Freeform

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 1:20 am

I know the usual thing is to talk about rules here but what do you guys think of freeform? Especially post-by-post games?

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 1:28 am

Freeform, or MTP, has a number of useful things to bring to the table. For a start, it's an easily understood system that minimises mechanical vagaries.

However, it allows a person who knows the other participants' tastes well, or has some form of social dominance, excessive power and induces significant amounts of "mother, may I" in the players with regards to the Game Master. The inability to forecast the results of an action can result in learned helplessness - attempting to do anything useful may not work, so what's the point in trying?

So far as genre emulation goes it requires that all players be aware of all the elements in the genre being emulated, otherwise the players may be divided as to what works how. It restrains the ability to enforce a particular setting on the game (which is both good and bad), and every model for dividing setting definition power between the players and GM creates flaws in the way the game runs as a social construct.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 1:46 am

As someone who has played a lot of freeform games online, I can say that it goes a lot smoother when you have a predetermined outline of plot points and outcomes to go with. And once you do people are free to act within those boundaries while minimizing 'mother, may I'.

The drawbacks of course are obvious. Changing course once you're on a path is pretty difficult and sometimes (especially for things like combat) you might not come to an agreement at all. And of course there's the question of how much roleplaying you're actually doing if it's predetermined. The popular solution is not to plan too far in advance; usually the outcome of one combat scene if that. Of course this also requires more frequent negotiation.

For example, I used to play on a low-powered Sonic the Hedgehog (the Saturday morning cartoon + Archie version) game that was freeform. If someone wanted to run an adventure that was 'rescue buddy before they got roboticized' we'd talk with a villain and agree on some things. So-and-so did get freed but another person got wounded pretty badly while fighting a villain. The group managed to get into Robotropolis without a hitch but were found out due to noisiness. Then we improvised the details, like sneaking into the prison through robot disguises, trying out the airducts, disabling the security cameras, etc. The villain would do things like conduct a patrol or examine hiding spots and we'd evade them, but we knew ahead of time that they wouldn't really find us.

Of course, you also have to be willing to have some room for improvisation and even just scrapping the case if it comes to that. For example, said wounded PC might get separated during the escape and get captured themselves, requiring us to go back and do another rescue. Or one of the infiltrators might be a traitor and give the villain information where are group was and a huge fight broke out at an inconvenient place.

TavishArtair · Post by **TavishArtair** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:04 am

It's a bit subtle but actually Freeform is a highly-praised system around here, rated over many rulesets. See, the basis of roleplaying is more or less Freeform (also known as Magical Tea Party). So if any ruleset falls short of that, we roundly criticize it on the basis that we can do better by rolling out the invisible tea set. Likewise, it is expected that you will wind up incorporating the ruleset into your games, and rules are generally written with the expectation of covering specific situations that Freeform/MTP will not, with the specifics varying from game to game.

Tshern · Post by **Tshern** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 11:05 am

Freeform is awesome. In some ways though, it is harder than than games with rules, because it often needs unspoken agreements and a deep understanding of the world. But, then again, if I can play freeform succesfully I am sure anyone can.

As PbP, I do not like it too much. I've played it like that and I probably will continue to do so in the future, but I prefer D&D when it comes to PbPs.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:12 pm

Magical Tea Party is my favorite system, particularly if we have a ruleset in place to give us some idea of what can be done, even though we don't actually use it. I am particularly fond of a MTP turn-based strategy game my group plays. It started as a casual tactical game ripping off Starcraft in middle school, but it's evolved over the years into something reasonably complex without any sort of RNG or preexisting lore in place.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 2:44 am

Whoa. You're going to have to post more information about that, because it sounds thoroughly awesome.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 2:51 am

Seconded, that sounds like no mean feat.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:10 am

Archmage wrote: Whoa. You're going to have to post more information about that, because it sounds thoroughly awesome.

Okay, so I've been to several Sonic the Hedgehog games back when they still ran but all of them generally used the SatAM setting. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's a cartoon that basically posits that Robotnik more or less conquered the world and there are a small band of anthropomorphic animals who resist him in small pockets of undevastated bits of land.

Since Robotnik has all of the cool toys and most of the resistors (Freedom Fighters) don't have superpowers fighting against Robotnik is done in precision strikes against his key installations while stealth and trickery are the primary modes of 'fighting'. No one, not even Sonic, can stand up to an extended battle against Robotnik's forces so they don't even try.

Of course, there were some concessions made for the game that were a deviation from the cartoon to make things more usable. For example, there were a lot more Freedom Fighters in our game than implied in the show and most people didn't even pick up someone from the show (though we did have a Sally, a Sonic, a Bunnie, etc.). Also, there were actual unroboticized anthros working for Robotnik; in the show, the only 'organics' as we called them were Snively and Robotnik. Since there could be more drama fighting flesh-and-blood traitor opponents or intelligent robots rather than Robotnik's mindless forces we did that--which is eventually what the comic did as well, but that's another story.

There is actually quite a frickin' lot of Sonic the Hedgehog SatAM material out on the web. Back when people still did MSTs (another facet of early Internet-dom that I miss) SatAM fanfiction comprised the majority of them. You all remember David Gonterman, right? Well, believe it or not, he used to be a legitimate mini-celebrity in the circle thanks to his wish-fulfillment fanfiction Blood and Metal. The fanfic that actually caused his fall from grace was Sailor Moon: An American Kitsune, a comic where David learned he was related to Tsukino Usagi (protagonist of said show) through blood and that she as an aborted fetus was thrown out into the trash and rescued. He then had sex with his sister, Sailor Moon. But that's another story.

Anyway, it was quite a bit of fun. I do fondly remember the horseplay and mildly existential angst of being one of the 'unroboticized' bad-guys. Since we were the only ones promised not to be turned into robot slaves for our servitude, a lot of the times we just hung out in some remote corner of the Death Egg. It actually worked out a lot like the dynamic in Eight Bit Theater, where you have four bastards who both hate each others' guts and also realize that they're the only people who care about each other. Which holds them together even when one of them does blatantly traitorous stuff like try to kill the others in cold blood.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:18 am

One of my favorite adventures in particular about being part of Robotnik's bad guy squad (I had to drop out, so it was just my brother) was that we/they had a mission to go to Knuckles' floating island and recover the Chaos Emerald. Of course, it started out as a complete disaster, since with typical bad guy hubris they went into the ruined city with tanks and belligerence and went running with their tails between their legs. They evaded the technomagic sentries and were ranting at each other of what to do, when they came upon the original crash landing site with a Hoverunit.

My brother's character, a panther, tried to hastily fix up the hoverunit so that the non-flying characters could get off the floating island. Ace, an anthro bat pirate (this was years before Rouge the Bat) said that he had enough of this and was going to fly home, leaving the rest of the suckers behind.

D. Dragonetti: "Ace, I know you can fly back to base on your own, We can't really stop you. But if you DO abandon us in our moment of need you'll never be able to sleep again. Because if you do that, we will find a way to get off of this island and we will kill your monkey ass. And you KNOW this. So sit down and shut up."

Great times...

Guyr Adamantine · Post by **Guyr Adamantine** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:29 am

Gonterman's work for the curious among us.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:41 am

What in the name of Mary Magdeline's third nipple does David Gonterman have to do with freeform roleplaying?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:46 am

MDH wrote:What in the name of Mary Magdeline's third nipple does David Gonterman have to do with freeform roleplaying?

Because the majority of my freeform roleplaying was done on Sonic the Hedgehog games and David Gonterman was actually a pretty big figure in said fandom for awhile; I'd go as far to say that he was probably the second-most famous person, next to Dan Drazen.

David Gonterman wasn't always the figure of universal Internet scorn. I was around for the time period in which he was legitimately popular in Sonic fandom. Because of Blood and Metal. I wasn't around to see the implosion for SM:AK though; that was mostly a Power Rangers/Sailor Moon thing.

I actually roleplayed with him a few times on the defunct MobiusMUCK. Yes, he was a huge Mary Sue, but give him a break. Everyone was at the time. I used to, no shit, play Captain Kirby. Who was literally a cross between Spaceman Spiff (down to the UFO and expressive mask) and Kirby. He zapped SWATBots with his Atom Blaster and bled sugar.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:45 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
MDH wrote:What in the name of Mary Magdeline's third nipple does David Gonterman have to do with freeform roleplaying?
Because the majority of my freeform roleplaying was done on Sonic the Hedgehog games and David Gonterman was actually a pretty big figure in said fandom for awhile; I'd go as far to say that he was probably the second-most famous person, next to Dan Drazen.

David Gonterman wasn't always the figure of universal Internet scorn. I was around for the time period in which he was legitimately popular in Sonic fandom. Because of Blood and Metal. I wasn't around to see the implosion for SM:AK though; that was mostly a Power Rangers/Sailor Moon thing.

I actually roleplayed with him a few times on the defunct MobiusMUCK. Yes, he was a huge Mary Sue, but give him a break. Everyone was at the time. I used to, no shit, play Captain Kirby. Who was literally a cross between Spaceman Spiff (down to the UFO and expressive mask) and Kirby. He zapped SWATBots with his Atom Blaster and bled sugar.

Ah, I did not know that. The Captain Kirby thing sounds awesome though, no lie.