Quote from: Rincewind1;644513DnD is about raising from a guy who can be killed by a goblin in one to one combat...

Near as I can tell, this hasn't been the case in some time.

D&D started out that way, but as of late, it's been very "you're a hero from the get-go, so awesome!"

I mean, just look at how many hps a character started with in 4e. And there's a thread on ENW right now started by somebody whining that characters need more hit points at first level...

I agree. If I just wanted to fight monsters, I wouldn't need an RPG. D&D is great, when I have an excuse to slay monsters. When I'm invested in the fiction. Those evil cultists want to drive away the last elves from their homelands? Kill them with fire! Some efreets dared to take my father's city? Kill them! (Be clever, don't do it with fire!)

D&D is a great game, as it offers cycle. There is always one more bad guy that needs killing for all the right reasons. OK, you might die on the way, but that means the next party of heroes gets to save kingdom from the undead, not just a town.

So, what the Huckleberry example shows is how feed the interest in some random NPC into that cycle. Sure, you can keep it on the sidelines, just do some roleplaying. That's fine. I will the do same thing, most of the time. But the example shows how you can use even Huckleberry as fuel. ... Because, why were those hobgoblins after poor Huckleberry after all?

Quote from: GnomeWorks;644516Near as I can tell, this hasn't been the case in some time.

D&D started out that way, but as of late, it's been very "you're a hero from the get-go, so awesome!"

I mean, just look at how many hps a character started with in 4e. And there's a thread on ENW right now started by somebody whining that characters need more hit points at first level...

I'd say that even in 3e, the levels 1 - 3 are really the "we are rather weak" stage, or as commonly known, The Gauntlet.

I've already explained this, but again - if you set out to create a game, with the  goal of fighting monsters in it, you will indeed want to make player characters more resistant to those monsters, since you don't want players to create a new character every encounter - since the game's all about encountering monsters. That was the 4e principal misconception about DnD.

If the game's about character progression and danger and risk management of that progression, it changes.

Quote from: 1of3;644522I agree. If I just wanted to fight monsters, I wouldn't need an RPG. D&D is great, when I have an excuse to slay monsters. When I'm invested in the fiction. Those evil cultists want to drive away the last elves from their homelands? Kill them with fire! Some efreets dared to take my father's city? Kill them! (Be clever, don't do it with fire!)

D&D is a great game, as it offers cycle. There is always one more bad guy that needs killing for all the right reasons. OK, you might die on the way, but that means the next party of heroes gets to save kingdom from the undead, not just a town.

So, what the Huckleberry example shows is how feed the interest in some random NPC into that cycle. Sure, you can keep it on the sidelines, just do some roleplaying. That's fine. I will the do same thing, most of the time. But the example shows how you can use even Huckleberry as fuel. ... Because, why were those hobgoblins after poor Huckleberry after all?

Fair enough - my gripe is really, that the tone of that work suggests that one ought to turn EVERY npc that players talk to into a potential reason for fighting things.

And not doing so has some good advantages - I'll take Fallout New Vegas as an example, here. Chief Hanlon's story has nothing to do with the plot, it'd appear (except of course underlining gently New Vegas' problems), but it's still a really cool story, that helps you immerse in the world. Other good example is in a DLC Honest Hearts - during it, you find a computer you can hack that sheds light on the origins of tribes of Zion. Knowledge of it does not give you anything - but it's just a fun piece of trivia, to see how their myths came to be. Or learning about Mr House's weird fetishes from Raul - it doesn't give you any leverage on House, it's just a fascinating piece that helps set him as an expy for Hughes, if Hughes built robots rather than planes. If you turn every piece of trivia into a Quest, you rob players of some immersion.

Quote from: Rincewind1;644524I've already explained this, but again - if you set out to create a game, with the  goal of fighting monsters in it, you will indeed want to make player characters more resistant to those monsters, since you don't want players to create a new character every encounter - since the game's all about encountering monsters. That was the 4e principal misconception about DnD.

Hrm... I disagree.

One of my major problems with 4e was that it removed any sense of danger from the game. Winning a combat in 4e is like awards for participation - it's mostly meaningless and cheapens the real successes.

Personally I find combat-centric games more entertaining when the threat of character death is at least present. If there is no risk, then the reward is meaningless, and the whole exercise becomes pointless.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;644526Hrm... I disagree.

One of my major problems with 4e was that it removed any sense of danger from the game. Winning a combat in 4e is like awards for participation - it's mostly meaningless and cheapens the real successes.

Personally I find combat-centric games more entertaining when the threat of character death is at least present. If there is no risk, then the reward is meaningless, and the whole exercise becomes pointless.

Well, that was my point, really. In 4e the danger is much, much lesser, because a point of a combat is to provide some fun and/or resources that lead to another combat. Combat is both the means and the goal, rather than just the means. You fight, so you can fight some more. It does not matter whether you will own a castle or not, since at the point when in 1e you'd get a name level, you can level (ha ha) castles anyway, all by yourself. While in 1e it could be argued, that the point of leveling is to get that castle.

Quote from: Rincewind1;644528While in 1e it could be argued, that the point of leveling is to get that castle.

Which, I'll admit, I've never seen happen, despite being in a few 1e games.

I have observed that I have some difficulty in defining the goal of a TTRPG. I like story, but really only as an emergent property of the sandbox. Combat is fun, but combat as the be-all end-all is rather tiring.

The irony of it all is that normally I'd move a thread like this to the "other games" forum, but in this case, its not actually about "other games"...

Quote from: Riordan;644412So we got, in essence:

Sandboxing: The time-honoured, original tabletop revolution (by Dave Bakunin and Gary Trotzky) No narrative control whatsoever, rails haven't been invented yet. Players run wild, the GM exults in the havoc.

Rail-roading: Narrative control is usurped by the GM (Stalin). A sad, yet persevering tradition.

White Wolf 'Storytelling': The inner railroad variant, with added Thespianism (Mao's Great LARP Forward). They used newfangled nomenklatura in order to fool Sartre-ists but were still essentially Stalinist, with some Trotzkyist dissenters*.  

Story games: Shared narrative control between players and GM aka railroading by committee (Brezhnev-era 5-year plan or Sartre/de Beauvoir free-for-all in ritualistic circles)

Is that about right? So Brezhnevist**  storygamers don't like Rail-Roadings of either the Stalinist or Maoist persuasion, because there the narrative control lies wholly in the hands of the evil dictator. What they want is a benevolent, modern, creative committee of dictators, trading places like Putin and Medvedev when it comes to narrative control and laying the rails. Their real objective seems not the train ride itself but writing the timetables. This doesn't necessarily lead to train wrecks, but it IS different both to the off-road rally preferred by old-school Trotzkyists and the well-ordered Stalinist train trip along scenic Potemkin villages and battleships.


* As stated before in this thread, some older Vampire modules are really geared for sandbox play, Chicago by Night especially.

** What do you mean, that analogy is flawed? Brezhnevists rule modern Russia, real-life storygamers rule modern TBP. If you think that this is this post's greatest flaw, you're even more confused than I am.

Quote from: Rincewind1;644492I think my favourite from this list is:



Because going to Huckleberry and asking him out on a date, then roleplaying the date is TOO MUCH HUSSLE AND DEPROTAGONISING. BEEP BOOP CAN NOT ROLL FOR LOVE

These two posts are the best of the thread this far Brilliant, gentlemen.

Quote from: RPGPundit;645136The irony of it all is that normally I'd move a thread like this to the "other games" forum, but in this case, its not actually about "other games"...

No, its about playing RPGs as "other games" to illustrate the difference.

Quote from: TristramEvans;645334No, its about playing RPGs as "other games" to illustrate the difference.

I'd say its just about playing RPGs badly.