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Post by Admin Pete on Jul 24, 2015 10:25:09 GMT -5
This is an early post by The Perilous Dreamer when he was the Admin. I found this over at The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope Blog. an Essay titled " With New Old Eyes": #1: “Stop worrying and love the dungeon”
#2: “Balance Realism and Fun, but when in doubt, Fun always trumps Realism”
#3: “The Fantastic, when cranked up to eleven, somehow equals the Realistic”
#4: “Never be afraid to say ‘no’ to the dice, but also never be afraid to say ‘yes’”
#5: “Plant many seeds, but only tend the ones that grow”
And I found this quote by Mike Mornard: |
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Post by The Red Baron on Jul 29, 2015 22:07:38 GMT -5
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Post by Admin Pete on Jul 29, 2015 22:36:11 GMT -5
Interesting. For me it is still about having fun. Playing and reffing OD&D IMO for me is more fun that any other game I have ever played. It lets me use all of my mind, my creative talents and abilities, together as a passionate and deeply fulfilling whole more so than anything else I have ever done and that to me is FUN. It is the only place, I get to be fully, completely and totally me. |
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Post by The Red Baron on Jul 29, 2015 23:51:07 GMT -5
I have fun talking with people around the table before the game, after the game, and at meals.
During the game, I want to be challenged and mystified and scared and delighted. Those can all be fun, but don't have to be.
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monk
Prospector
Posts: 90
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Post by monk on Jul 30, 2015 1:37:46 GMT -5
"Fun" is a strange term, if you think about it. (Especially if you've had several beers, as I have.) It can have so many nuances and meanings, particularly if one is speaking informally.
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Post by finarvyn on Jul 31, 2015 8:42:50 GMT -5
#2: “Balance Realism and Fun, but when in doubt, Fun always trumps Realism” I think that this is one of those "beauty in the eye of the beholder" things. I've always believed that fun (playability) trumps realism but I have many friends who believe that realism (simulation) has to be the number one priority and rules need to be tweaked to make them more realistic even if that means more detail than I enjoy. I suspect that this also helps distinguish the OD&D folks from the AD&D folks. While the rules of the two games might appear to be similar, the philosophies are quite different. OD&D folks in my experience value playability more and AD&D foks value realism more. At least, that pattern seems to fit my own group from the 1970's. |
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Post by The Red Baron on Jul 31, 2015 10:59:50 GMT -5
The quest for realism is futile. How do you make a genie realistic?
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Post by Admin Pete on Jul 31, 2015 12:04:02 GMT -5
The quest for realism is futile. How do you make a genie realistic? You might want to ask that question over at DF or Enworld or RPG.net, you would likely get a lot more information posted at those sites. Not that you can't ask it hear, just say'in.  |
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Post by The Archivist on Jul 31, 2015 15:30:37 GMT -5
I have fun talking with people around the table before the game, after the game, and at meals. During the game, I want to be challenged and mystified and scared and delighted. Those can all be fun, but don't have to be. I am not sure how being challenged and mystified and scared and delighted could not be fun as part of a game? Those things push my fun buttons. Now if I was in RL facing down an enraged mama Grizzly bear, I would not describe that as fun at the time; however, if I lived through it, especially without injury, that experience would become a fond memory, kind of like a roller coaster with a gap in the tracks and somehow I made it across.  |
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Post by hedgehobbit on Aug 1, 2015 8:02:40 GMT -5
I've always believed that fun (playability) trumps realism but I have many friends who believe that realism (simulation) has to be the number one priority and rules need to be tweaked to make them more realistic even if that means more detail than I enjoy. When I hear "Fun always trumps Realism", the first thing that comes to mind are the Hobbit movies. Sorry, but no thanks. I'll take realism. I'm not talking about simulationism per se, as adding more detail can often make the game less realistic (for example: weapon speed or the weapon v armor table), but, rather, coming up with the simplest, most playable, set of rules that are also realistic. So, if given the choice between two rules of roughly equal weight, the more realistic rule will always win. The main driving force behind this is to avoid requiring system mastery. |
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Post by The Red Baron on Aug 1, 2015 8:31:00 GMT -5
That's sensible. A certain amount of real world assumptions are necessary for players to logically address puzzles the face. Gravity still points down, items don't change into other items when touched, when you walk one way friction doesn't send you flying in another direction, you have eyes and can see. But it is fantasy and not all assumptions may hold. Gyax says that maybe space is full of breathable air, the stars are tiny lights suspended a few miles above earth, or the world is made of wood. LotR wasn't realistic. There were talking trees and wizards. The hobbit movies weren't very good, but its not because they lacked realism. They lacked proper direction and scriptwriting. |
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Post by finarvyn on Aug 1, 2015 15:25:39 GMT -5
I've always believed that fun (playability) trumps realism but I have many friends who believe that realism (simulation) has to be the number one priority and rules need to be tweaked to make them more realistic even if that means more detail than I enjoy. When I hear "Fun always trumps Realism", the first thing that comes to mind are the Hobbit movies. Sorry, but no thanks. I'll take realism. I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing. Here's an example of my thought. When I role play, I enjoy using a simple rule that a 20 is an automatic hit with a critical for double damage while a 1 is an automatic miss with a fumble of some sort. Fun to play, makes the game interesting, but not terribly realistic to assume that a master swordsman might fumble 5% of the time. I like OD&D because it's simple and playable and I can "wing it" without feelilng like I've broken something. On the other end of the spectrum, I have a friend who is really into realism. When we played TOP SECRET back in the 1980's, he spent hours researching every type of firearm and ammunition he could find and re-wrote the rules so that each type had its own modifiers to hit and/or damage based on what he thought was more realistic than the actual rules. Realistic? Perhaps, but also dull and added layers of depth that I really didn't need/want to see in my RPG. So I'm not trying to equate "fun" with "slapstick stupid". |
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Post by Admin Pete on Aug 1, 2015 20:05:37 GMT -5
I don't try to define it to much. I use most of the OD&D rules and a few house rules that IMO make my job as the ref easier. I try different things to see if they make more fun. Go to here where I am at this point in time making some major rules changes to account for the fact that we play only once per month. I think that these changes will result in more fun. If they do - great, if they don't I will change them. IMO having fun is why I and my friends play. Anything that is not fun, I will change. In my game back in 1975 it was as it is today, fun trumps everything. Fun is why the players keep returning. |
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Post by hengest on Apr 4, 2021 23:08:41 GMT -5
Bumping this, five and a half years later. I don't have too much to add. I agree that fun trumps everything, although I do think sometimes there can be deceptive fun, or things that look like they increase fun while actually decreasing it: fudging die rolls, anxiety about keeping players on your railroad plot, using things in-game that feel "fun" to one player while making other players unhappy, and so on. This list is not a corrective to anything anyone on this thread said, I had to make that list just for my own compulsion to be clear.  That is, in the name of player-engaging freedom and fun, I think just about everything works. |
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Post by hedgehobbit on Apr 12, 2021 13:21:09 GMT -5
It's funny reading a reply you wrote five years ago and thinking "I must have been in a bad mood that day." I still don't think that fun and realism are in opposition with each other. But I think some people conflate realism and having games with lots of extraneous details. But extra details can often be just as unrealistic as more abstract rules. For me, I'd classify the oppositions as follows: Realism vs The Fantastic Details vs Playability Seriousness vs Whimsy Somewhere there's a 3D graph where you plot these values to create an amorphous "FUN" area. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Apr 23, 2021 18:02:08 GMT -5
The above blog post was May 2009. A couple of other blog posts on this subject. I Hate Fun over at Lamentations of the Flame Princess. June 2008. Really long, long post. I Hate Fun - One Year Later His follow up post in June 2009. These blog posts make some good points, but they miss the mark on the topic of "Fun." When you are telling someone about your D&D game in passing, "Fun" is short hand for a three hour monologue. That is part of what they miss and that is important, because the majority of people are not up for that three hour monologue. The only ones that are will accept you invitation to your game to come find out what "Fun" means. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 24, 2021 11:07:33 GMT -5
The above blog post was May 2009. A couple of other blog posts on this subject. I Hate Fun over at Lamentations of the Flame Princess. June 2008. Really long, long post. I Hate Fun - One Year Later His follow up post in June 2009. These blog posts make some good points, but they miss the mark on the topic of "Fun." When you are telling someone about your D&D game in passing, "Fun" is short hand for a three hour monologue. That is part of what they miss and that is important, because the majority of people are not up for that three hour monologue. The only ones that are will accept you invitation to your game to come find out what "Fun" means. I like this post and the three blog posts IMO jump the shark a bit. |
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Post by Morton on Apr 25, 2021 0:53:36 GMT -5
And I found this quote by Mike Mornard: This, 'nough said. |
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Post by The Editor on Apr 25, 2021 20:13:30 GMT -5
And I found this quote by Mike Mornard: This, 'nough said. Yeah, running it that way will be dissed by a lot of people, but most of us play with friends and most of us don't view that as a legit TPK even if it is very real world realistic. Worrying about realism is not, in my view, old school. This is not the same as players making bad decisions after being warned and asked "Are you sure, really sure you want to do that?" |
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Post by Dark Tango on Apr 30, 2021 18:34:40 GMT -5
If ya ain't having fun, do something else. If ya having fun, do some more of whatever it is.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 1, 2021 9:00:48 GMT -5
Bumping this, five and a half years later. I don't have too much to add. I agree that fun trumps everything, although I do think sometimes there can be deceptive fun, or things that look like they increase fun while actually decreasing it: fudging die rolls, anxiety about keeping players on your railroad plot, using things in-game that feel "fun" to one player while making other players unhappy, and so on. This list is not a corrective to anything anyone on this thread said, I had to make that list just for my own compulsion to be clear. That is, in the name of player-engaging freedom and fun, I think just about everything works. I rarely fudge a die roll, usually it is the same ones that they fudged bitd during the playtest era and shortly thereafter when as Michael Mornard said they did this:That is the limit of my fudging, correcting an obvious junk result. I cannot remember the last time something like that happened so it is exceedingly rare. I never,ever, ever have a railroad plot to keep my players on, so no anxiety on my part about that. The goal is always to be fun for everyone and I try as much as humanly possible to never have a "favorite." In college, that was one of the biggest differences between me and the other ref, he always had favorites and when you have 16 players and 4 or 5 are getting most of the love and the others get a bone now and then, not so good. I think that is one of the reasons he preferred to play and wanted me to ref is that he knew he had the problem, but couldn't help himself. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 1, 2021 9:18:30 GMT -5
It's funny reading a reply you wrote five years ago and thinking "I must have been in a bad mood that day." I still don't think that fun and realism are in opposition with each other. But I think some people conflate realism and having games with lots of extraneous details. But extra details can often be just as unrealistic as more abstract rules. For me, I'd classify the oppositions as follows: Realism vs The Fantastic Details vs Playability Seriousness vs Whimsy Somewhere there's a 3D graph where you plot these values to create an amorphous "FUN" area. IMO the main place that fun and realism are at complete odds with each other is combat. IMO OD&D combat is FUN, but all the people that complain about combat and want to tweak it to make it more realistic, always have one thing in common. That is the tweak always, always slows the game down. IMO almost anything that slows the game down is a bad thing. Until the "bug" put an end to it, I had been playing in a 2E game for a couple of years and the DM used (and initiative) the segments for a melee round and when you micro manage combat and divide it into 18 or 20 segments (I never payed complete attention to how many segments it was and I never reffed using something like that) what you are doing is playing 20 rounds to play one round and so a 10 melee round (one turn) combat with 8 players and 20 opponents takes a massive amount of time. Instead of running the same thing in OD&D in about 15 minutes (assuming you do not have any decision challenged or inexperienced players). I like to run combat in real time, as much as is humanly possible. When it is your turn, you are expected to be ready and immediately tell me what you are doing. If you are attacking, I expect that you will say, "I am attacking **** and you say that as you are rolling the dice. Optional - roll for damage at the same time, so if you hit the damage is already known. I also have never used initiative unless one or the other is surprised. Then the surprisee has initiative that half round where they act and you cannot or vice versa. Otherwise all action is simultaneous. If I was going to segment things (which I don't) missile fire would go first, then spells, then melee. Regarding spells, using Vancian magic, firing off a spell is super fast. In OD&D you do not have the real world occultism feature of spell components and long involved incantations, it is memorized and all you do is release it and set it free. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 1, 2021 9:20:42 GMT -5
If ya ain't having fun, do something else. If ya having fun, do some more of whatever it is. I could not agree more, if something is not working for you, change it. Also, don't fix things that aren't broke. |
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Post by ripx187 on May 8, 2021 14:03:47 GMT -5
You don't use initiative? I always found that fun. In our 5e game we've gone back to 2e initiative because we found regular turns to be boring. We prefer to reroll group initiative every turn, I don't know what it is about winning initiative, but people really like doing it. Sometimes it can get exciting because if you lose one, then win the next one, you have two rounds back to back. Knowing that the badguys can do this too causes some exciting tension.
We don't always use attack order, but we sometimes do if I think that it will make a combat more interesting. It goes Arrows, Melee, and then Spells, however with spells, if we are really being picky, the casting time is your initiative. There are lots of ways to do it, you can go by weapon speed, Dex speed, whatever, we just keep mixing things up if we want to. We usually just stick to group, and I ask people what they are doing, if they are casting a spell I tend to just have it apply at the end of the player phase unless they tell me otherwise.
That whole deal of spending several minutes to figure out what order everything attacks in, and then taking turns just seems so mechanical and less engaging to me. I like the chaos of having everyone telling me stuff at the same time and allowing me to unravel what it is that they are saying. Predictable turns than never vary turn combat into a game of cards where everyone just sits there quietly waiting for their turn to go.
The players also like to know the AC of the enemy, they all roll the dice at once and only the people that hit get to go, everybody else just groans and waits for the next round, which goes really fast that way.
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Post by mao on May 20, 2021 6:21:08 GMT -5
You don't use initiative? I always found that fun. In our 5e game we've gone back to 2e initiative because we found regular turns to be boring. We prefer to reroll group initiative every turn, I don't know what it is about winning initiative, but people really like doing it. Sometimes it can get exciting because if you lose one, then win the next one, you have two rounds back to back. Knowing that the badguys can do this too causes some exciting tension. We don't always use attack order, but we sometimes do if I think that it will make a combat more interesting. It goes Arrows, Melee, and then Spells, however with spells, if we are really being picky, the casting time is your initiative. There are lots of ways to do it, you can go by weapon speed, Dex speed, whatever, we just keep mixing things up if we want to. We usually just stick to group, and I ask people what they are doing, if they are casting a spell I tend to just have it apply at the end of the player phase unless they tell me otherwise. That whole deal of spending several minutes to figure out what order everything attacks in, and then taking turns just seems so mechanical and less engaging to me. I like the chaos of having everyone telling me stuff at the same time and allowing me to unravel what it is that they are saying. Predictable turns than never vary turn combat into a game of cards where everyone just sits there quietly waiting for their turn to go. The players also like to know the AC of the enemy, they all roll the dice at once and only the people that hit get to go, everybody else just groans and waits for the next round, which goes really fast that way. Wow, I have not read much of what your posting until now. You have gained SEVERAL dm "levels" . I am really impressed by the way you are handling your posts. Keep it up. Now as to this specific post= I really like your idea of chaos at combat rounds. It makes a whole lot of good idea. I have done a lot of different things with this. my fav is roll for initiative and then the players go in dex order(Int breaks ties, followed by wisdom) The supers game "Villains and Vigilantes" has a super cool initiative idea too |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 21, 2021 19:01:24 GMT -5
You don't use initiative? I always found that fun. In our 5e game we've gone back to 2e initiative because we found regular turns to be boring. We prefer to reroll group initiative every turn, I don't know what it is about winning initiative, but people really like doing it. Sometimes it can get exciting because if you lose one, then win the next one, you have two rounds back to back. Knowing that the badguys can do this too causes some exciting tension. When (bitd) you are running a your games with on average 16-20 players you don't want to do anything that will slow do the game, so initiative was out. We ran it as simultaneous attacks, unless surprise was involved. Having your fighter going toe to toe with the big bad and killing each other on the same round is IMO more fun than either one of you losing your attack because you are already dead. Perhaps it is what you are used to. I always tried to fun combat at a breakneck pace so that it played out in as close to real time as possible. We don't always use attack order, but we sometimes do if I think that it will make a combat more interesting. It goes Arrows, Melee, and then Spells, however with spells, if we are really being picky, the casting time is your initiative. There are lots of ways to do it, you can go by weapon speed, Dex speed, whatever, we just keep mixing things up if we want to. We usually just stick to group, and I ask people what they are doing, if they are casting a spell I tend to just have it apply at the end of the player phase unless they tell me otherwise. Our view of magic is very different. That whole deal of spending several minutes to figure out what order everything attacks in, and then taking turns just seems so mechanical and less engaging to me. I like the chaos of having everyone telling me stuff at the same time and allowing me to unravel what it is that they are saying. Predictable turns than never vary turn combat into a game of cards where everyone just sits there quietly waiting for their turn to go. Yeah, I never run combat in the same player order two rounds in a row. As I said before I want the players to be ready when I get to them, so if the order is different each time, it forces them to be ready and to pay attention to what is going on. The players also like to know the AC of the enemy, they all roll the dice at once and only the people that hit get to go, everybody else just groans and waits for the next round, which goes really fast that way. Bitd, the people I played with learned to play the Arneson way, which was tell me what you rolled and I will tell you if you hit. I don't give out AC. I like to keep the mechanics behind the screen as much as possible. I like to keep the game moving fast enough that the players don't have time to worry about the mechanics. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 21, 2021 19:03:05 GMT -5
The supers game "Villains and Vigilantes" has a super cool initiative idea too What is that idea mao? |
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Post by ripx187 on May 22, 2021 1:02:16 GMT -5
I am most comfortable with about 6 players, I've DMed 11 once and it was a nightmare. 20? No thank you.
I also like it when both sides roll the same number, or tie. That means that everybody goes at once, and dead creatures get to make attacks. I've always used the d10 to roll for initiative, but I've heard that the d6 or even the d4 can make it more interesting as the odds of a tie improve.
In regards to calling the AC, I'll keep it a secret sometimes, if I think that that will improve the game. I like keeping it a secret, but my players hate it and sometimes I just have to much going on behind the screen to care what everybody rolled every round. It's not something that really adds anything to the game. After a few rounds of hitting and missing, the players know what the AC is unless you change it on them, which can happen during declared AC. I am not above lying to people.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 22, 2021 14:27:58 GMT -5
I am most comfortable with about 6 players, I've DMed 11 once and it was a nightmare. 20? No thank you. I also like it when both sides roll the same number, or tie. That means that everybody goes at once, and dead creatures get to make attacks. I've always used the d10 to roll for initiative, but I've heard that the d6 or even the d4 can make it more interesting as the odds of a tie improve. In regards to calling the AC, I'll keep it a secret sometimes, if I think that that will improve the game. I like keeping it a secret, but my players hate it and sometimes I just have to much going on behind the screen to care what everybody rolled every round. It's not something that really adds anything to the game. After a few rounds of hitting and missing, the players know what the AC is unless you change it on them, which can happen during declared AC. I am not above lying to people. Now at 65, running 12-16 players is a stretch, but bitd I have run over 20 up to 30 and it was easy then. Now I prefer 8 or so and miss the days when I my eyes and ears were in their prime. |
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Post by mao on May 24, 2021 3:11:46 GMT -5
Back in the early 80s, when I was around 20-22 I used to go to a lot of big conventions. There usually were about 6 tournaments in the weekends. After winning like 4 out of 6 I started to be very competitive. It was no longer about having fun , it was all about winning. this went on for about 5 years and my currant score is somewhere around 55 wins total. I was not having fun, I was competing. I out grew that but I wish I had kept my mind on fun.
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