Warhammer; Chaos! Order! Molasses!
Callan S.:
Hi Frank,
With my hundred random rules A: I think a group would be making system as they go, and if they wanted rain to mess with fire magic, the general tendency is that they would say you can't use fire magic if rain has been narrated.
They typically wouldn't think to B: give the player the choice to use his fire magic or not, then rely on his sympathetic reaction to the narrated fiction that rain messes with fire magic, and not use his spells when rain is narrated.
With case A, it's just making up numbers play. It may feel like B, because in the heat of play they made this stuff up, and at the time the fire mage was sympathetic with the fiction of the proposed rule and went with it. But while that sympathy was there, what they made up would be a board game/a numbers game. It's just a board game rule - can't use fire spells when there's rain. That's like a rule that says bishops can only move on diagnals - completely boardgame.
When you leave it up to people to find their own way, they generally start making boardgame rules that support their idea of how the fiction goes. It's counter intuitive to them to provide a second option to go against the fiction as they see it.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Okay, so you’re talking about resolution here. You are of course right that numbers are usually involved at that stage or even if they aren’t it’s still essentially the same. That is however not what I meant by “a game of numbers”. As long as the decisions by the participants are aimed at fictional outcomes, as opposed to Currency flow, the numbers are not what the game is about. And even if some mechanical reward is involved, it’s still not necessarily my “game of numbers”.
But what I’ve seen happen in games where the players try to do “what the designer wants them to do” is this: First they figure out the rules part, the part with the numbers (or tokens or whatever). And then, almost as an afterthought, they establish what that means in the SIS. That’s the artificial, emotionally detached sort of play I call “game of numbers”. It lacks the joyful “let’s pretend” quality of a childhood game.
That’s why I have come to the conclusion that “the designer knows best” doesn’t work and “the group knows best” is really without alternative. The best thing a designer can do is to inspire, and to help players make an informed decision.
- Frank
contracycle:
I think it s probably true that the group forms its own system, and that you can't really compel thewm to do otherwise short of standing in the room with a whip and threatening to lash them, but: even if the endpoint is not attainable, this conviction is preventing is from trying certain things at all
Lets face it, most non-Narr RPG texts are indeed nothing more than a set of combat rules. There is no "how to play" there is no real "game" there at all. In saying that the this function devolves to the group, we merely decline to engage with the question.
I suspect some of this is relevant to the "old skool" stuff of late, because you know, going in to a duingeon to kill things and take their stuff is in fact really focussed and knows what its about. Deep, meaningful, insightful? No, but at least everyone knows what they are there for. But ever since this style of gaming came out of the dungeon, there has been the drive to do something more epic, more story-like, more than merely grinding your way through monsters: to have dramatic villains, greater purposes, Quests with a capital Q. There's no rules for any of that stuff, there is no procedure for play, except what the players themselves assemble from the components they actually have: the dungeon crawl-descended mechanics.
Sometimes it is just marching from dungeon to dungeon in the abstract, but a lot of the time its much more fluid, and the systems don't really survive. Take a rule that grants you use of a power X times per day, of which there are many. Who controls the rate of time? Either the GM outright, or the players by "consensus". A power that you could use a certain number of times per day made sense and makes sense in the dungeon context, where one day will contain many encounters; but if you are freewheeling over the landscape, travelling from place to place, having encounters dispersed in time and space, it means much less - it really means something like x uses per encounter. The meaning of the rule has been totally changed by the migration out of the strictly defined dungeon, and it has become a function of GM fiat more than rules.
There is indeed a gaping chasm here which, it seems to me, we are studiously ignoring. Railroading and participationism are in fact viable solutions to this problem; at least they do lend play some purpose and direction. And part of the quid pro quo, then, is to allow players to faff and fiddle, take their time in their planning, so they are at least not totally the GM's hapless creatures being driven before him like cattle, the whole game descending into one huge power trip. It may not change a whole lot but it least it softens the impact, makes it more palatable. I do not think it is surprising, therefore, that so many people arrive at the conclusion that that is how it should be done.
Callan S.:
Hi Frank,
Well, the first thing that strikes me is that if they keep trying to do what the designer wants them to do, then they aren't envisioning (within what mechanical options are presented) their own idea to follow? Why aren't they learning the mechanics, then envisioning some idea that they emotionally attached to but is also something that is facilitated or dealt with with the ruleset? A cynical part of me thinks it's a sign of a group who, unless they have absolutely free reign, will not invest in the imagined space? Which takes me to 'lets pretend' - a written game aught to lack the joyfulness of let's pretend! Because it's a different game than let's pretend. We all own a copy of let's pretend, basically. A new game really should lack the same taste as let's pretend, as it aught to be providing some new and different taste. New games aught to fail at having the overall same joy as let's pretend (a new game could include, as part of it, some of the joy that was let's pretend, but if that's all the game provides, it's not exactly a new game).
Anyway, in terms of a group who keeps trying to do what the designer wants them to do, I think it'd be good to continue with an actual play account in it's own thread so it gets proper attention (or; you gave a link before - should I read through that in relation to this?). I think that'd really help answer why they don't start envisioning something they are attached to.
Hi Jasper,
I've been chewing over your comments on accomidating. I don't think because I accomidate, someone else aught to. But your points did make me think that if the other guy doesn't realise your accomidating them - what's the point of accomidating them? Particularly if they don't even see the stuff as being anything they do in their games. It's just adding stuff to my designs/altering my designs in ways that no one actually appreciates the accomidation/compromise (even if it by and large matches what they do/run in their games).
Jasper Flick:
Hi Callan!
Indeed, what's the point of accomodating? If it's all one-way then surely it won't last.
Pulling this into design, what would you really be designing for? A game you think Dan wants to play? Through compromising, you might well be diluting whatever makes the game cool for yourself. Basically, you're designing by committee, but it's worse because you're using a second-guessed-Dan as your partner. You might end up with a stale compromise that doesn't actually accomodate Dan at all.
If you really want to find a common ground with Dan and tweak or create a game for that, at least make him a full collaborator. If he doesn't like that idea, it's a doomed venture either way.
Personally, I can't imagine me succesfully creating a game if it wasn't aimed squarely at myself.
Now a little tangent about the joyfulness of let's pretend. What joyfulness? This is probably highly subjective. I abhor pure "let's pretend" because in my experience it's system is social bullying. By chance it might work out, but given enough time "The Disagreement" will be encountered and the game will be destroyed for at least for one person.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page