First time poster, but this was worth putting in an opinion.

DMing is Creating a World for players to interact with.  part of that is deciding what rules work in what way, the designers encourage players to fudge rules because in some DM worlds things Should work differently, the example you spoke of is actually a bad one, fudging rolls to help your players survive shouldn't be what they mean.  A challenging encounter, is supposed to be a challenge, their should be the possibility of dying. the only reason i've ever actually changed the rolls was when i under-estimated the monster, over estimated the party or both, so maybe the 3rd level characters shouldn't be fighting an ogre mage, since i missed the part of him being nearly unkillable because he regenerates.  alright, i can tell my players i made a mistake, rewind time and start over, or i can make it where the players got "Extremely" lucky, they have something to brag about and i make a mental note to pay more attention to special qualities. Fudging rolls should be used at most to make up for your mistakes.

One of the biggest issues with roleplaying is discussing what you want from a game and coming to an agreement.  if you're meeting up with a bunch of strangers in a gamer shop sitting down making characters and starting, well people are gonna clash, the games going to take interesting turns and it's probably not gonna end well, just for that reason.   When you have a DM that wants to play story-teller, and players that want a hack and slash, no one is going to be happy.  period.  there is no feasible way to fix that, no golden system that says the dm can have story while his players kill things, becuase the story the DM wants requires the players to put forth effort that they don't want to put forth.  thats like all your friends coming over to play a shooter, and the owner of the game system (the DM) puts in a racing game.  the players are gonna crash cars :P cause they came there to kill something.  the simplest way to avoid that is to piece together what people want and try to come to an agreement... inform the players this is going to be a story, and agree that it should be an "Epic" tale with big fights and loot aswell.  compromise, becuase i, for one, don't have an endless supply of friends to pick and choose from to put together the kindof group I want to play with.

DnD has supplied more books in 3.5 then i can remember for Variant rules, multiple books specifically for changing rules so that people can avoid rules they don't like.  its a guide line because it's not one specific world you're playing in. it's your world you create and you can add or remove rules as you see fit.  if in my world i think sorcerers should have a d6 HD becuase their "Magical" nature makes them tougher, then thats how it works in my world.  thats not breaking the rules, because they aren't iron clad rules, they are suggested rules.  the books are a core basis, something to start from so you don't have to make it up all by yourself, and a whole lot of math pre-done for you. the mistake people make is changing rules some of the time, but not all the time.  that is bad playing not bad rules.  you will or have said that you shouldn't have to remove rules.  and thats arguable.  i don't want my players to worry about encumbarance.   does that mean it shouldn't have been in there? or they should have add an extra line of text saying "If you want them to deal with the weight of their gear"? just becuase the book doesn't voice alternatives doesn't mean its wrong, it's just assumed you can take the initiative atleast enough to change it on your own.

Where is a rule that is so badly broken that you could liken it to "your car can't turn left"... thats removing a basic requirement of a vehicle, now maybe "your car can't go over 50 mph while it's raining or you lose control"... and you decide "what if i want my players to not have to worry about rain" that rules there becuase your average joe might have issues with driving super fast in a down pour.  if you don't want it to work like that for players it shouldn't.  thats not the rule being wrong, it's the rule not being neccessary.

Drako,

I agree that a good DM is better than a mediocre DM and a great DM is better than a good DM.  That's obvious.  But should an RPG require a good DM to function?  "Sorry, we can't have fun playing this RPG because none of us is a good DM."  That's like saying that you can't have fun playing Monopoly (assuming Monopoly was fun) because nobody is "good" at being the banker.  If the game is well designed, you should be able to follow the rules and advice right out of the book and get a "decent", enjoyable game out of it, even without any experience.  Better  DMs and players make for a better game, but it should default to "pretty good" on the low end if you follow the rules.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

If you choose to play a game that was designed to be referreed,then yes, that style of game should require a good referee.  Isn't that obvious? 

And waving your hand and saying "ignore that the game was designed to be refereed, the important point is that the game doesn't stand on its own" isn't going to work, you have to deal with the game as it is, and it has a lot of advantages with how its designed over other games, for those who like that style of play. You can't pretend the game wasn't written to be that way, because it was, read some of gygax's mad insane writings, he obviously inteaded the DM to be a referee.  For those who like that style of play, you could possibly point to games that would require less arbitration, but at what cost to the game?  Is it going to have a rule for every situation? Or less rules so you don't have to feel bad when you break them?

In my experience with 20-30 different roleplaying rule systems, systems that require less arbitration feel watered down, generic, choices matter less because the system is wobbly and ultimately results rely entirely on a dice roll like some board game. 

Sorry charlie, I didn't want to make you go bankrupt, but you landed on boardwalk with a hotel, its the dice's fault. 

Thats not fun to me.  Its playable when someone is tired of D&D, but nearly everyone will want to come back to D&D.  And if not D&D, some other simulist system.  Once again, we're not talking about D&D, we're talking about games that require a strong narrative/referee/arbitrator influence, because all of this applies equally well to Shadowrun, Mechwarrior, even Werewolf or Requiem.

Games like D&D "should" require a DM, because thats what people accept when they come to the gaming table.  It has advantages, advantages that make those of us who have played many different kinds of games prefer that style of play.  Most of the people I know have played many different types of games, most of them ultimately end up coming back to a game like D&D or Rokugan or Shadowrun. 

 And I don't believe its because they were indoctrinated to not know what good gaming could be, I think its because they think its more fun.  (Why people prefer gaming styles could be a different thread, I don't really want to go off on it at the moment, unless someone else does).

 

 

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Hey, RJ!  Welcome to the forums!

Let's see.  Yes, I agree that fixing a DM mistake is a valid reason for changing the rules on the fly.  Whether or not you tell the players is optional, depending on your players, I guess.  The rules should strive to make these mistakes uncommon, but stuff happens and the show must go on.

Also yes, the players need to come to an agreement as to what they want from a game and what optional rules will be in play.  If the rules are changed up-front, and all of the players know about it, that's not cheating, that's just playing the game differently.  That's ok.  Although I shudder at the thought of reactionary house-rules brought in without any consideration for how they'll affect the system as a whole, well thought out house-rules aren't really a problem.  I still hesitate to call them "guidelines", though, because they're only "guidelines" until you start playing, and then they become rules.  And before you start playing, who cares what they're called?

Yes, a basic requirement of a vehicle.  That's what I'm talking about, though I should probably have specified that it happens "sometimes".  If the car could never turn left, you wouldn't stand for it, and if a game rule never worked, you wouldn't put up with it either.  Similarly, if your car "sometimes" shuts down when you turn left, you'd consider that a serious problem.  But for some reason, when the game breaks "sometimes", it's ok, and you're expected to just "work around it".

As for an example, let's say the 3.5 CR system.  It's supposed to provide balanced and challenging encounters, but it doesn't.  It simply doesn't work as advertized.  Orcs with great-axes are far too deadly at first level.  Most well-built heroes are far too powerful at higher levels.

Or maybe Vampire.  It's supposed to be a game about intrigue and politics amongst monsters, but the way the rules are (were?) written, the best way to accomplish anything is combat.  The Storyteller, hoping for something "more mature than D&D hack and slash" is going to be frustrated when his games keep devolving into brawls and gunfights.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

Ok, "referee", as the object of the "referer" seeking adjudication.  Fair enough.

So, your understanding of how a standard RPG works, and possibly what most gamers prefer, is a setup where the players operate through the DM because the rules are meaningless to them and really are just guidelines for the DM.  Yes?  That seems to be what you're describing.  This could certainly work, despite the huge number of possible pitfalls, though that's another area where these games fail.  Rarely do they ever make that explicit.  They almost never say "these are rules the DM can use to make things easier on him when he's making up reactions to player choices".  And even on those occasions where they do, they certainly don't do a very good job of explaining what a "good" referee is or how to become one beyond fumbling about blindly or watching another DM that people think is "good".  That's a big rules (or guideline) failure right there.  Honestly, it should be made clear at the beginning of these manuals that players have no recourse to the rules and might as well ignore them.  It would certainly get everybody on the same page more quickly.  (Though it does seem counter to the tactical nature of D&D.)

Arbitration and following the rules aren't mutually exclusive.  The style of play that I'm talking about relies heavily on arbitration.  However, at the player's option, if he doesn't like the result, he can risk using the rules to get what he wants.  That's a choice.  Consider that by not allowing Charlie to go bankrupt, you've made his choice to take a chance meaningless.  Isn't that contrary to your suggestions in the past that "combat without risk of death" isn't exciting?  Isn't that "not fun" as well?

I should point out that I'm not saying a game shouldn't have a DM, just that a game shouldn't expect "good DMs" to just magically happen on their own.

As for the indoctrination thing, I have to disagree.  Though I'm not saying that "standard" gaming can't be good, or that other alternatives are necessarily better, I don't think that most gamers think it's more fun.  Most gamers don't even know that there are any other options.  Many boggle at the idea of GM-less games, or are terrified at the notion of player empowerment ("It'll be chaos!").  Most don't know anything about gaming outside of D&D and its clones.  Combine that with gamers' fetishistic natures, geek social fallacy shackles, the fact that most gamers learn what gaming "is" in their formative years, as well as the fact that most gamers who don't like that style of play just quit (or "grow out of it") because they don't know that there are other options, and sure, it might seem that it's the preferred gaming mode.  This ignores the fact that most gamers are unaware of the alternatives (or assume that they really aren't that different), that they often identify strongly with a game or game style due to their social groups or formative experiences regardless of any frustrations they might find in it, or that most gamers who don't like that style of play aren't gamers anymore.

Anyway, if D&D is meant to be "referee'd" as you describe it, the big ol' book full of numerically crunchy "guidelines" certainly seems contradictory, especially since it lacks any statement that says so explicitly.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

If your idea is that people who don't like the standard way of gaming get out of gaming if they can't find a style of game they like, I can agree that is a strong possibility.  Makes a lot of sense.  The implication that most gamers are just too stupid or too prejudiced in their formative years is what I can't believe is the majority. 

The majority of people who have gamed more than 15 years I believe have tried out multiple styles of gaming.  And some of those people will play D&D but prefer other styles of games, thats fine.  The ones who stick with D&D most likely stick with it because they believe D&D/Shadowrun/Requiem/whatever better fits the style they like to play. 

The reason I believe D&D works is because unlike the podcasts where it seems you have a party of DM personalities getting together to play, most groups have people who fit different "types" in the party.  You have the talker, you have the detail person, the grand plan person, the accountant, the journaler, the mapper, and you have the DM.  Most other games seem to try to get everyone more involved in the same way, and these other games are often highly touted by the elitist RPG people, as if the games are "better" than the old school games.  But they're not better, they're just different, and they're different in a way that won't work for many people who get together every week to play D&D in the same way that D&D apparently wasn't able to satisfy these other people. 

Thats fine, until people start saying "why can't that dog pull my cart?" not realizing they bought the wrong animal.

As far as the referee'd remarks. :P  All games that require referees usually have rules, and sometimes the referees will slip things through in a game to make the game more interesting, they're "encouraged" to by the stakeholders in the games.  If they get caught, you'll hear a lot of booing, but despite the fact that we could use computers and videos to overrule the referrees in most professional sports, we rarely do, the referee's words are usually final, even when its a bad call. 

Referees can usually only "stretch" the rules though, and its the same in D&D, at some point the players will revolt, so its a power you have to be careful with.  Computer AI will often cheat, and a lot of games do it well and people don't complain, some games do it a bit less well and you'll hear people complain, and some games do it blatantly and people stop playing.

Thats D&D.  Is there a magic rule that tells game developers how to cheat and when? No.  Do they consider it broken to cheat instead of writing better AI? No, maybe cheating makes the game more fun, maybe normal monsters can follow the rules because they're disposable, but boss monsters need special rules to keep the game interesting, whatever.  But cheating is part of what gamers normally expect, they aren't told about it, they don't discuss it, it happens, and games are better for it (sometimes). 

 

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

It's not a matter of being stupid, though I think many are predisposed (prejudice being a rather loaded word).  If they play mostly D&D, and then try a couple of other games, only to find that they're pretty much like D&D with different dice, they're likely to come to the conclusion that RPGs all kind of work the same way.  If they've played a lot of different RPGs, then there's even more evidence RPGs are all the same.  If they played one of the new sorts of RPG, they probably tried to play it like the ones that they were familiar with and had a poor play experience.  New thinking in RPG design has had a few advances here and there, but the real innovations and hard looks only started maybe 7 years ago.  Most gamers, especially ones that have been playing for 15 years, are unlikely to have even heard of these new games.

Now, I'm not saying that standard games wouldn't be more popular with the average gamer.  I'm simply pointing out that you can't really say so with any kind of credibility when limited marketing and the nature of gamer culture works against a legitimate sampling.

As for different "types" of players, one could point out that they aren't really "playing" the game.  They're latching on to a subsystem, probably out of boredom with what's actually going on at the time.  While the talker is talking, you'll have guys mapping, journaling, accounting and plotting, effectively taking them out of the game for that period.  I mean, surely that's not what most players are there for.  "Play D&D and you and your friends can map out imaginary structures on graph paper!"  "Play D&D and make fabulous spreadsheets to track every copper!"  Still, none of that changes the fact that games of these sorts are either poorly designed for what they do, or offer poor instructions for how to use them.

As for referees ignoring the rules, deception is a lousy way to make the game work.  If nothing else, it only take being caught once to ruin the game.  From then on, whatever benefit the deception offered is gone, and whatever problems the game had are still there.  I'm not saying it can't be fun or that it can't work.  I'm just saying it's a lazy design and not something to be encouraged.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

Just because you don't think helping the group organize their play watching the leader talk while planning out how to be most effective isn't fun, shouldn't take away the fact that there are people who "like" doing that.  Or any of the other subtypes.  The interesting thing is that novels often reflect the idea that you have different styles of characters in one group, not just different powers, but different personality types.  Heck, most tv episodes are the same way.  D&D doesn't tend to work as well when you have 5 alphas' sitting at the table. 

The gamers who have stuck it out 15+ years may be the people that really like it, the rest having quit.  Which is a shame, I hope that in the future other people introduce them to those other kinds of games.  And for all I know there is an untapped audience of millions.  But I doubt it.  And I don't think those games will siphon off the D&D players to be honest, especially the games that try to get everyone to participate in the same way. 

To a gamist, the idea of 5 people sitting at a table using the same rules and advancing in the same ways is probably very appealing.  They'd probably say that everyone is contributing and its truly a game!  Which would be the problem, its not a good thing.  Because I don't come to the gaming table to play a game, oddly enough.  I come to the game for my own mix of reasons, and I expect my players to share some of those reasons, and have still other reasons.  But the compromise of all of our visions makes my Saturday D&D game a lot of fun, and its a kind of fun that is more unbridled, more raw.  We have rules that allow me not to have to make decisions every few seconds, but enough openness in the rules or vague areas that I can step in and take over to make any particular scene, whether the rules apply or not, unique and interesting.

To me, the rules are there so the game can go on autopilot when I don't have time to baby each step of the way.  But whereever my focus is at that second, the rules may crumble if they get in my way of trying to make the game memorable, interesting, and fun.  And I don't mind it, nor do I view it was cheating.

I do "cheat" sometimes, but to me cheating isn't ignoring the rules, cheating is only as others have described, changing that giant's strength from 28 to 24 to 21, whatever, because I didn't take something into account.  And I use challenge ratings to determine experience using the design philosophy, not hard rules.  1/4 of the party's resources = Equal level CR.  Period.  More than 1/4 = greater CR, less equal less.  Thats the intended design philosophy, but there are so many factors its hard to calculate.  Its something I think 4e did wrong, though I recognize for bad DM's the flat xp thing is easier.  Personally I'm willing to work for something better, I don't need easier unless its easier and better. 

Hmm, enough there.  Except that you mention that there isn't enough for training someone to become a good DM.  Personally I don't think everyone can be a good DM, maybe less can be a great DM.  I'm a good DM.  I think I could maybe become great, but possibly not.  Lots of people have the brain capacity to become good or great DMs, but won't and actually "can't" because its not their personality type to ever want to.  Good DMs are thus born, not made.  At least IMO.  

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Now, before I get to repeat myself, I think pretty much everything has been said on the thread already...

The best RP experiences I had have been on a chat, with a few friends, just using our characters according to our very own judgment. You don't need anything else, just a computer and a few fellas to join and create as much characters as they want, and if they are mature and realistic-ish enough, you'll come with a lot of worthy stories to remember. You do not need a DM/GM/ST to have a great RP experience, but when it comes to most game designs you do need one, and the most experienced/talented the DM is, the better.

All of the RP games from White Wolf and D&D I have read so far(corebooks of course), tell you right on the beggining that the authors do not expect you to read the books from cover to cover, and use the most you think you'll need. There are no "rules" against having evil aligned characters on D&D but they do advice you to talk with your DM about your character and what do you want/expect about the campaign and about your character. That's something I have always liked about DM on the comic, he tries to work out stuff with his players so they have a character they are happy with(well... except with poor Albert hahaha).
 
The point is, when they tell you "talk to your DM first" and they give you a few ways of doing the same thing(like at character creation), they are stating that the DM has the last word of what happens on the game. On other hand, the DM is responsable of keeping the flow of the game, no matter the outcome... If someone wants to use a fireball to hit the rooft of the cave to make everything fall over the big thing that's trying to get him as his party, I wouldn't stop to check the rules(if there's even one) I would have to make something on the fly and decide, with the tools I have, what happened.

But sadly most people are biased forward something, the stereotypes are everywhere on life and RP aren't an exception. Stereotypes like, Mage is dificult by default, Werewolf is for fighting frenzy without much RP, Vampire is the best for RPing out of the three, D&D has a lot of munchkins and its a Roll-Play. And let alone classes, races, clans, tribes, ect!

The game is a good/bad as the people who play it. If an ST can't make a good political/social game out of Vampire, isn't the games fault that the ST/players rely too much on combat.

By the way, the book does state that the DM should dump what doesn't work and use what he thinks works best on his campaign to keep the game going on the very first chapter of 3.5 DM guide

Alexander_Drako:

But sadly most people are biased forward something, the stereotypes are everywhere on life and RP aren't an exception. Stereotypes like, Mage is dificult by default, Werewolf is for fighting frenzy without much RP, Vampire is the best for RPing out of the three, D&D has a lot of munchkins and its a Roll-Play. And let alone classes, races, clans, tribes, ect!

The game is a good/bad as the people who play it. If an ST can't make a good political/social game out of Vampire, isn't the games fault that the ST/players rely too much on combat.

Yes, bad players can spoil a game and good players can make it better, but that doesn't change the fact that an RPG can be objectively "good" or "bad" at what it does.  Consider if you left all of the advice and flavor in Vampire and Werewolf, but replace all of the rules with a coin flip.  Would that still be a good system?  The rules are part of the system and the system matters.  Werewolf IS all about fighting because that's what all of the rules in the book are about.  Interestingly enough, Vampire has the SAME rules as Werewolf, making Vampire all about fighting as well.  Sure, you don't need rules to roleplay, but in that case, you don't need the book, either.  If you aren't fighting or using powers on something, then you've essentially stopped playing the game for a while so you can roleplay, and when the roleplay is done you go back to the game.

Games are about stuff, and a good game design is mechanically about these things, and encourages the players to play in a way that is about that stuff.  Vampire is supposed to be about these social beasts politicking and manipulating one another as they struggle to keep from turning into animals, but are there rules for that?  Not really.  There are rules for combats, though.  So when a player wants to make an impact on the world, something he can count on, something he can guarantee with the numbers on his sheet, he finds some way to fight something.  Because he knows that if he gets the enemy's health down to zero, he wins.  Otherwise he can argue until he is blue in the face, plot all evening long, pull all of the strings he has, and his only hope is that the Storyteller thinks it was enough.  What Vampire DID do right, though it was implemented rather loosely, was the Humanity score.  That DID support what the game was about, and a Storyteller who "got it" could keep putting PCs in a position where they have to ask themselves, "is winning here important enough to sacrifice my Humanity?"  That's what Vampire was supposed to be like.  Dark.  Tragic.  Perhaps inevitable.  Without it, the game is just superheroes with fangs.  It's not even the same game.

And that's why the rules are important.  They reinforce what a game is "about".  Think about all of the annoying fuckwits you've encountered when trying to play Vampire.  How much less annoying would they have been if Humanity rolls and scores were enforced, if they couldn't just ignore the guard-rails that said "this is what the game is about"?  Are they allowed to ditch the Humanity rules if it's more fun for them?  Of course.  But, on multiple levels, they're no longer playing Vampire.

My point being that it is indeed the fault of the game if the ST/players rely too much on combat.  If combat isn't supposed to be the best way to handle things, then it should suck enough that players won't choose it very often over other options.

And from that, my point is, if a rule is trivial enough that the GM can choose to ignore it, then it shouldn't be a rule.  It's just wasted space.  And conversely, if a rule is important enough to put in the book, then it must serve some purpose that is being undermined if you ignore it.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

Another sidenote:

This has not that much to do with the subject, but I agree with some of your points on WoD(even though I still think it's one of the most social oriented games on the mainstream RPs). The new virtue/vice humanity/morality/ect system is one of the best ways ever to display a demeanor on a character with its flaws, defects, and people actually wondering if it's really okey to get into combat, kill someone and possibily get a derragement of some kind... Looking at your points based on this side of the spectrum I agree that the system has to cover a lot of things before the game-master has to do something beside the system.

Is there really a way to make an RPG system where all the rules are exactly the way you want them from the get go? no one is ever going to agree on what rules should be and shouldn't be, people are going to forever be changing rules, if nothing else because part of the fun of being a dm is making the world your unique one.  not some cookie cutter out of a book.  the designers try to make the rules as realistic as they can within the confines of the fantasy world, and what you want to discard to make your game run faster is your choice. and in that same respect, in vampire there are rules for combat, because people fight, thats not supposed to be the only solution, and there's a very nice skill selection that can help you avoid fights... such as being a better driver :P it still comes down to the dice rolls and you can still fail, but because combat is an option doesn't mean it's the only option in the system.  combat is discouraged in WoD if the DM knows to discourage it.  you're weakest on the chain to start out with pretty much, everyone has equivalent health (or close to it), so no buffers, and a well aimed powerful sniper rifle will take you out no matter the health or the experience.  in DnD you can fight a lower CR with relative ease, having probably double their health but in vampire up against a regular human, he can pull out a 9mm and put you down if he gets a good roll.  best to avoid combat, use a power or skill. 
 Not to mention the political issues you get into for killing someone, ANYONE.  you make enemies that haunt you over killing someones favorite Ghoul... it's all a power play, even the Combat leads to intrigue which means far more. 
Actually now that i think about it... x.x a big hint book on how to deviate a group from combat would be nice for WoD.  Just because there are ways doesn't mean everyone's going to know them.  then again there might have been one in the requiem book, i didn't read over that one well.

Yes, there are ways to make an RPG system where all of the rules are exactly the way you want from the get go.  If nothing else, you can simply change the rules (and arguably the game) before play starts.  But beyond that, "realism" isn't the only yardstick for judging rules.  Realism doesn't even have to be a consideration.  There are many games where the rules provide challenge or theme and the players provide the realism.  Consider a 4e example of "tripping" a slime.  Obviously a slime can't be "prone" (any more than it normally is, anyway) so the players just describe it differently.  "Disrupted" or "scattered" are common descriptions for that condition when it comes to slimes and jellies.  In this way, the game is always as "realistic" as the players want it to be.

Yes, a big book o' advice for how to properly run Vampire would be useful.  But think how much easier it would be if the rules followed their own advice.  The rules inform the game.  When players want to do something, they're going to look to the rules.  If they've got no rules for "roleplaying", a single entry for how a skill works, and a whole chapter of combat options, they're going to put a lot more faith in combat over skills over roleplaying.  This is a generalization, of course, and not everybody is like that, but it's generally true.  Imagine if there was a "prestation" (favors) score, where you could track how much other characters "owed" you.  Players, even power-gamers, would be all over that.  They'd start looking for ways to scheme and plot and manipulate to get that score up.  It would really make the game sing.  Even poor roleplayers would, at the very least, be doing the sort of thing that vampires are supposed to do in the game.

And yes, combat is risky (sort of) in Vampire, but generally the risk is worth it because, like I said, it's the only way to really be sure to get things done.  "Roleplaying" can hang up on "yes. no. yes. no. yes. no." until one player finally gets bored or somebody attacks.  Skill rolls can help with that, but one bad roll means failure, unlike combat where you can make a poor roll and still pull things out in your favor at the end, especially if your friends are helping.  And yes, there can be consequences to murder in the narrative, but just like in real life, if you can do it without anybody finding out then there aren't any consequences (except possibly Humanity loss, which we already determined is a good thing).

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

But then again, D&D was a game that evolved from strategic miniature war-games, and the focus is about heroes having adventures. That's why most of the rules are focused on combat and environment situations, all the situations you could encounter while adventuring. Most of games are a distraction to real-life, and you really want to have fun. What is more fun that pretending you can do something epic compared to normal humans capabilities? :P And that's why most games are focused on things like that.

And I really don't have that much fun on other kind of games, like Cthulhu or more abstract stuff.

I think my issue is that I feel very comfortable talking, and I feel very comfortable roleplaying the motivations of an NPC.

I've had debates with certain players who thought a rule ridiculous, but rarely if ever on whether I was roleplaying an NPC right.

A gamist might feel they can't "win" the game by getting an NPC to do what they want, but a human who wants to act like they're a different kind of person doing things that a different person would do isn't probably worried too much about whether the game will help or impede their dialogue, but its very easy for a rule to come in and trample on their vision of how things would work. 

A game built for easy, effective combat is a game where good roleplayers can flourish and not worry about the rules getting in their way because they trust the rules to do a good job for the crunch, and their imaginations to do the rest. 

A game built to force people to roleplay can very easily disrupt people's feelings of immersion because everyone's ideas of what is supposed to happen next can easily conflict, and having a rule to let one person decide the direction of the story or whatever doesn't fix things, though I see story games have things like that all the time, because it isn't about me as a player describing what happens next.  Thats not realistic, thats not me immersing myself in a fantasy world, thats not me trusting that the world has certain rules of physics and they'll reliably work a certain way.  If I'm a player, I want to control the mind of my character, and thats about it.  If I ever even have the "ability" to describe anything outside of me and my decisions, if I can even describe the results of my decisions, then I've stepped far far away from what I can do in real life, and not in a good way. 

In   real life I can make a decision, then I can see what life gives me.  Many many things in life are very reliable as to the result of an action I take.  Some things aren't.  Some things that I think will cause something to happen don't.  Thats life.  I rely on the DM to mimic life, so I can roleplay a hero (or villain). 

Story games always give me the impression that a player is helping direct part of a larger story, and thats not what I want from roleplaying games as a rule.  Games that have rules for how I act, even if I chose which rules affect my character, have just put restrictions on me that I don't feel I have in real life.  In real life I do certain things, help people out, work, etc, I often get rewarded whether by money, by gifts, by favors returned, by learning how to do something new.  In a game I expect the same thing.  Its "natural" to me.  Anything more will seem "unnatural" and while may be a better game, won't be as satisfying because I don't want to play a better game, I want to play a game that represents to me more of what I feel out of life, in a fantastical setting.

It all may be me, and some people I could easily suggest to play story games or whatnot.  And I'm having a heck of a lot of fun in the fading suns game, so I'm not extremist on this, just trying to be clear about why I think D&D is a great roleplaying game as it is, and while I think the rules should continue to be adjusted and changed, I think most of what it is, should stay as it is, including the DM flexibilty to change things whenever they see fit to make the game better as they think the game is better.  And not with prior conversation with players or any of that silliness either, thats for hippies. ;)

And now I close down my pc so I can move!

 

 

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes