Quote from: talysman;595840The local baron, villains, and other GM-controlled characters who send PCs on quests or otherwise made stuff happen weren't NPCs. They were monsters.

Not to split hairs (and in your experience it was that way), but nobody I knew/know referred to GM controlled characters as monsters. Monsters were critters that you wouldn't otherwise refer to as "people" or characters. NPCs were always controlled by the GM, even hirelings.

Quote from: T. Foster;595815The kind of campaign described by Kask and OG is appealing to me (perhaps in large part because I've never played in a campaign like that - mine have always been of the "the same group of five guys getting together every other Thursday night" variety), but the obstacle of getting ~15 committed players plus a referee willing and able to run 3-4 sessions a week seems pretty much insurmountable. Maybe when we're all in retirement homes

Couple misnomers here: The level of commitment required by your players is considerably less with this set-up. And you don't need to play 3-4 sessions a week to make it work.

Check out Opening Your Game Table.

I've been running an open table for a little over three years now. In that time, over 30+ people have played in the campaign, but the significant majority of them have been irregular (playing in less than four or five sessions). As a DM, it's great: I can play whenever I want by simply sending out an e-mail and saying "we're gaming this night, first 8 people to respond get to play". Sometimes that gets me a huge table; sometimes that gets me 3 people. Whatever works.

If you enjoy roleplaying, I really do recommend that you put an open table in your back pocket. It isn't the be-all and end-all of roleplaying, but it is incredibly liberating to be able to play an RPG with the same ease and spontaneity that you can play a boardgame or card game.

(It doesn't have to be D&D-based, either. For example, I've been toying with the idea of making an open table Eclipse Phase campaign based around gatecrashing. If you're not familiar with EP, think Stargate: A number of gate locations are open at any given time and whichever players show up form the team that's choosing a location and jumping through to explore whatever is on the other side.)

I think my problem with this style of play is always that it has its roots too much in wargames/boardgames. You don't have attachment to your pawn in Chess. Its just a pawn, and so what you do with it may be more risky and/or also more rewarding, but at the end of the day the pawn is just a pawn, and doesn't become INTERESTING.

Wherein if you play with a single PC and use it and work to keep him or her alive, and watch the troubles, joys, etc of play fall through them--you get an interesting character and interesting play that differs a bit more in possibilities than even the most complex chess games.


On the other side of the coin this is where Story games runs smack dab back to Gary's door. The whole "character is a unit which we do things around/too" rather than a person who is played. The emotional aspect and aims are different but it is the same relegation of the PC to a pawn/token

Yeah, I know the theory. I'm not, like, new to this shit. Every rpg campaign I've run since the 80s has been set up an open table with a "whoever shows up, plays" rule. But the thing is, when it came down to it, I was never willing or able to run games often enough that I didn't have the same core group of players show up to pretty much every session, and also never had a large enough periphery of irregular players that they ever outnumbered the regulars. So when every session was either the same 5 regulars, or 3 or 4 of the regulars, or 4 of the regulars + 1 irregular, or maybe once in a blue moon something like 3 regulars + 2 irregulars, then the fact that theoretically the campaign was set up to handle any combination of players and characters at any given session was sort of an academic distinction.

Quote from: Silverlion;595879I think my problem with this style of play is always that it has its roots too much in wargames/boardgames. You don't have attachment to your pawn in Chess. Its just a pawn, and so what you do with it may be more risky and/or also more rewarding, but at the end of the day the pawn is just a pawn, and doesn't become INTERESTING.

Sez you!

The glory of the pawn approach is that characterization and investment are extra, not required. You can just use the character as your surrogate, a way to translate thought into action. You can invest a little more, set some goals, likes and dislikes. You can talk in character all the time, or not at all, or anything in between. You can start out as a pawn and invest more later, based on what happens to the character. You can go back to being a pawn, then re-invest, perhaps going deep or shallow based entirely on your current mood. And since none of this is required, you are free to change your approach based on what amuses and interests you at the moment.

In contrast, modern RPGs or even player advice for D&D set "role-playing requirements", docking experience points for players who don't feel like playing a certain way. You're expected to play your character in a way the *designer* or GM finds interesting, which may have little or nothing to do with what you want, may even be opposed to what you want.

For all the complaints about "one true way-ism" in this thread, it's funny that the old school approach includes the option to invest in your character 100%, if that's what you want, but the new school approach resists a pawn approach. It also includes the option to switch characters based on mood. How on earth can someone interpret "do what you want to do" as "one true way-ism", I don't know.

Quote from: talysman;595886Sez you!

Yep. I do.

QuoteThe glory of the pawn approach is that characterization and investment are extra, not required. You can just use the character as your surrogate, a way to translate thought into action. You can invest a little more, set some goals, likes and dislikes. You can talk in character all the time, or not at all, or anything in between. You can start out as a pawn and invest more later, based on what happens to the character. You can go back to being a pawn, then re-invest, perhaps going deep or shallow based entirely on your current mood. And since none of this is required, you are free to change your approach based on what amuses and interests you at the moment.

Why should I bother running a game you aren't investing in? I can pull out say Talisman, or OGRE, or a board game for everyone to play if the pawn stance is what someone wants. It is an non optimal use of the RPG.
 It is very much like using butterknife to drive a screw. It is possible, it takes more time and effort, and will have more slippage than just getting a screwdriver and using it.

The whole implicit aspect of taking on a "role," requires if one is honest investment into the person and the role.

QuoteIn contrast, modern RPGs or even player advice for D&D set "role-playing requirements", docking experience points for players who don't feel like playing a certain way. You're expected to play your character in a way the *designer* or GM finds interesting, which may have little or nothing to do with what you want, may even be opposed to what you want.

Actually, I'll note, many games NOW are more flexible about what they let players do in terms of interesting play: Fate Aspects, High Valor's traits/experience system all drive play in ways the player want. While your description might be apt to say games from the 80's/90's its not very apt for "modern" ie: In the last ten years. Games necessarily. You may note that it is D&D that had alignments and experience point loss for playing a character how you might  instead how the game wanted (fitting into a moral/ethical framework.) Many games descended from D&D do that as well.

Heck, most games I enjoy focus on fulfilling the setting/genre's conceits not necessarily the designers. Of course I feel that the GM is an important part of play and has just as much right to have expectations as the other people at the table. Especially since quite often he does more work for the game than they do. Notably, this is not true of many Storygames, where the bias is mostly authorial.

QuoteFor all the complaints about "one true way-ism" in this thread, it's funny that the old school approach includes the option to invest in your character 100%, if that's what you want, but the new school approach resists a pawn approach. It also includes the option to switch characters based on mood. How on earth can someone interpret "do what you want to do" as "one true way-ism", I don't know.

Where did I say "everyone must play this way?" or even remotely touch on "one true way?" Maybe you should re read what I said, beginning with "I think my problem with.."

I never said you can't find it interesting, or anyone else, just that I find it problematic--for the reasons above, improper use of the tools at hand.

If possible I've always had a rotation of PCs/NPCs when I play. I started out that way because it just seemed natural for the reasons Tim Kask mentioned, but also because my gaming group in school was largely made up of jocks so having a roster and swapping out characters to fit the scenario was second nature to everyone.

We often recruited NPCs and monsters to join the group, and when one or more of our "starters" was out of the lineup due to injury, death, etc we played the second, third or fourth-string characters. This led to some pretty odd lineups when not only NPCs but monsters were brought in "off the bench".

This also comes in handy when a group wants to swap DMs for a while without having to roll up entirely new parties. If Bob wants to take a break from DMing for a few weeks (and wants to prepare something special for a party of 10th-level PCs), Jim can take over as DM and run the PCs' 4th-5th level henchmen/followers through a separate adventure.

The amount of work it takes to make a 3e character certainly encourages the style of "Play just one character" instead of a stable of characters...

With 0D&D, I always have the Players (Home or Convention) roll up a few and choose at least one backup character to be able to switch in fast, should the lead die or become incapacitated.

Last time I ran a game where one of the players was concurrently running more than one character.... Ummm... 2008.

The thing is, when I get a full table of players (6-7), the game goes much faster if I handle all the NPC and Hireling stuff (Except for the hirelings' rolls, which I let the players handle) and let each player focus on what their character brings to the game. Still, I should have the players prepare a few more backup chars to be ready for 3x games.

Interesting debate. Any regular posters will know my position

I actually thing there are a few evolutionary threads in RPGS. Not ruels changes for their own sake but genuine evolution. One is unified mechanics. If a system used the same base mechanic to resolve all elements it is much easier to run and GM (doesn't matter if that mechanic is d20, dice pool, %d).
The other clear evolutionart thread is from wargames to roleplaying games.In a wargame you have troops. In early D&D some of those troops took on a degree of personality eventually separating from the rest as the game progresses and evolves these PCs become the focus of the game and game play moved from pawns that represent the players in an abstract way with a few stats to interact with the world to living and breathing characters with emotional lives hopes, fears etc etc

ON a separate point. Something that modifies the troope/stable play paradigm is continuity. If anyone that turns up can play you have these awkward kludges where 2 PCs 'decide to wait here in this chamber and set it up as a base' and 2 other PCs happen to be in this part of an ancient mega dungeon. To me that breaks immersion. I would in fact perfer to have a set party of PCs and rotate the players

My games tend to be city type games anyway and it's easier there but we never liked that mode of play anyway. We don't want parties with lots of henchmen and hirelings it detracts from the heroic nature of play and yes of course its safer to go into a dungeon with 12 0 level stooges but its safer to just stay at home, right.

On the other side of the coin. I have mentioned a Wargame/RPG hybrid we played for 18 months or so back int eh day where we have 5 players each with an empire all at war and befor a weekend battle we would run a RPG game where some of the soldiers were involved in a mission. So 4 goblin scouts would try to infiltrate the Rovac army camp and assainate the general, or small squad of elves would try to inflitrate the undead fortress and get information on its defences. Those PCs then became characters in the battle and the battle was affected by their adventure

Quote from: jibbajibba;595912My games tend to be city type games anyway and it's easier there but we never liked that mode of play anyway. We don't want parties with lots of henchmen and hirelings it detracts from the heroic nature of play and yes of course its safer to go into a dungeon with 12 0 level stooges but its safer to just stay at home, right.

Heh. They were always at least 1st lvl Npcs in my games, and while they helped the party pretty good on the 1st and 2nd level of a dungeon, they were pretty much toast deeper in the Dungeon, or in the Wilderness.

I remember a game, where these players (there were 3 in the group, a fighter, a wizard, and a young dragon 6 HD or so...) had hired a npc mercenary outfit (Seventeen (17) 1st to 3rd lvl guards) to guard their treasure caravan as they were moving their loot (which required a pack mule train as they had recently slain another dragon) through a mountain pass to the fantastic city beyond (where they were interested in buying a fortified palace).

They get up into the mountains and meet 21 Orcs at a narrow point in the trail, a place where the orcs had felled some trees to impede any progress on the trail up to the high pass. Orcs who are dug in, Orcs who have set rockfall traps. About half the Orcs are armed with shortbows.

The Orcs politely ask the players to drop the treasure off two of the mules, then they'll open the "gateway" and allow the players to proceed.

Naturally the players refuse and launch and immediate attack to try to force their way through. The Dragon soars up and begins burning any of the Orcs in the open, and the Mercenary Guard charges forward to clear the trail barrier.

In the first round of combat, the Dragon takes out three of the orcs in one fell swoop, but then falls prey to two archery critical hits, (one on a wing, forcing it to land).

In the next seven rounds or so, between the rockfalls, and the Orc Archers, fourteen of the seventeen Mercenaries are killed, the Dragon is greivously injured, and the lead Fighter is heavily wounded, being hit at least three or four times with arrows and bringing his HP dangerously low. They had killed only six of the Orcs, then called for a new Parley, and agreed to the Orcs terms.

The Orcs added to their terms, and in addition to their original demand, demanded two more mules have their bags of gold coins be cut loose... (At this point, it's all about the blood money, for the Orcs familes).

...and so the party was allowed to go on their way, with only the three players (all wounded), and three henchmen (two wounded) to ensure their safe travels. Fortunately, they had no other encounters on their way to their new home.

...So, probably not safer, not by much anyway.

The players also have the added responsibility of bringing their henchmen back alive... It's a pretty big burden that can lead to all sorts of further complications.

Quote from: Silverlion;595879I think my problem with this style of play is always that it has its roots too much in wargames/boardgames. You don't have attachment to your pawn in Chess. Its just a pawn, and so what you do with it may be more risky and/or also more rewarding, but at the end of the day the pawn is just a pawn, and doesn't become INTERESTING.

I don't think that's true. Just because I have multiple characters I could play today doesn't mean that they're just pawns on a board.

I posted a couple examples from my open table over in the fudging thread, here they are again:

Quote from: Justin Alexander(1) New players rolls up a 1st level fighter. Approaches the adventuring party forming up to explore the Caverns of Thracia and offers his services as a trained knight. They eye his fine suit of armor, nod their approval, and welcome him aboard.

Later, in the dungeon, they're crossing a rope bridge spanning a vast chasm. A flock of giant bats swoop down at them... And this guy freaks out. Throws his torch in the air (where it lands on the rope bridge and begins burning the load-bearing ropes) and cowers like a small child. Complete chaos ensues.

Turns out this guy wasn't a trained knight: He was the cook at the local tavern. He's got the suit of armor from a delinquent patron, heard about all the treasure flowing out of the Caverns, and decided to sign up.

Over the course of that session, this guy slowly turns it around. In a moment of desperation, he swallows his fear and saves a comrade. At the end of the session, he held a defensive line against a swarming horde of lizardmen by himself while the others escaped.

He died that day. In his first session. But he's one of the most memorable PCs I've seen in 20+ years of gaming. The other players routinely tell his story to other members of the open table. People who weren't there and have never even met this guy have told his story to new players.

(2) More recently, a player completely new to roleplaying games showed up. She rolled up an elven wizard... and then rolled 1 hp. If anything hit her, she would be dead, dead, dead.

She didn't die: Through a combination of luck and smart play, she avoided getting hit despite facing some really tough fights. The player was so excited about accomplishing that. It's difficult to really describe how ecstatic she was.

Neither one of these characters looks like a pawn that was just being manipulated to me.

While I think it's certainly possible that some people would react to having a plethora of characters by saying "I have so many characters, I'm not going to care about any of them!", I think it's equally true that some people will react to having all of their agency in the game world piled into a single container by becoming hyper-protective of that container to the point where they no longer play it as a character.

Quote from: GameDaddy;595911The amount of work it takes to make a 3e character certainly encourages the style of "Play just one character" instead of a stable of characters...

With 0D&D, I always have the Players (Home or Convention) roll up a few and choose at least one backup character to be able to switch in fast, should the lead die or become incapacitated.

Last time I ran a game where one of the players was concurrently running more than one character.... Ummm... 2008.

The thing is, when I get a full table of players (6-7), the game goes much faster if I handle all the NPC and Hireling stuff (Except for the hirelings' rolls, which I let the players handle) and let each player focus on what their character brings to the game. Still, I should have the players prepare a few more backup chars to be ready for 3x games.

 It is a good point.
Chargen takes a huge amount of time in my main game, and it totally changes the feel and investiture.  My online group keeps backup characters, so as to not lose time if possible.

Quote from: LordVreeg;595978It is a good point.
Chargen takes a huge amount of time in my main game, and it totally changes the feel and investiture.  My online group keeps backup characters, so as to not lose time if possible.

You're safe. Awesome.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;595920I don't think that's true. Just because I have multiple characters I could play today doesn't mean that they're just pawns on a board.

They aren't to me. I have a stable of characters, though I wouldn't have named it that way until Tim talked of the concept in those terms. I have basically a group of usual PCs which I can use in different games or together and so on. I'm attached to each one of them, and don't see them as "pawns on a board." People here know that I like role playing, like immersing myself in the game world and so on.

There's at least one character missing on this picture, and most of the dwarves could be qualified as henchmen, but this is basically my current roster of characters right here:

Quote from: Benoist;595980You're safe. Awesome.

Company took a beating.
Main servers in NJ and NYC are still offline, but everyone seems safe.