tokens)" in practical terms.  Once you start getting into how much distinct personality you have to add to characters over your own to be playing in a roleplaying game,  it goes to some particularly sticky places.




It's certainly a valid playstyle, but one that I think is getting rarer. New players that are attracted to that style of play are more likely to become CRPG players, because that style is a whole lot easier to machine emulate.


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## billd91 (Jan 23, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Uhm, while superhero games are _absolutely_ the genre that most often is used at static advancement (and where its most justified), that's absolutely not the default for M&M, which ordinarily gives out a power point per session, and a PL every 15 power points.  It only presents static characters as an option.
> 
> I'd suspect you've internalized the way you're used to playing as the default for that system, and its not.



It’s not default to necessarily increase the PL every 15 power points. It’s pretty common to leave the PL fixed and have characters broaden in ability rather than heighten.


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## Umbran (Jan 23, 2021)

DemoMonkey said:


> So if you want to make a meaningful definition of roleplaying game it (paradoxically) needs to have criteria other than "can be roleplayed" and "is a game".




Unless the meaning is, "Well, gee, if you are playing a role, and a game, it is a roleplaying game."

And, honestly, if that's what you come to, it is kind of important, if only that it really dispels a lot of that gatekeeping nonsense.  It is even useful if what you want to do is a lot of theorycraft - because it tells you that the experience of "RPG" is not itself very focused.  That can be dreadfully important to your theorizing.


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## DemoMonkey (Jan 23, 2021)

Why don't we try starting with the assumption that some things are roleplaying games and other things - such as oil tankers or mango chutney - are not, and see if we can narrow the boundary down.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 23, 2021)

zarionofarabel said:


> They must have changed that in the newer editions. The default for M&M was PL 10, and that's where the PCs stayed unless the whole group agreed on an increase in PL.




It hasn't been true of any of the three editions; as I said, if you think its the default I have to conclude you've internalized a house convetion as the default rule.  And honestly, even if you stay at PL, that doesn't mean there's no progression.  A character at PL 10 with 3 array slots and five feats/advantages is a very different and less capable character than they are after they've added four more array slots and another eight feats, let alone pushed up their sub-PL skill values.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 23, 2021)

Twiggly the Gnome said:


> It's certainly a valid playstyle, but one that I think is getting rarer. New players that are attracted to that style of play are more likely to become CRPG players, because that style is a whole lot easier to machine emulate.




Very possible, but its still one you can't send out Beyond the Pale without, essentially, declaring large chunks of what occurred in the hobby earlier on were not people playing in a roleplaying game.


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## zarionofarabel (Jan 23, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> It hasn't been true of any of the three editions; as I said, if you think its the default I have to conclude you've internalized a house convetion as the default rule.  And honestly, even if you stay at PL, that doesn't mean there's no progression.  A character at PL 10 with 3 array slots and five feats/advantages is a very different and less capable character than they are after they've added four more array slots and another eight feats, let alone pushed up their sub-PL skill values.



Haven't internalized anything, I haven't played M&M since the early days, far too complicated for my tastes. I am remembering the game wrong obviously, as you seem to know it better. I also have no idea what an array slot is...


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 23, 2021)

billd91 said:


> It’s not default to necessarily increase the PL every 15 power points. It’s pretty common to leave the PL fixed and have characters broaden in ability rather than heighten.




Went back and checked and apparently I'm the one projecting here, not Z, so I need to apologize to him.

Though I think my point in the second part is viable; while a character capped at PL isn't increasing in coarse numbers, there's a lot of difference between a PL 10 character at 150 PP and one at 180 PP, and some of them translate into more practical power even if none of the coarse numbers increase.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 23, 2021)

zarionofarabel said:


> Haven't internalized anything, I haven't played M&M since the early days, far too complicated for my tastes. I am remembering the game wrong obviously, as you seem to know it better. I also have no idea what an array slot is...




Actually, as I indicate above, I'm the one that is wrong here.

An array slot is a thing that lets you use a base power set for a different purpose; for example with your Earth Control, if you can do a straight damage attack, an ensnare, and manipulate objects with a conjured hand of earth, that's three array slots on the power.


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## hawkeyefan (Jan 23, 2021)

I’m pretty much of a mind these days to simply agree that a RPG is any game that involves playing a role.

At its most broad, that’s what they are. It’s pretty simple.

If we wanted to break it down from there into sub-categories of different kinds, that’s where it gets tricky.

But trying to take one of those sub-categories and say “that’s the true way to RPG” as the OP does is....well, it always gets a conversation going, so there’s that....but as a point in and of itself I think it fails.


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## lewpuls (Jan 24, 2021)

Some people here are confusing a one-off session of a game with the game itself. If the game provides rules for progressive improvement, then the game could be an RPG, even if there's no obvious improvement in a one-off (even as, in many cases, the _characters_ earn experience). Gaining money, items, prestige/social standing from successful missions, and so forth is also improvement that may take place in a single session. 

Leveling up is just one way of improving. In original Traveler (if indeed there was no experience or leveling up, I don't recall) you still get money, try to get a better ship and crew, gain new technology, and so on. The improvement just isn't reflected as leveling.

You could make a case that leveling up is a symptom of improvement, not an improvement in itself.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 24, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> Some people here are confusing a one-off session of a game with the game itself. If the game provides rules for progressive improvement, then the game could be an RPG, even if there's no obvious improvement in a one-off (even as, in many cases, the _characters_ earn experience). Gaining money, items, prestige/social standing from successful missions, and so forth is also improvement that may take place in a single session.
> 
> Leveling up is just one way of improving. In original Traveler (if indeed there was no experience or leveling up, I don't recall) you still get money, try to get a better ship and crew, gain new technology, and so on. The improvement just isn't reflected as leveling.
> 
> You could make a case that leveling up is a symptom of improvement, not an improvement in itself.



The expansion of "progression" to be gaining anything, material or skill, is rather... odd.  It's broad enough to be essentially meaningless.


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## pemerton (Jan 24, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> The expansion of "progression" to be gaining anything, material or skill, is rather... odd.  It's broad enough to be essentially meaningless.





lewpuls said:


> In original Traveler (if indeed there was no experience or leveling up, I don't recall) you still get money, try to get a better ship and crew, gain new technology, and so on. The improvement just isn't reflected as leveling.



I've played a fair bit of Classic Traveller over the past few years.

Book 2 has a section called "Experience". It establishes a framework within which a character has a modest (typically less than 50/50) chance of a temporary skill improvement but only a slim (typically less than 25%) chance of permanent improvement. Book 4 has the Instruction skill, but that also is pretty limited in the improvement that it permits.

The pursuit of better equipment etc is one aspect of the game, but it's not essential and - unlike classic D&D - is not the criterion of _playing the game well_. _Discovery_ (eg of alien civilisations) or _success in a mission_ can be just as much the goal of play as _wealth_ or _equipment upgrades_ or _personal improvement_.

The psionics subsystem is another pathway to self-improvement, but it is very expensive (and so can downgrade other dimensions of improvement - in our game it took a significant toll on the wealth of a number of PCs) and also can have adverse effects on a character's social position, due to the widespread distrust of psionics in the default setting.

When explaining Traveller to players familiar with character improvement subsystems like those found in D&D (XP and levelling) or RQ (skill-based improvement), I think it's more straightforward to say that it mostly lacks an improvement subsystem than to try and present the possibility of upgrading personal money and gear as its version of improvement. After all, that is equally present in D&D.


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## billd91 (Jan 24, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> Some people here are confusing a one-off session of a game with the game itself. If the game provides rules for progressive improvement, then the game could be an RPG, even if there's no obvious improvement in a one-off (even as, in many cases, the _characters_ earn experience). Gaining money, items, prestige/social standing from successful missions, and so forth is also improvement that may take place in a single session.



The problem is there are RPGs *designed* to be one-offs or focused on single scenarios, not ongoing campaigns where there is no expectation of character improvement.


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## Hussar (Jan 24, 2021)

billd91 said:


> The problem is there are RPGs *designed* to be one-offs or focused on single scenarios, not ongoing campaigns where there is no expectation of character improvement.



Exactly.  Something like Dread for example.  Heck, I'd argue Paranoia falls into that same category as well.  There certainly didn't seem to be much expectation of character advancement or ongoing campaigns.

As far as defining things though, it would be probably better to define RPG in the same way we define genre - here are things that we all agree are RPG's, and then admit that there is a spectrum that runs from RPG to other games where things get very fuzzy at the boundaries.


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## loverdrive (Jan 24, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> Some people here are confusing a one-off session of a game with the game itself. If the game provides rules for progressive improvement, then the game could be an RPG, even if there's no obvious improvement in a one-off (even as, in many cases, the _characters_ earn experience). Gaining money, items, prestige/social standing from successful missions, and so forth is also improvement that may take place in a single session.
> 
> Leveling up is just one way of improving. In original Traveler (if indeed there was no experience or leveling up, I don't recall) you still get money, try to get a better ship and crew, gain new technology, and so on. The improvement just isn't reflected as leveling.
> 
> You could make a case that leveling up is a symptom of improvement, not an improvement in itself.



I'm very curious why you feel like improvement (and not _development_) is a defining characteristic of a role-playing game.

For me, it feels like a defining characteristic of D&D, yes, but RPGs in general? Don't think so.


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## lewpuls (Jan 24, 2021)

Nowadays there does seem to be hostility, bordering on sheer ignorance, when someone tries to define something. No, it isn't "gatekeeping ("the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something") and tribalism." And I personally don't care what you think or do individually, nor am I trying to convince anyone of anything.

Much discussion about games revolves around semantics, because when one person uses a word, they actually mean something quite different from what another person means. So much of the discussion is misunderstanding.

The word "theme", for example, means so many different things that the word is useless because it only causes confusion. (See my screencast "The many meanings of the word 'Theme'" 
Similarly, "fun" has a different meaning for every person. One person's fun is another person's boredom.

To take a non-game word, "bi-annual" has been corrupted. Originally it meant once every two years, but about half of people now think it means twice a year (semi-annual), so many readers/listeners will be confused if you use it. Another is verbal, which once (usefully) meant "in words, whether written or oral." Now verbal has come to mean oral, to many people. Using the word verbal is confusing, and there is no word that means what verbal used to mean.

If a word comes to mean a very broad set of things, then it becomes pointless in most contexts. For example "game" is often used synonymously with "play", which only renders the word game redundant and useless. The point of trying to narrow a definition of a word is to make it useful in discussion.

Resort to the idea of "gatekeeping" (again, "the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something") tends to be a reflection of someone who disagrees, or who feels left out. It rarely actually exists.


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## Aldarc (Jan 24, 2021)

I don't know, @lewpuls, if I agree with your sentiment here. You seem to have far more hostility to people pushing back to your definitions than the people who are actually criticizing your definitions. Maybe your definitions aren't particularly useful or meaningful as you make them out to be nor is skirting your accusations of sheer ignorance particularly fruitful.


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 24, 2021)

There's more value in cooperative definition building than there is in nit-picky disagreements. @lewpuls identifies some very key elements of online discussions here. Baseless claims of gatekeeping have indeed become a very fashionable cloak for passive-aggressive wankery, and some of that is very much on display in this thread.


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## Campbell (Jan 24, 2021)

@lewpuls

My contention would be that roleplaying game is a broad category of games much like board games or card games instead of something with a very specific set of expectations like area control board games or first person shooter video games. What you are describing is a subset of that broader category. It's what I would probably call an adventure roleplaying game.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 24, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> There's more value in cooperative definition building than there is in nit-picky disagreements. @lewpuls identifies some very key elements of online discussions here. Baseless claims of gatekeeping have indeed become a very fashionable cloak for passive-aggressive wankery, and some of that is very much on display in this thread.



@lewpuls isn't at all engaged in cooperative definition building, though -- he's called critics ignorant.  The side discussion about semantics is also strange -- I watched his lecture on "theme" and it suffers from the same narrow point of view most of lew's arguments live in, and is as much about justifying his existing conclusion rather than exploring new space.  His arguments about theme spend more time denigrating how videogames mechanics aren't good models as discussing his odd definitions of theme.

The charges of gatekeeping are a tad overblown, yes, but they're also rooted in some truth -- definitions like these are used to disqualify games from discussion of RPGs -- usually alongside charges of "storygame."  That @lewpuls definition absolutely doesn't apply to RPGs that also often receive the moniker of "storygame" isn't at all lost to those of us that have dealt with such arguments.  I haven't seen @lewpuls actually engage in gatekeeping, but his analyses often go in directions that ignore or even denigrate other approaches to RPGs.  It's not a far reach, although not one I'm fond of.  If the criticism of RPGs is such that it ignores entire games as outside of or unsuited to analysis as an RPG, then that's defacto gatekeeping, even if unintentional.

And, as for passive-aggressive wankery, perhaps you shouldn't level these accusations against unnamed others -- it comes across as passive-aggressive wankery.


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 24, 2021)

See, that's exactly what this thread is like. I wasn't naming names or pointing fingers in an effort to keep things on a even keel and facilitate conversation, but you want to go the other direction. So, yeah, I'm not too concerned about your depreciations there @Ovinomancer, no offense.  I think @lewpuls has every reason to be a little cranky and the armchair wankery in this thread. Calling out ignorant commentary when it's actually ignorant isn't gatekeeping. If people were honestly engaging with the definitional work instead of just playing two muppets on a balcony we wouldn't be having this conversation.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 24, 2021)

Some of us have seen enough of that over literally decades that its hard to engage beyond rolling our eyes at "this old naughty word again."  This isn't new; the attempt to fence of whatever elements of the hobby you personally welcome and push others out has been going on since at least the 90's, and probably earlier.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 24, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> See, that's exactly what this thread is like. I wasn't naming names or pointing fingers in an effort to keep things on a even keel and facilitate conversation, but you want to go the other direction. So, yeah, I'm not too concerned about your depreciations there @Ovinomancer, no offense.  I think @lewpuls has every reason to be a little cranky and the armchair wankery in this thread. Calling out ignorant commentary when it's actually ignorant isn't gatekeeping. If people were honestly engaging with the definitional work instead of just playing two muppets on a balcony we wouldn't be having this conversation.



My bad, was your post accusing unnamed others of wankery an attempt to keep the post on an even keel and to facilitate conversation?  This must be one of those "theme" things I heard about, where words' meanings are opaque and misunderstood, because, to me, it's never useful to conversation to call others, unnamed or not, passive-aggressive wankers.  Unless, of course, the conversation you wish to facilitate it excluding specific points of view?  If only there were a term for that....

And, "people" have very clearly engage the definitional work in the OP.  I certainly have, and not in a rancorous way -- I pointed out where I disagreed and how some of the underpinning assumptions are so broad as to make that bullet non-definitional at all.  If "advancement" is as broad as @lewpuls stated, then it's not useful because it encompasses so much that it's almost always true.  That's not useful to definition, nor is it specific.  It also rules out games like My Life With Master, which does escape any form of advancement in the way defined, but is, clearly, an RPG.

And as for ignorant commentary, I still haven't seen any particulars on what, exactly, is supposed to be ignorant (rather than, you now, disagreement).  It's almost as if the charge is meant to shut down discussion on topics people don't want examined.  I've seen a lot of good comments in this thread, many of which disagree with the OP, so, then, which are ignorant?


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 24, 2021)

I'm going to shrug and leave this be. I have no particular stakes here, the thread is what it is, and I no interest in unpacking the obvious slant and barely concealed agendas in a variety of posts.  You do you my friend.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 24, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> I'm going to shrug and leave this be. I have no particular stakes here, the thread is what it is, and I no interest in unpacking the obvious slant and barely concealed agendas in a variety of posts.  You do you my friend.



Either this post is intentional irony, or you're only calling one set of "obvious slant and barely concealed agendas" out.  For me, I think the definition in the OP is the obvious slant and barely concealed agenda -- those being defining games according to what @lewpuls prefers with the agenda of advocating for this.  I see little nefarious or wrong about his attempts, I just strongly disagree with them and see them coming from a rather calcified view of the hobby.  Being called ignorant for disagreeing (something you've done as well, sideways-wise, without ever stating what's ignorant) is more evidence of slant and agenda, though, than any criticism I've leveled.  

The definition in the OP is very narrow, and doesn't encapsulate RPGs in any meaningful way unless you're just looking at "most popular."  And that, I find, it more a testament to D&D as a cultural icon rather than a prime example of what an RPG should or could be.  D&D is definitely an RPG, and a decent one, but it's popularity isn't because it's the exemplar of RPGs.  It's just the current most popular one, for many reasons (including that it's a decent game).


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## billd91 (Jan 24, 2021)

Umbran said:


> I think that's kind of assuming the conclusion, though - it sucks to not progress when you _expect_ to progress.



Ultimately, that's why it's *useful* and not defining. 
And it is useful - if I'm role playing a character, I probably have some in-character goals I'd like to meet other than just having fun (which is a player goal, not necessarily a character goal). I'm probably going to enjoy a campaign-based game more if I have a chance to actually improve along the way rather than remain static (or even redesign with the same limits - in which case if I wanted to improve something, I'd have to pull from something else). 
I mean, I could be planning on playing *that* guy, the one who peaked in high school and eschew improvement. But I'd bet even he'd like a new riding lawn mower with more bells and whistles and a bigger garage fridge for his beer...


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 24, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Either this post is intentional irony, or you're only calling one set of "obvious slant and barely concealed agendas" out.  For me, I think the definition in the OP is the obvious slant and barely concealed agenda -- those being defining games according to what @lewpuls prefers with the agenda of advocating for this.  I see little nefarious or wrong about his attempts, I just strongly disagree with them and see them coming from a rather calcified view of the hobby.  Being called ignorant for disagreeing (something you've done as well, sideways-wise, without ever stating what's ignorant) is more evidence of slant and agenda, though, than any criticism I've leveled.
> 
> The definition in the OP is very narrow, and doesn't encapsulate RPGs in any meaningful way unless you're just looking at "most popular."  And that, I find, it more a testament to D&D as a cultural icon rather than a prime example of what an RPG should or could be.  D&D is definitely an RPG, and a decent one, but it's popularity isn't because it's the exemplar of RPGs.  It's just the current most popular one, for many reasons (including that it's a decent game).



I'm not really excluding or targeting anyone, the thread overall seems ... IDK, not good from that perspective? This topic is contentious at the best of times. I think a lot of people are making a lot of ill-founded assumptions about who said what about what and whom. I just don't have the bandwidth for that. The thread is already too much about people being salty or feeling offended than anything to do with the actual topic. So if someone thinks I'm talking about them when I say that I'd bet they're correct, and it's not useful or productive. On the other hand there has been some excellent discussion so there's that.

I don't see much that's controversial in the OP frankly, not when it's phrased like it is. It's pretty much in line with most common writing on the nature of RPGs.  Sure, you can isolate one item off of one of those lists and find reasons to disagree, but that's often not actually a useful addition to the conversation. Like, for example, @Umbran 's problem with progressive improvement because he thinks it then doesn't apply to one shots. That's only correct or useful as criticism in a _really_ narrow way IMO (no offense Umbran, you are just the example that popped to mind). It implies that the OP was attempting a level of definitional specificity that isn't warranted, at least based on my reading. Most one-shots would include something like one of the things on that list anyway, and most RPGs certainly do.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 24, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> I'm not really excluding or targeting anyone, the thread overall seems ... IDK, not good from that perspective? This topic is contentious at the best of times. I think a lot of people are making a lot of ill-founded assumptions about who said what about what and whom. I just don't have the bandwidth for that. The thread is already too much about people being salty or feeling offended than anything to do with the actual topic. So if someone thinks I'm talking about them when I say that I'd bet they're correct, and it's not useful or productive. On the other hand there has been some excellent discussion so there's that.
> 
> I don't see much that's controversial in the OP frankly, not when it's phrased like it is. It's pretty much in line with most common writing on the nature of RPGs.  Sure, you can isolate one item off of one of those lists and find reasons to disagree, but that's often not actually a useful addition to the conversation. Like, for example, @Umbran 's problem with progressive improvement because he thinks it then doesn't apply to one shots. That's only correct or useful as criticism in a _really_ narrow way IMO (no offense Umbran, you are just the example that popped to mind). It implies that the OP was attempting a level of definitional specificity that isn't warranted, at least based on my reading. Most one-shots would include something like one of the things on that list anyway, and most RPGs certainly do.



We must have read different OPs, then, because the OP isn't saying that any one of the 4 bullets defines an RPG (and that would be too vague to be even useful), but that RPGs have all 4 of those characteristics.  Those characteristics rule out a number of games that don't feature them as RPGs.  I don't find the OP characteristics to be illuminating on the nature of RPGs.  I can point to many RPGs that lack some or many of those characteristics, and would be ruled out as RPGs by that definition.

It really seems that you're arguing in defense of a position that I haven't seen clearly enunciated in this thread, and not by the OP.  The OP's position rules out My Life with Master -- no advancement -- it rules out Ironsworn, in no-GM mode -- no GM -- I could go on, but it seems to fundamentally miss what makes an RPG while adding distinctions that cut out instead of include or expand.  I don't see a huge amount of validity in the arguments, and pointing this out has earned me some rather heated responses.  The intent here doesn't seem to be seeking understanding.


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## hawkeyefan (Jan 24, 2021)

I wouldn’t say that the OP was any kind of intentional attempt at gatekeeping. 

But it is an attempt to take what I think we can all likely agree is a broad category....RPG....and say that it applies to a much smaller subset of games than many may believe. 

The criteria offered appear more narrow in focus than what I would expect. 



lewpuls said:


> Avatars,
> progressive improvement,
> co-operation, and
> GMed opposed adventure.




I mean, all seem related to RPGs to at least some extent, I agree. But are they actually required? And are some of the more specific criteria offered in each of these four broader categories also required? I don’t think so.

RPG, to me, must be a broader net than what’s been suggested in the OP. I mean....look at the term itself. If it’s a game and it involves roleplaying, why would it not be a RPG? 

The fundamental argument to me seems to be “squares are the only shape, circles and triangles are something other than shapes.”


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## Arilyn (Jan 25, 2021)

Since the article ended with, "What's your definition?" I don't believe that lewpuls is assuming that his criteria is the one true way of rpging. 

To me, rpgs can encompass everything from an old school Gygaxian dungeon crawl, to the solo journaling game of 1000 Year Old Vampire. If this is too broad for some people, that's okay. I get it if you feel that a dungeon crawl with an avatar that only exists to survive and get rich is not role playing, or on the other end, that journaling games have no game in them. It can make for interesting debate. What we don't need is the hyperbole and insults.


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## Hussar (Jan 25, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> /snip
> 
> The fundamental argument to me seems to be “squares are the only shape, circles and triangles are something other than shapes.”



Which is gatekeeping by definition.


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## Hussar (Jan 25, 2021)

Let me take another stab at this, although, I get the feeling I'm not going to get much traction.

The reason that @lewpuls' list doesn't really work is that he's trying to define RPG by what you do while playing.  The problem with that is, it's like trying to define genre by trope - sure it can work sometimes, but, for most genres, you define by theme - what is the story about, not by whether or not it ticks the genre checkboxes.

To me, what differentiates an RPG from all other games is that you cannot play an RPG out of the box.  You simply can't.  Someone has to define the campaign - whether that campaign is a single night (a la Dread) or fifteen years (a la some D&D campaigns).  Someone has to create characters based on that campaign.  Someone has to define some sort of plot or action.  THEN you get to play an RPG.

Thus, even if you use the identical rules for two different campaigns, they may look absolutely nothing like each other.  Unlike other games where the initial point is defined by the game itself, RPG's don't (as a general rule) have a single initial point from which play progresses.  Can you role play in a board game?  Of course you can.  But, what separates that board game from an RPG is the fact that every time you pull out that board game, your initial premises will be the same (within a given tolerance of same) whereas your initial points in an RPG might be completely different.  And most likely will.

RPG's can't be defined by what you do in game because what you do in game resembles too many other games.  It's the fact that you use the rules of an RPG to construct a game that will be idiosyncratic to your table at that point in time and likely can never be reproduced.  Sure, modules allow for shared experiences across tables, but, even then, unless we're talking about the most railroaded, linear scenario, there will be massive variance between one table's experience of a module and another's.  Because each group is building a new game every time they sit down to start a campaign.


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## Umbran (Jan 25, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> Resort to the idea of "gatekeeping" (again, "the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something") tends to be a reflection of someone who disagrees, or who feels left out.




Have you considered the possibility that they feel left out because there are gatekeepers _trying_ to leave them out?  



lewpuls said:


> It rarely actually exists.




Upon what do you base this assertion?  Because I can point to any woman called a "fake geek girl" as an example of gatekeeping being a real thing that happens.


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## pemerton (Jan 25, 2021)

Hussar said:


> what differentiates an RPG from all other games is that you cannot play an RPG out of the box.  You simply can't.  Someone has to define the campaign - whether that campaign is a single night (a la Dread) or fifteen years (a la some D&D campaigns).  Someone has to create characters based on that campaign.  Someone has to define some sort of plot or action.  THEN you get to play an RPG.



You can't play with Lego out of the box either - someone has to build something, and (typically) imbue it with some sort of meaning.

But that doesn't make Lego an RPG.

Your definition is also true of some wargaming - it's not enough to have painted your figures and read your copy of the rules, someone actually has to frame a battle, set up the terrain, etc. But wargames aren't RPGs. (Though RPGs have an important historical derivation from wargaming.)

Your definition would also mean that an intro/demo module with pre-gens doesn't count as a RPG, when I think it obviously is.

@lewpuls is right to fasten on the _avatar_ as pretty key - that's the inheritance, much changed as it is in many ways, from single-soldier-per-figure wargaming.

It's the other aspects - which build in assumptions about participant roles (players as cooperating, GM as opposition) and play goal (ie advancement) - that are contentious because they are true of (most) D&D play and true of play in many D&D-influenced games (eg Rolemaster or RuneQuest as played in their default modes) but are not true of all the other RPGs that have been designed over the years since D&D was invented.

What keeps those other games within the general parameters of the type of gaming that D&D pioneered is (i) the role of the fiction in adjudication, which is different from nearly every other game type (except some wargaming), and (ii) the continued use of the single-person avatar as a primary locus of participation in the game by most if not all of the participants (ie the "players").


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## loverdrive (Jan 25, 2021)

Hm, now I'm thinking.

What if we try to classify RPGs not from mechanical standpoint or by ability to roleplay (as you can roleplay in any game, if you want to), but from uhm... Intent?

A role-playing game is a game, where roleplaying is expected from all the participants.

So, if you're playing D&D "as normal", or, I don't know, hosting a British Parlaiment Style debate tournament, where everyone takes on roles of the Lords of Terra, you're engaging in role-playing, but if you're playing a PvP battle royale using 5E rules, or just one weird dude roleplays in debates while no one else does, you're not.

I think it works.


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## Aldarc (Jan 25, 2021)

Maybe we should switch the title heading to "_Who_ Defines an RPG?"


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## loverdrive (Jan 25, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Maybe we should switch the title heading to "_Who_ Defines an RPG?"



Well, that would be meaningless, because the answer is obvious: me.


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## pemerton (Jan 25, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> if you're playing a PvP battle royale using 5E rules



Can the fiction affect the resolution? Eg can one of the PCs push the other into a patch of mud so that other slips over?

Then I'm prepared to allow it's a RPG, albeit not a character-driven one.

On the other hand, if the terrain, or other fiction, figures only if it has - in advance - been rendered into mechanical terms (eg _anyone who enters this square has to make a Reflex/DEX save or fall prone_, where _prone_ is a mechanical status) then I would say that it's not a RPG but a type of boardgame or mechanically-defined wargame.



loverdrive said:


> A role-playing game is a game, where roleplaying is expected from all the participants.



In the battle royale, the "role" is occupied, and "played", simply in virtue of the "avatar" being the locus of the player's making moves in the game.

My characterisation in this and previous posts will count, as a RPG, a single-person-per-figure wargame in which the referee can adjudicate the fiction outside of pre-determined mechanical parameters, _and_ the non-referee participant approaches the game from the avatar perspective rather than a birds-eye-view "general's" perspective. Given the derivation of RPGing from that sort of game, this is a cost I'm prepared to wear.


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## pemerton (Jan 25, 2021)

A definition of tabletop RPGing that can't capture (1) White Plume Mountain played using classic D&D rules and expectations, and (2) Classic Traveller, and (3) In a Wicked Age, and (4) My Life With Master - just to pick four of the many boundary points that might be chosen - has clearly failed.

If a definition picks up some wargaming, some boardgaming and some LARPing as borderline cases I think that's OK.


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## loverdrive (Jan 25, 2021)

pemerton said:


> On the other hand, if the terrain, or other fiction, figures only if it has - in advance - been rendered into mechanical terms (eg _anyone who enters this square has to make a Reflex/DEX save or fall prone_, where _prone_ is a mechanical status) then I would say that it's not a RPG but a type of boardgame or mechanically-defined wargame.



Yeah, that's what I meant


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## hawkeyefan (Jan 25, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Which is gatekeeping by definition.




Meh, I get why you say that. I just think that it's a question of intent. I don't think Lew is trying to keep any people out....just certain types of games. 

He ends his post with an invitation for others to define RPGs how they like.....so I just don't take his post as an attempt to gatekeep so much as to state his opinion.




Hussar said:


> RPG's can't be defined by what you do in game because what you do in game resembles too many other games. It's the fact that you use the rules of an RPG to construct a game that will be idiosyncratic to your table at that point in time and likely can never be reproduced. Sure, modules allow for shared experiences across tables, but, even then, unless we're talking about the most railroaded, linear scenario, there will be massive variance between one table's experience of a module and another's. Because each group is building a new game every time they sit down to start a campaign.




I don't think this is very accurate because you're talking about the content of the fiction rather then the creation of the fiction, right? 

When people play a roleplaying game, they are communicating to craft a fictional world. Very often this takes the form of a conversation, but it can also be through a written medium such as email or text or play by post. There are other variations on this, too. 

But participants discussing and crafting a fiction together, and consulting rules as needed......that's something that happens every time. The fact that my group is talking about the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and your group is talking about why Alice is Missing doesn't make what we're doing different, even if the means by which we do it are.


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## Puddles (Jan 25, 2021)

I've been trying to refine my own definition of an RPG after thinking about this thread over the past few days and am leaning towards:

"A game with resolution mechanics that can cope with any player input".

So, essentially any game that allows a player to attempt anything - and then has a mechanic that determines what happens as a result of that input.

This would stop wargames such an Inquistor from being RPGs, (because while it has a GM that can adjudicate unique actions, it has no resolution mechanic for actions such as "I move off the battlefield"). And also hack'n'slash boardgames like Heroquest and its descendants, (where an input such as "we wish to leave the dungeon, search for trees, chop them down, and use the wood to make a fire to smoke out the inhabitants of the dungeon" has no resolution mechanic).

I think this is similar to @pemerton 's definition, (If I am mistaken, I apologise). With the distinction between fiction and mechanics. Although rather than needing to say one takes the lead before the other, it's just that the mechanics need to be able to cope with all and any fiction.

Now this would preclude all CRPGs from being an RPG under that definition*, but I think that's needed because I think if you coded Heroquest or Gloomhaven into a computer game, I'm not sure how it would be different from Skyrim or any other CRPG except in scope. Instead CRPGs try to emulate the experience of a tabletop RPG rather than being a true RPG, (much like dungeon-delving boardgames do).

It also means '_games in which you role-play' _such as murder mysteries wouldn't be RPGs because there is no resolution for say, grappling the suspect on the kitchen floor so they can't get away, (except for not getting invited to the next one).

*When I was very young, my dad had an old Amstrad computer with the 'Guild of Thieves' computer game, as a text based game, this game theoretically allowed for all player inputs, however if you typed in anything it had not accounted for, the computer simply replied with "so?".


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## loverdrive (Jan 25, 2021)

Puddles said:


> I think this is similar to @pemerton 's definition, (If I am mistaken, I apologise). With the distinction between fiction and mechanics. Although rather than needing to say one takes the lead before the other, it's just that the mechanics need to be able to cope with all and any fiction.



I really don't wanna bring the argument from a neighbouring thread here, but... This definition kinda excludes D&D. And Pathfinder. And GURPS.

And pretty much every non-fictionfirst game out there.


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## Puddles (Jan 25, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> I really don't wanna bring the argument from a neighbouring thread here, but... This definition kinda excludes D&D. And Pathfinder. And GURPS.
> 
> And pretty much every non-fictionfirst game out there.



Would you mind elaborating? It is certainly my attempt to include those games (D&D is where my experience lies).

After all, D&D has a resolution mechanic that applies to any input, which is the DM decides the outcome. It then has a more specific mechanic, which is the DM chooses a DC and nominates the ability or skill to test, and then narrates the success or failure. And then even more specific mechanics for things like combat. The only one that is important here is that high-level one that can account for any player input. Usually this is why an RPG has a GM.


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## Mallus (Jan 25, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Maybe we should switch the title heading to "_Who_ Defines an RPG?"



It's almost like that's what this thread is really about !


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## loverdrive (Jan 25, 2021)

Puddles said:


> Would you mind elaborating? It is certainly my attempt to include those games (D&D is where my experience lies).
> 
> After all, D&D has a resolution mechanic that applies to any input, which is the DM decides the outcome. It then has a more specific mechanic, which is the DM chooses a DC and nominates the ability or skill to test, and then narrates the success or failure. And then even more specific mechanics for things like combat. The only one that is important here is that high-level one that can account for any player input. Usually this is why an RPG has a GM.



I honestly wouldn't consider "figure it out" as a way to cope with all and any fiction, and I don't think that there's a meaningful difference between DM adjudicating an action not covered by the rules in D&D and in Inquisitor.

In contrast, PbtA-games do have a generalized framework for dealing with any situation — the GM makes a move (describes how the situation in the fiction changes), and there're pretty clear rules on _how_ to make one — there're Agenda and Principles, which provide effective lenses to decide, how to solve the situation at hand.

Also, D&D, like all rules-first games tend to discard fiction — when two people are fighting near a priceless Ming dynasty vase, the rules are silent on whether will a missed attack make the vase fall over and break — and there's need for a rulling to close the gap between the fiction and the mechanics.


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## chaochou (Jan 25, 2021)

pemerton said:


> A definition of tabletop RPGing that can't capture (1) White Plume Mountain played using classic D&D rules and expectations, and (2) Classic Traveller, and (3) In a Wicked Age, and (4) My Life With Master - just to pick four of the many boundary points that might be chosen - has clearly failed.



 Yes indeed! Or Burning Wheel, Boot Hill, Paranoia and Pendragon - to pick another four reference points.


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## Puddles (Jan 25, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> I honestly wouldn't consider "figure it out" as a way to cope with all and any fiction, and I don't think that there's a meaningful difference between DM adjudicating an action not covered by the rules in D&D and in Inquisitor.
> 
> In contrast, PbtA-games do have a generalized framework for dealing with any situation — the GM makes a move (describes how the situation in the fiction changes), and there're pretty clear rules on _how_ to make one — there're Agenda and Principles, which provide effective lenses to decide, how to solve the situation at hand.
> 
> Also, D&D, like all rules-first games tend to discard fiction — when two people are fighting near a priceless Ming dynasty vase, the rules are silent on whether will a missed attack make the vase fall over and break — and there's need for a rulling to close the gap between the fiction and the mechanics.



Thanks for the reply. Yes, I can indeed see where you are coming from! Good points.


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## CandyLaser (Jan 26, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> To take a non-game word, "bi-annual" has been corrupted. Originally it meant once every two years, but about half of people now think it means twice a year (semi-annual), so many readers/listeners will be confused if you use it. Another is verbal, which once (usefully) meant "in words, whether written or oral." Now verbal has come to mean oral, to many people. Using the word verbal is confusing, and there is no word that means what verbal used to mean.



Apparently my old account is gone, or more likely I just forgot its login information. In any case, I did want to  comment on this bit of folk etymology. The oldest known use of biannual is in the sense of 'twice a year.' 'Once every other year' is biennial. What's more, even if 'biannual' had changed its meaning over time, characterizing it as _corruption _is mistaken, as it offers up a moral connotation to a perfectly ordinary and unproblematic linguistic process. Words change meaning over time in living languages; it's just what happens, and privileging older uses which have fallen out of favor over contemporary conventions is bad practice if you want to be understood. And if you're going to do it, it behooves you to get your facts right. This is obviously not the main thrust of the argument, but this sort of quasi-prescriptivist pedantry irritates me.

Along those lines, though, I also wanted to call attention to this claim from lewpuls:


> Role-playing games, as defined by the last word, are games and therefore require opposition



The notion that games require opposition is, I think, false. There are, of course, cooperative games (like Pandemic), but those do feature opposition - it's just not from any of the other players. And there are RPGs that do away with the semi-adversarial GM-player relation, such as GMless games like Fiasco and Ironsworn. These games also often feature opposition, though it may or may not be from other players. But then there are noncompetitive games such as the Ungame, which lack opposition entirely. I'd put RPGs like The Skeletons in this category, as well as solo RPGs like The Thousand-Year-Old Vampire and Artefact.


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## Mallus (Jan 26, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> To take a non-game word, "bi-annual" has been corrupted. Originally it meant once every two years, but about half of people now think it means twice a year (semi-annual), so many readers/listeners will be confused if you use it. Another is verbal, which once (usefully) meant "in words, whether written or oral." Now verbal has come to mean oral, to many people. Using the word verbal is confusing, and there is no word that means what verbal used to mean.



I’m guessing you’re not a linguist by training.


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## Hussar (Jan 26, 2021)

pemerton said:


> You can't play with Lego out of the box either - someone has to build something, and (typically) imbue it with some sort of meaning.
> 
> But that doesn't make Lego an RPG.



[/QUOTE]

I'd argue that Lego isn't a game.  It's a toy.


pemerton said:


> Your definition is also true of some wargaming - it's not enough to have painted your figures and read your copy of the rules, someone actually has to frame a battle, set up the terrain, etc. But wargames aren't RPGs. (Though RPGs have an important historical derivation from wargaming.)



But the wargaming rules you use will, by their very nature, define what kinds of wargaming you will do with those rules.  You won't use Napoleonic rules for running a Vietnam Era combat, for example.  IOW, every game you play with that specific set of wargaming rules will be fairly similar within that specific wargaming set.


pemerton said:


> Your definition would also mean that an intro/demo module with pre-gens doesn't count as a RPG, when I think it obviously is.



But, now you're trying to define by the edges.  I'm not.  I'm defining by the centers.  I admit, quite readily, that there are fuzzy bits at the edges.  What distinguishes a demo module with pre-gens from a board game?  It's one of those cases where it's on the border between.


pemerton said:


> @lewpuls is right to fasten on the _avatar_ as pretty key - that's the inheritance, much changed as it is in many ways, from single-soldier-per-figure wargaming.
> 
> It's the other aspects - which build in assumptions about participant roles (players as cooperating, GM as opposition) and play goal (ie advancement) - that are contentious because they are true of (most) D&D play and true of play in many D&D-influenced games (eg Rolemaster or RuneQuest as played in their default modes) but are not true of all the other RPGs that have been designed over the years since D&D was invented.
> 
> What keeps those other games within the general parameters of the type of gaming that D&D pioneered is (i) the role of the fiction in adjudication, which is different from nearly every other game type (except some wargaming), and (ii) the continued use of the single-person avatar as a primary locus of participation in the game by most if not all of the participants (ie the "players").



But, even fastening on the avatar doesn't work since so many RPG's allow the players to step outside their avatar and directly influence the game as a player, instead of through the avatar.


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## pemerton (Jan 26, 2021)

Hussar said:


> even fastening on the avatar doesn't work since so many RPG's allow the players to step outside their avatar and directly influence the game as a player, instead of through the avatar.



This is why one has to talk about the _primary_ locus.

Even where a RPG allows a non-GM participant to adopt _director stance _this is typically - at least in the games I know - connected to the avatar. Eg the player might be allowed to spend a token to stipulate that the room his/her PC is in also has a flower pot in it.

Once you have a participant stipulating fiction completely independently of the avatar - eg some ways of approaching set-up in systems like Fate and Burning Wheel- then I think it's better to talk about sharing the GM role around. (Which is why I think @lewpuls's definition is weak - because too narrow - in its treatment of the participant roles.)

If there's no avatar at all, then I'm not sure what's become of the role-playing.


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## CandyLaser (Jan 26, 2021)

pemerton said:


> This is why one has to talk about the _primary_ locus.
> 
> Even where a RPG allows a non-GM participant to adopt _director stance _this is typically - at least in the games I know - connected to the avatar. Eg the player might be allowed to spend a token to stipulate that the room his/her PC is in also has a flower pot in it.
> 
> ...



I'm inclined to think that the presence of an avatar is common, but not essential. There's a range of games here - games in which each player has multiple avatars (Band of Blades, troupe play in Ars Magica), games in which players jointly control shared avatars (Everyone is John, some iterations of Wraith), games in which each play controls a single avatar (D&D and most other RPGs), and games in which there is no avatar at all (Microscope, Kingdom, possibly Dialect). And there are also some unusual cases - Legacy and Rhapsody of Blood, for instance, in which your 'avatar' is ultimately disposable, because the story and the game are about communities, families, etc. Another odd one is Die, where you play as players playing an RPG, who have their own avatars in the game.


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## pemerton (Jan 26, 2021)

CandyLaser said:


> games in which each player has multiple avatars (Band of Blades, troupe play in Ars Magica



On this, I think what I posted upthread is applicable:



pemerton said:


> I think the key thing is not _how many _"avatars" but rather that the avatar(s) figure(s) in play _as individuals_. So even if a player is playing a PC plus entourage of henchmen etc, those characters figure in play - both the fiction and the mechanical processes of resolving the player's "moves" - as individuals, not as a _squad_, _unit_, _ vessel_, etc.
> 
> I don't think RPGIng is wargaming (quite the contrary, as anyone who knows my posting history would realise!) but the historical influence of, and derivation from, single figure wargaming is pretty fundamental I think.



You don't have to get to anything very avant garde to have multiple avatars in this way - classic D&D has it (with henchmen, multiple PCs for different expeditions, etc) and (at least in my group) so does Classic Traveller.



CandyLaser said:


> Another odd one is Die, where you play as players playing an RPG, who have their own avatars in the game.



Over the Edge also has a possibility along these sorts of lines.



CandyLaser said:


> games in which there is no avatar at all (Microscope, Kingdom, possibly Dialect). And there are also some unusual cases - Legacy and Rhapsody of Blood, for instance, in which your 'avatar' is ultimately disposable, because the story and the game are about communities, families, etc.



I think it's fairly typical for more avant garde instances of a genre or artform to push against the received parameters of their tradition. Depending on how things go - in terms of penetration and uptake of the avant garde, response from more conservative/traditional elements, etc - the tradition might change, or might grow to encompass, or there might be a parting of ways.

In the case of RPGing it's probably too early to tell!, but if the avatar ceases to be primary then the phrase "role playing" will perhaps be more of an inherited label than a literal descriptor, and what at the moment continue (in my view) to be discernible boundaries between RPGing and other forms of structured, collective storytelling or fiction creation may cease to be such.

For instance, based on my own understandings and experiences  I would say that A Penny for My Thoughts is structured collective storytelling but not RPGing (eg there is no action declaration); whereas having playtested Orbital recently, I would say it is RPGing with a strong emphasis on sharing the "GM"/set-up aspects of the game. But the gap isn't a massive one - in debriefing after our playtest experience, one of our group members went straight to A Penny for My Thoughts in comparison, whereas its never been used as a comparison for more conventional RPGing that our group has done.

EDIT: From this and my other posts in this thread you can probably also see that I think of genre/traditions etc being characterised not primarily by shared criteria (a "definition" in the most literal sense) but by the heritage they participate in, which is manifested by emulation and adaptation but can also be manifested by variations and self-conscious or even fortuitous departures. Sometimes those departures create new traditions (like D&D's fortuitous departures from wargaming giving rise to RPGing as new form of game) and sometimes they change and grow existing ones.

In my view trying to impose a priori limits or _but it has to be this way_ assumptions on these processes is pointless. I think some of the clearest examples are _impressionism_, which turns out (in its best versions) to be masterful painting enjoying mainstream reverence no matter how shocked some 19th century critics were, and _jazz and related American music and the derivatives and offshoots of these intertwined traditions_, which really are music and even great music despite the objections of critics like Adorno.


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## corwyn77 (Jan 27, 2021)

pemerton said:


> You can't play with Lego out of the box either - someone has to build something, and (typically) imbue it with some sort of meaning.



Building something with Lego IS playing with it. That's the whole point.


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## aramis erak (Jan 27, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> Leveling up is just one way of improving. In original Traveler (if indeed there was no experience or leveling up, I don't recall) you still get money, try to get a better ship and crew, gain new technology, and so on. The improvement just isn't reflected as leveling.



There is provision for improvement of attributes and skills, but it's incredibly slow. Can't even replicate the rate of char gen skill acquisition.


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## aramis erak (Jan 27, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Let me take another stab at this, although, I get the feeling I'm not going to get much traction.
> [snip]
> 
> To me, what differentiates an RPG from all other games is that you cannot play an RPG out of the box.  You simply can't.  Someone has to define the campaign - whether that campaign is a single night (a la Dread) or fifteen years (a la some D&D campaigns).  Someone has to create characters based on that campaign.  Someone has to define some sort of plot or action.  THEN you get to play an RPG.



Starter boxes negate that... Characters are pregens, and the adventure and rules instruction are conjoined. The ones for Star Wars and Star Trek are literally, open the box, hand out characters, and read the prompts and do the instructions. And they're decent adventures, too.


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## pemerton (Jan 27, 2021)

corwyn77 said:


> Building something with Lego IS playing with it. That's the whole point.



Some people probably say the same thing about RPGs and world design.


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## hawkeyefan (Jan 27, 2021)

CandyLaser said:


> Another odd one is Die, where you play as players playing an RPG, who have their own avatars in the game.




I’ve only read some of the playtest material for Die. I’m a huge fan of the comic, and the concept for the game intrigues me....but it’s kind of tricky to imagine how it works. 

Have you actually played it at all? I created a thread here on the site a while back and I don’t think anyone replied. It’s a comic I would think most folks here would appreciate.


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## CandyLaser (Jan 27, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> I’ve only read some of the playtest material for Die. I’m a huge fan of the comic, and the concept for the game intrigues me....but it’s kind of tricky to imagine how it works.
> 
> Have you actually played it at all? I created a thread here on the site a while back and I don’t think anyone replied. It’s a comic I would think most folks here would appreciate.



I have not. The comic is great, and I've read the playtest material as well, but it wouldn't be a good fit for any of my groups.


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## hawkeyefan (Jan 27, 2021)

CandyLaser said:


> I have not. The comic is great, and I've read the playtest material as well, but it wouldn't be a good fit for any of my groups.




Gotcha. Pretty similar situation myself. I don’t know how my group would handle that second layer of fiction...and that would be the challenging part to me....so I haven’t tried it.


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## aramis erak (Jan 27, 2021)

Hussar said:


> I'd argue that Lego isn't a game.  It's a toy



Play does not necessitate being a game.
A game requires rules, but play does not.
Play of a game does require that the game have rules.


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## Hussar (Jan 28, 2021)

pemerton said:


> If there's no avatar at all, then I'm not sure what's become of the role-playing.



Now that's true enough.  I'll agree there.  But, then again, that doesn't really differentiate RPG from many other games which also depend on your actions around a single "avatar".  IOW, having a single avatar is a commonality of games, not necessarily RPG's.


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## Hussar (Jan 28, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Play does not necessitate being a game.
> A game requires rules, but play does not.
> Play of a game does require that the game have rules.



I'm not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me here.  I'm not seeing what you are getting at.

My point was that Lego isn't a game.  At all.  It's a toy.  A basketball, a skateboard and a teddy bear aren't games either.  They're toys.  They can be played with and you could certainly make a game using these toys (I forget the name of it, but, there was an old Dragon magazine game where you made play-doh monsters and fought each other), but, they are not, in and of themselves, a game.


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## Hussar (Jan 28, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Starter boxes negate that... Characters are pregens, and the adventure and rules instruction are conjoined. The ones for Star Wars and Star Trek are literally, open the box, hand out characters, and read the prompts and do the instructions. And they're decent adventures, too.



Not really.

Someone had to make those pregens, and adventures.  The rules were used to create them but, in the end, it's no different than if you created them yourself.  Without those pregens and adventures, what would you have in a Starter Box?  Well, Basic D&D looked a lot like that - you had the rules but, you were told that you had to then go out and create your own game using these rules.  

That someone else uses the RPG rules and creates a game for you doesn't change the fact that the RPG ruleset in itself isn't a game at all.  It's a set of instructions for creating a game that you and your group will play through.  But the game that you create will always be idiosyncratic to your table.  ((Barring, of course, selling modules and the like))  Two groups, could never create the same adventure using the same ruleset unless they deliberately copied one another.  If you took two groups, playing the same system, but with no connection between those two groups, and no communication, the games they play would be so radically different that it is actually difficult to say they are playing the same game.

This simply isn't true of non-RPG's. Non-RPG's do not generate the vast breadth of experience that we see even in our own small slice of gamers here in En World.  People will have completely different experiences using the same system.  Compare the old school notion of lethality.  Some people will swear up and down that older D&D was incredibly lethal and very few characters survived into even relatively low levels.  Others will have completely different experiences.  And that's using a system as limited as 1e D&D.  If I tell you I'm playing a GURPS session tomorrow, that doesn't actually tell you anything.  Other than we probably will be using lots of charts.    Even GURPS Fantasy doesn't really narrow things down very much.  Because the game I create using the GURPS system and the game you create and the game Bob creates won't actually look very much like each other and will look even less like each other the longer the games go.


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## Campbell (Jan 28, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Not really.
> 
> Someone had to make those pregens, and adventures.  The rules were used to create them but, in the end, it's no different than if you created them yourself.  Without those pregens and adventures, what would you have in a Starter Box?  Well, Basic D&D looked a lot like that - you had the rules but, you were told that you had to then go out and create your own game using these rules.
> 
> ...




How familiar with the style of war gaming that preceded D&D? What about board games like Diplomacy or social manipulation games like The Resistance? What about more emergent video games like Civilization or Crusader Kings?


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## billd91 (Jan 28, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Not really.
> 
> Someone had to make those pregens, and adventures.  The rules were used to create them but, in the end, it's no different than if you created them yourself.  Without those pregens and adventures, what would you have in a Starter Box?  Well, Basic D&D looked a lot like that - you had the rules but, you were told that you had to then go out and create your own game using these rules.
> 
> That someone else uses the RPG rules and creates a game for you doesn't change the fact that the RPG ruleset in itself isn't a game at all.  It's a set of instructions for creating a game that you and your group will play through.  But the game that you create will always be idiosyncratic to your table.  ((Barring, of course, selling modules and the like))  Two groups, could never create the same adventure using the same ruleset unless they deliberately copied one another.  If you took two groups, playing the same system, but with no connection between those two groups, and no communication, the games they play would be so radically different that it is actually difficult to say they are playing the same game.



At this point, you've kind of argued your position into being unable to distinguish RPGs from scenario-based war games like Advanced Squad Leader or even Panzer Blitz.


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## Hussar (Jan 28, 2021)

Campbell said:


> How familiar with the style of war gaming that preceded D&D? What about board games like Diplomacy or social manipulation games like The Resistance? What about more emergent video games like Civilization or Crusader Kings?



Very familiar.  

The point though is, if you sit down to Diplomacy, you will ALWAYS play Diplomacy.  You have a fixed board, a fixed goal, a fixed series of plays.  I cannot suddenly stab another player in the ear with a pen, no matter how much I may want to, in Diplomacy.   

Or, to use wargaming, you won't use your Napoleonic rules to resolve a Vietnam era conflict.  You use your Napoleonic rules for Napoleonic conflicts.  Even conflicts which are occuring in the same era - say central America and the Spanish, would not use Napoleonic rules.  You would likely be alright using those rules for the American Revolution, but, they'd be a very poor fit for Agincourt.

My point is, non-RPG games are playable right out of the box.  You set up, according to the rules of the game, and begin play in a proscribed manner.  You cannot deviate from that proscribed manner either.  But an RPG does not allow you to begin in a proscribed manner since RPG's don't have a proscribed staring point.


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## aramis erak (Jan 28, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Very familiar.
> 
> The point though is, if you sit down to Diplomacy, you will ALWAYS play Diplomacy.  You have a fixed board, a fixed goal, a fixed series of plays.  I cannot suddenly stab another player in the ear with a pen, no matter how much I may want to, in Diplomacy.
> 
> ...



You're wrong on both sides here; there are many boardgames that are not playable out of the box, and there are RPGs with constrained prescribed start points. 

Specifically, again, the beginner boxes are subset rulesets with explicit "start here" and with all the characters prewritten for that startpoint.  Plus quite a few indie games - the one most memorable is Grey Ranks - you're a resistance member in Krackow in a specific month during WW II. There are games without character gen, too - Marvel Heroic technically only has a process for rating existing characters, but that's close enough for many... Cosmic Patrol has a similar level of "character gen" - the intended mode for both is pregens for everyone, with the rating new characters being a "just to appease." The Dune starter box has neither character gen nor full pregens - buy it to find the details, but it's a variation on creation-during-play. And Character Creation in Feng Shui 2 is "Pick a template, transcribe/copy/print it out, put a name on it." Dallas: The RPG has only pregens as well, and has a defined starting scenario. (It's a fairly narrativist approach, even; shocking for the early 1980's.)

There are many wargames, both board and minis, that require building a scenario and have no explicit single startpoint; the best known board versions are Squad Leader and SFB, with Wooden Ships and Iron Men, and Harpoon being the second tier of being known, and for minis games, Warhammer and 40K are "Pick a point size and then pick forces..." Striker II and Soldier's Companion are GDW's equivalent efforts. Many minis wargames and many hex-based tactical sims also do the "Here's how to build a scenario" and "here's how to select forces for faction X"....

And that's ignoring the "Intentionally straddling the divide" games like Car Wars, Battlestations! (Gorilla Games), Inquisitor, and Necromunda.


*You've argued that RPGs are different because work has to be done, and then discounted the "grab-n-go" flavor of RPG's because the work has been done by someone, completely ignoring that most minis wargames work the same way, and many hex-and-counter tac sims work the same way. *If SFB counts as ready to play out of the box, then so does Star Trek Adventures Beginner Box or the Edge of the Empire Beginner Box. If the two starters do not count as ready to play, then neither does SFB, Starfire 1E/2E/3E, nor Warhammer 40K (esp. 1st ed).... Starfire 4e's prescribed start point involves system generation, then buying a starting fleet.... averages over an hour in 2E/3E campaign mechanics.


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## Hussar (Jan 28, 2021)

Beginner sets are not full RPG's though, are they?  They are, well, beginner sets.  Stripped down rulesets with many of the options turned off.  No one plays the Star Trek Adventures Beginner Box more than once, do they?  You play the Beginner boxes with the notion of learning how to play the actual game.  They aren't meant as a full RPG on their own.  Even going back to Basic D&D, it wasn't meant to be a stand alone product.  

You mention Squad Leader.  Thing is, every time I play Squad Leader, it's going to be very similar to every other time I play Squad Leader.  Sure, the specific scenario might be different, but, it's still going to be an armed conflict within a very limited time period.  I can't use Squad Leader to play out Star Fleet Battles after all.  

See, even the "Here's how to build a scenario" rules for wargames are still constrained by the limitations of those wargames.  The scenarios are extremely proscribed by the mechanics of that system.  You will never play a game of Necromunda where you are courtiers in a royal court in one campaign and dirt poor street urchins in the next campaign, and then murder hoboes in the third campaign, all with the same ruleset.  

I can do all three of those with any number of RPG rulesets.  I cannot do all three of those with virtually any boxed game or computer game.  

I could use the Traveller rules to do Battlestar Galactica (Original or Reboot), Buck Rogers, Pitch Black or Farscape.  No single non RPG will allow me to do that.


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## pemerton (Jan 28, 2021)

Hussar said:


> even the "Here's how to build a scenario" rules for wargames are still constrained by the limitations of those wargames.  The scenarios are extremely proscribed by the mechanics of that system.



This is equally true of RPGs. I can't use Moldvay Basic to run a game of Napoleonic-era diplomacy. Nor to run a game of street vendors struggling with standover thugs, high taxes and family problems. Nor to run a game of hi-tech spies. If I follow the scenario-building rules in Moldvay Basic I will end up with a "dungeon" that is, from any historical perspective, utterly preposterous; that is replete with traps, treasures and monsters; and that is waiting for a very stereotypical band of "adventurers (fighters, clerics, mages, etc) to enter and loot it.

Yet Moldvay Basic manifestly is a RPG.

The same point applies to other games. No doubt the world of the Far Future (TM) contains vacc-suit factories: but I can't use Classic Traveller to run a game about vacc-suit manufacturing entrepreneurs. I can's use Marvel Heroic RPG to run a game about competition among vendors of organic fruit juices. Etc.



Hussar said:


> I could use the Traveller rules to do Battlestar Galactica (Original or Reboot), Buck Rogers, Pitch Black or Farscape.  No single non RPG will allow me to do that.



I don't know Battlestar Galactica well enough to comment. Pitch Black, yes. Buck Rogers, no. The Traveller rules for PC build and starship battles won't support it.


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## MichaelSomething (Jan 29, 2021)

Hussar said:


> My point is, non-RPG games are playable right out of the box.  You set up, according to the rules of the game, and begin play in a proscribed manner.  You cannot deviate from that proscribed manner either.  But an RPG does not allow you to begin in a proscribed manner since RPG's don't have a proscribed staring point.



Requiring and encouraging improv is an important element in TTRPGS.  Remember how people didn't like 4E and though it was just a skirmish game because they felt the game just ran itself, without requiring constant DM adjustments to work??


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## Manbearcat (Jan 29, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Well, I don't consider beating dungeons with gamepieces instead of characters role-playing, and, frankly, I don't think that anyone out there seriously does.
> 
> And even in plain dungeoncrawling, characters are important, even if the changes are as simple as "orcs killed my buddies and now I hate their green guts!".



I’ll throw my hat in the ring as a piece of offending evidence in the opposite direction of your hypothesis.

You and I appear to agree a lot on games and play a lot of the same games. But here we significantly diverge.

Probably 1/4 of my TTRPGing since ‘84 has been Pawn Stance, Skilled Play delving/crawling. Coming into contact with the “you’re not RPGers(!)” epithet from 2E and White Wolf gamers was my first instance of “culture war” and gatekeeping in this hobby. Needless to say, I and my fellow players disagreed with them!

And let me just say it’s deliciously ironic to see the gatekeeping hypothesis embraced as much as it is now. I remember espousing the gatekeeping hypothesis back from 2012 to 2014 and it not being particularly welcome then (when the evidence for it was profoundly robust).


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## pemerton (Jan 29, 2021)

MichaelSomething said:


> Requiring and encouraging improv is an important element in TTRPGS.



This doesn't seem right. Unless by "improv" you mean _making decisions on the basis of the fiction_.



MichaelSomething said:


> Remember how people didn't like 4E and though it was just a skirmish game because they felt the game just ran itself, without requiring constant DM adjustments to work??



Which people?

Anyway, 4e D&D needs a lot of GM judgement to adjudicate - p 42 and its extensions (eg whenever an attack power is used against a non-creature target), skill challenges, the effects of rituals, etc.


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## Imaculata (Jan 29, 2021)

zarionofarabel said:


> I disagree with the progression part. Let's see...
> 
> Classic Traveller has none even over long term play, if I remember correctly. Classic Traveller lacks any rules for progression, or so I was told by an old Traveller grognard.
> 
> ...




Well put. I'll add to that:

Call of Cthulhu doesn't have character progression most of the time. There are options for it, but most editions of CoC specifically state that most pc's aren't expected to survive the adventure, and many CoC adventures are one-offs, where everyone dies or goes mad at the end. So character progression is entirely optional, and even discouraged per the basic rules of the game.

Does the OP want to make the claim that Call of Cthulhu is NOT a roleplaying game either?


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## Imaculata (Jan 29, 2021)

To make defining the word RPG even more difficult: RPG as a genre in a computer game is different from what we consider a tabletop RPG. Since most computer games involve playing an avatar, and most computer games don't really require playing a role, even if they are RPGs, the definition gets more muddy.

Then there are boardgames such as Descent and Gloomhaven, which play very much like certain computer game RPGs. Gloomhaven is a full on dungeoncrawl with character progression. If it is not an RPG, then surely it can be considered an RPG-lite?


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## Hussar (Jan 29, 2021)

The reason I tend to shy away from the standard arguments here is that these arguments - avatar play, etc - have been brought up perennially for decades.  And nothing new ever comes from the discussions.

At least I'm trying to attempt to frame the discussion differently to see if we can make any forward progress.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 29, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Which people?




Good lord, a huge number of them.  It was the basis of a massive amount of edition warring all over the place at the time.  I wasn't even a fan of 4e and I thought it was over the top how frequently that chesnut came out.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 29, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Well put. I'll add to that:
> 
> Call of Cthulhu doesn't have character progression most of the time. There are options for it, but most editions of CoC specifically state that most pc's aren't expected to survive the adventure, and many CoC adventures are one-offs, where everyone dies or goes mad at the end. So character progression is entirely optional, and even discouraged per the basic rules of the game.
> 
> Does the OP want to make the claim that Call of Cthulhu is NOT a roleplaying game either?




I'd say its not so much that CoC discourages character progression (most editions have used the same basic progression as other BRP derivatives) as that a lot of CoC games are short enough in campaign duration that its usually irrelevant.


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 29, 2021)

I have two things to say about 4E.  I hated the emphasis on maps and figs, but I loved the more modern appraoch to adjudication in a binary test environment.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 30, 2021)

I didn't have any problem with maps and figs (I pretty much need some form of maps or markers to keep track of position and distance in any game where those matter at all).  There was just something that felt, I don't know, "stiff" about the whole structure of the game?  I'm not sure I can express it well.

But I can't help but roll my eyes at "This is just like a computer game" because the damn game took the time to make sure its combat mechanics actually worked and gave something to engage with.


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 30, 2021)

4e is a fantastic small unit combat sim on the minis side. I say that with no sarcasm. It's just not what I want out of an RPG at all.


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## pemerton (Jan 30, 2021)

4e is the only version of D&D I have any interest in playing. It has the most evocative backstory, that is built into many of the PC build elements (race, class, theme, paragon path, epic destiny). It has the only serious non-combat resolution in any version of the game, if you want your game to encompass anything more than doors, traps and similar dungeon architecture. And the combat system generates fiction that is richer than monitoring respective hit point tallies.


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## Manbearcat (Jan 30, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> 4e is a fantastic small unit combat sim on the minis side. I say that with no sarcasm. It's just not what I want out of an RPG at all.




If I were to describe 4e, this would only be one of 8 significant aspects.  It would probably be (my version of your what you're written above):

* The most tactically deep and diverse combat system in TTRPGs with consistently consequential decision-points on several axes as well as robust mechanical support for several Win Conditions ("slaying your enemies" is only one of many).

* Noncombat conflict resolution (the Skill Challenge) is handled exactly like Conflicts in Mouse Guard and Clocks in AW/Blades, leveraging all of the same principles and techniques.

* The keyword tech, broad descriptors, and player-facing mechanics that govern play enable thematically-coherent, diverse, improvised action declarations (in combat and in noncombat conflict resolution) akin (again) to several indie games.

* The Quest system that supports PC dramatic need as propelling play is (again) inspired by indie games.

* The thematic heft, focus, and tropes borrow from Greek, Norse, and Japanese Myth.

* Balance and breadth across all archetypes.

* Player-facing and transparent mechanics allow GMs to offload overhead.

* All of the above works in concert to enable emergent, Story Now play in a way that no other D&D comes close to supporting.


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## hawkeyefan (Jan 30, 2021)

I’ll admit to not getting all of that out of 4e. I’m sure it’s largely because I only played it for a while. I also expect that I likely wasn’t doing everything as described by the rules so much as I thought they were meant to be used. I’m sure I was mistaken on a lot of it, simply trying to do things as they had been done in prior editions. 

There was quite a lot I liked about 4e as a GM. Skill challenges and monster stat blocks and minions and the way enemies were tiered. There were some drawbacks as well, but quite a bit I liked. 

On the player side there was less I liked. My group enjoyed it for a bit, but I think the novelty wore off. 

They asked to move over to Pathfinder, and I agreed. A move I now regret because Pathfinder for me was....ugh. It was a slow spiral down into everything I had come to hate about gaming. 

 I wish that I had either stuck with 4e and tried to get a better handle on it (based on what people have said since it went away) or else taken the opportunity to just move to a new game entirely.


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## Manbearcat (Jan 30, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> I’ll admit to not getting all of that out of 4e. I’m sure it’s largely because I only played it for a while. I also expect that I likely wasn’t doing everything as described by the rules so much as I thought they were meant to be used. I’m sure I was mistaken on a lot of it, simply trying to do things as they had been done in prior editions.
> 
> There was quite a lot I liked about 4e as a GM. Skill challenges and monster stat blocks and minions and the way enemies were tiered. There were some drawbacks as well, but quite a bit I liked.
> 
> ...



My guess is that if you looked at it and ran it with some fresh, post-Blades-eyes, it would be very different for you.

A lot of people tried to run it like a continuation of 3.x.  4e is not remotely 3.x and it will fight you hard if you try to run it like that.

Run it like some kind of combination of PBtA, Mouse Guard, Cortex+ w/ extremely crunchy tactical combat and it will sing.


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## hawkeyefan (Jan 30, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> My guess is that if you looked at it and ran it with some fresh, post-Blades-eyes, it would be very different for you.
> 
> A lot of people tried to run it like a continuation of 3.x.  4e is not remotely 3.x and it will fight you hard if you try to run it like that.
> 
> Run it like some kind of combination of PBtA, Mouse Guard, Cortex+ w/ extremely crunchy tactical combat and it will sing.




Right, I’m sure I wasn’t approaching it the right way. I wasn’t familiar with any of those games at that point. 

I also think that the initial core books likely could have been a bit clearer, but that’s a guess based on what I’ve heard since. I had the core three books and then like the first couple of follow ups (maybe Martial Power and PHB2, but I could be wrong). To me, the books just seemed like unending splat options that often rendered earlier options moot. 

Like, I grasped skill challenges enough to make them work, and I liked them a lot. I think the formalized structure made things a bit unclear for many. 

I expect I’d likely grasp more of the intent now, being much more familiar with PbtA and BitD and similar games. I don’t expect to actually return to, though. There’s no way my players would go for it. Also, I plan on closing out my current 5e campaign (post-lockdown) and then that’ll be the end of GMing D&D for me for the foreseeable future.


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## Arilyn (Jan 30, 2021)

WOTC themselves didn't do 4e any favours. The 3 combat encounters per session, the poor skill challenge explanation, the whole, "this isn't your Dad's D&D" and just the general way the game was marketed did not actually showcase the game's strength. I didn't like 4e at all, but seeing the game from other posters' perspectives, I can see the merits that had been obscured.


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## Manbearcat (Jan 30, 2021)

Arilyn said:


> WOTC themselves didn't do 4e any favours. The 3 combat encounters per session, the poor skill challenge explanation, the whole, "this isn't your Dad's D&D" and just the general way the game was marketed did not actually showcase the game's strength. I didn't like 4e at all, but seeing the game from other posters' perspectives, I can see the merits that had been obscured.




4e advocates like myself have detailed a robust, forensic breakdown on the issues of the PHB and DMG and their trivial solves.

If it was mildly iterated upon and edited with those solves in mind as an indie game within today's TTRPG marketplace, it would be an easy sell to a huge number of people.  It would fly off the shelves and be lavishly praised.  It would probably bring in a large number of MtG players who only casually play TTRPGs, Gloomhaven players, and PBtA/MG/FitD players. That is a chunky market share for an indie game.


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## chaochou (Jan 30, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> I’ll admit to not getting all of that out of 4e.




I didn't either, despite being familiar with PbtA and Burning Wheel and other such systems. I'm not saying for a second that one can't run the game @Manbearcat describes, but my version of 4e was 'knockabout co-operative combat romp'.

As it happens, I tend to think 4e excels at co-operative combat romp far more than anything else, but I can see how it could be used in the way mbc and @pemerton regularly describe. I just tend to find other things better suited to that style - such as PbtA and Burning Wheel!


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## pemerton (Jan 30, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> There was quite a lot I liked about 4e as a GM. Skill challenges and monster stat blocks and minions and the way enemies were tiered. There were some drawbacks as well, but quite a bit I liked.
> 
> On the player side there was less I liked. My group enjoyed it for a bit, but I think the novelty wore off.
> 
> They asked to move over to Pathfinder, and I agreed. A move I now regret because Pathfinder for me was....ugh. It was a slow spiral down into everything I had come to hate about gaming.



My knowledge of 3E/PF is a bit like your knowledge of 4e - limited play experience + a lot of reputation.

That knowledge base gives me an impression that 3E/PF has extremely complex PC build rules (rivalling Rolemaster, it would seem) which don't seem to deliver a lot of pay-off, in the sense that PCs can vary quite wildly in mechanical effectiveness for no reason that seems to make much sense from the point of view of game play or game design.

There are also a lot of keywords whose function seems to be to generate a connection to the fiction that strikes me as rather superficial - eg dragons can have double-digit natural armour bonuses, but in the fiction I don't know what that is meant to mean given that the best forged armour bonus seems to be around +15 or so for +6 magic plate armour. What does it mean to say that a typical adult dragon has natural armour that is tougher than what a powerful archmage, or even Hephaestus, can forge?

One of the things I like about 4e is that, while the rules don't always come out and expressly tell you, it's generally pretty easy to see _what bits of the build mechanics, and the stat blocks they yield, are concerned with the fiction_ and _what bits are about locating this particular game element within a metagame context. _So the "power" keyword on a bonus is about the latter - it's part of a stacking rule. Likewise the +30 to attack on an epic tier character or creature - that's a system-based comparator used against an equally-metagame defence number, and the high defence number signals the story significance (ie epic rather than heroic) of the entity in question.

But keywords like "fire" or "cold" or "arcane" or "teleportation" - while they can have mechanical significance - are also straightforwardly anchored to the fiction. To give an example that came fairly early in my 4e GMing experience: when a player wanted his PC to use the Icy Terrain power, which has the "cold" keyword, to freeze part of a stream or pond (I've forgotten the precise details) I had no trouble saying yes (again I can't remember the precise details of resolution, but I probably called for an Arcana check). This seems a natural application of, and extrapolation from, the DMG discussion of using powers to affect objects (the example given there is of gauzy curtains being particularly vulnerable to fire damage).

That's not to say that the game is perfect. There are some published creatures that have levels and associated numbers (attacks, defences etc) that locate them in (say) the paragon or epic tiers while the associated fiction gives no explanation of what makes them any different, story-wise, from a typical Orc or giant ant. Some obvious keywords weren't initially included where they should have been.

As an example of this last point, consider the Deathlock Wight's _horrific visage_:

*Horrific Visage* (standard; recharge 4, 5, 6) * Fear
Close blast 5; +7 vs. Will; 1d6 damage, and the target is pushed 3 squares.​
I remember loving this when I read it - the wight fixes its gaze on its enemies and they recoil in horror (it also demonstrates mechanical elegance in design - the "blast" keyword can do duty both for "cones" like burning hands and for facing-based attacks like gazes; and the push mechanic can work not just for a target being moved by its attacker, but for a target moving instinctively in response to something its attack does to it). When I used a deathlock wight in play of course I had a pit nearby, which one or maybe two PCs fell into as they fell back from the undead.

But the damage should have the "psychic" keyword. I can't remember now if I fixed this at the time; but WotC picked it up and fixed it in a revised version of the creature published on their website.

There's a school of thought that sees 3E/PF as very "rich" or "deep" and 4e as "shallow" or "superficial", but I don't get that at all. It seems to rest on a very different conception from my own as to what makes a RPG rich and what the relationship between mechanics and fiction should be.


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## pemerton (Jan 30, 2021)

chaochou said:


> I tend to think 4e excels at co-operative combat romp far more than anything else, but I can see how it could be used in the way mbc and @pemerton regularly describe. I just tend to find other things better suited to that style - such as PbtA and Burning Wheel!



One of the "knockabout cooperative combat romp" aspects of 4e is its success rate, which is much higher than in BW or (I suspect, but based on less play experience) PbtA.

Which means it puts less pressure on the players, I think - or at least less emotional pressure. It can be quite high on technical pressure!


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## Imaculata (Jan 31, 2021)

pemerton said:


> That knowledge base gives me an impression that 3E/PF has extremely complex PC build rules (rivalling Rolemaster, it would seem) which don't seem to deliver a lot of pay-off, in the sense that PCs can vary quite wildly in mechanical effectiveness for no reason that seems to make much sense from the point of view of game play or game design.




I play 3.5/PF exclusively, and that is not my experience. PC build options in 3.5/PF have a lot of options which can create radically different characters, but they are not difficult to understand at all. The variation in effectiveness that can occur is a feature of almost any good system where you can create a character: not every choice results in an optimised character. That is the point and fun of building your own character. You can specialize or you can be an allrounder. Some feats are powerful, others less so. But you can create PC's that play very differently from one another and can do very different things.



> There are also a lot of keywords whose function seems to be to generate a connection to the fiction that strikes me as rather superficial - eg dragons can have double-digit natural armour bonuses, but in the fiction I don't know what that is meant to mean given that the best forged armour bonus seems to be around +15 or so for +6 magic plate armour. What does it mean to say that a typical adult dragon has natural armour that is tougher than what a powerful archmage, or even Hephaestus, can forge?




It is simply a misunderstanding of the rules on your part that you think there needs to be an ingame justification for the higher armor class in the fiction of the game. That is not how AC works in 3.5/PF. Dragons have high AC because they are top tier opponents, and their defense needs to match the offense of PC's at higher levels. That is the only reason necessary. Tough opponent == tough AC. Dragons are foes intended for high level PC's. PC's gain higher and higher attack bonusses as they level up, plus bonusses from feats, and bonusses from magical items. Add all that together, and a high level PC easily hits for 20 or 30+. So high level foes need an AC to match that.


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## pemerton (Jan 31, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> I play 3.5/PF exclusively, and that is not my experience. PC build options in 3.5/PF have a lot of options which can create radically different characters, but they are not difficult to understand at all. The variation in effectiveness that can occur is a feature of almost any good system where you can create a character



Of systems that I'm familiar with, the one that produces the most variation in character effectiveness is Classic Traveller. But that is an output of the underlying logic of PC building: older characters are, everything else being equal, more experienced.

I agree with @Manbearcat that one of the strengths of 4e D&D is that the wide variety of builds doesn't produce a significant variations in effectiveness.



Imaculata said:


> not every choice results in an optimised character. That is the point and fun of building your own character. You can specialize or you can be an allrounder. Some feats are powerful, others less so. But you can create PC's that play very differently from one another and can do very different things.



I have no objection to characters who are different from one another! But that's not really the same thing as being "optimised" or not (optimised for what?). I guess it does relate to being specialist or an all-rounder, in the sense that if all the PCs are all-rounders then they're probably not that different from one another.



Imaculata said:


> It is simply a misunderstanding of the rules on your part that you think there needs to be an ingame justification for the higher armor class in the fiction of the game. That is not how AC works in 3.5/PF. Dragons have high AC because they are top tier opponents, and their defense needs to match the offense of PC's at higher levels. That is the only reason necessary. Tough opponent == tough AC. Dragons are foes intended for high level PC's. PC's gain higher and higher attack bonusses as they level up, plus bonusses from feats, and bonusses from magical items. Add all that together, and a high level PC easily hits for 20 or 30+. So high level foes need an AC to match that.



Then why label it "natural armour"? What's the point of the keyword? Why not just call it a "level bonus" or some similar metagame label, as 4e uses?


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## Imaculata (Jan 31, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Then why label it "natural armour"? What's the point of the keyword? Why not just call it a "level bonus" or some similar metagame label, as 4e uses?




Because natural armor is different from regular armor. In the 3rd edition rules, an opponent loses their armor bonus against touch attacks. This does not apply to natural armor, hence the different terminology. Touch attacks affect your skin directly, but since a dragon's natural armor is their skin, they can't lose it even when subject to a touch attack.


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## darkbard (Jan 31, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Because natural armor is different from regular armor. In the 3rd edition rules, an opponent loses their armor bonus against touch attacks. This does not apply to natural armor, hence the different terminology. Touch attacks affect your skin directly, but since a dragon's natural armor is their skin, they can't lose it even when subject to a touch attack.




Doesn't this make natural armor as a keyword less logically coherent rather than more? I mean, if the idea is that mere contact transmits the damage/spell effect/whatever, how does the dragon's (or any other creature with) natural armor negate this?


----------



## Imaculata (Jan 31, 2021)

darkbard said:


> Doesn't this make natural armor as a keyword less logically coherent rather than more? I mean, if the idea is that mere contact transmits the damage/spell effect/whatever, how does the dragon's (or any other creature with natural armor) negate this?




It makes sense as a keyword, for the purpose of understanding how armor works in 3rd edition. Touch attacks negate worn armor, not tough skin. A dragon's natural armor is not a suit of armor, it is their skin. But for the purpose of determing if you hit the dragon or not, calling it a type of armor makes more sense.

Keep in mind that 3rd edition has many other types of armor bonuses that stack on top of your base armor. There is a dodge bonus, alchemical bonus, deflection bonus, armor bonus, shield bonus, enhancement bonus, among others. Adding a new one would just make things more complicated.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 31, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> It makes sense as a keyword, for the purpose of understanding how armor works in 3rd edition. Touch attacks negate worn armor, not tough skin. A dragon's natural armor is not a suit of armor, it is their skin. But for the purpose of determing if you hit the dragon or not, calling it a type of armor makes more sense.
> 
> Keep in mind that 3rd edition has many other types of armor bonuses that stack on top of your base armor. There is a dodge bonus, alchemical bonus, deflection bonus, armor bonus, shield bonus, enhancement bonus, among others. Adding a new one would just make things more complicated.



Narural armor does not add to touch AC in 3/3.5.  Dunno if this was changed in pathfinder.  Natural armor also does not stack with other armor bonuses.

As such, the difference between natural armor and armor was almost entirely about the fiction -- it's descriptive only outside of resting rules.


----------



## Joe Pilkus (Jan 31, 2021)

Great piece and I wholeheartedly agree with the main points and it sparked some interesting, if unexpected, discussion.  As an RPG player for four decades you cite those elements that I find most appealing.  

Earlier, zarionofarabel mentions Traveller and in the original version, for which Marc Miller should be commended, I absolutely abhored the fact that there was no progression.  I have a job and a mortgage...I don't want to play a game in which I have a job and a mortgage.  To that end, we thus created and devised our own progression tracks.

I have put pen to paper on numerous occasions to design an RPG and it's a daunting task.  I tip my hat to those who have come before me and penned these wonderful RPGs over the past five decades.

Cheers,
Joe


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## Imaculata (Jan 31, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Natural armor does not add to touch AC in 3/3.5.  Dunno if this was changed in pathfinder.  Natural armor also does not stack with other armor bonuses.
> 
> As such, the difference between natural armor and armor was almost entirely about the fiction -- it's descriptive only outside of resting rules.




You may be right about touch attacks and natural armor. But then even then, armor and natural armor are two different things. You can have natural armor and also be wearing a suit of armor on top of it (They don't stack, the highest one applies). That alone is a reason to keep them separate.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 31, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> You may be right about touch attacks and natural armor. But then even then, armor and natural armor are two different things. You can have natural armor and also be wearing a suit of armor on top of it (They don't stack, the highest one applies). That alone is a reason to keep them separate.



That's the same as wearing one suit of armor and another on top, though -- it's not a functional difference within the armor bonus class of AC modifiers and not unique or special to natural armor.  Natural armor is often a dissociated mechanic that allows the monster designer to set an AC, slap the "natural armor" label on it, and not have to do much to justify it in the fiction.  As @pemerton notes, why is a massive creature like an ancient dragon encased in armor that is better than even gods can craft?  The answer is just, "because it's natural armor."  This is dissociated from the fiction to a degree, as is having leathery hide but gaining no benefit from it if you wear a breastplate.

3.x is full of mechanical tags that don't engage the fiction very much and exist mostly because of game balance issues (which, imo, is largely failed in 3.x anyway).


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 31, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> I play 3.5/PF exclusively, and that is not my experience. PC build options in 3.5/PF have a lot of options which can create radically different characters, but they are not difficult to understand at all. The variation in effectiveness that can occur is a feature of almost any good system where you can create a character: not every choice results in an optimised character. That is the point and fun of building your own character. You can specialize or you can be an allrounder. Some feats are powerful, others less so. But you can create PC's that play very differently from one another and can do very different things.



Absolutely disagree, in the strongest terms.  PC build requires system mastery to do to even a moderate ability, much less optimization.  This is because PC build is full of trap or dead end options that look useful but are not, or are so much less useful that other options as to be worthless.  The tier differences in power and flexibility that exist in 3.x are massive and largely not contested -- clerics, for instance, are just that much better than fighters: clerics are often better in melee than fighters with little effort and little loss to all the other things a cleric can do.

3.x PC build is full of the need to grok the system, grok the table you're playing at, and grok how to avoid the traps built into the PC build sub-game.  Arguing otherwise is an inability to look critically at the game.  It's a fine game, but the need for system mastery is one of the hallmarks of it.


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## Imaculata (Jan 31, 2021)

That is presuming the average player seeks that level of system mastery and class optimalisation. I don't think that is realistic or reasonable to assume. Nor do I think it is reasonable to presume that is the intended mode of play by the designers. If you want, you can grog out just about any RPG system and render other character building options by comparison much weaker and sub-optimal.

The ability to create really weak or really strong player characters through your choices in leveling, is a feature not a flaw in my opinion.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 31, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> That is presuming the average player seeks that level of system mastery and class optimalisation. I don't think that is realistic or reasonable to assume. Nor do I think it is reasonable to presume that is the intended mode of play by the designers. If you want, you can grog out just about any RPG system and render other character building options by comparison much weaker and sub-optimal.
> 
> The ability to create really weak or really strong player characters through your choices in leveling, is a feature not a flaw in my opinion.



And, you're welcome to see it as such, but it's a strange thing to argue that it's not present.  I also think it's strange to say that lack of system mastery means it doesn't matter -- even if the average player doesn't seek to have system mastery, that doesn't say that it's lack doesn't cause the system's many trap options and dead ends to disappear.  The PC build structure is full of outright bad choices regardless of table or game.


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## Arilyn (Jan 31, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Absolutely disagree, in the strongest terms.  PC build requires system mastery to do to even a moderate ability, much less optimization.  This is because PC build is full of trap or dead end options that look useful but are not, or are so much less useful that other options as to be worthless.  The tier differences in power and flexibility that exist in 3.x are massive and largely not contested -- clerics, for instance, are just that much better than fighters: clerics are often better in melee than fighters with little effort and little loss to all the other things a cleric can do.
> 
> 3.x PC build is full of the need to grok the system, grok the table you're playing at, and grok how to avoid the traps built into the PC build sub-game.  Arguing otherwise is an inability to look critically at the game.  It's a fine game, but the need for system mastery is one of the hallmarks of it.



This has absolutely not been my experience. I have played and GMed a lot of PF1 and have never found character building to be riddled with trap options or require system mastery. Yes, there are some weak feats in later books, but I don't think they'd ruin the fun of a player who chose one. This view comes up a lot, as well as people like me who push back. I think it depends on how the game is played. If it's played with the expectations of characters being as tough as possible, then yeah, there could be barriers  If a GM runs the adventure paths as written, then, oh yeah, there'll be trouble, as those arcs have great stories but way too much combat. I rip out huge encounter chunks. It's too bad because the story can get lost under the weight of pointless battles. 

So, you do have a point about PF. But lots of us don't play it that way. A legitimate complaint could be made that its not good for beginning GMs.


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## hawkeyefan (Jan 31, 2021)

In my experience with Pathfinder 1e, the differences in builds often boiled down more to mechanical efficacy rather than variety. And the delta between what a casual player would make and what a more optimizing minded player would make could be huge. 

This could indeed all be avoided with some effort toward shifting focus of play, but ultimately the very presence of all these options invites that kind of play. 

It’s a “The blade itself inspires violence” kind of thing.


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## Arilyn (Jan 31, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> In my experience with Pathfinder 1e, the differences in builds often boiled down more to mechanical efficacy rather than variety. And the delta between what a casual player would make and what a more optimizing minded player would make could be huge.
> 
> This could indeed all be avoided with some effort toward shifting focus of play, but ultimately the very presence of all these options invites that kind of play.
> 
> It’s a “The blade itself inspires violence” kind of thing.



I have made a ton of cool unique characters with PF. Having a lot of options allowed unique mixes, giving me themes not possible in other F20 games. 

PF players seem divided into roughly two groups-the ones using the character options to wring the most mechanical and efficient clout and the more narrative players happy to have choices that actually back up the character ideas in their heads. Because F20 games are about picking from a menu, rather than creating from scratch like other games, the huge amount of choice is a boon for players who love character creation. My group were happy to have a game that allowed this, and were genuinely puzzled when PF gained this reputation as a power gamer game. We simply didn't see that in the rule set. Stepping back and looking at the game objectively, I see how it can be used that way. We defaulted into a more narrative style, so these problems just did not come up.  And we are not unusual, or there wouldn't be all this fighting over the "true" nature of PF. 

Having said all this, PF is not my absolutely favourite game. I prefer 13th Age for F20, and games like Fate and Cortex are my favourite systems. But we did have a lot of fun with PF, creating many hours of pulpy fun, with nary a problem with trap builds or accidental broken characters.


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## pemerton (Jan 31, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> If you want, you can grog out just about any RPG system and render other character building options by comparison much weaker and sub-optimal.



This claim isn't true.

It's not really true of B/X D&D. In AD&D it's only true when it comes to selecting spell load-out - and that _is _a deliberate design feature.

It's not true in 4e D&D. It's not true in any of the systems my group is playing at the moment: Classic Traveller, Burning Wheel, Prince Valiant or Cortex+ Heroic.

I don't think it's true in RuneQuest. Or HeroWars/Quest.

It's not really true in Rolemaster - if you put build points into (say) Carwrighting rather than (say) Swordfighting then - self-evidently - your PC will be better at building carts than at fighting with swords, but there's no _trap _as it's self-evident, and presumably there's a reason you want your PC to be a cartwright. Spell lists can be a bit of an exception, which is why over time in our group some revisions were made to get rid of pointless imbalances.


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## chaochou (Feb 1, 2021)

pemerton said:


> This claim isn't true.
> 
> I don't think it's true in RuneQuest. Or HeroWars/Quest.




It's definitely not true in Runequest, or Herowars. Or any of the Powered by the Apocalypse games.

It's not true in Sorceror, or Bushido, or Paranoia, or Tunnels & Trolls, or Blades in the Dark, or Privateers and Gentlemen, or Call of Cthulhu, or dozens more games I've played either.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 1, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I don't think it's true in RuneQuest. Or HeroWars/Quest.




With RuneQuest the answer has to be "it kind of depends."  Its probably hard to talk about with most basic character options (the fact choosing and further investing in weapon skills tends to make you more combat capable is pretty much tautological, though there's the issue that throughout most of the system's history there were simply better and worse weapon choices is hard to argue), but I think it can absolutely be claimed when it comes to cult--and thus divine magic--choice.


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## DrunkonDuty (Feb 1, 2021)

I'm playing PF 1 pretty much exclusively at the moment. I have no doubt that system mastery is important for character building. Vitally so. It is very easy to unintentionally build an under powered character. And that might be fine if all the PCs are underpowered. The GM can simply dial down the danger. But if you have a mix of under- and over- powered characters you end up with players feeling useless. 

I recently had just this issue. It that came about due to some fundamental misunderstanding of game mechanics, specifically character build mechanics. The party had a sorcerer as their main magic dude. The group was struggling a bit with knowledge skills so the sorcerer's player decided to multi-class as a wizard. The player assumed (incorrectly) that by taking some wizard levels they would suddenly have a character with a bunch of wizardy know how. And of course their caster level was buggered, being stretched over 2 classes. I advised, very strongly, against this but the player was convinced it was a good idea. It took a whole level and about 5 sessions (we level slowly) for them to see just how power-maimed their character had become. Luckily, as of last session, the character has been rebuilt as a pure sorcerer and is once again on par with effectiveness re. the rest of the party. 

So, yeah, under powered builds are very possible.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 1, 2021)

chaochou said:


> It's definitely not true in Runequest, or Herowars. Or any of the Powered by the Apocalypse games.
> 
> It's not true in Sorceror, or Bushido, or Paranoia, or Tunnels & Trolls, or Blades in the Dark, or Privateers and Gentlemen, or Call of Cthulhu, or dozens more games I've played either.



Or Dogs, Mouse Guard, or My Life With Master.

I’ve GMed a lot of 3.x.

I’m fairly certain it’s the only game I’ve played where (a) intraparty and party: obstacle game balance becomes progressively more sensitive to PC build choices, (b) where trap options were intentional, and (c) that was intentfully designed in as a part of skilled play (I’m 100 % certain Monte Cook or another dev explicitly conveyed this somewheres).


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## pemerton (Feb 1, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> I’m 100 % certain Monte Cook or another dev explicitly conveyed this somewheres



Is this what you're remembering?





__





						Ivory Tower Game Design, Immortalized for the Ages
					

Ivory Tower Game Design, Immortalized for the Ages



					minmaxforum.com


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## Manbearcat (Feb 1, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Is this what you're remembering?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That is definitely one source if not *the* source; the Timmy Card and related system mastery MtG inspiration at the build level.


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## billd91 (Feb 1, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> That is definitely one source if not *the* source; the Timmy Card and related system mastery MtG inspiration at the build level.



That is also a misreading of Monte's point. It's not that the options are deliberately traps - rather, that they have a place in the game but that place isn't everywhere. Knowing that place is an element of system mastery. Monte's big regret about this was that they didn't spend enough time providing that information up front.


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## darkbard (Feb 1, 2021)

billd91 said:


> That is also a misreading of Monte's point. It's not that the options are deliberately traps - rather, that they have a place in the game but that place isn't everywhere. Knowing that place is an element of system mastery. Monte's big regret about this was that they didn't spend enough time providing that information up front.



It seems pretty clear from this:



> *Monte Cook: These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The purpose of such cards is to reward people for really mastering the game, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other.*





*that such choices were "traps." His overarching points is that the designers should have been clearer with guidance about how the rules function and not just simply have presented the rules with little to no commentary.

edit: Something has gone wacky with the bold formatting here, and I can't seem to right it.*


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## billd91 (Feb 1, 2021)

darkbard said:


> *It seems pretty clear from this: "These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The purpose of such cards is to reward people for really mastering the game, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other."
> that such choices were "traps." *



That interpretation depends on deliberately interpreting what he's saying in the worst light or not believing the rest of his blog post. Frankly, I don't think there's a reason to do either. "Trap" feats like Toughness are useful in the right circumstances and Monte identifies a couple (the stronger one is the one-shot convention game where the DM can't be certain what levels of experience players will have).


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## Aldarc (Feb 1, 2021)

darkbard said:


> It seems pretty clear from this:
> 
> *that such choices were "traps." His overarching points is that the designers should have been clearer with guidance about how the rules function and not just simply have presented the rules with little to no commentary.
> 
> edit: Something has gone wacky with the bold formatting here, and I can't seem to right it.*



I think that there is a difference between saying that some feats are generally better than others, which may have more circumstantial uses, and saying that some feats are trap options. The latter is an uncharitable reading IMO. He also, for example, mentions things like longswords being generally better than some of the other weapons. It's not necessarily a "trap" to use non-longswords, just that the longsword may have a more consistent edge.


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## Alzrius (Feb 1, 2021)

I haven't read the entire thread, so apologies if this was already mentioned, but the listing for progressive improvement always makes me wonder if _Classic Traveler_ (affiliate link) wasn't an RPG, since that game didn't have the characters improve over time:



> _“The experience which is gained as the individual character travels and adventures is, in a very real sense, an increased ability to play the role which he has assumed.” _– Traveller, Book 2.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 1, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I think that there is a difference between saying that some feats are generally better than others, which may have more circumstantial uses, and saying that some feats are trap options. The latter is an uncharitable reading IMO. He also, for example, mentions things like longswords being generally better than some of the other weapons. It's not necessarily a "trap" to use non-longswords, just that the longsword may have a more consistent edge.



When I think of trap options, I think of cross-class skills.  Some feats that I think of are the ones that appear to provide a benefit, but are quickly lost or overshadowed by other options -- like skill focus.


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## heretic888 (Feb 1, 2021)

chaochou said:


> I didn't either, despite being familiar with PbtA and Burning Wheel and other such systems. I'm not saying for a second that one can't run the game @Manbearcat describes, but my version of 4e was 'knockabout co-operative combat romp'.
> 
> As it happens, I tend to think 4e excels at co-operative combat romp far more than anything else, but I can see how it could be used in the way mbc and @pemerton regularly describe. I just tend to find other things better suited to that style - such as PbtA and Burning Wheel!



For me, it was precisely the opposite. I had zero exposure to Story Now games before 4E and it was my experience with that system that led me to the PbtA family of games. In fact, my initial reaction to Dungeon World was essentially, "what's the big deal? This is exactly how 4E plays outside of combat". Of course, I was 'The Skill Challenge DM' in my circles and lived and breathed on the DMG2, so there was that too.

I tend to agree with what was suggested upthread: a lot of people who "played 4E" actually "played 3E using 4E monsters and characters".


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## DrunkonDuty (Feb 1, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I think that there is a difference between saying that some feats are generally better than others, which may have more circumstantial uses, and saying that some feats are trap options. The latter is an uncharitable reading IMO. He also, for example, mentions things like longswords being generally better than some of the other weapons. It's not necessarily a "trap" to use non-longswords, just that the longsword may have a more consistent edge.




I read it and I got a distinct feeling of smug wankers engaging in some gate keeping BS. I'm glad to see that Cook, at least, was able to grow a little and look back at the decision deliberately include obfuscation in the rules writing and realise it was a poor one.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 1, 2021)

billd91 said:


> That interpretation depends on deliberately interpreting what he's saying in the worst light or not believing the rest of his blog post. Frankly, I don't think there's a reason to do either. "Trap" feats like Toughness are useful in the right circumstances and Monte identifies a couple (the stronger one is the one-shot convention game where the DM can't be certain what levels of experience players will have).






Aldarc said:


> I think that there is a difference between saying that some feats are generally better than others, which may have more circumstantial uses, and saying that some feats are trap options. The latter is an uncharitable reading IMO. He also, for example, mentions things like longswords being generally better than some of the other weapons. It's not necessarily a "trap" to use non-longswords, just that the longsword may have a more consistent edge.




Can I assume that neither of you have much background in either/or MTG play or MTG culture? I’m asking this because here are the lines of evidence (which I would say are overwhelming) that push back against your positions:

1) Besides it being in plain view, WotC devs confirmed that 3e character building was MtG-inspired (or at least their confederates helped them).

2) Trap Options leading to Trap Deck Construction or Drafting (due to synergy or incoherency issues or the fact that the card is just a budget card without comparable “oomph” for its cost) is designed into MtG. Deck Construction or Deck Drafting (and the understanding of the strata of cards of varying and equal value and how to recognize synergies and work toward coherency) is a HUGE part of distilling skilled play (system mastery).

3) A Trap Option doesn’t mean it’s a “bad card.” It just means it’s use or value or integration with other cards either (a) isn’t readily obvious or (b) it’s prone to misconception without robust skill/experience.

4) Hence, when you’re playing against decks with high value cards that are well-synergized, you’re going to be disadvantaged (in the same way that your net contribution to Team PC will be disadvantaged against PCs built like top tier MtG decks...In turn yielding intraparty balance issues and party : obstacle balance issues).

That is what happened with 3e. Upon reflection they may have wished they would have muted this effect with more transparent signposting and/or tighter constraints (they did both of these things in 4e). But that doesn’t change the reality that “skilled play distilled by character building” was an emergent property of design (just like in MtG).


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## billd91 (Feb 1, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Can I assume that neither of you have much background in either/or MTG play or MTG culture?



No, you can't. Or, more accurately, you can try but you'd be wrong.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 1, 2021)

billd91 said:


> No, you can't. Or, more accurately, you can try but you'd be wrong.




Then your position makes even less sense to me if it’s informed by all the dynamics at work here.

There is no misreading or lack of charity on my part.  It’s just like gatekeeping in 2012-2014 held the same meaning as it does in 2021.


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## billd91 (Feb 1, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Then your position makes even less sense to me if it’s informed by all the dynamics at work here.
> 
> There is no misreading or lack of charity on my part.  It’s just like gatekeeping in 2012-2014 held the same meaning as it does in 2021.



It's probably because you're failing to recognize that your calling them "trap options" reflects an inherently uncharitable bias - and that's not their intent.


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## Hussar (Feb 2, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> It is simply a misunderstanding of the rules on your part that you think there needs to be an ingame justification for the higher armor class in the fiction of the game. That is not how AC works in 3.5/PF. Dragons have high AC because they are top tier opponents, and their defense needs to match the offense of PC's at higher levels. That is the only reason necessary. Tough opponent == tough AC. Dragons are foes intended for high level PC's. PC's gain higher and higher attack bonusses as they level up, plus bonusses from feats, and bonusses from magical items. Add all that together, and a high level PC easily hits for 20 or 30+. So high level foes need an AC to match that.



Wow.  Things certainly have changed.  This comment right here would have gotten you labeled as a 3e hater for even suggesting that the mechanics in 3e were not 100% simulation based but, were rather based in gamism.  

Now, the comment passes without so much as a raised eyebrow.  

Time does change things.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 2, 2021)

Oh, like gamist abstraction hasn't been built into D&D since day one.  Sheesh.


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## aramis erak (Feb 2, 2021)

Arilyn said:


> WOTC themselves didn't do 4e any favours. The 3 combat encounters per session, the poor skill challenge explanation, the whole, "this isn't your Dad's D&D" and just the general way the game was marketed did not actually showcase the game's strength. I didn't like 4e at all, but seeing the game from other posters' perspectives, I can see the merits that had been obscured.



Agreed - they mishandled the rules presentation.
I enjoyed the two sessions I played... but not enough to actually ever run it.


Manbearcat said:


> 4e advocates like myself have detailed a robust, forensic breakdown on the issues of the PHB and DMG and their trivial solves.
> 
> If it was mildly iterated upon and edited with those solves in mind as an indie game within today's TTRPG marketplace, it would be an easy sell to a huge number of people.  It would fly off the shelves and be lavishly praised.  It would probably bring in a large number of MtG players who only casually play TTRPGs, Gloomhaven players, and PBtA/MG/FitD players. That is a chunky market share for an indie game.



That was tried; it failed. 4E Essentials. 
Calling 4E D&D with the rather different class abilities was a huge image problem for adoption by prior edition fans.
Including myself, who at one point actually loved D&D Rules Cyclopedia and AD&D 2E...


pemerton said:


> My knowledge of 3E/PF is a bit like your knowledge of 4e - limited play experience + a lot of reputation.
> 
> That knowledge base gives me an impression that 3E/PF has extremely complex PC build rules (rivalling Rolemaster, it would seem) which don't seem to deliver a lot of pay-off, in the sense that PCs can vary quite wildly in mechanical effectiveness for no reason that seems to make much sense from the point of view of game play or game design.



No, not rivalling RM. RM has more steps, and more tables needed, as well as a lot more math.

It's similar in process: 

D&D 3.x
Generate Attributes
Pick Race
Pick Class 
Determine skill points
Spend Skill Points. All skills cost 1 point or 2 points, and up to 4 ranks allowed for level 1.
Pick feat(s)
If needed, pick which class ability.

RM
Pick Race
Pick Class
Generate attributes. (10x 1d100, assigned as desired) May or may not be modified by race; if class PR's under 90, raise to 90.
Generate potentials (roll d100 and table cross-reference with attribute)
determine skill points for adolescence (table lookup from 5 of the 10 atts)
spend adolescence skill points. Note that skills vary in point cost from 1 point per rank no limit to 25 points per rank max one rank per level, most allowing 1 or 2 ranks at costs under 10 per rank, with an average of 20-30 points per level. Each class has a different table. By RMC VI, there are over 60 classes....
spend Level 1 skill points
make background option rolls
depending upon GM selection of house rules, you may need to spend your dev points for when you level up to level 2, or you may need to do so when you hit halfway, or not until level 2 is hit...
If you raised Concussion Hits, roll the racial HD the correct number of times. Add to base from Attribute current scores.
If you raised Spell Points, roll the racial SP die the correct number of times. Add to base from attributes.
Note: I don't remember if one is supposed to do attribute gain rolls for adolescence and level 1.

It's similar in core concept, but not nearly as detailed a system.



pemerton said:


> There's a school of thought that sees 3E/PF as very "rich" or "deep" and 4e as "shallow" or "superficial", but I don't get that at all. It seems to rest on a very different conception from my own as to what makes a RPG rich and what the relationship between mechanics and fiction should be.



I fully agree on this - but I can see the 3E fanboy PoV on it, too... The variety in 4E is not in damage output, but in damage method and types. 


Imaculata said:


> That is presuming the average player seeks that level of system mastery and class optimalisation. I don't think that is realistic or reasonable to assume. Nor do I think it is reasonable to presume that is the intended mode of play by the designers. If you want, you can grog out just about any RPG system and render other character building options by comparison much weaker and sub-optimal.
> 
> The ability to create really weak or really strong player characters through your choices in leveling, is a feature not a flaw in my opinion.



My experience is about 30% seek system mastery, and 2/3 of those seek class optimization.
about 50% are there to play, but aren't worried about mastery, just play. And somewhere around 19% find pushes for system mastery by others annoying, but not enough to play, and 1% want special snowflakes to break away from the pack and the system mastery players.

As a recovering System Mastery type but not an optimizer type... the combination of GURPS, Hero, Rolemaster, and AD&D 2E Skills & Powers made me realize balance is an illusion, and that mathematical optimization not only was a timewasting exercise in one-ups-man-ship amongst the players I knew, but was actively detrimental to the appeal of those systems to me - the ability to generate a character to fit a concept, rather than to figure out a concept from the character as generated.

I don't know that I'd enjoy running Rolemaster these days... but it was the least susceptible to mastery of them three. 
Hero was the one that actually comes closest to balanced, but even then, if you don't follow the everyman advice bits in 3rd Ed Champions, you're going to be underperforming.


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## Imaculata (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> When I think of trap options, I think of cross-class skills.  Some feats that I think of are the ones that appear to provide a benefit, but are quickly lost or overshadowed by other options -- like skill focus.




They may be bad options, although cross class skills can be a very worth while investment depending on the skill. But they are not 'trap' options, in the way Magic the Gathering uses that term. Picking them will not result in a bad character.

Take for example the Alertness feat, which gives a +2 on Listen and Spot checks. Arguably any feat that just gives 4 extra ranks in skills is a bad feat, because a character gains plenty of skillpoints each level, and only a new feat each 3 levels. Feats there for are a very valuable power increase, and should not be wasted on gaining extra ranks in skills. The only reason one should even consider taking this feat, is if it is a requirement for another feat.

But a bad feat is not by definition a trap. Picking the skill will not break your character build, or make you a whole lot less effective than your other party members. Character builds in 3e do not require optimization the way a deck in Magic the Gathering does.

Magic the Gathering, and the MMO Guild Wars (which borrows the design principles of MtG, and which I am VERY familiar with), focus a lot on build synergy. In GW, the player has only 8 skills (much like a hand of cards). So picking skills that work well together is paramount for making a strong character. Character building in 3e is not like that. There is far less focus on feat synergy in 3e's design. It isn't like Magic the Gathering at all. There are no trap options.

If you want to make a strong character in 3e, it does help to specialize in something that builds upon the strengths of your class. Turning your squishy caster into a front line fighter is probably not a good idea. But turning your fighter into a tank, by picking lots of feats that increase his AC, will easily make you excel in that one thing. Other things you can specialize in are damage, critical range, mobility, attacks of opportunity, ranged combat, etc., to name a few. But despite all of the character build options, building a character in 3e never goes that deep as Magic the Gathering or Guild Wars. You will never end up with a character that picked the wrong skill or feat and now sucks. It is not that kind of system.


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## Aldarc (Feb 2, 2021)

DrunkonDuty said:


> I read it and I got a distinct feeling of smug wankers engaging in some gate keeping BS. I'm glad to see that Cook, at least, was able to grow a little and look back at the decision deliberately include obfuscation in the rules writing and realise it was a poor one.



I'm not sure if it's necessarily smug gatekeeping anymore than learning how to improve your knowledge and skill in a game is, whether that is MtG, poker, or something like Call of Duty, though I do agree that Cook does wish that they had made it less Ivory Tower design or been more forthright about their design intentions. However, I think that the emphasis here is far more benign than the nefarious gatekeeping that it's being made out to be. IMHO, the 3e team was not aiming to gatekeep, but, rather, to promote a psychologically rewarding sense of a system mastery and player skill when it comes to character building: the ah-ha! moment when you figure something out. I do not doubt, however, that a gatekeeping culture can form around this (e.g., "What sort of n00b takes Toughness?!"), but I don't think that's the intent or actual tone being conveyed by Cook about 3e's design.


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## pemerton (Feb 2, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> I don't know that I'd enjoy running Rolemaster these days... but it was the least susceptible to mastery of them three.



I ran RM almost exclusively for about 19 years. I think it can be quite a complex system from the point of view of resolution. But PC build is mostly about getting big numbers in the skills you want, and about picking the spell list that will let you do what you want. It's not really combo-based in the way that modern D&D is.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 2, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> They may be bad options, although cross class skills can be a very worth while investment depending on the skill. But they are not 'trap' options, in the way Magic the Gathering uses that term. Picking them will not result in a bad character.



You're comparing competitive MtG to a casual 3e game.  There are absolutely build choices in 3e that can result in significant difference in effectiveness just like in MtG.



> Take for example the Alertness feat, which gives a +2 on Listen and Spot checks. Arguably any feat that just gives 4 extra ranks in skills is a bad feat, because a character gains plenty of skillpoints each level, and only a new feat each 3 levels. Feats there for are a very valuable power increase, and should not be wasted on gaining extra ranks in skills. The only reason one should even consider taking this feat, is if it is a requirement for another feat.
> 
> But a bad feat is not by definition a trap. Picking the skill will not break your character build, or make you a whole lot less effective than your other party members. Character builds in 3e do not require optimization the way a deck in Magic the Gathering does.



Trap cards in MtG are called such not because they reduce your deck to uselessness, but because their actual function is different from their initial appearance of function.  They aren't necessarily bad cards, but you need system mastery to understand how they actually work -- just like your Alert example here, it's fine if it's a pre-req to something that justifies it's cost.


> Magic the Gathering, and the MMO Guild Wars (which borrows the design principles of MtG, and which I am VERY familiar with), focus a lot on build synergy. In GW, the player has only 8 skills (much like a hand of cards). So picking skills that work well together is paramount for making a strong character. Character building in 3e is not like that. There is far less focus on feat synergy in 3e's design. It isn't like Magic the Gathering at all. There are no trap options.
> 
> If you want to make a strong character in 3e, it does help to specialize in something that builds upon the strengths of your class. Turning your squishy caster into a front line fighter is probably not a good idea. But turning your fighter into a tank, by picking lots of feats that increase his AC, will easily make you excel in that one thing. Other things you can specialize in are damage, critical range, mobility, attacks of opportunity, ranged combat, etc., to name a few. But despite all of the character build options, building a character in 3e never goes that deep as Magic the Gathering or Guild Wars. You will never end up with a character that picked the wrong skill or feat and now sucks. It is not that kind of system.



My experience be damned, eh?  I've built they thematic chatacter with skill focus in Intimidate, only to have the bard character be much, much better at it without trying solely due to synergy bonus from the skills he did pick.  Even trying to have a fighter/rogue be good at intimidate was a trap option because a bard will bury you without effort, thenatics be damned. (By the by, for oldtimers here, the bard was played by Hypersmurf.)

There are tons of trap options on 3.x.  So far, the counter to this is a vague handwave that assumds a completely casual game where all players are choosing these options.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 2, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I'm not sure if it's necessarily smug gatekeeping anymore than learning how to improve your knowledge and skill in a game is, whether that is MtG, poker, or something like Call of Duty, though I do agree that Cook does wish that they had made it less Ivory Tower design or been more forthright about their design intentions. However, I think that the emphasis here is far more benign than the nefarious gatekeeping that it's being made out to be. IMHO, the 3e team was not aiming to gatekeep, but, rather, to promote a psychologically rewarding sense of a system mastery and player skill when it comes to character building: the ah-ha! moment when you figure something out. I do not doubt, however, that a gatekeeping culture can form around this (e.g., "What sort of n00b takes Toughness?!"), but I don't think that's the intent or actual tone being conveyed by Cook about 3e's design.



I think this describes most gatekeeping -- it's emergent culture that's based on some form of system mastery, where system isn't limited to RPGs but to any complex interaction.

I've recently delved back into chess, for instance (right before Queen's Gambit came out, actually, although that did catalyze me to a higher level of effort, if only to understand the games played). I bounced off of it as a younger man, largely due to my access to the "club," which would only really talk to you if you decent already.  The difference today, with the number of platforms, free lessons, and youtube community, is huge!  There are people making chess accessible, and while I still don't know why GMs play a4/h4, I can (mostly) follow the commentary.

The gatekeeping before, though, wasn't really malicious so much as a culture that grew up due to requisite system mastery.  You still need that mastery, but the culture as changed dramatically.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 2, 2021)

Just going to lead with "this is all so odd" (that we aren't in agreement on this).

@Imaculata et al.  I'm just going to pour out a bunch of stuff and you can respond as you'd like to it.

1)  I invoked "gatekeeping" in this conversation not in any way that relates to the question we're entertaining here.  I did it as an ironic aside (because some folks were all about gatekeeping in the past...pedal to proverbial floor...but are seemingly "anti-gatekeeping" now.  Its interesting...).  I do NOT think that the practice of game designers embedding skilled play at the build stage of their games (whether you're building a deck or a character) is in any way, shape, or form "cultural gatekeeping" (as used in common parlance). I mean, if that constitutes gatekeeping, then any game or activity that distills skill (and thereby rewards "system mastery" and stratifies play and players by it) would have to fall under the umbrella of gatekeeping.  If that applies, then abolish the word from gaming lexicon because it holds no useful information.

2)  How can someone take all of the following things together and draw the conclusions you are drawing(?):



> a)  "Magic also has a concept of "Timmy cards." These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The *purpose *of such cards is to *reward people for really mastering the game*, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other. While *D&D* doesn't exactly do that, it is true that *certain game choices are deliberately better than others*.
> 
> Toughness, for example, has its uses, but in most cases it's not the best choice of feat. If you can use martial weapons, a longsword is better than many other one-handed weapons. And so on -- there are many other, far more intricate examples. (Arguably, this kind of thing has always existed in D&D. Mostly, *we just made sure that we didn't design it away -- we wanted to reward mastery of the game*.)
> 
> There's a third concept that we took from Magic-style rules design, though. Only with six years of hindsight do I call the concept "Ivory Tower Game Design." (Perhaps a bit of misnomer, but it's got a ring to it.) This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and *players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones."*





build choices were designed to be deliberately better and worse than others.
"good" and "poor" choices exist.  They were encoded into the game.
their purpose is to reward system mastery.
because of this we were vigilant to not design away these disparities (4e, as we know, did).
players figure out the encoded disparities and are rewarded.

3)  An unparalleled (to that point), robust CharOp community accreted around 3e just like it did MtG.  See (2) above for why.  This CharOp community uses the same lexicon that MtG Op community does/did.

4)  The development of a robust Class Tier system was an emergent property of all of the above.

5)  The game is extraordinarily sensitive to intraparty imbalance and party : obstacle imbalance.  The only "solve" for this is a progressive regime of heavy GM curation of content and/or heavy application of GM Force.

6)  The last game I ran in 3.x started at level 4 and ended at level 20.  This was 2006 when it ended.  There were multiple other characters that did not survive contact with the enemy, but the 3 that survived that 16 level span was:


Shapeshifting "Ursine Swarm" Druid.
A mega-fragile, Skill-Monkey mega-Nova/Shadow-jumping Rogue.
A F/M/Bladesinger that could out-duel anyone and trivially and routinely get its AC to gajillion along with other defensive measures.

At around level 11, the sensitivity to conflict type and system maths/CR became so pronounced (due to the 3 PCs' extreme numerical disparities, Class disparity, and build choice disparities) that without the most significant GM Curation of content possible, it would lead to extreme formulaic, niche playbook response by the PCs as one could imagine.  The homogeneity of the flow-chart (and the homogeneity of the outcomes) was an arms race that I spent endless mental overhead on.  Overwhelmingly, the Druid and Rogue solved all obstacles/conflicts.  In order to make the Bladesinger relevant, it would have to be one of two things: Knowledge (Arcana) gating a solve, a monster that couldn't be nova'd/swarmed and whose AC/To-Hit/Damage/Multi-attacking numbers were so extremely punishing for the Rogue/Druid that they dared not wade into melee combat.

And this game didn't even involve a high level Wizard or Cleric by a player with significant system mastery (of which I ran games for those players...and the vanilla Toughness, Power-Attack maths-struggling player).



So 2, 3, 4, and 5 you deny the reality of and you never experienced 6?


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## Manbearcat (Feb 2, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> That was tried; it failed. 4E Essentials.
> Calling 4E D&D with the rather different class abilities was a huge image problem for adoption by prior edition fans.
> Including myself, who at one point actually loved D&D Rules Cyclopedia and AD&D 2E...



We're clearly thinking of something very different, because Essential was not remotely what I had in mind.  In fact, it skews in nearly the opposite direction (though I don't care to spend the time detailing each point and relitigate that).  

And while the RC instruction and handling of Skill Challenges is the pinnacle of 4e noncombat conflict resolution (and honestly, its one of the best instruction manuals for any conflict resolution handling in terms of GMing techniques), the totality of the text still falls short of what I had in mind.

What I had in mind would look significantly more like the focused instruction and structuring of play in Mouse Guard/Torchbearer and Blades more than anything else.


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## D1Tremere (Feb 2, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> It’s a daunting task to try to define and characterize a segment as large and diverse as tabletop role-playing games in just a few words. But here goes.
> 
> View attachment 131071
> Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​
> ...



In general I really like this post, but I do disagree with a few points very strongly (much as the author pre-supposes).

1: "Role-playing games, as defined by the last word, are games and therefore require opposition." As a psychologist who uses gameification in research and education I think we need to examine the definition of game here. In particular, "A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...Games are sometimes played purely for enjoyment, sometimes for achievement or reward as well. They can be played alone, in teams, or online" (Wikipedia, January 12th 2021).

The key takeaway from this excerpt of definition and from my own experience is that a game need not include opposition or progressive improvement. A roleplaying game can be entirely cooperative, including the DM. A cooperative narrative RPG where the DM and player simply build a scene is still a game. Even when a game includes opposition I would argue that it does not have to be (and really shouldn't be in my opinion) "GM opposed adventure." The GM can exist purely as an impartial arbitrator who simply informs players of scenario and outcomes, or as a partial agent (either for or against the players). The latter (against or opposed to the players) is my least favored scenario, as it often results in less cooperation and can be responsible for creating issues instead of preventing them. When the GM is an agent for the players he/she can focus on tailoring the game to everyone's tastes and needs, resulting in a much more enjoyable game in many circumstances. That said, if a group prefers an adversarial GM relationship that is perfectly valid as well. I simply argue that this is neither the only, nor the default/best option.

2: Progressive improvement is not necessary for it to be an RPG or a game. Evolution (as change over time) is certainly a key component to a game, but it doesn't need to be progressive or an improvement. Change over time can consist of an evolving or devolving series of circumstances. These changes may not represent improvement, or if they do it may not be a lasting improvement. Much of what is considered improvement remains a matter of perspective as well. A player may feel that their character has improved despite becoming less capable at one or more pillars of the game. For example; a player may feel that their character cutting off their hand in order to save a party member or NPC is an improvement, despite the fact that they are now less capable at challenges and have not mechanically progressed.

I would then propose the following change:

Avatars,
evolution (subjective and/or objective),
co-operation, and
GMed arbitration.


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## Imaculata (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> My experience be damned, eh?  I've built they thematic chatacter with skill focus in Intimidate, only to have the bard character be much, much better at it without trying solely due to synergy bonus from the skills he did pick.  Even trying to have a fighter/rogue be good at intimidate was a trap option because a bard will bury you without effort, thenatics be damned. (By the by, for oldtimers here, the bard was played by Hypersmurf.)
> 
> There are tons of trap options on 3.x.  So far, the counter to this is a vague handwave that assumds a completely casual game where all players are choosing these options.




Are you talking about competing with your own party members on who is better at a skill? Why would you do that? And why would you presume the bard is always there to bail you out? The party does occasionally split, right?


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 2, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Are you talking about competing with your own party members on who is better at a skill? Why would you do that? And why would you presume the bard is always there to bail you out? The party does occasionally split, right?



No, I'm talking about making build choice to be good at a thing, but finding out that such choices aren't even good enough to be close to matching what other chouces did without trying.  The bard didn't focus on intimidate, my character did.  Yet, the bard was almost twice as effective because the skills they did focus on had side-line synergies into intimidate.  The bard was hands down better at a thing my character concept was centered on not because the bard was also, but because of the way character build systems interact to make skill focus a trap choice.  I'd have been better off picking up a synergy as a class skill with another feat choice, but then being better at something that wasn't part of the character concept.

In other words, skill focus was a trap choice -- it didn't provide the result anticipated, and failed to do so in a situation where the other character didn't even try to focus on that skill.  I only partial understood tge system at that point -- I hadn't looked at the social skill synergy effects and didn't fully understand them.  So, I made a character trusting the labels on the tin and was outclassed by someone not trying.

It's very telling that your counter is to suggest that I was relying on the bard when it was a core concept of my character to intimidate others (ie, I didn't want to rely on the bard), and that the second offer was to buck up -- my deck (character) will do okay when the other deck (character) isn't being played.


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> No, I'm talking about making build choice to be good at a thing, but finding out that such choices aren't even good enough to be close to matching what other chouces did without trying.  The bard didn't focus on intimidate, my character did.  Yet, the bard was almost twice as effective because the skills they did focus on had side-line synergies into intimidate.  The bard was hands down better at a thing my character concept was centered on not because the bard was also, but because of the way character build systems interact to make skill focus a trap choice.  I'd have been better off picking up a synergy as a class skill with another feat choice, but then being better at something that wasn't part of the character concept.
> 
> In other words, skill focus was a trap choice -- it didn't provide the result anticipated, and failed to do so in a situation where the other character didn't even try to focus on that skill.  I only partial understood tge system at that point -- I hadn't looked at the social skill synergy effects and didn't fully understand them.  So, I made a character trusting the labels on the tin and was outclassed by someone not trying.
> 
> It's very telling that your counter is to suggest that I was relying on the bard when it was a core concept of my character to intimidate others (ie, I didn't want to rely on the bard), and that the second offer was to buck up -- my deck (character) will do okay when the other deck (character) isn't being played.



So the bard was better--was your character still good at intimidation? Was your character better at it than he would have been without the feat? Would the bard have been even better at intimidation if he took the feat Unless those are "No", then it's not really a "trap" is it? It's just, potentially, not as good a route as another one that another character happened to have open to them.

Does it really matter, in a cooperative game, that another PC is a bit better at something than your character? Is that player actually encroaching in on your fun by taking away your opportunities to play out an intimidation of an NPC? If they are, that's a separate issue from the mechanics of the system because it's an interpersonal problem rather than a mechanical one.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 2, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Does it really matter, in a cooperative game, that another PC is a bit better at something than your character? Is that player actually encroaching in on your fun by taking away your opportunities to play out an intimidation of an NPC? If they are, that's a separate issue from the mechanics of the system because it's an interpersonal problem rather than a mechanical one.




I think it can matter quite a bit, yeah. I get your point, but when there's one or a few characters who are effectively covering all needs, those other ones that aren't doing anything are just kind of along for the ride. I don't think that wanting to meaningfully contribute is something that is a separate issue, because this phenomenon is pretty pervasive throughout the entire system.

I think the problem with 3.x design was it kind of diversified things too much....I think players from earlier editions felt too locked in to their archetypes and roles, and wanted to see the ability to buck those limits. But I think 3.x went too far, and allowed all kinds of situations that create a tail wagging the dog kind of situation. 

I think part of it is so much of the design is about bonuses.....everything gives you +3 or +5 to a check of some kind, or a collection of checks. So you get situations where characters like a Bard or Sorceror who require Charisma for their primary function then outshine someone like a Barbarian who wants to intimidate people. It's like....this is the one social interaction where that character may shine.....we need someone to scare the pants off this guard. Get me Ragnar......oh wait, he has a +6 and the Bard has +12? Okay, get me Silas Sevenstrings to come intimidate the guard.

If they did something like Advantage/Disadvantage or bonus dice or something.....then you can let the archetypes we're looking for be what we kind of expect them to be. So the Barbarian is allowed to be the big scary bastard we all want him to be, and the Bard is more the charming guy. 

When it's nothing but bonuses.....then it's just "who has the highest total?" rather than anything based on the fiction.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 2, 2021)

billd91 said:


> So the bard was better--was your character still good at intimidation? Was your character better at it than he would have been without the feat? Would the bard have been even better at intimidation if he took the feat Unless those are "No", then it's not really a "trap" is it? It's just, potentially, not as good a route as another one that another character happened to have open to them.
> 
> Does it really matter, in a cooperative game, that another PC is a bit better at something than your character? Is that player actually encroaching in on your fun by taking away your opportunities to play out an intimidation of an NPC? If they are, that's a separate issue from the mechanics of the system because it's an interpersonal problem rather than a mechanical one.



This argument is very strange to me.  I should be happy with my choice because I was better at intimidation than I was without it?  This utterly ignores the fact that, without intending to, the bard managed to be significantly better at intimidation that I was with effort!  This argument is attempting to isolate the choice of skill focus from the rest of the option set and from the other characters at the table, proclaim it good, and then plop it back in and ignore the rest.   It's specious.

And then the cooperative game canard.  It's not a canard that the game is cooperative -- that's fine, but that the cooperative aspects mean I should be okay with using a build resource to attempt a character concept and then be fine when that build choice is overshadowed by other characters when they're not spending that resource or making an effort to excel in that conceptual space.  I guess because it's cooperative and my character being worse at a core concept than the character that did it as an aside is fine because I can just stand back and let the other character do the thing better than me?  Cooperation, right?  Again, specious.

These arguments are fragile things trying to paper over the clear issues that exist in 3.x character design.  Issues that the designers openly admit to as intentional!  The goalposts whipsaw between complaining about terminology to trying to handwave away the fact that there are poor choices in the character build subgame in 3.x.  There's no attempt at honest criticism -- 3.x certainly wasn't a perfect game, but I loved it for what it was -- just attempts to defend it from criticism.


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> This argument is very strange to me.  I should be happy with my choice because I was better at intimidation than I was without it?  This utterly ignores the fact that, without intending to, the bard managed to be significantly better at intimidation that I was with effort!  This argument is attempting to isolate the choice of skill focus from the rest of the option set and from the other characters at the table, proclaim it good, and then plop it back in and ignore the rest.   It's specious.



It's not specious. What's the feat's purpose? To boost your character's intimidation score. Are *you* putting on the additional expectation that it will make you the best in your group at it? Would you expect the designers to also have that same expectation not knowing what your group's composition would be?


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> If they did something like Advantage/Disadvantage or bonus dice or something.....then you can let the archetypes we're looking for be what we kind of expect them to be. So the Barbarian is allowed to be the big scary bastard we all want him to be, and the Bard is more the charming guy.
> 
> When it's nothing but bonuses.....then it's just "who has the highest total?" rather than anything based on the fiction.



But it doesn't have to be nothing but bonuses, it has never had to be nothing but bonuses. That's a play style choice, and if it leads people to complain about not being the best at something when they want to be and that causes them stress, then maybe the play style choice is an issue to address.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 2, 2021)

billd91 said:


> It's not specious. What's the feat's purpose? To boost your character's intimidation score. Are *you* putting on the additional expectation that it will make you the best in your group at it? Would you expect the designers to also have that same expectation not knowing what your group's composition would be?



The purpose of the feat is to be a poor use of build resource -- it's one of those choices that system mastery is supposed to steer you away from, not towards.  That is does improve the skill a small amount (not as much as two synergies from deception and diplomacy, because lying and smooth talk help intimidate people, I guess) is the actual point!  I'm not arguing that it doesn't improve the skill, but it does so at a high cost (a feat) and less than other options, such that without trying another character can end up with a higher bonus without spending the feat.

I didn't want to be the best, but when the bard was twice as good without effort, it really points out that spending the feat was a wasted choice that I could have used to improve other aspects of my concept and just understood I wasn't going to be that good at intimidate compared to the other characters, even if I attempted to focus on it.

You're trying to spin this into saying I'm arguing that the feat did nothing -- this is far from the truth.  I'm saying that it doesn't do what it appears to do, and that it requires system mastery to understand that selecting this feat is a poor use of your limited resources in character building.  IE, it's a trap choice.


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## Imaculata (Feb 2, 2021)

It is not a contest of who is better at what. It is a cooperative game.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 2, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> It is not a contest of who is better at what. It is a cooperative game.



This is a canard, which I address above.  This is attempting the argument that my character not being as good at intimidate as another character is fine because the group succeeds on the back of the more effective character at those challenges.  What it ignores is that my character could have been better at another useful thing had I not engaged the trap option in this one.  It also ignores the argument that trap options exist to encourage system mastery, which is exactly what happened here -- I selected a choice to cover that base and discovered that other characters did it better and I needed have bothered.  This is the flaw in the cooperative game argument -- it, again, attempts to isolate a choice, examine it in only on context, and then treat the argument as generally applicable.  It is not.


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> These arguments are fragile things trying to paper over the clear issues that exist in 3.x character design.  Issues that the designers openly admit to as intentional!  The goalposts whipsaw between complaining about terminology to trying to handwave away the fact that there are poor choices in the character build subgame in 3.x.  There's no attempt at honest criticism -- 3.x certainly wasn't a perfect game, but I loved it for what it was -- just attempts to defend it from criticism.



Picking up the feat to boost your intimidation isn't necessarily the most cost-effective way to boost your intimidation score. That's true. But it's going to be more cost effective as a fighter who has lots of bonus feats than a barbarian, it's going to be more cost effective in groups without a character gunning to maximize their charisma, and it's going to be useful for DMs building NPCs they want to have an edge in demoralizing PCs. So yes, system mastery and figuring out where these things are better/worse is a feature just like choosing between a long sword or two-handed sword has been since 1st edition (back then it was: do I want to do more potential damage against large opponents vs have very little chance of finding a magic one in a hoard).

But "trap"? That's internet negativity culture. So you didn't "optimize properly" by someone's standards. I bet he wasn't spending any ranks on it and, assuming it was a class skill for you, you'd have outpaced him.


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> This is a canard, which I address above.  This is attempting the argument that my character not being as good at intimidate as another character is fine because the group succeeds on the back of the more effective character at those challenges.  What it ignores is that my character could have been better at another useful thing had I not engaged the trap option in this one.  It also ignores the argument that trap options exist to encourage system mastery, which is exactly what happened here -- I selected a choice to cover that base and discovered that other characters did it better and I needed have bothered.  This is the flaw in the cooperative game argument -- it, again, attempts to isolate a choice, examine it in only on context, and then treat the argument as generally applicable.  It is not.



It's not really a flaw in the cooperative game argument. You could have cooperated to the point of coordinating builds with the bard player and any other players so that the option was more cost effective - in the long run if not the immediate short one (depending on relative Charisma scores).


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 2, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Picking up the feat to boost your intimidation isn't necessarily the most cost-effective way to boost your intimidation score. That's true. But it's going to be more cost effective as a fighter who has lots of bonus feats than a barbarian, it's going to be more cost effective in groups without a character gunning to maximize their charisma, and it's going to be useful for DMs building NPCs they want to have an edge in demoralizing PCs. So yes, system mastery and figuring out where these things are better/worse is a feature just like choosing between a long sword or two-handed sword has been since 1st edition (back then it was: do I want to do more potential damage against large opponents vs have very little chance of finding a magic one in a hoard).
> 
> But "trap"? That's internet negativity culture. So you didn't "optimize properly" by someone's standards. I bet he wasn't spending any ranks on it and, assuming it was a class skill for you, you'd have outpaced him.



You're stuck on semantics.  The "trap" option is that the option doesn't do what's anticipated -- that you need to have a strong understanding of the entire system to understand how that option can be used.  If you just select skill focus going by what it says, it underperforms and you can end up with exactly my situation.  I've admitted that I didn't understand, at that time, how skill synergies can work to vastly outperform the skill focus feat.  I had a lot of system mastery in other cases, because I almost always GMed 3.x, but that doesn't help character build mastery.  I was caught up by the fact that the bard character, with no effort, vastly outperforms my select of a feat that looks like it's intended to help a character excel at a skill.  It doesn't, and understanding this requires a good deal of system mastery to grasp the interactions.  That this is labeled a "trap" is because it is -- if you don't know to look for it, you can fall into it, just as I did in my example.  That there are ways to employ the feat in a better manner with sufficient system mastery and other build choices (play a fighter?) actually works towards my point rather than against it.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 2, 2021)

billd91 said:


> It's not really a flaw in the cooperative game argument. You could have cooperated to the point of coordinating builds with the bard player and any other players so that the option was more cost effective - in the long run if not the immediate short one (depending on relative Charisma scores).



Sigh, and the goalpost shift again, from "it's okay you aren't that good at intimidate as that other character, you're cooperating!" to "you should have cooperated more if you didn't want to waste your resources, it is a cooperative game, after all." 

I mean, pick a line of attack already.


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> That this is labeled a "trap" is because it is -- if you don't know to look for it, you can fall into it, just as I did in my example.  That there are ways to employ the feat in a better manner with sufficient system mastery and other build choices (play a fighter?) actually works towards my point rather than against it.



It's labeled a trap because people want to pass on some kind of malignant deficiency toward the designers, more like.


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Sigh, and the goalpost shift again, from "it's okay you aren't that good at intimidate as that other character, you're cooperating!" to "you should have cooperated more if you didn't want to waste your resources, it is a cooperative game, after all."
> 
> I mean, pick a line of attack already.



Why? Both lines of attack work for me. I don't see why I need just one.


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## Li Shenron (Feb 2, 2021)

Mechanical progression of PC abilities is definitely NOT required, even though it is most common. 

Non-mechanical progression is, and it's what we typically call the character's "story".

For instance, if you take D&D rules and apply them to a knockout PvP combat tournament game without a story, I wouldn't call it a RPG, even if you level up after each match!


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## D1Tremere (Feb 2, 2021)

Li Shenron said:


> Mechanical progression of PC abilities is definitely NOT required, even though it is most common.
> 
> Non-mechanical progression is, and it's what we typically call the character's "story".
> 
> For instance, if you take D&D rules and apply them to a knockout PvP combat tournament game without a story, I wouldn't call it a RPG, even if you level up after each match!



I would agree but I would also extend your statement by saying that we are discussing multilinear evolution over progress. In other words, characters should change over time in relation to their story arcs but that change could be a progression or a regression. This is also very subjective!


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

Li Shenron said:


> For instance, if you take D&D rules and apply them to a knockout PvP combat tournament game without a story, I wouldn't call it a RPG, even if you level up after each match!



Depends on how much weight you assign to the idea of "playing a role". Does it require a story to develop and is a story more than just a listing of events in the order in which they occur. Does it need the avatar's "eyes" to look through?

I think part of what may need to be considered here is whether or not the avatar in question is expected to act differently depending on what he is, how he's configured. If they all act the same regardless of configuration (like a shoe or a thimble) and are indistinct in behavior, then you're really looking more at pawns than avatars. On the other hand, the Dungeon board game expects somewhat different behavior depending on whether you're playing the elf, hero, superhero, or wizard and that's not really a role playing game.


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## pemerton (Feb 2, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> I've built they thematic chatacter with skill focus in Intimidate, only to have the bard character be much, much better at it without trying solely due to synergy bonus from the skills he did pick.  Even trying to have a fighter/rogue be good at intimidate was a trap option because a bard will bury you without effort, thenatics be damned.



As someone who has only played a small amount of 3E D&D, this is the sort of combo-riffness that it seems to have a reputation for.

In Rolemaster a character with high Presence and Empathy will have a better Intimidation bonus than one without; and a character with a class/build bonus to Social skills likewise. But it's fairly transparent, so in my experience no one is likely to be caught by surprise. Also, skill ranks are not quite as precious a commodity as in 3E, so it's probably more feasible to invest a bit outside of your character's main schtick.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 2, 2021)

billd91 said:


> But it doesn't have to be nothing but bonuses, it has never had to be nothing but bonuses. That's a play style choice, and if it leads people to complain about not being the best at something when they want to be and that causes them stress, then maybe the play style choice is an issue to address.




It does have to be bonuses because that's the way the game works. The game says "here is the way to be good at something" and that way is to have the highest bonus to your roll. *The game does not give you any other way to be good at something. *

There may be some ways of which I'm unaware.....I know that the options for 3.5 kept rolling well after I stopped buying books, and that Pathfinder went even further with it. But from what I recall, whoever in the group has a higher bonus in something, they are the best at it.

The only alternatives would seem to me that A) the party lets me roll the Intimidate checks because it suits my character, even though he's mechanically weaker at it than another character, or B) for the GM to apply some kind of benefit for the Barbarian character that wouldn't apply to the Bard. With A) my character is actively reducing the chance at success for the group, and B) seems to very much go against the codified approach that this edition has. 

Are these what you have in mind for playstyle choices?


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## aramis erak (Feb 2, 2021)

pemerton said:


> As someone who has only played a small amount of 3E D&D, this is the sort of combo-riffness that it seems to have a reputation for.
> 
> In Rolemaster a character with high Presence and Empathy will have a better Intimidation bonus than one without; and a character with a class/build bonus to Social skills likewise. But it's fairly transparent, so in my experience no one is likely to be caught by surprise. Also, skill ranks are not quite as precious a commodity as in 3E, so it's probably more feasible to invest a bit outside of your character's main schtick.



Unpacking this for the unfamiliar...
Rolemaster skill ranks have a built in diminishing return. The first 10 ranks are +5 each, the next 10 are +2 each, then the 3rd ten are +1 each.
There are few skill synergies (and those few are two separate rolls, one on skill A, then one on B. EG: Adrenal Moves and Weapon Skills) unless using an optional rule
Each class also has a per character level bonus to certain skill areas; at mid-levels this can actually make additional ranks of skill somewhat less useful.
Also, almost all skills are available cross-class, albeit at sometimes exorbitant rates... if you wizard wants to learn Broadsword, they can... but it's going to be pricey, and the fighter is going to get the automatic +3% per level, while your wizard will not... 

The one caveat is the unskilled penalty - it's a whopping -25. So, rank 1 at +5 is 30 difference from no ranks.  Anything you want to make routine actions covered by a skill likewise skips rolls at one rank... so a smattering of rank 1 skills isn't uncommon.


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## pemerton (Feb 2, 2021)

This discussion of 3E D&D Skill Focus as a "trap option" is puzzling.

As far as I can tell, @billd91 and @Imaculata don't disagree with @Ovinomancer that taking Skill Focus (Intimidate) didn't and probably couldn't have made his Fighter/Rogue PC mechanically impressive at Intimidation. They don't disagree that there may have been better if less intuitive options to try and strengthen the character's Intimidation bonus (eg fishing for Synergy bonuses). And they don't disagree that while the game appeared to present the goal of trying to make the character impressive at Intimidation a realistic one, in fact that goal was probably doomed to failure, especially in a party containing a Bard.

Given all this, if Skill Focus (Intimidation) _doesn't _count as a "trap option", what would?


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## aramis erak (Feb 2, 2021)

pemerton said:


> This discussion of 3E D&D Skill Focus as a "trap option" is puzzling.
> 
> As far as I can tell, @billd91 and @Imaculata don't disagree with @Ovinomancer that taking Skill Focus (Intimidate) didn't and probably couldn't have made his Fighter/Rogue PC mechanically impressive at Intimidation. They don't disagree that there may have been better if less intuitive options to try and strengthen the character's Intimidation bonus (eg fishing for Synergy bonuses). And they don't disagree that while the game appeared to present the goal of trying to make the character impressive at Intimidation a realistic one, in fact that goal was probably doomed to failure, especially in a party containing a Bard.
> 
> Given all this, if Skill Focus (Intimidation) _doesn't _count as a "trap option", what would?



Most of the 3E multiclass options are fundamentally either traps or munchkinizing. Done right, they find loopholes and exploit them... but any other mode? They usually put you as second rate in both.


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## billd91 (Feb 2, 2021)

pemerton said:


> This discussion of 3E D&D Skill Focus as a "trap option" is puzzling.
> 
> As far as I can tell, @billd91 and @Imaculata don't disagree with @Ovinomancer that taking Skill Focus (Intimidate) didn't and probably couldn't have made his Fighter/Rogue PC mechanically impressive at Intimidation. They don't disagree that there may have been better if less intuitive options to try and strengthen the character's Intimidation bonus (eg fishing for Synergy bonuses). And they don't disagree that while the game appeared to present the goal of trying to make the character impressive at Intimidation a realistic one, in fact that goal was probably doomed to failure, especially in a party containing a Bard.
> 
> Given all this, if Skill Focus (Intimidation) _doesn't _count as a "trap option", what would?



Value laden connotations abound here. 

Some characters may have an easier route to higher values, that doesn't necessarily make their options better if you're set on playing a barbarian for other reasons and yet still want to be better at intimidation (particularly being as good at it as a barbarian who had the luck to have a significantly higher charisma) than you would be if you hadn't bought the feat.
I don't agree that the game appeared to present the goal of being impressive at intimidation as realistic when it was doomed to failure. That character might still be impressive at intimidation - just on a somewhat more expensive path to it (which is OK - the game doesn't need to be played with a style of maximizing bonuses) than someone else on a different path.

So it may not be the highest degree of optimization, but I wouldn't characterize non-optimal as being a trap. There's no deception going on here suckering a mark into a poor choice. You might have opted for a more efficient choice with something else, but the choice made here isn't necessarily bad. And in other circumstances, particularly ones where simpler characters without a lot of conditional stuff to have to remember are preferred (just to name an example), the feat may be a perfectly fine choice.


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## Imaculata (Feb 3, 2021)

A 'trap' suggests that your chosen feat makes your character worse, or even broken. I don't know of any feat in 3e that does any of those things. Is Skill Focus a lousy feat and a total waste? In my opinion, yes. There are comparatively many feats that are far more useful. But Skill Focus will improve a skill, and make your character better at it. It will not break your build, or weaken your character.

Not everything is about building the most optimized character that beats every other class in every skill. You are not competing with anyone. In 3e, if you want to be good at intimidation, there are multiple options to get your ranks to a decent sufficient level. You don't need to max everything out. Will high charisma characters have an easier time improving a charisma based skill? Obviously. I don't see that as a flaw of the system.

If I dump a few extra ranks into intimidation, I can easily get it up to +8 or +10 with any class if I want to. That will allow me to succeed at an intimidation check almost every time. What more do you want?


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## Aldarc (Feb 3, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> If I dump a few extra ranks into intimidation, I can easily get it up to +8 or +10 with any class if I want to. That will allow me to succeed at an intimidation check almost every time. What more do you want?



Hmmm...not sure about that. "Extra ranks" were not always easy to come by in 3e for every class, plus you were also facing an uphill battle if that skill happened to count as a cross-class skill. Fighters, for example, were notoriously skill starved (2 + Int modifier), and Intimidate for Fighters in 3e* were a cross-class skill, which would require two skill points to level up one rank in a cross-class skill. 

* Intimidate was, however, added to the Fighter's class skill list in 3.5e, but we are talking about 3e as originally designed.


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## Imaculata (Feb 3, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> * Intimidate was, however, added to the Fighter's class skill list in 3.5e, but we are talking about 3e as originally designed.




When I talk about 3e, I tend to include 3.5 along with it.


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## Aldarc (Feb 3, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> When I talk about 3e, I tend to include 3.5 along with it.



Be that as it may, Fighters were definitely not exactly swimming in extra skills to spend in any iteration of 3e, especially since 5e's Athletics skill was still split between Climb, Jump, and Swim. And if you wanted to Intimidate well, then you are probably wanting to invest in Charisma over against Intelligence, which would limit your skill points further.


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## Imaculata (Feb 3, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Be that as it may, Fighters were definitely not exactly swimming in extra skills to spend in any iteration of 3e, especially since 5e's Athletics skill was still split between Climb, Jump, and Swim. And if you wanted to Intimidate well, then you are probably wanting to invest in Charisma over against Intelligence, which would limit your skill points further.




This is by design. Fighters are intended to have lots of feats, and very few skill points to balance this out. This means that a fighter who wants to have a high intimidate needs to make some difficult choices.

I do believe there are some intimidate-related feats though in the expanded material.


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## Aldarc (Feb 3, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> *This is by design. *Fighters are intended to have lots of feats, and very few skill points to balance this out. This means that a fighter who wants to have a high intimidate needs to make some difficult choices.
> 
> I do believe there are some intimidate-related feats though in the expanded material.



That's a bit of an obvious non-answer since it's clearly by design or otherwise it wouldn't have been designed that way, but that doesn't mean it's good design.


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## pemerton (Feb 3, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> A 'trap' suggests that your chosen feat makes your character worse, or even broken. I don't know of any feat in 3e that does any of those things.



There are no options that do that, are there? So clearly that's not what people mean by "trap option".

They mean something that _doesn't actually do, in play, what it presents itself as doing_. Which is exactly what @Ovinomancer is complaining about.



Imaculata said:


> Is Skill Focus a lousy feat and a total waste? In my opinion, yes.



But does the feat say, of itself, that it is useless? No. It presents itself as useful. _That's the trap!_


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## Imaculata (Feb 3, 2021)

pemerton said:


> There are no options that do that, are there? So clearly that's not what people mean by "trap option".




But that is what the term generally means. Especially in relation to Magic the Gathering. The problem here, I think, is a general misunderstanding of the goal of the system.



> But does the feat say, of itself, that it is useless? No. It presents itself as useful. _That's the trap!_




It is not a useless feat. That's the point! It's a suboptimal one. But sub optimal feats do not break your character the way a bad deck in Magic the Gathering, or a bad skillbar in Guild Wars would. Plus it is not a competition, and everyone in your party will be fulfilling different roles.


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## Imaculata (Feb 3, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> That's a bit of an obvious non-answer since it's clearly by design or otherwise it wouldn't have been designed that way, but that doesn't mean it's good design.




What I mean is that a fighter is intended to be provicient in a smaller number of skills, to balance out the fact that he gets a lot of feats. This makes him very powerful in combat, but less so in exploration and roleplaying challenges. I don't think that is bad design at all. Each class has its strengths and weaknesses.


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## Aldarc (Feb 3, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> What I mean is that a fighter is intended to be provicient in a smaller number of skills, to balance out the fact that he gets a lot of feats. This makes him very powerful in combat, but less so in exploration and roleplaying challenges. I don't think that is bad design at all. Each class has its strengths and weaknesses.



...apart from the fact that the Fighter was simply outclassed in the combat pillar by the Wizard who was also better in the exploration and (arguably) social pillars than the Rogue and Fighter.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 3, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> But that is what the term generally means. Especially in relation to Magic the Gathering. The problem here, I think, is a general misunderstanding of the goal of the system.
> 
> 
> 
> It is not a useless feat. That's the point! It's a suboptimal one. But sub optimal feats do not break your character the way a bad deck in Magic the Gathering, or a bad skillbar in Guild Wars would. Plus it is not a competition, and everyone in your party will be fulfilling different roles.




None of these things above are true:

1) In MtG and in 3e, the metric is “subpar” and “worse than a replacement cost option.” That is not remotely the same as “made worse” unless it’s (as above) “in comparison with a replacement cost option.” The problem with “Timmy cards” (Toughness or Skill Focus) and Monogreen decks (the Fighter) isn’t that they “make you worse.” It’s that they’re both quite subpar yet not clearly so or signposted as such.

Looking at this exclusively from a GM’s perspective, my issue has always been the same (using Golf as the analogy):

If you’re *actively losing ground against a baseline (playing above par as in Golf or “subpar” elsewhere) *while the other PCs are *actively gaining ground (sometimes profoundly (below par - as in Golf)*, YOU’RE MAKING MY JOB AS A CONTENT GENERATOR (GOLF COURSE DESIGNER) MORE DIFFICULT (SCALING WITH THE DISPARITY RELATIVE TO THE BASELINE/PAR) POSSIBLY TO THE POINT OF IMPOSSIBILITY OF JUGGLING THESE BALLS (AT ALL) WHILE ENJOYING THE JUGGLE.

I don’t want to heavily curate content as a GM and I don’t want to have to apply Force to make the game work.

2) @Ovinomancer was coming at this from a Player’s perspective and that is equally legit.

It is completely legitimate to (a) expect your archetypal shtick to consistently emerge organically through play because (b) it shapes the trajectory of the gamestate/story through its not-infrequent deployment. In fact, I’d go further. If it’s not, then play has a thematic/archetypal coherency problem.

The player (or players) having a problem with this paradigm isn’t their problem. It’s to be expected.

and speaking of value judgements, how is placing that at the feet of the players not a value judgement on their character (as a person)?

3) Finally, back to value judgements again. How is “this is (exclusively) a cooperative game...stop being a jerk player” not 2x value judgements?!

Any approach to play that isn’t exclusively cooperative is not appropriate.

Expressed sentiment that laments disparities (even if those disparities dovetail with thematic/genre incoherency) is a sign of not accepting cooperation as the exclusive play priority and will not be brooked.

Not only are both of those value judgements, but they’re not true. TTRPGing at large and D&D specifically isn’t exclusively a cooperative game. Having some fun competition (within the fiction like Legolas and Gimli or out of the game as you recount your play and have a laugh while playing cards or whatever) and “keeping score” is a totally legitimate play priority and has been one that helped propel most of my games since forever. It can completely sit right alongside and play nice with “cooperation” as a play priority.


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## pemerton (Feb 3, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> sub optimal feats do not break your character the way a bad deck in Magic the Gathering



I don't know what you mean by this. It's a long time since I played any M:tG, but I have played with "bad" decks. But they didn't "break" themselves - for instance, I don't ever remember seeing a deck that included a card that destroyed all the players' creatures in play for no discernible benefit. A bad deck is just one that is slow to get going, or contains too many high-mana creatures with no good way of generating ready mana to get them into play, or relies on synergies that are statistically unlikely to come to fruition in a typical play sequence. And those decks don't break themselves, they just lose against better-tuned decks.

@Ovinomancer's complaint is that his PC was poorly tuned despite picking an option that presented itself as a good way to tune up his PC.


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## pemerton (Feb 3, 2021)

Also what @Manbearcat said: a "trap" option is one that is _worse than the alternatives but that doesn't reveal itself as such_.

If I'm building a classic D&D wizard, and have to choose between a +1 dagger and a +1 sword (eg maybe this is part of a suite of build options presented as part of preparing a party for a tournament run), the sword is not a trap option. Because it's obvious to me that my wizard can't use the sword, and so even though on its face it is better than the dagger, the dagger is obviously better for me _as a wizard player_.

@Ovinomancer's complaint is that the game (i) presented Intimidation as a viable strategy for his fighter/rogue, when it fact it wasn't, _and_ (ii) presented Skill Focus as a useful way to pursue this strategy, when in fact it wasn't. Those build resources could have been, and from the point of view of rational character building ought to have been, spent on some other feat, probably in pursuit of some other strategy.

The analogue in the context of my preceding paragraph would be a tournament context that presented the +1 sword as a viable, even attractive, pick for the wizard _only for it to be revealed through the rigours of play that a wizard is forbidden from using a sword_. And it's that revelation of the hidden suckitude which is what leads to it being labelled a "trap option".


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## billd91 (Feb 3, 2021)

pemerton said:


> @Ovinomancer's complaint is that the game (i) presented Intimidation as a viable strategy for his fighter/rogue, when it fact it wasn't, _and_ (ii) presented Skill Focus as a useful way to pursue this strategy, when in fact it wasn't. Those build resources could have been, and from the point of view of rational character building ought to have been, spent on some other feat, probably in pursuit of some other strategy.
> 
> The analogue in the context of my preceding paragraph would be a tournament context that presented the +1 sword as a viable, even attractive, pick for the wizard _only for it to be revealed through the rigours of play that a wizard is forbidden from using a sword_. And it's that revelation of the hidden suckitude which is what leads to it being labelled a "trap option".



A build isn't non-viable because someone could, by the rules, pull it off cheaper with another method. It isn't even non-viable if someone in the same adventuring party does so. Resources aren't that tight and there are plenty of situations in which having more than 1 PC capable of intimidating the opposition is useful.


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## darkbard (Feb 3, 2021)

billd91 said:


> A build isn't non-viable because someone could, by the rules, pull it off cheaper with another method. It isn't even non-viable if someone in the same adventuring party does so.



I'm unsure about viable or not, but I do think what you've framed here is pretty much the consensus definition of a trap option for RPGing, broadly speaking.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 3, 2021)

darkbard said:


> I'm unsure about viable or not, but I do think what you've framed here is pretty much the consensus definition of a trap option for RPGing, broadly speaking.



Yes, this really reads like there's little actual disagreement, just a semantic conflict on word choice.

EDIT:  It's like there's a want to defend the system mastery necessary to avoid poor options, but also a conflicting desire to not actually say this or make sure it's not a criticism, only a feature.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 3, 2021)

Imaculata said:


> Are you talking about competing with your own party members on who is better at a skill? Why would you do that? And why would you presume the bard is always there to bail you out? The party does occasionally split, right?




Given the degree to which I've observed RPG parties resisting splitting when there's any chance a significant skill roll may need to be made, I think its entirely legitimate in many cases to answer "vanishingly rarely".


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## Manbearcat (Feb 3, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, this really reads like there's little actual disagreement, just a semantic conflict on word choice.
> 
> EDIT:  It's like there's a want to defend the system mastery necessary to avoid poor options, but also a conflicting desire to not actually say this or make sure it's not a criticism, only a feature.



And it can be both (feature and criticism).  

My primary issue is this:

* Extreme class disparity + system mastery at the build level = progressively increasing intraparty imbalance and party : obstacle imbalance...

WHICH IN TURN REQUIRES...

* Extreme GM curation of content + GM Force as the answer.  

1)  If you feel like the first is a feature and the second is either a feature or A-OK, then the system will obviously produce rewarding play.

2)  If you either feel like the first is a criticism or the second is a criticism, then the system will not produce rewarding play.


It really turns on how you feel about the play priority of "skilled play at the build level" and how you feel about heavy GM curation of content and GM Force as a technique.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 3, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> It does have to be bonuses because that's the way the game works. The game says "here is the way to be good at something" and that way is to have the highest bonus to your roll. *The game does not give you any other way to be good at something. *




Hmmm.  I'm not sure I agree with this.  I seem to recall feats that allowed you do things with time or repeatability that was not normally possible; you can argue those are roundabout ways to add bonus and hide it, but its not just adding a bonus to your roll, and it can matter quite a bit.  Same for the feats that allowed Take 10 in situations you normally couldn't.


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## aramis erak (Feb 3, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> That's a bit of an obvious non-answer since it's clearly by design or otherwise it wouldn't have been designed that way, but that doesn't mean it's good design.



You're ignoring the potential for ignorant and/or unintended inclusion.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 3, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> You're ignoring the potential for ignorant and/or unintended inclusion.



I think we're taking the designers' word for it, as the other is less charitable.


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## aramis erak (Feb 3, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> I think we're taking the designers' word for it, as the other is less charitable.



In many cases, assuming designed intent for the more toxic inclusions is the less charitable stance; ignorance implies no malice.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 3, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> In many cases, assuming designed intent for the more toxic inclusions is the less charitable stance; ignorance implies no malice.



We don't have to make assumptions.  We can read their words directly (which dovetails with every other observable element surrounding the design of the game and the culture of the game which accreted around it) which winnows the possible inferences to a singular one.  Again:



> "Magic also has a concept of "Timmy cards." These are cards that look cool, but aren't actually that great in the game. The *purpose *of such cards is to *reward people for really mastering the game*, and making players feel smart when they've figured out that one card is better than the other. While *D&D* doesn't exactly do that, it is true that *certain game choices are deliberately better than others*.
> 
> Toughness, for example, has its uses, but in most cases it's not the best choice of feat. If you can use martial weapons, a longsword is better than many other one-handed weapons. And so on -- there are many other, far more intricate examples. (Arguably, this kind of thing has always existed in D&D. Mostly, *we just made sure that we didn't design it away -- we wanted to reward mastery of the game*.)
> 
> There's a third concept that we took from Magic-style rules design, though. Only with six years of hindsight do I call the concept "Ivory Tower Game Design." (Perhaps a bit of misnomer, but it's got a ring to it.) This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and *players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones."*





build choices were designed to be deliberately better and worse than others.
"good" and "poor" choices exist. They were encoded into the game.
their purpose is to reward system mastery.
because of this we were vigilant to not design away these disparities (4e, as we know, did).
players figure out the encoded disparities and are rewarded.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 3, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> In many cases, assuming designed intent for the more toxic inclusions is the less charitable stance; ignorance implies no malice.




Yeah, I can't say as I see it as more complimentary to assume a deliberate trap element than to just assume the designer didn't think it was one.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 3, 2021)

I have to say, I'm a little puzzled why the concept of TTRPG design around _"encoding a suite of decisions/moves with a continuum of bad < > good results and attendant rewards for choosing skillfully (or less than)"_ is assumed..."toxic" and anyone who points it out is assumed "uncharitable."

That italicized bit?  That should look familiar!

That_is_literally_D&D Delving 101! 

All that happened in 3.x is that the PC build stage was expanded and absorbed into the premise of play!

Its not "toxic" game design to have a game built around that italicized bit.  Its not toxic game design to expand that to the PC build stage and have it absorbed into the game's premise.  And its not uncharitable to point that out!

It just is.  This should not be controversial and it certainly isn't interesting.  Now the implications of the design decisions are a lot more interesting to talk about.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 3, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Its not "toxic" game design to have a game built around that italicized bit.  Its not toxic game design to expand that to the PC build stage and have it absorbed into the game's premise.  And its not uncharitable to point that out!
> 
> It just is.  This should not be controversial and it certainly isn't interesting.  Now the implications of the design decisions are a lot more interesting to talk about.




Except, of course, some of us think that deliberately building significant amounts of that into the PC build stage, especially in a version of the game that does not permit reworking as part of its default design, _is_ toxic.  Its the designer equivalent of a "gotcha".

I'm really not sure why _that_ should seem odd.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 3, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Except, of course, some of us think that deliberately building significant amounts of that into the PC build stage, especially in a version of the game that does not permit reworking as part of its default design, _is_ toxic.  Its the designer equivalent of a "gotcha".
> 
> I'm really not sure why _that_ should seem odd.



I can understand not liking it nor liking the downstream effects on play (I don't like it nor do I like those downstream effects).  And 4e Retraining (like many things 4e, it was a reaction to the sentiment you're espousing) is surely a response to exactly what you're talking about.

But I don't understand the perspective of it being "toxic" and I guess the reason why is I'm looking at it is this:

If that design move (introducing the same dynamics of "at table D&D" into the PC build stage) is indeed "toxic", can we not also, from first principles, claim that D&D skilled play is "toxic?"  I mean, its really just about a temporal adjustment to decision-making because the nature of the feedback loop is the same:

Make less than skillful decision > get punished > deal with consequences which mean either meet Loss Condition or increase likelihood of descending toward Loss Condition > overcome downstream effects of less than skillful decision or start new game if Loss Condition met.

Is the difference here embedded in the autonomy angle of the agency conversation we were having?  The "but this is my PC and I should have complete autonomy over it?"  If true, then I'm left wondering what the response would be if a 3.x designer said "well...you do have autonomy to make PC build decisions over your character in the same way you have autonomy to play skillfully during a delve/conflict at the table...choose wisely."


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## Manbearcat (Feb 3, 2021)

Is it maybe because folks sense that there isn't sufficient telegraphing of the implications of the build choices such that its not possible for folks to make informed decisions at the moment of choice?

So its the PC build equivalent of "Rocks fall, you die?"  Is that it @Thomas Shey ?


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## pemerton (Feb 3, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> * Extreme class disparity + system mastery at the build level = progressively increasing intraparty imbalance and party : obstacle imbalance...
> 
> WHICH IN TURN REQUIRES...
> 
> ...





Manbearcat said:


> I have to say, I'm a little puzzled why the concept of TTRPG design around _"encoding a suite of decisions/moves with a continuum of bad < > good results and attendant rewards for choosing skillfully (or less than)"_ is assumed..."toxic" and anyone who points it out is assumed "uncharitable."
> 
> That italicized bit?  That should look familiar!
> 
> ...



In my play experience, AD&D exhibited the first of your two features but in a different way from 3E: at mid-to-high levels spell users outstripped non-spell-users, but the system mastery that helped produce this outcome was spell load-out selection, and selection of which spell to use when.

A more 3E-style of system mastery emerged in late 2nd ed AD&D played with Player's Option-type PC design. I remember building a cleric that to me seemed pretty good. In the first session there was a fight, and it turned out that my cleric was a better fighter than any (perhaps all combined!) of the three fighters in the party. Because this was a club game, we had built our PCs separately and I didn't know those fighter players outside of the context of the game, and so it wasn't until play got going that I learned that they didn't know how to build their PCs. Once I got to know one of those players fairly well, at his request I taught him about points-based PC building. He was able to significantly strengthen his PCs' effectiveness as a result.

In Rolemaster, which I was playing around the same time, we also found a caster/non-caster imbalance, driven mostly by a fairly ubiquitous item in the system, the power-point multiplier. In our first long campaign, this resolved itself by all the players gradually drifting to caster builds. In our second long campaign we dropped/revised some of the spell-lists (especially teleportation and predicting the future) and dropped multipliers. The result was that we had two viable non-caster characters (though one picked up a few low-level Mentalism spells once he reached c 20th level) and three viable semi-casters all the way through to 27th (or thereabouts) level. One of the fighters was manifestly better at fighting than the other, but not in virtue of any "trap" choices: the player of the other fighter deliberately included other elements into his build (crafting, social, athletics) so that his PC could do other stuff.

I don't play RM these days, and probably won't again - it requires time and patience that I no longer have. Part of the required patience pertains to PC build. But generally it does what it says on the tin. I don't think it's likely to produce a situation where one player sets out to build a cleric, the other sets out to build a fighter, and due to disparate skill at selecting from the build options the first player's cleric is not only perfectly viable in that respect but also out-classes the fighter.

My most recent experience of build disparity has been a bit different. In our Cortex+ LotR/MERP game, Gandalf's player has the most mechanically powerful options, but these are counterbalanced by an increased propensity to grow the Doom Pool when they are used. The times when that player has cut loose, the result has been that the immediate opposition is defeated, but the Doom Pool has grown to 2d12 which as GM has allowed me to end the Scene, preventing the PCs from getting the overall goal that they want (recovery of a stolen palantir from some Orcs). There's a sense in which that's balanced, but it tends to give Gandalf's player a greater degree of control over the trajectory of play than the other players. This is probably true to the source material!, but equally probably isn't ideal for RPGing. The system has ways to handle this - the other players could try and persuade Gandalf to stay true to his mission, which in mechanical terms could place debuffs on him to cut loose - but that (i) requires a degree of system insight and (ii) a willingness to depart from some of the traditional conventions of party play.

In classic D&D party play, at least as presented by Gygax in his rulebooks, there is a degree of tension between the cooperative element - which is undermined by extreme build disparities - and the competitive element, which might allow an individual player to earn more XP or just to more strongly shape the dynamic of party choices. But as probably many of us have experienced, there is some risk here if the tension leads to something snapping! My LotR game has a bit of the same risk because of the Gandalf element.

My feeling is that 3E seems to ratchet up this tension, and hence the possibility of something snapping in the absence of very strong GM curation/force.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 3, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Make less than skillful decision > get punished > deal with consequences which mean either meet Loss Condition or increase likelihood of descending toward Loss Condition > overcome downstream effects of less than skillful decision or start new game if Loss Condition met.
> 
> Is the difference here embedded in the autonomy angle of the agency conversation we were having?  The "but this is my PC and I should have complete autonomy over it?"  If true, then I'm left wondering what the response would be if a 3.x designer said "well...you do have autonomy to make PC build decisions over your character in the same way you have autonomy to play skillfully during a delve/conflict at the table...choose wisely."




The issue is that the recovery capability is vastly different in single event problems, and character design elements, especially since cascade problems (where a decision early in the character's career ends up walking them down the primrose path to hell over time) are far more likely.

Basically, there's at least the opportunity to run the hell away when something goes wrong during an adventure.  The closest equivalent to that in character design errors in the 3e era was to create a whole new character and hope the GM was understanding about level introduction.

(Also, I should note there are people who are not big fans of needing too much skillful play in-game, far as that goes; a fair number of people want to just go out and slug things.  If you want to see examples of this in the wild, follow PF2e threads for a while).


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 3, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Is it maybe because folks sense that there isn't sufficient telegraphing of the implications of the build choices such that its not possible for folks to make informed decisions at the moment of choice?
> 
> So its the PC build equivalent of "Rocks fall, you die?"  Is that it @Thomas Shey ?




Well it certainly doesn't _help_.


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## DrunkonDuty (Feb 3, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Is it maybe because folks sense that there isn't sufficient telegraphing of the implications of the build choices such that its not possible for folks to make informed decisions at the moment of choice?




Yep. That's some of it. But I'd say it goes a little further in that.

It's one thing for there to be a complex game in which there are many synergies that can be exploited, so many that the game designers cannot foresee them all. It's another thing to deliberately include crap synergies to screw over "the noobs" or whatever the hell thinking was behind it. Sorry, should I spell that "n00bs?"

I like complex games. I suspect most people round these parts do. Complex games will contain less effective and more effective strategies. But when writing a complex game the designers could, and should, say something like "There's a lot of possible synergies here. We can't even know what all of them are. So be flexible and be willing to allow changes to characters and everything else as the game evolves." They might also include advice on what the intent for a given feature is. "_Toughness _is really only for elf wizards, and _Endurance _is garbage that we only put in to waste your time."

So yeah,_ deliberately _hiding crap choices in among the features comes across as... well I believe I said "smug wankers" and "gate keeping BS."

EDIT: on re-reading I see that my response comes across as kinda angry. I'm sorry, and it's not directed at any of the posters here. Some of the designers referenced on the other hand...


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## billd91 (Feb 3, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, this really reads like there's little actual disagreement, just a semantic conflict on word choice.
> 
> EDIT:  It's like there's a want to defend the system mastery necessary to avoid poor options, but also a conflicting desire to not actually say this or make sure it's not a criticism, only a feature.



The issue here is they didn't build traps to catch newbs with any sort of intent to deceive - which is essentially what calling them traps connotes. There are options that are better in certain contexts than others - something virtually unavoidable when there are lots of options and lots of different circumstances. That doesn't make them "traps".


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## pemerton (Feb 3, 2021)

@DrunkonDuty's post made me look up the Endurance feat. That in turn reminded me of a PC in the first long RM campaign I GMed, who was (in D&D terms) an archer/mage specialising in illusion and charm/deception effects. This PC was also a very able runner and skier. (The player is an amazing athlete/hiker/adventurer who ran under two-and-a-half hours in his first marathon, in his 30s; the PC resembled the player.)

I'm not going to try and explain the intricacies of RM's build rules, but one feature of them is that, after maxing out on your "core" elements (like archery and spells for this PC) you generally have points left over for other stuff. So this PC wasn't choosing between core competence and athletics/endurance. (What I've just said isn't _quite _true for spells, which is a problem - but that problem tends to manifest at higher levels, where some spells start to crowd out some skill options - in this case, teleportation spells crowd out athletic travel abilities. But this PC was mostly played from 1st to around 12th level and these spell issues didn't manifest at those levels.)

In 3E, on the other hand, it seems that just about every feat option (I'm not sure about skills) can be spent on the "core" area of expertise, making something like Endurance a waste of time.

There may be a further issue about expected gameplay: there are features of D&D (even 4e displays this tendency, at least in my experience) which tend to make _dealing with immediate issues of foes and of local architecture/topography_ more salient, in play, than _dealing with travelling and getting tired and having to get from A-town to B-ville in a hurry_. Whereas Rolemaster is a bit different in this respect, as is (say) Burning Wheel and (I would say, though based on a bit less experience) RuneQuest. I would expect needing to go a long time without eating, or to have to march or run or swim for a long time, to come up more often in those non-D&D systems than in default D&D play. And of course every session it doesn't come up is another session in which Endurance was a pointless part of the PC build.


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## pemerton (Feb 3, 2021)

billd91 said:


> The issue here is they didn't build traps to catch newbs with any sort of intent to deceive



I don't know of any game that is build with the intent to deceive. Which would mean that there are no games with "trap" options!

But the concept of "trap" options is a thing, from which we should probably infer that _deceit_ isn't at the core of it. What's at the core of a "trap" option is the game presenting things as effective on their face which, in the cold light of play, turn out not to be.

The most common form of such presentation is including the option on a list with other options which are, by the build rules of the game, substitutable and exclusive options: ie you can spend this slot to buy A or B but not both. That might be putting a card into a deck in M:tG, or putting a feat onto your PC sheet in 3E D&D. It is compounded by presenting the option as a discrete "thing" without explaining its place in the broader build or play environment.

For instance, in M:tG high-cost high-stat monsters, especially if Rare, present themselves as fun options for stomping your opponent. They don't come with a label that says _in typical play sequences by the time you have enough mana to play this creature the game will be mostly decided_. The player has to work that out for him-/herself. So it is the surface-level enticing-ness in conjunction with the system-determined lack of effectiveness that creates the "trap". This doesn't depend on any "intent to deceive" - but it is a consequence of an intent to design the game such that there is room for skill in build as well as in play choices.

In this thread we have Monte Cook telling us that 3D &D was designed with the same intent - to reward skill in build as well as in play choices. And it works the same way - build options that, through name and surface-level content look like they will enable your PC _to do X _or _to be Y_, in fact turn out not to deliver that X-ness or Y-ness in the typical run of play.

With Skill Focus (Intimidate), the complaint is that at the surface level it seems like a choice that will make the character a good Intimidator, but in fact it turns out not to: even with the feat the character's Intimidation is pretty mediocre. This isn't because the feat "lied" - it granted the +3 bonus just as it said it would - but because the feat doesn't come with a commentary that explains what a +3 bonus does or doesn't imply (especially when earned at the cost of a feat) in the overall context of 3E build and play. @Ovinomancer had to find that out the hard way.

With Endurance, the complaint would seem to be the same. It looks like a feat meant to make the character hardy in relation to travel and the environment. But on my reading of it seems to mostly interact with rules for taking non-lethal damage, and so I'm going to guess that other aspects of PC build - eg hit points, recovery abilities etc - largely or even completely dominate the effect that Endurance has on the ability to survive environmental rigours. Thus if I want a hardy character I should build to those things, not look at Endurance.

What I've described in the preceding couple of paragraphs is _exactly what is meant _by calling a build option a "trap".


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## DrunkonDuty (Feb 3, 2021)

@pemerton. I played RM for a few years (5-6 years IIRC) back in the olden days. I liked that characters could be much more flexible and rounded than was available in DnD. (It should be said that even Palladium offered more rounded characters than DnD at the time.)

But to the point at hand: Endurance. Yeah. It's a feat that improves your character in a part of the game fiction that almost never comes up. And as you point out, there's other ways of dealing with this same (rare) occurrence. 

The fact that buying a dud feat spends a sizeable proportion of the character's build collateral just compounds it. The opportunity cost on this particular feat is huge.

Anyway, here I am griping over a thing from 20 years ago (although it continues to exist in my PF 1e game) as if it matters. I should get outside more.


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## billd91 (Feb 3, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I don't know of any game that is build with the intent to deceive. Which would mean that there are no games with "trap" options!



Something I would generally agree with - it would be a pretty perverse intent to deliberately design options to trick people into taking. Generally, a trap would be a ploy emerging in competitive play that a player falls for.


pemerton said:


> What I've described in the preceding couple of paragraphs is _exactly what is meant _by calling a build option a "trap".



Yeah, I know. And as I've been saying, it's a value laden term, one that, I believe, reflects more of a deficiency in the culture that coined it rather than being honestly descriptive or constructively critical.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 3, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> In many cases, assuming designed intent for the more toxic inclusions is the less charitable stance; ignorance implies no malice.



It's uncharitable to assume the designs aren't competent enough to understand their design.  It's a subjective value statement to call that design "toxic," and one I don't agree with in this case.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 3, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Something I would generally agree with - it would be a pretty perverse intent to deliberately design options to trick people into taking. Generally, a trap would be a ploy emerging in competitive play that a player falls for.
> 
> Yeah, I know. And as I've been saying, it's a value laden term, one that, I believe, reflects more of a deficiency in the culture that coined it rather than being honestly descriptive or constructively critical.



I'm curious what deficiency you're speaking to.  Is calling an option that should be avoided or used off-description (and will be if you have sufficient skill at the system) a "trap" indicative of a deficiency?  It's a simple term that grasps the core concept -- that this option is best avoided as it will be less useful that others.


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## Campbell (Feb 3, 2021)

Regardless of designer intent or personal feelings on what players should be motivated by I think it's fairly obvious that some games are more susceptible than others to a player who is trying to realize a particular sort of character failing to actually do so. It's much harder to do so because of build choices in PF2 than PF1. Same goes for Exalted Third Edition in comparison to Exalted Second Edition. Same for recent versions of Vampire and Legend of the Five Rings compared to prior iterations. A lot of more recent design has been aimed in the direction of removing counterintuitive stumbling blocks when it comes to character design.

To be fair at the same time a lot if of more modern design is pointed towards shifting that burden instead to play. I am personally a fan of that, but I have also seen players get deeply frustrated by games like PF2 and Exalted Third Edition that leave living up to your conception of your character up to choices made at the table. Like I had a player walk out of an Exalted game because they just wanted to hit things and be awesome instead of engaging with the mechanics. This player was fine with more build centric games, but not more gameplay oriented ones.


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## pemerton (Feb 4, 2021)

Campbell said:


> A lot of more recent design has been aimed in the direction of removing counterintuitive stumbling blocks when it comes to character design.
> 
> To be fair at the same time a lot if of more modern design is pointed towards shifting that burden instead to play. I am personally a fan of that, but I have also seen players get deeply frustrated by games like PF2 and Exalted Third Edition that leave living up to your conception of your character up to choices made at the table. Like I had a player walk out of an Exalted game because they just wanted to hit things and be awesome instead of engaging with the mechanics. This player was fine with more build centric games, but not more gameplay oriented ones.



I think 4e provides an interesting example of trying to combine build and play.

The build rules are mostly free of "traps", I think (not completely: Power Attack always looked bad to me). If you want to build (say) an archer, or a polearm expert, you do have to go through the work of putting it together, but for any given option you look at it's generally pretty clear whether or not it will help you.

But once you've got your build you can't just turn up, hit "play" and sit back. The system will force you to make choices, and making those well or poorly can have quite an influence on how your character turns out.


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## Aldarc (Feb 4, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> In many cases, assuming designed intent for the more toxic inclusions is the less charitable stance; ignorance implies no malice.



I don't necessarily think that there was malice on the part of the designers - none at all actually - but poor design choices from ignorance of how their system plays out in practice is not exactly a compelling argument either, but regardless of whether the design choices (and associated implications) were done from malice or ignorance, the culpability rests with the designers.


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## chaochou (Feb 4, 2021)

billd91 said:


> It's labeled a trap because people want to pass on some kind of malignant deficiency toward the designers, more like.




You're a fine one to write things like this and then accuse others of 'value-laden' posts and bias.

Hypocrisy in plain sight.


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## pemerton (Feb 4, 2021)

The semantics of "trap option" are pretty clear:



pemerton said:


> build options that, through name and surface-level content look like they will enable your PC _to do X _or _to be Y_, in fact turn out not to deliver that X-ness or Y-ness in the typical run of play.




Is there a word in English for something that has a different and undesired upshot relative to what it suggests by its surface appearance?

Yes. _Trap_, used as a straightforward metaphor.

EDIT: I went back upthread and found the same point made here:



Ovinomancer said:


> The "trap" option is that the option doesn't do what's anticipated -- that you need to have a strong understanding of the entire system to understand how that option can be used.  If you just select skill focus going by what it says, it underperforms and you can end up with exactly my situation.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> That this is labeled a "trap" is because it is -- if you don't know to look for it, you can fall into it, just as I did in my example.




FURTHER EDIT:
Of course the word "trap" is value laden. A _trap_ is, by its very nature, something you don't want to fall into. And that's the case with these build options: you don't want to end up with stuff on your sheet that doesn't deliver the outcome, in play, that it led you to expect when you selected it.

Is it good for a game to have traps? Well Classic D&D has heaps of them in its gameplay, from stuff that, in the fiction, is literally a trap to highly metagame stuff like mimics that trick looting players or traps that are triggered when you poke 10' in front of them with a pole or rotating rooms that muck up your map.

Outwitting these is part and parcel of play.

Whether they should be part of _PC build_ in a RPG seems a matter of taste. But 3E D&D clearly seems to have them!


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## Aldarc (Feb 4, 2021)

IMHO, part of the problem with 3e's basic design was that playing nearly anything that wasn't a Cleric, Druid, or Wizard (and possibly later Artificer) - or roughly Tier 1 (and to a certain extent Tier 2) - was the real trap regardless of what feats, whether traps or not, you selected to optimize your character. But I suspect that this was partially unintended due to the designers both overestimating (e.g., fighter combat feats, Strength, etc.) and underestimating (e.g., Spell DC, spell auto-scaling, bonus spells, etc.) certain design elements they chose.


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## billd91 (Feb 4, 2021)

chaochou said:


> You're a fine one to write things like this and then accuse others of 'value-laden' posts and bias.
> 
> Hypocrisy in plain sight.



Given my experiences with internet gamer culture, I'm pretty sure it's correct. Sorry, not sorry, if you feel targeted or something.


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## Aldarc (Feb 4, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Given my experiences with internet gamer culture, I'm pretty sure it's correct. Sorry, not sorry, if you feel targeted or something.



@chaochou: In @billd91's defense, Cook-bashing does strangely seem to be a thing among some TTRPG circles.


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## Ovinomancer (Feb 4, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> @chaochou: In @billd91's defense, Cook-bashing does strangely seem to be a thing among some TTRPG circles.



I'm not a particular fan of Cook, but I see no need to bash him.  He just designs games that no longer speak to me (they once did).  Nothing wrong with that.


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## Campbell (Feb 4, 2021)

On a related note I think mainstream play culture has a pretty severe problem when it comes laying judgement on people for basically trying to play the game in front of them. This judgement is often not even reserved just for players who are trying to play the game hard. It's very possible to accidentally make a character out of a given group's power preferences in either direction.

The absolutely worst experiences I have had with this phenomenon come from playing Classic World of Darkness and Exalted Second Edition. Both games feature extraordinarily open character creation with a vast difference in the spread of player power. When coming into a new group it is damn near impossible to tell where the line is when it comes to things like Willpower, Essence, Attributes, and Skills. Particularly in a game where things cost different amounts during and after character creation. Add a culture of play where sometimes even asking questions about where those lines are drawn is seen as a sign you may be a scary "Power Gamer". I have even experienced that sense of judgement being directed from one player to another in games I have GMed where I was fine with a given build. 

I do not think it is healthy to create an environment where players feel like they have to walk on egg shells when it comes to the way they play the game.


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## Aldarc (Feb 4, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not a particular fan of Cook, but I see no need to bash him.  He just designs games that no longer speak to me (they once did).  Nothing wrong with that.



IMHO Cook tends to get the lion's share of blame when it comes to LFQW design in 3e, though this tends to ignore that Jonathan Tweet was lead designer and that Skip Williams was likewise a co-designer. I liked Arcana Unearthed/Evolved quite a lot back in the day as well as a number of d20 system compatible products that he published under Malhavoc Press (e.g., Books of Eldritch Might, Beyond Countless Doorways, Books of Hallowed Might, etc.). IMHO, I think that he is a stronger setting designer. He's good at coming up with interesting settings, but as a mechanics/system designer, he falls fairly heavily in the traditional side of things (e.g., GM power/role, etc.) even when he's trying to push the story/narrative side (e.g., character options shopping lists in Cypher System and Invisible Sun, etc.). 

The Cypher System is a solid system that I quite enjoy as well, though not as much as I once did. However, my issue with the Cypher System at present is that I don't think that it's really being expanded in interesting ways right now, and the base game (i.e., Numenera) is fairly basic. (In let's say the way that Free League Publishing is doing different things with the YZE.) The past few years of publications have been mostly about expanding the system in terms of genre/setting books (e.g., fairy tales, hard sci-fi, superheroes, etc.) rather than trying to push the boundaries of the system in novel ways. Writing different genre/setting books seems more like showcasing the pig in different colors of lipstick.


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 4, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Hmmm.  I'm not sure I agree with this.  I seem to recall feats that allowed you do things with time or repeatability that was not normally possible; you can argue those are roundabout ways to add bonus and hide it, but its not just adding a bonus to your roll, and it can matter quite a bit.  Same for the feats that allowed Take 10 in situations you normally couldn't.




This is possible for sure.....as I mentioned, my knowledge of 3e and its versions was at one point strong, but at some point, I stopped buying all the splat books, and it's also been several years since I last played it. 

Allowing a second roll or a roll with advantage or a bonus die......something like that....would have been a good alternate way to support the idea that a character may be good at something beyond the standard bonus of "+x to your roll". If there are examples of this in 3e as you suggest (and I think I do recall some feats allowing a second roll, as you mention) I would say that they're few and far between, and probably very often overshadowed by other mechanics or game features that render them less meaningful. 

As I said, I think in an attempt to break some of the shackles of earlier editions.....multiclass limits, level and class limits by race, weapon limitations by class, and similar restrictions......they moved a bit too far. Some folks want to play against type, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean that you don't start at a point that's well within the archetype that's in question.

To me, one of the core ideas of a Barbarian is that they're physically imposing and intimidating. I'd go so far as to say this is more essential than what is often seen as their core feature in D&D, their rage power. They should be scary people whose prowess and mannerisms are intimidating to others. If the system doesn't support this, if it very easily renders this idea meaningless mechanically, then I think the system has failed in this regard.

There should be some inherent ability for a Barbarian, and also a Fighter, that gives them a strong ability to Intimidate. In my opinion, it's the Bard or Rogue that should have to focus on improving it if they want to play something a bit off-type. Other classes should have to put in effort to be as Intimidating as a Barbarian or Fighter, not the other way around. Even if they still went with the "+x to a check" route, they could have done something like "A Barbarian adds their Strength Bonus as well as their Charisma bonus to Intimidate rolls" or something like that. I mean, I would have preferred they opened up the design a bit instead of everything being codified static bonuses, but even within their narrow design, they could have pulled it off.

Or if they gave the Fighter or Barbarian a Feat that allowed them to add their base attack bonus to Intimidate checks, that would be thematically suitable and would (I expect, going off memory) put them in line with any other class. Of course, such a Feat would render something like Skill Focus even more of a trap, and it still gates what should be an inherent part of the class behind a Feat, but at least the big scary warrior guy would actually be scary.


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## chaochou (Feb 4, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Given my experiences with internet gamer culture, I'm pretty sure it's correct. Sorry, not sorry, if you feel targeted or something.



No - what you're now doing is claiming some sort of objective truth to your position while those you argue against are falsely labelled 'biased' and 'value laden'.

Given my experience with gamer culture, you're bringing in just as much prejudice and bias as anyone - and making accusations of others while making biased and value-laden posts remains hypocrisy.

Sorry, not sorry, if you feel targeted or something.


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## Umbran (Feb 4, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Sorry, not sorry, if you feel targeted or something.






chaochou said:


> Sorry, not sorry, if you feel targeted or something.




*Mod Note:*

Both of you are done in the thread for clear disregard of the need to treat people with respect.

Are you sorry now?  Consider what it means to only be sorry when you face negative consequences for treating people poorly.


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## pemerton (Feb 4, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> @chaochou: In @billd91's defense, Cook-bashing does strangely seem to be a thing among some TTRPG circles.



Every other RPG has people able to post about what they do or don't like in its design. I frequently post about some of the quirks and limits of Classic Traveller. In this very thread I posted about a tricky feature of my Cortex+ LotR/MERP game. @Manbearcat and I have frequently discussed, for years now, some of the weaknesses of 4e - eg the very non-smooth combat/non-combat interface.

I don't get the idea that 3E and 5e D&D are somehow immune from scrutiny or criticism.


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## Hussar (Feb 4, 2021)

Well, 3e is immune to criticism, because, well, if you don't hold 3e to be the epitome of game design, beyond any criticism, then you must hate 3e (and by association, Pathfinder) and must be a 4e holdover edition warrior.    Unfortunate, but, apparently it's still impossible to discuss shortcomings in 3e design.  5e apparently is less immune to this.  You can criticise 5e without being labeled as a hater.  

Now, rolling this back to the original question, I wonder if looking at the purpose of the mechanics in games might not lead to differentiating RPG's from other games.  I'm thinking out loud here, so, bear with me if I'm not making much sense.

In a board game, all the mechanics are there to lead the players to the ultimate conclusion of the game - determining the final state of the game.  You follow the game mechanics, from turn to turn, until the game ends.  All mechanics in the game are there to tell the players what to do next until that end state is reached.  

But, in an RPG, that isn't true.  You don't (generally) have an end state in an RPG.  Certainly not an end state defined by the mechanics.  The mechanics are only engaged with in certain circumstances and are generally only there to determine success/failure conditions in order to explore the fictional positioning of the players' characters.  IOW, you can play an RPG for significant amounts of time without using any mechanics at all.  We've all had sessions where virtually no dice were rolled.  Yet, when asked, we'd still say we were playing X RPG.  

If no one deals any cards, can you claim to be playing poker?  If no dice are rolled, can you progress in (almost all) board games?  Yet, I can play an RPG without engaging mechanics so, there must be a fundamental difference in the purpose of mechanics between board games and RPG's.  The same applies to video games, only that the mechanics in a video game are hidden (largely) from the player.  

Does this make sense?


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## hawkeyefan (Feb 5, 2021)

@Hussar It does make sense, and I think you’re onto an interesting idea. However, I would think that a player declaring what their character does is an instance of play akin to rolling dice or drawing a card. “I head to the tavern local tavern”requires no mechanics of the kind we talk about in a RPG, but it’s a fundamental part of playing the game. 

So I don’t think it’s a case of all that time passing without engaging in....maybe “process of play” suits more than mechanics.


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## Aldarc (Feb 5, 2021)

@pemerton, I am explicitly talking about Monte Cook-bashing and NOT simply criticism of the 3e system.


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## Aldarc (Feb 5, 2021)

Hussar said:


> In a board game, all the mechanics are there to lead the players to the ultimate conclusion of the game - determining the final state of the game.  You follow the game mechanics, from turn to turn, until the game ends.  All mechanics in the game are there to tell the players what to do next until that end state is reached.
> 
> But, in an RPG, that isn't true.  You don't (generally) have an end state in an RPG.  Certainly not an end state defined by the mechanics.  The mechanics are only engaged with in certain circumstances and are generally only there to determine success/failure conditions in order to explore the fictional positioning of the players' characters.  IOW, you can play an RPG for significant amounts of time without using any mechanics at all.  We've all had sessions where virtually no dice were rolled.  Yet, when asked, we'd still say we were playing X RPG.



This thesis is somewhat undermined by RPGs like Band of Blades that do have explicit final states of the game (with victory/loss conditions even): i.e., get your army back to your mercenary company's keep with X number of your troops alive.


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## aramis erak (Feb 5, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Well, 3e is immune to criticism, because, well, if you don't hold 3e to be the epitome of game design, beyond any criticism, then you must hate 3e (and by association, Pathfinder) and must be a 4e holdover edition warrior.    Unfortunate, but, apparently it's still impossible to discuss shortcomings in 3e design.  5e apparently is less immune to this.  You can criticise 5e without being labeled as a hater.
> 
> Now, rolling this back to the original question, I wonder if looking at the purpose of the mechanics in games might not lead to differentiating RPG's from other games.  I'm thinking out loud here, so, bear with me if I'm not making much sense.
> 
> ...



Yes, but not in the way you intend. Many board games have a number of actions that require no dice rolls, and have minimal mechanics besides alteration of an element of the game state and it's conjoined story state. 

For example, in Star Fleet Battles, coasting along the course. There is a default assumption that, on impulses you are scheduled to move, you move forward. If you are operating under a particular optional rule, or using Mauler equipped ships on the default hexgrid movement system, you are accruing points with no die roll, which are not reflected on the board, and which affect a later reflected on board state - the accumulation of progress towards a turn alters the Mauler's alignment to the hex-grid.  In standard play, it's presumed that this is, indeed, happening all along, but is reflected in the sudden 60° game piece rotation only at the conclusion.

Likewise, in Diplomacy, and in Pax Brittanica, the treaties have no direct mechanics, but they are a major part of play, being something that exists only as an ephemeral agreement.  In PB, there is a slight bit of game effect - violating a treaty can generate a _casus belli_ but has no other direct mechanical effect (and casus belli can be generated in a number of mechanical ways, as well), but the route to victory damned near requires statesmanship. (and a calculator. Or, better, a PDA, tablet, or Phone spreadsheet for the economics).


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## aramis erak (Feb 5, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I don't necessarily think that there was malice on the part of the designers - none at all actually - but poor design choices from ignorance of how their system plays out in practice is not exactly a compelling argument either, but regardless of whether the design choices (and associated implications) were done from malice or ignorance, the culpability rests with the designers.



Not always. Sometimes publishers or IP owner/licensors do stupid stuff and break designs, or interfere with the playtest process (EG: Black Industries deleting mechanical feedback to Chris Pramas during the WFRP 2E playtest).
I agree that it's less than ideal, but, fundamentally, no designer can predict how a mechanic as written will be received by a broader market with absolute clarity. 

Every design has flaws, and those flaws are usually due to ignorance of some aspect of the design; playtesting is supposed to be where one finds out what does or doesn't work.


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## aramis erak (Feb 5, 2021)

Campbell said:


> On a related note I think mainstream play culture has a pretty severe problem when it comes laying judgement on people for basically trying to play the game in front of them. This judgement is often not even reserved just for players who are trying to play the game hard. It's very possible to accidentally make a character out of a given group's power preferences in either direction.



Different games attract different cultures, often ones the designer didn't plan for


Campbell said:


> I do not think it is healthy to create an environment where players feel like they have to walk on egg shells when it comes to the way they play the game.



I've seen that in several non-RPG fandom environments, too...
Hot Trek-fan subjects include, "Does Starfleet have a marine corps?" "Did they abolish Commodores between TOS and TNG?" (ST: Picard shows that if they did, they reinstalled them before the last movie.) "Is TAS Cannon?"



Aldarc said:


> IMHO Cook tends to get the lion's share of blame when it comes to LFQW design in 3e, though this tends to ignore that Jonathan Tweet was lead designer and that Skip Williams was likewise a co-designer.



Tweet and Williams seem to have been less willing to talk about the process and decisions... 
... which makes Cook more of a target, because he's the one talking.

Cook certainly has benefitted personally from taking about D&D design... it's made his later variations more inherently visible because of his visibility.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 5, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> @pemerton, I am explicitly talking about Monte Cook-bashing and NOT simply criticism of the 3e system.



I’ll let @pemerton speak to how “Cook-centered” his post was vs 3e broadly (he may have just used your post as a springboard for the commentary).

But my agreement with his post is on the general sentiment. It could be because the roots of this place is a 3e website, but it has always seemed to me that there has been a unique and vociferous defense and advocacy for 3e on these boards (SWAG math for the extreme 4e reaction and edition warrior ranks on this board was probably 1 part OSR, 4 parts 3.x/PF).


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## Hussar (Feb 5, 2021)

Isn't Band of Blades basically a module for Blades in the Dark?  As in, it's a scenario, not a stand alone RPG?  Could you play Band of Blades without owning Blades in the Dark?


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## Manbearcat (Feb 5, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Isn't Band of Blades basically a module for Blades in the Dark?  As in, it's a scenario, not a stand alone RPG?  Could you play Band of Blades without owning Blades in the Dark?



Not a module, a hack (like Scum and Villainy).

Yes, stand-alone game.


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## Aldarc (Feb 5, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> I’ll let @pemerton speak to how “Cook-centered” his post was vs 3e broadly (he may have just used your post as a springboard for the commentary).



Maybe, because it seemed like a non sequitur argument. 



Manbearcat said:


> But my agreement with his post is on the general sentiment. It could be because the roots of this place is a 3e website, but it has always seemed to me that there has been a unique and vociferous defense and advocacy for 3e on these boards (SWAG math for the extreme 4e reaction and edition warrior ranks on this board was probably 1 part OSR, 4 parts 3.x/PF).



That's possible, but I don't think that I could say one way or another, though I've been on the boards since the 3e days.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 5, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Maybe, because it seemed like a non sequitur argument.
> 
> 
> That's possible, but I don't think that I could say one way or another, though I've been on the boards since the 3e days.




Alright, alright.  You win.  I admit...I overestimated.  

Carry the 2.  Cancel out the 7.  Its 1 part OSR, 3 parts 3.x/PF.


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## Aldarc (Feb 5, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Alright, alright.  You win.  I admit...I overestimated.
> 
> Carry the 2.  Cancel out the 7.  Its 1 part OSR, 3 parts 3.x/PF.



I win? But I'm not playing at anything here. You may be right. I'm simply admitting that I don't know or remember well enough to say one way or another. 5e is clearly the preferred game nowadays, but I'm not sure how many 3e apologists are wanting to bat for it since most have hitched themselves to the 5e fan wagon.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 5, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I win? But I'm not playing at anything here. You may be right. I'm simply admitting that I don't know or remember well enough to say one way or another. 5e is clearly the preferred game nowadays, but I'm not sure how many 3e apologists are wanting to bat for it since most have hitched themselves to the 5e fan wagon.



I was just looking for a laugh (Re-review my post for the spectacular nonsense)!

Cheer up old boy!


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## Umbran (Feb 5, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I don't get the idea that 3E and 5e D&D are somehow immune from scrutiny or criticism.




5e clearly isn't immune.  Heck, Morrus is currently running _an entire game-design project_ for a his own spin on 5e, due to what one might term its inadequacies. And folks are critiquing and home-brewing solutions of bits and pieces of it they find insufficient on the site all the time. There's sometimes a bit of wrangling over "it ain't broke don't fix it" but it is _nothing_ compared to the animosity of the past.

If you have issues speaking about 5e, we might have to consider that there's a tone issue involved - because how and why you talk about it may bring out the worst in some people.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 5, 2021)

Well, honestly, the current Big Dog among editions of a game always have the advantage (and disadvantage to critics) that there's going to be a disproportionate number of people who will defend it, and some of them rather--_vigorously_. That's always going to be pretty tiring. That doesn't mean its more resistant to criticism than any other edition, but it _does_ mean it requires more energy to do so because of the raw amount of pushback you'll get.


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## Aldarc (Feb 6, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I don't get the idea that 3E and 5e D&D are somehow immune from scrutiny or criticism.



They're obviously not immune to criticism, but people can nevertheless be pretty touchy when you criticize things that they have invested themselves into psychologically and emotionally. But go on nearly dedicated TTRPG system community and criticize the system, and you will get pushback from some fans who believe that the system in question can do no wrong.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 6, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> They're obviously not immune to criticism, but people can nevertheless be pretty touchy when you criticize things that they have invested themselves into psychologically and emotionally. But go on nearly dedicated TTRPG system community and criticize the system, and you will get pushback from some fans who believe that the system in question can do no wrong.




Yup.  Used to see it on the M&M boards when they were still alive regularly.  Doubly so if you come across as an outsider in any way.


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## Aldarc (Feb 6, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Yup.  Used to see it on the M&M boards when they were still alive regularly.  Doubly so if you come across as an outsider in any way.



I think my opinion of the Cypher System also personally soured a bit after interacting with some fan content creators (not anyone at MCG mind you) who were not interested in engaging (i.e., shutting down) even critical questions about weaknesses/problems of the system or possible areas of improvement.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 6, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Yup.  Used to see it on the M&M boards when they were still alive regularly.  Doubly so if you come across as an outsider in any way.



Its especially annoying for two-fold reasons:

* The Purity Test for being able to critique seems to frame the commenter as having to be a fundamentalist; someone so deeply partisan that they wouldn't criticize the game in the first place!

* Those demanding the fealty to the above Purity Test often have less experience (sometimes far less) running the system than those they're demanding bend the knee to the Purity Test (eg, the number of commenters on these boards that have more experience than I running AD&D or 3.x is VANISHINGLY remote...yet, they get to tell me that I have no right to critique those systems?).

Its a circular cluster-eff.

1)  Are you a fundamentalist partisan that would never offer a critique in the first place?  No?  Well then you can't criticize!

2)  Do you have less experience than me running this game?  No?  Well then you can't criticize!

3)  Do you have more experience than me running this game?  Yes?  See 1!

Quite the critique-insulating loop!


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## Hussar (Feb 8, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Not a module, a hack (like Scum and Villainy).
> 
> Yes, stand-alone game.



Again, I freely admit my ignorance.

But, you're saying I could play this game without any prior experience with Blades in the Dark?  Or, do they simply reproduce enough of the mechanics from BitD so that I can play this scenario.  Because, from the description, that's exactly what this sounds like.  You're playing a BitD scenario, exactly the same way I'd play a D&D module.  It's not meant to be replayed, nor is it meant to be a complete RPG in and of itself, in that I won't use these mechanics to make new scenarios.

There's a question.  Is something an RPG if you cannot use the mechanics to create scenarios with it?  Thus, a module isn't an RPG - you don't use Isle of Dread to do anything other than play Isle of Dread.  And, yes, I realize I'm tiptoeing around the idea of RPG's being game creation engines, but, I think it's a valid point.  Something that distinguishes RPG's from other games is that we use RPG's to create something, and it's that something that we play.  

If a game cannot be used to create something, is it an RPG?  Or simply what is commonly referred to as a module?


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## pemerton (Feb 9, 2021)

Hussar said:


> If a game cannot be used to create something, is it an RPG?  Or simply what is commonly referred to as a module?



I thought Band of Blades was mentioned as an example of a RPG with an end-state. My Life With Master and Nicotine Girls are presumably two more examples of this. Arguably so is 4e D&D, though I would accept the counter-argument that the end-state is so "off in the distance" relative to the normal course of play that it doesn't exercise much practical constraint on gameplay.

As to whether a RPG must be used to create something - well, all RPGing in the course of play will create a fiction. (Unless the play is super-hyper-scripted, in which case it will produce a variant interpretation of a pre-existing fiction. I think some CoC modules lean in this direction.)

Presumably Band of Blades will produce a fiction via play. I don't know it, but I imagine it's replayable. (I'm happy to be corrected by @Aldarc or @Manbearcat if I'm wrong on that.)

As to whether creation _in advance of play_ is important for RPGing - I personally don't think so. I've run games where we just sit down and start.


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## Campbell (Feb 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> 5e clearly isn't immune.  Heck, Morrus is currently running _an entire game-design project_ for a his own spin on 5e, due to what one might term its inadequacies. And folks are critiquing and home-brewing solutions of bits and pieces of it they find insufficient on the site all the time. There's sometimes a bit of wrangling over "it ain't broke don't fix it" but it is _nothing_ compared to the animosity of the past.
> 
> If you have issues speaking about 5e, we might have to consider that there's a tone issue involved - because how and why you talk about it may bring out the worst in some people.




I think critiques that are primarily technical in nature like how many skills a fighter gets or how stealth mechanics work are more apt to get taken as a matter of taste. I think it's much harder to have conversations that are critical of the underlaying play process, division of authority, goals of play, etc. without it being taken more personally. One is critical of a small piece. The other is calling into question how the whole project should function.


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## Umbran (Feb 9, 2021)

Campbell said:


> One is critical of a small piece. The other is calling into question how the whole project should function.




So, what you miss (and it is kind of typical that folks miss it, so don't take that personally) is that the other is calling into question how _the person you are talking to_ runs their own game, if they use that product.

Critique of that overall process of play, _et al_. is almost never phrased in terms of personal preference, but of absolute right and wrong of gaming.  And if I am running a 5e game, and 5e is bad, then my game is bad by extension.  It is therefore personal.  They aren't defending 5e, so much as they are implicitly placed in the position of defending _themselves_.

Folks are generally too deep into the theory they prefer to remember that people use it, and love it.  Anyone who wants to critique it wants to be so _correct_, and speak their point so emphatically, that they forget that their critique needs to be leavened by the fact that _hundreds of thousands_ of people have loved it for years now, and that probably ought to be considered as an empirical cap to how objectively bad that process, _et al._  could possibly be.


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## pemerton (Feb 9, 2021)

Campbell said:


> I think critiques that are primarily technical in nature like how many skills a fighter gets or how stealth mechanics work are more apt to get taken as a matter of taste. I think it's much harder to have conversations that are critical of the underlaying play process, division of authority, goals of play, etc. without it being taken more personally. One is critical of a small piece. The other is calling into question how the whole project should function.





Umbran said:


> So, what you miss (and it is kind of typical that folks miss it, so don't take that personally) is that the other is calling into question how _the person you are talking to_ runs their own game, if they use that product.



What I observe, which perhaps is something @Campbell also has observed, is sometimes a bit different from this. That is, sometimes a poster will say something about their own preference - eg for how authority might be distributed in the playing of a RPG - and explain or even imply that 5e or 3E D&D doesn't and probably can't easily satisfy that preference. And that statement of preference and explanation will be taken as an attack upon those who are paying those games and enjoying them _precisely because they don't have that preference_.


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Folks are generally too deep into the theory they prefer to remember that people use it, and love it.  Anyone who wants to critique it wants to be so _correct_, and speak their point so emphatically, that they forget that their critique needs to be leavened by the fact that _hundreds of thousands_ of people have loved it for years now, and that probably ought to be considered as an empirical cap to how objectively bad that process, _et al._  could possibly be.




Well, there's another side to that though; there's no lack of people from either the GM seat or the player seat complaining about games they're in to one degree or another.  So I think its legitimate to question how much of that is flaws with the basic process of the games they choose that they're not realizing contribute to this.

Where it gets off the rails is when you go in _sure_ that's what the problem is, rather than just suggesting that there can be reasons for someone to keep playing a game that's part of the source of the problem (this is particularly easy to suggest with something like the current version of D&D which has such a big networking footprint that its easy to see situations where people continue to play it because it What You Play locally in a lot of places). You aren't sure; its _speculation_, possibly thought through speculation with some general foundation, but you can't just take it as an a priori.


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## Umbran (Feb 9, 2021)

pemerton said:


> What I observe, which perhaps is something @Campbell also has observed, is sometimes a bit different from this. That is, sometimes a poster will say something about their own preference - eg for how authority might be distributed in the playing of a RPG - and explain or even imply that 5e or 3E D&D doesn't and probably can't easily satisfy that preference. And that statement of preference and explanation will be taken as an attack upon those who are paying those games and enjoying them _precisely because they don't have that preference_.




As a moderator, I have frequently (very frequently... almost constantly) noted that people who claim to be speaking about their preferences, often use phrasing that does not indicate such explicitly.  Or they say it in the first sentence of their piece, and then continue with phrasing that drops the personal-dependence.  When I point it out, they defend themselves with, "Well, since everything in gaming is about personal preference, it should be assumed..."  or "I shouldn't have to say that, everyone knows..."  

And everyone here knows what happens when you expect people to assume....

This is sloppy writing that forgets how people read and consume information - if you want the audience to remember that you are speaking about personal preferences, you have to remind them of it frequently.  To maintain that understanding, the "in my opinion" and "at my table" and so on needs to be sprinkled liberally around the work for folks to keep that context, especially if your writing style is otherwise kind of officious or pretentious (because that often reads as condescending to start with), and double-especially if you don't frequently acknowledge that other speakers who disagree with you have points that are correct, and what they are doing is entirely valid gaming.  

Also, on this site and many others, you are speaking to an audience that has frequent contact with (intentional or not) bad actors.  They have been battered about by people who aren't speaking about personal preferences.  Or, they have gotten into bruising arguments with people who were talking about personal preferences, but the discussion got out of control anyway.  If you sound like the things that have been damaging, the life experience of the reader will color what they see in your writing.

Which amounts to a note that... very frequently, folks are so busy getting their own points across they forget to consider the audience.


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## Umbran (Feb 9, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, there's another side to that though; there's no lack of people from either the GM seat or the player seat complaining about games they're in to one degree or another.  So I think its legitimate to question how much of that is flaws with the basic process of the games they choose that they're not realizing contribute to this.
> 
> Where it gets off the rails is when you go in _sure_ that's what the problem is...




Yes.  To be blunt, you (generic, not you, Thomas Shey) weren't there, and the report you are getting is minimal and by necessity colored by the speaker's emotions and perspective on events (which will be negative, as we are talking about a complaint - the speaker is by definition unhappy to some degree).  You likely don't even know the goals of play for the various participants in a particular complaint - how on Earth can you then question the process they use to reach those goals?  How is it not armchair quarterbacking at such remove?


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## Thomas Shey (Feb 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Yes.  To be blunt, you (generic, not you, Thomas Shey) weren't there, and the report you are getting is minimal and by necessity colored by the speaker's emotions and perspective on events (which will be negative, as we are talking about a complaint - the speaker is by definition unhappy to some degree).  You likely don't even know the goals of play for the various participants in a particular complaint - how on Earth can you then question the process they use to reach those goals?  How is it not armchair quarterbacking at such remove?




All absolutely true.

On the other hand--a forum is about discussion.  When you come in with a complaint about an experience, to some extent you _invite_ armchair quarterbacking.

But you should always go into that with the understanding that, as you say, you're getting a very limited perspective about the situation.  One person, no matter what his relation to a gaming situation, is unlikely to have the full picture or necessarily expressing the picture he has well.

(I'm admittedly particularly cynical about how people characterize their game group and its sociodynamic, because I've seen a few too many cases where I heard one characterization when dealing with a person privately, and then when I either saw it directly or talked to other people it turned out the case seemed quite different.  As such I hear warning bells with phrases like "Well none of my players have a problem with this," or "The GM never cuts us a break" because I've seen exactly those phrases expressed when that turned out to not be the case.  It can even occur without malign intent; some people just have tunnel vision (in the latter case) or players who aren't confrontational (in the former case).  And that's trying not to even get into the issue that its statistically likely that at least a few people in these discussions are trying to gaslight you.  But I'll admit that isn't always the most useful trait to have to create a productive discussion.)


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## Manbearcat (Feb 9, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I thought Band of Blades was mentioned as an example of a RPG with an end-state. My Life With Master and Nicotine Girls are presumably two more examples of this. Arguably so is 4e D&D, though I would accept the counter-argument that the end-state is so "off in the distance" relative to the normal course of play that it doesn't exercise much practical constraint on gameplay.
> 
> As to whether a RPG must be used to create something - well, all RPGing in the course of play will create a fiction. (Unless the play is super-hyper-scripted, in which case it will produce a variant interpretation of a pre-existing fiction. I think some CoC modules lean in this direction.)
> 
> ...





Hussar said:


> Again, I freely admit my ignorance.
> 
> But, you're saying I could play this game without any prior experience with Blades in the Dark?  Or, do they simply reproduce enough of the mechanics from BitD so that I can play this scenario.  Because, from the description, that's exactly what this sounds like.  You're playing a BitD scenario, exactly the same way I'd play a D&D module.  It's not meant to be replayed, nor is it meant to be a complete RPG in and of itself, in that I won't use these mechanics to make new scenarios.
> 
> ...




@pemerton 's quote above does the necessary work to answer your question.

Just some clarity:

* Blades in the Dark isn't just an (a) action resolution system and (b) a set of play priorities and (c) GMing ethos.  Its a game with (d) a specific setting, (e) a specific Win/Loss Con.  Then it has (f) a particular set of mechanics that integrate and facilitate the realization of that a - e.

So all of that a - f has to be in there for it to be BitD.

* Forged in the Dark (FitD) is just like Powered By the Apocalypse (PBtA).  Its a chassis that always incorporates (a) (though not exactly the same in each instantiation), (b), and (c).  Meanwhile, d - f is subtly (or more) different in each case.

* Band of Blades is a stand-alone, FitD game that is different d - f than Blades in the Dark.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 9, 2021)

Campbell said:


> I think critiques that are primarily technical in nature like how many skills a fighter gets or how stealth mechanics work are more apt to get taken as a matter of taste. I think it's much harder to have conversations that are critical of the underlaying play process, division of authority, goals of play, etc. without it being taken more personally. One is critical of a small piece. The other is calling into question how the whole project should function.




Whenever an alternative to the cultural establishment is proposed, whether its a minor critique or a regime change like 4e, it is inevitably perceived as a threat.

This quote from Moneyball (very apropos) will seem familiar to you!

"I know you're taking it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall always gets bloodied.

Always.

This is threatening not only the way they do business but, in their minds, really what its threatening is the game. Its threatening their livelihood. Its threatening their jobs. Its threatening the way they do things.

And every time that happens, whether its a government...a way of doing business...or whatever it is...the people who are holding the reins or have their hands on the switch...they go batxxxx crazy."


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## Hussar (Feb 16, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> @pemerton 's quote above does the necessary work to answer your question.
> 
> Just some clarity:
> 
> ...



Sorry, but, what is the specific win/loss condition of Blades in the Dark?


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## Manbearcat (Feb 16, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Sorry, but, what is the specific win/loss condition of Blades in the Dark?




Loss Con


TPK
Founding members retired and Crew dissolved
Tier 0 > weak Hold > lose Hold (this is nigh unrecoverable as your lair comes under assault from your - more powerful -enemies; Alamo conditions)

Win Con

* Tier 5 > strong Hold. There is nowhere to go from here. Technically, you could attempt to bump off The Leviathan Hunters, City Council, and The Ministry of Preservation to ensure there are no Tier 5 Factions (but that isn’t what the game is about...it’s about ascending to the top of the ladder...not toppling all power centers, governance, and infrastructure).


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 16, 2021)

Hussar said:


> But, in an RPG, that isn't true.  You don't (generally) have an end state in an RPG.  Certainly not an end state defined by the mechanics.



You've managed to hit a landmine here and explicitly (re)opened the question of "Are storygames RPGs?" The term Storygame was used because there was a huge outcry at the publication of _My Life With Master _(in which the PCs are minions of a tyrannical master) because that game included an explicit end state that was being driven towards - one of the PCs getting completely fed up with the Master and trying to kill them.

The term "Storygame" was created so that the gatekeepers would stop complaining that that wasn't an RPG (despite being one in all other aspects) and those who wanted to create games could get on with things.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 16, 2021)

lewpuls said:


> Nowadays there does seem to be hostility, bordering on sheer ignorance, when someone tries to define something. No, it isn't "gatekeeping ("the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something") and tribalism." And I personally don't care what you think or do individually, nor am I trying to convince anyone of anything.



This is not my experience. There is only hostility to someone trying to define something when they define something _badly_. And that is because defining something _badly_ is an inherently hostile action that excludes people - and because bad definitions normally flow out of a mix of ignorance and tribalism.

The problem is that the definitions you have given (in particular about the progression that excludes one-shot RPGs) are bad ones that include things that are pretty obviously RPGs. Therefore the proposed definitions are not fit for purpose. They could have been presented in ignorance (in which case the thing to do when counter-examples are presented is to go back to fix them) or they could have been presented with the explicit intention of excluding. But if you're not interested in fixing your definitions and not trying to convince anyone of anything _why are you writing?_

For the record, my definition of RPGs is that tabletop roleplaying is a hobby that grew out of two different but related and overlapping desires:

Taking a wargame where you identify with a single character trying to do a task, and putting in place a referee so that you can go beyond the rules and do things your character would but the rules can't cover
Taking the basic game of "Let's Pretend" and fixing some of the common failure states by having conflict resolution mechanics so you can move on, and a GM to handle all the minor characters no one wants to play as.
I would say that your definitions are, among other things, almost exclusively based on the former motivation (which, for that matter, is how D&D was created).


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