This concept probably already exists, but under a different, better name. It is what I think role-playing games are often intended to be, but tend not to be designed to be.

The idea is that instead of players being primarily focused on playing their characters, and keeping their characters alive and successful, and in solving problems in the best, most resourceful way, the players are focused on bringing about situations in the game that are thematic or that emulate features of the genre in which the game is set.

The basic example would be an adventure game in which players battle monsters. The goal of the players in a monster battle scene would be to bring about a scene in which the monster got to be terrifying and hard to beat and that the characters could only hope to drive it off. This might mean that some of the characters are killed or seriously hurt, or that the characters wind up in a much worse situation, or even that one character has to do something stupid or even antagonistic. But in this kind of game those things would happen and the players would be happy, because the scene was thematic, rather than sad or angry because their characters were sad or angry.

I'm sure people have had this kind of situation arise in a typical roleplaying game, but in my experience, the players work very hard to prevent the monster from getting the upper hand, with the result that the monster generally looks pathetic and sad as the characters beat it up and prevent it from getting away. Any player whose character does something stupid or counterproductive is, in my experience, berated, even if such an act is exactly the kind of thing one might see in a movie or read in a story.

So, do such games exist? Or is it purely reliant on the players, regardless of the rules being used?

Honestly, what you're describing sounds more like a novel, or a movie, rather than a game.
In novels and movies, the plot tends to get to a climactic confrontation, where good and evil are evenly matched and the battle is hard fought and on the edge, often at the expense of the protagonists.

I agree with Nuric. The very essence of an RPG is to take the roles of other personas. Your idea flies in the face of that basic tenant. I have been playing RPGs for twenty-eight years with many different groups. I've never ran across anyone who didn't want their characters to succeed and overcome the obstacles placed before them. While RPGs do have themes, I've never played in or heard of anyone playing in a game where the theme trumped the characters. Sorry, the concept is just completely alien to me in the context of a role-playing game.

Games like that are very difficult to create, because they almost never revolve around an equal group of adventurers.  Through either varied skill or experience through the story, they will all diverge.  Very, very few players are wiling to play in a game like that.  And on rpol at least, there aren't many groups of players and GMs that know each other well enough to trust each other to create a game like that, that is still enjoyable for everyone.

More modern, more narrative games tend to do this pretty well.  FATE based games, for instance, rely on an ebb and flow of putting your character at disadvantages to gain later advantages.  The same for PbtA games where most successes come with a cost.

Those are a little more mild than your example, though.  Games that actually seek to go that badly tend to be collaborative fiction more than games.

You're right, but that's sort of the point. D&D, for example, is set in a quasi-Tolkien world. There's even a game actually set in Middle Earth. There are Star Wars roleplaying games. The clear implication is that the game will emulate those stories. They tend not to, in my experience.

That's why I tried to use a new term.

When I play a roleplaying game, though, I want my characters to succeed and overcome obstacles, but not at the expense of the theme. There might be a better way to succeed than going up against the evil wizard, but going up against the evil wizard (and for the evil wizard to get in some good hits) is the point. So, you've now met someone who would be willing to trump his own character.

I get what you're saying, but I think that much of that comes from the fact that the focus is on the individual character. If the goal was interesting situations, then how good or bad a given character was wouldn't matter.

I'd be fine with that, or even with a hybrid version of it. Do people play that way? Do people apply some rules to it?

Thanks for the responses.

Fate games are intended to allow this (it's the basis of the Fate Point economy), with things going poorly at first so they can go better later on.

What you seem to be looking for is Fiasco. It's designed to run Reservoir Dogs and the Big Lebowski type things, where stuff just doesn't goo well for anyone and seeing the chaos play out is the fun of the game.

your response is sort of what I mean.  Take, for instance, Lord of the Rings.  The fellowship seems like a classic group of adventurers, but there is a huge gap in power between the hobbits and the human warriors, between the humans themselves and the dwarf and elf, and then they are all miles behind Gandalf.  This might not matter much if you are trying to make a good story.  But there aren't many players who would volunteer to play Boromir, to have a few dramatic, great scenes, and then die one third of the way through the story, and let the rest of the players play it to conclusion.

There are groups that play that sort of thing, but in my experience that relies a lot on trust between players who know each other and know that they aren't going to get screwed, and are trying to make the game fun for everyone.  That is something that is sadly very rare on RPOL.  Most players simply don't know each other well enough to care if the game isn't fun for someone else, and are usually out to make the game as fun for themselves as they can.  Because when things stop being fun, many, many players and GMs on this site just quit.

You might look at the variety of "story games" that are out there.  I'm not super familiar with the details of a lot of them, but I think some of them utilize mechanics that aren't about straight up "winning and losing" in the traditional sense, but rather getting to a predetermined scene outcome, with any mechanics dictating how that outcome is achieved rather than if it is.

Something along those lines seem to be more about what you seem to be describing over the more "traditional" RPG.

I think that collective storytelling vs open-world board-game is a fascinating continuum (and I do think it's a scale rather than two polar destinations). Building my own ruleset I'm experimenting with tricks like rewarding failure, but never success, with experience, and encouraging players to take more agency with generating and describing bonuses and penalties to tests - letting them decide when they can afford to fail, when they really want to succeed, but never taking that random element of dice out of the game.

However even that sort of method of using familiar tools to push towards an unfamiliar philosophy seems to confuse people.

Ultimately I've always felt that player agency and the ability to influence setting, rather than mechanics, is the strength of a pen and paper RPG, so I think this is the direction you've got to move in to legitimately celebrate the places where the medium performs better than, say, a more stratified and strategic board-game, or a more streamlined and fast paced video game. The freedom to tell a story reactively and collectively is what pen and paper (and especially PbP) does better than any other format, so I totally get the urge to celebrate and empower that function.

That said, letting PCs choose to face defeat isn't the same as divorcing them from the role of a single character. I think that if you reduce it down so far that you just have a room (or game) full of GMs you just end up with a too-many-cooks situation. What makes RPGs work as a form of collective storytelling is the clear delineation of roles and responsibilities within telling a collective story. Personally I think it's more about shifting the boundaries of those roles than eliminating them to achieve a more plot-focused game.

But again, its utterly alien to most players who are used to a "game" being something you try to win. The term "game" is actually more problematic than "role-playing" in that purely semantic sense. And I do think the appeal of non-games is much narrower.

I'm not a massive fan of Fate in play (though I've never GMed it) but I will say it's the closest example of functionally and popularly embracing a more collective-story focused game I've encountered.

If you look deeply at the mechanics of DnD, they are designed to played in a game where the goal is the expression of character agency.

No one does that in dnd either.

Playing for theme is something more recent, but I've only seen it in games like fiasco. I personally don't like playing for theme because most of the time it means acting brainless, not just stupid but acting without really thinking, and I don't like that.

I don't really care for the common way of playing either though.

You could play dnd according to the rules in a variety of ways and while they each would superficially look the same, playing each of those ways would be very different experiences.

Thus the thing I dislike the most though is the notion that a system can be played in only a very limited number of ways, and I believe this notion is the reason behind a lot of issues, arguements, and complaints about rpgs.

I think D&D in particular has a lot of aspirations that it doesn't directly encourage through its mechanics, so that if you forget that you read those more philosophical paragraphs and just become experienced that playing the game, it's at its most effective modelling that more traditional, competitive, gamey mode of play. Yes, it's robust enough that the system itself is a tool for many modes of play, but it also heavily rewards narrative progress and paints the DM (even by implication of title) as a "master antagonist" figure. Intentionally or not there's a lot of encouragement at a fundamental level to approach what we're calling "traditional" play.

That said, 5e really starts to put its money where its mouth is in beginning a gentle shift towards that more shared-plot-centric approach.

I don't know Fiasco, but I'd love you to unpack where you see character agency as a focus on a mechanical level in D&D a little more - I might be missing something there.

Edit: No sarcasm there - I'm genuinely interested. It's hard not to sound smarmy in type.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:12, Wed 02 Aug 2017.

I guess my point was that a novel is done for a "distant" reader, while a game is for the players.  Watching another person's game can be very dull, because you're not invested in the characters that much.
What you're suggesting is a game that's meant for spectators, one that's more exciting to watch than to play, essentially.

And I'd argue that games set in Star Wars and Middle Earth isn't about players recreating "those stories", it's more about "what we'd do if we were characters in those universes".
Many of us would like to be Han Solo, Boromir, Galdalf, and other characters, but we don't want to make the same mistakes they would.
Sure, we can play a conflicted character, but we turn on other characters or flee from battle "because that's what happened in the movie", then we're just annoying the other players.



Alternatively, have you tried the Smallville Roleplaying System?  It's a game system that plays like a tv drama, and gives bonuses for causing conflict and having issues with other player characters.

I think this is largely reliant on the players, regardless of the game.  Yes, some games have mechanics that encourage it to a higher degree...but if the players aren't into it, the game's not going to last.  And I've been in several groups with people who were quite willing to play the fool, or have things go wrong and just roll with it, because that was what the setting made them feel was appropriate.

I'm in a freeform game right now...some of the players are very good about fitting the theme of the game, regardless of whether or not it means their character looks good.  Others are...not so good at that.  Personally, I like it when my character doesn't always sail through stuff easily and things have to get a little grim and gritty.  I'm the kind of guy that a GM could hand Boromir to, and say, "Okay...he's a good guy, but a little bit of an ass...but I want you to make sure he ends up being a hero, okay?  Even if it kills him..."  I love stuff like that.

I love that philosophy, but I' tweak it and say I'd love a player to come to me and say "Okay...he's a good guy, but a little bit of an ass... but I want you to give him an opportunity to be a hero.  Even if it kills him..."

Then we'd have a discussion about the character he'd have waiting in the wings, and how/when to introduce the next person that player's invested in.

I'm not keen on killing characters because it's realistic. But if that's a satisfying end to a character arc, and it's at least partially the player's call as to when and how, then I think it's deeply satisfying for all involved. And I think if a player portrays a character, then it only follows that that player dictate his/her character's arc - be that heroic or tragic.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:55, Wed 02 Aug 2017.

All of this revolves around trust between the players and the GM.  I think you can play great version of this sort of game if you all trust each other and that's what you want.  The difficulty comes from not knowing if the other players and the Gm will live up to their end of the bargain, so to speak.

It would be crappy to be Boromir, only to discover there wasn't a good way to get you back into the game, and the rest of the players had two more books to play through.

Agreed, but trust's always going to be a component of any collective creative project. I suppose the question becomes do you think we can mechanize a game in such a way that it gives the player some form of assurance that they can trust a GM to be their ally on that sort of character journey, rather than take advantage if it?

Edit: Is it (for instance) appropriate for a player to say "this is the story I want to tell" to the GM during character creation, and for both individuals to agree that they will cooperate to tell that story while the GM weaves the overarching tale. If their aspiration for that character changes then it's up to the player to reach out to the GM and say "new plan... is that okay?"
This message was last edited by the user at 05:06, Wed 02 Aug 2017.

that's a good question, and honestly if I knew a sure fire way to do it on rpol, I'd tell you.

As others have suggested, this sounds similar to freeform collaborative storytelling. I've tried and enjoyed both styles of play, but I agree that finding RPG players who are willing to play a role in the manner of a stage/movie actor is difficult.

I've seen many 'Int 5 Barbarian Fighters' coming up with strategic master plans, and there are very few players who would play a 'Boromir', destined to exit in Act 1. RPG players want to write their own destinies. As you say, they are as invested in their game character as they are invested in their RL selves, and they usually play a game to WIN.

There are a few people I've met here who might want to collaborate on writing such a story theme, but for most gamers, playing a tragic loser is anathema to their escapism. They lose out to enough impossible odds in RL; often, they come here to don a role in which they can win for a change.

With the right choice of player (player = actor, rather than player = contestant), and an up-front agreement of the intended outcome of the enterprise, I'm sure it could be done, and probably done well. However, I suspect you should be recruiting your 'players' from an actors guild rather than from a role-playing game site, and in my experience dice games and acting games attract different players.

If you want to create a sculpture, you recruit a sculptor, if you want to create a painting, you recruit a painter. They're both valid works of art, but they need a different skill set and mindset.

So the sentiment is that mechanics (let's call them 'dice') bring a variability that is supposed to complicate the success/failure model, and storytellers seek to provide that complication themselves, whereby invalidating the dice?

Valid.

What if we reframed the role of dice as being "to inspire the storyteller away from cliché, with the intent of making plot and the journey to a predetermined conclusion more reactive and unpredictable"?

That way each player (including the GM) has a destination they're guiding the game towards, and mechanics simply make that journey unexpected an interesting rather than inevitable and time-consuming.

Assuming that's the best way we can phrase that aspiration (and I'm certain it's not) then what mechanics would best achieve that? And how can we communicate that aspiration for play without pontificating to the point of alienating our players?

Because I think the fact that so many people are already mourning the impossibility of this kind of play demonstrates a desire (or aspiration) for it amongst a group of (presumably regular) hobbyists.

A few things I've tried (with very limited success):

Award Experience for Failure Only: The only way to get character experience is to fail a test. This happens every time you fail a test. The more voluntary the failure the greater the reward. This means that success becomes its own reward, but there are different rewards for failure too.

Require Character Arcs in Generation: Ask players to tell you what the character's story is during character generation. Agree that if you approve this then this is a contract that you will use your agency as GM to honour. Provide examples that focus on character development rather than mechanical development. This makes players think about their character's story as something to actively portray, not statically experience or cater to in their backstory.

Let Players Manage their own Variables: I use a system with a D&D 5e-like system of situational Advantage and Disadvantage. I encourage players to define both, introducing new elements to a scene (in a manner similar to Fate). This encourages players to take some agency with the world, encouraging them to expand the borders of their perceived prerogative.

Again, success in the stated aspiration has been middling, but not wholly negligible.

The opening post basically describes Torchbearers in a nutshell.

Torchbearer uses a combination of nonlethal afflictions, fail-forward mechanics, and carefully designed rules regarding stakes and consequences in conflicts in order to enable scenarios where the PC group gets badly bludgeoned, but can largely be expected to survive.  (In fact, as GM, if you don't explicitly state that death is on the line at the outset of a test or conflict, you don't get to kill the PC.  But, as the game says, "death is the easy way out.")

Your goal, as adventurers, is to scrape up enough cash to rent a room at the inn to sleep off the hard knocks, so you can survive the next adventure to scrape up cash.

However, the advancement mechanics, the system of checks and recovery, the expectation of fail-forward, the condition system, and the overall theme and tone of the game make failure and enduring setbacks a really intrinsic part of the game.

Torchbearer rewards you for using your traits against yourself.  A warrior with Heart of Battle can use the trait to gain bonus dice for fighting fiercely.  But she can also use the trait against herself - for instance, being eager to jump the gun when she thinks she's spotted, thus spoiling a Stealth check, or diving too deep into a crowd of enemies for her allies to help out.  Using those traits against yourself generates really important resources that you use to recover when you camp or go back to town, or that you can use to help your character advance in skills.  Crucially, you can also hand those resources around to the rest of the group, making your failed roll not a zero sum for the rest of the PCs.

My players were incredibly jealous of one player who I gave the "one-eyed" trait, after his face got chewed off by a rat.  Because One-eyed is so easy to work into a flaw, it was really easy for him to use against himself (running into trees, getting blindsided, scaring the locals) and stack up a lot of checks...
This message was last edited by the user at 07:00, Wed 02 Aug 2017.

Torchbearers sounds interesting. Is it not a bit of a demoralizing slog when increasing difficulty is facilitated by decreasing capability? How does it model non-dungeon-crawl experiences?

Thanks for all the responses. This is the conversation I was hoping to have. I probably won't respond to everyone directly, as that would probably become annoying.

I about smacked my head when Nintaku mentioned Fiasco. Yes, that's it exactly, and if I still kept those books around, I might have remembered. Fate comes close, but when I've played it it still devolved into "survival optimization" for the most part, with fate points standing in for hit points. Fiasco is hard to run well, because it's not easy to see how things tie together, but it's the sort of "here's where my character should have a Very Bad Problem because I (or the rest of the table) think that's appropriate to the genre" concept I'm aiming for. And Fiasco could clearly give me that, so I have my answer, but this is still fun to discuss.

Trust: yes, this is key. Also: buy-in, which is the mindset behind deciding something makes sense even though it doesn't make objective sense, which is the overarching basis of most fiction.

The Fellowship: The go-to example is Boromir. He's awesome, almost betrays everyone, and then goes out in a blaze, and the question is: who would decide that for themselves, especially if that means being taken out of the game. Well, what if it didn't? Characters do die in games, despite all the fudging we know goes on, and arrangements are made to keep players involved. Yes, trust comes in here, but a GM can explain up-front the provisions for replacement characters. If LotR were a game, it seems like Boromir's player would immediately step into Éomer's shoes.

Boromir's the go-to, but what about Gandalf? He's mainly the example of the high-side of the power disparity but he bites it even sooner than Boromir, in an even cooler scene. Even if there wasn't immediately another slot for that player (or if the promise was of bringing the character back in a few sessions), that's a pretty fun scene to be in the middle of, and I think we could find takers. Trust would have to be high, yes, my point is just that it doesn't seem too unreasonable to imagine players being willing to have their character go out with a bang.

I haven't done it yet, but I've considered adding a step to character creation for my players: Please answer the question "How does your character die?" Yes, there would be bugs to work out in terms of keeping suspense (though as is pointed out in this thread, death isn't the only way to lose), but the point would be that the player get to decide how they want to see their character go out, and if we can bring that about, then we do. If not, that character keeps going, possibly only wishing for death rather than what it's currently enduring in the adventuring life. And if the circumstances arise, it's not binding; maybe the player comes up with another preferred way to die, or maybe the circumstances will come up again.

Playing for theme meaning being brainless: That's only really true of stuff that's not well done, the stuff that people tend to mock, and it further assumes that the players only get to decide things for their character, which is standard but not a hard limit. We roll our eyes at the horror characters who investigate the strange noise in the dark: they're "brainless." We cheer Ripley as she says "Take off and nuke the site from orbit." Of course, that's brilliant, that's what any sane person would do.

But the movie doesn't end there. Most people wouldn't want the movie to end there.

We know how the movie ends. If that happened to someone in a game, if their smart idea got scrapped by GM fiat (assuming here that there's nothing the group could have done to prevent what happened; why didn't they call to warn the others? Oh, well.) I think we can all imagine the complaints. But that kind of scene is very important for adventure films: something has to go wrong. In the dumb films, it's a dumb thing that shouldn't have happened. In a smarter film, it's not anyone's fault, exactly, if just needed to happen to keep the stakes in place, and to keep the movie interesting.

That's what I'm after. While players love finding the solution that kills an encounter, nukes it from orbit, that's only one specific kind of theme. Another theme is "Here's the smart thing to do, but something prevents that, because the smart thing is less interesting." In real life, smart cops wait for back up, and it's generally not cool when they don't. In (good) fiction, we all nod our heads at the reason the cop can't wait for backup and we're glad for the scene or scenes that ensue because they didn't.

I'm suggesting that the game is meant for spectators, but for a very specific group of spectators: the players at the table who, yes, are also participants. The ideal is a game that is not only fun to play (to solve and over come problems) but is also fun to watch as it's unfolding, with things happening to keep the tension up, despite the best laid plans. Sometimes game are both boring to play through and boring as a story. Beating up on the last sad kobold from an ambush is, for me, one such example. As a GM and even as a player prefer to simply gloss over such a foregone conclusion and move on. But if someone could offer me an interesting alternative, such as the kobold slipping away in its desperation, resulting in a chase that leads to a momentary splitting of the party, but an amazing chance discovery or opportunity, then I'd play that scene out to the hilt.

I've thought about what nuric said, about us wanting to play characters in our favorite stories, but not make the same "mistakes." I get that that's a drive for many fans: they want to see a slightly different story, which would make more sense to them, or just have a different outcome. That's similar to the issue of having to be "brainless" to make certain stories work, and I don't think that's necessary. I think the challenge in this kind of a playstyle is to find ways to allow a cool situation to unfold without anyone feeling like they dropped the ball. That will vary for everyone, but anyone who can think of an adventure character they think does the best they can and still gets into trouble can, I think, do this in their games.

(As a side issue, I'm okay with the Int 5 barbarian coming up with strategic master plans. I'll admit that it's easier if the player is consistent, but if they want to start out being able to strategize, that's fine with me. Just because they can't cast a spell to save their life and don't know their history books, doesn't mean they can't strategize.)

I like the idea of experience for failure, and a few systems have handled that well. I believe Call of Cthulhu's system only let you test to advance a skill if you had failed at it, with the balance to that presumably being that the failure has to mean something when it happens. I believe Dungeon World gives experience on a failure too, and in that game the meaning of failure is completely in the GM's hands - though at the same time, players can offer or ask to roll against Bonds to help bring failure about, if someone happened to want more experience that badly. No, I've never seen that done.

Glad to hear about Torchbearer. I'll look into that, if I have a chance.

I feel I've been skirting this, but I haven't said it: in addition to trust and buy-in, I'm assuming another element. That element is narrative control by the players, the enabling of the players to establish elements of the setting and the fiction, and even the immediate circumstances. Fate uses points to offer limited control, such as deciding some detail is present. I'm talking about that scale of things, not of having multiple GMs at the table, at least not simultaneously, and certainly not at odds with each other. I'm talking about the means to add to a situation (not simply negate or deny it) in a way that brings it around to something worthwhile. Back to Boromir: as raw a deal as he gets, it would be worse if Aragorn came upon him dead from some stray arrow. The player, or any player, could and one hopes would establish that there are many of his slain foes around him, that's it looks like one arrow but is really many, and that he has time for some awesome last words. In other words, ideas from the table that make everyone say "Yes, that's what this scene needed."

Thanks again. This was a jumbled reply, and I welcome more responses.

I notice that so many of the systems we're pointing to as successes are so specifically targeted at one kind of story. Perhaps when we talk about 'mechanics' that encourage this we're talking about plot-focused specificity rather than systemic flexibility?

I encourage players to think about how their story ends. I've been plotting with one of them in my main campaign for another for how their faction becomes unplayable for some time and

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
I'm about to kill of the main persona for another quite soon

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Several players have swapped the main persona for their factions in the name of the plot.

What's made this feasible for us is making it less about the characters and more about the cultures (it's a domain campaign), but I've tried to have conversations about how players die, or retire, or experience epiphany in more character-focused campaigns too

It can be, but that's part of the theme.  Characters (especially starting characters) in Torchbearers fail a lot of rolls, and get pretty banged up.  Even returning to town is no guarantee that you'll start the next adventure fresh.  (My PC group spent a lot of their hard-earned cash to hire a physician who then proceeded to fail every roll and make them even worse.)  Torchbearers is all about pushing your luck, testing the limits of your resources, and knowing when to cut your losses and run, and when to sit back and rest.

The game is very clearly designed for dungeons and dungeon-adjacent environments, and has a very specific arc of play that is actually broken down into named phases (Adventure, Camp, and Town).  It is, at its heart, an adventure game about adventure and adventurers, and you have to contort it quite a bit to do a game focused on, say, courtly intrigue or cattle rustling.  However, it works fine in an outdoor exploration environment, as long as the GM knows how to handle defining rooms/areas, mapping, and navigation.

But aside from gushing about Torchbearers, I think what Torchbearers brings to play is solid game theory. Players are rational creatures.  They want the best outcome.  They have the impulse to succeed.  They want their characters to take actions that will let them succeed.  In most games, failure is a strict negative.  Sure, you might get a Hero Point or some other token currency to assuage you, but you still fundamentally failed.

Torchbearers turns this entire incentive structure on its head.  In Torchbearers, the default assumption is that any roll a player makes is assumed to succeed to some degree.  If you roll Dungeoneering to swing across a chasm, you either make it, or you make it BUT!  You swing across, BUT your pack rips open and spills out some of your gear!  You swing across, BUT you faceplant on the other side and everyone laughs at you (and you get the ANGRY condition)!  The least likely outcome is that you swing across, fall into the chasm, and die.  Failure is still absolutely possible (and encouraged!), but the GM has an enormous array of options to keep the PCs failing forward rather than stonewalling on failed rolls, and those other mechanics (and the need to announce Death Is On The Line before you can kill someone on a failed test) will encourage players put their hand in the bear trap.  And, as a GM, you can save those "No" moments for moments of truly tragic failure, where not succeeding actually advances the story or the narrative.

Additionally, you need failure.  You need to get Checks to make recovery tests in camp.  You have to leverage your traits against yourself to get those checks.  You have to acknowledge your failures and stumble occasionally. Playing tightly, efficiently, and minimizing the flaws that your traits represent is actually modeled in the system as the character pushing himself too hard, and as anyone with a job knows, operating at peak effectiveness over a long time in stressful situations is exhausting, and the game lets you know this by making your character's debilitating conditions stick.

You also essentially can't advance without failure.  Skills in Torchbearers can't go up without a number of both passed AND failed rolls.  If you always succeed, the game posits, you're never actually pushing your boundaries and learning new things.  With your skills being the core of your character's capabilities, as a GM, you actually see players trying to fail rolls to get their last advancement check!

That combination of softening the impact of failure; encouraging failure as a resource generator; and requiring failure to advance your skills creates an environment where failed rolls are normalized.  They aren't just setbacks that make you roll again, or siphon off your HP.  Failure becomes a part of the game and a part of the narrative in a really intrinsic way, and the suffering of your characters is seen as a crucible in which they are forged, rather than the slings and arrows of cruel fate that keep them from accomplishing their goals.

The fundamental thesis of game theory is that everyone wants to get something from the things they do, and, given rational behavior, they'll do the thing that gets them the most or the best.  Game designed around flawed player characters who are expected to fail need mechanics like Torchbearer's (or at the very least, like Hero Point).  Otherwise, you are counting on your players being either invested in a prewritten narrative, or on them being willing to spontaneously martyr themselves to make a good scene.  Seeding the other side of the "success/failure" spectrum of character actions with genuine rewards changes the very definition of success for the player, eliminating the dissonance between a narrative that isn't a boring string of uncontested victories, and player's rational reward-seeking behavior.

In short, if you want the players to get punched in the face occasionally, make them want to get punched in the face occasionally.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:44, Wed 02 Aug 2017.

I have a serious disconnect with this thought process. I play RPGs to be larger-than-life heroes or vile villains whom either save the day or take over the world. If I wanted degrees of success or failure, I would just continue to live my life. I have no problem with failure if I made a bad choice or the dice fail me. The occasional story-driven failure is also okay, especially if it pushes the plot toward a more favorable outcome (even if it means the death of a beloved character on my part).

To actually crave failure in a game makes it less of a game and more a cooperative writing venture. Tandem storytelling and free-form RPGs are definitely geared toward this type of narrative. While they can be fun they are not really games, more of a "reality t.v." take on the role-playing spectrum. Since I detest reality t.v. in all its myriad forms, I believe that is why this entire concept is so unappealing. To each their own, however...:-)

So... this is an advertising campaign for Houses of the Blooded then?

Jokes aside, HotB (as it's sometimes known) hits on pretty much every point I've seen brought up, and possibly a few more. Houses is about a party of nobles who are living their lives, but their lives are based off of High Drama and Fantasy. Labyrinthine houses, sorcery, betrayal, romance, duels, orcs, intrigue, and always Blood. Blood and Tears. The world is undefined, but tameable, and it is self-described as the "Anti-DnD RPG."

Mechanically, players roll not to figure out if they won or lost, but to gain narrative control over the result of their risk. If you want to leap across the roof and you succeed on your roll, you can still decide that you fall short, but maybe you land on a balcony. Or maybe you do succeed and that helps you to escape your pursuers, but you leave behind a clue. If you lose your roll, the Narrator (the GM) decides the result instead. They can let you win or lose as they see fit, just like you can. The mechanics allow for each success (and you can have multiple successes on a single roll) to determine any one thing about the results of the roll, and in a contested risk (one where more than one person is rolling) both sides can have successes and they trade off adding details.

Moreover, characters are designed to fit with the theme. This is true in many games (e.g. DnD is designed so characters become heroes), but in Houses the theme is practically a character itself. Much like Fate (in fact, part of the rules are based on the FATE system, as I recall) your character has Aspects. Aspects are defining characteristics which can be anything from "I know how to hurt you" to "One-eyed." Aspects can be Invoked by the player to gain bonus dice for themselves, Tagged by another player so that player can gain dice, or Compelled by anyone, forcing the character to act in a way consistent with that Aspect. A One-Eyed character might be able to Invoke his aspect to trick an enemy into letting his guard down, Tagged because he has a blind spot, and Compelled to drift into memories of how he lost that eye. This is all decided by the player in advance, but (as you can see) the narrative of that player is at least somewhat shared by everyone, helping the theme of the game along.

To just pound it to dust, players also have Style points (similar to Fate's system) which they can use to simply decide on certain conditions or events, and they are constantly being traded between players. Someone does something you think is awesome? Hand them a Style point. Someone Tags your Aspect? They give you a Style Point. Be thematically appropriate? Style Point. Style points can be used to negate certain effects too, like denying your Compel, or to outbid someone for an Aspect of the scene (yes, you can give Aspects to a scene).

The world is likewise defined by the players. There is no map, and the basic setting is defined socially, but not geographically. Players and the GM work together to build the world as they explore and expand. Along they way they have adventures, which might be a dungeon crawl one day, and a lavish party in the next. Each circumstance is still controllable by the players and the Narrator, and they can work through the problems they encounter in ways that fit both character and theme, because the two are linked.

The system is, obviously, built on trust (a point which the author hammers home repeatedly), but it's also mechanically backed enough that it encourages people to play in the way engine has been describing (assuming I didn't read too much/too little into it). It isn't for everyone (Nothing is), but it's a game where players can play to win, or to lose, or everything at once and the system encourages that. There are even two distinct playstyles the author suggests: Friendly (where players share openly and try to help each other with telling a grand story), and the Cut-Throat (where players are out to win for their character. People will die. It will probably be you. Deal with it). Both are entirely valid ways to play the game, and can satisfy players looking for whatever experience suits them and their table.

It is, in my opinion, John Wick's truest masterpiece when it comes to TTRPGs (and I say this as someone who loves L5R and 7th Sea), and it certain fits on that end of the spectrum this conversation has been about.

If I may though, a short aside, but I read the line (not an exact quote, going from memory) "playing to theme runs contrary to what an RPG is about, which is playing a character" and I couldn't possibly disagree more. If your character doesn't fit the theme of the game, then you're just being That Guy^TM. Your character is always, always tied to the themes of the game, and how you play should reflect that. Whether it's a dungeon crawl in D&D, or a whispered coup in VtM, or answering phone calls in that one RPG about being a Call Center Employee, if you don't play to the idea the game is going with then you shouldn't be at that table. What I believe was meant (and I may have missed if this was clarified, I was skimming) is that many games run with a theme that don't lend themselves to loss being desirable. If this was already addressed, please just ignore me.

Anyways, that's my advertisement for HotB two cents on the matter. Hope it helps.

Speaking of ALIENS, on the downloads page for Torchbearer, there appear to be rules for playing a game involving Colonial Marines.

Yes, this is true. I think the existence of this and other such games speak to the fact that some people do want punches to the face more often than will occur if they are also doing their best to avoid such punches. So, while I'm glad such games exist, I am coming to see that it's very much about the players, as more or more than it is about the rules.

(I heard a story about Fate from a designer along the lines that the fate point economy started to fall by the wayside for their group after a while. It seems that they got into the rhythm of the game, into the theme.)

The use of terminology was meant as a heads-up that this wasn't about RPGs as normally thought of.

It's not merely about success and failure. It's about success and failure that are both interesting. Laying waste to a group of kobolds who tried punching too far above their weight is success, but it's not interesting, at least not for very long. Watching the enemy obliterate your homeworld with their superweapon is failure, but it's interesting and now a major aspect of your character's (and their universe's) background.

Focus on this then, if you're interested in understanding what I mean. I mention Ripley's "failure" at being unable to take off and nuke the xenomorphs, which could be player error but is probably more "story-driven." She can take off and nuke the site, because if that happens there's no movie (or no game).

Or perhaps that's a further disconnect. If you agree that it wouldn't work thematically, or narratively or whatever for Ripley's very smart plan to be allowed to work, then you might agree, on some level, that it would be appropriate for someone playing the Ripley character to say (if only to themselves) "Well, here's what my character thinks we can and should do, and I think we should do it, but be prevented somehow." Perhaps you also agree that the player could even suggest aloud how that plan could be prevented.

Because "favorable," to some degree, needs to mean "favorable to the interesting continuation of the game for the players."

It's fascinating to see someone more focused on the "game" side of the designation, rather than the "roleplaying" side.

Anyway, it's not all or nothing, as the several examples here of such games shows. Even in games not of this type, players have preferences about game worlds and even moment to moment events. I've often heard players say "Aw, I was hoping the butler was a vampire" or something. That player clearly thinks that a little more trouble in a particular way would be interesting or thematic. At the most basic level, players want antagonists and challenges, even though those make things harder and present the possibility of failure. Without those there's no "game" at all.

It's always a pity when a game feels the need to be "not" or "anti" D&D. Oh, well.

That aside, what you describe is largely what I'm talking about, and I'll look into it further. A question or two:

You say a player can decide to fail when they acquire narrative control. Is there an incentive for that other than playing to theme or character-arc (like the show-off making a jump and failing, but crashing instead through the balcony door of a boudoir, hilarity ensuing)?

I agree that every game involves adherence to theme to some degree. D&D, which seems to want to try to be everything to everyone, touches on it in the material for dungeon masters.

I don't mean for this to be entirely focused on mere failure, though overcoming personal failure is key to many story concepts and so, to the degree we are emulating stories (either good fiction or self-aggrandizing Mary Sue stuff), there's a pull for failure to rear its head. But theme is somewhat more than that, tying into both immediate features of a scene (a piano player in the Old West saloon scene, a magic-user behind the dastardly plot of the fantasy story), and the game background of the game world.

While I'd be up for trying some other games, I'm also interested in any advise anyone has on encouraging players to contribute to theme, or to make it clear that such players are sought for a game. I've had some minor success with a strongly themed D&D game.

Thanks again for the responses. They are helping.

If I may... Why?

D&D represents, and mechanically supports, a certain style of play and a certain set of ideas that many people would rather not be or get behind. Anti-D&D is also a degreed term, where people might use it to describe any number of different sentiments that would be Not-D&D. D&D isn't inherently good or bad, and nor is being anti-D&D, but it does help to immediately focus a person's expectations. How many people have you met who think D&D is the only roleplaying system out there? Or that, if you brought it up, would think that World of Darkness was the same thing? It's a line, and a recognizable one, that people draw because it is so noticeable and can make a big impact on a potential player.

Now, as to whether or not there are better ways to define yourself as "Not D&D" is debatable, but it's also not the point of this thread. Just had to ask/explain.


Style Points are the most obvious one (like Hero points), but Houses also makes it about a lot more than that. As your example with Ripley, it might be that failure is the way that keeps the story going. Or in a Cut-Throat game you might also use it to distract or mislead someone, or to gain another advantage or Aspect through that failure. And then, of course, there's always setting yourself up for future successes with it.

For example on the last one, landing on the balcony might lead you into a boudoir, or it might lead you into an armory. Now you have a weapon, and there are bars you can put over the window to block your pursuers. Or no bars, but you can stage an ambush for them when they follow, so you don't only escape, but eliminate a threat. You might intentionally fail what you originally set out to do because, and this is important, the balcony might not've been there before you rolled. You just decided that it should as the dice fell and added it in as one of yours successes. That can save you Style, while also making you looks cool and possibly gain more Style.

It's a world that gets created as you go, so Houses tends to reward the kind of thinking that might turn one thing into another. ^_^

Sure! I'll try not to go on too long about it.

For one thing, my issue with it is that D&D, at this point is many things to many people, and many of those things are entirely contradictory. To summarize a game as "anti-D&D" tells me nothing, because I don't necessarily know what that designer is railing against. Whatever it is, it's probably something that a significant percentage of D&D tables already don't do. It might even be a misunderstanding or a highly uncharitable interpretation about the game. I'm not saying D&D is perfect, but lots of people oppose it for things that, largely, aren't true (or, if they are true, are more about the players than the game itself). In short, it doesn't actually tell me anything.

For another thing, it's just sad for me to think that the designer's thinking might have been limited by the goal of just not being some other thing. I've seen games make seriously bad choices, rather than do what D&D did. There are games that don't define themselves in terms of D&D, and succeed or fail on their own merits, not whether they do or don't do what another game does. Even if those games aren't any good, and even if they don't entirely get out from under the shadow of D&D, at least they made an effort to strike out on their own, without a parting shot at another game.

Sorry for taking so long to reply to this, but I've been busy and haven't had much time for writing.
I'm not sure how well it is written, but I hope it answers your question.



Much of my belief that character agency is the goal isn't from what any particular mechanics, but rather comes from a holistic view of the system, advice in the core books, and from the writings of Gygax and a few others (such as a firsthand account od the first dungeon delve, using chainmail at the time). Also, I don't believe that DnD is more supportive of traditional gameplay, rather it's simulationist nature works against traditional gameplay, yet because of the all the mechanics, people tend to see it as being a flawed game geared for traditional play.

To start in unpacking this, we need to first look some terms. I would place some general catagorizations to the various styles.

Gamist style, or perhaps Munchkin style might be a better name, is focused on having mechanical growth (whether from a single unit gaining power, from gaining more units/resources, or from arranging resources in an advantageous way), and overcoming clearly defined obstacles, aka winning.

Narrative style, or collaborative storytelling, is focused on telling a good story, and often involves the players wanting to have as much say in how the story goes outside the characters as the GM, even presenting ideas for things that happen to their characters that the characters themselves would not choose, especially often making choices based on what sounds good story-wise and would never intentionally make a choice that brings the story to a premature end.

Agency style is where the focus is on what the character knows and making decisions that the character would make. This is like pretending to be someone else for a day. If you were a [something], what would you do? This is also about exploring things from another's point of view. This is also the most like an interactive book. The gm plays destiny (as in "you meet your destiny on your way to avoid it.") and the players don't know what is happening beyond what their characters know and simply have their characters respond to wha tthey percieve (something both munchkin and narrative styles lack, as munchkin has a major focus on using metagame knowledge to make decisions, even if avoiding metagame knowledge about the story, and narrative has the player standing back and having a say in what happens to their characters).

Social style, the focus is less on the game or handling the game in a particular way, but rather having something to do while joking and messing around with each other. The beer and pretzels games, like Kobalds ate my baby, fit here.

Supers style, this is all about doing cool things (like swinging from chandeliers) and/or feeling powerful. In this style the focus is on feeling cool and powerful based on what happens in the game. casting a spell and having an army keel over dead make sone feel powerful, and players will seek and desire to do things that make them get that feeling of power or that makes them feel cool. Cinematic action basically.

These are of course not discrete, but rather points on a continuum. Traditional gameplay style is mostly munchkin with some supers style.

Now that we have some terms to reference, we can address a core misbelief. It might even be a fallacy of some sort.

I've been told by many players something to the effect of "if you want a game about the story, play free-form." These players are equating the mere existance of rules with a focus on munchin/supers play.

This is however an unfair association and is based on a false belief. The false belief is the idea that if story trumps rules then rules become meaningles and therefore should not be included (excluding table rules, rules baout behaviour at the table).

Rules can be beneficial for any style of play as play aids, even when not essential to the game itself. For collaborative and agency styles of play, rules fill the purpose of aiding in communication, understanding, maintaining consistency, and providing a shorthand for descriptions.

I.E The system gives a shared method of describing just how strong a character is that gives all the players similar expectations about how strong any particular character really is. Without the system for that, you are left with each player trying to describe a level of strength with every player having different ideas about what "very strong" means.

This means the system makes it easier to discuss characters and actually have everyone on the same page about what each character can do. It also means that the GM can use terms and values defined by the system to make it easier to describe aspects of the world or situation, particularly for information that the players wil always want to know, which leaves more time for for describing the purely fun stuff and adding the appropriate thematic feel to the descriptions with less worrying that someone might get the wrong idea about somethig essential (which will happen, but the system reduces this).

In fact, agency and narrative style play can benefit from rules but are actually distinct from the rules entirely, allowing you keep playing even as rules change or even as changing from one system to another (though different systems can be used with differing levels of ease). The rules in these cases are mere play aids and nothing more.

One thing some players may mention is how much the rules focus on combat, implying that the game is obviously about combat since there are so many rules for it. Modern game design has some understanding of the fact players will be affected by prompting from the rules (as in, if the rules say how to do A, but not B, then players will almost always pick A even if B is available or even superior). Psychology is a major factor in life, and games can be designed with psychology in mind (for evil and terrible results as much as good). DnD and many other games though were not designed with an understanding of psychology, thus even simple things like "more rules = focus of game" can be mistaken.

The rules of DnD has more rules on combat for many reasons, one of which is certainly the history of the rules being based on wargaming rules, but also because combat is one case where agency comes to fore (in your choice of tactics, whether you fight directly with honor, fight dirty, fight smartly, or fight just enough to get away) in a way that is easily handled mechanically yet also requires more depth to remain interesting.

How do you make generic rules for resolving social conflict, convincing a merchant to give a discount, win a court case, sell your product to the king, etc. Much more difficult than mechanically handling combat, and even when it is done, it takes away from the roleplaying of those things and also, many of the benefits of using mechanics (such as consistency) do not apply to such social circumstances. Many players take this to mean that DnD is all about combat, but that isn't true.

There are many types of balance. Mechanical balance is often the most discussed and most recognized, but other kinds of balance exist as well. DnD has more naturalistic balance, which indicates that munchkin style is not a core design goal, as munchkin style almost requires mechanical balance, and given the birth in wargaming, if mechanical balance was a goal (as it would have been if munchkin style was a goal), then Gygax et. al. would have had much better mechanical balance and not naturalistic balance.

Interestingly, the DMG mentions balance, but it isn't really balance in the normal sense, rather it is mentioned as three things, 1) making sure that no one character dominates over the others, 2) having characters not be too powerful for the threats they face, and 3) not be hopelessly overmatched. Of course, these don't require mechanical balance, and in fact, I'd say that being able to step away from mechanical balance would be important for these aspects. I have played characters several levels behind others without feeling underwhelming or like a mere squire or servent to the other characters. Being too weak or powerful for encounters doesn't require facing all equal level encounters either, and in particular, the player's combat styles are important here, for example, if a player is awesome against single targets, ganging up on them should be a weaker encounter mechanically because they have less ability to handle multiple foes, and when they face a single foe, having the foe be higher level might be required for them to actually be challanged.

While I don't know much of older editions, there are some things I know of that were not popular and thus altered, but they give insight into the thinking of the designers. The biggest of these was xp = gold. This was a really good concept (though I'd like to think I've done better). The idea behind this is not that picking up gold is worthy of giving you xp, but rather that the xp represents everything you went through to get that gold. This is actually very good because it doesn't distinguish how you got the gold, therefore giving you freedom to play through the game according to character and/or player preference without feeling like you are losing out on xp because you sneak around enemies or escape a fight rather than kill.

Killing for xp is a step backwards because it only rewards winning a fight rather than rewarding reaching the goal. However this is in place most likely because of the negativity around gold = xp rule, which I hear many believe to be very stupid.

A major part of my thoughts on the system though come from a holistic view of the system, rather than discrete parts, particularly since the books don't seem to have been written very well. In fact, there are several points where the author's descriptions are so poor as to seem like they contradict the rules, though in restrospect, the line of thinking can be usually be found. Alignment is an example of this (lawful is about unwavering dedication and being methodical). This means care must be taken to consider the different possibilities of what the author could have meant by their descriptions.

Random character stats is another point against munchkin and supers styles. Munchkin style is fairly competative, hence the need for point buy to make certain that all players start equal and thus rely more on player skill and ability. On the other side, random character stats provide unknown talents and weaknesses to a character, promoting character exploration and providing interesting obstacles to overcome and interesting talents to take advantage of.

The gm's and player's role are also laid out, discounting the collaborative story telling style, as it is the GM's job to set the scene and describe the action, while the player dictates the character's personality and decisions. Importantly, to quote "be true to your character."

The biggest consideration however, in why DnD is about agency is several paragraghs that generally get ignored and remain unused (and likely unknown to anyone who hasn't actually read through the entirety of the core books, mostly the dmg). These paragraphs are the ones scattered around encouraging the bending, breaking, and rewriting of rules based on characters and circumstances (as distinct from fixing things you think are wrong/bad/boring). For example, the gm is encouraged to allow a paladin to swap out their mount for a different ability if their character concept doesn't include a mount or would rarely benefit from that ability. There are many spots encouraging not houserules, but gm rulings that allow things breaking the normal rules to fit the situation.

This is an essential point, because this encouragement actively works against the traditional style of play.

A particular quote that can't be said enough "The GM defines the game." I always consider the GM to be the single most important part of the game because they control the experience. If it's bad, it because the GM was bad. If it was great, it is because the GM was great. The fact that the DMG specifically states this means the authors recognized this. Strangely enough, I have met more than a handful of players who don't know this yet, surprising as that may be.

On the same page of the DMG is this quote "You are the master of game - the rules, the setting, the action, and ultimately the fun." Emphasis mine, but notice that the rules are specifically called out as the GM's domain, not the domain of the game.

The GM is also told to make the world feel alive so that the players feel a part of the world instead of separate from it. Traditional gameplay often breaks into the meta side of things (particularly for hardcore players that think arcane casters are for idenfying potions). Narrative, and Munchkin play in particular, are both styles where the player is heavily in the metagame, watching their characters yet distinctly divorced from their characters on some level.

Another example is that the book has the GM have the players think in terms of the game world, using the example of a trap in a dungeon existing for a reason and having served a purpose and thus to encourage players to think about why that trap exists and thus how it might be bypassed.

Railroading is called out as being bad, but when it comes to munchkin or traditional style games, they usually run better when railroaded, as the focus is on the metagame of winning rather than story changing choices, and therefore, those styles lend themselves well to a GM running players through a railroaded story, much like playing through a linear or semi-linear video game (The Halo series, Pokemon, RTS campaigns, FPS campaigns, well just about any video game really, even Mass Effect and Fable, both games targetting the concept of player choice are rather linear railroads with choice being illusory and maintained through minor details). This is actually probably the best style to target for a GM that wants to tell a story. (far too often do I see a GM want to GM so they can tell their awesome story only to get frustrated as the players constantly break the story.)

But for a style centered on character agency, railroad is the worst as it removes the primary focus of the style.

So, there was a lot in your post to unpack, some of which I agree with, and some of which I don't, but I wanted to hit upon one particular point while I have some time.


I am one of those folks who "doesn't know this yet" because, and forgive me for stepping out of line but, it's not one person's job to make certain everyone at the table is having fun. I've had GMs of every sort, from bad to good and back again, and I've had bad GMs bring down a good game, and good GMs brought down by bad players, and all other options one might imagine. Everyone at the table is responsible for making the game enjoyable. The GM might stand out as the one people point their fingers at (It's her game. She has control over what happens), but that doesn't make her the sole arbiter of what happens in the game.

As you yourself said, there are a lot of games about a lot of different things. Whether the game is munchkiny or story-based, or whatever, players are the majority of the people at the table and are going to be taking over half of the actions in most types of games. The GM might react to everyone, determine the world and the situations, but if the players are given agency (in this case defined as the ability to choose their own actions) then they are going to be holding up the game as much as the GM in most cases.

Moreso than the basics though, social psychology would suggest that the balance of personalities and playstyles will have a lot more effect on the individual impressions of the game than any single person can bring to the table. You can have a "That Guy" as one of your fellow players, but be more annoyed that no one at the table says anything than you are about the That Guy's presence. You can have an amazing GM, but because the dice and the story aren't playing your way, you still have a bad time.

On that note, you can decide how you react to any particular situation. Maybe the GM is a bad one, but you find your own enjoyment and make a memorable (in the good way) game thanks to a friend who was there with you, hamming it up and playing your characters excellently. Maybe the GM is awesome, but you have a fellow player who is getting you down, and you choose not to do or say anything so no one knows how you feel. Are either of these situations the GM's fault? You can argue so, but I (and several branches of psychology) would argue that your decisions and your feelings are your own, and so are your interpretations of your external circumstances.

In the end, the factors that go into what makes a good game or a bad one can hardly be assigned to one person at the table, and if it were going to be any one person at the table it would be the individual person, not the GM, or a fellow player. You.

So, I guess I "don't know this yet" because, well, all of the evidence I've seen (including multiple pieces of your own reply here) would suggest that it's not actually that way. ^_^ But, who knows, I've been wrong before. But I just... would never put my whole experience (or even my general impression) on the GM of the game, unless they were truly the center of the game, which they don't have to be and often aren't... for me.

That is not what I meant.

Think of it like this, metaphorically speaking, a particular system is like a video game genre, say FPSs, and GMs are each different games of that genre, so one GM is Halo, another is Medal of Honor, a third is Call of Duty, a fourth is Borderlands.

Each GM controls how the game plays in their own way, and the effect if this us that each GM is effectively a different one man game studio.

Some players prefer Call of Duty over Medal of Honor, while others refuse to play either.

The experience of the game is, or at least for some, separate from the experience of the group.

I like Halo. I play multiplayer on occasion. Sometimes I end up playing with others I don't like playing with, but that doesn't change how I feel about playing Halo, it just affects how I feel about playing with that particular group.

RPGs are the same. Each GM has a way of GMing that is basically a unique game unto itself. My enjoyment of that GM's style is not dependent on the group. Likewise my enjoyment of the group us not dependent on the GM.

And indeed, there have been times I've played games I didn't like because of the group, and vice versa.

I've also played with GMs, that I;m very thankful were not my first GMs, because if they had been, I'd never have bothered playing an RPG again. And that was never bevause of the group, it was because their style was just a really bad fit for me, and as a first time player, I'd never have known the true scope of how vastly different the same system can play out.

So when I say, "The GM defines the game," I'm not saying that the GM is the end all and be all of the experience, rather just the RPG part of the experience. The social/group part of the experience is something entirely different, even if does also affect the enjoyment of the session.

My bad on the assumption there. You've cleared up your point quite well and I'll try to respond in kind.

I still can't say as I agree with your point, since I find that the social/group aspect is inextricably linked with the RPG aspect in this medium. In Halo the GM isn't a person, and can't mess with its own settings if it realizes you're not having fun, or that (just as importantly) they aren't having fun. Sure, you can change your difficulty or whether you're doing single/multiplayer, but here the GM is another person at the table and, well, that changes the nature of things. A GM might start off as Halo, but adapt to become Call of Duty or Borderlands based on the players or the individual campaign. A GM might find themselves against players with a force of personality that, through whatever means, challenges the system and setting in ways that the rules can't handle, forcing something more out of everyone at the table. And some GMs, god-willing, allow players an extensive amount of control over the narrative, and even the rules at times. And some GMs cycle through stages and phases of things based on any number of other factors, each of which affect the social contract of the table, which is a part of the RPG experience (in this medium).

As a matter of course, I'd argue that it's really the system on the one side of the spectrum/coin, and then the group (GM included) on the other side. The system (D&D, Scion, etc.) is Halo, while the GM is the one who picks the map, the playmode, and the cheat codes. The players, however, have input on whether or not those rules and settings are working for them, and can (at times) change them one way or another, sometimes without the GM's express permission if they're following the rules laid out by the GM and the GM sticks to her guns. To me, the group makes the system each time, in all but the games where the GM feels they deserve and have the sole rights to mechanics and other RPG aspects.

I guess that's my problem here. Your argument seems to be (when boiled away from other language) that the GM should act as a god of one aspect of the game which, in my eyes, is inextricably linked to the other core aspect. So, while I can better see your point (and apologize if I somehow morphed it again, stupid linguistic ambiguity), I'm afraid I'm still going to fall into the category of folks who don't quite "know" it yet. ^_^

A GM has to be willing to bend in various ways, and that willingness to bend, and the ways they bend are part of the GM's style, much like how Halo gives players several ways to change the rules and make new playmodes, while Medal of Honor was far less versatile.

In any case, the way I see it, you have to deal with the social contract in playing Halo or Call of Duty, but that will never truly change the game you are playing, even when you have made major modifications to Halo and created griffball, there is still something distinctly Halo about it.

With a GM, the same is true, but it is expressed differently, and much more subtly. For example, how well does the GM play secondary NPCs, or how good are they at improve, or their creativity in handling scenerios, do they ignore crimes the PCs commit or have the locals react violently, etc. These are things that are subtle and often go unnoticed but still have a massive impact on the gaming experience.

I wanted to add that some modern games do sort of have a GM, or at least try to. Some games have an adaptive difficulty setting, though I've never noticed the effect of one. Presumably it can only make the game so much harder or easier.

There's one game that I'm almost certain has an active "GM" analysis running that adjusts things based on circumstances. That game is XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I haven't crunched any numbers, but I have noticed that the game seems to "fudge" when it starts doing "too well." If one's loses a couple of squad members in an engagement, suddenly the enemies seem to suffer repeated misses, and not press clear advantages, and low-chance shots by player agents seems to hit more often. This abeyance isn't limitless, of course, but it seems to be enough for a player to get the remaining squad into a better position and reload, or get to the dropship, if that's what they want to do.

That's just to do with combat, but the game also has other bones it can throw. Allied nations usually leave if they're "red" at the end of a month, but sometimes they won't. I could be missing something, but I think it's the game's decision. The game also controls what opportunities are offered as rewards: if one has few agents without a lot of power, experienced new recruits can be offered as mission rewards. The game can also offer perks as "requests" from allied nations, to help shore up gaps. I haven't noticed any particular pattern with those, but there could be.

I'm pretty sure it also fudges in the opposite direction too. If a player is doing well and has kept their best agents alive and advanced, I believe the game will start putting its thumb on outcomes, including attacks (more player misses, more enemy hits) and when and how far toward the red allied nations move.

I may be imagining things, of course. But the game is "about" a desperate struggle by a small organization and one way to serve that theme would be for the game to rebalance itself on the fly to keep things consistent.

Speaking of Halo: I love me some Halo, though mostly now only in book form. But the last time I played the original, I told myself that I would challenge myself by restricting myself as much as possible to the assault rifle and the needler. That gave me a fun extra "load" to lift while I played, without bumping myself up to the next higher difficulty, which I had found I didn't enjoy.

Along those lines, I read an interesting article about a guy who played Far Cry 3 in a self-designed "survival mode": http://lookrobot.co.uk/2014/06...g-farcry-3-survivor/

This guy felt like the game got too easy. I'm sure it has difficulty settings, but they apparently didn't do what this guy wanted, so he invented his own restrictions on the game. The key line in there is, "by the time you 'win' the game, by the time you upgrade everything, it's barely fun anymore. You got what you wanted and you ruined the game."

That's not necessarily the same as sticking to a "theme." "Feel" might be more like it, a "feel" of degree of challenge, imposed not by any outside agency, like a GM or a program, but by the player themselves. I think that's really the main thing I'm thinking of when I think of focusing on "theme": everyone at the table thinking in terms of what should happen to keep things challenging.

I also wanted to touch on this:

Are you saying that any random set of stats is worth playing? I can live with random character stats, as long as they aren't the key decider of my ability to participate meaningfully in the game and also if my participation isn't reduced to trying to improvise stuff in order to keep up.

I definitely see the appeal to random stats, especially if the alternative is min-maxed characters, but not every set of random stats will provide interesting or unknown talents (or any talents at all) and not all of the obstacles they provide will be equally interesting to the player who has to deal with them, even if that same player could find some other set of random stats interesting.

My overall preference is to have every player use the same set of ability scores, arranged how they want. One can still min-max within that, but can't dump everything into oblivion to bulk up something else.

Random stats isn't just about avoiding minmaxing.

Truthfully, those who are minmaxing, do so because they are playing a munchkin style, or at least strongly leaning that way. In narrative style, the stats being representative of the character in more ways than simple combat stats counters minmaxing, and in agency style, minmaxing is generally pointless and goes unrewarded. Sure you might get rewarded for being the best fighter in the land, but whether you have +2 or +6 becomes a distinction with far less meaning than in a munchkin style game.

I've played games where I was several levels behind others and never felt outclassed or out of place, something most minmaxers would have trouble with.

In an agency game, balance falls by the wayside as it literally loses any importance to the game, precisely because the focus is not on winning rolls, but is on what choices the characters make.

For example, during my first game, dnd 3.0, the party was given enchanted clothes so we didn't look out of place wandering the city in armor. My character specifically asked for black because it would be harder to see in the shadows. As a player I didn't expect any mechanical benefit, but I asked because that is what my character would ask for. The GM thought it was great and gave a +5 to hide. No one felt jealous or thought it was unfair or called it unbalanced, even though my sorcerer's cougar familiar was getting levels of ranger (no it wasn't, and still isn't, against raw, not even in pathfinder, though some stats do get wonky). And it worked out fine. It was something everyone thought was neat, it rewarded thinking in-character, and wasn't in the least bit disruptive to the game.

I mention this power issue, because random stats being an issue is usually an issue of power. The number one complaint I see is either directly or indirectly an issue about the lack of balance between players. Of course, in a style where balance us required, it is important, but in a style where balance is meaningless, the making stats all be equal is also meaningless.

A minority of the time, someone complains about random stats taking away control of the character (in concept design sense), but usually that is someone who wants to minmax their character to some degree. The remainder are if course just wanting perfect control of their character design. Yet the point of randomness is to provide something about the character that is out of the player's hands and yet affects much of the character without having too strong an effect.

I run two games here I won't mention by name:

One of them uses a build-point character creation model, skills-based classless/level-less overall structure, and a task-based general and combat mechanic.

The other uses dice rolls for the basic stats, with choices by the player to flesh out the basic structure set in place by the character's class and level.

Both sets of players seem to be having fun up to this point, so I'm evidently doing something right in both places.

One thing I try really hard to do regardless of which system I'm using is set forth clearly how things work, and make resources available for all players to use in the game.  Game Links is one of the best features RPoL has included in the GM's toolkit in this respect, and I make use of it extensively.

I'm sorry if I implied that I thought it was. I just meant that it strikes me as generous to describe random stats as providing "interesting" weaknesses and strengths. It might, but without mechanics or with only vague descriptions of what ability scores mean, there's every chance that those weaknesses and strengths will be minor, unclear (or at least difficult to agree upon or be consistent about), and not very interesting.

Which style is it when someone doesn't min-max in the sense of making one score as high as possible, but selects a set of numbers more like what might come out of a pleasant but not hugely spiked set of rolls? Which style is it when the stats are allowed to be completely decoupled from anything that doesn't depend on a roll or a number (i.e. the low Intelligence character being allowed to plan and speak complete sentences, the high Strength character being allowed to be a weakling who understand leverage and is highly motivated, etc.)?

Would you agree that just because someone would have trouble with that doesn't make them a minmaxer?


I didn't understand the interlude about the cougar.


This may seem like an odd question why is thinking in character something to be rewarded in that way? You didn't expect a benefit from it, and I assume you could have declined it. If a character elected to choose, in character, to have bright, voluminous, spangly clothing with bells on it and subsequently try to hide (again in character), presumably they wouldn't expect a mechanical penalty but also would think it was neat, non-disruptive - and a punishment for thinking in character.

You got a bonus in that case. Someone else with the appropriate ability score might also have a natural +5 to hide. Until the rewards for in-character choices (minus the penalties for in-character choices) exceed the ability bonuses, the ability bonuses would be relevant, right?

Perhaps one would argue that a character dressed like that would not think to try to hide, and therefore hiding would actually be out of character, but let's say the character is adequately foolish.

I don't know if "disruptive" is the right word, but I can imagine my stress level increasing in such a situation if I were a player. I would feel the need to focus on choices, even if they didn't interest me and wouldn't interest my character. If I were trying to play a character who was good at a certain skill set and another player started making choices that made their character better than mine at that thing.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean about "power" or "balance." I think of it in terms of "being able to contribute meaningfully." An uncharitable term for that is "niche protection," but I do like it when my character can reliably do something useful that other characters can't do reliably or at all. It doesn't necessarily make my character "powerful," but it makes them "relevant."

It can affect the character in a way the player may not enjoy having them be affected, to any degree, even if that player is not a minmaxer.

It is possible to have fun with and gain inspiration from randomized ability scores, but I would never assume that to be possible in any given game. I'd definitely need to know more about the game and the players. I've had too much bad experience with them.

When I require players to use the same set of numbers to make up their ability scores, it is a thematic choice for me, just as it can be when GMs limit the number of points (or other units) players can build with. Generally, I think of the theme as "a bunch of talented but not necessarily stellar people, who each can cope with a fairly broad range of situations, allowing them to operate as a team, rather than as specialized individuals." The thief can get into a fist fight and last just long enough to buy some time. The hitter can tell just good enough a story to bluff past some distracted guards. But when everything comes together, everyone gets to shine at their thing.

Any given theme won't interest everyone, of course, and I figure that people who are worried that they will fail when it's their time to shine, and aren't worried about being asked to step outside of that, decline to join my games. I think I should be more specific about my reason for the choice, so that players can have a chance to make choices that continue to build off of it, rather than just trying to get back to being spiky and brittle through other choices.

(These days, I am trying to allow freedom of ability score choice, but set a limit on skill modifiers and attack bonuses which, since in D&D it's all tied together, can have a chance of getting a similar result. Again, I should probably be more explicit and say "Characters should be excited to shine with some of their skills, but prepared to roll any of the others. Efforts to extrapolate top skills to stand in for other skills is allowed, but the intent is that this rarely, if ever, feel necessary to enjoy the game.")

@engine: I know some games do adjust difficulty curves and such. I was referring more to the fun curve and player enjoyment, which isn't always about difficulty or random perks. Still, point taken. Some games do adjust to make certain their theme comes through, not matter how much it kills some folks. My bad for not being as specific as I meant to be. ^_^


*le sigh* Tendency does not mean it's the universal truth. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't plenty of people who min-max because they're munchkining, but it's not the only reason, and it doesn't have to be the main reason either. Building towards min-maxing can be just as much about story as it is about powergaming. It might just be that character concept you mentioned, which is as much (if not more) part of the agency idea than the story. Mechanics are not, as many have pointed out, in opposition to story. They can and do, for many, help to shape it and give their character truth. The +2 or +6 might not mean much sometimes, but there are games and systems and campaigns and players to which it does mean the difference between actually having their character be what they want him/her to be, and not. You're not playing Superman if you can't fly, and if the mechanics say you can't because you don't have that +6 to your ability which lets you fly, then that's not cool.

As to "wanting perfect control" and "not having too strong an effect," I don't know if we're playing the same systems but, again, if your character concept calls for it and then you mechanically don't have it, that's a really strong effect. You can say randomness invites interesting times and such, but there's a reason a lot of people (not everyone) play games: escape. Maybe you're okay with losing and the story trumping your personal goals, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't at least get to go through that as the character you want to play. Again, if I want to be... let's say Neil Patrick Harris, and my random rolls say that my Style score is 2 instead of 18, then that's not cool. Yes, I'm repeating myself for effect.

And whether or not a game is about munchkining, mechanical balance can be important to a player, or a group. Your black shirt example giving a bonus is fine, but when it becomes shoes, and sword, and skunk, and, and, and... it can get to be that it doesn't feel like you matter as much as the other player just because they ask for things that 'happen' to give them bonuses, while the things you ask for give you nothing mechanically. Much like getting paid less for the same job, it doesn't have to be about wanting more money or 'winning,' it can be about the inequality. Mechanics are an aspect of the game that people can use to define how their agency works, and to enhance the meaning of their agency in play. If your decisions are mechanically supported and balanced with others, sometimes that's better to folks than just "Oh, yeah, I got the thing because I wanted it."

I think I may be rambling insanely at this point. It was a long day. So I'mma go to bed.

tl;dr: Min-maxing isn't always about munchkining. Agency and mechanical balance are not opposite ends of a spectrum.

Niche
negatives

First, you must understand that what it means for a player to shine is different in different playstyles, and so "niche" protection also changes. Munchkin style generally sees niche protection as ensuring mechanical protection to give players higher success rates in their niche than any other player, but in agency style a player's niche isn't something mechanical at all, it is what they do.

For example, in an agency game, the party face is the guy who automatically steps forward in social situations, regardless of mechanics. Generally, a group will start out chaotic in this manner and as they come together will sort themselves out without even really noticing (people are interestingly unaware of themselves in certain ways. It took Alexandrian years to truly develop an understanding of disassociated mechanics, and most players still are unable to truly articulate the issues they have as being disassociated mechanics instead claiming issues to be from mechanics that are unrealistic or other arguements that just don't hold up because while they see a problem, they don't fully understand where the problem is coming from, this difficulty is a difficulty of self-analysis, and it applies in other places as well, such as noticing how they integrate themselves into a group over time), thus niche protection in an agency game isn't mechanical at all, it is a social manipulation to get everyone in a group sorted out more easily and quickly and to direct the spitlight to avoid stepping on toes.

In reply to Tyr Hawk (msg # 41):

Agency and mechanical balance are inverse perspectives.

An agency player has a focus on a character's character, a perspective originating in-character. Munchkins, minmaxers, etc, have a focus on the stats and a perspective originating in the metagame mechanics.

It is like looking at a house, you can only look at it from one direction at a time, though that one thing may be seen from many angles at different times.

Someone who worries about mechanical balance, or in particular feels good or bad about how their stats stack up against the other players, has their focus and perspective originating in the mechanics, even as they try to integrate story (and indeed, integrating story is the way to put it, because they are using a mechanical foundation upon which to drape that story), but an agency player is truly unworried about the mechanics because for them mechanics are truly secondary. Such a player may find mechanics useful and try to integrate mechanics, but story is still their foundation and the framework through which they judge everything.

Despite any minor disagreement over terminology*,  the idea that Agency and Mechanical are inverse perspectives could still be a valid one.  I'm nowhere certain of exactly what that might mean in terms of game theory, though.

(*For any interested:  "Munchkin" and "minmaxer" have negative connotations I feel may not be warranted in all cases, and "metagame" doesn't seem appropriate to game mechanics, as those mechanics are part and parcel of the game, and are only meta- where the story is concerned.)

Ideas expressed earlier about players with a more mechanical style being more focused on "winning" (or achieving a set of personally held victory conditions) while those playing more in tune with personal agency tend to focus more on advancing the story?  I'm not so sure.

I've seen players in an agency-focused setting pursue selfish ends and individual agendas, too.  I've also seen them seek to "min-max" characters created for such a setting, seeking out that magickal combination of skills, spells, abilities, aspects, etc. that make their character the mythical ne plus ultra.  Is that an example of a mechanically rooted player trying to play in an agency-rooted setting?  Seems more like advancing the fine art of rules exploitation to its absurd extreme.



Hmm... the house analogy applies well, but I draw slightly different conclusions:

Firstly, the player who worries about mechanical balance, or who, in particular, allows their stats to make them feel somehow inadequate in comparison to other players probably has the same issues and worries about inadequacy in reality.  There's not much a GM can do about such a worrisome player except help them see that playing is supposed to be fun, not something to become worried about.

Note: I don't believe such players are necessarily troublesome, but can become so if they come to believe the game is not meeting their emotional/psychological needs.

A more appropriate thing for the player to be concerned with is how this character (who is not an abstraction of the player unless one is playing Villians & Vigilantes) can make meaningful contributions to the game and thereby transcend their own emotional or physical limitations.  A shrewd GM will lead the player to this conclusion gently.  (I wonder if experience as a bartender might improve a GM?)

Secondly, I find it interesting to turn the idea of draping the story over a mechanical foundation on its head.  When a GM creates a setting, do they let the rules dominate that setting, causing changes in that setting to arise out of logical extrapolations of the rules, or does that worthy take the rules by the horns, so to speak, and alter them to suit their grand vision?

The first leads to less than satisfying settings for a GM only if carried to extremes, while the second leads to the mother of all home-brews (not necessarily a bad thing, but, like all human endeavors, it strongly depends on the human.)

Both approaches can be useful during setting development to uncover "hidden" aspects of the setting that can potentially make it richer, so a push-pull development cycle might be a good model. (I sometimes employ this method, and it has not always failed, so maybe so?)

Are you using "story" to mean the same thing as "in-character choices"? I ask because I see them as somewhat separate, as "story" might mean something that the character doesn't actually have a choice in, like Ripley's inability to follow through on her choice of tactics. "Story" might mean that a given character might plausibly request black clothing, but not plausibly ever have any opportunity to benefit from it.

I did also want to hear your thoughts about penalties vs. rewards for in-character choices. For me, I think that if someone is intentionally going for a penalty (say, because they don't have enough narrative control or preference to just have the character fail something outright) then it would be seen as a good thing, as the player influencing the game/theme in a way that makes sense to them. That's sort of the basis of "theme-playing," as I imagine it. If someone makes a choice because that's "what the character would do," without expecting downsides and then takes (or is informed that they will take) nothing but downsides for that, then some disappointment might ensue. Not always, though; there are those who would suck up something like that. If those downsides affected the party to a substantial degree, then even in a strongly themed game it wouldn't be surprising for other players to groan and ask the player to just make a less bad choice.

Regardless of one's opinion of 4th Edition D&D, the podcasts made of Jerry Holkins, Mike Krahulik, Scott Kurtz and Wil Wheaton playing it offer both kinds of situations and interesting reactions to them.

Scott is playing a dwarf who learns that a family enemy is behind the current threat. Mike's wizard is not sure the reward is worth it, but the dwarf fighter convinces him that it's not just about personal revenge and honor, but a significant artifact. They embark on the raid, and the dwarf has an opportunity to play host to a restless spirit, killed by the antagonist, who can mentally convey inside information. The dwarf uses this to find the enemy he wants revenge on, while telling the party that they're headed for the treasure. This is all done openly. Jerry, one of the more veteran players, appears to be really into this double-dealing. Everyone plays along, and no one (at least on audio) asks Scott to knock it off. They make the "correct" in-character choice to trust their ally.

They reach the dwarf's intended target, who alerts the household and runs off. The dwarf exhorts Wil's character to chase him down, which is a very in-character (as well as mechanically good) thing for that character to do. Wil's character avoids one major threat, but then triggers a trap and, being separated, is unable to do much but die.

All in all, the characters suffered from in-character choices that were made. The players find this trouble somewhat enjoyable and at least one player seems to find it thematically "right" (one character on a mission screwing it up out of personal concerns), but it's clear to me that the character death and the more-or-less failure of the mission is shocking and somewhat frustrating to them, and that Wil is actually quite bothered by the character death, and is trying to put a brave face on the outcome by claiming that "properly" roleplaying and losing a character is better than "metagaming" and surviving.

Now, the character death leads to a pretty good subsequent session, but it might not have, particularly if the players didn't have any input into the course of the story. As a standalone session, I'm not sure what could have made it more enjoyable for them. I think my personal ideal, and the "theme-playing" view of it would say "The characters got into cool, thematic situations and everyone should have an unalloyed sense of pride at what was generated" and that any negative feelings about the death of the character could have been avoided with a greater degree of detachment, along the lines of the detachment demonstrated in not halting the dwarf's actions. This view of things is probably due in part to my own detachment as an audience member, rather than a player; I enjoyed the "performance," so I feel like the performer should have too.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's also what people playing in an "agency" mode would or should feel. They didn't "win" but they generated a good story

I think the problem I'm having is this idea that somehow people can only focus on one or the other. Mechanics or story. As horus said, focusing on only one seems to lead to one of two (I would call them) fairly irregular campaigns. Either you bash the world against the rules, or the rules against the world, and... well, I've honestly never been in a game that hasn't done both to fit whatever needed to be done to fit whichever bit seemed most important at the time. I've only very rarely met a player/character that only did one or the other, because those people usually get dropped from the games really fast.

On that note, there are lots of games in which the story and the mechanics are meant to be tied together. Mechanics of the game influence the story that can be told, and the world thaat the creators made, because if the rules get changed every time they conflict with the story then... well, not to be that guy but that's Pure Freeform. Not just Freeform, because those can have rules and whatnot, but pure, unadulterated, straight-up Freeform, since the rules don't matter, only the story. In that case you can't roll dice to introduce randomness because that's mechanics that might get in the way of decisions and story. When you roll and when you don't become the major mechanical decisions and that's, well, huge. Dice are mechanics, they're meta, and if it's about making decisions for the character then there's always going to be a moment when you think, maybe even pause, because you know the odds of the roll, or that you have to roll instead of getting the story to happen. And you didn't care about numbers or anything else as far as a sheet goes, so... what? It doesn't have to be conscious. Doesn't have to be anything more than a moment, but you're always gonna be reminded by something that you're in a game, a game where mechanics happen. And even if you remove the dice then you've still got something like turn order, language, everything that's not purely story, that can be used by individual players differently to their advantage or benefit, can be considered a mechanic if that's all you've got.

In fact, just to clear the air, here are the definitions I'm working with.

Mechanics: Any part of a system for gaming agreed upon to facilitate the way a player/GM can interact with the world/story. This includes rules that affect them both in and out of character.
Example: A system I like only lets three layers of Armor actually stack. My character might think (a bit correctly) that wearing five layers of armor will offer better protection than three, but if I know it doesn't and it actually doesn't in-game, that's probably going to affect how my character's decision to wear five armors actually influences the game both IC and OOC.

In-Character Agency: A player's ability to make decisions in a game based on what their character would do.
Example: Can I choose to wear five armor layers? Sure, so long as the GM doesn't say no for whatever reason (many of which might be mechanical like character size, availability of different sizes of armor, etc.).

So, take the latter example. Does it have to have anything to do with mechanics? No. Might I expect it to? Well, yeah. My character has a certain mechanical expectation of it too (that it will provide more protection), much like Hitomi's character picked black (I'm assuming) because they didn't want to wear pink when sneaking around because they thought it'd get them caught. If there were no rule about how layers stacked, why couldn't I make the decision on both levels (OOC and IC) that it would be something my character does while also doing something for me mechanically?

I guess what I'm saying is that, to me, Mechanics shape story and world. They are the Laws and Theories we follow in the real world (e.g. Gravity), especially in a good system, and so I just don't believe that you have to choose between them. If there's not a system for magic, but the setting has it, you wouldn't maybe pause and think up rules around how you deal with that? You make the two work together, whichever way that happens to be, and that's fine. Every person, character, campaign, everything. They're not opposite sides, they're just different things that are part of a larger whole. They don't necessarily get in the way of each other unless you point them at each other and ram them together, which is, you know, I think more the problem than anything else. This idea that story and mechanics have to be separate, or are in the first place, just... it seems weird to me.

Maybe I'm overthinking it though.

I think that describes where I am, a bit. I like rules, but I try to be judicious about where I assume they're needed to apply. I used to treat game rules as the laws of physics, because that's what I thought I saw the rules doing. When a things hit points are zero, it dies or breaks, so hit points are like... structural integrity! So, if I want to have the players on a ship or in a building or even on a planet, that thing must have some number of hit points. Let's see, a wood/stone door has X hit points, so... carry the 1....

These days, I try to apply rules only to resolve something that could develop in multiple interesting ways, and also a little bit for pacing. Not every action needs a skill check, not every inflicted condition needs an attack roll.

Mostly when I play, I try to let everyone set their own level in terms of how much to engage the rules. I try not to use maps (also partly because they're a pain to set up, both in real life and online) and I try to be flexible with what character abilities are able to accomplish of be narratively exchanged for. But the rules are still in there, because not everyone knows what the outcome of every given situation could be or should be, and plus everyone has characters made with the rules that they like to mesh with those rules sometimes (if not other times).

Rules mastery also plays a part in how effectively you can blend story and mechanics.  Keeping focus on the narrative in a game you can effortlessly play because of your familiarity with it is much easier than trying to weave a narrative out of the turning gears of a system you struggle with.

In reply to GreyGriffin (msg # 48):

Good point. It does take some mastery of a game and of gaming in general to know if and when the rules can be set aside.

I think my point has been missed. To say that mechanics or story focus are exclusive does not mean that they won't both be present, rather that you see one through the lens of the other. A mechanics focus sees the story through the lens of the mechanics. A story focus sees the mechanics through the lens of the story.

Another way to put it is the answer to what comes first?

Given the following quotes,

A)


B)


Which are you first concerned about hearing when you loot the troll cave? A or B?


If given the choice between a sword and an axe, do you ask about the stats before or after you pick one?

If the choice is between another generic +10 sword and an amazing beautiful double headed war axe with precious metal inlays depicting scenes of a demigod's legendary triumphs but that has only a +1, which do you pick, and what do you think while picking it? Do you pick the sword thinking "Wow, plus ten! That is high epic bonus. Only gods can make that powerful of a sword!" or do you pick the sword thinking "Darn, I want that axe, but this sword is just too good to pass up." or do you pick the axe thinking "What an awesome axe! Let the those guys pick the boring sword, this axe is coming with me!"

If everyone is running on a mindset that would pick the axe thinking that last quoted thought, particularly the gm, then game balance isn't really important because the game won't be about defeating obstacles, it'll be about the choices the characters make.

Another example is a discussion that once came up about traps.

Someone said that they removed traps from their game because it was boring. They players would simply roll their disable device and move on and therefore they thought the traps added nothing to the game.

This is a mechanics style view on traps though.

In a mechanics focused game, the players don't see a hallway with a pressure plate on the floor. Not at all. Sure they accept that as the description. They have their characters reference the hallway with a pressure plate. But truthfully, when the players consider getting past the trap, all they see is the DC. Nothing else, just the DC. They roll their dice automatically because it never occurs to them that there an infinite number of ways to move on, and most of them don't require a disable device.

I have a simple trick for my games. I call it "Earning your dice roll." Quite simply, the players have to earn their rolls by describing what their characters do in-world.

I also describe only what the characters see. They don't spot a poison dart trap. They spot a trip wire. They search around and find a few small holes in the wall, and shining a light they can glimpse pointed tips inside. Whether they are poisoned or not is anyone's guess at that point.

But since the roll must be earned, the players need to think about the trap as a trip wire that presumably fires little darts. Thus they can start thinking beyond stupid DC numbers, and start thinking of things like grabbing that bench from the previous room and holding it in front of the holes then triggering the tripwire, letting the darts get stuck harmlessly on the bench. Guess what, no roll required. Not even disable device skill is required. Or maybe they just step over the wire and hope they remember it if they need to come running back this way in a hurry.

But this what an agency game goes for. In-world thinking, in-world ideas, in-world solutions, in-world strategy and tactics.

Not all gamers like that though. Some gamers actually find it tedious and just want to get to rolling high numbers again.

A fair number of gamers though, haven't ever experienced playing an agency game, and therefore do not include it in their idea of what an rpg is.
This message was last edited by the user at 02:17, Sun 13 Aug 2017.

I see two flaws in your reasoning.

First, you discount the possibility that a player could care about both, and that the integration of both elements enriches both elements.

For instance, a GM could say you find Glamdring and Orcrist, famous and renowned swords carried by heroes of old, and worthy of your adoration.

However, if that GM says they are both masterwork longswords, then the impact of that history and color is completely defused. Despite being cool and interesting, those swords are not only mostly worthless to a well-equipped character, but they also don't have anything to distinguish themselves in play.

Meanwhile, if the DM offers the history of the blades up front, and then codas with their statistics, the narrative and the mechanics mesh together. ("Elrond identifies this war-bloodied, rune-crusted blade is Orcrist, Goblin-cleaver! It's a +1 goblin-bane longsword.") You have a weapon with history, description, and purpose, and a little mystery if you don't have an elven sage to consult. Furthermore, its name, history, and description meshes with its mechanics in a meaningful and significant way.  This thing's purpose affects how the player uses it, when he interfaces with the system.  Its narrative flavor seeps into its mechanics and affects the medium of interaction in a visceral way.  This thing wants goblin blood and bad.

It's also differentiated meaningfully from Glamdring, the +3 Longsword, because they are different weapons with different purpose and different character.  The character using Glamdring and the character using Orcrist will feel that their weapons are different in combat, because of the impact that they have on their characters. And that feeling of history and purpose feeds into the story of the weapons as much as the made-up names and places and the lineage of wielders and makers.

The difference between a +1 Goblin Bane sword and a +3 Sword is also much, much different from the difference between a +10 Sword and a +1 Axe.  Of course you're going to take the +10 Sword.  Unless you're sword-a-phobic, the difference between them mechanically is too vast to justify shooting yourself in the foot.  Heck, you might take both.

A +5 Sword of Genericness and a +3 Axe of Backstory is a much better comparison, and a much harder choice to make.  Even then your character's aesthetic preferences might also be reflected mechanically.  Do you have Weapon Focus because you like axes, stats aside?

I also am very leery of your concept of "earning your roll."  You are pushing the burden of competence on the player. If a rogue checks for traps, for instance, he knows to check for false floors, magical runes, tripwires, obvious and hidden weapon ports, deadfalls, snares, mines, fresh plaster, and oddly placed chandeliers.  But, as a human being, I am sure there are a million things that I didn't think of in that list.

But I am also not a rogue, and I wouldn't expect my players to think of even half of those things on the spot.  When they check for traps, they check for all of those things.  If they succeed, they spot the trap (which you absolutely should describe like any other important dungeon feature).  And if they roll Disable Device successfully, they should be able to bypass the device, even if they, as a player, don't know how they would do such a thing.  Just like we don't make our Wizards actually cast spells or our rangers shoot arrows at targets, our rogues should not be penalized for their OOC lack of knowledge of dungeon engineering.

As a DM, it's easy to fall into the trap of blaming the players for their own incompetence. When the players check around the room for monsters, roll gangbusters on Perception, and still get ambushed by cloakers hanging in the rafters, they are absolutely right to call shennanigans when the GM says "But you didn't say you looked up."

I totally agree that I like a little more from my PCs in terms of describing "mundane" skill checks.  But it's overly punitive to punish them for lack of knowledge OOC, for imperfect expression, or for a lack of a full understanding of their environment.  We're all playing with imaginay characters, usually almost entirely in the theater of the mind.  We have to cut each other some slack.

I have a bad habit of examining the extremes to force myself to consider how to find that optimal balance.  Perhaps my previous comments incited some of this mutual exclusivity?  I didn't mean for that to happen.



One of the things I seldom do is describe a scene or an artifact in mechanical terms.  Someone spotting, say, a golden naginata with red silk tsuka-ito and a teakwood staff would not be told that it was a +3 cursed blade.  Rather, I would describe it as the character sees it.  If the character had some expertise in Japanese mythology, history, or in the craft of making such weapons, they might recognize more about it (which might occasion a skill check throw), but the description would still steer clear of the mechanical aspects (which would be applied secretly until the character caught on that it was more than your average naginata...), and would concentrate on what the player can see and understand about the weapon.

Conversely, a character more versed in Onmyo-do or priestly magicks might be able to recognize from the weapon's sakki that it is cursed, but not to what exact extent, nor do more than guess at the exact nature of the curse without doing significant research.

Falling back to the mechanical description is reserved for adding the weapon to a character's possessions.  Even then, I try not to allow the weapon's stats to become the focus.



The point you are making here is well taken.



This seems a simplistic point of view.  Traps can add spice to an adventure if used judiciously.  I've been on a "trap-o-matic" dungeon crawl before, and, yeah, that can get tedious.

I've also been on Egyptian adventures where the traps were thoroughly researched by the GM and were representative of traps used historically by ancient tomb builders.  That was just way cool. It made the adventure come alive for all of us.



I really like this notion.  I usually move the action forward by asking questions such as, "What are you doing now?" or by providing a description of what the players are seeing or experiencing (with the level of detail determined "in the background" by the character's skill set).

A twist on this I've seen used with varying success in some games is that players are required to describe how they have failed/fumbled, etc. also.



Yes, indeed.  We think much alike in this respect.



When it works for a group, this kind of play is a thing of beauty.  Not everyone wants to play that way, though.



True enough, and there comes a time when the level of detail in a setting or adventure can bog things down (especially when playing online) and a hard cut or a streamlining of the action can move things forward.  That's a somewhat slippery slope, though.



Would a game like Night Witches qualify as an agency game?  There are mechanics designed into the game to pull the characters in different directions, to leave them emotionally torn between two or more conflicting motivations in their character.

Is that question wrong-headed, even?  Is what makes an agency game more a matter of GM style and less a matter of rule mechanics, or does one figurative hand wash the other here?

While I agree that it all depends on the players, and what they want, I try to encourage role playing by occasionally giving bonuses (many times secret ones) to players who are very descriptive in what they do or say.

Talking about a past mentor or a previous bad experience can, on  occasion, earn a +2 or something similar, and a well written speech can get bonuses to Diplomacy.
If players have excusable problems with this, like posting from a phone or not being totally fluent in English, I don't press the matter, and can balance things in other ways.   But I still try to reward effort.

In reply to GreyGriffin (msg # 51):



I'm not discounting this, I'm saying that including both still has one as the foundation with the other built on top.




What makes these swords worthless? You call them worthless because you are measuring their worth by your expectations of what players should have mechanically. A story based gm would measure their worth by their role as symbols and thus worth in terms of morale and prestige in-world, and more importantly, their ability to draw the players into the story.

You need to ask why a gm might get shch a mismatch between story and mechanics. This sort of issue almost always comes from mechanics focused gms that try to mesh story into the game, or newbies that lack significant experience in handling such things appropriately (though newbs are more likely to go the opposite direction).

See, this mismatch between mechanics and story happens because the gm sees that two masterwork weapons are "mechanically" appropriate, and that a +1 goblin-bane and a +3 are too powerful. Thus they feel they have to limit things to only masterwork weapons. They then try to spice things up by at least giving them flavor. Or they already decided on flavor, but the party is mechanically too low for the original power level the gm or module had in mind, so the gm tones down the mechanics while leaving the story untouched.

But, part of my point is that, in certain playstyles, this fiddling with making things mechanically appropriate to other mechanics, such as character level, can be worthless, or even detrimental, because in those playstyles, getting Orcrist and Glamdring is more important than getting mechanically appropriate weapons.



On the contrary, I don't require the players to think of everything, I just require them to actually interact in-world.

After all, the point behind the trap is not for the mechanics of depleting party resources, nor for the existance of another job for a player to specialize in without stepping on toes. No. The purpose of the trap is to be a different type of encounter, and an encounter is there to be interacted with.

It isn't the destination, it's the journey. Thag holds true here. The isn't there fof the players to defeat, it us there for thd players to deal with, to interact with, to have somethinb to do in the game. The trap is there for the journey of getting past it. It provides a situation for the players to have some fun with.

An rpg is an interactive medium, but it can be a game, or it can be the ultimate interactive story. When it is the latter, becoming attached to the characters and events of the game world in a similar fashion to when reading a book, is the goal.

In reply to horus (msg # 52):

Gotta game with you and nuric one of these days.

Why, thank you!  I may only hope I don't eventually disappoint.

In reply to DarkLightHitomi (msg # 55):

*smiles*  Always glad to entertain.