Games to challenge conceptions of character?

[CaoCao]

The OSR is a bigger pond than just the original games it's based on.

no doubt about it, we have just different OSR perimeter definition in our minds.

 

[Fenris-77]

no doubt about it, we have just different OSR perimeter definition in our minds.

It's the nature of the OSR design/play space. There are a cornucopia of 'ways' to play it or approach it. When I talk abotu the OSR generally, rather than how I play, I tend to be as inclusive as possible.

 

[CaoCao]

It's the nature of the OSR design/play space. There are a cornucopia of 'ways' to play it or approach it. When I talk abotu the OSR generally, rather than how I play, I tend to be as inclusive as possible.

I can understand, it is just me. I have a restricted view on this, for me OSR=retroclone (more or less) and having a retroclone which does not try to retroclone is something I find extremely confusing. It is not matter of changing AC from descending to ascending, it is attaching deep stories (and related mechanics) to characters who should just explore dungeons or die rolling. but I am not and I do not want to be the Judge of what is OSR or not of course. anyone has the right to resize categories as they see fit, especially for futile issues like games.

 

[AsenRG]

I can understand, it is just me. I have a restricted view on this, for me OSR=retroclone (more or less) and having a retroclone which does not try to retroclone is something I find extremely confusing. It is not matter of changing AC from descending to ascending, it is attaching deep stories (and related mechanics) to characters who should just explore dungeons or die rolling. but I am not and I do not want to be the Judge of what is OSR or not of course. anyone has the right to resize categories as they see fit, especially for futile issues like games.

For extra mindblasting: I consider various games like Cepheus Engine ones to be OSR (or, as robertsconley would insist, osr, small letters) because they're following an Old School model and renewing it...it's just not the TSR kind of old school.

 

[Lessa]

If there are OSR games that do this please let me know. Even if it's hacks or fan-made modifications. Edit: I remember the White Hack having some bits in this vein but I could be wrong.

 

[Fenris-77]

If there are OSR games that do this please let me know. Even if it's hacks or fan-made modifications.

You might need to be more specific about exactly what 'this' you're looking for. There are a lot of games with a lot of different 'this's' out there.

 

[Lessa]

You might need to be more specific about exactly what 'this' you're looking for. There are a lot of games with a lot of different 'this's' out there.

Oops, my bad. I meant some element of character's concept challenging, either subtle (eg: WoD's virtues) or in more assertive form (eg: Pendragon & Dogs' core play loop).

 

[robertsconley]

which never included challenging characters' in other ways which were not related to physical harm or physical-adjacent kind of harm, at least in my knowledge. but as said I'm limited in knowledge and reasoning, most probably Blackmoor included 5E flaw/bond/etc mechanics and I just lost them while reading.

The first tabletop RPG campaign, Blackmoor, was centered around the conflict between law and chaos. Where the good guys (law) PCs went up against a bunch of baddies PCs (chaos) with bunch of neutrals that could be recruited. What made the campaign different than a traditional wargaming campaign was that Dave Arneson used his experience with running Braunsteins to run the campaign where each players was playing a character. So if the player had an army it was he roleplayed his character recruiting that army. The same with winning over the neutral.

Not only the armies could win or lose but the characters that the players played could lose either dying or forced to flee. Which happened when the good guys lost Castle Blackmarsh to the baddies.

Some of this is recounted in the First Fantasy Campaign published by Judges Guild.

What led to D&D and the ideas of you have about how older games are played is that while all this was going on, Dave had an idea to put a "dungeon" underneath Castle Blackmoor and let the player explore it for experience and treasure. The Castle Blackmoor dungeons quickly became the focus the campaign over the Law verus Chaos war. Dave was a pretty laid back referee so he went along with this coming up with additional adventures like the Temple of the Frog and the City of the Gods. Although he liked being a neutral arbiter refereeing the Law vs. Chaos war better.

When he went to demo the Blackmoor Campaign for Gygax and the Lake Geneva bunch, the Castle Blackmoor Dungeons was the most portable thing he could bring. Gygax and everybody loved it and soon Gygax wrote a set of his own rules with Dave's input and advice. Made the Castle Greyhawk dungeons campaign to playtest the rules. And Greyhawk had a lot of challenge the players stuff.

Which is why most folks think the way you do. But what folks forget is that there were a lot of things being tried in the larger wargaming community. Thus why you saw throughout the seventies a bunch of other RPGs that had different ideas and themes. Even with D&D when wargamers, like myself, got ahold of it we didn't limit ourselves to thinking it was just an exercise in dungeon crawling and challenging players.

I played wargames late in elementary school and when I started playing D&D in Junior High in the late 70s I immediately saw its potential to be more expansive than the Avalon Hill/SPI wargames we were playing. And it was easier to be more expansive. So my early campaigns were about players going on adventures to become wealthy and experience so they can take on one of the kingdoms I had or found their own realm.

 

[CaoCao]

robertsconley thanks but I don t find in this anything of what Lessa is searching for. but, as said, it is probably just me. and please don t misunderstand me, in my opinion it is right that original games and osr-related stuff don t include such elements.

 

[Fenris-77]

osr-related stuff don t include such elements.

You keep saying this and keeps not being true. IDK.

 

[robertsconley]

, it is attaching deep stories (and related mechanics) to characters who should just explore dungeons or die rolling.

Why should characters be doing anything in particular? The moment a referee starts thinking "the characters should be doing x" then the railroading starts.

but I am not and I do not want to be the Judge of what is OSR or not of course. anyone has the right to resize categories as they see fit, especially for futile issues like games.

The only issue I have with what you have been saying is you think that classic edition systems are limited to only a few particular styles of play.

There is nothing wrong with using those mechanics to run a dungeon crawl or challenging player skills. But if that is all you ever use them for then that is on you the referee. Others like myself have found that there is a lot one can do with those mechanics. The nice thing about the OSR is that because for most of us who use those classic edition mechanics our stuff tends to work well with each other. So occasionally I find useful stuff from the guys who make dungeon crawls and they in turn find useful things that I write for sandbox campaigns.

 

[robertsconley]

robertsconley thanks but I don t find in this anything of what Lessa is searching for. but, as said, it is probably just me. and please don t misunderstand me, in my opinion it is right that original games and osr-related stuff don t include such elements.

I explained in Post #32 how I and other OSR systems handle character-changing stuff through roleplaying. Along with an example of a mechanic found another OSR system, the Heroes Journey. If Lessa is looking for something like Dogs in the Vineyard Dungeon World, or Blades in the Dark that has a system of procedure, dice games, and mechanics to emulate God's watchdogs dealing with evil in the west, a dungeon crawl or a heist movie then it not going to be found in the OSR.

At best a system will have one or two subsystem like Hero Journey but the rest is handled through how things are roleplayed and how the setting is described. Carcosa works as a weird horror RPG/setting because that is how it has to be roleplaying after reading what kind of characters exist, what creatures and people inhabit the land, and especially how magic works.

The point of explaining the history of roleplaying and D&D is to point out how early on roleplaying was used in the Blackmoor to handle character changing events. Along with why there is a misconception about why D&D is only good for dungeon crawls.

 

[Fenris-77]

Oops, my bad. I meant some element of character's concept challenging, either subtle (eg: WoD's virtues) or in more assertive form (eg: Pendragon & Dogs' core play loop).

Both Blackhack and Whitehack have various mechanical bits and pieces that help flesh out character but they are pretty minor and much closer to the original games than something like Pendragon. I'll take a browse through my library and see if anything else occurs to me. Mostly though what you're looking isn't a strength of either strict OSR rules sets or even OSR stuff with newer design elements like I mentioned above.

 

[CaoCao]

I explained in Post #32 how I and other OSR systems handle character-changing stuff through roleplaying. Along with an example of a mechanic found another OSR system, the Heroes Journey. If Lessa is looking for something like Dogs in the Vineyard Dungeon World, or Blades in the Dark that has a system of procedure, dice games, and mechanics to emulate God's watchdogs dealing with evil in the west, a dungeon crawl or a heist movie then it not going to be found in the OSR.

exactly this.

 

[CaoCao]

Both Blackhack and Whitehack have various mechanical bits and pieces that help flesh out character but they are pretty minor and much closer to the original games than something like Pendragon. I'll take a browse through my library and see if anything else occurs to me. Mostly though what you're looking isn't a strength of either strict OSR rules sets or even OSR stuff with newer design elements like I mentioned above.

exactly this.

 

[Fenris-77]

exactly this.

What I said and what you said are quite different. You said "OSR-related stuff don't include such elements" in response to me. I was talking about mechanics that support character period. The original systems don't do that much, but lots of current OSR games do. They don't go as far as Pendragon, to the best of my recollection, but that's not what I was talking about. The point is that many of them do include some set of character-indexed mechanics, which you said wasn't the case.

 

[CaoCao]

Why should characters be doing anything in particular? The moment a referee starts thinking "the characters should be doing x" then the railroading starts.

"a to put a "dungeon" underneath Castle Blackmoor and let the player explore it for experience and treasure"

so Arneson sparked the hobby via railroading, right?

 

[gruagach]

Seems like Trophy Gold and Trophy Dark might qualify as OSR adjacent games. The Ruin mechanic is (one of) the major play driving mechanics.

Particularly Trophy Dark's "reduction roll", where players can reduce their character's Ruin score by having their character betraying their character's comrades. Has the potential to lead to all sorts of player defined challenge to who they, and the other players, thought the character was.

Trophy Gold's interaction between character advancement via Burden, and achieving one's Drive can also potentially act, lightly, to challenge a player's conception of their character.

These games may not be super close to OSR in their mechanics. To me, they are quite OSR in the style of play they evoke. YMMY, naturally.

 

[robertsconley]

exactly this.

The RPGs I mention take the use of dice games, and mechanics to handle how a campaign flows along with how characters react to events, to an extreme. It is central to their design as RPG systems. My point is that there are other alternatives. And this class of RPGs is not the only answer to Lessa question.

 

[robertsconley]

"a to put a "dungeon" underneath Castle Blackmoor and let the player explore it for experience and treasure"

so Arneson sparked the hobby via railroading, right?

Dave Arneson can answer your question.


Page 3 First Fantasy Campaign

 

[Fenris-77]

Seems like Trophy Gold and Trophy Dark might qualify as OSR adjacent games. The Ruin mechanic is (one of) the major play driving mechanics.

Particularly Trophy Dark's "reduction roll", where players can reduce their character's Ruin score by having their character betraying their character's comrades. Has the potential to lead to all sorts of player defined challenge to who they, and the other players, thought the character was.

Trophy Gold's interaction between character advancement via Burden, and achieving one's Drive can also potentially act, lightly, to challenge a player's conception of their character.

These games may not be super close to OSR in their mechanics. To me, they are quite OSR in the style of play they evoke. YMMY, naturally.

They are close to OSR in terms of play very much by design, but yes, I agree. I've used TG to run B/X modules and done all the conversion on the fly. The play feel and goals are very close.

 

[spittingimage]

'you' in my post was 'generic you', not 'you Fenris'. I do not care what and how 'you Fenris' play, because it is statistically irrelevant, exactky like MY games.

The day you understand why Fenris-77 does anything, it's time to take a break from the pub, the internet and maybe public life in general.

 

[Fenris-77]

The day you understand why Fenris-77 does anything, it's time to take a break from the pub, the internet and maybe public life in general.

Hey now. I've been remarkably cogent in this particular instance. I won't speak for any meme related threads or other activity of course.

 

[Raleel]

it can be different or it can t be different, just point of views. but a moderator should refrain to plainly address a forum member as a liar, IMO, as for your post #50.

I don't moderate this part of the forum, so let's not start in with the straw man arguments.

I do moderate this part, however, and if there is an issue with a mod, you can bring it to the thread for that.

 

[finarvyn]

I think that the tricky thing here is that the rules system and the adventure outcome may not match. I can run an OSR game with the notion of offering characters the chance to grow and change, and that OSR game might not have an official mechanic to do so. It could be a function of the adventure and the group. Another RPG system might build in an artificial way to have character change (e.g. a "mechanic" to do so) but the characters might have little change because the adventure or group isn't so inclined. I don't think one can look at the text of a RPG without considering the adventure and/or the group of humans playing the game.

I've seen good DMs take a situation in D&D (or other OSR systems) and put players in a position where they have to make tough choices, and thus grow the character. For example, one of my paladin characters was thrust into a dispute between demons and devils where one side clearly mistreated the other and the paladin had to choose between ignoring the situation (evil fights evil) or deal with the situation (strong crushing weak) and that caused my paladin to do a lot of soul-searching. Not because there was a "soul searching" mechanic, although there are general rules about paladins being Law-Good and what that means, but because the DM offered me a situation where I could grow.

 

[robertsconley]

I don't think one can look at the text of a RPG without considering the adventure and/or the group of humans playing the game.

Sure but since mechanics are a shorthand to communicate how something works in a setting or genre, if you omit the mechanics then another way has to be found to communicate this stuff to the novice. My recommendation is to write it up as advice as if you, the author, were standing there helping the reader run their campaign. My explanation of how to handle this is through worldbuilding, natural consequences, and roleplaying.

For example, one of my paladin characters was thrust into a dispute between demons and devils where one side clearly mistreated the other and the paladin had to choose between ignoring the situation (evil fights evil) or deal with the situation (strong crushing weak) and that caused my paladin to do a lot of soul-searching. Not because there was a "soul searching" mechanic, although there are general rules about paladins being Law-Good and what that means, but because the DM offered me a situation where I could grow.

An unrelated side note, the fact is that both Devils and Demons are irredeemably evil meaning there is no possibility of salvation for either side. Saving the weaker side over the stronger side doesn't matter morally. Whoever survives will continue to do evil. The solution is to kill both sides with the least cost. If there is no collateral damage then let both sides fight and kill the weaker side.

Unless of course if the author/referee is a Miltonian then demons and devils are just another group of individuals making bad choices. And salvation while difficult is possible. While I like shows like Lucifer for my campaign I find the Miltonian approach uninteresting for supernatural beings like demons.

 

[Lessa]

I think that the tricky thing here is that the rules system and the adventure outcome may not match. I can run an OSR game with the notion of offering characters the chance to grow and change, and that OSR game might not have an official mechanic to do so. It could be a function of the adventure and the group. Another RPG system might build in an artificial way to have character change (e.g. a "mechanic" to do so) but the characters might have little change because the adventure or group isn't so inclined. I don't think one can look at the text of a RPG without considering the adventure and/or the group of humans playing the game.

I think one mitigates that kind of thing when any element or style of play is communicated and agreed upon by the group before play begins. Sometimes even that same game you're used to play every week can be run differently by another GM, or approached differently by some players, etc. So talking it out is always a good thing.

 

[spittingimage]

The problem with deciding what the OSR is or isn't is that it's like five blind sages trying to decide what an elephant looks like.

 

[Fenris-77]

The problem with deciding what the OSR is or isn't is that it's like five blind sages trying to decide what an elephant looks like.

And there isn't even an elephant.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Despair from Heroes Journey is an example of a mechanic.
View attachment 71506

This is a nice little bit, but I don't think it's really all that challenging to a player's concept of character. It seems on par with elements like dragon fear or charm person. It’s a temporary condition or penalty that will go away after X time.

It’s certainly not a bad mechanic or anything, but my comments have generally been about more lasting consequences.

But most OSR games of this type including Heroes Journey above, Kevin Crawford's Godbound, my own Majestic Fantasy handled most of this through roleplaying not mechanics. The books paint a picture of a particular setting or type of setting. Then provide the mechanical support to make characters both PC/NPC that fit the setting. Roleplayed accordingly the campaign feels like it taking place in the setting described.

Right, but this is my point. When it is handled solely through roleplaying, the player is free to decide how the character responds to whatever it is that’s happening. Yes, they may decide to change their notion of the character, but they may not. They’re not obligated to do so.

They can’t lose face or learn they’re not as brave as they thought the same way they can lose a combat… which involves player input and GM input, but also system input. Leaving it all up to roleplay removes that last part.

Much of Spahn's Heroes Journey is about how handle its themes of Exploration of the Unknown, The Fading Realm, Heroic Characters, Danger, and Wonder through how the setting is handled and how its roleplayed. What I cited about the despair is about it as far as specific game mechanics.


The setting has a life of its own and actions have consequences meaning plans, goals, and how one character acts have to change as events unfold. Otherwise, the path will lead to some type of negative consequence.

Some games are less about exploring some imagined geography than they are about exploring imaginary characters. I don’t think these things need to be mutually exclusive, but I think that’s the general trend. I’m curious about exceptions.

I’m not really aware of any RPGs that don’t want the setting to have a life of its own. Some games may have better or worse advice or procedures to help with this, but I’m not aware of any games that don’t want the setting to be coherent (with maybe a few exceptions that set out specifically with this in mind, like Toon or Over the Edge or similar).

All this to say that the tools you’re citing are generally available to any RPG.

I talk about this in the chapter titled the World Outside of the Dungeon which I made available for free here.

https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/The%20World%20Outside%20of%20the%20Dungeon.pdf

Also, it is reinforced through the book in that everything has a context including stuff like character class. While my Basic Rules only have the bare bones of what is in the full Majestic Fantasy rules this is on full display in my out-of-print Majestic Wilderlands supplement. Where I describe various character classes; Clerics of ten different religions, Fighters, Soldiers, Berserkers, Knights, Paladins, Myrmidons, Magic-Users, Mages, Runecasters, Theurgists, Artificers, Wizards, Burglars, Thugs, Montebanks, Merchant Adventurers and Claws of Kalis.

These classes are not designed to fill some type of game role rather they exist as part of my Majestic Wilderlands setting. There are advantages and consequences to each. Many are not free agents in that the player's character is beholden to a higher authority.

This is handled by roleplaying the consequences of what the players do as their characters good or bad. Not through the use of an accounting exercise using game mechanics.

I don’t view such mechanics as accounting processes, or as separate from roleplaying. The results can actually be the prompt that helps me determine how to roleplay. Instead of it being entirely up to me.

While the feel of our respective RPGs are very different we both achieve our ends by emphasizing roleplaying over the game. When that happens the players find they have to roleplay accordingly

According to what?

I assume you mean the events of play… in which case, who decides what is appropriate?

It seems to me that it’s a case of “according to what the player wants”, which is kind of the opposite of what I was talking about.

in order to achieve whatever goals their characters have. And many times have to make choices they don't want to make but have to as the result of the circumstances they find themselves in. As a result, player characters change not forseen at the start of the campaign.

Tough decisions are one way to explore character. Again, it’s available to all games, and I think it still largely kees things in the player’s control. What if a game had mechanics that determined how your character reacted to the tough decision? If there were stats and a roll that meant the character went with option A instead of option B? The player would then have to accept that and roleplay accordingly.

That’s the kind of thing I’m thinking of when I talk about challenging the conception of the character.

 

[Lessa]

Right, but this is my point. When it is handled solely through roleplaying, the player is free to decide how the character responds to whatever it is that’s happening. Yes, they may decide to change their notion of the character, but they may not. They’re not obligated to do so.

They can’t lose face or learn they’re not as brave as they thought the same way they can lose a combat… which involves player input and GM input, but also system input. Leaving it all up to roleplay removes that last part.

Such a great way to put it. Thanks.

Just remembered another game I feel is a good fit for what we're talking here: Cortex. I played the Marvel one a couple times and really liked that each hero had "milestones" in the form of personal dilemmas they needed to deal with in game, and that changed them (irrevocably) through their choices.

 

[gruagach]

D&D 5e has an option for milestone XP / leveling that, if you squint at it, works a little bit like Cortex.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Such a great way to put it. Thanks.

Just remembered another game I feel is a good fit for what we're talking here: Cortex. I played the Marvel one a couple times and really liked that each hero had "milestones" in the form of personal dilemmas they needed to deal with in game, and that changed them (irrevocably) through their choices.

Another game that has a very similar advancement system is Heart: The City Beneath. It has "Beats" which are player selected character goals that serve as Advancement Triggers. You select two each session, and if you achieve the goal of a Beat, then you take an Advancement. One of the writers, Grant Howitt, said he lifted it almost exactly from the Marvel Cortex game.

Heart also is a good example of the kinds of consequences that I was talking about... ones that can affect the characters long term or even permanently. There are five different types, Blood for physical damage, Mind for mental damage, Echo for corruption/mutation from the strange energies of the Heart, Supplies for gear and belongings, and Fortune for luck.

These consequences... called Fallout in the game, have different severities and durations. The risk of taking a Fallout mounts as you accrue Stress. The more Stress you have when a Fallout happens, the more severe it is. Fallout is going to happen. The characters are going to change over time, in ways that their players wouldn't necessarily choose. It's pretty great stuff.

 

[robertsconley]

This is a nice little bit, but I don't think it's really all that challenging to a player's concept of character. It seems on par with elements like dragon fear or charm person. It’s a temporary condition or penalty that will go away after X time.

It is but one part of what Spahn focuses in Heroes Journey. The rest is handled through roleplaying advice reinforced by the various character types, their abilities, and how magic works.

It’s certainly not a bad mechanic or anything, but my comments have generally been about more lasting consequences.

Choices always have lasting consequences when the referee uses World In Motion as part of their campaign. Just because it is not accompanied by bennies or tokens doesn't mean consequences don't create lasting changes to how the character is roleplayed.

Right, but this is my point. When it is handled solely through roleplaying, the player is free to decide how the character responds to whatever it is that’s happening. Yes, they may decide to change their notion of the character, but they may not. They’re not obligated to do so.

The player's choices alter the world around them. As a result, NPCs will behave differently in the future.

True a player in my system who torches a village with a fireball doesn't gain trauma, flaws, or negative karma. But I don't need to with World in Motion. The impact of that choice to throw the fireball will dominate that character's future. The player can roleplay their character however they want but the larger world will go on, and it will take notice of that event. The player will quickly find the range of choices their character had will be irrevocably altered.

For example, in a D&D 5e campaign I ran two years ago, one player wanted to play an elf a human-dominated party. I explained the consequences of doing that. That he would stand out as an elf in the region of the campaign. The dominant human culture is not hostile to elves. In fact they tend to treat them much as we would treat a mid-level rock star or celebrity. At first, he was happy about it, social doors were relatively easy for him to open. The party obviously benefited by different social relationships that were established. But a year into the campaign the player asked if he could switch characters. He was tired of all the attention. Starting to feel on edge. That a wrong move would turn garlands of flowers into torches and pitchforks. The inciting incident was the character putting on a little show with his cantrips at a tavern and the way I described the situations and the roleplaying with the crowd. He decided his character had enough and want to play a different character. I am usually agreeable to those kinds of requests when they make sense in-game. And this made sense to he made a new character of a similar level.

In that same campaign, another player roleplayed a cleric of Delaquain the goddess of Honor of Justice. He was part of an order of priests who had a rigid view of how Delaquain's Five Fold Code was supposed to work. At first, he and the rest of the party got along. But as they adventured together, he started to disagree with how the party were handling the antagonist they were dealing with. There were too many acts of mercy in his opinion, partially because of the influence of the PC elven character. Then, before the elven PC left, he wanted his character to leave. It made sense and so he made a new character at a similar level. Later that character now an NPC became an antagonist of the party.

All of this was handled using bog standard 5e without any mechanics or subsystems to moderate social relationships. Instead, it was handled through roleplaying. Character changed because that is what made sense given the circumstances. It was an evolution through time because there was rarely a big dramatic moment. Instead the weight of a multitude of decisions by the player, by other PCs, by myself roleplaying the NPCs altered the player's character permanently.

They can’t lose face or learn they’re not as brave as they thought the same way they can lose a combat…

You will have to try again because both situation has happened more than once in my campaigns.

which involves player input and GM input, but also system input. Leaving it all up to roleplay removes that last part.

Actually roleplaying in tabletop is a system. You describe what your character does or act (in some cases). I describe the consequences or act (in some cases). Rinse and repeat. I may or may not use a dice roll, or a procedure to decide what those consequences are. But if used they are subordinate to the focus on roleplaying the events.

Use another system if you like. With the right techniques roleplaying works just fine. The problem I find is that authors don't talk often enough about the techniques in order to use roleplaying. Most folks think is just about talking or acting in-character but it not for the referee. The context matters. How the context is managed is what leads to the roleplaying being effective.

Some games are less about exploring some imagined geography than they are about exploring imaginary characters. I don’t think these things need to be mutually exclusive, but I think that’s the general trend. I’m curious about exceptions.

I write sandbox adventures which are more about exploring the social dynamics of a situation than exploring geography.

Scourge of the Demon Wolf

by Rob Conley for Bat in the Attic Games Swords & Wizardry Three died. They were mauled beyond recognition. The Baron sent his huntsmen to kill the beasts and for a fortnight they tramped acros…

tenfootpole.org

I’m not really aware of any RPGs that don’t want the setting to have a life of its own. Some games may have better or worse advice or procedures to help with this, but I’m not aware of any games that don’t want the setting to be coherent (with maybe a few exceptions that set out specifically with this in mind, like Toon or Over the Edge or similar).

A coherent setting is not special. Many systems and types of campaign focus on coherent setting. What I am talking about the referee creating a dynamic world that changes in response to the player's choices as their characters and where changes in the characters are caused by the dynamics of the world.

All this to say that the tools you’re citing are generally available to any RPG.

Most don't take advantage of them because they are focused on communicating everything through game mechanics. More importantly, they don't explain how to do these things through roleplaying. This is why so many like yourself don't think can be handled with any type of rigor through roleplaying.

I don’t view such mechanics as accounting processes, or as separate from roleplaying. The results can actually be the prompt that helps me determine how to roleplay. Instead of it being entirely up to me.

The prompt in my system are the circumstances in which the players find themselves as their character. As well as the circumstances they created for themselves. That is why the context is so important, particularly the Initial Context. Until the campaign starts the players haven't experienced any of their character's lives. As result, I find players are unsure of what choices they have. A good Initial Content overcomes that uncertainty and is tailored to how the players describe their characters. The character's personalities, motivations, and goals. The main difference between how I handle it is that versus systems that uses game mechanics to handle it is that is there no preconceived notion of what that initial context ought to be. Instead, it arises out of what the PCs are, what the group wants to start out at, and details of the settings. The procedure I follow is a back-and-forth conversation both with individual players and the group. And there are specific points I try to get an answer for that I learned through experience that needs to be covered.

According to what?

The specific circumstances in which the players find themselves.

I assume you mean the events of play… in which case, who decides what is appropriate?

The players decide how to roleplay their character and what choices to make. I decide how to roleplay the NPCs and their choices. I also describe what the players know as their characters. The intersection of the two produces the context in which the players have in order to make their decisions.

It seems to me that it’s a case of “according to what the player wants”, which is kind of the opposite of what I was talking about.

You will be surprised how often players feel trapped by their choices in my campaigns. Having to do or act things they had never considering doing before.

What if a game had mechanics that determined how your character reacted to the tough decision?

It would feel artificial because of two issues.

• The rules or procedure encode the author's preconceived notions of how things ought to be.
• The rules or procedures are not capable of handling most of nuances that arise.

Where it works is because the system as a whole is laser-focused on handling a specific set of circumstances. Like pretending to be God's Watchdogs enforcing his judgment in the old west, or recreating the feel of a heist movie in a dystopian Victorian industrial society. Game mechanics can work well if the circumstances of the campaign are constrained.

But if the goal is about experiencing the life of a character in the setting with all it diversity and richness. Then roleplaying and its techniques are the better way to handle the nuances.

Speaking as someone who used the same setting for several decades for different campaigns with different groups of players who opted to do very different things within my setting.

If there were stats and a roll that meant the character went with option A instead of option B? The player would then have to accept that and roleplay accordingly.

It depends on whether player agrees that the range of choices that the mechanics offers is the same range they would consider for their character under the circumstance the roll was being made. I can tell you most of the time players wind up disagreeing with whoever wrote the mechanics as to what the possibilities really are.

That’s the kind of thing I’m thinking of when I talk about challenging the conception of the character.

And very clearly you are relying on the author communicating to you through the shorthand of game mechanics what the possibilities are and what are odds of those possibilities.

My alternative is to tailor those possibilities to the circumstance and resolve them through roleplaying. You will know what they are because communicating them is part of my job as the referee. The players who care about roleplaying a different personality than themselves use that information, what been established about their character, and what happened in the past to come to a decision as to how to act/roleplay as their character. The results of this are as varied and surprising as any system I seen used to date.

As for the ones that don't care about acting as a character it doesn't matter because they still have to deal with the circumstances. Still have to choose from the same range of choices that the ones that do roleplay have too.

You talked about losing face, how does one lose face in life or fiction? Usually through bad luck combined with bad decisions. How does cowardice happen? By making a choice to flee when one could have stood and fought. With roleplaying this happens organically not through a set of preconceived notions to what the possibilities are as encoded in a set of game mechanics by an author who doesn't know the specific circumstances of that campaign.

But.... roleplaying is a not a free lunch. It just doesn't magically happen. There is a set of techniques that have to learned and used along with developing the experience to know when and how to use these techniques. Game mechanics are an effective shorthand way of communicating the possibilities of specific types of situations. One that allows folks to get up to speed on stuff quickly in the time they have for a hobby.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It is but one part of what Spahn focuses in Heroes Journey. The rest is handled through roleplaying advice reinforced by the various character types, their abilities, and how magic works.

I am in no way advocating for the removal of roleplaying.

Choices always have lasting consequences when the referee uses World In Motion as part of their campaign. Just because it is not accompanied by bennies or tokens doesn't mean consequences don't create lasting changes to how the character is roleplayed.

Choices may or may not have lasting consequences, I would say. It depends on the choice and the circumstances in play.

The player's choices alter the world around them. As a result, NPCs will behave differently in the future.

True a player in my system who torches a village with a fireball doesn't gain trauma, flaws, or negative karma. But I don't need to with World in Motion. The impact of that choice to throw the fireball will dominate that character's future. The player can roleplay their character however they want but the larger world will go on, and it will take notice of that event. The player will quickly find the range of choices their character had will be irrevocably altered.

For example, in a D&D 5e campaign I ran two years ago, one player wanted to play an elf a human-dominated party. I explained the consequences of doing that. That he would stand out as an elf in the region of the campaign. The dominant human culture is not hostile to elves. In fact they tend to treat them much as we would treat a mid-level rock star or celebrity. At first, he was happy about it, social doors were relatively easy for him to open. The party obviously benefited by different social relationships that were established. But a year into the campaign the player asked if he could switch characters. He was tired of all the attention. Starting to feel on edge. That a wrong move would turn garlands of flowers into torches and pitchforks. The inciting incident was the character putting on a little show with his cantrips at a tavern and the way I described the situations and the roleplaying with the crowd. He decided his character had enough and want to play a different character. I am usually agreeable to those kinds of requests when they make sense in-game. And this made sense to he made a new character of a similar level.

In that same campaign, another player roleplayed a cleric of Delaquain the goddess of Honor of Justice. He was part of an order of priests who had a rigid view of how Delaquain's Five Fold Code was supposed to work. At first, he and the rest of the party got along. But as they adventured together, he started to disagree with how the party were handling the antagonist they were dealing with. There were too many acts of mercy in his opinion, partially because of the influence of the PC elven character. Then, before the elven PC left, he wanted his character to leave. It made sense and so he made a new character at a similar level. Later that character now an NPC became an antagonist of the party.

All of this was handled using bog standard 5e without any mechanics or subsystems to moderate social relationships. Instead, it was handled through roleplaying. Character changed because that is what made sense given the circumstances. It was an evolution through time because there was rarely a big dramatic moment. Instead the weight of a multitude of decisions by the player, by other PCs, by myself roleplaying the NPCs altered the player's character permanently.

I don't think anything you're saying here is really contra to what I'm talking about. Players having choices and the world responding in kind is, to my mind, part and parcel of RPGs. I wouldn't expect otherwise.

However, the idea of who the character is, their fundamental qualities... their behavior and their mental state and feelings... that is almost always up to the player. Not how the world responds to them, but how they respond to the world.

I don't think what you're talking about above is what I'm talking about. The player of the elf DECIDED to stop liking the adulation. The player of the cleric DECIDED to view the party's mercy as problematic.
In neither case were they obligated to do so.
That's what I'm talking about. Some games do that.

You will have to try again because both situation has happened more than once in my campaigns.

Because a player chose to do so, I expect. If not, then please elaborate.

Actually roleplaying in tabletop is a system. You describe what your character does or act (in some cases). I describe the consequences or act (in some cases). Rinse and repeat. I may or may not use a dice roll, or a procedure to decide what those consequences are. But if used they are subordinate to the focus on roleplaying the events.

But this isn't absent from any RPG, really. Nor must dice rolls or other mechanics be subordinate to anything. That's a preference, not a truism.

Use another system if you like. With the right techniques roleplaying works just fine.

It literally can't for what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when a system changes a player's conception of their character without some form of choice on their part. What you're talking about is all player choice.

There's nothing wrong with it, mind you, but it doesn't have the thing I'm talking about. Which you prefer it not to have... so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

The problem I find is that authors don't talk often enough about the techniques in order to use roleplaying. Most folks think is just about talking or acting in-character but it not for the referee. The context matters. How the context is managed is what leads to the roleplaying being effective.

I agree more books should give advice on this stuff.

I write sandbox adventures which are more about exploring the social dynamics of a situation than exploring geography.

Scourge of the Demon Wolf

by Rob Conley for Bat in the Attic Games Swords & Wizardry Three died. They were mauled beyond recognition. The Baron sent his huntsmen to kill the beasts and for a fortnight they tramped acros…

tenfootpole.org

Yes, I'm familiar with your stuff! You've shared that very adventure with me before.

A coherent setting is not special. Many systems and types of campaign focus on coherent setting. What I am talking about the referee creating a dynamic world that changes in response to the player's choices as their characters and where changes in the characters are caused by the dynamics of the world.

Yes, I understand that.

What I'm talking about is something that goes a little further in the way that the characters may be changed by the dynamics of the world.

Not in place of roleplaying and decision making, but in addition to it.

Most don't take advantage of them because they are focused on communicating everything through game mechanics. More importantly, they don't explain how to do these things through roleplaying. This is why so many like yourself don't think can be handled with any type of rigor through roleplaying.

Most folks meaning who? Players you've played with? Games you've seen or watched?

The prompt in my system are the circumstances in which the players find themselves as their character. As well as the circumstances they created for themselves. That is why the context is so important, particularly the Initial Context. Until the campaign starts the players haven't experienced any of their character's lives. As result, I find players are unsure of what choices they have. A good Initial Content overcomes that uncertainty and is tailored to how the players describe their characters. The character's personalities, motivations, and goals. The main difference between how I handle it is that versus systems that uses game mechanics to handle it is that is there no preconceived notion of what that initial context ought to be. Instead, it arises out of what the PCs are, what the group wants to start out at, and details of the settings. The procedure I follow is a back-and-forth conversation both with individual players and the group. And there are specific points I try to get an answer for that I learned through experience that needs to be covered.

I've found the opposite is often true. That people approach a game with something like a class and a race and an alignment for their character, maybe a background or occupation... some set of archetypes or templates, and this gives them a pretty strong starting point. Many players also have some idea of the character's history and maybe their friends and family. Sometimes this may just be a sentence or two, other times it may be significantly more.

And what I've seen, very often though far from always, is that by the end of the game, the difference from that starting point is pretty minimal. Yes, they may have realized some goals and they may have made some mistakes, or had some disagreements... I'm not saying these kinds of things are absent from any RPG... but I've found that changes that are at least partially shaped by game mechanics are more significant. That's why I cited Dogs in the Vineyard as being so much fun. You absolutely CANNOT end that game with a character who is virtually unchanged from the start.

The specific circumstances in which the players find themselves.

The players decide how to roleplay their character and what choices to make. I decide how to roleplay the NPCs and their choices. I also describe what the players know as their characters. The intersection of the two produces the context in which the players have in order to make their decisions.

You will be surprised how often players feel trapped by their choices in my campaigns. Having to do or act things they had never considering doing before.

I don't think so. I said it happens!

It would feel artificial because of two issues.

• The rules or procedure encode the author's preconceived notions of how things ought to be.
• The rules or procedures are not capable of handling most of nuances that arise.

Where it works is because the system as a whole is laser-focused on handling a specific set of circumstances. Like pretending to be God's Watchdogs enforcing his judgment in the old west, or recreating the feel of a heist movie in a dystopian Victorian industrial society. Game mechanics can work well if the circumstances of the campaign are constrained.

What about the rules of Dogs in the Vineyard or Blades in the Dark make them so narrow? I don't agree at all.

The Dogs rules in question are very simple, and can be used for conflict resolution of just about any kind. Just as easily as BRP and similar resolution systems can.

But if the goal is about experiencing the life of a character in the setting with all it diversity and richness. Then roleplaying and its techniques are the better way to handle the nuances.

Speaking as someone who used the same setting for several decades for different campaigns with different groups of players who opted to do very different things within my setting.

You're not the only person around here who can claim that!

And again, I'm not talking about replacing roleplaying with nothing but mechanics. Roleplaying is still a huge part of what I'm talking about.

And very clearly you are relying on the author communicating to you through the shorthand of game mechanics what the possibilities are and what are odds of those possibilities.

My alternative is to tailor those possibilities to the circumstance and resolve them through roleplaying. You will know what they are because communicating them is part of my job as the referee. The players who care about roleplaying a different personality than themselves use that information, what been established about their character, and what happened in the past to come to a decision as to how to act/roleplay as their character. The results of this are as varied and surprising as any system I seen used to date.

I don't think that it's a matter of an author communicating the possibilities and the odds ahead of time. I'm talking about there being rules that, like any other in an RPG, can be applied and interpreted in this area just as they can be in others.

What makes combat one of the really interesting parts of play? The uncertainty. The idea that even if we do everything right, if the rolls don't go our way, or if luck is with the other side, we could still lose. Or alternatively, that even if we make mistakes, we can somehow still win. As you go on to say below, it's a combination of decisions and luck.

Combat has a clear representation of luck. We roll dice. It's one of the most iconic expressions of luck there can be.

Now imagine that this essential element of combat in RPGs... the element that makes it uncertain... can be applied to the characters' thoughts and feelings and sense of self. Imagine that the player is not free to decide it all based on how he feels it should be.

Or inverse that, and imagine the outcome of all combats are up to the players to decide.

You talked about losing face, how does one lose face in life or fiction? Usually through bad luck combined with bad decisions. How does cowardice happen? By making a choice to flee when one could have stood and fought.

Sometimes, though, people don't make a choice. They don't consciously decide to flee... they simply find themselves running. They don't consciously decide they're attracted to someone, they simply are.

With roleplaying this happens organically not through a set of preconceived notions to what the possibilities are as encoded in a set of game mechanics by an author who doesn't know the specific circumstances of that campaign.

What preconceived notions are you talking about? I'm not sure what you're referencing here... is it something specific? It sounds so broad that I can't understand.

 

[Lessa]

Another game that has a very similar advancement system is Heart: The City Beneath. It has "Beats" which are player selected character goals that serve as Advancement Triggers. You select two each session, and if you achieve the goal of a Beat, then you take an Advancement. One of the writers, Grant Howitt, said he lifted it almost exactly from the Marvel Cortex game.

Heart also is a good example of the kinds of consequences that I was talking about... ones that can affect the characters long term or even permanently. There are five different types, Blood for physical damage, Mind for mental damage, Echo for corruption/mutation from the strange energies of the Heart, Supplies for gear and belongings, and Fortune for luck.

These consequences... called Fallout in the game, have different severities and durations. The risk of taking a Fallout mounts as you accrue Stress. The more Stress you have when a Fallout happens, the more severe it is. Fallout is going to happen. The characters are going to change over time, in ways that their players wouldn't necessarily choose. It's pretty great stuff.

Very neat! Does The Spire also have it?

Btw, I remember Dogs having fallout too but my memory is fuzzy now. Do you remember how it works in it? Edit: Ahh I remember, it's the changes that come from conflicts, usually bad as it reduces your traits, but sometimes can be good giving you new traits or improve existing ones.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Very neat! Does The Spire also have it?

Yup, Spire also has Fallout, though some categories are different to reflect the games focusing on different things. Spire has Mind and Body Fallouts, and then the other three are Reputation, Shadow (anonymity as a covert operative), and Silver (wealth and resources).

Btw, I remember Dogs having fallout too but my memory is fuzzy now. Do you remember how it works in it?

Yeah, and it’s similar in that it’s a consequence for a character having to allocate more dice than two in order to match an opponent’s raise (called Taking a Blow). The excess dice from all exchanges in a conflict are set aside and then after the conflict, they’re rolled to see the severity and nature of the Fallout. This can be anything from a temporary penalty all the way up to character death.

However, what’s pretty ingenious is that the Advancement system is embedded in this Fallout process. If you roll a 1 on any of the Fallout dice, then you also get an Advance. These range from a new Trait that can be used in the future, to more dice for an existing Trait, to increasing the die size for a Trait (from a d6 to a d8, for example).

This encourages risk taking by the player because you need to in order to have a chance at improving. You have to take some Blows and risk Fallout to see your Traits, Attributes, and Relationships improve.

Characters fluctuate a lot in Dogs. Their Attributes can go up and down with much more regularity than many games. Their Traits and Relationships are constantly at risk; they can become stronger, yes, but they can also become weaknesses (by losing dice or dropping in die size).

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't think that we necessarily need to go to 'trying to represent everything mechanically' to discuss this idea. Nor do I think that the only answer is 'simply apply the right roleplaying techniques'. I'd agree that there are games that go overboard trying to mechanize everything (and some people like those games), but that isn't the same as talking about the subset of games that strive to provide mechanical handholds for the inner life of the character. The just roleplay it answer is one that can certainly work given the right table of players, but I find it a somewhat unsatisfying answer because it doesn't really address the issue, IMO anyway.

I think it's more than fair to say that, generally speaking, players of TTRPGs respond in terms of roleplaying and decision making at least in part based on the mechanical cues the specific game they are playing gives them. The rules and mechanics serve as a sort of shorthand for some notion of 'what's important' and even then we're really talking about solidly designed play loops with consequences. This second bit is why Inspiration in 5E has been such a vestigial part of a lot of actual games because it's a bolted on mechanic that requires a lot of extra work for not much much in the way of at-table reward. There will always be gamers and tables for whom the sort of inner-character-life mechanic in question is anathema, but that's very different than saying it's not useful, interesting, or even revelatory for other players.

 

[lategamer]

Another game that has a very similar advancement system is Heart: The City Beneath. It has "Beats" which are player selected character goals that serve as Advancement Triggers. You select two each session, and if you achieve the goal of a Beat, then you take an Advancement. One of the writers, Grant Howitt, said he lifted it almost exactly from the Marvel Cortex game.

This is pretty much how it works in Chronicles of Darkness and Exalted and, frankly, I do not like. That's just my experience.
Part of it is the battle of wills between GM and player for contriving what the GM wants to do and what notes the player needs to hit to achieve the beat. Means players end up picking goals that are trivial in order to get Beats

These consequences... called Fallout in the game, have different severities and durations. The risk of taking a Fallout mounts as you accrue Stress. The more Stress you have when a Fallout happens, the more severe it is. Fallout is going to happen. The characters are going to change over time, in ways that their players wouldn't necessarily choose. It's pretty great stuff.

I am interested in this. I like the idea of players calculating the risk of calamity but taking further action because of need.

 

[Fenris-77]

I like how XP gets handled in the Between in terms of how it drives character play. Each playbook has a list of XP triggers, some fixed and some floating. SO the player gets to pick at least some of what kind of action or development or whatever they want to take center stage for their character. That isn't external like some of the other examples, but I do think it's an interesting difference from a set list of XP triggers like you see in a lot of games.