What is your "Fight Me" thread?

[Max_Killjoy]

Isn't that just a survival instinct?

"Survival instinct" might be too loose a term, see responses above.

It's probably closer to "I would like to accomplish this objective, although very risky, with the lowest risk and highest chance of living I can practically manage, because I'd like to live to enjoy the victory, the spoils, and the other good stuff".

[Lord Raziere]

yes those are bad to, I agree.

I find one of the best ways to participate yet still have a character with their interests and motives is to be a "dealmaker" kind of character. basically you make deals and agreements with other members of the party to help fulfill each others goals, so that you your own character gains something but also helps someone out. a rogue is actually pretty good for this, as their morals/ethics are flexible so they can make a deal with the paladin "ey, I know your a real code-adherent guy, and I don't exactly have any code at all, so my friend, lets make a deal: you want me to follow the rules, I want to get something out of it, we both walk away happy. My offer is to be good while working with you, what do you offer in return?"

Okay I didn't like that style of play until you had to go and give it a really cool sounding name like that. Now I kinda want to play one. Preferably one in a sci-fi setting with a meta-currency so I can play a robot and ignore the meta when telling people the odds.

Thats not HRLM. thats C-3P0, thats just being Awesome Set Up Guy: "I'm here to tell you how impossible this is, thus setting up an awesome moment when you do it." thats not selfish at all, thats providing a service to other characters.

[Vitruviansquid]

I'm okay with a player being HRLM.

Not okay with a GM who plays every single NPC as a HRLM.

Not okay with a player who uses being a HRLM to slow down the pace of the game to an unplayable level.

Not okay with a player who argues with other players in order to try to make every PC a HRLM.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm okay with a player being HRLM.

Not okay with a GM who plays every single NPC as a HRLM.

Not okay with a player who uses being a HRLM to slow down the pace of the game to an unplayable level.

Not okay with a player who argues with other players in order to try to make every PC a HRLM.

Unfortunately, once one person HRLM's, it begins start an arms race of HRLM, or you lock the HRLM out by not making things follow logically. its a conundrum once that style of play starts.

[Vitruviansquid]

Unfortunately, once one person HRLM's, it begins start an arms race of HRLM, or you lock the HRLM out by not making things follow logically. its a conundrum once that style of play starts.

Why does it start an arms race of HRLM once one person does it?

[Tinkerer]

Thats not HRLM. thats C-3P0, thats just being Awesome Set Up Guy: "I'm here to tell you how impossible this is, thus setting up an awesome moment when you do it." thats not selfish at all, thats providing a service to other characters.

Depends on how you play it Almost total optimization except for the meta-currency (which is a huge factor) means he should balance out to roughly a normal character. But yeah, why would I want to make a selfish character? Our group tends to be about two things, having fun and making sure the rest of the group can have fun. For each campaign every person should have at least one complete plot line.

[Quertus]

Well, there's three different types of "story" that are generally used:

1) Cool stories that we tell after the fact. The story posted above fits that description.

2) Emergent story as a bunch of stuff that we're doing, where the game is actively about trying to resolve these conflicts.

3) The pre-planned story that the GM has in mind.

Like many things, when people talk about "story" they differ on the meaning, and conversation becomes impossible.

The first type of story is possible in even the most exploration-minded game. The second is a slightly different style of game, and fans of both of those will generally rail against the third.

It seems to me like one could tell a story after the fact about 2 or 3, too, so I must be missing something.

Some players don't, and that's fine. Most of the players I've played with enjoy it when the campaign produces a good story, and make some choices to that end. Some players have very different ideas about what defines a "Good Story".

And I guess it's certainly possible that I've played with people who honestly don't care at all, and just want to roll dice and/or explore a role. But, it's never really come up that they're opposed to a game telling a good story, or the GM/other players trying to make that happen.


How are the SUE files at all relevant here? Because the GM was trying to tell a good story? Because people enjoyed reading about the train-wreck afterwards?

The bolded one. It's a good story. Stories are what we walk away from a game with*, but they're still not what I aim for**.

* Well, that, and what I learn about humanity and myself from attempting to play a given role.

** in a game. IRL, I'm all about aiming for walking away with cool stories.

So, when people say things like "Telling a good story should never factor into somebody's decisions". What I hear is "You should never have seen that Dragon again". Campaigns should consist solely of cause-and-effect relations and statistically probable outcomes, without so much as a finger on the scale to send things down the path that lets people have a good time.

Stuff like Heavy Railroading, Flagrant disregard for the established rules of the game and setting, 10-minute NPC Monologues, Characters throwing aside their pre-established personalities, Deus-Ex-Machina solutions, NPC's taking precedence over PCs, ect, all hurt the story being told. Even if they produce a sequence of events that would be more fun to read about on paper, they hurt the experience of those sitting around the table, and therefore are not justified by "Telling a Good Story".

I think that is one of the best defences for "for the story" I have seen. When I say that an game should be a good story, that's pretty much what I'm talking about.

When I hear "for the story", this is what comes to mind. Or this. Or this.

E: What comes to mind is decisions made at the expense of character coherence, at the expense of setting continuity.

When I've had people in games at various tables talk about "for the story", it hasn't been anything good. It's been all the railroady, sacrifice character / ignore the setting / hold the idiot ball stuff. So this is, to me, a very new way of using those words, and not what I think of when I say/write such words.

But let's take an extremist stance for a moment, for illustrative purposes: Campaigns should consist solely of cause-and-effect relations and statistically probable outcomes, without so much as a finger on the scale to send things down the path that lets people have a good time ruins immersion, kills the mood, and prevents fun. "Say what?!" Well, your example with the dragon probably wouldn't have been an issue. It probably wouldn't have gotten under my skin that we happened to find that particular dragon that was in your backstory. And your story didn't make it sound like anyone contrived too hard to make sure you got the final blow with the weapon you talked to the GM about making magical long ago. But hopefully you can see how that same outcome could have been handled in a very contrived way.

Personally, I'd rather go to the stores and purchase a magic sword with my hard-earned cash than "earn" a(nother) Sword of Contrivance +1.

Now, that having been said, as you told the story, I still don't like it. I'll tell you why, but... I've learned that some people don't appreciate me attacking their fond memories. So I'll spoiler it, and, please, no-one else respond about that bit, in case BRC chooses not to read it. EDIT: never mind, he read it.

Spoiler: what I still don't like

Show

In the story you told, there was no indication of effort on your part. As far as I know, you just happened across the dragon that destroyed your ship. You gave no indication of effort put into looking for it. It felt purely like a coincidence. A believable one (dragons are huge and territorial), but not something that makes it sound like an accomplishment you earned, just one you happened upon.

There's also the lack of characterization of how your character felt in the moment, or why he chose to use that particular sword in an inefficient tactic to defeat his ancient enemy, but that I can assume was left out for the sake of brevity.

[Airk]

When I hear "for the story", this is what comes to mind. Or this. Or this.

E: What comes to mind is decisions made at the expense of character coherence, at the expense of setting continuity.

You seem like you've had some negative experiences or something, because that's NOT what most people mean.

I'm okay with a player being HRLM.

Not okay with a GM who plays every single NPC as a HRLM.

I'm not okay with this bizarre double standard. Why is the GM obligated to play his characters in a realistic fashion if the PCs are just going to be "Nah, the only objectively correct option is to stand in the fire because it only does 1d6/round anyway."?

[Vitruviansquid]

I'm not okay with this bizarre double standard. Why is the GM obligated to play his characters in a realistic fashion if the PCs are just going to be "Nah, the only objectively correct option is to stand in the fire because it only does 1d6/round anyway."?

I thought being an HRLM just meant you're playing a character who acts like a robot, not a character who exploits the system's bugs.

One or two very bizarre, unfun characters being played unimaginatively in a manner that smells of powergaming aren't going to spoil the campaign and will usually not trash the game's tone.

(Disclaimer: this is for good systems, not unbalanced systems where just one PC being HRLM Paranoid Wizard will derail your campaign)

[kyoryu]

It seems to me like one could tell a story after the fact about 2 or 3, too, so I must be missing something.

You can always tell a story about things after the fact.

But talking about "stories" in that way is different than talking about "story" in terms of "the pre-planned story the GM has in mind" or in terms of "story" as in "this game is about various internal/external conflicts that we will try to resolve".

It's about definitions, not game types. I'm not trying to say that those are three different types of games - I'm saying those are three very different definitions of the term "story".

[Airk]

I thought being an HRLM just meant you're playing a character who acts like a robot, not a character who exploits the system's bugs.

It's kinda both. It's about picking the most logical and optimized thing to do, and that means treating the game systems rules as the rules of physics and planning accordingly. It's not "exploiting the system" it's just doing what the system tells you is best.

One or two very bizarre, unfun characters being played unimaginatively in a manner that smells of powergaming aren't going to spoil the campaign and will usually not trash the game's tone.

Disagreed. PCs have infinite screen time, so one PC out of say, 5, being played in that manner is going to make a lot of poo all over the place whereas a couple of GM characters doing it will not because they'll probably be throwaways who are killed once and never seen or cared about again.

[Vitruviansquid]

It's kinda both. It's about picking the most logical and optimized thing to do, and that means treating the game systems rules as the rules of physics and planning accordingly. It's not "exploiting the system" it's just doing what the system tells you is best.

So it's just a munchkin, then.

Yeah sure, munchkins are pretty bad.

Disagreed. PCs have infinite screen time, so one PC out of say, 5, being played in that manner is going to make a lot of poo all over the place whereas a couple of GM characters doing it will not because they'll probably be throwaways who are killed once and never seen or cared about again.

I guess I just don't see how a PC can "make a lot of poo all over the place" that badly as an HRLM, outside of the stuff I already said I'm not okay with, like exploiting the game's bugs, slowing down the pace of the game, and arguing with the GM and other players.

[Amazon]

Armor, apparently.

[BRC]

When I've had people in games at various tables talk about "for the story", it hasn't been anything good. It's been all the railroady, sacrifice character / ignore the setting / hold the idiot ball stuff. So this is, to me, a very new way of using those words, and not what I think of when I say/write such words.

But let's take an extremist stance for a moment, for illustrative purposes: Campaigns should consist solely of cause-and-effect relations and statistically probable outcomes, without so much as a finger on the scale to send things down the path that lets people have a good time ruins immersion, kills the mood, and prevents fun. "Say what?!" Well, your example with the dragon probably wouldn't have been an issue. It probably wouldn't have gotten under my skin that we happened to find that particular dragon that was in your backstory. And your story didn't make it sound like anyone contrived too hard to make sure you got the final blow with the weapon you talked to the GM about making magical long ago. But hopefully you can see how that same outcome could have been handled in a very contrived way.

Personally, I'd rather go to the stores and purchase a magic sword with my hard-earned cash than "earn" a(nother) Sword of Contrivance +1.

Now, that having been said, as you told the story, I still don't like it. I'll tell you why, but... I've learned that some people don't appreciate me attacking their fond memories. So I'll spoiler it, and, please, no-one else respond about that bit, in case BRC chooses not to read it.

Spoiler: what I still don't like

Show

In the story you told, there was no indication of effort on your part. As far as I know, you just happened across the dragon that destroyed your ship. You gave no indication of effort put into looking for it. It felt purely like a coincidence. A believable one (dragons are huge and territorial), but not something that makes it sound like an accomplishment you earned, just one you happened upon.

There's also the lack of characterization of how your character felt in the moment, or why he chose to use that particular sword in an inefficient tactic to defeat his ancient enemy, but that I can assume was left out for the sake of brevity.

Spoiler: Minor spoilers for Tyranny of Dragons

Show

The campaign were were playing was a Modified version of the Horde of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat published adventures. The GM added and changed a good deal, but the basic beats were still in place.

The campaign centers around thwarting the Cult of the Dragon, a powerful cult with a large number of Draconic Allies that seeks to summon Tiamat, the Mother of Dragons to the Material plane.

My character's backstory was that a Blue Dragon working for the Cult destroyed his ship in retaliation for the capture of a ship carrying gold belonging to the Cult. I picked a blue dragon so my character could have cool lightning scars.

At the point in the campaign where this encounter occurs, the campaign book says that the Party (Which has just retrieved a MacGuffin) is attacked by a Blue Dragon working for the Cult. The Dragon has a name, but to be honest, we just called her "Backstorius" the entire time, and it kind of stuck.

So, to address the complaint in the spoiler. No, we hadn't sought out this particular Dragon. We'd been running around thwarting the Cult's schemes this entire time, killing their leaders, slaying their Draconic allies, stealing their Macguffins, ect ect. We HAD encountered this particular Dragon before in the first few sessions, long before we were in any position to do anything but hide as it strafed the keep it was attacking with it's breath weapon.

My character certainly wanted Revenge, but thwarting the Cult was both more actionable, and more urgent than trying to track down a particular Dragon. The two of them were reunited "On the Battlefield" as it were. We were going up against the Cult, and the Dragon worked for the cult, so the idea of encountering that particular dragon wasn't unreasonable, but we were not hunting for that dragon in particular. At the moment we were attacked, we weren't hunting for a Dragon at all. We were trying to get this Macguffin to safety when the Dragon threatened to destroy the town if we didn't come out and face it. So it was a "Coincidence", but it was hardly unlikely.
What was Established here, as far as relevant Known Facts, was the following:
1) The Cult has multiple Blue Dragons working for it.
2) A Blue Dragon working for the Cult destroyed my ship, killing everybody but my character.
3) A Blue Dragon working for the Cult is sent to attack the party and retrieve the Macguffin at this point in time.

(Technically, I think the Campaign Book specifies that the same blue dragon that attacks the party in the desert is the one that attacked the town in the first adventure, but we deviated from the campaign book plenty, and that's not really relevant as far as this goes. Even if the there was some very good reason why the same Dragon that attacked the town in the first Adventure ALSO attacks the party later on, there was no reason why that would be the Dragon who destroyed my ship.)
Nothing else is established this point about any particular Blue Dragons working for the cult. We're in the desert,so it makes sense for the Cult to send a Blue Dragon after us at this point in time, but there's nothing established to indicate any specific Blue Dragon is more likely than any other.

And, since the whole Ship thing was something I made up for my backstory, the campaign book doesn't address at all about which Dragon is most likely to have sunk my ship.


The "No Thumb On The Scale" approach would, at it's most generous, say "Well, since it's equally likely that any given Blue Cult Dragon destroyed the ship, the chances of the Blue Cult Dragon being sent to attack the party is 1/X, where X is the number of Blue Dragons working for the Cult at the time", and either rolled a die, or just decided that, since it's probably not this dragon (and if not, then it doesn't really matter exactly which Dragon it is), then the most likely outcome is that it's some other Dragon, and just go with that.

But, just as there was no particular reason why it SHOULD be the same Dragon (Backstorius), there also was no particular reason why it SHOULDN'T be the same Dragon.

And so, my GM put his thumb on the scale, and Louis DeCannes got his showdown with Backstorius. "For the Story" it was the same Dragon. "For the Story" the other PC's sent me to chase it down. "For the Story" I chose to use my mundane Rapier, rather than either of the Magic weapons I had available.

Does that count as "Contrived"? Maybe. But it didn't run counter to anything established about the setting or relevant characters, and it led to a better story.

Could it have been contrived? Sure. Why not. The Dragon could have had a magical enchantment that said it could only be killed by the weapon of somebody it had slain or some such nonsense. I could have lost the sword while we were dodging iceburgs in the north sea, only for it to turn up again in the wares of some random merchant we encounter halfway across the continent. The Dragon could have decided to give up it's flight advantage and fight us on the ground so I could get into melee without any assistance.

But, you know, none of those things happened. So it's not really relevant. "It could have been done poorly" is no reason to say "It shouldn't have been done".


The reason you only think of bad things when people say "For the Story" is because the only time it really comes up is when there are no good explanations, and people must rely on the meta reasoning of "it makes a good story".

Like you said, you probably wouldn't have batted an eye at the same Dragon showing up. You never would have questioned why it was the Same Dragon, so nobody would have had to answer "For the Story". But in the end, that's the reason.

But, when people go around arguing that you shouldn't try to tell good stories because it might end up Contrived. When you celebrate good stories, but shame any attempt to create them. When the only examples of "Trying to Tell Good Stories" you bring up involve decisions that cannot be explained EXCEPT by saying that they were necessary for the story, then I have a problem.

By framing "Trying to tell good stories" Solely in the context of people ruining the very stories they're trying to tell with inconsistencies and railroading you spread the idea that there is nothing players or GMs can do to make good stories happen. Rather than discussing how people can help tell great stories around the table, you get the "No Finger On the Scale" philosophy where everything needs to be the Most Likely Outcome of any given situation.

Edit: Part of the reason for the whole "A good Novel is different than a good RPG story" thing is because a lot of "Bad DM" stories come down to the DM trying to tell the wrong SORT of story. They try to tell the story of a novel they would like to write, and end up casting the PC's as supporting characters, or they railroad relentlessly for the same reason Authors don't ask random strangers how the next chapter should go.

Or they model their story off "Branching Path" style CRPGs, forgetting that they don't need to code every dialogue choice and market stall, or that filling a dungeon with contextless "Random Encounters" isn't a good idea. Limiting themselves by thinking in terms of other mediums, rather than embracing the nature of tabletop RPGs.

[Lord Raziere]

Why does it start an arms race of HRLM once one person does it?

everything becomes effortless for some using tactics that don't fit non-HRLM things or we start catering to only the HRLM.

its basically the same problem as all optimization: once you start using assault rifles and rocket launchers, swords and spears are no longer good to use. its just optimization but in character, so it ruins a lot of the things I like to do in my roleplaying.

Depends on how you play it ( do not act cute with a smallwink, I don't like itr) Almost total optimization except for the meta-currency (which is a huge factor) means he should balance out to roughly a normal character. But yeah, why would I want to make a selfish character? Our group tends to be about two things, having fun and making sure the rest of the group can have fun. For each campaign every person should have at least one complete plot line.

No, playing it differently is a completely different character.

[Quertus]

the key is to Read your group. In my case, the other players knew exactly what I was going to try to do and fully supported me. Had I failed miserably it would have sucked, but they would have dealt with it. We collectively knew that delivering the killing blow with that sword would give the party a powerful magic item, so it was a risk/reward calculation. This wasn't just my triumph, it was the group's triumph, since everybody bought into it.

And getting that buy-in was part of this being a great RPG story. Everybody at the table got swept up in it, even though it was my character's personal quest. My going after the dragon was a decision made collectively, so had it gone badly there would have been sadness, but not much resentment.

If you're going to do something like this, make sure the group is okay with the risk (This could go very wrong) vs Reward (This will give us a powerful magic item/be an awesome story/makes a lot of sense for my character). Don't make that gamble on behalf of the group.

I can't say if gamers like Max and Querty would have agreed, but in most groups "Go ahead, this will be awesome" goes a long way. We're all here to have fun after all.

Huh. I say "know your players" to GMs all the time; I need a player-facing or audience-agnostic version of that phrase. "Read your group" isn't a bad concept. Not bad at all. I approve.

Explicit buy-in is a good thing. But it depends on what you're going for. It's hard to ask someone for explicit buy-in for sexual tension, or for a surprise birthday party.

I tend to prefer things that I don't get buy-in on, so that I know that I came by them honest. It cheapens the victory, for me, if it was handed to me in the first place.

So... I agree, but I prefer something else whenever possible.

And, if they had Objections, as I see it, the math would have been:
"I think it would be a good story(+), but my character would object, and so having them support it would make them be acting out of character (-)".
Because, at least how I'm defining it, characters acting in-character is part of what makes a story good.

I'd say that while you CAN care deeply about staying in-character for reasons that have nothing to do with producing good stories, you can't really care about producing good stories without valuing keeping your decisions in-character.

If I'd heard sentiments like that before, I might not have such a huge anti-story chip on my shoulder.

Heck, if I play long enough with enough people who spout such ideas, I might even become pro-story some day.

Unfortunately, once one person HRLM's, it begins start an arms race of HRLM, or you lock the HRLM out by not making things follow logically. its a conundrum once that style of play starts.

Why does it start an arms race of HRLM once one person does it?

I second this question. Of course, it's probably already been answered by the time I finish this post.

You seem like you've had some negative experiences or something, because that's NOT what most people mean.

Most people in my experience mean that.

I'm not okay with this bizarre double standard. Why is the GM obligated to play his characters in a realistic fashion if the PCs are just going to be "Nah, the only objectively correct option is to stand in the fire because it only does 1d6/round anyway."?

Same reason it's ok, IMO, for a player to cheat on their rolls, if that's what they need to do to have fun, but not for the GM to do so: one pc represents less than 0.01% of the world. Adventuring with such a statistical anomaly is fine. But when 99.99% of the world is a statistical anomaly, something's horribly wrong.

You can always tell a story about things after the fact.

But talking about "stories" in that way is different than talking about "story" in terms of "the pre-planned story the GM has in mind" or in terms of "story" as in "this game is about various internal/external conflicts that we will try to resolve".

It's about definitions, not game types. I'm not trying to say that those are three different types of games - I'm saying those are three very different definitions of the term "story".

Ah, I think I've got it, thanks.

[Vitruviansquid]

everything becomes effortless for some using tactics that don't fit non-HRLM things or we start catering to only the HRLM.

its basically the same problem as all optimization: once you start using assault rifles and rocket launchers, swords and spears are no longer good to use. its just optimization but in character, so it ruins a lot of the things I like to do in my roleplaying.

Well, I would say don't play a system where optimizing allows a player to be that much more efficient than another player who is just average.

[2D8HP]

Armor, apparently.

FWIW, I found you convincing.

[Draconi Redfir]

all this just because i was upset we threw gold at a problem to solve it rather then having an emotional sacrifice like was probably expected...

[goto124]

Everybody at the table got swept up in it, even though it was my character's personal quest. [snipped for brevity]

but one the GM may have made so as to allow for this exact sort of duel)

I can only Wish for this amount of RL Charisma.

explicit buy-in for sexual tension, or for a surprise birthday party.

I would want explicit buy-in for sexual or romantic themes. If I suddenly found myself in the middle of sexual tension, I would find it very creepy on an OOC level. I would think 'if this starts to escalate, I will leave the group instead of getting caught in whatever sexual things the GM or players have in mind'. I've swapped my character's gender before submitting my character sheet because I noticed the sexual orientations of my teammates' characters.

When making characters, should I set limits for sexual and romantic themes? Could I say e.g. "I want no part in anything sexual or romantic ever"? Or "Could you make sure people who are <gender> don't hit on my character, who is of <sexual orientation> and I don't want to deal with the awkardness of rejecting them"? I mean, I know I can, I just never explicitly thought about setting these sort of limits before a game starts.

I would want explicit buy-in for events that cause my teammates to suddenly act secretive around me. Did they get mind-controlled? Did someone get replaced by their evil twin? Did the last major event in the main plot present them with a choice between their personal goals and the group's goals, and they're looking to betray the party for those personal goals? If trying to talk it out OOCly yielded nothing, I would put in a week's worth of planning out every contigency for different possibilities of my own teammates betraying me. Possibly doing real damage to the very teammates who just want me to have a neat surprise.

Unless there isn't the kind of buildup that set off my paranoia, and the surprise birthday party is just the teammates carrying a cake and saying 'happy birthday'.

In general, I think there's a set of actions/thoughts/etc that a particular character would do, and a set of things that don't ruin the fun for other players, and as long as you're in the space where those sets overlap, you're on good ground. If you want to add "a set of things that make a better story more likely to have emerged through play" to that and find where all three sets overlap, then -- while it's not my cuppa -- I'm not going to call it badwrongfun.

Come to think of it, I've been following this for a while. Except that I exercise my freedom to change "set of actions/thoughts/etc that my character would do", for maximum overlap with "set of things that don't ruin the fun for other players" and "set of things that make a better story more likely to have emerged through play".

[Max_Killjoy]

Spoiler: Minor spoilers for Tyranny of Dragons

Show

The campaign were were playing was a Modified version of the Horde of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat published adventures. The GM added and changed a good deal, but the basic beats were still in place.

The campaign centers around thwarting the Cult of the Dragon, a powerful cult with a large number of Draconic Allies that seeks to summon Tiamat, the Mother of Dragons to the Material plane.

My character's backstory was that a Blue Dragon working for the Cult destroyed his ship in retaliation for the capture of a ship carrying gold belonging to the Cult. I picked a blue dragon so my character could have cool lightning scars.

At the point in the campaign where this encounter occurs, the campaign book says that the Party (Which has just retrieved a MacGuffin) is attacked by a Blue Dragon working for the Cult. The Dragon has a name, but to be honest, we just called her "Backstorius" the entire time, and it kind of stuck.

So, to address the complaint in the spoiler. No, we hadn't sought out this particular Dragon. We'd been running around thwarting the Cult's schemes this entire time, killing their leaders, slaying their Draconic allies, stealing their Macguffins, ect ect. We HAD encountered this particular Dragon before in the first few sessions, long before we were in any position to do anything but hide as it strafed the keep it was attacking with it's breath weapon.

My character certainly wanted Revenge, but thwarting the Cult was both more actionable, and more urgent than trying to track down a particular Dragon. The two of them were reunited "On the Battlefield" as it were. We were going up against the Cult, and the Dragon worked for the cult, so the idea of encountering that particular dragon wasn't unreasonable, but we were not hunting for that dragon in particular. At the moment we were attacked, we weren't hunting for a Dragon at all. We were trying to get this Macguffin to safety when the Dragon threatened to destroy the town if we didn't come out and face it. So it was a "Coincidence", but it was hardly unlikely.
What was Established here, as far as relevant Known Facts, was the following:
1) The Cult has multiple Blue Dragons working for it.
2) A Blue Dragon working for the Cult destroyed my ship, killing everybody but my character.
3) A Blue Dragon working for the Cult is sent to attack the party and retrieve the Macguffin at this point in time.

(Technically, I think the Campaign Book specifies that the same blue dragon that attacks the party in the desert is the one that attacked the town in the first adventure, but we deviated from the campaign book plenty, and that's not really relevant as far as this goes. Even if the there was some very good reason why the same Dragon that attacked the town in the first Adventure ALSO attacks the party later on, there was no reason why that would be the Dragon who destroyed my ship.)
Nothing else is established this point about any particular Blue Dragons working for the cult. We're in the desert,so it makes sense for the Cult to send a Blue Dragon after us at this point in time, but there's nothing established to indicate any specific Blue Dragon is more likely than any other.

And, since the whole Ship thing was something I made up for my backstory, the campaign book doesn't address at all about which Dragon is most likely to have sunk my ship.


The "No Thumb On The Scale" approach would, at it's most generous, say "Well, since it's equally likely that any given Blue Cult Dragon destroyed the ship, the chances of the Blue Cult Dragon being sent to attack the party is 1/X, where X is the number of Blue Dragons working for the Cult at the time", and either rolled a die, or just decided that, since it's probably not this dragon (and if not, then it doesn't really matter exactly which Dragon it is), then the most likely outcome is that it's some other Dragon, and just go with that.

But, just as there was no particular reason why it SHOULD be the same Dragon (Backstorius), there also was no particular reason why it SHOULDN'T be the same Dragon.

And so, my GM put his thumb on the scale, and Louis DeCannes got his showdown with Backstorius. "For the Story" it was the same Dragon. "For the Story" the other PC's sent me to chase it down. "For the Story" I chose to use my mundane Rapier, rather than either of the Magic weapons I had available.

Does that count as "Contrived"? Maybe. But it didn't run counter to anything established about the setting or relevant characters, and it led to a better story.

No, it makes more than enough sense, actually.

Spoiler

Show

You were fighting the cult the dragon was working for, just as you'd taken the gold from the cult that the dragon was working for. It's not at all contrived that the dragon showed up more than once. And you had a reason to fight the cult, since you'd had a terrible experience with evil dragons previously. It makes sense that your character would want revenge, and people being emotional creatures, that he'd want to do it with that sword.

I think this example stands right in the part of the Venn diagram where "it makes sense for the character", "it respects continuity and coherence", "it's more fun this way" and "a better story comes out the other side" all overlap. It's firmly outside the realm of "narrative causality".

Come to think of it, I've been following this for a while. Except that I exercise my freedom to change "set of actions/thoughts/etc that my character would do", for maximum overlap with "set of things that don't ruin the fun for other players" and "set of things that make a better story more likely to have emerged through play".

For most people -- and thus most characters -- in most situations, there's a range of things they could do without violating their established personality, capabilities, morals, ethics, likes and dislikes, etc. And there's also a hierarchy that all of that fits into for most, as well. Someone who wouldn't kill another person for all the money in the world might pull the trigger without hesitation to save innocent other lives, for example.

So as a player, even if your gut immediately says "this is exactly what this character would do at this moment in these circumstances"... if it would do serious damage to the game for the rest of the players, you still have choice as a player to go with option #2, not violate the character at all, and keep things fun and moving for the group you're playing with.

[ImNotTrevor]

Armor, apparently.

(To make it clear, here if not there, I don't disagree with your core position on this. My only arguments have been related to methodology.)

[Cluedrew]

[...]and instead decided to make silly choices based on fluff. [...] How can I face my teammates ever again?

But that is what you are supposed to make choices based off of? The mechanics don't mean anything on there own, so why should they have priority? I've played games where people have attacked teammates, half the party traveled into the danger zone without an escape root. And they were all so much better for us doing the awesome thing that followed from the story we were telling rather than the statistically highest way to survive. Which is ultimately: Don't adventure.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yes I forgot to mention one of the key things that makes a good story is that you are still around to tell it.

Yeah, although some of our stories are about that one PC who died in a horrific and amazing manner.

A story must be judged by, and tailored to, the medium it is experienced through. Watching a film, and reading the script of a film, are very different experiences, even if they both communicate the same Story.
A good RPG story is different from a good Novel story. A key part of how an RPG story exists is that it's crafted by the players at the table and the whims of the dice.
A Good RPG story is not always one that sounds good on the retelling. It's not always a story that looks good written out on paper.

Fair point. Rob Conley has a similar approach to RPG story telling in D&D: you play to play, and the story is what is recalled/reflected after the fact.

Well, there's three different types of "story" that are generally used:
1) Cool stories that we tell after the fact. The story posted above fits that description.

Yeah, that.

Peter Jackson missed an opportunity to show Mordor's extensive anti-aircraft batteries.

Gollum stole the O-rings, so when they tried to fire they blew up.

When people go around arguing that you shouldn't try to tell good stories because it might end up Contrived. When you celebrate good stories, but shame any attempt to create them. When the only examples of "Trying to Tell Good Stories" you bring up involve decisions that cannot be explained EXCEPT by saying that they were necessary for the story, then I have a problem.

Yeah.

Part of the reason for the whole "A good Novel is different than a good RPG story" thing is because a lot of "Bad DM" stories come down to the DM trying to tell the wrong SORT of story.

Yeah.

Some stories are a lot better due to who is telling them. There is an art to telling a story; ask any stand up comedian or successful journalist.

[Max_Killjoy]

Fair point. Rob Conley has a similar approach to RPG story telling in D&D: you play to play, and the story is what is recalled/reflected after the fact.

That's pretty much my approach -- emergent story.

( "You play to play" may or may not imply something more game-as-game-focused than I prefer.)

[kyoryu]

That's pretty much my approach -- emergent story.

( "You play to play" may or may not imply something more game-as-game-focused than I prefer.)

Well, even then there's still differences. The traditional game isn't set up in the context of "a story". You go into a dungeon and loot some ****, and tell stories about what happened. It's kind of like a sport - I tell stories about playing hockey, but hockey isn't a story.

When I run Fate, on the other hand, I set the game up very differently. The point is finding out what happens about some big, interesting question. The game is framed up with conflicts, etc., and scenes are run to answer smaller questions. The game is set up to basically be "the story of what happened around <xyz>".

I call these three things "I'm going to tell you a story", "hey, let's play through a story" and "Let me tell you about when....". There's GNS terms, but I won't use them, because

[Quertus]

everything becomes effortless for some using tactics that don't fit non-HRLM things or we start catering to only the HRLM.

its basically the same problem as all optimization: once you start using assault rifles and rocket launchers, swords and spears are no longer good to use. its just optimization but in character, so it ruins a lot of the things I like to do in my roleplaying.

Hmmm... when I play my signature, tactically inept academia mage, I don't require people to sink down to his level of ineptitude. Similarly, if I were playing a brilliant tactician, and someone complained that my character was too smart, I can't imagine that I'd feel obliged to roleplay my character poorly just to sink to their level.

But, then, I enjoy differences. I revel in them. They're what make things interesting, at least for me. I enjoy having various knobs to turn, from chassis to optimization level to tactics to personality, to use to differentiate characters, and to fine tune the gaming experience.

What you're proposing sounds like the idea that there is exactly one right way to play the game, and that any deviation from that is badwrongfun.

Whether that's what you intended to say or not, "only one way to play the game" is certainly something I'll plant my flag against.

However, if you're trying to say that you don't want the game to become unbalanced in a way that detracts from everyone's fun, and not just attacking imbalance and differences wholesale, then I'll agree with you.

No, it makes more than enough sense, actually.

Spoiler

Show

You were fighting the cult the dragon was working for, just as you'd taken the gold from the cult that the dragon was working for. It's not at all contrived that the dragon showed up more than once. And you had a reason to fight the cult, since you'd had a terrible experience with evil dragons previously. It makes sense that your character would want revenge, and people being emotional creatures, that he'd want to do it with that sword.

I think this example stands right in the part of the Venn diagram where "it makes sense for the character", "it respects continuity and coherence", "it's more fun this way" and "a better story comes out the other side" all overlap. It's firmly outside the realm of "narrative causality".

For most people -- and thus most characters -- in most situations, there's a range of things they could do without violating their established personality, capabilities, morals, ethics, likes and dislikes, etc. And there's also a hierarchy that all of that fits into for most, as well. Someone who wouldn't kill another person for all the money in the world might pull the trigger without hesitation to save innocent other lives, for example.

So as a player, even if your gut immediately says "this is exactly what this character would do at this moment in these circumstances"... if it would do serious damage to the game for the rest of the players, you still have choice as a player to go with option #2, not violate the character at all, and keep things fun and moving for the group you're playing with.

+1 to pretty much all of this. In context, the story, and the various characters' actions all sound perfectly plausible. Nothing has been sacrificed / battered beyond all recognition for The Story.

It is far better to metagame, and pick a different in-character action than to do something harmful to the fun of the rest of the players.

And I'm totally stealing the Venn diagram idea.

Does that count as "Contrived"? Maybe. But it didn't run counter to anything established about the setting or relevant characters, and it led to a better story.

Could it have been contrived? Sure. Why not. The Dragon could have had a magical enchantment that said it could only be killed by the weapon of somebody it had slain or some such nonsense. I could have lost the sword while we were dodging iceburgs in the north sea, only for it to turn up again in the wares of some random merchant we encounter halfway across the continent. The Dragon could have decided to give up it's flight advantage and fight us on the ground so I could get into melee without any assistance.

But, you know, none of those things happened. So it's not really relevant. "It could have been done poorly" is no reason to say "It shouldn't have been done".

The reason you only think of bad things when people say "For the Story" is because the only time it really comes up is when there are no good explanations, and people must rely on the meta reasoning of "it makes a good story".

Like you said, you probably wouldn't have batted an eye at the same Dragon showing up. You never would have questioned why it was the Same Dragon, so nobody would have had to answer "For the Story". But in the end, that's the reason.

But, when people go around arguing that you shouldn't try to tell good stories because it might end up Contrived. When you celebrate good stories, but shame any attempt to create them. When the only examples of "Trying to Tell Good Stories" you bring up involve decisions that cannot be explained EXCEPT by saying that they were necessary for the story, then I have a problem.

By framing "Trying to tell good stories" Solely in the context of people ruining the very stories they're trying to tell with inconsistencies and railroading you spread the idea that there is nothing players or GMs can do to make good stories happen. Rather than discussing how people can help tell great stories around the table, you get the "No Finger On the Scale" philosophy where everything needs to be the Most Likely Outcome of any given situation.

Edit: Part of the reason for the whole "A good Novel is different than a good RPG story" thing is because a lot of "Bad DM" stories come down to the DM trying to tell the wrong SORT of story. They try to tell the story of a novel they would like to write, and end up casting the PC's as supporting characters, or they railroad relentlessly for the same reason Authors don't ask random strangers how the next chapter should go.

Or they model their story off "Branching Path" style CRPGs, forgetting that they don't need to code every dialogue choice and market stall, or that filling a dungeon with contextless "Random Encounters" isn't a good idea. Limiting themselves by thinking in terms of other mediums, rather than embracing the nature of tabletop RPGs.

This is tricky. Bare with me.

First, let me say again that, as you explain it, I don't find your story or your mindset objectionable.

But, every time it's come up previously, in discussion IRL or in a game, the proponents of "story" were not like you. They would gladly sacrifice everything on the altar of Story, because, to them, Story was all that mattered. Inconsistency and railroading and such is what I associate with the stance of caring about Story. As I've said in other threads, I've played with people who cared so much about making the best possible story that, halfway through session 1, I could already accurately predict how many and which characters would still be conscious at the end of the climactic fight with the BBEG, because that's what they would consider to make the "best" story. This is the bias I am working from.

Me, I like the intersection of... Hmmm... Role-playing & internal consistency & player agency & "fun"*. And there's probably several other things on my very complicated Venn diagram.

That's a lot of space that I find unacceptable! And, honestly, I imagine most gamers have equally huge - if different - areas that they find unacceptable. So, by the time you get 5-15 people sitting around a table, you've got a very, very narrow window of acceptable space to work with in a game.

The human mind is quite limited in terms of just how much it can process at one time. Trying to get everyone to actively filter their decisions through all the different Venn diagrams and preferences of everyone at the table makes 3e "5d chess" look like child's play by comparison.

And filtering your decisions through all these layers really distances the character from the player - kinda the opposite of what I'm generally aiming for in an RPG.

I was taught to play in a very "my guy" environment. Role-playing was all that mattered. Any problems of the "my guy" variety were considered a failure of "Session 0". Yes, looking back, I can see all the ways that it was horrible. But you know what? That was probably the most fun role-playing I've had. There were the least layers of abstraction possible between myself and my character. And it was great! When it worked. When it didn't, it was horror stories, and back to the drawing board with a new Session 0.

The more layers you place between me and my character, the less fun I'll have, and the less RPGs will serve my purposes. Thus, I will likely maintain my general "anti-story" stance, if only out of preservation of headspace, as there are so many more important things to be focused on in a game.

But I don't no longer have anything against anyone caring about stories when it explicitly isn't to the detriment of character, consistency, or anything else I care about. Congratulations!

* if there are two valid in-character responses to a decision, and one harms the ability to participate / "fun" of another player, do the other one.

[Lord Raziere]

Hmmm... when I play my signature, tactically inept academia mage, I don't require people to sink down to his level of ineptitude. Similarly, if I were playing a brilliant tactician, and someone complained that my character was too smart, I can't imagine that I'd feel obliged to roleplay my character poorly just to sink to their level.

But, then, I enjoy differences. I revel in them. They're what make things interesting, at least for me. I enjoy having various knobs to turn, from chassis to optimization level to tactics to personality, to use to differentiate characters, and to fine tune the gaming experience.

What you're proposing sounds like the idea that there is exactly one right way to play the game, and that any deviation from that is badwrongfun.

Whether that's what you intended to say or not, "only one way to play the game" is certainly something I'll plant my flag against.

However, if you're trying to say that you don't want the game to become unbalanced in a way that detracts from everyone's fun, and not just attacking imbalance and differences wholesale, then I'll agree with you.

Its in my experience that people who try to play the HRLM and start these arms races are the ones who can't accept other play styles. They want nothing exciting, only to solve the problem instantly for no meat of anything to happen. conflict? character moments? story? puzzles? none of that seems to matter compared to just solving it now, and not experiencing the journey of solving it.

to be honest, your the one who sounds most like a One True Way person, as you often talk about optimization as if its a good thing and optimizers never accept people who can't optimize, as they believe that all should both be good roleplayers and good optimizers at the same time, and that anyone who disagrees is committing stormwind fallacy just because they don't want go through a counter-intuitive system of classes that don't actually do what they promise so you have to contrive what you want from oddly labeled sources that don't sound like what you want at all, and put them in games and parties that are out of place and expect GMs to accommodate them just because. furthermore optimizers expect everyone to talk in optimization jargon as if everyone knows and accepts it. nor do I buy that optimization is some gate way to greater freedom. they say that, but then when you actually ask them its all "oh only this narrow build will work, wizards win everything. deviation only leads to stormwind fallacy because your putting roleplay over mechanics by choosing anything else". they live in a bubble of char-op jargon unaware of the rest of roleplaying who don't agree with any of their principles and manifestos that they have so painstakingly compiled, and unwilling to try anything but their own solved game, playing with a janky clunky puzzle-square that people keep trying to fit into round hole settings.

I do speak against unbalance, unbalance that optimizers like to ignore and explain away for the sake of treating it as another puzzle instead of an engine problem to be fixed.

[Quertus]

Its in my experience that people who try to play the HRLM and start these arms races are the ones who can't accept other play styles. They want nothing exciting, only to solve the problem instantly for no meat of anything to happen. conflict? character moments? story? puzzles? none of that seems to matter compared to just solving it now, and not experiencing the journey of solving it.

to be honest, your the one who sounds most like a One True Way person, as you often talk about optimization as if its a good thing and optimizers never accept people who can't optimize, as they believe that all should both be good roleplayers and good optimizers at the same time, and that anyone who disagrees is committing stormwind fallacy just because they don't want go through a counter-intuitive system of classes that don't actually do what they promise so you have to contrive what you want from oddly labeled sources that don't sound like what you want at all, and put them in games and parties that are out of place and expect GMs to accommodate them just because. furthermore optimizers expect everyone to talk in optimization jargon as if everyone knows and accepts it. nor do I buy that optimization is some gate way to greater freedom. they say that, but then when you actually ask them its all "oh only this narrow build will work, wizards win everything. deviation only leads to stormwind fallacy because your putting roleplay over mechanics by choosing anything else". they live in a bubble of char-op jargon unaware of the rest of roleplaying who don't agree with any of their principles and manifestos that they have so painstakingly compiled, and unwilling to try anything but their own solved game, playing with a janky clunky puzzle-square that people keep trying to fit into round hole settings.

I do speak against unbalance, unbalance that optimizers like to ignore and explain away for the sake of treating it as another puzzle instead of an engine problem to be fixed.

My signature character, for whom this account is named, is a tactically inept academia mage. Topping my most told stories lists are my "worst build I could make" "hard mode" Armus, and my "This one goes to 11", "AC worse than 10" Amalak. And I come off as an optimizer?

In Magic the Gathering, I've won more than my fair share of tournaments, but I'll play whatever random deck sounds like fun at the time, often leaving people scratching their heads when "the previous tournament winner is playing that?".

I believe system knowledge is a good thing. I believe player skills are good things. I believe rules discussions are good things. I believe most any discussion is a good thing. I was taught to play in a very Darwinian, high lethality, "gitgud" environment. But optimization? Meh. I could take it or leave it. And I have little patience for the 3e D&D character creation minigame in particular. If my character description is more complicated than "Ninja pirate zombie robot", count me out. That "Quertus, wizard" is playable straight out of the box in 3e makes me happy. That, say, "Armus, monk" is not makes me sad.

I have stated previously that the optimizer PoV is advantageous for certain problems / lacks certain disadvantages inherent in most other PoVs. But just because I can appreciate the value of a position, don't assume that I personally hold that position.

[digiman619]

Well, judging from the 3 page debate that derailed a Fighter thread, my Fight Me Thread is that Vancian magic is horribly imbalanced and a massive flavor fail and needs replacement.