Quote from: JimBobOzLooking around, it doesn't seem anyone is using the GURPS 4e rules for lack of sleep, fatigue due to high temperature, and so on.

Why have rules no-one uses?

* Stands up *

"I'm -E. and I use drowning, falling, and sometimes even fatigue rules."

My experience with this is different -- but since it's been a few pages let me repeat: I don't use the rules you listed (fatigue, etc.) under normal circumstances -- but I do use them when they become important.

I fondly remember using the GURPS lack-of-sleep rules in a game a few years ago where a player was playing a high-school student who stayed up several nights in a row to study (making up for time spent adventuring).

The effect was amusing and the rules helped frame the situation and underscore the dual nature of the PC's life (high-school student by day, inter-dimensional investigator by night... except when mid-terms are coming) in a way that just saying, "You're tired." wouldn't have.

It also -- by mechanically defining the trade-offs -- expressed in game terms, the kinds of trade-offs that anyone who has to balance sleeping v. other priorities made.

I don't think it's fair to assume no one uses those (which you did) or that only an immature min-maxing grognard would ever care about a game representation of that sort of thing (which you have *not* done, but which someone might)

Quote from: JimBobOzI don't need rules for things that happen once in a campaign, I need rules for things that happen each session, or every few sessions. The once-a-campaign stuff, I can wing that, I'm not stupid.

For me, when something's important and risky (i.e. could go either way), I want to express it in game terms and roll dice.

I think that's universal here.

But it sounds to me like you're thinking the only reason to want a rules framework to make those decisions would be if someone's stupid.

I think you're missing the value of a common framework in communication and discussion (or maybe you don't value discussion; it might not go so well with your viking hat )

If we're going to have a (quick, mature, even entertaining) discussion about a ruling, I find that it helps to have a rules framework that helps convert from real-life to the game.

Absent that, there's very little way to talk about the ruling beyond saying, "I assert you take 3d6. Because the rocks are... sharp."

I appreciate games that provide that framework.

Quote from: JimBobOzRules no-one uses are just wasted pages. There could be more interesting stuff there - say, examples of task difficulties for each skill - or maybe they could do a pocket edition of the game. No, not GURPS (or whatever) Lite, but GURPS Actually Used.

Fuckin' Dropped Lantern Table!

This sort of stuff, when you look at the individual rules, you go, yep, that's fine, that makes sense. But when you look at them as a whole... there's a lot that could be cut away without really affecting most game sessions.

I'm going to stop short of defending the Dropped Lantern Table -- and I agree that in games with a dedicated rules-set, the damage done by putting in less-used rules is higher (thus the tragedy of adequate combat rules in a Dallas game), but I think in the digital age it's very possible to keep reference material on-line or in supplemental sheets that don't push out other rules.

Mutants & Masterminds published (at one point) a chart of environmental hazards (defining, for example, how much damage being hit by lightning did in game terms).

It wasn't in the main rule book, but was something I found extremely valuable.

If someone wanted to put a Dropped Lantern Table on line, where it wouldn't take any pages I'm paying for, but would be there if I ever needed it, I wouldn't complain too much.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Quire31-70 lamp burns on, unbroken; roll for beam direction if dropped.

The lack of beam direction rules is disturbing... I guess you could roll a D-12 (1-8 representing cardinal directions, while 9-10 are "beam points down" and 11-12 are "beam points up") but that's not the kind of rule I'd want to make up on the fly...

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.I don't think it's fair to assume no one uses those (which you did) or that only an immature min-maxing grognard would ever care about a game representation of that sort of thing (which you have *not* done, but which someone might)

Bah, it's not immature. Or rather, a Dropped Lantern Table is no more immature than pretending to be an elven princess.

It's just stupid and pointless because people basically never use them. Sure, someone or other will use them at some point, but hell - people have played Fatal, so there you go.

For my part, those GURPS going-without-sleep rules, I'd be thrilled to play a survival game where those all came into play. One of my most enjoyable sessions ever was when we played out the recruit course scenario in Infinite Worlds, a team of recruits dropped out in the ice, had to make their way a couple of hundred kilometres home. I enjoyed it because getting everyone through in one piece taxed my imagination, and my personal and character knowledge of these things to the limit.

The GM didn't use those rules because like most GURPS GMs, he didn't know them all. But I'd have loved it if he did.

So me - I'd be delighted to play with all those rules kickin' in. But you know, most gamers would hate it. If they had to follow all the rules of GURPS or similar systems, they'd hate them. It'd get tedious for them. I happen to like gritty and detailed stuff. But few others do.

The number of times they'll actually use those rules is just so small that they can be easily handwaved by the GM at the time. The rules should cover things that are likely to come up in almost every session - not the once-a-campaign stuff, or the too-much-work-to-bother-with stuff. Pagecount's precious, every page of stuff no-one uses is one less page of stuff people will use.

Most gamers are not interested in actually using rules about this stuff. If you don't believe me, start a poll. Just remember to add "actually using" - gamers love to talk about all sorts of rules, what they use in play is something different.

Quote from: JimBobOzThe number of times they'll actually use those rules is just so small that they can be easily handwaved by the GM at the time. The rules should cover things that are likely to come up in almost every session - not the once-a-campaign stuff, or the too-much-work-to-bother-with stuff. Pagecount's precious, every page of stuff no-one uses is one less page of stuff people will use.

Most gamers are not interested in actually using rules about this stuff. If you don't believe me, start a poll. Just remember to add "actually using" - gamers love to talk about all sorts of rules, what they use in play is something different.

JimBob sometimes has wisdom, this is one of those times.

Quote from: BalbinusJimBob sometimes has wisdom, this is one of those times.

"sometimes"?!
"one"?!

Mind your words, sir, or I shall be forced to demand satisfaction!

'Twill be banjos at twenty paces! I begin:


If -E. can say that it's not a complete roleplaying game without rules for setting falling men on fire moments before they plunge into the water to drown, why then I say that any game without rules for duelling banjos is not a real roleplaying game.

Rules specifically for duelling banjos. Not even the Redneck roleplaying game has got those! A glaring omission.

Quote from: JimBobOzIf -E. can say that it's not a complete roleplaying game without rules for setting falling men on fire moments before they plunge into the water to drown, why then I say that any game without rules for duelling banjos is not a real roleplaying game.

Let me be completely clear: It's not a real RPG unless there's a beam direction table.

-E.

i thought y'all were talking about this game the whole time...

QuoteThat dropped lantern table was undoubtedly produced because at some point, dropped lanterns became really important in the way the designers played the game.

more like because in those days, charts and tables detailing every last bit of possible minutia were considered really important...

now we know better.

Well, in a way we are.

Thats one of the guys who was so heavily invested in sneering at us primitives for having such things in our games. This also goes back to the "thematic"  and "adventure" divide. It's meant to be a parody of a "fantasy heartbreaker", tee hee.

oh well hell, let's just make a game called I Got A Demon Inside that has like 2 charts...how strong your demon is, and how long it takes for the thing to kill you.  VOILA, i'm an rpg genius!

Quote from: kregmosieri thought y'all were talking about this game the whole time...



more like because in those days, charts and tables detailing every last bit of possible minutia were considered really important...

now we know better.

I'm not sure if you're joking here.

First, I don't have my copies of RQ in front of me but I gather this is from RQ2. 1978. This wasn't a ridiculously detailed game by any means.

Second, as I wrote above, the table is very likely an artifact of actual play.

What you & Jimbob and even -E are not seeing is that, on an important level, the table isn't a prescriptive rule, but an example of a general principle used at the table, fossilized in amber as it were. Namely: when something's important and you don't know the answer, make up a table (on paper or in your head) and roll some dice.

In In Harm's Way: Aces in Spades I have rules for aeroplanes catching fire. I also have rules for things which come up once a year, like generating an aerodrome. Does that make me Neanderthal Designer of the Month? Do I get a prize?

-clash

Quote from: Elliot WilenI'm not sure if you're joking here.

Well, i mean with such a serious topic at hand...  :rolleyes:

Not real clear on what you assume i'm disputing...ok, it's not a rule, it's a principle?

Dunno who you were talking to Jimbob, but when I played GURPS reaction rolls and advantages/disadvantages that affected them came up.  

Now, as written you should probably roll universally for every NPC that the players meet. I don't have my 3e book handy (or my 4e book for that matter) to check the exact wording. Yeah, I wouldn't bother with that interpretation either.

On the other hand, if a character is attempting to influence people all those abilities and such come into play every single time they apply. No waste of points at all.

Quote from: kregmosierWell, i mean with such a serious topic at hand...  :rolleyes:

Not real clear on what you assume i'm disputing...ok, it's not a rule, it's a principle?

At the risk of giving Jimbob a conniption, I going to give some credit to Chris Lehrich, particularly a comment he made in this entry of his livejournal. He's talking about how the development of early RP games is usually analyzed, versus how he thinks it really happened.

QuoteThe usual emphasis, from Gygax and later commentators, is on the rules: were they good, were they coherent (in a broad sense), how were they refined, did they simulate well, and so on. I think this is a misreading, albeit a predictable one: the tendency (evidenced by everyone from Gygax et al. to Ron Edwards and the Forge design crew) is to think that system, in a mechanical sense, comes first -- logically, if not chronologically.

[...]

I think this is all ass-backwards. My sense is that you have to take seriously the notion of system arising from game-world. I think that there is nothing new about this process: it is the standard, rather slow, rather indirect method by which myth and ritual arise in traditional cultures. And Levi-Strauss has very famously analogized this process to bricolage.

Calm down, JB. When Chris uses the "b"-word, just read "ad-hoc tinkering" and you're close enough.

The idea here is that early games, at least, arose from rule sets that did one or two things (combat & magic) reasonably well at a fair level of detail, but that "everything else" was allowed by virtue of the openness of the system and the use of a GM. The rules weren't prescriptive, they were demonstrative--certainly at this early stage, there was no pretense of having a rule for every situation. But the rules were an expression of a culture which approached "playing pretend" from the perspective of using rules to simulate dynamics. Ergo, they were extensible in an ad-hoc fashion.

Designers did look at this, saw it led to a mess, difficult to communicate, and tried to work up rules for everything. GURPS is one of the biggest examples. I don't think they succeeded, though: people still have to come up with spot rules and modifications. It's just that (at least with GURPS 3e) they thought they had to digest a huge number of rules before they could start play.

I have a visual metaphor here, which is that traditional RPG rules are like a flat piece of unhemmed cloth. To do things outside the boundaries of the area the cloth can cover, you have to weave more threads onto it. If you like you can start with a larger cloth, but it's still unfinished at the edges, and it may be unwieldy to handle as well as difficult to pick a part to focus on initially. By contrast, the newer games, particularly the Forgie ones, are more like spheres. Unified mechanics and meta-rules for narration-trading mean that everything is covered by the rules, by definition. What's lost, though, is the ability to create your own world and deform it into a shape & focus that's a product of your group's play, by a process of ad-hoc modification.

Quote from: Elliot WilenI'm not sure if you're joking here.

First, I don't have my copies of RQ in front of me but I gather this is from RQ2. 1978. This wasn't a ridiculously detailed game by any means.

Second, as I wrote above, the table is very likely an artifact of actual play.

What you & Jimbob and even -E are not seeing is that, on an important level, the table isn't a prescriptive rule, but an example of a general principle used at the table, fossilized in amber as it were. Namely: when something's important and you don't know the answer, make up a table (on paper or in your head) and roll some dice.

I agree with the principle and with your assumption.

Further, I think there's probably some good reasons that they wrote their table down -- possibly because they valued consistency or because getting the rule so that it felt right took some work and they wanted to record that.

I'm not a big fan of using hard-copy space for this sort of thing, but I think the principle (make a ruling) is dead-on and I think the value to the game system of recording it for re-use is more valuable than some of the folks here give it credit for.

Cheers,
-E.