Do you dislike a game despite finding its rules good ?

[silva]

The opposite to the other thread.

I have this feeling with GURPS. I think its rules a very noble effort for what it tries to achieve. But then they feel so... dry, to me that I simply cant have fun with them.

[Occluded Sun]

D&D 4E. I recognize, as a friend of mine holds, that its rules actually work quite well. It's just that they work to create a game I'm not interested in playing.

Our group has had several positive experiences with 13th Age, though, so there's that.

[souran]

Shadowrun. I have never enjoyed this at the tabletop. The second edition was where I started and that was only an ok ruleset. By the time they actually made the game a pretty solid system I just had zero fucks to give. I always thought that the setting would be better without the magic and elves. Even as a teenager I thought that the metaplot seemed ...somewhat poorly written. Its gun stuff also tended to be wrong in ways that affected peoples verisimilitude. Its tech predictions kept being obsoleted by real technologies in ways that made the other engineers I gamed with ask about scrounging up "obsolete" hardware so they could do shit we can do now that runners couldn't.

It just never meshed well with any group I every played it with.

[silva]

Funny how opposite our opinions are. I LOVE Shadowrun setting and premise, but find its rules a mess no matter the edition.

[Judging__Eagle]

Funny how opposite our opinions are. I LOVE Shadowrun setting and premise, but find its rules a mess no matter the edition.

Spoken like someone without an understanding of cyberpunk at all.

While the "ideas" that 1980's Cyberpunk poses are interesting; the actual tech from Shadowrun is not much further than stuff from the 1970's. While additionally failing to capture the essence of cyberpunk : "the streets find their own use" (Gibson's own definition, and a key part of the 'punk' ethic of every hooligan being a member of a rock band as long as they put energy into it) by simply having the PCs being expected to start as a gang starting out with street-quality gear and working their way up the food-chain by doing increasingly dangerous jobs. Ideally with the expectation that the PCs are the sort of Gibsonian heroes who could whip up serviceable results when they get better access to Finances or Science and begin new cycle in their societies development by introducing some new society-altering invention; which is swallowed up in the roar that is the jet-streams of the technological singularity.

Frank has mentioned that the SR economy looks like that of a developing nation; most of the population's tech are scraps, unfashionable/servicable products, or end of season cast-offs. With better choices costing more, the PCs are trying to balance both trying to climb to a higher rung, and not have the rungs their aiming for have people higher up noticing with ready heels. Negotiating between doing runs to get more influence, money, and runs you can pull off with such gear; balanced by the fact that the first time you're a fiscally noticeable enough target for someone with the credits to burn, even hiding in the Sprawl won't be enough to hide you. A long-enough SR campaign will be a globetrotting one as the Runners try to find obscure/distant areas to get themselves lost in.

Which is an other setting failing that flies over your head. Which is reasonable, since you think "arbitrary shit all the time" is a method remotely resembling simplicity; which is a mark of stupidity or insanity.

[silva]

I think you nailed it there, Judging Eagle. Shadowrun setting and premise dont follow some important tropes of gibson cyberpunk. Instead its like the authors said "Hey, what about we do D&D in a cyberpunkish world ? Imagine how awesome it must be playing an elf with a machine gun and raiding dungeons.. I mean, corps". And then Shadowrun was born.

Anyway, I still find this gonzo and incoherent mess of a world awesome as fuck. But then I think its due to my first contact with it being during the first two editions, whose crop of artists and writters could make a rotten apple looks obscenely delicious. Perhaps if I had met the game in its 3rd or 4th editions/incarnations my opinion of it could be wildly different. Who knows.

[Judging__Eagle]

Just because you had a fun time with some friends doesn't mean that the game system or setting themselves are remotely good. Each game table experiences the game differently; and very often refuses to play the game as written. I, and likely you, have no idea if you were even remotely playing the rules of the game as presented.

I know for a fact that in my own game we sort of ad hoc'd on a way to maintain the cyberpunk feel of the game by allowing PCs to take existing equipment and resources, then try to upgrade them. Either by outlining the plan, or instead outlining the resources we'd spend (time, tech, gear, creds, contacts, etc.) and the MC would give us a result; either case involving dice rolls to see how well things turned out.

Having the entire group of players in a group of SR taken even rudimentary programming classes made our MC be totally fine with deckers making their own software, and other characters in the group making their own stuff.

I'm sure that most groups that play SR don't embrace suppressed SMGs, auto grenade launchers, combat adepts, drone-carriers, or optimized spell choice & casting. Most gaming tables barely register the rules of the games that they're playing; and thus play their own invention of the rules.

[silva]

Just because you had a fun time with some friends doesn't mean that the game system or setting themselves are remotely good. Each game table experiences the game differently; and very often refuses to play the game as written. I, and likely you, have no idea if you were even remotely playing the rules of the game as presented.

This is a very interesting point.

See, in the end, for all the fuss and flames about rules and systems and dice faces, I think the RPG is at its heart a game made to be adapted. And as such, more than any other media (movies, books, videogames, etc) the tabletop roleplaying experience has no right or wrong way to be engaged, as long the players are having fun. Because of this, the value that a specific game or ruleset has tend to be much more subjective than pieces from other media.

Thats why its wildly difficult to establish solid criticism on roleplaying games. Go to a community and D&D 3e is considered the magnum opus of the hobby; go to another crowd and *BAM* GURPS is the magnum opus; go to another yet and *BAM* its Call of Cthulhu/BRP; go to.... you got the point. This high degree of subjectivess just dont exist in movies, books or even videogames.

I find this a really interesting point, and one that Gygax touched upon beautifully with his classic moto of "the secret any gamemaster should never let players know is that they dont need any rules". I was never a fan of the guy, nor the specific games he created, but I acknowledge there is wisdom in that phrase.

[Aryxbez]

Thats why its wildly difficult to establish solid criticism on roleplaying games

That's mostly because people are highly irrational, and will take criticisms personally, because its something they like. Since this industry is a bit backwards and still a bit regressed to this day, we still have people spouting 'subjectivity is imperior!", despite there are certain models of games that have advantages over others. It also doesn't help that Designers and some forums quell "solid" criticisms, in fear of them, and some even encourage others to condemn those who would provide such. Lastly, most RPG fans don't fully read the rules to the games they play, resulting in further irrationality.

So its difficulty lies in the "wild" nature of people in general, opposed to the games themselves. Your speech isn't really anything new, nor is it inspiring to encourage the notion that we shouldn't be objective to the games we like.

[AndreiChekov]

Funny how opposite our opinions are. I LOVE Shadowrun setting and premise, but find its rules a mess no matter the edition.

While I am quoting Silva, I am actually talking Judgingeagle.
Did you miss this part? Because you are criticizing silva for a thing that he didn't actually do. He said that the rules are terrible, and he still loves the game. It is off topic for this thread, but you jumped on the wrong thing that he said to argue.

On the other hand, Silva forgot that he posted this and continued to talk to you about it, so I can only assume alcohol or shrooms.

This has been a comment from your least sober denner, Chekov out.

[AndreiChekov]

Btw, 4th e is a game that I don't like, and the rules work pretty much 70% of the time. that is a dayum good ratio for a product from a real company. I can't stand the wizards with rituals thing.

Also, no, that is the only game that does it. I pretty much only play 3.x I've done all of the variations, and that is all I am willing to play these days.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Despite generally having serviceable rulesets, I'm not a fan of Puerto Rico, nor the entire Railway genre.

[silva]

On the other hand, Silva forgot that he posted this and continued to talk to you about it, so I can only assume alcohol or shrooms.

Well, I found his other points more interesting to discuss. But I do believe its possible to love a game and dislike its ruleset (Shadowrun case for me).

As I believe the contrary is also true - I find most editions of D&D fairly successful at reaching its intended goals, but they dont do anything for me at the table.

[silva]

Thats why its wildly difficult to establish solid criticism on roleplaying games

That's mostly because people are highly irrational, and will take criticisms personally, because its something they like. Since this industry is a bit backwards and still a bit regressed to this day, we still have people spouting 'subjectivity is imperior!", despite there are certain models of games that have advantages over others. It also doesn't help that Designers and some forums quell "solid" criticisms, in fear of them, and some even encourage others to condemn those who would provide such. Lastly, most RPG fans don't fully read the rules to the games they play, resulting in further irrationality.

So its difficulty lies in the "wild" nature of people in general, opposed to the games themselves. Your speech isn't really anything new, nor is it inspiring to encourage the notion that we shouldn't be objective to the games we like.

Yeah, I know we already discussed this before, and we fall on different ends of the spectrum here. I would say the difference between, say, a movie and a tabletop roleplaying game, is this:

Mind caulk, player enjoyment and a solid setting can get people to keep playing longer than solid rules.

The "human factor" is much stronger in the tabletop environment, to the point of allowing fun even when sidelining the rules completely. (bs: I said sidelining, not ignoring it) - player buy-in, good communication and setting/themes interest can have a much heavier impact on the resulting experience than the rules. In the case of a movie, on the other hand, the "human factor" feels more limiting, as the creative process from making a movie is done almost entirely by its director, and all the "human factor" must do here is to watch passively. (while in tabletop environment, the "human factor" is the director ).

So, ergo, as each table has its own way of "directing" the experience (using cinema jargon), each table will have its own expectations and demands for the rules to fulfill. Thus the value of any ruleset will be, immediately and inherently, subjective.

[Hicks]

Champions. A 60 point cosmic variable power pool with -3 disadvantages (OAF, RSR, Gestures, Incantation) can just beat the tar out of any challenge other than one against a larger VPP, and I heavily sandbagged and still out shone everyone on the team and could do anything they could do but better. Pro-tip: multiform in a VPP is STOP broke. Maybe it was that the MC's stakes were so low that street crime or even x-men sentinels was just too small a concept, but I always felt like I was batman with the green lantern ring and everybody else was a BMX bandit.

[AndreiChekov]

The "human factor" is much stronger in the tabletop environment, to the point of allowing fun even when sidelining the rules completely. (bs: I said sidelining, not ignoring it) - player buy-in, good communication and setting/themes interest can have a much heavier impact on the resulting experience than the rules. In the case of a movie, on the other hand, the "human factor" feels more limiting, as the creative process from making a movie is done almost entirely by its director, and all the "human factor" must do here is to watch passively. (while in tabletop environment, the "human factor" is the director ).

So, ergo, as each table has its own way of "directing" the experience (using cinema jargon), each table will have its own expectations and demands for the rules to fulfill. Thus the value of any ruleset will be, immediately and inherently, subjective.

While this is sort of true, in that anyone can find satisfaction from anything, that is like saying that good wine isn't good because there are people willing to drink bad wine.
Good wine is better to more people than bad wine.

[silva]

Andrei,

The winemaker talent in creating the wine has more weight for the "end experience" of wine tasting, than the rulesmaker talent in making rules for the end experience of a roleplaying game - mostly because in the latter, the true "winemakers" are the players, not the rulemaker.

In this case, the rulemaker is more analogous to the bottlemaker - a good wine certainly has a good bottle that helps with the experience, but ultimately, the wine is more important than the bottle. And the responsible for concocting the wine are the players.

A wine is a wine. Throw the bottle away and its still wine, that you can taste and apreciate. Same goes for gaming: the play is the play, throw rulesets and books and efemera props and maps and minis away, and the game can still be apreciated. The conversation, the choices, the back and forth of decisions and consequences, thats the wine. Thats the essence/central component of the experience.

All media has a bit of wine and of bottle. But tabletop roleplaying is the one where the wine is less depenedent on actual, formal, "industry authors" - I can play a game right now just improvising the rules as a coin of a flip (or rock-paper-scissors), and it may end up being a more memorable experience than any other rules-backed roleplaying experience Ive had. And indeed, the most memorable experience Ive had in the hobby is totally unrelated of rules, or published settings by the way.

[Foxwarrior]

Hicks: In what way do you find those rules "good"?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Tome. Solid game, too many fiddly details.

[Mask_De_H]

Hicks: In what way do you find those rules "good"?

I'm not Hicks, but the fact that you can do damn near anything in HERO/Champions and (min/maxed VPPs notwithstanding) the math tends to work out once you've set some guidelines means it's a mechanically good game. He's (or other HERO players, I forget) actually said on a couple of occassions that the particular setup he's talking about is pretty much custom-fit to fuck the game in the ass. So really, it's his own damn fault unless he was ignorant of that but of system mastery at the time.

[AndreiChekov]

Andrei,

The winemaker talent in creating the wine has more weight for the "end experience" of wine tasting, than the rulesmaker talent in making rules for the end experience of a roleplaying game - mostly because in the latter, the true "winemakers" are the players, not the rulemaker.

In this case, the rulemaker is more analogous to the bottlemaker - a good wine certainly has a good bottle that helps with the experience, but ultimately, the wine is more important than the bottle. And the responsible for concocting the wine are the players.

A wine is a wine. Throw the bottle away and its still wine, that you can taste and apreciate. Same goes for gaming: the play is the play, throw rulesets and books and efemera props and maps and minis away, and the game can still be apreciated. The conversation, the choices, the back and forth of decisions and consequences, thats the wine. Thats the essence/central component of the experience.

All media has a bit of wine and of bottle. But tabletop roleplaying is the one where the wine is less depenedent on actual, formal, "industry authors" - I can play a game right now just improvising the rules as a coin of a flip (or rock-paper-scissors), and it may end up being a more memorable experience than any other rules-backed roleplaying experience Ive had. And indeed, the most memorable experience Ive had in the hobby is totally unrelated of rules, or published settings by the way.

No. I was specifically refering to the fact that the winemakers can make a better product, but wine sells based on how the bottles look. you can objectively have a RPG where the rules make more sense, and that will be easier to have new playres becauyse each group doesn't need to house rule them.

A new set of rules that don't make sense require an MC that requires effort from him and the group. That was the only reason I didn't play RPG in highschool. Nobody was experienced with them. And nobody wanted to figure them out. And, our first player figured out the imbalances in 3.5.

The players are the drinker, the bottle is the DM, and the wine makers are the writers.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

I like the mechanics of FATE, but the characters it generates bore me. Trying to create a list of stunts that's comprehensive enough to inform the setting you want to run is exhausting and makes me give up and play Exalted instead.

[Mask_De_H]

So Exalted is in your "shitty games that you play anyway" category and is merely an excuse for the rest of the Scarlet Devil Mansion to drink tea, yeah? Because otherwise why would you subject yourself to Exalted in the year of our Lord MMXV?

On topic, I've never really been interested in GURPS or HERO; with enough ground rules they (HERO more than GURPS) are pretty mechanically solid, but I can't get my Give a Fuck Gear out of neutral.

[Hicks]

So my HERO character was built just like a potterverse wizard, magic wand and all. And it was approved by the MC who's been playing/running HERO since at least 1993. I didn't know what the character could actually do, and my original intent was to just ask the MC if I could do stuff and then he'd use his decades of system mastery to make it happen. And then he got lazy and wanted me to come up with my own solutions, which lead me to realize halfway into the first session that I can just teleport anything I could touch into the sun, including the yet to be introduced PC who was "magically bound" within a magically looked box. After that session I sat down and found I could spend 1 point to get 5, and that's when I decided that waving my wand to cast a multiform spell that also allowed me to duplicate myself accross all space and time in all directions was just... well I don't play HERO anymore is what I'm trying to say. The VPPs are made up and the points don't matter.

Elemental Controls are OK, but you can break STR limits by buying STR as a power, density increase, and growth to punch people for ALA$KA damage.