[Agon] - So-so'ing our way around the Island of Lycophon
Darcy Burgess:
Hey Filip,
I don't want to veer off into expectation-land too much, but here's why Agon would make a pretty shitty board game: as designed, I'd have to do too much work to get ready to play. Part of a board game's appeal is that it's ready to go out of the box. Agon, and any edition of D&D I've ever played (mostly 1st AD&D with a smattering of 3.5) are most definitely not ready to rock when you open the book.
RPGs pay off differently than Boardgames, I think, because of the SIS. When the SIS is really, really cooking, it's an experience like no other. The SIS doesn't come out of nothing, however -- you have to create it.
So, here's a specific instance of where I have trouble with Agon. Let's say we're in a proper battle (actual fighting with hit rolls and stuff) It's very easy to fall into the trap of rushing on to the next step of the procedure -- the next hit roll, or calculating damage, or whatever -- without taking the time to feed and update the SIS. That's what I'm talking about when I say there's no ingrained system for creating a vivid SIS. The design relies on the attentiveness and discipline of the participants more or less exclusively. Incidentally, this is probably true of most RPGs as well.
D
Filip Luszczyk:
Quote
So, here's a specific instance of where I have trouble with Agon. Let's say we're in a proper battle (actual fighting with hit rolls and stuff) It's very easy to fall into the trap of rushing on to the next step of the procedure -- the next hit roll, or calculating damage, or whatever -- without taking the time to feed and update the SIS. That's what I'm talking about when I say there's no ingrained system for creating a vivid SIS. The design relies on the attentiveness and discipline of the participants more or less exclusively. Incidentally, this is probably true of most RPGs as well.
Well, this seems consistent with my experiences. Games with a heavily tactical combat tend to look like that: lots of purely procedural play, lots of focus on the board, cards or what have you, with some rare moments of "imagination sharing" thrown in. That was the case with all versions of D&D I played, with certain combat heavy RPGs like Warhammer or Legend of the Five Ringsp, and also in Contenders and even in our recent Mouse Guard. However it was also the case with straight miniature games like Mordheim, and with card or board games occassionally as well.
I like this playstyle. A lot. I guess it's something you just need to like.
Hence, the issue of expectations. I don't suppose it can be avoided here, it's clearly a preference thing. As you mention, the whole thing is true of most games labeled as "rpgs", and it's also true of many games that are not labeled as such, but lend themselves to a very similar gaming experience. It seems to me like this is where the whole "role-playing game" label is really failing. It's like your problem wasn't that Agon doesn't produce enough role-playing, but rather that it's too much like a "role-playing game" and not enough like, say, a "story game". I guess the old derogatory "roll-playing" label fits much better than that, I'd say, sans the derogatory connotations.
Now, there's one thing such "roll-playing games" excell at, I think. The moments of "imagination sharing", while rare, emerge very naturally in certain critical points of play, tend to be very short and to the point, and extremely vivid. You move your tokens and roll your dice, and suddenly someone rises from the table to shout "By the power of Greyskull!" or goes on how this particular critical hit must have looked like in the fiction. Compared to the constant and steady imagination flow a more typical role-playing game like Call of Cthulhu or a story game like IAWA, it's like a sudden injection of condensed imagination. "Roll-playing games" have a narrative flow of their own, rewarding in their own way.
The difference between a "roll-playing game" and a straight board game is that the latter is limited to tactical play exclusively, whereas the former intertwines tactical sequences and exploration/interaction sequences. Combat felt very similar both in our D&D and Mordheim. In Mordheim, however, the only thing we did in between skirmishes was engaging various resource management procedures, like advancement and shopping. In D&D, we were just walking around the place, doing stuff and talking to NPCs, and those were the parts that involved more typical "role-playing."
Obviously, in this mode of play one needs to be ready that in few hours of tactical combat only a few moments of "imagination injection" are going to emerge naturally. Which means one needs to be able to immerse in the tactical aspect strongly enough, otherwise things would be boring.
So, I believe you might be expecting Agon to provide you with a different gaming experience than the ruleset produces naturally as designed. Do you have any experience with Beast Hunters, by the way? I guess that one might be much closer to what you seem to be looking for.
Noclue:
Darcy, I've ran Agon twice, neither time as well as I would like, but I'm learning a few things. First, I think you're underestimating the effect the combats have on Agon gameplay. Making challenges that are interesting goes a long way towards improving the experience because it forces the players to call on oaths and use tactics. To that end, fix the NPC encounters. One thing I've found is that fights that feature an NPC and several minions are more fun. Straight up minion battles are a just a slog.
Play up the oaths and the hunt for glory. Prod the players. Ask them if they are going to let the other heroes have all the glory. Remind them that these guys owe them oaths.
Lastly, you're right that the game doesn't enforce the SIS and you can easily fall into lazy "rolling to hit" play. You're going to have to watch that and demand narrative description from both yourself and the players.
Hope that helps.
Callan S.:
Hi Darcy,
Quote
The design relies on the attentiveness and discipline of the participants more or less exclusively.
I would add 'inclination' to that as well.
Are the other players inclined toward making an SIS - or to be more exact, updating the SIS as frequently as you'd prefer, Darcy?
Ron Edwards:
Hi,
Callan, you nailed it.
Warning: Big Model content permeates what I'm about to say. When I talk about Exploration, or nigh-synonymously, the SIS, I always stress that System is one of its five components. The SIS as a whole is best understood as imaginative engagement and communication about a fiction-in-development, including time and consequences in its fictional content.
When people say, "System is whatever happens in play," they can confuse themselves into thinking that System oversees and subsumes all of the SIS. It doesn't. System is a component, the part that introduces time and consequences into the otherwise-static features of Character, Setting, and Situation. SIS is the bigger thing.
What am I trying to say with this diagrammatic babble? I am saying that the inclination to engage with the SIS is not System-based. You literally cannot design a game which makes a person participate.
That said, it's clear that any one of the five components of Exploration, or any combination of any of them, can play an inspirational role. I'm a big proponent of Color actually being the most crucial of these, but as many of you know, I've been advocating for System to be recognized as well for a long time (as opposed to being some kind of obstructive, best-"ignored" thing). So yes, given features of a System can well be inspirational to a person already-inclined to receive that particular sort of excitement. That's why it matters.
But that is all. It matters, which I think is true. That's not the same thing as saying that a given System will instantly and automatically produce the Most-Teh-Awesome role-playing Evah (and make you, the person who brought it to the group, their Best Friend For-Evah), which I think is emphatically false.
Best, Ron
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page