Greetings, folks.

At what point does a TTRPG with the majority of rules focused on its combat system stop being a TTRPG?

To ask from the reverse perspective, at what point does a skirmish game become a TTRPG?

What games labeled as TTRPGs would you label as skirmish games that pay lip-service to tabletop roleplaying?

Quote from: ronwisegamgee on April 03, 2023, 09:44:12 PM
Greetings, folks.

At what point does a TTRPG with the majority of rules focused on its combat system stop being a TTRPG?

To ask from the reverse perspective, at what point does a skirmish game become a TTRPG?

What games labeled as TTRPGs would you label as skirmish games that pay lip-service to tabletop roleplaying?

For me?

I would say D&D 3.0 and 3.5.  because while you can use theater of the mind, the stats lean towards using maps and miniatures.

D&D 4 was difficult (not impossible) to play without miniatures.

And for a non D&D entry and a game I am a fan of:  Savage Worlds can trend in some ones to the needing of miniatures for combat.  Again theater of the mind is possible, but can be difficult.

Interesting question. The game that straddles the line, in my mind, is Twilight 2000, the new Free League version. You could play it as a skirmish game and ignore the RPG elements. You could also not use the battle maps, tokens, and hex rules, and focus on the RPG elements. It would work both ways.

So that would be one classification scheme: Could you strip out all the skirmish or RPG rules and still have a serviceable game?

It would be nice to say that it's the presence or absence of roleplaying, but unfortunately that doesn't work.  One can roleplay in just about any kind of game (my son roleplays in a lot of his multiplayer videogames) or without any kind of game rules at all.

I'm inclined to the view that a game where one plays and thinks in first person is an RPG, while a game where one thinks and plays in 3rd person is a skirmish game, but I know that's far from universally accepted.  I do think it's generally agreed that an RPG must have individual characters, and not just the players controlling groups or armies.

I think the best standard is whether your can play the game in a situation where your characters/pieces/pawns/tokens/whatever are not in combat.  If there is play time and rules support for out of combat activities, then it's an RPG.  Otherwise it's a skirmish game.

Skirmish games like "Five Parsecs from Home" include support for out of combat activities but, are sold is as a skirmish game.

I would agree that playing in 3rd person is a skirmish game. However, some would say that having followers would then make a RPG into a skirmish game.

Phoenix Command makes use of hexes for combat. It can be difficult (though not impossible) to figure out what's going on without miniatures or cardstock counters on a map to keep track of things.

If you make decisions as if you were the character in the setting, that's role playing.  First person versus third person is simply how you communicate the decision, and has nothing to do with whether it is role playing or not.  (It would, however, have an effect on how some participants immerse, which is often confused for role playing.)

The tricky part of this question is there is no correct answer.  You can't draw some bright line and say that when the game does X, the participants are automatically role playing or not.  What you can do is say whether the game encourages people to role play, and how much, and in what conditions.  Naturally, some people will respond to those factors stronger than others, and will respond differently in different games.

When I was playing Tactics II and decided to have a unit retreat because I was visualizing the cardboard counter as representative of real people, that was role playing.  No one knew it but me, and it was kind of a bad move in the game, but there you go.  I was role playing, but no one would consider Tactics II an RPG, it's so far over the line.  That's because the game itself does nothing to encourage you to role play. Whatever role play you do, you bring to the game yourself.

Back in the day, to give a more pertinent example, we played a lot of AD&D. We usually played it as an RPG, where there was plenty of role play and game going on.  Occasionally, we played it as a skirmish game, because that's what we wanted to do with it at that moment.  (Roll up some generic characters and have them fight.)  You can say it wasn't a particularly good skirmish game, and I won't argue, but it was fun enough that we used it that way multiple times. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 04, 2023, 04:18:10 PM
The tricky part of this question is there is no correct answer.  You can't draw some bright line and say that when the game does X, the participants are automatically role playing or not.  What you can do is say whether the game encourages people to role play, and how much, and in what conditions.  Naturally, some people will respond to those factors stronger than others, and will respond differently in different games.

I find this to be a really good point you made, Steve.

Regarding the degree to which a TTRPG encourages people to roleplay, how much, and in what conditions, what would those be and why?

Quote from: ronwisegamgee on April 04, 2023, 06:40:56 PM

Regarding the degree to which a TTRPG encourages people to roleplay, how much, and in what conditions, what would those be and why?

That's a very broad subject. Here's two critical things:

1. You want people to role play, then you need the game characters to relate to the human experience.  This is back to the old observation about science fiction aliens, that you can make your aliens as alien as you want, but 100% of your readers, as far as we know, are human beings. Not to mention that the author presumably is, as well.

Take the dwarf as a stereotypical example:  Short guy with a beard and broad shoulders. Spent a lot of time working in a mine to the point he feels at home there.  Maybe speaks with a Scottish accent, or at least calls people "laddie" all the time.  Rather gruff.  Likes ale.  Carries a big axe for some reason. Is usually honest but with a greedy streak.  Every last one of those things is an exaggeration of particular humans--much of it applicable to a lot more recent than medieval times.  (Read about 18th century miners in Cornwall some time.) 

That's not really a mythical dwarf (from any culture), except insomuch as Tolkien and others have consciously added and shaped their own myths.  Norse dwarves done faithfully to the myths wouldn't be very playable, because most people in most games wouldn't be able to relate to them well enough to make decisions as the character.  It can be done; it's just harder.

People get bent out of shape about elves being artsy/crafty humans with pointed ears in RPGs, but really it is just how far you want to push the exaggeration of what traits and in what combination. 

2. You can't really divorce this kind of question from what the players brings to the game.  Assume a game that is supposed to be set in a pseudo-historical France and recreate the Three Musketeers.  You can talk all day long about "honor" mechanics and things like it, but if you really wanted a great game, you'd do it with people who read Dumas and enjoyed it.  Barring that, you'd get them to watch some of the film adaptations.  The game might have a bit of discussion on the typical characters and their attitudes. 

But let's say that you can't get the players invested in any of that, but they still want to try.  OK, as a GM, presumably you are more invested.  You start having the NPCs act in ways you consider appropriate, and the players get in trouble when they don't.  Because you aren't a complete dick, if the players do something wrong-headed due to ignorance, you stop the game and explain the situation.  Then if they still want to do it, well, the characters in Dumas don't always make wise decisions, either. 

Or the whole thing could turn into a big skirmish game mixed with spectacle. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 04, 2023, 04:18:10 PM
The tricky part of this question is there is no correct answer.  You can't draw some bright line and say that when the game does X, the participants are automatically role playing or not.  What you can do is say whether the game encourages people to role play, and how much, and in what conditions.  Naturally, some people will respond to those factors stronger than others, and will respond differently in different games.

While this is true and I do agree with it, I feel that when a game really requires miniatures to complete combat and its difficult or almost impossible to do combat Theater of the Mind, that starts to get into the skirmish territory for me.

@ Steve Mitchell

You bring up thoughtful points.

As I was reading point #2, I thought about the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium TTRPG by Mophidius Games.  My exposure to Dune is limited to the three movies that have come out thus far, which are centered around Paul Atreides' journey from last scion of House Atreides to overthrowing House Harkonnen and reclaiming Arrakis for the Fremen.  (For those with the "well, actually" impulse, please refrain from giving into it if I've got any of this wrong; it's not the main point of the conversation.)

When I read all of Chapter 2: The Known Universe, I felt pretty confident that I could immerse myself into the fictional universe of Dune, not only as an individual character but as part of a noble house.  There was a solid timeline with the major points in history succinctly presented.  The different organizations were explained in a manner that felt comprehensive, digestible, and interconnected to the larger whole of house politics.  I even created a sample noble house and character based on the Garlean Empire from Final Fantasy XIV but implanted into the setting of Dune.

I think what I'm trying to get at is that a succinctly-written player's reference guide with the optimal amount of lore is one of the ingredients that encourages people to roleplay in a TTRPG.  As a corollary, I suspect that a lack of a player's reference guide discourages people to roleplay and encourages them to treat their characters as nothing more than chess pieces for their commander (the player) to use as a means to "win."  Without a campaign setting to use as a backdrop, a sort-of default of D&D gameplay (ala Adventurers League games) veer towards being big skirmish games mixed with spectacle (according to my second-hand experience).

If you have any further analysis to provide, that'd be something I look forward to as I appreciated the thoughtfulness of your responses thus far.

@ GhostNinja

I completely agree with your point.  This is why I think of D&D from 3e and onward (as well as its imitators like Pathfinder) largely as skirmish games that pay lip-service to being a TTRPG.

Player Reference information delivered clearly and concisely can certainly be an element.  Whether it works better as a written guide, expressed by the GM beforehand, or indirectly in play is another argument.  That other argument is mostly orthogonal to having the element, though.  Not entirely orthogonal, because some players, for example, will eat up a good written guide, while others will not read it under any circumstances. 

I'm not trying to be willfully annoying here, but I'd say what makes a game support role play is both everything and nothing.  Almost, anyway, since I don't mean that taken all the way to its conclusion.  However, I think it is a lot closer to everything and nothing than not.  Specifically, it's how all the parts of the game fit together, what things are called, how they work, what is left out, what is geared explicitly to mechanics, and what is more indirect.   

Quote from: ronwisegamgee on April 03, 2023, 09:44:12 PM
Greetings, folks.

At what point does a TTRPG with the majority of rules focused on its combat system stop being a TTRPG?

To ask from the reverse perspective, at what point does a skirmish game become a TTRPG?

What games labeled as TTRPGs would you label as skirmish games that pay lip-service to tabletop roleplaying?

1. When you stop RPing your toy's feelings

2. When your toy suddenly has feelings

3. WH40K easily (all them damn toys!) GURPS Mass Combat (w/o Psychological Disads or Social skills). Hey Shadowrun, but everybody tins up to .01 Essence ("Eat their Face!") Thine Ole Venerable Chainmail. Human Occupied Landfill! CARWARS! Battletech! Sword World (no social skills)! The Morrow Project (mental & emotional stuff optional)!

I think it changes when the player sees the PC/mini as a play piece vs "a being" (not in a weird way).  Just rolling dice to hit and not caring if the pc lives or dies moves the rpg to a skirmish game.  In the minis world most figs are just tokens but a game like SOF Warrior that has skills can be played as an RPG, it's sold as a minis game but also "rpg-lite".  I'm planning on running a fictional Africa campaign using it like Merc:2000.

The line is somewhere between HeroQuest and Dragonquest.... Here is one example:

Once upon a time, there was this young child who got a big book of mazes as a gift.



But the kid had a hard time solving some mazes. And some solutions were... well, unorthodox:



The kid didn't hesitate to take these unexpected paths. The explanation came immediately and naturally: "I think the penguin needs to make a small jump here... and here... and a big jump here".

There were no similar thoughts when solving puzzle #1. After all, excavators can't jump!

And this difference between puzzles #1 and #2 is what defines RPGs.

An adult would look at both puzzles and realize that the "fluff" is unimportant when solving the puzzle. Penguins and excavators are just a "coat of paint" over the actual game: find a path that doesn't crosses walls (or jumps over holes). The adult might even protest: "the solution given above is not even thinking outside of the box, it is downright breaking the rules of the game".

And, if you are an adult solving these kinds of puzzles, you'd be right.

However, RPGs are the opposite: if your character finds a hole in the dungeon, he can (try to) jump over it, even if there is no "jumping" skill in the game.

In a role-playing game, a chasm is never exactly like a wall.

In other words:

What defines role-playing games is that the fluff is always important to the crunch, and vice-versa.

Compare it to chess, for example.

What if you role-play your bishop as he jumps the enemy's queen, loudly denouncing her sins in the name of Pelor? Is it a role-playing game now?

No, because the fluff has no effect on the crunch.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/03/rpg-and-design-iii-crunch-is-fluff.html