Dinosawer wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:11 am
Yes, you are - very much so. I'm not even sure 'you' and 'the point I was trying to make' are even still in the same observable universe
I did spend a good deal of time reading through your post and trying to figure out exactly what you were saying. I'm not sure it's my fault if you weren't getting your point across well - and you seemed not to be, given that to almost everything I asked, you answered "no". I showed your post to a few other people and they thought you were saying what I thought you were saying as well.
But let's move on.
To be clear:
I don't think you're stupid. I am not Naed, after all.
You are an intelligent player and one of my most active (perhaps even
the most active). You've played many hours of both this RPG and other tabletop RPGs as well. The mistakes you've made here are simply highlighting the difference between
player knowledge and
GM knowledge. It's an easy mistake to make because part of the GM's goal, most of the time, is to preserve "the magic" of the RPG - to keep the things that happen behind-the-scenes hidden. It's not unusual you would miss them. However, now that you brought it up here in front of "the table", it's a good time to clear the air and address it.
So, let's begin.
To open: General Knowledge is a story-oriented stat. Given your experience with Dino's parkour, I think you realize this. Keep that in mind; it will be relevant later.
Something you seem to be assuming is that all players will play as ethically as you do. In short, they will not. If video games were designed around that mindset they would be chock-full of bugs and glitches. "Nobody will try to run through that wall, so why should I bother giving it a collision box? I mean, the path's right there!" Players will
always try to pick at and exploit things in any and every way they can find. It's one of the very, very first things you learn as a GM. Designers of these RPGs, while they may not fully balance them, tend to get rid of the biggest flaws, so that in most cases, if something goes awry, it's the fault of the GM. In my case, I am GM
and designer, so I must think for both.
Another problem is that the players
know I make the rules. Therefore, they are
MUCH more likely to debate the rules with me than they would be with an ordinary GM. I used to spend an incredible amount of time debating rules with you guys (like I'm doing right now). Eventually I decided to begin rule-zeroing things - which, for some things, is a good decision - and a bad decision for others. Unfortunately that only works in a private setting, and not so much in front of the whole group - and you've brought this up in a public thread, so everyone needs to see my reasoning behind what I say as well.
Finally, the central "idea" behind what you're arguing for is that I offload core parts of storytelling from the GM to the players.
This is a fundamentally bad idea. The players are in a roofless maze. They can see, sometimes, each other. They can't see what's around the corner. They can't see what's on the other side of the maze. Often, they even lose track of themselves. But the GM, looking down from above, can see
everything. The GM's
job is to ensure that the players
enjoy finding their way out of the maze. It is to ensure none of the players get hopelessly left behind, and to ensure that, even if some of the players have a rough time every now and then, it turns out to be worth it in the end. I know, far better than any of you could by definition, exactly how things work in my universe - because it's my universe, after all, just as it is my story.
Dinosawer wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:11 am
A) It has to be something that you can reasonably know or learn or be able to do.
B) It has to be something you have to be able to find teaching or information about that allows you to learn it + that you could somewhat reasonable learn in the timeframe you have (with some handwaving)
C) It should be a tool in solving problems, not a solution for problems.
D) It should either give no roll bonuses, or if it does, they should be minor, conditional, and most importantly up to the GM. At no point does knowledge completely override your stats.
A), B), and C) are all very bad ideas. If you let the players see your reasoning AT ALL behind any one of these (Is it reasonable? Can you find the materials? Do you have the time? Is it a tool or a solution?) they will
IMMEDIATELY begin to debate it. After all, they want that shiny new skill! If they have to debate it for an hour, it's worth it, because that means dozens of hours where they get to use it. I must avoid giving them the option to debate (as with the system I put forth earlier in the thread) or I'll set myself up for dozens of hours of debates where players insist fervently that their proposal makes sense. Two hours of debate with each of you is twenty hours of debating for me. As such, you guys can debate far longer than I can; eventually I will grow tired and say "fukc it" and either Rule Zero (which damages player morale noticeably and causes them to believe I'm a worse GM) OR let it happen, which, if it's worth my time to actually debate, means it is almost certainly gamebreaking.
And here's the core of the problem with debate:
A player that debates a ruling with the GM is being a dick to every other player. Every hour that the disgruntled player spends trying to argue with the GM is an hour the GM is tied up and unable to provide a fun experience for anyone else. That means, while the debating player may spend only two hours of their time debating, and two hours of the GM's time debating, they are effectively wasting 2x9, or
eighteen hours of the time of the other players, total - and it is indeed wasting, because none of the other players ever see a moment of payoff from it! In fact, if you have a system that encourages debate and every player debates with me for two hours, each player has spent two hours debating, and I have spent 20, and in total the time wasted between players totals
180 wasted game-hours.
Now, a few examples of ways I'd fully expect players to debate things:
A) "Of course it's a reasonable request. Tons of people know X!"
B) "What do you mean I can't find information about X? Don't we have a huge library at our fingertips?? Surely the Nemesis could store an entire encyclopedia of digital information!"
B) "What??? People have learned X in this timeframe before! I'll go get examples!"
C) "X isn't a solution to the problem! This problem is only a small part of the whole, so while it maybe solves this one little thing, it's not the whole issue by far!"
In short, any system that leaves reasoning of rules up to the players, or encourages debate, is too flawed to put into practice.
On a final, less important note: I strongly disagree with C) and D). I need the flexibility to be able to permit people to have solutions to minor problems if I see fit, or, if I see fit, grant people abilities that give roll bonuses in specific situations. I have a broader knowledge of what could be coming next than the players. I can adjust things to better fit the setting. Just because something doesn't work
right now doesn't mean I won't let it work later on, and just because something
does work right now doesn't mean it always will.
So, here, you're saying that players always have an idea of where they should take their characters, and whether or not they can take their characters to those spots should depend not on dice, or bonuses/penalties, but whether the players themselves think it works?
Yes (except for the bonuses/penalties part, see above), in the same sense that we can decide to go for engineer/psionic/melee/ranged without having to roll a dice for it.
Do you remember Hyperion's mass-changing bowling ball ship civilization? The one that he got bored of almost immediately, even though he thought it was a fun idea? Many players - especially new ones, but often veterans as well - don't understand what makes an RPG fun. They believe it's about the victory, or about being different, or about combat. What is actually fun is the journey and roleplaying, and triumph over odds, and a good story. If you notice,
none of those things are things a player has any control over: that is entirely in the hands of the GM. (The players may be able to handle roleplaying on their own, yes, but it is the GM that gives them the opportunities to roleplay in the first place.)
In short, the players don't actually know whether something will work, or whether it will be fun. Only the GM can know those things. The players may guess at them, but they are merely guesses, and often wrong.
Dinosawer wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:11 am
No, because we have this thing called 'rules' and that violates several of them, such as 'you can't build an entire mech in 5 minutes' and 'you don't have the materials to build an entire mech' and 'even if you were able to buy a few dozen partkits, you can't transport more than a few of them either' and 'don't be a Triggerhappy'
Most of those "rules" aren't posted anywhere. They are "common sense" things, and if something is merely "common sense" it can and will be debated by a player.
Dinosawer wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:11 am
No - see above - GK should be something we can use to gain tools, not solutions. For example, knowing Hiltorel language and culture is a tool. It allows you to RP and try to talk things out instead of always resorting to violence, but it does not magically make all Hiltorel like you, and you might still be shit at being charismatic.
Is knowing the Hiltorel language really a tool, though? Let's say I have a plan for a fun, humorous intermission in an off-mission quest where there are a few hiltorel that don't speak "Galactic Standard" and only speak their language. My idea is to let the player characters "act out" what they're trying to get across, and then the hiltorel can interpret it. Then they can try to act out some things themselves. This could turn absolutely hilarious, could it not? It'd be a fun, memorable experience for the players: "Remember that time we found those hiltorel, when Bob got up on a box and started hooting and waving his arms?" "Yeah, that was hilarious! Lol, and remember - Gearhead tried to convince Saoirse to make out with him to help the hiltorels understand what they were talking about!" "Man, that was great!"
However, if I had such a thing planned, learning the hiltorel language is not a tool - it is a solution. The entire episode with the hiltorel turns into a mundane "Just point us in the right direction" and you rob that fun experience from
every other player. It is gone, and if I really, really want or need that experience for the player group? Perhaps, let's say, it is necessary because it introduces an important concept that the rest of the story builds off? If that's the case, and I
must have that experience for the players, my only option is to kill your character off, simply because you wanted to learn how to speak HIltorel.
This is a good example of something the GM knows that the players don't necessarily expect. A player may
think they know what is a good idea, but they don't really. Tools may be solutions, and solutions may be tools. There is no fine line. It is a blur. They are almost one and the same. A tool to solve one problem is a solution to another problem.
Dinosawer wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:11 am
No, see, my example was maybe not really realistic
(I don't know how much species intermingle, for all I know we never see a Hiltorel after mission 1), but was I was getting at - if I want these things for RP reasons, I also want to be able to actually ever use them in RP, otherwise it's just a line on my character sheet. "Knowing Hiltorel because I want to talk to things before shooting them" does not make me diplomatic if I can never talk to someone in Hiltorel.
(Emphasis mine) This is an excellent example of how players - including yourself - only see what is right in front of them and do not necessarily make the best decisions about what is fun. As a GM, with this in my hands, I have to make snap judgments about - Will this conflict with the story? Is it too overpowered? Will it harm the experiences of the other players? Will it actually be fun? Will they get enough use out of it? After years of making these snap judgments, a GM becomes very good at it - provided they're a good GM of course. It becomes simple. The players don't have this experience and they don't have any of this knowledge.
As to whether you will ever use it in RP... That brings something else to mind: previously, you mentioned, "Let's be honest. Nobody is going to get anything past +1 GK." Will they really not? If they honestly believe it wouldn't be worth it, they are being foolish. GK may be what you consider to be a dump stat, but it is also a stat (at least, right now)
completely controlled by the GM. That means that it is as strong, or as weak, as the GM makes it. Personally, if you actually invested enough to get +2, or especially +3, or - by far - +4, then I would let you do
insane things with your GK rolls. If you invested that far I would grant you abilities and skills beyond the reaches of
any other player, because you actually sat there and invested all that time and effort into it when nobody else did. I would make it worth it to you.
Do you trust the GM so little that you would expect any fun experience to come completely from yourself? Do you really trust the GM so little that you would trust a group of "blind" players more than you would trust the storyteller? As I recall, your DnD GM gave your first game a very anticlimactic end with the "Big Boss" being defeated early by someone shining a candle on him and spoiling his invisibility. I'm not sure I would trust that GM with GK either, but that doesn't mean I'm that bad.
The hiltorel-charades example does a good job of showing that quite often, a GM's decisions are for your own good - even if you don't see why at the time.
No, see, again, above. Tools, not flat bonuses, and dodging bullets is ridiculous and if anyone suggested that it definitely wasn't me
It doesn't matter if it was you. What matters is that someone would suggest it. When you design rules for an RPG you must design them for the weakest links - a hypothetical individual who goes well out of their way to exploit and break every little thing - a hypothetical individual that doesn't understand how to have fun in an RPG. If you don't, things inevitably become boring and broken - not just for the player executing the exploits, but every player around them. The actions of one affects the whole.
Players are notoriously bad at seeing how their actions would affect others in the long-term, which is again an argument against giving the players more control over things that affect everyone in the long-term.
What I meant is that, for the purpose of character development, and with the restrictions assumed above, learned things and stats and skills are equivalent - I don't mean in power. I mean in RP sense. I might want to develop my knowledge in a direction that makes me better at diplomacy, or whatever, just like I might want to be able to develop my stats/skills in a direction that makes me better at using PSI equipment. Not being able to do the former because of random dice rolls would feel equally bad as not being able to do the latter because of random dice rolls.
But they are
not equivalent, or even remotely so - especially not in terms of "RP sense" as you call it. I could for instance give myself both the ability to play a flute, and the ability to call down a bolt of lightning from heaven. I might say they have equal roleplay value - and it would be true! But
only to me, because it is the
player that defines how "good" things are in terms of roleplay value - it is
highly up for debate, which means of course inevitably I will have to argue with the players (as I am even right now) over whether or not two things are "equal".
But it isn't just the roleplay sense of balance that matters. It's the roleplay sense, and the combat, and the gameplay, and the story, and the universe, and the backstory, and a hundred other tiny little things working together to make The Story. You cannot focus on simply one thing to the exclusion of others and say they are equal. It is like comparing the numbers 92 and 1203847 and saying they're equal, simply because the second digit in both numbers is "2".
And again, there is no guarantee that what you think is fun will ever actually get used enough to be fun. I can tweak the campaign, but I can't design a campaign around ten players' completely unrelated GK rolls. That would be ludicrous and impossible without the loss of my sanity. The game would spiral into chaos and meaninglessness. It would be like trying to make a story of random words.
Both. The sudden skill I received made me able to and encouraged me to play him in a certain way.
Good answer, with the exception of "made me able to" - you were mostly as able before, but you chose not to. The fun part was wholly in how you chose to play. Sitting behind cover and hoping you hit things is a surefire way to have as little fun as you would in traditional DnD HP-based combat. (Or, in REKT, even less!)
Dinosawer wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:11 am
See above, als, one does not exclude the other. I also was more thinking of "If you somehow fail all GK rolls, one of them becomes a 5 instead". You can then still add a minor difficulty or easiness bonus if you think something should be possible but hard to learn, or easy to learn.
(For example, I imagine you could make things easier if they are purely for RP and not useful, or make sense given the character background)
This in particular makes so little sense that, out of everything you've suggested thus far, I'm going to openly Rule Zero it right off the bat. This suggested system: "A guaranteed success" is a terrible idea. It begs for exploitation. All a player has to do is invent three things that they know I wouldn't agree with, and then, regardless of rolls, penalties, bonuses, any of that - I
must give one to them. Even if it would damage the experience of every other player there. The player requesting it may not see this, of course - in fact, they probably don't, and when I either go against the rules to Rule Zero what it is, or things inevitably spiral into chaos and die later - I will be touted as a "Bad GM" and people will point their fingers at me, rather than the one that caused the problem in the first place.
YOU may not plan to do this, but that means nothing in this conversation, because the rules I design aren't just for you. They are for everyone.
As to the bonuses/penalties, I cannot add those in full view of the player because it opens up the option to debate them. "But player X got a Y bonus when he did Z, surely this is worth at least that much of a bonus!"
Dinosawer wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:11 am
Why would they need to try something new? They're not more likely to succeed a GK roll for something new. Multiroll rules are needed because we can otherwise break the game by trying things an infinite amount of times in 1 turn until they succeed, but if GK rolls between missions are already capped to 3/6/whatever, there's no point in applying the same system.
I'm fairly sure I'd be more unhappy if I was unable to learn something I wanted to at all without having to wait, and having to try to learn something I wanted to know less (while being equally likely to fail at learning it), than having to try 3 times to do it.
I'm not talking about your proposed system. I'm talking about mine, and the way things currently work: I have the ability to give bonuses and penalties, ranging from -4 to +4, on all GK rolls. This is imperative and of utmost importance because it is part of
how I GM the game. If you take away my ability to GM the game, you might as well not have a GM at all, and as I think any player that has ever tried to host a game while they were playing it would know -
it doesn't work. You
need a GM that is unbiased between the players and can see the "bigger picture".
With the -4/+4 system - either system, be it in-mission or pre-mission, I can (without having to tell the players what I'm doing) give bonuses to GK rolls that I feel would be good to succeed - for any variety of reasons, ranging from "the player's been having a shit time lately" to "this sounds like it'd be fun" to "this will be important later on" - or deny them for reasons such as "this would harm the other players", "this would ruin something I'm planning later", or "this wouldn't actually be fun". With that system in mind, the "wait 2 missions" rule has an
enormous advantage over your system, because in the intervening time I can subtly let the player see that the skill they wanted wouldn't be so fun after all, or let slip the knowledge that their skill wouldn't be used in the future anyway. Perhaps the skill isn't useful then and would feel wasted, and then they wouldn't think to use it later on when it would actually be useful - and I can give them that impression as well.
Without that, it is simply chaos with people trying the same things over and over again at the start of every mission - in either system. Without that two-mission gap, they'll have etched into their minds "I will try again when the mission is over". When they inevitably fail the roll a second time (with my system) they will probably become upset about it, because they will ask, "If you weren't going to give it to me, why didn't you just tell me? Now I wasted it!"
To summarize: The player may know what they think is fun for themselves, but that is all they know. The players cannot look into the future or around the corner, but the GM can. The handling of GK must be left to the GM because it heavily affects story and rules, which is the GM's territory by nature.