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Here's my latest video:

[video=youtube_share;67KEbDpgn0M]https://youtu.be/67KEbDpgn0M[/youtube]

Pundy, are you a fan of the Birthright rules/setting? When you do high level political intrigue, what rules do you use?

I know Kevin Crawford's Godbound and his Exemplars & Eidolans has a social influence system, but I haven't used those in actual play yet.

Im a big fan of Lion & Dragon and Dark Albion in general.  Good stuff. Gritty, dark medieval game.  You wont be throwing magic missiles around.  Has a much different feel to it.

It's good advice and what I have always done. I find the main thing is to create the NPCs with very little initial detail, then think about who they are and what they want. Once I have that internal aspect on their characters the game flows naturally. If unsure I can use a d6 to help me decide. But I don't find random character trait tables useful, they need to develop organically.

I do find a good trick is to start with a picture or photo for the NPC - a picture can be worth a thousand words.

Sadly, I have to point out that almost everything in this video is wrong from my POV. I'll try to keep my objections short:

• Plain depictation of events is overall fairly unpopular in entertainment. Popular media instead depicts cleverly dramatized events ("Rains of Castamere" starts playing in the background), be their source historical or purely fictional. "Novels are inferior to history" is nonsensical.
• Of course, GRRM writes story and has certain pivotal events mapped out well in advance. Do you think Daenerys gathering an army and moving over to Westeros hasnt been planned all along??? Also, GRRM informed the showrunners how the book series would end in 2016. It stands to reason that he has known how the series would end for a long time now. Mapping things out in advance is very important in fiction writing, for proper foreshadowing. For example, the name 'Hodor' wasn't chosen randomly to see things how play out later - GRRM all but certainly always knew that the character arc would eventually culminate in a specific event tied to the name. So if you want your games to be like Game of Thrones, you need to plan important events well in advance and drop subtle clues way ahead of time instead. But merely "playing/writing it as history" won't do. That is too simplistic as an approach.
  
• Things can be predictable in fiction as well as in history (aka emergent gameplay). Things can be unpredictable in fiction as well as in history. These are two separate things you're mistakenly conflating here.
• You are planning things out in advance in your adventures as well, you're just formulating things with less certainty ("Then the PCs should..." instead of "Then the PCs will...").

I am glad to see, however, that trying to emulate fiction more closely is getting traction on gamers' minds these days.

Greetings!

Very good video, Pundit! I enjoyed it very much. Your commentary and advice is excellent.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1088962Sadly, I have to point out that almost everything in this video is wrong from my POV. I'll try to keep my objections short:

Let try this from a different angle.

What if you wanted to climb Mount Everest. And I had the connections and people to allow you to be trained properly and then later to go there to try to summit the mountain. I arrange for the training, transportation, supplies, and access to a store of everything you need to attempt the climb.

Or something less risk a visit to Antarctica, or Greece, or the Amazon River. Or perhaps, I arrange for you to get training, and have a week to race Indy Cars. Or to Sky Dive, to hike the Appalachian Trail.

Now what if you wanted to pretend to be a warrior visiting Hyboria. And I had the power to create such a place complete with all the character and locations described in Howard's novels. Along with more that would logically be there if Hyboria was a real place. Then I gave you a ticket, a time for a train ride, and access to a store of everything you need to outfit yourself as an inhabitant of Hyboria.

That doesn't differ than any of the preceding activities except for the fact that Hyboria is a fictional place imagined by R.E. Howard. Unlike all the aforementioned adventures, there is no way of actually sending you to on a trip to experience Hyboria like I can with Everest, Greece, the Amazon, or so on.

We could play Let's Pretend and imagine a trip to Hyboria but experience as shown, that this activity unsatisfying and doesn't lead one the sense that they had visited Hyboria or any other imaginary place.

Except Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax figured out how to get close to that by using use a procedure, imagination and the rules of a wargame i.e. tabletop roleplaying games.

So by following the procedure that Dave Arneson developed, that Gygax refined in the form of Dungeon & Dragons.

• I can describe a setting
• You can describe a character
• I then describe where your character is at the start of the campaign
• You tell what you do as your character.
• I describe what happens
• Rinse and repeat throughout the course of the campaign
• During which we are using rules of a wargame to resolve outcomes that are uncertain, and to describe things in terms that provide clarity and consistency.

By doing this we can pretend that you visited Hyboria in a way that interesting and engaging. Largely to due to the uncertainty generated by only the referee knowing all the details of the setting and the uncertainty generated by the use of dice and wargame mechanics.

All are your points relate to creating art like literature which is not the same thing as visiting another place even if that place is imaginary. Literature is passive, RPGs are active in the same climbing Mount Everest or visiting Greece is active.

What the Pundit is talking about is how one can use history to craft an interesting setting to visit or experience.

He also pointing out a technique that author are known to use where they start with a setting, characters with motivation and goals, then starting writing from that point with no clear idea where it all going to end up. A starting point very much the same as the referee before the start of the campaign. One that Martin is known to be a fan of.

This technique has the author choosing what their characters do, and then play out the consequences, then makes further choices based on those consequence. Looping this until some natural endpoint is reached.

The difference between RPGs and what Martin is doing, is that the outcome of subsquent events are not by authorial fiat, but shaped by the free will of the players involved, and the how the referee responds. So it is dynamic, interactive, and emulate real life to a far greater degree than reading a novel or watching a film.

Now from personal experience, some paths are obvious if all the choices work out an individual expects. However understand that Martin has dozens of characters interacting with one another. So he hasn't thought of all the interpersonal dynamics from the start. So the process of writing for him is undoubtedly filled with unintended consequences that causes to rethink what other character would choose to do.

But again for a Song of Ice and Fire is all about what Martin thinks. Tabletop RPGs are a completely different animal because of the players involvement in events. There is no possible way to predict an outcome of a RPG campaign, like there is no way of predicting the outcome of a Everest climb, or a trip to Greece.

The advantage of using historical events both for what Martin does and for running RPGs campagns is that there is a richness of detail in life that can't be found in completely imaginary worlds. Because history is a description of what hundreds, thousands, or even millions of individuals did and their choices. As a result history is an extremely useful tool to supply details one has not thought of or have the time to think of. Whether it is reskinned to look like something else i.e. Game of Thrones, or used directly like in Pundit's RPGs.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1088962I am glad to see, however, that trying to emulate fiction more closely is getting traction on gamers' minds these days.

It will flame out like it did every time this became vogue like with the Dragonlance. RPGs are piss poor at creating stories, but excel at creating experiences. In short, a Conan RPG is terrible at creating a Conan story, however RPGs excels at creating of an experience of you visiting Conan's world of Hyboria as a character.

I have two things to say.

Firstly, writing fiction from the perspective of a historian writing about fictional history is an extremely enlightening experience. History is a soupy mess of chaos that the people caught in it try to make sense of, not the actions of a few great men with oracular vision. The winning battles of a war will be fought far apart in time and space by completely different combatants, not the same recurring band of heroes as is typically the case in fiction. Very tiny things like single messages arriving too late can determine the fate of nations.

Secondly, I gave up on GoT after the fourth season. Considering that HBO turned Dorne into Porne, turned the Faith Militant into the Faith Taliban, and bent the plot over backwards to rape Sansa as soon as the actress turned 18, I made the right choice.

I quit the series after season 6. Caught up with it this past weekend for obvious reasons. I think it would be pretty hard to sustain what they had going those first 1-4 seasons. I remember seasons 1-3 being quite good. Not sure I even really needed the rest of the show, and it probably would have been a stronger series if they ended it around that period. But that said, I did enjoy the finale. My level of investment wasn't huge though because I had stopped watching for a while. So I probably wasn't as concerned about some of the details as more invested viewers. I will say, I liked where they went with Daenarys. It made sense based on her earlier story. But I think they should have focused more on dialogue and politics (so we could see it unfold naturally) and less on buildings collapsing and battles in the dark (I got very bored with the major battles this season).

In terms of gaming, I tend to agree with the premise of the video. Early game of thrones is a better model for RPGs than later seasons. I think you see that particularly in the last season because it is mostly plots landing. Even if they had nailed the season and pleased everyone, because it is the destination, that would make it a bad model for an RPG. It would be the 'it has all been building to this final confrontation' railroad as the players watch the dragon queen (spoilers) annihilate a city and its civilians so the GM can do his cool reveal.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1089021not the actions of a few great men with oracular vision.

Except when it is, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Napoleon, etc. ;)

Quote from: estar;1088981Except Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax figured out how to get close to that by using use a procedure, imagination and the rules of a wargame i.e. tabletop roleplaying games.

So by following the procedure that Dave Arneson developed, that Gygax refined in the form of Dungeon & Dragons.

• I can describe a setting
• You can describe a character
• I then describe where your character is at the start of the campaign
• You tell what you do as your character.
• I describe what happens
• Rinse and repeat throughout the course of the campaign
• During which we are using rules of a wargame to resolve outcomes that are uncertain, and to describe things in terms that provide clarity and consistency.
  

By doing this we can pretend that you visited Hyboria in a way that interesting and engaging. Largely to due to the uncertainty generated by only the referee knowing all the details of the setting and the uncertainty generated by the use of dice and wargame mechanics.

Emphasis mine. It indicates that isn't about just visiting foreign lands. You're generally not playing traveling merchants that don't encounter any conflict, just exploring the flavour of the current locale and having a friendly chat with the local NPCs. You're playing to experience a certain type of story within that setting. Most likely adventure stories roughly similar to those of Conan, which is where the wargame rules for conflict resolution come in.

Quote from: estar;1088981All are your points relate to creating art like literature which is not the same thing as visiting another place even if that place is imaginary. Literature is passive, RPGs are active in the same climbing Mount Everest or visiting Greece is active.

I think you're misreading me here. The subject of the thread is making D&D more like Game of Thrones (not like Westeros, btw!). It's not my subject. Mr Pundit recommended implicitly an emergent style of gaming, which is fine, but it is not the panacea he seems to make it out to be. It certainly is not the panacea in bestowing an early Game of Thrones feel to your games - for the reasons mentioned above.

This is not Pundit/active/visiting Westeros versus Alex/passive/creating art like literature. This is Pundit/emergent gameplay is all you need for early Game of Thrones vs Alex/early Game of Thrones includes plenty of foreshadowing, planned well in advance.

Quote from: estar;1088981One that Martin is known to be a fan of.

Yes, Martin has described himself more gardener than architect. But being a gardener means planting seeds and knowing what type of seeds are being planted. Martin surely does a fair amount of planning, even at early stages. As I read it, he's just adaptable about the details. (Note: I am not advocating against emergent gameplay. It certainly has its place in gaming.)

I should add as a caveat that GRRM certainly at times drops foreshadowing clues retroactively. Lets's say he rearranges the end of a given part of his book series, then he is likely to make changes to the text prior in that part to foreshadow the changed ending. But when you foreshadow over multiple books - that cannot be emergent but needs to be planned, at least roughly.

Quote from: estar;1088981It will flame out like it did every time this became vogue like with the Dragonlance. RPGs are piss poor at creating stories, but excel at creating experiences. In short, a Conan RPG is terrible at creating a Conan story, however RPGs excels at creating of an experience of you visiting Conan's world of Hyboria as a character.

I think there's a misunderstanding here about what emulation of fiction entails. It is about both making the game world behave fairly faithfully to the fictional world(s) (see damage rules in Knights of the Black Lily) as well as possibly including mechanics that induces player behaviour that conforms with the target fiction (examples: Shadow in LotR RPGs or Humanity in oWoD).

I can't play early GoT Sandor Clegane or Bronn if I constantly need healing potions or a cleric to recover my lost hitpoints. I'm no longer self-reliant.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1089028I quit the series after season 6. Caught up with it this past weekend for obvious reasons. I think it would be pretty hard to sustain what they had going those first 1-4 seasons. I remember seasons 1-3 being quite good. Not sure I even really needed the rest of the show, and it probably would have been a stronger series if they ended it around that period. But that said, I did enjoy the finale. My level of investment wasn't huge though because I had stopped watching for a while. So I probably wasn't as concerned about some of the details as more invested viewers. I will say, I liked where they went with Daenarys. It made sense based on her earlier story. But I think they should have focused more on dialogue and politics (so we could see it unfold naturally) and less on buildings collapsing and battles in the dark (I got very bored with the major battles this season).

GoT was initially interesting because it defied expectations of the fantasy genre (although the world building still has huge flaws, like Westeros having nonsensical demographics and Essos being a shallow exotic playground for Dany's story arc). Dany's baby was foretold to be the "great stallion," only for this to be a red herring as her one act of kindness ultimately results in the destruction of all she loved. Stark falling into a trap of his own making and dying for his mistakes despite being presented as the protagonist was fairly novel. But as the major character deaths piled up and interesting plot threads were callously severed and narrative steadily lost steam, the novelty wore off and Martin's writing became more grating and plodding than anything else.

It's a perfect example of why more authors don't defy the traditional conventions of the fantasy genre. The reason why authors don't defy convention more often is because "grimdark" fiction (or whatever GoT's genre is) has a completely new set of problems to deal with. Butchering the main characters willy-nilly only to replace them with a new set of characters has the side effect of destroying your narrative's steam and disengaging audience interest. That may have worked for Dune, being a millennia-spanning multi-generational saga in the most extreme sense of the word "saga," but it doesn't work if your story only happens over the course of a few years.

It certainly doesn't work if you don't know exactly what you're doing. In the time it has taken for Martin to lose control of his own story, fans have written many dozens or hundreds of bazillion word fanfics exploring their own takes on continuing the story. As well as alternate history versions of the story, like "what if Robert died at the Trident?", "what if I made a GoT mod for Crusader Kings II in order to explore alternate timelines?", "what if I threw Joffrey into a groundhog day loop?", "what if the Starks were part-White Walker?", "what if the corporation from Avatar invaded Planetos?" and so forth. And continuations of the story, like "what if the White Walkers won and Melisandre and Bran had to work together to travel back in time to prevent this horrible future from happening?"

There's really no excuse for Martin not finishing his own story besides fatigue. I would be surprised if he wasn't fatigued after writing those door stoppers. He should really hire a ghostwriter or three.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1089028In terms of gaming, I tend to agree with the premise of the video. Early game of thrones is a better model for RPGs than later seasons. I think you see that particularly in the last season because it is mostly plots landing. Even if they had nailed the season and pleased everyone, because it is the destination, that would make it a bad model for an RPG. It would be the 'it has all been building to this final confrontation' railroad as the players watch the dragon queen (spoilers) annihilate a city and its civilians so the GM can do his cool reveal.

I think a concise way of putting it is the difference between plot-driven and character-driven narratives. An RPG creates a narrative as an emergent property of the PCs interacting with the setting created by the GM, not unlike improvised theater or certain party games. Attempting to "railroad" a collaborative narrative like that can easily run into problems because the PCs aren't under the GM's control.

So Pundit's video feels more to me like an indictment of railroading. Nothing original, but the problem still comes up often enough to require PSAs like Pundit's.

Adventure Paths are a perfect example. By definition they are going to have a large degree of railroading unless the writer was some miracle worker who could think of every way to prevent the PCs from derailing the story without it feeling like a cop-out. Perhaps the single most important part of writing an Adventure Path is making the players feel like their PCs have free will and the ability to change the course of events, even if that is nothing more than an illusion. In other words, you need to convince the players to move their PCs in narrative directives that allow the pre-made plot to continue rather than come to a screeching halt as the GM tries to improvise, all without alerting them to this fact. Probably by charting the Adventure Path with a flow chart that accounts for every way that you can think the PCs could screw it up.

Quote from: estar;1089032Except when it is, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Napoleon, etc. ;)

People may like to pretend that's the case, but it's really not.

Did these men truly control the course of history, or were they slaves to it? They were products of their environment. They were flawed, only human. They certainly couldn't foresee the outcome of their actions beyond the immediately obvious. Furthermore, they've been dead for centuries and their accomplishments have been filtered through the lens of the victors. The scientific study of warfare and humanity in more recent times paints a vastly different picture of what actually happened and continues to happen.

Military leaders don't exist in a vacuum. They contribute to a war machine, to logistics, to economics. They can turn the tide of battle in their favor, but they can't see the future or avoid the omnipresent chaos factor. They certainly couldn't predict what would happen a few years later, much less decades or centuries.

Did you happen to notice that there are vastly fewer such "great men" in recent times, despite the largest human population in history? Isn't it odd how this correlates with the increasing number of historians in recent times and the wider availability of information and communication?

The "great man" theory has been widely debunked by historians and scientists. It's a useful shorthand, but it's ultimately a vast oversimplification of reality.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089033which is where the wargame rules for conflict resolution come in.

There are wargames that are about merchant trading for example SPI's Star Trader or AH's Stocks and Bonds. The category is more expansive then "Games about war".

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089033]You're generally not playing traveling merchants that don't encounter any conflict, just exploring the flavour of the current locale and having a friendly chat with the local NPCs.

What one does while pretending to be a character is a personal preference. Combat is not an requirement nor it is always desired. One can enjoy roleplaying playing a basket weaver as they could Conan. Although if I had to bet on an individual hobbyist I would put my money on Conan. However boring it sounds to you and me, it works for a segment of the hobby.

Likely what you will encounter are hobbyist deeply interested in life of the setting. You find them among those playing campaigns involving Glorantha, Ars Magica, Harn, etc. For example in Ars Magica, I read about, refreed, and experienced multiple successive sessions where what happened can be described as "I fiddled in my lab and dealt with personnel issues in my covenant." Things that some people I know would find singularly boring and other utterly fascinating.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089033but it is not the panacea he seems to make it out to be. It certainly is not the panacea in bestowing an early Game of Thrones feel to your games - for the reasons mentioned above.

You stated numerous times you want to emulation literature and film. Fine do that. Do as much metagaming you need to make something that is fun and interesting in pursuit of making something that feels like you are in a novel about X.

But realize your goal is not the same thing as what Pundit, I, and others do. Nor the material you produce in pursuit of that goal is likely going to be useful to those who run campaigns this way. What interesting to me are descriptions of how and why characters behave. Descriptions of locales, and the environment. How the physics of the setting works and so on.

All of this will be pulled together by myself and other to bring a setting to life in a way that it  is an interesting place to have adventures in. Not to emulate how the story of a novel or film went. And many of us has had considerable success with this approach. To the point where people told me that they felt they really were in the setting as described by the author.

If you don't believe me ask Adam and Brendan about the difference they felt between playing my Majestic Wilderlands and Middle Earth. I have no doubt I could have done things better but for something that is a hobby I thought I did a good job.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1089039The "great man" theory has been widely debunked by historians and scientists. It's a useful shorthand, but it's ultimately a vast oversimplification of reality.

The inverse is also vast oversimplification though. There may be more forces as work than single great individuals. But there are also times and moments when individuals can make choices that affect the course of history. Caesar may have been a product of lots of things, but unless historical analysis demands that we all be determinists, he still had choices along the way. He could have presumably made the choice not cross the Rubicon for example and instead face his fate in Rome. True, that might not have settled the underlying issues that gave rise to the conflict in the first place. But history still could have played out very differently.

Quote from: estar;1089047If you don't believe me ask Adam and Brendan about the difference they felt between playing my Majestic Wilderlands and Middle Earth. I have no doubt I could have done things better but for something that is a hobby I thought I did a good job.

All I can say is Rob was a master GM in both cases, and I would not ignore Rob's gaming advice, even in cases where I don't agree with him. Everything he says I've seen work out at the table with him running a game.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1089063All I can say is Rob was a master GM in both cases, and I would not ignore Rob's gaming advice, even in cases where I don't agree with him. Everything he says I've seen work out at the table with him running a game.

Emphasis mine. This is the acid test - does it play well at the table? Which is why One Right Way doesn't exist, and many Wrong Ways do.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1089063All I can say is Rob was a master GM in both cases, and I would not ignore Rob's gaming advice, even in cases where I don't agree with him. Everything he says I've seen work out at the table with him running a game.

Thanks!

Quote from: RandyB;1089070Emphasis mine. This is the acid test - does it play well at the table? Which is why One Right Way doesn't exist, and many Wrong Ways do.

My view it more important use a set of techniques that works the way you think. That you need to be self aware enough to think honestly about how your campaign is going and modify your techniques accordingly. For many it leads to a way of running campaigns that different then how I do it. Which is fine and how it should be. The only absolute is the cycle of Write, play, evaluate, write again, and play again.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1089062The inverse is also vast oversimplification though. There may be more forces as work than single great individuals. But there are also times and moments when individuals can make choices that affect the course of history. Caesar may have been a product of lots of things, but unless historical analysis demands that we all be determinists, he still had choices along the way. He could have presumably made the choice not cross the Rubicon for example and instead face his fate in Rome. True, that might not have settled the underlying issues that gave rise to the conflict in the first place. But history still could have played out very differently.

I suppose that is also true.

And if you went back through his family tree to find a farmer in the middle of nowhere and then traveled back in time to kill that farmer, Caesar would never exist.

Every single person alive contributes to history as a result of the so-called "butterfly effect." The only difference is how long it takes for the consequences to appear.

Alternate history writers love this sort of stuff. If one measly messenger had been late or lost, then the Confederacy might have won the civil war regardless of the efforts of the "great men" overseeing said war. http://antietam.aotw.org/exhibit.php?exhibit_id=428

Another, perhaps more important, reason I dislike the great men theory is because morons use it as a justification for single foot soldiers or psychotic teenagers to control the outcomes of galactic wars. In Mass Effect, Shepard is magically able to control the course of galactic affairs in a way that simply couldn't happen in a realistic universe, simply by performing generic RPG quests. In Starcraft, a psychotic teenage girl named Kerry magically controls a swarm of trillions of intelligent planet-eating bugs and uses them to do whatever crazy nonsensical thing she wants at that moment like committing galactic scale genocide or attacking space satan. In Star Wars, Luke magically defeats the evil empire by assassinating their emperor, because that clearly worked every time it happened in reality (not). In Lord of the Rings, the armies and infrastructure of Mordor immediately collapse after the One Ring is destroyed, because everyone knows that Japan would've defeated the USA if not for those pesky nukes.

I give LotR and SW a pass because they're fairytales and thus don't give a damn about logistics, but it pisses me off when that shows up in dark gritty fare. If I sound bitter, then that is because I am.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1089099In Star Wars, Luke magically defeats the evil empire by assassinating their emperor, because that clearly worked every time it happened in reality (not). In Lord of the Rings, the armies and infrastructure of Mordor immediately collapse after the One Ring is destroyed, because everyone knows that Japan would've defeated the USA if not for those pesky nukes.

To be fair, the follow-on material for the current Star Wars canon (as well as the old Legends canon) makes it clear that Endor was NOT the actual defeat of the Empire, but it was the equivalent of the Battle of Midway. It wasn't even the Emperor's death that was considered the critical blow, it was the loss of men and material associated with the second Death Star and, even more, the experienced officer corps that went down with the Executor. After that debacle the Empire never recovered and was stuck on defense for the next five years until what was left of their leadership finally sued for peace after losing the Battle of Jakku. Even then the peace treaty didn't END the Empire, it just restricted it to territory they still controlled as of the signing of a peace treaty. Luke's involvement is actually barely mentioned since the general presumption was that the Emperor and Vader died when the Death Star exploded.

THAT feels more like real history to me.

Likewise, based on the movie, Sauron was a load bearing villain... as soon as he was destroyed by destroying the ring, the entire kingdom of Mordor literally collapsed... as in the ground opened up and swallowed it and all the evil creatures in it. Further, in the actual novels the defeat of Sauron isn't the end of the story either, Sarumon and some of his forces took over the Shire and so there was a second campaign involving clearing them out of the Shire after the One Ring was destroyed.

I haven't watched a single episode of Game of Thrones.

(Gasp)

But I have watched a few short clips of their dragons; just to see how they looked.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1089099I suppose that is also true.

And if you went back through his family tree to find a farmer in the middle of nowhere and then traveled back in time to kill that farmer, Caesar would never exist.

Every single person alive contributes to history as a result of the so-called "butterfly effect." The only difference is how long it takes for the consequences to appear.

Alternate history writers love this sort of stuff. If one measly messenger had been late or lost, then the Confederacy might have won the civil war regardless of the efforts of the "great men" overseeing said war. http://antietam.aotw.org/exhibit.php?exhibit_id=428

Another, perhaps more important, reason I dislike the great men theory is because morons use it as a justification for single foot soldiers or psychotic teenagers to control the outcomes of galactic wars. In Mass Effect, Shepard is magically able to control the course of galactic affairs in a way that simply couldn't happen in a realistic universe, simply by performing generic RPG quests. In Starcraft, a psychotic teenage girl named Kerry magically controls a swarm of trillions of intelligent planet-eating bugs and uses them to do whatever crazy nonsensical thing she wants at that moment like committing galactic scale genocide or attacking space satan. In Star Wars, Luke magically defeats the evil empire by assassinating their emperor, because that clearly worked every time it happened in reality (not). In Lord of the Rings, the armies and infrastructure of Mordor immediately collapse after the One Ring is destroyed, because everyone knows that Japan would've defeated the USA if not for those pesky nukes.

I give LotR and SW a pass because they're fairytales and thus don't give a damn about logistics, but it pisses me off when that shows up in dark gritty fare. If I sound bitter, then that is because I am.

Starcraft and Mass Effect are pretty far from "Dark, gritty fare".

Quote from: Chris24601;1089112Likewise, based on the movie, Sauron was a load bearing villain... as soon as he was destroyed by destroying the ring, the entire kingdom of Mordor literally collapsed... as in the ground opened up and swallowed it and all the evil creatures in it. Further, in the actual novels the defeat of Sauron isn't the end of the story either, Sarumon and some of his forces took over the Shire and so there was a second campaign involving clearing them out of the Shire after the One Ring was destroyed.

It should have been. One thing Peter Jackson did right was to not include Tom Bombadil and The Scouring of the Shire in the movies.

Quote from: estar;1089047What one does while pretending to be a character is a personal preference. Combat is not an requirement nor it is always desired. One can enjoy roleplaying playing a basket weaver as they could Conan.

"...generally..."

Quote from: estar;1089047You stated numerous times you want to emulation literature and film.

That is the subject of the thread. To be precise: emulation of a particular piece of fiction ("early GoT") through skillful gamemastering and/or scenario design (as opposed system design). I didn't make this thread, I just objected to the assertions made in Pundit's video.

Quote from: estar;1089047Fine do that. Do as much metagaming you need to make something that is fun and interesting in pursuit of making something that feels like you are in a novel about X.

But realize your goal is not the same thing as what Pundit, I, and others do. Nor the material you produce in pursuit of that goal is likely going to be useful to those who run campaigns this way. What interesting to me are descriptions of how and why characters behave. Descriptions of locales, and the environment. How the physics of the setting works and so on.

Well, now we're on a system level and I think that leads us away from the thread subject. I said above all I needed to say about it: "I can't play early GoT Sandor Clegane or Bronn if I constantly need healing potions or a cleric to recover my lost hitpoints. I'm no longer self-reliant." As such, it's more precise to state that I am aiming at emulating genre by means of emulating genre worlds.

As for the GMing/scenario design side, my point was that I think the RPGPundit mistakenly overemphasizes emergent gameplay (aka history, not story). While this is normally largely a matter of taste, I have some concerns specifically about capturing early GoT this way, as outlined further above.

Quote from: Aglondir;1089132It should have been. One thing Peter Jackson did right was to not include Tom Bombadil and The Scouring of the Shire in the movies.

I don't disagree; as fiction it was absolutely the right choice. One of my favorite sayings is... "Life dangles. Fiction shouldn't."

But in the sense of the "feels like history" comment I was replying to, the Scouring of the Shire in the books keeps the ending from being the clean ending you typically see in fiction.

On topic, my way of going down the middle of completely emergent and scripted that I've been using for years in my games is to work out a list of "This is what will happen in the world if the PCs do nothing." Basically, create a timeline for each of the various plots (rise of a conqueror, assassination plot, civil war, etc.) and let them run as written right up to whenever the PCs become involved.

If the PCs don't investigate the rumors of a meteor strike in the mountains, then Warlord X gets the rare magical metal of the meteor. If they don't investigate when stories surface that the best weaponsmith in the kingdom has been kidnapped then Warlord X starts manufacturing powerful star metal weapons for his armies. If they don't get involved when they hear that Warlord X's armies with their powerful magic weapons are marching on Kingdom Y, then Kingdom Y falls and Kingdom Z goes on high alert. Etc.

Once the PCs do get involved you still have the map of what Warlord X wants to make happen so as the PCs interfere, it's easier to figure out what Warlord X's next move is going to be to his long term goals on track and what that will cost him to do it.

The PCs got the magic meteor? Well, he'll either try to find another, possibly inferior, source, use middle men to buy some or all of the meteor off the PCs or try to steal it from the PCs or whoever they sell it to.

The PCs rescue the greatest weaponsmith in the kingdom? Would the second best do?

Etc. etc.

This lets you have the benefits of foreshadowing while still maintaining a general sandbox world. It's just not a static sandbox anymore.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089146I said above all I needed to say about it: "I can't play early GoT Sandor Clegane or Bronn if I constantly need healing potions or a cleric to recover my lost hitpoints. I'm no longer self-reliant." As such, it's more precise to state that I am aiming at emulating genre by means of emulating genre worlds.

Yeah, traditional D&D (O-3e; 5e to a lesser extent) is actually pretty awful at emulating anything but D&D precisely because of the niche protection they created with divine magic and healing.

Prior to 4E every non-magic setting (ex. Dragon Magazine articles on running a Robin Hood style campaign) had to kludge the healing system, allow magic afterall (suggesting that Friar Tuck was a spellcasting cleric) or outright admit that PCs would be spending a lot of time resting on their asses to get their 1-2 hp/day back.

The brunt of the blame comes down to war game healing elements meant to reflect realistic non-lethal casualties in war for what amounts to "mooks" being carried over to PCs that are heroic fantasy characters where they come through the average fight with some minor cuts and bruises and even wounds that would normally be quite serious are shrugged off after a day or two of bed rest.

The easiest older early D&D fixes are the first HD worth of hit points are physical and recover at 1-2 per day (depending on light activity or complete bed rest). Everything after that is fatigue and luck and comes back at say 1/level per hour of rest.

But that's just a kludge (like the ones I mentioned above). Attempting to model anything but D&D with any D&D (except 4E; which is better at non-D&D fantasy emulation, but has its own issues) is always going to be fighting the system rather than working with it.

Quote from: Chris24601;1089161The brunt of the blame comes down to war game healing elements meant to reflect realistic non-lethal casualties in war for what amounts to "mooks" being carried over to PCs that are heroic fantasy characters where they come through the average fight with some minor cuts and bruises and even wounds that would normally be quite serious are shrugged off after a day or two of bed rest.

That not how the hit point mechanic developed or why. It was a result of the decision that in Chainmail a hero was worth 4 ordinary troop both in terms of the damage dealt and the damage that it could take.

Everything else follows from that decision.

Quote from: Chris24601;1089159On topic, my way of going down the middle of completely emergent and scripted that I've been using for years in my games is to work out a list of "This is what will happen in the world if the PCs do nothing." Basically, create a timeline for each of the various plots (rise of a conqueror, assassination plot, civil war, etc.) and let them run as written right up to whenever the PCs become involved.

Mine is to approach setting up scenarios as "This is what's likely to happen". But I'm fully aware that players can and will go off the path. Hell, sometimes I put myself in the role of obstinate player, in order to look critically at my GMing.

Quote from: estar;1089162That not how the hit point mechanic developed or why. It was a result of the decision that in Chainmail a hero was worth 4 ordinary troop both in terms of the damage dealt and the damage that it could take.

Everything else follows from that decision.

Sometimes I feel like we're speaking two different languages because you keep taking the exact wrong point out of anything I say.

I said nothing about the development of hit points. I am well aware of the origin of hit points and the 4 HD Hero and 8 HD Superhero.

What I said... again... is that the mechanics suck at emulating heroic fantasy because (capitalized for emphasis) RECOVERY RATE OF HIT POINTS in early editions of D&D were based entirely on the ordinary troops and didn't scale for the heroes and superheroes.

Heroes may be able to dish out and take four times the punishment of an ordinary troop in a single battle, but they recover to full strength four times slower between battles and THAT is the problem.

Regaining 1 hp/day of light activity or 2/day of bed rest works for figuring out how long your army of 1 HD troops needs to regain its fighting strength (those dropped to 0 hp, even if they were still alive, would be too injured to return to fighting for the rest of the season if ever).

It utterly fails if you're trying to emulate the activities of a Jon Snow or Bronn of the Blackwater or Sandor Clegane. Who can get battered left and right, beat their opponent and be back up at full strength minus a cosmetic injury or two in a day or two, often even in a matter of hours.

At the very least to emulate the non-magical healing heroic fantasy you need 3e's change in recovery rate of 1-2 hp per level/day to keep the healing for heroes/PCs proportional to the ordinary troops.

To better emulate general fantasy even more accurately though, everything past the first hit die on a human or demi-human (and whatever threshold is determined for other creatures) should probably recover more like 1/level per hour to reflect that heroic stamina and luck recovers more quickly and only when they get battered down to practically nothing (their last hit die worth of hit points) are they going to needs days to recover from the ordeal, just like an ordinary troop who takes that level of punishment.

But instead of actually fixing this legit problem in implementation where a hero needs four times longer to recover from the same proportionate injury as a ordinary troop, they offloaded the problem onto clerical healing and magic potions and had it pick up the slack... then added niche protection and made an institution out of it on top so that divine magic became the only way for a party to quickly regain its fighting strength... despite an utter lack of divine healing magic in the source material it was drawing from in moving from wargame to fantasy role-playing game.

Friar Tuck shouldn't have to be a spellcasting cleric just to make your Robin Hood campaign work when Level 8 Robin Hood loses half his 44 hit points in a fight and now needs 11 days of complete bed rest to recover to full strength while the 1 HD Merry Man who fought beside Robin in the same fight and lost half his hit points will be back at full strength with one good day's bed rest.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1089062The inverse is also vast oversimplification though. There may be more forces as work than single great individuals. But there are also times and moments when individuals can make choices that affect the course of history. Caesar may have been a product of lots of things, but unless historical analysis demands that we all be determinists, he still had choices along the way. He could have presumably made the choice not cross the Rubicon for example and instead face his fate in Rome. True, that might not have settled the underlying issues that gave rise to the conflict in the first place. But history still could have played out very differently.

One example that too few people would bring up in this specific context is Hitler (because he was a great disaster rather than simply "great"). I would argue that while Fascism was very much in vogue at the time, the specific horror of Nazism was, to a great degree, because it was essentially "Hitlerism". People like Goebbels and Himmler were almost completely under his spell. There were Nazis who recoiled from certain sadistic acts, only to be convinced by Hitler and his most trusted men that it was the right thing to do. WW2 would have been completely different (and maybe not occurred at all) if Hitler didn't exist.

Quote from: Trond;1089191One example that too few people would bring up in this specific context is Hitler (because he was a great disaster rather than simply "great"). I would argue that while Fascism was very much in vogue at the time, the specific horror of Nazism was, to a great degree, because it was essentially "Hitlerism". People like Goebbels and Himmler were almost completely under his spell. There were Nazis who recoiled from certain sadistic acts, only to be convinced by Hitler and his most trusted men that it was the right thing to do. WW2 would have been completely different (and maybe not occurred at all) if Hitler didn't exist.

Perhaps that specific example. But we have plenty of examples of people going along with terrible ideologies and committing atrocities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak). I think it did take a Hitler to galvanize Germany, but I also think that many people could have taken that role.

And that brings up ordinary people who resisted the German ideology, and were a single person making a historial difference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler).

Quote from: Chris24601;1089176What I said... again... is that the mechanics suck at emulating heroic fantasy because (capitalized for emphasis) RECOVERY RATE OF HIT POINTS in early editions of D&D were based entirely on the ordinary troops and didn't scale for the heroes and superheroes.

Ah I see, however the above wasn't in he post you wrote that I quoted from.

Quote from: Chris24601;1089176But instead of actually fixing this legit problem in implementation where a hero needs four times longer to recover from the same proportionate injury as a ordinary troop, they offloaded the problem onto clerical healing and magic potions and had it pick up the slack... then added niche protection and made an institution out of it on top so that divine magic became the only way for a party to quickly regain its fighting strength... despite an utter lack of divine healing magic in the source material it was drawing from in moving from wargame to fantasy role-playing game..

This sentiment is why I take issue with your ideas. It shows a lack of understanding of the history of the mechanic. It wasn't developed for niche protection. It was developed based on how Gygax viewed the fantasy genre. It fine you don't agree with Gygax's view and don't like D&D because it doesn't reflect your view. But it not a problem.

And understanding the history of the game leads to solutions that allow one to keep the rules recognizably D&D, and emulate Game of Thrones better,

I have found through playtesting is that the solution is as simple as keeping the number low. The same as they were presented in the 3 LBB. Bumping up natural healing a bit, have enough of a skill system to add variety to what a character are good at. And ditching the magic system in favor of a brand new system that reflect how Martin views the supernatural.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1089197Perhaps that specific example. But we have plenty of examples of people going along with terrible ideologies and committing atrocities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak). I think it did take a Hitler to galvanize Germany, but I also think that many people could have taken that role.

And that brings up ordinary people who resisted the German ideology, and were a single person making a historial difference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler).

There could have been a revanchist aggressive Germany with a fascist type ideology without it being the Most Evil Thing Evee. So I agree with Trond.

On topic, rather than lay out a future timeline I typically have a few general ideas, and I often roll for the results of off camera actions "4 in 6 Daenerys wins" rather than just "Daenerys wins". I find this helps with the living world feel.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089146Well, now we're on a system level and I think that leads us away from the thread subject. I said above all I needed to say about it: "I can't play early GoT Sandor Clegane or Bronn if I constantly need healing potions or a cleric to recover my lost hitpoints. I'm no longer self-reliant." As such, it's more precise to state that I am aiming at emulating genre by means of emulating genre worlds.

Sure, spend a couple of weeks on the Quiet Isle to quote an example from the book. Or wake up a few days after the Battle of the Blackwater to quote another. Starting with the 3LBB D&D always had a natural healing rate.

Playing out all of the interactions that could happen in your game world seems like an awful lot of work for not much return.

Quote from: Shasarak;1089228Playing out all of the interactions that could happen in your game world seems like an awful lot of work for not much return.

Which why one uses their knowledge and experience with the setting and genre to selectively focus on that which is relevant and interesting.

Quote from: estar;1089232Which why one uses their knowledge and experience with the setting and genre to selectively focus on that which is relevant and interesting.

That was not the impression that I got from the video.

Quote from: Shasarak;1089234That was not the impression that I got from the video.

Some people have the ability to track this more than others. One should go with whatever level they find fun and enjoyable. That what I mean by selectively focus.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1088962I am glad to see, however, that trying to emulate fiction more closely is getting traction on gamers' minds these days.

Pffft.

Quote from: Shasarak;1089234That was not the impression that I got from the video.

You misinterpreted then. Even GRR Martin can't cover EVERYTHING that happens in his world.

For off stage events what matters is the big stuff that impacts the PCs, like who wins a battle or war between an enemy faction and a neutral or allied faction - if the enemy win they may come for the PCs next.

Quote from: estar;1089200Sure, spend a couple of weeks on the Quiet Isle to quote an example from the book. Or wake up a few days after the Battle of the Blackwater to quote another. Starting with the 3LBB D&D always had a natural healing rate.

I think there is a case for both 1 hp/day and for 1 hp/level/day.

Personally I like 5e Long Rest = 1 week and you're recovered. Works for heroic play. Of course irl recovery from wounds is weeks, months, or never.

I am not keen on 4e long rest = 6 hours = full recovery, it tends to feel more cheesy than cinematic.

Quote from: S'mon;1089271I think there is a case for both 1 hp/day and for 1 hp/level/day.

Personally I like 5e Long Rest = 1 week and you're recovered. Works for heroic play. Of course irl recovery from wounds is weeks, months, or never.

I am not keen on 4e long rest = 6 hours = full recovery, it tends to feel more cheesy than cinematic.

I currently use 1 hp/day + con bonus + physician ability check bonus. However I seen your suggestion work as well as the alternative work. I think what important is for the referee to come up with a way that consistent with their view of the setting and stick to their guns. There is a lot of things about fantasy and other genres that arbitrary decisions. The only time I feel there is an issue if you make a rule or ruling thinking it mean one thing but actual play reveals it has completely different implications.

For example you have low hit points, low magical healing, and low recovery and now the PCs are gunshy about risking themselves on adventures. Passing up opportunities in favor of "sure" things.

Quote from: estar;1089200Sure, spend a couple of weeks on the Quiet Isle to quote an example from the book. Or wake up a few days after the Battle of the Blackwater to quote another. Starting with the 3LBB D&D always had a natural healing rate.

As per my memory:
Pre-Cleganebowl Sandor Clegane got seriously wounded only once in his adventures - against Brienne of Tarth, which left him close to dying. How about Jon Snow? He was only once wounded so seriously that he needed recovery - by Ygritte. Not really a combat situation. (His death happened also in a non-combat situation.) He fought wights, wildings, white walkers, undead bears and dragons, renegade crows, as well as Ramsay and his army. Only other somewhat more serious wound he received in all of that was a stab by Karl Tanner in the thigh. It did not seem to impact him for long. I don't recall Bronn ever getting seriously wounded from the top of my head (he got poisoned though). Brienne seems to get by without much injury also (she's big and well-armored). Teenage Mutant Ninja Arya gets infamously stabbed by the Waif but other than that she doesn't seem to require much healing either. Jaime gets his hand chopped off outside of combat and he's getting seriously injured by Euron in combat.

These characters can operate more independently than PCs because they don't require healing all that often. And all their minor scrapes and bruises seems to be purely cosmetic: they don't impose detectable penalties on their performance nor do they tend to make them drop dead or K.O. during the fight.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089409These characters can operate more independently than PCs because they don't require healing all that often.

Bracers of Defense (Important to Plot) AC -10

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089409These characters can operate more independently than PCs because they don't require healing all that often. And all their minor scrapes and bruises seems to be purely cosmetic: they don't impose detectable penalties on their performance nor do they tend to make them drop dead or K.O. during the fight.

That kind of sounds like they were using DnD Hit Points, characters that dont get detectable penalities on their performance.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1088851Pundy, are you a fan of the Birthright rules/setting? When you do high level political intrigue, what rules do you use?

I know Kevin Crawford's Godbound and his Exemplars & Eidolans has a social influence system, but I haven't used those in actual play yet.

I was never a huge fan of Birthright, actually. It just didn't click with me.

For High Level Political Intrigue, I mostly like to roleplay it. The extent of how  much I want to mechanize this is evident in my rules for "Noble House Management" found in Dark Albion, and reprinted in a more setting-neutral way in RPGPundit Presents #27: Simple Domain Management & Mass Combat (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/239436/RPGPundit-Presents-27-Domain-Management-and-Mass-Combat).

Quote from: Blood Axe;1088889Im a big fan of Lion & Dragon and Dark Albion in general.  Good stuff. Gritty, dark medieval game.  You wont be throwing magic missiles around.  Has a much different feel to it.

Thanks!

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089146Well, now we're on a system level and I think that leads us away from the thread subject. I said above all I needed to say about it: "I can't play early GoT Sandor Clegane or Bronn if I constantly need healing potions or a cleric to recover my lost hitpoints. I'm no longer self-reliant." As such, it's more precise to state that I am aiming at emulating genre by means of emulating genre worlds.

I'm not sure what makes you think this is a big revelation. Look at Lion & Dragon.

Picking out a work of fiction and then thinking "how can we emulate this" is usually the wrong approach.

First you actually have to decide what elements of things you want to emulate and then think about the constraints of changing between mediums (or maybe the other way around).

In Game of Thrones John Snow is clearly a plot protected hero - is this what you want to emulate?  If so there's probably plenty of systems that do this fairly well already.  If you want you main characters to be like John Snow and survive lots of conflict without being permanently maimed and even raised from the dead when they die - well WOTC era D&D can do that already.  

Or do you want to emulate the fact that in the later series John Snow and Tyrion actually achieve almost nothing they set out to do but the plot keeps being propelled forward anyway with them at the centre of it - perhaps you want a system that has "Fail Forward" as a central concept.

Or do you want the sense that anyone can die and that setting elements feel like they are built on shifting sands?  In this case you want a system with rules for hideous maiming and disfigurement and perhaps some random ways of determining major political events.  In this take on the setting it should be possible for a PC to have revenge as a major goal, only to have their particular object of vengeance die of an infected wound acquired in completely unrelated circumstances before they effectively act on their goal.  In this take your PCs would be individuals who have to adjust to likely being completely left completely unmoored in the world due to the randomly changing and chaotic nature of the setting.

Or in other words rpgs can't really emulate works of fiction - but they can be inspired by them.

Quote from: Chris24601;1089176Friar Tuck shouldn't have to be a spellcasting cleric just to make your Robin Hood campaign work when Level 8 Robin Hood loses half his 44 hit points in a fight and now needs 11 days of complete bed rest to recover to full strength while the 1 HD Merry Man who fought beside Robin in the same fight and lost half his hit points will be back at full strength with one good day's bed rest.

In Lion & Dragon, presuming that level 8 Robin Hood has a +0 CON modifier, he would need two nights and one full day of rest to recover to full strength. Or just one full day and night if Friar Tuck had the Medicine Lore skill. No magic needed.

Of course, if Robin got an infection from his wound, that could have a chance of killing him, assuming you're using infection rules.

Quote from: TJS;1089502Or do you want the sense that anyone can die and that setting elements feel like they are built on shifting sands?  In this case you want a system with rules for hideous maiming and disfigurement and perhaps some random ways of determining major political events.  In this take on the setting it should be possible for a PC to have revenge as a major goal, only to have their particular object of vengeance die of an infected wound acquired in completely unrelated circumstances before they effectively act on their goal.  In this take your PCs would be individuals who have to adjust to likely being completely left completely unmoored in the world due to the randomly changing and chaotic nature of the setting.

Or in other words rpgs can't really emulate works of fiction - but they can be inspired by them.

Oh, right, because in GoT Arya ends up getting to personally murder everyone on her list, right?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1089504Oh, right, because in GoT Arya ends up getting to personally murder everyone on her list, right?

Is this (rather incongruous response) supposed to be making some kind of point?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1089418Bracers of Defense (Important to Plot) AC -10

Being reliant on an implausible, purposefully construed magic item isn't very badass and stretches belief. If you were to extend it to an entire party, it would most certainly break.

Quote from: Shasarak;1089497That kind of sounds like they were using DnD Hit Points, characters that dont get detectable penalities on their performance.

Not really because smaller scratches and bruises never kill (other than Carl Drogo's infection). Only serious wounds do - there is very rarely a death of a 1,000 cuts. And for those who can withstand more than one serious wound, they tend to operate at a penalty after the first.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1089501I'm not sure what makes you think this is a big revelation. Look at Lion & Dragon.

Well, my perception that fantasy role-playing is still widely afflicted with healer dependency does. Either by that or by Wolverina Arya-like recovery rates.

Quote from: TJS;1089502Or in other words rpgs can't really emulate works of fiction - but they can be inspired by them.

Now we're entering the realm of semantics. RPGs certainly aspire after fictional works. And RPGs can recreate all of the things you mentioned - from an epic level 1 to level 20 campaign to very dark, gritty and lethal campaigns.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1089503In Lion & Dragon, presuming that level 8 Robin Hood has a +0 CON modifier, he would need two nights and one full day of rest to recover to full strength. Or just one full day and night if Friar Tuck had the Medicine Lore skill. No magic needed.

That sounds more like Wolverine Arya aka late GoT.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089550Not really because smaller scratches and bruises never kill (other than Carl Drogo's infection). Only serious wounds do - there is very rarely a death of a 1,000 cuts. And for those who can withstand more than one serious wound, they tend to operate at a penalty after the first.

I have never seen a DnD character die of scratches and bruises either only serious wounds.

So how is it different again?

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089550Now we're entering the realm of semantics. RPGs certainly aspire after fictional works. And RPGs can recreate all of the things you mentioned - from an epic level 1 to level 20 campaign to very dark, gritty and lethal campaigns.

It's a good thing then that the comment you quote came at the end of a much longer post which tried to examine the distinction then isn't it?

Although as we'll see below it's unlikely that you actually read it.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089550RPGs can recreate all of the things you mentioned - from an epic level 1 to level 20 campaign to very dark, gritty and lethal campaigns.

I swear I don't know why people insist on doing this.  Quoting a poster to tell them something that was in the very content of the original post which they left out when they quoted.

Not only did I say rpgs could do both these things I gave fucking examples!

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089550Being reliant on an implausible, purposefully construed magic item isn't very badass and stretches belief. If you were to extend it to an entire party, it would most certainly break.

In GoT there is no adventuring party, at best there are some pairs of major characters.

As DMs have been explaining since 1972, D&D isn't designed to be a fantasy novel. "Story" is an emergent property which does not always emerge. You do not survive because you are the hero, you are the hero because you survive.

This disturbs players because a character is commonly a Mary Sue by design, but the DM and the dice do not always allow the full expression of Mary Sue. But you cannot have a whole party of Mary Sues. Not even GRRM would write that.

Quote from: Shasarak;1089554I have never seen a DnD character die of scratches and bruises either only serious wounds.

So how is it different again?

I will answer that as soon you provide a consistent definition of how much damage inflicted in D&D rules corresponds to which wound severity in the fiction. Because it seems to me like there is no such consistent correlation in most D&D games and that instead the GM has to "creatively interpret" the mechanic in a given situation for it to work and make sense. And if that's the case ("wound severity is whatever I, the GM, say it is"), then there is no meaningful answer to your question. It'a a trap.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1089560In GoT there is no adventuring party, at best there are some pairs of major characters.

In late GoT, at least, there most certainly is.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1089560"Story" is an emergent property which does not always emerge. You do not survive because you are the hero, you are the hero because you survive.

Have you ever watched Critical Role? The PCs survive because they are the heroes, encounters are designed so that they are overcome.
As for story, a story that you can share with your buddies always emerges. Whether it's a particularly entertaining one is a different question.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1089560This disturbs players because a character is commonly a Mary Sue by design, but the DM and the dice do not always allow the full expression of Mary Sue. But you cannot have a whole party of Mary Sues. Not even GRRM would write that.

The fellowship of the Ring (except Boromir) survived - and some survived incredible dangers. This has been the model for most fantasy role-playing ever since: the PCs are meant to survive but an occasional, rare death is possible. As I understand it, Critical Role follows that formula still in 2019.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1089560Not even GRRM would write that.

And yet, (Final Episode Spoilers)

Spoiler

every last viewpoint character except for Edd and Cat (see below on that) and Dany LIVES and gets something resembling a happy-ish ending. Bran, Jon, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion... even second book viewpoint characters like Brienne, Davos and Sam get happy endings.

And the show producers have said their ending lines up with the ending GRRM gave them.

I don't know why GRRM has this rep for being an "anyone can die" writer. Every last major character dies at a dramatically appropriate point. Everyone else? Well, What measure is a Mook? (to reference the TVTropes page).

Once you see the narrative sleight of hand, you can never un-see that Ned was no more the protagonist than Obi-Wan was in ANH (or Boromir in LotR... also played by Sean Bean for extra irony). Similarly, Cat and Robb (the latter of who wasn't even important enough to ever get a viewpoint chapter) were just the Biggs Darklighter to the main protagonist's Luke... another twist of the knife for the actual the main characters.

In Martin's released novels, Ned and Cat; the parents; are the only two viewpoint characters from the first book to have actually perished. In other words the dead are all supporting cast (i.e. NPCs in RPG terms) to the actual PCs (i.e. the first book viewpoint characters (Bran, Jon, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion and Dany).

TL;DR... actually GRRM wrote exactly that.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089608I will answer that as soon you provide a consistent definition of how much damage inflicted in D&D rules corresponds to which wound severity in the fiction. Because it seems to me like there is no such consistent correlation in most D&D games and that instead the GM has to "creatively interpret" the mechanic in a given situation for it to work and make sense. And if that's the case ("wound severity is whatever I, the GM, say it is"), then there is no meaningful answer to your question. It'a a trap.

If you have two different characters, one with 7hp and one with 70hp, then why would you describe a 7hp wound the same for both characters.  One of them has taken a potentially mortal wound and one of them has been barely scratched.

Quote from: Chris24601;1089613And yet, (Final Episode Spoilers)

Spoiler

every last viewpoint character except for Edd and Cat (see below on that) and Dany LIVES and gets something resembling a happy-ish ending. Bran, Jon, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion... even second book viewpoint characters like Brienne, Davos and Sam get happy endings.

And the show producers have said their ending lines up with the ending GRRM gave them.

I don't know why GRRM has this rep for being an "anyone can die" writer. Every last major character dies at a dramatically appropriate point. Everyone else? Well, What measure is a Mook? (to reference the TVTropes page).

Once you see the narrative sleight of hand, you can never un-see that Ned was no more the protagonist than Obi-Wan was in ANH (or Boromir in LotR... also played by Sean Bean for extra irony). Similarly, Cat and Robb (the latter of who wasn't even important enough to ever get a viewpoint chapter) were just the Biggs Darklighter to the main protagonist's Luke... another twist of the knife for the actual the main characters.

In Martin's released novels, Ned and Cat; the parents; are the only two viewpoint characters from the first book to have actually perished. In other words the dead are all supporting cast (i.e. NPCs in RPG terms) to the actual PCs (i.e. the first book viewpoint characters (Bran, Jon, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion and Dany).

TL;DR... actually GRRM wrote exactly that.

:D GRRM's sleight of hand was to conceal who were the protagonists until the 'end'.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089550Now we're entering the realm of semantics. RPGs certainly aspire after fictional works. And RPGs can recreate all of the things you mentioned - from an epic level 1 to level 20 campaign to very dark, gritty and lethal campaigns.

Not at all. It's an important distinction to make.

Emulation comes from the verb "emulate," which means to imitate or reproduce. Now, rpgs are completely unable to reproduce (say) a novel, because a novel has one author, and a linear plot. (Even if after the fact) Novels do not change between readings.
If I tried to emulate GOT in an RPG, I'd have to force the players to make the exact decisions as the characters in the novel. Not very much fun.
But an RPG can take inspiration from fiction. Like putting dwarves in a setting, or having a dragon in a mountain lair. Even to details like putting a bunch of feuding houses in a kingdom that has years long seasons, and a terrible threat looming during the winter season.
Seperating emulation from inspiration, I think, leads to a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of RPGs compared to non-interactive fiction.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1089560In GoT there is no adventuring party, at best there are some pairs of major characters.

As DMs have been explaining since 1972, D&D isn't designed to be a fantasy novel. "Story" is an emergent property which does not always emerge. You do not survive because you are the hero, you are the hero because you survive.

This disturbs players because a character is commonly a Mary Sue by design, but the DM and the dice do not always allow the full expression of Mary Sue. But you cannot have a whole party of Mary Sues. Not even GRRM would write that.

I agree D&D is not the best vehicle for exploring this kind of fiction. But there are a lot of RPGs that do a good job at it, from Vampire to Apocalypse World, to Hillfolk, Smallvile, the official ASoIaF rpg, Houses of the Blooded, etc.

Just saying. :)

Quote from: Shasarak;1089707If you have two different characters, one with 7hp and one with 70hp, then why would you describe a 7hp wound the same for both characters.  One of them has taken a potentially mortal wound and one of them has been barely scratched.

You can assign fictional wound severity based on relative damage (% of hps lost) incurred. Will you base it on max hp or current hp?
If you base it on max hp: how about a 70hp character that has been whittled down to 1hp and then receives a 1 damage wound from a dull knife?
If you base it on current hp, then not only the fictional weapon damage becomes uneven - you also have a lot of % maths to do.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1089711Not at all. It's an important distinction to make.

Emulation comes from the verb "emulate," which means to imitate or reproduce. Now, rpgs are completely unable to reproduce (say) a novel, because a novel has one author, and a linear plot. (Even if after the fact) Novels do not change between readings.
If I tried to emulate GOT in an RPG, I'd have to force the players to make the exact decisions as the characters in the novel. Not very much fun.

I only need to force the players to make the exact decisions if I wanted to emulate the genre in that regard. But an emulation doesn't need to reproduce with complete or even high accuracy to count as an emulation. Sufficient semblance, whatever that is, is enough to warrant the label. And the narrative produced in fantasy RPGs sometimes do bear resemblance to the kind of stories we can encounter in fantasy fiction (so does the experience of the story unfolding in games versus reading it in a book). When I talk about eliminating healer dependency in games, the goal is to increase the resemblance.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1089711But an RPG can take inspiration from fiction. Like putting dwarves in a setting, or having a dragon in a mountain lair. Even to details like putting a bunch of feuding houses in a kingdom that has years long seasons, and a terrible threat looming during the winter season.
Seperating emulation from inspiration, I think, leads to a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of RPGs compared to non-interactive fiction.

What's the difference between an inaccurate emulation of the fantasy genre and merely taking inspiration from it? How can we tell them apart?

Alexander can you accept HP as plot armor points, or as I like to call it heroic points?

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089747You can assign fictional wound severity based on relative damage (% of hps lost) incurred. Will you base it on max hp or current hp?
If you base it on max hp: how about a 70hp character that has been whittled down to 1hp and then receives a 1 damage wound from a dull knife?
If you base it on current hp, then not only the fictional weapon damage becomes uneven - you also have a lot of % maths to do.

If you only have 1hp then a 1hp wound with a dull knife is not a paper cut.  You can describe it how you like but something must have happened to cause you to fall unconscious.  If it was me then I would describe it in a way that does not seem ridiculous.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1089764Alexander can you accept HP as plot armor points, or as I like to call it heroic points?

Yes, anything beyond CoC levels of HPs (10-15) gets increasingly hard to define as pure meatpoints. If anyone wants to emulate GoT system-wise, then some questions to ask themselves are:

• How do you handle severe, debilitating wounds?
• How do you handle "healing", especially of plotarmor points?
• Do you even need to take account of wounds that don't do more than cosmetic damage (and a round of stun, perhaps)?

All these questions have informed the rules for my game. The fun part is that by doing so you don't end up just emulating GoT but also countless other movies/TV shows - most modern movies work similarly.

Quote from: Shasarak;1089779If you only have 1hp then a 1hp wound with a dull knife is not a paper cut.  You can describe it how you like but something must have happened to cause you to fall unconscious.  If it was me then I would describe it in a way that does not seem ridiculous.

If even 1 hp damage wound can be that severe, how much more severe is a 10 or 20 hp wound? And yet... as you said, no wound penalties. And where do light, purely cosmetic wounds even begin? Again, yeah, if you always interpret weapon damage relative to current hit point levels, sure. That means only after you have beat down a 70 max hp hero down to ca. 10 hps, he starts to take wounds like a normal human being.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1089982If even 1 hp damage wound can be that severe, how much more severe is a 10 or 20 hp wound? And yet... as you said, no wound penalties. And where do light, purely cosmetic wounds even begin? Again, yeah, if you always interpret weapon damage relative to current hit point levels, sure. That means only after you have beat down a 70 max hp hero down to ca. 10 hps, he starts to take wounds like a normal human being.

Honestly, humans don't have meat points any more than they have hit points. A simple stumble and fall could kill us if we land wrong (say we slip in the bathroom and crack our head on the edge of the countertop going down) while other people survive getting shot in the head by high powered rifle.

For me, the difference between 1 hit point of damage and 1d8+6 hit points of damage isn't the size of the killing wound it will inflict, its "how likely is it to deliver a fatal wound?"

Depending on the particular variant of D&D the average human seems to have somewhere between 1-8 hit points so only the very frail and/or unlucky are likely to die from the 1 hp slip and fall in the bathroom, while only the luckiest of mere mortals (8 hp) will walk away from a 1d8+6 hp high powered rifle fired as his head (minimum damage 7).

As I describe it in my system ,"Edge" (because hit points is so loaded with physical injury associations that it was leading to major misunderstandings) is something you spend to avoid otherwise lethal injuries and is entirely non-physical. Its the last second parry, the roll with the impact, etc. that keeps an otherwise lethal strike from doing more than a little cosmetic damage (some scrapes, minor cuts, etc., but nothing more). Real debilitating injuries only happen when you're out of Edge to spend and can leave you debilitated very very quickly at that stage (or if you choose to NOT avoid an injury; like throwing yourself on top of a grenade to shield others from the blast... you're a hero, but a dead hero regardless of your Edge score... it can't help you if you're not trying to avoid the damage).

I even rewrote the falling rules so that falling "damage" is determined by how hard it would be to catch yourself before going over, not the distance of the potential fall, because as long as you have Edge remaining, you catch yourself just before you go over so can pull yourself up to continue the fight (unless you choose not to catch yourself, then damage isn't based on your margin of failure in catching yourself, but by distance fallen and Edge is your ability to roll with the impact).

Well in my game there is heroic points and wound points.  Now all attacks go after heroic points first and yes you stack your armor into heroic points as well (my game has no AC so armor is more HP, but players can roll for defense when being attack).  Now this changes either when suffering a critical hit, or you start taking wound points.  In either of those you drop a attribute by one point and given your chances of success on rolls depends of rolling lower than your attribute you can see the long term effects.  Also mere mortals must roll to stay up during combat if they are taking wound damage using their current wounds as TN.

I am a fan of detailed combat system and all (GURPS + Martial Arts, Harnmaster, etc). But the appeal of Game of Thrones is well the Game of Thrones. The interplay of mythology, culture, characters, and motivations is what makes it a unique piece of fantasy. Not the particulars of combat.

The combat system just has to be in the same ball park of deadliness for it to be good enough. And the D20 Game of Thrones RPG handled this using the wound vitality system.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm

And this works with 5th edition or one of the classic editions. Although for OD&D 3 LBB it is overkill.

Quote from: estar;1090019I am a fan of detailed combat system and all (GURPS + Martial Arts, Harnmaster, etc). But the appeal of Game of Thrones is well the Game of Thrones. The interplay of mythology, culture, characters, and motivations is what makes it a unique piece of fantasy. Not the particulars of combat.

The combat system just has to be in the same ball park of deadliness for it to be good enough.

THIS.

Really the combat system doesn't really matter as long as it's lethal. It could even be "flip a coin" for that matter. The meat heart of the game is in the intrigue/politics/backstabbing.

Quote from: Itachi;1090024The meat heart of the game is in the intrigue/politics/backstabbing.

Yeah, I'm interested in that as well but I wouldn't say that the combat system doesn't matter. Not at all. Early GoT has had some very intense duels and you'd want similar face-offs in your game. Much more importantly: in RPGs the damage and healing subsystem impacts the way adventures run and how players approach them - with healer independency being one factor. Especially when you want a lethal system.

Ultimately, it comes down to "How accurate is accurate enough?" for a given gamer. As we can see in this thread, there's a variety of preferences.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1090017Well in my game there is heroic points and wound points.  Now all attacks go after heroic points first and yes you stack your armor into heroic points as well (my game has no AC so armor is more HP, but players can roll for defense when being attack).  Now this changes either when suffering a critical hit, or you start taking wound points.  In either of those you drop a attribute by one point and given your chances of success on rolls depends of rolling lower than your attribute you can see the long term effects.  Also mere mortals must roll to stay up during combat if they are taking wound damage using their current wounds as TN.

This sounds a bit like a Palladium-variant I ran back in the days with critical attacks bypassing S.D.C. and going straight to HPs. Armor adding to S.D.C. and all. The main thing about plot armor points (in whatever form) is the recovery rate as it no longer has to be tied to natural healing.

Quote from: Chris24601;1089990Honestly, humans don't have meat points any more than they have hit points. A simple stumble and fall could kill us if we land wrong (say we slip in the bathroom and crack our head on the edge of the countertop going down) while other people survive getting shot in the head by high powered rifle.

Yeah, well, I don't think CoC nor D&D are meant to be super-accurate or super-plausible. You just interpret the die rolls creatively as a GM and ignore serious wounds not impacting the performance negatively. But with CoC's 10 HPs I can see the case for meatpoints much more than in the case of a mid-level D&D PC. They clearly have some HPs as plot armor.

Quote from: Chris24601;1089990As I describe it in my system ,"Edge" (because hit points is so loaded with physical injury associations that it was leading to major misunderstandings) is something you spend to avoid otherwise lethal injuries and is entirely non-physical. Its the last second parry, the roll with the impact, etc. that keeps an otherwise lethal strike from doing more than a little cosmetic damage (some scrapes, minor cuts, etc., but nothing more).

Yeah, it's plot armor. PCs are destined to be special after all. While I'm using metacurrency to do that, HPs or HP-equivalents emulating plot armor can be used as well and behave, in a way, like an implied, dedicated metacurrency (dedicated to one purpose only). As above, the question when you recover them (and how much) is critical.

Quote from: Itachi;1090024The meat heart of the game is in the intrigue/politics/backstabbing.

Latching onto this: does anyone like using social combat mechanics for that? I'm no big fan - I think that part should be unstructured and chaotic and come down to the GM having some good ol'-fashioned tricks for his NPCs up his sleeve.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090081Latching onto this: does anyone like using social combat mechanics for that? I'm no big fan - I think that part should be unstructured and chaotic and come down to the GM having some good ol'-fashioned tricks for his NPCs up his sleeve.

Interesting point. I think "social combat" is a bad term for this IMO. The games I've seen that do this well don't really treat it as a social analogue to combat (at least not in the sense of having discrete rounds and "wounds" etc). Instead they give power for players to push/nudge others to their interests, usually with attractive carrots for the target if they agree (or setbacks if they don't). Like any negotiation really.

About the GM preping good ol' fashioned tricks for NPCs, I agree it helps but again, the heart of a good ensemble cast (like GoT) is, ultimately, conflicting interests between protagonists/players, or PvP. If the players don't understand and buy-in on that, nothing the GM does will make the game sing, I guess.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090080Yeah, it's plot armor. PCs are destined to be special after all. While I'm using metacurrency to do that, HPs or HP-equivalents emulating plot armor can be used as well and behave, in a way, like an implied, dedicated metacurrency (dedicated to one purpose only). As above, the question when you recover them (and how much) is critical.

Well, in mine, you can Rally to regain half your Edge, but can only do so so many times in single fight and only so many times total without significant time to rest.

It's also not a metacurrency. That implies some external narrative force is keeping the PC alive when the specific examples of spending it are all skill, morale and pushing yourself. You lose Edge by throwing up a last second block that costs you way more endurance than your usual parries. You catch yourself just before you'd slip while climbing. You fight past the wave of nausea from the blow to the gut your armor only partially absorbed.

You're not invoking narrative fiat to keep the PC alive unless you view every last action of a character to be narrative fiat. It doesn't require anything beyond the PCs own skill and effort to explain... ergo, not metacurrency.

In fact, I've gone out of my way in my system to specifically avoid metacurrency. Every resource the PC has is something they could choose to access from the character's perspective. The PC is choosing to spend their endurance on keeping themselves alive (they could also choose to not spend it by jumping on the proverbial grenade to save someone else).

So they've also got Focus, which they choose to spend to push harder on an action to achieve a greater benefit (a stronger attack, a more potent spell, a better result on a skill check). It's a very small pool (2-4 to start, grows to 7-9 at max level), but recovers quickly with just a few minutes to stop and regain your focus.

Finally, they've got Reserves; their deep reserves of endurance they can draw upon to regain Edge or Focus in the middle of a battle, take an extra action, perform extremely taxing actions or spells and which is their buffer between life and death if they're out of Edge (the general rule is 0 Edge + 0 Reserves = dead). Reserves are larger than Focus (7-9 to start, grows to 9-11 at max level), but take significant rest to regain (anywhere from 1-2 points per week of rest for gritty games to 1-2 per hour of rest for heroic ones... for Game of Thrones; I'd peg them at 1-2 per day of rest for the main characters on the show, 1-2 per week of rest for the books).

In all cases though Edge, Focus and Reserves are things the character would know they're calling upon ("I'm going to feel this in the morning" being one of the default expressions used by one of the playtesters when they spent a point of their reserves) and none of the abilities they grant affect anything other than the character's own abilities.

You can't spend a reserve point (or focus or edge) to declare that there are crates in the alleyway you can use for cover (unless you had the Creation spell and were specifically creating crates with it... but you'd be better served with conjuring a wooden barricade instead if you had that spell). You can't create a ledge out of nowhere to catch yourself when you fall (the DC to catch yourself is based on how hard it would be to catch yourself... at best you could burn Focus to improve the result of the check to catch yourself on what's already available... but you're not altering reality to do so).

I think your definition of "metacurrency" is a bit skewed... you seem to be applying it to anything not explicitly physical that is measured in points rather than "points spent outside the perspective of the character to achieve an in-universe result."

Quote from: Chris24601;1089161.

But that's just a kludge (like the ones I mentioned above). Attempting to model anything but D&D with any D&D (except 4E; which is better at non-D&D fantasy emulation, but has its own issues) is always going to be fighting the system rather than working with it.

I think that's the point, really. D&D wasn't made to emulate GoT. And it's not only a matter of inflated HPs or healing capabilities, the fundamental framework of the game - a group of martial specialists exploring dangerous environs - has absolutely nothing to do with GoT.

Quote from: Chris24601;1090122I think your definition of "metacurrency" is a bit skewed... you seem to be applying it to anything not explicitly physical that is measured in points rather than "points spent outside the perspective of the character to achieve an in-universe result."

I'm looking at it from an angle of purpose: the purpose of some types of metacurrency (think Fortune Points) is to make the PCs favored by destiny. One aspect in which they can be favored by destiny is having plot armor that ensures their survival. One specific form of plot armor is the ability to escape serious harm in combat. HP-levels that exceed far the levels of commoners serve that purpose, as noted earlier in the thread. So HP (or HP-equivalent) bloat serves a special niche that some types of metacurrency also do serve: whereas in a metacurrency system you'd deduct one point of metacurrency to negatve the successful enemy attack, you deduct 10 of your 75 HPs in a HP system. (And as an aside, you could narrate the HP loss as diving behind cover with the attack missing.)

This of course does not hold as much true if PCs only have 10 HPs to begin with, as in CoC. And of course metacurrency can serve more purposes than the above.

Quote from: Itachi;1090204I think that's the point, really. D&D wasn't made to emulate GoT. And it's not only a matter of inflated HPs or healing capabilities, the fundamental framework of the game - a group of martial specialists exploring dangerous environs - has absolutely nothing to do with GoT.

Well, you can't look at the Hound or Jon Snow or Ninja-Arya or Bronn or perhaps even Melisandre and tell me that they have nothing in common with fantasy PCs. The stories that get told are different but the characters have plenty in common. There are certain discrepancies, however, in the way most fantasy systems proceed and they can be adressed.

Quote from: Itachi;1090119Interesting point. I think "social combat" is a bad term for this IMO. The games I've seen that do this well don't really treat it as a social analogue to combat (at least not in the sense of having discrete rounds and "wounds" etc). Instead they give power for players to push/nudge others to their interests, usually with attractive carrots for the target if they agree (or setbacks if they don't). Like any negotiation really.

Interesting. Which games do the above?

Quote from: Itachi;1090119About the GM preping good ol' fashioned tricks for NPCs, I agree it helps but again, the heart of a good ensemble cast (like GoT) is, ultimately, conflicting interests between protagonists/players, or PvP. If the players don't understand and buy-in on that, nothing the GM does will make the game sing, I guess.

Well, not everyone is backstabbing all the time in GoT. The Starks, for example, are fairly close-knit.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090253Well, you can't look at the Hound or Jon Snow or Ninja-Arya or Bronn or perhaps even Melisandre and tell me that they have nothing in common with fantasy PCs. The stories that get told are different but the characters have plenty in common. There are certain discrepancies, however, in the way most fantasy systems proceed and they can be adressed.

Sure, you can certainly look at those characters and see similarities to D&D archetypes, I agree.

Quote from: Alexander KalinowskiInteresting. Which games do the above?

Wee there's a bunch. I think the important distinction is keeping player agency. Lots of old games resolved the matter in your typical "Try to persuade > succeed > target do what I want" fashion which, while good against NPCs, always felt awkward against other players because it meant the losing side had to act/RP/describe actions in ways he didn't feel like. So you had the typical (and reasonable) reaction "I don't need mechanics for roleplaying! They are intrusive and more often than not just feel like mind-controlling my character!".

(Of course, you may still not like social mechanics and that's super fine. I think playstyles like dungeon-crawling don't ask for them myself. But for people who like it, or for playstyles that ask for it - like GoT/political games - those rules came a long way and actually enrich RP these days instead of restricting it like in the past)

Quote from: Alexander KalinowskiWell, not everyone is backstabbing all the time in GoT. The Starks, for example, are fairly close-knit.

Yeah but that's not how the novels work, right? It's an ensemble cast, the protagonism is shared among lots of characters from lots of houses. Having all players in a GoT rpg close-knit in the same house would not be very representative of that IMO.

Quote from: Itachi;1090438Yeah but that's not how the novels work, right? It's an ensemble cast, the protagonism is shared among lots of characters from lots of houses. Having all players in a GoT rpg close-knit in the same house would not be very representative of that IMO.

Actually that's exactly what the Song of Ice and Fire RPG does as the standard. You build a noble house and the PCs play members of that household; not necessarily all the family itself, but household knights, maesters and other retainers. One of the stats in the game is actually your rank within the family (with the Lord being the highest rank, his heir next highest, etc.). If you're just gaming out life in Westeros outside the books (ex. The Dunk and Egg series) then the struggles of one noble house is as good a model as any for exploring the setting.

In terms of the books, the protagonists generally have something resembling a retinue for most of it. Stannis has Davos and Melisandre for example. The Lannisters had their family members and retainers. Arya had Gendry, Hot Pie and Jaquen, then later The Hound as her traveling companion. Jon had Ygrette and Tormund during his time with the Wildlings and Sam, Dolorus Edd and Gren when with the Watch (in the show he picks up Sansa, Davos and Tormund, plus Brienne, Pod, Melisandre and Lyanna when he leaves the Nights Watch). Dany had her retinue.

You could make a fairly convincing case for running something like the main series as multiple PC parties playing in a shared PVP campaign (as in the infamous tale of the "Head of Vecna")... a bad encounter wiped out most of the Stannis party and most of Jon's party had their work schedules change and had to drop so the Stannis survivors and what was left of Jon's party teamed up and Sansa's player got sick of all the in-party rape crap from her group (yes, that stuff actually happened), took the leadership feat for Brienne and Pod and changed nights to join the Jon/ex-Stannis group.

Hmm thinking again you're right, as long as you retain conflicting interests between PCs, no problem in having them in the same house I guess. The problem I see is PCs joining up in full "adventure party mode" and playing like BFF as in your typical party-based game. The Starks in particular seem an example of what NOT to play, as they're too cooperative for the kind of protag-on-protag intrigue that's the heart of the series.

Quote from: Itachi;1090204I think that's the point, really. D&D wasn't made to emulate GoT. And it's not only a matter of inflated HPs or healing capabilities, the fundamental framework of the game - a group of martial specialists exploring dangerous environs - has absolutely nothing to do with GoT.

Correct. I'd use Gurps.

Quote from: Itachi;1090204the fundamental framework of the game - a group of martial specialists exploring dangerous environs - has absolutely nothing to do with GoT.

 I have done Game of Thrones with D&D before there was a Game of Thrones and continue to do so. In fact my first Wilderlands was a "Game of Throne" campaign that I ran 1981 with AD&D 1st edition. I ran D&D campaigns in my Majestic Wilderlands for 15 of the 35 years I been using the setting. And GURPS for another 15 years and Fantasy Hero for the remaining 5. I know what it take to run a Game of Thrones campaign with multiple systems, multiple groups, and multiple play styles.

It a bullshit assertion.

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/12/from-attic-first-campaign-of-majestic.html

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Quote from: estar;1090507I have done Game of Thrones with D&D before there was a Game of Thrones and continue to do so. In fact my first Wilderlands was a "Game of Throne" campaign that I ran 1981 with AD&D 1st edition. I ran D&D campaigns in my Majestic Wilderlands for 15 of the 35 years I been using the setting. And GURPS for another 15 years and Fantasy Hero for the remaining 5. I know what it take to run a Game of Thrones campaign with multiple systems, multiple groups, and multiple play styles.

I am with you that D&D does not impede an intrigue-filled campaign about temporal power. My objection is that D&D isn't very accurate to fantasy fiction for all the reason I have previously mentioned, starting with wounds and healing. Additionally, the base classes of D&D are not geared towards GoT-style play. There isn't a good class for Littlefinger (or Joffrey), for example, you have to squeeze him into the Bard archetype, which misses the point. Sansa would be a commoner, I take it.

So, yes, you can make it work, definitely - depending on how much you can live with inaccuracies. But the system has been clearly optimized for a different experience; a fact that I fully intend on exploiting.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090518There isn't a good class for Littlefinger (or Joffrey), for example, you have to squeeze him into the Bard archetype, which misses the point. Sansa would be a commoner, I take it.

Littlefinger is obviously a Rogue - in 5e probably an Inquisitive. Joffrey and Sansa would be NPC nobles though, and I agree it's a problem that using D&D you can't really play a Sansa-like PC with no combat, stealth or supernatural ability, but high status and good diplomatic skills. Someone did a spoof Princess class for 5e which could sort of cover Sansa, but was aimed more at Xena (who's more a Rogue/Fighter) or Snow White & the Disney Princess archetype. The general problem is that D&D is action and combat centric, and a Sansa type character stays away from action & combat whenever possible.

You could just stat up Littlefinger or Jffrey as Aristocrats, seems like a good class for them.

Quote from: Itachi;1090438(Of course, you may still not like social mechanics and that's super fine. I think playstyles like dungeon-crawling don't ask for them myself. But for people who like it, or for playstyles that ask for it - like GoT/political games - those rules came a long way and actually enrich RP these days instead of restricting it like in the past)

So you have stuff like Hillfolk or Fiasco in mind?

Quote from: Itachi;1090438Yeah but that's not how the novels work, right? It's an ensemble cast, the protagonism is shared among lots of characters from lots of houses. Having all players in a GoT rpg close-knit in the same house would not be very representative of that IMO.

Well, my caveat wouldn't be so much that backstabbing (between players) is fundamental to the GoT experience. My biggest caveat (and where I would deviate from the source material) is having your protagonists operate at different locations, far away from each other, most of the time. I wouldn't try to emulate that - but if you had that, then backstabbing becomes easier as player interaction isn't so immediate. It would turn more into a Game of Diplomacy (http://www.diplomaticgameofthrones.com/), however.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090518I am with you that D&D does not impede an intrigue-filled campaign about temporal power. My objection is that D&D isn't very accurate to fantasy fiction for all the reason I have previously mentioned, starting with wounds and healing. Additionally, the base classes of D&D are not geared towards GoT-style play. There isn't a good class for Littlefinger (or Joffrey), for example, you have to squeeze him into the Bard archetype, which misses the point. Sansa would be a commoner, I take it.

So, yes, you can make it work, definitely - depending on how much you can live with inaccuracies. But the system has been clearly optimized for a different experience; a fact that I fully intend on exploiting.

Yep, this. I can flip a coin to resolve a combat, but that doesn't mean coin-flipping is good at simulating combats.

Quote from: Alexander KalinowskiSo you have stuff like Hillfolk or Fiasco in mind?

Don't know Fiasco but Hillfolk is a good example, yes. Other examples I know include Weapons of the Gods, Fate, Smallville, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Burning Wheel, Mouseguard, Mutant Year Zero, Tales from the Loop, Forbidden Lands, Apocalypse World, Masks: A New Generation, Monsterhearts, Sagas of the Icelanders, In a Wicked Age and Dogs in the Vineyard. I'm sure there are others.

I think Smallville is my favorite of the bunch.

Quote from: Alexander KalinowskiWell, my caveat wouldn't be so much that backstabbing (between players) is fundamental to the GoT experience. My biggest caveat (and where I would deviate from the source material) is having your protagonists operate at different locations, far away from each other, most of the time. I wouldn't try to emulate that - but if you had that, then backstabbing becomes easier as player interaction isn't so immediate. It would turn more into a Game of Diplomacy, however.

Yeah keeping PCs closer seems easier to do, I agree. And you can have intrigue and backstabbing even inside the same house (or their sub-/vassals houses). The Lannisters being a good example, I think.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090518I am with you that D&D does not impede an intrigue-filled campaign about temporal power. My objection is that D&D isn't very accurate to fantasy fiction for all the reason I have previously mentioned, starting with wounds and healing.

Additionally, the base classes of D&D are not geared towards GoT-style play. There isn't a good class for Littlefinger (or Joffrey), for example, you have to squeeze him into the Bard archetype, which misses the point. Sansa would be a commoner, I take it.

Not knowing which edition of D&D you are referring too, I can't comment on specificsx.

I made it work with OD&D, AD&D 1st, D&D 3.X, and D&D 5th edition. In different ways tailored to each edition. Some editions were less work than others. All of them I kept the result recognizably a form of that edition and thus was able to use the available support material.

Nor did I gloss over any of the character type found in GOT and had more than what Martin used. My inspiration was Lord of the Rings, Thieves World, War of the Roses, Hundred Years wars, King Arthur (Mallory), Burst's Taltos series, Elric of Melnibone, etc as Game of Thrones wasn't written yet. Basically drawing from the same source material as Martin.

What I currently use is OD&D with my Majestic Wilderland supplements. While I don't need the additional material in my supplement, it is easier to run the campaigns I like with it*. I opted for OD&D as the foundation because the lower overall numbers fit better with how I ran the setting for 15 years using GURPS. Because OD&D in the form of Swords & Wizardry was more of a ur-D&D than the other editions/clones available.


*The campaigns I run are about my willingness to let the players "trash" my setting by potentially becoming kings, high priests, or magnates. To make that interesting I have adventures that result from conflicts between religion, culture, and society. For those not interested in that, there are plenty of other opportunities including exploring dungeons.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090518I am with you that D&D does not impede an intrigue-filled campaign about temporal power. My objection is that D&D isn't very accurate to fantasy fiction for all the reason I have previously mentioned, starting with wounds and healing.

You really need to be more specific about which version of D&D you are referring too.

To whit there are (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/13212/what-are-the-big-differences-between-the-dd-editions)

OD&D
OD&D plus supplements
Holmes Edition, B/X D&D, Mentzer D&D
AD&D 1st Edition
AD&D 1st Edition, with Unearthed Arcana
AD&D 2nd Edition
AD&D 2nd Edition Skills and Powers
D&D 3rd Edition
D&D 3.5 Edition
Pathfinder 1st edition
D&D 4th edition
D&D 4th edition, Essentials
D&D 5th edition

Each with their own quirks and characteristics. If I had to rate them for ease of use for a GoT campaign I would go

OD&D LBB
Holmes Edition, B/X D&D, Mentzer D&D (Basic & Expert)
D&D 3.0/D&D 3.5/maybe Pathfinder 1.0
AD&D 2nd edition
AD&D 1st edition, AD&D 1st/UA, D&D 5th edition, OD&D w/supplements
AD&D 2nd edition, Skills & Powers
D&D 4th edition, D&D 4th Essentials

Based on my experience running these editions with my Majestic Wilderlands.

As for RPG in general my preferences are

Harnmaster
GURPS
OD&D plus my MW Supplement, Fantasy Age
Hero System (Fantasy Hero)
Runequest
Followed by the forementioned D&D list.

In terms of the prep I have to do it goes:
(least is first)

OD&D + MW
Harnmaster
The rest of the D&D list
Runequest
Fantasy Age
GURPS (only because I have 15 years of notes)
Hero System

Quote from: EstarNot knowing which edition of D&D you are referring too, I can't comment on specificsx.

You can't comment on specifics because no edition of D&D ever was made to emulate intrigue & politics. At this point, it's the same as asking "not knowing which type of coin you're referring to - 1 cent? 50 cent? - I can't comment on specifics on how we used coin-flipping to emulate GoT".

If I were to run a multi-viewpoint campaign, I would borrow heavily from Ars Magica troupe system. There would be a pool of characters for each players with individual characters having different connection with each other.

A simplistic example would be

Player A
Lannister Noble
Stark Retainer
Tyrell Retainer

Player B
Stark Noble
Lannister retainer
Tyrell Retainer

Player C
Tyrell Noble
Lannister Retainer
Stark Retainer

So one session set at King's Landing during the royal court would have all three players playing their nobles. While another is later in the North is has the Stark Noble, and the two Stark retainers playing.

Or another session is that the Lannister Noble is visiting Highgarden with a Lannister retainer being played, and the Tyrell Noble being played. And so on.

Requires more than the usual amount of maturity, and sportmanship (good manners while competing) to pull off.

Pendragon does a version of this as well that predates Ars Magica

Organizing the campaign as a Troupe can work with any RPG.

Yeah, Ars Margica and Pendragon seems a better fit IMO.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090518There isn't a good class for Littlefinger (or Joffrey), for example, you have to squeeze him into the Bard archetype, which misses the point. Sansa would be a commoner, I take it.

In my game they'd probably fall under the "Sidekick" class (a.k.a. the Princess class) who doesn't attack themselves, but inspires those around them to do better. They'd all have the Aristocrat background, but Littlefinger would be the "Court Schemer" variant, Joffrey would be ostensibly the "Lord of War" variant (he was trained in it, he just wasn't very good at it... there's a difference) and Sansa probably the "Dilettante" variant.

When we talk about systems and if they are a good fit, the first thing we got to do is acknowledge that rules are infinitely malleable. As an extreme example, I can convert RAW D&D 5th edition into RAW CoC 4th edition through a finite number of discrete transformation steps/houserules (starting with moving from d20 to d100, etc.). Does that make D&D 5E a great fit for running cosmic horror in the 1920s? Arguably not.

Clearly, none of the D&D editions have been optimised for facilitating political intrigue. Clearly, all of the modern D&D editions have been optimized for gamist professional adventuring instead. Clearly there is 3rd party content for a wide variety of playstyles - and of varying quality levels. Where does that leave us? It depends on what you're going for and at which accuracy levels and how much transformation steps all of this requires. If you want player-on-player intrigue, for example, I am probably with Itachi and would look at more narrativist approaches to fantasy. And, yes, I am aware of the politicking that went on in the original D&D campaigns.

PS Rob, did you see my PM?

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090562PS Rob, did you see my PM?

Yes and I sent a reply in the affirmative.