I wasn’t referring to chargen although certainly the munchkin threat species will try.
No more like trying to game the combat/task system if known vs the theory of role playing no system knowledge theoretically precludes much of that.
Adventure Game vs Roleplay Game?
- Thread starter Ezra
- Start date
No more like trying to game the combat/task system if known vs the theory of role playing no system knowledge theoretically precludes much of that.
Black Vulmea
SOC-11
I think Traveller is a perfect example of a classic adventure game (CAG) in no small part due to the many procedural generators built into the system: star trading, mercenary tickets, fleet operations, asteroid mining, planetary surveys, on and on. This is one of the reasons it's so well suited to solitaire play.
I had a back-and-forth with one of the proponents of CAG a few months ago on our blogs; rather than rehash it all here, here's my takeaway: I think roleplaying is a natural outgrowth of adventure gaming and that the hobby gets the process backward by putting roleplaying - playing a character - ahead of the adventure - playing a game.
Another GDW game is my exemplar of this: the swashbuckling dueling game, En Garde! EG started life as a set of man-to-man dueling rules, but as players played, they got curious about their characters' lives outside of the times they crossed steel. The result was a series of procedural generators for clubbing, wenching, and campaigning with the goal of advancing socially.
I've been playing these silly games for the better part of forty-seven years now, and from my experience, roleplaying - making decisions about your 'playing piece' in the game - tends to arise organically out of actual play. Ask yourself the question, 'What would my character do?' enough times and a persona emerges. Think about Traveller's lifepaths: you're making in-character decisions from the moment you choose a service and a skill table to roll on, and by the time you're done, it's not difficult to think of your character in terms of what they want and what they're willing to do to get it. A personality emerges, no play-acting required.
Now, I personally enjoy that play-acting aspect too: I'm solitaire playing a Beltstrike campaign right now, with a husband-and-wife team originally inspired by Virgil and Lindsey Brigman from The Abyss. He's a retired Belter, she's an ex-Scout, and together they're trying to get rich at the ass-end of the Imperium. Most of 'playing the game' is Bookkeeping & Balance Sheets - fuel consumption, stores, sensor readings, &c - but just for fun I write little short stories for myself recounting conversations between the two of them, because it's fun to explore what's going on in their heads as the procedural aspects of playing the game tap more and more into their decision making.
Anyway, here are links to the blog posts between me and EOTB about what adventure gaming is, if you're curious - I strongly recommend reading what EOTB has to say about this:
What is Classic Adventure Gaming? (EOTB at Chronicled Scribblings of the Itinerant Overlord)
Make Mine . . . Adventure Roleplaying?! (me at Really Bad Eggs)
No Roleplaying?!? (EOTB again)
More Adventure Gamer Than Not (me again)
I had a back-and-forth with one of the proponents of CAG a few months ago on our blogs; rather than rehash it all here, here's my takeaway: I think roleplaying is a natural outgrowth of adventure gaming and that the hobby gets the process backward by putting roleplaying - playing a character - ahead of the adventure - playing a game.
Another GDW game is my exemplar of this: the swashbuckling dueling game, En Garde! EG started life as a set of man-to-man dueling rules, but as players played, they got curious about their characters' lives outside of the times they crossed steel. The result was a series of procedural generators for clubbing, wenching, and campaigning with the goal of advancing socially.
I've been playing these silly games for the better part of forty-seven years now, and from my experience, roleplaying - making decisions about your 'playing piece' in the game - tends to arise organically out of actual play. Ask yourself the question, 'What would my character do?' enough times and a persona emerges. Think about Traveller's lifepaths: you're making in-character decisions from the moment you choose a service and a skill table to roll on, and by the time you're done, it's not difficult to think of your character in terms of what they want and what they're willing to do to get it. A personality emerges, no play-acting required.
Now, I personally enjoy that play-acting aspect too: I'm solitaire playing a Beltstrike campaign right now, with a husband-and-wife team originally inspired by Virgil and Lindsey Brigman from The Abyss. He's a retired Belter, she's an ex-Scout, and together they're trying to get rich at the ass-end of the Imperium. Most of 'playing the game' is Bookkeeping & Balance Sheets - fuel consumption, stores, sensor readings, &c - but just for fun I write little short stories for myself recounting conversations between the two of them, because it's fun to explore what's going on in their heads as the procedural aspects of playing the game tap more and more into their decision making.
Anyway, here are links to the blog posts between me and EOTB about what adventure gaming is, if you're curious - I strongly recommend reading what EOTB has to say about this:
What is Classic Adventure Gaming? (EOTB at Chronicled Scribblings of the Itinerant Overlord)
Make Mine . . . Adventure Roleplaying?! (me at Really Bad Eggs)
No Roleplaying?!? (EOTB again)
More Adventure Gamer Than Not (me again)
That is kind of the thing is that there is no real rise in toughness like with D&D and hit points, we have run characters for years and while they might have increased a skill or stat, overall the change is relatively unimportant.
casquilho
SOC-13
Just wanted to say I love the idea of this solo game. I suspect the combo of the excel sheets and the stories make for some interesting fun.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
If you roll 3d and take the highest 2 you are munchkining
if you roll the characteristics on 2d and then assign them to the characteristic of your choice you are munchkining
2d in the order is random.
No brownie points, no rerolls, no picking skill tables after skill die roll or you are munchkining the game.
No points buy.
Combat is roll 2d - random - then DMs for range, armour, movement, concealment etc.
Situation saving throw - roll 2d the referee decides if you succeed or not.
I feel it, except I’m onboard with the skill table choosing- kind of like making choices presented in life and gives a little bit of agency.
Badenov
SOC-12
In general, games have gotten kinder and less prone to overwhelming PCs, and by extension less tactical, because when you don't need tactics, why bother with them? Traveller, though, is not a new game, and RAW is not particularly kind to players. Your character is mostly dice rolls, with a few choices that are either very broad, like choice of career (unless you fail that roll and have to submit to the draft), or very limited in scope, like which table to roll on for a skill. A character like that often doesn't lend itself to being the sort of character you'd like to play, except by accident. This in no way precludes you from choosing a personality for your rolled character and going with the flow. I tend to describe this sort of game as a 'character-scale wargame', and if that's how you roll, that's fine, too. First ed D&D was this way, and you basically picked out a name, a class, and a race, and then rode the dice until it was time to purchase gear. The most control you had in chargen was chosing your race and class after you'd rolled your stats.
But.
Just because you're not playing a character tailored to your exact specifications doesn't mean you can't roleplay it. You can always make choices that you feel the character would make, and in general, most likely those choices will be the best choices for the situation because most people don't deliberately make bad choices for themselves. If they can help it, anyhow.
Now some players aren't into the tactical decision making, and just want to have grand adventures in space. These players buy games, too, and any Game Publisher is a company (please let me know if anyone knows any not-for-profit game publishers), and would like to sell as many games as possible, and therefore to broaden a game's appeal, they'll make game bits that work for these players also. This is generally where things come in like rearranging stats, picking skill columns after you roll, etc., and other ways to let you make the character you want to play rather than a character sheet you've been handed. Min-maxers tend to find these systems ripe for abuse because you can optimize your character.
So I think my conclusion is that Traveller is absoluely a role-playing game, but 'role-playing' just means that you take on the role of a character in the game. The amount of acting is based on how that table feels.
Now here's a question for all you 40-year veteran Traveller players: When you were 16 and rolled a 54-year old spacer, did you make the same choices you make now, as a 54-year old player? I'm 55, and I feel like I make mostly the same decisions. I'm not sure if that means I learned nothing in 40 years, or if I learned everything I needed to know 40 years ago?
But.
Just because you're not playing a character tailored to your exact specifications doesn't mean you can't roleplay it. You can always make choices that you feel the character would make, and in general, most likely those choices will be the best choices for the situation because most people don't deliberately make bad choices for themselves. If they can help it, anyhow.
Now some players aren't into the tactical decision making, and just want to have grand adventures in space. These players buy games, too, and any Game Publisher is a company (please let me know if anyone knows any not-for-profit game publishers), and would like to sell as many games as possible, and therefore to broaden a game's appeal, they'll make game bits that work for these players also. This is generally where things come in like rearranging stats, picking skill columns after you roll, etc., and other ways to let you make the character you want to play rather than a character sheet you've been handed. Min-maxers tend to find these systems ripe for abuse because you can optimize your character.
So I think my conclusion is that Traveller is absoluely a role-playing game, but 'role-playing' just means that you take on the role of a character in the game. The amount of acting is based on how that table feels.
Now here's a question for all you 40-year veteran Traveller players: When you were 16 and rolled a 54-year old spacer, did you make the same choices you make now, as a 54-year old player? I'm 55, and I feel like I make mostly the same decisions. I'm not sure if that means I learned nothing in 40 years, or if I learned everything I needed to know 40 years ago?
PapaGolfWhiskey
SOC-13
As a GM I abhore metagaming on the players. EVERYTHING I do is predicated on player agency and in character behaviour. My plot hooks are tailored to compel or attract the characters and sound entertaining to the players. My 'plots' are not a script but a cast of characters with plans and resources and reactions of their own and they react organically to what the players actually DO. Sometimes this means a session ends early when the players 'solve' the problem and leave me with no content to present. Sometimes it means that what was intended as a throwaway session and/or one off character becomes continuing.
For example in a recent game of D20 to Yuma The players felt overmatched by the one-off 'evil' wizard and offered to enter his service (he really wasn't evil so much as a self absorbed edge-lord) This has changed the entire thrust and trajectory of the Campaign.
To Badenov's question. I'm a totally different person than I was then. 34 was unbelieably old. Now I'm warily watching 60 creeping towards me and feeling those failed aging rolls.
For example in a recent game of D20 to Yuma The players felt overmatched by the one-off 'evil' wizard and offered to enter his service (he really wasn't evil so much as a self absorbed edge-lord) This has changed the entire thrust and trajectory of the Campaign.
To Badenov's question. I'm a totally different person than I was then. 34 was unbelieably old. Now I'm warily watching 60 creeping towards me and feeling those failed aging rolls.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It's random.
I chose and still choose the career that I think matches the characteristics I have rolled, if that fails (enlistment roll fails) then the draft follows.
I chose and still choose the career that I think matches the characteristics I have rolled, if that fails (enlistment roll fails) then the draft follows.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
There is Saint Cuthbert's approach to getting things done.
The Dungeons and Dragons one.
The Dungeons and Dragons one.
The real one might have had a change of heart after Lindisfarne . . .
Black Vulmea
SOC-11
Oh yeah, I'm in my eleventh term of service and still hopin' on that free trader . . .
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
No such thing as a free launch.
But there are coupons and daily specials!
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
That would be the ship shares, specific starship models, and sell by dates.
But there is a Free Trader.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
If you wait around long enough.
Someone must have figured out the odds of getting the same mustering out roll, five times in the same sitting.
Get a smallcraft instead, weld ballast on top, and take out a mortgage on the jump drive, and installation cost.
Someone must have figured out the odds of getting the same mustering out roll, five times in the same sitting.
Get a smallcraft instead, weld ballast on top, and take out a mortgage on the jump drive, and installation cost.
No go for me, gotta have the full bridge for jump.
Compromise on needing a two-point-downgraded computer? (Mod/2bis as Mod/1 for jump-1, like using a computer and a seat in place of a small-craft bridge, from HG.)
If you want to. X wing fighters jump, so depends on your game and milieu.
I’ve got that bridge festooned with a complete EM short range sensor suite for basic safety and repurposed uses like Seeker prospecting. Plus all sorts of jump related/ larger hull engineering doodads.
Plus, long trip being stuck in a small craft stateroom, much less a career.
Similar threads
General
Lanthan Traders?
