Quote from: James Gillen;754948"Am I Ray Stevenson or Tony Curtis?"

While I agree it's important to have everyone on the same page as far as expectations, I think the actor/character analogy is a poor one.

Shit, I feel more like an actor playing a role in heavily railroaded games than I do in even the most hardcore 'storygame', much less games which just are not hardcore simulation but have some level of genre emulation.

Quote from: robiswrong;754700I generally define railroading as lack of agency.  If there are certain things that will work, and those work every time, and other things don't work, eventually the game can devolve into simply exercising those known good options.  

Again, it seems like you have not encountered actual lack of agency, where your PC has no ability to affect the game world and/or no choices to make. "I know X will work" is not lack of agency. At most, a world that doesn't react to PCs always doing X (by eg NPCs avoiding opportunities for PC to do X) isn't a very well designed game world. That X tactic, when available, reliably works, doesn't remove agency. "Superman wins fights" does not remove Superman's agency.

Re 'no one is saying you can't die in Fate!' - well see this - this GM at my local Meetup is running it so that not only PCs can't die, his pet NPCs can't die either - unless he chooses to let them. And according to him he's running the Concession rules RAW. Is he wrong?

Quote from: robiswrong;754951While I agree it's important to have everyone on the same page as far as expectations, I think the actor/character analogy is a poor one.

Shit, I feel more like an actor playing a role in heavily railroaded games than I do in even the most hardcore 'storygame', much less games which just are not hardcore simulation but have some level of genre emulation.

This is at best confusing. Okay, I am confused. First because both names are actors! But I guess that's a commentary on the verisimilitude of Spartacus vs HBO's Rome.

Second, because offering a railroaded game vs storygame dichotomy doesn't seem too relevant given the widespread disdain for railroading on this site. I think I understand why you're saying what you're saying but folks hereabout tend to see things in terms of scriptwriter (storygame) vs character (sandbox trad game).

Quote from: S'mon;754953Again, it seems like you have not encountered actual lack of agency, where your PC has no ability to affect the game world and/or no choices to make. "I know X will work" is not lack of agency. At most, a world that doesn't react to PCs always doing X (by eg NPCs avoiding opportunities for PC to do X) isn't a very well designed game world. That X tactic, when available, reliably works, doesn't remove agency. "Superman wins fights" does not remove Superman's agency.

No, I've definitely encountered real railroading, and I've admitted that 'railroading' may have not been the best word to use there.  I see you omitted that part - are you interested in discussing things, or just proving that I'm BadWrong?

I've played in games where every situation is handled the same way - go through a checklist of things you need to do, use the same tactics, blah blah blah.  I was making as few meaningful choices as I would in the most railroady DragonLance campaign ever.

Quote from: S'mon;754953Re 'no one is saying you can't die in Fate!' - well see this - this GM at my local Meetup is running it so that not only PCs can't die, his pet NPCs can't die either - unless he chooses to let them. And according to him he's running the Concession rules RAW. Is he wrong?

If you're breaking into the vampire's lair in order to kill them, then yeah, I think it's wrong to say "no, you really didn't mean that."  That doesn't mean that the vamp doesn't have options beyond "Take Out/be Taken Out".  One of the most common is to run, turning it into a Contest rather than a Conflict.

The important thing is that everyone has to *agree* to the Concession.  Sometimes, you can throw in some key information/etc.  Sometimes you can throw in a few Fate Points as a pseudo-compel.  Sometimes, the NPC just bites it, and so be it.

I mean, that's actually an example in Fate Core - an NPC that the GM intended to be important was cut down in an early part of the game.  The advice?  "Roll with it."

I don't see anything in the rules that states "your goal of a conflict can't be the death of the enemies".  So that's the part he's making up.  Now, most of the time it *shouldn't* be that - your goal will be "get into the castle", not "kill the guards".  But sometimes it really is "kill the sumbitch".

Personally, if the players make it to the vampire's lair, and manage to overcome his defenses, and get him on the ropes, I'm not really feeling like taking that victory away from them because it's My Precious NPC (which happens in other games than Fate).  Fuck that.  Let 'em have their victory, they earned it.  Otherwise, what's the damn point of even letting them into the fight in the first place?  I know how it's going to end before it starts.  To hell with that.

If you don't want your NPC to die, then don't stick him in the fight.  That's why you have minions and lieutenants.

I'm also personally not a fan of "I'm going to make this happen because I'm telling this story, and it'll be better this way"  Again, fuck that.  Play out the situation, and keep shit moving.  Fuck that "dramatically appropriate" shit.  We play to find out what happens, not to listen to the GM's preplanned story.

And really, I think it was clear that when I said 'nobody is saying you can't die' that it was scoped to this conversation?  Otherwise, I'm sure I can find plenty of people saying you shouldn't kill characters without their consent in D&D.  I know I've seen that claim, but I don't think that it's really fair to pin that on D&D as a whole (and I wouldn't).

Actually, I think I will turn the "is it valid to say that 'I want you dead' isn't a legitimate goal" to the Google+ group.

My belief is that it shouldn't be the default, but that it *is* the goal in some circumstances.  I suspect that will be the general consensus, but it'd be interesting to see.  I'll let you know the results.

Quote from: Arminius;754956This is at best confusing. Okay, I am confused. First because both names are actors! But I guess that's a commentary on the verisimilitude of Spartacus vs HBO's Rome.

Second, because offering a railroaded game vs storygame dichotomy doesn't seem too relevant given the widespread disdain for railroading on this site. I think I understand why you're saying what you're saying but folks hereabout tend to see things in terms of scriptwriter (storygame) vs character (sandbox trad game).

Ah, sorry, didn't catch the "both actors" thing.

My point was that in a railroad story, you're possibly playing a known character, and definitely playing through a known story.  That's... pretty much what an actor does.

The 'character vs. scriptwriter' thing is at least more accurate, though I still think it's often just a way of scoring points.

The character vs. scriptwriter thing is also on display in the page linked to By S'Mon, and again, I'd personally have no interest in playing a game like that.  I expect my players to primarily have their characters' goals and personality in mind, not some meta-goal of "make a neat story".  OTOH, "yeah, my character would *totally* do that, even though it's kinda dumb" is part and parcel of roleplaying in my view.

Quote from: robiswrong;754959...I mean, that's actually an example in Fate Core - an NPC that the GM intended to be important was cut down in an early part of the game.  The advice?  "Roll with it."

I don't see anything in the rules that states "your goal of a conflict can't be the death of the enemies".  So that's the part he's making up.  Now, most of the time it *shouldn't* be that - your goal will be "get into the castle", not "kill the guards".  But sometimes it really is "kill the sumbitch".

Personally, if the players make it to the vampire's lair, and manage to overcome his defenses, and get him on the ropes, I'm not really feeling like taking that victory away from them because it's My Precious NPC (which happens in other games than Fate).  Fuck that.  Let 'em have their victory, they earned it.  Otherwise, what's the damn point of even letting them into the fight in the first place?  I know how it's going to end before it starts.  To hell with that.

If you don't want your NPC to die, then don't stick him in the fight.  That's why you have minions and lieutenants.

I'm also personally not a fan of "I'm going to make this happen because I'm telling this story, and it'll be better this way"  Again, fuck that.  Play out the situation, and keep shit moving.  Fuck that "dramatically appropriate" shit.  We play to find out what happens, not to listen to the GM's preplanned story.

Thanks. From reading that thread I thought it seemed particularly bad GMing in Fate, because AFAIK Fate is supposed to be a narrativist game of mutual story creation by players and GM, and the GM seems to be running it as a White Wolf style Storyteller. I wanted to say something, but it's considered bad form there to post non-laudatory stuff on other GM's threads.

So 'pet NPC can't die' seems even less appropriate in a story-creation game that it would be in a gamist game, where the potential victory conditions may perhaps be set not to include NPC death as a possibility.

But this example does make me think that there might be something other than ignorance in the frequent conflation of Storyteller and Story-creation games, that one (story-creation) can rather easily degenerate into the other (railroaded storytelling)? And that maybe gamist challenge-oriented games are more robust, less likely to suffer from this?

Quote from: S'mon;755023But this example does make me think that there might be something other than ignorance in the frequent conflation of Storyteller and Story-creation games, that one (story-creation) can rather easily degenerate into the other (railroaded storytelling)? And that maybe gamist challenge-oriented games are more robust, less likely to suffer from this?

I think there's a *ton* of conflation between the two, among both supporters and detracters, even though most 'story creation' games go out of their way to point out that you shouldn't take away player agency.  I mean, that's why Apocalypse World has as one of its rules "play to find out what happens."  It's directly against railroading/"story telling" (as if you know what happens, you're breaking the rules).

It's a confusion I used to have, that's for damn sure (from the detractor side).

I honestly think it's just the use of the word "story", in conjunction with years if not decades of being taught that story in RPG = railroading.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939And I totally agree with that.  By that definition, CoC ain't pulp, and well, that seems utterly bizarre.

I know, right? This seems to be is a common conceit, sadly.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939My view of Fate comes primarily from Fate Core and the other Evil Hat products.  I have no real insight into other implementations of the system.

This is not the first time that I bump heads with someone who got in via FATE Core. I swear to God I might understand FATE better if I'd never read SBA.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939I'll also be the first to admit that Fate can be very hard for new players to grasp, especially those with a more traditional background.  That's not being condescending - it was tough for *me* to grasp, coming from a traditional background (interestingly, GURPS players, and GURPS was my system of choice for *years*, seem to have a harder time than most other players).

My one experience with FATE was as a GM and I had a lot of difficulty wrapping my head around the very abstract, "storey" or "fluffy" logic of the game engine. As I've mentioned before, I thought the rulebook was very poorly written and organized, which further complicated things during actual play.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939excuse me if I get pedantic.  I'm not trying to talk down here, I'm just trying to be super precise about stuff so there's less room for misinterpretation.  

Not at all. I appreciate your clarifications and the obvious amount of time and effort that went into them.

Quote from: robiswrong;754939How it works in practice often isn't immediately obvious, especially reading it with a more traditional mindset.  I don't really know about how SBA presents the rules - it's certainly possible that their presentation doesn't help things.

Your explanations were very enlightening and addressed most of my concerns. I might even given FATE Core a chance but the whole system still strikes me as a dash more abstract than I'm comfortable with.

Thank you for your willingness to engage in meaningful debate.

Quote from: The Butcher;755385Your explanations were very enlightening and addressed most of my concerns. I might even given FATE Core a chance but the whole system still strikes me as a dash more abstract than I'm comfortable with.

One of the biggest trip-ups with Fate is "fiction first" (which doesn't mean plot immunity, or fuck the rules, I"ve got a story to tell).  It means "start by saying what your dude is doing, and then we'll figure out what rules to apply".

If you look at "Create Advantage" as a rule by itself, it does seem very abstract.  But when you start with a concrete action, like "I'm Spiderman, and I shoot my web slingers at this other dude to tie him up", then it becomes much less abstract.

As I've said before, if you're interested, I'm more than willing to run a game for the curious or skeptical.  I'm actually running a few sessions on Thursdays at 7pm PST to teach the system to a few folks.  I could see if we can handle a fifth (four is kind of a good sweet spot, five starts getting a bit heavy).

But at the end of the day, no, Fate's not everybody's cup of tea.

I've never heard the idea that PCs shouldn't/can't die in pulp-inspired games. Or any other game for that matter. Weird. Is it an outgrowth of the kids used to video games where you essentially never die if you keep jamming quarters in the slot?

I'll just stick to Daredevils. None of these newfangled "storytelling games" seem very interesting to me.

As an aside (and possibly beaten into a fine mist), on genre...

I think the problem most people have in genre discussions is that genre is actually a multidimensional loosely inter-related tangle of associations.

So when people say 'horror genre,' they are actually talking about various combinations of mood, message, atmosphere, plot, setting, props, character types, styles, etc.

So Pulp is a genre, but it's broader in certain respects and thinner in others compared to, say, Horror or Science Fiction -- Pulp is a little more about message, mood and plot, while Horror and SF is more strongly noted by setting and props (but certainly have plot and messages typical to them).


tl;d:
Pulp as genre -- it's complicated.

As for death in games... I often run games with an eye that we're essentially cobbling together a TV episode.

And so, often, I don't want PCs to die unless they effectively insist.


That said, there's a lot of other crap I can do to them, first...

Don't get this at all. Pulp can often be extremely lethal.  Of course, there's a huge range of what can qualify as 'pulp'.

I don't subscribe to the notions of 'pulp' put forward by the RPG hipster crowd. When I think of pulp, I think of Harold Lamb, Robert E. Howard, and Dashiel Hammet. Definitely gritty and lethal stuff. The RPG hipsters seem to draw their inspiration from comics.