Invisible Sun

2021-01-07T19:46:37Z

Hyphz:

{{System Information Box
| System Name = Invisible Sun
| Creators = Monte Cook
| Published = 2018
| Genres = Urban Fantasy
| Dice = d10
}}

'''Invisible Sun''' is a surrealist urban fantasy RPG by Monte Cook making use of the [[Cypher System]]. It is notoriously sold at an inflated price point of more than $200 for the "black cube" containing the printed books and other bizarre props (including a sculpture of a giant hand) and $99 for the PDF version. It was briefly sold at the more reasonable price of $24.95 during a Humble sale in 2020 in which many people got to read it for the first time and confirmed it was scarcely worth that.

The setting is most infamous for its currency system, in which occupants of the fantasy city use "orbs" containing mundane ideas as currency, apparently hauling them around in sacks in order to pay for minor items, and minting them by farming thoughts from children.

{{Stub}}

[[Category:Systems|Cypher]]

2019-07-28T17:57:51Z

Hyphz:

''Player and game categorizations'' are a special case of terminology that is invoked in many different contexts.

== Why player categorizations suck ==

Many player categorizations are derived from categorizations of ''play experience'', by assuming that for each type of play experience there is a category of player who enjoys it the most. This therefore feeds into the very negative assumption that these player categories should be used as the main method to balance play experience.

This is invalid in itself. For example, sushi is a category of food that I enjoy very much, but I could not be exclusively categorised as a "Sushi eater", nor can my enjoyment of a coming meal be calculated entirely by measuring the amount of sushi it contains.

== Known categorizations ==

=== Blacow, 1980 ===

(''Aspects of Adventure Gaming'', Glen Blacow, in ''Different Worlds'' #10, October 1980)

Blacow defined four categories based on game experience:

* ''Power Gaming'': playing characters with power, often defined within the system.
* ''Role-playing'': acting based on the character's personality and speaking in-character.
* ''Wargaming'': solving tactical problems in competition with the GM.
* ''Story Telling'': interacting with an ongoing changing world independant of the characters (this definition is unusual but is the one Blacow used).

=== Allston, 1988 ===

(in ''Champions: Strike Force'', 1988, later appeared in ''Champions 4th Edition'')

Allston defined a number of player categorizations with reference to superhero gaming.

* ''The Builder'': player who focuses on changing the ongoing world.
* ''The Buddy'': player who attends primarily to be with a friend.
* ''The Combat Monster'': player who is highly focused on combat. (Context note: HERO system's rules are highly focussed on tactical combat.)
* ''The Copier'': player who wants to play as a character from other media (Context note: this originally related especially to superheroes.)
* ''The Genre Fiend'': player who wants play to follow genre tropes (again, in this context probably relevant to superheroes)
* ''The Mad Slasher'': player who kills everything available without regard to sense. (This would normally be considered disruptive.)
* ''The Mad Thinker'': player who seeks clever solutions to problems and puzzles.
* ''The Plumber'': creates characters with involved backstories and wants to explore them within the game plot.
* ''The Romantic'': focuses on relationships and interaction between characters.
* ''The Rules Rapist'': player who aggressively uses the rules to gain as much power as possible. Although highly inappropriate, this is the term Allston used; some modern lists change it to ''Rules Sea Lawyer''. (Context note: HERO system's rules were known to be highly min-maxable.)
* ''The Showoff'': seeks spotlight time for their own character, potentially at the expense of others. (This would normally be considered disruptive.)
* ''The Pro From Dover'': wants their character to be the best in the world at some particular thing.
* ''The Tragedian'': wants their character to experience, and play out, suffering.

=== GDS/GNS/Threefold Model (Kunher/Kim/Edwards?, 1999?) ===

The GDS or GNS model first appeared on the Usenet group ''rec.games.frp.advocacy''. It appeared in the FAQ for that group for the first time in 1999 and has since been adopted by multiple authors, most notably Ron Edwards. It identifies three categories:

* ''Gamism'' which revolves around a gaming experience for the players at the table;
* ''Simulationism'' which is about maintaining a versimilitudinous fictional world;
* ''Narrativism'' which is about maintaining narrative properties and pace (originally called ''Dramatism'').

Two categories were added later, although with less seriousness:

* ''Illusionism'' in which the players are aware that they have no freedom to control the story but role-play to make the known events appears to fit one;
* ''Cheetoism'' which corresponds to the casual gamer; reduced interest in any of the others.

Most original writings on the subject did not refer to these as player categorizations, but they were treated as such. They have been used as categorisations of systems, players, experiences, parts of players, agendas for GMs and players, and many things while remaining ill-defined; in addition, Edwards infamously referred to groups of players exposed to games which did not fit his model as "brain damaged" (although in later interviews he attempted to clarify this). As such this categorization is now widely considered to have collapsed into uselessness.

=== Laws, 2002 ===

(in ''Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering'', Robin D. Laws, SJG 2002)

Laws' categories were published in his book on GMing, and are now probably the best known categories. He cited Blacow, but not Allston.

* ''The Power Gamer'': seeks out power and plays to gain further power.
* ''The Butt Kicker'': wants to fight, but does not necessarily seek the optimal character for doing so.
* ''The Specialist'': regularly plays a single character type and wants to experience that type's 'cool thing'.
* ''The Tactician'': wants to apply problem solving to either active puzzles or tactical combat optimization.
* ''The Method Actor'': wants to explore aspects of their character's personality.
* ''The Storyteller'': wants the flow of events in the game to reflect properties of a good narrative, including pacing.
* ''The Casual Gamer'': isn't that into the game and wants to hang out with the group.

The ''Specialist'' here is especially problematic, as it implies that if a player does not play the same character type regularly, they do not care about that character's standard cool behaviour.

Help:Glossary

2019-07-28T17:53:16Z

Hyphz:

{{AtoZ}}

== 0–9 ==
== A ==
;Action Economy
:The number of actions each PC or NPC gets during a combat or other time-sensitive event. Almost inevitably causes problems if the number of actions available to one character, or one side, is greater than the other. Typical problems include a weaker but faster character effectively being stronger than a strength-based character because they can attack twice in the same amount of time, or a boss monster which has no chance of winning against a group of PCs but is likely to utterly annihilate one of them with the one action it gets between the four/five actions from PCs.

;Adventure
: A brief story formed of connected plot points that can be played through within one or two sessions. You can obtain pre-written adventures for many role-playing game systems. A longer story, sometimes comprised of many adventures, is called a [[#C|campaign]].

;Ameritrash
:Term for board games which follow "American" design princples: fancy boards, large numbers of miniatures, strong theming, integration of in-character and player actions, wargame-like movement of pieces, etc. Not necessarily a negative term.

== B ==
;BECMI
:'''B'''asic '''E'''xpert '''C'''ompanion '''M'''asters '''I'''mmortals, the five books in the original ''Dungeons & Dragons'' set published in 1983. Also called "Red Box D&D" or "Mentzer D&D" after its authors. Frequently invoked by ''OSR'' fans as an example of a classic game; such fans usually forget that it had feats, weapon special moves, codified stronghold rules and several other features that are actively omitted from most OSR games.

;Brain Damage
:A tragic medical condition, and not something that should be invoked in regard to traditional games.

== C ==

;Campaign
:A long-term, overarching story that takes place over numerous sessions. Notoriously difficult to finish in a satisfactory manner.

;CCG
:Stands for '''C'''ollectible '''C'''ard '''G'''ame. Examples include ''Magic: The Gathering''. CCGs are played using specially designed sets of cards that allow for specific strategies.

;Character sheet
:One or more pieces of paper that covers the various details of a character, including their various ability scores, skills, combat statistics, backstory and so on. Digital character sheets, being paperless, are usually in plain text to make copy-pasting and updating much easier.

;Class
:A class-based system divides up player character choices into specific, separate archetypes. A player's choice of character class quite often determines your combat abilities, skills and may impose other restrictions.

== D ==

;Darkspot
:The opposite of "a moment in the spotlight" - a moment when a character is weak, and has to deal with it. This may be a desirable part of the game or it may result in a frustrated and upset player.

;Dice
:Polyhedral objects used to generate random numbers, and used in most role-playing games. In most rulebooks they will be represented as '''d#''', where # is the number of sides. Ergo twenty-sided dice are called d20s, eight-sided dice are called d8s, and so on. The one exception to this seems to be the d100, which is typically two ten-sided dice - one for the tens, one for the units.

;Dissociated Mechanics
:Term popular in the OSR community (and with grognards) that refers to game mechanics which require the player's mindset to differ from what they beileve the PCs would be. Examples include collaborative worldbuilding (the character should experience the world, not design it), and mechanics requiring PCs not to striwe to avoid failure.

;Dungeon
:A location that contains both danger and reward for player characters. Though traditionally a subterranean structure, anything can be a dungeon: a laboratory, an office block, an abandoned spaceship, the fossilised intestines of some long-dead primordial god. As long as there is something worth venturing in for, and something in there protecting it, it can be considered a dungeon.

;Dungeon crawl
:A type of adventure where the [[#P|party]] has to navigate their way through a dungeon, avoiding or overcoming all obstacles in their way. Despite being fairly simplistic, they can still be enjoyable.

== E ==
;Eurogame
:Board game following "European" (or more particularly German) design principles: reduced components, relatively weak theming, limited connection of in-game and out-game actions or rulings, and short play time.

== F ==
;F&F
:'''F'''ATAL '''&''' '''F'''riends, the Traditional Games thread (or series of threads) containing RPG book reviews. Originally used for mocking bad RPGs, but later expanded to cover obscure but good ones and then all-purpose RPG reviews.

;FitD
:'''F'''orged '''I'''n '''T'''he '''D'''ark, a category for RPG systems based on the rules of John Harper's ''Blades in the Dark''.

;Forge Big Model
:"Techniques: Specific procedures of play which, when employed together, are sufficient to introduce fictional characters, places, or events into the Shared Imagined Space... A given Technique is composed of a group of Ephemera which are employed together." If you believe that the previous sentences are a good and helpful way to discuss RPGs, then the Forge Big Model is for you. It probably isn't.

== G ==
;Goon
:A regular on the Something Awful forums, or at least someone who's paid their $10.

;GM
:Short for '''G'''ame '''M'''aster, the person who acts as moderator and facilitator for a role-playing game. Their job is usually to apply the rules, to make rulings and judgments when necessary, and to play the NPCs. They may also create the scenario or world that the game takes place in. Can have different names in different systems, such as Dungeon Master, Storyteller, Narrator, and Mister Cavern.

;GMPC
:A GM's player character. The ideal GMPC rounds out an undersized party, providing a non-crucial role that does not steal the spotlight, and will bow out if the roster becomes full. Not every GMPC is an ideal one.

;GNS
:'''G'''amism '''N'''arrativism '''S'''imulationism. A categorization for either players or gaming experience that was championed by Ron Edwards but in fact goes right back to rec.games.frp.advocacy on USENET. After 20+ years of unrestricted Internet debate, there are now so many misunderstandings, forked discussions, and confused definitions that it's been diluted into uselessness.

;Grognard
:Derived from the French for "grumbler", but usually pronounced with a hard G in a tabletop context. Once used by wargamers to refer to themselves, after the informal nickname for the veteran soldiers of Napoleon's army. Now has come to mean general tabletop gamers who are often socially regressive and unpleasant to be around.

;Gygax
:Ernest Gary Gygax, one of the creators of the original D&D, and arguably one of the initial founders of the hobby. Has become something like a saintly figure among certain gamers, who trust that they know exactly what "Gary would have wanted" which is only by pure coincidence exactly what they themselves want.

;Gygaxian naturalism
:The idea that you can build an ecology out of unnatural monsters inhabiting abandoned ruins. Rather than making an ''actual'' ecology with a food chain and so forth, it's mostly used as an excuse to invent new monsters to punish players for wanting to have fun.

== H ==
== I ==

;Inn
:Where most adventures begin. Staffed by a gruff innkeeper and some serving wenches, none of whom can move for the sheer number of mysterious strangers sitting in shadowy corners all over the place, waiting around for someone to approach them so they can begin handing out directions to the nearest [[#D|dungeon]].

== J ==

;Johnson
:The Shadowrun term for the corporate contacts who hire the player characters for less-than-legal jobs, often styled as Mr. Johnson. A forgettable face in an unremarkable suit, with no ties to the corporation who would benefit the most from this job. Plausible deniability is every Johnson's byword.

== K ==
== L ==
== M ==

; Miniature
: Often abbreviated to "mini". A small model of a character, creature or vehicle. They are typically made from plastic or pewter, and can either come painted or unpainted. Some wargames involve painting and putting together miniatures that go on to become your army, making it as much of an artistic hobby as a nerdy one.

== N ==

;NPC
:A non-player character, as opposed to a [[#P|PC]] or player character. NPCs are controlled by the [[#G|GM]] (but are not GMPCs) and can be anything from a horrible monster to a helpful ally.

== O ==

;OGL
:The '''O'''pen '''G'''ame '''L'''icense, an experiment by ''Wizards of the Coast'' in which companies were allowed unlimited use of the rules system from ''Dungeons & Dragons'' 3rd edition with the exception of a small number of rules and details. Led to the creation of ''Pathfinder'' as a spin-off from that edition of D&D. Introduced by WotC manager Ryan Dancey, who curiously went to work for the publishers of Pathfinder shortly after introducing it.

;OSR
:The '''O'''ld '''S'''chool '''R'''ules. Or possibly '''R'''enaissance. '''R'''evival? '''R'''enewal? Despite having an acronym that nobody can quite agree on what it stands for, the OSR manages to share the belief that tabletop game design peaked around 1980 at the latest. Attracts a lot of [[#G|grognards]] and other undesirable types, including several actual fascists.

; Owlbear
: Owl up front, bear in the back, all business.

== P ==

;Party
:A group of player characters, usually working together toward a common goal.

;PbtA
:'''P'''owered '''B'''y '''T'''he '''A'''pocalypse, a category for RPG systems based on the rules of Vincent Baker's RPG ''Apocalypse World''. Baker allows the term to be used by any game that drew any amount of inspiration, however small, from ''Apocalypse World''; so there is substantial variation even within games in this category.

;PC
:A player character, as opposed to an [[#N|NPC]] or non-player character. Their actions are controlled by one of the players in the game. Usually each player gets only a single PC, but this is not true for all systems.

== Q ==

;Quicksandbox
:A game which claims to offer the PCs free reign to explore a setting but does so with so little prompting, direction, or clear interim goals that the PCs are left wandering in the void never knowing what they're supposed to do.

== R ==
;Railroad
:A form of campaign or adventure in which the PCs have no effective choice of action at the narrative level; PC choices are typically restricted to problem solving or combat tactics. Called the ''Episodic'' structure by Laws. The typical Railroad adventure is guarding a transport of some kind (ironically usually not a train); the PCs can choose how to fight off or pass hazards as they appear, but cannot choose the transport's route nor leave it.

;Railroading
:A notoriously subjective term that refers to the GM managing circumstances or events to push the PCs into a single course of action, although usually only applied in cases where this is negative (it is not railroading for the GM to describe a burning building with the expectation that the PCs flee, for example). Typical examples of problematic railroading are:
* the combination of events and circumstances is unreasonable (the PCs are walking along a road through a nearly featureless plain, they decide to depart from the road and explore and a Tyrannosaurus Rex appears and chases them back onto the road - an example from Jonny Nexus)
* the course of action is one that is obvously unreasonable (a ''Traveller'' scenario left the PCs with no money and searching for a job, but expected that the PCs would choose to apply to a job ad that was obviously a scam and would get them kidnapped, even when a handout was provided showing several other reasonable jobs too)
* the constraint on action is substantial compared to the campaign premise (a ''Star Trek'' campaign that begins with the ship's reactor immediately failing and the ship having to land on a nearby planet to search for dilithium crystals, thus forcing the focus from space exploration to a single planet)

;Road to Rome / Romeroading
:A form of campaign or adventure in which a set number of scenes are prearranged to occur; the PCs can choose how they pass between them, but not prevent them from happening. Called the ''Set-Piece'' structure by Laws. For example, the players may be given their own choice as to how to investigate the hidden cult in town, but however they choose to do so, they will eventually confront the cult leader in their hidden chapel; and they will always arrive just before their ritual is due to complete, no matter how long they took. Can be much more acceptable than ''Railroading'', but can be frustrating if mismanaged.

;RPG
:'''R'''ole-'''P'''laying '''G'''ame.

== S ==
;SA
:'''S'''omething '''A'''wful, the forum that brought us all here.

;SOP
:'''S'''tandard '''O'''perating '''P'''rocedure; a task carried out so often and so predictably by PCs that it no longer needs to be described at the table. A typical issue with '''OSR''' games in which players are often expected to describe every step of searching a hazardous dungeon; while announcing that your PC is poking every tile ahead with a 10' wooden pole to check for pits and hammering spikes into door hinges to prevent the doors closing behind them might provide exciting immersion for the first few games, it becomes rather tedious on the twentieth dungeon.

;Splat
:A trait of a character that is chosen from a fixed list; or, more specifically, a character's membership in a group that defines their identity and capabilities. Different from a [[#C|Class]] in that a Splat is typically also an actual social organization to which the PC belongs, for example a clan of vampires.

;Splatbook
:A supplementary book for a role-playing game, most often covering one particular subject. Their contents can vary in terms of quality ''and'' quantity. Too many splatbooks for one system can turn the game unstable. Came from White Wolf and their tendency to publish "kithbooks", "clanbooks", "tribebooks", etc, which were together referred to as "splatbooks".

;Story
:The sequence of events that are played out during an RPG. ''Not'' necessarily written in advance to any particular extent. The original and nature of stories in RPGs is a topic of constant circular argument between fans of different playstyles.

;Story Now
:Like '''GNS''', a term heavily diluted via decades of Internet debate. In its original meaning, it meant that the players should start a campaign capable enough to be the main characters of stories, rather than having to level up to that point. In its second meaning, it meant that the story should be written during play, not before or after. In its third meaning, it's the name of Ron Edwards' game system for ''Spione''.

;Storygame
:An RPG that focusses on producing a pleasing narrative as the result of play, and requires players to play with this goal in mind, rather than assuming they will play their characters to win. Sometimes used as an insult by [[#G|Grognards]].

== T ==

;TG
:'''T'''raditional '''G'''ames, the Something Awful subforum for board games, wargames and RPGs.

;TRPG / TTRPG
:'''T'''abletop, or possibly '''T'''actical or '''T'''able '''T'''alk, Role Playing Game. Usually used to distinguish tabletop based RPGs from purely computer-based ones such as ''Baldur's Gate''. Just to keep everyone confused, some groups prefer to use RPG to mean only TRPGs, and CRPG to mean computer-based ones.

== U ==
== V ==
== W ==

;World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game
:A euphemistic reference to ''Dungeons & Dragons''(tm) used on third-party books to avoid mentioning the trademarked name. Most books are careful not to refer to it as the world's ''best'' roleplaying game.

== X ==
== Y ==
== Z ==

[[Category:Help|Glossary]]