[Code of Unaris] More about chat as medium

[greyorm]

From what I've found, most diehard tabletoppers tend to think of chat as a loose form of roleplay that they'll only touch if all other game choices are unavailable. Mostly, they just go "bah!" So by putting some structure to the medium, I hoped to change some opinions. Time will tell.

I'm definitely a die-hard tabletop roleplayer who says "Bah" to what I believe "chat" generally entails, yet who uses chat programs as his (sole) medium of play -- mainly IRC.

I am very much a fan of system, and I despise almost universally any sort of so-called freeform "play" -- frex, in the early 90's, on-line roleplaying inns earned my ire and disgust as venues of the RPG medium (and the majority of LARPs I've encountered aren't far behind in this) -- as they come off as little more than ego-based posing and bad improv theater. They bear little resemblance to any sort of gaming activity, being too much pure "chat" without enough actual "game" around it. So, I like the idea that you're trying to improve the medium by adding structure to what chat-based play has often traditionally stripped out.

However, as I've found, chat does have some serious limitations when you're trying to game using a system. My main concern over the years has been the amount of communication per action that a specific undertaking requires -- that is, how much back-and-forth between the GM and the player(s), and between players, is required to achieve resolution from the initialization (of the action). This isn't as big a deal in tabletop gaming, because there's really no latency involved: you just talk to one another to clear something up or get the result.

As it takes much longer to type "5 damage" than to say it, and increasingly longer with longer sentences, there ends up being a period during every exchange where "nothing is happening" while a player (including the GM) works out the solution, dictated by the time necessary to compose and type each reply leading to that solution, and everyone else is basically sitting there "on hold." This doesn't happen in freeform chat-based play since the player

Consider the following:

Player1: "I attack the nearest orc."
GM: "Roll to attack."
Player1: "/roll d20+5 to attack"
Dice: "Player1 rolls 15."
GM: "Hit. Roll damage."
Player1: "/roll d8+3 damage"
Dice: "Player1 rolls 11."
GM: "You have one dead orc on your hands."
Player1: "Hah! Excellent."

The above exchange, fairly common in any typical D&D session, is a fucking blip to a group around the table. Now try typing it out yourself and see what happens. Simply put, an exchange that would be a simple, easily ignored rule-/situation-/background- check with a GM at the table ends up being a noticable time investment. The more of these you have, the more they eat up play; I don't know if they exactly "slow it down", but they leave their mark upon it.

Even adding a rule, as our group has, that the player simply rolls everything relevant for an action they choose to undertake (frex: both attack and damage, once the attack is declared), and things are retroactively stripped out by the GM if they are not required (such as damage, if the character fails to hit...or even attack, if the character is prevented from that action), does not mitigate this problem a great deal, and it does not help for situations like the following:

"What's my ____ again?"
"Can I..?"
"Does it work like ____?"

Now, if you consider a freeform RPing-inn, the exact same exchange as the above example happens like this:

Player1: "I attack the orc, and hit! Hah! We have a dead orc on our hands."

This is because the player is the final determinant for what occurs regarding his character and the results of those character's actions; there's no one else to "check" with or to work things out with to arrive at a solution for the vast majority of events.

"Social" events, where characters are interacting, occur quickly because each participant is involved immediately, and gains resolution immediately for the interaction -- that is, they say what they want and it happens, and any response to it occurs immediately as well. No waiting around, no back-and-forth, to determine resolution from the action's initialization, it's all wrapped up into one.

I'd love to find a happy medium between these two states. How does Unaris work in this respect?

[GaryTP]

Greyorm-

Hi, been offline for a bit.

Regarding the diceless resolution in Code of Unaris.
It's Diceless. Type what you wish to do, use the appropriate skill, and if your skill number is higher than the difficulty number of the task, you succeed. (Note: there are no abilities like strength or intelligence, just skills.)

You can modify your skill numbers during play by making strategic choices. Like getting behind someone (adds +1) or grabbing a bigger weapon (adds another +1). This goes for combat and other types of skill tests, such as social ones. Example, buying someone a drink will add a point to your charm skill. But there is never any dice rolling. You have to be creative to increase your skills.

How does combat work? For melee combat, you compare your Fight skill to your opponent's Fight skill. The higher one wins the round. The difference in the two Fight skills is the amount of damage that gets through to the loser. So a Fight of 9 vs a Fight of 5 would result in the player with the Fight of 5 taking 4 life points in damage.

Additionally, you can hack (edit) words that the gamemasters types to improve your situation. Since I'm posting this reply so long after you asked it, I won't be putting a hacking explaination here. There are a few "hacking" threads here on the Forge that you can review that explain the process.