Quote from: CRKrueger;668252Yep.

Hell, I've even played WFRP where the career changes had to be done in-game.   Characters once planned a long complicated caper just to get one of their members to train with a Duelist so he could take the career.

That's how i think it should be done.

Quote from: One Horse Town;668279That's how i think it should be done.

I'd say it's an officially supported alternative playstyle - The Restless Dead (at least Polish edition) featured rules regarding training skills in WFRP. They might've been in White Dwarf normally.

Quote from: tzunder;668240You know, I must be a storytelling swine. Even when I played C&S I didn't mind when my pious priest died defending the group against impossible odds, or my evil sorceror went to the dark side and had to disappear into NPC-dom. I can enjoy a game where we don't succeed, I enjoy the story of failure just as much.

You're combining two separate concepts, and even admitting success is the goal of the game without even realizing it. Most people do NOT enjoy failure as much as success when playing games; that's just basic human psychology. But they still can have fun in the process of playing a game, even if they lose. That holds true for every single game in existence, or else they would never be played in the first place.

I seriously don't understand your argument. My RPG characters regularly fail to achieve their goals, sometimes so poorly it's hilarious. This has nothing to do with their goals of succeeding. To use a real life analogy, there are funny stories you tell your buddies about striking out with a hot chick in a club, but at the time you definitely were trying to hook up with her. It is very rare people purposefully sabotage themselves simply because the end result is irrelevant to them.

Quote from: Brad;668297You're combining two separate concepts [...] To use a real life analogy, there are funny stories you tell your buddies about striking out with a hot chick in a club, but at the time you definitely were trying to hook up with her. It is very rare people purposefully sabotage themselves simply because the end result is irrelevant to them.

Two separate concepts, all right.

In the first case, the goal of the tale-teller is to entertain his friends with a funny, self-deprecating story.  In the second case, the goal of the tale-teller is to score.

Some people feel that their goal as a player is to entertain their friends.  Personally, I think that ought to trump whatever goals a character might have, lest we stray into "but I'm just playing my chaaaaracter" territory.

Quote from: CRKrueger;668130Don't worry about defining terms, just ask yourself if what they are describing is what scratches your RPG itch.

Okay, I'll bite. What exactly do you see in this fake description of play that you would consider "not an RPG"?

DM: A goblin lunges out of a shadowy corner howling bloody murder!

Player: I'll sidestep the goblin and try and get behind it. I roll Dodge. I got an 8.

DM: You dodge, but not fast enough. You escape the dagger blow, collide with the goblin and fall to the ground.

Player: I'll wrestle the dagger away from the goblin and then hold it to his throat. Strength check?

DM: Yeah, but since you're not trying to hurt him we'll ignore any damage you would do and instead say you get him into the position you want.

Player: Okay, I got a 10. I tear the dagger out of the goblin's hand and press it against his neck, hard enough to push him down into the dirt. A bead of blood glistens along the blade.

Player: "Who the hell are you and why did you attack me?"

Typically my players don't get quite so flowery with their action descriptions. But other than that you could transplant that dialogue to any of a dozen rule systems and it could easily be a transcript from my table.

How are you playing D&D or Earthdawn that it looks so radically different to your eyes? Please be exact.

Quote from: daniel_ream;668305In the first case, the goal of the tale-teller is to entertain his friends with a funny, self-deprecating story.  In the second case, the goal of the tale-teller is to score.

It's the same person. The story is only funny in retrospect, and during the event in question there was no "story" whatsoever, only actions and consequences.

Quote from: Rincewind1;668254I've been in a Warhammer campaign where this was an assumed rule.

I would actually say in my immediate circle its pretty common with every roleplaying game. Even vampire we spent a godly amount of time in the gym training (which arguably makes no god damn sense at all).

Quote from: CRKrueger;668171So someone says DW isn't an RPG.  That's an incorrect criticism, but why do they feel that way?  What's happening that's making someone say it's not role-playing? Well, simply put, I think in many cases it's the core conflict resolution mechanic and the potentially OOC nature of many of the moves.  It doesn't feel like a game where you pretend you are a character in a living breathing world,  it feels like a game where you are controlling a character in a fictional story.  The incessant use of the word fiction instead of setting or world, completely reinforces that view, as does all the advice on plot structure as opposed to world-building.

Good stuff. My response to that is I don't find mechanics that include OOC engagement to be in and of itself antithetical to roleplaying, as the process inherently involves both the player and PC. In fact, my experiences suggest that there are benefits to roleplaying/IC engagement by engaging the player direct. As you will have noticed, I have a preference for and interest in mechanics that are IC in nature but engage the player OOC. Equally, I recognise that you can roleplay with very little OOC engagement. Its a matter of preference.

In DW, though I agree that OOC engagement is happening, it is possible (and easy) to maintain the perspectives that we associate with a traditional RPG experience. In DW, GMs have freedom and discretion to control the overall story and players focus on playing the role of their PCs. An example of this is GM Moves which speak to the GM direct for good effect, but the GM then undertakes his role in the usual RPGing manner.

I also agree that there are certainly games that usurp these perspectives and, FWIW, I dislike such attempts. Equally, I see lumping DW in with PTA is IMO inaccurate and equally unhelpful to this definition exercise.

Ultimately, I am just don't consider OOC engagement to be the dividing line for RPGing (traditional RPGs even). It can be a dividing line between narrative RPGs and simulation RPGs, sure, or other definitions which are accurate. I started RPGing in the early 80s and the trends and concepts here existed back then and were part and parcel of the RPGing experience. In the late 90s, there was an usurpation of the traditional RPG perspectives with story gaming and some of it was grounded on those earlier concepts. But now trying to rewrite history to excise these developments is where this exercise has lost traction for me. By trying to reduce the definition of RPGs (or traditional RPGs) to being just RPGs that have no OOC engagement (or simulation RPGs, if that's accurate), it feels like we are throwing out the baby out with the bath water and alienating RPGers. The battleline is established well in advance of where it needs to be.

Quote from: fuseboy;668250Johnson, that's very interesting: yes, I think it's worthwhile.

As you wrote this, I was halfway through writing out a list for myself of different modes of awareness - just as a way of giving myself a way of plotting how various mechanics encourage certain types of experiences.

For example, thinking about what you want, as a player is a different mode from thinking the desires of your greedy, cowardly character. Both of these are different from thinking about what's happening socially, (e.g. "John seems to be pissed at the GM,") and so on.

So, your comment made me realize that different people are distracted by different things.  I notice that - more than any mechanic - I'm much more likely to be distracted by something going on at the social level, whether as GM or player.  I find it's really important for me to be able to differentiate whether Cyril the Bloody's anger is from the character, or whether John (who is playing Cyril) is actually pissed off.

Similarly, as GM, while world-simulating mechanics (e.g. the faction stuff in Stars Without Number) tickle me pink, when I'm running that way, I get this creeping sense of doubt that it's entertaining to the players, and so I find OOC comments about player enjoyment really useful.

So, perhaps oddly, I find "immersion-breaking" mechanics that deal with these concerns (e.g. player flags) play a role in helping me immerse, since now that my need is taken care of, I can let go of those other concerns and sink into the character.

That's interesting. I've seen GMs confused by whether it was frustrated players or frustrated characters before, too - where it gets confusing is if the player is particularly identified with the character, they might actually be feeling angry, as the character (perhaps more accurately, the player is angry, but its a feeling which can be accepted as one of the character's feelings as well). Then again you might have someone who just portrays being angry without feeling it, depends on your friends.

QuoteSuperficially, quantitative damage is a bit like this.  When you take 9 hit points' damage, what's happened?  Did the spear go through your armor?  How far? Is there visible blood? The rules produce a number, and then you have to interpret that number.

I think it's less distracting for hit points because of a) familiarity, b) the fact that wound descriptions are non-authoritative.  The wounded fighter might now look pale and dizzy, but that's just transient color - when I go to heal him, I'm going to use Cure Serious Wounds or Cure Light Wounds based on the numerical damage, not the description.

On the other hand, when you do this for larger-scale matters (like a short fight sequence) it does put you in a different frame of mind, because it involves talking about the success and failure of the actions of others as well (they failed to dodge your 17 arrows).

I think more abstraction can make it harder for a player to engage a system, particularly if its unfamiliar its work to figure out what it means. If all the mechanics are grinding away producing a result without much fiction being required, there can be a tendency to just ignore it (roll to hit, roll damage, how many hit points does he have left, etc).

QuoteCute! To me, this relates to different modes of thought (player prefernces vs. character preferences).  As a player going into a game, I have preferences about who I play, and about the opposition I face. Sometimes they're intertwined, like if I suggest we play a band of vampire hunters.  The player and character preferences are clearly different things when the game is being established, otherwise zombie survival RPGs wouldn't exist.

Players have different preferences for how far apart those two modes have to be.  Some players prefer to have as little input as possible into the opposition, which I think is about immersing in the character as soon as possible. Other players don't mind being aware of and expressing their player preferences while the game is underway.

A lot of zombie survival RPGs often seem designed more as comedies, but yeah I get your point that choices in play are still limited if the player's can only modify the initial worldbuilding. The vampire hunter example is interesting in that while it was a player choice of problem, it was something they couldn't have avoided adding to the world, while keeping that character, so there is no shortcut.
I'm pondering now how other aspects of character generation impact in-character goals, incidentally...I think having backgrounds like, say, Resources in White Wolf, may tend to discourage characters from being money-grubbing.

Having played butt loads of ODnD, ADnD and DW I don't find much difference in my ability to pretend to be a living character in a living world. There's IC stuff and OC stuff in about equal proportion. There is a little difference as to when the OC comes up. Often in DnD you go OC to decide between choices of action. In DW, a few of the moves offer choices among outcomes. That's about the biggest difference.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;668359That's interesting. I've seen GMs confused by whether it was frustrated players or frustrated characters before, too - where it gets confusing is if the player is particularly identified with the character, they might actually be feeling angry, as the character (perhaps more accurately, the player is angry, but its a feeling which can be accepted as one of the character's feelings as well). Then again you might have someone who just portrays being angry without feeling it, depends on your friends.

In this vein I'm mostly watching for how a player's emotional state affects how they play their character.  In particular emotional reactions to outside events (e.g. anger about a shitty day at work, some level of resentment or grudge against another player, etc.) I'm not interested in a game influenced by that baggage.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;668359I'm pondering now how other aspects of character generation impact in-character goals, incidentally...I think having backgrounds like, say, Resources in White Wolf, may tend to discourage characters from being money-grubbing.

Say more about that?

Quote from: fuseboy;668418Say more about that?

Oh well this is completely off topic, but similarly to the worldbuilding, why work hard for what you could get for free at chargen?. A world of darkness character could opt to start as a penniless murderhobo with resources zero or CEO of a multinational corporation with Resources ***** fairly easily, so to me at least it seems that building a character who wants to work their way up from hobohood to CEO would be a bad idea. Like climbing a mountain when there happens to be a chairlift going to the top.
I guess this could be just a thing unique to me rather to true of everyone, though. I'm not necessarily condemning Resources as a bad thing, either: there are, equally, lots of character concepts that can't be done without starting resources (from alchemists who own their own shops to Batman) so I guess its a matter of preference.

Quote from: Noclue;668368Having played butt loads of ODnD, ADnD and DW I don't find much difference in my ability to pretend to be a living character in a living world. There's IC stuff and OC stuff in about equal proportion. There is a little difference as to when the OC comes up. Often in DnD you go OC to decide between choices of action. In DW, a few of the moves offer choices among outcomes. That's about the biggest difference.

My experience, as well.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;668307Okay, I'll bite. What exactly do you see in this fake description of play that you would consider "not an RPG"?

DM: A goblin lunges out of a shadowy corner howling bloody murder!

Player: I'll sidestep the goblin and try and get behind it. I roll Dodge. I got an 8.

DM: You dodge, but not fast enough. You escape the dagger blow, collide with the goblin and fall to the ground.

Player: I'll wrestle the dagger away from the goblin and then hold it to his throat. Strength check?

DM: Yeah, but since you're not trying to hurt him we'll ignore any damage you would do and instead say you get him into the position you want.

Player: Okay, I got a 10. I tear the dagger out of the goblin's hand and press it against his neck, hard enough to push him down into the dirt. A bead of blood glistens along the blade.

Player: "Who the hell are you and why did you attack me?"

Typically my players don't get quite so flowery with their action descriptions. But other than that you could transplant that dialogue to any of a dozen rule systems and it could easily be a transcript from my table.

How are you playing D&D or Earthdawn that it looks so radically different to your eyes? Please be exact.

Well, assuming you are talking about Dungeon World here, how about we be "exact" with your description first?

A player avoiding an attack is using what move in your example?  If it's Defy Danger, then technically your response as GM is incorrect.  With an 8 on Defy Danger, you should have offered the player either a Worse Outcome, Hard Bargain, or Ugly Choice.  You told the player what happened, you did not give them the option of choosing.  It's easy to say DW offers no narrative control when you purposely avoid it - playing the Defy RAW move I guess. If you did something else besides Defy Danger there, let me know.

Also, what move is the player using to pin the Goblin and put a blade to his throat?

Let's not forget no initiative system (which worked GREAT in actual play, let me tell you /sarcasm off), being unable to have two characters with the same class, and picking your character's name from a predefined list, along with a lot of very odd and very arbitrary rules, all tied up in a bunch of predefined actions/conditions to declare.

Whatever it is, I just didn't find it to be a very good game. I think at the time I remarked it was akin to a recipe for chocolate cake by a person who had heard of, but never quite tasted, chocolate cake.

EDIT: I guess, bottom line, if the uninitiated are expecting some classic gaming experience, they should know it's a big departure from a lot of the conventions you might expect.