TheRPGSite

The discussion on the horribly named thread brought a question to mind. But before I get to the question there are three caveats.

   1) Just to be clear, I agree with what the poster, Ravenswing, wrote in several posts and have no substantive disagreement with what he said.

2) I may be attributing more to Ravenswing's comment on violence than he intended. If so, sorry Ravenswing. If it helps, just think of this as me using your post as a handy starter for a different conversation.

3) I'd like this not to turn into a discussion of One Shelf, Censorship, or game materials with "rape" in the title. We already have a couple of those threads. I'm just curious about how violence is dealt with at your table.

So here is the part of the post that caught my interest.

Quote from: Ravenswing;852131Many GMs freely admit "fading to black" for mushy scenes, let alone sexual scenes, but I've yet to see a single gamer advocate "fading to black" when it comes to taking out the enemy in battle.

Is that your game experience? Does your group go into a lot of detail regarding the violence in game?

I ask because it is not mine. Actually fading to black (or red really) for violence is common in my experience. A detailed and clinical discussion of exactly what happens when you kill someone would gross out most gamers I know including me. The violence that I usually see in RPGs falls somewhere between 1960 TV Westerns where people get shot and fall down without any blood and often without even a bullet hole and something like "you cut his head off" with maybe an added, "and it bounces over towards the other orcs who look frightened." The limb removing results in Runequest 2 grossed out some players enough that we never felt the need to add blood sprays or intestines spilling out or other such details. Nor are those things I've often in other people's games either.

We used to play RoleMaster back in the day, and colourful descriptions of injury are common there but not actually gory descriptions in my opinion. Occasionally we might have graphic descriptions of injury in other games, usually accompanying a particularly decisive blow from a 'martial' focussed character.

We also have several martial artists in the group, so violence (thankfully theoretical violence - none have actual street fighting in their past) is something we are mostly familiar and comfortable with. Also factor in that we all come from a war gaming background, so playing combat encounters does double duty for us - tactical gaming as well as RPing.

I would mostly agree with your classification as PG-13 style violence, with occasional dips into R, or however the U.S. system classifies films. We have 12A, 15 and 18 here in the UK. Violence runs the spread with a 40/40/20 split in our group. So some glossed over, some with more detail but no gore, and a smaller part with gruesome detail when it makes sense and adds to the game.

We play RuneQuest, so limbs being smashed or lopped off, heads rolling and people being cut in half is a part of the game. While we do not glory in it, we do enjoy slicing off a hand or a head now and again.

We don't have fountains of blood, unless it is important in the game.

So, yes, we describe the effects of violence, but don't go into more detail than "his leg is crushed" or "Your arm is severed". If important, we roll 1D100 to determine where and how much of a limb is mangled. For a man, a strike to the 09 might be important, depending on what was actually hit ...

It depends on the group and the game of course.

I like horror a lot and I've described some very gory stuff... but generally gore isn't scary and I aim for 'disturbing' instead... though a gory death scene can sometimes give PCs a 'That could have been me!' moment... or, done early on, color expectations of more gore to follow and put images in their heads that don't require further description.

Our DCC gm has the Player whose PC delivers the killing blow describe the death... sometimes it's just 'I cut off his head!' and other times it's much more wet.

The vast majority of the time, though, it's just 'he falls dead' or 'you run him through'... not, I think, to avoid gore so much as to speed things along. A gory description for every death in the average RPG would become redundant pretty fast.
My preference is for using gory descriptions when they serve a purpose and not dwelling on them when they don't.

We have a player who tends to treat the violence his character inflicts in an over-the-top, pulpy/cartoon/comic book manner, and we usually all laugh when he does.

Hearing about somebody being hit so hard that their brain comes flying out their ass tends to draw a round of chuckles, for example.

The rest of us just say "you drop that guy, the next one moves in to hit," etc.

It comes down to the game and group. If I am running Call of Cthulhu, I am going to make things gorier. In a typical Savage Worlds setting, I will go easy on descriptions of gore. RuneQuest lies somewhere in between.

The people in the game and the mood plays a part too. Even if I am running a horror game, I will tone it down if someone present is going to be uncomfortable. Conversely, a game that I don't usually run as violent might end up that way if that is the mood of the group.

Basically, I am flexible on the issue.

Hmmm. Unless it is actually important to the game, I don't describe injuries at all. Usually I say "the target goes down" or something like that, though an extraordinary hit gets "Shot him right in the head, that one is dead." There is a big difference, because most people who go down in my games are not actually dead, though they can bleed out if untended. Usually killing someone is a conscious choice - putting a pistol to the back of the head of a helpless, surrendered prisoner and squeezing the trigger type deliberate - so, murder really. It's actually quite rare except the bleed out thing. Usually the detail comes in as the doctors try to heal the wounded.

-clash

We don't fade to black for violence. How descriptive we get depends on the campaign. I find in my wuxia game a bit of extra detail helps.

After D&D, my next games that were regularly played were Runequest and Warhammer. In both of those lopping off limbs was probably the most fun part in combat. Nowadays I stay away from the most gory descriptions, not that myself or any of my players would be squeamish about those, but because I feel that they have been done to death already. At the moment I GM Warhammer 2nd edition, where the critical injury tables aren't as gross as they were in the 1st ed, and with another group I play HackMaster, where there is a d10,000 table for crit injuries, but anything we have seen so far hasn't been exactly gorefest. I haven't seen the table because it is in GM guide.

As a teenager much of my fun in combat was to imagine and describe the exact moves that were the results of random hit location rolls. Nowadays, not anymore.

I don't like overtly light treatments of violence. With some blatantly obvious exceptions, actual murder and mayhem should be a bit uncomfortable, even in fiction. As a logic consequence, at least for me, I neither like to shy away from violence nor treat as something particularly glorious - some stuff is better left inconvenient than trivialized. Unfortunately, I have met a few people too many who were not able or willing to differentiate between the lack of censorship of the inherent brutality of violence  and glorification on the other hand.

Quote from: Bren;852746Is that your game experience? Does your group go into a lot of detail regarding the violence in game?

I run GURPS at a high-detail level, so yes.  Not so much torture scenes , but only because those don't come up.  I also fade-to-black sexual stuff.

I like to keep violence in the fantasy world and sex in the real one.

It's definitely glossed over or toned down IMCs - "You kill him" is just as abstract as "You have sex with her". Some campaigns might be a bit more visceral but I'd never go for "you are there" realism, real lethal violence is shocking and horrible.

I like Robert E. Howard-level detail in my violence.

Quote from: Bren;852746...
 Originally Posted by Ravenswing View Post
Many GMs freely admit "fading to black" for mushy scenes, let alone sexual scenes, but I've yet to see a single gamer advocate "fading to black" when it comes to taking out the enemy in battle.
Is that your game experience? Does your group go into a lot of detail regarding the violence in game?

Well, we've had sex, but rarely graphic details of any kind. I've seen a GM or two get graphic in some ways, that generally seemed a bad idea and didn't go real well.

For violence, it was pretty violent to start with (using The Fantasy Trip) and got more detailed the more rules were added, because it actually matters in the combat system what's being done, in combat. Not so much out-of-combat torture or details of finishing people off except maybe after-the-fact descriptions, which were either for forensic purposes, establishing what characters were capable of, and/or shock value or moral reasons such as justification or religious themes (e.g. the Monks of Gleeb are non-violent except against people who break Gleeb's commandments...).

To give a taste of why graphic violence matters in TFT and GURPS combat, armor is detailed down to the body part and facing, and the effects of a weapon hit vary by weapon type, armor type, and body part. So you might try to get someone in the back to avoid their steel breastplate, go for particular places with less armor, hit their hand to disarm them, go for neck, eyes, organs, groin, etc., with appropriate effects if you do enough damage. And I prefer to describe the results in English rather than using game numbers, and so it's important to convey how hard someone is hitting, and how badly hurt someone is.

I also find that full descriptions of violence and human reactions to it are both immersive and get people relating to the results of their choices, rather than being morality-free game options. Yeah, it can be pretty horrible, but I find it more horrible when a game is about killing people but we pretend it's all sanitary and positive. It's more disturbing to me to have someone killed with an axe or machinegun and have a cheer and their counter removed, than it is to get a full description and have to step over the body, and/or have it still writhing around making horrible screams for a while.

Totally depends on the game and the PC in question.

I will fade to black on violence when it's going to be *really* bad. Usually in my WoD games. The only times where I really wanted to bring it home in terms of what the PC's were facing in WoD was when they were going up against the Baali - whom I use *very very very* rarely. To this day my players say those encounters/adventures were terrifying.

But normally I try to mirror my descriptions based on the general "style" of the PC in question alongside the genre of the game. If I'm doing one my D&D games and one of my PC's is a swashbuckler, he might run a mook through without me having to go into detail, and do it elegantly and efficiently, the description might pass muster enough to be filmed and shown on network TV - ala A-Team.

OR if the player wants to do the describing for the benefit of his fellow adventurers - I let him have at it.

If it's an over the top gritty D&D game - a swashbuckler might get a rooster-tail of red that hits everyone but him, while the barbarian is splitting fools in half with a  savage popping-noise of each rib as the blade cleaves his enemy in twain - with corresponding ridiculous results.

I play with adults - so sex is not a big deal for us. I'll fade to black just to keep the game moving, but I've certainly used sexual encounters to illustrate cultural differences. My Al-Qadim games have had rulers that have rewarded players, both male and female alike with sexual rewards (Harem access etc.). Do I get into gritty detail? Not really, but if it were on film it would probably be a hard-R rating ala GoT.

Same is true of my violence in my games. But I'll add - violence is not the sole purpose of my games either. It's there - for sure. I'm all about interesting conflict in context of the game. And yes, that means sex and violence are very much on the menu. And 'fading to black" is used equally as appropriate to the needs of pacing and what I think leaves a desired impression on my players by me-myself-and-I.

Splatterpunk levels is where I start to fade to black for convenience sake, unless that is part of mood (or "player therapy" where they need to vent). But the violence, like the sex, is for the most part there. Fictional life, if I wanted it to be respected and humane, should be rendered as faithfully as I can. If that means squeamish scenes, so be it.

However I understand the comment. Whereas sex bubbles up all these social mores at tables, violence is often vomited forth like a slot machine hitting the jackpot. It is obviously tied to acceptable cultural attitudes in some way, so I strive to keep my games as open to all grit. Often that even-handedness and follow-up consequences ends up with players curbing their bloodthirst. Mourning orphans and screaming widows tends to mollify such excesses of "adventure" and "heroism."

I game with mixed age and mixed comfort level groups so my games tend to be hard PG. For darker games I will pull out all the stops on violence if that is what the group wants.

Curiously our most violent character is a halfling played by my 11 year old daughter who takes great delight in going all stabby-stabby on the goblins with her daggers.

I do not shy from describing the consequences of violence, it should be  anasty business, but I don't see the need to gross out my players.

Quote from: Bren;852746The discussion on the horribly named thread brought a question to mind. But before I get to the question there are three caveats.

   1) Just to be clear, I agree with what the poster, Ravenswing, wrote in several posts and have no substantive disagreement with what he said.

2) I may be attributing more to Ravenswing's comment on violence than he intended. If so, sorry Ravenswing. If it helps, just think of this as me using your post as a handy starter for a different conversation.

3) I'd like this not to turn into a discussion of One Shelf, Censorship, or game materials with "rape" in the title. We already have a couple of those threads. I'm just curious about how violence is dealt with at your table.

So here is the part of the post that caught my interest.


Is that your game experience? Does your group go into a lot of detail regarding the violence in game?

I ask because it is not mine. Actually fading to black (or red really) for violence is common in my experience. A detailed and clinical discussion of exactly what happens when you kill someone would gross out most gamers I know including me. The violence that I usually see in RPGs falls somewhere between 1960 TV Westerns where people get shot and fall down without any blood and often without even a bullet hole and something like "you cut his head off" with maybe an added, "and it bounces over towards the other orcs who look frightened." The limb removing results in Runequest 2 grossed out some players enough that we never felt the need to add blood sprays or intestines spilling out or other such details. Nor are those things I've often in other people's games either.

IME, gamers as a whole are much more comfortable with violence even extremes of violence than other adult subject matter. I've been gaming for 30 yrs with many groups and I can't recall a single time there's been a call for a "Fade to Black" on violence. The stories I've heard recounted fondly of what would be, well atrocities, in the real world (especially from games like Vampire) are numerous and overall the "Its just imaginary" seems to work much better with violence. Stories of extreme violence are often called epic while stories of, for example, romance can get you weird looks or the creepy label. Of course there are exceptions both ways, extremely graphic gratuitous torture for example.

And more than frequent violence in rpgs, IME, tends to be ridiculously casual. PCs resort to lethal combat over trivial things though some of this is a system artifact since the mechanics sometimes make all violence "to the death" or close to it.

As others have said, it depends on the game and the group. I tend to not go in to graphic detail on sex or violence unless it would have provided something beyond mere spectacle, like an important clue or role-playing opportunity. We currently game in a FLGS which has a regular Pokemon group of kids in the next room over, so we keep it PG-13.

As a Player, I find graphic detail to be annoying. Usually the provider of the graphic detail is the GM and their idea of what is a cool visual for a particular scene often is not my idea would be. I don't need to know if my character has killed the orc in a particularly gruesome manner if my character is concerned with the other 50 orcs still alive and ready to fight, I just want to get on with the game.

How would you do "fade to black" violence?

But all I really want to know is "is that other bugger still trying to kill me or not?"

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;852926How would you do "fade to black" violence?

Blow out all the torches. Followed by blind-fighting. ;)

QuoteBut all I really want to know is "is that other bugger still trying to kill me or not?"

Which sounds like you gloss over the latest violence rather than fleshing it out fully or dwelling on it so as to get on to the next problem.

Fade to black when cannibalism starts on a helpless major character in a game.

Fade to black when an entire family is murdered (see Nicholas II).

Fade to black when someone is thrown into a pit that has teeth.

My group doesn't fade out to black on violence, and how detailed that violence is, depends on the game...

In a typical Dungeons and Dragons game, we go with "Heroic Gore" Monsters get their heads cleaved off, limbs removed and the like...Think Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings...PC's are instead heroically stabbed where they may bleed dramatically but don't end up with spilling entrails...

In my Superhero games, things don't even get that graphic. The most that happens is bloody noses and bruised faces...Unless the Villain is a serial killer type, and even then unless I'm going for a gritty Iron Age Feel, we don't get to graphic..

World of Darkness I go into every loving detail of violence. Limbs breaking, noses crushed, entrails, crying, shitting themselves, pissing themselves, every gory explicit detail as it's a horror game and most of the time the PC's are the monsters...I like them to be able to see what they accomplish. Sometimes this leads to giggling at the table (Like when one of my female players did in fact decide to castrate a gang member who was inappropriate toward her) and other times it leads to "oh god, I didn't mean to do that!" followed by me going "You rolled 8 levels of Damage and they couldn't soak any of it, what did you think was going to happen?"

Most of my sex scenes fade to black...MOST...In Exalted, they never did. It wasn't letters to Penthouse but I made sure we knew what the details of the seduction and romance scenes were in the spirit of Anime...My players made a drinking game based off of accomplishing certain actions in those scenes... One of my favorites was when the bisexual male party Eclipse dressed as a woman and used charms to seduce a straight NPC and make them completely believe it was a woman in order to secure his help...and the female Zenith seducing a getting a fat walrus Lunar, leader of the Guild to cum without ever having to do any form of penetration..

I should note, my player group has been playing together for years and we are very comfortable with one another.

Oh, no, Bren, I don't mind at all you running with my comment for a new thread.  Discussion is what we do here, after all.

By way of clarification, though, I want to expand on my "fade to black" citation.  In a majority of those scenes involving sex, it's at the level of "I take X into the tent, and we come out three hours later."  That's not only nowhere near close to being explicit, there's no overt mention that the characters are having sex at all.  It's all at the implied "yeah, we know what they're doing back there, and it's not discussing the next day's route march, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more" level, and that's the comfort zone for at least the majority of gamers.

I don't know of a single RPG that does this for combat.  No "Okay, we attack them" "Okay, make a roll ... great, you defeat them" level of sanitization.  Even with the simplest of combat systems, you still have to engage an enemy with a weapon, inflict damage upon him, do that often enough to defeat him, and all of that explicitly and on-screen.

That's what I meant.

From the table to the conventions, to the online. So far I have not ever met anyone who wanted to fade to black on anything. They all want to play out every little aspect and that is fine with me.

Sounds like there is some variety in how people describe, or do not describe, the results fo violence in game.

Quote from: Ravenswing;852966That's what I meant.

I knew that I might well be stretching your meaning. But it worked for discussion purposes. Thanks for understanding.

I've seen/used a range for sex. From incredibly euphemistic language like "I take X into the tent, and we come out three hours later" or Monty-Pythonesque juvenile euphemisms a la 'nudge-nudge, wink-wink" where sex is implied but never stated to something where there is a bit of detail, especially of the seduction, a clear statement that yes indeed erotic activities including actual sex are occurring and an indication in general qualitative terms about how the participants felt about the encounter. The latter is, to my mind, pretty close to how a lot of people say they treat the violence. We know who did what in general terms, what the outcome was, but the gritty details are left out or to the imagination of the various participants.

On the violence side, here's a write-up from a bit of our last Honor+Intrigue session. To set the scene the PCs are a group of Cardinal Richelieu's Red Guards who have been ordered to escort three Capuchins to Marseilles. On the way, the stop in Arles to go to mass for Easter and to enjoy the festivities.

QuoteThe Red Guards escorted their Capuchin charges to the Archbishop’s box to watch the Easter Corrida. While standing at attention, Cobweb noticed that one of the bulls in the arena was the black bull that tried to gore him during the Encierro. The group was entertained by the bull dancing of the skillful Arles matadors. But after only a few bulls have appeared, a sudden and storm interrupted the festivities with strong winds and violent thunderstorms—the Mistral had arrived! The Archbishop’s mitre sailed off in the gale as everyone grabbed their hats and hurried inside out of the sudden storm.

During the distraction an assassin leaped out from a side door to and attacked the Archbishop. His efforts were foiled by Jean-Yves who leapt between the assassin and the archbishop and Cobweb, who though he sustained a wound while grappling for the dagger, was able to prevent the assassin from striking. The giant Norbert gang tackled the assassin and his two fellow guards taking everyone to the ground. Norbert grabbed the assassin’s wrist, and angered by the sight of his comrade’s blood, he deliberately broke the assassin’s forearm with a sickening SNAP!

The would-be assassin howled in pain…

I would classify the sickening SNAP and the howl of pain as a moderate level of detail for violence. A few scenes will get more detail, many will get less e.g. 'you wrestle the dagger away from him, breaking his forearm in the process." Which violence gets which treatment varies by system, attack roll/result, player interest/tolerance, tone of the game, and GM whim.

In this case the player said her character was angry; her character is the size of Andre the Giant and is incredibly strong - one of the strongest men in France; and she rolled a Mighty Success (a critical in H+I). The combination called for a stronger description. Since the player has said she is uncomfortable with torture, I stopped at that level of violence rather than talking about compound fractures, shattered bone projecting thru the skin, blood dripping, eyes rolling up into the victim's head, etc.

We allow the player to narrate deaths, so the group tends to adjust itself to the level of violence and gore that works for the day and mood and game.

Ditto for romance and sex, btw.

Quote from: Ravenswing;852966
I don't know of a single RPG that does this for combat.  No "Okay, we attack them" "Okay, make a roll ... great, you defeat them" level of sanitization.  Even with the simplest of combat systems, you still have to engage an enemy with a weapon, inflict damage upon him, do that often enough to defeat him, and all of that explicitly and on-screen.

Actually, Wordplay and FATE can do this, for combats which are a simple contest, as can HeroQuest. All 3 of these don't tend to detail conflict of any kind and leave it to the players/GM to narrate.

Since we narrate more trad rpgs in a similar way we have been known to montage and narrate combats even in D&D when we wanted to move the plot along rather than fighting every single blow.

We do.  Always have.  " You hit, you do six points of damage, he' s dead."

Period.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;853022We do.  Always have.  " You hit, you do six points of damage, he' s dead."

Period.

This is what combat has most often looked like in all the games I've played. Pretty antiseptic. Genre doesn't really matter. Orcs with swords or aliens with blast rifles, it's the same.

Even in games with hit location tables, it's "take 3 hits to your right arm".

It has always amused me that combat, which in real life is pretty exciting/terrifying can be bland and boring in an RPG.

Quote from: tzunder;852984Actually, Wordplay and FATE can do this, for combats which are a simple contest, as can HeroQuest. All 3 of these don't tend to detail conflict of any kind and leave it to the players/GM to narrate.

Since we narrate more trad rpgs in a similar way we have been known to montage and narrate combats even in D&D when we wanted to move the plot along rather than fighting every single blow.

This is my experience, too. If we have a 'speed bump' encounter the result might be determined by a single dice roll if success is certain and the only question is 'at what cost?'  

We also wrap things up when the outcome has become certain and the process of playing them out has stopped being fun, but that is a little different. Totally driven by pacing the game. And also applicable to trad games like D&D in my opinion.

It's interesting. It is a pretty strong truism that players will do what ever the game gives them lots of rules for, and since most games have the most rules for combat that gets a lot of game time at most tables. Conversely, few games have rules for romantic encounters.

This is a cool little game: Radiance (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/105102/Radiance-Players-Guide-A-Complete-Roleplaying-Game-in-the-Age-of-Electrotech?manufacturers_id=4714&filters=0_0_44827_0_0) (and free, to boot). Several of the characters have some kind of companionship ability (even just a kiss) which helps restore hits. It certainly makes you think differently about healing that sweaty and ugly fighter...

Quote from: Bren;852746So here is the part of the post that caught my interest.


Is that your game experience? Does your group go into a lot of detail regarding the violence in game?

Sometimes yes, we do "fade to red", depending on genre. That's the default in our Feng Shui 2 game, for example, though it provokes ironic commentaries about the genre.
More often than not, though there's no fading to red in our games.

Quote from: dbm;853290It is a pretty strong truism that players will do what ever the game gives them lots of rules for, and since most games have the most rules for combat that gets a lot of game time at most tables. Conversely, few games have rules for romantic encounters.

Which astounds a lot of wargamers, especially DIPLOMACY players.  The "diplomacy" part of the game is 90% of the game play, but only takes up something like 173 words.

"The diplomacy phase is at the beginning of each turn and lasts 10 minutes.  Players can say anything they want to each other, and do not have to keep promises."  That's the gist of the rules, but that comprises most of the game.

The rules are available online, go give 'em a read.

For that matter, there are NO rules for bluffing in Poker, but it's a major part of the strategy of the game.

What you cite is a truism, I grant you, but it's fallacious.

It's an interesting psychological phenomena. A good friend of mine runs a professional LARP company here in the UK and they have to design the rules with great care. If the rules allow a player to give themselves a crap game, they will do that.

For example, there was a rule that repairing your armour took an hour. So players would sit in their tents for hours at a time rather than getting out there and role playing with all the other people there. Needless to say, that rule was quickly removed.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;853326Which astounds a lot of wargamers, especially DIPLOMACY players.  The "diplomacy" part of the game is 90% of the game play, but only takes up something like 173 words.

"The diplomacy phase is at the beginning of each turn and lasts 10 minutes.  Players can say anything they want to each other, and do not have to keep promises."  That's the gist of the rules, but that comprises most of the game.

The rules are available online, go give 'em a read.

For that matter, there are NO rules for bluffing in Poker, but it's a major part of the strategy of the game.

What you cite is a truism, I grant you, but it's fallacious.

My favorite example of this is Prince of the City board game. Nothing in the rules state anything about negotiating with other players, but the way we played it, at least 80% of the game happened outside on cigarette breaks. It was so evident that guys who didn't smoke joined us outside :D

Quote from: dbm;853290It's interesting. It is a pretty strong truism that players will do what ever the game gives them lots of rules for, and since most games have the most rules for combat that gets a lot of game time at most tables. Conversely, few games have rules for romantic encounters.

A "truism" that is contradicted by the actual play experiences of many of us.

I’ve played RPGs for over 40 years and even in the days of teenage males playing OD&D we spent more time exploring than we did in combat. For at least the last 35+ years we've spent far more time talking to NPCs and to other PCs than we spent in combat. So not true in general. Just true for certain people.

Quote from: dbm;853347It's an interesting psychological phenomena. A good friend of mine runs a professional LARP company here in the UK and they have to design the rules with great care. If the rules allow a player to give themselves a crap game, they will do that.

For example, there was a rule that repairing your armour took an hour. So players would sit in their tents for hours at a time rather than getting out there and role playing with all the other people there. Needless to say, that rule was quickly removed.

Or maybe they need to get players who are more interested in engaging in a LARP than in sitting by themselves in a tent?

Rules don’t and can’t fix players.

My point was that the players will play the system irrespective of whether that results in a fun experience. Remove the rubbish rule and your remove the inducement to carry out that activity.

Reduce the emphasis on combat in a game system and you will see less emphasis on combat at the table.

And my friend runs the biggest LARP in the UK, so he evidently has players who want to play...

Quote from: dbm;853423My point was that the players will play the system irrespective of whether that results in a fun experience. Remove the rubbish rule and your remove the inducement to carry out that activity.

Reduce the emphasis on combat in a game system and you will see less emphasis on combat at the table.

And my friend runs the biggest LARP in the UK, so he evidently has players who want to play...

I don't think this is true at all. Game systems emphasize rules for combat because it is harder to resolve than a lot of other things without such rules. I can adjudicate players baking cakes, talking to NPCs or engaging in trade pretty easily with no rules whatsoever. It is a lot harder to deal with players shooting bows at opponents without combat rules.

What Brendan said.

Quote from: dbm;853423And my friend runs the biggest LARP in the UK, so he evidently has players who want to play...

But you said he had a large enough group of players who wanted to just sit in their tents that he felt like he needed to changer the rules just to get them to play in the LARP that they signed up to play in. To me that sounds like a problem with those particular players, not a problem with the rules in the exact same way that I see players who want to do something other than engage in combat do that. And they do that despite having few if any rules for the things they want their PCs to do. Examples include:

• Garden
• Practice skills and learn new skills
• Cook food
• Try new foods (and figure out if their PC likes the new food)
• Try new drinks (ditto)
• Holiday in exciting locations
• Invite people to social events and play out the socializing
• Meet new NPCs
• Talk to other characters to learn about them
• Engage in diplomatic negotiations
• Troll for information
• Flirt
• Go on dates
• Engage in seduction
• Talk about their family, fears, wants, and desires
• Buy or make and give presents
• Shop for new and upgraded equipment
• Shop for souvenirs
• Window shop just to see what is in the bazaar or market
• Get engaged
• Get married
• Have children
• Befriend animals

These are just off the top of my head. I'm certain I've missed some other things people like to do for which the games we play have few if any rules.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;853425I don't think this is true at all. Game systems emphasize rules for combat because it is harder to resolve than a lot of other things without such rules. I can adjudicate players baking cakes, talking to NPCs or engaging in trade pretty easily with no rules whatsoever. It is a lot harder to deal with players shooting bows at opponents without combat rules.

You've probably never seen the Great British Bake Off, but baking is very complex and a technical endeavour. There are lots of nuances and ways of getting it wrong. It can have drama. If you want to make it the centre of attention (like this very popular TV programme does) there is a lot to work with.

So, you can choose to emphasise the technical aspects of any arena if you feel it is worth it. Most games put that effort into combat, encouraging people to think that is what the game is about (when all you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails). Some other games, for example Fate, have a more even mechanical representation. Personally I find that beneficial when wanting to make a wider range of challenges for my players to interact with.

Quote from: Bren;853430But you said he had a large enough group of players who wanted to just sit in their tents that he felt like he needed to changer the rules just to get them to play in the LARP that they signed up to play in. To me that sounds like a problem with those particular players, not a problem with the rules.

When you want to grow your business, engineering a situation that is more fun for more people more of the time make good business sense.

I've always run bloody games with lots of gore.

But I love horror movies. If anything, my OD&D is fantasy/horror and my best Traveller campaigns have been sci-fi/horror.

Quote from: dbm;853434You've probably never seen the Great British Bake Off, but baking is very complex and a technical endeavour. There are lots of nuances and ways of getting it wrong. It can have drama. If you want to make it the centre of attention (like this very popular TV programme does) there is a lot to work with.

So, you can choose to emphasise the technical aspects of any arena if you feel it is worth it. Most games put that effort into combat, encouraging people to think that is what the game is about (when all you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails). Some other games, for example Fate, have a more even mechanical representation. Personally I find that beneficial when wanting to make a wider range of challenges for my players to interact with.

I have seen the Bake Off. My wife found it interesting. She bakes. I don't. I've also seen more chef shows than any human should have to watch. And I cook. Have done so for about 35 years. I think we are aware that there are nuances to baking or cooking beyond a binary success or fail. But you don't need all those nuances to include baking or cooking in an RPG.

Maybe if you wanted to play an RPG that was all about being a baker or chef you might want very detailed rules, but I really doubt the three of us want to play that game. I sure don't. It is way too narrow in focus to hold my interest for years of play and I like running and playing games for years.

You keep saying that the rules need to be changed, as if that were an axiom. And yet, those of us who have been replying have been playing RPGs for a really, really long time without needing to change the rules in the ways you suggest to get the effect you want. The effect that you claim needs different rules to get. That should tell you something about your premise that the rules determine how the players behave.

Hint: They don't.

Quote from: dbm;853436When you want to grow your business, engineering a situation that is more fun for more people more of the time make good business sense.

My mistake. I was talking about a hobby. Business is something I do for a living. For my leisure time hobby, not including people in it who aren't interested in the game we play has worked really, really well for me. But providing incentives to get unmotivated people to plunk down more of their money is not particularly relevant to what motivates people who are already having fun to have more fun.

Quote from: dbm;853423My point was that the players will play the system irrespective of whether that results in a fun experience. Remove the rubbish rule and your remove the inducement to carry out that activity.

And I have 42 years of gaming and work for GHQ, Adventure Games, and FASA that says otherwise.

My meaningless anecdote nullifies your meaningless anecdote.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;853494My meaningless anecdote nullifies your meaningless anecdote.

So that leaves at +2 anecdota. ;)

My point was that Brendan threw out a list topics he considered so trivial that no one would ever want or need rules for them. I picked one (baking because I had just watched GBBO) and countered that, actually, this was a complex activity with many possible failure points and outcomes. And some people might want to make it the focus of a encounter or challenge. Having rule which are flexible to support that is a good idea in my opinion.

Quote from: dbm;853519My point was that Brendan threw out a list topics he considered so trivial that no one would ever want or need rules for them. I picked one (baking because I had just watched GBBO) and countered that, actually, this was a complex activity with many possible failure points and outcomes. And some people might want to make it the focus of a encounter or challenge. Having rule which are flexible to support that is a good idea in my opinion.

Better to have a generic rule that can be used to cover different things. Baking is a kind of Craft, so a generic Craft rule that can be used for baking, armouring, weaponsmithing and candlemaking than a specific rule for baking.

Quote from: soltakss;853523Better to have a generic rule that can be used to cover different things. Baking is a kind of Craft, so a generic Craft rule that can be used for baking, armouring, weaponsmithing and candlemaking than a specific rule for baking.

Quite possibly. I've started a new thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=33113) on this topic as I think it's something not many games address well.

To the OP: yes, that's been my experience. If in-character interaction gets to the point where it seems like sex would be the next logical step, fade to black. But with violence, fade to black/skipping is extremely rare.

Of course, I find nothing weird with this, and actually find it odd that some people do. As far as I can tell, the two types of actions are different on a number of levels, including the fundamental, so it seems weird to me that anyone should expect both to be treated the same.

Quote from: dbm;853290It is a pretty strong truism that players will do what ever the game gives them lots of rules for, and since most games have the most rules for combat that gets a lot of game time at most tables. Conversely, few games have rules for romantic encounters.

I think it's more that players will do whatever the game gives them the most reward for; that doesn't have to be correlated with having a lot of rules. Throw in a one line rule in any edition of D&D that seducing an NPC gives the PC several random magic items and five times the XP of killing them and the players would be hitting on a disturbing range of monsters.

Quote from: rawma;853809I think it's more that players will do whatever the game gives them the most reward for; that doesn't have to be correlated with having a lot of rules. Throw in a one line rule in any edition of D&D that seducing an NPC gives the PC several random magic items and five times the XP of killing them and the players would be hitting on a disturbing range of monsters.

That is a good point. It's interesting that games like Call of Cthulhu avoid that problem. They are strongly about solving the mystery / defeating the menace/ getting out alive and not really about increasing your character's skills at all. There is a very weak link between mechanics and reward but players tend to stay on task in my experience.

Quote from: dbm;853830That is a good point. It's interesting that games like Call of Cthulhu avoid that problem. They are strongly about solving the mystery / defeating the menace/ getting out alive and not really about increasing your character's skills at all. There is a very weak link between mechanics and reward but players tend to stay on task in my experience.

Mostly that is not because of the rules (they are essentially the same as the rules in Runequest, Stormbringer, and BRP), but because most people who play CoC don't play for the power-ups. And that can and does occur because most gamers are not Pavlovian conditioned XP clickers without the will or desire to do something in the game other than chase power-ups.

Quote from: rawma;853809I think it's more that players will do whatever the game gives them the most reward for; that doesn't have to be correlated with having a lot of rules. Throw in a one line rule in any edition of D&D that seducing an NPC gives the PC several random magic items and five times the XP of killing them and the players would be hitting on a disturbing range of monsters.

That's a very reasonable point.

When violence is a central subject -- as it is in most rpgs, as in their genre fiction inspirations -- it is naturally often on stage. However, there's a spectrum from the very abstract treatment in old D&D, to Gangbusters (detailed combat movement, but non-detailed results of combat, crashes or brutal 'persuasion') -- to RuneQuest, RoleMaster, TriTac, etc.

In En Garde, duels are treated in some detail as to choice of fencing moves, but military campaigns come down to choice of bravery / doing your duty / poltroonery.

Call of Cthulhu is somewhere between D&D and Gangbusters for combat, but since it's a horror-themed game, other gruesomeness may get more attention. (Lovecraft's more cerebral existensial-crisis style may work for fewer people than nigh a century ago).

In a game based on spicy bodice-rippers or Danielle Steele sagas, I expect there might be both less blood and less prudery regarding the boudoir and getting into it.

Quote from: Bren;853407Or maybe they need to get players who are more interested in engaging in a LARP than in sitting by themselves in a tent?

Rules don't and can't fix players.

Exactly.  What the organizers of that LARP -- and many tabletop gamers, as to that -- obviously didn't understand was that the number of players who act out of selfish self-interest outnumber the "good of the game" players several times to one.

Just like the I-have-to-be-wearing-my-armor-24-7 brigade featuring in the current armor thread, I bet the motivation of those players was that they didn't want to risk getting hacked without working armor, even if the organizers would much rather have a nice frothy public environment with lots of players.

(Having been in several combat boffer LARPs over the course of a few decades, the only way I can imagine players being that gunshy is two-fold: that it was a trigger-happy environment where PCs got hacked at the drop of a coif, and that it was a real pain in the ass to get raised.)

Personally I look on it as the courtship is more interesting than the sex; "is the goal achieved."

Similarly, in combat, is my goal achieved?  In the first case my objective is to play "Mister Winky Visits Happyland;" in the second place my objective is "make sure that guy doesn't kill me."  In both cases, once my objective is achieved the scene is over as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;853976Personally I look on it as the courtship is more interesting than the sex; "is the goal achieved."

Similarly, in combat, is my goal achieved?  In the first case my objective is to play "Mister Winky Visits Happyland;" in the second place my objective is "make sure that guy doesn't kill me."  In both cases, once my objective is achieved the scene is over as far as I'm concerned.

Except that one ends with a half-orc...
And the other ends with half an orc...
:cool:

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;853326Which astounds a lot of wargamers, especially DIPLOMACY players.  The "diplomacy" part of the game is 90% of the game play, but only takes up something like 173 words.

"The diplomacy phase is at the beginning of each turn and lasts 10 minutes.  Players can say anything they want to each other, and do not have to keep promises."  That's the gist of the rules, but that comprises most of the game.

The rules are available online, go give 'em a read.

For that matter, there are NO rules for bluffing in Poker, but it's a major part of the strategy of the game.

What you cite is a truism, I grant you, but it's fallacious.

Yep.

For all the rules devoted to sieges and land and naval battles in D&D, those tend to be a much smaller portion of the activity in most campaigns. Mining? Diseases? Lots of the Gygaxian DMG didn't find proportionate use.

As in Diplomacy, no rules for talking, and conversation has generally played a big part in the game in my experience.

It was for that reason of lack of demand -- not a "supply side" vice versa -- that subjects got cut from 2nd ed. C&S. Incidentally, one of those was Alignment, but I wouldn't say it downplayed roleplaying (just the opposite).

Quote from: omega;853979except that one ends with a half-orc...
And the other ends with half an orc...
:cool:

yeeeeeeeeeah!

Quote from: dbm;853830That is a good point. It's interesting that games like Call of Cthulhu avoid that problem. They are strongly about solving the mystery / defeating the menace/ getting out alive and not really about increasing your character's skills at all. There is a very weak link between mechanics and reward but players tend to stay on task in my experience.

Well, some players will act counter to what the reward scheme supports, because they're trying to match the expectations of the game's genre in spite of the rules or motivated by a different objective than leveling up; if you made a rule in D&D that characters get nearly as much experience staying home safe as going into a dungeon, some would still go to the dungeon, and a few more would eventually go there, because the reward is having an adventure and not the XP. (Did the LARP players sitting in tents "repairing" their armor come out and do something when the hour was up?)

So some of the reward is the player doing something cool whatever the outcome for the character; in particular the reward for playing Lovecraftian horror is more for the player than the character, who has for whatever reason made a very bad career choice.

Artificial "reward schemes" matter only to the extent they match what the players actually find rewarding.

When I run a game that has no "level up" business (e.g., Metamorphosis Alpha or Traveller), the players who want that business pass it up. Players who are really interested in doing things jump in and start doing things.

The players in my Metamorphosis Alpha campaign either have not noticed or do not care, or possibly both, that the game has no experience points, no level up, no mechanical cherries to pluck.  They love it because it is so open ended and they can do anything they want without needing to look up a dozen rules first.

Quote from: rawma;854050Well, some players will act counter to what the reward scheme supports, because they're trying to match the expectations of the game's genre in spite of the rules or motivated by a different objective than leveling up; if you made a rule in D&D that characters get nearly as much experience staying home safe as going into a dungeon, some would still go to the dungeon, and a few more would eventually go there, because the reward is having an adventure and not the XP. (Did the LARP players sitting in tents "repairing" their armor come out and do something when the hour was up?)

So some of the reward is the player doing something cool whatever the outcome for the character; in particular the reward for playing Lovecraftian horror is more for the player than the character, who has for whatever reason made a very bad career choice.

They did. There were other rules which forced even more extreme behaviour (up to and including never leaving the tent as their character was the 'anchor' of a chain of summoned beings). These rules were also changed, but that was harder as they had very far reaching effects both in and out of character. The interesting thing about event based games like LARP is you actually get pretty quick feedback about what does or doesn't work and you can adjust the rules between events in an effort to improve them. It's much harder to do that with a more traditional RPG product delivered by a book of rules.

In terms of the wider question, I guess the key thing is 'why do people play this game?' In my experience people choose D&D or similar games as they give you clear progression at 'killing things and taking their stuff' and that's what the game is about for lots of people. When people choose to play CoC it's for the experience or tone of the game; it isn't about having a kick-ass Spot Hidden skill.

Rules definitely drive behaviour in my experience. Are Magica is a fantastic example of this. Mages get more powerful quickest by not going on the adventure, but staying home to study instead. Sometimes the characters have to badger or even pay one of their number to go.*

* If you haven't played Ars Magica, every one has three or more characters, only one of which is a Mage, so this actually works out.

Quote from: dbm;854223The interesting thing about event based games like LARP is you actually get pretty quick feedback about what does or doesn't work and you can adjust the rules between events in an effort to improve them. It's much harder to do that with a more traditional RPG product delivered by a book of rules.

Depends on the LARP.  Our own was a heavily decentralized outfit where the "voters" were the organizers who ran events, and ANYone could decide to run an event, under certain (easily met) stipulations.  Other than individual "eventholders" publishing house rules at their own events, rules changes took place only at an annual off-season meeting.  I've noted that several other LARPs had similar timeframes for rule revisions, and while I haven't played in giant cross-regional LARPs like NERO, Amtgard or Dagorhir, I expect the rate of rules change must involve many voices and be relatively glacial.

By contrast, it's EASY to change a rule in a traditional RPG product: if I want to change a rule in my game, I change it.  Elapsed time, seconds.

Of course, I wouldn't be changing it for every GM, but what would I care?  They play their games, I play mine.

Sure, I was thinking from a 'rules creator' perspective. It's a bit like having the author sat at the table all the time.

The only thing I've seen come close in TTRPGs was 4e's online tools. One of our players had his Avenger nerfed between sessions and we only spotted this when he reprinted his power cards due to levelling up. It was a striking example of how powerful and pervading the tools had become in that implementation.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;853425I don't think this is true at all. Game systems emphasize rules for combat because it is harder to resolve than a lot of other things without such rules. I can adjudicate players baking cakes, talking to NPCs or engaging in trade pretty easily with no rules whatsoever. It is a lot harder to deal with players shooting bows at opponents without combat rules.

Recently, inspired by Gronan, I decided to run a session in Frei Kriegspiel style. Except it didn't have rules for combat, either. I decided what happens based on description, and randomised what I saw fit. Sometimes I'd randomise to hit, sometimes success or failure was a foregone conclusion. Sometime I'd randomise the effect, sometimes I'd decide what would happen in the case of a hit based on the attack and any other factors, and sometimes neither of these were randomised.
Point is, no, we don't need rules for combat any more than we need them for baking a cake.

Quote from: AsenRG;854816Recently, inspired by Gronan, I decided to run a session in Frei Kriegspiel style. Except it didn't have rules for combat, either. I decided what happens based on description, and randomised what I saw fit. Sometimes I'd randomise to hit, sometimes success or failure was a foregone conclusion. Sometime I'd randomise the effect, sometimes I'd decide what would happen in the case of a hit based on the attack and any other factors, and sometimes neither of these were randomised.
Point is, no, we don't need rules for combat any more than we need them for baking a cake.

Need, no.  However, stakes are higher... people rarely die over a cake.  Also, combat is chaotic and weird; bizarre shit can happen.  I use the combat tables for D&D because it helps me mix up the results and relieves some of the burden on me, which is the point of the charts and tables in Free Kriegspiel.

Also it gives rise to situations like my NYC D&D game where 5 1st level PCs found 27 gems and I rolled hot.  Besides leveling up, the large amount of money right off changed the whole campaign because suddenly non-magical gear was no longer an issue.  They also were able to afford some healing potions, which for 1st and 2nd level characters makes a BIG difference.

Quote from: AsenRG;854816Recently, inspired by Gronan, I decided to run a session in Frei Kriegspiel style. Except it didn't have rules for combat, either. I decided what happens based on description, and randomised what I saw fit. Sometimes I'd randomise to hit, sometimes success or failure was a foregone conclusion. Sometime I'd randomise the effect, sometimes I'd decide what would happen in the case of a hit based on the attack and any other factors, and sometimes neither of these were randomised.
Point is, no, we don't need rules for combat any more than we need them for baking a cake.

You can always adjudicate however you want. For you, maybe running combat without resorting to a system of some kind is easy enough. I think the majority of GMs would have a harder time. The point is there is usually a lot more contention around the outcome of combat than cake baking, and it is often harder to fairly determine how throwing a punch will play out without resorting to a system. I've seen plenty of GMs smoothly run a game with zero non-combat rules, I've never seen a combat go smoothly without a combat system being used (and I've been in plenty of games where it has been attempted).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;855681Need, no.  However, stakes are higher... people rarely die over a cake.

"Here's a picture of your friend sitting in an unknown location, all tied up and sitting on a bomb. I'm ready to let it run its course and watch with glee. Even if you could capture me, I'm not going to tell you where he is, and he's going to die when the bomb's timer stops ticking.
However, since I'm a fair-minded person, I'm going to give you a chance. I'm going to release your friend if you can bake me the best cake I've ever tasted, from now until 20:30 PM EDT tomorrow."
We can easily get at least a session's worth of playing out of this.

And come on, Gronan... you've read sources, you know how many duels had started over saying the wrong word to the wrong person or in presence of people that were talking to the wrong person. You know that something as simple as what form of address you're using might be a hurdle to diplomatic negotiations. How many people have died over this?
Way too often, who dies is basically a resolved question before the swords have been drawn, too:).

QuoteAlso, combat is chaotic and weird; bizarre shit can happen.  I use the combat tables for D&D because it helps me mix up the results and relieves some of the burden on me, which is the point of the charts and tables in Free Kriegspiel.

Sure it is chaotic and sometimes it can be weird! But I didn't say I wasn't using tables and charts and stuff, did I? I said there wasn't a systematic way of doing it.

QuoteAlso it gives rise to situations like my NYC D&D game where 5 1st level PCs found 27 gems and I rolled hot.  Besides leveling up, the large amount of money right off changed the whole campaign because suddenly non-magical gear was no longer an issue.  They also were able to afford some healing potions, which for 1st and 2nd level characters makes a BIG difference.

Yeah, and a PC met a non-human spy due to a random table. My point is, I wasn't rolling on the table because I had to. I just felt like rolling three results to see what the PC would meet during a night trip in Livyanu.
Compare and contrast with "roll on the random table when it's the GM's turn in the city" (not an exact quote from Torchbearer RPG, but close enough).

And BTW, Gronan, at least one of my players really liked that;).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;855686You can always adjudicate however you want.

Of course.

QuoteFor you, maybe running combat without resorting to a system of some kind is easy enough. I think the majority of GMs would have a harder time.

Maybe yes, maybe not. The majority of freeform GMs are doing a good enough job running combats that their players are coming for more.
And there are way more freeform players than there are RPG players. Of course, you have no way of meeting those on a RPG forum, but just browse LiveJournal, for example...

QuoteThe point is there is usually a lot more contention around the outcome of combat than cake baking, and it is often harder to fairly determine how throwing a punch will play out without resorting to a system.

Actually no, it's going to be determined in some way, and it's the way the GM says.

QuoteI've seen plenty of GMs smoothly run a game with zero non-combat rules, I've never seen a combat go smoothly without a combat system being used (and I've been in plenty of games where it has been attempted).

While I've seen (and played, and run) enough freeform games that I've seen it going smoothly more often than not. (The Frei Kriegspiel addition was in using dice and tables, even if the dice mean what the GM decides on the spot:p).

IME, it's when people first present you with a rules system and then discard it in favour of the "GM decides" system that you get arguments. Even among my players, the one I know would always insist on sticking the closest to the system we're using, is fine with the GM deciding everything in the game, when she has been notified in advance that the GM decides is the supreme procedure, the system is a GM's aid, and that she doesn't have to learn it!
I can see the point here. I mean, the way rule systems are today, can you imagine reading several hundred pages to participate in a game and then realising they're less important than everything else?
Either way, that's my player that insists on applying the system, houserules included, to the letter. She's actually unusually insistent in this regard, almost an outlier among the players I've seen.
And yet she's also fine with the Referee just refereeing the fights.
Thus, I maintain my previous statement is true. We don't need rules for combat, either. Doesn't mean they don't make our lives easier.

And when we've got a baking contest for the hand of the Prince, or a baking contest to appease the evil witch, or whatever, rules for baking also make it easier. So no, we don't need one of those more often than the others.
And if we created rules on a how-often-you-need-them basis, we'd probably need more rules for using oil even more than we need combat rules:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;854816Point is, no, we don't need rules for combat any more than we need them for baking a cake.

I would agree!

Of course, as any baker knows, baking is the one area of cooking that's intolerant of Do It However The Hell You Want -- you need to measure precisely and follow the directions pretty much precisely.

Quote from: DavetheLost;854107The players in my Metamorphosis Alpha campaign either have not noticed or do not care, or possibly both, that the game has no experience points, no level up, no mechanical cherries to pluck.  They love it because it is so open ended and they can do anything they want without needing to look up a dozen rules first.

Same for Gamma World till around 3rd ed. The new MA does not have a level system either.

Waxing prolix is not really a thing you can do in face-to-face play.  Online it might be okay depending on how long your group is willing to wait and how fast you can write creatively and type.  Then of course there's stuff like play-by-post or play-by-email where you can really let loose if the mood takes you.  However, I think more often than not it's better to leave out the careful descriptions (and this is coming from someone who only knows words like "corbel," "transom," "sconce," "alcove," "atrium" etc. largely thanks to D&D) because D&D is supposed to be a game of imagination.  Sometimes for tactical reasons you absolutely need to establish every feature of a room but if it's not needed, let your players imagine (within reason) their idea of a glorious throneroom or a bustling city or the scary dragon or whatever.  Keep descriptions short and to the point, seriously no more than two lines.

That said I pretty much have no problems getting Metal as All Hell when it's violence time.  Exploding heads and sucking wounds and bulging entrails, "rivulets of blood course down your blade, staining your hands,"  "splayed branches of blood are thrown into the air as your axe bites across his chest with a screech of rent steel," you know, have fun with it.  That's, again, a lot easier online than in person and the latter tends to be more like "seww yeahhh you cut him the fuck open lol."  

As far as sex vs violence.... I think it's pretty much a genre expectations thing.  D&D is a game, at its core, about delving into ruins or caverns and killing weird monsters and taking their shit.  You can use it for other milieus but where it's most comfortable is essentially Pulp Fantasy Heist and War Stories.  Sex doesn't really come into it.  Conan got laid all the time but it was always before or after the actual story of whatever particular adventure, 'cuz it was supposed to be an adventure(!!) not a penthouse letter.

But that doesn't go for blowing your treasure on hookers and booze once you're back in town.  That is literally an intrinsic assumption of the game---Gygax in the AD&D book wrote (paraphrasing) "player characters are assumed to live large and expansive lifestyles and thus should deduct about 100 gp from their fortunes per month."  In other words you are that dude who went into the mountain and killed the Otyugh, you have no problem finding girlfriends in the one-horse hamlet; your 3rd-level ass is basically the coolest most of these pig farmers have ever seen.  So yes, by all means assume your character is having All The Sex in their downtime but roleplaying that stuff out?  I can't see how that wouldn't get incredibly uncomfortable.

Interesting topic. I think in the end it all comes down to group preference, which is informed by roleplaying culture, regional culture, and genre preferences too. My traditional men-only grognards Gurps group used to describe in detail all violence and gory scenes while sidelining everything related to sex. On the other hand my women-included younger to the hobby Vampire group did the opposite, detailing more the sex scenes while fading to black (or red) the violence ones.

Quote from: Itachi;856791Interesting topic. I think in the end it all comes down to group preference, which is informed by roleplaying culture, regional culture, and genre preferences too. My traditional men-only grognards Gurps group used to describe in detail all violence and gory scenes while sidelining everything related to sex. On the other hand my women-included younger to the hobby Vampire group did the opposite, detailing more the sex scenes while fading to black (or red) the violence ones.

I suspected that might be the case, but it was interesting to see how different people view the matter. It's not unusual to see discussions about jargon and techniques for dealing with romance, seduction, and sex e.g. fade to black, lines, veils, and other things. It is far less common see discussions on how different groups manage violence.

Thanks to everyone for sharing. :)

Quote from: Itachi;856791Interesting topic. I think in the end it all comes down to group preference, which is informed by roleplaying culture, regional culture, and genre preferences too. My traditional men-only grognards Gurps group used to describe in detail all violence and gory scenes while sidelining everything related to sex. On the other hand my women-included younger to the hobby Vampire group did the opposite, detailing more the sex scenes while fading to black (or red) the violence ones.

Well, that makes sense once the issue is resolved.  I don't want to fade to black if that bugger is still trying to stick a sword in me.  On the other hand my combats have never been more descriptive than "You hit him for 5 HP, he's dead."

I never liked Sam Peckinpah as a director.

And I'm afraid if somebody wanted anything more sexually explicit than "he/she accepts your offer" I would start channeling Cheech Wizard for my sex scenes:  "I sticked it in her mouf and she went oog."

But my "explicit description of combat" is stuff like "I hit him on top of the head so hard he shits his own liver," so it evens out.

Sex in RPGs may be one of those few times where "if there isnt a rule for it. You cant do it." is a good thing. ahem. Same for other icky subjects like graphic violence.

Then again Dragon and TSR got more than a few letters questions on stuff like that.

From personal experience it seems that limb-loss tables and the like seem to bring out the more gorier descriptions. I was in a session using the Role Master rules and it got progressively more gruesome.

Horror settings though tend to drift into the messy descriptors for obvious reasons.

For me as a DM the potential trouble comes when you get a mix of players who do or dont want combat, or whatever, so graphic. Getting the gorehounds to tone it down can be a nuisance.

Quote from: Omega;855972Same for Gamma World till around 3rd ed. The new MA does not have a level system either.

Actually, 1st ed. GW does have experience points and increasing levels to get bonuses. I'm in pretty sure that's also in 2nd (basically a revision of 1st), and while my memory is fuzzy on the details I think there was some sort of advancement in the rather different 3rd.

I had a D&D player who wanted vivid description of physical injury each time he took a few hit points off his 20+. That's not how I see it, and he didn't play as if his character was impaired, but I did what I could to come up with enough.