D&D started it all!

[Human Shield]

I don’t really get it do you?

?

System is going to be static including the one you are using now of "the GM decides". Color is outside of system.

Simply not true.

Social contract isn't going to change every session. System is whatever means the social contract decides on using.

Many systems are outside of setting.
There isn't a "perfect system" just the best option for what the group wants to do, deciding for them and preying on lack of experience is possible too.

No body if playing for them, 'you assume too much'.

What?

I'm saying you can't get a clear picture of how your group would react to a new style of system because right now they have no formal creative power. If you want them to have such why not get a clean and fast system instead of one where the passive are resistance to speak up.

Do you even keep a appearance of rules or is it all just your dictations? A GM that doesn't want to share power is going to fudge any system and so feels system doesn't matter.

Replace the "Do" with "Are". Is a joint decision, me AND the players!

So is there an appearance of rules and do they agree to give you final authority? Have they ever been exposed to a system that gave them creative power or drove them to create and deal with moral questions?

You really got stack on that part didn’t you? "deciding for them", "your dictations", "forced to follow", no body is forcing anyone to do anything, and I never said anything like that, it just your interpretation (which is wrong, if you still don’t get it).

Can they change your campaign?
Are moral choices they make freeform or are they supposed to play in character?

I'm not the one that decide how the even is resolved, but more important then that, i'm not the one how necessarily decide the *event sequence*.

Then how do you determine outcome? What is the event sequence in relation to your campaign?

What does your group enjoy actually doing at the table?

System drives behavior in that campaign....

....

Are you getting my point now? (If not, read on)

What? System is always going to exist and is always going to effect play.

.... A system that gives rewards for killing will more likely see players attacking things. A system that encourages dealing with moral questions will see players thinking about such things (not just putting in color like your system but making hard choices).

Which is a BAD thing!!!

I don’t want the system to decide what the players *should* do, the system shouldn't decide/reward/encourage shit, it up to DM and the players what is rewarded and what isn't, NOT THE SYSTEM!

The players *shouldn’t* be encouraged, period.

You realize there are rulesets that base rewards on what people at the table think, right?

You already have a system, it is just vague and prone to passive play when people aren't sure what will happen or how they can effect the shared imagine space. All social environment can effect behavior, knowing what your friends like and dislike is going to encourage behavior.

Why not find a system that produces the play that your group enjoys so the best moments you have now can be the whole game.

Any system that encourage / reward anything *IS* "Removing player power" AND *hinders* players creativity.

P&P role-playing, especially in a fantasy setting, is about freedom (all kinds of them and yes, including but not limited to escapism). If the players should be encouraged at all, they should be encouraged to experiment, and have fun.

Again you are still using system even if you say you don't. Creative power is always going to be limited by the nature of playing as a group. When two players say the other is dead there is a system to see which is the correct.

And you shouldn't be talking about freedom while you have a vague system where you are final authority, this encourages players not to experiment. Why not experiment with a few narrativist systems?

It's not about role-playing correctness or system correctness, and it's sure not about "real" results. Now you are describing it like it’s a job, instead of a game.

The game is played through social contract. A group that loves realism is going to enjoy a system that produces more realistic results, for them a lot of rules would help.

 

[Koby]

Social contract isn't going to change every session. System is whatever means the social contract decides on using.

I'm saying you can't get a clear picture of how your group would react to a new style of system because right now they have no formal creative power

The group should react to the situation/scene, not the system.

The campaign, as in a collection of adventures (the term in D&D) / quests + settings that intertwined into the plot/story, isn’t consistent in the sense that some adventure/quest and/or parts of them are of a different mood/genre, some are dramatic, some have a comical flavor to them, some are tension/thrillers, some are action packed (battle heavy) and so on. While the campaign should follow a certain theme, playing a succession of quest that are of the same mood is going to get boring really fast, and most system *do* emphasis/encourage a narrow range of interaction between the group and 'the world'.

The idea here is for a group that, when steps into a new scene, would NOT be looking for something to fight/talk to *first*, and then say "wait! maybe we should go about this a different way ("maybe we should follow them instead"; "I think the people here don’t like us, some of them are giving me a downright sinister look, maybe we should NOT ask them for advice/help/direction/sub-quest/other").

And that includes not being on constant look for teh moral dilemma.

Every time a group steps into a scene they should (gasp) role-play their character, as in a free-flow kind of way, whatever that entails.

So is there an appearance of rules and do they agree to give you final authority?

Here is the part you don’t get, I said "The better the DM is, the less he uses the dices."

1) THE DM! NOT THE PLAYERS!!! 'you assume too much'.
2) "the less..." means (a) that the DM should have a good grasp of the scene and should resort to the dices as less as possible, (b) and that include overriding dice result that can ruin the scene and in some, not necessarily just a few, cases not even bothering rolling them.

Example that popped in my mind: Battle; wizard cast fireball on a bunch of low-level enemies, wizard don’t know fireball will consume plot-centric piece of paper on one of them, enemy in possession of plot-centric piece of paper (*) automatically dodge/succeeds in save-roll or, (*) wizard have so many specialization/meta-magic/perk/other bonuses/whatever so now enemy in possession of plot-centric piece of paper also has some kind of fire protecting, limited amount of uses, magic item, because stuff needs to make some sense when after a fireball is cast you have 20 torched corpses and in the middle of them one only slightly injured one (O_o).

Lame, but does the job.

Leaving just about everything in the hands of the dices is a good thing?

Have they ever been exposed to a system that gave them creative power or drove them to create and deal with moral questions?

Don’t know / ask them / if there was such a system 10 yeas ago I wasn’t aware of it / doesn’t matter.

Can they change your campaign?

Yes.

What is the event sequence in relation to your campaign?

As I stated before, I interrupt campaign, as a collection of adventures/quests in a certain setting. Events are meant in the broad term, some are time triggered, and some are event triggered as in which quest is resolved and how it was resolved, some are chained together, some aren’t, the usual. A good campaign however, will give, and sometimes even forces the group to make, plot decision.

What does your group enjoy actually doing at the table?

A mix of mystery solving and elaborate battles, and lots of tasty yummy snacks (mostly getting all emo: "that's it!! once I get my hand on this evil master mind behind all of this I going to kick his ass", some "damn, I should have seen that plot twist a mile away" in between with some "I heat you" mostly at me, with lots of -"we should do X", -"no, no, no, we should do Y", all of this with usually potato chips on the side).

Have they ever been exposed to a [*1*]system that gave them creative power or drove them to create and deal with moral questions?

You realize there are [*2*]rulesets that base rewards on what people at the table think, right?

You already have a [*3*]system, it is just vague and prone to passive play when people aren't sure what will happen or how they can effect the shared imagine space. All social environment can effect behavior, knowing what your friends like and dislike is going to encourage behavior.

Why not find a [*4*]system that produces the play that your group enjoys so the best moments you have now can be the whole game.

Again you are still using system even if you say you don't. Creative power is always going to be limited by the nature of playing as a group. When two players say the other is dead there is a *[5*]system to see which is the correct.

Again you are still using system even if you say you don't. Creative power is always going to be limited by the nature of playing as a group. When two players say the other is dead there is a system to see which is the correct.

And you shouldn't be talking about freedom while you have a vague system where you are final authority, this encourages players not to experiment. Why not experiment with a few narrativist [*6*]systems?

Is there ONE system that can do all that and

What? [*7* ?]System is always going to exist and is always going to effect play.

... that is going to effect game play as *little* as possible or do I need to use several (up to 7) different rulesets at the same time?

 

[Human Shield]

The group should react to the situation/scene, not the system.

What you're not getting is that how the group reacts IS the system. System is how the group agrees to do things. System can't react to anything on its own, it is within social contract. 100% of groups use system.

While the campaign should follow a certain theme, playing a succession of quest that are of the same mood is going to get boring really fast, and most system *do* emphasis/encourage a narrow range of interaction between the group and 'the world'.

The systems you have seen maybe. But mood and genre is color. Give an example of one of your themes, did you preplan it? Would you like theme to be created as a group instead of planned by you?

The idea here is for a group that, when steps into a new scene, would NOT be looking for something to fight/talk to *first*, and then say "wait! maybe we should go about this a different way ("maybe we should follow them instead"; "I think the people here don’t like us, some of them are giving me a downright sinister look, maybe we should NOT ask them for advice/help/direction/sub-quest/other").

How does the group decide to go a different way? How different is the outcome? What do you do if the group wants to kill a story NPC?

Did you already describe the people as not liking them or did the character saying it change things?

And that includes not being on constant look for teh moral dilemma.

Every time a group steps into a scene they should (gasp) role-play their character, as in a free-flow kind of way, whatever that entails.

Yes, they can all add color. But with your incoherent system and the fact of different player interests they will probably be more interested in exploring different facets of the imagined space. Some mite want to explore character, setting, or the situation but they have no power beyond color, and don't get a vote if the rest of the group argues more for a direction.

Here is the part you don’t get, I said "The better the DM is, the less he uses the dices."

1) THE DM! NOT THE PLAYERS!!! 'you assume too much'.
2) "the less..." means (a) that the DM should have a good grasp of the scene and should resort to the dices as less as possible, (b) and that include overriding dice result that can ruin the scene and in some, not necessarily just a few, cases not even bothering rolling them.

This is such a baseless assumption. Many groups prefer for the GM to "play by the rules" and have failure as a possible option. Don't treat your style as better.

Example that popped in my mind: Battle; wizard cast fireball on a bunch of low-level enemies, wizard don’t know fireball will consume plot-centric piece of paper on one of them, enemy in possession of plot-centric piece of paper (*) automatically dodge/succeeds in save-roll or, (*) wizard have so many specialization/meta-magic/perk/other bonuses/whatever so now enemy in possession of plot-centric piece of paper also has some kind of fire protecting, limited amount of uses, magic item, because stuff needs to make some sense when after a fireball is cast you have 20 torched corpses and in the middle of them one only slightly injured one (O_o).

Lame, but does the job.

Leaving just about everything in the hands of the dices is a good thing?

Then what was the point of rolling at all if they are required to get the paper? I guess you have never heard of conflict vs task resolution; or being able to continue with a failure instead of a railroading through your perfect storyline.

If the paper is in a locked safe do the players roll to lockpick it? If they keep failing what do you do?

Can the main characters die? Do you still track HP?

Can they change your campaign?

Yes.

In what ways?

As I stated before, I interrupt campaign, as a collection of adventures/quests in a certain setting. Events are meant in the broad term, some are time triggered, and some are event triggered as in which quest is resolved and how it was resolved, some are chained together, some aren’t, the usual. A good campaign however, will give, and sometimes even forces the group to make, plot decision.

Give an example of a plot decision? Such decisions are only when you allow them?

Do players make the decisions on their own or are they encouraged to do what their character "would have done".

A mix of mystery solving and elaborate battles, and lots of tasty yummy snacks (mostly getting all emo: "that's it!! once I get my hand on this evil master mind behind all of this I going to kick his ass", some "damn, I should have seen that plot twist a mile away" in between with some "I heat you" mostly at me, with lots of -"we should do X", -"no, no, no, we should do Y", all of this with usually potato chips on the side).

And what about that couldn't be done better with a coherent system?

Do they believe their character dieing is possible? Do they want that possibility?

Is there ONE system that can do all that and

You could give Dogs in the Vineyard a shot if you want to give players a taste of story freedom and narrativist play.

Burning Wheel can fit lots of play styles, and it has rules to settle arguments between characters and/or NPCs quickly and enjoyably (incorporating talking and letting others be jury) instead of the most dominant personality getting his way. It is also setting free.

Riddle of Steel can blended with your play and gives players tools to promote what their characters believe (without telling them what to believe). And the players would love it if they like elaborate combat that plays faster and more intense then D&D (and death can be less rare then D&D). Free demo rules.

You can try a free game of Capes to see how incentives can create more interesting things happening. And it plays without a GM.

Or look into Drama based systems that don't rely on any rolling.

What? [*7* ?]System is always going to exist and is always going to effect play.

... that is going to effect game play as *little* as possible or do I need to use several (up to 7) different rulesets at the same time?

What you are using now is greatly effecting play even if you can't see it. Illusionism is stealthily controlling play.

System doesn't just effect behavior, people are happier when the behavior they want is inline with the system. The system gives them the tools they long for to get the experience they want. Effecting play as little as possible also means providing as little tools as possible, which means a smaller box to play in. If a system gives the player the freedom to play with more issues, players are going to act differently when given more freedom.

 

[Koby]

I nor the rest of my group (to the best of my knowledge) didn’t see a difference, regular or in nuances, between system, and game mechanic, for us it’s the same. I and my group didn’t want/care to explore the depth that is P&P role-playing, while I personally wanted more them surface deep, I think they (the rest of my group) didn’t.

Would you like theme to be created as a group instead of planned by you?

That would have been nice if it didn’t got so boring after a few sessions ("I want to fight more dragons/other epic beasts but the battle should be hard"; "I want a magic item that suit/compliment my character better but, like, it should be hard to get"; "I like old ruins").

This is such a baseless assumption. Many groups prefer for the GM to "play by the rules" and have failure as a possible option. Don't treat your style as better.

Many apologies if this displease your delicate P&P taste but the fact is I run what other people, although not role-playing wander as yourself, thought was a very enjoyable campaign, so excuse me if I thought that that was my best option at the time.

This should give you a good idea of where i'm coming from.

Just for the record, how many played under the grander that is your GM skills, and have told you "you are one hell of a GM".

 

[Human Shield]

I nor the rest of my group (to the best of my knowledge) didn’t see a difference, regular or in nuances, between system, and game mechanic, for us it’s the same. I and my group didn’t want/care to explore the depth that is P&P role-playing, while I personally wanted more them surface deep, I think they (the rest of my group) didn’t.

That would have been nice if it didn’t got so boring after a few sessions ("I want to fight more dragons/other epic beasts but the battle should be hard"; "I want a magic item that suit/compliment my character better but, like, it should be hard to get"; "I like old ruins").

It doesn't matter if you didn't see a difference between system and the written game rules, system is how it is done.

It sounds like you have a different creative agenda then your group and are leading them along with action and having them play through the story you want to see.

It sounds like your group mite enjoy gameist play but doesn't like to lose. And a lot of simulationist exploration (the term has more meaning).

Again system can lead to creating themes beyond fighting dragons (not even a theme). Many Narrativist systems are designed to broadcast to you what the players want, and gives you the tools to set up challenges. If they want a magic item and want it to be hard a narrativist system is designed to answer how hard do they want it. Instead of rolling through monsters that you fudge the dice anyways, give them dilemmas of what are they willing to give up to get the item. And be sure to be open to whatever path they choose.

You really should give a narrativist system a try. Now you are stuck in meaningless task resolution, going through the motions but having to change things anyways. Simulationist play is what people are comfortable with and how they were introduced, and it is hard to get their minds out of it.

Give the free demo of Riddle of Steel a shot. Whatever spiritual attributes the players choose you just need to think up situations that make them choose between two of them or tempt them with other rewards if they go against them. Remind them that they can change them at any time. The combat is very advanced and the rules are set that characters die in a blaze of glory and they get points to start a new character. I'd like to heard how it goes.

Or you could modify D&D and take more character suggestions into account. You might get some inspiration here.

Many apologies if this displease your delicate P&P taste but the fact is I run what other people, although not role-playing wander as yourself, thought was a very enjoyable campaign, so excuse me if I thought that that was my best option at the time.

This should give you a good idea of where i'm coming from.

Just for the record, how many played under the grander that is your GM skills, and have told you "you are one hell of a GM".

It could be the best option at the time but that doesn't mean the same is true for all of roleplaying.

I have never GMed, but discussing what the group wants and how to get it isn't going to hurt. The theory is still sound.

 

[kris]

Example that popped in my mind: Battle; wizard cast fireball on a bunch of low-level enemies, wizard don’t know fireball will consume plot-centric piece of paper on one of them, enemy in possession of plot-centric piece of paper (*) automatically dodge/succeeds in save-roll or, (*) wizard have so many specialization/meta-magic/perk/other bonuses/whatever so now enemy in possession of plot-centric piece of paper also has some kind of fire protecting, limited amount of uses, magic item, because stuff needs to make some sense when after a fireball is cast you have 20 torched corpses and in the middle of them one only slightly injured one (O_o).

Are you a computer? for this would be a problem for a computer, not for a GM in a roleplaying game as he have numerous ways to solve this. If you haven't told a NPC was holding the paper then you can have it somewhere else. Or it could be that the paper he was holding was actually unimportant. Or they could just fail with getting it and now have to either admit defeat or to come up with another solution.

Your proposed solution here is "the Bethesda Olbivion solution", just make sure the players CAN'T harm the plot centric paper (read: Character in Oblivion).

 

[Koby]

I have never GMed, but discussing what the group wants and how to get it isn't going to hurt. The theory is still sound.

You remind my of one of my C teachers, he know everything there is to know about syntax, but when I went to consult with him about a complicated project, it had appeared that he doesn't know how to program for shit.

Theories are nice, even important, but outside of implementation context, they don’t mean shit.

Are you even en experienced player, or are you just someone that like to sit in the crowed, and critic others?

Those who can do; those who can't, teach, criticize, and complain a lot.

Assuming you are en experienced player, have you ever had a good GM in the sense that you enjoyed playing with him, or do you scan most GMs off because sometimes in the middle of the adventure you stop and scream "STOP, YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING OUT SOCIAL CONTRACK!"

Why don’t YOU follow some of YOUR suggestion and YOU tall ME how it want, because I already tried to tell you "how it goes" but you seem to get fixated at the theories level. What YOU need is some first hand experience!

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

Thanks for linking to the capes demo, HS. That was pretty neat.

 

[Human Shield]

Theories are nice, even important, but outside of implementation context, they don’t mean shit.

You realize there is a whole indie RPG industry around these theories. You can study physics without being an athlete and will have a better idea of what is going on. Especially from your obvious reports of conflicting creative agenda. Laws mean a lot, they have already been implemented by many people.

have you ever had a good GM in the sense that you enjoyed playing with him, or do you scan most GMs off because sometimes in the middle of the adventure you stop and scream "STOP, YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING OUT SOCIAL CONTRACK!"

You do realize that the P&P hobby is most associated with arguments at the table. Due to different power levels and not recognizing agreements.

Over 100 pages: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=194252

People get upset when unspoken agreements are broken, it is better to make those agreements spoken.

Why don’t YOU follow some of YOUR suggestion and YOU tall ME how it want, because I already tried to tell you "how it goes" but you seem to get fixated at the theories level.

And what you describe as how it goes is incoherent, you already wrote you would like the players to act differently in some areas and are subtlety adjusting the game unilaterally. I can't tell you what your group wants, I can just point to more experienced opinions and suggest experimenting or at least having a discussion of what the group wants.

You would have to make an argument that the theories don't work for your group which is pretty impossible considering social contract. If you decided to introduce time travelers with MP5s and killed off the player characters; you could use the written rules but you would probably upset players that didn't agree to that type of game.

Thanks for linking to the capes demo, HS. That was pretty neat.

Yeah it is really makes you thing how much design can accomplish. It makes a competitive game about who can best create events that other people care about. Rules lite version is also there.

 

[Koby]

You do realize that the P&P hobby is most associated with arguments at the table. Due to different power levels and not recognizing agreements.

Over 100 pages: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=194252

People get upset when unspoken agreements are broken, it is better to make those agreements spoken.

As long as my group doesn't have that problem, why the fuck should I care?

And what you describe as how it goes is incoherent, you already wrote you would like the players to act differently in some areas and are subtlety adjusting the game unilaterally. I can't tell you what your group wants, I can just point to more experienced opinions and suggest experimenting or at least having a discussion of what the group wants.

I don’t care if what I described is incoherent/ inelegant / downright wrong, if it works, is good enough for my and my group.

 

[Koby]

Example that popped in my mind: Battle; wizard cast fireball on a bunch of low-level enemies, wizard don’t know fireball will consume plot-centric piece of paper on one of them, enemy in possession of plot-centric piece of paper (*) automatically dodge/succeeds in save-roll or, (*) wizard have so many specialization/meta-magic/perk/other bonuses/whatever so now enemy in possession of plot-centric piece of paper also has some kind of fire protecting, limited amount of uses, magic item, because stuff needs to make some sense when after a fireball is cast you have 20 torched corpses and in the middle of them one only slightly injured one (O_o).

Are you a computer? for this would be a problem for a computer, not for a GM in a roleplaying game as he have numerous ways to solve this. If you haven't told a NPC was holding the paper then you can have it somewhere else. Or it could be that the paper he was holding was actually unimportant. Or they could just fail with getting it and now have to either admit defeat or to come up with another solution.

Your proposed solution here is "the Bethesda Olbivion solution", just make sure the players CAN'T harm the plot centric paper (read: Character in Oblivion).

It's a bad example, I'm sure there are at least 10 different better ways to resolve this, but it was en offhand, thing of the moment kind of thing and it did its job. And I never said "the players CAN'T harm the plot centric paper". I only did it because they didn’t know it was there, and it only fitted there.

 

[Koby]

@ Human Shield

If you really want to understand how I understand role-playing then you need to understand 2 things:

**1** You need to go back in time to the early 90s when I was in high school, the most advance rule-set was AD&D 2nd edition, and the internet wasn't available as a home consumer service.

If you are any indication of what P&P role-play turned into I'm glad for me I had the opportunity to enjoy P&P role-play when it was still fun and innocent (social contract my ass).

First there was Chaos, and then came social contract, which under its reign teh system (with some help from the ruleset) started to take control over everything:

"A ruleset that is designed to create real stories..."
"System drives behavior... "
"Have they ever been exposed to a system that gave them creative power..."
"...there are rulesets that base rewards on what people at the table think..."
"...find a system that produces the play that..."
"... rules to settle arguments between characters and/or NPCs..."
"The system gives them the tools they long for to get the experience they want..."
" ...system can lead to creating themes..."

While verity are all nice and all, for me the system/ruleset in only en excuse, which leads me to...

**2** If you have a social contract problem, don’t be surprised if no matter how many times you are changing the game mechanic/ruleset, the social contract problem remains. "discussing what the group wants and how to get it isn't going to hurt", yeah, but, if you think this will resolve social contract problems, discussing it to death wont help for a very simple reason.

Let me tell you something and this is the important part (and why I disagree with your first link/quote): if someone tells you that for him to enjoy playing, it has to be this or that certain rule/ruleset/system and/or it have to strictly follow the system, he isn't playing for the right reason to begin with.

If you need social contract to begin with, you are playing with the wrong people, or more exactly you aren’t playing you are competing (/achieving), usually but not necessarily with each other, could be also something else, whatever that might be (i'm smarter / i know the rules better / i always win debates / i kill the most monsters and/or i'm the one that is always solving the mysteries, this party is helpless without me / i'm important (to the rest of the group) / i'm valued by the rest of my group (for whatever) / etc).

Think of it like playing with your friends basketball after school, sure there are rules, but does winning really matter?
If someone says foul, and you think there wasn't one, will you start arguing with him?
Is someone step a few inches over the court line in the middle of the court do you scream out? Do you even pay attention to that?

I you answer yes to these questions you are competing, or at the very least prioritizing achieving over enjoying, which is not necessarily bad or worse, but at least you should be aware of that, and it wouldn’t surprise me, with all your emphasis on teh system.

When you deal with your party you should take note of whose enjoyment is heavily depends on his achievement, and trusts me, after you do that, thing will start making a lot more sense.

In that respect I was lucky, while my group didn’t care much for role-playing, they come with, at least imho, the preferred attitude, and that is to have fun, and with that kind of attitude, there isn’t any need whatsoever of social contract, of any kind. The rules are just en excuse to get together and play.

If you get that then hopefully one day you might get the chance to play it like they play when it was still untainted, clean from theories (and contracts), maybe you'll even meet a group that the system (minus the contract) is just en excuse to get together and play, and you would probably enjoy that, if you're smart enough to not to let teh system and all your rulesets get in your way.

If however you are an overachiever/professional role-player then I guess you are already getting what you want from your playing experience, so it's all good.

This is the best my mediocre english can communicate this.

Happy gaming.

Koby

 

[Human Shield]

**1** You need to go back in time to the early 90s when I was in high school, the most advance rule-set was AD&D 2nd edition

Did you ever hear of RuneQuest?

If you are any indication of what P&P role-play turned into I'm glad for me I had the opportunity to enjoy P&P role-play when it was still fun and innocent (social contract my ass).

First there was Chaos, and then came social contract, which under its reign teh system (with some help from the ruleset) started to take control over everything:

Again social contract and system always existed like gravity existed before Newton developed his theory.

You got to enjoy a group that you had to tie back from killing dragons all day and force through your script.

**2** If you have a social contract problem, don’t be surprised if no matter how many times you are changing the game mechanic/ruleset, the social contract problem remains. "discussing what the group wants and how to get it isn't going to hurt", yeah, but, if you think this will resolve social contract problems, discussing it to death wont help for a very simple reason.

Let me tell you something and this is the important part (and why I disagree with your first link/quote): if someone tells you that for him to enjoy playing, it has to be this or that certain rule/ruleset/system and/or it have to strictly follow the system, he isn't playing for the right reason to begin with.

People are rarely set on a system. People are prone to a creative agenda, they will move around but would like to spend time on their agenda. You see this in when your players say they like ruins or want to accomplish something hard.

The reason system matters is that some systems are better at different creative agendas, that is all. It has nothing to do with being picky over rules, it has to do with what they like doing in with a RPG.

Groups naturally drift the rules to match their creative agenda (like you have already done) but it is more likely that the group's creative agenda can be fulfilled by a professionally designed system that is designed to meet what they want.

If you need social contract to begin with, you are playing with the wrong people, or more exactly you aren’t playing you are competing

The fact that people are sitting at the table and have agreed to play a game means that social contract exists, IT ALWAYS DOES. Even if it isn't spoken. Sitting down to play Monopoly is also a social contract. It has nothing to do with competing, although in many cases groups get someone that doesn't work with their contract and have to eventual take action. Which could have been avoided by explaining why they game and what they want out of the game beforehand instead of assuming or keeping it a mystery. Like if someone showed up to your game and wanted to start killing other player characters.

Think of it like playing with your friends basketball after school, sure there are rules, but does winning really matter?
I you answer yes to these questions you are competing, or at the very least prioritizing achieving over enjoying, which is not necessarily bad or worse, but at least you should be aware of that, and it wouldn’t surprise me, with all your emphasis on teh system.

When you deal with your party you should take note of whose enjoyment is heavily depends on his achievement, and trusts me, after you do that, thing will start making a lot more sense.

Again social contract can be unspoken. If someone showed up and started playing full contact the group will voice disagreement.

And some groups like real competition, stop talking down to gameist creative agenda and stop confusing rules with system. With your limited experience with P&P rulesets you think that since players can min-max with D&D it is better to fake all rolls and avoid all system or else your players will get drunk with power.

In that respect I was lucky, while my group didn’t care much for role-playing, they come with, at least imho, the preferred attitude, and that is to have fun, and with that kind of attitude, there isn’t any need whatsoever of social contract, of any kind. The rules are just en excuse to get together and play.

So they AGREED to get together, as in made a CONTRACT. You have just left it unspoken what IS fun for everyone and have refused to try new things for some irrational fear that your players would be forever tainted.

If you get that then hopefully one day you might get the chance to play it like they play when it was still untainted, clean from theories (and contracts), maybe you'll even meet a group that the system (minus the contract) is just en excuse to get together and play, and you would probably enjoy that, if you're smart enough to not to let teh system and all your rulesets get in your way.

You realize that D&D started as straight tournament competition right?

You can close your eyes but that doesn't make laws go away.

 

[Koby]

If you get that then hopefully one day you might get the chance to play it like they play when it was still untainted, clean from theories (and contracts), maybe you'll even meet a group that the system (minus the contract) is just en excuse to get together and play, and you would probably enjoy that, if you're smart enough to not to let teh system and all your rulesets get in your way.

You realize that D&D started as straight tournament competition right?

You can close your eyes but that doesn't make laws go away.

Wrong but I probably should say that because:

So they AGREED to get together, as in made a CONTRACT. You have just left it unspoken what IS fun for everyone and have refused to try new things for some irrational fear that your players would be forever tainted.

At least now we are at clear on what you enjoy the most in role-playing and its not the story, plot, creative power or moral dilemmas.

So whatever you say, really, you're right and I'm wrong, we should have made sure we have rules to ensure we had fun...

 

[Koby]

I'm glad we are having this debate.

Ever since I found out the importance of people stat of mind when they approach certain activity or act to a certain goal, and that that many people assume certain theories that while sharpening certain part of their understanding of the world and reality, these same theories these people act open also blur other parts, or even outright screen out other way to understand the world around them.

From that moment on, I started to examine these theories so I can filter out from the theory what's right and what's wrong with them so I can take the good part and not be hindered by the bad part, and eventually have a broader range of ability to interact and understand other people.

This part made me understand just how far you are taking your theory:

Think of it like playing with your friends basketball after school, sure there are rules, but does winning really matter?
I you answer yes to these questions you are competing, or at the very least prioritizing achieving over enjoying, which is not necessarily bad or worse, but at least you should be aware of that, and it wouldn’t surprise me, with all your emphasis on teh system.

When you deal with your party you should take note of whose enjoyment is heavily depends on his achievement, and trusts me, after you do that, thing will start making a lot more sense.

Again social contract can be unspoken. If someone showed up and started playing full contact the group will voice disagreement.

Right, and that would be the end of that. And if that some one continue playing too aggressively, we would direct him to the second, adjacent court, where people always, argue about whether there was a foul or there wasn’t one, they actually keep track of the score, winning is of the utmost importance, someone can't join in the middle of the game, and so on.

But you are so rooted in to your little theory that you wont even grasp what I'm talking about, by taking your theory to the latter you undermining your ability to participate or even act in the context of a group activity that have a shared goal. By enforcing "unspoken social contract" on these situations in the way you understand these situations you are doing a disservice for your own self, and in this example you would only enjoy the second court. I, unlike you, can enjoy both courts because I can distinguish between them and therefore change my playing style to accommodate the change in the priorities of that group.

Your theory belongs to the second court, only! A situation when people come with an agenda, a goal, they are looking to get competitiveness fix, or whatever.

And some groups like real competition, stop talking down to gameist creative agenda and stop confusing rules with system. With your limited experience with P&P rulesets you think that since players can min-max with D&D it is better to fake all rolls and avoid all system or else your players will get drunk with power.

That second court. When the group: "like real competition", "creative agenda", "players can min-max". In that side you *need* "social contract".

I'm getting the feeling I'll never see you on my favorite court.

 

[Human Shield]

At least now we are at clear on what you enjoy the most in role-playing and its not the story, plot, creative power or moral dilemmas.

I wouldn't enjoy your version of prescripted linear plot with zero creative power and fluff moral choices, but your group could.

I'm glad we are having this debate.

Ever since I found out the importance of people stat of mind when they approach certain activity or act to a certain goal, and that that many people assume certain theories that while sharpening certain part of their understanding of the world and reality, these same theories these people act open also blur other parts, or even outright screen out other way to understand the world around them.

Are you one of those people that think you can fly if you really don't believe in gravity?

But you are so rooted in to your little theory that you wont even grasp what I'm talking about, by taking your theory to the latter you undermining your ability to participate or even act in the context of a group activity that have a shared goal. By enforcing "unspoken social contract" on these situations in the way you understand these situations you are doing a disservice for your own self, and in this example you would only enjoy the second court. I, unlike you, can enjoy both courts because I can distinguish between them and therefore change my playing style to accommodate the change in the priorities of that group.

I have no idea why you keep pairing social contract with competition. But you should stop making crazy assumptions.

Agreeing to get together and plant trees is a social contract. Whenever one or more suggestion an activity and the group agrees they form an agreement. The fact that they are all playing basketball means they agreed to it. I don't know how else I can explain it. If one guy shows up with football gear he mite upset the group or they mite all agreed to play basketball and then football, vice verse, or make up a new game, when they are all doing something together it is evidence of agreement.

Your theory belongs to the second court, only! A situation when people come with an agenda, a goal, they are looking to get competitiveness fix, or whatever.

People ALWAYS have values, or else an RPG would be valued the same as starring at a wall. Are you saying you or your players play the game without agenda even when you voice the desire to explore more indepth stories or your player wants to see old ruins?

That second court. When the group: "like real competition", "creative agenda", "players can min-max". In that side you *need* "social contract".

There is always creative agenda. The fact that they agreed to compete mite make the need to clarify the agreement more important, in a sports game someone mite play too rough, in your RPGs people just risk being bored, passive, or frustrated. A social contract is never "needed" it ALWAYS EXISTS, it could just vary in visibility.

 

[Koby]

I wouldn't enjoy your version of prescripted linear plot with zero creative power and fluff moral choices, but your group could.

You wouldn’t enjoy ANY playing style that does not conform to your theory.

Are you one of those people that think you can fly if you really don't believe in gravity?

Maybe this is too big on you, and you will understand it when you get older, for now, its irrelevant, it's just a generic description that is just beyond you comprehension.

I have no idea why you keep pairing social contract with competition. But you should stop making crazy assumptions.

Agreeing to get together and plant trees is a social contract. Whenever one or more suggestion an activity and the group agrees they form an agreement. The fact that they are all playing basketball means they agreed to it. I don't know how else I can explain it. If one guy shows up with football gear he mite upset the group or they mite all agreed to play basketball and then football, vice verse, or make up a new game, when they are all doing something together it is evidence of agreement.

People ALWAYS have values, or else an RPG would be valued the same as starring at a wall. Are you saying you or your players play the game without agenda even when you voice the desire to explore more indepth stories or your player wants to see old ruins?

There is always creative agenda. The fact that they agreed to compete mite make the need to clarify the agreement more important, in a sports game someone mite play too rough, in your RPGs people just risk being bored, passive, or frustrated. A social contract is never "needed" it ALWAYS EXISTS, it could just vary in visibility.

This is the last time I'm going to explain this, but before I do you need to understand that not *my* job to prove your theory wrong because I'm not the one that, after reading and/or practicing for some while a certain theory, made the decision, whether in an aware manner or unconsciously, to conform himself to that theory, to the latter at some point or another, and as a result of that, is now incapable of figuring out how others are playing and enjoying a playing style that doesn’t conform to the said theory.

Tying to do that is like trying to prove/convince en atheist that there is a god or vise versa, *you* are the one that need to take a side step from where you are now and look at it from a point of view other then your own, I can only describe you how it looks from I'm standing, if you want to see it for yourself you need to walk the distance.

If you aren't willing to do so you can stop reading now (and don’t bother repeating your chewed to death rhetoric, I'm not going to respond to that any more, I have already extracted from this conversation all I can, unless of course you have something new to say).
It boils down to this, the rules don’t matter much because it's all about what the group wants, the rules-sets are only there to give the group the tool and means to accomplish that, and they do that mostly as giving/being a reference, that is the function of the original P&P rules-sets. The idea here, it is there is a fundamental assumption that playing is a group effort, every member of the group is supposed to act in a way that further the group goals, that the players wouldn’t put their personal agenda before the group's agenda, winning is whatever the group wants it to be and is accomplished through a group effort.

If you take that a step forward you will see that when the group is a *solid* group, as in they actually follow the original fundamental assumption as a bare minimum, then and only then the rules can be very, very dynamic and can change at every single moment, because when the group only cares about 'making it work', anything goes. At any single moment, any member of the group can voice any kind of like/dislike, want/don’t want, approval/disapproval, suggestion, or anything else, about anything. Whenever someone does that, all the rest of the group will try to accommodate that as much as possible. This is the beauty of the original P&P (which was my original point btw).

This can ONLY happen as long as the group wants to 'make it work' in a cooperative manner, and whenever there are any kind of disagreements, if the group wants to resolve it, the issue will be resolved, the more the group engages themselves in that state of mind, disagreements and issues are resolved faster, easier and in a more satisfying way.

A better rule-set is a better rule-set, but when a group is solid, they can manage with the simplest crudest, rule-set, and have a blast. However when a group is solid enough, it can play a dynamic game, dynamic in the sense that although the rules-set create a reservation in which the group can play, the group is not limited to that reservation. That is why I said P&P should be "a simple and easy universal system".

I know this to be a true because I played with a very solid group, a group that like I mentioned before aren’t the greatest role-players or are very creative but I enjoyed playing with them a whole lot more the then playing with the group I played letter on, in my early 20s. That group that was all about personal achievement, while they were all excellent role-players, quite creative and the setting was very good (we played "Dark Conspiracy", highly recommended), every time anyone had any kind of an idea or a suggestion, they immediately turn it to an almost life or death discussion. Everyone there kept focusing on how the idea or suggestion that was brought up will effect himself, because everyone there wanted to enjoy *himself* but nobody there cared about the *collective enjoyment* of the group.

Read the last sentence again.

I don’t care how good modern/newer rule-sets are, I will always enjoy myself more with my former group, because at the end of the day is not about how creative the player are, how good they role-play, how good is the setting, how good is the rule-set, and it doesn’t matter how good the system resolve disagreements, whatever they are, if is the players *attitude* and state of mind toward the game and the way it is played is broken, no prior 'social contract'/system can fix it.

Why attitude and state of mind isn’t part of a 'social contract' is a different discussion btw (separation between attitude and state of mind <--> actions). Last see your comments on this first.

 

[elander_]

Yup. Unless you are focusing on combat which some campaigns do.

Which was the case of NWN2 apparently.

Some people should not be allowed to use pen and paper...

Agree.

 

[Koby]

Human Shield If you don’t mind lets experiment:

When my player asked for more ruins, what he actually wanted is lots of undead (his was a cleric (turn undead), and the last ruin they went to was a cursed monastery with undead iirc exclusively). Now let's say, I told him there are going to be a big ruin in the adventure. What is the 'social contract' in that case, and is it upheld in these different cases?

1) There where undead in the ruins but he didn’t enjoyed the ruin for other reasons.
2) Even though there where no undead, he enjoyed the ruin.
3) Even though there where no undead, he did not enjoyed the ruin for other reasons.

And if you don’t mind also the above three cases when I didn’t know that what he meant was actually "lots of undead", but interrupted that as just ruins.

 

[mytgroo]

Arduin was and always will be better than D & D

Arduin is what made D & D playable. I like Arduin it is a much better system and it introduced a lot of the better concepts in the later rule variants of D & D. Go Arduin. It would be interesting to see a CRPG based on Arduin. I think it would be better than the stupid Neverwinter Nights series which I coudl not get into.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduin

 

[Human Shield]

You wouldn’t enjoy ANY playing style that does not conform to your theory.

All play styles conform to the theory.

This is the last time I'm going to explain this, but before I do you need to understand that not *my* job to prove your theory wrong because I'm not the one that, after reading and/or practicing for some while a certain theory, made the decision, whether in an aware manner or unconsciously, to conform himself to that theory, to the latter at some point or another, and as a result of that, is now incapable of figuring out how others are playing and enjoying a playing style that doesn’t conform to the said theory.

First off your play does conform to the theory. It is called illusionism, it can be functional and people can enjoy it but players mite find they like something else better after experimenting with styles they have never tried before.

It boils down to this, the rules don’t matter much because it's all about what the group wants, the rules-sets are only there to give the group the tool and means to accomplish that, and they do that mostly as giving/being a reference, that is the function of the original P&P rules-sets. The idea here, it is there is a fundamental assumption that playing is a group effort, every member of the group is supposed to act in a way that further the group goals, that the players wouldn’t put their personal agenda before the group's agenda, winning is whatever the group wants it to be and is accomplished through a group effort.

This is what I have been saying the whole time.

Game rules are below the social contract (what the group wants).
I am making a point that just the written rules are not the only "tools" that the group uses, that other elements can make up the "system" (the way the group gets what it wants).
Don't assume your playstyle is the only way, some groups have fun with following the rules 100%, don't judge other styles.
People never turn off their individuality, there is no "group goal" only a collection of the individual's goals and how much they are compatible and how they compromise.

If you take that a step forward you will see that when the group is a *solid* group, as in they actually follow the original fundamental assumption as a bare minimum, then and only then the rules can be very, very dynamic and can change at every single moment, because when the group only cares about 'making it work', anything goes. At any single moment, any member of the group can voice any kind of like/dislike, want/don’t want, approval/disapproval, suggestion, or anything else, about anything. Whenever someone does that, all the rest of the group will try to accommodate that as much as possible. This is the beauty of the original P&P (which was my original point btw).

This can ONLY happen as long as the group wants to 'make it work' in a cooperative manner, and whenever there are any kind of disagreements, if the group wants to resolve it, the issue will be resolved, the more the group engages themselves in that state of mind, disagreements and issues are resolved faster, easier and in a more satisfying way.

But the shared imagined space is only going to go one way. So either the most dominant are controlling most actions and others are passive, the players aren't passion about their suggestions, the choices are all dull and shallow, or you spend a lot of time arguing about what happens.

Why aren't you using a ruleset designed for getting group storytelling instead of one made from wargaming? Is there any risk of failure?

Give me examples of how the players resolve things. What if a player is passionate, does he get his way all the time? Are no players passionate about what is going on? How engaged are all the players, have you kept the same players the whole time? Do they just go along with your suggestions, how interactive are they with the gameworld?

Most people consider engaging play to be better. But your group could enjoy your passive movie play more. You would have to prove it if the group actually tried a real system and went back, but you don't want your players exposed for some reason.

Your idea of "original P&P" is a groundless fantasy, where do you think chainmail came from or experience points?

A better rule-set is a better rule-set, but when a group is solid, they can manage with the simplest crudest, rule-set, and have a blast. However when a group is solid enough, it can play a dynamic game, dynamic in the sense that although the rules-set create a reservation in which the group can play, the group is not limited to that reservation. That is why I said P&P should be "a simple and easy universal system".

Groups are going to change any rules to fit the group's creative agenda. What is the benefit of keeping players in the dark about they can and can't do and making every suggestion subject to review.

I know this to be a true because I played with a very solid group, a group that like I mentioned before aren’t the greatest role-players or are very creative but I enjoyed playing with them a whole lot more the then playing with the group I played letter on, in my early 20s. That group that was all about personal achievement, while they were all excellent role-players, quite creative and the setting was very good (we played "Dark Conspiracy", highly recommended), every time anyone had any kind of an idea or a suggestion, they immediately turn it to an almost life or death discussion. Everyone there kept focusing on how the idea or suggestion that was brought up will effect himself, because everyone there wanted to enjoy *himself* but nobody there cared about the *collective enjoyment* of the group.

And if a system took out the debate and made it into rules you could have engaging play and story created from passionate players.

How did the players want to enjoy themselves? If the rules made enjoying yourself only possible by improving the enjoyment of others you still think the outcome would have been the same?

Read the last sentence again.

I don’t care how good modern/newer rule-sets are, I will always enjoy myself more with my former group, because at the end of the day is not about how creative the player are, how good they role-play, how good is the setting, how good is the rule-set, and it doesn’t matter how good the system resolve disagreements, whatever they are, if is the players *attitude* and state of mind toward the game and the way it is played is broken, no prior 'social contract'/system can fix it.

Curious, are you always GM with your new group?

If the state of mind is to play with the agreed rules, system can guide behavior. I don't know how far you are describing "broken".

When my player asked for more ruins, what he actually wanted is lots of undead (his was a cleric (turn undead), and the last ruin they went to was a cursed monastery with undead iirc exclusively). Now let's say, I told him there are going to be a big ruin in the adventure. What is the 'social contract' in that case, and is it upheld in these different cases?

1) There where undead in the ruins but he didn’t enjoyed the ruin for other reasons.
2) Even though there where no undead, he enjoyed the ruin.
3) Even though there where no undead, he did not enjoyed the ruin for other reasons.

And if you don’t mind also the above three cases when I didn’t know that what he meant was actually "lots of undead", but interrupted that as just ruins.

Did he already concend absolute power to your for creating stuff? Does he expect that you can change your mind and alter things?

Social contract is more about agreement. Enjoyment is more in line with creative agenda compatibility, which can be present in quiet disappointment but people keep playing. Social contract is what they feel the group's goal is.

If the play style he got isn't what he signed up for, social contract was too vague. If he wanted to explore and had to fight through mobs of monsters. Undead are just color, he could have wanted to explore what a undead hierarchy is like or have a cool battle with them. But you never clarified it with him.

Social Contract is a stream, it isn't "upheld" it is reformed every moment of play, as long as he is still playing social contract is still going on. Having one that is too vague and always drifting leads to everyone having less fun then they otherwise could.

 

[Koby]

Curious, are you always GM with your *new* group?

No, and I didn’t even wanted to try.

(actually I did try, at the beginning when I didn’t know them all that well, although after the two first sessions I told them that I really don’t want to be a GM any more)

Social contract is more about agreement...
Social contract is what they feel the group's goal is.
Social Contract is a stream, it isn't "upheld" it is reformed every moment of play..."

Very confusing.

When is social contract about doing/playing and when is it about knowing/feeling?

Acting and interpretation of action are/can be two different things, this is make 'social contract' very... what is the word for english for this... it like the saying "it isn’t a part of plant, it isn’t a part of an animal, why is this food?" Your description make it sound like social contract like something that 'sometime its like this and sometime its like that'.

If a contract cannot be violated how can it be a contract? What is it's point?

The way you describe it is more like....hmm... nm.

So many more problems with this and these are just the start...

/edit ****

I just browsed through the wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract , it had some... well, you should read it if you haven't done so already.

**** /edit end

Undead are just color...

As I said before that player played a cleric, now is it *still* just color when for *him*, for what ever reason, turning undead is like one the best parts of being a cleric?

In the broader sense, isn’t " just color" something for the group to decide? Or in your terminology "Enjoyment is more in line with creative agenda compatibility"?

It looks like everything is just mashed together to something that isn’t very meaningful. Again, very confusing.

When and how do you make that distinction?

Is the reason really important for the distinction to happen?

And in that momentum, you mentioned rule-sets for: creating real stories, behavior, creative power and rewards determination, producing play, settling arguments, creating themes. Just how many rule-sets is *your* group using when playing P&P? 1? 2? 5? 10?

 

[Human Shield]

Curious, are you always GM with your *new* group?

No, and I didn’t even wanted to try.

(actually I did try, at the beginning when I didn’t know them all that well, although after the two first sessions I told them that I really don’t want to be a GM any more)

The way you wrote it, it sounded like you were GM. What was the talk about you deciding to throw away the dice, about making campaigns? What does the current GM do?

You still haven't explained how your group operates.

Why aren't you using a ruleset designed for getting group storytelling instead of one made from wargaming? Is there any risk of failure?

The shared imagined space is only going to go one way. So either the most dominant are controlling most actions and others are passive, the players aren't passion about their suggestions, the choices are all dull and shallow, or you spend a lot of time arguing about what happens.

Give me examples of how the players resolve things. What if a player is passionate, does he get his way all the time? Are no players passionate about what is going on? How engaged are all the players, have you kept the same players the whole time? Do they just go along with your suggestions, how interactive are they with the gameworld?

When is social contract about doing/playing and when is it about knowing/feeling?

Social Contract: All interactions and relationships among the role-playing group, including emotional connections, logistic arrangements, and expectations. All role-playing is a subset of the Social Contract.

"Social contract is just the agreements between players about what they're going to do and how they will delegate control about what goes into the shared imagined space (in the jargonless definition, that's deciding who gets to say what happens).

It can include:
- who buys pizza
- what rules to use
- what to do if someone can't attend
- how to create characters (i.e. group design vs. show up with your finished character sheet).
- who the GM is
- what "feel" the game should have
- what to do if we really disagree about something
- what role the GM plays vis-a-vis other players
- what we want to get out of an evening's play

Hell, even the decision to play at all is part of the social contract. In the Big Model terms, it's the largest and outermost box because every single component of gaming is included in the social contract, whether spoken or otherwise."

When control isn't clearly delegated you get players that don't know what they can and can't do.

You want a social contract of "the group decides what happens in the game" without clarifying how to get reach a decision besides argument, which would lead to a flatline game where players don't have much power or passion.

"Social Contract consists of the rights and responsibilities of each person in the activity. No activity occurs where people don't believe they have rights and responsibilities. Many activities occur where people believe they don't need to state these rules, because everyone will share the same assumptions, perhaps by telepathy. In reality, not talking about social contract just assures that everybody has a different idea of what they're supposed to do and what they can expect in return."

Do your players have a clear idea of what they can do? Why is it better to keep the group guessing and passive?

As I said before that player played a cleric, now is it *still* just color when for *him*, for what ever reason, turning undead is like one the best parts of being a cleric?

In the broader sense, isn’t " just color" something for the group to decide? Or in your terminology "Enjoyment is more in line with creative agenda compatibility"?

What is the purpose of the undead. If the rules said he could turn rabbits, would a bunch of rabbits be the same? Are the undead there for atmosphere, give hints about setting, or does he want something to kill so he can level?

Color is details that doesn't change the action or resolution, it is for atmosphere. What makes the difference between undead and orcs besides details?

And in that momentum, you mentioned rule-sets for: creating real stories, behavior, creative power and rewards determination, producing play, settling arguments, creating themes. Just how many rule-sets is *your* group using when playing P&P? 1? 2? 5? 10?

You can look at some rulesets that are designed to do more then loot and levels. If your players all actually want separate games it mite be better to run separate games with the same players. So that players that want things to be hard and risky don't effect the space with players that don't want anything bad to happen to their character without their permission. You're trying to constantly switch gears to keep people happen when you could be open about doing different things.

You could try a one-shot and take a break from your ritual play.

 

[Koby]

What is the purpose of the undead. If the rules said he could turn rabbits, would a bunch of rabbits be the same? Are the undead there for atmosphere, give hints about setting, or does he want something to kill so he can level?

Color is details that doesn't change the action or resolution, it is for atmosphere. What makes the difference between undead and orcs besides details?

I *think* that for him it was... it's hard to explain umm, undead are an ultimate-evil (moral?), and the fact that he had an unique ability to do some ass kicking and protecting his party from them(it?), maybe it was about moral superiority, in the sense that "I'm all about doing the right thing"... I didn’t looked into the depth of it.

Is it still 'just color'?

The way you wrote it, it sounded like you were GM. What was the talk about you deciding to throw away the dice, about making campaigns?

I don’t understand the Q.

Why aren't you using a ruleset designed for getting group storytelling instead of one made from wargaming? Is there any risk of failure?

because with in some cases (my former group) relying on rule-set for storytelling isn’t necessary, the other group which I played I don’t know/not sure, and for the last time
I HAVENT PLAYED ANY P&P FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.
I HAVENT PLAYED ANY P&P FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.
I HAVENT PLAYED ANY P&P FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.
I HAVENT PLAYED ANY P&P FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.
I HAVENT PLAYED ANY P&P FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.
I HAVENT PLAYED ANY P&P FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.

The shared imagined space is only going to go one way. So either the most dominant are controlling most actions and others are passive, the players aren't passion about their suggestions, the choices are all dull and shallow, or you spend a lot of time arguing about what happens

Typical, "only one way" either this or that, no middle ground.

Give me examples of how the players resolve things. What if a player is passionate, does he get his way all the time? Are no players passionate about what is going on? How engaged are all the players, have you kept the same players the whole time? Do they just go along with your suggestions, how interactive are they with the gameworld?

You have not yet commented even once on how you group resolve things, what are you and your group passionate about, what rule-set you are using, what do you enjoy in P&P...

- what we want to get out of an evening's play

Every thing revolves around this it seems.

What are you getting out of meeting with your friend in the pub?
What are you getting out meeting with your friend and playing poker?
What are you getting out of seeing a movie/sport game with your friend?
What are you getting out of going with your friend camping/fishing?
What are you getting out of going to a party?
What are you getting out of getting together and playing?

Do you enforce your 'social contract' on these situations, also?

Captain obvious: Human being are social creatures, they like to get together.

... and do stuff, even if its just trash talking. The fact that you are spending time with your friends is all by itself an accomplishment, and in not just a few occasions, the more important and enjoyable part then the excuse of meeting each other.

If "getting something out of" is of the *highest* priority of the group activity, in the sense that it is priority #1, #2 and #3, and the fact that they are engaging social activity, is at priority #15 if it is at all one of the reason for that activity, then it becomes something else, whether it is a competition, personal/group agenda (not necessarily a creative agenda), whatever, I already explained this earlier.

For some reason, you just don’t get it. For you it seems that P&P HAS to be about something other then a reason to get together and play. Maybe you are just extremely passionate when it comes to playing P&P, and never 'had the opportunity' / 'don’t know how' of playing it in a laidback, easygoing manner... If it's not about 'what am I getting out of', then for you it becomes "dull and shallow".

Hell, even the decision to play at all is part of the social contract

*sigh*

When control isn't clearly delegated you get players that don't know what they can and can't do.

Why is this a *necessity* for enjoying the game?

You want a social contract of "the group decides what happens in the game" without clarifying how to get reach a decision besides argument, which would lead to a flatline game where players don't have much power or passion.

You have not yet commented even once on how you group resolve things, what are you and your group passionate about, what rule-set you are using, what do you enjoy in P&P...

*****
I can not shack the feeling the whole 'social contract' theory, as you describe it (in the context of role-playing), is the end result of a one or more nerds trying to figure out why most of their time he/they are arguing and not playing or enjoying around the table (I'm going to use the stereotype 'nerd' as a reference to people that tend to minimize their engagement in social activity).

Having a lot of nerd in my social circle, I can tell you from experience that nerd are the ones that I least pay attention when it comes to insight about social interaction. Social skills, and understanding Social behavior in the practical sense (not in the academic sphere), is acquired, is learned throughout engaging social activity, the more you do it, the better you do it, and the better you understand it. Nerds shouldn’t comprise any theory regarding social behavior.

 

[Claw]

I don’t understand the Q.

Well, they are pretty bizzare. A little silly, even. You might say that they are incomprehensible.

I HAVENT PLAYED ANY P&P FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.

BEST DEBATE EVER.

Do you enforce your 'social contract' on these situations, also?

I don’t understand the 'social contract'.

For some reason, I just don’t get it.

Fixed.



I apologize for my obtrusiveness; but this is just too funny. :D