- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Controversial gaming opinion: video games are good.
What are controversial gaming opinions you have?
- Location
- Russia
Nope, I've seen that explanation specifically when people are talking about FATE.
I'd say that it's a mix of both, and ends up satisfying the fan of neither in me. I love worldbuilding, but FATE is too character-driven. I love character-driven rolkeplaying, but FATE goes way too out-of-universe for my tastes.
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It's more about how you want first person immersion. If you want to connect with the story or connect with the fictional world, having exciting troubles come up increases your immersion. If you are treating it as actually being that character, sometimes the desire to avoid pain and troubles overwhelms your desire to follow flaws in-character. It's nice to write naive on a character sheet, but that means you have to role-play your character going for an obvious lie. Another thing is the actual goal of a RPG. Do you want to win, and what does winning actually look like? Yoko Taro considers every one of his main characters to have won their game since winning just means achieving their goals from the beginning of the game. But most gamers would disagree, since Yoko Taro's MC rarely make the world a better place, have a peaceful life, gain positive renown, or get remembered positively. A nice experiment is to try something like Thou Art But a Warrior. In that game, everyone plays as honorable Muslim knights during the reconquista. The game repeatedly states that Castile, Aragon, and Portugal will win no matter what the PCs do, and the game focuses on how the PCs struggle with inevitable failure.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I dislike FATE for the same reason I dislike every other universal roleplaying system: I don't believe universal roleplaying systems can effectively do the job of a specialized one. It's a good system, it's fun, it's well-designed but when I want to play a game, I'll use a system designed for that genre.
(@EarthScorpion, meanwhile dislikes FATE because it is FATE)
(@EarthScorpion, meanwhile dislikes FATE because it is FATE)
- Location
- Russia
I'm actually thinking of maybe joining a FATE game to try it out properly. Maybe my hatred of it is 100% irrational, and I'll actually enjoy it, or maybe I'll finally figure out why in the world do I hate it so muhc.
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
If this is the same rule system as the one I know of, and you want a preview of how it seems to run, there's an enjoyable YouTube series called Nebula Jazz.
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
My experience is that too while specialised systems have a higher hypothetical potential, they more often than not turn out to be inferior to a merely 'okay' universal system. At which point it becomes a question of how much time and effort can be spent polishing a system. And when that happens, a universal system has the upside that the polish can be retained for a different campaign/setting/etc.
TL;DR: hypothetically specialised systems are better, but IME most don't reach anywhere near their potential.
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't really think that's accurate at all, to be quite honest. If I use Unknown Armies for Unknown Armies it does its job far better than FATE would do for the same. Likewise, if I were to use New World of Darkness for New World of Darkness, I think that would do the job better than FATE too.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
vicky_molokh
Posthuman spidery thingy.
- Location
- Kyïv, Ukraine
It's pretty easy to try recall which of the specialised systems worked out great. But it's rather unlikely that after naming a genre and style of gaming, one will stumble upon a great specialised system. E.g. if I search for swashbuckling-specialised system, I'll likely be pointed towards 7th Sea as the best choice . . . and be disappointed after analysing it.
greensun
You shall all burn beneath my light!!!
Godbound~
- Location
- Russia
I would say that Exalted and Godbound end up with somewhat different kinds of games. In Godbound, you're more of a ruler, and you do much more strategic kinda things, while in Exalted you're more of an action person and do more in-situ stuff.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The thing is, there's an entire school of Exalted gameplay that focuses more towards the former, or at least emphasizes that sort of storytelling more, but tries to use the Exalted 2e system (with heavy modifications that don't fix the problems for that kind of story) to sorta do it?
Because most people that actually play RPGs do not actually understand how the various systems work. Compels are a tool the GM uses to keep the players metagaming, since they now have to balance how they designed their character against how they want to play that character, but all the player sees of the system is the GM invoking the system, and not the time the GM put into integrating the various compels into the game. It's like people talking shit about D&D 3.5's ( admittedly inadequate) social rules because "bluff lets me convince the king he's an impostor, and give me my crown back", they aren't representing what the rules actually state about the subject.
Tabletop RPG players are worse than fanfiction writers when it comes to injecting headcanon into their hobby; fanfiction writers can potentially write a decent story around their headcanon.
tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
- Location
- The Center of the Universe: Toronto, Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, but those are tied fairly strongly to existing settings.
If want to run a game for something original or that doesn't have it's own system, there's things like FATE.
- Location
- Somewhere
That's really the thing. A lot of settings really only work with the system they are designed with and if you change the system they no longer work. The changes in d&d from 2nd to 3rd made the lore for most settings just not work right anymore, in particular the "give mages any two new spells they want each time they level", which rather removes the premise of there being rare spells, and makes it too easy to break the settings. Additionally the decision to have item crafting COST exp when previously it was actually a big source of exp for mages kinda makes it impossible to explain how every mage school in the game has students crafting items as a way to improve their skills, etc...
- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Shit dude, it's almost like that was my point.
The point I am making is that systems specialized for a job do their job better than general universal systems like FATE and GURPS because just like any other setting, those games have themes. GURPS turns everything into Black Hawk Down and if you're fine with that, you can use it, but you probably shouldn't expect to use it for neat, fine storygame stuff, wheras FATE is the exact opposite, and you likely shouldn't try using it for say, horror gaming because FATE assumes a bunch of stuff that isn't applicable to horror. FATE is a fine system, it works far better than many other systems, but don't believe for a second that it is truly omniapplicable. The omnicompetent system does not exist.
Well you're assuming NPCs work by PC rules, that's already a big mistake. And that NPCs have XP counts and level up, rather than experience being a game mechanic to provide a sense of rapid accomplishment for players. Really, in general, you seem to think that the rules describe the actual laws of the setting, rather than PC rules to facilitate gaming.
- Location
- New Delhi, India
Wait, what about his characterization before Max Payne 3? Like in the original Max Payne and Max Payne 2: "A Love Story"?
Because they're all kind of pathetic, but they're not pathetic in the same way.
Vindictus
XENO
- Location
- Texas
Potentially controversial opinion here, but "Anyone can grow stronger through the power of murder!" is a seriously underutilized potential plot element in literally any game that includes 'experience' as a mechanic.
Like, consider just the impact on worldbuilding presented by being able to become superhumanly powerful, but only by wading through rivers of blood and climbing to the top of a mountain of corpses.
The Englanderish
Schrödinger's Kuudere Kitty Caliph(a)
- Location
- Califat de Chats
Tell me, did you ever hear the tragedy of Knights of the Old Repulic II: The Sith Lords?
- Location
- secret base
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I want to say Undertale, but that's literally just one indie game, so...
Shit, you right!
- Location
- New Delhi, India
What about Drakengard?
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
But the thing is that everyone understands what XP 'really means'. It's experience. Your character is growing more seasoned by their adventure. That's why it eventually takes longer to reach newer plateaus of skill and you get more experience from felling a giant demon than you do stepping on a rat, or saving the kingdom over delivering a pie. If you go ahead and make 'experience' an in-universe method of stealing power from others through murder, then you have to answer the player's next logical question;
The Exile draws more strength from the Force by killing her enemies, somewhat similar in nature to Darth Nihilus because she too is a wound in the Force. Okay, cool. Why is she getting XP from turning in quests, too? Why is she getting XP from picking locks and slicing computers? Is that the part that only represents 'growing more experienced through doing'? Why would the game tell me to look at this game mechanic more closely and then not make it consistent? Maybe the quest part is also explained by Kreia bitching about 'taking other people's burdens as your own' and shit, I didn't get around to finishing it so I don't know, but the point is that's something you have to consider when you try to get all meta about a game mechanic. If you get meta about a thing but don't make it consistent then you fucked up and made it worse than if you hadn't said anything at all. Undertale gets away with this so easily because it isn't constructed like a traditional RPG, it's clearly intended behaviour to slip through without gaining any XP so it works on a mechanical level as well as a story level.Tell me, did you ever hear the tragedy of Knights of the Old Repulic II: The Sith Lords?
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
If the Force runs through everything, and a Wound forges connections with other things around it to draw knowledge and power, why wouldn't it grow by interacting with said things?
Note: it's been ages since I read anything on the Exile, so I hope I didn't forget how her powers work.
Note: it's been ages since I read anything on the Exile, so I hope I didn't forget how her powers work.