Quote from: CRKrueger;973079Well, to be fair, the games that produced all player-facing rolls didn't come out of a design philosophy dedicated to making GM's lives easier.  That's why YOU like it.  These games came out of the Forge/Indie philosophy, which as we talked about in another thread, was a backlash against the metaplot and GM Story Railroads of the 90s.  The whole point was giving players more power through OOC mechanics, and in many cases actually limiting GM power.

I dont know whether I like it or not. I like the design philosophy, which focuses on simplicity, speed, and flexibility. There's no story mechanics in it, but if there were, it wouldn't scare me, because I ran the DW campaign, which did have them, and I did not feel less empowered at all. This simply looks like a flipped mechanic.

QuoteTo people who never ran GM Story Railroads, and know how to GM, these mechanical corrections weren't and aren't needed as our players never lacked freedom to control their character AS their character.

Sure. But BH doesn't seem to be making any attempts at correcting anything. It just uses a d20-based, CoC mechanic, and gives players all the rolls.

I appreciate that you feel the need to chime in to explain why Pundit is being an asshole, but, really, there's no need. Why don't we just leave it as "he's a fucking asshole who can't handle other games real people play" and assess the actual thread question, rather than troll down the corridors of supposed threats detected by Herr Pundit's overzealous Gestapo-mechanism? You say the mechanical mode has a "feel" you don't dig. I get that. But it's just not a story game. And this discussion is really all about whether someone prefers to roll the dice or not. It's been blown out of proportion by the fundamentalist Cardinal of Uruguay, who fancies himself as a free speech advocate (but one who hates those who actually say the words).

Quote from: CRKruegerWell, to be fair, the games that produced all player-facing rolls didn't come out of a design philosophy dedicated to making GM's lives easier. That's why YOU like it. These games came out of the Forge/Indie philosophy, which as we talked about in another thread, was a backlash against the metaplot and GM Story Railroads of the 90s. The whole point was giving players more power through OOC mechanics, and in many cases actually limiting GM power.

That's impossible for anyone to say. There's a bazillion different games that use the "player-facing" concept: The Black Hack, Cinematic Unisystem, Numenera, Amber, Symbaroum, Blades in the Dark, Dread, Apocalypse World, etc. If you didn't asked each author about that, there's no way to precise the reason each one adopted it.

Quote from: Itachi;974150That's impossible for anyone to say. There's a bazillion different games that use the "player-facing" concept: The Black Hack, Cinematic Unisystem, Numenera, Amber, Symbaroum, Blades in the Dark, Dread, Apocalypse World, etc. If you didn't asked each author about that, there's no way to precise the reason each one adopted it.

Which is why I didn't say why any one particular author adopted it, just that the idea didn't come out of a group brainstorming to try to reduce GM's load in mass combats. The games that use them are also those with OOC narrative mechanics or link back to the Forge, again, to explain the Pundit Aggro.

Please tell me we're not going to do the whole "System Matters - except when we're arguing on theRPGSite" thing again.  God that's tiring.

(Also Amber is diceless, no one rolls, and relies mostly on GM-Fiat, so attempting to lump it in as "player-facing" is either trolling Pundit, who you're not replying to, demonstrates lack of knowledge of Amber, or is a deliberate falsehood.)

But some of those games' authors may have adopted the concept for the reason of "speeding up the game and liberating the GM". That's my point. Whatever the historical context the concept appeared, we can't precise what purpose each author had in mind when using it subsequently, which makes Cranebump reasons as valid as anyone.

And some of those games work as much in-character as D&D (as much as a game of let's pretend where you play polyhedrons to decide actions allows one to stay in-character, that is ), so I don't see how the concept is inherently linked to out-of-characterness.

Quote from: Itachi;974174But some of those games' authors may have adopted the concept for the reason of "speeding up the game and liberating the GM". That's my point. Whatever the historical context the concept appeared, we can't precise what purpose each author had in mind when using it subsequently, which makes Cranebump reasons as valid as anyone.

And some of those games work as much in-character as D&D (as much as a game of let's pretend where you play polyhedrons to decide actions allows one to stay in-character, that is), so I don't see how the concept is inherently linked to out-of-characterness.

As someone who likes narrative aspects in RPGs, I hope you're aware that your definition of what interferes with IC-immersion is going to differ with mine.

BTW..coincidence check...

Anyone who doesn't like OOC or narrative elements at all feel like jumping in and saying how much they like "players roll"?

That kind of person is unlikely to play any new systems at all or be open to anything 'different' mechanically. We have posters here on the forum praising others for half-assedly dismissing games so they can continue to ignore anything made after 1988.

And didn't we establish earlier in this thread that the player rolling approach prefigured the herectical and decadent Forge by many years? So these ideas existed long before the Forge embraced them and can be used today for many reasons.

Not that I consider the supposed reason the Forge embraced it some terrible thing, course there's been no evidence presented to prove that that was the reason they did it either. I'm sure different designers found different reasons that they liked it.

In terms of the nominal subject at hand, TBH, I'm not really taken with the played-rolls approach per se. I didn't even consider it that significant as the game is pretty much a minimalist version of D&D. The kind of fury such a mechanical change can evoke certainly seems all out of proportion.

As I said earlier if a newbie was introduced to TBH I highly doubt they'd find the player rolls approach even remotely disruptive. It is only decades of habit that make us feel it as something that novel.

Quote from: Itachi;974150That's impossible for anyone to say. There's a bazillion different games that use the "player-facing" concept: The Black Hack, Cinematic Unisystem, Numenera, Amber, Symbaroum, Blades in the Dark, Dread, Apocalypse World, etc. If you didn't asked each author about that, there's no way to precise the reason each one adopted it.

It's also an optional rule in Unearthed Arcana for D&D 3.5, and it's explicitly stated as being a way of speeding up combat for the DM.

Quote from: CRKrueger;974177BTW..coincidence check...

Anyone who doesn't like OOC or narrative elements at all feel like jumping in and saying how much they like "players roll"?

Well, we've been immersion advocates, "soldiers in the trenches" as it were, on this forum and elsewhere for years. I just found Black Hack does what I've been doing for years when I brain fatigue mid-game. (Usually after food break. I blame digestion stealing precious bloodflow! ) I'd tell a player to roll for me out in the open, or behind a screen to dramatically reveal after my GM narrative translation, and we'd move on. Worked really well when I'd feel a migraine or low blood sugar coming on and I needed to wrap up a scene.

So this just formalizes this player-forward technique I've been using into a full system core of its own. It still seems to retain all the GM flexibility to deviate and adjudicate as before. In fact, the PVP question is a good example where the system says nothing proscriptive -- and it's all about GM deviation and adjudication.

Quote from: CRKrueger;974177BTW..coincidence check...

Anyone who doesn't like OOC or narrative elements at all feel like jumping in and saying how much they like "players roll"?

I am not as earnest in my dislike of those things as you are, but my play style definitely tends to avoid them. With player rolls, while I haven't played the black hack, I have done exactly what Opaopajr says and had players roll things purely to save time or brain energy on my end when the session has gone on for a long time or when there is simply so much going on, I can use the free brain space to focus on other things. My impression from this thread, is a lot of people like the black hack mechanics for its time saving qualities. Though again, I haven't played the game so no idea how it is in practice.

When it comes to games that do have player facing mechanics, I am not opposed to them on principle. But I will admit, it seems a little it would take me getting used to simply because I am more accustomed to games where the players roll for their stuff and I roll for my stuff (and any time that doesn't happen has been an exception used to save time but not the normal approach to play). So I don't think player facing would disrupt my sense of immersion as much as it would just be weird for me. I imagine I would get used to it over time.

I do wonder about Player Versus player though and how that is handled in those system. That would be my first concern.

Brendan and Opa: True, every GM has had players roll for stuff because he was busy, fried, tired, whatever, but the player was still rolling for the Orc...

I'll agree rolling for an NPC is certainly more disruptive to IC-Immersion for the player than rolling their own defense on a roll-by-roll basis.

But the normal symmetry between PC and NPC remained, and still does, and probably still will, at your table, right?

Quote from: Voros;974180That kind of person is unlikely to play any new systems at all or be open to anything 'different' mechanically. We have posters here on the forum praising others for half-assedly dismissing games so they can continue to ignore anything made after 1988.

And didn't we establish earlier in this thread that the player rolling approach prefigured the herectical and decadent Forge by many years? So these ideas existed long before the Forge embraced them and can be used today for many reasons.

Not that I consider the supposed reason the Forge embraced it some terrible thing, course there's been no evidence presented to prove that that was the reason they did it either. I'm sure different designers found different reasons that they liked it.

In terms of the nominal subject at hand, TBH, I'm not really taken with the played-rolls approach per se. I didn't even consider it that significant as the game is pretty much a minimalist version of D&D. The kind of fury such a mechanical change can evoke certainly seems all out of proportion.

As I said earlier if a newbie was introduced to TBH I highly doubt they'd find the player rolls approach even remotely disruptive. It is only decades of habit that make us feel it as something that novel.

This. Thanks for expressing my thoughts better then myself, Voros.

Quote from: CRKrueger;974307But the normal symmetry between PC and NPC remained, and still does, and probably still will, at your table, right?

I think I missed much of this conversation; can you clarify what you mean by symmetry between NPC and PC (just want to make sure I understand how it relates to this).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;974330I think I missed much of this conversation; can you clarify what you mean by symmetry between NPC and PC (just want to make sure I understand how it relates to this).

The rules for actions function similarly.

For Example:If the rules state that for casting a spell, the caster rolls damage and the Target makes the saving throw, like in D&D, then that is true whether the Caster and Target are PC or NPC.

PC Caster, NPC Target = PC rolls damage, NPC Saves
NPC Caster, PC Target = NPC rolls damage, PC Saves.

Quote from: CRKrueger;974370The rules for actions function similarly.

For Example:If the rules state that for casting a spell, the caster rolls damage and the Target makes the saving throw, like in D&D, then that is true whether the Caster and Target are PC or NPC.

PC Caster, NPC Target = PC rolls damage, NPC Saves
NPC Caster, PC Target = NPC rolls damage, PC Saves.

I have to split for my Monday game in a minute so I may miss something in my response here (if so it is because I in a rush).

I don't think this is something I've genuinely worried about too much since the transition to 3E and 4E so I am just attempting to figure out whether this actually comes up in my WHOG sessions (which is the only game I am running right now). I do have a few time saving techniques that probably get into this territory. Ideally that isn't what i am doing, but sometimes I find it a necessity. For example when there are large scale battles involving thirty NPCs, I won't have them roll individually unless they are fighting a player character. Otherwise I just asking each a value and have them roll off against each other to save time. Similarly, if I am in a real rush to make an NPC and it fights with a PC, I may just assign a vague attack value and damage value, rather than get into its individual abilities. Similarly when I am making NPCs I have two methods. For characters that are important, I make them just like PC, but for more minor characters when I often do a condensed stat block and back all their special abilities right into the entry. This would be like making a wizard on the fly but inventing all their spells in small little entries below the stats so you don't have to go looking things up or remember anything during play (you just have those abilities you made whole cloth for that character). Again though, mainly these are time saving devices I use. The core system still functions the same, but there are corners where PCs and NPCs are operating differently.