thread: 2011-06-07 : Concentric Game Design
On 2011-06-12, Josh W wrote:
That filament thing seems like the most interesting bit at the moment; it's like having a basic universal mechanic, but it's more than that. The basic mechanic, and the MC responces makes a tight little loop of gameplay. Ok, that's a wrong metaphor, it's very sparse, but it's a lightly defined gameplay loop.
But that loop being formed still depends on various stuff defined elsewhere, like the rhythm of play and implicit action/responce turn structure. But when you loose the rest you can default to it. Probably if you were going to make it into a minigame by itself without moves you'd have to spell out that rhythm explicitly.
I wonder what would have happened if the d20 system had been formed not just around a (semi-) universal resolution mechanic, but accompanied by principles etc.
Because it strikes me that that is what a load of old-school type gms do; you've got skill checks, difficulties, ac and saves, and every now and again you wing it from there using your own aesthetics of challenge and relationships to the players. It's a bulkier core than this, but it still works.
The other nice thing about is it makes me wonder I can look at whether I can decompose other games into the same structure, and by comparing what the other elements add compared to the basic thing, and get clues to fleshing out cute central mechanics of my own.
I'd say this kind of game makes people more likely to drop stuff, because the more baroque interconnected systems make it quite obvious when you're missing stuff. Wheras graceful collapse means that the game is still ok even when you're not using the whole book.
In fact it seems like this optionalness would work against the "introducing the unwelcome" thing. Not sure as I don't have the book, but I'm guessing most of the harshness and unwelcome-adding happens within the filament, and the more developed mechanics moderate that a bit?
