Good Old Days
Elizabeth Van Couvering
with dice, after all, even without the all-important RPG backup :^)
The problem one always finds is in the quality of the GM. A very good GM
barely even needs rules; just a good imagination and wads of paper to take
notes on. Rules are to assist in those situations where the GM
experienced or talented enough to take on the game by themselves. In
these cases, dice can provide a control on a ruthless or otherwise
inadequate GM, and let the players feel they have a fighting chance.
Recently I played a lovely game of Castle Falkenstein and got quite
attached to the cards, as giving the players the element of randomness
combined, in some sense, with the element of guile. Because one had a
relatively decent chance of knowing the modifier on a particular task,
they also served as a sort of surrogate to let you know whether the
character felt particularly tired, or socially inept, or whatever.
The gaming group I normally play with (alas, in the US, while I am now in
the UK and suffering withdrawal) also makes use of Whimsy cards under
strict rules to allow for fun and mind-boggling coincidences. They are
particularly approved when they sneakily undermine the party and plunge it
from the frying pan into the fire.
Elizabeth
--
Elizabeth Van Couvering
eliz...@easynet.co.uk
Andrew Rilstone
of discussion about whether my post entitled "good old days" was
meant to be serious or sarcastic? Nowadays, there is nothing
but post after post about copyright. Will those halcyon days
of yore ever return? I blame Magic the Gathering.
--
Andrew Rilstone and...@aslan.demon.co.uk
**********************************************************************
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not
admire it.
Oscar Wilde
**********************************************************************
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
|> Do you remember the good old days, when this group used to be full
|> of discussion about whether my post entitled "good old days" was
|> meant to be serious or sarcastic? Nowadays, there is nothing
|> but post after post about copyright. Will those halcyon days
|> of yore ever return? I blame Magic the Gathering.
Hmm. The text of this post seems to be almost the same as the last good old
post. I think I have just fallen prey to the seductive lure of an awfully
well-constructed troll.
Neel
Sean Nittner
: Do you remember the good old days, when this group used to be full
: of discussion about whether my post entitled "good old days" was
: meant to be serious or sarcastic? Nowadays, there is nothing
: but post after post about copyright. Will those halcyon days
: of yore ever return? I blame Magic the Gathering.
I can't eally say i remeber the good old days, since I'm a relativly new
reader, but I do agree, why do we all care so much about stupid copywrite
details? This groop is supposed to be "flames and rebutles." I'm sorry,
but flaming about copywriting seems silly. If your that desparate to
flame something, how bout this:
Everybody who playes roleplaying games should be shot in the head.
(P.S., it this doesn't exite you people more than copywrite
technicalities then your all a bunch of hosers)
Sean (Mail bomb me if you wish, it's still a better use of your
time than bitching about copywrite crap)
--
TV is a Medium,
called so because it is neither rare nor well done.
nancy sauer
: Do you remember the good old days, when this group used to be full
: of discussion about whether my post entitled "good old days" was
: meant to be serious or sarcastic? Nowadays, there is nothing
: but post after post about copyright. Will those halcyon days
: of yore ever return?
I personally have become so bored with copybabble that not only would
I actually _read_ a post that explained why subsistuting GM whim for
dice would result in a superior game, I would actually take time to
*ponder* whether this was in fact so.
:I blame Magic the Gathering.
You know, I have a friend that became a Magic addict this summer. He
is a baseball fan, you see, and with the strike he needed _something_
to satisfy his need to collect cards...
Nancy M. Sauer <*> "Then you will come to think of things in
Disciple of Bread Do: a wide sense and, taking the dough as the
The Way of the Way, you will see the Way is dough.
Flour Warrior In the dough there is virtue, and no evil."
Andrew Finch
: I personally have become so bored with copybabble that not only would
: I actually _read_ a post that explained why subsistuting GM whim for
: dice would result in a superior game, I would actually take time to
: *ponder* whether this was in fact so.
Ask and you shall recieve. Think of it this way:
Dice and diced rules interact in particular ways. Actual simulation is
impossible. The computational power available in an RPG is too limited,
even if such realistic simulation wre possible, or even desirable. Dice
are used because they are a simplification. The theory is that if you
charted the frequency of all possible outcomes of any real-world action,
those probability distributions would roughly follow a normal curve. Or so
it would be for most actions, and therefore you can make the simplifying
reduction that this will give a realistic feel for all actions. So, dice
choose a random point upon a normal curve, corresponding to one of these
possibilities. Since their distribution over time will correspond to the
normal curve, such a distribution will 'feel' realistic. Note that this
has nothing to do with accurate physical or mechanical simualtion, which
is the general myth.
Now all you need to do is define all possible outcomes for any given
action. Most games do this mechanically. Since it would be too difficult
to create 'fair' mechanics to define all possible outcomes, only the 'game
relevant' portions of that outcome are defined. So what is selected upon
that normal curve is almost always limited to a 'hit or miss', 'success or
failure', and 'damage'. If the game system is really wild, it might
explore a few grey areas, or allow for such novelties as 'critical hits'.
What has been neatly done by this, is that any and all actions you might
take have been stripped of any consequence save these 'game relevant'
portions. So, 'I jump up in the air, spin around with full force, striking
with a spinning kick, and following through with my sabre' is reduced to
'I strike at him'. You can of course continue with such descriptions, but
they become burdonsome when stripped of their relevance and consequence,
and tend to be dropped. In other words, all the roleplay is quickly
washed out of any action where rule mechanics are clearly defined.
If you are careful, you can put the options back into these situations,
but doing so increases the mechanical overhead of the game system a lot.
Hero is a good example. It allows more mechanical options than just about
anything else on the market. You can block for another person, ricochet
shots, grab someones gun hand and control their fire, etc. All clearly
defined combat actions. Unfortunately, Hero combat is also well known for
stopping time. Its a wargame, and plays like one.
The solution is to throw out mechanical simulation. What was important was
the realistic 'feel' in the first place. That's why games started using
dice. We all know that if you try to build up these systems they start
feeling less realistic anyway. Everyone knows the odd quirks in most
games. You live by the mechanics rather than your common sense, so at
least you have a common foundation. Our solution is to realize that common
sense is just that, fairly 'common'. And that in an open atmosphere, with
decent communication, there is enough commonality to work as a fair bases
for decision. Instead of mechanical simulation, which is always quirkily
'real', we provide dramatic simulation. That is, we provide the rules of
drama as a basis for game mechanics. By simulating good drama, you provide
a realistic 'feel', capable of matching any genre. By using the human
computer, rather than a normal curve, we can find solutions and
possibilities for any action, very quickly. And because such decision
making is based upon the 'whole' action, it is far more roleplay oriented,
and far more indicative of what was described by the player. Leaping up
into a spinning kick, followed by a sabre sweep, is no longer just 'a
strike'. And producing a result to match such an action no longer stops
time and gameplay. The roleplay is not washed out of any part of the game,
and games maintain their richness and attention to detail.
GM whim is a poor choice of words. GM whim is present in every game.
Diced or diceless, and is not mitigated in any way by diced rules. All
these rules do is foster rule's laywers. Since dramatic resolution is
based upon open communication, and since there are no dice to hide behind,
the play tends to be more respectful of the individuals involved. And
since such decisions are far more indicative of what each player
describes, and flow naturally out of such interactive descriptions, it
doesn't 'feel' like whim at all. Whereas dice often feel like pure whim.
How often have we heard 'Boy, I'm lucky tonight.', or 'These dice roll
lousy.'
Most rule systems on the market today are based upon a series of myths
which are quickly dissolving.
I have a few words about character generation systems for diced games as
well, and how they promote power play, rather than role play, but I'll
leave those for another time.
David Berkman
Backstage Press (makers of Theatrix, universal diceless roleplay)
Jeff Stehman
>Do you remember the good old days, when this group used to be full
>of discussion about whether my post entitled "good old days" was
>meant to be serious or sarcastic? Nowadays, there is nothing
>but post after post about copyright. Will those halcyon days
>of yore ever return? I blame Magic the Gathering.
I blame it an outbreak of agreement. A month or so ago we had several
good debates running. What happened? Everybody ended up agreeing!!!
Geeze! The other advocacy groups are probably laughing at us.
--
Jeff Stehman Senior Systems Administrator
ste...@southwind.net SouthWind Internet Access, Inc.
voice: (316)263-7963 Wichita, KS
Jo Walton
And...@aslan.demon.co.uk "Andrew Rilstone" writes:
> Do you remember the good old days, when this group used to be full
> of discussion about whether my post entitled "good old days" was
> meant to be serious or sarcastic? Nowadays, there is nothing
> but post after post about copyright. Will those halcyon days
> of yore ever return? I blame Magic the Gathering.
Ah, I remember the heady days of June when this group was full of arguments
about Dice Vs Diceless, and Theatrix and Gammon. And you tell that to the kids
today....
--
Jo "Even an argument about killing a tiger with a rapier..."
*********************************************************
- - I kissed a kif at Kefk - -
*********************************************************
A Lapalme
> Do you remember the good old days, when this group used to be full
> of discussion about whether my post entitled "good old days" was
> meant to be serious or sarcastic? Nowadays, there is nothing
> but post after post about copyright. Will those halcyon days
> of yore ever return? I blame Magic the Gathering.
> --
I'm getting tempted to say something really inflammatory(sp) to get a
discussion going on something else. Maybe I'll think of something...
Alain
nancy sauer
: nancy sauer (nsa...@unlinfo.unl.edu) wrote:
: : I personally have become so bored with copybabble that not only would
: : I actually _read_ a post that explained why subsistuting GM whim for
: : dice would result in a superior game, I would actually take time to
: : *ponder* whether this was in fact so.
: Ask and you shall recieve. Think of it this way:
[Longish essay on dice vs. diceless deleted to save space.]
: David Berkman
You know, David, I just _knew_ that would bring you out. ;>
Seriously, I did read what you wrote (several times, in fact) and
have pondered for a few hours, and I have a few comments. If I seem
to be a little unfocussed in what follows, please forgive me, it's
been a long day.
First, I don't agree that dice mechanics necessarily result in
description of action being dropped. It _can_ happen, but it will
usually happen in a game where the GM doesn't care, and doesn't reward
players for making the effort. In the group I play with, describing
what your character is trying to do will usually get you a modifier
to your dice roll, and that modifier can sometimes make the difference
between sucess and failure.
"Aha," you, David, are probably thinking, "this is just the sort of
thing I am advocating! Why not go all the way and get rid of the
dice?"
One of the problems of getting rid of the dice, and using common
sense instead, is that in doing so one also gets rid of the
opportunity for an experience that I will name the "personal Midway".
The Battle of Midway (as we all know) pitted three understrength
American carriers with inexperienced pilots, bad planes, and torpedos
that didn't work against four Japanese carriers that had experienced
pilots, state of the art planes, and really, really deadly torpedos.
Common sense will never generate an American win at Midway, for the
very good reason that it is so overwhelming unlikely that something
like that could occur. But unlikely things _do_ occur, on both large
and small scales. Since they occur to people in real life, why not to
characters in games?
There is more I could say, but it's getting late, and I have to walk
home. I will be interested in reading any and all responses...
Andrew Finch
: roleplaing is feasible (I would realy love to see Theatrix).
That's not hard. Ask for it at your local game shop. We are in distribution.
: My questions
: is without some unbiased means of determining outcome, how does a GM know
: that s/he is being fare.
With an unbiased method of die rolling, how does a GM know he/she is
being fair? I've seen and played in many a diced game with an unfair GM.
Dice rules have never kept a GM from favoring a particular player, or
being particularly harsh to one person or another. In fact, contrary to
popluar belief, dice rules make this easier. Once you've set a
particularly difficult monster against the character of a player you
don't like, you can simply roll the dice and let the rules do the rest,
entirely 'fairly'. In a diceless game, such manipulations are far more
blatant, and the rulings attach more to the GM making them than the dice.
It's harder to be unfair to one character or another. Plus, the whole
basis of the game shifts from an adversarial posture, held in balance by
the rules, to a cooperative effort towards good dramatic ends (which may
themselves be tragic, but fulfillingly so). No one even bothers playing
such a game unless they all want to be together, enjoy each others
company, and have fun.
Theatrix in particular allows the players such control over events, and
stretches so far to guarantee each character's niche within the game,
that the GM has to worry more about the players being unfair to him/her,
than visa versa.
: Using the example of the character who wanted
: to preform an spin kick and followup slash with a sabre. What if the
: characters advesarry had plans of his own, (assuming they are comparable
: fighters) how do you figure out who goes first? If the spin kick missed,
: would the character still be able to follow up with the sabre? if the
: opponent got his with both attacks would he still be able to ...
This kind of thinking comes from diced rules and diced play. In a
mechanical simulation, you must know the order of initiative to decide
success and failure. In Theatrix, initiative is the result of success or
failure. You decide the outcome, and then work backwards towards an
explanation of those events. Initiative beomes one of a number of
possible reasons for success or failure.
: What I'm trying to get at is that of cource dice are not
: realistic (when a superhero in champions can't bust a cap in some thugs
: ass at point blank range, something is wrong) but they are un-biased.
Our point of view is that the GM is not, nor ever was supposed to be
fair. In Theatrix, the GM is supposed to be intentionally unfair. The GMs
job is to stick the characters in way iver their heads, and force them to
think fast and scramble, or get hurt. Of course, half the time in
Theatrix, if the GM doesn't do this, the players happily will. The only
thing the GM has to be fair to is the story.
: Most players are very concerned with fiarness and, although everybody
: undertands a GM's licence to change the outcome when appropriate, most
: players (well, mort of my players (I'm not omnipitant)) would really
: start flaming me if i just told them the outcome withoug any arbitray
: element being factored in.
I do this all the time in diceless play. Only the arbitrary element is
me. Any player who does not trust me to deliver an interesting story
they'll enjoy, doesn't play. Any player I don't trust to put the
experience we are having together, above his/her own personal feelings of
inadequacy, doesn't play.
Anybody who wants to help me and a few of my friends in developing a
communal story, an enjoyable game, and a genreal good time, is more than
welcome.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Taki Kogoma
<3g8gj0$o...@onyx.southwind.net> in rec.games.frp.advocacy:
>And...@aslan.demon.co.uk (Andrew Rilstone) writes:
>>Do you remember the good old days, when this group used to be full
>>of discussion about whether my post entitled "good old days" was
>>meant to be serious or sarcastic? Nowadays, there is nothing
>>but post after post about copyright. Will those halcyon days
>>of yore ever return? I blame Magic the Gathering.
>
>I blame it an outbreak of agreement. A month or so ago we had several
>good debates running. What happened? Everybody ended up agreeing!!!
>Geeze! The other advocacy groups are probably laughing at us.
Yeah. In any event, we're overdue on the next incarnation of the
GURPS/Hero debate and the semi-annual Storyteller vs. the Universe
flamefest should start up in a couple of weeks. At least AnDAVErew
FiBERKMANnch has resumed the 'To Dice, or not to Dice' routine.
(We're also long overdue for another round of xD&D-bashing, but I
suspect that any attempts along those lines will quickly degenerate
into general TSR fear-and-loathing and, thus, back to the Copyright
discussion.)
>
>--
>Jeff Stehman Senior Systems Administrator
>ste...@southwind.net SouthWind Internet Access, Inc.
>voice: (316)263-7963 Wichita, KS
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
qu...@unm.edu | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
|> Jeff Stehman <ste...@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:
|> >I blame it an outbreak of agreement. A month or so ago we had several
|> >good debates running. What happened? Everybody ended up agreeing!!!
|>
|>
|> 1) Vampire/White Wolf gamers wouldn't know roleplaying if they were
|> bitten in the rear by a method actor!
Boring.
|> 2) Hero can do a zillion things better than GURPS can!
Who cares?
|> 3) Real Roleplayers don't need dice. Munchkins need dice.
Yawn.
|> 4) Whatever else you think of that's flammable.
Zzzz.....
|> Now, take a topic and beat it to death. Just make sure you change
|> the subject line, please.
|>
|> PS: Personally, I think the InPhobia debate acted like using an
|> explosive charge on a fire: it was big, nasty and in the end,
|> it used up all the fuel that was feeding the continuing debates.
Aha! FLAMEBAIT! You are completely wrong! You are so wrong that 18 geniuses
with prosthetic brains couldn't save your argument! Because, you see, the
InPhobia flamefest occurred completely on .misc! During the entire flamewar,
rgfa *still* talked in a sane, calm, collected, reasonable fashion.
This just goes to show that to see flamage, you have to go to .misc, not
.advocay.
Neel
Jeff Stehman
>David Berkman wrote (in this very strand) implied that diceless
>roleplaing is feasible (I would realy love to see Theatrix).
Speaking of David, some time back I offered him a challenge and he
took me up on it. I gave him a description of one of my characters
and a recent adventure of his (using dice :-) and he was to give me
a plot for the adventure. The issue on the table was whether or not
tightly plotted adventures are a Good Thing (tm) or a Bad Thing (tm).
We exchanged some email and just when it seemed I was about to get
an example plot... silence.
Hmmm.. I find this suspicious. Not having seen Theatrix in the
stores, I'm starting to wonder. Does it really exist? Is David
really just another personality hidden in the gestalt that is Andrew
Finch? Is this more interesting the copyright info being repeated
for the nth time?
Ray Trent
>If you don't have the heart to kill the character, and don't feel good
>about that decision, how can you feel right about randomizing it? Just
Here we go again.
I've thought seriously about the merits of diceless gaming a lot since
the last time this flame war ignited and I've come to 1 conclusion.
A "system" that uses dice to resolve actions is a tool, nothing more,
nothing less. I think using such a system is likely to get in the way
more often than not.
However, having a tool available is better than not having it
available. I think I'll always want to have a system available for
certain kinds of actions, even if I don't use it for the most part.
There are 2 things that continue to worry me about going completely
diceless:
1) In order to do a convincing job of describing actions so that the
GM can decide on the resolution, the *player* has to have a fair
amount of skill at what they're describing. Sometimes it's obvious how
to do this, but for example:
It's *really* hard to take a beautiful description of a truly lovely
combat maneuver from a martial artist black belt player, and resolve
it with the meta-reality of a normal, bar brawling type of tough
character. Yes, maybe the idea is a great idea. Yes, maybe the
description is lovely. Yes, the character might be *capable* of
performing the action. Would the character be able to *think* of the
action? How likely are they to carry it out if they do think of
it...etc.
Or how about a shy person with a speach impediment role playing a
poetry recital by a *character* who would put the Bard himself to
shame?
Not to mention, how do I, as a GM, have any idea whether that dazzling
"reverse spin kick to the right shoulder blade" really will "force the
guy's sword down so that it hacks through the cord supporting the
chandelier". Or whether that particular "retro-sequencing of DNA
conjugates" really will "revert the alleles back to their
pre-recombined form"? Or if that "if we time it just right, those
Z-particles" really will "decay just as they crosses the potential
barrier of the target atoms, causing a Moessberg effect emission of
gamma rays in the normal direction"...or more importantly, whether the
character would be able to think of such a thing?
I know enough about these fields to recognize the terms, and even get
an idea for what they're trying to say (not that it matters
overwhelmingly...techno babble is often enough fun to overcome the
drive for logical consistency). I don't have any but the sketchiest
idea how hard such actions would be to devise or carry out for someone
in those particular fields.
I could just arbitrarily decide, I suppose, but that leads to several
other problems:
Should one player's ability to impress me with plausible techno-babble
really decide whether their *character* can do it, while another
player is stuck mumbling "err, I try to solve the problem"?
Even if it should, I'm not sure I *want* my games devolving into
mounds of techno-babble. It's not a minor concern with my gaming
group, which usually consists of 4 software engineers, a high energy
physicist, a structural engineer, a geneticist, and a neurobiologist,
most of whom have diverse avocations, including martial arts,
woodworking, flying, history, various outdoorsy activities, etc.
And, finally, the other main reason I hesitate to go completely
diceless/systemless:
2) I don't need the tension of *worrying* about whether I, as a GM, am
being fair in my decision making. Maybe I'll continue to be unfair by
using dice...it's certainly possible to stack the odds against
someone, but I won't worry about it so much if I set up situations as
impartially and consistently as I am able, and then let the fur fly in
response to the players' actions. I won't have to second guess myself
every time an essentially random outcome needs to be decided.
I guess what it comes down to is, to me, the "G" in "RPG" isn't a
throwaway. I *like* the *game* part, at least some of the time.
--
"When you're down, it's a long way up
When you're up, it's a long way down
It's all the same thing
And it's no new tale to tell" ../ray\..
Andrew Finch
: Uh - this point was already answered by Nancy Sauer. In diced
: games, it is quite common for description to modify things. In high
: school, we would describe attacks in Champions for the surprise maneuver
: bonus. Since then, such description modifiers have become essential to
: the game. Description can change both your chances and the result in a
: diced game.
As I answered the same question already, and to an extent, I agree with
you John, but that was not my point. Yes, description will alter your
chances of success in a diced game. You may actually recieve a diced
modifier. Description can change the outcome of your action, but it is
entirely limited to what the diced rule system allows as possible
outcomes, and these are always very limited. To get a greater variety of
possible results, you increase the mechanical overhead by leaps and
bounds. I like Champions, but even then, you can't really differentiate
one martial art from another in play really, and the game slows down to a
crawl during combat.
I think both of these are poor substitutes for the diceless forms, in
which you do what you describe, and the results are specific to your
description and environment. Completely. No limts on your action or its
consequences.
: >In a diceless game, such description is the heart of the action, and
: >every difference in description translates into a difference in result.
: Well, this is a debatable advantage. In the diceless games I
: have been in, I've noticed a tendency to reward style and volume as well
: as content. That is, the same maneuver (say, a punch in the jaw) may be
: more successful if the player describes it in more flowery terms.
I certainly reward this extra description in my games. I also try to help
those who are not so good at combat descriptions yet. And I talk to the
players to make sure that I'm hearing what they meant. It's all part of
the package.
: The flowcharts are rather neat - but I don't see how it applies
: to diced vs. diceless. _Theatrix_ flowcharts only distinguish 3 levels
: of result for a given action.
30 levels actually (6 basic possibilities for each action, 3 levels of
skill to consider, and 3 possible factors for success or failure). And
each of those 30 template responses are modified by the situation at hand,
for an infinite variety of responses, inspired by the flowcharts, or your
imagination.
: >I would rather that the surprise and creativity were not generated by an
: >unimaginative plastic polyhedron. Don't you think that given the
: >opportunity, the players themselves could be more creative than that.
: Dice are not a _substitute_ for this sort of creative activity -
: a player does not roll dice to come up with ideas. You can have all of
: the surprises which are generated by player creativity, _and_ the
: surprises which come from dice, drama decks, or whatever.
Or from improvisational rules, etc. I agree. But player and Gm creativity
are the most important, and the lack of dice is in no way a detriment to
creativity in a game,. As you rightly point out, they are one way among
many. Theatrix doesn't use dice for other reasons, and does not lack in
surprise and creativity for it.
David Berkmna
Backstage Press
Jeff Kesselman
(Jeff Stehman) wrote:
> ez05...@rocky.ucdavis.edu (Sean Nittner) writes:
>
> >David Berkman wrote (in this very strand) implied that diceless
> >roleplaing is feasible (I would realy love to see Theatrix).
>
> Speaking of David, some time back I offered him a challenge and he
> took me up on it. I gave him a description of one of my characters
> and a recent adventure of his (using dice :-) and he was to give me
> a plot for the adventure. The issue on the table was whether or not
> tightly plotted adventures are a Good Thing (tm) or a Bad Thing (tm).
> We exchanged some email and just when it seemed I was about to get
> an example plot... silence.
>
> Hmmm.. I find this suspicious. Not having seen Theatrix in the
> stores, I'm starting to wonder. Does it really exist? Is David
> really just another personality hidden in the gestalt that is Andrew
> Finch? Is this more interesting the copyright info being repeated
> for the nth time?
>
I've seen it. I've played it. It exists, as does David.
JK
Jeff
: Jeff (gaun...@bga.com) wrote:
: : You're making quite a few assumptions here. In a freeform game using
: : dice, the GM can still influence results by applying modifiers to the die
: : rolls, or come up with a way of rolling for results of 'combat
: : irrelevent' actions. That way, the GM is *influencing* the result without
: : *dictating* it.
: I've never seen such a method for rolling for combat irrelevant actions,
: and I don't think I ever will.
Wow, you're pretty out of touch for someone who claims to 'know' where
the future of gaming lies. Hero, GURPS, CoC, etc. all have skill systems
that include non-combat skills such as sciences, interpersonal skills,
and so on.
: : I agree, there *are* games out there which are so poorly designed (DnD)
: : that my suggestion won't work. There are other games where it will. I
: : guess what you're missing is that rules do not have to be designed to be
: : purely mechanistic, even though some of them have been.
: No, games don't have to be this way. But they *must* be wherever a die
: roll is involved. You have automatically limited yourself to picking an
: action based on a probability, and must therefore have actions defined to
: select from, those definitions will have to be usable by a person running
: a game, and must therefore be drastic simplifications, or slow the game to
: a crawl, and the cycle is started.
You keep talking about how 'limited' the possible outcomes of an action
are in a game using dice... as if 'you hit, you miss, you hurt him, you
don't hurt him' somehow failed to cover most of the bases in combat.
Exactly how much farther do you go in 'diceless' combat, most of the
time? Sure, if there's no set of rules to constrain you, you can say
'your sword thrust misses and tears open a hole in the fabric of reality
causing 15 pink donuts to appear'. But who cares?
: : No offense, but all you've done is switched players from making decisions
: : based on the game rules' odd quirks to making decisions based on their
: : GMs odd quirks.
: Theatrix makes decisions based on everyone's odd quirks.
Oh boy. Now that sounds attractive ;)
: : As a GM, I think 'GM whim' is an excellent choice of
: : words. If I'm running a game and one of my players does something
: : bone-headed, I do *not* want the decision to kill him entirely up to my
: : whim. I am a weak sentimental person, and I do not want that
: : responsibility sitting squarely on my shoulders.
: If you don't have the heart to kill the character, and don't feel good
: about that decision, how can you feel right about randomizing it?
Ah! The crux of the matter. I can feel right about randomizing it because
my players and I all know the rules, and have agreed to abide by them.
And so, it's nothing *personal* if they choose a course of action that
gets them in trouble. *They* decide to take the risk, and *they* accept
impartiality of the outcome. If I'm just making shit up off the top of my
head, my players will *never* know all the 'rules', because the rules
consist of the entirety of my knowledge and experience. I can't feel
justified in killing off a player just because, for example, we have
different ideas of how dangerous it is to jump down onto a field of
pointy rocks from a height of 2 stories. If there are rules, then the
player knows, in advance, the kind of risk they're taking.
: Just because you've given the player a 50% chance of living doesn't
: make that death right.
It's not *me* that's decided their chance of survival. It's the rules
we've mutually agreed upon.
: Who picked the situation?
Who do you think? I present the players with a situation, and they
respond to it. Where they wind up is a result of that interaction. Gee,
almost as if we were being creative or something, which according to you
we're not supposed to be able to do if there's dice on the table.
: Who placed those monsters right there?
I did, of course. What is your point? That I'm already involved somewhere
in the process? Of course I am. That I must take full responsibility
anyway for the consequences of my players' decisions? Of course not.
Sure, I *could* stack the situation against them, and then you'd be
right. I could do that in a diceless game too, so what's the difference?
: GMs who use the fairness of the dice as an excuse to run roughshod
: over the characters and the story are not my favorite kind.
Again, it's the not 'the fairness of the dice' that makes the difference.
It's 'the fairness of a set of rules that everyone has agreed to abide by'.
: I've never seen dice weed out poor Gms, poor players, or poor decsions.
: Killer GMs are killer despite the dice. Gms who love their favorite NPC
: over their players, are that way despite the dice.
Or despite the *lack* of dice. I never said using dice made better GMs.
: Dice can do nothing to help game fairness, and were never meant to.
That is a silly thing to say. Dice are randomizers, nothing more. The
simple *presence* of dice in a game has nothing to do with fairness. It
has to do with randomization; unpredictability. It is the *way* dice are
used that determines whether the game is fair or not. If I bet you $20 on
a the outcome of a dice-off, and then stipulate that I get to roll 2 dice
while you only get to roll 1, is that 'fair'? Well, if you agree to it,
it *is*. If you bet me $20 on whether you're going to let me win or not,
is *that* fair? Well, yeah, if I'm stupid enough to agree to it, it is.
: We've run con games all over the country
I'll bet you have ;)
: and of the several complaints we've heard, no one has ever mentioned
: fairness as a problem.
I'm not suprised. There you are at a convention, trying to get people to
buy your game. Do you want to a) really challenge them, and maybe scare
them away? or b) jerk them off?
: That's 900 hundred players
Uh, that'd be nine hundred thousand players. You need to learn some basic
math before you can hope to understand probability.
: Yes, sometimes mechanics feel right, but it depends on the kind of
: game you want.
That's all that anyone has been trying to tell you! *Nobody* in this
thread has tried to tell you you are 'wrong' to make or play a game that
doesn't use dice. They have only tried to defend dice-based games against
your unfair criticisms.
: Do I think diceless play wil totally anihilate all diced games?
Thank you. You *did* imply exactly that in your original post.
: Have you read the game yet? Have you played it? If you don't think it's
: unique, then you're in a minority.
My apologies. I should have been clearer. Amber was unique in that it was
diceless. Your game is therefor not unique in that regard.
: : I have a few words about how diceless games fail to provide dramatic
: : challenges, and are little more than mutual masturbation sessions. But
: : that is my *opinion*.
: Now that's rude. But mutual masturbation with the right person can be a
: lot of fun.
Hey, 900,000 smiling faces can't be wrong.
: I believe that diceless games don't have these limitations that I
: insist on seeing.
Well, there's your problem. Instead of 'insisting on seeing limitations'
to games that use dice, why not just chill out? This whole thing began
with *your* attempt to argue that games that still use dice are outmoded
('based on myths that are fading fast', I think you said). Now that
you've admitted that dice-based games serve a purpose, at least when that
is the purpose a gamer wants served, I'm content to let the whole thing
drop.
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Jeff
Jeff (gaun...@bga.com) wrote:
: Andrew Finch (bcks...@crl.com) wrote:
: : Do I think diceless play wil totally anihilate all diced games?
: : Of course not.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sorry about that.
Jeff Stehman
>Plus, the whole
>basis of the game shifts from an adversarial posture, held in balance by
>the rules, to a cooperative effort towards good dramatic ends (which may
>themselves be tragic, but fulfillingly so). No one even bothers playing
>such a game unless they all want to be together, enjoy each others
>company, and have fun.
Implying you can't be together, enjoy each others company, and have fun
when there is an adversarial posture? Back in the days when I gmed
regularly, one of the reasons players loved my games was because there
was an adversarial relationship between us (well, a faked one). It made
their successes all the more sweet.
Be that as it may, though, David, I think you just unsold me on Theatrix.
I was considering buying it for some of the ideas, but if it is primarily
geared towards a cooperative effort towards good dramatic ends, I'm
losing interest. As a player, I am primarily interested in getting into
my character, thinking his thoughts, and interacting with others in that
persona. The story itself isn't that important to me. More often than
not it falls out on its own. The most enjoyable sessions I've roleplayed
usually involved little more than characters traveling and/or resting in
a inn, or attending some social function. The plot was incidental
backdrop to character interaction. Indeed, new plots often developed out
of these sessions, leaving the old one forgotten.
Andrew Finch
: : I've never seen such a method for rolling for combat irrelevant actions,
: : and I don't think I ever will.
: Wow, you're pretty out of touch for someone who claims to 'know' where
: the future of gaming lies. Hero, GURPS, CoC, etc. all have skill systems
: that include non-combat skills such as sciences, interpersonal skills,
: and so on.
Yes, they do. But that's not what we were talking about. Let me give an
example. I want to grab the gun arm of an opponent in fron of me, control
the weapon, shooting another guy coming at me, while using the body of
the guy I'm controling as a shield against a third gunman, then use the
gun I've just acquired to take down the last guy. MOst game systems are
incapable of simulating this action. Yes, I know that Hero is barely
capable of this (I'm not sure if you can use a grab and control, and a
grab and block in the same round), and probably GURPS too, but the
mechanical overhead to allow this is very high. The game crawls while
combat is enacted. Diceless systems handle this kind of action fluidly,
and easily.
: You keep talking about how 'limited' the possible outcomes of an action
: are in a game using dice... as if 'you hit, you miss, you hurt him, you
: don't hurt him' somehow failed to cover most of the bases in combat.
Yes, it fails to cover most of the bases.
: Exactly how much farther do you go in 'diceless' combat, most of the
: time?
Very much farther.
: Ah! The crux of the matter. I can feel right about randomizing it because
: my players and I all know the rules, and have agreed to abide by them.
: And so, it's nothing *personal* if they choose a course of action that
: gets them in trouble. *They* decide to take the risk, and *they* accept
: impartiality of the outcome.
Yeah, and when you pick up the amulet and 3000 Bugbears leap out at you
from interdimensional portals, it was your choice, and only the die rolls
will kill you.
Now, I know you don't GM like that. What I'm saying is that the only
reason the game is fair, is because you don't GM like that. The dice
rules offer no basis for protection.
: : Who picked the situation?
: Sure, I *could* stack the situation against them, and then you'd be
: right. I could do that in a diceless game too, so what's the difference?
That is exactly my point. There is no difference. Diced or diceless, it's
only the GMs sense of fairness, and his care for the players and the game
that make the difference. Dice don't grant you that protection., and the
lack of them does not impede the fairness of the game.
: Dice are randomizers, nothing more. The
: simple *presence* of dice in a game has nothing to do with fairness.
Thank you. That was my only point in the matter. Dice have nothing to do
with fairness, and their lack will not be missed in that regard.
: I'm not suprised. There you are at a convention, trying to get people to
: buy your game. Do you want to a) really challenge them, and maybe scare
: them away? or b) jerk them off?
Why don't you talk to a few and find out. Ray Trent has been lurking
around here, and I ran for him at a con. I think he even has a copy of
the game. Why don't you e-mail him.
: : That's 900 hundred players
: Uh, that'd be nine hundred thousand players. You need to learn some basic
: math before you can hope to understand probability.
You need to learn some basic manners, and some math Mr. Wizard. We've run
about 150 games, at about 6 people a game, which makes about 900 players.
Or maybe you've been using the new math.
: doesn't use dice. They have only tried to defend dice-based games against
: your unfair criticisms.
I don't believe the criticisms are unfair.
: My apologies. I should have been clearer. Amber was unique in that it was
: diceless. Your game is therefor not unique in that regard.
I never said it was. We owe a debt to Amber, and I like the game.
Theatrix is unique in other ways, including how it handles diceless play.
: Well, there's your problem. Instead of 'insisting on seeing limitations'
: to games that use dice, why not just chill out? This whole thing began
: with *your* attempt to argue that games that still use dice are outmoded
: ('based on myths that are fading fast', I think you said).
I never said outmoded, but I did say something close to the second, and I
stand by it. However, you only have to look at the market at this point
to see the changes. Newer diced games are even taking a different
approach to the role of dice, which I think is healthy.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: >Name me a diced system that resolves a spinning kick any differently
: >than a regular kick.
: Well, _GURP Martial Arts_ treats a Spin Kick like a simultaneous
: feint and attack - roll a QC of your skill against your opponent's,
: reducing or increasing his parry by your level of success/failure.
Yes, GURPS treats all acrobatic maneuvers in this way, but that is not
quite what I was looking for. That's just another bit of mechanical
overhead that does not really differentiate a spinning kick from a normal
kick. GURPS would in that case treat a jumping spinning kick from Tae
Kwon Do, just like a handstand kick from Capoera (sp?).
GURPS and Hero do a good job on combet. The best around I think. But only
at a high cost in game time. And even then, they fall far short of the
breadth allowed by diceless play.
: Well, that depends on the systems and the GM. The most common
: advantage to diceless resolution is that it allows one to fluidly
: resolve complex actions - which in a diced system can get tricky
: (i.e. "What skills do you roll against for *that*?").
: OTOH, the advantage I see to diced resolution is that it is
: more consistant and predictable. No - really.
Which can also be a disadvantage in itself. I have seen several people
mention that dice provide that needed unpredictability, which I don't
believe is true. I think you're right, and dice enforce a kind of
predictability on the game, which is constraining in its own way.
: In a diceless game, _everything_ tends to vary with how the
: plot is going. Again, this can be viewed as an advantage, disadvantage,
: or both - depending on your mindset.
Yes.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: Implying you can't be together, enjoy each others company, and have fun
: when there is an adversarial posture?
Yes, you can, but for me, not as much, no. I used to run that way, and
play that way, and I don't particularly like it anymore. I certainly feel
better about my gaming since stopping that. This may be very particular
to myself, but I think there are probably others out there who feel the
same way.
: Be that as it may, though, David, I think you just unsold me on Theatrix.
That would be too bad.
: I was considering buying it for some of the ideas, but if it is primarily
: geared towards a cooperative effort towards good dramatic ends, I'm
: losing interest.
Why, is that bad?
: As a player, I am primarily interested in getting into
: my character, thinking his thoughts, and interacting with others in that
: persona.
One does not exclude the other. There are several diced mechanical game
systems on the market that make allowances for good characterization, even
though they concentrate on particular mechanics. Theatrix provides several
powerful methods for ensuring and promoting characterization, and I think
it's the systems second strongest feature.
However, don't take my opinion on it. Take a look at the game, or ask
somone who has it. There are a few people lurking around here who have
copies. If you want, I'll send you Reimer Behrends review, and you can
have his opinions, both pro and con.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Chris Meadows
choice. Sometimes dice are even used as a blind, with GMs being told to
"make a few random dice rolls and mutter ominously" but then go aheand
and do whatever they pleased.
I'm not sure what the point I'm trying to make here is. Maybe it's that
whether you have dice or don't have dice, a lot of the factors I've seen
discussed here (such as "personal Midways") depend a lot more on the
style of the GM than on the mechanics of the game.
--
Chris Meadows | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co.,
CHM...@NIC.SMSU.EDU | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy)
CMEA...@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | Check out the Superguy WorldWideWeb site:
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Jeff
Andrew Finch (bcks...@crl.com) wrote:
: Jeff (gaun...@bga.com) wrote:
: : : I've never seen such a method for rolling for combat irrelevant actions,
: : : and I don't think I ever will.
: : Wow, you're pretty out of touch for someone who claims to 'know' where
: : the future of gaming lies. Hero, GURPS, CoC, etc. all have skill systems
: : that include non-combat skills such as sciences, interpersonal skills,
: : and so on.
: Yes, they do. But that's not what we were talking about. Let me give an
: example. I want to grab the gun arm of an opponent in fron of me, control
: the weapon, shooting another guy coming at me, while using the body of
: the guy I'm controling as a shield against a third gunman, then use the
: gun I've just acquired to take down the last guy.
Is this an example of a 'combat irrelevant' action, in your book? *That*
is what we were talking about. Please stick to the subject.
: : You keep talking about how 'limited' the possible outcomes of an action
: : are in a game using dice... as if 'you hit, you miss, you hurt him, you
: : don't hurt him' somehow failed to cover most of the bases in combat.
: Yes, it fails to cover most of the bases.
So you're saying that all the things that could happen when one character
attacks another, something *other* than the 4 outcomes I listed should
happen more than half of the time. Would you care to explain that claim?
: : Exactly how much farther do you go in 'diceless' combat, most of the
: : time?
: Very much farther.
I asked *exactly* how far. You sure like making wild claims without
supplying any argument to support them, don't you. Tell me, how far would
it get a player in your game if the GM asks him, 'exactly how are you
going to attack that guy?', and the player replies, 'really well'?
: : Sure, I *could* stack the situation against them, and then you'd be
: : right. I could do that in a diceless game too, so what's the difference?
: That is exactly my point. There is no difference. Diced or diceless, it's
: only the GMs sense of fairness, and his care for the players and the game
: that make the difference. Dice don't grant you that protection., and the
: lack of them does not impede the fairness of the game.
You're missing my point. I'll try it again. Fairness derives from the
agreement between the players and the GM to abide by the game mechanics.
If the game mechanics happen to be, 'the GM makes it all up', that's
'fair' if everybody agrees to it. But I won't agree to it, because I
don't see any way for a player to clearly understand what the rules are
that he's agreeing to if they're all locked up inside the GM's head. It's
not that it's 'unfair', it's that agreeing to something you cannot
comprehend is generally considered to be a mistake by anyone with half a
brain cell.
: : : That's 900 hundred players
: : Uh, that'd be nine hundred thousand players. You need to learn some basic
: : math before you can hope to understand probability.
: You need to learn some basic manners, and some math Mr. Wizard. We've run
: about 150 games, at about 6 people a game, which makes about 900 players.
: Or maybe you've been using the new math.
I can't believe you're denying that you made a mistake! '900 hundred'
reads as 'nine hundred hundred' (and I was wrong too - it
actually translates to 90,000, not 900,000). Sure, I took a cheap shot
at what was essentially an innocent typo. But the fact that you're
defending it seems to indicate that I was right anyway.
: I don't believe the criticisms are unfair.
: : Well, there's your problem. Instead of 'insisting on seeing limitations'
: : to games that use dice, why not just chill out? This whole thing began
: : with *your* attempt to argue that games that still use dice are outmoded
: : ('based on myths that are fading fast', I think you said).
: I never said outmoded, but I did say something close to the second, and I
: stand by it. However, you only have to look at the market at this point
: to see the changes. Newer diced games are even taking a different
: approach to the role of dice, which I think is healthy.
I'm looking at the market, and I don't see it. There are lots of
different games, taking a lot of different approaches. Why don't you give
us some sales figures on your game? That might add some weight to your
argument, if it was selling extraordinarily well. Is it? Or do you just
like to talk big and hope everyone will go along with it?
Douglas L. Vandenburgh
: Yes, they do. But that's not what we were talking about. Let me give an
: example. I want to grab the gun arm of an opponent in fron of me, control
: the weapon, shooting another guy coming at me, while using the body of
: the guy I'm controling as a shield against a third gunman, then use the
: gun I've just acquired to take down the last guy. MOst game systems are
: incapable of simulating this action. Yes, I know that Hero is barely
: capable of this (I'm not sure if you can use a grab and control, and a
: grab and block in the same round), and probably GURPS too, but the
: mechanical overhead to allow this is very high. The game crawls while
: combat is enacted. Diceless systems handle this kind of action fluidly,
: and easily.
Isn't this just encouraging absurd manuevers such as the above? By making
the amusement of the GM the primary decision on whether something works,
aren't you likely to see the players going for the 'out there' moves?
It's like that talk about the flying spin kick with the saber followup
earlier. It's more likely to work because it's florid and descriptive,
rather than from a likelihood such a move would actually work.
- Doug
Douglas L. Vandenburgh
: Yes, GURPS treats all acrobatic maneuvers in this way, but that is not
: quite what I was looking for. That's just another bit of mechanical
: overhead that does not really differentiate a spinning kick from a normal
: kick. GURPS would in that case treat a jumping spinning kick from Tae
: Kwon Do, just like a handstand kick from Capoera (sp?).
Would you get all that much better resolution from diceless? I think not,
unless the GM happens to know quite a bit about martial arts.
= Doug
Andrew Finch
: I'm not sure what the point I'm trying to make here is. Maybe it's that
: whether you have dice or don't have dice, a lot of the factors I've seen
: discussed here (such as "personal Midways") depend a lot more on the
: style of the GM than on the mechanics of the game.
I agree. And I think that games aught to teach more about story
construction and plotting (you knew this would come in somewhere), and
worry less about mechanics. That's why we concentarte on daramtic
simulation, the necissities of plot, the interpretation of events in the
light of story and genre, and basic plot construction. That's why these
things are central concepts to the action resolution mechanism we chose.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
Well, you don't need to know that much about martial arts to get it
right. And what you do need to know, we include in our forthcoming
supplement, 'Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain', which is being developed
even as we speak.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: : Yes, they do. But that's not what we were talking about. Let me give an
: : example. I want to grab the gun arm of an opponent in fron of me, control
: : the weapon, shooting another guy coming at me, while using the body of
: : the guy I'm controling as a shield against a third gunman, then use the
: : gun I've just acquired to take down the last guy.
: Is this an example of a 'combat irrelevant' action, in your book? *That*
: is what we were talking about. Please stick to the subject.
The parts of the above example, which most games would treat as
irrelevant, and which those that do demand a high overhead to include, is
included in our book, yes. We talk a lot about including all the details
of an action.
: : : You keep talking about how 'limited' the possible outcomes of an action
: : : are in a game using dice... as if 'you hit, you miss, you hurt him, you
: : : don't hurt him' somehow failed to cover most of the bases in combat.
: : Yes, it fails to cover most of the bases.
: So you're saying that all the things that could happen when one character
: attacks another, something *other* than the 4 outcomes I listed should
: happen more than half of the time. Would you care to explain that claim?
Yes. Watch a good fight scene sometime. Where the combatants are, how
they end up, where movement forces them, how actions are taken in time,
and the particular sequence of events, all have relevance and meaning,
well beyond the simple distinction of hit or miss. Systems like Hero at
least allow true leg sweeps, particular grab effects, move by maneuvers,
swept maneuvers, etc. All these have relevance, and are simply not
allowed in most systems. And they have meaning beyond simply the 4
possibilities you mentioned. And Hero allows these only at the cost of
great complexity and slowness. And Hero doesn't allow, nor does it take
into account, everything. You are still under the restriction of a phase
chart, of no movement after an attack, etc. These are attempts at
simulation, and the closer they get to realism, the more difficult it is.
Diceless games allow everything that these complex systems do, plus more,
all with swift fluid ease. Anything you can think of doing, you can try,
and the result will be intimately connected to the precise way in which
you describe your maneuver, how you describe it happening, where and how
it occurs in time, exactly where you are and where you move, how you use
the stage, and how the stage uses you, etc.
: I asked *exactly* how far. You sure like making wild claims without
: supplying any argument to support them, don't you.
Unfortunately, I can't answer the question without bringing you into the
situation. *Exactly* how far? We use every detail we can. *Exactly* what
does that mean in actual play? Try it. These claims are not wild, and
anybody who has tried Amber, or Theatrix, or some other diceless method
for a while, will probably have some notion of what I'm talking about.
: Tell me, how far would
: it get a player in your game if the GM asks him, 'exactly how are you
: going to attack that guy?', and the player replies, 'really well'?
I would ask him to describe to me what he's going to do. If that didn't
make it clear pretty quickly, I would stand him up, put some people into
position, and tell him to show me what he's going to do (obviously slwoly
and carefully). One of these methods has always worked in the past for me.
: You're missing my point. I'll try it again. Fairness derives from the
: agreement between the players and the GM to abide by the game mechanics.
I thin it derives from a basic trust in the GMs ability to be fair, and
everyone's commitment to having a good game.
: If the game mechanics happen to be, 'the GM makes it all up', that's
: 'fair' if everybody agrees to it. But I won't agree to it, because I
: don't see any way for a player to clearly understand what the rules are
: that he's agreeing to if they're all locked up inside the GM's head.
That seems to be a limitation on your part, but one I think that doesn't
really exist. At least, we haven't ever had someone in a game we've run
who couldn't deal with 'we'll decide together', or 'O.K., how does this
sound?', method of working. We provide a lot of support for this. Dice
mechanics are not the only form of mechanics to support action resoltuion
with. Nor are they the only way to reach a safe concensus. In fact, most
of this occurs in even diced games, without the use of dice or the rules
for them. For the parts that need dice in diced games, we provide other
methods.
: It's
: not that it's 'unfair', it's that agreeing to something you cannot
: comprehend is generally considered to be a mistake by anyone with half a
: brain cell.
Yes. If you can't comprehend it, you shouldn't agree. But I think you're
having trouble comprehending only beacuse we are at the theoretical
level, and you have nothing to associate to actual experience. No path
back to your reality. I suggest you try it. Maybe you'll like it. Maybe
you won't. But you will have the experience with which to see the
possibilities.
: I can't believe you're denying that you made a mistake! '900 hundred'
: reads as 'nine hundred hundred' (and I was wrong too - it
: actually translates to 90,000, not 900,000). Sure, I took a cheap shot
: at what was essentially an innocent typo. But the fact that you're
: defending it seems to indicate that I was right anyway.
You didn't even reprint the typo, and I can't look back at the post we
are talking about right now, so I'm lost here. But if you think you've
won something, O.K.. If it was a typo, then it was a typo. I'll
forgive yours if you can do the same for me.
: I'm looking at the market, and I don't see it. There are lots of
: different games, taking a lot of different approaches. Why don't you give
: us some sales figures on your game? That might add some weight to your
: argument, if it was selling extraordinarily well. Is it? Or do you just
: like to talk big and hope everyone will go along with it?
No, I wouldn't say it's selling extraordinarily well. Then again, it has
yet to be on most store shelves, it has been out for a whole month and a
half right now, the reviews won't be out till March, and distributors are
pretty bad about translating store orders into product requests from
small game manufacturers. Do I think it will sell well? I hope so.
However, even if it doesn't, that has no bearing on the argument I'm
making. The fact that we produced it, the fact that Amber came out, that
we have the Storyteller system, that the roleplay orientation is becoming
such a buzz word, etc., tends to support that argument. Hey, I may be way
off base. I may be wrong. In that case, we'll lose money. We'll see after
the reviews are out (the Dragon review will be in the March edition).
David Berkman
Backsatge Press
Andrew Finch
[Snip]
: : grab and block in the same round), and probably GURPS too, but the
: : mechanical overhead to allow this is very high. The game crawls while
: : combat is enacted. Diceless systems handle this kind of action fluidly,
: : and easily.
: Isn't this just encouraging absurd manuevers such as the above? By making
: the amusement of the GM the primary decision on whether something works,
: aren't you likely to see the players going for the 'out there' moves?
: It's like that talk about the flying spin kick with the saber followup
: earlier. It's more likely to work because it's florid and descriptive,
: rather than from a likelihood such a move would actually work.
Possibly. Certainly I would be harder on such things in a grittier genre.
However, such examples are useful in the absence of an actual run. They
are 'out there', but they make the point. The point is just as valid in
more 'realistic' games however. The differences may be more subtle, but
there are many, many of them. In every action, in every description, there
are things which are dropped because they are not relevant to the diced
system, or are unfairly turned into a simple dice modifier for result. To
get the full effect of what I'm talking about, you have to enter into a
diceless game and try it. However, there is a simple Gedanken (sp?)
experiment which may help you to see this (or not). Try coming up with a
plausible and interesting situation. See what the possible outcomes are
in your favorite diced game, and what those resolutions would mean for
the next subsequent action. Do the same in your head, but in an open way.
See what possibilities are available without restricting yourself to any
game system, and what those resolutions might mean for any subsequent
action. Can you see any differences?
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Jeff Stehman
>I'll try to pick it up again next week, as a public
>post is a pretty good kick in the rear.
Had to do something. It was getting boring in here.
>PS - Your character and woreld are certainly interesting enough, and I
>hope to live up to them. If you'll be at DundraCon, so will we. We're
>running 4 games there, so feel free to drop by (does that make us more real).
Not for me. Gave up on cons years ago. One of these days I suspect I'll
see it in a store, though.
Quynne
Not necessarily. If I was the GM and the setting was a high-action cinematic
sort of thing AND the character was a fighting combat jock, I would allow it.
If the setting was not highly conducive to the maneuver or the character
incapable of it (a grey-haired professor type, say) then it seems pretty obvious
to not let the maneuver work.
Jeff
rie...@uiuc.edu
Hans M Dykstra
Ray Trent <r...@clement.erg.sri.com> wrote:
>In article <3gblq1$n...@crl11.crl.com>, Andrew Finch <bcks...@crl.com> wrote:
>>If you don't have the heart to kill the character, and don't feel good
>>about that decision, how can you feel right about randomizing it? Just
Well, maybe I don't have the heart to do it intentionally, but deep down
I know it is (one of) the logical outcomes of his attempt?
>A "system" that uses dice to resolve actions is a tool, nothing more,
>nothing less. I think using such a system is likely to get in the way
>more often than not.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
There _are_ lots of GM's for diced games who can't muster the imagination
to resolve things in anything but a purely mechanical fashion. That is
not the fault of the dice tool, but rather the that they haven't
developed any other tools to use. Playing diceless might prompt them to
extend their repertoire, but for me I'll always go back to dice.
To go with the "reverse spin kick" question, so what if the system doesn't
represent that as anything different from a punch? The system, then, is
only telling you whether the kick connected, and if so with how much force.
Things that "common sense" just won't touch.
Any effects beyond that have to be put in by the GM. Just like in diceless
play. If many GM's can't see beyond what the dice tell them, that is not
a problem with the dice, but with how they are used. And if the GM can't
make a reverse spin kick sound different from a punch because he is too
busy rolling dice, I'm not sure that playing diceless would really help
him anyway. He'd end up being too busy trying to decide whether to let
the kick hit or not.
***
hmd
Jeff
: : 'fair' if everybody agrees to it. But I won't agree to it, because I
: : don't see any way for a player to clearly understand what the rules are
: : that he's agreeing to if they're all locked up inside the GM's head.
: That seems to be a limitation on your part, but one I think that doesn't
: really exist.
you, psychic?
: At least, we haven't ever had someone in a game we've run
: who couldn't deal with 'we'll decide together', or 'O.K., how does this
: sound?', method of working.
impossible to believe that this could be true if *you* were involved.
You don't seem capable of deciding anything jointly with anyone else,
except perhaps by intimidation. You admitted that you still occasionally
play games that use dice. You retracted your apparent claim that all
games that use dice will soon be obsolete. I thought weŐd reached an
agreement on the essential issues, and I offered to let the rest of it
drop. You aren't dropping it. Is this how you behave as a player or a GM
in your own game? Do you argue with the GM until he lets you have your
own way, even if you've admitted that he's right to deny you? Do you
refuse to allow your players to do what they want, even after you've
agreed that they are justified? Now I see why you dislike dice so much.
You can't pester them until they give in.
: If you can't comprehend it, you shouldn't agree. But I think you're
: having trouble comprehending only beacuse we are at the theoretical
: level, and you have nothing to associate to actual experience. No path
: back to your reality. I suggest you try it. Maybe you'll like it. Maybe
: you won't. But you will have the experience with which to see the
: possibilities.
game? I played Amber, and I despised it. The things I despised about it are
things that are going to be common to all diceless games. I played in a
diceless game among the TSR creative staff when I worked there back in
1979. Is this "you obviously don't know as much about it as I do"
argument something you use a lot when playing your own game?
: : I can't believe you're denying that you made a mistake! '900 hundred'
: : reads as 'nine hundred hundred' (and I was wrong too - it
: : actually translates to 90,000, not 900,000). Sure, I took a cheap shot
: : at what was essentially an innocent typo. But the fact that you're
: : defending it seems to indicate that I was right anyway.
: You didn't even reprint the typo, and I can't look back at the post we
: are talking about right now, so I'm lost here. But if you think you've
: won something, O.K.. If it was a typo, then it was a typo. I'll
: forgive yours if you can do the same for me.
well. My quote of it is still there, 2 paragraphs up. *You* deleted the
original comment. Sure, I forgive the typo. Lying so that maybe no one
will notice that I caught you in a goofy little typo, though... That's
pathetic.
: : Why don't you give
: : us some sales figures on your game? That might add some weight to your
: : argument, if it was selling extraordinarily well. Is it? Or do you just
: : like to talk big and hope everyone will go along with it?
: No, I wouldn't say it's selling extraordinarily well.
: Then again, it has
: yet to be on most store shelves, it has been out for a whole month and a
: half right now, the reviews won't be out till March, and distributors are
: pretty bad about translating store orders into product requests from
: small game manufacturers.
: Do I think it will sell well? I hope so.
: making. The fact that we produced it, the fact that Amber came out, that
: we have the Storyteller system, that the roleplay orientation is becoming
: such a buzz word, etc., tends to support that argument.
I'm sure the folks who manufactured 8-track tapes thought they were
changing the face of their industry, too. The fact that there is another
diceless system does nothing to support your argument, any more than the
next guy to do a game where playing cards are used in place of dice will
be justified in saying that playing cards are the wave of the future
just because R. Talsorian also did Castle Falkenstein. Storyteller uses
dice, bonehead. And buzz words... oh yeah, now there's a convincing
argument. You're right 'cuz of buzz words. Uh-huh.
: Hey, I may be way
: off base. I may be wrong. In that case, we'll lose money. We'll see after
: the reviews are out (the Dragon review will be in the March edition).
Tell you what. If the Dragon Magazine review comes out and says, "By
gosh, now we realize that role-playing games really shouldn't use dice,
everybody ought to stop using them, including us", I will eat my own
underwear and send you a photo.
-Jeff Dee
gaun...@bga.com
Quynne
>: Andrew Finch (bcks...@crl.com) wrote:
>: : Jeff (gaun...@bga.com) wrote:
>
>: : If the game mechanics happen to be, 'the GM makes it all up', that's
>: : 'fair' if everybody agrees to it. But I won't agree to it, because I
>: : don't see any way for a player to clearly understand what the rules are
>: : that he's agreeing to if they're all locked up inside the GM's head.
>
>: That seems to be a limitation on your part, but one I think that doesn't
>: really exist.
>
>Huh? You don't agree that people can't read each others' minds? What are
>you, psychic?
Well, if I was to GM one of these diceless things I wouldn't "lock up"
all the mechanics. I would be very straightforward to my players and say
something like:
"OK, if you are going to join this campaign you must keep a few things
in mind. Whether your character succeeds or fails at something depends on
three things. First, whether your attempted action seems possible or likely
to work given the character write-up you give me. Second, how clever and
interesting the description of you action is. Third, how success and failure
of your attempted action affect the larger plot lines at work.
"Thus you actions will general succeed where dramatic logic dictates
success and genrally fail where dramatic logic dictates failure. If at anytime
you disagree, you may offer an alternative outcome, but I still may reject it
for reason that deal with parts of the plot unknown to you."
If I tell my players something like that, psychic powers are hardly necessary.
>After having interacted with you for several days now, I find it
>impossible to believe that this could be true if *you* were involved.
>You don't seem capable of deciding anything jointly with anyone else,
>except perhaps by intimidation. You admitted that you still occasionally
>play games that use dice. You retracted your apparent claim that all
>games that use dice will soon be obsolete. I thought weUd reached an
>agreement on the essential issues, and I offered to let the rest of it
>drop. You aren't dropping it. Is this how you behave as a player or a GM
>in your own game? Do you argue with the GM until he lets you have your
>own way, even if you've admitted that he's right to deny you? Do you
>refuse to allow your players to do what they want, even after you've
>agreed that they are justified? Now I see why you dislike dice so much.
>You can't pester them until they give in.
Uhhhhhh. Ummmmm. I thought I was following this thread, but you just
through me for a loop. Your characterization seems completely off-base to me.
Could you back up your apparent flame with a little evidence?
>: If you can't comprehend it, you shouldn't agree. But I think you're
>: having trouble comprehending only beacuse we are at the theoretical
>: level, and you have nothing to associate to actual experience. No path
>: back to your reality. I suggest you try it. Maybe you'll like it. Maybe
>: you won't. But you will have the experience with which to see the
>: possibilities.
>
>Where on earth did you get the idea that I had never played a diceless
>game? I played Amber, and I despised it. The things I despised about it are
>things that are going to be common to all diceless games. I played in a
>diceless game among the TSR creative staff when I worked there back in
>1979. Is this "you obviously don't know as much about it as I do"
>argument something you use a lot when playing your own game?
Mr. Dee, you seem to be losing your cool. He THOUGHT you were having trouble.
He SUGGESTED you try it. As far as I know he NEVER said "'you obviously don't
know as much about it as I do'". Unless you can show me a quote, your
characterization seems completely unfair to me.
>This is an outright lie. I did reprint the typo, *and* I quoted it as
>well. My quote of it is still there, 2 paragraphs up. *You* deleted the
>original comment. Sure, I forgive the typo. Lying so that maybe no one
>will notice that I caught you in a goofy little typo, though... That's
>pathetic.
I read you post. You reprinted a half-line of text so that no one had any
idea what the hell you were talking about. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass
about the damn typo. You're sound at least as pathetic yourself.
Instead of niggling over typos, could we return to a mature and serious
discussion about the uses of dice and diceless gaming? Please?
>: : Why don't you give
>: : us some sales figures on your game? That might add some weight to your
>: : argument, if it was selling extraordinarily well. Is it? Or do you just
>: : like to talk big and hope everyone will go along with it?
>
>: No, I wouldn't say it's selling extraordinarily well.
>
>Okay. Then you're just a loudmouth know-it-all.
And you seem to be a jerk. I play games all the time that haven't sold a copy
in years (except used). I don't see the logic that leads you to believe that
good games mechanics necessarily leads to good sales. Especially when I
believe that AD&D's mechanics are awful, yet I believe they still hold a
sizeable market share.
>: Then again, it has
>: yet to be on most store shelves, it has been out for a whole month and a
>: half right now, the reviews won't be out till March, and distributors are
>: pretty bad about translating store orders into product requests from
>: small game manufacturers.
>
>Excuses, excuses.
If I was as big a jerk as you, Mr. Dee, I might ask "And how many copies of V&V
have you earned royalties off of lately?" just so I could say "Excuses,
excuses" in my next post. Frankly, I still don't care if the game's sales
are low yet.
>: Hey, I may be way
>: off base. I may be wrong. In that case, we'll lose money. We'll see after
>: the reviews are out (the Dragon review will be in the March edition).
>
>Tell you what. If the Dragon Magazine review comes out and says, "By
>gosh, now we realize that role-playing games really shouldn't use dice,
>everybody ought to stop using them, including us", I will eat my own
>underwear and send you a photo.
I can't believe an industry veteran such as yourself is that naive. Would you
expect Steve Jackson to post and NOT say that Illuminati: New World Order
is the greatest thing since sliced bread? Whether you believe it's because
Steve Jackson needs to sell games to feed his family, or because he truly
believes in his product, you would still expect him to say it, right?
And as far as the Dragon remark goes: gain clue dude.
I could've sworn that we were having a serious, thoughtful, and friendly
discussion about the uses of diceless systems. When did we all start acting
like asses?
Jeff
rie...@uiuc.edu
Tom Grant
writes:
>Absolutely. But dicve are such a small minded and limited way to achieve
>that. Any random surprise is limited by the dice rules and mechanics. I
>don't call a special-super-critical hit much of a surprise, nor is it
>very creative. I would rather that the surprise and creativity were not
>given the opportunity, the players themselves could be more creative
than
>power, as was 'North by Northwest', and 'The Hunt for Red October'. Dice
>rules are a poor substitute for real imgaination. In fact, they stifle
>it. You have to be 'fair', and go 'by the rules', etc.
I've tried Amber, a diceless system, and while it was an interesting
change of pace, I definitely would NOT abandon dice full-time. I quite
agree with some other people on this thread that diceless systems make
the GM's manipulations very hard to disguise, and often leave you with
the feeling that there's little chance of succeeding at many things.
In contrast, in playing GURPS, for example, you may not have a great
chance of succeeding (effective skill 6 or less), but you have some
chance. Also, if you have an effective skill of 21, you can still blow it
on a 17 or 18. Not everyone who is good is perfect, and not everyone who
is inexpert is completely clueless. However, if you want to play the
odds, the skill 5 person is generally going to lose to the skill 21
person, though there will be rare occasions when sheer luck intervenes.
This pretty much simulates the real world, in which the person who just
picked up a gun has some tiny chance of killing a skilled marksman in a
duel. (You know, even crack shots can miss at times, or their guns can
malfunction...)
More importantly, I remember many wonderful RPG sessions where the twists
of fate created by the dice (or in the case of Torg, by the Drama Deck)
have created interesting situations that none of us might have imagined
on our own. No, random chance isn't a substitute for creativity, but it's
a good adjunct to it.
Andrew Finch
: >>If you don't have the heart to kill the character, and don't feel good
: >>about that decision, how can you feel right about randomizing it? Just
: Well, maybe I don't have the heart to do it intentionally, but deep down
: I know it is (one of) the logical outcomes of his attempt?
That doesn't make it right. If you don't feel good about it, then the
player probably doesn't either. So why do it? Just to make the game more
realistic? I've found that if the time is right, and the death is really
meaningful, then it becomes O.K. And then you just do it, and you don't
need the dice, which would never know that moment anyway.
: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
: There _are_ lots of GM's for diced games who can't muster the imagination
: to resolve things in anything but a purely mechanical fashion. That is
: not the fault of the dice tool, but rather the that they haven't
: developed any other tools to use. Playing diceless might prompt them to
: extend their repertoire, but for me I'll always go back to dice.
Well if you pick up a whole tool set, plus the instruction, you may very
well get farther along. It's gotta be better than just sticking with that
unimaginative hammer.
: To go with the "reverse spin kick" question, so what if the system doesn't
: represent that as anything different from a punch? The system, then, is
: only telling you whether the kick connected, and if so with how much force.
: Things that "common sense" just won't touch.
I think common sense touches them quite well, and if it doesn't we have a
whole support structure to help *you* decide. Not the dice. Not a
randomized event. Not with only a portion of the relevant description.
But you, taking into account all the detail you wish to.
: Any effects beyond that have to be put in by the GM. Just like in diceless
: play. If many GM's can't see beyond what the dice tell them, that is not
: a problem with the dice, but with how they are used.
Yes. But the diced rule systems go no further, and provide no other
support. So waht else is going to happen? And since the dice take up so
much importance, and leave no support for anything else, how much
farther will people go?
: And if the GM can't
: make a reverse spin kick sound different from a punch because he is too
: busy rolling dice, I'm not sure that playing diceless would really help
: him anyway. He'd end up being too busy trying to decide whether to let
: the kick hit or not.
Well, there's an easy way tpo find out. You try it. I think you'll find
the reality is different from your fears about the reality.
And I'm not talking about just sounding different, which is what you get
to do in diced games if you put in the constant effort. I'm talking about
the two *being* different, which is what you do all the time in diceless
play.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: After having interacted with you for several days now, I find it
: impossible to believe that this could be true if *you* were involved.
O.K.
: You don't seem capable of deciding anything jointly with anyone else,
: except perhaps by intimidation. You admitted that you still occasionally
: play games that use dice.
Was that a mistake. I can't like some diced games and still appreciate
the advantages of diceless play. I think my favorite food is Chinese, but
I still manage to eat pizza now and then.
: You retracted your apparent claim that all
: games that use dice will soon be obsolete.
I retracted an 'apparent' claim? I would say you made assumptions which I
simply admitted were not true upon being asked.
: I thought weŐd reached an
: agreement on the essential issues, and I offered to let the rest of it
: drop. You aren't dropping it.
Naughty me. I'm continuing the discussion with people who still seem
interested. As you seem to be as well.
: Is this how you behave as a player or a GM
: in your own game? Do you argue with the GM until he lets you have your
: own way, even if you've admitted that he's right to deny you? Do you
: refuse to allow your players to do what they want, even after you've
: agreed that they are justified? Now I see why you dislike dice so much.
: You can't pester them until they give in.
Dont' hold back now. There's no reason to hide behind inuendo and
hyperbole, if you have a problem with what I've been saying, just come
out with it.
: Where on earth did you get the idea that I had never played a diceless
: game? I played Amber, and I despised it. The things I despised about it are
: things that are going to be common to all diceless games. I played in a
: diceless game among the TSR creative staff when I worked there back in
: 1979. Is this "you obviously don't know as much about it as I do"
: argument something you use a lot when playing your own game?
So what didn't you like about Amber. We can start there, with some
specifics, and I'll see if we have a solution for that in our game, which
you can agree with. Maybe not. But I'm willing to listen and answer.
I admit that if you have a problem with the GM ultimately making decions
without reference to dice, then we will never agree, because that is a
basic premise in diceless games. Our product is not for you. If your
problems with diceless play are of a diferent nature, then maybe we
provide what you're looking for. I know that others have enjoyed the
concepts we represent. And I know that many people, like myself, feel
constrained by many of the limitations of diced play, which going
diceless neatly resolves.
: This is an outright lie. I did reprint the typo, *and* I quoted it as
: well. My quote of it is still there, 2 paragraphs up. *You* deleted the
: original comment. Sure, I forgive the typo. Lying so that maybe no one
: will notice that I caught you in a goofy little typo, though... That's
: pathetic.
Yeah, you caught me. That's why I did it. It wasn't an oversight because
I couldn't understand what you were getting so bunged up about. You
caught me in a little lie. Like a small thievery that leads to bigger crimes.
: Okay. Then you're just a loudmouth know-it-all.
The last resort of the intellectually challenged.
: dice, bonehead. And buzz words... oh yeah, now there's a convincing
: argument. You're right 'cuz of buzz words. Uh-huh.
Are you always like this?
: Tell you what. If the Dragon Magazine review comes out and says, "By
: gosh, now we realize that role-playing games really shouldn't use dice,
: everybody ought to stop using them, including us", I will eat my own
: underwear and send you a photo.
No, but the reviewer has told us that he thinks we went where no other
game has gone. He doesn't know if it will replace 'standard roleplaying'
as he put it, but he does like it. He's playing a campaign of it himself
now. But you can read that when the mag. comes out. Do I still get the
picture with you and the underwear?
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Thomas Hudson
Umm... Are you sure about this?
There are two ways I see to interpret what you've said:
1) martial arts is simple
I'm pretty sure this is false, since sword styles are pretty complex
from my experience, and the interactions of different styles that don't
take one another into account are very surprising; my little bit of
barehand also looks highly complex.
2) ignore the complexities
This is exactly what the diceless systems are doing. You may disagree on
the degree to which the complexities are reduced, but then again your
Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain (somebody practice Tai Chi? which style?)
would have to be pretty encyclopedic to satisfy both hard-core Capoueira
practitioners and people from Okinawan Karate styles.
Tom
// hud...@cs.unc.edu: Swordsman - Poet - Hacker
Thomas Hudson
>I would ask him to describe to me what he's going to do. If that didn't
>make it clear pretty quickly, I would stand him up, put some people into
>position, and tell him to show me what he's going to do (obviously slwoly
>and carefully). One of these methods has always worked in the past for me.
Here I think diced systems have one massive advantage: limited player
knowledge of something characters know well.
I know a very little bit about combat. Some of my players know absolutely
nothing. As a person with a sense of integrity I'm morally opposed to
letting them get away with an attack they saw in "Highlander III" (not that
any of us saw it, of course) when their opponent has any modicum of skill.
Where the character being played knows how to handle combat well (which
seems to be the topic of discussion), the player's ideas are all completely
wrong and would get them killed fast. Acting them out is a bad idea.
I don't think they (the players) should have to learn kenjitsu just to
play a samurai dealing with the 47 Ronin, for example.
When they've got the dice to fall back on, the people who don't know what
they're doing can say "I attack", and maybe I can even describe their action
and its results for them. If we're playing diceless, how do they cope?
nancy sauer
Andrew Finch (bcks...@crl.com) wrote: (Actually, it was David B.):
: And that effective part is important. In a diced game, such extra
: description is nice, but doesn't translate into differentiation in result.
: Only the game mechanic relevant parts matter.
David, I am perfectly _appalled_ to see you making statements like
that. I mean, I realize that there are a lot of bad GMs out there,
but to think that in all these years you have never had good one....
David honey, this is one of the differences between a good GM and a
bad one: One will use the information they get from you and the
mechanics to tell you not only whether you suceeded, and how; and the
other will say something like, "you rolled a 67, that's a miss."
Allow me to illustrate, using an example from the Star Trek campaign
my group ran for a few years. At one point one of my characters,
Alexiva, was pursuing another character down a hallway when the
pursued character ran into an elevator. The GM did a quick estimate
of the time/distance involved and said that I would need to roll to
see if Alexiva could get in before the doors shut. I told the GM that
Alexiva would have put everything she had into a last-ditch effort to
make it [a descriptive comment, which gave my roll a modifier] and
rolled. The dice came up with a number high enough to be a failure.
At this point, David, you seem to be saying that every (diced) GM in
exsistance announces, "You fail. Next." (If I am wrong, please
correct me.) What my GM actualy said was, "You make it into the
elevator, but you lost your balance and ran full-tilt into the wall."
This sounds suspiciously like a sucess, unless you know that a)
Alexiva is an Andorian, and Andorians do not react well to running
headfirst into walls, and b) Alexiva is a Security Officer, and she
believed the person she was pursuing was a Romulan agent. Please
believe me when I say that rolling around in helpless agony at the
complete mercy of your (suspected) enemy is every bit as frustrating as
missing the *&%!# elevator in the first place.
The point I am driving at is that it appears to me untrue to say
that in a diced game increased description does not result in
differentiation of results. A dice roll + the rules may say a
particular action "suceeded" or "failed", but it is up the GM to
decide and describe just what a sucess or failure _is_, given the
circumstances.
********************(scene shift)
: Absolutely. But dicve are such a small minded and limited way to achieve
: that. Any random surprise is limited by the dice rules and mechanics. I
: don't call a special-super-critical hit much of a surprise, nor is it
: very creative. I would rather that the surprise and creativity were not
: generated by an unimaginative plastic polyhedron. Don't you think that
: given the opportunity, the players themselves could be more creative than
: that. The movie 'Deathtrap' was created by good old twisted human brain
: power, as was 'North by Northwest', and 'The Hunt for Red October'. Dice
: rules are a poor substitute for real imgaination. In fact, they stifle
: it. You have to be 'fair', and go 'by the rules', etc.
David, you leave me no choice but to believe that you cannot
distinguish between the singer and the song.
Dice (or mechanics, or rules) do not make up plots. It was not
Dan's dice (Dan was the founding GM of our Star Trek campaign) that
decided that it would be interesting to have Great Cthulu trapped in
some ancient ruins on a planet in a disputed region of the Triangle
and then to have a couple of spanking-new Romulan battleruisers show
up to claim said planet while our characters were busy trying to
investigate the disappearence of two Star Fleet ships. It was Dan
that decided all that. (We, the players, didn't think that this plot
was at all "fair", but it was certainly _interesting_.)
At various points during the game, dice rolls were made to determine
sucess or failure of certain actions. Through a witch's brew of good
ideas, bad ideas, incompentence, inattention, heroism, good
old-fashioned Star Fleet know-how, and dumb, random dice-rolls our
characters evaded a major disaster, created a completely un-necessary
minor disaster, brought the Federation and the Empire one step closer
to war, and discovered a new application of the phrase "brachistochrone
problem". While the actual working-out of the game would have been
certainly _different_ if we had been playing without dice, you cannot
convince me that it would have been more _unpredictable_.
: In comparison, dice are a
: pale method of introducing real tension, drama, and surprise. We give the
: players the power and let them go to town. The GM is there to provide some
: restraint. You best learn to think on your feet.
If even half of what you claim is true, then I can guarentee you
that no one in my group will play it, at least not with Dan GM'ing.
None of us could cope with the strain.
Nancy M. Sauer <*> "Then you will come to think of things in
Disciple of Bread Do: a wide sense and, taking the dough as the
The Way of the Way, you will see the Way is dough.
Flour Warrior In the dough there is virtue, and no evil."
Thomas Hudson
>That doesn't make it right. If you don't feel good about it, then the
>player probably doesn't either. So why do it? Just to make the game more
>realistic? I've found that if the time is right, and the death is really
>meaningful, then it becomes O.K. And then you just do it, and you don't
>need the dice, which would never know that moment anyway.
Maybe we've got a fundamentally different outlook here. When I game, as
a player or a GM, not all deaths are _meaningful_. Not everything happens
when "the time is right".
This isn't a play, a book, or a movie. It's only vaguely related to
a story. It's a particularly powerful game.
Jeff
Quynne (jdr5...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu) wrote:
: gaun...@bga.com (Jeff) writes:
: >: Andrew Finch (bcks...@crl.com) wrote:
: >: : Jeff (gaun...@bga.com) wrote:
: >
: Well, if I was to GM one of these diceless things I wouldn't "lock up"
: all the mechanics. I would be very straightforward to my players and say
: something like:
: "OK, if you are going to join this campaign you must keep a few things
: in mind. Whether your character succeeds or fails at something depends on
: three things. First, whether your attempted action seems possible or likely
: to work given the character write-up you give me. Second, how clever and
: interesting the description of you action is. Third, how success and failure
: of your attempted action affect the larger plot lines at work.
: "Thus you actions will general succeed where dramatic logic dictates
: success and genrally fail where dramatic logic dictates failure. If at anytime
: you disagree, you may offer an alternative outcome, but I still may reject it
: for reason that deal with parts of the plot unknown to you."
: If I tell my players something like that, psychic powers are hardly necessary.
That lets the players know the criteria the GM will be applying when
making decisions, but the players still aren't in a position to figure
their chances of success. In a game with skill scores and so on, they are.
If you look at your Acrobatics skill score in Hero, for instance, you can
pretty much figure out your odds of success at some acrobatic maneuver.
Particularly after the GM tells you what modifier to apply for
difficulty. You can decide in advance whether or not it's worth the risk.
In a diceless game, what happens? You describe the maneuver to the GM.
The GM decides what the outcome is going to be. How can the player
determine whether it's worth the risk? Ask the GM? Pointless. The GM has
already decided. If he tells you, you've just seen the future. If he
doesn't, you still have no way of knowing. Having rules written down for
all to see, and using dice to determine a random outcome, allows players
to gauge their chances without actually knowing for *sure*. If the
decision is made in the GM's head, the rules are locked away no matter
how open the GM is about his criteria.
: >After having interacted with you for several days now, I find it
: >impossible to believe that this could be true if *you* were involved.
: Uhhhhhh. Ummmmm. I thought I was following this thread, but you just
: through me for a loop. Your characterization seems completely off-base to me.
: Could you back up your apparent flame with a little evidence?
No, not really.
: >: If you can't comprehend it, you shouldn't agree. But I think you're
: >: having trouble comprehending only beacuse we are at the theoretical
: >: level, and you have nothing to associate to actual experience. No path
: >: back to your reality. I suggest you try it. Maybe you'll like it. Maybe
: >: you won't. But you will have the experience with which to see the
: >: possibilities.
: >
: >Where on earth did you get the idea that I had never played a diceless
: >game? I played Amber, and I despised it. The things I despised about it are
: >things that are going to be common to all diceless games. I played in a
: >diceless game among the TSR creative staff when I worked there back in
: >1979. Is this "you obviously don't know as much about it as I do"
: >argument something you use a lot when playing your own game?
: Mr. Dee, you seem to be losing your cool. He THOUGHT you were having trouble.
: He SUGGESTED you try it. As far as I know he NEVER said "'you obviously don't
: know as much about it as I do'". Unless you can show me a quote, your
: characterization seems completely unfair to me.
He said "I think you're having trouble comprehending only beacuse we are
at the theoretical level, and you have nothing to associate to actual
experience". That's a direct quote. He didn't have to go on and point out
that he himself *does* have the actual experience. That's been well
established.
Yeah, I lost my cool. I do that when someone thinks that because I don't
see things their way, I must not know as much about it as them.
Particularly when I do.
: >This is an outright lie. I did reprint the typo, *and* I quoted it as
: >well. My quote of it is still there, 2 paragraphs up. *You* deleted the
: >original comment. Sure, I forgive the typo. Lying so that maybe no one
: >will notice that I caught you in a goofy little typo, though... That's
: >pathetic.
: I read you post. You reprinted a half-line of text so that no one had any
: idea what the hell you were talking about.
Presumably David *would* have known what it was about, yet he is the one
who accused me of deleting it. Sorry, I know just how pointless this
whole issue is, but I can't quite bring myself to let people lie about
me without challenging them.
: Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about the damn typo. You're sound at
: least as pathetic yourself.
I've been taking lessons.
: >: : Why don't you give
: >: : us some sales figures on your game? That might add some weight to your
: >: : argument, if it was selling extraordinarily well. Is it? Or do you just
: >: : like to talk big and hope everyone will go along with it?
: >
: >: No, I wouldn't say it's selling extraordinarily well.
: >
: >Okay. Then you're just a loudmouth know-it-all.
: And you seem to be a jerk. I play games all the time that haven't sold a copy
: in years (except used). I don't see the logic that leads you to believe that
: good games mechanics necessarily leads to good sales.
The issue wasn't 'are the Theatrix game mechanics good'. The issue was,
'are dice-based games losing their appeal and diceless games taking over
the market'. If that were true, the sales of diceless games ought to be
going up and the sales of Theatrix ought to be benefitting since it is
one of the only *two* diceless games on the market.
: >: Then again, it has
: >: yet to be on most store shelves, it has been out for a whole month and a
: >: half right now, the reviews won't be out till March, and distributors are
: >: pretty bad about translating store orders into product requests from
: >: small game manufacturers.
: >
: >Excuses, excuses.
: If I was as big a jerk as you, Mr. Dee, I might ask "And how many
: copies of V&V have you earned royalties off of lately?" just so I
: could say "Excuses, excuses" in my next post. Frankly, I still don't
: care if the game's sales are low yet.
I haven't made any claims that imply that V&V ought to be selling well,
or given any reasons *why* it isn't selling well in spite of those
claims. David did exactly that for Theatrix, and I called him on it.
: >: Hey, I may be way
: >: off base. I may be wrong. In that case, we'll lose money. We'll see after
: >: the reviews are out (the Dragon review will be in the March edition).
: >
: >Tell you what. If the Dragon Magazine review comes out and says, "By
: >gosh, now we realize that role-playing games really shouldn't use dice,
: >everybody ought to stop using them, including us", I will eat my own
: >underwear and send you a photo.
: I can't believe an industry veteran such as yourself is that naive. Would you
: expect Steve Jackson to post and NOT say that Illuminati: New World Order
: is the greatest thing since sliced bread? Whether you believe it's because
: Steve Jackson needs to sell games to feed his family, or because he truly
: believes in his product, you would still expect him to say it, right?
Frankly, I expect people who are having a modest ammount of success to be
modest about it. I don't mean SJ Games, I mean Dave. Yes, that is naive. No,
I've never been in marketing. This is why.
: And as far as the Dragon remark goes: gain clue dude.
Further attempts at sarcasm will be clearly marked for your convenience.
: I could've sworn that we were having a serious, thoughtful, and friendly
: discussion about the uses of diceless systems. When did we all start acting
: like asses?
I've cooled off a bit, and hopefully we can get back to it. While I stand
by the comments I made, I regret the overly hostile tone in which I made
'em. I'd like to say, to Dave's credit, that he responded in a very
polite manner.
Jeff
: : except perhaps by intimidation. You admitted that you still occasionally
: : play games that use dice.
: Was that a mistake. I can't like some diced games and still appreciate
: the advantages of diceless play. I think my favorite food is Chinese, but
: I still manage to eat pizza now and then.
diceless games were worthwhile was one of the points we were arguing
over. When you said they were, that point was resolved. That's why I was
so suprised and annoyed when you went right on criticising the use of dice.
: : I thought we'd reached an
: : agreement on the essential issues, and I offered to let the rest of it
: : drop. You aren't dropping it.
: Naughty me. I'm continuing the discussion with people who still seem
: interested. As you seem to be as well.
you *are* continuing the discussion with other people, you also continued
it with me by responding to my post. I'd certainly have appreciated it
if, when I said that I thought we'd reached an agreement on the essential
issues, you'd told me whether you thought I was correct or not. You just
charged right ahead without responding to that. Maybe you have no
interest in reaching any sort of understanding. If that's the case, just
say so and I'll stop trying to figure out what your deal is.
: Dont' hold back now. There's no reason to hide behind inuendo and
: hyperbole, if you have a problem with what I've been saying, just come
: out with it.
: So what didn't you like about Amber. We can start there, with some
: specifics, and I'll see if we have a solution for that in our game, which
: you can agree with. Maybe not. But I'm willing to listen and answer.
You said that games with dice still have a place. I say that diceless
games have a place, even though it's a place I don't want to be. So what
do you want to talk about?
: I admit that if you have a problem with the GM ultimately making decions
: without reference to dice, then we will never agree, because that is a
: basic premise in diceless games.
why does that have to mean we can never agree? Either one of us might
change our mind. I hope you are not saying that you refuse to change your
mind under any circumstances. I certainly think my mind can be changed.
It has been in the past.
: If your problems with diceless play are of a diferent nature, then maybe we
: provide what you're looking for.
detail already. I don't have copies of my previous posts handy, or I'd be
happy to quote all of my comments back to you. I guess we'll just have to
go through it all over again.
: I know that others have enjoyed the concepts we represent.
I do not deny that.
: And I know that many people, like myself, feel constrained by many of the
: limitations of diced play which going diceless neatly resolves.
I object to your wording here. You speak of 'the limitations of diced
play', as if there were no denying that the specific limitations you
refer to actually exist. Please list the limitations you think dice-based
games have, and then I'll be able to respond to them one by one. As to
whether going diceless 'neatly resolves' them, that is a separate
question which we can discuss once the specific limitations are defined.
: Are you always like this?
No, mostly just when I have to deal with people who make claims and don't
back them up with anything other than more claims.
: : Tell you what. If the Dragon Magazine review comes out and says, "By
: : gosh, now we realize that role-playing games really shouldn't use dice,
: : everybody ought to stop using them, including us", I will eat my own
: : underwear and send you a photo.
: game has gone. Do I still get the picture with you and the underwear?
No. Why should you? I told you what the conditions were. What makes you
think that if the reviewer says some totally different thing, you might
still win?
-Jeff Dee
gaun...@bga.com
Douglas L. Vandenburgh
: That doesn't make it right. If you don't feel good about it, then the
: player probably doesn't either. So why do it? Just to make the game more
: realistic? I've found that if the time is right, and the death is really
: meaningful, then it becomes O.K. And then you just do it, and you don't
: need the dice, which would never know that moment anyway.
Well, I think sometimes that the dramatically appropriate thing isn't
always going to be the most interesting thing. In tonight's game,
an enemy spellcaster hit several of our players with an intense
bonecracker of a spell. If she had been running it diceless, she'd
have had it knock them unconscious and the enemy gets away. (This
is what she planned when she cast it.) Instead, she got high rolls
on the damage and knocked several players into the "Dead" category.
This made one of the players do a lot of experimentation with a
rather dangerous new magic item that she certainly hadn't planned
for him to do anytime soon. The resulting scene, with the one
character risking himself to bring the others back from the brink
of death, was one of the high points of the game for many of the
players.
- Doug
Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y
>Jeff Stehman <ste...@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:
>>I blame it an outbreak of agreement. A month or so ago we had several
>>good debates running. What happened? Everybody ended up agreeing!!!
>
>Okay, here's my attempt to get some bandwidth going:
>
>1) Vampire/White Wolf gamers wouldn't know roleplaying if they were
> bitten in the rear by a method actor!
I agree totally. If the method actor was any good, he/she would certainly
go for a really *good* and hard bite, attempting to *become*, in their own
inner eye, whatever it is that bites gamers in the rear (probably a pitbull
or something), and the gamer would be too preoccupied with knowing *pain*
to know anything else, particularly such irrelevancies as roleplaying.
[Serious mode: I don't know. What's a Vampire/White Wolf gamer, anyway?
If it is someone who plays Vampire or other WW games on occasion, and other
games as well, then I can testify that they're just people like you and me
(yes, that bad!). If it is intended to refer to Pained People In Black who
play *nothing* else, then I don't know any so I can't say.]
>2) Hero can do a zillion things better than GURPS can!
Yeah, and so can GURPS. Do a zillion things better than GURPS can, that
is. And another zillion things better than Hero.
But Timelords can do a googolplex things better than GURPS and Hero put
together! So there!
>3) Real Roleplayers don't need dice. Munchkins need dice.
(Hang on while I get out my needle and melt a d20 for IV use...)
You were saying?
(Heck, I consider myself a crossbreed of Real Man and Real Roleplayer
with some strong elements of Loonie and an occasional regression to
Munchkinhood, myself; I have what you might call a love/hate relationship
with my dice, in particular the d4 with which my forehead collided a few
years ago -- only time I've ever seen actual bloodshed from a small plastic
die, and it hurt like hell....)
>4) Whatever else you think of that's flammable.
Paper soaked in 96% alcohol. Witches, more witches, and wood.
--
Leif ("ignore my last name, can't spell it in ascii anyway")
GM d- H s++:++ g++(-) p10+ !au a- w+++ v C++ US P? L 3- E N++ K++ W-- M !V
-po+ Y+ t-- !5 !j R++ G'' tv b+++ D+ B--- e+ u+(*) h f+(?) r-(*) !n(+) y?
Everything is temporary.
Andrew Finch
: Here I think diced systems have one massive advantage: limited player
: knowledge of something characters know well.
: I know a very little bit about combat. Some of my players know absolutely
: nothing. As a person with a sense of integrity I'm morally opposed to
: letting them get away with an attack they saw in "Highlander III" (not that
[Snip]
: When they've got the dice to fall back on, the people who don't know what
: they're doing can say "I attack", and maybe I can even describe their action
: and its results for them. If we're playing diceless, how do they cope?
You deal with the same thing in a diced game all the time. A pllayer who
deosn't speak very well can be playing a character with oratory out the
ears. You listen to what the player is saying, and kind of interpolate
for the character's skill, in order to get a die modifier and difficulty
factor.
You do the same in a diceless game, except that you use diceless
resolution methods to obtain the final result.
The same goes for combat. We don't leave people empty handed. We have a
combat primer that will get people started, and we tend to use our
favorite movies (in the genre we are playing) as a guide. That works
pretty well too. For our Setting Books, we discuss combat in light of
that particular genre, and add in even more detail.If you're a bit
imaginative, it works quite well, or has so far.
We are in the process of developing a system of conflict choreography for
RPGs, which in conjunction with the Core Rules we've already got
published, should provide an excellent and very supportive framework,
without the dice. I would say more, but we are not even at a beta test
stage for this yet.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: This isn't a play, a book, or a movie. It's only vaguely related to
: a story. It's a particularly powerful game.
For us, it's an interactive story, a lot like a play, a book, or a movie,
and that makes it a very powerful game.
Yes, we have different outlooks.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: That lets the players know the criteria the GM will be applying when
: making decisions, but the players still aren't in a position to figure
: their chances of success. In a game with skill scores and so on, they are.
Who said diceless games don't have Skill scores. Ours sure does.
: If you look at your Acrobatics skill score in Hero, for instance, you can
: pretty much figure out your odds of success at some acrobatic maneuver.
: Particularly after the GM tells you what modifier to apply for
: difficulty.
We also have Difficulty ratings.
: Yeah, I lost my cool. I do that when someone thinks that because I don't
: see things their way, I must not know as much about it as them.
: Particularly when I do.
I never said you didn't. You failed to mention that you had played
diceless. Of course, I still don't know if you have read or played
Theatrix, and if you haven't, then you probably don't know as much about
it (our game) as I do. That's an easy problem to solve, and then you can
tear me and my theories apart with amunition I can't deny.
: The issue wasn't 'are the Theatrix game mechanics good'. The issue was,
: 'are dice-based games losing their appeal and diceless games taking over
: the market'. If that were true, the sales of diceless games ought to be
: going up and the sales of Theatrix ought to be benefitting since it is
: one of the only *two* diceless games on the market.
If you must know, we sold 400 copies through distribution in our first
month. I don't consider that all that great. For a first run game from a
new company, that's usually considered quite good. I have no way of
knowing whether such figures will keep up, and I didn't want to go
shooting my mouth of where I had no knowledge. Maybe we will sell well,
maybe we won't. That's for the market to decide, but the market is
certainly more favorable these days than it used to be.
: I've cooled off a bit, and hopefully we can get back to it. While I stand
: by the comments I made, I regret the overly hostile tone in which I made
: 'em. I'd like to say, to Dave's credit, that he responded in a very
: polite manner.
I don't mind a tough discussion. I expect one. This is .advocacy. I may
question you, and I may push my points, and we may lock horns. I mean you
no disrespect in this process.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: I didn't say it was a mistake. Whether or not *both* dice-based and
: diceless games were worthwhile was one of the points we were arguing
: over. When you said they were, that point was resolved. That's why I was
: so suprised and annoyed when you went right on criticising the use of dice.
Almost everyone who plays an RPG has used many diced systems extensively.
The far fewer who have played diceless have either done so free from,
which has lots o' problems, I'll admit, although it can work well with a
group that really knows each other well, or they have played Amber.
Theatrix is not a free from game in the traditional sense, and it is not
Amber. We have Skill Ranks, and Difficulty Levels, and a lot of the stuff
you associate with diced play. We simply use some new methods of diceless
resolution to provide the many benefits of diceless play, while hopefully
taking care of most of the drawbacks. What comes out is a particular
style of gaming. We can do almost any genre, but they tend to have the
Theatric style, if you will. I don't know if you'll like it, but I'm
pretty sure it is not diceless gaming as you know it.
Why do I criticize Diced play? Because it deserves some criticism. It has
problems associated with the use of dice. There are other paths to take,
and we represent one of those. Part of letting people know what we are
doing, is letting them know why they should consider our game. And the
main reason is that we fix a lot of the problems in gaming that you've
been sitting with for years, due to those dice mechanics.
I love the American Democracy. Wouldn't live anywhere else. Is it perfect?
No. Do I criticize it? Yes. A lot. And I think it deserves a lot of
criticism. It's the only way it will stay healthy. Well, I like gaming,
and I think it can continue to grow, and there are many avenues we
haven't explored. I criticize where we are because I think it deserves
it, and it helps the industry to stay healthy. Dice have problems. I
think we have some solutions.
: What I'm interested in is reaching an understanding of some sort. While
: you *are* continuing the discussion with other people, you also continued
: it with me by responding to my post. I'd certainly have appreciated it
: if, when I said that I thought we'd reached an agreement on the essential
: issues, you'd told me whether you thought I was correct or not. You just
: charged right ahead without responding to that. Maybe you have no
: interest in reaching any sort of understanding. If that's the case, just
: say so and I'll stop trying to figure out what your deal is.
No, I do. I continued to respond to those portions of your post that I
did not agree with, or agreed partly with and wanted to present the
differences. Can we reach mutual agreement? I don't know yet.
: I don't recall having said anything other than exactly what I was thinking.
Sorry, sarcasm.
: Sure, but I'd like to know what point you are ultimately trying to make.
: You said that games with dice still have a place. I say that diceless
: games have a place, even though it's a place I don't want to be. So what
: do you want to talk about?
Why you don't want to be there. Maybe the right solution hasn't come
along. Maybe there is no solution for you, but if I understand what there
is no solution for, I know my market better, and what we need to do with
the product. I seek to understand actually, for all my charging ahead.
: : I admit that if you have a problem with the GM ultimately making decions
: : without reference to dice, then we will never agree, because that is a
: : basic premise in diceless games.
:
: That's exactly the problem I have, and I've said as much repeatedly. But
: why does that have to mean we can never agree?
Because I predicate my gaming on the ability of the GM to make any
necessary decision, and the trust/experience/knowledge that I prefer
these decisions to those made by dice.
: Either one of us might
: change our mind. I hope you are not saying that you refuse to change your
: mind under any circumstances. I certainly think my mind can be changed.
: It has been in the past.
No, mine can change. I would just have to see a diced game that
alleviated my problems with diced play. I guess in the same way that you
would need to see a dicless game that alleviated your problems with
diceless play. And I don't know if those are possible considering our
stated problems.
: : And I know that many people, like myself, feel constrained by many of the
: : limitations of diced play which going diceless neatly resolves.
:
: I object to your wording here. You speak of 'the limitations of diced
: play', as if there were no denying that the specific limitations you
: refer to actually exist. Please list the limitations you think dice-based
: games have, and then I'll be able to respond to them one by one. As to
: whether going diceless 'neatly resolves' them, that is a separate
: question which we can discuss once the specific limitations are defined.
Lets deal with one at a time. My first complaint with diced play is the
inability of the game mechanics to deal with each action and each
situation as seperate and unique from any other. I want the results of my
actions to flow naturally from the specific descriptions of the actions I
gave. I do not want to be limited in the type of maneuvers I can perfrom,
or the results I can obtain. Hero comes closest to this kind of freedom
as far as combat is concerned, but even it falls short of what I've
experienced in diceless play, and it runs at a snails pace in comparison.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
[Snip]
: for him to do anytime soon. The resulting scene, with the one
: character risking himself to bring the others back from the brink
: of death, was one of the high points of the game for many of the
: players.
We get the same kind of unpredictable action, and sudden new plot twists,
all the time in diceless play. We replace the random action of the dice,
with purposeful use of a set of improvisational rules. And from all our
feedback, the effect is more intense than that experienced from your
basic unpredicatble rolls.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: I've tried Amber, a diceless system, and while it was an interesting
: change of pace, I definitely would NOT abandon dice full-time.
I would just say that what Amber does, and what we do, are two different
things. You might not want to abandon dice after trying our game either,
but the system is completely different from that used in Amber.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: Umm... Are you sure about this?
Yeah, fairly.
: There are two ways I see to interpret what you've said:
: 1) martial arts is simple
: I'm pretty sure this is false, since sword styles are pretty complex
: from my experience, and the interactions of different styles that don't
: take one another into account are very surprising; my little bit of
: barehand also looks highly complex.
: 2) ignore the complexities
: This is exactly what the diceless systems are doing. You may disagree on
: the degree to which the complexities are reduced, but then again your
: Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain (somebody practice Tai Chi? which style?)
: would have to be pretty encyclopedic to satisfy both hard-core Capoueira
: practitioners and people from Okinawan Karate styles.
Actually, we'll only be handling Chinese martial arts, but these are very
diverse. I've had a little martial arts, but I'm no expert at all, and
I've never had a fencing class, yet I do diceless swordplay pretty well.
I take two different tacts. If there is no one who really knows what they
are doing, they we play it by ear and common sense, which seems to work
pretty well as what knowledge we do have tends to be from the same
sources (Erol Flynn films, The Princess Bride, Excalibur, etc.). If we
have someone in the group who knows fencing, and they are involved, I
just take my cues from them. 'O.K., the NPC is trying to push you back
toward that corner, and is willing to give up some defensive capability
to do it, so would that look like this?'. This has also worked well in
the past. What is most important to us is roleplay, and we are willing to
introduce some historical or mechanical inaccuracy, as long as we can all
live with it, and it basically works for everyone, and it keeps the game
moving and exciting.
As combat choreographers will tell you (or at least the ones I've read),
what is most important in a combat is not absolute accuracy, but combat
that provides the feel of danger, and combat which expresses the
personality and goals of the combatants. And that's what we aim for.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Andrew Finch
: : And that effective part is important. In a diced game, such extra
: : description is nice, but doesn't translate into differentiation in result.
: : Only the game mechanic relevant parts matter.
: David, I am perfectly _appalled_ to see you making statements like
: that. I mean, I realize that there are a lot of bad GMs out there,
: but to think that in all these years you have never had good one....
The above statement has nothing to do with the GM. I've had many excellent
GMs. But no matter what the game, the only actions you can perform are
those which the dice mechanics define as possible. The rest gets you
deice modifiers, yes. But I find these a poor substitute to the open
ended action allowed by diceless systems, and the way in which diceless
results take into account your entire description of your action, in a
way I've have yet to find a diced system capable of.
: David honey, this is one of the differences between a good GM and a
: bad one: One will use the information they get from you and the
: mechanics to tell you not only whether you suceeded, and how; and the
: other will say something like, "you rolled a 67, that's a miss."
O.K. I'm in Hero system, and fighting a fencing deul. I wish to force my
opponent back as we fight. That's it. Iwant to see if I can hit, and I
want to force my opponent back. I can't do it in Hero, because there is
no strike maneuver which covers that. I can Weapon Bind, but that does no
damage, and is not the maneuver I want. The effect I'm trying to achieve
is not at all uncommon in fencing. Other systems take it into account,
but Hero doesn't really, due to its phased movement structure. And this
is just one small detail. I switch systems to take care of this, and I
lose all the other stuff Hero has over most combat systems. I want all
the details, all the time, without a whole lot of loss in speed. I want
to be able to try anything I might try if I were that character in that
position. And I want the result to be a natural and total extension of
the thing I tried. To get that, I think you need to go diceless.
[Snip]
: believed the person she was pursuing was a Romulan agent. Please
: believe me when I say that rolling around in helpless agony at the
: complete mercy of your (suspected) enemy is every bit as frustrating as
: missing the *&%!# elevator in the first place.
That kind of result is what Theatrix is built for. It is what it does
best. Yes, you can do it in a diced game, as the above presents. But in
Theatrix, every decsions is done this way. Every move in combat, every
attempt at pursuasion, everything. I think the reason diced systems handle
those situations O.K., is that there are few rules present to get in the
way in non-combat situations. Most of this was work by the GM which could
have been done as easily without the dice. In fact, in your example, the
GM clearly ignores your dice roll, which was a failure, in favor of a
diceless result, which you seem to have prefered.
In combat, where diced games tend to have the most rules, results like
that in your example above tend to become more difficult. Adjudications
fall closer to what the dice rules predict and allow.
Seems to me like a diceless game might serve your roleplaying style
better. And that's what I was talking about.
: particular action "suceeded" or "failed", but it is up the GM to
: decide and describe just what a sucess or failure _is_, given the
: circumstances.
In other words, if you want good decsriptive results, you go diceless.
Why not go with a system made for this kind of play. One that has a lot
of support for doing just this kind of thing.
[Snip]
: David, you leave me no choice but to believe that you cannot
: distinguish between the singer and the song.
Maybe I think we are all Pavoratis (sp?), and I would rather hear my
players sing arias, rather than nursery rhymes. I know that's stretching
an allegory, but I honestly believe that diceless play frees you to
roleplay in a more open and fluid fashion, and actively promotes this
style in every move, and evry description, which I love.
{Snip]
: certainly _different_ if we had been playing without dice, you cannot
: convince me that it would have been more _unpredictable_.
It would have been as unpredicatable, even without a single dice roll, and
from the responses we've gotten to our improvisational style, and from
personal experience, I would say that there's a decent chance it would
have been more so.
: If even half of what you claim is true, then I can guarentee you
: that no one in my group will play it, at least not with Dan GM'ing.
: None of us could cope with the strain.
Sounds like you really aught to try it, because at least half of what I'm
saying is true. Sounds like I would like to be there when you do. You
have a space in your game? I'll bring the rules.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Guy Robinson
: nancy sauer (nsa...@unlinfo.unl.edu) wrote:
[...]
: : David honey, this is one of the differences between a good GM and a
: : bad one: One will use the information they get from you and the
: : mechanics to tell you not only whether you suceeded, and how; and the
: : other will say something like, "you rolled a 67, that's a miss."
: O.K. I'm in Hero system, and fighting a fencing deul. I wish to force my
: opponent back as we fight. That's it. Iwant to see if I can hit, and I
: want to force my opponent back. I can't do it in Hero, because there is
: no strike maneuver which covers that. I can Weapon Bind, but that does no
: damage, and is not the maneuver I want. The effect I'm trying to achieve
: is not at all uncommon in fencing. Other systems take it into account,
: but Hero doesn't really, due to its phased movement structure. And this
: is just one small detail. I switch systems to take care of this, and I
: lose all the other stuff Hero has over most combat systems. I want all
: the details, all the time, without a whole lot of loss in speed. I want
: to be able to try anything I might try if I were that character in that
: position. And I want the result to be a natural and total extension of
: the thing I tried. To get that, I think you need to go diceless.
To the contrary I would say that you need to go Zen. Diceless is for
the sellers of diceless systems, Zen is for flexible GMs and players.
There is no need to throw away your dice to become flexible. You just
have to become flexible instead. You don't need to buy copies of
Theatrix, just remember what you enjoyed when you had a system.
For if you want something to natural and extension of your own ideas
and concepts then buying someone else`s published work will probably
not do this job for you.
--
Guy Robinson guy....@rx.xerox.com
[implied disclaimer]
The real meaning of Christmas is a Mid-Winter feast.
Alexander Williams
>Well, you don't need to know that much about martial arts to get it
>right. And what you do need to know, we include in our forthcoming
>supplement, 'Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain', which is being developed
>even as we speak.
One would hate to suggest that David is deliberately setting his
product up over even GM research. One would further hate to suggest
the arrogance and immediate sense of loathing in a TSR-esque sort of
way this might inspire. In fact, this sort of response, of assuming
that for whatever the ill he (and his company, one should not
forget) have the cure, seems to suggest to one that David's opinion
might be somewhat... coloured. Onwards, his inability to even
accept that he is, in fact, wrong in most of his generalizations,
not just some (ref: Nancy Sauer's responses, innumerable others),
suggest an obvious blind spot in operation.
--
tha...@runic.mind.org (Alexander Williams) | PGP 2.6 key avail
Should we shed our mental pants and compare | DF 22 16 CE CA 7F
the size of our consciousnesses? | 98 47 13 EE 8E EC
-- Jan Sand to Marvin Minsky | 9C 2D 9B 9B
Alexander Williams
>Yes, they do. But that's not what we were talking about. Let me give an
>example. I want to grab the gun arm of an opponent in fron of me, control
>the weapon, shooting another guy coming at me, while using the body of
>the guy I'm controling as a shield against a third gunman, then use the
>gun I've just acquired to take down the last guy. MOst game systems are
>incapable of simulating this action. Yes, I know that Hero is barely
>capable of this (I'm not sure if you can use a grab and control, and a
>grab and block in the same round), and probably GURPS too, but the
>mechanical overhead to allow this is very high. The game crawls while
>combat is enacted. Diceless systems handle this kind of action fluidly,
>and easily.
Personally, I've never had trouble with this sort of thing in any
of my games, mostly because if ever one of my players suggested
something this ridiculous as an action, I would fall down laughing,
snorting, and generally making amused gestures at the sheer idiocy
of trying to do something so far from the realistic that they might
as well just forget it. The pedantic would cite that as a method of
diceless resolution akin to your own, David.
But, taking the more interesting stance, let us say I was running
a far-edge hyper-theatrical game where this sort of thing is
possible because, say, the players are playing super spies and all
the grunts are mindless hired help. Let us further say I'm running
using _Over the Edge_, the most die minimalist game I'll ever play.
I'd consult character sheets to see if anyone involved has a trait
related to combat or something like "lightning reflexes" or
"strong," I'd make a simple opposed trait roll between thug and
character, and based on that outcome, I'd tell the player whether
he'd sucessfully grappled the gun and got the fellow into a somewhat
shielding position. (Nice of the bullets, not to go straight
through a human body like they usually do...) I'd definitely call
for another standard combat roll to aim and fire the gun while its
still in the guy's hand, with a couple penalty die to represent the
guy trying to get it lose, screw his aim, etc.
All this, /and/ I'm providing a running dialogue with the
character, explaining how the guy's eyes widen in fear as he sees
the character advance, grabs the gun, wrestles for it... In short,
David, unlike yourself I don't need rules to cover /every/ situation
in the game or I throw in the towel and go completely on my whim. I
use the dice to help me throw in the "hand of God," if you will, and
frankly I don't care to do all the dirty work. A basic conflict
resolution system that takes random chance into account is all I
need.
I could do the same thing in Elric! ("Make an opposed STR test.")
or Kult ("Make an opposed AGL test.") or hundreds of other systems
I've ever /seen/ before, mainly because the result is /not/ limited
to just "Make an opposed X test." Or rather, the result is, the
interpretation isn't, and the skillful interpretation of events
outside your control is what brings out the real gammon of
roleplaying for me, whether it be a die or another person's choices.
Adapt, incorporate, advance.
>: You keep talking about how 'limited' the possible outcomes of an action
>: are in a game using dice... as if 'you hit, you miss, you hurt him, you
>: don't hurt him' somehow failed to cover most of the bases in combat.
>
>Yes, it fails to cover most of the bases.
Your interpretation fails to cover the bases. The rules don't
have to give you a way, a specif rule regarding, rather, what the
probability of rupturing your mucus membrane is when you pick your
nose with a laser-axe. If its important, a good GM can use the
basic conflict resolution system and come up with what "the physics
say" then embelish that with interesting description, even creating
a whole situation, based on the input the dice gave.
>: Exactly how much farther do you go in 'diceless' combat, most of the
>: time?
>
>Very much farther.
Where? How? You embelish ("Missed the to-hit by 10! You swing
with gusto, but unfortunately, enthusiasm doesn't make up for bad
luck and the leg behind you slips and brings you to one knee, unable
to do anything but block his furious attack (until after next round,
at least).") , you use the situation to modify further maneuvers
("Hit him in the eye! He'll have a -2 to hit next round and is
currently wallowing in pain..."), you take the situation into
allowance ("Hrum, you're intimidating him. Take a bonus die to your
next shot, since he's cringing."). Tell us then what you are doing
that I have not, in every diced game since inception, except take
the burden of resolving every conflict into your whim? Why should I
give you $30 for a book that boils down to "Do whatever Plot
suggests"? Its beyond arrogant, its outright silly.
>Yeah, and when you pick up the amulet and 3000 Bugbears leap out at you
>from interdimensional portals, it was your choice, and only the die rolls
>will kill you.
>
>Now, I know you don't GM like that. What I'm saying is that the only
>reason the game is fair, is because you don't GM like that. The dice
>rules offer no basis for protection.
Then its a simple straw-man argument, and not a particularly apt
one. To the players' view, /all/ actions in a diceless game reduce
to "3000 bugbears jump out of hiding behind the rosebush." While
trust is a minor facet of the situation, reassurance is a greater
one. In the straw-man given, the players are at least assured that,
within the combat, things will be resolved fairly, without the GMs
whimsy destroying them further than the set of of the situation.
>That is exactly my point. There is no difference. Diced or diceless, it's
>only the GMs sense of fairness, and his care for the players and the game
>that make the difference. Dice don't grant you that protection., and the
>lack of them does not impede the fairness of the game.
I seem to remember some other people around my table... Oh yes,
the players! Silly me, how soon we do forget. And forget we do,
that they're human and when they play with us, they like to think
they have some degree of control, some reassurance that there is a
/third/ presence that is neither unfair nor biased in ways they /do
not know beforehand/. The conflict resolution system. The lack of
them does impede the amount of freedom they can feel, in that the
only thing that controls their fate is Plot and "what sounds good."
This is a bit tissue-thin in terms of making serious character
departures. Perhaps the demolitions expert /should/ be able to
break into the enemy hideout, steal the plans, and ruin your whole
Plot. It might set up a better one. The diceless GM will never
know, will he?
>: doesn't use dice. They have only tried to defend dice-based games against
>: your unfair criticisms.
>
>I don't believe the criticisms are unfair.
Not only are they unfair, they're untrue, unfounded and
uneducated, showing considerable blindness to the same nits you find
such luxury in picking.
>I never said it was. We owe a debt to Amber, and I like the game.
>Theatrix is unique in other ways, including how it handles diceless play.
"Unique in how it handles diceless play"? How unique can a
systemless amalgam of suggestions /be/? At least with diced
mechanics there's the question of how the webs of probability
intermesh, which skills will be suggested or denied, even the
setting is included with most games (sans Hero and GURPS who,
nevertheless, include some background material). What, then, can be
unique about Theatrix that couldn't be incorporated into a diced
game? Their flowcharts, I fear, are far less capable of reacting to
a situation than my die interpretation is. Their system, itself, is
non-extant. They include no setting, and if they did, it'd require
no mechanics. In short, where is the uniqueness?
Carsten Husek
: 100% better, yes. Name me a diced system that resolves a spinning kick
: any differently than a regular kick. Heck, most diced games don't resolve
: a kick any differently than a punch. Never mind a flying, spinning kick,
: with a sweeping sabre follow-up.
Your game does not resolve the thing differently: Everything is subject to
GM whim. Period.
If someone desn't have the imagination to differenciate what a good roll
means for a kick or a punch, our gaming group has it (well, at least 4 of
6 people).
: As for the lack of surprise and unexpected twists in a diceless game,
: here's an excerpt from a review posted earlier by Reimer Behrends, which I
: hope he will forgive me for re-posting without asking first, but it seemed
: appropriate.
Or maybe not? I don't buy that these things are good examples.
: .................
: Improvisation, or How To Make A GM Despair. ;-) Actually, it's not that
: bad, but I don't know whether it can easily be recommended for a novice
: GM. The whole point about Theatrix improvisation is to let the players
: alter the fabric of reality themselves (if necessary, by expenditure of
: plot points). A part that is the sole province of the GM in traditional
: roleplaying games.
: Now don't get me wrong. The GM still has the power to veto such
: improvisations.
SO we're back to absolute GM power. Vetoing everything that doesn't fit his
concept is just bad GMing.
: Anyway, be prepared that your master villain finds the door he prepared
: to flee through jammed (this led to a duel on top of a roof instead of
: the outcome I prepared for); that a harmless looking mechanical doll
: hides a time bomb (well, luckily its purpose was murderous, anyway); or
: that a barrel on top of some others is not safely fastened (you see
: where this leads?).
Are this supposed to be "good" examples. They are good examples of player
convenience:"Sheesh, we did not plan that there was a back exit. Let's
spend plot points." If plot points allow players to influnce what happens in
a game through strange coincidences generated by plot points, only cheap
and uninteresting stories will result.
I hope that this quote is not representative for Theatrix gaming.
--
Corvus "Chaos" Code Coyote,
Transexplorer of Beyond, Techo-Shaman, C-Zen Master
---------------------------------------------------
Lemoncurry ?
Carsten Husek
: : description of action being dropped. It _can_ happen, but it will
: : usually happen in a game where the GM doesn't care, and doesn't reward
: : players for making the effort.
: I agree that it will not necessarily happen, only that this is often the
: case. You can keep the description in, but as a game mechanic irrelevant
: facet, it is often dropped. Keeping it in becomes an expenditure of
: effort, because it should be there. The same effort will yield far more in
: a game in which such description is not only effective, but necessary.
: description is nice, but doesn't translate into differentiation in result.
: description is the heart of the action, and every difference in
: description translates into a difference in result. You actually get to
: do what you describe.
In a diceless game, GM whim is the heart of the outcome. GM whim is the
essence of diceless gaming. Whatever pleases the GM happens. No matter
what a player describes, it only happens if the GM wants it happen. And the
best thing to descibe that is GM whim.
: In Theatrix, it's not just a modifier of percentage to a standard game
: mechanic maneuver. You can do everything you can think of, and each one of
: these possibilities has all the nuance, and all the possible effects with
: which it is described.
If the GM wants it to happen.
:In a diced game, even if you get a modifier to your
: action, the outcome is still churned through the limited dice mechanic,
: and comes out as the same plain vanilla results.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! In every game you can do this as long as you don't play
slave to the rules.
: Trying to allow for much
: differentiation in result produces high game overhead, and the game slows
: to a crawl. In a diceless game, the possible outcomes are as varied as
: the possible actions. Theatrix flowcharts, which are meant to aid in the
: description of results, and contain only basic template responses, still
: contain 30 different types of successes and failures, for each of four
: broad classes of actions (combat, interpersonal, intellectual, athletic).
: So that an attempt at bribey or seduction is as varied in possible
: responses as a combat maneuver. And each one of these template responses
: has an infinite variation to be used in actual description, depending
: upon the situation, the genre, the roleplay, and the skill ranks
: involved. And more flowcharts are forthcoming (and may also be easily
: created by the GM).
Diceless games are deterministic. Players get shoved into plot the GM
thinks is great. If the GM plans that one player is captured, that happens
no matter what. On more than one occasion my players ruined my plots,
because they had rolled good (ie performed very well). But that made everything
only MORE interesting. The NPCs had to rethink their plans, too, and much more
interesting stories were told than I can probably conceive on my own, and
belive me, my player think that I have creative ideas on my own. They get only
better through a rendom element.
: : Common sense will never generate an American win at Midway, for the
: : very good reason that it is so overwhelming unlikely that something
: : like that could occur. But unlikely things _do_ occur, on both large
: : and small scales. Since they occur to people in real life, why not to
: : characters in games?
: Absolutely. But dicve are such a small minded and limited way to achieve
: that. Any random surprise is limited by the dice rules and mechanics. I
: don't call a special-super-critical hit much of a surprise, nor is it
: very creative. I would rather that the surprise and creativity were not
: generated by an unimaginative plastic polyhedron. Don't you think that
: given the opportunity, the players themselves could be more creative than
: that. The movie 'Deathtrap' was created by good old twisted human brain
: power, as was 'North by Northwest', and 'The Hunt for Red October'. Dice
: rules are a poor substitute for real imgaination. In fact, they stifle
: it. You have to be 'fair', and go 'by the rules', etc.
?????
Where the hell you get the idea, that GMs who *use* dice use them as a
subsitute for imagination? Bad personal experience I guess. Or maybe you
like tightly plotted movies to much. If the player's overcome a longstanding
enemy because the GM finally allowed them to succed in a diceless game, all
sense of achivement is gone. Dice do not give opportunities, the wits of the
player allow him to try the impossible and even then, he may not succed he or
she was a "politcally correct" player. RPGs are not creativity contests.
Dice do not substitute thinking, and NO game I ever ran would have proffited
from arbitrary GM whim resolving everything.
I take what you may call a semi-diceless approach. The only rule that I
will never brake is that if a player rolls a good result on, this will
have positve results for his character and if he roll badly that may have
negative results. Life as GM would be boring if I could decide everything
in the fist place. The whole interactive element of the game is lost.
If I can shove the PCs in the directions I want, why not writing novels?
: Instead, Theatrix introduces a system of improvisation that will make the
: GM scream, and entice the players to turn any ordinary plot into a morass
: of subbplots, intrigue, and roleplay. We were so successful at this in the
: first incarnations of the rule system that we had to tone it down. The
: GM's plot couldn't survive the strain. The rules you can pick up now on
: store shelves are a compromise that works well. In comparison, dice are a
: pale method of introducing real tension, drama, and surprise. We give the
: players the power and let them go to town. The GM is there to provide some
: restraint. You best learn to think on your feet.
MAybe it works for you, but I stay away from revoving the player's privilege
to turn my plot by achiving the neigh impossible. I do not want give the
*additional* opportunity that dice give as a tool of suspense. Remember,
I do not rely on dice, but every now and then I use them as tools. Dice are
no more than tools. I cannot understand why people become obsessed with either
using them or throwing them away.
What is the tension in a situtation where The GM decides who survives?
What is the drama of a situation where the GM's plot MUST prevail?
You might as well go to the movies.
What is the suspense in a situation where the GM decides the outcome?
You might as well read a book.
Jeff
: Jeff (gaun...@bga.com) wrote:
: : That lets the players know the criteria the GM will be applying when
: : making decisions, but the players still aren't in a position to figure
: : their chances of success. In a game with skill scores and so on, they are.
: Who said diceless games don't have Skill scores. Ours sure does.
: : If you look at your Acrobatics skill score in Hero, for instance, you can
: : pretty much figure out your odds of success at some acrobatic maneuver.
: : Particularly after the GM tells you what modifier to apply for
: : difficulty.
: We also have Difficulty ratings.
I'm sure you do. But if resolving an acrobatic maneuver in Theatrix is as
simple as comparing your skill with a difficulty, you wouldn't need a GM,
now would you? You'd simply check to see if your action was going to
succeed, and abort it if it wasn't going to. The GM acts as your game's
randomizer, injecting a bit of uncertainty. And this all gets back to my
comments about the advantages of dice over humans as randomizers, which you
snipped ;)
Jeff
: Jeff (gaun...@bga.com) wrote:
: : I didn't say it was a mistake. Whether or not *both* dice-based and
: : diceless games were worthwhile was one of the points we were arguing
: : over. When you said they were, that point was resolved. That's why I was
: : so suprised and annoyed when you went right on criticising the use of dice.
: Why do I criticize Diced play? Because it deserves some criticism. It has
: problems associated with the use of dice. There are other paths to take,
: and we represent one of those. Part of letting people know what we are
: doing, is letting them know why they should consider our game.
Okay, I'll buy that.
: And the main reason is that we fix a lot of the problems in gaming
: that you've been sitting with for years, due to those dice mechanics.
See, now here again you're taking what appear to be your own personal
preferences and treating them as gospel. A lot of players, as I'm sure
you've noticed, don't think that the 'problems' you refer to are problems
at all. In some cases, they actually *like* the very things you call
problems. You're going to encounter friction when you try to tell other
people that they should not like what they like. You *really* need to be
able phrase your position in more objective terms if you hope to persuade
people.
: Dice have problems. I think we have some solutions.
You did it again. You treat the idea that 'dice have problems' as a
given. Well, it isn't a given. If you back up a few steps and present a
good objective argument to back up that statement, *then* other people
might start agreeing with it. Until then, you just sound like a guy with
an agenda.
: : I'd like to know what point you are ultimately trying to make.
: : You said that games with dice still have a place. I say that diceless
: : games have a place, even though it's a place I don't want to be. So what
: : do you want to talk about?
: Why you don't want to be there. Maybe the right solution hasn't come
: along. Maybe there is no solution for you, but if I understand what there
: is no solution for, I know my market better, and what we need to do with
: the product. I seek to understand actually, for all my charging ahead.
I *still* want to know what point you are ultimately trying to make. I
seem to be able to read into your response that all you want is to find
out what anyone *doesn't* like about your game, so that you can make it
better. If that's true, that's a noble goal and I'll be happy to help
out. But is it true? I must admit, I haven't had too much luck reading
between your lines so far.
: : : I admit that if you have a problem with the GM ultimately making decions
: : : without reference to dice, then we will never agree
: : why does that have to mean we can never agree?
: Because I predicate my gaming on the ability of the GM to make any
: necessary decision, and the trust/experience/knowledge that I prefer
: these decisions to those made by dice.
Well, this is evidence that I might be wrong in thinking that all you
want to do is get feedback. What is it, exactly, that you'd hope to get
me to agree with?
: : I hope you are not saying that you refuse to change your
: : mind under any circumstances.
: No, mine can change. I would just have to see a diced game that
: alleviated my problems with diced play.
Wouldn't convincing arguments that your problems were not problems also
do the trick? I'm not asking you to say that such arguments are possible,
only that they might change your mind if they were.
: I guess in the same way that you
: would need to see a dicless game that alleviated your problems with
: diceless play.
Or I'd need to hear a convincing argument that my problems were not
really problems.
: And I don't know if those are possible considering our stated problems.
Well, I don't know. You've said that you could be wrong, and I'll say
that I could be wrong. Therefor I don't see any reason to abandon hope of
either of us changing our minds.
: : : I know that many people, like myself, feel constrained by many of the
: : : limitations of diced play which going diceless neatly resolves.
: :
: Lets deal with one at a time. My first complaint with diced play is the
: inability of the game mechanics to deal with each action and each
: situation as seperate and unique from any other. I want the results of my
: actions to flow naturally from the specific descriptions of the actions I
: gave. I do not want to be limited in the type of maneuvers I can perfrom,
: or the results I can obtain. Hero comes closest to this kind of freedom
: as far as combat is concerned, but even it falls short of what I've
: experienced in diceless play, and it runs at a snails pace in comparison.
Okay, I think I understand your complaint. I've read many responses to
you addressing this particular concern. Most of them have said, in
essence, 'it still comes down (in combat, anyway) to whether you hit and
how badly you hurt your target, and you can still dress up the game
result with whatever descriptive flourishes you want, so what's the
problem?' So that's my question. What's the problem? What is it about
that argument that you find insufficient?
Andrew Finch
: I'm sure you do. But if resolving an acrobatic maneuver in Theatrix is as
: simple as comparing your skill with a difficulty, you wouldn't need a GM,
: now would you? You'd simply check to see if your action was going to
: succeed, and abort it if it wasn't going to. The GM acts as your game's
: randomizer, injecting a bit of uncertainty. And this all gets back to my
: comments about the advantages of dice over humans as randomizers, which you
: snipped ;)
Well, I do not believe that dice have any sort of advantage over humans
as randomizers. In fact, I believe the opposite. Dice are crude
randomizers which need constant redirection by a human anyway.
If you are going to use the argument that humans are somehow predictable,
and that the players will start to outguess the Gm, etc., please don't
bother. The way Theatrix works, it's not a matter of outguessing the GM,
it's more a matter of the GM trying to keep up with the players. If
you're going to say that without dice we'll lose sponteneity and
surprise, again, we use an improvisational system that works better than
any dice rolls I've ever seen.
And as far as outguessing the GM, I have an M.A. in psychology, and I
can't even outguess my clients most of the time. In a repeated situation,
sure, people are more predictable. But in a constant shifting situation,
with a miriad of variable, most of which are hidden to the players at any
one time, in a highly improvisational game, we have no problems with
predictability and lack of suprise.
Yes, the GM has final arbitration over any situation, and holds the
consistency of the reality and the genre, but this is true of a diced
game as well. Diced games also have mechanisms to ensure consistency, but
they are the very mechanisms I feel also limit that approach. We provide
less firm, but I think no less effective methods to help the GM maintain
consistency, and genre.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Carsten Husek
: I've never seen such a method for rolling for combat irrelevant actions,
: and I don't think I ever will. In a diceless game, such 'irrelevancy'
: *is* the action. The mechanical simulation approach is its own
: limitation, and the small leeway you gain with die roll modifiers will
: never be enough for me.
When I GM, I don't give bonuses for flowery saying:"I try to hit him with my
sword". But I try to give every action an outcome that is deserved. That is
why I prefer systems that only determine the general quality of an action
instead of definitve results.
: You have automatically limited yourself to picking an
: action based on a probability, and must therefore have actions defined to
: select from, those definitions will have to be usable by a person running
: a game, and must therefore be drastic simplifications, or slow the game to
: a crawl, and the cycle is started. There is no way around it, there is no
: diced game on the market which avoids this fate, and I don't think I will
: ever see one that does.
Flowcharts with only 30 different outcomes are not smplifications?????
Different folwchart for different action does not slow thing by looking
for the correct flowchart??????
Imaginative handling of imaginative character action are not fiund in rules
diced or diceless: it is found in the imagination.
: If you don't have the heart to kill the character, and don't feel good
: about that decision, how can you feel right about randomizing it? Just
: because you've given the player a 50% chance of living doesn't make that
: death right. And simply because the dice rolled high or low, doesn't take
: the burden off your shoulders. Who set thopse probabilities? Who picked
: the situation? Who placed those monsters right there? I don't buy it.
The probabilities are of course decided by the GM and I will stand by my
decisions. What is wrong with giving the PC a last small chance instead of
just saying:"Boom! You're dead" ????
: I play these games for fun. And if the GM is going to kill me, I would
: prefer he do it because I've made the wrong choices, and the situation is
: right, openly and honestly, and not hide behind some dice roll. GMs who
: use the fairness of the dice as an excuse to run roughshod over the
: characters and the story are not my favorite kind. Those who don't use
: dice in this manner, will run just fine, and probably better, in a
: diceless environment.
It is a matter of different philosophies. In one encounter a assasin wanted
to kill the fist person coming out of a door. The player sent out an illusion
which was recognized by the assasin. Then the a PC came out, instead of the
NPC I planned. The assasin killed the PC (who did not make his poison save).
Shit happens. Or would you see this as a case of wrong choices?
: : If you think that the GM
: : of a diceless game is going to make their decisions solely on the basis
: : of the drama guidelines you provide, you are fooling yourself.
: Well, I guess we've fooled ourselves in over 100 runs. And we've fooled a
: whole bunch of other people as well. I'll stick with the fools.
What is this supposed to be? Ok, we agree to disagree. Communcation ends.
This kind of bunker mentality is not productive. Or are you just trying to
con us into bying your game?
Of course it was not nice to call someone a fool, but your reply does not show
that you are above such a level of discussion.
: I've never seen dice weed out poor
: Gms, poor players, or poor decsions. Killer GMs are killer despite the
: dice. Gms who love their favorite NPC over their players, are that way
: despite the dice.
Ah, the voice of reason.
: Dice can do nothing to help game fairness, and were
: never meant to. The were meant as a simplification tool to allow
: mechanical simulation in wargaming. They were meant to simulate the hand
: of fate in a game where all other decisions were made by two opposed
: factions. The whole point of having a GM is to make these decisons, in a
: game where dice could no longer be capable of that. The dice were kept for
: there simulation ability within a limited mechanical rules construct. And
: they are no longer needed.
Dice are a tool of probabilty (uncertainy/risk) and they exel at that.
Of corse the GM says what the probalities are in extreme and unsusal cases.
The normal day-to-day stuff is handled by the rules and where they do not
apply the GM judges. But instead of restricting yourself to GM judges outcomes,
there are at least two possibilities when rolling that dice in the end. This
way dice and rules do not rule and limit games, the enhance them and add
possibilities.
: It is a heck of a lot harder in Theatrix, I'll guarantee that. But don't
: take my word for it. Try it. Try it, and post a review of it on the net.
: If you hate it, let people know. I would ask you to approach the game with
: an open mind, to give it a fair try, and if you don't like it, go ahead
: and save other people from the same fate by saying so.
There are more options than either saying either "good" or "bad". Such things
always remind me of sheep in "Animal Farm" :"Four legs good - two legs bad".
Maybe it is just the point of saying that both styles are not better than
the other that makes me follow-up.
: I've seen that trick. Throw in a horde of monsters, or make a situation
: particularly difficult, weight everything against the player you don't
: like, use every decision a GM makes without the dice, and then roll the
: dice openly to be 'fair'. GMs make the decisions. Dice do not stop them
: from being unfair. Fair Gms do not need the dice.
How do you make that? Just when I am about to agree with you, whammo!,
You state something so different from my opinion that my stomach turns.
I agree that GMs make decisions and dice do not ensure fair and fun gaimg.
But I am opposed to that Fair GMs do not need dice. There is a difference
between fairness of opposition and fairness of success or probability.
Using dice means giving people a fair shot at the things they try in a
game without just saying yes or no to everything. Of course it is silly
to let the player roll always. But if I as a GM judge everything without
giving players a chance to succed at the unlikely, I am severly restricting
the possibilies.
A given number of pot points give players only resricted contol over the
plot (and even in a manner most silly, like jammed escape doors) and even
this control can be vetoed by the GM. Of course even in dice games, the GM may
veto anything. But if I give the player the chance, I, the GM WILL abide the
result. What would be the point of giving the player the chance to succed and
he roll the dreaded 20 then vetoing the result. That is plain bad GMing.
Gining a player a chance based on his actions is fairer than GM whim, IMHO.
It ensures that the player gets what he want if he beats probablitiy, even
if it does not suit the GM.
: You seem to be saying that diceless gaming has all these problems and
: difficulties. But they don't exist. They are in the imagination of diced
: players mostly.
IMO, most problems with rules & dice exsit in the mind of infexible rules-
lawyers (No, I do not mean you David). I prefer to have dice, because I think
they add to the game. I guess you could call my approach semi-diceless.
: Diceless gaming does have its own set of problems, but
: they are not these, and they are not nearly so drastic. Diceless play
: fixes a great number of problems incured by dice rules, and comes up with
: a few of its own problems, which diceless players are willing to live with
: for the benefits gained.
That is a matter of opinion.
: Do I think the diceless market offers many things that diced
: games can not, and that it will grow in coming years? Yes.
What can you offer that I cannot do with a diced game? I am courious.
11265-Graham Wills
>[Snip]
>: We haven't stopped describing our actions because we are rolling dice.
>: Does a diceless system really resolve a spinning kick any better than
>: the systems we have been using for years?
>: I think not.
>100% better, yes. Name me a diced system that resolves a spinning kick
>any differently than a regular kick. Heck, most diced games don't resolve
>a kick any differently than a punch. Never mind a flying, spinning kick,
>with a sweeping sabre follow-up.
Since you asked, RoleMaster does. It has four levels of Martial arts
attacks each for Sweeps/Throws and Punches/Kicks. Each level is intended to
describe a more potent attack.
So when a player does a regular kick, it's a level 1 Punch/Kick attack. If
he does a spinning kick, level 2. A flying, spinning kick with a sweeping
sabre follow-up sounds like a level four to me.
Needless to say, you have to learn the simpler attacks before you can learn
the more complex ones. So we have a nice, simple system that provides the
granularity that you want with one roll and one table.
Before you argue that the "flying, spinning kick" has to be assigned a level
by the GM, well, that's the GMs *job*.
-Graham Wills
--
Graham Wills Data Visualization / Software Research (11265)
gwi...@research.att.com AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill, Naperville IL
Andrew Finch
: In a diceless game, GM whim is the heart of the outcome. GM whim is the
: essence of diceless gaming. Whatever pleases the GM happens. No matter
: what a player describes, it only happens if the GM wants it happen. And the
: best thing to descibe that is GM whim.
That is entirely silly. I could say the same about a diced game. The GM
may ignore any dice rolls, fudge any dice rolls, throw any monsters or
situations against you, be as vile as he wants, and alter your character
in any way he wishes. In a diced game everything is GM whim, the only
things that happen are the things the GM likes, and your only choice is
to do things to please the GM.
The only time the above happens in a diced, or diceless game, is when the
GM sucks, and then you walk to a better game.
The above statement is especially untrue in Theatrix, a game where the
players have direct control over the world, their characters, and the
actions within it. In Theatrix, it is the GM who often has to keep up
with the players, not visa versa.
: : In Theatrix, it's not just a modifier of percentage to a standard game
: : mechanic maneuver. You can do everything you can think of, and each one of
: : these possibilities has all the nuance, and all the possible effects with
: : which it is described.
: If the GM wants it to happen.
This isgetting silly. What, in a diced game if the GM refuses to allow
something to happen, or insists that id does, there is some protection
against this I've never found? No, the only protection is leaving the
game, diced or diceless, which I would recommend.
: :In a diced game, even if you get a modifier to your
: : action, the outcome is still churned through the limited dice mechanic,
: : and comes out as the same plain vanilla results.
: Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! In every game you can do this as long as you don't play
: slave to the rules.
But those rules are your only protection against that horrible GM whim so
prevalent in diceless gaming. How could you think of ignoring those dice
rolls? Ignoring the rules? In order to get an unprecedented freedom of
action? How unthinkable!
I am sorry for the above attitude. It is probably unwarranted, but all
that comes through your above post is an insistence that the lack of dice
will ruin diceless gaming, which thousands of us know is not true, and
then your immediate response that you can get better result
differentiation, truer to the player's description, by 'not playing slave
to the rules'in a diced game, ie. ignoring them.
: Diceless games are deterministic. Players get shoved into plot the GM
: thinks is great. If the GM plans that one player is captured, that happens
: no matter what.
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
Sorry again. Actually, in Theatrix this is both very true, and very
untrue. Theatrix is story oriented, but also gives the palyers an
unprecedented amount of control and leeway.
: only MORE interesting. The NPCs had to rethink their plans, too, and much more
: interesting stories were told than I can probably conceive on my own, and
: belive me, my player think that I have creative ideas on my own. They get only
: better through a rendom element.
You don't destroy the random element by going diceless, you enhance it.
: : rules are a poor substitute for real imgaination. In fact, they stifle
: : it. You have to be 'fair', and go 'by the rules', etc.
: ?????
: Where the hell you get the idea, that GMs who *use* dice use them as a
: subsitute for imagination?
Where did you get the idea that losing the dice cuts off any sense of
fairness, common sense, communality, or surprise in a game. The dice
never held any if these in the first place.
: negative results. Life as GM would be boring if I could decide everything
: in the fist place. The whole interactive element of the game is lost.
: If I can shove the PCs in the directions I want, why not writing novels?
Yeah, those PCs become malleable putty once you putthe dice away. NOT.
: : pale method of introducing real tension, drama, and surprise. We give the
: : players the power and let them go to town. The GM is there to provide some
: : restraint. You best learn to think on your feet.
: MAybe it works for you, but I stay away from revoving the player's privilege
: to turn my plot by achiving the neigh impossible.
Who said anything about the neigh impossible. That is your interpretation.
We give them control, not power. Or power, but not control. Well, maybe I
don't know what we give them, but it works.
: *additional* opportunity that dice give as a tool of suspense.
A tool of suspence? What? Will he roll high? Will he roll low? That kind
of suspense? That's not suspense? That's gambling. Suspense is built up
through dramatic technique, which has nothing to do with dice.
: I do not rely on dice, but every now and then I use them as tools. Dice are
: no more than tools. I cannot understand why people become obsessed with either
: using them or throwing them away.
I'm not obsessed with throwing them away, I simply see no reason to keep
them if I do not want a wargame mixed in with my roleplaying.
: What is the tension in a situtation where The GM decides who survives?
Where is the tension in see how high a number you can roll on a set of dice?
: What is the drama of a situation where the GM's plot MUST prevail?
Well, I would go to the dictionary and look up that little word 'drama'
first, and then we'll talk about it. I think it has something to do with
plot. Now, does the GMs plot need to prevail in a diceless game? No, of
course not. We just like to have a plot, which I always thought was
something made up interactively, by the GM and the players, as a communal
game.
: You might as well go to the movies.
How many diceless games have you played? Certainly not many, or you had
some bad experiences. I'm sorry. But lots of people do this all the time.
I think they are evn standing up now and doing LARPS.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
11265-Graham Wills
Again, with Rolemaster:
bcks...@crl.com (Andrew Finch) writes:
>Yes, they do. But that's not what we were talking about. Let me give an
>example. I want to grab the gun arm of an opponent in fron of me,
Either a disarming skill roll with extra modifier for grabbing, not just
throwing away the gun (based on gun sized, easy for big guns, hard for
pistols), or a stright agility roll. The other guy could fight back with a
strength roll to wrench it out of your grip.
>control
>the weapon, shooting another guy coming at me,
Looks like a weapon skill roll, modified by how well you grabbed the gun
in the previous roll or skill contest.
>while using the body of
>the guy I'm controling as a shield against a third gunman,
Either a grappling attack on the guy to pull him in front of you (or a simple
strength roll) or a moving manouevre to stay betweeen him and the gun.
>then use the
>gun I've just acquired to take down the last guy.
Another weapon skill roll.
>MOst game systems are
>incapable of simulating this action.
Funnily enough, I can't think of any combat I've GMd recently where this sort
of thing didn't happen. Even the last one-shot MERP I ran for a conference
had unusual attacks (like the "hide behind door and throw blind around
corner while switching weapons with my other hand" attack).
Systems vary in the amont of rules used to cover this sort of attack, but
it's a poor system that doesn't allow it.
>Yes, I know that Hero is barely
>capable of this (I'm not sure if you can use a grab and control, and a
>grab and block in the same round), and probably GURPS too, but the
>mechanical overhead to allow this is very high. The game crawls while
>combat is enacted. Diceless systems handle this kind of action fluidly,
>and easily.
No. "Freeform" games handle it fluidly and easily. You can easily have a
freeform diced game to handle it. For example, you could compare general
combat ability and add a modifier for cleverness of plan and then roll to
see if it succeeds. That is a "diced freeform" method.
Let's keep "freeform" and "diceless" seperate, shall we? They are not
synonymous.
>However, you only have to look at the market at this point
>to see the changes. Newer diced games are even taking a different
>approach to the role of dice, which I think is healthy.
I agree. I think freeform games are beginning to have a much stronger
influence - a healthy one for the hobby. It is good to see, for example,
the new MERP rulebook spend the first 50 or so pages talking about
how to play, plotting, skills and gaming in abstract terms before getting
into 80 pages of rules and tables. The emphasis on playing is welcome.
Taki Kogoma
<3gj3uc$5...@giga.bga.com> in rec.games.frp.advocacy:
>Andrew Finch (bcks...@crl.com) wrote:
>: Dice have problems. I think we have some solutions.
>
>You did it again. You treat the idea that 'dice have problems' as a
>given. Well, it isn't a given. If you back up a few steps and present a
>good objective argument to back up that statement, *then* other people
>might start agreeing with it. Until then, you just sound like a guy with
>an agenda.
Of course he has an agenda, Jeff. Just in case you haddn't noticed,
he's been trying to sell a game system that supports strongly-plotted
(As opposed to 'Day in the life') campaign styles. ;-)
Now, between his marketing hype, and the fact that I'm perfectly
content with just sketching out the campaign universe, laying a plot
hook on the PCs and sitting back to arbitrate their interactions with
same - using whatever tools I feel necessary - I don't feel any need
to go out and purchase a game system that is not suited to my tastes.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
qu...@unm.edu | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
Carsten Husek
: John H Kim (jh...@namaste.cc.columbia.edu) wrote:
: Description can change the outcome of your action, but it is
: entirely limited to what the diced rule system allows as possible
: outcomes, and these are always very limited.
If you limmit yourself to "official" rules, correct. Otherwise incorrect.
: To get a greater variety of
: possible results, you increase the mechanical overhead by leaps and
: bounds. I like Champions, but even then, you can't really differentiate
: one martial art from another in play really, and the game slows down to a
: crawl during combat.
Only if you want nitty-gritty realism. Otherwise its not too diificult to
improvise different effects from equal dice results. IT just requires intimate
knowledge of martial arts or guidelines what the differences are (and these
gudelines don't have to be modifiers and mechanics). Even in a diceless game
this knowledge is required to introduce this level of detail.
: I think both of these are poor substitutes for the diceless forms, in
: which you do what you describe, and the results are specific to your
: description and environment. Completely. No limts on your action or its
: consequences.
The limits are what the GM says no matter if diceless or diced. David, you
are still confusing using dice with strictly adhering to rules.
Our last duel in AD&D was won by an idea that was impossible with vanilla
rules, but the GM approved it because it was consistent with the background
world and a very imaginative idea. But there was still risk of failure,
simulated by a dice roll. In a diceless game the GM either would approve it
because it "cool and creative" or he would require plot points (a rather
plain and unchallening way). The dice chance introduced the elemt of real
risk, but the player was willing to take itr and made it.
: : Well, this is a debatable advantage. In the diceless games I
: : have been in, I've noticed a tendency to reward style and volume as well
: : as content. That is, the same maneuver (say, a punch in the jaw) may be
: : more successful if the player describes it in more flowery terms.
: I certainly reward this extra description in my games. I also try to help
: those who are not so good at combat descriptions yet. And I talk to the
: players to make sure that I'm hearing what they meant. It's all part of
: the package.
Well, that is an accepable way to handle things, but in no way better than
our sytle. Different, yes. Better, more creative: no.
: Or from improvisational rules, etc. I agree. But player and Gm creativity
: are the most important, and the lack of dice is in no way a detriment to
: creativity in a game.
The presence of dice is in no way a detriment, either.
David Hauth
: Hmmm.. I find this suspicious. Not having seen Theatrix in the
: stores, I'm starting to wonder. Does it really exist? Is David
: really just another personality hidden in the gestalt that is Andrew
: Finch? Is this more interesting the copyright info being repeated
: for the nth time?
No, it exists, and it's a Good Thing (tm) -- to use your parlance :)
Whether or not you are into tightly-plotted diceless games or not, the
Theatrix Core Rules are an _excellent_ treatise on how to go about
roleplaying characters -- something every game should have somewhere but
they always seem to concentrate on using skills/determining
chances/rolling dice rather than the nuances of making a character
interesting.
Dave
Douglas L. Vandenburgh
: [Snip]
What player is going to say "No, I'm spending PlotPoints/Luck/Karma
to have that spell kill me."?
- Doug
Jeff Stehman
>Yes, they do. But that's not what we were talking about. Let me give an
>example. I want to grab the gun arm of an opponent in fron of me, control
>the weapon, shooting another guy coming at me, while using the body of
>the guy I'm controling as a shield against a third gunman, then use the
>gun I've just acquired to take down the last guy. MOst game systems are
>incapable of simulating this action. Yes, I know that Hero is barely
>capable of this (I'm not sure if you can use a grab and control, and a
>grab and block in the same round), and probably GURPS too, but the
>mechanical overhead to allow this is very high. The game crawls while
>combat is enacted. Diceless systems handle this kind of action fluidly,
>and easily.
You seem to have frequently implied that those of us using dice are
somehow locked into the mechanics of our games. Above you say that
most game systems are not capable of simulating this scene. You're
correct in a way, I guess. They don't have explicit rules for it.
So what? I would have no difficulty at all resolving this situation
using AD&D and dice, and there would be almost no overhead. That's
one of the reasons I use such a minimalist system; it gives me a set
basic mechanics and let's me decide how situations should be resolved
as they come up. Given that, how is my diced game failing and yours
succeeding in these kinds of situations?
--
Jeff Stehman Senior Systems Administrator
ste...@southwind.net SouthWind Internet Access, Inc.
voice: (316)263-7963 Wichita, KS
Carsten Husek
: Yes, they do. But that's not what we were talking about. Let me give an
: example. I want to grab the gun arm of an opponent in fron of me, control
: the weapon, shooting another guy coming at me, while using the body of
: the guy I'm controling as a shield against a third gunman, then use the
: gun I've just acquired to take down the last guy. MOst game systems are
: incapable of simulating this action. Yes, I know that Hero is barely
: capable of this (I'm not sure if you can use a grab and control, and a
: grab and block in the same round), and probably GURPS too, but the
: mechanical overhead to allow this is very high. The game crawls while
: combat is enacted. Diceless systems handle this kind of action fluidly,
: and easily.
Oh, boy that is easy. The GM makes judgements of probailities according to
the rules, and his common sense. Then make a few roll for the critical
points of your action. Voila. No mechincal overhead. I may not abide the
rules to the letter but that is no the point of ROLEplaying anyway.
I can execute your example in detail if you want and if I have the system
to get into the spirit of the rules.
: : Exactly how much farther do you go in 'diceless' combat, most of the
: : time?
: Very much farther.
This is where I want you to be precise. And after that I'll do your example
with a diced game and show taht it can be done.
: Yeah, and when you pick up the amulet and 3000 Bugbears leap out at you
: from interdimensional portals, it was your choice, and only the die rolls
: will kill you.
Again, don't confuse bad GMing with using dice.
: Now, I know you don't GM like that. What I'm saying is that the only
: reason the game is fair, is because you don't GM like that. The dice
: rules offer no basis for protection.
????
Heroic rules in AD&D protect from poison. What about 95% poison imutity?
Rules offer no protection from bad GMing or munchkins, but these are NOT
coupled to playing with dice. If you are sure that your GM does not
ignore the dice out of convenience, that will help to establish an atmosphere
of trust. I am not saying that you cannot trust dicless GMs but a GM cannot
keep you from succeding at the chance he has given you (eg saving throw,
skill roll). If he does, he is playing diceless anyway.
: That is exactly my point. There is no difference. Diced or diceless, it's
: only the GMs sense of fairness, and his care for the players and the game
: that make the difference. Dice don't grant you that protection., and the
: lack of them does not impede the fairness of the game.
Ok. agreed, but using dice does not impede either.
: : Dice are randomizers, nothing more. The
: : simple *presence* of dice in a game has nothing to do with fairness.
: Thank you. That was my only point in the matter. Dice have nothing to do
: with fairness, and their lack will not be missed in that regard.
70% and 75% percent are both good scores in Runequest. Is is now fairer to
just decide if you are succesful or not or is more fair to the latter
character who has those extra 5% of experience and training????
I am not saying that it is impossible, but is very difficult to rely on
judgement alone, especially in borderline cases and in areas where I do not
have personal experience in. Rules and dice really help here.
James Lynn
>John H Kim (jh...@aloha.cc.columbia.edu) wrote:
>: OTOH, the advantage I see to diced resolution is that it is
>: more consistant and predictable. No - really.
>Which can also be a disadvantage in itself. I have seen several people
>mention that dice provide that needed unpredictability, which I don't
>believe is true. I think you're right, and dice enforce a kind of
>predictability on the game, which is constraining in its own way.
>: In a diceless game, _everything_ tends to vary with how the
>: plot is going. Again, this can be viewed as an advantage, disadvantage,
>: or both - depending on your mindset.
>Yes.
For me, the potential problem is not particularly with predictability of the
results, since as others have said, life is unpredictable. (I would
be concerned if the distribution of results over time differed markedly from
what I would have expected.)
I would have said that the major advantage of the diced system is that it
allows players to make decisions about actions while knowing approximately
how difficult the various options that have occured to them are. In a
diceless game you can of course ask the GM, but asking about the difficulties
of a wide range of options, and getting answers such that you are confident
that you and the GM agree on the terms used could potentially be a long
process. Furthermore, situations may arise when it is so obvious to you that
an action is simple that you don't ask about the difficulty but when the GM
believes that it is difficult.
A diced rule system provides a framework that should eliminate these sorts of
problems. In doing so, it need not restrict your options in the way you
suggest. In a later (on my system) post, you say that Hero cannot handle a
situation where you want to try to both push your opponent back and hit them.
I'm not familiar with Hero, but if I were, and if I were your GM, I'd tell
you to role the dice and base my response on how well you rolled against what
you would have needed to hit, what you would have needed to push him back,
the agressiveness of his stance and so on. Essentially the same sort of
things that I imagine you would use in a diceless game, except that the
chances of the various outcomes that I come up with, being based on the
agreed framework of the hero rules, are very likely to be similar to your
guesses. Thus, in terms of your decision as to whether or not to take that
course of action, the hero system might as well allow the action.
--
James Lynn Home:ja...@biometry.demon.co.uk Work:james...@bbsrc.ac.uk
Snappy quote goes here!
Sean Nittner
: PariahMike (paria...@aol.com) wrote:
: 100% better, yes. Name me a diced system that resolves a spinning kick
: any differently than a regular kick. Heck, most diced games don't resolve
: a kick any differently than a punch. Never mind a flying, spinning kick,
: with a sweeping sabre follow-up.
Champion and Werewolf, to name a few.
Please do sed me a copy in it's entirty.
TV is a Medium,
called so because it is neither rare nor well done.
Joseph Teller
>
>Hmmm.. I find this suspicious. Not having seen Theatrix in the
>stores, I'm starting to wonder. Does it really exist? Is David
>really just another personality hidden in the gestalt that is Andrew
>Finch? Is this more interesting the copyright info being repeated
>for the nth time?
Theatrix has also been pretty invisible here in the general Boston area
as well. I think we simply have a case of another small company trying
to goad people into getting their product visible by causing
controversy.
I've played in games without dice or other randomized event/result
controllers and they always end up as a matter of GM's whim with a large
amount of posturing and powergaming. Usually the GMs involved were
moreinterested in having their egos stroked by the players then carrying
out true roleplaying.
Before the source of all this jumps in, note that I spent my high school
years studying theatre and house managed the summer stock theatre at
Brandeis for 2 years with professional cast and crew so its not from a
lack of exposure to real theatre or concepts of improvisational theatre
that I make my observations.
What I would ask the source of this controversy is - how many HOURS of
gaming did you have in gaming before Theatrix? How many different
systems have you been exposed to? Different Genres? Have you ever
written anything else for the field? Have you ever operated, owned or
operating a large scale (100+ member) gaming club or a gaming store?
Carsten Husek
: Hans M Dykstra (hdyk...@twain.oit.umass.edu) wrote:
: : >>If you don't have the heart to kill the character, and don't feel good
: : >>about that decision, how can you feel right about randomizing it? Just
: : Well, maybe I don't have the heart to do it intentionally, but deep down
: : I know it is (one of) the logical outcomes of his attempt?
: That doesn't make it right. If you don't feel good about it, then the
: player probably doesn't either. So why do it? Just to make the game more
: realistic? I've found that if the time is right, and the death is really
: meaningful, then it becomes O.K. And then you just do it, and you don't
: need the dice, which would never know that moment anyway.
Why having it occuring only when it is "right". Sometimes you get yourself
in too deep, you sometimes end up dying a meaningless death. IT has something
to do with a consistent background. If you the defy the odds of your fictional
world, you have to face the consequences. If you walk a tightrope across a
chasm without training to escape your enemies , there is some chance that you
make it and a chance that you fall to your death. You can't handle those
cases with "rightness" and gut feeling. Ok, you can, but I would think of
you as a GM that would kill me because his gut feeling tells him it is
right or "meaningful".
: : When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
: : There _are_ lots of GM's for diced games who can't muster the imagination
: : to resolve things in anything but a purely mechanical fashion. That is
: : not the fault of the dice tool, but rather the that they haven't
: : developed any other tools to use. Playing diceless might prompt them to
: : extend their repertoire, but for me I'll always go back to dice.
: Well if you pick up a whole tool set, plus the instruction, you may very
: well get farther along. It's gotta be better than just sticking with that
: unimaginative hammer.
I understand that you want to sell your game, but do not overdo it. The
hammer was just a metaphor. The dice hammmer is just as powerful as your
diceless tool set !!!!! The "hammer" is not unimaginative.
: : To go with the "reverse spin kick" question, so what if the system doesn't
: : represent that as anything different from a punch? The system, then, is
: : only telling you whether the kick connected, and if so with how much force.
: : Things that "common sense" just won't touch.
: I think common sense touches them quite well, and if it doesn't we have a
: whole support structure to help *you* decide. Not the dice. Not a
: randomized event. Not with only a portion of the relevant description.
: But you, taking into account all the detail you wish to.
If I take into account all the detail I want, I might as well use dice for
resoloution. I as a GM do not want to decide probabilities of 60 to 40
or even 9 to one. Dice are much better than I at gernerating numbers.
Why the hell should I press a failure on the player when his chances are
good, but sometimes failure is possible and relevant even the chance of
failure is only 1%. Why should I let the player fail or succeed? Who would
benefit if I let him fail? What would be won if I let him succeed. Anyway,
I am limiting myself through the decision in the same manner as if I would
use dice. With actions where the outcome is uncertain it is arbitrary if
I as a GM just decide things.
I am deciding roll you make and I don't refuse the resposibility for that.
But am not an probalitiy generation automat. If i fugure 99% of success,
who garantees that one of 100 cases is a failure? Who can be sure that I
am impartial?
: : Any effects beyond that have to be put in by the GM. Just like in diceless
: : play. If many GM's can't see beyond what the dice tell them, that is not
: : a problem with the dice, but with how they are used.
: Yes. But the diced rule systems go no further, and provide no other
: support. So waht else is going to happen? And since the dice take up so
: much importance, and leave no support for anything else, how much
: farther will people go?
If your system's support is so great, why not depeloping an associated
dice mechanic? You might not want to use it everytime, but I think
it could broaden the horizons of your game.
If your system doesn't cover everything, I can't see the advantages of using
it instead of my diced games.
Quynne
>If you look at your Acrobatics skill score in Hero, for instance, you can
>pretty much figure out your odds of success at some acrobatic maneuver.
And you want your players to be able to know they have a 72.5% chance of
success with a 5.2% chance of a fumble? I think we disagree. Even in things
I consider myself skilled in, I doubt I have the ability to guess what my
percentages are.
>The issue wasn't 'are the Theatrix game mechanics good'. The issue was,
>'are dice-based games losing their appeal and diceless games taking over
>the market'. If that were true, the sales of diceless games ought to be
>going up and the sales of Theatrix ought to be benefitting since it is
>one of the only *two* diceless games on the market.
Of course, the two diceless games on the market could suck for some other
reason than being diceless. For example, I avoided Amber because the reviews
outlined the campiagn world, which I found to be unappealing.
>Further attempts at sarcasm will be clearly marked for your convenience.
Thank you. I need all the help that I can get.
>I've cooled off a bit, and hopefully we can get back to it. While I stand
>by the comments I made, I regret the overly hostile tone in which I made
>'em. I'd like to say, to Dave's credit, that he responded in a very
>polite manner.
Great. I'm glad we can put that behind us.
Jeff
PS: Sorry about calling you a jerk.
nancy sauer
(This statement is David (dba Andrew Finch)'s; my stuff has two
indents.)
: But no matter what the game, the only actions you can perform are
: those which the dice mechanics define as possible.
WHAT???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David, I can only regard this statement as false. Mechanics, diced
or otherwise, are structure, to be used, modified or ignored as the
situation dictates.
I admit I have not actually _read_ the rulebook for FASA's Star Trek
game, but I am reasonably sure that it contains no mechanics for
Running Into An Elevator, Spotting An Ambush, Suborning An Enemy,
Blowing Up Doors, or Maintaining Sanity While Being Possessed;
nevertheless, all of these things were done by characters in our Star
Trek game. Some of them where resolved with the help of dice, and
some were resolved without dice.
When in doubt, we improvise; when we can't improvise, we invent.
Why is this so difficult for you to accept?
[SNIP]
: : believed the person she was pursuing was a Romulan agent. Please
: : believe me when I say that rolling around in helpless agony at the
: : complete mercy of your (suspected) enemy is every bit as frustrating as
: : missing the *&%!# elevator in the first place.
: That kind of result is what Theatrix is built for. It is what it does
: best. Yes, you can do it in a diced game, as the above presents. But in
: Theatrix, every decsions is done this way. Every move in combat, every
: attempt at pursuasion, everything. I think the reason diced systems handle
: those situations O.K., is that there are few rules present to get in the
: way in non-combat situations. Most of this was work by the GM which could
: have been done as easily without the dice. In fact, in your example, the
: GM clearly ignores your dice roll, which was a failure, in favor of a
: diceless result, which you seem to have prefered.
<sigh> Dan did not "clearly ignore" my dice roll. You seem wedded
to the notion that sucess (or failure) in a diced game is a logical,
on/off sort of thing, and I'm saying that it's _not_.
I was rolling percentice dice. Had I rolled really low, say 01,
Alexiva would have swept into the elevator in grand style, grabbed
her quary in a judo hold, thrown her up against the wall and cooed
"And where are *you* going?" in her ear. Had I rolled a 100 (the
dreaded double-ought of Catastrophic Failure), Alexiva probably would
have tripped and broke her silly neck. As it was, I rolled a failure,
but a near failure. Dan, twisted genius that he is, decided that Alexiva
got into the elevator, but was too incapacitated to take advantage of
the fact. I'm sorry David, but this sounds like a near failure to me.
[SNIP]
: : particular action "suceeded" or "failed", but it is up the GM to
: : decide and describe just what a sucess or failure _is_, given the
: : circumstances.
: In other words, if you want good decsriptive results, you go diceless.
I cannot see any logical connection between my statement and your reply.
: Why not go with a system made for this kind of play. One that has a lot
: of support for doing just this kind of thing.
Because I want to fail.
(Please, don't be alarmed. I'm not talking about me, Nancy,
personally.)
Maybe its the masochist in me, but I want to have a game where no
matter how smart, pretty or skilled my characters are, there is a
chance that _it_won't_be_enough_. I want a game where characters can go
out of the frying pan and into hell in a hand basket in a blink of an
eye, and they had _no_ control over it.
And I don't what any of this appropriate-for-the-story,
furthering-the-plot, meaningful-death business. I want to hear the
dragon Chaos moving out there in the darkness and know that sooner or
later, he will come for me. BOOM! Sooner or later, BOOM!
I prefer heroic roleplay, and for me, daring that dragon is an
essential part of being heroic. Your system may be great for
promoting character interaction and simulating (please pardon the
word) combat, but if it can't give me that feeling of skating on thin
ice, then I won't stick with it for long. And from what you have
said, I don't think it can.
[SNIP]
: Sounds like you really aught to try it, because at least half of what I'm
: saying is true. Sounds like I would like to be there when you do. You
: have a space in your game? I'll bring the rules.
We can always make room for a good gamer. If you think you may be
in Nebraska (or passing through it) sometime this summer let me know.
Warn me ahead of time: half of the group is now in different states
and I'll need to gather them up. (We still get together when we can.
Our New Year's Eve game was...unique.)
Nancy M. Sauer <*> "Then you will come to think of things in
Disciple of Bread Do: a wide sense and, taking the dough as the
The Way of the Way, you will see the Way is dough.
Flour Warrior In the dough there is virtue, and no evil."
Carsten Husek
: Tim Dunn (td...@netcom.com) wrote:
: : Okay, here's my attempt to get some bandwidth going:
: : 1) Vampire/White Wolf gamers wouldn't know roleplaying if they were
: : bitten in the rear by a method actor!
Oh my god! People who write trash like this just heared the words "method
acting" and that is a has something to do with cool film stars like Madonna
(arghh!). Hence, to be hiiper than vampire players, but must play your
games like method acting.
Yeah, right.
: Other than that, GURPS beats Hero, and every other system is
: left in the dust by both.
Now that is a real gem of a flame-bait. OF course I would not dare to say
anything against something this idiotic and closeminded. Someone with
a higher calling than must has to waste his time with this holy sentence
of prejudice.
: : 3) Real Roleplayers don't need dice. Munchkins need dice.
: True, but Real Roleplayers use dice anyway, to show that they
: can improvise and emote, regardless of what the dice throw at
: them.
If they call them selves Real Roleplayers with capital Rs, they are probably
schizophrenic munchkins. Munchkins want to best at at everything, even role-
playing.
: : 4) Whatever else you think of that's flammable.
: Or something
: old, about persecution of gamers by misguided followers of
: the Antichrist? (As a Christian *and* a role-player, I believe
: that God wants us to use our imaginations, and that creating
: our own Worlds is an act which brings us closer to Him.)
Just in case this is honest, I do not want to make any commentary.
: "Whoever dies with the most skills wins."
Sounds like REAL Roleplaying ..... =)
Ray Trent
>Douglas L. Vandenburgh (pig...@prairienet.org) wrote:
>are things which are dropped because they are not relevant to the diced
>system, or are unfairly turned into a simple dice modifier for result. To
I think you'll play better with this crowd if you say something like:
"...there are things which are often dropped because they are not
relevant..." and "...are sometimes unfairly turned into...".
>experiment which may help you to see this (or not). Try coming up with a
>plausible and interesting situation. See what the possible outcomes are
>in your favorite diced game, and what those resolutions would mean for
>the next subsequent action. Do the same in your head, but in an open way.
>See what possibilities are available without restricting yourself to any
>game system, and what those resolutions might mean for any subsequent
>action. Can you see any differences?
Frankly, my "favorite system" is quite free-form (fairly similar to
Fudge, homegrown over about 13 years of play). It has some default
results that happen if the GM/player decide to go for a simple "I
swing, you miss" style of wargaming play, but whenever someone wants
to roleplay rather than wargame, anything that can be described can
happen. But if that player (or the GM) is tired or just feels like a
bit of "wargaming", no additional effort is required to mesh the
"mechanical results" seamlessly with the otherwise roleplayed campaign
action.
The main thing the dice do is (often) quantify how *likely* a
character is to succeed/fail at an attempted action and how well the
character *actually* succeeds at whatever they try to do.
If a player in one of my games wanted to grab someone's gun, twist
them around to block other attacks, and use the gun to shoot at the
other attackers, I don't have any problem with that. I will probably
modify their chance of success for that kind of action, but when it
comes down to it and they roll for they do and I roll to see how well
the "universe" or their opponent does at thwarting them, what actually
happens is completely open ended. The only thing the dice do is
determine how optimal the result is for them (and I attempt to fit it
into their description in some way).
Maybe he grabs the target's arm, but the target drops the gun and
slips to the ground, leaving the PC standing in the line of fire.
Maybe he grabs and blocks, but can't fire. Maybe he can do it all.
Maybe he'll miss the gun but still slip behind the target. Maybe he'll
mostly succeed. Maybe he'll mostly fail. Maybe (on a bad enough roll
by him or perhaps by the universe) something totally random will
happen that bears only a vague resemblence to the intended result.
Maybe the thug will be grabbed, but whirl around in a way that makes a
shot at either one dubious. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Anything could
happen. The only thing the dice tell me is: how optimal is the result
from at least 2 perspectives compared to some kind of "average" (that
usually varies wildly from genre to genre...in a "Toon" genre, for
example, maybe he grabs the gun and gets under cover, but the gun
barrel comes alive and bites his hand or points at him).
A valid complaint, though, is that the presence of a mechanical system
can tend to push people towards describing their actions in terms of
the mechanical system. E.g., "I drop a plus to go first" instead of "I
dive in to attack before the opponent can act, even if it means I'm
being a bit reckless or sloppy". This has a good side and a bad side.
If the GM was planning on having the NPC do the same thing, what
happens? Sometimes, if you have a mechanical system, the system will
answer that question (in our system, if both sides "drop the same
number of plusses", they still go "simultaneously"). It's also a fair
sight more concise and accurate. It's certainly not as charming
though, and it doesn't automatically provide some of the "obvious"
amusing results of 2 people diving in headfirst to beat the
draw. ("the coconut like sound of their heads colliding secretly
delighted the bird").
You're right about one other thing, but it's a minor and technical
semantic point: dice don't create "suspense". They create "momentary
points of anticipation" and "tension", and *sometimes* they can
"force" the players/GM to come up with an "unexpected" result (i.e., a
result unexpected or planned for by either side) and deal with it.
*Most* of the time, of course, they just simultaneously raise the
slightly worrying question "will the expected happen?" in both the
players and the GM and answer it "yes, to a greater or lesser degree".
--
"When you're down, it's a long way up
When you're up, it's a long way down
It's all the same thing
And it's no new tale to tell" ../ray\..
Jeff Stehman
>I have what you might call a love/hate relationship
>with my dice, in particular the d4 with which my forehead collided a few
>years ago -- only time I've ever seen actual bloodshed from a small plastic
>die, and it hurt like hell....)
Um, I have a pretty clear mental image on this one, but I thought I might
verify it. Did you, in a moment of dispair, bash your head against a
table? And was there a d4 awaiting you on said table?
Andrew Finch
theory. Talking about and experienceing are two different things. Yes,
dice games can be run like diceless games with a set of rules if you need
them, and a set of dice if you need them, but they never are. And even if
they were, they would still lack some key mechanisms for what I'm aiming
at. So, on the premise that talk is cheap, and I'll probably never
convince amyone anyhow, I've decided to let someone else do that. If
someone in this debate is willing to, I'll send him/her a free copy of
the rules, on the condition that they run a game, and post some
compilation of their experiences to this group, within 4 weeks of reciept
of the game. That seems like a fair amount of time to read the rules, ask
any questions you have, and run one good scenario. Post what you feel,
good, bad, or indiferent. I'm curious, and it seems like other people are
as well, even if only for arguments sake (which is a fine reason on
.advocacy). I will of course choose the most open mided person I think I
can get, but as I've had no rabid supporters here, I think that this
little test would still be quite fair.
So, any takers?
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Jeff
: : this all gets back to my
: : comments about the advantages of dice over humans as randomizers, which you
: : snipped ;)
: Well, I do not believe that dice have any sort of advantage over humans
: as randomizers.
: If you are going to use the argument that humans are somehow predictable,
: and that the players will start to outguess the Gm, etc., please don't
: bother.
I was *not* going to use that argument. In fact, my argument is just the
opposite. A human mind is *less* predictable than a system of game
mechanics using dice. A player in a diceless game cannot know their odds
of success without asking the GM outright, because the interpretation of
the outcome takes place entirely within the GM's head. If the diceless GM
had a percent chance he could quote to the player, the player could look at
that percentage and decide whether or not to risk taking the action. But
the diceless GM *doesn't* have odds he can quote; in his head, either it
*will* work or it *won't*. He can't tell the player what he's decided, or
else he's given it away before it happened. This leaves the diceless
player with no way to judge his own chances.
Andrew Finch
[Snip]
: had a percent chance he could quote to the player, the player could look at
: that percentage and decide whether or not to risk taking the action. But
: the diceless GM *doesn't* have odds he can quote; in his head, either it
: *will* work or it *won't*. He can't tell the player what he's decided, or
: else he's given it away before it happened. This leaves the diceless
: player with no way to judge his own chances.
Actually, I judge this off the character's skill level. If the character
has a high skill level, he will have a more accurate estimate of his
chances, and I give an answer closer to the 'truth'. If the character's
skill level is low, and the task hard enough, I may intentionally mislead
the player 'You think you just might have a shot at it'. Either way, I
tell the player how his character probably sees the situation. That is no
guarantee of success, nor is the fact that I say 'You don't think so. You
look at the situation, and in your head is this small voice saying "No
way, no way, no way".', any indication of absolute failure. It just gives
you your 'odds'. It is up to the player to take the risk or not.
Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to kill a player if he's wrong. There
are plenty of ways to hurt a character without killing him. Having
someone hanging onto a cliff, trying to pull himself up, while the enemy
are taking pot shots at him, may be concequence enough. Or possibly a
broken arm will do. Depends upon the situation.
David Berkman
Backstage Press
Jeff
: : : When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
: : Well if you pick up a whole tool set, plus the instruction, you may very
: : well get farther along. It's gotta be better than just sticking with that
: : unimaginative hammer.
I think you missed his point here. The pro-dice side in this discussion
has freely and repeatedly endorsed the use of dice and diceless playstyles
*together*, each when they are called for. You, on the other hand, advocate
going wholly diceless. Now who is using the whole toolbox? Us. Who is
trying to use one tool to solve everything? You are, my man.
I have a serious question about how your game works. Please don't ignore
this, I *really* would like to hear a response. Suppose the plot calls
for a randomly flickering disintegration field that the players have to
get through. It's *randomly* flickering - there is no way to predict when
it will be on or off, and let's assume none of the characters are
paychic. Sure, they could try to find another way around, but one of them
says, 'what the hell, I'm gonna go for it!' and leaps through. How do you
decide whether he fries or not?
Andrew Finch
: Before the source of all this jumps in, note that I spent my high school
: years studying theatre and house managed the summer stock theatre at
: Brandeis for 2 years with professional cast and crew so its not from a
: lack of exposure to real theatre or concepts of improvisational theatre
: that I make my observations.
No, you make your observations from bad experiences with diceless play.
I, on the other hand have no real theatre experience, but I've had good
diceless experiences. Then again, we've shown Theatrix to theatre
teachers, and they were impressed with the product. One was going to
suggest it to his students. I don't know if this was simply patronizing,
but I assume there must have been something to it.
: What I would ask the source of this controversy is - how many HOURS of
: gaming did you have in gaming before Theatrix?
Hours? I had been gaming for 17 years. I can not count the hours.
: How many different
: systems have you been exposed to?
Name a game. I must admit I haven't tried a Tri Tac system yet, and I'm
sure some others, but I have tried most stuff on the market. I have a
collection of games like everyone else seriously interested in this
hobby. And of course there are 5 of us involved in this project, all with
years of experience, and many games under our belts. I co-wrote Theatrix.
: Different Genres?
Many, many. We've made up our own on many occasions.
: Have you ever
: written anything else for the field?
Not a thing.
: Have you ever operated, owned or
: operating a large scale (100+ member) gaming club or a gaming store?
No. We had a gaming club in SF for a while, but it was more like 30
members, and I didn't run it. One of the co-authors was elected as the
clubs dictator. Does that count for any points?
David Berkman
Backstage Press
I don't mind answering these questions, but I have to ask what they were for.
Jeff
: gaun...@bga.com (Jeff) writes:
: >If you look at your Acrobatics skill score in Hero, for instance, you can
: >pretty much figure out your odds of success at some acrobatic maneuver.
: And you want your players to be able to know they have a 72.5% chance of
: success with a 5.2% chance of a fumble? I think we disagree. Even in things
: I consider myself skilled in, I doubt I have the ability to guess what my
: percentages are.
I'd be perfectly happy with a game that managed to give you an idea of my
chances of success *without* making it possible to figure it to the last
decimal point, but off the top of my head I can't see how to achieve
that. It's not the specific percentage I'm after, it's a decent *feeling*
about the odds. Haven't you ever stood at the edge of something you were
contemplating jumping across, trying to get a feel for whether you could
make it or not? And haven't you ever *failed* even when you thought you
could make it? That's what you get with a game using rules and dice, and
I fail to see how you can get the same feeling from a diceless game.
Reimer Behrends
[...]
: : .................
: : Improvisation, or How To Make A GM Despair. ;-) Actually, it's not that
: : bad, but I don't know whether it can easily be recommended for a novice
: : GM. The whole point about Theatrix improvisation is to let the players
: : alter the fabric of reality themselves (if necessary, by expenditure of
: : plot points). A part that is the sole province of the GM in traditional
: : roleplaying games.
: : Now don't get me wrong. The GM still has the power to veto such
: : improvisations.
: SO we're back to absolute GM power. Vetoing everything that doesn't fit his
: concept is just bad GMing.
My dear Carsten, I do not know whether your misunderstanding is
intentional (from your style and tone I guess so, but you can try to
prove me wrong), but you somehow didn't get it.
In one sentence: The vetoing power of the GM in Theatrix over
improvisation is about the same as the vetoing power of the GM in about
any diced game (if not less) over die rolls (and before you try to
misunderstand me again - I don't talk about the results, I talk about
whether to roll, against what, and with what modifiers). Don't jump to
conclusions.
: : Anyway, be prepared that your master villain finds the door he prepared
: : to flee through jammed (this led to a duel on top of a roof instead of
: : the outcome I prepared for); that a harmless looking mechanical doll
: : hides a time bomb (well, luckily its purpose was murderous, anyway); or
: : that a barrel on top of some others is not safely fastened (you see
: : where this leads?).
: Are this supposed to be "good" examples. They are good examples of player
: convenience:"Sheesh, we did not plan that there was a back exit. Let's
: spend plot points."
Again, you didn't get it. Two out of the three examples _complicated_
the situation. For instance, in the first example they knew that they
could have let the villain happily get away, and none the worse for it.
But they wanted his head, even though that put their characters at
risk.
: If plot points allow players to influnce what happens in
: a game through strange coincidences generated by plot points, only cheap
: and uninteresting stories will result.
You have, of course, played it a dozen times and are in a position to
base your argument on actual experience, haven't you? I'm afraid not.
Improvisation in Theatrix _does_ allow the players to play with the
stage. Gives them more chances to contribute. And of course quality
will be rewarded (besides being a reward in itself). Doing this leads
(at least in my experience) to very interesting games.
: I hope that this quote is not representative for Theatrix gaming.
I hope this posting is not representative for your discussion style.
Reimer Behrends
E. HUNTER GODFREY
-> challenges, and are little more than mutual masturbation sessions.
-> But that is my *opinion*. If you like playing without dice, go ahead.
-> If you can manage to have fun doing it, more power to ya. Just don't
-> go attacking games and gamers that still use dice. Your way is
-> *different*, not better.
How would you like a game that's 97% diceless?
A game that occasionally uses dice to help the GM fairly resolve
disputes but that is only called on when common sense cannot dictate an
"un-whimsy" resolution?
I've always found it odd that in most DICE based games there is rarely a
one-shot kill type rule...(accept of course when your damage exceeds the
amount that the opponent can withstand)...
For example...you creep into the bedroom without waking your opponent,
sneak to the bedside, place the .45 inches from his skull and fire!
Amazingly though the .45 does a max damage of 1d6+4 and he has 63 hit
points so after taking the slug squarely in the skull he leaps to his
feet and thrashes you soundly...I hate it when this happens.
Unfortunately MOST GM's are unwilling to let you do something like this.
So I got together with a buddy about a year and a half ago to come up
with the EPOCH system...it's as diced or diced free as you won't with
strong suggestions to only use the good ol polyhedrons when neccessary
and to concentrate more on plot and interraction.
In EPOCH the above situation would of course be resolved by "His brains
splatter warmly onto the mattress and his guards, alerted by the shot
rush into the room and thrash you...(EVIL GRIN;)
PS...Stalking the Night Fantastic, with it's exhasutive hit charts, does
take into account things like one shot kills.
E. HUNTER GODFREY
-> about various stories of four immortals throughout history. We said
-> at the beginning we were using _Theatrix_, but since we still have
-> yet to institute plot points or look at a flowchart - I can't say
-> I've really playtested it.
I've got some good news for you!
An associate and myself have developed a system called EPOCH that is as
dicey or dice free as the player wishes. It "god willing" should debut
at GEN-CON this year and will be run at DRAGON-CON as a live game.
The current genre of the game is based on the characters being Immortals
and the current world is developed from an Immortal sect of society andf
the strife within it.
Keep an eye out for it...who knows you might even like it!
E. Hunter Godfrey
President, Lion & Unicorn, Inc.
E. HUNTER GODFREY
-> game, and I think the atmosphere of cooperation amongst diceless
-> players is very high. Diceless players have few worries about power
-> and advantage, and it all works quite well, for me and a lot of other
-> people.
That's odd...my experience is the exact opposite! At least with Amber
it is, I've not had the pleasure of experimenting with Theatrix. Most
of the games I've played of Amber (including with with the Wuje man
himself) have centered mostly on players conspiring against one another
often to the ingoring of the GM's plot. I like this. The demands on
the GM were higher but the game went through a much more realistic and
natural progression as the players worked in opposition or collusion to
bring about the downfall of another and an aquistion of advantage over
the group. This type of adversarial play is very enjoyable, after all
now your opponents have a much greater depth than that of a standard
NPC. Plotting against or with a fellow player is much more fun. I like
to see my opponents face as he falls victim to my plans and machinations
or (as often happens) to see his gloating face as I fall under his
power.
E. Hunter Godfrey
E. HUNTER GODFREY
-> of the time? Sure, if there's no set of rules to constrain you, you
-> can say 'your sword thrust misses and tears open a hole in the fabric
-> of reality causing 15 pink donuts to appear'. But who cares?
You've played Amber haven't you...:)
Except it was pink jelly filled donuts...
E. HUNTER GODFREY
-> of literacy. Now quite a few companies want to get in on that band
-> wagon as the written work of their customers can be a bit tiresome if
-> their output is of a very poor quality. Who wants literate customers
-> anymore?
Could you quantify that statement...please!
GW has done an exemplary job of producing miniature based Wargaming. I
assume your referring to that and not the sad attempt at an RPG called
Warhammer Fantasy.
The best way to come to grips with the GW product line is to realize it
was written by brits for brits and not for an American audience.
Americans tend to want a little more consoistency in their games and
play to WIN not to play for the sake of playing. Look at the army list
in any issue of White Dwarf and you'll see that brits are not playing to
win.
Besides I seel comics and Games for aliving and GW makes me around
$350,000 a year so I love them!
Just call me a self interested money grubbing capitalist but the idea to
make a line of miniatures running on average $6.00 a pack and then
developing a game with no purpose but to sell those miniatures by the
hundreds of thousands was pure genius...
Of course they got me too...
30,000 points of Undead for Fantasy Battles
25,000 points of Chaos for Fantasy Battles
20,000 points of Chaos for Man-O-War
I'm a sick man!
E. Hunter Godfrey
President, LIon & Unicorn, Inc.
Reimer Behrends
: to kill the fist person coming out of a door. The player sent out an illusion
: which was recognized by the assasin. Then the a PC came out, instead of the
: NPC I planned. The assasin killed the PC (who did not make his poison save).
: Shit happens. Or would you see this as a case of wrong choices?
[...]
Ironically, this example perfectly illustrates some of the problems
with diced systems, including the pseudo-fairness problem. First, we
have the common binary resolution ('who did not make his poison save').
Second, given the respective saves of the assassin and the PC, I would
estimate a chance of about 20% (give or take a few percent, depending
on the level, as long as they are about equal) for the PC to die. Nice
kill, beautifully hidden behind a couple of die rolls. Btw, did you
decree that the assassin tried to disbelieve the illusion (e.g. GM
whim), or did that happen automatically, or was there a way to roll for
that, too?
Reimer Behrends
nancy sauer
: lei...@datter.pvv.unit.no (Leif Magnar Kj|nn|y) writes:
: >I have what you might call a love/hate relationship
: >with my dice, in particular the d4 with which my forehead collided a few
: >years ago -- only time I've ever seen actual bloodshed from a small plastic
: >die, and it hurt like hell....)
: Um, I have a pretty clear mental image on this one, but I thought I might
: verify it. Did you, in a moment of dispair, bash your head against a
: table? And was there a d4 awaiting you on said table?
And did anyone present announce, "Hey! He failed his Head-Bashing
roll!"?
Jeff Stehman
>One does not exclude the other. There are several diced mechanical game
>systems on the market that make allowances for good characterization, even
>though they concentrate on particular mechanics. Theatrix provides several
>powerful methods for ensuring and promoting characterization, and I think
>it's the systems second strongest feature.
Never really felt a need to have characterization supported by mechanics.
That's one of the reasons I use the system I do.
>If you want, I'll send you Reimer Behrends review, and you can
>have his opinions, both pro and con.
Feel free.
David H. Thornley
>Tim Dunn (td...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: Jeff Stehman <ste...@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:
>: >I blame it an outbreak of agreement. A month or so ago we had several
>: >good debates running. What happened? Everybody ended up agreeing!!!
>
>: Okay, here's my attempt to get some bandwidth going:
>
>
>No, Hero can do two, maybe three things better than GURPS:
>One, a unified point-system for magic, psionics, superpowers,
>*and* equipment; two, comic-book superheros; three, any other
>equally-unrealistic type of situation . . . if there are any,
>and if you wanted to run one.
>
>Other than that, GURPS beats Hero, and every other system is
>left in the dust by both.
>
Hero has a fundamentally more realistic combat system than GURPS.
For one thing, it doesn't assume that every character will find
something useful to do every second in combat. Secondly, it allows
some characters to react faster in combat. Third, it gives real
value to shields, while GURPS simply allows characters to parry with
completely inappropriate weapons. The main unrealistic features
in Hero combat can be easily dealt with by including some optional
rules, including rules from the Ultimate Martial Artist.
Hero has not only a unified point system, but unified mechanics
for all possible effects. If you want to use GURPS, you will learn
somewhat different systems for psionics, magic, superpowers, and
equipment. With Hero, if you know one you know them all. The fact
that the point system is unified is just a kinda nice side effect.
Hero has a more realistic character generation system, as it splits
a few more things off intelligence. In GURPS, by default, a high-IQ
character will be talented at intellectual activities, socially
adept, perceptive, and strong-willed, and there simply isn't any way
given in the rules to split these out. Further, Hero differentiates
health from hit points (although keeping some relation), while GURPS
assumes these are the same and is very unclear if they aren't.
Hero has a more flexible skill system than GURPS. In GURPS, with a very
few exceptions you are good at skills individually or good at about
half the skills, since there's no middle ground between spending points
on individual skills or spending them on DX or IQ. Hero allows you
to specify clusters of skills with skill levels.
Let's see, what else can I say? Traveller was a lousy game. Chivalry
and Sorcery was not only unplayable but unworkable out of the box, as
well as rank plagiarism. Runequest, 2nd ed., had ridiculous encounter
charts; my estimation is that a farmer might survive as long as a month
if he/she is perceptive, lucky, and fast of foot.
That enough for those tired of copyright discussions?
(Please insert :-)s to taste, although this should not be construed as
meaning that I don't mean what I said.)
DHT
Joseph Teller
>
>I never said outmoded, but I did say something close to the second, and I
>stand by it. However, you only have to look at the market at this point
>to see the changes. Newer diced games are even taking a different
>approach to the role of dice, which I think is healthy.
>
>David Berkman
>Backstage Press
>
David -
You came on far too strong, too advesarial and too arrogant in your
recent series of posts. Before seeing your posts I had considered
purchasing your product, if I could find it locally, but would not give
it a chance after seeing the attitudes of the person behind it.
You keep mentioning the market, but don't see what I see. I can go to
about a dozen shops within the Boston Area. I have found your product in
none of them. Additionally I can only find AMBER available in a single
store, and thats sitting in the Used bin. When I've talked to the owners
(I used to work in retail, running a bookstore that carried comics and
roleplaying material a number of years ago) most have not heard of your
product, many have not heard of Amber, and those who have said that such
systems were a dog when it came to actual sales.
These stores are within close range of major Universities (Harvard, MIT,
Brandeis, Bently, etc) and are thus are 'Where the market is' in regards
to clientel etc since the majority of the market (excluding the T$R
kiddies) is in the College age thru about 40 age bracket.
From this analysis it seems you are judging based on entirely Convention
oriented marketing, when only a small percentage of the gamers attend
such conventions because of the high cost and distance (though we do
have 2-3 major cons a year in the Boston Area). You need to expand your
marketing, tone down your advesarial approach and get yourself some
decent whole jobbers since your product is not being represented in
major markets.
John H Kim
players, and how it relates to the diceless issue...
Jeff Stehman <ste...@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:
>David Berkman <bcks...@crl.com> writes:
>>Plus, the whole basis of the game shifts from an adversarial posture, held
>>in balance by the rules, to a cooperative effort towards good dramatic
>>ends (which may themselves be tragic, but fulfillingly so).
...
>Implying you can't be together, enjoy each others company, and have fun
>when there is an adversarial posture? Back in the days when I gmed
>regularly, one of the reasons players loved my games was because there
>was an adversarial relationship between us (well, a faked one). It made
>their successes all the more sweet.
I think the term "adversarial" is a little misleading. The
"adversarial" posture is where the GM presents challenges to the
players. He can be fair or unfair about how he does so. A fair GM
will be clear and consistant in his rulings, and true to the nature of
the gameworld.
OTOH, there is the "dramatic/cooperative" posture, where the
GM and players work together on a dramatic storyline. Again, the GM
can be fair or unfair about it. An unfair cooperative GM is one who
is dictatorial about "his" storylines, and railroads the players into
them.
-*-*-*-
I think that an "adversarial" aspect to the relationship is
important to intellectual challenge. A locked room mystery which the
players solve may not be all that dramatic - but it is an interesting
challenge to the players. Similarly, tactical combat may be less
dramatic, but more challenging.
-*-*-*-
Note, though, that diceless play is not neccessarily
non-adversarial. Indeed, one could say that _Amber_ as a genre is
highly adversarial in spirit if not in practice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Kim | "Whatever else is true, you - trust your little finger.
jh...@columbia.edu | Just a single little finger can... change the world."
Columbia University | - Stephen Sondheim, _Assassins_