Quote from: Benoist;606257I know, but they are still narrative in nature, and narrativism in RPGs gives me seizures. I don't play a role playing game to be the co-author of anything. I play to immerse myself in the game world.

Now, I'm going to take objection with Toon. Toon by not allowing PC death is actually emulative of the source fiction, where characters are flattened like crepes and take pianos on the head without dying - that's the reality in which the toon characters live. Now I will agree that the Edge spend to buy a death back to a severe wound is similar to what we're talking about here, albeit this seems here in Tenra Bansho to go much farther than that, that is, in Shadowrun's case the basic rule is that you die, and the Edge spend bends that rule, whereas in TB's case the basic rule is that you never die, and the player decision to have the character take a risk bends it.

Well, I think the rule we're discussing is emulation, in the sense that it's a rare genre of fiction where protagonists can die in unimportant fights (and not just anime).  I think the genius behind this rule -- and where it's more elegant than mere "fluke roll insurance" -- is that it inherently incentivizes taking that risk and behaving heroically.  

I respect you don't dig stuff along these lines, but there's not a lot of baggage here for me.  It's a pretty elegant little twist -- I could see using it for something like Rogue Trader, L5R or Spycraft, but not CoC, Unhallowed Metropolis or Warhammer FRP.

Quote from: Benoist;606264So the game is an anime emulator, in fact.

It has genre emulating mechanics in it, yeah.

The Death Box is as much a genre emulator as the initiative order in Dr Who is, and both are ultimate a decision by players i.e. in Dr Who your PC can always go first if he chooses to talk.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606224For one thing, those seem to explicitly be benchmarks for examining a theory and not an RPG.

That's correct.  Those are guidelines for framing theories about games, not for judging games themselves.  That said, you can infer from that a set of Landmarks of what would define a game as a Regular RPG or not.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606238It's not, as others have stated, based on any kind of Forgeist philosophy, although I can't claim to know what's been introduced by the translators in the course of translation.  The game was originally released in 1997, on another continent, as part of a gaming culture that's never heard of our weird philosophical debates.

I'm not trying to be flippant or dismissive -- as a purely cultural artifact of the Japanese gaming culture, it's an interesting book, because the author was ahead of his time in some ways (and a product of his time in others -- it's clearly a product of the same era that gave us TORG and RIFTS and other multi-genre games).  And, the translators have gone to great lengths to explain portions of the book that veer from our cultural touchstones, such as "cafe gaming" or the significance of 108 when it comes to the karma system, or the choice of terms.

If you find some clay pots from a pre-christian era, you can't accuse them of having a Christian fundamentalist agenda.  But if the people presenting said pots are trying to use the to claim that the earth was created in 6 days 6000 years ago, you can still question the spin and motivations said "archeologists" have got going, and whether their translation of the writing on said pots (or the interpretation of the same) is trustworthy.

At the very least, you can assume they're doing what they're doing not so much out of concern about the culture and love of archeology as they are doing it to try to prove their wacky theories for the sake of their religious cult.

RPGpundit

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;606239Orthdodox Forgeites, IMO, wouldn't like TBZ.

And yet, several of them do. Several of them have come onto theRPGsite to gush about how great it is. Some of them are the ones who have actually translated it.

So you see the conundrum.. either your opinion isn't worth much or there's some fishy motives going on somewhere.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Skywalker;606263Yes, its according to genre. In many of the anime that inspire TBZ (and many fantasy stories), death is only present as a risk if something the character believes is at stake.

I think you're misunderstanding emulation here; in TOON, its emulation that elmer fudd doesn't die, even if a shotgun blows up in his face, because that's how the "physics" (to use the term very loosely) of that reality works.  There are occasional exceptions to this where the character is turned into a little angelic version of themselves floating up to heaven with a halo and a harp, possibly only to have their ghost get shot or blown up too; but the very next episode they're back and alive.

In Gundam or Macross or whatever, its assumed the world is one where the physics of the world are such that people DO in fact die. That death is a reality of the physics; and that characters who die in ep.41 of the series do not come back in episode 44, unless they had never actually really died at all.
So the idea that characters don't die "meaninglessly" is not a matter of emulation of the genre-world, its just a literary conceit, necessary if you are TELLING A STORY, but not necessary or desirable in the least if you are PLAYING A ROLEPLAYING GAME.

See what I did there?

RPGPundit

Quote from: Skywalker;606267It has genre emulating mechanics in it, yeah.

The Death Box is as much a genre emulator as the initiative order in Dr Who is, and both are ultimate a decision by players i.e. in Dr Who your PC can always go first if he chooses to talk.

I contributed the initiative order to Doctor Who. I based it on the initiative ordering system in the Rules Cyclopedia of D&D. I laugh my ass off every time Swine have praised it since.  Its a classic example of Story Swine misappropriation, and this is my own special little case of entrapment to prove it.  So thanks!

The difference, so you see, is that in the Doctor Who RPG, a blast from a Dalek raygun will kill you. No matter who you are.  You might be able to dodge with action-points, but if you are out of them or fail your dodge, you're dead. You don't get to choose if you're dead or not because you're supposed to be Sgt. Benton and Sgt. Benton didn't die in the show.

I would have no problem with a mechanical system that really WAS emulative, including one where you fight better while injured in exchange for a higher risk of death; if the thing wasn't set up so that you can't die from a stupid meaningless wound you bleed out from, or get blown up in a pointless battle because you couldn't pull out from a blast fast enough (both of which are deaths of major characters in Macross, by the by); and mainly, because of the notion that if you drop to 0 vitality someone still can't kill you by saying "I pump three bullets into his unconscious fucking skull" because you can just say "nuh uh! I CHOOSE not to die, and you can't kill be because I'm a story-relevant character!".

That's the moment it stops being an RPG and starts being a Storygame.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;606362I contributed the initiative order to Doctor Who. I based it on the initiative ordering system in the Rules Cyclopedia of D&D. I laugh my ass off every time Swine have praised it since.  Its a classic example of Story Swine misappropriation, and this is my own special little case of entrapment to prove it.  So thanks!

I am well aware the mechanic is attributed to you, that you sourced it from the Rules Cyclopedia (which, by your own admission, as origin has no bearing on the true nature of what a mechanic is) and that you claim it to be a genre emulation mechanic.

The point that I was hoping to provoke from you was the distinction between the two mechanics.  So thanks for obliging me. In Dr Who, I could go up against the faster person in the world, but if I want my PC to go first, all I need to choose is for the PC to talk. You claim that is genre emulation as it somehow reflects the physics of the world.

I fail to see the distinction you attempt to make with the Death Box, as the fact that the mechanic applies to death rather than order of action is irrelevant in determining the nature of the mechanic. They both arise from the conceits of the genre on which the RPGs are based on.

Quote from: RPGPundit;606360I think you're misunderstanding emulation here; in TOON, its emulation that elmer fudd doesn't die, even if a shotgun blows up in his face, because that's how the "physics" (to use the term very loosely) of that reality works.  There are occasional exceptions to this where the character is turned into a little angelic version of themselves floating up to heaven with a halo and a harp, possibly only to have their ghost get shot or blown up too; but the very next episode they're back and alive.

In Gundam or Macross or whatever, its assumed the world is one where the physics of the world are such that people DO in fact die. That death is a reality of the physics; and that characters who die in ep.41 of the series do not come back in episode 44, unless they had never actually really died at all.
So the idea that characters don't die "meaninglessly" is not a matter of emulation of the genre-world, its just a literary conceit, necessary if you are TELLING A STORY, but not necessary or desirable in the least if you are PLAYING A ROLEPLAYING GAME.

See what I did there?

RPGPundit

Not really, because those literary conceits are elements of what is called genre.  Macross is not A Game of Thrones.  The hot young pilot does not die from a bullet wound or in a dogfight with a mook.  Just because people do die that way in that setting doesn't mean that you're emulating the heroic action genre by allowing protagonists to do so. (For a similar example, Dorian Hawkmoon does not get killed by shield-carriers, but his companion Oladahn certainly does.) In that sense, TBZ is emulating basic modern action genre principles, and not just acting as some kind of weird storygame sleeper cell.  

To demonstrate this, one need only look at a dozen other RPGs which are trying to ape basic heroic dramatic principles which also allow PCs (read: protagonists) to shrug off death if it comes at what the player deems is an undramatic moment, and which are emphatically not story games. TBZ takes it a step further in some interesting ways -- the reverse death spiral, the two methods of receiving damage, the incentives for staking one's PC's life on important battles -- but honestly, there's nothing in this game that's too different than anything that mainstream RPGs have been working toward for two decades.

 Yes, there are genres where protagonists get killed by a small-but-vicious dog or a knife in the back from spear-carrier #3, but that's not the genre that most RPGs are trying to emulate, and in that, again, TBZ is hardly exceptional.  If anything, TBZ is a potential step forward in trad gaming design, at least insofar as the heroic genre is concerned.

Quote from: Benoist;606262Not enough. I actually had no idea whatever the fuck you were talking about reading this.

You somehow attempted to make the argument that a metagame mechanic cannot do genre emulation. Which was pretty daft of you if we're perfectly honest.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606366Not really, because those literary conceits are elements of what is called genre.  Macross is not A Game of Thrones.  The hot young pilot does not die from a bullet wound or in a dogfight with a mook.  Just because people do die that way in that setting doesn't mean that you're emulating the heroic action genre by allowing protagonists to do so. (For a similar example, Dorian Hawkmoon does not get killed by shield-carriers, but his companion Oladahn certainly does.) In that sense, TBZ is emulating basic modern action genre principles, and not just acting as some kind of weird storygame sleeper cell.

In a proper RPG, there is no such thing as a "protagonist" because there is no genre convention shielding characters from the lawful consequences of their actions.  Hot Young Pilot can, and will if he's too reckless, get punked out like a bitch by a mook in a proper RPG because he has no Drama/Plot Armor.

QuoteTo demonstrate this, one need only look at a dozen other RPGs which are trying to ape basic heroic dramatic principles which also allow PCs (read: protagonists) to shrug off death if it comes at what the player deems is an undramatic moment, and which are emphatically not story games. TBZ takes it a step further in some interesting ways -- the reverse death spiral, the two methods of receiving damage, the incentives for staking one's PC's life on important battles -- but honestly, there's nothing in this game that's too different than anything that mainstream RPGs have been working toward for two decades.

Most of those games are crap, which is why they don't endure like D&D has.  A key draw for proper RPGs is "I can do better than that.", and you can't fill that need if you shield players from failure like this.  Far better to be honest, let their guys get ganked (or worse), and learn from the experience than to coddle them as if they were toddlers unable to cope with losing a game via some crap mechanic--usually metagame, which is worse--that's insufficiently or incompetently designed to do so.

QuoteYes, there are genres where protagonists get killed by a small-but-vicious dog or a knife in the back from spear-carrier #3, but that's not the genre that most RPGs are trying to emulate, and in that, again, TBZ is hardly exceptional.  If anything, TBZ is a potential step forward in trad gaming design, at least insofar as the heroic genre is concerned.

And the best examples in such source materials are those where those things do happen; it's why Legend of the Galactic Heroes is one of the best anime series ever made, and why so much is utterly boring-as-fuck bullshit.

Proper RPG? Oh my.

Quote from: Skywalker;606365I am well aware the mechanic is attributed to you, that you sourced it from the Rules Cyclopedia (which, by your own admission, as origin has no bearing on the true nature of what a mechanic is) and that you claim it to be a genre emulation mechanic.

The point that I was hoping to provoke from you was the distinction between the two mechanics.  So thanks for obliging me. In Dr Who, I could go up against the faster person in the world, but if I want my PC to go first, all I need to choose is for the PC to talk. You claim that is genre emulation as it somehow reflects the physics of the world.

I fail to see the distinction you attempt to make with the Death Box, as the fact that the mechanic applies to death rather than order of action is irrelevant in determining the nature of the mechanic. They both arise from the conceits of the genre on which the RPGs are based on.

In Doctor Who, people who do the talking go first. After they're done talking, if a Dalek shoots them, they die.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Future Villain Band;606366Not really, because those literary conceits are elements of what is called genre.  Macross is not A Game of Thrones.  The hot young pilot does not die from a bullet wound or in a dogfight with a mook.  Just because people do die that way in that setting doesn't mean that you're emulating the heroic action genre by allowing protagonists to do so. (For a similar example, Dorian Hawkmoon does not get killed by shield-carriers, but his companion Oladahn certainly does.) In that sense, TBZ is emulating basic modern action genre principles, and not just acting as some kind of weird storygame sleeper cell.  

Right yes, just like how Roy Fokker and Ben Dixon died in totally meaningful ways in that series, which was clearly not about the meaningless horrors of war. Total genre emulation going on there.

But seriously, your argument is meaningless, because if we're emulating PROTAGONISTS OF A STORY, that's not a genre. That's just a literary technique. By your logic, because Drrzt doesn't die in the Salvatore novels, no D&D character should ever die either; and because Captain Kirk doesn't die from a random klingon disruptor blast, no character should ever die that way in any sci-fi game.

You're not, at this point, talking about emulating genre at all, you're talking about emulating literature; which is to say, you're trying to use a meaningless position to try to sneak in Storygaming through the back door.
Since its an established Landmark of RPGs that they are not meant to have "creation of story" as their main goal, your point is invalid.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;606396In Doctor Who, people who do the talking go first. After they're done talking, if a Dalek shoots them, they die.

You are putting an emphasis on the concept of death being the defining characteristic here, but I am not seeing why the subject of the mechanics matters. It's the nature and goal of the mechanics that count. In this the Death Box and the Action Order are nt significantly different.

You do seem to agree that the Action Order mechanic in Dr Who is based on how the genre conceits play out in the Dr Who stories. But you don't suggest that the characters in Dr Who actually move faster when talking. As such, it's driven by genre and not physics of the world in which Dr Who stories take place. The Death Box is identical to that.