thread: 2010-06-14 : A Bit of Hardcore
On 2010-06-23, Mauro wrote:
Rafael:
If his character says "I will lay down my life to save you", that's semi-explicit (maybe the character is lying) and doesn't damage immersion at all
I'd say you're quite right; "quite" because it's possible (in my experience it happened) that the character was willing to die for something, but the player would definitely prefer his character to survive. Has this ever happened to you?
Anyway, I was wondering: in your experience, doesn't what you say still costs some immersion? If the players is willing to accept the death of his character and wants to communicate this to the master in play, he has to consciously decide this; and to think "I'm willing to let my character die, I had to communicate this" is outside the immersion, isn't it? Or I've not understood your point?
it divorces the mechanical structure of the story from the narrative content to the point that we might as well be doing free-form storytelling while playing snakes and ladders
I'd say story and mechanics are still strongly linked, only they link not a specific NPC behaviour, but the outcome of a situation: the roll only decides whether the Approach is successful or not, not why it is; you fail the roll (mechanic), the story must go on with a failed Approach (narrative content). How it fails is on the master.
It would divorce the story from the mechanical structure if it wasn't that way: let's say you approach the girl and win the first roll; the girl accepts you.
Next, you speak with her and win the roll: the girl listens to you and comforts you.
Next, you try to kiss her and win the roll: you kiss her.
Next, you give her a flower, but you fail the roll; suddenly the girl dislikes you?
Are new wave RPGs self-explanatory for old-school gamers? My feeling is that it would be very helpful to play them for the first time with people who already know them, and that if I just try them out, my group and I will feel like the system failed us, while in fact we were just using it wrong
Yeah, it happens: sometimes, simply the players (GM included) fail to follow what the rules say, and out of habit apply "Mother, may I?" and GM fiat.
Some RPG is quite self-explanatory (Dogs in the Vineyard, for example, explain how to play and GM it), while others are not so clear.
Having someone that already knows the game is definitely positive.
Can you link me to an explanation of color in this sense? Mother May I also uses the term, and I don't understand it
I didn't used it as technical term; what I meant is... I think I can explain myself better with an example: in comics, if Superman has to break in a jail, obviously he meets guards, but assuming they're normal humans nobody thinks they'll stop him, and he beats them in a couple of frames.
I had in mind a fight like that: sometimes it happens, and it'd be simply narrated how the PCs win, if no one is interested in rolling dice.
