Author: Idiot/Savant (---.net.nz)
Date: 09-20-2002 23:06
Adventuring
Players can be classified as "passive" and "active". Diffent types of players will have different criteria for a "successful" game.
There is an interesting point here, maybe even an entire column on handling differing player expectations within a group, but unfortunately the author doesn't make it, and instead uses it as a verbose lead-in.
Standards
Character goals can be open-ended, making it difficult to determine "success" at any particular point in time. This may make the game seem like a soap-opera, which is equated with "pure roleplaying" or Amber.
This section is yet more lead-in, to enable Coilean to discuss some different sorts of task-resolution systems, beginning with Amber. So we have lead-in to the lead-in - huzzah! Unfortunately, open-ended character-goals do not a soap-opera make, and a soap-opera is not necessarily "pure roleplaying". Yes, soap-opera campaigns have an emphesis on character, but that does not mean an absense of action - just look at "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer" or "The Sopranos" for an example of this.
This also marks the beginning of a conflation of high-level character or story _goals_ (such as "rid the land of evil") with low-level implementation _tasks_ (such as "killing this evil thing"). Unclear success criteria in one doesn't have to mean unclear success-criteria in the other.
Amber & Effort
Coilean finds using dice for task-resolution unsatisfactory, as they are random. But he finds diceless systems such as Amber unsatisfactory because they are too arbitrary. But she presents a solution - mixing the two!
Comments on the originality or obviousness of this idea, or the necessity of wading through everything that has gone before to reach such a banal conclusion are left as an exercise for the reader.
Cheating
Isn't really about _cheating_ as such, but is instead another lead-in, based around the idea of "why would I want to go on a dangerous quest when I could stay at home in my comfy Hobbit-hole". An interesting question indeed, but completely unrelated to what has gone before. Do we really have two seperate articles pasted together?
Great Victory at Great Cost
Conflict doesn't have to mean combat; RPGs are usually about combat because adventurers are bullies.
The first part is another of those "well, duh!" statements that Coilean presents as if it is a shining pearl of wisdom that she personally has dug out of the mud for us. The second I'd blame more on a lack of imagination amongst beginning players, GMs and game designers.
Defeat
Winning isn't everything! You can have fun even if your character doesn't achieve their goals!
This is so "well, duh!" that there's even an entire language of <A HREF="http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Role-Playing/Rec.Games.Frp/RGF.Advocacy%20Glossary">"stances"</A> to describe it.
Players
The above isn't everyone's cup of tea. Other players may not enjoy it when their characters do not achieve their goals, or when "the team is weakened" by a bad thing happening to one character. This is a Bad Thing, and they are immature.
OneTrueWayism is a common theme in Coilean's columns, and this is no exception. The rest of the article quickly devolves into a "why I'm right and they're wrong" rant beloved of OneTrueWayists. Why they can't just get a life and find a group of players who _want_ to play in their style, rather than trying to force it upon people who don't want it, is beyond me...
Integration
"I'm not weakening the team because it doesn't exist! Phhbbbpppttt!"
Margaret Thatcher said it better.
Conspiracy & Mundanity
Players conspire together to make an effective group in which everyone plays the character they want to play. But this eliminates conflict between characters. It is better to force characters together by circumstances so as to ensure conflict. But this is threatened by the prospect of the conflict eventually being resolved.
As usual in Coilean articles, whether or not the players actually _want_ such conflict is not an issue. Coilean knows best, and she will impose her will, whether you like it or not!
Insanity
If characters are foced together, forced to stay together, and forced to continue in their quest, they may go mad. This is a great roleplaying challenge. On a less extreme scale, characters can simply be changed for the worse by their experiences. Players should have total sovereignty over their characters in such matters.
A digression, though the comments about character growth not necessarily being positive are useful (but also obvious). The player sovereignty issue rests on the classic Libertarian idea of "leave me alone, I'm not spoiling your fun"; with a very narrow conception of roleplaying as an individual exercise rather than a cooperative, group one. Its unclear how Coilean would react to another player exercising equivalent sovereignty by saying "fuck off, basket case, I'm not carrying you", but the point is moot as the group is forced to stay together by GM fiat.
Advancement
Roleplaying can make you a better person. You can explore different points of view, and gain valuable experience for the future. You will also be able to accurately judge whether your character would succeed at an action, but you won't abuse this, because you will have Seen The Light and realise it's not about winning.
"And if you play enough in my style, you'll realise that it really is the One True Way".
Well, at least that's out of the way. Now can we get on to some useful info about gaming, rather than using the column as a bully pulpit to convert people to your chosen style?
Challenge
We can use challenges other than combat to provide conflict. We can make them worth XP, too.
Obvious, banal, and the example given is system specific. [sigh]
Adventure?
Coilean presents another solution for task-resolution: drama points! She ties this to a Manichean setting (one with opposing forces of good and evil), and limits them to actions that will be uncontested by the side granting them. As an example, a peasant farmer, being a hero to his family, can use drama points to ensure bountiful crops, avoiding the "unrealistic" problem of peasants starving because they failed their agriculture rolls.
Well, this might seem new and original to D&D players - though I have to admit that the Manichean spin is kindof cool. At the same time, I can't help but laugh at Coilean's typically SCAdian ideas about the realism of famine and starvation.
Sacrifice
A lot of internal conflict is on the level of chosing between chocolate or strawberry icecream, and hence doesn't matter.
So if it doesn't matter, why mention it?
Innovation
Other internal conflict does matter, and may lead to change and character growth.
More banality and obviousness is followed by a reference to a Rilstone article (which is actually very relevant to my comments about soap opera games above), which produces a couple of paragraphs of classic Coilean. But none of this is relevant anyway, since it's just another lead-in. [sigh]
Gestalt
An attempt at a conclusion: Coilean asserts that Roleplaying and powergaming aren't incompatible, then heroicly rejects "dualism", instead choosing to "treat the symptoms" of powergaming while allowing it to be "enjoyed safely".
This is a conclusion for the series as a whole, rather than this specific article, so it doesn't really matter that it doesn't follow from anything in the above. Or indeed from anything in the previous columns. Saying "I reject the roleplayer/powergamer dichotomy" is fine, but wouldn't it have been better to just _say_ it, rather than subjecting us to eight articles of brain-bleeding horror? There's probably a good article in why the dichotomy is a false one - but Coilean didn't write it. As a result, this entire series has been one overlong, poorly written, non-sequiter.
Lessons
A pre-emptive whine about the constant complaints of poor-writing style, and a descent into mysticism and pseudoprofundity. Boy, am I glad this is over.
Idiot/Savant
[Who is a sad fuck for wasting so much time on this]
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