Carl's been discussing some interesting things on his blog, and I keep coming up with things that I think would be interesting to discuss there, so I was thinking maybe I should start a parallel blog. Or ask him to turn his into a group blog. And then I thought... geez, we already have a group blog on the Phoenyx, only we call it "a mailing list." So... consider this a blog post, and your replies as comments... or the absence of replies as being typical of many blogs. (Shortly, I'll pipe GAMERS into the database and if you want to you can access it via the web, and *really* pretend it's a blog.) At any rate, I had thought of a couple of topics, and realized they sort of started a pattern, and led to a couple more topics. Some are closely related, others are just out there, but they're all paradoxes (or maybe just conflicts, but "paradox" makes it sound cooler). Once this post has shaken the dead addresses out of the subscriber list (and those who want to run screaming from the sort of discussion that's happening at http://raven.phoenyx.net/mutterings/ have a chance to send mail to gamers+off@ here), I'll post my first paradox. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Wed, Dec 14, 2005 at 10:55:56PM -0600, Karen J. Cravens wrote: >Carl's been discussing some interesting things on his blog, and I keep >coming up with things that I think would be interesting to discuss there, >so I was thinking maybe I should start a parallel blog. Or ask him to >turn his into a group blog. And then I thought... geez, we already have a >group blog on the Phoenyx, only we call it "a mailing list." (Insert here my standard rant about how blogs and web-BBSes are reinventing newsgroups and mailing lists, only _really badly_.) Looking at "What's the game about?", I find that I'm hearing a lot of this "basic story" idea recently - the pitch-style description of "what do the PCs do in the game". While this may be OK for some of the very specific games we're seeing these days (DitV is a canonical - sorry - example), I think it does a disservice to many of the more interesting worlds. Take Crimson Skies, for example. The pitch isn't about PC activities at all - it's "alternate-history pulp 1937 with airships, weird planes and a balkanised USA". The "basic story" could be given as "PCs are heroic aviators who fight sky pirates", but there's a whole lot more of interest; I've just finished running a hard-boiled private investigator game, which did have occasional flying but was mostly earthbound. It's a useful tool, in other words, but like any tool it's easy to overuse. R -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote:
> (Insert here my standard rant about how blogs and web-BBSes are
> reinventing newsgroups and mailing lists, only _really badly_.)
Web boards, yes. Bulletin boards developed by people with no
background in them. What amazes me is how popular they are.
Blogs are a different creature... or a multitude of different
creatures. I post essays on a website. The technology I use to do it
is mostly irrelevant. That I allow comments on my essays... I've
considered turning that off, because I don't _want_ to have long
conversations around my essays on a website. The comment system is
primarly for feedback to the author, not round-table discussion.
I've considered piping the relevant comments into the TAORP mailing
list.
A big difference between blogs and mailing lists is an important
one... there are times that I _don't_ want everyone's thoughts on a
subject. If I want to read Vincent Baker talk about game design, I
don't necessarily want to read the thoughts, opinions and arguments of
two hundred other people. In fact, Vincent's blog has an interesting
rule... you are only allowed to _ask questions_ in the comments on his
blog. (Though he's got this weird "side note" system in which you can
make "asides" that aren't shown with the regular comments.) Vincent's
blog is very much about exploring _Vincent's_ ideas, not the ideas of
his readers.
I'm suffering from information overload... I don't have time to read a
hundred _discussions_ a day. But I do have time to read the distilled
thoughts of certain people whose opinions I respect.
Of course, there are blogs that ought to be mailing lists...
sometimes my posts generate a lot of discussion that I really didn't
expect or even want. That's when I wish there was an easy way to push
that discussion onto a mailing list.
> Looking at "What's the game about?", I find that I'm hearing a lot of
> this "basic story" idea recently - the pitch-style description of "what
> do the PCs do in the game". While this may be OK for some of the very
> specific games we're seeing these days (DitV is a canonical - sorry -
> example), I think it does a disservice to many of the more interesting
> worlds.
But in my case, we're not talking about the story dictated by a
published game, we're talking about the story of _my campaign_.
There's a big difference between the author telling me what the story
should be about and me deciding for myself what it should be about.
My campaign has no feeling of coherency to it. No strong reason why
the PCs fight crime together. I'd hoped to develop that in play with
a couple strong plot threads, but it's not developing as clearly as
I'd hoped.
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
[ My Roleplaying Blog -- http://raven.phoenyx.net/mutterings/ ]
* Sysop ('sih sop) n.: The guy laughing at your typing.
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On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Carl D Cravens wrote: CDC>Blogs are a different creature... or a multitude of different CDC>creatures. I post essays on a website. The technology I use to do it CDC>is mostly irrelevant. That I allow comments on my essays... I've CDC>considered turning that off, because I don't _want_ to have long CDC>conversations around my essays on a website. The comment system is CDC>primarly for feedback to the author, not round-table discussion. CDC>I've considered piping the relevant comments into the TAORP mailing CDC>list. It's not the software that's necessarily reinventing it... it's the culture. Not wanting round-table discussion *is* a broken feature of the culture, IMHO. CDC>I'm suffering from information overload... I don't have time to read a CDC>hundred _discussions_ a day. But I do have time to read the distilled CDC>thoughts of certain people whose opinions I respect. See, now, Gamehawk will have the capability of saying "I want to subscribe to KarenCravens. She's really cool." And you'll get my posts, no matter where they are on the site. (I recommend subscribing in root-posts-only mode, though, else you'll get every time I say "Me too!" out of context...) CDC>Of course, there are blogs that ought to be mailing lists... CDC>sometimes my posts generate a lot of discussion that I really didn't CDC>expect or even want. That's when I wish there was an easy way to push CDC>that discussion onto a mailing list. Definitely something I've considered in Gamehawk. CDC>My campaign has no feeling of coherency to it. No strong reason why CDC>the PCs fight crime together. Because they're heroes (well, Fastlane is anyhow). How can it be any stronger than that? -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Karen J. Cravens wrote:
> Not wanting round-table discussion *is* a broken feature of the
> culture, IMHO.
I think there are times that it's appropriate.
> See, now, Gamehawk will have the capability of saying "I want to subscribe
> to KarenCravens. She's really cool." And you'll get my posts, no matter
> where they are on the site.
Now what if I want to write some root-posts myself, but I don't want
to take the time to enter into an unfruitful discussion with twenty
people every time I do?
I guess my thing is that I don't want to limit discussion itself, so
much as I (sometimes) want to limit discussion to a certain group of
people. It seems like there's often someone who wants to grab some
nitpick and dominate the discussion with something that doesn't really
matter, or doesn't matter to me, at least.
It's hard to discuss the best way to skin a cat when someone in the
group keeps objecting to skinning cats. Or thinks you should be
skinning dogs instead. Or keeps insisting that _his_ way is the best
way and doesn't actually want to _discuss_ anything.
You know what I mean?
> Because they're heroes (well, Fastlane is anyhow). How can it be any
> stronger than that?
The emphasis was on "together". And Stalker sees the "fight crime"
thing as a tool to help him reach his goal of revenge... he's not very
heroic when you come at it from that angle.
The only reason you're together is because you call have "PC" stamped
on your foreheads. I'd like to develop something deeper. It's not
essential, but I think it would help me from the GM side of things.
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
[ General RP Discussion -- http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/ ]
Hey! We're out of wine, women, and song! !@#$*!?% NO MERRIER
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On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 02:02:23PM -0600, Carl D Cravens wrote: >Now what if I want to write some root-posts myself, but I don't want >to take the time to enter into an unfruitful discussion with twenty >people every time I do? Killfiles. Or if you've got a reasonably civilised community you can say "look, I want to talk about X; I know Y may invalidate it, but for the purposes of this thread I'd like to ignore that". That's worked for me on Pyramid. Or you can separate "things I want to discuss" (which become mailing list or news posts) from "things I just want to say" (which become articles on a web site). I think the "comment on any article" paradigm of the blog is actively unhelpful in generating any sort of distinction between these two sorts of post. >The only reason you're together is because you call have "PC" stamped >on your foreheads. I'd like to develop something deeper. It's not >essential, but I think it would help me from the GM side of things. I've come to the point where I do this as part of the campaign setup. "You're all people working for this organisation, and they've assigned you to the same team" is something I say _before_ character generation, so that I won't get a bunch of loner PCs (and so that there's some justification for a complementary skill set). For my current Atlantis campaign, I've bound the PCs together only by an ominous dream they all had on the same night, and they recognise each other from it; there's a bit more in-party conflict than I usually go for, but this is a good group and they won't let it get out of hand. A quote from the most recent session: Old experienced fighter: Have you ever actually been in combat before? Young enthusiastic fighter: Yes! It's great, isn't it? Completely by coincidence, the young fighter was entirely unwounded, and the two older ones were severely knocked about (and poisoned)... -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote:
> Killfiles.
> Or if you've got a reasonably civilised community you can say "look, I
> want to talk about X; I know Y may invalidate it, but for the purposes
> of this thread I'd like to ignore that". That's worked for me on
> Pyramid.
Sometimes I just want to have a focused conversation with a group of
people whom I respect and want input from, and don't want to mess with
filtering or asking other people to keep their traps shut if they
can't stay on my topic.
I pretty much get this with my blog, except it's a rather awkward tool
for conversation. In the case of my blog, I don't know exactly who I
want to invite to the conversation, so it's open for anybody to
discover and read. I don't want a _private_ conversation... I just
don't want to get wrapped up in little discussions that don't further
my cause. The blog helps that, oddly, by making it difficult to carry
on a conversation.
I really don't know what the ideal is. My blog certainly isn't. But
a mailing list isn't quite what I'm looking for in that area, either.
I suppose the blog is a little arrogant... "we're here to discuss _my_
ideas and issues, not yours." Sometimes I want that from other
people... I'm interested in hearing _their_ ideas and not the ideas of
their "followers."
> Or you can separate "things I want to discuss" (which become mailing
> list or news posts) from "things I just want to say" (which become
> articles on a web site). I think the "comment on any article" paradigm
> of the blog is actively unhelpful in generating any sort of distinction
> between these two sorts of post.
There's stuff on my blog I probably should have posted here. Or
TAORP, which kind of overlaps with this list.
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
[ Trim Your Quotes! ]
Why get even, when you can get odd?
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On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Carl D Cravens wrote: CDC>Sometimes I just want to have a focused conversation with a group of CDC>people whom I respect and want input from, and don't want to mess with CDC>filtering or asking other people to keep their traps shut if they CDC>can't stay on my topic. I think blogging is the ultimate in messing with filtering. CDC>I pretty much get this with my blog, except it's a rather awkward tool CDC>for conversation. In the case of my blog, I don't know exactly who I CDC>want to invite to the conversation, so it's open for anybody to CDC>discover and read. I don't want a _private_ conversation... I just CDC>don't want to get wrapped up in little discussions that don't further CDC>my cause. The blog helps that, oddly, by making it difficult to carry CDC>on a conversation. Yeah, and you quite effectively filtered out all the little discussions that *I* wanted to have, that might or might not have furthered your cause. Baby, bathwater. CDC>I really don't know what the ideal is. My blog certainly isn't. But CDC>a mailing list isn't quite what I'm looking for in that area, either. And yet, here we are... CDC>I suppose the blog is a little arrogant... "we're here to discuss _my_ CDC>ideas and issues, not yours." Sometimes I want that from other CDC>people... I'm interested in hearing _their_ ideas and not the ideas of CDC>their "followers." Positive scorefiles. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Karen J. Cravens wrote:
> I think blogging is the ultimate in messing with filtering.
It's not "messing" where "messing = timesink".
> Yeah, and you quite effectively filtered out all the little discussions
> that *I* wanted to have, that might or might not have furthered your
> cause. Baby, bathwater.
I never meant my blog to be for discussion. When I started it,
Blogger didn't even have a comment system.
I should cross-post my discussion-worthy entries to here or something.
Except that I get more participants on my blog than we have here.
> Positive scorefiles.
= timesink. I spend enough time trying to keep my spam filter above
75% effectiveness, I don't want to spend time fiddling with software
to avoid reading messages that don't interest me.
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
[ Trim Your Quotes! ]
Life is complex. You know - part real, part imaginary.
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On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Carl D Cravens wrote: CDC> = timesink. I spend enough time trying to keep my spam filter above CDC>75% effectiveness, I don't want to spend time fiddling with software CDC>to avoid reading messages that don't interest me. Which reminds me, I got mixed up on the unsubscribe address earlier: it's gamers-off@. It's the new system that uses the plus sign, and the other way around (join+gamers, quit+gamers, etc., though on+/off+ still works). (And now that I type that, it sounds familiar. Did I already correct that?) -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote:
> I've come to the point where I do this as part of the campaign setup.
I normally do as well... that's why this game is causing me so much
trouble. I wanted to run superheroes, but I didn't know what I wanted
beyond that. I fussed with it for months and finally said, "Let's
start, and we'll see what develops." It's developed awkwardly.
There aren't any really specific problems. Just things aren't flowing
together as well as I expect them. By now, I ought to have more plot
ideas than I know what to do with, but I'm having to struggle for them
more than ususal.
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
[ General RP Discussion -- http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/ ]
Madness takes its toll...please have exact change.
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On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Carl D Cravens wrote: > On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Karen J. Cravens wrote: > >> Positive scorefiles. > > = timesink. I spend enough time trying to keep my spam filter above > 75% effectiveness, I don't want to spend time fiddling with software > to avoid reading messages that don't interest me. Have you tried using greylisting as first line of defence? That method removes 80-95% of all spam before applying spam filtering at both the academic computer club and at the department of computing science in Umeå. See http://www.greylisting.org/ /Ola -- Ola Ågren * corps@acc.umu.se * ola@cs.umu.se General Preprocessing Perceptron - How to put an awful lot of "knowledge" in a weighted sum. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Carl D Cravens wrote: CDC>I think there are times that it's appropriate. Well, yeah. In a deadtree book. CDC>Now what if I want to write some root-posts myself, but I don't want CDC>to take the time to enter into an unfruitful discussion with twenty CDC>people every time I do? Set followups to poster? (Okay, Gamehawk doesn't have that flag right now. Maybe it should.) I guess the question is: why do you want to say something that no one is allowed to respond to? CDC>I guess my thing is that I don't want to limit discussion itself, so CDC>much as I (sometimes) want to limit discussion to a certain group of CDC>people. It seems like there's often someone who wants to grab some CDC>nitpick and dominate the discussion with something that doesn't really CDC>matter, or doesn't matter to me, at least. That's different; I'm not above allowing private or moderated mailing lists. CDC>It's hard to discuss the best way to skin a cat when someone in the CDC>group keeps objecting to skinning cats. Or thinks you should be CDC>skinning dogs instead. Or keeps insisting that _his_ way is the best CDC>way and doesn't actually want to _discuss_ anything. CDC>You know what I mean? There've been killfiles since before there was an Internet (well, for any meaningful purposes). CDC>The only reason you're together is because you call have "PC" stamped CDC>on your foreheads. I'd like to develop something deeper. It's not CDC>essential, but I think it would help me from the GM side of things. I beg to differ: Fastlane is together for the quite pragmatic reason that he doesn't have enough firepower by himself sometimes. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote:
> Looking at "What's the game about?", I find that I'm hearing a lot of
> this "basic story" idea recently - the pitch-style description of "what
> do the PCs do in the game". While this may be OK for some of the very
> specific games we're seeing these days (DitV is a canonical - sorry -
> example), I think it does a disservice to many of the more interesting
> worlds.
>
> Take Crimson Skies, for example. The pitch isn't about PC activities at
> all - it's "alternate-history pulp 1937 with airships, weird planes and
> a balkanised USA". The "basic story" could be given as "PCs are heroic
> aviators who fight sky pirates", but there's a whole lot more of
> interest; I've just finished running a hard-boiled private investigator
> game, which did have occasional flying but was mostly earthbound.
>
> It's a useful tool, in other words, but like any tool it's easy to
> overuse.
There's a difference between the core story of a game's mechanics, the
core story of a setting, and the core story of a campaign. The mechanics'
core story points toward the kind of play emphasized in the game. The
setting's core story gives you the flavor of the game. The campaign's
core story shows the emphasis of the game.
For instance, D&D's core story looks an awful lot like "kill things and
take their stuff to gain experience and riches." The core story for the
Forgotten Realms setting might be "New powers rise in a land scattered
with the ruins of powers that have failed." A campaign within the Realms
could have as a core story, "Adventurers explore the ruins of an ancient
city, searching for lost magics, riches, and glory."
Often the campaign's story is drawn from the characters' backgrounds and
motivations. However, if the characters are different enough, a basic
story for the campaign itself ("The evil villain DeathShadow masterminds
the largest organized crime syndicate ever assembled!" or "Plant monsters
from outer space are trying to take over the world!") gives a direction
that the characters can connect to in order to bring them together as a
team.
At least, that's my take on how the idea of a core story can be used
effectively.
-Bill
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Bill Hamilton wrote:
> There's a difference between the core story of a game's mechanics, the
> core story of a setting, and the core story of a campaign. The mechanics'
> core story points toward the kind of play emphasized in the game. The
> setting's core story gives you the flavor of the game. The campaign's
> core story shows the emphasis of the game.
Yes, but in a good game, the core story of the mechanics should be a
good match for the core story of the setting. This seems to be
something The Forge people emphasize; where there's a bad mismatch you
end up with what they call an 'Incoherent Game'. Any group trying to
play the thing has to choose between the two, either by ignoring the
setting's core story in favour of the mechanic's one, or patching (or
replacing) the mechanics so as to support the setting properly.
-- Tim
Blog http://www.kalyr.com/weblog
http://www.kalyr.com/weblog/games
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On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 01:31:26PM -0600, Tim Hall wrote: >Yes, but in a good game, the core story of the mechanics should be a >good match for the core story of the setting. This seems to be >something The Forge people emphasize; where there's a bad mismatch you >end up with what they call an 'Incoherent Game'. Any group trying to >play the thing has to choose between the two, either by ignoring the >setting's core story in favour of the mechanic's one, or patching (or >replacing) the mechanics so as to support the setting properly. That's a very interesting idea, and I think there's a lot of validity to it. (I know a lot of people complain about d20 Modern on the basis that the system really isn't a good fit for gun-based action stories.) First edition Shadowrun is worth considering as an example too - the setting said "guns are dangerous just like real life", and the rules said "you won't actually be knocked out by anything less than a burst from a machine-gun". That suggests a third option - ignore the mechanics, and when someone points a gun at you back down even though you know he isn't actually going to hurt you with it. I do find all the specialised terminology a bit precious, and unfortunately reminiscent of the literary criticism establishment, but I would certainly not deny that there are useful concepts here. (But then, I run practically everything under GURPS these days anyway. :-) -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote: RBW>I do find all the specialised terminology a bit precious, and RBW>unfortunately reminiscent of the literary criticism establishment, but I RBW>would certainly not deny that there are useful concepts here. Yeah, I'd meant to bring that up in my initial post (paradox 1): I very much see the indie overanalysis as being very High Literature, and I see the average game (in any sense) as genre fiction. It may be low, shallow, trite, amateurish, corny, or whatever (or all of the above)... but it's accessible and fun. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote: RBW>(Insert here my standard rant about how blogs and web-BBSes are RBW>reinventing newsgroups and mailing lists, only _really badly_.) It's okay, I'm going to reinvent blogs and web-BBSes by turning them into newsgroups and mailing lists. RBW>Take Crimson Skies, for example. The pitch isn't about PC activities at RBW>all - it's "alternate-history pulp 1937 with airships, weird planes and RBW>a balkanised USA". The "basic story" could be given as "PCs are heroic RBW>aviators who fight sky pirates", but there's a whole lot more of RBW>interest; I've just finished running a hard-boiled private investigator RBW>game, which did have occasional flying but was mostly earthbound. Well, true, but in that case I think you have to apply "what's the game about" to each individual, well, game. That is, that sort of *setting* has room for lots of games, with lots of abouts. A lot of indie games seem to be single-game settings, which I suppose is okay if you happen to like that game. I tend to prefer being given a setting and coming up with my own game, I guess. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Thu, Dec 15, 2005 at 09:23:36AM -0600, Karen J. Cravens wrote: >On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote: >RBW>(Insert here my standard rant about how blogs and web-BBSes are >RBW>reinventing newsgroups and mailing lists, only _really badly_.) >It's okay, I'm going to reinvent blogs and web-BBSes by turning them into >newsgroups and mailing lists. Are you aware that Jeff Wilson is working on a project to provide a gateway between these various systems? >[Crimson Skies] >Well, true, but in that case I think you have to apply "what's the game >about" to each individual, well, game. That is, that sort of *setting* >has room for lots of games, with lots of abouts. One could say the same thing of Eberron, though, and people _do_ seem to be applying the "one core story" concept to that setting. Roger -- Roger, gaming grognard Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Roger Burton West wrote: RBW>Are you aware that Jeff Wilson is working on a project to provide a RBW>gateway between these various systems? Not specifically. I've looked around, but so far haven't found anything that looks like it'd be interfaceable with what we've got going on. The wiki's being pulled into it as well (yes, an NNTP-capable wiki...), and I'm pretty much married to Perl at this point. RBW>One could say the same thing of Eberron, though, and people _do_ seem to RBW>be applying the "one core story" concept to that setting. I'm not familiar enough with it to comment, other than to say that I imagine it's possible for a setting to have at least a *default* story. I might venture to guess that that's what some people have a problem with in Fudge: the mechanics are too variable to have a strongly defined story (out of the box) so it appears to be somehow missing something. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
