The Forge Archives

If I read the conclusion of the Aesthetics and Reality (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6323) thread correctly, then Chris and Emily tried to pin down a specific tension, between two things: a Baseline, which is basically reality-as-understood-by-the-participants, and a Vision, which is the endpoint of perfect emulation of "source material" if any, or the analogue if no source material exists.  (Interestingly, one could make a case for the latter as being reality as understood by the characters, but that's a different riff on the subject.)

I like this a lot and would like to pin it down to a little bit stronger frame, and then move from there to talking about the tension and balance between these two, because I think that this is where we'll find tools for aesthetic design emerging.

By a stronger frame, I mean that I think these two terms apply to a single act, and that rather than leaving them hanging in air, we can pin them down to that act and discuss them in that context only.  Both terms apply to the process of conveying the game reality.  I don't know if this has a place in the current understanding or not, but it means that these apply to conveying something slightly more encompassing than Setting as we dissect things... they apply to conveying the Setting, the Colour, the appropriate Situations, the physics (Rules), and the appropriate types of Characters.  Conveying the game reality.

(Is that equivalent to just conveying the whole game?  Not quite, because it excludes any input the designer might want to have into, for example, the social contract of play, and much of the manner of play itself.  Unless you consider "the usual way people play RPGs" to be the Baseline, and the designer's Vision to be the mode of play he seeks to support.  I think this is probably spurious extension of the terms Baseline and Vision, especially because that listed Baseline is, as we've established, an exceedingly fast-moving target.  The question of Baseline and Vision interacts with GNS coherence, because you should tune the tension between them to support the desired GNS modes, but GNS coherence addresses more than the "realism/game realism" issue which is what Baseline and Vision are helping us describe.)

It certainly seems like the actual game reality rests somewhere on a sliding line, with Baseline and Vision as the endpoints of that line.  The originating thread covered good reasons why we need both ends of the line, rather than just pinning the game reality to one and leaving the other to flop.  Baseline ("realism") primarily helps make people comfortable, give them a known starting place to jump off from, and often functions in a contrasting mode - it makes the Vision more clear because the following elements contradict the Baseline.  Vision ("source material or analogue of same") is the pattern of ideal things in the game designer's head which he is trying to communicate.  Without Vision there's no point in buying the game book.  (I postulate that even hyperrealistic settingless games of GURPS or whatever have both of these elements, it's just that in this case the Vision differs from the Baseline on only a very few points - primarily the ones concerning what kinds of stories get told.)

So far, so good.  In these terms, we can recast Fang's original post about realism-based rules... if most of the game reality sits quite near the Vision, then realism-based rules tend to draw it back toward the Baseline.  Whether this is good or not depends on whether your game needs a shot of Baseline (something to help make it more accessible, f'rex), or would suffer for being dragged further from the Vision by the subtle effect of those rules.  Fang holds out for striving to land as close to Vision as possible, but it certainly seems like this varies per game.  (Games about really alien topics like Elder Gods tend to desperately need a shot of Baseline right around the intro section, because otherwise players never "make the jump" to the game reality from their own.  Usually manifests as the game never coming off the shelf and being played.  Curiously, this is exactly what my poor Talislanta set suffers to this day.)

Can we do anything more with it than this?  I think it's possible.  Chris and Emily got the beginnings of it, with talking about issues of balance between the two, desirable tension, and even possibly reassigning the Baseline once players' comfort zones include more of the Vision than originally true.  

(I can see that latter applying to supplements in particular.  In fact, if the rules in a core book were high-accessibility, with a strong Baseline in realism and reality-derived physics, but the rules in its supplements were more Vision-based, this would be one design suggestion we could come out of this with right there.  Also true, and perhaps more usefully within conscious design the learning curve of a game.  Make the first rules people learn, the most realistic and closest to Baseline; make the extensions and corollaries more Visionary.  I think that conscious design of the learning curve is one thing we will want to crack open, not necessarily in this thread, but not necessarily not.)

In terms of aesthetics, I think there's most meat on the bone of tension between Baseline and Vision, used to strengthen the game reality as a whole.  You might build up that tension in a few ways... you could stress the constrasts between the Baseline and this game's vision, not only textually but coherently with the message of the entire book.  Or you could play subtler games by allowing the tension between the two to increase through play.  [An example of the former might be Pendragon, with its fairly straightforward Vision; the deliberate omission of an Intelligence stat helps stress the differences between Baseline expectations, and the Vision of the Arthurian world.  An example of the latter would be WFRP, which - as I understand it - conveys a brutal, hostile world, which is not immediately apparent until the results of the charts start to creep out through their probabilities.)

This is far from a trivial dissection, simply because accurately conveying the game reality you desire is one of the hard parts.  Communicating a Vision is often difficult, but even in those cases where it's easy, such as directly source-material inspired RPGs, the game reality necessarily diverges from the Vision (see originating thread).  In those instances, it's communicating the game reality that becomes the hard part; I suspect that this problem lurks beneath the surface of it being difficult to convey the Vision as well, in many cases, and is simply one difficulty being masked by another.  Look at Nobilis; the Vision is clearly, artfully presented... but the game reality, the appropriate balance between Baseline and Vision, is reasonably elusive in play.

Does anyone have any thoughts on specific guidelines as to how to convey this balance, where to choose the balance point(s), or how to increase/manipulate/make use of the tension, between Baseline and Vision in the composition of a game reality?

I'm a bit tentative about posting here, So I'm going to be probabtive rather than give my take on this. We'll see if it's profitable.

First, I'm curious as to whether Fang thinks that your take on these things as relating to Reality is really what it's all about. I think he may have had a broader meaning, but I'll leave that to him to clarify.

In any case, my general question is why do you see a need to pin the point on the spectrum after the fact? I mean, couldn't you just start with an assumption about how realistic you want it to be, and then work to that goal? Am I wrong in assuming that we're talking about a sectrum here? At one point that seems to be what you're talking about, and then at others you seem to be saying that it's two things.

Could you restate in your terms (as opposed to simply referencing Chris' and Emily's ideas) what you mean by tension? How is this not a bad thing? I mean dramtic tension is all well and good, but is that the sort of tension you see being created here?

It's been said that the Social Contract is not part of game design, and I think that's true, personally. The players come together and agree to play, and then agree what to play. It's not the game that causes this to happen. And the "how to play" seems to me to be the entirity of the text. According to the Lumpley priciple, the text exists soley to deliver the power division amongst players so that we know how the game reality is established. So what does that leave? How is this not about the game as a whole? (I fear that this will bring up shades of the last post, but I'm legitmately concerned with the answer).

Why do you feel that Vision is relatively uncomfortable? IMO, it's completely a matter of player preference as to what point on the spectrum is most comfortable. Consider Freeform play that have no "realism" mechanics at all. This is a common form of play. Why do you feel that people need to be "taken" from one point to another? Is this to convert "traditional" players? (Your point about learning curve is well taken, and I'd like to see that thread).

I like your ideas about this all being a design preference. If it's a preference, however, then why, as I asked above, should we need to set the target after simply chosing to go with our preference? I mean shouldn't our preference be out target?

This is still all very unclear to me. It's quite possible I still am just failing to see some important part of this idea that will make it crystalize. Can you help? I fear the questioning method won't help make me seem any more sympathetic, but I was unsure how else to proceed. My apollogies in advance.

Mike

No worries, Mike... many of your questions are the very ones I asked myself as I posted that.

I'll try to drill past them to help clarify things.

I do flag it as a spectrum, but it's a little bit funny as spectrums go.  One end is a little bit variable ("reality" as perceived by players), the other end pretty heavily variable (your game vision and/or source material, as (a) communicated by you and then (b) interpreted by players).  So it's a sliding scale with moving endpoints.  You also move around on it based on when during the process of picking the game up you look.  As such, part of what I wanted to raise was whether simply "picking a realism level and designing to it" was a sufficiently clear description - for us - of what's happening, or whether we would do better to pay some attention to what'll happen to the two endpoints of the scale as they shift, and where the game will land at what points in its progression, etc.  Simple model vs. complex model, basically; I'm interested in what the complex model might look like and whether it offers any insights we can use.

I read much of the core of your questions to come down to whether there's any benefit in going to the complex model at all, and that's one angle I definitely am not sure about myself.  This may indeed all be a waste of electrons.  I think, in this as in other things (I'm a physicist by trade), that it's worth trying out the complex model, seeing whether it produces anything worthwhile in terms of additional information, and chucking it if not.

FWIW, I disagree pretty strongly about the social contract not being part of game design.  GNS mode is a social contract issue, on which the game designer (if he's designing a coherent game) has a strong voice.  Even the original Lumpley Principle thread seemed to divide evenly on whether the "rules" (I read that to say the designer) gets a voice at the table or not.  However, I think it's also an agree-to-disagree which need not impact this thread at all, and probably speaks most strongly to styles of game design itself.

What this is getting at is, at core, ways to communicate your game vision (cf. Creative Agenda, there's a wide mishmash of concepts caught up in either term, but at heart this is the communicated entity which includes your themes, moods, GNS stance, et al).  More clearly, and in such wise that people Get It.

The issue of Getting It is part of why I say that straying too far toward the Vision end is "uncomfortable."  It definitely ties into the learning curve, but I think it may apply even within the context of a single game session.  [It's the distinction between starting an evening's session with "You waken in your apartment, hearing a faint sussuration in the pipes, unshaven and hung over" and "You emerge from your meditative state to find that your sensory cilia, despite being kinked up from the previous annum's debacle, are trembling in a way that is suggestive of movement somewhere in your Bao Kae (apartment)."  Neither is better.  One is more accessible, closer to Baseline.  The other might be closer to the game's Vision - these could, after all, be from the same game!]  My primary reason to suggest operating closer to Baseline is accessibility, and I reiterate that lower accessibility is not none, any resistance can be overcome - but the way the game is designed will affect this resistance-to-concepts.  Often (the insertion of "always" is assumed untrue but not proven either way) this seems to be a tradeoff against the vividness of the Vision end of the spectrum.

Which is where I see tension, and I think that my image of why tension in this is good has to do with the use of contrasts and foils.  The tension between them is what makes it useful to use a little Baseline somewhere - the hangover a powerful sorcerer wakes up to - so as to ultimately heighten the game Vision, when he goes about his high-adventure, high-magic day.  Or, less commonly, the tension also shows up when you use an aspect of nonrealism, of your Vision, to bring things down to earth.  The high magus gestures vividly while chanting in Latin, and in his hands appears... his pipe, which he proceeds to knock on the heel of his boot and refill.  Fantastic element used to contrast and heighten a sense of accessible realism.  

This may all be a special case of dramatic tension, but I don't think so... I think it has to do with the tension generated anytime we have nonrealistic and realistic elements together in a game, whether they be aspects of the Setting, Colour, Rules, or something else.

Tension probably isn't the only way to view it, just as contrast isn't the only way to communicate either of those touches I gave above.  In fact, I suspect that harmony between your Baseline and your Vision is another way to go... it builds to a different game experience instead.  Times when, rather than jarring by their contrast, the realistic and the fantastic (in the generic sense meaning nonrealistic) elements of the game both help produce the same effect on the reader.  Ummm, example, lessee... giving comparable in-game prices for clothes and countercharms, to help reduce the divide between the fantastic and the realistic sides of the universe.

None of my examples have to do, exactly, with the level of realism you choose, they have to do with how you communicate what realism you include, and when, and why.

Does that help clarify why I'm flailing toward a little bit better conception of the Baseline-Vision spectrum, and its uses and characteristics?  I hope so - it did for me. :)

- Eric

Huh.

Well, the best "how to" stuff that I've seen is actually Fang's Genre Expectations. That is, a game should have something that serves to establish these expectations. In most games it's the text. This is certainly problematic in terms of the fact that not all players will read the book. What you often end up with is the GM saying to the player "It's like X book, but with the feel of Y movie," or somesuch.

But even though that last looks problematic, I don't think it is. That is, I think that's about all you need to get a player to the comfort zone or near enough that they'll be into it ten minutes into play.

Because the other thing is that System Matters. That is, the system will inform the player. So, not to be too redundant, but make the system make the players do the right things, and it's all good.

How do you make a system do what you want? Well that's the thousand dollar question that get's asked every day. And there are a jillion answeres. To which I can only refer you to the Indie Design forum. If we had a formula for how to do it game design would be dead already. The only thing we'd need to do is to come up with new genre's to emulate.

It seems to me that this is the "complex" model. But again I may still be missing it.

If you look at the Lumpley Principle thread, you'll find that I was the one arguing for the text to be an empowered participant. But even I had to admit that the players have to agree on the Social Contract level to commit to the text before it was so empowered. And all Ron had ever said is that GNS "bridges" the social contract level and actual play.

Put it this way, give me an example of something from a text that isn't "how to apportion credibility in play".

Mike

With respect, Eric, no, I'm not finding this especially useful.

Can you provide some examples of existing games or -- better yet -- games in progress as they relate to what you're getting at? As a game designer, I'm simply failing to see how this is practical and useful on that nitty-gritty, just-do-it level of creating a game. I had the same problem with the Deliberateness and Elegance ideas. I see concerns about aesthetics as something that just comes very naturally to me, and I'm concerned it's a method to codify "art," which is so much windmill tilting.

I acknowledge that not everyone creates "Stuff" in the same way, and therefore I may be shrugging where Fang is screaming "Eureka!" But even if that's true, I still can't see how you guys are going to put this into practice yet. (And, yes, I know that's why you're discussing it here. I just want to see some steps toward playable games.)

I think some concrete, hopefully robust, and familiar examples would go miles toward helping folks see if all this so-called "flailing" this is useful. I'd much prefer some design examples to which you're privvy to the actual intent of the designer(s).

In other words, I'm not especially interested in discussing all this as it relates to, say, Nobilis unless Borgstrom & Co. chimes in and says, "Yeah, that's how we did it." Well, maybe a bit much, but you get the idea. I'd like some support to your best guesses of a designer's intent.

Quote from: HarlequinIf I read the conclusion of the Aesthetics and Reality thread correctly, then Chris and Emily tried to pin down a specific tension, between two things: a Baseline, which is basically reality-as-understood-by-the-participants, and a Vision, which is the endpoint of perfect emulation of "source material" if any, or the analogue if no source material exists. (Interestingly, one could make a  case for the latter as being reality as understood by the characters, but that's a different riff on the subject.)

The question arose around a couple of sticky subject of  "realism" in games. Fang began discussing the way that design can detract from play if mechanics included to "simulate reality" or realism are used that contradict (that other hoary goat) "genre expectations".  An example from the original (Fang's thread) was a superhero game that included mechanics for the superhero dying.  The conflict was not about whether "realism" mechanics were good or bad universally, but whether they were appropriate to use in that instance, and what might be a better choice of mechanics.  This sparked a lot of conversation about realism, what it is, whether it's right to try for it, whether it's possible etc.  Many old chestnuts.  Chris Lehrich suggested the proposed terminology to help get us out of the rut of perceived realism, so that we could start looking at the dynamics between design and play, and genre expectations and realism.  

Baseline was proposed as an alternate term for "realism". All the things that one would probably assume to be true in a game world unless one is told otherwise specifically. Ie that water will run down hill, that characters will die when they fall 50 stories, etc.  

Vision was proposed to be replace for "genre expectations", or "source materials".  This refers to aspects of a given game world that may break "realism" or put emphasis on specific aspects that could be "realistic" but that are important in some way to play. For example, detective fiction is fairly realistic, nothing fantastic happens, it's all explanable by normal physics and human psychology, but there is a very specific feel to texts that emulate the genre.  Vision must be communicated to the participants in order for them to experience it.  Being able to refer to a given source, like a film or novel is an easy way to clue them in to what to expect, but as came up in prior discussion, it will still only be a ballpark estimate.  

So, how I see it is that the baseline may start set on "reality" but can travel to wherever the common conception of the game world goes.  That's where Eric's "moving end points" come in, I believe.   I like that by the way.    I think Chris L. had fixed endpoints in mind, in between which the game itself existed, so that the end points were more like landmarks--a way to navigate and communicate with one another, but not really the true boundaries of in game material.

Concrete example:
Ars Magica.  
Baseline: europe in the middle ages
Vision: magic works (in an empirical sense) and there are organized orders of mages afoot.
Tensions or conflicts between reconciling the two:
1) having an order of mages such as described in the game texts in europe would have changed the political dynamics completely.  
2) although ostensibly reflecting magical thought of the period, the AM magic system reflects modern ways of thinking. So putting it in the setting doesn't feel "realistic".
Fixes in the system:
1) making all members of the order swear to keep the order secret from mundanes
2) ignore it and write supplements that encorporate more of contemporary and earlier magical traditions.

Caveat: I'm not harping on AM! I actually chose it because I have enough experience with it that I could actually think of a constructive example.  Feel free to disagree with my opinions and let this simply be an example.  

Other ways to handle it:
1) Using medieval europe as a baseline has a lot of advantages. There is a ton of source material to draw on, it's  easily understandable by most folks, and you get all the scadians to buy your game texts.  The reason their fix as a problem is that it has felt artificial in play.  Every covenant will have some contact with outsiders: villagers they trade with, cities they buy their supplies from, stone-masons who build the gothic manse, what have you.  In all the games I've played,  the interactions between the "mundane world" and the magical community have been fascinating.  And, honestly, some of the best stuff has come from just this problem--you can't keep that many wealthy eccentric people secret easily.  Anyway,  although I do not know what their intent was, it seems that the choice made in this case was to choose Baseline over Vision.  I think that the choice to make the mages swear secrecy was done to maintain the history of europe as we know it in our world, not because of what it would add to the in-game setting.  

2) The ars magica magic system is the heart of the game.  It is intuitive and easy to learn (I mean the arts/techniques structure, not necessarily the mechanics of rolling/levels etc).  Here they chose Vision over Baseline.  Later on,  rules were made for alchemy and other systems that are more IMO true to setting.  I'm glad they chose their vision over fidelity to setting, their magical engine is what makes the game so enjoyable, not that it 's set in europe. An accessible setting made the magic system more robust.

Matt: as I said, I don't have access to the game designer's intent. I am infering it.  My apologies.  This was one I thought of that I could illustrate the point with.

Regards,
Emily Care

Quote from: Emily CareMatt: as I said, I don't have access to the game designer's intent. I am infering it.  My apologies.  This was one I thought of that I could illustrate the point with.

Emily, no problem. I think your example is helpful in shedding some light on the purpose and possibly the use of these discussions.

Just so I understand, not being intimately familiar with Ars Magica (and yet familiar enough to see what you mean): Are you saying that things you list under "Fixes in the system" are actually components of the published game (rather than "house rules")? I just don't remember enough about the game to recall whether magi are supposed to keep things a secret. I'll assume that's the case.

Now, what I find interesting is whether these "fixes" were included in the game as such, rather than being included in the game because the designer never thought otherwise and included them because they were nifty or because he just knew that was how to do it all along. I know I would. I might unconsciously recognize such tensions (I doubt it), but I don't think I'd made conscious decisions like this often, if at all.

In other words, in creating a game, I don't think of these kinds of tensions between what you call Baseline and Vision. I just seem to know what I want and do it (though certainly not without critique and revision). And, in the case of Dust Devils (my only complete and available game), I think I generally succeed.

I have a hard time, based on my own styles and intentions in designing a game, thinking so objectively and analytically about design. This is why I find these discussion about aesthetics largely unhelpful. It all seems to me to be a wag the dog scenario, or design in reverse. These all seem to be analytical tools for existing games, and I can't wrap my head around how one will apply these to a game design-in-progess

On a slightly different issue: I believe you equate Baseline with "realism" and Vision with "genre expectations". In reading Eric's post above, I kept seeing them as associated (though not necessarily equated) strongly with Social Contract and Premise, respectively. I don't think Eric or Emily would agree. I think it's because discussions thus far have implored that these issues supercede GNS in some cases, yes?

My thinking of it as Social Contract and Premise terms stems from the fact that I do disagree with Eric about whether one can "design for" the Social Contract. I agree with Ron, et al, that the design merely facilitates at one level, and the group takes it or leaves the system at another level.

Also, these "moving points" that anchor the spectrum being discussed aren't anchors at all. They're moving targets. So, I see a need for clarification. Are these end points moving targets because separate groups approach a game with different assumptions and Social Contracts regarding a game, OR are these points moving targets because a single group's assumptions change as it experiences the game. (Or is it something else entirely – that the points move because the unfinished game design evolves and the points therefore move as the designer approaches completion?)

If it's the former, I submit one cannot design to hit the moving target (again, "designing for" what I see as Social Contract at least in part). If it's the latter, I submit that one must design such that the moving target stays relatively still one the game is complete. I.e. the game should be coherent and have a solid premise. If I'm missing some larger issue here, please let me know.

Okay.  I'm glad this has gathered some momentum...

Matt, nobody's claiming to have insight into developers' heads.  All we can do - barring personal conversations with them, or perhaps trepanning - is try to look at their work and figure out what there is in them that works, or fails to, and try to find ways to emulate that.

As for whether this helps with the design process, it's almost certainly dependent on how readily you selfanalyze during the design process, vs. the Go Do It school.  I'm not writing for the Go Do It school, and won't even pretend otherwise.  I know I'm guilty of a certain amount of overtheory... I ought to be working on my RPG, not on theory here. (Grin.)  So, for self-professed Go Do Itters, by all means go to and don't waste your time on theory here.  On the other hand, phrasing all this is helping one specific process of game design - mine - at the very least, and hopefully others too.

So.

My conception of the two endpoints is basically synonymous with Emily's; it has a lot more to do with the realistic vs. the fantastic than with overt Social Contract issues.  I especially like her phrasing, "Vision must be communicated to the participants in order for them to experience it." That's bang-on with what I'm looking at here.  In the moving endpoints idea, I'm looking at the spectrum as something akin to an elastic band stretched between two posts, with the posts having some, but not an incredible amount, of movement in their own right.  Moving, because different groups put them in different places; moving, because their position changes over time for a given group.

Even in its "initial" role as Reality[TM], the Baseline moves, because a cop and an Arnie-movie fan will have different Baselines on guns.  I'm less enamored of moving the Baseline based on group exposure to the midpoint we call Game Reality than Emily, but I'd grant it as another mode in which the Baseline does indeed move.  The Vision 'moves' (differs) primarily group-to-group, but also person-to-person, due to the fact that the Vision must be communicated and interpreted.

But just because the elastic band is strung between moving targets does not mean that we can't do useful things with it - pick a spot ("what's your realism level"?), twang it for tension (use of Vision/Baseline contrasts to highlight things), or let it lie straight and use it like a pointer (use of Vision/Baseline symmetries and harmonies to convey other impressions).  Mostly, pointing out that these are moving targets is tantamount to pointing out that even the simplest "pick a realism level" is not necessarily as failsafe as it might sound, but the other techniques are what have me really excited.  Since I don't want to make this post too long, I hope you'll forgive if I show some concrete examples of the use of the Vision/Baseline spectrum in existing works for those last two uses - contrasts and harmonies.

Contrast Example: Ars Magica, Specific arena: Rules
Baseline and Vision are as Emily described.
Effect Desired: Focus attention on the fastastic elements - the magic system - over issues of mundane skill use.
Technique Used: Contrast between the Baseline (which, in a rules context here, would be the rules covering all actions which could be performed in medieval Europe) and the Vision (the magical society and its main acts, those being basically twofold - the use of magic, and the study of magic.  Note that in my text the two get practically equal weight).  The length and emphasis differences between the two sections themselves could be argued as contrast or tension between their respective associated realism-poles (Baseline or Vision), but this is something we've seen before (never mind that this construction puts Mike's Rant as part of a broader technique - his Rant remains an excellent example of the method).

However, there's a subtler rules detail used in contrast instead, which I'll single out for my example.  Both the casting of magic, and the use of a skill, use basically d10+stuff, higher is better.  The die varies from a 'simple die' to a 'stress die,' in both cases.  Some character stat adds to the roll, in both cases.  But the contrast comes in when you look at the other numbers.  A good skill is five, an excellent skill seven, and more than that is definitely out of reach for your average starting PC.  So an expert skill-user with good stats could roll as much as d10+12, but most of them will top out at maybe d10+8 in their specialty.  In magic, however, you add not only a stat and sometimes a skill (an Affinity or Magic Theory), but also a Form and a Technique - each of which starts high and goes up very quickly compared to a skill.  So a skilled magus in their area of choice could readily, at start, be looking at d10+20 or more, and will probably have d10+12 across several areas which are outside, but related to, their specialty.  Players notice those numbers.  Moreover, skill TNs are "must equal or beat" to do something; magic TNs are "must come within 10 to cast spell, though equal or beat is better."  So magic TNs are really high, and a player casting a level-30 spell feels a real sense of accomplishment, even though in real terms that's equivalent to a skill TN of maybe 15.

The contrast between mundane actions and magical ones is played up - heightened - for effect.  Player attention is concentrated on magic, which is where the designers want it. Was this intentional? You tell me.  But if you spot something like this in my game, it probably is, because I'm going to go over it with a fine-toothed comb looking for this sort of thing.

Symmetry/Harmony Example: Shadowrun, Specific arena: Chargen
Baseline: North America (default setting of the game), with very familiar living conditions and lifestyles; currencies and faces may change, but capitalism and democracy remain familiar.
Vision: Magic and cyberpunk (esp. the Matrix) both run rampant as transformative forces on the world.
Effect Desired: Make "normal" characters, homo sapiens sapiens without overt toys, feel equal in cool-factor to the more fantasical options, whether they be the Elven Decker or the Combat Mage.  More importantly, play up a trope of cyberpunk, that "the street finds its own uses for things," and that even high technology and, in this case, magic will find street niches which are more ordinary than they are elite.
Technique Used: Parallelism and symmetry.  The game recommends the use of Archetypes for chargen, and even if many players skip to the custom rules, each Archetype is still a nice one-page spread with a colour image of the character; everybody will flip through them, guaranteed.  And, subtly but tellingly, the presentation of every archetype is the same.  The figure is in the same place with relation to the text, is drawn with comparable use of colour, is basically the same size, and its stat block is laid out exactly the same.  By placing the fantastic elements side-by-side with the more familiar ones, with an overt intent to balance their power levels, the game also communicates the "street finds its own uses for things" concepts beautifully.

In D&D, and possibly LOTR:RPG (haven't read it), this is arguably a failure of the Vision; nobody wants to hear about the street finding its own uses for wizardry as wielded by Gandalf.  As such, implications that warriors like Boromir and wizards like Gandalf are somehow equivalent come across poorly.  But in Shadowrun, having magic be just one more thing that ultimately comes down to gritty bloodsports in back alleys is a theme unto itself, and so implying that everybody lives on basically the same level - the lowest one - is golden.  They use graphical methods to imply direct harmony between the fantastical and the realistic types of characters, and it pays off.

Each of these is distinct from the act of simply picking a realism level; they're finer-scale manipulations of the Baseline/Vision spectrum, which take into account that there is a distinction between the two, and play with that distinction for effect.

Does that help indicate why I'm kind of excited about this?  Especially when you combine that with the thoughts about learning curves which we've still red-flagged but not explored?  I suspect that the choice was in neither instance perfectly conscious, at least not in these words... but at the same time, just because those designers did it "by feel" does not mean that you can't learn to do it more consistently through analysis.  I think of this a lot like colour theory; you can put contrasting colours side-by-side to one effect, and complementary colours alongside one another to a very different effect, and if you know this, then when you want a hard edge, you can skip over the complementary colours and look only at the contrasting ones.  Some painters will do this instinctually... but they still teach it.

- Eric

Hi Eric,

Wow.  That's an awesome aplication.  I dig it.  The fact that one can look at how the tension plays out and is addressed in many aspects of design (rules, color, setting etc.) makes it more complex. I'm mulling that over and will say more as it comes to me.

I was careful in my post here to represent what Chris L. had originally intended by the terms, because in the other thread I realized I saw them differently, and I wanted to preserve the distinction.  I think you and I are on the same page with respect to them, but let me say a little more so we can be sure.  

I see baseline as an arbitrary choice.  Baseline most often starts at "reality" for the simple reason that that's what everyone will assume to be true unless told otherwise.  This masks the fact that that lump sum of assumptions is actually going to vary considerably from person to person, based on experience & knowledge, and also priority of what "realism" means.  For Ron, human nature ringing true is most important, for someone else making sure that the physics of artillery is dead on might be what matters.  Any given game could hypothetically deliver all these myriad types of realism, but it would be quite the game that could deliver them all.  

So, baseline is going to be what a) the system and b) the users make of it.  So, earlier today I was thinking of this line with endpoints we're talking about, with on end-point tagged on to "reality" as the primary baseline, and an infinity of other  points that connect to all the possible visions out there for games.  Now I see that really there are as many baseline points as vision.  Really all that we are talking about is taking the many ideas about what the game world & experience are going to contain, and bridging that gap.  If you don't have just one gm, but many, then the line could become a network or polygon, connecting the visions/baselines of all the participants until they align.  The vision can be another point to which all of those baselines connect.

Whew. That's more esoteric than I meant to get here.  The main thing I wanted to communicate is that as I see it, and this may not be the most useful way to define Baseline, it may start at "reality" as default, and then get shifted to whatever the setting/premise of the game is (ie Ars Magica, the immediate shift of the Baseline is to "Medieval Europe", the next shift is "where magic works and there are organized orders", etc.) The vision of whoever is holding the reins, or rather, all those who contribute to it, which includes game designers, gms etc. is communicated to those who are participating in the game experience, and they then give feed back on what they have to contribute.  The sum is the new baseline.  

So that's how I see it.  How Chris presented it, I think, is that the Baseline is common perception of reality, and the Vision is the source material (genre text, period etc.) and the game exists in between all of that.  

Thoughts on which is a better/more useful way to conceive of this concept?


Regards,
Em

Hi, sorry I'm late, got caught in traffic....

Thanks, Eric, for taking this ball and running with it.  I'm liking where I see this going, and think it could potentially be quite useful.

A note on practicality is in order, however.  I do think this addition to the Grand Unified Theory could have practical utility, for the same reason that GNS does, or Stances.  The more clearly you know what you are trying to achieve, as a designer (or GM, for that matter), and the better you know what the implications of those choices are, the more efficiently and smoothly you can select the elements of game design that support these goals.  Because, as we all know, system does matter.

Back to your regularly scheduled program.

I'm not particularly wedded to either the moving-point or fixed-point versions of the model, but as long as everyone seems to like moving-point, let me make a pitch for the other side.

The first point is what I've called dynamic tension.  I see gaming, like any artistic form, as existing in a perpetual state of tension.  This creates drama (thus dramatic tension, for example), it creates excitement, and so forth.  Suppose we imagine a superhero campaign, of a relatively low power-level, just as an example.

Now on one end we have Baseline, a mutually-agreed upon general sense of what's possible, realistic, etc.  You don't have to get cute about this; the point for me is just that if Baseline is our modern world, and your game happens very close to Baseline, you don't simply charge people who are firing machine-guns, nor do you seriously expect you will see a lot of people firing machine-guns.  Similarly, you expect that while it is perfectly possible for someone to run blindfolded across a busy highway and not get hit, you expect that (a) it will be very dangerous and he might not make it, and (b) if he does, it'll be because a lot of people have good reflexes and powerful brakes.

On the other end, we've got Vision: "relatively low-power supers," say, a little more powerful than "Unbreakable," but a little less so than "Dark Knight Returns."  Our Vision is also that it's gritty, it's violent, and that people's personal issues will tend to be more on the side of "I'm traumatized by accidentally killing that kid" than "I'm agonizing about whether my sweetie wants to marry me."

Now some have suggested that Vision is Premise, which I deny; I think that Vision may very well include Premise if there is one, but I don't know that every game is founded upon Premise.  Even in Sorcerer, in a particular campaign, I don't buy that the Premise is all there is to Vision, because Demons, and Summoning, and all that is part of Vision as well, as is tone, and color, and so forth.

At any rate, the point is that the game exists in a state of tension between Baseline and Vision.  When a dramatic situation comes up, it's dramatic because it's unclear which side is going to win out.  For example, suppose our superhero character is Very Tough -- that's his power, it seems.  So when he runs across that highway to save that baby, we've got a dramatic situation: (1) does he make it alive, unhurt, etc.? (2) does he save the baby?

Baseline is pulling toward (1) no, and thus (2) no.
Vision is pulling toward (1) yes, though maybe dinged a bit, and (2) probably yes.

So here's a thought: in the relatively low-mechanic games, how do you know when die rolls (or whatever) are required?  I mean, you don't need dice to tie your shoes.  So you know, I argue, because you intuitively sense a tension-point, a moment in which Baseline and Vision are pulling in different directions.  This requires resolution of some sort.

As far as Baseline and Vision shifting, i.e. being moving end-points, I'm not quite sure what's being referred to.  At times it seems as though we're talking about different games, at times about different runs of the same game, at times about diachronic change within a single campaign.

My push for fixity referred only to the last of these.  Of course D&D and Sorcerer have Baseline and Vision in really different places, and of course two different Sorcerer campaigns may well have really different Baselines and Visions.  No worries there.  My argument was, and I suppose is (as I say, I'm not all that wedded to it either way), that part of what constitutes Exploration is the constant push back and forth between Vision and Baseline, to see how and where they tend to pull back.  The better you know this, the less you're likely to push on the extreme outer limits of the two, I suppose, but even that doesn't strike me as necessary (just usual).

---------

Now let's talk practicality again, for a minute.

Suppose I want to design a game that's sort of like Unknown Armies but set in the Victorian era, and in which I have no intention of coming up with a whole vast back-story as UA did.  My idea is to have this sort of twisted magical conspiracy stuff be (1) less coherent, and (2) co-designed by the players and GM during the course of play.  [This game is called Shadows in the Fog, and a draft can be found at the WWW button below -- this is not a hypothetical example.]

Now as a designer, and as a GM, I have some problems to solve.  Let's look at some of the ones that fit neatly into this sort of modeling.

Baseline:  I know that the reality of the Victorian world is rather different from the reality of our world, but if I just announce that we're going to do everything "Victorian," nobody will really know what I'm talking about.  So what I do is to think about what things are actually different, and importantly so, between an ordinary Victorian sense of reality and ours.  I select as few of these as possible, and only the ones most important to me (because of Vision), and on these very few points I make an explicit plea for a shift of Baseline.  Otherwise, I don't challenge or bend an ordinary sense of reality; in fact, I emphasize that one ought to assume that Baseline is the reality an ordinary person (i.e. a player) has come to expect, insofar as physics, color, human behavior, etc.

Thus in this case, I make clear that getting shot tends to kill you, and all that.  But I do make a few points about how the law works: you can carry concealed weaponry all you like, and you can even fire it, but if you shoot somebody you'd better be of an appropriate class and/or have an enormously good reason and lots of witnesses.  Similarly, I remind people that there are no telephones; on the other hand, the London mail has between 5 and 7 deliveries and pickups per day, and thus within the main part of the city you can expect that a letter mailed in the early morning will receive a response by evening.  As to human nature, it may be true that Victorians wear their masks rather more strongly than modern Americans do, but don't think for a minute that the guy whose girl you just took at the ball doesn't mind, just because he was so polite and charming about it.  Your ordinary notions of humanity apply: you steal somebody's girl, that somebody gets pissed off.  Don't be fooled because he's better bred than you.

Vision: Now I do have a vision for this game, but (I can't stress this enough) there is no text I can point to and say, "Yeah, like that."  None.  I have a lot of such texts, but none of them is quite what I want.  So how do I convey the sort of game I want?

First, I make some negative moves.  NOT Victoriana chintz silliness with people saying "Gad, sir!" and wearing foofy clothing for the hell of it.

Second, I set a relatively far point, or rather group of them, through examples.  Sherlock Holmes, Jekyll and Hyde, Poe, Huysmans, Wilde; now some history: Jack the Ripper, the Golden Dawn, the Parnell Affair, Crippen, Cream, historical Freemasonry, the Poor Law, etc.

Third, I start suggesting ways to pull toward the Vision end of the spectrum, through examples of magic, heroism, and so forth.

Fourth, I go into considerable mechanical detail about how to bend the universe through magic and manipulation of Tarot cards.  This is back to Mike's Rant: by putting this in the mechanics, where little else is actually mechanically represented, we clearly emphasize that this game is largely about magic.

Dynamic Tension: If this works, the idea is that the players will now help formulate Vision by contrast to Baseline.  When something happens that seems seriously out-of-kilter to Baseline, they should be able to decide, aesthetically, whether it "feels" right in the sense that it's a strong pull toward Vision where it varies from Baseline.  Similarly, if somebody starts doing the whole cheese-whiz pseudo-Victoriana nonsense, it should pull so hard against Baseline (people just don't act that way, period, and never did) that the whole group more or less acts to suppress it.

Eventually, the hope is that the this balancing act will become very subtle: it only takes slight tweaks out of reality (off Baseline) to hint that something extraordinary and probably magical (toward Vision) is happening.  Even the most minor occurrences start to become clues to hidden conspiracies and so forth.

Now this is admittedly a somewhat extreme example.  It's deliberately so.  My point is:

1. This Baseline-Tension-Vision model directly affects design.
2. System matters, and is strongly supported here.
3. Baseline is not Social Contract, nor physics, nor reality as it actually is; it's a perception based on comfort and the "ordinary," and can be tweaked a bit as desired.
4. Vision is not Genre, unless you want to limit it so; there is no established genre for SitF, since there is no example at all for SitF.
5. The excitement and interest of the game lies in Tension.
6. One can treat the endpoints as fixed, and still have this make sense.

On point 6, I suspect you can treat them as moving, but as somebody noticed, it's a lot harder to design toward a moving target.

Okay, that's more than enough for one post.  I look forward to continuing the discussion....

Quote from: clehrichMy point is:

1. This Baseline-Tension-Vision model directly affects design.
2. System matters, and is strongly supported here.
3. Baseline is not Social Contract, nor physics, nor reality as it actually is; it's a perception based on comfort and the "ordinary," and can be tweaked a bit as desired.
4. Vision is not Genre, unless you want to limit it so; there is no established genre for SitF, since there is no example at all for SitF.
5. The excitement and interest of the game lies in Tension.
6. One can treat the endpoints as fixed, and still have this make sense.

OK, as expressed thus far, I don't see how this would apply to a lot of games.  The examples have all been on Earth with some changes.  But take Amber, for example.  What is the Baseline and what is Vision?  Then you have other cases: like Toon, Paranoia, or Star Wars.  How would you define the Baseline for these games?

Quote from: John KimBut take Amber, for example. What is the Baseline and what is Vision? Then you have other cases: like Toon, Paranoia, or Star Wars. How would you define the Baseline for these games?

As far as I'm concerned, there's really not a lot of difficulty here; that's why I like the fixed-point model.

Amber: Baseline is ordinary reality, period.  The only oddity about Amber, really, is that the Baseline comes in lots of odd flavors, with variants and so forth.  But at least in the books, the point is that Corwin and so forth act like pretty much normal people -- with a BIG twist.  Thus the opening of the first book, right?  So the whole drama of it is discovering how Amber is ordinary reality, it's just that ordinary reality is thinner and less real than it seemed; only Amber itself is truly real.  That's Vision, man!

Paranoia: What makes it funny is that Baseline is ordinary reality, but paranoid.  The regular characters assume that dangerous situations are dangerous, and that everyone's out to get them.  Nevertheless, the Vision part of it is extremely weird: the Computer, and all the wackiness of Alpha Complex.  The whole fun part is that despite the characters' certain knowledge that things will shortly go very bad, they are nevertheless forced to go through with the idiotic plans and jobs assigned to them.  What I'm saying is that if Baseline is not ordinary reality, i.e. there is no shared conception of the real world to bounce this Vision off, then there's nothing funny or paranoid about it; it's just another world.

I happen to remember one sample adventure: the PCs are asked to guard this super-powerful ultra-tank with an AI.  So step one: Baseline says, "Why the hell do they have to guard an ultra-powerful self-sufficient hyper-intelligent tank?  Can't it guard itself?  And anything that can take the tank can vaporize them in a second, right?  This is stupid!"  Vision says, "This is an important duty, citizens!  Go To It!"  So we've set up the whole paranoid stupidity of the ultra-bureaucratic mind.  Now we get part two: the thing wambles on and on about how powerful it is, and how sucky they are, and then suddenly a little tiny piece falls off and the thing goes dead.  Baseline: "Oh god, we're in a lot of trouble; should we try to (1) cover it up, (2) fix it, (3) run like hell, (4) admit it and hope honesty works?"  Vision: "Oh god, we're so hosed.  Options 1-3 sound insane, but option 4 is not an option."  Welcome to Alpha Complex.  The point is that the whole thing balances between reality and Alpha Complex; if the characters were really Part Of The Machine, like they're theoretically supposed to be, there's no tension at all, because they just accept things the way the Computer wants them.  The whole point is that they're not machines, but people, and people are people wherever they are; this creates tension between Baseline and Vision, creating (in this case) paranoid silliness.

Star Wars: Again, the whole point is that it's ordinary.  You just have to expand your mind a bit to take into account a few basic scifi tropes: aliens, rapid transit across the stars.  So when you go into a really seedy bar in a backwater hell-world like Tatooine, you just know, dollars to donuts, that some sleazy guy is going to pick a fight.  It's scifi, so he's wearing a funny rubber suit; otherwise it might just as well be a really bad part of L.A. (and I hear these things about L.A., actually...).  So Luke is just this dude working on a moisture farm in the desert, with his boring aunt and uncle, and he meets this crazy old dude who starts talking about the Force.  Now Vision comes into it: it's not normality at all.  And not everyone even believes in it, actually, even within the universe.  So when big coincidences arise, or this old guy just vanishes when cut in half, or a voice says, "Let go," you know for damn sure that it's The Force.

Toon: Never played it, never read it.  It does sound like something where baseline is more than a little skewed.  But assuming we're talking Bugs Bunny and Road Runner, what makes it funny is that when you drop an anvil on somebody's head, he doesn't just get really really low to the ground; he gets hurt.  The tension is in seeing how, this time, Wile E. Coyote will use one of Acme's products and have something totally normal happen -- but mysteriously survive it.  I mean, so he puts rockets on his roller-skates and lights them.  Big surprise, his feet go first, and he goes flying.  This is normal, folks.  What's not normal is that (1) he even thinks of this in the first place, (2) he survives it, and (3) he mostly ends up with really long legs for a while.  Oh, and (4) he does it again.

My whole point is that if you want to communicate Vision, you're trying to communicate how things vary from Baseline reality.  Here and there, some of these will have to be specified: there are aliens, you can't die, stuff like that.  But otherwise, you want to leave the tension: if James Bond is climbing a cliff, we know he won't die, but the scene is tense anyway because it's like reality (in which he really might die); if he can't die, the scene sucks.

Does this help?

Incidentally, just to be spectacularly unhelpful to 99% and I suspect very helpful to about 1%, it occurs to me that this is how Ricoeur thinks of the hermeneutic circle in literature.  Reading literature is a process of moving from the reader's world [Baseline] into the world "in front of" the text [Vision] and then returning for reflection.  This circular process continues throughout the reading, and culminates in some sort of sense of meaning, formulated dynamically somewhere between the two.  This is part of why reading does not discover the subjectivity of an author: all that is present in the text, to any reader, is a world in front of the text [Vision], and even that can only be appropriated in terms of the reader's world [Baseline], such that whatever meaning you find in the text is a dynamic, created product of your own hermeutics.  End jargon.

As to the moving Baseline approach, Eric or Emily, want to jump in?

So tension here is based on how unusual the non RL elements are to the inhabitants of the world? That is, it seems to me that Baseline is what the inhabitants expect, and Vision is what we really get. Tension, then is the difference between the expectations of the inhabitants and what really happens?

Stll seems mighty nebulous to me. I'm certain I'm not understanding something.

BTW, premise is somewhat an outmoded term which is starting to be replaced by the phrase Creative Agenda becasue of the confusion it caused. But, simply stated, all games have Premises. It's the "what do you do?" of the game.

Mike

I think I can speak to this somewhat.

First off, the moving-endpoints thing really is a small part of the whole.  We've been using the moving term to mean "different if you ask different (playgroups or players)" and also to mean "different from moment to moment within the same group, both due to the initial learning-curve of picking up the text, and due to a shift in the group's expectations as play progresses."  Sure, these are distinct, and sure, it's hard to hit a moving target... but I think that more importance is getting assigned to this than needs to.  Chris L. is quite right that the whole idea makes sense even if you treat them as stationary.  I think that the "moving endpoints" refinement is of most use to us in one specific application: a caveat.  We will talk about things being "nearer to the Baseline" or being "strongly indicative of the game's Vision" or what have you... but never forget that neither of these is truly a fixed point, and assume that you need some slack.  Like with the idea of resiliency as discussed elsewhere, you need to assume that two groups will read your Vision differently, and try to make your Vision-dependent elements of design able to adapt to either one.  Other than as used in this one caveat, "moving endpoints" will only become really useful once we have a more solid understanding of this set of terms, at which point I'll crack open stuff like the learning curve discussion and we can come at those with proper tools in hand.  Moving endpoints will be a lot more relevant then, but is not otherwise (IMO) all that important to us at the current level of understanding.

The other is that I disagree slightly with some of Chris L.'s examples of Baseline, and Mike's last question lands right at the disconnect, so we certainly need to address it or get muddled.

I think the important part for me is that Baseline always refers to player comfort zones, player expectations, realism and default context as understood by the players.  Never to something the characters, whether they be the PCs or the general inhabitants of the setting, believe to be the case.  This ties directly to one of the primary functions of the Baseline - to be the point of contact, the accessible context, for the readers/participants.  Chris, I may not even have a functional definition of the word 'hermeneutic,' but your sideline about Ricoeur still speaks to me very clearly and clicks with - and expands upon, with its thought of things as cyclical - my understanding here.  This is not something we should let go by without some look at how it works into all of this.  And the first thing I emerge from it feeling is that we could, perhaps, define Baseline as that subset of the game elements with which the gamers at the table can directly relate, and which require very little suspension of disbelief or immersion in the world.

It's rather circular, but the Baseline should always make sense directly, without needing the Vision explained to the reader.  The Vision is the component which the game designer must impart, from his mind into theirs; the Baseline is that which they themselves bring to the table, in terms of their real-world experiences and their intuition.  The designer can say, The following things work as you would expect them to; they are the Baseline.  The following things violate your intuition about the way things work; they are the Vision, and I will explain them to you.

We can look at that last in context of Ars Magica, very clearly.  There are two parts to the setting text in AM, and I suspect that although they are not perfectly well separated in the layout, textual analysis would reveal strong distinctions between the two ways of describing things - they do use quite a different tone of voice.  Part one is where they say, "This game is set in a variant of mediaeval Europe.  If you aren't familiar with mediaeval Europe, here's an overview to get you started."  Part two is where they say, "Except that, because magic is real and magi, faeries, and these other elements exist, here are some ways in which the setting is not mediaeval Europe."

Putting it this way, with expectation as a strong element of the Baseline, I think we might find that games which strongly derive from source material, such as Star Wars, are a kind of a special case.  Because you need to speak to two groups of people, one - fans of the source matter - for whom the tropes of that material are expected in a game about this universe; and two, the people who don't know Luke from Adam, for whom our own reality remains 'that which is intuitive' and for whom it is a much, much bigger jump to the Vision.  This is probably just the single most severe instance of a moving endpoint we know, and is part of why such material is typically (a) difficult to write, and (b) difficult to do sophisticated things with.  Among its other awkwardnesses, it makes playing any games with Baseline-Vision tension very difficult, when the line between them could be quite short, or extremely long, for any given group.  And this is not laughable; think of my examples above, which either heighten the differences or minimize them, for effect.  Putting lightsaber stats alongside sword stats could help make them more comfortable for one group, who don't go into it knowing what a lightsaber is... but it would grate on the other, for whom that's all playing around within the Baseline itself, and indeed for whom the inclusion of ordinary swords at all is a kind of failure to meet expectations.

Treating games whose Vision is internally derived is probably simpler, for now, because it lets us approach the dichotomy unclouded by the above.  The same thing goes for Toon, I think... some people come at it with this merry Baseline they want to emulate, who don't need the game to have much Vision at all ("you can play these characters" may be it), while others come at it from a closer-to-home perspective, and the merry pranks come from the communicated Vision messing with their expectations of the laws of physics.

Regardless, if we stick to talking about Shadows in the Fog, Ars Magica, or other games all of whose Vision is contained in the game text and not invoked through specific outside sources, I think we can keep things clearer for now.

Which brings me back to:

Quote from: Chris LehrichSo here's a thought: in the relatively low-mechanic games, how do you know when die rolls (or whatever) are required? I mean, you don't need dice to tie your shoes. So you know, I argue, because you intuitively sense a tension-point, a moment in which Baseline and Vision are pulling in different directions. This requires resolution of some sort.

I love that.  Yes.  And also Yes to the bit, slightly later, about how...

Quote from: ...as he also...part of what constitutes Exploration is the constant push back and forth between Vision and Baseline, to see how and where they tend to pull back.

Or, to put the emphasis elsewhere, relevant play only occurs in the space bounded by the Baseline and the Vision.  Take a look at a few examples of dysfunctional play:
- Jill and Amos start from the same Baseline, but each read the text differently, and head toward what they see as the Vision.  Those Visions are very disparate, probably the result of poor communication on the part of the designer or poor reading (assumptions etc) on one of their parts.  Each one sees the other's play as inappropriate, because it does not occur in the space between their Baseline and Vision.
- Leo and Bertrand start from very different Baselines when it comes to gun combat; Leo is a cop, Bertrand is an aficionado of very bad action movies.  They read a game and agree on its Vision just fine, and play together contentedly so long as they remain near the Vision end of the spectrum.  Their characters both run out of Magic Points and have to rely on guns instead.  The rules (which focus on magic) assume that, for such very "ordinary" actions, a high level of common sense and player intuition should be used.  Trouble ensues because they can't both stand on the ribbon between Baseline and Vision at once.
- Sam is a lover of the Star Wars universe, he cracks open a rulebook and finds lightsaber stats sitting next to ordinary swords, and - to him - insufficiently distinct from one another.  He is being subtly bothered, because for him, lightsabers are intuitive, and so we're using a manipulative technique - putting their stats side-by-side so you can't help but compare - on two things which both fall within his Baseline.  In fact, steel swords break with his vision of the universe, are on the opposite side of the Baseline point, from the Vision. (Jim, on the other hand, is able to grasp what a lightsaber is, much more quickly, because of this same juxtaposition.)
- D&D3E releases a sourcebook for characters over twentieth level.  This essentially breaks with the existing Vision, because the extant visualizations all assume struggling through dungeons, all assume that the universe is bigger than the characters, and this has ceased to be the case.  They have to retool the Vision, and in doing so, many people find it no longer the same game.  Their 'relevant to play' space - the gap between Baseline and the D&D Vision - does not include this stuff.

So it's not trivial to say that we do our Exploration 'within this space'... because it's quite possible to step outside that space and offend, and in fact the moving endpoints make this sometimes rather tricky to avoid.  Moreover, our sensibility seems to have an auto-zoom function, expanding or contracting such that our Exploratory perception "fills the space" regardless of scope.  In a game of Millenium's End, our sense of that which is being explored expands such that the (relatively small) gap between Baseline and Vision fills our viewfinders.  In a game of Exalted or Talislanta, our viewfinder expands and our exploration has essentially the same importance in our eyes, covering a larger space by taking bigger steps.

As such, to Chris' six points, I would add:

7. Play is only relevant when it occurs within the region of this Tension, and any contrast or detail is irrelevant to us if it does not fall within this space. (This could be considered an expansion of #5.)
8. The tension can be made locally stronger at any single point of play by contrasting the Baseline and Vision, or locally lessened by paralleling the two or otherwise playing down contrasts.

- Eric

OK, wait. Lightsabres are Baseline? How are they not part of the Vision?

If Baseline and Vision are a player thing entirely, then the Baseline for every human is their experience, right? Well, then, yes it's a "moving point" for the indivisual in terms of how "realistic" they'll see the baseline elements. But I'm not sure that's something one can worry about too much. I mean I guess it's an esthetic consideration, but in terms of the text, you're going to choose a fixed aesthetic and stick to it. No two ways about it. And that includes "elastic" Baselines, which will annoy some people as much as a hard and wrong Baseline.

What I'm saying is that we can debate the nature of this beastie all night, but in the morning we have to design a game, and there's nothing here that tells me where to put the baseline at. And there never will be.

As far as the Vision, this now seems to me to be "those elements of the game that don't coincide with our reality (baseline)". Well, these elements have even less rules about what's good and what's not. Because some people like each element and others do not.

My favorite example is FTL travel. Almost nobody balks at this one. Oh, they'll have problems with humans with Psionic powers or something else they term "soft", but then ignore the fact that FTL travel is just as "soft". Basically there's no telling what'll turn one person on and another off.

So you just have to choose. And go with what you decide sounds like a good combination of elements.

Yes, the region between Baseline (that which every player knows is possible) and Vision (that which the game tells you is possible), is the bounded region of play. But that's just saying that a game is "about something" that there's a "what you do" in each game. That the text of the game defines the "what you do" in the context of what the player knows.

It's always been a point here at The Forge that good game design entails delivering to the player the "what do you do". The term we formerly used was Premise. Now we use the less problematic Creative Agenda. Which is defined as "that which is to be explored, and how to explore it."

The whole tension issue seems concocted to provide a meaning for this whole structure. I think there's something there, but that you don't need the term's Baseline and Vision to describe it (unless I have it very wrong as to what it is). I could define this tension as the fun that one has exploring the differences between our world and the game world.

If I'm still missing it, I'm still listening.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesOK, wait. Lightsabres are Baseline? How are they not part of the Vision?

If Baseline and Vision are a player thing entirely, then the Baseline for every human is their experience, right?

OK, it seems to me that a number of things are potentially being referred to here.  I could express them like:  
1) What the player expects based on reality.
2) What the player expects based on the genre.  
3) What the character expects based on his world.  
4) What actually happens.  

Now, of course this gets pretty hairy.  However, I don't think we can ignore the #1 vs #2 distinction.  I would argue that especially in things like light-sabre battles or even regular swordfights, the player expectations are probably more guided by other fictional sources (i.e. the genre) than by their real-world understanding.  That is, #2 instead of #1.  However, the game may intentionally diverge from the standard genre.  For example, Aberrant includes a lot of superhero motifs/tropes/whatever, but it isn't solely trying to reproduce the comic-book superhero genre.  Indeed, it is questioning many of those.  I would say that the tension of Aberrant between the comic-book genre and its Vision is very important -- at least as important as the tension between reality and its Vision.  

Mind you, I don't have a coherent model to express this, but I thought I would point that out.

Just a very quick remark; I'm trying desperately to finalize another project, and if I get into this I'll spend hours at it.

Quote from: John KimOK, it seems to me that a number of things are potentially being referred to here.  I could express them like:  
1) What the player expects based on reality.
2) What the player expects based on the genre.  
3) What the character expects based on his world.  
4) What actually happens.  
Now, of course this gets pretty hairy.  However, I don't think we can ignore the #1 vs #2 distinction.

Seems to me John has neatly encapsulated the various parts of Baseline.  The thing is, I don't really think they can readily be distinguished in reality.  John's example of swordfights or sabre-fights is excellent: how many of us actually have the remotest idea what this would be like?  Even the SCA folks don't actually kill each other, and can't really speak intelligently to the question of a blade hanging up in somebody's ribs.

So the fact is that almost any situation outside of the norm of our everyday reality, i.e. a huge percentage of what we like to do in RPGs, is really based on loose guesswork about how reality ought to work, conditioned by encounters with all sorts of media.  This is where I started all this, a couple threads ago: this is an aesthetic judgment, not reality as it actually is.

My point is simply that game design needs to recognize that RPGs float in a tension-point between one aesthetic judgment (so-called reality, a naturalized and difficult to challenge judgment) and another (genre, source material, whatever, which is easier to get at).  By being aware of this tension, rather than simply trying to present one end of the spectrum, you account for and encourage dramatic tension by factoring it into the nature of the system.

Mike, I really don't get why this is related to GNS.  Can you explain?  I'm not sure: one of us is missing something, and it may well be both.

Chris,

It's related to the supporting theory behind the particular detail of GNS. GNS is just one axis of specifying these game realities. I'll get back to that. But the theory basically says that the system is Rules in the Social Contract sense (the Lumpley Principle). And Rules are what we use to define what happens in the "shared imaginary space", or rather, how it can be determined. What that form is that the rules determine is called the "creative agenda". The "shared imaginary space" (and Fang first came up with that, IIRC) is obviously fictitous, and as such may resemble, well, anything that one can imagine. That will range from something somewhat similar to reality to things completely different from it. You choose one of these things, and you make the game "about" that.

Now, there are three basic sorts of Creative Agendas, G and N and S; but while that's true, it's not particularly important to discuss here. I mean, every Creative Agenda will be either G or N or S, but that's only important where it's important.

The question I would have is, what, if anything, has been presented that's not covered in this theory.

You say:

QuoteMy point is simply that game design needs to recognize that RPGs float in a tension-point between one aesthetic judgment (so-called reality, a naturalized and difficult to challenge judgment) and another (genre, source material, whatever, which is easier to get at). By being aware of this tension, rather than simply trying to present one end of the spectrum, you account for and encourage dramatic tension by factoring it into the nature of the system.

This would imply that there's some problem with game designers trying to do only one end or the other. But it seems to me that Fang's point was that one should strive for the Vision end point (actually I thiknk he meant something completely differrent, a cross reference of some sort, but it's too late to talk about that now). Now it seems that his point has been co-opted to say that one should be right in the middle somewhere, which is exactly where I think that Fang thinks most games are, and ought not to be.

I'd say that most games are neccessarily in the middle. Tell me, how can you create a perfect simulation of reality? You can't. How can you create a perfect replication of some aesthetic idea? You can't. So you're automatically in the middle somewhere anyhow.

Now, is there room for back and forth? Do some games favor one end or the other? Sure. But why is one point better than another. Things like GNS preference will make you want to put the point at exactly some particular place. This is the designer's aesthetic, and his choice. It's his artistic statment. And how there can be a "better place" amongst the artistic choices, I can't see. Do people not consider how "realistic" to make their games? I find that designers talk about little else.

Just choose an agenda that speaks to you and move on.

As for tension, it seems to me like you are talking about something that either doesn't fit the term Dramatic Tension (is this some new jargon here), or you're making an ancillary point. That is, if by dramatic tension you mean that one can get milage out of the fact that superpowers don't exist in real life, I'm with you. But I wonder why it needs to be mentioned. If by dramatic tension you mean something else, I'm not sure what you mean.

Yeah, Kewl Powerz are cool; hence the term.

So what am I missing?

Mike

Mike,

As you say, it's long since past time to discuss Fang's notion; that was another thread, some time ago.  The idea I'm trying to get across has little to do with Fang's; in fact, I think we disagree fairly strongly here.

Again, as you say, most games are necessarily in the middle.  This raises at least one question: are they all aware of this?  I doubt that.

I'd also agree that GNS preferences will tend to encourage some approach or another to this balancing act, but I do not think that you could draw out a spectrum and "grade" GNS preferences on it.  That's part of why I don't consider this to have very much to do with GNS as such.

So what's the point here?  Well, I think a lot of people find that GNS is most useful diagnostically, i.e. in reference to games that have problems.  Ron makes this point himself.  I'm trying to analyze the way one goes about setting up a game, on purpose, from the outset.  And I think that a very useful way of doing this is to think analytically about your Vision and how it relates to Baseline reality.

In particular, I think it is useful to think about where the Vision differs from Baseline, and to what extent this is important to your sense of the game's normal desired balance.  I'm surprised this doesn't seem important to you: it fits very neatly into your Rant about emphasis in mechanics.

For example, suppose you are laying out a gritty reality game in which people get killed easily when they get into gunfights.  So you think to yourself, how far is this sense of combat from Baseline?  Not very.  Is it worth special emphasis?  Not a lot; perhaps just a general tone to make clear that violence is a pretty bad idea.  Now when you start laying out mechanics to support the balance you have in mind, it won't even occur to you to waste time detailing a combat system down to the last newton of kickback, because you've already realized that this is not something to emphasize mechanically.

In other words, I think that using a Baseline-Vision perspective from an initial design stage would obviate the need for your Rant.  In a way, I see this all as a large theoretical extension of that Rant.

Is this making sense now?

Quote from: clehrichIn other words, I think that using a Baseline-Vision perspective from an initial design stage would obviate the need for your Rant.  In a way, I see this all as a large theoretical extension of that Rant.

Is this making sense now?

But that generalized caveat exists already. It's that "system matters". I mean in all parts. You seem to be saying that this is only part of the system somehow (which is what my rant is, essentially; Combat System's Matter if you will), and I'm not seeing that. It seems that all of the system delivers the "what do you do", that Aesthetic that people are discussing here.

So, yes, I agree with you that you've said what's already been said. In more general terms than my rant, and in exactly the same terms as "system does matter" already does. That's been my point all along. Not that you're wrong, just that its just a restatement of principles that we've all been working with from the start.

Or is this just about Realism? I've suspected that for a while, too. If so, then we've had several threads about that subject specifically (which you've participated in, IIRC).

So, how is this not either about system as a whole, or realism as a part?

I'm not saying it's not; I give you guys the benefit of the doubt. But I can't see what's new here. I suppose that's my problem, but if there is something new here, I'd really like to be in on it.

In terms of GNS, I've always been an advocate that it has very specific application to design. Moreso than Ron. As an example of what we're talking about, if I want a Narrativist game, I ought to spend less time on worrying about the sort of minutia that would deliver that sense of "realism" in the physics sense that one might get were that minutia there. Instead I ought to concentrate on making mechanics that make the whole game deliver meaning to each decision in terms of player choice.

This seems to be very much the sort of thing we're talking about here. Not the sum total, no, but then GNS is only a subset description of Exploration (as enumerated in teh GNS essay), which is what we're talking about, I think.

If we are just saying that one ought to consider how to deliver the rules that inform the creation of the "shared imaginative space" (actually that's Ron, as it turns out), that we need to consider just how to inform that Exploration, then I totally agree. GNS is one way to consider that. There are probably others, too. If we can come up with other ways, I'm all for discussing that. But I'm not seeing what the hullabaloo is about the notion that one should design their games to deliver the desired effects. That's "System Does Matter" and we're all on board, AFAICT.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesIf we are just saying that one ought to consider how to deliver the rules that inform the creation of the "shared imaginative space" (actually that's Ron, as it turns out), that we need to consider just how to inform that Exploration, then I totally agree. GNS is one way to consider that. There are probably others, too. If we can come up with other ways, I'm all for discussing that. But I'm not seeing what the hullabaloo is about the notion that one should design their games to deliver the desired effects. That's "System Does Matter" and we're all on board, AFAICT.

Okay, let me lay this out schematically:

Top level:  System Matters

Next level: GNS, other approaches to exploration supported by system

I gave an example about a gritty, violence-realistic game:

QuoteFor example, suppose you are laying out a gritty reality game in which people get killed easily when they get into gunfights. So you think to yourself, how far is this sense of combat from Baseline? Not very. Is it worth special emphasis? Not a lot; perhaps just a general tone to make clear that violence is a pretty bad idea. Now when you start laying out mechanics to support the balance you have in mind, it won't even occur to you to waste time detailing a combat system down to the last newton of kickback, because you've already realized that this is not something to emphasize mechanically.

Now there is no way to analyze this example in GNS terms.  There's simply nothing here about goals in play.  All I laid out was some stuff about what sort of setting, in the broad sense of Vision, we have in mind.

Still, the Vision-Baseline model does allow a number of preliminary analytical moves.

Now if, on the other hand, you said:

QuoteI want a game that's about people making sacrifices.  The question is, "What will you give up in return for what?"  And I'm interested in pushing this to be a question about giving up common decency for physical powers.

Then it sounds like you're looking at something Narrativist, right?  And we could formulate Gamist and Simulationist parallels.

But the Vision-Baseline thing would be no help here.  There isn't anything to analyze in those terms.

In other words, the GNS model, while larger and I think probably more important than the Vision-Baseline model, is as far as the latter model (1) totally in agreement about System Mattering, and (2) not talking about the same things.

Are we talking about exploration?  About setting?  About stance?  I'm really not sure.  That's what I've been hoping we could discuss.

Hi Chris,

You've got your layers all bollixed up. Try this (from the about-to-be posted Gamism essay):

Quote[Social Contract [Exploration [GNS [rules [techniques [Stances]]]]]]

Every inner "box" is an expression or realization of the box(es) it's nested in.

1. Everything occurs embedded in the Social Contract, which includes many things about play and not-play, especially the Balance of Power.

2. Exploration is the primary act of role-playing, composed of five parts with some causal relationships among them.

3. The "modes" of play (because they have to be expressed via communication and play itself, not just "felt") are currently best described as Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist play. Play (as opposed merely to hanging out with friends) cannot occur without such an agenda. I'm now using the term "creative agenda" to refer to the three modes as a concept, replacing the small-p "premise" term in the older essay.

4. Techniques of play include many different relationships among rules, people's decisions, announcements, and similar. "System" (or rather textual system) interacts with Techniques all the time, in terms of things like Currency, Resolution (DFK, IIEE), and Reward systems. Which of these is inner or outer is debatable and probably variable, although I've diagrammed it in keeping with the idea that techniques are applied within a framework of rules.

5. Actual play shifts quickly among Stances.

Therefore your example, which as far as I can tell gives us only "gunfights" and "killed easily," concerns only a tad of Exploration and one consequence of System, and not much of either, and nothing about Social Contract at all. No wonder you can't see the Baseline/Vision stuff - you'll need all of Exploration for that, and a Social Contract box at least to imagine it in; the combination of the two will then kick off a GNS approach that would suit you best in play. I maintain that GNS literally is Social Contract operating on an Exploration-package.

Best,
Ron

You're making a straw man out of GNS. I've said repeatedly that GNS is only one part of the equation.

Mike: it's the theory underlying GNS
Chris: no, it's not GNS at all
Mike: right, it's the theory underlying GNS

System Matters doesn't say that GNS is the only way to analyze a game. If you look at it, it says that this is one analytical tool. We completely agree there.

What it does say is that one ought to consider what to put into a game. GNS being one thing. Level of realism, perhaps being another. And many many others. All these things together would form what the GNS essay puts forth (in describing the underpinnings of the theory, not the theory itself) as Premise. Which has since been renamed Creative Agenda.

From the essay:

QuoteCharacter, System, Setting, Situation, and Color.

Character: a fictional person or entity.
System: a means by which in-game events are determined to occur.
Setting: where the character is, in the broadest sense (including history as well as location).
Situation: a problem or circumstance faced by the character.
Color: any details or illustrations or nuances that provide atmosphere.
At the most basic level, these are what the role-playing experience is "about," but to be more precise, these are the things which must be imagined by the real people. In this sense, saying "system" means "imagining events to be occurring."

Exploration and its child, Premise
The best term for the imagination in action, or perhaps for the attention given the imagined elements, is Exploration. Initially, it is an individual concern, although it will move into the social, communicative realm, and the commitment to imagine the listed elements becomes an issue of its own.

When a person perceives the listed elements together and considers Exploring them, he or she usually has a basic reaction of interest or disinterest, approval or disapproval, or desire to play or lack of such a desire. Let's assume a positive reaction; when it occurs, whatever prompted it is Premise, in its most basic form. To re-state, Premise is whatever a participant finds among the elements to sustain a continued interest in what might happen in a role-playing session. Premise, once established, instils the desire to keep that imaginative commitment going.

This is all very straghtforward so far, right? I haven't done any weird interperetations, have I?

Now, you seem to be saying that the Baseline/Vision thing is not the totality of the Creative Agenda. That it's some discrete sub-set that can be discussed in particular terms. Well, to the extent that these things deliver the totality of the "what to do" and "how to do it", I think that you're missing the fact that they are one and the same.

Now, if you're just talking about Realism, then, sure, that's a subset. But you seem to want it both ways. You want it to be larger than the level of Realism, but smaller than everything. I'm just not seeing where that leaves you.

Worse I keep hearing:

QuoteStill, the Vision-Baseline model does allow a number of preliminary analytical moves.

And no moves. There's the tension thing that's been floated, but until I can wrap my head around that, it seems to either be just a discussion of how having in-game realism be somehow different from the RW, and this somehow building tension. Which I'm not seeing particularly, and even if I did, seems to all be statable in terms which we already have.

But I seem to be repeating myself. Basically we seem to have a fundamental disagreement on whether or not you've described something smaller than the Creative Agenda, and not simply Realism. Or do I misunderstand the disagreement?

Mike

Okay.  Guys, calm down.  We're talking past each other.

About a week ago I lost a solid reply to Mike's query about three posts up (to a Netscape crash), and Grr-I-don't-want-to-redo-it plus lack of time anyway has prevented a repost.

I'm still shy of time, so I'll try to keep this brief, but I'll probably fail.

The primary use of the Baseline/Vision analysis seems to be in its local applications.  I think my usage of the word "local" may be confusing things, stemming as it does from physics - space is locally Euclidean, a function may be locally smooth, and so on.  If this word is still causing confusion after you read this post, please let me know and I'll try to define it in terms relevant to us here.  If you're looking for techniques, Mike, please go back up and reread my Ars Magica and Shadowrun examples, carefully; each of those is an example of 'local' Tension.

What we're talking about with this taxonomy is just a way, one of many, in which the Explored elements relate to each other in the work.  A given element can be helping to express the Vision of the work, or it can be helping in several ways (cf. the hermeneutic cycle, accessibility, et al) by being an element of the necessary Baseline.  The relations of those elements to each other form the Tension of the work, as we have defined it here.  

We express the idea of an overall Tension but frankly that's just an abstraction which stems from the Creative Agenda.  Players perceive it, therefore it matters, but we're all of us getting bogged down discussing it.  The Baseline/Vision spectrum must be incarnate in the Tension between two specific elements of the work for it to be meaningful in terms of techniques, at least right now.  I used the relation between the skill-rules and the magic-rules in AM, and between dissimilar archetypes in Shadowrun, as examples of places where the Tension is being used to generate an effect on the reader.

If this relates to Premise, it is only in a building-blocks way.  Perhaps a player (a) dimly understands the thematic object "The street finds its own uses for things," in a Shadowrun setting.  The Archetypes section uses Tension-related technique (b) to bring this thematic element into higher relief in the reader's mind (and in the creation of his PC); alternately, one could say that the text is further communicating the Vision of the material, and is using a low level of Baseline/Vision contrast in a particular way to do so.  This thematic element may become one of the building blocks of (c) a level of player-interest which crystallizes into (d) an Edwardian Premise, such as "When the street abuses an idea, is the creator responsible for that abuse?"

Does that help?

Mike, I think that the quote you provided, and the definition of Premise Ron sketched out to me by PM, have a subtle disconnect, which may be part of why we're having communications problems here; see my distinctions (c) and (d) above.  This thread will not attempt to define or redefine Premise, thank you.  In the above I sketched out why I feel that the Baseline/Vision thing is a  characteristic of the Premise, or more precisely a characteristic of an intermediate thing with no name [a "thematic element"] which is one of the building-blocks of Premise.  And as such, Baseline/Vision/Tension can be discussed separately, just as one could discuss the characteristics of the fan-belt separately from the car itself.

Chris and I are talking about adjusting the Tension on the fan belt.  While this relates to GNS (the way the car is to be used), and in fact has a strong linkage (because different intended purposes for the car will indeed want different fan-belt tensions and other adjustments), we're a pair of mechanics trying to talk about (a) ways to tighten the belt, and (b) when one might want to specifically apply more, or less, tension in it, and what that would do to the car.  Of course the intended use of the car (GNS mode) and the reasons people will have for driving our car (Premise) and the reactions they'll come away with after doing so (Theme) are all important; but we'll leave that for another level of discussion entirely.

Now, one more time, go back up and look at the Ars Magica and Shadowrun examples.  Meanwhile, I'm dragging this thread back on topic...

If we take it as given that the game has a Baseline to hold on to, and a Vision to communicate, and that it therefore includes a lot of "baseline elements" and "vision elements," it seems obvious to me that these elements may or may not have the same role in this spectrum depending on context or usage.  

However, despite this, some relationships between textual elements will have a Baseline/Vision Tension between them, and in such a relationship one of them holds up the Baseline end and one the Vision end of their string.  The fact that we spotted a Tension in that relationship means that we can probably tell the roles of the two elements, right now, as well.  (Sometimes you're the butch, sometimes you're the fem, but if somebody looks over and you and your girl are playing it up to tease, then odds are that an onlooker can tell which boots fit each of you at the moment.)

And you can play up that Tension to do one thing - start a bar fight? - or play it down to do something else - not piss off her aunt and cousins.  

The definiton of "baseline element" and "vision element," versus the Tension between them, is sort of circular, but only sort of - you need not have set out to generate that Tension, it may have emerged just because the two of you are sitting together, dancing together, what have you.  The skill rules in AM and the magic rules in same have an intrinsic relationship (sharing the same essential mechanic), so you get the choice of either play up the difference (make the magic mods higher so that it stands out) or play it down (make everything use same-magnitude dice mods to convey similarity).  But you have to pick one or the other, the Tension comes with the territory.

How do we, as designers, spot places where the Tension will arise, so we can decide whether to tweak it or not?  How do we look ahead and say intelligent things about the Tension-spots in our emerging game, and design for it, or are we doomed to merely use this as an editing tool?  I think we can look ahead at least somewhat; take the organization of the work as a whole.  If you have a "miraculous deeds" chapter and a "mundane life before you were EnNobled" or whatever chapter, think about sequencing... do you want them (a) high-Tension, by placing them bang up against each other and giving them similar systems, or (b) low-Tension, with a buffer of unrelated material and dissimilar systems?  High-Tension focusses attention on the dichotomy, and helps make the overall Vision feel more estranged from reality; low-Tension hides and diffuses attention, makes the overall Vision feel more familiar.  Which do I, in this game, want?  That's the question we should be asking ourselves.

What I'm curious about is how we spot such instances in the first place, so as to ask it at all.  Preferably in advance.  Any comments?

- Eric

Quote from: HarlequinOkay.  Guys, calm down.  We're talking past each other.

Is someone not calm? I thought it was going as well as possible for a disagreement...{shrug}

QuoteThe Baseline/Vision spectrum must be incarnate in the Tension between two specific elements of the work for it to be meaningful in terms of techniques, at least right now.  I used the relation between the skill-rules and the magic-rules in AM, and between dissimilar archetypes in Shadowrun, as examples of places where the Tension is being used to generate an effect on the reader.

OK. But you have to choose a spot for all of these things, right? I mean you can't not choose. So what you end up with is a tapestry of all of the elements that determine how to play, right? So this is all of game creation it seems to me.

Put it this way. What else do you do when making a game?

QuoteIf this relates to Premise, it is only in a building-blocks way.  Perhaps a player (a) dimly understands the thematic object "The street finds its own uses for things," in a Shadowrun setting.

...

This thematic element may become one of the building blocks of (c) a level of player-interest which crystallizes into (d) an Edwardian Premise, such as "When the street abuses an idea, is the creator responsible for that abuse?"

You've made a classic misinterperetation. In the essay, there are two definitions for Premise. The first is just premise as above. It has nothing to do with "Edwardsian Premises" or Narrativism. They do not have to be questions. They are just what they say they are above. The "what do you do and like about" part of a game.

Then there are Gamist Premises, Sim Premises, and Narrativist Premises. The last of which are what you refer to as "Edwardsian Premises". Thematic questions and all that garbage.

The confusion over this is and has been so great, in fact, that Ron decided to change the term. Hence Creative Agenda. And hence my use of these terms equally (you'll note that I pointed this out in a previous post). I should have just stayed away from Premise entirely, I suppose.

But I don't know that this changes anything for either of us.


To the issue at hand, if all you're saying is that these terms help you come up with nifty techniques like the ones you point out for Ars and SR, then I lose my heart to argue with you. I mean if it's helping out, I have a strong urge to just let it go. That's the relativist streak in me.

But I just think that we don't need it (and we all know why term proliferation is dangerous; some people refuse to come here as it is). Can't it suffice to say that the Creative Agenda for Ars Magica is in part playing wizards in historical Europe? And that, to get that, one ought to emphasize parts of the rules that inform the player that this is what it's about? Mechanically (as System Does Matter).

And in any case, isn't the final decision going to be completely artistic anyhow?

Mike

Just to poke my nose in where it has been mentioned so many times....

Mike and company,

I kinda like where all this Vision and Baseline stuff is going.  Baseline is a very clever description for things I've always struggled to talk about.  While I recognize a need to talk about things 'not Baseline,' I don't think Vision is a good word for it.  Vision sounds to me too much like the apex of one's 'Creative Agenda,' the real ideal of play one strives to facilitate.  But yeah, there needs to be a word for all of what the Baseline isn't.

Now, on 'what Fang was going on about.'  The games I started out talking about simply have an obvious disconnect between Baseline and Vision.  This would be like creating d20 Sorcerer without any Humanity rules.  Such a design spends a lot of time concentrating on the Baseline and then the Vision seems only like an afterthought.  I'm not saying all games are like this, but all of the really good designs here on the Forge, that I've been privy to the design-process of, seem to connect Vision to Baseline in a completely unconscious and intuitive fashion.  This does not help me in my deliberate design style.  ("Just do it!" they say.  "Do what?")

I first tried to discuss both this problem and this 'disconnect' in the worst possible way, with the worst possible terminology, in the most unfairly provocative way in "Psychotic (or is It Schizoid) Game Design (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6295)."  It was very shabby of me, so I cut the thread off.  Somehow I managed to let myself get drawn into a furtherance of that mistake in the thread called "Aesthetics and Reality (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=65422#65422)," also very poorly done of me and again I withdrew.  It seems strange to me that no one seems to realize I'm still talking about the same things.

So I pondered and thought, I worked and I considered, until I came up with entirely different terms and a new analogy.  This was "Elegance and Deliberateness (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6354)."  It really seemed to be going great guns about some of the more esoteric techniques one might employ until....

...Y'see, it wasn't just about Elegance; that would have been a ridiculous waste of time (but that seems to be how it was read).  It was about Elegance and Deliberateness.  The thread's topic certainly wasn't simply "System Does Matter," BECAUSE IT DOESN'T (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=67524#67524).  Saying that "Elegance and Deliberateness" provides nothing new or useful is about as fair as saying the GNS just says "Play Nice" or "Don't Play with People who don't Play Like You Do."  (Because that's all the GNS does say, doesn't it?)

At those times when "System Does Matter," "Elegance and Deliberateness" is just one approach to make it "matter" more.  No where in that venerable document does it detail any specific ways how to make system "matter" more.  "Deliberate Elegance" is more a discussion of how the different components, not just of system but of the whole game, relate to each other with their differing amounts of 'mattering.'  Moreover it talks about composing the relationships between those (and their attendant "Elegances") "Deliberately" with a focus on relativity and an overall structural scope or plan.  I realize I am one of the most deliberate designers on the Forge and that most people do this kind of thing completely subconsciously, but that doesn't mean discussing it is meaningless or completely implied by a more rudimentary predecessor.  That strikes me like saying that there is no point in discussing conscious cinematography, that one should simply get in there and direct.

I've decided it's high past time that I finally settle down and become the resident nay-sayer (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=67524#67524), but if you please, I'll keep it in the Scattershot Forum.

Fang Langford

p. s. I'd just like to know how saying 'this is nothing new' and 'that is already in another article' are anything but making categorical statements and why I get called on such statements especially when repeated requests for explanations or citations by these other authors go unheeded.

I re-read those examples. I have the same problem with them that I did when I first read them. It is, to me, wag-the-dog design. It seems you're looking at a game and reverse-engineering its design in a way I just can't accept.

Here's why. I just plainly don't believe that the designers sat down and said, chronologically:

1) "Ok, we're making a Medieval Europe Game."

2 or 3) "It should have skills with a mechanic."

2 or 3) "It should have magic, with the same mechanic.

4) "The magic stuff should be more important than the skills!"

5) "We'll make the modifiers higher to emphasize this!"

I just don't believe it happened that way. The game had an initial spark before any conscious choice of weight between skills and techniques/forms. That initial spark may or may not have been the game's creative agenda as we define it here (it very likely was). The spark was likely something akin to: "Let's make a game of wizards in the medieval world." I just don't comprehend how the designers didn't already know magic was more important than skills from square one. That was the whole concept of the game.

(EDIT: I think you're "atomizing" Creative Agenda into discrete aspects that miss the forest for the trees. That is, I think you're improperly dismantling the creative agenda as a whole to look at components of the whole. This may be useful in analyzing games that exist, but I find it unhelpful in shaping games that don't yet exist)

Making skills "less important" via smaller modifiers than magic was a no-brainer. It's an after-the-fact detail added in. It is, to me, an obvious, unconscious choice.

The example you posed has, in a sense, the "Baseline" as the intial launchpad from which this issue (i.e "tension" between skills and magic) is then analyzed. I see this as entirely backwards. "Medieval Europe setting" is not square-one. Playing a Magus (cool!) is square one. Medieval Europe comes either simulataneously or secondly.

In other words, I cannot fathom how a designer who creates a game like Ars Magica starts with "Medieval europe" and then subsequently, consciously decides (after thinking about tension) that "Magic" should be emphasized. It's just far more likely, from where I'm sitting, that emphasized magic was the choice from the git-go (it was entirely the point of the game), and that making skills therefore less important as a means to emphasize the vision was a "well, duh" moment.

So, I'm still not seeing how this is all useful. I keep seeing, perhaps wrongly, the examples presented thus far as starting at Baseline working the analysis toward making that Baseline jive with Vision. If anything, for me as a designer, Vision is the starting point.

Case 2: Shadowrun archetype design

Here, too, I'm seeing backwards analysis, and therefore have a hard time seeing how it's applcable to future game designs of our own.

I doubt very strongly that "equitable" layout presentation of the archetypes was part of the game design process. I think this was an effect after the fact (after all, you've noticed and/or interpreted it as such after the fact), but I am highly skeptical (as a game designer and especially as a graphic designer) that the archetype page layouts were designed originally for that express purpose. I simply don't buy it. I don't think it was a problem the creators of the game acknowledged. As in: "We better make that Former Company Man have some really neato stuff so people will actually play him over the more detailed Street Mage. I know! We'll make their portraits equivalent!"

I just don't think it happened like this. More likely, the game designer and the art director were different folks, and it's very likely that the art director didn't say boo about game balance and making all the archetypes equally desirable to play.

Further, the character creation mechanics of Shadowrun reinforce equivalent characters via the "priority" creation system and Essence. I don't think graphic page layout is needed, nor sufficient to remind players that everyone's on the same level. System mattered in that regard, and System and Character mattered far more in that regard than did Color (which is what that graphic presentation amounts to).

In sum, I'm saying you and others have done a fair job presenting this Baseline & Vision as an analytical tool for existing examples, but I can't understand how it applies to sitting down and actually making a game.

Let me pose some candid questions for you guys for which I'm not seeing sufficient answers:

How is this Baseline / Vision / Tension technique sufficiently different from System Does Matter? For that matter, how is any of this discussion sufficiently different from 1) System Does Matter and 2) Creative Agenda? If it is not sufficiently different (a new outlook or explanation on those things, for example) are the new terms worthwhile? If it is different, how can it better be expressed so that designers can use the theory practically?

How is Vision discrete from Creative Agenda?

How are are the discrete design decisions (tensions) you're trying to analyze not defined as a"art", by which I mean that un-namable ability that a person does to create "stuff"?

If this is "art" (or perhaps "craft"), then at what point do discrete choices about game design become something you can't analyze -- that is, where's the mystery that is "creation?" Is there no such mystery?

If these discrete processes are not "art", then what are they?

Either way (art or not), how does this model actually help you make decisions about creating a game?

Matt - See the earlier analogy to colour theory.  No, most people don't design like that.  Neither example was presented as "they did it this way," and in fact they were accompanied by an explicit disclaimer that they propably weren't.  Nonetheless, the games probably succeed in part because they made these kinds of good aesthetic and communicative choices.  Does that make asking what those choices were, and why they work, invalid?  In short, if you're the kind of person who, as a painter, would find studying colour theory obstructive, then by all means, paint.  I'm writing for the kind of person who, after reading and thinking about colour theory, would eventually incorporate those ideas into their work, and paint more effectively for it.

Mike - "How is this not all of design?"  Well, switching previously applied analogies, how is "tighten this fan belt" not "all of auto repair"?  Of course these are aesthetic choices - we're explicitly studying aesthetic choices.  Of course this about the Creative Agenda - we're explicitly talking about how you communicate the Creative Agenda.  (I do feel there's a basic distinction between Creative Agenda and the Vision, because the Creative Agenda is an overall game designer's vision of his game and the Vision is simply that which is new within the game reality which the designer is trying to communicate.  Vision does not include the GNS mode he wishes to support, for example.  Also, you can talk about a single element as helping convey the Vision, as distinct from the Baseline, whereas by necessity everything you put down is theoretically helping convey the Creative Agenda.  Maybe if you stopped mapping everything into existing terms, and thereby making subtle shifts like this, then we'd be doing better at progressing with our analysis.  By my terms, Tension - along with everything else one does in a design - helps communicate the Creative Agenda, which is only somewhat more useful than Douglas Adams' quip about the planet Jupiter being heavier than a duck.)

Quote from: Mike HolmesTo the issue at hand, if all you're saying is that these terms help you come up with nifty techniques like the ones you point out for Ars and SR, then I lose my heart to argue with you. I mean if it's helping out, I have a strong urge to just let it go. That's the relativist streak in me.

Please!

Because, like the painter I describe above, who eventually internalizes colour theory and makes decisions with that as part of his understanding, I think that yes, this discussion - without the constant stream of people questioning its purpose or terminology - will do exactly that.  For me, and possibly others, who for the moment cannot get a word in edgeways.

Everyone who this thread is not helping: kindly leave those comments to yourself.  Obviously if this thread is of no interest to you, then it should be left alone.  Ditto for if it does not help your design philosophy.  If your only fear is proliferation of taxonomies, don't worry - like colour theory, you can perfectly well do beautiful work without ever having to talk about it in those terms, and in fact, in the end, those who master it don't talk about it... whether they came to that point through study of the terms or simply from intuition and practice.  It's hardly about to become canonical.

Okay. Sorry for the tone, all, I'm just getting very tired of this (and have a baby whining in my ear to boot).  At the end of my previous post I attempted to get things back on topic; can we go back to those questions, please?

- Eric

I understand the analogy, Eric, but I find it not terribly enlightening. I am not trying to "disprove" the notion of Baseline / Vision / Tension. I am trying to understand it, and more importantly understand on a specific level how it's useful for designing new games (not analyzing existing ones).

In your reply to Mike, you answered what you see as the difference between Creative Agenda and Vision. However, several of my questions remain, and I find your painter-color-theory analogy not informative in answering any of the other specific questions I posed.

I have already acknowledged in this thread that people design differently -- Fang doing so deliberately as he describes it, for example. I further stated that I do not design in this way. This does not bar me from discussion of the topic, and I'm amazed to find language in these forums that somehow views that with a kind of subtle sarcastic disdain (accidents of talents, as Fang called it).

But I must say that it troubles me to see such emotional responses from you. I think you're seeing antagonism in Mike's queries and my questions. Knowing Mike personally and from his MANY posts here on the Forge, I know that he's not, nor am I, trying to shoot you down. We are offering serious, critical thought, and we are interested in keeping theory from being redundant and confusing for site visitors. To ask us to go away after insufficiently answering questions that you must answer (for your own sake, not to answer to "US") to make this theory useful is profoundly unhelpful to you and insulting to us.

Forge discussion is so rewarding because people generally are able to keep discussion civil and refrain from saying "leave us alone" when discussing nascent theory. It should be obvious that I'm hardly disinterested in this topic. I wouldn't post here otherwise.

Finally, you request that the discussion get back on topic in part by addressing questions you pose in your penultimate thread. There, you said:

QuoteHow do we, as designers, spot places where the Tension will arise, so we can decide whether to tweak it or not? How do we look ahead and say intelligent things about the Tension-spots in our emerging game, and design for it, or are we doomed to merely use this as an editing tool?

This is precisely what both Mike and I have been asking for the entirety of the thread. I'm concerned that you do not seem to recognize that, and view our replies as somehow distracting. We're asking for exactly what you are asking for! How can you, on a very specific level, make this whole idea useful in making games, and how is it anything but an analytical tool for existing designs.

Quote from: Matt Snyder

Quote from: HarlequinHow do we, as designers, spot places where the Tension will arise, so we can decide whether to tweak it or not? How do we look ahead and say intelligent things about the Tension-spots in our emerging game, and design for it, or are we doomed to merely use this as an editing tool?

...We're asking for exactly what you are asking for! How can you, on a very specific level, make this whole idea useful in making games, and how is it anything but an analytical tool for existing designs.

I was under the impression that Eric is asking these questions, not engaging in rhetoric.  You know, like they say, "Most discoveries don't start with 'Eureka!' but with 'that's funny?'"  We've stumbled onto something, possibly, and are only just beginning to wrestle with what it could be, how it might be used, and potentially if it could be used to effect (at least by deliberate designers).

Having the legitimate questions thrown back in his face probably sounds like dismissive or sarcastic responses, as opposed to constructive discussion.  (Imagine someone who comes into a dark room saying, "What if we opened our eyes?"  Only to have others saying back at them, "What if we opened our eyes?" instead of discussing what might happen if light could be introduced into the room afterwards.)  Instead of reflecting the questions, could you possibly speculate upon some answers?

I know I'm having a hard time answering them.  So I'm attempting a game design (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=67541#67541) using them to 'see how it feels.'  I caution Mike to please not follow this link until the judging of the Iron Game Chef Contest is finished; I don't want to predjudice the voting.

So far, I need more time to digest and discuss it.  So can we agree that neither side is being sarcastic, but that neither side have the answers.  Please, speculate.

Fang Langford

Fang, I don't think either side is being sarcastic. I think we're asking the same question, but for different reasons. Mike and I are asking because we can't (yet) see the practicality in this idea. Eric and others see possibility, but no specific use as yet.

I have read your post regarding your Sim. Iron Chef design. Is the game posted in that thread on Indie Design? I'm missing something in your explanation, but I can infer some points.

Here's one of my big hurdles in dealing with this whole idea: Tension. I just don't see how it's relevant. Or, maybe more appropriately, I don't see how it's relevant in a new way.

For example, Fang, you say you've set your game deliberately in "our world," but you've included a Vision-element in having extra-dimensional duels. I'm with you so far, I think.

You then describe the 'high-contrast' between these two concepts (real world meets extradimensions), saying this is the key to design.

My response (in all seriousness, and no insult intended) is: So what?  So these things contrast. How is that relevant? What is the effect on the game?

This thread and elsewhere keep highlighting such contrasts (and reduced contrasts) as somehow illuminating. I'm missing how these are meaningful.  I'm waiting for another shoe to drop. What about the fact that extra-dimensional warriors clashing with the fact that this takes place in a "real-life" modern day makes the game more "YOURS." More meaningful?

In other words, I see this contrast, and I think, "Ok, it's a choice of setting and situation, one that could have gone another way, I guess (the game could have been totally set in the extradimensions, for example)."

So, in this instance, I see you getting excited about having made this choice based on Tension, but I'm seeing a not-terribly-exciting design choice based on situation and setting.

How does this make the game more interesting to me? In and of itself, this contrast doesn't do enough for me. I wanna know more about the game's Creative Agenda. What's the point? Maybe then the situation and setting stuff will matter to me more. Otherwise, it's just a sub-set of Creative Agenda, and I can't say much about it.

This is where our two "camps" keep having disconnect, I think. You are eager to see the model help you shape games. I am trying to distinquish the same, but also how it's different from models already presented.

Here's the kicker: The end result is the same, correct? That is, when finished you'll have designed a game that we could analyze using the baseline/vision/tension approach, or we could analyze it using GNS and Creative Agenda issues. Both would be valid, I think.

However, I'm seeing some disagreement because there's been at least some claims that this stuff is somehow removed from GNS and Creative Agenda. No, it's not. It's two sides of the very same coin. This is why I insist on knowing how it's sufficiently distinct. I don't think it is something NEW entirely, but it may be a new "vector" one might use to approach design. It's one that I can't see yet how it's useful, but if it is, more power to you. I'm at the point now that Ron and Mike have already reached: I don't think this is anything new, but if it helps your particular creative process, great.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't ask questions, or hold one's feet to the fire. All models deserve serious criticism, and I think this one's going to get a lot more before all's said and done.

Hey Matt,

I'm glad you have the time to consider my points.  The problem is you don't seem to have heeded the intention.  I find it hard to understand the point you are making because your response is both reactive and yet doesn't 'go anywhere.'

I mean, it doesn't really matter whether you think anyone is being sarcastic; if you see both sides asking the same questions, why don't you attempt answering some of them?

The main reason I pointed out that both sides are asking the same questions is because this constant challenge to "show the practical use" of the idea just appears like arguing technique to say 'I don't believe you.'

Eric has basically said, 'so what?'  This thread, and the others like it aren't about 'converting people to some new idea.'  There more like flags being sent up saying, 'has anyone else seen this?'

This 'broken-record' repetition of 'so?' will not get us anywhere.  It doesn't have an answer.  If it did, don't you think we'd have given it by now?  I don't know if you intended on sounding challenging with your post, but despite evidence to the contrary, I'm trying to assume you didn't.

I think the most constructive thing you or Mike could do at this point would be to set aside the 'what practical use it has' chip-on-the-shoulder responses and go hypothetical.  Just for a sec, assume that Tension has a practical use; now try to explain what that might be.

See, this might be related to my prior concept that the relationships between any identifiable game elements and any other identifiable game concepts might be a realm for intentional design alignment, but it goes a little more specific talking about the 'Tension' between that which is 'Baseline' and that which is not.

I just can't commit to this use of "Vision," it's almost as misleading as calling the 'what you do' of a game the 'creative agenda.'  That was part of my IYEOW example; my literal "creative agenda" was to try to do something using "Elegance and Deliberateness."  That was the 'agenda' I approached the 'creation' of the game with.  Mike's and other's use of 'creative agenda' confounds the confusing nature of using "Exploration" the way Ron does.  (I just can't connect "showing imaginative commitment" to the in-game material as "Exploration.")[/list:u]I'm right there with you as far as the question about Tension.  As far as I can tell, it sounds like it might be alternatively one of two things, either how much suspension of disbelief is needed (the likelihood of having your 'belief suspenders' snapped) or the amount that 'the fantastic' must influence play.  I'm also having trouble seeing how that isn't implicit in the designer's intent for play; I mean sure, few games will have you play nothing but Baseline, but just as few would have you avoid that completely.

So it's a mix; we already knew that.  It's all fine and good to choose the mix intentionally, but if this thread is entirely about 'picking a Tension level,' I imagine that's pretty much clear now; can we move on?

I know what I was getting at over in "Elegance and Deliberateness" was that 'picking the Tension level' was one of many creative choices to be made in designing a game.  I went further to try and draw into the spotlight

how these types of creative choices could be orchestrated.  That means you pick this Tension, you do that sparseness of layout, you offer this other kind of 'what you do in the game' (or rather which of that you focus the most player-thinking on), and you leave out that kind of mechanics; now consider the potential of doing all of these following a set of ideals for the game to bring them together in a relative fashion.  I can't describe any extant games that do this, or as if they do this, because I don't think I've seen any that appear to do so deliberately.  And that's the catch; how many people would even consider taking deliberateness to that level?

Quote from: Matt SnyderFor example, Fang, you say you've set your game deliberately in "our world," but you've included a Vision-element in having extra-dimensional duels.

You then describe the 'high-contrast' between these two concepts (real world meets extra dimensions), saying this is the key to design.

My response (in all seriousness, and no insult intended) is: So what?  So these things contrast. How is that relevant? What is the effect on the game?

That's what I mean.  It doesn't affect the game play directly in the least.  It was an ideal that affected other design choices.  Anything put in the game had to either be terribly familiar or completely unreal, more importantly all of these had to be placed in juxtaposition.  The numerous contrasts was one of the major design challenges and I'm not that satisfied that I brought that off in so short of presentation.

Basically, all the while when I was picking 'what to include' and 'what to leave out,' I was constantly chanting 'does it contrast, does it contrast' to myself.  This forms the backbone of my design criteria, not 'what gets played.'  This is very much a 'deliberate designer' technique, one of the most deliberate.

I didn't choose this set of deliberate design criteria because the contrasts illuminate anything.  That I chose any design criteria is what is supposed to be illuminated.  You can see how much my Baseline (the most familiar and real of realities) and the 'unreal estate,' the fantastic elements, of the 'not Baseline' appears in the basic sense when you play, but do you see how it figures into the other features?  Does it become obvious that I eschewed mechanics for Baseline elements and ground all 'not Baseline' things down to really specific mechanics; does that appear in play?  Not likely, but it should generate a sense of the overall 'contrast dynamic' I wanted the game to be saturated with.

You can see that it was a choice of Setting and Situation, but do you see how the concentration of mechanics also highlights the contrast?  Certainly that was also 'just a System choice,' but it was chosen to follow a deliberately narrow set of design criteria that are supposed to reinforce a subtle sensation.

Another problem that seems to cropping up here is that my attempts to 'not argue' apparently are being read as 'being excited.'  I'm not; I'm curious.  I think I've stumbled over something that does something, but I'm not sure what.  I'm not waving a big banner that says, 'I solved it!'  I'm going, 'come over here and look at this, does it do something?'

Help me out here, Matt.  Am I seeing something?  What do you think I'm seeing?  I can't describe it very well, because I've never seen it from this perspective before.  If you want me to help you understand, tell me what you think I see.  If you can't meet me halfway, there's no point in me trying to convince you of something I'm still searching for.

The question then becomes, 'should I keep looking?' not 'what have I found?'  I can't answer the latter, but the former looks like 'yes.'

If you can't get past "how is this in the creative agenda," all I can say is, "it isn't."  It's in 'how I choose my presentation' of the 'creative agenda.'  It's not about the 'slap you in the face' part of the 'creative agenda,' it only emerges through continued play.  I know a lot of indie punk designers seem baffled by games that can't be played effectively as a one-shot, but it's one of the things that concerns me.  I don't consider one of my 'deliberate' designs successful if it only makes a good first impression, I want it to 'get legs' and keep performing intriguingly.  I consider 'first impression' material only one part of a design.

I guess I'm kinda surprised that your concern seems limited to the 'creative agenda' (meaning the 'what you do in the game'); I'm talking about 'design criteria' above, beyond, and outside of just 'facilitating the creative agenda.'

I'm quite curious that you've seen this "already presented."  Can you name some examples?  If you were to respond to no other question I've raised, I'd be really interested to see previous work in this area; it might really help me figure out what I'm looking at.  (Like I said, I don't even know what it is; I'm soliciting help determining that.)

I'm disappointed that you resurrect the "the end result is the same" argument, because that is clear cut "do it my way" talk.  I'd like to think that we're above that kind of bullying on this playground.  You make games your way; I make mine with a high degree of deliberation.  Sure the result is the same, but all that would happen if I ignored these issues is I'd only be able to create crap.

As far as I've been able to determine "Baseline/Tension" isn't an alternative to GNS or 'creative agenda' analyses, it's supposed to be 'above it.'  This kind of design criteria is supposed to be about helping the designer choose which GNS or 'creative agenda' incarnation to use or that suits their overall intention for the game.  I don't see how 'here is what to choose' out of GNS or 'creative agenda' choices is 'the other side of the same coin.'  It's like saying that 'where you get your ingredients' has no bearing on the taste alternatives for a meal.  That's like saying that you can just as easily use 'all fresh ingredients' and 'made from scratch pasta' to deliver the same chemical zing of prepackaged mac-and-cheese (okay, it's an acquired taste, but I know the difference instantly).

I'm really somewhat upset that this discussion is going the same "more power to you" direction as before.  That has to be the most dismissive things I've heard in polite conversation.  We're not talking about reinventing the wheel here, but it's seems discouraging that you, Ron, and Mike feel this need to keep claiming that this has already been said (without substantiating any of it) or isn't worth your time.  If that was the case, couldn't you simply not post?  These 'parting shots' aren't terribly useful to any discussion; if what you see is of no use to you, what use is that information to us?

A lot of people reading this don't really see a point to it, but do they chime in?  No, they go find something they're interested in.  If you can't take the time to understand and respond to the points being discussed, to answer any of the questions Eric raised, what do you add by just saying "So?"

The only agenda I'm seeing espoused by this is "everybody stay away" or "stick to the party line."  Well, nothing new is ever discovered that way.  Now, I'm not saying there is anything new here, but if I don't investigate it, how will I know?  If you aren't interested in 'trying it out,' what value are you adding to the discussion of it?  (Hey, at least some citation of previous, related work would be of immense value, but has there been any?)

If I had to sum all of this up, I'd ask, "What discussion has covered the approaches to GNS or 'creative agenda' choice?"  Can anyone point me to the discussion of these kinds of 'higher' design criteria?

Fang Langford

p. s. Being a creature of unlimited curiosity, can you tell me what you were asking here:

Quote from: Matt SnyderWhat about the fact that extra-dimensional warriors clashing with the fact that this takes place in a "real-life" modern day makes the game more "YOURS." More meaningful?

I really wanna know.

Can we try to define some of these terms more clearly?  

Baseline has several possible definitions:
a) "realism" in a game setting as might be understood by anyone walking off the street.
b) reality as a referent, and of which it is an aspired to but unattainable goal to emulate by use of mechanics & system.
c) "realism" in a given instance of a game as understood by the group of individuals who are playing it.
d)  whatever a group of game participants agree to be true in the setting of a game (including laws of physics etc.)

Vision:
a) genre expectations or the source material inspiration for a game.  (in this definition, vision is unattainable to truly emulate, mechanics suggest it and the game itself reflects but does not every wholly embody the Vision)
b)the creative agenda of a game designer, gm or game group for a game or campaign
c) the fantastic or realism-breaking elements of a game world or setting
d) what a gm or individual members of a game group envision for the game world or narrative that the rest of the group has not yet come to know about or agreed to be true.

And perhaps some that I've missed.

Now I can see why some of these definitions are duplicative of GNS (ie vision=creative agenda) but not all.  Baseline/vision specifically arose out of discussion of realism in setting (and the tensions between assumptions about this and the way mechanics are  chosen and implemented in games that may disrupt the creative agenda of a game).  But, I believe that a concensus has yet to be come to about exactly what b/v mean, and how they will be applied.  Yes, Mike, why should we have more terms if we've got perfectly good ones that describe the same info.  But if the new terms are intuitive, meaningful and help both design and clarify confusion about a sticky topic (ie realism), why the heck not embrace them? And if we think they do that, let's be clear about the def's and give concrete examples of how it does so.

I lean toward using baseline and vision specifically about setting and realism.  And I can see good arguments for just using creative agenda instead of vision.

Quote from: Matt SnyderMy response (in all seriousness, and no insult intended) is: So what? So these things contrast. How is that relevant? What is the effect on the game?

The effects of several of the examples have been that when the players/gm used the system as it was written the results contradicted the feel of the game as would be expected based on the (fairly explicit) creative agenda, or that the players had to make allowances or contrive play in order to support what the game brought into being.

two examples:
superhero damage and death rules in a supers game where the script immunity was clearly such that no hero would actually ever die. (was this an example from a certain system, Fang?)

ars magica mages having to keep themselves secret while being numerous and prosperous enough that a reasonable enactment of the scenario described would almost always bring mages and mundanes into conflict.  (that's my personal experience.  I am open to the idea that this was not such a major conflict for others who have played the game.)

But these have already been stated, so perhaps they are not so useful. And we really need to come to more precise definition before it can be usefully applied. I'll work on some examples of how it may be useful in designing a game.

--EC

Fang, how can I provide the specific answers you desire when I've said repeatedly I can't understand the foundation of the idea, and especially when those who DO seem to understand the idea have yet to provide the same?

Your concerns that I'm propogating the broken record by not providing the answers are absurd. It's like asking a blind man to pick out a matching suit and tie for you.

You've asked me to let it go, assume the theory is useful, and wait for some point at which specific examples of design are put forth. Will do! Let 'er rip. Surely, folks behind this line of thinking are working on games -- I'd love to see how some of those games fall in line with this design approach. How does it apply to Scattershot, for example?

QuoteBasically, all the while when I was picking 'what to include' and 'what to leave out,' I was constantly chanting 'does it contrast, does it contrast' to myself. This forms the backbone of my design criteria, not 'what gets played.' This is very much a 'deliberate designer' technique, one of the most deliberate.

This passage is very illuminating to me in our fundamental differences as designers. At every turn, I make game design decisions based on how they will affect play or the player. You have consciously said you make decisions that, in effect, ignore play at the most basic level. I find this very, very hard to understand.

QuoteYou can see that it was a choice of Setting and Situation, but do you see how the concentration of mechanics also highlights the contrast? Certainly that was also 'just a System choice,' but it was chosen to follow a deliberately narrow set of design criteria that are supposed to reinforce a subtle sensation.

I suppose I can see that, but I achieve the same result without this approach. For example, my current game-in-progress Nine Worlds went through several phases and re-writes as I dealt with "modeling" the player character's "real world" abilities. In the end, the contrast was at its fullest. I eschewed any model of "real world" ablilities whatsoever (skills, attributes in the traditional sense), after having them very much specified in prior versions of the game. The result is characters with metaphysical attributes such as Virtues and Urges. In sum, I'm saying that the technique may be useful to you, but does not produce unique results. Hence, all our clamoring for "What's new?" and "So what?"

QuoteIf you can't get past "how is this in the creative agenda," all I can say is, "it isn't."

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not asking HOW is this in the creative agenda? I'm stating that it IS in the creative agenda. That thing we used to call (small-p) premise. "What do you do in a game and how do you do it?" I see your approach in seeking contrasts as little nuggets that taken as a whole comprise a game's premise, or at the very least shape the way the game is played.

All these claims that they are 'outside' the premise baffle me. If they are outside the game's premise -- outside the point and purpose of the game, then what the heck use are they? If these things, these contrasts, do not serve, even as a whole if not individually, to strengthen or even define the whole of a game's premise (sorry, creative agenda), then they're not doing any good. Seeing them as "outside" the creative agenda, and therefore something new, is bluntly something I do not agree with. I do not see it as either outside creative agenda or new. (By the way, equating "nothing new here" in this approach "so do it my way" is obviously bogus -- Ron, Mike and I have already said if the technique's helping you, knock yourself out. Just don't claim it's new. It isn't; it's producing the same results as you've said. Our saying so has little to do with whether the statement offends you. It shouldn't.)

I suspect the problem is that you do not agree with the definition or purpose of creative agenda or the "old" premise. There, we'll have a logjam, as I see it as the fundamental issue in designing a game. How can a game be anything but what the players do with it? You seem to claim that a game can do or be something outside that realm. I plainly do not agree.

Finally, Fang, please spend a little more time coming up with the evidence that shows how this is useful (just as you've asked me to do) and far less time aruging about arguing. I have learned the hard way that you're easily offended and read much emotion into passages with no spiteful intent. You're an intelligent, thougtful adult, and I don't need kid gloves to enter an online discussion with oyu. Please stop wearing your heart on your sleeve (getting disappointed, upset and so on). It's just not worth it, and you're seeing insults and malice where there is none. This is not helpful to the conversation. Ron, Mike, and I really can't do more in discussing this with you if you see many of our points (or rather don't see some of the points) and view them instead as dismissive or offensive. Stop beating around the bush. If you don't like somebody's "tone," then take it to Private Message. I don't want to see this thread closed again because it gets one-sidedly acrimonious

I, like you, am curious. I'm trying earnestly to understand what you're getting at here, and I've yet to see ways that it is useful. That you and Eric have both asked "dissenters" to leave you alone is not going to help you find this idea. These so-called dissenters are the crucible by which you will know whether you've found something.

On your P.S. query:

QuoteWhat about the fact that extra-dimensional warriors clashing with the fact that this takes place in a "real-life" modern day makes the game more "YOURS." More meaningful?

This was me merely asking with your specific game how contrast was useful to you. That is, how did it make the game unique and how it made the game worthwhile, worth playing, etc. How does that choice affect the way the game is perceived by players and played by them?

(jumping back in with both feet...)

Here is what I see as the central difference between Creative Agenda (ne premise) and the Baseline/Vision Tension model:

Creative Agenda is where you're going. The model is a method to get there. I'm going to use Credo RPG, my still-in-progress game (not yet more than an annoying Word document, I'm afraid) as a guinea pig to see whether I can articulate this.

In Credo, everyone plays a normal human who has a very limited ability to create miracles on demand. The Creative Agenda is to build plots around the beliefs of the characters, as expressed by their miracle abilities. Now, this is a type of game that has a fairly standard Baseline: the real world, Twenty-first  Century, informed by the medium of television drama (prime-time or daytime or both). The Vision is one where belief can affect the world by making the miraculous real. So, the tension point is the point at which my game design must focus: How do these miracles actually work? How will they impact society? Do I really need other stats to cover day-to-day activities?


And at this point, I'm going to wander off happily, and write another few hundred words into my WIP – that's how useful this model is for me.

Emily, first off, I agree that the terms need some explicit definition and concensus on those. So, thanks for that.

In response to my "So what?" you explained, in effect, that contrasts from tension are helpful (meaningful?) because they illuminate the potential shortcomings between what a game says it is and what it actually does. That makes sense (assumimg, of course, that I'm reading you right!).

Now, in terms of game design, can we say that high contrasts as you've defined them are part of a dysfunctional game? Or maybe just certain high contrasts (or tensions)? That is, if Magi weren't a secret society in Ars Magica, then the game falls apart? And with deadly realism mechanics in a supers game, the game fails because it doesn't emulate the supers genre with such harsh deaths?

Your explanation makes sense to me, but I'm trying to have that make sense with Fang's approach. You're saying here that tension can be indicative of dysfunctional rules coping with some game-reality. That, in this sense at least, contrast is bad. But, Fang is saying that contrast like this is highly desirable, and in fact his mantra when designing a recent game.

So, when is such contrast desirable? Is it not at all desirable? Is this Baseline/Vision stuff a sort of diagnostic tool, one that might be used to error-correct a game as it's being designed? Or, is it useful in a more proactive (rather than reactive) way, as Fang seems to indicate?

Eric: hang on a minute; I'll get back to your questions (i.e. the actual topic at hand) in just a sec.

-- replies to discussion --

Quote from: Ron EdwardsTherefore your example, which as far as I can tell gives us only "gunfights" and "killed easily," concerns only a tad of Exploration and one consequence of System, and not much of either, and nothing about Social Contract at all. No wonder you can't see the Baseline/Vision stuff

You're missing the point, I'm afraid.  I can see the Vision/Baseline stuff in this example.  What I can't see in it is GNS.  That's why the two are different.

Quote from: Mike HolmesBut I just think that we don't need it (and we all know why term proliferation is dangerous; some people refuse to come here as it is). Can't it suffice to say that the Creative Agenda for Ars Magica is in part playing wizards in historical Europe? And that, to get that, one ought to emphasize parts of the rules that inform the player that this is what it's about?

Yes, that can suffice.  But remember that nothing actually needs to be analyzed theoretically; it's just potentially interesting and instructive to do so.  Eric and I, and I think a few others, find it interesting to consider the ways in which "historical Europe" is disconnected from Ars Magica Europe, and to consider how this affects game design more broadly.

Quote from: Matt SnyderI think you're "atomizing" Creative Agenda into discrete aspects that miss the forest for the trees. That is, I think you're improperly dismantling the creative agenda as a whole to look at components of the whole. This may be useful in analyzing games that exist, but I find it unhelpful in shaping games that don't yet exist

Quote from: And heIn other words, I cannot fathom how a designer who creates a game like Ars Magica starts with "Medieval europe" and then subsequently, consciously decides (after thinking about tension) that "Magic" should be emphasized. ... I keep seeing, perhaps wrongly, the examples presented thus far as starting at Baseline working the analysis toward making that Baseline jive with Vision. If anything, for me as a designer, Vision is the starting point.

Let's take the AM example, since lots of people seem interested by it.  First of all, forget what order this went in -- it's a circular process, so this is going to turn into chicken-and-egg.  I have no interest in origins per se.

Okay, so we've set up Baseline = medieval Europe, and Vision = magicians in a secret order.  Let's even go on, so we're talking about the same thing: let's just take all of Ars Magica (ignoring supplements, perhaps) as a nice instance of Baseline and Vision.

Now let's talk design.

As it happens, the world of Ars Magica is extremely unlike medieval Europe.  The magic of Ars Magica is extremely unlike anything prior to fantasy novels.  The political tensions of Ars Magica-world, notably the whole handling of the church and its theology, have essentially no parallels in actual history.

Now I like the game anyway, but suppose I'm interested in a revised AM, a version which will attempt to be faithful to historical reality wherever possible.  At the same time, I want to keep as much of the system as I can, because it seems to work pretty well for fun gaming.  This is going to be a hard slog, for lots of reasons.  For one thing, most players aren't going to want to do a lot of research, and if I present a huge tractate on medieval historical magic, I'm going to lose my audience instantly.

So what I do is consider Baseline = medieval Europe as my readers expect it to be, i.e. more or less as Ars Magica presents it; and Vision = a combination of how I consider it actually to have been (historical research) and how I think it could work as a game.

Now I start considering the ways in which these elements differ, where they pull in opposed directions, and I try to decide which things are important: you can't fight every battle.

Myself, I'm going to start with alchemy, and I'm going to build it systematically such that it looks like classic AM magic.  I'm going to tinker with the list of verbs and objects (creo, imagonem, etc.) so as to avoid certain impossibilities; for example, Rego Mentem is not natural magic, because it involves an intelligent object, and in fact Mentem itself should be cut from the list to keep it natural.  Similarly, Vim needs to be cut.  And so forth -- the point here is an example.

My sense here is that with a starting-point, I turn on the Baseline/Vision thing and start seeing not only what sorts of choices I need to make, but also where my real priorities lie, and I start thinking seriously about incorporating these issues into design.

[briefly into rant mode]
And finally,

QuoteIf this is "art" (or perhaps "craft"), then at what point do discrete choices about game design become something you can't analyze -- that is, where's the mystery that is "creation?" Is there no such mystery?  If these discrete processes are not "art", then what are they?

I intend this to stand in for similar comments from a number of posters; it's not a personal thing.

I agree entirely with Eric.  If you believe that art is something that "just happens," that it's all a magic spark of mystery, and that it's unanlyzable, then we have very little to discuss.  I have on numerous occasions used the example of Michelangelo, who I think you have to accept as a pretty decent artist.  He was a master of technique.  That is, his skill -- note this word, skill -- as a draftsman, stonecutter, paint-mixer, perspectivist, and so forth were extraordinary in a day of high craftsmanship.  Not one of these skills made his work great art.  At the same time, he did not discard these skills because he was an artist.  Serious art requires more than vision and mystery: it requires skill and analysis.  Another great example here would be musical composition.  If you are under the impression that (pick your favorite "classical music" composer) just sort of knocked it all out by feel, you are incorrect.  Composition was and is something that one studies, that one practices, and it involves an amazing amount of precision and skill -- all of which is necessary to make one's artistic vision come to life in a composition.  Music theory is highly analytical.  You break down Bach's fugues note by note, line by line, until you understand the process cold.  Then you write fugues, slavishly imitating Bach, until you can do it in your sleep.

The point being, of course, that rigorous analysis of prior works is essential to constructing new ones.  If you think analysis kills "mystery," then why bother with the RPG Theory forum at all?  That's what theory is, folks: a way of analyzing prior works and of thinking about the process of creating new ones.  If you want to believe that artistic creation just sort of happens because some people get hit by lightning, IMO, you are deeply deluded.

[End rant]

-- new directions --

I'd like to propose the following.  Let's divide this thread.  Those who want to discuss whether Baseline/Vision is or is not GNS, Creative Agenda, Social Contract, or some other already-defined element can do so in thread 1.  Those who want to discuss Baseline/Vision on its own terms, analyzing actual games and thinking about its implications, can do so in thread 2.  As it stands now, the thread 1 discussion is drowning out the thread 2 discussion, which is a pity since Eric has on numerous occasions pointed out that he, as thread-starter, wants this to be thread 2.

My next post will assume that this thread is now thread 2.  When the split happens, this post should go in thread 1.  Moderators take notice.

Chris

Emily, you've proposed that we use B/V to talk about realism and setting; I like that, but I'dd add the caveat mostly.

Now let's see if we can't get a little more precise and specific about the effects of tension and vision in actual games.

I'm going to continue the example from my last post, the Ars Magica thing, because it appears most people are reasonably familiar with the game.  I'm imagining that I, the game designer of Ars Magica 18 or whatever, have decided I want to greatly increase historical realism in the game, but I don't want to lose all the fun value.

Okay, so first we need to think about Baseline.  It's "historical medieval Europe," but I'm going to make a distinction within that.  There's medieval Europe as players are likely to imagine it, and the're medieval Europe as my research tells me it actually was.

So at one level of the process, I'm going to set it up like this:

Baseline = Imagined Medieval Europe

Vision = Real Medieval Europe[/list:u]Now the trick is going to be to figure out the tensions, because that's where play interest will tend to focus.

This suggests to me that an important example to set up early is going to be Mages and the Church.  I'm going to lean on the presuppositions of AM players about how the Church behaves about magic, but then I'm going to have the Church act much more historically plausibly, creating tension and dynamism.  So I'm going to send an Inquisitor to discuss some things with the Covenant.  How will they react?  Chances are, they're going to assume that the guy is a monster who'll burn them at the drop of a hat.  But this is real Europe, so actually the guy will be very urbane and mostly concerned about keeping the peasants from getting all riled up.  He's not in any way concerned about the magicians, because he knows they only do natural magic: which is legal, as Augustine and Aquinas agree.  In fact, he's hoping one of them could help with his bad knees.

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

Okay, now we've got another twist to throw in.  That bit of Baseline/Vision was pure social dynamics used as adventure design.  Let's try one that's more mechanical.

Baseline = Ordinary mundane reality

Vision = Historical magic actually works[/list:u]
Hmm.  This is going to be tricky, because you could also think about Baseline being player expectations about fantasy magic, where Vision is historical realism about magic, but that's getting unnecessarily weird.

Okay, so the first thing I need to think about is how historical magic conflicts with Baseline reality.  And that's pretty subtle, actually, since you don't have fireballs and stuff like that.  So I need to pinpoint a tension in order to attract player focus and attention.

Here's one: Natural Magic, as a category.  Okay, the basic point is that "Art is Nature's ape," as Giambattista della Porta later put it.  So when I manipulate natural forces, it's got to be something that could happen naturally without me getting involved.  For example, I can make a tree grow faster, or I can make it wither and die, but I can't simply blast it out of existence.  Similarly I can heal people's illnesses because people do get better, a lot of the time, but what I'm doing magically is simply making the natural process of humoral balance happen really rapidly and/or reliably.

Okay, now I'm going to push the tension: I'm going to start throwing in actual medieval notions about how nature works, and start leaning on things happening this way.  So when you Creo Animalem, you can of course generate mice and insects out of straw, since that's where they come from anyway.  And I can make my ship go faster by whistling at the sails, because if I blow really hard on the sails of my ship it goes faster.  And I can make someone's thrown knife miss me, if we're on the deck of the ship, by tricking him into throwing at

me rather than leading several feet ahead of me, since everybody knows that if the ship is going fast, the knife will fly backwards with respect to the ship.

When I start leaning on expectations about demons, having them be impersonal but intelligent forces that keep things like gravity working, the players are going to feel this tension pretty strongly.  Things just aren't working quite the way they expect them to.  At the same time, the fact that their sense of reality is pulling back, as it were, will keep them in line as far as not simply trying to justify why throwing fireballs is "really in the medieval paradigm," which it isn't.

----------

So I think this way of looking at things does encourage certain interesting things to happen in terms of figuring out and giving a sense of realism, even when one is dealing with a pretty radically fantastic setting.

QuoteThe point being, of course, that rigorous analysis of prior works is essential to constructing new ones.  If you think analysis kills "mystery," then why bother with the RPG Theory forum at all?  That's what theory is, folks: a way of analyzing prior works and of thinking about the process of creating new ones.  If you want to believe that artistic creation just sort of happens because some people get hit by lightning, IMO, you are deeply deluded.

Strange comparisons between Renaissance & Baroque masters and geeks creating games like InSpectres and kill puppies for satan aside, what on earth at any point suggests that I'm asking that art never be examined and that theory is all bunk? I'll I've ever been saying all along is "Yeah, we already have a theory that produces the same results THIS theory produces. So, why are some people calling it 'new'? I don't see it that way, it's just a different approach."

The very idea that I sat down, closed my eyes and churned out a game like Dust Devils is ridiculous. It's even more ridiculous to suggest that this process -- whether mine or someone else's -- is some kind of unconscious talent or skill-less inspiration. It was work. It was craft. I created a game, using existing theories (as they existed last spring and summer), and the result was a very successful Indie game. It required the culmination of many skills I possess. Editing, writing, game design, graphic design, marketing, and more. Michelangelo I am not, but an accomplished, if relatively new, game designer I am.

But there are several distinct, "atomic" moments of inspiration I cannot explain to you. I can't explain how in the world I chose to have Traits in the game described in what we imagine as colloquial Western language terms ("Mean as a bobcat," for example). This could easily be seen as reality vs. vision -- did folks really talk like that after all? Is it all just what we think after watching movies? Since the game's based on film, then shouldn't THAT reality be the basline?

None of this happend. I used these Western-style similes for traits becuase it was intuitively the way to go. Intuition, inspiration, whatever. I did not employ any theory or skill in creating that aspect of the game. There was some skill later in editing and analyzing whether that approach worked for the game. Obviously, I did not appraoch it with the Baseline / Vision model in mind.

This kind of creative spark moment is what I was asking about at that point you quoted, not the whole craft of piecing together a game. This is not an all-or-nothing proposition. I am saying that all the theory in the world wouldn't have helped me at THIS POINT, and that's why I'm trying to figure out how it will help you and others when creating games.

I am at a loss 1) where I have conveyed otherwise and 2) how the hell you got the notion that I'm "deluded."

Quote
[End rant]

Indeed!

Quote from: clehrichEmily, you've proposed that we use B/V to talk about realism and setting; I like that, but I'dd add the caveat mostly.

Certainly. I'd should also have added that b/v addresses the interactions between mechanics and setting.

Quote from: ClerichNow the trick is going to be to figure out the tensions, because that's where play interest will tend to focus.

This suggests to me that an important example to set up early is going to be Mages and the Church.  I'm going to lean on the presuppositions of AM players about how the Church behaves about magic, but then I'm going to have the Church act much more historically plausibly, creating tension and dynamism.  

Aha! This is the part you were talking about, Matt. It sounds to me like what Fang might allude to when he emphasizes the "contrast" between baseline and vision in his designs. What Chris, at least, is looking at here is exploiting the difference between the player's expectations and the designer's vision to "creat[e] tension and dynamism." (Good examples, by the way.)

I've been focusing on contrast in the negative sense. When mechanics (esp. realism oriented ones) contradict creative agenda.
--EC

after reading Matt's post: my my. Are we just going in circles here?

Quote from: Emily Care

Quote from: ClerichNow the trick is going to be to figure out the tensions, because that's where play interest will tend to focus.

This suggests to me that an important example to set up early is going to be Mages and the Church.  I'm going to lean on the presuppositions of AM players about how the Church behaves about magic, but then I'm going to have the Church act much more historically plausibly, creating tension and dynamism.  

Aha! This is the part you were talking about, Matt. It sounds to me like what Fang might allude to when he emphasizes the "contrast" between baseline and vision in his designs. What Chris, at least, is looking at here is exploiting the difference between the player's expectations and the designer's vision to "creat[e] tension and dynamism." (Good examples, by the way.)

Emily, I think we are going in circles, and this example is one key reason why. This is, for you and Chris, a "Eureka!" moment. For me, it's a head-scratcher. First, it's all still so vauge "sounds like" Fang's doing this. Chris might be saying that. This is what I'm trying to discern. Saying what, specifically? I just need more -- Chris needs to take it one step, maybe two steps, further for me to "get it."

You say Chris is looking at exploiting the difference between the players' expetations and the designer's vision to "create tension and dynamism."

Ok, and so what then? I plainly don't understand what that means. What do those terms signify what one will do in the game? What will this mean in a very real and practical sense? Players will do what differently at this point from how the game exists now? I just don't get it. Nobody's wrong, I'm just not seeing what you're seeing. I'm waiting to understand what "tension and dynamism" are, what they do. I think stopping there is stopping short without putting that into perspective of WHAT THIS GAME DOES. I have no idea what "tension and dynamism" mean as they relate to this specific example or in a general sense. It's too vague for me, I think.

This also reminds me why I keep saying, "Yeah, so this is all part and parcel of the creative agenda. All these contrasts and tensions are one component of the whole" I _think_ some people keep insisting that no, it's not related to creative agenda at all. At that point, I can't figure out what the point is for what they're saying. If you're creating a game, but do so in a way that somehow doesn't address how folks will actually play that game, then what are you doing? I don't think this IS what this theory does (that is, create something "outside" creative agenda), but IF it somehow were doing this, then it's creating something pointless. The game is what the game does. No more, no less. This is, to me, all that creative agenda is saying and has said all along.

QuoteI've been focusing on contrast in the negative sense. When mechanics (esp. realism oriented ones) contradict creative agenda.

You have focused on contrast in the negative sense, I guess, and frankly it's the only viewpoint that has thus far made sense to me. I get what you, specifically, have said, though I haven't yet seen how it's a creative tool. Maybe it's an editing tool, but I don't see it (yet) as a tool that helps you make choices about design from square one. THIS IS WHAT I DON'T GET. I don't know how to make it any clearer, folks, and nearly every post I've made in this thread has said this. How does this theory help you make "square-one" decisions about game design (RATHER than an analytical tool for examining existing designs, even those currently-in-progress -- if this is an "editing tool" for the creative process, then great!). I so far only understand this theory as a model for examining existing tools, but can't wrap my brain about how it sparks the creative process, how it helps you make new decisions about a new game.  This is why I keep calling it Wag-the-Dog design, tongue planted firmly in cheek. I just see it working backwards in analysis, not forwards in creation.

Alright.  I've been reading this thread for a few days now and apparently have critically failed my reading comprehension roll.  Now I like to think of myself as a pretty literate guy, but we're talking about games here.  If a concept about a game cannot be explained at a junior high school level of reading comprehension than there's something wrong with the presentation.

Let me sum up the entirety of what I understand from this thread so far.

Players sit down to the table to play.  They are going to have their characters do things and they are going to have certain expectations of how those things may turn out and what sort of things are appropriate.  They are going to base these expectations on their own experiences; the most foundational experiences being with reality itself and their understanding of it (with an acknowledgement that the typical 13 year old's understanding of reality differs greatly from that of the typical astro physicist).  This is being called "the base line".

Ok, then the game designer throws the players a curve ball.  Something about this world, this setting, this reality that violates, contradicts, or exaggerates our understanding of the "the base line".  This curve ball is being called "the vision".

Ok...I have a feeling I'm missing something here because I'm having trouble figuring why it would take 3 pages to get to that point.  It seems pretty straight forward.  You have a world...and here's the twist.  So far I'm not seeing anything which challenges my paradigm here.  But sometimes there is great profundity in reexamining the simple things, so lets continue.


1)  Armed with this knowledge of Base Line vs Vision and the ability to identify and distinguish between them...what do you DO with it?

Obviously you all have something more in mind than just slapping labels on things, especially when those things seem to be nothing more than the formalization of the difference between Simulation of Reality (Baseline) vs Verisimilitude (vision that departs from baseline) which is about as hoary a topic as you get when discussing RPGs.

aside:  I certainly don't mean to side track things by mentioning verisimiltude, but that is, in fact, what's being highlighted by these examples.  You have Ars Magica with the base line of historical medieval Europe.  Then you have the Vision which makes it medieval Europe + magic.  Then you have examples of design choices which focus on emphasising the Baseline vs emphasising the Vision.  Which is nothing more than the choice between realism vs verisimilitude that designers have been making since the 70s.


2) Ok great.  So we have a simple model with some basic terms and easy to grasp format to discuss....what?

The GNS model starts with the Social Contract, then you drill down to Exploration, then you drill down to GNS modes.  

Exploration includes:  Character, Setting, Situation, System, and Color.

Baseline then seems to be nothing more complicated than the fundamental assumptions about Character, Setting, Situation, System and Color that players begin with.

Vision then is the unique twist on Character, Setting, Situation, System, and Color that the game offers.  The areas where the game world deviates in these areas from that Baseline.

The tension that exists between the two is then simply the reason why Exploring these elements is interesting.  There isn't much point in deviating from the Baseline if the Vision isn't offering something more.  That something is the tension that the players experience in attempting to adjust their expectations to the reality of the game world.  


So is this not really what we're talking about?  A way of digging a little deeper into the nature of Exploration and the 5 elements that define it?  In the literature of the GNS model today "Exploration" and the 5 elements exists as sort of a black box to be acknowledged and referred to on the way from Social Contract to GNS.

Baseline vs Vision seems to me to be the beginning efforts of a way to break open that black box and look around inside.


Am I way off here?   I hope not because if you're reading this and thinking "no that's not it at all" than I'd have to say you've failed completely to convey the purpose and meaning behind this idea and would be best served by ending this thread and coming back to the idea when you've determined how better to articulate it.

If I am on track, than I say fantastic!  Sounds like an interesting avenue to examine, although I'd recommend dropping some of the more esoteric philosophizing and getting down to brass tacks a bit with it.

Moderators: this is a C. Lehrich Thread topic #1

Okay Matt,

Obviously we're having serious miscommunication on at least two levels.  Let's try an deal with the 'theory level' first.

First a Rough Analogy

Let's build a car (a role-playing game).

Cars are used in three different ways (GNS): for working - cargo vans, trucks, and et cetera (Narrativism); for recreation - dune buggies, sports cars, and so on (Gamism); and for 'getting around' - 'just cars' (Simulationism).

Each car is designed for a specific purpose ('creative agenda'), giant ore-hauling trucks, Ferrari sports cars, family wagon, and the like.

Cars have certain laws they must obey in construction, minimum ground clearance, 15 MPH bumper standard, four wheels (less is legally a motorcycle), license plates, and et cetera (Baseline).

Many cars do some amazing things; rail dragsters go really fast, ore-hauling trucks carry tons of taconite, and so on.  These require things that take them to the border of being cars, many aren't even 'street legal' (the questionably named 'Vision').

People are forever using cars for things other than 'how they're used' or what their 'specific purpose' is (Drift).  Going four-wheelin' in the swamps with a truck uses a work car for recreation; it also creates a need for alterative equipment (gun racks, cup holders, and...you get the idea).

Since the energy crunch of the seventies hit, some cars are designed to be fuel efficient (Elegance).  Now, I realize that 'stylists' design cars just superficially; they decide all of the above issues in only the most general terms.  These 'styles' go to the engineers who 'make it happen' (Deliberateness).[/list:u]

What I'm Talking About

Take a look at modern fuel efficient cars.  They're all sleek and kinda bubble shaped.  It doesn't stop there; the insides are sleek and rounded too.  There's nothing that says you couldn't do an interior that's all blocky and functional, but do they?  No, the 'design theme' calls for all curves and rounded surfaces; it has gone to the point now where even the stereo system's face plate, one of the longest holdouts of rectangular design, has even turned into an ellipse.

Does this affect 'what you use the car for?'  No and yes.  No, it doesn't clearly add to 'how the car is used,' but it does make using it 'nicer' in the long run.  And yes it does affect the use; think of how the 'design theme' makes the car's design seem 'polished' and is yet a product of paralleling the 'aerodynamic' needs of fuel-efficiency.

Does this affect the 'specific purpose' of the car?  Again, no and yes.  No, it doesn't obviously effect what the design was dedicated for.  But yes it does add to the specific purpose; think all that padding in the pickup truck is for show?  You obvious haven't taken it over really rough terrain; those pads prevent bruises at times and yet are 'slipped in' as just decorating elements.

Now you'd be really naïve if you think that cars are designed first for their 'use' or 'special purpose.'  First comes the choice of 'what to design;' let's say it's one of those 'fun, sporty, beach cars.'  This forms the foundation of the 'design theme.'  Choosing to start with a pickup-style chassis and modify isn't because it's supposed to be a work car, but because the secondary connotation of how some people use trucks for four-wheelin' fun (Drift) this serves the 'design theme.'  Next, they make it some obnoxious color like 'utility yellow;' why?  To deliver the message, 'this is for fun!' another example of the 'design theme' at work.  The bumpers are covered with the same neoprene padding as the interior; this puts forth the idea they you'll be playing

on the car as much as in the car.  And it just keeps on going; every choice made right down to 'use' and 'special purpose' are guided by an overall 'design theme.'

And the reason this isn't "System Does Matter" is because it covers game design elements that cannot be called system.[/list:u]What You Seem to be Telling Me

I'm going to try and state your point so we can see if I'm getting

that.  Don't hesitate to jump in and correct me here, or else I'll never understand.  Don't harbor the illusion that I am trying to mangle your opinion or make it out to be unacceptable, far from it.  I value your input because, as I've said, I don't even know what I'm talking about precisely and am trying to gain that understanding.  (You would do well to try this same technique, because we certainly aren't getting anywhere otherwise.)

A lot of what I'm getting out of your opinion is that 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating.'  I can handle that.  You've asked for an example; I've provided one (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=67523#67523) and to aid in this discussion I've put up a critique about it (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6508).  (I don't know why you keep speaking as though no examples have been made; go read 'em, post about 'em, let's discuss them.  These challenges of "let's see some" are hollow with them right in front of you.¹)

You also tell me that you method of 'designing cars' is only to make the 'things you put in them' that directly impact their 'use' and 'specific purpose' and only.  I can understand that, I once attempted to put together a Popular Science kit car (well it was a motorcycle, because it only have three wheels).  The final product lacked anything that could be called polish because it was too busy being a sleek, three-wheeled car built on a Volkswagen/motorcycle chassis (with one wheel in back).

What I don't understand is why you think that because I see play as only one ingredient of a role-playing game, that I must somehow be ignoring it.  Can you explain?  Just because I think it important to make the passenger compartment of an electric car not resemble the one on a long-haul diesel rig means I don't care how the person will be driving them?

You also are saying that you make good cars without putting so much thought into it.  Okay, so what does that tell me about this nebulous set of ideas I'm trying to understand?  I've very happy that you feel you've got this problem licked without these ideas, but to borrow the tone you are projecting by repeating this over and over, 'I hope you're happy with it, now go away.'

You are likewise saying, 'this ain't new.'  You know what?  You could be right.  Just saying, 'this ain't new' is a disservice to the discussion.  Unless you present where you've seen it before, I can't know because I ain't seen it.  I'm getting really disappointed in this kind of casual dismissal; 'everyone knows that' is little more than a polite insult.  You want to prove it ain't new?  Show me the old stuff.  If I could but see this previous work, I'd gladly shut the hell up.

You state rather emphatically that what I'm discussing is clearly (to you) one component of 'creative agenda' ("What do you do in a game and how do you do it").  I just can't see that.  When you decide to make that Tolkeinesque fantasy game, that tells you what kinds of 'creative agenda' to use, but is not a part of it ("What do you do in a game and how do you do it").

Next you say that the game's (little 'p') premise is "the point and purpose of the game."  That's a little confusing since you just said that it was "What do you do in a game and how do you do it."  I see those as two different things.  A games purpose could be to highlight how you deal with dysfunctional relationships; it might deliver those as the metaphor of summoning demons.  In such a game "What do you do in a game and how do you do it" is making the demons respond to the need of the characters and vice versa.  Further I suppose it might have the players do this with an eye upon a higher Edwardsian Premise.  But addressing this and doing it with demon summoning and tribute is not what might be "the point and purpose of the game" if the designer wants you do ponder dysfunctional relationships (via the metaphor).  I'm okay with the idea that the many various choice in such a game design could be unconscious in comparison to my technique, but I doubt a designer who does so habitually will have anything to add to this discussion.[/list:u]The Other Miscommunication

I guess it all boils down to the old cliché, 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.'  The following even if it isn't mean-spirited, certainly isn't nice.

Quote from: Matt Snyder...If the technique's helping you, knock yourself out. Just don't claim it's new. It isn't; [I haven't, but you choose to ignore that.]

Quote from: Matt Snyder...Spend a little more time coming up with the evidence that shows how this is useful

Quote from: Matt Snyder...Please stop wearing your heart on your sleeve (getting disappointed, upset and so on). It's just not worth it,

Quote from: Matt Snyder...I've yet to see ways that it is useful. That you and Eric have both asked "dissenters" to leave you alone is not going to help you find this idea.

I'm not simply asking dissenters to 'buzz off;' that would be like telling them to spend more time coming up with more valuable critical commentary than "So?"  (The implication is "spend more time" somewhere else.)  I'm sorry if I am insulted by being told that my hobby, game design, isn't valuable enough to care about; do you think it fair to tell others their interests don't matter and they shouldn't care?

The reason I can't just 'take it to PM' is because these words are affecting more than me and don't add any value whatsoever to the discussion.  That you're response is hard to characterize as nothing more than this denial without substantiation makes it hard to carry the public discussion forward at all.  Were I to take 'my problem' with this to PM, it would have exactly the same effect as shutting down the thread (which you've said you don't want).

Basically, please substantiate the claim 'this isn't new' or provide feedback on 'what you think it is' or else you seem to saying nothing I can respond to (publicly according to your request).[/list:u]Ultimately, I'm asking you to actually follow the links I've provided as examples and read them instead of insisting none exist.  I'm asking 'where is it' if these ideas 'are not new.'  And I'm asking for less tone and more discussion.

How about this?  Instead of saying anything about 'newness,' try to illustrate the age of the ideas as you read them.  Instead of telling people what to do or how to feel, ask yourself if there are questions you could ask the help you understand.  Instead of insisting you don't need these ideas (in print), examine the metaphors for something you don't do.

Question specifically, don't state.  Ask, don't tell.  Compare, don't insist.  Otherwise seems like empty rhetoric and empty rhetoric obscures any point the originator of the thread could be making.  Isn't hiding someone's work with meaningless words disrespectful?

Fang Langford

p. s. Before you decide to respond to my discussion of discussing, can we just drop that part and focus on the examples and metaphors?

¹ And for the record, it doesn't apply to Scattershot, not yet.  As far as I'm concerned, that's one of the major failings of the game.  If I come to understand what I'm talking about (even if it is as old as time; I haven't heard it), maybe I can finish the game properly.

Quote from: ValamirSo is this not really what we're talking about?  A way of digging a little deeper into the nature of Exploration and the 5 elements that define it?  In the literature of the GNS model today "Exploration" and the 5 elements exists as sort of a black box to be acknowledged and referred to on the way from Social Contract to GNS.

Baseline vs Vision seems to me to be the beginning efforts of a way to break open that black box and look around inside.

Thanks, Ralph. That's how I see it, too.

QuoteAnd the reason this isn't "System Does Matter" is because it covers game design elements that cannot be called system.

Finally, a Eureka moment! You're seeing these design elements as NOT System. You're right. To me, they're COLOR and SETTING and SITUATION. Therefore, they fall under the Creative Agenda, which is what I've been saying all along. (In effect, Creative Agenda Matters, if you will.) I see this as the foundation of much disconnect, and likely why I am talking at cross purposes with you and others.

Are you seeing these elements you're talking about as not "Rules" and therefore also not within premise/creative agenda? That's what I'm reading here. Is that correct?

It leads me to something I'm going to post in the GNS forum: I think the presentation of a game (which some of the Baseline/Vision folks have touched on briefly in other threads) is color (VERY rarely something else -- perhaps setting in some unusual cases like maybe maps) and it therefore matters just as System matters. I'm talking about published format. I'm talking about graphic design. These things absolutely fall under Creative Agenda, as I see it and interpret it. These elements are almost always exploration of color.

So, where you're (perhaps?) seeing something new and outside creative agenda to talk about, I'm seeing something within the creative agenda that doesn't get talked about often (sometimes it does), but still remains nothing new. In one example, Graphic design. In others, choices about setting and situation (to use my interpretation of your own examples with your Iron Chef game).

QuoteWhat I don't understand is why you think that because I see play as only one ingredient of a role-playing game, that I must somehow be ignoring it. Can you explain? Just because I think it important to make the passenger compartment of an electric car not resemble the one on a long-haul diesel rig means I don't care how the person will be driving them?

I think my reply just above explains it, but I think you're mistaking my intent. I'm not saying that "things inside the car" are all that matters. I'm saying that the people who use the car IN EVERY WAY matters (and most importanatly it matters to playing the game), and ALL of it still falls under creative agenda.

QuoteYou also are saying that you make good cars without putting so much thought into it. Okay, so what does that tell me about this nebulous set of ideas I'm trying to understand? I've very happy that you feel you've got this problem licked without these ideas, but to borrow the tone you are projecting by repeating this over and over, 'I hope you're happy with it, now go away.'

Again, you're mistaking my position. I have not said that you just up and design without thought or grave consideration. I HAVE said that there are moments of inspiration that theories I've seen to date (including GNS and others) haven't yet nailed the "how to" those moments of art or creation. This does not mean my design is not an elaborately, careful, and skillfull process. I have already explained that my creating games is all of these things in my reply to Clehrich above.

[/quote]You are likewise saying, 'this ain't new.' You know what? You could be right. Just saying, 'this ain't new' is a disservice to the discussion. Unless you present where you've seen it before, I can't know because I ain't seen it.[/quote]

I have said where I've seen it repeatedly. I've said over and over again all of this stuff falls under Creative Agenda. In this post I've specified that some of the things being discussed are exploration of Color. Valamir has posed think along very much the same lines, and Emily Care has agreed with him. Do you or do you not see these "elements" as within the box of: Setting, Color, Situation, Character, and System?

QuoteI'm getting really disappointed in this kind of casual dismissal; 'everyone knows that' is little more than a polite insult. You want to prove it ain't new? Show me the old stuff. If I could but see this previous work, I'd gladly shut the hell up.

Fang, I did provide an example of how something "old" I designed and published could easily fall under the processes you're reaching for and still have the same result. See my Dust Devils traits example above. So far, no one has remarked on that example.

I'm won't duck out of the conversation entirely, but I'll do my damnedest not to prevent you folks from filling out and precisely defining this whole idea. I'm going to call a spade a spade when I see it, and I'll be more than happy to have yet another more positive "Eureka!" moment when I see one.

Quote from: ValamirBaseline vs Vision seems to me to be the beginning efforts of a way to break open that black box and look around inside.

Yes, precisely.  It's been a black box, and now we'd like to take a look at what's inside.  

QuoteIf I am on track, than I say fantastic! Sounds like an interesting avenue to examine, although I'd recommend dropping some of the more esoteric philosophizing and getting down to brass tacks a bit with it.

I really wish we could, Ralph.  Eric and Emily and I have been calling for this for some time now.

Alright, here goes....

------------
This is a rant.  Please don't read it -- you've been warned!










Instead, unfortunately, it appears that because this black box is within an entirely naturalized and thus non-dynamic model, all other formulations cannot be raised.  Oh no, it's been touched on indirectly and not discussed in any way, but even without any references this is clearly covered implicitly and thus cannot be discussed.

QuoteTherefore, they fall under the Creative Agenda

So the hell what?  You call them that, but it's still a damn black box!

Quotewhere you're (perhaps?) seeing something new and outside creative agenda to talk about,

Where we're talking about the same goddamn thing we've been talking about for post after post, and keep getting sidetracked by this nonsense about how to label it.  If we just say that this is part of Creative Agenda, will you be quiet and let some discussion happen?

PLEASE -- Moderators!  We've got a thread hijack in progress, APB, it's been going on for DAYS now, and the originator of the thread has called for you to deal with it.  So DEAL with it!  NO MORE!!!

Every damn time somebody tries to discuss the implications of this potential model, somebody else jumps in to say "yeah, but what are the implications, HUH?"  This is childish and pointless, and should have been closed down long since.

I'm sorry to see that a perfectly interesting and valid intellectual discussion can be hijacked, and I must say that it's starting to look to me like it's a problem that the model in question does not entirely seem to align with GNS, the ruling ideology.  That's totally unfair -- I hope.  So prove me wrong, and cut this off!

Do you know I got a private email thanking me for the last post about dividing the thread, noting that now maybe the poster would be able to contribute to the discussion?  That poster has not contributed since.  Why?  Because this thread is still hijacked.

I hereby call for a sit-in.  Do not respond to or discuss anything that I've called a #1 thread, from here on in.  Just ignore it.  If the moderators refuse to do something about it, we'll learn something interesting.  If they do, then maybe we can actually have an intelligent discussion here.

I'm sorry to be like this, you know I'm not usually like this, but I'm sick of it.  We've been trying for 3 threads now to have a reasonable discussion, and every damn time it gets hijacked.  I'm fully hoping to get an angry email about this post, and I will respond appropriately -- because this is an appropriate post.  It's angry, but names no names.  I want this thread-hijacking to stop, and for those of us who want to discuss Harlequin's (Eric's) questions and issues to get down to it, with no interference from a lot of nonsense.

Back to the topic:

Quote from: HarlequinHow do we, as designers, spot places where the Tension will arise, so we can decide whether to tweak it or not? How do we look ahead and say intelligent things about the Tension-spots in our emerging game, and design for it, or are we doomed to merely use this as an editing tool? I think we can look ahead at least somewhat; take the organization of the work as a whole. If you have a "miraculous deeds" chapter and a "mundane life before you were EnNobled" or whatever chapter, think about sequencing... do you want them (a) high-Tension, by placing them bang up against each other and giving them similar systems, or (b) low-Tension, with a buffer of unrelated material and dissimilar systems? High-Tension focusses attention on the dichotomy, and helps make the overall Vision feel more estranged from reality; low-Tension hides and diffuses attention, makes the overall Vision feel more familiar. Which do I, in this game, want? That's the question we should be asking ourselves.

What I'm curious about is how we spot such instances in the first place, so as to ask it at all. Preferably in advance. Any comments?

Yes, I think this is the essential question.  My sense is that by defining the two ends of the spectrum, we know in what domain the tension questions lie, and from there we can start prioritizing.

I'm not sure that invoking high and low tensions for purposes of strange/familiar dichotomies is the way to go about it, though.  What do you think we gain by doing so?  It seems to me that this just adds a second level of extrapolation, without a specific result, but I may not be getting this.  Could you provide an example?

My inclination is to keep it simple until we have a better grasp on the pieces.  You've got Baseline as one of a number of possibilities (Emily proposed a list, and this is just a variant):

1. How the players generally perceive reality
2. How the players perceive the reality of this sort of game
3. What the players expect within the game's framework

Then you've got Vision, which is in tension with this.  I can see that high-tension could be used to refer to points in the scale that are important to the designer, GM, or whoever, and need emphasis on that basis.  But it seems to me that low-tension is really just a matter of priority selection, of choosing those things that just don't matter much to the person with the Vision.

Or am I misunderstanding?  Let's get back to this.  We're trying to open the black box of exploration and focus, and I want to hear ideas on this score.  For me, the whole advantage of Vision/Baseline is that it gets us away from things like Genre and Reality and so forth; I'm not exactly sure where high and low tensions come into it in your assessment.

Another load of #2.  :)

Getting back to the start, and walking through:

Quote from: HarlequinIf I read the conclusion of the Aesthetics and Reality (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6323) thread correctly, then Chris and Emily tried to pin down a specific tension, between two things: a Baseline, which is basically reality-as-understood-by-the-participants, and a Vision, which is the endpoint of perfect emulation of "source material" if any, or the analogue if no source material exists.  (Interestingly, one could make a case for the latter as being reality as understood by the characters, but that's a different riff on the subject.)

I'm not sure that last is such a radical or problematic subject.  I think there's an important blurriness here, because I think the distinction between player and character has become so naturalized as a dichotomy that we are unwilling to challenge it.  This is my deconstructionist stuff coming into play, I suppose, but the fact is that I think the characters and players both often have a similar or related comfort zone, or Baseline, and that the Vision aspect is intended to be equally alienating.  CoC is a great example here: the characters don't live in our modern world (they live in the 20s or 30s), but the alienness and horror of Mythos stuff is intended to be a major challenge to both players and characters.  I think the problem here is often that one side or the other of that particular divide slips, such that the characters are running screaming while the players say, "Oh gee, fishy smell, sounds like Deep Ones, whatever."

QuoteI like this a lot and would like to pin it down to a little bit stronger frame, and then move from there to talking about the tension and balance between these two, because I think that this is where we'll find tools for aesthetic design emerging.

I'm repeating this because it bears repeating: this is the whole point.  We're trying to work out some structures for the aesthetics of design, i.e. treating RPGs as an art-form.

QuoteBy a stronger frame, I mean that I think these two terms apply to a single act, and that rather than leaving them hanging in air, we can pin them down to that act and discuss them in that context only.  Both terms apply to the process of conveying the game reality.  I don't know if this has a place in the current understanding or not, but it means that these apply to conveying something slightly more encompassing than Setting as we dissect things... they apply to conveying the Setting, the Colour, the appropriate Situations, the physics (Rules), and the appropriate types of Characters.  Conveying the game reality.

Not quite sure what you mean by "more than setting."  Isn't this really an expansion of the nature of setting in the first place, a way of pushing its boundaries to get at a more comprehensive and synoptic view?  Or is this not what you mean?

Quote(I postulate that even hyperrealistic settingless games of GURPS or whatever have both of these elements, it's just that in this case the Vision differs from the Baseline on only a very few points - primarily the ones concerning what kinds of stories get told.)

Yes, I totally agree.  Hyperrealism is itself a vision, because hyperrealism is never actual reality.  Actual reality requires no game, and in fact cannot be played, because it is precisely what happens outside of the game.  So when you construct a "realistic" game you are postulating a vision that is supposed to be so close to the ordinary that it can be entirely absorbed into the player's perspective without comment.   And yet, this is supplementation: if the realism is so real, why do we need description and rules at all?  Answer: precisely because it it not realism.

QuoteI think that conscious design of the learning curve is one thing we will want to crack open, not necessarily in this thread, but not necessarily not.)

Let's give it a stab.  How would you go about it?

QuoteIn terms of aesthetics, I think there's most meat on the bone of tension between Baseline and Vision, used to strengthen the game reality as a whole.  You might build up that tension in a few ways... you could stress the constrasts between the Baseline and this game's vision, not only textually but coherently with the message of the entire book.  Or you could play subtler games by allowing the tension between the two to increase through play.

I'm not sure I follow.  Are you saying that one can stress tension or not, and that both will be functional?  It seems to me that you have to stress tension, whether you like it or not; the design issue for me is exactly how you go about prioritizing what's important to that tension.  Thus you want to set up various tensive factors such that there is a challenge to the player when certain non-Baseline things (i.e. things tending toward or arising from Vision) come up.  If you avoid this strongly, aren't you really just (1) being unfaithful to your Vision, or (2) dodging the whole point of the design?  Or, again, have I missed your point?

QuoteDoes anyone have any thoughts on specific guidelines as to how to convey this balance, where to choose the balance point(s), or how to increase/manipulate/make use of the tension, between Baseline and Vision in the composition of a game reality?

Yes, I do; see my remarks on Ars Magica.  I think this is most interesting and profitable where you're dealing with historical reality, but that's just a special case of Fang's Genre Expectations, which after all was what I hoped to get around through the Vision / Baseline terminology in the first place.  So while I think there is tremendous possibility here, we may need to pick a stock example everyone can be happy with.  I'd put forward Shadows in the Fog, of course, but that's a bit cheesy as it's my game.  If on the other hand we choose Ars Magica, we need to set some Baselines of our own.  Maybe the best example is one that has no apparent historical referent, but then we may lose track of the whole possibility of challenging differing realities, because we don't have something to force Baseline toward.  I'm not sure.

Em?  Eric?  Any suggestions for game examples to continue the discussion?  I really think there's good potential here, but we do need something concrete.

Quote from: clehrichI'm not sure that invoking high and low tensions for purposes of strange/familiar dichotomies is the way to go about it, though.  What do you think we gain by doing so?  It seems to me that this just adds a second level of extrapolation, without a specific result, but I may not be getting this.  Could you provide an example?

Chris, this is PRECISELY what I have been asking for at every turn. Please, for the love of god-of-rants, go back an re-read my posts and queries with a calmer mind. I agree with the above paragraph (indeed, much of this post of yours) 100%. I am less convinced that the 5 aspects of exploration have been black-boxed and therefore in need of new terminology to explore. But, I do agree they all could use some more careful examination.

Quote from: Harlequin(Interestingly, one could make a case for the latter as being reality as understood by the characters, but that's a different riff on the subject.)

Just a followup.  Supposing that you actually wanted to blur the lines between player and character, I think you could read Baseline as player expectations about the disjuncture, and Vision as some sort of identity between the two.  By that logic, the game in question would sit at a tension point.

I think you could plausibly argue that this occurs anyway, since people do tend to get wrapped up emotionally in their characters.  Should this be factored into the model inherently?

Suppose we did this -- and I'm not sure it's a great idea, but just throwing it out to see what happens -- you'd have Baseline associated primarily with players, and Vision primarily with characters.

To take Ars Magica again, this would mean that Baseline contains what the players think medieval Europe was like, what they expect in a fantasy RPG, and their basic sense of ordinary reality.  Vision would thus include whatever version of medieval Europe the designers/GM want, however play and exploration is desired, and also the characters' sense of ordinary reality (that is, they don't see magic as so bizarre as all that).

Now if I've got tension correct, it's going to be the strong disjunctures between Baseline and Vision that will produce dynamic gaming.  So:

medieval Europe (Baseline / Vision)
I used the example of the Inquisitor who's perfectly decent and well-intentioned.  This produces dynamism in the game, because the players expect something different from what the world provides, provoking odd reactions from a medieval perspective.

play expectations
Ars Magica is a good example here, because of its push for Troupe play.  You have multiple characters, and depending on the session you shift around character to character, or even GM the session.  So expectations about "my guy's thing" are challenged to some degree, since in a given session you may not do anything with that guy.  Ars Magica doesn't, however, lean much on this tension, as a rule.  If you wanted to do so, you might do something sort of like my Soap Opera notion, in which you keep leaving players in the lurch by backgrounding their current favorite characters and pushing them to play grogs.  This could be interesting, but could also become extremely annoying.

ordinary realities
This is pretty much straight exploration, I think, where the players are finding their way into the perspective of their characters.  At the same time, it's the foundation of the Baseline / Vision issue, I think, so it probably needs considerable specification.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Just a quick note here.  It has been pointed out to me that Ron seems to be away, so my remark about lack of moderation was, well, immoderate.  Sorry about that.

Matt Snyder and I have had a lengthy and very valuable exchange by PM, and I think we've pretty much cleared the air between us.  Hopefully now discussion can get going profitably; probably a new thread will be necessary, but for the moment let's stick to what we've got.

Matt asked for an example from the design perspective, as in, "Here's my game and here's how I did it using Baseline/Vision, and here's what specific effects that had in the design process."  So, using Shadows in the Fog (see web link below), here goes.

Baseline
1. Player expectation of reality in Victorian London is to a considerable degree founded upon so-called Victoriana, i.e. romance-novel style pseudo-history with lots of people wearing complicated clothing and being pompous at each other.  This is not entirely a modern phenomenon, but significantly so.

2. Player expectation of characters is very hard to pin down, but character depth does often slide into shtick.

3. Player expectation of player/character divide is pretty much absolute.  Since the early D&D days when lots of crazies thought their kids would start hitting people with axes, gamers have been extremely reluctant to consider the identification with characters as valid, even for hypothesizing.

4. Player expectation of ordinary reality in terms of things like physics is pretty much valid, as Shadows in the Fog does not involve things like superpowers and ultra-tech, for example.  If you get shot with a big ugly gun, you tend to die.  At the same time, normal people don't shoot one another.

Vision
1. Victorian London was immensely complex, with layers upon layers of intricate class and status consciousness.  If you consider how Sherlock Holmes works, he reads a person at a distance, and can instantly pick up exactly who that person is.  This is strikingly different from our modern world.  If you see a guy in a t-shirt and jeans, you don't know he's not an immensely wealthy banker who's on vacation today.  In Victorian London, this pretty much can't happen.

2. Victorian characters are going to do what Holmes does, only not necessarily as well.  When they meet somebody, they will pigeonhole that somebody instantly, as a matter of course.  See Shaw's Pygmalion, for example.

3. Player-character divide is something I want to see challenged and reversed, where the players' powers (esp. Author/Director Stance) become something that the characters actually do.  That is, the characters become increasingly empowered to take an Authorial stance toward their own world.  This is called magic.

4. Ordinary physical reality is mostly legit, and needn't be challenged much.

Tension
For me, the whole game lives on a few of these tensions.  Here are some examples:

1. The characters are divided within themselves.  Each has a "mask," a way that others will perceive him or her, and also a depth which is somewhat at variance with the mask.  This makes them somewhat hypocritical, and necessarily deceivers; in a broad sense, it also makes them traitors to their world.  This is the very tension that will drag them into the occult, since magic in this universe is essentially a kind of treason against ordinary reality.

2. The players will seek to rewrite the universe by manipulating Tarot cards.  The thing is, the Tarot card uses are essentially a direct analogy to what their magically-active characters are doing.  In the game, I call this the Trump Card Analogy.  In some games, you have a mechanistic magic system: a list of spells, or powers, or whatever.  While eminently playable, this does not capture the feel of occultism.  In other games, you try to add the flavor of occultism, but generally keep the mechanism (see Ars Magica and Unknown Armies).  In Shadows in the Fog, however, the players are doing something directly analogous to what the characters are doing.  Both are manipulating complex but somewhat limited sets of meaning-structures in order to create effects.  Ultimately this will encourage a blurriness between player and character, but the reverse of the traditional blur: instead of the player thinking he's the character, the character starts to become a player.

I could go on at some length, but I'll cut it off there.

The point I want to make is that the tension between Vision and Baseline forces me to make a number of aesthetic choices, and in turn has pushed me toward a piece of what I consider mechanical elegance.

In order to keep the historical flavor of the game, which for me is based on extensive research, I have leaned on the tension between expectations about Victoriana and the actual Victorian world; by making this a significant issue for the characters, I encourage the player disconnect with real Victorian London to be a character issue and a source of good stories.

In order to keep the occult feel of historical magic, I have shifted the baseline rather than the vision.  Usually, what you do when you want a "historical" magic system is you change the vision.  Instead, I shift the baseline, making the players manipulate Tarot cards with essentially no rules about how to do this.  This creates a different locus of tension.  

As far as the related tension between player expectations about magic and how it works in this game at a mechanical level, this is not something I want to lean on; to do so would encourage scientism about magic, which is precisely what I don't want.  So instead I go to considerable lengths about how you'll have to do some work and practice using the cards intelligently, and in essence suggest that if you can't be bothered you can't play the game.  That's a harsh way to do things, but the point is that I want to eliminate this potential tension in order to shift to one I want instead.

I'm really hoping this clarifies what Baseline, Vision, and Tension mean for me, and how they contribute to game design.  In my opinion, at least, the Tarot analogy thing creates an elegant and graceful mechanic, and some of the initial readers felt this very strongly.  I think that whatever elegance is there comes precisely from the tension between baselines and visions with respect to magic.  By that logic, this way of looking at things encourages aesthetic design rather than merely functional design.

Comments?

Hi Chris,

I waited on saying anything in this thread, simply because I wasn't sure what was being said.  Now that I have a clear idea of what is being stated about Baseline and Vision, may I ask how critical or what role you feel that Tension plays in the gameplay experience?  Is this Tension, as you've defined it necessary?

For example, let's say I play a game involving two warring factions in medieval history, along the lines of as much history as we know.  I use TROS, or some other system that's fairly "realistic" and bar all magic.  What defines the Vision, and where is the Tension between Baseline and Vision occurring?

Here, I see the Tension isn't really the draw, but rather the conflict(as defined by Situation). Likewise, consider some Fantasy Heartbreakers where there's tons of Kewl Powers, the Vision has noticible and nifty differences from the Baseline, but no conflict is really visible, as a contrast to the first.

I'm interested to get a better handle on what Tension "does" in terms of pushing play in the direction you're looking for.

Chris

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that part of the problem with dealing with this is that both Baseline and Vision are moving targets.

Quote from: Bankuei....Is this Tension, as you've defined it necessary?

For example, let's say I play a game involving two warring factions in medieval history, along the lines of as much history as we know.  I use TROS, or some other system that's fairly "realistic" and bar all magic.  What defines the Vision, and where is the Tension between Baseline and Vision occurring?

For me, the Tension in question goes back to the "what if?" question that's often invoked in traditional discussions of RPGs.  That is, you get to imagine what it would be like if you were involved in the situation, which is clearly at a remove from your lived reality.  I don't know that defining it this broadly helps design, of course, but see below.

QuoteLikewise, consider some Fantasy Heartbreakers where there's tons of Kewl Powers, the Vision has noticible and nifty differences from the Baseline, but no conflict is really visible, as a contrast to the first.

I guess here I would think that if there were a strong Tension, you wouldn't have a Heartbreaker but a successful Fantasy game.

QuoteI'm interested to get a better handle on what Tension "does" in terms of pushing play in the direction you're looking for.

Yeah, that's a biggie.  To me, it's the central question of the model.

Let me give an example from ritual theory, where I spend most of my intellectual effort.  Sorry if this seems tangential; you're asking a really tough question, and one to which I have only the glimmerings of an answer.  I'd like to draw on other theoretical discourses to help clarify the discussion, and expand RPG theory in general.

There's a famous ritual among Siberian hunting peoples, which is basically about bear hunting.  To put it very simply, you have two rituals.  One, there's the actual going out and killing a bear ritual, which occurs just prior to the hunt.  Two, there's a periodic (sometimes annual, but not necessarily) festival in which a pet bear is killed.

1. The hunters gather just past the edge of the village, and everyone goes out to see them off.  They describe in minute detail how they will deal with the bear.  Notably, they will sing to it, ask its permission to kill it, and they will not confront the bear unless it is in a particular posture.  They will kill it mano a paw, as it were, with a knife, and they won't allow the bear to bleed all over the place.  If the bear doesn't act in exactly the right fashion, they will leave it alone.

2. The village captures a very small bear cub, raises it as a favorite pet, and eventually they set up an elaborate mock hunt and kill the bear, usually by strangling it.  This is accompanied by extensive ceremonial both before and after.

Now the weird thing is that in case #1, the hunters actually go out in the winter, when the bears are hibernating.  They cut their way into the back of the cave, and they also dig a big pit with spikes in it in front of the bear's den.  They use spears through the cut hole to drive the sleepy bear out, where it falls into the pit.  They then kill it, these days with shotguns.

So the distinguished scholar Jonathan Z. Smith proposes that we have to recognize that people are not stupid, nor are they hypocrites.  They know that they are not behaving here as they say they will.  So why do they do it?  And why the village pet thing?

Smith suggests that the hunters are performing a ritual that expresses how they think the world should be (what I've called Vision) in conscious tension to how things actually are (Baseline).  They know that the world is supposed to be one way: the Master of Game is supposed to provide an appropriate bear, and that bear is supposed to behave according to certain rules.  Unfortunately, bears just don't behave that way.  So the people are saying, to themselves and the universe, that this is not their fault.  They thus use the tension between Vision and Baseline (ideology and reality) as a springboard for ethical thought, and they express their thinking on these subjects through ritual activity.¹

So what does this have to do with RPGs?

Well, I maintain that we play in RPGs in conscious tension to how things actually are.  I've never heard of a game in which you play yourself as a mundane person living your mundane life.  I don't mean "and then you're translated to an alien world," I mean playing Papers and Paychecks and all that.  Who'd want to do this?  You live that; you don't have to play it.

So if we play in conscious tension to ordinary lived reality, we are saying and doing something.  We are, in fact, thinking through our imaginations, through our characters and their actions, about the nature of reality and the nature of the possibilities of a larger imagined space.

Thus I'm very interested in certain tensions, particularly those between player and character, as ways of thinking about what gaming really is, and why it's fun, and I believe that serious consideration of such issues will not only advance game design (a sufficient goal in itself) but also clarify why we play.

To put it in somewhat famous terms, I'm suggesting that RPGs aren't only good to play, but good to think.

Chris

Notes
1. Jonathan Z. Smith, "The Bare Facts of Ritual," Imagining Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).  This is a grotesquely oversimplified account of Smith's very complex and important article, which I highly recommend.

(Wow.  I left for a LARP quite soon after my last post, and look what happens.  Chris L., quite simply and inclusively, thank you.)

There has been enough content added here that I'm just going to address facets of it in individual posts over the course of the next day or two; lots of good thoughts, here, although we still have some essential disconnects in our definitions.  Chris/Bankuei, I think I have to mention that IMO b/v does indeed apply much more to the Setting than the conflict/Situation within that setting or game world.  Tension is between elements of the design and its created world, not between things within that world.  I like Chris L's "what if" phrasing... the Vision is the "what if" and the Baseline is the (among kids unspoken) set of assumptions we choose not to change in our "what if."  The fact that we postulate a Vision which has tensions and conflicts within it is a separate issue; we could postulate a Vision of a true utopia with only the tiniest interpersonal IC tensions (boring game, but possible), and we'd have a very large B/V Tension to work with in the design, between the Baseline and this Vision.

But the main thing I wanted to address, in this case by counterexample, is the idea of associating Vision with "what the characters believe to be true" and the like.  The main reason I have a problem with this is that the characters are often ignorant about their own world; the Vision elements of the game are, however, generally not.  

The counterexample I thought of originally, which is why I dismissed Vision=CharUnderstanding with strong caveats at the time, was of a strongly modern/realistic game whose Vision concerned, say, psionics, but did so in such a way that the PCs remained unclear on the existence of such powers throughout, even as they used them.  Even those who believed (a minority even of those who used it) probably wouldn't understand psi very well, certainly not as it is communicated in the Vision.  This could be quite an interesting Gamist game if, say, the players were blindly exploring "what factors do boost psi use?" from a checklist that each GM created anew per campaign, tending to include elements like "relationship dysfunction," "lack of sleep," or even "slavic origins."

The Vision in such a game is quite clear - the psi, the lack of IC understanding of psi - and shows how, to me, the Vision has to have to do with that which is true-and-strange in their world, regardless of what a character (PC, NPC, nigh-omniscient, whoever) understands to be true.  Now, rereading Chris' posts on it, I see that he intended it to be the statement about Vision=CharUnderstanding to be an included element, not the whole, of the definition of Vision, in which case I have no problem with it at all.  As part of Emily's two-sets-of-four checklists (which, although their emphasis isn't where I'd have placed it, are nice summaries), it serves quite well indeed, but we should make sure it doesn't dominate our definitions.

On the other hand, I quite like the idea about a weak correspondence set between Baseline and players-playing-a-game, and between Vision and players-immersing-in-characters... though I'm not sure whether I can do anything useful with it at the moment.  It touches on GNS somewhat, which makes me leery, but I'm also just too sunburnt and tired to go quite that abstract. :)

I'll talk about Chris' examples from SitF, Fang's game, and my own work and how I'm applying these things (hint: take the Shadowrun example and choose not to do what I spotted there), in a bit.

- Eric