Roll-Playing Versus Roleplaying
Rafu:
Quote from: InkMeister on August 25, 2010, 10:44:03 PM
I was a little disappointed. I just acted out my negotiation in character - why do I have to roll? Why can't the GM act out the caravan leader's part, and come to a conclusion?
That's actually a loaded question.
Either methods are equally valid (and, I contend, there are other methods as well, some of them more valid, but well...).
The problem, here, is the disagreement about which method to use.
Since the kind of ruleset Runequest (which one, by the way?) is doesn't explicitly rule on such matter, it all comes down to "play style". You need to speak to your fellow players, including of course the one player who is game-mastering, and sort out whatever problems you have, until you develop a play-style which is satisfactory for everyone. This is going to be an entirely social thing: clarifying the currently blurry social contract of your ongoing game, basically.
Note that, this being a real-life negotiation, you'd be better advised not to come at it with a prejudice that one play-style or the other be inherently superior. It may well be that you are the only dissatisfied one, while everybody else likes how they're playing the game a lot.
......
As for the game design angle, those of you who are designing their own games should rather, in my opinion, avoid this issue entirely by disregarding Fortune-at-the-end Task Resolution in favor of more current techniques... like the sort of Fortune-in-the-middle Conflict Resolution you get in an overwhelming number of modern classics such as Primetime Adventures or The Shadow of Yesterday/Solar System, just to drop a few big names. Also, and maybe more importantly, clearly explain in your text how you expect players to play your game -- using extensive play examples and explicit play-style tips as well as integrating the desired "style" right into your mechanics. Finally, if something can be done more than one way, say so.
Caldis:
Quote from: InkMeister on August 25, 2010, 10:44:03 PM
I was a little disappointed. I just acted out my negotiation in character - why do I have to roll? Why can't the GM act out the caravan leader's part, and come to a conclusion? I rolled, and succeeded, but I was still disappointed. I would rather have just roleplayed the whole thing, even if it was just a few sentences of dialogue, and NOT succeeded, than roll and leave all to chance.
I could be way off on this and turning the discussion on it's ear but here is my take on the situation, feel free to take it as wild rambling of a mad man if it doesnt really relate.
I think the dice rolling is a minor issue and the real problem here is the story rails and the GM's treating the Caravan leader NPC as a tool to advance the story and not a character with actual motivations and goals. That's why he had you roll the dice he didnt know or wasnt prepared to take on the role of the caravan leader so he left it up to a skill check. The game didnt feel real because he ignored the fictional situation and turned to some dice to see what happened. This is a problem in many games with or without dice. I had problems with AD&D back in the day especially at high level because of all the hit points and the need to whittle them down which made describing combats incredibly boring.
Have you played Dogs in the Vineyard? It has a resolution system that could make your characters stand off with the caravan leader interesting and it uses dice to do it. No skill system or negotiation checks but you roll dice based on appropriate traits like say the leader was cheap and is very stingy with his money he could have bonus dice for that, you dice off and if he wins you dont get any money out of him though you can escalate to physical action where you might win and he'll cave in. This is a dice system that works well when you focus on the fiction and treat the characters as real beings. It suffers a similar problem though if you dont respect the characters or the situation and instead focus on winning the situation and escalate no matter what ramifications it has on the fiction.
masqueradeball:
Inkmeister, he doesn't need to use dice, but I think making rulings based off a public guideline (when your D20 hits the table and everyone can see it shows an 18, everyone at the table has some expectation of what that means) is different from just making a ruling. I'm all for diceless roleplay, and I think it can work quite well, but very few games really give you a good framework for doing this (Amber is the only example of something that does, and even that very long book about diceless roleplaying fails to work 100% of the time).
Ron Edwards:
Hi everyone,
I suggest great care in distinguishing between (i) a given technique on principle and (ii) a given technique as one person has experienced it to date. Adam's points are really important to keep this thread from becoming a mess of "well I think's" based on various different contexts.
I also suggest that the term "diceless" is so debased at this point as to mean practically anything, and that we'd do well to use a more specific term for the exact thing being discussed. For example, Nolan, the resolution techniques in Amber are highly quantified and therefore have a lot more in common with standard dice-based techniques than either do with the unconstructed, descriptive-term only techniques that Nick wants to discuss.
Best, Ron
Callan S.:
Hello Nick
Quote
Why can't the GM act out the caravan leader's part, and come to a conclusion?
Equally why can't it just result in a dice roll?
Why would your 'why can't it' come ahead of his 'why can't it'?
The game you've sat down to play textually says the GM makes this call. And if your not willing to adhere to the text that's supposed to co-ordinate how all participants do things during the activity (so they are doing the same thing), why would anyone adhere to your notion of the GM acting out the caravan leaders part, when it comes down to it?
Writing a new game system (or tacking house rules onto D&D) where the text that co-ordinates everyone says to act out the caravan leader, that makes practical sense to me. But sitting there arguing against the current co-ordination text - in practical terms that doesn't work out. Indeed, it just you being disruptive to people who are all trying to do the same thing the text describes.
And I totally disagree with Adam's overview - it makes the classic mistake, in my estimate, of shooting the messenger/the GM.
Quote
Messed up: The GM making the player roll and then making up whatever result suits him.
Messed up: Rolling constantly for stuff that doesn't matter.
Messed up: The GM feeding you information a bit at a time, on his own schedule, to control "the story."
The ruleset grants the GM power to do all this - so do we blame the ruleset when the GM, shock horror, actually uses the power granted to him by the rules you knew were there and still sat down to? No, we blame the GM, when he's just the messenger. And because people keep blaming the GM, they don't write systems that stop granting the GM all this power to begin with. You even have Adam calling the GM untrustworthy for just playing the (crappy) rules as they are. It's like calling someone untrustworthy for checking you in chess. Yes, the GM has unlimited resources in D&D, so it's much easier for him to do than check mating in chess is. So why are we writing games which keep repeating D&D's folly on handing him this much power?
One of the hardest things to do is when you think someone else is wrong, is to instead see one of your own practices as actually being wrong. And not wrong by someone elses preferences, but wrong by your own personal standards.
So none of it seems true, of course. But consider this - you can write a ruleset that gives the GM considerably less power/resources/currency/capacity to call for dice rolls. This is definately a true statement.
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