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Let me put it this way; role playing games evolved from wargames, just as humans did from monkeys. (if you choose to think that way, of course.) And, like humans and monkeys, they are not the same thing.

I'm not sure if it was editted out or forgotten but there is an introduction to this piece which goes a little something like this:

"I'm disgusted. I'm sick. How has it gotten this bad?

Read the rules, roam the boards, visit the games and it's all the same: Acting has replaced gaming in RPGs. Players are discouraged from studying the gamebooks; knowing about common monsters or enemies is disparaged under the derogatory term of "meta-gaming." Instead, characters should stare in wonder at the story and atmosphere that the Gamemaster creates, then blunder and stumble through the adventure. As long as they blunder and stumble using flowery language, Gamemasters reward them..."

The less combat in a game and the more roleplaying, the happier I am. If I want to play a game where winning is important, I will get out my copy of Diablo 2 and I will slaughter monsters to my hearts content there. When I play RPGs, I'm more interested in things like STORY and CHARACTER INTERACTION. That's the stuff that's truly fun. Combat is just an aside. And heck, most of my characters are more likely to run from a fight than actually help. If you think roleplaying should be secondary, why the hell are you playing a ROLEPLAYING game? Geez. Some people...

Story and character interaction are great. I love those and I think that most people do.

If a game is all story and character interaction, my rant (mostly) does not apply. My rant does not say, "Your game should be all combat." My rant says, "If the game has combat, players should do everything to be victorous. They should not sabotage themselves or the rest of the party and then cop the "roleplaying made me do it" excuse."

Why are people so opposed to being good at tactics? Can't a
person roleplay _and_ be good at tactics at the same time?

While Yonjuuni may be being facetious, that's where I draw the line between "acting" and "roleplaying". It isn't a game, anymore; it is just acting. (And acting can be fun. That's why community theaters exist.)

I realize that I'm swimming against the tide here.

When I first joined the game, players could recite statistics from the Monster Manual from memory. But, if you'd ask them, "But who is your PC?", he wouldn't get it and would just say, "A w22nd level fighter."

Now, it is different. Now, players can recite their PCs likes and dislikes from memory. But, if you ask them, "What spells does your PC have?", he replies, "I forget. But methinks that I will buy some candy for the local children."

Oh, well.

I fail to see how 'acting' detracts from the game aspect. Very many RPGs start off with an explanation of roleplaying in which it's compared to the games of make believe that we played as children. GAMES. RPGs are a more advanced version of these games, and are still a GAME, no matter if you intentionally handicap your character against a narrow definition of 'winning'. If you ask me, you're missing out on the main point of RPGs by focussing on killing the monsters as first and foremost. You might as well go back to playing wargames or videogames, if that's your main objective.

This is an interesting, thought provoking discussion.
Firstly let me say this, I don't find roleplaying GAMES that interesting. Not as interesting as I find Wargames, CCG's, Computer Games or even board games.

I mean, why the riddle the GM thinks up might be innately clever, perhaps I myself can't figure it out because I don't understand how a character thinks. Yet perhaps I am playing an uber intelligent mage who SHOULD be able to figure out the riddle. The second the game calls for ME, the PLAYER to figure out the riddle, and I can't, the illusion is ruined. The GAME is to figure out the riddle, but this GAME does not suit my ROLE as 'uber riddle solver'.

Equally, the 'rules' and 'purpose' of the game are often vague. Perhaps we are paid to save the town versus monsters. How do we save the town? Well, anyway we want because the non linear systems roleplaying games incorporate ALLOW us to try any way, but if the way we try doesn't suit the GM then we will have a rushed, half finished conflict to play through, like playing through the alpha of a computer game.

Some fantastic GM's might come up with something tactically challenging and suitable on the spot. Most won't, and really I don't think we should expect them to.

Of course, this doesn't mean there isn't room in the genre for tactical play and lateral problem solving within the confines of a linear environment, after all that's the entire 'dungeon' premise.

If you can only go down, and you know there is only one way in and out of a dungeon, then you know you have a relatively linear journey. In this case solving the problems withthe abilities of those at hand, in a tactical manner is vital AND logical. The bonus here is that a good GM can set up such linear problems to fairly test the ability of ALL those at hand, both as individuals and as a group. The PC's will face problems and riddles which are solveable, and monsters which are beatable, if they work together as a team and maximise their abilities, as that is how the GM intended it to play out.

Playing a bonehead character does not make for an excuse to be boneheaded about what you can and can't do.
However, in many cases it's up to the GM to decide how much information the character should have for the player to go on. If a player knows the names of spells and arcane lore, and the character does not, should the GM recite them to the other players and their characters who do in that players presence? Or should the GM simple state: "The warlock begins to rattle off seemingless meaningless words in an arcane tongue" while passing notes to the wizards letting them in on the secrets?

Out of character knowledge has always been a sticky subject for roleplaying games, and the ability to interpret how much your character should be able to achieve, how much they should know, and how much they should percieve when you already have a god like and encyclopaedic knowledge of the game world is quite a complex matter.

So what it really comes down to is the confines of the game set out by a GM.

In short, is the GM saying to you: You as players have been given these characters in this situation, utilise all your skill, cunning and ability to allow these players to succeed in the following quest.

Or

Your characters have been given a task, attempt to complete that task as you imagine your characters would.

Now, if the GM asks of you the first, you know you are fairly safe. The task can not be impossible, no matter how difficult, and there are clear boundaries as to what the GM expects you to do. Those boundaries are to use your best assets in game.

In real life we often don't even know what our best assets are in any given situation, so we fall back on habit, personality, outlook and beliefs to see us through. Sometimes we fail because of this, and in hindsight we may know there is something we could have done differently, but before hand we do not have the knowledge or wisdom to figure this out. When we roleplay like this we have to trust the GM to provide an entertaining story without the vagaries of the mundane getting in the way. We should have some sense of fate, because if we do not we are merely walking blind and poorly equipped, at the mercy of a GM who is trying to challenge us with tasks that our characters have no reason nor right to succeed in.

It is inexcuseable to not know how your character works in the game world, because that is missing the most basic aspect of human behaviour, their ability to ascertain their surroundings. Just as things look and act differently on the moon, so they should in our games, but as our characters grew up in those games they TOO should know the basics of the world mechanics. Just because they may not have seen a certain type of monster before, doesn't mean they won't understand roughly how difficult it is to kill, I mean unless it is somehow misleading in it's nature (chameleonic or disguised) then their basic sensory perception should give them a reasonably accurate guess.

Additionally, just growing up in a world will often impart you with basic knowledge that you may not realise your character has. In the case of a troll, maybe you have never seen one before, but if adventuring is at all common, and trolls are relatively common foes, then surely you would have heard the nursery rhyme:
Trolls are big and green and got no brains,
And never get hurt or feel no pain,
Unless you set their skin alight,
Then you'll be ready for a fight.

Or whatever.

So while excessive use of OOC knowledge is a bad sign of roleplaying, underestimating what is common sense, parochial knowledge or basic understanding of world principles in the alternate world you are playing in as equally bad an offense.

Now, of course a good GM can always turn this against you. For example, again, say a very low intelligence/wisdom low level fighter comes up against a troll, having never actually seen one before. The player knows to use fire, and could justifiably use an explanation like the above to turn out of character knowledge to in character knowledge. But the GM is uncomfortable with this, so asks the player to make a test against his intelligence/wisdom. If he passes he gets to use the out of game knowledge, having succesfully remebered the rhyme. If he fails perhaps the GM will say it takes a while to remember, and lower his initiative for the round or some other penalty to indicate the player couldn't instantly remember what to do. If he critically fails perhaps the character gets it completely backwards, and the GM suggests that his character believes that water, rather than fire, should do the trick.

In this case the character will be roleplaying his solution, but the GAME will dictate it's accuracy.

Does that sound like an appropriate middle ground, rather than the player simply saying "Yeah, but my character is too dumb to know that" and promptly getting killed, or alternatively a nazi GM saying "Oi, that's out of game knowledge, that's bad roleplaying" and forcing either the player to take it back or some other stupid penalty down the track?

At Dictionary.com, a rant is described as "To speak or write in a angry or violent manner; rave. 2. To utter or express with violence or extravagance: [e.g.] a dictator who ranted his vitriol onto a captive audience." (But I can understand being offended. It is offensive.)

As for promotion, I've already lost. These days, my opinion is just not fashionable. The knee-jerk reaction is to label me as a powergamer or munchkin or merely pity me as "somebody who does not understand the real nature of roleplaying games."

It is patronizing (but understandable) for people to think that they've found the "one true way" by roleplaying and that anybody who doesn't agree is just some ignorant heathen. But, I have roleplayed a lot in the past. But, eventually, I realized that there can be such a thing as too much roleplaying. Roleplaying is not an unchallengeable single virtue.

I've got to stand by my rant here, though. I've got no objection to roleplaying. I've got an objection to people who slow down or sabotage the game with their playing style. Those people frequently use roleplaying as a way to make the game all about themselves, too find a reason to be the center of attention and to excuse themselves from not being clever, not being interested in the adventure at hand and simply indulging their own sense of aesthetics.

Caliban, challenges in a game do not have to be at one point of the spectrum or another, at combat or riddles. There can also be politics.

You know, non-lethal competition [pay attention, Dhoward - this ties in with why running away is a valid option in combat. Fighting can mean dying. Many sane or sensible people, even most who are not, will seek to avoid that. Take a census of any population sometime, and notice how many of them CHOSE military, or other occupation with a high incidence of violence, for its own sake - which can include "as a career", but not "that was the only/best deal the government was offering for my student loan / college scholarship" . . . and how many have gone to make their fortunes in other career paths] counts too. Nor does it have to be either of the linear/improvisational things you say.

It is the GM's responsibility to roleplay the world. She does not need to create various situations for the players to involve themselves in; such situations do not exist merely for the players to have something to do! There will be many already happening, and in varying state of completion; roleplaying determines what the PC's want to get involved in, and rationality [of the characters] determines where they are challenging for influence. It is NOT the GM's responsibility to make things "fair" for the PC's. She is under no obligation to make things easier than they would be, just to place objectives within what would seem to be the far grasp of the PC's. Rather, it is up to the PC's to find something worthwhile, and if it is difficult, they will use their ingenuity to finagle a way to succeed after all. Or they will fail. But if the PC's goal is to help people out, and their grandmother was killed by a mugging, then they witness a mugger sneaking up on another old woman, the GM need not make this encounter challenging. There could even be no reward, save the sense of satisfaction that the PC got through having disabled the grandmother's mischevious son before she was aware that he was sneaking up to surprise her with . . . hmm, what's this on his corpse? Looks like some flowers [well, he was holding the triangular plastic-wrapped package close to his chest, and it looked like a knife! You rushed right in]. The GM will work out realistic reaction to the PC's movements, placing the NPC's in both a reactive [to the PC, who are new to the game] and proactive [they continue going forward with their plans, mayhaps not even realizing the bumbling efforts of outside forces to interfere with them], and the PC's are forced to take the initiative. The plot will not idle while they are sitting there thinking; if they do not properly investigate to find out where the opposition party will be meeting, that meeting will take place cloaked in the full secrecy with which it was deliberately arranged, and the PC's miss their chance to crash it.

Furthermore, roleplaying is not always a first-person excuse. I had a wizard once who threw an area-effect spell with visible light shows into a confined space - misunderstanding with the GM as to how big the area inside was. After the battle, our large fighter took my character up by the neck and promised that if he ever noticed ANY magic cast on him again, without asking for it beforehand, he would do the same thing - and -squeeze-. So, when a hosting GM decided to introduce an unwarranted extra "special effect", for "flavor" [I guess], an effect that was explicitly defined in the spell description -itself- as impossible . . . I protested. Not because of the impossibility; not just, anyway. I was protesting because some of the visual effects exceeded their range, and went RIGHT THROUGH the body of that big fighter. It wouldn't matter if it didn't do any damage that time. The more subtle the effects were, the more convinced he would be that it was nasty - and the more times my character insisted it hadn't done anything, the more suspicious he would become as to its -true- effects, and the more vigorour all that shaking around would be. So, in short, my character was dead. That's roleplaying [under a one-shot GM] for you.

-Coilean mac Caiside

Caliban, I've read your 2nd paragraph three times and I'm still not understanding. Do you mean to say that "many people choose the military despite its danger"? Or are you saying, "many people choose the military because they have no other option?" Or something else?

Is your point that, in the real world, many people chose dangerous careers in spite of the danger? That a certain percentage of the population will choose a career (a la adventuring) even though they could have succeeded just as well in a less dangerous career?

I would imagine that that'd be true.

dhoward, why does the "RP" in "RPG" disappear as soon as you go into a dungeon?

Dhoward, I presume you mean Coilean, for Caliban's most recent post did not mention the military by what I would have considered the fourth paragraph.

I am saying that, if you count ALL the people who chose to join the military, ignoring whether it was by draft or not, you're stacking the odds. You're also stacking them if you insist on considering those who took it as part of a deal for something else.

Some people choose dangerous careers in spite of the danger, others because of it. But you speak as if physical danger were the only kind. In all, your article and posts seem to focus on only taking the hack-and-slash as important. My point is that people will accept those risks when it is necessary for something else they want, but not go seeking out those risks of their own merit. People manage to succeed, and an extremely large percentage of them choose to pursue jobs that are not overtly dangerous.

They take the risk of being mugged every time they take a walk, of being in a crash when they drive. They do accept these risks, but many people will not seek them out.

This is my point. That life-and-death struggles do not really appeal to people as a means of problem resolution - not when it's THEIR life to be putting on the line, anyway.

-Coilean mac Caiside

Caliban's 3rd paragraph sounds like it could be a rant in itself. Whether the GM is merely a referee or tailors the game to the players, different GMs will have strong opinions on both sides. Some will say that the GM is merely a referee and the game should not be "fixed" like a corrupt boxing match. On the other side, some GMs will say that it is hard to make a fair match and just letting a mismatch continue without stepping in as the GM isn't much fun (think: Mike Tyson versus Pee-Wee Herman).

Caliban's 4th paragraph is quite accurate: GM's can mess up their players without any effort on the player's part. A GM has a powerful influence on players; he can sow distrust or he can mend fences. Certainly, there are games where the PCs are more afraid of each other than anything else! I personally don't approve of this style but somebody could write a rant telling the other side I'm sure.

You misunderstood my fourth point. I don't have to mess up the party with my character; it's ANOTHER character that, through roleplaying, will do that if MY character takes one (type of) action towards helping the party. He had enough health to survive the hit; we had healers nearby. Logically and strategically speaking, sending him up there to engage the enemy while we sent forward area-effect spell was the best choice.

But no, my character didn't even get torn up. We didn't pretend that it never happened; that player was forced to compromise his roleplaying because it shouldn't have. And I don't feel that it was right. My character SHOULD'VE died.

And I think the rant was well-written; you have managed not to slant things so far towards your own viewpoint that people can't recognize what you're saying and continue to disagree with it.

-Coilean mac Caiside

Yes, I have been confusing Caliban's and Coilean's posts. Sorry about that.

We seem to have strayed far from the point. D&D is a swords and sorcery fantasy game. In the real world, people do not usually solve their problems with swords or sorcery but that's not the basis of the game. The game isn't meant to be modelled on the real world; it is meant to be a fun, imaginary world. (To follow my soccer analogy, it is like wondering about whether it is moral or fun to score goals or not. Maybe the other team feels bad if you score a goal on them so you should just try to play without scoring. Or without goalposts. Or the best way is to just kick the ball around and not even have teams. Or maybe you shouldn't play at all.)

Now I don't command perfect cooperation from myself or players but I do promote it. And players should promote it as well. (To extend the soccer analogy, teammates may argue. One may want to play competitively and another may just want to play for fun. But soccer teammates should be part of the team and not be working against each other by ignoring their positions to talk to friends near the sidelines, plotting with other teams to upset the match or not following the team captain and just kicking the ball where and when they feel like it.) A certain amount of cooperation is needed to have a good game; good roleplaying should not be the excuse for a player to void his obligations to the group.

In conclusion, my rant is against players who have super-charged the ROLE of their PCs and let their GAMING skills atrophy.

Coilean, you have a point. There is a fine line between declaring a strong point and having readers feel that that strong point negates or insults their (opposing) viewpoints. A piece is readable when it says, "Do it this way or this is the best way." A piece would be less readable if it was filled with a bunch of mealy-mouthed warranties, absolutions of guilt and general apologies only to say, "Well, here's one opinion but it is one opinion in a huge range of opinions so I don't know why you should care about it specifically anyways." A writer doesn't want to exclude other people's opinions but he also doesn't want to lose his opinion by hiding it by being too-gracious to being completely fair.

An opinion piece should present an opinion. My article was my best attempt given the forum ("Rants").

Alright, now that we're through that, I'm going to argue against your ACTUAL point, instead of the point I percieved you had but you didn't really have (sorry).

There are plenty of games that are designed to let you use fun, interesting, or smart tactics. These are not strictly role-playing games, but tactical combat games. Many RPG's FEATURE tactical combat, and saying that you'd like to see more, or that you'd like to see it more prominently, is different from saying that that's part of the essence of RPGs. The essence of RPG's is roleplaying(in my opinion), and sometimes it IS an excuse for failure. I do agree that it isn't always used validly, but it IS an excuse occasionally. Tactical combat in RPG's is, to me anyways, unimportant and often boring.

I guess it's really just two different ways of playing, your view being that it's "gaming", whereas I think of it as "role-playing". But the real point of it is to enjoy yourself, so go with what works.

No, not rote memorization. I would not obligate players to memorize the Monster Manual. Memorization is actual work, not a game. But, if a player did memorize the Monster Manual, I wouldn't chastise him and disallow him from sharing it with the rest of the party. Similarly, if one player had memorized the Monster Manual and another player had chosen "Knowledge: Creatures" for his PC, I wouldn't try to shut down the memorizer from using his knowledge. If the "Knowledge: Creatures" person was upset, I'd encourage him to chose an alternative skill.

Somewhere along the line, in the last ten years, most players shifted all their focus away the group, onto their individual PCs. (I blame the class system for this but that's a whole different rant.) When the "Knowledge: Creatures" person is upset, he is complaining, "Hey, I want you to put restrictions on that memorizer player because I have a skill in game that he's already gotten another way. I want the credit." But, I reply, "Look, the party is supposed to work together. You shouldn't fight amongst each other to decide who gets the credit for a certain skills. Be happy that somebody already has that skill and now choose a skill that can really help the party." Players should be cooperating, not competing. And, a GM should not be layering arbitrary restrictions on players, especially ones that further divorce the player from his PC. If a player's biggest challenge is to arbitrary separate his own knowledge from his PC's knowledge, I say that he is just missing the game.

He misses the game because, in spite of the fact that he is making all this effort to stay in character, he is actually spending all his time and effort on building a wall between himself and the character. The wall stops his own personal knowledge from coming through. It is almost as if the point is to write a computer program to run the character and, once the character is "programmed" to react accurately with no involvement or overlap from the player (in other words, when the player can forecast his PCs actions with no thought), the game is over.

Labyrus' argument is a common one, although it assumes a solution in the way that the problem is phrased. He is saying that D&D is not a tactical game but a roleplaying game and, as such, tactics are not needed. I disagree, merely saying that being a roleplaying game is a game and even far simpler games require tactics. The essense of the word, "game", I say, is overcoming competition using tactics. And, my whole argument is that running your PC (and usually the whole group) into the ground on purpose is never acceptable, whatever the justification may be. Now, tactical combat may be boring to you and you should find a GM who does not include it. At that point, my argument is moot: If the game has no collective threat to the party, you cannot sabotage the party.

On a side note, it is fashionable these days to elevate role-playing of trivialities (like shopping in the marketplace, caring deeply about NPCs' lives and so on) to some lofty level. As if being able to stomach such boredoms is a sign of greatness. Similarly, the separation of IC and OOC skills and thoughts seems to me to be another pretense; the reasoning goes that if you can soldier through such dull exercises, wow, there must be something really special about you. But I claim that it is just over-intellectualization, trying to turn something interesting into a dull exercise where the only fun is looking down on all those other poor heathens who have not attained this enlightenment. While a slight amount of these trivialities can contribute to the atmosphere of a game, they are not the point of the game.

I think this entire argument boils down to two elements: the type of game and the GM. Now in a game where tactics and dungeon crawls are a major part of the action, yes, Knowledge: Creatures doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and yes, the slight use of metagame information as far as creature knowledges go is not necessarily a bad thing. I think the reason I had such a problem with the article at first glance was that it applied this to all games. (I feel like I'm stating the obvious here, yet I continue to do it...weird.)

In some games (like Hunter, which I keep going back to), it's very important to create an atmosphere of terror and mystery. That is, to a certain extent, what makes the game work. And one of the things that contributes to this atmosphere is not knowing exactly what you're facing, because the unknown is the scariest thing of all. There is no Monster Manual for Hunter. The few enemy sourcebooks that have been published contain conflicting or unreliable information. This is all the characters know, and many don't even know that. They go off into the night with a few shotguns, the knowledge that vampires exist, and maybe a few myths that may or may not be true, and that's it.

Now let's say a GM decides to run a Hunter game in which the PCs end up in this situation - and that one of the players is also involved in a campaign of Vampire: The Masquerade. The GM goes to great lengths describing an eerily beautiful vampire who moves faster than the eye can see and seems to know all the PCs' deepest secrets, and the PCs are scared out of their wits because they didn't know vampires could *do* this shit. Then the Vampire player speaks up: "Oh, I get it! She's a Toreador! All we have to do is show her something beautiful, and she'll be entranced by it!" And just like that, the GM's entire scenario is ruined by a player who brings up information he never would've known IC.

In this situation, I guess I don't see how the metagamer can be in the right. Look at it this way: By destroying the GM's carefully planned scenario with out-of-game knowledge, doesn't that put him on the same level as the D&D player who refuses to use the OOC knowledge that the group is fighting a troll? Doesn't it screw the party over just as much? Just as the D&D party is denied the opportunity to fight a good tactical battle, the Hunter group is denied the opportunity to experience the game as it is meant to be. (Sure, it might get them through the scenario, sure, but any GM worth his salt will take it out on the party later on.) I think that when you play certain games you enter into a contract to behave a certain way: in tactical games to use whatever knowledge the player possesses to win battles, and in games like Hunter to leave OOC knowledge at the door. Apply either way of playing to the other game, and chaos ensues. So I agree with you to a certain extent, dwhoward; I just don't think you can blindly apply the same set of criteria to every game you play.

Same goes for the elevation of trivialities. In tactical-based games, yes, visiting the marketplace or caring about the lives of NPCs is trivial, because the battle is the important part. However, the only things that are trivial are the ones that the GM chooses to MAKE trivial. In the games I run, PC-NPC interactions are essential to the story, and "caring deeply about NPCs' lives" has saved a player's ass on more than one occasion because it gave them information about upcoming events that they would not have had otherwise. So you get frustrated when a player spends the entire session talking to the innkeeper, just as I get frustrated when a player spends the entire session secluded in their apartment and refusing to make inroads with any of the (I like to think) interesting individuals with whom I've populated their world. That's when you have to either discourage what is trivial or find a way to make it important...but I digress.

Broad generalizations are never my style, and that's why I continue to have a problem with this article. This sort of "benign metagaming" will help some games as much as it hurts others. Sometimes you need to build the wall between player and character, sometimes you need to break it down. If you find one "boring," for God's sake, don't play it, but don't tell me I suck for enjoying it.

While Gamerchick's "Hunter" example is well-written, I would call it a poorly planned scenario, not a well-planned one. Using a Toreador and miscalculating that the players would not recognize it was a mistake. Asking the players to pretend that they don't recognize the Toreador after they have recognized it compounds the mistake. A GM should generate real mystery, not ask players to pretend that something is mysterious when the mystery is ruined. Sure, it is pity to have all that well-built suspense ruined but making the players pretend isn't going to bring it back. Furthermore, establishing a convention of artificiality lets the GM off the hook and makes it more likely for the mistake to be repeated. Moving on and avoiding that mistake next time (by not using a Toreador) is the best route.

A poorly planned scenario? I guess by your definition it might be, but consider this. You have three players who have never played a World of Darkness game before, and thus know nothing about the game vampire. Your forth player has played all the WOD games, and read most of the sourcebooks.

Using your logic, why would you ever let that player into one of your games? He would always have the answers, and would in essence be the 'main character'. He will always overshadow the other players, and trust me- they will get frustrated.

Having the skill 'Lore: Vampires' acts as a check. It allows the character to use that out of game knowledge by making it in game knowledge, but in exchange it costs the player a few of his creation points. It balances things a little so that newbies are not penalized so much.

I have played AD&D for twenty years, and I know the stats out of the monster manual backwards and forwards for 1st and 2nd edition. If you use stock creatures, traps and dungeons then there is almost nothing that you are going to do to surprise me. That's why I don't transpose all my out of game knowledge to my character.

However, neither do I play inexperienced characters in games like D&D. My character concepts reflect the fact that I know quite a bit about the game and the game mechanics. My mages use spells very effectively, and most of my characters know the weaknesses of the average monster.

But if I am playing a game like Earthdawn, and the party is starting at 1st circle, its a different story. If I let my character have all the knowledge that I have (being a GM), then it will unbalance the game. I will have all the answers, avoid all the traps, and know when/where/why the horrors are trying to corrupt us.

I admit that it is a tradeoff. The first time that you play a game is usually the most fun, because you are genuinely surprised by everything that you see. The second and third times that I play campaigns in a game I am going to have a lot of OOC knowledge, and that can be hard to deal with.

But if we use your logic, then why even play lower level characters at all? If all of your 1st level characters have the culmination of knowledge amassed by your three 15th level characters what's the point of even playing?

You know that kobolds and goblins are never going to be a threat, so why would your GM even send them at you? At that point the game devolves into mindless hack n slash.

Personally, I respect your right to play RPGs any way that you want too. But to me your method presents its own problems, and that's why a lot of us chose to put Roleplaying over Rollplaying...

Personally, I love the roleplaying of 'trivialities'. They give the characters great oppurtunities to interact in situations that aren't life threatening. I run a modern supernatural game, and the characters are just as likely to spend a session shopping or going to a movie or just ordering pizza and hanging out as they are to do battle with a horrific demon. And you know what? The players enjoy it. The relationships developing between the PCs as well as the NPCs are just as interesting as the plot itself. And you know what else? Most of us would rather gouge out our own eyes than play anything made by White Wolf.

Arkelias said exactly what I meant when he pointed out the need to level the playing field between experienced and inexperienced players. I run a Hunter game in which half the players have only played D&D if they've ever gamed at all, and the other half are extremely experienced White Wolfers. Now a major part of my antagonist structure for this chronicle is based off non-canon beasties that I came up with all by myself, and that will be mysterious to everyone in the group. But IMHO expecting me to do that 24/7, especially in a place like the WoD where the premade setting is the big draw, is entrusting me with a level of creativity that I just don't possess! So I throw something familiar at them from time to time and trust the experienced players to be mature enough to keep their mouths shut. And they do, because they know it's going to pay off in the end - they'll walk away from each encounter with a little more knowledge about the enemy and be able to apply it the next time. Ideally I see PCs as progressing along a continuum as they continue in the game - they start out pretty much ignorant and then slowly become aware of what's going on (and become allowed to use their OOC knowledge to make things run more smoothly). But at first, the mystery should remain intact. So yes, when my players get to be more experienced hunters I will probably cut them some slack and let the experienced players apply a little more OOC knowledge to what's going on (after all, some of those crazy ghost stories that everyone knows have to have some kernel of truth in them, right?). I think that's pretty reasonable.

But when it comes down to it, gaming necessarily involves a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. If we didn't have that, we'd never be able to talk about slaying trolls when in reality we're just sitting around the kitchen table, right? Just as we play characters who have physical or magical that we ourselves do not, we can play characters who have knowledges that we ourselves do not. I don't see that much of a difference, really, between playing a fighter when you yourself are a wimp and playing a naive character when you yourself have read the Monster Manual cover to cover. It all boils down to what the GM is hoping to accomplish, whether he wants the progress of the plot or the characters to take center stage. And yes, I think it's possible to go too far with this. Patently disruptive behavior defended with "It's what my character would do!" is inexcusable; I just don't believe that pretending not to know what a monster is falls into that league of annoyance.

Maybe the central bit of this whole argument is developing plot vs. developing character. Things like streamlined combats, use of OOC knowledge, and a lack of "wasted time" talking to NPCs contribute to pushing the plot along. Whereas lots of acting, feigning ignorance at times, and the occasional roleplaying of trivialities contributes to the development of characters. I'm stretching for a good example to illustrate the contrast here and more or less failing, but I guess it's kind of like Voyager vs. Deep Space 9. In Voyager, all the focus was on getting the damn ship back from the Delta Quadrant, and most of the episodes focused on their quest to do that and the setbacks and weird shit they encountered along the way. Characters were, most of the time, secondary. Now Deep Space 9 definitely had a plot and big things happening around it, but it wasn't so tied to that. Sometimes the crew would be really involved in what was going on, and other times the war would be happening way the hell on the other side of the galaxy and they'd be having Worf and Dax's wedding or whatever. It's a question of which you prefer: a streamlined narrative driven by events, or a more meandering one driven by the internal desires and interests of the characters.

And these two things are INCREDIBLY hard to balance. My own campaigns have been slipping a little too far toward the character-driven end of things lately, and I'm trying to put the kibosh on this by limiting the length of conversations with NPCs in-game or making them do really long discussions in blue-booking sessions. But I've found that when a game starts slipping toward the trivial end of things, pleading ignorance is never the culprit. The problem with roleplaying that dwhoward talks about begins when players start hogging the spotlight. And then you *do* have to remind them that they're part of a group, that other people want to play, too.

In short, I guess I just see what dwhoward is describing as a symptom rather than a disease. "I want people to get back to that place where they care. That is how to get back the excitement and sense of accomplishment that many players have lost." I don't feel like I've lost that at all - I just accomplish it in a slightly different way. Victory in combat can be a very satisfying feeling, as can the successful completion of a storyline, but so can feeling as though your character has grown, progressed, and changed for the better. It's a matter of keeping things in balance, as so many others have said before me. Stray too far toward one end of the spectrum, and you're in for trouble and a debate like this one.

(Interesting side note, unrelated to anything and full of horrible stereotypes: Given the subject of many of my articles, I just have to speculate that maybe there's a gender correlation to this. The group that resists all efforts to give them anything resembling a plot and revels in honest-to-God trivialities is 100% female, whereas none of the men I've ever gamed with have had more than a cursory interest in all the soap-opera shit. Maybe women just don't go for tactics, and I've been blinded by my own gender? Just curious.)

And Yonjuuni? You should know by now that I'm not even gonna allow myself to be baited by the end of your comment... (c;

To address a specific situation with one super-knowledgeable player and three newbies, that is a specific case. It seems to me that there are two possible problems even though you've assumed one.

If a player is obnoxious and interfering with other people's fun (whether it be through dominating play or for some other reason like not paying attention), that needs to be addressed. Nobody has a right to interfere and drag the game down. In-game solutions will not address the problem; the person will just find another way to be obnoxious. In this situation, the problem is just like dealing with any other out-of-control, disruptive player (i.e. explaining how he is annoying the other players, asking him to leave, or whatever).

If the super-knowledgeable player helps the party and the newbies are happy to have him around to show them the ropes, there really isn't a problem. The GM can compensate with some unusual monsters or merely let a few standard monsters get beaten so the skilled player can rally and lead the group.

In both cases, asking a player to hobble his performance by self-censoring is counter-productive. In the first case, his disruptive behavior will manifest itself in other ways. In the second case, if the party is happy to have this player around, there isn't a problem. If, in the second place, the super-knowledgeable player is dominating play, even though the others are happy to have his help, it degenerates into the same problem as having a shy player. Encouraging the shy (newbie) player to get involved by various means is the direct approach; asking the other player to hobble his performance is merely hurting the group's survivability and the hobbled player's investment in the party's future. Putting restraints on another player in the hopes that the shy player will somehow step into the vacuum is indirect and unlikely to be an effective solution.

I think the point that's really coming out, is that there are two typers of games being played here, even if they're both called RPGs. You find the same devision in console games; there are Tactics RPGs and Story RPGs.

In a Tactics game, the focus is around combat. Troop formation, lines of attack, stratagy, attacking emeny weak points, supplies. And most importantly, maybe, the group acting as one. A tight unit, working together to bring down their foes, not being rift with personal worries or agendas. The story exists to add feeling to the combat, and fill in the cracks, but is really secondary.

In a Story game, the focus is characters. There pasts and futures, friends and foes, feelings and thoughts. If everyone in the group is running their own agenda, bickering, and being tempted to switch sides, it's all for the good. Combat spices things up, and there's the inevitable showdown with the Boss, but why the characters are fighting is more important than how.

In console RPGs, they're both common, but they advertise the difference, and I know which I'm expecting when I buy one. If I want to the play the sort of game dwhoward is championing, I boot up Tactics Ogre, and try and crack the enemy formation. If I want story and personal struggle, like gamerchick enjoys, I stick in a Final Fantasy. I play both, but I make sure I know which I'm playing.

It's not surprising that dwhoward is a D&D fan, while the WW people are getting offended. D&D got spun off of the Chainmail tactical wargame system, and it shows. The majority of D&D stats are based around combat, and the game rewards you for it. Meanwhile, WW created the Storyteller system, which wears its slant very openly. What both sides have to realize is that there really are two different types of RPGs, and you can't force anyone to enjoy a type they don't.

dwhoward's problem seems to be Story RPGers showing up in what he expects to be a Tactics game, and throwing off his game play and enjoyment. It's a shame, and maybe the group has to get together and talk about what sort of game they want to be playing. And the Story RPG fans have to realize that Story really is secondary in a Tactics RPG, and you shouldn't try to force him to play one.

P.S. Gamerchick, re: gender playing styles. You might be right, but I think it may be because girls are coming from a "Let's pretend" background, while the guys played "Shooting guns and running around" as kids. It's more what they thing RPGs are about, and it doesn't always hold true. The player with the most detail obsesive background I've know was a guy.

Dhoward, I was going to address these posts in order, but you said something that revealed your true identity as the Evil Advocator Of Metaplots!

I will expand my earlier definition (the one describing solipsism) - you elevate the importance, not just of your own plots to the top. What you want, is The Way Things Are Going, and everything should happen to advance that plotline, or else not happen at all [and it's a good thing the GM has the same plot in mind {doesn't she? doesn't she?!?}].

Complexity is good, and having multiple, interacting plots, even if that interaction constitutes "interference", is not a bad thing.

"Be prepared."

I can spend the rest of the morning categorizing the myriad ways this statement is wrong.

Let me let you in on a little secret of life, Caliban/Dhoward - people are stupid. Not everyone is a trained SEAL team. You could go into a dungeon to [imagine this] EXPLORE, and have deliberately NOT asked people about what was down there because you wanted to find out for yourself ["Ye might want ta watch yerself, dere be nasty critters.", "Hah, we are adventurers, we can take care of ourselves, old man!"], or simply because they are haughty aristocrats who wish to examine the "unsuitability for inhabitation by civilized folks" of their newly purchased land [certain forces back at court having deliberately withheld information from them], "It can't be that dirty, I imagine we'll fix it right up in no time and recoup the cost in months!", and even if they have guardsmen . . . well, I do not even have to ask. I know your interpretation would always be "The guardsmen WILL decide, to a man, that their loyalty is best demonstrated by acting towards our boss' own good, and not what he says to."; but you're not always given that freedom. NPC's do not suddenly and mysteriously gain the ability to countermand direct orders from the spoiled princess who, incidentally, is out for some fun. And if there's another PC with the guardsmen around the princess? Well, what non-counterproductive actions could be taken if those same men then threatened to execute him on the spot for treason against the princess by not following her orders?

If the players are stupid enough not to ask questions about somewhere before heading to it, then I will honor their decision to roleplay their characters. And if they decide they remember what happened last time, and want to learn from their lessons, they can act more paranoid.

And you're correct. Most players have stopped caring about the fortunes of the character - so long as it's INTERESTING, they'll let the character worry about what happens to them.

And, not to skip over posts, we DO build a wall in between ourselves and the character. That is what roleplaying is about. Not playing yourself; playing someone else, the CHARACTER. If any of YOUR personal knowledge or preferences or likewise comes through, you're not roleplaying well. And why allow a tactical view of things which you yourself admit to be in the minorty [yet fail to connect to your own words about only being useful in a few campaigns], to occur at the expense of good roleplaying? The point is to READ a "program", so that, when you can roleplay the character accurately with no overspill [involvement/overlap, as you put it], in other wordss when the player can forecast his PC's actions without even having to think about it/them, the game . . . is just beginning.

I have found that the "filler" NPC discussions, are quite entertaining to watch from out of character [hell, if people can extract some enjoyment from watching TV, why can't they extract enjoyment from watching games? It's like the final product and the blooper reel all in one, with situations that the player has intimate knowledge of to help them understand], and in the case of players who are used to receiving crucial hints right away, it can be a great way to see how much time is wasted there [the rest ofthe group may eventually interfere, in character, at seeing the idiocy displayed], for realistic innkeepers/etcetera will mention ANYTHING interesting, they will not just magically, as if guided by destiny or the hands of fate, give the PC's the exact clue which could lead them to the next step on "the" plot. The innkeeper will casually mention, in passing, certain clues like "Oh, an interesting wood sculpture that so-and-so the ranger mentioned seeing along the paths one day . . . but you know, I think he's been drinking too much of that acorn mead.", the right kind of player will just snap that up, homing in on the signal like a guided missile. There one-track mind will ruthlessly extract from the innkeeper every single iota of information related to it, and then consider the conversation over. There are plenty of things going on in the world. It takes a discriminating mind to even begin to make sense of exactly what applies to THEIR interests.

As a final comment, before I start the next post, I'll illustrate one assumption you are all making about the vampire example - that it really WAS a Toreador. I noticed GC mention that there was a PLAYER who had extensively played V:tM. But somehow, I missed the part where she specified said vampire to actually BE Toreador. It displayed similar qualities, yes. But the perspective of the rest of the group, their ability to come up with unique strategies, was then tainted by the weight of belief that the vampire should be treated as something known. The more so if any of the other players knew ANYTHING about V:tM vampires. Their plans were weighted towards predesigned "effective" tactics towards a single type of vampire, which compromised their roleplaying.

And that, is what I got from the example GC gave ;)

-Coilean mac Caiside

Just to reiterate part of my rant, I did say players should role-play "in town" but play to win when "on adventure" and during combat.

So, a GM could run a game that is 100% "in town" and 0% "on adventure" and combat. In this case, they would be in perfect harmony with my rant even though they role-play every session and even if they decided to maintain the artifice of IC versus OOC. For other reasons, I think that this game is likely to have problems but I do not address it in my rant.

Other possibilities are 50-50. Or, even 0% "in town" and 100% "on adventure" and combat which would define a hack-and-slash game.

Just a reminder.

So, you do not feel you should be held accountable for views that are not expressed in the main rant? We should act like the subsequent points you introduce don't count when we ask "Well, do you really MEAN it?"?

You've expounded on your beliefs and clarified the focus of what you were saying. You're allowed to address points beyond the aegis of the original rant, in the posts ;)

Following the next post, I can see that what you are ranting upon, in the Story versus Tactics spectrum, is splitting up the Role-Playing-Game into two separate distinct parts - the Role-Playing, and the Game. While it makes an interesting idea for the Next Wave of system [Deadlands is the only system I can think of which came close to this*], I do not think you are correct in attempting to make people use that method in a setting that is not created for it.

*Next Wave: Mechanics that are games in themselves. Only, in the second game which is the mechanics for the first, the first game is the mechanics to be used in the second. The Game determines whether you succeed or fail at certain tasks in the Role-Playing, and the Role-Playing determines your objectives in the Game.

In short, the entire problem with your rant and followering opinions is that you are drastically underestimating the scope of Role-Playing. It can incorporate combat too; it was made for EVERYTHING the characters do, not just the mushy town / soap opera / minutae that you postulate it to consist of now.

-Coilean mac Caiside

Coilean: Well, personally, I would like to help the folks at Gamegrene.com keep their site well organized and topical. Admittedly, there is a grey line between what is a tangent to the topic at hand and what is a tangent to a tangent. Expanding the discussion from a single rant to a complete exposition of my opinions and thoughts on all gaming subjects seems egoistical on my own part.

Perhaps I will submit more articles to cover other topics. If you like, you (or anybody else) can e-mail me privately with a list of questions/subjects that you'd be interested in seeing other articles or rants on.

One of the reasons that I wrote this rant was that I believe that many campaigns fail due to excessive roleplaying but GMs and players are not generally aware that excessive roleplaying was the cause of death. In fact, many GMs will point to the excessive roleplaying as the highlight of their campaign. That is one reason why it is so hard to find and fix the problem.

Wow, I didn't expect to see such a big response to an off hand phrase like 'Be Prepared'.

In response Coilean I was only saying that when any group of people are about to go knowingly into a life threatening situation they should at least have a quick chat about it.

You see this in books/movies all the time, for example in Lord of the Rings when Strider saves the Hobbits from the Nazgul, they ask 'What are they" and he tells them. Of course, because of dramatic reasons that was after the fact, but hopefully you can see what I am getting at.

Basically my point is that players who heavily roleplay their own character may be so caught up in the limitations of their own knowledge that they forget that there is a certain amount of knowledge that can be shared by the group.

So, for example, if one CHARACTER was a ranger who had a knowledge of the area and had monster lore then if they sat down at an inn the night before going down to a dungeon I would count the entire party as having Monster Lore for that dungeon. The others would just have it at a lower level than the ranger, enough to shout "Hey, I think it's a troll!" if they saw something roughly the right size and shape. Of course, they may be wrong, and that could provide some classic comic relief when the Ranger wanders in, see's the foul monstrosity the party has awoken and yells "That's no Troll! Run for it!" and suddenly they find the situation is much worse than they thought.

In no way do I condone the use of out of character knowledge dwhoward is promoting.

I think it's a crap way to roleplay because it rewards those who happen to have the most knowledge, usually by having the most books. Having a myriad of other interests outside Roleplaying which compete for my money, the thing I enjoy about roleplaying is I don't HAVE to have an indepth knowledge of the game before I play, as long as the world around me is a recognisable setting then the GM can prompt me on any knowledge my character should have (thus learning it without having thumbed through all the books myself).

I often enjoy playing characters who have less knowledge about the world around me than the rest of the group, but I don't try and use that as an excuse. If I am playing a less knowledgeable character than the norm I always try and make up for it by making him inquisitive and curious. He'll ask questions to get up to speed. His lack of knowledge should only be a factor if the GM wants it to be, and the GM is welcome to use it as a plot device. The classic gag of having the rest of the party leave the newbie to his own devices, and then suddenly realise that he may not know NOT to touch the Alter o' Doom, or read from the Necronomicon or whatever, and before you can say "NO! Don't Touch THAT!" The GM has created a new scenario for us.

So, while I vehemently disagree with a lot of what dwhoward is saying, I do understand the underlying point:
He wants characters to achieve their goals, rather than get cut down in their prime, and by having people roleplaying things like cowardice (which are usually factored into a games combat mechanics as well, creating a double dose) or a lack of creature/world knowledge (not realising that there is a certain amount of BASE knowledge everyone in the world probably has, and perhaps having a rough idea how to kill that particular monster is included in that) that their roleplaying steps out of staying in character into unnessecarily hurting the group.

Extreme situations make people react differently, so perhaps the coward finds some hidden reserve courage at the last minute to help save the group. Perhaps the inexperienced fighter 'stumbles' onto the right way to kill a troll. All these things are common in film, theatre, and literature as important turning points at the climax of a scene. So, if used well, out of character knowledge or actions are not only justifiable but actually make the ROLEPLAYING experience better.

Of course as with everything a sense of timing is important, they should be used in moderation, and the GM should ultimately decide whether they can be used.

So basically what I'll take away from this discussion is a note to remind myslef or my players if I am GMing that while roleplaying their own character is great, they shouldn't be doing it at the cost of realistic group interaction. We all should remember that a group will share it's strengths as well as using the combination of individual strengths to overcome problems, just as groups share their weaknesses as well as each member having individual weakness that can be exploited.

And I don't really care whether or not that's the original point, because I think that it's something that is OFTEN overlooked in any sort of roleplaying game, and it's an important thing to be reminded of.

Actually, there is a common ground. ENJOYMENT OF OUR FAVORITE HOBBY.

That being said, we dissagree as to what constitutes a fun game… Still, when you watch a monster movie doesn't it bug you that regular people (who should have seen as many movies as we all have) always fall for the same dumb trick?
1 - Going alone in the dark basement unarmed instead of calling the cops.
2 – Splitting up in the monster's lair.
3 – Not finishing off the monster/maniac when it falls down.

And I could go on. Yes some people are tactically inept, some others are socially inept but doing the same mistakes over and over again seems boring to me.
I mean do you people who Soooo love playing house and acting when you roleplay keep making the same "faux pas" game after game? Do your characterd become more socially apt as the games pass? Isn't that out of character knowledge if you're supposed to be naïve and inexperienced?
While falling for a trap that actually surprised you is fun. "Playing dumb" and falling for a trap you saw coming a mile away doesn't seem rewarding to me. Just as having my character fall for the woman that I know will only bring him grief and eventually betray him doesn't seem fun to me.
Mind you I like acting I get on stage a few times a year and it is great. Maybe some of you should try.
I play wargames too, maybe the strategy hungry gamers should get their fix there too.

I dunno maybe trying to cram everything into your RPG is asking too much of it.

Although I appreciate Master Castillo's contribution, his argument assumes his conclusion. He assumes that the enjoyment and goal of RPGs comes from investigating and philosophizing about PC psychology. I say that that is one aspect of it and is fun *when used in certain situations* but making that the only thing limits both the game and the enjoyment. (I also contend that, when employed wrongly, it interferes with other players' enjoyment, fragments the group and destabilizes the campaign.) If I don't agree that PC psychology is the end-all-be-all of gaming, an argument which uses that as a basis is not convincing.

Now, assuming that I am powergaming because I take an interest in seeing my PC survive, that has been addressed elsewhere. I contend that players *should* enjoy seeing their PCs succeed and they should make that an important part of the game, not just enjoy the mere satisfaction of saying, "I acted out the role accurately and realistically."

And, I'd say that some of the enjoyment of gaming comes from gaining (or fighting) cool stuff. Not all, but some. Likewise, some enjoyment comes from ad-libbing in-character in conversation when appropriate.

For the hero's quest, this is one possible aspect of the game but a highly overrated one. Writing or reading a short story is a much better way to explore and enjoy that particular scenario. In literature, much more time can be spent exploring the psyche and fears of the character; it can be much more personal than a game usually is (especially if the game is not a one-on-one).

Hiya

I haven't read all of the previous messages in depth. What I say here may already have been said, to some extent, in previous posts.

Also, since there seems to have been a certain amount of WWolf vs [whoever] posted, I might as well state now for the record that I don't play WW games. I don't hate them. They just don't appeal, with the possible exception of Wraith: Great War, and only then because I'm a biplanes nut.

I disagree with your rant, dhoward.

For starters, I have difficulty with the idea that RPGing is about winning the game. For me, it isn't winning unless I get something tangible. I can't trade in my XP for a crate of beer, let alone a Mercedes. Gaming is never going to get me that Carribbean holiday I've been wanting. You could argue that there's some personal satisfaction in building up a character. For my part, I've never wanted to be the kind of gamer who'd tell longwinded anecdotes about Wibble the Wonder Thief/Assassin/Mage and his scads of castles/henchmen/magic items. Or even plain old Wibble, the lucky rogue who made it to sixth level. It just doesn't appeal to me.

That's a minor issue. Where I really disagree with you is on the subject of using out-of-game knowlege to plan strategy, with a view to beating the encounter and eventually the scenario.

To begin with, I can't see how you can possibly adjudicate what would be common knowedge and what not. OK, in some cases it's a no-brainer. In a world where orcs run rampant all over the globe everybody's going to know about orcs. However, in a game world where kobolds are rarer than hen's teeth characters aren't going to know much about them, even though their players might have memorized kobold stats backwards & forwards. As DM, I might have a very good reason for making kobolds rare. That isn't going to help me much if the players know all that there is to know about them before the characters have even met one. There's also character knowlege to consider. Logically some character types would know about different kinds of 'common' monsters. Wizards spent their early years studying arcane books of forgotten lore. They ought to know about some magical creatures. Ghosts, say, if they have a necromantic bent, or genii. Fighters would know more about other creatures, and the same goes for rogues, clerics & any other PC type you care to name. However, if the player who runs Grod the Swordsman has more OOC knowlege of ghosts than the player who runs Elvira the Sorceress, where does that put me as DM? Do I assume that Grod somehow knows more than Elvira, even though Grod only uses books for toilet paper, has a very public dislike for boring bardic tales, and has never once set foot in a graveyard or haunted house? Do I design some kind of flowchart for use during play? "OK Pete, this is what your cleric would know as a Priest of Zeus. As a halfling, he'd also know about this and this. Moreover, as a native of Krondor, he'd know about this, that and the other thing. Now, Alice, get your head out of that rabbit hole and pay attention because these are the common foes that your elven sorceress from the mystic East would know about . . ."

However, where I really disagree with you is on your belief that OOC knowledge should be used to plan strategy. I think that this can only lead to in-game chaos.

You seem to think that OOC knowledge is limited to monsters. At any rate, monsters are all you mention. However, most gamers know the stats of a lot more than just the monsters, and that kind of OOC knowledge could get very annoying very quickly.

I might have a copy of Grimtooth's Traps. I might want to use one of those bad boys, just to see if the group will let the rogue check out the Gem of Eternal Power before snatching it. However, if Pete the Player owns the same books as I do all he has to do is remember what he knows. He might be playing Grod the Swordsman but he'll leap in and do the rogue's job. He knows the stats of that trap. He knows how to disarm it. It's OK to use OOC knowlege, right? It's all about planning strategy. The game is won by beating the DM, no matter how you go about doing it.

As DM, I'd be in BA hell, with a bunch of Teflons sat across the table from me with those make-my-rules-lawyer-day grins on their faces. I'd never be able to use a prepackaged scenario again. After all, where do I draw the line? If it's OK to read all of the rulebooks then the players will go ahead & do just that. Did I think it was a good idea to take the group through the Against the Giants scenario pack? Silly me. After all, the players will know. They'll know where the treasure is. They'll know where the traps are and how to disarm them. They'll know where the secret doors are. They'll use that knowledge, because it's essential to their strategy to do so. Just like it's essential to use cheat codes to beat a computer game. After all, no-one ever won without cutting corners, right?

It's all very well to say customize that dungeon, or that monster. I may not have that kind of time. I might not want to spend hours of my life doing this. I have a job, right? A social life outside gaming that I might want to indulge in?

I might be using the Forbidden City or Barrier Peaks because I enjoyed those scenarios when I played them and I want to enjoy them now as a DM. However, where's the fun in the game if everyone knows what you know? It's like Christmas without wrapping paper, all the little secrets & surprises well known long before the big day.

I guess what it all boils down to is this. The path you advocate creates the illusion that RPGing is adversarial. The DM sets up the challenge and the PCs knock them down. However, the PCs want to win more easily, so they access the cheat codes, their OOC knowledge, and they beat the system. So the DM goes and finds bigger challenges, more esoteric monsters. The players look for more cheat codes. Suddenly it's an arms race. Who gets there first? Who owns that o-so-rare copy of Dragon or White Dwarf that has the info DM & player both need? Whose OOC knowledge is supreme? Which geek gets beat?

Nah. Boring. If I wanted to spend my life studying statistics I'd have become an accountant. I want to have fun. This isn't it.

c ya
Adam

Hiya

Sometimes I just don't have the time. Sorry. My life is not made up of the games that I play. BTW, statements like:

If you don't have the time to provide that kind of excitement, you'll just have to make do with what time that you do have. Not everybody has the time to be a great GM.

Might be taken by some people as condescending and rude. Good job I'm not one of them.

"There is a distinction between the player who malaciously tries to find out OOC knowledge and one who merely happens to know some."

OK. But where is it? We can say in the calm quiet of a discussion board that 'we all know' when someone's jerking around with the rules. In practice, though, it's often a pretty narrow distinction. In the past, my defense in the heat of the moment has usually been 'your character wouldn't know that', and it had the benefit of being both true and relatively fair. Not perfectly fair, but few things are. It was accepted by every player I've ever had dealings with. Now, though, what do I say when I suddently realize, half-way through the game, that Pete the Player owns the exact same copy of White Dwarf that I do and is using his knowledge to extract maximum reward for minimum risk? Call a halt to the game and argue it out with good old Pete? Spend a half-hour in heated debate that does no-one any good? After all, why should it be that a player can use his OOC knowledge in some ways but not in others? Where is this line in the sand that we're all mutually pretending that we're not crossing?

You say that players shouldn't spend their lives studying statistics. That players shouldn't be expected to acquire certain books or modules that the DM is known to use. I think you've missed the point. Either that, or you've been playing with saints. The gamers I know, (and Lord knows there were some doozies), would happily buy as many books and magazines as they could, IF they thought it gave them an edge. We go back to the arms race again. I buy therefore they buy therefore I buy therefore the guy in the games store gets rich but everybody else just gets frustrated because rather than play the game we're worrying about what rules we play by. That, and calling the DM a jerk because he didn't allow Pete to use the variant Barbarian rules as published in the D20 format by Werenotgoingtobeinbusinessverylong Press. White Wolf used to be hell for that, and I still shudder at the memory of bookshelves filled with nothing but Vampire sourcebooks. Now D20 is the new rules king. Whoopie.

Rigorously setting up Chinese Walls between OOC and IC knowledge is indeed a waste of everyone's time. That's why it's so useful to be able to say 'no OOC knowledge at all', as opposed to 'OK, some OOC knowledge, but not all of it, and you all know who I mean, don't you, ERIC? Yes, you in the back there with your IT job, don't think I didn't see you sneak out of GamersRUs with your arms full of books . . .' There's no intellectuallizing involved in saying no OOC spoilers. No Means No, to coin a phrase. The mind games come in when you start saying No Means Sometimes and You're On Your Own Now, Kiddo. That's when you start having to build Chinese Walls between what you do know and what you don't.

Besides which, allowing OOC creates a whole antagonistic atmosphere that nobody needs. I'm not at war with my players. I don't set up challenges for them to beat like targets in a Shooter. I set up a game for them to play. It involves a little bit of acting, sure, a little problem solving, some monsters. The usual. I don't want to feel as though I have to delve into my back issues for grudge monsters because combat tacticals are the New God and I always have to be one up on the players. It's not about them winning or me losing. It's about all of us having fun.

Anyway, gotta scoot.

c ya
Adam

Dhoward, I contend that players should NOT find enjoyment from seeing their PC's succeed. Watching other people walk through life, all over those who would contest them, is nothing more than a cheap, voyeuristic, immature means of satisfying primal urges, such as the much-touted inferiority/superiority complexes. Likewise, the motivation of the player should be to constantly throw CHALLENGES in front of the character, and leave it the CHARACTER's job to avoid those difficulties. By using the phrase "not JUST enjoy" [emphasis mine], you remind me of a quote by Julius Caesar: "Winning isn't the most important thing; it's the only thing!". Now, by your post, you've reminded me of what I was going to write next; so I thank you, because after I lost my notes, I was not sure what to write next. But now the next two articles, at least, are set for me [and that's beyond tha backlog I already have!], and you can read them somewhere over on RPG.net.

Now, you said that:
When people use the counterargument, "I don't have time to customize my dungeons and monsters", they are saying, "I don't want to or cannot put the time in to make my games the best that they can be."

So, what, the games consist entirely of dungeons and monsters?

Now, while you say above that you never suggested, and do not endorse, the idea that players are required or expected to acquire modules and books that they think the GM will use, you are doing just that when you attribute the "best GM" to those who obtain the "best bang", "with no concern for the cost". GM's have the right to spend 100% of their time creating things OTHER than the dungeons/monsters, tailoring everything to the specific campaign. And they should have the ability to pick up a module, the intention of which is to take certain things [such as monsters/dungeons] that are universal to many campaigns, and place them in a form that can be used directly... and use them directly. Not to pre-classify your argument, I simply do not see how you can contest this point without arguing that noone can be a great GM unless they are extremely skilled at ALL aspects of campaign creation/maintenance, and spend ALL of their time on it, managing to equally sustain all aspects. It seems to be that you are jealous of those who are naturally good at something, and wish to narrow the focus of gaming to one specific aspect [which you are, sheerly by coincidence I am sure, quite skilled at], whereupon it becomes evident that no others matter, and in fact quality is irrelevant; only the EFFORT put into it does [in short, if you naturally suck as a GM, and you buy ALL the modules, spend 100% of your time on it, doing your BEST to make it better, your players should love/laud you for it]. There's a type of government which works along these lines, but I forget what it's called. And to conclude my rebuttal, I know you have a limited time to spend on RPG's. Yet even if you spent EVERY WAKING MOMENT on them, I would not, by your own definitions, call you great. After all, you are not WILLING to put ALL the time into it [compromise does imply sacrifice] that could improve it.

"I'm not saying that players should spend their lives studying statistics. (If you look at my rant, it says nothing about this. I don't know where people get that.)"

There you go again, trying to say that, just because you didn't express an opinion in the rant -proper-, you should not be held accountable for it. It doesn't work that way.

-Coilean mac Caiside

Well, you may have your own definition of a great GM and I have mine. It doesn't matter since that definition isn't important to the argument. (It has caused more distraction than it is worth, frankly.)

The point is that, if you don't have the time to do something, that doesn't imply that it is not worth doing. There is a difference between saying that customizing monsters doesn't make the game more exciting and that you don't have time to do it. Not having time to do something doesn't mean that it isn't worth doing.

An analogy might be: I say, "Read a module thoroughly before using it." And, a reader says, "I haven't got time for that; I'll just wing it." And, I say, "Your game won't be as good as if you read the whole module. Better GMs would be willing to read it to get that extra oomph of having full knowledge of the module beforehand." And then the reader gets angry at me, for implying that he's not a great GM. Then the reader says, "Your argument is invalid because I haven't got time to read every module that I run. I've got a life." And, I say, "That doesn't make my argument invalid; it merely says that you are unwilling to follow my advice. Hey, fine. But not having time for something doesn't make it worthless."

I have not had the kinds of problems that all these recent posts speak of. Players buying every magazine and dungeon, angling to get an advantage by owning the next adventure? Players who lie? Players create these sophisticated schemes to defraud and hide their advance knowledge?

Maybe I do play with saints. Maybe my game somehow weeds out these people before they have a problem. Maybe I've just been lucky. If my players were criminal and unethical (or immature narcissists), I'd have quit GMing long ago (and probably moved).

I certainly never, ever endorsed any of that, neither directly nor implied.

Sure, natural ability plays a part in being a great GM. I never said that effort was the only criterion, merely that it was one.

I've never seen a GM's Bill of Rights but it sounds like a great idea for an article. Somebody should write one.

Most GMs try to provide the best game possible. If all his players have read the modules (whatever the motivation), he might invent his own modules to make the game more surprising or fun. I guess that he has the right to run a published module, anyway.

A GM can (should) balance play between "on adventure" and "in town" scenes. A great GM would mix up a bit, "in town" style roleplaying one week and "on adventure" gaming the next (in the same campaign). He would put in enough time on preparation and planning such that putting more time in would not improve the game; there is a point where a GM is as prepared as he'll ever be and he has no choice but to run the game.

As an aside, if he is running an "on adventure" scene, he can also run stock monsters in a challenging way. I suggested inventing new monsters as variety, but not as an absolute requirement for every game. Fighting known monsters can still be challenging and exciting under a talented GM.

An opinion may be disagreeable to the majority but still, by its acceptance by most individuals, would provide value. My rant can improve most games, even though GMs and players may not want to hear it.

An unpopular opinion can become popular over time.

Perhaps if you listed this bill of rights for players and GMs by numbering them and describing each in one sentence, it would be of some benefit.