The players create characters that they like ("Look, Morg is a half-giant Barbarian-Thief ... he rocks!").

The GM creates a situation that she likes ("Aw man, so you're trying to climb to the top of the necromancer's tower, and he just plain throws bodies down this huge well, so first you're dealing with his rejects ... zombies and ghouls and shit ... but the higher you climb, the more you end up dealing with the prizes of his art, until finally you're up against the man himself.")

Then, and this is the interesting bit, these two elements come together in play to make (one hopes) a whole greater than the sum of its parts.  If the player says "Any story with Morg in it will make a cool story" and the GM says "Any story of a party assaulting this tower will be awesome" then they get a story everybody likes by having Morg and his allies assault the tower.

But part of how that happens is that each of the things people made individually are made within certain (often unstated) limits.  Now D&D (for instance) draws the limits in different places than (again, for instance) Sorceror, but they both have limits that are intended to help people create ingredients that will function well together.

In D&D Morg's player would not get to say that the necromancer is his long lost brother, and only Morg knows the secret to his downfall.  In Sorceror that'd be fine.

In Sorceror the GM would not get to say that the necromancer is an abomination, and that there is no possibility of alliance with such a creature of evil.  In D&D that would be fine.

Different games expect people to create different parts of the game ... and yet, even wildly different games can succeed at the goal of helping people to make two parts that automatically mix well together.

How does a game do that?  For folks who have house-ruled or otherwise designed these interfaces, where do you start?

Quote from: TonyLBDifferent games expect people to create different parts of the game ... and yet, even wildly different games can succeed at the goal of helping people to make two parts that automatically mix well together.

How does a game do that?  For folks who have house-ruled or otherwise designed these interfaces, where do you start?

Tony I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but I think my post here:

http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=79759&postcount=4

may be relevent to the discussion.

Regards,
David R

The games do it because there is a clear enough definition of the roles for everyone. When people know what's expected of them, the hard part is already done. A good group will then start to mesh and play off each other, using the most of their roles to provide their share of what's going on. In D&D, the GM's role is to collect and merge PC activities into the situations at hand, and this happens because that is their role, and they're (hopefully) prepared to do it.

I don't think there are many hard and fast rules that exist to explain it, just the definitions. The rest happens on the metagame level.

I always plan my campaigns around the player characters.  It's my belief that most bad GMing comes from forgetting who's story you are telling.

Since I don't plan my campaigns, It's dead simple to adjust to fit the characters. I just kick off with a situation, and what happens after that is mostly up to the characters. Whenever things start lagging, which is rarely, I throw in another stick of dynamite. I vastly prefer self-balancing systems, and since the characters will only go in directions that interest them if given a free choice, this is pretty self-balancing.

-clash

Quote from: David JohansenI always plan my campaigns around the player characters.  It's my belief that most bad GMing comes from forgetting who's story you are telling.

I totally agree that there are problems that can crop up due to a GM defining a powerful situation that interests them.  But I think one should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater here.

A GM who has a strong vision of a cool situation into which the characters can fit can make for a better game.  I think the GM can often do much better than just looking at the characters and reacting to them.

This may come as a blow to a designer, Tony, but the game doesn't do it. It's the people who play it.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThis may come as a blow to a designer, Tony, but the game doesn't do it. It's the people who play it.

Fine.  Doesn't matter to me one way or the other.  How is it done?

By means of the unquantifiable, infinitesimally subtle yet ultimately very simple ways in which human beings communicate. See also "relationship" or "hanging out with friends." No offense, Tony, but it's a bit like you and Pundy talking about women, and I'm being you and you're being Pundy. "We need a marriage contract, or the bitch will screw me over! etc. etc."

Quote from: Pierce InverarityBy means of the unquantifiable, infinitesimally subtle yet ultimately very simple ways in which human beings communicate.

In other words, you don't know.

That's fine.  I suspect, though, that some people may have insights into the way that these "unquantifiable and ininitesimally subtle" processes work.  I'd like to benefit from those insights.

Quote from: TonyLBIn other words, you don't know.

Not what I said at all. I said that I know it's unquantifiable--unquantifiable for something as necessarily crude and heavy-handed as game rules.

Quote from: TonyLBIn other words, you don't know.

That's fine.  I suspect, though, that some people may have insights into the way that these "unquantifiable and ininitesimally subtle" processes work.  I'd like to benefit from those insights.

I really don't want to be so harsh, but this topic can be hard to discuss because it's couched in nearly autistic terms. You may as well asked, "How is it when two or more people casually get together, they start to talk to each other about a variety of subjects that involve exchanges built upon previous statements? Incredible!! How the hell do people really do it? Explain in detail, please."

It's a little frustrating, but I do think I have something to say about.

It's communication, man. It's how we learn from birth to pay attention to what other people say and using it as a context to make appropriate, useful responses. The only difference between a conversation about the weather and a RPG is that as a game, the participants are provided specific roles instead of you having to figure them out in the moment. So when Morg's player responds to the GM and his fellow players in a D&D game, he knows exactly what his range of response is and works within it. The same thing would happen with Morg in a game of Sorceror, except (as I understand it) that particular game has a different set of roles.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThis may come as a blow to a designer, Tony, but the game doesn't do it. It's the people who play it.

I think that the players ultimately are the ones that do it, but a game can encourage it.

My Game Chef project game, IMO, does that.

Infact there is almost no chargen before the game starts. Characters start with five impressions from previous events (the have no memory otherwise of who they are). As the game goes on the players build their characters memories through interaction with the setting and NPCs, which intern generates the character. The players have almost as much power generating their characters as they do for generating the setting.

Honestly, I think that, in life as in gaming, when you introduce mechanics for keeping power tabs into a social relationship, you achieve one of three results:

a) a resounding "duh" on the part of people who are getting along just fine by implementing such tab mechanics far more subtly on their own;

b) eagerness on the part of people who are not getting along well at all to exploit said tab mechanics for an ongoing power struggle;

c) what Tony's looking for.

Of the three categories, c) strikes me as the numerically smallest by far.

Quote from: TonyLBDifferent games expect people to create different parts of the game ... and yet, even wildly different games can succeed at the goal of helping people to make two parts that automatically mix well together.

How does a game do that?  For folks who have house-ruled or otherwise designed these interfaces, where do you start?

What exactly are you asking? Is it "How does a game help people successfully mix things?"

I would guess that clearly defining roles would help.

I somehow get the feeling that you're asking for more than that -- but your post is really unclear to me.

I think 90% example, 10% question might not work so well as a posting style. But then, maybe you're satisfied with the answers here, so take that for what it's worth.

Cheers,
-E.