Quote from: skofflox;416778Brings to mind an explanation of certain aspects of "Mara"(the illusory world of "ego") a Buddhist monk related,something like this.
"These "things" you percieve are actually there. What doesn't exist is your interpretation of them."

Love this

One of my favorite ways of seeing the concept written is "Enlightenment is perception before falling into thought."

Quote from: DKChannelBoredom;416779Could it perhaps also be combined with some sort of collectible cards maybe?

Collectible cards
Collectible Miniatures (with only one Erin Tarn figure in the entire world)
Cardstock character sheets with counters
All of it in a box sold for $150.00
Collector's Edition sold in a Coalition Soldier's Footlocker for $400.00

An ultra rare card will be a +infinity sword with an at-will wish spell.  

Quote from: Sigmund;416781Love this

One of my favorite ways of seeing the concept written is "Enlightenment is perception before falling into thought."

:worship:

Quote from: DKChannelBoredom;416779Could it perhaps also be combined with some sort of collectible cards maybe?

That would be even better. Each game, you get a deck of 30 cards. You can put any cards into it you want as long as their are no more than 3 of the same. You always have a hand of 4 cards, and can spend one each turn to affect a single action.

"Deadly Aim" Play this card to gain a +3 to strike when firing a long burst.

"Latent Ability" Play this card to use a first level spell.

"Just Barely" Automatically succeed on a Roll with Punch check.

There could also be story cards you could add in like: Friendly Merchant - play this card when at the Black Market to receive listed price for something you are selling. Another good one - "You're lucky I'm Busy" Play this card when the GM tries to bother your character with Coalition Security. They are too busy with something else and won't trouble you for the rest of the scene. That one would be a gold foil rare

Quote from: CRKrueger;416782Collectible cards
Collectible Miniatures (with only one Erin Tarn figure in the entire world)
Cardstock character sheets with counters
All of it in a box sold for $150.00
Collector's Edition sold in a Coalition Soldier's Footlocker for $400.00

That's fucking genius. I'm about to link Palladium to this thread. They need to know.

Quote from: Cranewings;416788That's fucking genius. I'm about to link Palladium to this thread. They need to know.

I think we got a winner... but I worry. Once Kevin gets it, I'm affraid he'll rewrite the whole thing and only give us marginal credit

Quote from: Cranewings;416775*snip*
Palladium games put out a new edition of Rifts where the GM role is shared by the players as a means of balancing the wacky power levels.

:hmm:

Quote from: BWA;416769It's still an obviously circular, made-up problem.

Tell that to Warhammer fans who were looking forward to WFRP2 designers getting to Tilea, Estalia, Araby, Cathay and instead got WFRP3 based on adventures with the narrative structure of (literally) Acts and Scenes.

I possess enough knowledge to order laptop parts direct from Taiwan and assemble my own laptop, but for the sake of time and convenience I buy mine.

I don't need any RPG games or RPG designers.  The industry could entirely end and I would still continue the hobby.  That has absolutely nothing to do with what is available to buy.

I don't care if the Forgish games continue to be created and I hope they sell.  Stay out of D&D, WFRP, RQ, Traveller, GURPS etc...  Make your own games, and you make Pundit sound like a raving lunatic.  Actively proselytize and try to convert game designers and you make his point for him.

Quote from: Koltar;416773Those are the games that people actually PURCHASE and play. The important thing is - the majority of the people prefer those traditional and playable games.

A lot of people purchased and played White-Wolf games.  In fact I preferred White-Wolf to prettymuch anything else out there.  d20, fah, powergaming, fah.  GURPS?  That's for autistic people.  I'm in it for the story and the characterization because I'm a cool cat.

It was still bullshit.

So while I was playing a "mainstream" game, that fact never guaranteed that the game would be any good at its core, and I think that analyzing actual play and how systems effect it can be useful.  It doesn't in any way diminish the fun that you or I can have playing GURPS, AD&D, or what have you -- maybe we've found a way to run these games well and we've found our little niche of fun -- we've succeeded in creating our own little "designs" or "flow" for play and it works for our groups.  But I think analyzing where play does fail and how it can be improved is a good thing.  Some may misappropriate those ideas and try to use them as a way to take jabs at old designs, or maybe to boost their own ego, but that doesn't speak to whether the ideas are actually useful.

Look at it this way.  Ron wrote a lot of shit.  He wrote it horribly.  He wrote it smugly.  PR is definitely the last place you want to put him, but he was self-instated, so a lot of Bad Shit (tm) happened with some conversations online.  If you've never come across the problems he's had with gaming, then you're going to think he's fucking nuts.  But if you ever have had similar experiences, you can kind of empathize.  Maybe you think the model is shit, but that's just one model.  There will never be any all-encompassing Grand Unification Theory of tabletop RPGs, just like how there's no overarching theory for historical study -- what you do have are opposing and fluctuating opinions, like you often do with soft sciences in academia.  And if you don't buy into a particular side, their models or ideas are useless to you.  But if you do understand their point of view, it is possible to use that model to do good things, even if you don't agree with all of it.

The reason the whole war against the Swine is imaginary is because their model is temporal and limited.  It is a set of collected ideas that are roughly related and organized in a particular way that the designers felt was useful to themselves.  It is merely a tool.  It is not the Truth, and if the creators say it is, they're full of shit.  The model will change and people will come along with different models and different points of view.  We'll have our "conservative backlash", followed by the "liberal uprising", followed by another "conservative backlash", and on and on. But that doesn't make it any less useful to the people who did do something good because they were inspired by the model, if only by a few small ideas.  The best you can do, like in politics, is to ignore the bullshit and just try to do something worthwhile, even if you steal a few ideas from your enemy.

Quote from: CRKrueger;416796I don't care if the Forgish games continue to be created and I hope they sell.  Stay out of D&D, WFRP, RQ, Traveller, GURPS etc...  Make your own games, and you make Pundit sound like a raving lunatic.  Actively proselytize and try to convert game designers and you make his point for him.

Excellent point - spot on.

Quote from: skofflox;416761Hmmm...IME some of the GMless games allow for as much background developement of the setting as the group cares to do so I don't see this as an across the board reality. And IME many times a DM wings it,albeit from a skeletal frame, as well so...

You're missing the point. It's not about whether there is or is not an encyclopedia about the game-world in existence when you start play. It's about the way that the illusion of unfolding mystery is ruined by >> you the players being equally in charge of revealing anything that hasn't yet been stated openly about the game-world, and there being no GM secrets, and the fact that you KNOW that everything fixed about the world has been openly stated and are constantly reminded of that fact by the very mode of play <<

Re challenges, obviously you can create challenges for your character. But you're not really creating challenges for yourself or for you + your character in combination.

I have (ONCE) played a GM-less game, Montsegur 1244, defo a story game not a trad game. In effect what happened was we were swapping GM roles among the players. So it wasn't TRULY GM-less. The GM role still exists. It's just that you pass it back and forth. You don't really SHARE it at the same time. Doubtless you can run a game with no fixed GM which is based on emulation and taking your character's POV, but I think constantly switching to GM-mode would lessen your immersion nonetheless, because you constantly have to stand apart from your character. I think my experience of Montsegur 1244 confirms that.

So yes, it would be a trad game, but not a very immersive one. If it was aiming for immersion, which trad games often are, it wouldn't be doing it very well. On the other hand if you had some other aim in mind, maybe lots of hack and slash or just a pure emulation of the game-world, it could accomplish that.

The thing is, having a GM is a brilliant basis for running an immersive, emulative game. Sure, you can have a go at structuring things to do it without a GM, but why???

And to the guy who thinks this reply is too long already:- may I remind you that you are reading the 69th+ page of a forum thread which was started by Pundit with the Forge as part of its subject matter. If you don't want to read bullshit why are you reading so deep into this thread?

Quote from: CRKrueger;416796Actively proselytize and try to convert game designers and you make his point for him.

This.

It wasn't the nonfunctional GNS theory, the misery tourism games, or pretentious pseudointellectualism of Forgies - it was and is the Scientology approach to getting their ideas across that was/is offensive to me. If the idea is worthwhile, then it doesn't need legions of zealous fans going to other forums and trying to "preach the word". The idea will propagate by itself and gain a foothold, then momentum.

And no amount of posting that "you're doing it wrong", "you're brain-damaged", or "you can't help yourself because you are an abuse victim" will make a bankrupt idea any more attractive.

Quote from: Seanchai;416764I'm not seeing anything that would prevent a GM from countermanding any such declaration.

You could say the rules prevent it, but we know we don't have to listen to the rules or play the game in the manner the designer intended. We both agree - and, if you recall, I specifically asked your opinion on this - that the GM can change the game to suit himself and the group.

You could say that changing the outcome makes the mechanic pointless. Two points here. First, unless it's happening all the time, who cares? If the GM goes along with most of what the players come up with an only occasionally counteracts their declarations, I don't see a problem or any real breach.

Point two: This type of contravention of the mechanics happens all the time in traditional games. Examples including fudging the die rolls, rolling behind a screen and pretending to get some result other than what you did, choosing not to use mechanics in situations for which the rulebook indicates they should be used, altering difficulties for rolls, et al.

Dude are you being serious here? Because this is getting tiring. You are now officially just arguing for the sake of arguing.  By your logic, there would be NO game that couldn't be "turned into an RPG".  You could do it in monopoly if the Banker suddenly decided that in fact you should only get $20 for park avenue.
What do you think the player holding Park Avenue would do then? What would the other players do?
The point is the game is set up so that the guy who's the "GM" is really just a kind of referee, and the mechanic is not like an RPG mechanic, it is a mechanic that EXPLICITLY CREATES THE STAKES; if the GM can then turn around and say "You know what? I lost that die roll but what you want doesn't happen anyways", you HAVEN'T GOT A FUCKING GAME.
It different from a GM deciding that your "spot" roll isn't quite high enough to catch the assassin, because in an RPG the GM has universal power over the setting. It is his JOB to dictate how the universe works, over and above the rules. So it is accepted that the GM fudge rules. Whereas in a Storygame, it is not, it is in fact EXPLICIT that a GM cannot just arbitrarily decide to overrule a player.  
Your stupid argument has gone and proven my point about the difference between the two.

So yes, you stupid cunt, you could make Monopoly into an RPG about corporate greed, but then it wouldn't actually be monopoly anymore. Likewise, you could make DiTV into an actual RPG, but it wouldn't be DiTV anymore, you'd have to change basically ALL of its rules so that what you'd have is a 100% houseruled game.

QuoteSo the whole "Tyranny of Fun" was just bullshit? The folks saying that players expected balance, balanced encounters, the rules to be followed, more rules created so there's less GM fiat, etc., are wrong? Because I could have sworn that you sided with them.

Dude, listen to yourself. One second you're arguing that everyone thinks its hunky-dory to be a rules lawyer, the next you're trying to use the MASSIVE CRITICSM 4e has received for the "tyranny of fun" phenomenon as some kind of argument in your favor?
In fact, what caused the Tyranny of Fun was a group of designers who clearly failed to understand what makes RPGs appealing (a few of them possibly influenced directly or indirectly by the Forge).

QuoteAnd that's why we're all playing White Wolf games.

That's why we all were, in the late 90s, because it didn't matter if you didn't buy a single WW-product; virtually all the major gaming companies had turned their products in to WW-style pretentious-setting metaplot-rich wankfests, because they thought that was what was "hip" right then.
And while some people just held out, and played those few games that weren't infected by this mental virus (Palladium and SJ Games were mostly not, and interestingly enough are two of the only companies that survived that age), or played old editions and became hobby outliers, the vast majority of discontented people just LEFT; creating the largest exodus from the hobby in its history. Which in turn led to massive waves of bankruptcies in the hobby as company after company collapsed.  
So yes, that's why its dangerous. Because corporate idiots jumping onto the bandwagon of bad ideas proposed by self-serving Swine nearly destroyed the RPG hobby once already.

RPGPundit

Quote from: CRKrueger;416796Tell that to Warhammer fans who were looking forward to WFRP2 designers getting to Tilea, Estalia, Araby, Cathay and instead got WFRP3 based on adventures with the narrative structure of (literally) Acts and Scenes.

And so they purchased and now play Warhammer third edition?

Seanchai