What's with all the hate against narrative focused games? I mean, isn't the point of RPGs to make a collaborative story with some friends? Why are folks freaking out over some systems focusing on that aspect entirely?
Because autism.
Some people don't enjoy narrative games. They enjoy narrative, they just don't like having mechanics and rules for it, because it requires the players to think in a meta way rather than focusing entirely on getting in their characters' heads.
Because of "internet," the message "I do not enjoy this thing" gets translated to "I FUCKING HATE THING."
Autists, mostly.
Plus, people are more likely to shitpost about things they dislike than they are to take the time to write complimentary posts about things they enjoy.
People freaking out over things they're not going to play/watch/consume is the nerdy way.
That said, the more gamey/simulationist games are about due for their own revival, though I think that's been stunted at the moment by the OSR. That's not a complaint, I quite like the OSR, but it's got the three factions all in it in equal measure so a lot of creative energy is going there.
Because children.
For a longer answer: Dark Souls. The children who now fill /tg/ were raised thinking Dark Souls is fantasy, and so we are flooded with people who want a gamist approach to RPGs.
>>47556464
They don't. Stop thinking /tg/ speaks for anyone. /tg/ doesn't even speak for itself most of the time.
Because Narrativist Games are redundant.
All RPGs should do their best to support a story while still being mechanically interesting and fun to play.
A system that neglects one of the sides fails its purpose.
>>47556551
>All RPGs should do their best to support a story
And yet until recently almost none of them explicitly did. Even if one accepts at face value your argument that RPGs "should" do that (and you said nothing to support that claim), for the longest time, at BEST games would leave it unspoken that you had to force that aspect into them, or even worse just assumed, like you did, that it was something that was supposed to happen naturally as a consequence of play without examining whether the game actually did anything to make that happen.
So no, they're not "redundant," since what they aimed to do wasn't being done before.
>>47556525
Isn't DS from this decade?
Also what dark souls is if not fantasy?
>>47556504
You haven't seen Pundit's rants about how the story game "swine" are trying to take over and destroy the hobby with their shitty books pretending to be games.
Yes, I know it's contradictory that they would take over the industry with a shitty product. He doesn't seem to care as long as he can keep nursing his persecution conspiracy complex.
>>47556623
That stands and falls entirely with the skillof your GM. Mine is pretty badass with this stuff so I'm one of the lucky few.
>>47556525
Except Dark Souls is fantasy. Fantasy with gothic and lovecraftian aesthetics baked in, but fantasy all the same; what with the whole HERO WHO SAVES THE WORLD FROM THE EVER-RETURNING DARKNESS plotline and all.
>>47557500
>lovecraftian aesthetics
So it's a meme game, good to know.
>>47557500
>hero
>saves the world
>from the darkness
Somebody never played Dark Souls, I see.
>>47556525
People hated that shit on /tg/ before Dark Souls was a thing.
>>47557566
That is one way to look at Frampt's ending, yes. You DO save the world heroically, if only for a period a time.
The other ending is pretty much "fuck this shit and become Übermensch", which can be translated into "generic Evil ending".
>>47556464
Because 'narrative focused' is often used to thinly veil a garbage ruleset.
You can have a narrative based game with decent rules. But 'narrative' is being used as an excuse to defend a shitty game. Thats the problem.
>>47557958
>The other ending is pretty much "fuck the gods and become Übermensch along with the rest of humanity", which can be translated into "best ending".
FTFY
>>47556464
Because N-G-S is a heavily flawed theory
>>47556464
TheRPGPundit and Zak S. decided to pile their legion of autists upon any game their god emperors declared "swine games" or narrative mechanics that supposedly are a part of an SJW conspiracy to destroy the tabletop genre.
In reality, the kiddos are just buttmad that some folks got their college degrees and want to play something more than murderhobos swinging their swords around.
>>47558054
http://whitehall-paraindustries.blogspot.com/2009/09/flaws-of-gns-part-i-appeal.html?m=1
>>47558022
that the thing I never understood with dark soul, if you let the flame fade, doesn't everyone become hollow and "live" in a state of perpetual night were everything eventually die and decay? how is that a win?
>why is there hate about [subject] on the internet?
Narrative-driven games are great, OP.
>>47558101
I find it hilarious because Zak S is always going on about expressing setting through rules. That is precisely what a narrative game should be doing, rules for developing narrative.
>>47556464
No, the point of RPGs is to WIN. To feel supreme ecstasy knowing that the GM did everything he could to kill your character, but that you were so smart and so powerful that he was powerless before you.
Easy mode is for babies, so you must demand of your GM that every session is ultra-hardcore "gritty" session and have a 99% chance of killing your character. At the same the GM must never let your character die, because that means he's incompetent and jealous of you. He should present a Real Challenge(tm) that you happen to always win, which is totally different from letting you win.
Narrative games are simple and place everyone on even ground, so there's no way to prove that you're more awesome than all the scrubs. Which means the game is LYING, and letting the scrubs CHEAT by PRETENDING they can do as much as you.
And then there's this stupid "detachment" stuff. In a REAL game when the GM says "Knarf Bloodreaper kills the dragon", he means "Frank kills the dragon". Why the fuck would I care that Knarf killed a dragon if I'm not Knarf?I know too many guys like this.
>>47558383
And maybe if Zak S. got himself an education beyond what he picks up trying to into the game design community, he'd understand the inherent irony of his rhetoric.
>>47558383
I don't know, I think he's been very clear on why he doesn't like what the indie scene produces.
'Narrative' is a word that could mean absolutely anything to anyone. You could construe any RPG to be a narrative game.
>>47556464
Mostly just a fringe group that are afraid to perform their characters. Lots of people who roleplay prefer the "boardgame" approach where they run their characters but don't perform them as improvisational theater. But a small number of people are phobic to the point that they freak out, and hate even when others do it because autism. That small group generates most of the hate.
Also in the 90s VtM was very big, and some vampire players turned into insufferable dicks about much collaborative storytelling. So there's also some lingering butt hurt from that.
>>47556504
this
>>47556525
This.
>>47557500
>>47556644
>Dark Souls isn't fantasy??
This is no forum for old men.
>>47558346
>>47557500
>>47558346
there was a pretty cool theory going around that Dark Souls 2-3 happen no matter what ending you pick in the preceeding game.
If you pick fire, then there is another age of light before it fades again towards darkness. If you pick darkness there is an age of darkness, that lasts until something sparks another flame, which in time fades.
Basically, the struggle will never end, what you accomplish is your own moment of defiance. It's a little nietzschian in that way
>>47556504
/thread
>>47556525
>people prefer gamist approaches because Dark Souls.
What?
>RPGs to make a collaborative story with some friends
No
I don't know if there's a hate movement against narrative focused games, but I particularly don't like them. It's too meta and at the end, if I want to write a story with my friends, I just go and write a story with my friends. Three entities tell the story in a RPG game: the players, the DM and the dice.
>>47558642
>Also in the 90s VtM was very big, and some vampire players turned into insufferable dicks about much collaborative storytelling.
Which is hilarious, since oWoD was a crunchy superhero game with a bunch of stuff in the books about "muh story" that wasn't in any way backed up by the rules.
Hell, the rules were often diametrically opposed to the kind of story each game was supposed to tell.
>>47559136
that depends on how you want to tell the story, and how much you want it to be about a story.
You can go towards the warhammer quest decent style, where the characters don't have much decision making agency as to what problems to solve, they're character is only in how they solve the presented problems, and might be pretty restricted in what they can do to solve those problems.
You can get a more standard D&D, CoC, etc game where the GM basically controls the entire setting, and the PCs can only control their characters actions, and the intereaction between those two is determined by the dice.
Then you can get a more cooperative narrative, where the players have more ability to declare things about the setting, and the GM can declare things about the PCs (the good versions of these games have a refusal mechanic built in of course). The dice might determine the actions within this cooperative story/setting, or who is allowed to make those declarations.
This can go as far as games like Houses of the Blooded, where the GM can sit back and let the players develop the full story for a considerable amount of time.
I like them, and I'd like more of those ideas in traditional systems in a way that improves the game, but too much of it is constrained improv trash that just isn't conductive to fun.
In spite of wanting some bits crossing over into the more traditional games, narrativists need to fuck off when they decry those games working as intended while they can't even do basic statistics. I like the coherent systematic ecosystems, but the minutiae are often crap or just not there at all.
>>47559258
Or further, in games like Fiasco, where there isn't a GM at all.
>>47559332
true, but fiasco is fairly limited by the constraints of the game itself, which kinda stands in for the GM.
To give an example of who HotB gives the players control, when a player rolls to see if they know something about a NPC, their success don't indicated what the GM (or referee as he's called) tells the player about the NPC.
Rather it determines how much the PLAYER can say about the NPC, the GM will fill in gaps after.
>>47559405
To give an example
A player says their intent is "To learn the NPCs personality" by asking questions of others.
The GM says "roll elk" (the name had great stat names). Modifies come in, and the player has a pool of 6 dice. He decides to roll 4 to make success likely, and has 2 'wagers'
He succeeds and has 'privilage' ie he can say 'yes' or 'no' to the question of if the intent succeeds, and 2 wagers, so two ANDS (or in some cases BUTS or similiar things).
The player chooses YES. He learns something.
AND that the NPC is greedy
And that he is lecherous.
The GM might though in an extra bit of info because the 'yes' didn't provide much on it's own.
Or the player chooses NO. He finds nothing about the NPC personality
BECAUSE the NPC is newly arrived in the area
BUT he learns that the NPC is an agent of Duke so and so.
If NPC has been spreading lies about himself it might be an opposed roll, with both players getting a pool and wagers.
Even the loser of the opposed role gets to keep half his wagers (round up) if he still gets a basic success.
So you could get
GM wins: but still chooses yes
As winner he gets first wager adding the first thing the Player finds out
The player gets his wager AND
The GM responds with a second and.
As the drama ramps up so do the dice pools, so you can get 6+ total wagers.
>>47556464
Well to be honest I enjoy narrative games.
I just have a tendency to dislike some of the people who play them.
I may not be the person you are addressing though.
>>47559567
This sounds silly. I'm sorry but why? What's the point? Is it better if we create the story instead of unveiling it? Why is having control over the story better than reacting to world around you created by another player, the GM? There's no sense of wonder in that. There's no G in those RPGs.
I can have fun with games like that once in a while, but are there people that only play narrative rpgs?
>>47556525
The Dark Souls players I know only play freeform and rules light rpgs.
So... I don't get what you are saying?
>>47559719
I didn't understand it either.
>>47559682
It lessens the responsibility of the gm for giving the players what they want or giving them advantages to what they can leverage without all the winking and nudging. Then you go back and play it. I'm not even that anon and I can appreciate mechanizing preexisting social games that already exist in the context of that style of play.
While it has some snags, I actually prefer a more collaborative game that doesn't go all the way into roundrobin storytelling. I'm not even especially fond of the depths of narrative games as opposed to most of the community, but yeah, there are tons of people who don't touch crunchy crawly shit.
>>47559682
>>47559682
not better, different.
And HotB is an extreme example, but there is a lot of reacting to the world, because one player will create and the other will respond. GM sets the stage, the play develops off of everyone more like an improve traup, but with a basic mechanic structure to give it a bit more support than a true free form game. It's less 'gamist' than some, but still very much a game.
>>47556464
Because some people enjoy the game aspect of role-playing games and the best way of expressing that on the internet is disliking systems that downplay that aspect.
>>47559830
I get bored with those games pretty fast. That's why I rank them as 'worse', I guess.
>>47559822
Yeah, but when you separate GM and players and set rules straight to your world, it's more immersive than just sitting around and talk consensus. Have you ever battled a dragon in D&D? Or fought anything to the death in GURPS? It takes time and effort to kill that dragon and you get really nervous fighting in GURPS because you can die for your bad decisions really fast. I don't want the dragon to drop just because I said so and no-one else said otherwise.
I don't have as much fun with those types of rpgs.
>>47559977
you're confusing free-form with Narrative mechanics in RPGS.
Freeform you might just kill the dragon if no one says otherwise. DnD you can only use what the rules and GM have set up to kill the dragon.
Narrative you might say "I roll to see if there is rock ledge I can use to drop onto the dragon from above". Unless the GM really didn't want there to be that rock ledge, rolling will make that rock ledge.
Narrative games are mostly much less tactical combat heavy than RPGs, but again you can go the other direction and go full Descent where there is no making up a clever solution outside of the rules. It's a matter of what you want out of the game.
>>47560103
I guess so, but I still think 'gamist' systems are more exciting.
>>47560252
That could be true for you, and that's fine. Just understand that's not a universal truth but something that speaks to you personally.
It's like saying 'spicy food is better tasting'.
Angry grognards trying to divide 'storygames' from 'Real RPG's' rather than acknowledging they're all variants on the same idea.
You can blame TheRPGPundit and Zak Smith for a lot of the popularity this nonsense has been getting recently. Particularly because both of them were brought on as consultants for D&D 5e.
>>47560424
In the end I think OP is wrong. There's no hate train going for the narrative systems. I heard some people talking here about reddit, but that place is full of 'tards trying to draw attention to themselves. Treat them like the Illithid and give them no mind.
>>47560451
Who the fuck is Zak Smith?
Also
Why are you guys visiting Reddit?
>>47560476
There is a lot of hate for them, here and elsewhere. It doesn't really mean much because tabletop and autism and all, but there is a certain pseudointellectual contingent in the narrative camp stirring shit up in the same way autistic girls in college and on the internet are attacking men. Most of it is misconstrued and not really an attack, the rest is just retards and assholes, but they are taken seriously by people with money and power and the traditionalists don't want their shit fucked with.
>>47560561
Then that shit haven't reached me at all. I see some smack-talk, but persecution? Haven't seen it yet.
>>47556464
My perspective is that it feels silly to have rules for something as freeform as role-playing. For a lot of folks, crunch enforces stuff that improv and collaboration can't--the element of chance does mean something.
>>47561078
I feel odd that it's so often expressed as 'rules for roleplaying'.
Much more often the implementation is rules that support roleplaying. Mechanics and effects which make your characters personality, intent and choices matter more than they would otherwise. In any system, you can describe your character working harder because of an idea they believe in, but personally I like systems which have that kind of thing give you a form of bonus.
Aside from Zak. S and Pundit, narrative players sometimes get super smug and go on about how adult and mature their games are and that any traditional game is obsolete now.
It's 90's oWoD II: electric boogaloo pretty much.
Narrativist games have been a thing since the late 80's and early 90's. Most of the big names in the genre came out over a decade ago. I wish the forge wars would end already.
The biggest battle line I've seen though is between narrativist players and simulationist sandbox players who like improv. Metagame mechanics most violently repel folks who have built an entire playstyle about chasing immersion. As well, taking about how traditional games are railroads and players don't have agency is going to come off as blatantly untrue to players that are playin to see what happens. Narrative types as well get mad when they come up against someone who aggressively insists that story and roleplaying aren't the same thing and that story is bad for roleplaying.
>>47556464
Honestly OP, >>47556504 has it right.
Like I love Fate, but I get why other people don't like it. It requires metagaming as a basic component of character creation, and really only works if everyone at the table is a writer (or at least has a writer's mindset).
>>47561438
I don't get how something like action dice or other mechanical benefits for playing out your actions repulses folks who want immersion.
>a story is bad for roleplaying
???
>>47561492
>It requires metagaming as a basic component of character creation
Name me one (1) that does not.
If there's a ruleset governing statistics or competencies, then it's metagaming as you have to think like a person building a character rather than as a character.
>>47557563
He means more in atmosphere, with corruption, overlapping worlds, and madness being major themes of the game.
>>47556504
This
>>47556526
>Stop thinking /tg/ speaks for anyone. /tg/ doesn't even speak for itself most of the time.
Also this.
>>47561492
I agree with your sentiment but you are exaggerating the bar for entry to an extreme. If you have ever watched a movie and though man "I wish the ending was X instead" you are ready for narrative games.
>>47561552
Fate isn't just parsing out numbers as abstractions of skills and abilities though, ya goof.
You actually write down your character's backstory, competencies, personality, foibles, strengths, weaknesses, etc. as part of creation. You come up with it yourself, and anticipating what your character will or won't do in any given situation is a critical part of succeeding at the game.
A "Flying Ace" aspect means I know whenever I sit in a cockpit, I can spend a Fate point and get a bonus to my rolls on top of the high modifier I received when I determined my skills.
>>47561645
>character's backstory, competencies, personality, foibles, strengths, weaknesses, etc. as part of creation
You...don't do this with characters normally?
>>47561527
Story has three or four meanings in rpg's. A lot of these folks got into the game when story and railroading were used synonymously. oWoD games used similar rhetoric but the modules were often 90's railroads with dmpcs and all. There's also the suspicion that if the gm starts doing things for meta reasons or to create drama, then they're going to start stamping on player agency. It's the whole neutral judge thing, a gm expresses their creativity by making situation but shouldn't try to influence the results and just play "what would happen based on player actions"
The thing about metagame mechanics is that it requires thinking from a player perspective and making decisions from that perspective. There are ways to make it make sense in the game fiction but making sense in the fiction is a different thing as the initial decision is still made from a player rather than character perspective.
Pretty much. "It would be good for the story" or "It would be cool to happen." is a different motivation for decision making than "I'm a character in a fictional world, what do I do?"
I pointed out those two camps because they're round opposite of each other when it comes to preferred systems and motivations behind roleplay.
>>47558526
>Ron Edwards
>game design community
>>47561645
And if I'm playing GURPS I can spend points to have all the skills related to being a Flying Ace that I would want, and I never run out of fate points to fuel them. I just have them always on.
Of course different fate systems switch up skills. Some are only aspects, others have a skill list and aspects, one has an attribute system and aspects...
What really drives me up the wall is the systems that give you basic abilities that in any other system would be always on, but in the fate ruleset, cost a FP to activate. If I'm playing a super strong bruiser, I don't want to spend a FP every scene I want to he super strong, or even worse, for every action I want to be super strong on. I just want the strength to be on by default.
That kind of thing bugs me.
Wulin is really the only narrative heavy game I like, I think it does it beautifully
>>47561614
I really do want to agree with you but I came to that conclusion from personal experience.
When I ran with my old group, we were all writers, or at the least were very good at thinking critically about what we watched and read. When I moved and roped in some other friends to play a Fate game, they seemed unable to understand the basic idea behind Aspects and Troubles. At risk of sounding snobby, they rarely read, and weren't the best at looking at media with a critical eye.
They were the types who think "I'm good at everything" is a valid Aspect.
>>47561659
I do, but not everyone does. Because most games don't make those elements a part of the actual character creation rules.
You don't need to specify your paladin is an alcoholic or your rogue has daddy issues when rolling up a D&D character.
>>47561659
You should pay with other people more. The truth to that is surprising. For you at least.
>>47561659
You do but in mechanics-focused games you have to back that shit up by spending points and they could be nice flavor but ultimately useless in-game. I mean, I could stat Strawberry Shortcake and have to burn points just so she can play her guitar competently, effectively punishing me for a minor detail.
I dislike having any rolls in muh RP, even shit like diplomacy/charm or intimidation rolls sorta takes you outta it. I get their purpose but while having combat rolls allow the fights to play out fairly having all sorts of "social abilities" and things of that sort just suck me out of it.
>>47561738
Rivers and lakes are just as arbitrary. Not a complaint, just the fate dynamic is part of a greater system just like those are.
>>47561743
Sounds like a group problem. There's only been maybe 5 out of the hundreds of different players I've met who didn't show up with a strongly defined personality and backstory to the table (even if the backstory was a short one), and fewer still who didn't write out further personality and backstory details in play.
I understand that the real purpose of an aspect isn't to say that this is the entirety of your backstory, but instead, the important part. Daddy Issues as a negative aspect signals the GM you want that to come up often and hamper your character often, and that's cool! I like elements that help the GM know what parts of your backstory you most want to come up/fuck with you. Like a complication someone grabs in mutants and masterminds; a player grabs a paparazzi trouble and I know he wants to do some plot lines about the troubles with fame and being a public figure!
But if you need aspects to shove a player into writing a character with actual personality and depth, it's a player problem, not a game problem, and a good group will solve that faster than a system gimmick
>>47561798
There's also the laughs at/fears system for your martial arts, the loresheets, the way complications/wounds/etc work. Role play around the problem or eat a mechanical penalty is a fun way to encourage folks to think of interesting solutions.
>>47561743
I know you don't have to but I've never run a game where people give zero consideration to characterization.
>>47561764
I've been playing with various people people for about fifteen years.
>>47561771
If it's not a dramatic event with no chance of penalty for failure, what DM in their right mind would make you roll to belt out a campfire tune?
>>47561738
Sounds like you're playing with really dictatorial Fate GMs, honestly. I feel you could just take a stunt which gives you a flat bonus to Fighting with your fists or some shit like that. Stunts don't cost FP to use unless they're really overpowered. At least not in any Fate game I've played.
>>47561819
Never said it's not a group problem. In fact, my entire point was the nature of Fate means it's really susceptible to that kind of group problem. If you can't think creatively about your character and their personality, you're gonna have a hard time playing a system where their personality is a mechanic.
Because you're completely right.
>>47561791
What about rules that facilitate it? Assigning a sort of social currency to beneficial circumstances. GMs aren't perfect and having it become a sort of game give you both the explicit system to leverage in your actions and his rulings.
>>47556514
This isn't true! I shitpost about the things I like and compliment the things I hate.
>>47561836
>If it's not a dramatic event with no chance of penalty for failure, what DM in their right mind would make you roll to belt out a campfire tune?
"but u dnt huv skilpoints in it" DMs, which is a surprising amount of them.
To put my example into game terms, I could describe Strawberry as being a skilled guitarist in a FATE bio and that by virtue would let her play guitar without anyone arguing. It would be my call if I was to make it a skill or an aspect, if I don't then it wont win me any guitar battles or turn into a bard in the middle of a fight.
A game with skills and such on the other hand, I would have to invest in it to play something other than the James Bond theme (this is easy as fuck to play in case you don't know) by RAW.
>>47561867
I dislike having game currency for something that isn't also an in-setting resource. Though things like per day powers bug me as well so I'm a bit extreme on that point. Managing a currency for social skills makes my characters abilities swing around depending on how I as a player choose to use resources that don't exist in the game world.
It's a matter of different motivations for playing though.
>>47561836
>I know you don't have to but I've never run a game where people give zero consideration to characterization.
It's a hard reality sometimes. Barring one player, my last group couldn't really grasp how to play dynamic characters. They were just superficial expies of some film/tv character they liked. Which I don't normally object to, but when it amounts to little more than a stat sheet who occasionally quotes Inara Serra or the bad guy from Avatar it gets a little old.
Then, in an unrelated note, they all became obsessed with the BDSM scene and trans culture, so I dropped the group.
>>47561835
Youre describing fate in reverse. You eat mechanical penalties to roleplay through problems. I agree that wushu is better about it in this specific situation, but it doesn't work as well outside of wuxia. I prefer wulin as a game, but don't hate the way fate handles the same thing most of the time. I do see why other people do though.
>>47556504
Not every narrative focused game is very meta abuot it. Not even most, I'd say. FATE is, byt Heroquest or Savage Worlds not so much for it to be an issue.
On the other hand people tell that crunchy games do not impede narrative side, but... they do. Players have limited attention, session has limited time. The more resources you put into crunching, the less you have remaining for the narrative. Also being focused strongly on one aspect is more effective than trying to multitask.
>>47556525
I think he meant that kids now think that DS is ALL fantasy, or at least very representative to the genre while it's not. And gameplay ha little relation to the genre, but kids still make the conjunction.
>>47561909
>A game with skills and such on the other hand, I would have to invest in it to play something other than the James Bond theme (this is easy as fuck to play in case you don't know) by RAW.
RAW, for the vast majority of games written in the last almost 20 years, is that if there's no chance of penalty or significant failure or drama then there's no point to rolling anything.
>>47561942
>Savage Worlds not so much for it to be an issue.
Savage Worlds is slowly becoming my system of choice after playing so many Fate games. While I enjoy Fate, I miss some of the "gamier" aspects and I feel SW does a good job marrying crunch and narrative.
Of course, it still has a host of obnoxious mechanical issues but that's neither here nor there.
>>47561916
I meant it as an in game resource. For example, if you have a noble to leverage, you can use that in with the local gangs, or your standing in a holy order works for you in a vague mechanical sense. The way I run it is that you have to play it out well, but anything relevant you can call in your favor adds significantly to it beyond how you do. You can shit up your speech all you want if you have an army outside the door. Bluffing is a bit more complicated and we haven't quite hammered that out.
I like old school dungeon crawl RPGs (OSR stuff), and I like narrative games like Misspent Youth where your entire character sheet doesn't even have numbers on it and dice rolls just determine in broad terms "things move in the direction of this character's goals" which the players describe. They're distinct things, and I like both.
What I don't like are big, clunky systems a la D&D 3.5.
>>47556704
Link to a video? Sounds entertaining even though I don't agree.
>>47561973
>RAW, for the vast majority of games written in the last almost 20 years, is that if there's no chance of penalty or significant failure or drama then there's no point to rolling anything.
This is basically true for the original D&D too.
>>47556464
People hate narrative games? H-have I fallen out of the loop in like a day?
>>47562013
Oh yeah, that makes sense and is a good way to incentivize getting npc allies.
>I mean, isn't the point of RPGs to make a collaborative story with some friends?
No, it's to play a game with friends where you basically set your own win conditions. Where narrative focused games fail is in that they are barely games at all.
It's also worth mentioning that the poster child for narrative RPGs is Dungeon World, which manages to be ineffective at its stated purpose and also have TWO HUNDRED pages of rules and guidelines despite attempting to be beginner friendly, and yet combat is still mostly just fiat.
>>47562087
Yeah, it came up when I was working on this diplomatic clusterfuck of a game with philosophical implications because I play with overeducated assholes and I made it so 'questing' had an immaterial benefit. You can add anything to any situation as long as it's relevant. Saved a blacksmith's daughter? That might seriously help you haggle. Or you can call favors, but you lose them. It works well, but is a bookkeeping nightmare.
>>47556464
The problem I have with narrative-based games is the fact that mostly, the universe matters less than the metagame.
I prefer playing very crunchy games, and build the narratives out of the problems created by the crunch. But that's my opinion.
If a rule is clunky and unhelpful I can choose on the spot to ignore it.
If I find that I need a rule to resolve a certain peculiar situation and none exisrs, I cannot conjure it from the air.
>>47562194
Dungeon World is absolutely not GM fiat, unless you distill the definition of GM fiat to be so broad that it's useless.
>>47562310
>If I find that I need a rule to resolve a certain peculiar situation and none exisrs, I cannot conjure it from the air.
So make a rules-light game with a general rule for resolving weird situations that the GM can then tweak as necessary.
>>47562310
>i can just do what i want anyway
Then:
1) Why play the game in the first place when one will probably do better?
2) This is no excuse for poor game design.
If every time I fail a roll orcs magically fall from the sky to attack me, that's a problem with the core rules that no amount of your houserulings will save innocent players at other tables from.
>>47556464
Am I wrong for disliking narrative focused games because I like my roleplaying games to be equal parts game and roleplaying? Like basically if you can't make a board or video game out of the system, it doesn't interest me.
I don't think narratives games are inherently bad nor people who play them inherently bad, they're just not my cup of tea.
>>47562316
Dungeon world has neither numerical distance nor turns, meaning that who does anything when, how far apart people are, and where they are relative to eachother at different points in a fight are entirely decided on by the GM. Which makes other "mechanics" have essentially no meaning, such as weapon ranges (at least beyond the distinction between melee and ranged weapons).
>>47562341
>1) Why play the game in the first place when one will probably do better?
Even the best game system will have its flaws
>2) This is no excuse for poor game design.
I didn't imply that it was. but if there's gonna be fuck ups anyway, I would prefer that the problem is too many rules, some of which are janky rather than too few rules which leave a lot of common situations too ambiguous. It's just easier to fix.
>>47562387
>Dungeon world has neither numerical distance nor turns, meaning that who does anything when, how far apart people are, and where they are relative to eachother at different points in a fight are entirely decided by the flow of the combat up to the point in question.
ftfy
Anyone here remember when RPGs didn't inherently need a grid because everyone at the table still had the mental capacity to imagine where things are in their head or at bare minimum tick some notes about distance every handful of actions?
>>47562423
I do, but since then the rules have catered to stifiling autism instead of doing something genuinely productive.
>>47562423
The distance thing is not a big gripe for me. But not having turns is hot garbage.
But also, not including numerical distance and then including mechanics which would rely on distance, is also fucking stupid.
>>47562464
>But not having turns is hot garbage
You mean just going in a circle or by who has the quickest idea to act is worse than going in roll order?
>distance
You could port it from literally any edition of any other game, make your own, or just go with the whole 'near/far' thing which itself is just a shorthand for the sorts of things games like 3.5 did with granular and concrete numbers, only with the broad category rather than the individual numerical range.
If narrative mechanics are so good and not meant to meta-game your way to victory but making storytelling (somehow) better, why limiting them with goodboy points?
Do craploads of asspulls and "coincidences" really make for better stories?
>>47558103
^Is anyone in this thread at all going to address the points in the article?
Really it seems the debate between the "groups" is really just non-productive (in the instrumentalist sense) and ironic method of driving factionalism through the roof.
>>47562569
If you want straight-up narration, play Wushu Open
>>47556464
I generally prefer having explicit narrative control from the players tied to the PCs, though there's nothing wrong with players doing worldbuilding and stuff outside of session time.It's possible to make a gamey system compatible with abilities like "retroactively take a small action within the last ten minutes that would just now come into effect" or "if your character's location hasn't been mentioned within the last ten minutes, you may claim you were following another PC all along!"
>>47562552
>You mean just going in a circle or by who has the quickest idea to act is worse than going in roll order?
Yes. For one thing, it means the number of actions that players can take is usually the same, or even biased in favor of the simplest answer in most combat situations (IE, "I smack him with my thing") which is one of the reasons that somehow in a game with 8 fairly restrictive classes, two, the fighter and paladin, are exceedingly better.
>You could port it from literally any edition of any other game, make your own, or just go with the whole 'near/far' thing which itself is just a shorthand for the sorts of things games like 3.5 did with granular and concrete numbers, only with the broad category rather than the individual numerical range.
Yeah, you could. The fact that you have to port huge blocks of rules from other systems to patch a game with a 400 page core book is stupid. More worthless than the ranged weapon distinctions are the hand/close/reach weapon classes, which do LITERALLY NOTHING. And it would have been easy too, like, "you take -1 to attack someone in melee who has greater reach than you, and get +1 when you have greater reach", but nooo, they just expect that shit to just emerge as being narratively relevant more than once in a blue moon.
>>47556464
People are just tired of all the wank.
>>47562618
That would require critical thinking
>>47562733
Me too; totally sick of dungeon grinding and murderhoboing.
Nice to get a political intrigue game going once in a while.
>>47562683
That's not an answer.
>>47558022
Kaathe pls
>>47562194
>the poster child for narrative RPGs is Dungeon World
No it isnt. DW is a shitty AW hack that is only popular because retards are scared of leaving the generic fantasy setting and all its familar trappings.
>>47562846
>because retards are scared of leaving the generic fantasy setting and all its familar trappings.
Jesus Horatio Christ am I tired of hearing this complaint.
Telling everyone your setting is Not!Byzantium does not make your game better, anon.
>>47562846
I've played everything from Nobilis to Eclipse Phase to Delta Green to even a bit of Microscope, and enjoyed them all.
Still liked DW. It's a decent crawler, no better or worse than the slew of OSR clones that get produced in equal volume to AW hacks.
>>47562846
I didn't say it was the best narrative focused RPG, I said it was the poster child, IE, the most popular and well known, which it is.
>>47562901
Every game I've played with a notByzantium flair has been run by some edgy neoreactionary ""Orthodox"" person like you see on /his/ and /pol/.
>>47562771
You can legitimately use Wushu to run a Phoenix Wright game as you can veto things that would be impossible.
>>47562928
How is it narrative?
>the most vocal whiners in the community (rpgpundit/zak s.) about narrative systems have declared DW to be just fine
Also, if your complaint is "fiction first" then you surely won't mind if I run my anime waifu character in your high celtic fantasy, right?
>>47562765
Political intrigue is wank. Dungeon grind is wank. Basically everything we do here is wank. Crunch vs. Narrative. Edition wars. All wank. It's all just a matter of migrating from wank to other wank so we don't bored and realize our lives are devoid of real fulfillment.
>>47562935
For some reason, the Byzantine became the new era of choice for setting contrarians. It's like the new Aztec Dwarfs or something.
>>47563038
>nihilism
>not existentialism bathed in the blood of nihilism
Fine, then I'll create the most satisfying method of wanking ever, capable of hosing the entire room down with ecstatic fluids.
>>47563065
Euphoric fluids.
>>47563052
I'm sad they never let my play a clone of Hypatia or Valentinius or Origen or a some nameless Hekhalot mystic.
I mean, they want history, right?
Surely the setting's not just a way to validate their theology to themselves.
>>47563112
I don't think it has anything to with theology. I think they just remember it from high school then took the Wikipedia crash course on the Byzantine and decided it's the coolest shit ever or some reason.
Which is fine. There are a lot of historical dynamics in different regions that I really like as well. But unless you're smart enough to incorporate it all into your game, it's just a standard kitchen sink fantasy game but with funny-looking buildings.
>>47556464
At first I really liked the idea. Then, as I read more and more of them, it turned out "narrativist" was often used to cover lazy game design. So I became suspicious of games that say they're "narrative focused". Doesn't mean they're all boring or crappy, some are really great with neat, original mechanics.
Anyway it's not that people hate narrative games. Asshats hate narratives games. Just as other asshats hate on gamist (oh hey >>47556525 ) or simulationnists games.
Plus, on the subject of GNS theory, I think it is good to remember it was made to categorise players expectations (if I'm not mistaken). I think designers shouldn't bother too much about it. Making a game solely based on the narrative aspect means you basically don't need rules. Based on the gamist aspect, you're making a boardgame. On the simulationnist aspect, either you're making a boardgame or you'll end with FATAL tier garbage.
Creating a story, overcoming challenges and simulation of a fictionnal world are all parts of what makes the RPG experience.
>>47563189
But WotC conducted a study that completely undermines the idea of GNS theory as categorizing anything at all, given that WotC's conclusion was that players, across games and systems, seem to want... here, I'll quote the article posted >>47558103:
>"Rather than three goals or types of players, WotC found four: Power Gamers, Thinkers, Storytellers, and Character Actors. None of these really match any of the three GNS corners although Gamist and Power Gamer can be said to be the closest pairing.
>So no three way split, and the measuring sticks (determined by WotC after the study was completed and thus determined to be the most effective of the possible measurements) are completely different (given that Narrativism <>Story): Story - Combat, Strategic - Tactical.
>To quote the WotC study:
>"We also found no additional segmentation based on what games people identified as their "favorite"; in other words, there are just as many Power Gamers as there are Storytellers who like Vampire, and just as many Thinkers as Character Acters who like D&D."
>No difference in player goals across different games? But GNS says this cannot be the case, in it's view System Does Matter. Real world data says differently, and theory must always give way to fact."
Hence my critique of GNS as instrumentally non-productive here: >>47562618
>>47562959
Not putting fiction first doesn't mean not caring about the fiction at all
>>47562552
>You mean just going in a circle or by who has the quickest idea to act is worse than going in roll order?
Yes, because what ends up happening is the guy sitting to the immediate right/left of the GM will have more actions per combat than the guy who decided to sit directly across from him.
That and the guy who comes up with a simple answer like "I attack with my fist" gets more out of his character than the guy who tries to come up with a grandiose or interesting description for his action.
>You could port it from literally any edition of any other game, make your own, or just go with the whole 'near/far' thing which itself is just a shorthand for the sorts of things games like 3.5 did with granular and concrete numbers, only with the broad category rather than the individual numerical range.
If I'm going to use a book with over 400 pages, the least it could do is have a simple unit of measurement for its actions so I have an idea of how far/near something is.
I mean, if I'm going to port in rules from other games, why not just either use those rules or make up my own homebrew?
>>47563291
It's like they went to a steakhouse and, after polling the customers, proudly declared that there's no such thing as vegetarianism, only people who prefer different cuts of steak. And since they found the results reproducible across several different steakhouses, it just proves how right they are.
>>47565526
I just finished reading the article and before you even get to the WotC survey, the "GNS" divide has been blown apart.
Read the whole thing and/or fuck off back to the Forge.
>>47565526
You do realize they polled Vamp players who have one of the oldest and strongest "story/narrative" playerbases.
And they still found that just as many power gamers as plotfags like the system.
>>47565562
^This. It's amazing what you can do with a tiny bit of understanding of formal logic.
>>47565526
It's already been BTFO well before they get to the WOTC survey
>>47556464
"Narrativists" are more or less the bastard spawn of Forgefaggots who took things people have done since the start of the hobby (partial failures/success with consequences, describing what you're doing instead of what rule you're using, you can try anything etc) and claim to be "innovating" while simultaneously pushing their old truly retarded ideas like how games should be about the table, hence the insistence on collaboration over refereeing, and not what goes on in the game.
DW is one example. A huge ripoff of OD&D aimed at the same people who like to think D&D is the worst thing to ever happen to the hobby (you know, aside from creating it and 90% of the "innovation" they're now touting as their own when Moldvay still exists) complete with "ironic" class descriptions to appeal to other likeminded pseudo-people like the hacks behind it with sprinklings of Forge terms like "the fiction" in order to avoid using words like "game". (which one of them credits himself with creating on the Forge after having a painful moment of self-realization related to one of the retarded acronyms they used to use)
Why does this work then?
Most of them are ignorant jackoffs who started playing RPGs with FATE through reddit and thinks D&D begins and ends with Wizards of the Coast.
To them risk isn't fun, dice rolls that can actually mean something beyond "push a button something cool has to happen" and anything that could kill your character in a way that wasn't agreed on by the group to be sufficiently dramatic isn't acceptable.
It doesn't help that they're easily the most obnoxious and cancerous community out there with an abundance of goons, ex-Forge people, people that are too edgy for White Wolf and RPGnet mods.
Pick any Apocalypse World player at random and 9 out of 10 times it's going to have a pink hair-do, fetishes and power fantasies it insists on bringing out in the game and 'issues' that need to be argued out mid-game so they can tweet/google+ about it.
It's mainly just a bunch of meta-boardgames, the kind that you get scowls for bringing out on boardgame night, aimed at wannabe community theatre types who hate that RPGs are actually games.
>>47565923
>Pick any Apocalypse World player at random and 9 out of 10 times it's going to have a pink hair-do, fetishes and power fantasies it insists on bringing out in the game and 'issues' that need to be argued out mid-game so they can tweet/google+ about it.
People don't really play AW, and I say this as someone who played and enjoyed AW when a friend ran it a few years ago.
Honestly, I've seen pink hair-do having, magical realm pushing, power tripping faggotry before and most of them play games like Pathfinder and 3.5e.
>>47556464
I tried to run FATE a few weeks ago and it was very awkward being up in the air, you just ask your players what they want to have happen next. I had one guy straight up tell me that he disliked the aspects. But on the other hand they loved to chime in on NPC characteristics.
>>47566136
The Pathfinder faggots don't really play, they just post on optimization boards and pretend to.
It's basically the 90s with White Wolf again except a lot less interesting since there's little to no actual content.
Only a lot of wanking over meta-mechanics that people plaster onto any old shit to make a buck off the zeitgeist.
>>47561659
Most game systems require none of this and most gamers think very little of these. We just are a raceclass with a weapon, and a funny voice. Good enough to get started.
>>47566258
Believe me, they play, and when they play, they either ruin everything they touch or they end up being exiled to roll20.
see >>47566332, for he is an example of everything that's wrong with the hobby.
>>47566332
>>47566353
Oh fuck off and play strike or some shit.
>>47556519
I'm willing to bet that a wave of "simulationist answers to narrativism" will hit in a few years. Basically, these games will take the "meta" nature out of narrativist games and instead bake rules right into the system which will promote and encourage specific narratives to emerge from the rules.
>>47566196
Fate and similar games that utilize Aspects come from a radically different approach to RPGs but to me when Fate "clicks" you realize that what it really does is shine a new light on certain things you've always done in RPGs and it helps you hone them better through its focus upon them.
>>47566353
>he is an example of everything that's wrong with the hobby.
I honestly think you're more likely to be.
"Backstory" is what happens in early play, not in a novel you wrote prior to the game.
All the truly horrible players i've met online have had and insisted on elaborate "backstories".
It doesn't seem to be an unusual opinion either, it's a common theme in the gamefinder threads horror stories or irc stories about "that one guy who wrote a new story each session to beg for ingame benefits".
>>47566415
Unlikely, since the people who hate the narrativists the most aren't simulationists but gamists.
>>47556464
Narrative games tend to link mechanics to storytelling tropes. The problem with this is that tropes are ABOUT elements of the setting, not in-setting elements themselves, and when you try and put them in-universe like that you run the risk of making them superficial imitations of the things they're supposed to be.
For example, a lot of tropes are based on the idea of the heroic underdog overcoming great challenges and risks. If a narrative system tries to encourage this, it might do so by making extra rules that give "weaker" characters bonuses so they aren't overwhelmed by challenges. But the point of the trope is that the odds are against the hero; if they get so many bonuses that it's statistically unlikely for them to fail, then they're not an underdog anymore, they're the person with the advantage who's only presented as one by the system.
>>47566457
>"Backstory" is what happens in early play, not in a novel you wrote prior to the game.
Actually, backstory is what happened prior to play to explain the who, what, when, where, and why of your character.
Nobody chooses to be an adventurer and risk their life unless there's a compelling reason that makes the concept of plundering tombs for treasure enticing.
>All the truly horrible players i've met online have had and insisted on elaborate "backstories".
And all the truly horrible players I've met insisted on focusing on their characters as a a series of numbers that progressively get bigger and bigger.
This is why anecdotal evidence isn't real evidence, because anyone can say "I know a guy and this thing happened and that's why thing is bad and people who like thing are shitty people."
>"that one guy who wrote a new story each session to beg for ingame benefits".
We call those munchkins son.
If you notice, the bulk of THAT GUYS who do this shit only crowd around games where the object of the game is to murder-fuck everything before you get murder-fucked yourself.
I mean, you don't hear about cases like this in OSR even 1/10 as much as you hear it from /pfg/.
>>47566513
I always had the impression it was the simulationists. Hm...
>>47562569
Do shitty dice rolls always make for good stories? Many times they simply ruin your night and ruin a good moment.
It's a philosophical debate if you asked me.
>>47556464
Probably because the "narrative game" moniker is often just a thin veil hiding a game that doesn't actually have any rules and is only "narratively" superior to other games by virtue of the GM and players effectively playing freeform.
>>47562950
Wushu is the best game for both Dragonball Z and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure as well as many more.
Wushu is an amazing pickup game that sharpens your description skills and cuts straight to the heart of narrativist gaming.
I wish it was more popular. I think what it needs to be bigger is to have a more robust system outside of the combat mechanics.
>>47566668
>Actually, backstory is what happened prior to play to explain the who, what, when, where, and why of your character.
The who and what can be explained in two lines.
The when, where and why is what's happening in the game *now*.
>Nobody chooses to be an adventurer and risk their life unless there's a compelling reason that makes the concept of plundering tombs for treasure enticing.
Yes, it's this thing called TREASURE.
>And all the truly horrible players I've met insisted on focusing on their characters as a a series of numbers that progressively get bigger and bigger.
Then stop playing shit games. "Numbers" don't matter in any edition of D&D that matters.
>This is why anecdotal evidence isn't real evidence
By your full-autist responses in this thread I rather feel it's being verified.
>We call those munchkins son.
We call them retarded narrativists who want something for nothing. Potayto, Potahto.
>If you notice, the bulk of THAT GUYS who do this shit only crowd around games where the object of the game is to murder-fuck everything
OD&D actively disincentivizes it's players from "murder-fucking" anything, far more so than "narrative" games, and it's players still frown on jackoffs who think their double-sided A4 6pt text of backstory should be required reading for anyone at the table, DM or players.
>I mean, you don't hear about cases like this in OSR
Do you play OSR games at all?
90% of players start out characters with "This is [name], he's a cleric of Ilmarinen, he wants to get rich quick for [reasons] and he looks like [part where everyone else eyes blank over].
Any cool story about what he did or any particular reason why he's doing what he does come out in play.
Those ALL happen ingame. Driven by the player's actions, DM's reactions, everyone's interests and wants. That's emergent gameplay.
>>47566814
>Do shitty dice rolls always make for good stories?
It allows for an independent adjudicator of risk.
>Many times they simply ruin your night
Grow some balls.
All threads like this tell me is that this isn't the community I fell in love with twenty someodd years back.
>>47566702
It's immersionistas. VRfags. Nothing really wrong with it most of the time, but doing anything but what they do kills them whereas others prefer aspects of it.
>>47566896
I like the OSR and narrativist games.
Does this still make me an shitlord/SJW/autist/THAT GUY/threat to the hobby/MRA/*insert boogeyman here*?
>>47566896
That's all well and good for one type of play, where the characters start from the bottom and proceed to greatness. However, for games where the characters have already established themselves in the setting you need a bit more than that (what friends and enemies they made when climbing up etc.) Also, for games with descending character power (like Call of Cthulhu) putting in more backstory is good, so they have more to lose.
>>47566961
>characters already established themselves
Then what the fuck is the point of even playing.
>CoC
Nice meme you have there. Care to form an actual argument?
>>47556496
>mfw when fpbp
People can play how they want. If my playstyle doesn't mesh: I look for another group.
Easy.
>>47566930
/tg/ is 9 years old and if you think we're part of your 'RPG community' i.e. american convention faggots and their hangers-on you can fuck off back to RPGnet.
>>47566992
Anon, that would be the reasonable adult thing to do.
>>47566999
Should have been dead obvious that I was talking about the RPG writ large rather than this forum in particular given the timescales. Nice reiterating numerals.
>>47566961
>Call of Cthulhu backstory
Meanwhile in the average CoC campaign (and Lovecraft story for that matter).
"I'm [name], I do [something], I was invited by [named NPC/mysterious event] and intend to investigate [place/thing] as a friend/explorer/scholar".
>>47567057
>rather than this forum in particular
The only one that matters here.
The "RPG community writ large" can choke it. Particularly now that all the good parts of it are largely their own separate thing officially, rather than ad-hoc based on tables, that barely interact with the shit parts of it.
>>47567115
>The "RPG community writ large" can choke it.
Somehow I fell as though this sentiment is largely part of the problem.
Oh well.
FUCK EVERYTHING THAT DOESN'T CATER EXCLUSIVELY TO MY TASTES! THINGS I DON'T LIKE ARE OBJECTIVELY SHIT! ONLY KEKS CARE ABOUT THEIR FELLOW MAN!
Am I a cool kid yet?
>>47567165
>Somehow I fell as though this sentiment is largely part of the problem.
Then go to a forum that cares. 4chan is and remains it's own thing and not a place for you to livejournal about your "feels" about the "RPG community" and how it's not as inclusive as it (never was) back in the day.
>Am I a cool kid yet?
This is an anonymous board retard.
Fuck off back to OPP where you belong Aspel.
>>47556464
It's 4chan. It's all hyperbole, shitposting and bait. No one dislikes it that much. There are plenty of people that don't like it, there are even people who will never play it. But no one is shouting their hatred of narration at the top of their lungs and actively campaigning against all narrativist games.
You don't need to rationalize or defend what you like. Just do it, it's okay. I'll keep my board gamey games with a lot of extra doodads and whistles, they can like their OSR, and you can like narrative games.
>>47567165
>FUCK EVERYTHING THAT DOESN'T CATER EXCLUSIVELY TO MY TASTES! THINGS I DON'T LIKE ARE OBJECTIVELY SHIT! ONLY KEKS CARE ABOUT THEIR FELLOW MAN!
>>>/lgbt/ is thataway newfag.
>>47566985
>>characters already established themselves
>Then what the fuck is the point of even playing.
Not that guy, but: Have you ever watched, for example, The Sopranos?
I'll admit I've only ever seen a few episodes but let's explore it as an example: The main character is Tony Soprano. He's a mobster, and established there (begins the series as a Capo), but works his way up higher. He has conflict stemming from trying to reconcile the two halves of his lives - his family life, and that of his commitments to the mob.
He still has to deal with other problems (what we'd refer to as 'adventures' or 'story arcs') as a member of the mafia, but there is heightened tension added from the additional conflict of his family life.
This is a show that went for six seasons, and there was a lot that went on. If you think that beginning with "established" characters belittles the idea of adventuring, then I would politely point out that you are wrong.
>>47556464
I didn't have to think of a reply
Pic related was at the top of the page
>>47556464
I am not particularly fond if narrative games because they often go to the depth in which I think straight up freeforming would work better.
And no, I'm not in "freeform is universal shit" camp - people that ruined my freeform games would've been ruining regular games too. (For example, ignoring the plot and going on adventures in favour of endlessly rping slice of life and rebuffing any attempts to move things forward with "reeee, we're roleplaying! why do you hate character development?!")
>>47566702
Simulationism and narrativism both compliment each other as both are about immersion. One just does it through crunch and the other through fluff.
>>47566985
>Then what the fuck is the point of even playing.
Well you can have an established character without them being basically 'done'. A minor nobleman/crime boss/merchant has holdings, underlings, resources, enemies and friends to start off with, but still has plenty of room to grow and develop. Just because you're not starting at the bottom doesn't mean you're at the top.
>>47556525
I've been hearing people shit on narrative gameplay since long before Demon's Souls came out.
So, basically this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c
>>47556644
>>47557500
>>47557890
>>47558824
>>47559000
>>47559719
>>47561942
Fucking idiots...
Why are you so hung up on the fact that he mentions Dark Souls?
That was just an example.
The point is that the majority of young players these days think that tabletop RPGs are just videogames on paper.
They whine about shit like "class balance" and only see the game from a mechanical perspective.
It's sad actually.
>>47566915
It's all well and good that dice present risk in a game but they are also dumb objects that don't know good role playing from bad. If you put all the drama into the hands of the dice there is no point to role playing because it becomes a random reward system. Humans don't like those. They like to receive rewards for effort.
(Good) Narrative mechanics recognize both sides of the debate by giving some level of control over dumb dice rolls to the players but limiting it so that there is still some risk.
>>47556464
>Why are folks freaking out over some systems focusing on that aspect entirely?
Because in the days of yore, that people pretend never existed because lol it's just a golden age meme, people who played role-playing games approached it from mainstream fantasy/sci-fi fiction, which is to say, reading. Role-playing was a way to use all the building blocks they'd picked up from reading books or comics, watching movies, and so on. Rules were simpler because they exist only so that there's a way to arbitrate conflict that arises in the story in a way other than pure GM/player fiat.
These days, Pen and Paper Role Players are mainly people who approach it from mainstream gaming. The rules, to them, IS the game, not just a tool to help keep the story moving. This is why you have people ranting about "balance" in a game about putting yourself in a fictional character's shoes and experiencing adventures in another world, or why the top dogs in the industry made an effort to be more like World of Warcraft.
The average player gets triggered by narrativism because he can't "beat" it by picking all the best options or share his "amazing build" or system-master it the same way.
There is a significant portion of players, especially here on /tg/ who more or less believes that prioritizing immersion over video game style rules makes you a faggot, or at least a pretentious douche-bag.
In essence, the hobby used to be about cramming yourself into the car with your buddies and going amazing places, but today it's dominated by people who like to spend the entire journey arguing about the car.
>>47570092
>They whine about shit like "class balance" and only see the game from a mechanical perspective.
Of course they do, you dumbfuck. Systems have mechanics for actual fucking reasons and if you think that bad mechanical design is excusable because "mechanics don't matter for roleplaying", then you should be doing freeform.
>>47571017
Thanks for proving the point of a lot of the people in the thread.
It's role-playing. You are people in a fictional setting. Some people think that class imbalance is logical, rather than a huge glaring game design error.
A lot of people are okay with Knights being more capable in most situations than a farmer. Or a wizard being potentially more dangerous than a knight, or being able to do more exotic things, because that's how things are in most fantasy settings.
Perfect class balance makes characters feel like they're just game-pieces, rather than representing the fiction of the setting.
The reason for mechanics is to give the players and the GM another way of resolving conflicts and situations without just making up the result themselves.
It's not necessarily the job of the rules to make sure that everyone is 100% equal in the majority of situations.
Some people play games and characters that aren't defined mainly through combat you know.
>>47566896
>The when, where and why is what's happening in the game *now*.
Unless your character congealed out of the Aether for the express purpose of becoming an adventurer, they're going to have some history that provides insight as to who they are and what led up to them being an adventurer.
>Yes, it's this thing called TREASURE.
Most people aren't willing to put their lives on the line for monetary compensation unless there's something that they'd need the money for right this second.
I mean, if you wanna be technical, drug dealers and assassins can make a lot of money IRL but most people aren't going to take the risk just to receive money.
>Then stop playing shit games. "Numbers" don't matter in any edition of D&D that matters.
You're right but that has nothing to do with this conversation.
>By your full-autist responses in this thread I rather feel it's being verified.
Okay...
>We call them retarded narrativists who want something for nothing. Potayto, Potahto.
Okay...
>OD&D actively disincentivizes it's players from "murder-fucking" anything, far more so than "narrative" games,
OD&D would technically be considered a narrative focused game if it were released today.
>it's players still frown on jackoffs who think their double-sided A4 6pt text of backstory should be required reading for anyone at the table, DM or players.
It just sounds like you're jealous that you can't come up with something better.
>90% of players start out characters with "This is [name], he's a cleric of Ilmarinen, he wants to get rich quick for [reasons] and he looks like [part where everyone else eyes blank over].
Who gets sleepy from someone describing their character? It just sounds like you're only there for the combat.
>Any cool story about what he did or any particular reason why he's doing what he does come out in play.
From your behavior, you seem like the type who'd yell "NOBODY CARES" if anyone tried explaining why their character does a thing.
>>47571017
RPGs will never be balanced. It will never happen. There's not a single RPG where some classes don't have advantages over others. That's how it works and that's fine.
If you want a balanced game go and play chess.
A game where each character is as nuanced and intricate as they are in D&D will never be balanced.
And thank God for that! It would be boring if it were.
>>47571236
>Some people play games and characters that aren't defined mainly through combat you know.
This is why 4e babbies just can't get their heads around.
In video games and especially MMOs combat is the essence of the game. The only reason people go into the dungeon is to get loot so that they can go to the next dungeon etc..
Remember that most WoW players don't read quest text. They don't give a fuck about the narrative.
To them it's simply inconceivable to play a game for any reason other than combat. They can't imagine a game session where no combat occurs, only role-playing, exploration and puzzle solving.
>>47571301
>This is why 4e babbies just can't get their heads around.
Why do people always blame 4rries everytime some sperg comes around and complains about balance issues?
In 4e, everyone is more-or-less on equal playing fields and are considered heroic characters who each bring something to the group dynamic.
If anything, 3.PF is where you see this shit the most since it's a game that actively requires you to optimize and learn the rules cover to cover just to know your options and how effective said options are in play.
>>47571356
4e is the edition which most closely resembles a video game in terms of combat mechanics.
If 4e was the first edition of D&D that you played you would probably have the whole "classes need to be balanced" mentality and be very focused on combat mechanics rather than roleplaying or exploration.
>>47571416
>4e is the edition which most closely resembles a video game in terms of combat mechanics.
In 3.PF, IIRC, combat was one of the longest sections of the book by far and every other rule that they expected you to learn made no sense outside of the context of a game.
For example,
3.PF states that a combat round is 6 seconds, yet a trained Fighter or Rogue can't swing more than once in one round because they decided to move up to their speed before throwing that first swing?
Also, you apparently can't tackle someone into a square that's considered "hostile" yet there's no real in-game reasoning for why you can't, say, tackle someone into a spike pit or off a cliff or something aside from invisible walls or some shit.
Grappling requires a flowchart to understand and even then, it requires a fair bit of application to understand how it works fully.
Also, if you lack the requisite feats, your opponent automatically gets an AoO against you, in addition to the -4 penalty you're taking to your skills.
You can't do something as simple as spinning around in a circle while swinging your weapon without taking a feat that has like four prereqs to it.
That and there's rolls for almost fucking everything; social rolls, perception rolls, knowledge rolls, everything that would've been explained in roleplay got quantified and given DC's, which effectively turned an opportunity to learn fluff into another option for the power gamer to cheese.
By contrast, the 4e DMG actually gives you some sound advice on how to properly run a campaign and there's actually some advice on how to construct opportunities for roleplay and exploration.
Yet because it made all the classes balanced and focused on the idea of the party working as a single unit as opposed to a group of one-man-armies, it gets shat on for being "too videogamey."
>>47571617
>3.PF states that a combat round is 6 seconds, yet a trained Fighter or Rogue can't swing more than once in one round because they decided to move up to their speed before throwing that first swing?
AFAIK an attack doesn't necessarily reprsent a single swing of a weapon. Rather, it represents a flurry of blows. Otherwise, a skilled fighter could perform 10 "attacks" in 6 seconds.
>Yet because it made all the classes balanced and focused on the idea of the party working as a single unit as opposed to a group of one-man-armies, it gets shat on for being "too videogamey."
It's videogamey for one reason: powers.
That shit is lifted directly from fucking WoW or Diablo and you know it.
They didn't give a fuck about realism or consistency, they just decided that to make things "balanced" we need to give fighters as many "powers" as we give wizards.
They came up with the mechanics first and then the flavour by narrating them with ridiculous names such as "crushing blow" and "dazzling strike" even though they both do exactly the same thing: hit your enemy with a sword.
That's the problem with 4e. It's built with the notion of class balance and the notion that combat is the central focus of the game.
>>47571750
>AFAIK an attack doesn't necessarily reprsent a single swing of a weapon. Rather, it represents a flurry of blows. Otherwise, a skilled fighter could perform 10 "attacks" in 6 seconds.
Even if we accept this logic, it still doesn't explain how a Fighter can only attempt to swing multiple times if he hadn't moved beforehand.
Also, if we're assuming that the trained Fighter can throw 10 hits in six seconds, why are we only rolling to see if 2-6 of those hits actually connect?
We should be able to either roll for each attack or the rounds should be shorter so that the only attacks you can make are the 2-6 attacks that you're rolling for.
>It's videogamey for one reason: powers.
Okay...
There's a class in PF whose class feature is basically a taunt from WoW yet the concept of a martial being useful beyond swinging a hunk of metal breaks the immersion for you?
For christ sake, there's a legitimate MMO based around 3.PF's ruleset but you're still going to claim that 4e is the video-gamey one of the editions?
Also, I notice you have nothing to say about the other videogamey bullshit that 3.PF is guilty of. Why is that?
>>47571917
>Even if we accept this logic, it still doesn't explain how a Fighter can only attempt to swing multiple times if he hadn't moved beforehand.
Because moving takes time obviously. If I have 6 seconds to attack the Lizardman I'll be able to attack it more if it's standing right in front of me rather than 20 feet away.
>There's a class in PF whose class feature is basically a taunt from WoW yet the concept of a martial being useful beyond swinging a hunk of metal breaks the immersion for you?
Martials swing hunks of metal. That's what they do, even in 4e. Just because you call it "agonizing assault" or "reaver's hook" you're still just swinging a hunk of metal.
Now I agree that martials should have some diversity to the way they fight. A nobleman fencer isn't going to fight the same way as a gladiator or knight. They should have things like stances, parries, ripostes, etc... Which they do in 5e.
But giving them 101 "powers" with stupid MMO names is just silly and doesn't fit D&D.
>Also, I notice you have nothing to say about the other videogamey bullshit that 3.PF is guilty of. Why is that?
I don't know why you assume that anyone who criticises 4e is some 3.PF fanboy.
3.PF is also a very flawed system but at least it resembles a tabletop RPG more than an MMO.
FYI there's a 4e MMO as well. It's called Neverwinter. It's actuallynot bad. But I digress.
Personally I play 5e. I believe it's the best edition of D&D to date and, if you haven't already, I strongly recommend you try it out. It fixes a lot of the issues that plagues 3.5 and 4e.
>>47571276
>OD&D would technically be considered a narrative focused game if it were released today.
OD&D's isn't anything like narrativist shit and narrativist retards actively hate D&D.
>It just sounds like you're jealous
>of people who write long backstories for ego masturbation purposes and then get kicked out of the group when they have an autist rage-fit
Kek
>>47556464
>What's with all the hate against narrative focused games?
Based on this thread it's probably misguided since clearly almost nobody knows what a narrative game actually is.
>>47572054
>Because moving takes time obviously. If I have 6 seconds to attack the Lizardman I'll be able to attack it more if it's standing right in front of me rather than 20 feet away.
But here's the thing, I, as an out of shape mofo who barely leaves his house, can make a 30 ft. charge and swing with something like a chair at least twice in less than six seconds.
Why can't a trained Fighter swing twice in one round when he knows that every single hit counts towards his own survival?
Especially if he's supposed to be swinging in a flurry?
>Martials swing hunks of metal. That's what they do, even in 4e. Just because you call it "agonizing assault" or "reaver's hook" you're still just swinging a hunk of metal.
But now, the effects that you do actually go beyond just straight damage.
A swing to a creature's face has a chance to blind them, a swing to a creature's leg has a chance to slow them, a swing to a creature's groin is probably going to stun them, and the rules actually take this into account.
If anything, a master swordsman should be able to do more than just damage someone, especially since getting hit with a sword sucks and where you get hit actually matters.
>3.PF is also a very flawed system but at least it resembles a tabletop RPG more than an MMO.
Not really.
As explained in my earlier posts, it's a game that only resembles a tabletop RPG if you only look at the most shallow aspects of it.
In 4e, there are plenty of elements in its design to help you out if you need something to help add flavor to your character.
I have to ask how much of 4e you've actually read vs. how much of 3.PF you've actually read.
>>47572215
>Why can't a trained Fighter swing twice in one round
He does, but you only roll once to determine if any of those hits did damage. When you get multiple attacks, you are skilled enough at evading your opponents defences that more of your attacks get the chance to actually hit.
>>47572071
>OD&D's isn't anything like narrativist shit
It really is when you think about it.
It's a game where the numbers are low, the goal of the game is to find treasure as opposed to combat, teamwork is actually required in order to overcome the bulk of the challenges being set between you and the treasure, and the game is honestly focused more exploration and roleplay than it is on fighting everything that moves.
Granted, it's not as narrative focused as games like FATE but it'd still be considered a narrative system if it were released today.
>>47572280
>It's a game where the numbers are low, the goal of the game is to find treasure as opposed to combat, teamwork is actually required in order to overcome the bulk of the challenges being set between you and the treasure, and the game is honestly focused more exploration and roleplay than it is on fighting everything that moves.
Literally none of that has anything to do with narrativism in the gaming sense.
>>47572280
>it's not directly focused on combat
>therefore it's narrativist
Those two things are not related.
>>47556464
Because it breeds SJW shit where rolls arent real and lore doesnt matter
>>47572253
Why not either shorten the rounds so one hit equals one hit or just let you roll those extra hits since the point of the martials is that they're going to hit more often than not.
I mean, if it's an issue of timing then just use the same shit that Shadowrun uses where every three swings equals one successful hit or something.
>>47572280
>It's a game where the numbers are low, the goal of the game is to find treasure as opposed to combat, teamwork is actually required in order to overcome the bulk of the challenges being set between you and the treasure, and the game is honestly focused more exploration and roleplay than it is on fighting everything that moves.
So it's gamist, i.e. about as far from narrativism as you can get.
>>47572292
>>47572298
>>47572357
The rules were also weren't nearly as restrictive and you could actually do basic things like perception and researching knowledge through roleplay without having to roll.
About as far from gamist as you could get.
>>47572333
Because that takes too long. If you want one attack roll = one swing, go play GURPS with its one-second-rounds.
If you play D&D, you deal with the fact that combat is abstracted to a certain degree.
> the point of the martials is that they're going to hit more often than not.
Yes, and that's represented by allowing them to make more attack rolls in a single round of combat. They're not faster, they're just better at getting their attacks past your parrying and dodging.
>>47572377
Funny, because everyone who actually played it back in the day with the people who designed it agree that it's gamist as all hell.
Of course narrativist-shitters are desperate to cling to established games, even ones like D&D which they hate, since the GNS-fad is dying a slow miserable death at this point.
>>47572377
OD&D is a gamist combat and exploration system attached to a LucasArts trap detection and puzzle-solving system.
The narrative is totally unimportant, it's all about either the dice or the players' puzzle-solving and tactical skills.
>>47571236
>It's not necessarily the job of the rules to make sure that everyone is 100% equal in the majority of situations.
That's not what people mean when they say balanced. What they mean by balanced is that "Characters should have things that they are good at"
The fact that an illusionist is better at infiltrating than fireexplosion mage makes sense. But having illusionists which can casts illusion spells and then wizards which can cast any spells (including illusions) is stupid because at that point, why ever make an illusionist?
And before you say
>but roleplays
In this case, why not just make a wizard that happens to use spell slots on illusions? You can do everything an illusionist can do, but more!
>Some people play games and characters that aren't defined mainly through combat you know.
Yes, and that's part of the balance discussion. The reason why people complain about casters in 3.5 isn't just because they are the best at combat, it's because they are best at non-combat things too.
Example, let's say that we have 1 player who plays a class with this ability: "Whenever you do anything (Combat or non-combat things), roll a d20. If you roll 19+, instead of doing the action you just stand there and do nothing" and another player with this ability "Whenever you do anything, roll a d20. If you roll 2+, you succeed." Do you think that the first player is going to have fun? Other players get to talk to princesses and do fun things whereas you literally just stand there and do nothing.
There's also a difference between player character classes and non-player character classes. The fact that a Royal Alchemist knows more about magical plants and their potential usage than a Farmer makes perfect sense, but you have to remember that the players are humans there to play a game. If your character can't do anything, why are you even there? You could just rip your character sheet apart and just talk bs with your friends, what's the difference?
>>47572380
>Because that takes too long.
Again, you could just say that [3 swings] = [1 successful hit] and call it a day.
>Yes, and that's represented by allowing them to make more attack rolls in a single round of combat. They're not faster, they're just better at getting their attacks past your parrying and dodging.
Okay, but then that also doesn't make any sense outside the context of the game.
I mean, a guy with heavy armor, a creature bony protrusions all over his body, and a monk whose training focused on martial arts and agility is going to be able to "dodge" and "parry" blows equally well as one another?
If anything, the guy wearing heavy armor and the creature with bone plates all over its body should have some degree of DR while the guy monk should be the guy dodging blows like Neo or something.
Not only that, but how are they attacking in a flurry without actually moving faster?
>>47572445
>But having illusionists which can casts illusion spells and then wizards which can cast any spells (including illusions) is stupid because at that point, why ever make an illusionist?
I'm not familiar with specialist wizards in 3.X, but in 1e it was because Illusionists needed less XP, had their own spell list, and had some other bonuses, and in 2e it was because Illusionists were much better at illusions than the regular wizard.
>>47572462
>I mean, a guy with heavy armor, a creature bony protrusions all over his body, and a monk whose training focused on martial arts and agility is going to be able to "dodge" and "parry" blows equally well as one another?
The monk's agility and the warrior's armour have the same effect: They didn't get hit. Dex-less AC, of course, comes into play for item saving throws.
>flurries
I don't know, 3e fucked shit up all over the place.
>>47572445
Because Illusionists get better with illusions and can cast more spells period than a wizard. A 7th level illusionist has more spell slots than a 7th level wizard, and with the right choices, just as much utility.
>>47572473
>>47572527
I didn't mean D&D, I meant in an imaginary setting. Like let's say that illusionist class rules has "Each level you can get x spells of y level from the illusion magic list" and wizards have "Each level you can get x spells of y level from any magic list"
as in, wizards could literally do everything that illusionists can do
>>47572509
>The monk's agility and the warrior's armour have the same effect: They didn't get hit.
My point is, the monk should be focused on not getting hit while the warrior should be focused on not taking damage.
If we already have rules for AC vs. DR, why not have it so that DEX gives you AC but armor gives you DR?
Oh wait, abstraction that only makes sense if you recall that you're playing a game.
>I don't know, 3e fucked shit up all over the place.
That's my point though.
3.PF has so many instances of obtuse rulings, poorly explained mechanics, and overall just terrible writing in general that's it's hard to look at it beyond the fact that it's a game and its rules make sense because it's a game.
In 4e, it actually explains why each of your powers work the way they do.
For example, lay on hands is described within 4e as you basically channeling your divine power into an ally in order to heal their wounds. It's a sentence of fluff sure but it still gives you a degree of context as to why the paladin can do this.
For comparison, the description for lay on hands in 3.PF is three sentences long but they all deal with the mechanical benefits of the ability and how often you can do it and how effective it is when it's used.
>http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/paladin.htm#layonHands
>http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin#TOC-Lay-On-Hands-Su-
They don't even attempt to offer a degree of fluff or context to the ability and this is a problem that exists across all classes and all races.
Yet again, 4e is the one remembered for treating tabletop like a MMO.
>>47572712
>AC vs. DR
I think that might be yet another case of 3e screwing up. I don't recall them from anywhere in 1e or 2e (though they might be in Dragon somewhere).
>>47572215
You're missing the point.
The fact that every character has 15 or so cards with different "powers" on them all with different "cooldowns" makes absolutely no sense thematically.
It's game design taken straight from video games. In fact, I'm surprised WotC didn't create little icons for each one and give players an "action bar" that they can put them on.
Martials should have more options in combat than just Full Attack. I agree. But giving them MMO style skils isn't the way to go.
What do you think of 5e btw?
>>47570784
Underrated post.
>>47572851
>The fact that every character has 15 or so cards with different "powers" on them all with different "cooldowns" makes absolutely no sense thematically.
But not being able to shove someone into a bed of spikes with a bullrush does?
Also, 3.PF has several abilities that have a limited "X per day" thing going on, and it makes even less sense since they don't provide a reasoning for why, say, an ifrit can't use burning hands more than 1/day, no matter how powerful they become.
>It's game design taken straight from video games. In fact, I'm surprised WotC didn't create little icons for each one and give players an "action bar" that they can put them on.
As opposed to 3.PF where you have to practically netdeck just to make a character that can perform their jobs well?
Seriously, is this your only argument?
"It uses terminology that video games use so that's why its video games."
Really nigga?
>>47570784
>>47572910
Except that 'immersion' is different to 'narrativism'.
One of the main criticisms of narrative games is that they're too meta and don't allow the player to think as the character as you might in a more traditional RPG.
Which is literally the opposite argument to the one presented here.
>>47573001
Vancian casting makes perfect sense. You might hate it, that's your perogative, but it's completely plausible that casting a spell is physically and mentally draining and requires you to rest for an extended period of time before doing so again. As the wizard grows in power, so to does his ability to cast multiple spells without having to rest.
Sounds plausible to me.
4e power make absolutely no sense. Explain to me why a fighter can only use brute strike once per day? It's fucking nonsense!
As is the entire premise of encounter powers. Basically I can use these powers once per combat. So essentially, I can use my power, then interrupt combat by, say trying to reason with my opponents and initiating a dialog. Then I can resume combat and use my powers again? Again, completely ridiculous.
Seriously just read some of the powers (particularly the martial ones). They're just laughable. It's clear that the devs said "listen, we need to give fighters more crowd control and defensive abilities so try to come up with some names for powers that aren't too similar to WoW talents."
>As opposed to 3.PF where you have to practically netdeck just to make a character that can perform their jobs well?
Again, I'm not defending 3.PF. Why do you keep strawminning?
>>47573007
>One of the main criticisms of narrative games
Did you read the article that mangles the GNS "theory"?
I'd really like to see an advocate of G, N, or S, counter the points and flow of logic in the article.
>>47573095
>As the wizard grows in power, so to does his ability to cast multiple spells without having to rest.
That's all well and good for a wizard casting burning hands but why is a race made of fire unable to pull this off more than once in one day?
I mean, you'd expect a guy made of fire to burn someone with his hands more than once per day.
>4e power make absolutely no sense. Explain to me why a fighter can only use brute strike once per day? It's fucking nonsense!
Because you're pushing your body past its limit to effectively deal three times as much damage as you normally would, plus STR.
Think about it like this, if an ordinary attack deals 1d10 (6) + STR, and you're using brute strike against a dude, you're dealing 3d10 (18) + STR against a dude and that's not including what happens if you use brute strike and get a critical on top of it.
Also, within the context of the game, your fighter is hitting a dude so hard that the blow shatters bone and splinters armor. There are many documented cases where a dude, hopped up on adrenaline, did some silly bullshit like catching a roof on his back or denting a dumpster. However, for doing this silly bullshit, they also risk injury to their bodies.
So you could rationalize it as the Fighter knowing how to tap into this wellspring at will but recognizing that going beyond that limit multiple times without rest will just end up killing him in the long run.
>So essentially, I can use my power, then interrupt combat by, say trying to reason with my opponents and initiating a dialog. Then I can resume combat and use my powers again? Again, completely ridiculous.
That sounds like the GM being shit more than any problems with the game's rules.
>Again, I'm not defending 3.PF. Why do you keep strawminning?
Because you're ignoring most of my points and most of your points basically comes down to "it doesn't FEEEEEEEEEEL right and that's why it's bad."
>>47556525
>Games like Dark Souls and Elder Scrolls are an attempt at computerising the mechanics of roleplaying games like D&D that have been around for far longer
>But it is the fault of those adaptations that people think that table top games ought to be mechanical
>>47571301
>RPGs will never be balanced. It will never happen. There's not a single RPG where some classes don't have advantages over others. That's how it works and that's fine.
>It's impossible so you shouldn't try! Enjoy your Monk in the game of Druid/Cleric/Wizard, fuckboy!
Eat literally all the dicks, faggot.
>>47575004
>literally
back to Tumblr, faggot
>>47575031
>God fucking christ that guy triggered me!
>I know! I'll cry about tumblr
Your faggotry is only becoming more and more clear.
Narrative focused games are a lot closer to improvised theatre then actual games, that's why they get the hate.
>>47559913
No anon that's ridiculous obviously they're angry over the fact they don't have girlfriends.
>tfw your players only have a 4 minute attention span and 25 minute memory
>one even requested having the game be a "monster of the week" format with each 4 hour session being at a new place in the game world
I'm not saying that video games are at fault but I'm suspecting it
>>47563291
>None of these really match any of the three GNS corners
Storytellers = narrativist
Character Actor = simulationist
It's actually pretty obvious really, they just renamed the three and added a fourth one.
>>47567165
>can't even bear to type the word cuck
God I love how much of a phenomen that insult has become within my lifetime, it started off as just being stupid but it makes people so mad now it's actually a proper insult. Congratulations cuck, you made it, unlike so many others like shitlord and pissbaby and cumskin, and that last one's pretty creative.
>>47576053
*phenomenon
>>47575916
>Character Actor = simulationist
>>47575582
>Narrative focused games are a lot closer to improvised theatre then actual games, that's why they get the hate.
>>47576081
That definition of Narrativism isn't even close to accurate.
Please equip yourself with even some basic knowledge of the topic before you try to enter into a conversation about it. It's just embarrassing watching all you people who literally don't know the first thing about GNS theory try to lecture people about it.
