332 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

I can imagine a LARPer finding tabletop games quite limiting with all their rules, though not all tabletop games actually have much in the way of rules - the HERO system, for example.

[Fast Jimmy]

The problem with LARP is the same problem as playing cowboys and Indians as a three year old - you can say "Pow! I killed you!" and the other person can say "Nuh-uh! You missed!"

When everything exists in the mind of those who are participating in the game, these imaginations can be in conflict, very easily. That's why tabletop games exist, to impose rules and order so that someone can't say "I cast a spell to turn everyone into lollipops" and breaking the story for everyone.

Unless, of course, the character went to great lengths to create and learn such a spell and was able to cast it with such a degree of fidelity to overcome other character's saves. In which, case, yes, they could cast such a spell.

Its not a perfect system, but it allows everyone to work in a quantifiable world where you can fuse imagination and a level sense of realism.

[Pasquale1234]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I can imagine a LARPer finding tabletop games quite limiting with all their rules, though not all tabletop games actually have much in the way of rules - the HERO system, for example.

Call me curious - but does the typical LARP outing rely on player skills or somehow interject character skills?  That could be one major difference between them and tabletop games.

ETA:  Looks like Fast Jimmy was addressing my concerns at the same time I was typing out this post.

Modifié par Pasquale1234, 16 août 2012 - 06:46 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

LARPing seems to follow rules very much like of improvisational comedy - you don't step on each others' toes.

I would agree that PvP LARPing would be a disaster. But if the LARPers are working together to create a heroic narrative, then it should be easy to build on each other's ideas without getting in each other's way.

But, again, you'd need everyone to be intent on cooperation, not competition.

[MichaelStuart]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

But myself and others have been playing them the same while players like Sylvius the Mad and Cstaf been forced to play them differently.

Because the games haven't demanded my playstyle, but they have allowed it.

My playstyle is the tabletop playstyle.  I think we can all agree that tabletop roleplaying games are roleplaying games.  So any playstyle that doesn't work there isn't something roleplaying games need to support in order to be counted as roleplaying games.

Does your playstyle, which you used in both DAO and DA2, work in tabletop games?  If not, then it isn't relevant to the discussion of what constitutes roleplaying.

I always found that tabletop games get in the way of the actual role playing

I am intrigued by this statement. I'd like to see the logic behind it.

When I'd played tabletop RPGs (which was a long time ago I'll admit) I found that the stat building and dice rolling part of the game took up the most time.
As I have said before, I belive RPGs are about the actual playing of roles, which all you need for that is some imagination. 

I will admit that it's probably just my dislike of dice and stat games, that was getting the way of me being able to play the roles.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Pasquale1234 wrote...

Call me curious - but does the typical LARP outing rely on player skills or somehow interject character skills?  That could be one major difference between them and tabletop games.

I would think a LARPer makes his character a great swordsman simply by claiming his character is a great swordsman, and then having everyone else accept that as true.

[Sylvius the Mad]

MichaelStuart wrote...

When I'd played tabletop RPGs (which was a long time ago I'll admit) I found that the stat building and dice rolling part of the game took up the most time.
As I have said before, I belive RPGs are about the actual playing of roles, which all you need for that is some imagination. 

I will admit that it's probably just my dislike of dice and stat games, that was getting the way of me being able to play the roles.

I think you needed a GM who ran a less combat-heavy game.

The rules are there merely to give you a framework for your imagination to work within, but not to drive the action or become the focus of gameplay.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 16 août 2012 - 07:18 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

LARPing seems to follow rules very much like of improvisational comedy - you don't step on each others' toes.

I would agree that PvP LARPing would be a disaster. But if the LARPers are working together to create a heroic narrative, then it should be easy to build on each other's ideas without getting in each other's way.

But, again, you'd need everyone to be intent on cooperation, not competition.

Indeed. 

I would lump LARP in with a Role-Playing ACTIVITY... but not a Role Playing GAME. There is no score or set of rules (other than etiquette) for LARP. I think the stand up comedy comparison is a good one... its essentially a form of activity that people participate in, not truly a game with a clear goal or winner. Which an RPG does have.

So I would vote that LARP not be considered an RPG. Which leaves tabletops as our most primitive and pure form.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I don't think tabletop games have a score, either. I've argued many times that roleplaying games are not games.

But that aside, we do appear to be in agreement that tabletop games do permit roleplaying. Therefore, any playstyle that is incompatible with tabletop games is not roleplaying, and we can then discard it from consideration as we build our definition of RPG.

[MichaelStuart]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

LARPing seems to follow rules very much like of improvisational comedy - you don't step on each others' toes.

I would agree that PvP LARPing would be a disaster. But if the LARPers are working together to create a heroic narrative, then it should be easy to build on each other's ideas without getting in each other's way.

But, again, you'd need everyone to be intent on cooperation, not competition.

Indeed. 

I would lump LARP in with a Role-Playing ACTIVITY... but not a Role Playing GAME. There is no score or set of rules (other than etiquette) for LARP. I think the stand up comedy comparison is a good one... its essentially a form of activity that people participate in, not truly a game with a clear goal or winner. Which an RPG does have.

So I would vote that LARP not be considered an RPG. Which leaves tabletops as our most primitive and pure form.

To me games are about having fun, sport is about wining and losing. Once rules start being the focus of any activity, thats when the fun stops.

[Fast Jimmy]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

When I'd played tabletop RPGs (which was a long time ago I'll admit) I found that the stat building and dice rolling part of the game took up the most time.
As I have said before, I belive RPGs are about the actual playing of roles, which all you need for that is some imagination. 

I will admit that it's probably just my dislike of dice and stat games, that was getting the way of me being able to play the roles.

I think you needed a GM who ran a less combat-heavy game.

The rules are there merely to give you a framework for your imagination to work within, but to drive the action or become the focus of gameplay.

Agreed. I had some wonderful DMs when I was younger. I undertook a solo mission of a thief entering a military fortress and was able to acquire a disguise in along with rough maps of the architecture, break in, assinate my target, rob the royal treasury of several notes worth of platinum rods (worth a 5 foot rod by a 5 foot rod by a 5 foot rod amount of platinum, each), save a hostage, escape a fortress' worth of guards coming after me and only killing two people (one being my target), engaging in combat with only one of them, and rolling the dice over the course of a two hour adventure MAYBE six times. 

The choices given didn't really hinge on constant dice rolling. And pitched combat (when it did happen) was usually dynamic enough that it was broken up by events, so you were just slogging forever against a giant HP pool... unlike in certain cRPGs recently.

[Fast Jimmy]

MichaelStuart wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

LARPing seems to follow rules very much like of improvisational comedy - you don't step on each others' toes.

I would agree that PvP LARPing would be a disaster. But if the LARPers are working together to create a heroic narrative, then it should be easy to build on each other's ideas without getting in each other's way.

But, again, you'd need everyone to be intent on cooperation, not competition.

Indeed. 

I would lump LARP in with a Role-Playing ACTIVITY... but not a Role Playing GAME. There is no score or set of rules (other than etiquette) for LARP. I think the stand up comedy comparison is a good one... its essentially a form of activity that people participate in, not truly a game with a clear goal or winner. Which an RPG does have.

So I would vote that LARP not be considered an RPG. Which leaves tabletops as our most primitive and pure form.

To me games are about having fun, sport is about wining and losing. Once rules start being the focus of any activity, thats when the fun stops.

If only there were a Calvinball RPG...

[jillabender]

Fast Jimmy wrote…

If only there were a Calvinball RPG...

I'd totally play it!

Modifié par jillabender, 16 août 2012 - 07:05 .

[tklivory]

jillabender wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote…

If only there were a Calvinball RPG...

I'd totally play it!

At least the rulebook would be an easy read! 

[Sylvius the Mad]

MichaelStuart wrote...

To me games are about having fun, sport is about wining and losing. Once rules start being the focus of any activity, thats when the fun stops.

I think your views are entirely compatible with tabletop roleplaying.  You just had a bad group.

That's the danger of any multiplayer game, and it's  partly why I don't participate in multiplayer games.

[Arthur Cousland]

"That's why tabletop games exist, to impose rules and order so that someone can't say "I cast a spell to turn everyone into lollipops" and breaking the story for everyone."

That would be an interesting spell.  You could then give those lollipops to children and have your enemies be licked to non-existence.  Mmmm...

[Mr Fixit]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I think your views are entirely compatible with tabletop roleplaying.  You just had a bad group.

That's the danger of any multiplayer game, and it's  partly why I don't participate in multiplayer games.

You know what they say about love... :innocent:

[TonberryFeye]

I agree wholeheartedly on the idea that stats and rules are something that 'get in the way' of an RPG.

One of the reasons I really liked the 5th Edition of D&D, based on the playtest material I obtained, was that everything was simplified down to a very basic, but flexible level. Just about any conceivable situation is allowed by the application of the following rules:

1) Find the stat that looks like it fits.
2) Determine advantage / disadvantage.
3) Decide difficulty.
4) Make the guy roll dice.

So, for example, in 3.5 I might have said to the DM "I want to shoulder-barge that guy off a cliff!" The DM would look and say "Okay, you need to take a DC10 Balance check because of the ice and snow, then he gets an attack of opportunity, then you make an opposed strength roll..." and we then spend half an hour staring blankly at him whilst he looks up the obscure mechanics.

In the playtest, that would be "Okay, DC20 Strength Roll with Disadvantage." All I need to know there is that "Disadvantage" means "roll twice and apply the lowest result."

Suddenly, a whole new world of options opens up. Want to hit every enemy with a single swing? Every attack gets Disadvantage and a hit penalty! Want to headbutt the guy you're grappling? Unarmed Attack with Advantage because you're bigger than him. Want to sprint along the roof of a collapsing building and polevault onto the deck of a fleeing ship? DC30 dex check!

So, how does this apply to Dragon Age? Well, unfortunately, it doesn't apply favourably. You see, videogames are always vastly more restrictive than their tabletop brethren. The Warden may choose to kill the bartender, befriend him or pick his pocket, but he can never decide to grab him and smack his face into a table. To program every conceivable outcome to every possible situation is a logistical nightmare, and would result in a game that is either ten minutes long, or takes fifty years to code.

As such, players will often (particularly in secondary playthroughs) quickly begin to view their party as a collection stats and abilities, and thus stop roleplaying and start 'rollplaying'.

There are some ways you can potentially change that. One off the top of my head would be to remove the levelling system in favour of a 'training' system. All the numerical stats would be hidden from the player, but they would still level up as normal. Levelling would be done by 'focus', which is set at a training centre or the party camp. For example, you could focus on agility (which raises Dex) or Magic (which raises Intelligence, or whatever you casting stat is) or physical power, etc.

Skills are likewise 'unlocked' not by simply leveling, but by training. The game would establish early on that the character is learning new skills, and has the option to train these skills at various towns. If the player has a free skill slot, and meets the prerequesits (ie: knows the other skills in the chain) then he can learn the skill. If not, the trainer will make an excuse along the lines of "You still need more practice."

If you felt really bold, you could give the player the majority of his class abilities from the start of the game, but as 'untrained' abilities; ones he has yet to properly master. They can be used before they've been mastered, but are weak and unreliable, making them next to worthless. Repeated use of an untrained skill may even help it level up, allowing players to acquire skills on the fly (the "Tome of skill" style items fit well into this).

On that above note on the Tomes, here's a potential execution:

*Hawke collects and uses a Tome. The next time he enters camp, the following occurs.*
AVELINE: "I see you found a book on some sparring moves. Want to try them out?"
HAWKE: "Good idea. I think I can work some of these into my old moves..."

The player is then prompted to pick a skill to train, and that skill will level up. If the skill is invalid, instead of being told "lol no" you can get a short cutscene of Hawke being put on his arse...

*Hawke is parried, tripped and faceplanted by Aveline.*
HAWKE: I don't think that's going to work, do you?
AVELINE: Not in the least. Maybe we should try something else?

Just a thought really...

[MichaelStuart]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

To me games are about having fun, sport is about wining and losing. Once rules start being the focus of any activity, thats when the fun stops.

I think your views are entirely compatible with tabletop roleplaying.  You just had a bad group.

That's the danger of any multiplayer game, and it's  partly why I don't participate in multiplayer games.

Don't hate the players, hate the game, as the old saying goes.
End of the day if I don't like the way the game's played, it's just going to ruin the rest of the experience.

[Kidd]

MichaelStuart wrote...

Don't hate the players, hate the game, as the old saying goes.
End of the day if I don't like the way the game's played, it's just going to ruin the rest of the experience.

Tabletop is one of those things where the group is almost more important than whatever game you're actually playing. I'd say "hate the game" rarely applies in this case. I've played with some seven or so game masters in my time and each and every one has brought a different kind of experience.

[Fast Jimmy]

TonberryFeye wrote...

I agree wholeheartedly on the idea that stats and rules are something that 'get in the way' of an RPG.

One of the reasons I really liked the 5th Edition of D&D, based on the playtest material I obtained, was that everything was simplified down to a very basic, but flexible level. Just about any conceivable situation is allowed by the application of the following rules:

1) Find the stat that looks like it fits.
2) Determine advantage / disadvantage.
3) Decide difficulty.
4) Make the guy roll dice.

So, for example, in 3.5 I might have said to the DM "I want to shoulder-barge that guy off a cliff!" The DM would look and say "Okay, you need to take a DC10 Balance check because of the ice and snow, then he gets an attack of opportunity, then you make an opposed strength roll..." and we then spend half an hour staring blankly at him whilst he looks up the obscure mechanics.

In the playtest, that would be "Okay, DC20 Strength Roll with Disadvantage." All I need to know there is that "Disadvantage" means "roll twice and apply the lowest result."

Suddenly, a whole new world of options opens up. Want to hit every enemy with a single swing? Every attack gets Disadvantage and a hit penalty! Want to headbutt the guy you're grappling? Unarmed Attack with Advantage because you're bigger than him. Want to sprint along the roof of a collapsing building and polevault onto the deck of a fleeing ship? DC30 dex check!

So, how does this apply to Dragon Age? Well, unfortunately, it doesn't apply favourably. You see, videogames are always vastly more restrictive than their tabletop brethren. The Warden may choose to kill the bartender, befriend him or pick his pocket, but he can never decide to grab him and smack his face into a table. To program every conceivable outcome to every possible situation is a logistical nightmare, and would result in a game that is either ten minutes long, or takes fifty years to code.

As such, players will often (particularly in secondary playthroughs) quickly begin to view their party as a collection stats and abilities, and thus stop roleplaying and start 'rollplaying'.

There are some ways you can potentially change that. One off the top of my head would be to remove the levelling system in favour of a 'training' system. All the numerical stats would be hidden from the player, but they would still level up as normal. Levelling would be done by 'focus', which is set at a training centre or the party camp. For example, you could focus on agility (which raises Dex) or Magic (which raises Intelligence, or whatever you casting stat is) or physical power, etc.

Skills are likewise 'unlocked' not by simply leveling, but by training. The game would establish early on that the character is learning new skills, and has the option to train these skills at various towns. If the player has a free skill slot, and meets the prerequesits (ie: knows the other skills in the chain) then he can learn the skill. If not, the trainer will make an excuse along the lines of "You still need more practice."

If you felt really bold, you could give the player the majority of his class abilities from the start of the game, but as 'untrained' abilities; ones he has yet to properly master. They can be used before they've been mastered, but are weak and unreliable, making them next to worthless. Repeated use of an untrained skill may even help it level up, allowing players to acquire skills on the fly (the "Tome of skill" style items fit well into this).

On that above note on the Tomes, here's a potential execution:

*Hawke collects and uses a Tome. The next time he enters camp, the following occurs.*
AVELINE: "I see you found a book on some sparring moves. Want to try them out?"
HAWKE: "Good idea. I think I can work some of these into my old moves..."

The player is then prompted to pick a skill to train, and that skill will level up. If the skill is invalid, instead of being told "lol no" you can get a short cutscene of Hawke being put on his arse...

*Hawke is parried, tripped and faceplanted by Aveline.*
HAWKE: I don't think that's going to work, do you?
AVELINE: Not in the least. Maybe we should try something else?

Just a thought really...

I like this thought, but it, in no way, removes the "roll-playing", it just hides it. Which is what video games do best. When you pick a target in DA:O, or an enemy shoots an arrow at you, you don't stop and roll the dice. The computer does all of that for you. So having a training system is just a different approach to how you level up your numbers, it doesn't remove them at all. 

If you dislike putting X attribute points in Vitality and Y points in Strengrh every level up, but would instead prefer a behind-the-scenes numbers game that involves a more intuitive training system like what you described, that's cool. But I don't think it inherently gets rid of numbers. Also, you would have to have a way to keep track of what you've trained, otherwise you are stuck memorizing every thing you've done.

So you can train with 10 tomes and have four strength trainings, two agility trainings, two intelligence trainings, one sword training and one shield training... that still would all need to be shown in a menu. And wouldn't be ALL too different than having a set strength/agility/intelligence/sword skill/shield skill. Simplified, sure. But it wouldn't get rid of things, like MichaelStuart is always advocating.

Again, not knocking the system (it sounds like it has much more in-game congruency than magically "I killed my 200th enemy by stabbing it with a sword... I'm going to put poiints into Magic now!"), but I'm not sure it really addresses the problem you outline in your first paragraph.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I like this thought, but it, in no way, removes the "roll-playing", it just hides it. Which is what video games do best.

That's the thing that's most wrong with video games.

The player should be allowed to know the rules of the universe in which his character resides.

Again, not knocking the system (it sounds like it has much more in-game congruency than magically "I killed my 200th enemy by stabbing it with a sword... I'm going to put poiints into Magic now!"), but I'm not sure it really addresses the problem you outline in your first paragraph.

I don't think the incongruity even exists.  Levelling up is and always will be an abstraction of learning.  COuld it be done better?  Yes.  Is it necessary in a roleplaying game?  No.  But it also isn't inherently bad.

By stabbing enemies with a sword, you learn things.  Who knows what is it you're learning?  But somewhere, in your downtime, you're studying and practising magic.  Maybe your experience with a sword is relevant.  Maybe it isn't.  As long as the game doesn't draw explicit attention to the nature of the relationship, the nature of the relationship doesn't matter.

[MichaelStuart]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I like this thought, but it, in no way, removes the "roll-playing", it just hides it. Which is what video games do best.

That's the thing that's most wrong with video games.

The player should be allowed to know the rules of the universe in which his character resides.

Again, not knocking the system (it sounds like it has much more in-game congruency than magically "I killed my 200th enemy by stabbing it with a sword... I'm going to put poiints into Magic now!"), but I'm not sure it really addresses the problem you outline in your first paragraph.

I don't think the incongruity even exists.  Levelling up is and always will be an abstraction of learning.  COuld it be done better?  Yes.  Is it necessary in a roleplaying game?  No.  But it also isn't inherently bad.

By stabbing enemies with a sword, you learn things.  Who knows what is it you're learning?  But somewhere, in your downtime, you're studying and practising magic.  Maybe your experience with a sword is relevant.  Maybe it isn't.  As long as the game doesn't draw explicit attention to the nature of the relationship, the nature of the relationship doesn't matter.

It's hard not to draw attention, when alot of RPGs require you level up to porceed.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Having to level-up doesn't explain how levelling up works, just what it does.

Most people understand what gravity is and what it does. But vastly fewer understand how it works. How do massive objects attract each other? That we see constantly see evidence that they do throughout our lives tells us nothing about the mechanism by which gravity functions.

So while the player can see that killing things with a sword allows his character to assign new skill points wherever he would like, the mechanism by which this process functions isn't ever explained. As such, it cannot be incongruous.

[MichaelStuart]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Having to level-up doesn't explain how levelling up works, just what it does.

Most people understand what gravity is and what it does. But vastly fewer understand how it works. How do massive objects attract each other? That we see constantly see evidence that they do throughout our lives tells us nothing about the mechanism by which gravity functions.

So while the player can see that killing things with a sword allows his character to assign new skill points wherever he would like, the mechanism by which this process functions isn't ever explained. As such, it cannot be incongruous.

I have never really wondered how gravity works, I've mostly wondered why we even need it.

Leveling always seems to add more problems than advantages