Role-playing game theory • Hacker News Board

Re: Role-playing game theory

#41

Post by 131012 » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 12:46 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #26

danielvf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great question! So Ron Edwards, who came up with the GNS system, realized that the there were lots of games about winning, and lots of games about simulations, but very few games about drama/stories. He published his ideas wide and far on the internet, made some games, and ran a very influential forum, "the forge". Along with a later spin off forum, story-games.com, a new breed of game designers showed up t…

Also, incidentally, there's a small group of mainstream RPG fans who get absolutely furious about anything resembling GNS or story games, for no reason I've ever been able to determine. (But then Ron Edwards infamously said that traditional/D&D-style RPGs literally cause brain damage, so I suppose there's a lot of defensiveness to go around...)

These systems are a bit alien sometimes and really easy to abuse. So if you have munchkin players around the table who like min/maxing, they are to be avoided (or avoid the min/maxing player).

In Burning Wheel for exemple, there is no game balance. The knight will absolutely destroy the village-grown militia man, even if they have the same amount of "xp". Also, the complete swordplay game system takes hours to learn just to emulate a few seconds of fencing. They chose realism over smooth gameplay.

Re: Role-playing game theory

#42

Post by digi_owl » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #26

danielvf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great question! So Ron Edwards, who came up with the GNS system, realized that the there were lots of games about winning, and lots of games about simulations, but very few games about drama/stories. He published his ideas wide and far on the internet, made some games, and ran a very influential forum, "the forge". Along with a later spin off forum, story-games.com, a new breed of game designers showed up t…

Also, incidentally, there's a small group of mainstream RPG fans who get absolutely furious about anything resembling GNS or story games, for no reason I've ever been able to determine. (But then Ron Edwards infamously said that traditional/D&D-style RPGs literally cause brain damage, so I suppose there's a lot of defensiveness to go around...)

And his disciples going around yakking about throwing away crutches by playing their oh so fancy narrativist games.

More like throwing the baby, the role, out with the bathwater.

All because Ron got pissed because the marketing blurb on the back of a White Wolf game didn't quite deliver what he expected.

Re: Role-playing game theory

#43

Post by danielvf » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

131012 wrote: post #41

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, incidentally, there's a small group of mainstream RPG fans who get absolutely furious about anything resembling GNS or story games, for no reason I've ever been able to determine. (But then Ron Edwards infamously said that traditional/D&D-style RPGs literally cause brain damage, so I suppose there's a lot of defensiveness to go around...)

These systems are a bit alien sometimes and really easy to abuse. So if you have munchkin players around the table who like min/maxing, they are to be avoided (or avoid the min/maxing player). In Burning Wheel for exemple, there is no game balance. The knight will absolutely destroy the village-grown militia man, even if they have the same amount of "xp". Also, the complete swordplay game system takes hours to learn…

Yeah, Burning Wheel is crazy. Later games dropped that over the top simulation side and went all out for story.

Re: Role-playing game theory

#44

Post by skgoa » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:53 AM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #26

danielvf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great question! So Ron Edwards, who came up with the GNS system, realized that the there were lots of games about winning, and lots of games about simulations, but very few games about drama/stories. He published his ideas wide and far on the internet, made some games, and ran a very influential forum, "the forge". Along with a later spin off forum, story-games.com, a new breed of game designers showed up t…

Also, incidentally, there's a small group of mainstream RPG fans who get absolutely furious about anything resembling GNS or story games, for no reason I've ever been able to determine. (But then Ron Edwards infamously said that traditional/D&D-style RPGs literally cause brain damage, so I suppose there's a lot of defensiveness to go around...)

I don't know what their reasons are, but I do have a certain aversion to games that try to force social play in a certain way. E.g. when a board game forces you to be the traitor. I can totally see why people might want the rules of the game be limited to enabling and balancing the players' interactions with the world and letting player improv the actual narrative.