thread: 2006-03-08 : Between-session Activity
On 2006-03-09, Michael S. Miller wrote:
I was just talking about my Assumptions of Game design over on my blog, one of which is Preparation for play is a bug, not a feature. I think about it a lot in time-economy terms. If a game *requires* 1 hour out-of-game prep for every 2 hours of in-game play, that raises the amount of each participant's life that they need to put into the game, which lessens the likelihood that they'll be willing to play it. So bringing those preparatory tasks to the table increases the appeal and the enjoyment of the game, just as Thor said.
Neel also raises a good point, that play can happen in other realms than just "at the table." As long as it remains collaborative, play is going on. One might even say that the system changes depending on the day of the week: "Our fantasy campaign uses the _Burning Wheel_ rules when we're face-to-face on Thursday nights, and _Lexicon_ crossed with _De Profundis_ online Fridays through Wednesdays."
This makes CS go "Smaller target audience != lower appeal and the enjoyment of the game"
If play prep is boring or if it is tacked onto face-to-face to try to shove something else into play, then it is not going to be appealing.
Good play prep is some of the best play I've had, and it usually went with excellent table-top play, not as a substitute for good play.
This makes MSM go "Unreliable, not always bad"
I'm not saying that prep is always bad, but that it is always unreliable for a designer to RELY on prep. I've been in too many games (both convention and at-home) where folks didn't do the prep that the game required (e.g., no NPC names, no R-map, no stas, no A-B-C plot, or whatever) and we wasted hours of our life in nonfun "play." RL stuff WILL affect prep-time and a game that better accomodates that reality is, IMO, a better, more flexible, more adaptable game.
