anyway.
A Penny for Your Thoughts
12-29-04
This is a lot to ask you to read. It's a couple years' worth of my, Meg's and Emily's gaming written up on the Forge:
Adventures in Improvised System 03 Oct 2003
more adventures in improvised system: techniques 17 Nov 2003
Adventures in Shared Character Vision 07 Dec 2003
Further More Adventures in Improvised System 09 Dec 2003
Adventures in RGFA Simulationism 30 Dec 2003
More Adventures in Shared Character Vision 09 Jan 2004
Adventures in Dramatic Drama 06 Apr 2004
I mention it because I'm not too interested in talking about why good rpg design is better than bad rpg design after all.
What I want to talk about is why good rpg design is better than fully functional undesigned play.
You have a small group of friends. You're all skilled collaborators. You know how to negotiate with one another in matters of creativity; you have productive collaborative relationships with one another outside of gaming. Further, you're all committed to the game, you're dedicated to making it fun for one another, and each of you is very interested in what the others have to say.
You've been roleplaying without formal rules, relying on open collaboration, for some years. You use dice occasionally, as a collaborative tool, but improvisationally - you don't even have character sheets with numbers on 'em. It's been the best roleplaying you've ever had.
What does game design have to offer you?
That's what I want to talk about.
On 12-29-04, Chris Goodwin wrote:
I'm torn between two responses.
On the one hand, if this hypothetical group is fully functional, then by definition what they've got works ideally for them.
On the other hand, for every system that has evolved naturally, it is possible to design a system that achieves the same purpose better or more efficiently.
So, here's what game design can offer them: an analysis of what they're trying to do, an application of theory to their process, and perhaps a design that more efficiently takes them where they want to go.
On 12-29-04, Chris Goodwin wrote:
PS. I'm not saying they're going to use any of it, but it's there for them if they want it.
On 12-29-04, Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
The situation you describe does not exist. No matter what the perception, you are playing with a ruleset. I seem to remember some rule... what was it called? Um - ah, the Lumpley Principle.
Hey! Is this a trick question or something? Anyway, the social conventions involved in play are your ruleset. New game design can offer you new ways to play role-playing games, and will probably feed into your organic ruleset that you usually use.
On 12-29-04, Chris wrote:
Presumably, game design offers constraints on the infinitude of techniques available to the fully functional open collaborators. Those limitations force (or at least encourage) a specific type of (hopefully fun) play that working without limitations or with other limitations will not.
Right?
I'm not sure that that makes it "better than fully functional undesigned play," but at least it's another mode of play. More choices is better than fewer...I mean, except when you want constraints...
On 12-30-04, Vincent wrote:
Here's something I wrote in a Forge post:
Let's say that you're playing a character who the rest of us really like a lot. We like him a whole lot. We think he's a nice guy who's had a rough time of it. The problem is, there's something you're trying to get at with him, and if he stops having a rough time, you won't get to say what you're trying to say.
Our hearts want to give him a break. For the game to mean something, we have to make things worse for him instead.
I'm the GM. What I want more than anything in that circumstance - we're friends, my heart breaks for your poor character, you're counting on me to give him more and more grief - what I want is rules that won't let me compromise.
I don't want to hurt your character and then point to the rules and say "they, they made me hurt your character!" That's not what I'm getting at.
I want, if I don't hurt your character, I want you to point to the rules and say, "hey, why didn't you follow the rules? Why did you cheat and let my guy off the hook? That sucked." I want the rules to create a powerful expectation between us - part of our unity of interest - that I will hurt your character. Often and hard.
We have a shared interest in the game - we both like your character, we're both interested in what you have to say, we both want things to go well. We also have an ongoing, constant agreement about what's happening right this second - that's the loody poodly. The rules should take those two things and build in-game conflict out of them.
You can see it plain as day in a bunch of games. Look at how My Life with Master's rules create the expectation that the GM will constantly have the Master "hose" the PCs. In Universalis, getting coins back into your bank depends on your participation in conflicts. In Primetime Adventures, the characters' Issue plus Screen Presence tells the GM just what to do - if I back off of the Issue, I'm not playing the game. (And then Fan Mail brings everyone in, so - like in Universalis - it's not just between you and me.) In my game Dogs in the Vineyard, the escalation rules force us both to play our characters passionately - there's tremendous pressure on us to, y'know, stick to our guns.
What a bunch of other games do is stop short. They establish our agreement about what's happening right this second, they contribute to our shared interest in the characters and setting - and that's it. They don't provoke us. I can, by the rules, back off your character's issues, let the conflicts fizzle, compromise and go easy, and we sit there going "I dunno, what do you wanna do?" all night. Or just as bad, the dull "things work out for the best this time too" characteristic of Star Trek: the Next Generation and games where we all like each other's characters and nobody's provoked by the rules to inflict pain.
On 12-30-04, Vincent wrote:
Something remarkable happens in well-designed play. When I hose your character, it brings us closer together as friends. You were counting on me to hose your character and I came through for you. Socially, interpersonally, it's just the same as when you were counting on me to pick up your kids from school and I came through for you. In well-designed play, in-game conflict arises from and then contributes to out-of-game closeness.
On 12-30-04, Matt wrote:
I think that applies equally to G and N games. In either type, the right amount of pushing results in a moment or two of DAMN, WHAT DO I DO NOW?
On 12-30-04, Vincent wrote:
I imagine that's true. I'm not qualified to talk about G games, though.
So now. Conflict Resolution creates trust and collaboration between the players while - if appropriately embedded in a full set of rules - escalating the in-game conflicts. Task Resolution may or may not escalate the in-game conflicts, but seriously undermines the collaboration between the players. In a Task Resolution game, if I hose your character, it doesn't create trust between us.
Here's a selection from the "Adventures in Dramatic Drama" writeup:
"Should I have known that?" Emily says, meaning should Trey have. "Did you plan that?" meaning did I cheat.
"I didn't plan it," I say. "But should Trey have known it? Would he have done something else?"
Emily thinks hard.
"Nope," she says. "That's what he'd'a done. That's what happened."
If we had been playing with Conflict Resolution rules, Emily wouldn't have had to ask me if I was cheating.
On 12-30-04, Matt wrote:
Do you think that someone who's never roleplayed before needs that trust support, or is it that bad games teach gamers to be suspicious?
On 12-30-04, Vincent wrote:
Oh no, I absolutely think that someone who's never roleplayed before needs well-designed rules. Bein' a gamer fucks you up in a lot of ways, but what I'm talking about - deriving in-game conflict from unity of interest - is genuinely hard. I wouldn't expect anybody to do it by instinct.
On 12-31-04, inky wrote:
Can you expand on the thing with conflict resolution and trust? It seems like you're making some leap here I don't have all the background for. Is the idea that because you're resolving the conflict you can have the actual events resolve in a way that keeps the integrity of people's character concepts?
Similarly, I don't get your analysis of the ADD quote. I read Emily's comment as meaning "Did you make her puke magma to get me to call Puliarus?" That doesn't seem like a conflict vs task resolution issue -- or even like cheating, really (assuming this means "railroading").
-Dan Shiovitz
On 12-31-04, Matt wrote:
I may be wrong, but I think in the above quote the important word is "resolution," not "conflict." It's about are there rules vs. do we just make it up as we go.
If there's rules in place, then Emily would know that she still has cool choices available to her, that her ability to contribute to the game/story has not diminished. That of course relies on the rules to do their job and make sure that's the case. But otherwise she has to trust V without any assistance. And you know, she probably knows better than to do that.
Rules that increase trust: stuff like "no player can remove your character from the story except you," or Sorcerer's free-and-clear stage in conflict.
On 12-31-04, Emily Care wrote:
"Good boundaries, good neighbors make." If you have clear rules everyone can have the same expectations and thus trust.
So right on, Matt. And while script immunity guidelines and free-and-clear type rules are explicitly about trust, really trust is an underlying motivation behind all rules.
Rules also exist to impart a _sense_ of impartiality to what happens in play, even if when you analyze it, that's not what's actually happening. I may be given choices, but they won't necessarily be choices that affect what I'm interested in establishing. With task resolution, the gm gets to decide which choices I get to make, thus what impact they will have. (ie do I get input on whether the safe opens, or whether what I want out of opening the safe is successful) With conflict resolution, I am involved in setting the stakes, and thus what effects my choices will have. I am empowered.
So, I am equating empowerment and the fulfillment of trust: the more empowered the player, the more trust would be justified. The less empowerment, the more actual "trust" between players and surrender of power is required in order for concensus to not break down.
In response to Dan, what I came up against in this example was the fact that I _personally_ had no idea that Paliarus would break Mirinus Mus' magical gift if she was brought to him to be healed. (I'm kind of dense this way. If characters work with the body I tend to think of them as "healers" despite what horrible awfulness the character may have wrought in the past. I recall having a character bring someone who had been hurt to the mage in the covenant who's sigil was to cause pain (Elias). Argh. Must be a character flaw in me.)
Anyway, since I somehow "missed" the very obvious implication that if Paliarus regularly breaks his apprentices' gifts that that's all he'd really be good for in trying to "help" someone else. It was plausible (I think, though Vincent or Meg may disagree) that Trey would not realize that that's what Paliarus would do--I mean, breaking your apprentice's gift is one thing, but another mage?!? crazy talk--so that's why I went with it. If I'd thought that Trey would have definitely known that that was a likely outcome, then I would have felt that I'd betrayed Trey, MM etc. by not having access to enough in-character information. That's specifically what broke down for me. It was a huge deciding point for many characters, it had to feel justifiable or else it would have ruined a lot of the game, for me.
How could rules have addressed this? What happened, which may _not_ be obvious, is that Vincent did a huge outcome resolution on my @ss. As soon as I said "Trey calls for Paliarus", Miranus Mus was as good as non-magic'd. That whole part was completely, well, not outside my ability to negotiate, but so well established by Vincent's portrayal of the Paliarus, that I couldn't argue it. I don't think Meg or I could or would have wanted to argue out of it, but for me it was such a huge thing (that I could feel guilty about!) that I had to be invested in what lead up to it, or it would always feel like I had made a big mistake. I've got a couple moments like that from other games that still haunt me.
For me it wasn't so much about trusting Vincent, as it was about me feeling like I'd made a huge blunder.
So, there are a lot of wierd things here. If we'd used conflict resolution, I'd have had more say in the outcome (ie P breaking M). If we'd established what was at stake more clearly, that might have helped me too. I just realized this moment that part of the problem for me was that until Vincent said it, I had no idea that MM's magic was on the table. That was a stake I was unprepared for. So CR would have let us negotiate what was at stake and have a time to work out together whether I was comfortable with that. Without it, I was left floundering going---"yikes! Where did that come from?"
And also, if I'd invoked some kind of fortune into play, then I could have bagged out of taking responsiblity for calling in P. Could've said: "but that's what the dice said!" Which would have let me sleep better at night, leaving my poor character to spend long sleepless nights thinking about the error of his ways.
best,
Em
On 12-31-04, Vincent wrote:
Here's how the episode might have played out in Dogs in the Vineyard:
-Me: "Murinus Mus is unconscious in your anteroom. Her heart's beating wicked slow, like a beat per minute or something."
-Em: "I help her."
-What's at stake: can Trey help her? We roll some dice.
-Em Raises: "I speed up her heart."
-I Reverse: "Okay, but that makes her puke magma! She pukes magma all over."
-Em Takes the Blow: "Yikes!" She Raises: "I send my boy for Puliarus!"
-I Take the Blow: "Puliarus comes." I Raise: "'Ah, bring her to my lab, I know just what to do.' Over the next twelve hours, he breaks her gift."
-Emily can't See my Raise. She Gives. "Oh shit," she says. She lost the conflict; Trey can't help Murinus Mus.
Here's another way it might have played out in Dogs in the Vineyard:
-Me: "Murinus Mus is unconscious in your anteroom. Her heart's beating wicked slow, like a beat per minute or something."
-Em: "I help her."
-What's at stake: can Trey help her? We roll some dice.
-Em Raises: "I speed up her heart."
-I Block or Dodge: "It stutters a bit but you can't rouse it." I Raise: "And then ... it stops."
-Em Takes the Blow. "Oh shit." She Raises: "I send my boy for Puliarus."
-I Block or Dodge: "Your boy's gone for a long time." I Raise: "While he's gone, Murinus Mus' hair burns, scalp outward, like each little hair burns red and turns to ash. Her skin's glowing, the fire in her is so bright it's shining through. Your carpet starts to smoke."
-Em Blocks or Dodges: "No way. I carefully lift the flame off my candle with my fingers and rub it into her skin like salve, it draws the inner fire out." She Raises: "I rub it onto her lips and eyelids too, and when she responds to that I tip it from my fingers into her mouth like I would water. With my help she can control her Twilight."
-I'm out of dice, I can't See. I Give. Trey helped Murinus Mus. "She starts to shiver violently like she's freezing to death, but her heart's beating again. 'Trey,' she says. 'Trey. I need more salamander eggs. Get me more or I'm lost, I'm lost.' "
Here's how it might have played out with Task Resolution and a GM (me):
-Me: "Murinus Mus is unconscious in your anteroom. Her heart's beating wicked slow, like a beat per minute or something."
-Em: "I help her."
-What's at stake: can Trey help her?
-Em: "I speed up her heart."
-We roll: success! "Okay, but that makes her puke magma! She pukes magma all over."
-Em looks irritated. I just turned her success into a setback.
-Em: "Okay... I send my boy to get Puliarus."
-We roll: success! "Okay, Puliarus comes. He breaks her gift!"
-Em made two successful rolls, but I still resolved the stakes against her. Trey didn't help Murinus Mus.
-Em: "Dammit Vincent, you robbed me. This sucks."
The way we really played it was a lot more like the Task Resolution way. Emily was like "Trey helps Murinus Mus" and I was like, "actually, no, sorry, he destroys her gift." Emily, naturally, looked at me with narrow eyes, like "oh indeed?"
See how Conflict Resolution rules would have allowed us both to play our side of the conflict, fully and ferociously, without any hesitation, suspicion, or hard feelings?
(Crossposted with Emily.)
On 12-31-04, inky wrote:
Hrm. Ok, I think I'm just being thick here, but although these are helpful, they don't get at my central question, which I guess is "once Trey sends for Puliarus, isn't Murinus Mus screwed? and how does the type of resolution system help that?"
Like, hmm, I can imagine a resolution system that would get of these kind of situations by removing all narration before the roll (is that FitB?) -- you do the roll first and then say "Emily lost with a critical failure? Well, crap -- I guess that means, uh, Trey called for Puliarus and he broke her gift"
But I don't see how it works with conflict-resolution FitM from Vincent's examples. What happens in Vincent's first example if Emily had enough dice to See & Raise at the end instead of having to Give? And how is it something that couldn't occur in the task resolution example?
-Dan Shiovitz
On 12-31-04, Matt wrote:
That all depends, if I understand them rules, on how many dice Emily uses to see. If she sees with one die, then maybe Pularius actually hurts himself while trying to remove MM's gift. If it's a block or dodge, then she stops him from doing it just in time. If it's a "takin' the blow," then probably MM loses her gift.
On 12-31-04, Vincent wrote:
Dan: Matt's right. Thusly:
[We join the conflict in progress]
-Em Raises: "I send my boy for Puliarus!"
-I Take the Blow: "Puliarus comes." I Raise: "'Ah, bring her to my lab, I know just what to do.' Over the next twelve hours, he breaks her gift."
-Emily Blocks or Dodges: "Actually, after an hour or two Trey comes to check on them and sees how it's going..."
-And the conflict goes on to whatever conclusion it goes on to.
Task Resolution can go on more or less indefinitely too; that's not the distinction. The distinction is, do I decide whether Murinus Mus is screwed, or do we?
On 1-1-05, Charles wrote:
Vincent,
I'm not sure that this is actually a good example of the distinction you are trying to use it for. As near as I can tell, the system you were operating under at the time was closer to conflict resolution than task resolution. The reason that Emily didn't try to change the result after you declared it was not that the existing system did not permit her to do so. The reason she didn't was that the subsequent part of the action was not the part she was unsure about. The part of the action that she was unsure about had already happened. It sounds like she considered excercizing the nuclear option of a 'take back,' but rejected it. The question was never over whether you should be able to make that decision (Puliarus destroys Murinus Mus's gift), but over whether she had misplayed her character by not realizing something that her character possibly should have realized.
Any of the three DitV style results could have happened in the game as played, but Emily didn't (for whatever reason) have Trey resolve the situation himself (one of your alternate results), and didn't have Trey intervene after calling Puliarus (another alternate result). Instead she chose to take the blow and allow your description to stand. Her decision to do so was undoubtably influenced by the fact that both characters involved at that point fell under your say, so it might have been perceived as her stepping on your toes to step in with an "Actually, Trey stays around while Puliarus works, and notices after a few hours that something is horribly wrong"... On the other hand, she may simply have felt that once Puliarus shows up, Trey flees, glad to have handed of the situation to someone else.
I think that it is noteworthy that Emily's main goal was not to have Trey succeed in helping Murinus Mus, and her source of concern was not that she had failed in that goal. Emily's main goal was to play Trey correctly, and her main concern was that she had missed realizing something that Trey shouldn't have missed.
On the critical issues of "Would Trey have actually made the decision Emily made as his player?" conflict resolution doesn't seem to offer any answer.
Here, actually, task resolution would have provided a potential out, since you could have conceivably offered her an out by asking if Trey would have realized that her (Emily as Trey) decision was going to lead to Puliarus destroying Murinus Mus's gift, Emily could then have said "I don't know, lets role against his intelligence" (or whatever) and she would then have been freed from the doubt over whether she had missed something that Trey wouldn't have.
However, I have met few people who like task resolution of character decision making: "Do I think of a good plan?" rolls die, "An 18, your plan is a doozy. You remember that the guards are often distracted ..." So I don't think that that helps either.
On 1-1-05, Charles wrote:
Vincent,
I guess the other thing that strikes me is this:
I really think you were using a less formalized and much less abstracted conflict resolution system than Dogs, but that you were still using conflict resolution (not task resolution). In an odd way, the lack of formalization meant that it was important to all of you that you were trying to play things as they happened, not taking sides in relation to a set of goals. Formalizing conflict resolution adds an aspect of making explicit the stakes and the flow of the game, but that explicitness also lays bare aspects of the game that are sometimes better hidden or supressed.
When Emily asked you if you had planned that, or as you describe it, if you had cheated, I think that she was asking if you went into the scene with the goal of having Murinus Mus destroyed. What you are offering as a solution to her concern that that was what you were doing seems to me to say (before the start of the scene): "Yes, I am playing the universe trying to destroy Murinus Mus, and you are playing the universe trying to help him. Roll your dice and see which of us wins, then we'll play it out." This seems an utter rejection of what Emily was asking for, which was the answer you gave at the time: "No, I just set up the situation and then played out the parts I was called on to play."
I'm not saying it isn't a valid solution to make the conflict explicit, since at least it protects against this sort of situation where Emily didn't see the stakes on the table until too late (although the nominal stakes were already explicitly life or death, that didn't mean the stakes actually in play were life or death), but I think it has to be acknowledged that it would represent a radical change in the style of play going on.
Does that make sense?
On 1-1-05, Charles wrote:
And to add another potato to the soup, I'm making my way through the posts you list, and there is a lot of very interesting stuff there. I am seriously thinking of forcing my fellow players out here to read through it, or maybe picking out the salient bits.
We've been doing co-GMing for not quite a year, and it has been going well, but we have occaisionally hit some snags. I definitely think you guys vastly larger experience will be a very useful guide to us, and I'm grateful for the parts of it that are online.
I guess that answers your original question, at least from my vantange point: game theory and game design offers a huge amount to my group.
On 1-4-05, Vincent wrote:
Charles! Your analysis of our actual play is dead on, I think.
Hm. Maybe I'd note that Emily was concerned that she might not be playing Trey truly only because the stakes were so high. Trey made a dozen decisions that session probably; Emily didn't second-guess any of the others.
This is just exactly as you observe: "In an odd way, the lack of formalization meant that it was important to all of you that you were trying to play things as they happened, not taking sides in relation to a set of goals." Second-guessing the integrity of our play is part of our Conflict Resolution system. It's part of what we do instead of rolling dice. (Another part of what we do is call for do-overs, as in the "Adventures in Improvised System" story.)
On 1-4-05, Emily Care wrote:
Charles wrote:
'What you are offering as a solution to her concern that that was what you were doing seems to me to say (before the start of the scene): "Yes, I am playing the universe trying to destroy Murinus Mus, and you are playing the universe trying to help him. Roll your dice and see which of us wins, then we'll play it out." '
If we'd been using Dogs resolution, I think that's what we would have done. In which case I'd have been free to counter Vincent's play of Paliarus with Trey coming in to check etc. What we were doing was using unstructured drama (to use Ron's phrase) which has its absolute joys, and it's dangers too. But if we'd used mechanics to structure it, the stakes I was playing for would have matched the actions I narrated.
It may be that in cases like this one, or the certamen ritual from the original Adventures in Improv Sys thread, we might want to pull out mechanics to alleviate the squinchyness I experienced. As it went, it ended up being much like the kind of bait and switch job that task resolution can give you: "I call Paliarus for help." "Okay, your boy gets Paliarus, mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Even though we are experienced at negotiating together we can fall into it becoming "I say" rather than "we say". Odd, isn't that?
I've started noticing that the way we play, we set up arguments ahead of time in our discussions and background setting. My character Soraya successfully convinced Vincent's Duke to delay attacking a dragon based on situational leverage points (eg Political pressure on the duke to address other related issues) we'd created for her in the discussion prior to the in-character conversation she had. In the MM interchange, I felt that Vincent had made a strong enough argument about Paliarus' breaking gifts that I did not argue it. However, what I cut myself out of was the possibility of other forms of intervention.
So, my question would be: how can we better recognize the need for structuring our drama, before it gets sticky? Or are there ways we can address the issue of matching stakes in more freeform ways that are equally satisfying? This gets back to Vincent's original question. What do rules offer folks who game like we do?
And Charles, I'm glad these discussions are helpful. Thanks for weighing in as a member of one of the few groups who could answer!
yrs,
Emily
On 1-4-05, Vincent wrote:
Oh and also, in Dogs terms, Murinus Mus losing her gift was Fallout, not stakes. The stakes were "can Trey help her?" The specifics of his success or failure were totally up in the air. It wasn't until Emily had him summon Puliarus that Murinus Mus' gift was in danger, and that would have been true if we'd been using Dogs' dice too.
On 1-4-05, Ricardo Madeira wrote:
I have nothing meaningful to contribute, Vincent manages to convey it all in so few words it's like magic... just wanted to say all these posts (and other previous discussions) are great stuff! All you guys keep this up, because there are people reading all of this with great interest... like me!
Take care!
http://roleplay.turnodanoite.com/
On 1-4-05, Vincent wrote:
Thanks, Ricardo!
Charles, would you say more about this? "Formalizing conflict resolution adds an aspect of making explicit the stakes and the flow of the game, but that explicitness also lays bare aspects of the game that are sometimes better hidden or supressed."
Like what?
On 1-4-05, Charles wrote:
No time at the moment to respond in depth, but I really love this statement from Vincent:
Second-guessing the integrity of our play is part of our Conflict Resolution system. It's part of what we do instead of rolling dice.
That is possibly the best description I have heard of the mechanics of our style of play.
On 1-4-05, Meguey wrote:
I think a key part of our particular style is the total delight when things unfold in truely unexpected ways, like the whole Trey-Murinus Mus-Puliarus illustration above. Since we all have equal GM responsibility, and there is not one vision or story a single GM is trying to sheperd the players/characters through, we are *all* on the look-out for 'what happens'. We also discuss things ahead of time, talkng theory, checking to see what threads are current, seeing where we want to play that session. I must say, we 'fire wall' *extreamly well*. Things we have discussed ahead of time (may) eventually come up in play, and we're still surprised at how the characters respond.
Because of these two factors, we all get to share in the discovery moment. The T-MM-P thing, the discovery that the bone wand was made to move dead bodies, and the revelation last session that the Griffin might just not care if we live or not. I bet, no, I think I even *know* that the whole idea that Puliarus would break Murinus Mus was as much a surprise to Vincent as to Emily and I. It's just cool.
This 'watching out for cool stuff' is a trained skill, I think, and sometimes it's vital to the texture and momentum of the game. There have been many times when a whole amazing loop of story has unfolded because I said (years ago in another Ars Magica home-brew w/Vincent and Esther) "Ok, I don't have anything to run this session. What do you guys see?" And one of our characters gutted another on the practice field. Bam! Now that I can run with!
On 1-4-05, Charles wrote:
This is a bit of a struggle to write, and I really wish I had time to read way more Forge, so we would have a shared vocabulary, and probably some of these distinctions and puzzles would already be established ground. Please feel more than welcome to point me toward Forge discussions, articles, etc that illuminate these questions if you feel like it. I don’t want to beat old ground.
I’m not sure how much it is a question of formalized versus informal mechanics, and how much it is simply a question of what the mechanics focus on. However, since formal mechanics necessarily are more focused than informal mechanics, any formal mechanic will produce equivalent problems for some situation. Here, the formal mechanic is something along the lines of the DitV mechanics (on which I speak largely in ignorance, as I haven’t had a chance to read them yet).
A formalized conflict resolution system that emphasizes a contest over escalating stakes will cause scenes to tend to be seen and explored as escalating contests over stakes. While many interactions can be seen in this way, not all interactions are best seen in this way. I don't mean that those features should never be focused on, and I don't even mean that an entire game that focuses on those features couldn't be satisfying and enjoyable. I just mean that such a system (if used heavily) would tend to promote such a way of seeing interactions, and that there are games that wouldn't benefit from using such a mechanic heavily, because that way of seeing isn't what they are primarily about. On the other hand, having such a mechanic around is probably a good thing, in much the same way that having a formal combat or certamen or skill learning mechanism around is a good thing. Some situations can't be adequately resolved by the "Second guessing integrity" mechanics.
Specifically, because such a mechanic requires the players to take sides in a conflict, I feel like it might undercut the "Second-guessing the integrity" mechanic that I value very highly. It is very different to say "What happens to MM? Can Trey help? Vincent and Emily find out" (existing informal mechanic) than it is to say “the stake is ‘Can Trey help MM?’ Vincent is playing the side of 'No' and Emily is playing the side of 'Yes.'" (formal mechanic) Under the existing mechanics, Emily could have had Trey do something she thought might be mildly useful, and you might have realized that in fact it would be hugely useful, entirely healing MM and reaping other benefits for Trey as well. In the existing mechanic, it would have been entirely natural for you to reveal that. If you were playing the Universes says no, then you would have accepted her mild intended effect, but would have not had as much incentive to make it extremely beneficial. Likewise, a formal mechanic might have lead Emily to continue defending Murinus Mus after he had already been doomed, particularly if (for instance) she still had the dice to do it.
Emily might have felt an obligation to step in as the world to contest your statement that Pularius destroys Murinus Mus's gift, since that would be the understood basis for how things are resolved. Even though the mechanics might have provided her no more warning that summoning Pularius meant that Murinus Mus's gift was lost (thing that shocked her and made her worry that she had missed seeing what Trey would have seen), and even though she didn't contest (once it had been revealed in play) that this is what would have happened, if the mechanics had more explicitly given her a neutral mechanism with which to prevent Trey's actions from having the stated effect, she might have felt a desire/ obligation to use them. This wouldn’t have lightened her concern over whether she had failed to see what Trey would have seen, although it would have greatly lightened the worry by decreasing the significance of what she didn’t see (over even demonstrating that Trey didn’t mis-see). However, it would have destroyed a powerful and memorable moment of surprise by removing the significance if Emily eventually won out (defending MM’s gift from Pularius), and if she had lost out and MM’s gift had in fact been destroyed anyway, it still wouldn’t ameliorate her concern that Trey should have seen it coming. Big events that the player doesn’t see coming are both stressful to the player “Should my character have seen that coming?” and immensely exhilarating “Wow, none of us saw that coming!” I don’t think a formal mechanic would effect that much one way or the other, but they do tend to force things down more controlled paths.
Formal game mechanics represent a fairly strong light on the world. How to handle things in the area that mechanics focus on is clear and simple (if the rules are good). This leads to a natural tendency to highlight those aspects of the world that the rules are focused on. Informal mechanics are inherently more flexible than formal mechanics, even if they don't handle any given thing as well as a formal mechanic focused on that specific thing would. This is why D&D campaigns tend to consist of endless combat: that is what the rules say how to do, so that is what the rules say you should be doing. A rule system like DitV (which I admittedly still haven't read) emphasizes contests over escalating stakes, so a game run on that rule system will likely emphasize situations as contests over escalating stakes. Most interactions can be described in that way, but most interactions don't have to be described in that way. Situations viewed in that way will work out differently than they would if they were viewed in another way.
I think that made some sense.
On 1-5-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
Charles, I think your concern is valid, but I don't think the issue is the formality of the mechanics, it's the position the players take vis á vis the conflict at hand.
For instance, in Prime Time Adventures, it's my job as Producer to show up Monday night ready to a) put the characters through the wringer and b) make sure they come out with good ways to solve their issues on their way through it.
Since the goal of the game is to come up with a satisfying solution for each character, everyone is shouting out ideas. I'm saying both "You see him raise his rifle, and you know he's aiming at your friend. You're too far to reach him, and you're out of bullets." and "Oo! Oo! You have that knife the wise man gave you! He told you it would save your friendship! Throw it at the guy!"
Then the dice hit the table. If they fall the protag's way, the prophecy is fulfilled. If they go against him, it just means the prophecy's more complicated. Maybe the knife is now sitting there beside the target guy on the ground and someone uses it to dig out the bullet when nothing else could. Maybe the wise man's a charlatan and now we have a plot where we go find him and kick his ass.
The dice give us all a surprise when they hit, and we're all in it together. That way, no cheating, everyone gets surprised sometimes, and I can cheer for the protags all I want without fucking things up.
On 1-5-05, Vincent wrote:
Charles: brilliant.
1) I don't think we should play our Ars Magica game with Dogs' rules. They'd be all wrong. They'd turn it into Dogs.
2) I understand your concern about flexibility to be really a concern about suitability. Every game calls for a single view of interaction - or a family of related views if you like - because the situations in every game follow one another. Click click click, like dominos. The trick is, hitting on the right view of interaction for this particular game.
3) "The right view of interaction for this game" is so exactly where I want this conversation to go. So exactly.
So do I need to back up my position that when you say "flexibility" you mean "suitability," or are you with me?
On 1-5-05, Emily Care wrote:
It sounds to me as if suitability is very much in question, but the issues is that formal mechanics are less flexible than informal rules/mechanics in that formal ones provide a narrower view for a game.
How to provide the right view of interaction(suitability) while preserving appropriate breadth of view(flexibility).
On 1-5-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
Yeah. Interesting topic. I don't know.
Uh... so the goal is, correct me if I'm wrong, to have a system whereby flexibility is not lost while using resolution mechanics to prevent, for instance, enthusiasm, personality-bigness, or hurt feelings from ruling the story. Right?
(Emily, email me at joshua [atmark, obviously] swingpad [you can use a period here if you like] com. I can't find your address.)
On 1-5-05, Jason wrote:
In the beginning, Vincent wrote:
"You've been roleplaying without formal rules, relying on open collaboration, for some years. You use dice occasionally, as a collaborative tool, but improvisationally - you don't even have character sheets with numbers on 'em. It's been the best roleplaying you've ever had.
What does game design have to offer you?"
I'm posting here for the first time - hello everyone.
I wanted to chime in and say that good design offers ways to challenge calcified assumptions built up during years of collaborative play.
Just played Donjon over the holidays with a couple of long-standed by geographically dispersed gaming-buddies. Their roleplaying sounds exactly as descirbed by Vincent - creative collaborations that require litte in the way of written down formal rules.
Donjon's 1 successs = 1 fact or 1 die rule really threw one of them for a loop - and made her see that she had the actual power to drive the story in any way she wanted - not just in ways constrained by the subtle collaborative negotiaions going on around the table.
It highlighted the (new for her) idea that not just the GM determines limits on the direction of play - but that she as a player could help define those limits through explicit rules.
Very cool stuff.
That's what good design can do for a group like Vincent describes.
-Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"
On 1-5-05, Vincent wrote:
Emily: "...formal mechanics are less flexible than informal rules/mechanics in that formal ones provide a narrower view for a game."
That's the question, but I think that the answer is clearly no. Our informal rules provide just as narrow a view of situation as Dogs' formal rules do.
The advantage that our informal rules have over Dogs' rules is that they grew up with the situations in our game. They're guaranteed to be suitable. (Dogs' rules have exactly the same advantage when you play Dogs.)
On 1-5-05, Chris (bankuei) wrote:
Hi Vincent-
Is it that the rule provide a narrow view or is it always a narrow view? I mean, informal rules, or important pieces left out of formal ones(such as many rpg texts) are basically open to group interpretation.
The final(or whatever current interpretation) is probably just as narrow, the only time it diverges is when A) rules texts are presented in a confusing fashion that seems to suggest two (or more) interpretations B) different folks within the group have different interpretations and are trying to make it THE group interpretation or C) folks have decided to modify and fiddle with whatever rules are going on at that point.
Basically, when all the nitpicks about Lumpley Principle are worked out for a group, they run smoothly without thinking about it at all(narrow view) until somebody thinks about reworking it. Even if everyone in the group is on the get-along-gang tip, there's still effort to be applied in changing the rules, from making sure it is group acceptable to actually getting everyone to digest the new form of play.* At worst, there's serious struggles and conflicts with everyone at the table regarding reworking "how we play".
I would say that well designed rules nail that "How we play" and make it exceedingly clear, to minimize the different forms of interpretations and conflicts that might arise at the table. Naturally, if folks want to drift from there, renegotiation is dependant on the group, but if the fundamental issues (such as GNS, or IIEE) are handled, the negotiation tends to be rather small.
*Thought struck me- this is the conceptual issue most people have in playing Sorcerer from the text. Most people cross over from hardcore Sim play, and a great deal of the necessary techniques for Nar play are in the supplements- so most people just interpret the rules to play Sim, and all they get from it is, "Well, I don't see what all this Nar stuff is about..."
On 1-5-05, Meguey wrote:
Hi, Jason, welcome aboard.
I'm trying to clarify, mostly for myself, what has been said to answer Vincent's original question "What does game design have to offer you?" , so please forgive the re-cap, and feel free to corret me if I've gotten you wrong or missed anyone.
Chris said:
"An analysis of what they're trying to do, an application of theory to their process, and perhaps a design that more efficiently takes them where they want to go."
Clint said:
"New game design can offer you new ways to play role-playing games, and will probably feed into your organic ruleset that you usually use."
Vincent said:
"In well-designed play, in-game conflict arises from and then contributes to out-of-game closeness."
Emily Care said:
"'Good boundaries, good neighbors make.' If you have clear rules everyone can have the same expectations and thus trust.Rules also exist to impart a _sense_ of impartiality to what happens in play, even if when you analyze it, that's not what's actually happening."
Charles said:
"Formal game mechanics represent a fairly strong light on the world. How to handle things in the area that mechanics focus on is clear and simple (if the rules are good). This leads to a natural tendency to highlight those aspects of the world that the rules are focused on. Informal mechanics are inherently more flexible than formal mechanics, even if they don't handle any given thing as well as a formal mechanic focused on that specific thing would."
Jason said:
"Good design offers ways to challenge calcified assumptions built up during years of collaborative play."
Ok, so now I can say:
"Game design usually offers me either:
1)a bundle of complex and convoluted expressions of someone else's fantasy world and a non-intuitive conflict and/or task resolution system that may or may not feel married to the world,
OR
2) a way of structuring thematic story-telling so that the player can co-create with the author, with conflict and/or task resolution systems that fit with the feel of the game while suporting the social contracts of the players, with an eye toward clairty and succinctness of rules."
I realize conversation has moved on a bit from the original question, but I just wanted to have it clear in my head.
On 1-5-05, Jason wrote:
Meguey:
Just a quick question - I don't know if I get where your:
"1) a bundle of complex and convoluted expressions of someone else's fantasy world and a non-intuitive conflict and/or task resolution system that may or may not feel married to the world"
At least, out of the the preceeding discussions? Isn't everyone talking about good game design - which is theoretically your #2?
I'm just not sure what you're getting at unless you're contrasting bad design (#1) with good design (#2)?
I'm just trying to put my mind around all of the good thoughts here - so I apologize if I'm coming off as a jerk...
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"
On 1-6-05, Charles wrote:
I've never played with a formal rules system that was conflict based rather than task based, so I can't actaully say with certainty that a formalized conflict based mechanic is more restrictive than a informal conflict based mechanic. And I do recognize that informal mechanics do not have limitles flexibility.
However, yes, I still need to be convinced that an informal mechanic is not more flexible than a formal mechanic. Possibly, what I would be happiest with is the idea that one should have multiple formal mechanics which one can imbed within a set of informal mechanics.
While the Trey-MM-Pularius scene might have benefited from the use of a formal Dogs type mechanic, the game as a whole wouldn't. Just as you might break out the Certamen formal mechanics the next time you have certamen happen in your game, there might be points at which you would choose to pull out a Dogs mechanic within your game. Informal mechanics (consensus and second guessing) are (to my mind) better able to encompass disparate formal mechanics than system of formal mechanics can. If the formal mechanics are conceived of as the main system (instead of the informal mechanics being the main system), then it becomes very difficult to have formally compatible formal mechanics for a sufficient diversity of styles of action, and the formal mechanics place a limit on what is seen to be playable.
I think this relates to what Meg describes as option 1) The bundle of rules and world that may or may not make sense. This is the form that game design is primarily encountered: someone comes up with a new idea in game design (or a new idea in world design), writes a game, and other people read it and try it out. Sometimes it all comes together brilliantly, sometimes not so much, but always it is something which supplants the existing system of play that your group is using.
Option 2 is where game design is recognized as providing tools to an established group. New ways of thinking about play, as Jason describes, can come from trying out a new or different game, but I think they can also come from supplying game design principles to players, essentially offering a gaming group a chance to describe what informal and formal mechanics they curently use, show them what other sorts of mechanics and techniques other people have developed, and allow them to work out what parts of their own mechanics don't actually do what they'd like them to, or what new mechanics would do something that they hadn't thought possible.
On 1-6-05, Charles wrote:
Emily: "...formal mechanics are less flexible than informal rules/mechanics in that formal ones provide a narrower view for a game."
Vincent: That's the question, but I think that the answer is clearly no. Our informal rules provide just as narrow a view of situation as Dogs' formal rules do.
I would need to be convinced of this. While your informal mechanics are not as well suited to handle situations in which two characters are directly in conflict with each other, and a mechanic of bidding over rising stakes is ideal, as Dogs is, your informal mechanics are still capable of muddling through such a situation. However, your informal mechanics are also capable of handling very different situations (such as two characters involved in a deep conversation) that Dogs would have no way to describe. Beyond that, an informal mechanic of consensus and second guessing can incorporate formal mechanics, using them only when they will produce markedly better results than an informal mechanic. If the players reach a consensus that their second guessing needs to be backed up by some rules for a few moments, they can decide to use those rules for as long as they feel like it. However, if the game is agreed upon as being played under a specific set of formal rules, it becomes more difficult to decide that this particular situation shouldn't be handled by the formal rules, but is better resolved by second guessing and consensus (particularly since most formal mechanics highlight conflict as the basic interaction, and it can be difficult, once people are in the mode of thinking from a conflict based position to agree to jump to consensus). As you say, if you used Dogs rules, your game would no longer be what it is, and would become a Dogs game.
Vincent: The advantage that our informal rules have over Dogs' rules is that they grew up with the situations in our game. They're guaranteed to be suitable. (Dogs' rules have exactly the same advantage when you play Dogs.)
Although, in the scene under discussion, it is agreed that some other system than your informal system might have been more suitable, perhaps even a Dogs like system, so it can't be that your home grown system is ideal for your game. Also, many home grown systems are awful (which is what game design has to offer experienced groups). Just because it seems to work okay, doesn't mean that it actually works very well. Maybe it worked better when you were playing a very different sort of game, and the system didn't change as fast as the game.
This last part seems much more true of formal mechanics than of informal mechanics, and I think is one reason that many groups abandon formal mechanics for informal mechanics. Informal mechanics adjust to play, while formal mechanics do not (unless you are a game designer, and even then I've played under some very bad home-brewed formal mechanics).
If the informal mechanics you have been using obviously don't work well for some set of interactions that you are interested in playing, you create new ones. If the formal mechanics you have been using don't support the set of interactions, you drop them and switch to informal mechanics.
Second guessing and consensus can handle almost anything. No formal mechanic can handle half as many situations.
On 1-6-05, Chris (bankuei) wrote:
On 1-6-05, Chris (bankuei) wrote:
Hi Meguey,
Actually, this is my summary right here:
"I would say that well designed rules nail that "How we play" and make it exceedingly clear, to minimize the different forms of interpretations and conflicts that might arise at the table."
and that actually links directly to what Charles has said here-
"Second guessing and consensus can handle almost anything. No formal mechanic can handle half as many situations."
See, the thing is, in play, technically there is an infinite amount of possible situations, so of course group judgement is covering everything that rules do not. But for any game- rules are designed to cover the most frequent situations. So while group negotation may handle the widest range of possiblities(infinite really), formal rules typically handle a great deal of the events in play.
Consider any routine you may have at school or work. It handles typically 80-99% of the cases you would deal with. Of course, figuring stuff out raw is something you have to do everyday, but the routine cuts the time down and handles the majority of the situations that happen to you within that framework(if not the widest possible range of things). Formal rules are the same way.
The thing is, EVERYTHING is a part of group agreement, even "We're all going to sit around and play", so of course the formal rules are also part of that agreement. The problem with trying to change informal rules is that you can't "just create" new ones, because you never "created" old ones. There's no formal recognition of the rules, so if anything is going wrong, you can't really point to a set of rules, instead you have to play psychotherapist with the group and try to figure out what's going on BETWEEN the players, and dig out what's the cause of the problem.
"Oh, Jim is always reasonable, and he always has a reasonable argument, so we TEND to listen to Jim more, but the reasonable-ness has killed a lot of the wonder of play, and created some serious contradictions as far as setting and play..."
If only it was that easy to pull the thorn from the lion's paw...
Which isn't to say that formal rules can handle anything and everything, because at its heart, all play comes back to group consensus, whether we consent to play by these rules in this book, or by arguing it out everything we disagree. What it does say though, is that when you have problems with informal rules, you have to 1) try to verbalize unspoken issues and behavior patterns, which most of us are not good at, even more so with friends, and 2) correct behavior patterns...(want to try to give up smoking?).
When there's formal rules, they serve as a useful tool both for putting things on the table, distancing the problem from the people(to a degree), at least in that you can ask to change the rules, thereby asking to change the behavior pattern instead of saying, "Hey Bill! Stop being an ass!", which usually does wonders for group consensus :P
On 1-6-05, Charles wrote:
Chris,
Its intriguing that we come to opposite conclusions on which is easier to change: informal mechanics or formal mechanics.
One of the games I play in uses the Ars Magica magic system (when we feel like we need formal mechanics in play, and more importantly in character generation). We don't use the Ars Magica system because we love it. We use it because we once loved it. At this point, the mechanics are built into the world history, so the basics structure would stay in any case. Also, none of us love system generation, so none of us want to try our hands at creating a new system that would better reflect how we think about magic now. Within this world (and gaming group), we recently switched from a single GM style of play to a multi/co/un-GM'd style of play. That transition went off with few hitches, and the game is moving pretty nicely after less than a year of play.
The other game I play in uses a cludgy house system designed by 3 people, one of whom I've never met, and the other two don't play in this game. The GM was introduced to gaming within this house system, so she still uses it (also, one of the creators was in the game at the beginning, but dropped out more than six months ago). The GM agrees that it is a fairly broken system that seriously promotes certain types of characters getting to hog screen time, and she uses the rules as lightly as possible. However, she hasn't switched to anything else, as she isn't a game designer, and hasn't seen an existing game that fits the world any better. The previous game she ran used the same system, but had a totally different feel, largely because the setting and the play style (informal mechanics) were different.
While there may well be people out there who say, half way through a long running campaign, "Hey wouldn't this D&D campaign be more fun if we ran it using the Feng Shui rules, with maybe the magic system from Mage?" I know I don't play with them. We are much more likely to say, "I think that our play hasn't been epic enough, maybe we should make things more epic," or "I think you (the GM) haven't been acknowledging my attempts to affect the outcome by describing what happens. What would I need to do to get my descriptions to be accepted by you?"
For me, game design principles are most useful when they highlight issues of informal mechanics. They are also useful when they relate to what situations are better handled by specific styles of formal mechanics.
Game design of informal mechanics seems to me to be a fantastically underexplored field (at least outside of the Forge). Very few published game books deal with informal mechanics in anything other than a sloppy, last minute manner, and the text book hasn't been written yet. I think this may be part of why it is so hard to change the underlying informal rules. If more people understood their informal rules one tenth as well as they understand their formal rules, it would be much easier to say "Hey, I don't think our consensus reaching methods are getting us where we want to go" (but in much more detail), instead of saying "Hey Bill! Stop being such an ass!"
On 1-6-05, Charles wrote:
J: Charles, I think your concern is valid, but I don't think the issue is the formality of the mechanics, it's the position the players take vis á vis the conflict at hand.
True. I just think that formal mechanics will almost always have a specific slant on what positions the players take, with Dogs and PTV (for instance) pushing very different positions. I still feel that informal mechanics will usually allow players to take a greater variety of positions vis á vis conflict.
I admit that I may be wrong that informal mechanics are more flexible in what positions they allow players to take, and certainly one of the potential problem with informal mechanics is that they make it harder to see what stereotyping and restricting of player position relative to conflict have developed. However, I still feel that one of the main advantages of informal mechanics is flexibility. The great disadvantage is probably something that Vincent mentioned earlier as a flaw in task based mechanic systems (which is to say, ones in which conflict resolution is handled through generally unarticulated informal mechanics): lack of range and inability to handle extreme positions without things turning ugly. However, when the informal mechanics are highlighted, thought about and talked about, rather than being the unspoken backing to a formal mechanic, then there is generally going to be strong trust building mechanisms in the informal mechanics, which will better support extreme positions.
However, if you want a game that focuses heavily on a particular set of player positions relative to conflict, then I agree that a formal conflict based mechanic is likely to be ideal, since I definitely feel that a well designed formal mechanic is better able to handle most any specific type of interaction than an equivalently well designed informal mechanic.
On 1-6-05, Vincent wrote:
Charles, how much flexibility are you really taking advantage of?
Here's the circle containing all the possible ways we can envision situation. Here inside it is the circle containing all the ways Meg, Emily and I actually do envision situation, over the course of this particular game. How big is the smaller circle?
The situations that happen over the course of the game follow from one another, both causally and thematically. The players remain themselves, mostly. We care about what we care about and we build situations that reflect it, resolve them along the lines we care about into new situations that still reflect it. One way of looking at situations - sufficiently broad, but still one way - is what every game will have.
This: "if you want a game that focuses heavily on a particular set of player positions relative to conflict" is every game. Your game focuses heavily on a particular set of player positions relative to conflict already, as we speak. It can't help it! You aren't infinitely many people, or infinitely changeable, and the situations in your game are very, very finite. You need just enough flexibility to suit every possible situation in your game - same as Dogs.
On 1-6-05, Meguey wrote:
Jason-
Yes, I'm giving the 'good design/bad design' picture. And yes, I have a clear preference for the 2nd option.
And ditto about the good thoughts around here.
Chris (bankuei)-
Thanks for your summary.
On 1-6-05, Jason wrote:
I have to say that I'm with Vincent on this. My gaming group has very restrictive informal mechanics. Looking back on the games we've played lo these many years - they all begin to look alike.
And attempting to change our informal gaming framework has proven a dicey proposition. Two other gaming group members, when introduced to Donjon, both commented that "there's no there there". Further discussion revealed that apportioning control over the imaginative space of the game to the players scared them - they assumed that a satisfying play experience couldn't happen if one person's monolithic vision wasn't adhered to.
Our group's inner circle of informal rules (as described by Vincent) has very rigid boundaries. Rather than using them to deal with a variety of situations - we've tended to use them to change a variety of situations into ones that our restrictive informal mechanics could handle.
Which lead me to this...
Charles, when you say "If the informal mechanics you have been using obviously don't work well for some set of interactions that you are interested in playing, you create new ones. If the formal mechanics you have been using don't support the set of interactions, you drop them and switch to informal mechanics."
Is it possible that you are experiencing a similar problem? Is it possible that your group hasn't found a set of formal mechanics that handle situations in the way your group is familiar with in a broad enough set of circumstances - which leads to the default fall-back position of your groups tried and trusted informal rules?
I'm very curious about this issue - because I'd like to see a game design that handles the situation of informal mechanics with the same coverage as the formal mechanics.
Meguey:
Thanks for the clarification.
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"
On 1-6-05, Vincent wrote:
Jason, there's that, and there's also a successful broader approach to informal rules. For purposes of my conversation with Charles, let's have it that the informal rules the group's using - mine or his - are sufficiently broad. Charles' group and mine have both been hardcore self-examiners about rules for a bunch of years. The typical ditch-the-rules outcome, the monolithic vision you describe, doesn't apply here.
That it applies elsewhere, and commonly - no doubt!
On 1-6-05, Charles wrote:
Jason,
Well, we've done highly co-Gm'd, weakly co-GM'd, and strongly GM'd games without formally adjusting the informal mechanics.
We've done political Farce, with numerous major characters (more than a dozen) from multiple factions. We've done mythic adventure games, in which a small numer of characters attempted to set right the magical season cycle. We've done epic adventure quests in which a very small number of characters pursued a ravenging monster across several countries. We've also done sub-plots in which 2 characters quitely fell in love over the course of many long conversations. We've done games in which combat, magical or physical, was a common occurence, and ones in which it almost never happened. We've done games in which time passed at roughly realtime and all that happened was conversation, we've also done games in which time passed at roughly realtime and all that happened was combat, and then we've done games in which time passed much faster than realtime.
Oh, we also did a Narnia-like game where the PC's were small children.
Certainly, our games have a similar feel across all of these styles. We tend to highlight interpersonal conversation whenever possible, and we are willing to let conversation run for a long time. We don't do combat as much as most gamers (even in the games in which we do comat a lot more than we usually do). We value ugly PC-PC interactions more than most gamers.
There are certainly limitations imposed by our informal mechanics, and I agree that we might benefit from having either a better understanding of the possible range of informal mechanics or even from having good formal mechanics for handling situations where our informal mechanics fall down, but I have never seen a formal system that could adequately handle the range of play that we handle with informal mechanics.
But I agree totally with you that even as a bunch of hard core rules-examiners (and I think we are way less so than Vincent, Meg, and Emily) we could still benefit from a deeper explication of informal mechanics, both our own informal mechanics, and the broader range of informal mechanics other people use.
Also, I really feel that there is a fundamentally different feel between informal mechanics based on second guessing the intergrity of the world, and pretty much any formal mechanic I have ever seen. I don't think I have ever seen a formal mechanic for second guessing the world, but then formalizing second guessing is a pretty difficult problem. I think we do it better than we can formally describe it.
On 1-6-05, Jason wrote:
Vincent:
Understood!
Chris:
Understood even better. Sounds like both your groups have a much wider range of play covered by informal mechanics. I really appreciate your thoughts, especially those that pertain to the formalization of informal integrity second-guessing mechanics.
One quick question - not to continually derail your and Vincent's conversation - but do mechanics for a game like Universalis have this (formalized integrity second-guessing) nailed? (assumes you're familiar with Universalis - if not - I apologize for the presumption)
Thanks.
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"
On 1-6-05, Vincent wrote:
Charles, did you spot my comment above starting with "how much flexibility are you really taking advantage of"?
This'll help too: from my point of view, each of the games you mention was its own game, with inevitably its own way of describing situation. In a world of only formal mechanics, you would have changed rulesets between each of those games.
That is, some of the flexibility you see within informal mechanics is flexibility I see in the diversity of possible formal designs.
On 1-6-05, Chris wrote:
Hi Charles,
I agree that with informal mechanics or formal ones, it still takes effort to create good ones. What I am pointing to is that with informal ones, you have to do some digging as far as what's really going on if you don't like the general trend. While it might be easy to point to a few cases where things didn't turn out right in hindsight, the reason of [i]what's wrong[/i] in the bigger scale doesn't appear.
Your Ars Magica example actually supports my idea, because the formal rules(whether you like them or not) made the transition to co-GMing very easy, as your group only had to renegotiate a few issues of distributing tasks in play, as opposed to having to renegotiate everything. Imagine trying a new campaign, with new characters, no play history behind them, no stats, and trying renegotiate "What happens" every step of the way. I suspect that a great deal of your Ars Magica play already minimizes the use of the formal mechanics as much as possible, but still applies them when it would be convienent instead of renegotiating everything.
With regards to the why most people don't change rules- laziness. Even if you're not going to go and make up rules(and why should you, you paid for the rules to work, right?), you can simply pick up another game. On the surface, if laziness is the problem, often folks are also too lazy to look and try other games also, even IF they're free, and the rules fit on one page. On the deeper level, most published games are structurally the same, producing the same types of play, so if the problem is that, it requires a very different set of formal rules to produce a different kind of play, and of course, with laziness, few people are willing to look beyond what's on the biggest shelf in the shop.
When we talk about kludgy house rules, I bet you that they're also following that structural problem, and what the people really want, can't be gotten from that kind of rules set("Why doesn't my boat fly properly?").
On note of the study of Informal stuff, that's definitely worthwhile, and probably the hardest for most gamers to get to- because it demands being able to formally describe what is unspoken. :)
On 1-6-05, Ben Lehman wrote:
As far as "Formal vs. Informal" mechanics, all I can say is "I'm working on it! Give me some time!"
yrs--
--Ben
P.S. Okay, so that isn't entirely true. Clearly, the act of writing down a mechanic formalizes it to some extent. But the rules in Polaris have an informal cast which is pretty different from Dogs and PTA, which are both highly structured, despite being "rules-lite" in the traditional sense of the word.
GenCon '05 or bust, baby!
On 1-7-05, Charles wrote:
Charles, did you spot my comment above starting with "how much flexibility are you really taking advantage of"?
Thus my caveats.
You say htat they were different games, but several of those transitioned fairly seemlessly. Many of them used the same characaters, and most of those arose naturally one out of the other. The scenario to right the seasonal cycle had political subplots that blossomed into political farce that dominated the next scenario. While the style of play changed somewhat, although not as much as you'd guess, the basic mechanics - consensus, second guessing the integrity of play, and lots of conversation - didn't. If we had changed formal mechanics between these games it would have produced a much much greater discontinuity of play.
Do people really do that all that often? Switch formal game sytems part way through a campaign, simply because one game system is better for military stuff, and another is better for spy stuff, and another still is better for playing the home-lives of off-duty secret agents (as an example)? I've never known anyone to do that. If the adjustments in our informal mechanics seem to you to be extreme enough that the game system should be considered to have changed between the transformation scenario and the tension scenario, then instead of arguing that informal systems are more flexible, I will argue that the ability to smoothly jump between informal systems gives any particular set of informal systems a great advantage in flexibility over any specifc formal sytsem or set of formal systems.
I'm not sure that either of us can convince the other on this, although I am interested in trying further if you still are. In any case, I am interested in what formal systems can teach informal systems, and in ways that formal mechanics can be used as intermittent techniques within informal systems, so I don't see that it matters hugely that I think informal mechanics are more flexible than formal mechanics.
On 1-7-05, Charles wrote:
Hi Chris,
Actually, while the Ars Magica rules transitioned easily, I don't think they helped the transition all that much. While its true they would have been another area to renegotiate if we had abandoned them at the time of the change in play style, if we had dumped them earlier for an informal magical system, I think we could have transitioned an informal magical system to co-GMing fairly easily. On the other hand, an informal magical system would require, among other things, a much better understanding of what magic is like. The formal rules serve as a filler for the fact that we don't really have a very deep feel for what the magic is like. Of course, the formal rules are also part of the reason we DON'T have such an understanding, and the fact that we started out with a formal system is part of the reason that our magic stystem is one that we don't really have a deep and intuitive feel for. I've played in games where the magic system was handled informally (our first formal rules free game, many many years ago), and it worked pretty well.
Another reason people don't change rules. At least you know the system you've been using fairly well, and you know what things it has wrong with it, and how to mostly avoid its distorting affect on play. If you pick up a new system that looks like it has some interesting features, it changes how you play, and it can take a long time to figure out what about how it changes things you like, and what about it you don't like, and then a while more to figure out how to avoid the effects you don't like.
I still think the most useful thing that game design principles can provide to experienced gamers is tools for analizing how they play. After they figure out how they play and what leads to what, they are much better positioned to change what they don't like, or add other things they never thought of including. Formal systems can be a way of providing pointers in this direction, but I think that they are less useful for it than would be a text book on how to analize game structure and revealing hidden/informal mechanics.
On 1-7-05, Vincent wrote:
Fair enough!
I see that it's time to make my claim, though.
My claim is not that the group I describe - mine or yours - should ditch their informal rules and adopt formal ones for their current game.
My claim is: if my group or yours wants to play a new game about, say, religious marshals in a supernatural Old West, or minions of a Frankensteinesque evil genius, or an interesting ensemble cast in charged relationships - formal rules exist which will serve us better than making it all up from scratch.
My group is doing Ars Magica way better than Ars Magica does, for instance. But accomplished at informal rules as we are, we couldn't do Primetime Adventures better than Primetime Adventures does.
On 1-7-05, Emily Care wrote:
Back at the start, Vincent, you said:
[i]What I want to talk about is why good rpg design is better than fully functional undesigned play.[/i]
So, it sounds like what you're saying is that well-designed formal mechanics ("designed play") is better if you are looking to experience what we're calling a "specific view".
I'd say that the fact that well-designed play can offer the _same_ view to more than one group is the biggest advantage. I'd have little clue how to instruct someone who'd never done it to play like we do, or the Ennead does, but if I can hand them a copy of Dogs or MLwM, I know they'll (probably) be all set.
On 1-8-05, Charles wrote:
Vincent,
Wow, is that not a strong claim! If we want to stop playing our long developed world, and switch to a totally new game, possibly we'd consider using a designed game, rather than making it up anew. On the other hand, Barry agrees that his extremely successful year long one-off, the deaf children in Narnia-analog, was run under the same system as our various Known World games, and had a completely different feel. Also, I don't know if there is a designed system for handling young child protagonists switching back and forth between an odd fantasy world and a cruel boarding school.:)
There seem to me to be two main reasons for using a designed system for a new game instead of developing a new informal system, or keeping the old informal system. The first is to see how someone else thinks people should play role-playing games. The second is that if your existing informal system is really inappropriate for the style of play you want to try out, you will have to deal with the slow process of developing a new informal style of play.
On the other hand, while Dogs may be a very good system for playing a Dogs game, and a perfectly good system for playing supernatural Old West, I suspect that if we started playing Dogs, and kept at it for half a decade, what we would be playing at the end would be something a lot more like an informal system that still retained some Dogs mechanics on occaision, with a general flavor that would be remeniscent of a Dogs game. Dogs may be the system for playing the idealized Dogs game (which would put it way above (say) Ars Magica, which is not the ideal system for playing an Ars Magica game), but it is not necessarily the ideal system for playing our Dogs derived game we would be playing five years later.
Also, if we simply wanted to play supernatural Old West, but not necessarily Dogs style play, then Dogs might not be the best game system for us, and while we might start out playing it, we might regret it down the road. I certainly feel that way about Ars Magica. I think our games would be better if the Ars Magica magic system had never been the magic system of our game world. The Ars Magica magic system, while better than many, still has a cludgy mechanistic feel to it that never really made it intuitive to any of us. Also, while the ability to say, "My character has an Ignem score of 12 and a Creo score of 7, so I can cast this level 15 spell without exerting myself," serves as a useful substitute for really understanding what your character's magic is like, it also makes it hard to ever understand what your character's magic is like.
I agree that Dogs or MLwM is portable (even though I haven't read either of them, so what the Hell do I know), but I am more interested in the question of how can design principles help us make our native style of play 1)more portable to other groups and 2) better.
We've only been playing full on co-GM/ no-GM for a year, so our style hasn't totally gelled. There are still things that could work better, and things we don't know yet if they work. What I would like to believe that game design principles could offer to an experienced but experimenting group like ours is the tools to figure out how to make our system better.
Playing designed systems may be a way of doing this, and we have talked about playing Dogs for (in part) this very purpose. Way back in this thread, Jason wrote:
I wanted to chime in and say that good design offers ways to challenge calcified assumptions built up during years of collaborative play.
Just played Donjon over the holidays with a couple of long-standed by geographically dispersed gaming-buddies. Their roleplaying sounds exactly as descirbed by Vincent - creative collaborations that require litte in the way of written down formal rules.
Donjon's 1 successs = 1 fact or 1 die rule really threw one of them for a loop - and made her see that she had the actual power to drive the story in any way she wanted - not just in ways constrained by the subtle collaborative negotiaions going on around the table.
It highlighted the (new for her) idea that not just the GM determines limits on the direction of play - but that she as a player could help define those limits through explicit rules.
That is what I see designed games offering us as an experienced gaming group, new ways of seeing play, which we can then take back into our play style.
On 1-8-05, Charles wrote:
You know, I've been busy and lazy, and tonight I'm sleepless and avoiding work (and feeling guilty for writing lots here, but not writing Emily back 'cause I'm too busy with work), and so I have to admit I only just finished reading all of the Forge posts you listed in the actual post (I read 2 or 3 much earlier).
Wow, is that a rich game!
Wow, is that stuff useful as guidance to another bunch of co-GMers (us)!
Wow, do I wish that we didn't live on opposite sides of the country.
On 1-8-05, Vincent wrote:
Me too.
On 1-9-05, jwalt wrote:
Undesigned Play:
You can always play the way you are capable of playing. Sometimes you can even approach playing the BEST that you are capable of playing (collectively, as a group, when you're really damn ON).
Good Game Design:
Now, assisted by some carefully and sensitively developed guidelines, you can learn to play how someone else plays. With a bit of practice, mastering the new techniques that they've worked into the system, you can even approach the BEST the author is capable of doing (or, hell, BETTER).
On 1-9-05, jwalt wrote:
P.S.
The Way I Approach Design
STEP 1: Develop a new style of play that I'm really excited about.
STEP 2: Teach others how to do it, with carefully, considered game design.
On 1-10-05, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
jwalt, I think that excellent rules foster and focus creativity in a game. I have no doubt that we could sit around making up a good story about a citywide demonic infection in a noir setting, but the PTA rules mean that we have a way to determine who says what happens with built-in (and very satisfying) dramatic resolution of the events.
Merely good rules are rules that the players have to exceed to make the story work, and bad rules are rules that are completely ignored whenever something that matters happens.