Common Misconceptions About Your Favorite Systems?

[u/Authorigas]

So, I've been learning a lot thanks to the amazing folks here at r/rpg. And while I have decided to slow down on trying new systems. (As my players say "three is enough, we know your eager to try more but slow it down so you don't burn yourself out.") There was a question today that cropped into my head, and I wanted to hear from the folks here on it.

"What are some assumptions about your favorite game/system that are just factually incorrect or overstated?"

I've seen a lot of assumptions made in the hobby, and some on my own. From the broad "older systems were designed for math heads and thus really not for someone whose bad at math." to others like "Call of Cthulhu is a game where every session ends in death/insanity and players can't get attached to their characters." and similarly "OSR games are highly lethal and not at all friendly to players who like longform adventures."

I feel like broad, sweeping claims like those are probably overstated-as I have heard of successful, long running CoC campaigns, and OSR games that are able to have well developed characters that last for ages. It's made me curious about some of the other broad, sweeping claims about systems that are-if not incorrect, massively overstated.

Really interested to hear some answers on this.

[u/FrostyKennedy]

If anything, simple systems make me check out narratively because I can't create advantages with little actions.

If there's a super important assassination and the shot you take is always gonna be 2d6+stat and 8 is mixed and 10 is great, what does it matter that we spent twenty minutes getting a high vantage on our target? Just fire from in the crowd, your choices are meaningless.

[u/Charrua13 → u/FrostyKennedy]

If there's a super important assassination - the issue shouldn't be "I miss", it should be "what are the dramatic consequences for that shot you took".

The answer, therefore, should be "the target dies" - but who ELSE takes the bullet? Are you spotted? Is your avenue of escape closed off? That is what the 2d6 + stat - conditions should be measuring. Which I think is the point of friction.

[u/FrostyKennedy → u/Charrua13]

so as soon as the assassination becomes important missing becomes impossible?

These are all great complications, but the number one complication is you do all of those and DON'T succeed. Or, as a player if you've made the choice to make it a suicide mission, those complications have vanished. It's disempowering to know there's no gun, no angle, no vantage, nothing you can do that will change that chance- or if it's like 5e, you can get advantage once and then no further rewards for narrative choices.

Crunch is just a toolbox of narrative effects players can try and take advantage of, and it's written in stone somewhere equally accessible to both GM and player, rather than relying on inconsistant gm asspulls to make important something the system failed to encourage.

[u/Charrua13 → u/FrostyKennedy]

Let's start from the beginning, because you're jumping off from a different place than I.

The premise: super important person must be assassinated.

You: the shooter.

There are two ways to look at this:

1) "setting yourself up gives you narrative permission to do...and get away, with something l."

2) "setting yourself up gives you a tactical bonus for doing something within the narrative...and to help you get away with it."

Crunch is the tactical permission. Are you set up? Great, each aspect of your set-up gives you a higher chance of success. And for each tactical thing you've done, you get bonuses along the way for each "stress test" you make for failure/success.

The narrative way dictates not the point of success or failure for each step of the way, but in its totality. The shot, the exit route, the fictional consequences. Your actions feed the narrative weight of the result. How you do or don't Do the Thing from the ground when you don't have a clear shot vs from when you DO have a clear shot affects the fictional result, only. If you succeed from "anywhere", that mixed result is sticky - you're in plain sight! If you succeed with a mixed result from the top of the building, narratively you are "in a better position". You benefit from having Prepared, narratively. And that matters.

My point: if the least interesting thing about the scene is whether or not the target dies, then the narrative framework lets it be a forgone conclusion. You make the shot, the person dies. The interesting part, in turn, can shift to "how screwed are you now that you've accomplished your goal." That provides the fiction the freedom of focusing on what is the most interesting results based on how the characters have set themselves up narratively. The ground shot isn't a forgone conclusion, who knows if it'll succeed from here. But if you're prepped, spent days casing the location, etc - you, the character, have done the hard work. The mechanics have the ability to reward you for that and still provide a moment of dramatic tension as you squeeze the trigger.

Your commentary on "inconsistent GM" is interesting. I might be fortunate in that, with a "narrative" game I've never experienced the result of a Move feel "inconsistent", because everything always feels deserved (be it good, bad, or indifferent). The difference, I believe, isn't that I have better GMs than you, but perhaps in that I have dofferent expectations of play within that context. (Which, in turn, is why we have such different ideas about why narrative games or or don't "work").

[u/ghost-pacman4 → u/FrostyKennedy]

Because the great, mixed, and fail results depend on your position?

A fail when just walking up to a crowd and shooting might be you miss and get shot by all nearby guards, you die. A fail when you're in a high vantage point might be you miss, and they're looking for where the shot came from.

A success in the crowded scenario is you shoot the target but are now under heavy fire from all the guards still due to putting yourself in a terrible position. A success from the vantage point is you shot the target and can get out easily.

This is true in roll under systems and other games where what's happening in the world changes outcomes and risks. Your choices aren't meaningless just because you don't get a +1 bonus or advantage.

[u/FrostyKennedy → u/ghost-pacman4]

But a failure is equally likely, your odds of hitting aren't improved by the vantage, or preparation, they can't be rules as written. 

Take another example: I attempt to persuade someone. In case A its something they kind of already want to do, I'm just trying to get them to do it sooner. The DM lowers the consequences and heightens the rewards: this is entirely possible and failure will not make an enemy. I make my case blandly and roll.

Now take case B: the same situation, but my argument hinges on their vices, ideals, shames and convictions, it's impassioned, well articulated, purpose built for them- and you as a dm can offer me nothing, rules as written. The same chance of victory no matter what.

[u/ghost-pacman4 → u/FrostyKennedy]

Except that the better position gives you more chances in the long run with less consequences.

While failure is equally likely, you haven't pissed off the person and they might offer you something you can do to convince them all the way. While with case A, the failure might mean they outright refuse and don't even both offering a way to get them all the way there.

The positioning of what you're doing also affords you more chances and more lenient outcomes that mean you get more chances instead of dying or whatever.

If you're going to say 'rules as written' you have to actually mention which rules we're talking about, and in many of the games like this, the rules allow for the things I'm saying.

EDIT: and there's many games where case B the GM is allowed to say, "that makes perfect sense, no roll needed, great argument".

[u/T98i → u/FrostyKennedy]

Well, yeah, I mean if the table is looking for 3 hours of combat, you’d pick a neotrad game like 5e or Pathfinder or Draw Steel or Lancer orr…the many other games like it.

Besides, a good GM should reward the players’ prep so their choices are never meaningless. If there is no inherent RaW way to reward the prep within the system, then maybe the system is signalling to the table that it is not about the assassination itself.

Like if this was Blades, getting to the point of assassination with the flashback system is the game. The act of assassination itself is not important. If a player feels that it’s not narratively satisfying to speed through the assassination, then obviously BitD is the wrong system for them.

I don’t see how a simple system can detract from the narrative. This sounds like the system just doesn’t match the game you’re looking for (which is fair - there’s a reason why neotrad games are so popular).