TheRPGSite

Lately I've seen a lot of comments about simple, rules light systems and how they "get out of the way" of roleplaying.

I'll grant that games with extensive metagaming aspects, either gamist or narrativist can definitely get in the way of roleplaying, but most of the time people use that phrase, I think they're referring to the level of crunch.

Could someone give me some example of games that have systems that "get in the way" of roleplaying and how they get in the way?

I think the attitude towards rules that D&D has cultivated over the last decade has absolutely had a negative impact on roleplaying in game, as they discourage players from engaging in actions not prescribed in the rules.

I would say that reports from friends about one of the western games that used cards (Dust Devils) took people out of their character thinking space, and put them into worrying about their card hands. While I like Marvel Saga, its simple enough that it seems not to have done this, yet that may not be true about other games.

I'm one of those people who want people thinking about character actions in the context of their character, rather the context of their hand of cards, or dice rolls.

High levels in 3E/3.5E D&D with the nightmarish bookkeeping and slow combat.

More fundamentally, a system which is easily abusable that munchkin powergamers take over completely and find every way to veto the DM with respect to the ruleset.  This same mindset can probably be brought to just about any rpg, by the same munchkin powergamer types.

High level Exalted, with its multi-Charm/Essence/Limit Breaks tracking.  Of course, that pretty much describes Exalted from the get-go.  I always thought it was a neat game hobbled by its mechanics.

!i!

I guess it depends on if you are talking about role playing or immersion.  Role Playing I find only breaks down in combat generally when the combat itself really breaks out of the narrative mode and flips to a table top battle.  D&D I find to be one of the worst for this personally, IMO.    A good rule of them for me is when I start describing an action as "I'll move my character and attack" vs "I move and attack".  Even if the later still may be visually demonstrated with some kind of counter.

kryyst makes a good distinction between combat and the rest.

The abstractions necessary for combat can make any game seem like a wargame.

The rest of the time is a bit different.

But in all cases, it's largely a question of playstyle, especially GMing style. If every time a player says, "I do so-and-so," the GM looks up the rule for it, or says, "oh but you have another option, let's look it up!" that gets in the way of the roleplaying.

So to avoid systems getting in the way of the roleplaying, you have to have a GM who either knows the rules very well, or who is willing to just make a ruling and stick to it. Sure, some systems are more prone to this - if there are only 8 pages to the thing, the GM can't waste much time looking things up, if there are 800, well... But in the end it's down to the people at the table.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;359292So to avoid systems getting in the way of the roleplaying, you have to have a GM who either knows the rules very well, or who is willing to just make a ruling and stick to it.

"Intuitive improvisation is the secret of genius." - Max Zorin explains what makes a Great GM in A View to a Kill

Regards,
David R

I think you get this problem when on one hand you have a clear picture of what your character would want to do in a specific situation and what the system allows you to do (with any reasonable hope of success).

A typical case is non-lethal combat. A lot of systems do not handle that non-lethal combat very well. This tends to encourage the player to use lethal force even the situation it would not necessarily be call for it simply because the alternatives are too awkward and unreliable.

I also think systems that are very crunchy can tend to drive you towards playing the system rather than playing that character. Instead of just doing what feels right for the character, you are encouraged to think in terms of how the rules work and make the rules work for you. This tends to happen mostly in combat and, for a lot of people, I don't think a that is much of a problem; there is a long established tradition among roleplayers to treat combat as a largely ooc activity - something separate from the rest of the roleplaying game. I am not sure I agree, but I've seen plenty of games played that way.

A lot is also what you are used to. Mechanics which you've used a lot in one form or another in time tend fade into the background whereas more appear gimmicky the first few times we play them.

It has a lot to do with your style of roleplaying, I think. Personally, I find FATE and similar rules-light systems totally deadening to creativity because they lack the complex system of rules that empower PCs and turn all tactical decision-making into a metagame of "Pander to the DM".

On the other hand, I find games like HERO or GURPS nearly unplayable in practice (personally; I know many people like them quite a lot). They possess such a great complexity that combat (especially) totally bogs down.

For me, the rules 'get in the way' whenever I'm tempted/forced, by the rules, to do something that doesn't make sense for my character.
In Deadlands the cards and chips yank me out of immersion and attempt to structure my play in ways I don't like.
Last game my character got shot up a bit and despite having a stack of chips I let my character bleed into unconsciousness (he's a kind of unlucky sad sack sort of guy). Everyone else was chipping away damage quite freely. So having the chips there kind of sets me up as a malcontent or something. I'm 'not playing right'.
Our Earthdawn GM has actually lectured me about this a few times... because I refuse to optimize my character's skills or tactics... and go out of my way to avoid using player knowledge.

I guess any set of rules can 'get in the way' if they don't facilitate/encourage your preferred play style.

Quote from: Simlasa;359471For me, the rules 'get in the way' whenever I'm tempted/forced, by the rules, to do something that doesn't make sense for my character.

Ooh, that's a very good one.  Normally, I think of "getting in the way" as a forced sub-routine, like mathematical calculations or repetitive sequences of die-rolling, but you've hit on a subtle one.  Especially the notion that the structure of a game may tempt players to do something in character that their characters wouldn't.

!i!

Quote from: Simlasa;359471I guess any set of rules can 'get in the way' if they don't facilitate/encourage your preferred play style.

It's always amusing to watch hardcore munchkin powergamers trying to play rpg games which do not facilitate their preferred play style of creating overpowered characters that kill every NPC/monster in sight and taking all their stuff.  :)

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359473but you've hit on a subtle one.  Especially the notion that the structure of a game may tempt players to do something in character that their characters wouldn't.

!i!

Is it off topic to mention that some players might, sometimes, be a little too inflexible about "what their character would do"? If a system offers potential to make characters evolve in a direction that wasn't foreseen, it's not always bad. Or is it?

For me complexity of mechanics isn't factor -- I can roleplay and immerse in systems like GURPS and Hero.

Rules that govern social or psychological interactions can cause problems. I'm okay with those things effecting NPCs (although it can damage immersion for me), but having mechanics effect how my PC believes or behaves is, in most cases, a no-go.

Note: Thinks like mind-control, panic (especially panic induced by something like psychic powers or Fear Gas or whatever), or loss of Sanity from seeing Cthulhu aren't what I'm talking about -- in those extreme states there's no assumption of self-control, so leaving it to the mechanics seems reasonable.

But any kind of social mechanic which would determine how my character would react in a non-extreme, normal social situation would definitionally interfere with my roleplaying experience.

Cheers,
-E.

Dum & Drag , 4th edition.


- Ed C.

Ronin: Were you listening to The Dude's story?
Koltar: I was bowling.
Ronin: So you have no frame of reference here, Koltar. You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know whats going on.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359473Ooh, that's a very good one.  Normally, I think of "getting in the way" as a forced sub-routine, like mathematical calculations or repetitive sequences of die-rolling, but you've hit on a subtle one.  Especially the notion that the structure of a game may tempt players to do something in character that their characters wouldn't.

!i!

I had a Player in a d20 Star Wars game tell me that his character was going to jump on a thrown grenade once to save the rest of the Party. I thought, "Damn! That is awesome, I'm going to give him some special stuff for his next character as a reward!"

Then the Player said, "Yeah, I have enough hit points that I'll be able to take the maximum blast damage with no problem". He had a hissy-fit when I told him his character had died. The Player would never had attempted that unless he did the math and determined that his PC would survive.

The only time I find a system "getting in the way" is if people are more concerned with the numbers than they are what's actually going on in the game.  Some decent crunchy systems can actually support the game well if the intent of the design is heeded (I'm a huge opponent of the "But it's the RAW!  What the designer says doesn't matter!" camp).

For some people, it doesn't matter if you're playing a "roll 1d6, 1-3 fails, 4-6 succeeds" system with absolutely no stats.  They will find something to debate or argue about that stalls the game or pulls people out of the experience.

Quote from: jeff37923;359635I had a Player in a d20 Star Wars game tell me that his character was going to jump on a thrown grenade once to save the rest of the Party. I thought, "Damn! That is awesome, I'm going to give him some special stuff for his next character as a reward!"

Then the Player said, "Yeah, I have enough hit points that I'll be able to take the maximum blast damage with no problem". He had a hissy-fit when I told him his character had died. The Player would never had attempted that unless he did the math and determined that his PC would survive.

No. You screwed the player.

The rules are the universe. We're dealing with games that portray universes in which dragons exist, FTL is commonplace, and/or Cthulu is sleeping somewhere in the Pacific. The rules of physics are not necessarily different (and I would argue that, unless other specified, are not), but they can be.

Characters that exist within the setting understand the universe according to the rules. Yes, I know Order of the Stick is presented as/supposed to be a parody, but guess what: take out the references to actual numbers, and that's how the world should be perceived by characters. Guys who are really good with swords can fall 60 feet and walk away relatively unharmed.

If you have grenade rules, it is not unreasonable to expect the players to know them, and it sure as hell shouldn't be unreasonable - as a player - to expect that, unless otherwise explicitly told, the rules in the books for the game being played are what hold. If not, then make it clear, and if you forget, you shouldn't punish a player for making some rules-decision on the spot or clarifying a rule you'd changed.

In the scenario you present, I'll assume that grenades have a listed damage, and a listed range, and that creatures can provide cover to others against that damage. An individual in the world being played in knows all of this, if he has any kind of familiarity with grenades. An individual - especially an adventurer - also probably has a pretty good idea of just how hardy they are, and are probably able (through experience) to make a reasonable guess as to how much a grenade will hurt them, in a relative sense (ie, they're not using the actual numbers, but some sort of qualitative measurement).

Given this information, it is entirely reasonable for a character who can withstand the max damage of a grenade to leap upon it to save other party members. They have all of the relevant information for this to be an informed decision, albeit non-numerically, in-world.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;359707No. You screwed the player.

The rules are the universe. We're dealing with games that portray universes in which dragons exist, FTL is commonplace, and/or Cthulu is sleeping somewhere in the Pacific. The rules of physics are not necessarily different (and I would argue that, unless other specified, are not), but they can be.

Characters that exist within the setting understand the universe according to the rules. Yes, I know Order of the Stick is presented as/supposed to be a parody, but guess what: take out the references to actual numbers, and that's how the world should be perceived by characters. Guys who are really good with swords can fall 60 feet and walk away relatively unharmed.

If you have grenade rules, it is not unreasonable to expect the players to know them, and it sure as hell shouldn't be unreasonable - as a player - to expect that, unless otherwise explicitly told, the rules in the books for the game being played are what hold. If not, then make it clear, and if you forget, you shouldn't punish a player for making some rules-decision on the spot or clarifying a rule you'd changed.

In the scenario you present, I'll assume that grenades have a listed damage, and a listed range, and that creatures can provide cover to others against that damage. An individual in the world being played in knows all of this, if he has any kind of familiarity with grenades. An individual - especially an adventurer - also probably has a pretty good idea of just how hardy they are, and are probably able (through experience) to make a reasonable guess as to how much a grenade will hurt them, in a relative sense (ie, they're not using the actual numbers, but some sort of qualitative measurement).

Given this information, it is entirely reasonable for a character who can withstand the max damage of a grenade to leap upon it to save other party members. They have all of the relevant information for this to be an informed decision, albeit non-numerically, in-world.

That is a bit daft. Firstly a system in which a grenade doesn't directly kill you and you are not a superhero, robot, amorphous jelly creature or similar is broken and the GM is totally within their rights to fix it. Secondly no one is any real world type environment can have experience of the ammount of damage they would take from jumping on a grenade unless they have jumped on a grenade I gues sthere might be a corner case where a guy is someone who works in balistics or in a crash lab and has expeiences of measuring the actually damage caused by a grenade, therefore, claiming charcters in a game have this sort of knowledge is also bollocks.

Quote from: jibbajibba;359709That is a bit daft. Firstly a system in which a grenade doesn't directly kill you and you are not a superhero, robot, amorphous jelly creature or similar is broken and the GM is totally within their rights to fix it. Secondly no one is any real world type environment can have experience of the ammount of damage they would take from jumping on a grenade unless they have jumped on a grenade I gues sthere might be a corner case where a guy is someone who works in balistics or in a crash lab and has expeiences of measuring the actually damage caused by a grenade, therefore, claiming charcters in a game have this sort of knowledge is also bollocks.

I don't totally disagree with this, but the right course of action is to say "I may decide to override the rules and kill you anyway; do you still want to take that course of action?" Let the player make an informed decision.

I'm with Jeff and Jibbajibba: if the rules tell me that a normal guy can survive a grenade explosion on his belly, it's not a case of rules that get in the way of roleplaying, but it's killing my suspension of disbelief and needs to be fixed. Or I'll vote out of the game with my feet. Unless this was a high gonzo/pulpy game, but I don't play those games personally.

Quote from: boulet;359711I'm with Jeff and Jibbajibba: if the rules tell me that a normal guy can survive a grenade explosion on his belly, it's not a case of rules that get in the way of roleplaying, but it's killing my suspension of disbelief and needs to be fixed. Or I'll vote out of the game with my feet. Unless this was a high gonzo/pulpy game, but I don't play those games personally.

Which is why GMs were originally called referees. IMO is their most important responsibility not the running of the opposition for the PCs.

As for the original question, is that rules light RPGs forces the referee to make rulings thus shaping the game to how they want it. Since most gaming groups are a gathering of friends and acquaintances with like interests this often works out nicely.

However rules heavy RPGs work just as well it just they demand more of the player and referee in terms of learning the rules.

I find with complex rule system (D&D 4e, Hero System) that are not based on reality that players tend to play the game rather than roleplay their combat actions. Not to say there isn't roleplaying going on but during combat they look at their game options more than just saying something natural.

I prefer heavy rules system like Harnmaster, GURPS, BRP, that are designed with some element of realism. While you have to think in game terms about what you are doing there is often a better correspondence between the game action and what you would really do. This makes adjudicating the corner cases like throwing oneself on a grenade easy to decide.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;359707No. You screwed the player.

Bullshit. If I would have let a PC survive falling on a grenade without some kind of incredible justification, then I am not presenting a consistant universe that has consequences for actions taken in play and emulates the Star Wars franchise to the game group. Suspension of disbelief and immersion are fucked then for what is suppossed to be the Star Wars universe.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;359707In the scenario you present, I'll assume that grenades have a listed damage, and a listed range, and that creatures can provide cover to others against that damage. An individual in the world being played in knows all of this, if he has any kind of familiarity with grenades. An individual - especially an adventurer - also probably has a pretty good idea of just how hardy they are, and are probably able (through experience) to make a reasonable guess as to how much a grenade will hurt them, in a relative sense (ie, they're not using the actual numbers, but some sort of qualitative measurement).

Given this information, it is entirely reasonable for a character who can withstand the max damage of a grenade to leap upon it to save other party members. They have all of the relevant information for this to be an informed decision, albeit non-numerically, in-world.

Have you ever read or used the d20 Star Wars rules? Because based on the above, I do not think you have. I also do not think your scenario would make sense in the Star Wars universe.

What should happen in a decent combat system is that I should be able to roleplay what I do and the rules should be able to cope with that in a reasonably friendly and elegant manner. If I can only select what I can do from a list of options then the game has already intruded on the roleplaying.
 
This of course takes down the dangerous road of talking about how in 2e D&D and earlier a PC could try to do anything in combat and the DM applied a modifier and they rolled a dice but once combat got codified through 3e and into 4e what you can do is limited to your training but tha tis a discussion already done to death ... :)

The Game system should support roleplaying once the system becomes the point of the exercise in and of itself roleplaying is put to one side and you have something which might well have all its own benefits.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;359707No. You screwed the player.

The rules are the universe. We're dealing with games that portray universes in which dragons exist, FTL is commonplace, and/or Cthulu is sleeping somewhere in the Pacific. The rules of physics are not necessarily different (and I would argue that, unless other specified, are not), but they can be.

Characters that exist within the setting understand the universe according to the rules. Yes, I know Order of the Stick is presented as/supposed to be a parody, but guess what: take out the references to actual numbers, and that's how the world should be perceived by characters. Guys who are really good with swords can fall 60 feet and walk away relatively unharmed.

If you have grenade rules, it is not unreasonable to expect the players to know them, and it sure as hell shouldn't be unreasonable - as a player - to expect that, unless otherwise explicitly told, the rules in the books for the game being played are what hold. If not, then make it clear, and if you forget, you shouldn't punish a player for making some rules-decision on the spot or clarifying a rule you'd changed.

In the scenario you present, I'll assume that grenades have a listed damage, and a listed range, and that creatures can provide cover to others against that damage. An individual in the world being played in knows all of this, if he has any kind of familiarity with grenades. An individual - especially an adventurer - also probably has a pretty good idea of just how hardy they are, and are probably able (through experience) to make a reasonable guess as to how much a grenade will hurt them, in a relative sense (ie, they're not using the actual numbers, but some sort of qualitative measurement).

Given this information, it is entirely reasonable for a character who can withstand the max damage of a grenade to leap upon it to save other party members. They have all of the relevant information for this to be an informed decision, albeit non-numerically, in-world.

I disagree with this assessment.  The player was gaming the system and not playing the game.

Quote from: jibbajibba;359709Firstly a system in which a grenade doesn't directly kill you and you are not a superhero...

Except they are, basically, superheroes. It's Star Wars.

Personally, I think it's dumb to expect roleplaying games and rules to be reality simulators. They're not. They break down in areas. You can try to fix them, but that just leads to other weirdness. For example, now grenades are more deadly than they ought to be.

I'm with Thanlis - if you're going to change the rules on the fly, let the player know that you're changing it and then see if he still wants to use the rules in that way.

Or, better yet, if you have a problem with games not being "realistic," go through the rules beforehand and change the ones that aren't. And let the players know, so you're not taking a dump all over their trust.

Seanchai

Quote from: Thanlis;359710I don't totally disagree with this, but the right course of action is to say "I may decide to override the rules and kill you anyway; do you still want to take that course of action?" Let the player make an informed decision.

This. Especially in D20 star wars (Or were vp/wp only in the revised edition? Can't remember), it wouldn't be hard to say "You're making no effort to defend yourself against the blast if you're actively jumping on the grenade... therefore this'll go straight to wounds. Still want to give it a shot?"

That said, the survivability of stupid situations has always been kind of a sticking point for me in many if not most systems.

Quote from: Thanlis;359710I don't totally disagree with this, but the right course of action is to say "I may decide to override the rules and kill you anyway; do you still want to take that course of action?" Let the player make an informed decision.

That is exactly the way I'd do it too.

Quote from: Seanchai;359739Or, better yet, if you have a problem with games not being "realistic," go through the rules beforehand and change the ones that aren't. And let the players know, so you're not taking a dump all over their trust.

I simply inform players that a feeling of reality will always trump rules artifacts in cases where "reality" is obviously being violated by the rules for no strong genre/setting related reason. This covers all sorts of situations. Some examples: You can't trip a Gelatinous Cube by sticking your leg/sword out no matter what the rules say. If you are a fairly normal human in fairly normal armor, you can't fall on a modern era grenade and expect to survive the explosion no matter how many hit points you have. Your normal human can't jump off a 15 story cliff and hit the rocks below and expect to survive (at least not without being extremely lucky and only ending up permanent debilitating injuries) no matter how many hit points they have. Etc.

If you want every possible situation where this type of rule might be applied and override the RAW explained to you in advance, then you don't need to play in my games because I will not even try to accommodate you. At least, I'm up front about it.

Quote from: RandallS;359743I simply inform players that a feeling of reality will always trump rules artifacts
...

You mean, your feeling of reality, right?

Because, for example, falling on a grenade isn't necessarily instantly fatal (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/04/08/seal.medal/index.html?eref=rss_topstories). In fact, it may not be fatal at all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacklyn_H._Lucas). And, apparently, the proper technique for doing so is to put your helmet on the grenade and then lay on top of the helmet. That's right, there's actually a technique for it.

The problem with GMs who decide to save the group from the horrors of an unrealistic situation in a game is that a) they usually don't have a clue about what's actually realistic and b) they're usually doing it as a means of removing player input from the game...

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;359755You mean, your feeling of reality, right?

Because, for example, falling on a grenade isn't necessarily instantly fatal (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/04/08/seal.medal/index.html?eref=rss_topstories). In fact, it may not be fatal at all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacklyn_H._Lucas). And, apparently, the proper technique for doing so is to put your helmet on the grenade and then lay on top of the helmet. That's right, there's actually a technique for it.

The problem with GMs who decide to save the group from the horrors of an unrealistic situation in a game is that a) they usually don't have a clue about what's actually realistic and b) they're usually doing it as a means of removing player input from the game...

Seanchai

Show us on this doll where the bad GM touched you, Seanchai.

And please bother to read the fucking articles you link to.

Now, see?  This is where I came to appreciate the binary nature of the old AD&D "Save" rolls.  Save vs. Poison or die.  In this case, Save vs. Hand Grenade or die.  There might be a slim chance that you'd survive, but there are so many situational factors involved, and most of them imperceptible, that I'd just chalk it up to a "luck roll".  I would not, however, allow a player's calculation of HPs to allow him to shrug off smothering an explosive with his belly.

All this said, I think this discussion underscores Jeff's assertion that unintended rules gaps like this take a player's head out of the game by tempting him to manufacture an unrealistic scenario that his character would not consider.  Self-sacrifice is a reasonable, in-game character option; expecting to walk away from what would surely be a crippling encounter is a cynical meta-game calculation.

Now, interestingly, when I'd mused on game options that tempt players to do things their characters wouldn't, I was thinking of this in a more positive light.  An example I can think of was when I was once discussing an amusing character build for an axe-throwing halfling.  I was in it for the cool factor, but I then had someone criticise the build for not taking full advantage of a variety of power options.  I was interested in concept; the other fellow was interested in optimisation.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, was a serious pitfall of 3.x Prestige Classes.

!i!

!i!

If you actively flaunt the rules in order to fit your conception of the game world, that's fine, because you're the GM. However, killing a player because you didn't agree with him without telling him that you were going to change the rules breaks the gentleman's agreements that RPGs run on.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359760...expecting to walk away from what would surely be a crippling encounter is a cynical meta-game calculation.

Why would a character not have such an expectation if that's the world he or she lives in? The character lives in a world of starships, Force powers, and super science. Moreover, I would imagine said character has been through a battle or two - that is, he or she has has some idea of how tough he or she is, how damaging weapons are, and how well medical science works. If the world works via the rules and the rules say the character could walk away, why would he or she not have an expectation of at least possibly walking away from such an event?

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359760And that, ladies and gentlemen, was a serious pitfall of 3.x Prestige Classes.

And the differences in weapons in AD&D and character builds in 4e. People making optimal choices based on mechanics isn't endemic to any one edition or game.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;359767Why would a character not have such an expectation if that's the world he or she lives in?

That's a pretty big "If" you have going on there, and it doesn't seem to be the one that Jeff was describing.  Would Annakin from Ep.II smother a grenade because he expected to survive it?  Maybe.  Would Luke from Ep.VI? Probably not.  Would Han Solo from any of Ep.IV-VI?  Not a chance.  It was a cynical calculation and you know it.

QuoteAnd the differences in weapons in AD&D and character builds in 4e. People making optimal choices based on mechanics isn't endemic to any one edition or game.

Oh, for heaven's sake.  I mentioned 3e because that was the particular game in which it occurred.  Fine, let's talk about taking a 1e Awl Pike into a dungeon because it has fantastic mods, but ignoring that it's 15 feet long.  What was it this thread was about?  Systems that "get in the way" of roleplaying?  Great, there you go.  A fine example.

!i!

Quote from: Seanchai;359755You mean, your feeling of reality, right?

Damn right, Seanchi. I'm the GM, deciding such things for my campaigns is my job. Players know it up front and those who have problems with it are not required to play.  Those who are going to whiner about it don't get invited back.

QuoteBecause, for example, falling on a grenade isn't necessarily instantly fatal (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/04/08/seal.medal/index.html?eref=rss_topstories).

Perhaps not instantly fatal, but the person was dead in 30 minutes and was not taking any meaningful action in that time. From the POV of the game, it isn't going to matter.

QuoteIn fact, it may not be fatal at all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacklyn_H._Lucas).

In game terms someone had a hero point, used it to live and would have had months or years of down game-time to recover.

QuoteAnd, apparently, the proper technique for doing so is to put your helmet on the grenade and then lay on top of the helmet. That's right, there's actually a technique for it.

I know that. It is still likely to hurt the hero bad AND the situation described in this thread was falling on the grenade, not putting your helmet on it and then falling on it.

QuoteThe problem with GMs who decide to save the group from the horrors of an unrealistic situation in a game is that a) they usually don't have a clue about what's actually realistic

Often they know more about their game world than the designers of the game do.  And more about reality at times, too.  In general, game designers aren't a bit better than good GMs at this.  Some rules designers even admit they don't care if the rules don't feel real.

Quoteand b) they're usually doing it as a means of removing player input from the game...

Yes, preventing players from doing the impossible and near impossible simply because the player wants to and has managed to find a way to read the rules to allow it is part of the GM's job, IMHO.  Again, if you don't like my GM job description, you don't have to play in my games.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359770It was a cynical calculation and you know it.

It was a cynical calculation that could have easily been based on character knowledge.

Seanchai

IMHO the player who threw his character on the grenade was being disingenuous. It seems clear he was playing the system against the GM's assumption. A more honest way to present his intention would have been "If my character is covering the grenade, could he survive while protecting other characters?" Then a conversation about hard numbers and system could happen. Instead he thought he could do a smart ass last moment reveal about the rules hole. Seems to me the confrontational interactions at the table are a bigger problem than the system "getting in the way of roleplaying" here. For instance one would wonder why Jeff didn't ask sth like "you realize you character is going to die, right?"

I hope the thread doesn't get stuck on this anecdote though.

Quote from: jibbajibba;359709That is a bit daft. Firstly a system in which a grenade doesn't directly kill you and you are not a superhero, robot, amorphous jelly creature or similar is broken and the GM is totally within their rights to fix it.

You have completely missed the point.

If you're going to make this argument, I expect that you play no game in which a character can survive being hit with a sword, or being shot, more than once or twice. I also expect that, in your games, they die from infection or what-not rather quickly if they don't receive medical attention.

And I mean medical attention. None of that "magic" bullshit. 'cause that's not, y'know, realistic.

As an aside, whether or not it's broken is entirely system-dependent.

Quote from: jeff37923Bullshit. If I would have let a PC survive falling on a grenade without some kind of incredible justification, then I am not presenting a consistant universe that has consequences for actions taken in play and emulates the Star Wars franchise to the game group. Suspension of disbelief and immersion are fucked then for what is suppossed to be the Star Wars universe.

Guess what, then: you're using the wrong fucking system. If you want grenades to kill characters when they land on them, then don't use a system that grants ridiculous amounts of hit points. The system you are using is apparently a poor mechanical representation of the Star Wars universe.

QuoteHave you ever read or used the d20 Star Wars rules? Because based on the above, I do not think you have. I also do not think your scenario would make sense in the Star Wars universe.

Yes and yes.

I agree, my scenario would make absolutely no sense in the universe. But you're using rules to represent that universe, and the rules are what's important.

Quote from: DrohemThe player was gaming the system and not playing the game.

No, the player took what the character knew, and made an informed decision based on that. The rules are the physics of the universe the character inhabits. That's not "gaming the system," that's making intelligent, informed decisions.

Quote from: boulet;359777IMHO the player who threw his character on the grenade was being disingenuous. It seems clear he was playing the system against the GM's assumption. A more honest way to present his intention would have been "If my character is covering the grenade, could he survive while protecting other characters?" Then a conversation about hard numbers and system could happen. Instead he thought he could do a smart ass last moment reveal about the rules hole. Seems to me the confrontational interactions at the table are a bigger problem than the system "getting in the way of roleplaying" here. For instance one would wonder why Jeff didn't ask sth like "you realize you character is going to die, right?"

I hope the thread doesn't get stuck on this anecdote though.

Too late, the thread has already stuck on it.

I did ask the Player if he was sure he wanted to do that. He just smiled at me and said, "Yes!"

Quote from: GnomeWorks;359778Guess what, then: you're using the wrong fucking system. If you want grenades to kill characters when they land on them, then don't use a system that grants ridiculous amounts of hit points. The system you are using is apparently a poor mechanical representation of the Star Wars universe.

Yes and yes.

I agree, my scenario would make absolutely no sense in the universe. But you're using rules to represent that universe, and the rules are what's important.

Sorry, but your head is up your ass on this one.

 

Quote from: GnomeWorks;359778That's not "gaming the system," that's making intelligent, informed decisions.

Yes Virginia, it was indeed gaming the system.

Quote from: RandallS;359772Perhaps not instantly fatal, but the person was dead in 30 minutes and was not taking any meaningful action in that time. From the POV of the game, it isn't going to matter.

What? From the point of view of the game, which takes place in a setting where people can move things with their minds and jet about the galaxy, it isn't going to matter?

Check out the Vital Transfer Force power, the Treat Injury skill (especially the Revivify section), and all the Medical Gear, which details the "small" Surgery Kit.

If a Star Wars character lives through combat, there's every chance it's going to stay alive. We might not have been able to save that heroic soldier in this day and age, but that means nothing to folks in the Star Wars universe.

Quote from: RandallS;359772In game terms someone had a hero point, used it to live and would have had months or years of down game-time to recover.

Why are you arguing with game terms? Why would having a Hero Point matter? Isn't bringing up Hero Points as a reason for surviving basically saying that the player in question was justified in his decision and the reasoning behind it?

Quote from: RandallS;359772Often they know more about their game world than the designers of the game do.  

Apparently, the game world doesn't mean shit.

Quote from: RandallS;359772In general, game designers aren't a bit better than good GMs at this.

All we need is a good GM.

But neither group is good at translating reality into game mechanics. Reality isn't easily quantifiable and you can only bring so many mechanics to the table.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;359775It was a cynical calculation that could have easily been based on character knowledge.

Dude.  Would Han-Fucking-Solo have had that character knowledge?  Would a character without some hairy-ass Force power have had that knowledge?  You're swimming in a pool of "if"s, "could"s, and "maybe"s.  Give the guy one of three choices: A) Spend a Hero Point, B) Roll to Save vs. Hand Grenades, or C) Wash and detail my car; do that and I'll let a character get dragged away gasping on a stretcher.  But do not tell me that you've compared your HP total vs. the maximum damage of a hand grenade and call it an in-character "roleplaying" response.

!i!

Quote from: boulet;359777A more honest way to present his intention would have been "If my character is covering the grenade, could he survive while protecting other characters?"

What would prompt him to think about asking the question save knowledge of the game's mechanics?

Quote from: boulet;359777Instead he thought he could do a smart ass last moment reveal about the rules hole.

"Then the Player said, 'Yeah, I have enough hit points that I'll be able to take the maximum blast damage with no problem'." Doesn't sounds particularly like a smart ass to me. And unless grenades are instantly fatal, I'm not seeing a rules hole...

Seanchai

Just to point out a part that seems to be glossed over in this arguement.

I initially thought that this Player was having his character act out heroic self-sacrifice for the benefit of the rest of the party and I was fully prepared to help that Player have his next character be Fucking Awesome at the start in order to reward that behavior in game. Instead, the Player was acting like his character had some kind of "script immunity" based on his stats that allowed him to do suicidal actions and get away with it in game.

The former motivation being a character achieving awesomeness while the latter was just a Player gaming the system.

EDIT:

Quote from: Seanchai;359783And unless grenades are instantly fatal, I'm not seeing a rules hole...

Seanchai

I'm gonna be chortling about this line for the rest of the night.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359782But do not tell me that you've compared your HP total vs. the maximum damage of a hand grenade and call it an in-character "roleplaying" response.

You don't think cops, soldiers, et al., in the real world use their knowledge to determine what to do in the situation at hand? You don't think they go, "Shit, he's just got a 9 mil and I'm wearing Kevlar. I can afford to be more aggressive when trying to apprehend him," or "Holy fuck! That's a grenade launcher! Get down! Get down! Get down!"?

Hell, with shows like Mythbusters and Deadliest Warrior, you don't even need to be a combatant to how some idea of how damaging a specific weapon is. It took me about two minutes of Googling to determine that it is possible to survive jumping on a grenade and I read an article in Wired recently about how to survive falling from great heights.

Seanchai

You run into these kinds of problems when the players and GM have different ideas about how you play an RPG. Sometimes, GMs try to have scenarios that are difficult to resolve, where all of the characters are acting like people, but the players are trying to "win the game."

That is the kind of shit that you need to iron out ahead of time.

Quote from: Seanchai;359786You don't think cops, soldiers, et al., in the real world use their knowledge to determine what to do in the situation at hand? You don't think they go, "Shit, he's just got a 9 mil and I'm wearing Kevlar. I can afford to be more aggressive when trying to apprehend him," or "Holy fuck! That's a grenade launcher! Get down! Get down! Get down!"?

Hell, with shows like Mythbusters and Deadliest Warrior, you don't even need to be a combatant to how some idea of how damaging a specific weapon is. It took me about two minutes of Googling to determine that it is possible to survive jumping on a grenade and I read an article in Wired recently about how to survive falling from great heights.

Seanchai

I've never been blown to pieces in real life, and though I've met veterans, I've not been close to anyone that was blown to pieces. I think though, that if I had, and all of them through luck, magic, and technology full recovered, I'd be pretty fucking reckless with my body during a crisis.

Quote from: Cranewings;359787You run into these kinds of problems when the players and GM have different ideas about how you play an RPG. Sometimes, GMs try to have scenarios that are difficult to resolve, where all of the characters are acting like people, but the players are trying to "win the game."

That is the kind of shit that you need to iron out ahead of time.

Not really. Any of the characters there could have just kicked the grenade back at the stormtroopers and I would have allowed that.

Quote from: Seanchai;359786Hell, with shows like Mythbusters and Deadliest Warrior, you don't even need to be a combatant to how some idea of how damaging a specific weapon is.

You're hilarious!  Remind me, the next time I'm pinned down under enemy fire, to call you in with a TiVo of "Mythbusters", a laptop with Google running, and a copy of Wired. :D

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359792You're hilarious!  Remind me, the next time I'm pinned down under enemy fire, to call you in with a TiVo of "Mythbusters", a laptop with Google running, and a copy of Wired.

Is that a no, particularly to the first part? You know, the one about cops and soldiers.

Seanchai

Okay, see?  We're totally stuck on one anecdote, which makes this a perfect example of how certain systems can yank your head right out of the game.

Seanchai, do you really want to equate a policeman's or soldier's calculated risk of surviving an assault with grievous injury to a roleplayer's calculated risk that his character will walk away from smothering a hand grenade?

!i!

Quote from: jeff37923;359784TI'm gonna be chortling about this line for the rest of the night.

The only way a grenade can not be more or less instantly fatal, 999,999 times out of 1,000,000, is if it doesn't go off. There's a story that in one Aussie peacekeeping mission some years ago, a patrol had an old Soviet grenade biffed at it, the group was tight together in an urban area, the thing landed at one soldier's feet, he threw himself on it, everyone else scattered, and... there he was lying there, spreadeagled over the grenade, silence...

"Mate!" someone called to him.
"Yes mate!"
"It didn't go off!"
"Yeah!"
"So why the fuck are you still lying on it!"
"Shit!" He got up and ran off while everyone laughed at him.
They sealed off the area and called in the engineers to deal with it.

I guess either the attacker rolled a fumble, "weapon fails to fire" or the soldier rolled a successful Save vs Explosives, critical success, take no damage at all.

Quote from: SeanchaiYou don't think cops, soldiers, et al., in the real world use their knowledge to determine what to do in the situation at hand? You don't think they go, "Shit, he's just got a 9 mil and I'm wearing Kevlar. I can afford to be more aggressive when trying to apprehend him," or "Holy fuck! That's a grenade launcher! Get down! Get down! Get down!"?

No to the first, yes to the second. People use their real-world knowledge to err on the side of caution. See, the 9mm might not hit the vest, it might hit your neck or head and kill you instantly. Or it might hit your leg and cause a crippling injury that not only really hurts, but ends your career. You could be shot in the bollocks. You'll live, but something is missing which you were quite fond of.

Plus, when it strikes the kevlar, the law of conservation of energy doesn't cease, the energy doesn't disappear but is simply spread out over a larger area. So instead of a bullet in you, you have some broken ribs - which are fucking painful. Or at least a wicked bruise.

Soldiers are more aggressive in a firefight based not on a rational assessment of the chances of instantly lethal damage, but based on a semi-rational, emotional and instinctive (instincts based on training and experience) assessment of whether the action is likely to fulfill the mission without getting them instantly killed, or in some cases, whether there's any alternative.

For example, in Commonwealth countries the counter-ambush drill is to assault into the ambush position. No use trying to get out, they'll have set it up to cover that and butcher you horribly. Stay still and you die, run off and you die, all that's left is to assault the ambushers - they won't have set up machineguns to cover each-other, once you're among them that's where you'll be safest.

That's the sort of decision that gets made in combats. Not "well I've got a vest so let's just CHAAAARGE!" Nobody counts their hit points.

On topic, that is indeed something that can get in the way of roleplaying, players' metagaming calculation of odds. I mean, if you really want to talk about "but real soldiers..." then when deciding what to do, unless their characters are under cover and have some time to think about things, players should get not more than three seconds. In reality it's less than a single second, but we make allowances for the lack of immediacy, having to have things described rather than see them.

So you can throw yourself on grenades with calculations of odds if you want, but you have three seconds to make every single decision in a combat. Good luck with that. Any time you go "um" your character will just stay where they are, dithering. And maybe get shot to pieces.

Sure you want to make that argument about realism? Or shall we just fucking roleplay instead?

Most games systems are in the way until I'm familiar with them...the only game that I'm familiar with where the ruleset still gets in the way is D&D 4e. They may have been others, but since I don't play them (and have since quit playing 4e as well) I've forgotten what they were.


The reason D&D 4e takes me out of roleplaying because the mechanics seem so distant from the world, characters and actions they resolve. It feels more like I'm watching a character do cool stuff with minimal input, rther than coming up with the cool stuff to do myself.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359794Seanchai, do you really want to equate a policeman's or soldier's calculated risk of surviving an assault with grievous injury to a roleplayer's calculated risk that his character will walk away from smothering a hand grenade?

No, I want to equate a police officer or soldier's informed knowledge about real world weapons and their capacity to inflict damage with a character's in game knowledge about that game's weapons and their capacity to inflict damage.

You're suggesting that there's just no way a character could know how damaging a grenade is, how likely his armor is to protect him, etc., but we both know that fails the common sense test. Of course a character could know about his such things.

And if the character knows about such things, then the player can make in character calculated risks.

Seanchai

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;359796The only way a grenade can not be more or less instantly fatal, 999,999 times out of 1,000,000, is if it doesn't go off.

And yet they do something like 3d10 damage. They can be instantly fatal, but that's incidental. Given that they're not instantly fatal rules-wise, I don't see not being instantly fatal as a "rules hole."

Moreover, why would a designer design around the idea that characters are going to throw themselves on grenades? They're not. So a lack of such rules is not, again, a "rules hole."

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;359796People use their real-world knowledge to err on the side of caution.

I linked upthread to two stories about people throwing themselves on grenades to save their fellow soldiers. People run into burning buildings, etc., all the time.

But I do agree with you in general. They err on the side of caution because they live in a world where you can't take a dip in a Bacta Tank. They face real-world consequences.

Of course, characters in Star Wars live in a different "real" world.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;359796Sure you want to make that argument about realism? Or shall we just fucking roleplay instead?

I don't believe in "realism" in gaming, so no. I don't give a hoot about what's "realistic." You may have noted that I'm not arguing about what a character wouldn't do because it's not realistic.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;359800You're suggesting that there's just no way a character could know how damaging a grenade is, how likely his armor is to protect him, etc., but we both know that fails the common sense test.

No. I'm saying that a person in real life can't see the damage range printed on the side of a grenade, compare it against his current HP total, and come to an objective and concrete conclusion that he can smother the grenade with his body and carry on adventuring. That is what fails the common sense test.

Argue away, even though I feel rather bad about it, because this remains hilarious.

!i!

I'd say that listed weapon damage only counts against targets that are trying not to take damage. The falling on a grenade after counting hitpoints thing is just as stupid as having to unload a couple of clips into your mouth in order kill yourself.

I've played characters who might have tossed themselves on a grenade... and I'd have been very annoyed if a GM let them live through it.
It bugs me when my character does a stupid or heroic thing and gets wacked and the GM or players start digging into the rules to find a way for him to survive. It negates all the joy of playing a stupid or heroic character for me.

Sure, a setting like Star Wars has its own 'reality'... but just because there are light sabers and psychic powers doesn't mean it follows that everyone is indestructible... no more than it follows that the sky is full of magic pandas.

I don't get any joy out of playing in masturbatory wish-fulfillment games where no consequences apply because my character is 'the hero'.

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;359830The falling on a grenade after counting hitpoints thing is just as stupid as having to unload a couple of clips into your mouth in order kill yourself.

Dude.  I knew a guy who tried to blow his brains out, but the bullet passed through the soft tissue in the roof of his mouth and lodged in the bone behind his ear.  No lie. His available HP clearly exceeded the gun's listed damage. :p

!i!

Quote from: Simlasa;359831It bugs me when my character does a stupid or heroic thing and gets wacked and the GM or players start digging into the rules to find a way for him to survive. It negates all the joy of playing a stupid or heroic character for me.

In this case, the player wanted the character to live.

Quote from: Simlasa;359831Sure, a setting like Star Wars has its own 'reality'... but just because there are light sabers and psychic powers doesn't mean it follows that everyone is indestructible...

People fifty years ago could fall on a grenade and live. Thus falling on a grenade in a fantastic setting with advanced medical science and equipment does not equal indestructibility.

Seanchai

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359813I'm saying that a person in real life can't see the damage range printed on the side of a grenade, compare it against his current HP total, and come to an objective and concrete conclusion that he can smother the grenade with his body and carry on adventuring.

A real person can't come to an objective, concrete decision, but why is that required? They do come to more subjective and less concrete conclusions that turn out to be correct all the time. Basically, you're saying that people in real life can't be competent and so imaginary people shouldn't be either. That's dumb.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;359890...all the time.

You're arguing an absurdity, apparently for the sake of argument alone.  This no longer amuses me.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359895You're arguing an absurdity, apparently for the sake of argument alone.  This no longer amuses me.

I don't mean "all the time" as in every decision is correct, but that it's a frequent occurrence. People making correct guesses isn't some rarity.

The computer programmer uses her knowledge and experience to correctly guess what's wrong with the program. The teacher uses his experience to correctly guess that a student is Dyslexic. A soldier uses his experience to guess that a ruined wall will provide sufficient cover. None of them have actual numbers such as DCs, but they're able to come to the correct conclusion.

The irony is that saying a Star Wars character couldn't know whether or not a grenade would be potentially fatal is not roleplaying. It's roleplaying's opposite, whatever that may be.

Seanchai

Anyone, either in the real world or a fictional world, who assumes or surmises that falling on a grenade is not going to be instantly fatal is fatally foolish and is certainly not making any kind of intelligent or informed decision.

See, here's the disconnect I'm getting from you.  You're discussing calculated risk, but what Jeff was referring to was this:

Quote from: jeff37923;359635Then the Player said, "Yeah, I have enough hit points that I'll be able to take the maximum blast damage with no problem".

Not calculated risk, but a calculated absence of risk.  From an explosive.  Smothered with his stomach.  No mention of the use of armor, or shielding, or Force powers.  Just a calculated comparison of HPs.  I don't know how many ways I can state this, but that is a sterling example of a system tempting a player to do something that a character would not -- at least not for the same reasons.  If you're really okay with that, then fantastic.

QuoteThe irony is that saying a Star Wars character couldn't know whether or not a grenade would be potentially fatal is not roleplaying.

Ironic, perhaps, because no one has made that claim. A grenade that would shred a character at a lower level, loses its lethality against characters at higher levels.  Why?  Because a character's abdominal muscles have become intrinsically tough enough to withstand explosives, unshielded, at point-blank range? It's the old "What, exactly, do HPs represent?" question, and, again, it's an example of a system that tempts players to actions that their characters should reasonably avoid.

!i!

Quote from: Drohem;359926Anyone, either in the real world or a fictional world, who assumes or surmises that falling on a grenade is not going to be instantly fatal is fatally foolish and is certainly not making any kind of intelligent or informed decision.

I find your lack of faith...disturbing.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359930I find your lack of faith...disturbing.

!i!

I guess if I was born to a virgin and had mitaclorians for blood, then I would unequivocally jump onto a grenade with a smile on face and a flash off my sterling white teeth.

Hey, wait a second. Was this grenade just, you know, there? Or was there a fight going on?

Quote from: Thanlis;359937Hey, wait a second. Was this grenade just, you know, there? Or was there a fight going on?

There was a firefight going on and the the PCs had run down a hallway with a locked door. A stormtrooper had thrown the grenade around a corner and down the hallway at the PCs while they tried to Disable Device the door.

Why? Do you think the grenade just materialized out of thin air? Not trying to be a dick, but that question just seems weird.

I think he's asking if there was any particular reason to believe that the timer/delay mechanism had been activated. :)

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359945I think he's asking if there was any particular reason to believe that the timer/delay mechanism had been activated. :)

!i!

Ah, my bad.  :o

Quick question: If the player had not jumped on the grenade, would everyone have been killed, or only taken the listed damage?

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359945I think he's asking if there was any particular reason to believe that the timer/delay mechanism had been activated. :)

Nah, it's more I'm wondering how the player knew the stormtrooper wasn't gonna pop around the corner and shoot him for his remaining 10 hit points. ;)

But it is really stupid of me to try and figure out exactly what the hell was going on at a game table I wasn't at. I gotta trust Jeff's take.

Quote from: greatamericanfolkhero;359953Quick question: If the player had not jumped on the grenade, would everyone have been killed, or only taken the listed damage?

It would have been 4d6+1 against everyone in a 5m radius. Might have killed them, might not.

Quote from: Seanchai;359889People fifty years ago could fall on a grenade and live.

What percentage of grenade jumperoners was that true for? In games terms would those characters have been playable afterwards? Did they just get up and walk away?

In a way I think your arguments start to become an insult to the real heroes who have done stuff like this... suggesting that they didn't make a knowing sacrifice but that they somehow miscalculated, or were just idiots.

Quote from: jeff37923;359963It would have been 4d6+1 against everyone in a 5m radius. Might have killed them, might not.

So grenades are only instantly lethal if the force is concentrated on a single individual. That sounds reasonable to me.

Since the thread de-railed from the topic at hand...

Instant kill almost always sucks. "You die because you leaped on the grenade," also sucks.

It would have made sense though to treat the grenade like a critical hit and given the PC 8D6+2 damage. If he had gone to zero, then he could have spent a Force Point to stay alive but out cold for a while. No Force Point to burn? Okay, your PC dies.

The real world is unpredictable and impossible to portray mechanically. Thank goodness we are playing games here. But games have mechanics and some of them seem more "realistic" than others, but that is subjective.

What bothers me in games or game systems are rules design decisions that tend to suspend my immersion in a fictional setting. For example; in 4e D&D the idea of having magic items in the PHB and then allowing the players to create wish lists of the things they want for their PCs. It just goes against the grain of what magic items have always been about in D&D. It is a gamist aspect of D&D 4e that goes beyond my tolerance level for what I expect in a D&D game. To a lesser degree, "Marking" is also a problem I have with D&D 4e. Mark with what? Divine or arcane energy? Sure, that kind of makes sense. But marking with a Ranger's aim, or a Fighter's taunting glare, just doesn't keep me immersed in the game because it is non-sensical.

Hopefully that made sense. :)

Quote from: Drohem;359926Anyone, either in the real world or a fictional world, who assumes or surmises that falling on a grenade is not going to be instantly fatal is fatally foolish and is certainly not making any kind of intelligent or informed decision.

I imagine if falling on a grenade were always instantly fatal in the real world, that would be true. Of course, it's not.

Seanchai

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359929No mention of the use of armor, or shielding, or Force powers.

You don't think the character had any of those? In a Star Wars game? Because, obviously, I'm assuming the character did.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359929Ironic, perhaps, because no one has made that claim.

Your end of the discussion has been anything but thinking in character.

Seachai

Quote from: Simlasa;359964What percentage of grenade jumperoners was that true for?

Shrug. Doesn't matter. It was true for at least one.

Quote from: Simlasa;359964In a way I think your arguments start to become an insult to the real heroes who have done stuff like this... suggesting that they didn't make a knowing sacrifice but that they somehow miscalculated, or were just idiots.

If our recent Palladium discussions have taught us anything it's that now is the appropriate time for you to play the race card, too...

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;359981Shrug. Doesn't matter. It was true for at least one.

Why should the rules favor freak accidents over the most likely outcome? His real chances of survival are nil. None of those guys who jumped on grenades had some fool-proof mental calculation that they'd live through it. They were saving their buddies.

QuoteIf our recent Palladium discussions have taught us anything it's that now is the appropriate time for you to play the race card, too...

Seanchai

Ok... whatever you say... you're a bear.

Quote from: Seanchai;359980You don't think the character had any of those? In a Star Wars game? Because, obviously, I'm assuming the character did.

[...snip...]

Your end of the discussion has been anything but thinking in character.

Jesus fuck.  Thank you for making this point crystal clear. Take a victory lap.

!i!

Quote from: PaladinCA;359976What bothers me in games or game systems are rules design decisions that tend to suspend my immersion in a fictional setting. For example; in 4e D&D the idea of having magic items in the PHB and then allowing the players to create wish lists of the things they want for their PCs. It just goes against the grain of what magic items have always been about in D&D.

That's not a rules design decision. It has nothing to do with how magic items work rules-wise. If they were detailed only in the DMG they would still function the same way. And there's no rule that players get whatever items they want. That's a suggestion for DMs.

Quote from: PaladinCA;359976To a lesser degree, "Marking" is also a problem I have with D&D 4e. Mark with what? Divine or arcane energy? Sure, that kind of makes sense. But marking with a Ranger's aim, or a Fighter's taunting glare, just doesn't keep me immersed in the game because it is non-sensical.

Just a little quibble: rangers don't mark.

Quote from: Seanchai;359979I imagine if falling on a grenade were always instantly fatal in the real world, that would be true. Of course, it's not.

Seanchai

No, my statement stands regardless.

Quote from: Seanchai;359979I imagine if falling on a grenade were always instantly fatal in the real world, that would be true. Of course, it's not.

Seanchai

I'd like to see you try and fall on a grenade. No? I thought not.

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;359998I'd like to see you try and fall on a grenade. No? I thought not.

I'm not standing in front of a grenade, surrounded by people I want to save. Were I and knowing that people can survive such attempts, I might consider doing so.

But how many times have you fallen on a grenade or witnessed someone do it? None? So what would you be basing your idea that it's instantly fatal on?

Seanchai

Quote from: Simlasa;359985Why should the rules favor freak accidents over the most likely outcome?

We're not talking about rules. We're talking about Star Wars character's perceptions, in specific, could they have some expectation of surviving a fall on a grenade.

The OP asserts that a character in Star Wars should always expect to die when falling on a grenade because, as I understand it, people die when falling on grenades in the real world.

I think that's bunk as a) people don't always die when falling on grenades in the real world and b) the Star Wars universe isn't the real world. A character in a game wouldn't have any knowledge of our real world, just the grenades, Bacta Tanks, Surgery Kits, et al., of his world.

What the character has a conception of is a grenade that apparently does 4d6+1. A starting non-combatant has 18+Con modifier in Hit Points. In other words, there's a good chance that it wouldn't even take down a starting character who was standing right next to it.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360015I'm not standing in front of a grenade, surrounded by people I want to save. Were I and knowing that people can survive such attempts, I might consider doing so.

But how many times have you fallen on a grenade or witnessed someone do it? None? So what would you be basing your idea that it's instantly fatal on?

Seanchai

Let's think about it this way. The idea is to stop the grenade from killing your friends. This implies that if you don't fall on the grenade, your friends will die. Think about it for a second.

At any rate, you take a grenade blast in the gut and there are stormtroopers advancing on your position. You're as good as dead anyway.

It seems like the discussion is getting bogged down specifically in the example of the grenade.  

In general, there are all kinds of things that characters do in action movies, in comics, and in Star Wars - that are really stupid and indeed fatal in real life.  Like leaping onto a driving car or a plane that's taking off, or rushing a bunch of guys with guns barehanded.  These would be stupid things to do in real life, but they work within the fictional world of the genre.  

In an RPG, we have three main ways of judging what such moves would be in character - with most people probably going with a moderate between these extremes.  

1) Do what seems realistic, regardless of the genre or rules.  

2) Just go with what seems appropriate for what you think of as the genre, regardless of what the rules say.

3) Do what the rules say is best, regardless of the genre.  

There are always tradeoffs between these.  If you follow the genre, then you may lose out on believability.  If you don't follow the rules, then you may try things you think are in-genre and/or realistic, but they don't work and you look stupid.  

I think the key is to be consistent about what you are doing.  For example, if you have been playing with grenades by the rules that are markedly less deadly than real-world grenades, then it should make sense that PCs are less leery of them than real-world grenades.

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;360019Let's think about it this way. The idea is to stop the grenade from killing your friends. This implies that if you don't fall on the grenade, your friends will die. Think about it for a second.

Characters have varying amounts of hit points, and it is entirely sensible to assume that the members of an adventuring group have a rough estimate of each other's hit points (again, in qualitative terms, not quantitative).

It is entirely possible that the one guy who lands on the grenade has more hit points than the rest of the group, such that he can live through it with no problem while all of them would most certainly die.

John Kim has the right of it.

It all depends on the level of verisimilitude and consistency. Is it a reasonable expectation on the part of the Player of getting away with this kind of act  considering what has gone on in the campaign.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Seanchai;360016What the character has a conception of is a grenade that apparently does 4d6+1. A starting non-combatant has 18+Con modifier in Hit Points. In other words, there's a good chance that it wouldn't even take down a starting character who was standing right next to it.

I think this point is key. I don't mean to criticize Jeff's call, but if we accept that rules make the physics of the world (and I think that's what going to happen, want it or not), the we have to accept that in SW D20 universe grenades are not as lethal as in our world, and chances of surviving a point - blank detonation are higher. And that's it. I don't find reasonable to ask a player to make decisions for his PC based on RL knowledge if the rules are so different from RL workings as it happens with D20.

Quote from: jhkim;360020In an RPG, we have three main ways of judging what such moves would be in character - with most people probably going with a moderate between these extremes.  

1) Do what seems realistic, regardless of the genre or rules.  

2) Just go with what seems appropriate for what you think of as the genre, regardless of what the rules say.

3) Do what the rules say is best, regardless of the genre.  

There are always tradeoffs between these.  If you follow the genre, then you may lose out on believability.  If you don't follow the rules, then you may try things you think are in-genre and/or realistic, but they don't work and you look stupid.  

I think the key is to be consistent about what you are doing.  For example, if you have been playing with grenades by the rules that are markedly less deadly than real-world grenades, then it should make sense that PCs are less leery of them than real-world grenades.

I find this analysis quite spot on. After all, grenades don't look that lethal in SW D20. Another classic example would be falling damage in D&D, when you have a high level PC.

Quote from: Imperator;360025I find this analysis quite spot on. After all, grenades don't look that lethal in SW D20. Another classic example would be falling damage in D&D, when you have a high level PC.

Well the big thing here is that it could have been a heroic act. In games I have run, regardless of genre, heroic acts (and it's sometimes fatal consequences) - thank God - trumps whatever expectation players have of the rules or my past rulings.

But that's just the way we roll.

Regards,
David R

So it's taken how many pages to partially answer the OP? I.e., one way that systems "'get in the way' of roleplaying" is if what the mechanics say about the physics of the world differs significantly from the conceptions that the players bring to the table.

Another way: if the mechanics excessively formalize social interactions. (E.g., persuasion rolls that work without any regard to the plausibility of the arguments made.)

Another way: if the mechanics create "meta-physics" based on story-needs or game-considerations.

I'll leave y'all to argue for another hundred posts what that means.

Quote from: ggroy;359477It's always amusing to watch hardcore munchkin powergamers trying to play rpg games which do not facilitate their preferred play style of creating overpowered characters that kill every NPC/monster in sight and taking all their stuff.  :)

This definitely happens in my games.
Combat is very dangerous and has to be treated as such, and much of the exp is gotten from elegant use of abilities,  so munchkin combat monsters seem to die and fail at a pretty high rate.

But it is so hard for them to understand this, if their whole history and background is opposite to the current modality.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360036So it's taken how many pages to partially answer the OP? I.e., one way that systems "'get in the way' of roleplaying" is if what the mechanics say about the physics of the world differs significantly from the conceptions that the players bring to the table.

Another way: if the mechanics excessively formalize social interactions. (E.g., persuasion rolls that work without any regard to the plausibility of the arguments made.)

Good point, that. I find the "get in the way" rhetoric of rules-lite fans eye-rolling when it comes to the larger issue of task resolution; I personally find lack of well thought out rules light game to be more of an obstacle to play than anything I run into in a well designed, robust game.

But personality mechanics are a note I would sympathize on. PC "sovereignty" and control are issues I consider very carefully. Some rules can aid the players in making interesting or believable decisions, but I think a carrot approach is much better than a stick approach here, and rue games that try to tell me what my character does.

Quote from: Seanchai;360016What the character has a conception of is a grenade that apparently does 4d6+1. A starting non-combatant has 18+Con modifier in Hit Points. In other words, there's a good chance that it wouldn't even take down a starting character who was standing right next to it.

Seanchai

You have a Gross Conceptional Error going on here. d20 Star Wars uses a Vitality Point/Wound Point system where the Vitality Points are equivalent to Hit Points in that they represent dodging, near misses, and being winded while the Wound Points represent the actual physical damage a body can take. Wound Points are equal to the character's constitution and most NPCs do not have any Vitality Points.

Throwing yourself on a grenade is an act in which damage cannot be missed or dodged since you are using your body to absorb the damage, so that 4d6+1 goes directly to Wound Points.

I was using the d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook because this incident happened 7 years ago and I do not know where the fuck you came up with the 18+Con modifier bullshit.

Quote from: jeff37923;360046Throwing yourself on a grenade is an act in which damage cannot be missed or dodged since you are using your body to absorb the damage, so that 4d6+1 goes directly to Wound Points.

While I am aware of the concept at work behind the VP/WP system in d20 SW, I was unaware of this. Is this (attacks that can't be dodged go directly to WP) in the book?

Quote from: jeff37923;360046Throwing yourself on a grenade is an act in which damage cannot be missed or dodged since you are using your body to absorb the damage, so that 4d6+1 goes directly to Wound Points.

Then I take back my previous statement, as it seems highly probable to die from a grenade explosion at point blank.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360052While I am aware of the concept at work behind the VP/WP system in d20 SW, I was unaware of this. Is this (attacks that can't be dodged go directly to WP) in the book?

Yes. It is also why I asked the Player if he was sure he wanted to do that (jump on the grenade to block the blast).

Quote from: jeff37923;360055Yes. It is also why I asked the Player if he was sure he wanted to do that (jump on the grenade to block the blast).

Hmm. Not sure that really changes things... if his WP were higher than the max damage of the grenade, then he still - by the book - lives through it.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen...if the mechanics excessively formalize social interactions. (E.g., persuasion rolls that work without any regard to the plausibility of the arguments made.)

Mechanics for social encounters make just as much sense as they do for combat encounters. You don't make Bob swing an axe around to demonstrate how his character uses his weapon; there is no reason to make Tom make a persuasive argument to demonstrate how his character does so.

Obviously, there are differences - Bob doesn't need to clarify his intention or his goals, whereas Tom needs to make a decision regarding what he wants to persuade his target to believe - but to require one to resort to non-dice, player-based resolution mechanics and the other to use dice-driven, character-based resolution mechanics seems silly and unfair.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360056Hmm. Not sure that really changes things... if his WP were higher than the max damage of the grenade, then he still - by the book - lives through it.

Thank you for demonstrating that this was indeed, a case where the rules got in the way of role-playing and common sense.

If the character was a superhero in a superhero game and had a superpower that would have protected him from the point blank explosion damage, I would understand your position. If the character was wearing some heavy duty armor (like powered armor) or was a force user with a creative use of his force powers to deflect the point blank explosion damage, I would also understand your position. You seem to be advocating that no matter how suicidal a Player's action with his character may be, that it should not result in the consequence of character death. I just don't get that.

As a GM, how was I supposed to adjucate this? Is it the GMs responsibility to ensure that Players do not make decisions that result in character suicide?

It occurs to me that the grenade argument rather proves a point about how the absence of a system can get in the way of roleplaying just as much as the presence of a system.

It sounds like a good idea: "let's just go with what is realistic". The problem is, as the argument proves, everyone out there has a slightly different idea of what "realistic" is. What may seem goofy and ridiculous to some participants may seem totally reasonable to others.

Systems can help here by stepping in when there's no agreement: if player X has one idea of what should realistically happen, player Y has another, and the GM just plain doesn't know, the GM can just say "fuck it, let's just go by the system. If the result seems unrealistic to either of you, just write it off as a freak occurrence and move on."

Maybe the real problem here is a disagreement over when the system is applied and who applies it. The guy who says "I have enough hit points, I could take a grenade blast easy!" is working on the logic that the system always applies, and everyone is allowed to apply it to the situation. The GM who says "You're jumping on a grenade, you're not even covering it with your helmet or any of the stuff you're meant to do, you're getting a gut full of shrapnel and that's the end of you" is taking the position that the system does not always apply, and the GM is the one who chooses when it does and does not apply. The middle position - where the grenade would have in theory done a fatal wound, but the player spends a Force Point/Fate Point/whatever to survive - would be something along the lines of "the system doesn't always apply, and players can use Fate Points for very specific purposes to state that it doesn't apply".

For what it's worth, I prefer games where the GM and group are free to ignore the system when the results would be unsatisfactory to them. The GM should be able to waive the rules whenever - either on their own judgement, or because they agree with the players that the rules should not apply in a particular case - and I like to give the players something like fate points in order to avoid the old "shot dead by a kobold in the first encounter" scenario. That said, players have a responsibility to abide by the GM's calls in those situations where they can't use a fate point to overrule the system, and the GM shouldn't take away protection PCs might otherwise enjoy under the system without due warning.

Jeff, had I been GMing, I would have said more than "Are you sure you want to do that?" - that's a kind of a vague and generic warning - it could mean "That's really stupid, do you really want to do that?", or it could mean "This is really dangerous, are you sure your character is tough enough to survive it?" Personally, I'd have said "Are you sure you want to do that? If the grenade goes off with you under it it's going to be fatal."

Then again, if I were the player in that situation then on hearing "Are you sure you want to do that?" I'd immediately ask "Well, I thought that seeing how my character's such a brick he might survive it. Is there something I'm missing here?"

This site seems to specialize in thread trainwrecks.

So I should have deprotagonized the hand grenade so that it could not kill a character if he covers its blast with his body?

Or I should have given the Player continual warnings about the lethality of covering an exploding hand grenade with his character's body so that he could not possibly make that choice? How is this different from the GM taking the Player's character sheet and turning it into a NPC?

Quote from: David R;360026Well the big thing here is that it could have been a heroic act.

Yeah. But it sounds like the player only wanted a heroic act with a little h and the GM wanted a Heroic Act.

Seanchai

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;360019At any rate, you take a grenade blast in the gut and there are stormtroopers advancing on your position. You're as good as dead anyway.

Because if you'd been standing right next to the grenade, if your toe was touching it, you'd be as good as dead? Nope. You'd take 4d6+1, live through it without comment, and kill the Stormtroopers.

What's making the PC as good as dead isn't the situation or the rules, it's the GM hearing "on the grenade."

Seanchai

Quote from: Imperator;360054Then I take back my previous statement, as it seems highly probable to die from a grenade explosion at point blank.

There's no need. So we're not talking about Star Wars Saga edition. No problem.

Page 39 lists the starting Vitality Points and Wound Points for the various character types. A Vitality of 1d6 + Con modifier is the lowest. You get the maximum at first level (and a random die roll thereafter). Wound Points equal your Constitution Score.

Page 116 says characters who suffer a direct hit (the square in which the grenade landed) suffer 4d6. Characters outside of that take 2d6.

Page 120 says frag grenades explode on impact and cannot deal critical damage.

Page 124 says Medpacs automatically stabilize dying characters.

Page 139 talks about dying characters. You don't drop below 0 Wound Points. Instead, you make an immediate Fort save DC 10. If you fail, you die. If not, you live at least one hour, at which point you make another Fort save.

Page 146 gives every character in the blast radius of a grenade a Reflex save DC 15 for half damage.

Page 139: Vitality Points represent avoiding damage. Wound Points represent withstanding physical trauma.

Page 143 says that Helpless Defenders are subject to Coup de Grace. Coup de Grace says, however, that it's a full round action, an automatic hit, and a critical hit. If the defender survives, he must make a Fort save DC 10+damage dealt to survive.

So the first question is why didn't the grenade explode on contact. It shouldn't have been sitting there for someone to jump on.

Second, the game has built in mechanics that deal with being right on top of a grenade - they deal twice as much damage and there's no Save. That means a character in that situation basically takes four times as much damage as someone in the next square.

Third, a non-combatant 1st level character might have 10 Wound Points and 6 Vitality Points. That's 16 altogether and the average damage for a frag grenade right underneath you is 13 points of damage.

Fourth, the damage goes to Wound Points, the greater of the two, not Vitality. If you believe that a character couldn't dodge, well, it's Vitality that represents dodging.

Fifth, the grenade can't technically Coup de Grace. Or inflict critical damage.

There's every reason to believe a 1st level non-combatant could survive a direct frag grenade hit in the first d20 Star Wars game.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360071There's every reason to believe a 1st level non-combatant could survive a direct frag grenade hit in the first d20 Star Wars game.

Here's your bait-and-switch: You keep stating "could", with which I don't think anyone really has a problem, but the player in question was assuming "would".  I mean, the theory is fine, but unless you're playing an idiot or a retard, it makes for shit roleplaying.  Which brings us back to the original point.  Take another victory lap.

By any chance were you one of the people on RPG.net who argued that a katana "could" cut the gun barrel off a tank?

!i!

Quote from: Seanchai;360071There's no need. So we're not talking about Star Wars Saga edition. No problem.

Page 39 lists the starting Vitality Points and Wound Points for the various character types. A Vitality of 1d6 + Con modifier is the lowest. You get the maximum at first level (and a random die roll thereafter). Wound Points equal your Constitution Score.

Page 116 says characters who suffer a direct hit (the square in which the grenade landed) suffer 4d6. Characters outside of that take 2d6.

Page 120 says frag grenades explode on impact and cannot deal critical damage.

Page 124 says Medpacs automatically stabilize dying characters.

Page 139 talks about dying characters. You don't drop below 0 Wound Points. Instead, you make an immediate Fort save DC 10. If you fail, you die. If not, you live at least one hour, at which point you make another Fort save.

Page 146 gives every character in the blast radius of a grenade a Reflex save DC 15 for half damage.

Page 139: Vitality Points represent avoiding damage. Wound Points represent withstanding physical trauma.

Page 143 says that Helpless Defenders are subject to Coup de Grace. Coup de Grace says, however, that it's a full round action, an automatic hit, and a critical hit. If the defender survives, he must make a Fort save DC 10+damage dealt to survive.

If you brought up this list of rules in response to my decision that your character died when he covered the hand grenade with his body and it exploded, I'd simply remind you of my house rules which say both that when what the GM says happens and what the rules say happens conflict, what the GM says is what matters AND that the GM has zero tolerance for rules lawyers.

At the risk of getting my foot chopped off, I will stick a toe in here, and say that Randall's position, in light of standing House rules particularly against rules-lawyering (both of which I thoroughly agree with) is the correct one.
 
I would also venture to say that Senchai's impressive list of 8 rules spread across 107 pages of rule book certainly provide a valid proof of the OP's point. At least to me it does.

Since we're talking Star Wars here. Let's consider tropes. We all know that Star Wars borrowed heavily from WWII movies. In a WWII movie, when a guy falls on a grenade, he dies. End of story. Anything else is too messy and cheapens the effect of the action. Of course, this all assumes that the character isn't some kind of cyborg, robot, unusually tough alien, is wearing special armor or is using the force.

Quote from: RandallS;360074If you brought up this list of rules in response to my decision that your character died when he covered the hand grenade with his body and it exploded, I'd simply remind you of my house rules which say both that when what the GM says happens and what the rules say happens conflict, what the GM says is what matters AND that the GM has zero tolerance for rules lawyers.

Great. And when we're talking about the reasonableness of something that happened in your game, I'm sure that will be relevant.

Seanchai

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360073Here's your bait-and-switch: You keep stating "could", with which I don't think anyone really has a problem, but the player in question was assuming "would".

No, I argued that a 1st level non-combatant had a good chance of surviving a grenade. I have no idea what the character in question is like, but I'm supposing he's a) not 1st level and b) a combatant. Therefore, if such a low-level character could survive, I have no problem with a much tougher character supposing he would survive.

Seanchai

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;360077Let's consider tropes.

Let's do. How many times do you think Star Wars heroes survive something that would be a) fatal to another character or b) fatal in the real world?

It seems to me surviving - and succeeding against overwhelming odds and a kind of script immunity are Star Wars tropes.

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;360077Anything else is too messy and cheapens the effect of the action.

If the player wanted to save the group by sacrificing his character, I would absolutely say surviving cheapens the act. Of course, that wasn't the intent of the player. Like Kaylee, he wanted to live.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360071There's no need. So we're not talking about Star Wars Saga edition. No problem.

Actually there is a problem with your following arguement.

Quote from: Seanchai;360071Page 39 lists the starting Vitality Points and Wound Points for the various character types. A Vitality of 1d6 + Con modifier is the lowest. You get the maximum at first level (and a random die roll thereafter). Wound Points equal your Constitution Score.

Page 116 says characters who suffer a direct hit (the square in which the grenade landed) suffer 4d6. Characters outside of that take 2d6.

Page 120 says frag grenades explode on impact and cannot deal critical damage.

Page 124 says Medpacs automatically stabilize dying characters.

Page 139 talks about dying characters. You don't drop below 0 Wound Points. Instead, you make an immediate Fort save DC 10. If you fail, you die. If not, you live at least one hour, at which point you make another Fort save.

Page 146 gives every character in the blast radius of a grenade a Reflex save DC 15 for half damage.

Page 139: Vitality Points represent avoiding damage. Wound Points represent withstanding physical trauma.

Page 143 says that Helpless Defenders are subject to Coup de Grace. Coup de Grace says, however, that it's a full round action, an automatic hit, and a critical hit. If the defender survives, he must make a Fort save DC 10+damage dealt to survive.

None of these listed page numbers or rules that you quote are in the d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook. So you are apparently not even referencing the rules that we were using. What the fuck are you desperately trying to prove here?

Quote from: Seanchai;360071So the first question is why didn't the grenade explode on contact. It shouldn't have been sitting there for someone to jump on.

Because I wanted to give the Players a chance to do something about the grenade before it went "BOOM!"

Quote from: Seanchai;360071Second, the game has built in mechanics that deal with being right on top of a grenade - they deal twice as much damage and there's no Save. That means a character in that situation basically takes four times as much damage as someone in the next square.

Except the pages you quote are for a different version of the game. Otherwise you are making my point for me here.

Quote from: Seanchai;360071Third, a non-combatant 1st level character might have 10 Wound Points and 6 Vitality Points. That's 16 altogether and the average damage for a frag grenade right underneath you is 13 points of damage.

Except in your question above you demonstrated that it doesn't matter.

Quote from: Seanchai;360071Fourth, the damage goes to Wound Points, the greater of the two, not Vitality. If you believe that a character couldn't dodge, well, it's Vitality that represents dodging.

Didn't I say that?

Quote from: Seanchai;360071Fifth, the grenade can't technically Coup de Grace. Or inflict critical damage.

I would think that smothering a grenade with your character's body was suicidal enough.

Quote from: Seanchai;360071There's every reason to believe a 1st level non-combatant could survive a direct frag grenade hit in the first d20 Star Wars game.

What part of, "we were using d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook" did you not comprehend?

Another problem with the grenade is that the way you use it in a role playing game is different than the way you use it in real life.

In real life, a person that is directly being shot at won't throw a grenade, at least not accurately, because it takes a lot longer than simply shooting back. If you fire a bullet at someone, you can expect an effect as soon as you pull the trigger. Grenades on the other hand take a few seconds.

Grenades are used to clear areas or or suppress the enemy. They are thrown at very close range, and can't be used effectively when being shot at because it will get you, and potentially everyone around you killed.

In role playing games, people simply choose to throw a grenade whenever it suits them. Combat in RPGs almost always happens at wacky close range and unless you are playing first level d&d characters that are worried about AoOs, no one can do much to stop you from taking your turn.

Fixing the grenade issue would require the game designer to build his game with it in mind.

Quote from: PaladinCA;359976Instant kill almost always sucks. "You die because you leaped on the grenade," also sucks.

It would have made sense though to treat the grenade like a critical hit and given the PC 8D6+2 damage. If he had gone to zero, then he could have spent a Force Point to stay alive but out cold for a while. No Force Point to burn? Okay, your PC dies.

That's how I would have ruled it. Seems like a perfectly reasonable solution.

Quote from: PaladinCA;359976What bothers me in games or game systems are rules design decisions that tend to suspend my immersion in a fictional setting. For example; in 4e D&D the idea of having magic items in the PHB and then allowing the players to create wish lists of the things they want for their PCs. It just goes against the grain of what magic items have always been about in D&D. It is a gamist aspect of D&D 4e that goes beyond my tolerance level for what I expect in a D&D game.

Magic items as character build options is stupid (well...in D&D. It works in GURPS or Mutants and Masterminds)

Ever since 3rd Edition people have been treating magic items in the same way that they treat feats....which destroys the whole purpose of them.

I just make up my own magic items and give those out instead. Player "wishlists" get crumpled up and thrown in the rubbish.

Quote from: PaladinCA;359976To a lesser degree, "Marking" is also a problem I have with D&D 4e. Mark with what? Divine or arcane energy? Sure, that kind of makes sense. But marking with a Ranger's aim, or a Fighter's taunting glare, just doesn't keep me immersed in the game because it is non-sensical.

Hopefully that made sense. :)

You're taking the Fighter's mark out of context here...this is a good example of what their marking mechanics represent:

Defending (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cwOlAnQp4E)

Quote from: Seanchai;360081It seems to me surviving - and succeeding against overwhelming odds and a kind of script immunity are Star Wars tropes.

Since I don't recall any instances in Star Wars of folks tossing themselves on grenades... or any similar acts of seeming self-sacrifice to save pals... all the while KNOWING that they would survive... I'd say the player was acting OUTSIDE the tropes of the genre and so deserved what he got.

When Luke throws himself into the breezeway of Cloud City he had no clue he might possibly live through it.
When they're threatening Jabba with the fancy hand grenade there is no suggestion that the heroes think they'd live through it if they actually have to set it off.
Star Wars is full of heroics with the big H... where the characters luck out cause 'the force is with them'... but they don't KNOW they're going to survive stuff.
What the player did was something different.

Quote from: Simlasa;360087Star Wars is full of heroics with the big H... where the characters luck out cause 'the force is with them'... but they don't KNOW they're going to survive stuff.

Without exposition, how do you know they didn't expect to survive? Unless they turn to each other and says, "Damn, I'm dead. I don't expect to survive this next bit," how would you know what they're thinking?

And they do survive. Time after time after time.

Because they have script immunity. They have it in the movies. They have it in the novels. They have it in the games.

Seanchai

Quote from: jeff37923;360065So I should have deprotagonized the hand grenade so that it could not kill a character if he covers its blast with his body?

Or I should have given the Player continual warnings about the lethality of covering an exploding hand grenade with his character's body so that he could not possibly make that choice? How is this different from the GM taking the Player's character sheet and turning it into a NPC?

If you're going to not use the rules, a warning about how you're going to run seems fair, no?

And it's completely different from turning the character into an NPC: the PC still gets to make a choice.

Now, if you have a policy that says, "Do what I want, or I'll ignore the rules and kill your guy," then, yeah -- you're making him an NPC.

Which is, you know, what you did.

Yeah?

To be clear: I totally agree it's your call to make, and I'm even with you being annoyed that he took a heroic action and cheapened it by taking it in a game where it's not... really a sacrifice... so I don't think you're an irredeemably bad guy for making the call you made.

But at the same time, I think that giving players warning about rules calls you'd make is fair and a best-practices approach, and minimizes expectation mismatches. It also allows for discussion: the player may have a good idea about how to run things given your preferences and -- in any event -- he won't feel ambushed when the rule call is ultimately made.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Seanchai;360092Because they have script immunity. They have it in the movies. They have it in the novels. They have it in the games. Seanchai

The Star Wars D20 RPG has Script immunity for PCs? I don't remember reading that rule...if it's true it must suck beyond belief, I mean, who in the hell wants to play an RPG with script immunity? That's the antithesis of what a RPG is for pete's sake!

If that's what they wanted, the players would have been better off telling entertaining stories to each other around a campfire.

Quote from: -E.;360101If you're going to not use the rules, a warning about how you're going to run seems fair, no?

You mean the GM is now obliged to forewarn the players he is going to, you know, do his usual job?

Hey buddy, the title is Game-MASTER not Rules-SLAVE.

Quote from: -E.;360101Now, if you have a policy that says, "Do what I want, or I'll ignore the rules and kill your guy," then, yeah -- you're making him an NPC.

Which is, you know, what you did.

Yeah?

Nope. The player choose to kill off his character because in his tiny mind he assumed he was playing Star Wars: the METAGAMING RPG.

He wasn't. His PC died. He bitched. End of story.


My vote is on Jeff's call. It is hard to believe such a clearly asinine course of action as his player took has generated such a lengthy discussion. :rolleyes:

Quote from: -E.;360101If you're going to not use the rules, a warning about how you're going to run seems fair, no?

Agreed. Except I used the rules as written here.

Quote from: -E.;360101And it's completely different from turning the character into an NPC: the PC still gets to make a choice.

Now, if you have a policy that says, "Do what I want, or I'll ignore the rules and kill your guy," then, yeah -- you're making him an NPC.

Which is, you know, what you did.

Yeah?

No.

If I did not use the rules as written here as you seem to think, then please tell me how I didn't.

Quote from: -E.;360101To be clear: I totally agree it's your call to make, and I'm even with you being annoyed that he took a heroic action and cheapened it by taking it in a game where it's not... really a sacrifice... so I don't think you're an irredeemably bad guy for making the call you made.

But at the same time, I think that giving players warning about rules calls you'd make is fair and a best-practices approach, and minimizes expectation mismatches. It also allows for discussion: the player may have a good idea about how to run things given your preferences and -- in any event -- he won't feel ambushed when the rule call is ultimately made.

Cheers,
-E.

Thank you.

Except that I didn't just make up a ruling on this. It was done in accordance with the RAW for d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rules.

You know, seeing how the absurdity of arguing whether or not laying on top of a live grenade is going to kill you is such a fantastic example of a game's system pulling a player's head right out of roleplaying, I got around to thinking of one of the rules in Robin Laws' highly narrative, though not especially "lite" RPG, HeroQuest.

The most recent edition specifically addresses the "credibility test", the GM's responsibility to weigh reasonableness of a proposed action within the context of the prevailing setting, and to frame the consequences for both success and failure.  Now, this is a rule that is specifically intended to place restrictions on character actions, and then promptly get out of the way. This sort of rule keeps players like Seanchai from straining credibility by saying that it's entirely reasonable to expect to have a character smother a live fragmentation grenade with his intestines then dust himself off:
   [Player] "No, really, it could happen! They said so on Mythbusters! And in Wired magazine!  It's a trope!"
[GM] "Yeah, well, it's a trope that totally fucks with this game's threshold of credibility, so anything less than a major success means you're dead, and even a major success means you'll have to be dragged out on a stretcher.  Give me a complete success and we'll call the grenade a dud.  Be ready to burn some Hero Points."
See?  The importance of a rule that quickly and neatly gives the players the lay of the land, then gets out of the way, unlike noting that your current HP level exceeds the maximum possible damage of a grenade, leading to a gap in credibility.

!i!

Quote from: jeff37923;360103Except that I didn't just make up a ruling on this. It was done in accordance with the RAW for d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rules.

So the player not only attempted to metagame a faux "heroic sacrifice", he didn't even got the rules straight?

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360104You know, seeing how the absurdity of arguing whether or not laying on top of a live grenade is going to kill you is such a fantastic example of a game's system pulling a player's head right out of roleplaying, I got around to thinking of one of the rules in Robin Laws' highly narrative, though not especially "lite" RPG, HeroQuest.

The most recent edition specifically addresses the "credibility test", the GM's responsibility to weigh reasonableness of a proposed action within the context of the prevailing setting, and to frame the consequences for both success and failure.  Now, this is a rule that is specifically intended to place restrictions on character actions, and then promptly get out of the way. This sort of rule keeps players like Seanchai from straining credibility by saying that it's entirely reasonable to expect to have a character smother a live fragmentation grenade with his intestines then dust himself off:
   [Player] "No, really, it could happen! They said so on Mythbusters! And in Wired magazine!  It's a trope!"
[GM] "Yeah, well, it's a trope that totally fucks with this game's threshold of credibility, so anything less than a complete success means you're dead, and even a complete success means you'll have to be dragged out on a stretcher.  Be ready to burn some Hero Points."
See?  The importance of a rule that quickly and neatly gives the players the lay of the land, then gets out of the way, unlike noting that your current HP level exceeds the maximum possible damage of a grenade, leading to a gap in credibility.

!i!

Dovetailing this thought is my own curiosity about whether or not my decision as a GM would be questioned if the game was not d20 Star Wars revised Core Rulebook. What if this same situation happened in d6 Star Wars? What if it happened in Traveller? What if it had happened in Call of Cthulhu?

Quote from: Edsan;360105So the player not only attempted to metagame a faux "heroic sacrifice", he didn't even got the rules straight?

I guess he thought that Vitality Points were just an extension of Wound Points. The Vitality Points didn't count because the attack by the grenade could not miss or be dodged since he was using his character's body to absorb the blast.

Quote from: Seanchai;360092Because they have script immunity. They have it in the movies. They have it in the novels. They have it in the games.

Then why have Wound Points?  Wouldn't Vitality Points alone suffice?  Clearly, Wound Points are an example of a system mechanic that gets in the way of roleplaying.

!i!

Quote from: Seanchai;360067Yeah. But it sounds like the player only wanted a heroic act with a little h and the GM wanted a Heroic Act.

Seanchai

Which is, I think, the more interesting point of this discussion. The clash of expectations between a player and a GM. As I said, the general rule should be that that everyone around the table is aware of the level of verisimilitude of the game and the GM must be consistent in his ruling. But I also added a caveat in my games :

Quote..... regardless of genre, heroic acts (and it's sometimes fatal consequences) - thank God - trumps whatever expectation players have of the rules or my past rulings.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: jeff37923;360106Dovetailing this thought is my own curiosity about whether or not my decision as a GM would be questioned if the game was not d20 Star Wars revised Core Rulebook.

It's worth noting that in HeroQuest, the player has to state his intended consequences of both success and failure.  In cases where character death may be consequence, the GM should clarify goals.

As for other games, I was actually thinking about the various iterations of BRP (e.g. Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest) where a character's hit points are a function of body attributes and do not increase with experience.  So an anti-personnel explosive is just as potentially lethal to a beginning character as to one you've been playing for years.  Much the same applies to characters in Traveller.

I suppose the work-around for any d20-based game would be to give grenades increasing Challenge Ratings as your players' characters increase in level -- they're the same grenade, but adjusted for suitability to your ongoing campaign.  HQ has actually introduced a similar rule in its latest edition, so that characters don't "grow out of" threats they faced in earlier adventures.  Perhaps needless to say, this rule is not popular with everyone.  Is this another example of a system mechanic that gets in the way of roleplaying?

!i!

Quote from: Edsan;360102The Star Wars D20 RPG has Script immunity for PCs?

In the old d6 version, players roll 2D6 each round with the target number being the number of rounds since they fell. That's not too bad. Although it will give you time to save someone...

In the d20 versions, you make an easy Save. If you don't immediately fail, you have hours to receive aid. And you can be brought back to life.

Quote from: Edsan;360102...who in the hell wants to play an RPG with script immunity?

Plenty of folks.

Quote from: Edsan;360102That's the antithesis of what a RPG is for pete's sake!

Characters are supposed to die? Or do you mean risk? Because, if the latter, games can involve risks other than death.

Quote from: Edsan;360102You mean the GM is now obliged to forewarn the players he is going to, you know, do his usual job?

Around some tables, making up punitive crap isn't a GM's usual job.

Seanchai

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360104...within the context of the prevailing setting...

That's the part you don't seem to be getting. We're not talking about a mortal PC in a modern day game who decided to fall on a grenade. We're not talking about a rules set - rules informing the setting of the game - in which combat is deadly.

Seanchai

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360109Then why have Wound Points?  

Why have any kind of points? Why have stats? Why have pre-defined characters? It's a pointless question.

Seanchai

Quote from: Edsan;360105So the player not only attempted to metagame a faux "heroic sacrifice", he didn't even got the rules straight?

I don't have the "d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rules," but I can't imagine it's RAW in them. It's certainly not in the first set. Perhaps someone could find and quote the rules for us.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360119In the old d6 version, players roll 2D6 each round with the target number being the number of rounds since they fell. That's not too bad. Although it will give you time to save someone...

You can't get anything right, Seanchai.

What you say is only applied to Mortally Wounded characters in the d6 Star Wars game.

Quote from: Seanchai;360119In the d20 versions, you make an easy Save. If you don't immediately fail, you have hours to receive aid. And you can be brought back to life.

If you would bother to know the rules you keep trying to quote, dead is when a character's Wound Points drop to -10 or the Con drops to 0.

Quote from: Seanchai;360119Around some tables, making up punitive crap isn't a GM's usual job.

Seanchai

So we are back to your usual claim that all GMs are evil, right? Show us again on this doll where the naughty GM touched you?

Quote from: Seanchai;360124I don't have the "d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rules," but I can't imagine it's RAW in them. It's certainly not in the first set. Perhaps someone could find and quote the rules for us.

Seanchai

So you freely admit that you have been talking out of your ass.

Thank you, admitting that you have a credibility problem is the first step in getting help.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: Seanchai;360121That's the part you don't seem to be getting.

I'm getting it just fine.  You're defining the situation specifically so that it supports an absurd assertion: Hand grenades can not kill player characters.  Which may be your preferred method of portraying Star Wars in a game, but it seems decidedly weird to others.

Quote from: Seanchai;360123Why have any kind of points? Why have stats? Why have pre-defined characters? It's a pointless question.

Vitality Points tell you how much you can get done. Stats set the parameters within which you can do things.  For you, though, with your insistence that Star Wars provides "script immunity" for its characters, Wound Points get in the way by suggesting that a character is not immune to death.  So get rid of them, but keep the others.

Really, man, having painted yourself into a corner defending one little issue of "could" versus "would", you're taking this to an incredible extreme.  Just to win an argument?

!i!

Quote from: jeff37923;360058Thank you for demonstrating that this was indeed, a case where the rules got in the way of role-playing and common sense.

Would you get your head out of your ass?

Unless you're playing a game - and by "game," I mean "using a game system" - that very specifically cleaves to reality as much as possible, using reality as a reference point is nonsensical.

The rules are the physics of the world the characters inhabit. If the rules are written in such a way as to allow a character to land on a grenade and live through it, then that sort of crazy shit should happen. If you don't like it as a DM, well, you can either modify the rules (and not screw the player, either, because they were working with one set of assumptions that you ripped out from under them - if they forget later, that's their own fault), or you can go with a "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" approach, and keep in mind the unrealistic things the rules allow when running monsters and NPCs.

I don't see why this is a big deal and "gets in the way of common sense." Yeah, it totally does, from a realism standpoint, but so what? FTL doesn't make any goddamn sense either, and you probably let them do that without batting an eye. And what the hell is up with those swords made of lasers that stop after 3 feet? That sure as hell doesn't make any sense.

There's all sorts of crazy weird shit going on, and it doesn't bother you. Why does this? Trying to apply real-world physics and notions of common sense to a game that is almost totally divorced from the real world doesn't make a lick of sense.

If the rules are the entire basis of the game world's physics, on what basis does the GM make rulings?

Generally, on the basis of what is consistent with the GM's concept of the game world. Which may or may not include "realism".

Which brings us back to points made earlier: that GMs and players need to communicate clearly about the concepts of the game world. If the distance between player and GM, or player and player, on these concepts is too great - well then they go and play in different groups.

This communication can happen out-of-game through rules discussions, or it can happen in-game through events.

For example, in a "gritty" game world, if PC hand grenades instantly kill every NPC they hit, it is reasonable for players to expect and understand that NPC hand grenades will be equally lethal to PCs.

In an 80s action movie game world, NPC hand grenades make you fall over saying "ow", PC hand grenades are small thermonuclear explosions collapsing entire buildings.

Clear communication is important. Roleplaying games are games where all we do is talk and roll dice. Unclear communication like cheating on the dice rolls or even, God forbid, going diceless - it just makes a mess of things.

None of which detracts from the right of the GM to put on their Viking Hat and say, "no, don't be stupid."

That said, Jeff should have consulted the rules to discover the exact damage done - there's generally extra explosive damage for "contact" range in most rpgs - and then had the player roll the grenade damage against himself. Then the player can not complain. Always let the dice decide, that's what we have them for.

Gnomeworks, that's all fine unless the group tries to do something that's based on expectations arising from genre, realism, etc., but which isn't clearly supported by the rules. A classic example is the one where somebody tries to threaten a character with a handgun or crossbow. "One false move and you're dead." It's an appealing scenario because it's often used to set up additional exposition/development without having every interaction turn into a combat. This is often desirable since it reproduces a real-seeming atmosphere of adventure. The problem is that in D&D, for example, it's not a credible threat. So what do you do?

1. Make a ruling of some sort that restores the threat. It may or may not be justified by a reading of the rules (such as a "helpless foe" rule), or it may be a houserule, or a one-time ruling. E.g. in AD&D you could rule automatic loss of initiative, automatic hit, a roll on the assassination table if a hit occurs, etc. (The first two are pretty weak; the third is really the teeth of the type of solution I'm suggesting.)

In a game like Star Wars D20, instead of the assassination table, you could just rule that a hit will go straight to Wounds and/or be an auto-crit, etc.

2. Follow the rules as written, with a minimum of adjudication. Instead, do a little interpretation of what the rules imply. So e.g., in AD&D, the interpretation is that many characters are heroes, especially once they've gotten a level or two under their belts, and they're simply never going to be "frozen" by some dufus with a crossbow. They're fast/agile enough to act quickly and dodge or block the arrow, for the loss of only a few hit points. If you want to threaten someone so you can force them to be led to a prison cell or whatever, you need to have something better, like a prepared spell. Or just hit them with something that renders them helpless, like a net, a trap, or sleep spell or similar.

3. Follow the rules as written but play-act through dramatic moments. E.g. the players "understand" that they should be captured by being cornered by a few crossbowmen, so they go along...and conversely they transmit to the GM their intention to threaten someone into submission, so the GM goes along and has the NPC submit.

I find #3 to be deeply unsatisfying and, on-topic, it "gets in the way" of role-playing. #2 can work, but when carried to extremes it undermines the fundamentals of role-playing. That is, role-playing requires an imagined world; if it's reduced to a set of abstractions without any regard for the consistency and believability of the world, then it's just manipulation of tokens, like a board game.

In the now canonical example of a character smothering a grenade with his body, you've got to ask how to reconcile that with other elements of the setting. Does it mean that high-level characters have an exoskeleton?

Furthermore as people have noted, human values like "bravery" or "self-sacrifice" are undermined when the mechanics tell an entirely different story of calculated expenditure of resources without risk.

Quote from: jeff37923;360103Agreed. Except I used the rules as written here.

No.

If I did not use the rules as written here as you seem to think, then please tell me how I didn't.
Thank you.

Except that I didn't just make up a ruling on this. It was done in accordance with the RAW for d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rules.

I'm basing this on what you said on post 18, where you gave the grenade scenario as an example of the rules "getting in the way" because the player's assumptions about how they'd be used caused him to smother a grenade with his body and expect to live "no problem."

The way you described it, your call ("You're dead") came as a surprise to the player.

You then described your reasons for making the call:

• Providing a consistant universe that has consequences for actions taken in play
• Emulating the Star Wars franchise to the game group
• Encouraging suspension of disbelief and immersion

These, by the way, are all goals I expect from my GM -- and I'd expect rules calls that support those over some more artificial standard (RAW, for example). I'm basically with you on your rules call, and I think you did the job the GM's expected to do.

So the way you introduced the story, it looks like you're using to illustrate an example where the rules caused a problem and required a GM's call to over-ride them for the purpose of consistency, emulation, and immersion.

If you meant to present a different scenario then it's just a miscommunication, but then I'm unclear on what you were trying to illustrate: if you just applied the rules in the unambiguously obvious way then why would they be an example of something not working?

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;360165I'm basing this on what you said on post 18, where you gave the grenade scenario as an example of the rules "getting in the way" because the player's assumptions about how they'd be used caused him to smother a grenade with his body and expect to live "no problem."

The way you described it, your call ("You're dead") came as a surprise to the player.

You then described your reasons for making the call:

• Providing a consistant universe that has consequences for actions taken in play
• Emulating the Star Wars franchise to the game group
• Encouraging suspension of disbelief and immersion

These, by the way, are all goals I expect from my GM -- and I'd expect rules calls that support those over some more artificial standard (RAW, for example). I'm basically with you on your rules call, and I think you did the job the GM's expected to do.

So the way you introduced the story, it looks like you're using to illustrate an example where the rules caused a problem and required a GM's call to over-ride them for the purpose of consistency, emulation, and immersion.

If you meant to present a different scenario then it's just a miscommunication, but then I'm unclear on what you were trying to illustrate: if you just applied the rules in the unambiguously obvious way then why would they be an example of something not working?

Cheers,
-E.

I grok where you are coming from. The rules got in the way of role-playing because the Player assumed that his character would survive the grenade explosion. If he was unsure, or didn't think his character could have survived the grenade damage, then I sincerely doubt he would have had his character make the attempt.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360036So it's taken how many pages to partially answer the OP? I.e., one way that systems "'get in the way' of roleplaying" is if what the mechanics say about the physics of the world differs significantly from the conceptions that the players bring to the table.

Another way: if the mechanics excessively formalize social interactions. (E.g., persuasion rolls that work without any regard to the plausibility of the arguments made.)

Another way: if the mechanics create "meta-physics" based on story-needs or game-considerations.

I'll leave y'all to argue for another hundred posts what that means.

This makes sense to me, to summarize and modify to my views. Systems "'get in the way' of roleplaying" if:

(1) what the mechanics say about the physics of the world differs significantly from the conceptions that the players, or GM, bring to the table.

(2) the mechanics excessively simplify social interactions. (e.g., persuasion rolls that work without any regard to the plausibility of the arguments made.).

(3) the mechanics create "meta-physics" based on story-needs or game-considerations.

(4) the mechanics are complex to implement, excessively pulling players and GM out of the game to consult the rules or make them up, especially in situations that are fast flowing (e.g. combat).

All of these will be a matter of taste and I can, and have, seen them from the simplest system to the more complex.  

Excessively rules light systems can lead to player / GM disconnect on (1), and (4) can arise if you are forced to make up too much stuff as you go along.  Rules light systems can also break down along the lines of (1) when outside the sweet zone, where what GM and players expect are easy actions are impossible or vice versa.  

Trying to get fancy with dice pools (exploding rolls, excessive opposed rolls, dice shifting, etc.) can lead to the road of unintended statistical consequences; a break along the lines of (1).

Complex and/or highly "balanced" systems in my expereince will run afoul of (3) and (4) when they go wrong.

(2) is an interesting case, and may be a subset of (1).  It seems to ignore "social reality" in that there are some things some people just won't do.


And since the grenades in the room....I'm not an instant death kinda GM without a clear warning in such situations.  Especially if there is a disconect between rules and my adjudication, I'll make it very, very clear to the player.  Let them know that if they do that they'll die, that there are other less clearly suicidal options (I may not be explicit about what they are), but if they want to go ahead that's a heroic way to go out and your next character gets a bonus something.  I'm not afraid to overrule the RAW or negotiate with the player a chance to live but needing immediate med-bot attention.

Quote from: jeff37923;359635I had a Player in a d20 Star Wars game tell me that his character was going to jump on a thrown grenade once to save the rest of the Party. I thought, "Damn! That is awesome, I'm going to give him some special stuff for his next character as a reward!"

Then the Player said, "Yeah, I have enough hit points that I'll be able to take the maximum blast damage with no problem". He had a hissy-fit when I told him his character had died. The Player would never had attempted that unless he did the math and determined that his PC would survive.

So from what I understand from reading your other posts, the players were at the end of a corridor, trying to bypass a locked door when the grenade was thrown around the corner by stormtroopers into their very narrow area.

Is this accurate?

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360135You're defining the situation specifically so that it supports an absurd assertion...

How am I defining the situation? By pointing out the rules that cover it? By pointing out that folks in the real world do indeed survive jumping on grenades?

Seanchai

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360158FTL doesn't make any goddamn sense either, and you probably let them do that without batting an eye. And what the hell is up with those swords made of lasers that stop after 3 feet? That sure as hell doesn't make any sense.

Interesting points. Why do grenades have to be "realistic," but other weapons and starships don't? Answer: As I said upthread, the GM didn't like the direction the game was taking and decided to deal with it by coming up with some bullshit excuse. If the player complied with his wishes, he got bonuses for his new character. If he didn't, the character was just dead.

Seanchai

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360164Gnomeworks, that's all fine unless the group tries to do something that's based on expectations arising from genre, realism, etc., but which isn't clearly supported by the rules.

That's true.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360164In the now canonical example of a character smothering a grenade with his body, you've got to ask how to reconcile that with other elements of the setting. Does it mean that high-level characters have an exoskeleton?

I think it's rather the reverse: the elements of the rest of the setting determines how deadly the grenade is. A grenade, for example, isn't an odd man out, the one deadly weapon in an arsenal that only poses moderate challenges.

You could say, for example, that GMs have to roleplay the setting. Does an automatically fatal grenade fall in line with a setting that isn't exactly deadly? Nope? Then it's poor "roleplaying" on the GM's part.

Seanchai

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360163If the rules are the entire basis of the game world's physics, on what basis does the GM make rulings?

They're not. But they certainly inform them.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360163That said, Jeff should have consulted the rules to discover the exact damage done - there's generally extra explosive damage for "contact" range in most rpgs - and then had the player roll the grenade damage against himself.

But that wouldn't have led to the desired end. People don't discard the rules purposelessly. GM changed the way grenades exploded for a purpose - it didn't detonate on impact for a reason. The player took advantage of the change in a manner the GM didn't expect. The GM changed "reality" yet again to fix that. This isn't a rules issue or a roleplaying issue.

Seanchai

Quote from: jeff37923;360167I grok where you are coming from. The rules got in the way of role-playing because the Player assumed that his character would survive the grenade explosion. If he was unsure, or didn't think his character could have survived the grenade damage, then I sincerely doubt he would have had his character make the attempt.

Clearly -- he wasn't interested in making a heroic sacrifice. Or a significant sacrifice of /any/ kind, for that matter.

But in this case, I think it's not the rules that got in the way -- it's the player's expectation about how the rules would be applied which caused the disconnect.

Depending on how ambiguous the rules are about jumping on the grenade, this could be a rules issue or a player interpretation issue or some of both. In any event, if the player's expectation was different from the GM's (even if it seems like an unreasonable expectation), I'd still prefer to explain how the rules would be applied and let the player make his decisions based on clear knowledge of the outcome and the structure of the rules in-play.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360163If the rules are the entire basis of the game world's physics, on what basis does the GM make rulings?

Generally, on the basis of what is consistent with the GM's concept of the game world. Which may or may not include "realism".

A fair question, I suppose.

I'll be honest, jeff's decision isn't what irks me. It's the approach and the mentality that irks me. The whole "the player is gaming the system and not really roleplaying" thing pisses me off.

Quote from: Elliot WilenGnomeworks, that's all fine unless the group tries to do something that's based on expectations arising from genre, realism, etc., but which isn't clearly supported by the rules. ... The problem is that in D&D, for example, it's not a credible threat. So what do you do?

I don't do that kind of thing, then, if the system doesn't support it.

In my mind, the rules are the physics of the world. The rules aren't a complete picture of them - obviously they can't be - but as a general rule, I don't make a ruling unless I have to.

The whole "crossbow in the back" thing simply doesn't happen in my setting, because it's not a reasonable thing to do. The tactic fails because of how the world works.

d20 fails to do a lot of things "right," in the sense that I don't agree with the kinds of things it does to the world you're using the system for. But I still hold by them, because that's what the physics say would reasonably happen.

QuoteDoes it mean that high-level characters have an exoskeleton?

No. It means that hit points (or VP/WP) are poorly-defined, and don't function very well in some cases. What exactly happens in this kind of scenario, I'm not sure - I'm not really certain how I'd describe what happens to the character in the event of landing on a grenade they're guaranteed to survive through.

But regardless of whatever word-jumble I come up with to describe it, it happens.

QuoteFurthermore as people have noted, human values like "bravery" or "self-sacrifice" are undermined when the mechanics tell an entirely different story of calculated expenditure of resources without risk.

So? I thought we were here to play a game where we kill things and take their stuff, not worry about highbrow concepts. [/tongue-in-cheek]

If you want these themes to be important, then quit using the wrong system for these things. Seriously. There are reasonable conclusions to reach from examining a system and figuring out how people in the world work and live if that's how the world works.

I'm sorry that d20 shot your desire for "bravery" or "self-sacrifice." Don't like it? Use a different system.

Isn't that exactly the point of the thread?

Quote from: Seanchai;360188I think it's rather the reverse: the elements of the rest of the setting determines how deadly the grenade is. A grenade, for example, isn't an odd man out, the one deadly weapon in an arsenal that only poses moderate challenges.

You could say, for example, that GMs have to roleplay the setting. Does an automatically fatal grenade fall in line with a setting that isn't exactly deadly? Nope? Then it's poor "roleplaying" on the GM's part.

I'd say it's equally poor roleplaying on player's part. Look, the player is making the assumption that they can smother the blast of a grenade with their body. Where are the rules that say you can do this? I doubt there are any. The player is extrapolating from real-world notions of how grenades and explosions work, i.e., that they emit shock waves and fragments whose force is distributed to objects in their path. Therefore if the path can be blocked by a character's body, the objects "behind" the character are protected. But to take things only so far is a selective approach; once you go down that road, one can further extrapolate that absorbing the full blast of a grenade (or 50%+ of it, with the rest going into the ground) should cause more damage than if you're a few feet away and thus subjected to a dissipated force and a smaller percentage of fragments.

If you were really playing by RAW, I doubt there would be any "smothering a grenade with your body"--to really follow the rules, the GM should just say that no matter what a given character does, everyone within X feet takes the damage specified by the system. In short the RAW argument undermines itself. IMO it does in many other similar cases.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360210Where are the rules that say you can do this? I doubt there are any.

Cover rules + rules for firing into a melee. Characters can provide cover. Cover can protect against/block the blast radius of burst effects.

Seems like a rather straight-forward conclusion to me.

QuoteIsn't that exactly the point of the thread?

I don't follow.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360204I'm sorry that d20 shot your desire for "bravery" or "self-sacrifice." Don't like it? Use a different system.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360208Isn't that exactly the point of the thread?

Thank you, sir.  Case in point.

!i!

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360210Look, the player is making the assumption that they can smother the blast of a grenade with their body. Where are the rules that say you can do this?

GnomeWorks pointed out some that seem to cover it. That's a pun - get it?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360210...one can further extrapolate that absorbing the full blast of a grenade (or 50%+ of it, with the rest going into the ground) should cause more damage than if you're a few feet away and thus subjected to a dissipated force and a smaller percentage of fragments.

The rules already address that, however. 4d6+1 in the square of origin, 2d6+1 plus a save for half damage outside of that.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360210If you were really playing by RAW, I doubt there would be any "smothering a grenade with your body"--to really follow the rules, the GM should just say that no matter what a given character does, everyone within X feet takes the damage specified by the system.

Which would have been better than the ruling they got, in my opinion.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360210In short the RAW argument undermines itself.

What RAW argument? There's an argument that, based on the rules that exist, the character's experience with the physics of said rules, and his experience in the Star Wars universe, he has a reasonable chance of understanding his chances of surviving on top of a grenade. But that's not a RAW argument per se.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360237Which would have been better than the ruling they got, in my opinion.

Not for me -- I want to be able to take actions that aren't modeled by the rules. Rules are necessarily abstract and incompletely model the physical universe.

That's one key reason why games have GM's and something they add to the game.

Ruling that jumping on a grenade is much more lethal than being next to one (and doing everything you can to avoid being killed) is a completely reasonable call and something I'd expect my GM to make. If he /didn't/ I'd feel rather un-satisfied by the outcome of the game (especially if I wanted my character to make a heroic sacrifice and was told that -- nope... can't be done. Sorry. Rules say so).

I think that the only issue with this particular call was the missmatch of expectations (the player expected one mechanical outcome and the GM ruled another)... but I think one of the reasons GM'd games are popular is that people don't /want/ to have to have explicit rules for everything or a game that's so abstract that it doesn't even try to model physical reality.

Cheers,
-E.

Should the GM take into account the player's attitude (good or bad) when making a ruling?

Quote from: Soylent Green;360254Should the GM take into account the player's attitude (good or bad) when making a ruling?

I don't think so. If you start favoring people, trust begins to erode. And you don't get it back.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360237GnomeWorks pointed out some that seem to cover it.

He may have; I don't know those rules so I can only speculate. I'd like to see what they really say.

QuoteThe rules already address that, however. 4d6+1 in the square of origin, 2d6+1 plus a save for half damage outside of that.

Indeed, my point is that someone is extrapolating from these rules to a more detailed model, based on real-world knowledge of grenades. If the same rule appeared regarding a magical attack or a gas bomb, you wouldn't necessarily assume it could be blocked/smothered by a person.

QuoteWhich would have been better than the ruling they got, in my opinion.

I agree with -E here. Otherwise you're headed in the direction of "that which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden". And that also "gets in the way of role-playing" IMO.

I am not overly familiar with the Star wars rules. Do they have a double damage for a critical hit?

If so it might be possible that you sau okay if you smother a grenade you will take double maximum damage. A critical hit because you could not get a better strike than the position the grenade would be if you dive on it and maximum damage because if a grenades random damage is based on how many of the fragments hit you then all the fragments are going to hit you.

Aside form that I wouldn't actually bother because I think the player is gaming the system totally.

The idea that the game world physics need to be totally governed by the rules and that a system with light sabres and FTL drives is inherently illogical does not fly becuase these things are internally consistent with the Star Wars universe. The idea that the game system is wrong for the sort of games that people who don't want PCs to jump on greanades is also wrong as the system is trying to emulate Star Wars and I bet that if Han Solo had ever jumped on a grenade and smothered it without a helmet, or a storm trooper breastplate then he would have died. His not dying would have broken the suspension of disbelief that needs to exist to create a tension and make you care. There is a quantum jump from not being hit by dozens of stormtroopers shooting at you to being hit by all of them but none of them actually hurting you.

Just saying

Quote from: Soylent Green;360254Should the GM take into account the player's attitude (good or bad) when making a ruling?

Absolutely. Roleplaying games are a social creative hobby. Players who are contributing socially and/or creatively ought to be rewarded. Doesn't mean unsocial and uncreative players should be punished, though - the lack of reward is punishment enough for most unsocial uncreative crybabies :D

Quote from: Soylent Green;360254Should the GM take into account the player's attitude (good or bad) when making a ruling?

If you treat everyone the same, you're a commie and we hate commies here.

But, more importantly players contribute in different ways and although rulings must be consistent it must not be so rigid that it does not take into account, the individual contributions of players. Now, I'm not saying that some players should be favoured over others just that, some rulings you as the GM make, knowing that you would have to take a different approach with another player.

Sounds vague, I know.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Soylent Green;360254Should the GM take into account the player's attitude (good or bad) when making a ruling?

I'd say it depends on what is being ruled. For social interactions between NPCs and PCs, definitely. For combat encounters, not so much.

And just to stir the pudding here, in the context of the grenade decision. I had already decided that the PC was going to be killed by trying to block the grenade blast with his body. The only thing that the Player's attitude affected was whether ro not the Player got some perks when he rolled up his next character.

This whole thread is why I think the concept of the rules as the physics of the fictional world--pervasive as it is--is fundamentally retarded.

Quote from: two_fishes;360285This whole thread is why I think the concept of the rules as the physics of the fictional world--pervasive as it is--is fundamentally retarded.

Why ? This whole thread is about how gamers approach this concept from different perspectives. If you have something constuctive to contribute by all means post away. If you're just going to take cheap shots....post away too.

Regards,
David R

The idea that rules are the physics of the gameworld is fundamentally retarded because rules inevitably fail to accurately model reality, and some other set of expectations has to be inserted to cover the failure, whether that's genre emulation, or drama, or whatever. The illusion that the rules are the physics of the world allows players with conflicting expectations to come to the table together, and leads to conflicts like this one. Also, I think the whole idea leads too often to the sort of task-oriented "roll to climb the stairs" and "roll till you fail" sort of play that makes my teeth hurt.

Quote from: Soylent Green;360254Should the GM take into account the player's attitude (good or bad) when making a ruling?

I'd say no -- if the player's attitude is annoying, deal with it directly, man-to-man (this goes for women as well, naturally), not in your capacity as GM.

Dealing with real-life annoyance in-game escalates things rather than diffusing them.

Likewise, a "good attitude" shouldn't result in in-game favorable treatment...

All this said, in practice attitude is going to matter in games just like it matters in all social interactions. Being a GM isn't being a boss or a priest or anything -- when (not if) attitude winds up impacting GM calls, it's not the end of the world.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Soylent Green;360254Should the GM take into account the player's attitude (good or bad) when making a ruling?

I'm not sure...
I didn't take this to mean a punishment/reward type of thing... more like, if I know the players I know which ones will respond well to certain things... and which one's will complain or take it personally.
Would/should I pull punches on characters where I know the player would throw a tizzy or start a long argument? While holding others to the consequences of their actions because I know that's how they like to play?

The GM of our Earthdawn games has mentioned how he'll let some players have powerful equipment because they won't go all crazy with it and wreck the game... but how he'll keep it out of the hands of certain players who will just use it to trash everything in sight.
Kind of the same situation... maybe.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360234

Quote from: Elliot Wilen

Quote from: GnomeWorksI'm sorry that d20 shot your desire for "bravery" or "self-sacrifice." Don't like it? Use a different system.

Isn't that exactly the point of the thread?

Thank you, sir.  Case in point.

I didn't realize that you people equated trying to create literary themes or whatnot with roleplaying.

That seems idiotic to me.

Quote from: two_fishesThe idea that rules are the physics of the gameworld is fundamentally retarded because rules inevitably fail to accurately model reality...

How many times do I have to say it? Reality doesn't matter.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360309How many times do I have to say it? Reality doesn't matter.

Reality ALWAYS matters... the rules can't cover every eventuality... and neither can the setting tropes.
No one throws themselves on a grenade in any of the Star Wars movies... or anything close.
At some point you're out on a limb where rules and tropes don't offer any reference and all you've got to pull a plausible ruling from is gonna be what you know of how things work. Reality is the baseline for all of it.
Otherwise it's just a big circle-jerk where everyone does whatever the hell he wants.

Quote from: Simlasa;360310Reality ALWAYS matters... the rules can't cover every eventuality... and neither can the setting tropes.

I disagree.

The existing rules can be extrapolated from. In my experience, situations that are completely not covered by the rules don't come up very often - there is almost always something similar that is covered, or at least partially covered, that you can work from as a base.

QuoteNo one throws themselves on a grenade in any of the Star Wars movies... or anything close.

I've already said that d20 is a piss-poor representation of Star Wars.

And even if no one did it in the films - so what? Are we going to limit ourselves to what happened in the films, then? That seems rather silly.

Simlasa, the way I say it is: if everything is covered by the rules, it's a board game.

Now, board games can have a strong roleplaying component, and what I mean by that is, they can put you "in the situation" as if you are in the shoes of one of the participants. (BTW, I think this is the first time someone in the thread has tried to define roleplaying for the purpose of their response to the initial question.) Many wargames have this, because they do two things:

1) They try to emulate real-world interactions, so that the things the player is trying to do are analogous and have similar considerations to their pretend counterparts.

2) The ones that best offer a "you are there" experience also emulate the limitations of information and communication/control experienced by the pretend counterpart. E.g. you'll have a better sense of standing in Admiral Spruance's shoes at Midway, if the game forces you to scout for enemy positions, deal with doubt arising from possibly inaccurate spotting and combat reports, and so forth.

But wargames still have a fair amount of abstraction which channels player action and limits flexibility. And in order to provide additional detail and verisimilitude within a rigid rules framework, they have to become increasingly complex to accurately cover more interactions.

Now, that's wargames. Other games make even less of an effort at representation and player-role identification; at the extreme you've got games like Othello or Bridge, where gameplay completely overrides other considerations. Othello doesn't hypothesize a fictional world beyond the abstractions of the rules. Even with a game like History of the World, which nominally represents real events, a player doesn't have anyone to really identify with.

Compared to wargames, RPGs offer the potential for enhanced verisimilitude, flexibility, and breadth by replacing detailed rigid rules with a GM. The difference is even greater in comparison to other games.

If you take an RPG and you try to define everything by the rules, removing the use of GM judgment, then you either end up making it more and more complex in order to consistently represent the pretend reality you're playing in, or you compromise one way or another on verisimilitude and flexibility.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360312I've already said that d20 is a piss-poor representation of Star Wars.

I'm not sure if it is or isn't, having never played it. But if you can say this, then you should understand what I mean when I say that a system can get in the way of roleplaying.

QuoteI didn't realize that you people equated trying to create literary themes or whatnot with roleplaying.

That seems idiotic to me.

I'm not talking about literary themes. I'm talking about character motivations in the context of the imagined setting, which is what I equate with roleplaying. As I just wrote, you can do this to an extent with rigid rule sets--but only when the rules support it, and not very flexibly. RPGs add flexibility through the agency of a GM.

I should add: you might be able to get away with shared GMing. I personally think the idea is problematic for roleplaying, for other reasons, but here the fundamental issue is the use of human judgment in place of rigid, limited rules.

If you try to reduce the role of human judgment, informed by the responsibility to be faithful to the genre and setting, then you either have to make the rules very, very detailed and complex, or you make the game abstract and rigid with less verisimilitude and potentially less support for character motivations that make sense in the context of the imagined setting.

With regard to wargames, I remember reading the argument that abstraction in  wargames is more realistic, because that's how a commander receives information about what's happening (whereas, I guess, people think of realism as being realism from the point of view of the troops on the ground).

Quote from: Age of Fable;360315With regard to wargames, I remember reading the argument that abstraction in  wargames is more realistic, because that's how a commander receives information about what's happening (whereas, I guess, people think of realism as being realism from the point of view of the troops on the ground).

I agree with that for the most part, but whoever wrote that was thinking in terms of, specifically, abstraction of what's happening on the ground. Back in the 70's Avalon Hill published a game on tactical combat in North Africa during WWII, called Tobruk. When you fired a tank's main gun, you had to account for every shell, which might or might not be fun but it's completely unrealistic for a someone who's directing an engagement involving a dozen or more vehicles to have access to this level of detail, much less make decisions on that basis. In wargames it's a matter of choosing a level of abstraction that's appropriate to the level of command. But this does limit flexibility, and it potentially rules out those rare occasions when a commander was able to think & act completely "out of the box".

E.g. there are accounts of using flaming pigs or flaming camels in a couple of battles, to frighten elephants used by the other side, but I wouldn't call this a standard tactic requiring a general rule. If you're playing a game at an operational/strategic scale, the idea would basically be abstracted into the battle diceroll, possibly modified by a leadership bonus. Some games might offer a random strategy chit or card that you could draw and hold in your hand, so that if you fought a battle against an army with elements you could play the card and neutralize the elephants. This is still an abstraction. In an RPG, the player-general would be able to develop and execute creative ideas on their own, and the outcome would be subject to some combination of judgment, randomizers, and the methods used to insert the effect of the idea into the existing mechanics. (In other words: if you played the battle out with miniatures, then maybe the flaming pigs would be figures that'd move semi-randomly, forcing panic rolls on elephants they contacted. The result would be far from a foregone conclusion even though it would certainly impact how the battle played out.)

On top of all that, wargames abstract other elements which are very close to the commanders--such as, if you're Alexander, you might get wounded assaulting a city. And related to that, in an RPG you're generally dealing with things that are immediately around the characters, which isn't the same as abstracting the inputs and results of an engagement somewhere across the battlefield.

By the way, I've had a chance to glance over the Star Wars d20 revised rules, and what they say about characters providing cover to other characters is that the covering character will take the damage of the intended target (p. 163). So if you want to extrapolate from the rules as written without any regard to reality, then someone who "smothers" a grenade should take a damage roll for each person he protects. Now, this is kind of silly: it means you'll take less damage by jumping on a grenade when there's just one other person as opposed to a group. But this still reinforces my earlier point: the whole debate is based on an inconsistent argument. The rules simply weren't designed to handle the situation that arose; if the player wants to extend the rules by arguing from common sense ("grenades can be smothered"), then common sense also applies to the result of the player's proposed action ("if you smother a grenade, you take a lot more damage than if you just happen to be in its area of effect").

Quote from: two_fishes;360288The idea that rules are the physics of the gameworld is fundamentally retarded because rules inevitably fail to accurately model reality, and some other set of expectations has to be inserted to cover the failure, whether that's genre emulation, or drama, or whatever. The illusion that the rules are the physics of the world allows players with conflicting expectations to come to the table together, and leads to conflicts like this one. Also, I think the whole idea leads too often to the sort of task-oriented "roll to climb the stairs" and "roll till you fail" sort of play that makes my teeth hurt.

But you cannot avoid that to happen.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360314I'm not sure if it is or isn't, having never played it. But if you can say this, then you should understand what I mean when I say that a system can get in the way of roleplaying.

What? No, I really can't.

Just because the system does a poor job of replicating the things of kinds that happen in the films doesn't mean that SW d20 "gets in the way of roleplaying." It provides for an experience that differs from the experience one would initially expect from a system that supposedly represents the films, but once you understand that there's a difference, I don't see how the system gets in the way.

QuoteI'm not talking about literary themes. I'm talking about character motivations in the context of the imagined setting, which is what I equate with roleplaying. As I just wrote, you can do this to an extent with rigid rule sets--but only when the rules support it, and not very flexibly. RPGs add flexibility through the agency of a GM.

Having solid rules doesn't prevent a thing like "bravery" or "self-sacrifice" from showing up. It just means that, sometimes, the situations you expect them to show up don't allow them to be expressed, and that they can show up in situations you wouldn't think they would, if the same things were happening in the real world.

QuoteIf you try to reduce the role of human judgment, informed by the responsibility to be faithful to the genre and setting, then you either have to make the rules very, very detailed and complex, or you make the game abstract and rigid with less verisimilitude and potentially less support for character motivations that make sense in the context of the imagined setting.

IMO, detailed != complex. You can have a lot of very simple, elegant rules covering a lot of ground, that don't interact sufficiently to create a ridiculously complex system. Isolated subsystems that interact at a very basic level can allow a game system to have rules for all kinds of things without bogging things down.

Quote from: Soylent Green;360254Should the GM take into account the player's attitude (good or bad) when making a ruling?

I prefer to be even-handed. But then again, in my experience, players who are approaching the game with a bad attitude sooner or later end up doing shit that players who are taking a much more positive attitude to things would never consider doing. And when that happens, the guys with the sucky attitude usually come off worse.

What this all comes down to is a GMing issue.

Systems will get in the way.

Players will argue.

The proper response is for the GM to say, "shut the fuck up and roll the dice." This was what Jeff did wrong, he did not have the player roll any dice. He should have said, "explosives do double damage on contact, roll the damage against yourself, twice."

If he lives, he lives, but probably not.

Shut the fuck up and roll the dice.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360335He should have said, "explosives do double damage on contact, roll the damage against yourself, twice."

Good way to lose players.

I don't understand the whole "the DM should always be a hardass" mentality. Does anyone care to explain it? Because it seems very adversarial and childish to me.

QuoteShut the fuck up and roll the dice.

While I like the principle that any action can and should be resolved with dice, this really feels like the DM equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "I can't hear you."

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360335This was what Jeff did wrong, he did not have the player roll any dice. He should have said, "explosives do double damage on contact, roll the damage against yourself, twice."

Y'know I think this is the best solution and probably something I could see myself doing. What I don't really like about jeff's ruling was that he had already decided that the character was going to die. I understand this and I have done it myself a couple of times, but what I like about this particluar solution this for particular situation is that, it just seems so Star Wars-ish.

If the player rolls great, his character survives and it becomes one of those moments that players love to talk about. If he rolls average or worse, his character is toast and he can't really blame anyone but the dice.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360339Good way to lose players.

You feel that a GM using common sense but always allowing a player a roll to get lucky is a bad thing?

It's not lost me a player yet.

QuoteI don't understand the whole "the DM should always be a hardass" mentality. Does anyone care to explain it? Because it seems very adversarial and childish to me.

That an explosive does more damage when it is lying on a flat surface and you deliberately smother the explosion with your body than if it just happens to land near you is not being a hardarse, it's common sense.

Explosions do more damage when they are confined and their energy only has one place to go. This is the basic principle of the firearm, after all.

QuoteWhile I like the principle that any action can and should be resolved with dice, this really feels like the DM equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "I can't hear you."

No. It's simply the GM saying the game must go on. Just as systems can get in the way of roleplaying, sometimes player whinging and arguing can, too.

Ever played a game of chess or scrabble where there was some player who took fucking ages to decide what to do? Remember how boring and annoying that was? What we enjoy about games is that things happen. Nobody goes to a tennis match to watch the players just bounce the ball in front of them, or wait to pick up balls from the ball boys. They go to see the ball get whacked back and forth, the players run around frantically trying to hit the ball until finally someone misses. Things happen, and that's fun.

We enjoy games because things happen. When a player is arguing and whinging, nothing is happening. The GM as referee must keep the game moving for the sake of the fun of everyone at the table. The other players didn't show up to hear one idiot whine and argue. Players show up to play. That's why we call them "players."

Thus, sometimes the GM must say, "shut the fuck up and roll the dice." It keeps things moving.

Plus, while players get upset if the GM's decisions are random and unpredictable, they are quite content with the random and unpredictable decisions of the dice. Rolling the dice gives the players the illusion of control. They like that.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360341You feel that a GM using common sense but always allowing a player a roll to get lucky is a bad thing?

It's not lost me a player yet.

It's all about the context.

Laying down the law, as it were, when the rules are relatively clear as to what's going on feels a lot more like screwing the player than keeping the game moving.

The player had an expectation, not a question. That expectation wasn't based on fantasy or willful ignorance, it had a solid grounding in the rules. You're basically saying, "Your understanding doesn't jive with mine, but I'm the DM, so what I say goes."

QuoteThat an explosive does more damage when it is lying on a flat surface and you deliberately smother the explosion with your body than if it just happens to land near you is not being a hardarse, it's common sense.

Common sense in reality, sure. Once again, there are distinctions between reality and the reality the game system represents; what is common sense here is not necessarily common sense elsewhere.

QuoteExplosions do more damage when they are confined and their energy only has one place to go. This is the basic principle of the firearm, after all.

The problem is not necessarily the ruling itself; it's the ramifications.

Let's say we go with your solution. If a clever player finds a way to exploit this against their enemies, say by shaping explosives or finding another exploit, would you allow it and hold by your earlier ruling?

QuoteNo. It's simply the GM saying the game must go on. Just as systems can get in the way of roleplaying, sometimes player whinging and arguing can, too.

I fail to recall any instance of the player "whining and arguing" in the anecdote we're arguing about.

QuoteEver played a game of chess or scrabble where there was some player who took fucking ages to decide what to do? Remember how boring and annoying that was? What we enjoy about games is that things happen. ... Things happen, and that's fun.

I think we have a fundamental disconnect, here. I am fine with pauses for thought, I am fine with someone taking awhile to make a decision (unless a good reason is given for a time limit of some kind).

So long as someone is actively thinking and engaged in the game, I'm fine with waiting. If they are not doing something because they're distracted... well, that's something else. But if they're obviously contemplating the situation at hand? Take as long as you need.

QuoteWe enjoy games because things happen. When a player is arguing and whinging, nothing is happening. The GM as referee must keep the game moving for the sake of the fun of everyone at the table. The other players didn't show up to hear one idiot whine and argue. Players show up to play. That's why we call them "players."

Again with the "whine and argue" thing. I really am against this whole adversarial stance you have towards players.

If players have an issue with a rule, I generally tell them to deal with it, because that's how the game is writ.

If players have an issue with a ruling, I am fine with a short conversation about it, so long as they have reasonable justification for their position. I play with reasonable people. I'm sorry if you don't.

QuoteThus, sometimes the GM must say, "shut the fuck up and roll the dice." It keeps things moving.

Is movement somehow superior to standing still?

Again, I'm fine with people taking their time. I'm fine with short, concise discussions about rulings.

If you want to demand constant action, go watch an action movie, or something.

QuotePlus, while players get upset if the GM's decisions are random and unpredictable, they are quite content with the random and unpredictable decisions of the dice. Rolling the dice gives the players the illusion of control. They like that.

The GM's decisions shouldn't be random and unpredictable. If you want to game in a coherent world, then the decisions made by the arbitrator of that setting must make decisions that are consistent with prior rulings and the base rule set being used. Inconsistency is to be avoided at all costs.

And I'm saying this not as a player, but as a GM, as well. Inconsistency in my own rulings irritates the hell out of me and breaks my own suspension of disbelief. How am I supposed to present a setting if the very physics of the setting lacks consistency?

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360348The problem is not necessarily the ruling itself; it's the ramifications.

Let's say we go with your solution. If a clever player finds a way to exploit this against their enemies, say by shaping explosives or finding another exploit, would you allow it and hold by your earlier ruling?

I don't know about Kyle, but if my players discovered a cunning way to trick their enemies into leaping onto live grenades I'd let them enjoy the full benefit of their plan...

QuoteI think we have a fundamental disconnect, here. I am fine with pauses for thought, I am fine with someone taking awhile to make a decision (unless a good reason is given for a time limit of some kind).

So long as someone is actively thinking and engaged in the game, I'm fine with waiting. If they are not doing something because they're distracted... well, that's something else. But if they're obviously contemplating the situation at hand? Take as long as you need.

Really? You've never gotten quietly irritated in a game of Arkham Horror (or Settlers of Catan or Monopoly or whatever) by That Guy? You must know That Guy - they're the one who takes at least twice as long as everyone else to take their turn. It sucks to be in a game with That Guy. The game will have a nice pace and decent momentum as play progresses around the table until it gets to That Guy, at which point all the momentum will be sucked out of proceedings because That Guy has to agonise over every little thing.

...Wait, don't tell me you are That Guy?

Quote from: Warthur;360349I don't know about Kyle, but if my players discovered a cunning way to trick their enemies into leaping onto live grenades I'd let them enjoy the full benefit of their plan...

So you're telling me that you would interpret your ruling as only applying to situations where a live individual was on top of it, and not exploiting that ruling to devise other situations wherein someone was in contact with and/or near enough to an explosive device to warrant double damage?

That seems absurd. But then again, perhaps that's not what you meant.

QuoteReally? You've never gotten quietly irritated in a game of Arkham Horror (or Settlers of Catan or Monopoly or whatever) by That Guy? You must know That Guy - they're the one who takes at least twice as long as everyone else to take their turn. It sucks to be in a game with That Guy. The game will have a nice pace and decent momentum as play progresses around the table until it gets to That Guy, at which point all the momentum will be sucked out of proceedings because That Guy has to agonise over every little thing.

...Wait, don't tell me you are That Guy?

Oh, I know That Guy. That'd be my uncle. I also haven't gamed with him - card game, TTRPG, or anything - in... I want to say like 10 years? Maybe a little less than that.

Yes, he was frustrating to no end.

But in my current gaming group, we really don't have anyone like this. We all tend to keep an eye on what's going on, we all usually have a pretty good idea of what we want to accomplish, and the game generally keeps moving. There are exceptions, of course, but those are usually isolated incidents, and usually warranted by the situation at hand.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360335What this all comes down to is a GMing issue.

Systems will get in the way.

Players will argue.

The proper response is for the GM to say, "shut the fuck up and roll the dice." This was what Jeff did wrong, he did not have the player roll any dice. He should have said, "explosives do double damage on contact, roll the damage against yourself, twice."

If he lives, he lives, but probably not.

Shut the fuck up and roll the dice.

Of all the criticism about my grenade decision, this has been the most constructive.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360348It's all about the context.

Laying down the law, as it were, when the rules are relatively clear as to what's going on feels a lot more like screwing the player than keeping the game moving.

The player had an expectation, not a question. That expectation wasn't based on fantasy or willful ignorance, it had a solid grounding in the rules. You're basically saying, "Your understanding doesn't jive with mine, but I'm the DM, so what I say goes."



Common sense in reality, sure. Once again, there are distinctions between reality and the reality the game system represents; what is common sense here is not necessarily common sense elsewhere.



The problem is not necessarily the ruling itself; it's the ramifications.

So long as someone is actively thinking and engaged in the game, I'm fine with waiting. If they are not doing something because they're distracted... well, that's something else. But if they're obviously contemplating the situation at hand? Take as long as you need.

Again with the "whine and argue" thing. I really am against this whole adversarial stance you have towards players.
If players have an issue with a rule, I generally tell them to deal with it, because that's how the game is writ.

If players have an issue with a ruling, I am fine with a short conversation about it, so long as they have reasonable justification for their position. I play with reasonable people. I'm sorry if you don't.

The GM's decisions shouldn't be random and unpredictable. If you want to game in a coherent world, then the decisions made by the arbitrator of that setting must make decisions that are consistent with prior rulings and the base rule set being used. Inconsistency is to be avoided at all costs.

And I'm saying this not as a player, but as a GM, as well. Inconsistency in my own rulings irritates the hell out of me and breaks my own suspension of disbelief. How am I supposed to present a setting if the very physics of the setting lacks consistency?

See, here is one of the things that I do not understand because everything you are advocating would damage the game's immersion and suspension of disbelief. I also don't get how you leapt from this to deciding that by trying to preserve immersion and suspension of disbelief in a game means that the GM has an adversarial relationship with the Players.

Quote from: jeff37923;360354See, here is one of the things that I do not understand because everything you are advocating would damage the game's immersion and suspension of disbelief. I also don't get how you leapt from this to deciding that by trying to preserve immersion and suspension of disbelief in a game means that the GM has an adversarial relationship with the Players.

Could you be a bit more specific as to why you think this?

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360339Good way to lose players.

I don't understand the whole "the DM should always be a hardass" mentality. Does anyone care to explain it? Because it seems very adversarial and childish to me.

This is your theory, right?  I mean, this is one of those "...but it could happen!" arguments that are rife on the Internet when people aren't really playing the game.  Like the issue in a thread I started a bit ago where a certain someone was theorising that some players might get upset without a balanced character creation system.

As Kyle already stated, his stance as a GM hasn't lost him any players yet (at least not any players he cares to recall).  And the fact of the matter is that something about your GM style, or mine, or anyone else's might chase off a potential player.  Or, it might not.  Or maybe they'll not play at all and simply argue theoretical scenarios on the Internet.

Kyle, I'll give you the cap to this thread -- systems get in the way of roleplaying, and the GM is the arbiter to grease the connection between the two.

!i!

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360357Could you be a bit more specific as to why you think this?

Sure. By following the RAW for d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook you end up with situations whose results do not emulate the genre, in this case a character surviving smothering a grenade without some extraordinary extenuating circumstances has more in common with the superhero genre than the Star Wars universe.

Is that specific enough, or do you want an example that would allow you to dissemble more?

Quote from: jeff37923;360364Sure. By following the RAW for d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook you end up with situations whose results do not emulate the genre, in this case a character surviving smothering a grenade without some extraordinary extenuating circumstances has more in common with the superhero genre than the Star Wars universe.

I'm sorry, I don't really recognize genre as being at all synonymous with immersion or suspension of disbelief. "Genre emulation" always struck me as a really weird idea, and isn't something I grok.

Honestly, I find the idea of playing in the Star Wars universe kind of weird, anyway; I'm not really a fan of trying to play in settings we see in film or read about in books, because the very nature of the game is almost certain to not jive well - at least in a few situations - with the universe as presented in the original medium.

When I play in SW d20, I think of it as playing a d20 game that happens to be set in the SW universe, not as a SW game using d20 mechanics. That's an important distinction, and maybe my approach is different than the one you're coming from.

So in other words, you aren't even capable of understanding the conflict in the first place, but you've nonetheless nattered on through almost 200 posts now just to be a disagreeable jackass, because you have some kind of weird personal issue around GMs.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360367I'm sorry, I don't really recognize genre as being at all synonymous with immersion or suspension of disbelief. "Genre emulation" always struck me as a really weird idea, and isn't something I grok.

Honestly, I find the idea of playing in the Star Wars universe kind of weird, anyway; I'm not really a fan of trying to play in settings we see in film or read about in books, because the very nature of the game is almost certain to not jive well - at least in a few situations - with the universe as presented in the original medium.

When I play in SW d20, I think of it as playing a d20 game that happens to be set in the SW universe, not as a SW game using d20 mechanics. That's an important distinction, and maybe my approach is different than the one you're coming from.

And this explains part of the big disconnect here...

The players I have in a Star Wars game do not want to game because of the rules mechanics, they want to play a Star Wars game in order to play in the setting of the Star Wars universe. I've run Star Wars games using both the WEG d6 and the WotC d20 rules, the rules were not as important to the Players as much as the setting was.

That you find rules more important than setting makes your stance in this thread musch more understandable to me, however I have not encountered that same stance to be the majority of Players that I have had in my setting-specific games.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360350So you're telling me that you would interpret your ruling as only applying to situations where a live individual was on top of it, and not exploiting that ruling to devise other situations wherein someone was in contact with and/or near enough to an explosive device to warrant double damage?

That seems absurd. But then again, perhaps that's not what you meant.

Again: if the PCs can sneak an explosive in somewhere that an NPC would end up being in contact with it when it went off, I'd give them the benefit of a plan executed well (so long as they are, in fact, capable of executing it well and make the right rolls).

I think a part of the problem is the conception of "rolling for damage" in the first place, followed closely by hit points. For a long career of playing GURPS, for example, it has always bugged me that unless you roll REALLY high with some weapons, you can't penetrate certain armor types. I decided that a better way to deal with damage in a game (firearm damage, at least) would be to have weapons do a fixed amount of damage, then modify that based on a hit location and any armor protection. It only makes sense - if you fire a .45 ACP round at the same target and hit in the same place its going to do the same amount of damage every time, instead of being some range of 2-12 for example.

So, in effect, the damage system in GURPS takes me out of the RP aspect somewhat. Same in D&D with hit points, but to a lesser extent because that's just how the game is meant to be played - always has been - and GURPS is a more "realistic" system.

Taking this back to the grenade example, if you take a case of grenades and objectivly measure the damage done when you set them off (say, next to the carcass of a pig - fresh pig for each grenade) and compare the damage, it should be essentially the same for the entire batch, barring any duds. So there should be no "2d8+2" grenades, there should be "18 points of damage" grenades, modified by proximity and armor. If you unarmored and have 10 hit points, you will die, period. If you are further away or have better armor, you can walk away, possibly, but there is no randomness to the damage dealt by the weapon.

I think the above suggestions would take a lot of the die rolling out of combat, and therefore help remove some of the disconnect, no matter the system being used. IMO, of course.

Quote from: jeff37923;360364Sure. By following the RAW for d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook you end up with situations whose results do not emulate the genre, in this case a character surviving smothering a grenade without some extraordinary extenuating circumstances has more in common with the superhero genre than the Star Wars universe.

Is that specific enough, or do you want an example that would allow you to dissemble more?

I don't have the rulebook in question.  However, I think this is a bit deceptive - because I feel that as GM it would be my job to describe the circumstances.  

In an abstract damage system like D20, it is easy to have completely unbelievable results.  That is, I just have to describe every bit of damage as being a full-on direct hit with no extenuating circumstances.  If a character falls from a height, say, then I describe him falling straight and landing on his head - and then he dusts himself off and walks away.  That sounds stupid.  However, as GM I can describe there being a flagpole or trees being there to break his fall or other circumstances, and him limping away painfully.  

There are times when this breaks down - D&D hit points have always been rather inconsistent in that they talk about them representing luck, but they are often treated as representing physical damage.  However, that's more of a long-term issue.  For a given event like the grenade, I as GM can describe extraordinary circumstances that allow the character to survive.

Quote from: jeff37923;360364Sure. By following the RAW for d20 Star Wars Revised Core Rulebook you end up with situations whose results do not emulate the genre, in this case a character surviving smothering a grenade without some extraordinary extenuating circumstances has more in common with the superhero genre than the Star Wars universe.

That's a really good expression of the issue, IMO.
Coming up with a quick judgement that smothering the grenade would do twice the damage would seem completely fair to me, not adversarial, because outside of a superhero/cartoon game, if my character jumps on a grenade it's an act of self-sacrifice. Killing me would support my intention.
But I could easily be at the table with another player who wouldn't feel that way. He thinks he can pull off a 'cool move' within the rules and remain game-functional. Since his intention isn't self-sacrifice he might see the ruling as adversarial...
Both of us have an argument that our intention is within the setting's tropes.

So, should the ruling take the player's intention into account to support his roleplaying?

Quote from: jibbajibba;360277The idea that the game world physics need to be totally governed by the rules and that a system with light sabres and FTL drives is inherently illogical does not fly becuase these things are internally consistent with the Star Wars universe.

That's kind of the point, though. Star Wars grenades are internally consistent with the Star Wars universe. Star Wars grenades are inconsistent with our real world, but who cares? Lightsabers and FTL drives are inconsistent with our real world.

Quote from: jibbajibba;360277The idea that the game system is wrong for the sort of games that people who don't want PCs to jump on greanades is also wrong as the system is trying to emulate Star Wars and I bet that if Han Solo had ever jumped on a grenade and smothered it without a helmet, or a storm trooper breastplate then he would have died.

Of course he wouldn't die. He's a hero in a movie. No one is rolling dice when writing a script.

Seanchai

Quote from: two_fishes;360288The idea that rules are the physics of the gameworld is fundamentally retarded because rules inevitably fail to accurately model reality...

They absolutely fail to model our reality. But they're usually not attempting to do so. Usually, they're attempting to model a fictional reality.

Seanchai

Quote from: Simlasa;360388That's a really good expression of the issue, IMO.

Eh. Star Wars is, basically, a superheroic setting. You have folks who are tougher and more capable than the average person. They have access to abilities and equipment beyond the grasp of average mortals. They run around taking on squads of goons and the occasional Big Bad. They save the day.

Seanchai

Quote from: J Arcane;360370So in other words, you aren't even capable of understanding the conflict in the first place, but you've nonetheless nattered on through almost 200 posts now just to be a disagreeable jackass, because you have some kind of weird personal issue around GMs.

Oh, I'm aware of the idea of genre emulation, and understand it to some degree (some of the basic ideas). It just isn't something that makes sense to me. Hence why I said "grok" and not "understand."

Honestly, I don't think of genre emulation as a thing that people do. It doesn't occur to me.

Quote from: jeffThe players I have in a Star Wars game do not want to game because of the rules mechanics, they want to play a Star Wars game in order to play in the setting of the Star Wars universe. I've run Star Wars games using both the WEG d6 and the WotC d20 rules, the rules were not as important to the Players as much as the setting was.

That you find rules more important than setting makes your stance in this thread musch more understandable to me, however I have not encountered that same stance to be the majority of Players that I have had in my setting-specific games.

I do find setting important, but I think you might be right, I probably hold the rules to be more important, at least when I'm sitting at the table as a player.

In my opinion, mechanics should always reflect flavor. If you're going for the feel of SW, then you should be using a rule set that reflects that feel, rather than d20 with a few modifications (and I'm not familiar with WEG d6 SW, so I can't speak to that). I make my character decisions off of the rule set, because that is what I understand to be the physics we're working with; I rarely, if ever, take source material (like the films, in SW's case) into account. Perhaps as background knowledge, but certainly not anything like "genre."

Quote from: WarthurAgain: if the PCs can sneak an explosive in somewhere that an NPC would end up being in contact with it when it went off, I'd give them the benefit of a plan executed well (so long as they are, in fact, capable of executing it well and make the right rolls).

With proper timing, since they apparently don't go off right away, you could hold onto the grenade after activating it, then throw it such that it explodes about the time it's coming into physical contact with someone.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360359As Kyle already stated, his stance as a GM hasn't lost him any players yet (at least not any players he cares to recall).

To be fair, it might have lost us one.

However, he was German, and new to the country. I think he found us all a bit vulgar and confrontational - but we're Australian, that's us. Also he was homosexual, and made his characters homosexual. We didn't care, which seemed to be a problem for him. His character backgrounds were always of the character suffering for his sexuality, in the two gameworlds we played in nobody cares so there's no drama there. I even had a bisexual NPC attracted to his gay PC and bring him chicken soup when he was sick.

I think there was not enough thespy angst for him. But it could have been "shut the fuck up and roll the dice," hard to say. Probably it was a combination of things.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaKyle, I'll give you the cap to this thread -- systems get in the way of roleplaying, and the GM is the arbiter to grease the connection between the two.

Works for me!

Quote from: jeff37923The players I have in a Star Wars game do not want to game because of the rules mechanics, they want to play a Star Wars game in order to play in the setting of the Star Wars universe.

Yes! Like I always say:

• people
• snacks
• setting
• system

in that order.

Quote from: werekoalaI think a part of the problem is the conception of "rolling for damage" in the first place, followed closely by hit points. [...]

I think the above suggestions would take a lot of the die rolling out of combat, and therefore help remove some of the disconnect, no matter the system being used.

Yes but rolling dice is fun. Players like to roll dice, even if it leads to some "WTF?!" moments. Because sometimes it's WTF-Stupid, but sometimes it's WTF-Awesome. Players will not give up the Stupid if they have to miss the Awesome.

Also, many of us feel that Stupid is sometimes Awesome.

I capitalised some of those words so I must be right.

Quote from: Seanchai;360404That's kind of the point, though. Star Wars grenades are internally consistent with the Star Wars universe. Star Wars grenades are inconsistent with our real world, but who cares? Lightsabers and FTL drives are inconsistent with our real world.

Of course he wouldn't die. He's a hero in a movie. No one is rolling dice when writing a script.

Seanchai

Sorry I must have expressed myself badly as you didn't get the point. In the film if Han Solo had fallen on a grenade and not died it would have broken the narative contract between the movie and the viewer. In effect it would have failed to emulate the genre. A game would be guilty of the same thing.

Quote from: jibbajibba;360410Sorry I must have expressed myself badly as you didn't get the point. In the film if Han Solo had fallen on a grenade and not died it would have broken the narative contract between the movie and the viewer. In effect it would have failed to emulate the genre. A game would be guilty of the same thing.

I dunno. What genre was being emulated ? I mean the whole Death Star chase where Solo chases the Storm Troopers into a deadend and they turn around, he shoots one of them (at close range) turns round and runs away....I mean if he can survive that....

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Seanchai;360404That's kind of the point, though. Star Wars grenades are internally consistent with the Star Wars universe. Star Wars grenades are inconsistent with our real world, but who cares?

Seanchai

I find it astounding that this is being said by the same guy who tried to support his arguement earlier upthread with links to real world articles about people surviving grenade blasts (even if they died later).

Quote from: GnomeWorks;360407In my opinion, mechanics should always reflect flavor. If you're going for the feel of SW, then you should be using a rule set that reflects that feel, rather than d20 with a few modifications (and I'm not familiar with WEG d6 SW, so I can't speak to that).

Actually, the grenade incident was one of a few that brought me to the realization that the d20 Star Wars systems didn't emulate the Star Wars setting to my liking, and so I ditched that game system and went back to WEG d6 Star Wars.

Oy, this thread is going nuts again.

Look: Jeff was more right than wrong with his rules interpretation. In fact he was so right that it's been pointed out that the case isn't even a very good example for the thread.

1. Wound points in SW D20 reduce the abstraction of D&D-style hp.
2. If you're deliberately trying to get in the way of a grenade blast, it should obviously go straight to wounds. That is, assuming the concept of "getting in the way" is allowed.
3. Getting in the way is supported by the cover rule. But the same rule says that the covering character will take damage.
4. Therefore, again, a character should take at least double damage if trying to block a grenade blast from hitting someone else. Once for himself, once for the other person.
5. Being in contact with an explosion isn't the same as lying on top of a grenade and trying to contain the explosion against the ground. Physics 101: the force has to go somewhere.

Again: why is it valid to bring real-world physics into the discussion instead of sticking to the letter of the rules? Because if you stick to the RAW, the concept of smothering a grenade doesn't exist. It's been imported from the real world.

Jeff only made one deviation from a common-sense, conservative interpretation of the rules: not rolling dice.

Quote from: Seanchai;360406Eh. Star Wars is, basically, a superheroic setting. You have folks who are tougher and more capable than the average person. They have access to abilities and equipment beyond the grasp of average mortals. They run around taking on squads of goons and the occasional Big Bad. They save the day.

Seanchai

By that reasoning all Hollywood action movies are superhero movies then... people doing ridiculous stunts without any consequences unless the script calls for it.
Doesn't work for me... 'Superhero' in modern parlance would still mean the guy has a specific reason/power for not getting blown up by the hand-grenade. Superman isn't taking any risks when he jumps on the thing because he's wearing magic jammies.
I don't remember any powers/equipment in Star Wars that rendered the characters indestructible... they just had script immunity... because it was a movie... not an RPG. If Han Solo had thrown himself on a hand-grenade and gotten back up... smokey, rumpled, but basically OK... it would have veered off irrevocably into slapstick comedy.

All of this squabbling is also reminding me of why I don't want to play in games adhering to licensed settings.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360415Oy, this thread is going nuts again.

Basically just because GnomeWorks had a crap GM once and Seanchai just likes to argue and will keep changing what he's saying to ensure it.

The rest of us have a broad consensus of sane gaming.

Quote from: jeff37923;360414Actually, the grenade incident was one of a few that brought me to the realization that the d20 Star Wars systems didn't emulate the Star Wars setting to my liking, and so I ditched that game system and went back to WEG d6 Star Wars.

Probably a good call.

Quote from: Kyle AaronBasically just because GnomeWorks had a crap GM once ...
The rest of us have a broad consensus of sane gaming.

An assumption such as this is not witty, it's asshattery.

Quote from: David R;360412I dunno. What genre was being emulated ? I mean the whole Death Star chase where Solo chases the Storm Troopers into a deadend and they turn around, he shoots one of them (at close range) turns round and runs away....I mean if he can survive that....

Regards,
David R

Yeah the contract says 'when storm troopers shoot at Han Solo they will miss' but it also says 'should Han Solo ever get hit by something he will take damage'.

if you say direct explosion from a genade can't kill you you are basically saying 'you can not be killed' . That was not my interpretation of the star wars genre

Quote from: jibbajibba;360441Yeah the contract says 'when storm troopers shoot at Han Solo they will miss' but it also says 'should Han Solo ever get hit by something he will take damage'.

if you say direct explosion from a genade can't kill you you are basically saying 'you can not be killed' . That was not my interpretation of the star wars genre

This contract applies to every action hero, I don't really think it is a Star Wars genre thing.

What I'm trying to get at is, that genre emulation is pretty subjective and when it comes to characters dying in a game, it should be handled very carefully. That's why I think kyle's suggestion is pretty good.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;360442This contract applies to every action hero, I don't really think it is a Star Wars genre thing.

What I'm trying to get at is, that genre emulation is pretty subjective and when it comes to characters dying in a game, it should be handled very carefully. That's why I think kyle's suggestion is pretty good.

Regards,
David R

Yeah I suggested just doing max double damage myself about 200 posts ago :)
As Kyle says there is a broad consensus with a couple of exceptions.

Quote from: jibbajibba;360443Yeah I suggested just doing max double damage myself about 200 posts ago :)

My bad. Sorry about that, I must have missed it.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: jibbajibba;360410Sorry I must have expressed myself badly as you didn't get the point. In the film if Han Solo had fallen on a grenade and not died it would have broken the narative contract between the movie and the viewer.

Again, no. Action movie heroes survive all sorts of things that would likely be fatal in the real world. Bombs, bullets, falls. Usually, they indicate that they were affected by groaning, holding their side, blacking out for a period, having a bloody costume afterward, et al..

Seanchai

Quote from: Simlasa;360419By that reasoning all Hollywood action movies are superhero movies then...

To a degree. But don't forget that in Star Wars, a good number of the characters have powerz.

Quote from: Simlasa;360419If Han Solo had thrown himself on a hand-grenade and gotten back up... smokey, rumpled, but basically OK...

We're not talking about being basically okay. The player thought his character would live, not stand back up okay.

Seanchai

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360420...Seanchai just likes to argue and will keep changing what he's saying to ensure
it.

It's not that I enjoy arguing, it's that I won't capitulate just because some dude on the Internet thinks I'm wrong. You and the others haven't brought up anything that's made me change my mind.

But I'm curious: What am I saying that I keep changing?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360420The rest of us have a broad consensus of sane gaming.

And yet, you think the GM's call was wrong. Others here think it was wrong. It sounds like the players at the table thought it was wrong. I'd bet if you took the scenario down to the FLGS or convention, the majority of folks would also think it's wrong.

There's a broad consensus here, but I'm not opposing it.

Seanchai

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360415Again: why is it valid to bring real-world physics into the discussion instead of sticking to the letter of the rules? Because if you stick to the RAW, the concept of smothering a grenade doesn't exist. It's been imported from the real world.

Fine. But we're also importing the real world capabilities of real world grenades. You're telling that the Star Wars grenades as a deadly as real world grenades, but Star Wars grenades are taken from a movie.

Moreover, we have the exact capacity of the grenades and they're just not that deadly. For example, we know how much damage a character standing directly over it would take and a 1st level average non-combatant has a good chance of being conscious after the blast.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360452It's not that I enjoy arguing, it's that I won't capitulate just because some dude on the Internet thinks I'm wrong.

The irony here is delightful.

QuoteBut I'm curious: What am I saying that I keep changing?

[/i]Try this on for size.  In response to Simlasa's example of Han Solo taking a blast from a grenade and walking away, you wrote:

Quote from: Seanchai;360451We're not talking about being basically okay. The player thought his character would live, not stand back up okay.

Quote from: jeff37923;359635Then the Player said, "Yeah, I have enough hit points that I'll be able to take the maximum blast damage with no problem".

This is at least the second time that you've conformed your interpretation of Jeff's original post to meet your shifting position.  You start with the assertion that Star Wars characters are superheroes and should be able to get away with it, then you shift into the assertion that people survive direct grenade blasts "all the time" (the absurdity of "all the time" still makes me giggle), you insist that Jeff's player wasn't just comparing hit points in spite of a direct statement to the contrary, then you say that that's okay and that it really is roleplaying.  Then you shift into the argument that a player ignoring information gleaned from Mythbusters, Wired magazine, and a Google search is the antithesis of roleplaying.  And then...oh, shit, I really stopped paying any serious attention to you after that when it became apparent that you'd just keep shifting from one lame defense to another to keep the argument going and deny that you're full of crap.  It looks like you've just sort of reiterated variations on a theme.  But you'll deny all this, too, right?

QuoteThere's a broad consensus here, but I'm not opposing it.

I'm going to chuckle about this for the rest of the day.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360456This is at least the second time that you've conformed your interpretation of Jeff's original post to meet your shifting position.  

I don't think "maximum blast damage with no problem" means walking away after doing cartwheels. It's my impression that the player meant his character could survive the blast without becoming unconscious or dying.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360456You start with the assertion that Star Wars characters are superheroes and should be able to get away with it, then you shift into the assertion that people survive direct grenade blasts "all the time"

Actually, I didn't say anything remotely like that. I said people used their experience and knowledge to make accurate guesses all the time, and clarified that by "all the time" I didn't mean one hundred percent of the time but routinely.

But my starting to talk about real world grenades, for example, isn't a shift in position, it's a response to the other side's argument.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360456... you insist that Jeff's player wasn't just comparing hit points in spite of a direct statement to the contrary....

Again, I never said anything remote like that.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360456Then you shift into the argument that a player ignoring information gleaned from Mythbusters, Wired magazine, and a Google search is the antithesis of roleplaying.

Again, that wasn't an argument I made.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360456And then...oh, shit, I really stopped paying any serious attention to you after that...

Clearly, you weren't paying attention at all.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360456It looks like you've just sort of reiterated variations on a theme.  

So I'm simultaneously shifting positions and reiterating the same positions?

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360460So I'm simultaneously shifting positions and reiterating the same positions?

Yes.  It's like a rickety, mis-shapen wheel.  And now you're being just plain dishonest in all of your denials above.

I don't use this term lightly, but you're a troll.

!i!

Quote from: Simlasa;360388That's a really good expression of the issue, IMO.
Coming up with a quick judgement that smothering the grenade would do twice the damage would seem completely fair to me, not adversarial, because outside of a superhero/cartoon game, if my character jumps on a grenade it's an act of self-sacrifice. Killing me would support my intention.
But I could easily be at the table with another player who wouldn't feel that way. He thinks he can pull off a 'cool move' within the rules and remain game-functional. Since his intention isn't self-sacrifice he might see the ruling as adversarial...
Both of us have an argument that our intention is within the setting's tropes.

A couple of times, ok, it happens whenever new players join my crew,these are people who have never played rpgs before. Sometimes during the course of the game, they attempt heroic acts during combat because they reason their hitpoints or whatever is enough "to take the hit". It's not really about disregarding common sense or heroism with a small "h" or anything like that, it's more like they are playing a game and they assume what they are doing is within the rules. Of course they soon learn (in post game discussions) that there's a level of verisimilitude in our games and everyone get's on the same page.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;360412I dunno. What genre was being emulated ? I mean the whole Death Star chase where Solo chases the Storm Troopers into a deadend and they turn around, he shoots one of them (at close range) turns round and runs away....I mean if he can survive that....
 
Regards,
David R

Anyone in Star Wars can survive anything as long as it doesn't hit them. But if they get hit, then they're out of the action. Episode IV starts out with Vader boarding Leia's ship. Everyone who gets hit stops fighting.
Leia falls down unconcious when the Storm Troopers stun her.
R2D2 falls down and switches off when the Jawas zap him.
Luke falls down unconcious when the Tuscans whack him with a gaffi stick.
 
Ship combat is different. Luke's fighter can take several hits but a co-pilot or wingman gets incapacitated each time. Larger ships can take alot of hits from smaller ships. Little ships can take alot of hits from big ships if they're being captured or if the big ship is letting them escape with a tracking device. Apart from that though one hit and you're out is the rule of ship to ship combat.
 
In superhero terms: getting hit is kryptonite.

What's your point, Malleus ?

Regards,
David R

Wrt the original question:
 
I found Call of Chthulu's sanity points to be very anticlimatic. There were several times when my characters got hit with a perfect storm of THINGS MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOOOOOW! and they made their SAN check and shrugged it off.
 
The one that hops to mind was when my investigator fell through space and time into another dimension and found himself in a city where the angles were wrong. The character was into math and geometry so I thespianed the horror of seeing a road paved with perfect octogons and so on. The game system got in the way because my investigator made his SAN check.
 
And to generalize the Star Wars grenade thing, any system where players are secure in the knowledge that leathal weapons aren't lethal gets in the way of my gaming fun.
 
Or even more generally: when the system says there's no risk when there should be risk.

Quote from: David R;360520What's your point, Malleus ?
 
Regards,
David R

I'll bold it for you.

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;360525I'll bold it for you.

So what ?

My point in my reply to jibbajibba was the subjective nature of genre emulation and how it's should be used carefully when it comes to character death in rpgs.

So again, what is your point ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;360524Wrt the original question:
Or even more generally: when the system says there's no risk when there should be risk.

Why should there be risk? People that say this kind of thing don't seem to connect with the idea of the absolute sweetness of their characters. Regular people are afraid of death. Player characters in a rpg are usually so sweet, even at the beginning of the game, that you can't apply normal rational thinking to what they do.

I think reality emulation is a noble goal in rpg design, but almost none of the major game labels worry about it.

Quote from: Cranewings;360532Why should there be risk?

Because a large part of the joy of RPGs is the vicarious risk-taking involved. If there is no threat of character injury or death, then there is not sufficient risk for most Players. Risk is part of the fun.

Expression without risk is meaningless circle-jerk.

I'm not at the table to wank off about how awesome I am, I'm at the table to have adventures, and you can't have an adventure without risk and danger.

So much has been thrown about here about genre conventions and this bollocks about how "the hero never gets hurt", are mostly talking about rubbish films.  Yes, on an academic level, the hero usually survives more often than not, but a good film nonetheless leaves you doubting until the very end.

 I'd rather watch Bruce Willis getting his ass kicked by heavily armed terrorists in Die Hard 1 than Steven Seagal effortlessly slapfight through a wave of nameless dudes in, well, all his movies really.  The former holds a lot more suspense and excitement, and more believability to boot.

In the context of the grenade argument, which is what I was referring to, there will still be risk. Just because I character isn't killed by every random grenade doesn't mean that players can't die. They just can't die from single instances of random grenades.

God knows it pisses me off in Call of Duty, an it takes at most 12 seconds to respawn. Real grenades are far too fucking deadly for role playing games. Throwing a grenade into a room or car with a bunch of player characters is like saying, "rocks fall, everyone dies," if the grenade is stated up realistically

Realistically, soldiers won't be throwing grenades that the party can kick back. If it has a three second fuse, and the grenadier held it for one second, and then it flew through the air for a second, the pc would only have one second to get it and throw it back. If the grenade didn't land in the most advantageous position because the grenadier through it real hard and bounced it all over the room the party is in, they would never have time to throw it back.

I've been scared shitless and stunned by firecrackers before. I think people underestimate the shear fuckness of a person that has a grenade land next to them.

That would suck in an rpg.

In real life, you can prevent a grenade from being thrown at you in a lot of ways:

1) Grenade throwing takes longer than shooting, so shoot the guy first. Maybe his grenade will kill his friends.

2) Suppress him with fire so that he can't see where he is throwing it.

3) Have the fire fight from too far away for grenades.

If those things aren't possible in your RPG, then grenades need to do less damage than they do in real life. Grenades in RPGs are no more dangerous to use than a handgun, so with less risk they do less damage.

Quote from: J Arcane;360539Expression without risk is meaningless circle-jerk.

I'm not at the table to wank off about how awesome I am, I'm at the table to have adventures, and you can't have an adventure without risk and danger.

So much has been thrown about here about genre conventions and this bollocks about how "the hero never gets hurt", are mostly talking about rubbish films.  Yes, on an academic level, the hero usually survives more often than not, but a good film nonetheless leaves you doubting until the very end.

 I'd rather watch Bruce Willis getting his ass kicked by heavily armed terrorists in Die Hard 1 than Steven Seagal effortlessly slapfight through a wave of nameless dudes in, well, all his movies really.  The former holds a lot more suspense and excitement, and more believability to boot.

Players that repeatedly get hit by explosions will die. Players that make tactical errors or get separated from their groups will die. Players that get hit by some random-ass grenade thrown in a game where there is virtually no risk when it comes to handling grenades won't die. It is perfect.

We had a dragon fight in my Pathfinder game the other day. A REAL dragon would be unkillable by men with swords. The dragon failed to do shit with its first two uses of its breath weapon. Still, the players were afraid of the dragon because they knew that it might still kill them all. It almost did. If it were a real dragon that really was that much bigger and stronger, then its bite would ignore armor and the shaking of its neck would automatically kill anyone in its mouth, but because this is a game about badasses, the characters can always fight free. This is represented by having hitpoints left over from the attack.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360461And now you're being just plain dishonest in all of your denials above.

No, you're just fucking on crack and can't read a sentence in English.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;360542No, you're just fucking on crack and can't read a sentence in English.

Seanchai

Speaking of which, while you have strongly opposed everything that I have posted in this thread, you have not dared to engage me in conversation directly. Is this passive-aggressive bullshit behavior because you are a pussy, Seanchai?

Jeebuz!  Get sick for almost a week and the grenade thing is still going strong. :idunno:

Quote from: J Arcane;360539So much has been thrown about here about genre conventions and this bollocks about how "the hero never gets hurt", are mostly talking about rubbish films.  Yes, on an academic level, the hero usually survives more often than not, but a good film nonetheless leaves you doubting until the very end.

 I'd rather watch Bruce Willis getting his ass kicked by heavily armed terrorists in Die Hard 1 than Steven Seagal effortlessly slapfight through a wave of nameless dudes in, well, all his movies really.  The former holds a lot more suspense and excitement, and more believability to boot.

I would argue that there is never any real threat that Bruce Willis is going to be seriously incapacitated in Die Hard, nor is Indiana Jones ever in any real danger in any of his movies and any reasonably intelligent fan of those movies, even fans going in to see the movies for the first time with no foreknowledge of the characters, know this in advance. The thrill comes from the continual raising of the stakes involved, the tease of the heroes and villains almost achieving their goals only to be repeatedly confronted with obstacles until the very end of the show, and watching the cleverness/heroics of the heroes and villians in circumventing the obstacles in their way. This sort of thing is difficult to create on the fly in table-top rpgs, so it is replaced with the more straightforward tactic of putting the characters in genuine (albeit fictional) risk to create tension.

Quote from: two_fishes;360565I would argue that there is never any real threat that Bruce Willis is going to be seriously incapacitated in Die Hard, nor is Indiana Jones ever in any real danger in any of his movies and any reasonably intelligent fan of those movies, even fans going in to see the movies for the first time with no foreknowledge of the characters, know this in advance. The thrill comes from the continual raising of the stakes involved, the tease of the heroes and villains almost achieving their goals only to be repeatedly confronted with obstacles until the very end of the show, and watching the cleverness/heroics of the heroes and villians in circumventing the obstacles in their way. This sort of thing is difficult to create on the fly in table-top rpgs, so it is replaced with the more straightforward tactic of putting the characters in genuine (albeit fictional) risk to create tension.

Ahh, yes, figures the forgey gobbledygook would come out eventually.  I like that you were subtle about it, at least, more subtle than you were in that ass balls post you made in Pundy's "books suck" thread. I almost didn't notice the "raising the stakes" bit slipped in there.

Is everyone completely unaware of the existence of stories where the hero(s) doesn't live in the end?  And no, I don't accept your assumption that someone totally new to Die Hard would assume, based on what occurs on the screen, that McClane was going to make it out in the end, except on the most baldly cynical academic level.  It's one of the things that still makes Die Hard one of the most classic action films ever made.

I reject this myopic Forge/Storygames view that is so pervasive that no one should ever die in a story.

Quote from: J Arcane;360569Is everyone completely unaware of the existence of stories where the hero(s) doesn't live in the end?  

Just a partial list off the top of my head:

300
Gladiator
das Boot
Excalibur
Silent Running
Sparticus

Quote from: J Arcane;360569I almost didn't notice the "raising the stakes" bit slipped in there.

Sorry to bust in on your venom-spitting cobra impression, but in the context of discussing cinema, "raising the stakes" is a commonly used term. two_fishes even goes on to say that this aspect of cinema is difficult to translate to RPGs.  But don't let that stop you from having fun.

!i!

Quote from: J Arcane;360569Is everyone completely unaware of the existence of stories where the hero(s) doesn't live in the end?

Just a partial list off the top of my head:

300
Gladiator
das Boot
Excalibur
Silent Running
Sparticus

Quote from: J Arcane;360569I reject this myopic Forge/Storygames view that is so pervasive that no one should ever die in a story.

Actually, in each of the listed movies above, the story would have been much poorer if the hero did not die.

Quote from: J Arcane;360569Is everyone completely unaware of the existence of stories where the hero(s) doesn't live in the end?  And no, I don't accept your assumption that someone totally new to Die Hard would assume, based on what occurs on the screen, that McClane was going to make it out in the end, except on the most baldly cynical academic level.  It's one of the things that still makes Die Hard one of the most classic action films ever made.

I am aware that there are plenty of movies and fiction where the hero dies. But, man, if you walked into Die Hard thinking Bruce Willis might really die, or Raiders of the Lost Ark thinking there was a real chance that Indy would eat it, then I'm sorry, you're kinda dumb.

Quote from: two_fishes;360573I am aware that there are plenty of movies and fiction where the hero dies. But, man, if you walked into Die Hard thinking Bruce Willis might really die, or Raiders of the Lost Ark thinking there was a real chance that Indy would eat it, then I'm sorry, you're kinda dumb.

I could just as easily turn it around and inform you that you're an overly cynical ass who needs to shut the fuck up and watch the movie.

It is a sad thing to me that "suspension of disbelief" is these days a deliberately avoided concept for both creator and audience.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360571Sorry to bust in on your venom-spitting cobra impression, but in the context of discussing cinema, "raising the stakes" is a commonly used term. two_fishes even goes on to say that this aspect of cinema is difficult to translate to RPGs.  But don't let that stop you from having fun.

!i!

Last I checked, we were still talking about a roleplaying game, and the only school of though I'm aware of that likes to sling such terms at them is that one.

That and he's pretty well made his allegiances known very, very well already.  

It's a cheap shot, I'll grant you that, but I'm only here for my own amusement, and cheap shots amuse me.

Quote from: jeff37923;360572Just a partial list off the top of my head:

300
Gladiator
das Boot
Excalibur
Silent Running
Sparticus



Actually, in each of the listed movies above, the story would have been much poorer if the hero did not die.

I would say that in each of those cases it was foreknown that the heroes were going to die before the movie even started (300, Excaliber, and Spartacus being especially prevalent examples of this) or it was clear that this was a pretty likely outcome before the movie was half-way through. (though I haven't seen Silent Running so I can't speak for that one.)

Quote from: two_fishes;360577I would say that in each of those cases it was foreknown that the heroes were going to die before the movie even started (300, Excaliber, and Spartacus being especially prevalent examples of this) or it was clear that this was a pretty likely outcome before the movie was half-way through. (though I haven't seen Silent Running so I can't speak for that one.)

You are sidestepping the point.

Would those movies have been as powerful or as successful if the heroes had not died? That is the underlying question.

And I would say that the movies would have been much weaker stories if the heroes had not died because of some kind of script immunity.

Quote from: J Arcane;360575I could just as easily turn it around and inform you that you're an overly cynical ass who needs to shut the fuck up and watch the movie.

Golly, I'm sorry if my knowledge of genre conventions bugs you. I did see Die Hard and it was pretty clear to me pretty early on that neither McClane nor his wife were in any real danger. It just wasn't that type of movie.

Quote from: J Arcane;360576Last I checked, we were still talking about a roleplaying game...

But his specific use of the term was in reference to two movies in particular, and popular action films in general, not RPGs.  Someone else broached the topic of cinema, not him. Whatever his allegiances may be, I think you were seeing conspiracy where there was none.  Just throwing this out there in the interest of fairness.

Carry on.

!i!

(P.S. I've most recently encountered the term "raising the stakes" in the latest edition of HeroQuest. The game has always been highly narrative, but Robin Laws has revised the game to much more purposely model cinema, which has divided the HQ fan community significantly.)

Quote from: jeff37923;360578You are sidestepping the point.

Would those movies have been as powerful or as successful if the heroes had not died? That is the underlying question.

And I would say that the movies would have been much weaker stories if the heroes had not died because of some kind of script immunity.

I'm not sidestepping the point, I merely pointing out that there lots of movies --lots-- where the death of the main character simply isn't actually at stake. RPGs often try to replicate the tension of those movies by actually putting the characters' lives at stake, but it's clearly a kind of short-cut to the way many movies actually build tension.

Yes there are movies where the hero dies, but I would like to point out that in each of the movies you listed (with the possible exception of das boot), the hero does not die without first acheiving his goal. So the real truth is that they do have plot immunity for as long as the plot is unfinished.

Quote from: J Arcane;360569Is everyone completely unaware of the existence of stories where the hero(s) doesn't live in the end?  

two_fishes didn't say anything about "in the end." He said, "I would argue that there is never any real threat that Bruce Willis is going to be seriously incapacitated in Die Hard..." In other words, we know that, yes, he might die in the end, but we also know that he, along with other action movie heroes, sure as hell won't die in the middle.

Seanchai

Quote from: two_fishes;360565I would argue that there is never any real threat that Bruce Willis is going to be seriously incapacitated in Die Hard, nor is Indiana Jones ever in any real danger in any of his movies and any reasonably intelligent fan of those movies, even fans going in to see the movies for the first time with no foreknowledge of the characters, know this in advance. The thrill comes from the continual raising of the stakes involved, the tease of the heroes and villains almost achieving their goals only to be repeatedly confronted with obstacles until the very end of the show, and watching the cleverness/heroics of the heroes and villians in circumventing the obstacles in their way. This sort of thing is difficult to create on the fly in table-top rpgs, so it is replaced with the more straightforward tactic of putting the characters in genuine (albeit fictional) risk to create tension.

I'm a bit surprised to read this -- it seems a bit of a facil analysis of both movies and table-top games.

To start with, there are plenty of movies that put characters at genuine risk during the movie.

I would point you to several of Quinten Tarantino's recent movies including Death Proof and Inglorius Basterds. In both of these movies kill off apparently significant characters at various points during the story.

Neither of these are examples of unconsidered film-making.

Likewise, why would you say that situations where excitement in games comes from raising the stakes in terms of fictional outcomes is difficult to do in table-top games?

I can think of several games I've run (or are running), where there's not serious risk of death to the characters and the tension comes from achieving or failing-to-achieve the character's goals as tensions escalate.

What are you basing your assumptions on? Are you (possibly) unfamiliar with movies where people get killed off without accomplishing their goals (Psycho would be another classic one)? As for table-top games, why do you have trouble escalating tension from things other than risk of death?

Cheers,
-E.

Well as far as "risk" goes I think the difference between movies and games is that in the latter, a character dying could happen anytime during the game  whereas in the former, it happens during the end, if at all. Of course we are talking about a specific type of "risk", character death. IME I think that's the only kind that matters to most gamers. I've run many games (using trad systems) where the risk of death was off the table and the tension came from escalating personal/character conflicts or player vs player conflicts.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: two_fishes;360584I'm not sidestepping the point, I merely pointing out that there lots of movies --lots-- where the death of the main character simply isn't actually at stake. RPGs often try to replicate the tension of those movies by actually putting the characters' lives at stake, but it's clearly a kind of short-cut to the way many movies actually build tension.

Yes you are sidestepping the point. The death of the main character(s) was vital to the telling of the story, but instead you tried to make it seem irrelevant.

Quote from: two_fishes;360584Yes there are movies where the hero dies, but I would like to point out that in each of the movies you listed (with the possible exception of das boot), the hero does not die without first acheiving his goal. So the real truth is that they do have plot immunity for as long as the plot is unfinished.

See? You are dissembling again in an attempt to show that character death is irrelevant in the movies listed.

Sorry, but that dog just won't hunt.

Quote from: Seanchai;360587two_fishes didn't say anything about "in the end." He said, "I would argue that there is never any real threat that Bruce Willis is going to be seriously incapacitated in Die Hard..." In other words, we know that, yes, he might die in the end, but we also know that he, along with other action movie heroes, sure as hell won't die in the middle.

Seanchai

Yeah, like Sean Connery's character in The Untouchables.

:rolleyes:

Yeah I know it's a more complex issue than I laid out in that post, but in my defense I was responding to J Arcane.

Movies aren't games.

I realise that may be a difficult thing for some of you to grasp, so I'll explain.

Movies aren't games.

You want more detail? Well, the key difference is the audience. In movies, the audience is just an audience. In a game, the audience is a participant. Being a participant makes all the difference.

The whole point of a movie is that it has a distinct beginning, middle and end. The whole point of a game is that the outcome is uncertain. It's not a game if you know what's going to happen in the end. That's why during a soccer game if one team is up 8-0 by half-time most of the audience leaves.

Participation in a game is only meaningful if the outcome is uncertain. This is entirely different to a movie, where we do not participate, and cannot affect the outcome.

Movies aren't games.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360610Movies aren't games.

I realise that may be a difficult thing for some of you to grasp, so I'll explain.

Movies aren't games.

You want more detail? Well, the key difference is the audience. In movies, the audience is just an audience. In a game, the audience is a participant. Being a participant makes all the difference.

The whole point of a movie is that it has a distinct beginning, middle and end. The whole point of a game is that the outcome is uncertain. It's not a game if you know what's going to happen in the end. That's why during a soccer game if one team is up 8-0 by half-time most of the audience leaves.

Participation in a game is only meaningful if the outcome is uncertain. This is entirely different to a movie, where we do not participate, and cannot affect the outcome.

Movies aren't games.

This is a good point, and deserves to be made again (hence my quote of the entire thing).

That said, I think the idea that everyone knows what's going to happen in movies is over-stated here. Yes, a movie's outcome is pre-determined, but that doesn't mean it's known. Some movies are harder to figure out than others, of course, but that doesn't mean that in both movies and games a lot of the enjoyment can stem from being anxious and uncertain about how things will turn out.

In general, I think it's best to avoid analogies to movies when talking about RPG's -- it tends to derail the dialog.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360610Movies aren't games.

Shall we throw out the whole WWHSD* defense to the grenade issue and look at the rules of the game then?

Seanchai

* What Would Han Solo Do

Quote from: Seanchai;360453Fine. But we're also importing the real world capabilities of real world grenades. You're telling that the Star Wars grenades as a deadly as real world grenades, but Star Wars grenades are taken from a movie.

Moreover, we have the exact capacity of the grenades and they're just not that deadly. For example, we know how much damage a character standing directly over it would take and a 1st level average non-combatant has a good chance of being conscious after the blast.

Seanchai

This is all a bunch of nonsense, by the way. If you go back to my argument, the only thing from real world grenades that I imported was the thing that the player brought in: that they're physical attacks which can be blocked. From that, you only have to apply the cover rules to reach the conclusion that multiple damage rolls should apply, and go directly to wounds.

I'm not increasing the damage of SWD20 grenades in this case to match reality any more than I'd be importing the "real" effect of a blaster by saying that if you get hit three times, you'll take three times as much damage--which just might kill you.

Reading this thread = throwing oneself on a grenade.

Quote from: Seanchai;360618* What Would Han Solo Do

Apparently, not shoot first :mad:

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Seanchai;360618Shall we throw out the whole WWHSD* defense to the grenade issue and look at the rules of the game then?

Seanchai

* What Would Han Solo Do

Han Solo in the movies would not throw himself on a grenade because

(a) Han Solo is a rogue, not a paladin, and

(2) there are no hand greandes in the movies with Han Solo, just blasters and light sabers. There's a "thermite" grenade at some point, but it never gets set off. It's like the second Death Star's planet-destroying beam, it exists as a threat but is never used.

We'll get past what Han Solo would do the moment you shut the fuck up about the fucking grenade.

However, as I said, what Han Solo would do in the movies is irrelevant, because games aren't movies. Arguing about a Star Wars rpg session on the basis of what happened in the movies is like what Orlando Bloom did in Kingdom on the basis of the game of chess we just.

Games aren't movies. This is a simple point which eludes the simple.

However, that games aren't movies doesn't mean the rules are the most important thing. Rules are the most important thing to the success of a game session in competitive games, like chess or football.

Roleplaying games aren't competitive, they're purely for entertainment, so for the success of a game session, rules drop back to fourth place behind people, snacks, and setting.

Rules are over-ridden in the interests of the people, the snacks and the setting. The rules come dead last, because roleplaying games are not competitive in their focus.

The people, snacks, setting and system are all there to make easier the game where the outcome is uncertain but can be affected by player ideas becoming character actions. That is, to help us have fun. When the system gets in the way of roleplaying, when the player is looking at dice and numbers and calculating odds, we are no longer roleplaying, but wargaming. Which is a fun hobby, but not what we sat down to do.

Jump on a grenade in my game sessions, and you will probably die. The only difference between me and Jeff is that I'd have you roll the damage first. Hey, maybe you get all 1s, good for you. But it's not likely.

Should you be this player, feel free to bitch about it on message boards afterwards - but at the time you get to shut the fuck up and roll the dice, because the game must go on. It's all about pacing, if we sit and argue about the damage and all that shit, by the time we find out if our characters lived or died nobody cares anymore.

Shut the fuck up and roll the dice, Seanchai. And stop hogging the cheetos, pass them over here.

That reminds me, have these (http://gigi-reviews.blogspot.com/2009/03/cheetos-giant.html) appeared in your neck of the woods yet, Kyle? I can't recommend them highly enough.

You know, most of the time I'm like "fuck game-theory", but at times like these I can't help but wonder if pieces of it were somehow right.  The butting of heads here is an almost perfect example of...well...aw fuck it, I'm not going to bother, especially not here.  I need to finish some coursework, anyway.

No sign of 'em yet, Elliot.

Thanks for your comment that you wouldn't be commenting, Peregrin. Non-contributions are always helpful!

Kyle, I think you are right in theory, but I think a lot of us feel competitive when we play an RPG. Player vs. Player and Player vs. GM is fun, at least to me.

It isn't competitive all the time, but it crops up. Rolling dice for four hours and patting each other on the back gets old. I like it when there are occasionally winners and losers.

Anyway, when you make it competitive, the rules become a lot more important. It is hard to be mature and have the wisdom to know how to suddenly make the rules important so that you can be competitive, and then let them fall behind when it is over.

As a GM, one of the things I do to make my games fun is I lie a lot. I don't usually feel competitive when I run a game, but I make my players think I am. I'll let them rules lawyer a little and in general, I'll play dumb and let them win if they come up with something good and roll well.

I've never gotten players as excited about combat as I have by acting like an enemy. When the players think it is all pats on the back and GM fiat, it never sinks in the same way.

Not all together on topic, whatever.

It seems to me that this is an argument over personal preferences, and like many RPG arguments, it's been caught up in saying that one way or the other is the one true way.  

We can argue over questions like (1) how lethal games should be to PCs, and (2) how closely to follow the rules.  However, these are really issues of preference.  There is no single right answer to them.  


IMO, Kyle is wrong when he says that rules come dead last behind people, snacks, and setting - because people coming first defines the other order is.  There are people who care about rules more than they do about setting, and enjoy playing by the rules.  You might not like to play with those people, but it doesn't meant that they're wrong for them.  For such people in such games, the rules are part of the fun.  It is pointless to say that the rules need to be set aside in favor of fun, because for some people, following the rules is fun.  For that matter, there are people who don't like Cheetos - or even those who don't like snacking between meals at all.  


It's possible to run a campaign that kills off PCs and is fun.  It's also possible to run a campaign that has explicit script immunity and is fun.  There are varying degrees between these (i.e. varying degrees of PC lethality - going down to so non-lethal that it blends into true script immunity).  The Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG has explicit script immunity - a PC can do anything and as long as they had a single Drama Point left, they won't be permanently killed.  I ran a campaign for three years following that rule, and it worked great.  I've also had fun playing Dead of Night, where the PCs all were killed off.  They're both fun.  

Similarly, I've played in campaigns that went fast-and-loose with the rules, and I've played in campaigns that went by-the-book.  I don't think there's a singular answer to this question, and I think it's silly to argue over what the right answer is to either of these, because it depends on the group and the game.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360638No sign of 'em yet, Elliot.

Thanks for your comment that you wouldn't be commenting, Peregrin. Non-contributions are always helpful!

If you really want to know (or even if you don't), I think Seanchai is following what those 'dirty people' over yonder call a Gamist creative agenda.

In other words, fuck the drama of possibly sacrificing yourself for your friends, fuck the world making any real sense, play fair and play by the rules to overcome shit.

Quote from: jhkim;360643IMO, Kyle is wrong when he says that rules come dead last behind people, snacks, and setting - because people coming first defines the other order is.  There are people who care about rules more than they do about setting, and enjoy playing by the rules.

If they have a bunch of rules with minimal or no setting, they're not roleplaying, they're wargaming. Which as I said is a fun hobby, but it's not roleplaying.

Most rules are shaped by setting ideas in the game's design. That's why everyone finds generic rules systems so boring to read. No flavour.

As well, few people will say "I'll play anything so long as it's GURPS" (or whatever). Whereas people will play even systems they hate so long as it's with gamers they like in a setting they're interested in. No-one will play settings they hate because they like the system.

People first determine rules - the rules must fit their playstyle - but setting determines it, too. You wouldn't use the Toon system for a game of existential angst, nor Unknown Armies for a comedic game.

Snacks are necessary because roleplaying is a social creative hobby, and people bond by sharing food. They can bond without it, but it's slower and less fun. The snackless game sessions I have seen were generally joyless affairs, everyone a bit reserved, reluctant to step on up and participate actively.

Thus, people, snacks, setting, system - in that order.

QuoteIt's possible to run a campaign that kills off PCs and is fun.  It's also possible to run a campaign that has explicit script immunity and is fun.

I don't doubt either of those things. However, there must always be uncertainty of outcome with the chance of failure in the PCs' aims; the failure need not be lethal for the PCs.

Quote from: Cranewings;360532Why should there be risk? People that say this kind of thing don't seem to connect with the idea of the absolute sweetness of their characters. Regular people are afraid of death.

I don't think there should be a risk of *death* in every genre. Nor should everything that would be lethal to me in real life (traps, drowning) be lethal to every character (Admiral Ackbar). But something that IS risky should be risky according to the rules too.
 

QuotePlayer characters in a rpg are usually so sweet, even at the beginning of the game, that you can't apply normal rational thinking to what they do.

I apply rational thinking but they often live in a world where arrows are no more lethal than snowballs, and thus they have the same level of bravery that I have when I'm in a snowball fight. And that can be fun if you like showboating and victory laps.
 

QuoteI think reality emulation is a noble goal in rpg design, but almost none of the major game labels worry about it.

Most of reality is simulated just fine by players. The rules are there for simulating things that players don't have a good handle on.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360647Snacks are necessary because roleplaying is a social creative hobby, and people bond by sharing food. They can bond without it, but it's slower and less fun. The snackless game sessions I have seen were generally joyless affairs, everyone a bit reserved, reluctant to step on up and participate actively.

Thus, people, snacks, setting, system - in that order.

OK, I see how people determine the snacks, setting, and system - people have their own preferences about all of them - and I can see how setting determines system, but how the hell do snacks determine setting OR system? Shouldn't the diagram look like this?

Snacks <- People -> Setting -> System

(where the arrows go from the dominant element to the subservient element)

I've seen 'setting' determine snacks on occasion... such as when we're playing a spaghetti western and the GM cooks up a big vat of pasta...

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;360650I apply rational thinking but they often live in a world where arrows are no more lethal than snowballs, and thus they have the same level of bravery that I have when I'm in a snowball fight. And that can be fun if you like showboating and victory laps.

That's pretty funny (:

Quote from: Peregrin;360644If you really want to know (or even if you don't), I think Seanchai is following what those 'dirty people' over yonder call a Gamist creative agenda.

What's that? This? "In other words, fuck the drama of possibly sacrificing yourself for your friends, fuck the world making any real sense, play fair and play by the rules to overcome shit."

If so, no, not really.

About the drama of sacrificing yourself - clearly, the player didn't want said drama. Had he wanted to die, then I don't have a problem with ignoring the rules and narrating an effect.

What happened instead is that the GM substituted the player's intention with his own and then ignored the rules or created new rules so that he's interpretation of the player's actions was successful. That, in my opinions, breaks trust.

It doesn't matter that it's jumping on a grenade. The player could have been trying to bluff his way past the guards, saying, "I have a high Bluff and guards are usually not too bright, so this should work." If the GM said, "Instead of Bluff, you try to fight your way past them. They're better at combat. You fail and are hauled off to the king's dungeon," that would be the same essential breach of trust, in my opinion.

As far as the world making sense, I see it completely differently. I see grenades suddenly becoming unalterably lethal as "unrealistic." They just don't seem that damaging in Star Wars. Standing over one doesn't make them instantly lethal according to the rules, so why would laying on top of one?

I believe people should play fairly.

As far as following rules go, I'd ask, "Why aren't you following the rules?" If the answer is, "Because it's more fun or more awesome than following the rules," cool! If the answer is, "To hose over this player because I don't like his attitude," then that's not cool in my estimation.

Seanchai

Quote from: Simlasa;360656I've seen 'setting' determine snacks on occasion...

Okay, but do snacks ever "get in the way" of roleplaying? And should a combination of Cheetos and Dr. Pepper be "lethal" to players?

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360674Okay, but do snacks ever "get in the way" of roleplaying? And should a combination of Cheetos and Dr. Pepper be "lethal" to players?

Back in the goofy days of Traveller, one of my friends ran some games where the bad guys were Cheetons and Fritons.

Strangely enough, no drugs or alcohol was involved.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;360674Okay, but do snacks ever "get in the way" of roleplaying? And should a combination of Cheetos and Dr. Pepper be "lethal" to players?

!i!

Only if the pizza gets too greasy. ;)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360647If they have a bunch of rules with minimal or no setting, they're not roleplaying, they're wargaming. Which as I said is a fun hobby, but it's not roleplaying.

Most rules are shaped by setting ideas in the game's design. That's why everyone finds generic rules systems so boring to read. No flavour.

As well, few people will say "I'll play anything so long as it's GURPS" (or whatever). Whereas people will play even systems they hate so long as it's with gamers they like in a setting they're interested in.

Many would say that if you have a setting with no rules, you're just playing pretend or writing shared fiction, not playing a Role-playing Game.   Similarly, few people will say - "I'll play Forgotten Realms, regardless of whether it's using Rolemaster or Best Friends."  

But really, how many people do the extremes isn't really the point.  If people are doing it in significant numbers at all, I think it should be a valid preference - even if it isn't the majority.  Otherwise, the only valid preference is playing D&D.  

If a gamer moves to a new place and searches online or asks around for a game, they might ask first after setting - like "Anyone here running Lovecraftian horror like Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu?"  However, in my experience the chances are at least fair that they'll ask after the rules system first - i.e. "Does anyone around here play GURPS?" or "Does anyone play D&D4?"  I've been with a group that met to play GURPS, and only later agreed on the setting to play. That doesn't mean they'll play absolutely anything with that system, of course.  However, the point is that these two have different priorities.  If you just say that "setting comes before system," it fails to reflect these differing priorities.

Quote from: Seanchai;360673About the drama of sacrificing yourself - clearly, the player didn't want said drama. Had he wanted to die, then I don't have a problem with ignoring the rules and narrating an effect.

What happened instead is that the GM substituted the player's intention with his own and then ignored the rules or created new rules so that he's interpretation of the player's actions was successful. That, in my opinions, breaks trust.

It doesn't matter that it's jumping on a grenade. The player could have been trying to bluff his way past the guards, saying, "I have a high Bluff and guards are usually not too bright, so this should work." If the GM said, "Instead of Bluff, you try to fight your way past them. They're better at combat. You fail and are hauled off to the king's dungeon," that would be the same essential breach of trust, in my opinion.

As far as the world making sense, I see it completely differently. I see grenades suddenly becoming unalterably lethal as "unrealistic." They just don't seem that damaging in Star Wars. Standing over one doesn't make them instantly lethal according to the rules, so why would laying on top of one?

I believe people should play fairly.

As far as following rules go, I'd ask, "Why aren't you following the rules?" If the answer is, "Because it's more fun or more awesome than following the rules," cool! If the answer is, "To hose over this player because I don't like his attitude," then that's not cool in my estimation.

Seanchai

Seanchai, knowing that my grenade incident causes an existential crisis for you is full of win for me. Makes my day and is awesome.

Dance monkey! Dance!

Quote from: jhkim;360680If a gamer moves to a new place and searches online or asks around for a game, they might ask first after setting - like "Anyone here running Lovecraftian horror like Call of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu?"  However, in my experience the chances are at least fair that they'll ask after the rules system first - i.e. "Does anyone around here play GURPS?" or "Does anyone play D&D4?"

Rules probably are more important than setting to a lot of folks.
I'm not sure that that is always so much a primary concern with the rules system as it is an acknowledgment that certain systems favor certain styles of play and types of settings and types of people.

Looking for a GURPS group is also code for saying I'm NOT looking for a D&D group. I'm looking for a group that enjoys the sorts of settings/playstyles that GURPS supports.
Setting is more important than rules to me... but I'm not looking for a particular setting so much as much a particular type of group.
Once I find a good group I don't much care what rules we play by, or even what setting we're in.

Quote from: Warthur;360655OK, I see how people determine the snacks, setting, and system - people have their own preferences about all of them - and I can see how setting determines system, but how the hell do snacks determine setting OR system? Shouldn't the diagram look like this?

The elements are in the order they are because of their relative contribution to the success of the game session. That is, how much of our fun comes from this or that element.

Each element matters, but some are more important and make a bigger contribution than others.

It's not simply that one determines another, such as the setting you have determining the system you'll use. It's their relative importance in the success of a game session.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaOkay, but do snacks ever "get in the way" of roleplaying?

Yes. It's hard to be thespy with junk food snacks, it's hard to be hacky with "healthy" snacks. "I cut off their heads!" just doesn't make sense over camembert and almongs. "I pause for a moment to reflect on the lives I've taken, and feel the angst of -" just doesn't work with a mouthful of cheetos.

Most effects of snacks on play can be predicted, but alcohol is the big uncertainty. It makes some people hackier, and some thespier.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360685Most effects of snacks on play can be predicted, but alcohol is the big uncertainty. It makes some people hackier, and some thespier.

Hmmm... I've never played with a group that had alcohol at the table... or camembert for that matter.
To me the space we're playing in, the lighting and decor, the way people are dressed, probably effects my roleplaying more than the snacks that are available.

Quote from: jeff37923;360606Yes you are sidestepping the point. The death of the main character(s) was vital to the telling of the story, but instead you tried to make it seem irrelevant.

See? You are dissembling again in an attempt to show that character death is irrelevant in the movies listed.

Sorry, but that dog just won't hunt.

No, actually, you're dodging the point i raised entirely. Yeah, there are movies where the hero dies, and in those, their deaths are relevant. So what? That is a point that irrelevant to my point--that there are very many movies where the hero has considerable script immunity and there there is no expectation that he will die. The existence of movies where the hero dies doesn't disprove that there are movies where the viewer knows he won't. Even if i set aside Die Hard as "arguable" since it is being argued, that leaves movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Batman Begins, as well scores of written fiction. The authors of those fictions use all sorts of tricks to create tension despite our knowledge that certain characters are simply not going to die. Many rpgs which emulate those fictions use the threat of character death to replicate that tension. It's easy and effective but it's not an especially most accurate method of replicating what is actually going on in those films.

And yeah, I am aware, as -E pointed out, it is a more complicated issue, and many writers deliberately play against our expectations of who will live or die, but the fact that those expectations can be played with affirms their existence.

Even in those movies where the heros do die, there is the larger issue that those deaths were deliberate choices on the part of the writers, used to serve the purpose of the fiction. Trying to replicate the tension of those movies with a random probability of character death is not necessarily the most accurate way or best to emulate that sort of fiction, either.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360610Movies aren't games.

But rpgs often attempt to emulate movies, and replicate some of the experience of watching a movie at the game table. Many rpg players want to build the sort of dramatic tension and payoff at the table that they find in their favorite fiction. A discussion of how fiction builds tension or the "rules" of drama and genre is valid for those games.

Quote from: -E.;360603Likewise, why would you say that situations where excitement in games comes from raising the stakes in terms of fictional outcomes is difficult to do in table-top games?

I can think of several games I've run (or are running), where there's not serious risk of death to the characters and the tension comes from achieving or failing-to-achieve the character's goals as tensions escalate.

I agree with you, but I think that sort of play requires a little bit more creative oomph from the players than the method of creating tension via risk of character death. "Difficult" may have been too strong, "not-as-easy" seems a little weak.

Quote from: Simlasa;360687Hmmm... I've never played with a group that had alcohol at the table... or camembert for that matter.

You're missing out!

QuoteTo me the space we're playing in, the lighting and decor, the way people are dressed, probably effects my roleplaying more than the snacks that are available.

Those make a difference, yes. However, most game groups have the session in the same place at the same time every week, fortnight or month. So the lighting, decor etc are the same. And the timing being the same makes the clothing the same, since people don't tend to dress for a game session, but just come in whatever they normally wear at that time, eg just arrived from work, or Sunday sloppies, etc.

I agree that those things make a difference to the game session, but they tend to be constant in a particular game group. Whereas the snacks, setting and system are more prone to change.

Quote from: two_fishesBut rpgs often attempt to emulate movies, and replicate some of the experience of watching a movie at the game table. Many rpg players want to build the sort of dramatic tension and payoff at the table that they find in their favorite fiction. A discussion of how fiction builds tension or the "rules" of drama and genre is valid for those games.

Yes, but movies still aren't games.

There's a difference between dramatic tension and payoff in a game and a movie, and it's simply the uncertainty of outcome. A movie's scripted. Games have dice. Diceless variants exist, but they are extraordinarily less popular than the diced ones. There's a reason for that - people enjoy the uncertainty. The uncertainty of outcome is what makes it a game. You can have uncertainty of outcome without dice - chess has it, after all - but in practice gamers prefer dice.

And roleplaying games aren't "stories" the way movies are. They don't have a beginning, middle and an end in the same way that movies do, unless you have a true railroader of a GM, which almost everyone agrees is a bad thing. Any "story" is an emergent property of play, rather than an intrinsic property of the thing.

Movies aren't games. Games aren't movies. Gamers are not Meryl Streep or Dustin Hoffman. It's a game. It's in the name of the thing and everything.

Quote from: jeff37923;360681Seanchai, knowing that my grenade incident causes an existential crisis for you is full of win for me. Makes my day and is awesome.

Dance monkey! Dance!

I think Seanchai makes a very good point and I'm a proud graduate of the GM Uber Alles School of GMing.

Nothing in your posts says to me you punished the player because he had a bad attitude but he's right when he says that there are GMs who do this. I have come across many GMs who have this didactic style of play which I don't think is good for gaming.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360685Yes. It's hard to be thespy with junk food snacks, it's hard to be hacky with "healthy" snacks. "I cut off their heads!" just doesn't make sense over camembert and almongs. "I pause for a moment to reflect on the lives I've taken, and feel the angst of -" just doesn't work with a mouthful of cheetos.

You would be wrong. It's a strange kind of beauty, saying, "Terminate with extreme prejudice" with a mouthful of cheetos.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: two_fishes;360688So what?

Character death in a movie makes for a more powerful story that is being told. In a similar fashion, character risk which includes the possibility of character death makes for a more powerful role-playing experience for the Player due to the stakes involved.

Kyle is right, RPGs and movies are not equal. However some very easily understood similarities can be made between the two different types of entertainment.

I think you are trying to prove that the potential for character death in a RPG should not be considered by GMs as a risk or stake to be raised in play.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360696I agree that those things make a difference to the game session, but they tend to be constant in a particular game group. Whereas the snacks, setting and system are more prone to change.

I haven't noticed much variation in snacks, even from group to group... bags of chips and HUGE tankards of soft drinks accompanying whatever style of greasy fast food each person had drug with him/her.
The occasional special event where we order pizza or someone brings spaghetti/chili.

Maybe there is some regional variation to this.

We had wine, fruit, some jaffa cakes, tea and coffee but it failed to stop Ithaqua destroying Arkham far too easily and devouring each of us in turn (bad dice its all about the bad dice).

The whole grenade thing is old but anyone that thinks that a greande ought to do the same damage if it's thrown and land a metre away from you than it does if you lie on top of it is as nuts as someone that thinks an RPG rule book is going to contain rules for every possible eventuality.
Are we saying that its impossible to hang a player in D&D becuase no rules exist for hanging damage and if a normal man can survive for 2 minutes with 0 level hit points then then a 10th level character can probably hang for about an hour or so... are we saying that an NPC torturer in a Star Wars game isn't allowed to chop off the Player's leg because there are no rules for that (only rules for choping of a PC's hand with a light sabre one supposes?), If a player put a blaster in their mouth and pulled the trigger would it still only do 2d6+1 damage? Since in D&D thee are no rules round permanent wounds if I deliberately chopped my own hand off as a sacrifice to the God Hyperbole would I take 1d8 damage and be able to healing surge it next round? ...
The GM is the referee it's their job to interpret the rules in any circumstance that the RAW don't cover.

Quote from: Simlasa;360703I haven't noticed much variation in snacks [...]

Maybe there is some regional variation to this.

I don't think it's regional so much as individual and group-based.

I had a one-off with a group recently, they had salamis and cheeses and crackers and dips. We normally go with chocolate and cheetos and doritos and lemonade and so on.

We do beer sometimes, too - but those guys game in a public place (a uni lounge) so they can't do alcohol of any kind.

They spend a lot longer debating the rules, too.

Quote from: jibbajibba;360710The whole grenade thing is old but anyone that thinks that a greande ought to do the same damage if it's thrown and land a metre away from you than it does if you lie on top of it is as nuts as someone that thinks an RPG rule book is going to contain rules for every possible eventuality.
Are we saying that its impossible to hang a player in D&D becuase no rules exist for hanging damage and if a normal man can survive for 2 minutes with 0 level hit points then then a 10th level character can probably hang for about an hour or so... are we saying that an NPC torturer in a Star Wars game isn't allowed to chop off the Player's leg because there are no rules for that (only rules for choping of a PC's hand with a light sabre one supposes?), If a player put a blaster in their mouth and pulled the trigger would it still only do 2d6+1 damage? Since in D&D thee are no rules round permanent wounds if I deliberately chopped my own hand off as a sacrifice to the God Hyperbole would I take 1d8 damage and be able to healing surge it next round? ...
The GM is the referee it's their job to interpret the rules in any circumstance that the RAW don't cover.

Bravo.

As for two_fishes, you all do realize he's reading straight out of the little red Forger book, don't you? There's no argument to be had on details here, it's a fundamental disconnect.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360733Bravo.

As for two_fishes, you all do realize he's reading straight out of the little red Forger book, don't you? There's no argument to be had on details here, it's a fundamental disconnect.

Oh I have always realized it.  Which is why I called him out on it.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;360733As for two_fishes, you all do realize he's reading straight out of the little red Forger book, don't you? There's no argument to be had on details here, it's a fundamental disconnect.

Yeah, I just find it amusing because nobody I know in the real world who plays RPGs shares the same wacky ideas.

Quote from: jibbajibba;360710We had wine, fruit, some jaffa cakes, tea and coffee but it failed to stop Ithaqua destroying Arkham far too easily and devouring each of us in turn (bad dice its all about the bad dice).

The whole grenade thing is old but anyone that thinks that a greande ought to do the same damage if it's thrown and land a metre away from you than it does if you lie on top of it is as nuts as someone that thinks an RPG rule book is going to contain rules for every possible eventuality.
Are we saying that its impossible to hang a player in D&D becuase no rules exist for hanging damage and if a normal man can survive for 2 minutes with 0 level hit points then then a 10th level character can probably hang for about an hour or so... are we saying that an NPC torturer in a Star Wars game isn't allowed to chop off the Player's leg because there are no rules for that (only rules for choping of a PC's hand with a light sabre one supposes?), If a player put a blaster in their mouth and pulled the trigger would it still only do 2d6+1 damage? Since in D&D thee are no rules round permanent wounds if I deliberately chopped my own hand off as a sacrifice to the God Hyperbole would I take 1d8 damage and be able to healing surge it next round? ...
The GM is the referee it's their job to interpret the rules in any circumstance that the RAW don't cover.

This here wins the grenade issue.

More to the OP, rules that get in the way for me are the ones that cause me to think of the rules more than my character and the pretend world he/she/it inhabits, rules that cause me to think of my character and he/she/it's world in rules terms most or all of the time, and rules that take so much time to run conflicts in that there's only time for one or two such conflicts before the session is over and the very little progress is made otherwise.

Quote from: two_fishes;360577I would say that in each of those cases it was foreknown that the heroes were going to die before the movie even started (300, Excaliber, and Spartacus being especially prevalent examples of this) or it was clear that this was a pretty likely outcome before the movie was half-way through. (though I haven't seen Silent Running so I can't speak for that one.)

Lord of the Rings... did we see Boromir's death coming? Harry Potter... did we see Diggory's death coming? How about Sirius Black? How about Dumbledore? Surprise deaths happen too. Apparently with greater frequency in movie franchises aimed at kids.

In the case of Star Wars, don't you remember how most of the time (at least in the original trilogy) was spent running away from someone?

Quote from: Seanchai;360618* What Would Han Solo Do

He would run away.

Quote from: two_fishes;360688No, actually, you're dodging the point i raised entirely. Yeah, there are movies where the hero dies, and in those, their deaths are relevant. So what? That is a point that irrelevant to my point--that there are very many movies where the hero has considerable script immunity and there there is no expectation that he will die. The existence of movies where the hero dies doesn't disprove that there are movies where the viewer knows he won't. Even if i set aside Die Hard as "arguable" since it is being argued, that leaves movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Batman Begins, as well scores of written fiction. The authors of those fictions use all sorts of tricks to create tension despite our knowledge that certain characters are simply not going to die. Many rpgs which emulate those fictions use the threat of character death to replicate that tension. It's easy and effective but it's not an especially most accurate method of replicating what is actually going on in those films.

Die hard killed off a bunch of folks IIRC. Star Wars illustrated real risk by the "if you're hit you're out of action" rule and the characters constantly running away (plus a few one-sided slaughters like in the opening scene or with Luke's parents and the Jawas). But Indiana Jones movies and superhero movies make the "death is not an issue" obvious NOT because they are action movies but because they are single-protagonist action movies... like Kill Bill or something.

Quote from: two_fishes;360689But rpgs often attempt to emulate movies, and replicate some of the experience of watching a movie at the game table. Many rpg players want to build the sort of dramatic tension and payoff at the table that they find in their favorite fiction. A discussion of how fiction builds tension or the "rules" of drama and genre is valid for those games.

RPGs emulate settings, and setting conventions. They emulate WORLDS, in other words, not story.
You can't emulate story, specifically because of things mentioned here: if you did, you'd stop having a Roleplaying game.
Which is of course what the people at the Forge do: they put "Story" above all else, including "game". So they're no longer playing a game, they're engaged in a storytelling exercise. That's fine, but that's inherently NOT a roleplaying game.

RPGPundit

Quote from: beejazz;360803But Indiana Jones movies and superhero movies make the "death is not an issue" obvious NOT because they are action movies but because they are single-protagonist action movies... like Kill Bill or something.

Exactly.

If you want to correctly correlate movies to RPGs, use ensemble action movies.

The Untouchables, Red Dawn, The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch, Aliens, A Bridge Too Far, Saving Private Ryan, etc.  Ensemble action movies are full of protagonist deaths.

So it seems that what we're talking about when we say "rules that get in the way", is rules that break the effective sense of emulation. You fall 200 ft and take 43 points of damage, and walk it off because you're 15th level. You jump on a grenade and take 3D6 and laugh your ass off.

Of course, some times, the rules do cover these eventualities (the D20 system has the "anything doing 50 points of damage in one blow is death" rule, you also have the coup de grace rules; Palladium has the "point blank head and heart tables", etc).
Other times, they're totally absent.

But the point is that what you need for this is simple: The GAME MASTER.  When the rules go wrong, or there are none to be had, that's where the Game Master steps in, with his authority, to set things right again. And another reason why the GM's authority must not be questioned.

Arrogant Game Designers, naive players, and Swine who think that the rules must be put in control over the GM and not the other way around have either not really played very much or are too stupid to remember that no game accounts for every eventuality. The RPG is a game that demands an arbiter, and that he be given absolute power.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;360812So it seems that what we're talking about when we say "rules that get in the way", is rules that break the effective sense of emulation.

Which varies from person to person because it's not based on reality, but a subjective view of reality. So it doesn't really matter what the rules are or what reality is actually like - you can always find someone who will go "Bwuh?!?" over some resolution.

Quote from: RPGPundit;360812But the point is that what you need for this is simple: The GAME MASTER.  When the rules go wrong, or there are none to be had, that's where the Game Master steps in, with his authority, to set things right again.

That's no better - you're just replacing one "Bwuh?!?" engine with another "Bwuh?!?" engine. Unless the GM is somehow able to match all the participants' preconceptions about reality, someone at some point will go "Bwuh?!?" The difference between having a pre-written set of rules as an authority figure and having a GM as one is that the GM won't ever be the one going "Bwuh?!?"

Seanchai

Quote from: jeff37923;360702Character death in a movie makes for a more powerful story that is being told. In a similar fashion, character risk which includes the possibility of character death makes for a more powerful role-playing experience for the Player due to the stakes involved.

true, but if used poorly, character death can also cheapen stories, rip the rug out from under the viewer, or be a sleazy attempt to add a false sense of depth to poorly written stories.

QuoteKyle is right, RPGs and movies are not equal. However some very easily understood similarities can be made between the two different types of entertainment.

Except that he seems to dismiss or ignore that story creation is often a very high priority for players. I've talked to many players, including some very traditional players, who value the story produced by the game to be the most important product of their play. In these cases, I'm going to continue to assert that discussion of narrative techniques for creating drama and tension are totally valid.

QuoteI think you are trying to prove that the potential for character death in a RPG should not be considered by GMs as a risk or stake to be raised in play.

no, i'm not trying to prove that at all. character death can be a totally valid, fun, meaningful stake to put into play. what i am suggesting is that there is sometimes a disconnect between the way that rules are implemented and what the players are actually trying to achieve with their play. I believe this is actually to the point of the OP--where do rules interefere with role-playing?

Quote from: RPGPundit;360808Which is of course what the people at the Forge do: they put "Story" above all else, including "game". So they're no longer playing a game, they're engaged in a storytelling exercise. That's fine, but that's inherently NOT a roleplaying game.

It's really just a question of priorities. What go on around the table at a "storygame" and at a "roleplaying game" are so overwhelmingly similar that insisting on a difference in terms is small-minded and pedantic. And to get frothy at the mouth about it and demand that the former group be ejected from your special little club is just being an asshole, you small-minded, pedantic asshole.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360718We normally go with chocolate... [snip] ...and lemonade and so on.

Together?  You, sir, are a brute.

!i!

Quote from: RPGPundit;360808So they're no longer playing a game, they're engaged in a storytelling exercise. That's fine, but that's inherently NOT a roleplaying game.

I'm not a "storygamer", but I've had my hand at games that games that put storytelling on par with, or ahead of randomisation, and I simply have to say that your statement above is a fatuous exercise in gerrymandering.  I'm loathe to explore this topic again, but it's worth noting that "roleplaying games" is an over-arching category that encompasses more than the adversarial* and/or randomised games that most people here** prefer.

!i!

[*And I intend "adversarial" in the most positive sense, but in contradistinction to cooperative roleplaying, or "storytelling".]
[**Myself included.]

Quote from: Seanchai;360825Which varies from person to person because it's not based on reality, but a subjective view of reality. So it doesn't really matter what the rules are or what reality is actually like - you can always find someone who will go "Bwuh?!?" over some resolution.



That's no better - you're just replacing one "Bwuh?!?" engine with another "Bwuh?!?" engine. Unless the GM is somehow able to match all the participants' preconceptions about reality, someone at some point will go "Bwuh?!?" The difference between having a pre-written set of rules as an authority figure and having a GM as one is that the GM won't ever be the one going "Bwuh?!?"

Seanchai

I disagree. The GM can be consulted, and can work with the players to arrive at an agreeable method of resolution based on the in-game circumstances, which is one of their jobs.

Quote from: two_fishes;360827true, but if used poorly, character death can also cheapen stories, rip the rug out from under the viewer, or be a sleazy attempt to add a false sense of depth to poorly written stories.

Good thing most of us aren't trying to write stories then.

QuoteExcept that he seems to dismiss or ignore that story creation is often a very high priority for players. I've talked to many players, including some very traditional players, who value the story produced by the game to be the most important product of their play. In these cases, I'm going to continue to assert that discussion of narrative techniques for creating drama and tension are totally valid.

Then you have way too much time on your hands apparently. I've never actually met anyone in person who valued "the story" over just getting together and gaming with fellow geeks. We value the experience... but then any experience can be turned into a "story", and requires little to no thought to "narrative techniques".

Quoteno, i'm not trying to prove that at all. character death can be a totally valid, fun, meaningful stake to put into play. what i am suggesting is that there is sometimes a disconnect between the way that rules are implemented and what the players are actually trying to achieve with their play. I believe this is actually to the point of the OP--where do rules interefere with role-playing?

I agree with you here, which IMO is why there are many different sets of rules and types of games.

If we put the S word aside, which only helps fueling useless flamewars, we can have a productive discussion here. Two_fishes say that sometimes a system will cause character deaths (PC or NPC) and that may "get in the way" of roleplaying for some players, or at least break their fun. He might have something here, not just some Forge leper or sth.

Some systems implement fate/hero points that give PCs a chance to escape a lethal accident. One might see two objectives in action here:
A - save a player the frustration of loosing a character, having to create another and all the drama at the table that might have happened
B - give a chance (to who exactly?) to keep the plot going undisturbed when a specific character death would have undermined it

I don't think B was the general intent of this type of rule. After all the player might not use available hero points because he/she is fine with the character dying right there. Still I've seen enough times GMs fudge the deathly consequences of a scene to know that even trad' players may have narrative motivations sometimes. It might be because the character is crucial for next scene or the campaign revolves around her or whatever.

I think fudging isn't seen as a huge issue around here. It doesn't have to be. But it would be fair to say that "it gets in the way" for a few players (whatever political branch of the hobby they align with). So if a game system manages to minimize the need for fudging (and there might be many more reasons for fudging that I didn't explore) maybe it manages to not "get in the way" of roleplaying?

Quote from: boulet;360839If we put the S word aside, which only helps fueling useless flamewars, we can have a productive discussion here. Two_fishes say that sometimes a system will cause character deaths (PC or NPC) and that may "get in the way" of roleplaying for some players, or at least break their fun. He might have something here, not just some Forge leper or sth.

Some systems implement fate/hero points that give PCs a chance to escape a lethal accident. One might see two objectives in action here:
A - save a player the frustration of loosing a character, having to create another and all the drama at the table that might have happened
B - give a chance (to who exactly?) to keep the plot going undisturbed when a specific character death would have undermined it

I don't think B was the general intent of this type of rule. After all the player might not use available hero points because he/she is fine with the character dying right there. Still I've seen enough times GMs fudge the deathly consequences of a scene to know that even trad' players may have narrative motivations sometimes. It might be because the character is crucial for next scene or the campaign revolves around her or whatever.

I think fudging isn't seen as a huge issue around here. It doesn't have to be. But it would be fair to say that "it gets in the way" for a few players (whatever political branch of the hobby they align with). So if a game system manages to minimize the need for fudging (and there might be many more reasons for fudging that I didn't explore) maybe it manages to not "get in the way" of roleplaying?

I guess I see it differently. I'm with the folks that say not dieing or at the very least being taken out of the action (permanently for all intents and purposes) after falling on a grenade would get in the way of my roleplaying. I've thrown a real life live frag grenade, and they are very impressive. If folks who can make vehicles that travel faster than the speed of light and swords with blades made out of laser can't construct an effective grenade then the premise has completely lost me. For me and apparently the folks I've gamed with, character death doesn't get in the way of roleplaying... what does is when the rules are so out of touch with the imagined world they are meant to allow me as a player to interact with that they interfere with my ability to imagine viewing the fictional world as my character would. I end up thinking more about the rules of the game than the world I want to be imagining. I hate that.

Some sort of "action" or "hero" points aren't a bad thing in and of themselves, but their lack has never interfered with my roleplaying, and if they promote outcomes that make no sense to me in the context of the imagined world we're trying to game in then they can get in the way just as much as anything else, IMO.

P.S. If I ever play d20 Star Wars again, I think I'm going to make a techie with the ability and desire to design and construct an actual useful grenade and market it to the empire and become rich.

Thanks for your input Sigmund. I was trying to get away from the grenade anecdote here though. I more or less sided with the "grenades on the belly should kill" camp anyway.

Quote from: boulet;360850Thanks for your input Sigmund. I was trying to get away from the grenade anecdote here though. I more or less sided with the "grenades on the belly should kill" camp anyway.

Ok. Ignore the first paragraph of my reply then.

Quote from: Sigmund;360836The GM can be consulted, and can work with the players to arrive at an agreeable method of resolution based on the in-game circumstances, which is one of their jobs.

I agree that the GM can certainly do that and many do. However, assuming by default that GMs as a whole will - particularly in a GM as God climate - is off base. Often times, such as the grenade example or one I previously posted about how fast bears can move, they don't give a damn what players want or think is "realistic."

Seanchai

Damn, what an unintended shitstorm. :)

I think it's safe to say that no rule system can be categorized objectively as "getting in the way of roleplaying".  That's been proven here I think.  Everyone is going to accept a certain level and certain type of metagaming and that differs from group to group.

A few things...

I think the GM does have to be the ultimate arbiter to make the rules work.  Seanchai, twofishes and Gnomeworks probably aren't going to have too much fun at Jeff's, Ian's or Kyle's table, but that's just fine.  Any GM that tries to cater to too wide a spectrum of gamers is going to end up making everyone miserable.  You game with people that share your views about role-playing, or can at least deal with them, or you walk.  Jeff made that ruling with Gnomeworks at the table, Gnome would probably end up walking away.  That's a good thing. No gaming is always better then bad gaming.

As far as the storygaming isn't roleplaying argument, that all stems from the word "roleplaying" encompassing so broad a definition as to be meaningless concerning a discussion of game theory.  We need new definitions.

Storygaming seems to be a pretty good title for the style of roleplaying where immersion and simulationism take a back seat to the metagame of the story.

Roleplaying is a pretty good fit for immersive/simulationism and describes it perfectly, but if you define immersive simulationism as roleplaying then, basically, Pundit is right.  Storygaming is not roleplaying.  The fact that every type of roleplaying wants to claim the original name as theirs means we need a new name for immersive roleplaying.  Simulationist carries too much Forge baggage, Immersion is going to cause a shitstorm with the LARP/Jeep crowd, so I don't know what the hell is going to take the place of roleplaying.

Then you have the other end of the metagaming spectrum where immersion and simulationism take a back seat to the mechanics of the game itself.  With Necromunda and Mordheim GW used the moniker "narrative wargame" to describe a wargame with persistence, individual advancement and rules for times between skirmishes.  Calling any type of RPG a wargame though causes a shitstorm, Gamist brings up the Forge-hate, etc...

Personally I would be ok with using Immersive Roleplaying as the Immersive/Simulationist genre, Narrative Roleplaying as the narrative metagame genre, and Tactical Roleplaying as the mechanical metagame genre.  Of course any RPG is going to include all three elements to some degree, but some games could easily be described as an IRPG, NRPG or TRPG.

One thing is sure, the game that goes around twofishes table which I'm sure his players enjoy is going to be much different then the game around Pundit's table, which I'm sure his players enjoy.  As long we use the same term for both, we're gonna always get stuck in these "yeah but that's not roleplaying" arguments.

Oh yeah, as far as the grenade goes.  Since jumping on the grenade is basically taking an area-of-effect weapon and turning it into a shaped charge, from what I remember of d20 SW Revised, I would have taken the "same square" damage, added it to 2-4 times the "everyone else" damage (depending on how hard the surface was the character was laying down on) and then applied it directly to wound points, bypassing vitality.  Mathematically possible to survive, but on average...chunky salsa, just like you would think.  However, I learned from my very first Shadowrun game some 20 years ago, to always have detailed rules for grenades and make damn sure the players know what those rules are going in.

Quote from: CRKrueger;360881One thing is sure, the game that goes around twofishes table which I'm sure his players enjoy is going to be much different then the game around Pundit's table, which I'm sure his players enjoy.

Except what bugs me about these distinctions is that I suspect that what's actually going on around the table is really not that different at all. In both cases it probably looks like a group of players, each personally in charge of a fictional character and describing the actions of that fictional character in a shared collaborative fiction. In most cases on both sides of the fence, there is one player who doesn't control a single character, but arbitrates the way the shared fictional setting responds to the characters of the other players. On most cases, on both sides, crucial decision points are met by rolling dice. Really, the only differences lie in player priorities and precisely when and why dice are rolled and how the results are adjudicated.

When you get right down to it, we're a bunch of nerds debating about the finer points of a pretty marginal hobby. I can totally understand a desire for careful language when discussing the finer points of gameplay, but going off the handle, calling people swine, or making allusions to Maoist communism (a la "the little red forgey handbook") is just retarded! Really.

Quote from: Seanchai;360860I agree that the GM can certainly do that and many do. However, assuming by default that GMs as a whole will - particularly in a GM as God climate - is off base. Often times, such as the grenade example or one I previously posted about how fast bears can move, they don't give a damn what players want or think is "realistic."

Seanchai

Show us again on this doll where the naughty GM touched you, Seanchai.

Quote from: two_fishes;360827Except that he seems to dismiss or ignore that story creation is often a very high priority for players.

None of the Players that I have met outside of the internet consider story creation to be the highest priority.

Quote from: two_fishes;360827what i am suggesting is that there is sometimes a disconnect between the way that rules are implemented and what the players are actually trying to achieve with their play. I believe this is actually to the point of the OP--where do rules interefere with role-playing?

And we are back to square one...

Quote from: two_fishes;360884Except what bugs me about these distinctions is that I suspect that what's actually going on around the table is really not that different at all. In both cases it probably looks like a group of players, each personally in charge of a fictional character and describing the actions of that fictional character in a shared collaborative fiction. In most cases on both sides of the fence, there is one player who doesn't control a single character, but arbitrates the way the shared fictional setting responds to the characters of the other players. On most cases, on both sides, crucial decision points are met by rolling dice. Really, the only differences lie in player priorities and precisely when and why dice are rolled and how the results are adjudicated.

When you get right down to it, we're a bunch of nerds debating about the finer points of a pretty marginal hobby. I can totally understand a desire for careful language when discussing the finer points of gameplay, but going off the handle, calling people swine, or making allusions to Maoist communism (a la "the little red forgey handbook") is just retarded! Really.

Agreed, for someone outside the hobby it can seem like a ridiculous technicality, but for people within the hobby, playing Dogs in the Vineyard is different then playing 4e, and we can't call them all the same thing and not end up bumping dickheads in every thread.

Quote from: jgants;360811Exactly.

If you want to correctly correlate movies to RPGs, use ensemble action movies.

The Untouchables, Red Dawn, The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch, Aliens, A Bridge Too Far, Saving Private Ryan, etc.  Ensemble action movies are full of protagonist deaths.

An excellent point. I'd expand a bit on it by saying: If you were going to compare rpgs to any other medium, it'd be tv series. Each has its "season" where a particular bunch of events and ideas are dealt with, and we hope resolved - if this resolution and the process are interesting enough, we will afterwards say, "that was a story." But often it's not, it wandered around too aimlessly.

And each has, as you say, an ensemble cast where some members might die along the way. Spooks is an excellent example of this.

It's telling that the proponents of "let's make rpgs into storytelling" and "GMs are oppressive!" make the comparison not with ensemble movies but with lone hero movies. They're not comfortable with being part of an ensemble, they want to be the star. Which explains a lot, really.

Quote from: bouletI think fudging isn't seen as a huge issue around here. It doesn't have to be. But it would be fair to say that "it gets in the way" for a few players (whatever political branch of the hobby they align with). So if a game system manages to minimize the need for fudging (and there might be many more reasons for fudging that I didn't explore) maybe it manages to not "get in the way" of roleplaying?

In other words, "if only we had the One True Perfect System, everything would be okay." Which is all a bit Rodney King "why can't we all just get along?" It's true but it misses the point: we're human. We're imperfect and creative.

Because we're human and imperfect no system will ever cover every situation that comes up at a game table, the system will always be imperfect in some way. Because we're human and creative players will always come up with something the rules never thought of.

I come to this from the perspective of living in a Commonwealth country under common law. Until a couple of years ago my state's legislation didn't even have a definition of "murder" on the statute books. We just had common law - the series of judgments made by magistrates and higher courts over the years, combined with the judgment of the current magistrate, based on their personal experience and common sense.

We managed fine for 150 or so years without any thorough definition of "murder" - which is a pretty glaring omission from the "rules" of our society, I'd say. I mean we've got more rigorous definitions in our fucking parking laws. But we did alright nonetheless.

The common law system doesn't expect to ever reach a One True Perfect set of laws, it expects to always have to muddle along. This means that mistakes are made; but the system of appeals and so on usually sorts that out, and in general the system gets things more or less right. The system assumes humans are imperfect and does its best to make up for that.

So that's how I see a GM. They don't expect the rules to be complete and to cover every situation coming before them. They make judgments based on precedent - how they or some other GM ruled on similar situations in the past - experience and common sense. Individual decisions may be imperfect, but in general they get it right.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360937It's telling that the proponents of "let's make rpgs into storytelling" and "GMs are oppressive!" make the comparison not with ensemble movies but with lone hero movies. They're not comfortable with being part of an ensemble, they want to be the star. Which explains a lot, really.

Ouch, that's a pretty rough statement and worthy of a thousand-post flamewar all by itself.  However, I think you're probably right. It comes down to player motivation.  

Generally speaking, I think Immersive roleplayers prefer to mold a setting through the actions of a character, whereas Narrative roleplayers want to mold a setting through the actions of the player.

Quote from: jeff37923;360889None of the Players that I have met outside of the internet consider story creation to be the highest priority.

My Exalted and Gurps GMs both think story is the highest. They get irritable when dice get in the way of their ideas, and when they GM they do a lot of railroading, though the Exalted guy is better at hiding it.

Quote from: Cranewings;360998My Exalted and Gurps GMs both think story is the highest. They get irritable when dice get in the way of their ideas, and when they GM they do a lot of railroading, though the Exalted guy is better at hiding it.

Do you enjoy their games?

!i!

Quote from: Seanchai;360860I agree that the GM can certainly do that and many do. However, assuming by default that GMs as a whole will - particularly in a GM as God climate - is off base. Often times, such as the grenade example or one I previously posted about how fast bears can move, they don't give a damn what players want or think is "realistic."

Seanchai

In my (not inconsiderable) experience GM's that routinely fail to deliver what players want find themselves (quickly) without players.

Note that this may not look like a collaborative approach to GMing -- it's not unusual for groups to prefer a GM who makes quick, decisive calls they may or may not agree with to keep the game moving over one who spends a lot of time reaching consensus.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;360937An excellent point. I'd expand a bit on it by saying: If you were going to compare rpgs to any other medium, it'd be tv series. Each has its "season" where a particular bunch of events and ideas are dealt with, and we hope resolved - if this resolution and the process are interesting enough, we will afterwards say, "that was a story." But often it's not, it wandered around too aimlessly.

And each has, as you say, an ensemble cast where some members might die along the way. Spooks is an excellent example of this.

I've got to say, in those instances where I do compare RPGs to other media - and I try not to, because it's a really bad habit and no comparison is ever going to be completely accurate (there'll always be some techniques and ideas in one medium which just don't translate well into the other) - I use the TV series analogy. TV shows with ensemble casts - especially casts who investigate/pursue particular agendas together - are an absolute goldmine for game concepts. Star Trek, Firefly, Buffy, even The Wire or The Shield. (I'm of the firm opinion that "cop drama" is an ideal genre for modern-day campaigns with no supernatural or science-fictional or otherwise "weird" elements - I'm convinced that it's a niche is just waiting to explode, just like the zombie genre in RPGs exploded after All Flesh Must Be Eaten came out.)

It's not a perfect analogy of course. In the ensemble there's usually one or two "leads", and they are vastly less likely to die than the supporting characters (unless it's a season finale, in which case anything goes). But I think the analogy is good because of two reasons:

a) The ensemble cast, as has been pointed out.

b) The weekly nature of most TV shows. Most RPG campaigns (let's put one-shots aside, especially since in my experience players are much more happy about sudden PC death in one-shots) occur in an episodic format, with people meeting up at regular (or perhaps wildly irregular, depending on people's schedules) intervals, and many of the issues GMs need to think about when coming up with material for that format are issues with TV scriptwriters also have to think about. What is this week's episode going to be about? Are we going to end on a cliffhanger or wrap the episode's story up in one go? How much longer do we have until the end of the "season"? Once the "season" is over, are we getting renewed, or does it look like that's going to be the final end? Have we addressed this character's background feature yet? What's going on with this loose plot thread?

It's still a bit more of a "narrative" way of thinking I like. But it's at least one a  bit more grounded in the realities of how people actually experience RPG campaigns than analogies to movies.

Quote from: Seanchai;360860I agree that the GM can certainly do that and many do. However, assuming by default that GMs as a whole will - particularly in a GM as God climate - is off base. Often times, such as the grenade example or one I previously posted about how fast bears can move, they don't give a damn what players want or think is "realistic."

Seanchai

I've only encountered one GM in all the years I've been playing RPGs that I couldn't agree with. Not off-base at all from my perspective. Plus, I agree with the idea that jumping on a grenade should result in a casualty by default. The reasons for this are many and have already been expressed.

Quote from: CRkruegerPersonally I would be ok with using Immersive Roleplaying as the Immersive/Simulationist genre, Narrative Roleplaying as the narrative metagame genre, and Tactical Roleplaying as the mechanical metagame genre. Of course any RPG is going to include all three elements to some degree, but some games could easily be described as an IRPG, NRPG or TRPG.

We are going to MBTI the whole roleplay world?  Fine.  I'm in.
This does get to the meat of it, as we should all be happy when any game system does well.
It DOES also necessitate a reworking of the term 'Roleplay', however.  Becuase, as I've maundered over before, the term predates our gaming system and actually has meaning outside our little worlds.  That is one of the things that sticks in my craw; that this whole hobby was called an RPG in the first place for a reason.  It's changed, and the definitions need to be changed with it.  

Quote from: Cranewings

Quote from: Originally Posted by jeff37923None of the Players that I have met outside of the internet consider story creation to be the highest priority.

My Exalted and Gurps GMs both think story is the highest. They get irritable when dice get in the way of their ideas, and when they GM they do a lot of railroading, though the Exalted guy is better at hiding it.

For a very rules-heavy game, my groups looks at the story they are creating as an extremely high priority as well, coupling it with the roleplay as one event.  Players risk characters and sometimes lose them over this regularly.  Contrary to Crane, my game sems to involve an enjoyment of the dice taking the game slightly different places then the players expect, but still, the game-narrative is incredibly important.
 

Quote from: CRkruegerGenerally speaking, I think Immersive roleplayers prefer to mold a setting through the actions of a character, whereas Narrative roleplayers want to mold a setting through the actions of the player.

I'm grappling with this.  Player-first vs character-first makes sense.  But I don't think they want to mold the setting so much as the story.  The setting is the backdrop.

Quote from: LordVreeg;361078Players risk characters and sometimes lose them over this regularly.  Contrary to Crane, my game sems to involve an enjoyment of the dice taking the game slightly different places then the players expect, but still, the game-narrative is incredibly important.

This has been my experience too. Dice have always been part of the "story" in my games. What makes a game interesting, IMO, is that the player has an idea of where she wants the narrative to go and sometimes the dice enables this, sometimes it doesn't.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: -E.;361012In my (not inconsiderable) experience GM's that routinely fail to deliver what players want find themselves (quickly) without players.

One would hope, but there are other factors such as friendship and availability of space and other GMs that come into play. From my personal experience and what I've read on the Internet, it unusually isn't that quick if it happens at all...

Seanchai

Quote from: Ian Absentia;361011Do you enjoy their games?

!i!

Not especially. The gurps guy can't hold it together for very long anyway, and I quit the Exalted game.

I'm back in the Exalted group now, but a different guy is running Dark Heresy.

Quote from: Sigmund;361059I've only encountered one GM in all the years I've been playing RPGs that I couldn't agree with.

How many times have you disagreed with a call, however? How many times have you disagreed with a call only to have the GM capitulate?

Because that's the discussion - whether or not GMs will basically conform to the group's desires. It's great that you like most of your GMs, but that doesn't speak to the point.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;361115How many times have you disagreed with a call, however? How many times have you disagreed with a call only to have the GM capitulate?

Because that's the discussion - whether or not GMs will basically conform to the group's desires. It's great that you like most of your GMs, but that doesn't speak to the point.

Seanchai

This post makes me think you didn't actually read my post you quoted at all. While I do indeed like the people who served as my GMs for RPGing, that isn't what I said in my post. I said that I only encountered one with whom I couldn't reach an agreement. This means that most of them I very occasionally disagreed with on minor points but was able to reach an agreement with subsequently. Sometimes I gave more, sometimes they did. It's the way it works IMO. The one GM I didn't mesh with I didn't game with more than once.

Why do you place so much weight on whether or not a GM (or anyone else for that matter) will capitulate to your point of view? I seem to notice a trend with you not to give anyone so much as an inch in any disagreement you are involved in, even when you have been demonstrated to be inaccurate. Obviously I'm not going to search out every discussion you've had, and even if I did it would hardly demonstrate the entire picture of your relations with others, so I could be completely wrong. It's just an observation I have made.

Quote from: Seanchai;361107One would hope, but there are other factors such as friendship and availability of space and other GMs that come into play. From my personal experience and what I've read on the Internet, it unusually isn't that quick if it happens at all...

Seanchai

I'd bet at least some of those people who you hear complaining on the Internet are actually enjoying their games... or maybe playing them because they enjoy having something to complain about.

Judging real-life gaming based on Internet complaining is a bit like judging love based on Dear Abby columns.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;361163I'd bet at least some of those people who you hear complaining on the Internet are actually enjoying their games... or maybe playing them because they enjoy having something to complain about.

You said basically the same about me. But that wasn't the case and we had a coup and replaced the DM.

Seanchai

Quote from: Sigmund;361159I said that I only encountered one with whom I couldn't reach an agreement.

Sorry. That's not how I read that sentence.

But you didn't say if the agreements you reached were actual compromises or just the GM talking you into agreeing with his position.

Quote from: Sigmund;361159Why do you place so much weight on whether or not a GM (or anyone else for that matter) will capitulate to your point of view?

"The GM can be consulted, and can work with the players to arrive at an agreeable method of resolution based on the in-game circumstances, which is one of their jobs."

It makes it sounds as if the GM coming to some kind of agreement is more common than GMs ignoring the players and making the ruling he would have made had the players not objected.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;361210"The GM can be consulted, and can work with the players to arrive at an agreeable method of resolution based on the in-game circumstances, which is one of their jobs."

It makes it sounds as if the GM coming to some kind of agreement is more common than GMs ignoring the players and making the ruling he would have made had the players not objected.

Seanchai

In my experience that is more common. Note that not every ruling my GMs have made were comfortable or pleasant for me in the context of the game, but just because I didn't like 'em didn't mean I didn't agree with them.

Quote from: Seanchai;361207You said basically the same about me. But that wasn't the case and we had a coup and replaced the DM.

Seanchai

It's not clear to me how long it took you to vote the guy off the island, but the fact that you eventually did is the sort of GM-finding-himself-without-players scenario I was predicting.

In the earlier thread where you (sort of) described the game the only thing you were clear about was that you disliked the dude's DMing style and that you (and others) kept going back week after week.

I therefore concluded that however sub-par it was, it must have been better than whatever the alternatives were. I seem to recall you saying some of it was fun (so the guy wasn't *completely* failing to delivery), and I'd guess (but you didn't clearly say this) that maybe you had hopes that he'd improve and were willing to give him some runway to do so.

All of that sounds reasonable to me and I haven't made any guesses about whether or not you (specifically) enjoy having something to complain about... but I bet some people do.

I see posts (not yours) where people make their weekly roleplaying game sound like being waterboarded -- I find those /unconvincing./

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;361268It's not clear to me how long it took you to vote the guy off the island, but the fact that you eventually did is the sort of GM-finding-himself-without-players scenario I was predicting.

Three or four months. I suppose you could call that "quickly." I wouldn't, however. "Quick" to my mind would be a session or two.

Quote from: -E.;361268I therefore concluded that however sub-par it was, it must have been better than whatever the alternatives were.

People aren't rational actors. They don't always maximize benefits and minimize costs. Sometimes they do odd things they don't like for odd reasons.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;361354People aren't rational actors. They don't always maximize benefits and minimize costs. Sometimes they do odd things they don't like for odd reasons.

But, wouldn't that lead to "the opposite of roleplaying"?  You know, not acting rationally on any information that their characters might conceivably know?

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;361365But, wouldn't that lead to "the opposite of roleplaying"?  You know, not acting rationally on any information that their characters might conceivably know?

!i!

:rotfl:

Quote from: Ian Absentia;361365You know, not acting rationally on any information that their characters might conceivably know?

They might.

Players understanding the mechanics of a game and using said understanding of mechanics that pertain to realms of knowledge a particular character would be familiar with as the basis for that character's actions probably wouldn't fall into that category, however.

It would explain why someone would want to jump on a grenade if he thought the end was going to turn out alright.

Seanchai

Quote from: CRKrueger;359252Lately I've seen a lot of comments about simple, rules light systems and how they "get out of the way" of roleplaying.

I'll grant that games with extensive metagaming aspects, either gamist or narrativist can definitely get in the way of roleplaying, but most of the time people use that phrase, I think they're referring to the level of crunch.

Could someone give me some example of games that have systems that "get in the way" of roleplaying and how they get in the way?

D&D 3rd edition: feats, spells, abilities framing their applications extremely narrowly, tactical considerations that focus on the rules themselves, and not the actual situations they are supposed to depict, a mumbo-jumbo lingo that overrides suspension of disbelief.

D&D 4th edition: 3rd edition on uber-steroids. The rules ARE the game. Immersion and suspension of disbelief are incidental, side-effects of the group's gaming style, and not an actual focus of the game's original design.

Rules-heavy systems are usually culprits in this, in the way they more-or-less impose gamism, bean-counting and other metagame considerations as an important part of the table's play time, but some rules light system certainly may detract from role-playing as well. No examples come to my mind right at the moment, but I'm sure we can find some.

I guess that to have a rules system that doesn't become an obstacle to role-playing, it should not be overwhelming in terms of size and/or minutiae, allow for some extrapolation on the part of the group, and include relatively instinctive game mechanics that, once learned, just remain in the background and are later used without putting much thought into it.

But these considerations are subjective, in the sense that each gaming group will have different requirements, different ways to digest and handle this or that rule, and use them afterwards. Like pretty much anything else having to do with RPGs.

Glad to see you post gain Benoist! It's been a long time.

Quote from: boulet;361890Glad to see you post gain Benoist! It's been a long time.

Thanks! I'm glad to be back, I must say. :)

Quote from: Benoist;361726D&D 3rd edition: feats, spells, abilities framing their applications extremely narrowly, tactical considerations that focus on the rules themselves, and not the actual situations they are supposed to depict, a mumbo-jumbo lingo that overrides suspension of disbelief.

D&D 4th edition: 3rd edition on uber-steroids. The rules ARE the game. Immersion and suspension of disbelief are incidental, side-effects of the group's gaming style, and not an actual focus of the game's original design.

Rules-heavy systems are usually culprits in this, in the way they more-or-less impose gamism, bean-counting and other metagame considerations as an important part of the table's play time, but some rules light system certainly may detract from role-playing as well. No examples come to my mind right at the moment, but I'm sure we can find some.

I guess that to have a rules system that doesn't become an obstacle to role-playing, it should not be overwhelming in terms of size and/or minutiae, allow for some extrapolation on the part of the group, and include relatively instinctive game mechanics that, once learned, just remain in the background and are later used without putting much thought into it.

But these considerations are subjective, in the sense that each gaming group will have different requirements, different ways to digest and handle this or that rule, and use them afterwards. Like pretty much anything else having to do with RPGs.

I have a different take on some of this, though not necessarily contradictory.

1) Roleplaying, as a term, existed before our games did.  The term we use came into being because people were playing roles but with certain rules built to set a mood/create a reality around the role play.  I make this comment to specifically differentiate it from wargaming/boardgames, due to the focus of the OP.  RPGs took some of the simulationist ideas from wargaming/boardgames, but instead of narrow-scope, close-ended battles with victory conditions (as large as Axis and Allies or as small as Melee), the RPG allowed the creation of a protagonist (or a group of them) through a set of adventures.  As this matured and developed, it quickly evolved into the campaign ideal, which placed all the adventures in the same setting.  The rules of the game codified the physics behind the roleplay world, the setting, the stage of the roleplay world, but the aformentioned developmental arc from wargame to string of combats to string of adventures to campaigns(abbreviated, I admit), was part of an undirected, unconsious movement to enhance the roleplaying experience.

2) Roleplaying, as it is used by our hobby of Rolepelaying Games, is tied to the concept of immersion.  Hence, the above development of a more rounded/complete experience can be seen as steps to create a deeper immersion.  By creating a larger stage and a more multi-dimensional experience, the immersion was made more complete.  One can imagine the first steps being a few PC's staying in character while wanting to spend the treasure they had gotten from one of the earliest adventures.  And our early GM scrambling to keep up, decides to actually roleplay the shopkeepers...and a few years later, the GM is scrambling to create rules for keeps and holdings, then churches, and parishes, and ranks in the Thieve's Guilds...
These rules were all created to allow the players more dimensions to grow their characters.  Tithing rules in Ad&d certaibly had no effect on the combat or spellcasting, they were rules created in the infancy of the games to enhance the roleplay (and also balance, but that's another conversation).

3) Overdone rules can bog down a game, and decrease the intuitive nature of a game, it's true. However, the point I am leading up to (based on the OP) is that it is not just complexity that derails roleplay, it is a lack of balance in the rules.  It is certainly not complexity that hobbles the roleplaying aspects of the original melee, which is more of a boardgame, it is that the game has rules only in one dimension, combat.  
The same can be true is games that have 90% of their rules based around a single dimension (combat, magic, movement) but that give only a nod to the other aspects of play and development.  
I mean no disrespect to D&D, but I left the game before 2E because I wanted rules that had MORE balance.  Some of the rulesets I have used that have created the best roleplaying were more rules-heavy, they were just more even and created a more consistent depth of rules.
So my contention is that while poorly designed, cumbersome rulesets can bog down any game, unbalanced rulesets that have 90% of the rules in what should be 10-20% of the roleplaying game experience create games that are more similar to the 1 dimensional ancestors, wargames and boardgames.

Indeed your comments aren't contradictory to my own, Vreeg.
I actually agree with most of what you said.

The little bit that I find interesting, because it doesn't relate to my own experience, is the claim that a lack of balance in the rules (with for instance a 90 % focus on combat) bogs down the game, destroys its instinctive nature and/or becomes an obstacle to the game's immersion.

I can certainly see it as true for some (many) gamers out there. I've seen it happen. After all, many of my French gamer friends don't like D&D to this day precisely for this reason - "it's only about combats, it doesn't even have [insert rule of some other game here]", and so on, so forth.

If the game is instinctive in its rules, it's in part to allow the players of the game to come up with resolution mechanics on the fly, as they play. This contradicts your point to some extent, in the sense that if few areas are covered in the rules, it is also welcome, by the rules' very design, to expand on them in areas covered by the gaming group through their campaign and adventures.

Second, though I can see how D&D may be considered a culprit in this, I think that 3rd edition was a great step forward for the game in this regard, with the introduction of a non-optional, fully integrated Skills system, first, and with the addition of the Concept of Feats, which can be declined in any number of non-combat ways.

4th Edition, ironically, was a step backwards in this regard, because it narrows the focus of the game on a very specific game experience. I guess it's a good example of my point earlier: that rules-heavy doesn't necessarily mean "more of an obstacle to role-playing". I'd argue that 3rd ed is more rules-heavy, but less of a potential obstacle to role-playing, than 4e is.

Quote from: BenoistThe little bit that I find interesting, because it doesn't relate to my own experience, is the claim that a lack of balance in the rules (with for instance a 90 % focus on combat) bogs down the game, destroys its instinctive nature and/or becomes an obstacle to the game's immersion.

Well, I never said that, my friend.  
I did pack way too much into some of those sentences, as I am writing this while doing some consulting.  I said complexity and overdone rules can bog down a game, since I don't think that balance is always or only the issue.  Bad rules can screw things up all by themselves...;)

I do say, however, that lack of balance is antithetical to roleplaying and immersion, since the OP asked about what gets in the way of Roleplaying.

Quote from: Benoist;361940I'd argue that 3rd ed is more rules-heavy, but less of a potential obstacle to role-playing, than 4e is.

I would argue the opposite, citing that the ultimate obstacle a game can create for role-playing  is having a rule set that is so complex that it keeps me from ever taking it to the table. I bought 3.0 out of curiosity, after a break from RPGs (as did a couple of my friends); not only did I never play the game, it turned me off to RPGs in general for another couple of years. For me, seeing 3.0 was an experience similar to the groundhog seeing his own shadow. With 4e we were playing inside of week. I'm not using it now, but I like it far more 3.x, and I'd play it again. It's fun. I'm more likely to play 1e than I am to play 3.x, and I fucking hate 1e with hateful fucking hate.

Quote from: Aos;361962I would argue the opposite, citing that the ultimate obstacle a game can create for role-playing  is having a rule set that is so complex that it keeps me from ever taking it to the table. I bought 3.0 out of curiosity, after a break from RPGs (as did a couple of my friends); not only did I never play the game, it turned me off to RPGs in general for another couple of years. For me, seeing 3.0 was an experience similar to the groundhog seeing his own shadow. With 4e we were playing inside of week. I'm not using it now, but I like it far more 3.x, and I'd play it again. It's fun. I'm more likely to play 1e than I am to play 3.x, and I fucking hate 1e with hateful fucking hate.

From that point of view (a rules set so disheartening that you wouldn't even bring it to the table to begin with), you sure can make that claim. I'm sure your experience isn't isolated either.

I, however, do believe that many players didn't feel that way about the game, in the sense that its mechanical aspects provided them with many tools to build pretty much whatever they wanted out of it. The success of 3e itself and the countless OGL spinoffs and houserules that sprang to life from it are proof of that, IMO.

4e, however, provides a much more focused game play. What with the skills taken off the game, the tactical movement and effects the mechanics focus on, etc. I'm not saying that 4e can't be satisfying to some people: it very obviously is. For the record, I'm not making the stupid claim that it wouldn't be a role-playing game either. What I'm saying is that I believe 4e can be more detrimental to role-playing than 3e is. Experiences do vary, of course.

Also for the record, I'm a huge fan of 1e. I place 1e and 0e on the same pedestal of D&D role-playing, personally, though I would use these systems with different groups and inclinations. They are not built with the same people in mind, IMO. Next I would place 3e, with its design as a gigantic (though oft intimidating) unified toolbox helping you build pretty much anything you want without rebuilding the system from the ground up. Next on my preference list would be 2e, which is mechanically inferior to its parent, 1e, and is just an example of weak, diluted design in all respects, IMO. I would place 4e dead last, as it doesn't even fit my idea of what D&D is - it's not even weak design, IMO, but wrong design, plain and simple.

Quote from: VreegWell, I never said that, my friend.
I did pack way too much into some of those sentences, as I am writing this while doing some consulting. I said complexity and overdone rules can bog down a game, since I don't think that balance is always or only the issue. Bad rules can screw things up all by themselves...

I do say, however, that lack of balance is antithetical to roleplaying and immersion, since the OP asked about what gets in the way of Roleplaying.

I suspected something of a misunderstanding on my part. So what you're saying is that the way a system would focus solely on this or that area of design may be detrimental to role-playing. Correct?

Quote from: Benoist;361966Also for the record, I'm a huge fan of 1e. I place 1e and 0e on the same pedestal of D&D role-playing, personally, though I would use these systems with different groups and inclinations. They are not built with the same people in mind, IMO. Next I would place 3e, with its design as a gigantic (though oft intimidating) unified toolbox helping you build pretty much anything you want without rebuilding the system from the ground up. Next on my preference list would be 2e, which is inferior in every mechanical respect to its parent, 1e, in my opinion, and is just weak in all respects, IMO. I would place 4e dead last, as it doesn't even fit my idea of what D&D is.

1e hits my sour spot between complexity and simplicity, and I don't feel that the additional complexity adds to the game for me. That and I have some anti-nostalgia regarding it.
As for what is or isn't D&D, well that's just something I don't really care about and never have.

Quote from: Aos;3619691e hits my sour spot between complexity and simplicity, and I don't feel that the additional complexity adds to the game for me. That and I have some anti-nostalgia regarding it.
As for what is or isn't D&D, well that's just something I don't really care about and never have.

All completely valid ways of looking at it. I understand.

Update your blog, fool- not that I can talk.

Quote from: Aos;361972Update your blog, fool- not that I can talk.

Christ. I need to.