Quote from: RPGPundit;795078Surely, it would be in Deities and Demigods?

That, yes. I've had the artwork from both of these books on the brain as of late!

Quote from: RPGPundit;795074Except that the only two scenarios are dependent on the GM: where the GM wants an adversarial game or where the GM doesn't.

You seem really caught up in looking at this as a black and white issue. It's not.

QuoteIn the former case, you either have a situation that is going to be a really REALLY shitty game, or the GM will be adversarial only "to a point".  Some people MIGHT enjoy the latter, but it will be a bit like if your dad lets you win at chess.

The middle called and said it feels excluded.

This is no more true than is the notion that playing in a traditional OSR style is just playing mother may I with the GM. And I assume you don't actually believe the OSR is just a game of mother may I, right?

QuoteIn the latter case, it doesn't matter whether you are being adversarial or not, except in the sense that having that kind of attitude when that's not in fact the point could ruin your enjoyment (and that of your group).

Yes it could negatively impact the group's enjoyment. In the same way that any person in a group with divergent interests may negatively impact the enjoyment of the other players. But it doesn't necessarily result in a negative impact. Surely you aren't intending to claim that there is only one correct way to have fun playing an RPG?

Quote from: RPGPundit;795074In the former case, you either have a situation that is going to be a really REALLY shitty game, or the GM will be adversarial only "to a point".  Some people MIGHT enjoy the latter, but it will be a bit like if your dad lets you win at chess.

So how about "This is what is in this location.  Whatever the PCs have, it will not matter to the contents of this location.  It is a 6th level evil magic user, a 4th level fighter henchman, and eight men at arms.  I will play them to the utmost of my tactical ability.  If the PCs have three first level characters, they will die.  If the PCs have seven 10th level characters the NPCs will die."

Adversarial or not?

Quote from: Zak S;789840Wick is one of those people who think drow are "problematic" and Benoist once told me he felt ok about not fact-checking what he says when he attacks people because the truth always comes out on the internet.

This means neither of them can ever say anything meaningful ever.

That about sums it up.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;790390Yeah i started just before 2E came out and we didn't use miniatures at all, and when we did start buying them, they were mainly used for things like marching order. Eventually we tossed them because we found them distracting (I found I kept picturing my character looking exactly like the miniature). The whole thing with map tiles and stuff wasn't even something I would have thought to do at the time. Eventually we learned about the chessex mat and you'd see that in play once in a while. I don't think I ever ran a game using miniatures until at least 2000 (I had played in games using them before that but had very little demand for them in my own group).

I remember using them, but most combat was diagrammed X and O style on scratch paper, chalk boards and later, dry erase boards like coaches use. In fact my first dry erase board was given to me by my high school football coach.

Quite frankly, miniatures have always been a pain in the ass. They're expensive (doubly so, including the paints), heavy and fragile. After the fourth or fifth time I glued/soldered broken limbs and weapons back together I just put mine aside. The final straw was a fire that melted my collection. I've used cardboard counters ever since.

The point is, miniatures aren't necessary for showing the layout of a fight, nor are battle mats.

Quote from: Old Geezer;795410So how about "This is what is in this location.  Whatever the PCs have, it will not matter to the contents of this location.  It is a 6th level evil magic user, a 4th level fighter henchman, and eight men at arms.  I will play them to the utmost of my tactical ability.  If the PCs have three first level characters, they will die.  If the PCs have seven 10th level characters the NPCs will die."

Adversarial or not?

Not adversarial. Emulative.  That's the GM doing the job he's supposed to, being completely neutral about the world.

Quote from: RPGPundit;795476Not adversarial. Emulative.  That's the GM doing the job he's supposed to, being completely neutral about the world.

Clarification appreciated.  I just realized I'm getting the twitching awfuls on the subject; "PCs should only die if the players agree" is more common than one would think.  It is neither limited to one plum-hued corner of the internet, nor in fact to the internet at all.  I have heard gamers say "The players should never lose" with a straight face in real life.

I think 'the players should never lose' is a perfectly valid style of play.

If they are advocating it as the ONLY 'good' style of play, they need to be slapped.

Possibly so; if everyone at the table is having fun, you're doing it right.

But it is so far from my idea of fun I find it incomprehensible, and being told my way is "wrong" (or that I only like it due to "nostalgia") gives me uncontrollable flatulence.

It's kind of like Colombo, in my mind.

In Colombo, we know who done it. We know the victim, the killer, and possibly a little of the motive. We also know Colombo is going to catch the killer.

What's fascinating is seeing how it unfolds. We don't see what Colombo is up to, what tricks he has set up until they kick in. We watch a killer try to evade capture.

And that's fun, even though we know roughly what's going to happen.


A game doesn't necessarily need winners and losers, sometimes 'how things go' is engaging and interesting.

Quote from: Will;795572It's kind of like Colombo, in my mind.

Interesting analogy Will. I guess a lot of TV series actually fall into that category.

While in general, I prefer a game where I don't know if the PCs will win (or even survive). When we played Star Trek it was a lot like the old show and Next Gen so there really wasn't any doubt that the PCs would eventually stop the alien parasites, escape from the Orion space pirates, find a way to stop the conflict on planet X, or whatever. Play was really about how, not if.

Quote from: RPGPundit;795476Not adversarial. Emulative.  That's the GM doing the job he's supposed to, being completely neutral about the world.

exactly.
I do not find it adversarial at all when a GM builds his set pieces and adventures and places them, and then runs them as they should be run logically.

Quote from: Will;795572It's kind of like Colombo, in my mind.

In Colombo, we know who done it. We know the victim, the killer, and possibly a little of the motive. We also know Colombo is going to catch the killer.

What's fascinating is seeing how it unfolds. We don't see what Colombo is up to, what tricks he has set up until they kick in. We watch a killer try to evade capture.

And that's fun, even though we know roughly what's going to happen.


A game doesn't necessarily need winners and losers, sometimes 'how things go' is engaging and interesting.

Good analogy. That close to how I thought the "fate roll" you mentioned earlier would work. You know, roughly, how your character is going to buy the farm or at least when but how it happens and what brings them to that point is the meat of the game.

Quote from: Will;795521I think 'the players should never lose' is a perfectly valid style of play.

If they are advocating it as the ONLY 'good' style of play, they need to be slapped.

I (Sometimes) play with someone who throws a strop if her character ever loses at anything, including one game-ending strop when she got outvoted on a plan (She then proceeded to sit in the corner and pointedly refuse to interact with the game for the rest of the session).

On the other hand, my fighting fantasy game ended up with the players doing something blindingly stupid (Attempting to terrorist attacks in Port Blacksand), getting double-crossed, and then captured and executed by the watch. But they went into it knowing they were likely to die, had great fun doing it, were genuinely surprised when they were double-crossed (On my side of the screen, I played it fair, my thieves guild NPC's genuinely spotted them), and had a great time.

Some people are just crap players, basically.

[responding to Columbo as an example of "how things work out" rather than "whether the crime is solved or who did it".]

Quote from: Nexus;795694Good analogy. That close to how I thought the "fate roll" you mentioned earlier would work. You know, roughly, how your character is going to buy the farm or at least when but how it happens and what brings them to that point is the meat of the game.

In Redshirts the RPG, a character's fate would be intimately tied to the contract terms of the actor playing that character.