Quertus fails at defining roleplaying games again

[Quertus]

So as not to derail a thread, I’m posting my current failed attempt to define RPGs, and measure games’ suitability to be played as RPGs, here.

To be a roleplaying game, it has to have “roleplaying” and “game”. “Roleplaying” is making decisions for the character, as the character. Nothing terribly contentious so far.

My current failed definition of an RPG involves comparing “inside the box” buttons with “outside the box” actions, and the comparative difficulty in adjudicating them.

My claim is that the extent to which the game hinders one’s ability to adjudicate in-character actions for which there is no prebuilt button is the extent to which it is unsuited to being played as an RPG.

So, for example, a “choose your own adventure” book is at the far “not an RPG” end of the spectrum, because, when it comes to comparing buttons to RP-driven actions, WWQD to “would you rather…”, “choose your own adventure” books make it approximately impossible to write your own pages in for actions that aren’t pre-scripted.

Of course, this all started with me evaluating claims that 4e wasn’t D&D, deciding it was D&D but wasn’t something, declaring that 4e wasn’t an RPG, and struggling to explain what I meant by that.

So, in that context, and the context of the thread I’m trying not to derail, the question is, in the context of fighting orcs who have reinforcements on the way, how much harder is it to turn “I pull the rug out from under the orcs, and cram it in the door” into “Roll ____ against the orcs’ _____ to deal d6+____ with rider ______” than to adjudicate a button press like “I cast Burning Hands”, and to do so in such a way that it isn’t random and arbitrary, but actually matches the rest of the game? Is it an unprinted Encounter power, At Will, or Daily? Does it hurt the game to add dozens of these every session? To have a player who never presses an AED button on their character sheet?

Then, if you want to see how 4e compares to other RPGs, to see if this is what 4e “wasn’t”, you’d try the same math with other games, comparing the difficulty in adjudicating a “button press” in that started with in-character interaction with the environment like “I pull the rug out from under the orcs, and cram it in the door”, and look at those two differences, to see how they compare.

4 measurements, just to see how 2 RPGs compare in 1 specific example. Lots more measurements to get a generalized feel for how suited the game is for playing the character rather than playing the system.

That’s a quick summary of what I’ve got so far, in the context of the thread I’m trying not to derail.

[MutantDragon]

Interesting topic. Personally, my definition requires an TTRPG to meet two criteria:

1. Players assume the roles of characters of their design who they are free to play in whatever manner they choose, within the bounds of decency towards the other participants in the game.

2. There must be some rules or guidelines for determining the results of player decisions. This doesn't mean that there need to be skill rolls for walking down the hall, but it does mean that when the outcome of an action is reasonably in doubt there is some means of determining the results.

If it's just the first, then it's purely a game of make believe. If it's just the second, then it's a board game, video game, or something else. That's my take, anyway.

[InvisibleBison]

My current failed definition of an RPG involves comparing “inside the box” buttons with “outside the box” actions, and the comparative difficulty in adjudicating them.

My claim is that the extent to which the game hinders one’s ability to adjudicate in-character actions for which there is no prebuilt button is the extent to which it is unsuited to being played as an RPG.

I don't think this definition can be made to work, because it's fundamentally subjective. An experienced game master is going to have a much easier time figuring out how to adjudicate an action for which the system provides no rules than someone who's never played an RPG before, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that whether or not a game is an RPG depends on who's running it.

I tend to agree with MutantDragon's definition of an RPG, though I'd phrase it more simply: An RPG is a game in which you are supposed to roleplay.

[Tanarii]

Roleplaying = making decisions on the actions of an imaginary character in an imaginary environment
Game = rules for resolution of declared action

A roleplaying game is a game in which you have an imaginary character in an imaginary environment, make decisions about their actions, and there are rules for how actions are resolved.

The caveat is the most common rule is "the GM decides how the declared action resolves". In most games that covers not having to have a specific rule for everything that can be attempted by the characters.

Otherwise Gloomhaven would be a roleplaying game. Conversely, there probably are people that would consider it one.

[Quertus]

I don't think this definition can be made to work, because it's fundamentally subjective. An experienced game master is going to have a much easier time figuring out how to adjudicate an action for which the system provides no rules than someone who's never played an RPG before, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that whether or not a game is an RPG depends on who's running it.

Actually… I’m perfectly fine with that type of subjectivity, with saying, “D&D is an RPG - but not under you”, just like “Disney is a fun vacation - but not with you”. I think that failing to take into account how much GM’s can ruin a game is an unfortunate oversight of most evaluations and designers.

It just wasn’t what I was aiming to create with my metric.

[animorte]

Roleplaying = making decisions on the actions of an imaginary character in an imaginary environment
Game = rules for resolution of declared action

A roleplaying game is a game in which you have an imaginary character in an imaginary environment, make decisions about their actions, and there are rules for how actions are resolved.

The caveat is the most common rule is "the GM decides how the declared action resolves". In most games that covers not having to have a specific rule for everything that can be attempted by the characters.

Otherwise Gloomhaven would be a roleplaying game. Conversely, there probably are people that would consider it one.

I think it absolutely is a role playing game. It specifically follows the prerequisites you stated, which I agree with. But there are also many video games that are role playing games. That’s why it’s helpful to note the difference with TTRPG, which still doesn’t set apart Gloomhaven (or those role board games) from D&D.

This link (https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-an-rpg#6tQJCPweA8S89vhlS88AEu) doesn’t even take into account table-top games but still has 6 variations.

Alternatively, this link (https://nerdsonearth.com/2018/03/7-types-board-games/) talks about 7 variations of table-top games in general without technically mentioning role playing at all.

[Batcathat]

Actually… I’m perfectly fine with that type of subjectivity, with saying, “D&D is an RPG - but not under you”, just like “Disney is a fun vacation - but not with you”. I think that failing to take into account how much GM’s can ruin a game is an unfortunate oversight of most evaluations and designers.

But saying "D&D isn't an RPG" isn't like saying "Disney isn't a fun vacation", it's like saying "Disney isn't an amusement park". "Fun" is inherently subjective, but what category of thing something is usually isn't.

[Cluedrew]

For me (right now), I say that a role-playing game is a type of story-telling game that focuses on characters and figuring out what they would do. For those who consider story-telling game to be completely separate, pretend I made up a new term and then defined it to be a game where narration is an important mode of game-play. Then there is the stuff defined by game.

So, while you can still role-play during battle-mat combat, on its own it isn't a role-playing game because narration isn't a game structure any more. Narration becomes flavor text, now counting squares and checking health totals becomes the core of the game.


Of course, this all started with me evaluating claims that 4e wasn’t D&D, deciding it was D&D but wasn’t something, declaring that 4e wasn’t an RPG, and struggling to explain what I meant by that.I remember that yes.

[Kurald Galain]

Paraphrasing what I said in the other thread, there are games where you first describe what you want to do and then you (or the DM) selects a suitable mechanic to represent that, or sometimes you do it without mechanics; and then there are games where you first pick a mechanic to use (e.g. which power) and then afterwards you (or the DM) comes up with a description, or sometimes you skip the description. Boardgames are almost always in the second group; most roleplaying games I can think of are in the first group.

Notably, 4E is firmly in the second group, at least the way it's usually played.

I'd say this is an important distinction in how a game "feels" and is played, and it's a fair basis to claim that "4E is unlike most RPGs in that..."

[Batcathat]

Paraphrasing what I said in the other thread, there are games where you first describe what you want to do and then you (or the DM) selects a suitable mechanic to represent that, or sometimes you do it without mechanics; and then there are games where you first pick a mechanic to use (e.g. which power) and then afterwards you (or the DM) comes up with a description, or sometimes you skip the description. Boardgames are almost always in the second group; most roleplaying games I can think of are in the first group.

Notably, 4E is firmly in the second group, at least the way it's usually played.

I'd say this is an important distinction in how a game "feels" and is played, and it's a fair basis to claim that "4E is unlike most RPGs in that..."

While it is an important distinction, I feel like it's between players just as much if not more than it is between games. Some players only ever use the options the rules and their character sheet presents, some players seem to think and act almost entirely outside of the box (and of course different GMs can be better or worse at handling different types of players).

[False God]

Paraphrasing what I said in the other thread, there are games where you first describe what you want to do and then you (or the DM) selects a suitable mechanic to represent that, or sometimes you do it without mechanics; and then there are games where you first pick a mechanic to use (e.g. which power) and then afterwards you (or the DM) comes up with a description, or sometimes you skip the description. Boardgames are almost always in the second group; most roleplaying games I can think of are in the first group.

Notably, 4E is firmly in the second group, at least the way it's usually played.

I'd say this is an important distinction in how a game "feels" and is played, and it's a fair basis to claim that "4E is unlike most RPGs in that..."

I feel like this differentiates 4E far more than it should. While players could certainly use whatever power they wanted for an attack, thats no different than any other edition or most RPGs. When it comes to your turn and you declare "I'm going to attack it with by sword." The DM tells you how hard (the DC) it is. Nothing functionally changed between 4E and any other edition in this regard when they said "I'm going to attack it with my Ice Hammer power." A die still needed to be rolled and a DC still needed to be met.

Very few games rely on playing "mother may I?" with the DM in the overwhelming majority of play. Situations where the player cannot look at their sheet and immediately determine a relevant skill, stat, or attack for any available situation are few. It is similarly unlikely that any game, or any DMs resolution mechanic will be dramatically different than what the game suggests is the usual skill or stat. It's highly unlikely that declaring to attack something will result in an apprise check, or asking to appraise something will result in a swim check.

[Kurald Galain]

I feel like this differentiates 4E far more than it should.

Perhaps, but 4E does get rather different player reactions than most RPGs, so clearly it differentiates itself in some way, and it's interesting to see if we can explain how. The commonly heard argument "but these players are just wrong" fails to be convincing, at any rate :smallamused:

[False God]

Perhaps, but 4E does get rather different player reactions than most RPGs, so clearly it differentiates itself in some way, and it's interesting to see if we can explain how. The commonly heard argument "but these players are just wrong" fails to be convincing, at any rate :smallamused:

It does not wildly fly outside the norms of RPGs in general, just within D&D. The lack of vancian casting, martials getting "wuxia" powers (or straight-up magical abilities). It's closer in terms of appearance and function to a supers game, with a limited set of often themed powers only available a certain number of times.

It gets different reactions from D&D players because it's not what they're used to or what they "want to see" in a D&D RPG. It doesn't IME, get much of a reaction at all from folks who are experienced with a wider variety of RPGs. With folks who regularly play outside the d20 spectrum, or folks who play more "gamey" RPGs.

If we use Quertus most basic interpretation, that an RPG is a "game" that includes "roleplaying", then the only real question of analysis is "to what degree?". I might be an outlier here, but I don't think D&D ever emphasizes roleplaying. It is a very crunchy, very "gamey" system that is IMO, intended to function from a more top-down level, like the 3rd-person-perspective in a video game, than from a 1st-person perspective. I think 4E radically changes the visuals for a more heroic, even "supers" style of gameplay, but I think all that only serves to emphasize how "gamey" D&D is in general.

I'd probably rate D&D 20% Roleplay, 80% Game. Stories, RP, thematics, flavor are all fluff. Like the flavor-text on an MTG card, almost none of it changes how the game is played. It is entirely up to the DM, the players, to do the heavy lifting for successful roleplay.

I don't think 4E changed any of that. It just made it more obvious.

[Morgaln]

The following are some thoughts that came to my mind and re basically just me collexting my thoughts. I'm not claiming it's the truth and certainly not the complete truth, but maybe it helps anyway.

I've played 4e long ago, shortly after it came out, and I liked it a lot better than 3.5 Mostly because I like to play martials, and this version gave me actual abilities to work with. I was playing a warlord and loved the class for the options it gave my to play tactically both on my own and in a team. Whatever you think about being "samey," this is the often-cited big positive of 4e. Every class had the same amount of special abilities to use.

However, those abilities are all combat abilities. And that might be the problem. If you have buttons to push, I think the first thing most players, especially inexperienced ones do is to look at those buttons and decide which one to use. Many players will not go far enough to even consider whether they even should push one of the buttons or if going for a different option would be better. Thinking outside the box needs to be learned.
That was somewhat easier in 3e, because martials didn't have any buttons; they necessarily had to think outside the box or proclaim "I attack" every turn. Casters had tons of non-damage spells that encouraged them to use these creatively.

4e certainly allows you to do things that aren't part of the rules. That is a basic tennet of RPGs and 4e is no different in that regard. But I think 4e is much worse at teaching both GMs and players to actually consider and use these options.

[Kurald Galain]

It does not wildly fly outside the norms of RPGs in general, just within D&D.

Whatever gives you that idea?

[Jay R]

Can you come up with a clear definition of "dog" that unambiguously includes both dachshunds and great danes, that includes feral dogs but not tame wolves, and doesn't use scientific jargon (like "canis familiaris"?

Many straightforward concepts cannot be unambiguously defined in a single English expression. And many attempts to do so are really attempts to re-define the concept around the speaker's preferences.

John W. Campbell Jr. (perhaps the most influential science fiction editor of all time) was once asked for a clear definition of science fiction. He eventually said, "Science fiction is what science fiction editors buy."

In short, the definition is created over time by people's actions and choices.

Similarly, role-playing games are the games that role-players play. That's the actual definition, as created and modified by people's actions. Unfortunately, it includes 4e and all the other role-playing games that you don't like and wish to exclude. It also includes all the rpgs that I don't like and wish to exclude.

That's a feature, not a bug. That's why it's a real definition, not one customized around my, or anybody else's, preferences.

[Morgaln]

Can you come up with a clear definition of "dog" that unambiguously includes both dachshunds and great danes, that includes feral dogs but not tame wolves, and doesn't use scientific jargon (like "canis familiaris"?


While I agree with the rest of your post, I can't help but take a stab at this:

"Animals that are descendent from wolves, which have gone through a breeding and selection process (i. e. domestication) by humans to make them more fit for specific purposes."

Excludes any animal that isn't a wolf or dog, because "descendant from wolves)
Also excludes wolves, because they have not been domesticated.
Even "be food" and "be a lapdog" are specific purposes, so it doesn't even exclude breeds like pugs or chihuahuas.

Much easier than defining RPG, actually. ;)

[InvisibleBison]

Similarly, role-playing games are the games that role-players play.

So if a bunch of role-players play Monopoly, does that make Monopoly a role-playing game?

[Thrudd]

You have decided that 4e isn't a role playing game, because of the ways it's different from other versions of D&D, and you're now trying to come up with a definition for all RPGs that will conform to your decision that 4e isn't one. I think you are wrong about that. I think the problem you are having with 4e is only the combat and magic rules, which are significantly different from other editions of D&D. 4e has ability scores and skills just like other wotc editions, and handles non-combat actions in the same manner as the others- with the DM deciding if a skill or ability should apply to an action, setting a difficulty and having someone roll a d20 with a modifier.

Your example of pulling a rug and shoving it under a door wouldn't be a combat power or an attack against the orcs with a rider, it would be a skill check, probably using strength, to yank the rug out from under people standing on it. I never played 4e, but just looking at the rules, you can see that it isn't that different from other editions outside the way it handles combat and spells. All editions of D&D give the most page space and character sheet space to combat rules: however, just like in earlier D&D editions, there are "utility" spells as well, that fall outside the combat framework altogether, and skills that are to be used in a very broad way for everything that isn't fighting. So it is clearly written as an RPG, with not much more or less attention to non-combat scenarios than other versions of D&D, with just as much ability for the DM to adjudicate things in an "out of box" manner.

Perhaps the biggest criticism of 4e you're having is that most magic is relegated to combat-only powers, and those combat powers don't have an attending text that describes what the spell is actually doing apart from the attack and damage and status effects. So it is a valid question to ask how a DM is supposed to decide what happens if you want to use a "chill strike" spell to try to freeze an inanimate object, outside a combat scenario, rather than using it to damage or slow a living creature. There isn't a rule for it, the DM just decides what happens. That isn't all that different from other D&D editions, though it certainly gives the DM less to work with than other editions, where sometimes a spell's text would describe how it might affect or not affect things in the environment. I can see how this particular issue is most jarring when you are trying to port over your "signature mage" character from earlier version of D&D. However, a system not supporting playing a type of character from a different game doesn't invalidate it's status as an RPG. I wager you'd have similar problems trying to port your character over to any number of other fantasy RPGs that treat magic differently than TSR/3e/5e D&D.

There are certainly valid criticisms of how 4e was designed, and resultantly how it is played at some tables, but poor design choices and lack of guidance for GMs in specific situations doesn't revoke it's status as an RPG. At worst, I'd say that perhaps 4e can be viewed as a rather simple RPG with an included tactical battle game used to resolve combat scenarios- maybe like the Mechwarrior RPG+Battletech (note, I haven't played these since the late 90's, I don't know if there are newer editions that are different). What happens when a mech pilot hops in their mech and wants to use the Gauss Rifle to do something other than shoot at another mech? Mechwarrior/Battletech switching rulesets from RPG to battlegame perhaps makes more sense than it does in D&D, since the scale of combat is so much different- it makes sense to have very different rules. However, just like D&D, Battletech was originally a tactical war game, which some players later decided they wanted ways to play as the heroes/pilots in between the big battles they were taking part in, with ways to increase their skills through gameplay. If anything, 4e is closer to the original system which was a role-playing supplement to be used with a tactical war game (Chainmail). If OD&D is an RPG, so is 4e.

[Kurald Galain]

Your example of pulling a rug and shoving it under a door wouldn't be a combat power or an attack against the orcs with a rider, it would be a skill check, probably using strength, to yank the rug out from under people standing on it. I never played 4e
Thrudd, since you haven't played 4E, perhaps you should not assume that pulling a rug like that would necessarily be resolved with a skill check?

Based on the 4E rulebook, equally valid ways of ruling this would be (A) make a basic attack with the rug, then they get a saving throw to avoid falling down; or (B) use one of your existing powers and refluff it; or (C) you can pull out the rug but it has no mechanical effect. Back when the 4E forums were active, questions like this would receive wildly varying answers from different posters.

[BRC]

So as not to derail a thread, I’m posting my current failed attempt to define RPGs, and measure games’ suitability to be played as RPGs, here.

To be a roleplaying game, it has to have “roleplaying” and “game”. “Roleplaying” is making decisions for the character, as the character. Nothing terribly contentious so far.

My current failed definition of an RPG involves comparing “inside the box” buttons with “outside the box” actions, and the comparative difficulty in adjudicating them.

My claim is that the extent to which the game hinders one’s ability to adjudicate in-character actions for which there is no prebuilt button is the extent to which it is unsuited to being played as an RPG..

I think it's a simple binary, can you do something without being giving a button.

Consider, The Windowpane Test.
Narratively, Ms. Scarlet is in the Conservatory with the Lead Pipe. She would like to smash a windowpane. This would change the situation.

The game you are playing has no rule for breaking a window with a lead pipe.

In an RPG, if you say "I break the window" without an explicit ability to let you break the window, the game, whether it's GM'd or GMless, is obligated to assume that you did, in fact, break the window, and proceed forward with that being the situation.

In a Not-RPG, you cannot.


Difficulty of Adjudication can't be relevant, because different RPGs are going to be different at adjudicating different sorts of "Outside the Box" actions. So any given example, say, yanking the rug out from under a bunch of orcs, is going to heavily depend on the system in question. 5e Dnd can probably adjudicate yanking the rug as a simple application of physical strength, but an RPG focused on social intrigue may not even HAVE a physical strength stat.

Does that mean that Dungeon and Dragons IS an RPG while Courts and Countesses (The hypothetical social intrigue focused RPG) is not?

I don't think you can really say "X is MORE of an RPG" or "Y is LESS of an RPG" in any meaningful way. Especially because the test kind of falls apart with certain more abstracted systems. I vaguely recall some system, I think designed to do Arthurian Legend type stuff, and in it the stats were based not on your character's capabilities, but on their Motivations, whether you were doing something "For Duty", "For Glory", or "For Love". You can't apply the "Outside the box" test to such a system because the rules don't actually care about what an individual action is.

[kyoryu]

"I don't like a game so I'm going to make a definition explicitly designed to define it as objectively bad."

Dude, stop. Just stop. You've got better things to do.

[Pauly]

I think the OP has made an error. I see it as 3 elements.
Role - Taking on a persona different to your own. Although it is rare you can RPG using historical or RL characters as your persona.
Playing - using the adopted persona to interact with others
Game -using an agreed set of rules that limit how the players can act to achieve an outcome,

[Thrudd]

Thrudd, since you haven't played 4E, perhaps you should not assume that pulling a rug like that would necessarily be resolved with a skill check?

Based on the 4E rulebook, equally valid ways of ruling this would be (A) make a basic attack with the rug, then they get a saving throw to avoid falling down; or (B) use one of your existing powers and refluff it; or (C) you can pull out the rug but it has no mechanical effect. Back when the 4E forums were active, questions like this would receive wildly varying answers from different posters.

You could say the same about the same action happening in AD&D. There isn't anything in the game that says how you should do this, the DM decides. They would just have to decide what happens, maybe having the orcs make a saving throw, maybe having the player roll a d20 or a d100 or a d6 or any other die, or using the "bend bars/lift gates" roll as a way to test strength, or rolling under their strength score...or anything. The fact that there are lots of precise combat rules doesn't mean the DM is incapable of ruling what happens when someone wants to do something "out of the box" of the combat powers. Wildly different answers for different DMs is exactly what I'd expect for most editions of D&D, and since we aren't questioning whether all editions of D&D in general are really RPGs, I'd have to say this doesn't disqualify 4e, either. Maybe the solution I proposed was only obvious to me, because I've played 3e, and other systems, where ability scores and skills are used in this manner: but the fact that 4e has such a sub-system means the capability is there, whether or not the book was written in such a way that people would not think to use it. Do the 4e authors give bad guidance, like telling people that skill/ability checks can never be used during combat rounds, only at-will/encounter/daily powers can be used when play has moved to the grid? I'm pretty sure that's not the case - aren't skills listed as one of the possible uses of standard and movement actions?- like "feat of strength" under Athletics skill, use as a standard at-will action. Maybe this is something people corrected later in supplements and wikis, and was much less obvious in the original core books.

Anyway, it's fair enough to say that the way many people have played 4e may not be reflected in my reading of the system, and I just don't know. The written rules clearly didn't give some people enough guidance to treat the game as other than a tactical combat board game. But I've read a lot of 4e's defenders relating how the system worked perfectly well for their role playing needs. Just as people who defend TSR D&D editions claim the same, despite it's complete lack of specific guidance on gamifying/adjudicating a huge array of possible character activities.

I can certainly see the validity of the criticism that so many of the magical spells and powers are just treated as combat abilities, with little or no text describing what is actually happening in the fiction. It is left to the DM and the players to imagine what is happening in the fiction and rule accordingly, if someone wants to use those powers outside context of directly attacking enemies. How many times can you use an "encounter power" outside the context of a combat encounter? Is it once per minute? Once per hour? How cold is a cold spell that can damage and slow an opponent, can it freeze water solid? how hot is a fire spell that does fire damage to someone, can it catch things on fire? What happens when stuff is on fire? Other than the encounter question, these sorts of questions occur in other editions of D&D, as well. Some editions addressed them better than others. Sometimes the answers are "hidden" by poor book organization or found somewhere in the DMG which isn't thoroughly read by the DM. Maybe 4e was the worst at this out of all the editions. But it is clearly meant to be more than just a board game.

[Quertus]

But saying "D&D isn't an RPG" isn't like saying "Disney isn't a fun vacation", it's like saying "Disney isn't an amusement park". "Fun" is inherently subjective, but what category of thing something is usually isn't.

D&D isn’t an RPG. It’s… more like a brand, with several related RPGs, at least 2 War games, a cartoon show, and definitely no movies it should acknowledge. :smallamused:

[Batcathat]

D&D isn’t an RPG. It’s… more like a brand, with several related RPGs, at least 2 War games, a cartoon show, and definitely no movies it should acknowledge. :smallamused:

Alright, so let's pretend I said "D&D 4e" (or 3.5 or 5 or whatever), the point remains. Not to mention that Disney is also a brand, rather than an amusement park.

[Psyren]

It does not wildly fly outside the norms of RPGs in general, just within D&D.

I agree with this. 4e is a TTRPG, and definitions of TTRPG that attempt to exclude it as one are generally cloaked in No True Scotsman or other fallacies. And I say this as someone who doesn't even like 4e in the slightest.

[Beoric]

Thrudd, since you haven't played 4E, perhaps you should not assume that pulling a rug like that would necessarily be resolved with a skill check?

Based on the 4E rulebook, equally valid ways of ruling this would be (A) make a basic attack with the rug, then they get a saving throw to avoid falling down; or (B) use one of your existing powers and refluff it; or (C) you can pull out the rug but it has no mechanical effect. Back when the 4E forums were active, questions like this would receive wildly varying answers from different posters.

FTR, when I first saw this example I immediately defaulted to "Strength vs the higher of Fortitude or Reflex; Hit: the target is knocked prone."

On reflection, if it was a group of orcs it would be harder; a group is heavy. So I might allow the foregoing against the first row of orcs, and allow a secondary attack against the second row only if there were no misses against Fortitude in the first row.


Paraphrasing what I said in the other thread, there are games where you first describe what you want to do and then you (or the DM) selects a suitable mechanic to represent that, or sometimes you do it without mechanics; and then there are games where you first pick a mechanic to use (e.g. which power) and then afterwards you (or the DM) comes up with a description, or sometimes you skip the description. Boardgames are almost always in the second group; most roleplaying games I can think of are in the first group.

Notably, 4E is firmly in the second group, at least the way it's usually played.

I'd say this is an important distinction in how a game "feels" and is played, and it's a fair basis to claim that "4E is unlike most RPGs in that..."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I consider 4e to be in the first group.

I think the real difference between 4e and other versions of the game was the presentation through marketing and the the culture that was fostered by WotC. Comparing 4e to 1e (and I have played a lot of both), they both actually have a lot of rules, but there was a culture of play with 1e that expected you to improvise actions that fell outside of the rules - or even actions that fell inside of the rules if the rules did not make sense in a particular context.

Making up rules on the spot, and encouraging out-of-the-box play, is not part of 4e's culture. Which I think is crazy, because as far as I am aware 4e is the only edition that gives you express guidelines as to how to improvise. Page 42 of the DMG expressly says,
Your presence as the Dungeon Master is what makes D&D such a great game. You make it possible for the players to try anything they can imagine. That means it’s your job to resolve unusual actions when the players try them.

And then it gives you guildlines that will straight up work in 90% of improvised actions that you are required to adjudicate, and work with modification in the other 10%. The adjudication I mentioned above was based on this guideline from p. 42:

Attacks: If the action is essentially an attack, use an attack roll. It might involve a weapon and target AC, or it might just be a Strength or Dexterity check against any defense. For an attack, use the appropriate defense of the target.

For anything that wasn't an attack, you would use a skill check, and there is a table to help assign DCs. If damage is a possibility, there is another table to help you assign appropriate damage.

Whereas in 1e, the DM would choose a die, more or less randomly, and assign a DC, more or less randomly, without any real reference to anything other than his own experience; this is basically what Thrudd is describing.

So really, 1e had a culture that better supported out-of-the-box play, but 4e has mechanics that better support out-of-the-box play.

But the 4e culture against out-of-the-box play is so pervasive that Kurald Galain, who is as active as anyone on the 4e boards, didn't apply DMG p. 42 when he posted his response. People have generally forgotten it even exists.

It is the same as the 1e/2e divide. Mechanically they are virtually identical (other than a reduction of support for hex crawls and domain play), but 2e adventures are so different from 1e adventures that everybody thinks 2e feels different. Diehard 1e players seem to believe the mechanics of 2e influence you to run plot-heavy railroads with min-maxed special snowflake characters. But it just ain't so.

[Vhaidara]

4e is absolutely possible to do outside of the box things. I primarily play with an organized play group, which limits the ability to do that on builds, but your distinction feels...very weird to me? You seem to be saying the difference of what the written rules actually cover? 4e is just as capable of handling "I swing from the chandelier and drop it on the boss' head" as 3.5, 5e, Exalted, or...honestly any other system I've encountered. Namely, the DM is going to have to come up with how it works.

4e, as a game with robust mechanical rules, trends not to be played with as much outside the box thinking, but it is just as equipped to handle it as any other system. But it is very easy to go outside of the fantasy standard. The first game I played in was a science fantasy type game, and my character was a warforged swordmage, using tech instead of magic. He had short range teleporters, he had nanomachines. I have multiple characters based on the Persona video games, two drawn from Hollow Knight, some from Shadowrun. I've run super hero settings, standard fantasy settings, sci-fi settings, Diablo clones, Mecha Anime.

Your metric isn't about inside/outside the box, it's a question of how big the box is. Because any game can handle outside of the box (where the box is defined as the rules) equally well. Namely: as well as the DM can.

[Gimby]

How many times can you use an "encounter power" outside the context of a combat encounter?

For what it's worth, this is explicitly answered - Encounter powers refresh on a short rest - 5 minutes. Broadly the 5e short rest system is lifted from 4e encounter powers.

[False God]

Whatever gives you that idea?

Experience.

[Beoric]

It does not wildly fly outside the norms of RPGs in general, just within D&D. The lack of vancian casting, martials getting "wuxia" powers (or straight-up magical abilities). It's closer in terms of appearance and function to a supers game, with a limited set of often themed powers only available a certain number of times.

It gets different reactions from D&D players because it's not what they're used to or what they "want to see" in a D&D RPG. It doesn't IME, get much of a reaction at all from folks who are experienced with a wider variety of RPGs. With folks who regularly play outside the d20 spectrum, or folks who play more "gamey" RPGs.

If we use Quertus most basic interpretation, that an RPG is a "game" that includes "roleplaying", then the only real question of analysis is "to what degree?". I might be an outlier here, but I don't think D&D ever emphasizes roleplaying. It is a very crunchy, very "gamey" system that is IMO, intended to function from a more top-down level, like the 3rd-person-perspective in a video game, than from a 1st-person perspective. I think 4E radically changes the visuals for a more heroic, even "supers" style of gameplay, but I think all that only serves to emphasize how "gamey" D&D is in general.

I'd probably rate D&D 20% Roleplay, 80% Game. Stories, RP, thematics, flavor are all fluff. Like the flavor-text on an MTG card, almost none of it changes how the game is played. It is entirely up to the DM, the players, to do the heavy lifting for successful roleplay.

I don't think 4E changed any of that. It just made it more obvious.

While I don't entirely agree with this, I think it is fair to point out that 0e was essentially a wargame (Chainmail) with some individual combat and exploration mechanics bolted onto it.

However, I think the roleplaying/game ratio was more like 50/50. Gygax talks a lot about roleplaying in the 1e DMG, and mechanics like alignment seem to have been designed to enforce roleplaying. For example, training costs for level gains are linked to how much you adhered to your alignment and character archetype.

Moreover, you were expected to roleplay whatever you ended up with, so if the abilities you rolled meant you could only be a thief, you played a thief and were expected to adhere to that archetype no matter how much you would rather be playing a fighter. And if a cursed item changed your gender or alignment you were expected to play the new gender/alignment and resist any efforts by your party to change you back.

Now we have dropped those rules but have inspiration. 4e doesn't have inspiration, but like every other edition it supports roleplaying by having characters with alignments and goals. And if you don't think that supports roleplaying, and that 4e is more like a boardgame, try playing "the boot" in character the next time you play Monopoly.

EDIT: Better yet, try it with chess: "The queen's bishop refuses to capture the rook that is threatening our knight, because the knight has not been attending services and refuses to tithe."

[False God]

While I don't entirely agree with this, I think it is fair to point out that 0e was essentially a wargame (Chainmail) with some individual combat and exploration mechanics bolted onto it.

However, I think the roleplaying/game ratio was more like 50/50. Gygax talks a lot about roleplaying in the 1e DMG, and mechanics like alignment seem to have been designed to enforce roleplaying. For example, training costs for level gains are linked to how much you adhered to your alignment and character archetype.

Moreover, you were expected to roleplay whatever you ended up with, so if the abilities you rolled meant you could only be a thief, you played a thief and were expected to adhere to that archetype no matter how much you would rather be playing a fighter. And if a cursed item changed your gender or alignment you were expected to play the new gender/alignment and resist any efforts by your party to change you back.

Now we have dropped those rules but have inspiration. 4e doesn't have inspiration, but like every other edition it supports roleplaying by having characters with alignments and goals. And if you don't think that supports roleplaying, and that 4e is more like a boardgame, try playing "the boot" in character the next time you play Monopoly.

EDIT: Better yet, try it with chess: "The queen's bishop refuses to capture the rook that is threatening our knight, because the knight has not been attending services and refuses to tithe."

IMO, these elements represent a very low bar for roleplaying. It's found in pretty much every other game, "You should roleplay the stats of your character appropriately." and "You should fairly roleplay your alignment."...in addition to a dozen other elements that encourage, promote and enforce good roleplay. Hence why I rated D&D at a 20/80 ratio. There are some elements that enforce roleplay, but they are minimal and can be largely ignored and it does very little to change the play of the game.

ALSO: now I want to try RP-chess.

[gbaji]

D&D isn’t an RPG. It’s… more like a brand, with several related RPGs, at least 2 War games, a cartoon show, and definitely no movies it should acknowledge. :smallamused:

I think the inherent problem here is that you are trying to define whether something is a "roleplaying game" based seemingly entirely on whether the game mechanics sufficiently cover all the things you want to do (or whether "out of the box" stuff is covered/allowed/whatever). It's an odd combination of "focus on mechanical rules" while criticizing "lack of roleplaying". As a couple of posters have already pointed out, you can have games that literally have zero mechanical rules at all but that are absolutely RPGs (toon anyone?).

You're using a label "RPG" that isn't really relevant to the objection you seem to have. Your example of an "out of the box" situation has absolutely nothing to do with roleplaying. Roleplaying is about playing a role. If you think that roleplaying is about describing how your character performs a mechanical action like grabbing a rug, pulling on it to cause orcs to tumble, and then rolling it up and stuffing it under a door to block it, then you don't really understand what roleplaying is.

IMO, roleplaying is all the stuff you do when you are *not* rolling dice. Yes, die rolls can be used to determine outcomes of proposed actions, but the same can be said for when you propose moving your piece on a Monopoly board. That's not roleplaying. Roleplaying is when you create a personality for your character, complete with likes, dislikes, quirks, behaviors, etc, and then you play those things out within an environment created by the GM (or collectively by the players, or whatever). Roleplaying revolves around *what* you decide to do and *why* you decide to do it. It does not have anything at all to do with how those things are resolved after the fact.

It's also why I actually have a difficult time with many CRPGs being labeled that in the first place. Um... If the only "roleplay" in the game is you picking dialogue options from a list, and ordering your characters to perform actions, that's not really roleplaying. That's choosing actions. You're not picking option B because that's what you feel your character would do based on that characters history and personality. You're picking it because you think that'll be the one that the NPC you are interacting with will respond best to and produce an outcome you want. The fact that the writers of the game put in different voices for the characters, signature speech patterns and behavior, does not mean that *you* are actually roleplaying when you play the game. Playing a character is not the same as roleplaying a character IMO.

I'm old enough to have played games from Space Quest, through Day of the Tentacle, and up to Baldurs Gate and Fallout (and more since then). At some point in the progression, they started being labeled CRPGs, but they are all still basically the same. They are puzzle games. There's no real roleplaying in them (again IMO). More complexity in the story/plot, more things to do, and more cut scenes still doesn't make it roleplaying.

And I honestly think you're trying to wedge the same concept back into a TTRPG. That's not what makes a game an RPG. What makes them RPGs is that the players actually decide who their characters are, and play them out that way. They create dialogue and action, based on those decisions. And there are zero game mechanics that define that. There are mechanics to adjudicate those decisions (in some cases), but other than some guidelines for how to roleplay, and some setting suggestions in different games, the RP component in TTRPGs is completely separate from the "G" component. The mechanics and rules make it a game. Period. You may think 4e is a poor game, and that may be a valid critique. But that has no bearing on the RP potential to the game at all.

Oh, and for the record, you can absolutely play Monopoly as a RPG if you really want to. Seriously. Try it out. Make up a personality for the hat, and the dog, and the (apparently animate) car, or whatever, and then play that personality through the game. Are you the greedy developer, trying to crush the opposition? Or the miser who isn't willing to risk money? Or perhaps a philanthropist and you intentionally sell off properties to others for less than you could (you may not win "the game", but it's a valid way to play). Maybe you organize a protest when taxes come up, or wax poetic about the importance of paying your cleaning staff correctly (or whine about "those greedy folks bleeding me dry"). Hah. Endless possibilities!

Bit harder to roleplay most card games. Uno doesn't lend itself to it at all, but The Great Dalmuti absolutely does (and with my family, often does turn into such a thing). Again. Its not the mechanics of the game at all.

[InvisibleBison]

Oh, and for the record, you can absolutely play Monopoly as a RPG if you really want to. Seriously. Try it out. Make up a personality for the hat, and the dog, and the (apparently animate) car, or whatever, and then play that personality through the game. Are you the greedy developer, trying to crush the opposition? Or the miser who isn't willing to risk money? Or perhaps a philanthropist and you intentionally sell off properties to others for less than you could (you may not win "the game", but it's a valid way to play). Maybe you organize a protest when taxes come up, or wax poetic about the importance of paying your cleaning staff correctly (or whine about "those greedy folks bleeding me dry"). Hah. Endless possibilities!

That's not Monopoly being an RPG, though. That's just roleplaying while playing the game. There's no connection between the game mechanics and the roleplaying.

[Tanarii]

That's not Monopoly being an RPG, though. That's just roleplaying while playing the game. There's no connection between the game mechanics and the roleplaying.
Arguably there are if you invented character's personality motivations drive your property purchasing decisions, or house/hotel purchasing decisions.

(I haven't played monopoly in forever, so I can't recall if there's actual game strategy decisions to purchasing property.)

But it's still not an RPG, any more than Gloomhaven is an RPG. Because there's no rule for what to do when you try do do something not covered by specific rules.

In other words, you can connect some roleplaying to some of the rules. But if you can make decisions for your character in the fantasy environment and there is not a rule covering it, including a default / fallback rule of "the GM decides", then it's not an RPG.

This is why CRPGs aren't actually RPGs. IMO Y(Definition)MV etc etc

[Witty Username]

So outside of the box play is nessasary for RPGs? Hm, that is pretty good for a definition for how simple it is.

I can't think of any rpgs that fail that definition, I think some open ended crpgs could be included off of how broad the scope of the rules for some of them are, even if their is nothing "outside the ruleset"

[Tanarii]

So outside of the box play is nessasary for RPGs? Hm, that is pretty good for a definition for how simple it is.
Yeah, on reflection based on this thread between my first and second post, I think that's really a core feature.

It doesn't have to be a GM. There could be a game that had only players, if it enabled the players to make resolution decisions together as a group, for example. It'd probably need a really good core resolution mechanic to back it up though, so that wildly outside the box resolution (e.g. fiat resolution by the group) wasn't constantly required for outcomes and consequences to make sense.

Or possibly not, with a good group of players.

[Kurald Galain]

Clearly, a definition of RPG that includes any boardgame (such as Monopoly) is so broad that it's meaningless. This means that "a game in which you can roleplay" is insufficient to define an RPG, because you can roleplay in every game.

The author of popular gaming blog CRPGaddict came to the same conclusion, i.e. the definition of "CRPG" is substantially narrower than "a game where you play a role", because you play a role in just about every computer game. The definition he came up with for CRPGs largely comes down to stat-based combat and growth of these stats.

Of course, a TRPG is a different beast than a CRPG. To define TRPGs I rather like BRC's windowpane test, or the notion that a game can resolve outside-the-box actions. Notably, this is by definition impossible in computer games, so by necessity they must have a different criterion.

Also notably, this means that if you have a DM or a written (railroady) adventure that does not allow outside-the-box actions, then you're not playing an RPG any more, and this is why many players find such DMs and adventures frustrating to deal with. I think we all have examples of DMs or adventures that disallow roleplaying, irrespective of system used.

[Tanarii]

Also notably, this means that if you have a DM or a written (railroady) adventure that does not allow outside-the-box actions, then you're not playing an RPG any more, and this is why many players find such DMs and adventures frustrating to deal with. I think we all have examples of DMs or adventures that disallow roleplaying, irrespective of system used.
That does not follow. A player can still make decisions for character activities that are outside the specific rules of the game and require GM intervention to resolve, just not outside the adventure tracks the DM wants you to stay on.

The box in this case is the specific rule rules for specific activities decided on by characters. If you cannot do something not covered by the rules, it's inside the box. If there is a general rule of "GM decides what happens", then such activities decided on are outside the box.

[GeoffWatson]

"I don't like a game so I'm going to make a definition explicitly designed to define it as objectively bad."

Dude, stop. Just stop. You've got better things to do.

Yes, this is a pathetic waste of time.

[Jay R]

So if a bunch of role-players play Monopoly, does that make Monopoly a role-playing game?

No, of course not. You're deliberately taking a simple quote out of context to complain that I didn't spell out all the details that would be obvious.

In the same context, John W. Campbell Jr. was also the editor of a fantasy magazine, Unknown (or Unknown Worlds). The stories he bought for that magazine aren't science fiction; he wasn't acting as a science fiction editor then.

As everyone understood my original statement, "role-playing games are the games that role-players play when they are functioning as role-players."

I wrote (and you ignored), "In short, the definition is created over time by people's actions and choices." But as everybody else realized, it's only created by my actions and choices involving role-playing games. It's not affected by my actions when I'm reading, programming, riding my bike, fencing, camping, cooking an omelet, writing a poem, or even playing a non-role-playing game.

It's a simple, clear, meaningful definition that you are trying to misunderstand. I can't prevent that. I have no doubt that if you work at it, you can find a way to misunderstand this version, too.

It will still be true that the definition is created over time by people's actions and choices.

[InvisibleBison]

As everyone understood my original statement, "role-playing games are the games that role-players play when they are functioning as role-players."

I don't see how you could understand what "everyone" understood about your original statement, given that I'm the only one who replied to it. But even if we add this additional clause to your definition, it doesn't solve my objection. If people roleplay while playing Monopoly, does that make Monopoly into a roleplaying game? I would say it doesn't, that whether or not a game is a roleplaying game is dependent on whether the game mechanics expect you to roleplay.

[Cluedrew]

I maintain the "true" definition for any word is what people mean when they say that work. That isn't useful directly, but it does mean that people do have a rough idea of what a role-playing game is even if we cannot say exactly what it is that makes a role-playing game that. Point is, Monopoly is obviously not a role-playing game and D&D 4e obviously is, these aren't even edge cases where there is a question in the matter. All that remains is figuring out why they end up on that side of the line.

I stand by my previous statement, that I think the narration based game-play is one of the main things that make role-playing games what they are. The character focused mode of the game is important, but not as important as the fact that it is the only one mentioned in the name would suggest.

Now Monopoly lacks this narration completely. There is no element of the game that would not work if stripped of its narrative context completely. (As evidence, although not proof, look to the number of Monopoly reskins.) D&D has always shifted towards that mode of operation in combat, and might technically reach it with a battle mat and no one doing anything creative. So let's say 4th went the extra distance in that regard, does that mean that it isn't a role-playing game? I don't think so, because that narration is still there and still covers everything that is a fight scene.

But a different way, what makes a role-playing game is not the inclusion or ability to add character motivations and background lore to your decisions, but the inability to remove it. And I don't really care to precisely define what is in this bubble and how little you can get down to, but that is the idea. Even if the character you play as is just "me, but in a fictional world world, not really thinking of the NPCs as people and just looking for the next victory" (sadly, this is actual genre) you do have to be aware of the world in the lore for the game to function.

Unless you actually played D&D where everyone except the GM would passively listen until the next combat was set up, then maybe you aren't playing a role-playing game.

On CRPG: As someone who enjoys both tabletop/pen-and-paper role-playing games and computer RPGs, yeah they aren't the same genre despite having the same name.

[Quertus]

I think it's a simple binary, can you do something without being giving a button.

Consider, The Windowpane Test.
Narratively, Ms. Scarlet is in the Conservatory with the Lead Pipe. She would like to smash a windowpane. This would change the situation.

The game you are playing has no rule for breaking a window with a lead pipe.

In an RPG, if you say "I break the window" without an explicit ability to let you break the window, the game, whether it's GM'd or GMless, is obligated to assume that you did, in fact, break the window, and proceed forward with that being the situation.

In a Not-RPG, you cannot.


Difficulty of Adjudication can't be relevant, because different RPGs are going to be different at adjudicating different sorts of "Outside the Box" actions. So any given example, say, yanking the rug out from under a bunch of orcs, is going to heavily depend on the system in question. 5e Dnd can probably adjudicate yanking the rug as a simple application of physical strength, but an RPG focused on social intrigue may not even HAVE a physical strength stat.

Does that mean that Dungeon and Dragons IS an RPG while Courts and Countesses (The hypothetical social intrigue focused RPG) is not?

I don't think you can really say "X is MORE of an RPG" or "Y is LESS of an RPG" in any meaningful way.

I’ve never heard of a “windowpane test” before, but it sounds like a great example of what I’m talking about.

The question isn’t “more of an RPG”, it’s “more suited to being played as an RPG”. Whereas my claim was, how suited to being played as an RPG a game was could be measured by how much more onerous it is to adjudicate “breaking the window” than it is to adjudicate a button press; how much the GM is encouraged to “soft ban” roleplaying-centric actions.

Obviously, “it’s impossible” - what you describe as “not an RPG” - lives at one end of the spectrum, where I hope we can all agree it’s not an RPG. But I think you absolutely can talk about how two RPGs compare in this spectrum/metric - in fact, in the spawning thread, people did just that.

Now, where one draws the line for “things on this side are so unsuited to being played as RPGs that I’ll call them ‘not an RPG’” might be somewhat subjective. But it’s still fair for me to say “X system doesn’t meet my threshold for being an RPG”.


You have decided that 4e isn't a role playing game, because of the ways it's different from other versions of D&D, and you're now trying to come up with a definition for all RPGs that will conform to your decision that 4e isn't one. I think you are wrong about that. I think the problem you are having with 4e is only the combat and magic rules, which are significantly different from other editions of D&D. 4e has ability scores and skills just like other wotc editions, and handles non-combat actions in the same manner as the others- with the DM deciding if a skill or ability should apply to an action, setting a difficulty and having someone roll a d20 with a modifier.

Eh, close, but not exactly?

More… I noticed how 4e was different from other RPGs, decided that difference was “4e isn’t an RPG” (rather than the “4e isn’t D&D” that was popular at the time), and am trying to define that difference - ideally, in a way others can actually understand and give meaningful feedback on.

It could turn out that I’m wrong about 4e being different (although modern thought seems to be that, yes, 4e is at least vastly different from other editions of D&D). It could be that I’m wrong about that difference being related to being an RPG. It could even be that 4e actually is an RPG, or that it isn’t actually D&D. Note that some of these are more likely than others.


If OD&D is an RPG, so is 4e.

Nah, OD&D has a different “feel” than 4e, which necessitates a different complexity of existing rules, and a different method of creating new rules to be in line with existing rules. Like, you wouldn’t put the same rule in D&D as you would in a horror game, right?

So this is a comment that says “we need to go back to the drawing board on communicating my idea”, because it’s like saying “carbon isn’t highly radioactive, so uranium isn’t, either” or “water isn’t flammable, so hydrogen gas isn’t, either” - it ignores everything important that makes them different.


Especially because the test kind of falls apart with certain more abstracted systems. I vaguely recall some system, I think designed to do Arthurian Legend type stuff, and in it the stats were based not on your character's capabilities, but on their Motivations, whether you were doing something "For Duty", "For Glory", or "For Love". You can't apply the "Outside the box" test to such a system because the rules don't actually care about what an individual action is.

Interesting. By my definition, if you choose your action as “extinguish the sun… for Love”, and the system says, “ok, roll Love against the standard DC”, my definition would place it squarely in the “war game” box.


"I don't like a game so I'm going to make a definition explicitly designed to define it as objectively bad."

Dude, stop. Just stop. You've got better things to do.

Um…

1) I don’t like 4e? Fair to say.

2) I’m going to make a definition explicitly designed to make it objectively bad? No. Even if I were right, 4e just wouldn’t be an RPG - that says nothing about the quality of what it is. (The “why” was covered above)

3) I have better things to do? Maybe, but I keep being wrong here, which means I get to learn new things. It’s not like I learn as much from the average thread as I do from these, so… doing this is still batting above par (Darn mixed sports metaphors).

[Jay R]

But even if we add this additional clause to your definition, it doesn't solve my objection. If people roleplay while playing Monopoly, does that make Monopoly into a roleplaying game?

No, of course not. That specific session of Monopoly might be considered a "role-playing game" for those players, but they are statistically irrelevant in terms of defining an English phrase. Similarly, I can play poker pretending to be Bret Maverick, or Doc Holliday. That won't change the definition of poker one iota.

[I wonder if Campbell had to deal with this kind of objection with his definition of science fiction?]

Science fiction editors also buy groceries. That does not make groceries science fiction, and nobody would think that his definition means that it did.

Role-players sometimes play football. That does not make football a role-playing game.

The essence of my post is here: "In short, the definition is created over time by people's actions and choices.” It was in my original post, and you ignored it. So I repeated it, and you ignored it again. Any attempt to pretend I said the definition of role-playing game can be completed with a single phrase is ignoring what I actually wrote. The definition is created over time by people's actions and choices.

But you know what? You win. Hooray. You have demonstrated that it can't be perfectly defined by any single simple word definition – even mine

That was, of course, my original point. The definition is created over time by people's actions and choices.

[JNAProductions]

It really does feel like you started with the conclusion of “4E isn’t an RPG” and worked backwards from there, Quertus.
It REALLY does.

[Batcathat]

The question isn’t “more of an RPG”, it’s “more suited to being played as an RPG”. Whereas my claim was, how suited to being played as an RPG a game was could be measured by how much more onerous it is to adjudicate “breaking the window” than it is to adjudicate a button press; how much the GM is encouraged to “soft ban” roleplaying-centric actions.

Obviously, “it’s impossible” - what you describe as “not an RPG” - lives at one end of the spectrum, where I hope we can all agree it’s not an RPG. But I think you absolutely can talk about how two RPGs compare in this spectrum/metric - in fact, in the spawning thread, people did just that.

To me, this seems a little like describing a car that can't move above a certain speed not as "a bad car" or "a car I don't like" but as "not a car".

You said it yourself, even you don't think 4e make certain things impossible, merely impractical or discouraged. Which might make it a bad RPG, but shouldn't make it not an RPG.


Now, where one draws the line for “things on this side are so unsuited to being played as RPGs that I’ll call them ‘not an RPG’” might be somewhat subjective. But it’s still fair for me to say “X system doesn’t meet my threshold for being an RPG”.

Fair as in "Quertus has the right to think so"? Obviously. Fair as in "it's reasonable"? Eh, doubtful. I think what me and everyone(?) else is struggling to understand is how to draw the line in such a way that it excludes 4e but includes all other editions of D&D and other games typically considered RPGs (or are there others you wish to exclude as well?).

[Jay R]

I've spent too much time on a side issue. Getting back to the thread:

I think one of the confusions here is that the word “role”, like most English words, has more than one meaning. If you assume one specific meaning, and other people assume a different one, then it will be difficult to communicate.

I went back to the original (published) role-playing game – the 1974 three-pamphlet game Dungeons and Dragons, and searched out every occurrence of the word “role”.


Men & Magic

P. 9: Before the game begins it is not only necessary to select a role, but it is also necessary to determine what stance the character will take - Law, Netrality (sic), or Chaos.

p. 10: Prior to the character selection by players it is necessary for the referee to roll three six-sided dice in order to rate each as to various abilities, and thus aid them in selecting a role. Categories of ability are: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma. Each player notes his appropriate scores, obtains a similar roll of three dice to determine the number of Gold Pieces (Dice score x 10) he starts with, and then opts for a role.

p. 11: Players will, in all probability, seek to hire Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and/or Clerics in order to strengthen their roles in the campaign.


Monsters & Treasure

p. 29: The Egoism of the sword will cause it to do the following:
1. Lead its user past better weapons,
2. Lead its user into great danger in order to exalt its role in combat,


The Underground & Wilderness Adventures

p. 22: Assassin: The role of this hireling is self-evident.

Sage: … Utmost discretion is required when the referee is acting in this role.

Ship Captain: A self-explanatory role.

Based on all of this, there is no reason to believe that the “role” you are playing is anything beyond the character class. If my character is a Fighting-Man1 and therefore swings a sword, and your character is a Magic-User1 and therefore casts a spell, then we are playing different roles, and it is a role-playing game.

1Yes, those are the names of two of the character classes. It was a different time.

Mind you, it is important to me to develop the personality of my PCs. It matters to me that my Ranger Gustav is uncomfortable around city-folk, hates bullies, and always attacks the largest foe first. I care that my pixie Ultimate Magus Pip likes to do helpful things anonymously. My gnome Grabnol Tildring Grek'khan Dimble Gwystyl Frank changes his name often, and likes to play jokes. He once cast a Permanent Image of a large pile of gems and gold inside a crevasse that was too narrow for anyone to get through. He also once, while on top of a large butte, cast a Magic Mouth to be activated the next somebody else stood there. It would say, "If you stay here and wait for 24 hours, you will learn something very important about who you are."

I like playing a specific personality in my role-playing games. I think it's more fun, and more imaginative, and a better, more enjoyable game overall. But that is my preference, and people don't have to play my way to be roleplaying, just as they don't have to use knight forks to be "really" playing chess, and they don't have to use Agrippa's four guards to be "really" fencing.

If you can play the role of a Fighter, or a Wizard, (or an X, for pretty much any value of X), then you are playing a role, and it's a role-playing game. It's a role-playing game whether or not people play out personalities. It's a role-playing game whether or not people play it my way.

[Tanarii]

Based on all of this, there is no reason to believe that the “role” you are playing is anything beyond the character class. If my character is a Fighting-Man1 and therefore swings a sword, and your character is a Magic-User1 and therefore casts a spell, then we are playing different roles, and it is a role-playing game.
Yes, it's a well established fact that Gygax originally meant "member of a class" by"role". But the meaning of roleplaying has evolved since then. Sometimes for the worse (1990s White Wolf and 2000s Forge are prime offenders) and occasionally for the better.

What I find entertaining is how many folks still stick the 1980s TSR definition, which effectively boils down to: Talky-time



But a different way, what makes a role-playing game is not the inclusion or ability to add character motivations and background lore to your decisions, but the inability to remove it. And I don't really care to precisely define what is in this bubble and how little you can get down to, but that is the idea. Even if the character you play as is just "me, but in a fictional world world, not really thinking of the NPCs as people and just looking for the next victory" (sadly, this is actual genre) you do have to be aware of the world in the lore for the game to function.
You have to be aware of the "fantasy environment" is how I like to phrase that. Without it, you can't make decisions for how your character behaves in it.

One reason I don't like battle mats that much. They model the fantasy environment for rules resolution purposes, but they aren't the fantasy environment. There's lots of stuff not on the battlemat that could affect decision making, but they encourage starting to think of the battle mat as the fantasy environment.

Otoh if the GM says "this map is the environment, base your decisions one it" large chunks of narration just disappeared. And it's still an RPG. Up until it becomes a set of rules that you can only make decisions within. At that point, it has crossed the line out of being an RPG.

Please note that I don't disagree entirely, it's just that I think narration can be well below the line folks are comfortable with calling narration and still be an RPG. But I think it would have to finally disappear entirely at the same time as the "No decisions outside the rules" line is crossed. Otoh if you consider "visual narration" to be a valid thing, there would be lots of non-RPGs that still have narration. :smallamused:

[Cluedrew]

2) I'm going to make a definition explicitly designed to make it objectively bad? No. Even if I were right, 4e just wouldn't be an RPG - that says nothing about the quality of what it is. (The "why" was covered above)You are basically just adding "but there is nothing wrong with that" at the end here. And I've actually gone over why I think it is an insult but I also have a new point to make: You have set it up to be an insult.

You have told the story about how people were complaining about how D&D 4e wasn't D&D, pointing out that it obvious was and going out to find what the problem was and deciding it was that 4e wasn't a role-playing game at all. I have of course paraphrased to make the undertones clear, but I think they are always there and in that context: How could "not an RPG" not be an insult?

Also, as a side note: D&D 4e is a role-playing game. There is no question here.


You have to be aware of the "fantasy environment" is how I like to phrase that. Without it, you can't make decisions for how your character behaves in it. [...] Please note that I don't disagree entirely,[...]I would possibly avoid "fantasy environment" to avoid confusion with the genre, perhaps "fictional environment"? But yes, I haven't hammered out all the details and I may never do so, I'm just trying to capture some of the big ideas.

[Beoric]

I've spent too much time on a side issue. Getting back to the thread:
Based on all of this, there is no reason to believe that the “role” you are playing is anything beyond the character class. If my character is a Fighting-Man1 and therefore swings a sword, and your character is a Magic-User1 and therefore casts a spell, then we are playing different roles, and it is a role-playing game.

I see your LLBs and raise you a 1e DMG. Page 23:

Thus, alignment describes the world view of creatures and helps to define what their actions, reactions, and purposes will be. It likewise causes a player character to choose an ethos which is appropriate to his or her profession, and alignment also aids players in the definition and role approach of their respective game personae.

Page 83:

When a character is struck by insanity due to mental attack, curse, or whatever, you may assign the type of madness according to the seriousness of the affliction or determine the affliction randomly using the table below. Each type of insanity listed thereon is described in game terms. As DM you will have to assume the role of the insane character whenever the madness strikes, for most players will not be willing to go so far.
Page 92:


Another nadir of Dungeon Mastering is the “killer-dungeon” concept. These campaigns are a travesty of the role-playing adventure game, for there is no development and identification with carefully nurtured player personae.
Page 229 (Glossary):

Persona — The role or identity of the character the player is portraying.
(Empbasis added)

At the very least, in 1974 you weren't just playing a class, but playing a class and alignment. But by 1979, if not before, Gygax's intention was that you play a more complex persona.

[Thrudd]

More… I noticed how 4e was different from other RPGs, decided that difference was “4e isn’t an RPG” (rather than the “4e isn’t D&D” that was popular at the time), and am trying to define that difference - ideally, in a way others can actually understand and give meaningful feedback on.

Nah, OD&D has a different “feel” than 4e, which necessitates a different complexity of existing rules, and a different method of creating new rules to be in line with existing rules. Like, you wouldn’t put the same rule in D&D as you would in a horror game, right?

So this is a comment that says “we need to go back to the drawing board on communicating my idea”, because it’s like saying “carbon isn’t highly radioactive, so uranium isn’t, either” or “water isn’t flammable, so hydrogen gas isn’t, either” - it ignores everything important that makes them different.


What do you think is happening in this game, when the players are not involved in combat? Talking to the DM, asking about the environment, talking to NPCs and each other, finding out where the adventure is, exploring things and making skill rolls...how is this not role playing? When an encounter happens, the miniatures are placed, initiative is rolled, and you start taking turns just like in the other editions and games. When it's over, they go back to narrative mode. That's been a part of role playing games since they were invented. Sometimes combat takes a long time, and it's longer under some rulesets; by accounts 4e generally is the longest combats of the D&D editions. That might be a problem or a feature depending on who you're asking. Is that what you don't like about it? Too many complex mechanical interactions possible in combat scenarios? Of course, even though the combat might get complex, the players are still roleplaying their characters - or they should be.

I really think you're ignoring the great number of things which make the games more similar than not. The specifics of the combat powers are the largest difference. If you're saying that you'd find it difficult to use 4e's system to make rulings on ad-hoc improvised actions, you seem to be ignoring that the basic foundation of that system is the same as 3e and 5e. It isn't any harder to pick a skill and a difficulty number than it is in any other edition. It isn't any more complex. There are differences that would be easy to overcome once someone is familiar enough with the system- same as learning any other system. You might be getting lost in the weeds on some specific mechanic in 4e, and ignoring the big picture structure that pretty much all RPGs have in common (and little else).

I don't know why you think 4e is so different from all other RPGs, that has never been clear. If it is this hard to explain, I find it hard to believe there is much of an argument. The definitions of RPGs others have given so far have all been reasonable, and none of them would exclude 4e, or any other tabletop game I can think of that calls itself an RPG. Are there any other games which are branded as RPGs that you also believe aren't really? Or some examples of other non-RPG table top games that you believe belong in a category with 4e?

Are you trying to say something like: there is a limit on how many discrete mechanical powers should exist in the game, too many discrete mechanical powers means players will think they have to always use those powers and forget that they can also improvise. If they are focusing too much on their mechanical powers, they forget that they're supposed to be immersed in the game world and making decisions based on the fiction instead of on the optimal manipulation of mechanical interactions. This results in battles taking players out of the fiction and turning it into a board game- but only during combat. Note- this also happens to some people playing other editions of D&D.

I think that is possible-a psychological effect the designers might not have accounted for in their design, possibly leading to the overall rejection of the edition by some people. But a flaw in the design doesn't change what the game is designed for. It clearly isn't impossible to play 4e as a role playing game, since many people have done so and continue to do so, despite the combat length. It also is clearly intended to be a role playing game, by its designers and authors, and includes many similar rules as previous editions to this end. If it is intended to be, and at least some of those playing it experience it to be such, then how could it be said not to be a role playing game?

I think deciding that the "difference" you noticed in 4e meant "not an RPG" was premature. Identify what it is, precisely, that is different about it from all other RPGs you are familiar with- presumably these are the elements you dislike. Does that element somehow negate all the other elements about the game which are similar, even identical, to other RPGs? Why is this "not an RPG", rather than "an RPG design I don't like"? That's what I said when I first read the 4e PHB- "I don't think I would like running this." But I've seen people play it, and it looked and sounded pretty much like the D&D and other role playing I've done.

I think familiarity makes it possible to improvise quickly with this system, the same as it does with any system, so says its proponents. The ability to do that (improvise) is the only distinct complaint I've identified, based on the "pull the rug" example and your talk of "methods of creating new rules to be in line with existing rules".

I think this thread should be renamed: "Quertus is trying to define exactly why he dislikes 4e D&D"

[Quertus]

I maintain the "true" definition for any word is what people mean when they say that work. That isn't useful directly, but it does mean that people do have a rough idea of what a role-playing game is even if we cannot say exactly what it is that makes a role-playing game that. Point is, Monopoly is obviously not a role-playing game and D&D 4e obviously is, these aren't even edge cases where there is a question in the matter. All that remains is figuring out why they end up on that side of the line.

On CRPG: As someone who enjoys both tabletop/pen-and-paper role-playing games and computer RPGs, yeah they aren't the same genre despite having the same name.

Um… my experiences with 4e actually say “it’s obviously not an RPG”, and people just kept trying to play it like one because that’s what they expected it to be. Reminder: what is “obvious” is not always right.

Glad to hear you’re in a similar boat with me on CRPGs - great fun, not what I’d call roleplaying in the context of RPGs.

I thought you had said something about a really simple definition of RPGs, and that’s what I’d wanted to comment on - did I grab the wrong post?


So outside of the box play is nessasary for RPGs? Hm, that is pretty good for a definition for how simple it is.

I can't think of any rpgs that fail that definition, I think some open ended crpgs could be included off of how broad the scope of the rules for some of them are, even if their is nothing "outside the ruleset"

Thanks. In retrospect, I think it’s less a necessary and sufficient “definition” than a necessary “trait”.


IMO, these elements represent a very low bar for roleplaying. It's found in pretty much every other game, "You should roleplay the stats of your character appropriately." and "You should fairly roleplay your alignment."...in addition to a dozen other elements that encourage, promote and enforce good roleplay. Hence why I rated D&D at a 20/80 ratio. There are some elements that enforce roleplay, but they are minimal and can be largely ignored and it does very little to change the play of the game.

My RPG comes with car batteries to attach to your players’ genitalia, and remotes to allow the other players to trigger them. Only my RPG supports “Teamwork”; every other RPG gets a 0 rating.

Curiously, the X I’ve seen didn’t exactly correspond to your predictions on a game’s suitability to X. Rather the opposite, in fact.


I think the inherent problem here is that you are trying to define whether something is a "roleplaying game" based seemingly entirely on whether the game mechanics sufficiently cover all the things you want to do (or whether "out of the box" stuff is covered/allowed/whatever). It's an odd combination of "focus on mechanical rules" while criticizing "lack of roleplaying". As a couple of posters have already pointed out, you can have games that literally have zero mechanical rules at all but that are absolutely RPGs (toon anyone?).

You're using a label "RPG" that isn't really relevant to the objection you seem to have. Your example of an "out of the box" situation has absolutely nothing to do with roleplaying. Roleplaying is about playing a role. If you think that roleplaying is about describing how your character performs a mechanical action like grabbing a rug, pulling on it to cause orcs to tumble, and then rolling it up and stuffing it under a door to block it, then you don't really understand what roleplaying is.




It's also why I actually have a difficult time with many CRPGs being labeled that in the first place. Um... If the only "roleplay" in the game is you picking dialogue options from a list, and ordering your characters to perform actions, that's not really roleplaying. That's choosing actions. You're not picking option B because that's what you feel your character would do based on that characters history and personality. You're picking it because you think that'll be the one that the NPC you are interacting with will respond best to and produce an outcome you want.

So, if I’ve read this right, you understand my idea, you just missed that that’s actually what my idea is? Huh. Let’s see if I can nudge you in the right direction.

So, imagine that gbaji‘s player had wanted gbaji to post that post. Only, when they went to declare that action, their GM informed them that they had updated reality to a “choose your own adventure” book (or CRPG) format, and their only options for gbaji were “spend time meditating” and “burn down the library”. Obviously impossible for gbaji‘s players to roleplay gbaji in that environment, right?

Now, suppose instead that this “choose your own adventure” book is written in human flesh (or the equivalent for whatever species you want to picture gbaji‘s player being), and they can choose to write said post as their action if gbaji‘s player is willing to be skinned / flensed sufficiently to cover the new pages. It is onerous and costly, and they are encouraged to just press an existing button rather than have gbaji do what gbaji would actually do in this situation were reality to better support roleplaying.

That’s what I’m talking about here: how much does the system discourage you from taking roleplaying actions vs soft-banning them and forcing you to just press existing buttons?

Obviously things that hard-ban roleplaying choices aren’t RPGs. The question is, can we agree that there’s some level of additional impediment sufficient to soft-ban roleplaying choices, and disqualify a game from being an RPG?

[noob]

The following are some thoughts that came to my mind and re basically just me collexting my thoughts. I'm not claiming it's the truth and certainly not the complete truth, but maybe it helps anyway.

I've played 4e long ago, shortly after it came out, and I liked it a lot better than 3.5 Mostly because I like to play martials, and this version gave me actual abilities to work with. I was playing a warlord and loved the class for the options it gave my to play tactically both on my own and in a team. Whatever you think about being "samey," this is the often-cited big positive of 4e. Every class had the same amount of special abilities to use.

However, those abilities are all combat abilities. And that might be the problem. If you have buttons to push, I think the first thing most players, especially inexperienced ones do is to look at those buttons and decide which one to use. Many players will not go far enough to even consider whether they even should push one of the buttons or if going for a different option would be better. Thinking outside the box needs to be learned.
That was somewhat easier in 3e, because martials didn't have any buttons; they necessarily had to think outside the box or proclaim "I attack" every turn. Casters had tons of non-damage spells that encouraged them to use these creatively.

4e certainly allows you to do things that aren't part of the rules. That is a basic tennet of RPGs and 4e is no different in that regard. But I think 4e is much worse at teaching both GMs and players to actually consider and use these options.

4e does provides rituals to everybody for out of combat utility actions that are not skills or lifting things.
So 4e does provides non combat buttons.

[Quertus]

It really does feel like you started with the conclusion of “4E isn’t an RPG” and worked backwards from there, Quertus.
It REALLY does.

That seems as fair to say as “4e doesn’t feel like an RPG”. Difference is, I’m trying to explain my feelings on the Playground couch.

And it’s half fair to say that I started with the conclusion, in that that’s what I posted first, and that that’s what I could first articulate. That doesn’t invalidate the reasons for the feeling, and attacking their origin rather than their merit… eh, as uncool as that might be in some circumstances, I am one to explicitly state my biases, to help others argue in a way that might help me see past my blind spots. So here it’s a <shrug>, I guess.


You are basically just adding "but there is nothing wrong with that" at the end here. And I've actually gone over why I think it is an insult but I also have a new point to make: You have set it up to be an insult.

You have told the story about how people were complaining about how D&D 4e wasn't D&D, pointing out that it obvious was and going out to find what the problem was and deciding it was that 4e wasn't a role-playing game at all. I have of course paraphrased to make the undertones clear, but I think they are always there and in that context: How could "not an RPG" not be an insult?

Also, as a side note: D&D 4e is a role-playing game. There is no question here.

“Not an RPG” is not an insult to my car. It’s an insult to me for someone to market my car as an RPG. That’s my take. Of course, I’m senile, and maybe you convinced the me of yesterday that your take was better, because I feel like I not only haven’t claimed that 4e isn’t an RPG in this thread, but that I’ve avoided doing so.

Also, saying “2+2=5, there’s no question here” begs a proof, given that the whole point is that that is in question. As my senile mind recalls, you can’t prove that 4e is an RPG, because there’s not a single agreed-upon definition. However, I can prove that 4e isn’t an RPG for my definition of requirements for that phrase - at least in theory. In practice, I’ve struggled, which means I need more practice.

Now, ultimately, I might be convinced that I’m wrong about 4e not meeting certain requirements. And/or I might ultimately be convinced that those requirements aren’t related to roleplaying. But I’ve kinda got to express them successfully, and get feedback relevant to evaluating 4e, in order to make that determination, no?


To me, this seems a little like describing a car that can't move above a certain speed not as "a bad car" or "a car I don't like" but as "not a car".

You said it yourself, even you don't think 4e make certain things impossible, merely impractical or discouraged. Which might make it a bad RPG, but shouldn't make it not an RPG.



Fair as in "Quertus has the right to think so"? Obviously. Fair as in "it's reasonable"? Eh, doubtful. I think what me and everyone(?) else is struggling to understand is how to draw the line in such a way that it excludes 4e but includes all other editions of D&D and other games typically considered RPGs (or are there others you wish to exclude as well?).

Is a soap box with wheels “a car”? Depends on the definition of “car” you are using. If your potential employer asks, “do you have a reliable car?”, I don’t think you should count your soap box.

My goal is to someday successfully explain what I meant long ago when I first said “4e isn’t an RPG”. Now, once I do so, it may be the end of an era, and I might have to give up my running gag of saying that the soapbox racer isn’t a car, once people understand what I mean by those words.

About drawing that line… can you see that how you would make a ruling / invent a new rule for a horror RPG would be in some ways different from how you would do so for D&D? Focus on that difference. Now ask yourself, what does a rule that feels like it was published in a 4e book look like? How easy is it to write such a rule for “pulling the rug out from under some orcs and jamming it under the door” compared to how easy is it to adjudicate the “burning hands” button press?

How much is a GM who cares about consistent rule quality incentivized to soft- or hard-ban roleplaying actions, and require button presses instead?


What do you think is happening in this game, when the players are not involved in combat? Talking to the DM, asking about the environment, talking to NPCs and each other, finding out where the adventure is, exploring things and making skill rolls...how is this not role playing? When an encounter happens, the miniatures are placed, initiative is rolled, and you start taking turns just like in the other editions and games. When it's over, they go back to narrative mode. That's been a part of role playing games since they were invented. Sometimes combat takes a long time, and it's longer under some rulesets; by accounts 4e generally is the longest combats of the D&D editions. That might be a problem or a feature depending on who you're asking. Is that what you don't like about it? Too many complex mechanical interactions possible in combat scenarios? Of course, even though the combat might get complex, the players are still roleplaying their characters - or they should be.

That’s… an interesting… um…how to put this?

Ok, so, I like to evaluate and state my biases. And you may have just pointed out a hidden bias. Kudos!

Yes, 4e is, IME, a lot more (by volume (of time)) about Combat than other editions. And that changes the lenses by which it is evaluated.

That said, I’m all about roleplaying in combat. “Roleplaying doesn’t end just because the dice come out”. And notice that my “how hard is it to roleplay” example explicitly occurs in the middle of combat: pulling the rug out from under some orcs, and using it to block the door to delay reinforcements.

That’s what the character would actually do in this situation; how much metagaming pressure is there to not do this, and instead press a button on the character’s sheet?


I really think you're ignoring the great number of things which make the games more similar than not. The specifics of the combat powers are the largest difference. If you're saying that you'd find it difficult to use 4e's system to make rulings on ad-hoc improvised actions, you seem to be ignoring that the basic foundation of that system is the same as 3e and 5e. It isn't any harder to pick a skill and a difficulty number than it is in any other edition. It isn't any more complex. There are differences that would be easy to overcome once someone is familiar enough with the system- same as learning any other system. You might be getting lost in the weeds on some specific mechanic in 4e, and ignoring the big picture structure that pretty much all RPGs have in common (and little else).

Not just to make a random, arbitrary ruling - yes, that’s equally easy in any edition. But to make a good ruling, one which fits the theme and feel and such of the system, which doesn’t break anything? Show me someone who thinks that’s equally easy in each edition of D&D, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t get the differences between those editions.


I don't know why you think 4e is so different from all other RPGs, that has never been clear. If it is this hard to explain, I find it hard to believe there is much of an argument.

Thank you for the compliment, but you give me too much credit. My skills are not at that point yet, to never struggle to articulate novel and contentious concepts.


The definitions of RPGs others have given so far have all been reasonable, and none of them would exclude 4e, or any other tabletop game I can think of that calls itself an RPG. Are there any other games which are branded as RPGs that you also believe aren't really? Or some examples of other non-RPG table top games that you believe belong in a category with 4e?

“Choose your own adventure” books. CRPGS.

Thanks to these threads, I can add “Monopoly” and “Chess”. And my car, I guess. :smallamused:

Really, I don’t care overly much about labeling things - it is left as an exercise to the reader to evaluate to what extent varies systems are suited to being played as RPGs.

This just started because I was tired of hearing arguments about “4e isn’t D&D”, and set to evaluate that claim. That’s the only reason I cared about labeling things in the first place: because people were bad at labeling things, and bad at arguing about labeling things. And now I’m stuck in my own personal quagmire, struggling to learn enough to express the reasoning behind my label of “4e is D&D, but it isn’t a RPG “.


Are you trying to say something like: there is a limit on how many discrete mechanical powers should exist in the game, too many discrete mechanical powers means players will think they have to always use those powers and forget that they can also improvise. If they are focusing too much on their mechanical powers, they forget that they're supposed to be immersed in the game world and making decisions based on the fiction instead of on the optimal manipulation of mechanical interactions. This results in battles taking players out of the fiction and turning it into a board game- but only during combat. Note- this also happens to some people playing other editions of D&D.

Not at all! I’m a fan of “more rules, for consistency” - see “5e lava”.

What I’m saying is, the mechanics and feel and balance and so on of the system should be such that adjudication of the non-rule space should not be so comparatively arduous as to soft-ban the non-rule space.


I think that is possible-a psychological effect the designers might not have accounted for in their design, possibly leading to the overall rejection of the edition by some people. But a flaw in the design doesn't change what the game is designed for. It clearly isn't impossible to play 4e as a role playing game, since many people have done so and continue to do so, despite the combat length. It also is clearly intended to be a role playing game, by its designers and authors, and includes many similar rules as previous editions to this end. If it is intended to be, and at least some of those playing it experience it to be such, then how could it be said not to be a role playing game?

There is a threshold of suitability below which I do not qualify a thing as X. If you hand me a non-moving brick and call it a “car”, even if it was intended to be a car, I’m still gonna say that it’s too unsuited to the role to qualify for my standards of being a car.


I think deciding that the "difference" you noticed in 4e meant "not an RPG" was premature.

Perhaps. But it’s closer than “not D&D”. So I seem to be in first place in this race. :smallcool:


Identify what it is, precisely, that is different about it from all other RPGs you are familiar with- presumably these are the elements you dislike. Does that element somehow negate all the other elements about the game which are similar, even identical, to other RPGs? Why is this "not an RPG", rather than "an RPG design I don't like"? That's what I said when I first read the 4e PHB- "I don't think I would like running this." But I've seen people play it, and it looked and sounded pretty much like the D&D and other role playing I've done.

Do you regularly have people pulling rugs out from under orcs to jam in the door to delay reinforcements? Do you play with people who never open the book, never look at their character sheets, and just roleplay their character, even in combat? Can you take conceptualize that sharp a divide between “playing the character” and “playing the game”?


I think familiarity makes it possible to improvise quickly with this system, the same as it does with any system, so says its proponents. The ability to do that (improvise) is the only distinct complaint I've identified, based on the "pull the rug" example and your talk of "methods of creating new rules to be in line with existing rules".

No, there was some debate about that in the spawning thread, and if that doesn’t resurface, I’ll regret creating this thread for the loss.

I think one can evaluate how much effort a skilled user requires, and I think that that amount of effort can vary between systems.

Although, as a programmer, I may be biased. :smallwink:


I think this thread should be renamed: "Quertus is trying to define exactly why he dislikes 4e D&D"

Naw, that would probably be much easier: everything feels boring and samey. “Cool” and “fun” took a hit in the name of “balance” in the transition from 2e to 3e; 4e was just outright murder. That’s why I hate 4e.

For a trivial example most people can agree on these days, look at the ability schedules of Crusader and War Blade, and compare them with samey AEDs of 4e.

[Batcathat]

Is a soap box with wheels “a car”? Depends on the definition of “car” you are using. If your potential employer asks, “do you have a reliable car?”, I don’t think you should count your soap box.

Yes, not all things are cars and not all things are RPGs. But it's rather easy to explain why the soap box with wheels isn't a car (it has no engine, for one thing) but it seems quite impossible to explain why 4e isn't an RPG (without also ruling out many other games, at least).


About drawing that line… can you see that how you would make a ruling / invent a new rule for a horror RPG would be in some ways different from how you would do so for D&D? Focus on that difference. Now ask yourself, what does a rule that feels like it was published in a 4e book look like? How easy is it to write such a rule for “pulling the rug out from under some orcs and jamming it under the door” compared to how easy is it to adjudicate the “burning hands” button press?

This seems like the "this car is too slow to be called a car" argument all over again. You have a decent (if subjective) case for why 4e is a bad RPG, but (as far as I've seen) none what so ever for why it's not an RPG.

[Tanarii]

I don't know why you think 4e is so different from all other RPGs,
Speaking for myself, D&D 4e was the only RPG that I know of which falls into the otherwise flawed crunch/fluff model of RPG analysis. Because it explicitly calls out that is how it works. That makes it pretty unique.

(Technically 13th Age also does now, but it's the same developer redoing 4e even better, just under a different company.)

[Cluedrew]

Um... my experiences with 4e actually say "it's obviously not an RPG", and people just kept trying to play it like one because that's what they expected it to be. Reminder: what is "obvious" is not always right.I have trudged through multiple threats on this subject. I think I can safely say I'm past the point where I just missed something obvious.

I say that 4e is obviously a role-playing game because that is how language works. It is consensus based and except for 2-3 voices out of dozens to hundreds everyone agrees that 4e is a role-playing game. That is how the word is used and any attempt to the describe that usage (a definition) has to capture that to be accurate. You don't get to change that just because it doesn't capture what you like about role-playing games. And if you don't like it nothing changes.

But I thought of that before, so let's pretend we are talking about a related genre of game called QRPGs and let me go over what I have learned about QRPGs in all of these threads:
Theoretically it may differ from role-playing games in more ways, but when I asked the only known place where it differed was 4e. There are no other examples of it excluding a role-playing game and no known examples of it including a non-role-playing game.
It is based on a value of "amount of player choice" that a system needs to have a certain amount of to continue. (And presumably some other factors that are not contentious, the Stickman Game is probably not a QRPG either.)
No one except Quertus knows how to derive said value. We can guess at some high level distinctions but I couldn't rank any systems on it. I couldn't even put 4e below other D&D editions with confidence if that wasn't stated as being the outcome.
No one except Quertus knows what the cut-off is. ... If further details of this have been discussed I have forgotten them.
That's it. OK, there are probably some bits and pieces I would remember is some related point came up that I missed in this pass. Still it is not a lot, and I have been at this for a while.


I thought you had said something about a really simple definition of RPGs, and that's what I'd wanted to comment on - did I grab the wrong post?There was something about that in my second post. But I feel the need to point out, we don't have to get to the details to start disagreeing with your definition of role-playing game.

[Beoric]

About drawing that line… can you see that how you would make a ruling / invent a new rule for a horror RPG would be in some ways different from how you would do so for D&D? Focus on that difference. Now ask yourself, what does a rule that feels like it was published in a 4e book look like? How easy is it to write such a rule for “pulling the rug out from under some orcs and jamming it under the door” compared to how easy is it to adjudicate the “burning hands” button press?

...


Not just to make a random, arbitrary ruling - yes, that’s equally easy in any edition. But to make a good ruling, one which fits the theme and feel and such of the system, which doesn’t break anything? Show me someone who thinks that’s equally easy in each edition of D&D, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t get the differences between those editions.

...

What I’m saying is, the mechanics and feel and balance and so on of the system should be such that adjudication of the non-rule space should not be so comparatively arduous as to soft-ban the non-rule space.

Here is the guidance for adjudicating non-standard actions in the 1e DMG:

There will be times in which the rules do not cover a specific action that a player will attempt. In such situations, instead of being forced to make a decision, take the option to allow the dice to control the situation. This can be done by assigning a reasonable probability to an event and then letting the player dice to see if he or she can make that percentage. You can weigh the dice in any way so as to give the advantage to either the player or the non player character, whichever seems more correct and logical to you while being fair to both sides.

And here is the guidance for adjudicating non-standard actions in the 4e DMG:

Cast the Action as a Check: If a character tries an action that might fail, use a check to resolve it. To do that, you need to know what kind of check it is and what the DC is.

Attacks: If the action is essentially an attack, use an attack roll. It might involve a weapon and target AC, or
it might just be a Strength or Dexterity check against any defense. For an attack, use the appropriate defense of the target. Use an opposed check for anything that involves a contest between two creatures.

Other Checks: If the action is related to a skill (Acrobatics and Athletics cover a lot of the stunts characters
try in combat), use that check. If it is not an obvious skill or attack roll, use an ability check. Consult the Difficulty Class and Damage by Level table below, and set the DC according to whether you think the task should be easy, hard, or somewhere in between. A quick rule of thumb is to start with a DC of 10 (easy), 15 (moderate), or 20 (hard) and add one-half the character’s level.

Setting Improvised Damage: Sometimes you need to set damage for something not covered in the rules—a character stumbles into the campfire or falls into a vat of acid, for example. Choose a column on the Difficulty Class and Damage table based on the severity of the effect. Use a normal damage expression for something that might make an attack round after round, or something that’s relatively minor. These numbers are comparable to a monster’s at-will attack. Use a limited damage expression, comparable to a monster’s special powers, for one-time damaging effects or massive damage.

The 4e rules may be wordier, but essentially amount to the same thing, except (a) that more guidance is given so the DM isn't pulling numbers out of the air; (b) the guidance is consistent with the other operation of the game; (c) the DM needs much less system mastery to assign appropriate chances to any given task; (d) express rules are given for improvising damage.

To use your own words, 4e is better at avoinding making "a random, arbitrary ruling." It is better at making "a good ruling, one which fits the theme and feel and such of the system, which doesn’t break anything?"

I get that 4e doesn't feel like an RPG to you. I'm just saying the data does not fit your hypothesis.



Do you regularly have people pulling rugs out from under orcs to jam in the door to delay reinforcements? Do you play with people who never open the book, never look at their character sheets, and just roleplay their character, even in combat? Can you take conceptualize that sharp a divide between “playing the character” and “playing the game”?

Yes.



Naw, that would probably be much easier: everything feels boring and samey. “Cool” and “fun” took a hit in the name of “balance” in the transition from 2e to 3e; 4e was just outright murder. That’s why I hate 4e.
And that is fair, despite being essentially subjective; you are allowed to be a 2e grognard. I know 1e guys who would say the exact same thing about 2e, and I have run across B/X people who would say the same thing about 1e. Hell, I know 1e guys who would say the same thing about Unearthed Arcana era 1e.

FTR, 3e one of two editions I never played (the other being 0e). I read 3e a lot to do Eberron conversions, and I can say from reading it most of the mechanics seem pretty dull and "samey", whereas I don't have the same experience with 4e. I expect that is because I know one system well and have never played the other. It takes experience to recognize variations in mechanics and how they affect gameplay.

I have played 2e, and I have played a couple of decades of 1e, and more than a decade of 4e, so I can comment on all of those. And I can fairly say that 4e mechanics are more varied for pretty much every class except possibly the wizard (I would argue that one as well, but it is a harder argument). Objectively, fighters, rangers and thieves simply have more things they can do in combat on a regular basis, before you start adding improvised actions.. Out of combat they can do exactly the same number of things; that is, whether they can think of to try. Moreover, objectively, a 4e fighter that specializes in using a shield (for example) is going to do very different things from a fighter who specializes in fighting with one hand free. Your assertion that is feels "boring and samey" is in your head, and in module writing, and in playstyle, and in gaming culture; it has nothing to do with mechanics.

[Thrudd]

T
About drawing that line… can you see that how you would make a ruling / invent a new rule for a horror RPG would be in some ways different from how you would do so for D&D? Focus on that difference. Now ask yourself, what does a rule that feels like it was published in a 4e book look like? How easy is it to write such a rule for “pulling the rug out from under some orcs and jamming it under the door” compared to how easy is it to adjudicate the “burning hands” button press?

How much is a GM who cares about consistent rule quality incentivized to soft- or hard-ban roleplaying actions, and require button presses instead?

Yes, 4e is, IME, a lot more (by volume (of time)) about Combat than other editions. And that changes the lenses by which it is evaluated.

That said, I’m all about roleplaying in combat. “Roleplaying doesn’t end just because the dice come out”. And notice that my “how hard is it to roleplay” example explicitly occurs in the middle of combat: pulling the rug out from under some orcs, and using it to block the door to delay reinforcements.

That’s what the character would actually do in this situation; how much metagaming pressure is there to not do this, and instead press a button on the character’s sheet?

Not just to make a random, arbitrary ruling - yes, that’s equally easy in any edition. But to make a good ruling, one which fits the theme and feel and such of the system, which doesn’t break anything? Show me someone who thinks that’s equally easy in each edition of D&D, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t get the differences between those editions.

This just started because I was tired of hearing arguments about “4e isn’t D&D”, and set to evaluate that claim. That’s the only reason I cared about labeling things in the first place: because people were bad at labeling things, and bad at arguing about labeling things. And now I’m stuck in my own personal quagmire, struggling to learn enough to express the reasoning behind my label of “4e is D&D, but it isn’t a RPG “.

What I’m saying is, the mechanics and feel and balance and so on of the system should be such that adjudication of the non-rule space should not be so comparatively arduous as to soft-ban the non-rule space.

Do you regularly have people pulling rugs out from under orcs to jam in the door to delay reinforcements? Do you play with people who never open the book, never look at their character sheets, and just roleplay their character, even in combat? Can you take conceptualize that sharp a divide between “playing the character” and “playing the game”?

I think one can evaluate how much effort a skilled user requires, and I think that that amount of effort can vary between systems.


I find it strange that you decided the game wasn't an RPG without having decided first what defines something as an RPG. "This game doesn't feel like other RPGs I'm familiar with, I wonder why?" is certainly reasonable. Jumping to "hmm, this must not actually be an RPG, even though it calls itself one, people play it as such, and I'm not totally sure how to define what is or isn't an RPG" is the part that's confusing me. Maybe my brain works backwards from yours.

Certainly the amount of effort to learn and run the game seamlessly varies from system to system. However, this is an entirely subjective bar that I don't think can be used to establish a universal boundary between "RPG" and "not RPG". Some systems are ridiculously complicated and detailed, others are bare-bones simple to the point of barely being a "game". They can all still be a role playing game. Obviously, we are talking about pen&paper, table top role playing games - not computer games or books or card games -it isn't useful to bring those things into the discussion. We're talking about examining the qualities of games which are designed and intended as TTRPGs. If a TTRPG uses a (non diagetic) card game as a resolution mechanic in some situation, is it no longer an RPG? Is "Dread" not an RPG, because it uses Jenga to decide what happens? When you're poking the blocks on the tower, you aren't exactly role playing, are you?

It is completely fair to say "when engaged in the combat portions of this game, it is hard for me to continue role playing- it feels like a board game instead". The fact that you are not alone in that sentiment does indicate a problem in the system's design- however there are people who feel the same about tactical combat in 3e, 5e, and any game at all that uses miniature tactical combat rules. So again, I don't think we can say that the inclusion of complex or detached-from-fiction and "gamey" tactical combat rules make the game overall not an RPG. At worst, we can say that the game might be seen as an RPG with an attached tactical battle game that often occupies a lot of the table time for groups. I would say, based on my reading of the PHB, that 4e has far too many mechanical powers that are detached from specific fictional actions, and there is no good specific fictional reason for limiting certain actions to "encounter" or "daily"- that's one of the reasons I didn't like it. In the terminology of "The Alexandrian", there are too many "detached" mechanics, and even though its supporters like that you can "fluff" these powers any way you want- I don't like this design. On the other hand, I also love tactical battles, and wouldn't have minded trying 4e if someone else was running it (I just never had the chance).

This is why I used the comparison to Mechwarrior and Battletech. Battletech absolutely is not an RPG, it was designed as a tactical battle board game taking place in a specific sci-fi setting. Mechwarrior is the RPG which you can use to follow the personal exploits of Mech pilots when they aren't fighting in a mech battle. In practice, this looks like playing an RPG for part of the time, and then when it's battle time, you might spend hours or an entire game session playing out a big mech battle with the battle game rules. You are still role playing the pilots, they have goals and motives established by the role playing portions of the game, the battle is taking place in the same fictional setting and there are stakes and consequences that persist after the battle. You've got a lot of moving parts and things to keep track of that is impossible without everyone knowing the rules and using the mech sheets. It's not super hard to learn how the system works, but there are a lot of details that can make it hard for new people or people who aren't good at tactics to succeed in a Battletech battle, especially if they are kitting out their own mechs without some degree of system mastery. Is the group no longer role playing when they play out the battles? maybe, maybe not? I don't think the line is so simple to draw, it is highly subjective, and depends on how the GM runs things and the way the players behave. Could your pilot hop out of their mech in the middle of the battle and run someplace and do something other than shoot mech weapons? Yes, they could, there are rules for it and the GM should know how to handle that- you will shift back to Mechwarrior RPG rules to do that sometimes.

Since 4e intends even the battles to be considered part of the role playing, and the GM is given guidance on how to adjudicate improvised actions, there's no reason that any given table's battles couldn't feel like role playing, depending on the familiarity with the system possessed by the GM and players. The only thing that makes it feel more "board gamey" than 3e or 5e combat is the handful of "detached" combat powers that each character has at their disposal and the listing of speeds, ranges and areas in "squares" instead of feet or meters. This might be a big deal to some potential players- I certainly didn't like it - but obviously it doesn't impede others.

I think your statement about people never opening the book or looking at a character sheet is telling. This is a condition I think very many, if not most, games billed as RPGs would not fulfill. It is certainly a valid preference- to have a game simple enough that all the mechanics can be managed by the GM from behind the screen, simple enough to explain to the players without them ever needing to open a book or write anything down or do math, and have them be able to succeed in the system based solely on narrative description of their actions without any mechanical or mathematical considerations on their part. Certainly, it is possible for some RPGs to function this way, hypothetically, but the work load on the GM would make it impractical in almost all cases. If the ease of running the game as a black box for the players is a threshold for classifying it as an RPG, how do you measure that "ease of play" in an objective way? Again, the best you can do is say "this game doesn't meet my threshold for ease of use.", rather than saying it fails as an RPG in general.

[Tanarii]

I have played 2e, and I have played a couple of decades of 1e, and more than a decade of 4e, so I can comment on all of those. And I can fairly say that 4e mechanics are more varied for pretty much every class except possibly the wizard (I would argue that one as well, but it is a harder argument). Objectively, fighters, rangers and thieves simply have more things they can do in combat on a regular basis, before you start adding improvised actions.. Out of combat they can do exactly the same number of things; that is, whether they can think of to try. Moreover, objectively, a 4e fighter that specializes in using a shield (for example) is going to do very different things from a fighter who specializes in fighting with one hand free. Your assertion that is feels "boring and samey" is in your head, and in module writing, and in playstyle, and in gaming culture; it has nothing to do with mechanics.
IMX the vast majority of "4e is boring and samey" players were folks that loved high level magic users / wizards, and wanted to continue playing the class with the most button presses. They were annoyed their "inside-the-box" toys (and sometimes power) were taken away.

[False God]

IMX the vast majority of "4e is boring and samey" players were folks that loved high level magic users / wizards, and wanted to continue playing the class with the most button presses. They were annoyed their "inside-the-box" toys (and sometimes power) were taken away.

These were also generally the same folks who complained that 4E gave martials too many "magic powers".

[Kurald Galain]

How much is a GM who cares about consistent rule quality incentivized to soft- or hard-ban roleplaying actions, and require button presses instead?
But Quertus, this question is remarkably easy to answer from the 4E rulebooks. Just take a look at Page 42 in the DMG (which shows the expected damage of "roleplaying actions") and compare that to the average damage of an encounter power of the same level (the expected damage of "button presses"). There's your incentive.


That does not follow. A player can still make decisions for character activities that are outside the specific rules of the game and require GM intervention to resolve, just not outside the adventure tracks the DM wants you to stay on.
The point is, there is no practical difference between a game that doesn't allow out-of-the-box actions (such as Monopoly), and a game that has the DM adjudicate them and the DM never makes them have an effect (such as RPGs with an overly strict DM and/or overly railroady adventure).

[PhoenixPhyre]

These were also generally the same folks who complained that 4E gave martials too many "magic powers".

Because what was really wanted, to be a bit uncharitable, isn't to have lots of button presses. But to have more, and more powerful, button presses. There's actually a quote from one of the 4e devs about the repeated, hard fought battle to not have wizards be naturally the most powerful class. That was such a baked in assumption with the playtesters that it took a lot of work to teach them that no, it's supposed to be a level playing field and other classes can get nice things that wizards don't get.

[kyoryu]

Your assertion that is feels "boring and samey" is in your head, and in module writing, and in playstyle, and in gaming culture; it has nothing to do with mechanics.

Eh, I mostly agree with you. I've even done an analysis of the various effects you can do at just first level.

But I think there's a valid point here. Unlike previous editions, all classes handle their *resources* in the same way. You get daily powers, and x number of them a day. y number of encounters, z number of dailies. It's not like 2e or 3e where barbarians got x number of rages a day, while wizards got a totally different set of spell slots to manage.

While the abilities themselves have a pretty good variety of things, I think, the structure of how you get/use/manage powers is pretty damn samey.

[Gimby]

Eh, I mostly agree with you. I've even done an analysis of the various effects you can do at just first level.

But I think there's a valid point here. Unlike previous editions, all classes handle their *resources* in the same way. You get daily powers, and x number of them a day. y number of encounters, z number of dailies. It's not like 2e or 3e where barbarians got x number of rages a day, while wizards got a totally different set of spell slots to manage.

While the abilities themselves have a pretty good variety of things, I think, the structure of how you get/use/manage powers is pretty damn samey.

That's true, but consider 5e casters which all follow largely the same pattern for resources - and are often using the exact same spells regardless of class.

Quertus - One way to dispel the impression that this is just about 4e and instead some global definition of roleplaying games would be to identify another game that is marketed as a tabletop RPG but would fail your test. If you can, that would probably mean that this definition has a bit more bite to it.

[kyoryu]

That's true, but consider 5e casters which all follow largely the same pattern for resources - and are often using the exact same spells regardless of class.

You're not wrong, but it's not the same as the schedule for martials/etc. And that seemed to be a big thing.

(Keep in mind I actually liked 4e)

[Gimby]

You're not wrong, but it's not the same as the schedule for martials/etc. And that seemed to be a big thing.

(Keep in mind I actually liked 4e)

That's true - I guess it's just a question of degree. From my point of view martials at least were more varied than they'd ever been, but I can certainly see where that point of view came from.

[False God]

Because what was really wanted, to be a bit uncharitable, isn't to have lots of button presses. But to have more, and more powerful, button presses. There's actually a quote from one of the 4e devs about the repeated, hard fought battle to not have wizards be naturally the most powerful class. That was such a baked in assumption with the playtesters that it took a lot of work to teach them that no, it's supposed to be a level playing field and other classes can get nice things that wizards don't get.

Right, real meaningful choices, rather than just "a lot of choices" or "no real choices". It's one thing to have a hundred spells for every situation, and only ever use 10 of them, and another to have only one option you can never deviate from.

I do personally feel they succeeded in providing some classes with a fair number of real choices. (I remember there were quite a few ways to build a Paladin at least.)

[Tanarii]

The point is, there is no practical difference between a game that doesn't allow out-of-the-box actions (such as Monopoly), and a game that has the DM adjudicate them and the DM never makes them have an effect (such as RPGs with an overly strict DM and/or overly railroady adventure).
The point is, there is no relationship between a overly railroady adventure and a DM that only allows actions specifically covered by the rules or a board game. Overly railoady adventures can allow a lot of out-of-the-box no-rules-cover-it decision making by the players, with DM adjudication to how they resolve. They're just not allow to get off the rails and explore elsewhere.

Unless you're using some special definition of a railroad adventure that I'm unfamiliar with. Denying player agency on a strategic level is not the same thing as only allowing decisions within existing rules so that it works the same way as a board game.

[Beoric]

Eh, I mostly agree with you. I've even done an analysis of the various effects you can do at just first level.

But I think there's a valid point here. Unlike previous editions, all classes handle their *resources* in the same way. You get daily powers, and x number of them a day. y number of encounters, z number of dailies. It's not like 2e or 3e where barbarians got x number of rages a day, while wizards got a totally different set of spell slots to manage.

While the abilities themselves have a pretty good variety of things, I think, the structure of how you get/use/manage powers is pretty damn samey.

I guess, except for all of the psionic classes (even monks, with their full discipline powers), or martial e-classes, or out of turn actions, or every class's class features.

But I still dispute that being able to do the same number of very different things makes them feel the same.

I also dispute the assertion that they are being done in the same order every combat. That is, I don't see that someone is likely to be effective if with every combat they use, in order, one daily, all their encounter powers, and then spam at-wills. A lot of the dailies and encounter powers need some setup to be effective, and some are out of turn powers; IME the odds of them going off in order like that are pretty slim, except maybe for high-op builds.


The point is, there is no relationship between a overly railroady adventure and a DM that only allows actions specifically covered by the rules or a board game. Overly railoady adventures can allow a lot of out-of-the-box no-rules-cover-it decision making by the players, with DM adjudication to how they resolve. They're just not allow to get off the rails and explore elsewhere.

Except that is it player choice that causes a railroad to go off the rails, like attacking NPCs the adventure doesn't want attacked, opening doors it doesn't want you to open, going to places it doesn't want you to go, not going places it does want you to go. That is the commonality with an inflexible DM; player agency is removed.

[Tanarii]

Except that is it player choice that causes a railroad to go off the rails, like attacking NPCs the adventure doesn't want attacked, opening doors it doesn't want you to open, going to places it doesn't want you to go, not going places it does want you to go. That is the commonality with an inflexible DM; player agency is removed.
Denying "that will take the adventure off the rails" strategic agency and denying "theres no rule for that action" tactical agency are two different things. As such, there's no reason to assume a DM doing one will be prone to doing the other. Nor does it follow that a DM doing the former is turning the game into "not playing an RPG any more". Attempting to conflate the two is like trying to talk about Orange Marmalade when the discussion has been all about Apple Pie. :smallamused:

[kyoryu]

But I still dispute that being able to do the same number of very different things makes them feel the same.

Oh, as do I. But I think there's a decent number of people that value the "power chassis" variance more than I do, and probably more than you do. I find more interest in "what can I actually do on my turn" than I do in "how do I manage these resources" (yes, they're related, others reading this), but others are opposite.


I also dispute the assertion that they are being done in the same order every combat. That is, I don't see that someone is likely to be effective if with every combat they use, in order, one daily, all their encounter powers, and then spam at-wills. A lot of the dailies and encounter powers need some setup to be effective, and some are out of turn powers; IME the odds of them going off in order like that are pretty slim, except maybe for high-op builds.

No, that's true, however in terms of effectiveness your priority is generally to try to kick off however many dailies you want to use in the encounter, then all of your encounter abilities, and then go to at-wills. That's not always viable, as you said, but it's usually the goal.

I really wish that the encounter/daily powers were less flat out better and more situational. That's one of many complaints I have with 4e (which, again, I did actually like overall).


Except that is it player choice that causes a railroad to go off the rails, like attacking NPCs the adventure doesn't want attacked, opening doors it doesn't want you to open, going to places it doesn't want you to go, not going places it does want you to go. That is the commonality with an inflexible DM; player agency is removed.

There's some commonality, but they're only the same at the 10,000 foot level.

In even the most railroad game, there are boundaries. However, within those boundaries the players are able to do things that are not explicitly pre-defined by the rules.

That's not true of a board game.

Some level of player agency is removed in every game, in one way or another. Chess offers unlimited agency, so long as you start with the pieces and move them in the allotted way. A railroad offers a lot of agency, unless you try to get off the rails. Even sandboxes generally limit agency, either by inherent limits of the genre, social factors, etc.

So "removes agency", at the 10,000 level, isn't really a useful thing. Every game limits agency in some way. What can be interesting is the ways in which agency is limited - and a boardgame removes your agency to do things not directly covered by the rules, whereas the most railroady railroad to ever rail a road doesn't (though it does limit your agency to do things, covered by the rules or not, which would invalidate the rails)

[zlefin]

Quertus, how often have you dived through the various semantic theories? Given how complex semantics is, it feels like it may be helpful.


I'm vaguely familiar with prototype theory, that might be a good starting point to dive through the various ways meaning can be described.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_theory

I concur with others that going through a list of things and determining which are, which aren't, and which sorta are RPGs might help elucidate the definition you seek. Though really it's more like trying to reverse engineer/justify a definition for something that is simply defined by how you assess them.

[gbaji]

That's not Monopoly being an RPG, though. That's just roleplaying while playing the game. There's no connection between the game mechanics and the roleplaying.

Which was the point I was trying to make. That "roleplaying" and "game" are really two different things. There's lots of examples of roleplaying where you aren't even playing a game (go take a turn picking a character out of a hat at an improv sometime, it's fun). There are lots of examples of games in which there is no roleplaying. I was just making it clear that the "in the box" game mechanics are not what makes a game a Roleplaying Game.


Clearly, a definition of RPG that includes any boardgame (such as Monopoly) is so broad that it's meaningless. This means that "a game in which you can roleplay" is insufficient to define an RPG, because you can roleplay in every game.

Correct. Where I was trying to go with that was that while you can roleplay while playing pretty much any game at all, we only tend to label games "roleplaying games" if a measurable (significant even!) portion of the game session/scenario resolution does revolve around roleplaying characters. And the game rules themselves have some methods for resolving those actions, whether they are "in the box" or "outside the box". And yeah, I'd go a step further and say that it's not a RPG unless there are within the game rules, "rules" for handling outside the box actions based on players "roleplaying" their characters in some way.


The author of popular gaming blog CRPGaddict came to the same conclusion, i.e. the definition of "CRPG" is substantially narrower than "a game where you play a role", because you play a role in just about every computer game. The definition he came up with for CRPGs largely comes down to stat-based combat and growth of these stats.

Yeah. I don't find CRPGS to be much more "RP" than paying the "Role" of the car in Monopoly. You're still following a set of rules, making moves, and the entire time staying completely "in the box" in terms of actions/outcomes. As I gain properties and cash (and get out of jail cards), those could be considered equivalent to gaining levels, HPs (money soaks up the "damage" from an unlucky roll, right), skills, and items (or plot points) in a CRPG. Still not really a RPG IMO. If the only thing you are "gaining" while playing is measurable quantities of defined game objects, it's not a RPG. It *can* be a RPG, but none of those things are what make it a RPG.


Of course, a TRPG is a different beast than a CRPG. To define TRPGs I rather like BRC's windowpane test, or the notion that a game can resolve outside-the-box actions. Notably, this is by definition impossible in computer games, so by necessity they must have a different criterion.

Also notably, this means that if you have a DM or a written (railroady) adventure that does not allow outside-the-box actions, then you're not playing an RPG any more, and this is why many players find such DMs and adventures frustrating to deal with. I think we all have examples of DMs or adventures that disallow roleplaying, irrespective of system used.

I think at this point you have to make a distinction between what the "game" is though. There's the game system you are playing and game rules, and there's "how the person running this particular game is running things". A "game" (system) can absolutely be a RPG, but have a particular GM running a "game" (scenario) in which the players are not allowed to make any decisions of import with their characters other than the ones that are written into the scenario itself. So basically playing a CRPG at the tabletop.

That certainly makes that game session not really a RPG, but I don't know if I'd say that this make the game system not a RPG. The GM has just removed the potential for RP to have any influence on the game session.


So, if I’ve read this right, you understand my idea, you just missed that that’s actually what my idea is? Huh. Let’s see if I can nudge you in the right direction.

It's possible that I misunderstood you, but you seemed to be arguing that the restriction on rules to handle "out of the box" situations meant that it isn't a RPG. My counter was that as long as there is a "general rule" for handling things "out of the box", then it *can* be a RPG (and I believe several people have already posted rules snippets that show this is true). What makes it an RPG or not at that point is whether the game itself revolves around players playing "roles" and that how they play these roles impacts the movement/direction of the game session(s). And from my understanding (full disclosure, 4e is the one edition of D&D I've never played), is that this is just as true as it was in every other edition of D&D.

And yes, just as in every other edition of D&D, it's still entirely possible for the GM to run a very railroady scenario and provide players few or even no RP choices, or ignore attempts to RP, or allow NPCs to be influenced by RP in any way other that those written into the scenario itself, but as I pointed out above, that doesn't make the game system itself not a RPG.


So, imagine that gbaji‘s player had wanted gbaji to post that post. Only, when they went to declare that action, their GM informed them that they had updated reality to a “choose your own adventure” book (or CRPG) format, and their only options for gbaji were “spend time meditating” and “burn down the library”. Obviously impossible for gbaji‘s players to roleplay gbaji in that environment, right?

Is that what 4e D&D restricts the players to? Not by GM decision/fiat, but actually written into the rules themselves? If we bring the Monopoly example back, no amount of me roleplaying the top hat how I wish allows me to change the fact that I have to roll two dice each turn, and move that many spaces clockwise around the board, and follow the instructions on the board. I'm not allowed to make a deal with another player and decide that instead or rolling, I can just hang at their place rent free for this turn because I helped them with their gradeschool homework 10 years ago or something.

I'm pretty sure the 4e rules don't mandate that, nor prevent "out of the box" actions in the same way that Monopoly does.


Now, suppose instead that this “choose your own adventure” book is written in human flesh (or the equivalent for whatever species you want to picture gbaji‘s player being), and they can choose to write said post as their action if gbaji‘s player is willing to be skinned / flensed sufficiently to cover the new pages. It is onerous and costly, and they are encouraged to just press an existing button rather than have gbaji do what gbaji would actually do in this situation were reality to better support roleplaying.

I literally have no clue what you are talking about, or why. When trying to discuss things and come to some sort of understanding, it's usually useful to trim things down to the essentials, so that we can talk about what really matters. You seem to want to add more unrelated things to the conversation to muddy the waters or something.

Here's trimming things: Do the rules of 4e allow for GMs to run a game in which the players can choose to run their characters with different personalities, allow them to run those characters based on those personalities, and have the decisions they therefore make with their characters have an influence on the game? Do the rules allow for situations where a player may tell the GM that he wants to do something, not written into the scenario, and for reasons that may be completely personality driven, and require that the GM in turn perhaps roleplay the NPC response to this unanticipated action? if the answer is "yes", then you are playing a roleplaying game.


That’s what I’m talking about here: how much does the system discourage you from taking roleplaying actions vs soft-banning them and forcing you to just press existing buttons?

I don't know. I've never played 4e D&D. Are you saying that it does, in fact, discourage this? How? From what I've read (on this thread and elsewhere), I suspect that it's more that 4e D&D more clearly codifies the spell/ability actions in the game itself (My understanding was that the entire point was to attempt to resolve the "fighters are linear, wizards are exponential" issue with previous editions). So yes, the rulings on written down abilities and spells were more constrained perhaps, but this isn't what "roleplaying" is about (which loops us back to my original point). The fact that "ability X" written on your mage's sheet is very similar to and uses the same game mechanics as "ability Y" on the party fighter's sheet, does not at all mean that your ability to "roleplay" is being infringed.

Again. RP is the stuff that is outside the well defined rules. Now maybe you're arguing that since 4e more strictly defined the "in the box" stuff, that this suppresses roleplaying, but that then leads me right back to my initial impression that you were somehow equating roleplaying with "cleverly using spells/abilities in the game to do things outside of how those were intended to be used". Which makes this more of a game mechanic issue and not a roleplaying issue.


Obviously things that hard-ban roleplaying choices aren’t RPGs. The question is, can we agree that there’s some level of additional impediment sufficient to soft-ban roleplaying choices, and disqualify a game from being an RPG?

Again though, you need to show that the changes to 4e D&D did, in fact, impede or "soft-ban" roleplaying choices. And again, it feels to me like you are really looking at how flexible the interpretation of game mechanic rules are, and not really looking at roleplaying and how it influences outcomes in a game.

Finding clever ways to use game mechanics to your advantage isn't roleplaying. That's rules lawyering.


The point is, there is no practical difference between a game that doesn't allow out-of-the-box actions (such as Monopoly), and a game that has the DM adjudicate them and the DM never makes them have an effect (such as RPGs with an overly strict DM and/or overly railroady adventure).

Again though that doesn't say anything about "4e D&D" as a game, but "Joe the GMs table" as a game. Two different concepts for the word "game".

[JNAProductions]

I would also like to know what game that is commonly referred to as an RPG (in the vein of D&D, not a videogame) doesn’t qualify to you, Quertus.

Or is 4E the only one?

[Jay R]

Quertus, consider the following definition:

A role-playing game is any game commonly considered a role-playing game by most of its players, except for D&D 4e.

Does that successfully cover each game you know about?

I'm not asking if this is what you mean; I know it's not. I'm asking you where it fails to accurately sort what you call rpgs from what you don't call rpgs.

I can't find a counter-example. Can you?

[Cluedrew]

I actually asked Quertus that question in a previous thread on the topic and he could not cite any other counter examples. Now there were also a bunch of "I haven't played that" responses to the various suggestions so theoretically many could exist, but we don't know of any others.

[Stonehead]

I think the "4E isn't an RPG" thing is a bit ridiculous, but some really interesting questions have come out of the discussion. I played in a short 4e campaign years ago, and it was fine. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember moving some furniture to block a door, which was in no way a "Push button" ability on my character sheet.


But it's still not an RPG, any more than Gloomhaven is an RPG. Because there's no rule for what to do when you try do do something not covered by specific rules.

In other words, you can connect some roleplaying to some of the rules. But if you can make decisions for your character in the fantasy environment and there is not a rule covering it, including a default / fallback rule of "the GM decides", then it's not an RPG.

I actually really like this answer as the tie-breaker. While reading through this thread, I remember playing some board games with people who would roleplay their character, instead of making "gamey" decisions.

"What happens when you do something not covered by the rules" determining what's an rpg matches the intuition in my head in every case I can come up with, provided it follows the other criteria of being both a game and roleplaying.

[Quertus]

It's been a few days I've been at this reply; doubtless, the thread has moved some since I started.


Yes, not all things are cars and not all things are RPGs. But it's rather easy to explain why the soap box with wheels isn't a car (it has no engine, for one thing) but it seems quite impossible to explain why 4e isn't an RPG (without also ruling out many other games, at least).
I have no problem with the idea that “the reason I said 4e wasn’t an RPG” might indicate that other games wouldn’t feel like RPGs to me, either.

This seems like the "this car is too slow to be called a car" argument all over again. You have a decent (if subjective) case for why 4e is a bad RPG, but (as far as I've seen) none what so ever for why it's not an RPG.
Where do we draw the line between a “river” and a “stream”? Something isn’t a “River” just because it has a flow of water - there’s a certain threshold it must cross to move beyond “stream” into “River”.
So long as you think in black and white on/off terms like “has an engine”, and assume that the definition must sound like that, you’ll struggle to accept limit-based “has enough to be a River” definitions as sounding valid.

The 4e rules may be wordier, but essentially amount to the same thing, except (a) that more guidance is given so the DM isn't pulling numbers out of the air; (b) the guidance is consistent with the other operation of the game; (c) the DM needs much less system mastery to assign appropriate chances to any given task; (d) express rules are given for improvising damage.
To use your own words, 4e is better at avoinding making "a random, arbitrary ruling." It is better at making "a good ruling, one which fits the theme and feel and such of the system, which doesn’t break anything?"
I get that 4e doesn't feel like an RPG to you. I'm just saying the data does not fit your hypothesis.
You’re the third person to say something like this (Although one person indicated kinda the opposite). This “go” at things is the first time people have understood my definitions enough to give such feedback (progress!), and that feedback is 3-to-1 (not counting myself) that I’m just wrong about 4e.

Yes.

And that is fair, despite being essentially subjective; you are allowed to be a 2e grognard. I know 1e guys who would say the exact same thing about 2e, and I have run across B/X people who would say the same thing about 1e. Hell, I know 1e guys who would say the same thing about Unearthed Arcana era 1e.
FTR, 3e one of two editions I never played (the other being 0e). I read 3e a lot to do Eberron conversions, and I can say from reading it most of the mechanics seem pretty dull and "samey", whereas I don't have the same experience with 4e. I expect that is because I know one system well and have never played the other. It takes experience to recognize variations in mechanics and how they affect gameplay.
I have played 2e, and I have played a couple of decades of 1e, and more than a decade of 4e, so I can comment on all of those. And I can fairly say that 4e mechanics are more varied for pretty much every class except possibly the wizard (I would argue that one as well, but it is a harder argument). Objectively, fighters, rangers and thieves simply have more things they can do in combat on a regular basis, before you start adding improvised actions.. Out of combat they can do exactly the same number of things; that is, whether they can think of to try. Moreover, objectively, a 4e fighter that specializes in using a shield (for example) is going to do very different things from a fighter who specializes in fighting with one hand free. Your assertion that is feels "boring and samey" is in your head, and in module writing, and in playstyle, and in gaming culture; it has nothing to do with mechanics.
You've met (otherwise sane) people who felt that 2e killed the fun of 1e in the name of balance? :smallconfused:

I have trudged through multiple threats on this subject. I think I can safely say I'm past the point where I just missed something obvious.
I say that 4e is obviously a role-playing game because that is how language works. It is consensus based and except for 2-3 voices out of dozens to hundreds everyone agrees that 4e is a role-playing game. That is how the word is used and any attempt to the describe that usage (a definition) has to capture that to be accurate. You don't get to change that just because it doesn't capture what you like about role-playing games. And if you don't like it nothing changes.
But I thought of that before, so let's pretend we are talking about a related genre of game called QRPGs and let me go over what I have learned about QRPGs in all of these threads: Theoretically it may differ from role-playing games in more ways, but when I asked the only known place where it differed was 4e. There are no other examples of it excluding a role-playing game and no known examples of it including a non-role-playing game. It is based on a value of "amount of player choice" that a system needs to have a certain amount of to continue. (And presumably some other factors that are not contentious, the Stickman Game is probably not a QRPG either.) No one except Quertus knows how to derive said value. We can guess at some high level distinctions but I couldn't rank any systems on it. I couldn't even put 4e below other D&D editions with confidence if that wasn't stated as being the outcome. No one except Quertus knows what the cut-off is. ... If further details of this have been discussed I have forgotten them.That's it. OK, there are probably some bits and pieces I would remember is some related point came up that I missed in this pass. Still it is not a lot, and I have been at this for a while.
There was something about that in my second post. But I feel the need to point out, we don't have to get to the details to start disagreeing with your definition of role-playing game.
You may want to take a step back, and drop your preconceptions. Several people have successfully used this new metric; granted, 3-out-of-4 (as of when I started this post days ago) have used it to say that I'm wrong, but that's nonetheless very different from what you're describing.

I find it strange that you decided the game wasn't an RPG without having decided first what defines something as an RPG.
That would be strange.

"This game doesn't feel like other RPGs I'm familiar with, I wonder why?"
“People keep saying ‘4e isn’t D&D’, I wonder why?”

Then I evaluated the claim, decided 4e was D&D, but wasn’t an RPG, but struggled when attempting to articulate why.

is certainly reasonable. Jumping to "hmm, this must not actually be an RPG, even though it calls itself one, people play it as such, and I'm not totally sure how to define what is or isn't an RPG" is the part that's confusing me. Maybe my brain works backwards from yours.
Do people have shirts and shirts have buttons, or do buttons have shirts, and shirts, people? Do you talk like a normal person, or a database developer? Whichever you choose, I'll doubtless "think backwards" at times, because I can think both ways.

Regardless, one can be unable to define what a human is, while still declaring that a tree isn’t that. (And, yes, it’s my own danged fault for using the word “defining” in the thread title. I'm horrible loose with my words.)

Certainly the amount of effort to learn and run the game seamlessly varies from system to system. However, this is an entirely subjective bar that I don't think can be used to establish a universal boundary between "RPG" and "not RPG". Some systems are ridiculously complicated and detailed, others are bare-bones simple to the point of barely being a "game". They can all still be a role playing game.
This is a possible “Confundus” to my efforts: it’s possible none of my irl sources on 4e are properly “skilled” at 4e (and I’m certainly not). But, when the person being asked isn’t me, it’s hard to ask, “are you an ignoramus?” and get a reasoned response.

Obviously, we are talking about pen&paper, table top role playing games - not computer games or books or card games -it isn't useful to bring those things into the discussion. We're talking about examining the qualities of games which are designed and intended as TTRPGs.
Ah, no, here I’m pretty sure you’re just wrong. Plenty of people have tried to call CRPGs and even “choose your own adventure” books “roleplaying games” of the same ilk as TTRPGs. Which means that there’s some fundamental disagreements on just what “roleplaying” means. So it’s important to say, “if you think that a volcano is cold, we’re not communicating”. Especially given how poorly I’ve communicated in the past, and how many complete misunderstandings of my prison there’ve been.

If a TTRPG uses a (non diagetic) card game as a resolution mechanic in some situation, is it no longer an RPG? Is "Dread" not an RPG, because it uses Jenga to decide what happens? When you're poking the blocks on the tower, you aren't exactly role playing, are you?
I’m not even evaluating this beyond “that is outside the scope of the current question”. Like if I said, “you can’t be a biological man and be pregnant”, I don’t really care about other traits of manhood when evaluating that statement.

It is completely fair to say "when engaged in the combat portions of this game, it is hard for me to continue role playing- it feels like a board game instead". The fact that you are not alone in that sentiment does indicate a problem in the system's design- however there are people who feel the same about tactical combat in 3e, 5e, and any game at all that uses miniature tactical combat rules. So again, I don't think we can say that the inclusion of complex or detached-from-fiction and "gamey" tactical combat rules make the game overall not an RPG. At worst, we can say that the game might be seen as an RPG with an attached tactical battle game that often occupies a lot of the table time for groups. I would say, based on my reading of the PHB, that 4e has far too many mechanical powers that are detached from specific fictional actions, and there is no good specific fictional reason for limiting certain actions to "encounter" or "daily"- that's one of the reasons I didn't like it. In the terminology of "The Alexandrian", there are too many "detached" mechanics, and even though its supporters like that you can "fluff" these powers any way you want- I don't like this design. On the other hand, I also love tactical battles, and wouldn't have minded trying 4e if someone else was running it (I just never had the chance).
Whew. My senility really hurts my ability to respond to some of this, but… if I called that “disassociated mechanics”, would you say that’sa valid name for your “detached” mechanics?

But, while I’m not a fan of such, and may have even argued about their relationship with roleplaying in the past, that’s not what I’m talking about in this thread. Here, I am exclusively discussing the comparative effort between adjudicating button-presses and outside-the-box actions.

This is why I used the comparison to Mechwarrior and Battletech. Battletech absolutely is not an RPG, it was designed as a tactical battle board game taking place in a specific sci-fi setting. Mechwarrior is the RPG which you can use to follow the personal exploits of Mech pilots when they aren't fighting in a mech battle. In practice, this looks like playing an RPG for part of the time, and then when it's battle time, you might spend hours or an entire game session playing out a big mech battle with the battle game rules. You are still role playing the pilots, they have goals and motives established by the role playing portions of the game, the battle is taking place in the same fictional setting and there are stakes and consequences that persist after the battle. You've got a lot of moving parts and things to keep track of that is impossible without everyone knowing the rules and using the mech sheets. It's not super hard to learn how the system works, but there are a lot of details that can make it hard for new people or people who aren't good at tactics to succeed in a Battletech battle, especially if they are kitting out their own mechs without some degree of system mastery. Is the group no longer role playing when they play out the battles? maybe, maybe not? I don't think the line is so simple to draw, it is highly subjective, and depends on how the GM runs things and the way the players behave. Could your pilot hop out of their mech in the middle of the battle and run someplace and do something other than shoot mech weapons? Yes, they could, there are rules for it and the GM should know how to handle that- you will shift back to Mechwarrior RPG rules to do that sometimes.
Since 4e intends even the battles to be considered part of the role playing, and the GM is given guidance on how to adjudicate improvised actions, there's no reason that any given table's battles couldn't feel like role playing, depending on the familiarity with the system possessed by the GM and players. The only thing that makes it feel more "board gamey" than 3e or 5e combat is the handful of "detached" combat powers that each character has at their disposal and the listing of speeds, ranges and areas in "squares" instead of feet or meters. This might be a big deal to some potential players- I certainly didn't like it - but obviously it doesn't impede others.
I think your statement about people never opening the book or looking at a character sheet is telling. This is a condition I think very many, if not most, games billed as RPGs would not fulfill. It is certainly a valid preference- to have a game simple enough that all the mechanics can be managed by the GM from behind the screen, simple enough to explain to the players without them ever needing to open a book or write anything down or do math, and have them be able to succeed in the system based solely on narrative description of their actions without any mechanical or mathematical considerations on their part. Certainly, it is possible for some RPGs to function this way, hypothetically, but the work load on the GM would make it impractical in almost all cases. If the ease of running the game as a black box for the players is a threshold for classifying it as an RPG, how do you measure that "ease of play" in an objective way? Again, the best you can do is say "this game doesn't meet my threshold for ease of use.", rather than saying it fails as an RPG in general.
So, it really sounds like you get what I'm saying, that I'm measuring the ease with which one can adjudicate outside-the-box actions, the ease with which the GM can adjudicate "playing the character", rather than just "playing the system". Well, to use your words, I'm measuring the difference between white-box and black-box, not just measuring black-box. Clearer?

And, sure, I have my own personal threshold of "not an RPG". My question is, would that at long last mean that if I said, "4e is not an RPG", you would understand what I meant by that phrase? That the difference between white-box and black-box play is just too great for me to consider the game to facilitate roleplaying? Do those words make sense?

IMX the vast majority of "4e is boring and samey" players were folks that loved high level magic users / wizards, and wanted to continue playing the class with the most button presses. They were annoyed their "inside-the-box" toys (and sometimes power) were taken away.
You clearly haven't read the same threads I have - the major common criticism I've heard in that vein involves a comparison to how different the power schedules in 3e are, how it was hoped that Bo9S was a preview of 4e, to indicate that 4e intended to extend that trend, whereas 4e came out with such boring samey AED scheduling.

My complaints run to far more than just that, but IME if anything gets to be called the "majority", it's that.

Eh, I mostly agree with you. I've even done an analysis of the various effects you can do at just first level.
But I think there's a valid point here. Unlike previous editions, all classes handle their *resources* in the same way. You get daily powers, and x number of them a day. y number of encounters, z number of dailies. It's not like 2e or 3e where barbarians got x number of rages a day, while wizards got a totally different set of spell slots to manage.
While the abilities themselves have a pretty good variety of things, I think, the structure of how you get/use/manage powers is pretty damn samey.
Yeah, it's pretty universally accepted these days that the scheduling of the powers in 4e is samey. I think there's something like the "8 aesthetics of fun" going on here, where some people can see that the powers have diversity, whereas others (like myself) are color-blind to that, and see even the powers as samey.

I think 4e would have really benefited by not just varying the resource management schedule more, but by also understanding this "color-blindness", and making abilities that seem cool to those of us who don't operate on the seemingly monochrome 4e wavelength.

[Quertus]

(full disclosure, 4e is the one edition of D&D I've never played)

you need to show that the changes to 4e D&D did, in fact, impede or "soft-ban" roleplaying choices.

Finding clever ways to use game mechanics to your advantage isn't roleplaying. That's rules lawyering.

Again though that doesn't say anything about "4e D&D" as a game, but "Joe the GMs table" as a game. Two different concepts for the word "game".

Given that you aren't personally familiar with 4e (my bad), these are likely the most like "load-bearing structures" I can find.

So, it's absolutely not about rules lawyering (your definition or mine). It's about (as the easiest example) acting in ignorance of the rules, not manipulating them to your advantage.

The metric is about how much harder outside-the-box actions are to adjudicate than system button-presses. That's one half.

The other half is my claim that 4e rates unnaturally poorly in such a metric. That matches your "you need to show" bit.

But you've kinda got to understand the first half - the "what is being measured" - to make heads or tails of the "and here's why I think it doesn't measure up", no?

So I'd suggest starting there: I'm measuring just how difficult it is to adjudicate outside-the-box actions compared to adjudicating system button presses.


I would also like to know what game that is commonly referred to as an RPG (in the vein of D&D, not a videogame) doesn’t qualify to you, Quertus.

Or is 4E the only one?


Quertus, consider the following definition:


Does that successfully cover each game you know about?

I'm not asking if this is what you mean; I know it's not. I'm asking you where it fails to accurately sort what you call rpgs from what you don't call rpgs.

I can't find a counter-example. Can you?

Now that we've got multiple people seemingly understanding the metric, they can apply it, if they so desire. I don't. But, for things that other people claimed were RPGs that I got the "not an RPG" feel from, you'll note I keep talking about 4e, "choose your own adventure" books, and CRPGs.

So... sure, 4e is alone among TTRPGs in me 1) bothering with it enough to 2) get that "not an RPG" feel. Some others that I 3) dropped too quickly to evaluate, or that I (*gasp*) 4) only ever played as a war game via button presses may also have been able to meet that criteria.


I think the "4E isn't an RPG" thing is a bit ridiculous, but some really interesting questions have come out of the discussion. I played in a short 4e campaign years ago, and it was fine. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember moving some furniture to block a door, which was in no way a "Push button" ability on my character sheet.

Did these rulings produce systems for adjudicating the actions that you feel could be written into 4e rules books without seeming out of place? Would they be "5e lava" level of "every table produces completely different and incompatible results"?

My local pool found 4e (at the time) uniquely unacceptable to make rulings for. There's some pushback from the Playground that that makes them (in my words)... word... "unskilled", unsuited to making a determination about 4e's suitability for outside-the-box adjudication.


"What happens when you do something not covered by the rules" determining what's an rpg matches the intuition in my head in every case I can come up with, provided it follows the other criteria of being both a game and roleplaying.

I like that wording. Do you feel that how comparatively arduous it is to adjudicate something not covered by the rules does.should have any bearing on how suitable to being played as an RPG something is, or do you feel that I'm off base in making that particular connection? Which specific bits of "what happens" would you call out as being most related to a game's suitability to being played by roleplaying?

[BRC]

Did these rulings produce systems for adjudicating the actions that you feel could be written into 4e rules books without seeming out of place? Would they be "5e lava" level of "every table produces completely different and incompatible results"?

My local pool found 4e (at the time) uniquely unacceptable to make rulings for. There's some pushback from the Playground that that makes them (in my words)... word... "unskilled", unsuited to making a determination about 4e's suitability for outside-the-box adjudication.


So I'm not familiar with 4e, but, by point of Contrast

5e's system for adjudicating "You try to do a thing" is: Make an ability check with whatever stat seems most relevant, against whatever DC the DM feels like setting, applying a relevant proficiency if one is available.

It's not an especially ROBUST system, but it covers probably 99% of cases, and I'm having trouble imagining that 4e didn't have something similar.

[JNAProductions]

Now that we've got multiple people seemingly understanding the metric, they can apply it, if they so desire. I don't. But, for things that other people claimed were RPGs that I got the "not an RPG" feel from, you'll note I keep talking about 4e, "choose your own adventure" books, and CRPGs.

So... sure, 4e is alone among TTRPGs in me 1) bothering with it enough to 2) get that "not an RPG" feel. Some others that I 3) dropped too quickly to evaluate, or that I (*gasp*) 4) only ever played as a war game via button presses may also have been able to meet that criteria.

Which is why I said "in the vein of D&D, not a videogame" to exclude CRPGs, because while those bear similarities to a tabletop RPG, they are distinct.
And I've never met anyone in my daily life who, to my knowledge, considers a Choose Your Own Adventure Book a tabletop RPG.

[gbaji]

So, it's absolutely not about rules lawyering (your definition or mine). It's about (as the easiest example) acting in ignorance of the rules, not manipulating them to your advantage.

I'm not sure what that has to do with roleplaying though. Whether one doesn't know the rules to use, or knows them well and chooses to manipulate them, doesn't at all change the fact that a player saying "My character is going to try to block the door with a couch, then light the couch on fire to make it more difficult for them to move, and create smoke to conceal our escape" is describing what he's trying to do. If the game system has specific rules for each of those actions, then it does. If it doesn't, then the GM has to come up with ones.

Let me be clear. What makes something "roleplaying" is that you play a role. It's honestly less about actions like you keep talking about, and more interactions with NPCs (and to some degree the game world). As a mechanical measurement, we can say that it's about "out of the box" actions (and distinguishes TTRPGs from CRPGs IMO). But it also really includes "out of the box" interactions even more. We decide to go talk to the stableboy and pay him 2 gp to keep an eye out for whomever has been breaking into the Inn and stealing stuff. Nothing in the rules covers this exact choice and action. You may not have even considered it when writing the scenario. But your players have said that's what they're doing, so you as the GM, have to now "play the role" of the stableboy and decide what he'll do in response.

And *that's* what makes a game a RPG. And I see nothing about any edition of D&D (not even 4e) that says this sort of interaction can't happen.


The metric is about how much harder outside-the-box actions are to adjudicate than system button-presses. That's one half.

Is it harder though? That's what I was asking you. And again, you are focusing on mechanical action resolution. That's not really what makes a game an RPG though.


The other half is my claim that 4e rates unnaturally poorly in such a metric. That matches your "you need to show" bit.

You didn't actually define the metric though. By what yardstick are you measuring this? And again, this isn't actually about roleplaying at all. You're absolutely free to say that you don't like 4e because it's too focused on strict "in the box" resolutions and you prefer to have more "out of the box" ones. And you may even be absolutely right. But that's about action resolution, not roleplaying.

Guess I'm just not getting what your complaint is. If I were to speculate, I'd think that this has very little to do with roleplaying and more to do with you preferring to come up with "out of the box" actions, hoping to throw the GM off his game, influence his decision in a way that allows your character to do more than he should, and gain an advantage in some way. And 4e, by having more strict controls on those actions, makes it more difficult to "play the game". If a proposed action is "out of the box", it's a lot easier for the player to argue what skills/stats/abilities apply, or how easy/difficult it should be, and thus be able to be more successful at things. If the game system has a "grab rug" skill, and rules for pulling people off their feet using a rug, then you, the player, can't fudge things in your favor.

Again. I'm purely speculating here. I don't know exactly what the rules mechanic differences in 4e are. I'm just basing this on what you have posted so far about it. So far every example you've provided has been about trying to use "out of the box" actions to achieve some benefit in the game, so I kinda have to assume that's what you are focused on.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure the "pay the stableboy to be a lookout" scenario is just as possible in 4e as it is in every other version of D&D (and pretty much every RPG as well).


But you've kinda got to understand the first half - the "what is being measured" - to make heads or tails of the "and here's why I think it doesn't measure up", no?

You can't measure something without first defining a unit of measure. That's the "metric" I questioned you about that you haven't defined. What exactly are you measuring, and what method are you using to measure it?


So I'd suggest starting there: I'm measuring just how difficult it is to adjudicate outside-the-box actions compared to adjudicating system button presses.

Again though. You aren't actually measuring anything. At least not that I've seen in this thread. Is it really "more difficult", or does the fact that more rules already exist mean that there is less "fudging" that can be done?

Is it actually more difficult from the POV of the GM? Or from you as a player? I don't know what experience you have playing this edition, so I can't say. What I can say as a long time GM is that having more codified rules in no way makes things more difficult for me to adjudicate things. If anything, it makes it easier (more skills/mechanics to tap into if nothing else). What it can do is make things more difficult for the players, because maybe in a previous edition deciding if a PC could do X was rolling a stat against a DC, and now there's an actual skill for X, so PCs that didn't take ranks in that skill aren't going to be as good at it as they would have been in the "out of the box" arbitration in a previous edition.

Is that what you are talking about? If so, then that's not even remotely about roleplaying. It's certainly something you can complain about, but one could also look at it as you being able to get away with doing difficult tasks more easily in previous editions instead, due to a less robust rules system. Haven't played 4e, so I can't say though.



My local pool found 4e (at the time) uniquely unacceptable to make rulings for. There's some pushback from the Playground that that makes them (in my words)... word... "unskilled", unsuited to making a determination about 4e's suitability for outside-the-box adjudication.

And this still confuses me. The game still has the same stats, right? It has the same (similar at least) class system, level system, experience system, etc. I'm sure there are differences in specific skills, spells, abilities, etc, but I'm struggling to see how this could possibly make it more difficult to make rulings.

Perhaps provide a specific example of something that came up, where in a previous edition the GM was able to arbitrate it easily, but in 4e, it was hard? That might help.


Again though. it's not like the same "pick a stat and roll against a DC" doesn't still exist as a final fallback in 4e just as it does in every other edition. Do the game rules actually say "any action not defined by these skills/abilities/whatever can't be attempted"? I'm reasonably certain that it contains rules for handling things that are not covered by the rules (someone posted this earlier IIRC). So I'm still trying to figure out where this belief is coming from.

[Thrudd]

Whew. My senility really hurts my ability to respond to some of this, but… if I called that “disassociated mechanics”, would you say that’sa valid name for your “detached” mechanics?

But, while I’m not a fan of such, and may have even argued about their relationship with roleplaying in the past, that’s not what I’m talking about in this thread. Here, I am exclusively discussing the comparative effort between adjudicating button-presses and outside-the-box actions.

So, it really sounds like you get what I'm saying, that I'm measuring the ease with which one can adjudicate outside-the-box actions, the ease with which the GM can adjudicate "playing the character", rather than just "playing the system". Well, to use your words, I'm measuring the difference between white-box and black-box, not just measuring black-box. Clearer?

And, sure, I have my own personal threshold of "not an RPG". My question is, would that at long last mean that if I said, "4e is not an RPG", you would understand what I meant by that phrase? That the difference between white-box and black-box play is just too great for me to consider the game to facilitate roleplaying? Do those words make sense?



Yeah, I'm the senile one, here, RE "detached" vs "disassociated" lol but you knew what I meant.
What I don't understand is in what way, specifically, you're having trouble with 4e's mechanic. 4e's mechanic for adjudicating all actions, both prescribed powers and improvised, is identical. Roll a d20, add a modifier, try to hit a difficulty/defense number. If a player wants to do something not prescribed by a power or rule, the DM has to decide what the effects of the action will have, assign a difficulty or defense and have them roll. So, on that level, at least, the difference between prescribed and improvised actions is nil- there's no way that could be "too great" to overcome. The fact that a few of those prescribed powers, mostly "martial" powers, have no specific reason for being limited to one attempt per encounter or day does create a different sort of problem that I have. But I don't think this could disqualify the game from facilitating role playing in general- there are just these very specific moments in the game where things won't exactly make sense.

"Playing the character" vs "playing the system" sounds like a distinction relying mostly on the prevalence of disassociated mechanics, in general. Or does the number of prescribed actions, whether associated to fiction or not, also contribute to this metric for you? I can see how you might say that a game with too many "buttons" may threaten to turn the game into "seeking the optimal button" for players, rather than being immersed in the fiction in a first-person character stance. Is that what you mean about 4e? I can see an argument for that, although actually the total number of those "buttons" that each player has access to across a character's career is fairly low. How many is too many is again an entirely subjective thing.

When you say "4e is not an RPG", that sounds like a claim about the game universally- something which you believe to be true no matter who is playing the game. If you said "4e doesn't work for the style of RPG I prefer", it would be supportable. This is all based on your subjective experience of how difficult it is to use the system for the sort of roleplaying game you like to play.

[Quertus]

Yeah, I'm the senile one, here, RE "detached" vs "disassociated" lol but you knew what I meant.
What I don't understand is in what way, specifically, you're having trouble with 4e's mechanic. 4e's mechanic for adjudicating all actions, both prescribed powers and improvised, is identical. Roll a d20, add a modifier, try to hit a difficulty/defense number. If a player wants to do something not prescribed by a power or rule, the DM has to decide what the effects of the action will have, assign a difficulty or defense and have them roll. So, on that level, at least, the difference between prescribed and improvised actions is nil- there's no way that could be "too great" to overcome. The fact that a few of those prescribed powers, mostly "martial" powers, have no specific reason for being limited to one attempt per encounter or day does create a different sort of problem that I have. But I don't think this could disqualify the game from facilitating role playing in general- there are just these very specific moments in the game where things won't exactly make sense.

"Playing the character" vs "playing the system" sounds like a distinction relying mostly on the prevalence of disassociated mechanics, in general. Or does the number of prescribed actions, whether associated to fiction or not, also contribute to this metric for you? I can see how you might say that a game with too many "buttons" may threaten to turn the game into "seeking the optimal button" for players, rather than being immersed in the fiction in a first-person character stance. Is that what you mean about 4e? I can see an argument for that, although actually the total number of those "buttons" that each player has access to across a character's career is fairly low. How many is too many is again an entirely subjective thing.

When you say "4e is not an RPG", that sounds like a claim about the game universally- something which you believe to be true no matter who is playing the game. If you said "4e doesn't work for the style of RPG I prefer", it would be supportable. This is all based on your subjective experience of how difficult it is to use the system for the sort of roleplaying game you like to play.

Let me see if a game of “suppose” can clear things up.

Suppose I said that every GM I played with, always responded to white-box actions with “stop roleplaying and pick a button on your sheet to press!” Suppose these GM’s never had any issue with white-box actions in any other system. Would you, under those circumstances, understand why I might feel the way I do?

Suppose every GM in the world did the same thing, always banned all white-box actions. Would you agree that, at that point, the game was sufficiently unsuited to roleplaying as to not be an RPG?

Now, obviously that’s not fact (well, I suppose it is fact for CRPGs and “choose your own adventure” books), but can you see the direction?

So, why 4e?

Well, let’s hit the obvious (if arguably unimportant) bit: tight balance, “the math just works”. If I let a 3e half-Minotaur Barbarian Intimidate using strength… who cares? The Diplomancer has been trading shiny rocks for kingdoms for half a dozen levels now, and the BFC Wizard has Tainted his soul to where opponents only aren’t caught in his machinations on a “20”. But the feel of 4e is supposed to be different, it’s supposed to be this mathematical beauty (quite unlike 5e lava). So, by virtue of the game paradigm / metaphor / whatever, one should be much more stringent on just what rules and math one adds into a 4e game. That is, in 4e, it matters just what Burning Hands targets, more so than in other games / editions, no? Well, that’s the impression I got at any rate, and I feel I wasn’t alone.

Perhaps more importantly, there’s a balance to AEDs - you don’t have characters with Daily abilities that are weaker than their At-will abilities, do you? So, when you’re evaluating “pull the rug out from under the orcs, and use it to block the door to slow down reinforcements”, is it an At-will, Encounter, or Daily power? And how effective should it be compared to a published “button” at that level?

Oh, but if you’re trying to set fire to Treants, that should be more effective, right? So you can’t balance the effectiveness of the white-box action against this encounter, but against a neutral one (like orcs), right?

CaW is all about using the Strategic layer; CaS considers that “cheating”. Well, IME, 4e players and the 4e rules-set made “white box” actions feel like cheating.

So there’s a few examples, with which one can lose the forest for the trees. But suppose 4e really intended white-box actions to feel like cheating, the way CaS makes deliberately changing the level of challenge to feel unsporting. Would you understand my sentiment then?

But, again, I’m just asking how hard it is to make rulings for white-box actions that match and feel like the existing rules, compared to adjudicating button presses. And if my personal experience was with GM’s who felt 4e was too picky about such things for adjudicating white-box actions to be acceptable, that colored my perception of 4e, leading to my “not an RPG” determination.

Suppose I said all that. Would you understand what I meant? Or would you still think that it sounds like a question of “the style of game I like to play”, rather than one of the ability to roleplay a character? Which half of this do I need to address (or, Spanish Inquisition special, some third half?).

@gbaji, same question.

[Cluedrew]

Where do we draw the line between a “river” and a “stream”? Something isn’t a “River” just because it has a flow of water - there’s a certain threshold it must cross to move beyond “stream” into “River”.What is that threshold?


You may want to take a step back, and drop your preconceptions. Several people have successfully used this new metric; granted, 3-out-of-4 (as of when I started this post days ago) have used it to say that I'm wrong, but that's nonetheless very different from what you're describing.I did do that - use your metric to show that D&D 4e is a role-playing game* - but you didn't agree with that result so... well if that read is correct why are you still saying D&D 4e is not a role-playing game.

Missed the fourth one, could you point me at them? Or skip straight to listing off the preconceptions that are the problem.

* And at a different point, used it to show that no edition of D&D was a role-playing game. It has been a lot of refining since then.

[Beoric]

You’re the third person to say something like this (Although one person indicated kinda the opposite). This “go” at things is the first time people have understood my definitions enough to give such feedback (progress!), and that feedback is 3-to-1 (not counting myself) that I’m just wrong about 4e.

I think I've said this three different ways in two threads, so I'm not sure if you are counting me more more than once.



You've met (otherwise sane) people who felt that 2e killed the fun of 1e in the name of balance? :smallconfused:

I'm not vouching for the sanity of anyone I argue with on the internet, but yes, when you parse the ranting that is one of the complains. Which is ironic, given that 2e removed a lot of the annoying fiddly rules that arguably made 1e more balanced that 2e, on account of the fact that most 1e players probably ignored them.



Yeah, it's pretty universally accepted these days that the scheduling of the powers in 4e is samey. I think there's something like the "8 aesthetics of fun" going on here, where some people can see that the powers have diversity, whereas others (like myself) are color-blind to that, and see even the powers as samey.

I think 4e would have really benefited by not just varying the resource management schedule more, but by also understanding this "color-blindness", and making abilities that seem cool to those of us who don't operate on the seemingly monochrome 4e wavelength.

Sure. Except for many of the e-classes, which did away with dailies and most encounter powers. And monks, which had the "full discipline" variation. And divine characters, with their "channel divinity" powers. And the other psionic classes, which had no encounter powers but instead had power points. And every class's class features.

I do agree that the designers could have done a better job of differentiating the classes from each other, so that you didn't have to learn about it through play. Thing is, I'm not certain the designers knew that the classes played that differently, let alone that option selection within a class could make different builds play so differently from each other. They always seemed to try to differentiate the classes purely by virtue of flavour text - which flavour text was often at odds with the way the classes operated in practice.

I understand not many of them played 4e in their spare time. It shows.



Well, let’s hit the obvious (if arguably unimportant) bit: tight balance, “the math just works”. If I let a 3e half-Minotaur Barbarian Intimidate using strength… who cares? The Diplomancer has been trading shiny rocks for kingdoms for half a dozen levels now, and the BFC Wizard has Tainted his soul to where opponents only aren’t caught in his machinations on a “20”. But the feel of 4e is supposed to be different, it’s supposed to be this mathematical beauty (quite unlike 5e lava). So, by virtue of the game paradigm / metaphor / whatever, one should be much more stringent on just what rules and math one adds into a 4e game. That is, in 4e, it matters just what Burning Hands targets, more so than in other games / editions, no? Well, that’s the impression I got at any rate, and I feel I wasn’t alone.

Perhaps more importantly, there’s a balance to AEDs - you don’t have characters with Daily abilities that are weaker than their At-will abilities, do you? So, when you’re evaluating “pull the rug out from under the orcs, and use it to block the door to slow down reinforcements”, is it an At-will, Encounter, or Daily power? And how effective should it be compared to a published “button” at that level?

Player choices, character options, and player skill can lead to wildly different power levels from baseline, so if you want an unbalanced game the CharOp boards can show you how to do it. But generally the openly published math of the baseline game makes it easier to improvise, because you can make up pretty much any power on the spot.

Strictly speaking, you would not have to compare the "pull the rug" action to any type of power, because it does no damage. As I stated elsewhere, the most obvious adjudication is to treat it as a Strength based attack against the higher of Fortitude or Reflex defence, perhaps with some ad hoc tweaks as to whether the second line of orcs would be effected if you didn't manage to dislodge the first line.

Holding the rug up against the door would provide total concealment (-5) against attacks against everyone in the room not holding the rug, and partial cover (-2) against attacks on the guy holding the rug (his position is given away because he is holding the rug, but the heavy rug provides some protection from attacks, although I'm going back and forth on whether he was also have partial concealment for another -2). I would probably have the orcs try to bull-rush the guy holding the rug in order to clear the door, which they could probably attempt without penalty because they don't have to hurt him, they just have to plow into him.

A better example for comparing to AED powers would be to push a brazier over to try to hit your enemy with hot coals. That would probably be a Strength or Dexterity based attack made against Reflex defence, depending on the physical characteristics of the brazier. Damage would be similar to an encounter power, because it is repeatable (you can do it more than once a day) but does not have unlimited use (since it depends on there being a brazier in the correct position in relation to you and your targets). If it was a boulder being rolled down a cliff I would have it do damage like a daily, because boulders perched where you can drop them are pretty rare, and boulders are big.

I regularly substitute one ability score for another using skills, such as subbing Strength for Charisma with Intimidate.

It is true that you don't tend to have daily abilities that are less powerful than at-wills. Well, except for some daily item powers. But isn't that the trend whenever a power has limited usage in any edition?

I do agree that despite having simple, express rules for improvization, the presentation of 4e gave the appearance that you had to play inside the lines. They really wrote crappy adventures, and the focus on organized play pushed a lot of uniformity.



Oh, but if you’re trying to set fire to Treants, that should be more effective, right? So you can’t balance the effectiveness of the white-box action against this encounter, but against a neutral one (like orcs), right?

If I threw the brazier at treants and deemed them to be vulnerable to fire (wet wood may be less flammable than you think) they would take a predictable amount of extra damage, generally expressed as 5/10/15. Odds are that would already be baked into their stat block, though.



Well, IME, 4e players and the 4e rules-set made “white box” actions feel like cheating.

It wasn't the rule-set, it was the presentation and culture, and the dominance in discussion groups of people heavily involved in organized play.



But, again, I’m just asking how hard it is to make rulings for white-box actions that match and feel like the existing rules, compared to adjudicating button presses.

Very easy. The brazier attack above, if it was in a first level dungeon, could be written as "Attack: Dex vs Reflex; Close burst 2; Hit: 2d6+3 fire damage; Miss: the target is pushed 1 square". I added the "pushed 1 square" to reflect that fact that the target who is missed is probably jumping out of the way to avoid being hit.

[Thrudd]

Let me see if a game of “suppose” can clear things up.

Suppose I said that every GM I played with, always responded to white-box actions with “stop roleplaying and pick a button on your sheet to press!” Suppose these GM’s never had any issue with white-box actions in any other system. Would you, under those circumstances, understand why I might feel the way I do?

Suppose every GM in the world did the same thing, always banned all white-box actions. Would you agree that, at that point, the game was sufficiently unsuited to roleplaying as to not be an RPG?

Now, obviously that’s not fact (well, I suppose it is fact for CRPGs and “choose your own adventure” books), but can you see the direction?

So, why 4e?

Well, let’s hit the obvious (if arguably unimportant) bit: tight balance, “the math just works”. If I let a 3e half-Minotaur Barbarian Intimidate using strength… who cares? The Diplomancer has been trading shiny rocks for kingdoms for half a dozen levels now, and the BFC Wizard has Tainted his soul to where opponents only aren’t caught in his machinations on a “20”. But the feel of 4e is supposed to be different, it’s supposed to be this mathematical beauty (quite unlike 5e lava). So, by virtue of the game paradigm / metaphor / whatever, one should be much more stringent on just what rules and math one adds into a 4e game. That is, in 4e, it matters just what Burning Hands targets, more so than in other games / editions, no? Well, that’s the impression I got at any rate, and I feel I wasn’t alone.

Perhaps more importantly, there’s a balance to AEDs - you don’t have characters with Daily abilities that are weaker than their At-will abilities, do you? So, when you’re evaluating “pull the rug out from under the orcs, and use it to block the door to slow down reinforcements”, is it an At-will, Encounter, or Daily power? And how effective should it be compared to a published “button” at that level?

Oh, but if you’re trying to set fire to Treants, that should be more effective, right? So you can’t balance the effectiveness of the white-box action against this encounter, but against a neutral one (like orcs), right?

CaW is all about using the Strategic layer; CaS considers that “cheating”. Well, IME, 4e players and the 4e rules-set made “white box” actions feel like cheating.

So there’s a few examples, with which one can lose the forest for the trees. But suppose 4e really intended white-box actions to feel like cheating, the way CaS makes deliberately changing the level of challenge to feel unsporting. Would you understand my sentiment then?

But, again, I’m just asking how hard it is to make rulings for white-box actions that match and feel like the existing rules, compared to adjudicating button presses. And if my personal experience was with GM’s who felt 4e was too picky about such things for adjudicating white-box actions to be acceptable, that colored my perception of 4e, leading to my “not an RPG” determination.

Suppose I said all that. Would you understand what I meant? Or would you still think that it sounds like a question of “the style of game I like to play”, rather than one of the ability to roleplay a character? Which half of this do I need to address (or, Spanish Inquisition special, some third half?).

@gbaji, same question.

If every DM you've played with said "stop roleplaying and pick a button", then I think I can say they were factually playing the game other than the way it is written, and certainly not in line with the assumption of the designers that they expressed in the less mechanical bits of the book. Maybe those DM's never read the parts about ability and skill checks and adjudicating improvised actions? Or maybe they weren't saying that exactly? did they want you to at least be aware of the different "buttons" you have available to press, so you can inform them both of your character's fictional action and also the mechanical ability, if any, that applies to that action? Of course, there is an expected period of time for players to learn a new system, and playing for the first time you can expect to have to look at the mechanics and character sheet more than you will after having played the system for a while. So it's easy to see situations where a DM has not yet memorized everything, and is learning what abilities exist along with the players- and naturally won't be so confident at improvising things yet. Certainly not yet capable of giving you a "black box" experience (meaning you as the player don't need to see the rules/mechanics), where they can pick what rules/mechanics represent your actions from behind the screen, keep track of your meta-game resources for you, and allow you to play completely "immersed". I'm guessing almost nobody plays any RPG like that any more, but I agree 4e is definitely ill-suited for it. But again- having too many "buttons" to run as a "black box" isn't unique to 4e among RPGs. It at least applies to the other WotC D&D editions, and many other games besides.

The underlying d20 system of abilities and skills is almost identical to that of 3e and 5e, and is easily used for all general role playing scenarios, socializing and exploring and whatever. Pick a target number, add a modifier- in combat, roll a damage die, sometimes apply a condition that persists for some amount of time or until another condition is met. That's how everything gets resolved- improvised actions will generally mesh very closely with the predetermined abilities- it's all a d20 against a target number. Anything not limited as E,D or U by the rules is "at-will". How much trouble a DM has in deciding what effects of actions should be is a rather subjective thing- that all the DMs you played with treated this subject in a similar manner may reveal a flaw in the system's design or in the manner in which the writers communicated their intentions. But that system is, in its basic mechanic, so similar to the other editions that calling into question this one's suitability to roleplaying would be to do the same to all WoTC D&D editions, at the very least- being that there is more in common between these systems than there is different, to my eyes. That the combat powers are balanced across classes doesn't materially affect one's ability to interact with the fictional environment in any way you can imagine, nor puts any specific constraints on how a DM can adjudicate those things. There's guidelines for the DM for improvised difficulties and damage according to level, and whether it should be comparable to an at-will attack or something that does "massive" damage. If I were DMing, I'd have that table printed out and on the back of my DM screen for quick improvising that fits in the "balance" boundaries set by the designers. I don't get the impression from my reading that they intend improvised actions to feel like "cheating". Everything you do outside of combat is pretty much using skill and ability checks at-will. I don't think there's anything that says "perfect mechanical balance must be achieved at all times", regardless of what the people you played with decided must happen. There's not much restricting how a DM might rule on the "rug pull" example, outside the fact that they will be using the d20 system, just like in other D&D. I think a lot of people just don't actually read all the advice on how the game is supposed to be run, or even all the rules - in this edition or any other.

If the DM, or the module they are running, formats the game as a series of large set-piece battles, in between which players can only role play in order to find their way to the next battle, then finding a way to skip or trivialize the battle would be discouraged- this could be the source of some of the consternation for DMs about allowing some type of "CaW" type strategic action you are attempting rather than a desire for mechanical balance. Of course, this is a problem with adventure and encounter design, rather than the system itself- which does not specify this as the expected or only way to design adventures. The advice the system gives about designing encounters does put a lot of value on "choosing threats appropriate to the characters", which is also the case with other WotC D&D. It does lend itself toward pre-planned encounters, designed according to the expected difficulty for a specific party of characters, which might disincentivize DMs from allowing their carefully planned encounters to be skipped or "out maneuvered"- since the process can be rather time consuming. However, the 4e DMG also says adventures should be a blend of combat, problem solving, investigating, role playing- not that it should only be combat. What the designers say and what the rules lend themselves to may not mesh. Again, this is a problem in all modern D&D, not just 4e.

But even if it was intended to be a series of set piece battles with little else, there are other RPGs which have similar format- because that is appropriate to the genre which they are emulating. For instance, an action movie RPG I know is structured like an action movie or TV show, with players role playing their characters as versions of trope-filled action movie stereotypes and describing cool combat scenes and coming up with one-liners. Not an RPG? It's pretty "railroady", by design, sessions structured as a movie or TV episode - you know there's going to be fights in interesting locales likely chosen by the GM, hopefully give all the characters chances to shine in their specific roles in the connective scenes between fights, and everyone is going to at least survive until the big, climactic scene of any given episode, when it is dramatically appropriate for characters to die.
So - I'd say this type of adventure design, focused heavily on balanced combat encounters with low or no chance of death for the characters in most cases, lends itself to a genre more like this than what is found in TSR D&D and OSR games. but it also relies heavily on how a particular DM structures the game, the system doesn't demand it. I know a lot of people who think of D&D as being mainly about cinematic fantasy action, and structure their adventures as such- they think of it like a movie or a cartoon.

"The ability to role play a character" means different things depending on the context of the game and genre. Playing a character that doesn't belong in the setting or genre of the game is going to create problems- any given game can't be expected to facilitate that. A character's "belonging" can be a function both of their physical existence in the setting as well as the mentality you bring to it. If you are playing a historical ancient-world game, it would be contrary to the setting and genre for your character to possess modern scientific knowledge that they use to create chemical explosives, for example, even if you personally know how to achieve it with the raw materials they have at hand. If you're playing an action movie genre game, you aren't going to be allowed to find ways to stop the bad guys without an action scene happening. The point of the game is role playing through action-filled fights and generally acting like a bad ass. you'd be advised against choosing a character who runs away from all conflicts, but to embrace the genre and pick a cool action character to emulate.
Did the 4e DMs you played with see the game this way, being primarily about the fights? I'd say that's a "style of playing the game" - especially since the 4e system itself doesn't require or advise this. 4e could be run as mostly improvised skill challenges and socializing with NPCs, with combats that are smaller scale and mostly improvised, or with big battles that only happen very occasionally. Many people wouldn't like this, but the system absolutely supports it, at least as much as other D&D editions.

The game says it is an RPG. The writers describe what they think that means and how they expect players to do it (which are pretty standard), give rules for adjudicating non-combat actions with abilities and skills, tell you to design adventures with a variety of typical role playing game activities (not just combat). Some people still like the game and find it works great for them- I don't think you can discount their experience in analyzing how this game performs. Your anecdotal experience doesn't outweigh theirs as evidence of anything. So I'd say that it must be an RPG, in an objective and universal sense. A game can use "CaS", and still allow role playing. The players just need to accept that this is a feature of the game's genre. A game with a lot of mechanical "buttons" that are too complicated or disassociated from specific fiction might be making a design mistake that leads to players overly relying on the buttons instead of thinking of the fiction first- but not everyone finds this to be an insurmountable barrier. Too many disassociated mechanics in general might lead the players to taking an "author" or "story" stance vs "character" stance in situations where those mechanics are prevalent - but some RPGs actually encourage this and people find it desirable. It's a different sort of role playing than experiencing the game exclusively through the eyes of a character, in more or less first-person POV.

So yes, it all still sounds like a "style of game you like to play" discussion, from my perspective. It's not "cheating" to bypass the preplanned fight, if the fight is the main point of the game - it's more like "trying to avoid playing the game". If you haven't bought into the genre implied by "CaS" type mechanics and adventure design, and this isn't communicated to you, I can see how it would seem like you aren't being allowed to role play the character. You haven't been told the type of game or story you are supposed to be playing in, and brought some setting and genre assumptions that might be inappropriate for what the DM has designed. Also, every system has design flaws that make one aspect or another awkward or require homebrewing, or is written in a way that important rules and principles of play aren't clear to players or even has a design which doesn't live up to the designer's intentions. An imperfect RPG is still an RPG. Specific GMs might discourage the type of role play you prefer, design railroady adventures and aren't good at improvising, or are just inexperienced with the system and don't know how to adjudicate your actions. I don't think you can blame a system for this, entirely. At least, not to the point where you accuse the designers of false advertising.

[kyoryu]

It wasn't the rule-set, it was the presentation and culture, and the dominance in discussion groups of people heavily involved in organized play.


Organized Play is a strange beast.

[Jay R]

Now that we've got multiple people seemingly understanding the metric, they can apply it, if they so desire. I don't. But, for things that other people claimed were RPGs that I got the "not an RPG" feel from, you'll note I keep talking about 4e, "choose your own adventure" books, and CRPGs.

So... sure, 4e is alone among TTRPGs in me 1) bothering with it enough to 2) get that "not an RPG" feel. Some others that I 3) dropped too quickly to evaluate, or that I (*gasp*) 4) only ever played as a war game via button presses may also have been able to meet that criteria.

OK, based on the additional data, I surmise that your definition is pretty close to "any game called a role-playing game except the ones that Jay R and Quertus don't particularly enjoy."

I don't think we disagree on the subject of what makes a good rpg. Our disagreement is about linguistics -- specifically, about what definitions are.

I believe that a phrase means what most people using it intend it to mean and most people hearing it understand it to have meant. You believe that it can be parsed word by word, even if that parsing gives a result that nobody uses.

Digital computing does not mean counting on your fingers
A vice president does not preside over iniquity.
A booty call and a butt dial are not the same thing.

The word "role has several meanings and connotations within the rpg community, and for some of them, 4e is a role-playing game. You are playing the role of a Wizard or a Fighter or a Warlord or a ....

Again, I don't think we disagree (in this thread) about what makes a good rpg. My recommendation is that you stop trying to re-define the phrase "role-playing game" to mean good role-playing games (for your purposes) and start making the distinction between good and poor role-playing games (for your purposes).

Trying to re-define a phrase that will always include 4e so that it doesn't include 4e will always lead to disagreements (which can be fine) and derailing your actual topic (which is merely frustrating).

[gbaji]

Let me see if a game of “suppose” can clear things up.

Suppose I said that every GM I played with, always responded to white-box actions with “stop roleplaying and pick a button on your sheet to press!” Suppose these GM’s never had any issue with white-box actions in any other system. Would you, under those circumstances, understand why I might feel the way I do?

Suppose every GM in the world did the same thing, always banned all white-box actions. Would you agree that, at that point, the game was sufficiently unsuited to roleplaying as to not be an RPG?

Now, obviously that’s not fact (well, I suppose it is fact for CRPGs and “choose your own adventure” books), but can you see the direction?

This would depend heavily on if the "white box action" I'm trying to do (I'm assuming by "white box", you mean "out of the box" or "not already codified in the rules" (I'm honestly unfamiliar with the term and inferring by context in your own statements above here). If the rules have specific steps to arbitrate something like "grab a rug and pull on it to knock down some orcs", then it in no way limits roleplaying for the GM to insist that the players use the rules that already exist. Based on Beoric's post, it looks as though 4e had some significant attempts to codify otherwise "ad-hoc" actions in the context of existing daily or at-will actions, presumably specifically for the purpose of encounter balancing.

I'm not seeing how that inhibits roleplaying at all. It still looks like you are equating roleplaying with how much you can do things that are ad-hoc/outside-the-box things, and forcing the GM to make up arbitration rather than relying on existing rules to do so. I firmly disagree that this is remotely what makes a game a RPG. You may not like the game mechanics resolution rules (which is what this actually is), but you're still perfectly capable of roleplaying. You're still allowed to choose to grab a rug, pull on it, and knock the orcs down. it's just that now there's more formality to how that attempted action is adjudicated. You're ability to do the action isn't infringed, but perhaps your ability to successfully perform the action is. Or maybe, it's that you expect those actions to be far more effective than the new rules allow for.

Now, if the rules simply defined a set of actions you were allowed to do, and disallowed any other action choices at all, I would agree that this is both a poor game mechanic methodology *and* can inhibit roleplaying. But if the game allows you to do so, then the roleplaying aspect is preserved. Whether you like or dislike the game mechanics is all that's left to consider.



Well, let’s hit the obvious (if arguably unimportant) bit: tight balance, “the math just works”. If I let a 3e half-Minotaur Barbarian Intimidate using strength… who cares? The Diplomancer has been trading shiny rocks for kingdoms for half a dozen levels now, and the BFC Wizard has Tainted his soul to where opponents only aren’t caught in his machinations on a “20”. But the feel of 4e is supposed to be different, it’s supposed to be this mathematical beauty (quite unlike 5e lava). So, by virtue of the game paradigm / metaphor / whatever, one should be much more stringent on just what rules and math one adds into a 4e game. That is, in 4e, it matters just what Burning Hands targets, more so than in other games / editions, no? Well, that’s the impression I got at any rate, and I feel I wasn’t alone.

So they fixed some of the balance problems with previous editions (and perhaps created new ones from what I've heard). Still not sure what this has to do with roleplaying.


Perhaps more importantly, there’s a balance to AEDs - you don’t have characters with Daily abilities that are weaker than their At-will abilities, do you? So, when you’re evaluating “pull the rug out from under the orcs, and use it to block the door to slow down reinforcements”, is it an At-will, Encounter, or Daily power? And how effective should it be compared to a published “button” at that level?

Oh, but if you’re trying to set fire to Treants, that should be more effective, right? So you can’t balance the effectiveness of the white-box action against this encounter, but against a neutral one (like orcs), right?

You're still just talking about game mechanics and balance issues, not roleplaying ones.


CaW is all about using the Strategic layer; CaS considers that “cheating”. Well, IME, 4e players and the 4e rules-set made “white box” actions feel like cheating.

Did 4e actually makes those actions feel like "cheating", or did it provide better guidance to GMs for managing them, such that players couldn't completely curbstomp encounters?

I've commented in response to your CAW/CAS posts previously, and will repeat the same again: As a GM, if a player comes up with something "out of the box" that they think should completely catch the bad guys by surprise, and totally wipe them out in some clever and unique way, my first reaction to that is: "If it were so easy to do that, they would have thought of it and have already defended against it", and I'd present an equal "out of the box" response to nullify the player. Don't get me wrong, truly clever ideas get rewarded, but if that's all a player does, refusing to just play the freaking game as presented? I'm going to throw the same thing back at him, times 10.

It's not about it being "cheating" to me. It's that some GMs maybe aren't clever enough to counter some players "out of the box" ideas, so they allow things that perhaps should not be as fantastically successful as they end up being. And yeah, I can see how if 4e forced GMs to define those things in "normal action" terms, that would make the out of the box stuff less effective.

But maybe they should be? I've seen you give examples of such actions in the past, and how they should just automatically "win" the encounter without a die roll, and in every single case, I've seen massive major flaws that a GM *should* spot and counter in a game setting. I'm guessing that most GMs don't though, so you've gotten used to basically winging your way through stuff, and 4e didn't allow that so easily.

Again though, this has nothing at all to do with roleplaying itself.



But, again, I’m just asking how hard it is to make rulings for white-box actions that match and feel like the existing rules, compared to adjudicating button presses. And if my personal experience was with GM’s who felt 4e was too picky about such things for adjudicating white-box actions to be acceptable, that colored my perception of 4e, leading to my “not an RPG” determination.

I'd follow your logic and reasoning for not liking the edition (my understanding is that a lot of people didn't like it, for a number of reasons). Where you lose me is when conclude that this makes it "not an RPG". You're literally speaking entirely about game mechanics for action resolution. That's not roleplaying. As long as the game system allows (via any method) resolutions for ad-hoc actions, then it has the same potential to be a RPG as any other game system. Period.


Suppose I said all that. Would you understand what I meant? Or would you still think that it sounds like a question of “the style of game I like to play”, rather than one of the ability to roleplay a character? Which half of this do I need to address (or, Spanish Inquisition special, some third half?).

@gbaji, same question.

Same answer. It's absolutely a "style of play" choice on your part. You aren't opposed to it because of RP issues, but because your can't obtain the same results from ad-hoc actions as you could in previous releases (or perhaps structure your build in just the way you wanted as well, not sure). Again though, none of that has to do with roleplaying.

Just say "I don't like the mechanics of action resolution as defined ability use in the game", if that's what you don't like. You're 100% entitled to your personal likes and dislikes of different game systems. Where people have issues is when you try to say that his somehow affects whether the game itself qualifies as a "roleplaying game". Because once you do that, you're getting out of the realm of subjective preferences (which we all have, and that's a very very good thing IMO), and into more objective definitions of what roleplaying is, and what makes a game a roleplaying game.

And while I think there is some variation in terms of how people define such things, and what exactly makes something a RPG or not, just evident from the posts in this thread, it appears as though pretty much everyone agrees that "how action choices are resolved mechanically in the game" is not one of them. From what I've gathered, the general consensus seems to be that as long as players are both encouraged to play a specific role/character in the game *and* the game rules allow for ad-hoc/out-of-the-box actions at all, then it's a roleplaying game (or at least a TTRPG). The mechanics for handling those actions, and whether we like or dislike them is not a disqualifier. At least not on RP ground (can totally be for other reasons).

[Quertus]

I think I've said this three different ways in two threads, so I'm not sure if you are counting me more more than once.

If I am, at least you know your opinion counts! :smallbiggrin:


It wasn't the rule-set, it was the presentation and culture, and the dominance in discussion groups of people heavily involved in organized play.

Well, it may not be a satisfying answer, but at least it may be an answer for those who asked me what I meant when I said 4e wasn't an RPG.


Very easy. The brazier attack above, if it was in a first level dungeon, could be written as "Attack: Dex vs Reflex; Close burst 2; Hit: 2d6+3 fire damage; Miss: the target is pushed 1 square". I added the "pushed 1 square" to reflect that fact that the target who is missed is probably jumping out of the way to avoid being hit.

I'll not vouch for the quality and consistency of the rules, but that certainly sounds like a 4e rule, and you say it's easy for you.


If every DM you've played with said "stop roleplaying and pick a button", then I think I can say they were factually playing the game other than the way it is written, and certainly not in line with the assumption of the designers that they expressed in the less mechanical bits of the book.

So 3e is perfectly balanced, because that was the intent of the designers, and what they expressed in less mechanical interviews, despite anyone's experiences otherwise? :smallamused:

I'm asking what valid criteria look like here. Consider your response carefully.


So it's easy to see situations where a DM has not yet memorized everything, and is learning what abilities exist along with the players- and naturally won't be so confident at improvising things yet. Certainly not yet capable of giving you a "black box" experience (meaning you as the player don't need to see the rules/mechanics), where they can pick what rules/mechanics represent your actions from behind the screen, keep track of your meta-game resources for you, and allow you to play completely "immersed". I'm guessing almost nobody plays any RPG like that any more, but I agree 4e is definitely ill-suited for it. But again- having too many "buttons" to run as a "black box" isn't unique to 4e among RPGs. It at least applies to the other WotC D&D editions, and many other games besides.

Where did you get "too many buttons" from? That has nothing to do with "the difficulty of adjudication".

I'll add your vote of "4e is ill-suited to it" to the running tally.

It saddens me to hear that anyone could even think that almost nobody plays an RPG by roleplaying anymore. :smallfrown:

And "the fault lies in the 4e GMs in your area (who have no such issue with other systems)" is difficult for me to evaluate without getting experience playing under a good 4e GM. Anyone have any thoughts on how one might otherwise acquire perspective to evaluate this claim?

Oh, and thank you for keeping "black box" straight - I got them mixed up at some point. :smallredface:


So yes, it all still sounds like a "style of game you like to play" discussion, from my perspective. It's not "cheating" to bypass the preplanned fight, if the fight is the main point of the game - it's more like "trying to avoid playing the game". If you haven't bought into the genre implied by "CaS" type mechanics and adventure design, and this isn't communicated to you, I can see how it would seem like you aren't being allowed to role play the character.

"CaW vs CaS" was merely used to explain what the word "cheating" meant in context, and has nothing to do with this definition of RPG. Sorry for the confusion.


The word "role has several meanings and connotations within the rpg community, and for some of them, 4e is a role-playing game.

And for some of them, it is not. Why look at the ones I'm not talking about, instead of looking at the ones I am talking about, when I'm trying to explain why I said, "4e isn't an RPG", and what definitions I'm using? That seems like a highly suboptimal tact at best, blatant topic shifting / willful ignorance / strawmanning at worst.


This would depend heavily on if the "white box action" I'm trying to do (I'm assuming by "white box", you mean "out of the box" or "not already codified in the rules" (I'm honestly unfamiliar with the term and inferring by context in your own statements above here).

Well, I've gone and used the term backwards, so I'm sure that's not helping. :smallredface: In short, in a "white box", you understand the contents; in a "black box", you do not. It's a programming term about whether you have access to the internals of a system.

Anyway, yes, I was talking about taking "outside the box" actions... but doing so because the player in question is acting in ignorance of the underlying system, merely roleplaying their character. I was using that ignorance to help the reader get into the mindset of someone who was roleplaying, someone who might take actions that don't involve pushing buttons on their character sheet. (or so I assume - I'm too senile to remember what I was talking about)


I'd follow your logic and reasoning for not liking the edition (my understanding is that a lot of people didn't like it, for a number of reasons). Where you lose me is when conclude that this makes it "not an RPG". You're literally speaking entirely about game mechanics for action resolution. That's not roleplaying. As long as the game system allows (via any method) resolutions for ad-hoc actions, then it has the same potential to be a RPG as any other game system. Period.

Same answer. It's absolutely a "style of play" choice on your part. You aren't opposed to it because of RP issues, but because your can't obtain the same results from ad-hoc actions as you could in previous releases (or perhaps structure your build in just the way you wanted as well, not sure). Again though, none of that has to do with roleplaying.

Just say "I don't like the mechanics of action resolution as defined ability use in the game", if that's what you don't like. You're 100% entitled to your personal likes and dislikes of different game systems. Where people have issues is when you try to say that his somehow affects whether the game itself qualifies as a "roleplaying game". Because once you do that, you're getting out of the realm of subjective preferences (which we all have, and that's a very very good thing IMO), and into more objective definitions of what roleplaying is, and what makes a game a roleplaying game.

And while I think there is some variation in terms of how people define such things, and what exactly makes something a RPG or not, just evident from the posts in this thread, it appears as though pretty much everyone agrees that "how action choices are resolved mechanically in the game" is not one of them. From what I've gathered, the general consensus seems to be that as long as players are both encouraged to play a specific role/character in the game *and* the game rules allow for ad-hoc/out-of-the-box actions at all, then it's a roleplaying game (or at least a TTRPG). The mechanics for handling those actions, and whether we like or dislike them is not a disqualifier. At least not on RP ground (can totally be for other reasons).

I'm going to try to poke at this disconnect again. Because it's not exactly what you said.

Suppose gbaji's player wanted to make a post. But there was no button on gbaji's sheet to let them do that. Suppose it took 10 seconds for gbaji's player's GM to adjudicate the button press "burn down the library", but 12 years for them to adjudicate the "outside the box" "make a post" action. Can you see how gbaji's player might be deincentivized from taking the roleplaying action of "write the post", and might therefore instead choose the "play the system" action of "burn down the library", because that is what the system incentivized by virtue of time and effort required? Can you see how gbaji's GM might soft- or hard-ban "outside the box" actions in this scenario?

(Alternately, gbaji's GM might take shortcuts, and the quality of the "make a post" action might suffer compared to the "burn down the library" action. Similarly an incentive structure, different incentive.)

This is what I am talking about, measuring the comparative effort required to take system-first vs roleplaying-first actions, and discussing how it can be antithetical to roleplaying. I am saying that a game's suitability to be played by roleplaying - the extent to which it is an RPG - can be measured at least in part by how easy it makes taking outside-the-box actions.

[Beoric]

I'll add your vote of "4e is ill-suited to it" to the running tally.

I'm not sure "this isn't the way anyone I know plays, but here is my opinion as to why 4e isn't suited to the playstyle" should have the same weight as "here is the text from the DMG and examples of its operation."

Just sayin'.



It saddens me to hear that anyone could even think that almost nobody plays an RPG by roleplaying anymore. :smallfrown:
I'm pretty sure this isn't the case.



"CaW vs CaS" was merely used to explain what the word "cheating" meant in context, and has nothing to do with this definition of RPG. Sorry for the confusion.

Can someone explain for us geezers what "CaW vs CaS" refers to?



Well, I've gone and used the term backwards, so I'm sure that's not helping. :smallredface: In short, in a "white box", you understand the contents; in a "black box", you do not. It's a programming term about whether you have access to the internals of a system.

Wait, "white box" is not a reference to the 1975 fourth reprinting of the OD&D books? I feel old.



I'm going to try to poke at this disconnect again. Because it's not exactly what you said.

Suppose gbaji's player wanted to make a post. But there was no button on gbaji's sheet to let them do that. Suppose it took 10 seconds for gbaji's player's GM to adjudicate the button press "burn down the library", but 12 years for them to adjudicate the "outside the box" "make a post" action. Can you see how gbaji's player might be deincentivized from taking the roleplaying action of "write the post", and might therefore instead choose the "play the system" action of "burn down the library", because that is what the system incentivized by virtue of time and effort required? Can you see how gbaji's GM might soft- or hard-ban "outside the box" actions in this scenario?

(Alternately, gbaji's GM might take shortcuts, and the quality of the "make a post" action might suffer compared to the "burn down the library" action. Similarly an incentive structure, different incentive.)

This is what I am talking about, measuring the comparative effort required to take system-first vs roleplaying-first actions, and discussing how it can be antithetical to roleplaying. I am saying that a game's suitability to be played by roleplaying - the extent to which it is an RPG - can be measured at least in part by how easy it makes taking outside-the-box actions.

To push back on this whole "using the popular vote to resolve technical questions" thing, I'm going to map out the mental steps you have ot go through to make a call in 4e. I am assuming we are going strictly according to the guildelines, with no shortcuts or complications arising from an experienced DM's system mastery; this is the form of adjudication available to noobs.

1. Decide if this is an attack, or some other type of action. If an attack, go to 2A; if another action, go to 3A.

2A. If it is an attack, determine what ability score applies. This will usually be Strength or Dexterity for most physical attacks. It is usually a pretty easy call for anyone who has played D&D before.

2B. Then determine what defense applies. This will generally be AC if armour would be a factor, as with a weapon attack; Reflex if the best way of avoiding the attack is to dodge, like if someone chucked flaming oil; Fortitude if the defender's physicality is important, such as if you are trying to push someone or poison them; or Will if it is essentially a mental attack, including fear-based attacks. This requires a basic understanding of what these defenses represent, and may require a few seconds thought if the attack isn't similar to something you have seen before.

(A noob might get stuck if more than one defence could apply, however it requires very little experience with attack powers to realize you can use the highest of any defence that might apply. This is why in the rug/orc example I said "Fortitude or Reflex"; high Fortitude monsters tend to be bigger, so the hard part is just to move them, whereas high Reflex monsters are more nimble, so even though you pull the rug out from under them, they stay standing.)

2C. Then have the player roll to hit, adding weapon bonuses if this is a weapon attack. If this is a no-damage attack (like the rug/orc attack), have whatever is going to happen, happen.

If damage applies, you consult a chart which, by default, cross-indexes character level with damage expressions. Here you get a choice of two damage expressions, one for attacks against a single target, another for attacks against multiple targets. This chart is prominently displayed on most 4e DM screens. Increase damage by 50% if the attack isn't something you could spam if you wanted to.

3A. If this is not an attack, determine whether any skill applies. If a skill applies, have the player roll a skill check. If a skill does not apply, choose an ability that applies and have the player roll an ability check.

3B. If the action is contested by another creature, like a footrace or arm wrestling, the other "contestants" also make checks, and the highest score wins. So for a footrace all contestants would make an Athletics check, and for arm wrestling both contestants would make a Strength check.

3C. If the action is not contested by another creature, determine whether you think the task is Easy, Moderate or Hard. Then consult a chart to see the target number for the character's level and the level of difficulty. This chart is also on most 4e DM screens.

In all of these cases, it takes very little time to determine to whether it is an attack or not, what ability or skill applies, whether it does damage or not, whether a task is contested or not, and whether an uncontested task is Easy, Moderate or Hard difficulty. That is 3-4 binary or multiple choice decisions using the same options every time, maybe consulting one chart, plus an attack or check roll and maybe a damage roll. Honestly, a lot of the time it takes longer for a player to read a power card.

It will take a bit more time if you are a complete noob and you are constantly referencing the single column of large text that contains the rule. But it is such a clear application of the core mechanic that you can do it intuitively with a fairly basic understanding of the system.

Once you have more experience you can start building on the system, but the basics are there from day one. And the results are consistent with, and proportionate to, the rest of the system, which was one of your other criteria.

One useability caveat for noobs: These rules are in the DMG, but they screwed up the math in the charts, so they get a bit wonky after 6th level or so. For more accurate results, when you first start using the rule you must also look to a DM screen, the Rules Compendium or published errata whenever you need to consult a chart; that is, you are consulting two sources. That situation shouldn't last long because the rules are pretty intuitive, and before long the charts are all you will need to have available.

Of course the real problem is that nobody reads the DMG; "Actions the Rules Don't Cover? Why would I need to know that?". I'm skeptical as to how many DMs have read the rule even once, let alone applying it regularly.

EDIT: Worth mentioning that items 3A to 3C are basically "the skill system".

[Jay R]

And for some of them, it is not. Why look at the ones I'm not talking about, instead of looking at the ones I am talking about, when I'm trying to explain why I said, "4e isn't an RPG", and what definitions I'm using?

Because I am disagreeing with your underlying assumption that you can decide what "role-playing game" means, and tell the rest of us that it means what you want it to mean, rather than what it means in actual usage.


That seems like a highly suboptimal tact at best, blatant topic shifting / willful ignorance / strawmanning at worst.

Sneers received.

4e is still a roleplaying game as that phrase is actually used. The roles aren't the kind you like, but the actual usage of the term "roleplaying game" does and always will include more types of roles than you like, and does and always will include 4e.

You don't like 4e, and want to explain why not. That's fine. You don't need to re-define a standard English term to dislike 4e.

So why not use the English language as it really exists to make your point, instead of trying to force others to change their language to support your preferences? That seems like a highly suboptimal tact at best, blatant topic shifting / willful ignorance / strawmanning at worst.

As I wrote (and you didn't quote, because it doesn't support your sneers), "Trying to re-define a phrase that will always include 4e so that it doesn't include 4e will always lead to disagreements (which can be fine) and derailing your actual topic (which is merely frustrating)."

That is not topic shifting. The topic of this thread is "Quertus fails at defining roleplaying games again". Your failure to define roleplaying games is the actual topic you gave us.

It is not "blatant blame shifting". I didn't assign blame; there is no fault here to blame anybody for. My suggestion is purely tactical: I suggested that you would be less frustrated if you de-coupled your point from your false notion that you can decide what single meaning of "role" is involved, or even that there is only one definition of "role" involved, in direct contradiction to the history of the hobby.

It is not "willful ignorance" (on my part) to point out facts you are trying to avoid.

And it is not strawmanning in a discussion of the meaning of "rpg" to discuss the meaning of "rpg".

You have brought up two issues, and you're trying to get us to agree that they are the same.

What is the definition of "role-playing game"?
Are games inferior if players cannot invent new options not covered in the rules?

Because I mostly agree with you on the second issue, you want me to accept your error on the first one. That's just sloppy thinking.

Roleplaying games that Quertus (and Jay R) don't like are still roleplaying games.
Roleplaying games within which the definition of "role" isn't one Quertus prefers are still role-playing games.
Restricted role-playing games with limited and specified play options are still role-playing games.
And yes, D&D 4e is still a role-playing game.

I strongly urge you to decide whether you want to beat your head against the wall re-inventing English, or talk about the problems with 4e.

"4e is not a role-playing game.": As long as you take this position, we will be talking about the definition of role-playing games.

"4e is an inferior role-playing game that leaves out what I enjoy about role-playing games." Take this position, and lots of people will agree with you. More to the point, we will talk about what you dislike about role-playing games, instead of your attempt to single-handedly change the meaning of the phrase "role-playing game".

[Cluedrew]

On CaS and CaW: Full names are Combat as Sport and Combat as War.

These are two ways combat focused systems approach the challenge of combat. Sport gets its challenge within the encounter. All combat encounters will be at least a fair fight and the challenge is using your resources to win that fight. War gets its challenge from around the encounter. Fights can be trivial or unwinnable, players have to try and figure that out and, where they can, change those odds before the encounter even begins.

There are other options out there, but these two come up because D&D used to focus more on C.a.W. and now focuses more on C.a.S.

[Quertus]

Just wanted to hit this real quick: I’m not “using the popular vote to resolve technical questions”. I am, however, using the popular vote to a) show that (unlike in past installments) there actually is a popular vote, meaning that people actually understand and can use what I’m saying - this is Big, this didn’t happen in previous attempts at explaining myself; b) show that, even understanding what I am saying, there is disagreement on the matter, meaning it isn’t trivially obvious that “of course 4e is (or, alternately, is not) a RPG by this metric / more or less an RPG than some other systems by this metric”.

That’s all I’m saying with that.

Well, that, and admitting that popular opinion is weighted towards the “now that he makes sense, Quertus is simply wrong about 4e” camp.

Honestly, if there’s reasonable things I could be saying, and unreasonable things I could be saying, why assume I’m saying the unreasonable ones?

(I mean, fair, I’m kinda crazy, but still)

More later (senility willing)

[Thrudd]

So 3e is perfectly balanced, because that was the intent of the designers, and what they expressed in less mechanical interviews, despite anyone's experiences otherwise? :smallamused:

I'm asking what valid criteria look like here. Consider your response carefully.

No, of course 3e isn't perfectly balanced. Like I said, games can be imperfect without altering their identity as RPG.
The valid criteria for evaluating the game's performance? Talking to people who play the game. Your people didn't do well with it. Other people did. It's pretty much impossible to scientifically evaluate how many people liked it vs didn't and also take into account exactly why they didn't like it into some sort of comprehensive measurement. All we've got are anecdotes. So, if the game calls itself an RPG, and there is anyone who is satisfied with it in that capacity, I'd have to say it works as an RPG in principle.

that it doesn't work for you only changes it's status for you.



Where did you get "too many buttons" from? That has nothing to do with "the difficulty of adjudication".

That was just a guess about something that might be "increasing the effort" required to use the system for you. "Difficulty of adjudication" is something impossible to measure- "number of mechanical buttons" can be measured. Some people find it difficult, others don't. We have no way to accurately measure the level of difficulty, so it is a metric that can't apply universally, only personally. you find it too difficult, so for you the game won't work. For others, it isn't as difficulty, which means it does work - works as an RPG. If the game can work as an RPG, and is intended as an RPG, then it is an RPG. It just isn't one that you want to use.



I'll add your vote of "4e is ill-suited to it" to the running tally.

It saddens me to hear that anyone could even think that almost nobody plays an RPG by roleplaying anymore. :smallfrown:


I think this is the crux of the issue. You are suggesting here that your definition of roleplaying includes "playing without knowing the game mechanics" - the degree to which one is "role playing" is the degree to which they are choosing actions without considering any game mechanics. I'm saying that this is not a universally accepted requirement for "role playing". I mean, you must be aware that most people use character sheets, know the rules of the game they're playing, and often consider the game mechanics in deciding their actions? You're saying that everyone who plays in this manner isn't role playing? or that all games have both "game" and "role playing", and there's some specific ratio of "game" to "role play" that makes a game no longer an RPG- even if it explicitly tells its players to role play?




And "the fault lies in the 4e GMs in your area (who have no such issue with other systems)" is difficult for me to evaluate without getting experience playing under a good 4e GM. Anyone have any thoughts on how one might otherwise acquire perspective to evaluate this claim?

Oh, and thank you for keeping "black box" straight - I got them mixed up at some point. :smallredface:

"CaW vs CaS" was merely used to explain what the word "cheating" meant in context, and has nothing to do with this definition of RPG. Sorry for the confusion.

Perspective comes from talking to other people who have played 4e. There are people who played and still play 4e who say it is good for them, you've spoken to some of them on this forum. They consider what they are doing "role playing", and don't seem to think there is an "effort" problem with using the system. That's what I meant by saying that your personal experience doesn't discount the experience of others - you say all your DMs had a problem with the system, fair enough. They're saying they don't have a problem with the system. So far, it sounds like the game is capable of working more or less as intended for at least some people - that's a point for "it's an RPG" in my estimation.

The fact that it didn't work for a lot of people, for various reasons, means it might be considered a bad game- or at least it did not match what a lot of people wanted for D&D. But being a badly designed for many people's purposes doesn't make it not an RPG.

Another point for "It's an RPG": the game designers call it an RPG.

A third point: The text of the book explains what they mean by role playing and informs players that this is what they're supposed to be doing, and people who play it claim to be doing that.

A fourth point: it has a core mechanic, used for adjudicating improvisational actions, identical to previous games called role playing games, the status of which are not being called into question.

your problem with the "feel" of improvised adjudication being too different from the way the mechanical buttons is designed, or being "too hard" to align with the other mechanical buttons, is likewise a very specific and subjective issue with the system that doesn't impede everyone who uses it from "role playing". Also, factually, this isn't a problem in the system- your claim is that it is "too much effort", but it is not so for everyone. Trying to include "improvised adjudication must mechanically be similar, or identical to pre-designed effects" in the definition of RPG just isn't flying with too many people.



And for some of them, it is not. Why look at the ones I'm not talking about, instead of looking at the ones I am talking about, when I'm trying to explain why I said, "4e isn't an RPG", and what definitions I'm using? That seems like a highly suboptimal tact at best, blatant topic shifting / willful ignorance / strawmanning at worst.


Because there are more valid definitions of "role" and "role playing" than the one you are using. If you want a universally applicable definition of "role playing", you need to at least incorporate all the definitions of "role" that have applied to these sorts of games.

The whole point of the thread was trying to establish a definition for role playing games, right? So maybe this discussion of your experience of 4e has helped us to understand what your definition of a role playing game is - but we're mostly rejecting it as being universally applicable, and also the assertion that 4e is being fully, accurately represented by your experience of it.



Anyway, yes, I was talking about taking "outside the box" actions... but doing so because the player in question is acting in ignorance of the underlying system, merely roleplaying their character. I was using that ignorance to help the reader get into the mindset of someone who was roleplaying, someone who might take actions that don't involve pushing buttons on their character sheet. (or so I assume - I'm too senile to remember what I was talking about)

again - having buttons on the character sheet doesn't stop someone from making improvised actions. The "buttons" are usually there to describe things that will be very common activities, so there's no confusion about how to adjudicate them. How similar the "buttons" are mechanically to the method for deciding improvised actions isn't objectively a barrier for people to make their decisions from a "fiction first" perspective.



This is what I am talking about, measuring the comparative effort required to take system-first vs roleplaying-first actions, and discussing how it can be antithetical to roleplaying. I am saying that a game's suitability to be played by roleplaying - the extent to which it is an RPG - can be measured at least in part by how easy it makes taking outside-the-box actions.

How are you measuring the comparative effort experienced by different players? So far, the only thing you're saying is: "The effort required by this game's design is too much for me and the people I've played with". That's not a slam on you or the DMs you played with, nobody gels with every single game. The only thing you can say is that the game doesn't work as an RPG for you and the groups you've played with. The fact that it does work for other groups means it can work as an RPG.

Or are you trying to assert that the people who play and like the game aren't actually roleplaying, because the game factually, objectively is too hard to use as a role playing game? And you're asserting this based on your personal threshold of what makes role playing easy or hard. You also seem to be implying that the generally negative reception of the game is evidence that most people who didn't like it found that it didn't work as a role playing game in general, which isn't true.

You're arguing for your definition of "role playing", which seems to be "role playing is (exclusively) when you are making fiction-first decisions without considering any game mechanics", by trying to point out that 4e isn't one- but this assertion relies on someone accepting your definition in the first place. Also, it isn't actually factually true that 4e doesn't allow the sort of role playing you're talking about- just that the system made it more awkward for you and the groups you played with.

I agree that "making decisions from an in-fiction perspective" is an important element of role playing. However, there are different ways and degrees of doing that which still count as "role playing". The degree to which a person is able to mentally integrate a game's mechanics and "buttons" seamlessly into the fiction is subjective. Some people find some mechanics or outcomes break their suspension of disbelief and takes them out of "fiction first" roleplaying mode. Other people have no problems with the exact same mechanics. So we can't claim that a game with such mechanics is definitely "not a role playing game", only that "some people aren't able to role play when they play this game". We can also determine that not everyone defines "role playing" in as strict a way as you do, and whatever they think role playing is, 4e allows them to do that.

If you want a discussion where we accept your specific definition of "role playing" a priori, for the sake of argument, and then analyze the rules text and actual play experience of various TTRPGS to judge how they conform-maybe to figure out what RPG systems you'd suggest to others? - we could do that. But you're going to need to provide that definition that you want us to use very clearly and precisely.

In the first post, you said: “Roleplaying is making decisions for the character, as the character." So why is a game where you do that not an RPG? Actually, your definition for this must be more limited, or else all this discussion of specific relationships between "in the box" and "out of box" actions and playing without a character sheet are irrelevant. You are definitely "making decisions for the character as the character", both by design and in practice, in 4e. Your definition of "role playing" needs to be refined in order to make your "4e isn't an RPG" argument coherent. Even once you do that, it will only be valid for anyone who accepts your definition or "role playing" as the sole, exclusive definition (which likely isn't going to happen).

So I might say "A role playing game is a game which requires a player to make decisions for a fictional character AND has game rules which allow players to determine the effects and outcomes of their decisions." -pretty much what everyone has suggested and agrees with.

You can measure a game's quality and suitability to your needs based on several metrics, some more subjective than others:
-how quick and easy is it to learn and play the game? and related metric - how much work is it for the GM to plan, prep and run?
-how well does the game's rules give outcomes in-line with what is expected for the fiction?
-what sort of advice does the game give in regards to blending the fiction with the rules and designing adventures/campaigns? this includes the rules for adjudicating improvised/non-rule specified actions
-what type/genre(s) of fiction does this game allow you to play with?

The only way to actually measure these is to read the game's rules, try it out for yourself, and/or get info from people who have.
It inevitably turns out that different people will rate some of these metrics differently, and so trying to give a universal "degree of suitability to role playing" measurement is impossible.

If you say "I want a game where players can play effectively without knowing any of the mechanics or looking at a character sheet", we can look at a game's rules and determine how well-suited it will be to that. My objection is if you are saying: "any game that makes it too hard to do this (according to my personal taste) isn't actually a role playing game at all."

[Quertus]

Can someone explain for us geezers what "CaW vs CaS" refers to?

@Cluedrew has already done an excellent job of explaining what the acronyms mean; I'll simply emphasize that they don't matter, and it was stupid of me to mention them. I was simply trying to explain a flavor, of what 4e made "taking an 'outside the box' action" feel like, and likened it to the feel of taking a challenge-changing action in a CaS game. They matter as much as if I'd said it has the feel of saying "bonjour" in a German-speaking nation. "Bonjour" and "German" have nothing to do with 4e. Neither do CaW or CaS. Clear?


To push back on this whole "using the popular vote to resolve technical questions" thing,

As I've already explained, this isn't why I was bringing up the popular vote. If I've therefore ignored some of your supporting comments that are still relevant, and you think I should address them, let me know.


(A noob might get stuck if more than one defence could apply, however it requires very little experience with attack powers to realize you can use the highest of any defence that might apply. This is why in the rug/orc example I said "Fortitude or Reflex"; high Fortitude monsters tend to be bigger, so the hard part is just to move them, whereas high Reflex monsters are more nimble, so even though you pull the rug out from under them, they stay standing.)

Well, I'm worse than a noob at 4e. That said, I thought in the spawning thread someone suggested having the rub-pull be a damaging attack, such that one or more orcs fell and injured themselves if the attack succeeded. Those sound like very different balance points to my ignorant ears. What are your thoughts on balancing damaging vs non-damaging versions of this maneuver?


In all of these cases, it takes very little time to determine to whether it is an attack or not, what ability or skill applies, whether it does damage or not, whether a task is contested or not, and whether an uncontested task is Easy, Moderate or Hard difficulty. That is 3-4 binary or multiple choice decisions using the same options every time, maybe consulting one chart, plus an attack or check roll and maybe a damage roll. Honestly, a lot of the time it takes longer for a player to read a power card.

Your explanation is solid, your vote consistent. My experiences with my local groups just didn't show that ease. Popular opinion is with you, and I'm willing to accept the possibility that my local groups just lacked the necessary skills / mindset. Lacking that mindset myself, however, I am unable to concede that your rulings match the quality of existing 4e buttons. Because of my ignorance, I am forced into... not an "agree to disagree" position, but a... "I can't say you're right, I can only say your arguments are of the correct form, and are not wrong in any way that I can understand or test". Fair?


Once you have more experience you can start building on the system, but the basics are there from day one. And the results are consistent with, and proportionate to, the rest of the system, which was one of your other criteria.

And yes, you definitely demonstrate that you understand what I'm saying. You probably have no idea how :smallbiggrin: I am that, after all these years trying to explain what I meant when I said "4e isnt an RPG", I finally have someone demonstrate such understanding.

That they disagree with me is just icing on the cake (I like being wrong - it means I get to learn something).

-----

I was going to write more while I had a chance, but then I hit the post by @Jay R, realized that it explained things better than I have been explaining things, and realized I needed to both make words more gooder and think very carefully about what was said (and probably not in that order) to have any chance of getting people on the same page.

We'll see how many days it takes me to chew on those ideas, and how half-chewed my response is when I finally decide to publish it.

[Cluedrew]

To Quertus: Do you have links to the other threads on this topic? (I recall there were two dedicated threads after the one where it initially came up.)

[Quertus]

To Quertus: Do you have links to the other threads on this topic? (I recall there were two dedicated threads after the one where it initially came up.)

Naw, but it doesn’t matter - I think I’ve covered the relevant bits (years of history trying to explain what I meant by “4e is D&D, but it isn’t an RPG”, with no responses of a form matching what I was saying). Given that this time, multiple people have responded to this explanation in a way that demonstrates comprehension, there’s no point bringing in less understandable models.

That said, this model has faults (the title of this thread being perhaps the most obvious one), and @Jay R has helped me see that I’m still in “this is obvious” mode, skipping steps in explaining things such that it’s no wonder many people are still scratching their heads at my words.

So I’m going to try to stop being a hyper spaz, and actually cast the “Wall of Text” necessary to not skip steps.

Once I can do that, maybe more people will give responses indicative of understanding what I’m saying. As should be obvious from the posts in this thread, agreeing with my conclusion about 4e isn’t a requirement for demonstrating an understanding of the metric proposed in this thread.

[Beoric]

Well, I'm worse than a noob at 4e. That said, I thought in the spawning thread someone suggested having the rub-pull be a damaging attack, such that one or more orcs fell and injured themselves if the attack succeeded. Those sound like very different balance points to my ignorant ears. What are your thoughts on balancing damaging vs non-damaging versions of this maneuver?

I think the maneuver should do what the maneuver should do. I'm not convinced that bruising your tuchus because someone yanked a rug out from under you should do lethal damage. The player made their choice when they chose this manuever over whacking someone with a sword, presumably because they thought knocking the orcs on their asses would provide some advantage - which frankly it does, knocking multiple enemies prone in a single attack is worth something.

Adding damage just to make it superficially look like another power (a) is not required by the rules, (b) partially divorces the adjudication from the action stated by the player (i.e. it makes the adjudication unrealistic), and (c) robs the player of agency by insulating him from the consequences of his choice if it turns out not to have been a great idea.




Your explanation is solid, your vote consistent. My experiences with my local groups just didn't show that ease. Popular opinion is with you, and I'm willing to accept the possibility that my local groups just lacked the necessary skills / mindset. Lacking that mindset myself, however, I am unable to concede that your rulings match the quality of existing 4e buttons. Because of my ignorance, I am forced into... not an "agree to disagree" position, but a... "I can't say you're right, I can only say your arguments are of the correct form, and are not wrong in any way that I can understand or test". Fair?

Fair. The reason I laid this out in detail is because I understand how hard it is to intuit the impact a mechanic has on play without seeing it in action.

[Beoric]

So I’m going to try to stop being a hyper spaz, and actually cast the “Wall of Text” necessary to not skip steps.


Looking forward to that, you might find some of my comments in this post (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?651200-What-am-I-forgetting-about-4e-D-amp-D&p=25640149&viewfull=1#post25640149) helpful.

[gbaji]

Well, I've gone and used the term backwards, so I'm sure that's not helping. :smallredface: In short, in a "white box", you understand the contents; in a "black box", you do not. It's a programming term about whether you have access to the internals of a system.

That was my understanding (and confusion) as well. In my profession (IT engineer), a "black box" is any system in which the underlying code/functions are hidden from the user. So you put in input, and get output, but how that happens is hidden from view (usually inside a compiled binary for which you do not have the source). It can also, in a more broad sense, refer to any case where the interior action is hidden and/or there isn't sufficient documentation of configuration files/sources, nor syntax to control such things, so as to properly account for different options or configurations and what those things are actually doing. I'm extremely familiar with the term. Deal with it (and some really poor vendor software) all the time.


Anyway, yes, I was talking about taking "outside the box" actions... but doing so because the player in question is acting in ignorance of the underlying system, merely roleplaying their character. I was using that ignorance to help the reader get into the mindset of someone who was roleplaying, someone who might take actions that don't involve pushing buttons on their character sheet. (or so I assume - I'm too senile to remember what I was talking about)

Ok. But I'm still confused as to why you seem to think that if the underlying mechanics of action resolution are "hidden", that this somehow makes for better roleplaying? I guess we could argue that it's "different" RP, but again only in the context of what decisions players make when considering actions their characters are taking. I suppose it can be argued either way though. If the "rules" are more clear in terms of how a proposed action will be resolved, then the player can make a more informed decision. Some might argue that this removes the "mystery" of character decisions, I suppose. But the flip side could also be made that the characters, if we're RPing them correctly, should have pretty solid understanding of how "the rules" of the world they actually live in work, and thus should have a better idea of their odds of success for any given action, even if the player maybe does not (or if the actual math is "hard", or whatever).

Dunno. I'm still just not seeing how this impacts roleplaying at all.


Suppose gbaji's player wanted to make a post. But there was no button on gbaji's sheet to let them do that. Suppose it took 10 seconds for gbaji's player's GM to adjudicate the button press "burn down the library", but 12 years for them to adjudicate the "outside the box" "make a post" action. Can you see how gbaji's player might be deincentivized from taking the roleplaying action of "write the post", and might therefore instead choose the "play the system" action of "burn down the library", because that is what the system incentivized by virtue of time and effort required? Can you see how gbaji's GM might soft- or hard-ban "outside the box" actions in this scenario?

It's not really helpful when you contrive scenarios that are so far out of the norm and exaggerated to the nth degree. From my understanding of 4e action resolution methodologies its more like this:

In the box action: It's right there already for you. Determine the correct skill/ability/stat to use, the correct DC to use, and roll the die.

Out of the box action: Ok. You have to figure out what type of action it is (99% of the time, it's going to be an "at will" action), then come up with the closest skill/ability/stat to use, then the DC to use, then roll the die.

There's basically one additional step here. And it's not that complex of one. Unless the GM is allowing themselves to get utterly lost in the rules or something, this should not be that difficult. And in the absolute worst case, it sounds (again, never played, so just looking at other's posts on this thread), as though you can still fall back (more or less) to the same resolution method used in 3e (pick skill/stat/ability rank), generate DC, roll.

I don't see anything in there that would force players to stick to pre-defined "in the box" action choices.


(Alternately, gbaji's GM might take shortcuts, and the quality of the "make a post" action might suffer compared to the "burn down the library" action. Similarly an incentive structure, different incentive.)

What quality? It's an action resolution. How hard is this really? I mean, this is something GMs have been literally dealing with since the first RPG was ever created. The only thing I can see about 4e is that it attempted to codify things a bit more. If anything that gives the GMs more tools to use to come up with more accurate/realistic odds of success for proposed actions, not the other way around. The fact that you have more tools doesn't make a task more difficult. It either provides a tool that works right out of the box, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you're no worse off than you were with a system with fewer tools.


This is what I am talking about, measuring the comparative effort required to take system-first vs roleplaying-first actions, and discussing how it can be antithetical to roleplaying. I am saying that a game's suitability to be played by roleplaying - the extent to which it is an RPG - can be measured at least in part by how easy it makes taking outside-the-box actions.


Sure. But aside from ridiculous and utterly hypothetical scenarios, you haven't shown us how this actually affects players choices.

I'll ask again: Instead of contriving a ridiculous situation, why not present us with a real example, perhaps from your own gaming experience, where the 4e rules created pressure on you as a player to stick to an "in the box" action instead of an "out of the box" one?

If this was such a huge deal to you, that it caused you to feel so strongly about it in a negative way, you should have no trouble coming up with a dozen such clearly presented examples of such things affecting you directly as a player. Can you present just one clearly written example of this and how it created some kind of "choice opportunity cost" or something that pushed you away from what you wanted to do?

That might actually be helpful towards making your case.

[Beoric]

Ok. But I'm still confused as to why you seem to think that if the underlying mechanics of action resolution are "hidden", that this somehow makes for better roleplaying? I guess we could argue that it's "different" RP, but again only in the context of what decisions players make when considering actions their characters are taking. I suppose it can be argued either way though. If the "rules" are more clear in terms of how a proposed action will be resolved, then the player can make a more informed decision. Some might argue that this removes the "mystery" of character decisions, I suppose. But the flip side could also be made that the characters, if we're RPing them correctly, should have pretty solid understanding of how "the rules" of the world they actually live in work, and thus should have a better idea of their odds of success for any given action, even if the player maybe does not (or if the actual math is "hard", or whatever).


I think at this point the whole white box/black box discussion is a bit of a distraction. Quertus' basic point is that if the difference between adjudicating defined actions and adjudicating improvised actions is too great, it impairs roleplaying. The white box/black box wasn't part of his original argument, it was riffing off of what somebody else said.

Basically Quertus was using the ease with which a player with no system knowledge could play the game as a proxy for how hard it is to adjudicate improvised actions. I expect this is on the assumption that a player who knows nothing of the game, and can't even read a character sheet, will attempt more improvised actions. It is fine as far as it goes, but really only applies to fighters; it really isn't possible to play a rogue, cleric, wizard, ranger, paladin, or pretty much any other class in a competent fashion without knowing something about that character's abilities in advance - in any edition.

So if we are only applying this to the relatively simple classes, a first level 4e Slayer is dead easy to run with someone who has no system mastery. Which is why I chose it as a starting class when I first started playing the game with my 9 year old.



Dunno. I'm still just not seeing how this impacts roleplaying at all.

It depends on your playstyle. (https://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2021/04/six-cultures-of-play.html)

In Classic and OSR playstyles, where roleplaying is fundamentally about making decisions for your character, a game that makes it more difficult to choose improvised options would absolutely be seen to reduce roleplaying opportunities. Such a game would reduce player agency by limiting player options. However, 4e is not such a game. The "stories" that emerge from this style of gaming emerge from player choices of actions, and the consequences that emerge from those choices.

On the other hand, if my understanding of the Original Character ("OC") and Nordic LARP playstyles is correct, it would not necessarily be seen to reduce roleplaying opportunities. I believe this is because (and again, my understanding is imperfect) roleplaying is more about immersion, or acting the role, or narrating the results of actions. It seems to me that the stories that emerge from these styles of play emerge from narrative choices as opposed to choices of actions. I believe a lot of 4e players participate in OC games.

I think Trad is probably closer to Classic, but it could go either way. Don't ask me what the dudes at The Forge would say; outside of the concept of ludonarrative dissonance, I have no idea what they are talking about.

[Cluedrew]

Naw, but it doesn't matter - I think I've covered the relevant bits (years of history trying to explain what I meant by "4e is D&D, but it isn't an RPG"[...]).Oh well, I remember I had this big checklist of every issue I had with the old model. After you were dismissive of my quick summery I figured I would go back and pull it up to see what this new model fixed. I'll just start at the top again.


Honestly, if there's reasonable things I could be saying, and unreasonable things I could be saying, why assume I'm saying the unreasonable ones?Let me just start peeling away levels until I get so something reasonable then.

"4e is not a role-playing game"

That doesn't sound reasonable, that sounds like someone is trying to say 4e is bad without technically saying a derogatory statement. I've talked about that before along with how a definition should try to capture a term's usage, otherwise it is wrong. So the most reasonable explanation for that is you aren't talking about role-playing games but some different concept.

Now we have two problems, first why does this other concept also use the same letters and sounds as "role-playing game". That is a thing that happens in language sometimes. But doing that on purpose does not seem reasonable so let's use a different one. And I'm not going to even consider that it is a good idea unless you first explain the difference between rogue-likes and rogue-likes is.

But let's say we do agree on some term for "QRPGs" (except hopefully more descriptive) then we get to the issues I mentioned originally. That is your definition seems to depend on some measure of openness to unexpected inputs. But look around, people can't seem to figure out how you are getting this value to increase or decrease. That is why I said only you can measure it. The second issue we haven't gotten to is that for this definition to be useful, its edges (that is to say the difference between things included in the group and things that are not) should probably be significant. And I'm not sure what that edge is and why is it important.

So I kind of lost the reasonable statement framing as I went on there, but those are the problems that I think need to be addressed for this to be any kind of reasonable claim.

[noob]

Perfect real life simulation rpg is not an rpg according to Quertus.
It is a game where all the rules of real life and an universe following those rules are simulated perfectly and each of the players have a character that is an human within that universe.
The players decides the emotions of their characters and tell which actions tries then the system adjust the hormone productions of the characters within real life norms corresponding to the body, the system also picks which muscles to activate to do the actions the players described, everything is 100% within the rules, nothing is out of the bonds of the rules.
Because nothing escapes the bounds of the rules and that absolutely everything is just a sequence of button presses handled by the system it is 100% not an rpg by Quertus standards, even more not an rpg than 4e dnd.

Your idea of "everything is within the bounds and is button presses then it is not an rpg" looks absurd to me.

[Quertus]

Let me just start peeling away levels until I get so something reasonable then.

"4e is not a role-playing game"

That doesn't sound reasonable, that sounds like someone is trying to say 4e is bad without technically saying a derogatory statement. I've talked about that before along with how a definition should try to capture a term's usage, otherwise it is wrong.

Well, I really want to focus on my longer post of clarity, but this is good practice.

“4e is not a roleplaying game” is a perfectly reasonable statement. As is “4e is not D&D”. They may be false, but they are perfectly reasonable English.

Now, “4e isn’t D&D”? That’s the common statement that started all this. And I’ve stated my opinion, definitions, and conclusion there: “D&D” is more like a brand, and 4e is an adequate representation of that brand to be called D&D.

But maybe I’m wrong.

After all, 4e messed up the planes, messed up the Forgotten Realms, and generally did so badly with the brand that, honestly, an argument actually could be made that 4e is so many degrees of failure away from an accurate representation of the intellectual property that is D&D that it really shouldn’t be called D&D.

And if someone did that, and did so successfully, I’d be willing to change my stance, and admit that 4e isn’t D&D - at least by their standards, their “number of degrees of failure before they say that X isn’t Y”. But, to my perception and my standards, unlike certain movies, 4e is D&D.

I’ve just tried (and generally failed) to do the same thing with explaining how 4e is unsuited to being played as an RPG.

That’s not an unreasonable statement in itself.

Now, as @Jay R has helped me see, I’ve skipped some steps in my logic. So I’ve done a bad job of making this reasonable statement, and only a few people have been able to get traction on what I’m saying (which, while much better than the No people from my previous attempts, still isn’t good).

Now, once people understand what I’m saying, they’re welcome to have an opinion about the accuracy of my conclusion (although, hopefully, it’ll be less “opinionated” and more “supported by facts”).

Is all this a nice way of saying “4e is bad”? Heck no! I’ll say it now: 4e is terrible. But what do I mean by those words? “4e isn’t suited to being played as an RPG” is actually almost tangential to my opinion of it, as I might call it a good War game if the game itself were interesting enough for me to care to play it.

That is, 4e is boring, and that’s why it is bad. In my opinion. It also happens to be unsuited to being played as a roleplaying game. In this thread, I am trying to explain what I mean by it not being suited to being played as a roleplaying game, without regard to its quality or boringness as a game.

Clear enough? Reasonable enough?

As for “capturing a term’s usage”… not only is that antithetical to answering the original question of, “Quertus, what do you mean, ‘4e is not a roleplaying game’?”, but, in my future post, I intend to show that caring about common usage is the equivalent of “answering a technical question with a popular opinion poll” (I hope I did that paraphrase Justice).

[Batcathat]

Now, once people understand what I’m saying, they’re welcome to have an opinion about the accuracy of my conclusion (although, hopefully, it’ll be less “opinionated” and more “supported by facts”).

Isn't your conclusion pretty much all opinion too, though? Not only is it based on your opinion of what constitutes an RPG, but also where the line should be drawn between "RPG" and "not RPG" on that scale.

It's like saying "A meal that's not 40 percent pork is not a meal". The pork content of a meal is an objective fact and quite easily measured, but that doesn't mean that saying "A salad is not a meal" isn't A) opinion and B) a use of the term that's very different from the general public's.

[GloatingSwine]

Isn't your conclusion pretty much all opinion too, though? Not only is it based on your opinion of what constitutes an RPG, but also where the line should be drawn between "RPG" and "not RPG" on that scale.

AFAICT the line is a circle around D&D 4e.

[Quertus]

Isn't your conclusion pretty much all opinion too, though? Not only is it based on your opinion of what constitutes an RPG, but also where the line should be drawn between "RPG" and "not RPG" on that scale.

In a word, no. It’s based on the logical consequences of accepting “roleplaying is choosing actions for a character as that character” (or some better-worded version thereof).

Now, it is a matter of “opinion” where one places the threshold between “River” and “stream”, between “is suitable enough to being played by roleplaying the character to be called an RPG” and not. But, once everyone is able to measure water flow or width or whatever actually defines a River, they can come to their own opinions where that line should be drawn{Scrubbed}

That said, there is also the contention that the tools I used to measure the flow were themselves defective. So there are multiple points of failure wrt the conclusion being “right”. But do not mistake the potential for bad description or bad measurements for pure opinion.

[JNAProductions]

In a word, no. It’s based on the logical consequences of accepting “roleplaying is choosing actions for a character as that character” (or some better-worded version thereof).

4E does well at that. Not any worse than 3.5 or 5E, at least.

I’ve said it before, I think-you could have a sensible definition of RPG that excludes 4E, but I cannot envision one that excludes 4E but NOT other editions of D&D.

[Beoric]

Is all this a nice way of saying “4e is bad”? Heck no! I’ll say it now: 4e is terrible. But what do I mean by those words? “4e isn’t suited to being played as an RPG” is actually almost tangential to my opinion of it, as I might call it a good War game if the game itself were interesting enough for me to care to play it.

That is, 4e is boring, and that’s why it is bad. In my opinion. It also happens to be unsuited to being played as a roleplaying game. In this thread, I am trying to explain what I mean by it not being suited to being played as a roleplaying game, without regard to its quality or boringness as a game.

Clear enough? Reasonable enough?

Clear, yes. Reasonable? No.

This is clearly results-based reasoning. You have decided that 4e is not an RPG. You posited a reason why it is not an RPG. I think that reason has been pretty clearly debunked, so now you are looking for a different reason to prove it isn't an RPG.

It may be easier for us to just list the way 4e is legitimately different from other versions of D&D, and you could put a circle around those and declare them "not an RPG". Because that is effectively what you will be doing if you just keep throwing out possible reasons until one of them is actually supportable.

Your comment about 4e being a wargame is interesting, considering that the original 1974 D&D assumed you were incorporating the rules from Chainmail, which was expressly a wargame. So at a minimum, 0e (with or without supplements), Basic, B/X, BECMI, 1e, and 2e all used wargame mechanics. I would argue that 3e also uses wargame mechanics, particularly if you review the positioning rules in 1e; but there is no question about the inclusion of wargame mechanics in the early editions. Moreover, the late game in editions prior to 2e expressly supported the hiring of military units, stronghold building, colonial expansion and siege warfare, which are all pretty wargamey.

Also, the 4e combat and skills engine is mechanically much closer to 3e than 3e is to any of the earlier versions, so if 4e is considered "not an RPG" because it is more wargamey than 3e, it follows that none of the earlier versions is an RPG either, leaving 3e as the only actual RPG in the D&D line. Somehow I don't think that is your intention.

I also note that you have made it clear that you don't really understand 4e, and you have declined to define what an RPG is. You will never be able to formulate a coherent argument for "Thing I don't understand is unlike thing I will not define." Maybe you could just define what you think an RPG is or does, and let those of us who understand the system tell you if it does that.


In a word, no. It’s based on the logical consequences of accepting “roleplaying is choosing actions for a character as that character” (or some better-worded version thereof).

There is no difference between 4e and any other version of D&D in terms of its support or non-support for making decisions in character. I have played Basic, 1e, 2e, 4e and 5e, and I can't see any difference in that regard. You make a character. You make decisions for that character. The character can attempt to do anything you can conceive of, with the only limit being your imagination. What else is there?

[Cluedrew]

Well, I really want to focus on my longer post of clarity, but this is good practice.

"4e is not a roleplaying game" is a perfectly reasonable statement. As is "4e is not D&D". They may be false, but they are perfectly reasonable English.Going step by step tends to lead to cleaner results in my experience. Occasionally you have to repeat things, but I think it is a small price to pay. That being said I'm going to open up with some humor instead of clarity:

Dr. Dinosaur: That is for me to know and for you to die!
Atomic Robo: That's not even a sentence.
Dr. Dinosaur: The simple mammalian subject and predicate were both represented! I challenge your claim.
Atomic Robo: Sure, fine.

In other words, just because it is a well-formed statement does not mean it is a useful statement to make. Or that it conveys any information. The reasonable version of this statement would be something like "4e does not capture what I like about role-playing games"*. Because this new group you are trying to define does not describe role-playing games, in fact its primary characteristic is a place where it gets that "wrong".

In fact I'm going to turn this around: Why does this new group have to reuse the label of "role-playing game"? That is just going to add confusion over if we gave it a different term for it, and both before we figure out exactly what the group is and after when explaining it to other people.

* Point of reference: What other role-playing games have you played? I think you mentioned it in one of the old threads but I don't you have said here.

[Quertus]

The reasonable version of this statement would be something like "4e does not capture what I like about role-playing games"*. Because this new group you are trying to define does not describe role-playing games, in fact its primary characteristic is a place where it gets that "wrong".

In fact I'm going to turn this around: Why does this new group have to reuse the label of "role-playing game"? That is just going to add confusion over if we gave it a different term for it, and both before we figure out exactly what the group is and after when explaining it to other people.

* Point of reference: What other role-playing games have you played? I think you mentioned it in one of the old threads but I don't you have said here.

To turn that back on you, why did 4e have to reuse the label of “roleplaying game”? After all (and correct me if I’m wrong), you were making threads asking, “what’s the definition of Roleplaying” and/or “what’s the definition of Roleplaying Game” after 4e launched, and those threads showed it was clearly not an obvious and settled issue. Also, rumor is the 4e devs didn’t really play test the system, so / if so, unlike them, I made this determination after testing the system instead of going on blind faith.

“4e does not capture what I like about role-playing games” might capture why I think it’s boring, but does not capture how it is not an RPG. So that statement is unreasonable to include or even suggest in this particular thread.

As to the question of dubious relevance regarding what RPGs I’ve played, I’m far too senile to remember the whole list. A partial list, off the top of my head: countless homebrew systems (the one I most mention (/ remember the name of) being Paradox (1st & 2nd edition)), D&D (BECMI through 4e), DtD40k7e, Warhammer 40k (various), Warhammer Fantasy, Rifts, Mechwarrior, Chubo’s, Marvel faserip & (???) & Multiverse, Mutants and Masterminds, Hero/Champions, WoD (Vampire/Mage/etc, various editions / timelines), Scion, Trinity, GURPS, Dresden, something Naruto, something Spider-Man, something Dr. Who, something Harry Potter, something Star Wars, something Star Trek, something Wheel of Time, Shadowrun (multiple editions), CP2020, something with an “ice” table?, Call of Cthulhu. Relevance?

[Batcathat]

In a word, no. It’s based on the logical consequences of accepting “roleplaying is choosing actions for a character as that character” (or some better-worded version thereof).

Right, and picking that particular definition of "what is a roleplaying game" is also a subjective choice. Not to mention that chosing actions generally isn't impossible in 4e, merely (in some people's opinion) less smooth.


Now, it is a matter of “opinion” where one places the threshold between “River” and “stream”, between “is suitable enough to being played by roleplaying the character to be called an RPG” and not. But, once everyone is able to measure water flow or width or whatever actually defines a River, they can come to their own opinions where that line should be drawn{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I don't think it's a matter of not understanding so much as not agreeing. You are pointing at a body of water almost everyone considers a river, saying "That is not a river", while not sufficiently explaining why the two similarly-sized (in most people's opinion) bodies of water are rivers.



To turn that back on you, why did 4e have to reuse the label of “roleplaying game”? After all (and correct me if I’m wrong), you were making threads asking, “what’s the definition of Roleplaying” and/or “what’s the definition of Roleplaying Game” after 4e launched, and those threads showed it was clearly not an obvious and settled issue. Also, rumor is the 4e devs didn’t really play test the system, so / if so, unlike them, I made this determination after testing the system instead of going on blind faith.

Yes, not everyone can agree on an exact definition of what a roleplaying game is, but almost everyone (whether developer or player, whether they like it or not) agree that 4e is a roleplaying game.

[Cluedrew]

To turn that back on you, why did 4e have to reuse the label of "roleplaying game"?That's a fair question to ask my answer is thus:
They were trying to develop the next game in a series of role-playing games and they were trying to appeal to that crowd. So it was both a marketing think and (more importantly here) a design goal.
A "role-playing game" describes what the main appeal of the system. I found it to have the most interesting combat of any edition of D&D but still if I was there for that I would play an actual war game.
It has all the important features I have identified in a role-playing game, the narration mode of play and the interactions between the fiction and mechanical layers.
Only two people I have ever seen have questioned whether or not 4e is a role-playing game. That is you and one person who swept into another one of these threads and said "I also hate 4e and agree it does not deserve the title of role-playing game." (Still wondering why I say the statement is negative?) Plus people have said that you can play 4e in a way it is not a role-playing game, but you can do that with any system of D&D easily. Point is, seems to line up with most people's sense of what a role-playing game is.
And of course, now that all of that has been established it has some weight behind keeping the same label. But your question was "why did" and this is more "why does ... now".
Hope that answers that. But it did not reveal to me the answer to my question of you so I will repeat it: Why does this new group you are defining have to reuse the label of "role-playing game"?


As to the question of dubious relevance regarding what RPGs I’ve played, [...] Relevance?I was curious. It might reveal something if the list was really weird looking but it isn't. I suppose it adds perspective.

[Quertus]

and (more importantly here) a design goal.

A "role-playing game" describes what the main appeal of the system. I found it to have the most interesting combat of any edition of D&D

It has all the important features I have identified in a role-playing game, the narration mode of play and the interactions between the fiction and mechanical layers.

seems to line up with most people's sense of what a role-playing game is.

Why does this new group you are defining have to reuse the label of "role-playing game"?

First, kudos on what you didn’t say.

Someday I may pick your brain on 4e combat, but that’ll be another thread.

As to the important question, not a new group. In your terms, it’s a design goal to start with uncontested fundamentals, and work out from there via logical consequences. That is, once you’ve bought into number theory, or gravity, or chemistry, there’s certain unarguable conclusions one can reach. The design goal has been and remains to communicate along such lines; this is just the first time I’ve accidentally come close to succeeding. I just need to show my work, and maybe I’ll succeed at communicating with a broader audience.

Now, as even the thread title constantly reminds me, I’ve messed up, a lot, especially in my “marketing” of my idea. How much I fix that in that post I’ve gotta get back to… eh, probably best if I don’t fix all of it, actually. Later, after I get feedback in a form that indicates understanding of this thread’s focus, though.

{Scrubbed}
It’s an important distinction. Not that experience cannot be misleading - I think that the Captain of the Titanic is the classic example thereof.

Also… wrt “specific definition”, that’s a place I’ve messed up. Back to the soapbox racer, it’s not a “car” because it doesn’t have an engine… or wheels*… or road safety equipment… or…

That is, there are many ways one could try to argue that a particular item does not fit into a complex set. Choosing just one… isn’t “defining” the set (oops!); but the necessity for the attribute should follow logically from the definition of the set.


yes, one would expect that the soapbox racer actually has wheels.


I don't think it's a matter of not understanding so much as not agreeing. You are pointing at a body of water almost everyone considers a river, saying "That is not a river", while not sufficiently explaining why the two similarly-sized (in most people's opinion) bodies of water are rivers.

{Scrubbed}

It’s pretty obvious from people’s responses when they have nothing to do with the metric in question. I mean, if you were talking about water flow, and I was talking about temperature, you wouldn’t have any doubts about whether I was on the same page, would you?

I’m fine with disagreement. I’m even not just fine with but really happy when I’m wrong. But I think it’s fair to say that it’s pretty hard to be wrong about the facts you’re contesting, that “flow” is different from width, color, or temperature, and that those who are discussing such properties without discussing flow aren’t on the same page, and don’t understand what point I’m trying to explain, what metric I’m trying to create. Can you honestly imagine that it would be easy to be wrong about that? And, I know I’m crazy, but do you feel I’m particularly unsuited to making such a determination?


Yes, not everyone can agree on an exact definition of what a roleplaying game is, but almost everyone (whether developer or player, whether they like it or not) agree that 4e is a roleplaying game.

Ah, I think this’ll have to wait for the longer post.

[Beoric]

To turn that back on you, why did 4e have to reuse the label of “roleplaying game”?


Well, it's descriptive.

[JNAProductions]

Is your metric actually useful?
Does it actually define well what the common usage of RPG is?

[gbaji]

Basically Quertus was using the ease with which a player with no system knowledge could play the game as a proxy for how hard it is to adjudicate improvised actions. I expect this is on the assumption that a player who knows nothing of the game, and can't even read a character sheet, will attempt more improvised actions. It is fine as far as it goes, but really only applies to fighters; it really isn't possible to play a rogue, cleric, wizard, ranger, paladin, or pretty much any other class in a competent fashion without knowing something about that character's abilities in advance - in any edition.

Ok. I can wrap my head around this. I would point out, however, that a player that knows nothing of the game rules also would have no way to know which actions *are* improvised actions and which are not. That player would just describe what they want to do, and the GM will determine the resolution methodology, perhaps describe the odds of success to the player based on various options or variations, then get a final decision from the player, at which point the die is rolled.

From the player's perspective the less they know about the game rules the less aware they would be of the mechanics "under the hood", and it would have zero impact on the degree to which roleplaying is driving their decisions or not. This can only be an effect if the GM is deciding that some actions are hard to generate resolutions for while others are very easy, and thus pressures the players out of doing the more complex actions and into the more simple. I guess I can see that, but again I disagree vehemently that this has anything at all to do with actually roleplaying the character.

An example might be a player saying "I'm going to have my character run over to the door and jam my sword between the bottom of the door and the floor to make it difficult to open". We might imagine a GM, realizing that while there are clear and easy rules for the PC standing there blocking the door (strength contest) or blocking the door (er, size category versus enemy strength), there are none for wedging a sword into the doorjam. So he might just say "You can't do that. Your only options are to stand there holding the door closed, or putting a heavy object in front of it".

That example would match the "button push" style play that Quertus is talking about. But honestly? That's just really really really terrible GMing. But yeah, I could see an argument that the action resolution rules push away from "out of the box" actions and to "button push (already defined)" actions, but action resolution is not roleplaying. Roleplaying is all the stuff that leads the PC to be in that room in the first place. Why he's there. What he's trying to accomplish. And why he wants to stop those people from opening the door. It's the motivational stuff, not the mechanical stuff that makes up the actual "roleplaying" in a game.


So if we are only applying this to the relatively simple classes, a first level 4e Slayer is dead easy to run with someone who has no system mastery. Which is why I chose it as a starting class when I first started playing the game with my 9 year old.

Sure. There's plenty of argument to make that overly complex or cumbersome mechanical rules can detract from the enjoyment of "just playing the game". But that criticism can be leveled at a ton of RPGs, not just 4e. And yeah, I go back to the quality of the GM handling the mechanics as a key determinant of how much this actually impacts the player's enjoyment of the game.

And honestly? I suspect that many people who think D&D started out pure and simple and whatnot, probably never actually played 1e, or played it (as most people did) by ignoring about 75% of the actual mechanical rules. There's a reason why 2e invented Thac0.



I think Trad is probably closer to Classic, but it could go either way. Don't ask me what the dudes at The Forge would say; outside of the concept of ludonarrative dissonance, I have no idea what they are talking about.

Yeah. I think a lot of those guy's discussions about styles of RP can often fall squarely into "missing the forest for the trees". Me? I like simple.


“4e does not capture what I like about role-playing games” might capture why I think it’s boring, but does not capture how it is not an RPG. So that statement is unreasonable to include or even suggest in this particular thread.

But isn't that basically your argument?

I don't think anyone is objecting to your opinion in terms of liking or disliking 4e. Heck. There are a ton of RPGs that I've tried out, played for a bit, and just kinda went "eh. Not for me". Some of them, I would be hard pressed to even describe *why* I didn't like them. Could have been game rules. Could have been setting/feel. Could just have been that GM, on that day, in that scenario, just didn't do it for me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and experiences and likes/dislikes.

If you just stopped at "I don't like 4e because the action resolution mechanics bother me", no one would have any issue at all. It's a perfectly fair assessment. When you move on to "It's not really a RPG" is where you lose people though.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Ok. I can wrap my head around this. I would point out, however, that a player that knows nothing of the game rules also would have no way to know which actions *are* improvised actions and which are not. That player would just describe what they want to do, and the GM will determine the resolution methodology, perhaps describe the odds of success to the player based on various options or variations, then get a final decision from the player, at which point the die is rolled.

From the player's perspective the less they know about the game rules the less aware they would be of the mechanics "under the hood", and it would have zero impact on the degree to which roleplaying is driving their decisions or not. This can only be an effect if the GM is deciding that some actions are hard to generate resolutions for while others are very easy, and thus pressures the players out of doing the more complex actions and into the more simple. I guess I can see that, but again I disagree vehemently that this has anything at all to do with actually roleplaying the character.


As a note, I actually ran a 5e one shot where only 1 of the players had ever played before and where my entire "mechanics talk" went something like "When I ask you to roll a X check, roll this die <pointing at the d20> and tell me what you got. Higher is better. For damage, roll the die I tell you to and tell me the number. Higher is better. There are some stuff on your sheet with various things you can do, here are some cards for those of you who cast spells". And then I handled all of the mechanics. I was using pregen characters, so I knew their numbers (and where I didn't, I made them up).

It went fine, and they roleplayed wonderfully. But, in the end, not all that much differently from my more "mechanically involved" 5e campaigns.

And the kicker? I ran two 4e campaigns using basically this same method. They tell me what their character wants to do, I look at the powers and such and resolve things. Most of them had never read any of the books. Leveling up took a bunch of involvement in picking powers, but it worked.

[Quertus]

Is your metric actually useful?
Does it actually define well what the common usage of RPG is?

Again, referencing “common usage” is counterproductive, twice over.

Is “doesn’t have an engine” useful? Is “doesn’t have wheels” useful? Well, it depends on whether that applies to the given subject, I suppose.

Do they define a car? Individually, no, they don’t. But they’re the logical consequence of accepting a particular definition thereof.

Here, the metric isn’t a binary, it’s a measurement - how much water flows, rather than “doesn’t have any water”. And the… initial result isn’t yes/no, but degree: how (un)suited.

I mean, IMO, just getting people to grasp that little part, the idea of measuring degrees, of comparing values, is arguably imminently useful in facilitating a discussion about the nature of roleplaying, and roleplaying games. So, even with just that one piece, the answer is “yes, it’s useful”. Also including a metric of non-zero value is just icing.

It’s the first metric I’ve proposed to be demonstrably understood by anyone, so I find it enormously useful, personally.

And, unlike other metrics I’ve suggested, this one explains neatly why CRPGs and “choose your own adventure” books are not RPGs.

So, yes, immensely useful.

Just probably not useful in the way I’d expected when I mentioned it.

[False God]

As a note, I actually ran a 5e one shot where only 1 of the players had ever played before and where my entire "mechanics talk" went something like "When I ask you to roll a X check, roll this die <pointing at the d20> and tell me what you got. Higher is better. For damage, roll the die I tell you to and tell me the number. Higher is better. There are some stuff on your sheet with various things you can do, here are some cards for those of you who cast spells". And then I handled all of the mechanics. I was using pregen characters, so I knew their numbers (and where I didn't, I made them up).

It went fine, and they roleplayed wonderfully. But, in the end, not all that much differently from my more "mechanically involved" 5e campaigns.

And the kicker? I ran two 4e campaigns using basically this same method. They tell me what their character wants to do, I look at the powers and such and resolve things. Most of them had never read any of the books. Leveling up took a bunch of involvement in picking powers, but it worked.

I've always kinda thought a "TV D&D" ie: players only roleplay and describe what they want to do, the DM determines how hard that is, and then a d20 gets rolled. No stats, no sheets, no spell lists, no fixed "can do" or "can't do" actions. Might need a d100 for a larger range of possibility before you reach "totally possible" or "totally impossible" though. Or maybe a crit-confirming mechanic. "You have to roll 2d20's and get 2 20s! But otherwise yes you may attempt."

I wonder if this would even be considered a game since the entire ruleset could be summed up as:
"Play your character, describe your action, roll a die."

[Cluedrew]

First, kudos on what you didn’t say.

Someday I may pick your brain on 4e combat, but that’ll be another thread.

As to the important question, not a new group. In your terms, it's a design goal to start with uncontested fundamentals, and work out from there via logical consequences. That is, once you've bought into number theory, or gravity, or chemistry, there's certain unarguable conclusions one can reach. The design goal has been and remains to communicate along such lines; this is just the first time I’ve accidentally come close to succeeding. I just need to show my work, and maybe I'll succeed at communicating with a broader audience.I didn't say a lot of things, I'm not sure what you are referring to but I'll take the kudos. I've really been focusing on the main issues because I think this is a topic were getting into the weeds really will confuse the matters.

Speaking of which "new group"; I think you are missing the point there. Or completely misunderstanding what I meant by that. It is "new" because it is new to me and a lot of other people in this thread (compared to the usage of "role-playing game" that I see used all over this forum and elsewhere). I say group because you are trying to define a group of things. You can define it as a group or a property at this point it is all interchangeable (as your can have the property of being in the group or the group of things that have the property). But whatever it is, you have labeled it with the words "role-playing game".

There are other things I could go into about premises and logic and so on, but again I would like to focus your attention on this one question: Why does this new group you are defining have to reuse the label of "role-playing game"?

[Quertus]

Speaking of which "new group"; I think you are missing the point there. Or completely misunderstanding what I meant by that. It is "new" because it is new to me and a lot of other people in this thread (compared to the usage of "role-playing game" that I see used all over this forum and elsewhere). I say group because you are trying to define a group of things. You can define it as a group or a property at this point it is all interchangeable (as your can have the property of being in the group or the group of things that have the property). But whatever it is, you have labeled it with the words "role-playing game".

There are other things I could go into about premises and logic and so on, but again I would like to focus your attention on this one question: Why does this new group you are defining have to reuse the label of "role-playing game"?

Ah, I see. Or don’t see. That is… hmmm… there are two things you / I could be saying, and, if they don’t match, we’ll talk past each other. One I’d answer “obviously”; the other, “obviously not”.

So… the group is roleplaying game. The… metric is not.

To use metaphor, “do you have a reliable car?” “Yes (my soapbox racer is reliable)”. The soapbox racer doesn’t match the kind of car that the interviewer is talking about because, for example, it doesn’t have an engine.

In this metaphor, “car” is not reusing a label, it is the label. What is novel is the choice “doesn’t have an engine”. Which isn’t reusing the label except when I’m an idiot and market it as the definition of a car, rather than one of multiple potential metrics to use to falsify a claim of carhood, that flow naturally from the accepted understanding of “car”.

Not sure if that clarifies things or is my usual confusing blather.

[Cluedrew]

Yes, in this metaphor "car" is the label. And it is indistinguishable from the label "car" that we can apply to soapbox racers and we have been doing so for years. And in this metaphor, there is no doubt in anyone's (but 3 max) mind that the old label does apply to soapbox racers.

Dropping the metaphor, you said 4e is not a role-playing game. I said that it is, citing* linguistic theory that it is. Here is my argument in formal structure.
A word or term's definition is derived from its usage. (Premise)
The most common usage of role-playing game includes D&D 4e. (Premise)
Therefore, D&D 4e is a role-playing game. (From 1 & 2)
And so you said you are making up a new definition and... there are problems with that but the main one is, well then that is a new word/term, not the "role-playing game" we know because it has a new definition/meaning/usage and all three of spelling, pronunciation and meaning have to be the same for it to be the same word/term and you have changed one**. There is also a new group of things this term can be applied to (we know it can't be the same group, unless you have changed your mind on 4e). But you have kept the letters and sounds the same.

Why?

And please do not get into the weeds, I want to know why you are saying "4e is not a role-playing game" and not "4e is not a [new term here]". (Maybe I should have just lead with that.) Please answer as directly and clearly as possible. Give it time, sleep on it if you have to.

* Informally, if you want paper references that is a bit beyond me.
** Maybe two, do you pronounce role-playing game and role-playing game the same way?

[Thrudd]

Ah, I see. Or don’t see. That is… hmmm… there are two things you / I could be saying, and, if they don’t match, we’ll talk past each other. One I’d answer “obviously”; the other, “obviously not”.

So… the group is roleplaying game. The… metric is not.

To use metaphor, “do you have a reliable car?” “Yes (my soapbox racer is reliable)”. The soapbox racer doesn’t match the kind of car that the interviewer is talking about because, for example, it doesn’t have an engine.

In this metaphor, “car” is not reusing a label, it is the label. What is novel is the choice “doesn’t have an engine”. Which isn’t reusing the label except when I’m an idiot and market it as the definition of a car, rather than one of multiple potential metrics to use to falsify a claim of carhood, that flow naturally from the accepted understanding of “car”.

Not sure if that clarifies things or is my usual confusing blather.

The problem with this analogy is, the "soapbox racer" you are referring to is meant to be 4e, and people have been successfully driving it around like it is a car. Which means it definitely has an engine, and is a car, because they are literally driving it. If you are claiming it isn't a good car because of some features you don't like or that it lacks - that's different than deciding it can't be called a car. It does have an engine, it just doesn't suit your needs. You might not like the look of the dashboard, or that it doesn't have AWD, or it's trunk isn't big enough- but it's a car.

I think you're going to find it impossible to establish an actual measurement of "how hard/easy it is to role play" using different systems, at least one that applies to anyone other than yourself. There are just too many variables from group to group, GM to GM, that will heavily impact any given play experience. Any material thing you point to, like a specific rule or mechanic, may be found to be detrimental to role play by you, but not at all by others. For your own personal edification, maybe you want to identify the elements in games that make the experience more difficult for you- but there's just no way that you're going to come up with something that is going to make people realize that it's "too hard" to role play in a game that they find easy to use, or at least easier than you found it.

[Quertus]

The problem with this analogy is, the "soapbox racer" you are referring to is meant to be 4e, and people have been successfully driving it around like it is a car. Which means it definitely has an engine, and is a car, because they are literally driving it.

Remember when I said,

Here, the metric isn’t a binary, it’s a measurement - how much water flows, rather than “doesn’t have any water”. And the… initial result isn’t yes/no, but degree: how (un)suited.

I mean, IMO, just getting people to grasp that little part, the idea of measuring degrees, of comparing values, is arguably imminently useful in facilitating a discussion about the nature of roleplaying, and roleplaying games. So, even with just that one piece, the answer is “yes, it’s useful”.?

Cause that’s really relevant here.

The metaphor doesn’t match on this particular variable, because the metric involves “how suited”, not “has engine”.


maybe you want to identify the elements in games that make the experience more difficult

Just these words here? They encapsulate exactly what I’ve been trying to do. Only, each metric involves things that make a certain aspect of roleplaying more difficult. Those who don’t care about that particular aspect will, of course, not get why that’s important, unless they see beyond themselves (see also “8 kinds of fun”, and those with a lack of appreciation for others’ sources of fun).

Of course, unless others gain sufficient traction on these metrics, their production is limited to things that impact me, and ways that I can see beyond myself - not exactly conducive to producing “8 kinds of fun” levels of analysis, IMO.


Yes, in this metaphor "car" is the label. And it is indistinguishable from the label "car" that we can apply to soapbox racers and we have been doing so for years. And in this metaphor, there is no doubt in anyone's (but 3 max) mind that the old label does apply to soapbox racers.

Dropping the metaphor, you said 4e is not a role-playing game. I said that it is, citing* linguistic theory that it is. Here is my argument in formal structure.
A word or term's definition is derived from its usage. (Premise)
The most common usage of role-playing game includes D&D 4e. (Premise)
Therefore, D&D 4e is a role-playing game. (From 1 & 2)
And so you said you are making up a new definition and... there are problems with that but the main one is, well then that is a new word/term, not the "role-playing game" we know because it has a new definition/meaning/usage and all three of spelling, pronunciation and meaning have to be the same for it to be the same word/term and you have changed one**. There is also a new group of things this term can be applied to (we know it can't be the same group, unless you have changed your mind on 4e). But you have kept the letters and sounds the same.

Why?

And please do not get into the weeds, I want to know why you are saying "4e is not a role-playing game" and not "4e is not a [new term here]". (Maybe I should have just lead with that.) Please answer as directly and clearly as possible. Give it time, sleep on it if you have to.

* Informally, if you want paper references that is a bit beyond me.
** Maybe two, do you pronounce role-playing game and role-playing game the same way?

{Scrubbed}

I respond :smalleek:, and try to rewrite a patch to let me answer that question seriously.

Thus, the first, most important, but least useful answer to your question is, “because of the way I’m wired”. Or, if it helps answer your question more this way, “because we’re wired differently”.

So, can I explain the difference in our wiring, knowing only what I know of myself from introspection, and what I know of you from your post history, including you asking that as a serious question? Maybe, maybe not, but I’ll attempt.

So, in a way, this is like a “chicken and egg” problem, where we stand on opposite sides of the debate. To me… I operate perhaps in the realm of the platonic ideal, where a thing simply is, and humans are but blind men fumbling about in a dark cave, attempting to grasp that thing. An elephant is an elephant, not “like a rope”, “like a tree”. To me, caring about false depictions more than the truth of the elephant is idiocy at best, willful subversion of truth at worst.

So, to me, when faced with disparate usage of “roleplaying” or “roleplaying game”, the obviously correct response is to seek the elephant, to ask, “what can we all agree on?” and “what can we test about that?” (and a whole host of other similar questions; those simply seemed the most relevant to this thread). Or, better yet, “can we get this elephant out into the light?”. Then, we can evaluate these “common usage” descriptions of elephantism, and throw away the ones that aren’t actually relevant to elephants.

Point is, my mind is wired to start at objective Truth.

Additionally, my “subjective truth”, my personal feel for the elephant, is that “roleplaying” is defined as starting with “first principles”, with “Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered before his eyes by a criminal with a gun” and “he had a scary experience in a cave involving bats”. One needn’t agree with this to have my wiring; this is simply what I have felt of the elephant, what my tests of various concepts and proposals and my hobbiest understanding of human psychology has led me to believe is the most elephant-like of descriptors.

You talk of “linguistic drift”, of words rather than concepts. I surmise / hypothesize / postulate that you prioritize communication over philosophical concepts like “platonic ideal” and “objective truth”; that, to you, “what people mean” matters more than “what is”. So, to you, when someone gets a new, different feel for the elephant, you’re incensed that they’d reuse the term that already has some level of established meaning by popular convention. To you, this muddies the waters of communication, adding confusion to a conversation already rife with disagreement and descent. One more description of an elephant is one more too many - or two or three or more too many, because communication would best be facilitated if only everyone used the same definition of elephant, if only these other definitions had their own words. You’ve even created threads to try to iron out what these words “roleplaying” and/or “roleplaying game” mean.

In that last bit, of wanting a “unified theory”, we’re actually on the same side. Difference is in how we go about it. I’m more about throwing away the existing definitions as suboptimal.

Or… that’s my best guess as to how to answer your question of “why reuse the word ‘roleplaying’? Why not use a new word?”. My answer is because a) I’m feeling the same elephant, and I’m b) actually using shared terms (not redefining), plus (while not actually relevant to this thread) c) my hubris is great enough that I think my non-shared terms are at least as good as anyone else’s.

To clarify that last paragraph, as I feel it is the most content-rich (whereas the rest are more “context” than “content”), it would be utter silliness for me to use a new term, as I am actually using the most root, the most agreed-upon version of the term. The term I am using has had exactly 0 debate as to its “righteousness”. However, my marketing has been faulty, as has my scientific rigor. In short, you’re asking the wrong question, because my explanation (including, for instance, this thread’s title) has misled you. I am talking about roleplaying, and roleplaying games - of that there is no doubt. But - and this is a big but - each of my metrics, including the one under discussion, is only applicable to a small part thereof, much like “rolling dice” is but a small part of the “8 kinds of fun”.

So, why doesn’t “8 kinds of fun” and “rolling dice” use a new word, instead of reusing “fun” and “RPG”? That is the equivalent to what you’ve just asked.

That’s my honest attempt to give an answer to your question, that explains my biases, and why it’s difficult for me to even take the question seriously, let alone provide a clear answer. Am I even close? And, regardless of the accuracy or precision of my guess, does that answer your question?

{Scrubbed}

{Scrubbed} because those aspects matter to me, and I rated 4e poorly for those areas (even if they don’t understand why I rated 4e poorly on a given metric. EDIT: and, yes, even if I’m wrong about 4e for a given metric, it still answers why I said it, what I meant by it - it still answers the question “why I said it” if I claim “chess lacks Challenge”).

Any clearer?

[GloatingSwine]

Again, referencing “common usage” is counterproductive, twice over.


Behold! A Man!

"Common usage" is the only productive way to arrive at meaning in language. Words and phrases mean what they are commonly understood to mean within the social environment they are used.

Some things also may have elusive meanings, a roleplaying game is a game that people commonly agree is a roleplaying game. To paraphrase Jacobellis vs Ohio:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["role-playing games"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it."

Efforts to atomise that meaning, to grind up a roleplaying game to find the molecules of roleplay within the game, tend to end up with tautologies that restate the phrase "roleplaying game" with more words.

[Thrudd]

Remember when I said,
?

Cause that’s really relevant here.

The metaphor doesn’t match on this particular variable, because the metric involves “how suited”, not “has engine”.



Just these words here? They encapsulate exactly what I’ve been trying to do. Only, each metric involves things that make a certain aspect of roleplaying more difficult. Those who don’t care about that particular aspect will, of course, not get why that’s important, unless they see beyond themselves (see also “8 kinds of fun”, and those with a lack of appreciation for others’ sources of fun).

Of course, unless others gain sufficient traction on these metrics, their production is limited to things that impact me, and ways that I can see beyond myself - not exactly conducive to producing “8 kinds of fun” levels of analysis, IMO.



:smalleek:

No, seriously, :smalleek:

I’ll spell this bit out, in the hopes that it helps you understand.

To my mind, the way my brain is wired, my impulse is to think that only an idiot or a troll would ask that question. Fortunately, I know from experience that you are neither, so I respond :smalleek:, and try to rewrite a patch to let me answer that question seriously.

Thus, the first, most important, but least useful answer to your question is, “because of the way I’m wired”. Or, if it helps answer your question more this way, “because we’re wired differently”.

So, can I explain the difference in our wiring, knowing only what I know of myself from introspection, and what I know of you from your post history, including you asking that as a serious question? Maybe, maybe not, but I’ll attempt.

So, in a way, this is like a “chicken and egg” problem, where we stand on opposite sides of the debate. To me… I operate perhaps in the realm of the platonic ideal, where a thing simply is, and humans are but blind men fumbling about in a dark cave, attempting to grasp that thing. An elephant is an elephant, not “like a rope”, “like a tree”. To me, caring about false depictions more than the truth of the elephant is idiocy at best, willful subversion of truth at worst.

So, to me, when faced with disparate usage of “roleplaying” or “roleplaying game”, the obviously correct response is to seek the elephant, to ask, “what can we all agree on?” and “what can we test about that?” (and a whole host of other similar questions; those simply seemed the most relevant to this thread). Or, better yet, “can we get this elephant out into the light?”. Then, we can evaluate these “common usage” descriptions of elephantism, and throw away the ones that aren’t actually relevant to elephants.

Point is, my mind is wired to start at objective Truth.

Additionally, my “subjective truth”, my personal feel for the elephant, is that “roleplaying” is defined as starting with “first principles”, with “Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered before his eyes by a criminal with a gun” and “he had a scary experience in a cave involving bats”. One needn’t agree with this to have my wiring; this is simply what I have felt of the elephant, what my tests of various concepts and proposals and my hobbiest understanding of human psychology has led me to believe is the most elephant-like of descriptors.

You talk of “linguistic drift”, of words rather than concepts. I surmise / hypothesize / postulate that you prioritize communication over philosophical concepts like “platonic ideal” and “objective truth”; that, to you, “what people mean” matters more than “what is”. So, to you, when someone gets a new, different feel for the elephant, you’re incensed that they’d reuse the term that already has some level of established meaning by popular convention. To you, this muddies the waters of communication, adding confusion to a conversation already rife with disagreement and descent. One more description of an elephant is one more too many - or two or three or more too many, because communication would best be facilitated if only everyone used the same definition of elephant, if only these other definitions had their own words. You’ve even created threads to try to iron out what these words “roleplaying” and/or “roleplaying game” mean.

In that last bit, of wanting a “unified theory”, we’re actually on the same side. Difference is in how we go about it. I’m more about throwing away the existing definitions as suboptimal.

Or… that’s my best guess as to how to answer your question of “why reuse the word ‘roleplaying’? Why not use a new word?”. My answer is because a) I’m feeling the same elephant, and I’m b) actually using shared terms (not redefining), plus (while not actually relevant to this thread) c) my hubris is great enough that I think my non-shared terms are at least a good as anyone else’s.

To clarify that last paragraph, as I feel it is the most content-rich (whereas the rest are more “context” than “content”), it would be utter silliness for me to use a new term, as I am actually using the most root, the most agreed-upon version of the term. The term I am using has had exactly 0 debate as to its “righteousness”. However, my marketing has been faulty, as has my scientific rigor. In short, you’re asking the wrong question, because my explanation (including, for instance, this thread’s title) has misled you. I am talking about roleplaying, and roleplaying games - of that there is no doubt. But - and this is a big but - each of my metrics, including the one under discussion, is only applicable to a small part thereof, much like “rolling dice” is but a small part of the “8 kinds of fun”.

So, why doesn’t “8 kinds of fun” and “rolling dice” use a new word, instead of reusing “fun” and “RPG”? That is the equivalent to what you’ve just asked.

That’s my honest attempt to give an answer to your question, that explains my biases, and why it’s difficult for me to even take the question seriously, let alone provide a clear answer. Am I even close? And, regardless of the accuracy or precision of my guess, does that answer your question?

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

So, if people understand all my metrics, they’ll understand why I said “4e isn’t an RPG” (even if they don’t understand why I rated 4e poorly on a given metric).

Any clearer?

Ok. So you're clear here. You intend to reevaluate the term "role playing game", define it according to your own preferences, and stop using it as a description for games that don't meet your specifications. We might be able to understand why you think 4e is not an RPG, but still nobody is going to agree with your decision to change the usage of "role playing game" to mean only those games which meet all of your personal criteria. You will perpetually need to preface your statement with "according to my own personal definition of role playing, 4e is not a role playing game".

You keep using contradictory analogies. You understand that there is a "degree" of roleplaying, that it's a matter of "how much" and not "whether there is any". So the car vs soapbox derby analogy is wrong, and you shouldn't have used it- which is what I was pointing out. I also feel like you admitting that there is role playing in 4e, even if you don't like it's design or "flows too slowly" for you, means it deserves to be called a role playing game, and I'm not sure why you're still refusing to admit you're wrong about that particular game. How quickly the narration "flows" is as much or more dependent on the GM as it is on the system, at least in the case of 4e.

In regards to people "seeing beyond themselves", I think this is a "healer, heal thyself" situation. You're proposing that you are the only one who sees the objective truth of the "elephant" of roleplaying games. Everyone who has been using that term, including Gygax and the TSR guys who first applied it to their game, have been using it incorrectly or incompletely? You are the Einstein who is going to revolutionize our understanding of role playing and lead to a new paradigm of game design, leading us to understand how lacking our "Newtonian" games have been in describing the whole of the universe of "role playing". Right?

I think using the elephant and blind man analogy here, is wrong. You are claiming that "role playing" is the "whole elephant", and people who only know one part of it should not call what they are doing "role playing". They are using just the "trunk" of role playing, or the "legs", but they don't really know role playing itself.

"Role playing" seems more like a range of activities- it's a genus or a class, not a single species. "role playing game" is like saying "mammal". There is great variety possible in mammals. Your favorite animal might be an elephant, and you don't like it when a mammal is too small, can't lift logs, and doesn't have tusks. But nobody is going to agree to change the definition of "mammal" to just mean elephants. Even if we're just talking about tabletop pen & paper games, excluding CRPGs (which we are), it's still a class of games and not a single species. Someone with a cat correctly says "this is a mammal (RPG)", the same as someone with an elephant does.

I actually don't think "role playing" in the context of TTRPGs as a concept is that complicated, nor requires this much contemplation. "making decisions for a fictional character, as that character" is quite sufficient. What makes it hard for people in specific scenarios might be a disconnect with the setting or the genre of the game, unfamiliarity with the rules of the game, over-focus on the mechanics vs the fiction, a GM that struggles with adjudicating actions for one reason or another, or a system design that creates results incompatible with the fiction. It is possible for a game to be poorly designed, just as it is for a car. But a design which causes problems doesn't mean "not a car", it means "a poorly designed car". Even poorly designed games have an "engine" that can potentially drive your role playing. That it isn't "fast enough" for you won't change that.

[Morgaln]

Point is, my mind is wired to start at objective Truth.




This, right here, is your problem. There is no objective truth in what is a role-playing game and what isn't, and there never will be. It is a term that has been invented by humans to describe a man-made concept. There is no outside force that determines the boundary between "role-playing game" and "not a role-playing game." There isn't even an official legal definition of role-playing game. As such, common usage is the only way to define role-playing game and that common usage is subject to change, because that's how language works.

There also isn't an objective truth to what an elephant is. Nature didn't decide to create an elephant, and there's no line that an animal just needs to cross to turn into an elephant. It is, again, a man-made term to describe an arbitrary man-made distinction. That distinction even differs depending on who is talking. If you show a mastodon to someone on a street, they'll say "yeah, that's an elephant." And from their perspective,they will be right, because that animal looks like a (weirdly squat and elongated) elephant. Show it to a paleontologist and they'll say "That's a mastodon. Not an elephant, but related to them."

So you're trying to work backwards from a concept that doesn't exist, and therefore you will always fail at arriving at a satisfying conclusion, since your basic premise is faulty.

[Quertus]

There is no objective truth in what is a role-playing game and what isn't, and there never will be.

So, by that logic, chess has just as much right to be called a roleplaying game as D&D or Fate?

[JNAProductions]

So, by that logic, chess has just as much right to be called a roleplaying game as D&D or Fate?

No. Because, by common usage from actual people, chess isn't a roleplaying game.

[Morgaln]

No. Because, by common usage from actual people, chess isn't a roleplaying game.

This.

I will add, however, that it is conceivable (although very unlikely) that the common usage of roleplaying game will eventually shift in a way that includes chess. This will almost certainly not happen within our lifetimes, if at all, but it is not completely impossible.

[Cluedrew]

I surmise / hypothesize / postulate that you prioritize communication over philosophical concepts [...] to you, "what people mean" matters more than "what is".Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything: 42.

Don't you understand how that explains everything important? No. First because it was a joke. Second because even if it was actually the answer, the value of an answer that no one understands: 0.

While I have some curiosity about why you would use that label in your head, its not as important about why you use that word to express your idea to us. "What people mean" is very important because here we are people trying to say things that mean things, that's how conversations work. And I would like do discuss "what is" but after two and a half threads of trying to work around these issues and getting no where I decided that it is time to address these issues head on before we continue.


Or... that's my best guess as to how to answer your question of "why reuse the word 'roleplaying'? Why not use a new word?". My answer is because a) I'm feeling the same elephant, and I'm b) actually using shared terms (not redefining), plus (while not actually relevant to this thread) c) my hubris is great enough that I think my non-shared terms are at least as good as anyone else's.Good, we got to the question. Of course the answer it immediately raised more questions but this is still progress, thanks.
I'm not sure what the elephant is supposed to be in this metaphor but I think best thing it could be is the body of works called "role-playing games", or maybe it is some random example system? In the latter case I think we should look at as many different elephants as possible. Are either of these two what you were talking about?
I don't see how that could be true. Redefining means giving a new meaning to, and the existing "role-playing game" includes 4e but yours does not, so they are not the same and yours has a new/different meaning. It doesn't matter how either of these meanings were arrived at, they aren't the same. There isn't really a question here... Are you sure?
You have other terms that are at least as good as "role-playing game"? Can we use them instead? This is relevant because in this context I think "role-playing game" is actual a bad term for what we are talking about.

Again take the time you need to get a good clear response together. I'm in no hurry.

[Beoric]

Ok. I can wrap my head around this. I would point out, however, that a player that knows nothing of the game rules also would have no way to know which actions *are* improvised actions and which are not. That player would just describe what they want to do, and the GM will determine the resolution methodology, perhaps describe the odds of success to the player based on various options or variations, then get a final decision from the player, at which point the die is rolled.

Yup, this was part of his point. He was saying if you can't do this, it is not an RPG. I don't think he is saying you have to play this way, I think he is saying you have to be able to play this way.



An example might be a player saying "I'm going to have my character run over to the door and jam my sword between the bottom of the door and the floor to make it difficult to open". We might imagine a GM, realizing that while there are clear and easy rules for the PC standing there blocking the door (strength contest) or blocking the door (er, size category versus enemy strength), there are none for wedging a sword into the doorjam. So he might just say "You can't do that. Your only options are to stand there holding the door closed, or putting a heavy object in front of it".

That example would match the "button push" style play that Quertus is talking about. But honestly? That's just really really really terrible GMing. But yeah, I could see an argument that the action resolution rules push away from "out of the box" actions and to "button push (already defined)" actions, but action resolution is not roleplaying. Roleplaying is all the stuff that leads the PC to be in that room in the first place. Why he's there. What he's trying to accomplish. And why he wants to stop those people from opening the door. It's the motivational stuff, not the mechanical stuff that makes up the actual "roleplaying" in a game.

I agree that would be poor DMing.

I don't think that having buttons to push is the issue; in 0e fighters had buttons to push in combat, its just that there was only one button, and of course one will default to practiced maneuvers and find them easier to accomplish than improvised ones. I think what he is (was) getting at is how easy is it to adjudicate improvised actions in a manner that is consistent with the way that established actions are adjudicated. I think DMG p. 42 answers that question.



And honestly? I suspect that many people who think D&D started out pure and simple and whatnot, probably never actually played 1e, or played it (as most people did) by ignoring about 75% of the actual mechanical rules. There's a reason why 2e invented Thac0.

True, but in fairness 0e and the various versions of Basic are much simpler. I think B/X and clones are currently the gold standard for the "rules light" crowd.


As a note, I actually ran a 5e one shot where only 1 of the players had ever played before and where my entire "mechanics talk" went something like "When I ask you to roll a X check, roll this die <pointing at the d20> and tell me what you got. Higher is better. For damage, roll the die I tell you to and tell me the number. Higher is better. There are some stuff on your sheet with various things you can do, here are some cards for those of you who cast spells". And then I handled all of the mechanics. I was using pregen characters, so I knew their numbers (and where I didn't, I made them up).

It went fine, and they roleplayed wonderfully. But, in the end, not all that much differently from my more "mechanically involved" 5e campaigns.

And the kicker? I ran two 4e campaigns using basically this same method. They tell me what their character wants to do, I look at the powers and such and resolve things. Most of them had never read any of the books. Leveling up took a bunch of involvement in picking powers, but it worked.

Yup. Quertus thinks you can't do with 4e what you just said you did with 4e. Or thought you couldn't, I don't know if he has been convinced otherwise.


I've always kinda thought a "TV D&D" ie: players only roleplay and describe what they want to do, the DM determines how hard that is, and then a d20 gets rolled. No stats, no sheets, no spell lists, no fixed "can do" or "can't do" actions. Might need a d100 for a larger range of possibility before you reach "totally possible" or "totally impossible" though. Or maybe a crit-confirming mechanic. "You have to roll 2d20's and get 2 20s! But otherwise yes you may attempt."

I wonder if this would even be considered a game since the entire ruleset could be summed up as:
"Play your character, describe your action, roll a die."

In my group it is common to play this way to resolve individual character actions between sessions, particularly actions that occur during the party's down time. We do this when hiking or biking or any other activity that is not conducive to tabletop play. We don't even use dice most of the time, we resolve situations narratively, or maybe the DM flips a coin or two.

I consider it a game because the player's character is still competing against the other actors in the world, or solving puzzles, or doing any of a number of other things that are challenges for that character; the character, and therefore the player, is striving.


So, by that logic, chess has just as much right to be called a roleplaying game as D&D or Fate?

A category can have indeterminate or arguable boundaries, and yet it can be clear that certain things do not fall within it.

Really, dude, just give us your definition already. I don't care if it is subjective or not, it will be something to evaluate 4e against, and we can accept the definition or reject it.

[False God]

In my group it is common to play this way to resolve individual character actions between sessions, particularly actions that occur during the party's down time. We do this when hiking or biking or any other activity that is not conducive to tabletop play. We don't even use dice most of the time, we resolve situations narratively, or maybe the DM flips a coin or two.

I consider it a game because the player's character is still competing against the other actors in the world, or solving puzzles, or doing any of a number of other things that are challenges for that character; the character, and therefore the player, is striving.

I do as well, though I think it's understood that while we have time to describe an action and roll a die between everything else going on in our lives or to simplify otherwise complex side-events, I don't feel like most players would be willing to give up all the stats and powers and skills and spells and assorted clicky-clack dice during actual play.

But I wonder if that stems more from the concern than if they don't have "buttons" in front of them, the DM won't let them do anything at all.

And ideally, this should allow more freedom rather than less.

[Beoric]

I do as well, though I think it's understood that while we have time to describe an action and roll a die between everything else going on in our lives or to simplify otherwise complex side-events, I don't feel like most players would be willing to give up all the stats and powers and skills and spells and assorted clicky-clack dice during actual play.

But I wonder if that stems more from the concern than if they don't have "buttons" in front of them, the DM won't let them do anything at all.

And ideally, this should allow more freedom rather than less.

I don't know why you would, they are playing those characters for a reason. I think this was just a discussion about whether the system was capable of accommodating it.

I mean, if you want to encourage improvisation there are ways. When I first started 4e, coming from a heavily houseruled 1e, I loved the system but hated the adventures. It took me quite a while to figure out why basically I didn't figure it out until I started spending time on OSR forums.

After that, the switch to running a more Classic game in 4e was easy for me, because the core mechanics really aren't that different. I thought it would take a while to re-train the players to stop pushing buttons, but really all it took was explaining my incentive system. I hid pretty much all the treasure, and told them if they could find it narratively, they didn't risk missing it with a Perception check (although they still had that to fall back on). Within a session they were investigating anything that looked out of the ordinary, tearing apart furnishings, and gutting every monster they killed that looked like it might swallow an adventurer.

Then I started messing with traps. I make the DCs just out of passive perception range, and often make them more lethal; basically, I am using higher level traps. But then I think of how those traps can be detected automatically. So for example, you put a pit in a hallway, and make it too hard to detect using passive perception, but you make it detected automatically if someone is probing ahead with a pole (which has other impacts on play I won't get into here).

Really, you want them to find the trap. And then you make the trap interesting, so they have to investigate it. You found a pit, now what? You give them different lids (breakaway, hinged, pivoting, locking), put different things in them (spikes, water, sewage, garbage, secret doors, secret compartments, hidden treasure, hidden dangers like a second trap, rot grubs or a buried ankheg), add tempting ways to get across (ledges on the sides, a wobbly plank over the pit, a hinged lid that you might be able to jam in place, a pivoting lid that looks like you can walk across if you stay on the pivot point). Then once they are used to that, on lower levels of the dungeon, give the traps anti-circumvention mechanisms (side walls that crumble if you climb them, an invisible wall spanning the air over the pit if you try to jump over it, a pivoting lid that is greased, etc). Every pit becomes a puzzle that can't readily be solved by a perception check, because (a) you need to at least be looking in the right place, and (b) half the time finding the danger doesn't mean you have solved the problem.

Courtney Campbell has a brilliant resource for telegraphing tricks and traps narratively (http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/p/artifices-deceptions-index.html), I can't recommend it enough. If you find you like that sort of thing and want more ideas, the paperback linked on that page is also very good.

[oxybe]

I'm sure we can all agree that Jenga isn't a roleplaying game, yet someone adapted it to TTRPGs with Dread.

Just because chess isn't an RPG doesn't mean it can't be made into one.

[Cluedrew]

To False God: There seemed to be a drive to encode more and across the editions leading up to D&D 4e. This actually includes 4e itself, but it is the one that people feel went too far with it. I can't prove all of this, but the tactical/skill-testing side of the game seems to have created a culture of hard rules that later spread to the rest of the game. And maybe some bad GM fears, but if you need to rules lawyer out of bad GMing, things have already gone terribly wrong.

Still as someone who prefers games that are much more open than D&D, I find that opening up the rules does lead to more freedom. Also faster play, which is nice.

To oxybe: Um- back to semantics. Although this might be a false alarm. Still I would like to point out that Jenga and Dread are not actually the same game, even though they reuse the tower and that loop of taking out blocks and putting them on top is the same. So if someone did adapt Chess into a role-playing game the resulting game wouldn't be Chess anymore. Because the rules would be different as well as the focus of the game and some of the skills required and so on.

[gbaji]

Yup, this was part of his point. He was saying if you can't do this, it is not an RPG. I don't think he is saying you have to play this way, I think he is saying you have to be able to play this way.

Sure. But he has failed to follow up this logic by showing that 4e fails to allow this form of play. The closest he got was saying that the focus on "button push" action/resolution makes it more difficult to perform "out of the box" actions. Which, leads me right back to the "It's possible (which means it meets his criteria) unless the GM is a really poor GM".


I agree that would be poor DMing.

Exactly. Which then leads us to the core question:

Is this criteria actually what makes something an RPG? At the risk of following up with yet another chess example, the fact that chess does not allow you to move your Queen onto your Knight's position and declare that your Queen is hoping on the back of the Knight's horse, and then move the Knight *and* the Queen in future moves to threaten more spaces as one "merged piece" (ie: out of the box play), is absolutely 100% not what makes chess *not* a RPG. What makes chess not a RPG has nothing to do with what kinds of moves you can make with the pieces, nor whether the player can choose to move the pieces in different ways (even somewhat interesting ones), but that the game is entirely focused only on the movement of the pieces on the board and nothing else.

Chess is not a RPG because it includes only purely tactical moves on a defined board. Period. As I think I pointed out in a previous thread, you can certainly choose to RP the "characters" on a chess board (just as you could with the pieces in monopoly), but no amount of such roleplay ever has any effect on the outcome of the game itself. The game of chess ends when the opposing king is captured (or threatened and cannot avoid capture). Period. Any roleplaying you choose to do is external to the actual game itself.

If you can answer the questions:

How did we get here? and...
Why are we here doing this? and...

both of those questions will be answered purely "in character" then you are probably playing a RPG.

If the answer is from the pov of the player, then it's probably not. A chess game is about the player choosing to play and (presumably) wanting to win against their opponent (also another player). Same with monopoly, life, jenga, and a host of other board and card games that we don't consider to be RPGs. In a RPG, your answer will be "because <insert character name here> wants to do <whatever> and has joined up with <insert other party members names here> in order to do this and <add more PC fun/drama/whatever that has appeared in the scenario at hand>".

And yeah. I see nothing about 4e that changes that evaluation of the game. Quertus is focusing on game rules for action/resolution stuff, but I don't see that that has anything to do with whether it's a RPG. It may be (and presumably *is* for Quertus) a poor game from said mechanical resolution perspective. And that's a perfectly valid criticism. But to say it's not a RPG, or is somehow less of a RPG than other games (even other editions of D&D?). Not seeing that at all.

Not without using a radically different definition for RPG than I would use (or various similar ones others have presented). So far, Quertus hasn't actually provided us with a firm clearly worded definition for what makes a game an RPG though, so it's difficult to tell. Maybe he has a different definition (almost certainly the case in fact). And hey, I'm open to the possibility that maybe his definition has merit and should be considered. But it's hard to do that without said definition in written form in front of me.



In my group it is common to play this way to resolve individual character actions between sessions, particularly actions that occur during the party's down time. We do this when hiking or biking or any other activity that is not conducive to tabletop play. We don't even use dice most of the time, we resolve situations narratively, or maybe the DM flips a coin or two.

I consider it a game because the player's character is still competing against the other actors in the world, or solving puzzles, or doing any of a number of other things that are challenges for that character; the character, and therefore the player, is striving.

Yeah. We do the same thing (usually via text or email). I think the key here, is that the character is "striving" to accomplish things that are (presumably) important to the character as said character is defined by the player. I absolutely agree that it's usually this stuff that is proposed/suggested/whatever "off of the table" that can drive a lot of the roleplaying in a RPG. I've generated whole scenarios purely because one of my players came to me and said "So, while we're in town, <insert character name> would like to go do...".

The point is that the player tells you what The Character wants to do. The character isn't just a board piece that is being played based on the rules of the game. It's viewed by the player as a separate living breathing person that has its own history, personality, wants, needs, desires, etc. And it is these things that drive the decisions. Roleplaying a character is the act of the player pretending to be this character, and asking "what would <character> do?". If all you are doing is asking "what would *I* do given stats X, abilities Y, and situation Z", then you are not actually roleplaying. Doesn't mean you aren't playing a roleplaying game, of course, just that you aren't actually roleplaying a character inside that game.

[Beoric]

"So, while we're in town, <insert character name> would like to go do...".

Music to a DM's ears!

[kyoryu]

I've talked about my three interaction types before. I'll do it again. Usual caveats - most games include more than one, there may be others I'm unaware of, I'm not saying one is better than the other, yada yada yada. Anyway:

Type 1:

GM: "This is the situation"
Player: "I do this."
GM: "This is the new situation"

Type 2:

Player1: "I make my move according to the rules"
Player2: "I make my move according to the rules"
Player3: "I make my move according to the rules"

Type 3:

Player1: "This happens"
Player2: "Then this happens"
Player3: "And then this happens"

Okay. So, most traditional RPGs combine types 1 and 2 in varying degrees. (Story games lean heavily on type 3, narrative games are usually a mix of Type 1 and 3 in varying degrees).

I'd argue that what Quertus is really getting at here is that a game without Type 1 interactions isn't an RPG. Chess is all Type 2 interactions, and is clearly not an RPG. Freeform games are purely Type 1, and yet still often is categorized as "roleplaying". Rules light games are usually heavily Type 1.

So the argument then is that everything is so codified by the rules that Type 2 becomes the only effective way to play 4e. This is pretty factually untrue (4e even has guidelines for improvised actions) in combat, and even more so out of combat. However, for whatever reason, this appears to be Q's perception of the system, and perception is reality.

[Cluedrew]

Well, I wasn't expecting Quertus to need this much time to think it over, but I'm not going at add a limit now. Still, just in case it is months and a new thread away I thought I would put some of my closing thoughts together.

There is probably an interesting to discussion here*, but I don't think it is about the definition of role-playing games. I think that framing is actually harmful to the discussion because of... {waves vaguely up thread}. Which is why I'm honing in things like word choice, I've tried other things before but at this point unpacking why those words "role-playing game" were chosen I hope to find other words that will be more useful going forward.

* I can't say for sure until it has been done. But it probably have something to do with GMing/improvisation styles and maybe even some feature of 4e within the role-playing game space.

[Quertus]

Well, I wasn't expecting Quertus to need this much time to think it over, but I'm not going at add a limit now. Still, just in case it is months and a new thread away I thought I would put some of my closing thoughts together.

There is probably an interesting to discussion here*, but I don't think it is about the definition of role-playing games. I think that framing is actually harmful to the discussion because of... {waves vaguely up thread}. Which is why I'm honing in things like word choice, I've tried other things before but at this point unpacking why those words "role-playing game" were chosen I hope to find other words that will be more useful going forward.

* I can't say for sure until it has been done. But it probably have something to do with GMing/improvisation styles and maybe even some feature of 4e within the role-playing game space.

Sorry about that. I thought I had enough notes to make it make sense, and I tried to reply... while I had a fever. :smallfrown:

Turns out, not only is this a very bad idea in general, but, when your brain "works" like mine, and, once you've built a path, it's danged hard to build a different one, it represents a catastrophic failure.

So I had to wait a bit, until I wasn't just typing the same febrile gibberish I did the first pass through.

And then I got sick and febrile again. :smallfrown:

But I'm better now, and am taking this opportunity to try to put this into words. So, how's this:

First off, I'm barking up the wrong tree - just not quite the wrong tree most people probably think I'm barking up.

Someone... barking up the right tree... would be trying to produce a parallel to "8 kinds of fun", but for "roleplaying" rather than fun / engagement.

I've presented 3 "definitions" (really, "types of" or "components of") so far. 2 of the 3 (including this one) are logical consequences of the not-contentious "Roleplaying is making decisions for the character, as the character"; the third (not this one) requires (or is much easier given) my specific definition of acting from foundational events. But, again, that's not this one, so we needn't worry too much with that.

Anyway, much like if I were trying to author "8 kinds of fun", it makes absolutely no sense for, when I'm trying to discuss "Discovery" or "Abnegation", for someone to say, "but it contains dice, and dice are fun per Sensory Pleasure, so you don't get to define 'Discovery' as any other thing than the way 'fun' is used in practice at actual tables, as 'uses dice'.". That would pretty obviously be a pretty pointless stance, that completely undermines the value of "8 kinds of fun", no?

By the same token, any discussion about "how the phrase 'Roleplaying Game' is used" completely misses the mark on having anything but negative value in the context of this discussion, where I am explicitly only touching on 1 "kind of fun"; or, rather, one specific metric related to the notion of roleplaying.

As a "metric", it has a "type", like "cubic feet" or "kilowatt hours" that a proper measurement would appear in. If someone says, "I read this book in 12 cubic feet" or "my room is exactly 15 kilowatt hours to a side", or "the acceleration due to gravity on Athas must be somewhere between 7 seconds and 12 AU", it's pretty unambiguously clear that they've made an error somewhere in their usage of the metric.

Now, unlike my previous two failures, this metric a) has had multiple people give responses of the correct "type"; b) has demonstrable value.

Now, before I discuss the "demonstrable value", I should explain something. All 3 of the metrics are intended as a "spectrum of suitability". Kinda like... "Nutrition Facts" labels. If *you* need a lot of "Vitamin C" in your diet, and the RPG has a low "Vitamin C" rating, that tells you something. Replace "Vitamin C" with "Sensory" from "8 kinds of fun", or with the corresponding source from one of my metrics.

And you can note right there part of how I was barking up the wrong tree, because, whereas "8 kinds of fun" focused on the label, the "Vitamin C" and "Sensory", I was focusing on the "5% RDA" metric. Which... isn't as accessible. And people therefore focused more on "Fun" or "Roleplaying" instead of what the metric actually was, instead of seeing the metric for itself. Which was largely my fault, in my presentation, as can be seen even in this thread's title. Sigh. Yeah, I'm really bad at communication.

Anyway, the value that this particular metric has is that, at the far extreme of "0% RDA", you find things very unsuited to being played as an RPG for highly related reasons. These things are "Choose your own adventure" books and CRPGs. So the fact that this metric answers why they aren't RPGs is why I place intrinsic value on this 3rd metric.

As to the multiple responses... while it hasn't been unanimous, certainly the majority of the replies of the proper "type" have indicated that 4e D&D has a higher value for this particular metric than many other RPGs. And, hilariously, I am personally unable to check their work - this is the first metric where I, personally, am decidedly not suited to using it. Go figure that's the metric that has gained traction.

So, what is the metric? As usual, there's a "base form" and a "full, complex version". The base form is, once you have "done the roleplaying", once you have "made a decision for the character, as the character", how difficult is it to implement that choice in the system a) if the choice is not covered by the rules; b) compared to how difficult it is to implement the rules?

It is really easy to see how, in a "choose your own adventure" book, if you have made a choice that is not listed, it is impossible to do that. That is why a "choose your own adventure book" lives at the extreme far end of this metric. The fact that this metric actually points that out is why I consider this particular metric to have intrinsic value.

So, in its base form the metric simply measures, if it requires N work to handle things that the rules cover, how much work does it require to handle things that aren't covered? Take that work, call the value X, divide it by N. X/N = Y. Y is the value that appears in the "RDA" label for the game. (OK, granted, that's backwards from how a RDA label would work. Here, we'd get an infinite value for CRPGs, saying that they require infinite effort to adjudicate a non-instantiated choice. So, if you really like the "RDA" metaphor, feel free to flip the numbers.)

Well... that's the simple version. But, you know, any hack GM can just give random incoherent answers, and possibly do so faster than they can use the actual rules. That's not particularly valuable information. So the more complex version of the metric has quality and consistency (and thematic) requirements.

And the... if not "general consensus", then "more common conclusion" of those who have given replies of the appropriate "type" is that this metric does not show that 4e is unsuited to being played as an RPG.

Which does not invalidate the other metrics, of course - just because there's not a fatal amount of lead in the product doesn't mean that there might not be a fatal amount of arsenic.

Yes, yes, mixing my metaphors - since I was originally trying to answer what I meant when I said, "4e is not an RPG", some might find it easier to think in terms of "level of a toxin" rather than the more "8 kinds of fun" parallel of "level of a nutrient". Shrug.

So... did any of that clarify anything about what I've been trying to say, or did I just waste my time?

As far as different words... it is vitally important that, much like with "8 kinds of fun", how the concept of "fun" is central to the very nature of what's being talked about (although it could be replaced with something like "engagement" perhaps), here, "Roleplaying" is central and inherent to what's being discussed. The issue, from a wording PoV, is that, much like with "8 kinds of fun", I'm breaking things down into categories; unlike with "8 kinds of fun", I'm not labeling the individual components with flashy things like "Sensory" or "Discovery". And that people will unironically insist that their kind of fun is the only kind of fun worth talking about, that "rolling dice" is the common usage of "fun", and so anything else is invalid to discuss.

And just like how it's fair to say that a game without Discovery isn't fun... for audiences that have Discovery as a prerequisite for their fun... it's fair to say that a game isn't suited to being played as an RPG if its metric for prerequisite X falls below threshold Y... for those who care about X to extent Y.

This metric simply measures how much the RPG fights you when you attempt to play the character rather than the game. If that matters to you, this metric lets you know how games rate on that scale, with CRPGs and "Choose Your Own Adventure" books being on the extreme end of "not suited to being played as RPGs" by those who value "playing the character" in their Roleplaying.

I can still see the slight twists of my fever in what I just wrote, but the structure is way better than what I barely remember writing at the end of last month / beginning of this month. Does it make any sense?

[Beoric]

<something><something><fevered ramblings> three metrics <something>

So... what are your three metrics, exactly?

[Quertus]

So... what are your three metrics, exactly?

Ah, I don’t want to clog this thread with rehashing old topics. I *might* create a new thread about them once this one Well and truly dies.

But, real quick, I was measuring (I don’t remember (Darn senility), let me check) 1) (can’t find it, but iirc) the amount of effort necessary to build a fiction that matches the mechanics (bounded accuracy “schools” where the students teach the teacher / kingdoms that replace learned advisors with a large group of idiots, etc); 2) the relative *effectiveness* of the in-character (seemingly best?) action vs the effectiveness of the mechanically best action (see also “4e skill challenges”, bounded accuracy); 3) comparative effort of evaluating “outside the box” actions (this thread / metric).

There’s plenty more metrics one could consider if one’s objective were to build an “8 kinds of fun” counterpart; my objective has exclusively been to answer the question from long ago, “Quertus, what do you mean, ‘4e isn’t an RPG’?”.

I may have failed at my objective, but at least, in this thread / with this metric, I’ve accidentally answered why “choose your own adventure books” and CRPGs are not RPGs.

I guess, given all that, at the *really high level*, I could answer, “I said ‘4e isn’t an RPG’ because, like Chess, it feels like it wants you to play the *game* rather than the *character*, and punishes you for immersion where it doesn’t outright prohibit it.”. And maybe, at this point, people might nod and smile, and understand the *feel* of what I meant, even if the specifics of exactly why I felt that way about 4e were still a bit nebulous.

Creating metrics to measure RPGs with the purpose of evaluating their suitability to certain forms of play… only has so much appeal to me; unlike my account’s namesake, I generally hate such academia. So if you’re super stoked about the idea, don’t wait for me - feel free to make your own thread.

Otherwise, senility willing, I’ll probably make such a thread a month or two after people stop posting to this one. Really, after 2 threads (well, more, but 2 metrics) where I never noticed anyone give a response using the correct “units”, I’d pretty much given up hope, and was just stubbornly beating a dead horse with what was now a running gag of me saying “4e isn’t an RPG”, followed by yet another convoluted explanation why that’s supposedly so. The response this thread / metric has gotten has been pleasantly shocking. So in a bit I’ll likely make a more general “metrics” thread, but my contribution thereunto will likely be limited to introducing ones I believe or believed would explain why I thought 4e wasn’t (suited to be played as) an RPG… and perhaps introducing the concept of making metrics for “8 kinds of fun”.

[Batcathat]

I guess, given all that, at the *really high level*, I could answer, “I said ‘4e isn’t an RPG’ because, like Chess, it feels like it wants you to play the *game* rather than the *character*, and punishes you for immersion where it doesn’t outright prohibit it.”. And maybe, at this point, people might nod and smile, and understand the *feel* of what I meant, even if the specifics of exactly why I felt that way about 4e were still a bit nebulous.

I don't know if I speak for anyone but myself (though I suspect I do), but I think you should focus on explaining why your criteria deems 4e not an RPG, without also excluding every other edition of D&D as well as numerous other (commonly-accepted-as-)RPGs. Pretty much anything but pure freeform should have the effect you're talking about to some degree and I still don't see why 4e would have it to such a degree as to disqualify it as an RPG while other examples don't.

[Cluedrew]

I tried to for a grand response for this but I could not because... I'll get to that in a moment, but I picked out a few highlights.


Turns out, not only is this a very bad idea in general, but, when your brain "works" like mine, and, once you've built a path, it's danged hard to build a different one, it represents a catastrophic failure.Good news, most people are somewhere between bad and absolutely terrible at that. Learning can be hard, but not nearly as hard as unlearning.


By the same token, any discussion about "how the phrase 'Roleplaying Game' is used" completely misses the mark on having anything but negative value in the context of this discussion, where I am explicitly only touching on 1 "kind of fun"; or, rather, one specific metric related to the notion of roleplaying.Which is why I have said that you need to stop framing this discussion in that light. That is what my quoted post is all about, I'm not the one who brought that into this conversation, I just pointed out you did. It is part of the conversation before we even hit post 0, it is in the title of the thread: Quertus fails at defining roleplaying games again. (Yes, I am going to hold that a word's definition and usage are intrinsically connected.)


But, real quick, I was measuring (I don't remember (Darn senility), let me check) 1) (can't find it, but iirc) the amount of effort necessary to build a fiction that matches the mechanics (bounded accuracy "schools" where the students teach the teacher / kingdoms that replace learned advisors with a large group of idiots, etc); 2) the relative *effectiveness* of the in-character (seemingly best?) action vs the effectiveness of the mechanically best action (see also "4e skill challenges", bounded accuracy); 3) comparative effort of evaluating "outside the box" actions (this thread / metric).No little arrow on this quote because I was originally going to just reply to the entirety of both posts, but I decided to pick this paragraph because I wanted to highlight that this is good. This is clear, I can get the broad strokes of all three metrics from this. It is not long in words, I didn't have to untangle it first. Wonderful.

Now, the bad news. I remember discussing some of these with you before and there are some issues with subjectivity and being hard to measure and where is the line. (Also 1 and 2 might just be two different examples of fiction/mechanics parity so you might be able to combine them.) But more importantly, no, I don't think that any of these actually define what a role-playing game is.

They are more, quality of implementation metrics. It is great if you do well in all three, but even if D&D 4e does all 3 worse than you would like, that doesn't make it not a role-playing game. The structure and intent of the game still has changed so little. Yes, it didn't make changes on a genre scale, between Powered by the Apocalypse and D&D, the changes within the editions of D&D don't really matter.

I think the Choose your Own Adventure example is good, because it shows a significant change. You are no longer engaging directly with the fiction layer. A Choose your Own Adventure book would still work if it was just a list of pages you can turn to. You are just guessing about which one to turn to but in a lot of these books you are kind of just guessing anyways. On the other hand, if a GM reduces the entire opening segment to "What do you do?" you cannot proceed because you have to engage with the fiction layer to do anything. And that is a genre difference.

[RedWarlock]

That feels so alien to me, because you're basing your evaluation on what I would consider the acceptable-failure state of the game. To be a proper game, it should use mechanics to cover as much of your characters actions and capabilities as possible, with the more left uncertain, the less the game is effective as a game. When most of your character's actions are successfully covered by mechanics, that minor bit is acceptable loss, but nothing to write one's doctoral thesis over. If the mechanical choices and your character's choices are in agreement 99% of the time, then that's still the CHARACTER being played, AS WELL as the game, not either/or.

[Vahnavoi]

The idea that a reader doesn't engage with the fiction layer in case of a Choose Your Own Adventure book is wrong. Saying they're about flipping pages by gueswork is exactly the same, and just as accurate, as saying tabletop games are about guessing which noises to make at another person so that they make the right noises back at you.

The truth of the matter is that Quertus is wrong about both CYOA books and computer roleplaying games and the comparisons to them are entirely pointless. Both formats can be used to make a genuine roleplaying game, meaning, those games succeed or fail at the implementation in exactly the same ways and for the same reasons a tabletop game would. 95% of the supposed difference is completeness versus incompleteness - CYOA books and computer games have to be relatively more complete because the game's designer won't be immediately present to answer unanswered questions. Technology limits both formats - a book has to be printable, legible and portable, a computer program has to fit in available memory and be able to be processed in reasonable time. All that matters far less than people pretend. Humans have their limits just as well, it is quite easy in an incomplete tabletop game to give a human referee inputs they just can't handle, with them either needing a timeout to figure out a solution or just giving up. A lot of tabletop games run by humans cover the same ground as mid 90s video games, railroading and illusionism are perpetual talking points in the hobby because humans struggle to give each other much more freedom than a CYOA book, so on and so forth.

The difference between the formats is quantitative. It isn't qualitative. In principle, arbitrarily complex scenarios can be turned into series of if-then-statements and capable of being presented in the format of CYOA book or a computer program. There's a reason why old tabletop games like MERP and Basic D&D used the CYOA format as a tutorial for how roleplaying games work: because the choices present are of the same kind a player would make in a tabletop game, and because designing and presenting those choices is the same kind of work a game master would do to desing and present a tabletop scenario.

[GloatingSwine]

So, what is the metric? As usual, there's a "base form" and a "full, complex version". The base form is, once you have "done the roleplaying", once you have "made a decision for the character, as the character", how difficult is it to implement that choice in the system a) if the choice is not covered by the rules; b) compared to how difficult it is to implement the rules?


I've picked this out because it seems to be where a coherent identifiable "what is an RPG" type statement gets made. However it sounds more like this measures "how familiar with the rules does your GM need to be to run this game smoothly?" not "is this an RPG?"

The difficulty of implementing an unlisted option is basically thinking "what is a reasonable level of impact for that action to have, and if I need to turn that into numbers how big do the numbers need to be?", so no matter what the system is if you're familiar enough with running it and have seen a broad range of the sort of impacts and numbers that attach to different listed actions you can quickly find the right level of both for an unlisted one.


I don't know if I speak for anyone but myself (though I suspect I do), but I think you should focus on explaining why your criteria deems 4e not an RPG, without also excluding every other edition of D&D as well as numerous other (commonly-accepted-as-)RPGs. Pretty much anything but pure freeform should have the effect you're talking about to some degree and I still don't see why 4e would have it to such a degree as to disqualify it as an RPG while other examples don't.

The only thing I can think of is that the buttons-for-all design of 4e tends to guide players to picking one of their listed options and away from inventing an unlisted one. It's possible that by having a certain number of listed options to pick from they consume the mental possibility space* of "what can I do right now" and make people less likely to think beyond them because they're busy weighing up what the buttons they do have will do**.

It doesn't make it "not an RPG" but it might make people less likely to use the full power of having a human GM.

* The whole "seven plus or minus two" thing for how many things a person can be concentrating on at once.

** It would be interesting to do some big sociological examination of RPG games and see if players playing casters are more likely to use a spell slot to achieve something they could do without it because they're in the mental space of "what can I do with my spells" when they make their decisions.

[Batcathat]

The only thing I can think of is that the buttons-for-all design of 4e tends to guide players to picking one of their listed options and away from inventing an unlisted one. It's possible that by having a certain number of listed options to pick from they consume the mental possibility space* of "what can I do right now" and make people less likely to think beyond them because they're busy weighing up what the buttons they do have will do**.

It doesn't make it "not an RPG" but it might make people less likely to use the full power of having a human GM.

Yeah, I suppose that might be it, though people having that mindset seems common enough in other games, so having that as a cut-off point for 4e being an RPG seems arbitrary. If poorly presented rules disqualified something as an RPG, I suspect few would pass. :smalltongue:

[Satinavian]

The only thing I can think of is that the buttons-for-all design of 4e tends to guide players to picking one of their listed options and away from inventing an unlisted one. It's possible that by having a certain number of listed options to pick from they consume the mental possibility space* of "what can I do right now" and make people less likely to think beyond them because they're busy weighing up what the buttons they do have will do**.I think it is more because listed options are reliable. Unlisted options are up to the GMs whim and hopefully having a similar understanding of their possibility. Unlisted options also tend to come up with unknown possible consequences of failure, listed options do not.

Another thing is that listed options usually are stuff that the PC in question excels in/is known for/has specialized to do. So they tend to be both more effective than some improvised attempt at something the character has never done before and something the player wants his characters to be in the spotlight while doing. Both additional motivations to go for the buttons.

[GloatingSwine]

I think it is more because listed options are reliable. Unlisted options are up to the GMs whim and hopefully having a similar understanding of their possibility. Unlisted options also tend to come up with unknown possible consequences of failure, listed options do not.

Another thing is that listed options usually are stuff that the PC in question excels in/is known for/has specialized to do. So they tend to be both more effective than some improvised attempt at something the character has never done before and something the player wants his characters to be in the spotlight while doing. Both additional motivations to go for the buttons.

That's another "how good is your GM" thing though, not a 4e design thing. If your GM makes unlisted options unreliable or ineffective that's going to push you to listed options in any edition (or game).

[Satinavian]

That's another "how good is your GM" thing though, not a 4e design thing. If your GM makes unlisted options unreliable or ineffective that's going to push you to listed options in any edition (or game).
And honestly, i don't even think this is bad.

If you have the perfect tool for a job, you use that tool. "Thinking outside the box" or "improvise" is for cases where you don't.

[GloatingSwine]

And honestly, i don't even think this is bad.

If you have the perfect tool for a job, you use that tool. "Thinking outside the box" or "improvise" is for cases where you don't.

Yeah, my thinking though is that if you have a lot of tools and none of them is quite right your brainspace will be taken up with the tools you do have and so you won't think of improvise as an option, even if you could improvise something that strongly matched the situation you were in.

[Cluedrew]

And I think the preference for defined tools generally, is what lead to a design pattern you see in many skill based systems where your main tools are made more flexible (and less well defined) so they cover all, or almost all, of that outside the box cases as well. Or that player psychology might be a factor, there are other reasons. Such as it makes resolving those outside the box cases much easier to handle by providing a framework that you are using for just about everything already.

The odd thing is by metric three, that would make Fudge and Apocalypse World more of a role-playing game than any edition of D&D. Which I guess if you strictly pie-chart them and count the tactical mini-game against D&D's total I guess work out. 'Course, I know some people who would argue that the elements of storytelling games that Apocalypse World and similar bring in make them less of a role-playing game than D&D and who is going to put a universal qualifier on that? And only as I'm talking through this myself do I realize that the thing that makes the third metric work in this case is not actually the stratification of tools at all, but the fact that D&D spends some of its focus on a mini-game.

(Yes, I know you can still role-play during combat, but I have never been able to role-play with the same focus during it.)

[Thrudd]

The problem with these metrics is that there is no way to actually measure them. How could we measure "how difficult it is to adjudicate actions...etc"? This is completely GM dependent, and relative to which game systems one has experienced. It sounds like what makes a game an RPG, is having a good GM who is able to seamlessly convert the input from whatever mechanical system they are using into narration that is coherent to you, relative to the expected fiction of the setting/genre. Having a good GM who is able to expertly use their chosen system certainly does make the RPG experience much better and more immersive. For you, it also sounds like you need the GM to be aware of when the mechanics create results that are "incoherent" (according to you), and to apply rule 0 (which exists in some form in almost all GM-led systems) to make sure that the fiction remains coherent. A poor or unsuitable game system is one in which the mechanics create a lot of "incoherent" results and requires constant attention or homebrewing to keep it "realistic". That is fair...if a game system produces mostly results that need to be ignored in order to apply them coherently to the fiction, it is the wrong game for the setting/genre you are playing in.

You also seem to lean heavily on the assumption that game mechanics ought to be looked at as the physics of the fictional world, and criticizing games with rules that would create "incoherent" physical results. I think this is a mistake...most games produce more coherent fiction if the GM views the outcome of mechanics as a fair way to help them decide what should happen in the fiction, not as the fiction itself. There's an extra step involved where the GM, and sometimes the players, need to interpret the mechanical results into coherent fiction. Regardless of whether the game rules have a predesigned "button" for an action or the GM is using an ad-hoc method of adjudication, what makes the game is how well and quickly the GM can interpret the numbers into narration that makes sense. That only comes with practice and familiarity with the fiction.

Any given person's experience of a game will be affected by four main factors:
1. The GM's familiarity with the setting/genre
2. The GM's skill and familiarity with the game system in question
3. The player's expectations of the setting/genre
4. The player's familiarity of the game system

Players can get away with not being too familiar with the system, so long as the GM is familiar enough. The GM can get away with fudging the system quite a bit, too, so long as their idea of the fictional reality is clear enough. But without both parties being on the same page with the fiction, the game falls apart.

Almost any system can work well if the GM knows how to work it and is immersed in the fiction. Anything can be ruined by a GM that has no clear idea of the fiction or genre they are trying to present. Anything can also be ruined by players who can't follow what the GM is saying or who clash with the GM regarding the presentation of the fiction. IE- if the GM intends to run the game as an action/adventure movie genre where "normal" people survive situations in unrealistic ways, and weapons/ammo do not behave quite as they do in the real world, vs. a player who insists that everything must be realistic and gets upset when someone gets thrown across the room by an explosion only to get up with no ill effect besides singed clothing (or treats it as an extraordinary situation rather than the expected).

I think the answer to the question: "why did this game not work for me?" will not be found by examining the features of its mechanical design, but in examining the relationship between oneself, the particular GM, and the expectations held by both regarding the fiction and the RPG experience in general. Measuring how easy or difficult any given game system is to use can only be determined individually and relative to one's biases and expectations for fiction and genre- making it a metric only useful to the individual.

So, while one person might say "this game is no good, it gives results that don't jive with the sort of setting I have imagined, and I need to ignore or homebrew everything", another person says "this game is great! it does all the things I want it to do and it's easy for me to use!". When those two people try to play a game together, do you think they're both going to be enjoying what's happening?

The metric is basically a way for you to catalogue your own preferences, perhaps helping you to express those preferences and expectations more clearly to any GM or group you are going to GM for. But it won't tell us or anyone else anything that can universally apply to all RPGs. Everyone should be encouraged to engage in deep self reflection and consider how to express their preferences and expectations to others, before differences in opinion turn into wasted time or even bad feelings from games gone awry.

[BRC]

Ah, I don’t want to clog this thread with rehashing old topics. I *might* create a new thread about them once this one Well and truly dies.

But, real quick, I was measuring (I don’t remember (Darn senility), let me check) 1) (can’t find it, but iirc) the amount of effort necessary to build a fiction that matches the mechanics (bounded accuracy “schools” where the students teach the teacher / kingdoms that replace learned advisors with a large group of idiots, etc); 2) the relative *effectiveness* of the in-character (seemingly best?) action vs the effectiveness of the mechanically best action (see also “4e skill challenges”, bounded accuracy); 3) comparative effort of evaluating “outside the box” actions (this thread / metric).



I feel like a wrinkle in this, or really any attempt to judge an RPG based on the relationship between mechanics and fiction, is that different games have different assumptions about what sort of things a PC is going to do.

For example, an RPG focused on courtly intrigues and politicking might have a half-dozen specific skills for different social interactions. There may be one skill for persuading somebody of something in a formal context with rules of etiquette and politeness, and another for convincing your good friend to spot you for drinks because you left your wallet at home.

Meanwhile, all physical feats, from sprinting to swordfighting, might be grouped under a single "Physical" skill, because the game doesn't expect that to come up very much. This is a game about social intrigue, not swordfights.

Now, MECHANICALLY that may mean that in this game the best weightlifter is also the best swordfighter (And the best sprinter), but I don't think it is "Incoherent" for the setting to not match that logic. If your game takes a form where the fact that sprinting, weightlifting, and swordfighting all use the same stat renders things "Incoherent", that's a mismatch between the game and the system, not an inherent flaw in the system.

For your second metric, let's look at D&D 5e, a game where, if your goal is to learn about history, the best thing to do is get good at stabbing people.

In 5e, knowing about history is represented by the knowledge: History skill. Skill bonuses are mostly tied to character level. If a character wishes to maximize their Knowledge of History, the best thing they can do mechanically is take a level of Rogue to apply skill expertise to Knowledge:History. Then, since skill bonus is based on character level which, in turn, is based on combat ability and goes up as you go on more adventures, the only mechanically available path to becoming a better historian is to go on Adventures.


This is because 5e D&D is a game that assumes it's characters are primarily here to go on Adventures. The mechanics don't model studying history very well because that's not something the game assumes you care about.

And this also ties into your 3rd metric about "out of the box actions". Because the bounds of the box are going to be determined by the assumptions of the game. In D&D 5e, going to university to study history is an "out of the box action" that the game does not model well.

So you kind of have to say "Well, ASSUMING the game is primarily about whatever it says it's supposed to be about (Courtly Intrigue, Going On Adventures), how well does it do these things". But then you're adding another layer into your "Metrics".


Edit: I suppose there is something to be said for criticizing a system because it's mechanics encourage counter-intuitive behavior, or because it's mechanics do a poor job of reflecting the sort of game it advertises itself as. But I don't think you can get those down to anything describable as a "metric"

For an example of the first, 7th Sea second edition wanted to minimize dice rolls, so rather than rolling for each action, you assemble pools of successes which you then spend to do stuff, and "Changing your Approach" costs one extra success.

So, in combat, the idea is that you might roll your Swordfighting skill, get 5 successes, and then partway through the round decide you want to take a shot with your pistol, so you spend 1 success to change your approach, and another as a success on a shooting check.


My friend and I had a lot of fun imagining Henry Byrd, Action Ornithologist, who put all his points into Knowing Things About Birds, and started every fight by remembering all the bird facts he could think of, and then spending those successes, plus the one-success penalty, to destroy his enemies with a sword, despite having no points in swordfighting.

For an example of the second, I don't have firsthand knowledge, but IIRC there was acommon criticism of Vampire: The Masquerade that for a game supposedly about grappling with the psychological horror of losing your humanity and being forced to be a monster to survive, most of the rules were concerned with giving you Cool Vampire Superpowers to play with.

[Vahnavoi]

The problem with these metrics is that there is no way to actually measure them. How could we measure "how difficult it is to adjudicate actions...etc"?

Yes there are ways to measure them. They all start with extended playtest of multiple game masters who've been given the same instructions, running the same material in a similar environment. No different from how usability tests (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing)and reviews are conducted in multiple other contexts - from professional video game design to serious pedagogic materials. On the amateur side, scenario design competitions and such regularly work this way.

Yes, it takes work - typically, more work than a single individual can reasonably do. Which is why unvetted anonymous opinions on the net are often useless. RPG product reviews also frequently have "reviewing the wrong thing" problem. Namely, the review is based on just reading through game materials, with no actual playing through carried out.

[TexAvery]

And honestly, i don't even think this is bad.

If you have the perfect tool for a job, you use that tool. "Thinking outside the box" or "improvise" is for cases where you don't.

And this leads to another question: in a perfect RPG, would improvised rules be necessary? I'd argue no - a perfect system would allow the players (and DM) to attempt any action and have that action (and its results) encoded as part of the rules, which would be a complete, coherent physics engine for the game world. Now, that doesn't and won't exist, but it doesn't mean that a system with rules for everything from stabbing to rug-pulling ceases to be an RPG once the last rule is written.

Where games like chess and pure TT wargames (BT, Warhammer, etc) become not-RPG (to me) is that instead of having rules cover the expected actions and others left to the GM, they restrict the players' actions to a defined list per situation. The pawn can't do a rug-pull on the knight next to him. The Eldar can't poison the Imperium's water supply, or hack their tank. A mage, on the other hand, can use illusion to convince the enemy that a bigger threat has arrived, or their general has ordered a retreat.

4E clearly passes this test as, with a GM, players can attempt whatever action and may succeed. The GM may be good or bad, the system may induce new players to stick to the actions on their character sheets, and a person certainly may not like 4E. It's definitely an RPG though.

Q, what is your goal with this thread? Are you hoping that, if you can just find the right words, everyone else will say "ah, I see now, you're right, 4E is not an RPG"? If so, you're not going to get there, I think. Like ever, because of all the reasons we've listed. If you're just talking it out to see why it bothers you, that's a different thing, but I fear you'll never get the satisfaction you're looking for. Tilting at windmills ends poorly.

[Stonehead]

The difficulty of implementing an unlisted option is basically thinking "what is a reasonable level of impact for that action to have, and if I need to turn that into numbers how big do the numbers need to be?", so no matter what the system is if you're familiar enough with running it and have seen a broad range of the sort of impacts and numbers that attach to different listed actions you can quickly find the right level of both for an unlisted one.

To be as charitable as possible, you could argue that measuring the difficulty of resolving an unlisted action could be useful as a measure of determining if a game is an rpg or not, but only if you're measuring "possible" vs "impossible." In chess, it's harder in a sense to perform some improvised action than it is in an rpg, but only because it's impossible in chess.

Ultimately I agree with you, but I do think "Are non-listed actions possible" could be a decent way to differentiate rpgs from other games. At the very least, I think it's a better differentiator than "Are non-listed actions difficult."


And this leads to another question: in a perfect RPG, would improvised rules be necessary? I'd argue no - a perfect system would allow the players (and DM) to attempt any action and have that action (and its results) encoded as part of the rules, which would be a complete, coherent physics engine for the game world. Now, that doesn't and won't exist, but it doesn't mean that a system with rules for everything from stabbing to rug-pulling ceases to be an RPG once the last rule is written.

I'm curious if you consider playability to be of any value in an RPG. As you add rules, you add some difficulty to actually playing the game, and after an absurdly large number of rules, a game becomes largely unplayable. I would hardly call a fully simulated physics engine a perfect rpg system.

[JNAProductions]

To be as charitable as possible, you could argue that measuring the difficulty of resolving an unlisted action could be useful as a measure of determining if a game is an rpg or not, but only if you're measuring "possible" vs "impossible." In chess, it's harder in a sense to perform some improvised action than it is in an rpg, but only because it's impossible in chess.

Ultimately I agree with you, but I do think "Are non-listed actions possible" could be a decent way to differentiate rpgs from other games. At the very least, I think it's a better differentiator than "Are non-listed actions difficult."

I'm curious if you consider playability to be of any value in an RPG. As you add rules, you add some difficulty to actually playing the game, and after an absurdly large number of rules, a game becomes largely unplayable. I would hardly call a fully simulated physics engine a perfect rpg system.

I think "perfect" is the wrong word for that RPG. "All-encompassing" might be better, though if it somehow was still easily playable despite having enough rules for EVERYTHING, that'd be pretty damn neat.

[TexAvery]

I'm curious if you consider playability to be of any value in an RPG. As you add rules, you add some difficulty to actually playing the game, and after an absurdly large number of rules, a game becomes largely unplayable. I would hardly call a fully simulated physics engine a perfect rpg system.

This was a thought exercise, at least for me. Hypothetical. Perfection does not exist, but is useful to think about for this.

[Satinavian]

And this leads to another question: in a perfect RPG, would improvised rules be necessary? I'd argue no - a perfect system would allow the players (and DM) to attempt any action and have that action (and its results) encoded as part of the rules, which would be a complete, coherent physics engine for the game world. Now, that doesn't and won't exist, but it doesn't mean that a system with rules for everything from stabbing to rug-pulling ceases to be an RPG once the last rule is written.If you are talking about an ideal, unachievable RPG, then yes, a "perfect" RPG would cover everything and not rely on improvised rules. But any actual RPG also has to strive for accessibility and ease of use. So most people understand the perfect RPG as the one achieving the best compromise between all those important factors.

But that was not really, what i meant with the quoted part. I was talking about PC perspective. Not whether the rules need to be improvised, it was about the need of the PCs to improvise.

PCs have generally stuff they are good at, have trained for for years and are equipped for. And this stuff is generally on their sheet. Furthermore, those actions tend to be effective in itself because otherwise the PCs wouldn't have trained years to learn them and prepare for them.
For what In-Character reasons would they NOT use it when a fitting problem arises ?

Improvised actions generally are stuff the PCs don't have experience in, are not equipped for and have a lower baseline for chance of success which is the reason they are not standard practice. Considering all of this, those actions should feel quite inferior to things the PCs have buttons for. It is basically for Hail Mary attempts. It is something you only do when you really don't have any other option.



Now it does not really matter if the system has rules or if the rules need to be improvised as well. What matters is that an amateur improvising things without the proper tools should get mostly failure or very limited success compared to a professional doing a routine task he has done dozens of time with the appropriate equipment.

But for some strange reason there is a sentiment in part of the D&D community that basically boils down to "If i avoid invoking any actual rules where i need to roll for success, i only need to sweet-talk the GM and thus get better results". I hate this sentiment with a passion.


Or to illustrate a bit more with an earlier example: In a fight between trained human combatants, with melee weapons drawn in melee range, what would realistically be the better option ?
a) using your weapon
b) sheeting your weapon and trying a rugpull instead?

Could you even imagine some serious martial artist/military educator to say that b) was the way to go ? RPG rules should reflect that, if they are improvised or not. The exception is obviously actively trying to emulate a genre and favoring certain conventions over realism.

[Vahnavoi]

You all are once again going circless around complete versus incomplete games. TexAvery's "perfect" roleplaying game is just an expansive complete game, different from existing video games or choose-your-own-adventure books only in quantity of possible inputs and outputs. Sure, it would be labor-intensive to run for a human on the tabletop, but the same applies to Unreal World, Dwarf Fortress, Civilization, or any other moderately complex simulation game. Tabletop roleplaying games, like tabletop wargames before them, are incomplete by design because it is pragmatic for humans to use their own wits and experience to make rules and rulings, rather than strictly follow procedure.

Both formats can be used to implement a roleplaying game, neither is definitional to roleplaying games.