All y'all motherfuggers better listen up!

[benlehman]

It has come to my attention that most people in RPG theory have little or no knowledge of probability, and thus tend to get into long arguments about dice vs. dicelessness, with Erick Wujcik on one side saying that any randomizer means that the RPG is shit, and dicelessness-with-hidden information is the way to go, and Ron Edwards on the other side saying that role-playing games without chance cannot properly be called role-playing games at all.



Both hidden-information games and random games are the same, probabilistically speaking.

Let's pretend that we're playing a game -- I roll a six sided dice behind my palm, and you try to guess the number it sits on. (this is a boring game, yeah, but it illustrates a point.)

Before you guess, you can associate a probability with any face being up (this probability will be 1-in-6). The point is, even though I've rolled the number and have seen it, it is still random *to you*

Let's play a different game: I set a six-sided die to a particular value, and you guess it without looking.

Before you guess, you can associate a probability with any face being up (this probability may not be the same for every face.) In other words, despite the fact that no die was rolled (I made a decision about the die), the hidden information means that it is still random *to you*

Philosophically, you can argue that there are two different things going on here, but mathematically they are identical.

So, for one, when you play Amber, you are using random numbers all the god-damn time. So stuff it.

So, for two, there is no tangible difference between a diceless-but-hidden-info game and the roll-a-die game. So claiming that they are fundamentally different at a mathematical level is wrong wrong wrong.

In terms of the ephemera and toy quality, of course, they are very different. They *feel* very different. But they really *aren't* very different.

And I hope that shuts you fuckers up.

(P.S. As far as I know, there are no well-played diceless RPG systems that do not include randomness in the form of hidden information, possibly outside GM fiat. Cradle could do it with a few nips and tucks and, I think, still be a fun RPG. So I even disagree with Ron at that level.)

Comments

[evilmagnus]

RPG is by nature collaborative. If you can't accept/trust your other collaborators, I really think you'd be better off in a different medium.

Now no, Ben, you know perfectly well that different games have different levels of collaboration, but they can all be called RPGs. You can have an RPG where the players do *not* have an equal say in the story. You can have an RPG where there is no GM, and all players are equally responsible for all aspects of the game.

non-sytem MUSH games, for example, are fully collaborative story-telling, where there is no GM and actions/reactions are a shared responsibility of all players. Etiquette and precedence dictate what players can do to each other. This is a role-playing game. But we're not talking about something like this.

We're talking about where System Rules Go Bad (tonight on Fox, 8ET/9CT!). I gave you an example of when System Rules Go Bad, and I don't think it's an appropriate answer to say "Well, then it should have been a book." You're not allowed to meta- the conversation! It's in the rules, dammit! :)

It is perfectly possible to have a game, the purpose of which is to tell a story. The negotiable bits are how much influence on the outcome of the story the players have. A good GM will collaborate with the players to produce a mutually satisfactory outcome. That is not the same as allowing the players to use the rules to bring the story to (what the GM, who has more knowledge of the World than the players) a premature conclusion.

If you can't accept/trust your other collaborators, I really think you'd be better off in a different medium.

This particular river flows both ways. The players, then, should trust the GM when he says "You can't use your Summon The Eagles card for that. The Eagles refuse to take the Ring to the Crack of Doom. They say now is not the time for them to Act." even if the damn card Gandalf is holding says "Can summon The Eagles to perform any one task of which they are physically capable".

[funwithrage.livejournal.com]

I'm with Magnus on this one: there's a difference between railroading all the time and not letting someone wipe out your entire plot--vague as it may be--because he can tweak the rules more than you can and/or because he may not know that hey, the One Ring is the key to this entire campaign. It's not even an issue of trust so much as one of PC/GM information discrepancy.


Certainly I've come up with plot alterations or additions on the fly when my PCs do something I hadn't anticipated at all. I don't see too much of a problem with imping in a reason why something doesn't work--"Say, you know those Fell Beasts? Look totally capable of munching Eagles to me. And them. So...no."--and then working out all the details later, generally in class.

[matt-rah.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if/when you were going to show up on this discussion. A lot of the stuff these people are discussing essentially relates to what I've been arguing with you about regarding your TRoS game. Don't get me wrong, I'm essentially fine with what we discussed via email last week, so long as we can stick to it.

And, I agree with what you say here, I've certainly done that sort of thing in my own games. It's more purely systemic issues where I was disagreeing with your judgment calls as GM.

But I just wanted to call your attention to the parallels I see, because some of the people on here are able to articulate the issue(s) better than I was.

Matt