Those imaginary "other kinds" of RPGers
Ron Edwards:
Hi Daniel,
Here's a thread to add to this discussion, specifically my dialogue with Marshall Burns on the third page (but it's good to read the whole thing): Interview with Vincent and me. I talk about why the phobia about character death was cemented so deeply in role-playing culture and design during the 1970s.
I do think the issue boils down to the long-held, long-valued, uncritically-retained notion that if my guy dies, I lose/u] and I have to stop playing. Even the patch-fixes to repair it are still problems insofar as that notion is assumed to be a problem to start with.
Decoupling character death from those two things is a real jolt. It can be done a couple of ways. Sometimes the character's death is part and parcel (and here I speak of the rules) with finishing, which is not the same as losing/quitting. You can find this in my games Trollbabe and Sorcerer, and in games influenced by them like Dogs in the Vineyard. Other times the rules permit the player to contribute exactly as he or she had before. This first showed up in The Mountain Witch based on my playtesting-advice to the author, it also shows up in Grey Ranks based partly on dialogue with me, and as I see it, it takes on its fullest form in my Spione, as well as in Zombie Cinema which is strongly influenced by Spione.
I'm not claiming that this decoupling is a golden key that all games have to have or be "bad." But it's worth considering in full.
Best, Ron
Lance D. Allen:
Damned internet.
John, by and large, said what I typed up in a post earlier. He just said it more concisely.
The fact that what we sit down at a table to do is a game shouldn't be ignored. Every game has things that can be sussed out as win conditions, if you're looking for them. If character effectiveness is obviously the means to those win conditions, then it would be losing behavior to disadvantage yourself in effectiveness. In this way, both your fighter friend and your thief friend are 'gamist'. They've just picked out different win conditions. Fighter dude believes that if the bad guys are dead, it's a win. Thief dude believes that if you have to resort to the direct brute-force approach, it's a loss.
to answer your question to me specifically, Marius (my roguish bard) was compensated for the loss of his hand. He lost some naivete, got a little bit tougher from enduring the pain, and gained a well of strength to draw upon by having to overcome the hardship. He grew in ways that were important in that community. Eventually, he even grew in proficiency, but that's another story. Had I a mechanical penalty, I would have expected it to be balanced out in a similar fashion as I described, or had some sort of meta-balance, such as a merits and flaws system. Were the loss of the hand a mechanical result of my actions in play, and didn't come with balances, I would have accepted that as I would anything else. If the character became unfun to play though, I probably would have retired him appropriately (possibly with another brashly brave assault on superior odds).
It comes down to how you interface with the game and fiction. If player effectiveness is your vehicle, you don't hurt that. If player effectiveness is only one option, or merely color, then it becomes a fair target for harmful decisions. The Riddle of Steel is an example that comes to mind. The main part of the game is crunchy simulation of physics and causality, but the beating heart is the Spiritual Attributes, which can, when pounding out loud and hard, make your character's stats nearly meaningless. What are a couple deep stab wounds when the six-fingered man is before you? You can make dramatic negative choices when it doesn't hinder your ability to contribute in a fun and meaningful manner.
Daniel B:
8-O .. woah, bzing! Great points, John and Ron .. I asked for a crumb of food for thought, and that's a feast. Muchas Gracias both.
Quote from: Wolfen on April 21, 2009, 11:11:58 AM
The fact that what we sit down at a table to do is a game shouldn't be ignored. Every game has things that can be sussed out as win conditions, if you're looking for them.
Hmmmmmmm, not sure I agree 100% with that. Granted virtually all games have win conditions, but I'd hesitate to jump to all games; how about collaborative story-telling? Mad-Libs? Games like that "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" show on television? (Gawd I loved that show..) This is where is gets interesting .. games that HAVE no win condition but are fun anyway.
Quote from: Wolfen on April 21, 2009, 11:11:58 AM
If the character became unfun to play though, I probably would have retired him appropriately (possibly with another brashly brave assault on superior odds).
...
What are a couple deep stab wounds when the six-fingered man is before you? You can make dramatic negative choices when it doesn't hinder your ability to contribute in a fun and meaningful manner.
Indeed. I think this sums it up nicely. In traditional games, your ability to contribute diminishes as you lose power (or don't keep pace in power with the other players).
Dan
greyorm:
Quote from: ShallowThoughts on April 21, 2009, 08:51:31 PM
...but I'd hesitate to jump to all games; how about collaborative story-telling? Mad-Libs? Games like that "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" show on television? (Gawd I loved that show..) This is where is gets interesting .. games that HAVE no win condition but are fun anyway.
Well, I don't think you're seeing the win conditions in those games because they aren't blatant or necessarily apparent. Yet they are there. Mad-Libs? Make the funniest mad-lib is easily a win condition. Whose Line Is It? Be the most entertaining or clever can be a win condition. All games have win conditions, even if they don't seem to be the point of the game, expressed as such in the game, or are invented by the players as an unconscious social measure between participants or internally to the self.
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Indeed. I think this sums it up nicely. In traditional games, your ability to contribute diminishes as you lose power (or don't keep pace in power with the other players).
I think that's a good summary, too. But don't think about it in purely mechanical trade-offs, there are subtle social and creative trade-offs as well that can cause the same situation.
Lance D. Allen:
::points to Raven, then touches the tip of his nose::
Right in one. That's why I said that every game has things that can be sussed out as win conditions. Figured out. Determined. It's not always stated, or obvious. Ya just gotta look. Sometimes, the stated game rules will tell you that there is no win or lose. Frankly, from my perspective, that's bullshit. If you can't determine a win condition, it's not a game. But that's a whole 'nother discussion. Raven threw out the obvious win conditions for your examples though, so I got nothin' there.
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I think that's a good summary, too. But don't think about it in purely mechanical trade-offs, there are subtle social and creative trade-offs as well that can cause the same situation.
See now here's where I'm scratching my head; Reduced character effectiveness doesn't mechanically reduce your ability to contribute. It is PURELY the social and creative constraints that do that. I mean, nothing mechanical about my character losing a hand reduces my ability to contribute to the fiction. It constrains the ways I may contribute (I can't realistically have Marius juggle anymore, after all, but I can have him struggle to learn to play a harp-like instrument). If the people in the group decide that a lost hand means that my contributions in combat are to be discounted, though...
Games that offer other mechanical means of contribution get around that, somewhat, but the reception of your contributions is always socially determined.
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