TRPG General Chat

BESW

06:00

@Metool Say what? Was that directed at me?

Metool

one moment

user61230

I'm of the opinion that, under almost all circumstances, good roleplaying can accommodate for most of the deficiencies in a system

Metool

@BESW Yes, in response to this.

user61230

And rather, the system brings out the game that the players are trying to enjoy

BESW

@Metool Thought so. Let me find the post I made...

@EmrakultheAeonsTorn A system should not need to be compensated for. If the system's benefits outweigh its flaws in accommodating the group's desired experience, that's fine.

But a group should not use a system because they can force it to be the system they want, unless they're confident no other system could do it without being forced.

Flaws that can be overcome are still flaws and should not be treated as anything else.

user61230

06:03

A fair point. I think 3.PF is a decent intro roleplaying system, though.

Metool

Is this part of why "I can houserule that away" is not a good defense?

user61230

It's not the best for a group that knows what it wants in a game, and has access to an appropriate collection of books.

BESW

@Metool Check out the comments on this answer, as a starting point for why I say 4e is about hypercompetency.

44

A: GM attacking a recently stabilized ally: is this allowed?

Yes, but it's unlikely It's entirely within the rules to continue attacking a character while he's unconscious, and a GM/monster might decide to do so for a number of reasons. However, there are usually more reasons he won't, both in-game as a monster decision and as a meta-game GM decision. Fi...

@EmrakultheAeonsTorn It's functional, but the system is not actually very friendly to people new to the hobby unless an experienced player is willing to modify its presentation and complexity for them.

Metool

Emrakul, have you checked out Rule of Cool's Legend?

Because that's exactly what BESW just described.

user61230

Hmm. That begs the question, then: Why is it so widely used?

BESW

06:05

I say this as someone who has successfully introduced at least a dozen people to RPGs through D&D 3.5 and 4e. It takes work to make it accessible.

Magician

@EmrakultheAeonsTorn I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on that one. I found it tends to impose a lot of unstated assumptions on what an rpg is and how it should be played, that players take to heart.

user61230

@Metool: I'm going to take a look at it very soon.

BESW

@EmrakultheAeonsTorn Because it's got a big footprint.

It has a LOT of momentum: culturally, it's the flagship of RPGs.

Metool

Yeah, it's got history, and it's got people who have the money to promote it.

BESW

Economically, it's the RPG with the biggest budget behind it, so it has the most exposure.

user61230

06:07

That much makes sense, I suppose.

BESW

And perhaps most subtly, one of the reasons it's not good for newcomers is the reason it's used for them so often.

user61230

How do you figure?

BESW

It takes a LOT of time and effort to learn the system, and money to collect its resources.

You've got to learn a wide variety of subsystems with poorly-worded language spanning a number of books in order to become proficient in the system.

Once you've done this, the Sunk Costs Fallacy sets in: you're committed to this system because of the effort you've put into it.

So you bring more people into it, in order to make use of the effort you put into it.

user61230

I do tend to see that. And it forms a confusing gateway of nonsense.

BESW

Also? D&D is so omnipresent in the RPG community that it's very easy to just not know enough about other systems to be interested in trying them.

D&D and RPG are synonymous in the public eye (to the extent that RPGs are visible at all), and the wider RPG community is not a great deal different.

After I learned D&D, I learnt of three other systems in the next three years: Spycraft and Star Wars were d20 systems, and I dismissed them as basically reskinned D&D 3.5.

user61230

06:12

So then two problems arise. The first: of finding a roleplaying group interested in trying a variety, and second: of finding a system to accurately reflect the interests of the group.

BESW

World of Darkness was the only non-d20 System game I knew about, and I had no interest in it, so I stuck with D&D.

Magician

@EmrakultheAeonsTorn And of course new players won't know what they want.

BESW

Anybody know what I'm going to link to next?

user61230

@Magician That's why you'd need a GM who knows what they're talking about.

Magician

@BESW 'fraid so

BESW

06:13

The Same Page Tool is an excellent resource for helping figure out what the group's interests are, although it doesn't help with finding the right game to meet them.

Metool

Gah, how do you people respond to comments so quickly?

BESW

@Metool Elves.

user61230

That is true.

BESW

We've tried to help a number of people here in chat identify their best game system for the group. It's not always successful; I still don't know much about many of the games out there.

I mostly pay attention to what I like, so my scope is fairly limited unless you like that too.

user61230

I like the Same Page Tool.

BESW

06:17

Please note that it's not a survey.

Magician

@BESW Which is precisely why we've been trying to play different games lately, to learn of other options.

user61230

But I had always considered it a mental exercise more than an actual tool to be applied with a group.

BESW

The group meets to look it over together with a single piece of paper to fill out.

If everyone looks at it on their own, they make choices for themselves instead of as part of the team. It's a team-cohesion device, and using it individually just cements individualism instead.

user61230

I'm generally inclined towards understanding a variety of systems than I am towards playing specific ones.

user61230

Though this is something new, and I haven't had much time to explore it recently.

BESW

06:19

My groups have had a tendency to grab a system and milk it until it's dry.

user61230

I'm curious what you think of Burning Wheel?

BESW

I haven't played anything using the engine, and the most familiar I am with it is through Mouse Guard, so I can't say much about it.

user61230

Fair enough. It also takes a not-insignificant amount of effort to set up a solid BW campaign.

user61230

I have to admit, the first time I ran it, I totally misjudged what the system was designed for.

BESW

I like a lot of what I saw in Mouse Guard.

user61230

06:22

Improperly played games?

BESW

Hm?

Metool

(Whoops that's changing topic...)

user61230

Games of Mouse Guard played with the wrong campaign intent in mind?

Metool

Emrakul, reread? It says that they like it, not that it is like it.

BESW

@EmrakultheAeonsTorn I don't know what your context is, I'm afraid. I've already said I haven't played it.

user61230

06:24

Oh. As @Metool points, I misread that.

user61230

Still. Interesting.

user61230

I'm in a 3.5 game. I kind of want to try out 2d10 and see what the effect is.

BESW

@Metool Mice have developed a small corner of the world as a safe mousey society, free from predators and fear. But the edges of their civilization must be guarded, and the mice protected from environmental, animal, and social disasters. You are the Mouse Guard, those mice who have to some extent defied their mousey nature in order to preserve the rest of their fellows' way of life.

@EmrakultheAeonsTorn Go for it. Present it to the group as an experiment and try to get them on board for a session or two!

Metool

Coool.

user61230

Let's hope they go for it!

user61230

06:26

Interesting conversation. Thank you! Though I must be off.

BESW

@EmrakultheAeonsTorn ttfn.

Metool

Cya!

BESW

See you later!

user61230

'Night

Metool

So in unrelated news, I have set up a desk and battlemat. I don't know why I purchased the battlemat and the NPC Codex pawns box from the Pathfinder line, but it's a thing that happened.

BESW

06:28

@Metool There's a modification where instead you play a Ranger in post-LotR Middle-Earth.

Metool

Oh, is that so? Sounds interesting, I'll have to look into that.

BESW

12

A: What is a good system to play LOTR?

Mouse Guard has a modification for this: Realm Guard Mouse Guard ($20 pdf purchase link, review) is a game about patrolling the borders between a safe haven for noncombatants and the dangers of the outside world. In the original game you're mice, but Realm Guard is a free Fourth Age LotR setting...

Metool

Reflecting on bad purchases is not fun.

BESW

[patpat]

"With fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants."

Metool

I don't even know anyone who plays this stuff in real life.

BESW

06:32

If my group were larger than... @trogdor... there's a lot of games I'd like to try.

trogdor

yesh

this is true

I would even go for most of them myself

if not all

BESW

@trogdor So, what three qualities does your pony have that are like Vin Diesel?

Metool

Oh god what.

[hides]

trogdor

lol

BESW

(I think all ponies automatically get "body tattoo" as one of them.)

trogdor

06:34

well, obviously it can breath fire

bench press 2000 tons

Metool

Well, not younguns.

trogdor

and wears kick ass sunglasses

BESW

Fair enough.

trogdor

just like Vin Diesel

jeez

thought you woulda guessed that

BESW

@Metool You're awful at hiding, by the way.

Metool

06:37

Yeah, must be the Large size.

[missing the point!]

BESW

Hmm.

I should really buckle down and finish at least one of my RPG ideas.

Metool

NOUN NOUN NOUN was yours, right?

BESW

Aye.

trogdor

just combine them all, bam you are done

Metool

I like the -- pfff.

trogdor

06:40

your welcome

BESW

Hounds of God + MLP = Friendship is Werewolves?

trogdor

go deeper

comine ALL THE GAMES

BESW

Friendship is WereNOUNs.

For the record... Hounds of God: A one-session game about holy werewolves in Hell; Heffalumps & Woozles: The Thing You Prize; and MLP: FiM RPG (just notes so far).

Metool

Whoa.

BESW

@Metool ?

trogdor

06:45

you have more than that, or at least more you have speculated

not necesarrily what you have worked on

BESW

@trogdor I can't remember anything I've got notes for... remind me what you remember.

I do have a number of adventures/campaigns that are either system-agnostic or system-specific.

trogdor

yeah

I mean that stuff,

like I said, you didn't have to have put work into it

I just mean all the ideas you mentioned, even if it was just one time

like SG1 as FATE

where we might be able to have one PC reasonably play a whole SG team or something

honestly, a lot of what I remember is just fuzzy stuff about using FATE in some slightly different way

Metool

@BESW I'd very much like to see the system-agnostic stuff.

BESW

Yeah, I'm not counting that. It's mostly all just "Hey, what happens if I poke Fate with a stick? OOooh, it jiggles!"

trogdor

mk

well I was counting it

BESW

06:50

@Metool Umm. I don't have much in GDocs for that at the moment, but I can try to remember some of the broad ideas.

trogdor

it's not like I was serious about actually combining everything anyway

BESW

There are two Doctor Who adventures that I want to use as inspiration for one-shot campaigns: Tomb of the Cybermen and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

Metool

Remind me which Doctor that second one's from?

BESW

Seventh, with Ace.

It's about a circus with a sinister secret in the audience.

Tomb would be a standard dungeon crawl, but very heavy on logic puzzles (one concept is to have each door in the dungeon be part of a XOR Gate, and the pattern of opened/closed doors would activate and deactivate other parts of the dungeon) and with a surprise at the end which takes advantage of meta-level assumptions about the dungeon-crawling paradigm.

The Greatest Show game would be more social/mental; it'd largely take place in conversation and social manipulation, probably. Sort of a high-stakes social mystery game.

Metool

[nodnod]

BESW

06:54

I've got a very detailed SG-13 campaign I'd like to run some time, using the stories of Shambhala has a jumping-off point.

@problematic has a really cool idea for a one-shot game that I'd like to develop.

in FATE game room, Jul 6 at 2:56, by Problematic

Once a generation, one and only one member of the village is chosen to take tribute to the dragon. If they survive the journey and deliver an acceptable tribute, the dragon will bless that generation with fertility of crop and belly. If they do not, fire will rain from the sky.

I can see that getting developed into a system- and setting-agnostic concept: the character(s) must travel a dangerous <location> to acquire <thing> and present it to <entity> or their <home> will be destroyed. The challenge lies in at least one of the following areas, depending on the group's needs: acquiring <thing>, presenting it to <entity>, and travelling the <location>.

It could be a mafia tragedy, or a space opera, or a caveman comedy.

Metool

Do you mind at all if I mark that as interesting?

BESW

No, go for it.

Credit @problematic if you wind up doing something recognizable it.

I've got the Enchanted Forest campaign, which is currently in a stall due to my failure to get other GMs self-actuated.

I supposed the Hounds of God could be system-agnostic, but I don't think they should be.

(Not sure FAE is right for them either; I haven't touched the game since FAE got out of beta.)

Then there are just the random campaign ideas that may or may not require a system to go along with them, like the Island of the Scale--@trogdor was part of an abortive attempt to get that concept told.

And I have patterns/templates that I use and reuse.

trogdor

yeah

it would have been pretty interesting

especially alongside our group at the time

BESW

Like the Evil Campaign where the party played minions of a typical D&D villain, fighting the typical "party of four unlikely heroes" modelled after PCs from previous campaigns.

I'd have to go delving into my unorganized notes to find much more, I think.

trogdor

I still remember that evil campaign well

and fondly

Metool

07:10

Does this chat function on mobile devices?

BESW

@Metool Yes, there's a "mobile" button at the bottom right.

I just got one of those scam calls from the guy pretending to be from Microsoft and they noticed my computer is full of viruses.

"Thanks for letting me know, I'll go take care of that!" [click]

Metool

Yeah, those are incredible.

What was the number?

BESW

No idea.

Metool

Well I'm going to see what elements from RWBY I can gather now.

BESW

ttfn

I'm off to make dinner.

Zachiel

09:17

@BESW my oath to not bring character creation for my site in this chat.

Well, I agree (there's no such thing as D&D) but...
"What, you can't get Darkstalker? Why?"
"Oh, we don't use the whole manual"
"OK... why?"
"We never got that in when they printed it"
"You're not playing D&D"
The real problem is you can't gauge what is good for my game unless you play in it for a long while. (And I guess it's true for every D&D game.)

Zachiel

09:43

@BESW sphotos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/…

2

BESW

10:02

@Zachiel Aw, you remembered.

Zachiel

XD

doppelgreener

@BESW Hi!

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Yo!

doppelgreener

AlexP's Pony Vin Diesel comment gives me an idea. For your base characters for this game, pick the six mane cast members.

Then, from there, work out what about them is important to the game mechanics, and work out the game mechanics, and work out how to replace them with custom characters.

Rather than just working from completely arbitrary ponies.

BESW

You mean do this as players, or as a game designer?

doppelgreener

10:05

We know that the six mane cast members work in pony episodes. Find out what's important about them and how to make it work, and then you'll learn what is actually an important part of character creation.

As a game designer.

BESW

Well, right off the bat I can throw out the Elements of Harmony.

doppelgreener

Yes.

BESW

Instead we have...

doppelgreener

And the mane cast's personality traits, like Rainbow Dash's high levels of excitability.

BESW

What do you think makes them work, then?

doppelgreener

10:10

Some of their key persistent personality traits, and their cutie mark-defined obsession. The Elements of Harmony, I (possibly very wrongly and naively) suspect, isn't even necessarily a relevant part of... anything most of the time. Maybe it's something that becomes relevant sometimes, but they're mostly just defined by... their personality and cutie mark, which aren't defined by their element of harmony.

(I believe you pointed out at one point the incongruence between the ponies' behaviour and their respective element of harmony, e.g. loyalty)

BESW

So... Trouble and Talent, basically?

doppelgreener

What's important and worth making mechanically significant? How do you surface it mechanically? Not sure! That's worth analysing. But I'm just suggesting it's probably better to work from "This game features Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack and [uh this one is escaping my mind]" than "This game features arbitrary ponies, and we'll also use the mane cast for comparison."

BESW

Technically, Talent isn't always exactly lined up with cutie marks.

doppelgreener

Maybe you are already doing that :D

BESW

Twilight's a great example; her cutie mark says she's great at learning any magic, but her Talent is more like Organization and Research.

trogdor

10:14

@JonathanHobbs Pinky Pie?

BESW

Which is definitely helpful for learning magic, but it's the ability to learn ANY magic that sets her apart in terms of cutie mark capacity.

doppelgreener

@trogdor That's her.

trogdor

yeah

doppelgreener

No, not necessarily just trouble and talent basically. There's more to them. Rainbow Dash's talent is being fast and flying; she's also as hyperactive as Pinkie Pie can be and as down to earth as some of the others can be.

There might in other words be than just a couple of things about them. I don't know if there'd be attributes, but they certainly have things resembling skills, that could potentially be useful surfacing in ways that aren't just aspect-like.

trogdor

they do have some complexity

BESW

10:16

I like the idea of auto-success and auto-failure when working within certain parts of the character's definition.

Maybe I should be looking at something more like the Flying Pilgrims than Fate.

Actually... @trogdor This Saturday, let's run a Flying Pilgrims session... and then see what it's like to run a pony game in the same system.

trogdor

ok,....

doppelgreener

@BESW Actually I guess what I'm getting at is this:

trogdor

that came out of left field

doppelgreener

A major part of game design is something I'm sure you're already familiar with: you very often have to kill your darlings, or throw something out altogether to start afresh. I think you went into this wondering how to adapt Fate to generic ponies, then started wandering away from Fate stuff (but still kinda using it) whilst adapting to generic ponies.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs If I've given the impression I have any insight or experience in designing games, that was wrong of me.

doppelgreener

10:20

@BESW Well, the kill your darlings thing applies to storytelling too.

BESW

Aye.

trogdor

be back later, crab dinner

doppelgreener

It may well be worthwhile to put aside everything you've decided about how character creation should work at this point, and then work out how to make a good game around the six ponies - from a clean slate. "Okay. I have a game with ~~generic ponies~~ these six specific ponies. What should I do from here?"

BESW

@JonathanHobbs But it's so haaaaaaard.

doppelgreener

Games sometimes start off as toys. You could start off at that point, maybe.

A toy is something that has a set of rules, and that's it. Lego is a toy: the rules are that there's a set of bricks and you can do certain things with them.

Toys become games when you add a goal. Minecraft is a game and not a toy because it has the goal of survival. Risk is a game because there's a goal of conquering the board, otherwise it would just be a toy to watch colours shift around the board. Kids create a game out of lego when they pick a goal for themselves (build a castle, for instance).

BESW

10:24

Interesting way of coming at it.

I am rather goal-less, I suppose.

I'll brb in under half an hour.

This is very useful.

(I'm thinking about trying on a different concept first, though; ponies are complex!)

doppelgreener

This is just one way to create a game. The toy step, however, identifies something that is fun - if a bit aimless. Minecraft started off as a toy: it was just creative mode, adding and removing blocks. Half Brick games start off as a toy: Fruit Ninja, etc.

After you find something fun you then work out goals to add to turn it into a game.

Also, picking the six mane cast members serves as an anchor for you in identifying important features of characters. You won't have to work out character creation at the same time as the rest of the game: you already have six highly successful excellent fantastic characters. You just don't know how to do character creation for them yet. Work that out later.

This is similar to the approach D&D took. In the beginning, they just had a few highly successful characters: a fighter, a mage, etc. Later they worked out a greater class system, but not before they worked out how to make the first, good, characters work.

BESW

10:52

Interesting, okay.

doppelgreener

It's also very likely Fate didn't start at: "right. How do we create completely arbitrary people and a game around them?"

BESW

I was thinking of the Mane Six as being exceptions because of their Elements, but I can easily ignore that part of them.

@ShankarSharma Hi!

doppelgreener

They probably picked some people and worked out a game and how to model them within that game, and then worked out how to create other characters in the same model.

@BESW Exceptional ponies?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Ponies with unusual themes that other ponies wouldn't have.

doppelgreener

@BESW Ignore it or embrace it like 4e embraces the fact the player characters are just different to other people.

Or the fact that Fate embraces the fact that PCs are highly competent and proactive - they aren't regular people.

BESW

10:54

I was thinking that the Mane Six couldn't model even the most exceptional of other ponies because their Elemental connection makes them uniquely special.

doppelgreener

It doesn't really. It's a unique part of their being that surfaces... sometimes?

BESW

Aye, I'm seeing it now.

doppelgreener

Plus, they're your model characters anyway, I suspect. You just haven't been using them totally as such.

BESW

Maybe add the CMC in there too, but yeah.

trogdor

for smaller, younger ones?

in case people want to role play those

BESW

10:58

No, just as characters.

They're fully as fleshed-out as the Mane Six.

I think the CMC are better developed than Spike.

@JonathanHobbs Although you're probably right about my darlings, another problem is likely that I have so little practical experience with a variety of systems.

doppelgreener

What's CMC?

BESW

I've got d20 System, Fate, DitV, MLWM, Roll for Shoes, and... that's about it for games I've hit the table with, and half of them have been for only one or two sessions.

@JonathanHobbs The Cutie Mark Crusaders, a trio of fillies who formed a club whose goal is to help each other discover their special talents and thus get their cutie marks.

doppelgreener

@BESW You've got more experience in systems than I have then.

BESW

Temple of the Flying Pilgrims is actually making me very interested in a much less dice-based system.

doppelgreener

One part of being a game designer is playing games to learn them and analyse them. I often find myself analysing what works and what doesn't work about a game when I'm playing it, identifying the various things they've done and how the gameplay features affect me and can be used by me etc.

In most video games you can generally identify most of the important things within two hours of play time.

The trick, when designing your own game, is to take a step back completely from every other game, and have the lessons and tools you've learned from them there available, but then go make your own thing - use lessons and tools as appropriate, but don't try to model your thing on other things necessarily.

By "tools" I don't mean just things as palpable as, e.g., attacks and items. There are also more highly conceptual things like the concept of gating.

When a player's wandering through a level of a video game for a long time they can become uncertain they're going in the right direction, and so they'll turn back to see if they missed anything.

Gating involves a gate they pass through which they can't return from. They hop down a ledge and can't come back. They walk down a hallway and it collapses behind them, sealing them in.

This is actually positive feedback that they're going the right way. If they ever wonder if they're going the right way, the gating tells them: "no, keep going that way."

Gating's a tool used to have a certain psychological impact on your players.

BESW

11:16

I'm passingly familiar with such concepts.

But I don't really know much about them in gaming, certainly not to the extent I feel I need.

doppelgreener

That one in particular isn't very important in RPG design; it's more relevant to campaign design, but not very relevant because the GM is your positive feedback.

BESW

Aye.

doppelgreener

The fact they're still giving you stuff and not giving you funny looks tells you there's stuff to be had this way.

BESW

Just sayin', I don't know what the game-design equivalents of these tools are.

@JonathanHobbs I try to always look at my players funny.

doppelgreener

xD

I see.

Well, stuff like Gating is stuff I didn't recognise until I was taught about it.

But, well... um, one starting point could be just getting some willing friends together to play a completely unruled FiM game.

i.e. one of those nights where you just throw the rules aside and do whatever, except you didn't have any rules to begin with. And have fun.

BESW

11:21

I don't think we've ever done an unruled game.

doppelgreener

Don't try to create or work out rules.

I thought you had!

Or, at least, unruled sessions of D&D?

BESW

I guess we've done unruled RP.

doppelgreener

Well, that thing. Like I did that night where two of my players were the only ones there so we did a prequel story and they got thrown into jail and broke out and etc.

That was fun and something like that could suggest to you a lot of what's important in such a game.

BESW

Hmmm.

@trogdor would certainly be game.

But.... Hrm. Ben's watched a few episodes and wouldn't be opposed, if he ever gets free again.

trogdor

yeah

I miss Ben lol

everyone else too, but he is the only one who might reasonably be around anytime soon

Alex P

12:14

Since it's game design talk, I'll throw this link up again: "Your Three Insights". Note that he clarifies it to be each subsystem having these.

BESW

I see.

Alex P

@BESW "Ponies are kinda crazy (obsessive and fragile)" is defs one of yours.

BESW

I think his "subject matter" "insight" is more of a theme or something....

Alex P

@BESW 1 and 3 get kinda mixd together. Is DitV Town Creation "subject matter" or "human nature"?

(Pride leads to injustice, injustice leads to sin, sin leads to... other consequences.)

BESW

Isn't he saying that every system has all three?

Alex P

12:21

@BESW I think he's saying that having these is a measure of your game being worthwhile. A bit of a self-test to say "Have I built up the right core elements in this game?"

BESW

It seems to me that his "three insights" are the RPG equivalent of literary criticism.

That is, they're probably useful for evaluating a game already made, but largely useless in actually making a game.

Alex P

@BESW I disagree. I wouldn't use them as hard-and-fast rules, but they make you stop and say, "Okay, what's the point of me writing this part?"

BESW

Gotta power-cycle my devices, back in a bit.

BESW

12:43

I think it would be more effective for one's rubrics to be based on action goals rather than statement goals.

Nothing's worse than a work of art whose primary function is to lecture.

(Okay, not nothing, but you get my point.)

A game, like any other creative work, will naturally reflect the ideas of its creator without any attempt by the creator to soapbox.

Mechanics shouldn't try to "say" something; they should cause or effect practices.

"What's the point of this mechanic" should be answered with a desired "what it causes to happen at the table" answer.

[said the person with no game design training]

doppelgreener

I have wanted to get this off my chest for days but all I had was a mobile phone to type on.

wax eagle

wow, first real solution posed. To be honest, sys-rec is eventually going to go the way of gaming's game-id and it's going to be painful because we've clung to the question concept for so very long.

Alex P

@BESW Well, that's what Vincent's particular "insights" are. What they "say" is how they create structure in the game. So, yeah, I don't disagree.

doppelgreener

@waxeagle Possibly. :(

BESW

@waxeagle That would kill the majority of scifi.se's traffic.

wax eagle

12:52

@BESW that's a damning indictment

BESW

(Not that I think that's necessarily bad; I suspect that the IP-ID questions are a major contributor to how dead that place seems.)

doppelgreener

@AlexP Well... there's goals and ways to evaluate your goals, but that's part of the cycle of feedback.

wax eagle

@BESW they create the idea that questions are only interesting to the participants.

and when that idea spreads, no one votes

BESW

@waxeagle I rather suspect that scifi.se as framed is not appropriate for the SE format, and perhaps can't be rejiggered so it is.

Alex P

I think the bigger point is that if your game doesn't have anything focused about its genre and setting, it's really a generic game playing dress up. If your game doesn't have a plan for how people are going to use the mechanics in play, then you're going back to the kind of cargo-cult dark ages as far as RPGs go. If your game doesn't structure satisfying conflicts in some way, it feels toothless.

doppelgreener

12:53

It's useful in the creation process, which involves evaluation of whether the stuff you created is doing what you want it to do, but it won't help you create that stuff - it's just one of the available tools to help you reflect on whether it did stuff right.

Alex P

@JonathanHobbs Correct.

BESW

I'm thinking of the parallels with the early development of the Ruhi Institute in Colombia.

wax eagle

@BESW possible. It's been thoroughly acknowledged by SE that it doesn't work in every instance. Although shutting down a launched site would be really bad.

and I think they'd only do that if the traffic just absolutely died

and (cuz ands are awesome) their SEO is too good for that to happen

BESW

They identified activities they wanted the people who participated in the Institute to start in their villages. They defined those activities very carefully, so they'd know success when they saw it.

doppelgreener

... that said though I'm not sure how I'd use, honestly. I can't wrap my head around whatever useful thing the guy's trying to express. I generally have player experience goals (one of which is always for them to have fun of some sort) and evaluate and consider mechanics based on how they contribute to those goals, for instance - that's the tool I use.

Alex P

12:56

@BESW How so? From what I've seen of it, it has cruft, but it is a reasonable place to get detailed answers about Doctor Who, LOTR, &c.

doppelgreener

The guy's being too vague or airy-fairy or high-concept or some other term I can't put my finger on about it.

Alex P

@JonathanHobbs Fair enough.

BESW

And so as they developed the Institute courses, they were able to immediately tell what worked and what didn't because they had a very obvious way to tell what was working.

doppelgreener

I wish he wasn't since it seems like a neat way of looking at things but I don't get it :(

Alex P

@BESW So scifi.se is a failed village?

BESW

12:57

@AlexP Yes.

scifi.se is not based on practical problems.

It is, at its core, a place for curiosity and idle speculation.

That is not SE.

Alex P

Honestly, the system-rec questions here did put me off when I first saw them. They added to the impression that a lot of the content here was forum-like rather than "real" Q&A.

BESW

@AlexP That is valuable input that should be included in the meta discussion.

Perhaps just as a comment, but it should be there.

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