tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2814591084344141656.post5235633074137829114..comments2022-04-11T20:34:56.519-07:00Comments on Gamer By Design: PAX East 2014: Modernizing Fantasy RPGs Panel RecapTalarianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17684944568000522986noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2814591084344141656.post-42151984669071989362014-04-22T11:44:34.401-07:002014-04-22T11:44:34.401-07:00The great thing about tabletop games is that they ...The great thing about tabletop games is that they do use a lot of imagination in general. The rules are there mostly as a guide, and some people need more guides than others. Some people are happy to do diceless games based in a set universe and just spinning shared stores. Other people want to dig into crunchy game mechanics that try to simulate a world. Because RPGers are creative, rules are added, modified and subtracted on a regular basis. You can have a political-filled 4th edition D&D game just as easily as you can have a combat-focused game of VtM.<br /><br />I think that there's some feeling that there's a "right" way to play, though. Not necessarily from you, or from the panelists, but in general. I saw this a lot when I read a lot of tabletop RPG newsgroups back in the day. "Munchkins" in D&D were always slammed, people hated VtM players who wanted "superheroes with fangs", etc. I think the important part is to find people who want to play the same type of game you do, or are at least game to try. :)<br /><br />I think the strength of a lot of the World of Darkness games was that they were flexible. Want to play a heavily political arc? Totally possible. Want to throw down and beat some faces in? Also very possible with the rules they give. I think perhaps <i>Werewolf</i> was better for this than VtM, personally. So, I don't see the combat rules for the WoD games as being discordant at all. I think that's part of the strength of the system.<br /><br />Anyway, as I said, I love tabletop games. :) Thanks again for posting this summary, and do post more about tabletop games if you want!Psychochildhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06066038436696697892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2814591084344141656.post-49294423008872263152014-04-20T21:07:10.824-07:002014-04-20T21:07:10.824-07:00It was a pretty good panel overall.
I agree in th...It was a pretty good panel overall.<br /><br />I agree in that yes, you should be able to have highly political games of VtM where combat rarely happens. In fact, you should be able to have that with *any* system. Anybody who complains that 4th Edition D&D is nothing but combat has a combat-happy DM/party. There's nothing truly preventing people from RPing in any of those systems.<br /><br />I think I really misrepresented the panelists by summarizing their point. They were focused more on the rules around explosives, uzis, tanks, etc. along with the super-power vampires themselves. If I recall correctly, their point was (paraphrased), if the first thing your players seem to always do is rob a military compound for their stuff, you have a bit of a problem. Basically, the rules are suggestions to the players on what they can and should focus on, and by including very explicit rules about all of the above in the player guide, that's precisely what the players are wont to do.Talarianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17684944568000522986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2814591084344141656.post-72576652442410891402014-04-19T02:00:35.020-07:002014-04-19T02:00:35.020-07:00Thanks for the writeup. Very interesting perspect...Thanks for the writeup. Very interesting perspectives. I follow a lot of tabletop gamers and game writers on Google+, and I'm a big fan of tabletop gaming personally. Tabletop has been seeing a small renaissance, and not just in the "old school" areas.<br /><br />However, I disagree about VtM's setting and rules being discordant. Vampires were supposed to be the apex predator, which meant that they were supposed to be much stronger than humans. And, as with any predator, you vampires fight for rights: to feed, to procreate, etc. So, the vampires needed to have a lot of combat prowess for the game to make sense. Yes, the game did have a lot of combat rules, but there were also plenty of non-combat rules and elements on the character sheet.<br /><br />The real story of VtM was about your character, a former human who is now a beast that drinks blood. The game was a look at how you would act if you were one of these predators who had to prey on your former species. Would you give into the beast, or would you fight to retain your humanity? The fact that some people would use the power of the transformation to vampire to become physically powerful is actually a fairly interesting story point in itself.<br /><br />So, I think the "problem" is that for your typical D&D gamer, it was easy to play the game as "superheroes with fangs", and *that* style of play was at odds with the setting.. And, I don't say that to be derogatory as some people do; my D&D group in university played a lot of VtM, and it was often as "superheroes with fangs". I actually quite preferred <i>Werewolf</i> because the combat was supposed to be a bigger part of the game.<br /><br />But, I know people who played highly political games of VtM where combat rarely happened. I think VtM was actually one of the earliest games to give players a lot of agency, and some players used that agency to simply tell stories about how badass their character was in combat.Psychochildhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06066038436696697892noreply@blogger.com