Quote from: rawma;1109747You pretty much ignored the Shadowrun example.

The netrunner may need someone to splice a cable. The noble doing the talking may benefit from that lower class PC hovering around obviously their servant, or bringing in an urgent message to make them look more important, or... Think of something.

Maybe in your game world, netrunners can take people with them. Maybe in your game world, the lengthy resolution process becomes 1-2 quick rolls. "But the rules say -" Fuck the rules. You're the game master, you master the rules, the rules do not master you! Who's running the game, you, or 500 glossy pages of amateurish art, badly-edited charts and tables and horrendous overwrought flavour fiction?

It's not my job to flesh out the many and various possible solutions to the many and various possible scenarios in the many and various possible games out there. The DM and players should think of something. Not me for you. The DM and players at the table should think of something. That's what roleplaying is about.

It doesn't matter what I say, a DM could say, "no, that won't work" and stifle me, or "interesting, roll the dice," and let it happen. And that's why people come first. Not only do the people need some social and creative skills, but the DM needs to make the setting and system lower priorities than the people at the game table. If it sounds fun or interesting - make a house rule. Contrary to the afterword of the AD&D1e DMG, the rules come dead fucking last.

So is the argument now devolving to where any activity in-game that singles out one character is bad? Haven't you ever played a D&D campaign where the DM took players aside for a while to do some secret stuff, or ran a combat in a gladiatorial pit with the other characters watching, or a wizard's duel, or a thief slinking around trying to assassinate a king, or whatever?

Quote from: Brad;1109835So is the argument now devolving to where any activity in-game that singles out one character is bad? Haven't you ever played a D&D campaign where the DM took players aside for a while to do some secret stuff, or ran a combat in a gladiatorial pit with the other characters watching, or a wizard's duel, or a thief slinking around trying to assassinate a king, or whatever?

No.  

The discussion is about whether when you create a game you should consider how different characters ought to be able to contribute in a variety of different situations or not.  Kyle Aaron's argument appears to boil down to 'a good GM doesn't need rules' putting all the onus on the player to be creative (and of course, for the GM not to be a dick).  For a cooperative game, that doesn't work for me.  

If you provide options that are generally useful in a bunch of situations, players should be able to think outside the box.  Maybe the web spell isn't just useful for combat - maybe it can help you get across the chasm quickly - that's player creativity.  But if you're creating a game and you only give people abilities that are useful in a single situation (like combat), you shouldn't be surprised when they direct the game into that area, rather than, say, Diplomacy.  

Even if characters have a broad range of abilities, there are going to be situations where one player/character will end up with the spotlight.  When we're fighting a horde of undead and the cleric turns a bunch of them to ash, the fighter doesn't get butt hurt that he didn't cleave them; the next fight might be a horde of goblins and the fighter will shine and the cleric won't have as much to do.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1109845No.

Yes:

QuoteKyle Aaron's argument appears to boil down to 'a good GM doesn't need rules' putting all the onus on the player to be creative (and of course, for the GM not to be a dick).  For a cooperative game, that doesn't work for me.

Stick with video games then.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1109758The DM and players at the table should think of something.

Yes, any problem in the rules can be fixed if the entire table decides not to play by those rules. The game designer should think about what portions of their game are likely to be thrown out for any reason, including this one. Duh.

When the Fellowship came to the doors of Moria, while Gandalf worked on the door with magical arts none of the others posessed, what should his companions have done? At the table I would expect Gandalf's Arcana check to resolve quickly; then all the players could have tried to solve the puzzle, or debated going another way. Things that exclude most of the table should resolve quickly, so that the whole table can work on solving the puzzle, if that's what it is.

Quote from: Brad;1109835So is the argument now devolving to where any activity in-game that singles out one character is bad? Haven't you ever played a D&D campaign where the DM took players aside for a while to do some secret stuff, or ran a combat in a gladiatorial pit with the other characters watching, or a wizard's duel, or a thief slinking around trying to assassinate a king, or whatever?

All the way back in 1977. Worst was the arena in Valhalla in one dungeon, because each player character had to fight a combat alone, and no other player character could observe it. Scratch any chance of doing something else while you waited, with no DM to describe or resolve anything. (For the characters, all of the duels took place simultaneously; long wait for each player when it wasn't their turn.) Ever since, I've looked at how rules are likely to leave out some players, and fixed those rules if it seemed worthwhile but more often avoided them.

Quote from: rawma;1110065Things that exclude most of the table should resolve quickly, so that the whole table can work on solving the puzzle, if that's what it is.

Nice. That should go into the Book of Universal GM Advice. If such a thing exists.

I remember the mismatched XP tables. In play they worked all right actually. And I believe the purpose was as a balancing factor. Not a good balancing factor, imo, but it was one, nonetheless. Every now and then the thief would be a level ahead, or the MU a level behind (at least in early levels, which we mostly played in). I prefer even xp quotas, and balancing the classes against each other more directly.

If you're always involved in what's happening right now regardless of your specialty, that's not real roleplaying.

Quote from: EOTB;1110130If you're always involved in what's happening right now regardless of your specialty, that's not real roleplaying.

True. However, the player is at the table as both roleplayer and audience.  Which is why over time I've moved more and more to the idea that not every character is involved in everything, but every player sees everything when at all possible.  That is, it is part of roleplaying to know what is going on as an audience member, but not let that influence your character too much when it shouldn't.  On those rare occasions when I split players up and/or hide things from part of them, I want it to be because that creates suspense and other interesting outcomes, not merely because I must to cover for someone's inability to separate their character from what they know as an audience member.

They weren't perfectly tuned or anything, but I loved the concept and I thought they worked reasonably well in actual practice.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1110146True. However, the player is at the table as both roleplayer and audience.  Which is why over time I've moved more and more to the idea that not every character is involved in everything, but every player sees everything when at all possible.  That is, it is part of roleplaying to know what is going on as an audience member, but not let that influence your character too much when it shouldn't.  On those rare occasions when I split players up and/or hide things from part of them, I want it to be because that creates suspense and other interesting outcomes, not merely because I must to cover for someone's inability to separate their character from what they know as an audience member.

You post isn't exactly my sentiments, but similar in some ways.  I should have used a [sarcasm][\sarcasm] tag.

Point being, the argument for putting the play experience first is often expressed by people who otherwise insist that it's not a real roleplaying game unless there's ample opportunity for all the rest of the table to sit around bored watching someone contrive reasons to roleplay out their skill in herbal knowledge with an NPC, or whatever, in a way that has bupkis to do the task at hand just because it's on their character sheet.

But that's just grrrrreat!, while taking a backseat temporarily for a truly role-related reason is supposedly no-fun.  I think it's more about demanding an audience often times while never being the audience for any material length of time.