Quote from: John Scott;968645Systems that empower players with various mechanics have sometimes interesting ideas, but at the same time ruin the whole concept of rpg which is at least to me unlimited options. You are "trapped" in said mechanics trying constantly to exploit the system, that is something that resembles board games.  

Why are you 'trapped' in a mechanic? And who exactly is trying to exploit the system? Are you saying the mechanic forces you to exploit the system somehow? Or are you saying that the system is open to player exploitation?

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;968647Basically, if you are targeted by an attack and are out of "stress" (the more ephermeral/short term "hit points"), you would be taken out unless you take a consequence.

A consequence is a persistent complication, how persistent depends on how much damage you soaked up with it. -2 is a mild consequence good until the end of the session. -4 (moderate) and -6 (severe) take progressively longer to fix and usually require some sort of in-game intervention.

Mutants & Masterminds has "complications" which are drawbacks that you design into the character like "weak to kryptonite" or "becomes enraged". Consequences would be a way to tack on complications that are more temporary like "Iron man's boot jets out".

Hey thanks, sounds interesting. If I ever dabble in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying again I might use that instead of saying any Complication above d12 takes you out of the scene.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;968575If so, what?

Extra questions: How would you apply those things, and to which RPGs?

Not a god-damned thing. Those frustrated fiction writers need to haul their bitch asses to Amazon, open their Kindle accounts, and just write their fucking stories already. Leave the gaming to the actual fucking gamers. "Storygames" are for fake gamers.

I define roleplaying as "playing a role in-character" as opposed to "playing a role out of character", and that's what I would call traditional, so by definition it's kind of hard to incorporate narrative or OOC mechanics into a traditional or IC game, because then it's no longer traditional.  I wouldn't want to put any OOC narrative mechanics in my traditional RPGs, because that's not what I want out of traditional RPGs.

One thing that traditional games could take from certain narrative games isn't so much mechanics as approach.

Fate and Xworld both attempt to focus on what's happening in the setting (of course both as character and player) to the point of taking all the physics based simulation of modifiers, charts, tables, etc and instead have very broadly applicable rules for actions or moves.  Looking at someone playing, it's not all that different from having a first-time D&D player say what they want to do, the GM tells them what to roll and then describes what happens using the rules to adjudicate.

I don't think I've seen a game that attempts to have a simple, broadly applicable list of actions, that doesn't also include OOC mechanics, which aren't really needed, it just seems to come with the territory.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;968696Not a god-damned thing. Those frustrated fiction writers need to haul their bitch asses to Amazon, open their Kindle accounts, and just write their fucking stories already. Leave the gaming to the actual fucking gamers. "Storygames" are for fake gamers.

Yes. Let the real gamers be told how awesome their characters are by the DM, as they try to fill in every box on their character sheet for the win.

Quote from: CRKrueger;968697I define roleplaying as "playing a role in-character" as opposed to "playing a role out of character", and that's what I would call traditional

Traditional RPGs are '70s-style 1st-gen adventure games with no role-play(ing) of any kind at the table. And unfortunately, people still "role-play" that way to this day.

Quote from: Baulderstone;968626I had Lace and Steel. You could use a Tarot deck for character generation, but it wasn't like TORG where it was used in-play to add story elements. There was also custom deck of cards that came with the game, but it was used for resolving duels.

I have TORG. The cards were an interesting gimmic. It worked for the probability warping theme of the setting. Oddly enough in some of the playtests we participated in way back the game didnt use them.

Quote from: Omega;968704I have TORG. The cards were an interesting gimmic. It worked for the probability warping theme of the setting. Oddly enough in some of the playtests we participated in way back the game didnt use them.

I was in a lot of campaigns that never used them either. I think it often came down to the GM.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;968743I was in a lot of campaigns that never used them either. I think it often came down to the GM.

We didn't use them much. And I couldn't tell you why at this point. They were a fun mechanism to shake up the "lather, rinse, repeat" rut that rpg combat can fall into.

Quote from: Voros;968667Why are you 'trapped' in a mechanic? And who exactly is trying to exploit the system? Are you saying the mechanic forces you to exploit the system somehow? Or are you saying that the system is open to player exploitation?

All I am saying is that the mechanic is usually so "strong" that takes prominence over the role playing experience. By "trapped" I mean your imagination is trapped to a set of rules you constantly trying to exploit, similar to what happens on a board game its immersion breaking to me. I don't know if it makes any sense to you but that's how I see it.

Quote from: Nexus;968746We didn't use them much. And I couldn't tell you why at this point. They were a fun mechanism to shake up the "lather, rinse, repeat" rut that rpg combat can fall into.

The deck is a little unwieldy at first. I think some DMs and players also had trouble with the "oracle" nature of the system since you have to interpret what the card says and does into what fits the situation. Probably others just preferred more narrative control over whats going on? Or didnt feel like it added much to the gameplay?

Quote from: John Scott;968748All I am saying is that the mechanic is usually so "strong" that takes prominence over the role playing experience. By "trapped" I mean your imagination is trapped to a set of rules you constantly trying to exploit, similar to what happens on a board game its immersion breaking to me. I don't know if it makes any sense to you but that's how I see it.

Do you have any specific mechanics in mind?

The one that comes most strongly to mind now is Hillfolk (DramaSystem) with it's token economy. Also Universalis with the same thing, but used differently.

I don't know of any storygame mechanics that I'd want to use. The closest I got to interested was Microscope, for purposes of creating game world history with the input of others, but I did not end up deciding I actually wanted to use Microscope. I've done collaborative game world design since decades ago, without needing the storygame structures Microscope has.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;968758Do you have any specific mechanics in mind?

The one that comes most strongly to mind now is Hillfolk (DramaSystem) with it's token economy. Also Universalis with the same thing, but used differently.

Apart from the usual suspects I am going to mention a very recent released rpg, Modiphius Conan and the momentum mechanic. To anyone who doesn't know you gain momentum by successfully using a skill, a very easy thing to do in Conan rpg.

Session went like this. Players where constantly thinking how to use their skills to build momentum pool, all the f time because momentum is the almighty god mechanic in the game. I've seen a GM who was so frustrated that he gave up and is using only the fluff from the books now (which is excellent), btw the GM had to spent a currency or else players always acted first in combat. (a rip off from Marvel Heroic rpg just like the doom pool currency - an idea first time I saw in Marvel Saga rules)

I might sound dismissive of "narrative games" but in reality I am not, I am very open minded and I like all games especially when a good GM is involved. I am very interested to see some mechanic written here that I might find useful though.

Quote from: John Scott;968748All I am saying is that the mechanic is usually so "strong" that takes prominence over the role playing experience. By "trapped" I mean your imagination is trapped to a set of rules you constantly trying to exploit, similar to what happens on a board game its immersion breaking to me. I don't know if it makes any sense to you but that's how I see it.

Do you have an example? I think what you're describing sounds a lot like how Moves are mishandled by inexperienced players without a strong GM in some PbtA games to show/teach how they're supposed to work. For new players Moves are often just best left in the background as they become obsessed with figuring out how to use the mechanic instead of just reacting to the situation.

For the purpose of this thread, are people considering storygames the actual storygames like Microscope, Fiasco and Munchausen, or anything non-traditional like Fate, PbtA, Everway or, say, Pendragon?

My apologies if this was already answered.