Torchbearer - Kickstarter is UP

[RadiantPhoenix]

Well, let's see... it needs to involve in-character actions that only make sense based on out-of-character information.

DM blowjobs are out, because that would come across as "completely at random", which would be less metagamey.

We probably also want to exclude things based on

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∀X(∀{A:(A>0)}(X+A>X))

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[silva]

So let's take a hard example: you want to pick a lock in Magister Cruelle's abode. On the way there, you decide to attempt to gain some skillups by picking pockets of other player characters

Thats not how it works in RQ, BRP nor Pendragon (see the citation in my previous post). Skill checks for advancement are only valid in stressful and/or plot-relevant situations. So, "picking pockets of other player characters to raise your skill" do NOT qualify. While picking the lock of Magister Cruelle´s abode - if its critical the story/adventure progress - does qualify.

And this breaks all your argument apart. The metagamey/artificial behavior you speak of only exist if youre letting players check skills for banal tasks. Fortunately thats not how the rules in the games cited work.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Thats not how it works in RQ, BRP nor Pendragon (see the citation in my previous post). Skill checks for advancement are only valid in stressful and/or plot-relevant situations. So, "picking pockets of other player characters to raise your skill" do NOT qualify. While picking the lock of Magister Cruelle´s abode - if its critical the story/adventure progress - does qualify.

(Bold mine)

Oh look, a condition that's easily produced at will.

[Username17]

So let's take a hard example: you want to pick a lock in Magister Cruelle's abode. On the way there, you decide to attempt to gain some skillups by picking pockets of other player characters

Thats not how it works in RQ, BRP nor Pendragon (see the citation in my previous post). Skill checks for advancement are only valid in stressful and/or plot-relevant situations.

You understand that this is:

• A concession that the system doesn't actually work as advertised, because it's so laughably easy to break that it has to include a metagamey "please don't abuse this rule" clause.
• Makes the system even more metagame. Not only does the character have no way of knowing whether they are in a "time skip" or not, but within the context of their own lives there is no distinction between "plot relevant" events and any others. It's a completely out-of-character distinction that has real effects on what characters do in-world.

silva explaining how he made the fires "better."

-Username17

-Username17

[silva]

Oh look, a condition that's easily produced at will.

Would you or any other GM you play with qualify such a metagamey behavior like "pick-pocketing of fellow teammates in the way to the dungeon for the sole purpose of checking a skill", as a "stressful and/or plot-relevant situation" ?

Please, be honest in you answer.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Oh look, a condition that's easily produced at will.

Would you or any other GM you play with qualify such a metagamey behavior like "pick-pocketing of fellow teammates in the way to the dungeon for the sole purpose of checking a skill", as a "stressful and/or plot-relevant situation" ?

Please, be honest in you answer.

Uh, on my way to mortal peril? Fuck yeah that's a stressful situation.

[Seerow]

The better question is would you or any GM you've ever played with let you pick pockets to get better at opening locks?

Oh wait, that's actually a rule for the system.

[silva]

Oh look, a condition that's easily produced at will.

Would you or any other GM you play with qualify such a metagamey behavior like "pick-pocketing of fellow teammates in the way to the dungeon for the sole purpose of checking a skill", as a "stressful and/or plot-relevant situation" ?

Please, be honest in you answer.

Uh, on my way to mortal peril? Fuck yeah that's a stressful situation.

Notice youre not on "mortal peril" while practicing pick pocket on fellow teammates. (except if one of those teammates is the bloodthirsty dwarf who would kill you on sight if he got you at that - then it turned into a stressful situation. )

[silva]

The better question is: would you or any GM you've ever played with let you pick pockets just to get better at opening locks?

Exactly. As per RQ and Pendragon rules, that not possible.

[Red_Rob]

Tell you what, Silva. You tell me how you would define "stressful" in your game and we'll tell you what behaviour it incentives players into performing to cheese skill checks.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Would you or any other GM you play with qualify such a metagamey behavior like "pick-pocketing of fellow teammates in the way to the dungeon for the sole purpose of checking a skill", as a "stressful and/or plot-relevant situation" ?

Please, be honest in you answer.

Uh, on my way to mortal peril? Fuck yeah that's a stressful situation.

Notice youre not on "mortal peril" while practicing pick pocket on fellow teammates. (except if one of those teammates is the bloodthirsty dwarf who would kill you on sight if he got you at that - then it turned into a stressful situation. )

So fucking what?

Impending mortal peril is still fucking stressful.

Impending exams are stressful, and those are sure as fuck less stressful than mortal peril!

[silva]

Phoenix, the text is clear: its "stressful situations". If what youre doing in a specific moment is stressful, its valid. If not, its not. Trying word gymnastics only weaken your argument.

And in the end, if you feel your definition of the word is valid, just discuss it with the group - if everybody is on the same boat as you, thats fine.

[Seerow]

The better question is: would you or any GM you've ever played with let you pick pockets just to get better at opening locks?

Exactly. As per RQ and Pendragon rules, that not possible.

wooosh

[RadiantPhoenix]

Phoenix, the text is clear: its "stressful situations". If what youre doing in a specific moment is stressful, its valid. If not, its not. Trying word gymnastics only weaken your argument.

And in the end, if you feel your definition of the word is valid, just discuss it with the group - if everybody is on the same boat as you, thats fine.

Situation A: It is one week before you take your final exams.
Situation B: It is one day before you enter a cavern complex full of deadly monsters.

Situation A is known to be stressful enough to cause nervous breakdowns. Do you intend to tell me that situation B is less stressful?

[silva]

wooosh

weeesh

waaash

wuuush

(whats next ? we call my 3 years old to play with us ? )

[silva]

Phoenix, the text is clear: its "stressful situations". If what youre doing in a specific moment is stressful, its valid. If not, its not. Trying word gymnastics only weaken your argument.

And in the end, if you feel your definition of the word is valid, just discuss it with the group - if everybody is on the same boat as you, thats fine.

Situation A: It is one week before you take your final exams.
Situation B: It is one day before you enter a cavern complex full of deadly monsters.

Situation A is known to be stressful enough to cause nervous breakdowns. Do you intend to tell me that situation B is less stressful?

Well, its certainly a valid case. If I was GMing I would open it up to the group, and go with the consensus or what the majority decide.

BUT I would strongly suggest that, by that argument, any situation could be interpreted as stressful: "we are 1 week from the battle of mount badon! Im stressed!", "we are 2 hours from the raid on innsmouth! Im so stressful shiting my paints!", etc. So I would advice to not consider it valid. But, of course, that would only be advice, and would go with what the group decides best.

[fectin]

Please explain how RuneQuest allows you to advance skills only while "in mortal peril", and also has a skill for dancing.

[silva]

Its not worded "mortal peril", its worded stressful and/or important situations.

So, you could be in a Lunar dancer in an academy exam, and if you pass, you will be chosen by Duke Raus to accompany him to the far away land of Prax, away from this life of misery and corruption in central Peloria.

Can you see how stressful and important a dancing situation can be ?

[...You Lost Me]

The better question is: would you or any GM you've ever played with let you pick pockets just to get better at opening locks?

Exactly. As per RQ and Pendragon rules, that not possible.

wooosh

It's like he didn't even read the post.

[LR]

silva, you do realize that even if we give you your silly idea that a DM-controlled state like 'stressful situation' could ever be a balanced or useful mechanic, that skill checks in stressful situations do not in anyway model realistic training? People don't become badasses by attempting badass things and hoping they work out, they become badasses by spending a lot of time memorizing how to be a badass until it becomes second nature to them. SWAT Teams practice breaking into people's houses and knocking them all out all the time in controlled conditions. They keep doing it even after all of the members of the team are certified badasses, because they can be even better and only more training will allow them to realize that goal. Real world experience counts, but only because it allows one to contextualize one's training.

Epiphanies are cool and all, but it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief and mind caulk to hold that situation together. The training montage model is easier to implement, doesn't waste any time at the table on character advancement, and works the way things do in real life. There aren't any advantages to skill check advancement unless you have a very compelling setting reason for people to suddenly know Kung Fu in the middle of a fight, and even then I'd rather come up with an actual system for gaining knowledge like you were a magical girl using a new attack. Probably by just allowing people to claim that they 'just learned' powers that were already on their character sheet. Because expecting people to adjust their character's abilities at the table while action is going on is bullshit.

[ishy]

It also leads to people making silly choices because they need to level their skills and some people gaining loads of experience in skills while others get none.

[nockermensch]

At this point I'd like to be able to claim that silva's problem is that he's lost in translation, because "organic" in Portuguese means the opposite of what it means in English, but that's not the case.

Improving skills as you use them is passable on video-games. ADOM and a lot of other roguelikes do just that, and there it makes sense. But it makes sense because the extremely limited experience those games offer: always life-threatening, all the time AND nobody will look you funny if you have your character doing something idiot-looking to become stronger, because these are single playing games where your adventurer looks like a @. Incidentally, maybe this is the actual reason for Torchbearer going with this kind of advancement: They're emulating the roguelike genre.

But well, the baffling thing is that someone thinks that's "natural" or "organic" that you become a better dancer only when you dance under some kind of risk or facing some critical consequence. If that is "natural", then I guess silva's campaign world schools and academies are all built like the X-Men's danger room. Which, by the way, is another way to break this advancement scheme in half: Silva, what happens if my character in RQ has the resources to build a Danger Room? A place where he feels threatened and challenged, but that's ultimately safe.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frankly, I think that the metagaming of skill advancement is intentional. As in, it's not supposed to smoothly fit into a game 'naturally' but it's just another blunt instrument for the game to force 'drama' in the game.

I didn't really realize it my initial post, but Torchbearer is pretty contemptuous of the fourth wall. Not in a wink-and-a-nod to the audience sort of way like in Freakazoid or Teenagers From Outer Space, either. Rather, in a bad soap opera writer who thinks Chandler's Law, Rule of Cool, and Faux Awesome can make any inane plot good sort of way. The game makes no bones about the fact that when you have a choice between maintaining WSoD and inserting more drama and conflict, WSoD should get the shaft.

[Kaelik]

Silva, that is super fucking metagamey.

That means you deliberately try to find stressful situations in order to get better. That is dumb. I practice picking locks in the safe privacy of my own home, I do this because that is the best way to learn how to pick locks.

If you change the way people get better at picking locks to be "you get better at picking locks by attempting to steal from people where you are likely to get caught" then people who want to get better at picking locks will never practice their skills, because practice doesn't make them better, and they will deliberately seek out oppurtunities where they might get caught, because that is the only way to get better.

Those are decisions that are best practices from the point of view of the player, but make absolutely no sense from the point of view of the character. We have a word for such things, it is called "metagame."

[ETortoise]

The BWHQ games intentionally have a lot of meta game elements. For example, early in Burning Wheel they take the time to tell you that your character is controlled by you, not an independent entity, and that saying "my guy would do this" is a cop out. The conflict rules, especially in BW (double especially pre-Gold), can be highly influenced by player skill. One of the players in my old BW group could consistently beat the rest of us, regardless of relative character abilities.

The advancement system follows suit. There is supposed to be a dichotomy between raising your skills and succeeding on individual rolls. While the PC might want to always succeed, the player has to weigh what's more important to him. Metagaming tricks to beef up one's character usually involve switching to a tactic you're unskilled in so you can raise it's corresponding stat (I never got very good at BW Charop) . In my experience players who advanced their characters quickly were more detached from the PC's fate, they didn't care whether they succeeded or failed on rolls so they focused on raising their numbers.

The "stressful situation" isn't exactly how it works either. Characters only get advancement tests if the GM can think of an interesting consequence for the failed roll. Downtime actions are covered with separate rules for practice and instruction.

In practice, it's all very meta-gamey but it adds an interesting dimension to play.

I just ran a Torchbearer one-shot last Thursday and, while I made a lot of mistakes, would be willing to try it again. It's an odd duck in that the system is much simpler than Burning Wheel (less stats, skills, simpler conflicts, smaller scope) but the game is much harder. Separate from the constant grind of conditions, BW characters have more ways to scrounge up dice to stack the deck in their favor.

I'd like to see a middle ground between TB and BW. If there was a less brutal version of TB with a little more scope for town intrigue I'd probably make it my go to fantasy RPG.