Quote from: MarcoI had the opposite problem with SW: it looked okay on paper and then ran horribly for us.

The d6 version? I'm running that now - but for realistic-themed postapocalyptic - and I think it's pretty stupid. The players are loving it, though - they get to roll lots of dice, and just because their characters get shot doesn't mean they get hurt much. And there's no personality mechanics or anything like that, so they only have to be as consistent in their character's personality as they feel like being. It's kind of old-school, really.

It looked okay on paper, but in practice I'm finding it pretty bloody ordinary. But as I said, the players are mostly loving it, or at least indifferent to it (they vary in how much they care about systems), so I stick with it until all the PCs get themselves killed...

What problems did you have, exactly?

I think he meant Savage Worlds, not Star Wars.

Quote from: BalbinusI think he meant Savage Worlds, not Star Wars.

Yeah--Savage Worlds--did I screw that up? Acronym collision!!
-Marco

Quote from: BalbinusMany games get criticised in reviews or by those who have read them for problems which, reading actual play threads for those games, rarely seem to actually arise.

Sure, but that just speaks to relatively low value of actual play when reviewing a game to me.

Seanchai

My experience with Savage Worlds was the polar opposite of that presented by some folks here:  I was excited as hell hen I read about it, and promptly disappointed as hell with actual play.

It just wound up being duller than 40k in actual play, with zero tactical options available, making the minis feel rather superfluous, and the split between attributes and skills wound up making one or the other feel utterly worthless.

Quote from: BalbinusAlso, I've seen more than one designer comment that on their game's mailing list they could tell those who played from those who just read by the kind of comments they made.

One of them was probably me, Balbinus. I know I've said that before, though maybe not on the ML. Thing is, read-through guys* and play-through guys see different problems, and they are both worth while listening to. I play the heck out of my games before I ever release them to beta-test, so I know how it should play. 99 times out of 100, the play through guy spots breaks in the way rules are explained, because they see that gap that my eyes miss because I already know how it should play. The read-through guys will spot language and grammar problems, missing references, and that sort of thing much better than the play-through guys.

-clash

*Using the generic New England collective pronoun. I have heard many a woman address a group of other women as "You guys."

I feel like the outsider. I don't even like to read Actual Play reviews.  If I ever have enough game time to do Actual play before reviewing a game, I wouldn't write the review around the play at the table so much as keep it in mind when I wrote.

That said, I try pretty hard to look at a game based on how it would play. Not the same thing, I know, but...

The way I see it, all to often with 'Actual Play' the play that gets produced is often more the product of the group dynamic than the rules.  Take the 'mess' that is D&D's Attacks of Opportunity.  In AP threads this may never come up: either the group just didn't use them, or fudged the living hell out of them.  Yet many groups/players struggle with them, they remain a problem regardless of how 'your' group handled them.

Closer to home: I tend to run tight character creation followed by fast and loose rules at the table.  My Runequest game is singularly ineffective for learning how well the rules work as written. Every session sees half a dozen house ruled variations on rules we just houseruled last week. Not because the game is poorly written or the rulebook is too long: We just like to keep things moving very fast and opening the book for the hard answer slows us down too damn much.  More or less: if it ain't on the rule sheet or in the basic die mechanic, we don't use it.  What would anyone get out of an AP review from my table???

Not very much.

Quote from: SpikeThe way I see it, all to often with 'Actual Play' the play that gets produced is often more the product of the group dynamic than the rules.  Take the 'mess' that is D&D's Attacks of Opportunity.  In AP threads this may never come up: either the group just didn't use them, or fudged the living hell out of them.  Yet many groups/players struggle with them, they remain a problem regardless of how 'your' group handled them.

I actually think this is a myth.  I've never encountered a group that's had significant problems with attacks of opportunity, nor "fudged" them.

No doubt some do.  But the sound and fury on internet messageboards do not strike me as particularly indicative.  Particularly since the biggest dedicated D&D boards (ENworld, Wizards') don't have tons of threads fretting about them.

Quote from: RedFoxI actually think this is a myth.  I've never encountered a group that's had significant problems with attacks of opportunity, nor "fudged" them.

I can't recall having any problem with them and I'm surprised to hear there's a fuss.  Maybe the inevitable six million splatbook exceptions add complications I'm not aware of though.

Quote from: SpikeI feel like the outsider. I don't even like to read Actual Play reviews.  If I ever have enough game time to do Actual play before reviewing a game, I wouldn't write the review around the play at the table so much as keep it in mind when I wrote.

I, at least, agree...

Seanchai

I wish I would have read this earlier...

In both d20 Star Wars and d20 Future there is a problem with the skill Computer Use. It reads fine, but in actual play it can unbalance the game quickly. Computer use covers not only computers, but all electronic devices from communications to sensors to autopilots. So, if a character buffs up enough with Computer Use, they can use that to replace almost any other skill in a technological setting by just making sure that the action they take is done through some device.

For example, in d20 Star Wars my player group was trying to escape a platoon of pursuing stormtroopers by stealing a shuttle. The only problem was that the only PC with the Starship Pilot feat and the good Pilot skills was unconscious. Yet the Tech Guy with a Computer Use around +9 (mods and skill focus) was able to fly the shuttle through autopilot as well as the PC pilot, even with all the negative modifiers for not having the right skills and feats. Computer Use turned out to be the Jack-Of-All-Trades skill for d20 Star Wars because of the genre standards (its Star Wars, everything in a tech environment is computerized and thus susceptable).

d20 Future has the same skill and the same problem. The only d20 game that I've seen and played that handles this well is d20 Traveller which breaks the Computer Use skill down into seperate Tech Skills.

Is that the kind of thing you were looking for?

That's a pretty good example, not only of the sort of thing the OP talked about but also the "my gun is my skill list" problem from The Munchkin's Guide to Powergaming. (Referring to the idea that in many modern-day games all you need is a decent firearms skill. Locked door? Shoot it open. Need to interrogate someone? Put a gun in their face...)

Quote from: SpikeThe way I see it, all to often with 'Actual Play' the play that gets produced is often more the product of the group dynamic than the rules.

To elaborate on this (from my perspective), there are two issues here.

First is the relatively mundane issue of fudging rules for whatever reason. Typically, either because the RAW are hard to reference or hard to apply, or because the RAW produce results that get in the way of fun. The latter in particular is a weird reason to handwave rules in the course of evaluating a game, but I suspect--without having any hard evidence at hand, mind you--that it happens. It certainly does in normal play, and the mindset there is, I think, that the game should be interpreted wholistically in terms of the atmosphere or spirit of the setting. And you know, I kind of support that; although I'm personally a stickler for following the rules, I think it's important to have your priorities straight when playing in a group whose main purpose isn't critical analysis of the system.

The second issue is a little more complex but I think it's critical: the procedures of RPGs are generally pretty loosely linked, to the point that the decision to apply them, and how to apply them, is optional within a broader domain of freeform "pretend". A game might have a random encounter table but no rule that forces the GM to roll on it. The GM might roll an encounter but there's no rule that forces it to be hostile. Players might wander around town interacting with the inhabitants at length, with no resort to mechanical systems. This is even true with games like Dogs in the Vineyard or Polaris--ultimately, the decision on whether to make a roll or otherwise invoke mechanics is at the discretion of the players and/or GM. Games might do a better or worse job of suggesting when to go to the dice, but the basic fact is that if folks want to dance around the mechanics, they can--and the nature & balance of freeform play, as well as the non-mechanical criteria for invoking the dice, is going to have a huge impact on how the game is played.

(By the way, it's not a simple matter of saying you're playing wrong if you don't go straight to the mechanics. In my opinion, it's a balance: hit the mechanics too hard and you have an abstract boardgame.)

That said I really agree with the main thrust of the OP: as complex systems, games have emergent qualities that simply can't be predicted based on a read-through. (This is the same reason that playtesting is essential.) Even though social factors are part of the complexity of a game, actual play is still going to yield a better understanding of how the game plays, than just reading the rules.

Quote from: Elliot WilenEven though social factors are part of the complexity of a game, actual play is still going to yield a better understanding of how the game plays, than just reading the rules.

For a particular group. Group A's actual play producing result A is not necessarily useful to group B, whose play could produce result B instead of result A.

Seanchai

Sure...but I'm not sure what's being compared here.

If you're talking about just giving an AP report, then I think it may not have a great deal of value to group B, compared to a thoughtful review of the rules. This is especially true for AP reports which are basically just "campaign logs" (first-draft journalistic accounts of the fictional events in the game). Those are nigh useless.

If you're talking about doing a review of the rules which is informed by play, vs. doing a review without having played at all, I think the former is preferable.