fredrix
Master Douchebag
Posts: 2,142
Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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hjrp12-15
Aug 28, 2014 21:53:14 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by fredrix on Aug 28, 2014 21:53:14 GMT -8
Excellent link. Not just the movie, but also the text beneath it.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Aug 29, 2014 2:17:44 GMT -8
The roleplaying is often just a thin veneer over it. Also, the game mechanic takes place on a narrative meta-level above the game world, so I felt it hindered immersion. Would you explain this to me please? (I often ask for explanations/definitions on the forums here, which gets me into trouble.) The way I read this description, how it speaks to my experience, is that the players are not engaged in the story. Players roll dice, meta-game their way through a system, and then rationalize everything that happened into a game. [And, important to note, while your comment was about a specific system in play I am not talking about any one system – I am asking about what you’re describing in language.] An example of the role-playing your words bring to my mind: Chess. The game is won by the White chess pieces. During the game the white knight took the bishop and the queen but was sacrificed to the king, which drew the piece into Checkmate. The story the players rationalize. The good knight exposed an affair between the bishop and the queen, which led to their imprisonment and the king failed to enforce the rule of law leading to his downfall at the hands of the other nobility after the knight was quietly disposed of. I have played in games like this, where role-playing was a dictation rather than part of the game interaction, with players who believe this is how-to role-play. This is what I am defining from reading “meta-level above the game.” It is mechanically calling out “ Knight to Queen 4” during the game. Rather than being an "immersive experience brought on by the mechanics/system," it keeps me at table length from role-playing fun. And, literally having people’s back stories read aloud by individual players (rather than have them emerge when a pack of ninjas drop down on the party with the player playing the young prince fleeing his country) and the GM tell us we find a ledger and from this ledger we know the conspiracy of the kingdom and knowing the conspiracy of the kingdom we know who is right and who is wrong (rather than finding a ledger with a clue that we can puzzle over until we find more and more explicit clues to build a body of evidence through the story and our active player engagement). This is what your sentence calls to my mind. But I thought I would find out what you actually meant. Chances are I am not the only person who might benefit from understanding this here. Also you mention a "thin veneer of role-playing." I wonder if you could give me an example of that, please?
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Aug 29, 2014 6:20:59 GMT -8
An example of the role-playing your words bring to my mind: Chess. The game is won by the White chess pieces. During the game the white knight took the bishop and the queen but was sacrificed to the king, which drew the piece into Checkmate. The story the players rationalize. The good knight exposed an affair between the bishop and the queen, which led to their imprisonment and the king failed to enforce the rule of law leading to his downfall at the hands of the other nobility after the knight was quietly disposed of. If I can jump in here--not trying to usurp yeknom02's explanation, which I'm sure he will give us, but just to contribute my interpretation of the terms--I suspect what you are describing in your chess example is more like yeknom02's "thin veneer of roleplaying." In other words, the players are really thinking about the game in mechanical terms, trying to gain the most advantage for their PCs (= white knight takes queen and bishop because it will help win the game), and then retroactively justifying those advantageous actions in the story. ("I go tell the king about the queen and bishop's affair--uh, because I'm really shocked at such goings-on!"--when the player is really thinking, "I'll get lots of experience points and maybe a nice magic item if I do this!") I can't deny that a lot of people play D&D that way, but I reject the hypothesis that the rules of D&D cause them to play that way. I'm off this weekend to run a game of D&D 3.5 for some of my friends who don't, for example. As for the "narrative meta-level," my understanding of that is that players approach the game as if they were the authors of a novel, looking at the whole thing from the outside and moving the characters in whatever direction would lead to the best/most dramatic story. This is contrasted with an immersive approach, which would have the players identifying directly with their characters and approaching the story from inside. In the court intrigue example, the immersed player might think, "I'm so upset about the queen and bishop's affair! Should I tell the king or confront them myself?" The narrative player might think, "I [the knight] am really upset about the queen and bishop's affair! I could confront them myself, but I [the player] think that telling the king will have more interesting possibilities for future complications." (I think that sort of slippage between I-the-character and I-the-player is typical for this approach.)
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
Posts: 2,142
Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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Post by fredrix on Aug 29, 2014 8:54:41 GMT -8
And jumping in myself, yeknom02 wasn't talking about D&D but rather Fate. And yes there can be an interpretation of the rules for a player to say "I roll to 'create an advantage'... success! OK I get plus two on my next roll". But as you say, kaitoujuliet, D&D can be played the same way. And a decent GM will be able to guide a group into saying "I sneak round to get behind him" which would have the same mechanical effect.
Yeknom02's concerns are valid though, I find that my players can fall into the former mode more easily in Fate than, say, the similar Cortex Plus system...
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Post by yeknom on Aug 29, 2014 9:27:09 GMT -8
The "thin veneer of role-playing" concept (which was re: D&D/PF) was well-explained by kaitoujuliet by the chess analogy. It is far too easy to focus on the mathematics/statistics game that comprises the mechanics of the game. These mechanics are often where the bulk of substance is for all the games of D&D that I've seen, and role-playing is therefore a thin facade on top of what is essentially a numbers game. GURPS takes the reverse approach of imagining the situations first, then describing such situations by means of a simple mechanic. Of course not everyone's D&D game has to be so light on the role-playing, but I think the nature of the game really lends itself to that mentality. Regarding Fate, kaitoujuliet is again able to make my point better than I can. In most other systems, the players are making decisions while taking on the mindset of their particular characters. What Fate does is to ask the players to remove themselves from that first-person immersive mentality to instead influence the story and setting around the characters. In more common terms, the "fourth wall" is often broken in Fate, as opposed to rarely, if ever, broken in a system like GURPS. Perhaps this is best illustrated by Fate's mechanic of spending a Fate Point to "declare a story detail." (E.g., "Because [pick a character aspect], my character would have brought the appropriate equipment that he or she now needs to accomplish this task.") The GM and player can even negotiate, reaching an agreement as to how best to implement this. That's all well and good, but immersion in the story is out the window by that point. In extreme cases, it would feel like everyone at the table is simply co-authoring a novel as opposed to letting themselves get lost in a fictional world. I think the show was recently talking about the Leverage RPG (haven't played it, but I loved the TV show). I think they said there is a lot of retconning in this fashion that is built into the game mechanics. Wasn't that a Cortex Plus game? (Sorry, too lazy to research) Anyway, I think GURPS lends itself well to immersion, because whenever mechanics are called, the roll is nearly always the same, and the TN is right on the character sheet, so every invocation of the mechanics (which takes the player out of the immersive state) should take all of 3 seconds or so. For the moment, my combat is far less immersive because I am still constantly looking up some of the basic combat rules. My main goal is to get enough practice under my belt so that I can blow through combat rounds faster and faster. They are supposed to represent one-second increments, after all.
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
Posts: 2,142
Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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hjrp12-15
Aug 29, 2014 10:05:51 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by fredrix on Aug 29, 2014 10:05:51 GMT -8
Yup. Leverage is Cortex Plus, indeed it was (IIRC) the first Cortex Plus game. Or now I've typed it, I'm think maybe that was Smallville. Anyhow I know Fred Hicks of Fate fame, was involved in Leverage. I'd argue though that the mechanic example you give (fate/plot point) for a piece of equipment I'd surely have bought is no less immersive than checking the list on my character sheet to see that I have brought it with me.., Of course, Cortex Plus makes that the game isn't about living the life of [Space Cowboys/Grifters/youthful proto super-heroes] but creating episodes of a TV show. It's still role-playing, I'd argue ...
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Aug 29, 2014 11:12:44 GMT -8
Thanks kaitoujuliet & yeknom for that clarifying elucidation. Spending a “ plot point” certainly sounds like an activity of players co-authoring a story rather than a game. So what you’re saying is that the game (I use the term loosely at this point because the risk criterion required to define game is not visible to me) is about Players acting like Greek gods, manipulating the player’s characters to suit whatever political intrigue the gods are up to at that point. Immersive would be the player being the soul of the player’s characters, living within and responding in first person, as it were. I am of the same opinion as kaitoujuliet about matters of system – players can trump that – assuming the system is supposed to be a game (1- voluntary; 2- fun; 3- risk). But I have another question, this time about GURPS. Stu Venable has suggested on the podcast that a GURPS player will be more compliant to the thin veneer of role-play in GURPS. The suggestion is made by the parable of the player pursuing the bad guy holding a hostage on a rooftop, with the confrontation revealing the presence of at least one sniper with a laser scope. The point was made that GURPS is so deadly that a headshot would most probably end the player’s character instantly so the player hesitates and the bad guy gets away. That cuts both ways though right? Is it totally unreasonable to expect that the player will risk everything to get the bad guy including risking a headshot? To put it into your words, this sounds very D&D with regards to mechanics knowledge.
As a FATE Greek god I could ask my Dirty Harry to do one thing (e.g. if I want to play Magnum Force activity) and I could ask my Jack Cates to do another (e.g. if I am performing a 48 hours script). But the FATE activity is not going to trump the risk of a GURPS game. But I am still left with the impression the player agency can be manipulated by his or her knowledge of the mechanics.
As a player I am left with a quiet moment to ask myself: Do I feel lucky, punk? My character really has no such gut-check because his (or her) time is down to the split-second. The odds may be against a perfect outcome but how many real people, even the people on this forum, always go with the odds?
So I am not seeing a demarcation of immersion between GURPS play and D&D. Can you give me one, please?
I live in a “perfect” game world so I may be a bit obtuse here. Players know what their characters know in my games, using a “player handbook” knowledge tuned in to the theme of the game, but do not know the system down to the mapped genome (unless they play allot in my game). My players are system blind in other words so there is no loss of wonder to a veneer of role-playing: each is immersed feeling his or her character’s emotions and acting on them. I break with many role-players because I do not feel players who do not know all the rules are dead weight to the game group or otherwise disrespect or betray the other players; and anyone can play at my table, particularly those new-to-hobby.
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Post by yeknom on Aug 29, 2014 15:46:45 GMT -8
CreativeCowboy, Don't forget that I brought up two separate issues I found with two separate games. The "lack of immersion" problem was limited to my experience with Fate, while the painting-roleplaying-on-top-of-dice-mechanics was a problem I've seen regarding D&D/Pathfinder. This second case is a bit more complicated than a simple "immersion" problem. Both D&D and GURPS are indeed more immersive (again, in my experience) than Fate, due to the mechanics. However, my theory is that the difference in feel of these two games (now only talking about D&D vs. GURPS) is dependent on the differences in the way these games treat their rules. And brace yourself, because I have only been thinking about this recently. (Side note: many will point out that D&D is based on a roll of 1d20, whereas GURPS is based on a roll of 3d6. It is interesting to study how these two rolls differ in terms of statistical probabilities, but I think that my point is not a result of the dice rolls themselves.) D&D starts off with a common set of rules—things like attribute bonuses, skills, attack rolls, and armor class. These all determine a player’s chances of success when attempting actions, both in and out of combat. Then, game aspects such as feats and class abilities are introduced upon character advancement as methods of changing (or breaking) how those basic rules operate. Armor classes get bonuses, certain combat restrictions no longer apply, and so forth. So in essence, the more successful you are trying make a D&D character, the more you are using the rules to change and break the very rules of the game you started off with (i.e., the rules for 1st-level PCs without classes.) This is why I need a laptop open to play my Pathfinder game - there is no other way for me to keep track of all the different abilities and powers that I have activated at any given time without forgetting some special bonus. As a result, this complex tracking of post-basic-level rules tends to steal focus from role-playing. There are exceptions, of course, but that is just an observation that I have noticed. Now, one could argue that GURPS has the same problem. After all, there are tons of modifiers that can come up. However, the system is such that most often, when a situation arises (e.g., “I want to shoot him in the head”), those modifiers are usually determined by the GM. Yes, that is a lot of work. But the good GM knows the most common modifiers (like head shot rules) by heart. The player often doesn’t have to know what particular equations are involved. I guess in summary, these are my observations based on the games I’ve played: In D&D, the players are keeping track of their own plethora of powers and abilities, which are really just special ways to break the rules to their character’s advantage. In GURPS, the players typically decide on the action they want their characters to take and rely on the GM’s knowledge of the rules to determine an appropriate modifier. Since there is less for the player to keep track of, players are typically more engaged and creative, thinking outside the box. It sounds like you run a game in which the players have no working knowledge of most of the game system. If that is correct, then you likely are playing a game that is much like my GURPS game, but with a different system. Perhaps mechanics-ignorance (on the part of the players) is the way to go!
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Post by joecrak on Aug 29, 2014 22:04:07 GMT -8
The "thin veneer of role-playing" concept (which was re: D&D/PF) was well-explained by kaitoujuliet by the chess analogy. It is far too easy to focus on the mathematics/statistics game that comprises the mechanics of the game. These mechanics are often where the bulk of substance is for all the games of D&D that I've seen, and role-playing is therefore a thin facade on top of what is essentially a numbers game. GURPS takes the reverse approach of imagining the situations first, then describing such situations by means of a simple mechanic. Of course not everyone's D&D game has to be so light on the role-playing, but I think the nature of the game really lends itself to that mentality. Regarding Fate, kaitoujuliet is again able to make my point better than I can. In most other systems, the players are making decisions while taking on the mindset of their particular characters. What Fate does is to ask the players to remove themselves from that first-person immersive mentality to instead influence the story and setting around the characters. In more common terms, the "fourth wall" is often broken in Fate, as opposed to rarely, if ever, broken in a system like GURPS. Perhaps this is best illustrated by Fate's mechanic of spending a Fate Point to "declare a story detail." (E.g., "Because [pick a character aspect], my character would have brought the appropriate equipment that he or she now needs to accomplish this task.") The GM and player can even negotiate, reaching an agreement as to how best to implement this. That's all well and good, but immersion in the story is out the window by that point. In extreme cases, it would feel like everyone at the table is simply co-authoring a novel as opposed to letting themselves get lost in a fictional world. I think the show was recently talking about the Leverage RPG (haven't played it, but I loved the TV show). I think they said there is a lot of retconning in this fashion that is built into the game mechanics. Wasn't that a Cortex Plus game? (Sorry, too lazy to research) Anyway, I think GURPS lends itself well to immersion, because whenever mechanics are called, the roll is nearly always the same, and the TN is right on the character sheet, so every invocation of the mechanics (which takes the player out of the immersive state) should take all of 3 seconds or so. For the moment, my combat is far less immersive because I am still constantly looking up some of the basic combat rules. My main goal is to get enough practice under my belt so that I can blow through combat rounds faster and faster. They are supposed to represent one-second increments, after all. I find this all interesting, because that is because of these aspects of FATE, that my friends and I, are all able to immerse ourselves more so. We are both playing our character, and helping create a better story at the same point. A Recent example that comes ti mind creating an advantage was when i was playing a game based off of "Tarzan at the Earth's Core" And I was playing Tarzan. He has a bunch of stunts, and just looking at them, I was able to easily tie them into the story IC. Like, "Strong but Nimble" gives him a bonus to creating advantages in hand-to-hand combat. I played that off as tearing into the Frog Men like an ape, digging claws into their soft joints as my teeth tear into their foreheads, the blood running into their eyes. The goal and result was creating a blinded advantage that others could tag. But I see your point in regards to the Pay a token, and tag an aspect, but make sure it makes sense. To me it's better, because I no longer need to keep track of an inventory or junk. The GM Player Negotiation point is a fair one. Because It's most definitely not IC, but since it serves to tell a better, more interesting story, I love it. GM: "In the Valley Below is a massive horde of great giant Lizard Beasts! But You're Tarzan? You have No Fear of the Unknown! You see no reason why not to cut a path down that Valley" Offers FATE chip to go through the valley, Which I wanted to do anyway, so hell yes I accept. Then there's my friend in the same game, whose entire goal that morning was to Punch a Dinosaur in the face, and impress the Jungle Woman. And he spent 6 FATE chips to pull it off. And the entire table cheered.
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Post by ayslyn on Aug 29, 2014 23:34:28 GMT -8
Alright... I'll bite...
Just how is popping a fate point to invoke an aspect or add a detail any more 4th wall breaking than asking for a skill check in GURPS? Honestly...
Also, why is it bad to invoke the mechanics of the game at all? If we didn't want to use them, we would all just sit in a circle and pass a story stick around.
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d47
Journeyman Douchebag
RPG of Choice: Metagaming Melee
Posts: 194
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Post by d47 on Aug 29, 2014 23:50:42 GMT -8
Great summary of what Hitchcock meant by it. The characters care about it, but the audience does not. In an RPG, though, the audience is usually not relevant, but the players who play the characters are. Although the use of "MacGuffin" in the Happy Jacks discussion might broaden the definition slightly, the idea that it is something "important" for reasons that need not be detailed is the same. Hitchcock's examples include military intelligence and weapons, though, so clearly even by his definition a MacGuffin could have some practical use.Many adventure hooks are based on going after something just to get the characters into sticky (and entertaining) situations. Actually, in old school murder hobo style roleplaying, "treasure" is a common MacGuffin used to justify characters going into unsafe situations. The treasure might be useful, like XP, to "improve" characters, but it is not itself a major motivation for the players who play the game.
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
Posts: 2,142
Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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hjrp12-15
Aug 30, 2014 0:06:24 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by fredrix on Aug 30, 2014 0:06:24 GMT -8
Actually I've been holding back but I have to interject again. CC seems (again) to display a preference for players who don't know the rules. Which is cool - and I have no problem with it, I fact I might return to that subject later. But the contention shared by CC and yek, is that rules ignorance, and/or in yek's case, GURPS, allow more immersion in the game, rather than, as CC puts it a "Greek god" controlling avatars.
This is of course nonsense.
We none of us would be playing any of these games if they didn't immerse us. Immersion in something you don't have to do is pretty much the definition of "play". CC seems to be searching for some platonic ideal of role playing which is about as far removed from chess as it's possible to be. As of course we've all experienced (and enjoyed) that sort if role playing. Even non gamers used to enjoy it, when we were five, six, seven, eight, nine we'd just say "let's pretend" and we were off - for me it was making house with my next door neighbour, playing "territories" with my best friend John Allen, superheroes with my cousins, or "war" in the schoolyard. And yes we had a ball, and yes we were immersed in our characters and in the game. But sometimes someone would cry "it's not fair" and end the game. And as we got older, people would say "if you can do this, why can't I do that" and the game would descend into argument (or polite discussion).
And as we all got older most of our friends stopped playing "let's pretend" and started playing games with rules - stinger (which I think is like dodgeball), soccer and yes, even chess.
But some of us carried on and found rule sets of our own, that let us carry on playing without arguing. (And least only arguing rarely).
Now I don't mind players expressing their preference for one rule system over another, but let's not pretend any of them are that much closer to CCs platonic ideal than any other. They approach the challenge in different ways.
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Post by HourEleven on Aug 30, 2014 7:56:30 GMT -8
Just how is popping a fate point to invoke an aspect or add a detail any more 4th wall breaking than asking for a skill check in GURPS? Honestly... Not that I agree or disagree (I've seen it go both ways in practice) but the argument goes a little like this: In FateC the story and the mechanics are meshed. If you privilege the story, it's great because the mechanics are so intertwined they just follow along (the versatility of pretty much being able to conjur up any of Gurps 100 pages of advantages - and more - with a system as clean and simple as aspects). However, if you privilege the rules over the story, the story becomes the rule's bitch. For example, in Gurps (I'm a Gurps GM so I'm going to keep using it) if you suddenly realized that the BBEG was standing on a pile of oily hay (probably because you asked the GM about the crashed car and the barn you are fighting in) and you wanted to light the fire, there's no skill check for using a lighter. You narrate that you light it (then mechanics kick in when the GM calculates burning damage) Fate has mechanics that provide all of this. Instead of asking the GM if that car leaked fluids onto the hay floor, you can use in game mechanics to make it so. Likewise you can use those mechanics to light the fire and provide a mechanical advantage to your comrades throughout the scene (fire becomes an entity in the story, it can function like a character now). Stitching the mechanics and the story together at such a deep level is great for creating imaginative moments that aren't "I hit him" "he hits you." But if you lead with the rules first, everyone is only making story happen for the mechanical benefits of it not because it's cool. Or at least that's how the argument goes. I've seen groups do this, so it's not an empty argument. I'd say most fate groups aren't like it, but it's a flaw in the system. No system is power gamer resistant, but power gaming in FateC is story manipulating and that rubs the RPers the wrong way. I hope that made sense. There's about a thousand pages of forum posts out there from naval gazing philosophizing to frothing slobber rage.
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Post by ayslyn on Aug 30, 2014 9:11:45 GMT -8
Sorry... That was a rhetorical question, mostly.... I understand the argument. It's a load of BS.
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Post by Kainguru on Aug 30, 2014 12:52:47 GMT -8
Actually I've been holding back but I have to interject again. CC seems (again) to display a preference for players who don't know the rules. Which is cool - and I have no problem with it, I fact I might return to that subject later. But the contention shared by CC and yek, is that rules ignorance, and/or in yek's case, GURPS, allow more immersion in the game, rather than, as CC puts it a "Greek god" controlling avatars. This is of course nonsense. We none of us would be playing any of these games if they didn't immerse us. Immersion in something you don't have to do is pretty much the definition of "play". CC seems to be searching for some platonic ideal of role playing which is about as far removed from chess as it's possible to be. As of course we've all experienced (and enjoyed) that sort if role playing. Even non gamers used to enjoy it, when we were five, six, seven, eight, nine we'd just say "let's pretend" and we were off - for me it was making house with my next door neighbour, playing "territories" with my best friend John Allen, superheroes with my cousins, or "war" in the schoolyard. And yes we had a ball, and yes we were immersed in our characters and in the game. But sometimes someone would cry "it's not fair" and end the game. And as we got older, people would say "if you can do this, why can't I do that" and the game would descend into argument (or polite discussion). And as we all got older most of our friends stopped playing "let's pretend" and started playing games with rules - stinger (which I think is like dodgeball), soccer and yes, even chess. But some of us carried on and found rule sets of our own, that let us carry on playing without arguing. (And least only arguing rarely). Now I don't mind players expressing their preference for one rule system over another, but let's not pretend any of them are that much closer to CCs platonic ideal than any other. They approach the challenge in different ways. The clues lies in the vernacular: a 'Role Playing Game' without the 'Game' is just 'Role Playing'. Which is a 'thing' and exactly as described with only one omission, many adults continue to 'Role Play' in a manner normal prefaced with the explanatory qualifier to an unexpected audience of younglings: "Mummy and Daddy love each other very much and have for a very long time, sometimes Mummy and Daddy need to make things more interesting like when you love vanilla ice cream but sometimes it's nice to have hundreds and thousands sprinkled on it . . . now wait outside until Mummy and Daddy have dressed . . . into their normal clothes . . ." Aaron
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