I get what Estar is saying.

I have a player, he happens to be a very good player by my standards. But when it comes to making a character, he does what he calls "Schtick First". As in "What is this guy about conceptually". Usually this means in D&D - is he the Two-handed axe-wielding Barbarian? Or the Stealthy assassin? And that's about it. He'll plug into whatever location-related race/culture meme that will allow him to play that. Then through play itself he develops his background more and allows the game to grow things organically in importance as dictated by the game.

In other words (and correct me if I'm wrong, Estar) - From Estar's POV he's the Astronaut. The Campaign is the Mercury Program. And you don't know a whole lot about the Astronaut. You just know he's one of them. You don't know exactly what the Astronaut does, but within the Mercury Program campaign, the player has decided to make an Astronaut that is really good at pressing Red Button "B" - while my other Player is playing Engineer in the Control Room.

On the OTHER Side of the spectrum - I have players that want to have half-a-novel of background. Family information, culture information, race information. Friends, Contacts, personal history of every potentially meaningful detail of why they're at ground zero when the game starts. So they know precisely what's happening and relevant to their character in the context of my campaign. All the "known knowns!"


Continuing Estar's example - This player is Bob Taggart the Engineer. He grew up in Culver City, CA, to John and Peggy Taggart, both of whom were in the movie-industry. He loved Isaac Asimov and had a slide-rule since he was four. He got married right out of high-school to his girlfriend, it was kind of scandalous because she was black and it was the 60, but his liberal parents were always supportive. He went to college at Berkley where he got his undergrad degree in Engineering and got his Masters in Astrophysics from Stanford, where he immediately made it into NASA. Years later, he's got a drinking problem, he smokes, is having an affair with his bosses barely-legal daughter, and is in the control room of the Mercury launch Player A is about to go up in.

The STORY is the the interactions of these two (and the rest of the party) operating from the realities of their respective characters in the same game.

In other words - it all counts. There is no one true way. And as a good GM you take that into account and make it work so it's fun for everyone.

My philosophy of GMing is - "Everyone gets paid. Even the GM. But sometimes you might get paid in Gold. Sometimes in wet lint."

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.

This is a really, really good post.

I'm perfectly OK with saying that I'm not interested in exploring Gronan of Simmerya's relationship with his father.

Some people want to explore that kind of stuff.

Now, if a player in my game wants to explore that, I'll go with it; it's a sandbox, and when I say players can do whatever they want, I mean it.

Quote from: Old Geezer;791132This is a really, really good post.

I'm perfectly OK with saying that I'm not interested in exploring Gronan of Simmerya's relationship with his father.

Some people want to explore that kind of stuff.

Now, if a player in my game wants to explore that, I'll go with it; it's a sandbox, and when I say players can do whatever they want, I mean it.

Yup. That's the great realization of GMing after a period of years.

Edit: or in our case... decades.

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 think you're describing a certain kind of story not "story"

Again: 3 billy goats gruff and 3 little pigs are stories. They are both stories about tactics.

Explorations of motive are a specific kind of story: the kind in typical 3-act drama and literary fiction. But there's a bajillion kinds of stories.

Quote from: Old Geezer;791132This is a really, really good post.

I'm perfectly OK with saying that I'm not interested in exploring Gronan of Simmerya's relationship with his father.

Some people want to explore that kind of stuff.

Now, if a player in my game wants to explore that, I'll go with it; it's a sandbox, and when I say players can do whatever they want, I mean it.

Quote from: tenbones;791137Yup. That's the great realization of GMing after a period of years.

Edit: or in our case... decades.

This.

The caveat I would make is to have the more personal game by played with only those interested (like a side quest or inbetween regular game sessions) while the larger game is set aside for the entire group (whose memebers may not care about a single PCs relationship with their father or whatever).

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 have another thought on this.

What about exploring when things gained in-game are threatened?

I've said I have no interest in exploring "Gronan's relationship with his father."

He's 9th level.  A Lord, and in OD&D he builds a castle.  And has a domian, and stuff.  And if you asked him, "By what right are you lord of this land," he would say "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the entire fucking valley."

So... what does he do when an army comes to lay siege to his castle?  What happens when a meaner son of a bitch comes along?

Quote from: Zak S;791154Again: 3 billy goats gruff and 3 little pigs are stories. They are both stories about tactics.

I did have the time and found it interesting enough to watch the long video and while I am less clear about stuff than I was before, I did love you mentioning the 3 billy goats though

I recall (hopefully correctly) that John Wick saying what happens if you fail the d20 roll and he further remarking that the story is pretty much over or something to that effect.

But I was thinking that if I was the 3rd billy goat and failed in my attempt to push off the monster that I'll have to make a flight or fight decision and pray that the other 2 pc billy goats didn't desert me and will come back with bows and arrows and maybe a pickup truck, yell "no one left behind!" and save my ass.

That's what I love about roleplaying games.  A game master can come up with a great complete story but the pcs actions and sometimes rolls of the dice could and inevitably will throw a wrench to a well constructed plot and actually add to the pc and gm experience.

Might explain how I never really come up with a detailed adventures when I gm'd like some adventure book or modules I've read in years past

Quote from: Phillip;791094Understanding 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.

The spaces in between adventures, for some practitioners, become more important than the adventures themselves.  Over two decades ago, I told a group that if they really didn't know why their characters were risking life, limb, reputation and sanity in an adventure but were playing 'to get to the dungeon', they were in the wrong game. What can be missing from many of our earlier games can be as simple as understanding really why a character would choose such a difficult path, and if they don't know, the game is a little less 'role' and more of a low-ratio wargame, the character nothing more than a very well detailed-out chit on the board.

And this isn't for everyone, as you note, some are looking for the more comfortable games they are familiar with, and that is fine.  However, those of us that greatly expand what constitutes our game and the focus on the taking on of a role (and horrors, institute mechanics that support what is a large portion of our game)...those of us that allow our games to grow with us as people and push the idea of taking on the role of the character a little further are not doing it wrong either.

We talk about setting development as a separate thing, a sort of add on.  But much of the internal motivation from a character come from a strong role-to-setting relationship; the character is bound and driven by features and events within the setting.  And by having setting-specific and role-specific playing still affected by some level of random dynamic (like, dice, maybe) you still have that wonderful effect we all live for, the game going places that no one really expects, the players and the GM both working with what each other gives and what the dice will.

It's also what drives a campaign forward, what gives a game dynamic impetus.  The Players are tied into the game and setting better and can feel their roles more keenly when their characters are tied to a well designed, congruent, World-in-Motion Setting.

Quote from: tenbones;791130The STORY is the the interactions of these two (and the rest of the party) operating from the realities of their respective characters in the same game.

In other words - it all counts. There is no one true way. And as a good GM you take that into account and make it work so it's fun for everyone.

Yup pretty much you got it. And I found that the minimum required to make this happen is for both players to play as if they are really there as their characters and not treat them like game pieces.

The best game for really encouraging and supporting this sort of social, between-adventure play is En Garde! It has a totally unique approach to roleplaying, where players are in charge of setting a calendar of things they get up to from week to week, which can include carousing with friends, dueling, joining a club, going to war, investing money, etc. It is quite immersive and cool. I've written a D&D-compatible fantasy heart breaker that builds off this, and have always thought someone should have jacked this idea for 'real' D&D. It turns a string of adventures into a real living campaign.

Quote from: Old Geezer;791158I have another thought on this.

What about exploring when things gained in-game are threatened?

I've said I have no interest in exploring "Gronan's relationship with his father."

He's 9th level.  A Lord, and in OD&D he builds a castle.  And has a domian, and stuff.  And if you asked him, "By what right are you lord of this land," he would say "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the entire fucking valley."

So... what does he do when an army comes to lay siege to his castle?  What happens when a meaner son of a bitch comes along?

Oh that definitely happens in my games. Its almost inevitable. Invariably - toes are stepped on in achieving success. I had players in my last campaign rise from being city watch to Ducal powers in a kingdom of Dwarves. And they were attacked mercilessly by their enemies for all the stuff they did getting to the top.

Of course this was around 10th level - which is appropriate for that kinda play. But even with their fancy titles and ducal powers they still ended up doing dungeon-dives and crazy plane-hopping adventures. I have 32 pages worth of NPC's they delegated tasks too. It was pretty phenomenal. By 18th-20th level they were the primary custodians of the Kingdom, with allies in vast empires and a couple of them were Divine Rank 0.

And at that point they had made enemies of Asmodeus, Hecate and a couple of other Gods. So it's just the next tier of play. Higher stakes etc.

Quote from: bren;790963wow!

A game where you get to play the hulk...in space!

that sounds absolutely marvelous.

hulk bored! Only in-flight magazine is cosmo!

Quote from: Old Geezer;791158I have another thought on this.

What about exploring when things gained in-game are threatened?

I've said I have no interest in exploring "Gronan's relationship with his father."

He's 9th level.  A Lord, and in OD&D he builds a castle.  And has a domian, and stuff.  And if you asked him, "By what right are you lord of this land," he would say "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the entire fucking valley."

So... what does he do when an army comes to lay siege to his castle?  What happens when a meaner son of a bitch comes along?

The thing I had in mind was that some games have a tendency to reduce to trivially solvable puzzles: There's a clearly "correct" objective, and an optimal strategy. Crunch the numbers, push the button.

Every change is simplicistically either good or bad (but not much of either). The character remains the same, like an insect in amber.

The contrast would be choices that make big differences and are not easy choices because every option is a mixed bag of nice and not so nice (sometimes nasty and not so nasty) - and what seems hardest now might (or might not) pay dividends down the line.

The big irony is that the kind of D&D John Wick seems to love is exactly the kind The Pundit so aggressively promotes, and yet here we are fighting over the one true meaning of [STRIKE]Christmas[/STRIKE] D&D instead of collaborating over that commonality.

As to those links...

QuoteJohn Wick:

Chess is not a roleplaying game. Yes, you can turn it into a roleplaying game, but it was not designed to be a roleplaying game.

QuoteBeonist:

What I really mean here is that Chess can absolutely become a tabletop role-playing game.

***

So it doesn't matter what Chess was originally built for. If someone has the idea to add house rules or even none at all, gives motives to the game pieces, and plays out scenarios based on that idea, we have the essence of a role-playing game.

So, not so much a rebuttal as a long winded agreement. I am disappoint.

Quote from: Haffrung;789900I don't know why these clowns want to whittle down the definition of RPGs so narrowly that it's a hobby enjoyed only by a few thousand people. Actually, I know bloody well why they do - so they can console themselves that they are in fact a very big deal in a very small pond.

Wait, are we talking about John Wick, or The Pundit?

Quote from: Will;790346It occurs to me to wonder if original sin mightn't have been naming things.

That's actually an incredibly cool idea and is going into the incredibly cool idea bin.

Quote from: One Horse Town;790521Games design = technology is the wasted breath of the universe.

Ah jeeze, are we supposed to be fighting over the definition of Technology too?

Quote from: Zak S;790803This morning me and John Wick talked about this in person, here's the video

Very insightful, thanks to both of you, but why are so many people saying they only watched 10 minutes? Why not 5 minutes, or 15 minutes? Is this a useful data point on the optimal length of internet videos? Regardless, it makes me sad to think people are drawing conclusions after just 10 minutes and not bothering to watch the rest of it.

Quote from: dragoner;790851I couldn't get past the first few minutes: "Here I am holding a book of rules about chess, I don't know what I am doing?"

What John actually said was...

QuoteThe whole point of the Chess article is really a confession of confusion because for me the idea it works like this: If I have everything that is Chess, all the rules for Chess are in my left hand, and then in my right hand I add the elements that make it a roleplaying game (because I think we can agree that Chess isn't a roleplaying game, but you add the elements that make it a roleplaying game), I don't know what these elements are. I don't know what this is in my right hand.

...which is a great thesis for a debate.

But I'm not transcribing it here to discuss, only to point out to the viewers at home how people like dragoner like to misrepresent things from people they don't like. I will however give dragoner the benefit of the doubt and assume they're just acting in bad faith and not actually an idiot.

Quote from: markfitz;790913I think the poker analogy is a good one. Just because you can play poker without bluffing doesn't mean that bluffing doesn't become what the game is about, even though it's not in the rules....

I'm reminded of an old thread of mine which I won't link to as it was needlessly confrontational and I'm trying to move away from that style of vetting ideas.

Play is a product of the rules you choose to implement at the table. A rulebook is only there to help inform players of the rules which will be implemented at the table. It's not telling you what to do. It's not making value judgments on your playstyle. It's just a collection of procedures which have been found (or assumed in the case of bad designs) to help create a specific experience, and the rules you decide to implement will change what's possible or meaningful in play.

Let's take Poker. It's possible to bluff in Poker because there's hidden information. If you played with all cards facing up, bluffing would be impossible. And it's meaningful to bluff in Poker because that hidden information cannot be changed arbitrarily. If you could just decide which cards make up your hand arbitrarily without anyone else knowing, bluffing would be meaningless.

So is D&D a bluffing game?

Only when it comes to players bluffing other players. It's impossible for the players to bluff the GM because they can't keep relevant information hidden. And it's meaningless for the GM to bluff the players because they can change the hidden information arbitrarily and even make it up on the spot. So without changes to the rules, anything other than players bluffing players is either impossible or meaningless.

So is D&D a roleplaying game?

If players just engage the tactical elements, moving from encounter to encounter, considering each second in a turn, then roleplaying will be impossible and/or meaningless. And if players just engage with the roleplaying elements, exploring character instead of achieving objectives, considering time to move at the speed of plot, then tactical thinking will be impossible and/or meaningless.

All too often it ends up a zero sum game where every opportunity for one costs the other, and D&D is not clear on what should happen when they overlap. How much should good roleplaying and character skill impact a fictional negotiation? Favor the former and you're punishing players who aren't as socially deft. Favor the latter and you're punishing players who aren't as mechanically inclined. Either way, you're favoring one set of abilities over another no matter what you do.

This is why a group's creative agenda is so damn important, and how system choice (remember, not the rules in the book, the procedures you implement at the table) affects how impossible and/or meaningless engaging in that agenda will be. There's no one 'true' way, but certain procedures WILL be more effective in helping you achieve YOUR way.

Well done, Anon.

I reiterate...
Vreeg's first Rule of Setting Design,
"Make sure the ruleset you are using matches the setting and game you want to play, because the setting and game WILL eventually match the system."