Quote from: Phillip;766348I feel pretty confident in saying that for most people, keeping things straightforwardly similar to what they already know is the best course. What they already know is that in real life, acting out personal eccentricities does not tend to improve technical performance unless there is in fact some sort of cause and effect relationship.

One does not exhibit one's character -- especially aspects regarded as flaws -- in order to get a benefit handout from a magic vending machine that miraculously grants success in unrelated endeavors!

One acts in character because it is one's character. In a game of let's pretend, one chooses a given persona because it is fun!

If it's not fun, if it's like being required to eat brussels sprouts  in order to get something else, then WTF would you want to force it on your friends in a social engagement the whole point of which is entertainment?!

But if you are encouraged to do it by a magical vending machine reward , like eating vegetables so you can have ice cream later, you might end up actually liking vegetables....

The biggest barrier to enjoying anything is not trying it in the first place.

The only people I've seen "not trying it" are the nitwits whose fucked-up attitude is what this rule actually incentivizes. This is the freaking perpetual-poverty welfare program for role playing.

Hero Wars turned out not to be my cup of tea, but I think it was spot on in not calling out character traits as 'disadvantages' needing compensation. If they get 'spotlight' time, deliver an extra helping of fun, that is its own reward -- regardless of whether it comes about by "winning the wargame" or not!

Quote from: Marleycat;766339Possible but I know that it would have helped me immensely when I started out because they were all veterans and I had no obvious handle to hold on to while I learned to walk.

and that's why they don't give babies crutches, cause otherwise, they don't learn to walk.

Quote from: Phillip;766372The only people I've seen "not trying it" are the nitwits whose fucked-up attitude is what this rule actually incentivizes. This is the freaking perpetual-poverty welfare program for role playing.

hyperbole?

Quote from: jibbajibba;766368But if you are encouraged to do it by a magical vending machine reward , like eating vegetables so you can have ice cream later, you might end up actually liking vegetables....

The biggest barrier to enjoying anything is not trying it in the first place.

Yeah but you're not actually trying it are you?  Are you playing the role of Cormac the Barbarian, when you narrate that as Cormac sees the Winged Ape, his Bond to Belinda makes him charge forward to avenge her or are you playing a combination of the role of reader and author as Howard himself was when he wrote Queen of the Black Coast?

When the GM tells you your rage for your lost love gives you Inspiration and you can choose to spend your Inspiration to get a mechanical advantage is Cormac hearing that or are you?  Does Cormac have any idea what the hell Advantage is, of course he doesn't.  If you are overcome with anger yourself playing Cormac, and charging the Winged Ape regardless of the consequences in a red rage because he killed your love, THEN you're roleplaying Cormac.
 
When you're sitting there deciding whether or not to spend the Inspiration effect you're NOT roleplaying Cormac by any definition of the term that fits.  (Cue Soviet in 3, 2, 1...)

All the mechanic does, as all such mechanics do, (which is why narrative games use them) is reinforce an OOC outlook, either with a nod to 4th wall genre emulation, seeing things with dramatic logic, to outright narrative control.

This is not Mearls trying to make "non-combat" rules.  Non-combat rules are things like gaming set proficiencies.  Since the whole point of Inspiration is to be gaining advantage in doing something important relating to a personality trait, obviously it has combat application.  Therefore the argument that this is in response to "4e is only combat" is false.  This is not a roleplaying tool, this is a narrative mechanic, the bone the Fate people et al get.

It's extremely minor for what it is, but that doesn't change what it is.  So why is it in Basic instead of an option?  The 3ers want the million ways to CharOp, so they will buy every hardbound and splat you got if you get them onboard.  The 4ers want balance and tactical miniatures challenge, so they'll buy the hardbounds and splats that will give them that.

Fate people aren't going to buy $60 hardbounds full of 3e and 4e stuff to get narrative mechanics, they'll keep playing Fate, or 13th Age, or whatever else gets their Dramatic Logic on.  So if you want to get the Dungeon World people on board, you gotta get 'em with Basic, hence the bone can't be thrown in the optional hardbounds, it has to come now.  

I knew 5e would have a "narrative rules module" the success of Numenera demands it, I'm just surprised the foundations of it came this early, and that actual mechanical reinforcement of personality mechanics came in Basic.  As I said, though, when you look at it, it does make sense, for them to try and set that hook now, but don't be naive about what they're doing.  They want to sell 5e to the "X does what D&D promised but never delivered crowd" too.

"Narrative" mechanic? Incidentally, and pretty thin gruel. Another abstract OOC sub-game? Definitely!

A lot of things are like that: they can serve another agenda, but fundamentally they're "pure game" elements.

Should be a piece of cake to ignore, though. They don't use this as a class feature or such, do they? It's equally applicable (or not) to all characters?

Does Numenera really have sales enough to demand anything?

If it really has been such a commercial hit, that's pretty nifty; but I wouldn't bet that one soul at my FLGS has heard of it.

Quote from: Phillip;766404Does Numenera really have sales enough to demand anything?

If it really has been such a commercial hit, that's pretty nifty; but I wouldn't bet that one soul at my FLGS has heard of it.

All the stuff is selling at my FLGS.

The guy who made your Third Edition walks out on your Fifth, starts his own company, gets other people who also leave your company to join him, they make almost a million from two kickstarters, and have owned half the top ten slots on DTRPG since they had enough product to fill that many, yeah I think Mearls probably looked a bit at Monty's audience.

Quote from: Phillip;766398"Narrative" mechanic?

I'm not choosing to spend an Inspiration point as my character, so who am I when I am making that decision?  What elements go into my choice?

Well, since the Inspiration comes from doing actions that relate to my personality traits, then I'm pulling back out of the character and deciding how my character gets to break the normal rules.  I get an exception.  When and how I choose that exception is supposedly reinforcing "roleplaying" but it's really reinforcing looking at the character as a character, using narrative, dramatic, literary logic, whatever adjective you want to use.  When I'm choosing to spend the Inspiration, quite literally, I'm declaring that this character has been inspired to do awesome things, no different then if I were writing it down in a story.  "Narrative" is just the term I use for all that stuff, but Dramatic Logic is probably better. :idunno:

Quote from: CRKrueger;766411All the stuff is selling at my FLGS.

The guy who made your Third Edition walks out on your Fifth, starts his own company, gets other people who also leave your company to join him, they make almost a million from two kickstarters, and have owned half the top ten slots on DTRPG since they had enough product to fill that many, yeah I think Mearls probably looked a bit at Monty's audience.

I was confused, thought Numenera was whatsit about the primal archetypes / patron immortals of this, that or anything. The name of the game is name the game

But now I'm on the same page, and even though I remember seeing Ptolus and Arcana Unearthed on the shelves, I would still hesitate to place that bet. Mutants and Masterminds was clearly big elsewhere, but literally out of sight here, and I probably have the only copy of Savage Worlds in what I guess is somewhat of backwater.

Quote from: CRKrueger;766415I'm not choosing to spend an Inspiration point as my character, so who am I when I am making that decision?  What elements go into my choice?

Well, since the Inspiration comes from doing actions that relate to my personality traits, then I'm pulling back out of the character and deciding how my character gets to break the normal rules.  I get an exception.  When and how I choose that exception is supposedly reinforcing "roleplaying" but it's really reinforcing looking at the character as a character, using narrative, dramatic, literary logic, whatever adjective you want to use.  When I'm choosing to spend the Inspiration, quite literally, I'm declaring that this character has been inspired to do awesome things, no different then if I were writing it down in a story.  "Narrative" is just the term I use for all that stuff, but Dramatic Logic is probably better. :idunno:

It's really a distraction from dramatic logic as well as from role-playing, IMO. Anyway, what I was trying to say is that all it really necessarily appeals to is the abstract strategist, who doesn't need to give more of a shit about either of the above than when manipulating the rules of Chess.

The message it reinforces is that role-playing -- even by an extremely superficial definition -- is not worth doing except when it can get an advantage in the maths game that really matters.

Quote from: Phillip;766426It's really a distraction from dramatic logic as well as from role-playing, IMO. Anyway, what I was trying to say is that all it really necessarily appeals to is the abstract strategist, who doesn't need to give more of a shit about either of the above than when manipulating the rules of Chess.

The message it reinforces is that role-playing -- even by an extremely superficial definition -- is not[/u ] worth doing except when it can get an advantage in the maths game that really matters.

Yeah, as I said in the CharGen thread, it's not training you to roleplay, it's really training you to not roleplay.

Quote from: Marleycat;766221Since it can't be stockpiled I see no issue and since another player can gift hers away that takes the pressure off the introverts and playing up to the DM. And it'd be easy to cap if there was obvious grandstanding.

Same for me: the fact that you can only ever have 1 Inspiration at a time means that this might encourage players to become a bit more immersed in their characters. Not just to get a reward from the GM, but from other players too.

The fact that players can reward each other could contribute to inter-party collaboration. I know some people don't give a shit about that, but oh well. I like it.

EDIT: yes, it is meta-gamey, but making tactical decisions based on player knowledge of hit point statuses is pretty much the same thing in my opinion.

Quote from: Necrozius;766434The fact that players can reward each other could contribute to inter-party collaboration. I know some people don't give a shit about that, but oh well. I like it.

I believe that if the adventures themselves are sufficiently dangerous, the party will collaborate in the interests of survival.

What better carrot could there be beyond living to see the next day.