Simming, RPing and Dice!

First, on our recent heated discussion... :)

I'd much rather have people willing to speak out on what they feel is a valid point, even if they make assumptions, than to have people wait until they have researched their topic and make a stunning statement; only to be totally ignored or unanswered as no one else feels like refuting it. And when someone finally does, it's a month later and no one remembers the first comment.

Nah, off-the-cuff remarks and back and forth banter is much better. Honestly. So keep it up! Don't let the others back you down, even if you might be wrong. :) Dissenting points of view help make this list a bit more diverse and interesting! :)

Next. I honestly don't see a difference between Simming and RPing. Both actually use rules. Otherwise it fades and dies. I've seen this on the Relic bboard for Homeworld (the computer game, and a very good one at that). The Fiction Board has Boardwar plots popping up frequently. In it, a dozen kids (and most are kids, under 18) constantly one-upping each other with imaginary space fleets and the ability to outdo each other. With the exception of a few who realize that this results in story destruction and thus are willing to stay "shot" and retreat, damaged.

In each case, the story fades out after maybe 20 stories.

But when they started setting rules and respecting them, then sometimes the stories would start meshing a bit more. No more universe-destroying bombs that cannot be stopped. Stuff like that.

Is it a simm? Not really. It's an interactive storyline. Taking an existing story and adding in a few more paragraphs with your own characters.

But take that story and start focusing on a set scenario... for instance the Star Trek storylines, and accepting certain conditions... and then you have something different. You have an adventure done, often with minimal supervision. And while a few bad eggs can destroy the story... often the story has the potential to survive and flourish.

To me, it's a form of RPing. It's tabletop gaming only without books or dice. And while it might lack some of the randomness of other RPGs... I feel it helps the RPers grow as players.

Now on to dice. I know Deb Allen loves going without them. :) But I do see times when the randomness of Dice come in handy. In tonight's adventure, we had a situation where the group had scared off 29 Illithid (brain-eating psychic monsters) after killing their leader and 6 others. And a Eye-Tyrant (Beholder).

11 of the buggers decided to pop in and surprise the group and attack. It didn't work. Most of the people were not surprised. One used a magic-enhancing staff to imprison five of the Illithid (who normally easily resist enchantments) and the others were fought hand-to-hand. The Illithid, having lost surprise, fled.

In a game without dice, it is doubtful that the group would have lucked out as much as it did. But I did encounter a half dozen criticals against the Illithid, resulting in the deaths of two Illithid in the round in which they first appeared (surprise did not work). The next round another died immediately, a fourth was hit by a specialty spell designed to kill Illithid (using their resistance to magic against them - you take 4 arrows/bolts and with a spell merge them into one. Then fire the single arrow/bolt at the Illithid - if it hits a magic resistance field, the spell pops and you suddenly have 4 bolts headed at the critter at high speed...). All but one (who was being crushed by a magical tentacle and unable to shift) fled, all of them wounded at least a little. That last died soon after with a sword thrust.

Literally, dice helped the group survive. Without the dice, if it was just me, the group would have survived. But most of the group would have been hurt and some might have died. The Illithid would have been much nastier to them by my own whims.

Mind you, I can still send the group yelping for cover just by hinting that Goblinkin are in the area (a monster race that is sort of like a combination of Aliens (from the movie), ants and Golems; they're made of stone, and live in a regimented strict caste society. And are nasty in close-fighting.

The group has only encountered them five times. Only fought them twice. Each time they won and felt themselves fortunate. The other three times, two were a result of a summoning from the mage's Monster Summoning, and they paid the Goblinkin off after they killed the foes, and the last was an army of about 5,000 Goblinkin which were paid off to go bother a different kingdom with 50,000 gold. :) (Yes, my group bribed an army of Goblinkin to go away. *laughter* That's one way to reduce treasure... hmm, I think it's getting a bit high again. I better do it again.)

Anyways. In my opinion, while you shouldn't use dice for every situation, in combat it does help in creating an aura of randomness. And the hack-and-slashers (well, one hack-and-slasher, the wife of my biggest RPer) enjoy using dice. ;)

Rob
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Simming, RPing and Dice!

"Robert A. Howard" wrote:
> 
> Anyways. In my opinion, while you shouldn't use dice for every situation, in combat it does help in creating an aura of randomness. And the hack-and-slashers (well, one hack-and-slasher, the wife of my biggest RPer) enjoy using dice. ;)

	(A case study he offered to support his opinion has been snipped to
save space.)

	Another adage I would offer. which really is supporting Rob's point, is
the one about how truth is stranger than fiction:

	The goal of _playing_ a game or sim is to entertain the participants. 
The goal of a sim itself is to be a credible piece of fiction -- a
story.  The goal of a game itself -- those ditsy rules and dice-rolling
situations -- is to model an unreal reality.  OK, the original wargame
rules were desperately seeking to model real reality in something less
than real time and real ordinance cost.  Not much less, it often seems
to me...but I digress.

	OK.  Story versus modeling.  So what?

	I play infrequently in a face-to-face gaming group using Dungeons and
Dragons.  Two sessions ago, we were engaged in a climactic battle trying
to interrupt an evil necromancer who was conducting a ceremony involving
a cute little kid, a unicorn and a dead drow elf.  Also the usual
chanting minions and temple setting with bloody altar.  So, surprise,
surprise!  we got into a fight.  And we used the classic rpg combat
trappings of rounds and rules and dice-rolling to keep it organized.
	And I was bored.
	Well, not bored exactly.  My character was fighting for her life,
engaged and trying to defeat the enemy.  I was impatient, though.  I
wanted to get on with the story and the AD&D abstractions that our DM
had to wade through were not cohering with that story to create a
seamless sense of the unreal reality where necromancers can do effective
things with a dark elf's dead heart.  Now, one might argue that the
problem is with the AD&D mechanics and somebody else's mechanics would
be better.  We've been having that argument for more than 20 years and
we've got more than  20 years' worth of better mechanics.  The problem
isn't just bad mechanics.  The problem is what you'd expect to get if
the mechanics were perfect.

	Truth can be stranger than fiction.  Fiction gets subjected to some
form of "reality check" (be it based on physics or on psychology) in
order to hold interest.  Truth is free to be incredible; the only
reality check it has to pass is the quality of the witness.  But most
truth, most of the time is, let's face it, bland.  Predictions pan out. 
The front runner wins.  Ordinary truth can be just as tedious as bad
fiction...or even more so.  And dice and mechanics are there to model
some sort of fictive truth.  Hm...

	The true facts that can compete with fiction to hold our attention are
ones that have been culled and shaped into stories (with themes and all
those other cool literary devices).  The dice and rule mechanics alone
don't ever carry you to the goal of playing the rp-game -- to
entertain.  Nobody ever says they do (OK, almost nobody -- we'd have to
except historical wargame enthusiasts).  Instead, every rpg introduction
these days always says that the entertainment has to come from the
people who are playing.  The people are constructing a story -- culling
and shaping the results generated by the rules and dice into an
ingredient in their literary construction.  That ingredient is the
reality tag, whereby their construction _might_ turn out to be stranger
than mere fiction.

     But the dice and rule mechanics do carry the risk of bringing
tedium to the play; it's in their genes, their grounding in attempting
to be true to an unreal truth.

	So we come back to it:  dice are good; dice are bad.  Story versus
modelling.  So what?  At the end of the session it still comes down to
doing whatever it is that floats your group's boat.
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Simming, RPing and Dice!

>     But the dice and rule mechanics do carry the risk of bringing
>tedium to the play; it's in their genes, their grounding in attempting
>to be true to an unreal truth.
>
> So we come back to it:  dice are good; dice are bad.  Story versus
>modelling.  So what?  At the end of the session it still comes down to
>doing whatever it is that floats your group's boat.


    The only point to roleplaying, or simming, is to have fun. Whether it's
the fun of modelling something real or attempting to be real, or whether
it's telling or attempting to tell an interesting story. I agree that that
is the only issue.
    There are other issues, however. Addressing ourselves to what makes
games work is an useful activity, because it might produce something that
gives us an insight we didn't have before. On the other hand, not talking
about it doesn't produce anything useful at all.
    While I prefer diceless games where the rules are not too rigid, I
accept that using dice and formalised rules happens, and that it has some
'game' value.
    As an aside, however, Kriegspiel is a German tactical excercise without
troops that doesn't actually use dice or any particular rules system.
Instead, trainee officers are asked about their battle plans, and then
talked through the encounter. A senior officer with experience will
adjudicate the plans and adjustments the trainee makes, and gives him his
results.
    It seems to me possible to administer a battle without dice or formal
rules. It may be that practical experience is necessary, although I venture
to suggest that a little research goes a long way.


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Jim Arona wrote:
> 
>
>     The only point to roleplaying, or simming, is to have fun. Whether it's
> the fun of modelling something real or attempting to be real, or whether
> it's telling or attempting to tell an interesting story. I agree that that
> is the only issue.
>     There are other issues, however. Addressing ourselves to what makes
> games work is an useful activity, because it might produce something that
> gives us an insight we didn't have before. On the other hand, not talking
> about it doesn't produce anything useful at all.

	Yes, discussing what makes games work is a useful exercise.  What's
necessary for keeping it useful is to recognize that the answers aren't
universal; they apply only to a particular audience.  I think the gender
discussion, for all its sturm and drang, makes that clear.  Thus, the
insights gleaned from discussing what works for some people have
limitations to their applicability, though that doesn't prevent them
from being insights and pointers to new creativity.


>     As an aside, however, Kriegspiel is a German tactical excercise without
> troops that doesn't actually use dice or any particular rules system.
> Instead, trainee officers are asked about their battle plans, and then
> talked through the encounter. A senior officer with experience will
> adjudicate the plans and adjustments the trainee makes, and gives him his
> results.

	A generalization of what Kriegspiel sounds like (to me) can be found at
http://www.io.com/~hamster/matrix.htm.  It's called Matrix Game.



>     It seems to me possible to administer a battle without dice or formal
> rules. It may be that practical experience is necessary, although I venture
> to suggest that a little research goes a long way.

	Well...
	Another corollary to Clark's Technology Theorem:

	Any rules system of sufficiently advanced development is
indistinguishable from an expert in the relevant subject matter.
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> A generalization of what Kriegspiel sounds like (to me) can be found at
>http://www.io.com/~hamster/matrix.htm.  It's called Matrix Game.
>
     From what I can see, this game is very similar to diceless gaming,
where the player has to justify their actions to make them work. He talks
about making an argument, although it seems to that what is happening is
really a pleading, like an attorney or barrister might make before the
bench, that a particular kind of protocol be enacted.
    I'd be surprised if he could successfully copyright the idea, by the
way, although I suppose he might be able to trade mark the name.
    At the same time, dice do seem to be used to resolve the issue, because
a lot of the time, the results of the arguments will be in conflict.>
> Well...
> Another corollary to Clark's Technology Theorem:
>
> Any rules system of sufficiently advanced development is
>indistinguishable from an expert in the relevant subject matter.
>----------------------------------------------------------------

Who is this Clark person?

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From: "Alan Lauderdale" 
> Well, not bored exactly.  My character was fighting for her life,
> engaged and trying to defeat the enemy.  I was impatient, though.  I
> wanted to get on with the story and the AD&D abstractions that our DM
> had to wade through were not cohering with that story to create a
> seamless sense of the unreal reality where necromancers can do effective
> things with a dark elf's dead heart.  ...
>
Been there (as both player and GM).  I think we assume that combat is where
the tension is when the key to tension is uncertainty and many combats
aren't uncertain - they're random.  The difference is that you're not
feverishly going over your options trying to pick the best approach and
trying to work out what the villain has planned - you're just waiting for
your chance to roll.  If the randomness works in the game's favour and the
outcome is close then some tension arises from the roll of the dice, but
that's not roleplaying - it's craps.

I'm trying to overcome this by bringing in more options in combat.  I've
been thinking about rules for group advantage to allow group tactics to
influence individual rolls and also some extensions to allow more
flexibility in combat (just alowing people to choose one normal blow or a
double-damage two-action blow that left them open for those two actions
improved the feel of combat).

> Now, one might argue that the
> problem is with the AD&D mechanics and somebody else's mechanics would
> be better.  We've been having that argument for more than 20 years and
> we've got more than  20 years' worth of better mechanics.  The problem
> isn't just bad mechanics.  The problem is what you'd expect to get if
> the mechanics were perfect.
>
I've been playing Baldurs gate - a computerised game that embeds the AD&D
rules and has enough detail that I find myself making in-character choices
(Hold someone and walk away rather than killing them).  Now the
computerisation allows this combat system to include many things that
table-top can only do in the most rules-intensive systems - adjust to-hit
for tiredness, keep track of encumbrance and alter movement rates
accordingly, adjust each strike for the weapon type vs the armour type, etc.
The list goes on -

- The point is that computerised games can model combat in as much detail as
we want, BUT I get just as bored running some combats.  The fights where I
walk into a room and have to react to a strange situation, use the skills of
the party to best advantage, etc are great.  The combats where I get wiped
out by enormously overpowered foes and I have to reload a saved game, tweak
the characters for exactly that setting and fight the battle out *knowing*
what's going to happen - those are boring.

I'm beginning to realise that the key to excitement in combat isn't accurate
modelling and detailed rules, it's a feeling that each instant demands a
decision and that the parties' survival depends on that decision being
right.  As another example, an SCA friend of mine explained that his tactic
is often to just charge someone, forcing them to raise their shield, and
then to pound on their shield until they can't hold it up any more, when he
blips them on the head.  Against less skilled opponents he hasn't yet had
this fail.  You build this into a combat system and the players will hate
you.

Detailed rules can sometimes provide more options, but often they just
provide a long list of adds and minuses to the action.  I'm interested in
detailed rules that actually provide options.  Bushido, for instance,
allowed a skilled swordsman to follow up a strike with a butt strike - not
much damage, but enough to distract.  I was playing that game fifteen years
ago and haven't seen the rule since.

A recent conversation on rpg-create concerned the use of physical attacks in
swordplay - shoulder charges, trips, blocks, etc.  These are real manouvres
that were practiced by people wanting to win the fight.  But, more
importantly they have an effect that is more than just damage.  A shoulder
barge can push someone out of a door they're blocking, a disarm can send
someone out of a fight more quickly than killing them.

Perhaps the key to interesting combat is to make the reasons for combat more
than just "kill the other guys".  People fight for many reasons and those
reasons influence how quickly they'll yeild (both individually and as a
group).  In combats where each party is trying to achieve two or three
things victory might occur without a single fatality.  These combats are
more likely to be immersive and interesting for the players.

But it needs more than that.  The fight Alan mentions probably had that
level of detail.  It was boring because the fight wasn't the heart of the
matter - the mechanics of the combat were obscuring the story.  This is
harder to work with.  I have sometimes, with the parties' approval, simply
skipped fights and rolled randomly for damage.  This works well for keeping
the story moving.  Perhaps we need to do the same for certain portions of
combat - when two healthy fighters oppose each other roll five rounds at
once so that you get to the crunch point faster, play packs of guardsmen as
a single wargame unit rather than a group of individuals, etc.

Hmm.  Need combat rules that can be summarised.
Need to pay the mortgage.
Chris Tutty.

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Simming, RPing and Dice!

Further to Chris Tutty's comments about combat styles and game mechanics.

One of the reasons I dislike the D&D system because its fundamental lack of
combat maneuvers other than "hit it".

Another reason I dislike it is that the dice can let you down.   If one
wants to play in a "high action" universe then the mechanics to use are
those from TORG.   The TORG world system does not work for my group, but its
mechanics are fine for our long running "high action" campaign.

For those of you unfamiliar with TORG - a lightning summary:


every combat round you usually pick an action from the list:
(attack, defend, maneuver, trick, taunt, intimidate, test);
roll 1d20 (wanting high) to evaluate how well your action works;
if you roll a 10 or 20 - add that to your running total and roll again until
you don't roll 10 or 20;
if the end total doesn't look big enough you can spend a "posssibility" to
start the rolling process again (if you roll under 10 then it counts as a 10
but you don't keep rolling);
if the total doesn't look big enough - play card(s) to boost it more.


If your action worked and you were doing one of the two approved actions for
that round then you can draw an extra card.

If you are about to take significant damage you can also spend a possibility
to avoid some of it. (Of course being a hero you don't take damage to the
degree ordinary folk do anyway - you have all seen the films: big bang; all
the "ords" die but a hero needs a new shirt which is always avaiable before
the next scene starts, while a heroine either does some product placement
for an underwear company or the film's rating goes up a notch.)


Thus if the dice refuse to help the story along you can cheat.

Now for a fantasy campaign I like 2nd edition RuneQuest.   (Ok, add the 3rd
edition Missile Weapon location tables and skill bonus rules too.)

Last advanture in that world a player fumbled "Drive Submarine" (I'm not
going to explain why we have a submarine to drive up the Zola Fel to Pavis)
and what should have been a simple shopping expedition to buy some magic
(well actually magic resistant) wall tiles for our secret underground
complex from the temple of Mostal became the whole adventure.

Dice can help as well as hinder!


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