#30: While in Rome Be Roman: Adventures of a Game Shopper

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/roughquests/roughquests30.phtml

Summary:

A European vacation and French games, including Te Deum and others.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/roughquests/roughquests30.phtml) for more information.

[PaulK]

Yes, Alhambra is quite different from Carcassonne. In fact the tile-laying element was added on to an earlier design (published as Stimmt So or Al Capone). It's still mainly about collecting majorities - in this case in the various building types.

It's a good game, and not too "heavy" for casual gamers.

[smascrns]

I'm still to try it but I read the rules and realised that the similarity is indeed superficial. You comments show it was a good choice, though. Good.

[Olivier.Legrand]

Hello Sergio ! Glad you enjoyed your stay in Caen !

Just two things : my Middle Earth rpg is called "La Terre des Héros", not "L'Age des Héros"... and my wife's name is Sylvie, not Sofie. :rolleyes:

I too hope we'll meet again - our conversation on game design (or "game philosophy"), drama & system, pacing of combat etc was simply one of the most insightful IRL conversations about RPG I've had in years - and it sure gave me food for thought !

[ricmadeira]

Aaah, man, you were in Portugal and didn't tell a soul? I know a couple of people that would like to meet you and keep you hostage until you'd finish Mendes Pinto, eheh. :)

Maybe next time... carry on with Rough Quests!

[smascrns]

Sorry for the mistakes, Olivier. I'm prone this kind of things.

Ric, it's good to get the contact of abreojogo.com, next time I know who to pester when I go back home.

[ricmadeira]

Ric, it's good to get the contact of abreojogo.com, next time I know who to pester when I go back home.

Sure man! Feel free to stop by every once in awhile and write something; we have gamers from all corners of life co-existing peacefully, from old skool D&D hackers to Forge-schooled Indie-lovers, so whatever your subjects are you'll find an interested audience.

Plus, the site has no agenda (beyond promoting RPGs in Portugal, and promoting diversity and exchange of ideas between the community, that is), so if you keep talking about how and why X works great for you, very soon other people will be giving it a shot and joining in to share the love. That's the one reason there have been so many indie game discussions going on, although I don't think our online community is very representative of the state of things in the offline world... at least not yet, eheh.

[smascrns]

For the time being I'll just lurk. I'm short on time so I have to cut on things and my rpg-related activity is currently centered on RPGnet. But we will see if something comes that I can't keep out...

[MichaelSD]

I am curious Sergio. Could you tell us on why you can say that TROS fails to simulate Renaissance fighting style? Are you a long time and regular fencer or practitioner of renaissance fighting styles?

You know I could have agreed with that TROS is overly complex (BTW it is, but not for the reasons you wrote). The dice pools are exactly those things which are manageable in TROS. It seems you never really play tested the game.

Beside, what about researching a little? Especially, if you are going to write a negative opinion about the game?. I mean google ARMA and one of the creators of TROS and be enlightened. (Sidenote: even though I do not agree with everything what ARMA says, they are nice guys.). Oh, and from where are some of the pictures in TROS? From fencing manuals...

Why not simply saying the game was not to your liking? Nothing wrong with that. It would have been more honest and fair to all: to the authors, to the reader and to yourself...

The rest of the article was an entertaining reading, thank you for those lines.

Cheers,

Ákos

[smascrns]

Ákos, first things first:

what about researching a little?

and,

Why not simply saying the game was not to your liking? Nothing wrong with that. It would have been more honest and fair to all

You are being rude and offensive for no reason. You are being rude and offensive because you have no way to know if I did research or not, and because you accuse me of disonesty without a basis to do it. I'll assume that this is just a way of speak by someone that seems (I say 'seems', notice) to be a fan of TRoS. If you are really rude and offensive then there will be no scope for dialogue. I hope I'm right on this.

Could you tell us on why you can say that TROS fails to simulate Renaissance fighting style?

I can, keep with me.

Are you a long time and regular fencer or practitioner of renaissance fighting styles?

Neither. Which means nothing. For a start, I know no trully "practitioner of renaissance fighting styles". No re-enactor can claim to be such thing, and for a good reason: 'renaissance fighting styles' were to be used in real fight situations. You know, those where you actually want to hit the adversary and kill or maim him. Take the real fight factor out and you take out the key component of 'renaissance fighting styles'. In other words, being a "regular fencer or practitioner of renaissance fighting styles" doesn't make me a Renaissance fighter, it only makes me a "regular fencer or practitioner of renaissance fighting styles". Spot the difference?

Oh, but you may think I'm wrong. Then perhaps the sayings of a Renaissance fencer may enlighten us. Someone like Joseph Swetnam: "But I say there is great ods betwixt fighting in the field and playing in the fence-schoole, for in the field being both sober, I meane if it be in a morning upon cold blood, then every man will as much feare to kill as to be killed, againe a man shall see to defend either blow or thrust in the field then in a fence shcoole, for a man will be more bold with a foile or a cudgell, because there is small danger in either of them."

I am not implying that fencing or re-enactment are useless, they are not. They just give a limited understanding about 'renaissance fighting styles'. They contribute to our understanding of what happened in the fighting fields of the past but there are more important sources of data to understand it.

Beside, what about researching a little? ... I mean google ARMA and one of the creators of TROS and be enlightened.

Good suggestion, it just came some 8 years late. And please, read my paragraph about TRoS in the column: The expression 'ARMA' is used there twice, you can figure why if you read it carefully. What's important in ARMA are the original sources they generously make available to everybody, the fencing manuals.

I have a problem with these manuals, though. They are not representative of actual Renaissance fighting. You see, the manuals reflect the understanding of the experts, but the average Renaissance fighters were not at that level. If you don't mind a comparision, it's like if someone in the 23 century wanted to understand how people drive today by referring to books on F1 driving.

There is another type of sources on Renaissance fighting that is under-represented in ARMA, though: Descriptions of actual fights in chronicles, books, correspondence, etc. I have thousands of pages of these (literally) where we can find plenty of little anedoctes of combat, anedoctes that when collected and compared provide a much better look at actual Renaissance fight. Yes, it's an hard and long job but the data it provides is just indispensable. Did you read these? I read the Portuguese chronicles and some examples taken from non-Portuguese sources. Plus there is also the art, paintings, tapestries, frescos, etc. There is a lot more than the pictures in the fencing manuals out there.

My take is that to understand Renaissance fighting one has to go through all that material, not only through the Renaissance manuals. All of this is important, the manuals, the chronicles, the correspondance, the poetry, the art, etc. And next we can use re-enactment to try to understand in person how it worked. True, re-enactment can also provide very good insights IF it is really based on a deep knowedge of the sources.

There is something more, though: TRoS does not even deliver a good simulation of Renaissance fencing manuals, not even with the pictures taken from them. By this I mean the fencing manuals that you can find in ARMA. Don't believe me? Just re-check the manuals:

Silver: "four grounds or principals of that true fight at all manner of weapons are these four, viz. 1. judgement, 2. distance, 3. time, 4. place." (Brief Instructions..., Chap.I).

Hale Gent: "The Parts thereto required are Strength and Judgement. Under strength are comprehended swiftness of motion and quickness of eye ... Under judgement fall the considerations of time, place, and distance" (The Private School of Defence).

FIllipo Vadi: "You must be very shrewd, the eye towards the weapons which can strike you, seizing measure and timing, and with a proper posture. Match your spirit while defending, and arms and feet with good measure, if you want to gain any honor. ... Know that cleverness wins against strength ... He who wants to have honor in arms should have knowledge, fortitude and courage" (Liber de Arte Gladiatoria...), among other quotations I could have chosen.

Alvaro de la Vega: "By ‘wanting to be hurt’ I mean he has made a mistake or an opening of his guard and as we have the knowledge to see those failures then we can attack and stab him ... Our Science show us how to choose the right distance and to place our body and sword in the best way (this is known as to be placed in the ‘medio proporcional'; pay attention to this term, it is the key of our fighting style), and to fight with short and fast movements." (Comprehension of Destreza).

Joseph Swetnam's seven principal rules: "A good Guard; True observing of distance; To know the place; To take time; To keepe space; Patience; Often practice."

Pallas Armata: "Tempo is, that thou takest heed never to make a thrust or blow at thine adversary, without thou hast a fair opportunity to hit, or requisite measure, that he be within thy reach. // Mensure is the distance betwixt thee and thine adversary, whereof thou art to judge (if thou canst reach him or no) before thou thrustest, that thou mayst not offend in vain." As you can see, these are previous to any other concepts presented in the book since Tempo and Measure are judgements that define if and when to hit.

Mertin Siber: "In the goings, should you tread left, while then, bethink the misleading. In thrusting press strongly, so may you achieve it well. When you sight through the window, stand open, see through it, go to it, strike or stab swiftly, so may you be hard-felled. In the work tread roundabout – thus the daring fellow wins out. Will you raise and strengthen yourself – then you must have the right, yet reason is also good. Ward yourself from great wrath, bring forsetting to such, thereby may you achieve it well when in all your fighting you are nimble. This forelore ends."

Similar ideas can be found in Hanko Döbringer (14V, for instance) that I don't quote because it's a PDF.

Why am I quoting all of this? Because all these manuals have something in common: They present principles that are previous to any fighting technique. They can be condenced in Silver's terms: Judgement, distance, time and place (interestingly enough the same principles can be found in The Book of Five Winds).

In my opinion any good simulation of Renaissance combat has to start with this. It is not the case of TRoS. TRoS makes the common mistake of confounding the acessory with the essencial. The designers read the manuals, saw all the pictures with combat techniques, and said, "wow, we want a game where we can play those techniques". There's just a problem here, the essence of Renaissance fighting - as the quotes above demonstrate - was not the techniques (to the point that these varied from school to school), it was the principles.

TRoS handles these piecemeal and some of them it does not even handle at all (like the very core principle of 'time') - at least as much as I recall from my readings of the gamebook. Add to this that the game does not illustrate its combat with real anedoctes of Renaissance combat and you get a simutation that gives much to be desired.

You know I could have agreed with that TROS is overly complex (BTW it is, but not for the reasons you wrote).

This is hard to sustain given that I don't qualify TRoS as being "complex" or provided reasons for it to be so.

The dice pools are exactly those things which are manageable in TROS.

The only reason provided in the game for the usage of large dice pools is because the game designers like large dice pools. There is no game design reason for them. There are plenty of more economical ways of handling game situations without such dice pools.

Yes, one can manage any size of dice pool, but that's not the point. The point is that if there are better options, why use the one that is less effective? In my perspective this smacks of poor rules design. (I sustained the same in my review of Exalted 1st ed. which means that all the arguments for and against what I say have been spent at that time. I didn't change the way I think.)

It seems you never really play tested the game.

I didn't and I didn't claim to have done it. My questions with the game have to do with issues that result from the reading and don't even require a playtest to sustain.

[MichaelSD]

Dear Sergio,

I am not being rude nor offensive, just reacting with in proportionate way to your critic. And I still stand, to what I said. Thanks for the detailed answers, please accept my response below.


You say in your article:
“Just go to ARMA, dowload the wealth of historical resources it contains and compare that stuff to a game of TROS. The guys at ARMA may know a lot about Renaissance fighting, I am sure they know nothing about RPGs and I doubt they tried TROS or they would not endorse it.”

So, you claim that the ARMA logo on TROS is a scam? Why is your opinion relevant regarding TROS (even though I agree to most of it, even if not to all)?

“This is hard to sustain [the TROS is complex] given that I don't qualify TRoS as being "complex" or provided reasons for it to be so.”
You said in your article:
“A convoluted system, an unmanageable dice-pool core, plus a lot of undelivered simulationist pretentions, there you have a recipe for failure.”

I am sorry, my English may not be the the best, but convoluted (if you do not refer to the shape of a physical object, which I doubt) means complicated and that is complex to me. What did you mean by convoluted?
Do you claim your sentence did not mean complicated?


Dice pools.
You wrote about why they choose dice pools. We are talking about complexity. No offence, but your preferences has nothing to do with a game being bad or good. It is subjective, which does not help me or anyone else.


I do not enter into a detailed assessment of your idea about “renaissance fighting styles” on purpose. It is not the point. I do not doubt your technical knowledge, I even accept what you think, but you did not and can judged TROS on your (above mentioned) opinion. You claim, and claimed something purely on subjective opinion in an offensive and unnecessary way. In your article, you did not lose a word that what you say is based your experience. You simply, stated it as a fact, which I strongly disapprove.
Of course, if you wish to discuss further technicalities of fencing, feel free to contact me privately.


Some points about me, which you mentioned:
1.I do not wish to play TROS. I found the ads/disads not to my liking. The world Wyreth is not to my liking, and I do not need that amount of detail for combat in any RPG. I found the combat refreshingly nice (except initiative), and the SAs were great. So no, I am far for being a TROS-fan at any level. I think TROS is nice curiosity game and that is it.
2.I did tested TROS, actually for quite a long time. I find it always irritating that people have opinions of something they never played. OK, that may be my problem only...
3.I hate dice pools. Especially, big dice pools, so TROS does not plays well with me either. But I still claim, that it is easily manageable..
4.Actually, I do not care about TROS that much at all. I simply found, and find, your opinion about TROS highly subjective and irritating.


Hmm, that is it.

Respectfully,

Ákos Szederjei

[smascrns]

Ákos, you say:

"I am ... just reacting with in proportionate way to your critic"

Which was neither a review or an in-depth critic of the game, mind you. It was my personal opinion on TRoS, the way I felt after reading it. The same with the other games I mention in the column, by the way. I stand by what I wrote about TRoS but I was not claiming to be presenting a detailed analysis of the game. That's why when you write (and let me jump to this)...

"No offence, but your preferences has nothing to do with a game being bad or good. It is subjective"

... your are right. It's subjective because I was giving only an impression, not doing a detailed analysis. On the other hand, the impression I transmited is not irrational, it expresses the way I look at games and how I value them. Because it is just an impression I don't sustain what I say. It does not mean I'm wrong, though. Is it helpful to you? It's up to you to know, I can't answer myself.

"which does not help me or anyone else."

I accept that this is true about yourself, but how can you claim that it is true about "anyone else"? Is this not simply a subjective, unsustained opinion?

"So, you claim that the ARMA logo on TROS is a scam?"

No, just as I don't think that a sportsman endorsing Coca Cola is a scam. It's just a publicity trick on the TRoS developpers part.

"Why is your opinion relevant regarding TROS (...)?"

As relevant as any other opinion.

"What did you mean by convoluted? / Do you claim your sentence did not mean complicated?"

Yes, I ment complicated but complicated is not necessarily complex. Simple things can be complicated. Usually needlessly.

"but you did not and can judged TROS on your (above mentioned) opinion. You claim, and claimed something purely on subjective opinion in an offensive and unnecessary way."

Well, opinions exist, they are part of life. It just is not feasible for each one of us to sustain every statement we make. I never claimed to be making something more than this. Of course, this is not alien to you since you do it yourself, see example above and the ones that will follow, like the next: You expressed the opinion that what I wrote is not honest without a iota of explanation for such a strong and offensive accusation.

My opinion was strongly worded because the game itself makes strongly worded claims about realism and simulationism. I don't consider that what I wrote is offensive or I would not have written it.

"In your article, you did not lose a word that what you say is based your experience."

My opinions are based on my experience of reading TRoS and comparing it to what he presents as its sources of inspiration. I didn't claim to be writting about something else (be it to actually roleplay the game or my trackrecord as a re-enactor). It seems you are confusing your own expectations with the purposes and content of what I wrote.

"You simply, stated it as a fact, which I strongly disapprove"

I wrote a column where I presented my opinions about a series of games, all stated in the same terms. Now, I don't think I need to start every comment I make with a disclaimer saying "this is a fact" or "this is an opinion". I trust the reader will be able to understand when I'm expressing an opinion. Yet, before expressing my opinion about TRoS I write, "the game just does not live to the expectations". Needless to say, it's implicit that I'm talking about my expectations. What follows are the reasons to why the game did not fulfill my expectations. I could go on but what I'm pointing to is simply this: One does not need to be an expert in literary critical analysis to figure that I'm not stating facts. Once more, it's your reading that tries to see more in what I wrote than what is there. And, I'll keep pointing to this, you yourself are prone to express opinions as facts.

"Of course, if you wish to discuss further technicalities of fencing, feel free to contact me privately."

I may do it but not because of TRoS. I prefer to reserve these discussions to my column on rpg design (my Rough Quests column). When the time comes for me to deal with combat, I'll come back to you.

"Some points about me, which you mentioned:"

Thanks for the inputs.

"I found the combat refreshingly nice (except initiative)"

I didn't mention this but TRoS emphasises that it has no initiative mechanics in the usual rpg combat rules terms... and comes out with something that is just that.

"I find it always irritating that people have opinions of something they never played."

Once more, it's part of life. We have opinions about plenty of things we didn't do or even accessed personaly. For instance, we have opinions about sports we didn't play, a politician's job even if we never exercised such a task, movies we didn't see, etc. Opinions are exactly for that, to allows us to cope with things of which we have limited experience.

On the specific issue of opinions about games one has not played, I have nothing against it. What I wrote was not about playing TRoS, it was about reading it. I could play TRoS and have a blast for things that have nothing to do with TRoS. Things like the behaviour of the GM and the other players, for instance.
Besides, I don't need to play TRoS to know the system is convoluted; I don't need to play TRoS to have my own views about dice pools; I don't need to play TRoS to know that its simulationist pretentions are not fulfilled by the game; I don't need to play TRoS to know the magic system does not combine with the rest of the game. Since these were the points I touched, I think your requirement for playtest is uncalled for.

"I hate dice pools. Especially, big dice pools, so TROS does not plays well with me either. But I still claim, that it is easily manageable."

I don't hate dice pools, on the contrary, I've been toying with them in my rpg designs. Neither did I imply that TRoS dice pools are unmanageable. Any dice pool is manageable no mather how many dice one puts in it in the sense that you can use it to generate a result.
Still, I think that large dice pools like those found in TRoS (or Exalted 1st. ed.) are the result of poor rpg rules design. The key is to understand that I'm speaking about rpgs and about their rules design. Big dice pools may do wonders in dice games, but they are not good for rpgs. The reason is simple: They distract the players from roleplaying and lead them to dice playing. The bottom line is that I was not speaking about game management, I was speaking about game focus.

"I simply found, and find, your opinion about TROS highly subjective and irritating"

Once more, it was subjective and there was no claim contrary to that. Likewise it is highly subjective to qualify it as "[highly] irritating". As you can see, you are as prone as myself to present subjective opinions as facts. I have nothing against it because I realise that it is just a question of form (I mean, presenting opinions as facts) and that you are not claiming that your opinion is an objective truth. Needless to say, I respect your opinion and it even does not irritate me.

[MichaelSD]

OK, I seem to have written the wrong question:

My opinion (and I tried to formulate all critic of mine on that bases) is based on the fact that you formed an opinion of TROS which is not exactly based on reality. In your article you said (which were the bases of my first post too):
1.You say the dice pools are convoluted, they are not, the system is.
2.You claim that ARMA involvement is “advertisement” only, but that is not true either (I had to check google myself)
3.Your claim how fighting should be pictured (as much I agree with it) is as good as any scholars, so it can not form any qualitative basis on which anyone could decide if it is good or not.

To formulate the problem differently: the opinion's result was in the right direction, but the reasoning lacks any rational basis. But that was the content of my first post too.

Since I do not care about TROS that much, I will put an end to my reasoning. Not because of lack respect toward your person, but our time is too precious to waste on such matters.

Since you are a resident RPG.net columnist, the last word is yours. :)

Take care,

Ákos

[smascrns]

Since you are a resident RPG.net columnist, the last word is yours. :)
If you put things this way, I have to comply...

My opinion (and I tried to formulate all critic of mine on that bases) is based on the fact that you formed an opinion of TROS which is not exactly based on reality.
Unfortunately it's not only my opinion. Just consider the next:

1.You say the dice pools are convoluted, they are not, the system is.
What I wrote in the column was, "A convoluted system, an unmanageable dice-pool core". After several posts it's only natural that both of us start loosing track of things.

2.You claim that ARMA involvement is “advertisement” only, but that is not true either (I had to check google myself)
This may be a baseless opinion on my part based. I formed that opinion on the fact that there's only a superficial linkage between combat in TRoS and the Renaissance sources that can be found in ARMA. Since this is what matters to mee...

3.Your claim how fighting should be pictured (as much I agree with it) is as good as any scholars, so it can not form any qualitative basis on which anyone could decide if it is good or not.
Well, if someone shows that my reading of the Renaissance sources is defective I will accept that I'm wrong. If someone shows me that TRoS suffered a much deeper and larger influence from Renaissance sources, I'll gladly accept that I'm wrong. I may still not like TRoS, but I will not be able to claim that "the game fails miserably in its avowed purpose, to simulate Renaissance fighting". This is not just a matter of opinion, after all.

To formulate the problem differently: the opinion's result was in the right direction, but the reasoning lacks any rational basis.
From my perspective it lacks proof. One cannot imply from this that it "lacks any rational basis".

In any case, so that all of this does not turn into a waste of our time (it was not, at least for me, I liked our interchange), I promise I'll re-read TRoS when I get back to Portugal. Who knows, I may even write a review where I present all my arguments with due rational procedure.