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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 22, 2018 7:42:04 GMT -5
I honestly think hedgehobbit is stating observations and not advocating one way or the other and that we need to not let this stray into insults by assuming things about his intent. Please and thank you. Have an Exalt Chet! |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 22, 2018 9:27:35 GMT -5
Not without garlic and a Diet Caff-free Dew!
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 22, 2018 9:35:22 GMT -5
What I noted on classes when asked about them during an interview: Q: Of all the character classes from the 1978 PHB, which are your three (3) favorites, and why? RJK: I believe the question is too general, so forgive me for re-routing it a bit in answer… Classes are meant to be played through the focus of the individual player, hence “Player Characters,” and each PHB class allows for a base understanding of them in order to initialize that. But it is the actual playing in ‘role playing’ that matters and what defines our experiences (favorable or not), that is, in combination with the evolving interactions in a ‘living’ world environ in which we participate by way of these PCs. Class is a game/design term for understanding the way that the application of certain class mechanics function in tandem with the conceptual environment, so for myself it is not a compelling enough idea, when parted from the whole picture, for the purpose of determining a favorite. It all depends on a number of other factors: ability scores, race, implicit or explicit environmental challenges, ongoing opportunities, these and others also enter into what make for a good, and ongoing, conception of PC potential. I have taken many classes and worked the positives of them through the prism of what I have described, so I have no favorites, only instances (or not) for maximizing the play potential of each, which would leave me with favorite PCs and how I positively managed them through their challenges, both in mechanical (game) and ‘world’ (wide-ranging conceptual) terms. Now if I was forced to separate the classes into shelved objects and had to pick one based on less than what I have noted above–through mechanical evaluation only–I would pick the fighter for more HP and more AC, this due to the grind nature often promoted within the median range conception of the game itself. But it would not be a holistic choice as I’ve suggested. Classes are like cars: they only reach their potentials as part of the whole PC concept by way of those who handle them and within the specific environments they negotiate. Full interview link: multiverse.world/blog/2016/11/30/qa-robert-j-kuntz/ |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 22, 2018 13:33:56 GMT -5
It is harder to fully immerse in the game if you know everything that goes on behind the curtain. That is also the reason for the advice at the beginning of Men & Magic about making changes and introducing new things to keep the game fresh. Old school Refs/DMs have not rejected this info about player knowledge at all. In fact, it would seem to be reasonable to assume that rejecting it is proof that you are not old school, maybe that is too strong, how about proof that you lack common sense. My opinion is that the rules that one uses, the process by which one adjudicates the actions of the players as their characters should reflect the reality of the setting. In the case of many D&D campaign the reality of the setting mirrors in many way that of our world in the Medieval Era. This includes things like flanking granting an advantage and other details that Gronan pointed out. In our world, a person learns all this. If they become an expert they know the details very well. In short they learn the rules as reality sets them. It is tilting at windmills to think hiding the rules behind the DM's Screen is virtue. Because like real life eventually the players will figure it out. Playing long enough especially the same setting you will come to understand the mechanics behind the referee's screen. The same applies to details of a setting, play long enough in the same setting, you will have experienced nearly every creature, item, and other elements detailed in the rules? What then? For me the answer is simple, I give the setting a life of a its own. I don't try to run it as simulation but I do keep track of enough details that when I use the Majestic Wilderlands for the next campaign it feel like things moved on from the events of the last campaign. I had players participate for nearly 30 years but keep finding new things to experience. Because even tho they encountered orcs umpteen times, the orcs they encounter today are do not have the same goals, personalities, and motivations as the orcs encountered the previous campaign. They are still orcs but whatever they are up in current campaign is new and if the players want to know they will have to figure it out through adventuring. As for immersion, I found what destroy immersions fast is having to play twenty questions, feeling like you are throwing darts at a target in the dark. Players like that their choice have meaning and in order for that to happen they need some context on which to base a decision. Some player thrive with little more than a blank hex grid but I found to be a specialty taste like playing a SPI monster wargame like the First World War or GDW's Europa series. I have far more success if the player start with understanding of where they are, how they know, and related to this topic how the rules work. What folks are forgetting that rules are a form of communications. While they are game mechanics a good set of rules explain at certain level of detail, how the reality of the setting work. Not everybody understand or know about medieval combat but a good set of rules will help them get a jump start on the topic. For example despite being well read in the history of pre-gunpowder combat I learned a lot from reading GURPS Martial Arts and the combat style of other cultures and time periods. It help figure out what other history books I would be interested in reading. One could argue one should start by reading history books, afterall that how Arneson, Gygax, and the rest of the early wargaming community did it? Sure that good, but keep in mind this is a leisure activity. Sometime all person want to do is sit down and game. From all the accounts, people of the early wargaming community were not only doing research but also sharing what they found. So when Totten was found to be useful that got passed around. Making the job easier for the next person. After a few years it not like there was a situation where everybody in order to run the Battle of Waterloo automatically started hitting the stacks first. People learned that Wellington had this, Napolean had this, Blucher started there on the first day with these forces and so on. The true challenge being able to run a campaign and get that sense of discovery along with feeling there is more to explore, despite the players knowing the details of how their actions are adjudication, and many of the details of the setting |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 22, 2018 13:42:54 GMT -5
Next and I know this will sound contradictory, but it is my opinion that it a tabletop roleplaying campaign can be run without a rulebook either printed or in a notebook. With nothing more than notepads for everybody, dice, and a referee and players knowledgeable about the setting. Which includes how things work as far as what people can do in the setting.
The trick in my experience is that the referee needs to be a good teacher and communicator, and there needs to be a high level of trust between everybody. And even with that, you will be spending more of your verbal bandwidth to adjudicate thing than you would if the campaign had rulebook which the players understood beforehand. If you have a novice then you wind up literally them a course about the setting and how handle oneself.
But it can be made to work and be very fun. For me I find I have more fun and I get more done during the time I have if everybody knew the rules by use to adjudicate with.
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 22, 2018 15:04:03 GMT -5
It is harder to fully immerse in the game if you know everything that goes on behind the curtain. That is also the reason for the advice at the beginning of Men & Magic about making changes and introducing new things to keep the game fresh. Old school Refs/DMs have not rejected this info about player knowledge at all. In fact, it would seem to be reasonable to assume that rejecting it is proof that you are not old school, maybe that is too strong, how about proof that you lack common sense. My opinion is snip OK, where to start. Hmmm, OK you start off by telling me that I am tilting at windmills to think that hiding the rules behind the DM's Screen is a virtue, "Because like real life eventually the players will figure it out. Playing long enough especially the same setting you will come to understand the mechanics behind the referee's screen." So you claim that if players play in your campaign long enough that they figure out the contents of every table and every number that has to be rolled and that they will memorize that and every description of everything. And you say, "The same applies to details of a setting, play long enough in the same setting, you will have experienced nearly every creature, item, and other elements detailed in the rules?" First of all your claims are not true or that is to say they are only true for that subset of players known as rules lawyers and munchkins. Now I don't know about you or anyone else, but for me life is to short to have those types of people among my circle of friends. I have no interest in playing D&D with rules lawyers or munchkins and I don't. I choose to play with people who want to play, not read and memorize rulebooks. The only one that needs to know the rules inside and out is the DM. Then you say, "What then?" After that you proceed to make assumptions that are not true. You assume that I don't give the setting a life of its own, which means that when I said I was old school, you must have assumed I was lying and would not have basic old school things in my campaign. Then you proceed to give lots of basic advice, assuming that because I hide the rules, I don't do any of those things. Then you throw out the twenty questions red herring as though not having access to the tables and charts has anything to do with the characters choices leading to meaningful decisions or having the context on which to base a decison. You seem to be confusing rules with setting. Rules and setting are not the same thing, the mechanics and the setting are not the same thing. What you don't seem to understand is that by the time you have played one game without access to the rulebook you will know all you need to know about the rules. The setting you learn about the same way as real life, by experiencing it. Hopefully your players have outside interests and do a lot of reading, because that will improve every part of their life, not just gaming. It is a given as I stated in the quoted statement by me above "That is also the reason for the advice at the beginning of Men & Magic about making changes and introducing new things to keep the game fresh." That is to say that I do continually do things to keep the game exciting and fresh and my monsters are not one note cookie cutter the same in every detail and thought every time. Each monster has its own personality and desires and motivations they are not some endless string of featureless clones. The biggest mistake you are making is confusing the wargaming community with the RPG community. In a wargame with a judge, and two (or more) players running whole armies, all individuals would have roughly equal knowledge about everything and having that knowledge was crucial to playing the wargame. But in an RPG the players don't have any need to know most of what the DM knows and in fact if they do it will lessen their enjoyment. There is a huge difference in running one character and running a whole army. Everything that I said in the quoted paragraph at the beginning of this post is true and is true because my whole game is old school and is a living campaign. Handing the players the rulebooks and 1000 pages of setting information defeats the whole purpose of playing a game of exploration and is at odds with having a living campaign. |
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 22, 2018 15:19:46 GMT -5
Keyone1234 noted: "In a wargame with a judge, and two (or more) players running whole armies, all individuals would have roughly equal knowledge about everything and having that knowledge was crucial to playing the wargame. But in an RPG the players don't have any need to know most of what the DM knows and in fact if they do it will lessen their enjoyment. There is a huge difference in running one character and running a whole army."
Kudos for this. This is why Arneson myself and Gary tightly controlled all information in the game. We wanted to maintain the conceptual distance between the game and the environ so that the mysteries could catch on and hold the players fast. The two points I referred to elsewhere, that Gary and I, as both DMs and co-DMs, honed during the play-tests of D&D (72-74). IOW we closely distinguished between the game parts and the world parts. This IS NOT the same as in wargames since wargames are not a never-ending conceptual immersion in an infinite environment. After so many years of play our campaigners probably knew less than 5%, and way less in many specific cases, of our general world/campaign environments, in fact. And then there was no certainty that the information as then known would not change, as a fantasy world IS a Living World.
Have an exalt!
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 22, 2018 15:48:44 GMT -5
Consider two characters, one with below average scores and one with above average scores. The player of the character with below average stats will know that should that character die, he will most likely get a much better character in exchange. Thus he will be rewarded for dying. Likewise, the player of the above average character will be punished more for dying as his new character will likely be worse. Thus, the player with the below average character will be encouraged to act in a risky fashion or, more likely, to simply sacrifice that character to help his fellow adventurers. I don't think I would want to play with someone who thought so illogically as that. There is no reason to think like that, I want to play with people who are going to do their best. If you are going to sacrifice yourself, it would make sense if you were blocking a door to give the rest time to escape. But doing stupid things is not a sacrifice, it is just doing stupid things. I also don't understand that mentality - though I used to have it as a kid, as I had no adults experienced in D&D to teach me how fun such a character could be. I've seen this mentality manifest in most modern gamers I've gamed with & it is sad. Now days you got RPGs like Rolemaster optional rules that actually give you more points to spend if you take a flaw to buy a mechanical benefit via a positive trait. It was one of the things that burned me out on RM & 3.5/PF - the whole min-max mentality baked into those systems. I've been trying to break myself of their taint for nearly a year. I have a nostalgic thing for both Rolemaster & Cyberspace - heck I was even contemplating running a Rolemaster Express PbP here until recently but the more I read the rules the less desire I had to do so. |
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 22, 2018 15:56:06 GMT -5
I will never forget being pulled to the side for playing in this manner (smart and describing what I do) by a DM who told me that I was hogging the spot-light. He said that I took too long to figure things out and I was slowing everybody else down. It was an eye opener. As a player, my play-style is not excepted at all tables; especially the hurry up and dice games. In my old RM group that I was a player in for years I was often told to "hurry up & just roll the dice", at the time since it was the only group I knew of I sucked it up played their way. After a few years after a few toxic players joined I just left & got my own group together. Things lasted nearly two years but it imploded as I got sick of the min-max & fall back on rolling the players preferred. |
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 22, 2018 16:11:13 GMT -5
Another modern drama is the feeling of letting your team down when you roll poorly. It is a random number that we have no control over, but people feel horrible for doing it and sometimes lie about it, which defeats the purpose of rolling to begin with. Today there is a huge emphasis on Team play, but what about the personal game? I look over even AD&D rules and I can see it there, but it rarely appears in actual games anymore. I look forward to seeing how the players in my game react to treasure as XP now. THeir previous strategy was always to keep a treasurer. My players have made it an art form to work like a team, probably to the point where they mastered the system. I think that it is nice to change things up. I understand this too well. In my old RM group (which is a roll over 101 system) I roll crappy, often getting low or middling rolls, with the rare high roll or even rarer up-roll, where as others often rolled middling to high on average. You add bonuses & penalties to all rolls, which at higher level makes it easier to score a hit. I was always teased over my low rolls. The GM didn't help, either - point of fact in one encounter I failed multiple Perception rolls (I didn't perceive the Dragon coming up behind me)- yet apparently the others did or were not required as I was in the back of the party. So my character got ate by the dragon, so i had to spend an hour+ rolling up a new character. It'd have been nice if the GM could've had another player notice the dragon & warn me but no that'd be meta-gaming I guess. This is why I like the Surprise rules in OD&D things are easier to deal with, plus you describe what you are looking for if searching for something, so need to roll unless the Ref thinks you need it. |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 22, 2018 16:24:46 GMT -5
Next and I know this will sound contradictory, but it is my opinion that it a tabletop roleplaying campaign can be run without a rulebook either printed or in a notebook. With nothing more than notepads for everybody, dice, and a referee and players knowledgeable about the setting. Which includes how things work as far as what people can do in the setting. The trick in my experience is that the referee needs to be a good teacher and communicator, and there needs to be a high level of trust between everybody. And even with that, you will be spending more of your verbal bandwidth to adjudicate thing than you would if the campaign had rulebook which the players understood beforehand. If you have a novice then you wind up literally them a course about the setting and how handle oneself. But it can be made to work and be very fun. For me I find I have more fun and I get more done during the time I have if everybody knew the rules by use to adjudicate with. To reword this so that it is fully true |
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 22, 2018 16:31:55 GMT -5
Insisting on playing with high stats is neither new or old school, nor is it bad fun. I personally feel that it changes the game but we low stat fans are, and never had been, the norm. Can we convert munchkins? I don't know. I think that it depends on the stat and what people want to play. A fighting man with an INT of 5 is okay, but a cleric with a STR of 8 is not. Everybody wants high CONs and high DEX. Why? Because of the rewards that goes with them. Roll a poor CON and you are going to get punished severely by the rules. A DEX of 3? Missle weapons are out. CON of 3? You are doomed. Why this was built into the game is beyond me. If it is such a bad thing to roll a 3 on CON, then why are we allowed to do it? Having CON sucked off of you by a magic baddy seems to be why 3 is there, this does suggest that we should be rerolling 1s at least once. Is a character with a super low CON even fit to be a dungeon delver? Probably not, but what if you can keep this guy going through play? What does that say about your skill as a player? You are going to have to learn how to limit the dice rolls, you are going to have to play smart. This is not for novice players; in fact, it is kind of showing off. That is why we low staters do what we do. Yes, we eventually run out of luck. We crash and burn. We laugh about it while rolling up a new character. That is a difference too: The high staters might be getting more attached to their characters than we are. That is a thing too. When I run OD&D or Delving Deeper I'll be counting stats as a barometer of competency - a 3 in a stat is the bare minimum needed to be competent as a PC; where as an 18 is the maximum for Human-Types (Elves, Dwarfs ect). Unless their is a mechanic for a task, I'll have players roll under on things like jumping a gap, remembering obscure lore, trying to move silently (unless a Thief) based on the stat most likely linked with the activity - basically anything that cannot be role played. So a character with a Dex 3, who is trying to Move Silently has to roll under 3 to succeed - very hard but still possible;if they do it is something to; whereas a PC with an 18 in the same situation is far more likely to succeed. But the PC with a Dex 3 that succeeds will have a greater sense of accomplishment when they do succeed at such a task, compared with the PC with an Dex 18. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 22, 2018 16:40:22 GMT -5
The players will learn about the setting through play not through an encyclopedia. Folk can download a PDF of Blackmarsh from here www.batintheattic.com/downloads/blackmarsh_srd.zipor PM me for a comp copy of the PDF of Majestic Wilderlands and be the judge whether I advocate writing a encyclopedia to present a setting. If you ask for a comp copy all I ask you write a review (good or bad) somewhere. This will be fun for everyone and especially for the novice who gets to experience the game without the burden of being expected to read and memorize reams of information before the start of play so that they don't deviate from canon. As they say a picture worth a thousand words in this case a video of me refereeing an adventure set in my Majestic Wilderlands. Note I never refereed these folks before. I will dig up the packet I sent them beforehand tomorrow. |
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 22, 2018 16:47:06 GMT -5
There is no science to RP. Gary and Arneson didn't create one for a reason, for it is doomed to failure due to the sheer numbers of variables involved and the thousands of directions one can take within it. The best way to learn it and thus what level or degree you want to strive for within it as a DM or a player is to actually play it. Just like swimming, the only way to learn that is to jump into the water and let the mind and body sort it out. There was always enough base in OD&D to accomplish that, for if there had not been we wouldn't be here right now.
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 22, 2018 17:05:13 GMT -5
There is no science to RP. Gary and Arneson didn't create one for a reason, for it is doomed to failure due to the sheer numbers of variables involved and the thousands of directions one can take within it. The best way to learn it and thus what level or degree you want to strive for within it as a DM or a player is to actually play it. Just like swimming, the only way to learn that is to jump into the water and let the mind and body sort it out. There was always enough base in OD&D to accomplish that, for if there had not been we wouldn't be here right now. You can't say it better than that. |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 22, 2018 17:11:44 GMT -5
The players will learn about the setting through play not through an encyclopedia. Folk can download a PDF of Blackmarsh from here www.batintheattic.com/downloads/blackmarsh_srd.zipor PM me for a comp copy of the PDF of Majestic Wilderlands and be the judge whether I advocate writing a encyclopedia to present a setting. If you ask for a comp copy all I ask you write a review (good or bad) somewhere. Whether it is an encyclopedia or 5 pages is not the point, the point is that players shouldn't IMO be expected to read about the setting and be expected to remember and use that information. A spoken description of where you are a few few barebones things is all that is needed to get started and they can learn as the go. This will be fun for everyone and especially for the novice who gets to experience the game without the burden of being expected to read and memorize reams of information before the start of play so that they don't deviate from canon. As they say a picture worth a thousand words in this case a video of me refereeing an adventure set in my Majestic Wilderlands. Note I never refereed these folks before. I will dig up the packet I sent them beforehand tomorrow. No offense but I could not watch this type of thing, it is the sort of thing where you have to be there. I might watch something like this if it were Arneson or Gygax or Kuntz, might. Now play in the game, I'm up for that, but watch a video of other people playing not so much. It is amazing how many of us have beards. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 22, 2018 17:35:25 GMT -5
First off, this is not a private conversation. When I write a comprehensive post I don't assume you are the only one reading. Others may not know where I am coming from or why I reason things the way I do. So I will explain things. As for you I don't know all what you do or don't do while you referee a campaign. I am not assuming anything in regards to you. My point is that your thesis (hiding the rules) doesn't always lead to the outcome (an immersive campaign) you state it does. And then I explained in detail why I thought that. I am not contending that you do not run immersive campaigns. I am sure you had great success in doing so. But if you were to run your campaign with multiple groups of very different players over many years then you will see why that doesn't work for all. I have so I am relating my experience. First of all your claims are not true or that is to say they are only true for that subset of players known as rules lawyers and munchkins. I find the average player to be more observant than what you think. For example they tend to catch on quickly while fighting a bunch of orcs that they need a 14 or better to hit. Or happen to notice when they fight similar orcs in a different session on a wet and muddy hillside that they now need a 18 or better to hit. Concluded that the referee is assigning a -4 penalty for fighting on a wet and muddy hillside. A rule lawyer or munchkin has nothing to do with how observant a player is or how attentive they are to details. Of course if the referee changing the modifier for a wet and muddy hillside from session to session when all other factors are the same. Then that referee is doing a poor job and being unfair to their players. There a penalty for fighting on a wet and muddy hillside and it will be same penalty the next time it occurs unless there another factor in play like the players been in the wilderness for month and their footgear is crap imposing an addition -1 modifier. Observing that the referee is not ruling the same way in the same situation is not being a rules lawyer or munchkin. An old school referee is expected to be fair and impartial. Now I don't know about you or anyone else, but for me life is to short to have those types of people among my circle of friends. I have no interest in playing D&D with rules lawyers or munchkins and I don't. I choose to play with people who want to play, not read and memorize rulebooks. The only one that needs to know the rules inside and out is the DM. Sure however I dispute known how the rules work by being attentive to the details make a player a rules lawyer or munchkin. I often figure things when I am a player and say nothing. And when it seem off a bit I don't say anything figuring there some factor I don't know about. But if I notice over multiple rulings and multiple sessions, I am going to ask what up with this as it now doesn't make sense. Then you throw out the twenty questions red herring as though not having access to the tables and charts has anything to do with the characters choices leading to meaningful decisions or having the context on which to base a decison. My experience that a basic understanding of the mechanics is important for the player to feel that they have enough information to make a good choice. I apologize if I wasn't clear before but this an average. Some players just go with it with minimal information and our happy. Other players need more explanation to understand what going on. As long as they exhibit good sportsmanship (i.e. good manners while playing a game or sport) I don't have an ideal player nor do I force a player into ideal mold except in respect. That is I roleplay in first person and expect the player while playing his character also to response in first person. Plus since I have to say this every darn time I talk about roleplaying it NOT I repeat NOT acting nor talking in a funny voice. It fine if a player talks in their own voice with thier own personality. The reason I insist on first person roleplaying because one kind of problem that crop occasionally is players treating their character, other player character, NPCs, and monster like pieces on a boardgame making their actions look like maddogs. Focusing on first person roleplaying nips this in the bud. The video I linked too in the other post show exactly what I do. You seem to be confusing rules with setting. Rules and setting are not the same thing, the mechanics and the setting are not the same thing. My view is that the rules reflect the setting, if the rules conflict with the setting then it is the rules that must change. Given time the rules are just as much part of the setting as the notes on NPCs, monsters, and geography. The way things usually go campaigns rarely get a perfect fit the first time between the rules and the notes so over multiple sessions, and multiple campaigns the rules change to reflect the referee's conception of the setting. To be clear the rules encompasses what in a notepad, what been typed up, and what in your head like the modifier for fighting on a wet muddy hillside. What you don't seem to understand is that by the time you have played one game without access to the rulebook you will know all you need to know about the rules. The setting you learn about the same way as real life, by experiencing it. their character has experience in the setting. They are not playing babies they playing a character of some adult age or perhaps young adult in some campaign. But they grew up in the setting and while they don't have an encyclopedic understanding, they have a basic understand. I find about a page worth of background covers what needed at the start of a campaign. Some of it general and some of it specific. This is not to say that playing barbarian off the boat can't be the basis for a successful campaign. But that is a specific starting situation that not all are interesting in playing. Hopefully your players have outside interests and do a lot of reading, because that will improve every part of their life, not just gaming. If they do outside reading great and they will benefit from that in my campaigns. If you take up on my offer of a comp copy of the Majestic Wilderland you will see that I weave things from history and legend that knowledgeable players can assume and it will be true. If they don't I will supply the information they need to know. That how I call it for my campaigns. Part of not trying to force a person into some narrow imaginary ideal of a player. Everything that I said in the quoted paragraph at the beginning of this post is true and is true because my whole game is old school and is a living campaign. Handing the players the rulebooks and 1000 pages of setting information defeats the whole purpose of playing a game of exploration and is at odds with having a living campaign. All I can say is that if you want a comp copy of the PDF of the Majestic Wilderland to get a better understanding of where I am coming from it is yours. I agree you don't need a 1,000 pages of setting information. I posted numerous times that at most I will hand out two pages one with general information and the other with information specific to the character. Often it less. What I disagree is the idea that hiding the rules and will lead to an immersive campaign. It could, I made it work several times, certainly you made it work, I also experienced it from the player side. But it doesn't always work, nor does it work for most players. Rather what I find what important is that a referee develop a toolkit of techniques and figure out which set works best for the players in their group. Sometime hiding the rules is the thing to do, but most times it is not. Most time I found what works is a basic understanding of the rules much like this www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Majestic%20Fantasy%20Basic%20RPG%20Rev%2008.pdf |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 22, 2018 17:56:50 GMT -5
Whether it is an encyclopedia or 5 pages is not the point, the point is that players shouldn't IMO be expected to read about the setting and be expected to remember and use that information. A spoken description of where you are a few few barebones things is all that is needed to get started and they can learn as the go. And yet there is the advice to hit the books and reads things like the Battle of Agincourt, or history of Medieval Europe. Which is fine but doesn't give the players any of the specifics of a particular referee's setting. The referee describe that I am in a tavern in a medievalish village. Don't I know if the village is ruled by a lord? Or perhaps a monastery owns it? Who is hiring? Is the bartender is known to be nice or an ass. In short my character is not a amnesic and I would know some basic information. I don't need a book written but a paragraph or two would be nice. To be clear that my preference, I dealt with being plopped in a tavern with little more then you are in the medieval kingdom of Arg to go on. I experienced referee who made it work and it was fun. Along with referees who expected me to read their mind half the time. The same with hiding the rules being the screen. My point again that it is a specific taste that never between true of most players. Most player need something to go on. Most players enjoy the campaign better if they understand the rules. This true back in 1978 when I started playing and refereeing and true now in 2018. Mmmm I guess I can say now that I been doing this for 40 years instead of 35+ years. As an aside my earliest handwritten note dates from 1978. As they say a picture worth a thousand words in this case a video of me refereeing an adventure set in my Majestic Wilderlands. Note I never refereed these folks before. I will dig up the packet I sent them beforehand tomorrow. No offense but I could not watch this type of thing, it is the sort of thing where you have to be there. I might watch something like this if it were Arneson or Gygax or Kuntz, might. Now play in the game, I'm up for that, but watch a video of other people playing not so much.[/quote] NP, which is why I posted other links and offered a comp copy. It is amazing how many of us have beards. Indeed |
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 22, 2018 18:33:34 GMT -5
Keyone1234 said: "I might watch something like this if it were Arneson or Gygax or Kuntz, might. Now play in the game, I'm up for that, but watch a video of other people playing not so much."
You'll never see it from me. I do not push a brand of thinking or playing or DMing or Designing. Individualism works both ways. I state what's there before my eyes on occasion and then people get to decide for themselves. Do they see it? No? Then I nod and move along. Yes? Well we might just have a discourse, maybe. That's not book length or film length stuff. It's about applying your own singular brand of imagination to make the whole your own. Gary came close to pushing his own (it would seem) with AD&D, but really he was pushing the company's through that avenue; his own differed from that about in each and every case. And all of us differ because this is a WORLD that a game lets us access, our personally created world. That should be described in every case, each and every singular case, as different and not the same. Thus the idea of a HOW TO to one such as myself and even Gary and Arneson was quite frankly laughable. Any process is best learned, as I have stated, by jumping into the water. Some will do the backstroke afterwards, some not. But one can gauge at that point where they truly stand in relation to their own proclivities, strengths and weaknesses. It's all your oyster at that point. And if this world, and this hobby, had more individuals who had arrived at these personal points through their own rather than through a HOW TO outline which omits by its very nature the processes which allows one to understand why and how you reached such individual decisions and creative departures, then we'd all be richer for it indeed.
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Post by ripx187 on Jun 22, 2018 18:40:06 GMT -5
Character knowledge and player knowledge. I think that we can give too much emphasis on this, we were taught to be lazy. We did things backwards. A homebrewed setting restores the balance. We don't have to tell the player that they don't know that, and please act like you don't, the whole point behind the exercise of homebrewing is so that they don't have to pretend.
In AD&D there is a tradition which I intend to carry over to my OD&D game of beginning play as teens. Not 17, not 19, but 13 or 15. I think that this was done on purpose for this exact reason.
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 22, 2018 19:27:10 GMT -5
I am only going to address one thing here, because I have stated my position and we just disagree completely. I don't think any of what you are saying regarding making all these details available is necessary at all at any time. But I do want to address your assumption here below, because I have seen it come up in over thread and in other conversations. What you don't seem to understand is that by the time you have played one game without access to the rulebook you will know all you need to know about the rules. The setting you learn about the same way as real life, by experiencing it. their character has experience in the setting. They are not playing babies they playing a character of some adult age or perhaps young adult in some campaign. But they grew up in the setting and while they don't have an encyclopedic understanding, they have a basic understand. I find about a page worth of background covers what needed at the start of a campaign. Some of it general and some of it specific. This is not to say that playing barbarian off the boat can't be the basis for a successful campaign. But that is a specific starting situation that not all are interesting in playing. You and other people seem to assume, falsely assume, that if someone does not give the player any info in writing, then the players start as babies that know nothing about the world they live in. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the game proceeds, I as the ref tell them what they already know as it arises in the game. Instead of giving them a big info dump, I give them smaller bites of info as they need them. They are not as ignorant as babies, they actually know a lot having heard a lot over the years of their lives. But how accurately they remember is the question. So I can say, when it comes up, you have heard this and you think your remember that but you are not sure it is exactly that. And so on and so forth. I find this assumption that you are doing it wrong if you don't give the players a writeup on your world to be offensive. Another thing to ponder in this obsession to give the players a writeup is that people have posted repeatedly on forums complaining that their players won't read all the materials they are given. |
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Post by ripx187 on Jun 22, 2018 20:01:49 GMT -5
When I feel that I know everything there is to know about a setting, I quit using it. As DM I want to stay just a few steps ahead of the PCs if I can, and sometimes let them take the lead. This is why I want to keep as many systems open as possible, and only close them off when I have to.
We tell the players what they see, hear, and feel. Where does that road that leads outside of town go? I don't know, lets find out!
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Jun 22, 2018 20:30:33 GMT -5
Another thing to ponder in this obsession to give the players a writeup is that people have posted repeatedly on forums complaining that their players won't read all the materials they are given. This is something I was guilty of in the past, largely because I was used to expansive pre-made settings or my old RM GM's home-brew setting; where there was a ton of setting lore. It became a thing I wanted to emulate in my setting & I'd prepare setting and house rule documents but only one or two players would actually read them. It is something in my future OD&D or Delving Deeper campaigns I'll not repeat. Even if I develop full worlds I'll only give players info they'd need for the region & only the most basic info; a short paragraph or up to three - that is it; everything else will come via play. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 22, 2018 20:49:48 GMT -5
Instead of giving them a big info dump, I give them smaller bites of info as they need them. They are not as ignorant as babies, they actually know a lot having heard a lot over the years of their lives. But how accurately they remember is the question. So I can say, when it comes up, you have heard this and you think your remember that but you are not sure it is exactly that. And so on and so forth. This seems to keep coming up in different threads and I agree that the characters know a lot about the world they live in and I have always found giving them "smaller bites of info as they need them" to be the way to go. Have an Exalt! |
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Post by ripx187 on Jun 22, 2018 20:50:54 GMT -5
Another thing to ponder in this obsession to give the players a writeup is that people have posted repeatedly on forums complaining that their players won't read all the materials they are given. This is something I was guilty of in the past, largely because I was used to expansive pre-made settings or my old RM GM's home-brew setting; where there was a ton of setting lore. It became a thing I wanted to emulate in my setting & I'd prepare setting and house rule documents but only one or two players would actually read them. It is something in my future OD&D or Delving Deeper campaigns I'll not repeat. Even if I develop full worlds I'll only give players info they'd need for the region & only the most basic info; a short paragraph or up to three - that is it; everything else will come via play. Yeah, I've been guilty as charged. There was a time where I would print off parts of a setting book to hand out for their reference, but this was unnecessary because nobody was even interested in reading DM material. After a few years I just handed the whole book to them with no problems. We did emulate what we saw. Tomes of background information, creating NPCs that were never used, places that were never explored. I can't tell you the hours that I spent writing for the trashcan. We were taught to play the game all by ourselves and then expect the players to do it. What a waste of time. Prep only for the next session, spend time on things that can be recycled and reused. Write notes of things that you'll know you'll forget but be brave enough to make stuff up or to secretly steal ideas from the players and act like you're a genius and so are they for figuring it out. Fake it till you make it, right? We were lied to. We were told that we didn't have time for this, but then one day you find this cool idea with very little information and you just go with it and it works better and easier than sitting around memorizing text and rules and lines and all of that other junk that makes DMing unfun. Once you figure that out then you understand why publishers are always pandering to new users and not you. |
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 22, 2018 21:00:12 GMT -5
You can't sell what's free. That WAS the beginning credo of D&D, remember?
“It is really easy to set up a Fantasy campaign, and better still, it will cost almost nothing.” -- E. Gary Gygax, Forward to Dungeons & Dragons, 1974.
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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 22, 2018 21:06:23 GMT -5
The referee describe that I am in a tavern in a medievalish village. Don't I know if the village is ruled by a lord? Or perhaps a monastery owns it? Who is hiring? Is the bartender is known to be nice or an ass. In short my character is not a amnesic and I would know some basic information. I don't need a book written but a paragraph or two would be nice. Here is another thing that comes up from time to time and I am not picking on robertsconley here either. Just because I as the ref do not pass out handouts with information, does not mean that the players are ignorant or amnesiac and that they do not know basic information. First is I like to keep the game moving quickly so that the players minds do not have time to wonder. I give them things to think about and so they ask specific questions. When you describe things to them, you include quickly the things they know. You've never been in that tavern before and all you know is that you heard the old owner passed away and it has new ownership or you have been here dozens of times and for a small bribe he has information from time to time or if you buy a round his memory works really well and the patrons will talk and the rumors will start flowing. Dozens of things can be quickly and casually communicated in small chunks without slowing the game and everything you say leads to more hooks. You keep things moving and the players ask pointed pertinent questions and not random questions because they are bored. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Jun 22, 2018 21:33:49 GMT -5
You can't sell what's free. That WAS the beginning credo of D&D, remember? “It is really easy to set up a Fantasy campaign, and better still, it will cost almost nothing.” -- E. Gary Gygax, Forward to Dungeons & Dragons, 1974. So many have spent so much time and effort trying to convince people that it is really difficult and really hard work to set up a Fantasy campaign. Once they have sold that message, then they offer this pre-made setting for sale. (again this is not directed at robertsconley, I do not see him trying to convince people it cannot be done, you are not in anyway a bad guy for selling things) IMO if you are a good ref and a player plays in your campaign, the ones that are ref material will leave your game saying to themselves, "I could do that!" and so they do. Many people having seen the example and participated in it need no other help, they are off and running, creating their own setting. Arneson showed Gygax Blackmoor and Gygax immediately started creating Greyhawk. Others saw it and then did it. Some did not even get to see it and did it anyway. For all the complaints about how badly OD&D was written and how poorly organized and how it left so much out and yet, many started from just those three little brown books and learned to play in ways very similar to Arneson or Gygax all on their own, even people who were not war gamers worked it out on their own. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 22, 2018 23:08:10 GMT -5
When you describe things to them, you include quickly the things they know. You've never been in that tavern before and all you know is that you heard the old owner passed away and it has new ownership or you have been here dozens of times and for a small bribe he has information from time to time or if you buy a round his memory works really well and the patrons will talk and the rumors will start flowing. Dozens of things can be quickly and casually communicated in small chunks without slowing the game and everything you say leads to more hooks. You keep things moving and the players ask pointed pertinent questions and not random questions because they are bored. The difference with the approach I take is that before the first session begins, I ask the players what kind of character they want to play. What their initial goals for the campaign. Then we go back and forth until they are happy with something they want to play. By the time the first session starts they have a rough idea what the area like and what interesting there. Look at your reply These are all options created by you. Note I am including the ones implied by talking to the patrons. They represent what you think that the players will find interesting. Now it may be that you game only with good friend so you already know what they like. Fine, but that not my situation. In the past and now I referee a different groups with different interests. So what I focus on is finding what the players are interested in doing and incorporate that as well. When I do this, it results in a summary that I write up. I can talk more about this but the assumption so far seems to think this results in a multi-page dissertation, that all my players are bunch of whiny rule lawyers and munchkins. So I will end it there. But if people want more details I am happy to share them and more importantly why I do the things I do. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jun 22, 2018 23:20:00 GMT -5
So many have spent so much time and effort trying to convince people that it is really difficult and really hard work to set up a Fantasy campaign. Once they have sold that message, then they offer this pre-made setting for sale. (again this is not directed at robertsconley , I do not see him trying to convince people it cannot be done, you are not in anyway a bad guy for selling things) On this point I have two observations 1) Many (but not all) authors of RPG material don't get that most RPG campaigns are kitbashes. A good supplement/adventures/etc would keep this in mind for it presentation to make it easy to incorporate. 2) Some have a bug up their ass about commercial projects. Back in the day with the writer-publisher-distributor-game store model there definitely room for criticism. But today a author can do their own thing, their own way, presented how they like it, and have a shot of getting it into the hands of gamers. So I don't see the point of this type of criticism. |
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