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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    This brief descriptions makes it sound like Apocalypse World has the "decker problem" on steroids, with every PC having things they're good at which don't overlap in any way, leading to the Waterbearer getting a chance to shine in water-bearing challenges while the rest of the party plays on their phones and waits for the challenges their characters can help with.
    You would think so but there are a couple of things that, in my experience, keep that from happening:
    • Things move a lot faster, so even if you did nothing for a scene, that's not that long. Not nearly as long as the decker's hacking battles can be.
    • You can get creative with your skills. Things are generally not sliced in such a way that there is nothing a character can do. Challenges are much more loosely defined and so using odd skills to solve the problem seems to happen more often.
    • Even if you are not good at it, almost any character can attempt almost all actions (some particular ones exist, but then they are usually special cases) and have a chance of success. A small chance of success maybe, but often enough it is worth trying over doing nothing.
    • When all else fails, you just fail. The system* goes fail forward, so people seem to accept the possibility of failure much more readily than in the similar D&D game. Or maybe my group is just crazy.


    * Powered by the Apocalypse systems I have played.

  2. - Top - End - #92
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    Then why are Persuasion, Bluff, and Diplomacy skills? Your argument would only make sense if the game told players to act out conversations and left it 100% up to the DM to decide how everything played out...but there are rules, which means that your argument is invalid.
    A) They weren't originally. The only rule that was remotely related to those in early D&D was the reaction tables. I

    B) Because of the general rules inflation that accompanied the AD&D -> 4e era. As more and more system geeks wanted rules for everything and as there was more pressure to ensure the game was the same at every table, those rules were added. And rules were added and detailed to the degree that there was demand. Hence a proliferation of magic rules, and a relative dearth of empire/stronghold rules (despite that being a whole book worth of rules in BECMI D&D).


    1. People playing RPGs have sufficient experience with the kinds of non-combat challenges their characters would come across, but not combat.

    On the surface, this makes sense, but it kinda falls apart on closer examination. I mean, anyone with rough friends, football experience, siblings, etc has some familiarity with the gist of fighting.
    Even a person with rough a tumble friends and siblings has vastly more experience with social interactions than they do with combat, and certainly combat that involves actual weaponry. Those that don't tend to be the sorts of players no one want to play with because violence is their go to answer for in and out of character difficulties.

    2. The combat rules of typical RPGs are intended to help gamers get a feel for/properly simulate what combat is actually like.
    No, that is not necessary for the rules to exist for the purpose of making adjudication easier. It is only necessary that they provide more grounds for resolving the issue than the expected experience of the players. For example, if I make a set of rules for mechanical repair of automobiles for a GURPS game, those rules doe not need to be an accurate simulation of the process of repairing a car to justify the statement that I did not also create rules for haggling over the repair bill other than a basic opposed roll system because I assumed my players could handle the social "haggling" on their own.

    And it's not as if you simply can't make more interesting mechanics for non-combat things. Look at Last Word, for instance. Its conversation system is a bit bare-bones, but entirely functional and (in my opinion) fun to play. I've thought of several possible ways to take those concepts and tweak them for various types of games. Or if you're into something more mainstream, you could probably take some of Phoenix Wright's mechanics, or look into the more sim-ey dating sims. Those mechanics are out there; tabletop RPGs just have to be willing to learn from electronic ones.
    And some do, and some don't. D&D does not, because the D&D fan base apparently does not desire them (or doesn't trust WotC to do them properly). I'd also point out that Phoenix Wright and date sim games are extremely niche games in the VG market, just like a lot of the TTRPGs that use highly complex social mechanics.

    Alright, first off, I'd like to point to my "counter-examples don't actually counter the argument" argument in confusion again. You keep seeming to think you've responded to it adequately, but you haven't really addressed it at all. Don't get me wrong—it would be a good argument if the OP was complaining about not being able to find a non-wargamey RPG, but he wasn't.
    But the OP was arguing that the INDUSTRY was beset by this problem. Pointing out the proliferation of options within the INDUSTRY which is not beset by these problems is a valid response.

    ... snip traveller ...
    And for all of that, the vast majority of traveller games I've played / seen / read about are not focused primarily on combat. This is in large part because traveller combat is extremely deadly. Engaging in combat is a good way to lose your character, so alternate behaviors are highly encouraged. That amount of mechanics devoted to something in a rule book does not imply that is what the game is about. In fact, allow me to use an example from the CRPG world. What is the game Final Fantasy VII about? 99% of the mechanics in the game, 99% of the screens and probably 80% of the game is spent in combat with various random monsters, but I would argue that the game is not about combat with random monsters. That isn't the focus of the game, nor the purpose of the game despite the massive amounts of mechanics and resources devoted to it. In FF VII, the combat mechanics are a means for progressing the story and the parts that are important. When someone is looking for a game where they get to do interesting combat and battle royales with monsters and kick some serious butt, no one is recommending FF VII. Compare and contrast this to something like Devil May Cry which is very much about combat, and the DMC story is a means for presenting combat.

    2. "Man versus Man" does not automatically mean "man beats up man". It can also refer to ideological conflicts between different factions which result in bickering and blackmail but not actual violence, or to people on the same team arguing about the best way to handle their mutual goals, or even to antagonistic haggling.
    I would argue that ideological struggle tends to fall under the MvN category, but where it doesn't it again requires quite a bit of up front work before you can get there (hence why it's not as common as straight up combat struggle). As for arguing how to handle goals or antagonistic haggling, again refer to my argument WRT how easy such things are to adjudicate at the table without rules.

    Your example fails on a deeper level; while it's certainly true that low-quality comic books, literature, etc, often focus on physically violent conflicts, you hardly have to look to find counterexamples. Violence is the lazy author's solution to a lack of conflict; most manage to work other kinds of conflict in there.
    I never argued otherwise. In fact, my whole point here was that individual physical conflict was an easy source of conflict for games which is why it is often the first item encountered, and why it's something that shoes up early in the rules for new GMs and players alike. It requires less work on the GM's part, and less deeper understandings on the player's part, meaning it's easier to start playing sooner.

    I have never seen any such "additional material" covered in a way which detracts from the combat focus of a game. Which isn't surprising, since that would require rewriting many core systems for an experience (one which most people playing RPGs aren't in the market for).
    I never argued that such additional material detracts from the other parts of the game (and again, I dispute that mechanical mass of rules is not equivalent to focus). But as a perfect example of what I'm talking about, let's look at BECMI D&D. Early books do indeed spend time at the individual combat and conflict levels (but even here I would argue the game was about adventure and treasure hunting more than combat, Indiana Jones vs Die Hard). Later books though delve into realm building rules, including taxation, natural disasters and even changing rulers. Later still we get into immortals, which focuses more on intrigue conflict of the greek gods style and literal world building. These were designed, written and introduced the way they were intentionally in part as a way of going deeper and getting into more complex topics as you went along. An evolution of the game, not to detract from the prior parts, but to build on them.


    So stop asserting that you've explained away the existence of systemic problems.
    I'm not, I'm arguing that said problems are not systemic in the TTRPG industry.


    You're kinda completely wrong. This is most obvious in the case of video games, where system mastery is considered a core engagement for many games (varying from Dwarf Fortress to Dark Souls), but it applies to everything. You can just read A Song of Ice and Fire and put it down, but if you are willing to put some thought into it, you'll notice connections and details which enrich the work as a whole.
    You've completely misunderstood. It isn't that other media doesn't have depth for those that want it. It's that understanding that depth isn't required to engage with the media, and most people who do engage with that media don't go for depth of engagement. One can pick up Dark Souls and play the game without any system mastery and still have a relatively fun time (at least until the first boss). Likewise, one can read ASIF and enjoy it without dedicating any effort to the connections and details the enrich the work. The same is not true of TTRPGs. Unless you have a GM and other players already playing the game, getting into any given TTRPG requires investing large amounts of time (and money in the case of dead tree versions) of not only yourself but of other people in order to even begin playing on a surface level, let alone delve into the depths of system mastery. As a result, TTRPGs are "sticky" like computer platforms, once invested, players will tend to stay invested in that one game until something compelling entices them and multiple people they know to switch away.

    I also game to socialize. It's just that my social circles realize that D&D is kind of a terrible game to do that with, since the game gets in the way of the socializing too often. Something simpler and more elegant, designed for a social experience instead of being a retooled wargame, works better.
    For your group. This clearly isn't a universal experience, or TTRPGs would have died out long ago, or at the very least D&D would have been supplanted in the same way that Monopoly is not the reigning champ of board games, despite being a juggernaut.


    I wasn't excluding all the indie TRPGs I've played, because I've never even had a chance to play any indie RPGs (aside from some D&D knockoffs). ... A world with Minecraft, or even with Undertale, is a world whose indie video game scene is far more vibrant, healthy, and relevant than our indie TRPG scene.
    I would argue that someone who hasn't participated in the indie TTRPG scene does not have sufficient data to determine whether or not that scene is vibrant, healthy and or relevant to the industry. I'm not saying you have to have played a lot of the indie scene, but I think if the entirely of your experience with the TTRPG indie scene is "D&D knockoffs" you have a very skewed view of the TTRPG indie scene.

    A noble sentiment, but given the context it sounds a lot like "Stop complaining, I'm happy so there's nothing wrong with the industry."
    It's more a reminder that telling a bunch of people that they're having bad wrong fun, and then going on about how their particular form of fun is ruining the industry as a whole is not a good way to win people to your cause, nor to entice outsiders into the fold.

  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    Who put the trailers and book ads there isn't really the main point though - they're there, and we could absolutely use something similar in tabletop RGPs.
    I guess my point was that this would have to come from the FLGS or from online hubs and forums losing their specializations and going broad market rather than expecting WotC (and especially WotC who pretty much has one and only one RPG being published) to include ads for their competitors in their sponsored events.

    Heck, at this point it would be nice to bring it back. D&D and Advanced D&D coexisted for a while, and at this point only Advanced D&D is still around, renamed to just D&D. WotC releases nominally "Basic" stuff every so often, but a "Basic" D&D that's still something like 300 pages isn't even remotely in the needed niche. A slim paperback book of about 30 pages would probably do wonders for both the hobby as a whole and WotC's D&D finances (while still a drop in the bucket compared to the money printing license that is MtG).
    Honestly, I think WotC's problem at this point is the idea of D&D is so tied up in levels 1-20 that a basic D&D (in the original 1-3 level, or even 1-5 level) format would feel like a watered down game and be rejected as such, especially if they don't publish material for it. FAE clocks in around the 50 page mark and essentially WotC needs to somehow come up with a D&D AE, something that is both simple and complete, and then they need to actually publish for it. I don't even mind if they had a complete "upgrade" path and really drove home the "basic / advanced" dichotomy again, but in exchange, I would want MOST of their sponsored FLGS events to be using the AE version of D&D for EVERYTHING.

    Unfortunately, I don't know that they can do that now that 5e is out, until 6e rolls around. I worry if they tried that now, it would go over like 4e essentials did. A "too little too late" for the folks that are turned off by the size of D&D, and a "all your stuff is now not really supported" kick in the teeth to the folks that bought in. I'm just not sure WotC is nimble enough (or free enough under Hasbro) to be the industry leader, rather than the dominator. WotC is essentially the Microsoft of the TTRPG world, to consumed by the weight of their own success to do anything other than give their fans what they want.

  4. - Top - End - #94
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    This brief descriptions makes it sound like Apocalypse World has the "decker problem" on steroids, with every PC having things they're good at which don't overlap in any way, leading to the Waterbearer getting a chance to shine in water-bearing challenges while the rest of the party plays on their phones and waits for the challenges their characters can help with.
    Then it's a good thing Apocalypse World is a fully fleshed out game system and not a generalized summary paragraph about how classes are structured in vague terms with no deeper descriptions.

    Since I've played 6 campaigns of Apocalypse World as of this writing, GMing 5 of them, I believe I'm qualified to say that this diagnosis is inaccurate.

    Yes, the Gunlugger is better at killing things than basically anyone else.
    Yes, the Brainer can violate your braincase in a way no other class could hope to.

    But since Apocalypse World is not structured as "a group of adventurers completes a checklist of tasks until the badguy dies," this is not a problem.

    The players have a wide and wild variety of problems barreling down at them at any given time. Things start off dicey and get worse from there. (It's the post-apocalypse. When was the last time Mad Max got progressively LESS chaotic and desperate through the movie?) The characters have unique toolkits and will find themselves in strange combinations as they deal with (or join!) these threats. Splitting the party isn't death, it's the norm.

    Errant is gathering a gang to put down the oppression he sees going on in Sandhell.

    Fen is guarding The Source and reluctantly providing a backbone to Errant's efforts.

    Blue is reconsidering his alliances and wondering if he should ally with Sandhell or let his sister's hold burn while he gets his gang outta dodge.

    Em is trying to keep her men from going full despot over Sandhell but is also kinda enabling their behavior.

    Raven and Bob just escaped being turned into robot slaves by a psychotic Amazon Prime Data Analysis AI gone rogue, and are now headed back south to get help.

    All the while (below this point is non-PC stuff):

    Dizzy Dave, son of Len, is preparing to attack Sandhell with all his hell and fury.

    Rassmuss, aforementioned AI, is preparing to observe the chaos and record the data because, basically, it's bored.

    Felix, Em's second in command, is eroding her authority out from under her and soon will be the De Facto leader if she doesn't stop him.

    Smart, one of Blue's guys, is getting ready to take over as Alpha Wolf of the gang.

    People are getting addicted to the Source water and Porter is being a huge dillweed and not allowing people access to the water.

    And that's maybe half of the things going on in this campaign that the players are dealing with.

    Trust me, Apocalypse World is very good at what it does. I understand this very well and have lots of experience. Nobody is left with twiddling thumbs. If anything, what you lack is time to rest. (This is not universally appealing, obviously, but nothing is.)

    But hey. Guiding your perception of a system based on 20-30 words seems like the way to get an accurate read on it.
    Last edited by ImNotTrevor; 2017-07-04 at 09:19 AM.

  5. - Top - End - #95
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4 View Post
    But the OP was arguing that the INDUSTRY was beset by this problem. Pointing out the proliferation of options within the INDUSTRY which is not beset by these problems is a valid response.
    Well, sort of, the "outwards facing" section certainly seems to... but that is because the outwards facing section consists almost entirely of D&D. With maybe Vampire and Shadowrun thrown in there as well.

    Of course if you get to the lesser known games, which here means things like FATE and Apocalypse World, it starts to fall away.

  6. - Top - End - #96
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Well, sort of, the "outwards facing" section certainly seems to... but that is because the outwards facing section consists almost entirely of D&D. With maybe Vampire and Shadowrun thrown in there as well.

    Of course if you get to the lesser known games, which here means things like FATE and Apocalypse World, it starts to fall away.
    And this I can agree with. But then I would say the solution isn't to change D&D or any other game or ditch any roots, I would argue that we need to change how the industry markets and how we introduce new players. That's going to require changing our FLGS to give a bit more love to other games, and that's going to require the GMs of other games to either open up their own tables or run open tables on a volunteer basis at their FLGS and elsewhere. Because as I said, even if you know about those other games, the hard part is getting other people to play them.

  7. - Top - End - #97
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    A. No. I enjoy the hobby today, so it is not time to cut away things I like.

    B. You will never succeed in cutting out what thousands or millions of people like anyway.

    C. The hobby has grown to include many other things, as documented by several people above.

    D. I have never had trouble role-playing during combat. If you know the mechanics of your character well enough, they are close to automatic, and you're the northern ranger fighting his favored enemies the Frost Giants.

    Fundamentally, it's fine to add on what you want. It is not fine (and fortunately, not possible) to cut out what I want.

    All true.

    On point D, I'm really not sure where or when first arose the idea that combat and role-playing are mutually exclusive contexts in RPG play. I know it gained a lot of currency in the Vampire "community" at one point, but it probably goes back farther than that by a ways. Maybe it got started when one player insisted that RP = sit around and talk at each other time, and another player assumed that meant combat != RP.

    I do know that it's not just an entirely untrue idea -- it's an actively pernicious and counter-productive idea.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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  8. - Top - End - #98
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    Is the analog experience different from a digitalized roleplaying game in a significant way? (Assuming stuff like combat can be handled better by a game engine, loading players with only the intresting choices)
    To me roleplaying games are, like board games, something I can play when the power is out. I enjoy computer games and would love to see a stronger merger between them and roleplaying, but I will always want to have some game I can play anywhere I have friends.

    But this debate is very tangential to the topic. The actual content of the games is more interesting then my preferences.

    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold View Post
    I strongly disagree. Fire Emblem: Heroes has a battle grid and an extremely simple combat system, one designed to fit on a phone and have battles that only last a few minutes each. Yet I still find myself making interesting tactical decisions. Looking for games which aim for a deeper tactical/strategic experience (including XCOM, Civilization, and the main Fire Emblem games) reveals an even greater depth of potential tactics.
    The problem isn't the UI, it's the CPU. People can only grok so many possibilities, and can only be bothered to roll so many dice and check so many numbers.
    You're right, the grid by itself can't be blamed. But maybe the reason for you finding combat in D&D uninteresting can be tied to its use. At least in 5e most abilities are useful only in relation to killing enemies and affecting the grid. You can slide monsters and entangle them and stuff. But for a group of players engaging with a group of monsters with the intent of killing each other there exists optimal tactics. Once you figure out a good way to do more damage to them then they do to you, the game ceases to be fun; you're just rolling the dice. With most abilities being designed to at best affect position on a grid, any static battle will be reducable to some best tactic.

    So maybe the grid isn't to be blamed. Rather it is the fault of abilities being boring that a straight battle feels uninspired.

    I've read blogs that explain ways to make the battlefield more dynamic, resulting in more significant choices for players to make (and thus more fun). XCOM battles are interesting when the maps features many unknowns and you don't know if your choice of positioning will be the right one; the final map was actually boring because you only had to make it past a series of static defences. Positioning turned into maximizing cover and and then luring out the enemies.

    Dynamic battlefields kinda fixes the problem, but doesn't excuse the game for not explaining such things in the core book.

    I think roleplaying games could survive with much simpler combat systems then D&D and still feature interesting engagements if they focused more on how creatures behave and less on minutae of statistics. (It really doesn't change the feel of the battle much if the enemy has 12 or 16 strength). Bigger choices and less worrying about optimizing dps.

    But then again combat doesn't need to be detailed at all. The only necessary function is for players to have a say in if they die or not.

  9. - Top - End - #99
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    I find the idea that roleplaying is incompatible with combat is founded on following ideas:

    1) in combat, you may lose (=bad things happen to your character)
    2) players don't want to lose (=they don't want bad things to happen to their characters)
    3) players don't want other players to lose. (Because them losing can make them lose, "break the story" etc.)

    This creates pressure to focus on victory (=survival, aversion of consequences) over whatever would actually make sense for a character. (See ten thousand threads identifying "That's what my character would've done" as excuse for bad play.) This is naturally mutually exclusive with a huge number of different character roles and actions. The ultimate manifestation of this is the attitude that every player must optimize or else they are somehow ruining the game for others.

    Now, it's possible to dodge the issue by deliberately choosing roles which would be geared towards survival and optimal play. But waving such characters around as proof of how "you can totally roleplay in combat" is solving the wrong problem. What you actually want to do is get across the idea that Losing is Fun; to teach players that deliberately playing a bad character isn't synonymous with being a bad player and how to enjoy playing such characters, and others playing such characters.

    Again: this is a metagame issue more than a game issue. I have seen myriad attempts to use rules to enforce suboptimal play. (See for example: Flaws in pretty much any game.) And as often I've seen them fail because they don't really address motives of players playing the characters, or assume they fall in line with above three points. Hence, you get players playing Vampire like it's D&D, or Fate like it's D&D.
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    I think the story of how Dungeons & Dragons started out as a mod to a war game. Which means the roots of the role-playing gene are very deep in the war game gene. Everything has to start from somewhere after all. But is time to cut those roots?

    There seem to be a lot of issues that stem from the conventions of war games that just don't work as well in the role-playing context. I have decided to divide this up by the resulting issue. First because they are more tangible and second because they give more granularity. And hence more opportunities for fun titles.
    You made the title of your thread about RP in general, but went straight to D&D.

    "D&D" and "RPG" are not synonyms -- I'm confident you know that, based on past conversations.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Soldiers March to War
    Combatants, everyone players someone who can fight. Why can't I play the comms. guy, who could fire a gun (is in the army) but probably couldn't hit a moving target with it? Well because being a PC automatically gives me an accuracy bonus for some reason. I can play a hundred variants of soldier, battle cyborg or battle mage, but I have to stretch it to play a wandering crafter, a corporate sponsor or an academic.
    Whether you get any sort of accuracy bonus for "being a PC" depends entirely on the system.

    And even in D&D, that has more to do with having a class and levels, than it does with specifically being a PC -- NPCs can have classes and levels too. D&D PCs also tend to be characters who are going out to do dangerous things and face dangerous foes in the hinterland or the halls of power... of course they tend to be more combat-capable than the average farmer, banker, crafter, business sponsor, or academic.

    If I'm going into a game where combat is going to be a regular part of what happens (at least every other session on average), I really do not appreciate special-snowflake deadweight characters who can't even defend themselves or present any sort of threat to the enemy, and whose players refuse to allow their character to grow and adapt to being in life-threatening situations repeatedly... because it would "violate the concept" or some such.

    It's unfair to the other players to repeatedly have to defend someone who refuses to defend themselves. If I were in a typical RPG, and a character repeatedly showed incompetence and lack of contribution in a part of the game like combat, my character would eventually confront that character about it. "You left us hanging again! This time they almost killed the horses while we were saving you, next time it could be one of us actually getting killed trying to save your ass! Here's a spare staff, you're learning to use it, or we're leaving you in the next town."

    If one really wants to explore characters who aren't at least competent at some particular aspect / thing, one should find people who want to do the same and get a game going where that thing will be a minor or non-existent part of the game. There are games out there for which combat unimportant or of minimal importance, or is handled in such a way that it doesn't take a huge investment of character build-stuff.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    The Never-Ending Battle
    Combat becoming so common has several problems for role-playing characters. But wait! "Role-playing doesn't stop when you pick up the dice." Yes, I get it, that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how when you calculate a modifier you are not thinking about the character's character. If you spend a lot of time working out the best move in this situation, even if it is because your character is a brilliant tactician and would do that. The level of detail is unnecessary for characterization, but in systems with detailed combat you have to slog through it anyways.

    What's more is any single activity has a much narrower range of characterization opportunities than all of them. So focusing on any one can drain that range without exploring many other spaces, or doing so very sparsely.
    Really? Because I'm pretty sure that it's in-character for most people to do what they think will get them through a fight less-dead than the other guy.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Downtime
    As much as combat gets detailed, other things are left vague and shallow. Meaning it is really hard to engage in many of those activities in a meaningful way. So even if you create a combatant with other skills important to their character, playing through those will likely be rather uninteresting.

    This compounds the above issues by guiding the game towards the mechanically interesting sections and character concepts. It also means the system overall is less likely to be able to handle the non-combat sections of story that are likely to crop up eventually.
    Why is it hard to engage those things? Because the rules are less detailed? Does it take detailed rules to engage with something the character is up to?

    And if it's detailed rules that make something engaging, that would seem to run counter to your claim above that too-detailed rules in combat supposedly push players out-of-character.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Front line & Special Units
    A contributing factor to the whole caster/martial thing. Some units hold the line, others do cleaver and complex things to change the flow of battle. It works in war games where everyone is a swarm of front line soldiers and a couple of special units. However that completely breaks down when you focus that in on single character (not necessarily of the same type) for each player
    This presumes that characters have to be either/or, which is based on an assumption of class-based or other role-based character build rules.

    Plus, see above -- if pre-campaign discussion by the group has determined that combat will be part of the game, don't make a character that is (and will remain) a liability in combat. Don't bring a pencil to a swordfight.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Balance for the War God
    Now there are several meanings of balance in this context. "Equal ability to contribute in a fight" is possibly the least interesting and yet it becomes one of the most important once combat becomes common. Otherwise you are disconnected from the game for large sections while the combat plays out.

    The definition we are actually looking for might be better described in terms of spotlight time. But when the game is about half combat, those distinctions start to fall away and it becomes necessary for characters to be balanced in the combat sense to keep the game fun and active for all players.
    They don't need to be balanced around combat, they need to be competent enough in combat to not be dead weight or a liability. Again, if combat is going to be a regular thing.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Missed Who for the What
    This may be just an order of operations thing but I still feel like character descriptions starting off with "Barbarian 2/Ranger 1" are kind of missing the point. Who is your character? A strong warrior who hunts to feed the members of her extended family. That gives me way more information.

    More than the others this one is kind of a soft line, but it does mimic a war game's "West Folk got a new stealth sniper solo" that probably does have some flavour text, but you flip through that in the lore later after figuring out if the new unit makes in into your army.
    This is more an artifact of race/class/level character build rules (see, presuming D&D-like rules), and gaming priorities that treat characters as playing pieces ( "gamist" in one parlance ) than it is an inherent part of RPGs or some "war gaming roots" showing through.

    There are plenty of games and plenty of gamers who don't do this.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    So those are things that can be attributed to the war game roots of role-playing games. Most are dragging the hobby down to some degree. Or at least when unquestioned. I'm not going to say that every system with a separate combat role from a skill check is bad. Nor is it wrong to have a tactical game with some role-playing thrown on top.

    But these things should probably not be considered the standard for role-playing games. The time has come for role-playing games to be stand on their own, without using the crutches of their early development.
    They're already not the standard, especially not in the way you're describing them here.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    I find the idea that roleplaying is incompatible with combat is founded on following ideas:

    1) in combat, you may lose (=bad things happen to your character)
    2) players don't want to lose (=they don't want bad things to happen to their characters)
    3) players don't want other players to lose. (Because them losing can make them lose, "break the story" etc.)

    This creates pressure to focus on victory (=survival, aversion of consequences) over whatever would actually make sense for a character. (See ten thousand threads identifying "That's what my character would've done" as excuse for bad play.) This is naturally mutually exclusive with a huge number of different character roles and actions. The ultimate manifestation of this is the attitude that every player must optimize or else they are somehow ruining the game for others.

    Now, it's possible to dodge the issue by deliberately choosing roles which would be geared towards survival and optimal play. But waving such characters around as proof of how "you can totally roleplay in combat" is solving the wrong problem. What you actually want to do is get across the idea that Losing is Fun; to teach players that deliberately playing a bad character isn't synonymous with being a bad player and how to enjoy playing such characters, and others playing such characters.

    Again: this is a metagame issue more than a game issue. I have seen myriad attempts to use rules to enforce suboptimal play. (See for example: Flaws in pretty much any game.) And as often I've seen them fail because they don't really address motives of players playing the characters, or assume they fall in line with above three points. Hence, you get players playing Vampire like it's D&D, or Fate like it's D&D.
    I disagree with both the idea of Optimizing Combat and Losing Is Fun. I think there is a middle ground between two such extremes, as I invest in my characters and losing that investment is just wasting my time really. While optimization is just ignoring that the world is inherently sub-optimal and therefore optimal characters are unrealistic and not worth playing.
    I'm also on discord as "raziere".


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    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    I find the idea that roleplaying is incompatible with combat is founded on following ideas:

    1) in combat, you may lose (=bad things happen to your character)
    2) players don't want to lose (=they don't want bad things to happen to their characters)
    3) players don't want other players to lose. (Because them losing can make them lose, "break the story" etc.)

    This creates pressure to focus on victory (=survival, aversion of consequences) over whatever would actually make sense for a character. (See ten thousand threads identifying "That's what my character would've done" as excuse for bad play.) This is naturally mutually exclusive with a huge number of different character roles and actions. The ultimate manifestation of this is the attitude that every player must optimize or else they are somehow ruining the game for others.

    Now, it's possible to dodge the issue by deliberately choosing roles which would be geared towards survival and optimal play. But waving such characters around as proof of how "you can totally roleplay in combat" is solving the wrong problem. What you actually want to do is get across the idea that Losing is Fun; to teach players that deliberately playing a bad character isn't synonymous with being a bad player and how to enjoy playing such characters, and others playing such characters.

    Again: this is a metagame issue more than a game issue. I have seen myriad attempts to use rules to enforce suboptimal play. (See for example: Flaws in pretty much any game.) And as often I've seen them fail because they don't really address motives of players playing the characters, or assume they fall in line with above three points. Hence, you get players playing Vampire like it's D&D, or Fate like it's D&D.
    Here's the thing -- Losing Isn't Fun. At least, for me, it isn't, and it never will be. So I don't play characters who set themselves up to lose -- that doesn't mean I play "perfect" characters, I've had some pretty intense flaws on some characters that caused them a lot of trouble, but that's NOT the same as characters setting themselves up to lose. A character can be determined to win on their own terms, in spite of their flaws or without compromising their morals/ethics/beliefs, and again, that's not the same as a character who is set up to lose.

    And I do think that playing deliberately and stubbornly inept characters without pre-campaign explicit discussion with the other players is being a bad fellow gamer. Whether that's making the utterly asocial character in a game heavy on social intrigue, or the bumbling stumbler in a game heavy with stealth and covert action, or character who refuses to fight with weapons in modern tactical warfare game, or... whatever. Sometimes a character and a campaign or setting or rules-set are just a bad match, and it's not fair to the other players to cram that square peg into that round hole.

    And no, that doesn't make my play of Vampire or any other game "like D&D".


    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    I disagree with both the idea of Optimizing Combat and Losing Is Fun. I think there is a middle ground between two such extremes, as I invest in my characters and losing that investment is just wasting my time really. While optimization is just ignoring that the world is inherently sub-optimal and therefore optimal characters are unrealistic and not worth playing.
    My character is someone I want to explore, and also someone I want to explore their world "alongside". I'm invested in that character, not in "telling a story" or "exploring themes".

    In terms of "optimizing", it depends on what one means by "optimizing". I'm certainly looking to be as efficient as I can with a build, but the goal isn't raw power, it's having as much room to make the in-system character as much like the in-my-head character as possible, to make the map of the character as accurate to the actual terrain of the character as possible.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-04 at 08:43 PM.
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    You made the title of your thread about RP in general, but went straight to D&D.
    That is because of the "roots" part, you can trace a lot of history through D&D so ignoring that seemed inappropriate.

    In fact I think a general reply to what you have said is: I realize games that don't conform to this exist, I'm just not talking about them right now. Of course if you want to argue that most of role-playing no longer conforms to this... well, depending on how you define most, yeah maybe (probably?), I don't have any numbers on it. A few others are "yes, I think that is a solution to the problem".

    It's unfair to the other players to repeatedly have to defend someone who refuses to defend themselves. If I were in a typical RPG, and a character repeatedly showed incompetence and lack of contribution in a part of the game like combat, my character would eventually confront that character about it.
    Um... this is kind of the point, you can't play those characters because they become dead-weights. Lessening the focus means you can be someone who doesn't know how to defend themselves without that being a problem. Sometimes you defend them anyways, but I have found it to be much less of an issue then. One of my favourite characters was the only combatant in the group and spent a lot of time defending people and it was fun.

    Really? Because I'm pretty sure that it's in-character for most people to do what they think will get them through a fight less-dead than the other guy.
    Yeah, and the fact it is in-character for so many characters makes it a bit less interesting when it is also in character for this character.

    Why is it hard to engage those things? Because the rules are less detailed? Does it take detailed rules to engage with something the character is up to?

    And if it's detailed rules that make something engaging, that would seem to run counter to your claim above that too-detailed rules in combat supposedly push players out-of-character.
    It can go too far either way. Where the lines are is contextual. I've played lots of freeform games and never missed rules, but once I have sat down and started using rules to represent my character, suddenly switching back to freeform feels weird and kind of unsatisfying. I could try to explain exactly why, but last time we went ~40 pages without making it clear. So short answer is yes, there aren't enough rules there. Double Swordsage.

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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Um... this is kind of the point, you can't play those characters because they become dead-weights. Lessening the focus means you can be someone who doesn't know how to defend themselves without that being a problem. Sometimes you defend them anyways, but I have found it to be much less of an issue then. One of my favourite characters was the only combatant in the group and spent a lot of time defending people and it was fun.
    Pick something besides combat.

    The character who is deeply isolated and socially inept in a game heavy on social interaction and intrigue, so that he always needs someone else to do his talking for him.

    The character who has neither formal nor self education, and is largely ignorant, and not observant, in a game heavy on academic sloothing and conspiracies, so that most of the time he's just along for the ride until the once-every-four-plus-sessions combat encounter.

    The character who can't cook and refuses to learn in a game focused on cooking contests, so that for an hour or more out of every game session they're a spectator.

    The problem remains the same.
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Find players who share your taste of non-combat games. Find a game system that facilitates it. Have fun. Let those of us who enjoy the combats in addition to our roleplay enjoy our games.
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    To Max_Killjoy: Sure, any system that has exactly one way to express a character will fail to express characters who can't be expressed in that way. So combat isn't special in that regard.

    To Pex: And I will too.

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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To Max_Killjoy: Sure, any system that has exactly one way to express a character will fail to express characters who can't be expressed in that way. So combat isn't special in that regard.
    Does "expressing a character" require extensive system mechanics for whatever thing you're trying to express?

    I'd argue that some things need mechanical support more than others, for reasons unrelated to "expressing a character".
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    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    Now, it's possible to dodge the issue by deliberately choosing roles which would be geared towards survival and optimal play. But waving such characters around as proof of how "you can totally roleplay in combat" is solving the wrong problem. What you actually want to do is get across the idea that Losing is Fun; to teach players that deliberately playing a bad character isn't synonymous with being a bad player and how to enjoy playing such characters, and others playing such characters.
    I would argue that the idea of "Losing is Fun" is the exact opposite of roleplaying. Roleplaying is taking things from the character's perspective, and to the character losing is never fun. Losing is bad. That's why it's called losing and not 'the other winning'.

    I think a lot of that idea is looking at the game from the GM perspective where losing will change the game more and they'll have to improvise. A lot of GMs like to do that, so they push that idea.

    A player who is roleplaying a character shouldn't want to lose. And they shouldn't play an incompetent character. Perfection isn't required, but if a player sat at my homegame with a totally incompetent character (in whatever system - not necessarily combat) it would annoy me - and I won't apologise for that. If I were GM, I'd probably tell them that they retire as a turnip farmer and that the player should roll up an actual adventurer. (or shadowrunner or whatever)

    If a character is totally incompetent, this wouldn't be their line of work.
    Last edited by CharonsHelper; 2017-07-05 at 08:33 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    The problem remains the same.
    Yes, and the problem is that you're a big believer in 3): that another player's character losing is somehow ruining the game for you.

    But if that player is fine with being a spectator, why is it skin off your nose?

    If I show up at a social game with an asocial buffoon, or a combat game with a non-combatant etc., the presumption should be that I as a player am willing to bite the bullet for whatever trouble this causes me.

    This isn't the same as a character setting themselves up for failure. Let me give a fairly simple example: a scenario is about a school shooting. The players are playing students who are victims of the attack. We know, from reality, that most people fail to do anything about an attacker in a situation like this, due to fear that they'll get shot first. This despite the fact that in nearly all such scenarios it would be more beneficial for all the victims to stand up and rush the attacker.

    So Player A, playing a student, knows this. They have a choice: to act on the rational knowledge that staying down is practically suicide and stand up, or to follow the role of someone who is deeply afraid of being shot first and stay down.

    Neither choice is synonymous with the character setting themselves up for failure, because both options can be considered informed by the character's in-universe will to avoid harm. It's the player's decision whether to weigh reason or emotion and the player's motives which ultimately inform it.

    So Player A falls on the side of emotional realism and opts for their character to stay down. Enter Player B. Player B does not want their character to die and this motive causes them to weigh rational decision making over emotion. Hence, Player B opts for their character to stand up and attack.

    However, the success of Player B's character is directly influenced by decision of Player A. Let's suppose that in this case, Player A's decision for their character to stay down leads to both characters being killed.

    Player B cannot fairly argue Player A's character set themselves up for failure. But he may argue Player A set themselves and other players up for failure. Player A could've been fine with the outcome itself, but now they are made to regret their decision due to reaction by other players. This creates a atmosphere where role of the afraid student is implicitly banned, regardless of how much sense it would make or how fun it would be to the player playing that character.

    This example is such mostly to underline that the problem has very little to do with whether you're playing to "explore the world", or to "explore a character", or to "explore a theme" or "create a story" etc.. The metagame phenomenom where some roles are disincentivized or implicitly cut out doesn't hinge on any of those. So please don't waste virtual ink on those tangents. They're not relevant.

    The only thing that's relevant is that somewhere along the line you decide that another character infringing on your character is the same as another player infringing on you.

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    @CharonsHelper:

    No, "Losing is Fun" is not opposite of roleplaying. Roleplaying is fundamentally acting, you and your character are distinct, and this holds true regardless of whether you like or not. A metagame level of player interest always exists. It's very basic to acting to be able to think at these two levels at once; to act as if you are afraid even when you are not. To make a poor decision as your character because it makes sense for the character, even if you as an actor realize it would be a poor decision.
    Last edited by Frozen_Feet; 2017-07-05 at 09:02 AM.

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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    I would argue that Player A, who chooses the "stay down and do nothing" option is refusing to engage the core situation and would be better served to be replaced by Potential Player C who would make a character that does engage the idea of "there is a school shooting".

    That doesn't mean a direct assault on the shooter like player B, but it could mean hiding out and calling the cops while livestreaming the whole thing. It could mean trying to escape and help others do so safely. Maybe making a distraction like pulling a fire alarm so Player B could get the jump on the shooter as the player isn't sure if he could manage a takedown, etc...

    "I lie down and do nothing", while realistic from a character point of view, is still IMO a bad player choice because you made the active decision to not engage with the scenario. As a GM, I would much rather a player that tries to engage the situation along with the others at the table then one who just sits down and does nothing because "realism". We're largely playing these games for the escapism factor of being someone different in a largely safe environment. It's ok to eshew a bit of realism and try to engage with the fantasy I presented, be it a college campus or an adventurer's guild.

    Yes, Player A taking action could've helped or hindered Player B, but in the end I would say you're there as a player to be engaged with the situation. "Coming to the table with a character that refuses to engage with the situation at hand" should be implicitly banned. I would go so far to say should be actively banned even, right from the starting gate: "I'm writing a scenario where you're going to be students on a campus and there is a shooting, please make characters that would actively engage this situation".

    Yes lying down and doing nothing is a realistic depiction of what a student would do, but you're first and foremost a player here to play a game with the people around the table.

    Why did you bother making a character for a school shooting scenario if all you were going to do is "I lie down and do nothing until the situation is resolved"?

    It's still the same "I'm just doing what my character would do" argument that guy makes, only focusing on inaction and refusing to engage the core idea of the scenario rather then doing an actively disruptive action. In my eyes you're still a bad player. Not as egregious as someone who's went out of their way to ruin someone else's fun, but you're eating our chips, drinking our pop and taking up a seat that could be filled by someone who could be doing something to move the session along.

    Player A isn't losing. He's not even engaging. He saw there was a foot race and instead of trying he just buggered off to get a cinnabun and play pokemon.

    If I show up at a social game with an asocial buffoon, or a combat game with a non-combatant etc., the presumption should be that I as a player am willing to bite the bullet for whatever trouble this causes me
    And what about the other people at the table though? why should they, who made characters who want to engage have to suffer through your troubles? It may be selfish, but "I made a character who wants to engage with the group, the scenario the GM presented to us. Could you maybe do the same and try to help us?" is definitely justified in my eyes.

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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post

    No, "Losing is Fun" is not opposite of roleplaying. Roleplaying is fundamentally acting, you and your character are distinct, and this holds true regardless of whether you like or not. A metagame level of player interest always exists. It's very basic to acting to be able to think at these two levels at once; to act as if you are afraid even when you are not. To make a poor decision as your character because it makes sense for the character, even if you as an actor realize it would be a poor decision.
    What does that have to do with "Losing is Fun"?

    I never said that a character might not make a poor decision, but from their perspective it isn't fun to lose. They will do their best to always win.

    Now - in a one-off CoC session where the characters are thrust into craziness it might make sense to have a level of incompetence, but that isn't the premise of 98% of TTRPGs. The vast majority assume that the PCs chose to do this job. An incompetent character isn't going to choose to adventure, and if he did the other characters would dump them ASAP.

    I mean sure, it's totally in character for your stereotypical 1950's style housewife character to not know any breaking balls and only pitch at around 50-60mph, but it doesn't make sense for the Yankees to put them on the mound in the first place, and they certainly wouldn't let them pitch several innings and give up homer after homer (or walk after walk). But even that character is going to TRY to get batters out - they're just going to suck at it. (And again I disagree - giving up those homers wouldn't be fun for anyone at the table even if that character could make everyone chicken soup to feel better after the game. Being challenged but getting outs with a competent character could be.)

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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by oxybe View Post
    And what about the other people at the table though? why should they, who made characters who want to engage have to suffer through your troubles? It may be selfish, but "I made a character who wants to engage with the group, the scenario the GM presented to us. Could you maybe do the same and try to help us?" is definitely justified in my eyes.
    I'd say that the one being selfish is the one refusing to create a character that can engage with the scenario. I can understand if there was miss-communication (or none at all) so the player believed he was creating an appropriate character but ended up not succeeding. Willingly refusing to engage with the premise of the campaign[1] would result in either a compelled re-roll or being asked to find another game. Willingly wasting other people's time at the table (even in the name of "playing a character") is a flaw I will not allow at my tables. If a mid-game story hook doesn't catch you, oh well. There will be others. But you have to be willing (and have created a character that would be willing) to go along with the rest of the group. I'm not going to run two disconnected sessions simultaneously. That's rude to the other characters and selfish of the ego-absorbed dude who can't play well with others.

    [1] game, reason you're creating characters, etc. I use campaign because I mostly play D&D. Other games use other terms.
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by CharonsHelper View Post
    I would argue that the idea of "Losing is Fun" is the exact opposite of roleplaying. Roleplaying is taking things from the character's perspective, and to the character losing is never fun. Losing is bad. That's why it's called losing and not 'the other winning'.

    I think a lot of that idea is looking at the game from the GM perspective where losing will change the game more and they'll have to improvise. A lot of GMs like to do that, so they push that idea.

    A player who is roleplaying a character shouldn't want to lose. And they shouldn't play an incompetent character. Perfection isn't required, but if a player sat at my homegame with a totally incompetent character (in whatever system - not necessarily combat) it would annoy me - and I won't apologise for that. If I were GM, I'd probably tell them that they retire as a turnip farmer and that the player should roll up an actual adventurer. (or shadowrunner or whatever)

    If a character is totally incompetent, this wouldn't be their line of work.
    In agreement here. If I could expound...

    I'm willing to deal with such a character if they (or their player?) show a willingness to overcome their suck. The ones I can't stand are the ones that are evidently defined by their suck, and will always suck (not just in gaming, also in fiction). If X is a recurring feature of the game, and the character is really bad at X, then they should either be willing to and working to improve at X, or they should not be a PC in that game. I don't mean they that every character has to be awesome at X -- I mean that they shouldn't stubbornly cling to being dead weight and a liability every time X happens.

    And for cripe's sake, even if one's character is bad at X to start out with, at least have the character offer something concretely useful to the party. Things like "the power of friendship" or "source of inspiration" or "comic relief" or "walking McGuffin" do not count as a character's something useful.

    Those sorts of characters can work, if handled correctly, in a story told via conventional fictional media (from oral stories to novels to cinema), but RPGs are not -- are not -- an interchangeable medium of fiction. They are not simply a vehicle for collective storytelling, they have a different dynamic and structure, and taking out the elements that make them different also makes the resulting thing into a not-RPG. Those sorts of characters have a place in an RPG, and that's as an NPC -- a supporting character. Those sorts of characters can work in actual fiction because they're protected (both literally and in terms of their role in the story) by the author's absolute control over events, but even then it can become transparent that they're bubble-wrapped.

    I suggest to people that they think about the character's life as they think of their own -- while someone could tell a story about your life 100 years from now, do you really care whether your actions "make the most interesting story" to someone 100 years from now? Or are you driven by your own motives and concerns and needs and fears? It "makes the most interesting story" if you lose your job tomorrow and have to travel cross-country and meet a bunch of new people to get a new job... so is that what you want to happen to you? It "makes the most interesting story" if you're in danger, at risk, on the edge, facing hardship, under stress, barely getting by, part of a conflict... how does that sound to you? Is that what you're after, or are you after "winning"? I suspect that most people would be viewed as "bad roleplayers" and "power gamers" and such, if their real-life decisions were judged by the standards that some have for "roleplaying".

    Do you find losing -- actually losing, in real life, for real -- "fun"? Do you find not getting the job, having people you love taken out of your life, having your car break down when you're going somewhere important, etc, "fun"? If not, then why would your character find it fun? If your character doesn't find it fun, then how is it "good roleplaying" to embrace rather than avoid those sorts of bad moments?

    "Losing Is Fun" is not a roleplaying notion, it's a storytelling notion.

    Judging character balance by their role in the story, rather than by their competence in dealing with events that occur in the game/campaign, is not a roleplaying metric, it's a storytelling metric.



    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I'd say that the one being selfish is the one refusing to create a character that can engage with the scenario. I can understand if there was miss-communication (or none at all) so the player believed he was creating an appropriate character but ended up not succeeding. Willingly refusing to engage with the premise of the campaign[1] would result in either a compelled re-roll or being asked to find another game. Willingly wasting other people's time at the table (even in the name of "playing a character") is a flaw I will not allow at my tables. If a mid-game story hook doesn't catch you, oh well. There will be others. But you have to be willing (and have created a character that would be willing) to go along with the rest of the group. I'm not going to run two disconnected sessions simultaneously. That's rude to the other characters and selfish of the ego-absorbed dude who can't play well with others.

    [1] game, reason you're creating characters, etc. I use campaign because I mostly play D&D. Other games use other terms.
    "Campaign" is fine -- it's a generic term of the hobby, long used by multiple games.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-05 at 10:49 AM.
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    I suggest to people that they think about the character's life as they think of their own -- while someone could tell a story about your life 100 years from now, do you really care whether your actions "make the most interesting story" to someone 100 years from now? Or are you driven by your own motives and concerns and needs and fears?
    I will say - there are some historical figures who worried greatly about such things (most notably Alexander the Great), but they did so from the perspective of seeming awesome/morally right etc. rather than 'interesting', so that only proves your point.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post

    "Losing Is Fun" is not a roleplaying notion, it's a storytelling notion.
    So when I've had characters who have lost and been fine with it, I've been deluding myself. Good to know.

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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    Yes, and the problem is that you're a big believer in 3): that another player's character losing is somehow ruining the game for you.

    But if that player is fine with being a spectator, why is it skin off your nose?

    If I show up at a social game with an asocial buffoon, or a combat game with a non-combatant etc., the presumption should be that I as a player am willing to bite the bullet for whatever trouble this causes me.
    The problem is that they're dead weight, that other characters have to carry.

    See previous example of character who has no combat abilities and refuses to learn any even though they keep finding themselves in combat -- that character is putting the other characters' lives in danger unnecessary every time they need to be protected or saved. Every time they go hide by the horses and then can't even protect the horses when an enemy sneaks around to where they are, they're putting the party and its goals in added jeopardy.

    To many gamers, their character is not simply a plastic gaming piece, or a narrative element. They're invested in their characters, and want their character to live and eventually succeed. They've put a lot of thought into their character, and a lot of time, and have plans for that character that go beyond getting stabbed in the back while keeping Bob The Useless from getting killed because Bob the Useless is a pacifist flower arranger in a dangerous quasi-medieval world full of people who view pacifists as easy victims and monsters who don't understand the notion of pacifism at all.


    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    This isn't the same as a character setting themselves up for failure. Let me give a fairly simple example: a scenario is about a school shooting. The players are playing students who are victims of the attack. We know, from reality, that most people fail to do anything about an attacker in a situation like this, due to fear that they'll get shot first. This despite the fact that in nearly all such scenarios it would be more beneficial for all the victims to stand up and rush the attacker.

    So Player A, playing a student, knows this. They have a choice: to act on the rational knowledge that staying down is practically suicide and stand up, or to follow the role of someone who is deeply afraid of being shot first and stay down.

    Neither choice is synonymous with the character setting themselves up for failure, because both options can be considered informed by the character's in-universe will to avoid harm. It's the player's decision whether to weigh reason or emotion and the player's motives which ultimately inform it.

    So Player A falls on the side of emotional realism and opts for their character to stay down. Enter Player B. Player B does not want their character to die and this motive causes them to weigh rational decision making over emotion. Hence, Player B opts for their character to stand up and attack.

    However, the success of Player B's character is directly influenced by decision of Player A. Let's suppose that in this case, Player A's decision for their character to stay down leads to both characters being killed.

    Player B cannot fairly argue Player A's character set themselves up for failure. But he may argue Player A set themselves and other players up for failure. Player A could've been fine with the outcome itself, but now they are made to regret their decision due to reaction by other players. This creates a atmosphere where role of the afraid student is implicitly banned, regardless of how much sense it would make or how fun it would be to the player playing that character.

    This example is such mostly to underline that the problem has very little to do with whether you're playing to "explore the world", or to "explore a character", or to "explore a theme" or "create a story" etc.. The metagame phenomenom where some roles are disincentivized or implicitly cut out doesn't hinge on any of those. So please don't waste virtual ink on those tangents. They're not relevant.

    The only thing that's relevant is that somewhere along the line you decide that another character infringing on your character is the same as another player infringing on you.
    Player B's character could also have been through training or a seminar on how to react in those situations -- or just have some damn sense -- and realize that curling up in a ball and doing nothing is the LAST thing to do and the MOST likely to get them killed. And thus it would be entirely in character for them to find a way to get out, bunker down somewhere secure, or take the fight to the attackers. But before we go down that rabbit-hole, we might want to find an example scenario that has something to do with Roleplaying Games, rather than "roleplaying exercises".

    And the thing is, at some point, a player who does the sort of thing we're talking about here, eventually IS infringing on the other players.

    An RPG is a group activity, not X number of players independently interacting with the GM, and there's a line beyond which a player is just being a detriment to the enjoyment of the rest of the players.


    ---
    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    @CharonsHelper:

    No, "Losing is Fun" is not opposite of roleplaying. Roleplaying is fundamentally acting, you and your character are distinct, and this holds true regardless of whether you like or not. A metagame level of player interest always exists. It's very basic to acting to be able to think at these two levels at once; to act as if you are afraid even when you are not. To make a poor decision as your character because it makes sense for the character, even if you as an actor realize it would be a poor decision.
    RPGs are not amateur theater hour, any more than they are amateur group storytelling hour.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-05 at 11:16 AM.
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by BWR View Post
    So when I've had characters who have lost and been fine with it, I've been deluding myself. Good to know.
    Not even remotely what I said, or what "Losing Is Fun" is about as a concept -- it has nothing to do with whether your character is "fine with losing".
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

    Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.

    The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.

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    @Lord Raziere: "Losing is Fun" is the middle option.

    The actual other end of the spectrum from "everyone must optimize" is "everyone must NOT optimize", which is a different beast entirely. I don't see it much in tabletop games, but it is widespread in creative writing and freeform circles. It manifest as the idea that every character must have flaws and every character must suffer setbacks to be valid.

    Again: "Losing is Fun" means accepting that deliberately bad character decisions don't make a person a bad player, and that a player can enjoy this, and you can enjoy when another player does this. "Losing is Fun" doesn't say optimal play is wrong, it says it's not necessary. The ends of the spectrum try to say this or that is necessary or else you are a bad player and ruining everyone else's fun.

    ---

    @Oxybe: I disagree with your argument starting with your premise. You found your reasoning on the idea that Player A is somehow not engaging the scenario. But they are: they looked at the facts of the situation and facts of their character and decided on a course of action. They are tangibly acting in character. It is just as valid game decision as Player B's or hypothetical Player C's. It's bad character decision, but that should not make it a bad player decision.

    As far as the realism tangent goes, no-one has to play RPGs for escapism. They can do that, but they're not for that. Using reality as a guideline for roleplaying is wrongly maligned, especially in this example scenario when you accept Player A was aware of both options being valid and made the choice of their own volition.

    ---

    @CharonsHelper: "What does it have to do with Losing is Fun?" Simple, a player can have fun even when they are acting miserable as their character. Other players can find the miserable character to be appealing even when they are acting as if they hate them as their characters. All the actual people around the actual table can have a fun night even when all their characters lost horribly, once it is acknowledged that this is possible.

    ---

    @Max_Killjoy: "Losing is Fun is a storytelling notion, not a roleplaying notion."

    You can keep telling yourself that if you like but it does not actually pan out. In every roleplaying game there is a step where the player has to decide what role they are going to play. The idea that choosing the role which they deem likely to create interesting outcomes is somehow contrary to playing that role does not follow. What is even the alternative? Choosing a role which they deem likely to create uninteresting outcomes? Outcomes they're indifferent to?

    I'd rather they pick a role that's interesting to them. And nothing precludes losing outcomes from being interesting. If a player wants to wallow in misery, I'm fine with it. Nothing about that precludes playing a character as if they're a real person. The player can still act as their character as if losing is exactly as awfull as it is.

    ---

    As for selfishness? Let's be clear here: I find all games work better when everyone at the table is there for healthily selfish reasons. Consider the Abilene Paradox. If you have not heard it before, here's an explanation: it's a hot summer day. A family is lazing about. Suddenly, Granpa suggests they go on a roadtrip to Abilene. Granma, not wanting to offend Granpa, agrees with him. A man, not wanting to upset his parents, agrees with them. His wife, not wanting to upset his husband and in-laws, agrees. So on and so forth. So the entire family takes a trip to Abilene. Its hot in the car and the trip is awful. No-one likes it. But when they get home, everybody claims to have liked it, because they don't want to appear impolite... untill the Granpa reveals he only suggested the trip because he thought everyone else was bored and didn't really want to take the trip himself either.

    Everyone would've been better off lazing in the sun, but no-one managed to say it because they were busy thinking of what everyone else wanted.

    The three point list I made has potential for similar phenomena: everyone shows up to play characters they thought others would like, instead of characters they would actually enjoy playing. The danger just increases if you go and say "it's selfish of you to have made that character and that makes you a bad player". People don't want to be called "bad", so once their desires have been marked as such they will cease to communicate them openly.

    None of this means selfishness can't cause trouble. Of course it can. But selflessness is not automagic solution. Especially not when you're demanding selflessness from one person to satisfy your selfish desire. Every time another player's character is losing and they're fine with it, but it's bothering you, you should ask yourself the same question I asked Max: why is it skin off your nose?
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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    Who put the trailers and book ads there isn't really the main point though - they're there, and we could absolutely use something similar in tabletop RGPs.

    On the other hand, plenty of much smaller games exist. Nemesis is pretty rules heavy but still only clocks in at 50 odd pages, and you've got your Wushus and RISUSes. It's a visibility problem, and while it would really help to have a company like WotC do this (and it's not like WotC wouldn't benefit) the games are there.

    Heck, at this point it would be nice to bring it back. D&D and Advanced D&D coexisted for a while, and at this point only Advanced D&D is still around, renamed to just D&D. WotC releases nominally "Basic" stuff every so often, but a "Basic" D&D that's still something like 300 pages isn't even remotely in the needed niche. A slim paperback book of about 30 pages would probably do wonders for both the hobby as a whole and WotC's D&D finances (while still a drop in the bucket compared to the money printing license that is MtG).
    When I first started playing both Dragon Magazine and White Dwarf were "industry wide" publications. Sure, Dragon still skewed heavily TSR...but that was the era when TSR had a dozen distinct RPGs, and other companies, none of which would be considered big time, were at least able to get some advertising and reviewing content out there. White Dwarf was even more even-handed and, IIRC, including a bunch of non-RPG stuff too (yes, I still want the original Chainsaw Warrior because of that magazine!!). It's a small thing, I think, but indicative of the lack of a professional platform for genre-wide promotion. I wonder if it would do any good now...

    Aside: I've always wondered if the exclusion of ads in comic books contributed to the long term decline in sales. Based strictly on recollection, the primary lines of books dropped paid ads as the big comic boom was taking off...they hype and boom made it so revenue from Hostess, Atlas strength training programs, Megaforce and the cool "army in a box" vendors wasn't necessary for the companies to rake in money...so they stopped using them. Not only that, they got to spike prices and people still bought and bought and bought. Then the crash...book prices remained high, sales dropped, compaies couldn't maintain revenue streams, publication numbers went way down, and sales dropped even more. Was outside advertising ever considered? It still does wonders for sports and fashion magazines.

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    Default Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    @Lord Raziere: "Losing is Fun" is the middle option.

    The actual other end of the spectrum from "everyone must optimize" is "everyone must NOT optimize", which is a different beast entirely. I don't see it much in tabletop games, but it is widespread in creative writing and freeform circles. It manifest as the idea that every character must have flaws and every character must suffer setbacks to be valid.

    Again: "Losing is Fun" means accepting that deliberately bad character decisions don't make a person a bad player, and that a player can enjoy this, and you can enjoy when another player does this. "Losing is Fun" doesn't say optimal play is wrong, it says it's not necessary. The ends of the spectrum try to say this or that is necessary or else you are a bad player and ruining everyone else's fun.

    @CharonsHelper: "What does it have to do with Losing is Fun?" Simple, a player can have fun even when they are acting miserable as their character. Other players can find the miserable character to be appealing even when they are acting as if they hate them as their characters. All the actual people around the actual table can have a fun night even when all their characters lost horribly, once it is acknowledged that this is possible.
    "Losing is fun" is as-worded an absolute statement that losing is fun -- not an assertion that it can be fun, for some players, some of the time.

    And maybe it is possible to have fun that way for some players, in some games, some of the time.

    For others, sub-optimal outcomes (including outright failure/losing) are a possible consequence, the potential price, of making the character's decisions true to the character. The character may even know that they're choosing the hard road but have their reasons. But for those players, the sub-optimal outcome will never be fun. For us, it's not fun watching our characters fail, it's not fun watching anyone we don't actively feel deserves it fail.

    "Losing IS Fun" doesn't sound like the middle option, it sounds exactly like "the idea that every character must have flaws and every character must suffer setbacks to be valid" that infests creative writing and literature circles, which often comes across more as an assertion that "character competence" and "literary quality" are mutually exclusive ends of a single axis.


    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    @Max_Killjoy: "Losing is Fun is a storytelling notion, not a roleplaying notion."

    You can keep telling yourself that if you like but it does not actually pan out. In every roleplaying game there is a step where the player has to decide what role they are going to play. The idea that choosing the role which they deem likely to create interesting outcomes is somehow contrary to playing that role does not follow. What is even the alternative? Choosing a role which they deem likely to create uninteresting outcomes? Outcomes they're indifferent to?

    I'd rather they pick a role that's interesting to them. And nothing precludes losing outcomes from being interesting. If a player wants to wallow in misery, I'm fine with it. Nothing about that precludes playing a character as if they're a real person. The player can still act as their character as if losing is exactly as awfull as it is.
    What does "Losing is fun" have to do with choosing a character role? What character would want to lose? It would appear to be about the player's priorities completely separated from the character's motives and involve the player undertaking a form of metagaming; for "story" purposes rather than "winning the game" purposes in this instance... "what would produce the most interesting outcome" sounds like a story / narrative metric. For most characters, getting what they want is obviously the "most interesting" outcome, which from all the things I've seen is not what people who say "losing is fun" are talking about.


    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    As for selfishness? Let's be clear here: I find all games work better when everyone at the table is there for healthily selfish reasons. Consider the Abilene Paradox. If you have not heard it before, here's an explanation: it's a hot summer day. A family is lazing about. Suddenly, Granpa suggests they go on a roadtrip to Abilene. Granma, not wanting to offend Granpa, agrees with him. A man, not wanting to upset his parents, agrees with them. His wife, not wanting to upset his husband and in-laws, agrees. So on and so forth. So the entire family takes a trip to Abilene. Its hot in the car and the trip is awful. No-one likes it. But when they get home, everybody claims to have liked it, because they don't want to appear impolite... untill the Granpa reveals he only suggested the trip because he thought everyone else was bored and didn't really want to take the trip himself either.

    Everyone would've been better off lazing in the sun, but no-one managed to say it because they were busy thinking of what everyone else wanted.

    The three point list I made has potential for similar phenomena: everyone shows up to play characters they thought others would like, instead of characters they would actually enjoy playing. The danger just increases if you go and say "it's selfish of you to have made that character and that makes you a bad player". People don't want to be called "bad", so once their desires have been marked as such they will cease to communicate them openly.
    That's an example of lack of pre-campaign communication and agreement -- and could just as easily happen with unspoken "selfishness" as it did with the unspoken "selflessness" of the example.


    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    None of this means selfishness can't cause trouble. Of course it can. But selflessness is not automagic solution. Especially not when you're demanding selflessness from one person to satisfy your selfish desire. Every time another player's character is losing and they're fine with it, but it's bothering you, you should ask yourself the same question I asked Max: why is it skin off your nose?
    Asked and answered -- multiple times, in detail. And not just by me, IIRC.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-07-05 at 04:02 PM.
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