First off, you raise some good points and I appreciate your reply.

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 25, 2023, 09:11:11 AM
You've mentioned this to me during similar discussions in the past, and TBH this approach to game design tends to set off the autist in me because it tends to lead to too many disparities and inconsistencies in terms of power and usefulness of different components, like class, race, etc. And while I agree about setting emulation I don't like disparate power between characters unless they "pay" for it somehow.

The question I had to face what is "disparate power" between characters. I get where you coming from but after two decades of working with systems like GURPS and Hero System, it became obvious that "points" are not a universal yardstick and that despite the equal number of points "disparate power" existed between characters.

But I also observed the problem wasn't a design flaw. But with RPG campaigns circumstances varied so much that what the "best" for one situation, is not relevant for another. If a campaign is only about kicking down doors, killing monsters, and killing shit. Then yes there would be a narrow range of "best" options with a given system.

But my campaigns were about the players trashing the setting in whatever manner they feel is interesting. So as a result, I have to referee a wide variety of situations with the system I use.

But what I have noticed is that because I used the same setting regardless of the system, elements of my setting have a natural balance of their own. Paladins have magical powers on top of being highly trained fighters making them far more effective in combat and supernatural situation than a regular fighter with the same amount of life experience. However, Paladins in the Majestic Wilderlands also are not free agents like regular fighters. They are divine champions of a specific deity with all the complications that accompany that.

Now it can argue that systems like GURPS handle that with disadvantages and similar mechanics so there is a cost.  True but the true cost varies so much across campaigns and circumstances that I found it to be virtually useless. It is one thing to be a Paladin of Mitra in a realm where the dominant cultures worship Mitra, and another where the dominant cultures worship Set.  Costs look good at first especially when starting out but over time the sheer uselessness overwhelm whatever utility they have.

What endures is how the element works within the setting. If it makes sense and is interesting it remained as part of my setting. Some players would explore it in more detail. For example following the Fivefold Path of Mitra as opposed to the Laws of Ma'at of Set.

So these days I just tell people, you don't have to wait for 10, 20, or 30 years to discover this. Just jettison and make (or use) a good setting where things make sense and are interesting to play or deal with. Then find, make, or use the system that expresses those things as mechanics of a system that reflect how they hang together in a setting.

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 25, 2023, 09:11:11 AM
In the case of point-buy or similar elements typically used in freeform/classless systems this isn't an issue because more powerful races or profession templates simply cost more points. Then I can emulate setting when building those and if a player wants the more powerful race or profession they simply pay more for it. If they don't have more points during character creation they either can't start as a full blown member of that profession or they could start with a point debt and pay for it once they earn more points through play. That makes the autist in me happy that the scales have been balanced out.

Yes but if the players don't care if one of them is a Tolkeinian Elf who has superior capabilities for the same amount of life experience, why worry about it?

I am not criticizing your preference but now that I am in my late 50s something that I worried about when I was in my early 20s doesn't seem like a big deal if..... this is something that players are fine with. Trust me if I am referee a group, like with a game store campaign, where the players are semi-competitive and/or power gamers, then I would just present a more traditional palette of options. A Paladin of Mitra isn't going to be an option if none of the players are interested in roleplaying the complications of a Paladin of Mitra.

Let's face it trying to make a system where everything has a cost less to a certain amount of blandness. So what are we gaining by trying to do this? My counterproposal is to focus on the setting first, and mechanics second. Make the setting and the character types that inhabit it interesting.

For example, say you make The Holy Republic of Sirius for a science fiction campaign, and that is the main focus of the campaign. And you have a cool character type (or build) that is Psy-Templars. And Psy-Templar is generally more capable than other more mundane characters.

In my experience what could happen boils down to the following

-Nobody will play a Psy-Templar because of the mechanical and roleplaying complications of the case.
-There is a Psy-Templar or two in the group, they are just another member of the party.
-There is a Psy-Templar or two in the group, but they dominate the group.
-Most if not all the group are Psy-Templars.

All these outcomes in my book are equally valid and led to equally interesting campaigns. A lot of folks would point out that the third possibility is a problem. And yes it could be. But here the thing, when it is a problem it is because it is a metagame issue. Changing the system won't fix the issue. You have to address it outside of the game with the players and the group.

I had campaigns where one player was basically the dominant character and the rest of the group was happy with being his (or her) lackeys. Doesn't happen often but does happen. In fact it happening right now with my current campaign. The first 3/4 of the campaign was spent adventuring in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord and nobody was main focus for more than a session or two.

One of the players was a Viking Prince and an exiled heir. Around late January, things came together, the group did well, so now that player has a shot at reclaiming his throne. Since then that is what the campaign has been about with the rest of the group more or less the Viking Prince's henchmen.  They didn't have to do this, but they choose to do this.

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 25, 2023, 09:11:11 AMBut part of the problem I was talking about in that quote is that sometimes these disparities are not about genre emulation, but about people making certain abilities stronger than they need to be compared to similar stuff that already exists within the system. Granted, this tends to be more typical of homebrewed stuff people make for their own games rather than publishing, but even when it comes to published stuff you can see a lot of disparities sometimes, like everyone's using a different barometer when writing splat books. Which goes to my original point that these balance issues are not unique or somehow emblematic to classless systems specifically. They appear all over TTRPG design.

When I get a rulebook, I look at what it focuses on. Is it more about being a toolkit for a genre, or it is about the setting. If it is a genre, I look at what the author's take on it. The same for a setting. If a mechanic doesn't reflect what the author says about the genre and setting, then I will consider it a design flaw.

As to whether I like the rulebooks will depend on whether I like their take on a genre or a setting. For example, I really like how staff of the One Ring RPG (both editions) present Middle Earth. I do not care for The One Ring as a system, but I do like AiME and LotR RPG. I feel that the One Ring RPG express their vision of Middle Earth one way. And that AiME/LotR RPG expresses the same vision in another way.

I like the Expanse setting a lot. But I find the Expanse RPG for AGE to be weak because it is way overwritten. And part of why it is overwritten in that they lean too much into the AGE system being used in the Expanse Setting.

Hope that makes sense.

This is what happens when one engages the Twitter Yanderu.

D&D 'aint perfect - what is? Gygax made the fkn thing and even HE had house-rules.

But 5e is hard act to follow game design-wise: they powered-up the PCs, gave 'em more rests to reload resources, nerfed the monsters, trashed situational modifiers with AD/DISAD, tossed incremental bonuses with bounded accuracy, blahblahblah. The end result is 5e's a player's paradise in ways older editions can't touch. It's brilliant design when you really think about it, if your goal is getting players hooked on playing your game.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 22, 2023, 04:43:33 PM
Note that obsolete does not mean unplayable. An obsolete game is potentially just as enjoyable as it ever was, but it also has a flaw which people have mulled over, articulated in abstraction, and found at least one solution. Game design is an iterative process, not just individually for single games, but also as an industry-wide collective.  Players who have seen better often reluctantly return to obsolete games because they know they will now experience the flaws much more clearly. It's that ratchet of progress that players do not want to go backwards when they have seen better which defines game obsolescence.

For something to be even considered obsolete, it must be in some way surpassed or else be no longer used or produced.  Having a flaw that there's a fix for means Jack and Shit as long as people still play the game not caring about or even being aware of the flaw.  When you start bringing in people's preferences into the mix renders the whole concept pointless because your "flaw" isn't seen as a bug, it's a feature.

For some reason people still try to declare their preferences as Objective Truth or a Technological Advance and reality keeps proving them wrong.

Quote from: Lunamancer on May 26, 2023, 12:58:28 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 25, 2023, 09:35:39 PM
You're basically nitpicking the wording of my post and making a lot of loaded statements while paradoxically saying very little of substance to refute my points

Why would I provide a substantial refutation to an opinion statement? My exact criticism of your wording was that you prefaced a fact statement with "IMO." So if you intended it to be a fact statement up for debate and I wasn't clear on that due to your wording, then that isn't a mere nitpick. Your wording is unclear. I said as much. You could have replied with a clarification. Instead you're choosing to cry about it like you're being unfairly treated. You're not.

QuoteYou nitpick my usage of the word "hurdle" then ignore where I mentioned that you don't really need to take this extra step you're claiming that exists (at least not during actual play), because you're supposed to have that value pre-calculated in your character sheet regardless.

I ignored it because it was irrelevant. A step is a step. Whether you're doing it in real time or before hand. It's only as good a point as you think it is when you insist on the term "hurdle." Which, again, makes my criticism of your use of that word not a nitpick. Your own reply proves the substantial confusion generated by your word choice.

QuoteYou claim that you're not getting anything for the dubious extra effort of tracking Attributes+Skills, but you're not really telling me what you mean by that other than calling it a "redundancy" that you consider negative, then expect me to address that when you haven't even made the case why it's negative, only declared it to be so.

The issue is I'm getting nothing in the tradeoff. The fact that I also perceive a negative attached to it as well is just extra shit frosting on the cake. But itself doesn't make or break the cake, so there's no reason for me to say anything more about it at this time. The real issue is I'm getting nothing positive. And I'm not sure what you could possibly expect me to explain further about nothing. Nothing means nothing. Nothing to describe or elaborate on further. You don't need me to explain nothing if you want to refute it. You just need to make the case that I actually am getting something, just make sure it's something I actually want. And if you can manage that, then and only then will I need to get into redundancy as an additional negative that your proposed benefit must also overcome.

QuoteThen by the end of your replies to me you reject my suggestion of getting rid of attributes if you don't like to combine them with skills on the basis that real people are capable doing things without training. But somehow miss that addressing that eventuality is precisely part of the reason that Attributes+Skills exists and what you're "getting in return" (despite your claims to the contrary at the start of your post) for tracking a core ability (Attribute) plus a specialty (Skill) that covers specialized tasks. Attributes are there so that people without specific training have something to fall back on when attempting basic tasks without having to pick levels (or whatever) in every single skill in the game.

But even then, I would still say that attributes aren't strictly necessary because skills basically cover everything you can do in the game. As long as the skill list is not too extensive (so as not to make picking all or most of them too prohibitive) you can pretty much cover every task related thing in the game with skills alone without relying on attributes to fall back on. And outside of covering your ability to handle tasks (including resistances and the like) attributes are practically useless. All they basically do other than that is modify game rule data like HP, carry capacity, etc. like I already mentioned. And if you can think of another function that they serve feel free to mention it or bring up those examples of games that do other stuff with them, rather than tease me with the notion that they exist, like claiming that without bringing them up or making the case for them that defeats my argument somehow.

I'll go with a nice, easy example. The Lejendary Adventure RPG. It's a skill-based game. With three "attributes,"  Health, Precision, and Speed (and an optional fourth one, Intellect).

Speed acts as the character's base movement rate. No. It doesn't modify it or any of this weird round-about business. It is the movement rate. It does a bunch of other reaction/reflex type of things, like whether or not you can act out of turn to parry on a losing initiative. But it's literally point for point tells how fast your character can walk. Could you have a walking skill in the game? Sure. You could. It's make believe. But I wouldn't ever want to do that. Because moving around on two legs is a pretty basic capacity. Some do it faster than others. So there's reason to allow it to vary. But it's not a skill.

Health is the thing that works like hit points. It does a few other things as well. But I would emphasize that it doesn't modify hit points. It is hit points. What am I going to do if I remove this attribute? Make up hit points and say, yeah, your character has these hit points. It's not an attribute, though. Just so I can have my Nigel Tufnel moment,  "But this game doesn't have attributes."

Precision calls for a bit more nuance. It's the base stat for grappling, among other things (in the broader game, where monsters use the same stats, it's for natural attacks in general). But again, it represents natural ability. Someone specially trained in Unarmed Combat would use that score rather than precision, as they would be using techniques they are trained to use and not necessarily the same techniques that come instinctively. So there's no reason for the abilities would stack. You can, however, switch back and forth to each, bringing an optionality advantage rather than an arithmetic one.

These three Base Ratings, as they're called, are used to stat all the monsters in the game as well. For most monsters, these are the only stats they have. Which drives home the point that you could technically play this game with these three game stats alone, without any skills at all. You want the skills because they're cool. But it's the attributes that are indispensable.

Dude, you're nitpicking the fact that I prefaced something with the expression "IMO", which is a SIMPLE sign of epistemic humility and openness to be proven wrong (blasphemy in these boards, I know). Yet you're doubling down and clinging to that toss away expression, like the fact that I didn't just assert something as complete irrefutable fact means that you just uncovered the biggest gaping hole in my argument. Which is the absolute fucking height of internet gotcha nitpicking. "You didn't assert something with the utmost, unshakable confidence in the absolute irrefutability of your statement, therefore your argument is necessarily WRONG" is basically what your whole word salad just amounts to. You're basically trying to claim victory on the basis that someone didn't rub their dick on you face as they were claiming something on the internet.

You also do get some trade-offs for having Attributes+Skills in a game, and I just mentioned one in the very post that you're replying to. The trade-off being that it gives unskilled characters something to fall back on, which incidentally also addresses the point that you mentioned about people being able to try stuff untrained in real life. And you may not like that trade-off, or prefer to handle it some other way. But the fact that you nitpick my terminology like that refutes my point entirely, then dismiss things that are clearly something as "nothing" when they're even mentioned in the very post you're replying to, while treating this like I'm the only one making claims here that need to be supported doesn't give me confidence that you have the intelligence to handle this discussion in an intellectually honest capacity.

You were the one who originally claimed that you didn't like Attributes+Skills as an approach, and are also claiming that handling things that way is a "negative" for reason only you can understand, cuz I sure as hell don't see how that's the case. If you don't want to elaborate then fine, but the burden of proof is not on me to proof that you're wrong about something that you haven't even fully expressed the reasons why you feel that way about them. Maybe you have perfectly good reasons, IDK. Or maybe there not that good, but understandable from a certain POV. But instead of just bowing out or saying what you really mean you're extending this discussion by tossing the ball over to me and pretending I'm the only one making claims here, and that the burden of proof is on me to sell you on something when you haven't even told me what you want or don't want. You just know I'm wrong about it cuz I prefaced something with "IMO".

Then you end this off by bringing up ONE single game (but hey, at least you're addressing actual points, that's progress) that supposedly refutes my previous statements that attributes are basically useless outside of handling tasks/action resolution or stuff that's game rule related. Yet attributes in that game (or "Base Ratings", which to me imply game rule stats) are either about handling game rule stuff or task resolution—the very things I said attributes were only good for. Meaning that this doesn't really refute my point—it reinforces it.

Attributes are ONLY good for task resolution and game rule data, but you don't really need them for either of those things. You can just use skills alone to handle tasks, and handle game rule data directly, as this game you bring up appears to do with some of these Base Ratings, since you claim that Health = HP essentially and Speed = Movement Rate (which is EXACTLY what I was claiming originally when I said you could just handle game rule data directly). And even if you were to find a game that uses attributes some other way (you still haven't done that) that doesn't prove that attributes are NECESSARY, which was specifically my original claim (not that it just couldn't be done, period). It would just prove that in SOME games some designers MIGHT come up with a clever way to handle attributes some other way that applies in THAT game specifically. But pointing out an exception to my claim doesn't prove that my claim is wrong, because a single one-off game, or even a handful, doesn't prove necessity across the board for all TTRPGs. It would just prove that there are other ways to potentially do it (hypothetically).

I've probably mixed up the chronology of my hunch with my last post.

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Quote from: Mishihari on May 26, 2023, 02:53:59 AM
Oh, and I prefer classless to classed because 1) classes games tend to have silly restrictions like "your wizard can't use a sword because he's a wizard" and 2) it makes for silly worldbuilding - every swordsman in the world is going to be very, very similar.  There are classed games that try to deal with these issues, but they do so by moving in some degree towards a classless paradigm, with multiclassing, subclasses, a multiplicity of options, or a multiplicity of classes.  I would rather just do classless from the get-go.

In the historical sense of D&D, this seems to be a misunderstanding. While the original boxed set and its derived basic sets all stipulate that magic-users can only use daggers, the entry for the same class under AD&D's PHB doesn't enforce any weapon restrictions on them whatsoever. Reading the language for the class description, wizards are only combat-weak in the sense that they gain fewer attacks per round and fewer weapon proficiencies overall while levveling up, relative to other classes. Unless I'm totally missing something in the AD&D PHB, wizards start with one weapon proficiency and no armour, but that first wepaon by all means could be a longsword or a heavy crossbow, and anything else later. Important since there wasn't a simple/martial/exotic weapon description for that edition.

Compared references:
OD&D M&M, pg 6
AD&D PHB, pg 25, pg36-37


Thinking on this, people have always wanted to make a spellsword class in D&D for decades, and since its a "genre" set of rules it might make sense for some wizards to be better at combat. I wonder if you could offer wizards with high Str a chance (every 3rd level?) to sacrifice gaining a spell slot for a weapon proficiency, or else a step up from the present armour type to the next highest and then impose arcance failure from 3rdE, reduced by Dex mod... Tangent to the discussion though.

Quote from: Mr. Ordinary, Esq. on May 26, 2023, 03:27:36 PM
In the historical sense of D&D, this seems to be a misunderstanding. While the original boxed set and its derived basic sets all stipulate that magic-users can only use daggers, the entry for the same class under AD&D's PHB doesn't enforce any weapon restrictions on them whatsoever. Reading the language for the class description, wizards are only combat-weak in the sense that they gain fewer attacks per round and fewer weapon proficiencies overall while levveling up, relative to other classes. Unless I'm totally missing something in the AD&D PHB, wizards start with one weapon proficiency and no armour, but that first wepaon by all means could be a longsword or a heavy crossbow, and anything else later. Important since there wasn't a simple/martial/exotic weapon description for that edition.

No, each class has a list of weapons they can gain proficiency in. M-U's only good one is darts for the FR 3.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 22, 2023, 02:19:03 PMThis means that the supermajority of Forge games did not age well at all, and suffer even worse irreducible complexity problems than WotC D&D. Fiasco is brilliant, but you can't alter the games and make anything other than Fiasco..

But you can with PbtA, which is a Forge game (or at the very least, Forge-inspired). See all the hacks that came from Apocalypse World, and the games it inspired with it's fail forward, playbooks, player-facing rules, "play to find", "don't prep plots" etc.

Interesting post, by the way. I agree there are better "technologies" being developed by iteration that end up molding subsequent design. For instance, I don't think a game as complex and slow as those 80s beasts (Phoenix Command anyone?) would find much traction nowadays. On the other hand, lean designs and quickness to prep & play are becoming more and more dominant "techs" these days. I still don't know about games getting obsolete though? I mean, at the end of the day TTRPGs are a social activity, more about the people around the table and their stories than whatever rules they use to help with that.

Quote from: Mr. Ordinary, Esq. on May 26, 2023, 03:27:36 PM
I've probably mixed up the chronology of my hunch with my last post.

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Quote from: Mishihari on May 26, 2023, 02:53:59 AM
Oh, and I prefer classless to classed because 1) classes games tend to have silly restrictions like "your wizard can't use a sword because he's a wizard" and 2) it makes for silly worldbuilding - every swordsman in the world is going to be very, very similar.  There are classed games that try to deal with these issues, but they do so by moving in some degree towards a classless paradigm, with multiclassing, subclasses, a multiplicity of options, or a multiplicity of classes.  I would rather just do classless from the get-go.

In the historical sense of D&D, this seems to be a misunderstanding. While the original boxed set and its derived basic sets all stipulate that magic-users can only use daggers, the entry for the same class under AD&D's PHB doesn't enforce any weapon restrictions on them whatsoever. Reading the language for the class description, wizards are only combat-weak in the sense that they gain fewer attacks per round and fewer weapon proficiencies overall while levveling up, relative to other classes. Unless I'm totally missing something in the AD&D PHB, wizards start with one weapon proficiency and no armour, but that first wepaon by all means could be a longsword or a heavy crossbow, and anything else later. Important since there wasn't a simple/martial/exotic weapon description for that edition.

Compared references:
OD&D M&M, pg 6
AD&D PHB, pg 25, pg36-37


Thinking on this, people have always wanted to make a spellsword class in D&D for decades, and since its a "genre" set of rules it might make sense for some wizards to be better at combat. I wonder if you could offer wizards with high Str a chance (every 3rd level?) to sacrifice gaining a spell slot for a weapon proficiency, or else a step up from the present armour type to the next highest and then impose arcance failure from 3rdE, reduced by Dex mod... Tangent to the discussion though.

I think you missed the table on the bottom of the AD&D PHB on page 19.

Regardless of this specific point, there are many examples of arbitrary restriction.  While there are good balance and niche related reasons for these restrictions, I would like to have the option of my magic user being able to use a sword, probably in return for giving something else up.  Making up an entirely new rebalanced class with this feature is a lot of work, and swapping out the one ability for another is a long step towards a classless system, but without any guidelines to get it right.  I still prefer the classless approach for this reason.

Quote from: S'mon on May 26, 2023, 03:54:48 PM
No, each class has a list of weapons they can gain proficiency in. M-U's only good one is darts for the FR 3.

Quote from: Mishihari on May 26, 2023, 04:24:21 PM
I think you missed the table on the bottom of the AD&D PHB on page 19.

Yup there it is. Been lots on my mind lately.

Quote from: Mishihari on May 26, 2023, 04:24:21 PM
Regardless of this specific point, there are many examples of arbitrary restriction.  While there are good balance and niche related reasons for these restrictions, I would like to have the option of my magic user being able to use a sword, probably in return for giving something else up.  Making up an entirely new rebalanced class with this feature is a lot of work, and swapping out the one ability for another is a long step towards a classless system, but without any guidelines to get it right.  I still prefer the classless approach for this reason.

They're not all that restrictive:

Quote from: Theory of Games on May 26, 2023, 02:52:55 PM
D&D 'aint perfect - what is? Gygax made the fkn thing and even HE had house-rules.

Why does the concept of house rules cease to exist in the advocacy of D&D overall as the flawed system? I've also noticed the assertion that D&D is flawed with either implicit or explicit statements which gets justified with preference regardless, even your own. "Classed is too restrictive, classed doesn't offer good customization, classed doesn't have articulation." People pick up a rule book and assume that nothing in it can be slightly adjusted, otherwise you've vetoed your right to refer to the system you use by its name and edition. Forge theorists see the permission to make any adjustments as a refutation of the validity of the system altogether at the other extreme, and though I've been interested in classless design philosophy somewhat, I'm no longer confident why that requires an entirely separate system.

Again:
Races+ 0th level characters + secondary skills/professions or backgrounds + kits (3rd also had starting packages at bare minimum) + feats - the XP system "as is"; here you essentially have a Traveller style ruleset for session play, though without the mishap and life events tables (honestly those are a cool idea, and 5E only sort of touches on that with their backgrounds character feature). But if what I proposed is invalid, just as one example for the flexibility of D&D, its plausible that you might be buying into alternative systems for something other than function/playability entirely.

You kind of won't engage with the flaws in "classless"/template design though. Classless design's biggest flaw is due to the elaborate skill system solving all the encounters for the player. Stringing together the right combination of skill checks, from a metagame perspective, is a lot like having the character sheet itself playing the game for you. Its not that having zero prompts is the way to go, but how do you get to play the game without the sheet potentially playing it all out for you? Maybe in that sense it's good for new players to build familiarity with the setting, but I bet that if you play that sort of system long enough, your sessions will begin to play out as formulaic, even though that was supposed to be the fault of classed/archetype design. At some point, you'll wind up switching subgenres across your campaigns to keep things fresh for the players. Grognards never needed these extra steps for their own gaming however. The first ever runs of the game was marketed to tweens back when no such game ever existed before, so how hard could cd/a play be relative to a cl/t design which, at best, only gets you used to spoon-fed play? In that mindset, how much confidence can you really have in any adventures which you design being not much more than a super-chain skill challenge?

The most specific example: Knowledge checks are already a button masher for as long as they've been in the D&D game. It would be very tempting for every modern player to choose at least one knowledge skill (especially in 5thE reduced list) because it can provide catch all framing to get unlimited bardic lore lifelines from the GM, which from an adventure design perspective is going to be its own problem. If you can justify why any field of knowledge might have an interest in owlbears, the GM has to figure out a unique way to lend out a DC appropriate hint for the encounter, and that hint can using something as boring as regional trades in wheat for sheep for owlbear pelts. Once the players have that kind of information, they don't have to fuss trying to talk to other NPCs in the world, or encounter any owlbears at all without first knowing exactly how to kill one before they've even see one. Its now just point A to point B gaming, and they get smug instead of having any real fun because the need to actually explore is removed. Plus, Traveller sort of began the trend of using any attribute with any skill, where you can provide a justification for that combination. This will have contributed to the idea that attributes simply don't matter, and it will have given a leg up to how much leeway PbtA games could give with the powers of "justification" alone.

I guess in some way, you could accomplish something similar of this bardic lore lifeline issue with the secondary skill/profession optional mechanic from AD&D. Foresters might have their own myths and legends about owlbears in the woods, its just that, typically speaking, there's no need to write out a separate "forester lore" skill out on your character sheet. Figuring out that sort of unwritten application of the character in the context of his/her own setting was the kind of thing a GM might reward bonus XP for, like with good roleplaying. When everyone can have a bardic lore ability like this, the bard's special lore power in D&D doesn't really seem all that niche anymore; at least not as it has been written up to now.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 25, 2023, 07:52:04 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on May 24, 2023, 10:52:42 PM
Wall of text.

So, to cut that wall of text down to something digestible; your claim is that real classless rpg design hasn't been tried because there's a conspiracy to keep good design from happening in the ttrpg field (and this cabal is what shut down the Forge site)?

Uh huh.

...I listed three in subsequent posts. Savage Worlds and Savage Worlds Pathfinder, Cyberpunk Red, Traveller.  Not all the tools I list have been used all at once because that would be overkill feature-bloat and that's not really the point. Classless design has tools available to do anything you could have in classless design, but the reverse is much harder, so if you know what you are doing, classless will probably serve you better. I do admit that if you don't know what you're doing it can and will get you in trouble.

Quote from: Lunamancer on May 25, 2023, 11:04:30 AM
I've got some stories I could tell about sabotage attempts I witnessed up close in the Lejendary Adventure online community back in the day. It was initially an unmoderated forum, but some gooftard claimed offense at someone's inoffensive post, and because the claimed offense involved someone's religion, the operator decided to put moderators in place. As the most active member of the community (tied with Gary Gygax, really), I volunteered and was chosen. I enjoyed that it had been an unmoderated forum. And I made it a point to only nuke spam and enforce forum topics (we had a flame forum, so even personal attacks were fine, just redirected to the right forum). Once it became clear that I wasn't going to be a tool of the troublemakers, all of a sudden all the complaints went away.

The fake-offended party, by the way, in my assessment, was someone who did not believe in the game or the product, but it seemed like he was seeking an opportunity to get himself published along side Gary Gygax. And he did get a few articles published in the fan zine, and a couple of his cringeworthy examples that reeked of hatred for the game were ultimately added to the game's 2nd printing, because of course one of his complaints involved him claiming he was confused (with all the sincerity of the blue-haired Simpsons lawyer) about character creation and would like to see some examples. Funny. He was confused enough to need that in print. But understood it well enough to be the one to write the examples.

So there actually is this motive in the RPG world for sabotage and shenanigans. Wannabe designers. Or actual designers, I suppose. Because if you're going to create a game, and you're asking for feedback, almost every time one of the first things you're going to hear is someone asking, "What is it you're offering that I can't get from another RPG? What problem are you solving?" And if you're hopped up on your own bullshit or just chasing clout, there may not be any real problem you're solving. So you have to invent a problem. And sabotage can be a useful tool.

Oh, yeah. The mysterious poster on reddit is the only time I know for sure I was dealing with a saboteur whose goal was to prevent high level discussion from happening. There was also a sub schism back in 2020, which is when I retired as a mod. It might not be related (I can't rule out an angry ex) but it makes for some fascinating reading.

RPGDesign had a legacy link to a Discord run by a retired member, and a reddit user approached one of our mods with some "evidence" that the Discord was racist. The material was EXTREMELY dubious. One was an academic discussion about if the word gypsy is inherently discriminatory, and another was a member of the discord actively harassing the Discord's Admin by saying his studio name, "Stormforge Productions" was Nazi. Two weeks later the reddit user posted about how we (the mods) were knowingly abetting racists because we had the link in the sidebar and we'd done nothing.

I wanted to exonerate the Discord because we all knew there was nothing to it, and the other moderators out-voted me. I kinda understand; this was right after George Floyd.

The sub schism was definitely a well-orchestrated hit. It included privately approaching one of RPGDesign's mods about two weeks beforehand, timing the incident with a weekend and Reddit announcing a pro-diversity hire, crossposting the worst material on r/RPG to upvote farm (and possibly buying some upvotes, as well), and either searching for or planting the material on the Discord. Gypsy is not a common slur, and there are dozens of channels on that Discord, so even if none of the material was planted, we're still talking about a "troll" spending several hours of work searching for usable material. If it was planted (and I suspect the "Stormforge is Nazi" was) then we are talking about several months of preparation.

This is not the work of a garden variety troll.

The perpetrator used the account iloveponies, the current lead mod of RPGCreation (the sub which resulted from the schism.) I am not sure the person using the account is the same person who ran the attack. I looked at the account history at the time and to me it looked like the account was getting passed around. It might be the same person, but if I had an account like that and was willing to spend weeks planning an incident, I would totally hock the account off on someone who liked RPGs, thought that being a mod on an RPG design sub might give them clout or something, and who didn't know the account had a history.

Quote from: Mr. Ordinary, Esq. on May 25, 2023, 09:54:57 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on May 24, 2023, 10:52:42 PM
[...] one of the key problems I have with RPGs in general (classless or class-based) is that they don't let you adapt your character to the niche the party needs you to fill. I don't know about anyone else, but my experience with many RPGs is that the first 2 sessions are terrible, then when the players finally get an advancement, they have a frustrated metagame huddle, "you pick up a grapple, you pick up a range, you need some bloody skills." And THEN the campaign works.

I'll be fair, that sounds like a fantastic team building exercise for players: a negotiation of who gets what role, so no one is stuck having to play "healer bitch" (even though clerics are not technically obligated to drop everything and save a dying character in a game like D&D). However...

Quote from: Lunamancer on May 25, 2023, 06:44:49 PM
I house rule in the secondary skill list from the 1E DMG as a starting place. A primed Forester would be able to do all kinds of forestry stuff. Climb trees, swim, build rudimentary shelters, hunt, taste random feces found on the ground to instantly know everything about whatever left it there. And then you apply whichever attribute would make the most sense, since that's what C&C calls for anyway. It's just if it's Forester stuff, a Forester gets the lower TN. There's not even any math involved!

The above really simplifies that process if you can negotiate a preferred niche through play, without risk to a fight over who gets to be "the OP class" (whatever the case may be). What's advocated in Lunamancer's post is something we could call the "public education package"; OTOH, the more appropraite word that spans many genres is "culture." So at least the whole issue of "ancestry" can be previously accounted for against that pet project of the woke D&D players, since it's obvious why a dwarf might not now how to swim. Of course the woke's favourite phrase is "not all" which ironically is how you get all Drow charcters becoming Drizzt clones in those circles.


From here, I've got a hunch about how classless systems got to be seperate design (bear with me here on the lead up).

In the meat-grinder context of the original game, in the course of the sandbox adventuring career you are bound to encounter a variety of situations, which makes trying other classes appealing. But at some point, you find a player who really really really wants to play an elf for his next character, but the dice keep saying no under the random attributes mechanic. Since everyone is, to some extent, a min-maxer, albeit not necessarily one mandating the powergamer "personality" if I can make that distinction, you decide that don't want to just kick the guy out.* The only way to keep that player from leaving your table is to offer a compromise through the attribute point buy mechanic, and that's where the problems likely begin. Because this guy will want his next elf wizard to be the best wizard it can be (and now that he can point buy he is at his leisure to only craft elf wizards for the rest of his gamer life), he will habitually buy attributes in a consistent manner to optimize his favourite race/class combo... worse is the standard array under these circumstances because they both offer the illusionary problem of creating "formulaic characters" with class-based systems. "Antoher dwarf fighter? That's cliche, since I'm just going to dump Int/Cha again, and honestly why wouldn't you do that also?"

Once you're stuck in the attitude that point-buy or standard array aren't the cause of class-based systems being boring or broken, because its YOU that's choosing your optimizations and agency is alpha-omega (and why would your own choices ever be broken?), classless design looks really interesting: with GURPS etc you're free to point buy absolutely everything, as long as you take the time to build the charcter on a free afternoon well efore play begins, and to be fair these min-maxers never necessarily have to become the powergamers that gives any min-maxing its own bad name. I would give credit where it's due to GURPS for creating a system that allows players to potentially create very balanced races, classes, or career paths for honest players who like lots of this customization, as you also get a better feel for what works and what doesn't when examing other system features more critically, even if just for confirmation bias.

For those who think that GURPS goes too far, you've got Travller which extends the random roll for nearly every character feature for every career path, but the tack on it is obiviosly different. The skills themselves become specialized, since you can now write skills for a wide variety of weapons (eg phaser, radiation, laser, plasma, et al instead of just "energy weapon" because the laws of physics are so different between types, you couldn't possibly know how to work one if you know the other, and this leads to additional career path posibilities).

(chuckle) The core gameplay loop of my game is all about triggering metagame discussions as if they were character discussions specifically because I enjoy it when players do this and I think it's a good habit for players to learn. I also don't really draw distinctions between min-maxing and roleplay. I think that's because D&D-formula games over-rely on character creation to customize characters and under-rely on gameplay to express character uniqueness. If players can only control character creation, optimization is a logical means of self-expression. If players can express themselves with every die roll and rolls reflect what characters are good at, then min-max process optimization and roleplay become two sides of the same thing.

The downside is that players can only express themselves if the core mechanic is pretty darn complex. A D20 roll doesn't cut it for this application, which causes its own host of problems. But I digress.

The Traveller approach to character creation is in the right direction, but ultimately fails. I tolerate point-buys when they are really well streamlined (Savage Worlds) because character creation gets out of the way, but there's a chance of making a bland character if you don't know what you're doing.

I think the best results tend to come when the rules give you one or two curveballs you can't control, or don't have good control over, and then build your character from there. I remember playtesting a homebrew with friends and character creation started with the GM shuffling a deck of random character attributes and dealing one card to each players. He handed me the "Berserker" ability. And then I consulted the campaign's pitch. Highschool students attending a private highschool in upstate New York in the early 30s get roped into a paranormal adventure.

It was at that moment I knew I was playing the captain of the school's hockey team.

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 26, 2023, 03:14:29 PM
Dude, you're nitpicking the fact that I prefaced something with the expression "IMO", which is a SIMPLE sign of epistemic humility and openness to be proven wrong (blasphemy in these boards, I know).

No. I'm not. I'm right here. You don't need to tell me what I'm doing. You could just ask.

QuoteYet you're doubling down

No. I'm not. I never nitpicked in the first place, so there's nothing to double down on. What I was doing is alerting you to the fact that you're wrong in your nitpicking claim. And now here you're the one doubling down in being wrong. As I say, I'm right here. If you have any questions as to what I'm doing, you can just ask. And I will tell you, I was not and am not nitpicking.

Quoteand clinging to that toss away expression, like the fact that I didn't just assert something as complete irrefutable fact means that you just uncovered the biggest gaping hole in my argument. Which is the absolute fucking height of internet gotcha nitpicking. "You didn't assert something with the utmost, unshakable confidence in the absolute irrefutability of your statement, therefore your argument is necessarily WRONG" is basically what your whole word salad just amounts to.

No. It doesn't. First, just like nitpicking, word salad is not just any old thing that you don't like. Words mean things. But more to the point, I never said anything like what you're describing. Again. I'm right here. You don't have to put words in my mouth. I'll say again here, like I did in my so-called "doubling down," like I did in my so-called original "nitpick," I just wasn't taking your claim as seriously up for debate. I took it as a statement of preference with nothing to refute and no Earthly reason to begin presenting evidence or formulating a counter-argument. People are allowed to have their preferences, and I was respecting yours. If I did so in error, consider it duly noted.

QuoteYou also do get some trade-offs for having Attributes+Skills in a game, and I just mentioned one in the very post that you're replying to. The trade-off being that it gives unskilled characters something to fall back on, which incidentally also addresses the point that you mentioned about people being able to try stuff untrained in real life.

Actually, it doesn't address the point I was making. My point had nothing to do with being able to try stuff untrained. It's that there are basic capacities that require no training to do that have nothing to do with skills. They're their own separate circle on the Venn Diagram perhaps having some overlap but largely independent. That's not the same thing as calling everything a skill and giving those poor unskilled souls a pittance of a chance. I'm not a big fan of defaults or fallbacks for characters lacking a skill. So, no, I don't see this as a benefit.

QuoteAnd you may not like that trade-off, or prefer to handle it some other way. But the fact that you nitpick my terminology like that refutes my point entirely, then dismiss things that are clearly something as "nothing" when they're even mentioned in the very post you're replying to, while treating this like I'm the only one making claims here that need to be supported doesn't give me confidence that you have the intelligence to handle this discussion in an intellectually honest capacity.

I haven't nitpicked.
I have never claimed nor implied to have refuted your point at all, let alone entirely.
I never dismissed anything that was relevant.
The only thing I called nothing was literally nothing. It was not a dismissal. It referred to absence (of a benefit).
I haven't said you need to support your claims.
My own claims have mainly dealt with my own personal preferences.
The only fact-claims I've made is to say there exists games that do things differently.

For you to be so far off the mark on all these points, you might seriously want to consider looking in the mirror when it comes to who is or isn't able to handle a discussion in an intellectually honest way.

QuoteYou were the one who originally claimed that you didn't like Attributes+Skills as an approach, and are also claiming that handling things that way is a "negative" for reason only you can understand, cuz I sure as hell don't see how that's the case. If you don't want to elaborate then fine, but the burden of proof is not on me to proof that you're wrong about something that you haven't even fully expressed the reasons why you feel that way about them. Maybe you have perfectly good reasons, IDK. Or maybe there not that good, but understandable from a certain POV. But instead of just bowing out or saying what you really mean you're extending this discussion by tossing the ball over to me and pretending I'm the only one making claims here, and that the burden of proof is on me to sell you on something when you haven't even told me what you want or don't want. You just know I'm wrong about it cuz I prefaced something with "IMO".

Yeah, I get to make claims about my own preferences and I have no burden whatsoever to prove them. Could I elaborate on them? Sure. But why would I when you're making dishonest statements that I've claimed you're wrong just because you said IMO? I haven't gotten into much of substance with you because you aren't exercising even the most basic of civility or honesty.

QuoteThen you end this off by bringing up ONE single game (but hey, at least you're addressing actual points, that's progress) that supposedly refutes my previous statements that attributes are basically useless outside of handling tasks/action resolution or stuff that's game rule related. Yet attributes in that game (or "Base Ratings", which to me imply game rule stats) are either about handling game rule stuff or task resolution—the very things I said attributes were only good for. Meaning that this doesn't really refute my point—it reinforces it.

Okay. So you got me. And this is why I only gave you one game. You are not trustworthy enough for me to show all my cards. Let the record show that when I do address whatever points you want me to address without sifting through your language to nail down to a specific position, you play these gotcha tactics. And when I do, you accuse me of nitpicking. No win, no matter what I do. So quit the crying, quit playing the victim, quit accusing me of nitpicking you, quit twisting everything I say to what you need it to be, quit putting words in my mouth, quit attributing motives to me and stick to the issue.

What in blue blazes do you mean by "attributes are basically useless outside of handling tasks/action resolution or stuff that's game rule related."?

Specifically, what do you mean by "stuff that's game rule related."? Because that sounds a lot like a catch-all. It sounds like any example of any rule from any RPG I could possibly site could be met with a response of "well, that's game rule related." And if I make up something not in a rule book, that could be met with, "well, that's not an actual game rule."

Give an example of something that can be cited as an actual example from a rulebook, that is also not rule-related, that is also not "handling tasks/action resolution."

QuoteAttributes are ONLY good for task resolution and game rule data, but you don't really need them for either of those things. You can just use skills alone to handle tasks,

Sure.  You could. I already literally said as much. The problem is it's just stupid. I don't want to call things skills that are not really skills to just satisfy some urge for theory wank. I mean I can see how that might not bother someone who butchers language and has no respect for clarity. But it's not for me. You can do it. It just won't be good in my view. And so I would never consider it acceptable. If I thought there were any merit to the idea, I'd be over on coursera boosting my hit points or completing my apprenticeship in venom/toxin immunity rather than posting here.

Quoteand handle game rule data directly, as this game you bring up appears to do with some of these Base Ratings, since you claim that Health = HP essentially and Speed = Movement Rate (which is EXACTLY what I was claiming originally when I said you could just handle game rule data directly).

"Rule data" could have meant anything. Color me unimpressed. Oddly while trying to keep it brief so as not to stray from the main idea, I did allude to the fact that there are other things these attributes do. So your victory lap here may prove quite premature. I'm just dying to see you come up with more precise explanations of what you're talking about and what "game rule related" means.

QuoteAnd even if you were to find a game that uses attributes some other way (you still haven't done that) that doesn't prove that attributes are NECESSARY, which was specifically my original claim (not that it just couldn't be done, period). It would just prove that in SOME games some designers MIGHT come up with a clever way to handle attributes some other way that applies in THAT game specifically. But pointing out an exception to my claim doesn't prove that my claim is wrong, because a single one-off game, or even a handful, doesn't prove necessity across the board for all TTRPGs. It would just prove that there are other ways to potentially do it (hypothetically).

As I hinted at with Lejendary Adventure, the game uses the same 3 base ratings for all monsters in the game as well, and that's part of what keeps the game running simple and cleanly. I would argue it is necessary for LA in the sense that it may be the best, most effective way of expressing what it needs to express. Failure to meet this "necessity" would make it a worse game. And yeah, some chuckle head with no respect for language could always come along and start twisting the definitions of words and suddenly start calling everything skills like a bad early 90's JRPG calling every monster in the fantasy realm a demon (looking at you, Lagoon). But that would neither make your case nor defeat mine. It only shows some people suffer from definition diarrhea. And I have no interest in cleaning up one of those spills.

Quote from: Theory of GamesD&D 'aint perfect - what is? Gygax made the fkn thing and even HE had house-rules.

I'd always assumed that was because he knew the difference between what appealed to him personally, and what would appeal to a wider market. A distinction lost on many game-writers.

Quote from: Brad on May 23, 2023, 09:47:20 PM
Deleted...this is idiotic

Yeah, it's getting a bit Forgey, eh?

Quote from: Fheredin on May 26, 2023, 07:49:27 PM
...I listed three in subsequent posts. Savage Worlds and Savage Worlds Pathfinder, Cyberpunk Red, Traveller.  Not all the tools I list have been used all at once because that would be overkill feature-bloat and that's not really the point. Classless design has tools available to do anything you could have in classless design, but the reverse is much harder, so if you know what you are doing, classless will probably serve you better. I do admit that if you don't know what you're doing it can and will get you in trouble.

[s ]Great selling point there.[/s]

Quote from: Fheredin on May 26, 2023, 07:49:27 PM

Quote from: Lunamancer on May 25, 2023, 11:04:30 AM
I've got some stories I could tell about sabotage attempts I witnessed up close in the Lejendary Adventure online community back in the day. It was initially an unmoderated forum, but some gooftard claimed offense at someone's inoffensive post, and because the claimed offense involved someone's religion, the operator decided to put moderators in place. As the most active member of the community (tied with Gary Gygax, really), I volunteered and was chosen. I enjoyed that it had been an unmoderated forum. And I made it a point to only nuke spam and enforce forum topics (we had a flame forum, so even personal attacks were fine, just redirected to the right forum). Once it became clear that I wasn't going to be a tool of the troublemakers, all of a sudden all the complaints went away.

The fake-offended party, by the way, in my assessment, was someone who did not believe in the game or the product, but it seemed like he was seeking an opportunity to get himself published along side Gary Gygax. And he did get a few articles published in the fan zine, and a couple of his cringeworthy examples that reeked of hatred for the game were ultimately added to the game's 2nd printing, because of course one of his complaints involved him claiming he was confused (with all the sincerity of the blue-haired Simpsons lawyer) about character creation and would like to see some examples. Funny. He was confused enough to need that in print. But understood it well enough to be the one to write the examples.

So there actually is this motive in the RPG world for sabotage and shenanigans. Wannabe designers. Or actual designers, I suppose. Because if you're going to create a game, and you're asking for feedback, almost every time one of the first things you're going to hear is someone asking, "What is it you're offering that I can't get from another RPG? What problem are you solving?" And if you're hopped up on your own bullshit or just chasing clout, there may not be any real problem you're solving. So you have to invent a problem. And sabotage can be a useful tool.

Oh, yeah. The mysterious poster on reddit is the only time I know for sure I was dealing with a saboteur whose goal was to prevent high level discussion from happening. There was also a sub schism back in 2020, which is when I retired as a mod. It might not be related (I can't rule out an angry ex) but it makes for some fascinating reading.

RPGDesign had a legacy link to a Discord run by a retired member, and a reddit user approached one of our mods with some "evidence" that the Discord was racist. The material was EXTREMELY dubious. One was an academic discussion about if the word gypsy is inherently discriminatory, and another was a member of the discord actively harassing the Discord's Admin by saying his studio name, "Stormforge Productions" was Nazi. Two weeks later the reddit user posted about how we (the mods) were knowingly abetting racists because we had the link in the sidebar and we'd done nothing.

I wanted to exonerate the Discord because we all knew there was nothing to it, and the other moderators out-voted me. I kinda understand; this was right after George Floyd.

The sub schism was definitely a well-orchestrated hit. It included privately approaching one of RPGDesign's mods about two weeks beforehand, timing the incident with a weekend and Reddit announcing a pro-diversity hire, crossposting the worst material on r/RPG to upvote farm (and possibly buying some upvotes, as well), and either searching for or planting the material on the Discord. Gypsy is not a common slur, and there are dozens of channels on that Discord, so even if none of the material was planted, we're still talking about a "troll" spending several hours of work searching for usable material. If it was planted (and I suspect the "Stormforge is Nazi" was) then we are talking about several months of preparation.

This is not the work of a garden variety troll.

The perpetrator used the account iloveponies, the current lead mod of RPGCreation (the sub which resulted from the schism.) I am not sure the person using the account is the same person who ran the attack. I looked at the account history at the time and to me it looked like the account was getting passed around. It might be the same person, but if I had an account like that and was willing to spend weeks planning an incident, I would totally hock the account off on someone who liked RPGs, thought that being a mod on an RPG design sub might give them clout or something, and who didn't know the account had a history.

None of this surprises me, they live to usurp and upend anything they can worm themselves into. I guess they weren't happy under the rocks they crawled out from. Perhaps I'm not completely sold on the classless paradigm but I'd rather that both methods stay in the hands of those who actually love roleplaying games for the fun of them.

Quote
[...] The Traveller approach to character creation is in the right direction, but ultimately fails. I tolerate point-buys when they are really well streamlined (Savage Worlds) because character creation gets out of the way, but there's a chance of making a bland character if you don't know what you're doing.

I think the best results tend to come when the rules give you one or two curveballs you can't control, or don't have good control over, and then build your character from there. I remember playtesting a homebrew with friends and character creation started with the GM shuffling a deck of random character attributes and dealing one card to each players. He handed me the "Berserker" ability. And then I consulted the campaign's pitch. Highschool students attending a private highschool in upstate New York in the early 30s get roped into a paranormal adventure.

It was at that moment I knew I was playing the captain of the school's hockey team.

From your experience with Savage Worlds, what exactly constitutes an interesting character, or evena well rounded one? Might help me narrow down where I'm headed in this debate.

I like that card trick, good way to focus on the character concept when using a point buy system.

Quote from: Lunamancer on May 26, 2023, 09:27:43 PM
Give an example of something that can be cited as an actual example from a rulebook, that is also not rule-related, that is also not "handling tasks/action resolution."

I could trust this guy to give you an example, but not one that makes any sense.

Consider:

Quote from: VisionStorm on May 26, 2023, 03:14:29 PM
Attributes are ONLY good for task resolution and game rule data, but you don't really need them for either of those things. You can just use skills alone to handle tasks,

"I'd like to use the Athletics skill, even though I have no way to show that he's strong enough to have even learned the skill at all."

From another angle, this line of thought will trap you into making characters that are obviously strong due to the listed Athletics bonus, but is only smart because you wrote "Is intelligent" somewhere into the character background; yet without any skills to express that intelligence, it's now just scribbles on the character sheet, a plain character factoid potentially uninteresting enough even for roleplay.

Quote
But pointing out an exception to my claim doesn't prove that my claim is wrong, because a single one-off game, or even a handful, doesn't prove necessity across the board for all TTRPGs. It would just prove that there are other ways to potentially do it (hypothetically).

Clearly its the other way around, or there would be famous examples of systems without attributes - famous enough to rival the industry giants, or effective enough to get at least as prominent as PbtA games. There are examples of games that don't use any dice however, if you don't have any.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 22, 2023, 02:19:03 PM
I hate to be blunt, but OSR is barely played more than Forge games relative to D&D.

Well this is just fundamentally wrong. Look at details on social media; both OSR and Storygamers brag about buying tons of games; but then look at the ones playing it: you'll see that most of the people who buy or talk about Storygames don't ever actually brag about playing it, and the minority who do appear to have mostly one-shots.
On the other hand, the OSR is full of accounts of people playing games, and of playing very long-term campaigns.