Quote from: John Morrow;426649Basically, D&D 3e was designed to appeal in certain ways I think the evidence shows that it succeeded at those goals.

I think it's major virtue over previous editions of D&D was the ability to create and advance customized characters. Unified XP Charts, Feats for variable class/character abilities, prestige classes, etc were all brilliant in combating what always been the #1 reason, in my experience, for people to try other fantasy RPGs. The ability to customize their character through game mechanics.

Quote from: John Morrow;426649I do think there is value is trying to give people what they want, especially if you are talking about managing a market leader like D&D rather than designing small press independent games.  That's the perspective Ryan is talking about -- where D&D should go, not where all games should go.  And as something of a gatekeeper for the hobby, I think that D&D attracting the largest audience possible is good for the hobby as a whole.

That the second part of what I said earlier. The owner of D&D implements it for the widest possible audience using the core game as a foundation. Swords & Wizardry, Core Rules is a very simple version of D&D. Majestic Wilderlands implement S&W for my setting and it is no where near as simple.

The Core game can remain evergreen like Monopoly or clue and every edition cycle a new implementation is releasing taking the interests of current gamers into account.

For example a very simple form of 3.X could have been released that downplays the multi-class options just has fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric, preselected feats and a slimmed down monsters and treasure list.  

Quote from: John Morrow;426649Timeless perfection isn't going to happen, even if it's a worthy goal to shoot for.

With circumstances the way they where there was no viable path other than what had happened. D&D was a fad, editions took hold, and so on. But knowing what we know now I don't see why an evergreen edition of D&D can't be produced.

Quote from: John Morrow;426649how does one quickly teach players to be a good referee and make subjective judgments about what should happen and how to make the game good for their players if they start out not knowing how to do that?

I don't have all the answer. I can only really tell you how to make good maps and how to create a sandbox fantasy campaign. In a year I may have more specifics. Right now it more of a general idea guiding my specific projects. It may gell into something more overall coherent. But I suspect given the diversity of what RPGs can handle that it will be largely as series of If you want to do X then doing A, B, and C will accomplish that.

Quote from: Benoist;426908Bingo. Again.

Also note there will be multiple answer that depend on the abilities of the referee. I was an early adopter of miniatures because I am deaf and had a lisp so.... a picture worth a thousand words was indicated my case. I played under referees who great at verbal description only and other that went the full dwarven forge route.

Quote from: RSDancey;426725"Say yes, or roll dice".

But I want the GM to say "no".  Seriously.  We just had a huge thread where I talked about that.  I don't want to know that just asking about something will make it possible if not likely that it will automatically exist.  That said:

Quote from: RSDancey;426725That gets rid of the DM fiat fears that so many players have.  Either they get to do what they want, or, they have some chance of doing what they want decided impartially.  I've seen this in action so many times where a heated argument can be utterly subdued by just naming a number and telling someone to roll a die.  It cuts through the bullshit like a hot knife through butter.

...I do think it can be a legitimate way to resolve a dispute where both sides have a point and it could go either way.  But that's not really the problem I have and we already do that to some degree.

The problem is not only assumption clash with the GM but between players.  And there is more to it that that.  The rules provide an objective physics for the game that everyone can count on and plan with and that avoids another problem I've seen: a game of 20 questions with the GM every time the player wants to do something to define the boundaries.  If I know my movement rate, damage, and so on, I don't have to ask the GM how far my character can move, whether his sword can hurt the guard wearing chainmail, what it means to run across a patch of ice, and so on.  I don't need the GM to "Say 'yes' or roll dice".  I don't need to consult the GM at all.  

Let me digress for a moment here on a problem I've seen that I don't think a lot of people notice.  Many games involve putting the PCs into an unfamiliar situation so that they have to investigate and make a lot of decisions based on little or no information about the big picture, including Dogs in the Vineyard.  GMs and game authors like that approach because it keeps the players off guard and puts the GM squarely in control.  But the problem is that for players and their characters to make meaningful decisions, they need to understand what they are doing and what their choices mean.  And for that reason, I prefer games that revolve around places that the PCs know.  When my group plays in the Champions Hudson City setting, we know it well enough that we can say where we go to eat or buy a new flashlight or talk about which neighborhoods we investigate and so on because we know the setting.  The GM doesn't have to lead us along.

At a very basic level, rules as physics work the same way.  They let the players understand what various situations mean and what various choices might do in the game without having to consult the GM or other players, without having to get confirmation or approval that they are right, and without having to ask the GM a lot of questions or roll dice to make it so.  If I have a good sense of what my character can do, I can make meaningful and sound decisions about what they do.  If everything is fluid, every choice is pending a consultation with the GM, even if he or she is saying "yes" or rolling the dice, because they can always roll the dice.

Quote from: RSDancey;426725DMs get one caveat:  They can, at any time, stop an action if they feel that it will damage the integrity of the game or that it is damaging the integrity of the group.

How about approaching it from a different direction?  Instead of assuming that the GM has to say "yes" or roll dice, if the GM says "no", they can spend a point that either lets them roll the dice or the GM has to figure out a plausible way for it to be so, subject to your caveat above.  Because, seriously, I'm not interested in the feel of "Say 'yes' or roll" and I'm pretty sure that a lot of the casual players I've played with over the years, many of which look to the GM to guide them through an interesting story and don't ask a lot of questions, aren't looking for that, either.

Quote from: RSDancey;426725"Say yes, or roll dice".

I'm going to "amend and expand" on what I said here.

I think allowing a die roll to resolve an uncertainty is excellent GMing advice and I'll go further than that.  When I GM, I often roll a die and interpret it using high = good for the PCs and low = bad for the PCs.  So if the players ask if they can buy pizza in a town, a very high roll might mean that they find an award winning "Famous Ray's" on every corner and a very low roll might mean that there is no pizza anywhere.  Steve Jackson gave similar advice in the original GURPS rules ("When in doubt, roll and shout!").

The problem I have with "Say 'yes' or roll dice" is that (A) sometimes "no" really should just be "no" (not only because it doesn't make sense for the setting but because the GM has planned that detail out and knows the answer), (B) I don't want or expect the queries of the players to automatically bring things into existence in the game, and (C) rolling dice is more complicated than the GM just giving an answer.  So I'd put the advice this way:

If the GM doesn't already know the answer to a question or have a good reason to say "yes" or "no", they should roll dice.

Not as militant as "Say 'yes' or roll dice" and accomplishes pretty much the same thing.

Quote from: RSDancey;426758Rule #2 for design of NewD&D:

The description of place given to players will be as minimal as possible to allow them to act within reason.

I'm good with this in theory, if not practice.  I think it's better as advice rather than a hard rule and some players are going to be more spatial than others, but shooting for sparse evocative details rather than precision dimensions is good advice.

Quote from: RSDancey;426758Also, let's add a corallary to the 2nd rule:

Players get automatic information about the world they inhabit, provided it would be reasonable to assume they're alert to that knowledge.

The way I see the two interacting is that the players get the basic description you talk about above and then have to spend time or make perception rolls if they want details.  If they want to look into the web, then they need to spend a round or two looking at it with a torch or make a quick perception roll to see what they spot.  The reason why a player should have to make a roll is simple to me, and often ignored by designers of sparse and abstract rules: timing and uncertainty.

The players see a web above them in the room.  Maybe they are reasonably sure it contains some giant spiders but is it wise to just assume it does and torch it or attack into it or should they take the time and be sure, for example, that there isn't a half-dead NPC wrapped up in there somewhere or a delicate scroll stuck in the web.  I think that decision is important, to act without full information or take the time to get the information but perhaps lose initiative or be surprised as a consequence.  The way I'd normally do that is that the PCs would notice the web.  If they want more information, they can spend one or more rounds staring in the web or they can ask to make a perception roll (or whatever passes for one in the game) to see what they can notice with a casual glance.  In other words, they don't notice it automatically, may notice it for "free" (from a timing perspective) with a perception roll, an will notice it if they spend the time to look carefully.

Going back to your earlier suggestions, the GM provides a sparse first glance description of the room that includes the web (something you'd easily notice) but not the spiders (hiding in the web).  If the players ask if there are spiders in the web, they've got two choice.  They can spend a moment staring into the web (the equivalent of a d20 "take 20" event) or they can roll the dice to see if they notice it with their glance around the room.  That's basically "Say 'yes' or roll dice."

By the way, Ryan, don't take my disagreements with you as harsh criticism.  I'm trying to test your ideas and see if they are necessary or could be made better if handled a bit differently (e.g., in the case of "Say 'yes' or roll dice" by stating it less militantly).  Overall, I think this is an interesting and constructive discussion and I'm interested to see where you go with this, even if I don't always agree with you or it doesn't mesh well with how I play.

ADDED:  I don't expect you to "Say 'yes' or roll dice".  You can say "no" and move on to the next step of your argument.

Quote from: John Morrow;426917I think allowing a die roll to resolve an uncertainty is excellent GMing advice and I'll go further than that.  When I GM, I often roll a die and interpret it using high = good for the PCs and low = bad for the PCs.  So if the players ask if they can buy pizza in a town, a very high roll might mean that they find an award winning "Famous Ray's" on every corner and a very low roll might mean that there is no pizza anywhere.  Steve Jackson gave similar advice in the original GURPS rules ("When in doubt, roll and shout!").

A digression: you're misremembering that bit of the GURPS GMing advice. What it basically said was, if you (the GM) don't have a way of resolving things, including a preplanned outcome for an anticipated course of action by the PCs, then roll some dice as a cover for your made-up-on-the-spot improvisation. The text is on p. 181 of my copy of 3e; it's also an italicized item in the table of contents under Ch. 21, Game Mastering. In 4e Campaigns, it's on my p. 497, and in the TOC in Ch. 18.

If we don't want to use specific positioning, range or distance, how do we convey the size of a space?

Qualitative sizes, not quantitative sizes.

Cramped:  4 human-sized characters could squeeze in, but they couldn't do much.

Small:  Up to 8 human-sized characters could occupy the space, but combat would be hand-to-hand if a fight broke out.

Large:  The space could have tens of human-sized characters, and movement would be necessary to close to hand-to-hand range.

Expansive:  Size is unlikely to be an issue regardless of the number of characters.  Movement may require more than one turn (or several) to engage opponents in hand-to-hand combat.

...  more to follow ...

Quote from: RSDancey;426935If we don't want to use specific positioning, range or distance, how do we convey the size of a space?

Qualitative sizes, not quantitative sizes.

Cramped:  4 human-sized characters could squeeze in, but they couldn't do much.

Small:  Up to 8 human-sized characters could occupy the space, but combat would be hand-to-hand if a fight broke out.

Large:  The space could have tens of human-sized characters, and movement would be necessary to close to hand-to-hand range.

Expansive:  Size is unlikely to be an issue regardless of the number of characters.  Movement may require more than one turn (or several) to engage opponents in hand-to-hand combat.

...  more to follow ...

These sound like pretty good rules of thumb to use in case of doubt. But in many situations it seems like it would be easier to just know the actual space than refer to a game construct.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;426929A digression: you're misremembering that bit of the GURPS GMing advice. What it basically said was, if you (the GM) don't have a way of resolving things, including a preplanned outcome for an anticipated course of action by the PCs, then roll some dice as a cover for your made-up-on-the-spot improvisation. The text is on p. 181 of my copy of 3e; it's also an italicized item in the table of contents under Ch. 21, Game Mastering. In 4e Campaigns, it's on my p. 497, and in the TOC in Ch. 18.

I always interpreted that as using the dice to produce the improvisation.  Maybe I'm wrong, then.

Quote from: John Morrow;426916... I don't want to know that just asking about something will make it possible if not likely that it will automatically exist.  ...

Exactly.

If you have a "say yes, or roll dice" principle of narrativist bullsh... er, narrative truth, then it detracts from the sense of a pre-existing fleshed out game-world, the sense of the unknown and the element of mystery in the game-world because the players can bring things into existence by asking for them. More fundamentally, if as Dancey suggests the ref's only get-out is "if it will damage the integrity of the game", then (assuming the players know the rules that the ref is playing by) as soon as the ref activates that get-out, the players know that whatever they've asked for would be game-breaking. In the right circumstances that could be really damaging to the game.

For instance, the big bad menacing your village is a vampire who can only be killed with a consecrated stake - but you don't know that. You're in a small village and the only priest was killed by bandits before the vampire arrived (in fact, the resulting lack of holy worship in the village attracted the vampire). The nearest priest is a hermit who can be reached through a murky forest, or you can take a safer route to find one in the nearest city. This will present you with a dilemma - take an extra risk to your lives for a chance to save every possible villager by having the stake ready before nightfall, or take the long route, knowing a few villagers will likely die that night but you will be able to deal with the vampire when you get back. In the meantime you have to figure out that the consecrated stake is needed which provides an opportunity for roleplay with the villagers, investigation of the priest's notes, use of magical divinations or whatever.

Now the ref isn't railroady, and he's prepared for you to abandon the villagers to their fate and explore the murky woods, or to try to devise your own holy ritual to consecrate a stake, which would require you to make promises to an angel, or indeed to confront the vampire ignorant of what's needed to kill it, in which case most of you will probably escape alive when it becomes evident the vampire cannot be killed. But the absence of a consecrated stake is pretty critical if you want to take on the vampire and not knowing about it is fairly critical if you want a meaningful reason to investigate, roleplay etc. around that aspect.

A player whose character maybe has some notion that legends speak of ancient vampires who can only be killed in specific ways, and who thinks that maybe the possiblities might include garlic from the Forest of the Orcs, decapitation with a sword forged of bronze at noon on the summer solstice in the full light of the sun or a consecrated stake, figures the priest might possibly have consecrated a stake and asks the GM for one.

If you apply Dancey's qualified principle of narrativist whatever ("say yes, or roll dice - unless it would damage the integrity of the game"), the ref has 3 choices:-

1. nullify a whole load of stuff he had planned out by just handing over the stake
2. risk nullifying a whole load of stuff he had planned out by giving the players a dice-roll to get the stake
3. refuse to apply the principle of narrativist bullshit, thus revealing that the absence of the consecrated stake is something he considers fundamental to the integrity of the game (even though it's plainly believable that there could possibly be one), meaning that the players can infer that the consecrated stake is in fact what's needed to kill the vampire.

In other words, how to fuck up your game in one easy step.

Quote from: RSDancey;426935If we don't want to use specific positioning, range or distance, how do we convey the size of a space?

Qualitative sizes, not quantitative sizes.

Cramped:  4 human-sized characters could squeeze in, but they couldn't do much.

Small:  Up to 8 human-sized characters could occupy the space, but combat would be hand-to-hand if a fight broke out.

Large:  The space could have tens of human-sized characters, and movement would be necessary to close to hand-to-hand range.

Expansive:  Size is unlikely to be an issue regardless of the number of characters.  Movement may require more than one turn (or several) to engage opponents in hand-to-hand combat.

...  more to follow ...

I often say stuff like "it's big enough that you can all fit in there, but there won't be much room for moving around". I don't think it's helpful to make the players learn terminology such as Cramped, Small, Large or Expansive, but I guess it's a question of taste and I could be wrong on that.

Brian Gleichman writes about this thread on his blog, making some valid points about what we do and don't have data for.

Quote from: John Morrow;427149Brian Gleichman writes about this thread on his blog, making some valid points about what we do and don't have data for.

He's got the right of it.

Quote from: RSDancey;426404This was without question one of the most surprising results of the survey.  It doesn't segment.  And it's not central to the experience.  People talk about it until they're blue in the face, but what actually happened is that when a virtual game experience came along where most people play alone and can't see (and often can't hear) their companions, well, they had no problem whatsoever embracing it.

The physical aspects of gaming are vastly over-rated.  In fact, my pet theory is that they're actually a band-aid on how challenging the hobby is to engage with.  Many people who might have given it up in frustration or disappointment kept playing because they just liked hanging out with their friends.  But when a better format came along, they switched, and found other ways to socialize.  Anyone who thinks that social contact is a unique value proposition of tabletop games has to question why people's actual behavior doesn't seem to back that up.

In fact, the MMO network is actually much more focused on community than the TRPG audience.  TRPG networks rarely extend to more than a dozen people or so (but there are many links to other networks).  MMO networks rarely have less than a hundred.  In EVE, there are multi-thousand person organizations.  This sense of larger community is actually more social and more likely to produce off-line friendships than the tighter knit, smaller TRPG network.  Its extremely attractive to people with poor social skills but who crave social contact.  Plus, it's where the girls are.

BTW:  TRPG theorists are not the only ones to make this mistake.  The Poker community never thought on-line play would ever become significant; there's no way to use body language skills to deduce strategy, its easy to cheat, collusion is rampant, and "people like to see who they're playing with", etc.  Turns out, not so much - on-line play offers people a play-anywhere, play any time, easily trackable, anonymous, "don't have to go to a scary casino full of scary poker pros" experience that was a better fit for many people than live casino games ever were.

Ya know, I've thought about this some more, and I'm going to rephrase Dancey's argument in terms more familiar to non-RPGers.

Once upon a time, before the Big Bad World Wide Web (and long before the days of Emmanuelle in Space), people used to enjoy natural sex. Now, we've identified 8 key components of what they enjoyed:-

* Attractive Individuals and Exciting Events / Strong Characters, Good Story
* Role Playing / Expressions of Affection
* New Positions / Complexity Increases over Time
* Requires Creativity / Strategic Thinking
* Comparisons with Ex-Lovers and Fantasised Lovers / Competitive
* Accessories / New Partners / Add-ons / New Versions available
* Uses imagination
* Emotionally and/or Mentally and/or Physiologically/Physically challenging

All these 8 key components are also now present in Internet Porn including Dodgy Chatrooms and Webcam Cybersex. It turns out that people who enjoy[ed] natural sex segment into five kinds of people:-

* Power Gamers - want to treat their partners like sex objects RIGHT NOW
* Thinkers - want to outplay their partners in the Game of Lurrve
* Character Actors - like to play a role
* Storytellers - like to see their relationship progress, forming a narrative
* generalists (a bit of everything)

Now, it turns out that Power Gamers are obviously far better suited to Internet Porn. How much easier to treat your partner like an object if they are a picture / video that can play at your command?

Character Actors too are better suited to the anonymity of Internet Porn specifically Dodgy Chatsites where they can roleplay without inhibition.

People often talk about how they like the face-to-face human aspect of natural sex, but when we examined it in the study, it didn't cluster!

Despite all their claims to like the face-to-face human aspect of natural sex, it turns out that people flocked to Internet Porn in their billions, underpinning the development of the Internet and modern commerce, all thanks to porn.

It must follow from this that the face-to-face human aspect of natural sex does not actually influence people's behaviour and can be disregarded!

We can also safely say that the only Character Actors and Power Gamers who still indulge in natural sex are dinosaur throwbacks nostalgic for an earlier age, and that if they knew what they really enjoy and understood what Internet Porn now has to offer with its superb graphics which will blow their minds, they would realise that it is far better suited to them, because they are fundamentally wankers!

Natural sex continues to provide the best outlet for Thinkers and Storytellers because:-

for Thinkers, what is the point of figuring out some highly detailed set of sexual and romantic manoeuverings in the context of Internet Porn if some 18 year old from Des Moines Iowa has already done it and posted a full home-video of how to do it?

for Storytellers, as Internet relationships (especially fixations upon pornstars) are currently transient and ephemeral, natural sex continues to provide the best context for a developing relationship.

However I can safely predict that by 2020 all these things will work better via Internet Porn than via natural sex.

=======================================================

Just in case anyone missed it, the non sequitur is in jumping from the observation that people DO like Internet Porn despite the fact that it doesn't offer natural human contact in a face-to-face way, to the conclusion that people's behaviour is NOT actually influenced by liking natural human contact in a face-to-face way during sex.

In exactly the same way, the fact that Dancey's mates were surprised to discover that people who reported liking face-to-face interaction in TTRPGs were in fact happy to play MMOs - that fact does NOT demonstrate that these same people will NOT make an effort to play TTRPGs with actual face-to-face interaction. So, there you have it.

PS just for the record, I am not trying to equate TTRPGs with actual sex here. Clearly, for most adults, sex is a more intimate, more enjoyable act. Just in case you were wondering! And, obviously, I'm willing to play TTRPGs with many, many people who I would never consider having sex with. I'm not sure whether the reverse applies, but I guess it probably does.