Freeform and/or Rules Lite gaming

[virgil]

K, I never said different games offer more or less RP. (where in my post did you saw that ?? ).

Probably when you said Gygax didn't roleplay, because that was your counter to "you can't stop people from RP."

[silva]

I said Gygax didnt roleplay. I did not imply that D&D didnt allow roleplaying or something like that.

[silva]

Silva, you missed the mark a bit.

Remember, MTP means "someone makes shit up in lieu of or as the rules". RP means "someone makes shit up as a supplement to the rules".

Yes, I understood perfectly. Now, do YOU understand that "someone makes shit up" is the heart of the hobbie ? Because otherwise - without a GM making shit up - it would be impossible for a RPG to work ?

I think you guys are suffering from a certain myopia here, because you seem to get bothered by "low-level fiat" (resolution of individual tasks) but do not seem to bother with "high-level fiat" (the fiction flow, or the follow-through of individual tasks ).

Giving a more practical example:

- A player wants to get a treasure inside a volcano, which happens to be guarded by a dragon.

Any system allow the player to test his fighting skills (be it through a complex fighting subsystem or through a single "Im good at poking things!" roll ) for trying to defeat the dragon.

BUT the system will only dictate if the player defeats the dragon or not. No matter how good the player performed in the combat subsystem (or in the single roll) the GM can simply state "Oops! before you can reach the treasure you see a bigger dragon just landing in front of you! it seems this is the lair of a dragon family, and judging by the huge size of the new dragon, it seems the one you just slayed was just a little child". What do you do now ?

See ? No matter how detailed your rules, GM fiat/volition/MTP will always be present in roleplaying games.

[virgil]

See ? No matter how detailed your rules, GM fiat/volition/MTP will always be present in roleplaying games.

That MTP always exists does not lead to the conclusion that using more of it in an RPG is a good thing.

[silva]

See ? No matter how detailed your rules, GM fiat/volition/MTP will always be present in roleplaying games.

That MTP always exists does not lead to the conclusion that using more of it in an RPG is a good thing.

Of course not, as that conclusion is particular to each group preferences.

[Atmo]

MTP = game withou rules, or a certain session of a game whose rules don't mater.

RPG = actual roleplaying game where you use rules to achieve something.

[silva]

MTP = game without rules

There is no such a thing as a "game without rules". By the dictionary definition, for it to be a game it must have rules.

..or a certain session of a game whose rules don't mater.

There will always be certain portions of the game where "rules dont matter". See the "dragon arriving from nowhere" in my previous example.

[K]

See ? No matter how detailed your rules, GM fiat/volition/MTP will always be present in roleplaying games.

No, you failed right here. Declaring "the fact that my example doesn't have a system for this means that all games can't have a system for this" is an example of your particular brand of circular reasoning.

This doesn't need to be MTPed. There could easily be a system for when various monsters show up. In fact, older versions of DnD literally had a "Wandering Monster" table.

Don't confuse making choices or RPing as MTP. The DM deciding that you've insulted the dragon and he wants to kill you is RP. The DM deciding that he wants to put Monster X in an encounter instead of Monster Y is just a choice. You can tell that these aren't MTP because their introduction has predictable results.

A game is where choices have predictable consequences and rules determine those predictable consequences. This is why you can get better at games and gain skill.

FATE or AW don't qualify as games. There is no way to get better at them because choices don't have predictable consequences.

[silva]

No, you failed right here. Declaring "the fact that my example doesn't have a system for this means that all games can't have a system for this" is an example of your particular brand of circular reasoning.

This doesn't need to be MTPed. There could easily be a system for when various monsters show up. In fact, older versions of DnD literally had a "Wandering Monster" table.

Oh, really ? And where is the plots table, and the NPCs table, and the treasons table ? Oh, and what about the pacing and climaxes table where are those huh ?

Sorry but there isnt a fully automated RPG yet.

A game is where choices have predictable consequences and rules determine those predictable consequences.

Yup, and a roleplaying game is one the GM determine those consequences, using rules as a tool.

So "choices with predictable consequences" in a RPG is ultimately a product of the GM capacity in generating coherent content and outcomes for the group, with the help of the rules. So no matter how good you are at your "poking things with my sword" skill, if the GM keep producing new dragons (or incoherent bullshit) from nowhere then your skill will be meaningless.

If RPG was a aircraft, the GM (together with the players) would be the pilot and the rules their tools (sensors, radar, vision modes, etc), not the other way around.

[K]

No, you failed right here. Declaring "the fact that my example doesn't have a system for this means that all games can't have a system for this" is an example of your particular brand of circular reasoning.

This doesn't need to be MTPed. There could easily be a system for when various monsters show up. In fact, older versions of DnD literally had a "Wandering Monster" table.

Oh, really ? And where is the plots table, and the NPCs table, and the treasons table ? Oh, and what about the pacing and climaxes table where are those huh ?

Sorry but there isnt a fully automated RPG yet.

You've given examples of things that are meaningless RP choices in the context of the game.

The game doesn't change when you use Plot A or Plot B. It doesn't change when you use slow pacing or fast pacing.

It changes a little if you choose monster A or Monster B, but actually very little because both monsters are within the range of monsters the PCs are supposed to be able to beat. Throwing more monsters at the PCs is just you feeding them XP and treasure at a faster pace, perhaps even one to fast for the game mechanics, but that's still just a choice that's allowed within the context of the game.

Being able to RP doesn't make something a game. In point of fact, RP can be done with no rules at all.

[silva]

Oh really ? And if the GM throws enemies much higher than the power level of the players (meaning instant kill ) ? Or yet: and if the GM dont throw any monsters at all the players ?

See ? Your micro-level rules structuring dont mean shit if the macro-level says so. And the macro-level is controlled by the GM, not the rules.

[TiaC]

If RPG was a aircraft, the GM (together with the players) would be the pilot and the rules their tools (sensors, radar, vision modes, etc), not the other way around.

No, silva, despite how you argue, you will always be a tool.

[MGuy]

Oh really ? And if the GM throws enemies much higher than the power level of the players (meaning instant kill ) ? Or yet: and if the GM dont throw any monsters at all the players ?

See ? Your micro-level rules structuring dont mean shit if the macro-level says so. And the macro-level is controlled by the GM, not the rules.

Neither throwing monsters or not throwing monsters at PCs change the rules of the game. Let's do it this way. Let's say you have a skill "Jump" and in RHeavy you have a whole table that decides how far you can jump. Not having to jump or creating a chasm that's too far for any player to jump over doesn't change the actual jumping mechanics. In Rlite the Tn is created by how difficult the GM thinks the jump is so whenever a jump would be attempted the player has to have to ask the GM whether or not he can make it or how hard it is because simply having the numbers on how far the jump is is not enough to gauge the difficulty of any given jump.

[K]

Oh really ? And if the GM throws enemies much higher than the power level of the players (meaning instant kill ) ? Or yet: and if the GM dont throw any monsters at all the players ?

See ? Your micro-level rules structuring dont mean shit if the macro-level says so. And the macro-level is controlled by the GM, not the rules.

No. The DM's ability to make choices doesn't negate the player's ability to have predictable consequences to their actions. They aren't related at all.

Having the DM throw monsters too powerful for you gives you the predictable result of dying in response to all player actions, a result that you can then take back to him and say "hey dude, why did you kill us with a shitty adventure and make it so that we couldn't win at any skill level when we just could have had a fun game at our skill level?"

"Games" like FATE or AW are were made so that players would never face predictable consequences of their actions and cannot gain skill or system mastery, and thus they are not games in any sense of the term. They are acting exercises with a few randomizing elements.

[silva]

"Games" like FATE or AW were made so that players would never face predictable consequences to their actions

Me and at least ten thousand more people disagree with you.

And lets be honest here: Have you really tried playing any those games in a sincere/non-biased way and seen your choices never meting predictable consequences ? Because I played Apocalypse World a lot of times and neither me nor any of my players ever had the kind of experience you describe.

[PhoneLobster]

And lets be honest here: Have you really tried playing any those games in a sincere/non-biased way

Just... really?

In order to come to feel good about your favorite crappy game you have to now go around accusing people, worse, actually stupidly believing that people, are running around sitting down for hours of play with a game with the direct intention of perverting it into an "insincere" and "biased" bad experience?

You actually as your latest in an endless line of whining about how the AW games are the unappreciated 2nd coming of RPG games actually think people are deliberately not having fun with hours on end of their personal time just in order to produce false conclusions to throw at you in an internet forum?

You can run around calling people liars, you can run around telling them they are doing it wrong. But when you run around telling them they are deliberately doing it wrong in a way which hurts only themselves and which they could have just fucking lied about on the internet you are basically VERY confused, or projecting some really WEIRD issues, or both.

[K]

"Games" like FATE or AW were made so that players would never face predictable consequences to their actions

Me and at least ten thousand more people disagree with you.

Proving that ten thousand people backed FATE only proves that ten thousand people were wrong. BTW, so are flat-Earthers, Creationists, believers in the lost city of Atlantis, anti-vaxxers, and people who think that herbs have magic powers.

Considering that the gaming community is millions of people, getting 10K backers means convincing less than 0.01% of the gaming community to try your game. Basically, a failure.

And lets be honest here: Have you really tried playing any those games in a sincere/non-biased way and seen your choices never meting predictable consequences ? Because I played Apocalypse World a lot of times and neither me nor any of my players ever had the kind of experience you describe.

Anecdotes are not a form of evidence.

But yes, I've played freeform games with lots of different people and found that players always went back to actual games because they didn't feel like their actions mattered in freeform games. At best, freeform games are a 2-3 session break before people get sick of them.

[silva]

Proving that ten thousand people backed FATE only proves that ten thousand people were wrong

And with this, I end my participation in this thread.

[Cyberzombie]

This doesn't need to be MTPed. There could easily be a system for when various monsters show up. In fact, older versions of DnD literally had a "Wandering Monster" table.

A wandering monster table is a poor example of something predictable, as the majority of PCs wouldn't know what was on the table (and shouldn't know).

[Atmo]

Proving that ten thousand people backed FATE only proves that ten thousand people were wrong

And with this, I end my participation in this thread.

You could jumped out before being smashed against the ground *again*, did you know?

[Mask_De_H]

I resent being compared to a Flat Earther, K. Granted, I'm trying to make an actual game out of the FATE system skeleton, but that shit hurts.

[Username17]

I think K is being slightly unfair to FATE. After all, while the game is rather unintuitive, there is a game down there. Every time you roll the dice, it is an opportunity to spend or lose narrative control points. You can gain points by downgrading your result, and you can spend points to improve your result. So to get better at the game, you take lots of actions whose results don't actually matter so that you can declare the results to be bad and the higher you roll on the dice the more fate points you earn for doing this, and then you try to take as few actions as possible at critical junctures and spend your fate points to turn those actions into ultra-success. So you spend a lot of time trying and failing to get a date for the prom and having screaming matches with your step mom and stuff. And then you declare deus ex machina victory at the end. Note that it's not even really a game of luck - each die roll just determines how much you gain or spend to determine the result you want. With a sufficient ratio of shitting on your character while fucking around to instantly winning at important junctures, the actual die rolls are pretty much meaningless noise.

That's weird, and frankly it's not the game that FATE advertises itself as. So you could make a good argument that FATE is a failure of design as a game. But it is a game. There is in fact a right and a wrong way to do things, and you can get better at the game. I think the makers of FATE would be actually offended if you showed them what skillful play really looks like in that game, but it exists.

K is, however, dead-on in his criticism of Apocalypse World. Acting or not-acting has absolutely no effect on what happens in the game or in the story, and rolling high or low has no effect on what happens in the story. Both player actions and player die rolls have no impact, because bears. Apocalypse World is neither a game of chance nor a game of skill. It's just "The MC rants at you" with some sleight of hand to obfuscate matters.

-Username17

[K]

I think K is being slightly unfair to FATE. After all, while the game is rather unintuitive, there is a game down there.

I'd probably say that there is a game "that could be somewhere in" FATE.

I literally have two FATE books sitting next to my computer because the promises that FATE is selling are so damned tempting, but I also realize that you'd have to write an entirely new game to actually deliver what they attempted.

If you replaced the MTP with actual rules and empowered Players and DMs with a game that allowed control of the narrative, that would be an awesome feat. Unfortunately, they didn't do that, and so FATE remains an interesting curiosity that people might look at for ideas for their own heartbreaker.

[Stinktopus]

My min-maxxed FATE character is Sackpunch Dicklaser.

Disad: "Masochistic Compulsion: Scrotal Torture."

Advantage: "Dick Laser."

Sackpunch responds to all situations by crying and punching himself in the balls for Fate chips. When something ABSOLUTELY needs to die, he cashes in all his chips to fire his dick laser.

[Aryxbez]

And with this, I end my participation in this thread.

I hate when people do this, usually it's when the conversation is starting to go somewhere, and they may even learn something.