That won me the argument (or at least salvaged a bit of my pride), but I still needed an answer to his point. I think I've got it now (a day later): How about a role-playing bonus or penalty?
If I were GMing Dogs, and a player made a particularly cutting, standing-ovation-type argument, that really hit to the heart of the matter and deserved to win the conflict, and it made sense that it would win them the conflict...
...then I would have the opposition Give. You never have to go until the bitter end. You always have the choice to either Give (or to Escalate, at least until you've Escalated as far as you can go and the shootin' has started).
The price of a stripped down, narratively driven system like the DitV system is that the system doesn't provide as much protection against asshats. That's common to a lot of Forge-baked games. You could narrate your character god-modding and killling everybody n Chicago in hand-to-hand combat in a PTA game, and there's nothing but the contempt of your fellow players to stop you.
Does that make them bad games? Of course not. It just means you have to be careful who you play them with. "Will allow you to play with asshats" is not a very good design goal for an RPG.
The price of a stripped down, narratively driven system like the DitV system is that the system doesn't provide as much protection against asshats. That's common to a lot of Forge-baked games. You could narrate your character god-modding and killling everybody n Chicago in hand-to-hand combat in a PTA game, and there's nothing but the contempt of your fellow players to stop you.
Does that make them bad games? Of course not. It just means you have to be careful who you play them with. "Will allow you to play with asshats" is not a very good design goal for an RPG.
^Those are basically my sentiments on the matter.
Your friend was worried about asshats. Tell him that you don't play with asshats. If you do, then stop playing with asshats.
The argument is not 'Who would do that?' but 'What is in the rules to prevent someone from doing that?'
The lack of such rules makes the very game itself 'eliteist' in that it does not cope with any level of immaturity or foolery. I don't know about you folk, but even in the best of tabletop sessions, when you have more than say, 3 people, there will be plenty of people being ridiculous going on. That said, the 'I love toast' arguement can make way for something more reasonable.
It could be. "I stab him." and that is the same as "I feint back, and at the oppertune moment I leap forward, blade flashing at my opponent's chest." No difference as far as the dice are concerned. You don't have to be poetic, but the game gets pretty damn boring if it is just a back-and-forth, 'I attack him with my sword.' or 'I punch him.' The same arguement can be made for D&D. You just say 'I attack' and roll a d4 for a dagger. However, in D&D you have a GM with the ability to make arbitrary decisions. They can reward a well described action with a difficulty and results adjustment based on what the PC is trying to do.
There is a difference from having some kind of imagination and 'having to be a poet'. If you just want to hack and slash, this isn't the game for you. If you aren't willing to really delve into each of your actions, then you /are/ just rolling meaningless dice and playing an overblown and overglorified version of Yahtzee.
elraver
p.s. Sometimes those 'asshats' are your good friends that really enjoy gaming with you. I don't know about you, but sometimes you can't avoid 'asshats'. I'm sure most of you experience this situation.
"— As GM, you should always follow your group’s lead. A big part of your job in the first couple of sessions is to figure out, mostly by observation, your group’s standards for legit Raises and Sees, invoking traits, valid stakes, using ceremony, the supernatural, and so on. However, the thing to observe in play isn’t what the group’s doing, but instead who’s dissatisfied with what the group’s doing. The player who frowns and uses withdrawing body language in response to someone else’s Raise, or who’s like “that’s weak” when someone reaches for dice — that’s the player whose lead to follow. Everyone’s Raises etc. should come to meet the most critical player’s standards. As GM, it’s your special responsibility to pay attention, figure out what those standards are, and to press the group to live up to them."
The price of a stripped down, narratively driven system like the DitV system is that the system doesn't provide as much protection against asshats. That's common to a lot of Forge-baked games. You could narrate your character god-modding and killling everybody n Chicago in hand-to-hand combat in a PTA game, and there's nothing but the contempt of your fellow players to stop you.
Interestingly, I've found the opposite to be true about DitV, at least. DitV gives the players the power to protect themselves through use of conflicts.
The argument is not 'Who would do that?' but 'What is in the rules to prevent someone from doing that?'
Well, there's no argument on that. It's a factual question. The answer is nothing. I guess this ends the thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elraver
I don't know about you folk, but even in the best of tabletop sessions, when you have more than say, 3 people, there will be plenty of people being ridiculous going on.
I hate to say it, but no, I don't have trouble with people being ridiculous. If I did, I wouldn't play with those people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elraver
There is a difference from having some kind of imagination and 'having to be a poet'. If you just want to hack and slash, this isn't the game for you. If you aren't willing to really delve into each of your actions, then you /are/ just rolling meaningless dice and playing an overblown and overglorified version of Yahtzee.
This paragraph creeps me out.
If people are having fun, then I don't care how they're playing. If people aren't having fun, then I think the best solution is almost certainly going to be polite discussion that doesn't involve value judgements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elraver
p.s. Sometimes those 'asshats' are your good friends that really enjoy gaming with you. I don't know about you, but sometimes you can't avoid 'asshats'. I'm sure most of you experience this situation.
Just because they're your good friends doesn't mean that you have to play with them. If they enjoy playing with you, and you don't enjoy playing with them, once again, there is no mechanical solution.
The lack of such rules makes the very game itself 'eliteist' in that it does not cope with any level of immaturity or foolery.
Rules can't cope with immaturity or foolery. Any rule, no matter how stringent, comprehensive, or well-conceived, must rely on the players' voluntary compliance. Rules that take the form of social contract rather than game-mechanical limtation are no better or worse than any other in this respect.
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Re: DitV: Role-playing bonus?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyK
Does that make them bad games? Of course not. It just means you have to be careful who you play them with. "Will allow you to play with asshats" is not a very good design goal for an RPG.
That could actualy be an interesting design experiment. A ruleset that directly links being screwed over, railroaded and having a sucky time with player rewards, with the "winner" of the game being the person who had the crappest time. The things that would do to party dynamics would be facinating to watch.
Everyone else has knocked the social contract issue about a whole lot, so I'll let that dog be.
However, there is one rule in Dogs that does do a lot to explode the initial toast argument. It says on page 57 of the new edition: "When you Raise you have your character do something that his opponent can't ignore... your Raise is both what your character does and the dice you're using to back it up."
So, if you're in an argument over someone's soul and if they have to go into town and tell their mother that they falsely accused her ex-husband of sexually molesting them, when in fact they were just trying to get rid of him and cover the fact that they were having an affair with her brother and your Dog says, "I like toast" it is not a raise. They ignore you. And as your action can be ignored, so can your dice.
The truth is that your friend got it backwards. It isn't about the narration backing up the dice, it is that the dice back up the narration. If what you narrate doesn't make sense, then your dice are meaningless.
Of course, this is the same with D&D.
GM: "The orc comes swinging his sword at you, what do you do?"
Player: "I tell him I like toast" -- player pushes forward a natural 20 and grins.
GM: "The fuck?"
Player: "I like toast with a natural 20. That's critical toast liking."
GM: "Right... the orc ignores your toast liking and kills your ass. Go roll up a new character."
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