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Hammer Head
2017-03-01, 10:29 PM
Lately, I've been thinking about separating out the ways different groups approach the game, and maybe explain different playstyles by pointing to their underlying traits.

I came up with the idea of organizing different playstyles according to the driving force of the game and the four things that can drive a game, in broad terms, would be roleplaying, mechanics, the DM, and the players. It's easy to separate these into two axes: the roleplay/mechanics axis and the DM/Player axis. Now, in my opninion, the ideal, perfect game would be one where these forces are balanced, and neither the mechanics or the roleplaying overpower the other and the DM and the players have equal say in where the story goes. Of course, as we all know, managing balance in anything is not a very likely occurrence, and it would be much more common to see a game tilt in one direction or another.

I went ahead and listed out how I think the intersection of these different driving forces can result in different types of games.

Roleplay and DM driven: The kind of game where the DM has a story to tell and treats the players more like an audience than anything else. The conflict of the game is probably a conflict between NPCs, while the PCs are pawns or footsoldiers.
Roleplay driven but otherwise balanced: The best way (I could think of) to describe this would be to say that the group is partway towards just LARPing.
Roleplay and Player driven: The kind of game where the PCs decide take over the world. (My personal favorite category to play in.)
DM driven but otherwise balanced: The DM knows what they're doing a lot more than the players know what they're doing. There might be an issue where the DM isn't explain situations clearly enough.
Perfect Balance: The perfect game, where both the DM's story and the Player's decisions actually matter while Game mechanics and roleplaying both impact the game.
Player driven but otherwise balanced: The players know what they're doing a lot more than the DM knows what they're doing. The DM might be unsure of themself or playing in a reactionary manner.
Mechanics and DM driven: The kind of game which has a serious chance of ending in a TPK inside three or four sessions. This is where you find the groups who enjoy trying to beat the unbeatable dungeons.
Mechanics driven but otherwise balanced: The standard dungeon crawl. This might be a premade story that was bought from a store.
Mechanics and Player driven: The game sessions are mostly spent flipping through books and coming up with creative ways to make the party more powerful. This is the most likely place to find homebrewed material actually being used.

So, what do you think? Are these groupings accurate to what you've experienced? Does splitting games up this way make sense? Am I completely wrong and insane? How would you organize the different group styles?

theasl
2017-03-01, 10:43 PM
I believe you've just made an alignment axis for groups. Don't be surprised if people start trying to figure out which of the options good/evil/law/chaos are. :smallsmile:

I haven't been in any steady groups (i.e. more than a few sessions in person or a couple pages pbp), but from what I've seen, this can change from session to session or even within sessions, depending on which players show up or are more engaged, whether the GM has prepared for a certain scenario, etc. At least from one of my in-person groups, which was a bunch of enginerds, we'd go from roleplaying to full-on rules discussions and back to roleplaying within the space of about 15 minutes, and the DM started out letting the players do their thing but started taking more and more control as our noob hijinks drove things off the rails. But I'm willing to accept that we were just an odd group to begin with. :smallbiggrin:

VincentTakeda
2017-03-02, 05:01 AM
The Gen 2 tier model is a bit of a rethink on classical GNS... GEN meaning Gamist, Explorer, Narrative... Players can fall anywhere on these three spectrum.. how much do I care about the interplay of game mechanics, how much do I care about taking a look around and investigating the setting, how much do I care that my activity builds to a story arc of some kind... After that the question becomes how much do I want the system I'm playing to model reality... Do I want mechanics to model tearing off of limbs or regrowth of hair after a fire attack, or am I ok with damage abstracts like hit points and wound systems? After that its 'how much control over the game should the players have? Does the gm have a specific set of events to lead us through, or do we choose our own path spontaneously? Do we have narrative control over something other than our specific characters? So every group falls somewhere in some combination of these 5 sliders.

On the other hand SK Reynolds and wotc I think did a gamer survey back in like 2002 that had only 2 spectrums... The x axis line from long term focus to short term focus, then the y axis is story focused to combat focused. I relabeled the x axis the planners vs the doers, and the y axis the explorers vs the catalysts... So a storyteller gamer would be interested in 'planner explorers' so big on story arcs and settings and imagery.. the 'fluff' of gaming. Thinkers are also planners but are more intersted in how they contribute than what they are contributing to... so these players are the strategists... on the right half of the spectrum are the 'doers'. Folks who arent so interested in the long term who are either interested in 'exploring or being in the moment' called 'character actors' who like exploring their immediate situation... and the doers who are again more interested in how they impact that moment than exploring the moment... We of course call them the power gamers, optimizers and murderhobos... Call em what you like.. What they are is Catalysts. They combine 'I wanna do something' with 'now now NOW!'. They dont wanna know what kinda wood the door is made out of... they just want to get to the other side of it and by the gods, leave their mark upon your setting or your story.

So only 2 sliders instead of 5, but I like the parts of each that the other is missing. Combine these two philosophies and I think it covers all the bases gaming has to offer.

If there were one slider that I think both of these theories combined leaves out... I'd say its the dichotomy between battlemat vs theater of the mind. So what... 8 sliders total? If each slider had only 2 poles and a 'neutral center' then these 8 sliders covers 6561 different styles of gaming/games/players. Even if you presume the 3 'GEN spectrums' are covered adequately by the 'story/combat spectrum' then your combinations gets down to about 243 different styles of gaming/games/players.

Me personally I like to stick with the 8 sliders because I have absolutely positively ran into players for whom the statement 'there MUST be a plot so I can ignore it' or 'there must be a setting that my design can defy (samurai in midieval europe is a common one)' applies. There must be a plot or setting for me to subvert is way more popular than it needs to be.

Prince Zahn
2017-03-02, 07:11 AM
Lately, I've been thinking about separating out the ways different groups approach the game, and maybe explain different playstyles by pointing to their underlying traits.

I came up with the idea of organizing different playstyles according to the driving force of the game and the four things that can drive a game, in broad terms, would be roleplaying, mechanics, the DM, and the players. It's easy to separate these into two axes: the roleplay/mechanics axis and the DM/Player axis. Now, in my opninion, the ideal, perfect game would be one where these forces are balanced, and neither the mechanics or the roleplaying overpower the other and the DM and the players have equal say in where the story goes. Of course, as we all know, managing balance in anything is not a very likely occurrence, and it would be much more common to see a game tilt in one direction or another.

I went ahead and listed out how I think the intersection of these different driving forces can result in different types of games. I'm afraid to say that unless you meant it in good humor, I don't see truisms here.

I'm only saying the following things so you can build off of them, don't take it to heart.


Roleplay and DM driven: The kind of game where the DM has a story to tell and treats the players more like an audience than anything else. The conflict of the game is probably a conflict between NPCs, while the PCs are pawns or footsoldiers. aka Railroading. DMs do that even when they fall into other groups.

Roleplay driven but otherwise balanced: The best way (I could think of) to describe this would be to say that the group is partway towards just LARPing. To someone like me who never LARPed, what does this even mean?

Roleplay and Player driven: The kind of game where the PCs decide take over the world. (My personal favorite category to play in.) Surely there's more to it than that?:smallconfused:

DM driven but otherwise balanced: The DM knows what they're doing a lot more than the players know what they're doing. There might be an issue where the DM isn't explain situations clearly enough. Having not seen this at my own games, I don't have much to say other than that not being a healthy DMing habit. :smalleek:
Perfect Balance: The perfect game, [/QUOTE] Perfect for whom, exactly?
sure, I can see the harmony of it, but I wouldn't say it's perfect for everybody.

Player driven but otherwise balanced: The players know what they're doing a lot more than the DM knows what they're doing. The DM might be unsure of themself or playing in a reactionary manner. Interestingly enough, I played with a DM who was both this and Roleplay-DM-driven one. it's worth noting that overlap between these levels is very possible.

Mechanics and DM driven: The kind of game which has a serious chance of ending in a TPK inside three or four sessions. That's a bit of an extreme statement, not without a grain of truth but it can't be all there is to it. If the DM isn't deliberately trying to TPK the players, he has less chances of doing so if he understands the mechanics well, or if the party optimizes.
Mechanics driven but otherwise balanced: The standard dungeon crawl. This might be a premade story that was bought from a store. Could use some more examples but this one works, somehow.

Mechanics and Player driven: The game sessions are mostly spent flipping through books and coming up with creative ways to make the party more powerful. This is the most likely place to find homebrewed material actually being used.also somewhat sensible.


So, what do you think? Are these groupings accurate to what you've experienced? Does splitting games up this way make sense? Am I completely wrong and insane? How would you organize the different group styles?

In short, I would think that your thesis covers common gaming situations, many of which are certainly prevalent ranting-fuel. however, I wouldn't say that the way you described these categories accurately describes the gamer community as a whole. and I'm certain there are a lot of gaming groups that fall somewhere between one category and the other, or that overlapping between two very distinct categories exists in the same group. I think though, that if you state the possibility of overlap, and approach describing these categories in a broader light, and state the pros and cons of each one, and why any particular group approach is most suitable to particular players if you can, it would be a much better list. :smallsmile:

Darth Ultron
2017-03-02, 08:19 AM
So, what do you think? Are these groupings accurate to what you've experienced? Does splitting games up this way make sense? Am I completely wrong and insane? How would you organize the different group styles?

No. I like how you do put Role Playing as a negative though...lol. Like it's a bad thing to role play in a role playing game.

And your missing a lot of the bad ones like :

Optimization Wasteland Everyone in this group optimizes like crazy breaking and bending the rules until they are not even playing anything close to the ''game'' and it's more just random combat to show off.

Hostile Players of Hate The players here don't show up in anyway to play the game, they simply want to spread hate and go after the DM(you know for their own version of fun). they challenge every single thing the DM says or does so the game is bogged down by the players vicious attacks.

Causal Waste of Time The DM, and often some of the players, don't care. They want to socialize and get away from their horrible lives for a couple hours, but don't really want to play the game or do anything really.

Frozen_Feet
2017-03-02, 08:47 AM
I'm not sure if you're even describing types of groups. Rather, you have made a non-exhaustive list of possible player dynamics.

To me, "types of groups" would talk about stuff like whether the players are friends, hobbyists, total strangers, family, etc.

Quertus
2017-03-02, 10:01 AM
Lately, I've been thinking about separating out the ways different groups approach the game, and maybe explain different playstyles by pointing to their underlying traits.

So, what do you think? Are these groupings accurate to what you've experienced? Does splitting games up this way make sense? Am I completely wrong and insane? How would you organize the different group styles?

Eh, seems about as bad and not fully encompassing as alignment.

On a scale of 1 to 5, I suppose I put my preferences at...

Player driven: 4
GM driven: <some negative number>
Roleplay: 5
Mechanics: 5

But I prefer games where "take over the world" is a valid option. As is "raid a dungeon". As is "pursue plot point X". As is "ignore plot point X".


At least from one of my in-person groups, which was a bunch of enginerds, we'd go from roleplaying to full-on rules discussions and back to roleplaying within the space of about 15 minutes, and the DM started out letting the players do their thing but started taking more and more control as our noob hijinks drove things off the rails. But I'm willing to accept that we were just an odd group to begin with. :smallbiggrin:

I was jealous, until I reread the "15 minutes" part. So, would your group enjoy a 2-hour rules debate? If so, then I'm back to jealous.


The Gen 2 tier model is a bit of a rethink on classical GNS... GEN meaning Gamist, Explorer, Narrative... Players can fall anywhere on these three spectrum.. how much do I care about the interplay of game mechanics, how much do I care about taking a look around and investigating the setting, how much do I care that my activity builds to a story arc of some kind... After that the question becomes how much do I want the system I'm playing to model reality... Do I want mechanics to model tearing off of limbs or regrowth of hair after a fire attack, or am I ok with damage abstracts like hit points and wound systems? After that its 'how much control over the game should the players have? Does the gm have a specific set of events to lead us through, or do we choose our own path spontaneously? Do we have narrative control over something other than our specific characters? So every group falls somewhere in some combination of these 5 sliders.

On the other hand SK Reynolds and wotc I think did a gamer survey back in like 2002 that had only 2 spectrums... The x axis line from long term focus to short term focus, then the y axis is story focused to combat focused. I relabeled the x axis the planners vs the doers, and the y axis the explorers vs the catalysts... So a storyteller gamer would be interested in 'planner explorers' so big on story arcs and settings and imagery.. the 'fluff' of gaming. Thinkers are also planners but are more intersted in how they contribute than what they are contributing to... so these players are the strategists... on the right half of the spectrum are the 'doers'. Folks who arent so interested in the long term who are either interested in 'exploring or being in the moment' called 'character actors' who like exploring their immediate situation... and the doers who are again more interested in how they effect that moment than exploring the moment... We of course call them the power gamers... Combine 'I wanna do something' with 'now now NOW!'. They dont wanna know what kinda wood the door is made out of... they just want to get to the other side of it.

So only 2 sliders instead of 5, but I like the parts of each that the other is missing. Combine these two philosophies and I think it covers all the bases gaming has to offer.

If there were one slider that I think both of these theories combined leaves out... I'd say its the dichotomy between battlemat vs theater of the mind.

Me personally I like to stick with the 8 sliders because I have absolutely positively ran into players for whom the statement 'there MUST be a plot so I can ignore it' or 'there must be a setting that my design can defy (samurai in midieval europe is a common one)' applies. There must be a plot or setting for me to subvert is way more popular than it needs to be.

The **** happened to Simulation?

How I rate my preferences on a scale of 1 to 5:

Gamist: 3ish
Narrative: <some negative number>
Simulation: 5

Explorer: ??? 4.5?

On these scales:

Gritty - abstraction: ....*
Railroad - freedom: ....*
Just PC - narrative control: *....
(If NC includes things like rerolls, then bump it one notch towards NC).

Long term - short term: .*...
Narrative - combat: ???

Battle mat - theatre of mind: .*...

But does all that describe a play style?


Me personally I like to stick with the 8 sliders because I have absolutely positively ran into players for whom the statement 'there MUST be a plot so I can ignore it' or 'there must be a setting that my design can defy (samurai in midieval europe is a common one)' applies. There must be a plot or setting for me to subvert is way more popular than it needs to be.

That's me. Mostly. Setting is strictly optional, a dungeon crawl would be fine, but I prefer a rich setting to explore. But I wanna explore it. My character's "not from around here". It's better for everyone that way.

For plot... Hmmm... I prefer it when the world feels real. There must be 100 plots, so I can encounter 10, and ignore 7-10 of those. The maid wants to poison the duke? The cult of green grass is working on a spell to destroy all lawn mowers? There's an insidious bookworm in the library? Starbucks has opened a new Starbucks in the lavatory of the Starbucks? Soylent green is what now? Combining 6 specific beauty products is deadly? World Dryers are actually created by and funnel moisture to the titan of dehydration? There's a magic exhibition next month? You've had a cold for how long? Mrs. Norris can't move? Well, that's nice, but I'm busy trying to get Willy Wanka's chocolate factory back from Oz. Maybe if I made a spell to summon a tornado, it could get the factory, and I could show it off next month...

Darth Ultron
2017-03-02, 01:16 PM
Maybe like a scale.....


1-3 Jerk
4, 5 average player
6 sweet spot-normal player
7 Good player
8 Player-DM
9 Bad DM
10 Good DM

So, 6 and 10 make for a normal game...

theasl
2017-03-02, 01:47 PM
I was jealous, until I reread the "15 minutes" part. So, would your group enjoy a 2-hour rules debate? If so, then I'm back to jealous.

Considering that our character creation session was basically a 5-hour-long rules debate, I don't think we wouldn't. :smallbiggrin: Then again, it was a fairly new group so most of it was explaining rather than debating. But the super quick turns from rp to technical discussion and back were pretty jarring, and one reason why I prefer pbp now.

Jay R
2017-03-02, 02:02 PM
My first thought is that this is just as overly simplistic, and just as inaccurate, as the alignment system, and for the same reasons.

You've picked two axes and declared them to be the defining characteristics. While they are certainly aspects of the game, they aren't what makes a good or poor game.

What I care about most in defining groups worth playing with are:

An overall attitude of trust between the DMs anmd playuers (as well as a level of trustworthiness that deserves such trust)
Overall intelligence and cleverness and originality of both the DM and the players.
General friendliness and cooperation of the group.
Willingness of most players to learn the system (and of the rest to keep their questions short).
Willingness of the players to accept what happens rather than to argue with the DM during play.


Give me these characteristics, and I will happily play in any of your nine categories.

Quertus
2017-03-02, 03:36 PM
What I care about most in defining groups worth playing with are:

An overall attitude of trust between the DMs anmd playuers (as well as a level of trustworthiness that deserves such trust)
Overall intelligence and cleverness and originality of both the DM and the players.
General friendliness and cooperation of the group.
Willingness of most players to learn the system (and of the rest to keep their questions short).
Willingness of the players to accept what happens rather than to argue with the DM during play.


Give me these characteristics, and I will happily play in any of your nine categories.

Oooh, that sounds much more interesting and informative. Interesting that the only things you ask of your GM is trustworthy and clever, while having a lot more requirements for your fellow players. I'm guessing, unlike me, you've had players ruin a lot more games than bad GMs have?

VincentTakeda
2017-03-02, 04:05 PM
If I were to plot myself along this 8 dimensional gamer map on a scale of 1-3 (1 being left side, 2 being middle, 3 being right side)
Game mechanics? 2; I need medium crunch. I neither thrive in systems where the crunch is as fine as pathfinder or as granular as 'targeting limbs'... by the same time I dont thrive in systems that are too abstract... Like d20's wealth system or warhammers wounds tracking.
Explorer (Setting?) 3; My playstyle is mostly investigative explorer, so I need the world to be rich enough to bother poking around in.
Narrative 1; I'm not interested in my characters participating in a pre ordained story arc as much as I like a simulationist sandbox that reacts to my choices. You find out what happens by playing. I thrive in schroedingers sandbox both as a player and gm.

(low narrative high explorer combined with short term high player control below is how I describe my personal version of simualtionist sandboxing)

Realism vs cinematic 3; Cinematic for sure. I like the games I'm in to be more fantastical and amazing than street level and gritty. I strongly prefer abstract health tracking like hit points over dismemberment tracking. Some other thread nearby was talking about the difference between real lava and adventurer lava... Sign me up for adventurer lava.
Player control 3; I like the 'schroedingers spontaneous simulationist sandbox' so I prefer that the gm simply model the world i'm rollin around in in a reactionary way more than a gm thats pushing an agenda or telling a tale.. True both when i'm playing *and* when I'm running the game.
Long term or short term? Short term. My characters like to live in the moment. Let me have a look around. Let me experience being this me that i've created and see where that goes.
Observer or Catalyst? Observer. Again. I like to poke around and take my time, but i'm more interested 'what am I doing right now' than 'why are we doing this... whats the point? whats the end game? Long term catalysts are strategists who like planning the perfect way to stir up a pot, short term catalysts are the guys kickin down doors without a plan. I'm not a catalyst at all.
Battle mat or theater of the mind? Theater. Cannot stand the battle mat. Soooo many pedantic system mechanics are tied up in battle mats. Again. Medium crunch is the place for me.

Those last 3 put me in the 'character actor' spectrum of their survey, though I can't say thats necessarily the most accurate description I'd put on myself. But 'short term observational cinematic simulationist sandboxing explorer in a rich medium crunch setting with no battle mat' covers a lot of nuance and paints a pretty specific image of what kinda guy i'm gonna be at the table.

If I were to add another dimension to this... lets add a slider for 'competence' that runs from harrowed squishy to badass... in which case

Squishy vs badass: Badass. I dont enjoy storming the beaches of normandy with a spoon. I'm not saying I want to be successful at everything I do all the time (in fact I prefer my dice systems swingy), but I need to feel like my guy doesnt have to waste game time growing into his role. Some may consider this a subset of realism vs cinematic, and thats totally a fair observation.

Toss in a slider for Competitive vs Cooperative or maybe Rulings vs Rules and before you know it we've got an 11 dimensional gaming model, though I kind of feel like that last one is already a subset of Player Control or Game Mechanics, bringing us back to a nice convenient 10 dimensions, which is sadly like... 59000 different ways to play.

Lets call it... 'Gaming in the tenth dimension' or 'Ten Dimensional Gaming'

IShouldntBehere
2017-03-02, 04:11 PM
The groupings and approach make little sense. You've identified some qualities games can have such as being more "mechanics driven" or "role play driven" (though these aren't strictly opposite ends of the same spectrum). However the groupings are seemingly arbitrary. You've labeled one type of game as objectively "Perfect" even those aren't qualities everyone would even want.

Some things like:


Mechanics and Player driven: The game sessions are mostly spent flipping through books and coming up with creative ways to make the party more powerful. This is the most likely place to find homebrewed material actually being used.

Are just really weird. Book-flipping power-players are by far the least likely group to incoperate home brew in my experience because it's "Cheating". Those groups tend to see the game as the game and what is printed on pages be the game and ain't nothin' nobody wrote on their own be part of it.


I get what you're going for but I'm not sure this theory is ready for prime time.

Jay R
2017-03-02, 04:28 PM
Oooh, that sounds much more interesting and informative. Interesting that the only things you ask of your GM is trustworthy and clever, while having a lot more requirements for your fellow players. I'm guessing, unlike me, you've had players ruin a lot more games than bad GMs have?

First, I also required friendliness and co-operation of the DM; he's certainly part of the group.

Second, these aren't necessarily complete. I wrote them down quickly.

But mostly, I don't think I've ever had a game ruined since I started playing D&D in 1975. I suspect that that's a combination of luck, and the fact that I virtually never play with people who aren't already my friends, or recommended highly by friends. I haven't played at a table with more strangers than friends since about 1980.

Hammer Head
2017-03-02, 11:07 PM
Well, I'm glad to get some feedback, even if it is "you're probably wrong." :smallsmile:

I might have communicated poorly. I don't think any of these game styles are bad. They all have their pros and cons. The DM driven games, for example, can be very good for a new group that doesn't really know how to play. Also, it's not meant to be a big, defining announcement, but more just some ideas I've had rattling about in my head which I decided to put out there with the hope of sparking some discussion. I do think that the perfect game would balance all of the driving forces that I had thought of, but when I say 'perfect game,' I don't mean 'actually perfect.' After all, my favorite is Roleplay and Player driven. What I mean by 'perfect' would be more along the lines of 'most people involved in the game can find what they're looking for.'

What I had in mind is that if a playgroup has a tendency towards certain traits, those traits might be able to be explained by pointing towards parts of the game being considered more important than others. Naturally, I used my own experiences to delineate the groups and inform how I described the groups. I've played in games where the DM was angered by every attempt to bring up mechanics during one of his sessions (he was supposed to be the one and only source of mechanical information, and he inspired the DM & Mechanics driven category) and groups where mechanics weren't even mentioned for entire sessions at a time (That was what inspired the LARP category). Also, the 'neutral' options I was listing, in my head (though I didn't explain it that well, I guess), were the areas where two categories overlap, such that, for example, roleplaying and mechanics would play an equal role.

@theasl: Yeah, it pretty much is an alignment system for groups. :smallwink:

@VincentTakeda: Wow, I actually didn't know how much had gone into this topic. It really was just a random set of ideas I thought I would share. I like your 10-d system a bit more than my own. 59049 different styles of playgroups is awesome.

@Prince Zahn: Oh yeah, definitely meant in good humor. Also, LARPing is Live Action Role Playing. It's things like Vampire the Masquerade, where, on top of playing a roleplaying game, you are actually moving around a city or a park or something, and pretending to be a vampire. I've never had the chance to play in a LARP group, but I would certainly like to try. Also, yeah, a lot of the explanations I gave for my perceived groupings were generalizations that I thought would capture the spirit behind that group.

@Darth Ultron: What? Who put down roleplaying as a negative? I love roleplaying. I didn't mean to make it sound like I was saying roleplaying was bad. :smalleek:

@Quertus: Well, I think every group needs to be at least a little DM driven. After all, if the DM weren't there controlling the world, it would be kind of boring.

@Jay R: Yeah, I totally agree with your criteria for what makes a game good or bad. Though, I didn't mean to imply that any of the groups I was mentioning were 'good' or 'bad.' In fact, I think all nine of the groups I mentioned can be fun for different reasons.

Knaight
2017-03-03, 05:28 AM
You definitely can set up a player-driven to GM-driven axis, and it is orthogonal to the roleplay-heavy rules-heavy axis. With that said, it's a sloppy model in a lot of ways - for instance, it doesn't distinguish between a game that is neutral on the player-driven/GM-driven side because everyone is heavily involved, actively doing things, and leading the game to change as opposed to one that is neutral because the game is listing along (and everyone is probably screwing around, socializing, and having fun with that instead). It doesn't do a good job representing either roleplay-heavy and rules-heavy or the classic beer and pretzels style characterized by being light on both. I'd split both of these, call it four orthogonal axes (with an understanding that certain parts of the space are more represented than others and said representation doesn't involve each of the four variables being applied independently), and then probably add in a few more even for a minimalist model.

2D8HP
2017-03-03, 08:30 AM
I can't figure out how the proposed "groups" fit my own tastes.

I don't like my PC being "Locked into Lameness" (i.e. forced to fight other PC's in an arena), or in an "Empty Room" (very little DM provided content, if the DM asks me "what do you want to find there", my response is "A setting, not a blank page!").

An enticing adventure is paramount.

What first got me hooked on RPG's was this set-up:

100 years ago the sorcerer Zenopus built a tower on the low hills overlooking Portown. The tower was close to the sea cliffs west of the town and, appropriately, next door to the graveyard.
Rumor has it that the magician made extensive cellars and tunnels underneath the tower. The town is located on the ruins of a much older city of doubtful history and Zenopus was said to excavate in his cellars in search of ancient treasures.

Fifty years ago, on a cold wintry night, the wizard's tower was suddenly engulfed in green flame. Several of his human servants escaped the holocaust, saying their rnaster had been destroyed by some powerful force he had unleashed in the depths of the tower.
Needless to say the tower stood vacant fora while afterthis, but then the neighbors and the night watchmen comploined that ghostly blue lights appeared in the windows at night, that ghastly screams could be heard emanating from the tower ot all hours, and goblin figures could be seen dancina on the tower roof in the moonlight. Finally the authorities had a catapult rolled through the streets of the town and the tower was battered to rubble. This stopped the hauntings but the townsfolk continue to shun the ruins. The entrance to the old dungeons can be easily located as a flight of broad stone steps leading down into darkness, but the few adventurous souls who hove descended into crypts below the ruin have either reported only empty stone corridors or have failed to return at all.
Other magic-users have moved into the town but the site of the old tower remains abandoned.
Whispered tales are told of fabulous treasure and unspeakable monsters in the underground passages below the hilltop, and the story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of the older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.
Portown is a small but busy city 'linking the caravan routes from the south to the merchscant ships that dare the pirate-infested waters of the Northern Sea. Humans and non-humans from all over the globe meet here.
At he Green Dragon Inn, the players of the game gather their characters for an assault on the fabulous passages beneath the ruined Wizard's tower.

:biggrin:

None better for me, even after 39 years!


I hate looking up any rules, and if I have to look up a "stat" on my character sheet that breaks immersion, and I dislike it.

My favorite setting genre's are (in order):
1) Swords and Sorcery
2) Swashbuckling
3) Arthurian
4) Gaslamp Fantasy
5) Planetary Romance
6) Steampunk
7) Raygun Gothic
8) Viking

My least favorite genres are:
1) Modern-day anything
2) Dystopian Near Future
3) Dystopian Far Future

What I like/want:
1) Exploring a fantastic world.
Playing a superpowered PC in a mostly mundane world leaves me cold (I didn't like Villains and Vigilantes, Champions, Cyberpunk, or Vampire).

2) Reasonably quick character creation without giving me options fatigue (GURPS and HERO, and a little bit in early D&D with initial equipment shopping).

3) The fantastic world should not be too surreal or seem like a cruel joke (Paranoia,Toon).

4) Random character creation should not result in widely disparate starting power levels (Runequest, Stormbringer, and sometimes rolling for HP in old D&D).

5) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Robin Hood, the Seven Samurai, and Sinbad?: Yes!

6) Avengers, James Bond, and the X-Men?: Eh nah.

7) Swashbuckling? Yes!

8) Steampunk/Gaslight Fantasy? Probably.

9) Space Opera? Sometimes.

10) Time Travel/Alternate realities (Sliders)?: I'm intrigued.

11) Dark Future?: :yuk: seldom.
(though I did have some fun playing a few sessions of Shadowrun but I never bought the rules!)

12) Archers, Dragons, Knights, Magic, Pirates, and Swords: Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!, and Yes!

13) Lots of dice rolling!
No I don't want to necessarily know why, I just like the sound, the feel, and most of all the suspense!

14) The rulebook should provide a template for character creation, as I find a catalog better sparks my imagination than a blank page.

Aftet character creation I'm fine with "rules" like this:

1) GM describes a scene.
2) Player says an action that their PC attempts.
3) GM decides if the PC has no chance of success, no chance of failure, or a partial chance of success.
4) If a partial chance of success, GM makes up on the spot a percentage chance of success.
5) Player rolls D100 (two 0-9 twenty-siders once upon a time).
6) If the player rolls under the made up number their PC succeeds in attempting the task, if over the PC fails.
7) GM narrates the immediate consequences until it's time to again ask, "what do you do".
8) Repeat.


So where do I fit?

Jay R
2017-03-03, 10:28 AM
@Jay R: Yeah, I totally agree with your criteria for what makes a game good or bad. Though, I didn't mean to imply that any of the groups I was mentioning were 'good' or 'bad.' In fact, I think all nine of the groups I mentioned can be fun for different reasons.

Yup. I think the analogy with alignment is excellent. It does model something, but each of the nine categories can include a huge variation of approaches. For instance:


Roleplay driven but otherwise balanced: The best way (I could think of) to describe this would be to say that the group is partway towards just LARPing.

[I choice this category randomly, by rolling a d9. I could do the same thing with any of them, but didn't want to spend that much more time.]

That's one way to fit this category. Others include:
1. The players comes up with the roles they would like to play, while the DM comes up with ideas for the world. They get together and talk about them, each adjusting to the ideas of the other. Eventually they create the character sheets and world structure to use these ideas. Perhaps they choose the system at this stage. The adventures use the backstories of the character to set up encounters, quests, and conflicts.

2. Players don't discuss anything with other players until they reach the table. They form friendships, rivalries, and cliques just like people do, while following the DM's plothooks.

I'm sure there are other combinations that I wouldn't think of. [I'd never have thought of LARPing in this category either, but the closest thing to LARPing I do (the SCA) doesn't fit this category (for me).]

Quertus
2017-03-03, 02:55 PM
If I were to add another dimension to this... lets add a slider for 'competence' that runs from harrowed squishy to badass... in which case

Squishy vs badass: Badass. I dont enjoy storming the beaches of normandy with a spoon. I'm not saying I want to be successful at everything I do all the time (in fact I prefer my dice systems swingy), but I need to feel like my guy doesnt have to waste game time growing into his role. Some may consider this a subset of realism vs cinematic, and thats totally a fair observation.

Toss in a slider for Competitive vs Cooperative or maybe Rulings vs Rules and before you know it we've got an 11 dimensional gaming model, though I kind of feel like that last one is already a subset of Player Control or Game Mechanics, bringing us back to a nice convenient 10 dimensions, which is sadly like... 59000 different ways to play.

Lets call it... 'Gaming in the tenth dimension' or 'Ten Dimensional Gaming'

Squishy vs badass: Totally agree with you here. Admittedly, my reasons are a little different. I wouldn't mind "growing into a role" (that pretty well describes old-school D&D, after all!) if I was playing a character I enjoyed, and the game was going to last long enough. I'd actually be a little more neutral if I hadn't encountered far too many "level 0" games that never made it to level 1.

Competitive vs Cooperative: cooperative.

Rulings vs Rules: rules? This one is actually rather telling. I prefer consistency. Rules provide consistency. Rulings... may or may not. I care less about which you do than that, whichever you choose, you do it right.

I played with group that did rulings well. When a rules question came up, everyone was allowed to make their case. Showing rules in the books was a valid case. As was, "if you allow that, the logical consequences are this". If, after 5 minutes, it wasn't obvious how the rule should work, the GM would flip a... I'd say a coin, but it was actually a duplex cookie. White side up, it worked whichever way was currently in the PCs favor right now, and became a permanent house rule. Black side up, it worked whichever way was against the PCs right now, and became a permanent house rule.

That was, IMO, the right way to do a combination of rules and rulings. I've had a GM who did rulings the right way, but it's harder to describe. I never looked at or looked back at a ruling he made, and felt that it was clearly wrong, or inconsistent, or broke the setting. Simply put, it just felt like he had perfect recall of a great system that I didn't happen to know. That is how rulings should feel.

But there's something I find even better than consistency. It's the predictability of expected results. If there's rules, I can know how fast I can run, how far I can jump, what I can do. I don't have to play a game of 20 questions with the GM every turn to determine what actions I can take. I don't subscribe to the Circle Chief school of GMing.

Pugwampy
2017-03-04, 06:14 AM
You cannot generalize this . The game is potentially unlimited and every DM has their own style and set of silly rules .

Hammer Head
2017-03-04, 07:30 PM
@Knaight: You're right that it does exclude those who simply aren't "driven," but I don't know if you need to split them into full orthogonal axes based around being interested/not being interested. You could manage with turning the axes into squares. Like so:




Care about Mechanics
Don't care about Mechanics


Care about Roleplaying
Driven by both
Driven by Roleplaying


Don't care about Roleplaying
Driven by Mechanics
Not driven by either



@2D8HP: Well, if you were to use the loose structure I came up with, it sounds like you'd be very much on the Roleplay-driven side of things, and maybe leaning towards DM-driven as well. A lot of your preferences dealt with settings instead of group type, though. Also, as has been pointed out, the system I came up with isn't exactly exhaustive.

@Jay R: Society for Creative Anachronism? I guess that would be kind of close to a LARP, though I don't actually know much about how the SCA works.

@Pugwampy: Well, if you're not generalizing, then you're being specific and exhaustive. If every DM can have a different style, then you would need to generalize, because being specific and exhaustive would be impossible.

2D8HP
2017-03-04, 08:55 PM
@2D8HP: Well, if you were to use the loose structure I came up with, it sounds like you'd be very much on the Roleplay-driven side of things, and maybe leaning towards DM-driven as well.


Interesting, in that I have argued that D&D (and similar games would have been better called"Adventure games" (I was a fan of Tim Kask"s Adventure Gaming magazine).


A lot of your preferences dealt with settings instead of group type, though. Also, as has been pointed out, the system I came up with isn't exactly exhaustive.


I've only left one table because of the people (among other things their ferret attacked my boot while my foot was in it), but I've left three tables because of setting (Champions, Cyberpunk, and Vampire).

I did have some fun playing the Cyberpunk-ish Shadowrun (despite my loathing of "dark futures") which I credited to a very good GM.


@Jay R: Society for Creative Anachronism? I guess that would be kind of close to a LARP, though I don't actually know much about how the SCA works.


Jay R knows far more about the SCA then I do, but if you discount the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, the SCA in many ways is early LARPing.

It may interest you to know that the Poul Anderson who's wrote novels that hugely influenced D&D, Steve Perrin an author of
Runequest, Call of Cthullu, and

The Perrin Conventions (https://dorkland.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-perrin-conventions.html?m=1)

(which my first DM used and for a longtime I thought were original D&D rules),

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G39Rapv4IOA/VIaBx-rWM6I/AAAAAAAAA5Y/PrUQD58Tuso/s1600/SteveNLuisePerrin.jpg

and my second DM and best friend (RIP) all took part in the Berkeley, California (where I grew up) SCA.

Cluedrew
2017-03-04, 09:53 PM
I do agree that this is a simplification, but I think that is OK. Dealing with the entire dynamics of system-group-play style would be mind numbingly complex. I don't have it entirely worked out for my own group, let alone read to deal with that for every group that has played.


Perfect Balance: The perfect game, where both the DM's story and the Player's decisions actually matter while Game mechanics and roleplaying both impact the game.This is the thing, there is no perfect and it is hard to say if there is even a single point of balance. Which is why I think the three regions is a good compromise. But the point is perfect, I know you said you don't consider one better than the others, but you have them phased that way.

But the point of balance is actually something else I can talk about. Because I would say GM/player power in our game is pretty balanced. There is a pretty even back and forth between the GM and player. But at the same time if I compared to other games it is player focused because I feel like the norm actually slants toward GM. So where do I put that? Player focused or balanced?

Not to mention how GM/player influence is completely out of whack compared to other groups, but I think that is getting into unnecessary complexity.