Why do we play these games?

[SterlingBlake]

What is the objective we have in mind for playing a game, and a PbP RPG in particular? Some of the basic possibilities are: pass the time, enjoy a social activity, and test and improve one’s skill.

Spending time in a way more interesting that watching the grass grow or paint dry is certainly one of the things a game can accomplish. Simple childrens’ games like “Snakes and ladders” accomplish nothing more than wasting some time in a social way. It’s true that somebody wins if the game is played to its conclusion, but certainly no skill was tested; getting to the end first is purely a matter of luck with the dice.

A game like chess, on the other hand, is nearly a pure pursuit of skill. One can socialize during a game, but that tends to interfere with the play rather than complement it. When played seriously, time is limited by a clock and so passing the time, even though the game does take time, can hardly be considered a goal.

What is the goal then of playing an RPG? From all the discussion I read and view on the internet, and supported by my own private discussions, the objective varies. The nearly universally stated objective is “to have fun,” but that provides no objective meaning. It ought to be obvious that if we’re not being paid to play the game, we’re doing it because we find it fun, but what, specifically is your mix of objectives?

Personally, I’m interested first in a test of skill, second in creating a kind of art with it, and third in being social. There are easier ways to satisfy any desire I have for social contact, but there is a complexity to this game that makes the test much more interesting to me.

[Leitz]

I love accomplishments that I cannot reach in real life. Leading an army, taking a sword to evil, restoring vitality to an old keep or an old starship. Solving problems where people skills are rolled for, and don't depend on my social graces. My brain likes to plan, so I look for games where there are big goals and my characters actions have impact. Along with that is building the story as we go; games where everything is just a roll of the dice hold no interest for me. I spend too much time building a character for a single dice roll to destroy hours of work. At the same time, a randomly rolled character that I cannot connect to has no draw for me. I can do randomly generated dungeons on my own.

Stories. Challenges. Achievements.

[SterlingBlake]

I love accomplishments that I cannot reach in real life. Leading an army, taking a sword to evil, restoring vitality to an old keep or an old starship. Solving problems where people skills are rolled for, and don't depend on my social graces. My brain likes to plan, so I look for games where there are big goals and my characters actions have impact. Along with that is building the story as we go; games where everything is just a roll of the dice hold no interest for me. I spend too much time building a character for a single dice roll to destroy hours of work. At the same time, a randomly rolled character that I cannot connect to has no draw for me. I can do randomly generated dungeons on my own.

Stories. Challenges. Achievements.

Just to dig into that a little, I want to try to tease apart the game part and the story part, then pick at the game part.

If I'm understanding you, what differentiates playing a game where you character leads an army from consuming a story in which the protagonist with whom you sympathize leads an army, is that in the game, how the army is lead is by your decision-making and planning rather than the writer's. Is that the key difference?

Assuming that's it, or at least part of it, then when you play the game to accomplish these things, is failure possible? If success isn't ensured, how is success and failure chosen between?

[Leitz]

I love accomplishments that I cannot reach in real life. Leading an army, taking a sword to evil, restoring vitality to an old keep or an old starship. Solving problems where people skills are rolled for, and don't depend on my social graces. My brain likes to plan, so I look for games where there are big goals and my characters actions have impact. Along with that is building the story as we go; games where everything is just a roll of the dice hold no interest for me. I spend too much time building a character for a single dice roll to destroy hours of work. At the same time, a randomly rolled character that I cannot connect to has no draw for me. I can do randomly generated dungeons on my own.

Stories. Challenges. Achievements.

Just to dig into that a little, I want to try to tease apart the game part and the story part, then pick at the game part.

If I'm understanding you, what differentiates playing a game where you character leads an army from consuming a story in which the protagonist with whom you sympathize leads an army, is that in the game, how the army is lead is by your decision-making and planning rather than the writer's. Is that the key difference?

Assuming that's it, or at least part of it, then when you play the game to accomplish these things, is failure possible? If success isn't ensured, how is success and failure chosen between?

Let me answer that with two different characters. Several years ago I was one of four players in a Three Kingdoms China game. One character was a brilliant strategist with no leadership skills and fewer morals. Another character was intellectually simple but loved far and wide, while the third was a foreign spy. I played a junior officer and made a point of getting everyone else positioned to do great things. I defined success as being able to empower everyone else, winning battles against great odds was just the icing on the cake.

In a different game I played a sci-fi Marine on a "Guns of Navaronne" type mission. Sadly, the only person who know the real objective quit playing, and his character went unconscious. My character, all gung ho and hyped to take on armies, saw the institutionalized poverty and governmental abuse the people suffered from. He scrapped the original mission and instituted a planetary coup. Incidentally, they did find the "gun" they were supposed to destroy, but by that time a more moderate government was in place and the invasion was moot.

In both games the DMs would let me write non-critical scenes because I enjoyed the world they had created. Not only was my character in a rich environment, but the DMs would toss in very reasonable situations that I wouldn't think of in my own writing.

Could those characters fail? They did quite often! The Marine even joked that his plans never worked, but other people fixed the issues and things got done. It was super fun to have a DM who was as interested in the game's story as I was, and yet throwing things at my character that I had no idea how to deal with. How does a Marine who's only skills are wearing combat armor and killing people lead a disparate group? Or negotiate with criminals and rescue child soldiers? If it was just dice rolls his odds would be pathetic, but since it was a story I could bring creativity to the task at hand.

[SterlingBlake]

Let me answer that with two different characters...

Thanks, Leitz! Your examples make it quite plain, I think. You and the other players along with the GM are creating a story, and the GM is deciding, mostly on the basis of the logic of the setting rather than dice or some other objective criteria, whether the characters' efforts succeed, and in what ways they do or do not succeed. Is that a fair summary?

[Leitz]

Let me answer that with two different characters...

Thanks, Leitz! Your examples make it quite plain, I think. You and the other players along with the GM are creating a story, and the GM is deciding, mostly on the basis of the logic of the setting rather than dice or some other objective criteria, whether the characters' efforts succeed, and in what ways they do or do not succeed. Is that a fair summary?

Oh, the dice play a strong part, but in a rich enough setting a bad roll does not mean final failure. In a game I ran, the PC was connecting to a recruiter for a mercenary unit. The PC's actions up until the die roll were fine, they did nothing wrong and several things right. I wanted some randomness, so I rolled an overall reaction and got the worst possible result!

Should I punish the character for doing things right? Of course not! I needed a reasonable way to play out the results and keep the PC moving forward in their goals. So the NPC had an abrupt and unexplained (even I had no idea at the time) reaction and then left. He got a nicely traumatic bit added to his back-story that played into the game and he sent a young female trooper to pick up the PC and keep the game moving forward.

Since the PC ended up marrying the replacement NPC and becoming a successful merchant prince, the odd dice roll was not failure. It was just an alternate path to success.

[SterlingBlake]

I don't want to ascribe meanings that you don't intend, but I want to restate your examples as general rules. Also, I hope that you're enjoying this discussion. I mean it in as an academic investigation, not an interrogation or indictment of your person or style of game-play! So if I'm pushing too hard, please let me know.

Oh, the dice play a strong part, but in a rich enough setting a bad roll does not mean final failure. In a game I ran, the PC was connecting to a recruiter for a mercenary unit. The PC's actions up until the die roll were fine, they did nothing wrong and several things right. I wanted some randomness, so I rolled an overall reaction and got the worst possible result!

The role of dice is to provide some unpredictability for the course of the story; in this case how a specific character's actions affected an NPC.

Should I punish the character for doing things right? Of course not! I needed a reasonable way to play out the results and keep the PC moving forward in their goals. So the NPC had an abrupt and unexplained (even I had no idea at the time) reaction and then left. He got a nicely traumatic bit added to his back-story that played into the game and he sent a young female trooper to pick up the PC and keep the game moving forward.

Since the PC ended up marrying the replacement NPC and becoming a successful merchant prince, the odd dice roll was not failure. It was just an alternate path to success.

As the GM, your role is to help create the story and keep the pace of it engaging even if the dice have a derailing sort of effect on the players' intentions. If the players are making what the GM considers good, smart choices, the impact of bad rolls is mitigated, but if they're making poor choices, it's acceptable to let the characters feel the full impact of unlucky rolls.

Ultimately, character failure and success is down to a sort of negotiation between the GM and players about what logically works given the facts of the game setting and how well the player's understand and handle those facts.

Have I characterized that fairly?

[Leitz]

I don't want to ascribe meanings that you don't intend, but I want to restate your examples as general rules. Also, I hope that you're enjoying this discussion. I mean it in as an academic investigation, not an interrogation or indictment of your person or style of game-play! So if I'm pushing too hard, please let me know.

I'm quite enjoying it! Honestly, it is pushing me to solidify my thinking on how and why I game. There are a lot of great DMs here, but there are many different playing styles. Choosing games that fit my style increases the odds of shared success.

Oh, the dice play a strong part, but in a rich enough setting a bad roll does not mean final failure. In a game I ran, the PC was connecting to a recruiter for a mercenary unit. The PC's actions up until the die roll were fine, they did nothing wrong and several things right. I wanted some randomness, so I rolled an overall reaction and got the worst possible result!

The role of dice is to provide some unpredictability for the course of the story; in this case how a specific character's actions affected an NPC.

The dice have different amounts of influence, depending on agreement between the player and the DM about how the story goes. Sometimes there is a lot of trust needed, and the story-telling can get strained. I've had that happen, mostly because I thought I had communicated the setting well and I was wrong. If the player trusts the DM to keep the story alive, almost anything can happen. In the game 7th Sea, part of character creation is the player and DM agreeing how the character will die. Once that's done the characters are free to do dramatic, even flambouyant, actions in the name of adventure and story. It is a lesson I learned well.

Should I punish the character for doing things right? Of course not! I needed a reasonable way to play out the results and keep the PC moving forward in their goals. So the NPC had an abrupt and unexplained (even I had no idea at the time) reaction and then left. He got a nicely traumatic bit added to his back-story that played into the game and he sent a young female trooper to pick up the PC and keep the game moving forward.

Since the PC ended up marrying the replacement NPC and becoming a successful merchant prince, the odd dice roll was not failure. It was just an alternate path to success.

As the GM, your role is to help create the story and keep the pace of it engaging even if the dice have a derailing sort of effect on the players' intentions. If the players are making what the GM considers good, smart choices, the impact of bad rolls is mitigated, but if they're making poor choices, it's acceptable to let the characters feel the full impact of unlucky rolls.

Ultimately, character failure and success is down to a sort of negotiation between the GM and players about what logically works given the facts of the game setting and how well the player's understand and handle those facts.

Have I characterized that fairly?

Sometimes the bad rolls are mitigated, but players are a bunch of crafty little...err...people. As long as they are not dead, they can usually come up with a way to turn the tables and come out ahead.

As another option, specific to PbP, I will often give a +1 on any roll described in the scene, if the player writes the scene well enough. I've gone so far as to give the players a successful roll of their choice if they wrote a long enough scene. I love the stories, and again, players come up with some great stuff that I would have never thought of.

[SterlingBlake]

I don't want to ascribe meanings that you don't intend, but I want to restate your examples as general rules. Also, I hope that you're enjoying this discussion. I mean it in as an academic investigation, not an interrogation or indictment of your person or style of game-play! So if I'm pushing too hard, please let me know.

I'm quite enjoying it! Honestly, it is pushing me to solidify my thinking on how and why I game. There are a lot of great DMs here, but there are many different playing styles. Choosing games that fit my style increases the odds of shared success.

That's great, and thanks for playing along with me. I think you've made a very clear description of your style of play. Hopefully, some others will be enticed into elucidating their styles here.

Funny thing is, I thought that was your intent from the start. A case of hearing what I wanted to hear instead of what you said, I'm afraid.

I had in my mind that you would have a rules set, a setting (geography, polities, gods, general threats and trends, at least locally), and no "adventure" at all. That's the kind of game I like best to play in and to run.

That pretty much defines my HarnMaster game on here. In my FTF games lately I have been running more "Adventures" than I usually do but more to just mix things up lately.

That's how my Dark Dungeons X game is as well.

How about it, archolewa, Rex? I have the impression from this exchange that you two take a different approach to GMing / refereeing from Leitz.

[Rex]

For fun/entertainment really is the primary answer for me. Deeper than that really requires a discussion about me more than playing RPGs.

As far as Leitz's thoughts, they certainly fit his gaming style and since that is what he enjoys it makes sense for him. I play in a game with him currently and have several games in the past, he even played in my game for a while so I have enough experience to say that I enjoy playing with him and reading his posts. I wouldn't hesitate to join a game he is in even though my gaming style is very different from his as anyone who has read many of our posts could tell you.

[archolewa]

Hmm. Let's see if I can put things to words. It's going to be long, brace yourself.

I've only been playing tabletop games for not quite 5 years, and DMing for 2.5 or so. So I'm still *very* new to this.

One thing I'm not new to though, are Computer Role Playing Games (CRPGs). I *love* CRPGs. I've been playing them since elementary school (Dragon Warrior Monsters was my first, Wizardry Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, and Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant two other very early ones). I could go on for pages and pages about Wizardry or Elminage Gothic, or what I like or don't like in CRPGs.

This ends up having a pretty big influence on how I approach tabletop games, because in my mind, there are two things that CRPGs do *way* better than tabletop games:

1. Giving players control over micro decisions.
2. Character advancement.

In a CRPG I have complete control over things like party makeup, tactics, strategy, loot distribution, so on and so forth. I don't have to negotiate with others, or get steamrolled, or steamroll others or try to figure out when I should be a greedy SOB and take the shiny, or when I should try to push it on somebody else, or let someone else be pushy and take the shiny. I find all of that exhausting and incredibly stressful.

Furthermore, you obviously level up and acquire loot sooo much faster in a video game. I can go from level 1 to 200 in Elminage Gothic in less time than it takes to go from 1 to 3 in a tabletop game. Video games tend to throw all sorts of kickass loot at you too. And seeing such rapid progression is incredibly fun.

However, there are two things that CRPGs literally *cannot* do:

1. Give the players any control over macro decisions.
2. Give the players a truly fleshed out setting.

Every video game is going to be extremely constrained. It just has to be (and no, the current AI craze won't change that. Modern AI is a mirage). Even "open world" games are mostly "you gotta complete quests A, B, or C pick two, you'll probably do all three for the loot and XP." But that's not the case in a tabletop game. A tabletop game doesn't need a quest. It doesn't need any constraints. If the players want to chase down the goblins, they can chase down goblins. If they want to track cultists, they can track cultists. They can do a mix of both. They can focus on acquiring treasure and creating their own baronies. Sure, plot hooks are good to help players get rolling, and those plot hooks may have compelling in-character reasons to pursue, but it's compelling *because it's important to their character* not because the game said so. Plus, once that quest wraps up, the players have the opportunity to determine their new priorities and decide where to go next. I love that. I love the idea of players having so much influence over the big questions. It's not just a mad-lib "<Adventurers> go to dungeon and find <Big Bad>. <Big Bad> goes neener neener and runs away. <Adventurers> pursue Big Bad to <Next Dungeon>." It can be something so much more.

But if I were to run a predefined adventure, well, then that goes away. Suddenly, my players (or me if I'm playing) are stuck with the exact same constraints as a video game, except they have to play nice with other real human beings, and they have really slow progression. The first game I played in was the 5E version of the Secrets of Saltmarsh. I quit after a few years, in large part because I felt even less influential on the game than I do on a video game. I had just as much control over the macro decisions as in a video game (little to none) and far less control over the micro decisions.

So if I'm running (and ideally playing) a tabletop game, I want it to be something open ended, where players can do the sorts of things they can't do in a video game.

Next, video games can't give you a fully fleshed out setting. A DM can. Looking under the rocks in a video game just reveals unnamed NPC's with one or two lines of dialogue. But in a tabletop game, every NPC has the potential to have a story behind them. A name, a history, the seeds for a future relationship of some kind with the players. Sure, the DM is probably going to make them up on the fly, but that's a thing humans can do. By the same token, this also gives players the opportunity to explore their character(s) in a much more nuanced way than they could ever hope to in a video game. And it can mostly happen automatically, just by them reacting to the world and people the DM presents to them. They may discover things about their character they never would have imagined (and certainly wouldn't in a video game!) By the same token, the DM can learn things about their setting that they never would have without players running around poking their noses into things.

Predefined adventures make this harder as well. If I were to try to run a predefined adventure, I'd feel some amount of pressure to try to keep players to the adventure. I think I'd have a harder time just relaxing, and riffing and letting the players take the game in a direction that interests them. I'd want to keep them "on the adventure" that I promised them I was going to run.

So, fundamentally I play these games because it gives me an opportunity to explore. Explore a setting, explore some characters. The rules exist as tools for me to use to help define the setting, to keep the game coherent, and to inject some uncertainty and give players the thrill of numbers going up (and who doesn't love the thrill of numbers going up?).

Also, fun fact: I think my style actually aligns pretty closely to Leitz's in the small, even if we have different approaches to initial setup and possibly(?) to the large. I don't have any sort of predetermined Big Problem for my players to solve, but my games still end up being putting a *lot* of emphasis on the narrative.

[Rex]

It is interesting to read how CRPG have influenced you. I have never really played them. Our FTF group is currently mixed in that regard. There are 5 of us who regularly play and 3 never play CRPGs and 2 do. The interesting thing is I would put the 2 who do play as the most polar opposite in play styles.

[SterlingBlake]

Hmm. Let's see if I can put things to words. It's going to be long, brace yourself.

Fascinating. I can't wait to dig into this! Unfortunately I have to focus on memorizing a wedding speech for later today and unexpectedly replacing the shirt I was going to wear! So I won't crack into it until tomorrow.

But I can't wait to dissect this with you. And then I'm coming after you, Rex.

By the way, I really appreciate you guys humoring me with this discussion.

[Leitz]

Also, fun fact: I think my style actually aligns pretty closely to Leitz's in the small, even if we have different approaches to initial setup and possibly(?) to the large. I don't have any sort of predetermined Big Problem for my players to solve, but my games still end up being putting a *lot* of emphasis on the narrative.

I really enjoyed your post, and your position on computer vs player games is spot on!

On the above, in my games there's usually something big (and bad) going on. This makes the setting more dynamic and gives me a logic for events that pop up during the game. Players are free to try and stop it or not. But in my heart, I want them to. Games (can) use a shared threat to create strong bonds between characters, and sometimes even players. Facing a challenge lets us import our will into a situation that needs us, and doing it as a team tells us deep things about ourselves and others. The more challenging the threat, the deeper we must go to find a way to succeed. I really enjoy that.

I also like success. Real life has ups and downs, but often it's just a slog between work, chores, and exectations. I've adventured a little in real life, and gaming lets me enjoy grander adventures that real life precludes.

[archolewa]

Also, fun fact: I think my style actually aligns pretty closely to Leitz's in the small, even if we have different approaches to initial setup and possibly(?) to the large. I don't have any sort of predetermined Big Problem for my players to solve, but my games still end up being putting a *lot* of emphasis on the narrative.

I really enjoyed your post, and your position on computer vs player games is spot on!

On the above, in my games there's usually something big (and bad) going on. This makes the setting more dynamic and gives me a logic for events that pop up during the game. Players are free to try and stop it or not. But in my heart, I want them to. Games (can) use a shared threat to create strong bonds between characters, and sometimes even players. Facing a challenge lets us import our will into a situation that needs us, and doing it as a team tells us deep things about ourselves and others. The more challenging the threat, the deeper we must go to find a way to succeed. I really enjoy that.

That makes sense. I'm not necessarily opposed to a single big bad thing, but I prefer it to be a big, complex one that everyone knows about and is engaged with. Something like a major war with a Necromancer nation or something. A war has multiple theaters, multiple arenas of conflict (armies clashing, raids, saboteurs), so players have a lot of flexibility for how they want to engage with the big bad thing. Similarly, if a player wants to bring in a different character it's *really* to explain why nobody's heard anything from this level 5+ character: they've been engaged in a different theater!

What I don't like (at least in the context of DnD) is a "big bad" that's a secret cult out to destroy the world that only YOU can stop! Especially if things are otherwise normal. Feels incredibly restrictive to me, and can lead to awkwardness like "why are we having these level 1 schlubs deal with this earth-shattering threat instead of the level 9 nobleman and his retinue." It works fine for a single quest as part of a larger conflict (like a world spanning war).

I also like success. Real life has ups and downs, but often it's just a slog between work, chores, and exectations. I've adventured a little in real life, and gaming lets me enjoy grander adventures that real life precludes.

Yes. I like PCs to feel broadly competent, and to me "rolling the dice" is another way of saying "here's a chance to fail!" So I want to make sure that the failure makes sense in the fiction and leads to an interesting outcome. This is in fact one big problem I have with systems that put a lot of emphasis on "skills." I think they encourage excessive rolling, because the DM is encouraged to look for opportunities to let players roll the skills they poured points in, and force them to roll skills they didn't so that their build choices feel impactful. So you end up rolling (and thus risking making PCs look incompetent) when you really don't need to. Happened a fair bit in the 5E game I played. I ended up feeling like I was playing some sort of idiot savant who could tear through goblins like a buzzsaw, but struggled to tie her shoes.

[SterlingBlake]

So if I'm running (and ideally playing) a tabletop game, I want it to be something open ended, where players can do the sorts of things they can't do in a video game.
...in a tabletop game, every NPC has the potential to have a story behind them. A name, a history, the seeds for a future relationship of some kind with the players. Sure, the DM is probably going to make them up on the fly, but that's a thing humans can do. By the same token, this also gives players the opportunity to explore their character(s) in a much more nuanced way than they could ever hope to in a video game. And it can mostly happen automatically, just by them reacting to the world and people the DM presents to them. They may discover things about their character they never would have imagined (and certainly wouldn't in a video game!) By the same token, the DM can learn things about their setting that they never would have without players running around poking their noses into things.
...
So, fundamentally I play these games because it gives me an opportunity to explore. Explore a setting, explore some characters. The rules exist as tools for me to use to help define the setting, to keep the game coherent, and to inject some uncertainty and give players the thrill of numbers going up (and who doesn't love the thrill of numbers going up?).

Also, fun fact: I think my style actually aligns pretty closely to Leitz's in the small, even if we have different approaches to initial setup and possibly(?) to the large. I don't have any sort of predetermined Big Problem for my players to solve, but my games still end up being putting a *lot* of emphasis on the narrative.

I think you've hit on the what I think many of us find appealing about the game in your comparison of TTRPGs to CRPGs. I'm getting too, that you have a different, what I would call "delivery style," from Leitz in that you're maybe more improvisational when it comes to a "plot" for the game.

I'm wondering how much of your games are story versus game, if I can put us back on that axis for a moment and ignore some of the other facets. I'm hearing that you don't know what the "story" of the game is ahead of time, that you can't, because you don't know what your players will want to do in advance, but once you're in a game, and their intentions are clear how much of the direction of the story comes from the choices of the participants (GM and players combined) and how much comes from the mechanics of the game system itself? Is it possible to lose? What does that look like?

[archolewa]

I'm wondering how much of your games are story versus game, if I can put us back on that axis for a moment and ignore some of the other facets. I'm hearing that you don't know what the "story" of the game is ahead of time, that you can't, because you don't know what your players will want to do in advance, but once you're in a game, and their intentions are clear how much of the direction of the story comes from the choices of the participants (GM and players combined) and how much comes from the mechanics of the game system itself? Is it possible to lose? What does that look like?

It's absolutely possible to lose. If my players decide to get in a fight, and that fight goes sour, they could absolutely die, or have to retreat and fail to complete their objective. If they're in a high stakes situation (like a negotation or something), and they get a run of bad stat checks, then that situation might turn into a fight, or get progressively more dangerous at which point they might have to retreat or risk death. That last one's pretty unlikely though, because I tend to use systems where players have a good chance of succeeding at non-combat checks.

What I generally avoid is them being a single roll away from disaster or failure (at least without ample warning or tension raising). If they try to track some goblins deep in the wilderness, just saying "you don't find any tracks" is rather boring. The whole quest might come to a crashing halt, and that's not interesting. Had something like this happen once when I was a player. Some people got kidnapped near a river. We went to go investigate, flubbed our investigate roll, and came up nothing. The only person who seemed to know anything couldn't give us anything remotely actionable. So we just had to sort of shrug and abandon the whole thing.

So I might do something like "you follow the tracks for a bit, but they get lost in the foliage. But you do spy through the leaves an isolated cottage, smoking rising from the chimney." I might alternatively remind players of alternative approaches that I'd dropped earlier, or that a player had mentioned earlier. I also tend to be very free about information. My NPCs tend to be chatty, because if there's one thing I find tedious, it's players groping for the right questions to ask to push the game forward. If my NPCs have useful information, and it makes sense to give it (they're friendly to the PCs, or the PCs have successfully intimidated them or persuaded them somehow), then they'll give it even if the players didn't explicitly ask.

As for how much I rely on game mechanics, it depends on the stakes, and if there's an adversarial force at works. The higher the stakes, and the more aggressive the adversary, the more likely I am to reach for dice. So I will almost certainly not reach for dice if players are talking to people who are friendly to them. Locals whom they're asking for information and the like. But if they're interrogating an enemy they captured? I'll probably pull out dice. Similarly, if the players are walking through the wilderness, and come upon a river, I probably won't have them roll to see if they successfully cross it. If they're being chased by orcs on the other hand, and/or a massive storm recently swept through and the river is swollen and churning...

[SterlingBlake]

It's absolutely possible to lose. If my players decide to get in a fight, and that fight goes sour, they could absolutely die, or have to retreat and fail to complete their objective.

What I generally avoid is them being a single roll away from disaster or failure (at least without ample warning or tension raising). If they try to track some goblins deep in the wilderness, just saying "you don't find any tracks" is rather boring.

As for how much I rely on game mechanics, it depends on the stakes, and if there's an adversarial force at works.

You mentioned playing in a 5e game that put an overemphasis on skill checks that could have your character failing at fairly mundane tasks, while being a powerhouse in combat. My take on 5e is that it doesn't do a great job supporting the kind of play in which you're interested. What rule system(s) do you typically use and to what degree do you need to house-rule them to support your style?

[archolewa]

You mentioned playing in a 5e game that put an overemphasis on skill checks that could have your character failing at fairly mundane tasks, while being a powerhouse in combat. My take on 5e is that it doesn't do a great job supporting the kind of play in which you're interested. What rule system(s) do you typically use and to what degree do you need to house-rule them to support your style?

Well, right now I'm running Dark Dungeons X, and I find it's working really well. (Incidentally, if you want to see my approach in action, which may or may not line up with what I said in my earlier post, here's a link to an interrogation my players just wrapped up: viewtopic.php?p=709243#p709243).

First, there *is* a skill system, but there's very little pressure to use it. It's orthogonal to the classes (even thieves have their own set of special "thief skills" that are tied to class rather than stats and skill points), and it plays a very minor roll. If you're trying to make a jump, you might roll 1d20+16 if you have 16 strength (your target number is 20). If you have 16 strength and proficiency in jumping, you'll roll 1d20+16+1. So it's mostly there to help players round out their characters, and give themselves a bit of a leg up in certain tasks. But your mountebank (similar jack-of-all-trades class as a bard) isn't going to be nerfed to hell and back if you don't roll very many persuasion checks. Second, characters are going to succeed more often than not, especially if they play to their strengths. So characters are going to be just as competent out of battle as they are in battle. In early levels, they're probably *more* competent out of combat. Stats also don't really play a very large role in your character's competence in their class. Stats are mostly for stat checks. A fighter with 14 strength and 16 charisma is only marginally less effective at fighting than a fighter with 16 strength and 9 charisma. By level 3, that difference will have disappeared. This means that a player isn't "locked" into particular out-of-combat proficiencies by their class. Again, less pressure on me to jam certain stat checks into the game because a player chose to play a fighter instead of an elf. Players are also under less pressure to play to archetype. They can play a charismatic magic-user, or an intelligent fighter, and they'll still be highly effective magic-users and fighters. So again, lots less pressure to make sure we're rolling dice outside of combat.

For my face-to-face game I'm running the Sentinels Comics roleplaying game (a superhero game based on the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game). That game doesn't have a skill system at all. Indeed, there are barely any rules at all outside of combat. In that game, we hardly ever roll dice at all outside of fights. The closest the game has to a "skill system" are Overcome checks that are resolving the same kinds of obstacles that skill checks are used in other games. Players will generally succeed on their overcomes, sometimes with a minor complication. Again, very little pressure to pull out the dice, and when we do the players feel like superheroes.

I honestly haven't had to houserule either of them to fit the style. By and large, I'm not a big fan of houseruling. It's additional mental load for me and my players. I'd much rather find a system that aligns with and supports my style rather than try to twist something to fit my style. Of course, some houseruling is inevitable. But the fewer, the happier Iam, and I prefer them to be small little tweaks rather than a change to core systems.

[SterlingBlake]

Well, right now I'm running Dark Dungeons X, and I find it's working really well. (Incidentally, if you want to see my approach in action, which may or may not line up with what I said in my earlier post, here's a link to an interrogation my players just wrapped up: viewtopic.php?p=709243#p709243).

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For my face-to-face game I'm running the Sentinels Comics roleplaying game (a superhero game based on the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game). That game doesn't have a skill system at all. Indeed, there are barely any rules at all outside of combat. In that game, we hardly ever roll dice at all outside of fights. The closest the game has to a "skill system" are Overcome checks that are resolving the same kinds of obstacles that skill checks are used in other games. Players will generally succeed on their overcomes, sometimes with a minor complication. Again, very little pressure to pull out the dice, and when we do the players feel like superheroes.

I honestly haven't had to houserule either of them to fit the style. By and large, I'm not a big fan of houseruling. It's additional mental load for me and my players. I'd much rather find a system that aligns with and supports my style rather than try to twist something to fit my style. Of course, some houseruling is inevitable. But the fewer, the happier Iam, and I prefer them to be small little tweaks rather than a change to core systems.

Thanks for all that, archolewa! And sorry I was forgetting that you had mentioned Dark Dungeons before.

For fun/entertainment really is the primary answer for me. Deeper than that really requires a discussion about me more than playing RPGs.

I don't want to pry with overly personal questions, but your response has me very curious about your approach to playing and running RPGs, Rex.