When Is It Real?

[contracycle]

GURPS and TRoS disads work exactly the same way. Same character hijack, you know.

No they are completely different critters.  Its not a case of 'choosing' to have SA's overpower flaws; SA's give bonusses which may be used to overpower flaws; thus its is exactly arising from system, not the GM's abnegation of system.

character with zero SA dice in play seems to me to be in the same situation as a GURPS character

Quite possibly, but that would conly confirm that TROS facilitates GURPS-like open sim, which is no surprise.

Is it that GURPS is *less* deadly that you think the player need not either play smart or use tactics and strategy?

Gurps can be deadly in terms of character mortality; TROS's structure has the effect of focussing the action on critically important fights.  GURPS, as for a long line of open sim games, cannot does not and probably should no distinguish between important and trivial fights.

[John Kim]

Topic check -- while the GURP vs TROS stuff is potentially interesting, it is completely unrelated to the topic of the thread.  I would suggest starting a new thread for it, please.  

Meanwhile, in reply to Caldis...

I'm curious about the "wrong and harmful" part.  What sort of harm do you think that I cause when I imagine stuff as real?

The danger in assuming what you've preimagined is a real part of the game is if play moves on to the point where your imaginings no longer hold relevance but you've put enough work into them that you feel you must shoe horn them back into the game somehow.  It's not a given that this will happen, as Vincent said it may be innocent it may be harmful, but that is where the danger lies.

This seems to be a good argument against the complete opposite of what you state.  The shoehorning that you describe is a result of feeling that it is not real unless it appears in shared play.  That is, the player feels a compulsion to have something appear in shared play in order to make it real.  In contrast, if I consider it real already, then I am satisfied with my imaginings.  I don't have to shoehorn it where it doesn't belong solely in order to get the magic stamp.

[Marco]

GURPS and TRoS disads work exactly the same way. Same character hijack, you know.

No they are completely different critters.  Its not a case of 'choosing' to have SA's overpower flaws; SA's give bonusses which may be used to overpower flaws; thus its is exactly arising from system, not the GM's abnegation of system.

Aside to John,
I think this is drectly related to the topic: GURPS "provides Force," TRoS "doesn't." For me to understand how that is, I need to see this case.

Contra:
In TRoS the book is incredibly explicit that the GM tells you when your SA's apply. It's listed for every SA. One SA: Destiny is listed as applying rarely in adventures. Luck would seem not to apply vs. Greed (for example) at all.

Just as a character may not have Greed in GURPS they might not have Greed in TRoS--but if they do, and it's key to the action the player is interested in, then the character gets hijacked in exactly the same way.

Even having SA's doesn't guarantee that it won't happen. It makes it less likely--but if the bribe is good enough the character, SA's or not, will comply.

Claiming the GURPS GM is overriding system is, IMO, simply incorrect: the book gives the ability to the GM to apply appropriate modifiers. That's part of system. It *is* less codified--but that's probably because people with a social contract like mine had little difficulty in this regard since my GM wasn't dragging PC's around by those disads anyway (and, really, I think pound for pound GURPS has fewer character hijacks than TRoS since TRoS has skills that can control PC's in combat).

Now: I've seen arguments that say that the player never need be afraid of being controlled by a Flaw since his SA's will be in effect: that's an interpertation of the game rules. There's nothing in there that says anything *like* that.

Same for triviality of fights: sure--I can never introduce a situation in TRoS where the fight is important but the SA's don't apply--but I can also avoid Frenzy in V:tM by giving the characters a bloodbank. If the play of the game makes

The book over and over, again and again, stresses the need for tactics, strategy, smart play, teamwork, etct. It has lists of advice. It talks about realism. Nowhere does it say to the GM "Never give the characters a battle where their SA's are not in force."

In fact, if I play with Joe, my SA's may apply to Theology, Law, and Research rolls. Joe's may apply to combat--and I may be fighting right along side him.

Basically I think this is taking a concept that people like in TRoS and really applying it in ways that are not indicated by the text in the rule book.

This is fine: every rules-read is an interpertation--but saying that an adventure should be "built around an SA" when an adventure can last multiple sessions and an SA could be Destiny that applies only a few times through it seems like a bit of a stretch to get to "All Passion All The Time."

-Marco

[contracycle]

ahem.  Deleted as that was intended to go by PM.

[Marco]

I'll take this to PM's then. The reason I used TRoS was that I was told by Ralph, Matt, and Raven (less so) that it was an example of a coherent Narrativist game (and that the SA's meant that a novice would overpower a master in actual play taking the gamist elements out of the combat system).

I'd seen posts by Ron calling it a coherent Nar/Sym hybrid (not abashedly Narrativist) with a good deal of argumentation.

If there's not nearly universal agreement on what it facilitates or why it does so, then it's not the good example I'd thought it was.

-Marco