I wouldn't mind Tactical combat again, like in 4E, but I also wouldn't want 4E class set-up, i.e. Everyone is a Wizard. Mostly because I have been on a FPS gaming binge for a minute now and I love the idea of role-playing a SWAT team or something.
But combat in 4E took forever. I remember one fight we did that took 3 hours and it was against first level undead.
That's basically my big thing with tactical combat:
1) It's hard to continually create engaging choices and scenes.
2) That, due to the time and prep it takes it tends to drag games towards being about dramatic encounters into combat set pieces with a pretty set pace.
3) It often limits player classes into always having to have some combat profeciency.
I think you could probably come up with a good SWAT/combat game based on quick, breaching and CQB stuff that resolves 1 by making it discreetly about managing sightlines and resources and leans into 2 (you're just doing your job).
I’d love a swat style game where combat is more picking your breach path and basic gameplan, and then combat wraps up in a few dice rolls based on that path. Kind of relies on knowing the floor plan in advance but for swat stuff that seems reasonable.
I wouldn't mind Tactical combat again, like in 4E, but I also wouldn't want 4E class set-up, i.e. Everyone is a Wizard. Mostly because I have been on a FPS gaming binge for a minute now and I love the idea of role-playing a SWAT team or something.
But combat in 4E took forever. I remember one fight we did that took 3 hours and it was against first level undead.
That's basically my big thing with tactical combat:
1) It's hard to continually create engaging choices and scenes.
2) That, due to the time and prep it takes it tends to drag games towards being about dramatic encounters into combat set pieces with a pretty set pace.
3) It often limits player classes into always having to have some combat profeciency.
I think you could probably come up with a good SWAT/combat game based on quick, breaching and CQB stuff that resolves 1 by making it discreetly about managing sightlines and resources and leans into 2 (you're just doing your job).
I’d love a swat style game where combat is more picking your breach path and basic gameplan, and then combat wraps up in a few dice rolls based on that path. Kind of relies on knowing the floor plan in advance but for swat stuff that seems reasonable.
I currently really like the gunfight rules in Neomancer where you basically pick from 9 actions (most of which are a variation on shooting someone) split into 3 stances (which sets your difficulty to get hit). It's restrictive but still captures most of what I'd want to do in a fictional gunfight.
I wouldn't mind Tactical combat again, like in 4E, but I also wouldn't want 4E class set-up, i.e. Everyone is a Wizard. Mostly because I have been on a FPS gaming binge for a minute now and I love the idea of role-playing a SWAT team or something.
But combat in 4E took forever. I remember one fight we did that took 3 hours and it was against first level undead.
That's basically my big thing with tactical combat:
1) It's hard to continually create engaging choices and scenes.
2) That, due to the time and prep it takes it tends to drag games towards being about dramatic encounters into combat set pieces with a pretty set pace.
3) It often limits player classes into always having to have some combat profeciency.
I think you could probably come up with a good SWAT/combat game based on quick, breaching and CQB stuff that resolves 1 by making it discreetly about managing sightlines and resources and leans into 2 (you're just doing your job).
I’d love a swat style game where combat is more picking your breach path and basic gameplan, and then combat wraps up in a few dice rolls based on that path. Kind of relies on knowing the floor plan in advance but for swat stuff that seems reasonable.
Yeah, it has weapons stated out individually, like it's not Assault Rifle, it's M4, AK-47, AR-15, ect. each with their own stats for the fine details of how each weapon is different from the other ones, plus a long list of modifications one can add to those weapons, a list of all modern gun manufacturers, and more. There is also one that takes out all the extra bits and just has the mechanics that takes a 280+ page book down to 60+ pages.
Rule 1) You are professionals, if you do any action at a reasonable pace without obstruction you can do it without a dice roll. This is to say that, if most systems tell you not to bother rolling difficulty 1 checks, your operators don't need to roll difficulty 2 or 3 checks either. They just happen because you're the elite. This means that, to shoot a guy whose in range of your weapon you don't need to roll any dice. You just kill him (unless armour I guess).
Rule 2) When you push yourself to achieve more than that base line (shoot at an uncomfortable range for your weapon, down multiple enemies in one turn or fire while sprinting) you roll an extra dice for each 'step' out of the norm you go. If all the dice are under your skill at something (from 1-4) you still succeed. Any 6's add to your exposure.
Rule 3) The threat of enemy fire is rated by exposure. Every enemy exerts 1 by default but can exert more based on the danger they present. At the end of the player turns any enemy left in line of sight of a player rolls dice equal to that (plus any a player acquired pushing themselves) which have the chance to wound or kill.
So the system is based around rigging the tactical situation such that you need to push yourself on as few actions as possible. The ideal is for every situation to be such that you can always resolve it with no dice rolled and no exposure to the enemy fire.
Action economy would probably be one action a turn by default with it being pushing yourself to take on two or three actions. Area movement because it's really useful for dense, small urban conflicts like SWAT/R6 tends to go for.
I have the Player's Handbook and the GameMaster's Guide for Hackmaster 4th Edition, the game that is simultaneously an RPG and also a satire of 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D. The GameMaster's Guide has two double-page spreads with very detailed and labeled anatomical drawings of the human skeleton and human muscle groups, so that when a critical hit is rolled, the GM can give the specific name of the bone or muscle that has been damaged.
It's still one of the most sublime pieces of satire I'd ever seen.
But I also don’t get why people get upset when they are told that what they want is a simplified game.
Because people are fully aware that they exist in a gamer culture where lots of dudes wave around their mastery of arbitrarily complex systems as a badge of honor and use "simple" as a pejorative.
It's also the case that random gamer number 5 is often astonishingly bad at actually identifying or engaging with complexity, or distinguishing between complexity and cruft, equating it solely to math or the number of subsystems or whatever. There are other kinds of complexity! Powered by the Apocalypse games manifestly don't have as much die-rolling or math but they are very demanding in other arenas, particularly rapid-fire improvisation and the need to make difficult choices quickly and repeatedly without the safety net of playing a character who can succeed at things 95% of the time. Drop Joe CharOpper with his TI-84 who's used to snoozing through the "talking parts" into a game of Monsterhearts and watch the flop sweat start as entire new vistas of unprepared-for complexity unfurl before him.
(This is also why when people ask for good starter RPGs for newbies I don't immediately default to the newest hippest indie offering. Those things may seem simple inasmuch as they have incredibly focused, unified rulesets but that focus and unification often bakes in a ton of assumptions about player skill and the social contract at the table that may not be apparent at all to some dude who just thought he'd be playing WoW but on paper.)
But I am sure people here understand that some players/groups/people don't always want or need some deeply narrative pass-the-baton style game. Some people might actively not enjoy that, some might want both depending on their current mood. And there's nothing wrong with that.
The picture painted of 'Joe Opper' breaking out into a cold sweat when he's presented with a narrative style game reminds me of the daydreams people have where their bully finally gets their comeuppance. And I just don't get where all that kind of resentment comes from. Maybe I just lucked out because my gaming group for the past decade-and-a-half all met in high school theater.
It's very off putting for someone like myself who will practically play about anything if someone's willing to run it, and try to milk out as much enjoyment as I can from whatever the system has to offer.
You're kind of off on your own thing here, man. Reread my post. Inquisitor wanted to know "why people get upset when they are told that what they want is a simplified game."
I said that there are two answers:
1) For 50 years gamers have been towering shitlords about equating "simple" with "bad", so people react poorly to that description of something they like
2) "Simple" and "complex" are harder to define in practice than people seem to realize and are not just a function of how many/few tables you roll on
Nobody said that everyone should be playing "some deeply narrative pass-the-baton style game" or that it's not okay to not prefer that. In fact, I said the exact opposite: where a lot of well-meaning people recommend those kinds of games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
a lot of well-meaning people recommend [narrative] games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
A game like D&D, a lot of the complexity is evident when you pick up the book: just look at how thick it is! It's got all these charts and rules and numbers and bolded words! You can kind of get a sense of what you're getting into just by flipping through it.
For a Powered by the Apocalypse game, let's say, a bunch of the complexity comes at run-time, because when you have a line in the rules that goes "The GM makes a hard cut when the story calls for it", that's like... kind of a vague, nebulous rule that takes up no paper to print but unfolds like a fractal blossom of complexity when you start playing. "Fellowship" has a rule that basically says "If you play [race X], then you are the expert on [race X] in this setting, and you will be called on to fill in details of history, customs, etiquette, etc". That's a lot of complexity; complexity that isn't immediately evident until you really stop and think about what's expected of you.
a lot of well-meaning people recommend [narrative] games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
A game like D&D, a lot of the complexity is evident when you pick up the book: just look at how thick it is! It's got all these charts and rules and numbers and bolded words! You can kind of get a sense of what you're getting into just by flipping through it.
For a Powered by the Apocalypse game, let's say, a bunch of the complexity comes at run-time, because when you have a line in the rules that goes "The GM makes a hard cut when the story calls for it", that's like... kind of a vague, nebulous rule that takes up no paper to print but unfolds like a fractal blossom of complexity when you start playing. "Fellowship" has a rule that basically says "If you play [race X], then you are the expert on [race X] in this setting, and you will be called on to fill in details of history, customs, etiquette, etc". That's a lot of complexity; complexity that isn't immediately evident until you really stop and think about what's expected of you.
I don't think complexity is really the word to use there. They do both require a whole bunch of creativity and they demand it on the spot which is a thing that will throw a lot of people. Too easy to get stuck in your head and either lock onto a single idea you don't like or just draw a complete hard blank. There is very much a skill to it just as their is a skill using to the more codified rules systems that we're using as a contrast here.
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I actually have a theory that there is a conservation of complexity in RPGs
Like, when you think about it, in every game you basically need to do the same things. You need to set the scene, describe the NPCs, give the players choices, have a way to resolve uncertain outcomes, figure out consequences for success and failure, etc. All that game systems do is divide up and rearrange that responsibility in different ways.
Say, in one game the GM is responsible for almost everything outside of the players, and the the rules expect him to put in a lot of preparation to plan for various eventualities etc. That's complicated! In another game the GM is esponsible for almost everything outside of the players, and the the rules expect him to be able to quickly improvise responses to rapidly changing situations, like a freestyle storyteller. That's also pretty complicated! In a third game, the responsibility for describing tings is shared between GM and players and mediated by a system of tokens or plot points. That's pretty complicated too!
I feel like there are three major axes that games operate on, like sliding scales:
(GM responsibility)
(player responsibility)
(preparation)
(improvisation)
(explicit knowledge)
(implicit knowledge)
The first is pretty straightforward. In some games the GM is basically the tyrant of the table. This is totally independent of the larger game style! There are traditional games like this (like D&D) but there are also very modern, nontraditional games where the DM is kind of like a storyteller and the players just offer prompts ("tell me the one about how my guy fucked up three guards").
The second is whether you do a lot of the legwork before the game or during it. Say I'm populating a village and I need to stat up the village carpenter. In a d20 game this might take a while as I decide where his skills lie and how good he is at, say, making balustrades. I might sit there and be like UGH WHATEVER at the fiddliness of it. But if that ever comes up, I have an answer right there: he's this good at making balustrades. On the other hand, I could just give him the stats I think are most likely to be called for (AC, Will save in case the wizard tries to charm a free balustrade out of him, etc) - but then I'm unprepared if a PC announces that he wants the finest balustrade in all the land and wonders if the carpenter is any good at making them. I would need to come up with an answer on the spot based on what I know about the carpenter, what I think about his skills relative to the rest of the world (maybe he's a shitty carpenter who only gets business because he's the only one in Ratvale! or maybe he's an artist with wood!), etc. I need to put in work either way, but I can either put it in early and risk overpreparing with a bunch of nonsense that will never come up, or I can put it off till later and risk being caught off guard. Also consider that games that rely on lots of RNG are another form of improvisation - you roll on a table or whatever, and then have to interpret the results on the fly. (is the villager any good? *roll*)
The third relates to the kind of knowledge the players need to play the game in the way it was intended. Sometimes that knowledge is in the book, sometimes it comes from outside. That insane-looking tactical game a couple posts up gives its players an incredibly detailed menu of realish-sounding options (difficulty for vehicle jumps! equipment: eyewear!). It's super complicated, but if they want to know how to do something, or if they need information to make an informed choice in-game ("can I make this jump in my right-side-driving Jetta on a medium-wet road if I'm going 75 kph?"), they can look it up. It might be a pain in the ass, but it's in there somewhere. On the other hand, if a game relies on exterior knowledge (for instance, genre awareness) then maybe the player doesn't always need to check the rulebook: "this game is a zany heist game, so I probably have a decent shot to make the jump, just like it's a Fast and the Furious movie." But if they lack that awareness - if they've never seen a zany car heist movie - then the rules will seem weird to them, or they'll behave in ways that are odd for the game.
By messing with those dials you can arrive at most different types of RPGs, from super crunchy to very freeform. These systems are all different ways of answering the same fundamental questions - and those questions require labor to answer, and you can't actually eliminate all the labor no matter what you do.
I think there's definitely needless complexity that you could add on. Some hypothetical game might give every player a completely different task resolution system, like Amy has to beat a 7 on 2d6 and Biff has to beat an 11 on 1d20, and I think older messier games with lots of ad hoc design are often guilty of that, but you can unify those games' mechanics and make them more sensical and they can still be very, very complex.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
a lot of well-meaning people recommend [narrative] games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
A game like D&D, a lot of the complexity is evident when you pick up the book: just look at how thick it is! It's got all these charts and rules and numbers and bolded words! You can kind of get a sense of what you're getting into just by flipping through it.
For a Powered by the Apocalypse game, let's say, a bunch of the complexity comes at run-time, because when you have a line in the rules that goes "The GM makes a hard cut when the story calls for it", that's like... kind of a vague, nebulous rule that takes up no paper to print but unfolds like a fractal blossom of complexity when you start playing. "Fellowship" has a rule that basically says "If you play [race X], then you are the expert on [race X] in this setting, and you will be called on to fill in details of history, customs, etiquette, etc". That's a lot of complexity; complexity that isn't immediately evident until you really stop and think about what's expected of you.
If you want to extend this to a conversation we'll never stop having before I die, I would argue that D&D and the like with its math and rules are what we would traditionally code as masculine complexity, whereas PbtA and its creativity and narrative prompts are what we would traditionally code as feminine complexity, and the obsession with As Many Rules As Possible and the argument that Problem Solving is Superior to Narrative is another demonstration of toxic masculinity in our culture.
a lot of well-meaning people recommend [narrative] games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
A game like D&D, a lot of the complexity is evident when you pick up the book: just look at how thick it is! It's got all these charts and rules and numbers and bolded words! You can kind of get a sense of what you're getting into just by flipping through it.
For a Powered by the Apocalypse game, let's say, a bunch of the complexity comes at run-time, because when you have a line in the rules that goes "The GM makes a hard cut when the story calls for it", that's like... kind of a vague, nebulous rule that takes up no paper to print but unfolds like a fractal blossom of complexity when you start playing. "Fellowship" has a rule that basically says "If you play [race X], then you are the expert on [race X] in this setting, and you will be called on to fill in details of history, customs, etiquette, etc". That's a lot of complexity; complexity that isn't immediately evident until you really stop and think about what's expected of you.
If you want to extend this to a conversation we'll never stop having before I die, I would argue that D&D and the like with its math and rules are what we would traditionally code as masculine complexity, whereas PbtA and its creativity and narrative prompts are what we would traditionally code as feminine complexity, and the obsession with As Many Rules As Possible and the argument that Problem Solving is Superior to Narrative is another demonstration of toxic masculinity in our culture.
I'd say that this is painting different kinds of games with brushes which don't help the conversation at all and just insult people for their tastes.
There's nothing wrong with liking problem solving and likening one of the varied styles of RPGs with the actual real world problems caused by toxic masculinity seems hugely inappropriate and insulting to me.
a lot of well-meaning people recommend [narrative] games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
A game like D&D, a lot of the complexity is evident when you pick up the book: just look at how thick it is! It's got all these charts and rules and numbers and bolded words! You can kind of get a sense of what you're getting into just by flipping through it.
For a Powered by the Apocalypse game, let's say, a bunch of the complexity comes at run-time, because when you have a line in the rules that goes "The GM makes a hard cut when the story calls for it", that's like... kind of a vague, nebulous rule that takes up no paper to print but unfolds like a fractal blossom of complexity when you start playing. "Fellowship" has a rule that basically says "If you play [race X], then you are the expert on [race X] in this setting, and you will be called on to fill in details of history, customs, etiquette, etc". That's a lot of complexity; complexity that isn't immediately evident until you really stop and think about what's expected of you.
If you want to extend this to a conversation we'll never stop having before I die, I would argue that D&D and the like with its math and rules are what we would traditionally code as masculine complexity, whereas PbtA and its creativity and narrative prompts are what we would traditionally code as feminine complexity, and the obsession with As Many Rules As Possible and the argument that Problem Solving is Superior to Narrative is another demonstration of toxic masculinity in our culture.
I'd say that this is painting different kinds of games with brushes which don't help the conversation at all and just insult people for their tastes.
There's nothing wrong with liking problem solving and likening one of the varied styles of RPGs with the actual real world problems caused by toxic masculinity seems hugely inappropriate and insulting to me.
Note that I didn't say either style of game was bad and specifically called out arguments you didn't make as toxic.
a lot of well-meaning people recommend [narrative] games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
A game like D&D, a lot of the complexity is evident when you pick up the book: just look at how thick it is! It's got all these charts and rules and numbers and bolded words! You can kind of get a sense of what you're getting into just by flipping through it.
For a Powered by the Apocalypse game, let's say, a bunch of the complexity comes at run-time, because when you have a line in the rules that goes "The GM makes a hard cut when the story calls for it", that's like... kind of a vague, nebulous rule that takes up no paper to print but unfolds like a fractal blossom of complexity when you start playing. "Fellowship" has a rule that basically says "If you play [race X], then you are the expert on [race X] in this setting, and you will be called on to fill in details of history, customs, etiquette, etc". That's a lot of complexity; complexity that isn't immediately evident until you really stop and think about what's expected of you.
If you want to extend this to a conversation we'll never stop having before I die, I would argue that D&D and the like with its math and rules are what we would traditionally code as masculine complexity, whereas PbtA and its creativity and narrative prompts are what we would traditionally code as feminine complexity, and the obsession with As Many Rules As Possible and the argument that Problem Solving is Superior to Narrative is another demonstration of toxic masculinity in our culture.
Throwing away the gender labels here but the words quantitative versus qualitative might be helpful.
In D&D-esque games an action is driven by it's own numbers and governing framework. It's relation to character/story/narrative are all irrelevant.
In PbtA style stuff an action is driven by it's relational framework. The actual likelihood of an action's success is irrelevant.
a lot of well-meaning people recommend [narrative] games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
A game like D&D, a lot of the complexity is evident when you pick up the book: just look at how thick it is! It's got all these charts and rules and numbers and bolded words! You can kind of get a sense of what you're getting into just by flipping through it.
For a Powered by the Apocalypse game, let's say, a bunch of the complexity comes at run-time, because when you have a line in the rules that goes "The GM makes a hard cut when the story calls for it", that's like... kind of a vague, nebulous rule that takes up no paper to print but unfolds like a fractal blossom of complexity when you start playing. "Fellowship" has a rule that basically says "If you play [race X], then you are the expert on [race X] in this setting, and you will be called on to fill in details of history, customs, etiquette, etc". That's a lot of complexity; complexity that isn't immediately evident until you really stop and think about what's expected of you.
If you want to extend this to a conversation we'll never stop having before I die, I would argue that D&D and the like with its math and rules are what we would traditionally code as masculine complexity, whereas PbtA and its creativity and narrative prompts are what we would traditionally code as feminine complexity, and the obsession with As Many Rules As Possible and the argument that Problem Solving is Superior to Narrative is another demonstration of toxic masculinity in our culture.
I'd say that this is painting different kinds of games with brushes which don't help the conversation at all and just insult people for their tastes.
There's nothing wrong with liking problem solving and likening one of the varied styles of RPGs with the actual real world problems caused by toxic masculinity seems hugely inappropriate and insulting to me.
"I can memorize more trivia about Rommel than you/math harder than you" is absolutely a shitty stick that nerds have used to beat each other, and women, and newcomers to their hobbies, for decades now. and it absolutely has to do with the unspoken assumption that masculinity is derived from mastery.
But it's only something you need to feel insulted about if it's something you actually do - if the reason you prefer a thing isn't because you like it better, but because you think it makes you better.
Do you?
I mean, I don't think you do? But that means there's no need to Matrix in front of the shot.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
I misread that as being AD&D-related and was going to claim you tricked me, but I have enough peripheral knowledge of / interest in Unknown Armies that I might go in for that one, so thanks!
I think it's mega shitty to take a certain game style and imply that liking it means you're a certain kind of nerd with a certain kind of masculinity who treats people in a certain way and I think that it's also super unhelpful to the conversation.
I don't think that liking crunchy games makes me any way superior to anyone (though I definitely think there are people who post in this thread who do, from the other way around) but I also am not remotely interesting in coding that preference as "masculine" or, even worse, "toxic masculinity" just because I like gear porn and complex mechanics over a system-lite equivalent.
Solar on
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
edited March 2018
I think (I think) the problem Solar has with admanb's statement, and the objection that I share, is in this odd conjunction:
and the obsession with As Many Rules As Possible and the argument that Problem Solving is Superior to Narrative is another demonstration of toxic masculinity in our culture.
...because it insinuates that
the obsession with As Many Rules As Possible
which is a taste or preference, is similar in some way to
the argument that Problem Solving is Superior to Narrative
which is a shitty statement of superiority, and it just isn't. The problem is that the way you're putting forth the argument equates the two. I don't want to speak for Solar, but his response makes sense to me based on the above.
WACriminal on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I think it's mega shitty to take a certain game style and imply that liking it means you're a certain kind of nerd with a certain kind of masculinity who treats people in a certain way and I think that it's also super unhelpful to the conversation.
I don't think that liking crunchy games makes me any way superior to anyone (though I definitely think there are people who post in this thread who do, from the other way around) but I also am not remotely interesting in coding that preference as "masculine" or, even worse, "toxic masculinity" just because I like gear porn and complex mechanics over a system-lite equivalent.
I think that what's being said is not "Liking X means you're a certain type of problematic person", but rather "Certain types of problematic people flock to X".
Further, it's "Certain types of problematic people flock to X not because they prefer it to something else, but because they believe that they are supposed to like it, and/or that liking it makes them superior to people who don't like it".
Having something that requires mastery and allows you to establish dominance over it compared to new comers is something that promotes toxic masculinity.
I think however, that this is true of tons of game systems, I can lecture my friends as much on why I do or don't like the various narrative systems we play till the cows come home. It's something that becomes rather inherent to gaming as an activity because depth and varied manners of expression are integral to the hobby.
Also, for what it's worth, diagnosing mathsy, system driven games as inherently masculine in appeal is getting shockingly close to 'male brain' style autism diagnosis stuff and could we not.
I think it's mega shitty to take a certain game style and imply that liking it means you're a certain kind of nerd with a certain kind of masculinity who treats people in a certain way and I think that it's also super unhelpful to the conversation.
I don't think that liking crunchy games makes me any way superior to anyone (though I definitely think there are people who post in this thread who do, from the other way around) but I also am not remotely interesting in coding that preference as "masculine" or, even worse, "toxic masculinity" just because I like gear porn and complex mechanics over a system-lite equivalent.
I think that what's being said is not "Liking X means you're a certain type of problematic person", but rather "Certain types of problematic people flock to X".
Further, it's "Certain types of problematic people flock to X not because they prefer it to something else, but because they believe that they are supposed to like it, and/or that liking it makes them superior to people who don't like it".
And I'm saying that making this comment following an interesting insight into the different types of complexity in RPGs is not actually helpful to the discussion, and was worded in a pretty insulting way.
I think it's mega shitty to take a certain game style and imply that liking it means you're a certain kind of nerd with a certain kind of masculinity who treats people in a certain way and I think that it's also super unhelpful to the conversation.
I don't think that liking crunchy games makes me any way superior to anyone (though I definitely think there are people who post in this thread who do, from the other way around) but I also am not remotely interesting in coding that preference as "masculine" or, even worse, "toxic masculinity" just because I like gear porn and complex mechanics over a system-lite equivalent.
I think that what's being said is not "Liking X means you're a certain type of problematic person", but rather "Certain types of problematic people flock to X".
Further, it's "Certain types of problematic people flock to X not because they prefer it to something else, but because they believe that they are supposed to like it, and/or that liking it makes them superior to people who don't like it".
And I'm saying that making this comment following an interesting insight into the different types of complexity in RPGs is not actually helpful to the discussion, and was worded in a pretty insulting way.
Helpfulness to the conversation is a distinct quality from your own personal comfort level with the subject. You already acknowledged a post ago that you've received clarification; this would be an excellent time to either engage with what was said, now that you know what that was, or move on.
Posts
I’d love a swat style game where combat is more picking your breach path and basic gameplan, and then combat wraps up in a few dice rolls based on that path. Kind of relies on knowing the floor plan in advance but for swat stuff that seems reasonable.
I currently really like the gunfight rules in Neomancer where you basically pick from 9 actions (most of which are a variation on shooting someone) split into 3 stances (which sets your difficulty to get hit). It's restrictive but still captures most of what I'd want to do in a fictional gunfight.
Rainbow D6?
Get Tom Clancy's estate on the phone
So I'd be down for it.
Jesus
Rule 1) You are professionals, if you do any action at a reasonable pace without obstruction you can do it without a dice roll. This is to say that, if most systems tell you not to bother rolling difficulty 1 checks, your operators don't need to roll difficulty 2 or 3 checks either. They just happen because you're the elite. This means that, to shoot a guy whose in range of your weapon you don't need to roll any dice. You just kill him (unless armour I guess).
Rule 2) When you push yourself to achieve more than that base line (shoot at an uncomfortable range for your weapon, down multiple enemies in one turn or fire while sprinting) you roll an extra dice for each 'step' out of the norm you go. If all the dice are under your skill at something (from 1-4) you still succeed. Any 6's add to your exposure.
Rule 3) The threat of enemy fire is rated by exposure. Every enemy exerts 1 by default but can exert more based on the danger they present. At the end of the player turns any enemy left in line of sight of a player rolls dice equal to that (plus any a player acquired pushing themselves) which have the chance to wound or kill.
So the system is based around rigging the tactical situation such that you need to push yourself on as few actions as possible. The ideal is for every situation to be such that you can always resolve it with no dice rolled and no exposure to the enemy fire.
Action economy would probably be one action a turn by default with it being pushing yourself to take on two or three actions. Area movement because it's really useful for dense, small urban conflicts like SWAT/R6 tends to go for.
It's still one of the most sublime pieces of satire I'd ever seen.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
You're kind of off on your own thing here, man. Reread my post. Inquisitor wanted to know "why people get upset when they are told that what they want is a simplified game."
I said that there are two answers:
1) For 50 years gamers have been towering shitlords about equating "simple" with "bad", so people react poorly to that description of something they like
2) "Simple" and "complex" are harder to define in practice than people seem to realize and are not just a function of how many/few tables you roll on
Nobody said that everyone should be playing "some deeply narrative pass-the-baton style game" or that it's not okay to not prefer that. In fact, I said the exact opposite: where a lot of well-meaning people recommend those kinds of games as good for newcomers based on a belief that they're simpler and easier to learn than a D&D, I think they're often very complex but present that complexity in different ways. I think someone who expects Cortex or 2d20 or Apocalypse World to be a cakewalk because they've played a lot of GURPS is in for a surprise. That's true going the other way, too, but everyone already knows that!
I’ll give that a look!
Yet, Monsterhearts is beyond my understanding of how it's supposed to work.
So I agree with Jacobkosh completely.
For a Powered by the Apocalypse game, let's say, a bunch of the complexity comes at run-time, because when you have a line in the rules that goes "The GM makes a hard cut when the story calls for it", that's like... kind of a vague, nebulous rule that takes up no paper to print but unfolds like a fractal blossom of complexity when you start playing. "Fellowship" has a rule that basically says "If you play [race X], then you are the expert on [race X] in this setting, and you will be called on to fill in details of history, customs, etiquette, etc". That's a lot of complexity; complexity that isn't immediately evident until you really stop and think about what's expected of you.
I don't think complexity is really the word to use there. They do both require a whole bunch of creativity and they demand it on the spot which is a thing that will throw a lot of people. Too easy to get stuck in your head and either lock onto a single idea you don't like or just draw a complete hard blank. There is very much a skill to it just as their is a skill using to the more codified rules systems that we're using as a contrast here.
Like, when you think about it, in every game you basically need to do the same things. You need to set the scene, describe the NPCs, give the players choices, have a way to resolve uncertain outcomes, figure out consequences for success and failure, etc. All that game systems do is divide up and rearrange that responsibility in different ways.
Say, in one game the GM is responsible for almost everything outside of the players, and the the rules expect him to put in a lot of preparation to plan for various eventualities etc. That's complicated! In another game the GM is esponsible for almost everything outside of the players, and the the rules expect him to be able to quickly improvise responses to rapidly changing situations, like a freestyle storyteller. That's also pretty complicated! In a third game, the responsibility for describing tings is shared between GM and players and mediated by a system of tokens or plot points. That's pretty complicated too!
I feel like there are three major axes that games operate on, like sliding scales:
(GM responsibility)
(player responsibility)
(preparation)
(improvisation)
(explicit knowledge)
(implicit knowledge)
The first is pretty straightforward. In some games the GM is basically the tyrant of the table. This is totally independent of the larger game style! There are traditional games like this (like D&D) but there are also very modern, nontraditional games where the DM is kind of like a storyteller and the players just offer prompts ("tell me the one about how my guy fucked up three guards").
The second is whether you do a lot of the legwork before the game or during it. Say I'm populating a village and I need to stat up the village carpenter. In a d20 game this might take a while as I decide where his skills lie and how good he is at, say, making balustrades. I might sit there and be like UGH WHATEVER at the fiddliness of it. But if that ever comes up, I have an answer right there: he's this good at making balustrades. On the other hand, I could just give him the stats I think are most likely to be called for (AC, Will save in case the wizard tries to charm a free balustrade out of him, etc) - but then I'm unprepared if a PC announces that he wants the finest balustrade in all the land and wonders if the carpenter is any good at making them. I would need to come up with an answer on the spot based on what I know about the carpenter, what I think about his skills relative to the rest of the world (maybe he's a shitty carpenter who only gets business because he's the only one in Ratvale! or maybe he's an artist with wood!), etc. I need to put in work either way, but I can either put it in early and risk overpreparing with a bunch of nonsense that will never come up, or I can put it off till later and risk being caught off guard. Also consider that games that rely on lots of RNG are another form of improvisation - you roll on a table or whatever, and then have to interpret the results on the fly. (is the villager any good? *roll*)
The third relates to the kind of knowledge the players need to play the game in the way it was intended. Sometimes that knowledge is in the book, sometimes it comes from outside. That insane-looking tactical game a couple posts up gives its players an incredibly detailed menu of realish-sounding options (difficulty for vehicle jumps! equipment: eyewear!). It's super complicated, but if they want to know how to do something, or if they need information to make an informed choice in-game ("can I make this jump in my right-side-driving Jetta on a medium-wet road if I'm going 75 kph?"), they can look it up. It might be a pain in the ass, but it's in there somewhere. On the other hand, if a game relies on exterior knowledge (for instance, genre awareness) then maybe the player doesn't always need to check the rulebook: "this game is a zany heist game, so I probably have a decent shot to make the jump, just like it's a Fast and the Furious movie." But if they lack that awareness - if they've never seen a zany car heist movie - then the rules will seem weird to them, or they'll behave in ways that are odd for the game.
By messing with those dials you can arrive at most different types of RPGs, from super crunchy to very freeform. These systems are all different ways of answering the same fundamental questions - and those questions require labor to answer, and you can't actually eliminate all the labor no matter what you do.
I think there's definitely needless complexity that you could add on. Some hypothetical game might give every player a completely different task resolution system, like Amy has to beat a 7 on 2d6 and Biff has to beat an 11 on 1d20, and I think older messier games with lots of ad hoc design are often guilty of that, but you can unify those games' mechanics and make them more sensical and they can still be very, very complex.
If you want to extend this to a conversation we'll never stop having before I die, I would argue that D&D and the like with its math and rules are what we would traditionally code as masculine complexity, whereas PbtA and its creativity and narrative prompts are what we would traditionally code as feminine complexity, and the obsession with As Many Rules As Possible and the argument that Problem Solving is Superior to Narrative is another demonstration of toxic masculinity in our culture.
I'd say that this is painting different kinds of games with brushes which don't help the conversation at all and just insult people for their tastes.
There's nothing wrong with liking problem solving and likening one of the varied styles of RPGs with the actual real world problems caused by toxic masculinity seems hugely inappropriate and insulting to me.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Note that I didn't say either style of game was bad and specifically called out arguments you didn't make as toxic.
Throwing away the gender labels here but the words quantitative versus qualitative might be helpful.
In D&D-esque games an action is driven by it's own numbers and governing framework. It's relation to character/story/narrative are all irrelevant.
In PbtA style stuff an action is driven by it's relational framework. The actual likelihood of an action's success is irrelevant.
"DnD is masculine style complexity" is an anti-useful comment IMO. "This style of gaming is reminiscent of toxic masculinity" is even more so.
You are completely misrepresenting my words AND I disagree entirely.
Also I'm not misrepresentating your words. That's literally what you are saying. Literally. It might not be what you meant but it's what you posted.
Preferring a thing is not the same thing as believing it is inherently superior to another thing.
"I can memorize more trivia about Rommel than you/math harder than you" is absolutely a shitty stick that nerds have used to beat each other, and women, and newcomers to their hobbies, for decades now. and it absolutely has to do with the unspoken assumption that masculinity is derived from mastery.
But it's only something you need to feel insulted about if it's something you actually do - if the reason you prefer a thing isn't because you like it better, but because you think it makes you better.
Do you?
I mean, I don't think you do? But that means there's no need to Matrix in front of the shot.
I misread that as being AD&D-related and was going to claim you tricked me, but I have enough peripheral knowledge of / interest in Unknown Armies that I might go in for that one, so thanks!
I don't think that liking crunchy games makes me any way superior to anyone (though I definitely think there are people who post in this thread who do, from the other way around) but I also am not remotely interesting in coding that preference as "masculine" or, even worse, "toxic masculinity" just because I like gear porn and complex mechanics over a system-lite equivalent.
...because it insinuates that
which is a taste or preference, is similar in some way to
which is a shitty statement of superiority, and it just isn't. The problem is that the way you're putting forth the argument equates the two. I don't want to speak for Solar, but his response makes sense to me based on the above.
Thank goodness nobody is doing that, then.
Further, it's "Certain types of problematic people flock to X not because they prefer it to something else, but because they believe that they are supposed to like it, and/or that liking it makes them superior to people who don't like it".
I disagree, I think that's exactly what admanb's post did. Hence taking umbridge at it.
Or clarified since!
I think however, that this is true of tons of game systems, I can lecture my friends as much on why I do or don't like the various narrative systems we play till the cows come home. It's something that becomes rather inherent to gaming as an activity because depth and varied manners of expression are integral to the hobby.
Also, for what it's worth, diagnosing mathsy, system driven games as inherently masculine in appeal is getting shockingly close to 'male brain' style autism diagnosis stuff and could we not.
And I'm saying that making this comment following an interesting insight into the different types of complexity in RPGs is not actually helpful to the discussion, and was worded in a pretty insulting way.
Geth, roll 1d420 for dankness
Helpfulness to the conversation is a distinct quality from your own personal comfort level with the subject. You already acknowledged a post ago that you've received clarification; this would be an excellent time to either engage with what was said, now that you know what that was, or move on.