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Quertus
2021-12-23, 05:51 AM
Previously, when I tried to explain why 4e was not an RPG, when I tried to explain my definitions of an RPG & role-playing, I was trying to be really detailed, trying to explain it at a really low level, hit all the nitty gritty details.

In retrospect, I've realized that that's like programming in Assembly Language. Nobody wants to deal with that!

So, instead, I'm going to present the really simple, really high level metric to measure the suitability of a game to being played as an RPG. Ready?


Role-playing is making decisions for the character, in character.

This requires looking at things from the character's PoV, using the fiction, not the rules.

How well the rules match the fiction - or, more specifically, how well one can play the game¹ knowing and utilizing only the fiction, how the rules rate one's performance when role-playing - is a simple metric for the suitability of the game to being played as an RPG.

That's it.

And that's why 4e is not an RPG.

Well, mostly. I actually used a more complex metric when making that determination, one I feel has greater fidelity. But this much simpler, much more approachable metric should suffice.

Any questions?

¹ "playing the game" is "making (meaningful) choices", for those not familiar with this argument.

Faily
2021-12-23, 05:55 AM
:smallsigh:

I'm no fan of 4e either (and probably never will be), but this is a stretch. There's nothing in 4e that prevents people from roleplaying; making IC-decisions or considering things from their character's PoV. 4e doesn't say "Roleplaying is strictly forbidden and you may only treat this as a boardgame!".

EDIT: Just because you don't like a game system and it's level of crunch/fluff/mechanics, doesn't disqualify it from being a Roleplaying Game.

Quertus
2021-12-23, 06:04 AM
:smallsigh:

I'm no fan of 4e either (and probably never will be), but this is a stretch. There's nothing in 4e that prevents people from roleplaying; making IC-decisions or considering things from their character's PoV. 4e doesn't say "Roleplaying is strictly forbidden and you may only treat this as a boardgame!".

EDIT: Just because you don't like a game system and it's level of crunch/fluff/mechanics, doesn't disqualify it from being a Roleplaying Game.

By all means, hand me the IC thought process one uses when determining whether and how to contribute to a skill challenge, or the IC thought process around the use of a muggle daily, including the character's understanding of what the ability is. Then we can look at that, and evaluate how the character who sees the universe that way should *actually* act, or whether you've cracked the code on a working 4e fiction.

Anonymouswizard
2021-12-23, 07:39 AM
Oh look, another episode of Quertus's Gaming Elitism.

Yeah, I'm not buying this, especially as Martial abilities are explicitly noted as not necessarily being mundane. Skill challenges also actually make complete sense from the perspective of streamlining world simulation, the issue being that they have the default limiter as the number of checks instead of the number of rounds.

Let's look at it from another perspective. HeroQuest can easily meet all of your requirements, is it an RPG? Honestly while many people will be able to give a yes/no answer I suspect most just don't actually care.

Khedrac
2021-12-23, 07:55 AM
One problem with virtually all group definitions is that they never handle edge cases well - and edge cases exist for virtually everything.

And to demonstrate just how big a problem this can be, consider mathematics. Set theory has been an important part of modern mathematics since the late 19th Century, so maths being maths, the rules should be clearly defined, correct?
Well no, set theory has no formal definition of a "set" - as pretty much any definition instantly breaks (either itself or set theory more generally). Instead there are general agreements on can and cannot be counted as sets and the details are ignored (except where they matter).

Another example is the definition of "species" in biology - if you go by the common understanding (groups of organisms that can interbreed) then a of of generally accepted species cease to be so.

So, don't expect your definition of an rpg to do two things:
1. Be accepted as valid.
2. Have everyone agree on the classification of all games.
4th Ed D&D being a good example, either people will disagree on it's classification or they will disagree on your definition. You are not going to come up with a definition where everyone agrees with everything.

Composer99
2021-12-23, 08:43 AM
Indulging in preposterous absurdities for the sake of flogging the mostly-decomposed remains of a dead edition-war horse isn't a good look.

Your assertion of the primacy of the fictional framing leads to a contradiction.

(1) Since it is strictly speaking impossible to actually inhabit another person's mind in order to make decisions "in character" - all we are doing, at bottom, is playing make-believe - then a logical conclusion of this line of thought is that no game is a roleplaying game.

(2) Since it is strictly speaking possible to construct an in-fiction framing for any game and then make decisions mostly or even exclusively within the bounds of that framing - nothing is stopping you from playing that sort of make-believe while playing Gloomhaven or Wrath of Ashardalon, or even Monopoly, Chess, or Tic-Tac-Toe, after all! - then a logical conclusion of this line of thought is that every game can be - or even is - a roleplaying game.

What is more, it's simply wrong on its face apropos of the specific counter-points you tried to raise. Both skill challenges and tactical decision making in combat in 4e depend on the fiction:
- The player has to come up with an in-fiction reason for why the skill they want to use applies to the situation at hand.

- What to do on your turn in combat depends on combatants' positioning and how dangerous and durable you perceive your enemies to be - these are all inherently a reference to the in-game fiction, even if it is mediated through the mechanics of monster damage output, special abilities, and hit points.

Unless the DM is willing to simply indulge in "it has my highest bonus" as a reason, but that's not on 4e.

InvisibleBison
2021-12-23, 08:45 AM
If you find that 4e's mechanics don't match its fiction, doesn't that mean you're using the wrong fiction? And if you change your understanding of the fiction so that it does match the mechanics, wouldn't that mean that by your metric 4e becomes an RPG again?

On a related note, it seems odd to me that whether or not a game can be classified as an RPG is dependent on how people use it. Wouldn't that mean that some people find a game to be an RPG and others don't?

oxybe
2021-12-23, 09:06 AM
I posit Quertus has a faulty definition because


This requires looking at things from the character's PoV, using the fiction, not the rules.

is false.

Rules are part of the structure the fiction is built around.

Let's take a story. Harry Potter.

One of the core tenets is that when a British kid turns 10, if you're wizard-capable, you start developing your powers and get sent an invitation to join Hogwarts.

Anyone writing or telling a story in that universe needs a heckin' darn good reason as to why their 32 year old office clerk in Ohio just now gained magic powers and is being asked to join classes with small British children.

It might not be a "game rule" but "weird stuff likely happens in your youth, but you gain powers at 10" is most definitely a rule in the HP world.

Does that make sense? not really, but it's applied consistently enough that we can see that as a rule.

Same goes for an RPG.

The rules may not exist in the terms we use like At-Will, Encounter, Daily, or keywords... but their existence should inform your fiction.

Otherwise, all I can posit is that while Quertus may be a decent mage, but they're a terrible writer.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-23, 12:07 PM
Functional definition of a roleplaying game: a rule-based exercise where a player assumes the viewpoint of a character in staged situation and decides what to do, how, and why.

4th edition D&D very obviously includes all of those elements. It is hence is a roleplaying game. It also has bunch of decisions that don't make sense from the viewpoint of any character, because it is also an abstract strategy game. The fallacy Quertus is tripping himself over is the idea that the latter observation nullifies the former. It doesn't. A complex game can fall into many categories at once and even include simpler subgames within itself.

If this principle is confusing, consider character creation. Majority of roleplaying games have character creation rules; the choices rarely make sense from any character viewpoint, because they are about setting said viewpoint; hence, character creation subgames fail to count as roleplaying games; but who here will argue the presence of a character creation game disqualifies a game overall from being a roleplaying game?

There are many common arguments in circulation which trip on the same fallacy. "D&D is a wargame, not a roleplaying game" is one of those, "my pet (peeve) indie game is a storygame, not a roleplaying game" is another. These are all broad categories that sometimes overlap with one another, a game can have elements from multiple at once, thus being a hybrid. This is in fact normal with complex games.

The sane version of the argument Quertus is making would just identify specific mechanics of 4th edition that interfere with roleplaying parts of that system, and use those to argue 4th edition is poor as roleplaying game. It's sort of like arguments about art - you don't need to have a semantic argument about "what is art?" if you can make your point by just arguing something is BAD art. :smalltongue: :smallwink:

Quertus
2021-12-23, 12:10 PM
I posit Quertus has a faulty definition because



is false.

Rules are part of the structure the fiction is built around.

Let's take a story. Harry Potter.

One of the core tenets is that when a British kid turns 10, if you're wizard-capable, you start developing your powers and get sent an invitation to join Hogwarts.

Anyone writing or telling a story in that universe needs a heckin' darn good reason as to why their 32 year old office clerk in Ohio just now gained magic powers and is being asked to join classes with small British children.

It might not be a "game rule" but "weird stuff likely happens in your youth, but you gain powers at 10" is most definitely a rule in the HP world.

Does that make sense? not really, but it's applied consistently enough that we can see that as a rule.

Same goes for an RPG.

The rules may not exist in the terms we use like At-Will, Encounter, Daily, or keywords... but their existence should inform your fiction.

Otherwise, all I can posit is that while Quertus may be a decent mage, but they're a terrible writer.

lol. My signature academic mage is actually an accomplished (if dry) writer of text books. I, OTOH, am a terrible writer.

“The rules” are an abstraction for the physics of the game reality, so, yes, one would certainly *hope* that there would be some relationship between them.

But the character should be conceptualized by the fiction, in accordance with the world physics.


If you find that 4e's mechanics don't match its fiction, doesn't that mean you're using the wrong fiction? And if you change your understanding of the fiction so that it does match the mechanics, wouldn't that mean that by your metric 4e becomes an RPG again?

On a related note, it seems odd to me that whether or not a game can be classified as an RPG is dependent on how people use it. Wouldn't that mean that some people find a game to be an RPG and others don't?

Wow, awesome, questions that’re based on actually understanding what I wrote! Those were becoming vanishingly rare - that’s why I moved to the simplified version.

Is it the wrong fiction? Well, that depends. It certainly could be the wrong fiction, or it could be a matter of abstraction. That is, even with the optimal fiction, one expects that the rules, as an abstraction, won’t perfectly match the fiction - that there will be places where, to facilitate gameplay, you’re dealing with spherical sacred cows on a frictionless outer plane.

Ignoring that possibility for the moment, yes, it could be a suboptimal fiction. But “how people use it” would be subjective, so my question is, what fiction did 4e ship with? Use *that* fiction to play the game, measuring how the rules rate your choices. That’s how suited to being played as an RPG 4e is under the simple metric.

Sure, under the complex metric I actually use, you also measure how much you have to change the rules and/or the fiction to reach the best match you can achieve. But that’s outside the scope of this thread, which is just about my simple metric, and why I’ll unabashedly say that 4e is not an RPG.

Glorthindel
2021-12-23, 12:22 PM
I think, if any justification on this is to hold, there needs to be an answer to "well, what is it then?"

I say that, because personally I would find it would be easier to justify the statement "4th ed is a board game" than it is the statement "4th ed isn't a roleplay game", despite the (hopefully not too controvertial statement) that the two things are seperate entities, and a game theoretically can't be both (though that is not a guaranteed statement).

Rather than working on a single exclusionary category, maybe firming up the categories (say between: wargame, boardgame, roleplay game, playing make-believe) and then that might more easily see where something has drifted into a different category than it perhaps had originally intended to be.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-23, 12:34 PM
On a related note, it seems odd to me that whether or not a game can be classified as an RPG is dependent on how people use it. Wouldn't that mean that some people find a game to be an RPG and others don't?

The way you are formulating your question is what's odd and likely cause of your confusion.

Games aren't something you "use". They are something you play and of course how you play something changes classification of a game.

This also why arguments like "you can roleplay in Chess/Monopoly/whatever other simple or abstract game" are dumb. Their own rules don't really establish characters nor stage situations, only someone who has specific ideas about those and adds in a lot of material to facilitate them would play them as roleplaying games. As a result, most people who play such games don't roleplay in them, and the few who do understand they are doing something way beyond their normal rules, to the point they'd recognize and call them new games.

JNAProductions
2021-12-23, 12:44 PM
What you say is not an objective truth. It’s your opinion on 4E.

Max_Killjoy
2021-12-23, 12:58 PM
I dislike, to the point of almost loathing, 4e.

That doesn't make it not-an-RPG, it just makes it not be vibe.

Quertus
2021-12-23, 01:04 PM
Functional definition of a roleplaying game: a rule-based exercise where a player assumes the viewpoint of a character in staged situation and decides what to do, how, and why.

4th edition D&D very obviously includes all of those elements. It is hence is a roleplaying game. It also has bunch of decisions that don't make sense from the viewpoint of any character, because it is also an abstract strategy game. The fallacy Quertus is tripping himself over is the idea that the latter observation nullifies the former. It doesn't. A complex game can fall into many categories at once and even include simpler subgames within itself.

If this principle is confusing, consider character creation. Majority of roleplaying games have character creation rules; the choices rarely make sense from any character viewpoint, because they are about setting said viewpoint; hence, character creation subgames fail to count as roleplaying games; but who here will argue the presence of a character creation game disqualifies a game overall from being a roleplaying game?

There are many common arguments in circulation which trip on the same fallacy. "D&D is a wargame, not a roleplaying game" is one of those, "my pet (peeve) indie game is a storygame, not a roleplaying game" is another. These are all broad categories that sometimes overlap with one another, a game can have elements from multiple at once, thus being a hybrid. This is in fact normal with complex games.

The sane version of the argument Quertus is making would just identify specific mechanics of 4th edition that interfere with roleplaying parts of that system, and use those to argue 4th edition is poor as roleplaying game. It's sort of like arguments about art - you don't need to have a semantic argument about "what is art?" if you can make your point by just arguing something is BAD art. :smalltongue: :smallwink:

Well, you’re close, which means it might be very hard for you to hear the difference.

You’re right, I don’t, and one shouldn’t, demand that *all* minigames be played in roleplaying stance. As I’ve covered in other threads, but not in this one yet, character creation and after session write up don’t demand roleplaying, whereas talky bits and combat do.

Note also that my definition started with defining roleplaying.

Now, if every game that had an “abstract strategy game” wasn’t an RPG, we might have trouble- or it might be trivially easy to identify games that aren’t RPGs. But that’s not what I’m claiming.

Listen carefully: I’m claiming that, to measure a game’s suitability to be played as an RPG, one must play all the “character choices” minigames - including the “abstract strategy game” - in roleplaying stance, and measure how the rules rate your performance compared to someone just playing the rules.

That said, your “ It also has bunch of decisions that don't make sense from the viewpoint of any character, ” sounds like my “if it forces you out of roleplaying stance to play the game, it’s not (suited to being played as) an RPG”. So it sounds to me like you already acknowledge that 4e is not an RPG, by my definition. Am I wrong?

If I’m right, then your logical next steps would be to either agree that 4e is not an RPG, or to demonstrate why my definition is clearly faulty. Simply proposing another definition, btw, doesn’t demonstrate any fault in my definition. You need a proof, like you would give to a math or logic professor, or a really obvious (because I can be / seem kinda slow sometimes - reading comprehension is decidedly not my strong suit) example of, “you can’t X, because Y”.


Oh look, another episode of Quertus's Gaming Elitism.

Not that I’ll deny being an elitist, I’m just trying to get people to understand my terms and my PoV.


Yeah, I'm not buying this, especially as Martial abilities are explicitly noted as not necessarily being mundane. Skill challenges also actually make complete sense from the perspective of streamlining world simulation, the issue being that they have the default limiter as the number of checks instead of the number of rounds.

By all means, hand me the fiction you use to make decisions in character, and we can evaluate it. Strongly agree on the astoundingly boneheaded nature of the “limiter” - that by itself is really hard to create fiction for.


Let's look at it from another perspective. HeroQuest can easily meet all of your requirements, is it an RPG? Honestly while many people will be able to give a yes/no answer I suspect most just don't actually care.

I don’t know that game, sorry.

The only reason I cared in the first place was because people kept saying, “4e is not D&D”; now, I care because people don’t understand what I’m saying… and it’s a running gag for me to deride 4e, now with the (true) phrase, “4e is not an RPG”.

Ok, fine, the mostly true phrase. It’s an abstraction for the actual truth, that 4e is significantly less suited to being played as an RPG than other games marketed as RPGs I remember (darn senility), and 4e fails to pass my arguably arbitrary line for is / is not an RPG”. Of course, people will need to understand my stance before we can even begin discussing whether or the extent to which where I draw the line is arbitrary.

LecternOfJasper
2021-12-23, 01:32 PM
Role-playing is making decisions for the character, in character.

This requires looking at things from the character's PoV, using the fiction, not the rules.

How well the rules match the fiction - or, more specifically, how well one can play the game¹ knowing and utilizing only the fiction, how the rules rate one's performance when role-playing - is a simple metric for the suitability of the game to being played as an RPG.

That's it.

And that's why 4e is not an RPG.

¹ "playing the game" is "making (meaningful) choices", for those not familiar with this argument.

Fun!

Alright, so far:

"Role-playing is making decisions for the character, in character." - I have no reason to disagree with this statement, though as another has posted there are certain aspects of roleplaying games that do not involve or lessen the importance of role-playing (character creation being the clear one, solving OOC issues and maintaining fun for everyone involved being another).

"This requires looking at things from the character's PoV, using the fiction, not the rules." - Sure, but it has been pointed out that the rules and the fiction ought to be consistent already. If they do not line up, that's either a problem with how the fiction and rules have been built, or how the fiction and rules are being interpreted by other people. I see this has been addressed:



Is it the wrong fiction? Well, that depends. It certainly could be the wrong fiction, or it could be a matter of abstraction. That is, even with the optimal fiction, one expects that the rules, as an abstraction, won’t perfectly match the fiction - that there will be places where, to facilitate gameplay, you’re dealing with spherical sacred cows on a frictionless outer plane.

Ignoring that possibility for the moment, yes, it could be a suboptimal fiction. But “how people use it” would be subjective, so my question is, what fiction did 4e ship with? Use *that* fiction to play the game, measuring how the rules rate your choices. That’s how suited to being played as an RPG 4e is under the simple metric.


The 4e players handbook, as I found out in the last 10 minutes, specifies that the Martial power source often contains feats beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals, and describes them as "not magic in the traditional sense."

I take this to mean that anything that is clearly beyond the capabilities of a warrior in the established setting to be tapping into nontraditional magic. Because it says so.

It also, when describing daily powers, as that is probably the main issue here (?), the good book claims that martial characters are reaching into their deepest reserves to pull off an exploit. While I agree that on its face, it seems a little silly to have a meat man only able to meat a particular way once a day. If it is, as they say on the same page, nontraditional magic though, then there's no reason to believe that it will work any differently than other types of magic in the same world. (Which appears to be the old "hold the ability in your head tenuously, and need good amount of rest to grab a hold of it again" maneuver.)

"How well the rules match the fiction - or, more specifically, how well one can play the game knowing and utilizing only the fiction, how the rules rate one's performance when role-playing - is a simple metric for the suitability of the game to being played as an RPG." -

Based on the fiction as laid out in the book - that martial characters are dubiously magical and commit superhuman exploits through the use of, er, magic - I think that the rules match the fiction pretty well. If characters are going through the world thinking "I've attained access to these abilities through honing my craft to the point of mastery, but attempting them hurts my head to the point where I can only try again tomorrow," then that qualifies as a win. If their thought process is anything else (head hurting not withstanding), the character doesn't understand their own abilities very well, or the player doesn't understand the fiction as is.

I know I have made a lot of assumptions here based on what the actual problem is, but it is necessary to find the specifics of the fiction and rules when trying to argue that the fiction conflicts with the rules.

About playing the game knowing and utilizing only the fiction - can you point to a specific example of where the fiction does not line up with the rules? I would love to discuss the details and make a case for this, as I have seen this topic come up way too often in the last month.

The few things I've looked at so far seem to indicate that the fiction is just as specific as the rules, as they had probably written the fiction in a particular way in order to justify the rules. Go figure.

Quertus
2021-12-23, 02:36 PM
I dislike, to the point of almost loathing, 4e.

That doesn't make it not-an-RPG, it just makes it not be vibe.

Agreed, disliking or hating a system does not make it not an RPG. However, my definition makes 4e not an RPG.


What you say is not an objective truth. It’s your opinion on 4E.

Completely wrong. Anyone understanding my definition and following it to its logical conclusion would agree that, by my definition, 4e is not an RPG. Like math, the answer doesn’t change with the person doing the work - assuming that they do the work correctly. So it is not subjective.

You are welcome to prove how I’m wrong, but… maybe start with learning to differentiate between subjective and objective, between opinion and fact. Because the simple fact is, by my definition, 4e is not an RPG.

JNAProductions
2021-12-23, 02:39 PM
Agreed, disliking or hating a system does not make it not an RPG. However, my definition makes 4e not an RPG.

Completely wrong. Anyone understanding my definition and following it to its logical conclusion would agree that, by my definition, 4e is not an RPG. Like math, the answer doesn’t change with the person doing the work - assuming that they do the work correctly. So it is not subjective.

You are welcome to prove how I’m wrong, but… maybe start with learning to differentiate between subjective and objective, between opinion and fact. Because the simple fact is, by my definition, 4e is not an RPG.

Okay… let me put it another way.

Your opinion that 4E is not an RPG is fact. But even by the very metrics you presented here, it can and does qualify as an RPG. And it certainly qualifies as an RPG by common usage.

If you are unable to imagine how anyone can find 4E to be an RPG, that’s a lack of imagination on your part, not an inherent flaw to 4E.

KillianHawkeye
2021-12-23, 02:41 PM
Listen carefully: I’m claiming that, to measure a game’s suitability to be played as an RPG, one must play all the “character choices” minigames - including the “abstract strategy game” - in roleplaying stance, and measure how the rules rate your performance compared to someone just playing the rules.

Why?

No really, why is that a requirement?

Literally no RPG I've ever played has strictly met this requirement.

And what do you actually mean by "suitability"? Just say that you don't like it. That's fine. But you have no authority whatsoever to claim what is suitable for other people to do.

I'm not sure why you spend so much time and energy hating on D&D 4e, or why 4e is so important to you, but gatekeeping fantasy gaming hobbies is nothing but a waste of everyone's time.


Agreed, disliking or hating a system does not make it not an RPG. However, my definition makes 4e not an RPG.

Since your definition seems to be designed specifically to exclude 4e rather than for any kind of general use, it's nonsensical at best and academically dishonest at worst.

AvatarVecna
2021-12-23, 02:52 PM
"4e isnt an RPG because it doesnt fit my personal definition"

This is coming from a person trying to lecture others on the definition of "objective".

ShadowSandbag
2021-12-23, 02:54 PM
What you say is not an objective truth. It’s your opinion on 4E.




Completely wrong. Anyone understanding my definition and following it to its logical conclusion would agree that, by my definition, 4e is not an RPG. Like math, the answer doesn’t change with the person doing the work - assuming that they do the work correctly. So it is not subjective.

You are welcome to prove how I’m wrong, but… maybe start with learning to differentiate between subjective and objective, between opinion and fact. Because the simple fact is, by my definition, 4e is not an RPG.

If we are going down that route I have a question.
Would you accept the following?

"Quertus' definition, conclusion and general view on what is or is not an RPG is objectively, factually wrong."

This is based on my definition of such, and anyone using my definition would reach the same conclusion with no room for error.

Lacco
2021-12-23, 03:00 PM
lol. My signature academic mage is actually an accomplished (if dry) writer of text books. I, OTOH, am a terrible writer.

By your own definition, which game allowed you best to roleplay this side of your character...?


Wow, awesome, questions that’re based on actually understanding what I wrote! Those were becoming vanishingly rare - that’s why I moved to the simplified version.

If that happens often, then you should consider a different choice of words, argumentation, etc. Or even the stance you take: see JNAProduction's reply and your response to them. You may think you are stating everything in clear and concise way, but the reader may get a completely different information than your original intent was.

Also, not touching the "4e is not a roleplaying game". Didn't play it, don't care for it. However, the sentence is only your subjective statement, based on your subjective definition. Whether you view it as objective based on your (subjective) perceptions and knowledge, does not make it objective.

However, if one accepts your definition, then neither 4e, nor 3.5 are roleplaying games. And neither are most of versions of D&D that I have seen/read/participated in.

Telok
2021-12-23, 03:01 PM
This also why arguments like "you can roleplay in Chess/Monopoly/whatever other simple or abstract game" are dumb. Their own rules don't really establish characters nor stage situations, only someone who has specific ideas about those and adds in a lot of material to facilitate them would play them as roleplaying games.

Well there was the old Talisman game, you had a fantasy character in a fantasy world facing situations. Could even have a character with spells or a magic sword. Still a board game.

More generally, I realized something. Most rpgs are developed from a fiction. Thus their rules follow or emulate the fiction. D&D wizards originate from and cast like Vance's Dying Earth stories, while rangers originally came from LotR's Aragorn character (these days they originate more from FR Drizzy). The rules in Call of Cthulhu follow the fiction of ordinary people dealing with horrible supernatural stuff. The rules for supers games come from various comic book tropes.

D&D 4e's rules weren't developed from a fiction. The developers made the mechanical game as a response to issues real & perceived in previous D&D games, they didn't try to follow or implement a piece of fiction. Now, people can (and do) try to retroactively justify & add a fiction to the mechanics. But the mechanics don't come with a fictional source, they're just stand-alone mechanics & rules.

Have tovstop for peb

AvatarVecna
2021-12-23, 03:17 PM
4e's not a great RPG because most of the effort put into the books is going towards mechanics - there's fluff text for most things, but it's not as much as we got in 3.5 (as an example). Despite all that, "being more mech than fluff" does not disqualify it from being an RPG - you are still entirely capable of making and playing characters based on characterization rather than build. 4e has a hundred choices to make with a thousand options each, and only some of them are really optimal...but the rest are just mediocre, so if you can accept not being optimal, you can make those hundreds of choices based on characterization - all before you get to actual play.


By all means, hand me the IC thought process one uses when determining whether and how to contribute to a skill challenge

This is exceptionally silly to me because skill challenges are basically freeform roleplaying. "Alright guys, you're characters in the world and you're good at only certain things. Here's the task set out for you: how will you use your abilities to contribute?" And then you get to just make **** up. The DM can assign example ways to use skills, but I've never seen a DM just categorically turn down skill use suggestions like "nope, I didnt think of it before session so that's illegal". Pretending that robot DMs incapable of swerving from the path is some phenomenon unique to 4e is myopic.


or the IC thought process around the use of a muggle daily, including the character's understanding of what the ability is.

The ability for an ninja to have a super-secret technique that's really hard and exhausting to pull off is as much a staple of fiction as a mage who has one dangerous mega-spell kept in reserve for special occasions because it drains most of their mana.

You may not like it. You might think it's dumb that somebody who isn't magic has special techniques that they can't repeat over and over all day every day. You're entitled to your opinion. But that doesn't make your opinion an objective fact of game design.

NichG
2021-12-23, 03:29 PM
There's something to the OP, but the edition war stuff and binary absolutes are obscuring it.

Rather than 'X is/is not an RPG', imagine taking a system and creating a setting for it in which all of the rules known and visible to the players are known and visible in character. Compare that setting with the setting presented by descriptive text accompanying the rules.

Desiring to minimize that gap is a reasonable design goal. Prioritizing games in which that gap is smaller is a reasonable preference to have. And that gap is something about which at least some agreement should be possible, though I won't call it objective.

The 'gap>0.3, not an RPG' bit is the arbitrary, subjective assertion added that is setting off a lot of posters.

Max_Killjoy
2021-12-23, 03:40 PM
There's something to the OP, but the edition war stuff and binary absolutes are obscuring it.

Rather than 'X is/is not an RPG', imagine taking a system and creating a setting for it in which all of the rules known and visible to the players are known and visible in character. Compare that setting with the setting presented by descriptive text accompanying the rules.

Desiring to minimize that gap is a reasonable design goal. Prioritizing games in which that gap is smaller is a reasonable preference to have. And that gap is something about which at least some agreement should be possible, though I won't call it objective.

The 'gap>0.3, not an RPG' bit is the arbitrary, subjective assertion added that is setting off a lot of posters.

Very well said.

Those are all things I want from an RPG system, and IMO a good way to judge a system.

Khedrac
2021-12-23, 03:44 PM
Completely wrong. Anyone understanding my definition and following it to its logical conclusion would agree that, by my definition, 4e is not an RPG. Like math, the answer doesn’t change with the person doing the work - assuming that they do the work correctly. So it is not subjective.
Please pay more attention to my previous post.
Georg Cantor proved that on could never have the biggest set possible - he showed a method of constructing a bigger set from any postulated set.
The another mathematician whose name I forget asked "what about the set of all sets"?

So in maths, yes the answer can change with the person doing the work because the definition doesn't work.

You are postulating a defintion and then assuming that everyone will interpret things exactly the same way you do - and your defninion is far too loose for that to be a valid assumtion, and that's even assuming the definition isn't flawed and stands up under rigorous use - and from the look of other people's posts it doesn't.

MoiMagnus
2021-12-23, 04:41 PM
By all means, hand me the IC thought process one uses when determining whether and how to contribute to a skill challenge

Skill challenge is not that hard as IME the work is done by the GM. Here is how I've played them (not sure if they match precisely the guidelines, hum I mean the rules):

The GM describe a situation that has a reasonably clear objective and ask "what do you do?". Peoples say what they want to do, which get converted into a skill check.

Either the action is secondary, and the success/failure of the check only grant bonus/penalty to following checks (and consume some time if that's relevant to the check), and possibly long term consequences.

Or the action is directly linked to the objective, and each success/failure gets some narration from the GM on how the situation changed. After multiple failures on important checks (usually 3), the narration from the GM naturally results in the situation degenerating at our disadvantage forcing us to give up the objective. After enough successes (depending on the complexity of the task), the narration from the GM naturally lead to the objective being reached.

So from an IC perspective, it's just "what can I do to be useful in the current situation?" and "if I have a good idea but I know I'm not good at executing it, I share it with someone more competent that me".

IMO, skill challenges are a very advanced version of railroading, where contrary to regular railroading, the players are given a significant amount of decision-making (and at least two different outcomes), but the GM is still supposed to control the flow of the game quite strictly.

HumanFighter
2021-12-23, 06:33 PM
Yeah, I'm with Quertus on this one. 4e D&D is not really much of an RPG. It is more of an awkward table skirmish boardgame.
The premise of the game is this: 1. Make characters. 2. Go to dungeon. 3. Have a Look Around. 4. Fight monsters. 5. Collect Loot. 6. Repeat. Yeah, sounds like a boardgame to me.
Also, damn skill challenges

JNAProductions
2021-12-23, 06:53 PM
Yeah, I'm with Quertus on this one. 4e D&D is not really much of an RPG. It is more of an awkward table skirmish boardgame.
The premise of the game is this: 1. Make characters. 2. Go to dungeon. 3. Have a Look Around. 4. Fight monsters. 5. Collect Loot. 6. Repeat. Yeah, sounds like a boardgame to me.
Also, damn skill challenges

Have you actually read the books or played 4E?

Because, yes, you can do that. You can do that in 3rd as well. Or 5th. Or AD&D, or OD&D. In fact, I'd say that's much more OD&D and AD&D (from my limited knowledge of them) than any WotC-era D&D product.

If you don't like 4E, I have a different opinion of it, but you're certainly not wrong to dislike it. But to say it's not an RPG because it does tactical combats better than other editions of D&D seems pretty wrongheaded to me.

Quertus
2021-12-23, 06:59 PM
A few quick replies:


Why?

No really, why is that a requirement?

Literally no RPG I've ever played has strictly met this requirement.

And what do you actually mean by "suitability"? Just say that you don't like it. That's fine. But you have no authority whatsoever to claim what is suitable for other people to do.

I'm not sure why you spend so much time and energy hating on D&D 4e, or why 4e is so important to you, but gatekeeping fantasy gaming hobbies is nothing but a waste of everyone's time.



Since your definition seems to be designed specifically to exclude 4e rather than for any kind of general use, it's nonsensical at best and academically dishonest at worst.

If my definition seems designed to exclude 4e, that doesn't speak well for 4e's chances of being an RPG, or of the location of the line being anything but apt. :smalltongue:

But are you seriously asking why role-playing should be a requirement for an RPG? :smallconfused:


"4e isnt an RPG because it doesnt fit my personal definition"

This is coming from a person trying to lecture others on the definition of "objective".

Touché.

The Playground has debated such definitions before, long before I evaluated 4e; it's clearly contentious how such words should be defined. I'm explaining, when I say, "4e is not an RPG", exactly what I mean.


If we are going down that route I have a question.
Would you accept the following?

"Quertus' definition, conclusion and general view on what is or is not an RPG is objectively, factually wrong."

This is based on my definition of such, and anyone using my definition would reach the same conclusion with no room for error.

Citation needed. I explained *my* definition. :smalltongue:

As ever, I enjoy being wrong, as it gives me the opportunity for self improvement. So, yes, by all means, prove me wrong if I'm wrong.


By your own definition, which game allowed you best to roleplay this side of your character...?

Interesting question. Probably the wrong question - the right question is probably, "which systems *don't* allow me to roleplay that side of the character".

But, to answer your question… Quertus constantly takes notes on, makes sketches of, takes pictures of, scientifically and magically evaluates most anything "new". Systems that attempt to abstract his understanding into knowledge checks are suboptimal. But role-playing specifically the "dry author" portion? Honestly, I suspect Fate might be best suited to give it "teeth", but I've never really noticed having problems with role-playing that particular aspect.


If that happens often, then you should consider a different choice of words, argumentation, etc. Or even the stance you take: see JNAProduction's reply and your response to them. You may think you are stating everything in clear and concise way, but the reader may get a completely different information than your original intent was.

I'll readily admit that my player dumped Charisma, and I'm not good at expressing myself. I have no delusions that I'm expressing myself clearly. So I'm lowering the DC of the check by trying to explain an easier model.


Also, not touching the "4e is not a roleplaying game". Didn't play it, don't care for it. However, the sentence is only your subjective statement, based on your subjective definition. Whether you view it as objective based on your (subjective) perceptions and knowledge, does not make it objective.

Eh, I don't think that that's how "subjective" works. My definition may be arbitrary, or wrong, or personal, but neither it nor its evaluation should be "subjective". To label it so is imprecise at best.


However, if one accepts your definition, then neither 4e, nor 3.5 are roleplaying games. And neither are most of versions of D&D that I have seen/read/participated in.

Interesting. How do you conclude this? I'd like to fix my expression of my definition, or your understanding of it, or my understanding of the universe, as appropriate.


There's something to the OP, but the edition war stuff and binary absolutes are obscuring it.

Rather than 'X is/is not an RPG', imagine taking a system and creating a setting for it in which all of the rules known and visible to the players are known and visible in character. Compare that setting with the setting presented by descriptive text accompanying the rules.

Desiring to minimize that gap is a reasonable design goal. Prioritizing games in which that gap is smaller is a reasonable preference to have. And that gap is something about which at least some agreement should be possible, though I won't call it objective.

The 'gap>0.3, not an RPG' bit is the arbitrary, subjective assertion added that is setting off a lot of posters.

Choosing where to draw the line *may* be arbitrary, but it's hard to discuss that until people understand what the line is, no?

Your take is interesting - comparing the settings rather than the actions. As I was trying to define role-playing, I thought of it in terms of measuring the results of the actions, but I suppose yours is yet a third valid metric, the gap between the two settings.

I'm not sure if the objectivity of the gap is as much an issue as simply how to measure it in the first place.

LecternOfJasper
2021-12-23, 07:06 PM
Skill challenge is not that hard as IME the work is done by the GM. Here is how I've played them (not sure if they match precisely the guidelines, hum I mean the rules):

The GM describe a situation that has a reasonably clear objective and ask "what do you do?". Peoples say what they want to do, which get converted into a skill check.

Either the action is secondary, and the success/failure of the check only grant bonus/penalty to following checks (and consume some time if that's relevant to the check), and possibly long term consequences.

Or the action is directly linked to the objective, and each success/failure gets some narration from the GM on how the situation changed. After multiple failures on important checks (usually 3), the narration from the GM naturally results in the situation degenerating at our disadvantage forcing us to give up the objective. After enough successes (depending on the complexity of the task), the narration from the GM naturally lead to the objective being reached.

So from an IC perspective, it's just "what can I do to be useful in the current situation?" and "if I have a good idea but I know I'm not good at executing it, I share it with someone more competent that me".

IMO, skill challenges are a very advanced version of railroading, where contrary to regular railroading, the players are given a significant amount of decision-making (and at least two different outcomes), but the GM is still supposed to control the flow of the game quite strictly.

But, but... if you put it like that, that sounds an awful lot like what happens in most games! Which can't possibly be true, because I've been told they are bad, dumb and bad! :smalltongue:

Granted, I haven't used a skill challenge in a while, as I put problems in place that can reasonably be solved with one skill check, but for scenes with clear goals that would require a bit more teamwork/running around panicking, it's a decent way to make it happen.

JNAProductions
2021-12-23, 07:14 PM
If my definition seems designed to exclude 4e, that doesn't speak well for 4e's chances of being an RPG, or of the location of the line being anything but apt. :smalltongue:

But are you seriously asking why role-playing should be a requirement for an RPG? :smallconfused:

You didn't say "One needs to be able to roleplay in an RPG." Or at least, not where Killian was responding.

You said:


I’m claiming that, to measure a game’s suitability to be played as an RPG, one must play all the “character choices” minigames - including the “abstract strategy game” - in roleplaying stance, and measure how the rules rate your performance compared to someone just playing the rules.

As-in, every last bit of the game should be done as roleplaying.

4E doesn't qualify for that. Neither does 5E. Or 3.P. Or Mutants and Masterminds. Or Masks. Or GURPS. Or any RPG I can think of. If nothing else, session zero (which is an important part of many good games) is incredibly difficult to be roleplaying as a character, because that's the session where you nail down your character concept.

And for someone who claims to love to be wrong, you sure as heck don't seem willing to accept being wrong.

Cluedrew
2021-12-23, 07:31 PM
Well, I suppose it was either this or everyone deciding this was not worthy of reply and silence resulting.

But yeah, I have forwarded most of these arguments at one point or another in the threads that this topic has crept across several different threads. I don't think that we have covered "That's not how definitions work."/why should I use that definition, nor why are you doing this, but we have hit most of the issues with the definition itself.

So instead I'm going to ask: What do we have to do to show you that this definition isn't what you think it is? (Whatever that turns out meaning.)

Telok
2021-12-23, 08:24 PM
This is exceptionally silly to me because skill challenges are basically freeform roleplaying. "Alright guys, you're characters in the world and you're good at only certain things. Here's the task set out for you: how will you use your abilities to contribute?" And then you get to just make **** up. The DM can assign example ways to use skills, but I've never seen a DM just categorically turn down skill use suggestions like "nope, I didnt think of it before session so that's illegal".

I've seen a 4e DM turn down "off" skills in their skill challenges. And skill challenges were pretty much the definition of "not freeform rp" in the first few iterations. Everyone participates, there's effectively an initative score, you have to use the "skill check" widget on the character sheet instead of casting a spell or using equipment. Not exactly freeform. Although the 3e skill challenges from the UA worked decently.

Anyways, I think that 4e having something like the same fiction/mechanics ratio as Talisman or Necromundia and actively being designed to disassociate the mechanics from the fluff probably does hurt a lot of people's ability to rp in the edition. Most other rpgs you can read the setting fluff, conceive a character*, then build out something resembling the character without too much issue. 4e seems determined to make you build the character mechanics first then post hoc some fluff on it.

*a real character like "over educated child of a wealthy merchant runs off to join a mercenary company and eventually ends up with some adventurers", not "big sword fighter with meaningless backstory that gives +2 to a weak skill".

NichG
2021-12-23, 08:32 PM
Choosing where to draw the line *may* be arbitrary, but it's hard to discuss that until people understand what the line is, no?

Your take is interesting - comparing the settings rather than the actions. As I was trying to define role-playing, I thought of it in terms of measuring the results of the actions, but I suppose yours is yet a third valid metric, the gap between the two settings.

I'm not sure if the objectivity of the gap is as much an issue as simply how to measure it in the first place.

So that entire thing about 'what is the line?' or 'where is the line?' I think is basically a waste to discuss. That is to say, determining whether or not something is an RPG (by some definition) is kind of meaningless. You aren't really going to make difference choices about what to play on the basis of that, and binary Y/N determinations aren't useful for design or running games. Pretty much the only thing it can do is to exclude someone from being able to talk about a thing in a place which is limited by topic. So it's no surprised that 4e players feel attacked - the only really actionable thing arising from this particular approach is to effectively say 'your thing doesn't belong here'. What else are you actually going to do with the conclusion?

Now, pinpointing something which varies by degree and which can influence immersion? That you can use to drive design. Because you let it vary by degree, you can ask for example 'okay, I like 3.5e, 4e moved in a direction that made this thing worse for me, is there a way to start at 3e but make this thing even better in that way?'

Quertus
2021-12-23, 08:39 PM
So from an IC perspective, it's just "what can I do to be useful in the current situation?" and "if I have a good idea but I know I'm not good at executing it, I share it with someone more competent that me".

Have you ever watched children attempt to make sandwiches? Many of their attempts could easily be modeled by "3 failed rolls, and the process is declared a failure". Granted, sometimes, you get a single epic fail to ruin the sandwich singlehandedly; other times, 6 failures later and the child struggles on (from lesser failures, lower quality bar, stubbornness, or the rare ability to correct mistakes).

Point is, we allow and encourage the least skilled to take actions. That's how we learn. (And other reasons). Changing this underlying fiction requires phenomenal amounts of corresponding world-building.

But, yes, if I came from a world where only the best sandwich maker was allowed to make the attempt, where only one person in any community was allowed to practice and build the skills for any given task, I would indeed have a mindset suitable for playing 4e.

"Like this world, unless noted otherwise". A system can crib from reality. Systems can also crib from Legacy - "like older editions unless noted otherwise". But this requisite mindset is completely novel. Does 4e anywhere explain this fiction, that PCs should always seek out their betters? Does it do the required world-building, where every community knows who has sole ownership of each role? Or does it just pretend like everything's normal, and leave it to the players to create such a fiction, or to just play the rules?

Still, I gotta admit, that's a pretty good heuristic - not just for 4e, but IRL, too. Could you imagine if I got someone good at writing and expression to write my posts for me? Could you imagine how much better things would be, how much clearer and higher quality my posts would be? If all the idiots on the roads got someone else to drive them instead? I'm thinking this has utopia potential here, like I really ought to go home and rethink my life. That's… a bit higher of a bar than I was expecting people to aim for!

Am I missing something, or would this not be a superior way for people to live?

Devils_Advocate
2021-12-23, 09:18 PM
Point is, we allow and encourage the least skilled to take actions. That's how we learn. (And other reasons). Changing this underlying fiction requires phenomenal amounts of corresponding world-building.
Every edition of Dungeons & Dragons that I know of has characters get better at skills through generic "overcoming challenges" or whatever rather than practicing the specific skills improved. At best, this is handwaved with offscreen "training". Is that any less workable in 4E?

JNAProductions
2021-12-23, 09:21 PM
Every edition of Dungeons & Dragons that I know of has characters get better at skills through generic "overcoming challenges" or whatever rather than practicing the specific skills improved. At best, this is handwaved with offscreen "training". Is that any less workable in 4E?

Also, generally a skill challenge is when it's very important to succeed.

By all means, let the novice try their hand at a basic task when it's routine. You can't learn to fly a plane without lots of practice, for example. But if you're doing a Blue Angels stunt routine, you do NOT send the novice up there.

Pauly
2021-12-23, 10:28 PM
If you look at historical wargames, which use historical facts and outcomes to determine if a ruleset is realistic, then the case is clearer than a fantasy RPG than whether the rules match the fiction.

For example DBM was the standard rules for ancient era wargames for a long time. Yet by the mathematics of the game the Romans were better off sending their Legionnaires into the woods to fight the Gauls and engage the Gauls in open fields with the Auxilia. Not only was this “non-historical” it is “anti-historical”. In historical wargames Romans -v- Gauls is the equivalent of Elves -v- Orcs in fantasy, so it is a core concept, not an edge case. This was far from the only case where the rules were counter to historical fact.

Why did historical wargamers accept DBM as the standard when it plainly struggled to be historical? Firstly DBM is a very good game Secondly the rules were developed to accommodate any pre-gunpowder army so players accepted the inevitable discrepancies as a consequence of using such a broad brush. Being roughly right 80% of the time allowed a very wide player base. Tightening the rules to more specific periods/armies would allow more historically accurate outcomes, but fewer players are interested in any smaller slice.

Players accepted DBM as a game, but if you got invested in historical accuracy you searched for an alternative. Tying back to the OP, the player base in 4e rejected the game because the advantages (good game system, wide player base) were outweighed by the disadvantage of the rules not reflecting the well established fiction of D&D.

Jay R
2021-12-23, 10:46 PM
I am sympathetic to how Quertus wants to define "role-playing game". I think his definition is a good first try at defining (one aspect of) what makes a game good in my estimation.

This is not, however, how the phrase "role-playing game" is actually used in ordinary English language.

The first line of the Wikipedia article on rpgs is: "A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game; abbreviated RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting." This is how the phrase is actually used.

In 4e, players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. It is therefore a role-playing game.

Quertus can use his own definition if he likes. He can use "role-playing game" to mean only those games of playing roles that play the way he thinks they should be played.

But he won't communicate with anybody that way.

Please understand we are not disagreeing about 4e, and we are not disagreeing about what makes a fun rpg.

We only disagree on what the phrase "role-playing game" means.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-24, 02:57 AM
.
Listen carefully: I’m claiming that, to measure a game’s suitability to be played as an RPG, one must play all the “character choices” minigames - including the “abstract strategy game” - in roleplaying stance, and measure how the rules rate your performance compared to someone just playing the rules.

You underlined the wrong part. You should've underlined "all". Because that's the actual operative word.

Listen carefully: almost nobody plays roleplaying games that consistently. It's normal for players to think of a game's rules and slip in and out of character. Heavily abstracted rules aren't even necessary for this to happen - just the common question "but is this decision fun?" breaks in-character thinking and moves to a metagame level of considering your own and other people's motivations and opinions.

So the test can be done, but since we can't expect for real played games to pass that bar, it doesn't make sense to use it as binary dividing line for what is or isn't a roleplaying game. A game that establishes roleplaying as its main focus but sometimes requires players to take out-of-character actions, is still a roleplaying game.


That said, your “ It also has bunch of decisions that don't make sense from the viewpoint of any character, ” sounds like my “if it forces you out of roleplaying stance to play the game, it’s not (suited to being played as) an RPG”. So it sounds to me like you already acknowledge that 4e is not an RPG, by my definition. Am I wrong?

You're still tripping over the same fallacy.

Again: 4th edition has all the necessary parts to qualify as a roleplaying game. It has characters, it has staged situations, it asks the players to assume viewpoints of their characters and decide what to do, how, and why. That it also has parts which don't make sense from a character's viewpoint doesn't nullify that observation.

Again: a sane version of your argument skips the purposeless semantic argument and just uses the non-roleplaying elementa of 4th edition D&D to argue that it's a poor roleplaying game. You still don't need to argue about "what is art?" if you can make your point by saying something is BAD art.

Anonymouswizard
2021-12-24, 04:51 AM
Not that I’ll deny being an elitist, I’m just trying to get people to understand my terms and my PoV.

If it's not happened by now then maybe, just maybe, people are just legitimately disagreeing with you?


By all means, hand me the fiction you use to make decisions in character, and we can evaluate it. Strongly agree on the astoundingly boneheaded nature of the “limiter” - that by itself is really hard to create fiction for.

It boils down to 'you have to do X, there's a ticking clock, and multiple characters can meaningfully contribute'. It's an abstraction layer meant to handling the game easier.

To give a specific example, the party is locked in a farm shed sheltering from the ravenous horde of zombies outside. They know the zombies will break down the door eventually, and decide to break open their toolkits and turn the tractor into a heavily armoured battle tractor. Each character could work on various aspects, but unless they get enough rolls before the zombies get in all they'll have is a bunch of tractor components.

(Other ideas include: finding a treasure before somebody else, reversing the cultists' ritual before the gribbly demon things come through, or to use an example the book does a chase through crowded city streets).


I don’t know that game, sorry.

The only reason I cared in the first place was because people kept saying, “4e is not D&D”; now, I care because people don’t understand what I’m saying… and it’s a running gag for me to deride 4e, now with the (true) phrase, “4e is not an RPG”.

Ok, fine, the mostly true phrase. It’s an abstraction for the actual truth, that 4e is significantly less suited to being played as an RPG than other games marketed as RPGs I remember (darn senility), and 4e fails to pass my arguably arbitrary line for is / is not an RPG”. Of course, people will need to understand my stance before we can even begin discussing whether or the extent to which where I draw the line is arbitrary.

HeroQuest is a simple dungeon crawling board game released by Milton Bradley and Games Workshop about forty years ago, with a remake dropping next month. The point is, it very easily fulfils your criteria despite being in theory even less fiction rooted than 4e is. I also really want to play it now, guess I'm dropping £100 on that remake.

ShadowSandbag
2021-12-24, 11:28 AM
If we are going down that route I have a question.
Would you accept the following?

"Quertus' definition, conclusion and general view on what is or is not an RPG is objectively, factually wrong."

This is based on my definition of such, and anyone using my definition would reach the same conclusion with no room for error.




Citation needed. I explained *my* definition. :smalltongue:

As ever, I enjoy being wrong, as it gives me the opportunity for self improvement. So, yes, by all means, prove me wrong if I'm wrong.


Sure, here is an easy one. "Any game that markets itself as an RPG is an RPG."

Its a simple definition with a concrete reasoning and meaning behind it. Anyone using this would reach the conclusion that 4e is an RPG based on this definition. Therefore it is concretely, objectively, with no room for misinterpretation or doubt, an RPG. Because your definition is in conflict with mine, everything you said therefore must be objectively incorrect.

We could even go more specific if you want and say "Any edition of D&D is an RPG". Again, anyone understanding this definition and following it to its logical conclusion would agree that, by my definition, 4e is an RPG.

False God
2021-12-24, 01:27 PM
*yawn* how exciting, another hot-take on how 4E is badwrongfun.

*checks watch* yep, it's a year that starts with a 20.

kyoryu
2021-12-24, 02:59 PM
One problem with virtually all group definitions is that they never handle edge cases well - and edge cases exist for virtually everything.

A useful definition in this case is one where obvious cases are generally agreed on, and while edge cases may exist, and people may disagree on which side of the lines edge cases fall under, most people will agree that they are edge cases.

Cluedrew
2021-12-24, 03:32 PM
Sure, here is an easy one. "Any game that markets itself as an RPG is an RPG."I would go for "Any system designed to be a role-playing game is a role-playing game." Although, unless there is some active lying going on then that will probably show up in marketing.

I go for the pure linguistic definition though of: If people usually call it a role-playing game then it is a role-playing game. However fuzzy the underlying the group actually is that gives you the best chance of using the word in a way someone will understand. Which is kind of the point.

Oh yeah, and if you want some sort of taxidermic description of role-playing games, it should still reflect the common usage. Otherwise you are not actually defining that word, just a homonym (and there is already at least one for role-playing games already, we don't need another). And honestly, only one thing someone called a role-playing game ever made me question if it was actually a role-playing game. And it was also generally terrible and unpopular (no, 4th doesn't come even close) so I never bothered to answer the question.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-24, 05:06 PM
*yawn* how exciting, another hot-take on how 4E is badwrongfun.

*checks watch* yep, it's a year that starts with a 20.

I think you mean it's a year that matches \d* (any number of digits).

Jedaii
2021-12-24, 05:31 PM
Role-playing is making decisions for the character, in character.

This requires looking at things from the character's PoV, using the fiction, not the rules.

How well the rules match the fiction - or, more specifically, how well one can play the game¹ knowing and utilizing only the fiction, how the rules rate one's performance when role-playing - is a simple metric for the suitability of the game to being played as an RPG.

That's it.

And that's why 4e is not an RPG.

Well, mostly. I actually used a more complex metric when making that determination, one I feel has greater fidelity. But this much simpler, much more approachable metric should suffice.

Any questions?

¹ "playing the game" is "making (meaningful) choices", for those not familiar with this argument.
You're wrong. From the beginning. D&D 4e is pure RP. Yes it has many handles and codes that signify some other kind of game BUT it's STILL players roleplaying characters. Avatars of the players making in-game/fantasy decisions.

So yeah, D&D 4e is an RPG. Despite how much you don't like it.

Quertus
2021-12-24, 08:19 PM
Well, I suppose it was either this or everyone deciding this was not worthy of reply and silence resulting.

But yeah, I have forwarded most of these arguments at one point or another in the threads that this topic has crept across several different threads. I don't think that we have covered "That's not how definitions work."/why should I use that definition, nor why are you doing this, but we have hit most of the issues with the definition itself.

So instead I'm going to ask: What do we have to do to show you that this definition isn't what you think it is? (Whatever that turns out meaning.)

So much I’d like to say. But, what can I say, I’m dedicated to being able to say, “4e is not an RPG” in peace. Even if it means more posts than I can process to get there. Hmmm… As you’ve been fond of saying, “all models are wrong, only some are useful”. You’d need to demonstrate how my model isn’t useful for me to abandon it. Which, with comments that show that my model is understood to and has value to some, that prospect would be vanishingly difficult.

So, instead, you’d need to prove some underlying fault in the logic. To do that, a good first step would be to understand my model. If I’m saying “two and two is four”, and you’re talking about “22”, you’re really not likely to say anything meaningful to me. Your model wouldn’t be useful in that context.

Here’s an example of a good line of thought that I hadn’t considered:



I am sympathetic to how Quertus wants to define "role-playing game". I think his definition is a good first try at defining (one aspect of) what makes a game good in my estimation.

This is not, however, how the phrase "role-playing game" is actually used in ordinary English language.

The first line of the Wikipedia article on rpgs is: "A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game; abbreviated RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting." This is how the phrase is actually used.

In 4e, players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. It is therefore a role-playing game.

Quertus can use his own definition if he likes. He can use "role-playing game" to mean only those games of playing roles that play the way he thinks they should be played.

But he won't communicate with anybody that way.

Please understand we are not disagreeing about 4e, and we are not disagreeing about what makes a fun rpg.

We only disagree on what the phrase "role-playing game" means.

I understand. Not that I’d mind if we did disagree, of course. :smallwink:

If the playground all agreed on the definitions, and all used them, then we wouldn’t be here, with me explaining things in terms of my definitions. So saying, in effect, that I’ll need to communicate the meaning of my words in order to communicate my ideas is a given. And, having already evaluated what “roleplaying” and “roleplaying game” mean, I’ll not revert to an inferior definition, that uses so imprecise an implicit definition of roleplaying. Otherwise, this might be a compelling argument.

Given this, I guess my question is, if you feel that the elements I’m discussing have value, do you disagree just on common usage of the term (which is fair in a general sense, but less so in the context of the Playground, where no such consensus exists), or do you feel that my definition isn’t actually appropriate to defining an RPG? Keeping in mind that there’s 3 components: my definition of “roleplaying”, my definition of an RPG, and my metric for measuring the suitability of a game to be played as an RPG.


You underlined the wrong part. You should've underlined "all". Because that's the actual operative word.

Listen carefully: almost nobody plays roleplaying games that consistently. It's normal for players to think of a game's rules and slip in and out of character. Heavily abstracted rules aren't even necessary for this to happen - just the common question "but is this decision fun?" breaks in-character thinking and moves to a metagame level of considering your own and other people's motivations and opinions.

Fully agree that most people don’t engage in pure roleplaying. In addition to the fact that a metric based on personal experience would be subjective, it’s one of the reasons why I’m firmly in the camp of discounting personal experience.

The question I’m asking is, what rules facilitate roleplaying? Sure, Hawkman doesn’t fly all the time, but a Hurricane does not facilitate his flight, it isn’t suited to being traversed as a flying experience.

And, I am, sadly, quite painfully aware how much better the game was before I learned the importance of such metagaming.

So, from the metaphor, I’m measuring the RPG “weather”, not anyone’s experience with the weather. I’m measuring the temperate, not whether people feel hot or cold.

I’m measuring the extent to which the fiction logically leads to choices that the rules expect.


So the test can be done, but since we can't expect for real played games to pass that bar, it doesn't make sense to use it as binary dividing line for what is or isn't a roleplaying game. A game that establishes roleplaying as its main focus but sometimes requires players to take out-of-character actions, is still a roleplaying game.

Again, it’s not about play experience. It’s about the math.

Yes, you can approximate the math by handing young children with no RPG experience the fiction (and only the fiction, not the rules), and see how well the rules say that they’re playing the game. But that’ll just give you a reasonable estimate of the game’s suitability to being played as an RPG - such testing is not an exact science.


You're still tripping over the same fallacy.

Again: 4th edition has all the necessary parts to qualify as a roleplaying game. It has characters, it has staged situations, it asks the players to assume viewpoints of their characters and decide what to do, how, and why. That it also has parts which don't make sense from a character's viewpoint doesn't nullify that observation.

Again: a sane version of your argument skips the purposeless semantic argument and just uses the non-roleplaying elementa of 4th edition D&D to argue that it's a poor roleplaying game. You still don't need to argue about "what is art?" if you can make your point by saying something is BAD art.

Not by my definitions. Nor by yours, actually, as my point is that 4e demands that you abandon the character perspective in order to play the game.


If it's not happened by now then maybe, just maybe, people are just legitimately disagreeing with you?

To be legitimately disagreeing, first, they must understand what I’m saying. That’s the step that has noticeably changed with my transition to the simpler model. My communication skills aren’t up for the higher DC, it seems.



It boils down to 'you have to do X, there's a ticking clock, and multiple characters can meaningfully contribute'. It's an abstraction layer meant to handling the game easier.

To give a specific example, the party is locked in a farm shed sheltering from the ravenous horde of zombies outside. They know the zombies will break down the door eventually, and decide to break open their toolkits and turn the tractor into a heavily armoured battle tractor. Each character could work on various aspects, but unless they get enough rolls before the zombies get in all they'll have is a bunch of tractor components.

(Other ideas include: finding a treasure before somebody else, reversing the cultists' ritual before the gribbly demon things come through, or to use an example the book does a chase through crowded city streets).

A ticking clock could encourage people to prioritize *quick* actions / tests over one’s likely to succeed. So, before you even get to make your first roll, I’ve accumulated 3 quick failures, and the skill challenge fails.

I don’t think that that fiction produces the results that the game expects.



HeroQuest is a simple dungeon crawling board game released by Milton Bradley and Games Workshop about forty years ago, with a remake dropping next month. The point is, it very easily fulfils your criteria despite being in theory even less fiction rooted than 4e is. I also really want to play it now, guess I'm dropping £100 on that remake.

Anything like … name … Talisman?

I’d say that, like 4e, Talisman lacks an actionable fiction. If they had such, they could be played as an RPG.


So that entire thing about 'what is the line?' or 'where is the line?' I think is basically a waste to discuss. That is to say, determining whether or not something is an RPG (by some definition) is kind of meaningless. You aren't really going to make difference choices about what to play on the basis of that, and binary Y/N determinations aren't useful for design or running games. Pretty much the only thing it can do is to exclude someone from being able to talk about a thing in a place which is limited by topic. So it's no surprised that 4e players feel attacked - the only really actionable thing arising from this particular approach is to effectively say 'your thing doesn't belong here'. What else are you actually going to do with the conclusion?

Now, pinpointing something which varies by degree and which can influence immersion? That you can use to drive design. Because you let it vary by degree, you can ask for example 'okay, I like 3.5e, 4e moved in a direction that made this thing worse for me, is there a way to start at 3e but make this thing even better in that way?'

I’m torn. I mean, if someone was making an argument predicated upon a false premise, like responding to “women are sexy when they use whips” with “Indiana Jones wasn’t whip sexy”, I’d like to be able to point out the logical flaw that “Indiana Jones wasn’t a woman”. Otoh, 4e has plenty of elements that could have been valuable in an RPG, and people discounting them just because they were used in something that isn’t an RPG is something the likes of which I’ve seen happen on the Playground.

So I guess I agree that handing the Playground a means to determine something’s “RPG status” isn’t necessarily valuable, except to allow me to continue my meme. Which, as that and being misunderstood are the only reasons I’m bothering to try to explain it (because I honestly don’t care)… the step of explaining the spectrum, fixing anything wrong or missing from my model, and then just saying my “4e isn’t D&D” meme is my own arbitrary point of that spectrum would be fine by me.

ShadowSandbag
2021-12-24, 09:22 PM
Obviously you can't respond to everyone all the time, but I would be interested in your thoughts on my earlier response when you have the time to respond.

Cluedrew
2021-12-24, 09:49 PM
So much I'd like to say. But, what can I say, I'm dedicated to being able to say, "4e is not an RPG" in peace.Give up right now. You will never be able to convince enough people that you can say that without being attacked. I've been working with you a while and I still don't get exactly what is going on. Or maybe I do? Point is, I'm still working though it, and even if it clicks next post, can you do that with everybody?


As you've been fond of saying, "all models are wrong, only some are useful". You'd need to demonstrate how my model isn't useful for me to abandon it. Which, with comments that show that my model is understood to and has value to some, that prospect would be vanishingly difficult.I have three arguments:
Everyone has pretty much given flat agreement or flat disagreement. No one seems to have actually gained anything about it.
The couple of people who might have actually dug deep enough to use the model got different results than you. Considering that these people are some of the ones that have spent the most time engaged with the topic, it calls into question the people who have shown up and agreed with you quickly. Which is a side note which, either you still aren't getting the model across or you are using it wrong yourself.
How is branding about "4e is not a role-playing game" because you don't like it useful? Even if you can describe why you don't like it?

Quertus
2021-12-24, 09:58 PM
I think, if any justification on this is to hold, there needs to be an answer to "well, what is it then?"

I say that, because personally I would find it would be easier to justify the statement "4th ed is a board game" than it is the statement "4th ed isn't a roleplay game", despite the (hopefully not too controvertial statement) that the two things are seperate entities, and a game theoretically can't be both (though that is not a guaranteed statement).

Rather than working on a single exclusionary category, maybe firming up the categories (say between: wargame, boardgame, roleplay game, playing make-believe) and then that might more easily see where something has drifted into a different category than it perhaps had originally intended to be.

Ice cream Isn’t a vegetable. Even if I cannot clarify what it is, even with a partial definition of “vegetables come from plants”, I can tell you what it isn’t.


Fun!

I’m glad you think so. :smallbiggrin:




Alright, so far:

"Role-playing is making decisions for the character, in character." - I have no reason to disagree with this statement, though as another has posted there are certain aspects of roleplaying games that do not involve or lessen the importance of role-playing (character creation being the clear one, solving OOC issues and maintaining fun for everyone involved being another).

Agreed. Having discussed this in so many threads while falling to communicate the complex version, I forgot to include such criteria. I’ll try and remember to update the OP (darn senility).


"This requires looking at things from the character's PoV, using the fiction, not the rules." - Sure, but it has been pointed out that the rules and the fiction ought to be consistent already. If they do not line up, that's either a problem with how the fiction and rules have been built, or how the fiction and rules are being interpreted by other people. I see this has been addressed:



The 4e players handbook, as I found out in the last 10 minutes, specifies that the Martial power source often contains feats beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals, and describes them as "not magic in the traditional sense."

I take this to mean that anything that is clearly beyond the capabilities of a warrior in the established setting to be tapping into nontraditional magic. Because it says so.

It also, when describing daily powers, as that is probably the main issue here (?), the good book claims that martial characters are reaching into their deepest reserves to pull off an exploit. While I agree that on its face, it seems a little silly to have a meat man only able to meat a particular way once a day. If it is, as they say on the same page, nontraditional magic though, then there's no reason to believe that it will work any differently than other types of magic in the same world. (Which appears to be the old "hold the ability in your head tenuously, and need good amount of rest to grab a hold of it again" maneuver.)

That fiction a) ships with 4e, b) accesses valid legacy code; c) allows one to play the game in roleplaying stance in a way that matches the rules. If those 3 statements are true, then unless anyone disagrees, I’m willing to concede the “muggle daily abilities” issue in the general case (but note that there were other examples which, if they are actual 4e daily abilities rather than just examples (to which I confess ignorance), those specific examples would not be covered).


"How well the rules match the fiction - or, more specifically, how well one can play the game knowing and utilizing only the fiction, how the rules rate one's performance when role-playing - is a simple metric for the suitability of the game to being played as an RPG." -

Based on the fiction as laid out in the book - that martial characters are dubiously magical and commit superhuman exploits through the use of, er, magic - I think that the rules match the fiction pretty well. If characters are going through the world thinking "I've attained access to these abilities through honing my craft to the point of mastery, but attempting them hurts my head to the point where I can only try again tomorrow," then that qualifies as a win. If their thought process is anything else (head hurting not withstanding), the character doesn't understand their own abilities very well, or the player doesn't understand the fiction as is.

Well, your clarification may make me backpedal slightly.

Because “now I’ve got a headache” may make me expect that I *can* still perform the action, just not as well. Or that I can take medicine, then keep performing the action. The exact fiction you tell the players will affect how they could legitimately play the game. So, exactly which fiction ships with 4e?


I know I have made a lot of assumptions here based on what the actual problem is, but it is necessary to find the specifics of the fiction and rules when trying to argue that the fiction conflicts with the rules.

About playing the game knowing and utilizing only the fiction - can you point to a specific example of where the fiction does not line up with the rules? I would love to discuss the details and make a case for this, as I have seen this topic come up way too often in the last month.

The few things I've looked at so far seem to indicate that the fiction is just as specific as the rules, as they had probably written the fiction in a particular way in order to justify the rules. Go figure.

Well, you’ve done an absolutely amazing job so far. I, regrettably, am in a near-permanent “AFB” state, but… the fiction of how skills work that makes skill challenges something that can be passed while roleplaying, and most recently, Talakeal brought up the question of how one would know IC that attacking a marked foe would be tactically disadvantageous, if you’re interested in tackling either of those issues.

JNAProductions
2021-12-24, 10:05 PM
No one is claiming ice cream is a vegetable, though. Common usage of vegetable as a word doesn’t include ice cream.

Common usage of RPG as a phrase includes 4E. It might not be well-liked as an RPG, but you are the only person I’ve ever met who claimed it’s not an RPG.

Pauly
2021-12-24, 10:11 PM
I am sympathetic to how Quertus wants to define "role-playing game". I think his definition is a good first try at defining (one aspect of) what makes a game good in my estimation.

This is not, however, how the phrase "role-playing game" is actually used in ordinary English language.

The first line of the Wikipedia article on rpgs is: "A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game; abbreviated RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting." This is how the phrase is actually used.

In 4e, players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. It is therefore a role-playing game.

Quertus can use his own definition if he likes. He can use "role-playing game" to mean only those games of playing roles that play the way he thinks they should be played.

But he won't communicate with anybody that way.

Please understand we are not disagreeing about 4e, and we are not disagreeing about what makes a fun rpg.

We only disagree on what the phrase "role-playing game" means.

Re the bolded.
What I read Quertus as saying is that in 4e D&D the players are not assuming the role of the character in the fictional setting.
Because the rules and fiction are misaligned they are not making decisions that the character would make based on the fiction. They are making decisions for the character based on the rules. Essentially saying that 4e plays like a skirmish wargame where the player controls an individual figure, but does not assume the persona of the character.

icefractal
2021-12-24, 10:21 PM
Most other rpgs you can read the setting fluff, conceive a character*, then build out something resembling the character without too much issue. 4e seems determined to make you build the character mechanics first then post hoc some fluff on it.

*a real character like "over educated child of a wealthy merchant runs off to join a mercenary company and eventually ends up with some adventurers", not "big sword fighter with meaningless backstory that gives +2 to a weak skill".Um ... what?
That's either not remotely true about "most other RPGs" (if you mean "make a mechanically effective character") or it's true about all of them and 4E as well (if you mean "make a character at all, doesn't matter if it's really weak").

It's sure as hell not the case in 3.x, for example. I like 3.x char-gen, but I have to admit that if you pick things by name / implied flavor primarily, you could easily end up with a mechanically-weak character who can't do many of the things you'd want them to. Which is honestly true about a lot of TTRPGs, and even those which are more friendly to that approach still often have some things you need to know for good results.

JNAProductions
2021-12-24, 10:28 PM
I've seen a 4e DM turn down "off" skills in their skill challenges. And skill challenges were pretty much the definition of "not freeform rp" in the first few iterations. Everyone participates, there's effectively an initative score, you have to use the "skill check" widget on the character sheet instead of casting a spell or using equipment. Not exactly freeform. Although the 3e skill challenges from the UA worked decently.

Anyways, I think that 4e having something like the same fiction/mechanics ratio as Talisman or Necromundia and actively being designed to disassociate the mechanics from the fluff probably does hurt a lot of people's ability to rp in the edition. Most other rpgs you can read the setting fluff, conceive a character*, then build out something resembling the character without too much issue. 4e seems determined to make you build the character mechanics first then post hoc some fluff on it.

*a real character like "over educated child of a wealthy merchant runs off to join a mercenary company and eventually ends up with some adventurers", not "big sword fighter with meaningless backstory that gives +2 to a weak skill".

Also, to harp on this a bit...

That's a backstory that could be, in 5E, literally any class. You'd likely be a noble or guild merchant for your background... But you could pick just about any mechanics to go with it.

The backstory's only meaningless if the DM lets it be-which can happen in 4E, but can happen in 3.P, or 5th, or GURPS, or M&M, or any RPG ever.

Lemmy
2021-12-25, 12:04 AM
Plants, fungi and bacteria aren't living beings.

My definition of living beings means "creature who can think". Therefore, by my definition, plants, fungi and bacteria aren't living beings.

The fact that by my definition, my initial statement is correct is a factual truth.

But... What's the point?

It's not a definition that is or will ever be accepted or used by anyone. It doesn't offer any innovative or useful perspective or insight either. All it does is allow me to reinstate my claim and be technically correct within a very narrow, very limited frame of reference of my own making because I really dislike fungi.

It's completely pointless.

Telok
2021-12-25, 01:52 AM
Also, to harp on this a bit...

That's a backstory that could be, in 5E, literally any class. You'd likely be a noble or guild merchant for your background... But you could pick just about any mechanics to go with it.

The backstory's only meaningless if the DM lets it be-which can happen in 4E, but can happen in 3.P, or 5th, or GURPS, or M&M, or any RPG ever.

As I said "a real character...
... not "big sword fighter with meaningless backstory that gives +2 to a weak skill"

You sort of made my point. A character's background can be reflected in their skill & abilities, can be part of the actual rules & widgets on the character sheet, or something the DM has to use fiat above & beyond the rules to make it relevant. Your M&M or 3.x character can have actual rules based effects of being well educated or socially well connected, it doesn't have to be 100% DM fiat to have any meaning. D&D 5e can almost do it, but 4e didn't.

And of course that wasn't the main point of the half post (I haven't gotten to finish anything more than a 3 sentence post in a couple days now). The point is that 4e was a "mechanics first, fiction second" design with intentionally disassociated mechanics. Which may be part of its violation of Quertus (somewhat vague & ill defined to me) definition of "rpg". I can see where Quertus is coming from, things like making a running leap to swing a sword at a flying harpy gave our group hard stop problems untill we did a gentleman's agreement never to do flying & other z-axis combats. For Quertus the fiction of things like a 7' tall goliath with a 6' long sword making a leaping attack at a low flying enemy needs to be, if not supported, then at least not hard shut down by the rule set and requiring DM breaking rules to let it work.

Likewise, I don't think it can be convincingly argued that any definition of "rpg" that includes Monopoly, Talisman, or the literal D&D board games is going to be a useful or accepted definition for these purpo

NichG
2021-12-25, 02:13 AM
I’m torn. I mean, if someone was making an argument predicated upon a false premise, like responding to “women are sexy when they use whips” with “Indiana Jones wasn’t whip sexy”, I’d like to be able to point out the logical flaw that “Indiana Jones wasn’t a woman”. Otoh, 4e has plenty of elements that could have been valuable in an RPG, and people discounting them just because they were used in something that isn’t an RPG is something the likes of which I’ve seen happen on the Playground.

So I guess I agree that handing the Playground a means to determine something’s “RPG status” isn’t necessarily valuable, except to allow me to continue my meme. Which, as that and being misunderstood are the only reasons I’m bothering to try to explain it (because I honestly don’t care)… the step of explaining the spectrum, fixing anything wrong or missing from my model, and then just saying my “4e isn’t D&D” meme is my own arbitrary point of that spectrum would be fine by me.

If it were in the context of a specific argument, it might be somewhat useful argumentation, but I think in any such case there are probably much more efficient ways to get at the point of what's being said. E.g. in the whips example, yes, you can say 'Indiana Jones wasn't a woman' to respond, but you could also say 'Indiana Jones isn't my type, whip or no'. It feels weaker since it isn't an objective argument, but its actually stronger because it recognizes that there are subjective parts of the conversation and just owns them as subjective and moves on. That way you don't get entangled arguing larger and less relevant points in order to make a focused, narrow point.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-25, 04:16 AM
Not by my definitions. Nor by yours, actually, as my point is that 4e demands that you abandon the character perspective in order to play the game.

It's pointless to answer any of the other points when you keep recommitting to the same error.

4th edition has characters, it has a staged situation, it asks players to assume viewpoints of their characters to decide what to do, how and why. It is hence a roleplaying game. It involved plenty of straightforward roleplaying as part of its normal running. Observing that it sometimes asks a player to make a decision that doesn't make sense from a character's viewpoint, does not nullify those prior observations.

For contrast: are computer roleplaying games, roleplaying games? By my definition, plenty of them trivially qualify - at the same time, based on the same definition, it's easy to observe that when a cutscene starts, roleplaying stops. Why? Because when a cutscene delivers prepackaged story content, a player is not making decisions. They've been turned from a player of a character into a spectator. But does presence of a cutscene prove a game is not a roleplaying game? No, because that would require ignoring all gameplay outside that cutscene. In fact, cutscenes can even be used to provide proof for a game being a roleplaying game - by showing that there are multiple mutually exclusive cutscenes and that a player's decisions as a character influences which is selected.

In similar vein, many of 4th edition D&D's abstract options are tied to class fiction - character class, that is. The oddities only come up BECAUSE of the fiction that there is a specific person with specific abilities in a specific situation. The only reason to complain about them is BECAUSE 4th edition is a roleplaying game. If it was purely an abtract strategy game, you would neither care nor notice.

erikun
2021-12-25, 09:46 AM
Well, I've not been following the apparent extended discussion going on here. I'd actually be curious about this "Assembly Language" breakdown thread, if it's still available. But in the interest of not making the wisest decisions, I think I'll just jump in feet-first.


Role-playing is making decisions for the character, in character.
This does exclude roleplaying as a group, or culture, of some sort of nation. Heck, it makes roleplay as two distinct characters somewhat difficult. However, for the specific intended case we have here (saying "4e is not an RPG") that distinction is not really relevant.


This requires looking at things from the character's PoV, using the fiction, not the rules.
I am not sure how somebody would look at a situation from the perspective of the rules. Unless the goal is to achieve a specific game value through any rules method possible (the 0HP through "drown healing" example), nearly every decision is going to involve viewing the situation from the perspective of the character... since that is how the goal is determined, and thus what actions the player would want to take.

There are going to be times when making decisions based on the rules becomes practically necessary - typically when the concept is too confusing or too open to interpretation that it's difficult to intuit strictly from fiction. What exactly happens "at the edge of a PC's darkvision" is a good example, since you'd want rules specifying what happens - since people don't have darkvision to have a good idea of what's going on there. And player decisions will be based on how those rules work.

I think those are rather borderline situations, though, and could be ignored for the majority of the situations and decisions.


How well the rules match the fiction - or, more specifically, how well one can play the game¹ knowing and utilizing only the fiction, how the rules rate one's performance when role-playing - is a simple metric for the suitability of the game to being played as an RPG.
So... how much the game rules and the fiction match up decides how suitable a game system works, as a RPG? I think that would include most RPGs, outside the most highly non-functional which bog everything down in mechanics to even attempt working.

Sounds like D&D4e is a RPG by this definition.


And that's why 4e is not an RPG.
I'll admit, I am confused.


I'm sure there is a difference in how I interpreted what you've put down, and how you've intended them to be read. Pointing these out would be helpful, at least to avoid any misassumptions on my part.

However, I think some examples would be more helpful. What situations come up in a D&D4e game, where the rules mismatch the fiction so poorly that the entire system cannot be considered a RPG? How many of these are so numerous that they crash the entire game system, as opposed to just being edge cases which appear in nearly every system?

JNAProductions
2021-12-25, 11:03 AM
As I said "a real character...
... not "big sword fighter with meaningless backstory that gives +2 to a weak skill"

You sort of made my point. A character's background can be reflected in their skill & abilities, can be part of the actual rules & widgets on the character sheet, or something the DM has to use fiat above & beyond the rules to make it relevant. Your M&M or 3.x character can have actual rules based effects of being well educated or socially well connected, it doesn't have to be 100% DM fiat to have any meaning. D&D 5e can almost do it, but 4e didn't.

And of course that wasn't the main point of the half post (I haven't gotten to finish anything more than a 3 sentence post in a couple days now). The point is that 4e was a "mechanics first, fiction second" design with intentionally disassociated mechanics. Which may be part of its violation of Quertus (somewhat vague & ill defined to me) definition of "rpg". I can see where Quertus is coming from, things like making a running leap to swing a sword at a flying harpy gave our group hard stop problems untill we did a gentleman's agreement never to do flying & other z-axis combats. For Quertus the fiction of things like a 7' tall goliath with a 6' long sword making a leaping attack at a low flying enemy needs to be, if not supported, then at least not hard shut down by the rule set and requiring DM breaking rules to let it work.

Likewise, I don't think it can be convincingly argued that any definition of "rpg" that includes Monopoly, Talisman, or the literal D&D board games is going to be a useful or accepted definition for these purpo

And you can reflect your skills and abilities through your background in 4E. You can completely disregard your background when designing a PC in 5th or 3.P.

Honest question: Have you played 4E? Because I have, in a live game-it had just as much RP as a later 5th game I played live.

Just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it fails for everyone.

KillianHawkeye
2021-12-25, 06:16 PM
I guess he really doesn't want to answer the question of why 100% of a game has to be playable from an "in-character" perspective to qualify as an RPG, which actually would disqualify every version of D&D and not just 4th Edition. I'll just move along and stop feeding it.

Anyway, merry xmas, everyone!

Witty Username
2021-12-25, 06:38 PM
I don't think I grok the definition as presented. Could a positive example of an RPG be given with this definition and an explanation of why it meets the criteria?

Part of the reason I ask is this definition seems to exclude D&D as an RPG, not just 4e.

Telok
2021-12-25, 06:41 PM
And you can reflect your skills and abilities through your background in 4E. You can completely disregard your background when designing a PC in 5th or 3.P.

Honest question: Have you played 4E? Because I have, in a live game-it had just as much RP as a later 5th game I played live.

Just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it fails for everyone.

Of course, we ran it for a year and dropped it because of the terrible grindy boring combats. And your focus on backgeounds is still a tangent missing the point.

JNAProductions
2021-12-25, 06:46 PM
Of course, we ran it for a year and dropped it because of the terrible grindy boring combats. And your focus on backgeounds is still a tangent missing the point.

You were the one who brought up backgrounds...

And again-"I don't like this" is not the same as "This is bad."
"This doesn't work how I want my RPGs to work," is not the same as "This isn't an RPG."

KillianHawkeye
2021-12-25, 10:07 PM
People need to stop posting their personal preferences as if they are genre-defining facts.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-25, 11:10 PM
People need to stop posting their personal preferences as if they are genre-defining facts.

But this is the internet! If people stopped doing that, we'd have nothing to read and get angry about!

Not blue because mobile... And because I'm half convinced it's true.

I do absolutely agree with you. "I like X" =/= "X is objectively good". And vice versa "I don't like X" =/= "X is objectively bad".

Quertus
2021-12-26, 09:29 AM
It's pointless to answer any of the other points when you keep recommitting to the same error.

4th edition has characters, it has a staged situation, it asks players to assume viewpoints of their characters to decide what to do, how and why. It is hence a roleplaying game. It involved plenty of straightforward roleplaying as part of its normal running. Observing that it sometimes asks a player to make a decision that doesn't make sense from a character's viewpoint, does not nullify those prior observations.

For contrast: are computer roleplaying games, roleplaying games? By my definition, plenty of them trivially qualify - at the same time, based on the same definition, it's easy to observe that when a cutscene starts, roleplaying stops. Why? Because when a cutscene delivers prepackaged story content, a player is not making decisions. They've been turned from a player of a character into a spectator. But does presence of a cutscene prove a game is not a roleplaying game? No, because that would require ignoring all gameplay outside that cutscene. In fact, cutscenes can even be used to provide proof for a game being a roleplaying game - by showing that there are multiple mutually exclusive cutscenes and that a player's decisions as a character influences which is selected.

In similar vein, many of 4th edition D&D's abstract options are tied to class fiction - character class, that is. The oddities only come up BECAUSE of the fiction that there is a specific person with specific abilities in a specific situation. The only reason to complain about them is BECAUSE 4th edition is a roleplaying game. If it was purely an abtract strategy game, you would neither care nor notice.

You keep assuming that, because I’m not using that inferior definition of RPG, I must be in error, without evaluating the merits of the relevant definitions.

At best, you could use that line of reasoning to conclude that a boat can be a “skeeter” under one definition, but not under the one that includes mosquitoes. But for me to be in error, you would need to show how that inferior definition is somehow better than mine.


Well, I've not been following the apparent extended discussion going on here. I'd actually be curious about this "Assembly Language" breakdown thread, if it's still available. But in the interest of not making the wisest decisions, I think I'll just jump in feet-first.

I kept presenting pieces, which generally got back nonsensical responses, indicating people didn’t understand the pieces I was explaining.

I concluded that, even if I weren’t too Lazy to write out the whole thing, it was unlikely many people would be able to follow my ramblings.

I’m getting much better responses in this thread, indicating that I’m closer to succeeding at expressing the simple metric.

But, if you really *want* to lose sanity points attempting to decipher my mad ramblings amidst other conversations, search for “chopped up elephant bits”. I described my piecemeal explanations thusly on multiple occasions.


This does exclude roleplaying as a group, or culture, of some sort of nation. Heck, it makes roleplay as two distinct characters somewhat difficult. However, for the specific intended case we have here (saying "4e is not an RPG") that distinction is not really relevant.

True, my definition of roleplaying does not handle those cases well… or it handles them perfectly be declaring them not roleplaying? Shrug.

Well… one can arguably roleplay multiple characters, each from their own perspective. I’m not sure if what one does playing a country is the same roleplaying one does playing a character. But, agreed, if we’re going to care about evaluating a system (or, specifically,4e), then this distinction is irrelevant.


I am not sure how somebody would look at a situation from the perspective of the rules. Unless the goal is to achieve a specific game value through any rules method possible (the 0HP through "drown healing" example), nearly every decision is going to involve viewing the situation from the perspective of the character... since that is how the goal is determined, and thus what actions the player would want to take.

There are going to be times when making decisions based on the rules becomes practically necessary - typically when the concept is too confusing or too open to interpretation that it's difficult to intuit strictly from fiction. What exactly happens "at the edge of a PC's darkvision" is a good example, since you'd want rules specifying what happens - since people don't have darkvision to have a good idea of what's going on there. And player decisions will be based on how those rules work.

I think those are rather borderline situations, though, and could be ignored for the majority of the situations and decisions.


Hmmm… how to explain?

Batman don’t use guns, because his parents were shot and killed in front of him by at a young age. That’s a character-driven reason, and obviously different from an analysis on range, DPS, etc. Playing the character will produce different results from playing the rules.

But there’s a whole spectrum of subtlety of the difference between playing the role and playing the rules, between roleplaying stance in an RPG and just a game.

Reject the concept of “borderline” for a moment, view this as a true Sith Lord. Ignore the human failings of those unable to play the game from the character’s perspective (because to look at their experiences is to fall for the trap of producing a subjective measurement), look only at the experience of pure roleplaying stance, and ask how the rules evaluate your performance.

That is the what I am discussing. How often, in order to play the game, would one need to stop roleplaying?


So... how much the game rules and the fiction match up decides how suitable a game system works, as a RPG? I think that would include most RPGs, outside the most highly non-functional which bog everything down in mechanics to even attempt working.

Sounds like D&D4e is a RPG by this definition.


I'll admit, I am confused.


I'm sure there is a difference in how I interpreted what you've put down, and how you've intended them to be read. Pointing these out would be helpful, at least to avoid any misassumptions on my part.

However, I think some examples would be more helpful. What situations come up in a D&D4e game, where the rules mismatch the fiction so poorly that the entire system cannot be considered a RPG? How many of these are so numerous that they crash the entire game system, as opposed to just being edge cases which appear in nearly every system?

True, if I cared, I should have copied examples from other threads. An example from this thread was treating a skill challenge as a ticking clock. I explained that a reasonable response to a ticking clock was to prioritize actions and tests that could be accomplished quickly. So, played in character, my character could accumulate 3 failures before you even get to roll, causing the skill challenge to fail. The rules say that following that fiction fails.


And you can reflect your skills and abilities through your background in 4E. You can completely disregard your background when designing a PC in 5th or 3.P.

Honest question: Have you played 4E? Because I have, in a live game-it had just as much RP as a later 5th game I played live.

Just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it fails for everyone.

I don’t think you are hearing each other. I think it’s the difference between what I call a “character” and a “playing piece”.

A playing piece is a human Fighter with the criminal background, max ranks in Subterfuge, two dots in Potence, and a partridge in a pear tree.

A character is “Batman doesn’t use guns because his parents were killed in front of him with a gun”, “Batman dressed up as a bat to instill fear in criminals; he believes bats are scary because he was scared of them as a child”.

A character can answer “why” questions for their behaviors back to first principles.

A playing piece can be used in accordance with the rules.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-26, 09:58 AM
You keep assuming that, because I’m not using that inferior definition of RPG, I must be in error, without evaluating the merits of the relevant definitions.

You claimed in the part I directly quoted that using my definition, I should still land in the same conclusion as you. That's your error - it's not an assumption, it's what you wrote.

As for my definition being "inferior", let's go back and take a look at yours:


Role-playing is making decisions for the character, in character.

This requires looking at things from the character's PoV, using the fiction, not the rules.

How well the rules match the fiction - or, more specifically, how well one can play the game¹ knowing and utilizing only the fiction, how the rules rate one's performance when role-playing - is a simple metric for the suitability of the game to being played as an RPG.

Your first part is just paraphrase of a player assuming viewpoint of a character; the exact same component is found from my definition.

The second part is genuinely wrong. What is "the fiction"? Bluntly, it's the staged situation the character is placed in, as called out in my definition. Trying to separate that from the rules is pointless - if not the rules of the game, what tells you what the staged situation is or how to stage it? The same question can be asked about the character's viewpoint. Statements about who a character is and what the situation they are in is, are rules for a roleplaying game.

The third part isn't definitional at all. It's a supposed test of the definition. Given my above criticism, let's write it out differently: "How well a player approaching the staged situation strictly from their character's viewpoint can play, is a simple metric for suitability of game being played as roleplaying game". That loops back to what I said earlier: this a test you can do. In practice, however, players don't strictly act from their characters' viewpoints nor are existing games free from decisions made from out-of-character viewpoint. It hence does not make sense to use that as binary dividing line for what is or isn't a roleplaying game.

In conclusion: I do not agree your definition is superior. It is barely even different. The only real difference is that you consider "the fiction" to be something separate from the rules, where as I don't.

Batcathat
2021-12-26, 10:55 AM
Part of the reason I ask is this definition seems to exclude D&D as an RPG, not just 4e.

This is my main issue with the definition. I can sort of see where Quertus is going with it, but in order to disqualify 4e but no other D&D from being RPGs, it seems like the line of "how much OOC is too much" would have to be drawn in a very specific spot and using very specific criteria. Of course, that line has to be drawn somewhere, but drawing in such a way as to disqualify one edition but no other comes off as rather arbitrary and subjective.

Quertus
2021-12-26, 11:34 AM
I guess he really doesn't :smallfrown:want to answer the question of why 100% of a game has to be playable from an "in-character" perspective to qualify as an RPG, which actually would disqualify every version of D&D and not just 4th Edition. I'll just move along and stop feeding it.

Anyway, merry xmas, everyone!

Sadly, wrong. I had several tabs open, replying to several posters in each. Unfortunately, the tab that had you, and NichG, and at least one other poster, was eaten (around about the time I was eating Christmas dinner - I think my phone was jealous and feeling left out).

So, hopefully, at some point, I’ll get back to those replies. For now, merry (belated) Christmas!


I don't think I grok the definition as presented. Could a positive example of an RPG be given with this definition and an explanation of why it meets the criteria?

Part of the reason I ask is this definition seems to exclude D&D as an RPG, not just 4e.

Well, I might need your example of what you think fails in order to fix things, but let’s try with a common example: HP.

The fiction for HP includes, “hit things, and they get hurt; hurt them enough, and they die”. And… that’s it, actually.

Now, the specific implementation of HP in D&D also includes additional fiction. For example, as a change from irl, “being hurt does not (significantly) degrade performance”.

Plus (maybe you can) choose one of
HP represent meat and luck and skill and stamina and…

—or—

HP represent meat, plus

Humanoids can be much meatier than irl.

Or course, then there’s the implementation of damage, which really trips some people up. And they often get confused, and talk about the implementation of damage as though it were a problem with HP.

Point is, hand someone that fiction, and the rules for HP will match their roleplaying pretty dang well.

So “HP” are a positive example of a game element with a fiction that produces play that matches the rules.

EDIT: Grrr… that wasn’t all written as fiction. The fiction would look more like, “humans are more durable than irl, and can face tank damage that would kill normal men” vs “use ‘action hero’ logic of mostly avoiding the blow”.

Quertus
2021-12-26, 12:37 PM
This is my main issue with the definition. I can sort of see where Quertus is going with it, but in order to disqualify 4e but no other D&D from being RPGs, it seems like the line of "how much OOC is too much" would have to be drawn in a very specific spot and using very specific criteria. Of course, that line has to be drawn somewhere, but drawing in such a way as to disqualify one edition but no other comes off as rather arbitrary and subjective.

Where the line is drawn *may* be arbitrary, but that’s not the same as subjective.

If people care to evaluate the line *after* there’s enough understanding of *what* is being measured, we can do that.


You claimed in the part I directly quoted that using my definition, I should still land in the same conclusion as you. That's your error - it's not an assumption, it's what you wrote.

Touché. My misunderstanding.

Hmmm… when you said …

it asks the players to assume viewpoints of their characters and decide what to do, how, and why. That it also has parts which don't make sense from a character's viewpoint doesn't nullify that observation.

I find that “parts which don’t make sense from a character’s viewpoint” actually *does* “nullify” (more “contradict”) “ask[ing] the players to assume viewpoints of their characters [to] decide what to do”.

Not much I can do if you *don’t* find that to be a contradiction, I guess, except to say that I do.


As for my definition being "inferior", let's go back and take a look at yours:



Your first part is just paraphrase of a player assuming viewpoint of a character; the exact same component is found from my definition.

The second part is genuinely wrong. What is "the fiction"? Bluntly, it's the staged situation the character is placed in, as called out in my definition. Trying to separate that from the rules is pointless - if not the rules of the game, what tells you what the staged situation is or how to stage it? The same question can be asked about the character's viewpoint. Statements about who a character is and what the situation they are in is, are rules for a roleplaying game.

This would be where we disagree or where you don’t understand what I’m saying. Let’s find out which.

Imagine how you believe injury and damage work irl. That’s “the fiction” for irl that lives in your head. The fiction for HP that I gave above includes, “hit people, and they get hurt; hurt them enough, and they die”. Does that fiction match your fiction of irl? Does that fiction match D&D rules for HP?

The fiction for D&D also includes something like, “injury typically does not degrade performance”. Does that match your fiction for irl? Does that match D&D rules for HP?

The fiction to which I am referring is… hmmm… the way one would explain the world to a 7-year-old. It’s character perspective.




The third part isn't definitional at all. It's a supposed test of the definition. Given my above criticism, let's write it out differently: "How well a player approaching the staged situation strictly from their character's viewpoint can play, is a simple metric for suitability of game being played as roleplaying game". That loops back to what I said earlier: this a test you can do. In practice, however, players don't strictly act from their characters' viewpoints nor are existing games free from decisions made from out-of-character viewpoint. It hence does not make sense to use that as binary dividing line for what is or isn't a roleplaying game.

In conclusion: I do not agree your definition is superior. It is barely even different. The only real difference is that you consider "the fiction" to be something separate from the rules, where as I don't.

lol. Looks like you’ve got it, but, as I said above, you have to remove subjective human failings, you have to remove the imperfect actor to measure how suited to being played in roleplaying stance, from the character’s perspective, a game is.

Are you rejecting that concept for any reason other than human imperfection?

JNAProductions
2021-12-26, 12:45 PM
Where the line is drawn *may* be arbitrary, but that’s not the same as subjective.

If people care to evaluate the line *after* there’s enough understanding of *what* is being measured, we can do that.

Touché. My misunderstanding.

Hmmm… when you said …


I find that “parts which don’t make sense from a character’s viewpoint” actually *does* “nullify” (more “contradict”) “ask[ing] the players to assume viewpoints of their characters [to] decide what to do”.

Not much I can do if you *don’t* find that to be a contradiction, I guess, except to say that I do.

This would be where we disagree or where you don’t understand what I’m saying. Let’s find out which.

Imagine how you believe injury and damage work irl. That’s “the fiction” for irl that lives in your head. The fiction for HP that I gave above includes, “hit people, and they get hurt; hurt them enough, and they die”. Does that fiction match your fiction of irl? Does that fiction match D&D rules for HP?

The fiction for D&D also includes something like, “injury typically does not degrade performance”. Does that match your fiction for irl? Does that match D&D rules for HP?

The fiction to which I am referring is… hmmm… the way one would explain the world to a 7-year-old. It’s character perspective.

lol. Looks like you’ve got it, but, as I said above, you have to remove subjective human failings, you have to remove the imperfect actor to measure how suited to being played in roleplaying stance, from the character’s perspective, a game is.

Are you rejecting that concept for any reason other than human imperfection?

Quertus, you're human. You've got similar imperfections. You are not some kind of impartial mediator who's perfectly suited to being objective.

Your insistence that you're being objective and correct (in contrast to your own stated willingness and eagerness to be wrong) is in itself not objective or correct.

Batcathat
2021-12-26, 12:47 PM
Where the line is drawn *may* be arbitrary, but that’s not the same as subjective.

If people care to evaluate the line *after* there’s enough understanding of *what* is being measured, we can do that.

I suppose that depends on how we use "subjective" in this context. The line is drawn based on what you feel brings you out of character and how much of that is enough for something to no longer qualify as an RPG.

Let's compare it to food. I might say that something that has less than X amount of salt is disgusting. The amount of salt can be objectively measured. Does that mean that food with less than X amount of salt is objectively disgusting?

Anymage
2021-12-26, 02:04 PM
Reject the concept of “borderline” for a moment, view this as a true Sith Lord. Ignore the human failings of those unable to play the game from the character’s perspective (because to look at their experiences is to fall for the trap of producing a subjective measurement), look only at the experience of pure roleplaying stance, and ask how the rules evaluate your performance.

That is the what I am discussing. How often, in order to play the game, would one need to stop roleplaying?

Let me turn this around. 5e has the barest nods to character personality and background being mechanically represented, with background features and inspiration being based on personality features like bonds/ideals/flaws. In practice these don't often come up in games, and earlier editions of D&D have little or nothing in this vein either. Arbitrarily losing class features for acting out of alignment or having the stray feat that enables social ties aside.

Other games have been built with a stronger focus on character personality and/or interactions. Some having successfully lived up to their goals, some not so much. When D&D in general has historically been ragged on for "not being an RPG" under the same logic you're using, it seems odd to try and insist that only your preferred editions meet the mark while your nonpreferred edition is the one that falls short.

Or to put it another way, what non-D&D tabletop RPGs do or do not meet your standards? Because it'd be awfully specific if your lines were only drawn around one edition of one game.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-26, 04:58 PM
I find that “parts which don’t make sense from a character’s viewpoint” actually *does* “nullify” (more “contradict”) “ask[ing] the players to assume viewpoints of their characters [to] decide what to do”.

Not much I can do if you *don’t* find that to be a contradiction, I guess, except to say that I do.

It's not a contradiction precisely because the two decision types don't nullify each other.

A + B only gives you zero when B = -A. This is not actually the case when you count roleplaying and non-roleplaying decisions in a game. If you have one roleplaying decision for each non-roleplaying decision, you do not get zero roleplaying decisions. You get a game that's a roleplaying game for half of the decisions made during a game. The roleplaying decisions never go away because of the non-roleplaying decisions.


This would be where we disagree or where you don’t understand what I’m saying. Let’s find out which.

Imagine how you believe injury and damage work irl. That’s “the fiction” for irl that lives in your head. The fiction for HP that I gave above includes, “hit people, and they get hurt; hurt them enough, and they die”. Does that fiction match your fiction of irl? Does that fiction match D&D rules for HP?

The fiction for D&D also includes something like, “injury typically does not degrade performance”. Does that match your fiction for irl? Does that match D&D rules for HP?

The fiction to which I am referring is… hmmm… the way one would explain the world to a 7-year-old. It’s character perspective.

The fiction of “hit people, and they get hurt; hurt them enough, and they die”, when enforced as true for purposes of a game, is a game rule; how well that corresponds with my view of reality outside the game is irrelevant for this point.

When you say things like "the fiction of the game world should be comprehensible to a 7-year-old", you are, in fact, proposing an overarching rule for other rules of a game to follow. There is, however, not a single reason why this should be baked into definition of all roleplaying games, because not all characters are, nor are all situations comprehensible to, 7-year-olds. Not only is it a highly arbitrary benchmark, it is objectively limited to a very small niche of possible games.


lol. Looks like you’ve got it, but, as I said above, you have to remove subjective human failings, you have to remove the imperfect actor to measure how suited to being played in roleplaying stance, from the character’s perspective, a game is.

Are you rejecting that concept for any reason other than human imperfection?

You might have noted I typically call my definition of roleplaying games a functional definition. I call it so because it describes functions people carry out when playing these games, that is, the thing they actually do.

Your special definition for "fiction" does only one thing: limit the functional definition to games played on the level of 7-year-olds. I am quite confused why you think you are "removing subjective human failings" or "imperfect actors" by appealing to children, whether those children are real or hypothetical. Again: I see no reason for a general definition of roleplaying games to make such appeal to childish thought.

But lets leave kids out of this for a moment. Let's suppose that instead of roleplaying games, we were instead talking about martial arts, and you were trying to sell me a definition of martial arts that removed "subjective human failings" and "imperfect actors" to argue some art isn't a martial one.

I'd take one look at it and say that, while you can aim for perfection, no real martial art is actually perfect, so using that as a benchmark for what is or isn't a martial art is not functional. It objectively doesn't describe what people actually do, which is what I want my definition to do.

Jay R
2021-12-26, 06:40 PM
What I read Quertus as saying is that in 4e D&D the players are not assuming the role of the character in the fictional setting.
Because the rules and fiction are misaligned they are not making decisions that the character would make based on the fiction. They are making decisions for the character based on the rules. Essentially saying that 4e plays like a skirmish wargame where the player controls an individual figure, but does not assume the persona of the character.

I think that you are correct about what Quertus is saying. But that's distorting what "assume the role of the character in the fictional setting" means. Somebody who says, "I am playing George the paladin. I will choose actions that are bold and aggressive, and devoted to George's god" has in fact assumed the role of the character of George the paladin in the fictional 4e setting. I agree that many of the actions George the paladin can take are not simulations of either realistic actions or actions from adventure stories. But that is true of many actions in virtually all role-playing games. I'll even accept without proof the notion that it happens more often in 4e than in other games.

But neither Quertus, not I, nor anybody else has the right to impose a limit on how realistic the rules have to be in order for people to call it a role-playing game.


If the playground all agreed on the definitions, and all used them, then we wouldn’t be here, with me explaining things in terms of my definitions. So saying, in effect, that I’ll need to communicate the meaning of my words in order to communicate my ideas is a given. And, having already evaluated what “roleplaying” and “roleplaying game” mean, I’ll not revert to an inferior definition, that uses so imprecise an implicit definition of roleplaying. Otherwise, this might be a compelling argument.

An inferior definition is one that consistently disagrees with how the phrase is actually used. Definitions don't tell us how to use words and phrases; they try to describe what people actually mean when they use them. The dictionary doesn't come before usage, to tell us how to use words. It comes after usage, to describe the language as it is.


Given this, I guess my question is, if you feel that the elements I’m discussing have value, do you disagree just on common usage of the term (which is fair in a general sense, but less so in the context of the Playground, where no such consensus exists), ...

Just putting the part we disagree with in a parenthetical comment will not make me accept it as true. The consensus does more-or-less exist here, as is obvious from the fact that pretty much everybody claims that 4e is a role-playing game, even though nobody has denied that many actions in it aren't simulations of real-world or adventure story actions.

That has never been part of the definition of rpgs. If it were, then any actions based on the four-way alignment system, would likewise disqualify games from the definition.


... or do you feel that my definition isn’t actually appropriate to defining an RPG? Keeping in mind that there’s 3 components: my definition of “roleplaying”, my definition of an RPG, and my metric for measuring the suitability of a game to be played as an RPG.

I have no interest in "your definition". Or in "my definition". I use language to communicate, which requires using definitions that will be understood and accepted. You can claim that "role-playing game" really means "games that play the way Quertus approves" as much as you like, and it will still not mean that.

And if you don't think we have to try to use a common language, then argle bargle morble whooh gostacks distim the doshes deck us all with boston charlie hakuna heigh-ho fragilistic bibbidy chim cheree.

erikun
2021-12-26, 08:19 PM
Batman don’t use guns, because his parents were shot and killed in front of him by at a young age. That’s a character-driven reason, and obviously different from an analysis on range, DPS, etc. Playing the character will produce different results from playing the rules.
I feel like there is an important distinction to make here. There's a difference between playing an established character, one who has their personality and motives set before being introduced to the mechanics of the system, and playing an... "evolving" character, one who changes their personality and motives based on what happens in the game - what happens through the results of the system. There's a difference between playing Batman, a vigilante who doesn't use guns because his parents were killed by guns, and playing John Generic Smith, a vigilante who starts his career not using guns because his parents were killed by guns - but throughout the game campaign, finds that his martial arts are useless and melee fighting was ineffective, but that guns could subdue and incapacitate and knock out non-lethally with no risk of death. Now, John Generic Smith uses guns, just refusing to ever use lethal shots because his parents were killed by guns.

Batman using guns to subdue enemies would distinctly not be Batman. It's against the core principles of the character personality. Even if every other option available would just produce a worse result, having Batman shooting people just wouldn't be "Batman" anymore.

John Generic Smith using guns to subdue enemies does make sense, though, since his motivations are subject to change. He still has his core principles, but since this aspect of this personality isn't so set in stone - since he was just made up for the game - he can adjust tactics to be whatever actually allows him to be an effective vigilante.


But there’s a whole spectrum of subtlety of the difference between playing the role and playing the rules, between roleplaying stance in an RPG and just a game.

Reject the concept of “borderline” for a moment, view this as a true Sith Lord. Ignore the human failings of those unable to play the game from the character’s perspective (because to look at their experiences is to fall for the trap of producing a subjective measurement), look only at the experience of pure roleplaying stance, and ask how the rules evaluate your performance.

That is the what I am discussing. How often, in order to play the game, would one need to stop roleplaying?
I ask you a counter-question: How many games is in impossible for the GM to run all the mechanics by themselves?

Mind you, it's not necessarily going to be an easy task to do so. All the WotC D&D versions seem to insist that the players should keep the mechanics of the game in mind when making character decisions, especially in combat. But if a DM could potentially handle all the mechanical bits themselves, then it would necessarily mean that a player could never need to stop making roleplaying decisions - because that's the only bit of the system they're interacting with.

And I have seen this happen with D&D4e. I've seen DMs - especially in the early D&D4e days - handle the truckload of the mechanical work with how the powers and bonuses work. I've seen DMs take a fairly generic phrase ("I pick up the table and blockade the doorway.") and translate that into the game mechanics. I've even seen players just have the vaguest sense of how their D&D4e powers work - "I use that spinning attack that hits everything nearby," or "I use my daily swing on the big guy" - to describe what they are doing, sometimes even needing to hunt down the note card or the textbook to see exactly what mechanic they are specifically talking about.

If the player can play the game to the point when their best interaction with the mechanics is "I have a whirly attack I can use every fight", then this sounds much more like making roleplay decisions than it does making decisions based on mechanics.


True, if I cared, I should have copied examples from other threads. An example from this thread was treating a skill challenge as a ticking clock. I explained that a reasonable response to a ticking clock was to prioritize actions and tests that could be accomplished quickly. So, played in character, my character could accumulate 3 failures before you even get to roll, causing the skill challenge to fail. The rules say that following that fiction fails.
Ah yes, I see what is going on here.

Reviewing the 4e DMG, it calls for initiative and then every player must make a skill check during a skill challenge. I can see why this would be a problem, especially in certain instances. The initiative idea is certainly to give everybody a chance to participate (if they are so inclined) and there are going to be situations where it makes sense that everybody is required to participate in (the king wishes to speak with each character, not just listen to the Bard all day). However, this can be solved by allowing players to pass/delay their actions, or choose to simply do something else than participate in the skill challenge - for specific challenges of course.

It could be argued that this is not following the rules of the game, but this is more a case of a bad set of rules, as opposed to a reason to invalidate over 800 pages of game system rules over a single line of text. :smallconfused: Especially when the solution is so easily available, already used in the options during normal combat initiative - it doesn't even require creating new rules, just applying existing rules elsewhere.


I hope this isn't the one point where D&D4e fails your is-it-a-RPG test. Nobody claims that BD&D isn't a RPG due to its mounted combat rules. Nobody claims that AD&D isn't a RPG due to its nonweapon proficiencies. Nobody claims that D&D3e isn't a RPG due to how its prestige class requirements work. Pointing out an obvious problem with how a RPG system functions is not strike against it being a functional RPG - it's pointing out an error, or a flaw, something which usually can just be ignored or (hopefully) fixed. If your one problem with D&D4e is that its skill challenges are turn-based and require participating, then I'm happy to report that large numbers of people have almost accidentally been playing the game system as a fully fledged RPG - and can attest to that from personal experience.

Witty Username
2021-12-26, 11:08 PM
@Quertus
I will try to provide fail examples, but as I said I am not sure I grok.. So let's see if I understand this right.
By this definition let's see D&D, all editions.
I think AD&D is the only possible pass because of the rules requiring conformity with the fiction to be an RPG.
5e fails due to its nonsense incentives on healing rules and its lack of emphasis on class determing role in favor of ability scores.
3/.5 fails due to the class being heavily divorced from the fiction, leveling up and multiclassing simply has poor narrative justification.
And both systems have issues with the rules interfering with RP.
Ad&d does better with death at 0 encouraging flight responses to take over, and most decisions in character generation are more likely to be random. But it still has some issues on fiction and rules lining up in strange ways like weapon proficiency.

Telok
2021-12-26, 11:38 PM
Phone die, diff device, still unable to use home comp due to people, time short, write fast.

I think 6ou could actually run tests using play by post. Run a solo or duo adventure with the players not using the rules, not even knowing which system was in use (at least at start). Players are running full fiction first, dice rolls are all d100 (easy converts to all other dice sets). You need a DM and maybe a referee to assist the DM. All posts on the action thread are straight fiction, including character build from the player description, no numbers except the d100 rolls, no system descriptions like "once a day", "squares", or spell slots. Run a non-player thread in parallel as ref & DM hash out appropriate rules & desc. Biggest issue is running games as printed without DM patching bad rules, covering missing rules & edge cases is ok but not overwriting entire rules because of years of people finding a way to fix a bad game.

noob
2021-12-27, 02:36 PM
There is fiction that matches the rules of dnd 4e: OOTS style dnd 4e stories where the rules of physics of the world are the rules of the game and where people knows most rules of the game.
Dnd 4e permits to roleplay in one of those fictions with basically 0 mismatch.
So dnd 4e is a roleplaying game according to the definition Quertus gave with even 0 mismatch between rule and fiction as long as you are playing in an OOTS 4e style setting.
I mean Quertus we are in a forum around OOTS and you did not talk about the possibility to play in a dnd 4e OOTS style setting for having 0 mismatch between rule and fiction?

Quertus
2021-12-27, 02:55 PM
Roleplaying is making decisions for the character, in character.

So, suppose that, during the course of a session, you have the following opportunities to make choices for your character:

Whether/how to respond to a PC being missing/late.

Whether/how to respond to the party’s plan.

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description.

Whether/how to respond to the way that plan A failed.

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description.

Whether/how to respond to another PC.

Whether/how to update plans based on new information.

How to respond to the missing PC’s arrival.

How to respond to the missing PC’s enthusiasm.

How to respond to an unexpected obstacle.

How to respond to a PC’s description.

How to respond to an encounter.

How to respond to the responses of NPCs and other PCs to the encounter.

How to respond to additional information about the encounter.

How to respond to orders directed at you.

How to respond to orders not directed at you.

What action to take during round 1 of combat 1.

What actions to take after combat.

Whether/how to respond to an unexpected obstacle.

What actions to take outside of combat.

How to deal with an unexpected encounter.

What actions to take during round 1 of combat 2.

What actions to take during round 2 of combat 2.

What actions to take out of combat.

What actions to take in response to an unexpected, potentially lethal obstacle.

Whether/how to respond to a party member encountering an unexpected obstacle.

Whether/how to respond to 4th-wall breaking comments.

Whether/how to respond to unexpected results of actions.

Whether/how to respond to unexpected NPC actions.

Whether/how to respond to an unexpected long term obstacle.

How to respond to a “nonsensical” scenario.

What actions to take during round 1 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 2 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 3 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 4 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 5 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 6 of combat 3.

How to respond to “OMG, what?!”

By my count, that was 38 decisions. Let’s add two more potentials to respond to GM descriptions to make it an even 40.

“Agency” involves making meaningful decisions. Some of those choices offer little to no agency to do anything meaningful.

Several of the “decisions” involve a PC who is missing because the player is late (and, from the previous session, the PCs know that the missing PC has good reason to be missing at the moment).

Several of these decision points simply technically exist, as one usually doesn’t respond to the GM’s description of the scene.

At least one deals with responding to (or not) a comment that makes no sense from an in character perspective.

Let’s add in 2 more “GM description” prompts to bring it to an even 40, and add a little annotation:

Whether/how to respond to a PC being missing/late. [OOC, low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to the party’s plan.

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to the way that plan A failed. [expected NOOP (because the Plan already includes a plan B)]

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to another PC. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to update plans based on new information.

How to respond to the missing PC’s arrival. [expected NOOP, low/no agency]

How to respond to the missing PC’s enthusiasm. [expected NOOP, low/no agency]

How to respond to an unexpected obstacle.

How to respond to a PC’s description. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

How to respond to an encounter.

How to respond to the responses of NPCs and other PCs to the encounter.

How to respond to additional information about the encounter.

How to respond to orders directed at you.

How to respond to orders not directed at you.

What action to take during round 1 of combat 1.

What actions to take after combat.

Whether/how to respond to an unexpected obstacle.

What actions to take outside of combat.

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

How to deal with an unexpected encounter.

What actions to take during round 1 of combat 2.

What actions to take during round 2 of combat 2.

What actions to take out of combat.

What actions to take in response to an unexpected, potentially lethal obstacle.

Whether/how to respond to a party member encountering an unexpected obstacle.

Whether/how to respond to 4th-wall breaking comments. [OOC, expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to unexpected results of actions. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to unexpected NPC actions. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to an unexpected long term obstacle.

How to respond to a “nonsensical” scenario.

What actions to take during round 1 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 2 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 3 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 4 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 5 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 6 of combat 3.

How to respond to “OMG, what?!”

13/40 of those “choices” don’t really matter, because the PCs aren’t expected to take actions, have no agency, or it involves OOC information.

Of the 27 “actual” choices, how many of those can be made in character, and still produce reasonable results? That’s what my simple metric is measuring. And in the system that that examine was played, not that all 27 choices *were* made in character by all players, but, had they been, the results would all have been reasonable, according to the rules.



@Quertus
I will try to provide fail examples, but as I said I am not sure I grok.. So let's see if I understand this right.
By this definition let's see D&D, all editions.
I think AD&D is the only possible pass because of the rules requiring conformity with the fiction to be an RPG.
5e fails due to its nonsense incentives on healing rules and its lack of emphasis on class determing role in favor of ability scores.
3/.5 fails due to the class being heavily divorced from the fiction, leveling up and multiclassing simply has poor narrative justification.
And both systems have issues with the rules interfering with RP.
Ad&d does better with death at 0 encouraging flight responses to take over, and most decisions in character generation are more likely to be random. But it still has some issues on fiction and rules lining up in strange ways like weapon proficiency.

How many of those 27 decisions do each of those systems negate / invalidate / force to be handled through the game rather than the role? Note also that, with its “padded sumo” nature, 4e is likely to involve even more rounds of decisions for those combat. So, more to the point, what proportion of the decisions a player makes when playing each of those systems do you expect could be made reasonably in character? Which cannot?

EDIT: from your list, only “5e healing” (and maybe weapon proficiency oddities?) might have impacted any of those 27 meaningful decision points in that session, afaict.



It's not a contradiction precisely because the two decision types don't nullify each other.

A + B only gives you zero when B = -A. This is not actually the case when you count roleplaying and non-roleplaying decisions in a game. If you have one roleplaying decision for each non-roleplaying decision, you do not get zero roleplaying decisions. You get a game that's a roleplaying game for half of the decisions made during a game. The roleplaying decisions never go away because of the non-roleplaying decisions.

My contention is, the suitability of a system to be played as an RPG is measurable by how often is asks you to replace roleplaying decisions with non-roleplaying decisions.

To my mind, “please roleplay… but not when using words with an ‘e’ or ‘t’” is more grievous than “please roleplay… but not when using words that end in ‘z’ or ‘que’”.

So saying “please roleplay… but here’s a lot of rules that invalidate your ability to roleplay” is an issue. How much of an issue depends on how many decisions that invalidates.


But lets leave kids out of this for a moment. Let's suppose that instead of roleplaying games, we were instead talking about martial arts, and you were trying to sell me a definition of martial arts that removed "subjective human failings" and "imperfect actors" to argue some art isn't a martial one.

I'd take one look at it and say that, while you can aim for perfection, no real martial art is actually perfect, so using that as a benchmark for what is or isn't a martial art is not functional. It objectively doesn't describe what people actually do, which is what I want my definition to do.

When I took aikido, there were certain throws that were made more or less difficult based on relative body size. The “spherical cows” nature of the base abstraction, the difficulties working with standard human failings and imperfect actors did not make aikido not a martial art.

However, “fail-do” (the lesson as understood by the worst student, as they might pass it along if transported to another world without martial arts) is another matter. Regardless of how perfectly their students implemented the lesson of “fail-do”, it simply wouldn’t be functional.


Phone die, diff device, still unable to use home comp due to people, time short, write fast.

I think 6ou could actually run tests using play by post. Run a solo or duo adventure with the players not using the rules, not even knowing which system was in use (at least at start). Players are running full fiction first, dice rolls are all d100 (easy converts to all other dice sets). You need a DM and maybe a referee to assist the DM. All posts on the action thread are straight fiction, including character build from the player description, no numbers except the d100 rolls, no system descriptions like "once a day", "squares", or spell slots. Run a non-player thread in parallel as ref & DM hash out appropriate rules & desc. Biggest issue is running games as printed without DM patching bad rules, covering missing rules & edge cases is ok but not overwriting entire rules because of years of people finding a way to fix a bad game.

I’ve run and played in games, both published and homebrew, with both adults and children, where the players did not know the rules, not unlike as you describe.

So, yes, it certainly can be done. :smallwink:

ShadowSandbag
2021-12-27, 03:25 PM
I suppose that depends on how we use "subjective" in this context. The line is drawn based on what you feel brings you out of character and how much of that is enough for something to no longer qualify as an RPG.

Let's compare it to food. I might say that something that has less than X amount of salt is disgusting. The amount of salt can be objectively measured. Does that mean that food with less than X amount of salt is objectively disgusting?

I think of all the points made in this thread, this is perhaps my favorite one. I would also note that this measurement would be even more concrete than Quertus' proposal since it takes all subjectivity (what does/not count as roleplay) from the equation.

Willie the Duck
2021-12-27, 04:00 PM
This is my main issue with the definition. I can sort of see where Quertus is going with it, but in order to disqualify 4e but no other D&D from being RPGs, it seems like the line of "how much OOC is too much" would have to be drawn in a very specific spot and using very specific criteria. Of course, that line has to be drawn somewhere, but drawing in such a way as to disqualify one edition but no other comes off as rather arbitrary and subjective.

So... how much the game rules and the fiction match up decides how suitable a game system works, as a RPG? I think that would include most RPGs, outside the most highly non-functional which bog everything down in mechanics to even attempt working.

I would certainly think that the 'every character take their turn, and then effectively freeze in place while the next entity in the initiative order (excepting the occasional 'reaction-action')' setup that most TTRPGs utilize will cause at least as many dis-fictions as anything 4e-specific.

Cluedrew
2021-12-27, 05:06 PM
This thread is scattered and really I think there are so many issues with this definition. I went back to the original post. The set up (role-playing is in character and uses in character information) is reasonable but then it kind of false apart. You could argue that it falls apart when the measure is stated (a system's suitability to be a role-playing game is decide by how well you make decisions using the fiction) or when we jump from there to "4e is not an RPG" but either way I definitely see the following issues:
No way to use that measure has been given. I could not for instance, tell you which of GRUPS and Dream Askew does better in this regard. (The loosest property I could think of was just better or worse, even if we can't give them a score we should be able to figure out how well to systems are doing relative to each other.)
We don't know how to use the measure to determine if a system should be considered an role-playing game. Is a system half way between 4e and 3.5e a role-playing game?
Then you need to show that this group reflects role-playing games. I'm not going for the entire common usage thing here, this is a more modest goal than that. Can you convince anyone (who doesn't just hate 4e and want to spit on it) that this is a better representation of role-playing games than the one they are using currently. (This came from reflection on what I would have to see to be convinced. In a sense the first two are just contributing factors to this.)

That common usage issue (roughly, how a word is used is what it really means) is still there so you might want to not use this definition in conversation lightly even if you can do the above three. It is not like you can just use a new word that looks/sounds just like an old one and expect people to understand what you are talking about. And there may be others but those seem to be the most significant three.

Another side issue I just thought of: A well done choose your own adventure book is a role-playing game by this definition as they often give you nothing to go off of except fiction. I don't think Fate/Stay Night or the Fighting Fantasy books are role-playing games but here we are.

erikun
2021-12-27, 05:49 PM
Roleplaying is making decisions for the character, in character.

So, suppose that, during the course of a session, you have the following opportunities to make choices for your character:

“Agency” involves making meaningful decisions. Some of those choices offer little to no agency to do anything meaningful.

Several of the “decisions” involve a PC who is missing because the player is late (and, from the previous session, the PCs know that the missing PC has good reason to be missing at the moment).

Several of these decision points simply technically exist, as one usually doesn’t respond to the GM’s description of the scene.

At least one deals with responding to (or not) a comment that makes no sense from an in character perspective.

Let’s add in 2 more “GM description” prompts to bring it to an even 40, and add a little annotation:

Whether/how to respond to a PC being missing/late. [OOC, low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to the party’s plan.

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to the way that plan A failed. [expected NOOP (because the Plan already includes a plan B)]

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to another PC. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to update plans based on new information.

How to respond to the missing PC’s arrival. [expected NOOP, low/no agency]

How to respond to the missing PC’s enthusiasm. [expected NOOP, low/no agency]

How to respond to an unexpected obstacle.

How to respond to a PC’s description. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

How to respond to an encounter.

How to respond to the responses of NPCs and other PCs to the encounter.

How to respond to additional information about the encounter.

How to respond to orders directed at you.

How to respond to orders not directed at you.

What action to take during round 1 of combat 1.

What actions to take after combat.

Whether/how to respond to an unexpected obstacle.

What actions to take outside of combat.

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

How to deal with an unexpected encounter.

What actions to take during round 1 of combat 2.

What actions to take during round 2 of combat 2.

What actions to take out of combat.

What actions to take in response to an unexpected, potentially lethal obstacle.

Whether/how to respond to a party member encountering an unexpected obstacle.

Whether/how to respond to 4th-wall breaking comments. [OOC, expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to unexpected results of actions. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to unexpected NPC actions. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to an unexpected long term obstacle.

How to respond to a “nonsensical” scenario.

What actions to take during round 1 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 2 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 3 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 4 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 5 of combat 3.

What actions to take during round 6 of combat 3.

How to respond to “OMG, what?!”

13/40 of those “choices” don’t really matter, because the PCs aren’t expected to take actions, have no agency, or it involves OOC information.

Of the 27 “actual” choices, how many of those can be made in character, and still produce reasonable results? That’s what my simple metric is measuring. And in the system that that examine was played, not that all 27 choices *were* made in character by all players, but, had they been, the results would all have been reasonable, according to the rules.
Alright, this seems to be the important part to focus on.

I've gone through the list, and of those choices not marked by OOC, NOOP, or low/no agency, I've put my response (in red) of how I'd expect a D&D4e player to act in the situation. I've also added (D&D staple) after choices which I would expect players of other versions of D&D to react in the same way. The bit problem - once you'll open the spoiler, you'll notice - is that every since response uses (D&D staple) because I'm not sure which situation would present a different choice in D&D4e rather than in another D&D system. The vast majority of responses involve getting more information from the DM, searching the area through actively calling it out/skill roll depending on which edition, and making standard combat actions. I'm just a bit confused as to which actions are, supposedly, primarily handled through rules decisions in D&D4e as opposed to RP decisions in other editions to the game.
Whether/how to respond to a PC being missing/late. [OOC, low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to the party’s plan. - propose counterplan/agree with plan (D&D staple)

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to the way that plan A failed. [expected NOOP (because the Plan already includes a plan B)]

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to another PC. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to update plans based on new information. - propose new plan (D&D staple)

How to respond to the missing PC’s arrival. [expected NOOP, low/no agency]

How to respond to the missing PC’s enthusiasm. [expected NOOP, low/no agency]

How to respond to an unexpected obstacle. - search for new path, attempt to bypass, use skill to overcome (D&D staple)

How to respond to a PC’s description. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

How to respond to an encounter. - hide, ready weapon, or ambush (D&D staple)

How to respond to the responses of NPCs and other PCs to the encounter. - engage in conversation back (D&D staple)

How to respond to additional information about the encounter. - adjust tactics, priorities, or maneuver (D&D staple)

How to respond to orders directed at you. - affirm following orders but then immediately do the opposite (D&D staple)

How to respond to orders not directed at you. - record in paranoia that everybody is working against you (D&D staple)

What action to take during round 1 of combat 1. - ready weapon, roll initiative (D&D staple)

What actions to take after combat. - loot, heal, search, recover ammunition (D&D staple)

Whether/how to respond to an unexpected obstacle. - search for new path, attempt to bypass, use skill to overcome (D&D staple)

What actions to take outside of combat. - wander, search, progress along path, roll skills to get more information (D&D staple)

Whether/how to respond to the GM’s description. [expected NOOP]

How to deal with an unexpected encounter. - survive surprise attack round, roll initiative (D&D staple) - I'm not sure what agency is really here given that being ambushed specifically means the character/player doesn't get to take actions, though.

What actions to take during round 1 of combat 2. - ready weapon, roll initiative (D&D staple)

What actions to take during round 2 of combat 2. - attack again, use spell/power (D&D staple) or attempt retreat (pre-WotC D&D)

What actions to take out of combat. - loot, heal, search, recover ammunition (D&D staple)

What actions to take in response to an unexpected, potentially lethal obstacle. - ask DM for more information, decide on possible options, pick option with best chance of success, wish for luck (D&D staple)

Whether/how to respond to a party member encountering an unexpected obstacle. - attempt to get party member out, roll option with best chance of success (D&D staple)

Whether/how to respond to 4th-wall breaking comments. [OOC, expected NOOP]

Whether/how to respond to unexpected results of actions. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to unexpected NPC actions. [low/no agency]

Whether/how to respond to an unexpected long term obstacle. - attempt to overcome, leave for potentially resolving later (D&D staple)

How to respond to a “nonsensical” scenario. - confusion, joke, roll initiative (D&D staple)

What actions to take during round 1 of combat 3. - ready weapon, roll initiative (D&D staple)

What actions to take during round 2 of combat 3. - attack again, use spell/power (D&D staple) or attempt retreat (pre-WotC D&D)

What actions to take during round 3 of combat 3. - attack again, use spell/power (D&D staple) or attempt retreat (pre-WotC D&D)

What actions to take during round 4 of combat 3. - attack again, use spell/power (D&D staple) or attempt retreat (pre-WotC D&D)

What actions to take during round 5 of combat 3. - attack again, use spell/power (D&D staple) or attempt retreat (pre-WotC D&D)

What actions to take during round 6 of combat 3. - attack again, use spell/power (D&D staple) or attempt retreat (pre-WotC D&D)

How to respond to “OMG, what?!” - Repeat last statement with a straight face, if possible. (D&D staple)
I will admit, perhaps I misunderstood some of the options. I took "unexpected long term obstacle" to mean a locked door that's impossible to get past, as opposed to some sort of D&D4e skill challenge, so perhaps I'm not understanding the conflict. I will also note that, in highly risky situations, most players will prefer to use their best option available for the best chances of success... but that is not a D&D4e exclusive thing. Players in a similar situation will attempt to leverage their best skill to the situation in D&D3e or D&D5e, and will attempt to leverage their best attribute in AD&D/BECMI, for much the same reason. And I'd certainly argue that, even in this case, it's as much a roleplay consideration as it is a mechanical consideration. If an adventure suddenly finds themselves in a deathpit with only seconds to live, then of course they are most likely to rely on their best talent or most trained skill to get them out! It's not the time to mess around.


How many of those 27 decisions do each of those systems negate / invalidate / force to be handled through the game rather than the role? Note also that, with its “padded sumo” nature, 4e is likely to involve even more rounds of decisions for those combat. So, more to the point, what proportion of the decisions a player makes when playing each of those systems do you expect could be made reasonably in character? Which cannot?
Yes, I do notice that you seemed to repeat combat actions quite a bit in your example. I'm also not sure why decisions in round 6 would be significantly different from decisions in round 3. Certainly, the battlefield situation has changed, but the very generic options that a PC would consider would be roughly the same. It sounds like you are attempting to pigeonhole D&D4e as a greater offender here - perhaps implying that combat decisions are more mechanics, and thus D&D4e has more mechanical decisions due to its longer combat cycles. But as somebody who has played a six hour combat encounter against a single enemy in D&D3e (at around level 8, as I recall) I don't find that stance to hold much weight.

All editions can have long encounters, all editions can have short encounters, and trying to pin the RPG/not-RPG line on how long the average encounter is in a heavily combat-focused series of RPGs seems to be rather silly.

Quertus
2021-12-27, 06:17 PM
This thread is scattered and really I think there are so many issues with this definition. I went back to the original post. The set up (role-playing is in character and uses in character information) is reasonable but then it kind of false apart. You could argue that it falls apart when the measure is stated (a system's suitability to be a role-playing game is decide by how well you make decisions using the fiction) or when we jump from there to "4e is not an RPG" but either way I definitely see the following issues:
No way to use that measure has been given. I could not for instance, tell you which of GRUPS and Dream Askew does better in this regard. (The loosest property I could think of was just better or worse, even if we can't give them a score we should be able to figure out how well to systems are doing relative to each other.)
We don't know how to use the measure to determine if a system should be considered an role-playing game. Is a system half way between 4e and 3.5e a role-playing game?
Then you need to show that this group reflects role-playing games. I'm not going for the entire common usage thing here, this is a more modest goal than that. Can you convince anyone (who doesn't just hate 4e and want to spit on it) that this is a better representation of role-playing games than the one they are using currently. (This came from reflection on what I would have to see to be convinced. In a sense the first two are just contributing factors to this.)

That common usage issue (roughly, how a word is used is what it really means) is still there so you might want to not use this definition in conversation lightly even if you can do the above three. It is not like you can just use a new word that looks/sounds just like an old one and expect people to understand what you are talking about. And there may be others but those seem to be the most significant three.

Another side issue I just thought of: A well done choose your own adventure book is a role-playing game by this definition as they often give you nothing to go off of except fiction. I don't think Fate/Stay Night or the Fighting Fantasy books are role-playing games but here we are.

Ok, so you’re… nope, “I recognize that I am confused”.

My wording:
Roleplaying is making decisions for the character, in character.

This requires looking at things from the character’s PoV, using the fiction, not the rules.

Blah blah how the rules rate one’s performance when roleplaying is the simple metric for a games suitability to be played as an RPG.

Ok, yeah, I’m bad at communication. :smallredface:

So I recently made a big post that, were I to summarize and merge with a response to this comment, might look like this:
Look at how many decisions / decision points you make in a session.

(Optional: remove decisions with no real agency or expectation of actual action)

For each (remaining) decision, use the rules to evaluate the character perspective response.

Count how many times the rules give a “?”-“???” grade to that action / how many times a player choosing that action would be considered “noob” - “disruptive” / how many times the game was not designed to handle that response.

(Ok, I’ll admit, when you’re not using a published module / the CR system / some published expectations for the system, it’s really dang hard to describe this step in a way that isn’t subjective. So, switching to “module speak” for a moment,)

For each decision in the module (that the system says should be appropriate), count how many of those decisions must be taken in rules stance to avoid breaking the module / breaking the module’s expectations / to avoid a TPK.


You’re measuring the number of decision points that the game’s expectations clearly are based around being played in rules mode rather than in roleplaying stance. And that proportion is the game’s suitability to be played as an RPG.

Or, slightly more mathematically complex, you measure the percent efficacy of the RP actions vs the Determinator actions.

So, if, for 10 actions, 7 are valid to roleplay, that’s a 70% rating. Or, more math, if those 7 actions are, on average, only 80% effective, that’s a 56% rating.

Neither of these is the system I use, so feel free to use either variant of the simple metric.

That addresses your first point.

Your second point… you’re right, what I’ve communicated is a complete logic leap. But try it out with a few sessions from a few systems, and see what results you get.

For your third point… per the old “what is an RPG” / “what is roleplaying” threads, there is no common usage of the words. This metric is therefore predicated upon my definitions, which I’ll argue are superior to the Wikipedia (ie, some other random guy) definition of the term.

Your “bonus” point is quite interesting.

IME, choose your own adventure books have the same problem as CRPGs, but less so: they cannot accept anything but pre-set scripts. If “it’s what my character would do” falls outside what’s coded, you have to break character and make a different choice. So arguably *every* decision has the potential to be impossible to make in character, giving them a 0% rating.

JNAProductions
2021-12-27, 06:45 PM
You can’t just say “there’s no common usage” when there is. Not if you want to be taken seriously, at least.

Quertus
2021-12-27, 07:32 PM
@Erikun,

You are a comedic genius! So much laughter from your post, if people didn’t already know that I was insane, they’d be concerned that I had gone insane. :smallbiggrin:

You’ve also very well demonstrated that my list was not actionable. And that it should have been. Truth be told, I was more / too focused on getting people to think about their own games, and in making the example sound as general as possible, to think it through, and actually make the list actionable.

Also, the party in question did some silly things (which would be obvious from the obstacles that they faced - often of their own making), and I feared that that specificity would detract and distract from understanding the general concept.

I see now the error of my ways. I should have taken the time, and chosen a better example. Clearly, I must have acknowledged an order to do just that. :smallbiggrin:

Cluedrew
2021-12-27, 09:46 PM
Neither of these is the system I use, so feel free to use either variant of the simple metric.As that would be a straw-man, I don't think I will bother with either. Why aren't you just giving the actual system? If its long write it out, put it in a big spoiler. I probably will not understand it all the first time but we can go back and forth a few times.


For your third point... per the old "what is an RPG" / "what is roleplaying" threads, there is no common usage of the words.
You can't just say "there's no common usage" when there is. Not if you want to be taken seriously, at least.Yeah, I'm going to second this argument. The fact that we don't have a good definition to reflect the common usage doesn't mean there isn't one.

Humans are association engines, noticing similarities and patterns. So, roughly speaking, a role-playing game is something that seems similar to existing role-playing games. So if there are a bunch of features that commonly show up in role-playing games and you see it in another game, then its probably an RPG. And if you caught my change in language there, that is in fact how we got the tabletop/pen-and-paper vs. computer split, because different people focused on different parts of the D&D like role-playing game. And both populations were large enough to establish both words (or meanings of the word depending on how you want to look at it). And as of yet you have not convinced enough establish a new word, but maybe you will if you keep at it.

Of course, from earlier in this discussion (not this thread, possibly not even in A Model of Immersion but before even that) we talked about a similar thing and you said you were trying to build a more scientific definition that was testable and that is how I have been viewing your new word/definition ever since. Still not sure why you want it to be a homonym of role-playing game and I could open that one back up to, but for now I will not.

HumanFighter
2021-12-27, 11:08 PM
Have you actually read the books or played 4E?

Because, yes, you can do that. You can do that in 3rd as well. Or 5th. Or AD&D, or OD&D. In fact, I'd say that's much more OD&D and AD&D (from my limited knowledge of them) than any WotC-era D&D product.

If you don't like 4E, I have a different opinion of it, but you're certainly not wrong to dislike it. But to say it's not an RPG because it does tactical combats better than other editions of D&D seems pretty wrongheaded to me.

Yes I have played 4E and read all the books. I have been both DM and player. I really enjoyed the game, but my opinion still stands. I'm not saying you can't roleplay in 4E. You can roleplay in a game like Monopoly (also a classic boardgame) but the game does not require nor support it. Same goes for 4E. Yes u can roleplay in it, but does the system really support it? No. If anything, it gets in the way of it more often than not.

InvisibleBison
2021-12-27, 11:33 PM
Yeah, I'm with Quertus on this one. 4e D&D is not really much of an RPG. It is more of an awkward table skirmish boardgame.
The premise of the game is this: 1. Make characters. 2. Go to dungeon. 3. Have a Look Around. 4. Fight monsters. 5. Collect Loot. 6. Repeat. Yeah, sounds like a boardgame to me.
Also, damn skill challenges


Yes I have played 4E and read all the books. I have been both DM and player. I really enjoyed the game, but my opinion still stands. I'm not saying you can't roleplay in 4E. You can roleplay in a game like Monopoly (also a classic boardgame) but the game does not require nor support it. Same goes for 4E. Yes u can roleplay in it, but does the system really support it? No. If anything, it gets in the way of it more often than not.

And how are other editions of D&D different? Whether something supports roleplay is probably a matter of opinion, but I certainly don't know of anything in other editions that require roleplay (though my knowledge of pre-WOTC D&D is minimal).

JNAProductions
2021-12-27, 11:37 PM
And how are other editions of D&D different? Whether something supports roleplay is probably a matter of opinion, but I certainly don't know of anything in other editions that require roleplay (though my knowledge of pre-WOTC D&D is minimal).

Echoing this. 5th has the most support, to my knowledge, for roleplay. It has Inspiration, and… yeah, that’s about it for a roleplay supporting mechanic. It’s just that 3rd and 4th have basically nothing in that vein.

If you want a system that REALLY supports roleplay, something like Fate is probably better. And that’s probably not even the best example out there-just what I can think of offhand.

Telok
2021-12-27, 11:54 PM
And how are other editions of D&D different? Whether something supports roleplay is probably a matter of opinion, but I certainly don't know of anything in other editions that require roleplay (though my knowledge of pre-WOTC D&D is minimal).

AD&D 1e: hiring henchmen, engaging sages, & negotiating with npc casters for spell swaps were pretty much rp-only. There were rules for availability or the initial contact, but (rules wise) after that was done you didn't get to roll dice to finish the transaction. Oddly you could go full mechanics on hiring assassins & determining if they completed the job.

Kymme
2021-12-28, 12:00 AM
AD&D 1e: hiring henchmen, engaging sages, & negotiating with npc casters for spell swaps were pretty much rp-only. There were rules for availability or the initial contact, but (rules wise) after that was done you didn't get to roll dice to finish the transaction. Oddly you could go full mechanics on hiring assassins & determining if they completed the job.

Making the GM and players do all the work for roleplaying is most assuredly not supporting roleplaying. Systems like Masks, which models the emotional state and self-image of characters and gives specific rules for adjudicating interaction, support roleplaying to a much greater extent than even 5e.

Telok
2021-12-28, 01:15 AM
Making the GM and players do all the work for roleplaying is most assuredly not supporting roleplaying. Systems like Masks, which models the emotional state and self-image of characters and gives specific rules for adjudicating interaction, support roleplaying to a much greater extent than even 5e.

Well the bit quoted did ask about requiring rp, not giving it mechanical weight. I mean, heck, by the above metric even Call of Cthulhu 1e has more support for rp than any WotC version of D&D simply by having a rule set that can differentiate between a phobia & a panic attack and then tell you which to use in a situation. More rp support than a WotC game is not exactly a high bar to pass. I suspect at least three of the top 10 absolute worst rpgs could pass that bar.

erikun
2021-12-28, 03:26 AM
(Ok, I’ll admit, when you’re not using a published module / the CR system / some published expectations for the system, it’s really dang hard to describe this step in a way that isn’t subjective. So, switching to “module speak” for a moment,)

For each decision in the module (that the system says should be appropriate), count how many of those decisions must be taken in rules stance to avoid breaking the module / breaking the module’s expectations / to avoid a TPK.
Alright, that's fair.

I mean, it does bring up even more questions. It does make me wonder why independently published material should be the determining factor in a RPG, or why groups creating their own material should still be bound to it, or how somebody is going to qualify a RPG that doesn't produce campaign modules. I will agree that this does make examples rather difficult without going through an actual published module to make proper comparisons, though.

It also makes me wonder if your definition disqualifies Pathfinder; I haven't had many good experiences with their official module materials.


Clearly, I must have acknowledged an order to do just that. :smallbiggrin:
Always happy to be of service. :smalltongue:

noob
2021-12-28, 05:08 AM
Ok, so you’re… nope, “I recognize that I am confused”.

My wording:
Roleplaying is making decisions for the character, in character.

This requires looking at things from the character’s PoV, using the fiction, not the rules.

Blah blah how the rules rate one’s performance when roleplaying is the simple metric for a games suitability to be played as an RPG.

Ok, yeah, I’m bad at communication. :smallredface:

So I recently made a big post that, were I to summarize and merge with a response to this comment, might look like this:
Look at how many decisions / decision points you make in a session.

(Optional: remove decisions with no real agency or expectation of actual action)

For each (remaining) decision, use the rules to evaluate the character perspective response.

Count how many times the rules give a “?”-“???” grade to that action / how many times a player choosing that action would be considered “noob” - “disruptive” / how many times the game was not designed to handle that response.

(Ok, I’ll admit, when you’re not using a published module / the CR system / some published expectations for the system, it’s really dang hard to describe this step in a way that isn’t subjective. So, switching to “module speak” for a moment,)

For each decision in the module (that the system says should be appropriate), count how many of those decisions must be taken in rules stance to avoid breaking the module / breaking the module’s expectations / to avoid a TPK.


You’re measuring the number of decision points that the game’s expectations clearly are based around being played in rules mode rather than in roleplaying stance. And that proportion is the game’s suitability to be played as an RPG.

Or, slightly more mathematically complex, you measure the percent efficacy of the RP actions vs the Determinator actions.

So, if, for 10 actions, 7 are valid to roleplay, that’s a 70% rating. Or, more math, if those 7 actions are, on average, only 80% effective, that’s a 56% rating.

Neither of these is the system I use, so feel free to use either variant of the simple metric.

That addresses your first point.

Your second point… you’re right, what I’ve communicated is a complete logic leap. But try it out with a few sessions from a few systems, and see what results you get.

For your third point… per the old “what is an RPG” / “what is roleplaying” threads, there is no common usage of the words. This metric is therefore predicated upon my definitions, which I’ll argue are superior to the Wikipedia (ie, some other random guy) definition of the term.

Your “bonus” point is quite interesting.


Did you read my post explaining that there was a fiction that matched the rules of dnd 4E perfectly and in which characters taking in account the rules for taking decisions would be in character?


There is fiction that matches the rules of dnd 4e: OOTS style dnd 4e stories where the rules of physics of the world are the rules of the game and where people knows most rules of the game.
Dnd 4e permits to roleplay in one of those fictions with basically 0 mismatch.
So dnd 4e is a roleplaying game according to the definition Quertus gave with even 0 mismatch between rule and fiction as long as you are playing in an OOTS 4e style setting.

There is no rule in real life that says that people in a fiction can not know the rules of the world they are in and take decisions in function of those(and no rules saying the rules of a fictional world must look like the rules of real life even sightly) hence why we are in this forum centred on a webcomic where it is exactly what the characters do.
With the fiction I described a dnd 4e character would have a score of 100% with the scoring system you gave.


IME, choose your own adventure books have the same problem as CRPGs, but less so: they cannot accept anything but pre-set scripts. If “it’s what my character would do” falls outside what’s coded, you have to break character and make a different choice. So arguably *every* decision has the potential to be impossible to make in character, giving them a 0% rating.
That system makes your score depend essentially only on the characters you pick thus making it extremely subjective.

In real life there is tons of decisions that have a 0% rating due to being impossible to do actions yet there is people who take those decisions every day.
Does it means real life is mismatched with the fiction of the characters in it?
Does it means that the very rule of real life might not allow someone very dumb to play their own role according to your rating definition?
Does it means nothing that favours decisions that makes sense is a role playing game with your definition if you are role playing someone insane?
Something being impossible should not penalise a rpg score by having a 0 rating: people try often impossible things and fails in any system even if it is real life itself.

Else I can prove that 99% of the rpgs have a score of approximatively 0 with your scoring system.
Here is general incompetentius: he learned uselessness extra hard and always have 1000000000000000 different decisions that does not makes sense and would not help for the situation.
Congrats now the score of the rpg is approximatively 0 unless it is "railroad 3000: no matter what you do you progress in the situation"

I have the feeling the issue you have is that you picked a fiction and characters that does not makes sense for dnd 4e but that you are willing to pick fictions and characters that makes sense for other games then say dnd 4e does not makes sense when put together with the characters and fictions you picked.

It is basically as if you decided "hey I am going to be a wizard in traveller and attempt to cast spells and try to tame dragons and mix ingredients in the hope to make magical potions" while traveller is about space adventures: of course you would feel disappointed when the wizard succeeds at none of that.

Max_Killjoy
2021-12-28, 09:31 AM
Making the GM and players do all the work for roleplaying is most assuredly not supporting roleplaying. Systems like Masks, which models the emotional state and self-image of characters and gives specific rules for adjudicating interaction, support roleplaying to a much greater extent than even 5e.

This is far more a matter of personal preference, than of objective scale.

Personally, I don't want often-vague mechanics loaded with GM fiat telling me how to roleplay my character.

Kymme
2021-12-28, 11:32 AM
This is far more a matter of personal preference, than of objective scale.

Personally, I don't want often-vague mechanics loaded with GM fiat telling me how to roleplay my character.

Yeah, I don't like the diplomacy system in D&D either. I very much prefer actual guidance and communication tools to keep people at the table on the same page. The games that actually do that are imo the best 'roleplaying' games.

Willie the Duck
2021-12-28, 12:05 PM
Ok, yeah, I’m bad at communication. :smallredface:
I just want to state that I appreciate this statement.


And how are other editions of D&D different? Whether something supports roleplay is probably a matter of opinion, but I certainly don't know of anything in other editions that require roleplay (though my knowledge of pre-WOTC D&D is minimal).

There are bits and bobs throughout, with each one being relatively arguable on whether it actually supports roleplaying (whether each being good rules being a completely separate issue). The TSR era reaction tables are actually a pretty solid 'slightly influenced by PC action random roll-based method of determining encountered entities' reaction' mechanic. Various classes have restrictions (either with mechanical heft or just guidance on for example with whom a ranger would adventure). Rules for getting keeps and followers at name level nudge/incentivize playstyle in what a character is expected to be interested in doing at a certain level (and slightly implies that you wouldn't want to start doing so before then).

All of this is around the margins, and it would be very easy to see something like B/X as a pure 'dungeon, then wilderness exploration, combat, and treasure hunting' board game+ for 90-95% of the system just as easily as one could do with 4e.


Echoing this. 5th has the most support, to my knowledge, for roleplay. It has Inspiration, and… yeah, that’s about it for a roleplay supporting mechanic. It’s just that 3rd and 4th have basically nothing in that vein.

If you want a system that REALLY supports roleplay, something like Fate is probably better. And that’s probably not even the best example out there-just what I can think of offhand.

Hillfolk/Dramasystem might rival it. Invisible Suns kinda sorta -- it is a pretty gamey 'the rules help you open doors and leap chasms and defeat foes' system for most of the 'doing' of the game. However, then the characters you make for it have all sorts of backgrounds and allies and relationships and interrelationships with other party member (optional) and even rules for your starting house and such. And then the XP system is set up so that you set goals for the character (usually RP based) and gain differing XP for succeeding and for failing to meet the goals.

Cluedrew
2021-12-28, 01:51 PM
Yeah, I don't like the diplomacy system in D&D either. [...] The games that actually do that are imo the best 'roleplaying' games.Agreed, or at least the ones I prefer. I can't actually argue they are strictly better because there is a trade-off in flexibility. But I still wouldn't call it support.

Pretty much because I use the word support to compare with free-form role-playing*. So given a system's rules and advice, how does running a given activity, campaign or character compare in amount of work to free-form role-playing. If it is easier than the system supports it, roughly equal and the system allows it (which is not actually the opposite of forbid here) and if it is harder than the system hinders it. Now I would say that it is a ranking (supporting something is better than allowing it which is better than hindering it) but unless you are going element by element there are trade-offs, putting in rules for one thing can get in the way of something else.

This is especially true in terms of personality and decision making mechanics (role-playing mechanics if you will) where there are a lot of conflicting options and concerns. So you can either pick something in support (say Blades in the Dark's Vice system) or just leave it open ended and allow anything.

Finally, yes D&D diplomacy rules are so bad that people hold them up as an example when they say good social mechanics cannot exist.

* Hey Quertus, is free-form a role-playing game in your view? (Also, I forgot to say this last time, although I agree with your reason why choose your own adventures aren't role playing games, I would like to point out the thing about pre-set scripts is not part of your definition.)

Quertus
2021-12-28, 05:33 PM
* Hey Quertus, is free-form a role-playing game in your view?

Um, I don't know, what does my sniff test / either simple metric say? (I'm told "freeform" has a definition somewhere, that I am unfamiliar with…)


(Also, I forgot to say this last time, although I agree with your reason why choose your own adventures aren't role playing games, I would like to point out the thing about pre-set scripts is not part of your definition.)

I mean, it *is* part of my definition, once you grok it.

In character, you decide to "shoot the hostage" or "steal the cow". How does the system handle that? "If you give up your gun to the farmer, turn to page 17. If you keep your gun trained on the farmer, turn to page 52. If you attempt to shoot the farmer, turn to page 9."

The system doesn't handle your in character action at all, and completely demands that you drop out of role-playing mode to play the game. That's exactly what the metric is measuring (albeit, it's usually more subtle than that (EDIT: like "ban" vs "soft ban" levels of skill difference required to notice)). That is to say, this is the über obvious version of exactly what my metric is measuring. If your heuristic to emulate my metric doesn't catch the hard stop of "play the game as a game or don't play" of a choose your own adventure book, you should definitely refactor your heuristic.

Quertus
2021-12-28, 05:46 PM
I mean, it does bring up even more questions. It does make me wonder why independently published material should be the determining factor in a RPG,

Eh, how can I put this? Oh, I know: it's like when I pick on Halls of the High King, by Ed Greenwood. It's Ed's module, with Ed's NPCs, on Ed's world. It's not a misinterpretation, it's genuinely authoritative (heh).

So, I'm trying to say… I guess… that it's only fair to measure the game being played "as designed". With modules published by the authors of the system. Or with the CR system. Or some other baseline that came from the authoritative source.

If such is available.

If not… then… you can only do the best you can do, you know? But it's trying to give the game a fair shake at being measured for what it's supposed to be.

Does that make any sense?

EDIT: also, I was *wording* it as "module speak", not mandating that you *must* use published modules.

erikun
2021-12-28, 06:00 PM
Yes, it makes sense. Thank you for replying.

I think I'm going to step out of the thread at this point, though. My main purpose was to get a better idea of how you were framing your metric, to better understand it. A lot of discussion can end up in the details without trying to look the whole thing over comprehensively. It was also to see if perhaps I could learn anything from it, or getting a better understanding of things from the discussion.

I'm not sure that I did - I pretty much disagree with nearly all points you've made - but it has raised one or two questions. Not necessarily relevant questions to the discussion, but it's appreciated to get them. I do give thanks for engaging me to this point, but by now I think that I would likely just end up repeating the points I've already made so I think I'll just drop out around now.

If something else interesting pops up in the discussion, though, I might pop back in. :smallamused:

Witty Username
2021-12-28, 07:47 PM
I think this is as good a time as any to mention that I don't know anything about 4e (er, that is to say I played it once but I didn't really understand it).
I am here because of the RPG definition, not the 4e falling this way or that.

False God
2021-12-28, 10:41 PM
I think this is as good a time as any to mention that I don't know anything about 4e (er, that is to say I played it once but I didn't really understand it).
I am here because of the RPG definition, not the 4e falling this way or that.

Then this would be an excellent opportunity to read up on it!

Considering this "RPG definition" relies heavily on ya know, 4E.

Witty Username
2021-12-29, 12:13 AM
Then this would be an excellent opportunity to read up on it!

Considering this "RPG definition" relies heavily on ya know, 4E.

Not really, this RPG definition is supposed to define what is an isn't. Whether or not 4e is am RPG doesn't change whether this definition is practical, functional or descriptive.

The fact it as far as I can tell could disqualify all of D&D seems like a pertinent issue.

I mostly have concerns on the clause that seems to imply that the rules must be understood in-charater, since that gets awkward at the character creation step. And rules must conform to all the game relevant fiction has some issues.

GeoffWatson
2021-12-29, 12:55 AM
Quertus's definition (RPG Players much always think in terms of fiction and never think in terms of rules) would mean that all of D&D, and the vast majority of what most people call RPGs are not RPGs.
There are a few freeform RPGs where the GM keeps the rules secret (or just makes them up as he goes along), which Quertus might like.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-29, 01:41 AM
Quertus's definition (RPG Players much always think in terms of fiction and never think in terms of rules) would mean that all of D&D, and the vast majority of what most people call RPGs are not RPGs.
There are a few freeform RPGs where the GM keeps the rules secret (or just makes them up as he goes along), which Quertus might like.

Any game runs into this issue. When do sessions end or begin? That's not a fiction concern at all, yet it matters a lot and is a decision players have to make.

Players can't think entirely in the fiction. They're not there. And even freeform has rules, even just meta ones like "don't be a jerk to others." And those rules constrain actions.

By this definition, RPG doesn't exist. Which makes it a rather unuseful definition.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-29, 04:01 AM
My contention is, the suitability of a system to be played as an RPG is measurable by how often is asks you to replace roleplaying decisions with non-roleplaying decisions.

To my mind, “please roleplay… but not when using words with an ‘e’ or ‘t’” is more grievous than “please roleplay… but not when using words that end in ‘z’ or ‘que’”.

So saying “please roleplay… but here’s a lot of rules that invalidate your ability to roleplay” is an issue. How much of an issue depends on how many decisions that invalidates.

And? I've repeatedly pointed out you can do the test, it's your benchmark that's off. Look at what other posters are telling you. Plenty of them are wondering "so if 4th edition D&D fails the test, by what standard does any edition of D&D pass?" That's a pretty good sign that either you're trying to fine-tune your benchmark due to motivated reasoning, or that your benchmark is set so high it doesn't describe how games are really played. Again: you could skip setting a benchmark and the related semantic argument entirely by just saying it's a measure for how good or bad a roleplaying game is.


When I took aikido, there were certain throws that were made more or less difficult based on relative body size. The “spherical cows” nature of the base abstraction, the difficulties working with standard human failings and imperfect actors did not make aikido not a martial art.

So, you agree with me that trying to remove "subjective failings" and "human imperfections" is pointless for a functional definition? :smalltongue:

(For those who can't follow: widespread "Aikido isn't a real martial art" claims are analogous to Quertus' "4th edition D&D isn't a roleplaying game" claim.)


However, “fail-do” (the lesson as understood by the worst student, as they might pass it along if transported to another world without martial arts) is another matter. Regardless of how perfectly their students implemented the lesson of “fail-do”, it simply wouldn’t be functional.

The worst actual student for every real art is one incapable and unwilling of performing that art at all. Similarly the worst possible player for every real game is one incapable and unwilling of playing that game.

Which is why we don't care about these people when defining them. Don't equivocate meanings of "functional".

Cluedrew
2021-12-29, 08:16 AM
Um, I don't know, what does my sniff test / either simple metric say? (I'm told "freeform" has a definition somewhere, that I am unfamiliar with...)When I use your sniff test I get completely different results than you. From the choose-your-own-adventure topic it seems I still don't know how to apply it.

Which again gets down to my main issues, which I will further condense into two main points: 1) Is this a definition others can use. 2) Is this a definition others want to use.

We have been talking mostly about the first issue. The measure and threshold, trying to create an objective way to determine whether a given game is a role-playing game or not. I think you know what I am talking about. The second has mostly just been me, talking about language and possible insults and so on. But I realized that even if you did manage because I don't see the value in the definition. You can work on these two issues in either order, but I think you are going to have to do both.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-29, 08:53 AM
As a comment on that tangent, choose-your-adventure books frequently are simple roleplaying games, which is why tabletop roleplaying games (D&D, Rolemaster, Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game, Lamentations of the Flame Princess etc.) have used them in tutorials for how to play more complex games. They demonstrate all basic building blocks of roleplaying games and how to string them together in a playable form. Complaining about how they can only handle pre-set decisions with pre-set outcomes is focusing on the wrong thing; a player is still making decisions when they play. This, and related asinine arguments around game completeness, would logically entail that a game ceases to be roleplaying game if a game master has prepared well enough in advance. That's nonsense. It's time you people just accepted that a complete game with limited number of choices can still be a roleplaying game. Thinking of what would be the minimum number of decisions to qualify would be more fruitful than most of this conversation so far.

Related, the idea that choose-your-adventure books have LESS problems than computer games when it comes to prescripted decision points, is completely counterfactual. Choose-your-adventure books are a technological PRECURSOR to text-based adventure games on a computer. It's technologically trivial to create computerized text-based adventure and roleplaying games that rival or exceed them. They've been reduced to a niche game genre (despite easy-to-use editors for creating such games being available for free, and having been available for well over two decades) because logic and physics-engine based games have more potential for emergent gameplay, and because power of modern computers allows for better visual presentation than just text. So it's time you stop lying to yourself of what has been and can be done on computer too. :smalltongue:

Telok
2021-12-29, 11:20 AM
As a comment on that tangent, choose-your-adventure books frequently are simple roleplaying games, which is why tabletop roleplaying games (D&D, Rolemaster, Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game, Lamentations of the Flame Princess etc.) have used them in tutorials for how to play more complex games.

As a kid I came to despise those books. People kept getting them for me, they were all written in terribly simplistic language, and I could never get even half way through them. Apparently they required decisions that I was incapable of making when trying to make choices as though I were the character. Never finished any of them.

I've also never seen that used as a rpg tutorial for anything. Intro adventures and tutorial adventures that I've seen have always been 1-on-1 or small group focused, never the choose-your-own format. I did end up with an early AD&D one player module at one point (lost in a move, I recall a lion shaped castle & a 1st level wizard as the only available character, but it was a node map with simple 1-mindless-monster encounters & traps or ability checks instead of the "choose a path" sort of thing. Died a lot too when trying it as I recall, but thats 4 hp and ac 10 for you.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-29, 11:37 AM
Lamentations of the Flame Princess tutorial booklet, from 2010 Grindhouse boxed set, would be a good relatively recent example of how to use choose-your-adventure format to explain basics of a roleplaying game - complete with notes of where the full game would have more choices. The format is the same as it was in MERP / Rolemaster in the 80s and, I think, Mentzer's version of Basic D&D.

Willie the Duck
2021-12-29, 12:00 PM
and, I think, Mentzer's version of Basic D&D.

Yes, that was the version with it. Moldvay-Cook instead had a sample adventure.

Quertus
2021-12-29, 04:52 PM
Not really, this RPG definition is supposed to define what is an isn't. Whether or not 4e is am RPG doesn't change whether this definition is practical, functional or descriptive.

The fact it as far as I can tell could disqualify all of D&D seems like a pertinent issue.

I mostly have concerns on the clause that seems to imply that the rules must be understood in-charater, since that gets awkward at the character creation step. And rules must conform to all the game relevant fiction has some issues.

Agreed that 4e’s status does not change the functional or descriptive value of the metric or associated definitions. I’m very glad that you understand that simple truth. :smallbiggrin:

My poor example of 40 badly worded decision points failed at its intended task, which included explaining this bit: it’s the choices you make during the game, during expected play in the system, that are being measured. Nothing else.

The character creation minigames occurs outside of standard play. As would an after-session write-up.

It’s also only measuring making the choices, not actually mechanically implementing the results of that choice. That is, it’s fine if you’re rolling dice and counting squares after you declare, “I drop a grenade in the middle of the mess hall”. It’s fine to play the game for the resolution of the action, not for the decision of what action to take.

It’s not “the rules must be understood in character”; that’s backwards, like database “buttons have shirts and shirts have owners”.

Instead, think of it as, the choices you make in character, in ignorance of the rules, should make sense.

Like, irl, you expect gravity to work, right? If you walked outside, raised up your arms, and started floating off the ground, you’d be shocked, right? That doesn’t match the fiction that lives in your head about how gravity works.

Well, if I tried to code “Reality 2.0”, and gravity just stopped working for things with their “arms” up (explaining why trees need roots), you’d think that a really bad implementation of reality.

But, because we’re clueless bumbling humans (so-called), and because we need metrics to measure things, we’re hitting it backwards to get a metric. Yes, someone who knows the rules of Reality 2.0 will do all kinds of things involving raising their arms to remove gravity. But looking at someone who thinks in terms of irl? They’ll “fail” when changing clothes, or at other oddball times, and be horrifically suboptimal compared to a Determinator at, say, the long jump, or 3d navigation of obstacles.

Measuring the in-character actions, and how the rules grade them compared to a Determinator just playing the rules, is what I’m then flipping to measure how good the rules are for facilitating roleplaying in that system.

Measuring at the decision points in the expected gameplay.

Also, I’m not requiring a score of 100%. You seem to assume that any error will result in “failure to be an RPG”. The metric is simply the degree of suitability to be played as an RPG.

If, hard stop, every moment you don’t spend as a turtle, immune to surprise, is a guaranteed TPK? That doesn’t match the fiction that lives in our head for how Robin Hood or Thor or their realities work. If in character you would congratulate the bride, but the system doesn’t allow that action, only offering, “If you throw a mud pie, turn to page 112; if you travel back in time, turn to page 1”, it’s not suited to being played as an RPG.


Quertus's definition (RPG Players much always think in terms of fiction and never think in terms of rules) would mean that all of D&D, and the vast majority of what most people call RPGs are not RPGs.
There are a few freeform RPGs where the GM keeps the rules secret (or just makes them up as he goes along), which Quertus might like.

See above. I’m not requiring a score 100% (spherical sacred cows on a frictionless outer plane, and all that), merely that choices made during core gameplay loops be possible through in-character perspective, and those actions produce reasonable results close to those that the system expects.


Again: you could skip setting a benchmark and the related semantic argument entirely by just saying it's a measure for how good or bad a roleplaying game is.



So, you agree with me that trying to remove "subjective failings" and "human imperfections" is pointless for a functional definition? :smalltongue:

(For those who can't follow: widespread "Aikido isn't a real martial art" claims are analogous to Quertus' "4th edition D&D isn't a roleplaying game" claim.)

Agree (as NichG has been pushing) that I should focus just on the metric.

You’ve got the “aikido” part completely backwards, however.

Aikido “is a real martial art” because it works when you remove human error. “4e isn’t an RPG” because it increasingly fails as you remove human error. … is closer.


When I use your sniff test I get completely different results than you. From the choose-your-own-adventure topic it seems I still don't know how to apply it.

Which again gets down to my main issues, which I will further condense into two main points: 1) Is this a definition others can use. 2) Is this a definition others want to use.

We have been talking mostly about the first issue. The measure and threshold, trying to create an objective way to determine whether a given game is a role-playing game or not. I think you know what I am talking about. The second has mostly just been me, talking about language and possible insults and so on. But I realized that even if you did manage because I don't see the value in the definition. You can work on these two issues in either order, but I think you are going to have to do both.

Boy oh boy, how to explain?

I think I’ll spoil this for length, but, if anyone actually understands the psychology of the insult, I’d appreciate their input.

Back in college, my Art Appreciation professor said we were “normal”. Facing the front, I couldn’t tell you if I was alone in emoting outage at that statement, but the professor shortly said that we *should* feel insulted by his comment.

But why? I mean, I know it’s false - I’m a genius, and a klutz, and have terrible reading comprehension, and… well, I’m dreadfully far from average, in a great many ways. But why should I care more about that false statement than, say, someone claiming that my hair is pink?

As as much as I love ❤️ human psychology, I don’t study it in the classic sense, I just make observations and hypothesis about myself and the alien beings that surround me, and test my hypothesis out in RPGs.

But my theory is, the reason one falsehood is insulting and the other isn’t is because I have invested a portion of my self image in one of those, but not the other. This would track with the way that some people seem to feel insulted when they believe it possible that the logical conclusion of applying my model might be that they weren’t roleplaying, rather than simply evaluating the truth and value of the model and the conclusion.

I like to be wrong, because being wrong presents an opportunity to learn and grow. It’s a standard human failing to be invested in a wrong idea, to be invested in being wrong. It’s like the advice to authors, that people don’t like to think - they like to believe that they are thinking. Most people would rather persist in being wrong than grow, than challenge their beliefs.

It’s this falling that made the scientific community chide Mendel for his work on genetics, or ____ for wanting safety equipment added to nuclear reactors (is that safety device in the smokestack still named ____’s folly?).

So, as the gravest insult I can level, I honestly believed it was possible that, between my poor communication skills, and everyone’s all too human biases and investment in their beliefs, that it was possible my idea would get no traction, get rejected out of hand, by people who should otherwise know better, rather than for some actual fault of the definitions or metric. Heck, in this thread, we’ve even seen backsliding on things like the concept of definitions, or subjectivity. It’s clear that, if people are actually posting in good faith, rather than playing devil’s advocate, or simply providing me the opportunity to practice my expression, that their minds are playing tricks on them, to protect them from seeing an uncomfortable truth. Which itself would be a form of evidence for the accuracy of the model, when normally sane posters (a category from which I am, happily, exempt) start making such errors.

I believe that everyone who has posted in this thread is more than capable of understanding the simple idea that I’m trying (and failing) to convey in this thread. I believe that more than half of the posters are capable of pointing out errors in the concept, if there are any. And, indeed, in this thread for the simple model, people have, in fact, pointed out numerous errors (some of which I haven’t even replied about yet). Thus far, these errors are… hmmm… indicative of *incompleteness* of the model or its explanation, rather than an *error* of the model, if that distinction makes any sense. Senility willing, I’ll update the model accordingly at some point (even if the updates are only limiting the scope of the model).

So, is this a definition that others can use? Yes, if they can abandon their preconceptions. Is this a definition that people will want to use? I believe so, even if it may take generations for people to recognize that fact.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-29, 05:09 PM
You’ve got the “aikido” part completely backwards, however.

Aikido “is a real martial art” because it works when you remove human error. “4e isn’t an RPG” because it increasingly fails as you remove human error. … is closer.

It's you who got the point I was making backwards. You trying to use Aikido as an example is particularly lucky for me, because it makes explaining where you went wrong very easy: your argument for 4th edition D&D not being a roleplaying game is analogous to many widespread arguments for why Aikido isn't a martial art.

As for the point you're trying to make of Aikido, it's outright counterfactual. No-one's ever done Aikido free of human error - no-one's ever done any art free of human error, so you can't use that as an argument for why something works. The corollary you're trying to make for 4th edition is a complete non-sequitur and I cannot make any sense of it.

KillianHawkeye
2021-12-29, 07:33 PM
Also, I’m not requiring a score of 100%. You seem to assume that any error will result in “failure to be an RPG”. The metric is simply the degree of suitability to be played as an RPG.

Wait, wait, wait.

Now you must amend your opening statement "D&D 4e is not an RPG" to something like "D&D 4e does not fail to be an RPG, is just not a suitable RPG according to Quertus' exacting standards." But we all knew that's what you were really saying all along. And the discussion can finally end.

Telok
2021-12-29, 08:08 PM
Hmm. So we're talking a metric arrived at through the frequency & magnitude of fiction/rules outcome mismatches that occurr during play.

Something like a common fragmentation grenade exploding within 4 meters of someone has a 10% kill, 20% maimed, 50% hospital stay, 10% walking wounded, 10% "fully heals in 2 days without medical attention" is probably low on the mismatch scale except when "called shot grenade to the head" has the same results, but its a somewhat rare issue. So that's probably a low nuisance dissonance and you'd need then happening constantly in play to affect the metric.

On the other hand a choice between "jump in starship & chase the bad guys who have a 2 day head start to reach the superweapon thats at most 5d6 days travel away" and "spend 10d6 days upgrading the spaceship before chasing the bad guys" is a trap because you absolutely have to upgrade the ship or the inevitable "random" level appropriate space combat will be a TPK. Even outside official adventures you need to stop after a couple weeks of say, dinosaur hunting, to upgrade the ship or else the next time anything violent happens in space yoy're likely to TPK because the rules say "only party level +/-2 encounters" and "1 in 6 random combat encounter per day of space travel". That sort of thing is a bigger hit on the metric because it seriously conflicts with any coherent fiction on a regular basis.

So we're either in the "I know it when I see it" personal feeling zone or you'd need a way to measure the magnitude of the events and figure some typically allowable range.

Khedrac
2021-12-30, 03:42 AM
I'm not saying that people are not having a very intersting and possibly useful discussion of the nature of RPGS, but I do think that those people who are saying that Quertus is incorrect have missed one of Quertus' stated conditions that the definition of an RPG has to meet:

So much I’d like to say. But, what can I say, I’m dedicated to being able to say, “4e is not an RPG” in peace. Even if it means more posts than I can process to get there. Hmmm… As you’ve been fond of saying, “all models are wrong, only some are useful”. You’d need to demonstrate how my model isn’t useful for me to abandon it. Which, with comments that show that my model is understood to and has value to some, that prospect would be vanishingly difficult.
Until you can factor this in to your position, Quertus is not going to accept it based on his openly stated goal.

noob
2021-12-30, 06:00 AM
I'm not saying that people are not having a very intersting and possibly useful discussion of the nature of RPGS, but I do think that those people who are saying that Quertus is incorrect have missed one of Quertus' stated conditions that the definition of an RPG has to meet:

Until you can factor this in to your position, Quertus is not going to accept it based on his openly stated goal.

I did prove Quertus model was useless for him by proving that by picking the fiction and characters you can make 4e be the most rpg of all the rpgs (by picking an OOTS style setting and characters that knows the very rules of the universe like what is done in the "will save world for gold" comic) or make any game not be a rpg (by including general incompetentius which will cause a 100% mismatch between the character decisions and the game rules) thus proving his system depended on the fictions and characters you picked for evaluating rpgs thus making it not objective. Here Quertus is intentionally picking intentionally dissonant characters and settings to deRPGify 4e while with other choices on characters and settings we get vastly different results.

Willie the Duck
2021-12-30, 08:48 AM
I'm not saying that people are not having a very intersting and possibly useful discussion of the nature of RPGS, but I do think that those people who are saying that Quertus is incorrect have missed one of Quertus' stated conditions that the definition of an RPG has to meet:

Until you can factor this in to your position, Quertus is not going to accept it based on his openly stated goal.

My response would be goody gumdrops for Quertus, let them have at it. Quertus clearly already wants to use their model, and super-clearly doesn't think of 4e as an RPG regardless of what anyone thinks or says.

This reminds me of an meme I've seen floating around the intarwebs for a while now -- some guy with a folding table out on what looks like a college quad with a sign on the front which says something along the lines of 'the world is flat, convince me I'm wrong' (with people editing in whatever they like as the first part). The intent seems to be to lampoon 'that guy' that thinks if no one has convinced them they are wrong, then their argument must be good. It certainly fails because most people won't have a particularly strong incentive to do so, since, well why should we care?

Same applies here. Quertus can, in effect, declare, 'no, the burden of proof is on all of you!' all they want. It doesn't change anything. Unless they actually convince others that this model is meaningful and useful (or the side premise that, since the formal definition of RPG is underwhelming, that their definition is as good as any), everyone leaves the discussion exactly as they came in -- with everyone else having a relatively similar colloquial understanding (if not shared verbiage) of what an TPG is, and Quertus has their own definition they already clearly have no intention of abandoning.

oxybe
2021-12-30, 09:30 AM
My response would be goody gumdrops for Quertus, let them have at it. Quertus clearly already wants to use their model, and super-clearly doesn't think of 4e as an RPG regardless of what anyone thinks or says.

This reminds me of an meme I've seen floating around the intarwebs for a while now -- some guy with a folding table out on what looks like a college quad with a sign on the front which says something along the lines of 'the world is flat, convince me I'm wrong' (with people editing in whatever they like as the first part). The intent seems to be to lampoon 'that guy' that thinks if no one has convinced them they are wrong, then their argument must be good. It certainly fails because most people won't have a particularly strong incentive to do so, since, well why should we care?

Same applies here. Quertus can, in effect, declare, 'no, the burden of proof is on all of you!' all they want. It doesn't change anything. Unless they actually convince others that this model is meaningful and useful (or the side premise that, since the formal definition of RPG is underwhelming, that their definition is as good as any), everyone leaves the discussion exactly as they came in -- with everyone else having a relatively similar colloquial understanding (if not shared verbiage) of what an TPG is, and Quertus has their own definition they already clearly have no intention of abandoning.

I think the meme you're thinking of is Steven Crowder "Change my mind" meme. I won't go in his background, you can check that out if you feel so inclined, but the idea behind the meme is that he frequently sets up these "booths" at a liberal leaning campus or town with a table, film crew & sign that says something along the lines of "male privilige is a myth" or "hate speech isn't real" and grabs whatever incensed recent high school graduate who likely hasn't done research on the given topic and "debates" them on it, usually coming out on top because no "argument" (and i use the term argument loosely. because these aren't debate team veterans with a slew of research at their side, but some recent high school graduate who are half-rambly/stumbling to make their point on the spot VS someone who's decently charismatic/boisterous and already practiced their talking points and common arguments beforehand) is likely going to change his mind (which is already set in stone anyways).

In short: it's a rather dishonest attempt at a conversation/debate.

Willie the Duck
2021-12-30, 10:56 AM
I think the meme you're thinking of is Steven Crowder "Change my mind" meme. I won't go in his background, you can check that out if you feel so inclined, but the idea behind the meme is that he frequently sets up these "booths" at a liberal leaning campus or town with a table, film crew & sign that says something along the lines of "male privilige is a myth" or "hate speech isn't real" and grabs whatever incensed recent high school graduate who likely hasn't done research on the given topic and "debates" them on it, usually coming out on top because no "argument" (and i use the term argument loosely. because these aren't debate team veterans with a slew of research at their side, but some recent high school graduate who are half-rambly/stumbling to make their point on the spot VS someone who's decently charismatic/boisterous and already practiced their talking points and common arguments beforehand) is likely going to change his mind (which is already set in stone anyways).

In short: it's a rather dishonest attempt at a conversation/debate.

Genuinely interesting (and a hair's breadth from real world politics, so I'll leave it alone). I've never personally understood the appeal of trolldom, but I'm sure they get plenty of the low hanging fruit satisfaction of hijacking peoples' better judgement and 'getting one over on them' or whatever. The original intent behind the meme is rather tangential, though, as even the big bad internet seems to recognize that it's a 'what exactly do you think you've proven?' moment. For my purposes, it's the attempt to flip the script on burden of proof (and how that doesn't actually work towards any meaningful end) that is the key component of the parallel. Quertus can declare the thread purpose to be others convincing them to abandon the model if they so desire, but unless they provide a convincing (to others) argument for those others to buy into the model, everyone leaves the thread exactly as they started (and all but Quertus have no incentive to feel like they've failed in any way by not changing Quertus's mind).

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-30, 11:08 AM
Genuinely interesting (and a hair's breadth from real world politics, so I'll leave it alone). I've never personally understood the appeal of trolldom, but I'm sure they get plenty of the low hanging fruit satisfaction of hijacking peoples' better judgement and 'getting one over on them' or whatever. The original intent behind the meme is rather tangential, though, as even the big bad internet seems to recognize that it's a 'what exactly do you think you've proven?' moment. For my purposes, it's the attempt to flip the script on burden of proof (and how that doesn't actually work towards any meaningful end) that is the key component of the parallel. Quertus can declare the thread purpose to be others convincing them to abandon the model if they so desire, but unless they provide a convincing (to others) argument for those others to buy into the model, everyone leaves the thread exactly as they started (and all but Quertus have no incentive to feel like they've failed in any way by not changing Quertus's mind).

An old poem says "A man convinced against his will/Is of the same opinion still." Since there is no objective standard for "proof" in situations like this, the whole concept of "burden of proof" isn't useful. Any of us will judge evidence that we like as being real evidence, while discounting "evidence" we don't like as long as we don't want to be convinced. That's why this whole conversation is totally pointless. As are 99.999999+% of arguments and debates, both in person and (especially) on the internet. Trying to change someone's mind about something requires first a willingness to change. And I've seen no evidence of that on, well, any side here.

(If it's not clear, I'm agreeing with you).

JNAProductions
2021-12-30, 11:13 AM
An old poem says "A man convinced against his will/Is of the same opinion still." Since there is no objective standard for "proof" in situations like this, the whole concept of "burden of proof" isn't useful. Any of us will judge evidence that we like as being real evidence, while discounting "evidence" we don't like as long as we don't want to be convinced. That's why this whole conversation is totally pointless. As are 99.999999+% of arguments and debates, both in person and (especially) on the internet. Trying to change someone's mind about something requires first a willingness to change. And I've seen no evidence of that on, well, any side here.

(If it's not clear, I'm agreeing with you).

110% of Internet statistics are made up. :P

I disagree with your hyperbole-I've seen, on this very forum, people change their minds because of well-reasoned arguments. And on another forum I frequent too! It's more common here than the other one, but it certainly happens. As for in-person, my friends and I frequently disagree initially, but come to a compromise or a shared conclusion.

I don't think this thread is going to result in any changed minds, but plenty of times, minds are changed.

Cluedrew
2021-12-30, 11:19 AM
So, is this a definition that others can use? Yes, if they can abandon their preconceptions. Is this a definition that people will want to use? I believe so, even if it may take generations for people to recognize that fact.Would you like to leave your contact information so I can send my grandchildren can continue this conversation?

More seriously, where you getting all this confidence from? You are basically claiming to be the only one in this thread and the 2-3 previous threads who understands the truth and the result of us are stumbling around in the dark.

You are the one asking for a change, the burden on proof is on you here. Although if you really are worried about preconceptions why don't we reframe the discussion a bit. Why don't you just talk about why you don't like 4e for a bit and we can talk about how that relates to its possible role-playing game status later.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-30, 11:44 AM
110% of Internet statistics are made up. :P

I disagree with your hyperbole-I've seen, on this very forum, people change their minds because of well-reasoned arguments. And on another forum I frequent too! It's more common here than the other one, but it certainly happens. As for in-person, my friends and I frequently disagree initially, but come to a compromise or a shared conclusion.

I don't think this thread is going to result in any changed minds, but plenty of times, minds are changed.

You're right. I was being hyperbolic with the number. I'll also admit to using a somewhat idiosyncratic definition of "argument" (distinguishing it from "discussion", the former being about proving the other person wrong (or yourself right), the latter being about coming to a conclusion about what the best answer is to a question). I find that attacking other people's positions (trying to prove them wrong) is only useful under very particular circumstances[1]; the more productive way is to ignore the "wrong" and build on shared, common ground and show why (you believe) your position is better, with the flexibility to abandon your position if good evidence comes up. But as I said, that requires an innate willingness to change your opinion.

Edit: I'll note that this is something I recognize, but am not particularly good at implementing personally. I try, but yeah. I fail at it a lot. Which is why it bugs me.

[1] It's worked when discussing matters of physics among equally-qualified physics students or practitioners, with the clear cultural understanding that we're attacking the position or the evidence, not the person. And working from very clear, shared understandings of what constitutes proof in those narrow conditions. Outside of that? I've not seen that style work. I've seen it make people really mad and defensive, though.

JNAProductions
2021-12-30, 11:46 AM
Yeah, I hear ya. And agree 100% with that.

Telok
2021-12-30, 12:32 PM
internet. Trying to change someone's mind about something requires first a willingness to change. And I've seen no evidence of that on, well, any side here.

Its a minor thing, but years and years ago I decided to make decisions based on evidence. It has required me to change my stance on some things and has occasionally been uncomfortable. The issue of course is reliable information & analysis. This is why when I write for gaming stuff I make simulators & spreadsheets & graphs to map out the results of subsystems. I change things based on if the subsystem returns desired results and ranges of results.

I think Quertus just has a badly expressed measurement system for the suitability of a game to be what Quertus defines as a RPG. Unfortunately, untill the measurement system & definition are very well communicated you can't have a fruitful discussion and attempts to argue the validity or accuracy are probably futile. I recall seeing some of this in the D&D 3.x tier discussions when people tried to them for more than theoretical optimization maximums.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-30, 12:38 PM
Its a minor thing, but years and years ago I decided to make decisions based on evidence. It has required me to change my stance on some things and has occasionally been uncomfortable. The issue of course is reliable information & analysis. This is why when I write for gaming stuff I make simulators & spreadsheets & graphs to map out the results of subsystems. I change things based on if the subsystem returns desired results and ranges of results.

I think Quertus just has a badly expressed measurement system for the suitability of a game to be what Quertus defines as a RPG. Unfortunately, untill the measurement system & definition are very well communicated you can't have a fruitful discussion and attempts to argue the validity or accuracy are probably futile. I recall seeing some of this in the D&D 3.x tier discussions when people tried to them for more than theoretical optimization maximums.

What counts as "evidence" is a subjective thing. Everyone must decide it for themselves. Some communities have cultural standards, but this one? Yeah, doesn't. How important is DPR? How much do the assumptions of the model bias the result? How frequent are the situations you're modeling against? Etc. And most importantly "what do you value?" Ie what are the metrics you're choosing? That's a free choice, leading to substantial room for subjective bias.

I've found that trying to be "evidence-based" in my design has made things worse. Because I end up focusing on the numbers, which are generally the part that matters least. A focus on what is measurable tends to end up being the drunk man looking for his keys under the lamp post.

I'll admit to severe personal bias here--as a teacher, I heard the admonition to be "evidence-based" in my teaching all the time. What it turned out that meant was "do whatever the fads say." When I actually read the studies (coming from a hard science PhD background), I found their standards of evidence and argumentation laughably bad. That experience poisoned my take on being "evidence based" in anything subjective.

Edit: I guess what I'm opposing here is false objectivity. Objective is not better than subjective, necessarily. When the matter at hand is subjective, trying to force it into a metric-based "objectivity" means that you fail to capture a lot of what's important. Values and tastes and priorities are inherently subjective quantities, and "metrics" and "evidence" don't help much. And it's those that are at the root of this "discussion." And most of others on this forum and in general.

Telok
2021-12-30, 12:56 PM
Oh gods no. Teaching is (opinion) a bad place for forcing excessive & over generalized metrics. I'm talking about subsystems like "space travel with dangers" where the ins & outs are well defined.

Like theres a game where shooting a gun is rolling level + skill d10s and jamming a gun was set as rolling more 1s than your level (level & skill both go to 5, extra dice over 10 dice become bonuses). This meant a level 1 & skill 5 character jammed > 10%, a level 1 & skill 1 character never jammed. Then, because short range & aiming added dice, a level 1 gun bunny could get to roll 10 dice on a close & well aimed shot thus raising jamming to > 25%. Those are the sorts of things to model & look for flaws/tweaks.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-30, 12:59 PM
Oh gods no. Teaching is (opinion) a bad place for forcing excessive & over generalized metrics. I'm talking about subsystems like "space travel with dangers" where the ins & outs are well defined.

Like theres a game where shooting a gun is rolling level + skill d10s and jamming a gun was set as rolling more 1s than your level (level & skill both go to 5, extra dice over 10 dice become bonuses). This meant a level 1 & skill 5 character jammed > 10%, a level 1 & skill 1 character never jammed. Then, because short range & aiming added dice, a level 1 gun bunny could get to roll 10 dice on a close & well aimed shot thus raising jamming to > 25%. Those are the sorts of things to model & look for flaws/tweaks.

Yeah. Once you have a clearly-defined set of parameters, then and only then can metrics and models and numerical evidence really help. But most of what I do is building new stuff, for which metrics help very little, and a focus on metrics can reduce it to bland mush. It's more about theme and consistency; the numbers themselves are fairly "off the shelf". And if you're wrong about the numbers, well, it doesn't matter as long as you're only off a little. And the only way to really know if you're off is to playtest.

Dr. Murgunstrum
2021-12-30, 01:27 PM
Ye gods, is this strawman still being bandied about?

Either D&D, the progenitor of all tabletop RPGs, is not an RPG, for a myriad of abstracted mechanics that have no place in a fictional simulation of reality (this is all editions: looking at you Hit Points)

Or salty grogs need to let go of a dead argument of how encounter or daily powers fit the fiction.

The worst example of this is the Alexandrian’s vain attempt to distinguish “story telling games” from “role playing games” trying to imply that any form of non-diagetic influence you have on your character’s story disqualifies a game from being a roleplaying game (which of course disqualifies all editions of D&D, and basically every RPG that abstracts anything)

It’s a very long walk for a sandwich that was rotten to begin with.

4e is an RPG because the players assume the role of characters and make decisions in play based on that role. All the fuss about why an archer can’t make a pinning shot twice in ten minutes is irrelevant: it’s an abstraction that represents the billions of physical interactions being simulated in narrative.

The archer can have simply gotten lucky, and luck, like magic, divine intervention, mystical or mutant power, is fickle and doesn’t exist outside of fantasy.

And of course, 4e is a fantasy game, so all dailies and encounters are governed by the fiction of that fantasy. Rejecting the fiction of that is as silly as saying “it’s impossible to store a magic spell in your brain and instantly forget it, so Vancian magic can’t be part of an RPG”

Telok
2021-12-30, 01:49 PM
It's more about theme and consistency; the numbers themselves are fairly "off the shelf". And if you're wrong about the numbers, well, it doesn't matter as long as you're only off a little. And the only way to really know if you're off is to playtest.

Space travel, average crew, short easy trip on an established route with navigation aids, no penalties:
Success plotting a course 29%
Badly off course (arrive lightyears off course & retry the trip) 3%
Demon incursion 13%
Average trip time about 16 hours
Immediate emergency maneuvers required to avoid crashing into planet/station/whatever on exit from warp 24%

Some times the numbers are so wrong you don't need to playtest. Although in this case the playtest probably used PCs fling the ship themselves, with exceedingly above average abilities, to mitigate the issues.

In this example with expert PCs flying & partially gaming the system, who are also semi-superheros and like fighting demons on a regular basis, the system "worked". And for a certain style of fiction that assumes only the PCs use rules and the PCs are always trouble magnets with insane bad luck, its fine. But as soon as you aren't using a specific game style & a fiction specifically designed to justify the rules its a flop.

To my mind the system should say if it requires a particular, very specific, fiction & play style to work & make any coherent sense. Or it can run some tests (math, simulatio , & playtesting) and adjust the numbers/system to make it work with the usual & expected range of styles & fictions it claims to work for.

I suppose I dislike when a system or subsystem says "these are the rules for x" and then fails (math or making sense) when the unwritten assumptions aren't followed. The example I gave had the unwritten assumption of elite PCs running all aspects of the spaceship and all npcs getting narrative fiat successes & safe trips. So when the PC party didn't include a space navigator and elite pilot the system consistently gave nutso drama queen results. Then when they were complete passengers and npcs didn't game the system math quirks it started failing to produce believable results most of the time.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-30, 02:48 PM
That's one reason I prefer systems that don't try to make hard and fast statements about probabilities of events. Any rule-bound system will have edge cases where the fundamental assumptions aren't met and absurdity happens. People, generally, are better about avoiding that. But there's also the drive to "obey the rules", which leaves people feeling like their hands are tied.

I prefer guidance over crunch. And yes, systems should absolutely discuss in no uncertain terms their operating assumptions and intended (ranges of) play style and genre.

Witty Username
2021-12-30, 03:33 PM
So this is a definition that is less of, more of RPG rather than a yes/no RPG?

How would this list of games compare to each other on this definition?
AD&D
Call of Chultuhu
D&D 3.5
Dragon Age - 2
Talisman
Vampire the Masquerade

False God
2021-12-30, 08:52 PM
That's one reason I prefer systems that don't try to make hard and fast statements about probabilities of events. Any rule-bound system will have edge cases where the fundamental assumptions aren't met and absurdity happens. People, generally, are better about avoiding that. But there's also the drive to "obey the rules", which leaves people feeling like their hands are tied.

I prefer guidance over crunch. And yes, systems should absolutely discuss in no uncertain terms their operating assumptions and intended (ranges of) play style and genre.

But these aren't mutually exclusive concepts. In the same way that "playing from the perspective of the character" can't happen to the exclusion of the rules in a system other than Calvinball.

Edge cases are edge cases. Like the OP, they're a poor metric for if the game works(or subjectively is "good") because there will always be edge cases. The best advice and the best set of numbers can never totally eliminate them. And no, that's not a judgement on which is better at handling them, which is better is entirely dependent on the sort of game you're designing and sort of gameplay you're intending to generate.

Quertus
2021-12-30, 09:14 PM
As that would be a straw-man, I don't think I will bother with either. Why aren't you just giving the actual system? If its long write it out, put it in a big spoiler. I probably will not understand it all the first time but we can go back and forth a few times.

Yeah, I'm going to second this argument. The fact that we don't have a good definition to reflect the common usage doesn't mean there isn't one.

Humans are association engines, noticing similarities and patterns. So, roughly speaking, a role-playing game is something that seems similar to existing role-playing games. So if there are a bunch of features that commonly show up in role-playing games and you see it in another game, then its probably an RPG. And if you caught my change in language there, that is in fact how we got the tabletop/pen-and-paper vs. computer split, because different people focused on different parts of the D&D like role-playing game. And both populations were large enough to establish both words (or meanings of the word depending on how you want to look at it). And as of yet you have not convinced enough establish a new word, but maybe you will if you keep at it.

Of course, from earlier in this discussion (not this thread, possibly not even in A Model of Immersion but before even that) we talked about a similar thing and you said you were trying to build a more scientific definition that was testable and that is how I have been viewing your new word/definition ever since. Still not sure why you want it to be a homonym of role-playing game and I could open that one back up to, but for now I will not.

Ah, this thread is just for discussing the simple metric (which, :smallredface:, I realized could / should be at least 2 metrics.

But note how the 2nd is simply “higher fidelity” than the first. The “complex metric” just tries to iron out *all* the spherical cows. It’s the same core logic, but as approached by an OCD mad scientist. :smallwink:

It’s much easier to discuss the core logic in the simple, spherical cows versions. Even if, at times, it means that I just nod and say, “spherical cows”.


Yes, it makes sense. Thank you for replying.

I think I'm going to step out of the thread at this point, though. My main purpose was to get a better idea of how you were framing your metric, to better understand it. A lot of discussion can end up in the details without trying to look the whole thing over comprehensively. It was also to see if perhaps I could learn anything from it, or getting a better understanding of things from the discussion.

I'm not sure that I did - I pretty much disagree with nearly all points you've made - but it has raised one or two questions. Not necessarily relevant questions to the discussion, but it's appreciated to get them. I do give thanks for engaging me to this point, but by now I think that I would likely just end up repeating the points I've already made so I think I'll just drop out around now.

If something else interesting pops up in the discussion, though, I might pop back in. :smallamused:

Hope you’re still reading: disagree, like strawberry 🍓 vs chocolate 🍫 , or think I’m straight up logic error wrong?

If the latter, think there’s any chance you can explain my error to me?


Hmm. So we're talking a metric arrived at through the frequency & magnitude of fiction/rules outcome mismatches that occurr during play.

Something like a common fragmentation grenade exploding within 4 meters of someone has a 10% kill, 20% maimed, 50% hospital stay, 10% walking wounded, 10% "fully heals in 2 days without medical attention" is probably low on the mismatch scale except when "called shot grenade to the head" has the same results, but its a somewhat rare issue. So that's probably a low nuisance dissonance and you'd need then happening constantly in play to affect the metric.

On the other hand a choice between "jump in starship & chase the bad guys who have a 2 day head start to reach the superweapon thats at most 5d6 days travel away" and "spend 10d6 days upgrading the spaceship before chasing the bad guys" is a trap because you absolutely have to upgrade the ship or the inevitable "random" level appropriate space combat will be a TPK. Even outside official adventures you need to stop after a couple weeks of say, dinosaur hunting, to upgrade the ship or else the next time anything violent happens in space yoy're likely to TPK because the rules say "only party level +/-2 encounters" and "1 in 6 random combat encounter per day of space travel". That sort of thing is a bigger hit on the metric because it seriously conflicts with any coherent fiction on a regular basis.

So we're either in the "I know it when I see it" personal feeling zone or you'd need a way to measure the magnitude of the events and figure some typically allowable range.

Ok, awesome, sounds like you’ve got a good handle on the metric! :smallcool:

Now, what’s the next step? Hmmm.…

Count out how many decisions the players had during the course of that session / those sessions.

Count how many of those decisions *must* be made OOC (ie, “eh have to upgrade the ship now, else TPK)”

Calculate the fraction (or percentage, or whatever number stuff you like to use) of those decisions that can be made in character.

That’s the simplest simple metric. Done.

Optional: if you want to use the slightly more mathematically complex simple metric, take those decisions that *can* be made in character (ie, “I’ll take a penalty to hit in order to guarantee that this grenade hits you in the face.… even though, mechanically, that has the same effect as the grenade exploding 4 meters away), and measure the percent / fractional efficacy of the roleplaying choice compared to the Determinator choice.

Calculate the average efficacy of the roleplaying choice for those choices that can be made in roleplaying mode.

Multiply those two fractions together.

That’s the mathematically more complex metric.

So, if a session has 20 actions, and 5 are “upgrade the ship or TPK” OOC logic, then 15, or 3/4, or 75% are doable from roleplaying stance. So the game is 75% suitable to be played as an RPG.

However, if those 15 IC actions are, on average, about 20% less effective than the Determinator answer, then you only get 80% effect on that 3/4 of the actions, so roleplaying only nets 60% of the total effectiveness available in those choices.

And a choose your own adventure book has about 0 decision points where you can make the in character choice, so it’s about 0% suitable to be played as an RPG.

The simplest simple metric measures the portion of actions that *can* be taken in character, the mathier one measures the effectiveness of IC actions.

Sound even remotely actionable?

If so, feel free to use either metric for (your memory of) the decisions from a few different systems, and let us know the results.


I'm not saying that people are not having a very intersting and possibly useful discussion of the nature of RPGS, but I do think that those people who are saying that Quertus is incorrect have missed one of Quertus' stated conditions that the definition of an RPG has to meet:

Until you can factor this in to your position, Quertus is not going to accept it based on his openly stated goal.

Touché.

So, I’m lazy, and selfish. I really didn’t think I’d get much out of this thread, and that it would be a pain. So the only reason I bothered was because I was being called out on my running gag.

So, yes, from one point of view, that was my “goal”. It’s fair to say that, if I achieved that goal, I’d be done with this topic.

Or, well, would have been, if people didn’t have any questions, and hadn’t demonstrated that the model needs some polish, and that the expression thereof needs a case or two of polish.

However, that’s not the only possible end condition. Demonstrating a fundamental logic fault in any step would force me back to the drawing board.


Would you like to leave your contact information so I can send my grandchildren can continue this conversation?

More seriously, where you getting all this confidence from?

Probably the same place your confidence that you understood me came from.

More seriously, simple pattern recognition. Or, as you might say, I’m an association engine, too. When this many intelligent people seem to want to prove me wrong, but make cases this poor, I, historically, tend to have completely failed at communication or at least have a point, if not be right. And some people getting traction on the basic concepts removes the “it’s just because I worded it too poorly” case.

People have pointed out numerous small problems, but nothing fundamentally wrong with the core logic.


You are basically claiming to be the only one in this thread and the 2-3 previous threads who understands the truth and the result of us are stumbling around in the dark.

You are the one asking for a change, the burden on proof is on you here. Although if you really are worried about preconceptions why don't we reframe the discussion a bit. Why don't you just talk about why you don't like 4e for a bit and we can talk about how that relates to its possible role-playing game status later.

Yes, I’m claiming that I was the only one who understood me. Or, well, who demonstrated sufficient understanding and engagement. Or something. However, I believe that this is no longer the case. Some people actually have traction on the idea now that I’m focusing on the simplified version of the metric. (Because, you know, I was, formerly, too daft to think of this part as being the core, having initially come at it from the opposite direction. Yeah, I thought of this as derivative initially.)

And, if someone who understands what I’m saying points out a critical flaw in the logic, then I learn something.

And, maybe, once people understand what I’m talking about.… well, honestly, I think you were the only one pestering me about my running gag, so if *you* get a good handle on my metric, we can discuss whether my running gag has grounds for existing. Of course, anyone who understands my metric could discuss how any system fairs, or what fiction they are using to evaluate a system. So it’s possible I could come to a conclusion on that topic without you.


You're right. I was being hyperbolic with the number. I'll also admit to using a somewhat idiosyncratic definition of "argument" (distinguishing it from "discussion", the former being about proving the other person wrong (or yourself right), the latter being about coming to a conclusion about what the best answer is to a question). I find that attacking other people's positions (trying to prove them wrong) is only useful under very particular circumstances[1]; the more productive way is to ignore the "wrong" and build on shared, common ground and show why (you believe) your position is better, with the flexibility to abandon your position if good evidence comes up. But as I said, that requires an innate willingness to change your opinion.

Edit: I'll note that this is something I recognize, but am not particularly good at implementing personally. I try, but yeah. I fail at it a lot. Which is why it bugs me.

[1] It's worked when discussing matters of physics among equally-qualified physics students or practitioners, with the clear cultural understanding that we're attacking the position or the evidence, not the person. And working from very clear, shared understandings of what constitutes proof in those narrow conditions. Outside of that? I've not seen that style work. I've seen it make people really mad and defensive, though.

This feels like it needs / deserves a post all its own, if not its own thread. Because, yeah, that’s some good stuff there.

Not only did my player clearly dump charisma when building me, they also made me a genius in a most obnoxious way, that some things are just *obvious* to me, and I cannot even comprehend how to explain them.

Sadly, what I know here isn’t that I’m right, but what valid arguments against the core logic of what I’m saying should look like. Yeah, *really* not helpful, believe me, I know. The one thing I’m completely incapable of making progress on is helping define what constitutes proof.

But at least, unlike in other threads, there’s evidence of some people getting traction on what I’m saying.

Which, if there was some *obvious* fault in the core logic, and they trusted me to be able to listen, should have come out by this point. If there is such an obvious error, but they don’t think I’ll hear it, there should be a little dancing of establishing communication protocols, followed by them hitting me with a clue-by-four.

Given the current state of understanding, if that doesn’t happen soon, then I’ll have to conclude that there’s at least nothing *obviously* messed up in the core logic. Which, of course, still leaves many shades of subtlety of potential errors, but who has the attention span to think about those anymore? :smallamused:

The details, well, I’ve clearly bungled those half a dozen ways. I *really* shouldn’t be responsible for *explaining* things. Much like reading comprehension, it’s not one of my strengths.

(You and I are working from a very different set of assumptions / givens. My read of the old “what is roleplaying / what is an RPG” threads led to my summary of, “there is not a consensus, there is not a common usage of the word / phrase”. Worse, we conceptualize / use the very concept of a definition differently. For us, sadly, starting at common ground would require several threads to precede this one. And, given how all the chopped up elephant bits lie rotting, I doubt such complex interactions as starting all the way back there would require would ever obtain traction. However, I’ll not deny, it may be interesting to try nonetheless some day, just to see if anything of value can be found along the way.)

Vahnavoi
2021-12-31, 02:07 AM
@Quertus: stop convoluting your measure with unnecessary additions. Namely: drop every argument and every paragraph relying on a hypothetical "determinator" to determine "efficacy" of roleplaying.

Reason: as I pointed out before, who your character is, is part of the rules in a roleplaying game. The hypothetical "determinator" is a very specific character viewpoint. If your character is a cowardly 10-year-old girl, playing them as "the determinator" is in fact against spirit (and likely, letter) of game rules. How efficient said 10-year-old girl then is compared to "the determinator" is absolutely irrelevant for measuring if game is suitable to be played as a roleplaying game.

For similar reasons, your argument for giving choose-your-adventure books (and other prescripted games) a 0 rating is fallacious. Another poster, noob, already called you out on this. When a prescripted game gives you a defined character, you aren't allowed to feed arbitrary character assumptions into the game to argue absence of choices "break character". Nowhere is it required for a game to give you unlimited choice to stay in character. Instead, you have to evaluate if the given choices make sense for the given character.

If you still don't spot the fallacy, consider: in real life, people frequently encounter situations where they have to decide from a limited set of choices. A limited set not having the one option you'd pick from an unlimited set does not mean the limited choice you do make is not informed by your viewpoint on the matter.

Lacco
2021-12-31, 02:54 AM
@Quertus: stop convoluting your measure with unnecessary additions. Namely: drop every argument and every paragraph relying on a hypothetical "determinator" to determine "efficacy" of roleplaying.

Reason: as I pointed out before, who your character is, is part of the rules in a roleplaying game. The hypothetical "determinator" is a very specific character viewpoint. If your character is a cowardly 10-year-old girl, playing them as "the determinator" is in fact against spirit (and likely, letter) of game rules. How efficient said 10-year-old girl then is compared to "the determinator" is absolutely irrelevant for measuring if game is suitable to be played as a roleplaying game.

Also, the line between "upgrade ship else TPK" and "upgrade ship because my character would not feel safe venturing forward in a ship that's not state-of-the art" is...a bit blurry.

So again, very subjective. And would lead to "any D&D is not suitable to be played as an RPG".

Because you can think of IC reasons to almost anything if you bend your brain enough :smallbiggrin:. Example: "I'm out of spells, let's stop and rest after 5 minutes of adventuring".

Telok
2021-12-31, 04:08 AM
Also, the line between "upgrade ship else TPK" and "upgrade ship because my character would not feel safe venturing forward in a ship that's not state-of-the art" is...a bit blurry.

Actually when we played it the scenario was that we'd last leveled the ship about two levels ago, were a couple few days behind the bad guys, and the system was... numerically balanced on what I'd consider jankey principles.

In character the bad guys were potentially 5d6 days away from a superweapon that could nova multiple stars anywhere in the galaxy from anywhere in the galaxy with no warning and no known upper limit to the number of stars exploded. The bad guys knew were behind them but had set at least three deady encounters up before they left, knowledge of where they were going wasn't supposed to exist any more, and tracking ships through drift-space was impossible. As a bonus they'd never space attacked us with anything but super wimpy trash space fighters and were down (we believed) to only thier main ship.

Out of character their main ship was literally larger & more dangerous than the published level 20 ships and obviously wasn't a fight for a level 7 party & ship. On the other hand our ship point value (severe jank: ship value was a totally separate track from actual party wealth, to the point that we joked we were so broke the "good space fairies" would magically upgrade our ship out of pity because the rules said the ship got upgraded basically no matter what) had... I think about doubled over the last 2 levels. Any way, it needed everything upgraded. Even taking 10d6 days would only have about half upgraded it. There was also no expectation on (or communication to) the player side that the game would move at the speed of plot, so time could have been an actual factor.

We made the semi-in-character decision to take 4d6 days and just upgrade the real space & hyper space engines and just run from the inevitable "random" space encounter. Of course later we learned that we were doing "speed of plot" and we could have spent two months doing side quests & upping the ship while still being just a couple days behind the bad guys. As it was fleeing the "random" space encounter left us under geared (gear costs about doubled every 2 or 3 levels & system assumed you had level +/-1 gear) & about a level behind where the adventure assumed we would be (it was a triple encounter: space fight & boarding action & counter boarding all against level+1 opponents and a level +2 or +3 boss, much xp & loot).

I could be off on some details as I didn't read the adventure, but its what the DM told us later. But in character we needed to catch up as fast as possible, were broke & calling in unspecified but limited favors to get any upgrades, and could outrun anything we didn't already out gun. By the system we should have taken all the time needed to up the ship, and gone full in on killing & stripping & selling anything we possibly could even if we had to spend weeks backtracking to a major city for buy/sell.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-31, 05:01 AM
That doesn't sound like a system level contrivance. That sounds like a basic scenario level contrivance, where the stated time limit is not an actual time limit.

Quertus
2021-12-31, 09:18 AM
@Quertus: stop convoluting your measure with unnecessary additions. Namely: drop every argument and every paragraph relying on a hypothetical "determinator" to determine "efficacy" of roleplaying.

Reason: as I pointed out before, who your character is, is part of the rules in a roleplaying game. The hypothetical "determinator" is a very specific character viewpoint. If your character is a cowardly 10-year-old girl, playing them as "the determinator" is in fact against spirit (and likely, letter) of game rules. How efficient said 10-year-old girl then is compared to "the determinator" is absolutely irrelevant for measuring if game is suitable to be played as a roleplaying game.

For similar reasons, your argument for giving choose-your-adventure books (and other prescripted games) a 0 rating is fallacious. Another poster, noob, already called you out on this. When a prescripted game gives you a defined character, you aren't allowed to feed arbitrary character assumptions into the game to argue absence of choices "break character". Nowhere is it required for a game to give you unlimited choice to stay in character. Instead, you have to evaluate if the given choices make sense for the given character.

If you still don't spot the fallacy, consider: in real life, people frequently encounter situations where they have to decide from a limited set of choices. A limited set not having the one option you'd pick from an unlimited set does not mean the limited choice you do make is not informed by your viewpoint on the matter.

I honestly cannot imagine how you picture my metric, to cause you to make such a statement.

So, please, in your own words, explain what you think my metric is, and what it would be sans Determinator, so that I can have a clue how to respond.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-31, 09:49 AM
Go back and read your own damn description. Your metric, sans any reference to "the determinator", can be expressed as either ratio of roleplaying decisions to non-roleplaying decisions, or ratio of real time spent roleplaying time ratio of real time spent on other game actions. You yourself then describe comparison to "the determinator" as an extra step taken to modify this value.

I'm telling you the latter step is unnecessary.

Telok
2021-12-31, 07:25 PM
That doesn't sound like a system level contrivance. That sounds like a basic scenario level contrivance, where the stated time limit is not an actual time limit.

It was really more of a combination of two two in that exact instance, but the system issue of "the ship must keep up in level with the party or else any encounter (because all encounters should be level appropriate) will TPK" and the issue with the writers getting thier numbers right but basing everything on the party, their gear, and everything being at the right level is quite real.

That system didn't come out and tell you that everything had to be level +/- 1 or 2 in order for it to work, it was implied but not stated. Any time a DM deviated from everything about the party being on-level (usually by accident) the game started to break. Once that happened either the DM had to start breakng rules to keep the game working or they just gave up in frustration.

Part of the upshot was that the DM and/or players had to make in game choices based on the game rules in order for the game to work. Things that made sense in character or in the fiction at times had to take a back seat to what the game rules required in order to not break the game or TPK the party. The total decoupling of spaceship power with anything except party level was just one example, and it led to broader issues than just requiring one adventure to use "speed of plot".

Cluedrew
2022-01-01, 11:32 AM
People have pointed out numerous small problems, but nothing fundamentally wrong with the core logic.There are a lot of things I could say (I think I understood the simplified model, which is why I am not interested in doing that again. Yes, someone else could figure it out, but that doesn't mean I can't try) but I am going to pick on this one.

I don't think the core logic is not really the issue though. Your three opening points are basically boil down to "role-playing games should be about role-playing and to this end fiction and mechanics should match". At that level, sure, good enough. If that is what you mean by core logic then we are good. The problem is you then state that you are done and 4e is not an RPG. There is no bridge there, no way to apply that concept as a check*. All the ways suggested to bridge that so far have required play and are dependent on the group and module, not just on the system itself.

Very simple example, if everyone else plays their character like a faceless pawn, it is pretty hard to have character moments with them even if you are playing a character with a detailed personality. So other people having more interest their characters could change all the results. That doesn't seem like an objective measure to me.

So how should we standardize it? Well, standardizing it to a particular group is useless if you are not in that group (the problem with the 7-year-old measure), and at the extremes any group probably could role-play in any game (you talked about this in Chess), or avoid role-playing in any game (I've seen people approach very fiction focused games like they are D&D, the result is painful) so what does leave us?

Well that leaves us with our personal experiences. And let me tell you, I was role-playing as much in 4e as I was in 3.5e or 5e (or at least 5e & 4e, 3.5e may have been a bit worse). So I have run your simple tests already and all three systems got the same score. Woot! It turns out this was all a false alarm and 4e was a role-playing game all along. I am being silly. But the results are true, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if your results match up with what you are saying. But that's your table not mine, so why should I use them?

So yeah, I don't think you can put an objective measure on a system like that. So many other factors come into it to shift it around I don't think any measure can give you a definitive result.

* There is also the issue of whether or not it is the right check. But let's leave that for now.

Dr. Murgunstrum
2022-01-01, 02:24 PM
Now, what’s the next step? Hmmm.…

Count out how many decisions the players had during the course of that session / those sessions.

Count how many of those decisions *must* be made OOC (ie, “eh have to upgrade the ship now, else TPK)”

Calculate the fraction (or percentage, or whatever number stuff you like to use) of those decisions that can be made in character.

That’s the simplest simple metric. Done.



By that metric, any game where you are playing the role of a character has you making those decisions 100% in character.

So by this metric 4e, 5e, 3.x, AD&D, that starship repair game, all fully immersive.

The disconnect seems to be your misunderstanding of what an in character decision is.

Most RPG’s assume a core competency for the PCs. If you’ve been travelling in space or delving dungeons, there’s an awareness the character has that allows you to make long and middle term decisions (assess the ship, hire a mechanic, install new parts, etc) in seconds rather than minutes, hours or days:but make no mistake, the decision is still in character.

100% immersion is absolutely possible.




Optional: if you want to use the slightly more mathematically complex simple metric, take those decisions that *can* be made in character (ie, “I’ll take a penalty to hit in order to guarantee that this grenade hits you in the face.… even though, mechanically, that has the same effect as the grenade exploding 4 meters away), and measure the percent / fractional efficacy of the roleplaying choice compared to the Determinator choice.

Calculate the average efficacy of the roleplaying choice for those choices that can be made in roleplaying mode.

Multiply those two fractions together.

That’s the mathematically more complex metric.

So, if a session has 20 actions, and 5 are “upgrade the ship or TPK” OOC logic, then 15, or 3/4, or 75% are doable from roleplaying stance. So the game is 75% suitable to be played as an RPG.

However, if those 15 IC actions are, on average, about 20% less effective than the Determinator answer, then you only get 80% effect on that 3/4 of the actions, so roleplaying only nets 60% of the total effectiveness available in those choices.

And a choose your own adventure book has about 0 decision points where you can make the in character choice, so it’s about 0% suitable to be played as an RPG.

The simplest simple metric measures the portion of actions that *can* be taken in character, the mathier one measures the effectiveness of IC actions.

Sound even remotely actionable?



This is a lot of extra effort to arrive at the same conclusion.

The 5 decisions to repair the ship are entirely in character: during the 10d6 days that you’re on a space station, star base, dry dock, whatever, your character is receiving a ridiculous amount of feedback that to fully enact every second of it would take…. Well 10d6 days.

And unless you expect your RPGs to play out real time, then that information will be abstracted.

In this case, the players know that their ship is under equipped to voyage into space. And so do the PCs, because between talking to mechanics, other spacers at bars, vendors selling equipment, reading technical journals, watching the holonet, running training simulations, and all the other stuff professional space adventurers do in the hours between micro ten second decision moments that combat or danger are played at, they’ve acquired the information that allows you the Player decide the ship needs to level up.

So 20 actions taken, 20 actions taken in character.

100% immersion accomplished.

If you disagree, then your metric is the issue, your conclusions drawn from the metric (and therefore your understanding of the metric) are wrong or you’re simply not trying to play immersively and being dishonest.

Unless you’re doing a free form improvisation in real time, there is a rule set attached to the roleplay that frames and abstracts time and action. Without that, there is no game.

But as long as the interface for decision making is the role you are assuming, then all decisions are the decisions of the character, and therefore roleplaying.

And if you’re roleplaying while playing a game, that’s a roleplaying game.

kyoryu
2022-01-01, 02:31 PM
I do think that the amount of time spent on non-fiction stuff vs. fiction stuff is important. I'm actually not as convinced that in-character matters quite as much, though I'm willing to consider it.

I also do think that, absolutely, some non-in-character stuff breaks some people harder than others. There's a subjective nature to this that I don't think can really be gotten around.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-01, 02:54 PM
The two most frequent non-roleplaying time sinks in tabletop games tend to be character creation and system busywork. The former doesn't really need explaining, the latter means rolling dice, calculating values, checking tables etc.. System busywork isn't inherently opposed to roleplaying, in fact it usually exists to facilitate it, the reason why it often ends up detracting from roleplaying is because humans have limited brain power. Your work memory can only keep handful of things in mind at once, so if all of that is taken up by abstract variables for system math, little is left over for thinking what your character's motives are or how those variables are expressing them.

Quertus
2022-01-02, 06:36 AM
Your three opening points are basically boil down to "role-playing games should be about role-playing and to this end fiction and mechanics should match". At that level, sure, good enough. If that is what you mean by core logic then we are good.

Pretty much, yeah. So, cool.


The problem is you then state that you are done and 4e is not an RPG. There is no bridge there, no way to apply that concept as a check*.

Agreed. Let's pretend that was on purpose, that being able to say that was a test of "did you understand what i was saying", and not just me… being me. :smallredface:


All the ways suggested to bridge that so far have required play and are dependent on the group and module, not just on the system itself.

Eh, not exactly. Imagine if you were trying to measure temperature, but only had subjective humans to work with. Imagine trying to explain the concept, without any objective universe to access.

Same problem.

The most objective answer you can get to the expected gameplay loop is from the modules that the publisher created.

At each decision point, evaluating what a character *could* do, vs what the system expects / requires that you do, takes skills (of the type that GM planning routinely fails at). So, yes, one's skill with using the metric is limited to one's GMing skill (much like one's skill with a(n oldschool) thermometer is limited to one's visual acuity).


Very simple example, if everyone else plays their character like a faceless pawn, it is pretty hard to have character moments with them even if you are playing a character with a detailed personality. So other people having more interest their characters could change all the results. That doesn't seem like an objective measure to me.

So how should we standardize it? Well, standardizing it to a particular group is useless if you are not in that group (the problem with the 7-year-old measure), and at the extremes any group probably could role-play in any game (you talked about this in Chess), or avoid role-playing in any game (I've seen people approach very fiction focused games like they are D&D, the result is painful) so what does leave us?

Well that leaves us with our personal experiences. And let me tell you, I was role-playing as much in 4e as I was in 3.5e or 5e (or at least 5e & 4e, 3.5e may have been a bit worse). So I have run your simple tests already and all three systems got the same score. Woot! It turns out this was all a false alarm and 4e was a role-playing game all along. I am being silly. But the results are true, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if your results match up with what you are saying. But that's your table not mine, so why should I use them?

So yeah, I don't think you can put an objective measure on a system like that. So many other factors come into it to shift it around I don't think any measure can give you a definitive result.

Here, you've gone off the reservation. Maybe focus on how the hard stop of the choose your own adventure book is the epitome of failing the test, and work from there? Or how the ship that was perfectly safe to take out in space two days ago is now death trap, because you got more skilled?

Maybe if you start with the most obvious versions of what I'm talking about, you'll be able to say things that I can hear. Because I've no idea how any of that is relevant to my metric.


* There is also the issue of whether or not it is the right check. But let's leave that for now.

This could also qualify as a "core logic" issue.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-02, 10:11 AM
Very simple example, if everyone else plays their character like a faceless pawn, it is pretty hard to have character moments with them even if you are playing a character with a detailed personality. So other people having more interest their characters could change all the results. That doesn't seem like an objective measure to me.

So how should we standardize it? Well, standardizing it to a particular group is useless if you are not in that group (the problem with the 7-year-old measure), and at the extremes any group probably could role-play in any game (you talked about this in Chess), or avoid role-playing in any game (I've seen people approach very fiction focused games like they are D&D, the result is painful) so what does leave us?

Let's suppose I give you a functional definition of soccer. For purpose of this discussion, I'm going to copy-paste one from a dictionary: "A game played on a rectangular field with net goals at either end in which two teams of 11 players each try to drive a ball into the other's goal by kicking, heading, or using any part of the body except the arms and hands. The goalie is the only player who may touch or move the ball with the arms or hands."

You then point out to a game of soccer where some players are unable or unwilling to kick the ball, or repeatedly try to kick the ball to their own goal, or do something else that's directly against the definition. You ask "what about those people?"

You then point out a game of soccer where some players stop to do a comedy act in the middle of a game, in a way on which rules of soccer are completely silent. You ask "what about those people?"

The answer is that we don't care about those people for purposes of defining soccer. The functions, the description of what people do and are supposed to do, are the standard. People who are unable or unwilling to perform those functions, and people who go way outside those functions to do their own thing, are out of bounds for a game of soccer, and in a sane game, either the referee or other players will remove them from the game. The technical inclusion of these players in some game of soccer is not relevant to a functional definition of soccer.

Same deal, for functional definition of roleplaying games, people who are unable or unwilling to roleplay in roleplaying games, and people who somehow end up roleplaying in non-roleplaying games.

NichG
2022-01-02, 05:28 PM
I'm going to go back to the thing I suggested far up thread since it resolves this. Take the fiction of the setting as presented, then ask if that would be held up by the actions and choices of characters who knew the rules.

If you have a character who would be inert knowing the rules and knowing only the fluff, it cancels out.

Cluedrew
2022-01-02, 08:25 PM
Eh, not exactly. Imagine if you were trying to measure temperature, but only had subjective humans to work with. Imagine trying to explain the concept, without any objective universe to access.

Same problem.I think the problem is more like you are trying to establish an objective measure of when something is "hot". We can sort of figure out what is going on with fiction layer and mechanical decisions. But then you want to say that at some point this draws a line between role-playing games and not.


Here, you've gone off the reservation. Maybe focus on [these particular examples]?I don't think those examples need further discussion? (Right now, I don't care if the open ended choice is actually implied by the first post, we can get back to wording later.) No I am going to focus on the parts that need more discussion. And if this seems like a pretty important issue.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-03, 01:10 AM
I'm going to go back to the thing I suggested far up thread since it resolves this. Take the fiction of the setting as presented, then ask if that would be held up by the actions and choices of characters who knew the rules.

If you have a character who would be inert knowing the rules and knowing only the fluff, it cancels out.

This split between fiction and the rules continues to be ill-founded. Statements about what the setting is are rules for a roleplaying game - a character who knew all the game rules they're subject to, would know both "fluff" and "crunch".

Further, just like "the determinator", this is not a perspective we have any general reason to care about. Take any game where the rules state that some rules of the game are hidden from a player. A character who knew all the rules, would then know that their perspective is invalid for a player character, meaning for them to exist, someone has had to break the rules.

You should only care about character perspectives that are valid player characters for a given game. This includes knowing proper amount of setting knowledge and when setting "fluff" takes priority over "crunch" or vice versa, because those are game rules.

NichG
2022-01-03, 01:53 AM
This split between fiction and the rules continues to be ill-founded. Statements about what the setting is are rules for a roleplaying game - a character who knew all the game rules they're subject to, would know both "fluff" and "crunch".

Take any game where the rules state that some rules of the game are hidden from a player. A character who knew all the rules, would then know that their perspective is invalid for a player character, meaning for them to exist, someone has had to break the rules.

If you want to analyze hidden rules games with this, then just evaluate on the basis that a character knows whatever the person making decisions for that character knows, and the measure is the same

Vahnavoi
2022-01-03, 02:36 AM
That boils down to the part you didn't quote, which is that you should only care about character perspectives that are valid player characters for a given game.

NichG
2022-01-03, 02:52 AM
That boils down to the part you didn't quote, which is that you should only care about character perspectives that are valid player characters for a given game.

That's a value statement though, so I don't really see any reason to try to pretend that it's a point of logic.

The experience of playing a game in which you have to intentionally dissociate information is different than one in which you don't. The experience of playing a game in which the choice to intentionally dissociate information is left up to the player is also different. You might choose not to care about that difference in experience, which is fine - that's your 'ought'. But that's not the same as 'there is no difference', which isn't what you argued.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-03, 04:32 AM
I'm not arguing there is no difference to functions you list; I'm arguing games rules themselves make statements of which functions are rules-legal.

The actual overarching point I'm trying to make is that distinctions such as "fluff" versus "crunch" or "the fiction" versus "the rules" are ill-founded. For a roleplaying game, the fiction is part of the rules; the map versus territory problem only exists because a high level rule posits some territory to which lower level rules are supposed to map to. In absence of such a high level rule, it can just be accepted that the map is the territory, making it a non-issue. The contradictions you're counting for your measure are contradictions within and between game rules, specifically rules with same or unestablished priority order.

Which is where you get that "should". If you want to measure if following game rules leads to contradiction, you have to follow those rules. Which means you should only concern yourself with valid player characters for a given game. If you posit a character that's invalid, it is not a surprise if they end up acting counter to the game.

NichG
2022-01-03, 04:45 AM
I'm not arguing there is no difference to functions you list; I'm arguing games rules themselves make statements of which functions are rules-legal.

The actual overarching point I'm trying to make is that distinctions such as "fluff" versus "crunch" or "the fiction" versus "the rules" are ill-founded. For a roleplaying game, the fiction is part of the rules; the map versus territory problem only exists because a high level rule posits some territory to which lower level rules are supposed to map to. In absence of such a high level rule, it can just be accepted that the map is the territory, making it a non-issue. The contradictions you're counting for your measure are contradictions within and between game rules, specifically rules with same or unestablished priority order.

Which is where you get that "should". If you want to measure if following game rules leads to contradiction, you have to follow those rules. Which means you should only concern yourself with valid player characters for a given game. If you posit a character that's invalid, it is not a surprise if they end up acting counter to the game.

I'm not trying to measure if following the game rules leads to a contradiction though. I'm trying to measure cognitive dissonance, which is not the same thing.

Let's say the game book describes rules for magic that would let armies fly, then describes 'the top military power in the setting is based out of a mot and bailey fortress'. That's not a contradiction in rules - there can be both a fort behind a ditch and flying armies. But its an incoherent decision for the top military force to base itself out of a fort which could easily be attacked. Incoherent decisions aren't forbidden by rules, but create a particular feel which I think lies at the heart of what conflicts with Quertus' RP aesthetic. So that's what I want to measure.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-03, 05:03 AM
Cognitive dissonance is a feeling founded on a person trying to hold two or more contradictory beliefs, so any measure of it ends up counting contradictions. There is an apparent contradiction in the situation you describe, and there very well could be an actual contradiction, depending on how rest of the situation is detailed. There are also details which would solve the contradiction, and thus remove cognitive dissonance, such as flying armies being so new the top brass hasn't had time to adjust yet.

I'm confident this holds even when talking about Quertus specifically. :smalltongue:

Powerdork
2022-01-03, 07:01 AM
This thread seems to be a Quertus quibble about roleplaying games, but here's an angle that hasn't been considered: If you're making a non-zero amount of decisions that aren't in-character, it's for a more appealing story than the entirely in-character decisions version of events, and from that angle, perhaps storytelling games is a better way to describe it.

That said, it's very clear that that's not what this is about, so this shall be my only post in the thread.

Max_Killjoy
2022-01-03, 08:20 AM
This split between fiction and the rules continues to be ill-founded. Statements about what the setting is are rules for a roleplaying game - a character who knew all the game rules they're subject to, would know both "fluff" and "crunch".

Further, just like "the determinator", this is not a perspective we have any general reason to care about. Take any game where the rules state that some rules of the game are hidden from a player. A character who knew all the rules, would then know that their perspective is invalid for a player character, meaning for them to exist, someone has had to break the rules.

You should only care about character perspectives that are valid player characters for a given game. This includes knowing proper amount of setting knowledge and when setting "fluff" takes priority over "crunch" or vice versa, because those are game rules.

I think the point of "take the rules and see if they product the fiction" is to identify where the rules don't fit the fiction. It's objectively, coldly treating the rules as a hypothetical framework, and testing them to see if they produce the "observes results", in this case the "fiction" we think we're playing.

("Fiction" here meaning the setting, characters, and 'tone', the stuff that the rules are supposed to map/model -- not to be confused with "narrative", "story", or "genre".)

A big example would be the Tippyverse... the published, printed rules of D&D produce something in the vein of the Tippyverse, and nothing like any of the published D&D settings.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-03, 10:18 AM
How unlike Tippyverse is to published settings is often exaggerated. However, it is a great example of doing things backwards.

By the rules of D&D, its mechanics are not a first principles model of any setting. A dungeon master instead is meant to pick a setting and then cherry pick and interprete the mechanics in a way that fits said setting. Tippyverse, especially the detailed version(s) trying to fit in as much additional content as possible, does the opposite (aside from few specific assumptions, like silent gods, which are just normal setting building). Use rules in non-standard ways, get non-standard results, no surprises there.

By Tippy's own words, Tippyverse is incredibly fragile - remove teleportation circles and equivalents, and no such setting arises. No surprises there either - once you start treating rules of a complex game as first principles, it starts exhibiting features common of complex dynamic systems, such as high chaos and high sensitivity to small changes in initial conditions.

Max_Killjoy
2022-01-03, 10:27 AM
How unlike Tippyverse is to published settings is often exaggerated. However, it is a great example of doing things backwards.

By the rules of D&D, its mechanics are not a first principles model of any setting. A dungeon master instead is meant to pick a setting and then cherry pick and interprete the mechanics in a way that fits said setting. Tippyverse, especially the detailed version(s) trying to fit in as much additional content as possible, does the opposite (aside from few specific assumptions, like silent gods, which are just normal setting building). Use rules in non-standard ways, get non-standard results, no surprises there.

By Tippy's own words, Tippyverse is incredibly fragile - remove teleportation circles and equivalents, and no such setting arises. No surprises there either - once you start treating rules of a complex game as first principles, it starts exhibiting features common of complex dynamic systems, such as high chaos and high sensitivity to small changes in initial conditions.

IME, players (DMs included) don't approach D&D setting-first, at all. They approach it rules-first... the most common attitude I've seen in D&D can be summarized as "if it's in the books, it's in the game", with a very bitter and confrontational response to anything in the books being excluded or limited. That is, D&D is IME the go-to system for the "this is a game" approach.

And most of the text in various editions of D&D reads that way, advice to go setting-first and make whatever changes are needed is passing, buried in the DMG, or both.

(Hell, there was a time when Gygax expressed disdain towards houserules and changes, calling it "not playing D&D".)

kyoryu
2022-01-03, 10:57 AM
(Hell, there was a time when Gygax expressed disdain towards houserules and changes, calling it "not playing D&D".)

Well, to be fair with that, at that point Gygax was kind of reacting to people doing wildly different things with D&D and pushing towards a unified set of rules that could be used for, basically, a prototypical Organized Play type scenario.

KorvinStarmast
2022-01-03, 11:18 AM
Making the GM and players do all the work for roleplaying is most assuredly not supporting roleplaying. Systems like Masks, which models the emotional state and self-image of characters and gives specific rules for adjudicating interaction, support roleplaying to a much greater extent than even 5e. We once again see the fundamental mistake made in asserting that role-playing requires mechanics.
No, it doesn't.

Willie the Duck
2022-01-03, 11:21 AM
Well, to be fair with that, at that point Gygax was kind of reacting to people doing wildly different things with D&D and pushing towards a unified set of rules that could be used for, basically, a prototypical Organized Play type scenario.
Gygax also came down on both sides of nearly all issues at one point or another.


IME, players (DMs included) don't approach D&D setting-first, at all. They approach it rules-first... the most common attitude I've seen in D&D can be summarized as "if it's in the books, it's in the game", with a very bitter and confrontational response to anything in the books being excluded or limited. That is, D&D is IME the go-to system for the "this is a game" approach.

And most of the text in various editions of D&D reads that way, advice to go setting-first and make whatever changes are needed is passing, buried in the DMG, or both.

(Hell, there was a time when Gygax expressed disdain towards houserules and changes, calling it "not playing D&D".)

Interesting. Various cultural references or something had me thinking you would have cut your teeth in the 2E AD&D era, where the game was decidedly leaning towards 'this game works if you want a swashbuckling campaign, or Eastern/martial arts campaign, or a stone-age campaign, or a no-magic Peers of Charlemagne campaign. Just buy the relevant green or red/brown splatbook for ideas' mentality.

I only remember the 1e DMG actually saying you shouldn't change rules, and even then it was more caution tape than admonition not to.

kyoryu
2022-01-03, 11:32 AM
Gygax also came down on both sides of nearly all issues at one point or another.

Relevant quotes from the 1e DMG:


"What follows herein is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee. As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another. Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from “on high” as respects your game. Dictums are given for the sake of the game only, for if ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is to survive and grow, it must have some degree of uniformity, a familiarity of method and procedure from campaign to campaign within the whole. ADVANCED D&D is more than a framework around which individual DMs construct their respective milieux, it is above all a set of boundaries for all of the “worlds” devised by referees everywhere. These boundaries are broad and spacious, and there are numerous areas where they are so vague and amorphous as to make them nearly nonexistent, but they are there nonetheless."


"The danger of a mutable system is that you or your players will go too far in some undesirable direction and end up with a short-lived campaign. Participants will always be pushing for a game which allows them to become strong and powerful far too quickly. Each will attempt to take the game out of your hands and mold it to his or her own ends. To satisfy this natural desire is to issue a death warrant to a campaign, for it will either be a one-player affair or the players will desert en masse for something more challenging and equitable. Similarly, you must avoid the tendency to drift into areas foreign to the game as a whole. Such campaigns become so strange as to be no longer “AD&D”. They are isolated and will usually wither. Variation and difference are desirable, but both should be kept within the boundaries of the overall system. Imaginative and creative addition can most certainly be included; that is why nebulous areas have been built into the game. Keep such individuality in perspective by developing a unique and detailed world based on the rules of ADVANCED D&D. No two campaigns will ever be the same, but all will have the common ground necessary to maintaining the whole as a viable entity about which you and your players can communicate with the many thousands of others who also find swords & sorcery role playing gaming an amusing and enjoyable pastime."

Emphasis mine.

The communication is pretty clear to me - yes, you should muck with things. If you do muck with things, understand that if you muck with too much, your game will stop being understandable "as D&D" to someone that is used to playing with a game that is more in-line with the system as presented, and as such the ability of those players to converse about the shared hobby will be impacted.

People can disagree with this, but it still seems pretty far from the "play it exactly as written or you're doing it wrong" characterization that is often given. I suspect that's becuase prior to 1e, people were modifying D&D in vastly significant ways, to the point where you really couldn't talk about common experience.

I point this out not because I'm a Gygax fanboy (I'm not), but because I think criticism should be more accurately leveled at what was actually said, rather than a fourth-hand version of it.

Max_Killjoy
2022-01-03, 11:36 AM
Gygax also came down on both sides of nearly all issues at one point or another.



Interesting. Various cultural references or something had me thinking you would have cut your teeth in the 2E AD&D era, where the game was decidedly leaning towards 'this game works if you want a swashbuckling campaign, or Eastern/martial arts campaign, or a stone-age campaign, or a no-magic Peers of Charlemagne campaign. Just buy the relevant green or red/brown splatbook for ideas' mentality.

I only remember the 1e DMG actually saying you shouldn't change rules, and even then it was more caution tape than admonition not to.

I'm old enough for a mix of pre-AD&D and AD&D 1e to be my original exposure to D&D.

But I've NEVER believed the claim that D&D could run anything, it was always clear that this the game's reach exceeding its grasp.

kyoryu
2022-01-03, 11:41 AM
I'm old enough for a mix of pre-AD&D and AD&D 1e to be my original exposure to D&D.

But I've NEVER believed the claim that D&D could run anything, it was always clear that this the game's reach exceeding its grasp.

I mean, Star Frontiers and Gamma World were released as separate games, not sourcebooks, despite having a lot of similarity mechanically to D&D.

The "D&D can do everything" mentality seems to come from the fans, not TSR/WotC.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-03, 11:57 AM
IME, players (DMs included) don't approach D&D setting-first, at all. They approach it rules-first... the most common attitude I've seen in D&D can be summarized as "if it's in the books, it's in the game", with a very bitter and confrontational response to anything in the books being excluded or limited. That is, D&D is IME the go-to system for the "this is a game" approach.

What the game says and has said, and what player metagame says and has said, are two different things. Both for published settings and settings of individual game masters, using game mechanics as first principles for setting building has never been the norm.


And most of the text in various editions of D&D reads that way, advice to go setting-first and make whatever changes are needed is passing, buried in the DMG, or both.

(Hell, there was a time when Gygax expressed disdain towards houserules and changes, calling it "not playing D&D".)


Well, to be fair with that, at that point Gygax was kind of reacting to people doing wildly different things with D&D and pushing towards a unified set of rules that could be used for, basically, a prototypical Organized Play type scenario.

1st Edition AD&D books, which directly tell you in Gygax's own words how the game is imagined to work, quite clearly establish the setting-first approach, while also explaining what the purpose of common rules across settings is meant to serve. Shortly: the common rules framework is for player convenience, so they don't have to essentially learn a new game for every setting and every campaign.That never meant all content in the books is fair for every game, available spells and magic items have always been meant to be vetted on per campaign basis.

Gygax got a lot of undeserved flak for saying people going way outside rules of his game were no longer playing his game. Both as a basic observation and as opinion of a product manager, it made perfect sense. Still does. Games are defined by their rules, change the rules enough and you get a different game.

kyoryu
2022-01-03, 12:03 PM
1st Edition AD&D books, which directly tell you in Gygax's own words how the game is imagined to work, quite clearly establish the setting-first approach, while also explaining what the purpose of common rules across settings is meant to serve. Shortly: the common rules framework is for player convenience, so they don't have to essentially learn a new game for every setting and every campaign.That never meant all content in the books is fair for every game, available spells and magic items have always been meant to be vetted on per campaign basis.

Right. That's why I quoted the actual text :) I think it's pretty clear.

Colin McComb's "apology" about hte Complete Book of Elves kind of hammers that home, too. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwDWx1cAqP4)


Gygax got a lot of undeserved flak for saying people going way outside rules of his game were no longer playing his game. Both as a basic observation and as opinion of a product manager, it made perfect sense. Still does. Games are defined by their rules, change the rules enough and you get a different game.

Yeah, if you read the text, it's pretty clear, I think it's just been misquoted multiple times. I think it's entirely reasonable. At some point, if you house rule enough, you're playing a different game. That doesn't make it a bad game, just a different one.

Vince Baker says pretty much the same thing about Apocalypse World, except he's even more strict on how much change happens before it's "not Apocalypse World". And in both cases, I don't read "therefore it's bad", I read "therefore it's a different game which may be super fun, but is still a different game."

Quertus
2022-01-03, 12:17 PM
I don't think those examples need further discussion? (Right now, I don't care if the open ended choice is actually implied by the first post, we can get back to wording later.) No I am going to focus on the parts that need more discussion. And if this seems like a pretty important issue.

You think that your comments deserve discussion? Well, you’re not normally completely insane, so I’ll reply, and see if you show me some cool path that I just can’t see.


Very simple example, if everyone else plays their character like a faceless pawn, it is pretty hard to have character moments with them even if you are playing a character with a detailed personality. So other people having more interest their characters could change all the results. That doesn't seem like an objective measure to me.

So how should we standardize it? Well, standardizing it to a particular group is useless if you are not in that group (the problem with the 7-year-old measure), and at the extremes any group probably could role-play in any game (you talked about this in Chess), or avoid role-playing in any game (I've seen people approach very fiction focused games like they are D&D, the result is painful) so what does leave us?

Well that leaves us with our personal experiences. And let me tell you, I was role-playing as much in 4e as I was in 3.5e or 5e (or at least 5e & 4e, 3.5e may have been a bit worse). So I have run your simple tests already and all three systems got the same score. Woot! It turns out this was all a false alarm and 4e was a role-playing game all along. I am being silly. But the results are true, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if your results match up with what you are saying. But that's your table not mine, so why should I use them?

So yeah, I don't think you can put an objective measure on a system like that. So many other factors come into it to shift it around I don't think any measure can give you a definitive result.

If you’re roleplaying a completely faceless pawn, that in no way impacts my ability to roleplay my character’s responses to your character, or to the rest of the universe. And, even were that not the case, your faceless pawn is not a part of the system, and so is irrelevant to my metric.

I’ve talked about the purpose of the “7-year-old” abstraction; senility willing, I’ll quote myself.

It’s not about the subjective “can you roleplay in chess”, or the subjective experience of whether you feel like you’re roleplaying. The metric measures the decision points, and whether (like in a “choose your own adventure” book) you have to drop roleplaying stance in order to make a valid decision. It is simply measuring, “to what extent is this system suitable to being played in roleplaying stance?”.

Your own subjective experiences are only valuable in the context of my metric for measuring how reliable a witness you are, or how much you roleplay. They have no bearing on the metric itself.

So, let’s dial back to the most über obvious example: the choose your own adventure book format.

Pick one of your characters. Doesn’t matter the setting - I’ll do my best to make this setting agnostic.

Ready?

“As you are traveling along, using whatever ground transportation makes the most sense for your character and the setting, you come to the setting equivalent of a stoplight (person with the authority to tell you to stop, perhaps?), telling you to stop. There is mild cross-traffic at this intersection, but it is very slow moving, and there is a hole in traffic big enough for several of you to pass through easily.”

What do you do?

Come up with your in character response, and then we’ll see if it’s one that the system accepts as valid, or whether you have to metagame in order to continue playing.

That’s what my system is measuring: the potential for and effectiveness of in character actions. That’s it. No amount of “other PCs with all the personality of wet cardboard” or personal experiences change anything as far as my metric is concerned, only whether the system lets you make the choices you wood make, and grades them reasonably in accordance with the fiction.

(Yes, I see what autocorrect did. I’m leaving it.)

So, is there actually anything here worth discussing?

Max_Killjoy
2022-01-03, 12:22 PM
1st Edition AD&D books, which directly tell you in Gygax's own words how the game is imagined to work, quite clearly establish the setting-first approach,


I don't recall ANY edition of D&D EVER establishing a setting-first approach, ever, at any point.

Note, this would take more than a few lines of lip-service claiming that it's setting-first, it would require the overall text of the rules to support that approach.

Instead, it has always had an implicit setting built in.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-01-03, 12:49 PM
Yeah, if you read the text, it's pretty clear, I think it's just been misquoted multiple times. I think it's entirely reasonable. At some point, if you house rule enough, you're playing a different game. That doesn't make it a bad game, just a different one.

Vince Baker says pretty much the same thing about Apocalypse World, except he's even more strict on how much change happens before it's "not Apocalypse World". And in both cases, I don't read "therefore it's bad", I read "therefore it's a different game which may be super fun, but is still a different game."

I'll say that this thread, among many others, has indicated to me that defining the boundary between "is <game>" and "is not <game>" is...fraught with difficulty and subjectivity. And of little actual use in practice, other than to sate the human need for putting things in nice little boxes, by force if necessary.

I mean, there certainly is a point of differentiation at which we can generally say "yeah, that's a different game", but it's a heap problem drawing the line anywhere before that. For me, personally, the metric I use is "what book do I pull out first when looking for guidance on something game related? That's generally the system I'm going to call it." That's by no means a definition or a hard-and-fast rule, just a heuristic.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-03, 12:58 PM
My AD&D books are paper and inside a box, so I can't quote them as conveniently as kyoryu above, but Gygax emphasises importance of the dungeon master's vision of their setting (or "milieu", which is the word Gygax uses) several times throughout the ruletext. What you call D&D's implicit setting, is not a singular thing at all. It's a number of constants posited across settings. The room to have distinct settings is quite expansive. Again, if you try to do Tippyverse-style worldbuilding, just changing what spells are available at the starting point can radically change the outcome. The original thought experiment was strongly defined by mechanics of a single spell (teleportation circle).

kyoryu
2022-01-03, 01:35 PM
I'll say that this thread, among many others, has indicated to me that defining the boundary between "is <game>" and "is not <game>" is...fraught with difficulty and subjectivity. And of little actual use in practice, other than to sate the human need for putting things in nice little boxes, by force if necessary.

I agree with that 100%. When doing things like that, you really need to ask yourself why it matters.

I do think that the difference between "is game X and is not game X" is a little less fraught than "is not a <category>".


I mean, there certainly is a point of differentiation at which we can generally say "yeah, that's a different game", but it's a heap problem drawing the line anywhere before that. For me, personally, the metric I use is "what book do I pull out first when looking for guidance on something game related? That's generally the system I'm going to call it." That's by no means a definition or a hard-and-fast rule, just a heuristic.

I tend to go more inclusive than not. That's a good dividing line, along with "if someone likes <game> will they like this as well? If they don't like <game>, will they also dislike this?" If those don't match, it's probably migrated sufficiently that calling it <game> doesn't add a lot of value. So I guess I draw the line based on "is it valuable to call it this, or does it draw people to wrong conclusions?" rather than any kind of "purity".

KorvinStarmast
2022-01-03, 01:39 PM
The communication is pretty clear to me - yes, you should muck with things.
Which is also clear in the Original Game in the preface to Men and Magic on page 4. DM's are expected to muck with things.

If you do muck with things, understand that if you muck with too much, your game will stop being understandable "as D&D" to someone that is used to playing with a game that is more in-line with the system as presented, and as such the ability of those players to converse about the shared hobby will be impacted. yeah, that's how it comes across in the DMG to 1e. (And in a variety of articles and opinions published previous to that tome being released).


People can disagree with this, but it still seems pretty far from the "play it exactly as written or you're doing it wrong" characterization that is often given. Correct.

I suspect that's becuase prior to 1e, people were modifying D&D in vastly significant ways, to the point where you really couldn't talk about common experience. False. We all played D&D and we all learned from each DM what was different in their game. Con play and tournament play were a different animal (but it is what seems to have fathered modules, which then became a revenue stream).
I mean, Star Frontiers and Gamma World were released as separate games, not sourcebooks, despite having a lot of similarity mechanically to D&D. And Met Alpha, and Boot Hill ... the list goes on.

The "D&D can do everything" mentality seems to come from the fans, not TSR/WotC. Correct. And it's a strawman repeated by a lot of uninformed people.

But I've NEVER believed the claim that D&D could run anything, it was always clear that this the game's reach exceeding its grasp. I get your first clause, but your second clause leaves me hanging. The game itself works well.

Shortly: the common rules framework is for player convenience, so they don't have to essentially learn a new game for every setting and every campaign. Correct. It it worked well enough.
That never meant all content in the books is fair for every game, available spells and magic items have always been meant to be vetted on per campaign basis. Correct.

Gygax got a lot of undeserved flak for saying people going way outside rules of his game were no longer playing his game. Both as a basic observation and as opinion of a product manager, it made perfect sense. Still does. Correct.

Games are defined by their rules, change the rules enough and you get a different game. Before D&D, you can claim that this is true. Arneson's Blackmoor campaign (that in time evolved into D&D) to a great extent broke that paradigm. That was part of what made the game so popular and why it caught on so quickly. It was wide open. It was not limited by rules. (Kuntz' recent analysis of this is worth a look, though his writing style is ponderous).

I don't recall ANY edition of D&D EVER establishing a setting-first approach, ever, at any point. Besides the Blackmoor campaign itself (proto D&D) and maybe Greyhawk, I agree. Each DM was to grow their setting as play progressed, with their own unique vision and unique variations on what was in the three little books. (Using Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival as a tabula rasa for the wilderness/world exploration phase was not a bad hack, but it was also not necessary. My first DM used a piece of poster board with 2x2 blank squares, a grid, drawn in with pencil and a straight edge. We began in one square where there was a town. We had to explore to find the entrance to the first dungeon we ever delved into. It took a few squares before we found it.

Note, this would take more than a few lines of lip-service claiming that it's setting-first, it would require the overall text of the rules to support that approach. Which the original game did not.

Instead, it has always had an implicit setting built in. I am not sure what you mean by that, in terms of 'implicit setting' since any world was only given expression by how the DM built it.

... but Gygax emphasises importance of the dungeon master's vision of their setting (or "milieu", which is the word Gygax uses) several times throughout the ruletext. What you call D&D's implicit setting, is not a singular thing at all. It's a number of constants posited across settings. The room to have distinct settings is quite expansive. Bingo.

Willie the Duck
2022-01-03, 01:49 PM
Relevant quotes from the 1e DMG:
...

Sure. In the 1E DMG. My point was that Gygax was not consistent on many things. Probably not overly important to this conversation so I will drop it.

I'm old enough for a mix of pre-AD&D and AD&D 1e to be my original exposure to D&D.
But I've NEVER believed the claim that D&D could run anything, it was always clear that this the game's reach exceeding its grasp.
Right, there should have been some form of 'as early as, or earlier' in my estimation. As in distinct from people who started with 3e+ and grabbed knowledge of earlier works retroactively.

I don't recall ANY edition of D&D EVER establishing a setting-first approach, ever, at any point.
Note, this would take more than a few lines of lip-service claiming that it's setting-first, it would require the overall text of the rules to support that approach.
Instead, it has always had an implicit setting built in.

What the game says and has said, and what player metagame says and has said, are two different things. Both for published settings and settings of individual game masters, using game mechanics as first principles for setting building has never been the norm.

1st Edition AD&D books, which directly tell you in Gygax's own words how the game is imagined to work, quite clearly establish the setting-first approach, while also explaining what the purpose of common rules across settings is meant to serve. Shortly: the common rules framework is for player convenience, so they don't have to essentially learn a new game for every setting and every campaign.That never meant all content in the books is fair for every game, available spells and magic items have always been meant to be vetted on per campaign basis.
...
My AD&D books are paper and inside a box, so I can't quote them as conveniently as kyoryu above, but Gygax emphasises importance of the dungeon master's vision of their setting (or "milieu", which is the word Gygax uses) several times throughout the ruletext. What you call D&D's implicit setting, is not a singular thing at all. It's a number of constants posited across settings. The room to have distinct settings is quite expansive.


I think there can be room for overlap in these views. D&D has some level of an implied setting in that monsters are treated as species instead of one-offs (enough that they can show up on random appearance tables), spellcasters have great (immediate) power that is constrained by limited use, that treasure is worth risking life and limb and conveniently located in dangerous areas, etc. It also generally hasn't had a huge amount of core, non-supplement (and integrated into a cohesive whole) worldbuilding tools outside of map-generation. Certainly not on the level of modifying central conceits of the game and then adjusting downstream effects (ex: in some of those 2e greenbound splatbooks I referenced is was suggested that not all armor or magic would be available, but few if any rules suggestion for how to handle the lowered amount of healing available or lower total AC spread, etc.). That said, with some rather thorny limitations (spellcaster's great power/limited use, groups needing reason to adventure being a few tricky ones), there is a lot of room for those things to be done. Firearms, space travel, alternate spellcasting systems, low-magic, higher magic... there's a lot of tweeks to D&D that have occurred --many of them working as well as the game as a whole does (YMMV). I think the the primary divergence in position is how much the system has to provide how-tos before it can be said to facilitate such things. This seems to be another case of does something need to exhibit a certain degree of something to qualify, and I certainly have no vested interest in it. Certainly there are many other games which have less implied setting (/implied central conceits) than D&D. Many of them even bill themselves as universal systems (rarely really working for all styles, but usually a large swath).


I'll say that this thread, among many others, has indicated to me that defining the boundary between "is <game>" and "is not <game>" is...fraught with difficulty and subjectivity. And of little actual use in practice, other than to sate the human need for putting things in nice little boxes, by force if necessary.

I mean, there certainly is a point of differentiation at which we can generally say "yeah, that's a different game", but it's a heap problem drawing the line anywhere before that. For me, personally, the metric I use is "what book do I pull out first when looking for guidance on something game related? That's generally the system I'm going to call it." That's by no means a definition or a hard-and-fast rule, just a heuristic.
I'm reminded of a debate I've seen any number of times -- is Shadowrun a cyberpunk game? To some, the answer is 'sure, it's cyberpunk, but with magic and fantasy tropes' and to others it is, 'of course not, it has magic and fantasy tropes, and thus must be something else.' Does it change anything, other than the nice little boxes? Of course not, but boy howdy is it a hill to die on for some.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-01-03, 02:04 PM
D&D has implicit setting constraints, but that's different from an implicit setting. Except 5e has an actual setting--the multiverse. Which is something I'm very not fond of and have ripped up and torn out entirely.

And the D&D constraints are actually pretty weak, at least most of them.

Telok
2022-01-03, 02:10 PM
I mean, Star Frontiers and Gamma World were released as separate games, not sourcebooks, despite having a lot of similarity mechanically to D&D.

The "D&D can do everything" mentality seems to come from the fans, not TSR/WotC.

Well if you're listening to WotC they seem to be publishing D&D as "Forgotten Realms: the RPG". If D&D stops being able to reasonably do things other than FR:RPG... well, at least it might go from a 800 pound gorilla to a 600 pound gorilla.

But its all off topic any ways.

More on topic: I think you have to evaluate a system based on its published rule set without assuming any special or exceptional DM or player skills. A good set or roleplayers could rp Monopoly well just because it doesn't say not to rp. This isn't about a system having rules about rp, but if the system breaks rp (or perhaps rp breaks the system) by causing game (or chararter?) failure states when rping.

Starfinder, the game with the spaceship issue example I used, is balanced on the party having gear & spaceship equal to their level (+/- a little little wiggle room). Its rules say "do space combat encounters" and "combat encounters use party level +/-2 foes". Its rules also say that putting a nicer bed in you cabin, installing a big screen t.v. with a bunch on movies, or adding door locks on the spaceship costs points & reduces the ship's combat effectiveness. If you make the decision to go to a primitive planet for dinosaur hunting it can cause problems if you level up too much doing it.

Now a good DM who understands the math & unstated assumptions of the system can break with how the books say to run the game. They can alter hp, ac, damage, of the stock monsters or use significantly underlevel encounters. But if they didn't get the unwritten assumption memo then they won't. They might, as with our first SF DM, not even realize that the party is under wealth and therefore under geared.

So there's a question: do the characters know, in character, that they leveled up three times this month and anything they fight will be level appropriate (following what the game book says to do here) causing them to out level their gear? Do they know that anything the run into in space will have bigger/more guns than anything they've ever seen because they spent a month punching dinos? Do they know that putting a nice bed and a t.v. in their cabin reduces the total value of guns & shields the ship can mount?

I suppose if you assume that the in character universe runs like the Oots webcomic then its all true and "in character" never runs afoul of the rules the system gives you.

Hmm... dunno. That got all rambley and disjointed. But SF by the rules requires metagaming its space stuff or else going in for lots of TPKs unless the DM knows how to (and that it needs to) fix it.

Edit: actually, what are the fail states? Probably important.

Max_Killjoy
2022-01-03, 02:43 PM
I am not sure what you mean by that, in terms of 'implicit setting' since any world was only given expression by how the DM built it.


Implicit setting: things that the rules and text of a game imply about the world the game is set in... assumptions that the game makes about the setting even if it never says them out loud.

Take 5e for example. 5e's rules imply a setting where study of arcane lore, self-discipline, bloodlines, pacts with powerful entities, relationships with spirits, and even sincere oaths, all grant some form of extra-normal power. They imply a setting where experience actively transforms a farmhand into a demigod over time. They imply a setting where magic comes in discrete little premade black-box packets with reliable effects. They imply a setting where monsters are "species", not one-off creatures -- it's not THE sphinx, it's A sphinx. Etc.

These are things that are either true about the setting, or that form a decoherence between the rules and the setting.


----

Should have linked these earlier, as I think they're useful to the discussion of "what is an RPG?", at least as an example attempt to untangle that question.
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/6517/roleplaying-games/roleplaying-games-vs-storytelling-games
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/17231/roleplaying-games/dissociated-mechanics-a-brief-primer

KorvinStarmast
2022-01-03, 03:21 PM
Implicit setting: things that the rules and text of a game imply about the world the game is set in... assumptions that the game makes about the setting even if it never says them out loud.

Take 5e for example. 5e's rules imply a setting where study of arcane lore, self-discipline, bloodlines, pacts with powerful entities, relationships with spirits, and even sincere oaths, all grant some form of extra-normal power. They imply a setting where experience actively transforms a farmhand into a demigod over time. They imply a setting where magic comes in discrete little premade black-box packets with reliable effects. They imply a setting where monsters are "species", not one-off creatures -- it's not THE sphinx, it's A sphinx. Etc. OK, thanks for that analysis/clarification. Not sure I buy all of it but I do see what you were referring to.

The DM is not required to have each kind of sphynx in their game world.
If they only have one, and it's an androsphynx, then that is The Sphynx in that world. :smallsmile:

NichG
2022-01-03, 05:09 PM
Cognitive dissonance is a feeling founded on a person trying to hold two or more contradictory beliefs, so any measure of it ends up counting contradictions. There is an apparent contradiction in the situation you describe, and there very well could be an actual contradiction, depending on how rest of the situation is detailed. There are also details which would solve the contradiction, and thus remove cognitive dissonance, such as flying armies being so new the top brass hasn't had time to adjust yet.

I'm confident this holds even when talking about Quertus specifically. :smalltongue:

Contradictory beliefs and contradictions between things which are rules legal are different categories though, with the former being much larger than the latter. Your argument about distinctions and what you 'should' care about as based only on the latter. But contradictory beliefs can include for example anything derived from the rules, any counterfactual situation you might choose to evaluate or imagine on the basis of reading something, gut feelings or intuitions arising from ways of thinking which are your choice and aren't imposed by the rules, conflicts between your own goals in going to play the game and things the game asks you to take as goals, etc.

I don't either want to span the entire space of all possible sources of cognitive dissonance with a measure, since many of those things will depend on uncontrolled factors. But I think there's a relatively controlled superset of 'the rules are literally inconsistent with each-other' and a subset of 'general sources of dissonance'. That set corresponds to the situations in which different elements of the game disagree about how you might make decisions on behalf of the character you're playing as. E.g. when the fluff suggests Balors are superhumanly intelligent and describes (but does not require) a specific standard operating procedure for Balors in a fight that, because of the derived implications of applying the mechanics, is tactically incompetent. While the person playing the Balor is allowed by the rules to choose to play them differently than the standard operating procedure and is just as well allowed to imagine Balors as smart but, say, overconfident (so it's not a 'hard' contradiction within the rules), it is something that forces them to make a metagame choice as to what aspects of the world as presented they're going to shore up and what they're going to go against.

Basically, while it's not an inevitable contradiction in the end, it is something that forces the player of that balor to carry the load of preventing it from being a contradiction.

Quertus
2022-01-03, 06:04 PM
This thread seems to be a Quertus quibble about roleplaying games, but here's an angle that hasn't been considered: If you're making a non-zero amount of decisions that aren't in-character, it's for a more appealing story than the entirely in-character decisions version of events, and from that angle, perhaps storytelling games is a better way to describe it.

That said, it's very clear that that's not what this is about, so this shall be my only post in the thread.

Agreed, there are many reasons why it is entirely likely that not 100% of all actions will be taken in character; “because it’ll make for a better story” is one such consideration.

At the risk of flattening spherical cows into chopped up elephant bits to lie rotting on the distant shores of mixed metaphors, imagine if one could *measure* how often a system requires you to choose between the “in character” choices and the “good story” choice, and claimed that as a metric for a game’s suitability to be played as an RPG.


I agree with that 100%. When doing things like that, you really need to ask yourself why it matters.

I do think that the difference between "is game X and is not game X" is a little less fraught than "is not a <category>".



I tend to go more inclusive than not. That's a good dividing line, along with "if someone likes <game> will they like this as well? If they don't like <game>, will they also dislike this?" If those don't match, it's probably migrated sufficiently that calling it <game> doesn't add a lot of value. So I guess I draw the line based on "is it valuable to call it this, or does it draw people to wrong conclusions?" rather than any kind of "purity".

Yeah, tbh, I really don’t and didn’t care about being able to say “chicken” or “not chicken”, except that people kept saying, “4e isn’t D&D” (and the surrounding arguments were.… horrifically suboptimal), which got me to evaluate just what 4e was and wasn’t. I’m much more into the metric than where the line is drawn.

However, I think that there’s some noticeable groupings, like the “0% of decision points should be expected to survive contact with the players” of a choose your own adventure book.

Cluedrew
2022-01-03, 07:50 PM
You think that your comments deserve discussion?As I am trying to find things to contribute to the discussion, yeah I think they at least deserve discussion as to why it is a red herring. (And if it is not a red herring but a previously unforeseen issue, I will try and fish that out.)


Your own subjective experiences are only valuable in the context of my metric for measuring how reliable a witness you are, or how much you roleplay. They have no bearing on the metric itself.I had just deleted a speech about confounded variables and replaced it with "Please elaborate." (and I would still like you to elaborate) when someone told me about an xkcd comic. It not relevant but the first one I found when looking for it is also about confounding variables (https://xkcd.com/2560/). I took that as a bit of a sign. I'm more optimistic than that but I don't believe that the set of instructions you have given so far are resistant to biases.


So, let's dial back to the most uber obvious example: the choose your own adventure book format.

Pick one of your characters. Doesn't matter the setting - I'll do my best to make this setting agnostic.

Ready?

"As you are traveling along, using whatever ground transportation makes the most sense for your character and the setting, you come to the setting equivalent of a stoplight (person with the authority to tell you to stop, perhaps?), telling you to stop. There is mild cross-traffic at this intersection, but it is very slow moving, and there is a hole in traffic big enough for several of you to pass through easily."

What do you do?

Come up with your in character response, and then we'll see if it's one that the system accepts as valid, or whether you have to metagame in order to continue playing.Sure, I give it a shot. I'll pick Brandon, the Sorcerer of the In-Between and one of the "kingpins" of the occult underworld. Battles depression, anger management issues and OCD.

So onto the scenario, he lives in a modern world, so probably just a car and a traffic light. He waits for the light to change.


Yeah, tbh, I really don't and didn't care about being able to say "chicken" or "not chicken", except that people kept saying, "4e isn't D&D" (and the surrounding arguments were.... horrifically suboptimal), which got me to evaluate just what 4e was and wasn't. I'm much more into the metric than where the line is drawn.I still think that a larger collection of games that fall on other sides of the line from where we expect then just 4e would help a lot.

Also 4e is D&D because that is how ownership of a brand works. The more reasonable statement is: "4e didn't capture what I enjoy about the other editions of D&D."

Vahnavoi
2022-01-04, 09:57 AM
Contradictory beliefs and contradictions between things which are rules legal are different categories though, with the former being much larger than the latter. Your argument about distinctions and what you 'should' care about as based only on the latter. But contradictory beliefs can include for example anything derived from the rules, any counterfactual situation you might choose to evaluate or imagine on the basis of reading something, gut feelings or intuitions arising from ways of thinking which are your choice and aren't imposed by the rules, conflicts between your own goals in going to play the game and things the game asks you to take as goals, etc.

I don't either want to span the entire space of all possible sources of cognitive dissonance with a measure, since many of those things will depend on uncontrolled factors. But I think there's a relatively controlled superset of 'the rules are literally inconsistent with each-other' and a subset of 'general sources of dissonance'. That set corresponds to the situations in which different elements of the game disagree about how you might make decisions on behalf of the character you're playing as.

What are you trying to measure again? Temperature, or someone's ability to measure temperature? Because relationship between contradictions and cognitive dissonance is the same. If I want to measure how much cognitive dissonance a game might cause in absence of any specific player, I'm going to count contradictions within rules of that game, because those rules are the statements the game asks you to believe.

I'm not going to count contradictions caused by breaking those rules, because those contradictions are something the game asks you to NOT believe. I'm not going to count contradictions caused by arbitrary additional assumptions, because the game doesn't ask you to believe those, and because they are uncountable.

If I have a specific player, I can stop counting contradictions myself and focus on contradictions found by that player, because their ability to spot contradictions is what causes their cognitive dissonance. But while this is useful if I want to calibrate my game to that player, it runs the risk of calibration error. The player might not be attentive enough to catch some contradictions, they might see contradictions where there are none because they are unable to correlate every rule in their head, they might imagine contradictions based on additional assumptions that are nowhere in the rules. The cognitive dissonance of a player is only useful when it stays within limited distance of what the rules of the game being measured say. Once said dissonance escapes too far, it is no longer useful - it's like trying to measure temperature with a broken thermometer.

Which is also why you want to give that player rules of a game as its meant to be played, instead of weird half measures. Your thermometer needs to be connected to the thing you want to actually measure. Or, to go back to soccer for a moment, if a player suffers cognitive dissonance due to a goalie touching the ball with their hands, because I only explained the part of the rules which say the game is about kicking the ball with their feet, that's on me, not the rules.


E.g. when the fluff suggests Balors are superhumanly intelligent and describes (but does not require) a specific standard operating procedure for Balors in a fight that, because of the derived implications of applying the mechanics, is tactically incompetent. While the person playing the Balor is allowed by the rules to choose to play them differently than the standard operating procedure and is just as well allowed to imagine Balors as smart but, say, overconfident (so it's not a 'hard' contradiction within the rules), it is something that forces them to make a metagame choice as to what aspects of the world as presented they're going to shore up and what they're going to go against.

The distinction between "fluff" and mechanics is once again pointless. You get the exact same contradiction in freeform roleplay when someone states their character is intelligent but then fails to act the part. Natural language statements of a game situation and mechanized mathematical statements of a game situation are both rules. The contradiction exists because conflicting descriptions exist in the same priority order. Your example solution adds an additional detail to explain the contradiction away, but it can as well be solved by abandoning one description as false, based on which would sacrifice the least.

There's a lot I could say about this particular type of problem, but I don't want to get sidetracked by examples.


Basically, while it's not an inevitable contradiction in the end, it is something that forces the player of that balor to carry the load of preventing it from being a contradiction.

Well duh. Processing rules is work. For a game meant to be run by and played by humans, some human has to do the work. As the rules grow weirder and more numerous, the less humans there are who can do that work and play that game to begin with. But that conflict's properly described as human ability versus game design, not fiction versus rules, nor fluff versus crunch. When a player starts suffering cognitive dissonance because they can't correlate all the rules, can't remember all the details that would explain the game situation etc., that's when you've hit the limit of your meter. "Soft contradictions" of this type tell you more about the player than the game.

Telok
2022-01-04, 11:38 AM
Which is also why you want to give that player rules of a game as its meant to be played, instead of weird half measures.

I wonder if this is a big part of the core issue. Not just communicating the rules and fiction, but how they match & how to use the rules to benefit the fiction. Also, maybe a little more honesty in advertising, but thats unlikely.

Starfinder gets billed or proposed to groups as a sci-fi space & spaceship fiction game. It isn't. Its modified D&D/PF with guns & magitech that comes with some spaceship board game rules.

SF, once you're playing, is level gated. Characters can't get higher gear than level+2 by the rules. A hover truck is 7000 credits but as a level 5 item a 2nd level character can't get one. Doesn't matter if you have seven million credits, level 2 can't buy even an old used hover truck (PC only rules of course, CR 1/8 dirt farmers can get them). There are some vague suggestions about characters not having the contacts or the right permits to buy one, but the rules also say you can't even build one if you have all the parts & tools untill you're high enough level.

Now none of that stops you from roleplaying in the game. But

KorvinStarmast
2022-01-04, 12:09 PM
Also 4e is D&D because that is how ownership of a brand works. The more reasonable statement is: "4e didn't capture what I enjoy about the other editions of D&D." Well put.
I think that "feels like D&D" is (was) one of those value assessments that informs the response to any edition of the game.
FWIW, when I first began 5th ed a lot of it didn't 'feel' right to my AD&D muscle memory.
I adapted.

Quertus
2022-01-04, 12:41 PM
As I am trying to find things to contribute to the discussion, yeah I think they at least deserve discussion as to why it is a red herring. (And if it is not a red herring but a previously unforeseen issue, I will try and fish that out.)

I had just deleted a speech about confounded variables and replaced it with "Please elaborate." (and I would still like you to elaborate) when someone told me about an xkcd comic. It not relevant but the first one I found when looking for it is also about confounding variables (https://xkcd.com/2560/). I took that as a bit of a sign. I'm more optimistic than that but I don't believe that the set of instructions you have given so far are resistant to biases.

Sure, I give it a shot. I'll pick Brandon, the Sorcerer of the In-Between and one of the "kingpins" of the occult underworld. Battles depression, anger management issues and OCD.

So onto the scenario, he lives in a modern world, so probably just a car and a traffic light. He waits for the light to change.

I still think that a larger collection of games that fall on other sides of the line from where we expect then just 4e would help a lot.

Also 4e is D&D because that is how ownership of a brand works. The more reasonable statement is: "4e didn't capture what I enjoy about the other editions of D&D."

Nobody (that I saw) was making that more reasonable statement about 4e, leading me to have to come up with “4e is D&D (but not a roleplaying game)” on my own. And, being lazy, I didn’t appreciate having to put forth the effort. :smalltongue:

But even my statement is incomplete, being shorthand for, “when measured with my metric, 4e crosses the line I set, which may be arbitrary.” Or something.

But 4e has nothing on a choose your own adventure book.

Speaking of which.… so, suppose you look down at your list of options, and find that “just sit there” isn’t among them (in this case, it isn’t, because it’s divided between *2* of them). The system says that Brandon, the sorcerer of the in-between cannot choose to do what you believe he would do.

If what you would choose to do in character is reasonable for that scenario, and reasonable for the fiction, but the system just straight up says “you can’t”? Then you have to choose differently, for metagame reasons, imposed by the system. Or maybe even choose something very uncharacteristic for the character to do.

There might be other times that you have to choose differently, for metagame reasons. Like when you don’t want to be “that guy”, or even the table has a “no PvP” policy. But trying to measure the difference between how often those come up in different systems, how much the system is to blame for those particular OOC actions, will likely always remain the domain of spherical cows.

So, the question you’re asking at each decision points is the bane of prep-heavy GM’s: what could the PCs do at this point? What could it be in character to do?

A “choose your own adventure” format gives a hard ban to anything that isn’t on their explicit white listed actions - which occurs at 100% of the decision points. So a choose your own adventure format has a score of 0% suitability to be played as an RPG - none of the choices can be made without potentially needing to metagame “choose differently in order to continue playing”. Every decision point has that hard stop, and earns a 0% rating.

Starfinder, apparently, requires you to upgrade your ship else TPK every couple of levels. And to upgrade it in particular ways. At a guess, that’s probably between 1%-5% of the decision points where the system requires that your actions must be made with starship upgrade metagame considerations in mind, rather than in roleplaying stance.

My choose your own adventure happens to have two “just sit there” options: sit there and look around, or sit there on cell phone / with radio / book / etc (investigate environment vs drown out environment).

But, probably more importantly, I think that “confounding variables” is the opposite of relevant to the simplified metric that this thread is about (the full metric, maybe). Because the simplified metric is, well, simple: count decision points, evaluate when logically possible actions that characters might attempt are prohibited by the system (and, in the more mathy version, how inefficient the “in character” actions can be compared with the optimal (“Determinator”) actions). The suitability of the game to be played as an RPG is, according to the spherical cows Simple metric, the fraction of choices that can be made in character (and, in the mathy version of the simple metric, the fraction of that fraction you get when you measure the relative effectiveness of reasonable actions to optimal actions).

Roleplaying is making choices. How well built other characters’ personalities are, what caricatures are in the party, even who you’re playing with - these don’t generally affect the decision points, or your ability to make in character decisions at those points (“fade to black” and such notwithstanding); even when they do, they aren’t a property of the system, which is the only thing that my metric is measuring. I’m not sure how else to explain their red herring status.

NichG
2022-01-04, 03:54 PM
What are you trying to measure again? Temperature, or someone's ability to measure temperature? Because relationship between contradictions and cognitive dissonance is the same. If I want to measure how much cognitive dissonance a game might cause in absence of any specific player, I'm going to count contradictions within rules of that game, because those rules are the statements the game asks you to believe.


For any question of game design, I absolutely care more about perception than any sort of purely logical measure. If a game technically contains zero hard contradictions but a large portion of the players say they experience dissonance playing it, I care about the latter not the former when trying to design that game to be better.

Psychophysics is a field. Everyone may have variations in how they perceive feelings of heat and cold but you can still find predictive commonalities and quantify that experience and so on. The point of 'take the setting, take the mechanics you are aware of as the player, reimagine the setting as if the characters knew what you know' is that it's an easy way to force yourself to evaluate for that experience without having to encounter it in play, especially if e.g. you're familiar with the LitRPG genre where authors explore in detail the question of how living within an exposed system of rules might shape behaviors differently, since then you can have a mental checklist of alternate cultures and say 'would this happen?' for each.

icefractal
2022-01-04, 08:27 PM
The delta between 'playing purely based on the rules' and 'playing purely based on the fiction' seems like a reasonable metric, but I don't think a simple "% of decisions" is going to give useful results.

Obvious fail case - a campaign where the players only get to make one choice, but that choice is entirely IC - is that a perfect 100% RPG?

Quality of choices needs to be considered over just quantity. If we consider these two games:
A) The process of buying cold-weather clothing was entirely IC, but the strategy against the frost dragon was driven by OOC factors and was extremely unintuitive IC.
B) The process of buying cold-weather clothing was abstracted in a way that doesn't really make sense IC, but the strategy against the frost dragon was entirely driven by IC logic and the rules supported that with no disjunction.

Even if there were technically more decisions involved in buying the cold-weather gear, those aren't the decisions which had the most impact, had the most screen time, or had the most importance to the players. I think most people would consider (B) the superior RPG if they considered "acting on IC-logic" to be an important quality.


And to add an additional factor, when we talk about Determinator vs IC-Player ... which IC? Because someone who's familiar with a system can make a character who's thematically consistent, makes entirely IC-based choices, and is only a little less effective than a Determinator. So can someone ignorant of the system, if they happen to make the right choices by luck. But, they could also make the wrong choices, resulting in their character being vastly less effective than a Determinator.

So are we basing it on the best case, or the worst? Because the worst is almost always going to be a large delta for any crunchy system. In fact by the "worst case" metric, 4E might score better than 3E because you have less flexibility in char-gen and thus less ability to make a mechanically-awful character. That leaves best or "average", and the latter is extremely subjective. Maybe a good metric would be to consider the different RPG% for each different type of character concept possible in the system and then average those ... which sounds like an impossible amount of work to do accurately.

Cluedrew
2022-01-04, 09:52 PM
Nobody (that I saw) was making that more reasonable statement about 4e, leading me to have to come up with "4e is D&D (but not a roleplaying game)" on my own. And, being lazy, I didn’t appreciate having to put forth the effort. :smalltongue:

But even my statement is incomplete, being shorthand for, "when measured with my metric, 4e crosses the line I set, which may be arbitrary." Or something.How about "4e does not capture what I enjoy about role-playing games"?


Speaking of which.… so, suppose you look down at your list of options, and find that “just sit there” isn’t among them (in this case, it isn’t, because it’s divided between *2* of them). The system says that Brandon, the sorcerer of the in-between cannot choose to do what you believe he would do.What are the two choices? (Thought this was one of the two obvious choices in that situation.)


But, probably more importantly, I think that “confounding variables” is the opposite of relevant to the simplified metric that this thread is about (the full metric, maybe). [...] Roleplaying is making choices. How well built other characters’ personalities are, what caricatures are in the party, even who you’re playing with - these don’t generally affect the decision points, or your ability to make in character decisions at those points [...]; even when they do, they aren’t a property of the system, which is the only thing that my metric is measuring. I’m not sure how else to explain their red herring status.That's entirely the point though and why I think this is not a red herring. The reason this is worth discussing is because I believe that these are not what your metric is supposed to be measuring (the whole objective measure of a system thing) and believe it could be.

Let's say that you are heading down the dungeon hallway and at the end of there is some decision point that can go either way. So in this snippet we have a 1/1 or 0/1 response. But let's say as you are heading down the hallway and a party member turns to you, says something and you reply in character. Suddenly the outcome is 2/2 or 1/2. If you have picked a line then these changes will push some systems over it. (Also where is the line between 0 and 1?)


Your own subjective experiences are only valuable in the context of my metric for measuring how reliable a witness you are, or how much you roleplay. They have no bearing on the metric itself.Please elaborate.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-05, 08:33 AM
Psychophysics is a field. Everyone may have variations in how they perceive feelings of heat and cold but you can still find predictive commonalities and quantify that experience and so on.

I don't disagree with that, my point is that among those commonalities is physical temperature for feelings of hot and cold and contradictions for feelings of cognitive dissonance. You'll be measuring those if you want useful measurements, they're the "physics" half of psychophysics.

The other point is that human psychophysics - the in-built mental schemas we have of how the world works - are of limited accuracy. Real physics are frequently counter-intuitive to humans, observing the real world to a degree where you can say you "know the rules" is enough to cause cognitive dissonance in majority of humans. Indeed, I would go so far to say that the only reason most humans don't live in constant state of cognitive dissonance, is because they lack the brainpower to keep all statements of what they believe in mind at once, and thus don't notice contradictions between them unless something specifically calls them to attention.

The corollary to that is that if your game is meant to model some complex world, real world and real simulations of physics very much included, you'll have to live with some players feeling dissonant despite you doing everything right. For some genres (cosmic and existential horror, for examples), them feeling dissonant is proof that you're doing everything right.


For any question of game design, I absolutely care more about perception than any sort of purely logical measure. If a game technically contains zero hard contradictions but a large portion of the players say they experience dissonance playing it, I care about the latter not the former when trying to design that game to be better.

Caring more about perceptions means you can make your game rules wild nonsense in those areas your players aren't meant to perceive. It also means you can largely abandon rules as simulation - the overarching purpose of your rules is to create fiction that appeals to perceptions of a player. Simulation is only useful as a tool when and where it serves that purpose better than alternatives.

Examples of these principles in practice are abundant in modern computer games, which save work by performing all kinds of trickery - graphics are only rendered when they are within player's field of view, objects cease to exist when they are out of range for interaction, the world outside bounds of a game area is a featureless void, so on and so forth.

I, too, care about what my players feel, but lessening the feeling (in this case, dissonance) is not automatically the direction for "better". See above point about genres.


The point of 'take the setting, take the mechanics you are aware of as the player, reimagine the setting as if the characters knew what you know' is that it's an easy way to force yourself to evaluate for that experience without having to encounter it in play, especially if e.g. you're familiar with the LitRPG genre where authors explore in detail the question of how living within an exposed system of rules might shape behaviors differently, since then you can have a mental checklist of alternate cultures and say 'would this happen?' for each.

I don't agree that this is an easier method than just counting contradictions or just playtesting the game, and I don't think it is particularly useful, hence this line of arguments. Using LitRPG stories as reference points strikes me as particularly awful. Do tell if you have any such story in mind which stands up to even obsolete hard sci-fi, like, say, works of Jules Verne.

martixy
2022-01-05, 09:03 AM
I endorse everything Vahnavoi said above.

In addition my personal experience has been that striving for consistency / avoiding contradictions has the emergent effect of reducing dissonance to the greatest degree. In all media I've had the opportunity to experience - books and movies included.

Btw, have we agreed yet that Quertus's metric is subjective? (There's a novel's worth of text in this thread that I'm not about to exhaust completely.)

NichG
2022-01-05, 09:25 AM
I don't disagree with that, my point is that among those commonalities is physical temperature for feelings of hot and cold and contradictions for feelings of cognitive dissonance. You'll be measuring those if you want useful measurements, they're the "physics" half of psychophysics.

My turn to nitpick an analogy I guess, but no, that's incorrect. Feeling of hot and cold is primarily detecting heat flow, not physical temperature, at least below 110F iirc. That's why things like wind chill, humidity, etc factor in.

Similarly, focusing on logical contradictions for cognitive dissonance is the tail wagging the dog. Definitions don't determine experience, they are our attempt to try to bound parts of it so it can be discussed. But if you were to tell someone 'the thing that bothers you isn't actually a contradiction', you'd be abusing your definition



I, too, care about what my players feel, but lessening the feeling (in this case, dissonance) is not automatically the direction for "better". See above point about genres.


As I said before, 'should's are personal. I don't need to convince you that optimizing this is universally better. If it captures what Quertus feels is wrong with 4e well enough to identify how to change it, it's already done it's job. If it captures the tastes of a subgroup of players who do tend to roll out the implications of mechanics as the way they understand a game world, even better.

Does that mean that it's a good fit for someone looking for high drama method acting, or someone who doesn't want to interact with anything other than the mechanics? No, it's not trying to be that.



I don't agree that this is an easier method than just counting contradictions or just playtesting the game, and I don't think it is particularly useful, hence this line of arguments. Using LitRPG stories as reference points strikes me as particularly awful. Do tell if you have any such story in mind which stands up to even obsolete hard sci-fi, like, say, works of Jules Verne.

LitRPG is not supposed to be an ideal to reach for in this case, it's supposed to help increase contrast so you don't subconsciously heal the gap between the way things are presented to work and the way things are presented to be. Basically, being aware of LitRPG stuff helps you beta test from a different mindset than you might take as an author (where of course things make sense to you, you came up with them).

It's like a lot of critical methods. You ask specific questions because it forces you to be aware that they require answers. Would this guy really choose to learn X spell if he could literally see the list of all spells on leveling up and pick one to learn? Does it make sense that 'getting a rare spell' is a meaningful motivation for wizards of that's true? Etc.

kyoryu
2022-01-05, 10:54 AM
Btw, have we agreed yet that Quertus's metric is subjective? (There's a novel's worth of text in this thread that I'm not about to exhaust completely.)

... sort of?

There's an objective bit to it, that I think is insufficient to explain the observed behavior. Specifically, yes, you can look at a game and weigh how many decisions are made in character vs. not in character.

There's two issues I have with this:

1) What one considers in-character is, itself, subjective. Are martial dailies in character? Depends on who you ask.

2) Certain out-of-character things seem to matter more than others. For many people, spending minutes plotting out precise paths or doing lookup charts on calculations is just fine, but something like a Declaration in Fate completely ruins "roleplaying" for them.

I do think that, overall, the more time you spend in your character's head the better for "roleplaying" - provided you have internalized the mechanics sufficiently.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-05, 11:26 AM
My turn to nitpick an analogy I guess, but no, that's incorrect. Feeling of hot and cold is primarily detecting heat flow, not physical temperature, at least below 110F iirc. That's why things like wind chill, humidity, etc factor in.

I'm pretty sure if you want to accurately describe heat flow, physical temperature makes an appearance sooner or later. Additionally, humans used their sense of hot and cold as measure of temperature before figuring out physical temperature, which is more relevant to my analogy. The real takeaway which applies to points made by both of us is that psychophysical measures are complex variables which can be broken down to simpler variables. It's bad news for Quertus, though, because it means simplest metric that captures everything he wants, probably isn't all that simple.


Similarly, focusing on logical contradictions for cognitive dissonance is the tail wagging the dog. Definitions don't determine experience, they are our attempt to try to bound parts of it so it can be discussed. But if you were to tell someone 'the thing that bothers you isn't actually a contradiction', you'd be abusing your definition .

A better description of abuse would be "there is no contradiction, so you can't feel cognitive dissonance". It would also be me contradicting myself, given I've explained that cognitive measure is not perfect measure of contradictions - it's possible to not feel dissonance despite presence of contradiction (because you can't process all the statements to spot it) and possible to feel dissonance despite absence of contradiction (because you can't process all the statements to solve it).


As I said before, 'should's are personal. I don't need to convince you that optimizing this is universally better. If it captures what Quertus feels is wrong with 4e well enough to identify how to change it, it's already done it's job. If it captures the tastes of a subgroup of players who do tend to roll out the implications of mechanics as the way they understand a game world, even better.

Does that mean that it's a good fit for someone looking for high drama method acting, or someone who doesn't want to interact with anything other than the mechanics? No, it's not trying to be that.

The "shoulds" I'm trying to convince you of exist because I'm convinced you, Cluedrew and especially Quertus can save work by cutting out pointless extra steps, given your goals. Though I'm fairly sure you know that even given different terminal goals, instrumental goals can be congruent, meaning my personal "shoulds" might still work for you.


LitRPG is not supposed to be an ideal to reach for in this case, it's supposed to help increase contrast so you don't subconsciously heal the gap between the way things are presented to work and the way things are presented to be. Basically, being aware of LitRPG stuff helps you beta test from a different mindset than you might take as an author (where of course things make sense to you, you came up with them).

It's like a lot of critical methods. You ask specific questions because it forces you to be aware that they require answers. Would this guy really choose to learn X spell if he could literally see the list of all spells on leveling up and pick one to learn? Does it make sense that 'getting a rare spell' is a meaningful motivation for wizards of that's true? Etc.

Without a specific example of a LitRPG story serving these purposes particularly well, I have no idea how to evaluate your claim. Given examples of the genre known to me, pretty much any non-fiction on critical methods, game design, world building, and whatever the subject of your game is supposed to be, are a better use of one's time.

Quertus
2022-01-05, 11:39 AM
The delta between 'playing purely based on the rules' and 'playing purely based on the fiction' seems like a reasonable metric, but I don't think a simple "% of decisions" is going to give useful results.

Obvious fail case - a campaign where the players only get to make one choice, but that choice is entirely IC - is that a perfect 100% RPG?

Quality of choices needs to be considered over just quantity. If we consider these two games:
A) The process of buying cold-weather clothing was entirely IC, but the strategy against the frost dragon was driven by OOC factors and was extremely unintuitive IC.
B) The process of buying cold-weather clothing was abstracted in a way that doesn't really make sense IC, but the strategy against the frost dragon was entirely driven by IC logic and the rules supported that with no disjunction.

Even if there were technically more decisions involved in buying the cold-weather gear, those aren't the decisions which had the most impact, had the most screen time, or had the most importance to the players. I think most people would consider (B) the superior RPG if they considered "acting on IC-logic" to be an important quality.


And to add an additional factor, when we talk about Determinator vs IC-Player ... which IC? Because someone who's familiar with a system can make a character who's thematically consistent, makes entirely IC-based choices, and is only a little less effective than a Determinator. So can someone ignorant of the system, if they happen to make the right choices by luck. But, they could also make the wrong choices, resulting in their character being vastly less effective than a Determinator.

So are we basing it on the best case, or the worst? Because the worst is almost always going to be a large delta for any crunchy system. In fact by the "worst case" metric, 4E might score better than 3E because you have less flexibility in char-gen and thus less ability to make a mechanically-awful character. That leaves best or "average", and the latter is extremely subjective. Maybe a good metric would be to consider the different RPG% for each different type of character concept possible in the system and then average those ... which sounds like an impossible amount of work to do accurately.

Yup. Spherical cows. This is why the metric I actually used was far more complicated than the simple metric I’m discussing in this thread.

However, even the simple metric makes things like “choose your own adventure book” stand out as clearly “not like the others”.


How about "4e does not capture what I enjoy about role-playing games"?

While true, it carries less meaning than spelling out what the speaker cares about. Like saying, “it wasn’t fun” says less than Understanding Angry’s “8 sources of fun”, and saying which source you care about. Which even that is spherical cows, and provides less information than “I like dice, and dislike mood music” (both in the same category).


What are the two choices? (Thought this was one of the two obvious choices in that situation.)

Ah, guess you missed that I explained them: I ask how you wait. Wait and multitask, or wait and NOOP? Wait and read / listen to music (multitask, drown out environment), or just wait (single task focus, observe environment)?


That's entirely the point though and why I think this is not a red herring. The reason this is worth discussing is because I believe that these are not what your metric is supposed to be measuring (the whole objective measure of a system thing) and believe it could be.

Let's say that you are heading down the dungeon hallway and at the end of there is some decision point that can go either way. So in this snippet we have a 1/1 or 0/1 response. But let's say as you are heading down the hallway and a party member turns to you, says something and you reply in character. Suddenly the outcome is 2/2 or 1/2. If you have picked a line then these changes will push some systems over it. (Also where is the line between 0 and 1?)

So, my 40 point example has failed me again for the last time.

As a slight nod to this (or, at least, to what I think you’re saying), I discounted 13 of the 40 decision points as only “technical” decision points, where the system + module do not anticipate a meaningful choice. Like how, in a choose your own adventure book, one does not expect the reader to stop reading mid page, and flip to a different page. Ok, bad example, because that’s (presumably) not rules legal. Technically, players can react to deceptive text, but it isn’t the expected norm.

That is, I believe, the one concession to “it’s complicated” that I made in the simple metric, that you’re ignoring technical / no agency “decisions”.

The “turn right or turn left” bit is actually more.… uh.… difficult, if you want be difficult. Because it can change (as you were talking about) the number of meaningful decision points. As could exploration / optional content, or any other branching structure.

So, yes, even the simple method is complicated, in a way.

There are, I suppose, two ways of looking at / using it.

You can go by simple “feel”, just do a single run through, and notice where the pain points are (every single decision in a “choose your own adventure” book, certain places depending on which abstraction of HP you use, when you would metagame to “make a better story” or not be “that guy”, when you had to upgrade your ship else TPK, etc). Then properly attribute those to the system vs outside influences. You’ll have a feel for *where* the pain points are, and how often they came up in this run.

Or you can measure hundreds of sessions (actual, or virtual using branching decision trees), calculating such probabilities until the numbers stop changing significantly.

I still haven’t exactly responded well to your 1/1 vs 2/2 comment. So let me beat a little closer to the bush: the sample session I used had around 40 decision points, only 27 of which were relevant. Any time you’re measuring one or two, “noise” can be bigger than “data”. Don’t measure that. That doesn’t make for a good metric of reliable numbers (unless, after one or two decisions in a choose your own adventure book, you see the pattern, and realize “0%” isn’t going to change, no matter how many pages you flip).

However, yes, as an example, one or two is arguably more approachable than 27 or 40. Will the decisions that the party makes affect the numbers? Yes and no.

Yes, they can change the number of decision points by “reacting to nothing”.

Gah, why is this so hard? If Deku confesses his love to Picard (main characters of first two shows to come to mind), yes, that’s roleplaying, but, unless the system has “roleplaying” mechanics, the system won’t prevent that. So I’m not even looking at that (yet). Just for the things that the system does have mechanics for, what does it hard ban and soft ban? Choose your own adventure hard bans anything not explicitly on its white list. Starfinder bans not upgrading your ship every few levels. How many decisions does the system (not the other players) prompt you with in the time it forces how many decisions out of roleplaying stance, on average?

If we don’t have a module, we can get different results, like how different bodies of water produces different buoyancy results, or have different concentrations of heavy water.

But if we do have a module, where the variance in results is only really measuring how good the GM is at noticing that, when the tunnel splits right and left, the party could go right, or left, or back, or stay put, or split up, or tunnel up or down or forward, or teleport, or travel to another plane, or through time, or.…

Senility willing, I’ll insert my usual example here.


Please elaborate.

Dang. Context.… subjective experience. Ah.

If you say, “dice aren’t fun, so I’ll remove them”, you only express your ignorance of the fun others have with dice, and disqualify yourself from making such decisions.

If you say, “HP don’t model reality, because <face tank a cannonball>, therefore D&D fails”, then, at best, you reveal your ignorance about what D&D HP are designed to model (not reality, more action hero), how D&D handles wounds (not face tanking), and how D&D models face tanking (death, or coup de grace), and disqualify yourself from such discussions until you re-educate.

If you discuss subjective experiences with regard to my simplified metric.… well, there’s several possibilities. You could misunderstand the metric, you could be (dis)qualifying yourself as perceiving decision points / possible decisions, you could be (dis)qualifying yourself for understanding the fiction & the difference between choices based on fiction vs rules.… hmmm.… and there’s an unexpected “or” there, that I’ll bet is what you’re trying to get me to see. Or the system doesn’t have an official, company published module, and your results and mine could vary wildly, if we either use just a single run, or “get caught in a rut” of wildly differing expectations of what a session in the system means.

Huh. Well, *if* we get to the point where we’re getting similar results on the same content, if we get to the point where it’s clear that the model is understood by enough people, then we could run an experiment to see what the numbers look like when comparing arbitrary content. That could be fun!

Vahnavoi
2022-01-05, 12:42 PM
Obvious fail case - a campaign where the players only get to make one choice, but that choice is entirely IC - is that a perfect 100% RPG?

It's not an obvious fail case at all - you could just accept it as the simplest possible roleplaying game and be done with it. There's only an issue with that if Quertus is married to a notion that the minimum amount of choices in a game has to be more than one for it to count.

NichG
2022-01-05, 04:18 PM
I'm pretty sure if you want to accurately describe heat flow, physical temperature makes an appearance sooner or later. Additionally, humans used their sense of hot and cold as measure of temperature before figuring out physical temperature, which is more relevant to my analogy. The real takeaway which applies to points made by both of us is that psychophysical measures are complex variables which can be broken down to simpler variables. It's bad news for Quertus, though, because it means simplest metric that captures everything he wants, probably isn't all that simple.

A better description of abuse would be "there is no contradiction, so you can't feel cognitive dissonance". It would also be me contradicting myself, given I've explained that cognitive measure is not perfect measure of contradictions - it's possible to not feel dissonance despite presence of contradiction (because you can't process all the statements to spot it) and possible to feel dissonance despite absence of contradiction (because you can't process all the statements to solve it).

The "shoulds" I'm trying to convince you of exist because I'm convinced you, Cluedrew and especially Quertus can save work by cutting out pointless extra steps, given your goals. Though I'm fairly sure you know that even given different terminal goals, instrumental goals can be congruent, meaning my personal "shoulds" might still work for you.


Mostly what I'm hearing from you though is 'this distinction you're leveraging to analyze things doesn't technically exist because there's only ever just natural language text', when that distinction, even if potentially subjective, is one with a pretty high degree of intersubjective agreement. So that seems mostly obstructive to me, rather than actually making things any easier.



Without a specific example of a LitRPG story serving these purposes particularly well, I have no idea how to evaluate your claim. Given examples of the genre known to me, pretty much any non-fiction on critical methods, game design, world building, and whatever the subject of your game is supposed to be, are a better use of one's time.

Worth the Candle has good examples of in-character optimization behaviors resulting from ove character having a visible stat system, and others around them being invested in their leveling choices. It also has 'does progressing mental stats change your personality' questions, as well as questions about intimacy in relationships which could have been shaped by e.g. a Charisma stat.

Beneath the Dragoneye Moons has cultural practices around who is allowed to advance their character at all (with progressing level beyond what social status allows being worth a death penalty in one culture, with parents and priesthood having the right to pick a child's base class in another) and has the ability to detect another's class lead to implied targeting behaviors along the lines of 'gank the mage'.

Stuff like Primal Hunter has the whole 'if you are rewarded XP only for killing things, society looks really different as a result' angle.

Wandering Inn has the angle that perceiving a structured rule system behind the world implies agency, and it might not be friendly agency, so you have characters giving the side eye to bits of the system that have obvious incentive structures behind them or refusing to accept class levels from their actions when offered them. You also have stuff like a character realizing they can pick their class and using that to pick 'Emperor' even though they have no connection to the nobility, knowledge of the precise multiclass progression tradeoff being a secret of the existing in-power nobility, how people deal with having individual characters in their society who are just completely outside of the norm in durability or ability to commit violence, impacts of the large range in attainable personal power on tech level and things like commerce guild structures...

There's also Sylver Seeker where the system is literally a hostile thing added to the world between when the MC was killed as a lich and when he reformed, and you have the conflict between his pre-system ways of doing e.g. magic and the post-system way that people expect things to work. Sort of explores the line between magic as the consequence of utilizing a collection of knowledge and experience in manipulating forces and magic as a toolbar of buttons you can press.

KorvinStarmast
2022-01-05, 04:42 PM
It's bad news for Quertus, though, because it means simplest metric that captures everything he wants, probably isn't all that simple. I am reminded of something from H.L. Mencken
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Vahnavoi
2022-01-05, 05:42 PM
The actual thing I'm trying to make people hear is that the distinctions I'm criticizing are category errors and hence don't lead to useful analysis. "Fiction versus rules" implies fiction cannot itself be game rules, which is false. "Fluff versus crunch", in the way it is typically used, has two different meanings, and people equivocating between the two leads to a conclusion that the format in which rules are given (natural language versus formal notation, usually math) decides rule priority, which is also false. It doesn't matter if there's high degree of agreement over what the distinction is, because my issue isn't with subjectivity, my issue is that the agreement is over the wrong thing.

Suppose there are two kinds of berries from two different plants which are both red. Due to how words are constructed, it's easy to get two words or concepts, "thisberry red" and "thatberry red". It is equally easy to get people to agree that these concepts refer to two distinct colors. Why? Because there is a difference in category:plant, it's easy to assume there is also a difference in category:color. Even if actual color analysis shows the ranges of red color these two kinds of berries can be overlap perfectly, people can die on weirdest hills to argue that not only does a difference in color exist, it is also super meaningful. Don't be those people. :smalltongue:

NichG
2022-01-05, 06:02 PM
The actual thing I'm trying to make people hear is that the distinctions I'm criticizing are category errors and hence don't lead to useful analysis. "Fiction versus rules" implies fiction cannot itself be game rules, which is false. "Fluff versus crunch", in the way it is typically used, has two different meanings, and people equivocating between the two leads to a conclusion that the format in which rules are given (natural language versus formal notation, usually math) decides rule priority, which is also false. It doesn't matter if there's high degree of agreement over what the distinction is, because my issue isn't with subjectivity, my issue is that the agreement is over the wrong thing.

The thing is, the format in which rules are given does often decide rule priority in practice. And even beyond questions of priority, it determines how people will interface with the rules. People behave differently after 'roll initiative' is called than when chatting with an NPC. In a sort of purist sense it's true that they don't have to or 'there's no reason from the point of view of the rules that they should behave that way', but they in fact do. That matters, because it's what you'll actually encounter when you go to play the game at a table rather than having pure theorycraft discussion.

Cluedrew
2022-01-05, 08:40 PM
Btw, have we agreed yet that Quertus's metric is subjective?More or less. I am not at complete confidence, but like 9/10 or 19/20. Then there is the added issue that even if it turns out to be objective, the group it describes are definitely not role-playing games. In the worst case it may not describe anything of significance to anyone who is not Quertus. That though is much less certain.


Ah, guess you missed that I explained them: I ask how you wait. Wait and multitask, or wait and NOOP? Wait and read / listen to music (multitask, drown out environment), or just wait (single task focus, observe environment)?Well I wasn't trying to buy time. I'll go with wait and watch.


So, my 40 point example has failed me again for the last time.
[...]
Senility willing, I'll insert my usual example here.You know what, if after my next point is addressed you want me to come back to this I will but mostly I think it factors into the next issue.


Dang. Context.... subjective experience. Ah.
[...]
Huh. Well, *if* we get to the point where we're getting similar results on the same content, if we get to the point where itÂ’s clear that the model is understood by enough people, then we could run an experiment to see what the numbers look like when comparing arbitrary content. That could be fun!You missed one: Your metric has broad subjective inputs so if any two significantly different people use it they will get significantly different results.

I don't see how the metric has the properties you say it does. Which doesn't account for a lot on its own, either of us could be wrong, but also no one else in this thread seems to get in. Also, we have been going on a good deal longer than even the 6 page tier 1 discussion (not in this thread alone, but across the 3 or more threads) and how you have been discussing it has made me worried on occasion (Here you are basically stating you are operating on a basis of confirmation bias in this regard, you are not accepting input that doesn't match what you expect.). So I want to cut through as much cruft as possible and go straight to the source. I want the full instructions for the complete metric to determine if a system is a role-playing game. And then I will might spend some time just thinking about if I can follow them directly without interpretation (of the instructions or the results) before actually thinking about where it leads.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-06, 01:16 AM
The thing is, the format in which rules are given does often decide rule priority in practice.

Which format decides is based on rules of the game as agreed upon and enforced by participants of a game contract. Failure to realize this, such as due to the mentioned equivocational fallacy, creates false analyses, such as the idea that freeform roleplaying has no rules because it's, well, free in format ( or rather, free-er, but that's an argument for another day). Or the idea that one format always takes priority regardless of game. Or inability to spot the paradox in "use character viewpoint fiction, not rules" when there are games where the rules enforce using the character's viewpoint fiction.


And even beyond questions of priority, it determines how people will interface with the rules. People behave differently after 'roll initiative' is called than when chatting with an NPC. In a sort of purist sense it's true that they don't have to or 'there's no reason from the point of view of the rules that they should behave that way', but they in fact do. That matters, because it's what you'll actually encounter when you go to play the game at a table rather than having pure theorycraft discussion.

Your example is plain wrong. There IS a reason from point of view of the rules for people to change their behavior: I am giving them a warning signal because the game situation is about to change. And there ARE different formats in which I can give the same signal to trigger the same behaviour, for example "prepare for combat". Beyond your example, I'm not sure what you're even saying - remove the example, and what's left reads like something you already should know I would trivially agree with.

NichG
2022-01-06, 02:51 AM
Which format decides is based on rules of the game as agreed upon and enforced by participants of a game contract. Failure to realize this, such as due to the mentioned equivocational fallacy, creates false analyses, such as the idea that freeform roleplaying has no rules because it's, well, free in format ( or rather, free-er, but that's an argument for another day). Or the idea that one format always takes priority regardless of game. Or inability to spot the paradox in "use character viewpoint fiction, not rules" when there are games where the rules enforce using the character's viewpoint fiction.

If you tell a person that the rules are that they should think about the rules a certain way which differs strongly from how they think, they will not execute that instruction. If you leave something unstated, people will organize their understanding according to what flows best to them. The rules aren't all powerful. You can't make a rule 'have fun' in order to make a game fun. This kind of way of thinking as if the game is a logic system in a vacuum leads to games that don't actually play well when they hit real tables.

You can tell people to play D&D but pretend as if they don't know the numbers on their character sheet or how hitpoints work or things like that, and it simply won't work because it ignores the reality of the people playing the game. Perhaps from the perspective of formal analysis you might say 'well they're just not playing the game we're analyzing in that case', but for the purpose of application - that is, analysis whose purpose is to aid in game design, not just to remain theoretical - what people actually do matters more than what the rules say they should do.

GeoffWatson
2022-01-06, 03:51 AM
Looking over Quertus' metric again, it looks like it would be more dependent on the DM's style and preferences (and the players), rather than the actual rules.

noob
2022-01-06, 08:38 AM
Looking over Quertus' metric again, it looks like it would be more dependent on the DM's style and preferences (and the players), rather than the actual rules.

That is kind of similar to what I said: the metrics gives results depending on the characters and the setting.
The characters depends on the players (you can not prevent that even if you hand out characters to the players they will have their own interpretation of those which will change the attempted actions) and the setting depends on the gm (his style and preferences will influence how the setting works and evolves).
So change the players and the gm (or the characters or the setting) and you change the score of the game: it is extremely subjective and the same game might go from 0 mismatch between rule and character fiction to 100% mismatch between rules and character fiction and it is the case of the vast majority of the "rpgs" dnd 4e included.

Max_Killjoy
2022-01-06, 08:57 AM
If you tell a person that the rules are that they should think about the rules a certain way which differs strongly from how they think, they will not execute that instruction. If you leave something unstated, people will organize their understanding according to what flows best to them. The rules aren't all powerful. You can't make a rule 'have fun' in order to make a game fun. This kind of way of thinking as if the game is a logic system in a vacuum leads to games that don't actually play well when they hit real tables.

You can tell people to play D&D but pretend as if they don't know the numbers on their character sheet or how hitpoints work or things like that, and it simply won't work because it ignores the reality of the people playing the game. Perhaps from the perspective of formal analysis you might say 'well they're just not playing the game we're analyzing in that case', but for the purpose of application - that is, analysis whose purpose is to aid in game design, not just to remain theoretical - what people actually do matters more than what the rules say they should do.

Agreed.

If a theory about how a personal internal experience or activity supposedly IS and MUST BE contradicts my personal experience of and interactions... then I'm not going to take it seriously.

And a lot of RPG theorizing that people present as hard and fast and True, just doesn't line up with how I experience or engage with RPGs.

See "all RPGs are storytelling" or "rules uber alles". Or in this case, the thing you're replying to. Rules and fiction ARE separate things, based on all my experience. A measure of how well an RPG system works is how well the two synchronize -- but they're never the same thing.

Vahnavoi
2022-01-06, 09:13 AM
If you tell a person that the rules are that they should think about the rules a certain way which differs strongly from how they think, they will not execute that instruction. If you leave something unstated, people will organize their understanding according to what flows best to them. The rules aren't all powerful. You can't make a rule 'have fun' in order to make a game fun. This kind of way of thinking as if the game is a logic system in a vacuum leads to games that don't actually play well when they hit real tables.

Do a word search for "unable or unwilling" in my posts. I've repeatedly made the point that not only are there real people unable to play any real game you can care to name, there are also games unplayable to any human. We're not in disagreement over the point you're making, and have never been. My point is about what things belong in the category of rules and what that means, not that rules are all powerful.


You can tell people to play D&D but pretend as if they don't know the numbers on their character sheet or how hitpoints work or things like that, and it simply won't work because it ignores the reality of the people playing the game. Perhaps from the perspective of formal analysis you might say 'well they're just not playing the game we're analyzing in that case', but for the purpose of application - that is, analysis whose purpose is to aid in game design, not just to remain theoretical - what people actually do matters more than what the rules say they should do.

If analysis results in "they're not playing the game we're analyzing", that's of immense practical use, because that's the kind of thing which actually delineates different games from each other! That IS the application, step one before step two of figuring out why. My repeated point is that you need to correctly understand which things belong in category of rules, or else the reason why ends up being that you never gave people the set of rules you wanted to analyze. Or, like you just said yourself: " If you leave something unstated, people will organize their understanding according to what flows best to them. "

Your D&D example is not wrong, the thing you're neglecting or forgetting is that a game, even variant of D&D, can genuinely make a rule about never giving players the numbers in the first place, meaning players genuinely never know them in normal play. This provably makes a practical difference, it's not some theoretical purism.

KorvinStarmast
2022-01-06, 10:24 AM
Rules and fiction ARE separate things, based on all my experience. A measure of how well an RPG system works is how well the two synchronize -- but they're never the same thing. IME they overlap, but the amount of overlap is open to question.

Your D&D example is not wrong, the thing you're neglecting or forgetting is that a game, even variant of D&D, can genuinely make a rule about never giving players the numbers in the first place, meaning players genuinely never know them in normal play. This provably makes a practical difference, it's not some theoretical purism. If you give someone a hammer, they'll will eventually start looking for the nearest nail.

NichG
2022-01-06, 03:10 PM
Do a word search for "unable or unwilling" in my posts. I've repeatedly made the point that not only are there real people unable to play any real game you can care to name, there are also games unplayable to any human. We're not in disagreement over the point you're making, and have never been. My point is about what things belong in the category of rules and what that means, not that rules are all powerful.

If analysis results in "they're not playing the game we're analyzing", that's of immense practical use, because that's the kind of thing which actually delineates different games from each other! That IS the application, step one before step two of figuring out why. My repeated point is that you need to correctly understand which things belong in category of rules, or else the reason why ends up being that you never gave people the set of rules you wanted to analyze. Or, like you just said yourself: " If you leave something unstated, people will organize their understanding according to what flows best to them. "


Again this seems backward to me. The goal isn't 'analyze these particular rules'. It's 'create a gameplay experience where players feel like reasoning from an in-character perspective'. If it turns out I give them rules A, they actually play by rules B, but it works, I don't care that they didn't actually play by rules A. Furthermore, if somehow it's the case that giving them rules B directly would reduce the degree to which this goal is met compared to them deriving rules B from misinterpreting rules A, then I should continue to give them A rather than to give them B or correct them about A.


Your D&D example is not wrong, the thing you're neglecting or forgetting is that a game, even variant of D&D, can genuinely make a rule about never giving players the numbers in the first place, meaning players genuinely never know them in normal play. This provably makes a practical difference, it's not some theoretical purism.

Addressed upthread where I explained that you can just look at what character behavior in a setting would be like if the person controlling each character did not screen their out of character knowledge about the game mechanics from their simulation of the character's decision process. If players don't know the numbers in the first place, that's not something you have to worry about screening or not.

Because I'm exploiting the distinction between hard mechanics and setting description, it becomes very easy to see that a freeform game with no hard mechanics or explicit resolution protocols outside of 'GM decides' automatically nearly optimizes this metric, as the players may not actually know anything OOC that their characters wouldn't know. The remaining effects are things driven by e.g. previous experiences with a specific GM such as being familiar with the genre conventions they like or knowing what sorts of plots they tend to run, as well as the screening the GM might need to perform to keep multiple characters separate in their head.

Edit: To be specific here, a freeform game where the only communication is in character discussion, 'I do X' types of declarations, and 'this is what (you perceive) happens' types of returns.

Cluedrew
2022-01-07, 09:03 PM
I have said some things like GeoffWatson and noob in the past, but I got another one to add or another way to look at it: it is decided by approach. 4e definitely has a lot of support for a very tactical/mechanics/out-of-character approach but it also still has everything you need to immerse yourself in your character and role-play it up. On the other side, I believe the phase "theoretical optimization" predates 4e so it is not like it invented not role-playing in your role-playing game. I think every edition of D&D supports both and if you support the role-playing approach then I would call that a role-playing game.


Hit Points

As a concept, Hit Points (HP) match the abstraction of, "hit someone, and they get hurt; hurt them enough, and they die".Just like 4e skill challenges, even pre-fix, match the abstraction of "multiple tasks, success in enough gives success over all, failure in too many means failure over all". Which is not to say I disagree with you (in this statement or the overall point of this section). But it also shows some of the issues I see with the metric of this thread.

So there are two common explanations for hit points. The simple one is "HP as meat" (although I like HP as toughness). The other is the official model, which uses a combination of factors -- such as: physical and mental endurance, luck, reflexes and the will to fight on -- to describe the same set of mechanics (does this one has a good short name). Incidentally, if we were judging it by the metric we would use the official explanation found in the books, but I want to focus on a simpler question: Why are their two of them?

There are two explanations because people can't agree which one works better. They have different issues and people don't all feel as strongly about those issues. I don't think either of the options is wrong, even though I know which one I like better, because it is a subjective preference, it varies by subject.

Milo v3
2022-01-11, 10:45 PM
It is wack to me that this conversation even needs to be had in the modern day.

The 'metrics' given in the OP seem especially strange in a modern context, where RPGs that use more narrative abstraction in decision making is more common in game design.

Faily
2022-01-12, 12:15 PM
It is wack to me that this conversation even needs to be had in the modern day.

The 'metrics' given in the OP seem especially strange in a modern context, where RPGs that use more narrative abstraction in decision making is more common in game design.

Even by old days of D&D it is a ridiculous and strange. Back then you didn't even have a lot of mechanics to back up things like diplomacy - you just had to roleplay it.

I've yet to see an RPG that explicitly prevents players from roleplaying. Some systems are more encouraging of it, and some enforce it more in a specific way that fits the game's narrative, but ultimately none of them (not even 4e) states "players cannot pretend to be their characters or make decisions based on what their characters would do".

kyoryu
2022-01-12, 12:23 PM
I've yet to see an RPG that explicitly prevents players from roleplaying. Some systems are more encouraging of it, and some enforce it more in a specific way that fits the game's narrative, but ultimately none of them (not even 4e) states "players cannot pretend to be their characters or make decisions based on what their characters would do".

The contention isn't that 4e states that, it's that the game design demands it, by requiring decisions to be made that use information not available to the character.

(The most common response is "not enough more than most other games to move it into a separate category.")

Max_Killjoy
2022-01-12, 12:43 PM
As a general thing, this is A reason why some prefer systems that have more sync between the setting and the mechanics -- so that to the degree practical, the rules/mechanics are telling the player the same things that the setting/circumstances at hand are telling the character.

Willie the Duck
2022-01-12, 01:03 PM
As a general thing, this is A reason why some prefer systems that have more sync between the setting and the mechanics -- so that to the degree practical, the rules/mechanics are telling the player the same things that the setting/circumstances at hand are telling the character.

Oh, that there is a difference among games, and that one can prefer games that fit somewhere along the spectrum of how much, are pretty much obvious to the point of universal agreement. It really isn't until OP started declaring things outside their preference range not-an-RPG that things really became controversial.

kyoryu
2022-01-12, 01:05 PM
Oh, that there is a difference among games, and that one can prefer games that fit somewhere along the spectrum of how much, are pretty much obvious to the point of universal agreement. It really isn't until OP started declaring things outside their preference range not-an-RPG that things really became controversial.

Bingo. "This is my preference" doesn't cause many eyes to get batted.

"This is an objectively true statement" gets pushback.

NichG
2022-01-12, 06:32 PM
Even by old days of D&D it is a ridiculous and strange. Back then you didn't even have a lot of mechanics to back up things like diplomacy - you just had to roleplay it.


By this sort of metric, adding mechanics for diplomacy is going to decrease the ease of making decisions from a character level view, not increase it.

I think maybe some of the feeling of strangeness comes from a different interpretation of the word 'role'. For some people, I think playing a role means accurately depicting the attributes of a certain specified character - their competencies and weaknesses, their attitudes and beliefs, their abilities. For others, it's more about stepping into a character's circumstances - the world they live in, the job they have, the trouble they're in, etc.

From the first perspective, mechanics might give the benefit of creating the outcomes that feel like they're 'supposed to happen' given the informed attributes of the characters - the high Cha character persuades the low Wis character, etc. But when the way they do that conflicts with what the characters would perceive, it creates a conflict with the other interpretation of 'role'.

Cluedrew
2022-01-12, 07:58 PM
On Genre: I found another issue in the construction in that genres are usually described by inclusion. If you take a strategy game and add platforming to it then it doesn't stop being a strategy game, it is now also a platformer. Up to some line of "a significant part of the experience" but I played 4e and we definitely had the role-playing part feel pretty significant. (Nor does 3.X stop being a role-playing game when the optimisers go to work.) We have maybe three people in this thread who have said otherwise so those seem to be the outliers. And it has that core one ended narration loop that most games we call role-playing games have.

To NichG: I have never really seen it called out like that but I've definitely seen "depicting" and "stepping into" (expression and experience?) used as goals for characters in role-playing games. Even the "making decisions in-character" view has variants in it, from true simulation to a broad archetypes. I probably couldn't list them all if I tried.

TexAvery
2022-01-13, 01:18 AM
The notion that a decision is only in-character if it is informed purely by fluff is where the argument completely loses me (if I understand the argument correctly). The crunch is, for the character, an observable part of the universe. If I'm playing catch with my little 7-year-old niece, I can't gently toss the ball on a flat arc - physics doesn't work that way. I as a character won't think that that's possible and won't try; I'll gently toss a higher arc to her and throw it harder and flatter to my older cousin. If my hypothetical player had me try to throw the ball to my niece on a flatter arc, he'd be playing in a stupid way, not a good-fluffy-in-character way.

Characters, as has been commented before, know that they can suddenly cast a new level of spells. They can observe spells lasting longer as they level up. Acting appropriately per the observable rules of the universe (including all the crunch rules) is in character. There is no conflict between fluff and crunch for acting in-character.

None of which means I'd call 4e a great game or anything, but I'd classify it as an RPG.

It's also worth remembering that Moby **** has a length argument for why whales should be classified as fish.

ETA: Censorship is dumb.

NichG
2022-01-13, 01:58 AM
The notion that a decision is only in-character if it is informed purely by fluff is where the argument completely loses me (if I understand the argument correctly). The crunch is, for the character, an observable part of the universe. If I'm playing catch with my little 7-year-old niece, I can't gently toss the ball on a flat arc - physics doesn't work that way. I as a character won't think that that's possible and won't try; I'll gently toss a higher arc to her and throw it harder and flatter to my older cousin. If my hypothetical player had me try to throw the ball to my niece on a flatter arc, he'd be playing in a stupid way, not a good-fluffy-in-character way.


At least for the form of the metric I'm proposing, it's only that decisions based on the fluff and decisions based on the crunch should be in agreement with one another.

TexAvery
2022-01-13, 02:03 AM
At least for the form of the metric I'm proposing, it's only that decisions based on the fluff and decisions based on the crunch should be in agreement with one another.

Well yes, and if they aren't in agreement the problem is that the setting/ game is poorly written, not that the players should make "fluffy" decisions that make no sense in the game.

NichG
2022-01-13, 02:32 AM
Well yes, and if they aren't in agreement the problem is that the setting/ game is poorly written, not that the players should make "fluffy" decisions that make no sense in the game.

Given that the point of making a design metric is to have guidance as to detecting and fixing design errors. E.g. to identify that 'the setting/game is poorly written', but in a more specific way which would let one, y'know, fix it. So given that, does the argument now make sense to you?

TexAvery
2022-01-13, 09:56 AM
Given that the point of making a design metric is to have guidance as to detecting and fixing design errors. E.g. to identify that 'the setting/game is poorly written', but in a more specific way which would let one, y'know, fix it. So given that, does the argument now make sense to you?

No... the original goal as I understood it was to define an RPG, not to define a bad RPG. A bad RPG is still an RPG. And the definition of "not-RPG" was hung on the notion that player decisions based on crunch were not in-character in thus the game was not-RPG. My point is that decisions based on crunch are still in-character (as we all make decisions based on our understanding of the crunch for our universe all the time) and thus the entire angels-on-a-pin of "how many decision points..." is like arguing whether a three-legged dog is still a dog.

Now if the argument were "it's bad for a player to have to choose between making decisions on fluff and crunch because they disagree, and that means the game needs at least another draft" I'd agree. But that player is still making in-character decisions; the game just doesn't work as advertised.

NichG
2022-01-13, 10:29 AM
No... the original goal as I understood it was to define an RPG, not to define a bad RPG. A bad RPG is still an RPG. And the definition of "not-RPG" was hung on the notion that player decisions based on crunch were not in-character in thus the game was not-RPG. My point is that decisions based on crunch are still in-character (as we all make decisions based on our understanding of the crunch for our universe all the time) and thus the entire angels-on-a-pin of "how many decision points..." is like arguing whether a three-legged dog is still a dog.

Now if the argument were "it's bad for a player to have to choose between making decisions on fluff and crunch because they disagree, and that means the game needs at least another draft" I'd agree. But that player is still making in-character decisions; the game just doesn't work as advertised.

I read the logic this way:

- If roleplaying means making decisions from the perspective of a character
- and the game provides two disagreeing views of reality when rendering the character's perspective
- then it will be harder in such a game to roleplay than in a game in which those views agree.

There's the additional 'and there's some particular degree of disagreement at which it stops being an RPG', but I don't think that's particularly productive so I won't try to defend it.

TexAvery
2022-01-13, 10:57 AM
I read the logic this way:

- If roleplaying means making decisions from the perspective of a character
- and the game provides two disagreeing views of reality when rendering the character's perspective
- then it will be harder in such a game to roleplay than in a game in which those views agree.

There's the additional 'and there's some particular degree of disagreement at which it stops being an RPG', but I don't think that's particularly productive so I won't try to defend it.

I agree with your premise there. Th thread, though, was originally about that final disagreement. I was trying to step back from the back-and-forth of "number of fluff decisions" and uproot it as pointless navel-gazing. I believe Quertus even claimed that decisions based on crunch were explicitly not "from the perspective of the character" and used that as the predicate for why that made such a game not-RPG.

For an example, let's look at a football player. The fluff says football players like to party; the rules (of our universe) say a football player is more likely to win if he trains more. Some party more; some train more. We have a disagreement between the fluff of the universe and the crunch of the universe. The football player who spends more time in the weight room isn't being controlled by a min-maxer; he's sacrificing fluff for crunch. In real life. People do this sort of thing all the time.

kyoryu
2022-01-13, 11:04 AM
I agree with your premise there. Th thread, though, was originally about that final disagreement. I was trying to step back from the back-and-forth of "number of fluff decisions" and uproot it as pointless navel-gazing. I believe Quertus even claimed that decisions based on crunch were explicitly not "from the perspective of the character" and used that as the predicate for why that made such a game not-RPG.

For an example, let's look at a football player. The fluff says football players like to party; the rules (of our universe) say a football player is more likely to win if he trains more. Some party more; some train more. We have a disagreement between the fluff of the universe and the crunch of the universe. The football player who spends more time in the weight room isn't being controlled by a min-maxer; he's sacrificing fluff for crunch. In real life. People do this sort of thing all the time.

And that's actually really interesting room for game design - ostensibly the goal is to "win games", but that's often not actually the goal of the individuals involved. I've long thought that having RPGs with different (sometimes conflicting) goals for the players would be interesting.

Like, imagine three classes:

PartyJock
ScholarJock
ProJock
EgoJock

PartyJock is motivated (and rewarded for) popularity, having girlfriends, going to parties, etc. For him, winning is a means to that end.
ScholarJock is motivated by getting a scholarship to his college of choice, which may not be a strong football school. So long as he gets that money, he's golden. He wants to be scouted by the right schools.
ProJock wants to be a pro athlete and has a chance at it. He is motivated by getting scouted for the best football schools
EgoJock is living his glory years. He's similar to PartyJock, but what he gets rewarded for is making individual plays on the field, regardless of the team result.

To a certain extent, all of their goals align, but not entirely. Your scenario describes PartyJock going out there and getting his "xp" from partying, while the other guy (ProJock maybe) is spending time increasing his performance. He doesn't get xp from partying, but a good performance can get him scouted, which does get him xp.

Or a scenario in a football game - EgoJock is just driven by his performance, so he makes a risky play that, if it works, will make him look like a star, rather than a play that will almost certainly work but won't put him in the spotlight. ScholarJock and ProJock get mad. PartyJock meanwhile figures out how he's going to leverage the loss into sympathy and use that to his advantage.

IOW, they only don't align because the crunch presumes too narrow of a focus.

Some of hte original Braunstein games did this too. One of the seminal stories was a guy that was a revolutionary and got points for distributing fliers... he spent the entire game masquerading as a CIA agent, and then got a helicopter .... which he used to mass-distribute fliers to the population, winning the game.

NichG
2022-01-13, 11:10 AM
I agree with your premise there. Th thread, though, was originally about that final disagreement. I was trying to step back from the back-and-forth of "number of fluff decisions" and uproot it as pointless navel-gazing. I believe Quertus even claimed that decisions based on crunch were explicitly not "from the perspective of the character" and used that as the predicate for why that made such a game not-RPG.

For an example, let's look at a football player. The fluff says football players like to party; the rules (of our universe) say a football player is more likely to win if he trains more. Some party more; some train more. We have a disagreement between the fluff of the universe and the crunch of the universe. The football player who spends more time in the weight room isn't being controlled by a min-maxer; he's sacrificing fluff for crunch. In real life. People do this sort of thing all the time.

This sort of example is exactly why I suggested using consistency of decision rather than optimality of decision as the metric.

If the character is someone who plays football to get laid, the fluff says 'training helps you win games, parties help you meet people', and the crunch says 'training will give you +10% chance of winning the next game, winning a game gives you a +10% chance of hooking up, and your base chance of hooking up is 70% at each party' then going to parties instead of training is consistent for that character's motives. The person isn't sacrificing fluff for crunch, they're following both fluff and crunch to trade off one in-character motivation for another.

If the crunch says the training bonus is +50%, winning a game is worth +100%, and the base chance of a hookup for a football player is only 5%, then even a hedonist looking to hook up should be training rather than going to parties. If the fluff then presents other hedonist football players going to parties and successfully hooking up despite that math, you've got a conflict as a player - does your hedonist character fulfill their motive, or do they act out the stereotype even if it doesn't actually work?

TexAvery
2022-01-13, 11:43 AM
This sort of example is exactly why I suggested using consistency of decision rather than optimality of decision as the metric.

If the character is someone who plays football to get laid, the fluff says 'training helps you win games, parties help you meet people', and the crunch says 'training will give you +10% chance of winning the next game, winning a game gives you a +10% chance of hooking up, and your base chance of hooking up is 70% at each party' then going to parties instead of training is consistent for that character's motives. The person isn't sacrificing fluff for crunch, they're following both fluff and crunch to trade off one in-character motivation for another.

If the crunch says the training bonus is +50%, winning a game is worth +100%, and the base chance of a hookup for a football player is only 5%, then even a hedonist looking to hook up should be training rather than going to parties. If the fluff then presents other hedonist football players going to parties and successfully hooking up despite that math, you've got a conflict as a player - does your hedonist character fulfill their motive, or do they act out the stereotype even if it doesn't actually work?

Is that different from people who, say, quit high-paid finance jobs to go be a chef, as happens? According to the fluff of our society, finance is the best job you can have, and quitting to be a chef materially harms your financial and social power. These conflicts happen in real life. And people constantly make choices that don't advance - and even harm - their stated goals.

Now, I'd probably not write a game attempting to create that situation (and if a game includes such thing, it should be aware that it does), but it's still an RPG.

Is this even different from, as in a thread somewhere around here, an elf being an assassin instead of a mage?

PhoenixPhyre
2022-01-13, 12:17 PM
Is that different from people who, say, quit high-paid finance jobs to go be a chef, as happens? According to the fluff of our society, finance is the best job you can have, and quitting to be a chef materially harms your financial and social power. These conflicts happen in real life. And people constantly make choices that don't advance - and even harm - their stated goals.

Now, I'd probably not write a game attempting to create that situation (and if a game includes such thing, it should be aware that it does), but it's still an RPG.

Is this even different from, as in a thread somewhere around here, an elf being an assassin instead of a mage?

Yeah. "Optimality" is highly overrated. And actually fairly rare. People aren't really rational animals--they're emotional (and other forms of irrationality) with a veneer of rationality that mostly exists to justify their actions (which are chosen for other reasons). Am I a cynic? Yes. Absolutely.

NichG
2022-01-13, 03:55 PM
Is that different from people who, say, quit high-paid finance jobs to go be a chef, as happens? According to the fluff of our society, finance is the best job you can have, and quitting to be a chef materially harms your financial and social power. These conflicts happen in real life. And people constantly make choices that don't advance - and even harm - their stated goals.


You're confusing the term 'fluff' with something like values here. An actual conflict would be something like someone saying 'the highest paying job you could have would be finance - you'll make way less money as a chef' and then when the person goes to apply for finance jobs they keep getting offered minimum wage positions only. To apply the metric, you need to have two sources of authoritative information about 'how things are', then ask how a single individual's decisions would differ if they were aware of the one source versus being aware of the other source.

Society saying 'finance is a good job' and the person saying 'no thanks, I don't want it' isn't a conflict between fluff and crunch because there's only one information source there.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-01-13, 04:04 PM
You're confusing the term 'fluff' with something like values here. An actual conflict would be something like someone saying 'the highest paying job you could have would be finance - you'll make way less money as a chef' and then when the person goes to apply for finance jobs they keep getting offered minimum wage positions only. To apply the metric, you need to have two sources of authoritative information about 'how things are', then ask how a single individual's decisions would differ if they were aware of the one source versus being aware of the other source.

Society saying 'finance is a good job' and the person saying 'no thanks, I don't want it' isn't a conflict between fluff and crunch because there's only one information source there.

Note: the two things you say are contradictions both happen in real life. Yes, in most cases finance is higher paying than cooking. But a large number of finance jobs are miserable, low-paying scut work, just like some cooking jobs are celebrity chefs making $$$. They're both very bimodal distributions. I had a friend who was a banker and switched to teaching. He made more as a teacher (or at least the same amount).

In RPG terms, focusing too much on the central measures (median/average/mode) obscures the fact that the world being described is really really complex and has lots of surprising "edge" cases that come up quite frequently. All metrics only measure what they measure...at most. But most of what is measured isn't really useful. And there are rarely, if ever, clear-cut hard lines.

kyoryu
2022-01-13, 04:12 PM
I think people are mostly rational. I think that have goals that, by the standards of others, are rational. However I believe that people are very very good at pursuing their goals in the vast, vast majority of cases.

They are often unclear of what their own goals are, as well.

But if you look at peoples' behavior over time, they are usually very consistent in what things they value and pursue.

NichG
2022-01-13, 04:27 PM
Note: the two things you say are contradictions both happen in real life. Yes, in most cases finance is higher paying than cooking. But a large number of finance jobs are miserable, low-paying scut work, just like some cooking jobs are celebrity chefs making $$$. They're both very bimodal distributions. I had a friend who was a banker and switched to teaching. He made more as a teacher (or at least the same amount).

In RPG terms, focusing too much on the central measures (median/average/mode) obscures the fact that the world being described is really really complex and has lots of surprising "edge" cases that come up quite frequently. All metrics only measure what they measure...at most. But most of what is measured isn't really useful. And there are rarely, if ever, clear-cut hard lines.

Again, you'd have to identify two sources of information which are authoritative and see if there's a change in decision. It doesn't really make sense to apply this to real life because as people who are living, we don't have a second self that simultaneously has access to that distinct information stream. E.g. we're not in a position of actively trying to hide information from ourselves. It's not even that you couldn't apply the metric e.g. to someone who is being told one thing by their family and another thing by their friends, it would just sort of be a non sequitur. I mean, what are you going to do as a result, redesign reality?

The only place in real life where I can imagine it actually being 'useful' would be for someone like a spy, who has to act as if they only have access to some information while in reality they have access to a wider pool of information that they can't let on that they know. In which case the metric would be measuring the stress on their cover story imposed by different situations or something like that...

PhoenixPhyre
2022-01-13, 05:15 PM
Again, you'd have to identify two sources of information which are authoritative and see if there's a change in decision. It doesn't really make sense to apply this to real life because as people who are living, we don't have a second self that simultaneously has access to that distinct information stream. E.g. we're not in a position of actively trying to hide information from ourselves. It's not even that you couldn't apply the metric e.g. to someone who is being told one thing by their family and another thing by their friends, it would just sort of be a non sequitur. I mean, what are you going to do as a result, redesign reality?

The only place in real life where I can imagine it actually being 'useful' would be for someone like a spy, who has to act as if they only have access to some information while in reality they have access to a wider pool of information that they can't let on that they know. In which case the metric would be measuring the stress on their cover story imposed by different situations or something like that...

I'm saying that in a properly complex fictional world (complexity approaching that of the real world), this metric fails to be useful. Which says that you can roleplay best in a flat world where everything's binary. Which is...odd.

Basically, it's a disease of metrics. Sure, you can measure things. But is there any meaning in those measurements? That's yet to be seen, at least in my judgement. "Hard metrics" aren't actually necessarily better than soft, subjective judgement calls. Things don't naturally fit into nice boxes, and trying to find hard division lines (or even scalar parameters) is generally futile, in my opinion.

NichG
2022-01-13, 05:38 PM
I'm saying that in a properly complex fictional world (complexity approaching that of the real world), this metric fails to be useful. Which says that you can roleplay best in a flat world where everything's binary. Which is...odd.

In a fictional world you have a difference in knowledge between player and character. In the real world, there isn't such a difference, so the metric fails to be useful. That's not because of the complexity of the real world, it's because in the real world we don't have a player who knows things we don't know.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-01-13, 05:45 PM
In a fictional world you have a difference in knowledge between player and character. In the real world, there isn't such a difference, so the metric fails to be useful. That's not because of the complexity of the real world, it's because in the real world we don't have a player who knows things we don't know.

Except that in the case stated, I don't see how either the player or the character would know. It's all distributions, not binaries. It's not "X > Y", it's "X > Y with probability P, under conditions Q, but you don't know whether you're in Q or not."

The character knows things the player doesn't. The player knows things the character doesn't. But which things, and how, and everything else is so fuzzy I'm not sure how any metric is supposed to give meaningful results.

NichG
2022-01-13, 06:14 PM
Except that in the case stated, I don't see how either the player or the character would know. It's all distributions, not binaries. It's not "X > Y", it's "X > Y with probability P, under conditions Q, but you don't know whether you're in Q or not."

The character knows things the player doesn't. The player knows things the character doesn't. But which things, and how, and everything else is so fuzzy I'm not sure how any metric is supposed to give meaningful results.

So thats why the simple probe test - give permission for the player/GM to use their full out of character knowledge about the game mechanics and ask 'knowing this, would the character act differently?'.

If the player happens to be someone who makes irrational choices, they're allowed to be just as irrational knowing the mechanics and not knowing the mechanics. If they have different goals, they're allowed those different goals both knowing the mechanics and not knowing the mechanics. So its not trying to evaluate 'is this optimal' or 'is this rational'. If something is ambiguous or hard to reason through or complex, then as long as its the same way in the mechanics as in the fluff it shouldn't register as a difference.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-01-13, 06:20 PM
So thats why the simple probe test - give permission for the player/GM to use their full out of character knowledge about the game mechanics and ask 'knowing this, would the character act differently?'.

If the player happens to be someone who makes irrational choices, they're allowed to be just as irrational knowing the mechanics and not knowing the mechanics. If they have different goals, they're allowed those different goals both knowing the mechanics and not knowing the mechanics. So its not trying to evaluate 'is this optimal' or 'is this rational'. If something is ambiguous or hard to reason through or complex, then as long as its the same way in the mechanics as in the fluff it shouldn't register as a difference.

That doesn't capture all the things the character knows that the player doesn't. Or the things that the player thinks they know that aren't so.

Beyond that, I question the utility of measuring anything about how people actually play (or even hypothetical people) when looking at games themselves. Because how they're designed and intended to be used and how they're actually played are two different, often diametrically opposed things. Just look at 3e D&D.

Yes, I don't find much value in "metrics" for soft squishy things. It all seems like the drunk looking under the lightpost for his keys because he can see better there. I'm perfectly happy with "is it an RPG? Does it sell itself as one? Does it have characters you can get in the role of? Does it (even notionally) have a fiction layer? Is it a game? Then RPG." Yes, this is imperfect and both over and under-inclusive. :shrug: Good enough.

NichG
2022-01-13, 06:44 PM
That doesn't capture all the things the character knows that the player doesn't. Or the things that the player thinks they know that aren't so.

Things the player thinks they know are fine with this, because changing whether they allow mechanical information to seep into in-character decisions won't change that. So it'll be a net zero impact.

Things the character knows that the player doesn't could factor, yes, and that's a valid comparison to include. At the setting level, it can be somewhat evaluated, even if its harder to evaluate for a single PC (and in general I'm talking about evaluating the setting more than a specific PC anyhow). At the setting level you'd have to basically do an exercise of 'resolving' things that you abstracted and then seeing if the way you see those characters and their choices changes as a result.



Beyond that, I question the utility of measuring anything about how people actually play (or even hypothetical people) when looking at games themselves. Because how they're designed and intended to be used and how they're actually played are two different, often diametrically opposed things. Just look at 3e D&D.


That seems like a perfect example of why you should care about how people actually play, rather than a reason to conclude its not useful to measure. Design intent that doesn't survive contact with players was bad design. By measuring how people actually interact with designs, you can reduce that gap and express more of the actual intent.

PhoenixPhyre
2022-01-13, 07:43 PM
That seems like a perfect example of why you should care about how people actually play, rather than a reason to conclude its not useful to measure. Design intent that doesn't survive contact with players was bad design. By measuring how people actually interact with designs, you can reduce that gap and express more of the actual intent.

It's a useful thing for designers to measure, but it's a formative measure, not a summative measure (to use education speak). That is, it's not an external way of knowing "did the designers create something that fits into <category>, defined by <external measure>." It's a useful way of knowing "hey, do these rules produce the effects we wanted them to?", generally on a narrow scale.

So I guess part of it may be that I've missed some topic drift--I'm saying it's not a useful measure to decide if something is an RPG. If that's not what's being discussed, my apologies and I'll bow out now.

My big point was just to poke at the example being used to say "man, real life is really weird some times." :smallbiggrin:

TexAvery
2022-01-13, 07:45 PM
In a fictional world you have a difference in knowledge between player and character. In the real world, there isn't such a difference, so the metric fails to be useful. That's not because of the complexity of the real world, it's because in the real world we don't have a player who knows things we don't know.

Where you're trying to draw a difference between player and character is where I'm pushing back - much of the "metagaming" complaints are about things that the character would know, such as spell effects and powers, which are observable in-game. The fluff is the lies the characters say and possibly think they believe, like "you get money through hard work", when my landscaper makes way less than I do for much harder work than I do.

No realistic character is going to utterly ignore the laws of the universe (the crunch) in favor of its description (the fluff). At the very least, not while being an alive adventurer.

Where I'd accept metagaming as an issue is the player knowing things from a published module, for example. Playing your character as if he knows the information on his character sheet ain't that, and certainly is role-playing.

NichG
2022-01-13, 08:26 PM
It's a useful thing for designers to measure, but it's a formative measure, not a summative measure (to use education speak). That is, it's not an external way of knowing "did the designers create something that fits into <category>, defined by <external measure>." It's a useful way of knowing "hey, do these rules produce the effects we wanted them to?", generally on a narrow scale.

So I guess part of it may be that I've missed some topic drift--I'm saying it's not a useful measure to decide if something is an RPG. If that's not what's being discussed, my apologies and I'll bow out now.


It's where the thread started, but not the position I've been taking. Basically my position has been that Quertus happened upon a good idea about a thing to measure (whether or not in-character decisions could be made effectively based on the world-as-presented versus the world-as-implied-by-mechanics), but that the utilization of it to separate things into RPG vs non-RPG was a mistaken application of that idea. E.g. rather than concluding '4e is/is not an RPG', which is just a pointless edition war, one could say 'here are the elements of 4e where out-of-character understanding of the way the world is being simulated disagrees with in-character logic, and therefore if we want to make it easier to roleplay in that system then we should adjust those aspects...'


Where you're trying to draw a difference between player and character is where I'm pushing back - much of the "metagaming" complaints are about things that the character would know, such as spell effects and powers, which are observable in-game. The fluff is the lies the characters say and possibly think they believe, like "you get money through hard work", when my landscaper makes way less than I do for much harder work than I do.

No realistic character is going to utterly ignore the laws of the universe (the crunch) in favor of its description (the fluff). At the very least, not while being an alive adventurer.

Where I'd accept metagaming as an issue is the player knowing things from a published module, for example. Playing your character as if he knows the information on his character sheet ain't that, and certainly is role-playing.

Fluff isn't 'lies the characters say and believe'. It's things established about the setting in-place rather than being derived from the mechanics. If the setting description says 'King Moneybags controls the economy of the world because he owns the only functioning gold mine, and all nations need to go through him in order to mint their currencies. As a result, all of the King's vassals have diplomatic immunity everywhere in the setting' but the mechanics say that alchemical creation of gold is something that a character can do, then the statement 'all of the King's vassals have diplomatic immunity' isn't a lie, its just nonsensical.

If the fluff is 'vampires are driven by a strong urge to drink blood' but there's no mechanical penalties for a vampire not drinking blood, 'vampires are driven to drink blood' may not be a lie, but its not supported by the mechanics either.

If the mechanics say people can become demigods by spending 6 months farming rats, and the world is completely silent about that, then the fluff hasn't 'said anything' but it'd still pop up as an inconsistency since characters would behave differently if they understood the XP system.