The 'Creative' dungeon

I posted this here first, but it warrants repeating (and yes, once again I'm in the habit of posting elsewhere then treating my own blog as the secondary place for my material - nuts, eh?)

I used to try and make gameplay about 'creative dungeons'. It burns you out when the entirety of the fun rests on your shoulders, with the game not carrying any of the effort of being fun itself. Sure it's great to add creative things, but it's not great to add it simply because if you don't there wont be anything fun at all. When a system kinda focuses on XP, levels and gold, it's best if you have players who enjoy collecting XP, levels and gold. That way they enjoy play whether you add a creative thing or not (being creative adds to the game, rather than makes the game). It's just the advice I wish I'd run into years ago.

TTRP; Answering the Air: Always parpuzio?

From here

As a secondary point, is non-mechanics outcome authority always parpuzio?

Yes.

The issue is that parpuzio is somewhat like giving a name to a food that is far too spicy hot for ones own tolerance, let alone taste.

Ie, a misleading name, if one enjoys a certain amount of spice. Because the naming given is simply a result of an overload of spice - thus it damns all spice use.

Depends on what you mean by "mechanics." Some of the games we know have rather sophisticated speaking-distribution rules which impose mechanics constraints without fortune mechanics.

Sophisticated enough speech/speaking distribution rules basically are board game mechanics. May as well be passing around cards and tokens.

If they don't become full on board game mechanics, then they are 'parpuzio'.

But again the question is: How much spice do you want to use?

Traditionally the question is take that there's 'persuade the GM' and there's 'good GM'ing' where the GM is just 'running the world'.

On reflection I'm not sure I parallel Moreno's position

but that kind of "play to convince the GM" somewhat returned to be felt during the sessions.

I'm not sure if it's a translation thing, but the way it's put, it's as if there can be a point (in non board game play) where there ISN'T convincing of the GM. Rather than simply considerably less of it/play does not soley revolve around convincing the GM.


I'd answer in the thread, but I'm waiting. I'm pretty sure I don't have a place there, as yet. More in the 'say it for yourself' stage.

Edit: Okay, call BS on me. In regard to one of the topics, I replied

Table Top Roleplay: Crouching suggestion, hidden legislation

Ran into this post by Eero Tuovinen

To me this distinction seems pretty arbitrary: as per the Lumpley principle, the only difference between those "rules" and "suggestions" is whether the group actually allows you to get away with it when you go against them. I've often felt the impossibility for a designer to actually make his text somehow authoritative, and this is very much more so when we're discussing game moves you make according to artistic judgment.

Further...

AW could not make the parts it leaves up to MC consideration any more legislatively constraining without also removing the freedom of artistic choice inherent in those choices.

 My estimate is that it's contradictory - if you take it that A: rules can only be suggestions, how they can at all B: become legislatively constraining enough to remove freedom of artistic choice.

How does something which is mere suggestion somehow do that? Or is it not mere suggestion?

Table Top Roleplay: The backseat, and the steering wheel that was put there

the rules should take a backseat to whatever is happening at the game table. Rules are guidelines, not laws. And they should never dictate the game/story flow

This is the classic mantra. Most recently run into here.

If you think of the rules as being like a steering wheel (and brake/accelerator), it's hard to make sense of these - you have to put them to the backseat? Where you can't reach them?

It's the strange starting part - why have them to begin with? Is it a need to simply identify with a certain game - gotta have the book, or you aren't a real player of RPG X (whether X==D&D or some other RPG)?

It's like an urgency to both draw them close, but then also push them away.

I suspect it basically comes from gamers who have never, ever encountered rules that do what they actually want to do. They just keep encountering encumbrance rules, or weapon vs armour charts, or even to hit rolls and...it's like way, way, way over there in group B. And what they want to do is in group A.

And they've never encountered a rule that helps or adds interesting things to group A.

So they assume rules really have nothing to do with what they like. Or parochially, rules have nothing to do with roleplay.

Side note: Somehow I spelt parochially right the first time, but not encumbrance! Bad gamer!

Taking the idea of 'extending' to table top

A problem I have in a classic dungeon exercise is that really the players could simply back off and heal often at any time (generally nothing in the game world (atleast as I envision it) naturally stops this - only if I force an event to stop it from occuring, can it be stopped)

However after playing dragons crown, they have a mechanic where every dungeon you do after the first has an increase in gold and XP gained. If you were to go back, this resets back to the default.

I'm really liking this. In the past I've considered having enemies remove treasure from the dungeon if the players withdraw. But that's kind of missing out on something - don't gain for being bold, you just miss out if you are not bold. Of course the opposite is quite simple - have it possible to gain more treasure. Of course a bit of a simulationist attitude blocks this idea from being cognised. Because why would more money appear? But having played it, I know it's fun! So the reason more money would appear is that its fun (it's a particular type of fun and delivers it nicely).