"What is an RPG?" Exercise

Explaining "What is an RPG?" in the shortest and most efficient way speaks a lot about who the gamer is and where he is coming from. It also changes from time to time, as the human mind is so malleable to experience that emphasis moves around constantly.

What is a Role-Playing Game?

This is a game where players take part by playing the roles of fictional characters. Participants use storytelling, improvisational acting, and problem solving skills to interact with and create a world. This world can take any form, it can be entirely fantasy, authentically historical or contemporary, or speculatively futuristic.

Role-Playing games can serve as a catharsis, as it had been during it beginning. Although, like many games, it is more practically valued for its exercise Critical Thinking, communicating understanding of concepts, and exercising theoretical skills.

Finished: GURPS 4E player handout

I got a strong urge to make a player hand out based on GURPS Lite 4e. What I did was I inserted a ton of my home brew rules and made it tailor only to Low Tech. Basically its a complete enough players introduction to GURPS for low tech games.

There was no art and floating tables because I only did it in Open Office writer, so its only 25 pages.

• Removed all Supernatural and Non-low Tech Genre elements
• Used My definition of Social and Psychological Disadvantages
• The disadvantages are re calibrated that Cannot Harm Innocents and Psychopathic tendencies are considered aberrant or part of the normal human character.
• Put a more consistent organization on some definition.
• Cut out a lot of the text that make modern references.
• Cheap Items are the "default" price.
• used the Marian Legionaire Equipment Load out as the Sample Load-out for quick starts.

Anyway, bottom line I find it suitable for introducing new players into GURPS 4E quicky while having enough rules to 25 pages. What happens next is me printing it out and editing it. As a document its hard to edit the problems on my laptop. A high lighter and post its would go faster and another pair of eyes.

Of course I put all the copyright disclaimers and its really meant for this GMs game and not for distribution.

if you are curious, Here it is.

GURPS: What Knowledge of Philosophies Do

This is an oversimplification or bottom line to what each Philosophy discipline does.

Philosophy Skills

Default: IQ-6.

This is the organization of bodies of knowledge in ancient times.

Natural: the predecessor of science particularly the study of the universe and physics. Characters would be familiar concepts of pressure, gravity, buoyancy, velocity, etc while unable to define it.

Geometry: Math involving shapes, size, relative positions, and physical dimensions. Requires: Literacy, Arithmetics.

MetaPhysics: The study of the realm beyond the physical universe.

Theology: The study of divine knowledge from religious sources, ritual and practice.

Other Philosophies:

Socratic: The skill of asking the right problem solving questions. The GM secretly rolls to see if the information the PCs want are what results in their line of questioning.

Platonic: The skill clear definition of ideas, concepts and essences. The GM rolls secretly to see if the right concepts comes across.

Aristotelian: The skill of objectively measuring and distilling observation and perception. The GM secretly rolls to see if the PC catches gap's in the chain of logic or assumptions that have no place in the problem.

Confucian: The reciprocative relationship among individuals in order to establish order. This is a very rudimentary and early kind of Political theory. The GM rolls secretly if the PC notices any imbalance in relationships among organization.

Buddhism: The mental discipline to frame situations and experiences to the advantage of the observer. This lets the Philosopher suppressing emotional distraction. The GM may roll again with Buddhism to negate disadvantageous morale affects.

Moizm: Another empirical based philosophy that focuses on value moderation or denial of objects while maximization with people. The GM may roll secretly for the PCs against Moizm in formulating defensive strategy.

Taoism: The skill of developing laws, punishing and rewarding. This is an effective skill in managing military discipline in high stress situations. Similar to Leadership skill for a long running organization and not just a small group.

I wish my Philosophy teachers would have framed it this way. It would have been more fun.

Experience is WORK!

Its not the killing and Not the treasure that give people experience. Someone doesn't just transform incrementally by every creature or person they kill in a few minutes of combat. In normal lives it is the time in work we do that transforms anyone.

Time and Work - An adventure has in it elements of time and work. Success is just objective proof and validation of being in the right. Theoretically someone with a near omniscience level of self awareness can pretty much figure where he went wrong and with enough work correct that in himself and train to be better...theoretically.

Imagine what happens in the real world adventure: a military campaign. Soldiers train and train, and only the lucky and the practiced survive to improve and reap the rewards.

I was writing my GM section when I had to boil down my ideas of what is Experience. In making a home brew or adjusting my GM style to fit the reality more so that the consequences that follow are more believable and natural, I thought the xp system should reflect this fact.

When telling another GM how to reward players, there is a whole lot of game theory going on in any system of rewards. In particular, the Philosophical aspect of Growing and Changing.

Does Killing People build Character, how about marching through rough terrain, starving while waiting for reinforcement, near-TPK in "in-character" disagreements etc...? Trials, Pain, Suffering, Loss and Hardship is the physical stimulus that signal change is needed and is going on.

As for Levels of how much XP to give, imagine how much change a soldier goes through in his first campaign. Consider the kind of learnings, memories and experiences he comes away with. Then proceed to consider how many more of the same, before the next bit of change, then the next and the next.

A rule of thumb is that, experiences have diminishing returns. The First campaign is enough to level up to 2. In the next campaigns, if similar to the first, might take a few more to level 3. If the character escalates in responsibility, accountability, and magnitude of effect (rising through the ranks) it may take just a couple for level 3. Over time, escalation of challenge plateau. The character becomes one of the best generals or warriors, and being any better may half another life time. In fantasy games, plateau are less likely as characters become epic, demi-gods and gods.

In more low tech and realistic settings, at this point they diversify: they become conquerors, which requires politics, administration, diplomacy, espionage etc.

Diminishing returns are important for the GM to reflect. If its the same-old same-old then there aren't any "unknowns" being explored, Gaps in the abilities of the character. then the are not gaining much or anything new.

Your Alternate Description - Steve Jackson Games Forums

Your Alternate Description - Steve Jackson Games Forums:

I wish I can find more people into Gaming Kaizen or Philosophy. I know many others are out there are taking what they learned and putting it into how they run their game.

particularly those who like to use Ethics, Philosophy, Game theory, and Science to understand the world and convert it to fun playable chunks in their game.

The internet is a big place, and anyone who is into Kaizen or Learning will need a sounding board to test and challenge their ideas so that it can be refined or retired thanks to criticism of other critical minds.

I bet there would be a community out there somewhere hope someone can point me to the direction where they all are Gaming Freethinkers.

How much magic would I tolerate?

When I do allow magic, only allow the subtle communications, empathy, and mind spells (GURPS). Basically spells that do not affect economics, politics, and technology so adversely and can be conveniently removed from the narrative.

Along with magic, I apply the harsh realities and challenges of education and communication of ideas. Knowledge is very fragile and a lot of it failed to survive time, despite their utility. The axial age of human history saw the flourishing of so many ideas which many were destroyed when an ideology comes to power. Ideas that could have been refined and tweaked to fast forwarded humanity into a brighter age.

Spells with its complexity and inconsistencies is similar to economics, psychology and medicine which are very hard to advance because of their multitudes of unobservable factors. If one were to limit magic to mediums of communication to that of the Ancient World, spells as complicated as

Modern Day Magic: Lie Detection is modern day magic. If deception expert were to go back in time he would be called a wizard. Economics, Negotiation, Sociology, Psychology, Math, Engineering are all skills that can mastered by an individual inclusive of any aids and applied with devastating consequences when brought to times of the past.

I frequently wonder what I could contribute to the Filipinos of the 19th century so that we wouldn't end up exploiting each other for generations. If I could offer my services to Antonio Luna and Andres Bonifacio when they needed good people around them.

RPG Kaizen: Game Definitions and Continuous Learning

Old school Role-playing is asking a lot of questions and critical thinking. Its not really the "game systems" but the attitude to challenges and learning.

Game Definitions and Real-World Definitions. Really good definitions are easy to find online and these days easy to master. Concepts that were vague back in the day, are now more concise and differentially defined from other similar terms.

Language is the medium of the game, and being able to define the parameters more clearly and accurately helps in communicating most effectively and facilitating the game. If we want players to ask a lot of questions then we have to have a lot of stock knowledge and be able to connect many intuitive relations in everything we describe.

No one just "gets" this habit of filling in details. Details don't come out of thin air. It really does take a curious or inquisitive personality and one that likes asking "stupid" and elementary questions. A GM's attitude to questions depends in his own attitude to knowledge.

From Socrates followed Plato and Aristotle, by the same hierarchy the skill of asking Question came before the other methods of deriving knowledge.

The skill in asking questions is not just filling up the blank spots, but also the ability to know where to look for blind spots. It reminds me of when I do my 3d work, as I always change angles in order to triangulate what is really going on. Each angle is insight and the more angles I can view the more accurate I am able to judge what I am doing. being able to ask the right Questions work in the same way: it is narrowing down a solution by eliminating what you can and already know.

Language has a lot of assumptions built into it. Philosophy 101 is about having an introspective awareness of these assumptions and being able to verify them before proceeding into further inquiry.

I guess its not about the system, but the Critical thinking skills and process displayed and used by the players. I can remember falling asleep when the games are so straight forward, there is nothing mentally stimulating. if you went through the same predictable formulas in a CRPG what's the point of the freedome of Face to Face RPGaming?

Violence without rational context or drama is just boring. Its basically a way to sate personal ego by focusing on a very simplified puzzle that has very strict set of limitations and certainties. This boredom and disappointment is not really from the game system, but GMing and Player expectations.

Of course there is a tendency to be disappointed when the oversimplified nostalgic system gets bashed by years-refined problem solving. The old systems were improved for a reason.

guess in the end, there is a RPG Kaizen to aspire to and problems are never going to be as simple as the system but the actual problem solving skills of the group.