Quote from: CRKrueger;621355If I wanted to, I could play WFRP1 without Fate points or James Bond without Hero points, or Savage World without Bennies or Fate without Aspects.  The core mechanics of task resolution can be completely non-metagame.

I cannot do that with, for example, Technoir or Dungeon World.  The core mechanics are designed in such a way that I must engage the OOC systems.  Remember, "System Matters" for these designers, their systems are specifically designed to deliver a metagame experience for the purposes of narrative control.

When the core mechanics of resolution force an OOC point of view, it's very hard to classify it in the same category as a game that allows the core mechanics to be engaged from an IC point of view.

Why do you need to classify it?  Because for 30 years when I buy an RPG I can assume I get a game that allows me to roleplay IC.  A new type of game that requires me to be OOC for reasons other then roleplaying should at least be marketed as a different form of RPG.

Like I say reading a review of the game is a better indicator than an arbitarty label though?

Quote from: jibbajibba;621350But you are focusing on the minutia of the argument rather than the main point.
There are games where 'hero point' like mechanics can have narative like effects. It doesn't matter if you call them meta-game (which I actually prefer to use for gamey stuff like having understand what feat 'A' does but no matter) or narative. the game doesn't have to be narativist for a rule to be a 'story' rule. The intent of the rule doesn't matter its the implementation that matters.
The point is that all games sit on a matrix of these elements. What is the real point of drawing rigid lines to separate the flavours of 'rpgs' what does it by for the wider hobby?

Because this idea that there's some spectrum between RPG and Storygame is really a red herring; as I've said before, there's a clear distinction between the two where what the mechanics enable and focus on as the primary activity of play is what matters. Everything else is just matters of quality (how well it enables that focus) and taste (how much I like how it enables that focus). But you can't have a game where the primary point is both to faithfully portray a character AND to tell a story, because they're uniquely distinct things. One of those things has primacy over the other, and therefore is the point of play.

That means that, regardless of mechanics used, games are either promising "Being James Bond" or "Telling a story about James Bond" but aren't doing both. Again, we can debate how WELL they deliver on that promise and if we LIKE how they deliver on that promise, but they're only delivering on one of them as the primary goal.

Any game that professes to do both will, in practice, come down hard on one side or the other, because you can't have two different focii of play that can come into opposition without some means to determine if they do come into opposition, which one will have primacy. If portraying the character has primacy over "the story", it's an RPG, and if telling a "good" story has primacy over "being the character", it's a story game.

This is a real distinction, like the one between RPGs and Wargames is a real distinction. Wargaming and roleplaying are distinct, albeit related, hobbies. Same with RPGs and Storygames.

The value of this distinction is so that when someone is looking for a gaming group to join, they will have a higher instance of successful games because they won't show up to play "RPGs" and have someone pull out Fiasco instead, when they were expecting something akin to D&D. Or vice-versa. It's a valuable distinction to make, and categorization does not imply judgment on quality or enjoyability of the game. It's just attempting to provide more accuracy and usefulness of definitions to facilitate everyone finding the game they enjoy most. Surely that's a good thing?

Quote from: jibbajibba;621357Like I say reading a review of the game is a better indicator than an arbitarty label though?

Why not eliminate categories across the board? Lets just put all music into one big bin, rather than sorting by genre. Same with novels. Why make a distinction between Science Fiction and, say, Romance? Have people just do independent research on each and every item without any system of classification whatsoever to help pre-sort items by type.

Wouldn't that be grand?

Quote from: jibbajibba;621352Hero points , bennies etc etc are a fine mechanic that have exactly the specified intent. They enable a 'hero' to sit inside a realistic physics driven game engine and on occassion step out of that engine to do heroic 'unrealistic' things.

No, they allow the *player* to pull the character out of whatever physics engine he's operating in to do whatever the *player* wishes when the *players* wants to.

A far better solution is to have a physics engine that already accounts for the hero without such meta-game excuses. That way the character is always true to himself and to his world.

Quote from: CRKrueger;621355If I wanted to, I could play WFRP1 without Fate points or James Bond without Hero points, or Savage World without Bennies or Fate without Aspects.

You could try, but the result would be a different game and likely in the long term a very unsuccessful one. Those mechanics are patches for failures of the core mechanics. So in time the campaign will simply break, or at best fail to model what they were originally designed to model.

Quote from: jibbajibba;621356But because those lines are at best formulaic at at worst arbitary they really don't tell us exactly what a game is like.

I beg to differ. They tell me exactly what the game is like. I know this from the personal experience and wasted time that comes from attempting a campaign while ignoring those very lines.

A game mechanic when used will always have the impact that such a mechanic has. Even if the person is willfully trying to blind themselves to that fact.


Game reviews on the other hand are so biased as to be worthless. The only value is in identifying the bias so that you can get some worthwhile information. For example, anything Pundit likes- I know I won't- so I can dismiss such a game.

Quote from: Benoist;621354No. Enough with the evasion. Enough with the mixing up everything trying to wiggle your way out of you being fucking wrong. I addressed your main point, which is why I quoted EXACTLY and JUST what you said was your ACTUAL point, that hero points "were used in james bond to make narrative alterations." So shut the fuck up and listen: these mechanics are NOT making "narrative alterations" because there's no narrative to modify. 007 is not a narrative game.

It's a role playing game, and the goal of the mechanic is genre emulation. Period.

Got it? Stop evading the subject.

So I played the Shit out of James Bond for about 5 years and we used Hero points to make narative changes all the FUCKING TIME.
So I am talking about a game I have played sixteen ways from Sunday. I am talking about my direct experience of the game.

My main point is that plenty of traditional RPGs have narative style mechanics. James Bond was merely the example that came up and one I am very familar with.  So first off don't tell me what my argument is I know what it is and second off why don't you try to define a limit of the degree of narative mechanics that you will allow in a game before it becomes a story game, in your opinion? DR Who ? Ars Magica? Dungeon world? Marvel Heroic Roleplaying ? where is your line.... for me these are all RPGs some might be RPGs I don't fancy playing but meh that's my choice not a rule I need to apply to the whole world to fit it into my version of reality.

Quote from: gleichman;621366I beg to differ. They tell me exactly what the game is like. I know this from the personal experience and wasted time that comes from attempting a campaign while ignoring those very lines.

A game mechanic when used will always have the impact that such a mechanic has. Even if the person is willfully trying to blind themselves to that fact.

but those are lines drawn by you from direct experience. Not lines drawn by the OFFICIAL STORYGAME, ROLEPLAYING GAME OR BOARDGAME COMMITTEE.
so you need to decide for each game does this game fit my tastes? too much narative control? too many combat rules? not enough character options? Wrong genre?

Becuase you won't be the one to divide games into these categories you will find loads of corner cases that won't fit your opinion of where to draw the lines, so why draw the lines.

I played James Bond 007 without Hero Points and in a very gritty fashion. Other modifications were included, like skills related to seduction and the like being out, and this resulted in a game of Special Ops or commandos, if you will. It clearly was a different game, to me. I think that Hero Points participate to the genre emulation of James Bond.

Now, "physics engine" extremists, like Gleichman, will have a huge problem with that, obviously. Yet other people who are not narrativists, but on the contrary want to immerse in the world of James Bond, will find that metagame mechanic (because it is metagame, clearly) useful for that purpose, while others will have a problem with that. That's where different people find different mechanics useful or impeding their role playing process.

This is possibly why the mechanic requires GM approval to use (as opposed to the basic uses of Hero Points, again), and why the amount of Hero Points awarded is entirely up to GM adjudication, with spelled out guidelines and the clear notion that less or more HPs in the game can modify its feel dramatically. My experience mentioned above agrees with that notion.

I don't know about anyone else, but I am getting really tired of this debate. Distinctions are certainly useful things but the militancy on this subject is way beyond my taste.and I really think it is starting to do more harm than good.

If your actual intention was to market to people who liked the type of game you were selling, you would welcome classification and labeling to make sure people who were looking for your product could find it.  Just like most products sold on the planet.

If however, your agenda is actually replacing the primary paradigm using a label with your paradigm because you think the primary paradigm is inferior and actually harmful, then you wouldn't want such classification, you would fight it as long and hard as possible.

Replacing the primary "simulationist" paradigm in RPGs with the "narrativist" paradigm was Edward's purpose in the Forge remember.

Now JKim can come on and tell me designer by designer who was a big supporter of Ron and who was not and that's fine, but whether you argued with Ron on the Forge or not, I don't see many narrative games attempting to market their products specifically to people that like them except through specific Forge lingo (like I pointed out with Technoir) that to non-Forgists could just as easily describe a traditional RPG if you don't know what to look for.

If it looks like a memetic war, acts like a memetic war, and had its start on a site defining a memetic war, is it a memetic war?

For some reason, only the people that don't mind narrative mechanics at all are the ones saying "No". Why is that?

Quote from: jibbajibba;621367So I played the Shit out of James Bond for about 5 years and we used Hero points to make narative changes all the FUCKING TIME.

Just because YOU construe the game as "a narrative" doesn't mean the game does, and doesn't mean that the zillions of other players who did play it, including me, would agree with that notion. Get the fuck over yourself.

Quote from: gleichman;621362No, they allow the *player* to pull the character out of whatever physics engine he's operating in to do whatever the *player* wishes when the *players* wants to.

A far better solution is to have a physics engine that already accounts for the hero without such meta-game excuses. That way the character is always true to himself and to his world.

again i disagree.
If the Hero has a separate rule subsystem the game becomes overly burdened and complex.
Also the genres themselves, james bond, supers, pulp, are in and of themselves inconsistent. The Hero can only do the exceptional thing at certain times not consistently, A hero point system mimics this ideally.
In the words of Roger Rabbit 'I could only do it when it was funny'.

Quote from: Benoist;621373Just because YOU construe the game as "a narrative" doesn't mean the game does, and doesn't mean that the zillions of other players who did play it, including me, would agree with that notion. Get the fuck over yourself.

DUDE... you are the one telling me I am havign badwrongfun. I and just telling you how I played a game for Years and years.
and again I don't care if its a story or a plot or just a narative that develops organically through play. The point is that these mechanics are used to do stuff that effects that introduce new NPCS, find a harpoon gun, etc etc.
I don't care about the why which is where you are fixated. I care about what actually happens at the game table.

Quote from: jibbajibba;621369but those are lines drawn by you from direct experience. Not lines drawn by the OFFICIAL STORYGAME, ROLEPLAYING GAME OR BOARDGAME COMMITTEE.

The line is draw by the presence or absence of specific types of mechanics. Nothing could be more objective or more clear.

Except we live in a world that denies object truth and subs in illusion and self-deception. But on the bright side, it's very easy to tell who's fallen for that trap. They call D&D HP realistic and meta-game patches for badly designed rules 'genre emulation'. They can be ignored as the waste of human thought they are.