Art in mechanical design - has always been an awful idea?
Vulpinoid:
Quote from: Callan S. on July 10, 2009, 02:25:24 PM
I mean, "If the art and flavour of the world doesn't support the premise" - the premise is just more art/fiction. Your talking soley in terms of what art supports what art - which is fine if your only looking at art. And a mechanism that doesn't give the desired results - which desired results? The results the artistic muse wants, or the group activity desire wants? Atleast to me, your just addressing what art supports what art - which is something to think about. But atleast to me your haven't addressed the issue of this thread.
No, you're just not thinking outside the box, and certainly not understanding how these issues address the questions.
I'll clarify my definitions.
Design is not art. Design is not mechanisms.
Design is the attempt reach quality. Where quality is the best possible outcome for a desired product (whether that product be architectural, mechanical, industrial, literary or even a game). Some may find quality for a certain design is easier to achieve through artistic expression, really defining their world, carefully crafting their output. Others may find that quality for a design requires intricate mechanical attention to detail, and finely tuned mechanisms. Virtually all designs require a degree of both. That end product is given to a user, and the user puts it to their own purposes.
There are often mechanisms inherent within art, to give it structure and form. There is often artistry within mechanisms to make them more pleasing to the eye, and graspable by the mind. This may seem overly generic as a statement to you, but that's just an excuse to ignore the statement in context with your question.
Unless a game author is going to run every session of every game, there is going to be some GM latitude in the rules. It's just the "Chinese Whispers" syndrome; I believe that expecting everything to fall back on the responsibility of the GM is just a very naive perspective.
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...I'm talking about taking responsiblity as game author for the entire end experience (not for small, singular parts of it that the group might use). Talking about what the GM should have done but didn't, or what the players should have done, but didn't, is just shifting blame onto them. This thread is about the games (original) author keeping that responsiblity.
Let's push this hyperbole to the next level...If I design a microwave, am I accountable for the idiot who kills kittens by sticking them in that microwave? The opening is the right size...and I didn't specifically say in the instruction manual "DO NOT PUT KITTENS IN MICROWAVES".
Quote from: Callan S.
You might be familiar with the turn order dysfunction of 'whiffing' where essentially your turn comes and you affect absolutely nothing. You effectively didn't have a turn. The idea/design goal of it being a group activity has been compromised.
You claim that the person who 'whiffed' effectively did nothing. You can't state that they did nothing. The player took a futile risk, and knew full well that theye were taking this risk that might not pay off. Again, I refer back to my point that this was the player's decision, if they needed a 20 to hit, and they missed, then it would be immature to complain that "things weren't fair"...the character had plenty of other options available. Perhaps they could have used some other skill to construct traps/obstacles or generally cause their opponent other issues. The character doesn't need to attack directly, and even in a game like Rifts, everyone is either good at something, or has a huge range of options at their disposal.
The group activity hasn't been compromised, it's just that the players aren't playing as a group. The example you cite seems to show one Juicer player who dominates the combat sequence, and the player of a less combat worthy character who just wants to sit around and bitch that they can't do anything rather than thinking for themselves and getting the job done by unconventional means.
If you're going to keep harping on about Rifts, take note of what several people have said after returning from various Palladium "Open House" days. Kevin Simbeida has written most of his games taking a lot of things for granted about his own GM style, I even heard one person state that he basically ignores most of the rules in his own games and plays a very fast freeform style of game (Note: by freeform, I mean the American RPG definition of the term and not the Australian RPG definition of the term).
It seems that you are holding aloft a poor example of a twenty year old kitchen-sink game, based on a cobbled-together assortment of concepts which were at least a decade old when the game was released. Then you seem to be claiming this to be the pinnacle of game design.
Plenty of games have moved beyond the concept of turns and task resolution, and in my experience games of this ilk allow much better group functionality.
I'm actually working on a 3:16 hack for Rifts. Instead of space commandos fighting against aliens, the game is a very cut-down version of Rifts focusing on teams of Coalition commandos wandering the outskirts of the Coalition states eliminating D-Bees and other threats to humanity. Once someone suggested it to me, it seemed a really nice fit because it blended the background story with the mechanisms reasonably well, with only a couple of gaps that needed some jury-rigged rules (such as the various OCCs and Rifts specific stuff like "Horror Factor").
The game actually seems to be coming together nicely, and I'll send Gregor a copy in homage (I'll do the same to Palladium, but I only expect legal letters back from them, based on previous reports).
If this still doesn't address you're point I have to second the questions of an earlier poster...
Quote from: Jasper Flick on July 10, 2009, 02:40:31 AM
Callan, I think your definition of art here is too broad. It appears to range from art products, to what emerges during play, to how to make sure everyone has a good time. You're also specifically focusing on a specific mechanic: turn-based combat, but is this just an example, or is it your main point of interest?
V
Ron Edwards:
Hello,
I think the word "art" is causing more trouble than it solves. Callan, your points in response to HeroQuest were the most interesting to me. You're identifying that design - in which 20 in ability A is equally effective as 20 in ability B, period, no matter what A and B are - as not having the "art in design" problem. I think I see your point quite well and agree with what you're saying there. Yet I can see a perspective, and probably tapped into that perspective myself while playing that game, from which that precise design maximizes the art of play itself. So from that perspective, HeroQuest is arguably vastly more artistic in design than most games.
I raise that point not to argue for "art or not art" in HeroQuest, or in Rifts, but to illustrate how the word "art" is making everyone jump up and down like mechanical monkeys. And it doesn't have to!
To everyone in the thread: c'mon, let it go. You don't have to protect "art" from someone who uses the term differently from the one you cherish and nurture. Let's talk about what Callan is saying and not what his chosen term means to you.
I think we should focus on that precise distinction: HeroQuest abilities in action, and Rifts in action. With real play. Let's talk about what it's like to use the exact rules we are talking about, and let "art" take care of itself. I've got a whole lot of HeroQuest (well, its first form, Hero Wars) to use, and one of the first points I can make is that although 20 (or 15, or 15w, or 1w2, for HeroQuest people) is the same from ability to ability, utility of ability to ability is a very finely-honed in-game and in-play thing. Close, in fact, to the Traits issue that Markus raised a few months ago. I can anticipate that discussion raising points which I for one cannot predict and would like to see.
Best, Ron
JoyWriter:
Callan,
You suggest (if I'm correct) that the turn has a defined purpose structuring social interactions. Right? And that using it to mean something, to tell you something about the setting, can interfere with that purpose. If I extend that, perhaps you could say that if people implement turns to give everyone a chance to contribute fiction, then if another game element stops that happening it actually makes turns pointless?
I'm not sure I agree; people re-purpose things all the time, from people using online games as chatrooms to people recycling old tyres into reinforcement for earth walls. So people using turns in a weird way is totally fine so long as they keep account of why they were put there in the first place. Why should people? Because the person who uses his tyres for walls better have another way to get to work, or the person who uses the game as a chatroom may be annoyed when they get PvP killed randomly. Those are two angles on the same idea, either you miss out on a function that it is no longer doing, or extra functions you forgot about jump out of nowhere and kill you!
Now in contrast it may be that it doesn't matter about the functions they are missing; they may not need to drive, or they may be happy to wander about as "ghosts" still chatting. In one case the extra function is unnecessary, and in the other it's additional effects can be compensated for.
Bringing this back round to structuring social interactions, if a rifts game blows up the turn structure, then maybe you never needed it, but if you do, you'll now need a replacement. You've suggested what exactly those turns are supposed to be there doing; insuring each player has an opportunity to contribute within a certain time period, and maybe even that they will contribute equally. Now that is not a universal design constraint; some games actually have an audience! In other games, mario galaxy is specifically designed to have a pretty unimportant but helpful second player role so someone can play with a much lower skilled friend.
Lets not get in a loop; just cause you can do the replacements and fix rifts to make it a better game, doesn't mean you're crap for not doing it, or that it might not be better to start with new rules! Suggesting rules to fix it is actually a step towards that. In case it wasn't clear, V's concrete suggestion was that the setting of rifts seems to contain areas that are compatible with good social dynamics around the table and that he might have a mechanical core to implement that.
Here's what I think is the big secret; it's not about mechanics on the same side as social/competitive concerns, and colour/fluff/art on the other: Mechanics sit slap bang in the middle with these constraints on every side. As an example, imagine mechanics as the blocks in this picture; they have to be made so that shining light on them from the different directions still fulfils what you are after.
Now you could get into a monster conflict between two visions of the social interactions you want in a game, I know I've done that, so I had to split the game, with the potential for putting them back together at a later date as a sort of progression from one to the other. It could be a conflict between two parts of the setting tone, that you feel just don't mesh, like the differing tones of orks vs nurgle in 40k. The problem is just the old design-classic of more than one simultaneous constraint, it's just that you find it tricky to get those two particular sets of constraints into one single vision. That is particular division is personal to you, although other people may share it.
The core vision for a game must be centred on people playing, by some phantom mechanics you have not yet designed, and then filling in that blank so that it fits that concept. If you can fit all those constraints in your head as one thing, then you are a good way towards designing the game, if not, then yep, you're going to bounce around from one to another. Getting closer and closer to fulfilling one picture while mucking up the others. You can lessen that by trying to make "Pareto superior" changes, that are better from one angle but the same from all others, but I know of no substitute for getting a design clear in your head as a single potential object.
Hopefully the heroquest examples will show one way to do that.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on July 10, 2009, 07:44:46 PM
I think the word "art" is causing more trouble than it solves. Callan, your points in response to HeroQuest were the most interesting to me. You're identifying that design - in which 20 in ability A is equally effective as 20 in ability B, period, no matter what A and B are - as not having the "art in design" problem. I think I see your point quite well and agree with what you're saying there. Yet I can see a perspective, and probably tapped into that perspective myself while playing that game, from which that precise design maximizes the art of play itself. So from that perspective, HeroQuest is arguably vastly more artistic in design than most games.
I think I understand you, Ron, and agree with you. Take it I wanted to paint an elephant and I have either a paint brush or a small statue of an elephant to paint it. What I'm saying is that the absence of art built in the paint brush makes it better at making art/maximises art creation (or supports it better) than the elephant statue (which has art built into it already). Or is the analogy making you draw a blank, which you've mentioned happening before (I think?). Arguably heroquest is more artistic (as in supporting the creation of art) as it has less art in it(s mechanical components/the attributes are blank, like a paint brush lacks art in it's components).
Michael, does that address anything for you, at all?
Joywriter,
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I'm not sure I agree; people re-purpose things all the time
I'm talking about game authors and their design goals (specifically how a certain pair compromise each other to no benefit) - specifically about making new designs and how drawing from the old idea of baking art into mechanics might be a bad idea to learn and practice. End users taking the product and using it for some other purpose isn't an issue here :)
Christopher Kubasik:
I'm of the opinion these days that a well designed RPG is an incredibly well designed tool, like a good paintbrush and a set of good paints.
The kinds of RPGs I like are tools designed to prompt creativity on the part of the players.
This doesn't mean there is not artistry in an a good RPG design. Just the the artistry is focused on serving the creative agenda of the Players.
HeroQuest, as an example, is an elegantly and artfully designed game that let's the players at the table use it as a tool to create memorable moments of fiction and long beats of narrative. It does its job very, very well. There is artistry in the design. But, again, like a well made paintbrush, it's job is not to be the focus of the work, but to be utilized by others. It focuses options (a paint brush is good for painting, but bad for writing a novel), but serves those focused options well.
Games like Sorcerer, InSpectres and Dogs in the Vineyard (off the top of my head) are also very good at this, in this regard, though each is designed to serve as an excellent tool for the players in different ways. Each of these games, like HeroQuest, is purposefully designed to serve the needs of players will. There are games that are artlessly designed -- which impedes the ability of Players to use them successfully. This implies that as much care need to be put into making a good brush (paints, canvass and so on) as in the act of making a painting itself. It's just that the focus of the design/art concerns are different.
I don't know if this hijacks the thread, but I have been thinking about this a lot and thought I'd toss it in.
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