Quote from: Emperor Norton;621092Hardcore immersionist play is not the only way to play an RPG.

Given the examples I've encountered online, Hardcore Immersionist play seems to be an offshoot of a personality disorder related to some type of narcissism.

Quote from: Monte CookThat kind of strange, defensive way of looking at the hobby is relatively new.



This toxic atmosphere among gamers started about 15 years ago, and it's escalated since then.

I don't know what hideaway Cook was hiding in 15 years ago, but serious disagreements about how RPGs should be designed and played have existed since the 70s.

That he didn't notice only indicates to me that he wasn't paying attention.

Yay! Gleichman showed up!

Isn't he just the best?

*swoon*

Quote from: Emperor Norton;621092I never said you are defining RPG by the RPGs you like. I said by HOW you play RPGs.

I just disagree with that as well. I know plenty of people who run games in a different way than I would, and I would call what they are doing role playing as well. I think this line of attack on your part is really neither here nor there, and rather pushes that very same stereotype that it's just a matter of preference and not a matter of actual difference in the processes that are going on using a narrative game versus a role playing game. I simply do not agree. At all.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;621092You are a hardcore immersionist. All those games you mentioned not liking, don't interfere with you being an immersionist, at least not in any way I can see. I'm sure your dislike of them comes from something else in them.

I don't define myself as being a "hardcore immersionist". That said, I do think that one of the core concepts behind a role playing is in fact to role-play your character in the game world as depicted by the shared imagination of the participants during an actual game session, yes. Note this doesn't mean there isn't some jokes flying, some dice rolling going on, or that there'd be 100% immersion on the part of all participants all the time continuously during a game session. In that sense, I am not a "hardcore immersionist", far from it.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;621092Hardcore immersionist play is not the only way to play an RPG.

Oh I agree. Cf. previous paragraph.

Question for those who think storygames are not RPGs: which category would you put the following games into?

Burning Wheel
Dogs in the Vineyard
Sorcerer
HeroQuest (the Robin Laws one, not the GW one)
D&D 4e

Quote from: gleichman;621096Given the examples I've encountered online, Hardcore Immersionist play seems to be an offshoot of a personality disorder related to some type of narcissism.

And here is the other side of the hilarious demonization. Immersionist play is a valid form of play, bro. Just cause you don't do it doesn't make it some psychotic disorder

I do immersion to a degree, I would say that the vast majority of my in game decisions are based on what my character would do (and the other time is usually stuff to make the game flow better between me and the other players, not to make a better "story"), but not to a Benoist degree, but I respect that he does and that certain types of mechanics that don't bother me would bother him.

Quote from: beejazz;621076This. Truth is, no playtest is going to predict what happens when thousands of people get your hands on their game. Especially if the playtest had prior edition players and the release hit (maybe even mostly) new players.

That's the thing - when 3e came out, I played it just like it was past editions. Ignoring a lot of the tactical stuff (attacks of opportunity and such) just like ignoring the weapon speed and armor class tables in 1e.

It was only thanks to the internet that I realized otherwise.

Though that got me eventually was the higher level stuff. I'm not sure that got tested much, everything just bogged down because so much inflation in numbers.

Quote from: Dimitrios;621049I think some of the 3e designers were surprised by the directions it ultimately went in.

And doubly so for the designers of 4e.  What is that about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions?

Quote from: David Johansen;621065hmmm 15 years puts it right around the fall of TSR and WotC's acquisition.  I'd like to suggest that the real problem is that D&D narrowed its appeal.  That D&D's real strength is that you can play it successfully with or without miniatures, with or without an involved story line, as a board game or a wargame, with preplanned adventures and without them.

Absolutely.  D&D's success lies in how open-ended it is.  Keeping it open-ended will ensure its future.

Quote from: JeremyR;621102That's the thing - when 3e came out, I played it just like it was past editions. Ignoring a lot of the tactical stuff (attacks of opportunity and such) just like ignoring the weapon speed and armor class tables in 1e.

It was only thanks to the internet that I realized otherwise.

Though that got me eventually was the higher level stuff. I'm not sure that got tested much, everything just bogged down because so much inflation in numbers.

I think honestly, one of the things about tabletop rpgs is that the exact system played on two different tables, could be played in such wildly different ways.

I think, in all honesty, the reason why I don't grok the whole trad vs storygame war thing is that I've seen more difference between two different groups playing the same version of D&D than I do between my group playing D&D and my group playing MHRP.

Quote from: Simlasa;621080Except, as Benoist points out, they're not just over there happily playing their games... they're actively seeking to push their ideas of 'progress' into traditional games that have never had those features.
I'm not a fan of Fate Points and Aspects but I'm not lobbying that those games that have them should change or that they need to be more like something I want to play. My complaint is when people who like those games think those features should be injected into all the games I DO like... such as WFRP and COC.

Wait a sec though. The people making these changes to existing games aren't infamous Forge posters are they? It's not Ron Edwards changing Warhammer to have cards, or Vincent Baker amping up the gamism of D&D for 4th edition. It's the existing owners of these properties that have decided to make these kinds of changes, it's not been pushed on them from outside. You're perfectly entitled to be unhappy about it, but to say that it's a result of lobbying from the forge/storygames community is pretty clearly wrong IMO.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;621101And here is the other side of the hilarious demonization. Immersionist play is a valid form of play, bro. Just cause you don't do it doesn't make it some psychotic disorder.

I have nothing against the concept. On the surface it seems harmless enough and even necessary to a degree, akin to 'identifying with a character' in any work of fiction.

But in practical terms, with rare exception every strongly self-described Immersion Player I've countered online has shown all but identical traits. They are self-centered, self-righteous, convinced the Immersion justifies any and all of their behavior, closed-minded, rude and hateful of other styles.

Even more moderate Immersive Players feel justified in derailing campaigns because "it's what their character is feeling".

No idea if such people are naturally drawn to Immersive Play (but I think this likely), or if Immersive play reinforces such behavior. Or perhaps both.

But it is striking.

I wouldn't allow a Forge cult member at my gaming table. And I wouldn't allow a strongly Immersive player at my table. To me, they are basically the same people in different clothes.

Quote from: JeremyR;621102That's the thing - when 3e came out, I played it just like it was past editions. Ignoring a lot of the tactical stuff (attacks of opportunity and such) just like ignoring the weapon speed and armor class tables in 1e.

Even keeping in mind all the changes to characters, combat, and the addition of skills, if you played the dungeon as if it were a 1e or 2e dungeon, much more would have played the same. But that context wasn't adequately built into the game. Players treated 3x almost as a generic fantasy system, and a lot of stuff (some flaws, some new modes of play) was exposed when 3e hit contexts it wasn't necessarily built for.

QuoteThough that got me eventually was the higher level stuff. I'm not sure that got tested much, everything just bogged down because so much inflation in numbers.

High levels were just absurd. I don't know what they were thinking with some of their decisions on how things scale with level. But I don't wonder why 4e fans fetishize the particular math of 4e, especially if they started with 3x.

I'm kind of worried that claims of "vitriolic arguments are causing the hobby to die" might create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Cook does have a point, though, in that the public forum nature of the Internet, combined with the attitude of "My Edition is the best," does have a significant impact on the discourse.

*faint*

Oh Gleichman, you're dreamy.

Quote from: CRKrueger;621090Brother, that's all I want.  I don't care if 14 of the top 15 games at DTRPG are highly narrative.  I just want to know either on the cover, in the advertising or somewhere, that the games contain highly narrative mechanics and aren't labeled just "RPG".

So you buy games without doing the most basic of research, including reading reviews, looking at previews of the PDF, reading adverts and interviews with the designer, or hearing people talk about it on forums? You make your purchasing decisions based solely on whether you see the label RPG on the cover? Come on man. Are you seriously telling me that you have bought what looks like an RPG only to discover it was a storygame trap inside? If so, would you care to tell us the name of this deceptively advertised game so that we can warn other people?

Quote from: CRKrueger;621090Brother, that's all I want.  I don't care if 14 of the top 15 games at DTRPG are highly narrative.  I just want to know either on the cover, in the advertising or somewhere, that the games contain highly narrative mechanics and aren't labeled just "RPG".

Narrative mechanics are like salt in your soup. Sometimes it won't need it. Sometimes a little will do it good, but no two people will agree on exactly how much that is. But if you have to empty the entire shaker in there, you probably ordered the wrong soup in the first place.

Now, I like a few narrative mechanics every so often, in the right game (Be it a "role-playing" or "story" game). I also like games without them, and I don't like games with too many of them; we're all probably the same, just with different boundaries. What has ruined the discussion, and turned it so toxic, is the way certain people have poisoned the conversation and used "trad game", or "story game", or "dungeon crawl", as insults rather than as descriptors (Or conversely, have taken the use of those terms as insults, rather than descriptors), and that's been allowed to stick for too long. I'm not sure it's salvageable at this point; too many people on every side want to "win" the conversation, rather than enjoy the discussion for it's own sake and learn from each other.

Internet communities, as a whole, have really got nastier over the past decade; I think it's due to a lot of them essentially collapsing into echo chambers, with the people inside getting more and more worked up about anything outside their community, or that isn't tailored exactly to THEIR desires. But as petty as RPG fandom and it's uninformed punditry can get, it's really nothing compared to video game fandumb these days.