Paragon

Re: Applying traits to objects Fair enough. My perception may be being colored here in that the magic system modifications I'm using don't permit you to just turn off a power at will; you invest energy in it when you turn it on and then it runs for a certain time, so if someone makes use of it during that time it'll continue to work whether you want it to or not.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement Interesting. How much of a premium do you place on speed of play (I'm trying to get a handle on how much slowing what you're talking about is the case). As to the majority overruling common sense--if that was the case, doesn't that suggest that the group wasn't on the same page in the first place? I can't see that being a problem unless part of the group clearly wanted something radically different than what the GM did. Or was it a big picture problem? (What I mean by the latter is that one thing (that I think the top down meme has contributed to) is that players are often incapable or unwilling to look at things in a big-picture kind of way.) Basically, I'm wondering if both these don't come from conflicts in expectations, so I'm curious about your assessment of the groups involved.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement I'm really sorry if I expect people to understand the difference between the you in a direct question and the "you" in a topical point, but I do. No, I haven't. I've made a decision about what would be good for the hobby as a whole. That in no way says I think it'll work for every single person and group in the hobby, because nothing does. Gamers are far too individualistic than that. But if you'd like to put words in my mouth, by all means. I'm not telling you how I think you'll be better off. I'm saying the majority of the hobby would be better off. If the difference is neither clear nor important to you, then that's as it is. Now, if you disagree with that, and want me to say I don't think you're wrong--that's not going to happen. That's what an opinion is about. I'm not going to tell you you don't have reasons to think as you do, but if you care to talk about it, then I'm going to tell you why I don't think your opinion is correct. If you disagree with those comments, I'm going to pursue them. That's what a disagreement is, and what an argument is. The bottom line is that its entirely possible to both acknowledge that another person has reasons for their views and to think they're wrong. I'm doing both here, and if that upsets people, well, bluntly, that's their problem. If they want to continue with the discussion, fine, but if not getting offended about it is, in essence, getting offended because I have an opinion. I have in no way intended, nor, to my view, acted to insult you, Ghost-angel or anyone else in this thread; the most I've done is suggest he's getting worked up and you didn't actually answer a question. I hardly see either of those as insulting, nor as suggesting I think you're wrong about a general point as calling anyone a liar or being unwilling to listen to argument. As an example, I'm quite interested to hear if Lord Mhoram has had an experience like what I'm talking about. But the bottom line is I've been thinking about this and talking to people a long time, so its going to need something more than "its worked for us and people we know" to move me. If that makes me intransigent, so be it.

Re: Applying traits to objects I was just curious to your view of whether it was reasonable.

Re: Applying traits to objects Doesn't that seem rather excessive for the benefit? Of I do a +1 to hit as a level I can use or one of my friends its only a +1/2 Advantage, but if I do one that effects a weapon that can be taken away from me (which seems more of a limitation) its _more_ expensive? That seems a little bizarre.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement So we disagree, and you don't like my tone. Got it.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement What I'm trying to determine is whether the "power sharing" being discussed is the same kind I'm talking about. I see a big difference between creative sharing (where the players have manditory involvement in campaign design beyond their characters) and mechanical sharing, which is what I'm talking about. Were the two games you refer to the former, the latter, or a combination of the two?

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement I'm disagreeing with your assessment of the typical workload, and what it means. If you see that as either of the above, I really, really suggest you step back here.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement Because you aren't talking about the same thing I am, and I was addressing Archermoo, not you. Lose the chip. Seriously. If you find what I'm talking about offensive, stop reading this. But getting worked up and not paying attention to what I'm saying is doing nothing useful for the discussion. What I asked Archermoo was if he had seen a game that had active, formalized power sharing about rules issues. His response did not tell me he had, so it was not a response to the actual question I asked. I'm not talking about creative sharing, and I'm not talking about the sort of sort of "I change rules when someone makes a good argument to me" procedure that's the mitigating factor in the normal hobby. He made a comment about the consequences of what I'm suggesting, and I asked him if he had actually seen it. His response was, as I said, nonresponsive; if he's saying "no, I haven't, but this is what I think would happen" that's fine, but at that point he's just suggesting a hypothetical and it has different weight in the argument than an argument from experience, and the appropriate responses are different.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement This again, however, operates on a couple of premises, and I really don't buy either: 1. The GM is always doing more work. That's usually the case, but not always. In games where the Players are doing a lot of backstory and similar work and the GM is using a lot of pre-canned material, the difference in work can easily be negliable. 2. The GM is getting the same degree of fun out of the game, while doing more work. In my observation, GMs do it mostly because they like to, and that isn't just the at-the-table part; they like the set-up and other management work on the whole too. It isn't completely symmetrical (any game setup has some tedium in it) but the difference in fun yield to work isn't nearly as pronounced as some people put it on being, at least for GMs who are doing it out of choice rather than "no one else is willing to GM". As such I don't think that the GM is justified in outweighing the entirety of the rest of the group in value, which making him the final authority on rules does. Essentially, there have been two traditional arguments for GM ultimate authority: the above (which I explain why I don't really buy) and necessity (which I buy only to a lesser degree).

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement That was nonresponsive. Have you actually seen games with greater power sharing? Not what specific players wanted, but where it was actually implimented? If not, you don't really have is even ancedotal evidence; what you have is an untested hypothesis.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water I can do some of this by addressing the fact its magic, but I still want the build to address some of the more basic issues, because I have to assume it will be used somewhat creatively, given that its a spell that has a general rather than purely mechanical effect. The water piling up and flowing away isn't an issue, but the ability to get in fights in the trench and do things like use it for cover of a sort I need to consider. That's why I'd like your Tunnelling rather than Teleport solution the better of the two if I wasn't a little dubious about it working on water (unlike earth and rock, this makes it do something it normally doesn't do); it defines the process more closely.

Re: Lower Water and Part Water True. It just seems, well, backwards given there's other implications. I'm not actually quite clear that "tunnelling" through water is really a legitimate use of the power, honestly. I can see where you're coming from on that, but it seems stretching it. Yes, that's pretty much what the effect was based on.

This is connected with my various how-tos on spell building, but I figure its a bit more general so its really a rules question. In the spells I'm building, one color of Magic (Copper) has a lot of spells that give bonuses to items in one way or another: augment their Body, give them pluses to hit, and so on. I mostly try to do this straight rather than with Aid (among other things it avoids the "can't Aid something that isn't there" problem). Its not clear to me exactly how you're supposed to set this up price-wise; you don't seem to be able to use Usable by Others to do it (its going on an object rather than a being) but surely you don't have to use Usable Against Others; that'd inflate the Active and probably Real cost of them significantly, for something that's usually somewhat less useful than using it on a person. But as I said, I'm not clear on how it is supposed to be done, so I'm hoping someone is clearer on this than I am. You'd have thought this would have come up before with all the years I've used this system, but this is the first time I recall actually needing to figure it out.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement Well honestly, there's nothing wrong with letting the GM have all the reigns; its the _assumption_ that this is the only right way to do it that's the problem, because it breeds that expectation in GMs and players both, whether its serving them and the game well or not.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement I don't even think that follows then; its entirely possible for a GM to have a particular view of how something works that doesn't seem to even be consistent with his own world, just like there are people who have somewhat strange view of how some real world phenomena work. But as you say, there's room for differences on that grounds.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement Always a possibility. But just like the other participants in this thread, I can only go by my best evaluation. No, again, I think that's Warp9's position, but not mine. If I was arguing this primarily based on GMs who make these decisions out of malice or conflict it'd be true, but that's not my position. My position is that a GM is not necessarily the best person to judge what rules will work best in a situation just because he's the GM. He can be making that decision for all the best intentions, and still be wrong, but because that's what we've been told to expect since 1974, that's what gets done. Adversarial versus non-adversarial is really a red herring here, because it hasn't got anything to do with why I'm suggesting this.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement As long as you know when you need to do it, and it doesn't happen often, nothing. But those are both big ifs, especially the "often". You can take up a hell of a lot of game time doing that under the wrong circumstances, and you don't always know when a GM is going to judge a rule you think as applicable as not.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement Nothing about making some power available to players requires them to use it. And honestly, there's layers there; a mismatch in what feels appropriate in rules can be a giant enemy of immersion, so an immersive player can have just as big a stake in rules elements as anyone else. The problem with things like Burning Wheel (as with a number of the indie games) is that it not only expects player involvement on these levels, it pretty much demands it, and structures its rules with it in mind. In the end, this isn't a rules issue as such; its a social contract issue, and doesn't need to be embodied in the rules. (That doesn't say that there's not a mindspace for games that explicitly expect ongoing player involvement of the sort Burning Wheel and its kin do, but that excludes some play styles too--its far too intrusive for most immersives as you more or less reference, and as such, not really what I'm talking about). I don't think of them as a lower level of gaming at all. I don't really see it as fundamentally a difference in style, honestly. Keep in mind I'm primarily talking about rules decisions here, not operational decisions, and the majority of those _should_ be made outside normal play, not on the fly (in fact, a metric I have of when a game is too rules light is when I have to make too many on the fly). If a player such as yourself is comfortable with the GM doing all of those, that's perfectly cool with me. Its when its the _expectation_ that I don't think this is serving the game well overall, unless you happen to have a _very_ coherent player group, far more than I have any reason to believe is typical. Well, among other things, they're usually talking a far broader issue than I am. Note in my discussion of the campaign setup I did that I did this all _before_ play; I'm enough of an old-style RGFA simulationist that I usually avoid futzing around with the basic setting assumptions after the start of play that it'd just be a nonstarter there. But in any case, what I'm really advocating here doesn't have anything to do with campaign design or operation, but the base mechanical rules that the campaign operates on. (Now, of course, you can argue that you can't _entirely_ separate those, but I think this is a case where if the players and the GM are so far apart on their understanding of what is trying to be done that what the players want out of the rules won't let the GM run the campaign he sees, that there's a bigger problem that needs to be resolved before you can continue effectively anyway).

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement Then as I said, you do. This is nothing but my view of most decision making, including no doubt my own in some areas. Someone who believes few people are as uninfluenced by what they've gotten used to as apparently you do? If that's insulting, really, I don't know what to tell you. Again, you're confusing me with Warp9 here. This has nothing much to do with adversarial styles; it can limit problems in those, but its far beyond anything to do with that. If you find you can't engage with my point, don't.

Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

Re: Lower Water and Part Water Or to swim, or really deal with any of the accompanying problems. Tunnelling has the speed issues that individuals may have vastly different speeds, and the problem with Teleport is there's nothing stopping someone chasing you in and, say, getting in a fight with you in the middle of the trench. Its instantaneous time also is a little problematic. Well, that was it--by the time I did all that it was getting clumsy, and there was a bit too much of it for me to feel comfortable just handwaving off special effects. The primary purpose is to reveal submerged portions of the area; sometimes it has some of the effect of Part Water, but it also allows one to, for example, examine or explore the previously-sunken ruins on the bottom of the lake, or search for the things that spilled from a boat on the river. Its a somewhat specialized spell, but the magic system involved is like that (Grey Magic is all about the water and related issues).