Quote from: rawma;856015So, what, the cake is a lie?

[neo]There is no cake[/neo]

Quote from: Justin Alexander;856043Two key concepts.

That approach sound interesting; I'll check out Technoir.

I've been thinking about chases in particular. It seemed to me like there were a few basic strategies that you might employ when trying to get away from someone. You could simply try to outdistance them, by being at least as fast and having more endurance. You could try to block them with the old 'turn over the market stall' trick or similar, or you could try to break line of sight and hide. (These would be examples of vectors, I guess?)

Having a set of template approaches to resolving these three common ways of handling a chase would be a good start to having a more satisfying (in my opinion) way of playing them out. And it would give you choices as you have three high level strategies and then, presumably, a number of more tactical choices to make whilst implementing your strategy.

In a actual car chase, there are several important elements that come to mind:

* Each driver's skill(s) which might vary by type as well as level.
* Each vehicle's characteristics, including acceleration, cornering, top speed, mass, traction and durability, as well as cover provided if people start shooting at each other, and tracking condition as cars start taking damage of different types, and perhaps what's involved if anyone goes insane and tries to actually jump onto another car (which realistically would usually fail horribly except possibly at very low speed).
* Road layout, type/quality, and terrain, including parked cars, traffic signals, road work, debris, obstacles, conditions (leaves, dirt, oil, water on road) and off-road possibilities as well as what's off-road to run into.
* Traffic and pedestrians.
* Presence of others that might get involved, such as police or people who might call for police if they notice a chase.

Evasion tactics include outrunning, out-cornering, using traffic signals and traffic to cut off pursuit, escalating danger, stopping and attacking the pursuit, attacking to slow pursuit (e.g. break windshield), stopping and running on foot, dropping objects that look like what the pursuit might want and stop for, dropping passengers, causing accidents, sudden stops, sudden reverse direction, fake a turn then go another way (possibly using on/off ramp or other obstacle), going off-road, driving over dust to create a cloud, going through terrain the pursuit won't/can't follow, going where there's police to help, turning off headlights in dark conditions, driving onto a beach, driving on sidewalks or stairs, using a motorcycle vs. car to go through narrow places, driving on shoulders or between lanes, dropping objects out window to damage pursuit or get them to swerve, ramming or sideswiping the pursuit, driving into underground garage, driving through shopping mall (see The Blues Brothers :cool:), driving up to/through large crowds.

Etc.

Yet another advantage to Free Kriegspiel, I can adjudicate any situation I want.

It requires a certain amount of ability to think on your feet and players who trust you, but it's not hard.

Describe the situation, change the situation based on what the players do, roll some dice if you think a random element might come in.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Quote from: dbm;855718I've tried to move the conversation on a few times: everyone drop the cake

How about stuff like a chase, where success or failure could be critical to the characters objectives of wellbeing?

Interesting, understandable, subject to convenient rules in its own right without further abstraction. Formal procedures are already in the Original D&D set, and possibly superfluous.

 

QuoteOr disarming a physical or magical dohicky? Given the common stance that DnD or other games are about more than just killing things and taking their stuff few provide good tools for gaming other types of endeavour.

If you want to abstract away all reference to what the particular 'dohicky' is and how it works, then you want a thoroughly different game. You want it no longer to be actually about any of those things!

That said, you could always toss on the flow charts in 1st ed. Gamma World. In translating to actual results, though, the GM should still have a picture of what the thing is and how it works even though it's an enigma to the players.

Quote from: dbm;853832But they are, in my experience, almost universally rubbish, flimsy and flavourless.

I realize this is a couple weeks' ago now, but.  For my part, I don't want my rules to have "flavor."  Rules, to me, are a means to an end.  As a GM, they're what enable me to adjudicate what the PCs do.  As a player, they're what informs me to what I can do, and how good am I likely to be at it.  I absolutely, positively, most sincerely do not want my rules to be exciting -- excitement comes from roleplay -- and I've seen a lot of crap game systems come from the designers being bound and determined to gussy up game mechanics to seem Exciting And New.

On a tangent, since the subject's been raised, I hate the term "social combat" like poison. To me, it implies the reduction of social interaction to Just Another Tactical Combat System:

GM: "Fair enough, what's your next Social Attack?"
PC: "I hit her with a Bon Mot!"
GM: "Alright, that costs you two Social Fatigue ... she responds with a Witty Retort! (sound of dice rolling) Alright, add her Charisma and Social Status bonuses to the damage ... you lose 5 Social Hit Points."
PC: "Curses, that was a bad one. Alright, I'm down to my last couple ... I better retreat with a Cut Direct."

Isn't something like that just a combat system with the serial numbers filed off? IMHO, a combat system with attacks, defenses, combat rounds and hit points doesn't cease to be so just because you attach names to the elements which imply social interaction.

Quote from: Phillip;856174If you want to abstract away all reference to what the particular 'dohicky' is and how it works, then you want a thoroughly different game. You want it no longer to be actually about any of those things!

I was aiming to be as all-inclusive as possible in the question to avoid answers like 'we don't have magic in my game of choice' etc. I definitely would care about the what and the how if I was gaming this stuff.

Quote from: Ravenswing;856226I realize this is a couple weeks' ago now, but.  For my part, I don't want my rules to have "flavor."  Rules, to me, are a means to an end.  As a GM, they're what enable me to adjudicate what the PCs do.  As a player, they're what informs me to what I can do, and how good am I likely to be at it.  I absolutely, positively, most sincerely do not want my rules to be exciting -- excitement comes from roleplay -- and I've seen a lot of crap game systems come from the designers being bound and determined to gussy up game mechanics to seem Exciting And New.

On a tangent, since the subject's been raised, I hate the term "social combat" like poison. To me, it implies the reduction of social interaction to Just Another Tactical Combat System:

GM: "Fair enough, what's your next Social Attack?"
PC: "I hit her with a Bon Mot!"
GM: "Alright, that costs you two Social Fatigue ... she responds with a Witty Retort! (sound of dice rolling) Alright, add her Charisma and Social Status bonuses to the damage ... you lose 5 Social Hit Points."
PC: "Curses, that was a bad one. Alright, I'm down to my last couple ... I better retreat with a Cut Direct."

Isn't something like that just a combat system with the serial numbers filed off? IMHO, a combat system with attacks, defenses, combat rounds and hit points doesn't cease to be so just because you attach names to the elements which imply social interaction.

A couple of things. First, I agree that the fun is set up by the role playing, but the rules have to help you score the goal, to borrow a soccer / football phrase. If you build up to a great and exciting point of action but then only have a single pass/fail roll to adjudicate it then I would say the rules are inhibiting the fun.

I used to be really keen on developing a universal mechanic to handle any conflict (which Fate does a pretty good job of in my opinion, far better than any of my ideas). But then I had the realisation that different activities had different important factors and a different feel. Which is pretty much what you are saying re social combat. I agree that social hit points are rubbish and fail to suitably represent the nature or usual flow of debate or discussion. And how they could ever represent building a relationship with someone boggles the mind.

So this is why I have come to the conclusion that some kinds of mini-games are a desirable addition to RPGs. Combat is the classic mini-game, but it is so dominant in the rules space people can't see the 'mini' and often just interpret that as 'the game.' I know I have fallen into that trap on multiple occasions, even though I am intellectually aware of it.

Hence this thread. I think having a small set of mini games to make the stuff which we would find interesting and points of tension in books, TV or films equally fun and interesting to game when they occur has to be a good thing. You never have to use these tools, in fact I would suggest that even combat should be either hand-waved or resolved with a single roll when it is not a genuine challenge to the PCs abilities. But if one of your players wants to be an artificer or cat burglar then giving them some 'game' elements to interact with as the head cracker has seems to be a worthwhile endeavour.

Many people's mileage will vary...

Quote from: dbm;856232If you build up to a great and exciting point of action but then only have a single pass/fail roll to adjudicate it then I would say the rules are inhibiting the fun.

Sure.  But that doesn't have anything to do with my point.  Whether rules have "flavor" or not have little to do with their mechanical complexity; they're separate values.

Quote from: Ravenswing;856226GM: "Fair enough, what's your next Social Attack?"
PC: "I hit her with a Bon Mot!"
GM: "Alright, that costs you two Social Fatigue ... she responds with a Witty Retort! (sound of dice rolling) Alright, add her Charisma and Social Status bonuses to the damage ... you lose 5 Social Hit Points."
PC: "Curses, that was a bad one. Alright, I'm down to my last couple ... I better retreat with a Cut Direct."

Isn't something like that just a combat system with the serial numbers filed off? IMHO, a combat system with attacks, defenses, combat rounds and hit points doesn't cease to be so just because you attach names to the elements which imply social interaction.

I agree that this sort of social combat sucks. However, I think that flavor is important because I think flavor is far more than just the names of the elements. Flavor includes how the system works, and the hypothetical social combat above has sucky flavor.

The most important issue for game design is what choices the players are making. In combat, there are usually a variety of maneuvers and options that players can take - plus choice of how to move and which enemies to target.

In an extended skill tests, there is generally no choice. You're just rolling the dice over and over - like playing Candyland.

By comparison, in the chase system of James Bond 007, it's a different choice. You bid against the opponent for how difficult a maneuver you want to try, and then each of you rolls and deals with the outcomes. If you're both bidding low, then you might both crash - as opposed to being overtaken or getting away. It's a different dynamic than combat.

Quote from: dbm;856232I was aiming to be as all-inclusive as possible in the question to avoid answers like 'we don't have magic in my game of choice' etc. I definitely would care about the what and the how if I was gaming this stuff.

If the actual what and how seem almost beside the point next to abstract contrivances, there's a good chance we haven't really paid them enough attention. In a role-playing game, I'd say its rather the abstraction that has the burden of justifying itself, not engagement with the situation at hand.

QuoteA couple of things. First, I agree that the fun is set up by the role playing, but the rules have to help you score the goal, to borrow a soccer / football phrase. If you build up to a great and exciting point of action but then only have a single pass/fail roll to adjudicate it then I would say the rules are inhibiting the fun.

The taste in fun to which early RPGs catered was one that also enjoyed the Avalon Hill and SPI board games in which a host of player decisions were the focus. My maneuvering of army divisions, say,creates the arrangement of forces and terrain that sets up the odds ratio. A die toss adds some variation to results that depend more on those strategic choices. To avoid a risk of "Attacker Eliminated", for instance, requires a minimum advantage (which might be attained with sacrificial "soak off" diversionary attacks).

QuoteSo this is why I have come to the conclusion that some kinds of mini-games are a desirable addition to RPGs.

Sufficient reason is that you have fun playing this or that game.

QuoteHence this thread. I think having a small set of mini games to make the stuff which we would find interesting and points of tension in books, TV or films equally fun and interesting to game when they occur has to be a good thing.

The early D&D booklets and magazine articles borrowed bits from various games. I take this cross-fertilization for granted as part of the process of play. However, I reckon most people don't think much about it or make a point of formalizing their improvised additions as the way something must always be hence treated.

No doubt one reason is that so many people have shelves of handbooks already presenting lots of sub-games. Get into a game line that has a long line of supplements, and you're pretty well set. You might not very particularly have Fish Tickling, Toadying and Running a Rat on a Stick Franchise, but in more general terms there's little old under the sun that won't come up given a few thousand pages of product. People tend simply to repurpose something conveniently at hand with whatever twist seems appropriate.

The amount of investment that seems worthwhile often relates to whether an enterprise is central to the game or a rare sideline.

Aces & Eights treats Wild West role-playing with distinctive treatments of cattle drives and other typical affairs. Those don't figure much in 1920s-30s Chicago, so Gangbusters instead treats such things as bootlegging, rackets and numbers running (probably not as ornately as you seem to desire).

For many of us, putting the emphasis on mechanics interesting in themselves has a tendency to distract from role-playing. A game such as Monopoly, Acquire or Saint Petersburg may be more colorful, but at the expense of being less like what I'm actually doing in my role of a real estate speculator, further removed from the phenomena that I see and hear while walking in those shoes.

Quote from: Ravenswing;856381Sure.  But that doesn't have anything to do with my point.  Whether rules have "flavor" or not have little to do with their mechanical complexity; they're separate values.

Quote from: jhkim;856437I agree that this sort of social combat sucks. However, I think that flavor is important because I think flavor is far more than just the names of the elements. Flavor includes how the system works, and the hypothetical social combat above has sucky flavor.

The most important issue for game design is what choices the players are making.

I think jhkim is looking at this from a similar perspective to me. If the systems available to you don't allow meaningful player choices which make sense in the context of what you are doing then they aren't helping. Vanilla systems with no flavour are 'meh' and ones with jarring flavour clashes can make you nauseous, to extend the metaphor.

Quote from: PhillipThe early D&D booklets and magazine articles borrowed bits from various games. I take this cross-fertilization for granted as part of the process of play. However, I reckon most people don't think much about it or make a point of formalizing their improvised additions as the way something must always be hence treated.

No doubt one reason is that so many people have shelves of handbooks already presenting lots of sub-games. Get into a game line that has a long line of supplements, and you're pretty well set. You might not very particularly have Fish Tickling, Toadying and Running a Rat on a Stick Franchise, but in more general terms there's little old under the sun that won't come up given a few thousand pages of product. People tend simply to repurpose something conveniently at hand with whatever twist seems appropriate.

Fair points, and I freely admit to have come on a journey from where I wanted a single system to handle all types of encounter equally well to where I now find myself thinking that havering a small range of tailored subsystems is a better approach.

Quote from: DavetheLost;853730I stand by what I said "Detailed rules need an activity that is a central focus of the game, to be exciting and engaging to play, and perhaps most importantly to involve the majority of players at the table in the action at the same time."

I think that is an important point.
I really like rules for magic that involve details like group rituals and finding components and new spells and research/experimentation... but mostly for the ways they can generate content for the entire group... not as some dice fest that's left up to the wizard PC alone.
There are generally not going to be interesting stakes involved with baking bread, but if there were... 'The king demands his raisin bread be perfect or heads will roll!'... and the rules for baking bread can involve the entire group... then I can see even that being entertaining.

Quote from: Simlasa;856477

Quote from: DavetheLost;853730I stand by what I said "Detailed rules need an activity that is a central focus of the game, to be exciting and engaging to play, and perhaps most importantly to involve the majority of players at the table in the action at the same time."

I think that is an important point.
I really like rules for magic that involve details like group rituals and finding components and new spells and research/experimentation... but mostly for the ways they can generate content for the entire group... not as some dice fest that's left up to the wizard PC alone.
There are generally not going to be interesting stakes involved with baking bread, but if there were... 'The king demands his raisin bread be perfect or heads will roll!'... and the rules for baking bread can involve the entire group... then I can see even that being entertaining.

Whereas I lean more towards too many cooks spoil the bread because the bakery ends up looking like a fire-drill. But the group I am with is OK with taking turns at separate activities for things that are really more of an individual activity rather than wanting or needing everyone to be together doing the same thing. I can see if that isn't something the group wants that either a simple resolution or some way of roping everyone into the one activity would be mechanically better choices.

Quote from: Bren;856527Whereas I lean more towards too many cooks spoil the bread because the bakery ends up looking like a fire-drill.

I'm not seeing as switch that is always on... a magic-user could just as easily pay some hirelings to go out and retrieve roc feathers or bloodslime... in which case a few rolls to see how long it takes and how many they return with... but if the group WAS interested it's a potential adventure hook, generated by the magic rules (of a sort that are more than just buy spell, point and shoot). Something for the thief to steal, the warrior to kill and the cleric to bless...

A movie example that comes to mind, while pretty silly, is Tampopo... in the segments that focus on the 7 Samurai spoof of assembling the perfect team of ramen cooks.

Quote from: Simlasa;856552I'm not seeing as switch that is always on... a magic-user could just as easily pay some hirelings to go out and retrieve roc feathers or bloodslime... in which case a few rolls to see how long it takes and how many they return with... but if the group WAS interested it's a potential adventure hook, generated by the magic rules (of a sort that are more than just buy spell, point and shoot). Something for the thief to steal, the warrior to kill and the cleric to bless...

OK. Take up or leave 'em adventure hooks are fine.

One thing that annoyed me during game design was the occasional playtester who kept demanding more rules for talking to NPCs. Wanting everything boiled down to a dice roll. Another wasnt satisfied with using stats as the basis for interactions and wanted new mechanics for each different thing.

Everyone else was fine with less emphasis on mechanics as it allows them to interact directly.

Theres a middle-ground in there though and some systems you just about need more mechanics to handle things. Others not so much.

That has been a frequent bugaboo leveled against D&D. "All those rules and mechanics for combat and nothing for talking. The game must be all about combat!"