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Post by robertsconley on Aug 23, 2016 13:34:03 GMT -5
What makes an RPG an RPG is not the rules but the campaign. In development of the RPG it was campaign that came first, Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. He developed and adapted a set of rules to help him adjudicate what the players were doing. From various account we know that the exact rules were always in flux that over the active life of the Blackmoor campaign, Dave was modifying, adding, and dropping various mechanics. Yet from those same accounts people considered it all to be the Blackmoor Campaign.
From what I read it seems Greyhawk was developed in a similar way. The main difference that Gygax was keeping track of the rules he used with the objective of publishing them at some point. The result of the Greyhawk campaign was release of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. But the changes in the rules didn't stop there and Gygax continued to tinker and modify as seen in the release of the Greyhawk supplement and the later D&D editions.
What was revolutionary wasn't the actual rules themselves but rather they were used as an aide to run a campaign where the players interacted with a setting as their characters. In a sense this allowed the players to experience a pen & paper virtual reality created by the referee of the campaign.
The rules were important because they helped with consistency. Consistency in what the characters can and cannot do. Consistency in how things are in the setting. The design of the rules is important because different players and groups want different levels of detail to describe what the characters do. For some it is enough to know that one characters has a gun, and another has a knife. For others it important whether the gun fires .22 ammo, or .357 ammo. Whether the knife is a bowie or a switch blade.
In the end the rules are just a detail of the larger campaign. An important detail but not more important as to whether the campaign is fantasy or science fiction. Or the setting of the campaign. The point of a RPG is not to play the rules but to play the campaign. To enter a pen & paper virtual reality with a character to experience the setting, to have interesting adventures and/or to interact with compelling NPCs.
I post this because of the some of the comments I read in the The "Blackmoor is Just a Chainmail Variant" Fallacy thread. While I am interested to learn what rules Dave Arneson used, I also realize that it is not the whole picture. What was his take on fantasy and how he presented that is just as interesting. And potentially as useful in running a campaign in the style of Blackmoor, Greyhawk, etc.
From reading Playing at the World, this board, comments by people like Gygax, Arneson, and yes Gronan, my impression that the default, if you can call it such, was to kitbash whatever was interesting and useful into a campaign that was hopefully fun. Sometime it was tedious and sometimes, like with Blackmoor, is produced something amazing that lasted to the present day.
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Post by Admin Pete on Aug 23, 2016 14:23:46 GMT -5
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 23, 2016 14:52:58 GMT -5
I am looking forward to reading them both when they are released.
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Post by robkuntz on Aug 24, 2016 13:06:42 GMT -5
Good post! My book, "Dave Arneson's True Genius," covers Dave's design thinking. We're finishing up the release of my collected works on DVD first,then that book will follow. The ms. is finished at 20,500 words. Things are not going as fast since I moved overseas, and the seven hour time difference with the Sates hasn't helped.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2016 12:07:38 GMT -5
Wargame campaigns were around long before Dave Wesley did the first Braunstein.
My personal analysis is that what marks a RPG different from a skirmish wargame campaign is the ability to do non-combat things. Playing a single figure had been done before; ongoing campaigns had been done before. But (for instance) Robilar buying the Green Dragon Inn and using it as a home base and as a way to pick up rumors -- AND playing out those things, not just getting a strategic level summary on an index card -- is what marks the difference between wargame and RPG.
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Post by scottanderson on Aug 25, 2016 13:12:02 GMT -5
So what happens when you go back a step and just get your info on an index card, for instance, rather than playing it out? Is it still an RPG or is it a wargame? I'm thinking about running a hex crawl for the FLGS crowd where the several characters are more like pawns than people; where characterization is secondary and the social situations are pushed to the background. Is that still an RPG?
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 25, 2016 14:09:00 GMT -5
An RPG is distinguished by a character being able to try anything, and succeed according to skill, trait, or luck. Previously, any game required one to play the rules to play the game.
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Post by tetramorph on Aug 25, 2016 14:58:02 GMT -5
The difference between a wargame and an RPG may not be an "on off switch" kind of difference.
Hell, I can "role play" any game I play! I "role play" Risk, Settler of Catan, etc.
It may be more about place along a continuum, degrees of scale, nested activities -- or any combination.
Just play!
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 26, 2016 1:04:04 GMT -5
So what happens when you go back a step and just get your info on an index card, for instance, rather than playing it out? Is it still an RPG or is it a wargame? I'm thinking about running a hex crawl for the FLGS crowd where the several characters are more like pawns than people; where characterization is secondary and the social situations are pushed to the background. Is that still an RPG?my My view is that the main difference between a wargame campaign and a roleplaying campaign (and storygame campaign while we are at) is what one focuses on. Wargames focus on players competing against each other. Roleplaying Games focus on pretending to be a character (or characters)in a setting doing something interesting. Storygames are focused on collaborative storytelling. All three can wind up using the exact same rules for resolving things but how each plays out will be very different due to the focus. I realize that that the way I am putting may sound too cut and dry. Everything is on a spectrum here. We go from Napoleonics to Braunstein to Blackmoor and as far as rules goes and how the campaigns are managed there not a lot of obvious differences. But becomes clear as we move past Blackmoor into OD&D and the development of the RPG Industry that the focus shifts from trying to win a competition to pretending to a character in a setting. And to make it more confusing, it is roleplaying, to have a character who has a motivation of winning at something. I think the best example of the difference is to look at Metagaming Melee/Wizard vs. the Fantasy Trip. Both are the same rule yet Melee/Wizard was developed and marketed as a wargame (a microgame to be exact). But because of the game focus on conflict between individual characters who are warriors and wizards, people wanted to use it as part of a roleplaying campaign. Which Metagaming supported by developing and releasing the Fantasy Trip. So Melee is a wargame because it focuses on two or more players trying to defeat each other. Fantasy Trip is a Roleplaying Game because it focuses on using the rules of Melee and Wizard to support a campaign where people pretend to be characters doing something interested. Anyway that my two cents.
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 26, 2016 1:07:20 GMT -5
The difference between a wargame and an RPG may not be an "on off switch" kind of difference. Hell, I can "role play" any game I play! I "role play" Risk, Settler of Catan, etc. It may be more about place along a continuum, degrees of scale, nested activities -- or any combination. Just play! Exactly it is on a continuum. The only caveat is that the thing you need to run a good campaign of various types don't always overlap. So it pays to think, what I am focusing on here. Then assemble what you need to make it happen. The only criteria should be does X help me run this campaign better for my players. So if Settler of Catan makes sense then by all means use it and don't worry that it was marketed and developed as a euro-game where up to four player compete with each other.
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 26, 2016 1:09:33 GMT -5
An RPG is distinguished by a character being able to try anything, and succeed according to skill, trait, or luck. Previously, any game required one to play the rules to play the game. I agree. The genus of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax was figuring how to make that work as a fun leisure activity.
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Post by robkuntz on Aug 26, 2016 2:00:45 GMT -5
An RPG is distinguished by a character being able to try anything, and succeed according to skill, trait, or luck. Previously, any game required one to play the rules to play the game. I agree. The genus of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax was figuring how to make that work as a fun leisure activity. To be correct. It was Dave's genius almost 2 years previous to his concept being introduced to select LGTSA members: myself, Gary, Terry Kuntz, Ernie Gygax. Gary merely attached his own mechanical spin to the concept, but the concept was all Dave's. Ground zero is not Gygax/LGTSA and 330 Center Street. It's the MMSA roughly 1.5 years earlier. This moved wargames away from scenario-based gaming among about 27 other sundry related impacts that I ascribe to Arneson, all instigated by Dave while building upon/using the concept in FFC/Blackmoor. RJK
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 26, 2016 7:22:04 GMT -5
I agree. The genus of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax was figuring how to make that work as a fun leisure activity. To be correct. It was Dave's genius almost 2 years previous to his concept being introduced to select LGTSA members: myself, Gary, Terry Kuntz, Ernie Gygax. Gary merely attached his own mechanical spin to the concept, but the concept was all Dave's. Ground zero is not Gygax/LGTSA and 330 Center Street. It's the MMSA roughly 1.5 years earlier. This moved wargames away from scenario-based gaming among about 27 other sundry related impacts that I ascribe to Arneson, all instigated by Dave while building upon/using the concept in FFC/Blackmoor. RJK I agree, I said elsewhere that while Gary Gygax was the father of Dungeons & Dragons, Dave Arneson was the father of tabletop roleplaying games. That without their individual creative work and their collaboration on D&D, we would neither have the hobby or industry we have today.
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Post by robkuntz on Aug 26, 2016 9:09:48 GMT -5
To be correct. It was Dave's genius almost 2 years previous to his concept being introduced to select LGTSA members: myself, Gary, Terry Kuntz, Ernie Gygax. Gary merely attached his own mechanical spin to the concept, but the concept was all Dave's. Ground zero is not Gygax/LGTSA and 330 Center Street. It's the MMSA roughly 1.5 years earlier. This moved wargames away from scenario-based gaming among about 27 other sundry related impacts that I ascribe to Arneson, all instigated by Dave while building upon/using the concept in FFC/Blackmoor. RJK I agree, I said elsewhere that while Gary Gygax was the father of Dungeons & Dragons, Dave Arneson was the father of tabletop roleplaying games. That without their individual creative work and their collaboration on D&D, we would neither have the hobby or industry we have today. Just making sure b'cuz "The genus of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax was figuring how to make that work as a fun leisure activity." had already been a "fun leisure activity" prior to Gary's involvement through FFC/Blackmoor. Pedantic? Not in the search for starting points and credits where they are due and distinct. More historicity has been forwarded about their combination which then becomes seemingly a defacto starting point, re: RPG concept conflated with 2nd iteration of that concept, re: D&D, and which has lead to summaries such as the one you forwarded.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2016 12:18:47 GMT -5
An RPG is distinguished by a character being able to try anything, and succeed according to skill, trait, or luck. Previously, any game required one to play the rules to play the game. That is just simply not so. I'm assuming you haven't played a lot of miniatures wargames, because among other things many players never know the rules. IN an RPG you can try anything your character could logically do... just like a miniature wargame. Your character in an RPG won't be able to fly to the moon by flapping his arms unless you're playing a "weird" campaign, and your Pz III can't fly either. But your commander of your Pz III can try anything, and succeed according to skill, trait, or luck.
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 26, 2016 12:47:25 GMT -5
I am willing to accept criticism and correction, as my opinions are always subject to change when new facts or proper bribes are brought forth. But it is simply not true that I never played miniature wargames, especially after 1966. My assumption is that your assumption is wrong. At least, that's my easily correctable opinion. 👳
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Post by robkuntz on Aug 26, 2016 17:23:32 GMT -5
An RPG is distinguished by a character being able to try anything, and succeed according to skill, trait, or luck. Previously, any game required one to play the rules to play the game. That is just simply not so. I'm assuming you haven't played a lot of miniatures wargames, because among other things many players never know the rules. IN an RPG you can try anything your character could logically do... just like a miniature wargame. Your character in an RPG won't be able to fly to the moon by flapping his arms unless you're playing a "weird" campaign, and your Pz III can't fly either. But your commander of your Pz III can try anything, and succeed according to skill, trait, or luck. Gronan. Whereas we could opt to not play the rules of miniature or board games as is, that is, by making variant rules for them, the actual rules for them are set in stone and explicit in every game I have played, from Chainmail to Fight in the Skies, to Tractics to Column Line and Square. Your assertions do not bear out the facts on one hand and then on the other must fall too. For we can indeed try to fly to the Moon (Ernie Gygax's PC went to Mars in the Original campaign if you recall). The difference here is that rules are set in stone for pre-RPG games and will not vary within the scenario as it is agreed upon and as transpiring. That is why in ALL miniature games advertised for play at convention play explicitly note editions, altercations, amendments or variations culled from supporting articles, etc. It has been and will always be so. This difference of set in stone and ongoing mechanical building has a lot to do with the fact that we cannot describe all of the possible variations that could possibly come about in a conceptual fantasy world of make believe. Thus EGG's quote from the understoods of Arneson's design philosophy that the game/rules could be built (paraphrase) to be "simple or extremely complex". This is how, in fact, the new D&D rules were built: in game during the playtests. The avenues for this did not end when the game was published; thus as long as one could mathematize a game occurrence "in situ" it could happen, like going to Mars.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2016 19:44:32 GMT -5
Rob, please note I didn't say you couldn't fly to the moon; I said you couldn't fly to the moon by flapping your arms, unless you were playing a weird game. Getting a wicker basket, tying a bunch of trained geese to it, and hopping in? Sure. But note that this is extrapolating from certain known circumstances (geese fly, baskets hold, ropes tie stuff to other stuff.)
I'm kicking back against a common perception that wargames are static, enclosed, rigid. The very essence of tactics is doing something to surprise your opponent.
Well, the essence of SUCCESSFUL tactics, anyway.
My assertion is that the real difference is that the "solution space" of a RPG is much wider, so the opportunities to improvise outside the rules is much wider. Like a good miniatures wargame, a good RPG operates under the paradigm that "anything not forbidden is permitted." And I've played WAY too many wargames with you to think you're going to stick to conventional solutions.
Any RPG has rules that are set in stone too; fire burns, knives cut, water wet. These things may sometimes be untrue, but they are still useful baseline assumptions, just like the assumption that at 400 yards my T-34/76 will make a 3 inch porthole in that Pz. III.
What's different is the range of things you can attempt, or in other words, the focus of the game. See Post # 5, my first post in the game.
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Post by robkuntz on Aug 27, 2016 2:34:01 GMT -5
Rob, please note I didn't say you couldn't fly to the moon; I said you couldn't fly to the moon by flapping your arms, unless you were playing a weird game. Getting a wicker basket, tying a bunch of trained geese to it, and hopping in? Sure. But note that this is extrapolating from certain known circumstances (geese fly, baskets hold, ropes tie stuff to other stuff.) I'm kicking back against a common perception that wargames are static, enclosed, rigid. The very essence of tactics is doing something to surprise your opponent. Well, the essence of SUCCESSFUL tactics, anyway. My assertion is that the real difference is that the "solution space" of a RPG is much wider, so the opportunities to improvise outside the rules is much wider. Like a good miniatures wargame, a good RPG operates under the paradigm that "anything not forbidden is permitted." And I've played WAY too many wargames with you to think you're going to stick to conventional solutions. Any RPG has rules that are set in stone too; fire burns, knives cut, water wet. These things may sometimes be untrue, but they are still useful baseline assumptions, just like the assumption that at 400 yards my T-34/76 will make a 3 inch porthole in that Pz. III. What's different is the range of things you can attempt, or in other words, the focus of the game. See Post # 5, my first post in the game. Well in any case that is wrong and is really off-center from the point you were attempting to refute: that in RPGs we can do anything whereas in a wargame we cannot. EGG: "New details can be added and old “Laws” altered so as to provide continually new and different situations.” -- E. Gary Gygax, Introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, 1974. EGG: "There should be no natural laws which are certain. Space could be passable because it is filled with breathable air. On the other hand the stars could be tiny lights only a few hundred miles away." Gary Gygax' quote from OD&D, Volume 3, page 24 (And thus by extenuation of the two above quotes, your assertion that flapping one's arms would not be consonant but with only "weirder" games, rulings is indeed voided, as the base premise of doing so--possibility--is indeed guaranteed; accessibility and then probability of same are determined by the DMs and not the rules) EGG: "These rules are strictly Fantasy...." Forward to D&D. 1974 You seem to have forgotten the differences between Fantasy and simulation and scenario-based gaming and open form conceptual realms. Of course choice of tactics are open to a degree, but they are not infinite like the ability to create anything new on the fly as in D&D. They must subsist within the constraints of the rules as given, whereas this is not the case in D&D. This (your example w/assertions) in no way corresponds to the infinite possibilities in rules and play variations possible from the open form Arneson promoted and as noted by EGG's above quotes. Neither does it refute (except through bias, i.e., YOUR PROCLIVITY only) choice in the matter.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2016 13:34:01 GMT -5
Of course choice of tactics are open to a degree, but they are not infinite like the ability to create anything new on the fly as in D&D. "My assertion is that the real difference is that the "solution space" of a RPG is much wider, so the opportunities to improvise outside the rules is much wider." ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Okay, to me, the two sentences above say the same thing in different words. I feel like you're agreeing with me really loudly.
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Post by robkuntz on Aug 27, 2016 14:53:56 GMT -5
Of course choice of tactics are open to a degree, but they are not infinite like the ability to create anything new on the fly as in D&D. "My assertion is that the real difference is that the "solution space" of a RPG is much wider, so the opportunities to improvise outside the rules is much wider." ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Okay, to me, the two sentences above say the same thing in different words. I feel like you're agreeing with me really loudly. Solution space? Makes no sense just hanging there, please clarify. Wargames are bounded complexity at best. Open RPGs are unbounded complexity. That's bounds vs. no bounds, Michael, as in CLOSED particulars vs. contingently OPEN infinity. You can't compare apples and oranges and try to say that it's an "Aproange" by referring to "solution space." It has to do with systems first, open or closed, local or global, etc. Then one can examine the state space of each and assess their boundaries. Well, enough of this for me. I suggest people read about open an closed systems if they wish to start understanding what I referred to as far back as my You Tube interview (Groganard Games). Otherwise my book on Arneson will be out in a couple of months and pretty much covers his systems architecture in detail. See you around Michael! Edit: In editing this for one mistake I accidentally up-voted myself! Pay no attention...
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2016 20:51:41 GMT -5
Well, "solution space" is just a shorthand I learned from statistics classes for "The set of all solutions that stays within the bounds prescribed by the problem." So, yes, wargames ARE a bounded complexity, and RPGs have the potential to be virtually infinite. That is exactly what "a larger solution space" means. Wargames have some improvisation possible, and as wargames move towards RPGs... I think it is a progression, not an on/off switch... the improvisation possible becomes larger.
I'm sorry, I didn't think "solution space" was that rare a term.
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Post by robkuntz on Aug 28, 2016 1:28:27 GMT -5
Well, "solution space" is just a shorthand I learned from statistics classes for "The set of all solutions that stays within the bounds prescribed by the problem." So, yes, wargames ARE a bounded complexity, and RPGs have the potential to be virtually infinite. That is exactly what "a larger solution space" means. Wargames have some improvisation possible, and as wargames move towards RPGs... I think it is a progression, not an on/off switch... the improvisation possible becomes larger. I'm sorry, I didn't think "solution space" was that rare a term. It is not a rare term Michael, but it was just hanging there attached to nothing as I noted. Nothing of what you add here supports the initial refutation up thread but only contradicts the assertion. "Wargames have some improvisation possible," admits as much and even that statement is too much of a blanket one, as most board wargames have set in stone rules; but all games have choices of tactics, so the latter I discount as improvisation--all games are at least predicated upon tactical engagement of components or design elements, i.e., cognitive engagement. BTW: I believe that in order to identify the solution space you first have to discuss the parameters, and that is done by finding the boundaries, i.e., its current state space. Thus are avoided such contradictions you have ended up forwarding, that is if I am reading your intial assertion correctly up thread: "N an RPG you can try anything your character could logically do... just like a miniature wargame. Your character in an RPG won't be able to fly to the moon by flapping his arms unless you're playing a "weird" campaign, and your Pz III can't fly either. But your commander of your Pz III can try anything, and succeed according to skill, trait, or luck." Logic has nothing to do with Fantasy, Michael, the system is the DM and the players, and if the omniscient part of the system states that what is possible within game contexts exists, it is so, so that has nothing to do with "doing" it has everything to do with the initial system condition (its initial and assumed state) that allows one to attempt to do anything. Under this, the tank commander can only do as much as the initial conditions allow, which is never infinite and may be according to some conditions less than complex, even. All wargames are not designed equal.
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 29, 2016 9:57:37 GMT -5
Some observation on the interesting exchange the two of you having.
I feel it is safe to say that if I sit down with a game that involves two players both of them commanding a military force where the object to determine a victory by annihilation or a set of victory condition that game is a wargame.
I also feel it is safe to say that if I sit down with two more gamers where one of them is a referee and the other are players playing individual characters interacting with a setting in a way that is consistent with their character abilities with the action adjudicated by a human referee that they are playing tabletop roleplaying.
That it all gets murky when you have a situation where you have a bunch of players with one or more referee playing individual characters who are kings, generals, dictators, or presidents commanding armies in a campaign taking place across a large region like Europe during a particular time period like the Napoleonic Wars. There may or mat not be specific victory conditions but the campaign could less until everybody quit except for the last man or team who can be declared the "winner" of the campaign.
I think where think get murky in other conversations is that people forget that there are indeed clear cut example of people playing wargame, story games, and tabletop roleplaying games. But those examples are at the center of a spectrum where different types of gaming can be and are mixed in different ways. That what important to remember about the early days of tabletop roleplaying is that it was born of a gaming culture that mixed and match by default to figure out interesting ways of games.
My point in bringing up that RPGs are about the campaigns not the rules, is to drive in the idea that if you want to make the hobby or industry "better", then the best way to do that is to write something to help tabletop referee run better campaigns. I feel in the past there was too much focus on trying to make better rules. When the rules are only just one of many components that go into a successful campaign. That rules by themselves will never make a for a better hobby or industry.
For my part I do a lot of talking and writing about hexcrawl formatted settings and sandbox campaigns, both their strengths and weaknesses to give more options for preparing and managing a tabletop roleplaying campaign. It not THE answer any more than rules are but I think my work expanded the range of ideas for people to use and thus increase the chance that more people will run better campaigns and thus keep the hobby alive for that much longer.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2016 12:08:11 GMT -5
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Post by robkuntz on Aug 29, 2016 17:41:03 GMT -5
Some observation on the interesting exchange the two of you having. "Snip* Whereas you state your own positions and clearly they are not "observations" on what Michael and I were discussing. We are discussing systems and the interpreted ranges of open and closed forms, that is, game theory and systems theory, the nuts-n-bolts of understanding the type of system, in this case, that Arneson deployed and that Gary Gygax reiterated. Thanks for your interjecting your own POV concerning your own personal summaries of what RPGs are for you and how you see them. Totally different slant, however.
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Post by Admin Pete on Aug 29, 2016 18:43:35 GMT -5
For my part I do a lot of talking and writing about hexcrawl formatted settings and sandbox campaigns, both their strengths and weaknesses to give more options for preparing and managing a tabletop roleplaying campaign. It not THE answer any more than rules are but I think my work expanded the range of ideas for people to use and thus increase the chance that more people will run better campaigns and thus keep the hobby alive for that much longer. I have read some of your blog and a bit of other stuff; however, I think now that there is a lot that I have not read yet. Are there any posts you could direct me to where you go into what you see as both the strengths and weaknesses of hexcrawl formatted settings and sandbox campaigns. I tend to see them as two facets of the same or to say it another way - outside of adventures modules and pre-written settings it is all sandbox.
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Post by Admin Pete on Aug 29, 2016 22:09:15 GMT -5
I think where think get murky in other conversations is that people forget that there are indeed clear cut example of people playing wargame, story games, and tabletop roleplaying games. I think one of the things that makes things murky is the lack of agreement across the hobby on what a lot of the words/terms mean. "Story Game" for instance has a lot of different meanings depending on who is using the term. For instance to me "Story Game" means a railroad of the worst sort where players are flat-out told in no uncertain terms what their character can and cannot do and their course of action and decisions have been predetermined, i.e. it is a play and no ad libbing is alllowed. Obviously, many people would strongly disagree with that definition and believe that it means something completely different. Even when we think we agree on terminology and what it means, we are often fooling ourselves. Sometimes we disagree because we are not using a common vocabulary and sometimes we disagree because we are just viewing things from what are for practical purposes completely alien perspectives. I think that a lot can be learned from vigorous debate and disagreement. Ideally everyone grows from it, even if and because the viewpoints are never unified, and in fact the unification of viewpoints can and often is counter productive in that it limits and curtails the approaches that both can be and are taken. I believe that parsing out what each really means can result in new tangents to be pursued. When someone challenges my viewpoint, I can choose to be offended or I can choose to examine more closely my viewpoint in the light of the challenge. It does not mean that my viewpoint is brought into some common agreement, but it should lead to my viewpoint being more open to considering different ideas and ways of doing things as the challenge stretches and alters my understanding by its existence. Rigidity of thought leads to stagnation and total agreement also leads to stagnation. Stagnation of imagination is the enemy of fun and the destroyer of new things. I want to grow less rigid in my thinking as a grow older not more rigid. I want to stay young at heart and grower younger at heart. I want to enjoy life like I did when I was a child - freely and without reservation. IMC in practice I often play almost rules free and my players love it. IMC I have a young woman (about 22) who never played D&D or OD&D before she started playing about 4 months ago. I ran a solo one shot for her about a month ago and did not crack a rule book or look at a table during the whole 4 hours. I ran the combats without looking at any tables and we just played it out, completely winging everything. She came back to this most recent game very enthused and fired up and telling the other players how much fun she had and how much she had learned. I gave her a 4th level pre-rolled character and two NPCs as party members and sent them out. She didn't care what we called the game, the only thing that mattered is that she had a blast. If I understand you correctly, it is that experience that you are trying to help people have. It is not (IMO) so much about the materials that people have to game with (although there is nothing wrong with providing the best materials/resources) and it is more about teaching the referee and the players to free their minds from rigid modes of thought and allow themselves to play freely like young children.
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 29, 2016 23:28:09 GMT -5
For my part I do a lot of talking and writing about hexcrawl formatted settings and sandbox campaigns, both their strengths and weaknesses to give more options for preparing and managing a tabletop roleplaying campaign. It not THE answer any more than rules are but I think my work expanded the range of ideas for people to use and thus increase the chance that more people will run better campaigns and thus keep the hobby alive for that much longer. I have read some of your blog and a bit of other stuff; however, I think now that there is a lot that I have not read yet. Are there any posts you could direct me to where you go into what you see as both the strengths and weaknesses of hexcrawl formatted settings and sandbox campaigns. I tend to see them as two facets of the same or to say it another way - outside of adventures modules and pre-written settings it is all sandbox. Here some links first the general link where all my posts on the subject are catagorized batintheattic.blogspot.com/search/label/sandbox%20fantasyFor the most part I been addressing specific issues. I don't have much in the way of an overarching theory of hexcrawl etc. Just a series of observations that address various and have varying consequences. My ten cents version of the whole thing is this. Sandbox Campaign are a way of running a tabletop roleplaying campaign where the focus is on the players living their live as their character within the setting doing whatever make sense what the characters do. The setting has a life of it own that the referee is responsible for. The referee creativity comes not coming with a story or plot but rather setting up an interesting situation at the start of the campaign and then following through by picking the most interesting consquences for what the players do or not do as their characters. This is produces a cycle where the players do something, you as the referee choses the consquences, the players respond to that and so forth and so on. The campaign usually end when the players feel their characters reach a natural pause point in their life, the probably good result, or they lose interest in playing those character, the probably bad result. The biggest issue with Sandbox campaigns is making sure that the players have the information they need to make choices. If this get screwed up players will quickly lose interest as they will feel they would be better off throwing darts blindfolded at a target for all the meaning their choices have. This challenge is especially crucial at the beginning of the campaign and is in fact the biggest thing we failed to explain when we were promoting the Wilderland Boxed Set. So a lot of people wound up thinking that sandbox campaign started out out with the player knowing nothing and exploring from there. While this is fun for some players, most really despise this and soon there were a lot of reports of sandbox campaigns failing. When I saw these play reports, I thought about what I did and I realize I always give may players an overview of their situation at the start of the campaign. They used that to figure out what to do first and it went on from there. The Hexcrawl is a format for detailing a setting the map is divided into regular areas (usually hexes or squares). The areas are numbered and a portion of them get detailed with some type of locale or encounter. The primary advantage is that is provide a specific outline for a referee to follow. The primary disadvantage is that it doesn't scale well. A map that is double the size in length and width has quadruple the number of areas that could be detailed. Also you have to care to write a high level overview to summarize how different locale relate to each other. Without it you are force to read over all the entries to get a sense of the bird's eye view. Even then without in an explicit overview it hard to keep all the different in area in your head form a complete picture. Once finished a hexcrawl formatted is pack a lot of local level detail in a small number of pages. And as a general note, the most common format to present a setting is the travelogue similar to the old Fodor's Guide. In my view the classic example of the hexcrawl format is the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, the classic example of the travelogue format is the World of Greyhawk. For fantasy RPGS the hexcrawl format remained very obscure for a number of years until the past decade. However thanks to the influence of Traveller the hexcrawl is far more common for science fiction RPGs. Traveller version is practically an artform of in of itself. The best example is the wealth of detail in the Traveller Map for the Third Imperium setting. Some posts from my blog Following BreadcrumbsHow many interesting hexes should you have.The rise and fall of roleplaying.As a final note is that when it comes to this stuff, I generally write about what I actually used or played. I think advice and observation should come after actually trying whatever.
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 29, 2016 23:55:48 GMT -5
Some observation on the interesting exchange the two of you having. "Snip* Whereas you state your own positions and clearly they are not "observations" on what Michael and I were discussing. We are discussing systems and the interpreted ranges of open and closed forms, that is, game theory and systems theory, the nuts-n-bolts of understanding the type of system, in this case, that Arneson deployed and that Gary Gygax reiterated. Thanks for your interjecting your own POV concerning your own personal summaries of what RPGs are for you and how you see them. Totally different slant, however. I get where you and Gronan are coming from in terms of looking at this from what we know and studied about how games and systems work. My view is very much non-academic. Partly because I didn't have those course in college, partly because I always treated refereeing campaigns more as craft. Focused on building a chest full of tools and understanding when and where they work and don't work when it comes to tabletop roleplaying. And that reflect my regular job as senior programmer who been maintaining CAD/CAM/Machine Control software for 30 years. While I don't know the details of game theory or systems theory like you and Gronan obviously do, from running campaign after campaign, that single constant that I seen from players like roleplaying game is that it is not game itself that drive their interest, but the ability to be somebody else elsewhere doing interesting things. That the tabletop roleplaying campaign is what makes doing this more fascinating than playing Let's Pretend. That the rules used for adjudication are an essential tool to make this all happen. However while the rules in of themselves a game/wargame, they are only useful if they reflect the reality of the setting of the campaign. Game theory as I understand it helps greatly to setup specific things like how combat plays out, analyzing the various tradeoffs in character advancement and what rewards goes toward advancement. However what I know about Game and system theory doesn't why we are doing all this in the first place. The observation I am offering that they are in service to realize the vision referee has for his campaign coupled with making that vision appealing to his players. The work done in game and system theory is useful in making sure that things work the way they are intended to work. I am looking forward to reading your books, because your insights and work will add more tools to help me run better campaigns. I seen enough of your writing that I am really looking forward to reading what you have to say. Speaking of books, when Gronan finishing his? And so everybody reading this understand, while I am downplaying the importance of rules overall in the way tabletop roleplaying works. The rules and what form they take are a HUGE factor in terms of personal preference. More than a few players I know will not play tabletop roleplaying unless a specific RPG is used. In my book that OK, tabletop roleplaying a leisure activity meant to be enjoyed. The existence of this forum is tied in part to a love of specific RPGs.
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