For awhile now I've been playing at one of those D&D game nights WOTC kind of organises and provides the adventure material for at various game stores. I have to say the play isn't a done deal/definate win as alot of people seem to report? Monsters who when they hit almost do my characters bloodied damage? Ouch! I've actually had a character die at one session - though I think the GM wasn't running the enemy ghosts insubstantial by the book, making them always take half damage. In the last session another GM ran and when the ghosts were hit by radiant damage they lost that insubstantial quality until their next turn, making the ability far less powerful. Though maybe it was a different type of ghosts, not sure?

The game sessions primarly come down to a battle grid and one battle. Sometimes there are perception rolls or skill rolls before the battle, as if that links up to the idea of a living, shifting imagined world - but really your not engaging (verbally) someones imagination. The only imaginative element is that dice roll X against target number Y is called 'perception' or whatever. It always makes me think the designers can only work in some sort of binary state - either they have the GM in charge of controlling all elements (which essentially means the GM controls the outcome of the session) or the make it an utter board game with imaginative sounding names for the mechanics. No in between.

There have been some elements urged by players, which works in that outside the written system 'Ah, he's really excited about this and the enemies almost beaten anyway so...I'll just let it fly'. In some previous sessions it was a player urging to use their intimdate - though it seems there are some rules on doing that to bloodied enemies and it working. In another game a player used ghost sound to distract the final(?) ghost who was going to finish him off (this is where my PC had died and the ghosts had continual insubstantiality). Basically I could almost hear the scales in the GM's head, weighing up the total TPK, whether that really mattered (it's a drop in game) vs the drop in games overall story and how do the characters return to the next game (side note: Everyone got ressurected for free at the end of that...whatever, we lost the session either way - it's not like we got ressurected mid session AND for free so we could pretend nothing had happened). Anyway, the ghost sound worked. In the latest game one PC (different player, but again a wizard) was facing off with a ghost, using ghost sound and illusion to try and make it think it's boss was telling it to stop. Again at this point it was the last ghost, so the GM just basically let go of fighting mode (ie, where he actually optimises their moves - like he had them skirting our attack of opportunity areas and flanking us before) and let the player toy with it for a bit (both somewhat successfully and somewhat at a failure) before having it give up and march off.

Back to that binary of 'GM decides everything' Vs 'Total boardgame', I think it'd be interesting if an RPG had the option for both written into it, and players simply vote for which they want to do at the time. Perhaps it having such a vote at the first half of the session, then again at the middle for the last half of the session. The GM being a player himself, he'd also get one vote. There are other things that could be done to blend the two so they effect each other. But I think the main thing is if players always wanted a 'GM decides everything' game, then they would always vote for that, wouldn't they? I think it'd show up for various groups just how much players want their GM determining everything, while with a traditional game that can be obscured and then that obscurement used as a 'reason' to continue to write GM decides everything designs.

Nice game sessions - mostly a board game, with some deferment to some pre game decided imaginative element (ie, there's a ghost army attacking), then sometimes at the end the GM simply letting go of pressing the conflict, which in spite of the written texts allows some imaginative elements to become concrete game resources/points/effects/a change to the board.

I don't know why they just don't build in some points which the GM (or somebody) has, which are useful and the GM hands them out 'when the situation warrants' (which is to say when the GM wants to, but were enjoying the illusion (like we do a magic show) that were interacting with a situation). Instead it always seems to be the binary design, never a blend?

Sounds like a very similar experience to what I faced at Gencon Oz when I played the prewritten "Heroes of Rokugan" L5R games.

I had some great expectations that simply weren't met. Lots of promise about character driven narrative, then everything comes down to a simple combat or conflict where very little of the character's choices actually make a difference. I could have sat listening to someone tel me a story, then flipped a coin.

Heads my character dies.
Tails they save the day but someone else gains the honour/prestige (but that's just the L5R way).

The most fun element of the session was watching the GM try to railroad us, while one of the players kept flipping through the rulebook showing ways that he had managed to abuse the system to prevent the GM from railroading us. The rest of us basically sat around listening in, then talking about the sessions we'd be playing next.

I don't know why they just don't build in some points which the GM (or somebody) has, which are useful and the GM hands them out 'when the situation warrants' (which is to say when the GM wants to, but were enjoying the illusion

I think it'd show up for various groups just how much players want their GM determining everything, while with a traditional game that can be obscured and then that obscurement used as a 'reason' to continue to write GM decides everything designs.

Hello Jeff,

Callan, can you elaborate a little?  What kind of 'points' are you thinking of?

I agree, there are many players who like the GM to have all the power.  Well, at least until characters die.  Then it's kind of like ancient kings who were honored as gods until the harvest went bad, and then they were beheaded.  Heh heh.

But what do you mean by 'traditional game'?  I consider D&D4e to be traditional in format.

As with Callan's experience, above, i wonder if both of these "failures to provide great roleplay" can be traced to something missed at the social contract level:  Setting and (hopefully) agreeing upon expectations prior to play.

To update, played a few more games...by gum, for drop in games, WOTC have designed the modules with the most kick ass monsters. I was sure we were defeated about half way through.

Indeed I felt quite dispondent after a few of us went down like ninepins. I had to think about that - am I whinging about losing?

Probably, but I think classic whiff was the issue. I think in the whole battle of the night I hit...once? We were facing druegar...or as I think of them now, fantasies answer to preditors (as in the fuckers turn invisible then become visible again next to you, for massive bonus damage).

But basically what is the difference between missing and having utterly done nothing on your turn/skipped a turn? At an emperical level, nothing! Given that some powers (mostly dailies) in D&D 4e have an effect even if they miss, I am almost willing to bet money 5th edition (of course there will be) will have miss effects on nearly all powers, or miss effects on absolutely all powers.

Because honestly it reminds me of this, where the dog is tied down and shocked and then even after it's not tied down, it just suffers the shocks, having given up hope of anything else. I think that's where the dispondency comes from - can't do fuck for missing and oh, now I can't do fuck for being unconcious as well...so just give the fuck up but sit there all the same. As you can see, people don't leave the table when things start to turn sour - especially if it turns sour over a time period (instead of in a short, sharp snap).

Indeed an idea came to mind that would be too radical for 5th edition and breaks simulationist norms a little too much. But the idea is that no one goes down when they hit zero hitpoints - everyones still in the game. BUT, the moment the last pc is put on or below zero hitpoints, instantly the monsters win. That way you lose as a team. Doesn't make sense much in simmy terms because surely it's 'realistic' for people to go down one by one. But as usual that's the divide point, since what I'm talking about doesn't hold realism or genre faithfulness as a number one goal.

Somehow, we won in the end, some heal effects raising myself and others (I think to a lucky nat 20 recovery roll by one player, to a large part helped the win occur too).

But seriously. Drugar. Fuckers!

And fuck whiff as well - time to get rid of 'Roll to see if you do nothing' mechanics. Atleast in what I design.

This is all sort of rambling but at least tangentially related to your last post.

The whiff factor is one of the least enjoyable aspects of 4E, and one of the reasons other than pure effectiveness to hunt for as many to-hit bonuses as possible. (There are more of those than there used to be, I think, but I'm not sure - it used to be pretty hard to get anything beyond a +1 in a specific situation until they tried to fix the math problems with the Expertise feats which was a bad, bad way to go. But I digress.)

But the way that most combat encounters create that "Oh shit we're gonna die!" feeling even though you're almost certain to pull through okay... they've done that extremely well. My players say they almost never feel a combat is a sure thing until the last couple of turns, and that can be with a +1 encounter that I know will at most knock out one of them, and probably not even that. (They're running double leaders in a five-person team, with one of them being a healing-focused Cleric.) That makes it fun both for them, in that they get a real sense of danger and get to feel that their choices matter, and for me, since I don't have to hold back but can go all-out with the monsters. And very occasionally, in a tough fight one of the PCs will die which keeps the players on their toes. (I think it's happened twice in something like 40-50 encounters.)

I think one reason why missing is so frustrating compare to not being able to act is that when you do get to act you have the potential to do something really cool and meaningful, but when you're knocked out that's that - there's nothing you can do so there's nothing to be disappointed about when your turn rolls around and nothing cool happens.

But the way that most combat encounters create that "Oh shit we're gonna die!" feeling even though you're almost certain to pull through okay... they've done that extremely well.

I'm not entirely sure I understand your last post, but I'll try to answer the question "What challenge does 4E actually present compared to what the players experience?", assuming that's what you asked. If not, please correct me.

In my experience, the actual danger is still there, it's just not as big as the players experience it. Part of this is probably that much of the actual danger is front-loaded: many, probably the vast majority, of the monsters' most dangerous attacks are single-use or recharge abilities, meaning they will be used early in the fight and then maybe once more (unless the GM rolls really well for recharge). When a monster's first attack takes away a third of your hitpoints that makes you feel it's very dangerous, but when that attack is "Recharge when bloodied" and the monster's at-wills do much less damage it's actually not that bad.

Another factor is the "he does what?" experience you get when a monster triggers an unexpected ability or a (seemingly) very powerful effect you haven't seen before. That often makes the players feel they've been thrown into the deep end without warning, even if the ability is actually quite limited (through limited uses as above, or because it can only be triggered when fairly specific conditions are met).

I can take a specific example of the latter from a recent encounter I ran for my group, which involved an Umber Hulk (probably one from the Monster Vault but I'm not sure). It can attack with both claws as a standard action, and if both hit the same target it becomes grabber. If the Hulk has a target grabbed it can do an attack against it that does a lot of damage. Since the UH is an elite it has an action point, so in the encounter I ran I used that AP to trigger the conditional attack when the UH managed to grab someone. The attack did a bunch of damage and my players were freaked out - "That thing's really dangerous!" And that's true - kind of. If you get grabbed and if you don't get out of the grab you're going to take a whole bunch of damage, but it's fairly hard to get grabbed and fairly easy to get out of a grab so if you're playing reasonably well - putting someone with high defenses up against the Hulk and having someone in a position to do forced movement on one of them if they still do get grabbed and don't manage to get lose - the danger is minimal.

So yes, the danger is less than it may seem, but it's still there. A group that mismanage their resources and don't cooperate will get wiped out by encounters that a group with identical characters but who use them better will have no problems with. In other words, whatchoices the players make matter.

Hi,

4E's default philosophy is that each encounter should eat up about 1/4th of the party's resources.  This is actually a pretty safe margin for encounters overall, and basically fits what a lot of players are looking for- "risk" that isn't terribly risky.

Given that D&D Encounters and similar organized play thrives on having continuous participation - there's more incentive to do low risk play than high risk challenging encounters (such as classic tournament D&D, or "deathtrap dungeons").

That said, it's not inherent to the system itself by any means- you can look up tons of stuff online where people are talking about upping the challenge - players using better tactics and teamwork, DMs using challenging setups. 

Tactics and teamwork do make a major difference in effectiveness- though it requires full group buy-in as part of the Creative Agenda of play- the DM has to build encounters with that in mind to challenge the players, the players need to work together for gamist strategies.

I tend to see it as a spectrum - on one end you have the high challenge gamists, who want to think hard, and play hard to win, down to the low challenge gamists who are happy if they figure out a slightly more effective tactic, here and there, and aren't much in danger of losing, and the very end being players who want Illusionism with zero threat of risk at all.  All of these folks want very different games, and usually find themselves frustrated when they encounter something other than what they were looking for.

Anders is quite correct in the psychology of perceived danger, though.  The nice thing about perceived danger is that it makes the players feel like the stakes are much higher than they are, which is usually great for low-challenge gamists or illusionists, and non-existent for high challenge gamists.

Chris

As I said, in terms of two people communicating with a relatively high understanding of what each other mean, the words 'tactics' and 'tactical' are quite empty words. Or atleast with me, I wont know what your talking about.

Anyway, it's ironic, because the situations possible easyness is really hard to overall grasp.

Basically, looking past TPK's for now, there is no yardstick to judge performance by. Of course in a direct PVP board game, the yardstick is did I bet Kevin or Bob. In a PVE (player Vs environment) game, there needs to be a mechanical yardstick.

Or when you look at a TPK as a yardstick, it's entirely binary - you all die, or atleast one of you lives. Unlike many board games where you have points (often with a point total you must reach) and thus you have a gradiated yardstick. Here with D&D, you could not TPK against a group of minion goblins or not TPK against a group of dragons and therefore...not TPK'ing is nothing in terms of a yardstick. The supposed importance of 'Do you liiiiiive!!!!???1!?' is, at the very least, illusionous. It wouldn't be illusionous if D&D had no levels and all monster encounters were of the same challenge rating. Then you would have a definate yardstick of how good you are at the game.

Perhaps I should ask the GM what the WOTC's modules challenge rating was? Perhaps, in terms of a gamist CA, it's vital I ask?

Anders,

Another factor is the "he does what?" experience you get when a monster triggers an unexpected ability or a (seemingly) very powerful effect you haven't seen before. That often makes the players feel they've been thrown into the deep end without warning, even if the ability is actually quite limited (through limited uses as above, or because it can only be triggered when fairly specific conditions are met).

Hi Callan,

Basically, looking past TPK's for now, there is no yardstick to judge performance by.

I agree with Chris that there is more gradation to victory and loss than TPK or not TPK. The characters could flee (with some left dead or not), different amount of resources could be used etc.

Guys, it's not a mechanic/a mechanical component just because it comes to your mind!? These are all made up evaluations! Or if your going to leap to argue that, then tell me what an actual built into the mechanics yardstick would look like? Would it be written in the physical text along with some 'this is important' text near it?

That even cuts both ways - even my assertion that a TPK is a fail - is that written in the text as a fail? Explicitly? Even I could be said to be making that up, given the wording that I recall in the texts.

Anyway, regardless, I'd like to talk about yardsticks that are written in the physical text itself. I want the yardstick the authors have to give (if any!), I don't want to turn around and ignore them in favour of something I made up. I wouldn't bother reaching out to someone else if in the end I was just going to turn to myself for that.

Hi Callan,

That's a rather ridiculous narrow definition of what qualifies for talking about D&D gamism and success, here.  Plenty of games from most sports to chess measure more than simply win/loss ratios as important measurements of ability - even though "no mechanics for tracking such things exist" as part of the game.

Were you actually interested in talking about D&D and challenge or just to grind your axe about D&D?

Chris

Chris, with the right set of eyes they would find your own preferences ridiculous. C'mon, the human default is to think oneself has won the magical belief lottery and has the right belief/preference and so is qualified to determine what is, overall, rediculous. If were working from the default, well then my dad could beat your dad anyday...

C'mon, take two! No default! Or you can instead just say my preference is so rare and held by so few (or just me) you'll skip talking on it, fair enough.

Callan wrote:
Chris, with the right set of eyes they would find your own preferences ridiculous. C'mon, the human default is to think oneself has won the magical belief lottery and has the right belief/preference and so is qualified to determine what is, overall, rediculous. If were working from the default, well then my dad could beat your dad anyday...

C'mon, take two! No default! Or you can instead just say my preference is so rare and held by so few (or just me) you'll skip talking on it, fair enough.

Hi Callan,

You asked about yardsticks to measure what kind of challenge is being faced beyond TPKs.  Then you added the qualifier that the book must explicitly explain to you that doing something faster, better, with less resource costs is better than doing it slower, worse, with more costs.

No one seems to require soccer teams to explain winning by 5 goals is way better than barely winning by 1 goal in overtime.

If you are interested in what kinds of challenge D&D 4E provides, as a system, or comparing the kinds of challenge you get from following the encounter rules vs. prepackaged adventures (such as D&D Encounters), then there's plenty of yardsticks.

Those yard sticks also become the tools by which you can define "tactical" - choices made to improve the outcomes of tackling challenges, much more than Win/Lose as a binary.

Otherwise, it sounds like you've already decided what you feel about the game without actually engaging with it.  I'm not sure anyone can have much of a conversation with you if that's the case.

Chris

Well, hold on a moment. I think we might well examine the distinction between textually explicit success and what becomes experienced as success in any given game. I read a lot of card game rules about six years ago, while trying to understand card games better, and although for every game the rules were absolutely explicit about who wins and who does not, not one explanation addressed the issue from a personal enjoyment level. Not one addressed, for example, the possibility of someone who plays the best but happens to lose this particular round, even for a game which necessarily relies on multiple repetitions, like poker.

There may be some kind of shared understanding among practitioners of a given game regarding the unstated avenues of success. I'm thinking especially of pre-4th edition Champions, which I have previously described as a car that can run in any GNS direction, as long as the group in question kicks the tires in a particular way and throws out specific portions of the material. More important to this thread, the game was also highly customizable, or rather interpretable, in terms of the various flavors of Gamism. Sitting in with multiple groups and reading about even more groups' accounts, I realized that no one ever explained these extremely necessary avenues of reading and modifying the rules - it was always about sharing a group ... call it "value system," in which explicit success, like winning fights, acted as a practical framework.

Best, Ron

I'm reminded of the old Streetfighter game (maybe?) which would reward you with a "PERFECT!" if you took your opponent down without sustaining any damage yourself.  Would something like that qualify for a Callan's textually explicit yardstick?  Say you shifted, or modified, rewarded XP by what proportion of hit points you had at the end, for the D&D type case.  Of course I'm not really sure that would actually work because current D&D seems to be attritional and quite finely calculated, but is that useful as a thought experiment?

Also seems to me the issue gets a bit fuzzier with team games as opposed to 1 on 1 games.  In a team game you might actually lose but still individually be recognised as man of the match, or as having the highest kill count, or something else related to individual contribution.  Hence I think in team games one of the yardsticks that will always be present, and isn't made up, will be the recognition of your peers.  Also, given the nature of these encounters, as I understand them, a local club could put up a leaderboard of different groups playing through each, and as with my HP suggestion, rank each group by how many HP they came out with.  That isn;t exactly how its designed to be played now, but it certainly could be textual.

I'm not sure if this is what you're after, but poker is actually a fairly illustrative example of different measures of winning: hands or money; long-term or short-term. Many poker books heavily stress playing "correctly"; i.e., for long-term monetary gain (for ring games - tournament play is a different beast). Handling repeated defeats at the hands of less skillful players is one of the most important skills for a professional poker player because it happens a lot and maintaining discipline is key to being successful in the long-term monetary sense.

However, for an amateur player, "getting one up on the pro" - correctly calling a bluff, avoiding a trap, making them fold - can be a victory, even if they're down money by the end of the year.

To make D&D more like poker there would have to be many more encounters in a day but the party should have the ability to easily avoid or escape from them. That way they would be better able to choose when to commit their resources for as much gain as possible.

Chris wrote: You asked about yardsticks to measure what kind of challenge is being faced beyond TPKs.  Then you added the qualifier that the book must explicitly explain to you that doing something faster, better, with less resource costs is better than doing it slower, worse, with more costs.

No one seems to require soccer teams to explain winning by 5 goals is way better than barely winning by 1 goal in overtime.

Hi,

I think Callan makes a very good point from the point of view of gamist 4E, in fact.  Our games thrive pretty well on the "kudos yardstick", in that players are handing out kudos for good tactical combos (and that is one area 4E really makes sing!), but really functional gamist measures are really not realised, in my view.

I think there is a "near miss", though, in milestones.  Milestones happen every two encounters (or maybe more or fewer, at GM discretion, based on encounter level).  At each milestone you get some extra resources (an action point and, until recently, the capability to use a daily magic item power one more time).  If you want a real gamist measure that can work with a longer campaign (i.e. isn't a binary TPK/live), the number of milestones reached before taking an extended rest is pretty fair.  Maximum in one day and average over time both make sense - sort of like a batting score/batting average in cricket or baseball.

How are the milestones counted? I'm not too well read in encounter construction, but as I understand it it's like 3E - ie, party level plus or minus a number of levels.

The thing is, if you can get to a milestone or X amount of milestones with party level-2 encounter(s), as an example, then that makes milestones a meaningless measure.

The default is that you reach one milestone after every two encounters.

Callan wrote: How are the milestones counted? I'm not too well read in encounter construction, but as I understand it it's like 3E - ie, party level plus or minus a number of levels.

The thing is, if you can get to a milestone or X amount of milestones with party level-2 encounter(s), as an example, then that makes milestones a meaningless measure.

An individual DM can still standardise things a bit, though.

For all the 'boardgamey' charges laid against it, D&D still, out of the box, lacks the vital components of a board game. And probably raises another generation to intimately link incoherance and the notion of 'roleplay' together, utterly intertwined. With all the interferance that garners against developing coherant games. To make a coherant game is actually against market.

I wonder if I could announce a design comp somewhere (here?) where you take snakes and ladders and make an RPG from that base, without breaking the flow chart/having dead ends in the flow chart towards the end/win condition. I have no prizes though, except to read entries avidly. On the other hand, I'm curious about how much the idea would be like a chicken bone in the throat?

D&D 4th Ed is a strategy game, with strategy game goals and measures of success. 
If you get through the encounter and still have a few healing surges and no one is dead. Congrats that was good use of skills and management of resources. . Exp points for you.
Finding the best way to fiddle your party skills in unexpected ways while overcoming the encounter is another form of success that I think gets less attention than it deserves. Players love to talk about skill combos, figure positioning and fiddly bits. Many players get a great deal of satisfaction from that part of the game.  It is the same personal reward a player gets for a good move in chess or checkers. That satisfaction is a meta effect of the game and not a written part of the system, but it is real none the less. 
I have never been able to mentally jive that part of the system together with a “role playing.”  That’s a discussion that been beat to death already, and not really part of this one.

If you get through the encounter and still have a few healing surges and no one is dead. Congrats that was good use of skills and management of resources.

Players love to talk about skill combos, figure positioning and fiddly bits. Many players get a great deal of satisfaction from that part of the game.  It is the same personal reward a player gets for a good move in chess or checkers.

Hmmm...  I think there's room for some nuance in there.  I'm sure people like professional athletes play to win to such an extent that whatever fun they might have had from the sport when they started out is totally lost.  Which is understandable when it's a career.  For hobbyists, though, I think both usually co-exist in varying degrees.  Eevry online, mass-player game I've played has a range among the regulars between the seriously competitive and those who simply enjoy the way the game plays.  Even for people who totally play to win, there must be some means to choose between this game and that, and I expect that is the play experience.  Which I think is an adequate explanation for why competitive players are still found in games like RPG's with fuzzy conditions.

For hobbyists, though, I think both usually co-exist in varying degrees.

Even for people who totally play to win, there must be some means to choose between this game and that, and I expect that is the play experience.  Which I think is an adequate explanation for why competitive players are still found in games like RPG's with fuzzy conditions.

That seems a little OTT to me; as already discussed, you can measure a whole bunch of things in order to determine relative success. 

Which would take more competitve pleasure in, as a player of countersrike?  A game where you won, but in which you didn't even fire your gun and your team-mates did everything, or a game in which your team was gunned down in the first 3 seconds, and you alone hunted down all the opposition and got within half a second of defusing the bomb?  I think the second is a much better demonstration of ability, even if it was ultimaterly and formally a loss.  Thos other measures, especially peer respect, are not trivial and insubstantial things.

Perhaps, like myself for quite some time, they think they are learning a structure, when all they are learning are others moment to moment whims glased over with a veneer of genuine rules, but which are mere fragments and are easily co-opted to any end those whims feel like from moment to moment.

Which would take more competitve pleasure in, as a player of countersrike?  A game where you won, but in which you didn't even fire your gun and your team-mates did everything, or a game in which your team was gunned down in the first 3 seconds, and you alone hunted down all the opposition and got within half a second of defusing the bomb?  I think the second is a much better demonstration of ability, even if it was ultimaterly and formally a loss.  Thos other measures, especially peer respect, are not trivial and insubstantial things.

I'm not ruling that out.  There may well be people having that experience, it seems perfectly plausible to me.  As for fuzziness, I'm still not convinced that is a solveable problem, but itmight be.  Hence it seems to me a bit early to talk about being a choice, because at the moment there are no obviously available alternatives.  I'll mention, though, that Rune, which is about as clearly competitve a game as ever seen in RPG, doesn't seem to have attracted a significant following.

Callan wrote:
I think if you want to learn how to always be a half second short, taking the possitive feedback for that will do it. I'm not against taking pride in small, made up victories - in quake live (vs bots, mostly) when I started I would congrats myself for even hitting the bastards once. But it was always made up and most importantly, not sufficient.

I don't think that it is valid to argue that such preferences amount to excessive regard for peer approval, or an insufficient commitment to victory.

that people want to play a certain kind of game, and that was what they signed up for.  Winning in a manner that prevents them from having the play experience (fun) they want does indeed totally defeat the purpose, for them.  To dismiss them as "scrub players" is to hold them to some presumed standard which may well be a totally false expectation of what they "should" be doing.

but I vaguely think there is some kind of limited budget for introducing new problems in play

Callan wrote:
I don't think I'm arguing 'insufficient'. I'm saying they are not playing to win. I'm not saying people have to play to win. It is, however, difficult when someone demands they are a 'play to win' guy, but avoids perfectly legitimate and intended game elements - ie, as Sirlin example, the guy who says 'Throws are cheap!'. It's about as different as a nar/sim agenda clash.

Gareth, I don't think I've drawn the 'should' gun first? Are your example players, who have had their purpose defeated, about to draw the 'should gun', as in what the other guy 'should' do? To me it sounds like using victim status to determine others actions. They've had their purpose defeated - this implies that someone else must do something other than what they were prior doing, as I read it? A new taboo?

Yes, but this is introducing a new problem. What I'm describing is simply introducing material.

As I have already pointed out, you don't seemt able to explain why people choose to play one game or sport over another.  If the only goal is "winning", why isn't flipping coins the ultimate game?  You get to win roughly half the time, and you can repeat the exsperience instantly.  The answer is, "its cool/fun to fly planes and dogfight" or "it's cool/fun to fight with swords" or whatever it might be.

Just becuase a game is designed in a certain way doesn't mean there can't be unintended consequences which only come to light when it is in the hands of large numbers of players who, yes, are playing to win.

Instead of lecturing people about "not playing to win", they fixed the problem.

Yes, but this is introducing a new problem. What I'm describing is simply introducing material.

Well Universalis has a system by which introducing anything at all is budgetary.

Callan wrote:
Gareth, you seem to be treating your own answer for how a person chooses as the entire spectrum and there is nothing outside of that?

Some people don't play for pleasure as first and only priority, they play to master an activity. Then seek out another one to master. This hinges on the idea of games as being some sort of training for real life, like the lion cub pouncing on it's sibling is play, yet training for hunting.

If the game designers take responsibility for their design, there aren't unintended consequences.

Basically, when it comes to responsibility, you give authority a waiver, if I'm reading you right - you place the responsibility on the player who is stopping the others players from 'getting to do what it was they signed up to do'. I'm not pitching you a moral imperitive here, not saying what you should do, just describing the structure I'm left thinking you work from.

Well, you describe it as a problem, which was what I refered to. To me, your just describing a previously unforfilled preference. The people who signed up for a certain experience are just missing out on a preference of theirs. There is no problem, unless the designers goal was to forfil that particular preference to begin with.

Gareth, you seem to be treating your own answer for how a person chooses as the entire spectrum and there is nothing outside of that?

No, I'm objecting to you doing that.

You're not recognising that person A may choose to play game A, and person B may choose to play game B, and that this choice has nothing to do with whether or not they honestly playing to win, but simply for from an interest in the activities of which games A and B are comprised.

that this choice has nothing to do with whether or not they honestly playing to win, but simply for from an interest in the activities of which games A and B are comprised.

I know I'm jumping in the middle here, but that doesn't seem to be what he's saying at all.

But what if he is? Can you give an example of someone playing a game (in the context of this discussion) who does it without interest in the activities comprising that game?

I haven't mentioned anyone compromising the game. I've mentioned people using everything that is there, within the arena of the game, to win. I can recall recently on RPG.net about even online saying people exploit the meta game or some negative term, by reading an opposing corps forum. But then someone else said CCP corp (makers of eve) said that's valid. So you can either stick with the superstitious taboo or you can opt to read opposing corp forums for advantage.

When it's within the arena the maker of the game set, it's valid, it's not compromising the game. It might compromise someones sense of how the game is played, but if they lose and the 'compromiser' wins, they are someone who can't accept they lost. Another account on RPG.net was of a poster who said he got a duel challenge from someone - the poster wasn't very good with his class, but accepted. The thing was, the challenger expected him to do the classic moves of the class, which he knew how to counter. Except the poster didn't know the class or those moves and so, curiously enough, won from being erratic. The challenger exploded into a fit of rage, calling the poster a noob and didn't know how to play. Telling this to the guy who had won.

So sometimes, what seems to be compromising the game, it is really just ones inability to accept reality. It happens sometimes. I remember in warhammer quest losing half my gold to a random fire encounter...which at higher levels is thousands...but I'll hide that little skeleton...

Callan wrote:
If I'm reading you right, Gareth, you seem to include no chance that person A & B are doing anything other than this.

But if I'm reading right, you don't - both A and B and everyone else chooses by the method you describe.

While I grant some people, even alot of people, do exactly what you say, not all do.

Callan wrote:
I haven't mentioned anyone compromising the game.

But if I'm reading right, you don't - both A and B and everyone else chooses by the method you describe.

Nonsense.  I said nothing of the sort, and nothing that even be contstrued as saying that.

But if you are willing to acknowledge that people do actually have content preferences, than I suggest again that describing all conflicts over content as originating from "scrub players" is self-evidently mistaken.

But what if he is? Can you give an example of someone playing a game (in the context of this discussion) who does it without interest in the activities comprising that game?

Callan, I'm not sure I understand your position correctly so I'm going to ask a couple of questions to see if I can make sense of it. This is not meant as a provocation or an attack on your position; I'm just trying to figure out what you're saying to see if I can bring the discussion forward.

1) If a game has explicit winning conditions, do you think anyone is justified in playing to win by any means within the rules as written even if the (whole) group of players have explicitly added other restrictions? What if the restrictions are implicit?

2) Do you think winning conditions added by the group of players but not present in the text has any value? If not, in what way are they different from the ones in the text? Specifically, if a player is introduced to the game without himself having read the rules and everyone else in the group is playing with the added winning conditions, is his experience any different from that of a player who has read a version of the rules where those winning conditions are present?

Callan wrote:
If it's intended to be played to win, then it's not mistaken. If it's meant as a themepark sort of game, I wouldn't bring up the play to win thing as it's not actually part of the design.

As far as I can tell this is different from what Gareth is describing to me, which is people who, first and foremost, signed up for X but then miss out on it because of how others play.

1) If a game has explicit winning conditions, do you think anyone is justified in playing to win by any means within the rules as written even if the (whole) group of players have explicitly added other restrictions? What if the restrictions are implicit?

2) Do you think winning conditions added by the group of players but not present in the text has any value? If not, in what way are they different from the ones in the text?

Specifically, if a player is introduced to the game without himself having read the rules and everyone else in the group is playing with the added winning conditions, is his experience any different from that of a player who has read a version of the rules where those winning conditions are present?

Yes, it is mistaken, because the content is a separate and different issue to playing competitively.  Right?  One doesn't imply anything about the other.

No, I'm saying they are orthogonal, that they are not ordered in a priority, that they occur simultaneously.

Callan wrote:
Not at all. Play to win does even more than imply, it points it's finger at content and in the voice of god says the content comes second. Indeed I think Sirlin even wrote an article about playing streetfighter, but hypothesizing a version just using bounding boxes - no graphics at all. To really consider distilling it right down.

Well, for your A and B, maybe they do? By and large?

Okay, now I'm even more confused. Earlier it seemed you were vehemently opposed to new measures of victory (number of encounters defeated per extended rest etc). Could you clarify?

No, because as I have pointed out, that doesn't explain why people choose streetfighter over space invaders or vice versa.

but simply for from an interest in the activities of which games A and B are comprised.

To borrow from the music analogy, you can't assert that a musician drawn to rock is less committed than one drawn to jazz and vice versa. 

Okay, now I'm even more confused. Earlier it seemed you were vehemently opposed to new measures of victory (number of encounters defeated per extended rest etc). Could you clarify?

If the game has no win conditions defined at all, I'm vehemently opposed to making up some but pretending that that's really the win conditions of the game I originally came to play - it strikes me (at best) as being constructive denial.

Callan wrote:
If you want to treat 'play to win' as a content itself, then the 'play to win' people are choosing games with that 'playt to win' content in it.

. You can add all the 'infantry only' switches you like, but if the game doesn't have the play to win steak, it don't mean a thing. In such a case, the 'infantry only' switch is worthless.

You can. The guy into jazz is less commited to rock (or not at all commited to rock, even).

The thing is, every time I say 'play to win', I think you want to claim that as something you do. Or that 'all gamers play to win!'.

The thing is, every time I say 'play to win', I think you want to claim that as something you do. Or that 'all gamers play to win!'.

No, I don't think that.  Please address what I say, not what you imagine I said.

Which is exactly where you are wrong.  The infantry only games are still played to win.

That's what I keep trying to point out to you, people have preferences for certain game content without that having any impact on their desire to win.

Callan wrote: Don't pussy foot around, if you think your in on the one way the universe works you aught to be proud enough to proclaim it. Loudly. C'mon, don't give me another 'that's not what I'm saying' line - I can feel it coming so it's lost it's bite already. You absolutely think your right - not in a 'I'm right that team X will win this sports event' way, but in a 'this is the utter truth of the world' way. Surely when you know it that certainly, theres nothing wrong in you saying such is the case?

Just use the report button, Anders. It's fine to do so.

Callan wrote:
Just use the report button, Anders. It's fine to do so.

Well, time to close it. There are some neat bits in here to mine if people want to dig.

It went off the rails as soon as actual play ceased to be discussed.

Best, Ron