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Author 	Topic: Wait, What Matters Again?  (Read 2499 times)

*Ben Lehman

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	*Wait, What Matters Again?

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« * on:* July 14, 2004, 09:54:05 PM »

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wait, what Matters again?

Or

The Extent of Sys

Or

"If you have a D&D game without orc-killing, is it Drift?"

Or

"No complete RPG will ever be made."

Jargon Alert: If you are not familiar with these terms as they are used

in Forge discourse, go and look them up before reading this:

1) The lumpley Principle (I call it lP sometimes), which I wield like a

fucking club all over this post.

2) Shared Imagined Space (which is my favoritest term ever)

3) Exploration

4) Exploration, components of (Situation, Setting, Color, blah, blah)

5) Credibility

6) Drift

Curse Alert: For some reason, I am particularly vulgar in this essay.

System does Matter.

What?

What matters?

Good question.

What the hell is this "System" anyway?

Well, for a lot of people, this is like art and porn -- they know it

when they see it.  This is not a satisfactory definition to me and, I

venture, should not be a satisfactory definition for anyone who gives a

damn about discussing the theory of RPGs which is probably everyone

reading this post since the god-damn forum is called "RPG Theory."  I

mean fuck, people.  If you're not interested in RPG theory I can't

exactly hold your fucking hand through this thing, can I?  Just go read

your pansy "Actual Play" or suck it up, stay here with the theory wonks,

and quitcherbitchin.

That intro was actually a little misleading -- I'm going to take my

definition from the lumpley Principle (the only piece of role-playing

theory so low-budget it can only afford one capital letter), so I

already have a definition in hand.  But what I'm going to do is take a

look at that and go "holy fuck, that's a hell of a lot bigger than I

thought.  Like, fuck, man!  I gotta design all that shit?"  Or

something.  Basically, what I am saying here is "the System" covers a

huge range of stuff, only a small subset of which is ever talked about

or even acknowledged by game texts.

So, okay.  Let's look at the l.P.

"The System is the means by which players negotiate the contents of

their shared imagined space."

Right.

So what is it?  What's in there?  To find this, I'm going to "run the

statement backwards" and say that "The means by which the players

negotiate the contents of the shared imagined space is the System."  I

realize that this is a different statement.  Call it the "lumpley

Principle adjunct" or the "Little Timmy Principle" or, perhaps, the

"'kiss my ass, you 'systemless rpg' players' principle."

Well, let's start with the obvious thing:  Mechanics.

What are mechanics?  Mechanics are things which say "If your roll of

17d7 is greater than or equal to the target number correlated from

charts 2.5 to 6.4.1 inclusive, your character succeeds."  Or, "The

character with the higher Warfare will, all things being equal, win any

strategic or tactical situation."  Or, "when Virgo is ascendant, the

leftmost player takes on the role of High Priestess, which means that

she speaks for the Mother in all things, particularly to combat with

axes, maces, and tangerines."  Essentially, mechanics are anything which

resolves situations in the RPG through deliberate, particular means,

often mathematical.  There's a hell of a lot of analysis of mechanics

out there.  To some people, actually a lot of people, mechanics is all

there is to system.  System and mechanics are the same thing.  This

people are poorly informed assholes, fuckwits, and malcontents, not

worthy to lick the dirt out of my toenails.  Or perhaps we just have

different definitions of system.  Either/or.  

Are mechanics a part of system?  Well, duh.  Are they the whole shebang?

 Not even fucking close.

How about setting?  A lot of gamers (including me) have this whole

hang-up about setting/system differences.  A lot of people say that an

RPG text is comprised of setting and system.  "So they're totally

different, right?" asks Little Timmy.

Well, Little Timmy ("Don't call my little I am twenty-three") let's look

at the lumpley Principle.  Hrm...  Can setting effect the contents of

the shared imagined space?  Fuck yes!  Setting is the background of the

shared imagined space.  In fact, I would say that, given the definition

of system from the lP, setting is often a greater component of system

than mechanics.  I mean, which has more weight on the actual play of the

game "We are using the D&D mechanics" or "We are playing in the

Forgotten Realms?"  Yeah.  Hard question, ain't it?

So Setting goes in the box.  Wait, does this mean that all setting-less

game texts are fundamentally incomplete with regards to system.  Yes.

 Fucking right.  Precisely so, Little Timmy.  Now take your medicine and

get out of my face.

Okay, how about situation?  Marco talked about this a little bit with me

recently, which is what set me off on this whole thing but, essentially,

does the basic situation of the game effect the shared imagined space?

 Or, as he (roughly), put it, "is it still D&D if you aren't killing

orcs?"  I used to be a big opponent of the idea that sitch could be a

part of system or, rather, I would talk about playing D&D *without

drift* (by which I meant Mechanical Drift).

I was a fucking bonehead.  *I'm* not even fit to lick to dirt out of my

own toenails.  Look, can situation be used, by a player, to make a

statement about the shared imagined space?  Yes.  Of course.  If it

can't, well, I don't know what it is.  It's like the situation has

nothing to do with what's going on in the game?  Whatever.  It doesn't

happen.

Okay, let's stop it with this piece-by-piece shit and just eat the whole

pie like the fucking fat pigs we are:  What isn't System?  What, in the

entire act of role-playing, is not a part of System, as it is defined by

my god and saviour, Vincent "lumpley" Baker (whose principle I'm sure

you are sick of hearing of, at this point)?

Out of game relationships (players sleeping with each other, or some

such) -- System

Who ordered pizza?  -- most likely system.  I mean, you don't want to

kill the guy who ordered the pizza in the first scene.  That's just low.

The emotional state of all the players?  -- System, definitely.  More

important to System than mechanics, more'n likely.

That "Lucky twenty-sider" and the rituals that surround it? -- System, I

think.  This is probably the furthest borderline case I can find.

I cannot imagine a single aspect of the act of role-playing that is not,

in some regard, a part of System.  I can't even conceive of the

possibility of their being such an element.  Please offer suggestions,

if you can.

So, okay, what does that mean to designers?

Well, it is pretty fucking obvious that no game text can, will, or

should present a totally complete system -- that is a game without

players.  However, a lot of chunks of system (The GM-player

relationship, say, or the little social rules that game groups carry

with them) are carried from game to game totally unthinkingly, and that,

I think, needs to change.  Essentially, for design, this means "look, by

offering a 'role-playing system' you are, in fact, offering an

incomplete item which will be interfaced with by the role-playing group

to create a whole system, which will in turn be used to manipulate the

particulars of their shared imagined space."

So, the question that I have is: What does it mean to include a certain

system in a game text, in terms of effect on Actual Play?  What does it

mean to leave it out?

yrs--

--Ben

P.S.  The first one who gets the "23 years old" reference gets a prize.

 PM me or stick in a P.S.  And, yes, Google is cheating.

P.P.S.  Tip o' the hat to Mike Mearls for the "no complete RPG" bit.

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	*Wait, What Matters Again?

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« *Reply #1 on:* July 14, 2004, 10:51:03 PM »

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erm, yes and no.

Its true to say that I cannot create a complete system in the sense you

appear to describe.  The actual physical game that actually happens is

largely beyond my control.

But this is a restriction that applies to many things and is IMO

implicit in the creation of any device for use by anyone other than the

designer.  IMO this is Not An Issue; it was resolved by the

identifiication that textual rules are only contributory elements to the

social contract, which is the real mechanism governing the human

interactions.

But being contributary elements, they do serve to inform the negotiation

of that social contract and do bring the designer into the conversation

at the table, as it were.  That is the purpose of system.  By analogy, I

cannot perhaps construct a system that produces faultless justice; but I

can propose a system of trial by jury if I think that this prior

discussion of local social contract would be useful to the pursuit of

justice.

System matters in that respect.  System is an overt implementation of

social contract.

Now I have previously proposed that in essence, among players suitably

familiar with the form and process of RPG, no real 'RPG product'

purchase is necessary at all.  They could just pick up a book, and refer

to that book as if it were the RPG world.  With any of a number of

generic or favoured system, they could have some sort of game.

So in that sense one might indeed say system is not very necessary at

all.  But we do think system is necessary - and I believe we think this

becuase it frames our interactions with the SIS.  We resolve conflicts,

and thus determine what enters the SIS, for example.  And that is why

IMO particular system matters even when system in abstract falls away

into the nebulous social contract.  Any actual implementation of a

particular system gives instructions to players: you do this after that

after the other for such a goal.  Actual human behaviour - sure pretty

unimportant, but still actual - is being governed to an extent by the

designer and the design, exactly as it might be in a beauracracy or

engineering system.

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	*Re: Wait, What Matters Again?

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« *Reply #2 on:* July 15, 2004, 12:00:35 AM »

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just want to point out one of those aspects of the lP that seems

obvious, but that will be news to a lot of traditional-style RPG

designers. Yeah, "mechanics" and "system" are not synonyms here.

Mechanics may be a big part of system, but they're not the *entirity* of

system.

Turn that around, though, and think about this: *not all rules /

mechanics are part of the system.* A lot of times, especially in

home-brew games, you'll see mechanics tacked on that, maybe, the

designer liked in some other game, but didn't really understand the

point of - with the net effect that the mechanic actually does nothing

at all in terms of System. It's just kind of *there,* fogging up the

works, but when you really look at it, it doesn't go anywhere.

But, to answer your question, what you're doing when you write a system

is informing the players about your vision of play. What you leave out,

they will be forced to make up on their own. If their personalities are

incompatible with making up that particular stuff, then they will want

to play a game.

A lot of people don't want to play freeform... but they will play "The

Window," which is functionally equivalent to Freeform, AFAIAC.

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	*Wait, What Matters Again?

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« *Reply #3 on:* July 15, 2004, 01:33:29 AM »

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ben,

If setting, situation, and mechanics are the same thing in terms of

system (and I'm not arguing they aren't--it's a fine way to look at it)

then making up a new town is the same thing as adding critical hits to

the damage system. You can argue that one's more effort than the other

but the harder one is probably the town if it's detailed.

That would make drift as related to the utility of a game in terms of

coherence very shaky since in practice one must make characters and

situationa and setting in order to play (traditionally) anyway.

-Marco

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	*Wait, What Matters Again?

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« *Reply #4 on:* July 15, 2004, 04:21:27 AM »

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote

Out of game relationships (players sleeping with each other, or some

such) -- System

Who ordered pizza?  -- most likely system.  I mean, you don't want to

kill the guy who ordered the pizza in the first scene.  That's just low.

The emotional state of all the players?  -- System, definitely.  More

important to System than mechanics, more'n likely.

That "Lucky twenty-sider" and the rituals that surround it? -- System, I

think.  This is probably the furthest borderline case I can find.

It seems to me that Vincent approaches some of this in the Theory

section of the lumpley games website (Burning Down the Firewall):

http://www.septemberquestion.org/lumpley/hardcore.html

I actually got really excited when I read this, because it seemed so

(blindsidingly) commonsensical.  And Ben, I don't see the "lucky

20-sider" as borderline in this consideration at all.  

I think that explicitly addressing what goes on, realistically,

dynamically when people are in-the-act-of-gaming, as part of the overall

system is a powerful design question.  How does the game require players

to /behave/ while playing?  What happens to the game if they /don't/

behave that way, & should it then be considered drift?

I never had any interest in playing Wraith (though a friend of mine was

always bugging me to do so) because I didn't care to adopt the mindset

or around-the-table-behaviors the "system" (in Ben's larger sense)

seemed to demand.

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« *Reply #5 on:* July 15, 2004, 05:27:56 AM »

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote from: Marco

  If setting, situation, and mechanics are the same thing in terms of

system (and I'm not arguing they aren't--it's a fine way to look at it)

then making up a new town is the same thing as adding critical hits to

the damage system. You can argue that one's more effort than the other

but the harder one is probably the town if it's detailed.

That would make drift as related to the utility of a game in terms of

coherence very shaky since in practice one must make characters and

situationa and setting in order to play (traditionally) anyway.  

Yeah.  I remember having touched on this before, but I can't remember

the threads.  There are tons of games which specify setting.  I would

say using Lord of the Rings or Skyrealms of Jorune for a different

setting is a far more major change to system than, say, ignoring

alignment rules.  There are a few games which specify character, like

Timelord (1991) or Run Out the Guns (1998).  There are also a few which

specify situation -- i.e. scenario-based games like the Sandman series

(1985) or Pokemon Jr (1999).  

So here's the big question.  So creating new characters in Timelord is a

change to the system, just as much so as changing the resolution

mechanics.  But we commonly think that, say, creating a setting for The

Pool is not a change to system.  But that seems to make them unequal.  A

problem with "incoherence" as a design criteria is that the less that

you specify with a game, the less likely that parts will clash.

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- John

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