Quote from: RPGPunditI disagree vehemently that only someone who's played a game is allowed to say whether it sucks or not.  

Only drooling fanboyz say stupid shit like that.

You've got the old fallacy of the excluded middle going on here. Just because it's false to say that you can't tell a game is really good or really bad without playing it, does not mean that playing it tells you nothing more than reading it does. Between those extremes there's a middle ground, a wide range of times where you might read a game one way, but it plays out another.

The play of it can give you surprises, bring out features which you didn't anticipate in your readthrough. I don't mean simply things being bad or good, just things being a certain style.

For example, in playing d6, I discovered it gives a cinematic, light-hearted feel if you get into combat. This is because there's something called the "wild die" - one of the d6 you roll you make a different colour, if you roll "1" something bad happens, if you roll "6" you roll again and add. You also roll to inflict or resist damage. So what you get in play is that one guy is killed with a punch to the head, while another guy cops a burst from a submachinegun and is unhurt. The efect of that is to make the players laugh, say, "that's stupid," and overall take things less seriously, go around shooting people needlessly, etc.

Now, perhaps if I were a genius like RPGPundit I could have anticipated this by a readthrough of the game, but as I'm a mere mortal, I didn't - I had to play it to find out. There are lots of elements of games like that. So while it may be obvious that FATAL is not for anyone over the mental age of 13, or that Dogs in the Vineyard is probably not gong to be played for a hundred-session campaign, it's not obvious that a game group which enjoyed, say, Fate, will also enjoy d6 Adventure. Some things you only discover by playing.

Quote from: HalfjackHonestly this is a minor blemish on a great game and easily patched, but worth watching out for.

Cool, thanks for the info!

Quote from: JimBobOzBut because I play the game in a group, you get the personal tastes of several people applied to the rules, and this is what gives roleplaying games their strongly emergent stuff. A group of (say) five people will come up with stuff that those five people working alone would never have come up with.

That's why I've always said that rules influence play, but do not determine play. That's why (for example) I describe how I played Dogs in the Vienyard and didn't like it, and droog says, "it doesn't even sound like the same game, I don't know how you got that result." It's because the rules don't determine play, they only influence it.

And maybe this is the reason why I find so hard to play with certain people. I think the people you play with is way more important than the RPG you play. Give me a good group and a crappy game over a crappy group and a good game everyday.

Quote from: ClaudiusAnd maybe this is the reason why I find so hard to play with certain people. I think the people you play with is way more important than the RPG you play. Give me a good group and a crappy game over a crappy group and a good game everyday.

Oh sweet lord yes.  

I'd go back to playing bloody Rifts again if I had a good group.  and I HATED Rifts.

Quote from: RPGPunditThe reality is that the people who have a disconnect between how a game reads to them and how it would actually play are those who have not played a lot of games, or a wide variety of games.  If you have enough experience with RPGs, you will be able to see quite clearly the overall way a game will play.  Certainly there are minute details you might pick up in play that you would not have noticed in a read-through, but the idea that you will miss the boat entirely if you don't perform the Sacred Ritual of Actual Play is simply poppycock.

The real issue is how much experience you have in being able to read a game.  If someone hasn't got a lot of play experience already, then sure, they may end up thinking that a mechanic will be hard when in fact its just badly written, or they may think something will be straightforward, when in fact its missing huge chunks that would make it unplayable. But someone with sufficient experience in both reading AND playing a wide variety of RPGs will not need to play through a game to know exactly how and why it will suck and/or rock.

RPGPundit

Maybe I lack the experience required, but very often after having played a game I meet problems I hadn't foreseen when I read it, and discover that certain rules rock that I didn't think they would.

Of course, I don't buy that "if you didn't play you're not allowed to speak" meme. It's ridiculous. But actual play and reading is better than just reading.

Quote from: JimBobOzYou've got the old fallacy of the excluded middle going on here. Just because it's false to say that you can't tell a game is really good or really bad without playing it, does not mean that playing it tells you nothing more than reading it does. Between those extremes there's a middle ground, a wide range of times where you might read a game one way, but it plays out another.

Do you know I was thinking of you when I read that? Really, I knew you would say that, and I agree, it's the fallacy of the excluded middle ground

Quote from: JimBobOzThe play of it can give you surprises, bring out features which you didn't anticipate in your readthrough. I don't mean simply things being bad or good, just things being a certain style.

Yes, yes. That reminds me when I ran once Fading Suns. I thought combat would be fast and furious, but not so much! Sometimes, I felt that I lost the grip.

Quote from: J ArcaneOh sweet lord yes.  

I'd go back to playing bloody Rifts again if I had a good group.  and I HATED Rifts.

I agree with The Forge that system does matter, but I think the people you play with does matter even more.

For example, I didn't like Rolemaster very much, but I had so much fan playing it that I had to re-evaluate my tastes and admit to myself that I'm a fan. :haw:

Quote from: RPGPunditI'm a HUGE fan of Actual Play, for its own sake.

I disagree vehemently that only someone who's played a game is allowed to say whether it sucks or not.  

Sure, good thing I didn't say that then, look at the text you quoted.  I said sometimes actual play really helps, that's a long way from saying only someone who has played can comment.

I mean, if I'd meant that, I'd have said that.

Anyway, JimBob's got my back so all's well.  But seriously dude, respond to what I said if you're quoting me, not to some shit someone on another forum said that bears some passing resemblance to what I said if you squint real hard and don't read too good.  I think saying someone has to play to be able to comment is bollocks, which is why I didn't say that.

Quote from: JimBobOzThe play of it can give you surprises, bring out features which you didn't anticipate in your readthrough.

But how many of these are impossible to detect without actual play? And if they truly are only visible during actual play, aren't they basically engendered by actual play? And if they're based on actual play, won't they change from group to group? And if they change from group to group, wouldn't it be unwise to put them in a review, telling folks that's what they can expect from the game?

Seanchai

Seanchai,

This isn't theoretical stuff, it's not about things being impossible.

All we are saying is that with some games actual play throws up results that weren't obvious on a readthrough, therefore actual play can help for reviews.

Nobody is saying you have to play, nobody is saying read-only reviews are worthless, all that is being said is that sometimes actual play reveals things that weren't apparent on a reading.

I've found this, JimBob has found this, lots of folk have, I don't see why it keeps getting turned from a fairly reasonable statement into some pogrom against read-only reviewers.

But your queries, they're all theory.  Wouldn't it and what if type stuff, we're talking about stuff we've actually encountered.  Or were before this thread became some bizarre battle ground against a statement nobody here has made.

I'll say one thing actual play does, it trumps theory every bloody time.  Let's not fall here into the trap of working out how things should be or what seems logical and then preferring that to actual experience.  That way lies madness, brain damage and saying Vampire isn't a successful rpg.

Quote from: BalbinusAll we are saying is that with some games actual play throws up results that weren't obvious on a readthrough, therefore actual play can help for reviews.

And I'm saying, if it's not obvious on a careful readthrough, it's not because a determination about said element or quality can only be made via actual play, but because said element or quality is created by actual play. As such, it's not a part of the game, it's a part of one particular group's experience with the game.

Quote from: Balbinus...all that is being said is that sometimes actual play reveals things that weren't apparent on a reading.

I get that, and I'm saying you're wrong.

Quote from: BalbinusI don't see why it keeps getting turned from a fairly reasonable statement into some pogrom against read-only reviewers.

Probably because, historically, that's what these threads are about, especially when being discussed by Forge folk.

Seanchai

Play throughs can even help you understand how certain bits of the setting fit together as well.
In Mage: the Awakening after reading through the book, the only group I really understood was the Free Council (the newest order of Mages, believe in the free trade of Magic among the Awakened). After playing and seeing how the magic rules work out, I could understand why the majority of orders would want to keep rote spells out of the hands of "the uninitiated" and even from each other.
I didn't get the four other Mage groups on a read through, and while one or two seem un-playable in a mixed group (Guardians of the Veil mostly) I understand their place in the setting and in a Cabal.

Quote from: SeanchaiAnd I'm saying, if it's not obvious on a careful readthrough, it's not because a determination about said element or quality can only be made via actual play, but because said element or quality is created by actual play. As such, it's not a part of the game, it's a part of one particular group's experience with the game.

Why?

Quote from: SeanchaiI get that, and I'm saying you're wrong.

Yet we've actual experience to say otherwise.  That we're not alone...  that in fact we are discovering the same emergent qualities in the same RPGs by disparate players. More than one of us has discovered the emergent properties of Savage Worlds, for instance.

Quote from: MarcoI had the opposite problem with SW: it looked okay on paper and then ran horribly for us. We played about six four to five hour sessions (24-30 hours) with several combats against varying mixes of opponents and with different sets of magic items (it was a fantasy venue).

Now, I'm not a SW-hater. We had a notably bad experience with it, but I still think it's a reasonably clever game and simplifies things in some good ways--but the fact is that the 'actual play' experience is highly subjective in a way reading the rules isn't.

Yep, that was a pretty bad experience wasn't it?  (Hi, Marco!)

After reading Savage Worlds, I thought it was exactly the game I was looking for.  In actual play, I found the mechanics to be far too distracting.  Perhaps the system would work better for other genres than fantasy.  We gave it a really good try but it just didn't click for us.  It was definitely a case of reading better than it played.

Quote from: mhensleyYep, that was a pretty bad experience wasn't it?  (Hi, Marco!)

After reading Savage Worlds, I thought it was exactly the game I was looking for.  In actual play, I found the mechanics to be far too distracting.  Perhaps the system would work better for other genres than fantasy.  We gave it a really good try but it just didn't click for us.  It was definitely a case of reading better than it played.

Hi Mike!

While we're on the topic, I'll aslo point out that it has gone the other way: there have been games I played that were awful (or read terribly) but I had an awesome time with. If I judged GURPS Supers on my AP experience, it'd be one of the best supers games out there!

-Marco