GURPs vs FATE

[ffilz]

To be clear I am only talking about the term “Sandbox” referring to a type of RPG campaign . People were running sandbox campaigns since the beginning of the hobby.

And you might very well be right that the discussion surrounding Necromancer's Wilderlands product may have been the first discussion of Sandbox RPG Campaigns. Yet, I have this nagging feeling the term was used earlier. But it's very possible the term just made instant sense to me when it was introduced at that time because of my exposure to the term in other contexts. But it's also possible it was used in smaller local communities earlier, for example the MIT gaming community, or even The Wild Hunt or Alarums & Excursions but the use in the early-mid 2000s may have been the first widespread use on the internet. I just don't know.

As far as defining what a story game is, yes communities that are founded to discuss and promote a niche of the hobby should given strong consideration as what that niche is. For no other reasons is likely the origin point of the niche itself and the reason for its existence. What it doesn’t mean that the niche has to remain confined or that new related and overlapping niches will develop. Ultimately the decisive criteria in my view is how much X helps me to play or create something for X niche.

Unfortunately really the discussion of the origin and therefore first dibs on meaning of Story Games really can't occur in this thread... I don't know how to talk about it without talking about other forums...

Maybe THIS community should coin a new term... And consider if there should be an umbrella term, and how wide an umbrella... Hey, we could go back to Adventure Gaming which I think covered war games also...

 

[TristramEvans]

Maybe THIS community should coin a new term...

I nominate Fabuludum

 

[Voros]

So funny enough I came across this video shortly after my last post, and it made me think of this thread. It's a pretty interesting watch, if you have the time.

The knives don't come out till the 4 minute mark.

Ask Questing Beast 5

Not sure what you mean by knives coming out at 4m, what did I miss?

 

[TristramEvans]

So funny enough I came across this video shortly after my last post, and it made me think of this thread. It's a pretty interesting watch, if you have the time.

The knives don't come out till the 4 minute mark.

Ask Questing Beast 5

Oh, fuck, I clicked on the link, saw the time, and clicked off. Is there a TL: DW version?, because I ain't got time in my life for over an hour of talking heads.


I literally lasted only long enough to hear the guy whose game company is completely devoted to putting out PbtA games doesn't play PbtA games in his free time, preferring OSR. Which, granted, is hilarious.

 

[Black Vulmea]

The fact that its set up as a skirmish game. It's an RPG in the same way Car Wars is.

4e D&D is set up as a skirmish game. Not a roleplaying game, either?

 

[TristramEvans]

Car Wars has character creation rules, an experience sysem, and adventure modules. I have no issue considering it an RPG, that's always how we played it. Death Race 2000: The Role-Playing Game.

 

[robertsconley]

And you might very well be right that the discussion surrounding Necromancer's Wilderlands product may have been the first discussion of Sandbox RPG Campaigns. Yet, I have this nagging feeling the term was used earlier. But it's very possible the term just made instant sense to me when it was introduced at that time because of my exposure to the term in other contexts. But it's also possible it was used in smaller local communities earlier, for example the MIT gaming community, or even The Wild Hunt or Alarums & Excursions but the use in the early-mid 2000s may have been the first widespread use on the internet. I just don't know.

To research this you need to find a forum that predated 2005. Do a search for sandbox and read the posts. You can also use the Dragon Magazine archive or PDFs of A&E.

Sandbox was used but always either as “is Wizards going to let people play in their 4th edition sandbox?”. Or an uncommon substitution for setting. “I am going to build Arcadia as a swords & sorcery sandbox.” Around 2005 you will some scattered post referring to sandbox play. The. after 2007 sandbox (and less common hexcrawl) are being used to describe a type of campaign.

This post in 2005 by Gabor Lux/Melan is typical of what the Wilderlands team did that started the ball rolling on sandbox as a type of campaign.

Tell me of Judges' Guild's "Wilderlands" setting | Tabletop Roleplaying Open

Greetings! Calithena and the others have already outlined many of the things that are great in the Wilderlands. Let me add some more... [Cautionary Note: this is my view on the setting. It isn’t official, and neither is it better than any others. Other people’s mileage may vary.] First, one...

forum.rpg.net

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not sure what you mean by knives coming out at 4m, what did I miss?

My bad... that was just a joke. They all get along fine and don’t argue at all despite some differences of opinion.

Oh, fuck, I clicked on the link, saw the time, and clicked off. Is there a TL: DW version?, because I ain't got time in my life for over an hour of talking heads.


I literally lasted only long enough to hear the guy whose game company is completely devoted to putting out PbtA games doesn't play PbtA games in his free time, preferring OSR. Which, granted, is hilarious.

Just some interesting points about differences between OSR and narrative games. And also similarities. No quibbling about definitions or categories. Some interesting stuff about design space that neither approach seems to capture.

 

[ffilz]

To research this you need to find a forum that predated 2005. Do a search for sandbox and read the posts. You can also use the Dragon Magazine archive or PDFs of A&E.

Sandbox was used but always either as “is Wizards going to let people play in their 4th edition sandbox?”. Or an uncommon substitution for setting. “I am going to build Arcadia as a swords & sorcery sandbox.” Around 2005 you will some scattered post referring to sandbox play. The. after 2007 sandbox (and less common hexcrawl) are being used to describe a type of campaign.

This post in 2005 by Gabor Lux/Melan is typical of what the Wilderlands team did that started the ball rolling on sandbox as a type of campaign.

Tell me of Judges' Guild's "Wilderlands" setting | Tabletop Roleplaying Open

Greetings! Calithena and the others have already outlined many of the things that are great in the Wilderlands. Let me add some more... [Cautionary Note: this is my view on the setting. It isn’t official, and neither is it better than any others. Other people’s mileage may vary.] First, one...

forum.rpg.net

Some very quick research does find reference to sandboxes in Dragon #247 (May 1998) in a profile on Jeff Grubb, but it isn't in the context of a "players can do anything campaign." But the use there, and the common use in the 90s of sandbox for computer games, suggests that maybe the term's meaning for Sandbox Campaign seemed obvious to me, so evenif people weren't talking about Sandbox Campaigns the way it was referred to from 2005 on, such use clearly reaches back to earlier uses. Maybe Jon Peterson will one day suss out a more detailed history of the term... :-) Interestingly the article on Jeff Grub labels the Forgotten Realms as a sandbox...

I'm certainly comfortable with the current use (as specifically defined in the sandbox thread) originating in 2005.

The history of the term is probably why I balk a bit at that definition though...

 

[TJS]

Probably part of the issue with nailing down any definition of sandbox is that the inherent metaphor is too good.

As soon as you hear the term you immediately think you understand it perfectly.

In the end the only consistent definition is the commonalities that arise from the metaphor.

 

[Stevethulhu]

Car Wars has character creation rules, an experience sysem, and adventure modules. I have no issue considering it an RPG, that's always how we played it. Death Race 2000: The Role-Playing Game.

And now we're into big definitions territory. Too big to have any meaning, because we can't stop defining everything as an RPG.

TFT as originally presented, the bit people keep ignoring, is a skirmish game. Car Wars is a board game. Both have RPG elements, yes. So there is crossover. And one even developed into a full fat RPG.

But that doesn't mean it was originally written as one.

This topic is a giant snake, forever eating its own tail. It has been for the 20 odd years I've been dabbling in RPG discussions. And I don't see any change on the horizon.

 

[AsenRG]

Yeah, while there is a minority of people that have argued Blades isn't, I think it's fair to say that view is a definite outlier.

Yeah, it might not be an immersive games (for some of us), but not an RPG? I wouldn't claim that.

 

[TristramEvans]

And now we're into big definitions territory. Too big to have any meaning, because we can't stop defining everything as an RPG.

Well, we started this thread acknowledging everyone has their own definitions, and it's futile to try and change that.

I don't think this as egregious an issue as all that. It's not like we have people claiming Snakes & Ladders or Magic:TG are RPGs.

TFT as originally presented,

Doesn't matter. All that matters is how it was presented when I started playing it. Technically the game that became D&D started as a Napoleonic wargame.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I think the only time it's necessary to explain the difference in the type of RPG you're running with players is when it's a distinct paradigm shift, not simply because a game includes one or two "Narrative mechanics".

A player group can transition from D&D to Ghostbusters to Paranoia to Pendragon, with no issue.

If you go from a traditional game like D&D to PbtA, or Smallville, or Fate, you're really going to need to explain that shit.

I think you're both understating the first and overstating the second, as far as new players are concerned.

Everything feels like a significant difference to them. Certainly, a shift from D&D's alignment to Pendragon's Personality Traits is going to have an impact with them.

On the flipside, because of that, the more meta differences aren't going to feel like something outside of that.

And you also get the complicating factor that newbies will frequently see GMing styles as something integral to the game they're playing.

 

[TristramEvans]

I think you're both understating the first and overstating the second, as far as new players are concerned.

Everything feels like a significant difference to them. Certainly, a shift from D&D's alignment to Pendragon's Personality Traits is going to have an impact with them.

On the flipside, because of that, the more meta differences aren't going to feel like something outside of that.

And you also get the complicating factor that newbies will frequently see GMing styles as something integral to the game they're playing.

I'm going by my own experience, starting out roleplaying the meta-notion of a mechanic being narrative or emulative/associated or disassociated in nature or purpose would have been lost on a childhood me, what I got from the different mechanics you mention - alignment, passions, etc. was simply methods of measuring aspects of reality. Different games focusing on different aspects of the game reality would measure/mechanize them differently. I understood this concept or caveat instantly. It wasn't the impact on gameplay that mattered as far as comprehension, it was identifying what was being measured and how that was being translated into a game mechanic. Now, it may be faulty logic to assume any universality on the part of my own experiences, regardless I find it likely that even someone only familiar up to that point with D&D can be exposed to Pendragon and immediately grasp, if not the specifics of the mechanic itself, What Passions represent and how they align to a model of reality in the context of an RPG.

 

[AsenRG]

I'm going by my own experience, starting out roleplaying the meta-notion of a mechanic being narrative or emulative/associated or disassociated in nature or purpose would have been lost on a childhood me, what I got from the different mechanics you mention - alignment, passions, etc. was simply methods of measuring aspects of reality. Different games focusing on different aspects of the game reality would measure/mechanize them differently. I understood this concept or caveat instantly. It wasn't the impact on gameplay that mattered as far as comprehension, it was identifying what was being measured and how that was being translated into a game mechanic. Now, it may be faulty logic to assume any universality on the part of my own experiences, regardless I find it likely that even someone only familiar up to that point with D&D can be exposed to Pendragon and immediately grasp, if not the specifics of the mechanic itself, What Passions represent and how they align to a model of reality in the context of an RPG.

I'm still holding to this assumption. Some games mechanics just suck at what they should be doing.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don’t know. My group played primarily D&D for years, with occasional forays into some similar games. When I brought PbtA and FitD games to them, it didn’t require significantly more explanation than any other new game.

Are there more differences going from D&D to Apocalypse World versus D&D to Call of Cthulhu? Probably, although I think these get exaggerated. I’d say most are obvious to the point of self evidence.

Honestly, I’ve noticed more of a struggle to deal with the minor changes across different editions of D&D....between years of 3.X, a short stint with 4E, years of Pathfinder, regular play of 5E, and now some OSR stuff, my group struggles more with things like exactly how the Sleep spell works, or exactly how to avoid an attack of opportunity, or how cover works in any given edition.

 

[Voros]

I don’t know. My group played primarily D&D for years, with occasional forays into some similar games. When I brought PbtA and FitD games to them, it didn’t require significantly more explanation than any other new game.

Are there more differences going from D&D to Apocalypse World versus D&D to Call of Cthulhu? Probably, although I think these get exaggerated. I’d say most are obvious to the point of self evidence.

Honestly, I’ve noticed more of a struggle to deal with the minor changes across different editions of D&D....between years of 3.X, a short stint with 4E, years of Pathfinder, regular play of 5E, and now some OSR stuff, my group struggles more with things like exactly how the Sleep spell works, or exactly how to avoid an attack of opportunity, or how cover works in any given edition.

Yeah I have a younger friend who games with her friends and is new to gaming and she had previously only played a bit of D&D but when she played AW she was quite taken by it and discussed it excitedly with me, she didn't seem thrown or confused by any of its mechanics or approach. One of the things she liked about PbtA was that it felt so much lighter and quicker than D&D.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah I have a younger friend who games with her friends and is new to gaming and she had previously only played a bit of D&D but when she played AW she was quite taken by it and discussed it excitedly with me, she didn't seem thrown or confused by any of its mechanics or approach. One of the things she liked about PbtA was that it felt so much lighter and quicker than D&D.

Right. Sometimes things are simply different, and that’s really all there is to it. People don’t automatically struggle with that and require deeper explanation.

I compared Life and Monopoly earlier. I don’t think there’s ever been someone who played Monopoly a ton of times who stared at the Life board saying “what do you mean you don’t go around again?!?!”

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Right. Sometimes things are simply different, and that’s really all there is to it. People don’t automatically struggle with that and require deeper explanation.

I compared Life and Monopoly earlier. I don’t think there’s ever been someone who played Monopoly a ton of times who stared at the Life board saying “what do you mean you don’t go around again?!?!”

Where things do need explanation I think it's generally about new concepts rather than mechanics.

Being able to add details to scenes in FATE is going to need explaining to someone who's only played D&D. But so is the PvP focus of Paranoia.

 

[Voros]

The very idea that it is some kind of issue that one rpg plays differently than another seems particular to experienced rpgers ironically, to new players as hawkeyefan says it is no more surprising than Pandemic playing differently than Memoir 44'.

 

[Stevethulhu]

Well, we started this thread acknowledging everyone has their own definitions, and it's futile to try and change that.

I don't think this as egregious an issue as all that. It's not like we have people claiming Snakes & Ladders or Magic:TG are RPGs.



Doesn't matter. All that matters is how it was presented when I started playing it. Technically the game that became D&D started as a Napoleonic wargame.

I don't recall any Napoleonic stuff in OD&D. And its been 25 years since I saw a copy, but I don't remember any Napoleonic era units in Chainmail.

The problem with everyone having their own definitions is, words matter. It is impossible to have a discussion between people who have contradictory meanings, not interpretations, actual meanings, for the same terms.

Which is where the snake eating its own tail comes in.

And if I say The Fantasy Trip wasn't published as an RPG, I'm not wrong. Even if it has evolved onto one.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Where things do need explanation I think it's generally about new concepts rather than mechanics.

Being able to add details to scenes in FATE is going to need explaining to someone who's only played D&D. But so is the PvP focus of Paranoia.

Yeah, for sure. You need to explain things that are specific to the new game, and you’ll also need to explain the processes for the new game.

But you’ll only have to explain how and why something in the new game is different from the old game if a specific player is so entrenched in the old one that they struggle with the difference. For most players, I don’t think that’s the case.

But that’s purely based on my limited experience and what I’ve gleaned from discussing online with others.

 

[robertsconley]

I didn't realize they used the The Fantasy Trip brand prior to the release of Into the Labyrinth/Adv Melee/Adv Wizard. From Dragon #12 released in Jan 1978.

 

[TristramEvans]

I don't recall any Napoleonic stuff in OD&D. And its been 25 years since I saw a copy, but I don't remember any Napoleonic era units in Chainmail.

I'm talking about Arneson's game.

The problem with everyone having their own definitions is, words matter. It is impossible to have a discussion between people who have contradictory meanings, not interpretations, actual meanings, for the same terms.

It's not, as long as everyone knows how the other person means the words they are using.

 

[robertsconley]

So after I found that advertisement I googled to see if Steve Jackson had any articles when Melee was released. The result pointed to me Space Game #12. When I saw the cover I went "Mmmm, that looks familiar". So I went into what I call my miscellaneous shelf and sure enough out of all the old issues of Space Gamer out there that was one I had bought back in the day.


So here is the article where Steve Jackson talks about The Fantasy Trip, Melee, and Wizard. Looks like it was conceived as components of a RPG from the get go.

View attachment 28789 View attachment 28791 View attachment 28792

 

[Voros]

So after I found that advertisement I googled to see if Steve Jackson had any articles when Melee was released. The result pointed to me Space Game #12. When I saw the cover I went "Mmmm, that looks familiar". So I went into what I call my miscellaneous shelf and sure enough out of all the old issues of Space Gamer out there that was one I had bought back in the day.
View attachment 28788

So here is the article where Steve Jackson talks about The Fantasy Trip, Melee, and Wizard. Looks like it was conceived as components of a RPG from the get go.

View attachment 28789 View attachment 28791 View attachment 28792

That was my vague recollection as well, thanks for confirming.

P.S. I think the latter attachments are not working.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

Yeah, for sure. You need to explain things that are specific to the new game, and you’ll also need to explain the processes for the new game.

But you’ll only have to explain how and why something in the new game is different from the old game if a specific player is so entrenched in the old one that they struggle with the difference. For most players, I don’t think that’s the case.

But that’s purely based on my limited experience and what I’ve gleaned from discussing online with others.

My experience is that new players tend to fall into two main groups.

They think all games are going to be like D&D.

They see each game as entirely its own thing.

I'd say they start to see commonalities when they have a bit of experience.

Notably, the fear that they'll all think it's going to be like Critical Role is one that I've never actually seen in real life. Never met a newbie who doesn't get that performances and games are going to be different at the table.

 

[TristramEvans]

Notably, the fear that they'll all think it's going to be like Critical Role is one that I've never actually seen in real life. Never met a newbie who doesn't get that performances and games are going to be different at the table.

Yeah, I remember a few years ago there was a mildly big panic about the theoretical somethingorother-Effect regarding Critical Role on the RPG forums, but it's not something I've ever encountered or heard a first person account of.

 

[Voros]

Yeah, I remember a few years ago there was a mildly big panic about the theoretical somethingorother-Effect regarding Critical Role on the RPG forums, but it's not something I've ever encountered or heard a first person account of.

In fact I have two real life examples of younger friends, one I already mentioned, who both got into rpgs after discovering CR and didn't seem anymore surprised that everyone at the table wasn't a semi-pro voice actor anymore than one forms a garage band with your mates and are shocked that Steve on the guitar isn't Robert Fripp.

 

[hawkeyefan]

My experience is that new players tend to fall into two main groups.

They think all games are going to be like D&D.

I had one player for whom this was true, but I don’t know if I’d call him a new gamer. He’d been playing for years....but he had only ever played D&D. So he was new to other games, but not a new gamer in the overall sense.

So when i introduced Blades in the Dark to my group, I had that player who was only familiar with only D&D, a newish player who had played Pathfinder for a little over a year, and then three other players who had experience similar to my own. The D&D only guy was the only one who struggled in any way. The newer player was absolutely fine. The other experienced guys noticed the differences, but didn’t struggle with them.

And the D&D only guy wasn’t hopelessly lost or anything, he’d just very often default to his habits. He’d say what action he wanted to take and then just roll dice before I set Position and Effect and things like that.

Ultimately everyone took to the game, and since then some others, but he just took the longest to get used to certain things.

 

[robertsconley]

That was my vague recollection as well, thanks for confirming.

P.S. I think the latter attachments are not working.

Dang it. Here it is again.

 

[Voros]

Thanks Rob, I thought I remembered SJ saying TFT was his attempt to create a comprehensible ruleset compared to OD&D. That implication is right there in the second paragraph.

PS. Did RIVETS ever get a release?

 

[ffilz]

The "written as" test doesn't work very well as that would exclude OD&D. Another test would be "experienced as," where Melee and Wizard despite being the initial modules of an RPG seemed to be experienced by most as skirmish war games. But then The Fantasy Trip would not be an RPG until In the Labyrinth despite the author's intent. Of course author's intent doesn't work either because there are games labeled as RPGs that most of us here would not categorize as such.

The only real test I can think of that maybe works across the field is if the game play is "describe an action as if you were the character" and then the GM describes what happens, possibly calling for or making dice rolls. There may be a handful of GMless games where the table or the player to the left or whatever fills that GM role that maybe can still qualify as an RPG. - I haven't played any of those so I can't say if any really do qualify. I have watched a demo of Universalis, and that's an example that for me DOES NOT fit as an RPG, it's an "almost RPG" game, which is where I came to like Story Game as a larger umbrella, clearly Universalis shares a lot with RPGs but is definitely something different. Dogs in the Vinyard which is another "story game" that some might label "not an RPG" which does have a GM still doesn't quite have the "describe an action as if you were the character" within it's conflict resolution system. If the GM doesn't invoke the conflict resolution system, it definitely is "describe an action" and the GM responds. My feeling is that DitV really stretches the boundary of RPG but still is an RPG.

But despite being labeled a miniatures game, I definitely perceived OD&D as something different when I first saw it. I was deciding how to spend my ten bucks, choosing between Tractics and OD&D. I skimmed through both at the hobby store, and in the end, decided OD&D wasn't a miniatures game and wasn't something I wanted to play. In fact, when my best friend got Holmes Basic D&D for his birthday, I still wasn't interested, though I offered to be referee and read the rules while my friend was dungeon master (we were somewhat confused by the concepts despite my friend's older brother having played OD&D and giving us some tips). By the next morning (I stayed up all night reading and re-reading the book) I had come to the conclusion this was a new type of game, not a war game, but something I could really get into. And I was hooked.

The trouble I have is that I could never express exactly what it was that made D&D different from war games other than it clearly had to do with the open ended imaginative play but all the various descriptions never quite worked for me. And I think this is why we all have different ideas of what is and is not an RPG, and what might be an "almost RPG" depending on exactly what aspects of the game play really hooked us.

 

[ffilz]

Thanks Rob, I thought I remembered SJ saying TFT was his attempt to create a comprehensible ruleset compared to OD&D. That implication is right there in the second paragraph.

PS. Did RIVETS ever get a release?

Rivets

Tactical sci-fi simulation of 'build your own' robotical warfare in the 22nd century.

boardgamegeek.com

 

[Trippy]

I think the only time it's necessary to explain the difference in the type of RPG you're running with players is when it's a distinct paradigm shift, not simply because a game includes one or two "Narrative mechanics".

A player group can transition from D&D to Ghostbusters to Paranoia to Pendragon, with no issue.

If you go from a traditional game like D&D to PbtA, or Smallville, or Fate, you're really going to need to explain that shit.

I totally disagree with this notion, from personal experience. Explaining Fate or PbTA to a group from D&D is no different from explaining a new game like Paranoia or Pendragon. They have different conventions in all cases, but they all involve the same fundamental approach to playing. That is, they all have GMs, they all involve rolling dice to adjudicate outcomes and they all involve playing roles of individual characters. The rest of the distinctions are as complicated as you make them - to state that they are an entirely different category of game is...bollocks.

 

[TristramEvans]

to state that they are an entirely different category of game is...bollocks.

New D&D player: how does this work?
DM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens

New Pendragon player: how does this work?
GM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens

New Paranoia player: how does this work?
GM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens

New WEG Star Wars player: how does this work?
GM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens

New White Wolf player: how does this work?
GM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens



New Fate player: how does this work?
(How do you answer this?)

 

[chuckdee]

New Fate player: how does this work?
(How do you answer this?)

Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens.

(And I say this just having done this with a new player)

 

[TristramEvans]

Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens.

(And I say this just having done this with a new player)

We both know that's not really how Fate is played.

Invoking Aspects, Rerolls, Compels, Refusing Compels, Activating Stunts, Narrative Editting...there is no skirting around the Fate point economy is a completely different paradigm of play, a different way that players must engage with the rules.

I just really don't think it should be controversial statement to acknowledge that certain games are significant shifts from the traditional set up of play for RPGs, and, depending on the experience of players across the hobby, more extreme shifts are going to require more elaborate explanations. I don't even think this has anythig to do with the Storygame vs Narrative vs Traditional RPG debate, except for those who want to draw a box around one specific group and say "this is the entirety of RPGs". I just think the opposite of that, denying that there are obviously different categories of games, as Trippy does obove, is equally divisive and prevents useful communication.

 

[Trippy]

New D&D player: how does this work?
DM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens

New Pendragon player: how does this work?
GM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens

New Paranoia player: how does this work?
GM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens

New WEG Star Wars player: how does this work?
GM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens

New White Wolf player: how does this work?
GM: Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you when you need to roll the dice and what happens



New Fate player: how does this work?
(How do you answer this?)

Pretty much as with the others - because that is what you generally do still. Yes there are Aspects to explain as well, but this is no more complicated than explaining how Pendragon’s Personality traits work. It’s just a particular convention in the game that characterises it. You will note that the newest version of Paranoia is a ’narrative’ game anyway.

In any case, there is simply not the distinction - especially to newbie players - that marks them out as being a separate type of game.