John Wick on Rpgs and game Balance

[Aldus Vertten]

John Wick on Rpgs and game Balance

Some interesting toughts, i think...

PS: John Wick is the writer of 7th Sea, Orkworld and Thirty, among meany other things. i think he's related to L5R too, but not sure...

[Krensky]

John Wick on Rpgs and game Balance

Some interesting toughts, i think...

PS: John Wick is the writer of 7th Sea, Orkworld and Thirty, among meany other things. i think he's related to L5R too, but not sure...

Unless I'm mistaken, his name's on the front cover of my L5R 1e book.

And as for the essay/rant... That is why Wick rules.

I can also emphasize... One of the people I play with is big into RPGA and what I've always though of as competitive D&D. She can't understand why I have my character make in character mistakes and actions that I, as a player know are bad, or at times roll Will saves by myself to see if he'll do something that HE knows is a dumb.  The GM, on the other hand, asked me the first time and when I replied that my character knew he should keep his mouth shut and his head down... but I wanted to see if he was 'smart' enough to actually do the smart thing or if he'd punch the racist town guard in the nose and start a bar fight. His reply was "Cool, I never thought of that."

As an aside, just like the book says I don't let the roll determine the outcome there, but there are times I find a die roll or coin flip great to help me make up my mind whether or not I actually listen to it.

[Aldus Vertten]

I had doubts because i i'm not mistaken, he just took the L5R ccg setting and created the rpg from there, while in 7th sea was the other way around...

and i agree, he rules

[Crafty_Pat]

I'd really like to see someone build a lexicon and system of classification in which the term "roleplaying game" is vorbotten. Let's all stop trying to lay claim to it because, really, it's so vague as to apply to pretty much everything out there, from make believe to chess with names to LARPing to, yes indeed, 4E.

In my mind, that's the next step. Anything less is just flailing in shallow water.

[Number Three]

But if Wick can't claim D&D isn't a roleplaying game, how else will he express the internet's largest case of RPG penis envy?

[Crafty_Pat]

But if Wick can't claim D&D isn't a roleplaying game, how else will he express the internet's largest case of RPG penis envy?

LOL! Touche.

[meadicus]

This kind of view (balance through story rather than powers) I feel I must always whole-heartedly agree with.

One of the most successful games I've ever been involved in from the role-playing perspective, was one where we'd let balance completely hang.

It was a Wheel of Time game and the GM made several major modifications to the casters making them massively more powerful, but, as he put it, more like the channelers in the books. So they were much harder than everyone else in the team but that was irrelevant because we each played out part in the story.

We kept dice and the battlemat, not a single scrap of fun was lost from that part of the game.


For my 2 cents, I think it can be very difficult for some players to build their character with a full background and detailed personality when all the character's life actually exists of is fighting 4 fights a day against bizarre creatures that always attack and leave behind treasure. This is in my opinion where D&D fails at being a decent RPG. It has a script in which every PC's job title is 'adventurer', and that's just not a recognisable life or even a serious role in any story. Breaking out from that script requires a lot of work. The characters need to be real people who have an clear place in the world, random wanderer is not a place, and then they need to be drawn into an adventure.

[/rant]

addendum: The games I've been in which I think worked best
-Spycraft
-Stargate
-Wheel of Time
-Eberron demon hunting

i.e. where there has been a set world and a set purpose for the team, everyone knows their role and there is a set hierarchy.

one of D&D's biggest problems (3.5 of course), the PC's aren't real people. It's a easily observed fact that above level 10 PC's cease to function in any sensible medieval society.

I'll stop now.

[Crafty_Pat]

For what it's worth, I actually agree with most of John's supporting observations, but I flatly refute his central thesis: that D&D isn't an RPG. It is, but it's clearly not one that John enjoys playing. I'd like to think the games he likes and the games someone else likes (pick anyone whose tastes are mutually exclusive - that person isn't me) can share the term "roleplaying game" and carve out new terms for themselves therein.

[NezMaster]

I think it's the same logic that cuase me to cringe whenever someone tells me Final Fantasy is an RPG. I like to call those "Story based games" in that they have a story, but you are not really playing a role.

The closest you come is multiple choice, and generally all three choices lead to the same conclusion. Wick is not saying that DND is not fun, simply that you do not 'play a role' as much as 'play to win'. as such, it deserves an entire new moniker. "Acumulation playing" or hopefully something that is not taken as an insult, but rather as a way of discerning between the two types.

[Gentry]

I largely find John Wick a self-important name-dropping douchebag, and find this essay an attempt to feed his ego and remain "relevant" in some way in an industry he openly despises.  I'll concede he created (or, depending on who you talk to, "co-created", "did some work on" or even "suggested the name and vague concept for") one or more games we know and love (See L5R and 7th Sea).  It doesn't change my opinion of the man, nor his open contempt for the RPG industry at large. 

That said, his notion of what makes an RPG an RPG feels reasonably solid to me (though I echo Pat's complete disagreement with Wick's denial of D&D's RPG status).  And I think Spycraft would meet his needs well, should he ever deign to roll dice again.

[Crafty_Pat]

I think it's the same logic that cuase me to cringe whenever someone tells me Final Fantasy is an RPG. I like to call those "Story based games" in that they have a story, but you are not really playing a role.

And yet, you are. That avatar, that's a role - and you're playing it.

This is why I want new terms. Gives them to me Giiiiiiivezzzzz

[Crafty_Steve]

PREACH IT!

I largely find John Wick a self-important name-dropping douchebag, and find this essay an attempt to feed his ego and remain "relevant" in some way in an industry he openly despises.  I'll concede he created (or, depending on who you talk to, "co-created", "did some work on" or even "suggested the name and vague concept for") one or more games we know and love (See L5R and 7th Sea).  It doesn't change my opinion of the man, nor his open contempt for the RPG industry at large. 

That said, his notion of what makes an RPG an RPG feels reasonably solid to me (though I echo Pat's complete disagreement with Wick's denial of D&D's RPG status).  And I think Spycraft would meet his needs well, should he ever deign to roll dice again.

[Argonnite]

I largely find John Wick a self-important name-dropping douchebag, and find this essay an attempt to feed his ego and remain "relevant" in some way in an industry he openly despises.  I'll concede he created (or, depending on who you talk to, "co-created", "did some work on" or even "suggested the name and vague concept for") one or more games we know and love (See L5R and 7th Sea).  It doesn't change my opinion of the man, nor his open contempt for the RPG industry at large. 

That said, his notion of what makes an RPG an RPG feels reasonably solid to me (though I echo Pat's complete disagreement with Wick's denial of D&D's RPG status).  And I think Spycraft would meet his needs well, should he ever deign to roll dice again.

I agree.  I like playing some of his games but after speaking to him only briefly at a GenCon I really wished to be as far from him as possible.

[Aziraphale]

PREACH IT!

A post from Crafty_Steve 
>.>
<.<
Yet the world still stands. I'm profoundly disappointed.

[Crafty_Alex]

Oh man, do I love this thread!