thread: 2010-06-14 : A Bit of Hardcore
On 2010-06-14, Teataine wrote:
I don't want to interrupt your discussion too much, but I kinda got hung up on this bit: "I don't *want* the dice to have any actual power—they're just a psychological prop that build excitement by allowing me to pretend that an outcome is in doubt."
So, yeah, same as Vincent, I'm seeing a sort of glitch here. If the player's rolls have no impact, if we're just pretending, why are we rolling at all? If you want for players' decisions to have impact, how is that impact communicated and supported? If I decide to stab the orc and roll for it, if I roll well, I stab him. If I roll for shit, I don't. If I stab him, he's probably going to die. There's dice having power. Should we get rid of that, too? The GM just decides if the orc gets stabbed or not, regardless of how I roll? Probably not, right?
[If you're going to answer with "yes, but if the player kill the orc and the orc's survival is mandatory for a good story, so the GM should keep him alive" then it should be pointed out we're talking about two very different ways to game. Neither is "right" in any way. But it should be said, for clarity's sake, that Vincent's games (and others) rather explicitly forbid the GM for having big plans, so that "story" emerges organically. Why is it mandatory for the orc to survive? I see no other reason that the GM had plans for him, agree? If the player stabs the orc (and backs that action up with a good roll), the GM would (I'm not going to say should) abandon his plans regarding the orc, same as a player would have to abandon the plans about his cleric if he fell down a pit trap and died.]
Also, I think this really gets at the core of what I understand as the immersionism issue: The players don't create the fiction, instead they are abducted into a fiction being created by a third party. The GM is the "broadcaster" of the fiction, unlike the "reporter" in Vincent's games.
