*World: GM- or Player-driven ? [Frank, DSMatticus stay out]

[Irish]

Fucking Christ Silva, are you still shitting up the board by posting this drivel? Almost nobody here gives a shit, and none of those agree with you. You'd get more interesting discussion at this point by huffing paint thinners and talking to a wall.

[Leress]

The other part that makes directives tough, is that historically they’ve been used very poorly. Either contradictory to themselves, contradictory to the procedures of play, and/or assumed useless or interchageable amongst all games. That is, a lot of folks assume that reading them, much less considering and applying them is a waste of time, so they tend to be less often translated into play.

_World games do this. Numerous people have pointed that out. So no, people are not confuse about the language you use. They are point out that _World game's "Procedural" rules conflict with its "directive" rules. Also the "procedural" rules are shit and for damn reason you like making false dichotomies.

[RelentlessImp]

Fuck you, you fucking fuck. What you seem to have difficulty understanding is, people don't give a flying fuck what the non-rules text or even the goddamned developers have to say about how a game works - what they give a fuck about is how the rules say the game works because that's what you're working with. Grok it, you fucking chode.

Important thing, there have been responses on how the developers/book say the same should work; and the consensus is that the advice and suggestions direct you toward a game that is bad. So it's not just the rules, but the mindset that's making this game bad.

It really is "that bad." The actual example in the actual book is that the player rolls a high success on a perception test, and then the MC is allowed to introduce something to the story in response to that, and the MC choose to introduce "Mission Failed." There aren't a whole lot of examples in the book, and a really shockingly high number of them are so amazingly dickish that they would make me pick up my dice and fucking leave the table.

Okay. I don't give a shit what the developers say. Bad game rules are bad and make for bad games on their own and people mind caulking away bad game rules are people that need to shut the fuck up about their mind caulk because their beloved game doesn't work that way.

[TiaC]

Here's a new game for silva:

Pick one player to be the buttmonkey. The other players will take turns to hit the buttmonkey with a baseball bat. However, all players should do their best to make the game a pleasant experience for all.

Now, do you think the "directive" is going to help that game at all?

(*World is even worse though because the examples they give are like one where "making the game a pleasant experience for all" is a friendly competition to see who can hit the buttmonkey hardest.)

[Zaranthan]

EDIT: I'm out.

[Zaranthan]

Because they're too lazy to look up bear memes.

[Orca]

That blog post reads like a classic dodge. Start talking about a problem, acknowledge a bunch of difficulties with your preferred solution to the problem, assume that your solution works. I'm not impressed.

[Kaelik]

Procedural vs Directive Rules is a thing that only a game designer can come up with.

Because it so clearly means "I can't actually write rules that make the game I want to make, so instead, I'm just going to tell other people to play the game I can't make, and blame it on them when they can't."

[RelentlessImp]

Since silva will never learn, let's look at the problem of quantum bears and collapse the waveform.

BearWorld is a game about bears. You're a bear. Your mother's a bear, your dad's a bear, any siblings you have are bears. They're armored bears. Go ahead and use stills from the awful adaptation of The Golden Compass for your character art.

BearWorld is not a game about being bears. BearWorld is a game about sitting around a table and coming up with mind caulk to make our rules work. At any point, at any time the players announce an action, the Papa Bear can freely fuck with or deny this action, or they can introduce a success of a Quantum waveform collapsing and spawning something in the players' path. Their job is to bullshit the Papa Bear into letting them defeat this newly-spawned challenge, which may spawn its own challenges as players declare their actions and on success spawn more complications.

A game of BearWorld lasts precisely five minutes, until everyone gets tired of this bullshit and goes on and plays a game with readable rules that produce results that never touch upon the nature of quantum actions at all.

[RelentlessImp]

[RadiantPhoenix]

Here's a new game for silva:

Pick one player to be the buttmonkey. The other players will take turns to hit the buttmonkey with a baseball bat. However, all players should do their best to make the game a pleasant experience for all.

Now, do you think the "directive" is going to help that game at all?

Step one: search your social network for someone who gets off on being spanked with a baseball bat.

[Prak]

Here's a new game for silva:

Pick one player to be the buttmonkey. The other players will take turns to hit the buttmonkey with a baseball bat. However, all players should do their best to make the game a pleasant experience for all.

Now, do you think the "directive" is going to help that game at all?

Step one: search your social network for someone who gets off on being spanked with a baseball bat.

Or penetrated, because there's nothing saying you can't hit their prostate with said bat.

The problem, Silva, is that Procedural rules tell you how to do something while Directive rules are guidelines as to what your goal should be. "Rule 0" is a Directive, it directs you to talk to your DM about what kind of character would be appropriate to their game. Grapple is a Procedural, and tells you how to determine whether a character is grappled and what the effect of such is.

A game which focuses on Directive rules is only a game in the loosest terms because such rules are by definition broad and hard to balance. "Magic Missile should hit often and do minimal damage" is a Directive rule. It's meaning will necessarily differ from one group to another, and this is a problem because while each game is discreet there is crossover between games via players. "Magic Missile always hits and does 1d4+1 damage" is a procedural rule and will always mean exactly the same thing regardless of what group you are playing with, and thus you can expect to hit your target and deal 1d4+1 damage regardless of whether you're playing with Group A, Group T, or Group Zyzzyx. You can balance rules if they are procedural, because they will always mean the same thing. You cannot balance Directives because they will be interpreted differently by different groups.

[silva]

At this point there is no need for further conversation.

"Directive rules" are a (big) thing in some pretty popular games such as Sorcerer, Primetime Adventures, Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World, but it seems no one here even considers it a thing.

My conclusion: the demographics on the Den falls on such a "traditional" point of the gaming spectrum, that they are unable to see that there are games out there that expect different approaches to the "traditional" one, and as such should be analised under different set of assumptions. Games that dont work if you bring to it the default "D&D/Shadowrun" load and mindset.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that, by the way.

[RelentlessImp]

Welp, silva's just run the full gamut of troll behavior. Acting as if he's better than us, and when he can't actually argue in any logical fashion, declare that it's 'over' and then go on to point out our 'flaws'. Congratulations, silva, you fucking moron. Go fuck yourself with a rusty dildo and put an onahole full of razors on your dick. You deserve it.

[silva]

Huahuahuhahua Im no better than anyone, just pointed our differences in opinions and perceptions.

[Zaranthan]

[Aryxbez]

the demographics on the Den falls on such a "traditional" point of the gaming spectrum, that they are unable to see that there are games out there that expect different approaches to the "traditional" one, and as such should be analysed under different set of assumptions.

Considering you're a member of this forum, you're blanked under this same insult, which I don't appreciate by the way. Seeking to place your superiority over others because ye believe ye have a "different" mindset is quite petty in the least. Truly, if that's the behavior you're going to conduct here, I think you should leave this part of the forum (or just entirely).

In general, your mindset is for games that evidently aren't truly that much of games at all, or ones so old, that people on this forum probably played it at more depth and understanding than you ever have. So no, it's not you're some "revolutionary" its what the reality of the RULESETS you show us, don't commit to the quality that your mind caulked bias has, or necessarily the "advice" section of the games have.

[TiaC]

Thine tags art fucked. Rectify this anon, varlet!

[RelentlessImp]

Leave it the way it is. bearva deserves nothing more than to have his thread fucked beyond belief.

[Roog]

...pretty popular games such as Sorcerer, Primetime Adventures, Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World...

By pretty popular, you must mean pretty popular with a small group of fans.

They are a group of games mostly published about a decade ago, with small sales and some name recognition.
Sorcerer (2002)
Primetime Adventures (2004)
Dogs in the Vineyard (2005)
Apocalypse World (2010)

I have not seen sales figures for Sorcerer, but the kick starter for the new version of Sorcerer had 708 backers
Primetime Adventures had sales of less than 809 in its 1st two years
http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=20697.0
Total sales for Dogs in the Vineyard are less than 2400 by 2012 and and Apocalypse World less than 2900 by 2012
http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/707

[Prak]

At this point there is no need for further conversation.

"Directive rules" are a (big) thing in some pretty popular games such as Sorcerer, Primetime Adventures, Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World, but it seems no one here even considers it a thing.

My conclusion: the demographics on the Den falls on such a "traditional" point of the gaming spectrum, that they are unable to see that there are games out there that expect different approaches to the "traditional" one, and as such should be analised under different set of assumptions. Games that dont work if you bring to it the default "D&D/Shadowrun" load and mindset.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that, by the way.

Do you just, like, ignore posts that don't play to the narrative you've constructed in your head? I acknowledged that Directives were a thing, and gave an example of where they are used in D&D. I could probably name another five directives in D&D off the top of my head if you wanted. The problem, I will say again, is that Directives are inherently loose and non-standardized. A Directive cannot ever be, by definition, a codified stricture, only a loose guide which will also, necessarily, by definition, differ from one group to another, hence why they cannot (optimally) be the foundation of a true game.

Hell, you want a game founded on Directives? Calvinball. The only rule to Calvinball is that it cannot be played the same way twice. That is about as binding as a Directive cannot be. All other sports games are founded on procedures, unless you want to be bloody stupid and say rules such as "the goalie cannot leave the goal box" are Directives.

[tussock]

While discussing the "GM- or Player-driven" thread, I think I nailed the cause for the difficulty some people around here have in grokking *World games - they ignore Directive rules, seeing roleplaying games only as a function of the Procedural rules. I find this may be the source of the dissonance between experiences folks are having - some players here think the game is a kind of GM-driven "single-author improv play" while a considerable number of reviews and play reports in the internet find that the game produces the opposite ( = player-driven / sandboxy) experience.

All you're seeing, again, is that the only fun anyone has playing the thing is to mostly ignore the examples of the rules in use and be so talented at the improv that's left they make the players feel like "we're having the dancing monkey build us a sandbox".

You think people's experience of playing the game reflects the rules, but it doesn't. You can have a ball roleplaying in Monopoly, but don't look there for useful RPG rules. Hell, you can improv a dungeon setting in a D&D game, I did it for years in the 90's.

So let's put this as plainly as I know how.

People can have fun playing Apocalypse World when they ignore the examples of play and use the rules to do very different things to that. They can feel like their input really matters if the GM works hard to make them feel that way. They can feel like they're exploring an open and engaging world if the GM can retcon an open and engaging world on the fly for them to have been exploring.

This article from the "Deeper in the Game" blog (dont know who is behind it) articulate it really well:

quote:Deeper in the Game Blog

https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/06/0 ... irectives/

I think his terminology borders on useless, fuzzy rules are not advice, advice is not fuzzy rules, but even if you accept that the advice is a rule you still have to ignore many of the other damned rules in *World to do the things that people insist they are having fun doing with it.

Which is fine. Talk all you want about how to best fix bear-world. Not by redefining words so you can pretend some of the advice is real rules and the actual rules are just bad advice.

while a considerable number of reviews and play reports in the internet find that the game produces the opposite ( = player-driven / sandboxy) experience.

No one disagrees with that. Shitty rules that people use (like OD&D or AD&D or 2nd edition or 4e or 5e) are usually fixed in much the same ways by broad sections of the users. The fixes for which bits you need to ignore and which bits you change tend to be obvious after some use, or even a first browse.

A large proportion of 4e D&D players faced monsters with half hit points and double damage, and had a much better (but still deeply flawed) experience for it. But that's not an excuse for what the rules of 4e D&D actually tell you to do, which is a very long grind of padded sumo where nothing you can possibly do can change the outcome.

Not to mention 3.x, where people here and elsewhere are still writing fixes for the underlying problems of the rules. Every game has problems as written.


An example of a fuzzy rule, to define my own terms. In the card game contract bridge, there's a rule that you have to be respectful of your partner, polite to your opponents, and display good manners. What that means is completely undefined, but it's a real rule and carries some of the stiffest score adjustments and other penalties in the game.

There's also advice in contract bridge, about tournament structures and seating arrangements and hand generation and a bunch of stuff for directors.


The current US anti-racism protests. The police have advice to not target minorities, and also rules which reward them for targeting minorities so long as they carefully target a small number of rich-looking white people for trivial stuff. Also, prisoner pinball.
https://medium.com/@noralev/what-happen ... 5bb34fb47c

[ishy]

Directives:
– Be clear that it is literally rules and not vague mumble-advice.
[ . . . ]
Directive rules are broad directions that rely primarily on judgment and social contract and not step-by-step procedures.

“Describe action in cinematic terms! Offer suggestions freely! Make comments, ask questions out of character!” etc. Directive rules could be represented by broad Venn diagrams.

They very often explain what’s the point of the game, and -when- and -how- to use the procedure rules. (Many people throw around terms like “style”, “good roleplaying”, “play advice” to talk about directive rules).

I like that the author just doesn't give a shit.

– Repeat, repeat, repeat. If the directive is important, repeat it throughout the book.

I think this AMV sums up my feelings on this post well enough.

[Leress]

"Directive rules" are a (big) thing in some pretty popular games such as Sorcerer, Primetime Adventures, Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World, but it seems no one here even considers it a thing.

Wrong, every RPG has "directive" rules. That is one aspect that is looked at around here to help evaluate a rule set.

It has been told to you numerous times that the games that you have mentioned here are not new. There have been numerous games in the past like those.

My conclusion: the demographics on the Den falls on such a "traditional" point of the gaming spectrum, that they are unable to see that there are games out there that expect different approaches to the "traditional" one, and as such should be analised under different set of assumptions. Games that dont work if you bring to it the default "D&D/Shadowrun" load and mindset.

Your conclusion is wrong because numerous people have shown that even if a game has a different "approach", if the rules are bad then the game is not very good.

So pray tell, what assumptions should one use when analyzing a game like _World or Dogs in the Vineyard?

[Stubbazubba]

At this point there is no need for further conversation.

No, we hit that point a long time ago.

"Directive rules" are a (big) thing in some pretty popular games such as Sorcerer, Primetime Adventures, Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World, but it seems no one here even considers it a thing.

Directive rules are a big thing in every game: even D&D has Rule 0, most gamers follow the Rule of Cool, etc. It's not some subset of games that rely on Directive Rules, they just spend more words talking about them. Early D&D especially had just as much Directive Rules as *World games do, the directives just run in the opposite direction. Gygax's directive rules are universally held in derision here, so it's not like D&D is getting a pass.

My conclusion: the demographics on the Den falls on such a "traditional" point of the gaming spectrum, that they are unable to see that there are games out there that expect different approaches to the "traditional" one, and as such should be analised under different set of assumptions. Games that dont work if you bring to it the default "D&D/Shadowrun" load and mindset.

Nope. See above. The problem we have with bear games is that the field of RPG design is so absolutely amateurish (and the consumers so unobservant) that game after game (including D&D 3.5) is heralded as the great new thing because of its directive rules, which end up directly conflicting with the procedural rules, because procedural rules are ignored or pasted over with mindcaulk at the table. In D&D 3.5, the directive rules indicate that anyone should choose whatever class they want and be able to play the game, that a Monk can fight level-appropriate monsters as well as any other class. The procedural rules, of course, disagree. Nevertheless, people have fun playing Monks because DMs give them magic items to compensate, or fudge dice, or everyone just fails at doing the math on flurry of blows and they end up hitting consistently. So I guess they're playing the directive rules, but only by ignoring the procedural rules. That's a problem wherever it shows up. It means everything is made up and the rules don't matter. It means the game actually consists of: here's a die, when you want to do something, roll it, 1-5; you fail and something bad happens to you, 6-10, you fail but something good comes of it, 11-15, you succeed but something bad happens as a result, and 16-20 you succeed and something even better comes of it, and now here's a hundred or so creative prompts for characters and scenarios and flavors to put on those die rolls, and you're good to go!

And the weird thing is that you don't see how if that is your entire game that it's extremely disempowering. It's extremely disempowering because defining what success and failure bring along with them are always in the hands of the MC. The game is "DM-driven," if you will, because the results are not pinned down by the procedural rules, they're created whole cloth by the GM when the dice are rolled.