Quote from: jhkim;623743Right.  "D&D Battles" or "Dungeon Wars" - but it isn't a board game - it is exactly the same game as D&D4 released.  I take it you would have been fine with this.  

Out of curiosity, what if WotC created "D&D Battles" - and also stopped supporting D&D3.5e themselves and instead negotiated a deal with Paizo for Paizo to handle the line?  So this would be almost exactly the same situation we have now, except that WotC would be getting a share of the Pathfinder/D&D3.75e profits.  

Would that also be fine?

You seem to be making the mistake that I give two shits about the name D&D or the brand owned by anyone.  

Let me spell it out.
1. Roleplaying is an act done from an IC POV.  To claim otherwise is redefining the term.
2.  I don't give a fuck what goes through your mind when you do whatever it is you, Jib, or Chaos call Roleplaying. Chaos I know is not the same as me, you may be the same, but I don't care, because if we play a game that hasn't been hyper focused, we can both do our thing at the same time.
3. I want a game that calls itself an RPG to actually allow me to play the game from an IC POV.  Not force, not exclusively require, but simply ALLOW.
4. If the game cannot do that, then it's not an RPG, because it has sacrificed the IC POV for something, which experience and history tells me is for wargame reasons or Storygame reasons, in which case the game should advertise that fact before I purchase it.
5. Dungeon World does not allow me to exercise all, or even most core mechanical decisions from an IC POV, neither does 4e.  Therefore they are hybrids and would be better off as an adjunct to RPGs instead of (as 4e was) meant to be a replacement for a game that for 20 years allowed IC POV.

We good now?  I don't care if Donald Trump owns the fucking brand, as long as he puts out an RPG that actually allows me to play a role.  And Yes, if an IP for 20 years has put out incoherent RPGs that allow it to be played IC as well as any other damn way, leave it the fuck alone and do your hybrid game that prevents IC as a second game under the IP umbrella.

Quote from: jibbajibba;623739I will leave 3 because I agree with you but was told that is was on teh edge of narativist.

points 1 and 2 both create NPCs. The fact that the NPC was always there but we didn't detail them is exactly the same thing story games say when you spend a plot point to create a contact that knows the big bad or to find a notepad left by the evil henchman that has a clue tot eh location of the secret base. Both examples assume that the thing was always there just not previously detailed referenced.

Points 1 and 2 create relationships with the NPCs but there's no reason why they necessarily create the NPCs themselves.

In both cases, the GM might have dreamed up (to take the example of contacts in the police) some police officer NPCs and think "aha, this player using that skill/paying those background points gives me an opportunity to use this NPC". If the GM hasn't dreamed up any police NPCs, then sure, discovering that the PCs have a police NPC contact requires the GM to dream up a police NPC, but guess what? So does having the PCs walk into a police station. If you're running a modern day game it's a given that the police exist and there are people who work in the police, so you're not "creating"  any NPCs when you say "By the way, my character knows a policeman", you are at most creating a relationship with this NPC whose existence wasn't spelled out but could happily be assumed in any modern-day game.

Also, if players aren't allowed to make decisions when generating their character background which imply the existence of NPCs the GM needs to create (or have the players create for them), then you can say goodbye to PCs having, say, a functional interaction with their parents where they visit them every once in a while or a spouse or a job or a place in society at all when they are first created, because all of those are things which imply the existence of NPCs and oooooh, we're not allowed to do that, it's NARRATIVE!. The implication here is that in a traditional non-narrative RPG PCs essentially begin the game as social blank slates with no meaningful connections to anyone with the possible exception of other PCs. In some genres, that might even work, but in anything vaguely realistic it's nutty.

Quote from: jibbajibba;623741If I can spend a background point to add a contact or a henchmen or a pet or vast wealth I am changing the game world outside my character.

Well, let's split the hair. (Because I had to when implementing a similar mechanic in my own little omni-genre action-movie RPG.)

If the player can create an actual NPC — description, personality, history and all — then it's narrativistic. If the GM has little influence (or veto), it's very narrativistic. If there is no GM, it's probably a storygame.

If the player can (in my game and, for example, Torg) play a Contact card and the GM can say "none available here, sorry", or creates the contact himself (using someone he already had in mind or winging it), it's an RPG.

The question is: who is running the world? A GM who is the NPC-maker and -herder? Or are the players running the world, altering it to suit?

The first is an RPG, the second simming.

That's a meaningful distinction, applied in a very narrow situation.

Quote from: jibbajibba;623741What I have been saying from the start is that 90% of RPGs are hybrids so the distinction is moot.

This I disagree with, for previously stated reasons.

Quote from: jibbajibba;623742I don't like Troupe play. I don't want to be incontrol of multiple characters if I am a player at the table.

I agree, I don't like it either. I'm an inveterate power-gamer, but even so controlling an NPC takes time away from me playing my character.

I am a huge proponent of in character RP, but I really dont think you can reduce or limit RPGs to that. This is starting to get into roll play versus role play in way. While I do think the most rewarding way to play and rpg is first person immerssion, I dont think it ceases to be an RPG when people use out of character mechanics, take a sightly 3rd person perspective or do something like control a few NPCs. Clearly there is a difference between Fiasco and D&D (at a certain point you are playing something else), but I think the way the distinction is being drawn here excises a lot of rpgs from the hobby (and doesn't allow for stuff like genre emulation within it).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;623775I am a huge proponent of in character RP, but I really dont think you can reduce or limit RPGs to that.

Yeah, demanding that RPG designs be DOCTRINALLY CORRECT, which is where I see Warpig's position going, is basically veering away from a Big Tent philosophy in precisely the same way that the Forge did. That, in fact, is the basic problem with D&D 4E: it turned D&D from a Big Tent game where you could run it in a range of different ways (from CharOp heavy grid combat tactical RPG to a very AD&Dish mode) and made it a narrowly focused game where if you weren't interested in the tactical grid combat aspects of the game, you were shit out of luck.

I am somewhat more sympathetic to CRKrueger's position that a good game should be able to be happily played in multiple different ways, even if I don't agree with his personal definition of pure RPGs. I think I could happily run a game with Fate Points involved, for instance, and include Krueger as one of the players because in most such games you don't have to use the Fate Point mechanic yourself if you prefer decision-making from a purely IC stance, and as I understand his argument Krueger doesn't mind how the other people around the table choose to play the game so long as they're happy to let him play the game his way. The idea that you should ideally be able to play an RPG the way you want to play it without doing a root-and-branch rework of the rules, to my mind, is basically a restatement of the Big Tent philosophy.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;623773I agree, I don't like it either. I'm an inveterate power-gamer, but even so controlling an NPC takes time away from me playing my character.

What about Ars Magica where a single player may have multiple PCs (a wizard, a companion, and one or more grogs)?

[disclaimer]This post is entirely meant to be humorous, though I find the setting idea intriguing, its not meant to be an argument in any direction, so much as a funny demented look at some of the more extreme ideas going on in the thread[/disclaimer]

Ok, so here is the setting: You have sprung from nothing, you currently have no stats but a pool of points. You know enough about the world to not get lost, but not much beyond that.

Luckily, you have an ability to help you survive your newfound existence: a limited and controlled way of warping reality. As you attempt tasks, you can use your pool of points to imprint abilities onto yourself as needed. You can choose later to let some abilities fade, but they fade slowly and you don't get the points back until they do.

Your goal is to try and find out what you are, but you also have a bizarre urge to seek out adventure, cause drama, and experience the full gamut of human emotion.

Set the whole thing up with narrative mechanics to emulate reality warping. Hey, that guy is my old friend so and so, make your bid/roll/whatever, and boom, that is exactly who it is. What happened to his old life? Who knows.

I have now created the most pure RPG possible: You can not make any decision out of character. You can't even create NPCs or situations in your backstory, as you have none. Every narrative mechanic you use emulates your reality warping powers and/or your urge to cause drama and/or experience emotion.

Quote from: Warthur;623778I am somewhat more sympathetic to CRKrueger's position that a good game should be able to be happily played in multiple different ways, even if I don't agree with his personal definition of pure RPGs. .

And just to be clear, I am not disagreeing with CRKrueger's call for truth in marketing or having helpful labels and distinctions (my point was more about duviding too sharply between rpgs and non-rpgs on the issue of in-character versus out-of-character). Personally I do think its helpful for games that are ore narratively oriented to be clear about their intentions because a lot of players dislike that stuff (for example the Hero Quest intro by laws is exactly what a game should do, because anyone going into that expecting a traditional approach is going to be frustrated, and anyone open to Law's way of doing things is possibly going to miss what he is aiming for and play it in another way, unless he is explicit). I think terms like narrative mechanics and narrative rpgs are useful here because they do indicate something important about a game.

Inalso get where people who are trying to make a concrete distinction around icpov are coming from because I have encountered folks who adamantly oppose it and will argue that immersion, first person rp, etc are illussionary, which is enormously frustrating and does make you feel a bit under siege.

 But a lot of out of character mehanics are not narrative at all. Some are more about simulating genre physics than creating a story (and that itself is an importnt distinction). While I don't want or expect cinematic mechanics in an immerssive fantasy rpg like D&D, if I am playing something like James Bond, a mechanic like a luck point or mook npcs help simulate the James Bond physics, and I am open to playing that. But even though that mght appeal to me, I would quickly lose interest if there were mechanics in there that suddenly had me narrating backstory, or narrating sections of the game. And just because cinematic mechanics might work in james bond, that doesn't mean they will work in every other game (i see a lot of people trying to cram genre emulation in non-or multi-genre games-for example).

Quote from: Warthur;623779What about Ars Magica where a single player may have multiple PCs (a wizard, a companion, and one or more grogs)?

In the older edition of Ars Magica I have, it is explained that in troupe play you pick a character for that you play for that session. Not as you play multiple character at once. Sometime it can be just for an encounter.

It comes off as an elaborate version of the role of henchmen and hirelings from D&D. At least in the first edition book I have.

Quote from: Warthur;623778Yeah, demanding that RPG designs be DOCTRINALLY CORRECT, which is where I see Warpig's position going

It's not. He asked (in essence) where the line between roleplaying and simming was, and that's the question I was answering.

I have said, and continue to say, and will continue to say, that there are RPG-sim hybrids, and that such are counted as RPG's. (I said it in this very thread, several times.)

If clearly defining the difference between narrativist and roleplaying mechanics counts as exiling hybrids from the hobby altogether... well, if you believe that, then so be it. I disagree.

Quote from: Warthur;623778I am somewhat more sympathetic to CRKrueger's position that a good game should be able to be happily played in multiple different ways,

I happen to agree with that as well.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;623788It's not. He asked (in essence) where the line between roleplaying and simming was, and that's the question I was answering.

I have said, and continue to say, and will continue to say, that there are RPG-sim hybrids, and that such are counted as RPG's.

If defining such mechanics counts as exiling hybrids from the hobby altogether... well, if you believe that, then so be it. I disagree.

I think the two activities as you have defined them are so deeply intertwined, and that intertwining is so pervasive, that you'll genuinely struggle to find pure games of either type.

On top of that, the "simming" subculture is, as far as I can tell, utterly disinterested in game mechanics of any sort in the first place so invoking simming to describe story games, narrative mechanics, and Fate Points seems to me to be spectacularly missing the point both of the game mechanics you're describing and the nature of the simming hobby itself.

Quote from: Warthur;623790I think the two activities as you have defined them are so deeply intertwined, and that intertwining is so pervasive, that you'll genuinely struggle to find pure games of either type.

I wasn't defining games, I was defining one individual mechanic. As you yourself did.

So why is it acceptable when you do it, but when I do it I'm on a crusade for doctrinal purity, hell-bent on banishing entire systems from the hobby to a far hinterland, where they shall never be played again?

That seems like a less than reasonable position.

Can someone give me some background here on "Simming". This is a new use of the term to me and I think I am a little unsure of what people mean by it here.

Quote from: Warthur;623779What about Ars Magica where a single player may have multiple PCs (a wizard, a companion, and one or more grogs)?

1.) Just to be clear, I was stating my own preferences, what I like in a game, not attempting an RPG Inquisition to burn all game books which contain Henchmen-like mechanics. (This seems to be a point of confusion, so clarity is obviously required.)

2.) For my personal preferences, I like playing one character at a time, and not switching. If Ars is played like Estar describes (and the edition of Ars I own says the same thing, IIRC) then I'd be cool with it. (I liked Dark Sun's character tree, for instance.) If it involves playing three or more characters simultaneously, I wouldn't enjoy it.

Why? because I like to have some characterization with my characters, and as a player I'm concentrating on the character I'm interested in. The characterization of the Henchmen would fall by the wayside, reducing them to (in essence) a piece of gear. I don't like that, it seems powergamey.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;623793Can someone give me some background here on "Simming". This is a new use of the term to me and I think I am a little unsure of what people mean by it here.

Simming is a new term that has come to refer to collaborative fiction writing in an online environment, originally in a play-by-post setting. You are a Narrator, sharing responsibility for an ongoing story with other Narrators, each of which contribute narration in turn.

Typically (though not always) it is either rules free or very light on rules. Obviously, it can involve each participant having ownership of their own character, but it doesn't have to.

Simming is thus the Storygame equivalent of "roleplaying". (Or rather, many Storygame processes are indistinguishable from simming.) Of course, there exist sim-RPG hybrids. In fact all Storygames could be considered simming/roleplaying hybrids, because of the introduction of rules to an essentially freeform activity.

Simming is a term used in the collaborative fiction community, but not in roleplaying circles because even people who view roleplaying as collaborative fiction writing approach it from a mechanical perspective, and aren't typically conversant with the very large simming community and their techniques (which exist largely in isolation from RPG's).

There's a vast potential for improving Storygames, were they to investigate and adapt the techniques of simmers. (RPG rules are not the best structures to build shared narrative creation around.)

Simming isn't roleplaying. It isn't better or worse than roleplaying, but it isn't the same thing.