1 

     2   /* lumpley games* <lumpley.html>*: Roleplaying Theory*/

     3 

     4 Roleplaying Theory

     5 

     6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

     7 anyway. <opine.html>

     8 A Penny for Your Thoughts <mailto:lumpley@earthlink.net>

     9 Read & Post Comments (488) <http://www.quicktopic.com/21/H/dae5AcNgPVdS>

    10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    11 

    12 back to lumpley games <lumpley.html>

    13 

    14 	

    15 

    16 

    17     *Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore*

    18 

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

    20 ever shall. Instead, how about a running chronicle?

    21 

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

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

    24 

    25 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    26 

    27 

    28     Doing Away with the GM

    29 

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

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

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

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

    34 players' collective will.

    35 

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

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

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

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

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

    41 

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

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

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

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

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

    47 

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

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

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

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

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

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

    54 

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

    56 path.

    57 

    58 *6-5-03*

    59 

    60 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

    61 

    62 

    63     Roleplaying's Fundamental Act

    64 

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

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

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

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

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

    70 determine whether they're actually true or not.

    71 

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

    73 that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"

    74 

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

    76 out of the underbrush?

    77 

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

    79 appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly

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

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

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

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

    84 are wearing or thinking.

    85 

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

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

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

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

    90 

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

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

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

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

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

    96 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   104 a combat system that works like this.

   105 

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

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

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

   109 

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

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

   112 constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the

   113 table. That's their sole and crucial function.

   114 

   115 *6-9-03*

   116 

   117 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   118 

   119 

   120     Aside: GNS

   121 

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

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

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

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

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

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

   128 

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

   130 conversation, but the simple fact that it consistently happens reveals

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

   132 negotiate the evolution of situation to situation, their conversation

   133 would stall or crash.

   134 

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

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

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

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

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

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

   141 three cover an enormous variety, especially as their nuanced particulars

   142 combine in an actual group of people in actual play.

   143 

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

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

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

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

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

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

   150 negotiating situations. No individual situation's evolution or

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

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

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

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

   155 

   156 That's GNS in a page.

   157 

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

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

   160 

   161 *1-23-04*

   162 

   163 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   164 

   165 

   166     Conflict Resolution vs. Task Resolution

   167 

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

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

   170 stake is: do you crack the safe?

   171 

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

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

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

   175 

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

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

   178 resolution.

   179 

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

   181 can succeed but lose, fail but win.

   182 

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

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

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

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

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

   188 win anyway.

   189 

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

   191 

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

   193 It's task resolution. Roll: Success!

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

   195 in-order papers."

   196 

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

   198 It's task resolution. Roll: Failure!

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

   200 piece of paper in the wastebasket..."

   201 

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

   203 success=winning, failure=losing.)

   204 

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

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

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

   208 your relationship and all those unreliable social things the rules are

   209 supposed to even out.

   210 

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

   212 authorship. Task resolution will undermine your collaboration.

   213 

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

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

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

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

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

   219 

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

   221 Conflict Resolution: do you force him off-balance?

   222 Roll: Loss!

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

   224 

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

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

   227 successfully)?

   228 Roll: Success!

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

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

   231 

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

   233 task resolution.)

   234 

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

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

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

   238 

   239 *2-5-04*

   240 

   241 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   242 

   243 

   244     A Small Thing About Suspense

   245 

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

   247 kick my butt if you gotta.

   248 

   249 *Suspense doesn't come from uncertain outcomes.*

   250 

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

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

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

   254 

   255 *Suspense comes from putting off the inevitable.*

   256 

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

   258 know /what it will cost/.

   259 

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

   261 Notice how the movie builds suspense: by putting complications between

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

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

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

   265 finally/.

   266 

   267 What about RPGs?

   268 

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

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

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

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

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

   274 outcomes are, in those circumstances, incompatible.

   275 

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

   277 

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

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

   280 are going to win. What will it cost them?

   281 

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

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

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

   285 

   286 *3-22-04*

   287 

   288 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   289 

   290 

   291     A Small Thing About Character Death plus a mini-manifesto

   292 

   293 Along the precise same lines:

   294 

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

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

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

   298 reason, unlike in real life.

   299 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   307 

   308 So that seems pretty solid to me.

   309 

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

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

   312 

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

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

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

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

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

   318 

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

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

   321 

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

   323 

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

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

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

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

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

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

   330 still get consistenly good results.

   331 

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

   333 

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

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

   336 statements.

   337 

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

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

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

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

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

   343 Kenobi and Leon say yes.

   344 

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

   346 

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

   348     resolution rules will keep it from being pointless or arbitrary:

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

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

   351 

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

   353 

   354 *3-23-04*

   355 

   356 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   357 

   358 

   359     Practical Conflict Resolution Advice

   360 

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

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

   363 

   364 I sure do.

   365 

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

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

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

   369 "The danger is that..."

   370 "What's at stake is..."

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

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

   373 

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

   375 but before they roll 'em.

   376 

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

   378 period, like:

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

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

   381 to go the long way around?"

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

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

   384 this ogre lives or dies."

   385 

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

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

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

   389 

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

   391 like this:

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

   393 accomplishment or they avoid the danger.

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

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

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

   397 former.

   398 

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

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

   401 poison!"

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

   403 it?"

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

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

   406 they'll get you off your feet!"

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

   408 back toward the chasm..."

   409 

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

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

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

   413 environment, like hanging tapestries or a swaying bridge or broken

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

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

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

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

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

   419 damage and whatever, just add it straight in.

   420 

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

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

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

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

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

   426 so take a +2."

   427 

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

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

   430 rules. Guaranteed plus-fun.

   431 

   432 *3-27-04*

   433 

   434 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   435 

   436 

   437     Arranging the Pieces of a Game

   438 

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

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

   441 

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

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

   444 you're asking?

   445 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   453 no more.

   454 

   455 Character creation in a Narrativist game might work by creating

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

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

   458 

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

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

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

   462 You see wealth but no opportunity.

   463 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   472 

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

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

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

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

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

   478 remember that the players are the authors!

   479 

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

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

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

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

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

   485 line - doesn't.

   486 

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

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

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

   490 

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

   492 similar way.

   493 

   494 *4-10-04*

   495 

   496 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   497 

   498 

   499     Pre-play / Play / Post-play

   500 

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

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

   503 

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

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

   506 really happen after the game, can it?)

   507 

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

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

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

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

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

   513 

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

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

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

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

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

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

   520 doesn't call for or produce 'em.

   521 

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

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

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

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

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

   527 

   528 Similarly, meaning:

   529 

   530 A game where the meaning happens mostly pre-play is one in which

   531 somebody or everybody has something to say and already knows what it is

   532 when the game starts. You can always tell these games: the GM expects

   533 his or her villains and their schemes to be absolutely gripping, but

   534 they aren't; the players keep wanting to play their characters as well

   535 as the characters deserve, but it's not happening. I make my character a

   536 former slave but when it comes up in play it's because I force it to,

   537 and my fellow players dodge eye contact and the GM wants to get on with

   538 the plot.

   539 

   540 A game where the meaning happens mostly during play is also easy to

   541 spot: everybody gets it and is engaged. Other players than me are into

   542 my former-slave character, and when she gets passionate about something,

   543 the other players hold their breaths. The GM lets the players pick the

   544 villains through their PCs' judgements, then plays them aggressively and

   545 directed-ly and hard. Every session is hot. Nobody sacrifices the

   546 integrity of his or her character for the sake of staying together as a

   547 party or solving the GM's mystery - the action comes right out of the

   548 characters' passions.

   549 

   550 And a game where the meaning happens mostly post-play - telling it is

   551 better than it was. Sometimes there'll be one person, the GM or the GM's

   552 favorite player, whose needs the game mostly met, and if you talk to

   553 /that/ person the game will sound rockin', but if you talk to the other

   554 players, it'll sound eh. If people talk afterward about how cool this

   555 kind of game was, they'll talk about highlights that happened once every

   556 three, four, five sessions - as though a game with one gripping,

   557 thrilling, passionate moment per twenty hours of play were a successful

   558 game.

   559 

   560 My goal as a gamer and a game designer is to push /both/ invention and

   561 meaning as much as possible into actual play.

   562 

   563 Problem: the hobby, represented by the books in your game store and the

   564 conventional habits of most gamers, prefers the pre-game over the game.

   565 

   566 Seriously. How many times have you created a character who was far

   567 cooler in your head than he or she turned out to be in play? How many

   568 times have you prepped a campaign only to find that, in play, it didn't

   569 go as well as you'd hoped? Have you ever thought that, y'know, reading

   570 game books and imagining play and preparing for a game is almost as much

   571 fun as actually playing? Or even /more/ fun than actually playing?

   572 

   573 The hobby doesn't value or teach collaboration. It values and teaches

   574 competing sole-authorship. Pre-game invention sells books but robs

   575 players of their ability to contribute; pre-game meaning is thrilling to

   576 imagine but dull to actually play. This arrangement we've got going is

   577 frickin' broken.

   578 

   579 The solution is to design games that're inspiring, but daydreaming about

   580 how much fun the game will be to play seems pointless and lame, and you

   581 can't create extensive histories or backstories because that stuff's

   582 collaborative -

   583 

   584 - so you call a friend.

   585 

   586 *4-12-04*

   587 

   588 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   589 

   590 

   591     Burning Down the Firewall

   592 

   593 Conventional wisdom: *if your character's not in the scene, you can't

   594 participate.*

   595 

   596 Text from Dogs in the Vineyard:

   597 

   598     The game calls for lots of free table talk, with you and your fellow

   599     players calling out suggestions, kibitzing, and expanding on one

   600     another's descriptions. Don't shut your mouth just because your

   601     character's off the stage.

   602 

   603 Conventional wisdom: *if your character's not in the scene, you

   604 shouldn't let information from the scene influence your actions.*

   605 

   606 Text from Dogs:

   607 

   608     The game works *even better* when you bring your own metagame

   609     knowledge into your character's actions. If you're choosing between

   610     two possible, realistic actions for your character to take, don't

   611     limit your decision-making to your character's point of view. Choose

   612     the one that *you* prefer!

   613 

   614 Conventional wisdom: *when your character's surprised, you should be

   615 surprised.*

   616 

   617 I can't beat Ron Edwards' answer to this one. The whole answer's here on

   618 the Forge <http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=114267#114267>, but

   619 here's a quote:

   620 

   621     I'm now going to say something very harsh - traditionally, the focus

   622     on "must ... surprise ... players!" is trying to solve the basic

   623     problem that the encounter with, e.g., the goblins, is fundamentally

   624     a stupid and irrelevant event in the game. Gotta have a fight.

   625     Goblins. Must make it exciting. Um, well, I guess the only way is to

   626     "get into character" and "be surprised," so I gotta figure out how.

   627     OK, tell them to immerse, surprise the characters with GM-rolls-it

   628     Perception checks, and thus the players will be surprised, right?

   629 

   630     Wrong. The perception check is a big fat meaningless waste - the

   631     encounter only takes on player-relevance if, in fact, the goblins

   632     are relevant to the Creative Agenda of this group.

   633 

   634 Conventional wisdom: *it's boring when your character's not in the scene.*

   635 

   636 Text from Dogs:

   637 

   638     Like every social fun, playing Dogs in the Vineyard depends on

   639     constant feedback and demonstrated enthusiasm. When somebody says

   640     something cool, show it. When something's funny, laugh. When you

   641     have a suggestion, shout out. (I know, I know, duh, right? I only

   642     mention it because I've played other games where you didn't, y'know,

   643     do things like that.)

   644 

   645     Also, to really deliver, the game shouldn't be isolated from your

   646     regular socializing, it should blend in. Chat about the game before

   647     and after, just like you would a book or TV show or movie. Chat

   648     about books and movies and catch up with each other, during! You can

   649     think of it as commercial breaks if you want, but tied to the social

   650     rhythms of your little group, not on TV's 15-minute cycle. If the

   651     game's worth playing, it'll draw your attention back in.

   652     Interspersing some time of just hanging out like friends can be

   653     pretty effective for maintaining a pace, prolonging suspense, and

   654     giving payoff moments real punch, so don't worry too much about

   655     digressions.

   656 

   657     ...

   658 

   659     Your game will have an overall story, made up of the interwoven

   660     individual stories of your characters. If it's not as fun and

   661     engaging as the best TV shows, I haven't done my job.

   662 

   663 *4-22-04*

   664 

   665 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   666 	 

   667 

   668  

   669  

   670