For what it's worth, I like "Expressive" vs. "Experiential" (suggested by what someone wrote in comments on my LJ) as much or more than "Thematic" vs. "Adventure"...but they're not very catchy labels for generic classes.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityProbably, probably. Who am I to disagree.

Can I ask a question?

Why TF are you up this early on a Sunday?

protestant work ethic.

I loathe weekends. "Thank god it´s monday!" Shall be my motto.

I knew it.

That's TERRIBLE. I'm a lapsed catholic, see. A Baroque man.

Next time I visit Berlin I take you out. If the scene is still what it was in the 90s, we'll get started by having Gyros in Kreuzberg at midnight and take it from there.

Gyros? That´s talk of someone from Restdeutschland. Here we only eat Döner.

You´d be horrified what happened to Berlins night life: all invaded by small town students who are sponsored by mum and dad, and come to live some years in the BIG CITY to be cool and hip. Their are "a la mode" alternative/leftist leanings are pretty disgusting.

I call them "Latte Macciatto Lefties".

Elliot and the Settster -

Ultimately, I'm just playing. I don't care if you guys get together with pitchforks and torches and drive me out of the much-romanticised 'hobby'. You can use whatever words you want.

But you're both simply wrong. Going on Settembrini's views, 'adventure games' must include challenge, competition. It's the Step on Up principle. That puts them into the category of gamism as articulated by Ron. It doesn't account for simulationism, however.

Is 'thematic' to be a synonym for 'games produced by people affiliated with the Forge or Story Games? What of Agon? That's all about competition. Again, no room for sim here. You're denying it exists, like Jared did.

What you're really talking about is whether games have funky mechanics. There again I feel you get yourselves into trouble, because many things have been tried over the history of RPGs.

Sounds like the good old days. One day we got arrested by the Vopos at the border, what with the blazing boombox in our Golf Cabrio...

We had to drive into this garage... and then the (literally) iron curtain went down, and the neon lights went on...

"Take the seats and dashboard out of the car." "We don't know how." "No problem. We'll show you."

And they did. Good times!

QuoteBut you're both simply wrong. Going on Settembrini's views, 'adventure games' must include challenge, competition. It's the Step on Up principle. That puts them into the category of gamism as articulated by Ron. It doesn't account for simulationism, however.

No, you don´t understand your own play, bucky. Did you have combats in your RQ campaign?
Were these combats rolled dice for?

Then it was an Adventure Roleplaying Game.

When I say there is a challenge, then I´m distancing it from challenge-less play. Play where the PCs are immortal, for example. Play were the DM railroads all the way. And this obviously is not RQ or Traveller or any kind of sensible type of gaming.

I fear your narrow experiences in the RPG field have left you blind on several dimensions.

Especially your remark of "funky mechanics" is begettting of a lack of insight into what Thematic Games are really built upon. The mechanics are irrelevant. It´s the aim of play and structure of product as well as mode of reading that is important here.

Adventure RPGs are RPGs in which you can do stuff in interesting places, just because. That´s pretty broad and includes most RPGs. Especially those from the RQ pillar.

You can have combats in Sorcerer too, you know. Even in Dogs in the Vineyard.

GO BACK TO THE FORGE!

:rolleyes:

Yeah you can have combats in them. So what? You are acting more and more like David: wisecrackery and sophistry...

Thematic Games are adressing a premise. Combat is only window dressing.
It´s all about themes and moral decisions, which are thunk to be some sort of story.

Whereas in an Adventure Game, you have Adventures to have Adventures.

That´s the structural difference.

I'm just shocked that Berlin has a nightlife.  The last time I heard of it having a Nightlife it was 1929.

RPGPundit

You´d be amazed, it´s one of the most popular night lives in Europe, nowadays [Except, of course compared to London. Nothing compares to London and New York. They are a different category]. That´s why it´s so Latte-Macciatto-tonic and disgusting to me.

Regarding art and music, Berlin is at the top of the heap. And that draws the small-town immigrant bar-flys.

Again, nothing that I would care for.

EDIT: It´s a big difference compared to the twenites. Because there is no money in Berlin, only aritsts, and artistés + small town idiots. Without Big Money, it´s either artsy or pathetic, but not in any way grandiose.

Quote from: Elliot WilenRegardless of preferences (even people who don't express a preference), I think most people see a distinction, basically revolving around formalizing a radical redistribution of the "traditional" player-character/GM-world breakdown of authority & responsibility.

Oh definitely Elliot, there is a distinction but it's a distinction that does not disqualify one set of games from being RPGs - which is what Sett is aimimg for.

Observe the dodgy thinking here:
 

QuoteSett wrote:
Thematic Games are adressing a premise. Combat is only window dressing.
It´s all about themes and moral decisions, which are thunk to be some sort of story.

Whereas in Adventure games you have adventures
That´s the structural difference

Now surely you don't think this makes much sense.

What I really think is at issue here - and one that I would be very surprised that would bother you - is this. The root cause of Sett's problem between "trad" and "Forge" games is that the latter perhaps is evidence that the definiton of what an rpg is is expanding.

Regards,
David R

Droog, nobody's driving you out of the hobby though you're doing a good job of playing the martyr lately.

It's possible that Sett & I will have to have an argument somewhere down the road. (Though I doubt it given what he's posted while I was typing this.)

The point of commonality we have--I think--isn't challenge & competition, but the player's "alienation" from the game-world, mirroring the character's. It happens that this provides a good arena for challenge, since if there's any conflict at all, the need to negotiate the inner workings of the game world to overcome the conflict is likely to be more challenging than rolling to win some agreed-on stakes.

Wargamers can distinguish between wargames and non-wargames (it has nothing to do with war, e.g., Condottiere is a fine non-wargame about war; Star Trader is a great wargame about running an interstellar trading company). They can also agree that some wargames make better games than others regardless of their "wargaminess". (SPI's Agincourt is a crappy game but that was almost inevitable given the goal of making a tactical wargame.)

I still don't know Agon, so if our discussion hinges on that I'm afraid we're at an impasse. However I suspect the issue can be resolved more or less by analogy with the wargame/Euro divide. All you have to do is look at the difference between Circus Maximus and Milles Bournes, or between Gladiator and Titan: The Arena/Colossal Arena. Some games put you in the role of a specific, identifiable actor or interest group, with means and goals analogous to that actor; others put players in more abstract roles--or no identifiable role at all--and give them a scope of action that can't be interpreted as representing the decisions of an in-game actor. E.g., in Milles Bournes you get to decide if you'd rather add to your mileage or have your opponent's car break down: a strategic decision, but not one available to an actual race car driver. It's a card game dressed up with a racing theme. In like manner, the moment-to-moment responsibility imposed on players of The Mountain Witch to "drive their characters toward conflicts", and the expectation that the GM will stage-manage things to escalate tension over the course of the adventure--these factors along with near absence of simulative mechanics put the players in a vastly different decision-space compared to their characters.

Of course in details "traditional games" deviate here and there. Hero Points have been around for a long time but largely as exceptions to the normal procedures rather than dominating play.

Quote from: SettembriniThematic Games are adressing a premise. Combat is only window dressing.
It´s all about themes and moral decisions, which are thunk to be some sort of story.

Whereas in an Adventure Game, you have Adventures to have Adventures.

That´s the structural difference.

I'm sure you're just going to accuse me of sophistry again, but that is Ron's distinction between nar on one hand, and sim or gam on the other. You appear to have rolled the two categories into one, that's all.

Where do you place Pendragon, which has as its stated aim neither adventure nor theme?