Quote from: Bren;903481Your post is either an odd way of agreeing with what I said, or you missed the similarity in meaning of the phrases: "nit-picky" and "hair splitting."

I was agreeing with you and sticking up for the new guy a little in the same breath.  It probably came out awkward. I liked his post and didn't want him to take offense at trivial "nit-picking."  "Objective" was the wrong word, and so was "hair-splitting." You are right on both counts.  I am also too tired to be interested.  I'd be happy to banter detailed semantic analysis with you sometime on a topic that I feel strongly about. This topic is pretty well resolved as far as I am concerned. Detailed conversations about words can be cool when precision really matters, but sometimes I just like to talk about games.

QuoteSince Brandybuck isn’t playing at my table nor I at theirs, it doesn’t matter whether or not I agree with Brandybuck’s apparent preference for the GM to be non-objective in determining outcomes. Some people like to play that way, some can take it or leave it, some just don’t roll that way and hate it.

Like I said a couple of posts up, different strokes.

QuoteApparently you are interpreting the word "objective" when applied to human judgment, i.e. to game master determinations, as some sort of ideal or Platonic perfect form where either something is totally, completely, and infallibly "objective" or else it is subjective. Why would you do that? It just seems an incredibly useless and hair splitting interpretation of the of the word "objective" when applied to fallible humans and fallible human decision making. Using a similar hair splitting definition, no human can be fair or impartial. While that may, in a very narrow and pendantic sense, be true, it makes words like fair, objective, and impartial, as well as words like unfair, subjective, and biased meaningless and thus useless for discourse.

Well, isn't this just what you did to Brandybuck? His post was clear enough, and then you had to go after his (mis)use of the word "objective."  I am not being platonic or pedantic, though I sometimes do, so I can see how you might misconstrue my post.  I was just pointing out to the guy that it is OK to use plain idiomatic English, and that if we are talking about things of common experience we shouldn't have to worry overmuch about semantic precision, hair-splitting, or the difference between platonic or post-modernist uses of our common vocabulary.

Now, weren't we talking about about games?

I still think you are mostly looking at this from the wrong direction.

Rather I think rules shouldn´t be put on the same level as the setting, campaign (or gaming agenda, which is missing up to now).
It is rather located in the "playing" part of RPG as a shared communal social activity and completely necessary to gave a functional version of it.
Because at the core of social activity is the player conribution and my impression is, that too many of those that have a problem with rules have a problem with other players participiating with fixed rights to do so.

On the other hand rules are a tool, not an end in itself and thus the critical part is to choose the roght kind of rules for whatwever you want to achive with them. So if the rules are not fitting to your style or your campaign it is (besides some rules authors giving misleading adverticement) your fault to use the wrong ruels or not adapting them fittingly. Or you have to accept that something with your creative ideas or tastes is not expressible in / compatible to a game or at least a game with the given other participiants (if they are unwilling to go your way while choosing the rules).

So campaign and rules are not at odds with each other, but conflicts here point to unjustified expectations or just shoddy workmanship.

Quote from: Madprofessor;903497I was agreeing with you and sticking up for the new guy a little in the same breath.

I got that you were sticking up for him, I wasn't clear on the agreement. I get it now.

QuoteI liked his post and didn't want him to take offense at trivial "nit-picking."

Fair point.

QuoteWell, isn't this just what you did to Brandybuck? His post was clear enough, and then you had to go after his (mis)use of the word "objective."

Yes I was nitpicking.

QuoteNow, weren't we talking about about games?

Maybe?

Quote from: Maarzan;903540I still think you are mostly looking at this from the wrong direction.

Which of us does "you" refer to?

QuoteBecause at the core of social activity is the player conribution and my impression is, that too many of those that have a problem with rules have a problem with other players participiating with fixed rights to do so.

Could you elaborate? I'm unclear what you mean by people who "have a problem with rules" and people who "have a problem with" fixed rules participation. I'm also unclear which people any of those people might be.

QuoteOn the other hand rules are a tool, not an end in itself and thus the critical part is to choose the roght kind of rules for whatwever you want to achive with them.

I agree that rules are a tool not an end in itself.

I don't think it is necessary to choose the right kind of rules ahead of time. I think a lot of people don't have a clear idea of what they want to achieve other than having some fun of an evening. Certainly when D&D first came out, there were no other rules available to choose from. I don't think there is anything wrong with playing with a set of rules and seeing how you like the play you get. If you like it - great. If you don't like the play you get from those rules then change the rules yourself or go find a new set of rules to try.

It's a minor point, but some people really enjoy tinkering with rules, reading rules, learning rules, trying out new rules, and thinking about rules to the point that for those few people rule stuff becomes an end in itself.

Quote from: Bren;903557Which of us does "you" refer to?

Could you elaborate? I'm unclear what you mean by people who "have a problem with rules" and people who "have a problem with" fixed rules participation. I'm also unclear which people any of those people might be.

I agree that rules are a tool not an end in itself.

I don't think it is necessary to choose the right kind of rules ahead of time. I think a lot of people don't have a clear idea of what they want to achieve other than having some fun of an evening. Certainly when D&D first came out, there were no other rules available to choose from. I don't think there is anything wrong with playing with a set of rules and seeing how you like the play you get. If you like it - great. If you don't like the play you get from those rules then change the rules yourself or go find a new set of rules to try.

It's a minor point, but some people really enjoy tinkering with rules, reading rules, learning rules, trying out new rules, and thinking about rules to the point that for those few people rule stuff becomes an end in itself.

Those you, that show a problem with (accepting) rules here.

And a problem with rules I see given, when someone thinks that changing rules without general consent is OK - often additionally underlined when justification is taken from abstract and/or taste related things like "fun", "freedom" or "better story" or tries to construct an artificial opposition to some other accepted or necessary element of the game.

If you don´t consider rules in your planning it is your own fault if they don´t work out as you would like it. While no rules system is 100% checked and fitting, I think it is possible to prepare in a way that negotiations later can be deduced to a minimum.  
And I also don´t have a problem with changing rules by itself. It is the way some think they can change the rules by themselves on the fly where I have a problem with.

Quote from: Maarzan;903562Those you, that show a problem with (accepting) rules here.

I'm still confused.

QuoteAnd a problem with rules I see given, when someone thinks that changing rules without general consent is OK

I'm transparent with rule changes and I typically ask for input from the players. But if I'm the GM, I have to be satisfied with the rules because I'm running stuff. So I might change a rule that bothers me even if some players don't like the change. If they keep playing, then tacitly they have given their consent to the change.

Quote...often additionally underlined when justification is taken from abstract and/or taste related things like "fun", "freedom" or "better story" or tries to construct an artificial opposition to some other accepted or necessary element of the game.

Other than correcting an obvious typo or other error, what would a non-taste related justification for changing a rule even be?

QuoteIf you don´t consider rules in your planning it is your own fault if they don´t work out as you would like it.

Sure. But so what? If you do consider rules in your planning and they don't work out, it is even more your responsibility when they don't work out as you would like.

QuoteAnd I also don´t have a problem with changing rules by itself. It is the way some think they can change the rules by themselves on the fly where I have a problem with.

Typically I wait until after the current situation is resolved to change the rules. However, I might change rules on the fly if there was some compelling reason to do that. (Nothing occurs to me as an on the fly rule change I've made, but I've been GMing for 42 years so I'm sure I've done it sometime.) Absent some actual examples it's kind of difficult to agree or disagree with you about the appropriateness of on the fly changes.

Quote from: Bren;903440Second, Estar I hope this doesn't seem overly contentious or argumentative. I think we agree on a lot of points, but in writing I tend to focus on the disagreements and points of nuanced meaning, rather than the points of general agreement.

It's all good and hey! You have to put up with my bad grammar.

Quote from: Bren;903440I started playing in 1974 and I'm aware of the pre-publication origins of the hobby. The people I first gamed with and DMed for came from a wargaming background mostly board games e.g. Avalon Hill and SPI and a few miniatures games, though mostly set piece battles not campaigns.

A campaign exists is a way of pleasantly passing time. For the GM that often includes time outside the group with the twin processes of world subcreation and maintenance. I use the word "world" here, but depending on the campaign the setting might be smaller than a world or include multiple worlds or continuums.

There are dozens if not hundreds of ways to create and enjoy games and campaigns, I seen and experienced what you are describing above. But I think that roleplaying games are fundamentally different despite the fact that at the heart of all roleplaying games is a wargame. My view is that Arneson and Gygax created a pen & paper holodeck that allows people a satisfying way of experience other characters, realities, and situation. One key element of this is the use of game mechanics as an important part of the adjudication process done by the human referee.

A roleplaying campaign could be run by referee fiat alone but I think it would take a referee of exceptional skill to pull it off with a group of players that have that much trust in his ability to be fair. Not a common situation and one that would not apply to me. The use of a game allow more people to be successful at running a RPG campaign.

However important the rules are the end result is still the same, the point of the exercise is the campaign. Everything in service of creating an imagined reality that the players experience as their character. It doesn't have to be profound, or serious. In fact I wager that in most cases is quite silly and shallow. But even then the point isn't to beat opponents, to achieve victory conditions, the point is to experience the campaign.

And what is profound about the whole thing that it will still pretty much works as a pen & paper holodeck even if you are mostly treating it as a traditional game. That what makes the idea RPGS a work of genius by Arneson & Gygax. It just naturally arises when you have players interact with a setting as a characters with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.


 

Quote from: Bren;903440A miniatures campaign does not exist to play a certain set of rules, but to play a campaign which comprises a series of battles where each person controls a specific unit or units, army, country, etc. Like an RPG, the outcome of one table top battle influences the events of the next e.g. casualties lost are gone unless replaced, units tested in battle may improve in quality. And the off table activity e.g. troop recruiting and training, resource allocation, and diplomacy, effect the parameters and forces available of the next battle on the table top.

The difference between detailed miniatures campaign (as I understand them) and a RPG campaign has nothing to do with one focusing on rules and the other not, but is predominantly the different scale of forces under a given player's control. For miniatures the forces are at minimum one unit of troops consisting of multiple figures or stands of figures where each figure represents some multiple of people, e.g. 10, 20, or more. Often a single player controls larger forces, even entire countries. For RPGs the forces are at minimum a single player character, but often consist of multiple characters and/or characters who have command of other characters e.g. hirelings and/or other resources.

I stated my response poorly, what I was getting at is that despite the similarities between managing a miniature wargame campaign and a tabletop RPG campaign. The point of the miniature wargame campaign is to beat your opponent(s). In contrast the point of the tabletop RPG campaign is to experience the setting.

To make more confusing it not a black and white ling. Blackmoor started out as a campaign where was a bunch of players playing individual character doing whatever. And that whatever in service of becoming the biggest and baddest dug in the realm and involved a lot of fighting AGAINST other players and leading armies with battle being resolved by the miniature wargaming rules the Minneapolis gamers were using.

My opinion is that the Blackmoor campaign didn't shift decisively over to being a tabletop RPG campaign until the Blackmoor dungeon became the focus. From reading the various accounts and antedotes, Dave seemed to have gotten a bit annoyed at that at first. Especially after the good guy players stopped paying attention to what the bad guy players were doing and lost Castle Blackmoor to them while they were busy crawling around the dungeon. Dave "exiled" them Glendower. But apparently the lesson didn't stick because apparently the first thing they did in Glendower was look for more dungeons!.

The focus on the Blackmoor Dungeon was important for this shift because it really require the player to think of individual goals and shift the cooperative aspect to the forefront as it proved the best way of overcoming the challenges they faced. Before that, it seemed to me that the players were thinking mostly of themselves as generals or potential generals of the army and everything was in service of those kind of goals.

Quote from: Bren;903440I'm sure that happened. I pretty sure people also said, "Hey I have these rules here for running battles in the English Civil War period e.g. Cavaliers and Roundheads. Wouldn't it be fun if we chose up sides and played out the whole English Civil War?"

I have to stress despite my dissertation and opinion about the point and nature of RPGs, there is no bright clear line. There is a continuum or a spectrum where the focus shift from a traditional contest of wits to see who is a winner, to where you are playing a character in a pen & paper virtual reality.

The Blackmoor campaign is where the shift first happened. The Greyhawk campaign was the first campaign to be deliberately designed as a tabletop roleplaying campaign.

Quote from: Bren;903440I don't agree that this is a flaw only that Gygax, like most writers, especially most technical writers, had a particular target audience in mind. As it turned out, he underestimated the size and mis-guaged the composition of the eventual, total market for RPGs in general and D&D in particular.

It is a flaw because people had zillions of questions directed at Gygax and TSR. So obviously something got missed in the first try :-). But just OD&D has flaws doesn't mean it is a bad game or not worthy of being played even today. What it means, like you pointed out, that probably made more sense to somebody part of the miniature wargaming community of the early 70s than it would to a college aged fantasy fan living in Los Angeles. We got Holmes, Moldavy/Cook, Mentzer, and AD&D out of the attempts to do better next time. So we have still have OD&D and all those version to enjoy as well.

Quote from: Bren;903440The evolution in the hobby to convention attendance and tournament play had a lot to do with the desire to standardize D&D. Fortunately, unless one was sucked into regular tournament-style play the shibboleth of standardization was pretty easy to ignore.

My view is that tournaments were the original sin of the tabletop roleplaying hobby and industry. I think it fine that there were tournaments, but the problem is that the needs of tournaments dictated the format of products that was sold for people running home campaigns. As a consequence what was acceptable got way more rigid in terms of publishing.

However I also you have a point about the hobby side. I think while there was an impact, it could be easily ignored. And it was that way for a long time until the advent of "Living campaigns". Because if you are going to run a Living Campaign nationwide, to be fair you have very rigid in what rules you used. And this in my opinion is where it became really annoying for the hobby.

But I believe not the big issues today as it was in the past because the Internet has dramatically expanded the ways that hobbyist can connect with one another. That combined with the amount of open gaming material means no one standards will hold sway. Every type of roleplaying campaign that can be played now has multiple works supporting it.

Quote from: Bren;903440I did too, but absent the SCA experience. That's one of the reasons I like Runequest, its derivative games, and other games that eschew levels. I also dislike classes – so Runequest again for the win.

Yeah for me as well. My switch was propelled by the desire for better character customization, and combat realism. I first went with Fantasy Hero, but its first edition had too much of the Champions DNA and my group wound up going with GURPS.

Quote from: Bren;903440People in the industry, like any industry, want to remain in business. That requires selling product. For RPGs that has meant selling a series of packaged adventures and expansions and supplements for existing games, selling revised versions of existing games, and creating new games for sale – with adventures, supplements, and new versions of any game that achieves a modicum of sales success.

I think the difference is that back then it was expensive to make a mistake. Once the industry settled a bit after its initial expansion it was very conservative in the kinds of products they sold. Because if they fucked up they were left with a warehouse of unsold product. Note this didn't effect people designing new sets of rules. But if you were going to have an RPG then you were going to have corebooks, adventures of a certain format, supplement done a certain way, and so on.

Quote from: Bren;903440Different RPG rules do different things. When I feel like doing something different I change the characters, I change the campaign, but keep the same setting (which often changes the characters), I change the setting (which usually changes the characters), or I change the rules (which changes the setting and the characters unless the rules are just a new version of old rules e.g. when moving from Runequest 2 to Runequest 3 we converted the old characters.)*

I never switched rules in the middle of a campaign. If I am going to make a switch, I wait until the campaign is over and then use the new rules for the next campaign. For example the last Majestic Wilderlands Campaign I ran used the D&D 5e rules. THe next Majestic Wilderlands campaign I run will likely use a Fantasy AGE variant I came up with. However despite the latter two, I still run the Majestic Wilderlands using Swords & Wizardry and my MW Supplement at the game store near my hometown. The RQ2 to RQ3 sound logical. I am sure I would have done the same thing if the timing worked from GURPS 3rd to GURPS 4th. But as it turned out, I wasn't running a GURPS campaign during initial releases of GURPS 4th edition. So the next campaign started with GURPS 4th.

Quote from: Bren;903440(List Snipped)

I think your lists work.

Quote from: Bren;903440You could try teaching people to be better players. It's no more (or less) a social issue than is most of what is involved in teaching people to be better GMs.

Sure but my insight mostly relate to the referee side of things. I do think that while a good referee can't do much about bad players, that they make a huge difference when it comes to mediocre and indifferent players. Thus in terms of time and energy it better to invest more in making good referees. But again you can't ignore the player side either, it just what I consider to be priority.

Quote from: Bren;903440Tools and tips for better managing a campaign can be helpful, but I find they are far from universal. The techniques one person loves another loathes. In part that's because people really don't all want the same thing from an RPG campaign.

Outside of a handful of classics, (Gygax's AD&D 1st DMG for example) that have come close, nobody has done it right. And you are right about one thing, I even done right it won't be universal. However what would be universal would be the format. I think a major part of the problem is that people don't know what needs to go in such a thing. Hell I don't have a grip on it either and still figuring it out for myself.

I am certain whatever form this hypothetical work takes that it has to focus on the campaign first above everything else. That the rule exist to implement the campaign and not the other way around.

Quote from: Bren;903440Every DM/Referee/GM I knew in the seventies did that. It's my default assumption for GM behavior. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the proliferation of canned adventure paths combined with the mass entry of players who weren't accustomed to winning and losing at wargames had a lot to do with players who couldn't stand losing and GMs who couldn't allow their setting to change based on what happened at the table. Also teenage and subteen boys.

I think my experience was because I was in Junior/Senior High and because of our immaturity most of my fellow referee couldn't stand for our little lovely sandcastle being kicked over by the evil nasty players. And then you had to contend with the referees that railroaded which is a different problem. While I sound very negative, understand that the vast majority of high school referees I know tried to do right. Yeah they railroaded players, and got in a snit for messing up their setting, but most did just as many other things right. I fucked up more times than I account and for me I had the added fun of being partially deaf. The #1 reason I started using miniatures and battlemats from day 1 is to overcome the issues my deafness caused. "Don't tell me, just move your figure to where you are going to be."

 

Quote from: Bren;903440I never do that. I get a lot of fun out of world subcreation

I did use other setting when I did different genres. I ran Champions on modern Earth, Traveller in the Third Imperium, FASA's Start Trek, and so on.

And I admit this was the mid 80s while I was in college I would been a bit of stuck up asshole about the fact I stick to the same campaign for fantasy versus the guys that keep switching settings for their D&D games. BUt it not college or the 80s anymore and I am older with a lot more experience.

What I will say about running a setting for as long as I have for as many different players as I have is that you get depth in a way that you don't when you keep creating a new setting for campaign. However, you have to really work at keeping the depth manageable. And you really can't go too far off the standard tropes or you going waste multiple session explaining how the damn thing works. For example most players don't have the frame of reference to deal with Barker's Tekumel right off the bat. It has to be explain. Even Glorantha suffer a little from that although the RQ2 version was pretty approachable.

So in the end neither is any better or worse than the other. There are benefits and there are consequences. The only responsibility involved is for people to understand what they are and factor that into their decision when setting up their campaigns.

And to be hypocritical, I did fire up a "new" sci-fi setting, the Majestic Stars, for the campaign I am running now. I put "new" in quotes because it one of those setting that a gamers works on forever but never ran any campaigns with. For me it been 30 years that I been dicking around with it. It started out as the setting for a SPI Universe campaign I never ran. But a combination of my friend not wanting to play Traveller or any other of the major sci-fi setting, but wanting to play something original sci-fi wise. I mulled it around for a while and then by confidence finally watch the Expanse. And boy that show inspired me.

Quote from: Bren;903440There exists a minority subset of players who want not just to say, "my character tries to do X" but who also want to understand the rules of the setting and to have some idea of the likelihood of success for various actions. There are several reasons people want that.

I am aware of the type, and you made another good list that reflect what I experienced. Believe or not, when it comes to the mechanics of what the character attempt, I am pretty much RAW type of referee. What I will jettison, if present in the system, is any rule that dictate what the players motivation or what they decide. Alignment, fuck that, etc. But when it comes to trying to pick a lock, or swing a sword, the rule say what the rules say. I fix stuff that is inconsistent with the setting, not plausible, or just a plain problem PRIOR to the start of the next campaign.

For example no more +4 or +5 gear in my D&D campaign again. The 5e guys were spot on on capping gear at +3.

As a consequence rules mastery gets its due in my campaigns. If you figure out how to manipulate the rules to your advantage great you just won the day. Might not fix the overall problem but probably helps.

However where I don't let them off the hook is in terms of first person roleplaying. They have to act as if there in the setting as the character even if that character is just a reflection of themselves. I find that doing along with the way I roleplay NPCs pretty much eliminates munchkinism, and assorted rules related asshole behavior.

My theory as to why it works is because it forces them to engage the NPCs as people not as pogs or tokens on a board. And causes their normal social instincts to kick in. It not 100% in making this type of gamer by any stretch but I rarely get the any of the horror stories people typically relate either. Other things I do is that I always make sure some NPCs are actually friendly. That if all the players want to do is kill things and take their shit, that they have the opportunity to do that.

All of these things I do is to make for a better campaign, for a better experience for the players while they are pretending to characters in the setting I created.

Quote from: Bren;903566I'm still confused.

I'm transparent with rule changes and I typically ask for input from the players. But if I'm the GM, I have to be satisfied with the rules because I'm running stuff. So I might change a rule that bothers me even if some players don't like the change. If they keep playing, then tacitly they have given their consent to the change.

Other than correcting an obvious typo or other error, what would a non-taste related justification for changing a rule even be?

Sure. But so what? If you do consider rules in your planning and they don't work out, it is even more your responsibility when they don't work out as you would like.

Typically I wait until after the current situation is resolved to change the rules. However, I might change rules on the fly if there was some compelling reason to do that. (Nothing occurs to me as an on the fly rule change I've made, but I've been GMing for 42 years so I'm sure I've done it sometime.) Absent some actual examples it's kind of difficult to agree or disagree with you about the appropriateness of on the fly changes.

I think it is up to the GM to set choose the rules and house rules in his gaming proposal.
But afterwards I see the GM bound by the same agreed on rules like everyone else.
You (plural, as who is participiating in the game. Too many rules sets sound like they mean the reader instead for me ) can change rules afterwards too, but then it has to be unanimously in the group.

Regarding taste. The point wasn´t that someone wants a change because of tastes, but that someone is justifying a singlehanded change by the virtue of some taste related abstract ideal, like i.e. "better story".
And remember: if all of the participiants are OK with a change it is never and has never been a problem to change a rule. Trouble comes when there are participiants that like the original rules better.

So the standard question is: Why does someone lamenting about rules gong wrong, not just ask the other players, instead of constructing some abstract justification to break the rules?

Quote from: estar;903582My view is that Arneson and Gygax created a pen & paper holodeck that allows people a satisfying way of experience other characters, realities, and situation.

Temporally speaking, the writers of Star Trek described a computerized, 3D version of pen & paper roleplaying games.

QuoteI stated my response poorly, what I was getting at is that despite the similarities between managing a miniature wargame campaign and a tabletop RPG campaign. The point of the miniature wargame campaign is to beat your opponent(s). In contrast the point of the tabletop RPG campaign is to experience the setting.

It's a bit of a quibble, but I'd say that the only point of either is having fun passing the time. I don't think players have just one point to their play. People differ as to how much of their enjoyment comes from experiencing a different setting as opposed to other elements of the play experience e.g. playing a character different from themselves, showing off their improvisational acting ability in a small audience setting, gaining the approval of others for their play, playing out some level of wish fulfillment or power fantasy through their character, enjoying the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, and vicariously experiencing different emotions by playing their character. Maybe those other points to an RPG are part of what you mean by it not being a black and white thing or there not being a bright and clear line.

QuoteIt is a flaw because people had zillions of questions directed at Gygax and TSR. So obviously something got missed in the first try :-).

I'm of the opinion that it is not possible to answer everyone's questions. Nor is it desirable to try. Anything that complete would be unbelievably long and would bore the life out of everyone, make memorizing the rules more difficult, and make any one rule almost impossible to find when you needed to look it up.

I remember my friend Brad wrote to TSR with some question. (This was probably in the spring of 1975. I can't recall what the question was). It took a while to get an answer back (because snail mail). When we read the answer, I recall thinking something to the effect of "That answer isn't amazing or especially insightful. We could have decided or made that up ourselves." So from then on we did. From all I've read since, that was close to the response that Gygax expected, but mostly didn't get.

QuoteWe got Holmes, Moldavy/Cook, Mentzer, and AD&D out of the attempts to do better next time.

Whereas I would say those are written to address different audiences and have somewhat different design philosophies. Much in the same way that Runequest and GURPS addressed different audiences and had different design philosophies than did any of the versions of D&D. AD&D had as a design philosophy that included trying to create a uniform rule system for tournament play. That philosophy was totally absent in OD&D. I recall feeling that AD&D was actually too detailed or complete. There was so many rules for so many things, many of which any one group of PCs would never encounter, that it made the referee's job harder because there were so many rules to remember.

QuoteMy view is that tournaments were the original sin of the tabletop roleplaying hobby and industry. I think it fine that there were tournaments, but the problem is that the needs of tournaments dictated the format of products that was sold for people running home campaigns. As a consequence what was acceptable got way more rigid in terms of publishing.

I'm uncomfortable saying that the way other people like to play an RPG is wrong, but I would say that there were certainly unforeseen side effects of tournament play that in my view have been unfortunate for the hobby. Much in the same way as some of the side effects of collectible card games have been unfortunate.

QuoteAnd it was that way for a long time until the advent of "Living campaigns". Because if you are going to run a Living Campaign nationwide, to be fair you have very rigid in what rules you used. And this in my opinion is where it became really annoying for the hobby.

I refuse to play Living campaigns.

• I don't want to be an itinerant gamer hauling my PC from one GM to the next.
• I don't want to play every week with a bunch of strangers.
• I certainly don't want to codify the rules because I don't want every GM to give me a similar experience. I want different experiences from different GMs.
• And I really, really do not want deal with the bureaucracy and politics of a formal organization in my leisure time.

QuoteI never switched rules in the middle of a campaign. If I am going to make a switch, I wait until the campaign is over and then use the new rules for the next campaign.

I don't ever really end campaigns. They either continue with new characters and/or new players or they go on hold awaiting renewed interest and a gathering of a quorum of the original players. We've been playing and running an overlapping set of Call of Cthulhu characters off and on since about the 1980s. We've switched from one GM to another, to another, and then back again. We've even had a couple of guest Keepers run mult-isession scenarios. I think we've gone from 1st edition of the rules to the 5th or 6th editions. (Up until 7e, CoC editions are really similar. Even closer than RQ2 to RQ3.) I expect that I will end up switching from Honor+Intrigue to Call of Cthulhu at some point. It will be the same setting. It may include some of the same PCs. If it is the same setting and some of the same PCs, in what sense would it be a different campaign? The only separate CoC campaigns I run are the one-shot scenarios I've run from Blood Brothers 2. Those are based on various B-movies and each one is a based on a different genre, takes place in a different setting with separate pre-created characters. Clearly these are separate campaigns.

QuoteOutside of a handful of classics, (Gygax's AD&D 1st DMG for example) that have come close, nobody has done it right.

I'd say that Chaosium's Griffon Mountain supplement provided one of the best examples of a campaign setting. I think WEG's Star Wars did an great job of explaining how to play the game and how the GM was supposed to run a campaign...but it is not focused on the sort of player driven, the action goes wherever the PCs say they want to go sort of activity that OD&D featured. Star Wars, like the movies, is much more mission driven. There are some pretty significant differences in how I GM for a mission driven game like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Call of Cthulhu and how I GM for D&D, Runequest, and H+I.

QuoteI think my experience was because I was in Junior/Senior High and because of our immaturity most of my fellow referee couldn't stand for our little lovely sandcastle being kicked over by the evil nasty players. And then you had to contend with the referees that railroaded which is a different problem. While I sound very negative, understand that the vast majority of high school referees I know tried to do right. Yeah they railroaded players, and got in a snit for messing up their setting, but most did just as many other things right.

One really great thing about playing RPGs in school in the 1970s was that there were a lot of GMs. So if a GM did stuff you really couldn't stand, you could just go play in somebody else's world. Players voting with their feet or seat was a good way to keep referee shenanigans in check.

QuoteI fucked up more times than I account and for me I had the added fun of being partially deaf. The #1 reason I started using miniatures and battlemats from day 1 is to overcome the issues my deafness caused. "Don't tell me, just move your figure to where you are going to be."

I really prefer using miniatures when there are multiple PCs in combat. When I GM I almost always have at least one player whose spatial recognition is poor or whose mental view of the situation is significantly at odds with mine and with that of the majority of the other players at the table. If I never, ever had to again hear a player say, "I thought I was over by the window/inside the door/outside the door/away from the chest/behind the guy in plate" I would be ever so happy.

QuoteHowever, you have to really work at keeping the depth manageable. And you really can't go too far off the standard tropes or you going waste multiple session explaining how the damn thing works. For example most players don't have the frame of reference to deal with Barker's Tekumel right off the bat. It has to be explain. Even Glorantha suffer a little from that although the RQ2 version was pretty approachable.

I was fortunate to have played the original White Bear, Red Moon and Nomad Gods board games with one of my players. Between those two games and their maps and unique counters and the supplement Cults of Prax, at least a few of us had a decent handle on Glorantha. And the Griffon Mountain supplement was a wonderful campaign setting. The stuff set in Pavis and Prax was good as well. Nowadays though, I'd say that Glorantha is getting less rather than more approachable.

QuoteSo in the end neither is any better or worse than the other. There are benefits and there are consequences. The only responsibility involved is for people to understand what they are and factor that into their decision when setting up their campaigns.

Agreed.

QuoteHowever where I don't let them off the hook is in terms of first person roleplaying. They have to act as if there in the setting as the character even if that character is just a reflection of themselves. I find that doing along with the way I roleplay NPCs pretty much eliminates munchkinism, and assorted rules related asshole behavior.

My theory as to why it works is because it forces them to engage the NPCs as people not as pogs or tokens on a board. And causes their normal social instincts to kick in. It not 100% in making this type of gamer by any stretch but I rarely get the any of the horror stories people typically relate either. Other things I do is that I always make sure some NPCs are actually friendly. That if all the players want to do is kill things and take their shit, that they have the opportunity to do that.

All of these things I do is to make for a better campaign, for a better experience for the players while they are pretending to characters in the setting I created.

This right here is some good GM advice.

Quote from: Maarzan;903583I think it is up to the GM to set choose the rules and house rules in his gaming proposal.
But afterwards I see the GM bound by the same agreed on rules like everyone else.
You (plural, as who is participiating in the game. Too many rules sets sound like they mean the reader instead for me ) can change rules afterwards too, but then it has to be unanimously in the group.

While I'd like a rule change after play to be unanimous, I reserve the right as the GM to be a tyrant.

QuoteSo the standard question is: Why does someone lamenting about rules gong wrong, not just ask the other players, instead of constructing some abstract justification to break the rules?

I have no idea. Possibly bringing up a change as the topic for discussion seems too controversial or like it will create a conflict. Many people are afraid of controversy and intensely dislike conflict. So it may seem easier to try to slip the change in without discussion.

Typically as a GM I point out what I see as a problem to the table and ask the players if they too see it as a problem. Sometimes they agree. Sometimes they don't. Often they have no strong opinion either way. I might suggest a solution to get their feedback. I might ask them to suggest a solution. Depending on what they say and on how strongly I feel about the change, I might decide not to change anything. I might look for a compromise change. I might decide to make the change anyway even if some people disagree. I'm the GM. I get to do that.

I've also brought up rules for change as a player. Sometimes the GM and the other players agree with me. Sometimes they don't. I do find GMs are a lot less likely to have no opinion about a change than are players.

My view is pretty simple and pretty old school. The GM is in charge. Sort of like the host of a party. Sort of like the referee at a sports event. Sort of like the producer of a movie.

However, we are engaged in a social activity to have fun together. It is polite, socially desirable, and wise for the GM to talk to the other people involved about any changes to the program and to seek consensus. GMs who don't act polite and aren't wise deserve to lose their players. Often they do.

Quote from: Bren;903590While I'd like a rule change after play to be unanimous, I reserve the right as the GM to be a tyrant.

Awesome. Can I steel it?

RPGs are about

Sorry, but you have already lost me.

Quote from: yosemitemike;903634RPGs are about

Sorry, but you have already lost me.

1) RPGs mean something otherwise you wouldn't used it in your sentence.
2) Nowhere I specify what a campaign is about. What style the referee is to use while adjudicating. What type of genre, setting, or types of adventures that are to occur.

The implication of my initial statement is that the focus should be on making a good campaign first and then adopt, adapt, or create the rules to support that campaign second. That the hobby and industry would be healthier if it adopted this focus as well.

I view this approach as more expansive than focusing on the rules. Because it is not possible to write a set of rules that covers everything that a player could do in a setting.

Finally I stress the specific rule system used is an important personal preference. Some people can't stand class based system. Others find AC and HP to be unrealistic enough to lessen their enjoyment of the game. Other still find games like GURPS too complex to enjoy as a pastime. And so on. Nowhere I advocate that you should not care about the rules you use. Only that what rules you use should be chosen in light of how well they support the campaign you are trying to run.

And I will stress, when it comes to tabletop roleplaying there are not that many outright bad choices. Most choices have benefits and consequences. The choices to focus on the campaign over the rules or the rules over the campaign, or even both equally are the latter and certainly not the former.

In my view the benefit of focusing on the rules over the campaign is clarity and certainty. The consequences include limitations on the choices that the player make that otherwise make sense in term of the setting. Or that players do things that are unrealistic, in terms of the setting, to take advantage of the game mechanics. And I will stress that what unrealistic for a campaign using TOON is very different than what unrealistic for a GURPS World War II campaign.

While the advantage of clarity and certainty seems like weak point, it isn't. Managing RPG Campaigns is a demand task for a leisure activity. For some groups this may be the most practical approach given their circumstances. Since the point is to enjoy oneself while playing an tabletop RPG that is a legitimate choice made for good reasons.

Quote from: estar;903660I view this approach as more expansive than focusing on the rules. Because it is not possible to write a set of rules that covers everything that a player could do in a setting.

I had a friend who owned a lot of RPGs. In part, this was because he liked reading RPGs - both rules and settings. And in part it was because he was not satisfied with any of the systems he had seen. And he had seen a lot. None were just right. All had some source of dissatisfaction. He started gaming around the same time I did, but for the first ten years or so he never GMed. In part, because he kept looking at new rules instead of sitting down and figuring out something to run. Of course he bought Runequest 1, because it was new and because it was set in Glorantha. When he bought yet another RPG, I used to tease him by saying that his game was Rules Quest. But his dissatisfaction helped me to reach a minor epiphany.


Every RPG is a compromise of design choices. Skill-based gives greater flexibility over class based, but you get long lists of skills and you have to decide whether swinging an axe is different than swinging a broad sword and how much either is like fighting with a knife. Is driving a motorboat more like driving a car or like sailing a small boat? Is sailing a small boat like conning a cruiser and does the answer change if the cruiser is from the Age of Sail, the Age of Steam, or nuclear powered? Or maybe we should just focus on careers instead of classes or skills.

Quote from: Madprofessor;903631Awesome. Can I steel it?

Sure.   Were you thinking of something like this?






I just couldn't resist.

Quote from: yosemitemike;903634RPGs are about

Sorry, but you have already lost me.

Come on, the statement could be "RPGs are about whatever you want them to be about" and you can still cut it off at "RPGs are about" and say you're lost. It just doesn't mean anything, and so it's entirely thoughtless, not to mention rude of you to respond as such.

It is not valid logic to parse statements in such a fashion "RPGs are about X" and thus conclude that the speaker is trying to dictate what RPGs are about. Because that is not the case for all X. There exists some X, for example, when X = "whatever you want them to be about", where the speaker is clearly not dictating anything.

Instead of saying X, Estar has used "campaign" as his placeholder. If campaign refers to whatever YOUR purpose is to playing an RPG, then your response is purely argumentative, contributing nothing of value to the discussion.