Quote from: estar;340459So defining an exact break point is an exercise in futility. The extremes are easily seen as different forms of gaming but the middle is a muddled mess subject to personal preference.

This is one of my main problems with these kind of discussions. So what? Why the need to say "this is an type A RPG and this is a type B one?" It's useless.

Quote from: Technomancer;340469Roleplaying: Players assume the role of characters in a story/adventure/scenario (whatever you want to call it) and decide how those characters act and react to situations encountered in the course of play. A GM may or may not be present as well.
 
Game: There are rules to determine the success and failure of the actions of the player characters.

This definition is quite fitting, IMO.

Quote from: Balbinus;340627When you put it on the shelf as part of a collection and don't play it.

Indeed

Quote from: RPGPundit;340633It stops being an RPG when:
b. It stops being about the GM emulating the world. So if players have the power to meta-affect the world outside of their own character's actions. Likewise if the sense of emulation is placed secondary to other concerns (ie. "story").

As others have said, this point is not true for me. The GM is something customary, but does not define the experience. As Clash said, it's a custom I like, but a custom nonetheless.

Quote from: jeff37923;340669Change the arguement from "Is this or is this not a RPG?" to "What kind of RPG is this?", which I think is far more interesting.

I totally agree with you on this.

Quote from: Mistwell;340897The fact that you are not grokking the challenge you are trying to respond to doesn't help your case any.  When you actually comprehend what we're saying (lots and lots of people who have read your thoughts on this topic), then you might be in a position to tell others to work harder on challenging you.  When one person fails to get the message across to you, then it's probably that persons fault.  But when dozens, over many years, say essentially the same thing and you still don't get it and make responses like you just did which demonstrate you REALLY don't get it? Yah, then it's on you for not being willing to think.

Nope, try again. Repeating a lie over and over again doesn't make it the truth.
You've yet to explain how Amber gives players setting-control outside of their abilities. Inside doesn't count, otherwise, by that standard, a wizard casting phantasmal force or teleport has "setting control", or a fighter swinging his sword, for that matter.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jibbajibba;340863I let my Amber players have a lot more control of the set up of the narative. I let them build the castle and the kingdom and I allow them to populate it.
Once these things are set they don't get any narative control well not as I define it though Pundy may disagree as I allow 'I pick up a wine bottle from the table to use as a weapon,' and he would insist on 'Is there a wine bottle on the table I can use as a weapon?'.

Yup; or, if the PC has pattern, he could say "I try to use pattern to alter probability so that there's a wine bottle lying under the table"; or if he has Logrus he could say "I extend a logrus tendril to try to rapidly find a wine bottle", or if he has conjuration he could say "I try to conjure up a wine bottle".
What he can't say is "I, the player, decide that there's a wine bottle there JUST BECAUSE".

QuoteIt is amusing though as Pundy also hates points buy and Amber is points buy, sure its an auction and you have ranks but its points buy.

You could say its a kind of point-buy, but the nature of the auction adds an element of the unpredictable to a player's character creation process, in that manner removing my number one issue with point-buy games.


RPGPundit

Quote from: Ian Absentia;340899As I suggested above, it stretches the dividing line rather thin.  Perhaps more amusingly, though, the power to traverse infinite Shadows pretty well demands the "Yes, but..." response from the GM, that slippery slope into pseudo-narrativism that Pundy has decried from Nobilis and other games.

!i!

No, it really doesn't. Not unless you believe that a D&D PC's power to walk with his own two feet somehow creates the same "pseudo-narrativism". Players using a power that they have in a way that is permitted in the setting is never storygaming.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Mistwell;341006This is a ludicrous excuse.  Your discussing the means, not the end, of obtaining narrative control.

Imagine a game that said the characters specifically can create any NPC with their specifically dictated looks and personality and knowledge, and any location of anything that does anything they want it to, and any object of any power whatsoever, and they are the only ones that could do this in that universe, and nothing can interfere with this "power".  

Note, I am not in any way saying that IS Amber Diceless, I am just asking you to imagine it.

Now how is that not a degree of narrative control, just because the means of obtaining that control is a character "power"?

This passage demonstrates how utterly you fail to understand the point of roleplaying.
Even in your scenario, if your character could theoretically do ANYTHING (and that's a pretty boring game), it would still be a roleplaying game if the PLAYER was immersed in the CHARACTER, and thus doing things because it would be what the PC would want to do, and not because it is something the player wants to see happen in the "Narrative".

As usual, you miss the point entirely.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jibbajibba;341076My second issue is at the micro level. In all my games I encourage players to take decisions. So for me a player saying 'I head to a bar where I know some shifty characters and ask old Two-fingers what he knows about activities on the docks.' Is fine but to Pundy this crosses the narative control line. He would expect use of some character based skill and then for the GM to provide the name of the contact. I am comfortable enough to short circuit this process and allow the player to control it. I will keep in mind their skills and if we are in a game where information gathering or criminal-subculture are named skills I will probably ask for a skill check but I don't feel the need to be totally in control of the small stuff.
Now to me the assertion that the direct result of me being comfortable with my own ability to run a game with no need to sweat the edges is that I am no longer playing an RPG is ludicrous.

The question I would ask you is this: At what point do you draw the line?
Why would it be OK for a Player to decide autonomously that there's a bar with his old buddy Two-fingers, but not ok to decide that Fiona will conveniently decide to give him the Vorpal Sword that will kill the Jabberwocky?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;341171The question I would ask you is this: At what point do you draw the line?
Why would it be OK for a Player to decide autonomously that there's a bar with his old buddy Two-fingers, but not ok to decide that Fiona will conveniently decide to give him the Vorpal Sword that will kill the Jabberwocky?

RPGPundit

There is a line no doubt. No PC can in my game can forge a relationship with an existing NPC that I am in contol of so If Dave met Two-fingers in a bar and the next session Pete 'created' a realtionship with Two-fingers that would not wash. The character is already 'live' in game.
However, this is totally irrelevant to the point. The point is that even if I allowed a PC to get away with 'I go and see Fiona and get her to give me that vorpal sword' that is my decision as a GM. It in no way invalidates the fact that I am playing a Roleplaying game. It might mean that my role playing game is shit but it's still a roleplaying game.
If I am playing Monopoly and the players decide to create a new rule whereby we can all take loans from the bank with no colateral we are all still playing a board game. We might not be playing Monopoly (although try releasing a game that was just like Monopoly but with that single extra rule and I think a Judge might argue it's still monopoly ... but I digress) but we are sure as shit still playing a board game.

By drawing a line at any player control is unacceptable and then decrying any game that breaks that rule as Not a roleplaying game is just daft and it makes the remaining arguments weaker by association.

The rule about there having to be a GM is similarly weak. I can forsee a game state where a GM is not required. A game where the 'dungeon' was generated at random most standard actions were codified and exceptions outside those actions were dealt with by 'the player on your left' using a strict process flow or similar. I may not like to play this game but I think it could be a roleplaying game. Certainly in the computer world unless you count the primitive AIs there is no GM but most people would say WoW is a Roleplaying game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;341169Players using a power that they have in a way that is permitted in the setting is never storygaming.

I never said it was.  I was poking fun at the fact that you having to say "Yes, but..." puts you on a slippery slope of your own creation.  And you're totally right -- players using narrative control in a manner that is permitted by the rules and setting is not storygaming.  It's also more than "ZERO".

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;341229I never said it was.  I was poking fun at the fact that you having to say "Yes, but..." puts you on a slippery slope of your own creation.  And you're totally right -- players using narrative control in a manner that is permitted by the rules and setting is not storygaming.  It's also more than "ZERO".

!i!

I've never, ever had to say "Yes, but...".
In Amber, you say "yes, you can do that", or "no you can't do that"; just like in any other real non-wuss RPG.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jibbajibba;341217There is a line no doubt. No PC can in my game can forge a relationship with an existing NPC that I am in contol of so If Dave met Two-fingers in a bar and the next session Pete 'created' a realtionship with Two-fingers that would not wash. The character is already 'live' in game.
However, this is totally irrelevant to the point.

Oh, but I think it isn't. You see, what you're saying when you admit to this is that essentially, you've just given a blanket and previously understood PERMISSION to your players to do this stuff, so long as its irrelevant. Its a permission you can REVOKE whenever you feel that what they attempt to do is beyond a "line" of YOUR choosing.
So essentially, you are playing a completely conventional game. At no moment do the Players have actual authority, they just have an understanding of your unspoken consent.  Its no different than asking "could I know some guy at a tavern who could help me", except that you've already basically told them that the answer to this stuff is generally "yes", except when you decide to say that its "no". They don't need to ask, they can assume that the answer is "yes", because you will TELL THEM when its "no".

This is radically different from a game where the players have their own authority, to generate setting, in a way that you as the GM are not allowed to say "no" to them.

You are very much "drawing the line at player control", your players have no control, they just have your unspoken permission.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;341244I've never, ever had to say "Yes, but...".

So you're saying that you've never added a simple proviso in agreement with one of your players' statements of intent?  This was kind of fun for a bit, but now I think you're just lying.  Whatever, dude -- move the goalpost wherever you want.

!i!

A game is no longer an rpg when nobody brings any snacks.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;341250So you're saying that you've never added a simple proviso in agreement with one of your players' statements of intent?  This was kind of fun for a bit, but now I think you're just lying.  Whatever, dude -- move the goalpost wherever you want.

!i!

You have him in the corner, so now comes the point where he says you just don't understand what an RPG is.

Quote from: RPGPundit;341170This passage demonstrates how utterly you fail to understand the point of roleplaying.
Even in your scenario, if your character could theoretically do ANYTHING (and that's a pretty boring game), it would still be a roleplaying game if the PLAYER was immersed in the CHARACTER,

This is hilarious.  You've actually managed to confuse yourself.  I was not arguing it was not an PRG dumbass.  That was YOU making that argument earlier, not me.  You're actually now arguing against yourself.  Of course it would still be an RPG.  If the majority of people playing that game call it an RPG, then it is an RPG.

Like I said, you don't yet really understand the argument I and countless others have been making to you over the years in this respect.  That's OK though. You're allowed to like an RPG that gives the players a higher degree of narrative control than most RPGs while pretending it does not do that.  As long as you are having fun (which, but the way, is the actual point of an RPG - not all your bullshit about immersion, but just having fun), then it's all good despite your lack of comprehension.

QuoteFortunately, your not important enough to matter and thus doing things because it would be what the PC would want to do, and not because it is something the player wants to see happen in the "Narrative".

In the scenario I outlined, it is both.  Which was obvious, to anyone except you.  I take that back - it was obvious to you also, you just know it's a corner you cannot get out of, so you have to deny it and then insult as a distraction.  Despite how inane it looks for you to deny it.

At the point where a PC power lets them do anything without limitation and the GM must allow it according to the rules, it's both the PC and the Player controlling the narrative, regardless of the level of immersion.  It cannot be helped in a scenario like that.  At some point, ultimate PC power WILL bleed into players controlling narrative, just like a "story point", because on that level there is effectively no difference between the two in a game like that.  Which is one reason why good games put limitations on PC powers - as a means of keeping narrative control in the hands of the GM.

As for all your other lame examples about PC powers of walking and spell casting, that is precisely why I have been saying Amber Diceless gives players a higher degree of narrative control than most other games.  All RPGs offer players some degree of narrative control, however small and often unnoticed.  Amber gives them more of that control than most.  Get it now?

Of course you do...but it's once again time for you to tell me how I don't understand the point of RPGs and how I must be a Forger and all your other low brow typical uncreative insults that you use when you know you're cornered and being asked to think for once.  Because lets face it - you are not used to actually having to honestly deal with these issues.  It's either your little sycophants kissing your ass and nodding their heads, or you dismiss people as Forgers.  There is no actual communication in between for you, like always.  

It has been that way for years, and probably always will be that way.  Because, as you admitted in an interview, Pundit is a character you play, and this is one of the defining characteristics of that character.

Quote from: RPGPundit;341244I've never, ever had to say "Yes, but...".
In Amber, you say "yes, you can do that", or "no you can't do that"; just like in any other real non-wuss RPG.

You never said "Yes, but ... that's a -4 on your roll" ?