What's a Good Gamist Game?
Ron Edwards:
Hi,
I think you're answering really well. At the risk of making our replies seem like an endless interrogation, I'll have a much better idea of your preferences with one last question:
In what way are you OK with losing?
Or slightly differently, what ways to lose are not fun?
As an example, when I'm playing in the way you described in the last post, I'm OK with losing due to a statistically unlikely but possible dice outcome. If it's clear to me and everyone that I made the right decision at the right time, for the best chance, and then the dice went ahead and said, "high chance isn't always going to happen," then I might curse blasphemously and appeal to heaven to witness this horrible betrayal by the dice ... but you know, I get the credit for playing well, and we all accept that it doesn't always work out.
I'm not OK with losing because someone else had the perfect combination of options which yielded no such chance of losing on their part. I despise combo-lockdowns that not even a good roll can beat. Nor am I OK with losing because someone else had the option to introduce something utterly and completely absent in the fiction up until that moment.
I've found that there are people with the opposite preferences from mine - they live for the moment when their carefully-crafted combo proves literally unbeatable, or they take pleasure in being able to manipulate the fiction one step ahead of their opponents. In a game where a bad roll can upset their plans, these people say "That sucks!" in a very different way than I might, upon that event - I'm groaning but laughing, ready to say "That's life," whereas they had literally no fun and at best are ready to step away from the game.
So I'd really prefer Tunnels & Trolls whereas the other players I'm thinking of would prefer ... well, I don't know, someone else can provide an example for them.
You don't have to map your preferences directly in comparison to mine. I provided the above descriptions to show you how I'd answer my questions, and you can use whatever variables or details of play you'd like.
Best, Ron
Ghostwheel:
3d6 over d20
Sorry about not replying sooner, had a hectic weekend.
As far as the examples you gave are concerned, I'm fine with "losing" to the dice even when I did everything wrong occasionally. I'm a great believer that statistically the average will eventually come out, and it just means that if the system is tight enough and works well mathematically that it won't result in something that leads to Very Bad News (like a TPK or something similar). That's actually why I prefer 3d6 over the traditional d20--small bonuses that come from tactics make a much bigger impact there because the RNG is so much smaller, tighter, and weighted towards the middle.
And yes, I also dislike lockdown--that's one of the things I dislike about 3.5, the power of wizards and similar spellcasters to decide the outcome of an encounter through a single action that effectively locks down enemies (blind being an example of something that's effectively lockdown). I'm fine with the last part though, losing because someone else has an option, as long as the option was decided beforehand and is part of the balanced game. (A martial artist who was horribly weak in the past going super saiyan or something because it was included as part of his class or whatever I could work with, for example.)
One way that I enjoy losing is temporarily. I love winning by the skin of my teeth, knowing in the end that it was because of my choices and tactics that I won, because I played intelligently and it lead to a good outcome. I love that rush of adrenaline as I see the possibility of losing permanently looming closer, but pulling out the win not because of DM fiat or pure random chance, but because I weighed the dice more in my favor due to my choices. I enjoy having a flow to the battle, where first one side has the advantage and then the other, the battle shifting from one side to the other. Fights like that are very fun for me, even if I'm temporarily losing half the time.
However, feeling useless and/or locked down isn't fun. Winning without any sort of challenge isn't fun either, and even though I'd won, I'd feel like it had been a loss. Permanently dying (losing?) isn't fun either, since in that case I'd lose all the time, effort, and attachment I'd developed towards a character--though automatically ressurecting or the like should stay in video games in my opinion, and doesn't feel like it fits well in the realm of RPGs (or it takes away some of the thrill and risk).
Anything else I could add to give you a better feel for the game I'm searching for?
Ghostwheel:
Quote from: Ghostwheel on April 30, 2012, 01:05:56 PM
3d6 over d20
Whoops, that was supposed to be a note to get my thoughts in order and give me a reminder of how to structure my post, but I can't see an edit button with which to remove it... :-/
Willow:
Ghostwheel, I have a very strong passion for gamist play, and my game of choice in this regard is 4th Edition D&D. (At one point I was running two games a week and playing in one.) I'd also be interested in hearing what you felt D&D 4th failed at implementing. However, some of the things you mention disliking, such as status locks from spells, are highly minimized in 4th edition.
I'm personally of the opinion that we haven't really begun to master gamist rpg design; it's something everyone knows how to do, but no one really knows how to do well. D&D is the cutting edge of gamist play with lots of crunchy bits. All the other good gamist designs I know are based on much more streamlined systems, such as Agon and Beast Hunters.
Ghostwheel:
Some of my problems with D&D 4e:
Abilities feel very standardized from what I've played (I've only been in 4-5 games thus far, though one or two only lasted a few sessions), so people feel very similar.Battles feel like they last too long. Battles in my opinion should last 4-8 rounds, it feels like they last 10-20 rounds in 4e which can easily lead to boredom.Battles seem to follow the same template almost every time. First few rounds you use encounter powers, after that you spam your at-wills until the end of the battle, which gets boring.Tied to the last one, it's impossible to regain powers with actions (or some other way) to create tactical options with more depth.The RNG is still based around a d20, so even if you get an advantage like moving just into position to get combat advantage, for many characters it doesn't make a difference.Damage-wise, some characters feel much more powerful than others, even when they're supposed to A. fill the same role, and B. the less-damaging characters lack anything extra (like a status effect) to make them better.Newbie traps still exist, things that look cool but are in fact a waste of resources which newbies take and don't make them any better.There are many monsters that don't have a specific defense which is low enough to make much of a difference on a d20 RNG.Lack of customizability of classes and multiclassing.Scaling ability scores to the point where defenses can fall off the RNG on one side or another.Lack of resource management which creates a lack of options in risk vs. rewardThere being enough small bonuses that you can rack up in various ways that lead to falling off the RNG.Races still shoehorn classes into them if you want to be viable.The 15-minute workday still being present in 2 aspects - daily powers, and healing surges. Once someone begins to run out of either, they call a halt to rest.
Hrmmm... that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Like I said, I very much like many of their design principles, but the way they implemented/executed them just completely turned me off to the system for the most part.
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