Quote from: Old Geezer;790932The most necessary thing from Chainmail for D&D is MORALE!!!!

Nah, you can follow the suggestion in Men & Magic to use the Reaction table or do it however else you like. Why get uptight about which way we toss dice?

If you're talking about Post Melee Morale, or whatever the more complicated business was called, I call that well abandoned.

QuoteAlso:

I NEVER saw Gary Gygax use miniatures when he reffed D&D.

I NEVER saw Dave Arneson NOT use miniatures when he reffed D&D.

SO:  Miniatures are required for D&D, except when they're not.

Quote from: Old Geezer;790932The most necessary thing from Chainmail for D&D is MORALE!!!!

Some method of handling morale is necessary.  That was obvious to me and all my highschool buddies because we had already played wargames and/or miniatures games which included some sort of morale or unit disruption rules. Also, even just from watching popular media, eventually the remaining bad guys usually run away.

I honestly can't recall whether we used the morale rules from Chainmail or some other system. We did include morale rolls for NPCs though. We didn't for PCs. Though we laughed about the occassional absurdity in not having/using any morale rules for PCs. A typical sarcastic dig regarded captured PCs who calmly refused to talk under threat of death or torture or even outright torture or death, bravely and silently refusing to talk till the end.

Quote from: LordVreeg;790841And Bren, please go look at the cover of your 1974 books.   Sheesh, it's right there.  
"Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Pencil and Papers and Miniature Figures"  Not saying you player RAW or that you are remembering incorrectly, but before you say a source is wrong, do a bit of research yourself.  There were, if memory serves, the normal combat resolution, as mentioned above, and the alternative version postulated in the Men and Magic book.

The box cover for Space Hulk says its an RPG.

Quote from: Omega;790954The box cover for Space Hulk says its an RPG.

Truth in labeling...very tricky.

Quote from: LordVreeg;790956Truth in labeling...very tricky.

In Space Hulks case, Deception of labelling. and dont get me started on the legion of MSOs that label themselves MMOs.

Quote from: Omega;790954The box cover for Space Hulk says its an RPG.

Wow!

A game where you get to play the Hulk...in Space!

That sounds absolutely Marvelous.

Quote from: everloss;790771The only rpg I've played where I would say minis were mandatory or at least very close to being mandatory is 4th edition DnD.

I've ran 4e without minis. I will agree, it's not great, but it is still playable.

Quote from: Bren;790963Wow!

A game where you get to play the Hulk...in Space!

That sounds absolutely Marvelous.

That was HeroScape. Different company...

Here's where I think role-playing and story-telling get conflated:

In story, the most important conflicts are within characters: not "Can I do this?" but "What should I do?" The most important growth is not in gadgetry, but in understanding and balance - or else, in some tragedies or horror stories, in dysfunctional blindness and imbalance.

External conflicts are fields in which internal ones find expression.

That's what is often missing in dungeon scenarios and other wargame-style games. It does not help that nowadays we're typically looking at a very small group of player-characters who by design have the same objectives. There's a tendency for relationships and problems to be confined to essentially mechanical manipulation of impersonal objects (even when those are theoretically people).

Apart from mere existence, nothing that really matters to a character is threatened; there are no crises risking transformation of character-defining relationships.

It's a mistake to think that enriching the game that way requires giving players "authorial" powers, or pushing them down the "railroad" of a plotted story. Those are things one either wants for their own sake, or else can do without.

Quote from: Phillip;791081Here's where I think role-playing and story-telling get conflated:

In story, the most important conflicts are within characters: not "Can I do this?" but "What should I do?"

This still treats role-playing as a story with a different focus and will ultimately resolve nothing even though you have a valid point.

I come to the conclusion that the simplest and most accurate explanation of the difference that tabletop RPGs about presenting experiences. It like climbing Everest, or going to the state park with the family on the weekend. You are doing something to experience it (for a variety of reasons).

In essence tabletop RPGs are pen & paper virtual realities where stories are not. The story in RPGs come afterwards to describe what you experienced or to make your experience entertaining to others.

If you don't like my use of experience, then just substitute wherever term you like to use when you go somewhere in order to be there to have fun or to be challenged. I think calling it an experience is the word that best fits.

In short you climb Mount Everest because you want the experience of accomplishing it, (for whatever reason). Not to create a story of climbing Mt Everest.

Quote from: estar;791088This still treats role-playing as a story with a different focus and will ultimately resolve nothing even though you have a valid point.

In practice, it does in fact resolve something: It resolves with profound clarity what is very, very often the critical missing ingredient in a scenario that many players find too bland. Whether they call it "story" or "role playing," this is what they're not getting from a game in  which the central question is, "How do we kill these monsters and take their stuff?"

I don't deal in "ultimates"; my concern is pragmatically with the actual work at hand of being a game master.

QuoteI come to the conclusion that the simplest and most accurate explanation of the difference that tabletop RPGs about presenting experiences. It like climbing Everest, or going to the state park with the family on the weekend. You are doing something to experience it (for a variety of reasons).

In essence tabletop RPGs are pen & paper virtual realities where stories are not. The story in RPGs come afterwards to describe what you experienced or to make your experience entertaining to others.

If you don't like my use of experience, then just substitute wherever term you like to use when you go somewhere in order to be there to have fun or to be challenged. I think calling it an experience is the word that best fits.

In short you climb Mount Everest because you want the experience of accomplishing it, (for whatever reason). Not to create a story of climbing Mt Everest.

Understanding the value of relationships and conflicts was a key part of what made the presentation of Balazar and  the Elder Wilds in Chaosium's Griffin Mountain such a delightful "sandbox" in which to play. Of course, it takes a GM with such understanding to cultivate the seeds and bring them to life.

Note that this is not dependent on having player-characters driven, like Frodo and Sam, by basically irresistible forces along an epic path.

It's a matter of having characters who value relationships that can grow and change and be put at risk. If most conflicts are trivial, and the only possible really significant outcomes in the remainder are either (a)  preservation of a character's status quo or (b) GAME OVER, then there's a missing dynamic. Things get repetitive in a way that is  "comfort food" for some players - but dull as dust for others.

Quote from: Phillip;791081Here's where I think role-playing and story-telling get conflated:

In story, the most important conflicts are within characters: not "Can I do this?" but "What should I do?" The most important growth is not in gadgetry, but in understanding and balance - or else, in some tragedies or horror stories, in dysfunctional blindness and imbalance.

External conflicts are fields in which internal ones find expression.

That's what is often missing in dungeon scenarios and other wargame-style games. It does not help that nowadays we're typically looking at a very small group of player-characters who by design have the same objectives. There's a tendency for relationships and problems to be confined to essentially mechanical manipulation of impersonal objects (even when those are theoretically people).

Apart from mere existence, nothing that really matters to a character is threatened; there are no crises risking transformation of character-defining relationships.

It's a mistake to think that enriching the game that way requires giving players "authorial" powers, or pushing them down the "railroad" of a plotted story. Those are things one either wants for their own sake, or else can do without.

I like this post a lot. It reflects a lot of what I try to put into my own games, a deeper context to the campaign world their characters live in. My goals are to make the world seem living with real problems and real issues both material and social so their characters can be what they want and/or be astonished by the unexpected outcomes of their naivete or better - get the outcomes they desire through "hard work" whether that's lots and lots of roleplaying and nary-a-dice-thrown or mass-murder in some lost dungeon where the problem of killing might be secondary surviving bringing the loot back because the pack animals have been slaughtered.

I don't like the seemingly simplistic OSR-mafia mentality of "The game is about *this* and that's it!" or the more noob-friendly "Mechanics are the game" or the indy-crowd "Narrative! It's all about narrative!" - to me, it's all of these things as ingredients used as needed, but most of all it's about the players doing things and GM's making whatever that endeavor *more* interesting than anyone (including the GM) might have otherwise thought possible.

The emergent gameplay IS the "story". Yes there is a story. It might be - your game's story is about how this band of adventures murdered everyone in the Temple of Elemental Evil and took their loot and went home. But the story is in how they did it.

But I've found if you put in enough context to a game, good players will rise to the occasion and make your games great. Of course if you have bad players.... you have more work cut out for you in bringing them to the fold...

Quote from: Phillip;791092In practice, it does in fact resolve something: It resolves with profound clarity what is very, very often the critical missing ingredient in a scenario that many players find too bland. Whether they call it "story" or "role playing," this is what they're not getting from a game in  which the central question is, "How do we kill these monsters and take their stuff?"

What are saying doesn't address conflating of role-playing with story with all the attendant confusion.

Creating a good story is fundamentally different then creating a good experience. But despite that there are elements that crossover. Experiences that involve interesting social relationships are in general more compelling than those that are mostly about the character versus his environment. Just as stories that involve interesting social relationships are generally more compelling than stories of man versus his environment.

When I talk about this when friends I use the example of NASA's space program in the 60s. Due various reasons, the human element of the space program during Mecury, Gemini, and Apollo was downplayed for many decades. Then around 2000s thanks in part to the internet, people loosing up, etc. We started getting stories about what the astronauts and people involve were like and how they related to each other.

I have dozen's of books on the technical details of what happen. But the best books are ones like Micheal Collins Carrying the Fire, and Mike Mullane's Riding Rockets. They are the best because they combine clear technical explanation with good stories about the relationships the astronauts had. You get a feel not only for what they did but for how they related to the people they worked with. You are to see them as human beings.

There is only so many books I am going to get about how the Gemini Spacecraft works. But I am always good for another book on people involved with the Gemni Spacecraft.

This applies to tabletop roleplaying, a campaign starts to become more compelling if you can hook the players into in-game relationships that everybody finds interesting. Do it well even the most stereotypical type of adventure becomes vastly more interesting due to the added social dimension.

But it doesn't change the fact that you read a story and experience a tabletop RPG campaign.

Estar, as best I can make head or tail of what you're saying, it's that I'm not delivering you a way to make somebody concede defeat in an Internet argument over semantics.

Well, that happens not to be what interests me now. What interests me is ways of making a fun game.

Having acknowledged that difference in priorities, I don't see  that there's any more to say about it. I assure you that trying to argue me into joining your argument any more than I have is just one pointless futility piled atop another.