Pixel Sagas

An old ephiphany that still rings pretty true…

I have figured out my problem, though, as it relates to gaming.

Okay. Let’s say that a teenager, discovers that he really, really likes hamburgers. He starts at Mcdonald’s, then goes to Burger King. Then he starts to get fancy. One night it’s Flakey Jakes. The next night it’s Fuddruckers. He starts eating burgers at the county fair and ‘beef-lover’ convention cookouts. He even tours Route 66 for the best steakhouses.

One day, he’s so into it, he gets this idea in his head.. how could this be better?! He thinks, “Man, if only I knew how hamburgers are MADE”.

And he does, the most stupid thing he could possibly do, he goes to  a slaughterhouse to watch it live… all the way through.

This is what I’ve done with gaming. And, sadly, the comparison is apt in all respects.

This is yet another 4E rant, though it’s again more about the so-called ’supporters’ of the game rather than the game itself. 4E has a few mechanical problems, particuarly when dealing with non-combat options (of which there are precious few, and all of which handwaved). Because 4E is primiarily a miniatures combat game, I’ve taken to calling it a ’skimish’ game. This is a huge offense to some 4E players, who insist that, despite there not being much in the way of non-combat rules, it’s SITLL a ‘role-playing game’. Now, that might be fair enough, but the logic of the defense is as follows:

“Because I can role-play with something means that it’s a role-playing game.”

That’s it. If you CAN role-play, then it’s an RPG, regardless of what the game actually is. So, if you’ve ever mouthed the ‘wakka wakka’ at Pac-Man or made the Monopoly dog bark, then both Pac-Man and Monopoly are RPGs. If this sounds like a ridiculous extension, one of the ‘defenders’ on the Paizo forums said explicitly this, and continued to claim that ‘Battle of Britain’ and ‘Redcoats and Zulus’ (both old-style wargames) were actually RPGs as well, because he could role-play with it.

In a sense, this continues the Oberoni Fallacy from before, in that the logical leap is required to make sense of the statement. “Any game can be role-played with, therefore any game is an RPG, therefore 4E is an RPG.” This ignores the simple fact that an RPG would have rules and guidelines to allow for role-playing in character, whereas a non-RPG (such as nearly all the examples given here) would obviously NOT. In short, to be a role-playing game, the game itself has to be about role-playing.

Not a difficult concept. But it is one that makes a handful of 4E ’supporters’ nervous.

I’m lifting this from a post at Gleemax, largely to remind myself of something…

The Oberoni Fallacy

At the heart of every role-playing game is a rule, which consists of doing what works. In many games, this is known as Rule Zero. Rule Zero basically states that the arbiter of an action, typically the gamemaster, can break any rule if it serves to improve play. This is an important principle, because the rules can not cover everything.

As formulated by Oberoni on the wizards.com boards, circa 2003, the fallacy is this:
There is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X, because you can always Rule 0 the inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue.

This is considered a fallacy because you obviously cannot fix a problem that does not exist. The existence of Rule Zero in no way diminishes the places where a rule system simply does not do the job.

The main reason I’m quoting this is because of one of the big arguments coming out with 4E, the idea that the game isn’t complete. You see, when things which aren’t in the game are brought up to 4E supporters (a term I’m loathing, by the way), one of the first defenses brought up after ‘yes it is, you just don’t get it’ is ‘you’re the DM, you can make it up’.

Frustrating to deal with, particularly when I’m really trying to learn the ins and outs of the system, and hacks like that are thrown in my way rather than any real discussion of 4E. But it’s a quick reminder, “Just because you put on a band-aid, it doesn’t mean you weren’t cut in the first place.”

 

Another old ‘mini-review’, this time from the WotC Star Wars game, now sadly defunct…

Okay, picked up the Star Wars: Sagas “Knights of the Old Republic” book today. I’m not a huge Sagas fan, actually, but I did love the Bioware game and tolerated – to some extent – the sequel by Obsidian. So I was very interested to see what material Wizards was going to put out, as well as have a lot of the material in an easy reference.

In a sense, the KotOR book does what’s expected. You get nearly all (but not quite) of the statistics to the vehicles, races, and characters featured prominantly in the two games, as well as the comic book which came shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, the book seems to try its hardest to avoid ’spoilers’, so anything other than obvious plot elements are left intentially vague, with the threat of ‘go read/play X to learn more’ hanging over it.  This actually severely reduces the usability of the book, but that’s probably not surprising, either, considering how the Star Wars license has been handled of late.

In short, and without posting too much which will get me hung by Warsies out there, the book is adequate but fairly spartan, and pretty worthless if you’re not already familiar with the source material to begin with. In other words, it’s a lot like all the other books in the franchise, for better or worse. But if you’re a Sagas player that really loves the Old Republic setting, this is probably a must get.