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Post by ffilz on Sept 14, 2016 13:14:07 GMT -5
I have sympathy for how you've been treated ITT. I feel it's important to mention that Burning Wheel, which is called a storygame by osr peeps, was a response to fiat. Luke Crane designed the GM role so that there was no chance of running Burning Wheel by fiat. I agree that is what a DM ought not to do but there was enough of it happening for a game to be designed in response. DeWitt I found the following about Burning Wheel, which I am not familiar with: As described, I would not call this a story game, since it says it is designed to exclude the two main features of a story game - it is not pre-scripted and it is designed to prevent railroads. Story as used in relationship to OD&D is the record of what happened in the game and when you tell the story of what happened is when the story appears. It is says the story develops organically which I take to mean that the players actions and responses to the problems and challenges generate the story. In other words this sounds quite a bit like OD&D only with a different focus of what is being tested. DM fiat as used in OD&D is not pre-scripting and it is not railroading, (that IMO is just bad DMing not DM fiat) it is the DM having control of his game world to create the problems and challenges that test the players. The part I look at as different from OD&D is the game mechanics described as "pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes, the 'Let it Ride' rule, absence of hidden information". This is the part that IMO appears to be a fun killer and by putting the pre-scripting and the railroading back in now it is a story game because it sounds like everything is pre-determined after all. If as a player I already know everything (no hidden information), then there is no exploration and no mystery. IME OD&D is exploring and investigating mysteries and this game is apparently absent anything to explore or investigate, since the player gets 100% of everything there is to know up front(no hidden information). The next part is the "pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes" and this seems to be where the game puts the pre-scripting/railroad back into the game by agreeing up front how every encounter is going to be resolved (i.e. it appears to be saying that all chance and all risk is removed. That sounds rather boring to me. I play the game and ref the game for the chance and risk involved - I like not knowing what will happen and we play the game to find out. If you agree how something is going to happen before you play it out, then why bother to play it out when everyone already knows what happens? I am not sure what they mean by the "Let it Ride" rule. I am not sure what to think about this game, but I would like to know more. Parts of it sound really fun other parts sound like they created what they said they were getting away from. It sounds like instead of for example one ref and 10 players, instead you have 11 refs and no players. If you have played this game, please tell me what it is that I am missing or is this how it works? I have played some Burning Wheel... The above really doesn't describe the game well, and in fact, I'm not sure that it actually plays all that differently to how D&D was played back in the day. If folks want to discuss Burning Wheel more, let's start a new thread. Frank p.s. I'm curious where the quoted description of Burning Wheel came from...
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 14, 2016 15:20:05 GMT -5
I went ahead and moved the above post to its own thread. The quoted description was from Wikipedia. The mechanics are in place to remove DM fiat from the game, not to support it. Contemporary story making "games" do the latter and players can't game them to achieve objectives as a result. (i.e. actually play them as games). I disagree with you on the part quoted. The millions of mechanics were never written as tools to create a narrative. Look at contemporary story making rules, that's what tools of that type would look like. All of the books in the hobby to which D&D belongs, gaming, have actual game mechanics that appear as game mechanics because they are for building a game system prior to play. The game is what it is so we can score points by manipulating its mathematical design, not create a story. I have sympathy for how you've been treated ITT. I feel it's important to mention that Burning Wheel, which is called a storygame by osr peeps, was a response to fiat. Luke Crane designed the GM role so that there was no chance of running Burning Wheel by fiat. I agree that is what a DM ought not to do but there was enough of it happening for a game to be designed in response. DeWitt I found the following about Burning Wheel, which I am not familiar with: As described, I would not call this a story game, since it says it is designed to exclude the two main features of a story game - it is not pre-scripted and it is designed to prevent railroads. Story as used in relationship to OD&D is the record of what happened in the game and when you tell the story of what happened is when the story appears. It is says the story develops organically which I take to mean that the players actions and responses to the problems and challenges generate the story. In other words this sounds quite a bit like OD&D only with a different focus of what is being tested. DM fiat as used in OD&D is not pre-scripting and it is not railroading, (that IMO is just bad DMing not DM fiat) it is the DM having control of his game world to create the problems and challenges that test the players. The part I look at as different from OD&D is the game mechanics described as "pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes, the 'Let it Ride' rule, absence of hidden information". This is the part that IMO appears to be a fun killer and by putting the pre-scripting and the railroading back in now it is a story game because it sounds like everything is pre-determined after all. If as a player I already know everything (no hidden information), then there is no exploration and no mystery. IME OD&D is exploring and investigating mysteries and this game is apparently absent anything to explore or investigate, since the player gets 100% of everything there is to know up front(no hidden information). The next part is the "pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes" and this seems to be where the game puts the pre-scripting/railroad back into the game by agreeing up front how every encounter is going to be resolved (i.e. it appears to be saying that all chance and all risk is removed. That sounds rather boring to me. I play the game and ref the game for the chance and risk involved - I like not knowing what will happen and we play the game to find out. If you agree how something is going to happen before you play it out, then why bother to play it out when everyone already knows what happens? I am not sure what they mean by the "Let it Ride" rule. I am not sure what to think about this game, but I would like to know more. Parts of it sound really fun other parts sound like they created what they said they were getting away from. It sounds like instead of for example one ref and 10 players, instead you have 11 refs and no players. If you have played this game, please tell me what it is that I am missing or is this how it works? Keep in mind that i was born after 2nd edition's release. My thoughts are very far removed from the experience ITT. I'm not sure what you're asking. My point was that the GM has rules that they're beholden to. No fiat at a BW table. Answering your post as best I can: Knowing before hand is one way of interpreting the rule. Having 11 GMs is another valid interpretation. The goal was to turn the GM into another player, after all. How, why, and the outcome of using any rule would depend on the table. As per texts, the way these rules are interpreted and used comes from a reader/player response. I'm not sure what else to add. Your post is a valid way to see those kinds of rules. Thanks DeWitt I was just checking to see that I was not completely misunderstanding the thrust of what Burning Wheel is about. It appears to me that the DM Fiat of single referree (used in the negative sense for a bad referee) that Burning Wheel was trying to get away from was exchanged for (to use the example) 11 bad referee negotiating before each occurrence in the game the DM Fiat for each, so that at all times there is nothing hidden from anyone at the table and that at all times everyone knows everything. If that is the case I must confess that I don't see the point of playing at all, since everything that I find interesting is removed from the game completely at that point. Of course, I have never encountered the abusive DM that so many seem to fear and if I did, I would simply leave and find another game or start my own. However, if you took OD&D and wanted to play it with this specific focus - "The GM is encouraged to create problems and challenges that specifically probe and test the Beliefs and Instincts of the PCs, and as a consequence characters frequently undergo significant change in their goals and attitudes over time." I can see that as being fun if that is of interest to you. I have found that playing OD&D often results in characters undergoing change of goals and attitudes even though that is not the focus, merely as an outgrowth of having a living campaign world for them to adventure in. ... The point was there was enough fiat in d&d to spark a response. I feel you're taking a kind of roll and making it the only roll, Admin Pete . Burning Wheel isn't played like that description.
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Post by DeWitt on Sept 14, 2016 16:13:45 GMT -5
Hey Frank...err ffilz, sorry tired eyes. Nice to meet another burning wheeler here. I am a MG guy, it was my first rpg. As mentioned in the thread, I did think Admin Pete 's conclusions were going too far. What, I believe, the quote is referencing is intent and consequence being declared before the roll. In contrast to d&d where only intent is declared before the roll. The ability to be warned about the consequences of a roll could be described as "pre-negotiated" and "no hidden information". It's all a matter of interpretation. I have a hard time explaining how rolls feel at the table. I also believe that presumptions will colour experience. Given the game's author and the bile spewed on such subjects elsewhere on the old school d&d internet, I thought it best not to get too semantic about it. Now it has it's own thread though, I'll explain Let it Ride in the detail it needs. Let it Ride means that once a roll has been made then it can't be made again until conditions have significantly changed. So, if a player wants to pick a lock and fails, s/he can't roll to pick the lock again. The structure of the game is different though. There is no out right failure. A failed roll results in a complication. “The lock is picked but as you open the door you realise the lock belong to a large padlock that was obscured by the door. It makes a tremendous metallic thud that echoes down the dungeon walls.” While they succeeded, it cost them a price. Hence there is little reason to make multiple rolls.
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Post by ffilz on Sept 14, 2016 16:15:00 GMT -5
Burning Wheel play revolves around the players generating a detailed background history for their characters, along with core motivations and ethics (Instincts and Beliefs) that connect them to the storyline and to the other PCs. Story is intended to develop organically rather than being pre-scripted, as a number of the game mechanics (e.g., pre-negotiated roll or scene outcomes, the 'Let it Ride' rule, absence of hidden information) exist to prevent GM railroading and help promote co-operation and trust between the players. (This is quite distinct from agreement among the PCs, who may argue and even fight within the context of the rules.) The GM is encouraged to create problems and challenges that specifically probe and test the Beliefs and Instincts of the PCs, and as a consequence characters frequently undergo significant change in their goals and attitudes over time. The game also includes a variety of quite complex, but technically optional, sub-systems for dealing with combat, chases, negotiation and spellcasting. So some of that isn't entirely true... "Detailed background history" really is antithetical to the intent. What is generated is an overview background and is not intended to be like the multi-page backgrounds players are encouraged to write in some campaigns. The story of the character is intended to start with the first play session. Also, I wouldn't call things pre-negotiated. What happens in play is that the player describes what they want to happen (just like in D&D). The GM then determines an intent (what does the player hope to accomplish) and a task (what skill or attribute will be used to determine success). The GM is also strongly encouraged to describe the result of failure before making the roll. "Sure, you can try and jump the chasm, which will be a Ob 4 Speed test, but if you fail, you will fall into the chasm." (Sounds not any different to the way I've always played D&D [ok, in D&D you might make a roll against Dexterity...]). What is not supposed to happen is "Hah, you made your speed test, but the chasm was wider than you thought and you still fall." The Let it Ride rule addresses two related issues. The first is how tracking, for example, often gets played. Make a tracking roll, ok, you followed the monster to the creek. Now make another one. And another one. Eventually the PC will fail... Let it ride in part instructs the GM to call for a single test to track the monster to his lair (which will have been determined to be the intent when the player said "Let's track the monster", the GM responded with "Track the monster where?", Player "to his lair", GM "Ok, that will be an Ob 4 Tracking test"). The other related issue is retrying say lock picking, until you succeed. In fact, the GM may instead say "Picking the lock is an Ob 3 test, and if you fail, you are unable to pick the lock before the guard makes his next round." So instead of a failure that makes us ask, well, can we try again, the failure condition cleanly indicates that the task is over and the intent was not accomplished. Now can the GM still have mystery? Sure. There can even be hidden consequences of failure (in fact, the consequences of failure need not even be immediate). The upfront statement of the failure condition is not meant as an absolute rule, rather more as a guidance to on the one part avoid the jerk move of denying success and on the other part not keeping the story entirely secret (it can actually be more fun to know the consequence of your failed test even if the character would not actually know what actually happened). And I've seen D&D GMs say "because you failed that, this other thing happens in the background..." so it's not entirely alien to the old school D&D mindset. Frank
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Post by ffilz on Sept 14, 2016 16:45:28 GMT -5
As described, I would not call this a story game, since it says it is designed to exclude the two main features of a story game - it is not pre-scripted and it is designed to prevent railroads. Story as used in relationship to OD&D is the record of what happened in the game and when you tell the story of what happened is when the story appears. It is says the story develops organically which I take to mean that the players actions and responses to the problems and challenges generate the story. In other words this sounds quite a bit like OD&D only with a different focus of what is being tested. I think different folks have different meanings of "story game"... Burning Wheel definitely is not pre-scripted... DM fiat is also a tricky one... In my mind, RPGs absolutely require GM fiat, because you are turning abstract player descriptions of action into what happens. Your decision as to whether to call for a roll, and if so, what skill, and how difficult, is all fiat. Things are not predetermined, and there absolutely can be hidden information. I think really the key difference on that point is that the game text encourages sharing enough information for the players to be able to enhance the whole experience. It allows players to walk themselves into trouble. We don't know what will happen. All that is encouraged is to be upfront with failure consequences (and that is not even absolute). Most of the time, there SHOULD be an obvious failure consequence. Too often, jerk GMs wouldn't let you know just how dangerous leaping the chasm is until you have already rolled... Oh, and another strong recommendation in the system is to set up the skill tests not so they make the character look incompetent, but that the failure consequence is more on the lines of "sure, on a perfect day, you could easily jump this chasm, but this isn't a perfect day, and your failure isn't because you made a weeny jump, but because of something out of your control." Thus the lock pick roll isn't "can you do it" but "can you do it in time." Hope this all starts to help. Frank
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 14, 2016 21:25:37 GMT -5
I think different folks have different meanings of "story game"... Burning Wheel definitely is not pre-scripted... I think really the key difference on that point is that the game text encourages sharing enough information for the players to be able to enhance the whole experience. It allows players to walk themselves into trouble. Thanks guys for all of the additional info, it sounds pretty much like OD&D except you have to do a lot of up front stuff that is assumed as part of how OD&D is played. I take it for granted that the referee is not out to screw me over and my players take it for granted that that is true of me. Based on experience both I and they are right about that. In OD&D the ref in appropriate situations when the players declare what the want to do and it will almost certainly have a bad result, the ref asks "Are you sure you want to do that?" and then sometimes, ask a second time "Are you really sure you want to do that?" IME players quickly pickup on this is a warning by the ref that they are not going to like the consequences of that action and that they have an opportunity to change their mind. When players are just beginners I will throw in the second question and on rare occasions even a third question. Once players have a little experience the first question is nearly always sufficient. I use "story game" in the Ron Edwards/Forge sense, which is predicated on his assumption that all things OD&D are evil, and that all things that are not railroads and that all things that are not pre-scripted are evil. I think OD&D reffed and played as I have experienced it meets all of the needs that Burning Wheel was created to address.
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Post by DeWitt on Sept 14, 2016 22:38:42 GMT -5
With all due respect Admin Pete , that's not exactly true. Ron Edwards is a champion of emergent story. That misconception of storygames is (I suspect) due to one man's crusade. Burning Wheel, after all, came out of the Forge design theory. He also doesn't hate d&d. He's just a very fastidious person who likes codification and precise language. He reminds me of a friend who is a philosophy major. Any claim I make has to be run through several clarification questions before he can even think of a response. I can understanding finding him annoying or rude or even arrogant but equating d&d and non-railroads with evil is unfair imo. It's a shame that such petty tribalism has reduced discussion to stereotypes.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2016 23:35:50 GMT -5
Anytime I hear 'response to DM fiat,' my instant reaction is "If you don't trust me, don't play with me."
I am bound by NO rules. I am the referee, it is my world, I am its demiurge and only law. I may use written material to aid me, but it is to aid me only.
The rules are my servant, not my master.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2016 23:39:27 GMT -5
There is your problem. Don't play with jerk GMs. "You're a knob and my feet work." The rules can't fix stupid, and the rules can't fix @sshole.
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Post by robertsconley on Sept 15, 2016 9:40:02 GMT -5
With all due respect Admin Pete , that's not exactly true. Ron Edwards is a champion of emergent story. That misconception of storygames is (I suspect) due to one man's crusade. Burning Wheel, after all, came out of the Forge design theory. He also doesn't hate d&d. He's just a very fastidious person who likes codification and precise language. He reminds me of a friend who is a philosophy major. Any claim I make has to be run through several clarification questions before he can even think of a response. I can understanding finding him annoying or rude or even arrogant but equating d&d and non-railroads with evil is unfair imo. It's a shame that such petty tribalism has reduced discussion to stereotypes. Here the thing, circa the year 2000, fans of classic D&D were looked on as oddball. Most of the time when the subject came up the attitude was "Oh you play that old broken edition?" Thanks to World of Darkness and White Wolf everybody was on the splatbook mentality, that newer was better and that RPGs were "progressing" in the same way that computer were "progressing". Enough of this and I don't care how much of a saint you are, you will get defensive and grumpy about what you like. But thanks to internet, fans of classic D&D stopped being a bunch of isolated groups and joined together as series of small communities. Classic D&D fans found they were no longer alone in their love of the classic editions and the Internet made it easier to connect, and game more. It also exposed these communities to a lot of people still saying "Oh you still play that old things". People being people ,some ignored it, and some really didn't handle it well. The comes along Ron Edwards who does two things that captures people's attention, he comes up with with a seemly coherent theory of how games are work and how you can take advantage of that while you are designing. And he is one of the leaders of a community around independent publishing. Especially in the United States, people have a soft spot for the little guy making a go of it. So now we are at the point where Ron Edwards and the Forge movement are small celebrities in the RPG hobby and then he does this in reference to classic D&D This is a post that has the links so you can read the full context of his statements so you don't have to take my word for it. Ever since then Ron Edwards name and the Forge has been mud among many fans of classic D&D. It not animosity born of tribalism but one born of a deliberate insult by one of the leaders of the story game movement. Further enflamed by the widespread disdain the hobby had at the time for classic D&D. However the "brain damage" comment is not source of my criticism of the Forge, Ron Edwards, and storygames. When I look at what they accomplished I am completely underwhelmed. They managed to create a niche and that about it. While pioneers of self-publishing they didn't do a very good job of it and it wasn't until the how the OSR showed you can leverage Print on Demand, PDF sales, Open Content, Blogging, and forums like this one that we started to see a diverse range of publisher with new entrants coming in weekly. While the OSR itself remains a niche, it method of getting stuff out there has spread everywhere. As for actual games they produced aside from a few outliers like Burning Wheel and Fate, they all read like scenarios, adventures, adventure paths, and setting do for traditional roleplaying games. It seems the only way to make a roleplaying game based on collaborative story telling is to cripple its capabilities. And the outliers like Burning Wheel and Fate are generally feature lite mechanics layered on a mountain of advice about how to run a campaign, build a character background, and other what i would call roleplaying topics i.e roleplaying another personae. There is some good writing in these games but they are quite simply not special. Any OD&D game with the boxed set only can do what Fate and Burning Wheel focuses if the referee supports it. In fact my Majestic Wilderlands focuses campaigns focuses on adventures that rise out of the clash of culture, religion and politics. Even when I uses OD&D to run them. I figured that out on my own 25 years ago. And I am not that unique as a referee. Over the years I got to know quite a few referees that had a lot of roleplaying in their classic D&D campaigns. Stuff that rivaled what people wrote about in Burning Wheel, Fate, Ars Magica, World of Darkness, etc, etc. The correlary(sp?) of what Gronan wrote about not gaming with assholes, is that if you want roleplaying and rich setting in as a player, find a referee that focuses on those things. Or learn how to run a campaign like that yourself and encourage your friends to run campaigns like that so you can play. Rules are not going to fix what is in the a people problem.
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Post by DeWitt on Sept 15, 2016 9:45:25 GMT -5
I understand your general point. Rules can't fix social anxiety or a.d.d or anti-social personality etc. I just don't think jerk DMs are all jerk people. I feel rules can change how a person plays a game.
I'm a big hockey and basketball fan. Both sports have had very controversial rule changes and strategies. Hack a Shaq and Trapping being the most famous. With the latter being so effective at reducing scoring that rule changes have happened almost every year to get more scoring since 05. My point is, players adapt and change because the rules change.
MG's advice has changed my DMing style and it's changed the way my players approach the game.
I also feel like giving ultimatums is not conducive to making friends either. But hey, what do I know.
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Post by DeWitt on Sept 15, 2016 10:05:42 GMT -5
With all due respect Admin Pete , that's not exactly true. Ron Edwards is a champion of emergent story. That misconception of storygames is (I suspect) due to one man's crusade. Burning Wheel, after all, came out of the Forge design theory. He also doesn't hate d&d. He's just a very fastidious person who likes codification and precise language. He reminds me of a friend who is a philosophy major. Any claim I make has to be run through several clarification questions before he can even think of a response. I can understanding finding him annoying or rude or even arrogant but equating d&d and non-railroads with evil is unfair imo. It's a shame that such petty tribalism has reduced discussion to stereotypes. Here the thing, circa the year 2000, fans of classic D&D were looked on as oddball. Most of the time when the subject came up the attitude was "Oh you play that old broken edition?" Thanks to World of Darkness and White Wolf everybody was on the splatbook mentality, that newer was better and that RPGs were "progressing" in the same way that computer were "progressing". Enough of this and I don't care how much of a saint you are, you will get defensive and grumpy about what you like. But thanks to internet, fans of classic D&D stopped being a bunch of isolated groups and joined together as series of small communities. Classic D&D fans found they were no longer alone in their love of the classic editions and the Internet made it easier to connect, and game more. It also exposed these communities to a lot of people still saying "Oh you still play that old things". People being people ,some ignored it, and some really didn't handle it well. The comes along Ron Edwards who does two things that captures people's attention, he comes up with with a seemly coherent theory of how games are work and how you can take advantage of that while you are designing. And he is one of the leaders of a community around independent publishing. Especially in the United States, people have a soft spot for the little guy making a go of it. So now we are at the point where Ron Edwards and the Forge movement are small celebrities in the RPG hobby and then he does this in reference to classic D&D This is a post that has the links so you can read the full context of his statements so you don't have to take my word for it. Ever since then Ron Edwards name and the Forge has been mud among many fans of classic D&D. It not animosity born of tribalism but one born of a deliberate insult by one of the leaders of the story game movement. Further enflamed by the widespread disdain the hobby had at the time for classic D&D. However the "brain damage" comment is not source of my criticism of the Forge, Ron Edwards, and storygames. When I look at what they accomplished I am completely underwhelmed. They managed to create a niche and that about it. While pioneers of self-publishing they didn't do a very good job of it and it wasn't until the how the OSR showed you can leverage Print on Demand, PDF sales, Open Content, Blogging, and forums like this one that we started to see a diverse range of publisher with new entrants coming in weekly. While the OSR itself remains a niche, it method of getting stuff out there has spread everywhere. As for actual games they produced aside from a few outliers like Burning Wheel and Fate, they all read like scenarios, adventures, adventure paths, and setting do for traditional roleplaying games. It seems the only way to make a roleplaying game based on collaborative story telling is to cripple its capabilities. And the outliers like Burning Wheel and Fate are generally feature lite mechanics layered on a mountain of advice about how to run a campaign, build a character background, and other what i would call roleplaying topics i.e roleplaying another personae. There is some good writing in these games but they are quite simply not special. Any OD&D game with the boxed set only can do what Fate and Burning Wheel focuses if the referee supports it. In fact my Majestic Wilderlands focuses campaigns focuses on adventures that rise out of the clash of culture, religion and politics. Even when I uses OD&D to run them. I figured that out on my own 25 years ago. And I am not that unique as a referee. Over the years I got to know quite a few referees that had a lot of roleplaying in their classic D&D campaigns. Stuff that rivaled what people wrote about in Burning Wheel, Fate, Ars Magica, World of Darkness, etc, etc. The correlary(sp?) of what Gronan wrote about not gaming with assholes, is that if you want roleplaying and rich setting in as a player, find a referee that focuses on those things. Or learn how to run a campaign like that yourself and encourage your friends to run campaigns like that so you can play. Rules are not going to fix what is in the a people problem. I understand Rob. I'm not claiming these games are special. I'm not making any value judgements. I'm naive to game rules. I like the creative process and I like to have fun with my friends. "System matters" is not something that resonates with me. I say this to separate me, as a person, from whatever wrong you feel from the forge. I have read the brain damage debacle but I have also listened to podcasts with Ron and James Raggi, and Ron with Victor Raymond. I have also read Ron's actual play d&d reports. While I don't claim to really get into the muck with all this stuff, I feel from these three things that this perception of Ron is a stereotype. It's not the whole story. As I said, Ron could be consider rude certainly. As for gronan's comments, they are very "my way or the high way" which is not an attitude I respond well to personally. If that was what he told me at the table then I would not go back for a second session where I'm ordered around. If we can't have a conversation and come to a mutual understanding then I would consider that person a jerk. That's just my personality though. I understand not everyone is like me. Again we run into problems of interpretation. I agree with you though. I think that's true when you say that you don't need forge rules to run those kinds of games. I believe for new DMs, they are invaluable because they codify the best DM techniques. I add, though, that forums like this are also just as good but not everyone feels like they can jump in and engage. In the end. I'm just interested in keeping this place bile free. My intention is not to say "your wrong" and I'm not intending to be disrespectful. You are not wrong to dislike Ron Edwards. I just think saying he hates everything not a railroad or that he thinks d&d is evil isn't true. that's all. Oh, I should also clarify. I'm not accusing any one side of tribalism. I'm accusing all sides. Those condescending white wolf jerks are just as much to blame. Same with 4e fans and their smugness, 3.x fans i'm not too familiar with. Like, when I read the 2nd edition books, wow, that book I think has a lot to answer for. I could definitely understand the 1e fans reaction. That's the greater rub though. Aren't we all in it together? Isn't it better to put away the slings and arrows? Yorick's six feet under, he ain't saying nothing. I don't know. Maybe that's impossible and gaming will always be fractured and full of grudges. For what it's worth, I would defend od&d to anybody as a great game for creative types.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2016 11:57:18 GMT -5
As for gronan's comments, they are very "my way or the high way" which is not an attitude I respond well to personally. If that was what he told me at the table then I would not go back for a second session where I'm ordered around. If you think 'if you don't trust me, don't play with me" is "my way or the highway" and "the rules are my servant, not my master" is "ordering you around," yeah, you're right, you'll both be happier if you don't come to my table. Just as well, it's always full anyway. And for MY part, if some little dickweed comes to my table and starts insisting on "rules to protect him from the arbitrary whims of the referee," he's STARTING by declaring he doesn't trust me. And if somebody walks up to me and starts off by saying they don't trust me, what happens next is their fault. Hint: What starts with B and ends with T and rhymes with "Bite my fat old hairy butt?"
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Post by robkuntz on Sept 15, 2016 13:35:18 GMT -5
As for gronan's comments, they are very "my way or the high way" which is not an attitude I respond well to personally. If that was what he told me at the table then I would not go back for a second session where I'm ordered around. If you think 'if you don't trust me, don't play with me" is "my way or the highway" and "the rules are my servant, not my master" is "ordering you around," yeah, you're right, you'll both be happier if you don't come to my table. Just as well, it's always full anyway. And for MY part, if some little dickweed comes to my table and starts insisting on "rules to protect him from the arbitrary whims of the referee," he's STARTING by declaring he doesn't trust me. And if somebody walks up to me and starts off by saying they don't trust me, what happens next is their fault. Hint: What starts with B and ends with T and rhymes with "Bite my fat old hairy butt?" Not to distract from the actual topic, but I agree with Michael, of course. D&D has an omniscient part of the system, and that's the DM. DMs in OD&D are considered to be fair and unbiased.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2016 14:12:17 GMT -5
Not to mention, that spiritually at least D&D is very much in the spirit of "Free Kriegspiel" of the 19th century, where the ultimate authority on how things worked was the reasoned judgement of the referee, NOT any written text.
Nobody but Gary (originally) gets to say how anything works on Greyhawk. Nobody but Dave gets to say how anything works on Blackmoor. Et cetera. Wave a sheaf of papers at me, and I'll wipe my butt on them. If you're lucky.
And just as in those 19th century wargames the referee was the ultimate authority, so in D&D. And just as in those wargames, the referee who proves himself untrustworthy of that authority finds himself without players.
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Post by ffilz on Sept 15, 2016 14:26:52 GMT -5
This thread has drifted away from "what is Burning Wheel"... Not sure I'll bother contributing anymore...
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Post by DeWitt on Sept 15, 2016 15:11:48 GMT -5
Wow. Yeah, you're a jerk. Little dickweed? Is there an ignore list on these forums?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2016 15:46:16 GMT -5
Somewhere, but it's darn hard to get to.
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 15, 2016 15:50:25 GMT -5
I have been sick since Saturday, so please let this thread simmer until I am able to look at it and respond. Thank you!
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Post by amjeerih on Sept 15, 2016 16:31:20 GMT -5
Is there an ignore list on these forums? If you click on the username of a poster you should see their page, with a gearwheel on the right. Clicking on this gives you a drop down menu that includes "Block user."
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Post by DeWitt on Sept 15, 2016 16:48:42 GMT -5
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Post by robkuntz on Sept 15, 2016 17:27:57 GMT -5
Lalalalala... So in a nut shell what is the difference between Burning Wheel and an OD&D systematized in the same way? I sometimes wonder why people who have never played with open systems must continue to define a one course attitude through different games. That is, it seems appropriate to me that BW could just as well be emulated by adopting the same systems approach in OD&D. It's just a small matter of application. Am I missing something here?
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Post by amjeerih on Sept 15, 2016 18:30:30 GMT -5
So in a nut shell what is the difference between Burning Wheel and an OD&D systematized in the same way?... That is, it seems appropriate to me that BW could just as well be emulated by adopting the same systems approach in OD&D. It's just a small matter of application. Am I missing something here? When you put it that way, I think the main differences are simply in the task resolution systems and character advancement. The players in Burning Wheel have to have a pretty good grasp of the rules in order to make progress with their skills and attributes, whereas in more rules lite variants of D&D, they probably don't actually have to understand much about the rules at all so long as the DM knows what he is doing. Burning Wheel is also by default collaborative in terms of worldbuilding, that is, the GM and players work together closely to shape the setting. There is no reason that approach couldn't be adopted into OD&D and the retroclone Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures seems like a very good example of how one might do so. I have not actually played Burning Wheel but I do have the book and its more D&D-esque variant, Torchbearer, and I have watched recordings of games on YouTube. If actual Burning Wheel players think I'm off base here don't hesitate to say so.
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 15, 2016 21:41:10 GMT -5
I am still only going to get to a couple of comments tonight, but I will work my way through. With all due respect Admin Pete , that's not exactly true. Ron Edwards is a champion of emergent story. That misconception of storygames is (I suspect) due to one man's crusade. Burning Wheel, after all, came out of the Forge design theory. He also doesn't hate d&d. He's just a very fastidious person who likes codification and precise language. He reminds me of a friend who is a philosophy major. Any claim I make has to be run through several clarification questions before he can even think of a response. I can understanding finding him annoying or rude or even arrogant but equating d&d and non-railroads with evil is unfair imo. It's a shame that such petty tribalism has reduced discussion to stereotypes. As I would define emergent in relationship to an RPG - it would be: arising as a natural or logical consequence. IMO that describes OD&D - the players actions/decisions flow in a natural or logical consequence of what is presented to them by the referee and from those actions/decisions the referee responds in a natural way that creates and builds on what has just ocurred. I must admit that in relationship to "emergent story" if it means that the story that is told as unscripted play takes place and unfolds it the story that develops naturally as the game progresses throughtout the evening and the players go home and tell anyone who will listen what happened and how much fun they had, that describes OD&D, it does not in any way describe anything that I have read by Ron Edwards. Furthermore, in the links given by robertsconley to statements by Ron Edwards that implies that the really bad things about D&D started back in the 1970's at the very beginning and implies that not just people like me are "brain damaged" but by implication would include Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax and many others. You mentioned ;however, I have no idea what you are talking about here, but my view of Ron Edwards and what he stands for was formed solely by reading only his words and not those of any commentators. You say I am off-base in my view of Ron Edwards and that may be so; however, I am of the opinion that he would hate and despise everything I am working to build here at this forum, based on his own words that I have read in his many essays. That is not tribalism, that is just my strong response to one of the most demeaning and insulting things that I have ever read to describe what I believe is fun.
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 15, 2016 22:09:24 GMT -5
Anytime I hear 'response to DM fiat,' my instant reaction is "If you don't trust me, don't play with me." I am bound by NO rules. I am the referee, it is my world, I am its demiurge and only law. I may use written material to aid me, but it is to aid me only. The rules are my servant, not my master. There is your problem. Don't play with jerk GMs. "You're a knob and my feet work." The rules can't fix stupid, and the rules can't fix @sshole. Let me say up front that I understand what @gronanofsimmerya is getting at and some of the disconnect is just generational. Some of us are in our late 50' and early 60's and we have been playing and reffing for over 40 years. Some of you are in your 20's and are new to OD&D and the like. We, in many ways, are products of completely different cultures and societal mores. Things that we old guys can say to each other without offense, will offend you younger guys. Some things you younger guys say, will automatically get us older guys hackles up. I would like for us all to try to move past that. How successful I am in how I phrase things and present them, to be non-generational, I don't know, but I do try. I often agree with things that people write, even though I may wish it had been said a bit or sometimes a lot differently and I am not picking on @gronanofsimmerya here, as I understand and agree with the point he is making, even though it is rather in your face. I try more and more as I grow older to focus less on how it is said and more on what was the point of what was said. (Yes, I know I have not been too successful with that where Ron Edwards is concerned) If you have not experienced a real old school OD&D ref in all his improvisational glory, IMO you have missed something. I once let my players each stick there heads through a different portal each and then come back and tell the others what they had seen and then they debated which one might be the most fun and then made a decision. Six completely different worlds created from nothing in a few seconds and described to six different players. That is the world of the OD&D ref, he creates the world(s), the rule(s)(variants/houserules), and everything in them and whether he prepares for days or weeks or months or creates it on the fly, it is his baby - all shiny and new - undiscovered and unexplored! IMO only an idiot would treat his players in such a way as to destroy their desire to to adventure in his world. As a ref you take risks, you walk a tight rope at times, you leap a chasm from time to time, you bring the impossible to life. In return, your players give you their trust and their willing suspension of disbelief. Every OD&D ref - the good ones and the great ones - strive to reward their players with FUN*, so that they will willingly come back again and again to experience it over and over. FUN* may be defined completely differently by every player at your table and your job is to provide something that resonates with all of those different definitions at the same time. When you do that or even consistently come close your players confidently accept that you are the master of all you survey and they willingly place themselves in your hands every time you meet to play OD&D. Because they learn that even your off night will still likely be a lot of fun.
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Post by Admin Pete on Sept 15, 2016 22:21:35 GMT -5
D&D has an omniscient part of the system, and that's the DM. DMs in OD&D are considered to be fair and unbiased. That is the standard that we all strive to live up to. I would not play in a game where I found the ref to not be fair and unbiased. Do I tease and kid my players a lot, yeah I do. And they do the same to me. Sometimes one will speculate aloud and another player will shush him or her saying, "Quit giving him ideas!!" Sometimes I will say, "Well not that you mention it" and the player that opened his mouth will catch it as they all say, "You just had to give him that idea, did you!?!?" But that is all in fun and I don't screw them over with it, but it invariably results in something that has us all laughing and often generates a lot of puns. Yeah, I have one of those groups. That is enough for tonight. There are a few other things I could comment on, but I will stop there. I do appreciate learning more about Burning Wheel. I wish you all could come play in one of our games, as I would love to go and play in a lot of your games and worlds that have been described at one place or another on the forums.
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Post by DeWitt on Sept 15, 2016 22:26:14 GMT -5
Yeah, I understand. That's a matter of interpretation. What, and in what tense, story happens is a semantic problem. One that each person seems to have strong feelings about and one which I don't have an interest in. Parsing words is not my favourite activity.
Trollbabe, the game he wrote to teach new players to play in his preferred style, plays like Burning Wheel. Except that Let it Ride is not explicit but implicit in the way the rolls work. Meaning, you roll once and the results stand until the next player intent.
Which is which? In the podcast discussion with Raggi, he explicitly states that he likes LoTFP and on his forum he has d&d play reports. Either he's brain damaged as well or that's not the whole story.
As I said, it's fine to hate him. Hate away. But there is evidence contrary to your claim he thinks d&d and emergent story is evil.
I'm not sure what he would hate, nor do I care. This place has been fun so far.
My problem with groan's comments wasn't the way it was phrased, it's that it is condescending. People act like we all don't play much more alike than we play differently. I may use tools that uses language that seems pointless but it helps me to play loose and run a good game. That's what matters, not who the creator is or if it meets a definition. That why it looks like tribalism to me. It's not about how the rules help achieve or foster improvisation, it seems to be about the personalities and word choices.
My friends aren't assholes or jerks. They might be bad DMs for awhile but with some reading and practice and guides from games like Burning Wheel it's all good. Telling us that the problem is we play with jerks is very condescending.
Anyway, rules. For example, I don't understand random tables. Nobody I've asked can tell me what a good table is vs what a bad table is. They know by osmosis and have a hard time explaining it. The usual answer is "one that works". That's a tool for improvisation I've been locked out of. So I use other ones but I bet when my players write up a summary of a session it looks similar, if not, identical to everybody's sessions. Barring setting and plot of course.
I was cool until he implied I was a dickweed. I'm also cool with moving on. I've blocked the problem, no more problem. This'll be my last post ITT though.
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Post by ffilz on Sept 15, 2016 23:15:27 GMT -5
D&D has an omniscient part of the system, and that's the DM. DMs in OD&D are considered to be fair and unbiased. That is the standard that we all strive to live up to. I would not play in a game where I found the ref to not be fair and unbiased. Do I tease and kid my players a lot, yeah I do. And they do the same to me. Sometimes one will speculate aloud and another player will shush him or her saying, "Quit giving him ideas!!" Sometimes I will say, "Well not that you mention it" and the player that opened his mouth will catch it as they all say, "You just had to give him that idea, did you!?!?" But that is all in fun and I don't screw them over with it, but it invariably results in something that has us all laughing and often generates a lot of puns. Yeah, I have one of those groups. That is enough for tonight. There are a few other things I could comment on, but I will stop there. I do appreciate learning more about Burning Wheel. I wish you all could come play in one of our games, as I would love to go and play in a lot of your games and worlds that have been described at one place or another on the forums. Still debating how I will engage in this conversation, but I want to point out that I started playing D&D in 1977, so I'm not someone only familiar with more recent gaming. In truth, I think there are some major similarities between Burning Wheel play and OD&D play. There are also some real differences, and those differences interest me. If I could have the time and availability of players I had in college (sometimes playing 2 or 3 times a week), I would love to be running OD&D, Traveller (mashup of 1977 and 1981), RuneQuest (I used to swear that I just ran 1st ed. RQ, or maybe RQ 1.5, I never owned RQ II until about 10 years ago), and Burning Wheel in rotation. Oh, and I wish Ron Edwards had never posted that brain damage thing... (and if I remember, he considers himself brain damaged also). It was also NOT a reaction to OD&D, but more to World of Darkness and all that 90's railroady play. But I also would rather talk about Burning Wheel than Ron Edwards (and I think Burning Wheel actually was at least in development before Luke Crane found his way to the Forge). Frank
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2016 23:36:49 GMT -5
I looked at BW once. I fiddled with the books for about 45 seconds and put it down. Quite honestly, I will never read a set of rules that large, no matter what they are like.
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Post by robkuntz on Sept 16, 2016 3:23:32 GMT -5
So in a nut shell what is the difference between Burning Wheel and an OD&D systematized in the same way?... That is, it seems appropriate to me that BW could just as well be emulated by adopting the same systems approach in OD&D. It's just a small matter of application. Am I missing something here? When you put it that way, I think the main differences are simply in the task resolution systems and character advancement. The players in Burning Wheel have to have a pretty good grasp of the rules in order to make progress with their skills and attributes, whereas in more rules lite variants of D&D, they probably don't actually have to understand much about the rules at all so long as the DM knows what he is doing. Burning Wheel is also by default collaborative in terms of worldbuilding, that is, the GM and players work together closely to shape the setting. There is no reason that approach couldn't be adopted into OD&D and the retroclone Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures seems like a very good example of how one might do so. I have not actually played Burning Wheel but I do have the book and its more D&D-esque variant, Torchbearer, and I have watched recordings of games on YouTube. If actual Burning Wheel players think I'm off base here don't hesitate to say so. "task resolution systems..." this sounds somewhat like the t.s. "take 10, 20" or whatever it was in 3.0+, could you define it within those terms or is it something left or right of it?
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