Quote from: Beagle;767810It is also a bit like giving someone a cookie for having great sex, because in the end contributing to something you are at least half-way enthusiastic about really should be its own reward

See, here's how I look at it, continuing your analogy.

Person X is a crappy lover.  All they care about is themselves.  If they actually cared about the other person, sex would be better for both parties because of the increased enthusiasm.

That's an experience that they don't have, so they can't see that reward.  So, instead of trying to convince them of that, Person Y says, "tell you what, if you do during sex, I'll make you some cookies."

So now they're doing for the cookies.  Fine.  They're *still doing it*.  Which means that there's a good chance that Person Y will get what they want, become more enthused, and generate the heightened experience that they wanted in the first place - making sex better for both Person X and Person Y.

Now that Person X has seen how doing makes sex better for *both people*, they might go "hey, you know what, this is awesome, and I should do this every time!"  You've changed the extrinsic reward (cookies) to an intrinsic reward (better sex).  In RPG land, you've changed the extrinsic reward (bonuses) for an intrinsic reward (more immersive play).

And even after you've made that switch, cookies are damn awesome, so what's the problem with having cookies after sex, even if you don't need them for motivation any more?

I don't really think of these sorts of rules (inspiration in 5E or analogous effects in Pendragon, Prince Valiant or other games) as rewards to a player for behaving in a way the game designer approves of. If that were the case, I would agree that we should all fuck that noise. But there is another side to this issue: what if you want a game where characters elevate their game when something they are passionate about is on the line? I think there is definitely a point of that. If you agree, then the only question is how it should look, mechanically. And there are always a million different fiddly, unimportant opinions about mechanics. So, while I don't like manipulating people to role-play 'correctly', I like the Inspiration mechanics. They add another dimension to the character and create situations where different sorts of characters with different sorts of quirks, interests, relationships, fears, etc. will find themselves challenged or helped by their various personal characteristics. If you can't figure out a way to make that interesting, you are a shitty DM and/or player.

@ Venger, Beagle, Rob:

Okay, then if you lot show up at my table, I guess I should give you metagame incentives to give up your thespian style in favor of actually approaching the situation from an in-character perspective?

Well, maybe it's to the point here how much more obviously counterproductive that would be! It's easy to see that for each step in that direction, you are required to take a step -- probably a bigger step -- right back into metagaming.

So maybe you would not find that so irritating.

How about if every time you do your Scottish Dwarf schtick, you're required to restate things in the game's technical jargon? Fuck me, once again that's just the kind of behavior Forge-y fans love and not what I prefer.

Funny how a rule that privileges one group isn't inconvenient for that group. As to the rest, well, as Marie Antoinette put it, if they have no bread then they should just have the servants bring cake; what's the problem with those peasants?

Quote from: robiswrong;767823See, here's how I look at it, continuing your analogy.

You're assuming that Roleplaying from an external perspective (for reward, as an internal movie or book running in your head, etc) is the same as Roleplaying from an internal perspective (thinking and feeling as the character does).

In the case of the cookie, you're not teaching empathy or consideration because everything (the cookie, better sex, etc) directly benefits the person.  Pleasing their partner is only a means to that end.

You're not going to teach thinking as a character by training someone to think about the character.

Quote from: Phillip;767859@ Venger, Beagle, Rob:

Okay, then if you lot show up at my table, I guess I should give you metagame incentives to give up your thespian style in favor of actually approaching the situation from an in-character perspective?

Well, maybe it's to the point here how much more obviously counterproductive that would be! It's easy to see that for each step in that direction, you are required to take a step -- probably a bigger step -- right back into metagaming.

Why? Yes, rewards for roleplaying in a roleplaying game is a metagaming concept, but is it truly worse than, let's say, gain XP (an inherently metagaming concept anyway) for beating up monsters or collecting treasure?

Quote from: Phillip;767859Funny how a rule that privileges one group isn't inconvenient for that group. As to the rest, well, as Marie Antoinette put it, if they have no bread then they should just have the servants bring cake; what's the problem with those peasants?

 I am full aware that I now enter condescending elitist territory, but roleplaying games live and die by the contributions of each and everyone involved, and they certainly do not work like a sewage treatment plant: if shit goes in, shit comes out. If you get some players who contribute greatly to the game and put some real effort into it - whatever form these contributions may take (I am perfectly fine with rewarding players for providing a decent meal for instance) - maybe, just maybe, they deserve a bit of extra credit.
I may completely misinterpret your intentions (and please correct me if I am wrong), but I have the impression that you this whole issue under a more competitive perspective than I do; that one player's reward implies another player's punishment. While I can see that a disparity in these rewards may cause conflicts, I don't care. I don't want to care, because this is one of the examples where the argument of fairness and equality can so easily become a smokescreen for petty enviousness, and that's not something I want to promote among my players.

Quote from: Larsdangly;767845I don't really think of these sorts of rules (inspiration in 5E or analogous effects in Pendragon, Prince Valiant or other games) as rewards to a player for behaving in a way the game designer approves of. If that were the case, I would agree that we should all fuck that noise.

I don't see Pendragon's trait and passion rules in the same light as this. In any case, they are internally balanced, so in the same game some players can choose to use them while others don't. (They can still come into play with such things as magic, but the more ordinary use for inspiration is strictly optional.)

 

QuoteBut there is another side to this issue: what if you want a game where characters elevate their game when something they are passionate about is on the line?

If by "elevate their game" you mean "get a +1 bonus to anything," then obviously that's what you want. It's no more intrinsic to wanting a game in which things are on the line, than it is intrinsic to wanting a game in which characters make cynical quips, to have them turn into kung-fu master giant robot pandas with heat-ray eyes when they do.

QuoteI think there is definitely a point of that

Yes: If what you want is Fate, or Toon, or Hong Kong Action Theater!, or My Life With Master, or Polaris, or Rolemaster -- whatever flavor faves ya -- then do yourself a favor and grab yourself some.

How does this become an argument for injecting a half-assed imitation into the official baseline rules of D&D, a game that has an identity of its own?

Should we also change RuneQuest and Champions into games that copy D&D style classes, levels, hit points, experience points, attack roll/armor class, alignments, etc.? Are we so much richer for quashing so much diversity, another step closer to the ideal of homogeneity that all right-thinking people must by definition long for?

QuoteIf you agree, then the only question is how it should look, mechanically. And there are always a million different fiddly, unimportant opinions about mechanics. So, while I don't like manipulating people to role-play 'correctly', I like the Inspiration mechanics. They add another dimension to the character and create situations where different sorts of characters with different sorts of quirks, interests, relationships, fears, etc. will find themselves challenged or helped by their various personal characteristics. If you can't figure out a way to make that interesting, you are a shitty DM and/or player.

Quote from: Phillip;767859@ Venger, Beagle, Rob:

Okay, then if you lot show up at my table, I guess I should give you metagame incentives to give up your thespian style in favor of actually approaching the situation from an in-character perspective?

You're making a lot of assumptions about my play style that simply aren't correct.

Quote from: Phillip;767859Well, maybe it's to the point here how much more obviously counterproductive that would be! It's easy to see that for each step in that direction, you are required to take a step -- probably a bigger step -- right back into metagaming.

If my character is in love with Jane, then how in hell is it metagaming for me to protect Jane?

Maybe you can argue I'm not doing it "for the right reasons".  Um, okay.  How the hell do you tell the difference at the table, unless you can read minds?

And if someone *is* doing it for the "right" reasons (immersion as opposed to rewards), then what harm does giving them the reward do?

And if they're doing it for the "wrong" reasons, then if the external behavior is closer to what you'd supposedly want anyway (consistency with the character), then isn't that still a win?

Quote from: Phillip;767859How about if every time you do your Scottish Dwarf schtick, you're required to restate things in the game's technical jargon? Fuck me, once again that's just the kind of behavior Forge-y fans love and not what I prefer.

Huh?  Funny, that, even when I play Fate I do my damnedest to keep game jargon out of the game, and focus on what's actually happening.  In any game I play, I try to keep game jargon to a minimum (well, unless I'm teaching the system, where it's kind of unavoidable).

When people say "I do with " I stop them and tell them, "okay, that's fine, what do you actually *do*?".  This is the opposite of making people take what they're doing in character and rephrase it in game-talk.  The exact opposite.  If they just said "I slide under the door as it closes shut" I wouldn't ask them to rephrase that in game jargon.  It they say "I use Athletics to Overcome the Sliding Door aspect", then I do tell them "uh, what?  What are you actually doing here?"

I think my Fate games actually end up less jargon-filled than when I play D&D.

Quote from: Phillip;767859Funny how a rule that privileges one group isn't inconvenient for that group. As to the rest, well, as Marie Antoinette put it, if they have no bread then they should just have the servants bring cake; what's the problem with those peasants?

I don't even know what this means.

Quote from: CRKrueger;767869You're assuming that Roleplaying from an external perspective (for reward, as an internal movie or book running in your head, etc) is the same as Roleplaying from an internal perspective (thinking and feeling as the character does).

Not at all.  I agree that they're not.  I totally and utterly agree that they're not.  But to think as the character, you have to first consider who the character is, right?  And you can't really do that if you think of the character as nothing more than a game pawn.

For beginning roleplayers, just the act of thinking about who the character is is closer to actually immersing themselves in the role.  You've progressed past that.  That's great.

Quote from: CRKrueger;767869In the case of the cookie, you're not teaching empathy or consideration because everything (the cookie, better sex, etc) directly benefits the person.  Pleasing their partner is only a means to that end.

I said that.

The point is that extrinsic rewards can lead people to experiences that they wouldn't otherwise have, and thus lead to the behavior becoming intrinsically rewarded.

Quote from: CRKrueger;767869You're not going to teach thinking as a character by training someone to think about the character.

Isn't the first step of empathy (you know, putting yourself in another shoes) thinking about how that person would feel?  It's a basic first step.  It's not the master class.

Quote from: Beagle;767879Why? Yes, rewards for roleplaying in a roleplaying game is a metagaming concept, but is it truly worse than, let's say, gain XP (an inherently metagaming concept anyway) for beating up monsters or collecting treasure?

Yes, the instance at hand is, but it doesn't matter because -- I know this is a difficult old-fashioned concept -- two wrongs don't make one right.



 

QuoteI am full aware that I now enter condescending elitist territory, but roleplaying games live and die by the contributions of each and everyone involved, and they certainly do not work like a sewage treatment plant: if shit goes in, shit comes out. If you get some players who contribute greatly to the game and put some real effort into it - whatever form these contributions may take (I am perfectly fine with rewarding players for providing a decent meal for instance) - maybe, just maybe, they deserve a bit of extra credit.
I may completely misinterpret your intentions (and please correct me if I am wrong), but I have the impression that you this whole issue under a more competitive perspective than I do; that one player's reward implies another player's punishment. While I can see that a disparity in these rewards may cause conflicts, I don't care. I don't want to care, because this is one of the examples where the argument of fairness and equality can so easily become a smokescreen for petty enviousness, and that's not something I want to promote among my players.

Yes, it is condescending elitist territory when you call shit the fun people get from playing the game without artsy pretensions. It's really egregious when you're putting down  the people who created the hobby -- starting with D&D itself! If you prefer your own more brilliant game, then go ahead and play it. Why should you be slumming with us savages? Do you really think we're going to thank you for bringing us again the One True Way we've rejected for 40 years? Maybe we'll just toss you in the pot and ask Pope Edwards to send more fryers!

Quote from: mcbobbo;766720Remember that scene from tye Matrix where Morpheus offers Neo his choice of pill.  I'll do that here, but wrap it in a spoiler tag.  Don't open it unless you accept the possibility that you can't unlearn that...

Spoiler

A huge portion of game theory, particularly in the modern world, is a mind job.

Critical hits, or 'always hits on a 20' are designed to make the game more addictive by doling out little doses of dopamine that are beyond anyone's control.

System mastery is a mind job too.

And don't get me STARTED on MMOs.

Incentives are pretty mild.

I know you posted that not in a condescending way but in an honest and fun way to explain. Goddamit McBobo - you made me feel young again. Thank you. LOL

I still don't see how many sacred bits of D&D aren't already meta-gamey: HP, rolling dice, character sheets, class/level choice, XP, mapping, any and all out-of-character planning, asking questions of the DM about sensory input, etc. etc. etc.

These are all way, way out of the character's head but apparently because we've done it that way for so long we just internalize it. Stopping the action to roll dice, cheering for the natural 20, getting up to get a beer, none of this has anything to do with the "FULL CHARACTER IMMERSION" that seems like the Holy Grail around here (and yet sounds far, far more thespy than any kind of metagame point economy, which is distinctly gamey). So now "inspiration" is somehow an egregious offender against a dogma that was false to begin with.

There is nothing in 5e that makes it superior to 1e(etc.) in my eyes, but this horrific recoil at METAGAMING THESPY FORGERS AAAAAH strikes as patently disingenuous.

Quote from: matthulhu;767899I still don't see how many sacred bits of D&D aren't already meta-gamey: HP, rolling dice, character sheets, class/level choice, XP, mapping, any and all out-of-character planning, asking questions of the DM about sensory input, etc. etc. etc.

These are all way, way out of the character's head but apparently because we've done it that way for so long we just internalize it. Stopping the action to roll dice, cheering for the natural 20, getting up to get a beer, none of this has anything to do with the "FULL CHARACTER IMMERSION" that seems like the Holy Grail around here (and yet sounds far, far more thespy than any kind of metagame point economy, which is distinctly gamey). So now "inspiration" is somehow an egregious offender against a dogma that was false to begin with.

There is nothing in 5e that makes it superior to 1e(etc.) in my eyes, but this horrific recoil at METAGAMING THESPY FORGERS AAAAAH strikes as patently disingenuous.

Who the fuck am I to tell someone what does or does not break their immersion?

If somebody finds that Inspiration kills immersion for them, fine, don't use it.  No skin off my nose.

My only beef is when people start saying that by using Inspiration, I'm no longer roleplaying.  They don't know what breaks my immersion any more than I know what breaks theirs.

Robiswrong:

It is not metagaming to protect Jane. Protecting Jane is not the subject here.

The subject here is a GM giving a player a point to spend. That's metagaming.

It would not be metagaming if the character had a point to spend. If Jane has $10, she can give it to you. She can't give you a +1 on your Perception Check that she got for fulfilling a Bond.

I can dig some things some people would call metagaming, such as getting a Gygaxian pun in a dungeon. But guess what? Those have never been an obligatory part of the game.

As I've said before, it looks like it should be simple to ignore this rule. It would be psychologically and socially easier for many people if it were explicitely stated as an optional elaboration.

And if one pill is good, the Wizards might yet decide a whole bottle full is better. That's their modus operandi over the past decade and a half, and it has not all come in separately balanced modules.

Quote from: Phillip;767906It is not metagaming to protect Jane. Protecting Jane is not the subject here.

The subject here is a GM giving a player a point to spend. That's metagaming.

It's certainly a dissociated decision, as it's a resource the character has no concept of.

Quote from: Phillip;767906As I've said before, it looks like it should be simple to ignore this rule. It would be psychologically and socially easier for many people if it were explicitely stated as an optional elaboration.

That's a fair statement.

Quote from: Phillip;767906And if one pill is good, the Wizards might yet decide a whole bottle full is better. That's their modus operandi over the past decade and a half, and it has not all come in separately balanced modules.

Believe it or not, *I agree*.  I like Fate, but when I play D&D, I want to play D&D.  If I wanted to play Fate at that point in time, I would.  Much the same way as I like sushi, and I like ice cream.  But I don't want raw-fish-flavored ice cream, and when I want ice cream, I want ice cream, damnit, not fish.

Quote from: matthulhu;767899I still don't see how many sacred bits of D&D aren't already meta-gamey: HP, rolling dice, character sheets, class/level choice, XP, mapping, any and all out-of-character planning, asking questions of the DM about sensory input, etc. etc. etc.

Then you simply don't know what metagame means. You could start by paying attention to what actually is so called.

Look at what wer're talking about here: The ref gives you, the player, a free +1 on any dice roll, that you can choose when to use or choose to give to another player. Even if your character role is more or less yourself -- something I think is fine, but bugs the thespian/math-model ideologues -- are those transactions part of the game world at all, never mind perceptible to and controlled by the character?

A lot of things you mentioned simply are not necessary for a player to handle; some indeed were not even recommended as being laid on players in previous editions. Some are actually pre- or post-play concerns, just like choosing to play a game in the first place -- so not an issue when we are actually concerned with role-playing. Asking for your character's sensory data is a sheer necessity, since you have no other way to get it.

QuoteThese are all way, way out of the character's head but apparently because we've done it that way for so long we just internalize it. Stopping the action to roll dice, cheering for the natural 20, getting up to get a beer, none of this has anything to do with the "FULL CHARACTER IMMERSION" that seems like the Holy Grail around here (and yet sounds far, far more thespy than any kind of metagame point economy, which is distinctly gamey). So now "inspiration" is somehow an egregious offender against a dogma that was false to begin with.

There is nothing in 5e that makes it superior to 1e(etc.) in my eyes, but this horrific recoil at METAGAMING THESPY FORGERS AAAAAH strikes as patently disingenuous.

What's either disingenuous or honestly clueless is your insistance that EVERYTHING is just the same, there's NO DIFFERENCE between role-playing and Yahtzee, horrific recoil from those nit-picking grognards AAAH!

Quote from: Phillip;767886Yes, the instance at hand is, but it doesn't matter because -- I know this is a difficult old-fashioned concept -- two wrongs don't make one right.

Let me rephrase that: Why do you think these rewards are worse than, to stay with the example, getting XP for defeating monsters? Or for collecting treasure for that matter?

 

Quote from: Phillip;767886Yes, it is condescending elitist territory when you call shit the fun people get from playing the game without artsy pretensions.

I never stated what exactly should be seen as a contribution to the game. I talked about effort and active participation. This has nothing to do with 'artsiness' (again, art is not a measure of quality by any means). Besides, that "one true way" that D&D crowd you apparantly think of, has rejected: in the AD&D (2nd edition) DM guide,  it states pretty explicitly that players who contribute to the game deserve rewards (in form of additional XP); active participating, making the game more fun for others, that's good and reward-worthy. Being disruptive and making fun at the expense of others "is not really deserving a reward", "tends to get on everyone's nerves quickly" etc. So, those 40 years you mentioned? They ended in the eighties, at least from the publisher's side.

But you know what: If you do interrupt the game frequently or just sit there and expect to be entertained without actively participating (or worse: both), well then yes, you do not deserve the same amount of attention and respect as the hypothetical other player who does contribute to the game, puts some effort into the game and who is attentive to his fellow players.  And if that establishes some sort of evilbad elitism, RPGs aren't nearly elitist enough.
So, I really don't care about different playstyles that much - I think I am halfway adaptable (even though people who think it is some sort of irregularity to actually play a role in a roleplaying game tend to irritate me). What I care about is a halfway decent enthusiasm for the game, and fellow players who - and that is certainly as condescending as humanly possible - are not just there to eat the snacks and because they have nothing better to do.