We talk a lot about how System transforms Situation. What we don't talk a lot about is how Situation limits or informs our choices about how to employ the System. This is a topic that is becoming increasingly important to me and I've tried to address it in various ways in various places never really to my satisfaction. Reading all the talk about Traits and Color/Reward buy in has inspired me to try again.
The most straightforward example of what I'm talking about from my own play is concerns a session of Dogs in the Vineyard, I was GMing. A Lieutenant of the Territorial Authority was investigating the rumors of a "vigilante organization" (i.e. The Dogs). He had a young girl, a member of the Faithful who had a grudge against The Dogs, housed in a Hotel guarded by armed men. The PC Dogs wanted the Lieutenant to turn the girl back over to them.
There are a couple of things you have to understand about my mindset going into this situation to understand the example. First of all, I was very committed to the idea of not playing the Lieutenant like a tyrannical military ideologue. Second of all, at the top of the scene I was highly committed to pushing things all the way to gun-fighting.
One of the two Dogs in the situation rolled very, very badly and Gave after just one or two exchanges. The tension at the table was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The second Dog held out and eventually came up with this raise, "I take hold of the Lieutenant's gun, place the barrel in my mouth, and dare him to pull the trigger."
I Gave. Here's the important thing, mechanically I had the dice to keep going. I didn't even need to escalate. However, from a situational stand point I felt emotionally trapped. Yes, I could have done other things as a See other than pull the trigger but nothing felt satisfying. Nothing felt, "true to how I wanted to play the Lieutenant" if that makes any sense.
I've told this story to various people and sometimes I'm met with a very interesting criticism. It's been suggested that what I did reduces the game to being about pushing the GMs buttons rather than ridding the system out to its conclusion. The attitude seemed to be that a Dog's GM should more or less operate like a black-jack dealer who has to push while under 17 and must stand over 17. Basically, that the GM should, no matter what, keep going until either the Dogs Give or it become mathematically clear that the GM can't deliver any more fallout. That's a baffling mindset to me because it seems to come from the viewpoint that the game is not a tool for expressing something but rather is a machine that creates something on its own.
Ron's games seem to employ subtler, harder to define aspects of the same principles. I've played two games of "It Was a Mutual Decsion" one game that was awesome with aspects that I consider in the top moments of my entire play history (in the same category as the Lieutenant experience above). The other game was much, much weaker.
The reason for the second game I chalk up to the fact that I was playing with people who really didn't buy into the "break up" aspect of the game and were only there because they wanted to see what this whole "wererat" thing was about. As a consequence, what they did was pretty much grab black dice at every turn with almost no regard for what was happening with the actual relationship in the fiction.
I even tried to discuss this at the time and was met with serious resistance revolving around the idea that if they were doing something wrong the game needed elements to counter-balance their behavior. They even went so far as to point to the sheet with the characters and their friendships on it and said something like, "this isn't very interesting" and then pointed to the pile of black dice and said, "this is VERY interesting" then pointed back at the sheet and said, "if this is supposed to be the focus of the game there needs to be more to keep me focused on it."
Spione takes the principle I'm getting at here to an even higher level. There's wonderfully clear social mandate to "put the spies in the cold." And then a wonderful tool is provided to do just that, namely, the Spy and the Guy sheets. All you have to "to do" is split the spy's priorities between the elements on the Guy sheet and the elements on the Spy sheet. There's even a built in throttle to make the story go faster or slower: how much pressure you put on the spy's Supporting Cast.
But there are no mathematical meters for these things. There are no Cold Points like the Static in Lacuna or Tension in Dead of Night to measure how "deep into the cold" the spy is or to track or constrain individual player input. Supporting Cast do not carry any kind of "stress" determinate like Pain in Darkpages or even "checking them off" as in Trollbabe. These elements (when combined with the fun "wind up toy" resolution system) have a palpable systemic effect even though they are wholly fictional components.
What I'm trying to get at is that the emotional commitment of the players to the SIS can be relied upon as a limiter for engaging the more mechanical aspects of the game without having to fall back on Pavlovian rewards or over structuring the acceptable player input. In other words, the *designer* can lock down and position certain elements of the SIS as part of the nature of the game and the evocative nature of that positioning is, itself, part of the System that drives play in a meaningful manner. I want to talk about how to more deliberately harness this phenomenon.
Jesse
This is something I've been thinking about a lot for the past few months. It came up because I was trying to write an article about constructing resolution mechanics to facilitate particular "shades" of action, so t'speak, and I realized I couldn't write that article until I tackled this issue.
It revolves around something that, in my head, I'm calling "Expression." It's a part of System, and it's specifically the system(s) by which we express things in the SIS in actionable terms. Statistics and numbers, from attributes to damage, are part of this, but most if it is done without numbers, in wholly qualitative terms.
This is just me getting a foot in the door here to say that I've got something I want to contribute to this discussion, but I've got to pry it out of my brain first. Hopefully, I'll be back.
-Marshall
Hi Marshall,
The concept you're calling expression is already terminologically present in the term Shared Imagined Space - it's the "shared" part, meaning spoken, heard, and spoken again.
The new term seems like a good idea as a property of System in and of itself, though. The IIEE concept is definitely a part of it, although limited to resolution.
Best, Ron
Yes, IIEE definitely is part of it. Effect is particularly important. And the whole issue of the application of Traits? That too. And using Psyche scores to guide your roleplaying in the Rustbelt, as well as applying Injuries, and deciding what stat to roll.
But I ain't quite buyin' this:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on December 05, 2008, 04:46:56 PM
The concept you're calling expression is already terminologically present in the term Shared Imagined Space - it's the "shared" part, meaning spoken, heard, and spoken again.
I'm talking about the
way we share things, and how that has particular effects that can be assessed & gauged by the players, and prompted & reinforced by clever design.
As a quick example, something I discovered while playing
kill puppies for satan:
Despite the book's explanation of the stats, Mean is NOT strength & dexterity, nor is Cold intelligence, and the same goes for the "correspondences" given for Fucked Up and Relentless. When Crypter brought that TV down on the pawnbroker's head from behind, her player didn't roll Mean because that required strength and dexterity. She rolled Mean because Crypter was being a mean motherfucker. The way she described the action, things like "is she strong enough to knock him out with it?" didn't matter; the question was, "is she mean enough?"
But that's just a small reflection of this
thing that I've been grappling with for a long time now. (It won't come out of my head! Arrrg)
-Marshall
Marshall,
I sadly don't know Kill Puppies for Satan very well but your basic example brings up an interesting illustrative hypothetical. Assume for a second that a player makes his highest score Mean. I've seen two basic attitudes about that. One I call System First, the other I call Fiction First.
The System First approach looks at this and says I want my character to be Mean a lot so I will make his highest score Mean. In addition such a player usually puts a lot of effort into "jiggering" the fiction so as to justify being able to act Mean. They also tend to use a lot of language like, "Being Mean is what the system rewards me for doing."
The Fiction First approach looks at this and says when my character is Mean, I want him to be scary effective, but the score itself says NOTHING about how often or how much they desire the character to be Mean. Indeed they might want to try and play the character as cool as possible allowing their feelings about the fiction to dictate when they actually decide to be Mean up to and including never. Such a player is usually also asking the group to apply pressure in an effort to find the character's Mean boundary.
Does that line up with what you've been thinking about?
Jesse
Didn't we have an AP account here awhile ago, where the author of it just wanted to see the wererat? I can't remember who gave it?
Callan, the answer is "no." I'm the author, and the way to play this game is exactly as Jesse describes in his first example.
I suspect you're thinking about the thread [It Was A Mutual Decision] [Forge Midwest] Scared by rats (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=23782.0), in which Seth did some push-button play and quickly realized he shouldn't.
Marshall, you're agreeing with me. You're right to start investigating how it's done; my point is that the what is already present in the Model to tie your questions to. Not that the questions are already answered.
Best, Ron
I think he meaned the author of the post.
Aye, that I did! The author of the post (Seth) wanted to see a wererat :) And Ron's pulled out exactly the thread link I was thinking of. It almost seems the same thing - a person latching onto the first big fantasy element they can find, despite the relationship soaked title (if I can put it that way). It's interesting to compare.
Hi Jesse
That scene with the lieutenant sounds brilliant! I was thinking: "Yes, Dogs is all about pushing peoples' buttons!" Would I have had the trigger pulled or not? I don't know!
I agree that Situation informing System is a very interesting topic. Here's a potentially out of topic consideration: isn't the fact that situations informs system a defining characteristic of RPGs? Other types of games are about system informing system, some of which even feature some bits of narration or fiction as part of the system or have narration or fiction as a side process, making it unclear if they're RPGs or not (I don't consider Once upon a Time (http://www.atlas-games.com/onceuponatime/) an RPG for this reason). I'm not trying to make a point about a cool abstract definition, this actually has quasi-physiological extensions when I encounter it in play (I remember playtesting a friend's game and feeling it wasn't an RPG, only to realize later on that the system was independent of the fiction).
This might yield a principle to harness the phenomenon you're talking about: if what the game is about is addressed via rules-rules feedback loops, then the designer should consider making the situation (which allows player judgement and creativity on a wholly different level) part of that loop, at least to some degree (sounds like the Fruitful Void (http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=119) to me).
I haven't read nor played Spione, but introducing Cold points might very well take away the significance of Situation in the process of play, whereas Tension in Dead of Night is good because it's a tool for pacing the horror story (but doesn't produce or represent the horror by itself).
Am I making sense here?
I went and read Seth's posts about that "It Was a Mutual Decision" game. Interesting stuff coming from the guy who later went on to write "A Flower For Mara," a FAR more dangerous game than "It Was A Mutual Decision." But yes, what Seth was doing so were the players in that second game I played. Only, I had two, one on each side of the table, and neither came to the realization that Seth did. The attitude of, "Wererat? I want a wererat! Let's get a wererat going!" was present and unchecked the entire run of the game and was met with extreme disappointment when it didn't actually happen.
Furthermore, when I presented the idea that the people at the table need to buy into the couple as real people and care about the state of their relationship and make mechanical decisions from there rather than making mechanical decisions and seeing "what happens to the fiction," I was met with extreme resistance. The underlying principle seemed to be that if everyone at the table was that committed to the fiction from the outset then the rules were effectively unnecessary. Those people would have created an awesome story anyway, so why the rules?
Just the other day with regard to Spione I saw this comment, "All the awesome seemed to come from the people I was playing with, and not from the system." I've heard the same comment applied to Sorcerer and indeed underlies much, of my discussion about Sorcerer and how the elements are not just "ideas" that drive GM fiat. My notions about how "Giving" in Dogs in the Vineyard is this incredibly powerful thematic magic marker are met with raised eyebrows.
I'm tired of it. So, I want to develop a method of talking about that phenomenon of how the fiction feeds into mechanical decisions in an understandable and intelligent manner. I've tried giving it a term. I call it the Narrative Wall. That sometimes, given the state of the fiction, certain mechanical decisions simply make no sense. There are no "rules" stopping you from making those mechanical "moves" but your own commitment to the fiction won't let you. Why IS it that pushing the wererat button as often and as hard as you can to "see what will happen" makes the game suck? And why does that not prove the game is "broken"? Just what WAS going on systemically that made that first game sing so loud?
I'm curious because there's a next step question. How do you design and playtest the Narrative Wall? If a playtest group comes back and says the game sucked how do you distinguish between, the rules really aren't doing their job and they weren't relating to the fiction properly to allow the rules to do their job?
Jesse
Jesse
Hi Jesse,
It's funny - I agree with your original post, right until the last paragraph where you take a complete right hand turn to me. Or perhaps I'm taking a right hand turn. Because the majority of roleplayers I've talked to on forums seem to have their narrative wall reinforced by most roleplay games. Roleplay games have actually eroded my narrative wall over the years. If there's a button here where I can give and a button over there where I can pull the trigger of the gun in the dogs mouth, I might feel I have to give...but why??? The presence of the trigger pulling button QUESTIONS that feeling. That extra button means I cannot pretend to myself I was only ever going down one path - that extra button is a different path I could choose. And in being able to choose it, I have to question why I did not? Why? The multiple choices system gives me make me question the choices I *feel* I must take. And questioning the narrative wall, erodes it. Note: I see this as a philisophical feature of roleplay games, not a bug.
Strangely you seem to be on the other side (or I'm on the other side - either way) and your line "Why IS it that pushing the wererat button as often and as hard as you can to "see what will happen" makes the game suck?" seems to reinforce the narrative wall. The assertion being "If the game sucks without a narrative wall, then the narrative wall must exist and be important!"
So it's strange - I mostly agree with you, I think, because the people you talk about are neither interested in narrative wall eroding introspection, nor are they interested in reinforcing a narrative wall. Although I'm interested in eroding narrative walls, I'm still interested in walls and so essentially agree with you! These people have no interest in narrative walls at all. Funny parallel weve got going on there!?
Callan,
I think what you're getting at is that the system in Dogs in the Vineyard makes it *safe* socially to pull the trigger. The uniformity of the mechanics means I can pull the trigger and it isn't just an automatic kill. I have options with what dice I Raise with and the player has options with what to See with and even taking d10s in fallout isn't very likely to kill you outright. There are choices and those choices are out in the open.
That to me though strengthens the narrative wall, not erodes it. I know I can pull the trigger will full commitment if I want to. I'm not backing down because the mechanics will screw up someones fun with an auto kill or whatever. I've done that in the past with other games. I've been in a situation where I would have liked to have played the character and situation more ruthlessly but didn't because I was affraid the mechanics would fuck over the player too badly. But that to me only socially strengthens the decision to back off. The players know I don't have to. It's clear that my choice is genuine role-playing of the lieutenant and not just the GM protecting them, "in case".
Jesse
Jesse,
Urrrg... That's a touchy topic for me, right there. I think that there are "right" ways to create a character, and that there are "wrong" ways. The "right" ways are a) to create a character, in terms of actual, y'know, character, and then use the Techniques provided by the game to describe (Express) him, or b) to take a not-entirely predictable result that the System gives you (random chargen, lifepaths, etc.) and then think of what character in terms of actual, y'know, character, is described (Expressed) by that data. The wrong ways are everything else. Those guys that say things like "Being Mean is what the system rewards me for"? Punch 'em in the face, as far as I'm concerned.
(Yes, if you're playing Gamist, you should almost certainly write the character for effectiveness, but if you aren't also thinking about him in terms of actual character then I will punch your face refuse to play with you. I follow the way of the Disco Samurai.)
But, of course, that's my personal karma, and I don't expect anyone else to agree to it, unless we're going to be playing together.
I'm still wrestling with a way to get this Expression thing out in a coherent form. I think it's something that most roleplayers understand on a non-verbal level, but I sure as hell want to investigate it. Problem is it's an iceberg -- I see it's peak all over the place, but there's a hell of a lot underneath that.
In the mean time, there's this thread I started over on SG that is grounded in my Expression theory:
Story Made Simple (http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=8228)
See in particular the section labeled "Character Techniques," and Eldir's post towards the bottom, where he insightfully picks up on what I'm about to (try to) say next.
-Marshall
(shit, hit the button too soon; Jesse, in case it's unclear, I was responding directly to your response to the KPFS thing)
Marshal,
I don't play with these people and I'd love to punch in the face. Baring that, I still want to have reasonable things to say about the phenomenon which I agree with you feels like the tip of something larger.
The phenomenon I don't think is much different from the that no one calls for "Climb Check" if there's no wall in the fiction. No one should reasonably pull Black Dice in "It Was a Mutual Decision" unless they feel the situation at had warrants it. But some would argue that the former is "objective." Some one (usually a GM) declares that wall is or isn't there to be climbed and that "feelings" are ephemeral and there can't be "counted on" for making game mechanics work.
It's that second notion I'm calling "bullshit" on but I don't know how to explain it.
Jesse
Jesse,
In your Dogs example, it sounds to me like the (potential) conflict you observed was between what the Lieutenant, as you imagined him, would do, and what he could do via the game's mechanics.
I emphasize "could", because it's not what he had to do. The mechanics weren't "trying to force you" to do any particular thing.
I would guess that this particular choice is constant in every game all the time. What's more important? Fidelity to an NPC's in-fiction concept, or competition via mechanics? I suspect that having a specific Creative Agenda shared among all the players in a group will cover this. It also strikes me as a great place to look for manifestations of CA Clash.
Narrative Wall, to me, just sounds like CA in action, unifying the usages of various techniques and ephemera (e.g. resolution, narration, and just plain talking) toward a common end. I mean, how could Situation not inform how we use System?
I do think Narrative Wall is a catchy phrase, though, and I might use it in the future when discussing player choices to not "game" the system.
I apologize if I'm missing your point re: how all this matters in play. It seems to me that a lot of your concerns here are more in the realm of labeling and talking about this than in playing it, and so I've responded in that spirit. If you can think of an instance of play where the group shared a creative agenda, played a game that supported it, and yet ran into real trouble with the dynamic you're discussing, that might clarify for me what exactly needs solving here.
I think the only games where I've run into "I think I'm supposed to roll these dice now, but if I do, the game could be ruined!" are games without clear agendas, or games with resolution systems not matched to their agendas. The design solutions to those problems would seem obvious (design for CA coherence), and the play solutions if you wanna play broken games are what roleplayers have traditionally come up with -- ignore the rules when they get in your way.
Hope this rambling was useful...
-David
Jesse,
Yeah, I think I see what you're getting at. Thing is, none of it is really objective, is it? It's
all subjective, at its root, and that's why we have rules to say who's got authority over what, and how we should treat their contributions. (And even those rules are subject to Social Contract)
Any mechanic that says, "THIS is how you treat this thing I'm contributing," is what I would call an Expression mechanic. The different ways of Expressing the thing tell us different ways to treat it.
In the Rustbelt, a Vice with Grip 10 is different from one with Grip 11. The mechanical effect of withdrawal is greater, for one thing. The other bit is that the Vice's impact on the character's behavior is greater as Grip increases, but this is left entirely in the hands of the player. It doesn't force him to do any particular thing, but he's supposed to look at his sheet and say, "Okay, I'm Gripped for 11, how can I convey that in my depiction of my character?" It doesn't get you any bonuses, or any penalties, or anything like that. So why should the players care to do it? Because it makes play richer.
And let's look at a "climb check" in the Rustbelt. I totally reject the idea that it's "objective" in this game. The GM sets the target number based not on "how difficult this wall would be to climb," but on how important it is to the character to get over the wall. Having decided on a target number,
then the GM describes why it's so hard to get over the wall. If it's not hard, then the wall is sturdy, and there's plenty of handholds. If it's hard, then the GM decides that the bricks are loose, and some of them pull out when you touch them, and some are falling down on you from above, and over the lake comes that strong, icy wind (they call it
The Hawk) that comes searing through your clothes, whipping your hair into your face, and bringing tears to your eyes.
In Super Action Now!, let's say that one guy has the trait "Fastest stapler in the West 1d20" and another guy has "Staples really fast 5d12." That second guy has the potential to roll 5 successes when using that trait, while the first guy can get 1 at most. Does this mean that the second guy is a faster stapler? NOPE. It says right there on the sheet that Guy1 is the fastest, so bygod he is. The issue of speed is Expressed entirely through the textual description of the traits. What the dice Express is actual Effectiveness -- they tell us that Guy2 is, while not faster,
better able to solve problems by using his stapling skills.
I wish I could apply this line of thought to It Was a Mutual Decision, but I don't know enough about it. What, precisely, would you say that the black dice are supposed to
express? Because it seems clear from here that they are tools for the players to use to express some particular thing. Which suggests to me that if they are used for any other purpose,
that is breaking the rules.
But here's a cool thing where Vincent applies this principle to Dogs:
QuoteSo we're playing Dogs, it's the first session, and there's an enormous bonfire in town and it's a problem (I forget the details why). It's my raise. I say "I put my hands into the fire and I say 'peace, be still,' to extinguish it."
Like all right Dogs players, we haven't talked about the supernatural up-front at all. Never, ever talk about the supernatural up-front, except for the GM to say only "hey, supernatural things might happen, we'll see."
So. Peace, be still, to extinguish a bonfire.
a) Is it a legit move on my part? YES. I am clearly within my rights to say that my character does that.
b) Is it a legit raise, though? YES. The GM rolled demonic influence against me; ritual is how you make raises against the demons.
c) Is it tacky? UP TO YOU. Ron thinks it is, probably. I think it's cool. I think, most importantly, that it's true to the stories of my childhood and respectful of my family's faith and mythology.
d) Does it work, though? HERE'S THE FUN. This is why you don't set the supernatural dial up-front, but through play.
What dice did I push forward? High dice? Then I'm making a bid at nudging the supernatural dial upward. Low dice? Then I'm making a bid at nudging it downward.
How does the GM see? Both the dice he uses and what he says matter a whole lot. A block like "you can't bring yourself to put your hands in the fire" is a whole different thing from a block like "the fire leaps away from your hands but burns up more brightly elsewhere." So here's the GM participating in nudging the supernatural dial one way or the other.
(complete thread on anyway (http://lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=390))
-Marshall
Hey there,
You guys are getting a litttttle bit extreme, I think. Because you've had bad experiences with system-first thinking, doesn't mean it can't play a positive role - and indeed, provide a way into a given SIS that would otherwise be unavailable, for a given person at a given time, through fiction-first inspiration alone.
This may operate at two rough levels: (1) as a corollary and reinforcing element of the kind of play you're talking about, and (2) as a primary mode of play which generates SIS, particularly impetus and the unexpected, from the other direction.
So consider before you punch anyone's face. I fully understand your desire to do that to someone specific you've played with, especially if they've indulged in the mind games described so far in this thread. But it's misplaced if you're talking about means and desires of SIS-valuing play.
Best, Ron
Yeah, okay, Ron, okay. To clarify, I'm not sure what "system first" means in terms of actual rules-application in play, so I don't know if that makes me want to get the face-punching started or not. I just get mad at people who don't assume responsibility for the way they use a system (especially if they then blame the system for it).
-Marshall
Ron,
I agree. But that's why I want a way to discuss that. Hell, people probably, much like stance, bounce around in a fairly sophisticated manner between using the mechanics to probe the next bit of fiction and leaping from the fiction to grab the next bit of mechanic.
But I feel like there should be someway to break that process down and discuss how various games approach it, how to design for it and how to playtest it.
I mean Dogs in the Vineyard generally can survive the blackjack dealer approach to GMing. Where as It Was A Mutual Decision can not. Why?
Quote from: Marshall Burns on December 08, 2008, 05:46:46 PM
I just get mad at people who don't assume responsibility for the way they use a system (especially if they then blame the system for it).
Yes. And while I regretfully, resentfully and reluctantly admit that there's nothing I can do to *make* them take that responsibility it bothers me when I can't even adequately describe something to myself.
Jesse
On the "climb checks when there's no wall" thing;
System-light games often don't specify a lot of the causality of the world, they tend to leave that up to player's internal feels for how those things work, and then adjudicate between them.
This means that when people see a situation, and say "what is the implied future of this situation?" it's their own one. Now when you have flat conflict with systems that do specify you get "that's not realistic" or people just compartmentalise this world as one where different things happen.
But sometimes you can run out of implied future; this place doesn't go anywhere for you.
In system-heavy games you can just go back to the rules. In certain collaborative ones you can throw it open; "Woah, I don't have a clue how this guy would deal with this." soliciting ideas with final veto. But in other games you are required to provide some kind of adversarial position and so it's all on you. In this case you sometimes have to go deep into the situation, inventing/exploring stuff until it gives you a handle, something that ties to experience or other stories you know of, and gives you a set of places to go.
Now some people take the heavy-rules approach in all their games; the role of the rules to them is to provide possible futures for them to choose between, and if there aren't any, they think it's a bad game. Some people can look at their sheet and see it as an expression of the dimensionality of their world, the routes to choose between set in stone. I believe these people simply have not discovered the other solutions to creative block, or are not experienced with them. Either that or they don't have enough authorial control to expand the situation like that; they can't say "This guy had a disagreement with his father" because the game or DM tells them their character is an orphan. (Ok there can be other reasons, including pride and false ceilings, but you get the point)
Quote from: jburneko on December 07, 2008, 10:54:42 PM
I went and read Seth's posts about that "It Was a Mutual Decision" game. Interesting stuff coming from the guy who later went on to write "A Flower For Mara," a FAR more dangerous game than "It Was A Mutual Decision." But yes, what Seth was doing so were the players in that second game I played. Only, I had two, one on each side of the table, and neither came to the realization that Seth did. The attitude of, "Wererat? I want a wererat! Let's get a wererat going!" was present and unchecked the entire run of the game and was met with extreme disappointment when it didn't actually happen.
So, I'm reading this thread and discover that, lo, my name is invoked. Oh no! And it's about that game of
It Was A Mutual Decision. Oh no!
And so, I'm dealing with angst. There's a part of me that wants to be defensive. There's another part of me that wants to explain how the social dynamics of that particular game of
It Was A Mutual Decision had significant impact on me, and how I see that as a different thing from
A Flower For Mara....
And in the middle of all that, I think I actually figured out something useful and germane to this thread, beyond simply protecting my ego. (Grin!)
And it has everything to do with the social dynamics of a particular game, and the repurposing of mechanics.
Quote from: jburneko on December 08, 2008, 06:54:41 PM
But I feel like there should be someway to break that process down and discuss how various games approach it, how to design for it and how to playtest it.
I mean Dogs in the Vineyard generally can survive the blackjack dealer approach to GMing. Where as It Was A Mutual Decision can not. Why?
Because the mechanics of
Dogs in the Vineyard can be repurposed with interesting effects, while the mechanics of
It Was A Mutual Decision cannot.
Right now, we're doing beta playtesting on Ralph Mazza's latest game
Blood Red Sands. For those of you who don't know, it's an over-the-top macho swords-and-sorcery competitive roleplaying game. It
is the heavy metal apocalypse, if you follow me. And, at the heart of this game, in the conflict system itself...sits the
Dogs in the Vineyard dice system.
Oh, it's been seriously monkeyed with. Now, dice also have aspects, which have special powers. You don't take Fallout; rather, your dice are Battered or Devastated as a result of Taking the Blow. But, the basic "I advance a pair, and you have to deal with it" mechanic is in full effect.
Why?
Because it's a fun system to game. It's a blast to engage this system, to figure out how to come up with clever dice moves, to try to draw out your opponent's big dice while conserving your own. It's a little wargame that you play with dice.
And so is
Dogs in the Vineyard.
My point is that there's nothing inherent about judgment or morality in the
Dogs in the Vineyard mechanic. That's all attached to the mechanic by the players. If the players don't connect any emotional weight to "going for the gun", then escalation won't have any emotional impact. It'll just be a matter of logistics. But it'll be
fun logistics.
This doesn't even take into account the fact that certain
Dogs in the Vineyard Towns are really just elaborate
Call of Cthulhu scenarios with PCs that won't go insane. We ride into town, poke around a bit, and then we get to lay down some Righteous Judgment of the six-shooter variety. There's no deep engagement with the moral context. We're Dogs; ergo, we're right and you're wrong. Shooties!
And the game will do this just fine.
Now, is it what the game is "supposed" to do? Not really. Rather, the game has been repurposed. You might even call it thematic Drift. The mechanics stay put, but the purpose is altered. What is left is still fun, because the mechanic that runs it is fun in the repurposed context.
Constrast this with
It Was A Mutual Decision. I'll admit to being a little hazy on my recollection of the rules right now, but, basically, apart from the fiction, what mechanical choices are there? Basically, you choose your stat, burn Trust for a bonus die if desired, add black dice if you want, and roll the dice. High roll wins. It's simple, straightforward, matter-of-fact, and functional.
And boring. By itself, there's nothing fun about this mechanic. As Jesse noted, trying to make the wererat appear is not all that mechanically interesting. Rather, the mechanic gains its impact from how it structures both the SIS and the ongoing conversation about the SIS. I'd put
Spione in the same category. The mechanics (strictly speaking) are just an abbreviated game of Accordian Solitaire. It gains its impact by structuring the conversation.
See, at its heart, a roleplaying game is a structured conversation about a particular topic. The mechanics are how the conversation is structured, but that simply won't matter if the people at the table don't want to talk about the topic.
Spione fails if the players don't care about The Cold.
It Was A Mutual Decision fails if the players don't care about the characters.
But here's the tricksy bit. Using this definition, it's possible for the "structured conversation" to become about the mechanics. That's why
Dogs in the Vineyard still works without the moral context.
So, what am I saying? One thing is I wonder if the "interesting mechanic" can become a problem if it isn't intimately tied to the conversational topic: e.g. The Cold, a breakup, etc.
Jesse, I know that you are familiar with my games, so here's how I evaluate a couple of my designs, in this light.
I think that
Dirty Secrets limps along in the middle here. On the one hand, if there isn't a dedication to "the mystery", then the game will flop. However, between the Crime Grid and the Liar's Dice, there are enough "fun" mechanics that a group can play through a story of a single-minded investigator, beating confessions out of people and crawling through gunfights. The game doesn't actively require that you engage the deeper issues of judgment, power disparity, and corruption. Now, I think I'm okay with that. Some people will enjoy the game on that level, and they will be happy. However, they will also run into odd edges of the System that simply don't make sense to them. The comments in this blog post (http://unclebear.com/?p=2173) illustrate this point.
A Flower for Mara doesn't have any "interesting mechanics" that are fun to poke at. Therefore, if someone decides to play, it's because he is attracted by the topic of conversation, not by the nifty mechanics. And, really, who is going to get into a game, saying, "I really just want to play with the mechanic of confessing a personal grief of mine to everyone"? My goodness, at that point, you're halfway to being interested in the game.
So, this is perhaps a cynical conclusion, but I wonder if part of the answer to "How do I design to engage my players emotionally?" is by removing other means by which players engage. If the only way to engage with your game is through resonance with the thematic material, then potential players will self-select out.
Whether this is a good thing or not, I'll leave to others to decide.
Hey, I think that my last post needs a clarification. Here it is:
System is bigger than just mechanics.
Yes, this is probably a "well, duh" moment for most of the people reading this thread. But I wanted to make sure that I pointed it out. My discussion in the previous post was about mechanics as commonly understood (i.e. the manipulation of Effectiveness and Resources by players to affect the SIS), not System.
The reason that this is important is that most of the games that I mentioned push a large amount of their design into the social realm. The rules give clear direction; they simply aren't about the manipulation of Effectiveness and Resources. For example, in Spione, one of the rules is "During Maneuvers, every player must narrate the principals further into The Cold". That's not play advice; that's a rule. If a player isn't doing that, he's breaking the rules. As another example, in A Flower for Mara, one of the rules is "During a Spotlight Scene, if you are still holding your flower, you must play out how your character is still struggling with his grief." Again, that's not play advice; that's a rule. If you don't do that, then you're not playing the game correctly.
Of course, the problem is that we're not used to seeing these sorts of things as being rules. Instead, we tend to think of the mechanics as being the "rules" and the broader social dictates as merely being advice. But that's not accurate, and I think this idea has led to a lot of confusion about a number of quality games. Personally, I think that this is pretty nifty design space, and, honestly, I learned a lot of it from Ron's games, especially Spione. (For example, the Demographics from Dirty Secrets and the Griefs from A Flower for Mara were directly inspired by Spione.)
And so maybe this is a better way of putting my point from the post: If you're wanting your players to engage emotionally, then you need to design the social structures to encourage that engagement, not just mechanics. Part of that is being aware of how your mechanics could be repurposed by the players of the game, and then deciding how to work with that issue.
Hopefully that helps explain where I'm coming from.
Also, here's an interesting question: is the ability for mechanics to be "repurposed" a strength or weakness? I'm raising the question, partly to get a ruling from Jesse if he considers that to be off-topic for this thread. I seems relevant to me, but I wanted to see Jesse's thoughts before continuing.
Seth,
That is absolutely not off topic. In fact, that's the very kind of "line in the sand" I'm trying to draw. I don't think mechanics that can be re-purposed are necessarily a bad thing. It does bother me when (a) people re-purpose them with trying them out in their original form and (b) when people re-purpose a mechanic and still assert they're playing the same game.
Like, to me, the phrase, "We played Dogs in the Vineyard set in the Firefly Universe" is an absolute false statement. You can not play "Dogs in the Vineyard" without Town Creation, without The Faith, without understanding sin and the King of Life. You can use the cool Rasie-See-Raise mechanic to resolve conflicts in a Firefly Universe inspired fiction, but you are not playing Dogs in the Vineyard.
Which is odd when looking at something like Sorcerer which is infinitely customizable but not easily re-purposed. Although, CK is in the process of trying to do it using Traveler, so perhaps the operative word there is *easily* since the level of analysis and careful consider on CK's part goes above and beyond the simple knee-jerk, "Ooooo, I could totally use this to play X!" you see so often.
All that said even I've thought up "escalating" It Was A Mutual Decision to be about full on divorce and replacing the wererat with a ghost. And I've similarly considered the social ramifications of allowing Mara to be a ghost in A Flower For Mara as well. But that's cause I love ghost stories not the "Boo!" scary way but in that cool "I'm haunted by something" way.
Jesse
1. System first, as I'd put it, would be that if by the mechanical rules the GM can decide what skill check is involved, he can indeed call for a climb check. Even if there was no wall in the SIS. Indeed, it means you have to start imagining a wall now - not because the 'events' of the SIS meant a wall happened to come up, but because of raw mechanics use. The SIS follows mechanics mechanics use, or your playing wrong. This is no doubt anathema (perhaps abomination) to most roleplayers, where if there isn't a wall, then you mustn't be able to call for a climb check/the SIS controls what mechanical options may be chosen.
It's something I was getting at back in 2004 (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=12365.0), where I proposed the sitution that a vase is pushed off a balcony - what happens? Well, if it's up to the GM whether it lands safely and intact or smashes, if he chooses that it lands safely and intact, you have to imagine that, even if it landed on concrete hundreds of feet below. That, or you decide to cease playing entirely.
I could go into the features, but briefly the primary one would be breaking stagnant imagination. Because a stagnant imagination will just keep restricting the mechanical choices so as to produce more stagnancy. System first breaks that tyranny.
I had a #2 about 'It's breaking the rules if you don't show grief' and demonstrating the policing power that'd require also makes the policeman the only real artist at the table. But it got a little empassioned and I'm working on it still...
This is interesting in I think that certain consideration are being overlooked here. I think CA is important enough to this conversation to get a mention. I'm completely clueless about most of the games that are being talked about here, so I'll have to pull out some examples from my own play history that use more traditional games as their basis.
Let's take, King Arthur Pendragon for instance, the goal of a player in Pendragon, any player portraying a knight character, is to gain Glory. If a player makes a "roleplaying" decision for his character where he refuses to gain Glory because of his character's personality, when this wasn't enforced by the games trait system, I would say whole heartedly that that player was playing Pendragon, as written, wrong. This is an issue of CA because all of Pendragon's mechanics (literally, all of them) exist to allow player to take a "front seat" in "creating" an Arthurian style adventure tale. They are not there to explore theme through character, or to create "good" (as defined by Narrativism here on the Forge) stories. They're there to randomly generate outcomes and fill in the gaps and see what happens and to enjoy the exercise.
Now, some could deny Glory because they felt like an action was out of character even when there traits didn't demand it, but they be doing the game a disservice.
Simulationism.
Now, with DtV, even though I haven't played it, my understanding is that the game is about addressing them and creating "story" in the Narrativist since. It seems to me that letting the die mechanic trump the story would be a mistake because of the implied (explicit?) CA of the game design.
And that would seem to be where the divide would be.
Am I of base here? Or does this have some merit?
Quote from: masqueradeball on December 11, 2008, 03:40:11 AMNow, with DtV, even though I haven't played it, my understanding is that the game is about addressing them and creating "story" in the Narrativist since. It seems to me that letting the die mechanic trump the story would be a mistake because of the implied (explicit?) CA of the game design.
That would be my feeling on the situation as well. The die mechanic is a small part of the system as a whole in the game and the system includes the ability to give. If you are intent on playing the game without the option of giving it seems to me like you are getting to wrapped up in the die mechanic and drifting the game to something else.
Quote from: SethRather, the mechanic gains its impact from how it structures both the SIS and the ongoing conversation about the SIS.
From my perspective, the games designed for conversation that isn't about the SIS, it's for conversation about break ups/relationships. Its just using the SIS as a means to that end - the SIS is not the end itself, it's just a means to an end. Indeed, the SIS is disposable - but in terms of conversation about break ups, it can be helpful as a distance and perspective mechanism.
It's what I'd (probably incorrectly) call a simulationist fixation on the SIS that is part of the problems root, in the original account. If not THE problem!
I don't know if it's just pure missassociation, where people dealing with the SIS get a strong feeling because what their talking about ties into real life issues - but because they are dealing with the SIS, they associate the strong feeling with the SIS. It's like the reverse of the old saying "Throwing out the baby with the bath water". The SIS is the bath water, the real life problem is the baby. Here people treasure the bathwater and keep it rather than throw it out, and thus by chance, do not throw out the baby as well.
Many of the posts in this thread advise really valuing the bathwater if you want a good game, IMO. And some of that bathwater reeks....
A quick clarification about something I said.
Quote
Rather, the mechanic gains its impact from how it structures both the SIS and the ongoing conversation about the SIS.
In this statement, I'm distinguishing between the SIS and the conversation. The SIS (aka the "fiction"), is the space where the game "takes place", like a boardgame takes place on a board. We move our "pieces" on the "board" through talking to each other. That's the "conversation" that I'm referring to. I'm
not talking about thematic statements being made through the game or dealing with real-life issues or anything like that. D&D combat works by structuring the SIS and by structuring the conversation, by saying who gets to say what when.
As I'd put it, theres only one conversation at the gaming table. To me, atleast, you are talking about where any thematic statements or dealing with real life issues (even obliquely) happen. They happen in conversation. If the conversation is dedicated to the SIS and there is only one conversation, then they don't happen.
For anyones particular game it's probably not dedicated to the SIS right now. That's why I added the bathwater comments, to make a suggestion against more dedication to the SIS as a way of dealing with the people/problem in the original post.
Quote from: jburneko on December 09, 2008, 03:16:24 PM
Seth,
That is absolutely not off topic. In fact, that's the very kind of "line in the sand" I'm trying to draw. I don't think mechanics that can be re-purposed are necessarily a bad thing. It does bother me when (a) people re-purpose them with trying them out in their original form and (b) when people re-purpose a mechanic and still assert they're playing the same game.
Like, to me, the phrase, "We played Dogs in the Vineyard set in the Firefly Universe" is an absolute false statement. You can not play "Dogs in the Vineyard" without Town Creation, without The Faith, without understanding sin and the King of Life. You can use the cool Rasie-See-Raise mechanic to resolve conflicts in a Firefly Universe inspired fiction, but you are not playing Dogs in the Vineyard.
Which is odd when looking at something like Sorcerer which is infinitely customizable but not easily re-purposed. Although, CK is in the process of trying to do it using Traveler, so perhaps the operative word there is *easily* since the level of analysis and careful consider on CK's part goes above and beyond the simple knee-jerk, "Ooooo, I could totally use this to play X!" you see so often.
Okay, then let me ask a few leading questions to poke at this:
1) What would be necessary in a game for you to accept it as "Dogs in the Vineyard set in the Firefly Universe"? Or, alternately, "we played Jedi Knights using Dogs in the Vineyard", if the Firefly 'verse doesn't work for you?
2) What is the difference between "customizing" Sorcerer and "repurposing" it? Let's use CK's Sorcerer/Traveler game as an example.
3) Would escalating IWAMD to divorce be "customizing" or "repurposing"?
To give away where I'm going with this, I think that Nolan is on to something when he points at Creative Agenda being involved here. So, a game should communicate its "preferred" Creative Agenda as part of the text.
Though, at the same time, I'm wondering if a game with repurposable mechanics is useful from a design perspective to all the systems hackers out there. So, maybe "Dogs in the 'Verse" is a custom game being played at one person's table. (I say this for the sake of discussion.) Is that a bad thing? Couldn't this sort of hackable design be a useful thing? After all, this is common practice in many roleplaying groups. For example, I talked to someone the other day who was hacking the Palladium system to play Oathbound. Couldn't this be a valid and reasonable design goal?
Quote
And I've similarly considered the social ramifications of allowing Mara to be a ghost in A Flower For Mara as well.
Yeah, but then you'd be playing it wrong. *wink*
Or would you?