GeekNights 20100727 - Luke and Jared on RPGs

MrPeriod

Tonight on GeekNights, we have guests Luke Crane (creator of Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard, etc...) and Jared Sorenson (creator of Lacuna, Action Castle!, etc...) on the show to talk about role playing games with us. After a bit of noodling on the nature of roleplaying games at their cores, we consider turtling, roaches, games we're playing, the Adventure Burner, and more! We also touch on their new joint project Freemarket.

Download MP3

La Petit Mort

Oh shit! I've only started listening to this now, but I can tell this episode is going to be awesome.

Sail

Very cool. I will listen to this.

Techparadox

Most excellent...

GeekNights 20100727 - Luke and Jared on RPGs

Expanded Show Notes - Show Run Time: 01:29:51

Time | Notes
---------+----------------------------------------------------------
00:00:00 | Intro
00:00:36 | Beginning of interview
| - Introduction of Luke Crane
| - Discussion of how drunk Rym was when he first met Luke Crane
| - Introduction of Jared Sorensen
| - Note of games Jared and Luke have created
00:03:29 | Main Topic
| # What is a role-playing game?
| - Tangent on game shows that haven't been invented
| - Do people really care what is and isn't an RPG?
| - RPG Examples
| - Discussion of using house rules in existing games
| - Discussion of Legend of the Five Rings
00:07:51 | # What makes a GOOD RPG?
| - What are the things someone looks for in a good game?
| - Game needs Player Agency
| - Player has to be able to make meaningful choices and have effects on the world
| - - The ability to make irrational decisions as a player character
| - Player priorities are important as well
| - - What the player wants to do shoudl be factored in
| - Game needs not just mathematical conflict resolution but also takes player choices into account
| - Choosing not to choose should still have consequences
| - The game should have a philosophy and it can either coincide or conflict with the player's philosophy
| - Jared: There are no characters in an RPG, there are only players
| - Rym notes that many players may internalize the role-play and only burst out for certain parts
| - Turtle = Player that just sits there and does nothing
| - Roach = Player that is active until the spotlight is on them
| - Discussion of players that have huge backstories for their characters
| - Note that players can make decisions within the framework of a character they have built
| - Note that "what my character does" can be somewhat schizophrenic and disassociate the player from the game.
| - Discussion of playing characters that don't fit with the game mechanic (e.g. pacifists, Deckers)
| - When is it the GM's part to address that versus a broken game mechanic?
| - Some games require certain you be a certain character in order to play the game
| - Discussion of how Political games don't work in D&D
| - Many games don't tell you how they work up front
| - Many players won't admit they are playing a game that's bad or poorly constructed
| - Do computer/video game RPGs count as RPGs?
| - JRPGs fall prey to the Sunk Cost fallacy
| - Tangent into Jared met Roger Ebert, gave him a copy of octaNe and Against the Reich!
| - Tabletop RPGs allow for a greater degree of avatar embodiment
| - Tabletop RPG characters have memory and history, video game RPGs have levels and quest goals
| - How are characters in WoW not like tabletop RPG characters?
| - Jared: Because those characters don't have memories.
| - Luke: So do characters exist or not?
| - Jared: for an RPG the player's memory of the events and the character's memory are similar but disparate
| - Jared: The events that happen to the character are not the events that happen to the player
| - The character sheet is a record of the character's history that is filtered through the player
| - Discussion of translations of Luke and Jared's works for other countries
00:30:19 | # Games Luke and Jared have played recently
| - "Pandemic" & playing it like an RPG
| - D&D is not a theatrical experience, behavior like that has been emergent
| - Discussion of Inception and how Jared already did a game like that called Lacuna
| - Tangent into films
| - Luke won't ever do a Noir-themed RPG because people won't get into character
00:35:49 | # If role-playing is a natural emergent behavior, what is the purpose of a Role-Playing Game?
| - Answer: to reward that behavior
| - Discussion of emergent role-playing in games versus role-playing games
| - The quality of the mechanics of a boardgame are very different from an RPG
| - Discussion of the evolution of the mechanics of Freemarket
| - Discussion on how a game mechanic can ruin the role-play aspect
| - Discussion on how some board games can mathematically eliminate a player without ending the game
| - On hitting the point where there are no more meaningful decisions in games and mechanics to get around it
| - Tangent on memes and internet infiltration into games
00:50:01 | # What we like about RPGs, how to get someone into a new game and away from D&D
| - People at cons seem to be more open minded about it
| - Discussion on convincing your own gaming group
| - - Make it as low-commitment as possible
| - - Try to make it fun for everybody
| - Tangent on Jungle Speed
| - - Don't rock the boat too much
| - - People are bad at arguing
| - - People are bad at learning instructions
| - - People are bad at arguing
| - - People are bad at having an open mind about things
| - A lot of gaming groups are dysfunctional (mainly due to geographical limitations)
| - Discussion of Gaming Group Drama
| - Discussion of The Sword and the mechanics of it
| - Burning Wheel question - do the female dwarfs have beards?
| - Answer: You can't play a female dwarf because there is no lifepath for them.
| - Reason: Dwarfs in BW are conservative to the point of being fascists
01:06:21 | # What games should people out there be playing?
| - If you liked Inception, play Lacuna
| - Discussion on Lacuna
| - Kagematsu by Danielle Lewon - Feudal Japan theme RPG
| - Tangent on violent/disgusting movies
| - Mouse Guard RPG
| - Fiasco RPG - a game of small time capers gone bad
01:17:49 | # Pimp Your Games & Cons
| - Adventure Burner - Book 5 of the Burning Wheel core books
| - Discussion on Adventure Burner
| - Parsely Games will be sold in a bunch at GenCon
| - Freemarket will launch at GenCon
| - Discussion on Freemarket
| - Pimpage of the websites
01:28:55 | Outro

balderdash

Discussions about "What is a role-playing game?" or whether this or that is or is not an RPG are stale and awful, but I did like the comment - I think it was Jared, but I could be wrong - that in an RPG you can and should make irrational decisions. Very offhandedly insightful.

TheWhaleShark

that in an RPG you can and should make irrational decisions

It's true. Why play an RPG if not to do the stupid ballsy stuff we're all too self-preservationist to do in real life? It's much more fun to push the button when it's just your character that dies.

Apsup

Great episode. Luke and Jared are great people to have in podcast, I think. It was nice how sometimes the interview turned more of a discussion instead of just question answer routine. Also I'm always happy to see more rpg stuff on Geeknights

that in an RPG you can and should make irrational decisions

It's true. Why play an RPG if not to do the stupid ballsy stuff we're all too self-preservationist to do in real life? It's much more fun to push the button when it's just your character that dies.

Making stupid irrational decisions, just to be stupid or irrational is stupid, but to make stupid irrational decisions because it produces better story or drama is cool.

Rym

Discussions about "What is a role-playing game?" or whether this or that is or is not an RPG are stale and awful

Only to people deep into role playing. Our experiences at conventions and with other listeners make it clear that the majority of D&D; players have never heard such a discussion in their lives to date.

balderdash

Only to people deep into role playing. Our experiences at conventions and with other listeners make it clear that the majority of D&D; players have never heard such a discussion in their lives to date.

That's fair, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of what emerges in such discussions is deeply inane. Even your conversation on the show had a few, er, "anti-gems." An experienced game designer should know better, for example, than to toss out "D&D; is a bad game" without following up or explaining, because that's a pretty broad, bold statement that's at least very debatable. "D&D; is all too often applied to purposes it's not suited for" is different from "D&D; is a bad game."

In fact, one of the things that I really like about the Beyond D&D; panel is that since it's structured and informed, there's no room for that sort of gaffe to crop up accidentally.

Anyway, on the whole I really enjoyed the show, and I'm pretty excited about FreeMarket. I only mentioned the usual low caliber of "What is an RPG" discussions to highlight the fact that I really liked a comment that came out of this one.

okeefe

We need to convince Luke to run a Rifts game for us at Burning Con.

Rym

An experienced game designer should know better, for example, than to toss out "D&D; is a bad game" without following up or explaining, because that's a pretty broad, bold statement that's at least very debatable.

No need with GeekNights. Our most popular and long-running panel - Beyond Dungeons & Dragons - basically consists of an hour of "here is why D&D; falls short of everything people want it to be." Outside of very specific utility goals, it's a terrible game.

We only belabor the point in the panel because we have an hour to so belabor. The four of us have discussed D&D;'s problems to the point of exhaustion. ;^)

ThirdWorldMan

Nice episode.

Just wanted to say that the Ebert quote Jared mentioned about the world starving for new images is actually from the German director Werner Herzog, of whom he is a big fan.

The quote itself is: "We are surrounded by worn-out images, and we deserve new ones. We comprehend that nuclear power is a real danger for mankind, that over-crowding of the planet is the greatest danger of all. We have understood that the destruction of the environment is another enormous danger. But I truly believe that the lack of adequate imagery is a danger of the same magnitude. It is as serious a defect as being without memory. What have we done to our images? What have we done to our embarrassed landscapes? I have said this before and will repeat it again as long as I am able to talk: if we do not develop adequate images we will die out like dinosaurs."

Rififi is great, but in that area i'm more partial to Melville's 'The Red Circle'.
also, Severed Ways > Valhalla Rising

George Patches

No need with GeekNights. Our most popular and long-running panel - Beyond Dungeons & Dragons - basically consists of an hour of "here is why D&D; falls short of everything people want it to be." Outside of very specific utility goals, it's a terrible game.

We only belabor the point in the panel because we have an hour to so belabor. The four of us have discussed D&D;'s problems to the point of exhaustion. ;^)

Man, I want to play some D&D; now.

Cremlian

Man, I want to play some D&D; now.

My old gaming group started up a 2ed Planescape campaign and I've realized that Planescape would work in burning wheel INFINITELY better then 2ed (factal wars, your actions and believes changing the planes around you). To a point that I have been banned from saying "Well in Burning wheel we would do this" during the game :-p. Still it's fun to play, just playing in Planescape which is supposed to be about ideas shaping the world around you, D&D; just doesn't explore those concepts as much as Burning wheel could...... Still... While Planescape suffers for being in D&D; the world material is still insanely fun to read and play in.

Apreche

Freemarket is the new planescape. There's no gates between planes, but you don't need them because the donut has everything.

Churba

Every time the old saw of "D&D is a bad game!" comes out, it always makes me grin, simply because 99.999% of the time, whatever the person is going to point out as some terrible flaw is generally something that could have been solved trivially, often by just either holding a metaphorical mirror up to the player, pointing at their reflection, and saying "Really, seriously now?" or, of course, telling them to grow some balls, and try leaping into the game without having the system hold your hand every step of the way.

Rym

99.999% of the time, whatever the person is going to point out as some terrible flaw is generally something that could have been solved trivially, often by just either holding a metaphorical mirror up to the player, pointing at their reflection, and saying "Really, seriously now?

If the rules of the game don't tell you to do just that, and don't give you a specific way to address the problem, then it's a shitty game. Never evaluate a game based on what you as a human bring to the table: ask what the game brings to you. If you solve problems outside of the game's mechanics, why are you using this game over another one?

As I've said, we have a solid hour of lecture on just this topic. ;^)

George Patches

My old gaming group started up a 2ed Planescape campaign and I've realized that Planescape would work in burning wheel INFINITELY better then 2ed (factal wars, your actions and believes changing the planes around you). To a point that I have been banned from saying "Well in Burning wheel we would do this" during the game :-p. Still it's fun to play, just playing in Planescape which is supposed to be about ideas shaping the world around you, D&D; just doesn't explore those concepts as much as Burning wheel could...... Still... While Planescape suffers for being in D&D; the world material is still insanely fun to read and play in.

Yeah, that's probably a bit too much for D&D.; I was probably one of the only people who played D&D; for the right reasons. I just wanted to kill some monsters in a dungeon, that was it. I loved it.

Rochelle

Yeah, that's probably a bit too much for D&D.; I was probably one of the only people who played D&D; for the right reasons. I just wanted to kill some monsters in a dungeon, that was it. I loved it.

Play Descent. Same thing, less time, more fun. ^_~

Cremlian

Yeah, that's probably a bit too much for D&D.; I was probably one of the only people who played D&D; for the right reasons. I just wanted to kill some monsters in a dungeon, that was it. I loved it.

Oh, don't get me wrong I still enjoy D&D; I love lists of spells and tons of magic items.. I was just thinking about a lot of what Planescape brings as a setting doesn't work well in D&D;.

ThirdWorldMan

Yeah, that's probably a bit too much for D&D.; I was probably one of the only people who played D&D; for the right reasons. I just wanted to kill some monsters in a dungeon, that was it. I loved it.

Play Descent. Same thing, less time, more fun. ^_~

I've wanted to play that for awhile now, but isn't one of the expansions/spin-offs easier to play than the original? I thought I heard that once...perhaps due to the size of the board & amount of pieces in the original.

Rochelle

I've wanted to play that for awhile now, but isn't one of the expansions/spin-offs easier to play than the original? I thought I heard that once...perhaps due to the size of the board & amount of pieces in the original.

I've only the played the original, and that was a long time ago.

However, my beau recently purchased the original, so I'll be reacquainting myself with the game again. Perhaps, I'll check out the expansions at PAX.

Churba

If the rules of the game don't tell you to do just that, and don't give you a specific way to address the problem, then it's a shitty game. Never evaluate a game based on what you as a human bring to the table: ask what the game brings to you.

So, in other words, it's only a good game if it gently cradles you the whole experience, and all the thinking you have to do is a little talky-talky to the other people at the table?
D&D; tells you the specific way to handle the problem, before it ever tells you any real rules, if I remember correctly - It tells you "Hey, remember, if it's not covered in the books, it's perfectly fine to just make something up and use that. Discard any rule you want, if you want to, it's up to you."

What the game brings to you? What's next, You're going to be shitting on Burning wheel, when a game comes out that just plays itself for you? That's bringing more to you than burning wheel is(By bringing you literally everything), and as you said, you're not asking what you bring to the table as a player, just what the game brings to you - So what is there to stop that metaphorical masturbatory game from being the ideal RPG system, by your assessment?

Yes, fine, Assessing it that way is perfectly acceptable when you're doing things like, say, deciding what system to use for a particular game scenario that you want to run. But Taking the player out of it, then how can you actually assess the game? It's like saying "This spreadsheet here is better than that spreadsheet over there, because this spreadsheet here has different numbers on it. No, the numbers don't actually mean anything, nor do the ones on the other sheet, they're just different numbers."
If you take the players out of the equation, then you've got nothing but two datasets full of useless data.

If you solve problems outside of the game's mechanics, why are you using this game over another one?

Because I'm creative and intelligent, and I don't need a game to molycoddle me through my roleplaying, if we run into a hitch on that front, I just solve it and move on. I don't go into a handwringing frenzy because "Ohhh noooo! There isn't a rule telling me exactly what to do for this one specific situation! What ever shall I dooooo?" I just quickly figure out what I'm trying to do, or My player is trying to do, and either make something up that's reasonable, or use whatever is closest to it, and move on. Burning wheel doesn't cover everything either, and if it did, your rulebooks would look like phonebooks, and there would be about seventy of them for AA to AB.
You're spruking a system that says "Hey, we can't predict everything, so you're encouraged to make shit up or discard the rules, if you need, have, or want to" because you're cracking a whinge about having to make shit up and discard the rules on occasion? Pull your head out of your ass.

As I've said, we have a solid hour of lecture on just this topic. ;^)

Cool, but that doesn't make you right, just long-winded.

Apreche

If you're such a good role player that you don't need a game, why play any game at all? Just sit down and start role playing.

If you can role play, and make an amazing story, without any rules or game, then that means you are an amazing story teller. If you're an amazing story teller, how about you write us some fantasy novels. I'm sure they'll be super popular.

The fact is that almost everybody can't write for shit. The people who can actually sit down and role play an amazing story out of nothing are uber rare, ultra talented, and most likely professional writers.

Everyone else needs a little help. Almost everybody understands rewards. This is why WoW, Farmville, and achievement work so well. You might not be able to understand how to tell a good story, but you can definitely understand how to score points.

What Burning Wheel and these other games do, is they have you write down some things about your character. What does your character want? What do they believe? What happened to them? Who are they? Once these things are written down, we can use the rules of the game to reward the player for role playing. We can influence the player into making decisions and acting in a certain way. Even if they are terrible at acting and/or writing, they understand winning and losing. Thus, they will act in the best interest of telling the kind of story the RPG is designed to tell.

A person might not normally be a horror writer. Then they play some Dread. Everyone understand Jenga. So what do they do? Early in the game they go all out. Oh shit, I freakin' grab the monster and kick its ass. Sure thing. That's way easy when the tower is solid. Then later in the game they start to act cautiously. Nobody wants to die. Then when all hope is lost, they sacrifice themselves for the good of everyone else. Token characters have to go down.

If you're an amazing role player who doesn't need this, then you don't need a role playing game at all. If you're not amazing, then you need some help. Neither of these people need D&D, in which all you do is kill things and get treasure.

Churba

If you're such a good role player that you don't need a game, why play any game at all? Just sit down and start role playing.

I've done that more than once - I don't always have books with me, or it's a spontaneous game that we don't really want to arse about with rolling out characters and such. Just pens, paper, and storytelling. Write down some stuff about your character, and some stuff they have, and go go go.

If you can role play, and make an amazing story, without any rules or game, then that means you are an amazing story teller. If you're an amazing story teller, how about you write us some fantasy novels. I'm sure they'll be super popular.

Nope, I doubt I could even write an enjoyable book for a minority of people, let alone a popular book - and I'm great at telling stories in person, but in text, not so much. You think the info-dump in Snow Crash is bad, try reading any fiction I write, I'm pretty fucking terrible in text. I'm under no illusions about my fiction writing abilities.

What Burning Wheel and these other games do, is they have you write down some things about your character. What does your character want? What do they believe? What happened to them? Who are they? Once these things are written down, we can use the rules of the game to reward the player for role playing. We can influence the player into making decisions and acting in a certain way. Even if they are terrible at acting and/or writing, they understand winning and losing. Thus, they will act in the best interest of telling the kind of story the RPG is designed to tell.

Thank you for telling me things I already knew, but yes, you've hit the nail on the head, that's what the point of having an RPG system rather than just sitting down and telling a collaborative campfire story is.

If you're an amazing role player who doesn't need this, then you don't need a role playing game at all. If you're not amazing, then you need some help. Neither of these people need D&D;, in which all you do is kill things and get treasure.

If that's the way you're playing D&D; - or any roleplaying system that I know of - Then I hate to break it to you, Scott, but you're doing it wrong, and you're a terrible GM or a Terrible Player(or both). and you need to sort that shit out and learn to play.

I will also add that you can do the same thing with Burning wheel, turn it into a game of Kill things, get treasure, if you're doing it wrong - any game that's player driven like pen and paper RPGs are, every game of it you play is Made or broken by the players, not the system. You can have an equally good game of D&D; as you can Burning wheel, or GURPS, or Ars Magica, or All Flesh Must be Eaten, or Amber Diceless, or After the Bomb, Or champions, or dogs in the vineyard, or the everlasting, or any other system you care to name.

To turn it into a very simple analogy, It's like driving a car - The car has all the stuff a car needs for you to drive. If you drive all over the road, then crash it into a tree, that's not because it's a terrible car, it's because you drove shitty, and caused the car to crash into a tree.

Apsup

If you're an amazing role player who doesn't need this, then you don't need a role playing game at all. If you're not amazing, then you need some help. Neither of these people need D&D;, in which all you do is kill things and get treasure.

Right you are there, in those examples D&D; is no use. You don't shouldn't use D&D; to tell dramatic, humane stories (use Burning Wheel or the Shadow of Yersterday for that) also you shouldn't use D&D; to tell horror story (Jenga might be good for that I don't have personal experience), but if you wanna tell a story about killing monsters and exploration of caves and dungeons, D&D; might be a game for that. D&D; is the action genre of rpgs where story is secondary to awesome action scenes.

Churba

D&D; is the action genre of rpgs where story is secondary to awesome action scenes.

I'll agree with that - D&D; is more action focused than, say, Burning Wheel. If I wanted to Make a campaign about political intrigue and manoeuvring, where the likelihood of physical combat is slim to none, Burning wheel would be a good choice - I'm not arguing that it's necessarily bad at this point, I've wised up some from my previously held opinion, but I'm not exactly scrambling up the fire escape to scream "BEST RPG SYSTEM EVAR!" to the skies.

Apsup

D&D; is the action genre of rpgs where story is secondary to awesome action scenes.

I'll agree with that - D&D; is more action focused than, say, Burning Wheel. If I wanted to Make a campaign about political intrigue and manoeuvring, where the likelihood of physical combat is slim to none, Burning wheel would be a good choice - I'm not arguing that it's necessarily bad at this point, I've wised up some from my previously held opinion, but I'm not exactly scrambling up the fire escape to scream "BEST RPG SYSTEM EVAR!" to the skies.

Let me tell you a secret. There is no and there will never be "BEST RPG SYSTEM EVAR!" That's why I keep buying new rpgs so I could have different game for different style of story.

George Patches

If you're such a good role player that you don't need a game, why play any game at all? Just sit down and start role playing.

My friends and I actually did this once. Karl made up a setting and we just role played stuff. We rolled dice on occasion to introduce a bit of unknown, almost burning wheel zero cal. It was a lot of fun.

Churba

Let me tell you a secret. There is no and there will never be "BEST RPG SYSTEM EVAR!" That's why I keep buying new rpgs so I could have different game for different style of story.

I know that, I'm not the one doing it. You might want to look over to Rym and Scott if you want examples of people making that mistake.

My friends and I actually did this once. Karl made up a setting and we just role played stuff. We rolled dice on occasion to introduce a bit of unknown, almost burning wheel zero cal. It was a lot of fun.

Truth - it's usually a good idea to have some random in your RPGs, it is often useful - because after all, people are not random, and life either is, or gives the appearance of being so, depending on which philosophy you subscribe to, and thus introducing a level of randomness to the game when the situation calls for it is generally a positive thing.

Jason

This Burning Crusade that Luke made, does it possibly have looting and leveling? I like that.