Quote from: Peregrin;457338Edwards says a lot of weird, caustic, and sometimes flat out wrong things, but he doesn't say that.

Sort of. There is an assumption in GNS theory that "coherent" games are better than "incoherent" ones. The Vampire Brain Damage thing is related, but not quite the same thing.

This (the relative value of "coherence" vs. "incoherence") is one of the big obvious issues on which GNS theory is totally stupid and makes predictions about play that are contrary to experience, so I've noticed some of the lesser Forgistas backing off from it over time.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;457347This may or may not add to what Phillip posted, but why aren't the manipulations you perform via the CoD interface also "attempts to exercise 'narrative control'"?

It adds to it, because I frankly didn't understand Phillip's response. I don't have time to respond to the longer posts coherently, but I can answer this question succinctly: in CoD MP there's literally no story of any kind. As such the controls can't exhibit "narrative control" because there's no narrative there to be controlled. An argument could be made that, say, the American team attempting to capture the Russian flag (or whatever MP game you'd like to address) is a narrative, but I think that would be stretching at best. Hell, there aren't even any "characters" per se in MP.

This doesn't hold for CoD single player, of course, since there's a demonstrable storyline in the campaign mode.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;457350Sort of. There is an assumption in GNS theory that "coherent" games are better than "incoherent" ones. The Vampire Brain Damage thing is related, but not quite the same thing.

This (the relative value of "coherence" vs. "incoherence") is one of the big obvious issues on which GNS theory is totally stupid and makes predictions about play that are contrary to experience, so I've noticed some of the lesser Forgistas backing off from it over time.

You totally ruined my pithy one-liner, dude.

Trechriron, I salute the clarity of your arguments and I agree that indeed AW is subject to a political exile on the RPG site. I agree that the bias toward Vincent Baker and the presence of dirty kinky sex rules in the book are the real roots of its exclusion from the RPG club. The RPG site should indeed "be the better person" and criticize AW for what it's made of rather than preconceptions. Even better I'd love to read what "trad" gamers think after playing a few sessions of AW.

Quote from: One Horse Town;457354You totally ruined my pithy one-liner, dude.

Sorry, blame my brain damage.

Quote from: boulet;457355Trechriron, I salute the clarity of your arguments and I agree that indeed AW is subject to a political exile on the RPG site. I agree that the bias toward Vincent Baker and the presence of dirty kinky sex rules in the book are the real roots of its exclusion from the RPG club. The RPG site should indeed "be the better person" and criticize AW for what it's made of rather than preconceptions. Even better I'd love to read what "trad" gamers think after playing a few sessions of AW.

The vast majority of the RPGsite probably hasn't even heard of it, so i suggest you throw your generalities about more carefully.

You do hit the nail on the head though re subject matter - Baker's certainly top perv in game design at the mo.

My abiding thoughts on sex super-powers is what the flying fuck has that got to do with PA gaming? I can't recal it being in any way a genre trope. Which, as usual with Baker, brings us back to questioning why a designer would want grown men and women who are playing the game you designed to be roleplaying seducing each other for bennies - it was even worse in the pirate game of course.  

I also titter when we're told it's for a mature audience. I suggest that truly mature gamers don't need rules to frame sexual relations in-game and any game that does present them, by that very fact, becomes less likely to be treated in a mature fashion by a large proportion of its audience.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;457350Sort of. There is an assumption in GNS theory that "coherent" games are better than "incoherent" ones. The Vampire Brain Damage thing is related, but not quite the same thing.

This (the relative value of "coherence" vs. "incoherence") is one of the big obvious issues on which GNS theory is totally stupid and makes predictions about play that are contrary to experience, so I've noticed some of the lesser Forgistas backing off from it over time.

Right, but would you consider RuneQuest or Unknown Armies to be "focused" or "specific"?  He considers those "coherent."  I wasn't arguing that Edwards is justified or that certain trad games couldn't be considered "coherent" by his criteria, just that playing more general-purpose systems doesn't give you "brain damage" in the same way he thinks playing mismatched goal/system does.

Quote from: OHTI also titter when we're told it's for a mature audience. I suggest that truly mature gamers don't need rules to frame sexual relations in-game and any game that does present them, by that very fact, becomes less likely to be treated in a mature fashion by a large proportion of its audience.

Be glad you're not in Japan.  Geekdom there is far worse about this sort of thing.  FATAL would be par for the course among indie comic publishers over there...it requires a fair bit more "weeding through" to get to the actual good (and sane) material.

Quote from: Peregrin;457365Be glad you're not in Japan.  

I am (glad, that is).

Quote from: Peregrin;457365Right, but would you consider RuneQuest or Unknown Armies to be "focused" or "specific"?  He considers those "coherent."  I wasn't arguing that Edwards is justified or that certain trad games couldn't be considered "coherent" by his criteria, just that playing more general-purpose systems doesn't give you "brain damage" in the same way he thinks playing mismatched goal/system does.

I don't think any gaming gives you "brain damage", so I suppose we're in agreement there.

RQ isn't focused on the exploration of Glorantha, really. That's certainly a prominent part of it, but from RQ3 onwards, it's receded in importance. I actually do think RQ is "incoherent" by Forge standards, and that this is one of the game's great strengths.

Trechiron, the responses you provide suggest to me that you're less interested in understanding a POV than in looking for ways to be offended.

Quote from: trechriron;457330I don't believe these are useful distinctions. Also, I think your personal bias against the designer is coloring your reading of the game.

For the umpteenth time, they're useful and coherent distinctions, regardless of their subjectivity. Requiring objective definitions is a weenie move, no matter how popular it is on the Internet. As for personal bias, where it's mainly at play is my familiarity with Baker's past games, and with the intellectual gymnastics of their fans in explaining why it's wrong not to love them. This leads me not to want to waste a whole lot of time on a 300+ page book just to make a point. You're coming perilously close to BWA's douchebag tactic of introducing a hitherto unknown example, presuming that people will automatically consider a game to be not an RPG just because Baker wrote it, and then using that presumption to "prove" bias.

QuoteBy the general most popular definition touted so far as to the distinction between an RPG versus Story Game, I feel Apocalypse World is squarely an RPG.

Nonsequitur followed by special pleading. Are you interested in my reasons, or not?

Quote1. Who defines an RPG being an RPG because it a) has a defined world or b) favors improvisation? GURPS has no setting.

Either deliberately because you're excited about this game and are nursing some butthurt, or accidentally out of ignorance, you've completely missed my point. I'm not talking about the presence of a canonical setting. I'm talking about the GM not generating any concrete setting details until they're invoked in play, and then generating them according to a specific story agenda.

QuoteAlso on this point, I have read the book (we're gearing up to play a campaign here over the next couple months) and no where in the book did I read "only bring the world in to address character issues."

Again, I'm not going to spend time combing through the book to see if you're leaving something out or misrepresenting it. Basically, you're attempting to prove a negative. On the other hand I have positive evidence from the reviews, such as "the MC is invited to go to town and make the most heinous-yet-interesting-for-the-PCs move he can think about", "Ask Provocative Questions and Build On The Answers". Are they definitive? Who knows? I'm just giving my impressions from a small amount of information--but that info at least has the advantage of not being filtered through a polemical lens. It's what enthusiasts of the game say about it when they aren't trying to "prove" that "there's no difference between story games and RPGs".

Quote2. Again, a personal preference of yours, but not required to be an RPG IMHO. Example: you could say that all modifiers are factored into random rolls. If you miss or fail, you can invoke some element described in a scene to inject in the description of what happens just as a resounding success could be explained by factors in the character's favor.

Phillip has already handled this. Back-filling explanations for what the dice result means can be done in moderation, or it can happen as a result of a straight-jacket approach designed to prevent the GM from exercising judgment, which in turn flattens the world and turns its details into narrative backdrop for hard issues and PC-centrism.

Quote3. You just "apparently" claim you are sundering a weapon in D&D. You just "apparently" claim you're invoking your Love for the Chief's Daughter.

The first is a binary question, easily resolved. The second presumably is a reference to getting a bonus for invoking a trait, which will then be filtered through a resolution system, the nature of which is undefined. What I was referring to was "A favorite is the Driver. If he rolls poorly after doing the deed, he gets a -1 penalty to everything until he can do something (probably extreme and/or dickish) to prove that 'it's not like she owns me or anything'." I.e., a stereotypical outcome baked-in to the mechanics. Which in a regular RPG would be a result of actually roleplaying, with the freedom that entails.

QuoteI think theRPGsite has mis-categorized this game - probably out of the personal bias and political-social battle between "the swine" and The Pundit.

I was unaware that theRPGsite has said much about this game at all. Or are you BWA in disguise?

Quote from: boulet;457355Trechriron, I salute the clarity of your arguments and I agree that indeed AW is subject to a political exile on the RPG site. I agree that the bias toward Vincent Baker and the presence of dirty kinky sex rules in the book are the real roots of its exclusion from the RPG club. The RPG site should indeed "be the better person" and criticize AW for what it's made of rather than preconceptions. Even better I'd love to read what "trad" gamers think after playing a few sessions of AW.

Thanks!

I have the opportunity to play a solid campaign over the next several months.  I intend on scribing some actual play threads and most likely a review that I will share here and elsewhere.

I also prefer "traditional" RPGs. I have played a bunch of "indie" "Forgie" and Story Games and generally don't like light games that focus on meta-gaming mechanics and story above everything. I am really a sandbox kind of GM that focuses on bringing fun for the players. I like a good plot, but really I want a fun game that players are exploring and have any story fall out from what people are doing. I am finding a "medium" crunch more to my tastes, ala Unisystem perhaps or something akin to it. Just wanted to share my personal tastes for reference when I speak more of the AW actual play.  :-D

I want to see where the next few takes the group with AW before I completely decide if it's a) more SG than RPG and b) if the actual play meets what I'm reading in the book.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;457368I was unaware that theRPGsite has said much about this game at all. Or are you BWA in disguise?

No, he's not.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;457367I don't think any gaming gives you "brain damage", so I suppose we're in agreement there.

Blah.  I didn't mean that to come off that I think any sort of gaming gives people brain damage.

Quote from: One Horse Town;457371No, he's not.

It was a rhetorical question.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;457374It was a rhetorical question.

Now i'm embarrassed. Look -