Alternate Game Systems

[Ganymede]

@thenomain said in Alternate Game Systems:

Really I think my point was more that games need to teach you how to play it.

So your objection to Falkenstein, if there was an objection, is that no one taught you and your troupe how to play it?

I mean, I presume you had the core book. I recall it pretty plainly showing me and my troupe how to play it.

Oh well. Not important.

Sure, you have got a good point. I mean, Changeling: the Lost seems pretty clearly a game about trauma, but people keep trying to play pretty princess with it.

[Thenomain]

@ganymede said in Alternate Game Systems:

@thenomain said in Alternate Game Systems:

Really I think my point was more that games need to teach you how to play it.

So your objection to Falkenstein, if there was an objection, is that no one taught you and your troupe how to play it?

I mean, I presume you had the core book. I recall it pretty plainly showing me and my troupe how to play it.

Again, I tried to use examples to explain what I meant. I understand the mechanics, but that's not always the whole story. We didn't "get it". I don't think the CF rules gave enough to "get it". Good luck understanding why anyone would play poker until you understand that poker is more than the card combinations. Good luck understanding why people watch baseball until you talk to people who like watching baseball. You can find out on your own, but if someone started with a reason, with the explanation, wouldn't that be better? Wouldn't you have a better idea if you want to play it, and if you do how it's best approached?

Sure, you have got a good point. I mean, Changeling: the Lost seems pretty clearly a game about trauma, but people keep trying to play pretty princess with it.

Well, people did that with Werewolf: The Apocalypse too, and that has the word "Apocalypse" in the title. You never know!

[ThatGuyThere]

@faraday said in Alternate Game Systems:

@Thenomain It was numerous people across several games spanning multiple years. Which is why I brought it up here as a 'lesson learned' about MUSHers and computer-based skill systems.

@Lithium I think you missed my point. Yes, giving players agency in how they use their skills is different than a purely random system. But it has nothing to do with cards or dice. Falkenstein is a card-based system with no agency, for example (*). There can be dice-based systems with agency if you have a pool of "success points" or "luck points" or "auto successes" or anything like that.

(*) At least I think it was Falkenstein. Perhaps I'm misremembering. It was some system anyway.

It was definitely not Falkenstein in CF you got a hand of 5 cards and could choose to play one or take a draw from the deck for each action. NPCs just got the deck draw. there were issues with the mechanics more due to the agency (with 4 or more players it became ridiculously easy to count cards since nearly half the deck was known in hands) than lack of it.

Note our group solved the issue Vegas style by using multiple decks shuffled together.

[Olsson]

I'll say there is a RPG called Phoenix Dawn Command which is card based. Not a normal deck of cards mind, but it has an aspect of deck building where various classes gets access to various cards, and as you level up you basically do deck building and challenges are made by using cards with various values and modifiers based on class abilities.

It's quite neat.