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One of the things I consider inovative about Burning Empires is the split between mechanical effects and color effects is hard coded into the rules. That things can cross over is, if anything, the element that makes it work, the capstone on the pyramid, the feather in Luke's cap (love him or hate him).

For those of you unfamiliar with what I'm talking about:

Assume a character CAN HAVE a spaceship. So they do. They've got a spaceship, they describe it in any cool way they want to. It costs them nothing to have the spaceship, mostly because by itself it has no mechanical effect.

Until they need to use, lets say... the sensor system to detect bad guys sneaking into the system. BAM! Sensors are mechanicale effects, some thing that needs to be rolled, opposed.  The player then has to 'buy' the sensors that were otherwise just Color on his 'super cool ship'.  Assuming he has points/money/resources to put into his sensors he gets the sensors he needs and can now use them. While the ship itself remains 'color' the ships SENSORS are not, they are now and forever after 'hard tech'.



Like I said, I think this is a damn cool thing, a worthy thing, an innovation.


But: Do I want to use it?  Me, I'm a gadget freak, and I love GURPS.  More: GURPS and CHAMPIONS are very similar systems in many ways, but I love the Gear in GURPS and hate Gear in Champions? Why? Because of the rules. GURPS gear is like real objects, in the system gear is an objective object, seperate and distinct. In Champions, gear is an extension of the rules. It doesn't really exist per se.

Color tech is, to some extent, the same thing. Until you've paid for it it doesn't really exist, though you are expected to ACT like it does.  That puts me in a hard spot, one I wouldnt have to think about if I wasn't such a gadget freak.

Leaving it alone, I think a discussion of the concept is worthy, and I hope  I've tossed out enough meat to get the internet dogs growling and snapping.

I'm curious, or a little confused.  Is the innovation that the purchase doesn't happen until the player needs it?  Is the innovation that at the point of need, the player can (with the appropriate resources) purchase whatever is needed?  Is the innovation that there are things that are defined as color and others that are defined mechanical?

I'm honestly asking because I'm curious.  It seems to me that the big difference is when and how the mechanical or color is applied - is that right?

Well, to me the actual innovation occurs when the game makes the designation of objects that exist only to provide 'flash' as 'Color'. Everything else is built or expanded from that one point.  

Sure, having an object or item of trivial importance being 'free' isn't exactly new, but having it codified and explicit in the rules is. Expanding it outwards to include things like Spaceships certainly is.  If you never travel the stars, having a spaceship is as meaningful as having a feather in your cap.

Once you use the spaceship to do something, or pull that feather out to pull out a concealed lock pick (or use the feather to do something important) only then does it become important to establish what, if anything, the object can and can't do... and thus code it mechanically.

Have you considered this:

What about encoding what a character can do--when they chose to do it?

What about gear that is an extension of the character. After all a sword by itself lies there, it need a person to use it. If a piece of gear is integral to a character, wouldn't that make the gear more or less a trait of the person? (and thus perhaps a skill or attribute)

After all if you have ships sensors, but they don't search ON their own (due to A.I, or simple computer timers) then isn't it an extension of the person asking for the sweep in some way?

I think Luke is an excellent game designer, but I don't think this idea begins with him. Heroquest (Laws/Stafford) has a pretty similar approach and you see similar things in Dying Earth and Rune. I don't know if Laws was first but he did this sort of thing before Luke. And really even Champions winds up doing something similar in the end, as you point out.

That said, I think this is a bad way to go, and I don't have much interest in games designed like this any more. When I first saw this sort of approach I thought it was brilliant, and as an idea it's innovative, sure, but I think blurring the lines between what you're calling mechanics and what you're calling color is actually the best, most interesting, most fun thing about RPGs. The ability to negotiate hard effects purely through imaginative negotiation is no longer something I'm willing to give up.

Yeah, I'm sorry if I derailed here.  I wasn't, or didn't want to, question the innovative-ness of things.  I'm just trying to get handle on what/how it worked and why it was innovative...I'm just not getting this right...so...

I find this approach terrible.

A spaceship is not "color." A spaceship is a spaceship. If push came to shove, it's far more durable than a PC.

No Potemkin Villages. No hierarchy according to which the world revolves around the PCs like the sun around the earth. The world is a priori, the PCs are secondary (but are part of it). This existential parity must be expressed by mechanical equity. In a light game it will be light, in a heavy game (Gurps, MT), heavy.

Surely that's a statement of preference, Pierce?

I basically share the preference in question, though for play-related reasons rather than any preference for 'realism'. Our preferred approach is more conducive to effective use of imagination in the gameworld, is my thinking. But this surely isn't a universal requirement...

Quote from: Pierce InverarityA spaceship is not "color." A spaceship is a spaceship.

Ze point. You are missing her.

A Spaceship is color as long as all it does is make apearances to be cool and/or highlight your character concept. The Millenium Falcon illustrates how Han Solo is a down on his luck, rougish smuggler with ample tricks up his sleeves. Thats color.

What is not color is the hard mechanicalthings that ship can do, and when they are needed, BE makes those specific aspects transit from color to hard mechanics (or so I gather, I dont actuallyown BE).

Wether you, personally, like that approach is one thing. I totally respect a rejection of the concept as a matter of taste or preference.
But saying that a spaceship cant ever be color is wrong, atleast to me.

QuoteThe Millenium Falcon illustrates how Han Solo is a down on his luck, rougish smuggler with ample tricks up his sleeves. Thats color.

I pity all those who think so.
I really pity you.

Quote from: SettembriniI pity all those who think so.
I really pity you.

Why? I mean, really, why? Why pity?
What, in your opinion, is it about this that makes me worthy of pity instead of common disagreement?

Quote from: Templesaying that a spaceship cant ever be color is wrong, atleast to me.

See how this thing you have about "objective is bad, subjective is good" gets you into argumentative trouble, kid?

Quote from: Pierce InveraritySee how this thing you have about "objective is bad, subjective is good" gets you into argumentative trouble, kid?

Not at all. Kid.

Quote from: CalithenaSurely that's a statement of preference, Pierce?

I basically share the preference in question, though for play-related reasons rather than any preference for 'realism'. Our preferred approach is more conducive to effective use of imagination in the gameworld, is my thinking. But this surely isn't a universal requirement...

Nothing's universal. All there is is perspectives, massively invested views of the world, backed up by argument. To play an RPG is to strike up a certain stance towards a possible world. That stance can be analyzed, its implications pared down. That's why arguments about games can get so oddly heated, because there are actually huge stakes in the background, which sometimes come through.

You build a character, a rougish smuggler, down on his luck but with ample tricks up his sleeve. He needs a space craft, but your character only begin with 3D4 x 100 credits and the spaceship cost something like 25000 credits.

WEG solved this by allowing the character to be in debt to a crimelord, creating a storyhook. Which is fine to make a Han Solo. One solution.

Another is to say, here have a spaceship, it fits you character. If you need to go from A to B, or even have an adventure aboard it it is no big deal. BUT, if you want Hyperdrives that can make the Kessel run in less than 3 parescs, you have to pay for that detail. Roll them bones.
That is the difference between color and mechanics.

Both solutions give to kinds of different playstyles. One fits you, another may not. It is called taste.

Quote from: SettembriniI pity all those who think so.
I really pity you.

You are such a dork at times, 'bucky'.

What does "bucky" even mean?

I tink it means when he don't like you and want to mount you buttocks in display of superiority.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityI find this approach terrible.

A spaceship is not "color." A spaceship is a spaceship. If push came to shove, it's far more durable than a PC.

No Potemkin Villages. No hierarchy according to which the world revolves around the PCs like the sun around the earth. The world is a priori, the PCs are secondary (but are part of it). This existential parity must be expressed by mechanical equity. In a light game it will be light, in a heavy game (Gurps, MT), heavy.

Without the PCs, there wouldn't be a game, much less a world in which the game was played.

The spaceship in infinitesimally flimsy compared even to the least played PC.

I can see why one wouldn't want to play this way (and a lot of my current players interact better with a more concrete body of mechanical objects outside of themselves) but it's certainly very serviceable, and is very handy for formalizing and utilizing that fuzzy area of gaming that often comes down to some manner of fiat.

sometimes you just have to show him your belly...

Anyway...

I think, and I could be wrong, that it's like those things the game says you can set out but don't provide hard and fast rules.

For example, in D&D, there's nothing in the rules that say you can be this height or that height (within racial bounds) or that you have to have brown hair.  However, if your height or hair color become an issue, then you can assign values that relate to the rules. Though I can't think of a value for hair color...so height makes more sense...

So it sounds to me like they've moved the line of what constitutes color.  I'm assuming you could treat swords, for example, the same way in D&D if you so chose - particularly if you wanted to play, say, a game of intrigue amongst nobles where the sword may only come into play in rare instances, if at all...

I think...at least, that's my reading of it.  I could be way off here...

It sounds a bit lame to me. Usually the reason to do everything mechanically is that you know that it'll become important at some time or other. You don't wait for that time before you set it out. Otherwise, why not begin play with a blank character sheet? "Oh, when we get into a wrestle or lifting a gate, I'll find out my strength then!"

I've tried that sort of thing, and it leads to very bland characters. Nowadays when I ask for a character background, it's only because I want the player to be able to use it to shape their character's stats. Because I've never seen a player bring something out of their character's background later in play. They never say, "oh, I said I had this uncle who I was close to, can I buy him as an Ally now?" or anything like that. If it's not on their character sheet in words and numbers they forget about it.

And characters who start off blank grow up to be blank, I've found. "Oh I'll just figure it out in play" means, "I'll forget about it until six sessions from now you remind me."

Create the character, then play them. Sure, they change over time - but it seems as though in play it's easier to have something already built then change it, than it is to have something blank then draw it in.

Spike's described it enthusiastically - how's it come out in play, Spike? A gamer I know talks about how good Burning Wheel looks, but when we say, "run it for us" then he says, "oh but I haven't read the GM book." I've looked around for BW and BE stuff online, and it seems to me it's one of those games which is much praised but rarely played. So this "colour later becomes mechanics, maybe" idea sounds lame to me - but really, how does it turn out in play?

Quote from: James JSo it sounds to me like they've moved the line of what constitutes color. I'm assuming you could treat swords, for example, the same way in D&D if you so chose - particularly if you wanted to play, say, a game of intrigue amongst nobles where the sword may only come into play in rare instances, if at all...

Very much on the money. The follow up question is if the sword most likely will never come up, why should you as player have to spen a limited amount of character generation resources to include something that will have as much game effect as your characters haircolour?

Lets just say you have a sword and get on with the game.

But then a situation comes up and your character needs to use this sword.
I as the GM either give it to you (fiat) or I can make you "buy" it from a different set of resources. Two different approaches, and both work.
They give different types of games though.

What I personally like about this approach is that I can make a character that fits within the concept I have imagined without having to agonize over having to spend my D4x100 credits on the sword I will use, or the foppish hat that I need to fit my character concept.

If you want to see how BWr or BE plays. Here is the AP forum on Burningwheel.com. (http://burningwheel.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=12)

Quote from: Kyle AaronOtherwise, why not begin play with a blank character sheet? "Oh, when we get into a wrestle or lifting a gate, I'll find out my strength then!"

If memory serves, that is an option in Fudge.  Never tried it personally.

Well, it's an option - expressed in the rules or not - in any point-buy game, really.

I've tried it. Never works. It's the same as that thing in GURPS, "oh if you like, you can just set aside 5 quirks and define them in play." Always ends up, about the fourth session, "hey, isn't it time you...?" "Oh but I'm not quite ready yet..." Pffft.

Define your character in detail, and then they can grow and change in play. Characters who start blank go on blank.

I dunno, maybe these game designers all get to play with budding novelists or something, and everybody's super-creative if only the rules would let them be. Most people need something to work with. And they need it on their character sheet, or it'll be forgotten.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI dunno, maybe these game designers all get to play with budding novelists or something, and everybody's super-creative if only the rules would let them be. Most people need something to work with. And they need it on their character sheet, or it'll be forgotten

I always wondered about this assumption. As a GM you improvise all the time. As a player you improvise all the time. Yet it seems that there is an unspoken concensus that once you are in the player-seat that this imporvisation is somehow absent or lacking. That you need some special creativity to able to do this.

I can empathise with the fact that it is easier to improvise from a set of ... well... hooks on the character sheet (my character is so and so stong), and in my groups preferred playstyle this is a recurring argument. They want more detail to flesh out the characters.

Which is ironic considering that the GM seat is rotatet among us, and that the ones who voice this opinion the loudest are some of the most creative GMs in our group.

I very often end up running games from a blank sheet of paper. Jamming of what the players do. I really see no big difference between this and playing a character and discovering him/her during play.

There are degrees of improvisation, though. There's making things up from the whole cloth, and then there's tweaking here and there.

Sure, GMs and players improvise all the time. But just as the GM should be the one with the best knowledge of the game rules, so too they should be the most creative one there. The game won't be a disaster if they're not, but it'll be better if they are.

Creativity varies a lot in people. Just in GMing, you see

• those who have a set-out series of plots, and players have to follow along those paths like a multiple choice Choose Your Own Adventure or Fighting Fantasy thing, and
  
• GMs who put lots of ingredients in the pot and see what the players pick out and expand on those, and
• GMs who make it all up as they go

and of course combinations of these, and other types as well.

Also, there's the creativity you have when you've got plenty of time to think of things - like preparing before the session, or thinking about it afterwards - and then there's beign on the spot and having to come up with something in seconds.

It seems to me that these sorts of games we're talking about demand high levels of creativity, and quick creativity, too. And only a minority of people are like that, so getting several together for a game group - that's hard.

I think a game system should bring out the best in players and GMs - their creativity, intelligence, tactical sense, humour, whatever - rather than demand the best from them.

Quote from: K BergI very often end up running games from a blank sheet of paper. Jamming of what the players do. I really see no big difference between this and playing a character and discovering him/her during play.

The difference is, as I said, the GM is supposed to be creative, part of the job description. Also, with your example, you're responding to the players' creativity. Their sheets aren't blank, only yours is. But if everybody's sheet is blank, what then? You can take someone else's ideas and expand and change them, but to make up something from nothing is hard. That's why we usually have the GM create the campaign world - perhaps in consultation with the players - and the players create their characters, and then go from there, work on and expand all that.

You gotta have some seed of useful stuff, at least. If everyone starts with fallow ground you only get weeds.

Quote from: Kyle AaronSpike's described it enthusiastically - how's it come out in play, Spike? A gamer I know talks about how good Burning Wheel looks, but when we say, "run it for us" then he says, "oh but I haven't read the GM book." I've looked around for BW and BE stuff online, and it seems to me it's one of those games which is much praised but rarely played. So this "colour later becomes mechanics, maybe" idea sounds lame to me - but really, how does it turn out in play?

Well, I assume that I'm the gamer Kyle is refering to.  And I don't recall ever saying that Burning Wheel was that good... just that I really liked the life path character generation.  One of my favourite games, Cyberpunk, used life paths but they had little impact on the actual details of chargen.  So I was intrigued by Burning Wheel.  But not intrigued enough to wade through it all.  So roleplaying books are like good fiction... they drag you in and demand you keep turning the pages.  Burning Wheel ain't one of those games.
 
Anyway, I have run a game of Fudge from scratch and it went pretty well.  Like so many things, it really depends on the players.  Two of the players were really good, but one of them was difficult.  Everyone was asked to describe their characters in general, and provide a brief background.  Then, as the game progressed, they filled out the character sheet.  The good players used the opportunity to slowly flesh out their characters... the bad player tended to give himself maximum stats in whatever he was asked to roll.  He quickly ran out of points and was left with a rather ecclectic mix of abilities.  But then, he probably would have done exactly the same using conventional character generation.
 
IIRC, everyone was asked to have their attributes purchased by the end of the first session, a quarter of their skills purchased by the second session, half of their skills by the third session and so forth.  This definitely helped push people along.
 
One of the guys in the group tried something similar using GURPS 3e and it didn't go nearly as well.  GURPS is just too fiddly for that sort of thing.

Its my bad for not stating some assumptions I make. I assume that before we begin play we as a group find out what we want to play, be it a space opera or a dirty western. It doesn't matter, what matters is that we all get on the same page (pun not intended). The moment we have done this we are no longer improvising from a purely white page anymore.

because I whole heartedly agree that improvising from a white sheet of paper without nothing to refer tp is hard. Its hard for anyone. All artist I read interviews with say that the worst thing is that white canvas. And these guys are artist.

So we agree there.

Where we don't agree is where I think, in my humble opinion, you underestimate the creativity that this hobby of ours engender. It just needs nurturing. Think of it. A GM describes a classic ten by ten room. Now I assume (which may be my downfall) that the players are picturing this in their mind. Whether it is to find the best tactical options for dealing with the invetable orc, or whether it is to achive a sense of being there doesn't matter. They are using their imagination. they are being creative. And they are being creative quickly, on the spot.

By providing a solid frame of refrence, like Tyberious Funk refer to (name and background), you facilitate this creativity. Within this you can then let them build their characters as they go along. It may take you a few sessions to get a feel for these characters, but from my limited experience you need that anyways.

This is why I am I do not agree that you need super-creative and budding novelists to play this way. You need players willing to commit and contribute more than "I hit Him"s, and you need to facilitate this.

It might not be to everyones taste, which is ok. That is another issue. But I sincerely belive it is in everyones capacity and ability.

Well, perhaps we're saying basically the same thing, then.

I'm saying that people need something to work with. In a roleplaying game, they need a setting, a culture, some sort of structure in the form of game rules they can use to describe their character. Creativity in a game group is a positive feedback loop - I say something and someone else adds to or changes it, and a third adds to or changes it again.

I find that players are most often comfortable with adding to or changing things through their characters. They don't want to change the game world by having the player say, "oh, I think this should happen", they want to change it by having their character make that happen. With that view, a fully-fleshed-out character at the beginning of the first session is needed.

This kind of idea of gradually learning entirely new things about your characters, of colour into mechanics, like an episode of Lost - I just can't imagine it working with most players.  That's the way novelists do it. But the novelist, really, is just tricking us. The novelist knows everything about the character when they write the novel, it's just that they choose to reveal it gradually. Whereas this sort of idea we're talking about is that the player begins by not knowing, and discovers it in play. So really we're demanding more creativity and spontaneity than a novelist can manage. Which is setting the bar pretty high, if you ask me.

Certainly people are more intelligent and creative than we often give them credit for. But there's a difference, as I said, between encouraging that and demanding that. That's a difference in both game rules and game groups. I think it's a failure as a system or a group if it demands things like this. I think it's an excellent system or group if it encourages it.

About Burning Wheel, Tyberious Funk, I simply meant that someone who praised it couldn't even bring themselves to read it all. If it's not readable, it doesn't sound very playable. And that's why I noted there wasn't much talk of how it came out in play around. As much as people complain about D&D or GURPS or Exalted, it's plain that heaps of people are playing them, there are many accounts of how things come out in play.

Burning Wheel, HeroQuest and so on - not so much*. These games are widely-praised but rarely-played. There's got to be a reason for that. I say that one of the reasons may be that they demand player creativity and spontaneity, rather than simply encouraging it.

Lastly, Tyberious Funk noted his success with a Fudge game where people were asked to purchase their characters' traits as they went along, rather than straight up. But I'd ask - how did that campaign go in the long run? Did it keep going for many sessions? As GM, the test I take of how good my GMing is, how good the group is, is simply - "Do they keep coming back? Do they talk enthusiastically about the game between sessions?" And I think we can apply that test to game systems, and approaches to character creation and so on. Did they come back?

Of course, the system's not everything in that regard. In my own group, I've one player who says, "bad gaming is better than no gaming", so he'll keep coming back no matter what, and there's one player who never replies to any emails but attends regularly. So on the attendance I can score it 2/3, and the discussion between sessions, also 2/3. Adding in my own enjoyment gives us 3/4 overall, which is good, I think. And there are people who are just unreliable or not talkative in general, or people who are just taking your own sessions as a break from some other group, and so on.

But in general, you can look at the attendance and the enthusiasm as a guide to the success of your GMing, the game group, and the system and setting. So I ask - why aren't BW and HQ and similar games more widely-played?

* With BW, I'm going on others' accounts of it, as I've not read or played it; with HQ, I'm going on both reading and playing it.

I am going to start of by giving som fan love to BW. English is my second language and I've read and played both BW classic and BW revised, so it is both readable and playable. Our longest single running campaign the last few years was in that game. It is highly recomended.
My advice is to read it and play it before you judge it.

There,  the love fest is over. Back to the topic at hand.

Kyle, like you said we are baiscally talking about the same thing, our difference in opinion is small, yet I think it is significant if we are to understand each other. And I think we can find it here:

Quote from: Kyle AaronThis kind of idea of gradually learning entirely new things about your characters, of colour into mechanics, like an episode of Lost - I just can't imagine it working with most players. That's the way novelists do it. But the novelist, really, is just tricking us. The novelist knows everything about the character when they write the novel, it's just that they choose to reveal it gradually. Whereas this sort of idea we're talking about is that the player begins by not knowing, and discovers it in play. So really we're demanding more creativity and spontaneity than a novelist can manage. Which is setting the bar pretty high, if you ask me

When we we play we learn new details of our characters all the time. Given that we have a mental image of the character before we begin the first session, we will most likely see this grow as we play him or her (or it). Things that were mere footnotes in the backstory might take on world shaking dimensions, while things that we though the character was all about becomes insignificant. Or visa versa. It is this unpredictability and organic growth that is the magic of roleplaying for me. But it is there.

If you accept that we develop the character in this way during play, by jamming and riffing of the other players then the step from this and to the gradual discovery of the character in play by following the same procedure except we don't have much on the char-sheet to begin with isn't that long a step.

Quote from: from the quote aboveThe novelist knows everything about the character when they write the novel, it's just that they choose to reveal it gradually.

This does not confirm with many of the interviews I have read with different authors. Some of them say the characters take on a life of their own. Though this point is tangential, it illustrates why I do not agree to your reasoning right here.

They, just like us, begin with an idea of where they want to go with this. Unlike us they have control over where they are going, organic or not. We don't because we have a group of others around us that contribute to the creation of our character during play. Either through the relationships between them or the events happening to him.

All of this demands creativity and spontaneity. It is the nature of roleplaying. What this means for us when we design games is that we should facilitate and channel this creativity. By creating systems that support it.

QuoteI find that players are most often comfortable with adding to or changing things through their characters. They don't want to change the game world by having the player say, "oh, I think this should happen", they want to change it by having their character make that happen. With that view, a fully-fleshed-out character at the beginning of the first session is needed.

This is one such system.

The color into hard tech through the tech-burner in BE is another.

Another very powerful and effective one is the circle mechanics from BW. We were playing a nordic game of thrones version and one of my players need to get an audition with a queen. So he states he looks for the seneschal, which he knew from old. (We use the rules to roll some dice to see if indeed this senechal exists or is available, he fails the roll opening for me to bring this NPC into play as an enemy of the character). I promptly do so. The ensuing series of disasters led to a memorable duel between a another character and the best swordsman in the realm.

Here the player invented a part of his character that no one knew off on the spot, we rolled with it (literally and figurativly) and we ended up with awesome. We turned a piece of color (character background), into mechanics (an npc to fight).

Quote from: K BergEnglish is my second language and I've read and played both BW classic and BW revised, so it is both readable and playable.

I wouldn't have guessed English was your second language.

Quote from: K BergWIf you accept that we develop the character in this way during play, by jamming and riffing of the other players then the step from this and to the gradual discovery of the character in play by following the same procedure except we don't have much on the char-sheet to begin with isn't that long a step.

Actually, I think it's a large step. It's like the difference between planting tomatoes and lettuce and watching them come up, but influencing how high they grow and how much fruit they put out, and just leaving some land fallow and waiting to see what comes up naturally.

Quote from: K BergThis does not confirm with many of the interviews I have read with different authors. Some of them say the characters take on a life of their own.

They say that. What they mean is that the characters begin to make more sense to them in the context of the story than they did before the story was written. When they've written about the marriage of a character, it's easier for them to think about what their character's job is like, and vice versa.

In any case, even supposing characters magically created themselves, still the novelist has an advantage a roleplayer does not - time. No novelist would expect to be able to create a coherent and interesting character in just a few hours of discussing them - as we do in an rpg session. Novelists take months or years to create their characters and stories. We take hours and weeks.

So demanding a similar level of creativity in that shorter time - that's demanding too much.

Quote from: K BergAll of this demands creativity and spontaneity. It is the nature of roleplaying. What this means for us when we design games is that we should facilitate and channel this creativity. By creating systems that support it.

I agree. But as I said, there's a difference between encouraging something, and demanding it. A system where people have to create "colour", or turn colour into mechanics during play, that's demanding creativity and spontaneity. And I've found that what you demand from gamers you never get; what you encourage you usually get. This applies to all aspects of play. If you demand they show up on time, they don't; if you encourage them to with food and xp, they do. If you demand a quiet player participate more, they don't; if you encourage them with some success when they do participate, they do. And likewise with creativity and spontaneity.

Quote from: K BergHere the player invented a part of his character that no one knew off on the spot, we rolled with it (literally and figurativly) and we ended up with awesome. We turned a piece of color (character background), into mechanics (an npc to fight).

I think that's excellent, and sounds like fun. But I think most players don't go for that. Again, why are BW, HQ and similar games which expect this kind of in-game-session creativity so widely-praised but rarely-played? And games which don't require it (like D&D, GURPS, etc - where you can have player creativity, but it isn't demanded), are widely-absued but widely-played?

I can't agree with your assesment of the amount of play both HQ and BW get. But I guess this stems from me not knowing what you compare them to. Compare them to DnD and they vanish. Given.

however, I'll rephrase something.

QuoteActually, I think it's a large step. It's like the difference between planting tomatoes and lettuce and watching them come up, but influencing how high they grow and how much fruit they put out, and just leaving some land fallow and waiting to see what comes up naturally.

Metaphors always make this tricky. So I am going to restate something. This is as much to help me formulate my thoughts (14 days of 12 hour nightshifts just ended) as it is trying to explain what I mean.

1. Often before we sit down to play we have decided before hand what kind of game we are going to play. We may do this through our choice of ruleset or we may do it through a discussion when we meet up. How isn't that important here, what is important is that we establish a common frame of reference. We get past the initial blank page trauma.
2. When we play we create together. We talk, we imagine and find a way to agree on some details. We are by default spontane and creative. We have to be, it is in the nature of the hobby.
3. How we do the above depends on our playstyle.

Do we agree so far? or if we don't do you understand where I am coming from?

Now what I read you saying is that to create a coherent and interesting character in just a few hours is demaning too much.

No I am going to propose that what is on your character-sheet is not your character, just the tools you use to create him during those few hours. With these tools it becomes possible and easy to create a coherent and interesting character.

Now what if we use my step one above. We get past the blank page. We might not have more than a western town. We need something more. Lets create a situation. There is a card game going in the saloon. Not enough. One of the players kicks the table over and stands up. His hand on his gun, his eyes on you. He then loudly proclaims you a cheater, daring you to do something about it.

You can begin making choices about your character right here and now. Is he a cheat? Is he afraid this guy with a gun? And so on.
You do not need all the details filled in to begin with. Shit you don't even need his name right now. There is a guy with a frigging gun in his face. How you choose to react to this begins to define your character. I might state that my character quaff the last of his whiskey and put his back to the wall, watching your back for you. Suddenly we are both jamming.

Now you put two points in your aspect Gunfighter and state that you want to outdraw this son of a gun. No one calls Jim McCree a cheat (even though he is since you just put three points in the aspect cheater.)

It is not that hard. It might take some training, it is like all else a skill. But by taking part in this hobby you already have the creativity and spontaneity to do so. You just need the oppertunity.

That is what I have been trying to say. Color to mechanics is such an oppertunity.

*I have to pack for the heli-flight home, where my wife and kid waits, so if I don't reply immideatly doesn't mean I've lost interest in this discussion. I'll see if there is time to check in before I fly

Edited to give greater clarity in the example

I'm not really talking about how much the games get played, I'm talking about how much they get played compared to how much they're praised.

Do I want to be the guy everyone says is really handsome, but no woman will touch, or the guy no-one's that impressed with, but has a girlfriend? That's what BW vs D&D makes me think of. I'm just saying, there's lots of smoke and not much fire. Lots of people praising these games, doesn't seem to be many people playing them.

I want more stories like K Berg's, I want to hear what happens in play. I mean, you can look at things in D&D or GURPS or Hero or whatever, and say, "that looks funny, I'm not sure that'd work, but I wonder what people who play it say?" and then go off and easily find people who've played it, and see what they have to say. That's not so easy with these games like BW and HQ. And honestly, that makes me suspicious - just like women are suspicious of a handsome guy who can't keep a girlfriend, or workers are suspicious of an employer that everyone says is wonderful, but no-one will work for him for more than a week.

Now go pack - it's your wife and kid, man! Fuck this rubbish :D

It doesn't take long to pack when all you have is two bags, and you've spent so little time not wearing a boilersuit you haven't had time to dirty any of your civvies.

You want stories of play from BW, just ask. I've played, I've crashed and burned (pun not intended), and I have learned. And I'll try to share.

Quote from: Kyle AaronDo I want to be the guy everyone says is really handsome, but no woman will touch, or the guy no-one's that impressed with, but has a girlfriend? That's what BW vs D&D makes me think of.

Burning Wheel is the hot model that everyone admires but never gets to touch, while D&D is the down and dirty type... everyone gets a ride.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkBurning Wheel is the hot model that everyone admires but never gets to touch, while D&D is the down and dirty type... everyone gets a ride.

Luke should use that as a review for Burning Wheel 3.0.

I've played and GMed Burning Wheel.

I'm playing in a game right now with some roommates, playing a priest who was a chaplain to a group of knights and has Faith, worshiping a goddess of justice.

And I'm running a game over skype with two buddies who live far away, where they are two orcs whose horde was decimated and they were caught in Elven lands without safe passage back to their homelands and are now embroiled in a war between 7 Dwarven Kings and a dragon.

That's what is happening at the table, virtual or otherwise, at the moment, if you have any questions, Kyle or whoever, let me know.

I'd definitely love to see some play threads about BW, as with any game.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI'd definitely love to see some play threads about BW, as with any game.

I don't have the time to post up any play threads nowadays.  Life's just too hectic but you mentioned that it seemed like BW's not played a whole lot and I've played it a bunch, so I'll gladly answer questions if ya want.

Judd, you could probably also just link Kyle to some of your old APs...didn't you used to post big writeups on rpg.net?

Quote from: CalithenaJudd, you could probably also just link Kyle to some of your old APs...didn't you used to post big writeups on rpg.net?

In the Actual Play Index on the top of RPG.net's AP forum (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=256026) are several BW links and they are all from a campaign I ran a few years ago.  From Darth Vader Ballot Box on down to The Dungeon Crawl to Hell (and Back?).

Commentary on this thread:

http://itsmrwilson.livejournal.com/39864.html

Interesting! I had no idea this thread was really all about D20 and "insanity".

Wow... I let a thread lie fallow and I come back to find everyone and anyone plowing it!

Wait... that sounds wrong...

To answer Jimbob: Man,  I have a hard enough time getting a group together for games I love unreservedly, much less find time to play games that merely have great ideas. I know, there goes my credibility. :deflated:

One thing you mentioned that strikes me is that I don't see that the player should be pulling spaceships out of his pocket at a moment's notice.  There are two factors here; first the examples I read suggest/state? that the character's color should already exist, the second is that, certainly in the setting, you have to have the right background to even have access to certain things.  That aside, one assumes that you can take advantage of the peculiar arrangement of 'scenes' to take a 'build scene' to build yourself some color that you will want to use later when you can actually afford it.

I'm not entirely the expert on it, mind you.  Likewise, and I thought I mentioned this: For all I love the ideas behind the mechanic, they don't really jibe with how I play.  Not only does it clash with my 'clockwork world' mentality (the ship either is or is not) it also clashes with my preference for objects in the game world being entirely seperate from the character (GURPS vs. Champions).  

That said: I'm not to worried about how it works out in AP in BW/BE. Its a mechanic that stands on its own, this is the design/theory forum. I can see a half dozen ways to implement it outside of where it came from, that is what I am interested in: How well it plays out when removed from its home, in other incarnations.

For example: In my possibly never to be actually written Dynamic Combat Kung Fu RPG thingamajig, you have the possiblility of using a 'Weapon Based Fu', where in the weapon is functionally 'color'. Mechanically you gain a minor advantage in combat at the penality of possibly being disarmed, the actual shape/nature of the weapon is irrelevant aside from 'color'. You can also pick up a 'Mechanical Weapon' which exists outside the Fu, but could be used with it. The Mechanical Weapon has its own individual stats, and thus THAT WEAPON exists as a mechanical creation. It is not, by any stretch, Color.  Unlike the Color Weapon (these are technical terms, not game terms) you must have a specific weapon to benefit from them, and if lost can not be convienently replaced. Lose a Color Weapon in a fight, next fight you've got a replacement, barring the most extreme circumstances (prison, lost on a deserted island... though even there you might eventually get a replacement).


As for HeroQuest: picked it up when it first came out, found it a horrible horrible mess and put it away, never to be seen again. Its possible that something like this was in there, but I never saw it. Then again, I gave up about the time I figured out that damn fishhook looking thing.

Dying Earth: mentions that Clothes are Color... don't recall anything else in there that looks quite like this.

Wow, Paka has some real idiots as friends, who don´t even know about 99% of Sci-Fi gaming.
Pathetic bunch of D&D bashers also.

Quote from: SettembriniWow, Paka has some real idiots as friends, who don´t even know about 99% of Sci-Fi gaming.
Pathetic bunch of D&D bashers also.

Apparently they all speak native shithouse rat, too. (Well some of these guys practically invented the language.) We just need an appearance by Chris Chinn and Matt Snyder to make this bobblehead convention complete--- hey, there they are! Mediocre amateur game designers for the win!

I was kind of amused to see the weird D&D hatred and obsession spill over into their commentary on a thread that had absolutely nothing to do with D&D. Somehow the argument that spaceships should have stats gets re-imagined over there as "they must think the sun should actually be a 10,000 hit-dice fire elemental, ho-ho."

I mean, was the real discussion here too hard to follow? I didn't even think it was that controversial.

Even the opinions I didn't agree with weren't controversial.

Quote from: SettembriniWow, Paka has some real idiots as friends, who don´t even know about 99% of Sci-Fi gaming.
Pathetic bunch of D&D bashers also.

Sett, youre an arrogant asshole. You proved that with your pity comment.

Just shut up and accept that some people play rpgs differently from you.

Huh?!
Have you read the blog entry?

They don´t know what they are talking about, and are mindlessly bashing D&D and SciFi gaming.
Who is intolerant?

I can live with people playing BW, I don´t care, I don´t mock them. But THEY are disrespectful about my hobby all the while not even understanding it.

Quote from: TempleSett, youre an arrogant asshole. You proved that with your pity comment.

How so, BTW?

Quote from: TempleSett, youre an arrogant asshole. You proved that with your pity comment.

Just shut up and accept that some people play rpgs differently from you.

I dont think that the idea that people play roleplaying games differently is news to anyone here or elsewhere. It's just a fact of life.

And personally I'm heartened by hearing a forgie upset at "arrogant assholes". They've had the corner on that market for a long time, so this is good. If we can make 'arrogant asshole' like... the worst thing you can be? That's pretty much the end of the forgies right there.

Pity isn't the worst thing a person can feel. The ability to feel pity for someone worse off than yourself is an admirable human trait. I for example, feel pity for anyone who is forced to roleplay 'over the phone' or 'only at conventions'.  I see such people as having screwed themselves completely out of the hobby.

When such people insist on clinging to the hobby not for the gaming itself (other than in a vague supremacist ideological way), but rather because it is perhaps the only socialization they have.. I think it's unfortunate. I think it's sad. I think it's regrettable. I think it is.. a pity.

In other news.. SHADOW GEN CON! For people who don't belong at the REAL GEN CON!

BTW, I´m indeed arrogant in regards to the stupid. But that´s got nothing to do with the games.

I know many Thematic gamers I respect, because they know other styles of play and have made educated decisions on the games they play, instead of being tools of the hip-crowd. And they are not mocking mainstream gaming in really pathetic ways like the linked idiots did.

With people who don´t know how and why a sun is to be statted, who don´t know what stats are even for, there can be no dialogue. I know their aims and terminology, and I can respect them, but they don´t know mine. Only happens my hobby is based on the mainstream. So they are the ignorant ones.

And for that, indeed I have only arrogant contempt. How else react to wiseasses who don´t actually know what they are talking about?

Quote from: SettembriniThey don´t know what they are talking about, and are mindlessly bashing D&D and SciFi gaming.

As far as I can tell, they are only mocking the attitude that everything in a setting should be quantified in terms of the mechanics and statted out in advance. What exactly in that entry or the commentary on it counts as "bashing D&D"? It can't be just the suggestion that the sun might be considered a fire elemental, because that's a perfectly valid concept for a fantasy game: I've even toyed with something rather similar for a world called "Sandremeer".

Quote from: SettembriniHow so, BTW?

Well, pity is reserved for those beneath you. So, by pitying me for thinking that a spaceship can be color (which is a very weird thing to do, btw), you are basically claiming that the fact that you believe that spaceships should be statted out makes you better than me.

Which, frankly, is laughable.

Quote from: SettembriniWith people who don´t know how and why a sun is to be statted, who don´t know what stats are even for, there can be no dialogue. I know their aims and terminology, and I can respect them, but they don´t know mine. Only happens my hobby is based on the mainstream. So they are the ignorant ones.

What? These sentences dont even mean anything!

Also, I dont think you should be talking too loudly about being a tool..

EDIT: Grim,

Why do you say "only"?
Their mocking shows they do not understand why a sun could be statted. that´s ignorance in action.

And if a sun is only colour in a game, that´s a loss of dimensions of fun.

And I pity everyone who doesn´t even know this dimension that he is missing.
Now, that would not make me angry, because there is always stuff you don´t know. It´s not a shame.
But mocking others who do something you don´t understand?

That´s pathetic.

Quote from: TempleWhat? These sentences dont even mean anything!

Also, I dont think you should be talking too loudly about being a tool..

What is the problem?
Which part is difficult to understand?

Quote from: SettembriniAnd I pity everyone who doesn´t even know this dimension that he is missing.
Now, that would not make me angry, because there is always stuff you don´t know. It´s not a shame.
But mocking others who do something you don´t understand?

That´s pathetic.

Which should basically make you pathetic, right? Because you havent actually demonstrated any understanding of the concepts you are so loudly decrying...

I still dont see how this quote can be a justification for claiming to pity people who think a spaceship in a roleplaying game can be handled as color, instead of being fully statted out and a mechanical piece of the gameworld.

Until you explain this to me, Im afraid I will continue to think you an inflamatory troll asshole (as if that affects you; I mean, big whoop, some random internet dude doesnt like you. ;) ).
Because I can understand the argument in this statement, but in relation to the statements youve made in the past it makes no sense.

Quote from: TempleWell, pity is reserved for those beneath you. So, by pitying me for thinking that a spaceship can be color (which is a very weird thing to do, btw), you are basically claiming that the fact that you believe that spaceships should be statted out makes you better than me.

I´m not pitying anybody for him thinking a spaceship CAN be colour.
I pity those who thinky spaceships ARE colour.

And I especially (that´s where it started) pity those who can only see "colour" in the Millenium Falcon. They are crippled in their enjoyment of Star Wars.
Which makes me sad.

Actually what is even more sad are those who only see the "story" of Star Wars, and still like it. They must be terribly stupid and lacking in taste.
The story in Star Wars, my ass.

But that´s another thread.

Quote from: SettembriniTheir mocking shows they do not understand why a sun could be statted. that´s ignorance in action.

And if a sun is only colour in a game, that´s a loss of dimensions of fun.

Hmm. I've seen PCs talk to and later fight against the Sun at a time when she was the prime suspect in a murderous conspiracy. That's the sort of a situation that might call for mechanics in my games. Mostly, though, that big ball o' fire in the skies doesn't really require anything by way of stats, and assigning numerical values to its various properties beforehand would seem a tad unnecessary.

Quote from: SettembriniWhat is the problem?
Which part is difficult to understand?

Nevermind, a third reading made it clear to me. I still dont agree with your reasoning though.

Quote from: TempleWhich should basically make you pathetic, right? Because you havent actually demonstrated any understanding of the concepts you are so loudly decrying...

I still dont see how this quote can be a justification for claiming to pity people who think a spaceship in a roleplaying game can be handled as color, instead of being fully statted out and a mechanical piece of the gameworld.

Until you explain this to me, Im afraid I will continue to think you an inflamatory troll asshole (as if that affects you; I mean, big whoop, some random internet dude doesnt like you. ;) ).
Because I can understand the argument in this statement, but in relation to the statements youve made in the past it makes no sense.

Proof that you don´t understand what is talked about here. Or that I´m hard to understand, sorry for that if that is the case.

Let´s take a different route:
Have you played Traveller?

Quote from: SettembriniI´m not pitying anybody for him thinking a spaceship CAN be colour.
I pity those who thinky spaceships ARE colour.

And I especially (that´s where it started) pity those who can only see "colour" in the Millenium Falcon. They are crippled in their enjoyment of Star Wars.
Which makes me sad.

Actually what is even more sad are those who only see the "story" of Star Wars, and still like it. They must be terribly stupid and lacking in taste.
The story in Star Wars, my ass.

But that´s another thread.

See, its these kinds of absolutist statements that make ME pity YOU.

Also, I never said that spaceships ARE color. I said they CAN be, and gave a Star Wars-related example. Whereupon you barged in and blurted out some random, inane shit about pity.
Hardly the hallmarks of great conversationalism..

Quote from: SettembriniProof that you don´t understand what is talked about here. Or that I´m hard to understand, sorry for that if that is the case.

Let´s take a different route:
Have you played Traveller?

Explain to me why you dont think I understand what we are discussing.

Also, no. I have never played Traveller. I dont like 80s roleplaying games. Too much number-crunching for a poor dyscalculic guy like me.

I´m raging against the people on that blog, not you (or are you one and the same??).

And their comments are begetting of their inabilty to see that spaceships are anything else than colour.

Quote from: SettembriniI´m raging against the people on that blog, not you (or are you one and the same??).

And their comments are begetting of their inabilty to see that spaceships are anything else than colour.

Your remark about pity was made in direct response to my Star Wars example, so I concluded that it was directed at me.
Which is why I couldnt reconcile it with your justification, which made prefect sense to me.

Quote from: TempleAlso, no. I have never played Traveller. I dont like 80s roleplaying games. Too much number-crunching for a poor dyscalculic guy like me.

Okay, that´s something to work with.
Traveller is from the 70ies, BTW.

Okay.
Traveller.

How do you determine the contents of a star system?
You use a probabilistic model.

You roll up the type of star, if it´s a binary or not.
You derive all other characteristics of the star system from that:

Orbits, Gas Giants, Temperature on the planet. They all derive from the nature of the respective sun.
That´s why you need to stat a sun, for example.

See where this is going?

Quote from: SettembriniOkay, that´s something to work with.
Traveller is from the 70ies, BTW.

Okay.
Traveller.

How do you determine the contents of a star system?
You use a probabilistic model.

You roll up the type of star, if it´s a binary or not.
You derive all other characteristics of the star system from that:

Orbits, Gas Giants, Temperature on the planet. They all derive from the nature of the respective sun.
That´s why you need to stat a sun, for example.

See where this is going?

For one style of gaming, thats cool!
For others, thats too much info. Some might even call it useless info (though it certainly serves its place in certain kinds of games, for certain kinds of gamers).

Im not saying its useless for a roleplaying game to stat up a star in any way, shape or form. In fact, Im not sure anyone is saying that, though I might be blinded by my optimism in that regard. I like to think the best about people.
Im saying that this level of deail is not for everyone. Its certainly not for me. I, personally, think its just ridiculous. But I aknowledge that some people like it, and that there are even some people out there who think it is essential for their enjoyment of the game to know these kinds fo thing beyond a shadow of a doubt.

For me, a star only needs a name to be fully statted out. Even if that name is just "the star."
Thats al there is to it, IMO.

Quote from: SettembriniOrbits, Gas Giants, Temperature on the planet. They all derive from the nature of the respective sun.
That´s why you need to stat a sun, for example.

See where this is going?

"Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say 'the green sun.' Many can then imagine or picture it. But that is not enough -- though it may already be a more potent thing than many a 'thumbnail sketch' or 'transcript of life' that receives literary praise. To make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labour and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode."

J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories"

QuoteI, personally, think its just ridiculous. But I aknowledge that some people like it, and that there are even some people out there who think it is essential for their enjoyment of the game to know these kinds fo thing beyond a shadow of a doubt

OK, that´s great and intellectually decent of you. I can only assure you, that I´m as intellectually decent to other kinds of gaming as well (though not neccessarily to some of the people who play them).

But: Do you understand why some people think it´s absolutely neccessary? Do you know what is lost when you don´t define stuff like that? Do you want to know?
Because you said you think it is ridicolous I have the feeling you don´t understand why for many "a spaceship must be a spaceship and not colour." Or why it´s important to have a defined star.
I mean it could be anything else.

A defined background, if you will.
The number of inhabitants, can you imagine why it is terribly important how many people live on a planet?

Then how do they live?
How are they fed?
What kind of agriculture is possible?
What´s the climate like?

See where this is going?

Quote from: SettembriniOK, that´s great and intellectually decent of you. I can only assure you, that I´m as intellectually decent to other kinds of gaming as well (though not neccessarily to some of the people who play them).

But: Do you understand why some people think it´s absolutely neccessary? Do you know what is lost when you don´t define stuff like that? Do you want to know?
Because you said you think it is ridicolous I have the feeling you don´t understand why for many "a spaceship must be a spaceship and not colour." Or why it´s important to have a defined star.
I mean it could be anything else.

A defined background, if you will.
The number of inhabitants, can you imagine why it is terribly important how many people live on a planet?

Then how do they live?
How are they fed?
What kind of agriculture is possible?
What´s the climate like?

See where this is going?

Yes I understand the need for details like this. I used to think like that myself actually. But I changed (by which I dont mean to imply that I "grew" or became "more mature" or anything).

For me, knowing all those details arent neccessary for me to enjoy something. In fact, I realised that it never was. I could have just as much fun by just accepting that "this is how it is," and it was less demanding becvause I wouldnt have to figure out why dwarves could live several kilometres beneath the earth, have huge forges running day and night and not die from lack of oxygene.

To some people, a setting where dwarves defy the laws of physics in their mountainous caves is not fun to play in. Thats ok. They needthings to make sense, intellectually, for them to be able to enjoy it. Cool.

I, on the other hand, am comfortable with glossing over the inconsitencies of a game-world. I dont need everything to hang together like it would IRL.

I guess this could be interpreted by some as a "more mature," or "better" way of gaming. Frankly, I dont care. I have my way, you have yours, end of debate as far as Im concerned.

Which is why the pity-thing really baffled me.

He doesn't get it.

Sett's use of the term pity is..unfortunate. And I'm surprised nobody has yelled "Brain Damage" when he used the word "crippled."  It's Swinery at it's best.

None of which excuses "No, it's making fun of the notion that everything must have stats, which certain contributors to that thread espoused"

See, there's not much difference between pity and mockery; the jump from the same plane.

So Sett - you need to reel in this business about your superior gaming.  It's really becoming rather the bore.  You seem to be reacting to the kind of elitism and arrogance that was directed at "mainstream" or "traditional" games for quite some time with...well...elitism and arrogance. AM seems to think this is a fine approach.  I think it devloves into "nyah nyah, my game is better than yours" bullshit. Besides which, you lose any standing because it makes it too easy for the opposition, who should be answering for years of bullshit elitism and arrogance, to point at you and say "it's only a reaction to that."

It's fine to think your game is better; my lord it's almost human nature.  You need to learn to dicsuss it in ways that don't seem to imply, or explicitly state, that it is an objective truth.

Quote from: TempleI, on the other hand, am comfortable with glossing over the inconsitencies of a game-world. I dont need everything to hang together like it would IRL.

That doesn't have to lead to any conflicts, of course: the internal consistency championed by Tolkien in the earlier quote isn't necessarily that of the real world. Why don't those dwarves suffocate, you ask? Well, who's to say that in their world the air even consists of oxygen?

Quote from: Abyssal MawHe doesn't get it.

How so?

Quote from: GrimGentThat doesn't have to lead to any conflicts, of course: the internal consistency championed by Tolkien in the earlier quote isn't necessarily that of the real world. Why don't those dwarves suffocate, you ask? Well, who's to say that in their world the air even consists of oxygen?

Wel, thats not doing what I do. Thats solving it by going down on the detail level and adjusting the internal consistency to fit your needs. A perfectly valid approach.

I just dont bother with asking those questions that lead to the need for explanations like this in the first place.

James,

I didn´t. And you too, are mistaking things here. I do not think my gamings is superiour to BW-style gaming.

I DO think I´m personally intellectually and morally superiour to the shitheads who posted on that blog, Calithena excluded, Paka emphatically included.

I´m always baffled by the lack of understanding for these differences.

Is this such a hard concept? Games are equal, people are not. And these guys are just stupid fuckwits who don´t know nothing about most of the hobby.

So, where is the difference?

Easy. They say, we are insane and lunatics, because we don´t dig the concept of colour. Which is, for everyone intellectually decent a matter of taste. So we are insane because of our taste. I say they are idiots because they judge stuff they don´t understand AND mock it.
They aren´t idiots because they like colour as a concept, but they say we are insane because we don´t like it.

Big. Difference.

EDIT: I can discuss with Temple, as he has shown he is intellectually decent. I don´t feel superiour to him in any way except being a tad more experienced in areas he doesn´t know.
Add to that that he is maybe even morally superiour to me, because he had more patience with me than some would think is validated by my harsh nature. And patience is a virtue. None of that can be said about the blog-o´-idiots.

Quote from: SettembriniThey say, we are insane and lunatics, because we don´t dig the concept of colour. Which is, for everyone intellectually decent a matter of taste. So we are insane because of our taste. I say they are idiots because they judge stuff they don´t understand AND mock it.
They aren´t idiots because they like colour as a concept, but they say we are insane because we don´t like it.

Big. Difference.

Again, this looks like baseless accusations to me.

You cant just go around claiming that these people think this or that, or know this or that, and not produce any evidence to support your claim.

As far as Im aware, nobody has called anyone anything except you. Ive never seen anyone call you or anyone else "insane and lunatics" for not "digging the concept of color."

You claiming that they dont understand traditional gaming seems, to me, rather immature. Like everyone else, they come from traditional gaming. Thats where they learned to game.
Or do you think Luke Crane hasnt ever played a bog-standard game of D&D?

Quote from: TempleAs far as Im aware, nobody has called anyone anything except you. Ive never seen anyone call you or anyone else "insane and lunatics" for not "digging the concept of color."

Please look here: http://itsmrwilson.livejournal.com/39864.html

Quote from: SettembriniPlease look here: http://itsmrwilson.livejournal.com/39864.html

I have. And I still cant see anything to the effect that people who preferr hard mechanics over color are insane or stupid.

Is it the word "looney" you are referring to?
If so, I think ts a language barrier thing, because that word does not carry the connotations I sense you think it does.

The author of that livejournal is reacting to the absurdly absolutist statements, and the implications (by you) that people who prefer to handle spaceships (in this case) as color are worthy of pity.

I think you are projecting, dude.

Well, I see an insane there right on top.
And it´s not only me. Pierce is also called a looney/insane.

There is nothing looney or insane or even funny about wanting a spaceship to be a spaceship in RPGs. There is nothing loco or funny in disliking  colour as a concept.

Pierce is explicitly mocked with the "push to shove" comment. So really, even Calithena is ignored/mocked. Clearly, it´doesn´t matter if we remain friendly and polite, as Claithena and Pierce were. They are mocked, scorned and declared insane anyway. So praytell, why should I think highly of them?
Why should I not utter my contempt and pity for these poor souls?
No reason.
Holding back ones anger hasn´t helped Pierce or Calithena.

Maybe, just maybe I´m not reading into that how it was meant. Maybe just maybe they are all friendly at heart. But I differ in evaluating that entry. I see malice all the way. Uninformed malice, that is.

Quote from: TempleHow so?

Because in a performance type environment, of course none of that is important. If you just describe it, all that stuff can be handwaved away, sure. But then every single detail you trivialize like that becomes something that just isn't important. Why even have a game set in space at all?  Making something into color effectively erases it from the game.

Which, if your'e into this because you need to explore your relationship with the social paradigms or whatever, is perfectly understandable. who cares how fast the spaceship goes, then, right? It just doesn't matter. We could just say "fast".

But in a game environment, such details are important because the players directly interact with things such as "how much fuel will we need", "is this an inhabitable planet", "what resources are available here.." "how much is germanium going on the market here.."

When you are playing Traveller, knowing those details is just as important as knowing how many dice you are supposed to roll when playing monopoly. (Two 6-siders, by the way. Monopoly also predates the 80s).

So of course it doesn't matter what the sun or a spaceship is like if all you care about is the feelings and the morality and the Lagos Egris crap. But if you are trying to do things like play a game in which players are trying to set up a trade route or chart a path from one system to another, or find alien wildlife somehow...  players do in fact need to know. You need to know where encounters are going to happen, and how often, and what they'll be, and what equipment you might need, and how much fuel. Similarly, you need to know how fast a group can march in one day if it's a fantasy game, and how much damage a broadsword does, and all of that.

This is an important interactive part of gaming.

And the beauty of it all? The kind of gaming I am describing creates stories. Yes. Players develop an intense personal interest in their characters, and they get involved with guiding what happens and where their characters are going and what gets done. so this "crazy" idea of detailing things that actually come up in play actually helps create these awesome, wonderfully detailed adventure stories that just serialize session after session and keep players interested and coming back, year after year. This is what adventure gaming is all about.


Or you know, you guys have that tackling issues thing, which is cool. I just don't consider those stories except in a technical sense.

Quote from: SettembriniUninformed malice, that is.

Youre pretty quick to point out that anyone who disagrees with you or expresses a dislike for you or your preferences are intellectually inferior to you.

See, I think you are projecting that malice into what you read.
I think you (and many others) see rpg theory and all these new and fancy-schmancy ways of gaming, and think "what if my way of playing really is inferior?"
Maybe that makes you feel stupid, and you dont want to admit it.

So whenever someone mentions something about theory or Forge-based indie games, basically any untraditional game or gaming preference, you see your own percieved inequity and respond with hostility.

I could be wrong. I could be talking out of my ass. I dont think I am, but thats just my opinion.

Quote from: Abyssal MawBecause in a performance type environment, of course none of that is important. If you just describe it, all that stuff can be handwaved away, sure. But then every single detail you trivialize like that becomes something that just isn't important. Why even have a game set in space at all?  Making something into color effectively erases it from the game.

Which, if your'e into this because you need to explore your relationship with the social paradigms or whatever, is perfectly understandable. who cares how fast the spaceship goes, then, right? It just doesn't matter. We could just say "fast".

But in a game environment, such details are important because the players directly interact with things such as "how much fuel will we need", "is this an inhabitable planet", "what resources are available here.." "how much is germanium going on the market here.."

When you are playing Traveller, knowing those details is just as important as knowing how many dice you are supposed to roll when playing monopoly. (Two 6-siders, by the way. Monopoly also predates the 80s).

So of course it doesn't matter what the sun or a spaceship is like if all you care about is the feelings and the morality and the Lagos Egris crap. But if you are trying to do things like play a game in which players are trying to set up a trade route or chart a path from one system to another, or find alien wildlife somehow...  players do in fact need to know. You need to know where encounters are going to happen, and how often, and what they'll be, and what equipment you might need, and how much fuel. Similarly, you need to know how fast a group can march in one day if it's a fantasy game, and how much damage a broadsword does, and all of that.

This is an important interactive part of gaming.

And the beauty of it all? The kind of gaming I am describing creates stories. Yes. Players develop an intense personal interest in their characters, and they get involved with guiding what happens and where their characters are going and what gets done. so this "crazy" idea of detailing things that actually come up in play actually helps create these awesome, wonderfully detailed adventure stories that just serialize session after session and keep players interested and coming back, year after year. This is what adventure gaming is all about.


Or you know, you guys have that tackling issues thing, which is cool. I just don't consider those stories except in a technical sense.

You dont get it.

Elaborate.

Can we talk about games without being nasty to one another?

That would be really nice.

Quote from: Abyssal MawBut in a game environment, such details are important because the players directly interact with things such as "how much fuel will we need", "is this an inhabitable planet", "what resources are available here.." "how much is germanium going on the market here.."

Absolutely, so let's say there are a few different ways to do this.  I think we can agree on that.

I wouldn't stat up all of this stuff before the game began.  I'd leave it in the background until one of my players pursued it.

So, one of my players wants to know how much Germanium is on the market in our Burning Whatever game.  I ask them to roll their Merchant-wise skill, obstacle 2.  The hit their mark and I tell them about the market, what the prices are and what's happening, etc.

If they fail, perhaps they get a wildly wrong notion about the market or make a mistake.  Hopefully, both results, success or failure, will lead to adventure.

But the Germanium Market of Orion-4 didn't exist until he made that roll.  We made it up as we went and created what we needed to.  Until that moment, Germanium was just color, something mentioned in the background.

So, tell me how you'd do handle this at your table.

Quote from: TempleYoure pretty quick to point out that anyone who disagrees with you or expresses a dislike for you or your preferences are intellectually inferior to you.

Huh?
Why should I wait when it´s obvious?
What to wait for?

Quote from: PakaSo, tell me how you'd do handle this at your table.

We have, like, trade rules?
And we have, like, star maps?
And we have, like, a model for markets?
And we have, like, supply & demand structure derived from the interaction of the star systems?

EDIT: I still acknowledge, like AM, that there´s games that don´t need that. because they are not about plausible results regarding ceratin elements of the background. And that´s okay.

Quote from: Settembrini1) We have, like, trade rules?
2) And we have, like, star maps?
3) And we have, like, a model for markets?
4) And we have, like, supply & demand structure derived from the interaction of the star systems?

Let's number your questions for ease of answering.

1) I don't give a fuck about living up to your notions of trad rules or what you think gamers should be doing.  That's clear, right?

2) Maps are fun, maybe we have one, sure.

3) Model for markets?  Nah, not interesting to me.  I'm here to game and fly starships, not be an economist.  But the game will have internal consistency.  It will all fit together nicely.

4) Again, fun space stories do no = economy to me but if that is what you dig, gods bless.

You wanted to know how WE do it. We already know how YOU do it.

What´s your point?

EDIT: Have you ever even played traveller? These rules are not complicated.

EDIT @temple: Here see the malice. he asks a question but doesn´t want to know the answer:

Quote1) I don't give a fuck about living up to your notions of trad rules or what you think gamers should be doing.

Is what I get for answering him. Uninformed malice all the way.
And regarding starships, starsystem and trade, anyone who hasn´t played Traveller is uninformed. Period.

Quote from: SettembriniYou wanted to know how WE do it. We already know how YOU do it.

What´s your point?

EDIT: Have you ever even played traveller? These rules are not complicated.

I haven't played Traveller but I'm making my way through the Little Black Boxed set nowadays but probably won't get to finish it until after Gen Con.

I was responding to AM's post, Sett.  If you don't care, don't respond.

So, tell me how you do this.  Describe it.

Tell me what you do when one of your players wants to dip his toe in the Germanium market in a galactic space game.  Stop the bullshit and talk about gaming and talk technique.

What do you do at the table?

Christ. Thats what I get for daring to be enthusiastic about an idea by 'one of them'.

Sett:  Until your damn starship does anything important (and travel isn't necessarily that, I think) who the fuck cares if you have one orbiting the planet or sitting in a dock somewhere?  How is this 'untrad'?

Hell, starships are ONE place where I could actually SEE using fucking color, which is why I keep going there.   Hell, for the most part I'm pretty anti-starships the way they are presented in the rules.   Starships work great as set peices, where stuff happens, and they work great to move the players from planet to planet, but the shit breaks down when you try to explain why one player has a million dollar peice of equipment and another one can't afford a decent gun! Never mind that when doing 'starshippy stuff' like dogfights maybe half the party can really get involved. You know, the pilot, a gunner or two... everyone else sits there with their thumb up their ass unless, for some reason, the entire party made ship crew, in which case they have no reason to ever leave!  

On the other hand, if you just hand wave the starship as a plot device, it makes it hard to use things that such a ship might justifiably have, like, say, sensors...

Fuck you, I told you what I´d do!
What do you want?

I USE the FUCKING TRADE RULES?
What´s so hard to understand?

Because Germanium is defined in my games. Or at least unstable radioactive ore, from which I can extrapolate.

Quote from: Settembrini.EDIT @temple: Here see the malice. he asks a question but doesn´t want to know the answer:


Is what I get for answering him. Uninformed malice all the way.
And regarding starships, starsystem and trade, anyone who hasn´t played Traveller is uninformed. Period.

I'm going to write this off to a language barrier.

I was saying that I don't give a fuck about living up to your idea of what trad gaming is.  I don't care if you find that my player isn't trad or is dirty hippy crap.

I DO care about what techniques you use at the table and what you do to make it work.  That is just flat out interesting.

Can you discuss that?

Quote from: PakaI'm going to write this off to a language barrier.

I was saying that I don't give a fuck about living up to your idea of what trad gaming is.  I don't care if you find that my player isn't trad or is dirty hippy crap.

I DO care about what techniques you use at the table and what you do to make it work.  That is just flat out interesting.

Can you discuss that?

Okay fair enough. I apologize, I misread.

See my above entry. I use the trade rules.
Whatcha wanna know about them?

Quote from: SettembriniFuck you, I told you what I´d do!
What do you want?

I USE the FUCKING TRADE RULES?
What´s so hard to understand?

Because Germanium is defined in my games. Or at least unstable radioactive ore, from which I can extrapolate.

I don't know what the trad rules are, Sett, you fucking prick.  I've never played Traveller.  Break it down for me, explain how it works at the table.  If you've said it earlier in the the thread, please link me.

Fucking hell and blood.

Quote from: SettembriniElaborate.

Very well:

Quote from: Abyssal MawWhy even have a game set in space at all? Making something into color effectively erases it from the game.

Not true. Making something into color removes it from the realm of mechanical simulation. If I as a player want it to be in the game, its in the game. Its just not simulated mechanically.
Vast, vast difference. AM inability to grasp this proves that he does not "get it."

Quote from: Abyssal MawBut in a game environment, such details are important because the players directly interact with things such as "how much fuel will we need", "is this an inhabitable planet", "what resources are available here.." "how much is germanium going on the market here.."

Not neccessarily the case. Not all gamers want to model reality like this. Not all gamers think that keeping track of minutae like this are an important part of the gaming experience. Theyd much rather focus on stopping the evil overlord than stopping for rocket fuel.

Quote from: Abyssal MawSo of course it doesn't matter what the sun or a spaceship is like if all you care about is the feelings and the morality and the Lagos Egris crap. But if you are trying to do things like play a game in which players are trying to set up a trade route or chart a path from one system to another, or find alien wildlife somehow... players do in fact need to know. You need to know where encounters are going to happen, and how often, and what they'll be, and what equipment you might need, and how much fuel. Similarly, you need to know how fast a group can march in one day if it's a fantasy game, and how much damage a broadsword does, and all of that.

Again, only the case if thats the way the group wants to play.

What if the group still want to explore a world (as opposed to exploring "feelings and morality and the Lagos Egris crap"), but they want to do it by collectively adding to that world? Riffing off each others stuff, improvising details into existence, and deal with what they think is the important stuff in the world? Instead of buying ammunition and rations, and keeping track of individual pieces of equipment and marching speeds and stuff?

Things like this are not universaly important. They may be important to AM, but they arent important to every gamer on the planet.
People have different preferences.

Im not even going to touch the Swine-bait, because thats exactly what it is. Im not a Forge guy. Ive repeatedly aired my dislike of Ron Edwards statements in various places on the internet, including here in at least one instance.

Quote from: SettembriniEDIT @temple: Here see the malice. he asks a question but doesn´t want to know the answer:


Is what I get for answering him. Uninformed malice all the way.
And regarding starships, starsystem and trade, anyone who hasn´t played Traveller is uninformed. Period.

This statement makes you appear ignorant, and makes it clear that you have problems distinguishing between your own and other peoples emotions. I feel sorry for you.

(edited because I dont really want to be an asshat)

Quote from: PakaCan we talk about games without being nasty to one another?

That would be really nice.

It's easy, isn't it? Respect is simple, dialog is easy. But once you start telling people they are "crazy lunatics" or they have "brain damage" it all goes downhill and suddenly we're probing to see just how vulnerable each side really is. If this sort of interaction bothers you, perhaps you can encourage better behavior from your friends. Because it can go either way, and we don't act, so much as react.

Ok, so on with the discussion.

Quote from: JuddSo, one of my players wants to know how much Germanium is on the market in our Burning Whatever game.  I ask them to roll their Merchant-wise skill, obstacle 2.  The hit their mark and I tell them about the market, what the prices are and what's happening, etc.

If they fail, perhaps they get a wildly wrong notion about the market or make a mistake.  Hopefully, both results, success or failure, will lead to adventure.

But the Germanium Market of Orion-4 didn't exist until he made that roll.  We made it up as we went and created what we needed to.  Until that moment, Germanium was just color, something mentioned in the background.

So, tell me how you'd do handle this at your table.

This is using Universe, which is kind of like Traveler. It may as well be Traveler, though.
When you build a system for Universe that the players will be traveling in, you generate all the planets in that system (which is between 0 and 12). You note where, if any, any settlements are, what the atmosphere is, and what resources are on each planet.

So if a player has a given resource, (whether the players mined it themselves or bought it) it has a standard value.

When trying to sell that thing, the first thing you check is whether the planet also has that resource as native. If it does, it sells for less. If it doesn't, you can get away with a higher price. So right away, players are checking which planet to even go to upon picking up cargo.

So eventually the players determine where the best market is.

At that point, you roll the merchant skill to try and sell it for as high a price as you can. The goal here for players is to compensate for things such as how much fuel and cargo space was taken up in the PCs ship, moving the stuff, and whether or not that is profitable. Or whether there is a better market for it.

Yes, it's a merchant sim. But why is that important? because profit drives adventure. See, once they have a trade route established they are moving around doing stuff, and thats where you begin setting up encounters.

Possible encounters might be rival dealers, gangs and pirates, alien lifeforms moving into the mines, market fluctuations caused by outside events, business proposals from NPCs in the marketplace, all of that. But in the meantime the players are generating credits with the buying and selling. Why? To get a better ship. Why? To go further. To carry more cargo. To reach systems that haven't been explored yet. To get better enviro suits. To finance new mines. To move up from germanium mining planetside to zero-G radium mining in a cooler location. Players can keep expanding and 'building' almost like a little empire.

All of these things are linked together, and each piece is important because they are at the players disposal to use.

And each episode of this space adventure story is fun and exciting and completely in the hands of the players.

I cross posted an apology, so I´ll ignore your "prick".

Okay, Germanium.

We look at the star system: Is it Rich, is it a mining planet, is it an industry hub?

That modifies the price. I look up radioactive ore on the speculative trade goods table. I figure in the modfiers, roll dice, take into account the trader´s characters relevant skill as a modifier too.
I look up the result and multiply it with the price for the radioactives.

Now could be the time to modify it ad-hoc based upon the development of the game or the gameworld. Is there a war, a blockade, a germanium craze? a boom, a bust?
I will know that, so I can ad-hoc adjust the price some more.
I announce the price and the lot available.

There are more sophisticated trade rules, but for s hort shopping of germanium it should be neough.

I used way more elaborate models and research when a whole adventure revolves around some commodity. Then I check prices on the internet, extrapolate use different rules etc.

But whatever I do, I try to use some kind of model. Pulling out of the ass is not an acceptable model to me. Depending on need, the model is dead simple, as the LBB one or quite elaborate.

Especially with trading, the market has to be taken care of in some way. So I need some kind of supply and demand model to make an educated guess. "We at mining planet, them at industry planet" is the lowest form of it.
And for that, you need to know where the planets are, and how many others of their kind exist.

Quote from: Abyssal MawAnd each episode of this space adventure story is fun and exciting and completely in the hands of the players.

Thats actually very funny, because when I was reading your post I kept thinking "God, that kind of game sounds incredibly boring!"

Which just illustrates my point.

Temple,

Which only proves that you don´t know it.
Accept that you are ignorant of a huge portion of gaming.
Accept that you don´t understand our fun-source.

That´s the first step. A good step.

You can either turn away, mock us, declare us to be insane or brain-damaged (how is there a misunderstanding? The malice is very obvious.).

Or you start wondering.

Quote from: TempleWhat if the group still want to explore a world (as opposed to exploring "feelings and morality and the Lagos Egris crap"), but they want to do it by collectively adding to that world? Riffing off each others stuff, improvising details into existence, and deal with what they think is the important stuff in the world? Instead of buying ammunition and rations, and keeping track of individual pieces of equipment and marching speeds and stuff?

What IF, right?

Well, here's why. Because without interactively defined resources, it's all just a triviality. Everything you decide or come up with, might as well just have been handwaved, even the things you actually roll for.

You can riff all night and all day, and still never have a game. You will have adults playing make believe, which is idealized in some places, (and considered weird anywhere else on earth). But the real point is, that's not a game, and I still don't believe that's a stable way to take part in the hobby.

But do I accept that people can prefer that? Sure. I just don't think they'll ever have much success convincing other people to take part in this hobby on those terms, or remain in this hobby very long on their own, or that they have any insight into how the majority of us operate.

and I say that with all the respect in the world. That's just how it is.

Quote from: SettembriniTemple,

Which only proves that you don´t know it.
Accept that you are ignorant of a huge portion of gaming.
Accept that you don´t understand our fun-source.

That´s the first step. A good step.

You can either turn away, mock us, declare us to be insane or brain-damaged (how is there a misunderstanding? The malice is very obvious.).

Or you start wondering.

What the flying fuck?

"Accept that Im ignorant of a huge portion of gaming?" Youre a dick. I mean it, youre a huge fucking dick.

Posts like this are what proves to me that you are actually if not completely moronic then atleast severely emotionally unbalanced.

Why is it so important for you to elevate your own intelligence at the expense of others? Why do you have to place people in an "ignorant" category in order to feel secure and comfortable?

You sad, sad person.

You prove your ignorance with every post you make on this subject, and your futile attempts at shifting this ignorance on others is not only pathetic, its sad.

Huh?

Why get angry?

You just posted that you don´t understand our fun.

YOU said that. Not me.

No superiority here, Temple. Just an experience that you lack. And admitted lacking. That´s okay!

I never bungee´d.
I´m not a worse person because of that.

I would, if I mocked bungee jumpers.
But I don´t mock them.
I´m sure it´s a blast.

Quote from: TempleThats actually very funny, because when I was reading your post I kept thinking "God, that kind of game sounds incredibly boring!"

Which just illustrates my point.

Maybe so. But the point is, what I'm talking about really is a game, not a romantic campfire circle, shared world fan-fiction, a mad-lib, or improv theater.

Quote from: Abyssal MawWhat IF, right?

Well, here's why. Because without interactively defined resources, it's all just a triviality. Everything you decide or come up with, might as well just have been handwaved, even the things you actually roll for.

You can riff all night and all day, and still never have a game. You will have adults playing make believe, which is idealized in some places, (and considered weird anywhere else on earth). But the real point is, that's not a game, and I still don't believe that's a stable way to take part in the hobby.

But do I accept that people can prefer that? Sure. I just don't think they'll ever have much success convincing other people to take part in this hobby on those terms, or remain in this hobby very long on their own, or that they have any insight into how the majority of us operate.

and I say that with all the respect in the world. That's just how it is.

This is bullshit. You dont get to define what is a game or not.

You people are fucking worse than the people you call "Swine."

Quote from: TempleWhat the flying fuck?

"Accept that Im ignorant of a huge portion of gaming?" Youre a dick. I mean it, youre a huge fucking dick.

Posts like this are what proves to me that you are actually if not completely moronic then atleast severely emotionally unbalanced.

Why is it so important for you to elevate your own intelligence at the expense of others? Why do you have to place people in an "ignorant" category in order to feel secure and comfortable?

You sad, sad person.

You prove your ignorance with every post you make on this subject, and your futile attempts at shifting this ignorance on others is not only pathetic, its sad.

It seems obvious that you have limited experience with this. You were saying it yourself several posts ago. Why are you so offended?

It isn't about the intelligence you lack, it's about the experience you lack.

Quote from: SettembriniHuh?

Why get angry?

You just posted that you don´t understand our fun.

YOU said that. Not me.

No superiority here, Temple. Just an experience that you lack. And admitted lacking. That´s okay!

I never bungee´d.
I´m not a worse person because of that.

I would, if I mocked bungee jumpers.
But I don´t mock them.
I´m sure it´s a blast.

Ok, I apologise for that outburst, and attribute the misunderstanding to mutual language barrier problem.

I get what your saying. You should, however, be aware that the word "ignorant" carries with is some pretty hefty baggage. Its an insulting word, and I suggest you avoid it in the future.

Now, as Ive said, I used to game like that, the very way you describe. So I DO know why some people want that in their games. Please stop claiming that I dont because I do.

Quote from: TempleThis is bullshit. You dont get to define what is a game or not.

You people are fucking worse than the people you call "Swine."

Sure I do. And I am here to tell you, romantic campfire circles, improv theater, and mad libs aren't games. They are what they are.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIt seems obvious that you have limited experience with this. You were saying it yourself several posts ago. Why are you so offended?

It isn't about the intelligence you lack, it's about the experience you lack.

As I said, I took offense at the usage of the sapecific word "ignorant," which carries with it an assload of offensive meaning.

Quote from: Abyssal MawSure I do. And I am here to tell you, romantic campfire circles, improv theater, and mad libs aren't games. They are what they are.

No, you dont. Not any more that the Forge gets to dictates what is and isnt rpg-theory, or what is and isnt indie.

The "its not a real roleplaying-game" argument is a load of manure.

Quote from: TempleAs I said, I took offense at the usage of the sapecific word "ignorant," which carries with it an assload of offensive meaning.

I guess that word could be taken either way.

If I say "I'm ignorant of shuffleboard." it means..  I've never played shuffleboard. I'm lacking in shuffleboard experience.

Quote from: TempleNo, you dont. Not any more that the Forge gets to dictates what is and isnt rpg-theory, or what is and isnt indie.

The "its not a real roleplaying-game" argument is a load of manure.

Oh, no, I didn't say that, though. I'm willing to concede there is roleplaying flying  all over the place. And heck, maybe there are even stories being created with predetermined moral messages and issue-tackling and whatnot. And LOADS of performance style improv theater going  down! Totally concede all of that.

But are they games? I'm not convinced. I think some of them are despite themselves, but the more they adhere to the theory, the further they go from game.

And in this conversation we are talking about a theoretical "oughtta be like this- color as rules", and I see the idealized outcome of this particular "oughtta be" as not being a game at all.

Quote from: Abyssal MawOh, no, I didn't say that, though. I'm willing to concede there is roleplaying flying  all over the place. And heck, maybe there are even stories being created with predetermined moral messages and issue-tackling and whatnot.

But are they games? I'm not convinced. I think some of them are despite themselves, but the more they adhere to the theory, the further they go from game.

And in this we are talking about a theoretical "oughtta be like this", and I see the idealized outcome of this particular "oughtta be" as not being a game at all.

What is a game then?

I meant it as in: "not knowing something, oblivious to".

When I´m insulting I say harsher words.

Quote from: SettembriniI meant it as in: "not knowing something, oblivious to".

When I´m insulting I say harsher words.

In my book, ignorant is a pretty harsh word.

Sorry. Have you got a replacement?

I´m blissfully ignorant of any ;).

EDIT:

untaught
unknown
nescient
unaware
unillumed
uninformed

 is any of these better?

Quote from: TempleWhat is a game then?

If only we had started with this question.


I say a game is a recreational activity with rules, wherein an abstract goal or series of goals is actually contested.

And I think a roleplaying game is a particular iteration of that.

I think story games break thos because even when players are nominally "opposed" (perhaps even to each other) the goal ("story") is not contested, but rather collaborated upon.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIf only we had started with this question.


I say a game is a recreational activity with rules, wherein an abstract goal or series of goals is actually contested.

And I think a roleplaying game is a particular iteration of that.

I think story games break thos because even when players are nominally "opposed" (perhaps even to each other) the goal ("story") is not contested, but rather collaborated upon.

I actually define game as a collaborative excercise performed for the enjoyment of the participants, which follows a set of rules.

Quote from: SettembriniSorry. Have you got a replacement?

I´m blissfully ignorant of any ;).

EDIT:

untaught
unknown
nescient
unaware
unillumed
uninformed

 is any of these better?

Instead of only swapping the word for another, try and rephrase your statement.;)

You could for example say that you dont think I know enough about the topic of our discussion, because of my limited experience with games of that genre. For example.

Quote from: TempleI actually define game as a collaborative excercise performed for the enjoyment of the participants, which follows a set of rules.

Is a slot machine a collaborative exercise?

It IS a game. It's just a completely random one.

Is being in a band a game? Because being in  a band is a collaborative exercise.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIs a slot machine a collaborative exercise?

It IS a game. It's just a completely random one.

Is being in a band a game? Because being in  a band is a collaborative exercise.

Why the dumb questions?

So, basically, I look at the character sheets, Beliefs for a Burning Empires example in order to generate situation and you guys look at the rolled-up model for the planet system.

Is this kind of system generator in the Little Black Box?  It intrigues me.  

Both are viable and both make a whole lot of sense to me.

Do you roll up the characters after you make the planet model or after?

By my play experience, it'd seem to make more sense to make the characters after the planets, so the players can tie their character concepts to  a situation that is apparent through the economic realities of the system but I haven't used this exact kind of thing before, so I'd be curious to hear your experience.

Paka,

I appreciate your open-ness. Somehow though, your questions seem displaced. I can´t put my finger on it, but they give the impression you somehow have a preconception that´s not correct.

To answer them:

It doesn´t matter what you roll up first. Because nobody knows where your character is from. And you don´t know where they game will play. The Referee might have made a sector of his own for you to game in.
Now, you could roll up your homeworld as a player, and MegaTraveller assumes you do. Which would be pretty awesome for most Referees if you even expanded upon your homeworld.
But ultimately it doesn´t matter.

Because the Wordl Creation rules are for creating the sandbox. Your character is for playing in it.

So, it´s totally dependent on the structure of your campaign. Maybe you play in a publshed sector, were all stellar, trade and planetary data are already provided.
Maybe you are exploring new space.

Most of the time, the Referee will make the choice, but a homeworld would be cool with most Refs. As it is cool if you engage in the other subsystems, like starship generation.
There´s nothing like dreaming up a starship and trying to get the money to actually build it. And that´s just the start!

You must know, Traveller doesn´t revolve on trade, or starships. That´s the foundation for immersion, to heighten the experience and adventure.
If you REALLY are down on your last pennies, because the mortgage on your ship must be paid (remember, the ship you constructed and spent your hard earned cahs from the first campaign on?), then it´s totally not "Colour". There´s payments, there´s your monthly earnings, there´s your adventures, there´s meaning to the situation.
Because it´s backed up by interlocking models and aspects of the game.

EDIT: Situation, maybe that´s the key. The Referee extrapolates the situation based upon  the models in the game, and external models he brings into the game. Stuff happens because it happens, and the PCs can react.
Situation is external and not tied to the PCs.
Situation oughta be interesting, elsewise one skips to the next system/planet whatever.

By reacting to the Situations the PCs become part of the universes happenings. they influence the models or are influenced by them. How this falls out in actualy play is hugely dependant on the Campaign framework. A special agent for the Imperium campaign will look totally different and use different models than a free trader or a mercenary campaign.

Just wanted to make a comment about colour in Burning Empires specifically - there are rules for how many dice rolls you can initiate in a session.  You need to use a Building scene for that.  If you want to introduce colour, you can use a Colour Scene.

I'm not sure what effect that has, but my gut tells me there's some importance there...

Quote from: Abyssal MawAnd the beauty of it all? The kind of gaming I am describing creates stories. Yes. Players develop an intense personal interest in their characters, and they get involved with guiding what happens and where their characters are going and what gets done.

That was a cool post, AM.  I don't think I've ever actually played a game like that, but it sounds like it would be fun.  

This is the "sandbox" type of game, right?

Characters come afterwards, generally. But keep in mind there's no "tailoring" to fit; Traveler (as well as Universe, as examples) are totally random.

But I also concede that both examples are perfectly workable.

In my Universe Campaign, I started out by building just one star system (5 planets), and then I built the one next to it in case anyone wanted to try and explore it. Each star system has it's own "character sheet" which lists the sun, what class star it is, (which effects the biosphere of life-sustaining planets), what orbit they are in, what resources are located where, all of that. There is something similar in Trav. I'm awaiting the Mongoose version, I guess.

Star system and planet generation in both systems is done by nested tables.

Quote from: LostSoulJust wanted to make a comment about colour in Burning Empires specifically - there are rules for how many dice rolls you can initiate in a session.  You need to use a Building scene for that.  If you want to introduce colour, you can use a Colour Scene.

I'm not sure what effect that has, but my gut tells me there's some importance there...



That was a cool post, AM.  I don't think I've ever actually played a game like that, but it sounds like it would be fun.  

This is the "sandbox" type of game, right?

Yes.

So, Sett, we've waded past the name-calling and the bullshit, let's talk games:

We're playing Traveller, how do you bind the players' characters together if the GM doesn't tell you where they will be playing?  Wouldn't this stuff be discussed?

Is it possible that because these kinds of things aren't in the rules themselves, lots of different groups do it differently and find their own grooves?

Quote from: SettembriniYou must know, Traveller doesn´t revolve on trade, or starships. That´s the foundation for immersion, to heighten the experience and adventure.
If you REALLY are down on your last pennies, because the mortgage on your ship must be paid (remember, the ship you constructed and spent your hard earned cahs from the first campaign on?), then it´s totally not "Colour". There´s payments, there´s your monthly earnings, there´s your adventures, there´s meaning to the situation.
Because it´s backed up by interlocking models and aspects of the game.

Burning Wheel, to use an example that I am comfortable with, has a Resources stat and every so often (the details are in the book) you have to make a cost of living check and pay rent or feed your vassals or get new parts for your starship or whatever it is.  

So, I'm thinking that BW takes a bunch of that kind of thing into account.  The economy and so on is injected into the game in a different a manner, a manner that doesn't force me, the GM, to come up with how many credits you have to pay to the Planetary Governor come tax-time  but you damned well better make your resources roll when tax-time comes around, or else you'll be scrambling for money and thus generating the money-inspired adventure that you were discussing above.

In Burning Games, its a Resources roll, the process is abstracted but still there, still relevant.

QuoteIn Burning Games, its a Resources roll, the process is abstracted but still there, still relevant.

No. At least not if it´s in any way like BE.
Or maybe it is, but´s so abstract that it becomes meaningless for the kind of experience I´m talking about.

There are no prices there are no GDPs. The ressources are only limited for your character, but not in the world.

How many Starships do the Vaylen produce per year?

Not answered, thusly starships become colour. They produce as much as is convenient. Which destroys all strategy. Thusly BE is so tightly focused and character centered, I can´t enjoy it.

EDIT: and instead of useless examples from thematic games, we you should concentrate on grokking Traveller. If you approach Traveller with a "Burned" mindset, you won´t get it. You will stand before it and just wonder what the heck to do with it. Let´s concentrate on your non-"burned" experiences.

Quote from: SettembriniHow many Starships do the Vaylen produce per year?

Not answered, thusly starships become colour. They produce as much as is convenient. Which destroys all strategy. Thusly BE is so tightly focused and character centered, I can´t enjoy it.

Let me see if I get this:

If the number of Vaylen starships is listed somewhere, then the players can make decisions based on this fact of the game world.  If somehow their characters find out this information, they can say, "If we want to destroy the Vaylen we'll have to make at least X number of starships."  Or any number of other things.

This is why you don't like to "ret-con" stuff, eh, Sett?

Quote from: SettembriniHow many Starships do the Vaylen produce per year?

Not answered, thusly starships become colour. They produce as much as is convenient. Which destroys all strategy. Thusly BE is so tightly focused and character centered, I can´t enjoy it.

You can't enjoy it.

*shrug*

Okay.

So, one of my BE players asks how many ships Vaylen can produce a year.  

Me:  What is your intent?  Why do you want to know?

Player:  I want to attack their economy while the Admiral's fleet attacks their orbital cruisers.

Me:  Awesome roll.  Obstacle 3.

*Rolls 3 Successes*

Me: You know that the Vaylen are using a nearby planet for production and the Merchant Corporation that deals with that planet shares resources with the company that you work for.

Player:  I want to get a meeting with the president of that company.

*Circles Roll*

And so it goes....

Quote from: SettembriniEDIT: and instead of useless examples from thematic games, we you should concentrate on grokking Traveller. If you approach Traveller with a "Burned" mindset, you won´t get it. You will stand before it and just wonder what the heck to do with it. Let´s concentrate on your non-"burned" experiences.

No, Sett, I am respecting your POV and how you do things so I will damned well get to say what works for me.

This is a thread about Color and you don't get to say when I talk and when I don't.  Your way is no more relevant or useful than mine.

There is no one way.  We are exchanging ideas here.  I listen to you and you listen to me.  It is called dialogue and this is how it works.

Quote from: Abyssal MawCharacters come afterwards, generally. But keep in mind there's no "tailoring" to fit; Traveler (as well as Universe, as examples) are totally random.

But I also concede that both examples are perfectly workable.

In my Universe Campaign, I started out by building just one star system (5 planets), and then I built the one next to it in case anyone wanted to try and explore it. Each star system has it's own "character sheet" which lists the sun, what class star it is, (which effects the biosphere of life-sustaining planets), what orbit they are in, what resources are located where, all of that. There is something similar in Trav. I'm awaiting the Mongoose version, I guess.

Star system and planet generation in both systems is done by nested tables.

Could you give me some cool examples from your games on how this worked?

Paka,

I'm curious. Without any reference to any specific game, do you understand the kind of play experience Sett's describing? Do you understand from where he derives his fun?

I get the sense that there is either a tremendous lack of communication or so much mutual animosity that talking past each other is all that's left.

Thanks,
Jim

Quote from: James J SkachPaka,

I'm curious. Without any reference to any specific game, do you understand the kind of play experience Sett's describing? Do you understand from where he derives his fun?

I get the sense that there is either a tremendous lack of communication or so much mutual animosity that talking past each other is all that's left.

Thanks,
Jim

James,

It is my belief and it is a belief that I'm more than willing to find out that I'm wrong about that we all might do things different ways and like different games but we'd tend to enjoy each other's games if we sat down to play 'em.

What interests me are the different techniques that people use to get there.

I'm not sure that successful sessions  are all that different from each other.  I do think that the language we use to describe them and the parts of the games we highlight are both vastly different.

That said, if you or Sett want me to know what you like about the techniques descibed above, please just come out and tell me.  Don't assume I know.  I'm not sure that I know what anyone other than me likes.

Quote from: PakaThat said, if you or Sett want me to know what you like about the techniques descibed above, please just come out and tell me.  Don't assume I know.  I'm not sure that I know what anyone other than me likes.

Eh, mine would be, unfortunately, woefully lacking at the moment.

I think Sett is trying.  Which is why I'm saying it might be a communication problem.

Quote from: James J SkachEh, mine would be, unfortunately, woefully lacking at the moment.

I think Sett is trying.  Which is why I'm saying it might be a communication problem.

James,

If you see communication breaking down and think I might be at fault or that there is something I could do better, drop me a PM and let me know.

I think how one achives a game world that isverisimilar (http://www.webster.com/dictionary/verisimilar) is the difference here. Or how one achives the "real".

For some players knowing every little detail of a world makes the world seem more real in their imagination, and they are looking for this "real" (among other things off course).
It is about the feeling of being there.

For others it is about spending energy on the things they need to make the game move forward, and accepting that the other things are just as "real", we just don't the details of them yet.
It is also about the feeling of being there.

For some the details help give this "real".
For others the details disturb the "real".

I used to play the way Sett and AM describe. I had tons of fun doing it that way.
Now I do it differently. I play like Paka. I make things up as I go along, and then use rules like the BE color to mechanics to make sure I don't completly pull it out of my ass (or my players from their sphincters) and that the rules remain fair.

Why?

Because I am a lazy GM. I can't be bothered to focus my creative energies on statting out a whole planetary system, when my players are just going to hyperspace through it, for the off chance that they might decide to stay.

Yet I want to achive a certain verisimilitude. Which is why having mechanics that let me take a piece of undetailed color, and make it "real" in a game sense are brilliant.

They let me play like I used to, except now I don't have to do half the work. But for some people "the work" is part of the fun. Just like for some people buying 6 thick books with setting information is fun. While for me its a waste of money cause I'll just do my own thing anyways.

If I want what Sett describes I'll play EVE (http://www.eve-online.com/). Because it does the work for me.

Quote from: meCharacters come afterwards, generally. But keep in mind there's no "tailoring" to fit; Traveler (as well as Universe, as examples) are totally random.

But I also concede that both examples are perfectly workable.

In my Universe Campaign, I started out by building just one star system (5 planets), and then I built the one next to it in case anyone wanted to try and explore it. Each star system has it's own "character sheet" which lists the sun, what class star it is, (which effects the biosphere of life-sustaining planets), what orbit they are in, what resources are located where, all of that. There is something similar in Trav. I'm awaiting the Mongoose version, I guess.

Star system and planet generation in both systems is done by nested tables.

Quote from: PakaCould you give me some cool examples from your games on how this worked?

I'm not sure what you mean... How what worked? Star system building (like character generation) is all done during preparation. It worked like I like I printed out a copy of the Star System sheet and filled it in. I only rediscovered Universe about two months ago, so there's no recent gaming I can tell you about yet.

I can tell you about how it worked when I ran a game in college, though.

If your'e asking how trade works, thats kinda all there is to it. In Universe I recently put together a little deal where the characters are able to rent a cargo pod to start out, and have to pay for the cargo as well as a payment on the pod and transport. My idea now is to eventually get a starship into the hands of the PCs as part of the campaign.  

In the old campaign, the characters were recruited at a spaceport as rescue experts for a lost survey team. (Basicly this was an extended version of Lost on Laidley, if your'e familiar with Universe) but with some extra stuff thrown in.

During this period it seemed like we played all SPI games and Champions. Universe was just one of those. The fantasy game of choice was Dragonquest.

Quote from: K BergI think how one achives a game world that isverisimilar (http://www.webster.com/dictionary/verisimilar) is the difference here. Or how one achives the "real".

For some players knowing every little detail of a world makes the world seem more real in their imagination, and they are looking for this "real" (among other things off course).
It is about the feeling of being there.

For others it is about spending energy on the things they need to make the game move forward, and accepting that the other things are just as "real", we just don't the details of them yet.
It is also about the feeling of being there.

For some the details help give this "real".
For others the details disturb the "real".

I used to play the way Sett and AM describe. I had tons of fun doing it that way.
Now I do it differently. I play like Paka. I make things up as I go along, and then use rules like the BE color to mechanics to make sure I don't completly pull it out of my ass (or my players from their sphincters) and that the rules remain fair.

Why?

Because I am a lazy GM. I can't be bothered to focus my creative energies on statting out a whole planetary system, when my players are just going to hyperspace through it, for the off chance that they might decide to stay.

Yet I want to achive a certain verisimilitude. Which is why having mechanics that let me take a piece of undetailed color, and make it "real" in a game sense are brilliant.

They let me play like I used to, except now I don't have to do half the work. But for some people "the work" is part of the fun. Just like for some people buying 6 thick books with setting information is fun. While for me its a waste of money cause I'll just do my own thing anyways.

If I want what Sett describes I'll play EVE (http://www.eve-online.com/). Because it does the work for me.

Yes. Perhaps one day we can all be evolved into a true role-player instead of just a "roll" player.

NORSELARP IS MOST ADVANCED LARP. ALL OTHER LARPS ARE 10 YEARS BEHIND NORSE LARP TECHNOLOGY!

(I actually have a lot of fun doing this comical "Norwegian larp supremacist character" for my friends sometimes. )

You're missing the point, Kaare. It's not verisimilitude, it's gameability. But hey, thanks for the uninformed, condescending post.

Who even buys setting books?

Abyssmal,

how fitting.

I game.

I just don't write up the entire world before hand.

That is the difference, thank you for putting words in my mouth, it is very rewarding. Please continue.

Quote from: K BergI think how one achives a game world that isverisimilar (http://www.webster.com/dictionary/verisimilar) is the difference here. Or how one achives the "real".

For some players knowing every little detail of a world makes the world seem more real in their imagination, and they are looking for this "real" (among other things off course).
It is about the feeling of being there.

For some, it's not knowing every little detail, it's knowing that the world outside of the character exists separate from the character - that it has workings and consistency regardless of whether the character exists.  Think of it as a bunch of people who appreciate Tolkien not just for the story, per se, but the inner workings that set the stage for the story to take place.

Or I could be completely wrong...

You keep mentioning Universe and I have no idea what you are refering to.

I have a few more questions in a bit.

Quote from: K BergIf I want what Sett describes I'll play EVE (http://www.eve-online.com/). Because it does the work for me.

So you wouldn't be interested in that EVE tabletop RPG which White Wolf is planning to publish?

James, That was what I was trying to say, I blame the language barrier.

The world outside the characters is what I called verisimilar. A world that lives and breathes outside the charactes immideate sphere of influence. Might have been totally wrong word.

I still play that way. I no longer use game mechanic details to give me that feeling, I still try to create a world that lives and breathes outside them. I use color for this.

And it is because I am lazy.

Grim, no I wouldn't.

Quote from: GrimGentSo you wouldn't be interested in that EVE tabletop RPG which White Wolf is planning to publish?

As I play Eve Online, I am very scared.

Quote from: K BergAnd it is because I am lazy.

I don't play this way because I'm lazy.  I do this because I like spending my efforts, in-game efforts, in other areas.

Quote from: PakaI don't play this way because I'm lazy. I do this because I like spending my efforts, in-game efforts, in other areas.

Same same for me

Quote from: SpikeAs I play Eve Online, I am very scared.

Rein-Hagen's never-published Exile could have been the great WW science fiction game. I'm hoping that they at least get this one right.

Exile had some cool ideas, though the free playtest document held promise. And the premise rocked.

If you have it I'd love to see it again.

Mine is gone in the great harddisk swap of 2003

Quote from: K BergIf you have it I'd love to see it again.

Those drafts are still available at a few places around the 'Net. Just look here (http://sharonandjake.com/exile/), for instance.

Quote from: K BergAbyssmal,

how fitting.

I game.

I just don't write up the entire world before hand.

That is the difference, thank you for putting words in my mouth, it is very rewarding. Please continue.

OK! I do love an invitation.

You are mistaken about the amount of work being done here.

1) All games benefit from some form of prep. Even collaborative games where people are coming up with details, involve some form of continuity and record keeping. Such as the one-sheet in sorcerer. or the network in Verge. Or whatever else. Relationship maps. Snerk.

2) The "whole world" statting in this case involves a few rolls on a set of tables. It's all written down once, placed in a campaign folder or notebook or wiki, or whatever... and done before the game ever begins, and the goal is long term play, so you keep referring back to that one thing.
 
3) I don't actually stat the 'whole world' up. Actually I stat up resources and parameters. This is probably quite similar to Burning Empires, I imagine. But the point is- not that much work at all, really. Certainly less than a relationship map.

4) The secret weapon of traditional gaming: long term campaigns. So if there is work involved at all in prepping anything? the "Lazy GM" who wants to run "story-Games" will be doing prep work for each and every game over and over again, possibly every 3 sessions, or even every session. Some of what story-gamers do as part of the game (collaborative world building, etc), falls under prepwork for a normal gamer.

By contrast, Joe the GM does his work once, and is set for 6 months. He'll be done with it the week before the game starts.

It's clear to me that the write-once, read-many style is a lot less work than it is made out to be. Not only that, if we aren't changing games or systems every couple of sessions, nobody has to re-learn how to play.


To Judd: Universe is an out-of-print SPI game that was kinda based on Traveler. I'll send you a pdf if you like. I'm mainly interested in it for nostalgia purposes (as I am a fantasy guy at heart), but I think it illustrates what sci-fi gaming is about pretty well.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw4) The secret weapon of traditional gaming: long term campaigns. So if there is work involved at all in prepping anything? the "Lazy GM" who wants to run "story-Games" will be doing prep work for each and every game over and over again, possibly every 3 sessions, or even every session. Some of what story-gamers do as part of the game (collaborative world building, etc), falls under prepwork for a normal gamer.

By contrast, Joe the GM does his work once, and is set for 6 months. He'll be done with it the week before the game starts.

It's clear to me that the write-once, read-many style is a lot less work than it is made out to be. Not only that, if we aren't changing games or systems every couple of sessions, nobody has to re-learn how to play.


To Judd: Universe is an out-of-print SPI game that was kinda based on Traveler. I'll send you a pdf if you like. I'm mainly interested in it for nostalgia purposes (as I am a fantasy guy at heart), but I think it illustrates what sci-fi gaming is about pretty well.

Regarding Universe...gotcha.  I'll PM you for a pdf when I have a moment after Gen Con.  RIght now it'd just get lost in the shuffle.

Regarding long-term play.

There are plenty of indie RPG's that are built for short to medium length campaigns but if we're talkin' Burning Wheel here, that is game made for the long, long haul.  Honestly, I think that game is made to shine for a campaign that has lasted longer than the books have been out.

Other than that, I agree in thinking our gaming is probably more similiar than many would think.  I think we might take different roads to get there but that is what makes forums interesting.

If we all did things in the same manner, there'd be nothing much to say.

QuoteOther than that, I agree in thinking our gaming is probably more similiar than many would think. I think we might take different roads to get there but that is what makes forums interesting.

It´s not. Beliefs are a thing were I just stand up and go. It destroys everything worthwhile playing for me. At least the way they are treated in BE.

Or your asking for the purpose of the Vaylen-ship question: It doesn´t matter why I´m asking. Either there is an answer or there isn´t.

And in BE, there are no answers, it´s not even established how many planets there are in the respective empires. This makes meaningful strategy impossible.
I just don´t need to play this game.

Is it objectively bad?
No.

But it´s useless to me.

Colour as a concept destroys what I game for.

Now, to come full circle: I can see what colour/mechanics setups do for you. Accept that they are destructive to other stuff, stuff you might not be aware of.

Quote from: SettembriniNow, to come full circle: I can see what colour/mechanics setups do for you. Accept that they are destructive to other stuff, stuff you might not be aware of.

Different people like different things.

Okay.

Do not demand that I accept statements from you.  You've already stated that you are morally and intellectually superior to me; I'm wary of accepting shit from you.

*Shrug*

You came here to learn. Either you accept your lecture, or you don´t. I can lead the donkey to the water, but I cannot make him drink.

And actually, you already know one fun-style of playing. So only intellectual nosyness and rigour would push you to explore other styles.
Who am I to know if you bring up that inquisitiveness?
You showed some here.
But lazyness in ones spare-time is nothing to be ashamed of.

There is no need for you, so you might as well not do it, you are having fun already.

Quote from: Settembrini*Shrug*

You came here to learn. Either you accept your lecture, or you don´t. I can lead the donkey to the water, but I cannot make him drink.

And actually, you already know one fun-style of playing. So only intellectual nosyness and rigour would push you to explore other styles.
Who am I to know if you bring up that inquisitiveness?
You showed some here.
But lazyness in ones spare-time is nothing to be ashamed of.

There is no need for you, so you might as well not do it, you are having fun already.

Sett,

I'm not sure if you realize how condescending and lame this response is.  Maybe you don't care.  I didn't come here to be lectured.  I came here to talk about gaming.  Man, you don't make that easy.

I am not lazy.  My game-related efforts are in different areas than what you choose to put your efforts into.  This doesn't mean I'm lazy and you are hard working.

It means I work on X and you work on Y.

This conversation is like listening to a blind man and a deaf man argue about what a radio is and does.  Both are lacking a perspective but they are both adamant they are right about what they are talking about.

Quote from: PakaI don't play this way because I'm lazy.

And that´s okay! It´s your hobby!

You spend effort for other stuff, fine!

But to learn other playstyles and systems, you must invest some time.
That´s a blanket statement.


BUT: If you don´t want to invest into learning about other playstyles, you are excluded from talking abou themt.

Quote from: GunslingerThis conversation is like listening to a blind man and a deaf man argue about what a radio is and does.  Both are lacking a perspective but they are both adamant they are right about what they are talking about.

I´m the blind man.

Quote from: GunslingerThis conversation is like listening to a blind man and a deaf man argue about what a radio is...

Quote from: SettembriniI´m the blind man.

hahaa! The Prussian is too quick.

Quote from: SettembriniI´m the blind man.

Yeah, you see there's this invention called TV and its pretty cool.

Hmmm. My experience goes as follows: while I have certainly played games in the sandbox manner, and indeed, have explored many alternative ways of producing 'objective' data when the rules failed me (I cite, for instance, several home-made maps dealing with resources and trade routes of Glorantha), it's not something I've got the time or interest for any more. Been there, done that, got the notes to prove it. I understand the appeal, but I don't share it--too much ad hoc judgement and an ultimately illusory goal.

I don't think playing with the word 'game' will get us very far--Wittgenstein already demonstrated that.

Quote from: droogtoo much ad hoc judgement and an ultimately illusory goal.

This is interesting to me, and possibly points to a deeper difference then thought...

How does mechanically determining a world separate from the characters with it's own workings and own consistency have more ad hoc judgement and more illusory goal?

Quote from: James J SkachHow does mechanically determining a world separate from the characters with it's own workings and own consistency have more ad hoc judgement and more illusory goal?

Because ultimately, you can never determine things to that level. At some point you will have to go 'near enough is good enough'. Once at that point, further abstraction is just in degrees.

Quote from: droogBecause ultimately, you can never determine things to that level. At some point you will have to go 'near enough is good enough'. Once at that point, further abstraction is just in degrees.

OK.  So my question is, if detailing-things-as-much-as-possible-then-ad-hoc-where-required is too much, how is starting with less detail, which, by your logic, will require at least as much ad hoc an improvement?

Please note, I'm not saying it's an objective improvement or that either one of us is saying one or the other is better.  I'm trying to follow the logic you are following, that's all...

Quote from: James J SkachOK.  So my question is, if detailing-things-as-much-as-possible-then-ad-hoc-where-required is too much, how is starting with less detail, which, by your logic, will require at least as much ad hoc an improvement?

Please note, I'm not saying it's an objective improvement or that either one of us is saying one or the other is better.  I'm trying to follow the logic you are following, that's all...

If you abstract resources (eg to a simple die roll), you have to make judgement calls less. If you try and account for objective factors, you will have to make many judgement calls. That's my experience.

Let's say that in RQ, you try and track all income and expenditure. Good lists here, with how much a meal costs, lodging costs etc. But no list of this nature covers everything, and expenditure patterns are abstract. For example, the costs of housework are rarely if ever factored in. There is an illusion of participating in another world, but it's an illusion nonetheless, and the further you go into it the more you can see the cracks.

Pendragon goes a step further. As a friend of mine put it, you need a certain basic amount of equipment in order to participate in the game (ie as a knight), but then you need little else and what you do need comes automatically. You can play PD without ever bothering with coins, though there is a price list (more for colour than anything else in my view) if you want things beyod what a knight usually has.

In HeroQuest, all wealth has been abstracted into a numerical resource. If you want something beyond what your station gives you, you can roll for it. Do you see why I say that means less judgement calls than RQ?

Quote from: droogIf you abstract resources (eg to a simple die roll), you have to make judgement calls less. If you try and account for objective factors, you will have to make many judgement calls. That's my experience.

Let's say that in RQ, you try and track all income and expenditure. Good lists here, with how much a meal costs, lodging costs etc. But no list of this nature covers everything, and expenditure patterns are abstract. For example, the costs of housework are rarely if ever factored in. There is an illusion of participating in another world, but it's an illusion nonetheless, and the further you go into it the more you can see the cracks.

Pendragon goes a step further. As a friend of mine put it, you need a certain basic amount of equipment in order to participate in the game (ie as a knight), but then you need little else and what you do need comes automatically. You can play PD without ever bothering with coins, though there is a price list (more for colour than anything else in my view) if you want things beyod what a knight usually has.

In HeroQuest, all wealth has been abstracted into a numerical resource. If you want something beyond what your station gives you, you can roll for it. Do you see why I say that means less judgement calls than RQ?

Before I answer, can I ask some more questions? I'll assume yes...

When you abstract, by what set of rules are you abstracting? When the little else you need arrives, how does it? Who decides, and by what rules?

What I can see, to be honest, is a different set of judgement calls made at a different time in the process and with possibly wide degrees of frequency. So I'm just trying to see why you see it differently. Do you see the act of the abstraction, or more particularly to take an example that Paka provided earlier in the thread, the point at which the GM says "Awesome. Roll Resource 3" as something other than a judgement call?

Quote from: James J SkachWhen you abstract, by what set of rules are you abstracting? When the little else you need arrives, how does it? Who decides, and by what rules?

What I can see, to be honest, is a different set of judgement calls made at a different time in the process and with possibly wide degrees of frequency. So I'm just trying to see why you see it differently. Do you see the act of the abstraction, or more particularly to take an example that Paka provided earlier in the thread, the point at which the GM says "Awesome. Roll Resource 3" as something other than a judgement call?

Instead of trying to chop my logic, why don't you talk about how you do it and what games you've used?

In a sense you're correct to say that different judgement calls are involved, but in another sense we're talking about different areas of the game when we start talking about when and how dice rolls are introduced in the first place.

Quote from: droogInstead of trying to chop my logic, why don't you talk about how you do it and what games you've used?

In a sense you're correct to say that different judgement calls are involved, but in another sense we're talking about different areas of the game when we start talking about when and how dice rolls are introduced in the first place.

Because my way is pretty well explained by what Sett is saying - without the vitriol and miscommunication.

So I'm trying to understand how you see it so I don't make assumption. Is there a problem with that?  I mean, if you don't see judgment calls the way I do, then we'll just talk past each other; then the frustration sets in, then we're getting upset, then we're hurling insults.  Whereas if I understand that you don't see those areas as pushing the judgement calls to other places, then I know where our disconnect is and we can avoid all that nonsense.

We're talking about two different approaches that affectively do the same thing here.  One is a game framed around ship based adventure that can result in crew based adventure, the other is crew based adventure that can result in ship based adventure.  What "color" is in either is a matter of scale during play.

Quote from: PakaI don't know what the trad rules are, Sett, you fucking prick.  I've never played Traveller.  Break it down for me, explain how it works at the table.  If you've said it earlier in the the thread, please link me.

Fucking hell and blood.

Paka, you need to work on your reading comprehension. Look at it again.

Quote from: Settembrini1) We have, like, trade rules?
2) And we have, like, star maps?
3) And we have, like, a model for markets?
4) And we have, like, supply & demand structure derived from the interaction of the star systems?

Quote from: PakaI don't give a fuck about living up to your notions of trad rules or what you think gamers should be doing. That's clear, right?

Quote from: PakaI was saying that I don't give a fuck about living up to your idea of what trad gaming is.

You're confusing "trade rules" with "trad rules" or "traditional rules".

Settembrini was talking about rules which govern the exchange of goods and services in a science fiction interstellar setting. Your misreading was that he was talking about "traditional" roleplaying.

You see? You two exchanged abuse for no real reason. All those fuck yous could have been avoided simply by reading what the person actually wrote, or by stopping to think, "this guy's response doesn't make sense, perhaps he misunderstood me?" A little effort and empathy goes a long way to avoiding needless insults.

By all means we should go ahead and call each-other fuksticks if we really think that, but let's abuse each-other over what we've really said, not some misunderstood thing.

Speaking of misunderstandings and poor reading, Abyssal Maw, I don't think K Berg's post here (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=128094&postcount=136) indicated he felt his play style was superior at all. You're reading into things he didn't write there.

Quote from: Abyssal MawYou can riff all night and all day, and still never have a game. You will have adults playing make believe, which is idealized in some places, (and considered weird anywhere else on earth). But the real point is, that's not a game [...]

Quote from: TempleThis is bullshit. You dont get to define what is a game or not.

We play "roleplaying games". A "game" is an activity undertaken for amusement which has varying amounts of choice and chance; something like chess is mostly choice, something like snakes & ladders is mostly chance. "Roleplaying" is portraying by words and actions a role, a character in some situation and their response to it.

If you take away all chance, it's no longer a game; even chess has elements of chance, in that the response of your opponent is not predetermined, the multiplicity of choices available give the effect of chance. If you take away all choice, it's no longer a game, people won't be amused by it since they're unable in any way to affect the outcome; in roulette, they're unable to affect the outcome, so their choice of 32 or 11 is meaningless in fact, but it doesn't feel meaningless, the choice of the number is enough to keep it a game for them.

If you sit around a campfire telling stories, or if you engage in improvisational theatre, that's not a roleplaying game. Certainly is shares elements which roleplaying games do (playing a role), but then so does craps in a casino (rolling dice), and we do not say that craps is a roleplaying game.

Quote from: droogI don't think playing with the word 'game' will get us very far--Wittgenstein already demonstrated that.

He was German. They're not known for their understanding of good fun and laughs. I think that if we go with something simple, the common everyday understanding of what a "game" is, we do alright.

There are things which have some roleplaying in them, but are not roleplaying games. There are things which have some game in them, but are not roleplaying games. In this respect, it might be worth it for Temple to have a look at that discussion we had about We All Had Names, his thing which at first looked like a roleplaying game, but then over discussion with us he agreed it wasn't. There was some choice, but no chance, and no uncertainty of final outcome, you just sat there exploring your feelings about the Holocaust. Which may or may not be useful and entertaining, but isn't a roleplaying game, any more than roulette is.

Quote from: Kyle AaronPaka, you need to work on your reading comprehension. Look at it again.



You're confusing "trade rules" with "trad rules" or "traditional rules".

Kyle, I'm pretty certain that Sett edited his post and added the -e- later, man.  I could be wrong but I dunno.

Could you have put that in a nicer, less condescending way?

Quote from: PakaKyle, I'm pretty certain that Sett edited his post and added the -e- later, man.  I could be wrong but I dunno.

No. Because when you quoted him (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=127988&postcount=87), the quote said "trade". If you quote someone and they later alter their post, it doesn't change the quote. In this case it was not Settembrini's typo, but your misreading of what he'd typed. So "trade" was the original word. But you misread it, and it seems you were so eager to have a stoush with the guy that you leapt on in without thinking about the context, etc. And he was as eager for it, too.

But let's suppose he did make a typo as "trad". That's why I said both you and he needed to use your empathy and imaginations, to say, "hang on, that doesn't seem right - what's he really trying to say here?" Given that Settembrini was talking about Traveller, that his first question would be about "traditional roleplaying" and the other three about star maps, markets, and supply & demand - that doesn't make sense. Whereas "trade" fits in with the other three questions. It'd be easy to look at the context and say, by "trad" he meant "trade". Remembering that English isn't his first language would help, too.

Just look at the context, and then it makes more sense, even with typos. For Settembrini's part, he should have looked at your angry response and said, "why is he now talking about traditional gaming? What's that got to do with what I posted?" He should then have realised he'd made a typo (if he had, which in this case he hadn't), or else realised that you'd misread what he'd typed.

Sometimes we're so eager to respond to something we don't stop to listen to it before that response spurts out. Settembrini says enough crazy things without your having to misread him to find something to flip out about.

Quote from: PakaCould you have put that in a nicer, less condescending way?

You misread a guy's post, and as a result trade fuckyous for fifty posts with some guy, turning what was a heated but productive and informative discussion into a flamefest, and you're criticising my manners?

This has kinda been a fun conversation. :)

Yup, I misread his post.  My bad.

And I put in one eff word that I didn't mean to in response to a guy who a few posts previous said that he was morally and intellectually superior to me.

Ah well, somehow I will sleep tonight.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThis has kinda been a fun conversation. :)

What have you found fun?

I found it...I dunno, a whole lotta effort for a conversation about gaming.

Quote from: GunslingerWe're talking about two different approaches that affectively do the same thing here.  One is a game framed around ship based adventure that can result in crew based adventure, the other is crew based adventure that can result in ship based adventure.  What "color" is in either is a matter of scale during play.

Totally not.

Conceptually you are somehow right.

But the resulting difference is constitual and very grave. It makes games unplayable or undesirable for majority of gamers, me included.

Mostly because reality is not evolving around individuals, so fake realities are not expected to do that either.

Universes that have PCs as their navel are very limited in certain aspects. So I cannot use them.

Colour is a concept for PC-are-navels-of-universe-games. In Traveller, there is no colour, because everything exists on it´s own right. Doesn´t matter if there´s a starship or not, all the NPCs have theirs, and build theirs in their wharfs and they trade along the trade routes and fight their wars on the defined number of planets etc. ad nauseam

Yo Kyle don't go all out on Paka, the shit flew both ways. I tried to show how I saw the difference between the two playstyles and got a faceful of flame from Abyssmal M, so Paka might have misread. Who gives a fuck. You are asking us to read a condecending spam-machine with empathy.

I tried. Got a bloody nose to show for it. Its a learning process. Guess I crossed the line I didn't want to cross.

Here is the thing.

I game. I use dice, tokens, the unpredicability of my players response to get the ... well unpredicability or the moment of chance into my game. Which happens to produce stories as we play.

We game to role-play. There I said it. I stepped out of a gamer closet. Happy now?

I still don't agree with your definition of what a roleplaying game is because it is limiting to what a roleplaying game can be and still be a game. There is too much of a value judgement in this definition. But I can spot a minefield when I see it so I'll hunker doown to await the flames passing on this one.

With regards to being lazy.
Now it is my turn to say You don't get it.

Yes, being Lazy doesn't remove all prep work. Never said it does. What it does, is it makes me focus my limited pool of creative effort on what I need to play. In my book that doesn't involve stating out a star-system 6 months in advance.

But that is in my book.

For me unless it reflects directly on play (as in something that can influence a die-roll, coin flip or token bid and thus affect resolution) I don't need to know its stats to include it in my game-world.
Until it suddenly enters a conflict. And at this stage having rules that seemlessly turns color into mechanics is a forte. Because it keeps the game fairer.

BE and BWr rocks on this part. Because you can scale the detail you need out of the resolution mechanics and you can make the details matter when they do. Not six months in advance.

Which is how I play.

QuoteColour is a concept for PC-are-navels-of-universe-games. In Traveller, there is no colour, because everything exists on it´s own right. Doesn´t matter if there´s a starship or not, all the NPCs have theirs, and build theirs in their wharfs and they trade along the trade routes and fight their wars on the defined number of planets etc. ad nauseam

Plain wrong sett. Color is the glue that makes the world come alive in your imagination. Color might be the most misunderstood underused little lovely thing about roleplaying games.

You given an NPC an eye color, that is color in the game. A detail that is significant for your imagination, yet not mechanically significant for you game.

This might be why we are not comunitcating. Because we use this term differently.

I fear you don´t understand.

If you make up details only as they relate to your "conflict", you are already firmly in the PCs-at the navel of the universe paradigm. good for you. but don´t assume everyone is wanting that.

If the central star is not defined, I don´t need to play in your Sci Fi game. it´s useless to me.

EDIT: "conflict" is just such a concept that is destroying any purpose in a game for me. There´s is situation and there surely is conflict between inhabitants of a world. But "conflict"? Please spare me.

@AM: Isn´t it sad how they rather argue for hours instead of doing the legwork and actually read and play traveller? That´s showing they don´t really want to understand.
Rolling up a star system takes what?
Five minutes?

But they cannot be bothered.
It would conflict with their "STORY" and "CONFLICT". Yuck at both uses of the word.

EDIT: I will not participate further in this. I explained my case, gave hints. Go, play.

Quote from: SettembriniEDIT: I will not participate further in this. I explained my case, gave hints. Go, play

You promise!
Seriously, you promise to stay the fuck away so the rest of us can converse like normal beings. Great. You made my day.Thank you.

I've read traveller, I have traveller, never played it, but cut my teeth at 2300AD. Great fun. Now I get that from EVE. Because the tables give me headaches.

Its taste. And I do not presume that it is predominant. Nor do I assume your taste is. If anything all these debates are ruined by people assuming they are representative of the one true way. We are too much an eclectic group to make such statements.

Quote from: K BergPlain wrong sett.

I think Sett may be right; in the sandbox game (forgive me if I'm getting this wrong) everything is important.  Even, maybe, some random dude's eye colour.  However, maybe I don't understand the term "colour".

What I'm wondering about now is the role of the DM in such games.  Does the fact that the DM is the one who provides adversity cause a problem with his referee role?  

Maybe I've just had bad experiences trying to DM and play this type of game.

Quote from: Settembrini@AM: Isn´t it sad how they rather argue for hours instead of doing the legwork and actually read and play traveller? That´s showing they don´t really want to understand.
Rolling up a star system takes what?
Five minutes?

But they cannot be bothered.
It would conflict with their "STORY" and "CONFLICT". Yuck at both uses of the word.

EDIT: I will not participate further in this. I explained my case, gave hints. Go, play.

Sett, Im tired of your idiocy and your bullshit.
Read this carefully:

You are not a teacher.
You are not intellectually superior.
You are making a fool of yourself.

You dont understand what you are talking about, and yet you continue to talk crap. Your tone is so condescending that itsridiculous when viewed in context with the actual content of your posts, which rarely makes any sense.
Im beginning to suspect you are a disgruntled teenager or something.

Either make the effort to understand what is being duscussed, or get the hell out of the thread. As it is you are a useless part of this duscussion.

I use color like this:

A detail that helps bring the world alive, yet carries no mechanical (as in rule) effect. Color is what makes things more visible to our minds eye.

Quote from: K BergYes, being Lazy doesn't remove all prep work. Never said it does. What it does, is it makes me focus my limited pool of creative effort on what I need to play. In my book that doesn't involve stating out a star-system 6 months in advance.

But that is in my book.

For me unless it reflects directly on play (as in something that can influence a die-roll, coin flip or token bid and thus affect resolution) I don't need to know its stats to include it in my game-world.
Until it suddenly enters a conflict. And at this stage having rules that seemlessly turns color into mechanics is a forte. Because it keeps the game fairer.

BE and BWr rocks on this part. Because you can scale the detail you need out of the resolution mechanics and you can make the details matter when they do. Not six months in advance.

Which is how I play.

The idea that people are statting out star systems that "will never matter in play" is as baseless as the idea that people are statting out relationship maps that will never matter in play. Or lighting candles or "saluting in" or keys or flags or sprawling triangle diagrams and flowcharts or whatever the fuck else is on the laundry list of stuff you guys do.

It seems like we can acknowledge that you might need that stuff if your "game" is all about exploring morality and taclking issues. But if the game is about adventure-- which is to say-- going places and doing stuff, such things as how long it takes to get there and how much fuel will be required might be necessary to know.

This seems simple to me.

Quote from: Settembrini@AM: Isn´t it sad how they rather argue for hours instead of doing the legwork and actually read and play traveller? That´s showing they don´t really want to understand.
Rolling up a star system takes what?
Five minutes?

But they cannot be bothered.
It would conflict with their "STORY" and "CONFLICT". Yuck at both uses of the word.

EDIT: I will not participate further in this. I explained my case, gave hints. Go, play.

Actually, what's sad is you won't acknowlege that probably over 75% of roleplayers have played this way, probably a much larger percentage of the people you're talking to on a roleplaying forum.  Burning Empires and Burning Wheel sit next to Star Frontiers and D&D boxed sets on my shelf.  My Rules Cyclopedia is nestled with The Mountain Witch, Primetime Adventures, and Mortal Coil in my briefcase.  Your failure to comprehend one playstyle does not directly correlate to others not understanding yours.  Your cop out not to learn theirs doesn't mean that they haven't learned yours.  It's convenient for you to think so in order to be right.  You're correct.  You're the blind man, which is why you'll never see the "color" of the radio.  You didn't win.  You failed to see.  What's worse is that you pretend to be deaf, so you don't have to listen.  That still doesn't mean you've experienced being deaf.

QuoteIt seems like we can acknowledge that you might need that stuff if your "game" is all about exploring morality and taclking issues. But if the game is about adventure-- which is to say-- going places and doing stuff, such things as how long it takes to get there and how much fuel will be required might be necessary to know.

Never said that wasn't valid. You need to become more sure about your own playstyle and stop defnding it like a rabid dog. We are not attacking it, we are not putting it down. There is no need to be so sensitive and defensive. Your insecure behaviour is counter productive.

Personally I can not see the point in tracking how much fuel if the point of the games is "going places and doing stuff" since the point of going places is actually going. It seems unessecary too me.
That being said I understand that some people thrive on this and this makes the unvicerse go round for them. Power to them for knowing what they like.
It most likely means they are having fun doing it, and for me having fun is 90% the point of role-playing.
Yay, you are having fun. I admitted it. Feel better now?

Can we begin to talk.

Belive it or not, but when I play most of the time it is about going places and doing stuff. A major point in difference lies here:
For me a piece of equipment that doesn't get used in a game-mechanical way doesn't needs stats. It is color and thus as mechanically significant as randomdudes eyecolor. It is vitally important for the versimillitude of our imagined gameworld. Because of this it carries as much imaginary weight as a fully statted space-ship.

We played Shadow of Yesterday in a spacesetting, where the characters were all the crew of a spacs-ship called the Gnostic Avenger. A ship so old that what original design it once had been was lost beneath countless modifications. During the course of this short campaign we even played an entire session aboard this ship, with blaster bolts and what have you flying between down the corridors. But we never gave her any stats. Didn't make her less real in our imagination. Even when they used her escape pod to jettison a nuke into the hold of an enemy ship did the stats become important. That she had an escape pod did. But it had been established previously in play. So it was there.

When we back in the day (pre D20) played Star Wars, we most often used the space-ships this way. But in that Universe space dog fights are a part of the game. Off course we used stats for these. How else would we agree that the Millenium Falcon could escape Hoth and not go all freeformy?

Color to Mechanics is a way of combining these two worlds. If the Gnostic Avenger suddenly found herself in a firefight where her sensors would become important, and I as a player would say "Dude we have the Hyperdyne Superwhifffers, so we should find them easy." The GM would say stat it up and roll. Depending on the roll then maybe we didn't have the superwhiffers, but just the puffers, who knows. Doesn't make it less real to me.

Now if you need the length of a planetary bodies distance from the sun, and then what kind of atmoshpere it has to get the same feel there is nothing inferior or wrong with this. Travelleres planetary system generation is great for this kind of thing. Heck, it is brilliant little spark the imagination system. Particulary with regards to the hard-science paradigm of the traveller universe.

Is it nessecary for a sandbox campaign.

I dont think so.

Is it a way to create and play a sandbox campaign.

Most def.

Can it be done with color to mechanics.

Most def.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI think that if we go with something simple, the common everyday understanding of what a "game" is, we do alright.

I think that the lesson of Wittgenstein is, rather, that there is no final definition of what constitutes a game, nor are there commonalities between all things marked as 'game'.

Quote from: James J SkachSo I'm trying to understand how you see it so I don't make assumption. Is there a problem with that?  

No problem, but I explained my thinking with examples of games I've used. I don't know if I can make it any clearer.

I have to ge going to work and all, so I'll read the remainder of the thread later.  But this, right here, is just pricelss..

Quote from: K BergWho gives a fuck. You are asking us to read a condecending spam-machine with empathy.

Do you know how many times I've been implored to do the same thing over the last litle while since I came to the intraweb looking for some information on game design, and found a bunch of people saying I was, essentially, gaming wrong?

This is one of most common responses - you're not reading it right; you're taking it in the worst possible light; nobody is telling you your game is bad, they're just being positive about their own game; etc.

Now, when someone get called for literally misreading a post...just fucking priceless...

I'd think that the place for this thread to go would be to head over to the Craft of Gameplay sub-forum here and put the rubber to the road, maybe start a thread to talk about how people have linked color elements to the mechanics in their game with specific directly-from-play examples.

Or we could pick at scabs and snipe at one another.

Wow.  Where to begin. Well, first, I have to recognize yet another classic of irony – Paka calls it picking at scabs; I disagree as that assumes there is a wound and that it has one. But I digress, on with the show...

Quote from: K BergIts taste. And I do not presume that it is predominant. Nor do I assume your taste is. If anything all these debates are ruined by people assuming they are representative of the one true way.

But not to be outdone, we get Gunslinger (to K Berg's credit, not him) asserting this very thing: that the way described that is not-Sett's-way is predominant.

Quote from: GunslingerActually, what's sad is you won't acknowlege that probably over 75% of roleplayers have played this way, probably a much larger percentage of the people you're talking to on a roleplaying forum.

Really; 75% have played this way?  Any proof, statistics, anything?  Really – I'd love to see them.  I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't have any.  That's not meant to be snarky – it's the sad truth of all of the discussions; nobody seems to have any number on anything.

I am a bit troubled by this tactic:

Quote from: K BergYou promise!
Seriously, you promise to stay the fuck away so the rest of us can converse like normal beings. Great. You made my day.Thank you.

Quote from: TempleEither make the effort to understand what is being duscussed, or get the hell out of the thread. As it is you are a useless part of this duscussion.

Guys – if you don't like what Sett is saying, try the IL.  It works really well, actually. The idea that someone has to stay away from a thread because you don't like what they are saying is anathema to this place, in general. Just a bit of advice you can, of course, take or leave...

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe idea that people are statting out star systems that "will never matter in play" is as baseless as the idea that people are statting out relationship maps that will never matter in play.

QFT.

Damn, AM - if only you hadn't written the rest of that post..it gets too close to condescending and, therefore, too close to swinery for my tastes.  But this?  This is spot on, man.

Quote from: K BergWe played Shadow of Yesterday in a spacesetting, where the characters were all the crew of a spacs-ship called the Gnostic Avenger. A ship so old that what original design it once had been was lost beneath countless modifications. During the course of this short campaign we even played an entire session aboard this ship, with blaster bolts and what have you flying between down the corridors. But we never gave her any stats. Didn't make her less real in our imagination. Even when they used her escape pod to jettison a nuke into the hold of an enemy ship did the stats become important. That she had an escape pod did. But it had been established previously in play. So it was there.

When we back in the day (pre D20) played Star Wars, we most often used the space-ships this way. But in that Universe space dog fights are a part of the game. Off course we used stats for these. How else would we agree that the Millenium Falcon could escape Hoth and not go all freeformy?

K Berg,
Very good post (once we get past the nastiness up front).  It raises some questions that will, I hope, help me understand better.

How was the escape pod previously established in play?
When you jettisoned it, how did you come to agreement that it could make it to the enemy ship?
How did you determine it would fit in the hold of the enemy ship?
How did you determine the nuke did or did not destroy the enemy ship?

Why did you feel the need to stat ships in Star Wars, but not the Gnostic Avenger?
Why didn't you use the same mechanics for determining the Millenium Falcom could escape Hoth that you used to determine the above questions regarding the escape pod?

Thanks,
Jim

Quote from: James J SkachI am a bit troubled by this tactic:


Guys – if you don't like what Sett is saying, try the IL.  It works really well, actually. The idea that someone has to stay away from a thread because you don't like what they are saying is anathema to this place, in general. Just a bit of advice you can, of course, take or leave...

Well, you could put it that way I guess.
Sett seems to have this notion that if he claims superiority long enough, he will somehow magically become superior. That attitude gets pretty nerve-grating.

I think Ill just try the "ignore" function. That should work wonders.

I am going to answer this bit for bit.

How was the escape pod previously established in play?
I as the GM put it there in a previous scene. It then functioned as an ad hoc prison for a rabid escaped alien monster, a hiding place for some highly illeagal drugs and eventually as a launchpad for the nuke.
When you jettisoned it, how did you come to agreement that it could make it to the enemy ship?
They were inside the other ships cavernous docking-bay about to be boarded.
How did you determine it would fit in the hold of the enemy ship?
All ships in this universe are either titanic juggernaughts or compact freighters. The enemy ship was a titanic juggernaught that caught our heroes' compact freighter dead in space (they were dealing with a bounthy hunter, aformentioned rabid alien and the discovery of a nuke while tampering with illegal tech).
How did you determine the nuke did or did not destroy the enemy ship?
It never cropped up. The nuke let them escape. The destruction of the enemy ship was not on screen, and thus left vague and unsaid (though assumed by the players). They were in jumpspace and thus could not know.

Why did you feel the need to stat ships in Star Wars, but not the Gnostic Avenger?Because in when we played star wars a part of the session would be either spaceship combat or a chase using these ships. The stats were there when we interacted with the rules (though at that time we didn't think about it that way it was just how we played).
Why didn't you use the same mechanics for determining the Millenium Falcom could escape Hoth that you used to determine the above questions regarding the escape pod?Different games, different goals, different situations. I think I answer this question above.

All this, in particluarly the Shadow of Yesterday game, is played by the following philosophy: Say yes, or roll the dice.
What this means to us is that if any player (including the GM) narrates something, you either agree to the events transpiring as narrated or you use the dice (the rules) to resolve what happens (or who gets to say how).
In the escape pod situation the conflict was whether the captain (at the airlock) could stall the boarders long enough for the other characters to carry out their plan. We rolled for that.

The rest just unfolded from there.

Quote from: James J SkachBut not to be outdone, we get Gunslinger (to K Berg's credit, not him) asserting this very thing: that the way described that is not-Sett's-way is predominant.

No.  What I said is that most of us have played Set's & AM's style of play and that it has been a predominant style of play in most of our experiences.  They claim we don't understand and I'm guessing that most of us probably do.  They're really not trying to understand a different style of play or give any lattitude to discuss it.  The reason why there are games like this or that people even play them is because we never fully accepted the greatness of their style of play in their opinion.  Isn't that why they pity us?  Anything outside of their preference gets thrown into the campfire/soap opera/drama category so they can easily dismiss it.

Quote from: GunslingerNo.  What I said is that most of us have played Set's & AM's style of play and that it has been a predominant style of play in most of our experiences.  They claim we don't understand and I'm guessing that most of us probably do.  They're really not trying to understand a different style of play or give any lattitude to discuss it.  The reason why there are games like this or that people even play them is because we never fully accepted the greatness of their style of play in their opinion.  Isn't that why they pity us?  Anything outside of their preference gets thrown into the campfire/soap opera/drama category so they can easily dismiss it.

If someone says "starships should have stats" and someone else says "haha, that means the sun is a fire elemental", how am I supposed to think anything other than there must be widespread misunderstanding?

And thats not a guess..Thats kinda like an observation.

Quote from: Abyssmal MawIf someone says "starships should have stats" and someone else says "haha, that means the sun is a fire elemental", how am I supposed to think anything other than there must be widespread misunderstanding?

Just a quick question. Can you point me to a place were I say this. And when you realise that I don't why do you treat me like I have said this?

Quote from: K BergJust a quick question. Can you point me to a place were I say this. And when you realise that I don't why do you treat me like I have said this?

Dont you know that all proponents of non-traditional gaming are one entity? We live on the Forge, where we damage brains and condemn traditional roleplaying games and the people who play them. Any statement by any one of us is automatically the opinion of all of us, because like everyone knows we are one.

Amirite?

Quote from: K BergJust a quick question. Can you point me to a place were I say this. And when you realise that I don't why do you treat me like I have said this?

Let me break my silence. Fear not, it will not be about the actual argument, as that has run it´s course.

You seem to have a big misconception of what was going on. AM linked to a blog entry.
We attacked the persons on that blog, questioned their integrity and intellectual decency.
Then Paka, Temple and you showed up. Defending them.

Defending them with allegations, lies and grave misreadings of reasonable arguments. We got angry because of the malice in the blog entry.
You came to defend that malice. With more malice.

You wonder why we don´t like your ilk?

Please read that thread again, read that blog entry. Read my first explanation, read Calithenas explanation. They were neutral. And countered with malice.

Is it so hard to understand that people get angry?

So, don´t give us this shit you just said. It´s a fucking lie, making everything worse.

EDIT: I even made long and neutral explanations to Paka. But he showed no signs of cooperation. So I must assume he is just fucking with me. Messing with all of us, to be part of a flamewar. Because Flamewars are their bread and butter, and Paka must sell a game too.
They do that on purpose.

I didn´t know Paka had games of himself, elsewise I wouldn´t have argued with him. Now it´s clear: he is not stupid and uncooperative. He is using this board for viral marketing, as coordinated in story-games threads.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIf someone says "starships should have stats" and someone else says "haha, that means the sun is a fire elemental", how am I supposed to think anything other than there must be widespread misunderstanding?

And thats not a guess..Thats kinda like an observation.

So, on that misunderstanding...

Colour

Quote from: The ForgeImagined details about any or all of System, Character, Setting, or Situation, added in such a way that does not change aspects of action or resolution in the imagined scene. One of the Components of Exploration.

in a sandbox game is pretty meaningless, because all details may change aspects of action or resolution.  Right?

Question: does resolution in sandbox games require DM "fiat" - what I'd much rather call "referee decisions" - because of this?

(Maybe these questions aren't relevant to the topic.  It's just that I've seen some cool descriptions of sandbox play lately (eg Melan's post on EN World) and I'm intrigued.)

Quote from: droogI think that the lesson of Wittgenstein is, rather, that there is no final definition of what constitutes a game, nor are there commonalities between all things marked as 'game'.

Yeah, but with his kind of reasoning we can say that about anything. There is then no such thing as a "country" or "religion" or "language" or "species" or "sex" and so on and so forth. It all ends up in the worst kind of deconstructionism. There's a kind of philosophy and discussion that leads to greater understanding, and a kind that leads to greater confusion. The former relies on using words as they're commonly understood, the latter on pulling those apart till nothing makes any sense any more.

We're discussing games. We have a pretty common understanding of what that means. Arguing that definition is just confusing things on purpose. It's like if you're at a game session and someone says, "have you got any dice?" and you pull out a twenty-cent piece, saying, "well, this is a kind of die." It's just fucking with people. We know what people really mean when they say, "dice", likewise "game."

Quote from: TempleSett seems to have this notion that if he claims superiority long enough, he will somehow magically become superior. That attitude gets pretty nerve-grating.

Just treat it as random background noise. There are posts where someone is asking us something, if only, "I think X," with an implied, "what do you think of X?" And there are posts where people are just Telling You How It Is. The first kind should get a reply, the second kind, the poster doesn't actually want a reply. So don't give them one.

Quote from: Kyle AaronWe're discussing games. We have a pretty common understanding of what that means. Arguing that definition is just confusing things on purpose. It's like if you're at a game session and someone says, "have you got any dice?" and you pull out a twenty-cent piece, saying, "well, this is a kind of die." It's just fucking with people. We know what people really mean when they say, "dice", likewise "game."

Apparently not, since there are things I'd class as a roleplaying game that others wouldn't. Anyway, it's a side issue.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThere are posts where someone is asking us something, if only, "I think X," with an implied, "what do you think of X?" And there are posts where people are just Telling You How It Is. The first kind should get a reply, the second kind, the poster doesn't actually want a reply. So don't give them one.

Wise words.

Quote from: LostSoulSo, on that misunderstanding...

Colour...
in a sandbox game is pretty meaningless, because all details may change aspects of action or resolution.  Right?

Exactly.

QuoteQuestion: does resolution in sandbox games require DM "fiat" - what I'd much rather call "referee decisions" - because of this?

If it has stats and rules for handling, there can be no fiat. So, no. conversely, if any given item doesn't have stats, and the results of handling are eventually determined by whim or fancy, or any arbitrary order or decree... even if they just require a GM's assent ("say yes or roll the dice"), that thing is fiat. Thats the dictionary definition.

The description of a game where you just made up the details of whether there's a nuclear missile on board the ship and what happened when it went off, and where it was placed, and all of that?  Is pretty much the definition of fiat. It's a handwave.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But if you have a floorplan, and you know what the missile is and what happens when it goes off, and what could happen, then, no. The GM remains as mere referee.

Ironically, this delineation of duties means that the GM (who oversees the handling of rules items)  and players (who oversee their own characters actions) are on a much more even footing when playing D&D then they are playing any given story-game.

K Berg,

Quote from: K BergHow was the escape pod previously established in play?
I as the GM put it there in a previous scene. It then functioned as an ad hoc prison for a rabid escaped alien monster, a hiding place for some highly illeagal drugs and eventually as a launchpad for the nuke.

How did you, as a GM, determine the escape pod was there?
When you placed it, did you "stat it up" at that point, or did it exist and then get stats only later; or did it get stats at all?

Quote from: K BergWhen you jettisoned it, how did you come to agreement that it could make it to the enemy ship?
They were inside the other ships cavernous docking-bay about to be boarded.
How did you determine it would fit in the hold of the enemy ship?
All ships in this universe are either titanic juggernaughts or compact freighters. The enemy ship was a titanic juggernaught that caught our heroes' compact freighter dead in space (they were dealing with a bounthy hunter, aformentioned rabid alien and the discovery of a nuke while tampering with illegal tech).

Ahh...now I see. Now I've got the picture.

Quote from: K BergHow did you determine the nuke did or did not destroy the enemy ship?
It never cropped up. The nuke let them escape. The destruction of the enemy ship was not on screen, and thus left vague and unsaid (though assumed by the players). They were in jumpspace and thus could not know.

How did you come to agreement that it let them escape?
Did the nuke destroy the enemy ship?

Quote from: K BergWhy did you feel the need to stat ships in Star Wars, but not the Gnostic Avenger?Because in when we played star wars a part of the session would be either spaceship combat or a chase using these ships. The stats were there when we interacted with the rules (though at that time we didn't think about it that way it was just how we played).

Did the Gnostic Avenger ever get into combat or chases?

Quote from: K BergWhy didn't you use the same mechanics for determining the Millenium Falcom could escape Hoth that you used to determine the above questions regarding the escape pod?Different games, different goals, different situations. I think I answer this question above.

What was different about the goals?
What was different about the situations?

Quote from: K BergAll this, in particluarly the Shadow of Yesterday game, is played by the following philosophy: Say yes, or roll the dice.
What this means to us is that if any player (including the GM) narrates something, you either agree to the events transpiring as narrated or you use the dice (the rules) to resolve what happens (or who gets to say how).
In the escape pod situation the conflict was whether the captain (at the airlock) could stall the boarders long enough for the other characters to carry out their plan. We rolled for that.

On what was the roll based?
What determined if the characters actions could be completed in the time allowed by the captains stalling?
What determined if the captain could stall?

Thanks,
Jim

QuoteHow did you, as a GM, determine the escape pod was there?
When you placed it, did you "stat it up" at that point, or did it exist and then get stats only later; or did it get stats at all?

I set a scene in a maintenance corridor, the player said he was looking for somewhere to hide. I described the escape pod, he didn't challenge its prescense. It was there. And thus it became a solid fact in the game world. This is one of the jobs a gm has in this play style.
It never got stats. Why?
It didn't need them because it never entered a conflict where it matter mechanically (rules wise).

QuoteHow did you come to agreement that it let them escape?

Say yes or roll the dice. I saw no need to contest this, neither did they. So we didn't use the dice. It was the stakes of the other conflict, the one between the Captain and the boarders. This was where the escape or not was decided.

QuoteDid the nuke destroy the enemy ship?

I think I already answered this.

QuoteDid the Gnostic Avenger ever get into combat or chases?

No. It never entered any conflict as anything else than a background element or color if you like.

QuoteWhat was different about the goals?
What was different about the situations?

My bad for being imprecise.
The goals of the conflict. The what and the how of the conflict at hand.
The situations (the millenium falcon from Hoth has never cropped up in play, it was an example meant to be widely recongnizable.) The situation there is basically Han Solo trying to pilot a the MF around a Star Destroyer blocade. Its first Piloting versus gunnery (or something), then piloting versus sensors. Maybe with an Imperial procedures check to see if the good smuggler remembered procedures correctly.
The Gnostic Avenger situation was, "can we keep the boarders out long enough to escape". It was the Captains bluff (statted ability) versus the boarders Belligerence (another statted ability).

Which begins to answer this:
On what was the roll based?

QuoteWhat determined if the characters actions could be completed in the time allowed by the captains stalling?
What determined if the captain could stall?

The captains player stated he wanted to stall the boarders long enough for the mechanic to jury rig a detonator on the escape pod nuke. This intention stated what the conflict was really about. So if the captain made the roll then they would manage to hold off the boarders long enough. That is how we decided how long it would take him; which was as long as was needed.
As I said above we rolled to see if he managed that based on statted abilities.

At which point we rolled to see how the mechanic did.

I can see how this may seem like Fiat. But the difference between fiat and this is that when it matters (when we do not say yes) we use the rules. And everyone gets to say when it matters, not just one person.
We also adhere to the internal consistency of the world as established beforehand and during play.

Quote from: AMBut if you have a floorplan, and you know what the missile is and what happens when it goes off, and what could happen, then, no. The GM remains as mere referee.

In this example it was a multi megaton nuclear warhead inside a ship about the size of the Firefly (from the Joss Whedon sereis/movie). Where it was placed in the ship was, according to the internal consistency in our imagined world, a moot point.

Quote from: AMThe description of a game where you just made up the details of whether there's a nuclear missile on board the ship and what happened when it went off, and where it was placed, and all of that? Is pretty much the definition of fiat. It's a handwave.

What is the difference between the Nuke being established in play (as a complication created by a player actually) on the spur of the moment and the GM revealing that "ohmygod, someone has smuggled a nuke aboard our ship"?

Quote from: K BergI set a scene in a maintenance corridor, the player said he was looking for somewhere to hide. I described the escape pod, he didn't challenge its prescense. It was there. And thus it became a solid fact in the game world. This is one of the jobs a gm has in this play style.

OK, so I think I understand - the escape pod did not exist prior to this scene, right?
What determined that it did for this scene?
If a player other than you challenged it's existence, could they force a situation where you have to roll to see if the escape pod exists?

Quote from: K BergSay yes or roll the dice. I saw no need to contest this, neither did they. So we didn't use the dice. It was the stakes of the other conflict, the one between the Captain and the boarders. This was where the escape or not was decided.

*** See Below

Quote from: K BergNo. It [The Gnostic Avenger] never entered any conflict as anything else than a background element or color if you like.

How was The Gnostic Avenger captured by the enemy ship (IIRC you described it as being in the hold of the larger enemy ship)?

Quote from: K BergThe situations (the millenium falcon from Hoth has never cropped up in play, it was an example meant to be widely recongnizable.)

My apologies – from your post, it was not clear that you were making up an example of how you used to play.  Do you have any specific examples of how you played "back in the day" that would provide a counter balance to the examples you provided for TSoY?

Quote from: K BergThe Gnostic Avenger situation was, "can we keep the boarders out long enough to escape". It was the Captains bluff (statted ability) versus the boarders Belligerence (another statted ability).

Which begins to answer this:
On what was the roll based?

The captains player stated he wanted to stall the boarders long enough for the mechanic to jury rig a detonator on the escape pod nuke. This intention stated what the conflict was really about. So if the captain made the roll then they would manage to hold off the boarders long enough. That is how we decided how long it would take him; which was as long as was needed.
As I said above we rolled to see if he managed that based on statted abilities.

At which point we rolled to see how the mechanic did.

***
Did the "conflict" between the Captain and the Boarders take into account any information about the time it would take for the others to rig the nuke and escape?
How did you determine how the mechanic did?

Quote from: K BergI can see how this may seem like Fiat. But the difference between fiat and this is that when it matters (when we do not say yes) we use the rules. And everyone gets to say when it matters, not just one person.

I don't want to get into a discussion as to whether or not this is fiat, or what the differences are between this and fiat (assuming there are any).  I'm just trying to get a handle on how these things play out.

Quote from: K BergWe also adhere to the internal consistency of the world as established beforehand and during play.

What internal consistency of the world was established beforehand?

This is going to be partial, forgive the brief nature.

QuoteWhat determined that it did for this scene?

One of the tasks I enjoy most as a GM is setting the scene (scene framing). It is one of my jobs in TSOY (the shadow of yesterday). The escape pod popped into existence because "every spaceship has an escapepod, right?"

QuoteIf a player other than you challenged it's existence, could they force a situation where you have to roll to see if the escape pod exists?

Not in the way we played the Shadow of Yesterday. However, if they had objected to it (dude that was lame, or dude that doesn't make sense) I would have let it go. The ship was defined as mainly my character in the game. The other escape pod was then sold (yeah, we had to sell the other one) immideatly by the player. In this way the ship accrued more and more imaginary weight because it grew as we played. Which was the point of bringing in this AP.

Imaginary weight isn't only given by statting.

Got to run.

Part two of many

QuoteHow was The Gnostic Avenger captured by the enemy ship (IIRC you described it as being in the hold of the larger enemy ship)?

The GA was dead in space because of the players rampaging around inside it. And before you ask how we came to this I'll explain one of the rules in effect as we played (this is ours and not official TSOY):

If a player wins a conflict the GM narrates, if he/she losses the player narrates the outcome. The player lost a conflict around the engien room and this was one of the narrated outcomes.

QuoteDid the "conflict" between the Captain and the Boarders take into account any information about the time it would take for the others to rig the nuke and escape?

Why should it? It was covered in the set up of the conflict. Counting down the seconds really didn't matter here. I belive that counting down the seconds would have been contrary to the purpose of this conflict.

We roleplayed up to a point when it was cruchtime (do they belive his bluff or not), while the mechanic kept speaking in a fictional radio (a few more seconds, a few more seconds) and then brought out the dice.

At no point did a second pr. second countdown matter.

Later

Jackasshattery aside, both playstyles are fun.  Events driving characters vs. characters driving events.  Color is subjective to the playstyle.  It's almost macro vs. micro color.

Quote from: GunslingerJackasshattery aside, both playstyles are fun.  Events driving characters vs. characters driving events.  Color is subjective to the playstyle.  It's almost macro vs. micro color.

Gunslinger,

Which one is events driving characters and which one is characters driving events?

Thanks!
Jim

In the spirit of clearing up misunderstandings here. What do you guys mean when you use the world color here?

Quote from: K BergWhat do you guys mean when you use the world color here?

To me color references detail of the setting, NPC, & PCs that are outside of the mechanics of the game or detail how the mechanics work.  Color is window dressing that detail the mood of the game for the players.  Quirky, silly, gritty, dirty, etc...  That's how I define color.

Quote from: James J SkachWhich one is events driving characters and which one is characters driving events?

This is a good question James because this where the confusion lies.  Discussing the two methods shows a tremendous amount of overlap when describing an individual's experience during play.  Both playstyles are delivering what the players want from two different focuses.  Both playstyles are delivering but the black and white methodologies are using different strategies to explore the gray.  

As much as I hate labeling playstyles, I'll try to explain.  In AM, Setts, & my style of campaigns, players are steered by the events in the campaign.  The "skeleton" of the campaign is the major details for the characters to react to.  The other style of play creates a "skeleton" of the characters for the GM to react to.  One is easier for a player to GM and the other is harder for a GM to play and vise versa.

Gunslinger thanks for the quick reply. James how do you use it?

Part three - finally finishing up.

Quote from: JamesWhat internal consistency of the world was established beforehand?

It began with a one-sheet defining the world as a Riddick meets Warhammer 40K meets Firefly. I explained my vision to the players and they came with their own input. Unspoken we agreed to to a set of "realism givens" (no sound in space e.g. The laws of physics operate as expected except where large and clunky machinery transcend them like artificial gravity and interia dampers. More in line with the Star Wars universe than our own, yet with a tinge of Traveller.)

Compare this to having a list of key elements of the setting and then using these to maintain coherence with regards to the internal logic of the setting.

Quote from: GunslingerI'll try to explain. In AM, Setts, & my style of campaigns, players are steered by the events in the campaign. The "skeleton" of the campaign is the major details for the characters to react to1. The other style of play creates a "skeleton" of the characters for the GM to react to2

*I've added the numbers

I'm not sure I am following you here.

In 1. (the skeleton of the campaign) are you saying:
The players react to elements of an already established sandbox and interact with these?
Where in 2. (the skeleton of the character) are you saying:
The GM reacts to the elements of the characters and their actions and interact by creating the sandbox?

Quote from: K BergJames how do you use it?

Color?  I think I tried to define it (before this thread I didn't give "defining" it a thought) earlier in the thread, if for no other reason than to see if I understood things that were being said.

Now?  I'd go with something not to unlike something similar to something that resembles a facsimile of what gunslinger said.

Quote from: K BergIt began with a one-sheet defining the world as a Riddick meets Warhammer 40K meets Firefly. I explained my vision to the players and they came with their own input. Unspoken we agreed to to a set of "realism givens" (no sound in space e.g. The laws of physics operate as expected except where large and clunky machinery transcend them like artificial gravity and interia dampers. More in line with the Star Wars universe than our own, yet with a tinge of Traveller.)

Compare this to having a list of key elements of the setting and then using these to maintain coherence with regards to the internal logic of the setting.

Not to belabor a point, but I'm confused by what you mean when you say compare - is it you expectation that I will find the two different, or use the second as a shorthand version of the detailed explanation.

Thanks,
Jim

A shorthand of the whole process.