Board vs Role Play Gaming

I've been working on my new D&D campaign for at least 8 months now. It's all still "pre-production" phase which boils down to procrastination and writer's block. I'm no damn fantasy author y'know. But there's a lot to consider. Finding a "new" and interesting place in Greyhawk that I like, making up a whole borderlands village, what the local economy is based on as well as the history of the place and it's relationship within the kingdom it borders. New monsters to stat out. Maps to make. Locals to flesh out. What are the local diseases and common threats. Then I have to tie it all in to an interesting narrative that's not awful.

Not everybody has to do all of this. They can use a simpler system and get a pre-made adventure but that's just not how I want to roll. Thus it takes a lot of time and focus, the latter I don't have much of these days. Maybe it'll never see the light of day, I don't know. But it gets me to sleep at night lately. In the end I can't pick a winner here. There's always something to play or do and they have their own merits and drawbacks.

Board games. I did my time with RPGs, and it was fun enough, but I haven't touched them in over a decade and can't think of anything that would tempt me to do so.

Board games are my first love. They remain the way I usually spend my gaming time. But I gotta give the edge to roleplaying here.

The thing about roleplaying is that it's kind of the biggest highwire act in the hobby. You have a ruleset, and you can fall back on that, but it's an inherently human time of gaming. In other forms of the hobby, board, minis, CCGs, whatever, there's always this sense that there's something to fall back on. You might not have a great time, but it's simply a result of the game not really jiving with you. You at least have a baseline guarantee that most games will function.

But that's not a guarantee in roleplaying. To roleplay well requires a huge amount of trust in each other. That's why it can be so frustrating sometimes, because some people just don't care if they are ruining someone else's fun. Some DMs don't care if you wanted to do your own thing, because they have what they wanted to do and that's what you'll do. To roleplay well requires a level of gameplay generosity that I find absolutely delightful. It's truly collaborative. There's a high risk that the whole thing could bust, but the rewards are so high that I can't go back to a form of this hobby without a regular dose of RPGs.

I'm not an RPG nerd yet. I basically just play D&D, and even that not as much as I'd like. But it has totally revitalized my love of games, and it has given me a new appreciation for the people I play them with.

Roleplaying

I did not expect RPGs to be leading board games at this site.

RPG's have always been a hybrid for me. I know there are dudes that don't like the tactical combat style but that's how we grew up playing it and I still like the mix. There was always a map (board equivalent), movement, distance, modifiers, dice. Some people can get off on no maps or figures and just roll with it but that's never suited me or my group. Whenever we tried that it was more discussion than it was worth. This guy is where? He's next to whom? No, I ran over there and I'm next to the altar. No, the altar's on this side and blah blah, just make a map and put X's on it for fuck's sake. So it's always been boardgamey for me as well.

I'm always going to be a grognard at heart. I was playing solitaire Avalon Hill games in middle school. What 13 year old kid doesn't want to spend their afternoon fighting Russkies in the North Sea?

I like RPGs, but have not found a satisfactory GM, so I end up doing it myself. And that is fine, but it takes a lot of work to make my adventures a level that I would want to play in. Of course, my players rarely make it down the anticipated side paths I have created.......

Boardgames

Also...fuck maps in RPGs. I hate that shit. I hate that my players have no flair when describing an attack. Why not just play a skirmish game, I say. Too much strategy, they say. Sweet Jeebus!!

Board games, yo. Brings different types of people together in really cool ways. So many great memories. Imagination is overrated anyway

the_jake_1973 wrote: Also...fuck maps in RPGs. I hate that shit. I hate that my players have no flair when describing an attack. Why not just play a skirmish game, I say.

You can have both. I feel that maps help with immersion and stir the imagination. A picture is worth a thousand words sometimes. Also, RPG roots are in miniatures combat. Of course, one can ignore that aspect if they lick.

Crunchy rpgs can sometimes feel boardgame-like, and often work better with miniatures and scale maps. My Ptolus campaign was like that, and sometimes we had some very interesting tactical situations come up.

At the other extreme, diceless rpgs like Amber or Lords of Olympus really focus on the story-telling, and a map with minis would get in the way.

Although a map was occasionally useful in certain tactical situations in Call of Cthulhu, it was more useful for encouraging groups to split up and make themselves vulnerable. The emphasis on Call of Cthulhu isn't really on combat anyway, it's on the investigation and the tension of facing an overpowering unknown.

Shell, how do those diceless RPGs work? Are there even any stats or what?

Hex Sinister wrote: Shell, how do those diceless RPGs work? Are there even any stats or what?

I have only played three different diceless games: Amber, Lords of Olympus, and Lords of Gossamer and Shadow. They are all using the Amber system, and LoGaS is basically the Amber setting with the serial number filed off. So I will describe the Amber system to address your question.

There are four major stats, and one minor one. Psyche, Strength and Warfare are used to resolve conflicts in the game, and Endurance breaks ties and also represents ability to survive damage. To encourage rivalry between players, these attributes are purchased in an auction, with points bid locking in attribute values and special consideration given to the winner of the auction. Players who don't win the auction can secretly spend more points after the auction to match known final bids by other players, but will be treated as slightly inferior in that stat. Most characters are uncertain whether they have higher or lower stats than a prospective opponent before a conflict begins.

The fifth stat is Stuff, which serves as a combination of luck and charisma. If you have positive Stuff, you get lucky breaks at various times in the story and NPCs tend to like you. If you have negative Stuff, bad things tend to happen to you, and NPCs tend to dislike you. Zero stuff characters only get what they deserve based on their choices. A classic example in the Amber rule book shows a group of three characters being shot at with arrows. Arrows keep missing the guy with Good Stuff. The guy with Bad Stuff has a couple of arrows sticking out of him and is bleeding. There is another arrow that just shattered on the shield because the Zero Stuff guy blocked that shot.

There are also various powerful abilities that can be purchased for pre-set point values, and those abilities have some flexibility in usage that encourages some creativity on the part of players. For example, a typical starting character has 100 points to spend and can purchase Shape-shifting for 35 points, and Advanced Shape-Shifting for an additional 30 points.

Beyond that, the typical starting character is an immortal or near-immortal with potentially centuries of life experience. Instead of worrying about skills, a player writes up his character's history, and makes reference to that history when justifying having an applicable skill when a situation arises.

For practical purposes, a lot of potentially crunchy situations are quickly resolved by GM fiat. Combat sometimes gets more attention to character choices, so players have less cause for resentment of GM fiat. For example, a player could choose to fight aggressively or defensively, or maybe try to bluff.

The result is that diceless game sessions tend to be more focused on story and role-playing, and female players are more likely to enjoy a diceless game than a regular rpg.

It boils down to.
If Hex is DMing, RPGs all the way.
Unless one of the players is Barney, in which case maybe a boardgame.

Barney in a RPG: "Sorry, my face is tired".

@Shell - Amber sounds weird. I don't think it's for me but I didn't think pineapple would be good on pizza so there's that. I can dig how the girls would like it. In my experience it's true they don't like crunchy shit that much.

Hex Sinister wrote: Barney in a RPG: "Sorry, my face is tired".

@Shell - Amber sounds weird. I don't think it's for me but I didn't think pineapple would be good on pizza so there's that. I can dig how the girls would like it. In my experience it's true they don't like crunchy shit that much.

You should try diceless once if you get a chance. Regular role-playing can be frustrating, because bad die rolls can derail a good story. Diceless basically lets you succeed at all the regular skill checks and only focuses on the situations where somebody competent is opposing you. For example, a normal rpg adventure with a bad guy with lots of minions will force the group to play through every fight in detail. A diceless game may let players just describe in narrative the manner in which they dispose of most of the lackeys and then focus on crucial choices made while facing an unusual challenge or the main villain.

The better diceless GMs give players a lot of freedom, and then riff off their choices just like improv comedy. They say "Yes" to the players as much as possible, and then "and" to keep things interesting. For example, a diceless character wants to open the locked door. Depending on the style of the character, he might kick it down, pick the lock, or try to persuade someone on the other side to open it. And maybe the gamemaster throws in a twist, like the door opens loudly and attracts additional attention from guards.