rpg theory
mcv:
Quote from: Vulpinoid on February 17, 2009, 02:46:18 PM
A few games already incorporate the types of elements that you see in "The Sims".
1) Skills improving with use and specific skill-oriented research (reading books, performing tasks, etc.)
2) Improving job status through acquiring a pattern of required traits
3) Playing with a character's morale levels based on the events that happen around them (bad thing happens, morale goes down; good thing happens, morale goes up)
4) Gaining power/money/status in the game for performing actions that are specifically tied to these concepts
A few? A lot of old fashioned RPGs have elements like these.
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P.S. From the Forge perspective, would "The Sims" be better off called "The Nars", since it doesn't give you a pre-defined storyline and encourages players to develop their own narrative within the world that has been presented?
Why would lack of a pre-defined storyline make it Nar? Blindly following a storyline and facing the chalenges it offers seems to me to be the heart of Gamism. Many Simulationist games are more about throwing characters into an open-ended world and having them find their own place in that world without a guiding pre-defined storyline, and from what I know of it (which is very little, I admit), The Sims seems to fit that kind of simulationism quite well.
Unless of course The Sims is all about conflict between different goals and beliefs, making hard choices between those, and growing through those choices. Then it should have been called The Nars. (But I don't think it'd sell that well with that name.)
mcv:
Quote from: xechnao on February 17, 2009, 10:56:25 AM
A problem that I encounter with 4ed D&D for example is that its rules do not provide anything of this sort. The game's rules detail combat action but they offer little about any balances regarding the risks one takes and his expectations. It ends to be just an exercise to master the game's combat tactics and as soon as this happens lack of interest seems to prevail.
A lack of interest prevails in you, but not in other players with different interests. D&D4 is, in my opinion, limited experience with D&D and still limited knowledge of GNS theory, a very Gamist RPG. It's all about overcoming challenges, and those tend to be combat oriented. Some people like that a lot (witness the popularity of D&D compared to more Simulationist RPGs), whereas you don't.
And neither do I, in fact. D&D has never been my kind of game. Too restrictive, too much focused on combat, too limited in what kind of character I can play, too limited in my choices. Too limited in my combat options, even. It's too much about game mechanics themselves, and not so much about a realistic simulation of how that combat would have happened if it had been real. I'm a simulationist, and you're probably too.
To me, D&D4 feels like a tactical wargame. A skirmish game. A very fun skirmish game, with lots of funky abilities you can use to defeat your opponents, lots of new abilities you can gain as you progress, and lots of support for the DM to create new balanced skirmishes. But as soon as I try to see it as more than that, as an actual RPG, I get disappointed.
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I feel the same way about the various iterations of the D20 system where the goal seems to be to gain XP by killing monsters.
That's exactly what D&D has always been about in all its iterations. You can use it in a different way ofcourse, but that's more demanding of the DM, and less supported by the system. AD&D2 and arguably D&D3 have tried to move more towards simulationism, but never left their gamist roots, and never really got far enough towards simulationism, IMO. But of course the right group can make it work. In D&D4, that group will have to work a lot harder at it.
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My point is that I think tabletop games may benefit more from seeking game design elements found in "the sims" rather than WoW.
Of course you'd think that. You're a simulationist, and WoW is definitely not a simulationist game. The Sims probably is (although I haven't played it). Eve Online would probably be more up your alley too.
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What may happen in "the sims" IMO works better as a basis for building and enjoying storytelling in a collective way. But I do not know how I can precisely describe this from actual play.
In what way does The Sims support storytelling? Do you have an example of something that happened in a Sims game that demonstrates this?
xechnao:
Quote from: mcv on February 18, 2009, 03:28:41 AM
throwing characters into an open-ended world and having them find their own place in that world without a guiding pre-defined storyline,
conflict between different goals and beliefs, making hard choices between those, and growing through those choices.
Is there a difference among the two? Or are they the two faces of the same coin?
mcv:
Quote from: xechnao on February 18, 2009, 04:29:06 AM
Quote from: mcv on February 18, 2009, 03:28:41 AM
throwing characters into an open-ended world and having them find their own place in that world without a guiding pre-defined storyline,
conflict between different goals and beliefs, making hard choices between those, and growing through those choices.
Is there a difference among the two? Or are they the two faces of the same coin?
They are quite different. Simply exploring an open world freely doesn't in any way imply moral conflict or difficult choices. Nor vice versa. They can go together, but they don't need to, and often don't.
Patrice:
It all lays about the way you set the Characters' agenda actually. One very common way to deal with Character's agenda is experience. Experience (and sometimes possessions) define how you win the game. Yes, win. I think the discussion would fare a lot better if we openly discard the common idea that "there's no winner nor losers in a RPG". If you play a skirmish game, whether D&D or Cadwallon (more on Cadwallon later in this post) or any other, it's just silly to push your minis or counters or whatever and play without win system. In Gamist systems such as these, there has to be a goal external to the Situations of play, almost a metagame goal to provide you a meter, a scale for your Stepping on Up.
There's two main reasons underlying this : First because this gives you a real reason to keep the fights going and allows you to socialize about it at a metagame level, second because it sets a limit to the game, it defines its end. I think the main reason why D&D4 fails at it is because the experience system, which is more or less the same as former versions of D&D is too fluffy and doesn't provide a goal in itself. Okay I level and then ? It does a poor job in giving the Characters an agenda. D&D4 keeps fostering the myth of a Sim play just like all D&D games do and is stuck with that. Cadwallon had a few interesting experiments regarding Chararacters' agenda but it's drowned in a mechanism set that doesn't support it. It's like most of Cadwallon content, it's a patchwork. And a heartbreaker too and it's unplayable without home corrections. Everybody designed his own bit and everything didn't match when we sew it together. It's a game that wanted too much with too many constraints to allow it.
In my recent experiments I've been designing a Character-based experience system. It's an interesting twist as it uses mechanisms found in Nar games such as The Shadow of Yesterday (Keys) but I use this at a metagame level. Did you push the action towards stealth and did you succeed at it ? Okay, if you're the rogue type you get to level, too bad for the warrior. Something like that. You win if you bend the story your way or at least play it your way if the story if provided beforehand (while using mechanisms found in Nar games, I'm not aiming at Story Now the least). If you have a goal, individual or collective, you have a purpose for playing the game and in order to provide this, you have to allow a metagame mechanic.
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