John Wick on Rpgs and game Balance

[Aragathor]

"I couldn't care less" about how overblown his ego is.

But with one thing I must agree -> 4ed is not an RPG

Yet the world still stands.

The world will come to an end only if the crafty four will pose for a picture in pink bunny costumes.

[Crafty_Pat]

Yet the world still stands.

The world will come to an end only if the crafty four will pose for a picture in pink bunny costumes.

Seminar idea! 

[Aldus Vertten]

i knew this would generate some debate. nice.

Mostly because one of the main "flags" behind spycraft is keeping the system balanced, but keeping also in mind that the system is but a tool (or collection of tools) to play the game, not the game itself. that's why i like the whole "license to improvise" thing...

Till i tried spycraft for the first time, i always paid little attention to rules, focusing more in the story. That's what i like about rpgs, the chance to create tales.

D&D seemed very limited to me, to say the truth. maybe because every time i have played, no matter with whom, it always ended in a "enter the room, kill things, go to the next room"...

[Number Three]

I largely find John Wick a self-important name-dropping douchebag...

PREACH IT!

That could only come from a bad work experience. 

The best part about all this is that Mike Mearl's flippant response is dated six days before Wick's original post.  This can only mean one thing:  4th Edition allows time travel! 

[Bill Whitmore]

Yet the world still stands.

The world will come to an end only if the crafty four will pose for a picture in pink bunny costumes.

Seminar idea! 

O...M...G... I so have to be there for that.

Well, I do agree with Wick in a sense, and that is that RPG really isn't well-defined.  But he then takes the term RPG, makes a definition for it (one that supports his thesis) and then tries to sell it to us as a reason why 4e isn't an RPG.  His argument is pretty sound...so long as you buy into his definition of RPG, which I don't.  In fact, he said that even he felt the definition wasn't complete.

I think he was onto something, though, when he said that any game could be an RPG.  Where he was off, though, is that I believe the games he mentioned already were RPGs.  In Life you are already playing a game where you take the role of someone going through life.

Maybe we need a new term, CPG, for Character Playing Games...

[Aldus Vertten]

we really need that Scott Mcloud writes "Understanding RPGs"...

[TheAuldGrump]

I remember being somewhat interested in Orkworld. Then I read Wick's post on how he railed at a potential purchaser of the game because he intended to share the book with his players, rather than have them buy their own copies! He told the gamer that to share the book was the exact same thing as software piracy... boasting about this.  I decided then and there that he would never, ever have to worry about sharing his games with anybody ever again - I will never buy anything written by him again.

He sometimes had interesting things to say, but that one thread revealed him to be a compleate asse.

As for 4E and Final Fantasy - they are indeed RPGs - just not ones I have any interest in.  You assume a role and play it. Heck, cops & robbers or cowboys & Indians can be considered LARPs!

The Auld Grump, when I was a kid we played Robin Hood - I always ended up being the Sheriff of Nottingham.....

[Psion]

I read that a while back.

I thought it was intensely stupid.

It's not a discussion about gaming. It's a religious discussion. John Wick making his own definition of roleplaying just to exclude games he doesn't like seems all to similar to Christian sects creating their own personal definition of Christian so they can conclude they are the only true Christians.

Both should be roundly ignored.

The irony is, I don't really care for the sounds of 4e.

[Number Three]

Heck, cops & robbers or cowboys & Indians can be considered LARPs!

I'm convinced that Cowboys & Indians is, in fact, the very first roleplaying game we all play.  All the rules we add later are just there to prevent the "You're dead!"/"No, you're dead!" arguments, and they still happen on occasion (often replacing 'dead' with 'grappled'.)

[Wolverine]

The world will come to an end only if the crafty four will pose for a picture in pink bunny costumes.

Seminar idea!  [/quote]

It would be the perfect way to announce Watership Down: PbS

The irony is, I don't really care for the sounds of 4e.

Neither do I. DnD is a fin game and all, but there are other games out there on the market which allow me to play the games I want to play in a better (and a more fun, imho) way.

I'm convinced that Cowboys & Indians is, in fact, the very first roleplaying game we all play.

As kids we didn't place C&I (NZ had no 'Wild West, afterall), but we did place Star Wars - using trees as different spaceships. Ahh, those were good times.

[tenebrae]

For those who want to convert their 3E campaign to make it more 4E-ish:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/20080401a

[ThunderMonkey]

I read that a while back.

I thought it was intensely stupid.

It's not a discussion about gaming. It's a religious discussion. John Wick making his own definition of roleplaying just to exclude games he doesn't like seems all to similar to Christian sects creating their own personal definition of Christian so they can conclude they are the only true Christians.

Both should be roundly ignored.

The irony is, I don't really care for the sounds of 4e.

Thank you... that was my setiment exactly and I was a little apprehensive in saying that.

[OverNinja]

For those who want to convert their 3E campaign to make it more 4E-ish:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/20080401a

Liked the new alignments and the revised skills. 
Holy Hand Grenade (of Antioch) should be Artifact, not a spell. 

[Alphastream]

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.

Doing that takes maturity and skill, but it is also a bit of a different game. It isn't just right or wrong. On one hand, I greatly appreciate this type of playing. I strive for it with some PCs, but to be honest, I find it more fun to be really good at stuff. In a setting like CoC, having faults really works - the point isn't to be a great hero.

In D&D, Spycraft, and the majority of RPGs (or even, games), the point is that you are a hero. Some buds and I were chatting this weekend at a con about this. While you want a bit of a challenge in D&D, the point isn't to be challenged all the time. You didn't roll up a "kind of ok" PC. You rolled up a hero, who should succeed in being a hero. They have abilities above par, it is a fantasy setting, the idea is to be a hero, etc. Having big flaws isn't really part of it. It can be, but it isn't needed.

Then there is the question of what is fun. On one side, Flaws make for rich PCs, and that makes for good story. On the other hand, something 3.5 did well is to create a challenging game where you really are squaring off against the story in many ways. From skill checks (Drive, Negotiation, Networking, Stealth, etc.) to combat, you roll to evaluate how you fare. That works really well in 3.5 for most people.

I can also see how de-cheesing the game can be fun. For every ability to do something like blow enemies away, having a problem with wisdom can be fun, so long as the rest of the group enjoys this. Because the game is about many of these rolls, and combines a tabletop tactical experience with role-playing, RPing lapses of judgment can be a problem for those that want to enjoy the tabletop tactical challenge. (Again, this isn't an issue in Hong Kong Action Theatre and CoC, etc.).

Now, D&D 4E is clearly (now that I've played it) more and more like a board game than any previous version. It is fun. It is also different, less like its iconic origin, and it remains to be seen how well it provides for RP. As it brings on more tactical elements and more of a board game feel, it may lose the RP and it may lose the ability for players who want to RP flaws or to de-cheese to be able to work their magic within the normal system.

For the record, one of the things I like about Spycraft is that the system works really well for heroism. You can totally cheese up your PC, but in the end it isn't about the combats. It is about skills and decisions, and those elements allow for tons of RP. I prefer combat to go quickly and be fun, and both Spycraft and 3.5 do that very well. I find 4E combat to be a bit long (I've only played level 1 PCs, so who knows).

Teos

[Mortadelo]

Roleplaying Games being published for more than thirty years and people isn't yet able to define what they are. That's amazing.