Because I kinda hate needing to review player stuff. It's not why I play.

and none of that helps you if you and your players actually do want to explore the impact of colonialism on a native people

Wow a discussion about murderhobos. Thank you for reminding me that term exists

@BESW For various reasons, except in exceptional circumstances I tend to just think of people as people rather than as men and women.

@JonathanHobbs Me too.

@BraddSzonye and a second reply for context which I was pleased to see. ;)

or if you want to explore the real societal impact of technology (Shock)

or if you just want to make a Coen Brothers movie (Fiasco)

or if you want to emphasise narrative agency in characters (Fate)

these games are (more or less) focused, tightly designed for one specific purpose. Thus, they are better at it than a general system could ever be, and give lie to the claim that system doesn't matter.

Fate I don't see as focused so much as just well-suited to my GMing style.

indeed, many of them are fully general in setting. There's, what, like a bajillion Fiasco playsets out there now?

But then maybe my GMing style is just focused in its direction.

Fiasco is definitely a game where the system matters very much, where the point of the game is playing Fiasco (in my experience)

Probably Apocalypse World too, although clearly that can also be heavily reskinned.

@BraddSzonye if you care about narrative agency, then fate works very well. just because that's a general focus doesn't mean it's not a focus.

Haven't had a chance to play it yet.

@BraddSzonye not with the same mechanics!

it's a mistake to think that just because most of the rules are the same that the reskins are cosmetic

again, Monsterhearts and Strings, but every "reskin" has its own mechanics that it focuses the game on

Fiasco is an odd case, because it's a game where the focus is a very specific theme, rather than a specific setting or genre.

@BraddSzonye that's my basic point, that settings and genres are not natural bedfellows with mechanics, but themes are.

And my basic point is that I don't care so much about the mechanics as the goodies in the box.

At least not with the RPGs I've actually played.

Fate is kind of an exception for me, as I'm actually considering it to play the kind of game that I'd usually use Shadowrun or Mage or Champions for.

by "goodies in the box" you mean precreated setting stuff?

Yeah and similar materials. Setting, characters, frameworks, powers, gear, etc.

I don't want to do the research and fiddling that would require to provide all of that stuff from scratch in a game.

Unless I'm using it for my characters.

I like making unique NPCs and locations and stuff. And I like making one-off things for players. But I don't ever want my players to depend on me to get their characters built.

Laziest GM ever!

I like playing the GM because I constantly get to build and try out new things.

And entertain the players.

Fate seems like a pretty good fit for that.

Fate is very focused. It's deliberately designed for experience, not setting, but that doesn't make it any less focused:

ironic, given that fate doesn't come with a setting, characters, frameworks, powers, or gear.

> use Fate Core's mechanics to model how fiction, not physics, operates, producing an experience that's better than "realistic" -- it's authentic.

I don't really care that it's narrative-focused or whatever.

@Sohum Yeah, that occurred to me too. But the players can make stuff up on their own without worrying about breaking the game. So they're still not depending on me.

@BraddSzonye you're starting to see it

as it happens, most of these systems do allow for that kind of thing

I can describe things in general terms, enough to give them ideas and guidelines for what fits.

what you're seeing and being attracted to in fate is actually its focus on - as @BESW says - fictional physics

it comes with no goodies in the box at all, just a system

just a commitment to letting players tell stories where narrative agency matters

but, well, that's the important bit.

Hey, a bunch of people wandered in while we were having this mostly off-topic debate. :) Anybody want to actually play Fate?

not me, thanks, it's 1am :P

We have an interesting collection of time zones here.

@BESW I have a question re: our game last night

@JonathanHobbs I have an answer!

but do you see the point? of course the crunch is the focus of the game, because that's what the designers thought important enough to flesh out.

@BraddSzonye I do strongly recommend you listen to this Actual Play of Dog Eat Dog thewalkingeye.com/?p=1802 to get an idea of how mechanics can matter.

Think back to when the wizard henchman was blasting Sindaria with magic, and was going to succeed with three? shifts had outside forces not intervened.

because that's one of the best examples I've come across

Things could have potentially gone very badly; that could have been six shifts if the dice were not friendly.

@JonathanHobbs Yessss?

In that circumstance, I considered whether it might be in Stellata's character to try to leap in and defend Sindaria from the attack. Would that have been possible? Would she need a stunt in order to do that?

Hmm. Generally speaking, it would have required either a stunt or an action set up in advance.

@Sohum Don't really have the attention span for a 90-min podcast right now, but I may check it out later. Mostly, I prefer mechanics that are light or flexible, because I want to get at the bits of the game that matter to me, and that mostly isn't mechanical.

Separately, @Bradd

(You could have Created an Advantage that gave you tags to pass to her, for example.)

@JonathanHobbs I saw that! Looks pretty cool, although the layout is a little screwy in my browser (Chrome for Windows)

@Sohum Alternately, I play games where the players like the mechanics and I don't mind them, but I like the genre/setting/fluff/goodies.

@JonathanHobbs The 3D highlight looks a little off, and the plus is very off-center.

@BraddSzonye Oh, huh. Yeah, it does look different in Chrome.

I think 4e was the only system I've ever played with an available setting that I actually used.

PoL was pretty cool.

@BESW Alright, hm. I kept considering whilst making Stellata how I might take advantage of, well, creating advantages. I might need to do more of that.

@BESW Yeah, I liked how PoL was mostly open-ended, but with all of the usual D&D-isms to give players a framework.

At the time though that conflict was very short and there were some very pressing things to attend to!

@BESW Core has a couple of options for defending other people.

So I felt like I didn't really have time to create an advantage (except at the beginning)

Unlike most D&D settings, it seemed actually designed to allow PCs to be PCs without stretching credulity.

@BraddSzonye Pages?

@BraddSzonye and I'm saying it's that attitude that is mistaken, because there's nothing else about a game system that could matter except its mechanics. I'm not saying you have to go learn ludic theory :P but do at least recognise that the choice of system makes a huge difference.

If you set up something in advance (could just be positioning) you can use your defense in place of theirs. If you don't, you can simply interpose yourself at the last minute with 0 defense.

@Sohum It can, but it doesn't always.

Ahah, got it.

Lemme see if I can find the page.

pp 160 and 170, sidebars.

Yep, that's what I was thinking of.

@BraddSzonye the only times when it doesn't are when you're shifting between two systems as well-suited for whatever story you're telling as each other...

@Sohum Specifically, I mean that it's often enough that it has mechanics (like a list of magic items) that gives you things to choose from.

So Stellata could've chosen to take the hit as if she'd rolled +0 on her defense.

@BraddSzonye ... a list of magic items is not mechanics

It's crunch.

And a certain kind of system.

...what?

no

the system of a game is its dynamics

is how it plays and what sorts of decisions the players have to make

You're defining system a lot more narrowly than I am.

This is getting definitional. You guys need to take a time out from your points and agree on terms.

you're defining it broadly enough to make it a useless word

The rules of the game and how they interoperate?

What you're talking about, I would call something like “core design”

yes? how is "the list of magic items" part of the rules of the game?

In old-school D&D, they're most of the rules of the game

Just like in Magic: The Gathering, most of the practical rules of the game are on the cards, not in the rulebook.

um

no

Older RPGs didn't have many comprehensive, core systems.

the systems of MtG are in the stack, the battlefield, the library and hand

I disagree, and I don't think it's a productive point to argue over.

Also, the thing you're calling system is something I especially care little about in an RPG.

a card in Magic is not going to say "so now there is no zone called the Battlefield anymore, kay? No one can play creatures anymore."

It certainly could!

Have you played Magic? ;)

but has it? to my knowledge, only Un-cards have even messed with the stack.

The cards are full of wacky mechanics like that.

and there's a reason for that.

It's a game all about exceptions to the general rules (and D&D largely is too, especially old-school)

@BraddSzonye That's the core confusion here, I think.

M:tG and D&D are both what are called "exception-based" systems.

Yes!

> Just like in Magic: The Gathering, most of the practical rules of the game are on the cards, not in the rulebook.

if that were actually true, again, why are these core rules so constant? yea, sometimes you'll draw twice as many cards, or scry instead of drawing, or bla bla bla - but in the end, you have a library, and you have a hand, and they're different zones that do different things.

> the systems of MtG are in the stack, the battlefield, the library and hand

I think both of these statements are true

There are general rules which apply except when a specific rule says otherwise.

@JonathanHobbs Agreed – although I'd call the latter something more specific like “core systems”

but none of this actually changes the dynamics of MtG

@BESW Right, and the vast majority of the crunch covers the exceptions.

You two are standing on either side of, say, a stop sign, looking at its two different sides, and one is arguing it's silver and the other is arguing it's red.

you still play spells, costing turn-refreshed resources, and whack each other with creatures

In practice, the RPGs I have played have tons of crunch that is based in exceptions to the rules and examples of them, and that's the part of the game I pay for.

no Magic card is going to turn it into tower defense

The set of general rules --LIFO, touch attacks, etc-- is the core system. The exceptions are individual mechanics which may or may not appear in any given playset. They color the game but don't change its fundamental nature.

@BESW yep, this.

I don't agree that one of core system vs exceptions/examples is more fundamental to gameplay.

D&D's exceptions are much broader than M:tG's, to the point that they can often be confused with the core system.

Early D&D didn't have a core system.

Not one that you'd recognize as such in a modern RPG

@BraddSzonye Then consider me to not be talking about it?

It's a big part of my experience and game style though, so understanding it is important to understanding where I'm coming from, I think.

@BraddSzonye I don't know if anyone is saying they're more fundamental... both sides are fundamental. If either side vanishes the other collapses. Except in games which don't have a core system, which we weren't talking about until just now when you brought it up, but that's just because they don't have a core system they need to lean against

(And I would argue, based on my limited understanding of early D&D, that it has a core system. Just that the core is much lighter and the exceptions much deeper.)

And by “early D&D” I mean “non-modern RPGs in general”

i.e. take away MtG's deck, hand, and stack rules, and you're left with a bunch of cards and no idea how to use them. Take away MtG's cards, and you're left with a bunch of deck, hand and stack rules, and no idea what they're supposed to apply to.

@JonathanHobbs Agreed.

Y'all could do well by not arguing that something is more fundamental, or more important, than the other thing. Take a holistic view.

And core systems and exceptions/crunch both have a big impact on feel and gameplay.

@JonathanHobbs False assumption.

I think I still don't buy this core vs exceptions dichotomy

You can play a game with Swamps and Scathe Zombies and similar exceptionless cards.

And in trad games, the exceptions/crunch are the biggest part of the system and the most work to do myself if I wanted to build a game from scratch or switch to a different core system.

neither seem to be what I would call the "system" or the "dynamics"

@Sohum It's not a dichotomy, it's a spectrum

And some games don't go all the way to both ends of the spectrum.

Like, pre-modern games generally have several core systems

Modern games tend to unify them more.

@BraddSzonye is this meaningfully distinct from several systems stitched together?

@BESW using what rules? only the ones you invent on the spot. How do cards attack each other? It's in the core rules. Do you have health? that's in the core rules. You can play cards that exclusively refer to other cards, I guess, and can operate exclusively with the rules written on the cards, but then it's... a very strange variety of MtG.

@JonathanHobbs That's what I mean.

You can play a game with just the core rules, no exceptions, and it's still M:tG.

That would have a very different flavor from MtG as actually played.

Not arguing that.

@BESW Not if you don't have cards to play those rules with. ;O

brb

@JonathanHobbs That's... what I just said.

Oh, now I see what you mean.

@JonathanHobbs I'm saying that your false assumption is that cards definitionally contain exceptions.

Here, have an exceptionless card.

M:tG is a lot more interesting with exceptions, and most of its engagement comes from them, but you can remove the exceptions and still have a recognizable and playable game. Exceptions are interchangeable, removable, and discrete.

Oh. No. I'm not referring to cards with exceptions at all. I'm referring to cards. Full stop. Pieces of plant fiber with figures drawn on them.

and that's what I'd phrase as "having the same dynamics", I think

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the card side of this.

Cards aren't exceptions.

Cards are part of the core mechanic. "Trample," "Flying," "Landwalk," are exceptions.

I'm not saying they are

Then I am out of sync on this discussion and possibly confuddling it, and I think I should bow out of it

So why are you saying that removing cards from the system collapses the system? That's like saying, oh, that removing the d20 from D&D 4e collapses the system. It's a pointless tautology.

On the other hand, you can remove magic items and spellcasting from D&D and still have a recognizable system--boring, imbalanced, and silly, but none of those elements makes it unplayable.

Because of this vs this. The cards are more important! No, everything else is where the important bits are! I think I misunderstood this argument.

@JonathanHobbs I think you confused difference between the "rules" and the tools used to implement them.

The d20 isn't a rule, and neither are the cards. They're tools used to implement the rules.

No I think my misunderstanding was that Bradd was talking about the important bits being the exceptional rules on cards.

M:tG's are in the book and often on the card.

Yes, and I am not disagreeing with anything you've said in the past few minutes

(except for that bit about where my misunderstanding lies)

@JonathanHobbs The more important thing to me, because it gives the game much of its flavor, and it's where a lot of the creativity and game design goes.

I definitely didn't mean to suggest that one of core rules or exceptions are more important

In a philosophical way.

You can't have a game without both.

By my personal understanding, the core system is that which cannot be stripped away without making the game unplayable. "Extra" bits include subsystems (like spellcasting in D&D 3.5), supersystems (like psioncs in 4e), and exceptions (like Flying in M:tG). They can be removed without making the system unplayable, but they often provide the impetus for wanting to use the system.

Yep, that.

@BESW would you say that, say, Apocalypse World has any "extra bits"?

Games would be technically playable without the extras, but you probably wouldn't want to play them.

I don't know AW well enough to say.

Fate?

and/or FAE?

AW's classes are “extras,” but they're also essential to the game.

Fate Core has more exceptions than FAE. FAE has exceptions which can be removed, but very few. And both provide the "Extras" concept to add bits.

so is any exception to the rule system an extra bit?

AW classes are crunchy, fiddly bits. But the game was also designed for those specific classes and their interactions.

It should be noted that in my personal lexicon both the core engine of a system and its extras are "crunch," which is different from "fluff."

I wouldn't use those words that precisely, as jargon.

@BESW I would agree with that.

I was going to write something along those lines earlier, in fact.

@Sohum If the exception can be removed without fatally injuring the system's playability, I'd define it as an "extra."

@BESW nod

By their nature, most if not all exceptions are extra, unless you take a truly reductionist attitude toward them.

Games (in general, not just RPGs) have some core rules, some additional mechanics, some fluff detail, and some things it leaves to player input.

wait, hang on

Fate Core has no fluff of its own. Which I find interesting.

The whole example setting is fluff.

does removing one class from DnD "fatally injure" the system's playability?

Nope, but removing too many would.

@Sohum No, or D&D would have been unplayable before all of its expansion books came out.

@BraddSzonye Technically an all-fighter game is still playable.

[grin]

@BESW one core class, I meant

I am hesitant to call something “playable” if hardly anybody would actually want to do it!

@Sohum What's a "core" class? I'd argue it depends on the edition and the group's gameplay goals.

@BESW ...in the core book? And let's not get into groupjectivity; a system is playable in and of itself

@Sohum Some of the 3.5 classes found in the PHB are truly abysmal and should be avoided by people interested in mechanical viability at even moderate levels of optimization.

People can and have played D&D with one-class parties, probably for every class, but the game wouldn't work well without NPCs of the other classes.

but the point is: this is meaningfully and significantly distinct from removing the "compel" mechanic from FATE

@Sohum yes.

@Sohum Subjectivity matters a lot, and I don't think you can make that kind of statement about playability. It's not an inherent characteristic.

I'd argue that the concept of classes is core to most if not all editions of D&D, but that any individual class is not.

And honestly, I don't even know what we're arguing about anymore.

Other than definitions.

This feels like nitpicking that doesn't matter to anyone except as a point of pride.

@BraddSzonye Setting definitions is crucial, or the discussion of their subjects becomes nothing more than shouting.

Yeah, but we've just switched to shouting about definitions

Personally, I'm just exploring the ideas because they're interesting to me, setting out where I'm coming from.

@BraddSzonye [shrug] Feels more civil than that to me? Maybe I'm missing something.

When I said that system doesn't matter, I strictly meant that I mostly care that the game offers enough crunch to the players so that I don't need to make up everything for them.

As I understand your position, @BraddSzonye, you're saying that you care much more about the goodies: the lists of magic items, the individual classes, than what I would call the mechanics: the compel mechanic, the fate economy, aspects

Yep, you got it.

but you still have a game if you remove the classes from DnD, as we just discussed

I can have fun with just about any RPG mechanics, just as I can have fun both playing Monopoly and Dominion

@Sohum Well, if you remove any particular class. I'd say that an entirely classless game of 3.5 or 4e, at least, would be... odd. [grin]

@BESW right!

Eh? Not sure what you mean, because you don't have a game of D&D without the classes :)

the goodies are, fundamentally, ephemeral and portable, if you really want them

@BraddSzonye I think the discrepancy arose from the idea that you were implying that the choice of system engine was irrelevant to game experience.

Trad games are general enough that you can use just about any of them interchangeably to play whatever game. Some things will always be clunky, but I'm experienced in dealing with that.

but it's what-I-call-the-"system" that actually matters in pushing theme at the table

@BraddSzonye By "general" do you mean "similar"?

@BESW Yea, I have to agree with this one

I meant general, as in applying to a broad variety of situations. But similar is probably also true.

Like, Shadowrun is adapted to its setting, but it wouldn't be a travesty to swap out the core system with D&D or Hero or Storyteller

it's more that trad games don't try to push theme.

Because I feel like there are vast swathes of the RPG landscape that the game systems known as "traditional" are unequipped to cover... well. D&D in all its iterations just isn't suited to certain game experiences.

Most of the value of trad games is in the exceptions/examples, rather than the core systems.

@BraddSzonye yep. but there's some dynamics that would actually push the theme of shadowrun, I bet you; it's just that the game isn't published with it.

Thus, I choose Shadowrun to play in that setting, not because it's the best core system for that setting, but because that's the ruleset that all the gear and stuff is written in.

As we discussed before, there are wide areas of RPG experience that "traditional" game systems don't even try to address, leaving them instead as an exercise for the group to figure out on their own.

@BESW I agree, although I'd state it more like, trad games are usually very rules heavy in some areas (like physical combat) and rules light in other (like social conflict)

However, I don't feel that heavy vs light is a strong indicator of suitability for a task

@BraddSzonye While I'm fine with that as a gamestyle choice, I find it disingenuous to say that "figure the situation out yourself" is actually "applying" to the situation.

M:tG is extremely rules light in the domain of thwacking my opponent with a physical sword during the game, but my M:tG group never plays it without our fencing gear on

And I also don't agree that heaviness is an indicator of which parts of the game the designers want you to emphasize.

we have all this codified stuff we do during our games

I just think it's an indicator of which part of the game the designers think you need the most help with

parrying to confirm counterspells, and such

Or often, it's just the bits where they thought up the most cool mini-games

so I think it's kind of silly that people claim that Magic is not suitable for fencing

Sorry, I think that's a straw example.

It's a personal peeve: the d20 System went out of its way to make the active claim that their system was capable of accommodating any desired gameplay experience, when it is demonstrably not. I spent years frustrated because of this.

it's an exaggeration :P

I don't think it's an exaggeration you can draw conclusions from, thus straw

The only way I could make the system "accommodate" the experience I wanted was to change and ignore it, which means I was accommodating the system.

but honestly: where is your argument meaningfully different from that one?

Because Magic is not a part of the fencing experience.

says who?

what does that even mean?

It's not something fencers would actually do in any reasonable world.

Here's a better example.

Suppose that a fencing club wanted to pretend that they could cast spells.

They know how to fence, but they can't actually do magic, so they incorporate rules for magic into their duels, using Magic: The Gathering.

Now, they have a magic fencing game, with no rules for resolving the fencing (other than what they already know)

Just rules for magic, and (their house rules) for integrating that with a fencing duel.

Trad gamers already knew how to tell stories, just now how to resolve conflicts on some issues.

So they made games that let them work out the fiddly bits that they could not do simply by storytelling.

(The actual history is a little different from that)

do you even sleep?

Me? Yeah, I actually slept pretty well last night :)

lol

sorta meant BESW mostly

Not so much as I'd like.

Actual RPG history is kinda similar, although it was more like “We want to adapt our wargame characters into something we could tell stories about.”

But it has the same spirit, in that the didn't feel they needed rules for the part about telling stories and acting out their characters, just the wargamey bits.

The stories are a core part of the experience, just not a rules-heavy one.

And of course the early RPGers varied a lot in how much story vs wargaming they wanted.

that's meaningfully distinct from claiming that this particular system is good at telling stories.

I don't think I ever made that claim.

I'm okay with that until claims are made that either a) just because the people it was originally intended for have those skills and inclinations, the system inherently supports the experience; or b) because people can accommodate the system, the system is accommodating.

@BraddSzonye when you say that system is irrelevant, that is what you're saying.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

It's one of my pet peeves.

@Sohum I'm the one who used the word "irrelevant."

I'm saying that storytelling is such a subjective thing, and not something you can do systematically, that there's a reason that games tend to go very light on the storytelling rules.

@BraddSzonye I'll happily agree with that.

@BESW the exact quote is "smart people know that the system doesn't really matter all that much anyway."

People's tastes vary dramatically on what they like in stories, even within a gaming group, let alone across the hobby.

Some RPGs do offer cool hooks for storytelling (like Fiasco), and some offer some light mechanics for resolving social conflict (like most modern RPGs)

@BraddSzonye I'll disagree with that, to the extent that no modern game goes light in any meaningful sense on storytelling rules

But they all do it with a pretty light touch, and while you might prefer one flavor over another, there's nothing particularly awesome or special about one system over another

it might seem light in comparison to the combat rules of DnD4

@BraddSzonye yea, totally, utterly disagreed.

I have not played a lot of modern RPGs, but I have read many, and I would not characterize any of them as “heavy” in the sense of having many rules or strict rules

Fiasco is actually one of the strictest

And I still would not call it remotely “heavy”

Everything is left up to the players' discretion except whether the outcome is generally “good” or “bad”

quantity of rules does not determine how light the touch is.

I do not think you are using “heavy” and “light” the way I am, or the way most people would.

I'm using "a light touch" synonymously with "the choice of game system affects the stories told in it very little".

I think that's fairly standard.

When I say “rules-heavy,” I most certainly do mean quantity of rules in part.

brb

(even by quantity of rules - Burning Wheel's artha system is majestic and complicated and insane, and Mythender's one of the strictest game systems I've ever come across.)

but it's how much the rules affect play that's important.

The Fate Economy is extremely rule-efficient, in this regard, in that it changes the entire shape of gameplay with just a few simple rules about invoking and compelling

I didn't say that games aren't different, just that the differences aren't “important.” Just like Monopoly and Dominion are very different, but you can have a great time playing either.

@BraddSzonye I think the crux of the dilemma here is what "important" signifies to you.

...

yea, um.

I think Sohum is reading a very different meaning than you intend.

Well the original context was social conflict in D&D

I can also have a great time swimming. does that mean there are no important differences between swimming and Monopoly?

I'm just saying that you're going way outside the context that I made that statement in.

Which was generic social conflict in common RPGs, especially trad games

Well, it was a very broad statement centering on a very vague word. [wry] I misunderstood it at first, too.

it doesn't help that you added statements like "while you might prefer one flavor over another, there's nothing particularly awesome or special about one system over another"

So yeah, there's going to be a big, important difference between storytelling in D&D vs Fiasco

But very little between D&D, Shadowrun, Storyteller, Ars Magica, Hero, GURPs, etc.

And in some groups, you might not even find a big difference between storytelling in D&D vs Apocalypse World

if you don't, it's because they worked against the game system in one of their sessions.

I keep hearing this “worked against the system,” but it's something that I rarely ever see in practice.

Just “adapted it to our needs”

@BraddSzonye If "adapting" means "ignoring or changing fundamental concepts," then I think that's "working against."

@BESW yea, that.

And I'm not the sort of person who thinks a bit of tweaking or refocusing makes a game “not D&D” anymore, because there is no monolithic D&D

@BESW Meanwhile, with my background in trad games, it sounds like you're attributing things to the system that aren't there.

I don't even know what a “fundamental” concept of social conflict could be in D&D

@BraddSzonye While I agree that there's no such thing as D&D,, there is a point (probably impossible to define precisely, though) at which the game has been houseruled to the point that it's something other than D&D.

because it, like, doesn't have them

@BraddSzonye Well, 3.5 does.

It has some rules, but I wouldn't characterize them as fundamental in any way

You roll a single skill against an opposed roll or a flat circumstantial number to determine the outcome on a success/fail dichotomy.

And they're about as detailed as Fiasco's resolution rules.

That's pretty fundamental to the entire d20 System: roll a d20, add a number, compare to a target number.

And I resolved them about the same way, before I had ever heard of Fiasco.

You figure out whether you generally succeed or fail, and use storytelling to narrate how it happened.

I mean, it's going to be pretty hard to tell a story in DnD that's not fundamentally Heroic. You can't tell the story of Dog Eat Dog in DnD very well. You can't tell the story of Dogs in the Vineyard in DnD very well. You can't tell the story of Don't Rest Your Head, or Monsterhearts, or even Fiasco very well in DnD.

I think it's a pretty silly way to go, weighing an important outcome on a single swingy die roll in a system where rolls are swingy because there are so many of them.

I wouldn't say that ignoring or changing the Diplomacy construct in D&D 3.5 would make it not D&D, but it is actively opposing the system as presented.

Yeah, that's a quality of implementation issue. Which you can work around by doing things in stages (basically what turned into the D&D4 skill challenge system)

You certainly can't tell the stories that Shock tells

that's what I mean by working against the system

@BESW I would also say that it's overstating the case to say that changing that one rule is the system “fighting” you.

Are we still on this?

@Problematic if it doesn't interest you, feel free to not participate?

I can't comment on Shock, I don't even know what it is.

blink

It might be a good idea to move it to a different chat, since while it started tangentially related to Fate, it's certainly not anymore.

Eh, I'm not that interested in pursuing it

I've just been kinda defending myself because people have kept arguing against it.

That's why I suggested something like, playing Fate.

@Problematic Sorry, I'm just twitchy about people who insist that their standards for discussion are the only ones which apply. If that wasn't your intent, then I apologise.

@Sohum He objected that it was off-topic hours ago.

And he's right.

@BraddSzonye rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13125.phtml Shock.

If anyone wanted to use the room to play FATE, I'd happily stop or move the discussion elsewhere. But until then, what's the harm of using an otherwise empty chatroom?

Mmm. It's an atmosphere issue, I think.

Hmmm.

Although we've been relatively civil, it's not necessarily the best precedent.

Once it became clear that people were more interested in forwarding their own opinions than in understanding others', I should've shut it down.

Yeah, and I actually came here to play, not to argue. :) A little light banter is cool.

Is it possible to do that magical move of a ton of messages to a different room?

Brian can.

I don't even want to press an opinion. I just made an off-hand remark that got turned into a debate somehow!