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Roleplaying Theory

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    *Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore*

I haven't written the all-encompassing essay yet, which so it goes and

ever shall. Instead, how about a running chronicle?

(I've put them oldest to newest, and foof to blog convention, foof I

say! The newest is Burning Down the Firewall <#10>, 4-22-04.)

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    Doing Away with the GM

You need to have a system by which scenes start and stop. The rawest

solution is to do it by group consensus: anybody moved to can suggest a

scene or suggest that a scene be over, and it's up to the group to act

on the suggestion or not. You don't need a final authority beyond the

players' collective will.

You need to have a system whereby narration becomes in-game truth. That

is, when somebody suggests something to happen or something to be so,

does it or doesn't it? Is it or isn't it? Again the rawest solution is

group consensus, with suggestions made by whoever's moved and then taken

up or let fall according to the group's interest.

You need to have orchestrated conflict, and there's the tricky bit. GMs

are very good at orchestrating conflict, and it's hard to see a rawer

solution. My game Before the Flood <flood.html> handles the first two

needs ably but makes no provision at all for this third. What you get is

listless, aimless, dull play with no sustained conflict and no meaning.

In our co-GMed Ars Magica game, each of us is responsible for

orchestrating conflict for the others, which works but isn't radical wrt

GM doage-away-with. It amounts to when Emily's character's conflicts

climax explosively and set off Meg's character's conflicts, which also

climax explosively, in a great kickin' season finale last autumn, I'm

the GM. GM-swapping, in other words, isn't the same as GM-sharing.

Any solution to this is bound to be innovative. There's not much beaten

path.

*6-5-03*

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    Roleplaying's Fundamental Act

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true

in game, all the participants in the game (players /and/ GMs, if you've

even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're

roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be

true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to

determine whether they're actually true or not.

So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine

that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"

What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps

out of the underbrush?

1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an

appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly

into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes!

Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high

ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather

or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters

are wearing or thinking.

2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an

orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the

suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this

thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense."

3. Sometimes, mechanics. "An orc? Only if you make your

having-an-orc-show-up roll. Throw down!" "Rawk! 57!" "Dude, orc it is!"

The thing to notice here is that the mechanics /serve the exact same

purpose/ as the explanation about this thing about her tribe in point 2,

which is to establish your credibility wrt the orc in question.

4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the

likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a

having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll,

a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of

the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of

orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a

stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have

a combat system that works like this.

(Plenty of suggestions at the game table don't get picked up by the

group, or get revised and modified by the group before being accepted,

all with the same range of time and attention spent negotiating.)

So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's

another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and

constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the

table. That's their sole and crucial function.

*6-9-03*

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    Aside: GNS

So you have some people sitting around and talking. Some of the things

they say are about fictional characters in a fictional world. During the

conversation the characters and their world aren't static: the people

don't simply describe them in increasing detail, they (also) have them

do things and interact. They create situations - dynamic arrangements of

characters and setting elements - and resolve them into new situations.

They may or may not have formal procedures for this part of the

conversation, but the simple fact that it consistently happens reveals

some sort of structure. If they didn't have an effective way to

negotiate the evolution of situation to situation, their conversation

would stall or crash.

Why are they doing this? What do they get out of it? For now, let's

limit ourselves to three possibilities: they want to Say Something (in a

lit 101 sense), they want to Prove Themselves, or they want to Be There.

What they want to say, in what way they want to prove themselves, or

where precisely they want to be varies to the particular person in the

particular moment. Are there other possibilities? Maybe. Certainly these

three cover an enormous variety, especially as their nuanced particulars

combine in an actual group of people in actual play.

Over time, that is, over many many in-game situations, play will either

fulfill the players' creative agendas or fail to fulfill them. Do they

have that discussion? Do they prove themselves or let themselves down?

Are they "there"? As in pretty much any kind of emergent pattern thingy,

whether the game fulfills the players' creative agendas depends on but

isn't predictable from the specific structure they've got for

negotiating situations. No individual situation's evolution or

resolution can reveal a) what the players' creative agendas are or b)

whether they're being fulfilled. Especially, limiting your observation

to the in-game contents of individual situations will certainly blind

you to what the players are actually getting out of the game.

That's GNS in a page.

I don't think I've said anything here that Ron Edwards hasn't been

saying. I do think that I've said it in mostly my own words.

*1-23-04*

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    Conflict Resolution vs. Task Resolution

In task resolution, what's at stake is the task itself. "I crack the

safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!" What's at

stake is: do you crack the safe?

In conflict resolution, what's at stake is why you're doing the task. "I

crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!"

What's at stake is: do you get the dirt on the supervillain?

Which is important to the resolution rules: opening the safe, or getting

the dirt? That's how you tell whether it's task resolution or conflict

resolution.

Task resolution is succeed/fail. Conflict resolution is win/lose. You

can succeed but lose, fail but win.

In conventional rpgs, success=winning and failure=losing only provided

the GM constantly maintains that relationship - by (eg) making the safe

contain the relevant piece of information after you've cracked it. It's

possible and common for a GM to break the relationship instead, turning

a string of successes into a loss, or a failure at a key moment into a

win anyway.

Let's assume that we haven't yet established what's in the safe.

"I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!"

It's task resolution. Roll: Success!

"You crack the safe, but there's no dirt in there, just a bunch of

in-order papers."

"I crack the safe!" "Why?" "Hopefully to get the dirt on the supervillain!"

It's task resolution. Roll: Failure!

"The safe's too tough, but as you're turning away from it, you see a

piece of paper in the wastebasket..."

(Those examples show how, using task resolution, the GM can break

success=winning, failure=losing.)

That's, if you ask me, the big problem with task resolution: whether you

succeed or fail, the GM's the one who actually resolves the conflict.

The dice don't, the rules don't; you're depending on the GM's mood and

your relationship and all those unreliable social things the rules are

supposed to even out.

Task resolution, in short, puts the GM in a position of priviledged

authorship. Task resolution will undermine your collaboration.

Whether you roll for each flash of the blade or only for the whole fight

is a whole nother issue: scale, not task vs. conflict. This is sometimes

confusing for people; you say "conflict resolution" and they think you

mean "resolve the whole scene with one roll." No, actually you can

conflict-resolve a single blow, or task-resolve the whole fight in one roll:

"I slash at his face, like ha!" "Why?" "To force him off-balance!"

Conflict Resolution: do you force him off-balance?

Roll: Loss!

"He ducks side to side, like fwip fwip! He keeps his feet and grins."

"I fight him!" "Why?" "To get past him to the ship before it sails!"

Task Resolution: do you win the fight (that is, do you fight him

successfully)?

Roll: Success!

"You beat him! You disarm him and kick his butt!"

(Unresolved, left up to the GM: do you get to the ship before it sails?)

(Those examples show small-scale conflict resolution vs. large-scale

task resolution.)

Something I haven't examined: in a conventional rpg, does task

resolution + consequence mechanics = conflict resolution? "Roll to hit"

is task resolution, but is "Roll to hit, roll damage" conflict resolution?

*2-5-04*

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    A Small Thing About Suspense

I have no criticism cred to back this up. Just amatuer observations. So

kick my butt if you gotta.

*Suspense doesn't come from uncertain outcomes.*

I have no doubt, not one shread of measly doubt, that Babe the pig is

going to wow the sheepdog trial audience. Neither do you. But we're on

the edge of our seats! What's up with that?

*Suspense comes from putting off the inevitable.*

What's up with that is, we know that Babe is going to win, but we don't

know /what it will cost/.

Everybody with me still? If you're not, give it a try: watch a movie.

Notice how the movie builds suspense: by putting complications between

the protagonist and what we all know is coming. The protagonist has to

buy victory, it's as straightforward as that. That's why the payoff at

the end of the suspense is satisfying, after all, too: we're like /ah,

finally/.

What about RPGs?

Yes, it can be suspenseful to not know whether your character will

succeed or fail. I'm not going to dispute that. But what I absolutely do

dispute is that that's the only or best way to get suspense in your

gaming. In fact, and check this out, when GMs fudge die rolls in order

to preserve or create suspense, it shows that suspense and uncertain

outcomes are, in those circumstances, incompatible.

So here's a better way to get suspense in gaming: put off the inevitable.

Acknowledge up front that the PCs are going to win, and never sweat it.

Then use the dice to escalate, escalate, escalate. We all know the PCs

are going to win. What will it cost them?

My game Chalk Outlines <chalk.html> was a stab at this, and Otherkind

<other.html> was a better stab, but where it's really coming home is in

Dogs in the Vineyard and the Good Knights <goodknights.html>.

*3-22-04*

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    A Small Thing About Character Death plus a mini-manifesto

Along the precise same lines:

When a character dies in a novel or a movie, it's a) to establish what's

at stake, b) to escalate the conflict, or c) to make a final statement.

Or perhaps some combination. It's never by accident or for no good

reason, unlike in real life.

I've been thinking about examples. Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars? /This/,

his death says, is worth fighting for. Boromir in the Fellowship of the

Ring? The right death redeems betrayal. Brad and wha'sname at the

beginning of Pulp Fiction? The cop in Reservoir Dogs? All those random

people in Total Recall? Tara in Buffy? To escalate conflict, plain and

easy. Leon and Gary Oldman's character in the Professional? Final

statementville, but Matilda's family? Escalation plus some stakes.

So that seems pretty solid to me.

Before I go on (I'm sure you've already figured out what I'm going to

say anyway) but before I go on, *my mini-manifesto*.

First: if what you get out of roleplaying is a) the accomplishment you

get from rising to the challenge, not letting yourself or your friends

down, learning the rules and just frickin' /owning/ them, or else b) the

satisfaction of peer-appreciated wish-fulfillment, you're off the hook.

None of what I say applies to you, you're happy.

If, on the other hand, what you want out of roleplaying is suspense,

resolution, story, theme, character, meaning - listen up.

Second: conventional RPGs can't give it to you. I'm sorry.

So, third: that stuff you want? You get that by approaching roleplaying

as though it were a form of fiction, a form of literature. All that

stuff is well known to fiction writers and they can tell us how to do

it. Roleplaying isn't like writing, just like singing pub songs in a pub

isn't like composing songs, so the skills themselves are different. But

the same structure underlies both. You can't ignore the structure and

still get consistenly good results.

So that's my mini-manifesto and here's character death in RPGs:

PCs, like protagonists in fiction, don't get to die to show what's at

stake or to escalate conflict. They only get to die to make final

statements.

Character death can never be a possible outcome moment-to-moment. Having

your character's survival be uncertain doesn't contribute to suspense,

as above <#5>, just like we don't actually ever believe that Bruce

Willis' character in Die Hard will die. Instead, character death should

fit into /what it will cost/. This thing, is it worth dying for? Obi-wan

Kenobi and Leon say yes.

Here's a piece of text from Dogs in the Vineyard:

    Also, occasionally, your character will get killed. The conflict

    resolution rules will keep it from being pointless or arbitrary:

    it'll happen only when you've chosen to stake your character's life

    on something. Staking your character's life means risking it, is all.

In fiction, You never die for something you haven't staked your life on.

*3-23-04*

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    Practical Conflict Resolution Advice

My friend anonyfan asks: *"Do you have any ideas on how to effectively

and meaningfully implement 'what's at stake' in a non-narrativist game?"*

I sure do.

You won't have any trouble at all, and in fact your group will wonder

how you got along before, if you find the magic words. I don't know what

your group's magic words are but here are some I've used:

"The danger is that..."

"What's at stake is..."

"What you're risking is..."

"So what you hope to accomplish is..."

Say the magic words every single time, when the dice are in their hands

but before they roll 'em.

At first, you'll need to finish the sentence every time yourself, with a

period, like:

"The danger is that you'll set off the trap instead of disarming it."

"What's at stake is, do you make it to the ferry in time or do you have

to go the long way around?"

"What you're risking is being overheard by the goblins on the rooftop."

"So what you hope to accomplish is to get through the doorway, whether

this ogre lives or dies."

But after you've said it three or four or ten times, you'll be able to

trail off with a question mark when you want their input:

"What you're risking is...?"

And then, once the dice are on the table, always always always make it

like this:

- If they succeed, they win what's at stake. They accomplish their

accomplishment or they avoid the danger.

- If they fail, they lose what's at stake - and you IMMEDIATELY

introduce something new at stake. It might be another chance, it might

be a consequence, but what matters is that it's more serious that the

former.

"The danger is that you'll set off the trap ... and you do! A dart

thocks into your shoulder. The danger now is that you'll succumb to its

poison!"

"You reach the dock as the ferry's pulling away. Do you want to jump for

it?"

"The goblins overhear you and start dropping in through the skylight.

They scramble all over you, biting and screeching. The danger is that

they'll get you off your feet!"

"Not only does the ogre keep you away from the doorway, it's pushing you

back toward the chasm..."

In combat, you'll probably want to have an overall what's at stake for

the fight, and little tactical what's at stakes for each exchange. When

you describe the setup, mention two or three features of the

environment, like hanging tapestries or a swaying bridge or broken

cobblestones, plus an apparent weakness of the foe, like worn armor

straps or a pus-filled left eye, and then when you say what's at stake

for an exchange, incorporate one of those: "the danger is that he'll

push you back onto the broken cobblestones" or "so what you're hoping to

do is to further strain his armor straps." This is on top of hitting and

damage and whatever, just add it straight in.

It's especially effective if you always give a small bonus or penalty

for the exchange before. What's it in D&D now, +2/-2? Give it every

single exchange, linked to whether they won or lost the what's at stake

of the previous exchange. "The broken cobblestones mess up your footing,

so take a -2." "He has to shrug and shift to adjust his sagging armor,

so take a +2."

In Forge terms, you've used a couple of nonmechanical techniques to

build a conflict resolution system around your game's task resolution

rules. Guaranteed plus-fun.

*3-27-04*

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    Arranging the Pieces of a Game

/This is another straight transplant from the Forge. You'll have to

forgive the GNS talk, or not, I mean, it /is/ how I think about things:/

How do you treat Character, Setting, Situation, System and Color in

Narrativist game design vs. Simulationist vs. Gamist, is that what

you're asking?

After setup, what a game's rules do is control how you resolve one

situation into the next. If you're designing a Narrativist game, what

you need are rules that create a) rising conflict b) across a moral line

c) between fit characters d) according to the authorship of the players.

Every new situation should be a step upward in that conflict, toward a

climax and resolution. Your rules need to provoke the players,

collaboratively, into escalating the conflict, until it can't escalate

no more.

Character creation in a Narrativist game might work by creating

characters who, in some key way, have nowhere else to go. Life o' Crime,

the rpg: create a character who owes somebody more money than he can repay.

Setting in a Narrativist game might work by applying pressure to that

key point in the characters. Life o' Crime: there's recession, few jobs,

no way up or out, but worse class difference than ever before anywhere.

You see wealth but no opportunity.

Situation in a Narrativist game works by increasing the pressure. Life

o' Crime: Someone depends on your character to bring home groceries and

pay rent. Someone else has just been evicted and is facing homelessness.

Someone else asks you if you know where to get drugs. Someone else just

got beaten by the authorities. Someone else just got beaten by the guy

you owe money to. Someone else offers to cut you in on a job. Someone

else wants the whole take for himself. Someone else knew you'd never

amount to anything. Someone else can't be trusted. Someone else can be.

System in a Narrativist game works, again, by resolving one situation

into the next. Life o' Crime: what do you do? How does it work out for

you? Does it a) hurt? b) give you breathing room? c) piss someone else

off? d) hurt someone else? and/or e) set you back? How does it increase

the pressure? Remember the moral line defined by your Premise, and

remember that the players are the authors!

And Color permeates a Narrativist game same as any other. Life o' Crime:

is it Thatcher's England? Victoria's England? Shakespeare's England?

Bush's US? Hoover's US? Colonial Massachussetts? Mars? The Kingdom of

Thringbora? The details change, but the core of character situated in

setting - the fit characters locked into conflict defined by a moral

line - doesn't.

I've had fun writing this! I hope it's at all an answer to your

question, and I should probably make clear that it's just how I think

about it, and other people no doubt think about it in whole different ways.

I imagine you could break down Simulationist and Gamist games in a

similar way.

*4-10-04*

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    Pre-play / Play / Post-play

In your game, the game you're actually playing, a) in which stage does

/invention/ happen, and b) in which stage does /meaning/ happen?

Invention - creating setting, character, nifty toys, potent powers -

invention can happen before the game or during the game. (It can't

really happen after the game, can it?)

A game where the invention happens mostly pre-play would be one where

there are maps, characters, factions, technology, societies, interests,

all in place when the game begins. I can't think of a good example of

this in fiction - maybe /Babylon 5/? - but clearly lots of roleplaying

happens this way. Look at all the dang setting books!

A game where the invention happens mostly during play would have the

same list of things, maps characters societies etc., but they'd be

created at need as the game progresses. We have one serious bazillion

examples of this from fiction: Howard wrote /Conan/ this way, their

writers wrote /Farscape/ and /Buffy/ this way, and lots of roleplaying

happens this way too. It's underrepresented in rpg books because it

doesn't call for or produce 'em.

And it occurs to me that, in JRR Tolkein, we have an example in fiction

of post-play creation, where he created a bunch on the fly, and then

extensively rewrote and filled in to build his world. Apparently /the

Hobbit/ changed a lot to match what he'd written for /the Lord of the

Rings/, for instance. Can't really apply to roleplaying though.

Similarly, meaning: