What makes for a good game?

[silva]

The problem with AW is that it gives the MC all narrative control. No choice your character ever makes ever has a defined effect on the game world, the MC has to make something up. Even if you have a great MC and he tells great stories, the fact is he's doing it all by himself without your help, which kind of defeats the purpose of cooperative storytelling.

Drolyt, I understand you dont know the game well and is just following the dishonest fallacy propagated by the Church of Frank some time now. Thats totally excusable coming from you because you seem a really nice and reasonable guy.

But please drop that.

The game has actual problems, yes, some even big (like promoting PvP but not backing it up with decent rules) but making player decisions irrelevant because the GM has the power to do whatever he wants to anytime with the players is not one of them. This fact was already proved in the other AW thread running right now and every reasonable forum member that do not have a personal problem with me or with the game author being gay or with on-the-fly improvising already acknowledged that.

[Whipstitch]

As an aside:

Rules-lite games aren't hated here, just ones that seem to have very poor mechanics.

Yeah, people have come out in support of Fate on several occasions even though some goober in the grognards.txt goon squad is super convinced that everyone here hates that system for some reason. It's the damndest thing.

Shadowrun has taken a shitload of flak on the Den for having terrible Matrix rules. The difference is that we don't have any posters who make it their full-time job to insist that ACTUALLY Shadowrun's Matrix rules are the best ever and anyone who doesn't like them just doesn't know how to have fun.

This, a thousand times this. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Shadowrun has multiple books and subsystems that can charitably be described as a dumpster fire. If you bring me someone stupid enough to defend the vehicle rules I assure you that I will point and laugh at them every bit as hard as I laugh at people who defend the matrix rules, because again, those rules are a dumpster fire. Pointing these things out isn't enough to earn you a mic drop and applause.

I tend to measure the quality of the setting first by how many character concepts, situations and adventure ideas I get when I discover it.

This is a common attitude, and I think it's part of why RPG materials tend to receive glowing reviews relative to other products--I get excited about looting books for spare parts in the same way that my uncle gets excited by the idea of a rusted out chevy. And paradoxically, an rpg book can often prove inspiring in part because of things that are actually quite horrible to deal with in play. Let's take Shadowrun again as an example. That game features ridiculous levels of gadget fetishism and that shit is like catnip for a certain breed of reader even though making people actually choose between a hojillion different handguns and designer armor vests is as big of a waste of table time as making people pick out camping gear in D&D. Coping with such things and scrapping shit left 'n' right is part and parcel to the hobby, but it plays havoc with review structures and industry awards. I mean, how am I supposed to grade out Feng Shui or Exalted from 1-10 if I intend to use the latter's fluff with the former's crunch?

[Dogbert]

My two cents:

1) The system must follow the game's objectives. A game that doesn't do what the sales brochure says is written either by a nitwit or a liar.
2) At least most of the rules included must be better than MTP. As mentioned earlier by many others, MTP is something you can come up with on your own without giving your money to anyone else, so any system that's equal or worse than MTP is a con.
3) The writer must know math BUT keep it simple. A little statistical analysis goes a long way. By the same token, if chargen requires a scientific calculator I won't even bother in reading, we're no longer in the 80s.
4) The prose must keep demagoguery to a minimum. Demagogues are the Bill Gates of the hobby, they don't care for making good products, just to tell you how good their piece of crap is.
5) The writer must at least have some notions of usability and editorial design. Even world's best system will get soiled by having me do cross-references every two pages.

As an informal #6, personally I prefer systems with a fans-to-fanboys ratio large enough to be able to ignore fanboys. Fanboys ruin everything for everyone.

[DSMatticus]

stuff

Absolutely no one cares what you have to say about AW. Even the, what, one other poster who stood up to defend AW based on its text wanted nothing to do with you because he thought you were crazy stupid. And that was before we found out you've been copy pasting shilltastic posts across the internet for years because... lulz?

I am not saying this to rebut you - virtually everything that comes out of your mouth about AW is either hilarious fail or deliberate troll (and kudos to you that I'm still at least somewhat uncertain which this far into it), and I'll just let your track record stand for itself on this one. I've long since lost the patience for that particular game of whac-a-mole. I am saying this because I am tired of you trying to rehash the exact same argument in every fucking thread you possibly can, exactly like you seem to have done on all the other boards you've plagued. And even if you don't listen and continue to lay out your completely obvious bait all over the board, I am hoping whatever dipshits persistent souls who would still argue with you realize they would be helping you shit all over everything and that they should not do that.

[TiaC]

The thing to do is to write a single post that you can just copypasta in response to all his posts.

[silva]

stuff

When you criticize AW for its true faults - instead of dishonest fallacies propagate by the Church of Frank - Ill stop refuting you.

[Blicero]

Has anyone ever made a set of amusing images depicting the Church of Frank, as it is apparently invoked by silva and others? The lolz demand them.

[brized]

I dunno, but I'd use this and insert a barrel of cocks in the most (in)appropriate place.

[ACOS]

Goddammit silva - is there a thread on this board that you haven't turned in to an AW argument? Seriously dude, just because Story Games is no longer a thing doesn't mean that you have to lead your 1-man crusade to resurrect it. Your issue is with Ron Edwards, not the entire rest of the RPG-playing internet.
Stop that shit.

Also, I've been lurking on this board for quite some time, and I see no evidence to a "Church of Frank". To an uninitiated idiot, I can see how there might be the perception of a total groupthink; but they'd be wrong. Guess what - every board has their own "thing" that kind distinguishes them from other boards. That's all that's going on here. That's why there are so many of them; otherwise, the entire RPGing community could make do with just one ginormous board.

Obviously, this board is not what you are looking for in a RPG discussion forum. Might I suggest going and finding one that is better suited to you? Just a thought. In the mean time, SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT AW - YOU'RE RUINING MY ENJOYMENT OF THIS SITE!!!


*<sigh>* okay, I'm better now. just had to get that off my chest.

[Foxwarrior]

Speaking of the Den being overly negative, does anyone have an intelligent positive review or description of a White Wolf game they could show me?

[Kemper Boyd]

About narrative authority and players, I think one of my favorite rules anywhere ever is the Instinct rule that's in Burning Wheel: basically, a player can define an automatic reaction that the character has in a situation, which overwrites normal rules considerations. For instance, a character can have an Instinct that says "always pulls a knife when threatened", so the player doesn't have to spend a combat round/tick/thingy to pull a knife in a fight.

[silva]

Indeed. Burning Wheel is full of nice ideas. The problem I have with it is the amount of fiddly subsystems involved.

[Koumei]

Speaking of the Den being overly negative, does anyone have an intelligent positive review or description of a White Wolf game they could show me?

>intelligent
>positive review
>White Wolf

Select up to two of these.

(That said, while my review of Kindred of the Ag is rather dry, it gives praise where it is due and talks about some things being interesting and so on.)

[Schleiermacher]

That's not quite fair. Vampire: The Masquerade's revised edition had its issues, true, but on balance it was a good game. Same applies to Revised Mage: The Ascension

[Drolyt]

If your MC is a dick, then there are no solutions to be found in any RPG, you either convince him to stop being a dick or get a new MC.

If your RPG tells you that you're a dick (and your players know that too) if you throw Balors at a lvl 12 party, will that mean:
A) just as many DMs will throw Balors at the party, no matter if that text is there or not.
B) more DMs will throw Balors at lvl 12 parties
C) less DMs will throw Balors at lvl 12 parties
D) Giant frog.

C, or possibly D. I'm not sure of the relevance of this, although I agree that CR guidelines are nice I was referring to MCs that are dicks on purpose, not to those that simply don't understand how the rules work. One would not normally refer to the latter as a dick.

The problem with AW is that it gives the MC all narrative control. No choice your character ever makes ever has a defined effect on the game world, the MC has to make something up. Even if you have a great MC and he tells great stories, the fact is he's doing it all by himself without your help, which kind of defeats the purpose of cooperative storytelling.

Drolyt, I understand you dont know the game well and is just following the dishonest fallacy propagated by the Church of Frank some time now. Thats totally excusable coming from you because you seem a really nice and reasonable guy.

But please drop that.

The game has actual problems, yes, some even big (like promoting PvP but not backing it up with decent rules) but making player decisions irrelevant because the GM has the power to do whatever he wants to anytime with the players is not one of them. This fact was already proved in the other AW thread running right now and every reasonable forum member that do not have a personal problem with me or with the game author being gay or with on-the-fly improvising already acknowledged that.

Fair enough, perhaps I should have written the opinion of the Church of Frank as I personally have no interest in this debate, but I do think my summary more accurately reflects the anti-AW argument then what Cyberzombie seems to think their argument is, regardless of whether the argument is accurate.

[DSMatticus]

Drolyt, silva is not "correcting" you in good faith. He is baiting you and others into rehashing the argument. He has been outed as copypasting bizarre shillposts across the internet and getting banned from other forums for derailing every fucking thread he can into an AW shitfest, which is exactly what he has done since signing up here. He is either a troll, a shill, or the worst kind of fanboy. I am leaning towards troll or butthurt fanboy at this point, because he is trying way too hard to be provocative. A huge chunk of his posts since being outed are short one- or two-liners that boil down to "nope, you lose, sorry, prove me wrong." The best thing you can do is ignore him, or else he'll just keep trying to shit all over everything.

Anyway, as to the part of your post that matters: you mentioned convincing MC's to stop being dicks. Ishy asked if you thought having the RPG explicitly call out certain MC actions as dickish would convince less MC's to be dickish. Seems pretty relevant.

I don't think most people who end up doing dickish things as MC are deliberate dicks. Good advice and some standards go a long way towards preventing dickitude at the table, and as such an RPG that establishes those boundaries is doing something better than an RPG that encourages you to cross them.

[Drolyt]

Anyway, as to the part of your post that matters: you mentioned convincing MC's to stop being dicks. Ishy asked if you thought having the RPG explicitly call out certain MC actions as dickish would convince less MC's to be dickish. Seems pretty relevant.

I don't think most people who end up doing dickish things as MC are deliberate dicks. Good advice and some standards go a long way towards preventing dickitude at the table, and as such an RPG that establishes those boundaries is doing something better than an RPG that encourages you to cross them.

Alright, I see where you (and Ishy) are coming from now. That isn't really what I usually think of when someone talks about an MC being a dick, but a good point nonetheless.

[Cyberzombie]

"Don't play with a dick GM" assumes that only players want the system to reign in the GM.

The truth is, though, that not every GM WANTS to be a dick, but their rules don't provide an effective mechanical system to determine whether they should give their players a million dollars, or drop a million balors on them. GMs don't come from GM school knowing everything they ever need to know. All they have is the mechanics and advice contained in the product they paid money for.

Yeah very true. Giving the GM guidelines like a CR system to tell how difficult a given battle is can be useful for newbie DMs. It's definitely a plus, assuming the CR system works. CR systems can definitely help prevent newbie mistakes, but they'll never stop GMs who want to be outright assholes.

I don't object to the inclusion of encounter building guidelines. Encounter building guidelines are a good thing, especially the more complex the rules get. I simply object to the idea that it's going to miraculously turn a vindictive DM into a good one.

This is an embarrassing misunderstanding on your part. You are implying that playing your character doesn't have an influence on the narrative, but that's completely ridiculous. Deciding whether or not to hide while the dragon attacks the castle and devours the princess or intervene and rescue her is a decision that will greatly influence the narrative. But if your DM decides that no matter what you do the princess gets eaten and the dragon autodetects you and selects you for its next meal, then your decision is completely meaningless and has no effect on the narrative whatsoever.

If you're talking no-win situations, then D&D is far more an offender than AW, given that plenty of official D&D modules feature boxed text sequences and plot points that can't be changed. AW specifically tells you to not prepare scenes, so if you're playing it as "The dragon always wins", you're playing AW wrong.

I've yet to actually see a citation from any AW example that results in the GM throwing forth inescapable results. Though I've seen plenty in D&D modules.

[Josh_Kablack]

3. Did I need to pay money for this? I swear to fucking God that I will kickstart a "Ranchers vs. Native Americans" ultra-rules-light RPG that will spend 200 pages telling people to go outside and play Cowboys & Indians.

Will back at $15 level.

Provide link to KS campaign?

[DSMatticus]

If you're talking no-win situations, then D&D is far more an offender than AW, given that plenty of official D&D modules feature boxed text sequences and plot points that can't be changed. AW specifically tells you to not prepare scenes, so if you're playing it as "The dragon always wins", you're playing AW wrong.

I've yet to actually see a citation from any AW example that results in the GM throwing forth inescapable results. Though I've seen plenty in D&D modules.

You are moving goalposts and turning into a mini-silva. We are not arguing about what AW is or is not right now. You posted a mischaracterization of the anti-AW position (not an argument against the anti-AW position, just a false summary of what the position is), and a couple of people responded to explain to you what the position actually is and why it's a meaningful position (not to defend the specifics of that position, which has been done extensively in other threads despite your assertions otherwise - the exact argument you are trying to have with me right now is the one I spent half a dozen pages having with chamomile in the very last thread, for fuck's sake). Then in response you said a couple more stupid things ("the way to solve problems at the table is by storming off", "player games aren't meant to give players any control of the narrative"), and I criticized those statements on their own merits.

You said games with an emphasis on "roleplaying" over "narration" don't allow players to influence the story. I explained why you were wrong. The only responses that would not be a non-sequitur are to agree that you were wrong or defend yourself. Full stop. Don't change the topic.

If you do instead want to argue about whether or not quantum fuckery a la improv fully in the hands of the DM is railroady or not (it is), go to the other AW thread, pick one of my posts on that very topic, and start poking holes. We're not doing it here, both because I am sick of threads being derailed into AW arguments AND because it is wildly off-topic even in our argument.

[OgreBattle]

Has anyone ever made a set of amusing images depicting the Church of Frank, as it is apparently invoked by silva and others? The lolz demand them.

[silva]

Good, but Matticus should be on that pic, being the first apostle and all.

*Edit* how about this ?

[Leress]

Has anyone ever made a set of amusing images depicting the Church of Frank, as it is apparently invoked by silva and others? The lolz demand them.

Now this if for people who here back in the day:

Original Thread: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=25408

[RadiantPhoenix]

Someone once shooped a picture of Frank's face onto a dominatrix.

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52894&start=40#242594

[DSMatticus]

Someone once shooped a picture of Frank's face onto a dominatrix.

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52894&start=40#242594

I regret nothing.