Quote from: Clinton R. NixonThere is a travesty of reason happening, though - in order to meet some standard by which you think el Pundito will agree with you, the original statement is being watered down.

So, I'll answer your question with a straight answer, Pundit: "say yes or roll the dice" totally says that as the GM, you don't have the right to say "no" to a player for no reason. You've got a strictly defined role in the game: you either say yes, or you go to the system to bring difficulty.

I think I said that, Clinton. Notice that you've gently qualified your statement with for no reason. There'll always be some reason, particularly in the Poobah's world. And if any player may say 'No', then surely the GM may as well.

'Say yes or roll the dice' is a conceptual tool. It reminds people that very often we as GMs may say 'No' for no particular reason. It relies to some extent on a consensus within the group. It's also a particular step in the development of indie games, written as a particular rule in a particular game from 2003. Arguably, the Forge community as a whole has learned the lessons of this game and moved on.

Quote from: RobNJAnd I really am baffled to see what the offense is in that.

It's in this fellow's eye:

Quote from: RPGPunditYour reasoning for this is that RPG players are a noble and ideal sort of being that will always care more about the common good than about their character ending up with the +10 Holy Avenger, or their character getting to be the center of attention as much as possible. You really honestly believe that players will willingly sacrifice their own "time to shine" as protagonists of the party in favour of giving others equal time, each according to his needs. And you believe that all players will behave this way. On the other hand, you must apparently believe that GMs, if given the same kind of authority, would not be trustworthy with it and would end up abusing the game and ruining everyone's fun, because for some bizzare reason a group of self-interested players who's purpose is for THEIR character to shine will somehow be less prone to abuse this kind of power than a single GM who's purpose is for his players to enjoy his game. I can only suppose that you assume that GMs are lesser human beings, perhaps because you met a couple of Vampire "Storytellers" who were, and it soured you on the whole deal.

The problem with your approach to this is that you assume players want fictional stuff for their fictional person, and that totally drives them. In my experience: not true. They want the *experience* of getting that fictional stuff, and the challenge of getting it. What the fictional stuff is is really of little matter: what matters is that it is something the character cares about and that it is hard to get.

That's why I like this rule. It could easily be restated as "the players will tell you exactly what their characters want. Don't shut that down. Make it hard."

Your supposition about me and GMs, though - not true, again. I prefer being the GM in my games, although I enjoy playing almost as much. I've got a good group, and, really, yeah, they do all want to give each other equal time and help each other enjoy the story. We have a podcast that we do before and after the game each week, and we give real, honest evaluations of the games we play. You can check it out if you like: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Durham3.

Wow, in typing this, I had a realization, so thank you for challenging me. I used to hate being the GM, and since I started playing games with power shared equally around the table, I enjoyed being the GM. I know why: like for players, it's in the challenge. When my player says, for example, "I'm going to assault the underworld to take my seven brides," I have to think quickly and it is a real challenge to push him. We're both playing as hard as we can, and we both have a challenge we're up against. In a more traditional GM role, when I could make up whatever I want to throw at the players, I'm not a player myself: I'm an entertainer. In the GM role I have now, I'm a full-fledged player, and fully invested in the challenge and reward cycle.

Oh, hey, Pundit - I don't want this to turn into a philosophical forum, but, yes, I do believe in mankind's fundamental goodness. It's what turned me from traditional Christianity (which predicates itself on mankind's fundamental badness) and it's also the center of my game, The Shadow of Yesterday. People are good beings, and they know the right thing to do. Lots don't, sure, for a multitude of reasons. But that doesn't mean that they don't wish they had.

I don't think this has much to do with the points above. You missed the part where *everyone* at the table keeps the game moving toward fun, and anyone can put a stop to nonsense (yes, even the GM) .

Jesus fucking Christ, RobNJ, was yours a post, or an epic fucking novel??

Anyways, I'm not going to engage in a little deconstructionist game with you, suffice it to say that Clinton has already come forward and admitted that he doesn't think that the Buck should stop with the GM. I am willing to bet dollars to donughts that Vince Baker feels the same way.

Now, I will respond to a couple of little points:

Quote from: RobNJcan you provide an example?

I did. In the very same piece you quoted. Nobilis.

QuoteFirst of all, he's very clear in the rules quoted elsewhere on this thread.  In context, there is no doubt that he's not at all talking about GM disempowerment, he's talking about advice, telling you when to roll and when not to roll.  If someone takes that and decides it's about never presenting the players with any opposition, then they are stupid.  Blaming Vincent for people misreading and/or misusing something that's very clear in the text is unfair.  If someone who read your blog went around saying stupid things, would you be responsible for them?

I'd be responsible if I intentionally worded the language in question in such a way that people could make use of that wording to spread inflammatory concepts.

QuoteThat's unfair and a dishonest way of engaging in a discussion.  You know he doesn't mean it.  You know he's making a joke.  Why be rude and intentionally misinterpret and twist his words?  

I'm not. I'm approrpriating his joke. His joke was basically an attempt at claiming that I was being hyperbolic. I'm turning it around and saying that actually, his joke wasn't very far from reality at all.

QuoteI don't believe that that's very prevalent.  What is your evidence that Ron was burnt by White Wolf and GM-gods?  

He's said so, multiple times. The GNS essays are all about that, basically.

QuoteWhat other designers who are part of the Forge community do you have evidence have had a similar experience, and what is the evidence?  

I assume like attracts like. I don't see why people would otherwise be drawn to a theory that argues strongly for the disempowerment of GMs, if not from a misguided reaction to having had bad experiences with an abusive GM.

QuoteEven if you could prove those things, which I don't believe you can, why would you tar everyone who plays certain games with that brush?

I'm not. Assume when I say "Forgeites", I mean most Forge-followers, not some random dude who's read the Forge once or twice. And not necessarily everyone who's ever played a Forge game.
In other words, if you aren't acting like the kind of assholes I'm describing, please don't assume that I'm talking about you.

QuoteI'm confused by this statement.  If, as a GM, I choose to play a game about Mormon paladins in the Old West, how can I complain that I'm being stripped of control over setting or theme?  I've chosen to play in that game.  Obviously I want to play in that world if I chose that book to play in.  It's like complaining that Wizards is trying to constrain your creativity by producing a Star Wars game.

No, its like complaining if Wizards produces a game about Star Wars, where you HAVE to play Jedi, and HAVE to travel to small planets to solve the problems of average citizens. Or if they produced a Star Wars game that said "Star Wars as an RPG is ALL about the relationships between fathers and sons". What if your SW RPG has nothing to do with that??
To top it all off, it would be like if they went on to say that creating a SW RPG that only has Jedi as a class and is only about the relationships between fathers & sons was somehow "Better" for you, and that games that tried to be about more than just that are "broken" because they are "incoherent".

QuoteWould you say that the GM in D&D is free to ignore any rule he wants, and impose that on the other players at the table, even if they really hate the rule?  

Ultimately speaking, yes. The law is there for the GM, not the GM for the law.

QuoteIf everyone at the table dislikes how something is being done, and one person has the power to ignore all of that, how can that be fun?

It might not be. The GM could ignore it for them too, if he felt it best serve the game. But the final decision belongs to the GM, not the players.
The only final decision a player has is about whether or not to play.
And that's really all he needs.

QuoteI suspect that most games of D&D as actually played have a great deal of player consent and consensus, they just don't have rules to encourage consent and consensus.  

Of course they have that, and of course they don't need rules. Because normal people realize that you don't do that sort of thing with "mechanics": You do that kind of thing by having a functional gaming group that talks to each other.

QuoteMy experience and logic tell me that it it would be very rare for a GM to make a ruling, have everyone (or even most) at the table go, "Wow, that sucks!" and have her ignore that entirely.  As a D&D GM I was constantly trying to tap in to what my friends enjoyed or didn't enjoy about the games I ran, and trying to facilitate that.  

Of course, and I do that too. But the thing is that my players are secure in knowing that I'm trying to make the game as good as possible for them, in good faith, and they are secure in knowing that I am the ultimate arbitrer, who is responsible for the final decision on any issue in the game. They don't need to feel "empowered" by being able to over-rule me, nor would they think it a good idea, I would suspect.

QuoteAnd that's all these player-input rules do.  They encourage the players to let the GM know what they want, by showing them directly and providing rules support for it.

No, rulebooks that say stuff like "talk to your master", or "GM talk to your players" does that. What these rules do is tell the players "If you don't like what your GM does, you can force him to change it, because you're supposed to have "fun NOW" and supposed to have Narrative authority".

QuoteThat's not true.  You may think it's true from the essays you've read or what have you, but if you actually look at the rulebooks, none of them either says, "You think you're having fun now but you're not," nor do they imply that the way you've been playing before sucks.  This fun-check is a thermometer.  There are rules to encourage communication between players and to try to prevent people from quietly waiting for the game to end.

Again I ask that you provide textual evidence from an indie RPG that they explicitly or implicitly assume you weren't having fun roleplaying until just now.

And please don't quote the essays.  The essays don't matter.  The games do.

The essays are the foundation of those games. The essays say: "Reality is like this", and posit that if you make games based on Ron's supposed solutions to his supposed perception of reality, you will create the best RPGs ever.
The Forge games are an attempt to use applied Forge theory.
If the premises of the Forge essays are wrong, then the execution of creating RPGs will also be wrong.
That explains, for one part, why the Forge hasn't surged ahead to become the dominant force in the marketplace. If Ron's ideas were right, the games the Forge produces would have been quickly recognized by any gamer who ran into them as being vastly superior to mainstream RPGs. Instead, they have been largely ignored aside from a small cadre of fellow-travellers.

QuoteDo you intend to be attacking me personally here?  Do you intend to be calling me a spoiled primadonna?  If so, why?  I haven't insulted you once here, not even implicitly.  So why would you insult me?

Again, I'm just describing a type. Please feel insulted only if you resemble my remarks.

QuoteNow to address your actual point, rather than the tone of it:  Most Forge games are made to appeal to players who are interested more in character development and theme than simulation of real-world physics or win/lose gamieness that can be the focus of D&D if played directly as written.

And there you go again, implying that "D&D" (by which you mean all mainstream RPGs) are less intelligent than "indie games", or deal with less intelligent issues. Bullshit. I've done more character development in my Roman campaign, or Amber, or my Traveller D20 game, than the whole fucking Forge volume put together.
Shit, I can't recall the last time I had a campaign that WASN'T ultimately about character development.


Oh, but wait.. now's where you say that its "Incoherent", right? That I couldn't possibly have a game were the goals were BOTH genre emulation AND character development, right? That Pope Ron said that this is impossible, and the universe would explode if you even tried to do both things well and at the same time!!!

Guess what: Ron lied to you. You can do campaigns that do Plot, Characters, and Setting, all at once, and do all three well.

QuoteAnd he was right.  The political fun I had in my vampire games had to do with the setting material provided, and with the friends I was playing with, and not with the rules.  The Forge and the games that its community produce don't nullify the fun you've had with traditional RPGs.  They don't say you didn't have fun before.  What they say is, "I want to make a game with rules that encourge the kind of play you want.  If you want a game about political vampires, I will give you rules that encourage and allow you to play a political vampire."

And I really am baffled to see what the offense is in that.

The thing that really offends me is Forgeites that pretend that they CAN'T POSSIBLY GRASP what it is that upsets traditional gamers about the Forge.

Are you one of these dudes who can't understand why the world hates America, too?

Or that "just doesn't get" what pisses off the dark-skinned people?

I mean, fuck, its extremely condescending of you to pretend that mainstream gamers have just pulled this whole "ticked off" thing out of their ass, and that the Forge isn't actually utterly full of prosletyzing condescending pretentious assholes who have done everything in their power to try to push an agenda of the Cult of Ron and denigrate and insult mainstream games and mainstream gamers at every turn.

I have two fucking words for you: BRAIN DAMAGE.

Now, are you going to keep on pretending that you don't get why we're pissed off? Or are you going to accept that mainstream gamers might be justified in feeling just a little bit insulted and/or threatened by things MANY people, including KEY people in the Forge have done or said, or the overall attitude of elitist superiority and prosletyzing zeal?

I mean, do you really REALLY not get this? Do you really think we're so stupid we don't see that its NOT just "live and let live"; and that your very presence here talking about Forge Theory is absolute PROOF of that? I mean, if it was really just a small group doing their own thing and not interested in affecting anyone else's play, you wouldn't be talking about this right here and now, would you?

RPGPundit

QuoteSo, I'll answer your question with a straight answer, Pundit: "say yes or roll the dice" totally says that as the GM, you don't have the right to say "no" to a player for no reason. You've got a strictly defined role in the game: you either say yes, or you go to the system to bring difficulty.

Hahahaha!

Silly rabbit, rules are for players! :cool:

The GM is a (hopefully benevolent) dictator figure and exists above and apart from such things. They are merely one tool that he can make use of if he chooses.

That's how my hobby works, anyway. I've been saying for some time that Forgey Narrativism junk is essentially a new one and ought to own up to it and leave us RPGers be. This discussion clearly indicates what sort of mess results when you try to cram two very different hobbies into one forum.  Add to that the fact that one camp won't even admit the reality of the situation and the mess becomes a farce. Like a bunch of model train fans invading a knitting forum and insisting that laying tiny track next to a paper mache' Mt. Rushmore is knitting, too, dammit! Completely and totally different in every way, granted, but still knitting!

Honestly, just own up and name what you do and quit trying to mix water and oil.

Quote from: YamoThis discussion clearly indicates what sort of mess results when you try to cram two very different hobbies into one forum.  Add to that the fact that one camp won't even admit the reality of the situation and the mess becomes a farce. Like a bunch of model train fans invading a knitting forum and insisting that laying tiny track next to a paper mache' Mt. Rushmore is knitting, too, dammit!

You don't know how this makes me want to cuddle you to my bosom and talk to you about narrativist games until next year. You and I are going to be sweethearts.

Quote from: YamoThat's how my hobby works, anyway. I've been saying for some time that Forgey Narrativism junk is essentially a new one and ought to own up to it and leave us RPGers be.

I'm looking for a clarification, here:

Once Upon A Time, the card game, is purely a story-making engine.  A very, very fun one.

It was marketed by and to RPG players, though it wasn't marketed as an RPG.

Are you angry at Atlas Games for making it, too?

Quote from: Levi KornelsenIt was marketed by and to RPG players, though it wasn't marketed as an RPG.

Sounds fine to me. That's all I'd like the Forgies to do. If you want to market your story-creation games or narrative theme games or whatever you want to call them to RPG players, go for it, but foisting them on RPG gamers under the pretense that they're RPGs is misguided and leads to a whole lot of confusion.

Quote from: YamoSounds fine to me. That's all I'd like the Forgies to do. If you want to market your story-creation games or narrative theme games or whatever you want to call them to RPG players, go for it, but foisting them on RPG gamers under the pretense that they're RPGs is misguided and leads to a whole lot of confusion.

Okay, I get your position.

I don't entirely agree, mind, as I suspect would personally draw the "what is an RPG" line in a slightly different place than you would.

Yet the point of honesty-in-advertising is a good one.

Personally, I'd say that Adventure-type RPGs and Story-type RPGs are different enough to qualify as sepearate hobbies, if there weren't a shitpot of in-between games.

But there are a shitpot of in-between games.

Who draws the line, and where?

Nobody can decide.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenWho draws the line, and where?

Nobody can decide.

Line-drawing isn't always strictly neccessary. If I wear a big, pointy wizard hat to the table for D&D, am I LARPing?

It's still possible to discuss tabletop and LARP games as such without worring too much about the line.

I can.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Clinton R. NixonWow, in typing this, I had a realization, so thank you for challenging me. I used to hate being the GM, and since I started playing games with power shared equally around the table, I enjoyed being the GM. I know why: like for players, it's in the challenge. When my player says, for example, "I'm going to assault the underworld to take my seven brides," I have to think quickly and it is a real challenge to push him. We're both playing as hard as we can, and we both have a challenge we're up against. In a more traditional GM role, when I could make up whatever I want to throw at the players, I'm not a player myself: I'm an entertainer. In the GM role I have now, I'm a full-fledged player, and fully invested in the challenge and reward cycle.

Whereas I am every bit an entertainer, invested in the happiness and enjoyment of my players, my "reward cycle" is seeing them satisfied with the adventure, challenged and entertained by what happens to their characters. And that's how I like it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Clinton R. NixonPeople are good beings, and they know the right thing to do. Lots don't, sure, for a multitude of reasons. But that doesn't mean that they don't wish they had.

Do some reading on pyschopaths/sociopaths.  I did some research on what motivates bad people for the purpose of better understanding what Evil meant in the context of a role-playing game like D&D where it's a detectable thing and descriptions of psycopaths/sociopaths to fill the criteria.  There is good evidence that even when they know the right thing to do, they don't feel compelled in any way to do it.  Some good places to start:

http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html
http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/428/428lect16.htm
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html

Two paragraphs to consider from the last link:

QuotePsychopaths succeed in conventional society in large measure because few of us grasp that they are fundamentally different from ourselves. We assume that they, too, care about other people's feelings. This makes it easier for them to "play" us. Although they lack empathy, they develop an actor's expertise in evoking ours. While they don't care about us, "they have an element of emotional intelligence, of being able to see our emotions very clearly and manipulate them," says Michael Maccoby, a psychotherapist who has consulted for major corporations.

Psychopaths are typically very likable. They make us believe that they reciprocate our loyalty and friendship. When we realize that they were conning us all along, we feel betrayed and foolish. "People see sociopathy in their personal lives, and they don't have a clue that it has a label or that others have encountered it," says Martha Stout, a psychologist at the Harvard Medical School and the author of the recent best-seller The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us (Broadway Books, 2005). "It makes them feel crazy or alone. It goes against our intuition that a small percentage of people can be so different from the rest of us -- and so evil. Good people don't want to believe it."

As for Christianity, Original Sin, and human nature, I often wonder if embracing Augustine over Pelagius was one of the biggest mistakes the Church ever made.

Sociopaths are arguably amoral, not immoral and therefore 'neutral'.