Quote from: Drohem;292487This is one of the few gems that I mined from Adruin as well.  I really liked the alternate hit point system.  It's sort of a bridge between a static hit point system and a scaling hit point system.

There's a lot of great nuggets in Arduin: the Cordination Factor, Mamna Points, Crit/Fumble charts,ect. I may not use much of it but it's had a big influence on me and I think it's one of the best FRP worlds ever created.

Quote from: jhkim;292499Well, this is something of a question of game design.  Should the rules have bad choices included as options for the players to learn from, or should they only have good choices?  The former is usually suggested as a way of rewarding/encouraging "system mastery."

Often suggested, these days. IMO it's narrowminded to see the inclusion of bad choices purely in this light, because it breaks things down too neatly into "tactical" vs. "non-tactical" thinking. "Bad choices" are also included for verisimilitude. Equally important, "badness" is a matter of perspective, and sometimes making a "bad" choice on purpose is a way of making a statement or blowing off steam. For example, in the dungeoncrawl I ran a while back, the player of Umbeldore enjoyed running him as an impulsive schlemiel, walking straight into a couple of traps. Luck saved him. Of course it's even more complicated than that: had I wished, the traps could have been no-save death traps.

Or suppose the player failed a save and taken 10 points of damage. Good or bad? It depends. As you allude, having a character suffer death or injury can be fun. So it's a question of how you modulate the distribution of results. If you hard-code "no bad choices" then you eliminate the potential for some types of fun. An alternative is to pre-negotiate stakes, which I rarely enjoy. Another alternative is, shall we say, "universal discretion"--the ability of the GM to interpret any outcome, whether via a "golden rule" that allows voiding the rest of the rules in the book, or highly flexible rules. (HQ is probably in this category: you can win or lose a conflict, but what happens as a result of winning or losing is up to the GM.) I don't have a strong opinion on this style other than that it seems likely to excessively burden the GM if the players want to have a sense of danger and achievement but aren't really open to the possibility of failure.

What I prefer is a certain combination of danger, empowerment/pacing, and stiff-upper-lip. Danger: bad choices are possible. Empowerment/pacing: I get to make the choices, and things won't go bad all at once without warning. Stiff-upper-lip: if somebody screws up, then be a good sport about it and enjoy the verisimilitude that comes from knowing that your actions have real consequences.

I was kinda of hoping you would go into specifics as droog requested, Elliot. (I still don't get what you're were trying to say, in your last post)

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Imperator;292448Hmmm... I think you make a good point there. Still, I'm not convinced that the difference you explain really makes it a non-RPG.

I'd say that if you sew up everything in formal mechanics, it really does become a non-RPG. In practice I haven't seen this extreme in spite of the pro- and con- rhetoric that comes from some quarters. Some games I've seen tagged this way: My Life With Master, the Shab al-Hiri Roach, Burning Empires. BE I've never read. MLwM and Roach still depend on judgment calls. But if you swallow the rhetoric and pretend that you can "say yes or roll the dice" to every goofy player idea, or that pre-negotiated stakes are the way to go...without first having the social foundation that applies to every RPG, then you end up with a lame game.

Quote from: David R;292569I was kinda of hoping you would go into specifics as droog requested, Elliot. (I still don't get what you're were trying to say, in your last post).

If you don't have a good group to begin with, then empowering a player to narrate elements of the game world without being limited by anything other than mechanics is just going to annoy or bore the other players.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;292570But if you swallow the rhetoric and pretend that you can "say yes or roll the dice" to every goofy player idea, or that pre-negotiated stakes are the way to go...without first having the social foundation that applies to every RPG, then you end up with a lame game.

What rhetoric? And what play experience lies behind this judgement?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;292571If you don't have a good group to begin with, then empowering a player to narrate elements of the game world without being limited by anything other than mechanics is just going to annoy or bore the other players.

And if you don't have a good group to begin with, then empowering a particular player to narrate elements of the game world without being limited by anything is just going to annoy or bore the other players.

Well I have no idea what "good group" means. It seems to me that narrating elements of the game world (with/out) mechanics is about preference and I'll also add, could be used as a technique in a variety of games regardless of system. Hmm (tangential), but I've heard the same thing being said about "personality mechanics" and the way it inhibits players from developing their characters.

Regards,
David R

The GM is the ultimate arbiter.

- Ed Charlton

Quote from: David R;292576Well I have no idea what "good group" means.

A good group is one where everyone tries to put a lot into the game session, and helps make others eager to put in, too.

And where everyone brings snacks and shares them.

Quote from: David R;292576Well I have no idea what "good group" means.

A good group is one where people are on the same wavelength both socially and in terms of their broad understanding of the fiction. Also in what might be thought of as the intersection of the two, they're on the same wavelength about who understands what in the fiction. (E.g., if the players are digging learning about the weird cultural practices of a world, they'll be compatible with a GM who has a strong vision. If the players want to make up the world themselves, or they just want to take a bunch of standard sf/f tropes as a basis for fighting critters, they're not going to get along well with the GM. (I'll bet you can relate this to Jorune.)

QuoteIt seems to me that narrating elements of the game world (with/out) mechanics is about preference and I'll also add, could be used as a technique in a variety of games regardless of system.

If you don't have a good group, then mechanics aren't going to make things work. A good group has a common sense of responsibility to the fiction. If you don't have that, then it does no good to pretend that mechanical constraint/empowerment, or mechanical arbitration, will achieve anything.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;292612A good group is one where people are on the same wavelength...

Exactly, so it is about preference, right? If you're going to go with Forgey type mechanics, you better be sure, that the whole group, is on board with this. I guess I misread your  "If you don't have a good group to begin with,...", which I took to mean something else entirely. My bad.

QuoteIf you don't have a good group, then mechanics aren't going to make things work.

Well, duh...Elliot

Regards,
David R

To me it's obviously the system.  But plenty of groups are going to make house rules and I would make games and give GMing advice to encourage that.

The DM is technically two positions. One, he's a referee applying the players' words and actions to the rules of the game. And two, he's an Auxiliary (or auxiliary ego)acting out the pre-scripted characterizations the NPCs.

These two roles do not need to go together, a DM could recruit others to strictly run NPCs for instance, but neither can be players in the game either.  

I suppose, after an NPC is dead or gone and the scripting no longer pertinent to the game a person who was solely an Auxiliary could be a Player/Protagonist too.  

Plus, most players are intelligent and won't metagame anyways, if you let them join in with a PC.  Most RPGs require Players not to metagame OOC knowledge at some point.  But it is a challenge and not fun for anyone to really be put in a position to cheat like that.  So I prefer using cards or running out of contact from the rest of the group, if things are really important.  

It's a group preference really.  And definitely a call made on a case by case basis.  My advice is just always ask the player if it's okay to be open with information or not.  Or in the NPC case, whether they'd feel uncomfortable knowing what they know about the NPC while playing a PC.

I'm definitely in the GM over rules, understanding I mean 'rulings' camp, both as GM and player.

I prefer it when rulings are more persistent, of course, a GM handing down the law and changing their mind when it is convenient gets old quick.

I often find that I have to draw a line in the sand for many modern game systems at some point - the steamroller of creeping supplement-itis means that later additions to rulesets invariably have shoddy editing and rarely fit within a reasonable take on the initial setting.

I usually set out a 'house rules' document that includes rulings from earlier campaigns that helps have a good starting point and is a place for refinements to live where I won't forget them, when I'm running a game.  At least I hope I do.

For all that, I tend to end up taking my time to adopt new versions of games, they rarely add anything I haven't already dealt with, so... no hurry.

Welcome to the rpgsite Tamelorn.

Regards,
David R