Playing with the strengths of a medium is a good idea. Some vidya authors get this, and make clever games because of it

Playing with the strengths of a medium is a good idea. Some vidya authors get this, and make clever games because of it.

What are the strengths of tabletop and how do you use them properly?

To me, a strength of tabletop is the ability to screw around with time for game purposes, compare how much game time is spent on a 3-week journey versus a 10-minute fight in your average D&D campaign.

A game I feel takes this to an extreme is Dogs in the Vineyard, in that game you can use a full conflict to see if a PC hits a target, it starts when the PC sees the enemy, and ends when he pulls the trigger, in game it takes the same amount of time as any other conflict.

Just one more reason why DitV is my favorite system.

Improvisation. I can't turn my longsword around to use a mordhau grip in videogames, but I can ask my DM if I'm allowed to do it in tabletop games.

I intend to run a Discworld-inspired game one day where The Auditors of Reality are the bad guys, and they are unbeatable as long as you follow the rules. So to win, the players would have to metagame and cheat.

Freedom is a nice one.

I think the infinite ways to play allows tabletop games to do things that vidya can’t.

Sounds fun. But how do you outwit the Auditors? God damn Machines.

What difference would that make in most games?

The PCs can't. The players can cheat for their benifit.

Usually? Nothing, in fact it typically comes at a penalty because you're using a weapon for "what it isn't designed to do" according to the creators of whatever game you're playing.

If you were to design a game with the thread's theme in mind? Probably a temporary bonus for catching the opponent off-guard since you did something he didn't expect, which would encourage players to take advantage of the freedom that tabletop games offer more often.

>Probably a temporary bonus for catching the opponent off-guard since you did something he didn't expect

Why wouldn't he expect it, if it's a legitimate tactic?

More importantly, I vehemently disagree with you. I'm not entirely sure how you're suggesting any of this improves the game, but in my experience, all that does is turn the game into Mother May I, as all the players start chasing bonuses from doing random shit.

Blunt damage instead pierce/slash against skellingtons.

Okay, now the sword is the objectively the best weapon in the game, and there's hardly any reason to use anything else.

Aside from reduced blunt damage as compared to a mace . . . or any other weapon meant to be a weapon with blunt damage in mind. Why would you assume the sword keeps full damage die? It seems more of a "oh shit, skeletons ambushed us but all I have is a sword. Oh well, time to make do." And yes, depending on the system, the impromptu blunt damage might be better than reduced slashing on skeletons.

Woah there, friend, I'm not saying it would be a good mechanic. The Exalted system suffers plenty from the "how can I spin my next description to get the best bonus possible" problem.
All I'm saying is that, if one were to design a game based around the "strength of the tabletop game medium" (that being the freedom of choice), it would probably play out in that fashion where players are rewarded for making choices that aren't pre-baked into the system.

>backstab with arrows
>tie mace to whip to have a flail
>use double-headed axe as shield
>take spear-head off to have short range weapon + fighting staff

It's not overpowered if you can do it with every weapon!

The game already is Mother May I. All TTRPGs are a negotiation within a social group. There's several levels from the reality of the discussion around the table to the fictional stuff that's happening, and the system layer is sonewhere in-between, not above the first.

The only reasona rulebook has any power is because the group agreed beforehand to use it.

The biggest strength of tabletop is the ability to move from the social to the actual, by saying you want to do something in real life, and having that happen in the fictional layer under that. This allows for as much creativity as the group can scrounge up, but with the caveat that social contracts create limits so the game doesn't turn into "I am more invincible than you". Systems and rulebooks are prepackaged social contracts with limits that shape the game experience.

%%Just Monika...%%

To answer your question, because you didn't say otherwise. Other than that, fair enough.

Fair enough.

RAGE

Why wear clothes? You're naked underneath them anyway.

Systems are not clothes, user. What that other user is saying is that systems are like the idea that you should wear clothes, which you implicitly agreed to and integrated by behaving socially. Clothes looks like they're on top of people, but actually people put them there, so people are above clothes.

The ability to solve a game problem in ways that the game designer did not intend, with the DM keeping lunacy in check.

Tabletop is a better vehicle for ooc silliness and humor than even miked-up MMOs, as the nonverbal communication and visual humor can come through.

DM can waive some character creation restrictions, allowing more creativity and interesting combinations of skillsets.

The same game can be upgraded and tweaked an infinite number of times, and without lootboxes, and that's fun for me.

In RAW GURPS, flipping your sword about allows you to hook people. A generous GM might even treat your swings as impaling damage.

best girl

A creative video game breaks the fourth wall and gets meta.

A bog standard table top game starts meta from the beginning.

This reminds me of where I think the real strength of TTRPGs lie, I just used DitV for a 5e encounter that was very important but was between high level warrior PCs and normal older people that they sought revenge on from long ago.

Made some characters, set the stakes at murdering this old couple, and played out a conversation where the players tried to resolve their characters differences where I got to play their anger and they played their rational side.

The fact that I can take my solo GM engine and gurps basic set off the bookshelf and run everything ever without the need to download more things

Sounds like you have a pretty shitty game on your hands there buddy.

>Playing with the strengths of a medium is a good idea. Some vidya authors get this, and make clever games because of it.

Don’t! About a decade ago, bunch of guys from a forum called The Forge tried to do that. It caused flamewar that almost tore the hobby apart. I’ve seen lifelong friendships and even marriages breaking in bad blood.

We as RPers must adopt the Sino-russian fatalism. Accept that what we have is shit, but geting into anything better would drag us through so much shit any such transition is not worth it.

there's literary a game called mordhau that allows you all kinds of sword techniques

The point still stands.

If I want to play a gunslinger penguin I better hope someone was on LSD and made a game.

Whereas if I tried to use ttrpgs I could just go make a character like that.