Or...we can talk about Pathfinder RPG...

CSI 4E

Quote from: Nightfall;388826How about we discuss how NF is trying to convert people to d20 Scarred Lands and/or Pathfinder RPG?

I wouldn't be caught dead going back to anything resembling 3.5E D&D at this point. If I was to go back to an earlier edition, it would be a medium-heavy houseruled version of 2E based on 1E's heavy metal aesthetic.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;388827To me, the most important aspect of 4E in what we are discussing here is its cinematic nature. 4E PCs are action heroes, modeled on video games, anime, and modern action cinema. When you look at it through that lens it works really well. The mechanics might technically be dissociative, but the genres it aims to emulate deemphasize the how of things, and are completely unconcerned with how or why things happen. The little details of the game world, and the inner workings are less important than the action at hand, and this is a conscious stylistic choice. The term "suspension of disbelief" comes into play here. You are playing a hero, and a hero that can perform deeds beyond the ability of ordinary mortals, and for whom violence and special abilities are the go-to options.

When what you want from a game is not cinematic action, 4E isn't that good of a game, particularly because unlike earlier editions of D&D 4E is focused like a laser on what it aims to do. Most criticisms of 4E that I read I put under the category "judging 4E to fit a standard other than what it was specifically designed to be".

When the aim is cinematic action, I can't see any game being able to top 4E from an immersive standpoint. A lot of what people in this thread have described as "immersive" would be out of place and detract from the experience in a game based on cinematic action. Playing earlier editions of D&D and other systems while holding cinematic action as an ideal, I found this to be the case.

I think that's a pretty good description of things. Not only is this not a new argument, I think it's been about a very narrow band view of "realism" all along.

Quote from: ggroy;388829CSI 4E

Anyone playing anything other than d6 NCIS is a pervert and threat to society.

Also on an interesting note:

After the announcement of 4E, I soured on 3.5E and got to the point where it caused me physical pain to run it. I scrapped the campaign, and we started playing the original Dragonlance modules using 2E AD&D. When 4E was launched, we translated the game into 4E, and the level of immersion in the game increased. We transferred the game while in ruined Sylvanesti, and it was the 4E half of that module that people are still traumatized by. 4E did a better job of instilling a feeling of horror than 2E did.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;388833After the announcement of 4E, I soured on 3.5E and got to the point where it caused me physical pain to run it.

I was completely burned out playing d20/3.5E by then.  My last 3.5E campaign was almost finished anyways, and wrapped up by early 2008.

These days I won't DM 3.5E/Pathfinder.  Though I'll still play it, for an evening pickup or a weekend convention game.

Quote from: ggroy;388834I was completely burned out playing d20/3.5E by then.  My last 3.5E campaign was almost finished anyways, and wrapped up by early 2008.

These days I won't DM 3.5E/Pathfinder.  Though I'll still play it, for an evening pickup or a weekend convention game.

I liked D&D3.5 fine, but that also means I found no need whatsoever to buy the entire game over again out of some strange solidarity ploy. That said, I don't see myself running or playing it again anytime soon.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;388835I liked D&D3.5 fine, but that also means I found no need whatsoever to buy the entire game over again out of some strange solidarity ploy. That said, I don't see myself running or playing it again anytime soon.

There are certain things I do like in 3.5E. Psychic Warrior, Book of 9 Swords, and Warlocks for example. The fact that I wouldn't want to play 3.5E without these things would make me more inclined to stick with the existing 3.5E system than trying to mesh them with Pathfinder. Pathfinder just doesn't do enough to justify the conversion of non-OGL 3.5E features. Not in the absence of the desire for solidarity or to play a living game. This is speaking hypothetically, since like you I don't see myself running or playing it again anytime soon.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;388835I liked D&D3.5 fine, but that also means I found no need whatsoever to buy the entire game over again out of some strange solidarity ploy. That said, I don't see myself running or playing it again anytime soon.

Same here.  Didn't see much point in buying the Pathfinder core rulebooks, which I'll probably never be using.

Only Pathfinder stuff I picked up, were some of the adventure paths and Golarion setting books before the Pathfinder core books were released.  It was largely to mine for campaign ideas for the 4E game I was DM'ing at the time.  The WotC 4E modules were kinda crappy at the time.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;388822To pluck up a topic that got lost under the trolling:

What are people's thoughts on the usefulness of distinguishing between "roleplaying games" (in which associated mechanics specifically require the players to make decisions as if they were their characters) and "storytelling games" (in which dissociated mechanics put the players in a more authorial position of controlling the story beyond the boundaries of any particular character)?

And if the two sorts of mechanics are employed in the same game, is it more useful to blur the boundaries between the two? Or create a sharp distinction between the "in character" stuff and the "authorial" stuff?

I think the distinction, when made by the designer, might help in terms of helping identify games that coincide with their interests/preferences, but as for combining the techniques, I think just how blurry it gets is a matter of preference (kind of like how some video games shift rigidly between genre "modes", and others make it so that the elements are all woven together neatly into one whole).

The problem right now is that a lot of games that teeter on the edge still identify themselves as RPGs, and the distinction isn't being used in a useful way so much as a way to distance "things I don't like" from "things I do like."

This thread is now the exposed, frozen core of an atmosphere-stripped ancient gas supergiant orbiting a black dwarf star in a dead galaxy.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;388869This thread is now the exposed, frozen core of an atmosphere-stripped ancient gas supergiant orbiting a black dwarf star in a dead galaxy.

That's pretty insulting to all the exposed, frozen cores of atmosphere-stripped ancient gas supergiants orbiting black dwarf stars in dead galaxies.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;388869This thread is now the exposed, frozen core of an atmosphere-stripped ancient gas supergiant orbiting a black dwarf star in a dead galaxy.

Quote from: jeff37923;388875That's pretty insulting to all the exposed, frozen cores of atmosphere-stripped ancient gas supergiants orbiting black dwarf stars in dead galaxies.

Of which, there appears to be a metric fuckton

Quote from: Justin Alexander;388822To pluck up a topic that got lost under the trolling:

What are people's thoughts on the usefulness of distinguishing between "roleplaying games" (in which associated mechanics specifically require the players to make decisions as if they were their characters) and "storytelling games" (in which dissociated mechanics put the players in a more authorial position of controlling the story beyond the boundaries of any particular character)?

And if the two sorts of mechanics are employed in the same game, is it more useful to blur the boundaries between the two? Or create a sharp distinction between the "in character" stuff and the "authorial" stuff?

Disregarding the self admitted troll is probably a good idea, yeah.

As for the distinction between "roleplaying" and "storytelling" - I think that any role playing game worth its salt is going to include both. In games with GMs, the GM pretty much has to take on a full authorial hat most of the time. But the players have to do that too, at least during chargen. While there are a couple of lifepath based character generators out there which are played through entirely in the first person - those are rare. And deservedly so in my opinion.

Every player at the table is going to be making some declarations about the world from an authorial standpoint. At the very least, the declaration that their character (and by extension their family and associates) exist. And honestly I don't think that making a few more authorial declarations would be an impediment to immersive roleplaying. Quite the opposite in fact. Having some authorial control of the world allows you to act as you imagine your character acting without being pulled out of the action to ask someone else to make up details about the world so that you can try to resculpt your character in light of the new information.

With some authorial power you as the player can just keep going, and when it comes time for you to hit a blank spot of your character's history or the area around them, you can just fill that in and then, here's the important part, keep going. Immersing yourself in a character role benefits enormously from a noticeable amount of authorial control. Roleplaying and Storytelling elements are not in conflict, they support one another.

-Frank