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Coplantor
2010-07-26, 10:36 AM
Reasons for this thread to exist


1- Discussion and comparison of different systems and rules.

2- Collective effort to create and fix mechanincal aspects of rpg's

3- A place to draw inspiration from, share your ideas, know the opinion of others and make yours known.

4- To reduce the ammount of threads (mainly by me:smalltongue:) asking about the opinion of the playground regarding different specific aspects of a game.

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Original First Post
I'm not a cruncher I'm a fluffer.

I enjoy creating new worlds, races, and the such. Although most of those creations are lost somewhere within my head. Why? In some cases, beause I feel that the mechancs of the games I play wouldn't represent what I have in mind quite well.

But I just cant come up with solutions, I would like to publish some of these things. Some might work for systems like d20 and GURPS. But I like to create, I like to make new stuff. But most of the time, I dont know how.

Mostly inspired by the Hit Point Thread, the point of this thread is to have a place to discuss mechanincs and the way they serve the story/setting/fluff of a game for various reasons:

1- I enjoy discussion, just as long as it keeps civilized.

2- This could be a place to create new ideas, for those who really enjoy a particular system but there's just that little thing they would like to change and dont know how.

3- For those like me, who look forward to create their own games to have a place to compare the advantages of say, Wounds vs Hit Points, d20 vs 3d6, multiple kinds of dice vs one kind of die.

4- To reduce the ammount of threads (mainly by me:smalltongue:) asking about the opinion of the playground regarding different specific aspects of a game.

In order to understand how to make a game mechanic, one should look at one that already exists and be able tell why it was done that way, so this would be the place too look at a rule and be able to say "Oh, I see what they did it that way" and share it with the rest of the playground.

To make it easier to move from topic to topic, we could change it one week from now.

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Previous Topic

Social Skills

Curent Topic

Xp though changing to Solo Campaigns

And please, let's keep this civilized.

Thinker
2010-07-26, 10:53 AM
Just to have a topic to start discussing, social skills.

How much depends on the roll and how much on the player? Wich are "good" examples of systems that deal with social skills? How often should those appear?

And please, let's keep this civilized.

I think that a social system should be based on the skill of the character, not the player. It is not a prerequisite to be good at swordplay to play a warrior. Obviously, skilled use of magic is not an option. Why should people have to be good at social interactions to play characters who are as well?

Unfortunately I cannot think of any systems that I have played that have handled social situations very well. Exalted 2e really tries, but they turn it into another form of combat. D&D 3.X just does it badly (too easy to auto-succeed).

Coplantor
2010-07-26, 11:02 AM
Unfortunately I cannot think of any systems that I have played that have handled social situations very well. Exalted 2e really tries, but they turn it into another form of combat. D&D 3.X just does it badly (too easy to auto-succeed).

Indeed, once you have enough ranks and other skill buffing stuff you can pretty much convince the average civilian of whatever you want.

Checks are a good abstraction, but going only by checks you cut down the RP experience.

The Bonus Dice from description that exalted uses seems like an intresting solution, but yeah...

Yora
2010-07-26, 11:04 AM
I like to combine a bit of both. I let my players use skill checks, but I have them bringing up arguments first and then apply a bonus or penalty to their roll. Like with Bluff checks (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/skillsAll.html#bluff) in D&D.
If a player has some really good points why a NPC should do a certain thing, it should be a success on a fairly low roll. Failure would mean they offended the NPC or it came out in a way that makes them appear very unreliable.

Chiron0224
2010-07-26, 11:07 AM
I find in general that any mental stat which differs to widely from the abilities of the player in RL becomes difficult from a roleplaying perspective. You don't have to be strong or a good swordfighter to say "I rip the door off it's hinges" or "I attack it with my sword", respectively. However it can be difficult to roleplay a character who is noticeably smarter/more charismatic than yourself as you might not think of things/word things the way that they would. I always house rule that a player can tell me the gist of what his character is saying and then roll diplomacy/bluff/intimidate/gather information and the higher he rolls the better his character words it(and vice versa).

i.e. I'm going to tell the shop owner that if he doesn't give me a good deal on this sword I'm going to hurt him in some manner.

High result "Tell you what, either you give me a discount or your torso is going to be 'half off'."

low result "Don't make me smash you!!"::foams at the mouth a little::

Coplantor
2010-07-26, 11:11 AM
Yeah, mental stats are quite problematic for those reasons (thoug they provide a lot of fun every now and then, specially when you roll poorly :smalltongue:).

But say, wich systems would you say had hit it right? Or wich ones are more "social" focused?

Woodsman
2010-07-26, 11:17 AM
I speak with only the knowledge of D&D 3.5e

I tend to do more roleplay than rollplay with social skills, namely with Diplomacy. Bluff is opposed by Sense Motive, Intimidate has the level check, Gather Information requires hours of free time, but Diplomacy?

Nope, just roll the die and you can turn someone who was Hostile into a friend in about five minutes.

So I tend to ignore diplomacy rolls. Kind of a jerk thing to do, but if you want the king to go to war against the BBEG's nation, then you need to use actual facts and good reasons. You can't just say "Go to war!" and roll the Diplomacy check. It's how I work, of course.

Perhaps a Charisma check would work well enough.

Chiron0224
2010-07-26, 11:17 AM
as for social focus I don't know but when it comes to the mental stat vs. player thing I really like the GURPS advantage common sense. The GM makes a secret roll against the player's int score whenever he feels the player is about to do something stupid and on a success he tells the player "you might not want to do that". There was a player in my group for a while for whom the advantage was mandatory.

Coplantor
2010-07-26, 11:43 AM
Yeah, that's in my opinion the best advantage one can get in GURPS, players are ussually prone to ridiculous ways of thinking :smallwink:

Psyx
2010-07-26, 11:52 AM
We play roleplaying games, and the clue is in the name. A player who is poor at social interactions should - IMHO- perhaps steer clear of overly socialite styled characters if they plan on resorting to 'I make a roll' roleplaying.

I personally like the system to support the roleplaying, rather than replace it. I also don't like it to be wholly dependant on the player.

I tend to make the player make any diplomacy-type roll near the beginning of a social encounter, and then use it as a guidance. A character who does well on a roll when dealing with their boss (say) can talk to me frankly as a GM, and it's 'metally fluffed up' a bit. And they can get away with asking questions that they otherwise couldn't politely bring up. On the other hand, those who score badly are assumed to be in 'yes sir, no sir' mode.

TooManyBadgers
2010-07-26, 12:01 PM
I prefer heavy player involvement in any part of the game, rather than dice-dependency.

If a character is trying to persuade an NPC, I want to hear the player make a compelling argument or appeal. If a character is climbing up the side of a building, I expect the player to detail the challenge and to make it interesting.

Depending on how engaging the descriptions are, I'll give players small (but not insignificant) bonuses/penalties to the effects of their rolls.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-26, 12:29 PM
Coplantor, I had work to do today :smallannoyed:

Re: Social Skills
The heart of this discussion is the following question: "Is the game about PCs v. NPCs or Players vs. DMs?"
In a game with little-to-no "power" behind Social Skills, every social challenge comes down into how good the Player is at playing with the DM. If the Player can successfully manipulate the DM, he wins. Otherwise, the Player is only going to "win" as many social challenges as the DM wants him to. Of course, this encourages Players to spend a lot of time getting into the head of their DM - which is both flattering and encourages more "serious" RP.

In a game with lots of "power" behind Social Skills, a character is only as convincing as his sheet says he is. This gives less-charismatic Players a chance to "win" arguments and make outrageous bluffs, but it can also provoke "lazy RP" - "I roll to convince."

Obviously there are many points on the line between these two extremes, but this is the central question you must ask when designing a Social Skills system.
Personally, I'm a fan of an interpretation of the D&D4 rules spurred by the difficulties of adjudicated Social Skill Challenges.

D&D4 mandates fixed DCs for Skill Challenges, and a number of successes before a Challenge is complete. Unlike most earlier RPGs, it does not leave room for "extraordinary successes" nor "one-roll successes" which leave the DM a lot of implicit leeway in implementing a "Player vs. DM" interaction. This is good - IMHO if a Skill can't be used to achieve in-game results (or does so badly) then it's a busted mechanic. But what was I to do when a Player makes a brilliant statement and then blows their Diplomacy check?

My answer: the PC says what they want, but the die determines how the NPC reacts.

Each success brings the NPC closer to the resolution the PC wants - but each failure introduces a new hazard. Even the best argument might trigger a hiterto unknown prejudice of the NPC; and even the worst might pull at a hidden heartstring. But the challenge is not over until the NPC is overcome; even the best Diplomancer might sweat if he has to pass 6 or more checks before failing thrice - some of which might require him to act outside of his speciality!

This approach neatly balances the two approaches to Social Skills by keeping both sides engaged by the RP aspect (provoked by reacting to die rolls) without nerfing the ability of charismatic PCs to be persuasive and uncharismatic Players to play them.

EDIT: Mental stats in general are far more problematic - and I'm not going to type a dissertation on them now. That said, it is generally a bad idea to produce OOC puzzles (e.g. riddles, logic puzzles) that can be solved via IC mechanics (e.g. skill checks, mental stat checks).
This both gives clever Players a boost over duller Players (they can solve problems even with bad rolls) but it can also turn brain teasers into games of "mother-may-I" with each Player rolling dice to get to play 20 Questions with the DM over something he expected the Players to solve themselves.

IMHO, riddles/puzzles should be solvable OOC but with IC skills being useful to gather hints. Perhaps a Knowledge check will reveal some extra information about the riddle style or form or maybe a Perception check will spot a clue. Never present a puzzle that can be solved purely OOC; make them ones that can be solved with Player ingenuity only once one-or-more IC skills have been successfully applied. How many skills need be applied depends on the sharpness of the Players, but at least folks get a chance to use their IC abilities for as many hints as they need.

Coplantor
2010-07-26, 01:05 PM
Nice post OH!

Yes, complex checks are a good solution. When you say: some of which might require him to act outside of his speciality! you are talking about the different skills for the same problem aproach of 4th ed?

Also, wich social skills should always be present on a game? Intimidation and bluff seem to be the most common

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-26, 01:16 PM
Nice post OH!

Yes, complex checks are a good solution. When you say: some of which might require him to act outside of his speciality! you are talking about the different skills for the same problem aproach of 4th ed?

Also, wich social skills should always be present on a game? Intimidation and bluff seem to be the most common
The "different skills" approach is a bit of an artifice in Social Skill Challenges, but not impossible.

Basically, frame the reaction of the NPC such that one tactic is going to be easier than another. For example, a failed Diplomacy check might cause the Grizzled Warrior to thunder back about the "weakness" of the PC. If he tries a milquetoast response (Diplomacy) make it a Hard check - even tell him so, or allow a preemptive Insight check. On the other hand, a successful Intimidate is fully appropriate - so make it a Medium check.

Admittedly, for a Diplomancer, the DC of DMG 42 Skill Checks just aren't going to cut it. But a Hard check might be enough to make the Diplomancer sweat :smallamused:

Re: Social Skill Selection
IMHO, D&D4 covered all the bases in this regard
- Falsehood Convincing (Bluff)
- Truthful Convincing (Diplomacy)
- Convincing by Other Means (Intimidating)

Most other potential social skills (e.g. Leadership, Instruction, Innuendo) are usually more trouble than they're worth. They're either overspecialized or overlap with the general skills in confusing ways.

If you're treating Social Conflict like a conflict it's also handy to include Social Defenses. 4e does an incomplete job of this:
- Vs. Bluff (Insight / DMG 42 DC)
- Vs. Diplomacy (DMG 42 DC)
- Vs. Intimidate (Will NAD / DMG 42 DC)

For games that do an interesting job of modeling "social combat" like this, look at Burning Wheel and Warhammer Fantasy RPG ("WFRPG"). I have only read over Burning Wheel's rules, but their approach to conflict in general is sufficiently innovative to make it worth noting. WFRPG approaches Social Conflicts like Physical Conflicts - a novel approach, but one I'm still not happy with.

In general, I lean towards the "less is more" school of Social Skills. Give the PCs something they can use to influence RP, but not to dominate it or their thinking about it.

Coplantor
2010-07-26, 01:42 PM
OK, question, how does those two RPG handle it then?

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-26, 01:50 PM
OK, question, how does those two RPG handle it then?
Er... well, it's a bit complicated. You should really pick up a copy of Burning Wheel if you intend to be a game designer - it's one of the most popular Indie RPGs and takes a unique approach to game design. If nothing else, it should give you a fresh perspective from which to analyze mainstream RPGs. I'm still learning the system myself :smallredface:

WFRPG is much simpler by comparison. WFRPG runs Social Challenges much like D&D4 originally did - both sides roll initiative, there's a success tracker, and both sides use Powers (e.g. Detect Weakness; Fear Me!), Defenses, and Skills to gain successes. The first side to 50% Success triggers some manner of beneficial effect. The actual dice-mechanic for WFRPG is distinctive (all custom dice with pictures rather than numbers) but doesn't do anything a traditional dice system couldn't duplicate.

Coplantor
2010-07-26, 01:56 PM
So one is more like traditional combat (though it reminds me of 2nd ed psionic combat) but with "social" terms.

Also, is Burning Wheel legally available for free download?

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-26, 02:11 PM
So one is more like traditional combat (though it reminds me of 2nd ed psionic combat) but with "social" terms.

Also, is Burning Wheel legally available for free download?
(1) Yes. I don't know if I like it, but it is a different point of view.

(2) No, but IMHO it's worth shelling out $25 for the core rules (http://www.burningempires.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=32&osCsid=fc50e44c6287f51ab9dd3883753c8f6d) if you want to get serious with homebrewing a system. It's written more like a game designer's notebook than as a system - though it's a fine system by all accounts as well.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-27, 01:24 PM
Well, I'll be damned if this thread dies that easily.

New topic: Rules & Reality

Apropos this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161900), I made a comment regarding the purpose of rules:


Rules should be shallow for unimportant stuff and in-depth for important stuff. What is important or unimportant depends on your design goals when making a game - but be sure you identify them!

. . .

Shallow and In-Depth mechanics can both be complicated, but neither should be. If a rule is difficult to use, it is a poorly designed rule. Nor does shallowness or depth of a rule indicate its fidelity to "reality;" freeform RPGs have among the most shallow rules for conversation (i.e. none) and yet they are much closer to reality than any Diplomacy mechanic.
Am I right? Is seeking to replicate "reality" a poor goal for system design? Do more "complex" rules really mean a greater approximation of "reality?" Do I use too many "quotation marks?" :smalltongue:

So what say you?

Coplantor
2010-07-27, 01:31 PM
I was about to post something more about social skills but, meh...

So, rules.

Complexity does not necessarily means a better aproximation to reality, I've seen rules heavy games that fail at it. At the same time, a great deal of complexity might end up alienating players,

I agree that trying to replicate reality is a poor goal, the goal of the game is to make it's own reality believable

Emmerask
2010-07-27, 01:40 PM
I prefer heavy player involvement in any part of the game, rather than dice-dependency.

If a character is trying to persuade an NPC, I want to hear the player make a compelling argument or appeal. If a character is climbing up the side of a building, I expect the player to detail the challenge and to make it interesting.

Depending on how engaging the descriptions are, I'll give players small (but not insignificant) bonuses/penalties to the effects of their rolls.


Yep, thats how I do it too.
It has the added bonus that even not heavily social optimized characters and characters without a ton of skillpoints can interact with the world, outside of swordplay, too :smallwink:

Thinker
2010-07-27, 01:42 PM
Level of complexity does not infer realism, ease of use, or quality. How the system is implemented as a whole does that. A game's system should be internally consistent in its approximation of reality and the entire world's physics should be consistent with the system being used. That said, a system should be adapted to whatever setting it is using to describe it.

If the rules for flight say that no creature with wings can achieve perfect maneuverability, the creatures in the setting should reflect that. If the setting calls for perfect-flight, winged creatures, an exception should be annotated in the rules, a new ability should be made (and given to those creatures), or the rule should be removed.

Thinker
2010-07-27, 01:47 PM
I prefer heavy player involvement in any part of the game, rather than dice-dependency.

If a character is trying to persuade an NPC, I want to hear the player make a compelling argument or appeal. If a character is climbing up the side of a building, I expect the player to detail the challenge and to make it interesting.

Depending on how engaging the descriptions are, I'll give players small (but not insignificant) bonuses/penalties to the effects of their rolls.

So do you actively penalize players in your group who are awkward in social situations naturally, even if the player is trying to play a character who is good in such settings? Does the player of the bard who doesn't know what to say to the magistrate automatically fail because he can't come up with a logical argument on his own, despite being a renowned orator? Another example comes to mind that if a player describes his fencer doing a parry, riposte, and disarm maneuver, but does so wrongly, is he penalized by his GM (who may be far more knowledgeable about such matters)? Likewise, what if it is the GM who is awkward in most social settings, but knows how to tell a good story or doesn't know beans about real swordplay, rock climbing, jailbreaks, etc?

If that works for your group, I won't press you, but it seems that there would be drawbacks if that were applied across the board.

Aroka
2010-07-27, 01:51 PM
Am I right? Is seeking to replicate "reality" a poor goal for system design? Do more "complex" rules really mean a greater approximation of "reality?" Do I use too many "quotation marks?" :smalltongue:

So what say you?

Reality is irrelevant on its own, verisimilitude isn't; there's nothing necessarily realistic about superhero games, but they can feel "right" or "wrong." For some games/genres/settings, realism is verisimilitude.

You're dead on about the differences between deep/shallow, complex/simple, and realistic/unrealistic. The Riddle of Steel has the deepest, most realistic, most fun, and smoothest combat mechanic I've ever seen in a RPG. The depth and realism make it fun - there's so many real techniques you can use (and that are suggested by the rules themselves absent any knowledge of real combat), but everything uses the same simple resolution system (roll X dice against a target number, compare your successes to your opponent's), so it's damnably straightforward. It's been a while since I touched the game, and I haven't even known about it for more than a year or so, but I could probably still run a fight (at least if I had the maneuver lists and wound tables).

Depth and shallowness are pretty much relative, yes; you want important and common mechanics to be frequent. If a game isn't going to involve inventing and building Mad Science gadgets, your inventing and building rules can be shallow.

Complexity is always, always worse than simplicity. I can't think of a single instance where complexity (rather than depth) would serve better than simplicity. Complexity creates confusion, differing interpretations, disagreements, and lots of time wasted arguing it all and looking up the rules again.

Realism is a subjective value dependent on the setting, theme, and genre. It's important not to have a conflict between the rules and the theme here - if you're setting out to write a hard SF game, unrealistic rules will blow immersion and make play less satisfying. If you're setting out to create a game about cartoons smashing each other with anvils, realistic rules will suck the fun out of it. ("Your skull is fractured and you suffer brain damage, you're in a coma for 1d20 years and suffer a permanent penalty to your intelligence." "Damn that roadrunner!")


Thinker: You mean infer. "The reader infers what the text implies." (I think I actually learned the difference reading Cerebus: High Society.)

Emmerask
2010-07-27, 01:58 PM
So do you actively penalize players in your group who are awkward in social situations naturally, even if the player is trying to play a character who is good in such settings? Does the player of the bard who doesn't know what to say to the magistrate automatically fail because he can't come up with a logical argument on his own, despite being a renowned orator? Another example comes to mind that if a player describes his fencer doing a parry, riposte, and disarm maneuver, but does so wrongly, is he penalized by his GM (who may be far more knowledgeable about such matters)? Likewise, what if it is the GM who is awkward in most social settings, but knows how to tell a good story or doesn't know beans about real swordplay, rock climbing, jailbreaks, etc?

If that works for your group, I won't press you, but it seems that there would be drawbacks if that were applied across the board.

Well most decisions have drawbacks, the other side of the medal would be that for example a fighter is now not "allowed" to interact with anyone anymore because he canīt even convince the local beggar that he needs information if you use rollplay.

Thinker
2010-07-27, 02:05 PM
Thinker: You mean infer. "The reader infers what the text implies." (I think I actually learned the difference reading Cerebus: High Society.)

I'm sorry to go a little off topic, but I mean infer as opposed to what?


Well most decisions have drawbacks, the other side of the medal would be that for example a fighter is now not "allowed" to interact with anyone anymore because he canīt even convince the local beggar that he needs information if you use rollplay.

I assume you mean that his group wouldn't let him try, but I don't think that would be the case. Most skill systems that I've seen generally provide a chance for success with most skills, even if used untrained and a chance for failure, even if the character is adept at said skill. In these cases, unless there is a serious penalty for failure, it is in the group's interest to let everyone try.

Earthwalker
2010-07-27, 02:30 PM
Re: Social Skills
The heart of this discussion is the following question: "Is the game about PCs v. NPCs or Players vs. DMs?"


I have always felt that if you want to play a character that can use social skills to convince people to do you bidding then you should buy the skills.

Have people role play over social situations and never role dice then you don't need skills / stats for social situations.

If you do have rules for them then they should be used.

If you want to have a system where good role playing is rewarded with a bonus, apply it to all skills in the system not just role playing, if people describe their combat actions well, give them a bonus as well, same for skill checks.

One thing I hate when GMing is a player, who has designed a character with no social skills, used Cha as a dump stat so he can get more combat pluses and then plays the character like he is the most eloquent of speakers. Play the character you built !!!

LurkerInPlayground
2010-07-27, 02:51 PM
There's this very good blog post on skill challenges:

Skill Challenges are what D&D 4e has in place of roleplaying. And no, I’m not really kidding. As a method of injecting some pseudo-RP in a tabletop miniatures skirmish game, they make perfect sense: a series of discrete, finite dice rolls so you can get quickly get past the RP and on with the real business of pushing minis around, and to provide some meta-game tension to the “boring” process of thinking of solutions to problems and playing them out. As an aid to actual RP, they discourage what you want to encourage (creativity, experimentation, thinking as the character), and encourage what you want to discourage (meta-gaming and thinking inside the box). I think it’s particularly telling that as originally released, even after all the playtesting 4e got, the Skill Challenge numbers were utterly broken and had to be rewritten and released as errata.

In 0e, 1e and 2e; you found out what you needed to know to leverage successful diplomacy. Maybe you find that the city's Prince is a womanizer and has some dirty secrets he wants hidden. Or you decide to explicitly bribe the corrupt city official.

In this case, it's not simply a question of gaming the DM versus the NPC. The DM decides what is reasonable for the NPC's position. Logically, the DM may decide the master dwarven swordsmith may hate to haggle, simply because he doesn't have to; he's hired on commission and has many wealthy patrons. Rather, the PC's find out that he really wants to do this one project because he is bored from the lack of a professional challenge, but he hasn't been able to find the time or wherewithal to get dragon scales he needs. Or maybe they blackmail the smith. Or they do him a favor.

3e reduces this to a skill check. Oh sure, you can say that just need to do x. Where x usually means that the players can still ask for circumstantial bonuses or pick when they get to use skill checks. Rather than breaking into the Ducal palace, they can simply find the right city official to bribe.

4e has Skill Challenges. And as a DM, you have to pre-define a bunch of very specific skills and number of successes. This is a redundant and largely inoperable system. One, because even if you choose to be more flexible than the skill challenges as-written, that's really no different than the system you had in previous editions. Two, as written, a certain amount of failures cuts all further progress to achieving that task. It may be reasonable to roll a Nature check, but if you failed the Diplomacy, Intimidation and Bluff checks; that other approach automatically fails, no matter.

You could, of course, just say that people are playing it wrong. But that in itself is a problem with the rule. It shouldn't require a patch or obscure advice to work.

===

Older iterations of D&D didn't have skill systems for a reason; levels were a measure of the character's skill (along some broad heroic archetypes). Whether that skill be magic, fighting or skulking around in the night; everything that needs clear moderation is handled by levels. It stops players from Mary Suing the hell out of their character's skill special skill. Everything else can be moderated on-the-fly or be roleplayed.

Because, to be honest, having a silver tongue didn't really need to have a metagame element to it. The "game" to it doesn't need to be based on betting on the odds of a success when you can simply have players talk to an NPC. And really, is knowing how to swim really that important to you? (If it is, then you can moderate that based on character background or by a quick reference of ability scores.)

Thief skills merit its own discussion though. A thief being good a "Detect Traps" didn't prohibit other players from attempting to find traps; it's just that the thief got an automatic "free pass" at finding traps where other players had to use common sense and roleplay. Hence, this is why the 10-foot pole was a standard tool for detecting pit traps or hidden pressure plates. Additionally, the thief's player may still have to resort to this intuition to find traps, particularly if he didn't invest heavily in the skill; particularly if the DM was the sort to make traps that "are so cleverly hidden" that they imposed a percentile to "Detect Traps.

Whichever way you choose to model skill though, I think it ideal to avoid making the process of rolling the dice too automatic. Skills ought to work similar to early D&D thief skills: they ought to be extraordinary "get out of jail" cards; but they should never substitute for actual problem-solving or roleplay.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-27, 03:38 PM
4e has Skill Challenges. And as a DM, you have to pre-define a bunch of very specific skills and number of successes. This is a redundant and largely inoperable system. One, because even if you choose to be more flexible than the skill challenges as-written, that's really no different than the system you had in previous editions. Two, as written, a certain amount of failures cuts all further progress to achieving that task. It may be reasonable to roll a Nature check, but if you failed the Diplomacy, Intimidation and Bluff checks; that other approach automatically fails, no matter.

You could, of course, just say that people are playing it wrong. But that in itself is a problem with the rule. It shouldn't require a patch or obscure advice to work.
They did fix it. Please check out the DMG2 description of how Skill Challenges work - they do not work as you described them.

In the event you don't actually need to run Skill Challenges in the near future, note that my description is more of a personal revelation than a RAW. It turns out WotC largely implemented my ideas on their own, but the lesson is still there.

I'm not going to argue about the "Players vs. DM or PCs vs. NPCs" statement because it is self-evidently true.
Even if you are "deciding how the NPCs should react" you are interpreting this through the lens of your own personality. Your players will know what things appeal to you, personally, and when crafting dialogue will respond accordingly. Only the greatest actor can so deeply immerse himself in a role that his personal quirks are irrelevant; I am not such an actor and I doubt most people are. The more you let your personal judgment guide your NPCs' reactions, the less a character's "social skills" matter to the outcome of a social encounter. It is certainly one way to play, but it is by no means a better one - and it can work at cross-purposes with a game designed with "social skills" in mind.
It's a sliding scale, to be sure, but don't be fooled into thinking that your players aren't playing you when they are roleplaying :smallamused:

Aroka
2010-07-28, 03:29 AM
I'm sorry to go a little off topic, but I mean infer as opposed to what?

:smallredface: Should've been "imply". Here:


Level of complexity does not infer realism

Earthwalker
2010-07-28, 04:09 AM
Well most decisions have drawbacks, the other side of the medal would be that for example a fighter is now not "allowed" to interact with anyone anymore because he canīt even convince the local beggar that he needs information if you use rollplay.

In most systems the players have some control over what character they are playing. If you as a player choose to have no social skills, and also choose to use Cha as a dump stat taking it below 10 then you will have no chance to "roll" play getting information.

I also think you are not roleplaying your character if you try to use your own player skills to get information. You are playing a character that does not know how to deal with people in social situations so you should not as a player be waxing lyrical to get what you want.

Staying with DnD, you may be randomly rolling your stats and have no choice in what your cha is, you still get to choose your skills so you can balance out having low cha by adding more social skills, if thats the character you want to play.

Thinker
2010-07-28, 07:41 AM
:smallredface: Should've been "imply". Here:

Oh, OK. I read up on the difference because hadn't heard that before. Thanks.


A reader can infer with logic based on given information by a writer, while a writer implies by providing that information, often with a bit of suggestion.

Coplantor
2010-07-28, 07:46 AM
So, combining our two current topics, rules and social skills, a system must serve it's purpouse, if the game is a heavy combat oriented one, social skills pay little to no role while in a game of say, detectivesque nature, social skills are fundamental. (In this case I mean both players and characters skills)

So, regarding simple or no social skills, it can be read by some as a lack of support for social encounters therefore the game does not encourage roleplaying or it can be seen as the game actualy encouraging roleplaying and leaving the rolls for special situations, like a player with low social skills playing "the face".

The inverse can be said regarding games with heavy social skills rules.

Thinker
2010-07-28, 08:08 AM
So, combining our two current topics, rules and social skills, a system must serve it's purpouse, if the game is a heavy combat oriented one, social skills pay little to no role while in a game of say, detectivesque nature, social skills are fundamental. (In this case I mean both players and characters skills)

So, regarding simple or no social skills, it can be read by some as a lack of support for social encounters therefore the game does not encourage roleplaying or it can be seen as the game actualy encouraging roleplaying and leaving the rolls for special situations, like a player with low social skills playing "the face".

The inverse can be said regarding games with heavy social skills rules.

I also think that every skill should have application in combat, in social settings, and in general, except in specific circumstances. Weapon skills might have no place in a social setting (though they could be useful out of combat), but a related skill, such as tactics, could be useful in all three: Tactics grants a bonus during combat for the player and possibly his allies, it provides a bonus when maneuvering through social discourse, or when simply directing others to help accomplish a task.

Coplantor
2010-07-28, 08:13 AM
Indeed. But, I dont know if this hapens with most groups of players (since I've seen and played with people that didnt) but with my group, everything is fine roleplay wise till we get into a combat, at that moment we enter "videogame mode" and the game becomes "I move 4 squares and hit/blast/smash"

EDIT: I mean, there's no interaction between players, no shared tactics, no conversation, just dull actions turn after turn. I also fail as a DM since most of the enemies I present do the same.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-28, 11:15 AM
Indeed. But, I dont know if this hapens with most groups of players (since I've seen and played with people that didnt) but with my group, everything is fine roleplay wise till we get into a combat, at that moment we enter "videogame mode" and the game becomes "I move 4 squares and hit/blast/smash"

EDIT: I mean, there's no interaction between players, no shared tactics, no conversation, just dull actions turn after turn. I also fail as a DM since most of the enemies I present do the same.
That's a failure of design in the system, not necessarially as a DM.

Some combat systems either lack meaningful choices in combat (e.g. "I 5' step and Full Attack") or are designed such that group tactics are either unnecessary or unhelpful in winning a battle. In such a system there is no mechanical incentive for Players to act differently from how you described - there's nothing to talk about and no reason to talk it over anyways.

Systems where group tactics are essential for victory or where combat choices are present can provoke more communication amongst party members. Additionally, systems where combat mechanics require players to "RP" to operate (e.g. Exalted's Stunt System) result in a lot more chatter around the table for the same reasons.

Sidenote: I would encourage people to not connect unrelated systems for the mere purpose of connecting them. Social interactions and combat interactions are usually portrayed as different styles of interaction; at the very least, they serve the purpose of the game in different ways. As a result, the rules regarding each are usually designed to serve different ends; trying to integrate them can result in unnecessary complications in your rules.

Of course, if there is some other purpose being served by connecting them, by all means do so. For example, if your system treats all "conflicts" alike, then it makes good sense to integrate your rules for social conflicts with those for combat conflicts.

Coplantor
2010-07-28, 11:23 AM
I meant that roleplaying practically stoped during battle, making our epic battles more battle and less epic.

And by DM fail I meant that by making the enemies work as a group I could guide the players giving them examples of other ways of doing battles.

I agree with the side note, combat and social encounters are different things, rules for each other shoul serve the purpouse of improving the RP experience.

Thinker
2010-07-28, 11:26 AM
Sidenote: I would encourage people to not connect unrelated systems for the mere purpose of connecting them. Social interactions and combat interactions are usually portrayed as different styles of interaction; at the very least, they serve the purpose of the game in different ways. As a result, the rules regarding each are usually designed to serve different ends; trying to integrate them can result in unnecessary complications in your rules.

Of course, if there is some other purpose being served by connecting them, by all means do so. For example, if your system treats all "conflicts" alike, then it makes good sense to integrate your rules for social conflicts with those for combat conflicts.

You can have them connected insofar as the skills that they refer to, even if combat resolution is different from social resolution. They can still use a similar score for the skills to represent proficiency.

If you make the two resolution mechanics too different, it can bog down the game and sow confusion by being too complex.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-28, 11:40 AM
@Coplantor

I meant that roleplaying practically stoped during battle, making our epic battles more battle and less epic.

And by DM fail I meant that by making the enemies work as a group I could guide the players giving them examples of other ways of doing battles.

I agree with the side note, combat and social encounters are different things, rules for each other shoul serve the purpouse of improving the RP experience.
Again, this is a feature of the system. As a DM you can always add in "RP features" in combat, but if your combat system either locks-down those RP choices by having a rigid combat system or makes it very difficult to concentrate on RPing due to the mechanical depth of combat, then there isn't much you can do.

As a rule, I try not to work against the system I'm using. It's hard work and can be disruptive of the expectations of your players.


@Thinker

You can have them connected insofar as the skills that they refer to, even if combat resolution is different from social resolution. They can still use a similar score for the skills to represent proficiency.

If you make the two resolution mechanics too different, it can bog down the game and sow confusion by being too complex.
Quite the opposite.

Using different resolution mechanics is only problematic if you try to integrate those two mechanics within a single frame. I am arguing that you should never integrate mechanics without a clear purpose - and if your system demands radically different mechanics in two areas, then there is no conceivable purpose for integrating them!

D&D4 does this correctly by treating in-combat uses of skills as out-of-combat uses: you jump over things in combat just like you would jump over them out of combat. Bluff & Intimidate are two glaring exceptions but, as their in-combat effect is usually not worth the trouble, it's something that rarely causes problems.

N.B. using many unique and complicated mechanics within a single system will bog it down, but that's just because you're using a bunch of complicated mechanics. Having one single complicated mechanic and many elegant, shallow ones will make the game run much faster merely because the elegant & shallow ones are, well, elegant.

Unity within a system should never be a design goal: there's no way that one mechanic can serve all the purposes you seek for a game. GURPS is a classic example of a "universal system" - while it has it's adherents, I've always felt it is much more of a toolbox than a system; a GM has to construct the system they want to use from the tools they're given, rather than simply use a finished product.

Coplantor
2010-07-28, 02:12 PM
By the way, is there any system that makes it easy to perform "combo attacks"? Encouraging team playing and group tactics?

obliged_salmon
2010-07-28, 02:51 PM
I though I'd chime in regarding Burning Wheel's social mechanic, being something of a fanboi. Ordinary social interaction can be handled with pure role play or perhaps a single test of some skill (such as persuasion), or a vs. test against the other pc/npc's skill. However, you can also resolve social conflict with a duel of wits, which works similarly to combat in that you and your oppoent script three "maneuvers" in advance and then reveal them simultaneous. It's meant to simulate a debate, where you can draw out an opponent's energies and trump them with your own points to reduce their argument to shreds. The only way it can properly work, though, is if the players have arguments to present. Once the duel is over, there is usually a major compromise, but one party will get their intent, or most of it.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-28, 02:51 PM
By the way, is there any system that makes it easy to perform "combo attacks"? Encouraging team playing and group tactics?
D&D4.

If you're not working together in a D&D4 Encounter, you're doing it wrong. The battles will be much harder (possibly fatally so) and so even the most brute-minded Player will learn to cooperate with his allies.

I'm sure there are other systems which do this as well, but D&D4 is the one I have the most experience with.

Satyr
2010-07-28, 03:30 PM
When It comes to social encounters, there is virtually no better solution to play it out actively, and than use the quality of the character presentation as a modifier of the used ability; it's not roll or play, it should include both. There is no need for a conflict between these two elements, as they usually synergize very well with minimum effort.

Just rolling without taking the effort and acting of the player into account is terribly towards the players. Frankly, if a player puts more effort in his or her presentation, he or she deserves a benefit. The lack of this only punishes the active players who tries to contribute to the game. (Yes otherwise you "punish" the lazy ones who don't contribute to the game, but one could argue that you know, these deserve to be punished a bit from time to time. As a motivation.)

By the way, this combination also works for fights, or any other scene. Players describe what they do, good description grants a bonus.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-28, 03:49 PM
Just rolling without taking the effort and acting of the player into account is terribly towards the players. Frankly, if a player puts more effort in his or her presentation, he or she deserves a benefit. The lack of this only punishes the active players who tries to contribute to the game. (Yes otherwise you "punish" the lazy ones who don't contribute to the game, but one could argue that you know, these deserve to be punished a bit from time to time. As a motivation.)
Actually, many "heavy" roleplayers do so because roleplaying is it's own reward. All they need is a little encouragement from the DM - not mechanically, but through interaction. Personally, the most fun I've had in a game is when the DM (or another PC) has been willing to have a RP-heavy session with me - even when the interaction didn't involve rolling any dice (or garner any particular reward). In short, they don't need mechanical incentives to engage in heavy RP which means they cannot reasonably feel penalized for a failure to get a reward.

Additionally, the idea that it is the DM's job to punish/reward people for their particular style of roleplaying no longer sits well with me.
Back when I did AD&D the game was one of Player vs. DM, with the DM crafting a storyline that the Players interacted with. If the DM wanted more dialogue, he'd give bonus XP to people who performed well; sometimes he'd dock XP for people who performed inappropriately. It was all within player expectations and the paradigm of the time.

Nowadays, the idea of an authoritarian DM is passe. Cooperative storytelling is the new norm in modern systems and players have grown to expect this. Furthermore, RP is now increasingly up to the players - few systems encourage the DM to police the RP of the players, let alone impose RP restrictions on them. In such a context it no longer makes sense for the DM to act as a God; he should not giveth to those who please him, nor taketh away from those who anger him.

This is, of course, a personal preference of mine but I find my players are much happier this way. They are no longer competing for my favor and I no longer have to worry about "playing favorites" and the like.
Essentially, I accept that players contribute to a game in different ways; if the game allows them to contribute in several ways I see no reason to penalize them if they do not choose my prefered method. If you desire a certain style of play from your PCs, then the rules of the game should be structured to encourage that style of play - leaving it up to the DM to "play favorites" is just not conducive to harmonious gameplay.

Thinker
2010-07-28, 03:57 PM
(Yes otherwise you "punish" the lazy ones who don't contribute to the game, but one could argue that you know, these deserve to be punished a bit from time to time. As a motivation.)


Why do they have to be lazy players? Couldn't they be players who aren't very good at roleplaying or acting in that capacity? I didn't know that unskilled was the same as lazy.

Satyr
2010-07-28, 04:46 PM
The problem is there is little as unfair as treating everybody the same.

I never get this "anti-authoritarian" gamemastering style. It just doesn't seem to work very well, and more importantly, the assumption that the gamemaster is not set apart by his or her very role from the rest of the players, is just wrong.
Saying that the gamemaster takes a position of hierarchy within a gaming group, is nothing bad. It's just stating the obvious, due to the power of definition of the setting alone. The gamemaster is the single most important part of any gaming group; his or her contribution to the game is what makes or breaks a campaign, adventure or even a single scene. The gamemaster is not just a part of the group, by the very definition of the term "master" he or she is also set apart from it in an exalted position. This hierarchy can be steeper or flatter, but not acknowledging it just blurs the awareness for the real procedures within a gaming group.

And due to the responsibility of the gamemaster to make a campaign good and the according expectations of the players, I think it's not the best idea to question this authority - to the contrary. It's usually best to give the one person who takes the most responsibility the necessary instruments to make it as good as possible.

Yeah, sure, a jerk can abuse this position of authority. But a jerk who would abuse this kind of authority wouldn't be a tolerable gamemaster anyway, so why bother? Because it isn't en vogue to talk about hierarchies in a friendly social context? As far as I know, it is a well established fact that most social groups have more and less influential members, and yes, issues of dominance are an always ongoing subtext.

No, the gamemaster is the primus inter pares anyway, so this current trend of ignoring it, is quite questionable.

The Big Dice
2010-07-28, 04:50 PM
When It comes to social encounters, there is virtually no better solution to play it out actively, and than use the quality of the character presentation as a modifier of the used ability; it's not roll or play, it should include both. There is no need for a conflict between these two elements, as they usually synergize very well with minimum effort.
+1 to this. Sort of, anyway. If you reward the player with the gift of the gab, you encourage that player to both not invest in social skills and to roleplay out the social encounter. He knows he's getting a bonus for doing it, so you're giving him a double bonus. Because he didn't need to invest in social skills to any great extent, especially in a points buy game, he's free to invest in abilities that help in combat.

Social skills need to be able to give the player who doesn't have a silver tongue a chance to be effective in social encounters. IF they don't, what's the point in taking them?


Just rolling without taking the effort and acting of the player into account is terribly towards the players. Frankly, if a player puts more effort in his or her presentation, he or she deserves a benefit. The lack of this only punishes the active players who tries to contribute to the game. (Yes otherwise you "punish" the lazy ones who don't contribute to the game, but one could argue that you know, these deserve to be punished a bit from time to time. As a motivation.)

By the way, this combination also works for fights, or any other scene. Players describe what they do, good description grants a bonus.
So in other words, a more verbose and eloquent player gets benefits that a quieter, less vocal one doesn't?

Remind me how this is fair to the people sat at the table? If Bill is a talker, very descriptive and he understands the social mores of the game world, while Ted is a little quieter and not quite as familliar with how to address a daimyo, princess or the corporate board of directors, why should Bill be mechanically rewarded? Esecially if Ted is playing a character who has invested more of his precious skill/experience/character points into social abilities.

Social mechanics in roleplaying games should be there to help decide the results of how the more confident and verbal player speaks, and to give weight to the words and actions of the shyer and less confident player. Use those Diplomacy, Savoire-Faire and Sincerity skills to level the playing field between different personality types among players. Not as a means to save the more eloquent player a few points he can put into combat abilities because he know the GM will always "Just roleplay the situation out anyway."

Coplantor
2010-07-28, 04:53 PM
Yes, I see your point there, but what would be a good way to encourage RP or social encounter resolutions from the shy/non-silver tongue people?

The Big Dice
2010-07-28, 05:13 PM
Yes, I see your point there, but what would be a good way to encourage RP or social encounter resolutions from the shy/non-silver tongue people?

Encourage them to invest in their social skills, then reward them for using them.

Keep the rewards appropriate to the situation in-game, but make it clear that the shy person beat out the confident one. And that it was using the right skills at the right time that did it.

If you can find a copy of the L5R GM Survival Guide, that's got a fantastic section on this sort of thing. The GM encourages roleplay from the shyer player by roleplaying the NPC in question and asking for dice rolls from both the experienced player with the relatively unskilled character, and from the quieter player with the more skilled character.

In other words, using a "show not tell" approach to bringing the player out of his shell a little. In the long run, I find that a strict "There is no out of character. If you say it, your character says it" rule at the the table also helps. Oddly enough, it's usually the more experience players that fall foul of this at first, but once people get used to the idea, they get into character and stay there without making a big deal out of it.

Satyr
2010-07-28, 05:45 PM
First of all, there is huge difference between an occasional bonus and an occasional penalty; I would never add a circumstantial penalty to a player for being a bit reluctant, so the worst thing anybody could end with is the mechanical level (okay, truly bad answers and stupid ideas should be treated like stupid ideas. Constantly interrupting and belittling the monarch who you want to help you is probably not the best idea, for example). Yes, I know that one-sided benefits can be seen as a punishment from a certain angle, but psychologically, there is a vast difference. An occasional benefit can act as an enhancer (and it helps when it is a) occasional and b) unpredictable, by the way, the enhancing effect is stronger then), while a punishment both feels more insulting and has a weaker and less influential effect.
Yes, this is simple operant conditioning. It works surprisingly well.
Besides, the extra XP is not only a reward; I also see it as a gesture to show gratitude and respect. It's a way to tell somebody that he or she did well and that it was a pleasure to play with them (I also grant bonus XP for fresh cookies. Not only to encourage my players to bake more often, but also to show my gratitude for the cookies).

Yes, this assumes that certain playing styles and behavior are preferable to others, or at least more appropriate within the context of a particular campaign. I know that many people do not share this perspective, and that's a fully legit perspective as well (and, if you are regarding RPGs in general and not one particular group / campaign in particular probably a mandatory perspective.

Secondly, I don't think it's much of a question of talents or personality, but of engagement. I don't think that roleplaying games are generally very appealing for very introvert or anti-social people to begin with, so the assumption that most players have at least basic interest in some kind of interaction and acting is not that far off. Also, a good gamemaster should usually know his or her routine group, and probably assess their efforts not on a standardized scale but on a more personal level, assuming that everybody eventually will get a well-deserved bonus.

Thirdly, I don't think that a good presentation equals a verbose one. What's good depends on many factors, most importantly the player and the context, but just drowning the scene in words is not helpful in general (that's by the way the reason I don't like to quantify the description. If you would try to add something like a +1 bonus for every appropriate adjective, the game will soon sound like the club meeting of Lovecraft imitators). To make it short, what is considered good depends on so many factors and preferences that it is hard to come up with a generalized catalogue of criteria; and from the perspective of the manipulative bastard who tries to use positive enhancement for some kind of sinister end, a less predictable enhancement plan works better).

A different aspect is a lack of knowledge or preparation, but that's mostly because I am weird and narrow-minded in this regard. If I and the majority put a lot of effort and work in a campaign, I am slightly annoyed by people who don't bother. That's nothing I would recommend by any means, but I think that preparation and active participation are among the basic rules of politeness for a roleplaying game, just like punctuality, reliability or standard rules of social interactions and friendliness.


Yes, I see your point there, but what would be a good way to encourage RP or social encounter resolutions from the shy/non-silver tongue people?

It's probably not very nice in a way, as it is basically a form of manipulation, but operative conditioning works wonders in this regard - and it is actually quite easy to use.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-29, 12:33 AM
As I said - my belief in the demise of the "DM as God" archetype is a personal choice I've made about my style.
My players prefer to have greater flexibility in their RP style and I have never felt comfortable playing favorites - I become self-consciousness, asking myself "am I rewarding this player too much?" which distracts from the game.

I will note from personal experience in a 3.5 game that I dislike having the DM constantly tell me "no, you can't do that" even when I have the skills that say I can. The exercise of DM authority in such a fashion is simply galling these days.
Satyr's style is his own; if it works for his players, then all is good. But in regards to game design, such use of DM largess needs to be an explicit part of the system or you may run into players who believe that the RAW, not the DM, run the game. Many of the problems I've seen in D&D over the years come from this basic conflict between DM & Player expectations; in one way it's good that this is a self-correcting problem (i.e. dissatisfied players leave the table) but I see no reason why a novel system need be designed as sloppily.

EDIT: Regarding shy players, it is always better to accommodate than correct. Nobody likes being corrected - particularly when the "correction" is against their natural play style. Use the same approach you would with a disruptive player - find out why they aren't playing "correctly" and see if you can accommodate them. If their requests impose little or no cost on the rest of the group, allow them and you have an active and happy player. If their requests are unreasonable, ask them to leave - they aren't having fun, so perhaps they should do something else.

I went through this with a very good friend of mine recently. She wanted to have a boisterous and individualistic game; we were running a story-heavy 4E game. Once I talked with her and determined what she wanted to have in the game, I told her it would probably be better if she just dropped it and see if she could find someone to run the sort of game she liked - or run one herself to spark interest in the playstyle.

She agreed and is currently getting together an oWoD Vampire game along those lines.

Coplantor
2010-07-29, 07:34 AM
Clearly everyone's got their own style of play. As we aproach the end of the week, maybe we should be thinking a new topic for next week. Perhaps it could be related to houserulin/homebrewing or in wich way a system makes it easier for a player/GM to create their own content.

Yora
2010-07-29, 07:48 AM
Clearly everyone's got their own style of play. As we aproach the end of the week, maybe we should be thinking a new topic for next week. Perhaps it could be related to houserulin/homebrewing or in wich way a system makes it easier for a player/GM to create their own content.
As an E6-GM, that's actually a very interesting topic. :smallwink:

It's easy to think that you can use any given setting using almost any system that is geared towards the genre. Samurai-game using D&D, Cyberpunk-game using Star Wars Saga, anything using GURPS, and so on.
But the choice of the default system when creating a setting has a very great impact on how you design a world.
I played D&D 3rd Edition for almost 10 years, and while I played 10th level and above only once, switching to E6 made a huge difference. There are no teleport and raise dead spells anymore, and there's not a single band of adventurers who could take on even one beholder straight on. And those aren't even the most powerful spells and monsters.
Suddenly you can't just post a message to the tavern door "Dragon slayers needed, 10,000 gp reward". The dragon will just eat the entire village and there's not much anyone can do about it. If you need to stop such a powerful creature, all that helps would probably be a long and dangerous quest to recover an artifact or gain the assistance of an even more powerful creature to save you. It changes everything about the balance of power within a setting and what things the players can possibly do, and how important their actions are within the game world.

Coplantor
2010-07-29, 07:55 AM
As said bfore, one of the reasons behind this thread is because I have a ton of settings but dont know wich system would be the best for them, specially when the mechanics of magic in a given game does not match the idea I had for the setting. Other common issues are hit points or wounds, I like both actually.

So far, d20 is the windows equivalent of game systems, not bad, but flawed and lots of people dont know there are others, but it's the one that I have a much easier time adapting. I would say E6 too... but that's a sub system within d20 :smalltongue:

Yora
2010-07-29, 07:59 AM
d20 is both the Windows and the Linux. :smallbiggrin:
For one thing, D&D 3rd Edition has long been the most sold RPG, while at the same time the rules are practically open source. You can do with them whatever you want, and then put it online or even sell it for monney.
While there possibly are lots of other good systems out there, with d20 I have the security that I can put the stuff online without ever getting into trouble.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-29, 09:30 AM
d20 is both the Windows and the Linux. :smallbiggrin:
For one thing, D&D 3rd Edition has long been the most sold RPG, while at the same time the rules are practically open source. You can do with them whatever you want, and then put it online or even sell it for monney.
While there possibly are lots of other good systems out there, with d20 I have the security that I can put the stuff online without ever getting into trouble.
Well, unless you provide non-SRD material :smalltongue:

No, I don't care much for the Windows (and, unintentionally, Linux) of the RPG world. Why? Because it's just not a very good system. Few of the mainstream RPGs are: they're overdesigned, poorly playtested, and overly reliant on houseruling or DM fiat to work correctly. Sure, they make folks happy as games but, from a purely structural perspective, they make the user work too hard to have a good time.

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, I don't particularly care what system you use or how you use it. If you're comfortable playing AD&D with a binder of houserules, or only 6 levels of a 20 (or 30!) level system then by all means do so. But I would highly recommend that anyone who is designing a setting and looking for a system to instead make their own.
As Yora rightly pointed out, your choice of system dramatically influences your setting - it is far better to choose a system and then write a setting around it, rather than take your beloved setting and begin trimming it down to fit a setting. If you instead decide to alter the system to fit the setting, then you're already halfway there to making your own system - and you'll have far fewer headaches importing just those mechanics you need than weeding through a system looking for conflicts with your house rules!

For anyone who's interested, this is the basic checklist I am using to make my own system:

(1) Identify the purpose of The Game
What are its themes? What sort of gameplay would you like to see? What features of gameplay are important and what is unimportant?

(2) Choose mechanics that generally fulfill those purposes
Look at the games you know. What are fun mechanics? Which ones best serve the particular purposes you need? Only choose the ones that you need to use - you can worry about linking the mechanics together later.

(3) Tailor those mechanics to the purposes
Now that you have your mechanics, tweak them to better fit your particular vision. Is the mechanic too complicated for the purpose you need? Trim it down! Is it too shallow, but you want to use it anyways? Scale it up!

(4) Integrate those mechanics into a single Game
Step 4 is the hardest to accomplish, so spend the most time on it. Remember that you don't need to have one universal anything to make it a single game: D&D3.5 has several different mechanics for resolving combat alone!
That said, if it's a beer & pretzels game you want, don't bother designing a system for it. For the same reason that your beer & pretzels players will never bother to learn the intricate mythos of your custom campaign, there's no reason to expect them to learn a new, untested system in order to play your custom setting. Unless you either have dedicated players (who already write multi-page backstories for their characters) or friends interested in game design, it's a waste to time to spend all that time designin either a setting or a system for people who just want to roll some dice and kill some orcs.

Amphetryon
2010-07-29, 10:35 AM
When It comes to social encounters, there is virtually no better solution to play it out actively, and than use the quality of the character presentation as a modifier of the used ability; it's not roll or play, it should include both. There is no need for a conflict between these two elements, as they usually synergize very well with minimum effort.

Just rolling without taking the effort and acting of the player into account is terribly towards the players. Frankly, if a player puts more effort in his or her presentation, he or she deserves a benefit. The lack of this only punishes the active players who tries to contribute to the game. (Yes otherwise you "punish" the lazy ones who don't contribute to the game, but one could argue that you know, these deserve to be punished a bit from time to time. As a motivation.)

By the way, this combination also works for fights, or any other scene. Players describe what they do, good description grants a bonus.

In my opinion, this position highlights the inherent disconnect between physical and mental stats. A Player may well want a physically strong or tough Character because that is a significantly different set of abilities than that Player has in the real world; I know of no system that does anything but reward a Player for this choice. OTOH, a Player who wants a suave, sophisticated social Character because that's a significantly different set of abilities than the Player has in the real world is fairly clearly punished for that choice in the above paradigm.

Why is that?

Satyr
2010-07-29, 12:22 PM
No, I don't care much for the Windows (and, unintentionally, Linux) of the RPG world. Why? Because it's just not a very good system. Few of the mainstream RPGs are: they're overdesigned, poorly playtested, and overly reliant on houseruling or DM fiat to work correctly. Sure, they make folks happy as games but, from a purely structural perspective, they make the user work too hard to have a good time.

Just out of interest: what do you consider mainstream RPGs? Okay, D&D is the obvious one, but apart from that? And wouldn't it usually be easier to playtest a more popular
Besides, I don't know what you mean with overdesigned.
This is no attack at all, I'm just curious - your position is quite different from mine, but very interesting and seems well thought-out, that's why I ask.


As Yora rightly pointed out, your choice of system dramatically influences your setting - it is far better to choose a system and then write a setting around it, rather than take your beloved setting and begin trimming it down to fit a setting. If you instead decide to alter the system to fit the setting, then you're already halfway there to making your own system - and you'll have far fewer headaches importing just those mechanics you need than weeding through a system looking for conflicts with your house rules!

I am not sure about this. A system is not a better choice because it is more specialised. There are a few systems which work perfectly well in various environments (D20 was already mentioned, Gurps is another obvious candidate, so is Hero and both classic and cinematic Unisystem, even Savage Worlds has tendencies in this direction) and other which are highly focused on one setting without working well for it (a particularly bad example would be Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire RPG).
I also think that the amount of work of adaptation a familiar system to a certain degree is almost always a lot smaller than creating a whole new system from scratch.

The thing is most systems are not setting-specific but focus on a particular genre, and many are not even limited to that (Burning Wheels is basically a classic fantasy game... and a Space Opera... and a game about small woodland critters).

Creating your own system is a huge amount of work. Adaptation is usually a lot faster and easier, especially with a system at hand that is "modding-friendly".

However, your checklist for game design seems very accurate.


A Player may well want a physically strong or tough Character because that is a significantly different set of abilities than that Player has in the real world; I know of no system that does anything but reward a Player for this choice. OTOH, a Player who wants a suave, sophisticated social Character because that's a significantly different set of abilities than the Player has in the real world is fairly clearly punished for that choice in the above paradigm.

Why is that?

Well, I am a bit uncomfortable with the whole wish fulfillment aspect of roleplaying games with characters who basically are supposed to compensate for the player's felt shortcomings, so I probably won't come up with the ultimate answer. I mean not just escapism - that is pretty much a given - but to specifically create a character for compensation feels always a bit sad to me.

Again, I don't think that roleplaying games as a hobby are generally very appealing for overtly introvert or anti-social people to begin with, so the assumption that most players have at least basic interest in stuff like interaction, acting, and you know, talking, doesn't seem to be that unrealistic. Besides, most roleplaying games are no high profile stages, where people are chosen for their acting skills. This is not a question of talent, at least most of the time. It's usually a question of effort and perhaps a bit of overcoming one's reluctance. And that's really not beyond anybody.

The other point is that RPGs tend to very dependent on the input of the players. The more the players contribute to the game and care about it, the better it usually becomes. I think it is the gamemaster's job to motivate the players to contribute to the game and care about it, and this includes to appreciate the contributions of players.
And I think that treating everybody exactly the same regardless of their contributions or efforts is not only extremely unfair towards those people who try hard and put a lot of effort in their character's setup, presentation and so on. Hell, by not acknowledging their efforts, you are basically punishing these people - and for what? What's the benefit? Okay, you might avoid a conflict, but you are still basically disadvantaging the engaged players for the benefit of the lazy ones. And that's nothing I would really appreciate.

Yora
2010-07-29, 12:29 PM
Introversion does not imply, or is likned to anti-social tendencies.
Introverted people just have very different priorities in what kind of attention they want to give and to get. I think the small scale interaction and possible deeply developed interaction of an RPG can actually be very attractive to introverted people.
But then, fooling around with a bootle of beer works very well for extroverted people as well.
Just as a bit of nit-picking. :smallamused:

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-29, 01:00 PM
Just out of interest: what do you consider mainstream RPGs? Okay, D&D is the obvious one, but apart from that? And wouldn't it usually be easier to playtest a more popular
Besides, I don't know what you mean with overdesigned.
This is no attack at all, I'm just curious - your position is quite different from mine, but very interesting and seems well thought-out, that's why I ask.
Ah, I do have quite a bit to say on this matter. And thank you for the complement :smallsmile:
"Mainstream RPG" is, of course, a term without any agreed meaning, but I use it mainly in opposition to "Indie RPGs."

As a rough list, I took all of the RPGs from "the old days" and looked to see which ones can still be found in bookstores. My Big Three are:

(1) Dungeons & Dragons
(2) World of Darkness
(3) Shadowrun

These three each started as generalist systems with an eye towards simulation rather than gameplay. Yes, even World of Darkness, where there were rules, did its best to emulate, if not reality, then at least the reality of a theatrical production or work of fiction. Each had a "genre" but their rules weren't were directed at fulfilling those genre goals - rules were made for the sake of having rules.

A much more successful game designer than I described it best: consider Shadowrun. The 'point' of Shadowrun is to be a bunch of criminals who spend their time interacting with other criminals in a cloak-and-dagger scene. But look at the rules - they're nothing but combat! There's little in SR's rules that actually address the mechanics of cloak-and-dagger work - it's a game for blowing people up.

Now, for my terminology:

Overdesigned games have rules for the sake of rules. A player confronted with such a game has no idea what rules are important and what are not - everything seems to have been rendered with the same level of detail. It's much like reading a story where every character is given the same level of definition: not only is it hard to get a sense as to what to focus on, does it make any sense to spend as much time talking about Ned the Nobody's personality as Paul the Protagonist? It's bad writing and worse game design.

Playtesting is really a shorthand for "rules working as they're supposed to." For whatever reason, none of these Mainstream RPGs work right. Major portions of the game are busted from release and, if you're lucky, they'll get fixed in the next edition. Things like D&D3.5 Diplomacy and D&D4 Stealth are so obviously broken it looks like nobody bothered to playtest it at all. Personally, I suspect that the designers are so busy trying to make these overdesigned behemoths work at all that they just insert "DM fix plz" clauses whenever they run into trouble.

Re: Specialization
It is not that a specialized system is always good, but rather that good systems are always specialized.

At a minimum, specialized systems can be more rigorously tested for their purposes than a generalist system. There's less to test and the results are easier to judge. Also, they don't run into the trouble of bumping into other sub-systems within the game and causing odd results. In addition, a specialized system can be run out-of-the-box. As I've said before, you cannot just sit down and say "let's play GURPS;" you always have to specify what kind of GURPS you're playing. IMHO, it's not proper to refer to "toolbox systems" like GURPS as proper games - the rules do not tell you how to play the game, but the GM must tell you which rules you need to use to play his game. And as far as that goes, the GURPS rules run into the same sorts of problems that other Mainstream RPGs do - overdesign and playtesting.

Genre-specific systems are a form of specialization that, done well, is robust to run a large number of different kinds of game. However, there is still the tradeoff described above and an additional one - a game that is designed to run in one genre is (nearly always) qualitatively worse when applied to a different genre. I learned this one the hard way:
I love Bliss Stage but it is very genre specific. If you are looking for "Neon Genesis Evangeleon the RPG" this is the game for you. However, there are people out there who won't touch anything that carries the taint of anime with a 10' pole. Well, I loved the system so much that I reskinned the damned thing to work in a post-apocolyptic Fantasy game. As a write-up, it worked well, but by the end of my first session I abandoned it. Why? Because Bliss Stage is not quite appropriate for Heroic Fantasy. Sure, it has similar tropes (Heroic Sacrifice, Fighting Evil, etc.) but the system didn't actually have anything which explictly evoked the Heroic Fantasy genre. I've never played the "Burning Wheel" Space Opera, but I know all of the other most popular mods are all safely within the Heroic Fantasy genre. There's a reason for it, even if it is hard to define.

Re: Creating your own System
As you'll note, my steps for creating a system actually involve cribbing a lot of stuff from games that already exist. When you balance the time it takes to stitch those together with the time it would take to tweak something as robust as D&D3.5 - taking care of all of the inherient contradictions in the original, dealing with splatbooks, etc. - it takes nearly the same amount of effort either way. At least with a novel RPG you can hand a book to your players and say "here's a new system. Enjoy!" rather than sitting them down and saying "we're playing my houseruled 3.5 system. Here are my notes, and if anything comes up I'll let you know." I'm in the middle of an example of the latter right now, and anyone who is working though the Pathfinder system's evolution gets to see how that process works out over time.

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-29, 04:12 PM
Rules.

From what I've seen, most systems seem to be able to get a working combat system going. This is not to say that the combat systems are perfect, but are able to portray the level of combat they are trying to project.

The problem that I've seen, IMHO like a number of you, has been with the social aspects of the game. RPG's are hybrids of improvisational theater and tactical war games. Thus the older systems stayed away from dealing with social mechanics, allowing the players and DM to hash this out through the course of the game. This was meant to be the roleplay aspect of the RPG.

Now the older systems tended to focus heavily on combat, magic, and anything else that was thought to have extroadinary circumstances attached to it like thief skills. They attached certain mechanics to those abilities, hopefully allowing them to be easily resolved. This was meant to be the game aspect of the RPG.

Now it is my humble opinion, that any attempt at devising mechanics for the social aspects of the game, tend to hamper the play of the game. Now, this does tend to leave quite a bit of room for DM fiat, but imo speeds up the game.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-29, 04:35 PM
Now it is my humble opinion, that any attempt at devising mechanics for the social aspects of the game, tend to hamper the play of the game. Now, this does tend to leave quite a bit of room for DM fiat, but imo speeds up the game.
This is only true when "the game" is not about the social aspects of play. Obviously, if "the game" is about these social aspects (e.g. WoD, Bliss Stage) then they need rules or there is no game.

It's very important to define "the game" (i.e. the purpose of the system) when talking about game design. OD&D didn't even have non-combat abilities because "the game" was only about combat. In Bliss Stage OTOH, "the game" is about the narrative that leads up to the resolution of Hopes (i.e. plot points) that the Players select at character creation. Physical conflict between "PCs" and "NPCs" has 2 lines devoted to it in the rules but an entire chapter on resolving freeform RP sessions between missions!

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-29, 04:49 PM
This is only true when "the game" is not about the social aspects of play. Obviously, if "the game" is about these social aspects (e.g. WoD, Bliss Stage) then they need rules or there is no game.

I've played WoD on the table top platform and their Mind's Eye Theater system. Yes they have rules for the character's status within a society and social skills, but the only time I've seen these actually come into play was during a challenge involving one of the character's Powers that was based off of a social stat. This means that they added the social stat to the social skill and if the situation called for it, they were able to add their status within the society when they were using powers like Dominate or Presence.

There really wasn't a very good mechanic for the social roleplaying actions of the characters. Thus my opinion remains, creating mechanics for the social roleplaying actions hampers the game.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-29, 04:56 PM
I've played WoD on the table top platform and their Mind's Eye Theater system. Yes they have rules for the character's status within a society and social skills, but the only time I've seen these actually come into play was during a challenge involving one of the character's Powers that was based off of a social stat. This means that they added the social stat to the social skill and if the situation called for it, they were able to add their status within the society when they were using powers like Dominate or Presence.

There really wasn't a very good mechanic for the social roleplaying actions of the characters. Thus my opinion remains, creating mechanics for the social roleplaying actions hampers the game.
No, of course they weren't good mechanics (see Mainstream RPGs) - but wouldn't WoD feel a bit empty without them?

There are better ways to do social mechanics but, more importantly, if you want your game to revolve around social interaction you'd better have some mechanics in that area - otherwise, where is the "game" part of the RPG?

The fastest way to run any RPG is to freeform everything and have the DM arbitrate conflicts - but it's not much of a game at that point.

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-29, 07:10 PM
No, of course they weren't good mechanics (see Mainstream RPGs) - but wouldn't WoD feel a bit empty without them?

My point is that the mechanics didn't really affect the social interactions of the players. They were directed at the supernatural powers the players could use to force others to do what they wanted. This is similar to the charm monster spells in DnD. The actual social interactions were left to the storyteller and the players.


There are better ways to do social mechanics but, more importantly, if you want your game to revolve around social interaction you'd better have some mechanics in that area - otherwise, where is the "game" part of the RPG?

The fastest way to run any RPG is to freeform everything and have the DM arbitrate conflicts - but it's not much of a game at that point.

As I've said before RPGs are a hybrid of improvisational theater and tactical war games. The social interactions are generally best left to the creative imaginations of the GM and his players. If the GM doesn't feel that the players are accurately roleplaying the characters that they've created, he can address it. The "game" part of the RPG has always been in the mechanics of the game that deal with combat, magic, and other extraordinary effects.

By applying mechanics to the social interactions of the players and the GM, you've replaced the roleplaying aspect of the game with rollplay. The actual balance between roleplay and rollplay, I leave to the individual groups. There is no such thing as a wrong method when everyone is having a good time.

Generally, if I have players that invest points into social skills, I give them an easier time with the NPCs. Every now and then having them roll a bluff or an intimidate check to pull something over on an NPC.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-29, 07:30 PM
As I've said before RPGs are a hybrid of improvisational theater and tactical war games.
No, RPGs can be such a hybrid, but do not need to be. Bliss Stage is in no sense a tactical war game - nor, for that matter, are (should be?) any of the WoD games. Your argument simply does not apply for such settings.

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-29, 08:15 PM
No, RPGs can be such a hybrid, but do not need to be. Bliss Stage is in no sense a tactical war game - nor, for that matter, are (should be?) any of the WoD games. Your argument simply does not apply for such settings.

Tactical war when reduced down to the size of individuals is a combat simulation. It is a matter of scale, whether it is one army fighting another, or a party of adventurers fighting a dragon, it amounts to the same thing. All RPGs have combat mechanics allowing one character to fight another character, even WoD. My apologies for the confusion in terminology.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-29, 08:37 PM
Tactical war when reduced down to the size of individuals is a combat simulation. It is a matter of scale, whether it is one army fighting another, or a party of adventurers fighting a dragon, it amounts to the same thing. All RPGs have combat mechanics allowing one character to fight another character, even WoD. My apologies for the confusion in terminology.
No. Bliss Stage does not have any such mechanic. It is hardly alone in this regard.

D&D was born from a wargame. Few others were.

Aroka
2010-07-30, 05:42 AM
No. Bliss Stage does not have any such mechanic. It is hardly alone in this regard.

D&D was born from a wargame. Few others were.


Tactical war when reduced down to the size of individuals is a combat simulation. It is a matter of scale, whether it is one army fighting another, or a party of adventurers fighting a dragon, it amounts to the same thing. All RPGs have combat mechanics allowing one character to fight another character, even WoD. My apologies for the confusion in terminology.

And "tactical" is pretty specific. HeroQuest uses the exact same mechanic to resolve any and all conflicts - bid points from pool, roll dice against target. To say a game with a resolution mechanic is a tactical wargame in any sense is pretty wild - that means Monopoly and RPS are tactical wargames.

I'm not really familiar with Amber, but that immediately springs to mind as a game that's very unlikely to be much of a tactical wargame either.

Earthwalker
2010-07-30, 06:03 AM
No. Bliss Stage does not have any such mechanic. It is hardly alone in this regard.

D&D was born from a wargame. Few others were.

I have never heard of Bliss Stage I want to ask tho, what happens when one player says "I punch him" when he starts losing an argument ?

I have played very few games with workable social mechanics. I have looked at Dogs in the Vineyards which I am very interested in but my players would never go for it.

It is correct in terms of game design you need to focus on what the game is going to do. I always find it odd that systems have stats and skills for social interaction but then players and GM just roleplay it all out. So the skills and stats become usless.

In all the time I have been playing RPg only a handful of times do players use any kind of social skill on each other, at my table it always seems to be bad form. Like you playing another character for the player.

Satyr
2010-07-30, 06:10 AM
These three each started as generalist systems with an eye towards simulation rather than gameplay. Yes, even World of Darkness, where there were rules, did its best to emulate, if not reality, then at least the reality of a theatrical production or work of fiction. Each had a "genre" but their rules weren't were directed at fulfilling those genre goals - rules were made for the sake of having rules.


Is it wise to declare a difference between simulation and gameplay? Based on my experiences and preferences, I would say that rules which are not interconnected with the elements they try to represent are usually counter-intuitive and I think that rules which are well connected to the contents they try to transport are easier to understand and apply, because they are basically more conclusive and can be reasoned from the context and so on, or at least easier than dissociative rules.
That's a different category of simplicity - not so much "ease of use" but "ease of understanding" and at least me generally prefer the latter one.


consider Shadowrun. The 'point' of Shadowrun is to be a bunch of criminals who spend their time interacting with other criminals in a cloak-and-dagger scene. But look at the rules - they're nothing but combat! There's little in SR's rules that actually address the mechanics of cloak-and-dagger work - it's a game for blowing people up.

Interesting, but I can't really agree. I am only familiar with the older Shadowrun editions (mostly 3, or to be exact, 3.01 D) but I always though that they worked very well in the context of professional criminals committing crimes and so on. Of course we had houserules but I have not played a single game ever without houserules. That's not a question of quality, but of accustomisation and adaptation. Not using houserules would appear lazy and impassionate to me (the exception are tool set systems like Gurps, where you don't need houserules to individualize the game).
And I don't think either that the rules where "combat only" - the matrix stuff alone, as tedious as it was, had a significant part of the game, and if you take a look at the produced adventure modules (as an example of how the game was supposed to work) had very extensive parts about information gathering and legwork. (I don't know if this is still the case, but the classic stuff I used to play where full with this). So, I don't think that this analysis is very accurate actually.



Overdesigned games have rules for the sake of rules. A player confronted with such a game has no idea what rules are important and what are not - everything seems to have been rendered with the same level of detail.

But isn't it the job of the gamemaster and the group to determine the focus of any given campaign and thus determine what's important and what not? I think that a game system should offer a choice and not make the choic for the players, because if the game designer makes the decision of priorisation for you, you basically have the situation that some stranger who have never met you or your group tries to explain how he knows better than you how you should enjoy your game. That's a pretty condescending position if you ask me. Therefore you need something something like equally viable options.



Playtesting is really a shorthand for "rules working as they're supposed to." For whatever reason, none of these Mainstream RPGs work right. Major portions of the game are busted from release and, if you're lucky, they'll get fixed in the next edition.

On the other hand, many smaller games also have bad rules, but as the games are not as prominent, these are just not as present.


It is not that a specialized system is always good, but rather that good systems are always specialized.

As someone who firmly believes that the easiest ways to increase the quality of at least two thirds of the games is to replace the given rules with Gurps, I fear I have to disagree again.


At a minimum, specialized systems can be more rigorously tested for their purposes than a generalist system. There's less to test and the results are easier to judge. Also, they don't run into the trouble of bumping into other sub-systems within the game and causing odd results.

On the other hand, specialisation also always include restrictions and a lack of options, so that in the worst case people are forced to a certain play style without taking notice of individual preferences and style. Adaptability also include the freedom to actually play the game you want instead of the game the designer envisioned.


In addition, a specialized system can be run out-of-the-box. As I've said before, you cannot just sit down and say "let's play GURPS;" you always have to specify what kind of GURPS you're playing. IMHO, it's not proper to refer to "toolbox systems" like GURPS as proper games - the rules do not tell you how to play the game, but the GM must tell you which rules you need to use to play his game.

Exactly, but that doesn't have to be a disadvantage - to the contrary the variability is a great strength of the toolbox approach - you can basically make your own game every time you start a new campaign, with a minimum of the work you would need to create a complete new game from scratch and with a little effort it also makes sure that you get most exactly the game you want, instead of a game that comes pretty close to it. Even more so, I don't think that people always know exactly what they want, and getting them to think and debate about it can be a great way to fuel the crative process and come up with something original.
By playing a game from the book, you basically refuse to personalize the campaign, and play based on the ideas and preferences of a third person who is probably not involved in the group. I can't say that I am very interested in that.
As I said, I haven't played a single game that wouldn't benefit from houserules, and I am not very interested in replaying the ideas and preferences of other people who have never met me, or my group. I think that I - and most mature individuals - usually have an own opinion and that these opinions are usually interesting and enriching.


And as far as that goes, the GURPS rules run into the same sorts of problems that other Mainstream RPGs do - overdesign and playtesting.
Gurps is one of the most thoroughly playtested games around where every single major release is tested for roughly a year, sometimes more. Sure, they look more for content than for rules, but the rules And with the exception of the steady use of the imperial units instead of the metric system, Gurps has very few rule problems. Actually I cannot really remember a single really stupid rule right now.


As you'll note, my steps for creating a system actually involve cribbing a lot of stuff from games that already exist. When you balance the time it takes to stitch those together with the time it would take to tweak something as robust as D&D3.5 - taking care of all of the inherient contradictions in the original, dealing with splatbooks, etc. - it takes nearly the same amount of effort either way.

At least not for me. Recreating D&D was actually kinda fun, while writing a new system pretty much requires so much tedious basic work (I am planing this right now, but the clarification of all the basic assumptions seems tedious and pretty dull compared to the juicy stuff).

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-30, 08:50 AM
I have never heard of Bliss Stage I want to ask tho, what happens when one player says "I punch him" when he starts losing an argument?
The Player decides whether his character takes the punch or not. Bad comes to worst, the Storyteller in his guise as The Authority Figure (the only adult amongst a band of teens) will probably throw one of them into the brig.

It's just not the point of the game.

Also: Bliss Stage (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlissStage)

@Saytr: thank you for your detailed response. As is clear, we simply have opposing views on game design - I believe that a well-designed game should be playable out of the box; you believe that a well-designed game should provide tools that allow the DM & Players to construct the play-experience they desire.
IMHO, if a game system is not providing the sort of play experience you desire, you should use another which does it better. As a result, I've used at least a dozen different systems over the years. I think that, if I had just used GURPS for everything I'd be quite bored with the mechanics by now - sometimes I want a story-based and rules light game like Mountain Witch, and sometimes I want to play Shadowrun. I see no reason to try and recreate either system out of GURPS - and I strongly suspect you couldn't recreate Mountain Witch (either mechanically or through feel) using it either.

I know this to be the case for Bliss Stage, of course :smalltongue:

EDIT:
@ Novel System Design
Clarifying basic terms is dull but producing anything requires some dull work. I've found that by using an existing die rolling mechanic you can crib that book's "explanation of systems" and speed up the process tremendously. And, of course, during playtesting you can just explain it like you would introducing any new game - "roll these dice for skill checks, these dice to hit, and these dice for damage." With experienced RPGers, that's usually enough.

aaaand a little quibble:
Each of your (Satyr's) issues with my analysis involved the creation of houserules to solve problems. For example, the extensive legwork mechanics in SR modules had no foundation in the rules - they were written wholecloth (and varied a lot across modules) because it was a missing part of the system.

Since my central point is that a good game shouldn't require the consumers to houserule it in order for it to work right, the extensive usage of houserules in this regard reinforces my point about mainstream RPGs being poorly designed.

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-30, 12:54 PM
No. Bliss Stage does not have any such mechanic. It is hardly alone in this regard.

D&D was born from a wargame. Few others were.

I haven't played Bliss Stage or the other ones you are speaking of. All of the RPGs I've played have a combat mechanic of some form. Therefore I will have to accept your word, and research those games when I have more time.


And "tactical" is pretty specific. HeroQuest uses the exact same mechanic to resolve any and all conflicts - bid points from pool, roll dice against target. To say a game with a resolution mechanic is a tactical wargame in any sense is pretty wild - that means Monopoly and RPS are tactical wargames.

It has been argued that if you were to add an element of roleplaying to Monopoly, then it would become an RPG. I don't necessarily agree with this argument, but it is a fine line that will distinguish a game as being a particular type of system. Michael Hitchins mentions this in his article the Many Faces of Roleplaying in the International Journal of Roleplaying. He also disagreed with the definition which is why (I assume) he made an attempt to define what a roleplaying game is and is not.

To this extent allow me to define myself further. IMO, a tactical wargame is any game that tries to resolve the physical aggression of two or more combatants.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-30, 01:01 PM
I haven't played Bliss Stage or the other ones you are speaking of. All of the RPGs I've played have a combat mechanic of some form. Therefore I will have to accept your word, and research those games when I have more time.
The real take-away is: assuming that the "point" of all RPGs is combat because some were descended from wargames is a logical fallacy. As a result, it does not serve as a reason to discard social mechanics entirely nor to elevate combat mechanics; each game needs rules that serve its particular purpose. The fact that so many games have needlessly complicated combat mechanics when combat isn't even supposed to be the focus of their game shows a worrisome lack of though being placed in their game design.

...I need a name for this game-design perspective, since it's obviously not universal. Let's call it the "Purposivist Design Paradigm" (PDP) for the time being.

Satyr, want to name your own school? :smalltongue:

Coplantor
2010-07-30, 01:15 PM
Well, maybe not combat, but confilct does occur. A social encounter is a sort of conflict.

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-30, 01:29 PM
The real take-away is: assuming that the "point" of all RPGs is combat because some were descended from wargames is a logical fallacy. As a result, it does not serve as a reason to discard social mechanics entirely nor to elevate combat mechanics; each game needs rules that serve its particular purpose. The fact that so many games have needlessly complicated combat mechanics when combat isn't even supposed to be the focus of their game shows a worrisome lack of though being placed in their game design.

I have never assumed or stated that the "point of all RPGs is combat. The only time a mechanic is required is when one character wants to do something another character disagrees with. Generally, is social situations this means that the individual is trying to convince a character to do something they do not want to do. Unless they are using some sort of supernatural ability, many players that I've played with dislike the idea that this means that they do not have control over their characters reactions. Honestly, some of them hated it even if they understood that it was caused by some sort of supernatural influence.

My personal opinion is that unless it is a supernatural power, the situation should be resolved using roleplay. This allows the players to dictate the behavior of their character(s). Otherwise the roleplay element is removed from the game and replaced with social combat.

Honestly, my theory on game designers complicating combat, when combat isn't the focus of their game, is to discourage it in the first place. I could be wrong, but it is a theory.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-30, 01:34 PM
Well, maybe not combat, but confilct does occur. A social encounter is a sort of conflict.
Well yes, but structuring your social mechanics in line with the mechanics you'd see for conflict in a tactical wargame is an odd choice, to say the least :smalltongue:

The only time you ever need rules is to resolve conflicts. Whether the conflict is "do I hit the orc" or "does he say yes" you either resolve them via mechanics or fiat (i.e. one entity saying "yes" or "no."). I would place any sort of resolution-via-vote system as "fiat" as well, for the sake of completeness.

So far as I see, there are two ways to design mechanics: either to forward a particular purpose (the PDP School) or to simulate "reality" (the Satyr School).
I put "reality" in quotes because I am not convinced that any game seeks to be a physics textbook - any game demanding "simulationism" is forwarding the simulation of a particular form of reality that exists in the heads of the rulemaker. Unlike the PDP School, an appeal is made to the apparently concrete concept of "reality" to justify their choices. I'm certain the Satyr School is sincere in their belief that they are simulating an objective reality, but I personally don't believe that any system in use comes close to that aspiration; nor do I believe it to be a desireable outcome in any case.
Neither of these Schools, IMHO, would desire the creation of "tactical wargaming social mechanics." The PDP School would only advocate such a system if the point of the game was to make everything a tactical wargame; The Satyr School would deem it unrealistic.

EDIT:
@Lord Vampyre - regarding social mechanics, what do you think about the "PC v. NPC" vs. "Player vs. DM" paradigms I mentioned towards the start of the thread?

Also, when talking about Social Mechanics, I'm not talking about "I use Diplomacy on PC Bob" - few modern systems permit such a usage and I would certainly reject them as well. We're talking about the ability of PCs to influence NPC action through "social skills" like Diplomacy or Intimidate.

Additionally, I'd say that designed poor mechanics to discourage certain modes of play is bad game design, period. Putting in rules that are designed to never be used just bulks up a book and confuses players; better to design shallow, elegant rules that make combat highly costly to participate in. That way combat can be resolved easily and it is clear to all parties that combat is a strictly last-resort measure.

@Satyr - apologies if I've misstated your school of game design. Please feel free to correct :smallsmile:

The Big Dice
2010-07-30, 02:24 PM
Also, when talking about Social Mechanics, I'm not talking about "I use Diplomacy on PC Bob" - few modern systems permit such a usage and I would certainly reject them as well. We're talking about the ability of PCs to influence NPC action through "social skills" like Diplomacy or Intimidate.

Additionally, I'd say that designed poor mechanics to discourage certain modes of play is bad game design, period. Putting in rules that are designed to never be used just bulks up a book and confuses players; better to design shallow, elegant rules that make combat highly costly to participate in. That way combat can be resolved easily and it is clear to all parties that combat is a strictly last-resort measure.
There are two games you're reaching for here. One is Legend of hte Five rings, fourth edition. Where social and combat mechanics are equally important. To the point where each and every faction in the game has a social and a combat oriented chafracter build choice.

The other is Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space. In the game, the combat turn sequence goes: Talkers, Runners, Doers and Fighters. Ehich in itself says how the game considers the choice to fight the worst option, and yet still allows for that choice to be made.

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-30, 02:34 PM
@Lord Vampyre - regarding social mechanics, what do you think about the "PC v. NPC" vs. "Player vs. DM" paradigms I mentioned towards the start of the thread?

Also, when talking about Social Mechanics, I'm not talking about "I use Diplomacy on PC Bob" - few modern systems permit such a usage and I would certainly reject them as well. We're talking about the ability of PCs to influence NPC action through "social skills" like Diplomacy or Intimidate.

Additionally, I'd say that designed poor mechanics to discourage certain modes of play is bad game design, period. Putting in rules that are designed to never be used just bulks up a book and confuses players; better to design shallow, elegant rules that make combat highly costly to participate in. That way combat can be resolved easily and it is clear to all parties that combat is a strictly last-resort measure.

An NPCs are characters created by the DM (I know, this is a rhetorical statement). The DM has given his character's a sense of pupose and identity. Just like players are able to determine the reactions of their characters, the DM is justified when he determines the reactions of his NPCs. Now if the DM is willing to introduce the element of probability into his character's reactions, then yes he needs a mechanic to determine their reactions. IMO, this should only be done for generic NPCs, like guards, minions, or commoners. Characters that have been fleshed out by the DM, should have a personality and purpose that would control their reactions. It is up to the DM on how he wants to portray the behaviors of these NPCs.

I agree that the use of poor mechanics to discourage combat is a bad game design. Although the reason they're poor mechanics is because the game designers never put much thought into they're development. They merely considered the fact that certain things would take place whether or not they wanted them to. Thus they made allowances for them and put together some sort of mechanic for the general masses.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-30, 02:44 PM
An NPCs are characters created by the DM (I know, this is a rhetorical statement). The DM has given his character's a sense of pupose and identity. Just like players are able to determine the reactions of their characters, the DM is justified when he determines the reactions of his NPCs. Now if the DM is willing to introduce the element of probability into his character's reactions, then yes he needs a mechanic to determine their reactions. IMO, this should only be done for generic NPCs, like guards, minions, or commoners. Characters that have been fleshed out by the DM, should have a personality and purpose that would control their reactions. It is up to the DM on how he wants to portray the behaviors of these NPCs.
An interesting segmentation - PCs are capable of influencing minor NPCs, but only Players can influence major NPCs.

I'd prefer for PC skills to either always be useful in social situations or not have them at all. Otherwise it can feel an awful like railroading - "No, you can't roll to convince him; he won't be convined." I'm not saying you should let PCs steamroll NPCs with dice rolls, but setting up the rules beforehand ("No, you can't Diplomacize him to commit suicide, but maybe you can try to get him to retreat - roll away") at least establishes the proper expectations beforehand and lets the Players feel like they're involved.

Proposed New Topic
Advancement mechanics! Do you favor party rewards or individual rewards? What should you be able to advance or buy via "experience" and how much does RP should be involved?

Satyr
2010-07-30, 02:50 PM
Satyr, want to name your own school?

The Benevolent Tyranny School of Gamemastering?


Unless they are using some sort of supernatural ability, many players that I've played with dislike the idea that this means that they do not have control over their characters reactions. Honestly, some of them hated it even if they understood that it was caused by some sort of supernatural influence.

Is there really any difference between an influence of mundane or virtual means? In the end, the source is not as important as the effect. I usually leave it up to the player to act it out in both results. However, the influence of anybody on player characters is a constant source of strive and annoyance (I once had a player who shouted that "we had raped her" in a public place because one player's character succesfully tried to converted hers. Ugly mess.). I would usually just leave it to the player to act it out, just giving him or her a hint, and let them go. When it comes to negative aspects, it is most of the time more comfortable to just let the player decide what happens to their characters. If there is a general atmosphere of trust within the group, this usually works out quite fine.


I'm certain the Satyr School is sincere in their belief that they are simulating an objective reality, but I personally don't believe that any system in use comes close to that aspiration; nor do I believe it to be a desireable outcome in any case.

Not as much reality per se but the verisimilitude and conventions of the setting. In a fantasy setting, working magic or fire-breathing lizards
are usually a given, and belongs to the setting conventions; fire-farting lizards and a fully functional BMW however are rarely accepted.
However reality is a viable bottom line, because it basically is the one convention everybody pretty has to agree to.
Capturing reality is actually quite difficult, I guess, but usually it boils to down how easy the whole suspension of disbelief becomes. Roleplaying games show certain similarities to telling a huge lie. If it is to be believed it must at least seem credible; if things become too outlandish or bizarre, the feeling of involvement gets lost.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-30, 03:10 PM
The Benevolent Tyranny School of Gamemastering?
Well... BTSoG is kind of an ugly acronym, so let's call it "BT School" for short :smalltongue:

To the surprise of no one, the PDP School doesn't believe in verimissitude so much as consistency. I still find it funny that people can claim anything is "too outlandish or bizarre" within the context of a RPG. I've played games where I:

- Fought aliens with psychic constructs build out of love (Bliss Stage)
- Was swept off Mt. Fuji due to an exploding Endless Decanter of Sake (Mountain Witch)
- Freed the aqueous Amazonian Aliens from their prison at the Earth's core (Baron Munchausen)
- Engineered the destruction of a dracolich and every other villain we had been forced to ally with, resulting in the annexation of the Human lands by the Greater Eladric Empire (D&D4)
- detonated a battery of pure chaos as a Weapon of Mass Destruction (D&D3.5)
- used mind control to convince my allies to become Vegan (oWoD Mage)

I had no trouble suspending disbelief in any of these games because the events remained in-line with the reality that the game mechanics described. And yet my suspension of disbelief was most broken in a 3.5 game the other night in which an abandoned lead mine in the middle of a backwater region had a 10' x 10' solid steel plate that served as a spring-loaded pit trap - located on the other side of a 4' wide passage! The trap was, presumably, set up by the bad guy we were chasing - a sinster fellow who made off with 100 sheep and is somehow keeping them in the depths of this lead mine!

Tl;dr? Verimissitude (under PDP) is a misleading and limiting concept; all games should remain internally consistent but there is nothing to say that they need reflect any sort of "reality" external to the game.

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-30, 05:46 PM
Is there really any difference between an influence of mundane or virtual means? In the end, the source is not as important as the effect. I usually leave it up to the player to act it out in both results. However, the influence of anybody on player characters is a constant source of strive and annoyance (I once had a player who shouted that "we had raped her" in a public place because one player's character succesfully tried to converted hers. Ugly mess.). I would usually just leave it to the player to act it out, just giving him or her a hint, and let them go. When it comes to negative aspects, it is most of the time more comfortable to just let the player decide what happens to their characters. If there is a general atmosphere of trust within the group, this usually works out quite fine.

Actually there is. A player is more likely to accept the fact that a vampire dominated their character into doing something they would never have done, than to tolerate the vampire simply talking them into it. Unless you were able to convince the player, a skill challenge is simply not enough.

I read your original post for that story. Frankly, I'm glad that I've never had to deal with that player. Being accused of being a rapist in public is almost as bad as being accused of murder.


I'd prefer for PC skills to either always be useful in social situations or not have them at all. Otherwise it can feel an awful like railroading - "No, you can't roll to convince him; he won't be convined." I'm not saying you should let PCs steamroll NPCs with dice rolls, but setting up the rules beforehand ("No, you can't Diplomacize him to commit suicide, but maybe you can try to get him to retreat - roll away") at least establishes the proper expectations beforehand and lets the Players feel like they're involved.


True. It does come down mostly to DM fiat, but most of the DMs that I've played with had a tendency of making things up on the fly, allowing the NPCs personality be the only deciding factor. Personally when I'm in an intense roleplay scene, having to roll the dice ruins the atmosphere. Generally, when I run the game, I will take into account the level of social skills the player has invested and give them the benefit of the doubt if I think their argument has a chance of swaying the character. But if they're trying to save the soul of a demon, and want me to actually take them seriously, it had better be a really good argument, with lots of roleplay. There is no way I am going to give them even a 5% chance on the roll of 20 sided dice.

New Topic:

Personally, I'm a fan of individual rewards over party XP. I want my players to develop their characters through out the game. Party XP, means that even the players who didn't happen to show up for the last few games are still on par with the other players.

Plus, I hate it when players don't let you know when they can't make it for game. I accept the fact that RL takes priority over a game, but courtesy demands that you at least inform your DM of your absence.

I do make allowances for absences at games, and try to work it into the story, but this tends to be a lot of work. Especially when I have to dial down the encouters during the session they missed, or run their character for them.

Aroka
2010-07-30, 06:40 PM
Personally, I'm a fan of individual rewards over party XP. I want my players to develop their characters through out the game. Party XP, means that even the players who didn't happen to show up for the last few games are still on par with the other players.

I've always had difficulties with individual XP, because we're usually at least one player short; in our first D&D 3.0 campaign, the druid hit 21st level about 2-4 levels ahead of the rest of the party, which was a bit grotesque. In Rolemaster, the difference is not nearly as keenly felt, but the wood elf ranger being level ~12 while the rest of the party are 6-8 was a bit harsh (although in this case, it was also a matter of the elf ranger - being an archer, sneaker, and utility spellcaster - just getting way, way, way more XP per session played than any other character).

However, Artesia: Adventures in the Known World has one of the best experience systems I've seen. It uses a set of Tarot-style Arcana (that have a great deal of mystical significance in-character), each of which consists of attributes, skills, gifts, and bindings that points earned in that specific Arcana can be spent on; and a list of behaviors and numbers of Arcana points they grant. For instance, punishing the guilty gets you Justice Arcana points, while seducing someone gets you Empress Arcana points. Arcana points are explicitly only awarded when the action taken advances the story (whether the acting character's story, another character's story, the party's story, the entire adventure, or the entire campaign).

This is accompanied by a standard training system where time spent practicing a skill or attribute advances it, but the mystical or semi-supernatural Gifts can only be acquired through appropriate Arcana, and Bindings (weaknesses) can only be bought off with appropriate Arcana.

Basically, characters can advance at different rates, but everyone has the same opportunities, no type of action is preferred over any other (approaching a problem through violence, social skills, magic, or almost any other viable mean is as valid as any other option), and players benefit from thinking about stories rather than mechanics: you can't really "game" the mechanics because the GM is only going to award you for actually advancing the story, and the player is best off thinking of a story arc he wants to see (although, really, just personality-simulating your character is equally valid), with rises and downfalls (indeed, some big AP awards come from failures, like becoming jealous, betraying your lover, leaving or abandoning those close to you, feeling guilty, dying, etc.).

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-30, 07:18 PM
I've always had difficulties with individual XP, because we're usually at least one player short; in our first D&D 3.0 campaign, the druid hit 21st level about 2-4 levels ahead of the rest of the party, which was a bit grotesque. In Rolemaster, the difference is not nearly as keenly felt, but the wood elf ranger being level ~12 while the rest of the party are 6-8 was a bit harsh (although in this case, it was also a matter of the elf ranger - being an archer, sneaker, and utility spellcaster - just getting way, way, way more XP per session played than any other character).

I've gotten to the point that I will award everyone the same amount of XP if they were present for a particular session. Absent characters don't advance the general storyline, and are in some instances detrimental to the part of the story I want to resolve. This is meant to encourage players to maintain regular participation in the game. Yes, this does have a tendency of creating some level disparities, but think of Gandalf.

Level disparity does unfortunately create friction within a gaming group. This is generally due to character envy. Unfortunately, too many players compare their characters with everyone else's characters.

I believe that it is important for people to develop their characters. When they are absent from a game they are unable to develop their characters properly with the rest of the group.


Artesia: Adventures in the Known World

Artesia sounds interesting. It also sounds like it only rewards players when they actually participate with in the game.

Gametime
2010-07-30, 07:42 PM
The Player decides whether his character takes the punch or not. Bad comes to worst, the Storyteller in his guise as The Authority Figure (the only adult amongst a band of teens) will probably throw one of them into the brig.

It's just not the point of the game.



If I understand Bliss Stage correctly, the player throwing the punch would probably be attempting to knock some sense into his fellow pilot, who is aware of, but unwilling to act on, the obvious-but-hidden affections of his tsundere girlfriend. This would either send the second player into a spiral of depression and self-loathing, or cause him to take charge and own up to his feelings. In the latter case, the heartwarming expression of affection between himself and the aforementioned, now opening-up-for-the-first-time tsundere would be cruelly juxtaposed against the immediately following mission, where his girlfriend is blown up by aliens, causing him to enter a cycle of enraged depression.

Eventually, someone goes crazy and blows up with love.


The Benevolent Tyranny School of Gamemastering?



If I may, "Enlightened Despot" has a nicer ring to it than "Benevolent Tyrant." It's also slightly more condescending, which may or may not be an advantage depending on your point of view.




To the surprise of no one, the PDP School doesn't believe in verimissitude so much as consistency.

*snip*

Tl;dr? Verimissitude (under PDP) is a misleading and limiting concept; all games should remain internally consistent but there is nothing to say that they need reflect any sort of "reality" external to the game.

What you are describing is verisimilitude. "Verisimilitude" refers exclusively to internal consistency. "Realism" isn't a concern for verisimilitude (unless the game claims to be realistic, in which case real-world physics, etc. are required to maintain internal consistency).

Satyr
2010-07-31, 02:39 AM
Actually there is. A player is more likely to accept the fact that a vampire dominated their character into doing something they would never have done, than to tolerate the vampire simply talking them into it. Unless you were able to convince the player, a skill challenge is simply not enough.

The point I tried to make is that it's mostly a matter of mutual trust. If you trust your players enough to play out a brain-washed or utterliy convinced character, and the players on the other hand trust the gamemaster enough not to screw them over when they do so, everything should be fine.


Advancement mechanics! Do you favor party rewards or individual rewards? What should you be able to advance or buy via "experience" and how much does RP should be involved?

I am very ambivalent on this issue; on the one hand, I think that good contributions to the game and according efforts deserves to be rewarded, and as I said before, I also consider this as a gesture of gratitude and respect. It's a way to tell somebody that he or she did well and that it was a pleasure to play with them (I also grant bonus XP for fresh cookies. Not only to encourage my players to bake more often, but also to show my gratitude for the cookies).
On the other hand, I find the idea of a strong interconnection between activities and learning quite appealing. Or the lack of such an interconnection aesthetically lacking ("I sure enthralled the audience with my great ballet performance and now I have become a better mechanic!").
The solution? For the game I am currently writing, I have divided the rewards into two different sources. Experience is directly linked to a skill and gained when using that skill (I am not sure about the frequency of gaining experience or how many one needs to advance it, but the idea is pretty much "learning by doing"). Studying or training also grants experience on a monthly base or so. This is a purely simulation-based approach; it is completely dependant on the character's actions, and interests, and the like.
The other source are Adventure Points, which are basically plot coupons or more powerful sources of experience. Adventure Points are given solely for metagame reasons - the end of a chapter, enthralling roleplaying, telling a really good in-character joke or create a quoteworthy in-character quips, baking cookies for the session etc.- and can be used for minor influences of the plot, rerolls, cheaper advancement of abilities or skills, or just to "cheat" in the game a bit.


However, Artesia: Adventures in the Known World has one of the best experience systems I've seen. It uses a set of Tarot-style Arcana (that have a great deal of mystical significance in-character), each of which consists of attributes, skills, gifts, and bindings that points earned in that specific Arcana can be spent on; and a list of behaviors and numbers of Arcana points they grant. For instance, punishing the guilty gets you Justice Arcana points, while seducing someone gets you Empress Arcana points. Arcana points are explicitly only awarded when the action taken advances the story (whether the acting character's story, another character's story, the party's story, the entire adventure, or the entire campaign).

This system also has a significant drawback - you have to keep 20 different paths to experience in mind (2 of the Arcanas are mostly meta), and many of the Arcanas are slightly overlapping or redundant. The Artesia game is in many regards awesome yet impractical; I guess if you are very well prepared for the game and very familiar with it, it would probably run quite smoothly, but to get there seems to be a long and rocky way.


What you are describing is verisimilitude. "Verisimilitude" refers exclusively to internal consistency. "Realism" isn't a concern for verisimilitude (unless the game claims to be realistic, in which case real-world physics, etc. are required to maintain internal consistency).

According to Umberto Eco, any fictional creation has to based on a certain internal logic and realism is only a subset of this verisimilitude. Verisimilitude is mostly about coherence, and perhaps expectations within the conventions of a genre. Realism is just a genre like every other, but a slightly more influential one.

Aroka
2010-07-31, 09:37 AM
Yes, this does have a tendency of creating some level disparities, but think of Gandalf.

It actually did work out in Rolemaster, partly because character abilities plateau so fast; the main advantage for the elf ended up being spellcasting ability, and that really worked out. He was a Middle-Earth elf, after all, and his Ranger spell lists meant he mostly had a supernatural ability to move with agility and stealth, as well as a supernatural understanding of nature.


Artesia sounds interesting. It also sounds like it only rewards players when they actually participate with in the game.

Yes and no. Your character could just sit there getting his income (assuming he's got a job), spending money on hiring the best tutors, etc., to raise his abilities, but he's not going to end up nearly as awesome as people who do heroic and important things, which make you heroic and important, because that's the way the Known World works; it's not even a very meta way to reward the PCs, since it's sort of got an in-world mechanic behind it. (Basically, the world/Fate/Fortune/deities take note, and you grow beyond what normal humans can achieve as you approach the Heavens on a level beyond the tangible. Sort of thing.)


This system also has a significant drawback - you have to keep 20 different paths to experience in mind (2 of the Arcanas are mostly meta), and many of the Arcanas are slightly overlapping or redundant. The Artesia game is in many regards awesome yet impractical; I guess if you are very well prepared for the game and very familiar with it, it would probably run quite smoothly, but to get there seems to be a long and rocky way.

This is true. As a general concept, though, it is awesome - if you pare it down to fewer paths and actions (I've been thinking of an Ultima conversion where you use either the Three Principles or the Eight Virtues as the paths) it's very wonderful.

However, I haven't found it overwhelming. My solution is fourfold:
1. Print out tables that summarize the actions and Arcana rewards (about 6 pages), and put a set on the table for the players to look over when they're not actively doing something;
2. Go over prepared adventures or storylines beforehand to note any likely significant Arcana opportunities;
3. Debriefing after play to consider significant actions taken and give out Arcana;
4. Give the players responsibility to demand Arcana rewards (this has the added benefit of weighing the character towards the Arcana the player is most interested in).
It's not that excessive a workload, at least compared to my usual prep.

But you are absolutely right that the application is a bit cumbersome. The principle has great utility, though: loosely directed advancement potential based on story participation.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-07-31, 04:20 PM
@Gametime

If I understand Bliss Stage correctly, the player throwing the punch would probably be attempting to knock some sense into his fellow pilot, who is aware of, but unwilling to act on, the obvious-but-hidden affections of his tsundere girlfriend. This would either send the second player into a spiral of depression and self-loathing, or cause him to take charge and own up to his feelings. In the latter case, the heartwarming expression of affection between himself and the aforementioned, now opening-up-for-the-first-time tsundere would be cruelly juxtaposed against the immediately following mission, where his girlfriend is blown up by aliens, causing him to enter a cycle of enraged depression.

Eventually, someone goes crazy and blows up with love.
Well, it is good form to take any opportunity to develop your Pilot's Relationships with other characters, so I guess so?

But yes, eventually everyone blows up with love :smalltongue:


What you are describing is verisimilitude. "Verisimilitude" refers exclusively to internal consistency. "Realism" isn't a concern for verisimilitude (unless the game claims to be realistic, in which case real-world physics, etc. are required to maintain internal consistency).
Y'see, this is the problem with using larger words than need be. "Verisimilitude" does, in fact, mean "the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability" but it is frequently deployed against a game system when it has a rule which does not comply with the personal "reality" of the complainer. The classic example is the 4E Healing Surge mechanic; early in the Edition Warz it was claimed that it just made no sense and therefore broke the verisimilitude of the game. I'm not going to retread this argument, but let it be noted that said objectors had no problem with HP breaking the "verisimilitude" of a system.

Therefore, PDP rejects the overworked word "verisimilitude" and use the word "self-consistent." If you are going to criticize the internal mechanics of a system, you should use internal references to do so.
@Satyr

I am very ambivalent on this issue; on the one hand, I think that good contributions to the game and according efforts deserves to be rewarded, and as I said before, I also consider this as a gesture of gratitude and respect. It's a way to tell somebody that he or she did well and that it was a pleasure to play with them (I also grant bonus XP for fresh cookies. Not only to encourage my players to bake more often, but also to show my gratitude for the cookies).
On the other hand, I find the idea of a strong interconnection between activities and learning quite appealing. Or the lack of such an interconnection aesthetically lacking ("I sure enthralled the audience with my great ballet performance and now I have become a better mechanic!").
The solution? For the game I am currently writing, I have divided the rewards into two different sources. Experience is directly linked to a skill and gained when using that skill (I am not sure about the frequency of gaining experience or how many one needs to advance it, but the idea is pretty much "learning by doing"). Studying or training also grants experience on a monthly base or so. This is a purely simulation-based approach; it is completely dependant on the character's actions, and interests, and the like.
The other source are Adventure Points, which are basically plot coupons or more powerful sources of experience. Adventure Points are given solely for metagame reasons - the end of a chapter, enthralling roleplaying, telling a really good in-character joke or create a quoteworthy in-character quips, baking cookies for the session etc.- and can be used for minor influences of the plot, rerolls, cheaper advancement of abilities or skills, or just to "cheat" in the game a bit.
The PDP approach favors the granting of advancement in accordance with the Purpose of the game. Giving XP for OOC actions is harmless, of course, but any XP system should be focused on rewarding in-game that serves the Purpose.

Training-Style Advancement
I generally disfavor the training-style approach because it creates certain gameplay incentives that can limit the story. For one, it causes players to focus on using the few powers they want to improve in-game constantly - either through repetitive training (if allowed) or via narrow IC decisions. The longer it takes to level up a skill, the more a Player will focus on using that one particular skill - even if it means slowing down the story to do so. Secondly, it is always difficult to figure out how to deal with learning new skills; do the PCs need instructors to do so? Can fellow PCs act as those instructors? If yes, then shouldn't the PCs each choose an entirely different skillset so that they can have the widest base of training when on the road?

But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what purpose is served by having this style of advancement approach? Should adventurers spend this much time and effort figuring out how to train their skills, rather than going on adventures? Is skill-acquisition such an important part of the game that it should guide story decisions? Using a more generalist XP approach means that players are rewarded for advancing the story, rather than practicing their skills - so they spend more time paying attention to the story.

Multiple XP Methods
I am actually using multiple methods of advancement in my game (Mage Prime) because it allows me to tailor the incentives for different aspects of the game. However, every time you add another advancement method you risk dividing the attention of your Players - like Artesia it can be difficult to keep so many different incentives in mind all the time.

Mage Prime Approach
(1) Mundane Advancement (Advancement Points) : every Encounter is worth 1 XP and every Story is worth 5 XP. XP can be used to advance Attributes or Skills.

(2) Relationship Advancement (RP Rewards) : at the end of every story, the Mages get to have freeform RP sessions with NPCs of their choice. A third party (either the DM or another PC) judges the resulting interaction based off of a rubric and grants an appropriate reward. Relationships are used to power Magic effects (in the Mundane portion of the game) and in pursuing Seekings (in the Magic Advancement portion).

(3) Magic Advancement (Mini-Quests) : between stories, each PC is run through a "Spirit Quest" style solo-adventure that is run by another Player in the first-person guise of their spiritual guide. If the mini-quest if successful, the PC is allowed to advance one of three categories of power.
Mage Prime segments the multiple XP systems into different portions of the game so that nobody has to pay attention to more than one set of incentives at a time. Each incentive system is tailored to the purpose of the game segment - story advancement, RP, and cooperative storytelling, respectively - and all three deal with game elements that are central to the Purpose of the RPG.

Satyr
2010-08-01, 05:04 PM
This is true. As a general concept, though, it is awesome - if you pare it down to fewer paths and actions (I've been thinking of an Ultima conversion where you use either the Three Principles or the Eight Virtues as the paths) it's very wonderful.

If I ran a game of Artesia - which I really want to, even if I have no concrete plans to do so - I would probably explain the Arcana system to the player, including the core philosophy, hand them out a short list of the Arcanas and claim that it is their responsibility to claim their Arcana points for themselves, and then grant a few general points now and then.


But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what purpose is served by having this style of advancement approach? Should adventurers spend this much time and effort figuring out how to train their skills, rather than going on adventures? Is skill-acquisition such an important part of the game that it should guide story decisions? Using a more generalist XP approach means that players are rewarded for advancing the story, rather than practicing their skills - so they spend more time paying attention to the story.

I guess that the purpose of the story is only one relevant aspect, at least for me, and the other one is a feeling of closure and familiarity through some feeling of authenticity; I like games that actually capture the feeling of a world. Stories are nice and all, but they don't take place in a vacuum; and one doesn't need to have story -or any kind of plot to have fun with a roleplaying game. Sometimes, the capture of the feeling and atmosphere of the world alone is a fulfilling and rewarding undertaking in itself. I thoroughly enjoy sessions which are basically about nothing but the characters interacting with their environment and each other, and a only plot-driven game would probably leave to much out for my taste. So I want a game to create an enthralling world at first and then offer mechanisms and ideas for things to do in it. This differs a lot from classic storytelling, because usually a story about a few guys planning a party and go shopping, discussing about imaginary beer brands and practically do nothing but procrastination is not a good story - it is not a story at all. However, playing it out is highly enjoyable (and I have the fondest memories of Shadowrun doing pretty much nothing else). So, what I try to describe is, that a merely plot-driven game would not cover all expectations I have towards a roleplaying game.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-02, 10:44 AM
I guess that the purpose of the story is only one relevant aspect, at least for me, and the other one is a feeling of closure and familiarity through some feeling of authenticity; I like games that actually capture the feeling of a world. Stories are nice and all, but they don't take place in a vacuum; and one doesn't need to have story -or any kind of plot to have fun with a roleplaying game. Sometimes, the capture of the feeling and atmosphere of the world alone is a fulfilling and rewarding undertaking in itself. I thoroughly enjoy sessions which are basically about nothing but the characters interacting with their environment and each other, and a only plot-driven game would probably leave to much out for my taste. So I want a game to create an enthralling world at first and then offer mechanisms and ideas for things to do in it.
I would ask whether you need mechanics at all for the sort of experiences you're looking for and, in any event, whether it is necessary to grant XP to produce these sorts of outcomes.
Creating an engaging world can be done under any mechanical system - it is a task familiar to any writer of fiction. Furthermore, unless the game is one of world-building (see Shock: Social Science Fiction (http://glyphpress.com/shock/)) it is unlikely that the players will be participating in the overall creation of the world; it is their job as audience to appreciate the work as presented and as actor to engage with the source material. The sort of engagement you're talking about here does not need mechanics at all.

Additionally, I do not know if it makes sense to reward XP for this sort of behavior. A world needs to be engaging on its own - the DM should not need to bribe players to engage with the source material. At best it is rewarding players whose acting pleases the DM the most; at worst it is a carrot forcing the players to engage with material they wouldn't otherwise care about. I say "worse" because the point of an RPG isn't to force the players to listen to the DM's story; it's to provide an interactive gaming experience where the players have fun.

Finally, you say that this sort of interaction is "fufilling and rewarding" on its own. If true, then why bother awarding XP for it at all - Players will produce such interaction when it pleases them; incentivising them to engage in such play when they wouldn't otherwise want to just degrades the activity as a whole, does it not?
Tl;dr - games should only incentivize activities that need incentivization. Doing otherwise either has no effect or cheapens the activity for everyone.

Earthwalker
2010-08-03, 07:34 AM
Alot about rewards changes as to which system I am using and I have never found a system I am happy with.

I find working out the xp total reward and in fact the finacial reward for an encounter dull and so rarly do it, in DnD I generally give out XP after the completion of some task at a convinient moment.

I like the idea of Runequests skill increases but it has gone horribly wrong in some games where an unlucky player has barly increased and a lucky player is so much better then him its hard to challenge the group.

I do like shadowrun where a flat karma award is given at the end of a run. It is simple and un complicated. Still leaves alot in the power of the GM.

Coplantor
2010-08-03, 07:54 AM
S, what about a game in wich Xp is an actual part of the game? Imagine a game in wich after defeating an enemy you can claim his soul/essence/energy/knowledge whatever, and you, as a character can invest that stolen energy to improve your stats, you actually have to meditate or perform some sort of ritual to make Xp have an effect on you.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-03, 08:47 AM
S, what about a game in wich Xp is an actual part of the game? Imagine a game in wich after defeating an enemy you can claim his soul/essence/energy/knowledge whatever, and you, as a character can invest that stolen energy to improve your stats, you actually have to meditate or perform some sort of ritual to make Xp have an effect on you.
That's just tying fluff to crunch.

I usually try to do as little of this as possible, since it can detract from the cleanliness of the mechanics. Of course you must fluff mechanics, but fluffling some socially-acceptable abstractions (HP, XP) is just borrowing trouble.

Aroka
2010-08-03, 11:45 AM
S, what about a game in wich Xp is an actual part of the game? Imagine a game in wich after defeating an enemy you can claim his soul/essence/energy/knowledge whatever, and you, as a character can invest that stolen energy to improve your stats, you actually have to meditate or perform some sort of ritual to make Xp have an effect on you.

Seems unnecessary and unnecessarily complex.

In RuneQuest's Glorantha, you can steal things (often completely abstract powers or skills, like "good eyesight" or "power over fire") from enemies you defeat in the context of mystical and magical quests, but this requires no specific mechanic at all (and, indeed, works much better when adjudicted on a case-by-case basis), and regular advancement uses the regular advancement rules.

Satyr
2010-08-03, 12:51 PM
Creating an engaging world can be done under any mechanical system - it is a task familiar to any writer of fiction. Furthermore, unless the game is one of world-building (see Shock: Social Science Fiction) it is unlikely that the players will be participating in the overall creation of the world; it is their job as audience to appreciate the work as presented and as actor to engage with the source material. The sort of engagement you're talking about here does not need mechanics at all.
.
The setting does not exist in a vacuum; setting and mechanics are intertwined and not two seperate entities. The rules form the backbone of the setting and in many ways the setting's inherent rules are an outgrowth of the rules.
Insofar the rules create a framework of possibilities and limitations for the setting.
And while yes, the experience and ambiente focused exploration elements do not require rules, they benefit from them anyway as it creates a framework of references and makes the whole experience a lot more concrete. It pleases my sense of aesthetics if I do not only know what happens but have the opportunity to learn why it happens as well.


Additionally, I do not know if it makes sense to reward XP for this sort of behavior. A world needs to be engaging on its own - the DM should not need to bribe players to engage with the source material. At best it is rewarding players whose acting pleases the DM the most; at worst it is a carrot forcing the players to engage with material they wouldn't otherwise care about. I say "worse" because the point of an RPG isn't to force the players to listen to the DM's story; it's to provide an interactive gaming experience where the players have fun.

I want XP rewards to be based on two things - the concrete actions of the character (character-bound) and a reward mechanism based on the player's contributions to the game (player-bound).
And because of the interactive element you mentioned, RPGs live and die with the participation and the input of the players; thus a lack of commitment for the campaign - including the source material - is detrimental to the game and should be treated accordingly.


Finally, you say that this sort of interaction is "fufilling and rewarding" on its own. If true, then why bother awarding XP for it at all - Players will produce such interaction when it pleases them; incentivising them to engage in such play when they wouldn't otherwise want to just degrades the activity as a whole, does it not?

It is one aspect of the game, and certainly not the only one. Focussing on one aspect of the game (here: exploration, ambiente) should not be based on a total neglection of another aspect (competiveness, feeling of growth and improvement). Every aspect of RPGs has its importance, anf while different campaigns will put an emphasis on various themes and have their own unique priorities, a good game should always include the potential for as many aspects as possible to allow freedom of choice, variation and the saturation of different aspects.


I like the idea of Runequests skill increases but it has gone horribly wrong in some games where an unlucky player has barly increased and a lucky player is so much better then him its hard to challenge the group.

The question is, how random the increase mechanism is. It is not impossible to create an application-based improvement mechanism without any random element.


S, what about a game in wich Xp is an actual part of the game? Imagine a game in wich after defeating an enemy you can claim his soul/essence/energy/knowledge whatever, and you, as a character can invest that stolen energy to improve your stats, you actually have to meditate or perform some sort of ritual to make Xp have an effect on you.

This would be very specific and work only in a very specific context - for example a very animistic setting. For a general solution, it is probably too specific.

Coplantor
2010-08-03, 12:53 PM
.This would be very specific and work only in a very specific context - for example a very animistic setting. For a general solution, it is probably too specific.

I wasn't thinking of it as a general solution, I was actually thinking of highlander :smalltongue:

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-03, 01:22 PM
I wasn't thinking of it as a general solution, I was actually thinking of highlander :smalltongue:
In that case, the "advancement" mechanism is the game - you fight and kill to get closer to being The One. Of course you need to tie it into the fluff - it is not longer merely a reward mechanic but rather it is one of the pillars of the game!

Consider D&D:
here we have a story-based game (#1) which focuses on combat (#2), character building (#3). XP is merely a means to an end; it encourages people to go on adventures and fight combats by being necessary to expand a character's build. Compare this with the role of Treasure in D&D - in the days of TSR it was a reward in of itself and you would often go on adventures explictly to recover a particular magic item or lost treasure. Now, WotC has made treasure little more tha a fuel for improving one's build which makes the quality of the treasure itself less important.
Now also consider the incentives a Highlander RPG would provide. Characters will be mainly focused on seeking out opponents whose power grants the PC something desireable; most of the players' attentions will be focused on locating and killing these individuals. Also, players who refuse to go on this hunt-and-kill style of gameplay will be left out in the cold; their characters will not be able to advance at the same rate and may soon become a casualty of an NPC Highlander who wants an easy kill.

Tl;dr - it's a fine mechanic, but only deploy it for a particular purpose. The greater the fluff-tie of a piece of crunch, the more it warps the game to that end.

Aroka
2010-08-03, 06:03 PM
I like the idea of Runequests skill increases but it has gone horribly wrong in some games where an unlucky player has barly increased and a lucky player is so much better then him its hard to challenge the group.

Didn't notice this before, but that doesn't sound like luck, it sounds like cheating; in all editions of RuneQuest I'm familiar with (so Chaosium's 2nd to Mongoose's 2nd), advancement speed is inversely related to current skill - that is, if your skill is 90%, your odds of getting better are 10%, but if your skill is 50%, your odds of getting better are 50%. This relationship is slightly complicated (in pre-Mongoose RQ) by the fact that you have to succeed at using the skill to get the check (so high skill means more checks), but since only one success is required and the advancement takes place during downtime, chances everyone succeeded at their important skills at least once, regardless of how good they are.

There is a much, much bigger problem with all use-related skill advancement systems, including old RuneQuest (Mongoose's RQ no longer uses checks, you get Improvement Rolls that you get to distribute as you like):
The specialists get better, everyone else keeps sucking.
That is, in the case of skills that are not mandatory (like fighting and spellcasting in most campaigns), the character with the best skill is going to be the one using it, and that character will be the only one advancing in it. This is not good, generally; long-term, it seriously limits the kinds of challenges you can put the party against and expect them to have any chance of success, and results in a lot of spotlighting that leaves all but one player bored.


So yeah, RQ skill advancement mechanics are problematic, but luck isn't really the issue - there's long-term balancing mechanisms in place. I wouldn't go back to the old skill check system; if I did do a skill check system, I'd combine it with Improvement Rolls from MRQ: you get checks on skills you use (not necessarily successfully, just in a meaningful context in a scene), and you can only use your Improvement Rolls on those skills. Improving skills you didn't employ would use practice/training mechanics.

Relatedly, Mongoose RuneQuest also reduced randomness. When you use an Improvement Roll (the gaining of which required no success at a particular skill) on any skill, you try to roll over the skill ("fail at it"). If you make it, you increase the skill a big bit; if you don't make it, you still increase the skill a little bit. It is impossible to waste Improvement Rolls. Turning the increase into a static number would be just fine, too. Randomness isn't mandatory.

Coplantor
2010-08-05, 02:46 PM
So, as we aproaching a new week, what about solo campaigns? Most games assume that there's a party, but what are good ways to handle solo campaigns within a certain system?

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-05, 02:57 PM
Meh, I don't care much for solo games. They just lack the spark (or audience :smalltongue:) a larger game possesses.

Obviously systems that rely less on parties work better for this purpose. Probably "dramatic" systems have an edge over "combat" systems too.

...or are you thinking about something in particular?

Coplantor
2010-08-05, 03:02 PM
No, nothing in particualr but yeah, what you said makes sense. Games with "classes" might ak it more difficult because they sort of expect a skill monkey a healer, a big stupid fighter and the mage dude.

Though trying to do a jack of all trades on a classless system well, will give you a jack of all trades but master of none (heck, probably not even student)

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-05, 03:34 PM
No, nothing in particualr but yeah, what you said makes sense. Games with "classes" might ak it more difficult because they sort of expect a skill monkey a healer, a big stupid fighter and the mage dude.

Though trying to do a jack of all trades on a classless system well, will give you a jack of all trades but master of none (heck, probably not even student)
Properly speaking, you shouldn't even try to use a system which has a particularized skill system - they tend to assume some division of labor amongst a party in their design.

If I had to run one, I'd use something like Shock where the individual characters aren't the focus - that way your "PC" can play several different individuals to keep things interesting. Although even Shock requires a minimum of three individuals to play :smallwink:

Satyr
2010-08-05, 05:13 PM
I am not to fond of this kind of campaigns because of the lack of interaction between players and their characters. It just seem to lack a complete level of relations and communication; besides I find it hard for even a single session to fully concentrate on one person - either as a player or a gamemaster- and find it slightly uncomfortable. Too much closure, I guess.

Lord Vampyre
2010-08-05, 05:20 PM
Lately, I've been stuck running just solo campaigns. You can run pretty much any system. Like any game, it has a lot to do with the individual running the game. If the GM doesn't take into account the lack of party support they'll kill the individual fairly quickly.

There really isn't that much difference between solo campaigns and ones with a larger audience.