Quote from: -E.I can see how the players might not choose to use those rules in extreme cases (very long falls, or spending a *long* time underwater) -- if it's obvious that someone's dead, why roll all the dice? But so many drowning and falling scenarios aren't black and white... doesn't it make sense to rule on them?

Very long falls, while usually fatal, are not always. It depends on how "hollywood" or over-the-top or whatever you want to call it you want your game to be. If you are OK with the PCs being in the middle of special events you'd actually represent such things with highly heightened odds from boring ol' Real Life™.

Any, to the original question, if falling or being in water (or some other aphixiation sitution) is anywhere remotely possible and relavent to the game I don't see what the problem is?  I actually hadn't even noticed before the jeering you mention. Perhaps that represents good choices on my part of what threads to read?

Quote from: James J SkachThis is fantastic, -E.  It doesn't, if you read the enhanced principles about abstraction and such, offend the sensibilities of different "styles" of gaming.

Thanks!  Agreed -- the principles,if they're good ones, should be sound across a wide spectrum of preferences and priorities.

Quote from: James J SkachHowever, my guess is you're going to have to pry the lack-of-physical-world-modeling of more abstract games out of their cold dead hands. Why?.

Because in some circles, there is a vested interest in the idea that number-of-words = importance-of-rules.  So if a game designer spends four pages on modeling the physical world, it has four pages worth of importance. Now, you and I might assert that the real "importance" is not in the number of words/pages, but in the level of abstraction and likelihood of deployment.  

But that approach might be too...nuanced...for rational discussion about RPGs.

The idea that a metric as crude as page-count could be used that way astonishes me.

It's either a profound misunderstanding of how people use gaming systems or an agenda (I think the latter is more likely). Maybe people who "roleplay" are an evolutionary-step above the cretins who merely "rollplay" and need crude tools like combat systems in their games.

Either way, I agree: not much hope for rational discussion.

Quote from: James J SkachAnd, lest we forget, Dallas had violence in it too. Quite a bit if I recall correctly. People getting in fist fights, getting shot, etc.

Hell yeah. Violence -- or thread of violence -- is prevalent across many genres. Even/especially intrigue and plotting stories. I've seen people complain that PC's in Call of Cuthulhu resort to violence (cinematic or otherwise) in ways that are contrary to the theme/tone of the story.

When you actually *read* the source material, you see a very PC-like move: they run over Cuthulhu with a ship. Sounds like your average bunch of PC's to me.

Again: A Dallas game probably wouldn't *focus* on violence. Spending 1/3rd of the page count for a dedicate system on combat might well be a mistake -- but I think the solution is to use a generalist rules-set that has sufficient combat rules and spend most of the Dallas source-book material on Dallas-related game advice and setting.

Needless to say, I think the GURPS approach is nearly perfect in this regard.

Quote from: blakkieVery long falls, while usually fatal, are not always. It depends on how "hollywood" or over-the-top or whatever you want to call it you want your game to be. If you are OK with the PCs being in the middle of special events you'd actually represent such things with highly heightened odds from boring ol' Real Life™.

Any, to the original question, if falling or being in water (or some other aphixiation sitution) is anywhere remotely possible and relavent to the game I don't see what the problem is? I actually hadn't even noticed before the jeering you mention. Perhaps that represents good choices on my part of what threads to read?

New principle: the rules should cover surviving a huge fall by aiming for a skylight!:eek:

In a heroic game of any kind, I guess I'd want the rules to provide some chance of survival. In a low abstraction game, I'd want the rules to differentiate outcome (i.e. damage) based on what you hit when you land, and then be able to make an adequate ruling when a PC hits several things on the way down to slow his fall.

My basic premise: combat, falling and asphyxiation (along with several other basic events) are "anywhere remotely possible and relevant" to virtually *all* games -- even Dallas, DiTV, and Call of Cthulhu, and therefore should represented in the system.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: CalithenaI think that if a game doesn't have rules for converting real-world tensile strength to breakability percentages for inanimate objects, as well as providing tensile strengths (and melting points, etc.) for any imaginary substances (like mithril or adamantine or trilithium crystals) that occur in the settting, it's not a role-playing game.

Hmmmm...

What about the game linked in your sig, then?

I was being facetious, Pierce. I'm kind of amazed that -E agreed with me: I was presenting it as a reductio ad absurdum of the position that you need this kind of stuff in any absolute sense. My favorite satire of this kind is an eighth level spell for freezing water in the Hackmaster Spellslinger's guide, which gives you a spell output in terms of the megajoules (or whatever) you can suck out of water and a formula for how much energy it takes to cool water, etc. that involves multiplying by Avogadro's number and some other stuff.

(I can see the guy reading this spell and thinking "fireball should be defined this way! an output of plasma! what's the melting point of human flesh, and given that an average human has 3 hit points, how do you...", though. Some people just like to do this sort of thing.)

In some games a certain amount of conversion from reality to fiction is helpful, I guess. Although, usually it's bad conversion, like MSPE's (a great game IMO btw) rule for converting muzzle velocity to firearm damage, which is oversimplifying to put things mildly. It's very rare that these guidelines improve on the DM imagining something and making up a number in relation to other numbers that are defined in the rules. (In other words, I'm suggesting that in RPG adjudication, casuistry works better than principle in most cases.)

I agree with -E that a lot of players want to know e.g. exactly how many pounds they can carry or lift, etc. My response is basically to stay vague until they realize I'm not going to answer, because I prefer things that way.  My general preference tends to be for the players never to think about the 'game' part of the RPG at all at the table. I take a dim view of mechanics slowing down play, and of using mechanics to make an end run around the players' and GM's personal assessments of the shared imaginative reality of the game. This makes me an even worse Forgie than traditional gamer, perhaps, but that's cool.

Ok, firstly disliking falling and drowning rules has nothing to do with being into story games or anything like that, as best I can tell I'm the only person here who dislikes them and I mostly play BRP based games.

For me it's simple, in actual play these things do arise, but not so often that I remember the rules for them off by heart.  In actual play, stopping the action to look up a drowning or falling rule damages pacing and flow, which I view as critical to a fun session.  Therefore, in practice I make a ruling and we roll the dice and move on.

They add no value to my games, they take up space in the book, are often quite lengthy to implement, and are dull.  I never use them, therefore because I feel that ideally the world should cater to my idiosyncracies I'd like to see them left out of all future games.

Quote from: CalithenaI was being facetious, Pierce. I'm kind of amazed that -E agreed with me: I was presenting it as a reductio ad absurdum of the position that you need this kind of stuff in any absolute sense. My favorite satire of this kind is an eighth level spell for freezing water in the Hackmaster Spellslinger's guide, which gives you a spell output in terms of the megajoules (or whatever) you can suck out of water and a formula for how much energy it takes to cool water, etc. that involves multiplying by Avogadro's number and some other stuff.

(I can see the guy reading this spell and thinking "fireball should be defined this way! an output of plasma! what's the melting point of human flesh, and given that an average human has 3 hit points, how do you...", though. Some people just like to do this sort of thing.)

In some games a certain amount of conversion from reality to fiction is helpful, I guess. Although, usually it's bad conversion, like MSPE's (a great game IMO btw) rule for converting muzzle velocity to firearm damage, which is oversimplifying to put things mildly. It's very rare that these guidelines improve on the DM imagining something and making up a number in relation to other numbers that are defined in the rules. (In other words, I'm suggesting that in RPG adjudication, casuistry works better than principle in most cases.)

I agree with -E that a lot of players want to know e.g. exactly how many pounds they can carry or lift, etc. My response is basically to stay vague until they realize I'm not going to answer, because I prefer things that way.  My general preference tends to be for the players never to think about the 'game' part of the RPG at all at the table. I take a dim view of mechanics slowing down play, and of using mechanics to make an end run around the players' and GM's personal assessments of the shared imaginative reality of the game. This makes me an even worse Forgie than traditional gamer, perhaps, but that's cool.

This is sort of what I was saying, but better expressed.  I stand with, or in case of attacks slightly behind, Calithena.

Quote from: CalithenaI agree with -E that a lot of players want to know e.g. exactly how many pounds they can carry or lift, etc. My response is basically to stay vague until they realize I'm not going to answer, because I prefer things that way.

Hmm... so... you advocate passive resistance to frustrate player desires?

In pursuit of your own preferences.

I... well, there's no bad-wrong-fun, I guess -- and I'm sure your players love you... but that's not a style I'd go for.

In my experience, players want to know how much they can lift and carry because it matters to the *story* -- because it makes the the difference between life and death, sometimes.

And they want to convert from real-world values to game values because their characters are expressed in game values, but they're thinking and imagining in real-world values.

My guess would be that my players are a lot like yours -- and when they're trying to do those conversions, it's because that would make the game more fun for them.

Now, I'll admit that not all games are very good at this: you've already stated that you're unimpressed with most of the conversions you've seen.

I'm with you: I think I've already called out the principles that the conversions should approximate the genre (which could be "real life") and should operate at the appropriate level of abstraction (so no Avagadro's Number in anything less abstract than Hackmaster)

But overall, I'd suggest that if someone in your game is trying to figure something out, you express your preference against that rather than passively frustrating them.

Cheers,
-E.

Edited to add: I think adjudication is probably a necessary component of almost any game-system-to-real-life conversion. But a well-formed game will give you enough guidelines to be able make a call that's consistent with the genre and rules.

Having a table of difficulty ratings that correspond to real-world situations (like D20 does) for instance, is a great structure to work with. Having a list of weapons that covers a wide span certainly helps figure out where an unlisted weapon would fall.

Additional Principle:
* The rules should provide a variety of example conversions from game-system to reality across a broad spectrum situations to facilitate adjudication.

Quote from: -E.In my experience, players want to know how much they can lift and carry because it matters to the *story* -- because it makes the the difference between life and death, sometimes.

I think that there are other reasons related to this essay by Erol K. Bayburt on giving players exact measurements during play.  I particularly agree with his fourth point.

Quote from: John MorrowI think that there are other reasons related to this essay by Erol K. Bayburt on giving players exact measurements during play.  I particularly agree with his fourth point.

Awesome. Damn good link.

Cheers,
-E.

I didn't take on board the being vague bit, that doesn't work for me, I would simply say that I didn't really want to calculate that stuff as I found it boring.  If the player was cool with that, great, if they still wanted it I would calculate it as compromise is IMO at the heart of great gaming.

But I wouldn't be vague to deter them, I find the most effective way to deter people is to be honest, and if they are cool with your dislike of whatever is at issue you're golden.  If they're not, at least you know that now and can address it.

As for me, to my horror I realize that when it comes to RPGs I'm a very tolerant pinko liberal whose only hard-and-fast rule is that a game should be played as, uh, nature intended. (The games I dislike were obviously not designed by nature, hence shouldn't be played.)

So, if I'm playing T2K I wouldn't mind knowing my guy's encumbrance, the recoil of his G-3, its range and jamming percentage, and the number of feet/sec he will sink as he stupidly hangs on to it while drowning.

In Everway, not so much.

Quote from: BalbinusI didn't take on board the being vague bit, that doesn't work for me, I would simply say that I didn't really want to calculate that stuff as I found it boring.  If the player was cool with that, great, if they still wanted it I would calculate it as compromise is IMO at the heart of great gaming.

But I wouldn't be vague to deter them, I find the most effective way to deter people is to be honest, and if they are cool with your dislike of whatever is at issue you're golden.  If they're not, at least you know that now and can address it.

That seems a lot more reasonable (I guess I assumed you weren't in-agreement with the passive-aggressive bit).

I don't spend a lot of time in games doing math -- but when it matters, it matters, and I want / expect the game to support me.

I don't think that's asking too much: most traditional games give me exactly what I'm looking for in this regard -- but for some reason, some folks think it's inappropriate for certain games or genres.

I've never understood that.

Am I correct in remembering that you like BRP? Does BRP have drowning and falling rules? I've played CoC using the BRP system but I can't remember.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.Am I correct in remembering that you like BRP? Does BRP have drowning and falling rules? I've played CoC using the BRP system but I can't remember.

Cheers,
-E.

I am indeed a BRP-head, it's my go-to system.

It does indeed have rules for falling and drowning, also for burning I think.

I tend not to use them.

That said, and I may start a new thread on this, few things are writ in stone, if a player wanted me to use those rules I would.  Compromise is at the heart of great gaming.

You know, -E, for a guy who gets on Forge defenders for being goalpost movers, you sure are a ratfuck of an interlocutor.

Actually, my games are pretty much non-stop psychological abuse of my players from beginning to end. I'm, you know, a huge fucking asshole, who never communicates directly about anything and makes people guess my desires. I'm really glad you told me about it though because now I can change my behavior.

That essay Morrow posted is interesting. I generally do give pretty precise numbers when they're called for. What I don't like is the thing where you know you can carry exactly 180 pounds worth of equipment, or know that you can lift exactly 1000 pounds, whatever. What I don't like about this isn't the exact values so much as the on/off switch nature of the thing - if the situation isn't critical I'd rather just cut you some slack, and if it is critical I'd rather you roll, because I tend to find that increases enjoyment (at least, adrenaline through uncertainty). So I prefer mechanics where maybe say weights are benchmarked to target numbers and your attributes/skills give you a bonus to hit those. (I also prefer systematic constraints on target numbers...3e and C&C are both out of control in this regard IMO.)

However, I don't mind if the probability curves are not very grainy, and you're dealing with 'heavy', 'super-heavy', and 'impossible to lift' type objects rather than 200, 500, 1000 lb or whatever. So in that sense vagueness works out OK for me because I find it pretty easy to map from the imaginative stuff onto a die roll. (Gronan's pushing something over onto a monster: if it's a man-sized statue he needs an x, but if it's a 50 foot tall statue he needs a y, type of thing.)

Anyway, different preferences for different people here.

Quote from: CalithenaYou know, -E, for a guy who gets on Forge defenders for being goalpost movers, you sure are a ratfuck of an interlocutor.

Actually, my games are pretty much non-stop psychological abuse of my players from beginning to end. I'm, you know, a huge fucking asshole, who never communicates directly about anything and makes people guess my desires. I'm really glad you told me about it though because now I can change my behavior.

That essay Morrow posted is interesting. I generally do give pretty precise numbers when they're called for. What I don't like is the thing where you know you can carry exactly 180 pounds worth of equipment, or know that you can lift exactly 1000 pounds, whatever. What I don't like about this isn't the exact values so much as the on/off switch nature of the thing - if the situation isn't critical I'd rather just cut you some slack, and if it is critical I'd rather you roll, because I tend to find that increases enjoyment (at least, adrenaline through uncertainty). So I prefer mechanics where maybe say weights are benchmarked to target numbers and your attributes/skills give you a bonus to hit those. (I also prefer systematic constraints on target numbers...3e and C&C are both out of control in this regard IMO.)

However, I don't mind if the probability curves are not very grainy, and you're dealing with 'heavy', 'super-heavy', and 'impossible to lift' type objects rather than 200, 500, 1000 lb or whatever. So in that sense vagueness works out OK for me because I find it pretty easy to map from the imaginative stuff onto a die roll. (Gronan's pushing something over onto a monster: if it's a man-sized statue he needs an x, but if it's a 50 foot tall statue he needs a y, type of thing.)

Anyway, different preferences for different people here.

Yeah, and I think (by the way) that your position here is completely reasonable. I'd prefer roll mechanics to exact values -- IMO, that matches both genre conventions and "real life."

I also think your set of abstraction levels probably represents a "best practice" for game designers with the exception that I'd prefer to see some guidance for mapping to real values.

Btw: your point about character characteristics (e.g. stats) modifying physical interactions is something I've been meaning to work into this -- I think that's probably another core principle:

* Physical interaction systems should incorporate character attributes as key parameters

But c'mon, man -- that's not what you said in the post I got on you for.

And I'll note that whatever formulation you were reducing to the absurd in your first post in this thread isn't -- at all -- what I said or believe.

I don't think you're an asshole; I don't believe your games are wall-to-wall abuse. I don't think the passage I quoted and interpreted reflects the way you run games.

I also appreciate your contribution to the thread -- even your amusing misrepresentation of my position.

Cheers,
-E.