Quote from: CalithenaSo - damn I hate that I'm thinking this thought on this board, but here it is - kickers are really a technique to let players 'railroad' themselves, which might be more satisfying content-wise than a GM railroad, but can't deliver the experience of spontaneous discovery through play in the same way the sandbox can. Even if you don't know how it's going to come out you know what it's going to be about.

Ding! Ding! Ding!  We have a winnah!

Quote from: CalithenaSo - damn I hate that I'm thinking this thought on this board, but here it is - kickers are really a technique to let players 'railroad' themselves, which might be more satisfying content-wise than a GM railroad, but can't deliver the experience of spontaneous discovery through play in the same way the sandbox can. Even if you don't know how it's going to come out you know what it's going to be about.

I'm not sure that somebody can railroad themselves. You would have the choice to play Sorcerer or not, and the Kicker is up front. You know what you're getting into.

Added to that is that the GM can take the Kicker in many different directions. I think if Sorcerer has a flaw in these terms, it's actually that the breaking-point is whether the GM can do it in an engaging way.

The ideal (Platonic) sandbox set-up is absolutely more wide open to spontaneous discovery, but I think that if you make 'railroading' so broad there are no games without some form of railroading. "You're in the Wilderlands." "I leave and go to another continent." "Waitaminnit!"

Hiya, Droog -

That's why I put 'railroad' in quotes. Though, it must be said, anything can be 'railroading' according to the 'perceived to violate the game's social contract' standard. (This is point that Elliot never gets tired of hammering on.)

I liked the smackdown you put on Pundit in that other thread on the main board, btw.

So, let's try to make the point a little more precise. The point is that up-front content-fixing of a certain kind robs you of the chance of certain kinds of discovery in play.

Response: "But some of the content is always fixed. There are specific characters, a specific setting - this is unavoidable."

Counter: Granted. But, it doesn't change the point that if you choose to fix situational content up front, you don't get to discover what kind of situations you want in play, at the table.

Response: "Well, but you're talking about having the GM provide situation, right? Or else something like a random encounter table input to situation directly? So how is that any better than having the player choose it?"

Counter: The distinction here is not perfectly black-and-white, but it goes like this. The GM and tables provide elements: the GM additionally connects the dots between those elements and creates the sense of a moving, interconnected, organic world behind the surface explored by the players. When things get really interesting to people at the table - this is based both on the actions of players to have their characters focus on some things and not others, and on the GMs and players' aesthetic sensibility - you start adding more and more content to and focus on that stuff, and suddenly you're not wandering any more - you're in situation, but it just grew out of play.

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When the content above amounts to 'thematic' content and that's what the players at the table want out of play, I think in Ron's terms I might just be describing Ouija Board Narrativism. That passage is one of the only things in his corpus that annoys me sometimes. If so, the annoyance just stems from the fact that the Ouija Board works just fine, like it does for a lot of groups playing with, you know, Ouija Boards.

Quote from: Elliot WilenIn fact in my current alternating-GM Basic D&D game, I think we have pretty much of necessity given up the idea of extensive player choice WRT the next scenario (though I'm trying to solicit a little input that I can use to riff off of on my turn), but within each scenario things are pretty wide-open.

I don't have much of a problem with running a sequence of pre-written adventures. What gets up my ass is when those adventures have scripted set-piece battles, or 'dramatic' events where the PCs save an NPC in the nick of time. Hate that shit.

Quote from: CalithenaI liked the smackdown you put on Pundit in that other thread on the main board, btw.

Always a pleasure.

QuoteWhen the content above amounts to 'thematic' content and that's what the players at the table want out of play, I think in Ron's terms I might just be describing Ouija Board Narrativism. That passage is one of the only things in his corpus that annoys me sometimes. If so, the annoyance just stems from the fact that the Ouija Board works just fine, like it does for a lot of groups playing with, you know, Ouija Boards.

I think I agree in general with what you're saying, though I want to make it clear that I don't think it's a distinction between 'better' and 'worse'. Each type of situation generator has its own strengths and flaws.

For instance, the type of adventure path being maligned in this thread is obviously, as you pointed out, quite popular. I'd say, off the top of my head, that the strength is that a lot of work can be put into colour and spectacle. Like I mentioned in the RQ thread, 'The Cradle' remains one of the most memorable adventures for my RQ group, for its epic spectacle (despite being a straight-up railroad). I'm fairly sure I couldn't have generated that sort of colour on the fly. The flaw is that it removes certain types of choice, which you and I currently agree are important types.

The strength of Kickers is that they get to the action quickly and (ideally) ensure that the situation will hold interest for the player. The flaw is as you point out.

I think the main point I'd take away from Ron's OBN is that nobody thinks the planchette is being moved, or everybody agrees to overlook that the planchette is in fact being moved (otherwise it's vanilla nar). I think Ron does say that OBN players vary greatly in the amount of fun they have; also that the wrong player in the group will lead to the planchette-mover being exposed.

Given that this thread has turned into one discussing Forgespeak and is now a kind of advertising/prosletyzing, I'm moving it to off topic.

RPGPundit

You're funny.

What if Paizo just stuck with making really nice maps to use with miniatures??

- Ed C.

Quote from: CalithenaWhen the content above amounts to 'thematic' content and that's what the players at the table want out of play, I think in Ron's terms I might just be describing Ouija Board Narrativism.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's virtually indistinguishable from Incoherence or Sim--especially Sim in the sense of "constructive denial". And the reason it bugs you (or at least me) is closely tied to what Chris Lehrich has said about the way that a hierarchical model treats edge conditions, when it begins to operate prescriptively: "What happens is that innovation at some point starts to push at the edge of the model, and if the model is prescriptive that pushing is interpreted diagnostically: it is a disease." Though in this case it's not innovation but, I believe, a style of play that's always been around but just isn't well understood by the creators of the model. (Also see Sett's comment here. Describing this brand of "traditional" gaming as a form of Narr is somewhat like calling the society of Kalahari Bushmen "democratic" or "socialist", or saying that Euripides was a capital-R Realist).

Now droog's ears are probably burning and he'd like to explain how the model isn't at all prescriptive, after which I can reframe it in terms of a discourse that's damn well prescriptive even if it may be evolving out of it (though in the course of that, largely leaving GNS and Narr behind)...but I'd rather focus on specific techniques. If someone wants to categorize them using a hierarchical taxonomy that means more to them than it does to me, they can get on with it by themselves.

Quote from: HaffrungI don't have much of a problem with running a sequence of pre-written adventures. What gets up my ass is when those adventures have scripted set-piece battles, or 'dramatic' events where the PCs save an NPC in the nick of time. Hate that shit.

Me too. And when viewed on the sandbox campaign level, it's also risky to create tightly-wound "pregnant situations" which are set to go off exactly when the PCs arrive, even if those situations are themselves open-ended.

Elliot,

Not saying the two things are the same. What I'd rather say is that this traditional model can be pushed in a 'Narrativist' direction, but needn't be (I think most play of this kind in its natural setting should be described as Incoherent in Big Modelese). The sandbox playstyle itself is a connected set of approaches to play, which can be harnessed to serve a variety of CA, or none at all, in accordance with the point of dissension from GNS orthodoxy you and I are agreed on.

Assuming we're right that the subset of this kind of play which is Big Model-Narrativist is what Ron calls Ouija Board Narrativism, though, I'd agree with you about the kind of mistake being made. Except instead of being highfalutin' about 'prescriptive models and edge effects' I'd just say Ron made a factual mistake there. Though the kind of thing Chris was talking about does happen.

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Pundit's behavior here is amusing. Here he's got a thread with serious, systematic critique of his supposed bete noir, instead of the half-baked shit he spews in the absence of knowing what the fuck he's talking about, and he moves it to OT. The dude won't take a rifle for his own fucking war because he's so hot to keep jacking off with blunt knives.

I hate the separate theory forum here and being in the same community as RPGBitch almost as much as I hate the separate D&D forum on Big Purple. Is there any decent general RPG forum left? I prefer Cuntface to livin' in the ghetto, but I'd rather not have to choose.

Yawn.  "Systematic critique" is a waste of time.  It's insulting shit, and all you're doing is validating it by using their terms.  

Get your own fucking ideas, and stop polluting threads by rehashing weak ones that deserve to be forgotten, and then you won't find the threads getting moved.

Seems pretty simple to me.

Quote from: RPGPunditGiven that this thread has turned into one discussing Forgespeak and is now a kind of advertising/prosletyzing, I'm moving it to off topic.

RPGPundit

Pundit, would you kindly stop doing this stupid shit?

Quote from: droogFor instance, the type of adventure path being maligned in this thread is obviously, as you pointed out, quite popular. I'd say, off the top of my head, that the strength is that a lot of work can be put into colour and spectacle. Like I mentioned in the RQ thread, 'The Cradle' remains one of the most memorable adventures for my RQ group, for its epic spectacle (despite being a straight-up railroad). I'm fairly sure I couldn't have generated that sort of colour on the fly. The flaw is that it removes certain types of choice, which you and I currently agree are important types.

This I agree completely. I'm currently running Horror at the Orient Express (Call of Cthulhu), which is maligned by many as the biggest railroad ever. Well, it's one of the most popular Cthulhu adventures I've ever run, so much that my girlfriend played it, loved it so much that he read the campaign cover to cover, and she asked me to play it for a second time (playing NPCs and a support PC) just because she loved the colour so much.

QuoteThe strength of Kickers is that they get to the action quickly and (ideally) ensure that the situation will hold interest for the player. The flaw is as you point out.

This I also agree.

Quote from: J ArcaneYawn. "Systematic critique" is a waste of time. It's insulting shit, and all you're doing is validating it by using their terms.

I disagree with you here, Arcane. I'm no fan of GNS/ Big Model but I think that systematic critique can help people develop their own ideas, which seems to be your proposal. Critiquing a jargon does not validate it, IMO.

Quote from: Elliot Wilenhere. Describing this brand of "traditional" gaming as a form of Narr is somewhat like calling the society of Kalahari Bushmen "democratic" or "socialist", or saying that Euripides was a capital-R Realist).

Well, no--if narrativism is a newly created thing, that would be the case. But if it is a description of the way people have played in the past, using the term is fine. It's more like using terms such as 'kinship system' or 'primitive accumulation'.

Otherwise, I think the OBN thing is something of a tangent and I'm quite happy to drop it.

Pundit?
Would you at least consider you know, like, fucking SPLIT the thread?