I think what Patrick was saying was that "abuse of PC building" doesn't happen so much in character generation systems which are entirely random.

But generally people will take "building" to mean there is some player choice in there, and once you introduce player choice, minimaxing comes about, even if only in that they say, "well I rolled a high Strength and poor Intelligence so it's better to be a fighter than a wizard."

Remove player choice and make it all random, and it's pretty hard for players to abuse the system... unless there are opportunities to do so in play. If it's all point-buy (whether during initial generation, or "feats" as they go up levels) there's much more opportunity to fuck things nastily.

Minimaxing, I would note, is not necessarily in and of itself "abuse". I would say that if you're minimaxing to make the most effective character for the sake of the rest of the party then it's not abusive, it's only when you're minimaxing so you can dominate everyone else and be the star of the campaign.

If Anna makes the most effective fighter she can, Bob the most effective Magic-User, Charlie the most effective cleric, and Donna the most effective thief, then together they're a very effective party, and it's not abusive. But if Anna mimaxes while everyone else is either being thespy or is clueless about what makes an effective character in the system, then Anna is abusing the system.

Fair enough point, though I have as you say seen abuse even in random generation the second any player choice enters the picture. It is the nature of life to exploit advantages, and thus the same goes for loopholes and weak spots in human systems. Therefore relying so heavily on systems to do the job of judicious oversight is just going to lead to frustration.

There's a judge at the table. He or she mitigates just about everything from system to socializing. There should be more talk about table expectations before things get to such a sour point.

Quote from: Haffrung;726118Immersion is clearly the biggest blind spot in the whole GNS mess. Edwards and his cronies don't get it. A lot of people don't get it.

For me and most of my group, it has nothing to do with immersion in character or method acting. It has to do with only seeing the world through the eyes of your character. That limited perspective helps you feel like you're in the game world, immersed in the setting, and facing the kinds of choices the character faces. You don't need to talk in character, or have a deep PC backstory, to enjoy immersion. You can be just as immersed in the game world with a pre-generated character in a one-shot as you can with a PC you've been running for six years.

Yup, the best thing about RPGs is that they tell adults it's okay to play make-believe again.

Quote from: pemerton;726340What does abuse of PC building look like in Runequest? In Traveller? In Rolemaster (without backgrounds/traits)?

Good question. I'm not sure it is possible to abuse the character-building tools in RuneQuest ... If you're choosing the attributes you get from a series of rolls, there are a couple of important break-points that can be gamed, to make sure you get a +1d4 damage modifier, if that's your thing, or (particularly) to make sure you qualify for three action points per combat round rather than two, but apart from that, everyone has the same number of skill points to allot, and there are also maximums that can be allotted in each phase of character-building, so the characters that come out of it all have very similar power-levels. It's just a case of choosing what your character will specialise in ...

Perhaps you could try to abuse the magic system, but it's very much up to the GM how much starting magic is available to characters, and abuses can be reined in here to a large extent ....

Quote from: Arminius;726172Yeah, Haffrung's statement is a good summary. I wouldn't want to throw the deep-IC immersionists under the bus; however, they tend to be used to portray the everyday immersive (IC-POV, world-experiencing) aesthetic as a tiny fringe, which in turn becomes a talking point for people who claim that heavy "author/director stance" has no experiential impact once you get used to the mechanical procedures.

On the contrary, I find that complex "simulationist" procedures are a minor impediment to IC-POV once they become habituated because they are purely procedural and require little or no change in cognitive perspective. That's not to say they can't slow the game down or scare away newbs. (Which is why I've pulled back from preferring something like Harnmaster or RQ 6 to stuff like Magic World/Elric, or Talislanta, as my upper limit of complexity.)

The key as Phillip says is whether a player can use natural language to describe their character's actions from the PC's perspective without knowing the rules, and someone else who does know the rules can fairly consistently translate that into mechanics.

I'd basically agree with this. I'd say that a mechanic that has a 'handle time' is a lesser distraction than one needing a character to juggle OOC resources or worse, make player decisions in opposition to the PCs best interests (having to burn a relationship to pass a roll or something).

I would also mention that a simple IC decision might be supported by a fairly complex set of rules to make it operate. One of the more interesting ones I saw was someone playing a knight fighting an ogre in a Dragon Warriors game - the player in question said something like 'as he swings I drop to the ground under his blow and cut at his hamstring'. The GM, to his credit, rolled with it and made something up involving an Acrobatics roll (the GM had already house ruled in skills) but it was tricky since DW doesn't really have hit locations, or dodge rolls, or rules for doing 2 actions in a round with a penalty.

Quote from: pemerton;726341If he'd build a pastry chef and my priest turned out to be a better warrior, I don't think it would have been such a big deal.

Rifts conversion book. Palladium Priest meets Heroes unlimited Pasta Man.

But seriously. If the GM is allowing the battle priest and the chef. Then one generally expects the GM to be giving both sides some appropriate things to do.

IE: My last GM was awful at political and courtly intrigue sorts of RPs. I wouldnt expect them to say "Hey. How about you create a diplomat who deals with the nobles!" And if they did and I did then I'd expect them to toss in some things for said diplomat to interact with, rather than more sword fights. Otherwise I expect the GM to say "Hey. Please dont make any diplomat characters as I really suck at that sort of stuff."

Question though is. In the example you gave. Was the other player expecting to be good at combat? Or were they aware they were going to be not as effective in that area, but getting a character more fitting their concept? Was the other players character eventually getting things to do that fit their concept?

Quote from: Opaopajr;726370Fair enough point, though I have as you say seen abuse even in random generation the second any player choice enters the picture. It is the nature of life to exploit advantages, and thus the same goes for loopholes and weak spots in human systems. Therefore relying so heavily on systems to do the job of judicious oversight is just going to lead to frustration

Of course. But some systems require a LOT of oversight, and some require just a little bit. We can never prevent abuse, only minimise it.

The systems offering a lot of options require more oversights (GURPS, etc), the systems offering fewer options require less (AD&D1e, etc). So it's a tradeoff. Cost vs benefit.

I get up a 5 o'clock in the morning and game for about half the year, one weeknight each week for three hours. Usually I have not much brainpower left by that time of day. Also I'm lazy. For me the cost of added complexity is not worth its benefits. So I go for the simpler stuff requiring less oversight when I GM, and when I'm a player I just play a fighter. Other people with more time and energy to game may want to do things differently.

Quote from: Opaopajr;726347You tell me. Probably the same as in In Nomine, AD&D 2e, L5R, WEG d6, Heroes Unlimited, CoC, etc.

OK, what does abuse look like in (non-d20) CoC?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;726353I think what pemerton was saying was that "abuse of PC building" doesn't happen so much in character generation systems which are entirely random.

Not only random but also transparent. In Rolemaster, for instance - assuming that backgrounds/talents/traits are out of the picture - being good at fighting basically means having a high weapon skill. If you want to play a good fighter, maximise your weapon skill and your body development skill and you won't go very wrong. (Later system adds like Stunned Fighting mess this up a bit.)

Quote from: Omega;726563In the example you gave. Was the other player expecting to be good at combat?

Yes. The other (new) player built a fighter. He expected to be good at fighting. In the first combat the PCs would have been TPKed, I think, except that my priest build turned out to be even stronger than I expected (I had expected it to be good, but not superlatively so: I didn't know the PC build system very well, but had experience in PC build from other games and was able to pick out some good options from the menu the GM was showing us.)

The player's response - which would be the same sort of response I would have - was to ask me for advice on how to improve his character. He wasn't any sort of stranger to maths - from memory he was doing an engineering degree - but he wasn't used to the idea that building a PC would require the effort of translating a character conception into a (not always intuitive) mechanical realisation.

I certainly prefer a system that makes it easy, rather than opaque, to build a character who is going to be mechanically effective in the way that you want. I don't think late 2nd ed AD&D really fits that description (the game I'm talking about started some time in the first half of 1996).

Quote from: pemerton;726631OK, what does abuse look like in (non-d20) CoC?

Just like you would with D&D and random chargen. First you petition the GM for the alternate chargen methods as mentioned in the book. If they don't relent, you try to bring in material from other books, such as new professions and equipment. Throw out pleas to your character concept if necessary. If stuck with a tight leash GM who won't allow even the alternate method to discard unwanted characters, you scry your random rolls and pick out any campaign hints during premise and pitch.

Usually up your EDU to just under 40 years of age for extra professional skills, select your primary campaign-relevant skills first and then work backwards to choose profession. Prioritize Spot Hidden, Dodge, Drive, and Credit (it's an investigation game with lethal attacks, chase/flee scenes, with money needs for buying access, egress, and allies (a.k.a. ablative armor, spare victims). The tens place d10 matters most, the ones place d10 is roughly a "tie breaker"; basically increase skills by tens and essentially overshoot by 10, so if you need tens place to always succeed 7 out of 10 times you need at least 79%. See how much EDU supply covers core survival skills from appropriate professions to around 69% or 79%, dependent on how long your group's average campaigns last (shorter campaigns get higher %, as there is little time to rely on gaining skill checks).

Then just abuse the wealth of the richest party member, ignore leads that don't play to you or your party's strength, and stockpile collateral victims *ahem* entourage to keep your survival chances high. It's dickish, and undermines a lot about what is best about CoC, but it's been very useful in CoC games I've been in. After a few games with annoyingly similar investigators showing up -- drifters, criminals, cops, dilettantes, detectives, etc. -- you begin to wonder if these GMs were any the wiser.

One of the best ways to mitigate that abuse, in my experience, is control the range of professions present at chargen, lower the lethality ramp (lulled into safety PCs are more engaged, natural, and diversified PCs), add body mod horror as an alternate to the threat of death, and ramp up the distrust between humans immensely (once spare wealth, gear, and labor is toned down the party has to again rely on itself).

The points of manipulation for abuse is: the GMs sensibilities, the mechanical system itself, the other PCs at the table, and the campaign setting's assumed organization. Everything can be gamed, and an RPG is more than its mechanical system. The best way to deal with this competitive and antagonistic attitude is to get the table on board with a different shared attitude during The Talk before the game starts. You gotta manage the people by setting the shared mood and goals before you worry about the details.

Which is exactly what your GM didn't do in your given example. Nothing argumentative about it. Just a familiar stumbling block I've experienced time and again, regardless of system.

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

A classic dodge. In effect the only reason to have this reduction of scope is because it implicitly suggests that there will be gamers who will prefer games that only focus on one of the three arbitrary categories.  Thus it de-facto suggests that gamers will be either 'gamist', 'narrativist', or 'simulationist'.

QuoteI don't think that GNS is really interested in commercial success or makes any claims about it. By definition focusing on one specific playstyle reduces your potential share of the market even if it turns out to be an amazing game  for the subset of people who do like it.

And yet, forgists at their peak often suggested that their models would come to outstrip other games in aspects of performance and arrogantly suggested that if you didn't design games this way you were designing "inferior" games. However, I will concede that many Forge swine (either out of insecurity and lack of confidence in the real viability of their own theories, or a typical hipster disdain for the 'mainstream') would often suggest that commercial success somehow (ridiculously) shouldn't be major indicator of good game design.  Some went so far as to suggest that the less commercial success an "indie" game had the more "sophisticated" it was.

Quote? I don't recall that, have you got a link?

Oh please. It was constantly cited as the classic example of "incoherent" design.

RPGpundit

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;726033So the approach I usually use is to have an actual endpoint. Here's an adventure which I expect to take 12-18 sessions to finish. We do that, then we reassess. We could have the same characters do a follow-on adventure, or someone else can GM. And this gives players the chance to cycle out of the game group if they want a break, or to game with different people.

Looks like a sensible thing to me.

Quote from: pemerton;726287I think games with very transparent PC build rules, eg Traveller or RQ or a somewhat stripped-back RM, are better at avoiding this problem.

Absolutely. There is no possible min-maxing in Traveller if you play by the book. You can make smart decisions that improve your chances, but you don't have total control over them.

Quote from: Benoist;726291. . . or you just don't play with kits and weapon specs at level 1 and all sorts of shit that rig the game in favor of the guy who's read all the splats and squeezed every modifier he could get out of them. Just a thought.

I disagree. I think that a good design prevents this things from happening, or at least minimises them. See RQ.

Quote from: pemerton;726631OK, what does abuse look like in (non-d20) CoC?

I have never seen such thing.

And Opaopajr experiences seem truly alien to me. And I fail to see how they are conducive to a significant advantage.

Quote from: soviet;724085Not quite. GNS classifies games not gamers. It said that games should focus on only one agenda, true, but not that individual gamers liked only one type. I think the expected ideal is that games are specialised but groups pick and choose depending on what kind of campaign they feel like running at the time.

The result are products marketed like RPGs but would be campaign books or adventure paths for more general purpose RPGs. Many, not all, forge games put a lot of work in to limiting the scope of their products.

And the idea that a game should only focus one agenda ignore the fact that gamers are out to do many different things during the course of a campaign.

The above two are why forge type games remain a niche within a niche hobby.

Quote from: estar;728112The result are products marketed like RPGs but would be campaign books or adventure paths for more general purpose RPGs. Many, not all, forge games put a lot of work in to limiting the scope of their products.

And the idea that a game should only focus one agenda ignore the fact that gamers are out to do many different things during the course of a campaign.

The above two are why forge type games remain a niche within a niche hobby.

I don't entirely disagree - but on the other hand, basically everything except D&D and WoD are niches within a niche hobby.

Also, narrow focus, non-long-term games are not necessarily tied to GNS. That is, someone can think GNS is bullshit and still enjoy and/or design narrow-focus games.

I enjoy a lot of narrow-focus games, both before and after contact with The Forge - despite thinking little of Ron's GNS theory essays.

Quote from: estar;728112The result are products marketed like RPGs but would be campaign books or adventure paths for more general purpose RPGs. Many, not all, forge games put a lot of work in to limiting the scope of their products.

How exactly would Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Sorcerer akin to campaign books or adventure paths for other RPGs? The rules are hugely important to the entire premise.

Quote from: estar;728112And the idea that a game should only focus one agenda ignore the fact that gamers are out to do many different things during the course of a campaign.

Not really, I think most campaigns or games have one primary agenda. But note also that most indie games tend to be built for shorter campaigns than say D&D is, so it would be less of an issue.

Quote from: estar;728112The above two are why forge type games remain a niche within a niche hobby.

I agree with this. I think this is one good thing about being 'indie' - if you're beholden to no-one it's easier to go your own way and not worry about what 'the market' wants.

Quote from: RPGPundit;728064A classic dodge. In effect the only reason to have this reduction of scope is because it implicitly suggests that there will be gamers who will prefer games that only focus on one of the three arbitrary categories.  Thus it de-facto suggests that gamers will be either 'gamist', 'narrativist', or 'simulationist'.

No, I don't think so. You can enjoy one thing and then another, it doesn't have to define your whole identity. It's like genres in music or film, or different kinds of food. I like steak and I like pizza. I would not like it if someone covered my steak in melted cheese and tomato puree and served it to me in a box. That doesn't make me a steak-ist or an anti-pizza reactionary.

Quote from: RPGPundit;728064And yet, forgists at their peak often suggested that their models would come to outstrip other games in aspects of performance and arrogantly suggested that if you didn't design games this way you were designing "inferior" games. However, I will concede that many Forge swine (either out of insecurity and lack of confidence in the real viability of their own theories, or a typical hipster disdain for the 'mainstream') would often suggest that commercial success somehow (ridiculously) shouldn't be major indicator of good game design.  Some went so far as to suggest that the less commercial success an "indie" game had the more "sophisticated" it was.

I think we both know that many of the most prominent indie/forgist/swine games (Dogs, Burning Wheel, Sorcerer, Fate, Fiasco, Dungeon World) have actually been pretty successful commercially, clearly not anywhere near D&D standards but I would bet they have probably sold more games than any of the publishers who post regularly on these forums (including me and you). So maybe you want to reconsider this whole commercial success uber alles thing.