This idea recently occured to me. I'll see if I can express it properly. With the fantasy heartbreaker articles, there has been some discussion over whether there are other types of heartbreakers out there, particularly Vampire Heartbreakers.

I think there might be several types of heartbreakers that come from VtM. One might be the Goth heartbreaker. I don't deal well with goth, so we'll let those who can discuss it.

I think that another sort of heartbreaker is the storyteller heartbreaker. Vampire is long on it's focus on "story" or "storytelling" in the text but the actual mechanics support Gamist play. I know that The Window is similar in this respect. Stating a Narrativist goal but not backing it up with mechanics.

So the question is, is this a form of heartbreaker you have seen? If so, where? If you disagree, explain.

I think most people will say no, since its in fashion.

Here's my view on the subject:

Lots of creators worship all those rpg's written in the 70's even though the games themselves have been re written a dozen times by the companies themselves. Thechnically they are very proficient and complete games. Still by considering them "untouchable" the "fantasy heartbreaker" thing came up.

Then story teller comes along and its like Nirvana... all of a sudden any one can pick up a six stringer and play what's on the radio. Or all of a suden any one can make a "brand spanking new game" with just 2 or 3 paragraphs. The fact that most people where introduced to the system through VTM made them asociate it with dark, occult and evil subjects, causing them to make that kind of a game. Also of course the theme was in fashion... just like any other theme is at a time.

Hey Jack,

The short answer is, "Heck, yes." It is so painful to see games obviously derived from the Storyteller System. The source games are so incoherent that they just cry out to be "fixed", and lots of people try it. Unfortunately, most of them have never played anything else, except maybe some D&D. I really do not want to name names, but I will say that I personally know too many people who have fallen to this lure.

I want to point out that I do not mean the style of writing where you start with cliched prose and proceed to talk for pages about stuff the characters will never do. I mean the whole package: classes disguised as splats, d10 dice pools, power points, the whole nine yards of insanity.

Later,
Grant

Jack, of course. Countless freebies, and at least some published small press games exhibit this heartfelt fallacy. It stems from a very simple underestimation of what RPG rules are for, and what they can do. The Window is a prime example.

You've got a bunch of people with a perfectly legitimiate and passionately defended gaming ideal: the "story-based" role-playing camp. These guys have come to the conclusion that "story is the thing." You'll often find them on forums making the implicit or explicit statement that "role-playing is about storytelling." I've been there myself. "Everyone makes a story when they game. That's what gaming *is.* That's what we *do* when we game." (Ever see this discussion before?)

Story here is used in the "sequence of caused events" sense. Members of the "story-based" camp maintain that the sequence of caused events should be as interesting as possible to the participants. This is certainly a worthy goal in and of itself. Along the line, though, they make several key errors.

The first, of course, is that they latch whole-heartedly onto the Impossible Thing Before Breakfast: The GM is the "storyteller" who tells *his* story to the players, who participate via the actions of their characters. There's quite a bit of this difficult text in the Window.

The big error in system terms is two-fold. They correctly realize that the mechanics of games like D&D and GURPS do not facilitate their style of play. Couple this with the detrimental assumption that RPG exist in only one form - that of ing the game reality - and they reach the conclusion that fewer rules are better. So you end up with tiny games with vaguely abstract physics-modeling mechanics.

Note: Vampire *claims* to be exactly what they're looking for, but the inevitable crash and burn is discouraging. I view Vampire itself as a "storytelling heartbreaker."

See... for the last few years (at least 6) my roleplaying style was always like this:

You create a character. I create problems. You tell me what you want to do. I tell you what happens.

I just dont know how to convey that into a rule book for less imaginative guys, because they will diffinatly never have to deal with my imaginative rpg troup.

But like I said is bottom line it never came down to "you get a call" or "some one kidnaps your girlfriend". Somehow the players usually got themselves into tons of trouble on their own.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, Javier. I'm talking about what Nathan describes:

Paganini wrote: The big error in system terms is two-fold. They correctly realize that the mechanics of games like D&D and GURPS do not facilitate their style of play. Couple this with the detrimental assumption that RPG exist in only one form - that of ing the game reality - and they reach the conclusion that fewer rules are better. So you end up with tiny games with vaguely abstract physics-modeling mechanics.

One of the most interesting things for me about the Fantasy Heartbreakers articles (and about the Fantasy Heartbreakers, I suppose) was how elements of those games offered definite, and often quite innovative, solutions to specific problems people had had with D&D (for example, all the different magic systems), while not challenging 95% of the larger assumptions of the game.

Rather than rehashing the GNS of VtM, maybe some people who are familiar with a couple of Storyteller heartbreakers could talk about the sorts of things that tend to be innovative in Storyteller heartbreakers and the sorts of things that never are? What parts of VtM (or whatever) did heartbreaker authors see as crying out to be fixed, and what parts were never critically examined?

Rob

Rob MacDougall wrote: Rather than rehashing the GNS of VtM, maybe some people who are familiar with a couple of Storyteller heartbreakers could talk about the sorts of things that tend to be innovative in Storyteller heartbreakers and the sorts of things that never are? What parts of VtM (or whatever) did heartbreaker authors see as crying out to be fixed, and what parts were never critically examined?

Rob MacDougall wrote: Rather than rehashing the GNS of VtM, maybe some people who are familiar with a couple of Storyteller heartbreakers could talk about the sorts of things that tend to be innovative in Storyteller heartbreakers and the sorts of things that never are? What parts of VtM (or whatever) did heartbreaker authors see as crying out to be fixed, and what parts were never critically examined?

cruciel wrote:
Well, as I doubt the authors of VtM believe in GNS they certainly aren't claiming Nar. They are claiming story, universal to all modes. VtM is fairly metagame-lite, and actor stance is the obvious preference. So, I'd say all that story and moral struggle they are talking about is just Sim:Sit/Char.

Oh... what I was previosly saying though is that I dont see why a system should be what is needed to facilitate story telling instead of the chemestry between players.

I mean with us it was all about the story, about cliffhangers and plot twists and stuff... and we used a pretty gamist system. All that "kill 'em and take their stuff" stereotypes that some game's have is just an exuce that story tellers use to cover up lack of chemestry with the players or lack of imaginative play. If you give the players the option to have more fun with words than numbers, they will deffinatly do so.

So yeah, story teller and VTM clones are just taking the same stuff and making it even more simple to take away the option of seeing it as a game at any point. But I dont think minimalization promotes story telling, I think chemestry does so. And frankly Im not sure how I could make that chemestry contageus on my website.

Lugaru, you're falling into the same trap that the designers of VtM themselves did. What you're talking about is what Ron calls "drift." It means playing in a particular style that is not encouraged by the mechanics of your game. Take a look at the Window, for example. The text of the game is full of instructions to prioritize story, prioritize character, etc. etc. But the system itself does not help you or encourage you to do that. It just "gets out of the way." Remember this paragraph from my previos post?

Paganini wrote:
The big error in system terms is two-fold. They correctly realize that the mechanics of games like D&D and GURPS do not facilitate their style of play. Couple this with the detrimental assumption that RPG exist in only one form - that of modeling the game reality - and they reach the conclusion that fewer rules are better. So you end up with tiny games with vaguely abstract physics-modeling mechanics.

What Nathan's saying is simply to reiterate the notions conveyed in the System Does Matter essay. Basically that if one wants to have a story, one ought to have rules that support that. And one can.

Put another way, Javier, you say that you can't convey to other players in the text how to play like your players. Well, we'd agree. Instead of trying to cajole people into this style of play, why not just have rules that cause it to happen anyhow.

For example, how do you think your players would react to The Pool?


Jack, why does every sort of game have to have a heartbreaker category assigned to it? I mean, sure, we can just make a blanket statement that all areas of design suffer from designers not paying attention to the state of the art in design. Wouldn't that cover it?

To say that every designer should be aware of the design theory here is really pushing things, I think.

Mike

Hey all,

While I think it is great that some of you all have not suffered under the lash of the Storyteller System, I would like to point out that in my neck of the woods, White Wolf ownzers j00. It kicks down your door, locks you in the closet, takes your kids, shoots your dog, and lights your house on fire. It is the One System to Rule Them All.

Why make your own system, when clearly the Storyteller System can be adopted to anything. Just look at Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Wraith, Mage, Hunter, Demon, Trinity, Abberent, Adventure, Streetfighter, and a whole lot more, many of which also come in larp format. Except for that one little thing, they are all perfect games.

Or so the argument goes. The games are long on talking about story, but the story is obviously the incoherent metaplot that the characters will never affect. The characters are either clones of each other, or they stab each other in the back constantly, and the best way to resolve a conflict is to kill the other character. Under the latest edition of most of these games, the best way being to make a brick character with truckloads of whichever physical discipline allows for the most heinous abuse. In short, a gamist system pretends to be heavy-handed sim pretends to be fluffy goodness-and-light narrativism. I sometimes wonder no one has been killed arguing about how the game "should be played."

When you cannot get away from White Wolf products, you tend to think in their terms, and a lot of people around here have hardly played anything else. Is it any wonder that folks reinvent the wheel in their own image? Think Vampire would be great, if only the combat twinks didn't ruin everything and that darn metaplot weren't so laughable? Then just nerf the combat disciplines and write your own plot. Think Aberrent is a great supers game, but the characters are just too powerful and the setting is too dark? Then just fix the numbers to something a little more human scale, and add four colors and a sense of honor.

And the larps around here are the worst offenders. After many, many years of playing Mind's Eye, everyone knows every loophole in the rules and the bestest, most effective way to do anything. So, when a new larp starts up, the first thing that happens is the rules are rewritten, practically from scratch. These "house rules" inevitably resemble a Frankenstein's monster made from bits of second edition Mind's Eye, third edition Mind's Eye, and third edition tabletop, with just a little bit of horse sense thrown in for good measure. These games are inevitably more coherent, but they still ignore the fact that there are better ways of playing in any mode you might want. A leatherman is still not a hammer.

Anyway, I am done ranting for the moment. Please, carry on your regularly scheduled conversations.

Later,
Grant

Um.

Okay, I admit to the obvious prejudice: I've written most of a million words for White Wolf, co-developed one game and am developing another for them because I like their stuff. So obviously I can't claim to be a neutral observer. Not that I'd try, because I disbelieve in neutrality on these matters, but I don't want anyone thinking I'm ashamed of or trying to hide my biases.

I admit to a bit of croggling when I see words like "inevitable" thrown around, in phrases like "inevitable disillusionment". Someone needs to point out that WW remains in business precisely because this disillusionment isn't inevitable at all. Just as D&D genuinely does offer what a lot of folks are interested in gaming for even when it's not my cup of tea, so with WW. I have long thought that any analysis of gaming which places too high a value on coherence as a desirable quality is going to fail the reality test of the market at large, because in fact what a lot of folks want is a highly adjustable hodge-podge.

Most gamers - very much including most of WW's customers, there's no claim of superiority being smuggled in here - do not think deeply about their gaming. They may think a lot about their gaming, but it's like hamsters on a treadmill. The view doesn't change much. They want stuff that'll be fun and cool and that probably offers them enough scope to tweak and try new things within an existing framework. They don't particularly have many easily articulable specific goals, and in my experience there comes a point in most discussions when they respond poorly even to friendly efforts to sort out overlapping imperatives.

There are limits to how far you can understand what tissues do by poking at the properties of cell organelles, just as a firm grasp of electron orbitals proves of only limited value in understanding how elements act on the macroscopic scale. A lot of gamers are looking for the game on the level of emergent properties, and if you go much below the surface you just get chaos.

This isn't to say that the games I've worked on are perfect. Hoo boy is it not to say that. But I also don't think that an exchange deriving largely of folks who either not happy in the first place or disappointed for relatively esoteric reasons is likely to get at an understanding of how or why the games actually do work for rather a lot of customers. And without that understanding, suggestions at fixes aren't going to do much good, either. Bad diagnosis makes good treatment difficult. Not impossible - people have been healing each other with the help of all kinds of bogus, incomplete, or misapplied theories, after all - but harder.

Bruce,

I think it's important to note that the work that you've been in charge of doing for White Wolf is some of the most coherent, focused stuff ever to come out of there. (This isn't sucking up - as an avid member of the "White Wolf messed up my RPGs" club, I was shocked to find I loved Adventure!) From the looks of your newest work for them, it seems you've taken an old stew-pot full of everything that could be thrown in, and made a game with pretty extreme focus, which is a task I wouldn't want to undertake, but you've seemed to do extremely well.

Hi Bruce,

Most of the comments, I think, are derived from experiences from the early-mid 1990s, using early editions of Vampire and Mage.

There're a lot of Adventure! fans at the Forge.

Best,
Ron

Wouldn't surprise me, Ron, but I see a lot more present than past tense, and not always in cases where I can check. I know, for instance, that WW switched to an official policy of "only quotes in the public domain" in 1996/1997 - I had to lobby for a single exception in a Werewolf book a couple years later. So anyone who "sees Sister of Mercy and Shriekback quotes is seeing them in older books. But in other cases...I don't know, and I...

Ah, undeclared personal history time. :)

Some years ago I was in a comics amateur press association. It was interesting, and it included Tom and Mary Bierbaum, who were co-writing the then-just-started infamous Giffen & Bierbaum run on Legion of Super-Heroes. (Non-superhero fans may treat this as "yadda yadda". :) ) Trying to discuss things with them proved very difficult. It eventually turned out that they both had this policy: if you write something that they think is just nonsensical and obviously wrong, they'll try to work out what they think you must have intended and respond to that. So if they didn't want to accept a criticism as is, they'd work up some mental model and go respond to that instead. This is of course not a good strategy for actual dialogue.

I came away from it with a horror of second-guessing of that sort. I'm probably over-compensating in the direction of responding to the text I see, and figuring that it's fairly close to the poster's intent. Given that sometimes we all do make mistakes, I'd rather go "oh, I see" in response to a clarifying follow-up than try to insert my own speculations about motive into the first post.

I do realize that sometimes this can be annoying, but I find it overall safer, particularly in an environment I'm still new to with lots of folks whose circumstances I don't know. I'm always open to acquiring the context, as going "oh, I see" and even "oops" and "sorry" when needed along the way.

Good call, Bruce.

Folks, please be more careful about just what White Wolf "stuff" you're referencing. Like D&D, WoD games provide something of a moving target in discussions, partly due to local variations in play and partly due to changing policies and designs of the game itself over time.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

I think Bruce may be misreading this thread. We've been discussing Storyteller System, with the specific, named, example of VtM. The topic is how the game does not live up to its claims, and how "storyteller heartbreakers" have tried to repair it, but have failed to do so by buying into bpgis preconceptions. I see only one post that might be in danger of over-generalizing.

Bruce, I've never encountered your work, but I've heard lots of good things about Adventurer, so I hope you don't feel personally attacked by this thread in any way. Certainly, none of my posts were intended as such.

Paganini, I've written a lot for Vampire, so folks' thoughts about what it does and doesn't do, in various circumstances, are of both personal and professional interest to me.

And I'll say again: I have seen some really excellent, highly dramatic, very literary-feeling Vampire play that makes heavy use of the rules to support the intent of the folks playing the game to accomplish this kind of thing. I've also seen efforts at such - and at other styles of play - founder badly. But as long as the successes are there and I keep hearing from happy customers, I won't accept "it doesn't do this" without a lot more qualifications.

I try not to say of any of my games "it does this" without qualification, for the same reason. The nature of the players and the circumstances of the session and series matter so much in this sort of thing. I believe people who tell me "it didn't work for us", particularly when they can tell me as much about the game as some of the really good complaints I've read over the years have. It's just...well, I get just as much detail from some folks whose campaigns did work out. So there are more things at work here.

And yes, I really do mean it about people using the rules as written to support the sort of shared dramaturgy they were interested in. This isn't "you can get a great game if you ignore the rules". That's a true but useless statement. :) I mean people saying things like "the chargen process gave me a better sense of who I was playing, and the Nature/Demeanor split ended up generating plot hooks with efforts to find out what would actually strengthen characters in moments of crisis, and the contrast of different characters' reactions to the same issues since they were at the same Humanity gave us the hothouse war-within-the-coterie flavor we wanted at that point," and so forth on down the line. I really do mean the rules producing results of interest to people concerned with the development of their characters and of long-term plotlines built around the evolution of those well-developed characters.

I should add that I find the general question "Why do folks have success accomplishing goals I share with a game that just doesn't work for me?" a fascinating if often frustrating one. For me, it's listening to folks talk about games of narrative and dramaturgic interest with...nah, no need for the digress. Suffice it to say that I do find myself on the "but it doesn't do that for me" side often enough to wonder just what the heck is going on sometimes.

Bruce,

Well, I feel kind of sheepish. Adventure! is one of the few WW games I haven't read cover-to-cover (not planning on reading Demon and Street Fighter). I actually haven't seen it, which is sort of funny because I always think of the Aeon/Trinity line as the beginning of major system improvements. But, that isn't actually applicable to the question as I simply see the system changes as refinements instead of any kind of fundamental alteration.

The one serious, and legitimate, mechanical problem in the WoD line I see is the Stance incoherency - the text encouraging player narration (Director or Author stance, who knows) while at the same time sticking to the preplanned adventure, Actor stance only, GM tells you what happens to you and what you're allowed to do model (which I think is connected to the Impossible Thing, Golden Rule, and GM is God principles). I've yet to be convinced that the broken part of the WoD line that everyone refers to is anything other this or a dysfunctional playing group.

My understanding is that Adventure! includes player narration mechanics (Director Stance mechanics) - fixing this problem. Is this true, do see this problem and see it fixed?

Case in point, 7th Sea. You can definately make a case for Storyteller influences (you'd have to ask Mr Wick, I've just got conjecture) - but includes player control mechanics and other tools to increase player authorship rights. It bills itself as a cinematic, story telling game, and I think it pulls it off. No problem here. If such a thing as Storyteller heartbreaker exists, it definately isn't one.

(One side note on Ron's moving target issue. I've always though VtM was the most coherent of the line. If I was going to single one out, it would be Mage.)

Bruce Baugh wrote: I won't accept "it doesn't do this" without a lot more qualifications.

I do find myself on the "but it doesn't do that for me" side often enough to wonder just what the heck is going on sometimes.

Bruce,

Yeah, cross posting.

The truly successful VtM game (as in 5 years successful) I've seen basically involved dropping the combat system and damage rolls (when I dodge I roll, when I attack I roll, what's a round anyway?). Game flow was basically illiciting 'what do you want to have happen' feedback from players. Fairly like story telling. The players were relatively fresh, so they didn't come with 'what an rpg is' assumptions. No problems here except the combat rules didn't fit with their flow.

The way I see it the Stance incoherency issue springs up with people who've already got assumptions about what an rpg is. Bringing the GM vs player, GM is God ideals into the game and the mechanics not contradicting that. If you read the text with those assumption in mind it seems to support the GM is God.

Yeah, here I am trashing WW products and Josh (a guy who GMs for me and posts here occasionally) just recently ran a game of Adventure! in which I played a very fun Mad Scientist named Emil Weisskopf who had to save the United Nations from certain death by diffusing a blast of Telluric energy using the Eiffel Tower as a giant antenna.

Realize, Bruce, that a lot of the theory here comes around as a result of the reports of people who played WW games and found some problem with them. This is, in part because of the WW design philosophy of "everyting but the kitchen sink" that you mention above. Which works for players who are able to figure out what to use from it. But for many of your "treadmill" sorts of players, this just causes confusion at times. Most times simply because there are mutiple player types simply gravitating to the different types of play that the rules support. This causes one player to annoy another, and dysfunction can occur.

With a GM who has strong control, they will choose one mode and play to that. If the players don't like it, then dysfunction again.

I think a lot of Storyteller play is about tying to "get it right". There's a sense that players have that they know how to play it correctly but others just aren't playing right. So, it's definitely an attractive system, but one marred by the potential for player conflict of interest. Which is hardly unique.

From a design perspective, GNS is simply about trying to ensure that these sorts of problems do not occur, or that at least the players understand the problems that can arise so they can address them on their own.

Interestingly, Adventure! seems to address these issues relatively well (as do some of the later editions of the other games, as Ron points out). Hence the enthusiasm for it here. And yes, this isn't bootlicking, you can do a search for Adventure! and that ought to show the enthusiasm for the game well before your arrival.

If you want, I can let you in on what I see as continuing problems with Adventure! in another thread, just to prove that we aren't trying to stroke you. :-) In fact, I commented to Josh when we played that, while I thought that Adventure! was the best WW game I'd played, it still had some baffling inconsistencies.

But then, as you've said, you're already aware that it's not perfect (and what game is?). So that may well be a redundant conversation. The point is that there is no bias here against WW (Grant's outburst aside which is really about player inflexibility more than anything else; sometimes people vent). We consider their designs with the same critical eye that we examine any system. It's just that, as a popular system, and one that led to much of the theory on this site, it attracts a lot of attention and commentary.

Anyhow, the thread is meant to point out how, following on the successes and failures of Storyeller, players went off trying to "fix" Storyteller, much as other's had tried to "fix" D&D a generation before. Which has inevitable problems (one of them being that from a certain perspecive, these games aren't broken to start with). Instead of "fixing" they should have taken cues from games like Whispering Vault (that stood on the shoulders of Storyteller), and created more innovative games from scratch.

Mike

greyorm wrote: Simple Forge lingo: the Incoherency in the design requires a certain amount of conscious or unconscious Drift to enable the sort of play you mention.

cruciel wrote: The truly successful VtM game (as in 5 years successful) I've seen basically involved dropping the combat system and damage rolls (when I dodge I roll, when I attack I roll, what's a round anyway?). ...snip... No problems here except the combat rules didn't fit with their flow.

Hey Bruce,

So we understand each other, I have nothing against you or White Wolf in general. Ron mentioned D&D, which is a perfect analogy. Many, many cooks have been in the kitchen, and the brew sometimes tastes a little funny. I love Streetfighter and first edition Mage. Masquerade was great. Vampire was not my style, but I appreciated the game for what it was. I hear nothing but good things about the latest stuff out of White Wolf, and I eagerly anticipate Gamma World.

However, this thread is about heartbreakers. Even now, I am trying to gently convince someone that his game should be more than a Vampire clone with kewler powerz and a couple rules changes. Vampire deserves better, and so does his design. I cannot count the number of different larp systems I have played that were based on both tabletop and Mind's Eye rules, but did not use either strictly. Just like D&D, the whole Storyteller line is so popular that a fanbase has sprung up, either decrying the system while blatantly copying it or praising it as the one true system while changing the parts that the fanboy does not like.

The nature of popularity is such that it spawns imitation where innovation would be better. Vampire et al has that kind of popularity. The cat is out of the bag, and no amount of effort will change that. The original should not be judged by the fans. If someone starts a thread focusing on a specific rules-set, we can talk specifics there.

Later,
Grant

Just to clarify, Raven's post about "drift" is what I was getting at with my comments about "inevitable disillusionment." The VtM rulebook has a lot of text explaining that the game is all about story, theme, drama, etc., which looks very story-centric, and even Narrativist in the Forge sense of the word (dealing with difficult moral quandries). Upon closer inspection, though, the mechanics do not encourage this style of play, or even make it easy by "getting out of the way." VtM can be played exactly as it describes itself - that's a given. Any game can be played in the style described by the VtM rulebook. Heck, D&D can be played that way. The only requirement is that the players decide to do so. They will ignore anything that gets in the way, including rules if neccessary. Such is the nature of drift.

This natural chain of events is what leads to heartbreakers. "Oh, of course," says the drifting gamer. "We had to ditch such and such rules to get the game to work for us. Obviously rules are bad. The fewer rules the better!" And he goes on to design a rules-lite, freeform game like The Window. Or he says "Obviously, we need to replace these rules with better ones," and goes on to design a VtM clone from the ground up with custom tailored mechanics. When what the gamer should have been doing was throwing out the preconceptions implicit in the game in the first place, and looking for (or designing) a game that is custom tailored to his play style.

I'll have to admit this: I honestly don't see the appeal of coherency in the GNS sense. It's not what I'm looking for in a game, and it doesn't seem to have any bearing on features of games I do like.

If folks reading this want to say that I'm tone-deaf to it, I would not feel at all insulted by it, and would agree. I'm used to life with a very limited sense of smell, and with allergies and metabolic problems that mean I can't eat Thai food or drink booze, just to grab a couple of examples. I will only ever (short of strong gene therapy) appreciate these things in an intellectual way. I can't know how single and blended malts compare, and if I write fiction with characters who do, I have to rely on second-hand information for them. I've long since gotten used to be being a finite being. :)

But conversely...

Paganini, you seem to be saying that the sort of people I describe (and am), who find the Vampire rules have supported strongly narrative and dramaturgic play, are wrong, that as a matter of objective fact they don't do that. I can only say, um, you're wrong. Because they did it for me and others, and I could adduce examples until the cows come home. I think very few Storyteller system mechanics are uniquely desirable or suitable - those tend to operate at the level of discipline definitions and the like, where they exist at all. But I think that many of them do in fact work to accomplish their stated aims for many players.

Obviously they don't for all, and I'm interested in the comments of folks who can say "this bit here didn't work for me because of X". As long as you're willing to realize that I am saying "I can't tell X from Y" for a fairly broad range of cases. I genuinely can't meaningfully answer some questions, and some answers convey no information to me beyond "according to people referring to a model which remains opaque to me, there is a distinction here I don't see which matters a lot". I seldom do anything calculated to drive a customer away, and I'm here in part precisely because I'm trolling for insights to get me out of some ruts. It's just that there will be limits.

I do hope not to be a pest about this. If it ever becomes unclear that I do draw a distinction between categories that work for me and categories that work for anyone ever, lemme know and I can sort it out. I'm willing to disagree, but I do not intend to insult anyone.

Oh, yes, back at the point. :)

Yeah, I agree a lot that doing Storyteller knockoffs is silly. One of the real virtues of the d20 license is that it's saved us from D&D clones, mostly. :) I operate on an aesthetic inspired in part by comments of Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics - there should be clear reasons for the work to be in the medium it is (game rather than novel, for instance), and there should be features specific to the work at hand. Retreads may be good learning exercises, but why bother inflicting them on the public? If it's a new work, it should be, you know, a new work; otherwise it should be a supplement, official or otherwise, to something that already exists.

Bruce,

We're starting to drift off topic, but into some really interesting issues that would be cool to explore. I'd be happy to go over just why I feel that Vampire fails to meet its stated design goals in another thread, if you're interested in my opinions at all. (No reason you should be, but there it is. :) Plus, the idea of GNS cohesion that I mention below could certainly be explored more fully in its own thread as well.

Anyway, on the topic at hand, I don't mean to imply that people can't have fun with Vampire as written. I do think that Vampire misrepresents itself such that many people go into play with certain expectations that are not met. This leads to the creation heartbreakers as described. I agree whole-heartedly with Jack on this, because I've seen so many games that pipe "Story is the thing! Fewer rules for better stories!" Heck, I used to do it myself.

IMO, Vampire itself is a link in a chain of heartbreaker type games that stretches across RPG history. Such games recognize particular play goals (sometimes even admitting that such a style is merely "different" and not "the one way to game") but fail to realize those goals mechanically. This is really all GNS cohesion is about: Identifying play goals, and crafting mechanics to actively address those goals, rather than hindering or "getting out of the way."

Bruce wrote: Paganini, you seem to be saying that the sort of people I describe (and am), who find the Vampire rules have supported strongly narrative and dramaturgic play, are wrong, that as a matter of objective fact they don't do that. I can only say, um, you're wrong. Because they did it for me and others, and I could adduce examples until the cows come home.

This is like saying D&D's rules support dramatic, narrative play because this group or that group did it -- heck, MY D&D group does it (as I've written about over in Actual Play a number of times)! The flat answer to that, and the one I give as well, is D&D does not support dramatic, narrative play.

szilard wrote: I believe what Bruce was saying was that the group acheived dramatic, narrative play due (at least in part) to certain rules (notably Humanity and Archetypes) that exist in Vampire.

I think perhaps there are a few misconceptions about coherent play that are muddying up the discussion.

First, Coherent play does not mean "can only do one thing". Therefor arguements about prefering Incoherent games because one like to do different types of things are a fallacy.

Second, there is NOTHING absolutely nothing that group A can do with a coherent game, that group B can't do with an incoherent game. Therefor examples of "but my group does all kinds of play like that with this game so there for this game must not be incoherent like you say" is also a fallacy.

Third, Incoherent does not mean broken crappy mechanics. Some of the mechanics subsystems in Vampire were brilliantly innovative at the time they were first released. Quality of the underlying mechanic has no bearing on Coherent or Incoherent.

Coherent IS NOT a euphimism for "good game" or "a game we like". Incoherent IS NOT a euphimism for "crappy game" or "a game we don't like".


Group B can have exactly the same roleplaying experience with an incoherent game that Group A has with a coherent one.

The difference being that group A is doing it because of the system, and group B is doing it despite the system. Or more precisely, group B is doing it despite those elements of the system that are fighting against what they're trying to do.

I believe what Bruce was saying was that the group acheived dramatic, narrative play due (at least in part) to certain rules (notably Humanity and Archetypes) that exist in Vampire.

Didn't Jared once say that you could make Narrativist Vampire with Nature, Demeanor and Humanity? The attributes and skills are noise in an otherwise nicely realized Narrativist system.

Paul

greyorm wrote: BTW, I think we need to come to a description of what "narrative" or "dramaturgic" play mean in the context of what we are discussing, because we may easily be talking past one another. What is your objective definition of narrative play and dramatic play, and how are they concretely told apart from other forms of play?

Paul Czege wrote: Didn't Jared once say that you could make Narrativist Vampire with Nature, Demeanor and Humanity? The attributes and skills are noise in an otherwise nicely realized Narrativist system.

See, that's the point, Bruce. "It works well a goodly fraction of the time", translates to us as, "when the players all share the same play goals, it works great". When play is coherent in WW games, it's a pretty good system.

The problem is that you're anecdotes are, I'm guessing, about play with like-minded indviduals. Perhaps some of who had a hand in the games' designs? Anyhow, we wouldn't expect problems from such a group.

The problems arise when Gamist player A does something "gamey" (like. perhaps committing diablerie, because "it's the only way to get more powerful") and it annoys the Sim player ("But you're not considering the ramifications when the Camarilla finds out").

The problem with the design is that it supports each of these decisions equally. So each player feels justified in playing their way. This is Incoherent play. And it's a leading cause of the end of games, or at least of the odd player dropping out. I'm sure you're aware of what I'm describing.

So, sure, lot's of VtM play is quite coherent, and people enjoy it. Nopbody's saying it can't happen. All we're saying is that if the system had been designed to support only one mode, then you might not have as many dissaffected players. OTOH, you might have fewer players overall, because only a smaller proportion would like the mode supported.

So the question is, are these games designed to produce the best possible play for a small group, or to cater to the desires of the largest number of players despite the fact that play may get messed up by that wide appeal?

The second option explains both the games' success, and the reports of dissafected players.

OTOH, the storyteller system is no different than 90% of games out there in this. Perhaps more pointedly problematic from a GNS perspective than most, but not markedly so. Consider the vast number of games that are Simmy, but feel the need to put in rules to limit "gamist creep". These are classic examples of games that often lead to incoherent play.

Mike

The thing to keep in mind is that Vampire has conflicting statements of play goals before we even encounter any mechanics. Vampire devotes a lot of space to describing the game in terms of play-style and content, without mentioning specific mechanics. Here's a quick summary of the important GNS theory:

The act of role-playing is essentially an act of collective imagination. Ron has labeled this concept Exploration. The participants, as a group, create a fictional reality, shared by all, through a combination of their individual imaginings. The extent to which any given participant may exert control over the shared reality must be defined by some regulatory agent. The ability to influence the shared reality is called Credibility. The regulatory agent is System. This is what the Lumpley Principle is about: all role-playing mechanics define the limit of each participant's Credibility to a greater or lesser degree. System may be as simple as an unstated agreement (Social Contract) or as complex as a set of detailed algorithms.

Vampire's stated goals are in absolute conflict with themselves. The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast basically says that simultaneous Credibility may not exist, yet Vampire proposes exactly that. Furthermore, thematic play in morally difficult situations, causal events, and tactical decision making may not be simultaneously prioritized. When these elements arise during play, the participants will have to determine which one is important. If all of the participants are of like mind then this will be no big deal - drift happens unconciously and automaticaly. If the participants are not of like mind, then conflict will ocurr as Mike describes. The rules can not resolve such conflict, because they fallaciously assume that such conflicts will not arise, that the play goals can coexist.

Here are some quotes from the second edition to showcase the conflicts:

Rules:

"They are used mainly to avoid arguments . . . and to add a deeper sense of realism to the story. Rules direct and guide the progress of the story, and help define the capacities and weaknesses of the characters."

Storyteller:

". . . the person who creates and guides the stories."

"The Storyteller describes what happens as a result of what the players say and do, and must decide if the characters succeed or fail, suffer or prosper, live or die."

"[the Storyteller] doesn't simply tell the story; instead, she must create the skeleton of a story and then let the players flesh it out by living the roles of its leading characters. . . . mostly she must decide what occurs in reaction to the words and actions of the characters - as realistically, impartially and creatively as she possibly can."

Player:

". . . you are inside the story and not just watching it. You are creating it as you go along, and the outcome is always uncertain."

"That is what this game is all about: not stories told to you, but stories you will tell yourself."

"Vampire is not only a storytelling game, but a roleplaying game as well. You not only tell stories, but actually act through them by taking on the roles of the central characters. It's a lot like acting, only you make up the lines."

"You decide what risks to accept or decline. Everything you say and do when you play your character has an effect on the world."

"To some extent, you are a Storyteller as well as a player, and should feel free to add ideas and elements to the story, though the Storyteller may accept or reject them as she sees fit.

"As a player, you try to do things which allow your character to succeed, so as to "win the game." This strategic element of the game is essential, for it is what so often creates the thrill and excitement of a dramatic moment."

"Although Vampire is a game, it is more about storytelling than it is about winning."

"There is no single "winner" of Vampire, since the object is not to defeat the other players. To win at all, you need to cooperate with the other players. Because this is a storytelling game, there is no way for one person to claim victory. In fact, Vampire is a game in which you are likely to lose, for it is difficult to do anything to slow your character's inexorable slide into madness. The whole idea is to hang on as long as possible and eke out the most drama from the ongoing tragedy."

It's important to realize that the above quotes are from Vampire's discussion of actual play. That is, if this is the first time you've encountered an RPG, this is the part of the book that tells you "how an RPG works." With these statements, the designers are describing how they intend Credibility to be aportioned by the mechanics.

It's no wonder that after wading through this tangle of vague and contradictory statements that so many players come away with confused notions of what the game is intended to prioritize. It seems as though the designers themselves didn't even really know.

Paganini wrote: It's no wonder that after wading through this tangle of vague and contradictory statements that so many players come away with confused notions of what the game is intended to prioritize. It seems as though the designers themselves didn't even really know.

Well, to give a couple actual ideas instead of high brow GNS flim-flam.

If you wanted to make VtM promote cooperative storytelling more I've got some frightening ideas.

1) Remove split dice pools. Arguement can be make that split dice pools encourage tactical thinking, particularly in the combat system.

2) Gut the combat system. I don't mean rewrite it, I mean remove it. See this here thread.

3) Ditch game balance. By this I mean ditch points (starting, experience, or freebie). Just fill in the dots to make the character you want for the story. Some vampires will be better than others, that's normal for vampire fiction. Still keep all those backgrounds and personality/concept merits and flaws as character concept seeds, just don't charge for them or reward for them. If you want to learn something new, play it out (which the game already encourages you to do).

Now, these are just my opinions and I seriously doubt you could create a popular game by doing this. After all, now it's a 'broken' system. There are, I'm sure, a zillion other ideas floating around in people's heads here - I just picked the scary ones to highlight Mike's point about coherency and marketability.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Uh, isn't that a little harsh, Nathan? I mean every game text before that point had stuff like that. The idea that the Impossible Thing was impossible only occured with the advent of the theory (note: theory) of this site. The designers had a very good idea of what they wanted. They were just not aware that in the attempt that problems would be caused. Do we blame them for trying?

*shrug* Okay, I don't have much to say in response to assertions that my experience is impossible. I disagree, or I wouldn't think it was my experience, but I'm also not here to piss in other people's beer about interpretative frameworks. I note the disagreement and move on.

I do agree that it makes more sense to start from scratch with fresh projects. Take inspiration, sure, but building fresh lets you avoid a lot of baggage.

Paganini wrote: Well, no, it's not a broken system. Now it's a vampire clone of the heartbreaker variety that's just exactly what Jack was talking about in the ver first post. "Aha," you say. "These rules don't work! Can them, and everything is fine!" OK, great. But why use the system at all now? Why not just play freeform? Or use the Window. It's basically what you describe. (I.e., free chargen, no combat system.)

Wouldn't it be better to design a game that will actually help you do what you want to do, rather than just gutting the hindering elements out of an existing system?

Bruce Baugh wrote: *shrug* Okay, I don't have much to say in response to assertions that my experience is impossible. I disagree, or I wouldn't think it was my experience, but I'm also not here to piss in other people's beer about interpretative frameworks. I note the disagreement and move on.

I do agree that it makes more sense to start from scratch with fresh projects. Take inspiration, sure, but building fresh lets you avoid a lot of baggage.

I did take time to read through the available articles, on the grounds that if hosts think them important or interesting enough to put up, I as guest should go take a look. :) I suspect that a lot of it is definitions built on different assumptions (My Definition, My Enemy! written by Stan Lee, drawn by Jack Kirby), yes, and I would freely confess to having a highly idiosyncratic approach to some matters myself - constructing theories with a deliberately colloquial style is just part of it.

Bruce Baugh wrote: *shrug* Okay, I don't have much to say in response to assertions that my experience is impossible.

I suggest the term we might be looking for is "optimized." White Wolf rules - I'll focus on Vampire and Mage here - as written are not optimized to produce the kind of play the storytelling sections point toward. They may produce that play under certain circumstances with certain groups, but they contain - and I think I read something you wrote earlier in this thread, Bruce, that essentially concedes this point - a certain amount of static.

I've had a hell of a lot of fun with WW games over the years, but at the same time, have experienced significant frustration when the rules appeared to hamper play rather than enhance it, leading to modification or jettisoning of those rules. My experience is certainly not universal, and speaks to my own group's dynamics, but I don't think it's uncommon. I can readily believe some groups are having great play with the rules working straight from the book.

Are we now chasing tails here, or is this topic sufficiently drained of blood?

Best,

Blake

Bruce wrote: I'm also not here to piss in other people's beer about interpretative frameworks.

Blake, yeah, if we're talking about a spectrum of "does this well" to "does this not so well", then that's fine. I will admit to a persistent skewing because of my commercial interests, weighing "might do this better' against "but then wouldn't do that well", but that's me.

Cruciel, I'm not so much saying incoherency doesn't exist as saying that I do not, on any very useful level, grasp the content or desirability of coherency. I mean, I can tell people want it, but like I said in an earlier post, I feel like a color-blind person listening to others discuss two colors which are similar or identical in the qualities I can detect. I am cognitively impaired in some ways thanks to auto-immune and neurological problems, so the analogy isn't a flippant one. I genuinely do recognize the existence of distinctions I cannot percieve. One of the things I'm doing is seeing how much of this sounds like stuff I want to try translating into a framework that I could work with.

Blake Hutchins wrote: White Wolf rules - I'll focus on Vampire and Mage here - as written are not optimized to produce the kind of play the storytelling sections point toward. They may produce that play under certain circumstances with certain groups, but they contain - and I think I read something you wrote earlier in this thread, Bruce, that essentially concedes this point - a certain amount of static.

I've had a hell of a lot of fun with WW games over the years, but at the same time, have experienced significant frustration when the rules appeared to hamper play rather than enhance it, leading to modification or jettisoning of those rules.