The Gaming Den

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:46 am**

I'm reading Masks: a New Generation, a teenagers supers game about "coming of age", and it's interesting how it promotes that theme naturally through it's rules. There's no need for players to make a conscious effort to make it happen, as long as they engage with the rules gameplay becomes about it.

What other games have this quality? What leads to this rules-wise in your opinion?

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:50 pm**

It's game design 101: if your game has a system for something, it becomes a game about this.

There are a few games that use a "generic" system meant to simulate "everything", but even these games often had a focus on what they are interested in (combat, most of the time).

And every other game do this to an extent: D&D has lots of rules about tactical combat so default D&D games will mostly revolve around tactical combat. CoC has Sanity points, so it'll be mostly about losing sanity, etc.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:11 pm**

Blade, I think you may be conflating playstyle with fictional genres and themes. D&D don't emulate any genre as far as I know. It is it's own thing.

A good example is Vampire the Masquerade. I remember it selling itself as personal horror back then... but struggling to actually deliver it at the table. Between dense metaplots, combat-oriented stuff and ambiguous play structures, the personal horror part ended up sidelined or lost altogether. I think a better ruleset for genre-emulation would prioritize the personal horror.

Edit: BTW, how is Vampire 5E in this regard?

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:07 pm**

Guts wrote:Blade, I think you may be conflating playstyle with fictional genres and themes. D&D don't emulate any genre as far as I know. It is it's own thing.

A good example is Vampire the Masquerade. I remember it selling itself as personal horror back then... but struggling to actually deliver it at the table. Between dense metaplots, combat-oriented stuff and ambiguous play structures, the personal horror part ended up sidelined or lost altogether. I think a better ruleset for genre-emulation would prioritize the personal horror.

Edit: BTW, how is Vampire 5E in this regard?

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:59 pm**

Wiseman, does that mean Vampire 5e is bad?

Also, I think Masks is the first game I've seen that doesnt' bother being a superpowers construction toolkit. Perhaps that's what made me interested in it, while all other Supers RPGs left me cold.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:40 pm**

D&D draws extremely obvious inspiration from Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, Conan, the legends of King Arthur, Greek mythology, British and Norse folklore, WarCraft, and sort of A Game of Thrones, although people are really, really bad at emulating the elements that set GoT apart from Lord of the Rings. These also drew inspiration from one another, because that is what a genre is. Claiming that D&D or any other game system is its own thing is pretty much exclusively only useful for people who want to claim that an edition of D&D is tautologically perfect, because its only goal is to emulate itself. In practice, people's idea of D&D is, in fact, informed by the fantasy genre, because of course it is.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 7:14 pm**

I agree D&D draws inspiration from a lot of places (including fantasy, sword & sorcery and wargames). But that doesn't mean it's gameplay emulate the workings of those sources. Conan battles are never given the tactical detail that D&D presents, Game of Thrones is not about pillaging dungeons, and Narnia characters don't "level up". That's what I meant by saying D&D is it's own thing.

The One Ring RPG seems better designed to emulate the actual workings of LotR for e.g., instead of just adopting some of it's aesthetics and loose elements like D&D does.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:08 pm**

The reason that D&D actually has tactics, dungeons, and level ups is the exact same reasons presented in DM of the rings, that Lord of the Rings as a campaign is likely to be a grindy, railroady mess with no enemy variety, little mechanical incentives, and your own RP not really having a major chance of affecting the story. Trying to emulate the gameplay of Lord of the Rings is likely to be mind-numbing. As for the tactical detail, I can't speak for the books but the movies tended to have a good deal of that to the point I've emulated both of the major fights using PF.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 9:01 pm**

saithorthepyro wrote:The reason that D&D actually has tactics, dungeons, and level ups is the exact same reasons presented in DM of the rings, that Lord of the Rings as a campaign is likely to be a grindy, railroady mess with no enemy variety, little mechanical incentives, and your own RP not really having a major chance of affecting the story.

I agree with this. The original Chainmail, from which D&D evolved, never intended to emulate LotR for the precise reasons you put. Instead it intended to cater to the wargame market (only with a fantasy twist). That explains the tactics, dungeons, level-ups, spells, etc.

saithorthepyro wrote:Trying to emulate the gameplay of Lord of the Rings is likely to be mind-numbing.

Here I must disagree with you. The fact Chainmail/D&D never intended to emulate LotR doesn't mean it's an untainable goal. The One Ring RPG and AiME for 5e are proof of this.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:07 pm**

So you disqualify D&D from being in the same genre as Lord of the Rings because it has leveling and tactical combat, then present as something that is in the same genre AiME, which has...leveling and tactical combat. Even ignoring your sudden massive goalpost shift from "emulating a broad genre" to "emulating a specific work," you have contradicted yourself even on those grounds.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:18 pm**

I just showed proof that emulating LotR isn't unttainable or undesirable, something Saithor implied in his post.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:24 pm**

Yes, and in so doing, you contradicted your original assertion that leveling and tactical combat made D&D a distinct genre from LotR, something which I already said in my previous post. Try to keep up.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:27 pm**

My original post doesn't even cite D&D.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:31 pm**

Guts wrote:that doesn't mean it's gameplay emulate the workings of those sources. Conan battles are never given the tactical detail that D&D presents, Game of Thrones is not about pillaging dungeons, and Narnia characters don't "level up". That's what I meant by saying D&D is it's own thing.

The One Ring RPG seems better designed to emulate the actual workings of LotR for e.g., instead of just adopting some of it's aesthetics and loose elements like D&D does.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:55 pm**

Chamomile wrote:
Guts wrote:that doesn't mean it's gameplay emulate the workings of those sources. Conan battles are never given the tactical detail that D&D presents, Game of Thrones is not about pillaging dungeons, and Narnia characters don't "level up". That's what I meant by saying D&D is it's own thing.

The One Ring RPG seems better designed to emulate the actual workings of LotR for e.g., instead of just adopting some of it's aesthetics and loose elements like D&D does.

Oh that one. I don't see what's the problem. D&D traits come from it's wargaming roots, not attempts at emulating fictional genres.

AiME for 5e sets itself to emulate LotR and ends up modifying or tweak that core as to approach it's goal.

What's the contradiction again?

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:45 pm**

Are you serious right now? He explained how you contradicted yourself twice over and you played ignorant only to be shown exactly the post you did it in and now you're asking for him to explain it again. You are either trolling or being an idiot.

Posted: **Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:55 pm**

Chamomile wrote:So you disqualify D&D from being in the same genre as Lord of the Rings because it has leveling and tactical combat, then present as something that is in the same genre AiME, which has...leveling and tactical combat. Even ignoring your sudden massive goalpost shift from "emulating a broad genre" to "emulating a specific work," you have contradicted yourself even on those grounds.

Posted: **Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:17 am**

Hmmm... looking again, I may have expressed myself poorly indeed.

I never played AiME for D&D5 so I don't know if it succeeds at it's goal of emulating LoTR (I'm skeptical, considering it's structural legacy). I just meant to say it set itself to reach that goal, and from the feedback of people who actually played it, it seems to have more success than it's "father game" at it.

Makes sense now?

P.S: I still think The One Ring is a better fit to this, because contrary to AiME it was designed from the ground up to emulate it's source.

Posted: **Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:03 am**

Back to the topic of emulation, a friend put this about Cyberpunk games, which I've found pretty insightful..

"Cyberpunk games (Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020, etc) usually have player characters who are powerful, when the original fictional works are about powerless protagonists, or at least broken in some major way."

Posted: **Sat Jun 15, 2019 5:04 am**

I wonder which original fiction works your friend was thinking of, because I visualize super-hackers, action hero cyborgs, and people who are both. Being broken in some major way seems like a bit of a cop-out because you also have to be a bit strange to choose to be a Shadowrunner when there are high-paying occupations where you usually don't get shot to death.

Posted: **Sat Jun 15, 2019 7:08 am**

Guts wrote: "Cyberpunk games (Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020, etc) usually have player characters who are powerful, when the original fictional works are about powerless protagonists, or at least broken in some major way."

As I've said in other threads, the issue I have with this oft-repeated attitude is the fixation on protagonists. William Gibson and co. routinely feature villains and faceless corps being brought low by their inability to anticipate the next big paradigm shift and oftentimes such things are brought about in part due to the actions of the protagonists. The pithy quote for cyberpunk has always been "High tech, low life" and there's room under that umbrella for class struggle and characters who are fearsome despite being proles who are motivated by prole problems.

Posted: **Sat Jun 15, 2019 2:59 pm**

Guts wrote: I never played AiME for D&D5 so I don't know if it succeeds at it's goal of emulating LoTR (I'm skeptical, considering it's structural legacy). I just meant to say it set itself to reach that goal, and from the feedback of people who actually played it, it seems to have more success than it's "father game" at it.

Makes sense now?

I mean, in the sense that it remains clear that you have no idea what you're talking about and are backpedaling furiously, yeah, it makes sense. Even talking exclusively about TOR, it still has tactical combat, a character advancement system, and dungeon crawls, which is two out of the three things you claimed disqualified D&D from being in the same genre as Lord of the Rings, even if we're so generous as to say that a leveling system specifically is at all meaningfully different from character advancement in general in this context, plus, you've still moved the goalposts halfway down the field from "emulating a genre" to "specifically emulating the setting of Lord of the Rings."

Your new comments on the cyberpunk do not inspire confidence in your general competence. The protagonist of Neuromancer is a hacker of sufficient skill that a megacorp seeks him out to recruit him and perform an experimental surgery to restore his ability to access cyberspace. The eponymous Johnny Mnemonic beats the Yakuza. Robocop is a walking tank defeats not only the street level criminals who he had a personal vendetta with, but also the evil corporate vice president who funded them. The Major is consistently victorious over the assorted villains she faces in Ghost in the Shell. Even Decker succeeds in his mission in Blade Runner (and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), although the story is much lower stakes than many of the others. I can't think of a single cyberpunk protagonist who is actually powerless. I'm sure there's some out there who actually lose, or who only win because the system takes their side, but you'd have to specifically go digging for them. Cyberpunk protagonists are usually able to thwart mid-tier villains and/or escape the system despite megacorp opposition. They're rarely powerful enough to single-handedly bring down a megacorp, but neither are shadowrunners, so...?

Posted: **Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:38 pm**

Foxwarrior wrote:I wonder which original fiction works your friend was thinking of, because I visualize super-hackers, action hero cyborgs, and people who are both. Being broken in some major way seems like a bit of a cop-out because you also have to be a bit strange to choose to be a Shadowrunner when there are high-paying occupations where you usually don't get shot to death.

You have a point. I think there are works that portray protagonists as weak or broken (or at least fragile) like Case in Neuromancer or Deckard in Blade Runner. But yeah, there are other works whose protagonists seem more able (and stable). Games historically focus on the later case because it's historically seen as more fun.

Posted: **Sat Jun 15, 2019 5:06 pm**

@Chamomile, I think TOR has enough differences from D&D as to be a better vehicle for emulating Tolkien stories. And if I remember right it doesn't share D&D obsession with combat either.

About the Cyberpunk genre, see my response for Foxwarrior above.

Whipstitch wrote:
Guts wrote: "Cyberpunk games (Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020, etc) usually have player characters who are powerful, when the original fictional works are about powerless protagonists, or at least broken in some major way."
As I've said in other threads, the issue I have with this oft-repeated attitude is the fixation on protagonists. William Gibson and co. routinely feature villains and faceless corps being brought low by their inability to anticipate the next big paradigm shift and oftentimes such things are brought about in part due to the actions of the protagonists. The pithy quote for cyberpunk has always been "High tech, low life" and there's room under that umbrella for class struggle and characters who are fearsome despite being proles who are motivated by prole problems.

Sorry, can't say what your point is here. Are you saying protagonists, even if underwhelmed and usually struggling in their lives, manage to hit the corps/government/The Man in the end of the day. Is that it?

By the way, I've read Vampire 5 is actually better than earlier editions at personal horror. Anyone have read or played it here?

Posted: **Sat Jun 15, 2019 9:11 pm**

Guts wrote: Sorry, can't say what your point is here. Are you saying protagonists, even if underwhelmed and usually struggling in their lives, manage to hit the corps/government/The Man in the end of the day. Is that it? ?

Yes, partially; cyberpunk is big on cultural fragmentation and alienation, so the other half of my argument is that the villains often aren't so powerful as initially presented. Oftentimes the "faceless" corps get conflated with being all-powerful but it's notable that the underclasses are often also presented as unknowable tribes and that also has its own power. When the elite yakuza assassin is defeated in Johnny Mnemonic it happens in a crude suspended arena known as the Killing Floor that was built by a street gang/subculture known as the Lo Teks. The punchline is literally "She'd killed him with culture shock."

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