Quote from: CRKrueger;933213Hmm.  Grove doubted you would have a schedule and timetable for an NPC gang's operations, arrest, conviction, and sentencing whether or not the PCs ever interacted with them.

I'm too lazy to go and check whether I misremember that, but I'm pretty sure he didn't say "regardless of whether the PCs interacted with them".

Even if it was that, a Referee doubting that another Referee might present a schedule for a gang's operation that allows the players to interact or avoid interaction with them. It's still a good enough example for my previous post;).

Which means that you, of course, are engaging in the favourite game of all RPG forums: Nit: the Picking:D!

QuoteNeither is playing chess without a board, remembering all setting details set up on the fly without writing them down, picking the winner of a fight by their entry walk, or any of the other minor superpowers you claim , that people keep saying don't apply to everybody.

The idea that any of these would be beyond the ability of normal people is so utterly ridiculous that calling them "superpowers" only manages to make it slightly more ridiculous:). Half the chess players in my high school class were able to play chess without looking, do you mean to imply I was studying in Supers High:D?

Quote from: AsenRG;933226I'm too lazy to go and check whether I misremember that, but I'm pretty sure he didn't say "regardless of whether the PCs interacted with them".

Pretty sure that's what he meant.

Quote from: AsenRG;933226Even if it was that, a Referee doubting that another Referee might present a schedule for a gang's operation that allows the players to interact or avoid interaction with them. It's still a good enough example for my previous post;).

Eh, again those are two different things.

No one said that being able to come up with a logical Law Enforcement response to PC crimes was something not all GMs could do.

Planning out the World in Motion so you know everything that will happen without PC interference is definitely not done by all GMs.  Hell, that style of GMing is Anathema to the designers of half the games you play....err completely rewrite.

Quote from: AsenRG;933226Which means that you, of course, are engaging in the favourite game of all RPG forums: Nit: the Picking:D!

Nah. You look on this board, you'll see plenty of Idiot Savantic Rainman Pedantry, and I'm not innocent of it myself, but this isn't one of those times.  Also, please stop breaking my Irony Meter.

Quote from: AsenRG;933226Half the chess players in my high school class were able to play chess without looking, do you mean to imply I was studying in Supers High:D?

Chess and Eastern Europe is a thing.  

Quote from: CRKrueger;933236Pretty sure that's what he meant.

Eh, again those are two different things.

No one said that being able to come up with a logical Law Enforcement response to PC crimes was something not all GMs could do.

Really? Because I've had this exact argument on other forums, though I'm not sure which ones. Maybe Rgrove didn't mean that, and I misunderstood him due to earlier discussions...but in my defence, he did sound a lot like the people in those earlier discussions.
Maybe not. It's pointless to debate it now, either way.

QuotePlanning out the World in Motion so you know everything that will happen without PC interference is definitely not done by all GMs.

I know it isn't. My whole argument is that them not doing that is the root of the problem:D!

QuoteHell, that style of GMing is Anathema to the designers of half the games you play....err completely rewrite.

You know that I subscribe to "the Death of the Author" theory, don't you:p?
Also, I usually only have to re-write the GMing chapter. (And if I was to join in Nit: the Picking, White Wolf games definitely don't make half the games I play:D).

QuoteNah. You look on this board, you'll see plenty of Idiot Savantic Rainman Pedantry, and I'm not innocent of it myself, but this isn't one of those times.

Sure seemed that way:p!

QuoteAlso, please stop breaking my Irony Meter.

Never:D!

QuoteChess and Eastern Europe is a thing.  

Yeah, right. We're all Supers:)!
Wait, if being an Eastern European was a superpower, how come we're poorer than those living to the west of us;)?


And to get back to EPT, can you imagine how much more popular EPT might have been if more people were willing to run their own sandboxes? Or if there was a line of easily-accessible adventures for it?
(Gronan had mentioned that people asking for ready-made adventures was a popular demand among D&D players. And that tells me they weren't exactly looking to run their sandboxes).

Some people are tinkerers, some people are creators.  I played in the campaign of a GM who never made up a single thing out of whole cloth, every single thing he ran was cribbed from some existing module or adventure.  Deconstructed and rewritten to the point that it was unrecognizable, and may as well have been out of whole cloth, but sit him down with a pen and blank paper, he was lost.  I've also played in the campaign of a GM who would never even think of buying anything other than the basic rules.  Both were awesome campaigns.  You can sandbox from modules or railroad from your own script.

I think that's why Sine Nomine is so popular and why Vornheim was so hot.  All those random tables to prime the creative pump work better for a lot of people.

I'm more of a miner myself, especially these days due to time constraints.

Quote from: AsenRG;933239And to get back to EPT, can you imagine how much more popular EPT might have been if more people were willing to run their own sandboxes? Or if there was a line of easily-accessible adventures for it?
(Gronan had mentioned that people asking for ready-made adventures was a popular demand among D&D players. And that tells me they weren't exactly looking to run their sandboxes).

I'm going to call you (and/or Gronan) on this, although I suspect we don't disagree at all.

I do not believe clamouring for modules and playing sandbox are mutually exclusive. I remember starting with D&D in the 70s into the early 80s, in my group yes we bought modules now and then, probably one or two each over the years, mine were Hommlet and Vault if the Drow. Another guy got Fire Giants and Tamoachan. Whatever. We didn't buy them to play them, in fact we never did. It never occurred to us to play them. No, we created our own campaigns. But we bought modules to help make sense of the game and to get hints for creating our own sandboxes and our own points of interest.

Getting back to EPT, even after all these years, there is still an element of "what the hell is this, and how do I turn it into a game?"

I do believe modules can help with that. And EPT needs them. Not 500 of them, so you can play frickin prepackaged modules all your life. But a half a dozen or so to provide hints and inspiration about what the game could be, that's not a bad thing at all.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;933125Dear God. And here, for all these years, I thought that that was the way to play. The GM created a world, and we fooled around in it.

I have more to say on this, but it will probably have to wait until the weekend.

Quote from: CRKrueger;933240Some people are tinkerers, some people are creators.  I played in the campaign of a GM who never made up a single thing out of whole cloth, every single thing he ran was cribbed from some existing module or adventure.  Deconstructed and rewritten to the point that it was unrecognizable, and may as well have been out of whole cloth, but sit him down with a pen and blank paper, he was lost.  I've also played in the campaign of a GM who would never even think of buying anything other than the basic rules.  Both were awesome campaigns.  You can sandbox from modules or railroad from your own script.

I think that's why Sine Nomine is so popular and why Vornheim was so hot.  All those random tables to prime the creative pump work better for a lot of people.

I'm more of a miner myself, especially these days due to time constraints.

Maybe you can, but I seriously don't know what that looks like:).
Or maybe I do, but I'd prefer an explanation, if you don't mind.

Quote from: Zirunel;933264I'm going to call you (and/or Gronan) on this, although I suspect we don't disagree at all.

I do not believe clamouring for modules and playing sandbox are mutually exclusive. I remember starting with D&D in the 70s into the early 80s, in my group yes we bought modules now and then, probably one or two each over the years, mine were Hommlet and Vault if the Drow. Another guy got Fire Giants and Tamoachan. Whatever. We didn't buy them to play them, in fact we never did. It never occurred to us to play them. No, we created our own campaigns. But we bought modules to help make sense of the game and to get hints for creating our own sandboxes and our own points of interest.

Maybe, but that's a mode of play I've not encountered yet. People running modules, I have, people running their own sandbox games, I have encountered as well.
But "sandbox with modules" is something I don't understand.
Well, maybe I do, but not as "mining". I think the closest I've got to it was probably when we were playtesting the Price of Power setting supplement for Fates Worse Than Death. I warned I'm going to run the four adventures that are part of it (though not the greatest part).
My group made short* work of them, and I sent my feedback to the author.
But, more importantly, then I started the usual sandbox. During the adventures, they had achieved some glory and notoriety, made some contacts, met some people and formed their own opinions on people and groups. All of that helped fuel it.

Thing is, I've never seen anyone recommend using adventures in that way.
(Well, apart from PbtA games, but FWTD is as far from "a narrative game" as you can get. By which I mean "frigging Runequest, Warhammer2 and OD&D have more narrative elements, and less random tables").

*Literally "short" work. I was running them by the book, so obviously my players couldn't rely on knowing my style, but the results were consistent with their usual achievements. I keep worrying I was going too easy on them, but at least in this case I know it wasn't the case:D.
And one of the adventures got fullfilled in all of 10 minutes. Counting on my players to find shortcuts is something I am used to.
FWIW, I think the author changed some stuff in that adventure as a consequence.

QuoteGetting back to EPT, even after all these years, there is still an element of "what the hell is this, and how do I turn it into a game?"

That's...something else I don't understand. How do you turn it into a game?
It was before I had seen an RPG that I had an answer. "Try to imagine what life is like in the setting. Play that out. Try to survive doing so."
For the record, I was talking about the Way of the Tiger gamebooks;). In Bulgaria, those appeared about 8 years before I would see an RPG, and I was among the first players AFAIK.

QuoteI do believe modules can help with that. And EPT needs them. Not 500 of them, so you can play frickin prepackaged modules all your life. But a half a dozen or so to provide hints and inspiration about what the game could be, that's not a bad thing at all.

Well, Bethorm has at least 2 already, and I think more are on the way(or might be published already...I've said it that I'm not used to running modules, so I don't follow on that). It's not EPT, but it is Tekumel, and I assume you don't mean the mechanics of EPT, right?
You should check them. And of course, you can play them with whichever system that you want!

Quote from: Zirunel;933264I'm going to call you (and/or Gronan) on this, although I suspect we don't disagree at all.

I do not believe clamouring for modules and playing sandbox are mutually exclusive. I remember starting with D&D in the 70s into the early 80s, in my group yes we bought modules now and then, probably one or two each over the years, mine were Hommlet and Vault if the Drow. Another guy got Fire Giants and Tamoachan. Whatever. We didn't buy them to play them, in fact we never did. It never occurred to us to play them. No, we created our own campaigns. But we bought modules to help make sense of the game and to get hints for creating our own sandboxes and our own points of interest.

Getting back to EPT, even after all these years, there is still an element of "what the hell is this, and how do I turn it into a game?"

I do believe modules can help with that. And EPT needs them. Not 500 of them, so you can play frickin prepackaged modules all your life. But a half a dozen or so to provide hints and inspiration about what the game could be, that's not a bad thing at all.

You can do this, but the vast majority of people don't.

How do you mine?  You take the Caves of Chaos, rejigger the map a bit, and run it as a WWII-era Japanese bunker complex with a Cthulhu Temple hidden the back.  Or you take the Village of Hommlet, and turn it into Bon Homme, Nevada...good for Boot Hill or Gamma World, take your pick.

Or, you grab every single Goodman Games, AEG, and Necromancer Games module in existence, grab the NPCs you like, the maps you like, and rewrite them to make your own country for your PCs to run around in.

Quote from: CRKrueger;933283How do you mine?  You take the Caves of Chaos, rejigger the map a bit, and run it as a WWII-era Japanese bunker complex with a Cthulhu Temple hidden the back.  Or you take the Village of Hommlet, and turn it into Bon Homme, Nevada...good for Boot Hill or Gamma World, take your pick.

Or, you grab every single Goodman Games, AEG, and Necromancer Games module in existence, grab the NPCs you like, the maps you like, and rewrite them to make your own country for your PCs to run around in.

Well, guess I do that, after all. I just took a Traveller spaceship and am planning to crash him on some planet and use it as a dungeon-style location:).

But, as Gronan said above, the vast majority of people don't do that;).

Quote from: AsenRG;933279Well, Bethorm has at least 2 already, and I think more are on the way(or might be published already...I've said it that I'm not used to running modules, so I don't follow on that). It's not EPT, but it is Tekumel, and I assume you don't mean the mechanics of EPT, right?
You should check them. And of course, you can play them with whichever system that you want!

I am aware of the Unigames products. I haven't bought any of them but if they help inspire people in designing their own Tekumels then yes, more of that! (But not so much more that people just play modules. That would be a shame).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;933282You can do this, but the vast majority of people don't.

I am kinda floored. I thought everybody used modules mostly just as sources for ideas.

Quote from: Zirunel;933293I am aware of the Unigames products. I haven't bought any of them but if they help inspire people in designing their own Tekumels then yes, more of that! (But not so much more that people just play modules. That would be a shame).

+1 to all of it.

Quote from: Zirunel;933294I am kinda floored. I thought everybody used modules mostly just as sources for ideas.

I wish you were right;).

Could the lack of such had made the difference?

Even those that mine would have nothing but their own imagination.

I use my vague knowledge of historic China, Conan, Carter and various old books as a source.
Luckily, I don't feel that I have to replicate the Professor's game, just borrow what feels good.

Is this now unacceptable?
=

It's perfectly viable to play EPT as D&D with different funny clothes, and it's easy too.

But most people would rather bitch than play, and that hasn't changed.  I know several people who ran their own EPT games by the "just run the gaddam game" principle.