Ahem... Erick's Forge Adventure?

[boulet]

Ouais tu te tapes un joli fardeau : un boulet rien qu'a toi Enchanté de te croiser !

[Croaker]

Pleased to meet you too

[RPGPundit]

Sorry for the necromancy, but this thread scratches a few itches.

I never realized Erick had an article at the Forge. Wow. OTOH I'm not that surprised, the radical approach of diceless roleplaying is in a way a rpg theory of its own, and it probably had an influence on theory people in general. Today diceless is still very sulfurous and I know I would have to argue quite a lot to convince a traditional gamer to even try it.

Now I agree with you Pundit : it seems that Erick's conception of game mastering would be at odds with the general attitude of storygamers. Many of them sound like they're in a crusade against the potential abuse of power from a wicked despotic GM. Though Ron Edwards and others seem to be nuanced when they explore "railroading", "illusionism" and "participationism", and show that the nature of the relationship between a GM and his group, the openness of the dialog and how people agree to share narrative control is important. Still some forgie discussions (about the democratization of narrative control and how it is important that players have a veto rule as a big red button any time something in the common imaginary space would go wrong) reminded me of the propaganda aspect of some anti-terrorist rhetoric. It felt like some phantasmagorical threats and fears were projected on me about bad GM Fiat/despotism when my experience was on the contrary that Erick's game (both as player and GM) had always made me feel empowered and free.

Let me ask you something Pundit. I was quite surprised of your attachment to ADRPG. My first contact with your opinions on rpg has been via your blog. And the overall feeling wasn't really shouting "Amber diceless player", more like "hardcore old school grognard". Have you loved Erick's Amber game at first sight or did it take some acclimatization before you get into it ?

PS : It feels weird to post in a thread where Erick actually wrote. But very grateful too.

Welcome, Boulet.

And to answer your question, it was love at first sight.  I would not call myself a "grognard": I love brilliant games.  Two of my favorite RPGs are Amber and Over the Edge, neither of which are very conventional at all, and certainly not "old school".  

The difference between me and the Forgies is that I like games that really ARE genius, while they like games that talk a lot about how brilliant they are and how brilliant the readers are for liking the game, and in reality have no substance to show for it.

That's why so many of the Swine despise Amber; they like stuff like Nobilis: big and wordy and pretentious and flowery with no actual meat to it whatsoever, but something that strokes the ego of the reader/player saying "you're so artistic and clever for liking this game, and better than other people who don't 'get' it".

Amber is totally unpretentious, and it proves the lie to all the crap the Forgies love.

RPGPundit

[Croaker]

Hey!

I like nobilis! :lol:

[The Yann Waters]

I like nobilis! :lol:

Besides, as far as I know, the Forge crowd doesn't hold Nobilis in particularly high regard, and Borgstrom has never even posted over there.

[The Yann Waters]

That's why so many of the Swine despise Amber; they like stuff like Nobilis: big and wordy and pretentious and flowery with no actual meat to it whatsoever, but something that strokes the ego of the reader/player saying "you're so artistic and clever for liking this game, and better than other people who don't 'get' it".

But isn't one of your usual arguments against Nobilis that the rules are too comprehensive and fail to leave enough room for GM interpretation (which can't really be the case, of course, when the GM is just as much in charge of adjusting the difficulty levels for PC actions as in other RPGs)? Let's face it, mechanically the game is far more "traditional" than Amber: as said before, it essentially runs on a roll-over system much like any other, except that the dice are replaced with non-random resource management. Even that stumbling and stuttering which Wujcik mentions in the original essay is covered by "Peak Performance", all the everyday miracles with difficulty 0 that any Noble may sustain indefinitely, giving an in-game reason why rolling for every little inconvenience wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

[RPGPundit]

No, that's never been my argument about nobilis. I have argued that the rules are practically incomprehensible, due to the awful writing. I have also argued that the rules disempower GMs, but not due to completeness. And I've argued that the core of the system, the gobbledeygook all peeled away from it, is basically an incredibly stupid beancounter system.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

No, that's never been my argument about nobilis. I have argued that the rules are practically incomprehensible, due to the awful writing. I have also argued that the rules disempower GMs, but not due to completeness. And I've argued that the core of the system, the gobbledeygook all peeled away from it, is basically an incredibly stupid beancounter system.

RPGPundit

[The Yann Waters]

I have argued that the rules are practically incomprehensible, due to the awful writing. I have also argued that the rules disempower GMs, but not due to completeness. And I've argued that the core of the system, the gobbledeygook all peeled away from it, is basically an incredibly stupid beancounter system.

And yet you've consistently failed to present a PC action that the rules wouldn't cover, or to explain how spending an occasional miracle point for exceptional effort is more "stupid" or cumbersome than allocating action points or keeping track of hit points...

Anyway, contrary to what someone in that "rules light" thread over at the general RPG forum mentioned in passing, Nobilis (along with the likes of Active Exploits and Marvel Universe) proves that diceless games aren't necessarily any more "thespy" than their diced counterparts, and that ultimately there's no reason why non-random systems couldn't offer as much complexity and detail in the actual resolution mechanics as those that place a greater emphasis on pure chance.

[Seanchai]

Hey!

I like nobilis!

Me, too. In addition to the ideas present in the game, one of the draws for me is that it reminds me of Amber.

Seanchai

[The Yann Waters]

In addition to the ideas present in the game, one of the draws for me is that it reminds me of Amber.

Well, even though it's Lord of Light and Creatures of Light and Darkness and Jack of Shadows that the book cites as influences by Zelazny, noticing similarities to Amber too isn't that much of a stretch: after all, both feature noble families of demigods who by virtue of what they are command aspects of reality itself and rule worlds unknown to common mortals.

[RPGPundit]

And yet you've consistently failed to present a PC action that the rules wouldn't cover

So what? I'll concede this point to you, with the rebuttal that the game has the inherent disadvantage that to find out how to "cover a PC action" you have to read the book, and be exposed to the utterly bafflingly crapulent Borgstrom-writing.   When you're not trying to figure out what the fuck she just said, you're groaning at how utterly utterly awful the fiction is, or wanting to throttle her for just how obvious her utterly undeserved high opinion of herself is.

, or to explain how spending an occasional miracle point for exceptional effort is more "stupid" or cumbersome than allocating action points or keeping track of hit points...

I have, on many occasions. Nobilis replaces either random chance or the variation of options with a boring collection of bean-counting mechanics.

Anyway, contrary to what someone in that "rules light" thread over at the general RPG forum mentioned in passing, Nobilis (along with the likes of Active Exploits and Marvel Universe) proves that diceless games aren't necessarily any more "thespy" than their diced counterparts, and that ultimately there's no reason why non-random systems couldn't offer as much complexity and detail in the actual resolution mechanics as those that place a greater emphasis on pure chance.

Your game sucks ass.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

Me, too. In addition to the ideas present in the game, one of the draws for me is that it reminds me of Amber.

Seanchai

In the sense that Borgstrom pathetically tried to parasitically live off the success of other better games that came before her, by trying to rip off the style and atmosphere of Amber, only failed utterly turning it into a pretentious semi-incomprehensible wuss-game?
Yes, I suppose in that sense it would remind one of Amber, in the same sense that say, someone who plagiarized a brilliant researchers work and then added some of their own utter garbage to try to cover it up would vaguely remind you the original brilliant researchers' work. The few things that are good are not a product of the plagiarists' own mind, and is sullied by the fact of the plagiarists' theft and the mangling of the work by trying to mix it with the plagiarists' own utterly uninspiring insipid pretentious pathetic second-rate ideas.

So yes, in that sense I guess Nobilis could remind one of Amber. But of course, in that sense it does so only in a way that damns Nobilis utterly for what it is: a horrible pretentious cheap attempted rip-off of amber to try to bilk Amber's greatness and fame.

RPGPundit

[Croaker]

:lol:
At least, you've got style

Tell me, aside from Amber and, maybe, other Erick RPGs, is there any game you do like?

[The Yann Waters]

Nobilis replaces either random chance or the variation of options with a boring collection of bean-counting mechanics.

That's in the eye of the beholder, I suspect: "Aspect 3" is no more boring than "Strength 3", and all the options that you might care to try out are still there, generally resolved by beating the difficulty levels set by the GM as in most other roleplaying games. The existence of an easily identifiable system which despite the lack of a randomizer nevertheless functions much like those of conventional RPGs is in fact why Nobilis has often been touted as an alternative for players looking for more of a "game" than the drama-driven play which its predecessors (such as Amber and Theatrix) focused on. Those mechanics do their small share to dispel the unfortunate misconception that "diceless" equals "systemless", and demonstrate what Wujcik already wrote at the beginning of the thread: there's no intrinsic difference between diceless and diced play beyond their superficial approaches to the element of chance.

It may not be to your taste, but eh, there's no arguing about that. I'm not too keen on rehashing the same old ill-informed debate for the hundredth time, in any case.