Quote from: -E.;982761Eh?

I don't know the man -- I just disagree with his ideas about RPGs. I can't disagree with him on game design without it being personal?

Cheers,
-E.

This is the Internet. Everything is personal. Nonstop, 24/7.

Quote from: -E.;982761Eh?

I don't know the man -- I just disagree with his ideas about RPGs. I can't disagree with him on game design without it being personal?

Cheers,
-E.

Most reasonable statement I've seen all day :cool:

Quote from: HorusArisen;982771Most reasonable statement I've seen all day :cool:

You should post a caveat that you're engaging your fellow argumentative-over-the-inconsequential types on therpgsite this morning. Of course you've seen little reasonable discussion.

Quote from: Dumarest;982776You should post a caveat that you're engaging your fellow argumentative-over-the-inconsequential types on therpgsite this morning. Of course you've seen little reasonable discussion.

I was was embracing my inner rpgsite poster. It was an amusing distraction.

Quote from: HorusArisen;982778I was was embracing my inner rpgsite poster. It was an amusing distraction.

Me too, sorry if I was a thorn in your side

Quote from: Dumarest;982780Me too, sorry if I was a thorn in your side

If I'm going to be a knob I deserve whatever response comes my way. So apologies all around

Quote from: HorusArisen;982778I was was embracing my inner rpgsite poster. It was an amusing distraction.

I tried to embrace mine but the little bastard kicked me in the balls, laughed and scampered into the ventilation system... and I think my wallets missing

Quote from: Nexus;982788I tried to embrace mine but the little bastard kicked me in the balls, laughed and scampered into the ventilation system... and I think my wallets missing

My little devil was trying to get me to 500 posts. Woo hoo.

What's a really good example of a narrative game? I was thinking Nobilus?

Quote from: HorusArisen;982794What's a really good example of a narrative game? I was thinking Nobilus?

While it's a fairly standard game in a lot of ways, 13th Age has a ton of narrative features for the players. Luckily they're easy enough to downplay or ignore if that's your preference, but they're there.

Quote from: Dumarest;982770This is the Internet. Everything is personal. Nonstop, 24/7.

I sometimes forget that.

Quote from: HorusArisen;982771Most reasonable statement I've seen all day :cool:

:: reads next few posts before replying ::

I'm sigged! I'm sigged! I'm famous!

:: runs around room ::
-E.

Quote from: Brand55;982819While it's a fairly standard game in a lot of ways, 13th Age has a ton of narrative features for the players. Luckily they're easy enough to downplay or ignore if that's your preference, but they're there.

Ah something more contemporary.

Can't say Ive read it but what sort of features are we talking about?

Quote from: HorusArisen;982823Ah something more contemporary.

Can't say Ive read it but what sort of features are we talking about?

Yes, please share, I've never heard of this game and frankly I don't know what people mean by a narrative or storytelling game unless they mean we're going to sit around and Round Robin what happens next.

Okay, 13th Age has a lot of similarities with D&D seeing as it was designed by two of the guys behind the 3rd and 4th editions of that game, so apart from using range bands in combat rather than discrete distances it basically works like a much-improved 4e D&D, in my opinion.

The narrative parts mostly come in at character creation and again a bit later. Characters have backgrounds (instead of a set list of skills) and something called "One Unique Thing," something that sets them apart from everyone else. So the player of a rogue-type might choose to put down "Exiled member of the Black Lotus guild of assassin's guild +4" as one of his backgrounds. That gives him a +4 bonus on rolls where he can explain how his background could come into play to help him, things like stalking a target stealthily and such. He can also use it for things like knowing about the city where that guild is located or even former targets, if the GM decides such uses sound good. Of course, there's no Black Lotus guild anywhere in the books; by putting setting elements in as part of their backgrounds, players effectively take part in world-building during character creation. Maybe the citizen of Horizon didn't have an assassin's guild before, but a player can change that.

The One Unique Thing takes that to an extreme since it can get as wild as the GM is willing to allow. I've seen OUT examples where characters were forcibly shapechanged dragons or the sole heir of the emperor. One was a dwarf with a clockwork heart. OUTs can be relatively ordinary, but again they allow players to alter the landscape of the game a lot. Having someone decide their OUT should be, "The last surviving elf," can have big repercussions in a fantasy game like 13th Age.

Finally, and perhaps the most outright narrative element, is something introduced with the GM's resource book called montages. In a typical game like D&D, when a journey happens the GM may have some encounters prepared or might roll randomly to see if the party runs into random stuff. This is done in 13th Age as well, but the GM is also encouraged to periodically use a montage. In a montage, the GM asks one of the players to present a problem that arises on the journey. The player to that person's left then narrates how he or she overcame that problem and presents a new one, and the cycle continues around the group so that the party (not the GM) collectively tells the story of their travel and the difficulties that they faced.

Quote from: -E.;982761Eh?

I don't know the man -- I just disagree with his ideas about RPGs. I can't disagree with him on game design without it being personal?

Cheers,
-E.

Sorry not buying it. You constantly framed your argument about what 'he' was doing suggesting he was some egomaniac who thought he'd replace D&D. Hence your misrepresentation of his fantasy heartbreaker essay. It was a relatively subtle (for RPGSite) ad hominem but is clearly there.

Dang, I left a section out of my previous post. Another bit I was going to mention are the Icon dice. Now, there are a lot of ways these can be used and interpreted, but basically they represent character relationships with the Icons, which are the Big NPCs of the setting (like Elminster in Forgotten Realms). They're d6s that are rolled periodically - a 6 means you get a boon while a 5 means you get a boon with some sort of string attached or other type of negative to it. Depending on how the GM decides to use these dice, players can suggest uses for these dice to get things like assistance, advice, or other sources of help related to their Icon relationships.

For example, say a player rolled a 6 on a die from his positive relationship with the Elf Queen of the setting. Later the party gets jumped in a forest clearing by a bunch of undead. The player could spend that 6 to narrate how the clearing was actually a battle site where a platoon of elite elven guards laid down their lives protecting the previous queen, and ever since the site has been suffused with the spirit of their sacrifice. Thus, that character and his allies could receive +1 AC for the rest of the battle.