The Campaign Builder's Guild

Those who are not involved in the Underdeep (http://www.thecbg.org/index.php/topic,209813.0.html) game are invited to this poll as well.  What do you like the most about the prospect of playing in such a game?

I chose Wargaming, Economy and Cities. Wargaming is 100% the best part, but I like the econ/city building bits too.

Personally, I like wargaming and politicking with a splash of city-building.  I always find the economies that develop in MMO wargames fascinating, too, but that's more from a scholarly standpoint than one of enjoying attempting to build up a functional economy.

I find it interesting that you separate politicking and roleplaying, Humabout.  I think of them as essentially the same thing.

I would disagree with that Steerpike. Roleplaying is like staying true to your factions backround and stuff, ala the Dwer and politicking is just finding the best alliance irregardless of faction background.

I agree with Llum.

Politicking is to some extent playing the players against each other based on meta knowledge of how the players as people would react, whereas roleplaying is playing the character.

For example, as a player I see a value in not invading Superbright's watchers on turn 1- even if I would have won that battle, it wouldn't have been very fun; so therefore I've developed a detente with her, at least until she stabs me in the back.

My choices were: Cities, Economy and Roleplaying. I don't like the idea of fighting other factions; though that will likely happen.
That being said, some of my favorite games have been: Sim City 1, Sim City 2000, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Civilization, Civilization II (for the city building and less for the conquests), Pharaoh.

I have to agree with llum.  I might suggest that successful politicking is ultimately a combination of propaganda, psychology, manipulation, diplomacy, and strategizing.  None of these things involves roleplaying, although roleplaying does involve the imposition of restrictions on one's actions and options in all facets of a game, including politicking.  Ultimately, the goals of politicking are generally self-serving in the long term, while roleplaying doesn't further any in-game ends, except perhaps to heighten one's enjoyment or tell a story.  That's my take anyway.  I'm sure my definitions are simplistic, but let's face it - RL politicians aren't playing an RPG, but they politic just fine.

I like politicizing, but it doesn't necessarily need a section of its own because all the other choices involve Politics. I especially like the war one.

I disagree with the view that Politics are not part of Roleplaying so strongly. I think you can go all politicking from a Meta perspective, but I don't think the two are inherently separate...and I think if you're politicking from a Meta perspective, than (Surprise!!!) you're metagaming.

In a game like Underdeep, if you're Roleplaying at all, you should be politicking as your character. Roleplaying doesn't further any in-game ends, i'll give you that - that's because roleplaying is what gives you those ends. If you are roleplaying a bloodthirsty warlord, then you'll politic and strategize like a bloodthirsty warlord. If you're roleplaying a self-serving bastard, you'll politic and strategize like a self-serving bastard. If you're roleplaying a righteous goody-two shoes, then you'll overextend yourself and get involved in three wars at once because you're willing to endanger yourself for what is right (And get cocky and assume you can slip your army of climbers to somewhere two weeks away without getting caught in the process)

If you're not roleplaying at all, what guides your politics? And the "self" that your "self-serving" politics should serve should be the Role you are Playing.



All that rant aside, if someone's playing a game like this without taking on a Role, that's fine. They just gotta acknowledge that fact that other people are going to be taking on a Role and adjust accordingly.  

Quotebut let's face it - RL politicians aren't playing an RPG, but they politic just fine.

I'm sorry, but that statement is so incredibly hilarious I have to make fun of it. Real World Politicians politic in the real world. Lets see what other parts of an RPG we could totally dismiss as being part of Roleplaying using this same logic: "Real World soldiers aren't playing an RPG, but they fight just fine," "Real world archeologists aren't playing an RPG, but they explore ruins just fine," Real world gangsters aren't playing an RPG, but they murder and sell drugs just fine." "Real World drunks aren't playing an RPG, but they go into a bar and meet people just fine." "Real World people aren't playing an RPG, but they have conversations just fine."

QuoteRoleplaying doesn't further any in-game ends, i'll give you that - that's because roleplaying is what gives you those ends.

Yeah, this is essentially how I see it.  The game isn't set up to have fixed goals or objectives, so in some sense these almost have to be supplied by roleplaying, even if the goal is "I want to conquer everything" or "I want to not die."

I think of roleplaying as creating the goals (prosper, gets lot of money, destroy x faction, rule y level, etc) and then the wargaming aspect as coming in to accomplish those goals.

But I do get that one can conduct diplomacy and the like without a strong effort to remain "in character" (for example, some players reference map regions or economic numbers in their messages - information I generally put in square brackets at the end of messages or briefings).  Still, a certain level of roleplaying is almost inevitable, because otherwise your character would just have to sit there doing nothing all the time.  Even if the goal is just "conquest!" then that's a roleplaying decision, because nowhere does it say "the point of Underdeep is to gain the most territories" or "the point of Underdeep is to eliminate all other factions."

Interesting discussion.  My perspective is, of course, just that.

PM, I may have used the incorrect phrasing for what I'm calling "politicking."  I'm really referring to the interplayer relations people use to gain a competitive advantage toward achieving their goals.  This is social warfare, to misuse words again, is a tool in achieving one's goals as much as military might or market manipulation can be.  I see it as worth mentioning because mechanics can emphasize or deemphasize the impact of such relationships.  Personally, I think things have turned out just fine in that respect.

Steerpike, by calling it a wargame, it is implied that the ultimate goal is to kill everyone else.  That is how I took it, and how I believe Llum (the only other wargamer I'm aware of in UD) took it.  I can see the inception of other non-wargaming goals (those not designed to ultimately defeat everyone else) as the result of roleplaying for sure.  Of course, those who approach UD as a Sim-City type of game might have a different endgame goal with different means for achieving it.  This would also be independent of any roleplaying.  That's my take on it anyway.  To use an analogy, one doesn't have to roleplay to play chess, yet one still has a goal.  That's my take.  Yours is a rather interesting one, though.  I'm not sure one can really roleplay themselves...pondering that's gonna make my brain tingle.

Technically, I never called it a wargame: "Underdeep is a strategic play-by-post roleplaying game."

But I do take your point.  I disagree that wargames imply that killing everyone else is the end goal.  I can thinks of lots of wargames where this is not the case (where team victories, for example, are possible, or where meeting other objectives results in victory - capturing territory, securing certain amounts of wealth, etc)

I chose Politics, Building Cities, and Roleplaying, which should not surprise anyone who's playing RR with me. :)

I do think the separation between politics and roleplay is a meaningful and significant one.  Risk, for instance, is a game of politics, but not a game of roleplaying.  I disagree, however, that "politics" in inherently non-roleplay, as Llum seems to suggest.  Let me put it this way: seeking an alliance that fits with your "character" is roleplaying; seeking an alliance that is optimal in game terms regardless of your "character" is pure strategy; seeking an alliance at all is politics.  "Politics" in game terms is the use of communications to further game ends, regardless of whether your ends are to conquer the world, defend a certain territory, or support a certain roleplay agenda.  Politics, then, may involve roleplay, or even be intended to secure roleplaying goals, but it can also be utilized from the perspective of pure strategy, and in that sense it is a different kind of beast.

Thus, Humabout is correct in terms of what kinds of means compose politics (propaganda, psychology, etc.) but not, I think, in terms of roleplaying being a "restriction" on politics.  Rather, roleplaying tends to be a restriction on pure strategy - though even this is too simplistic, as sometimes roleplaying itself can inform strategic thinking when you are reasonably certain that someone will act a certain way because of their commitment to roleplaying their character in a certain way.  Since "game politics" is merely the use of communications to achieve ends, whether those ends are strategic or character-based, it doesn't make sense to say that politics are limited by either the presence of roleplaying or the lack thereof.

I disagree that politics without roleplaying is "metagaming," because metagaming is a term that only has meaning when you are already roleplaying; if you're not playing a character, you can't metagame.  There's no such thing, for instance, as "metagaming" in Risk; you can cheat in Risk, but you can't metagame.  You could, I suppose, say that everyone is roleplaying based on Steerpike's definition above, but I tend to disagree that in any situation in which there are user-defined goals there is roleplaying.  Roleplaying, to me, requires characterization, because it's the presence of a character that separates the "game" from the "metagame."  Just because I create an arbitrary goal for myself does not, in my opinion, mean that I am playing a character.

Well said.

Quote from: Dolmar
I disagree with the view that Politics are not part of Roleplaying so strongly. I think you can go all politicking from a Meta perspective, but I don't think the two are inherently separate...and I think if you're politicking from a Meta perspective, than (Surprise!!!) you're metagaming.

Well, that's the whole point of politicking, playing the players- like a board game (like monopoly) rather than a roleplaying game. This game is moreso a boardgame than a roleplaying game, I would figure, because your faction can very easily die and people can be eliminated to help others "win". Few RPGs set players against each other (you are often in a party or a group vs. the GM), but most boardgames are not cooperative (some are, but most are not).

For example; if I wasn't metagaming with the politicking, the Cleversmart Kobolds would have already alienated all their close neighbors with a series of escalating dumba** threats except for perhaps the GloomyElves. The roleplaying justification for not immediately invading the Watchers below is that the Kobolds are too ignorant to realize that the Watchers are essentially NastyDreams, Kobolds' mortal enemies.

Metagamingwise/Politicking (I'll hold with Polycarp's statement that metagaming in a strategy game does not have the same negative connotations as it does in Risk; while you can 'cheat' in Underdeep by acting on knowledge of people's strategies gained from an out of game conversation; predicting how they might act based on the fact that they're human beings and not their character's faction, seems to be wholly fair) and playing other players, there is a lot of value to not fighting player controlled factions because it's more fun for all to not eliminate them from the game; strategywise, sometimes it makes sense to attack a weak player controlled faction; roleplayingwise, it makes sense to attack certain factions but not others.

Side Note: Expanding on it not being fun to eliminate characters from games- I've been a GM and played DnD for a number of years with a number of different groups. I never killed any characters until the most recent group I ran through. As an experiment, I told them to make several characters because some might die. It was heartwrenching at times because 1 player quit the game because their favorite character died; another sulked for 3-4 sessions until his main character was finally successfully reincarnated. The other two who lost characters were a bit disappointed, but they carried on. It's been my experience that people really dislike their characters dying. In previous groups I had to 'save' characters at the last minute because people have been on the verge of crying, or in some cases they have screamed at me in anger and completely disrupted everything...This has been the case even with throw-away characters.

The only time that killing off characters hasn't seemed to anger people is when I've played in or run Cthulhu one-shot games.

Conversely, with board games, people seem to be less upset when they're defeated by a good strategy of an enemy player.

QuoteSide Note: Expanding on it not being fun to eliminate characters from games- I've been a GM and played DnD for a number of years with a number of different groups. I never killed any characters until the most recent group I ran through. As an experiment, I told them to make several characters because some might die. It was heartwrenching at times because 1 player quit the game because their favorite character died; another sulked for 3-4 sessions until his main character was finally successfully reincarnated. The other two who lost characters were a bit disappointed, but they carried on. It's been my experience that people really dislike their characters dying. In previous groups I had to 'save' characters at the last minute because people have been on the verge of crying, or in some cases they have screamed at me in anger and completely disrupted everything...This has been the case even with throw-away characters.

I handle this in my game (Planescape) by running side-adventures with the spirits of the dead PCs in their afterlives, and allowing for easy access to resurrection (albeit expensive resurrection, usually).

I like to think that people will be able to embrace character death as part of the roleplaying experience.  Like In Game of Thrones or something... major characters die, and it's part of the fun that they do.

But that's straying a bit off-topic.

EDIT: I've also gone the Ghost route, and allowed players to float around as incorporeal spirits (with ghost powers too) until they get resurrected, though only if they had major unfinished business in the mortal life.  This not only makes death more acceptable, it's positively fun.  I had one player with a Dwarf character who died with a matter of honour unresolved, and allowed her to return as a ghost till she was raised.  When the PCs got a temple with resurrection capabilities, several players commented that they wouldn't mind if the character stayed a ghost :P.

Quote from: Light Dragon
The roleplaying justification for not immediately invading the Watchers below is that the Kobolds are too ignorant to realize that the Watchers are essentially NastyDreams, Kobolds' mortal enemies.

Hm. Interesting perspective.

I agree with most of what Polycarp said, though I do have a few disagreements. It might be because I approached the Underdeep game from the perspective that it wasn't just a wargame, but I assumed that every player would, to a certain extent, at "roleplay" their faction. Not to the extent that it totally violated strategy, of course, but enough that every decision wasn't based entirely on what would have the best chance of mechanical success. Like, say, if the orcs hunkered down and started turtling, that'd probably earn a raised eyebrow from me. An excellent example would be Dolmar not spamming Abominations every turn because they were disproportionately-badass units, even though it would make no sense in-universe. The Watcher's main goal is to not die because, being immortal, they can easily outlive any of the other factions; as a player, I'm much less interested in knocking out potential rivals than I am in, well, watching.

Of course, I did pick a race characterized by cold detachment, bottomless patience, and a hatred of everyone else, so that may be too easy of an answer.

Quote from: SuperbrightI agree with most of what Polycarp said, though I do have a few disagreements. It might be because I approached the Underdeep game from the perspective that it wasn't just a wargame, but I assumed that every player would, to a certain extent, at "roleplay" their faction. Not to the extent that it totally violated strategy, of course, but enough that every decision wasn't based entirely on what would have the best chance of mechanical success.

Well, just because I admit that such a thing as pure strategy is possible without roleplaying doesn't mean I practice it in this game or believe that it is advisable; as Steerpike pointed out, it was, from the beginning, described as a roleplay game.  I think the nature of the Glow's character is more conducive to pure strategy than, say, the nature of Lothe and his Dwerim - the Glow generally thinks in objective terms of threats and non-threats, rather than friends, enemies, honor, dishonor, and so on - but I don't pursue pure strategic aims independently of what I interpret the character's motivations to be.

I have placed some similar limits on myself - TMG pointed out in chat that I probably could have eliminated his faction by turn 2 or 3, and I don't doubt that this is true (it had occurred independently to me at the time).  I didn't do this because it wasn't consistent with my character's motivations, as well as for the reason that I value the mutual experience of a game and don't want to eliminate people before they've really even started playing (that's a "meta" motivation, of course, but not metagaming strictly defined, which to me means using information that a character would not know to affect the player's actions).

I am fairly sure that even had you attacked TMG's mansion early on, he might have still sneaked into NJuln/Balagrod.  He'd be hurting bad, but I doubt he'd be out for the count.  However your points are all very good ones Polycarp, and have yielded some extremely interesting results, as this week has proven.

Quote from: PolycarpI didn't do this because it wasn't consistent with my character's motivations, as well as for the reason that I value the mutual experience of a game and don't want to eliminate people before they've really even started playing (that's a "meta" motivation, of course, but not metagaming strictly defined, which to me means using information that a character would not know to affect the player's actions).

Sorry if I insinuated that you only focused on pure strategy or anything! I do completely agree with your definition of a meta motivation, I just thought it was a lot more verboten than some other players do.

QuoteAn excellent example would be Dolmar not spamming Abominations every turn because they were disproportionately-badass units, even though it would make no sense in-universe

That's actually why I requested the nerf they recently got: as it stood, it made too much sense both in and out of character to keep spamming abominations: Dolmar has 'protect his people' as a primary motivation, and the best way to do this was to get as many abominations on the field as he could. (I have lost about 60 units so far. About 6 of those were Abominations. It meant the lowest casualties to the Nocae were abominations all the time.) now Dolmar cannot afford enough Abominations for that to be viable, so has to train other warriors. ^_^

Quote from: SuperbrightSorry if I insinuated that you only focused on pure strategy or anything! I do completely agree with your definition of a meta motivation, I just thought it was a lot more verboten than some other players do.

Nah, I didn't interpret anything as an insinuation - I just wanted to make sure my description of pure strategy as divisible from roleplaying wasn't taken to mean that I endorse one over the other, or that I personally have been pursuing one to the exclusion of the other.

I don't find meta-motivations to be problematic in general, though they could be problematic in some situations - for instance, if another player was my friend and I decided that my goal in the game would be to help him achieve his goals, or if a player was someone I didn't like and I decided to remove him from the game posthaste.  It's not always possible to totally dissociate how we feel about players from how our characters feel about their characters, of course, because we're human beings.  I think the important thing is to try and differentiate between "benevolent" meta-motivations ("I want everyone to enjoy this game and have a good time") and more self-serving meta-motivations.

It's entirely reasonable to temper roleplaying with a desire to improve the experience generally, which is one reason I don't like using the term "metagaming" to describe this behavior - as I said in the earlier thread about metagaming, I prefer to keep the term limited to a purely negative connotation, like "cheating."  That way, I can say in my game rules "no metagaming" and presumably we don't need to have a whole discussion about whether wanting to have fun counts as a prohibited activity.

Another game system previously used for forum games: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19918194/Lords_of_Creation:_the_OOC