I hate compromises
ThoughtBubble:
This thread sort of mirrors some of my experiences in this last year. My play group exploded last summer. We ended up in a set of groupings I'd call the color focused people, and the procedure focused people.
The procedure people follow the rules. They bring strong ideas about playing the game by following the rules in the book. They're the ones who poke around in power-combinations, read through the books multiple times, love grid based games and tracking status. Aside from me, they're also the only people who've ever run campaigns. Their characters have rock solid abilities and fit in party niches. Their characters also tend to have few in game issues and mostly "go with the plot", doing what's necessary to stick with the party/greater objectives. These are the guys I'd play 4E or Mouse Guard with. Though Mouse Guard has some caveats.
The colorists aren't really so concerned with the rules and trust me to help them with that. They bring a larger sense of the game world with them and create bits of it as time progresses. They tend to have stronger character concepts and build on them as the games progress. These are the guys who draw their characters, and form attachments to NPCs. They're the ones who the plot ends up building out of the bits and pieces they hand me in game. These are the guys I'd play In A Wicked Age or Burning Wheel with. Though Burning wheel has some caveats too. What is it with your games Luke?
I'll leave our poor situational player alone for now, and not talk about our bi-polar player who jumps between procedure and color. : )
But what I found is that our color people are pretty good at negotiating, while our procedure people aren't. Why? There's no damn procedure for my procedure people to follow, while the color people look at what happened before and pick out something that "feels" right.
Filip, my guess is that you're pretty strongly procedural too. As such, you don't have as much fun when you need to rely on color and "what's reasonable" to make a decision. This thread seems to be asking about the lack of hard rules to deal with the situations that come up. If I'm wrong, ignore me from here.
This comes back to the beginning of the thread and about the fight with the snake. It might be reasonable to get an injured status after fighting a snake, it might not be. It's pretty dependent on the color and description of the moves that happened during the combat. So, other than feeling bad for your suffering, we can't really offer anything worthwhile to help you. The negotiation issues all depend on what the color of the game was at the time, and this is a detail that we haven't heard about at all. Can you tell us a little more about the color in the situation with the snake or another unsatisfactory negotiation? Let me know if you'd like an example of the sort of thing I mean by color.
Callan S.:
Quote from: greyorm on March 06, 2010, 05:00:45 PM
Callan, you're still putting anyone who can and does do this regularly into some weird/other/abnormal category. That's asinine. And pointless. Because Filip doesn't need someone defending his group as normal and labeling everyone else into the abnormal corner; what he needs is a solution, not repeated insistence that his group is just fine, or isn't fine, or other defenses of or attacks against.
I don't know about the defending stuff, but he has a solution - the mechanical default. You seem to want to use a different solution, one involving group dynamic fixing or suchlike. I'm speaking in cold hard facts as much as you said you are - I don't think I'm playing defender or labeler any more than you are when I say they appear to fall into the scope of normal human behaviour, so a group dynamics fix isn't needed or applicable.
Filip,
Quote
Here's what I do. I roll my eyes. Got a better suggestion, I'm sure?
Oh crap! No!
Anyway, yeah, I'm really just agreeing here. I might move toward just sending PM's of support if I feel it's warrented, since that's my only back up plan!
Filip Luszczyk:
Luke,
When I say I have little trust in you as designer, I mean it. There is no snark here (heh, you haven't seen real Polish snark yet, apparently). There are reasons I'm discussing it here and not on BW forums. We read your forum. We even discussed some threads in our group. We know how dicussions tend to progress there, especially when someone points out an obvious flaw in the design. Also, I've read your posts in other places, I can see some patterns. Frankly, I've been hoping to avoid your participation in this thread. For once, I'd like to discuss a game without the designer's post-release involvement. It's a big book, it can stand on it's own.
So, I linked your posts to our BE GM*, and he dismissed your points. We both see the disconnect between what you say and what's in the game. Your words plain don't align with how we've witnessed your mechanics to work at the table. If those were your design goals, sorry, you failed. But the game does work that way and it does constistently produce fun play, regardless. If you want to convince me your game is not fun, you are going to have a hard time with that!
Now, I understand you had your reasons for doing thigns the way they are done. You wouldn't be the first designer out there who includes a flaw in the desing consciously. A flaw is a flaw, still.
I don't want to say your participation in this thread is completely unwelcome, but I don't find it particularly productive as well. It's rather obvious your designer ego is at stake, and it blurs the actual issue.
*) Oh, and it turns out you have actually played a game with our BE GM when you visited Poland. Unfortunately, that sample doesn't make things more clear at all.
Bubble
(What's your name?)
Quote
Filip, my guess is that you're pretty strongly procedural too. As such, you don't have as much fun when you need to rely on color and "what's reasonable" to make a decision. This thread seems to be asking about the lack of hard rules to deal with the situations that come up. If I'm wrong, ignore me from here.
I find your characterization of the two types somewhat off. For instance, I don't think your point about "going with the plot" is connected with the procedural inclination. Also, I find it strange how you make strong concepts and NPC attachments exclusive to "colorists".
Other than that, however, your guess is quite accurate.
Note that I've found 4e fun in combat, but lacking in most other areas, while 3.x proved consistently fun all across the (heh) board. 2e was... a mess. Mouse Guard proved consistently fun, other than the compromise thing. IAWA proved consistently fun. BE proved frustrating in many ways, but some of the people I'm successfully gaming with found it less frustrating.
Quote
This comes back to the beginning of the thread and about the fight with the snake. It might be reasonable to get an injured status after fighting a snake, it might not be. It's pretty dependent on the color and description of the moves that happened during the combat. So, other than feeling bad for your suffering, we can't really offer anything worthwhile to help you. The negotiation issues all depend on what the color of the game was at the time, and this is a detail that we haven't heard about at all. Can you tell us a little more about the color in the situation with the snake or another unsatisfactory negotiation? Let me know if you'd like an example of the sort of thing I mean by color.
Color was adequate.
During the fight, the mice were abused by the snake in all sorts of ways. They were smashed with its coils, smacked with its rattle and, most imoportantly, both mice wound up in its mouth at some point. Injury was clearly an adequate consequence.
However, Injury was not the only adequate consequence. Luke,
When I say I have little trust in you as designer, I mean it. There is no snark here (heh, you haven't seen real Polish snark yet, apparently). There are reasons I'm discussing it here and not on BW forums. We read your forum. We even discussed some threads in our group. We know how dicussions tend to progress there, especially when someone points out an obvious flaw in the design. Also, I've read your posts in other places, I can see some patterns. Frankly, I've been hoping to avoid your participation in this thread. For once, I'd like to discuss a game without the designer's post-release involvement. It's a big book, it can stand on it's own.
So, I linked your posts to our BE GM*, and he dismissed your points. We both see the disconnect between what you say and what's in the game. Your words plain don't align with how we've witnessed your mechanics to work at the table. If those were your design goals, sorry, you failed. But the game does work that way and it does constistently produce fun play, regardless. If you want to convince me your game is not fun, you are going to have a hard time with that!
Now, I understand you had your reasons for doing thigns the way they are done. You wouldn't be the first designer out there who includes a flaw in the desing intentionally. A flaw is a flaw, still.
I don't want to say your participation in this thread is unwelcome, but I don't find it particularly productive. It's rather obvious your designer ego is at stake, and it blurs the actual issue.
*) Oh, and it turns out you have actually played a game with our BE GM when you visited Poland. Still, it doesn't make things more clear at all.
Bubble
(What's your name?)
Quote
Filip, my guess is that you're pretty strongly procedural too. As such, you don't have as much fun when you need to rely on color and "what's reasonable" to make a decision. This thread seems to be asking about the lack of hard rules to deal with the situations that come up. If I'm wrong, ignore me from here.
I find your characterization of the two types somewhat off. For instance, I don't think your point about "going with the plot" is connected with the procedural inclination. Also, I find it strange how you make strong concepts and NPC attachments exclusive to "colorists".
Other than that, however, your guess is quite accurate.
Note that I've found 4e fun in combat, but lacking in most other areas, while 3.5 proved consistently fun all across the (heh) board. Mouse Guard proved consistently fun, other than the compromise thing. IAWA proved consistently fun. BE proved frustrating in many ways to me, but some of the people I'm successfully and regularly gaming with found it less frustrating (which is still frustrating, but they seem better at gritting their teeth).
Quote
This comes back to the beginning of the thread and about the fight with the snake. It might be reasonable to get an injured status after fighting a snake, it might not be. It's pretty dependent on the color and description of the moves that happened during the combat. So, other than feeling bad for your suffering, we can't really offer anything worthwhile to help you. The negotiation issues all depend on what the color of the game was at the time, and this is a detail that we haven't heard about at all. Can you tell us a little more about the color in the situation with the snake or another unsatisfactory negotiation? Let me know if you'd like an example of the sort of thing I mean by color.
Color was adequate.
During the fight, the mice were abused by the snake in all sorts of ways. They were smashed with its coils, smacked with its rattle and, most importantly, both mice wound up in its mouth at some point. Injury was clearly an adequate consequence.
However, Injury was not the only adequate consequence. Still, I've said it upthread, and it's worth reapeating. Fiction is a flexible beast.
Filip Luszczyk:
Oops! I didn't notice the text got pasted twice. I curse the lack of the edit function.
The last line got cut off in the first copy and it's easy to miss that, so I'll repeat it just in case:
Quote
However, Injury was not the only adequate consequence. Still, I've said it upthread, and it's worth reapeating. Fiction is a flexible beast.
CedricP:
From reading the original post. Filip dont want to discuss about if compromises are a flaw or not, he already made is mind on the subject.
He asked for a hack for mouse guard to remove compromises or to find a more specific way to aply conditions without having negotiate.
Why simply removing compromises or negotiation was not a option for your group? You could simply say that you alway fully win your stakes/intentions when you win a conflict with DoW, Fight, etc... even when you win with only one remaining point of disposition? So if you loose the fight even by only one point, one the mouse get eaten by the snake, this is more radical but maybe more interesting for you. And if you win by only one point, you win wihout compromise. Maybe players could exanges conditions for check marks for the player turn.
(For my part, I have no problems with compromises in the burning games, we quickly agree on them and often they drive the fiction in interesting directions.)
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