[Finale Fusion] online epic fantasy

[MacGuges]

In this thread I'd like to discuss ideas for an online software-driven roleplaying system.  I acknowledge that The Forge & GNS have been intended for tabletop systems, but the discussion groups I've found for mud development either focus on technical issues or make assumptions I want to disagree with.  Besides, finding people with the right cross-sections of knowledge & interest to share my ideas with profitably has been difficult enough that I hope members of The Forge will empathize.

Besides, I suspect that GNS theory can be effectively extended to understanding computer role-playing games, if we start from the assumption that satisfying game experiences happen most often when the players, GMs, writers or software developers share compatible design goals.  The methods of play differ from tabletop (for sure!) and between single-player and mmorpg/mud, but someone could identify similar divisions within each form.  But I won't explore that here & now because this isn't the RPG Theory forum, and because I'm not yet confident with my understanding of GNS theory.  (please bear with me)

I suspect I have a Narrativist agenda for my online game.  I know that no mud or mmorpg has convinced me of being "epic", except for the first I played.  Until I understand the grinding system of experience accumulation, I imagined the first heroes I saw to be like gods striding across the continent.  Indeed, early heroes were rewarded the keys to the kingdom - a license to author new dungeons and monsters. The lure of instrumentality has receded further & further, which is so frustrating to me as a programmer playing computer games.

I've identified a few goals and strategies, which further distinguish my project.

* login and play - I've always appreciated that I can join & enter an online rpg immediately.  Making friends & scheduling cooperation will always carry some time-inflexibility, but computers (as does writing in general) enables more flexibility in timing.

* authentic agency - The software and the development process would accommodate player influence through multiple ritual/interface channels.  When you & your friends adventure, much more could be at stake than your convenience or stats.

* tactical interest - I'd prefer for cleverness, mastery or fortune to matter more than how how long you've been playing or how many resources you have available.

* accommodating casual play - These games usually demand a long, long time to play, even by gamer standards.  It's easy to see how we came
to this, but harder to solve.

* advancement awards are not permanent - Awards can be given more frequently without causing inflation.  Devaluing character awards supports giving more attention to stories or the game-world.

* found perks define your character - I haven't settled on the mechanics for this.  Possessing a perk/quest/card/whatzit would shape your character's opportunities, including which skills or experience goals are available and what external situational factors would be present.  Playing a whatzit would be the essential narrativist mechanic (if I've understood what I've read).

* turn-based combat - It may be possible to achieve my other goals without this, but the challenge of solving this problem is too tempting to ignore.  Players shouldn't worry about being ineffective as heroes because they're slow at the keyboard or GUI.  Players can enter more sophisticated responses if they're given the time they need.

My last 'big idea' for the game makes me a little nervous to divulge. Sometimes I think "it's just the thing!", but others I worry "it's too weird!", but I couldn't summarize my intentions without mentioning it. As I've been a fan of the games of design collectively called Nomic, I'd like to tie the development process to the players' adventures. Comprehensive design documents along with self-amendment procedures would exist alongside the software.  The Nomic process' focus on the original theme would be held through the office of a director-dictator.  Nomic participants could link challenges in the game-world to proposals, perhaps allowing themselves as adventuring heroes to overcome an adversity they encountered in the design process.

(visit http://www.nomic.net/~nomicwiki/index.php/NomicFaq or http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~dricher/Nomic/nomic.html for explanations of "Nomic")

Ok, I've done it, not that there isn't much more to do.  I've announced my intentions, though I do not know how capable I am to implement them.

Thanks in advance,

Ben

[mutex]

Welcome to the Forge,

Indeed, it is as difficult a problem as Artificial Intelligence.  How does one effectively introduce real Narrative into a computer game?

Well, let's say you can't.  Fine, then what could you do to emulate certain fun aspects of Nar in a programmed game?

Color:  I play a game called Kingdom of Loathing.  It is an almost trivial web-based MUD, but it has such great color text that I don't mind.

Automation: Your underlying systems can be as complex as you want, because it will have effectively 0 handling time.

For an example of a Nar with heavy mechanical underpinnings, you should have a look at My Life With Master.  I believe you could literally rip the story, roleplaying and color and still have a perfectly functional game.  It wouldn't be fun, and it would seem quite pointless.  The color and the imagination are essential.  You could have a purely mechanical game, as long as the color was vital, and the player is presented with *meaningful* choices.

[Callan S.]

When I've read "You can't have narrativism in a comp game" elsewhere, it makes me want to scream. It's a self forfilling prophesy...if you don't think you can emotionally invest in the game events, then you wont invest...and indeed, the game really wont provide narrativism. I remember some Capes actual play accounts here which had the very same issue and it's a table top game. But it's like "it's just a computer game" is really being used as an excuse, because it's difficult and tough process of addressing premise.

That said, turn based combat and found perks defining character...these are not the first techniques that come to my mind when I think of how to facilitate narrativism. Ben, are you sure your not mixing up narativism and naration?

The Nomic process' focus on the original theme would be held through the office of a director-dictator.

This strikes me as distributing game author power, but then again not really. Its like providing rules to get a resource and saying "These are all the rules for getting that resource". But since the director-dictator controls that, you really have to satisfy him to get it. Basically there are more rules, hidden inside the dictators head, and you have to guess them and try to abide by them somehow. The problem is, these rules are more important than the game rules. The game rules are really just an elaborate method of sending requests to the dictator, but at the same time trying to give the impression that control is shared.

Okay, that was a long way of saying "Are you sure your not just designing an elaborate request system?"


Mutex: The word 'meaningful' a rather problematic one to encode in a game. It's basically an opinion held by the speaker, like saying 'I don't like spicy food'. It doesn't describe a quality about the food that others will experience. Someone saying 'That choice isn't meaningful' is often thought be the same as saying something like 'that food is spicy' but again it's a self forfilling prophesy, where rather than it being a quality of the object, it's a belief held by the person and further reinforced by their belief it's a quality of the object.

[mutex]

Callan:  I'm not saying Narrativism is impossible.  I'm just not addressing it, in order to focus on some games where the "game" is essentially mechanical, but the actual fun factor is provided by interesting descriptions.

Also, meaningful can be defined.  If I have a CRPG that has an extensive list of foodstuffs, and they all heal a certain amount of damage and cost a certain amount of gold, that's not really a meaningful decision, because there is always an optimal choice.  Meaningful could be expressed in a situation like this:  In the CRPG, you are given the choice to continue chasing the big bad, with a strong chance to finish him right now, or do you rescue your true love who is currently dangling over the precipice.  You can only choose one.  Oh, and by the way, if the big bad escapes, you just know he's going to kill or endanger someone else.

Mechanically, it doesn't have to matter.  I can play the game, finish the big bad early...  but I would feel bad if in the epilogue it told me I had doomed my true love to death for my own personal glory.

Sure, some people will try to game the system, min-maxing all exposed variables...  then that's fine.  Let them ruin their own fun :D  The rest can enjoy playing within the immersion.

[matthijs]

Hey Ben,

It seems like you've got a very ambitious project going on. However, two things make it hard to comment on what you're saying.

First of all, your use of the term "narrativism" seems a bit off - are you sure it's the right term for what you're looking for? Could you describe what you mean by it, in a practical application?

Second, you haven't posed a question or problem for discussion, have you? What exactly do you want to talk about?

Try answering these two questions, and I think you'll find you're one step further in the design process.

[Callan S.]

Meaningful could be expressed in a situation like this:  In the CRPG, you are given the choice to continue chasing the big bad, with a strong chance to finish him right now, or do you rescue your true love who is currently dangling over the precipice.  You can only choose one.  Oh, and by the way, if the big bad escapes, you just know he's going to kill or endanger someone else.

Well, that's a typically narrativist situation. I assumed you meant something else by meaningful, like somehow being able to meet the players interest with such a situation. For example, say as a player this problematic girl or badguy situation bores me to death...I'd be far more interested if my true love IS the bad guy and whether I'll stop her Ms Hyde rampage! I think many people want this sort of customisation, or they declare that it's not narrativist. Ultimately, I missread you.

[Hans]

I suspect I have a Narrativist agenda for my online game.  I know that no mud or mmorpg has convinced me of being "epic", except for the first I played.  Until I understand the grinding system of experience accumulation, I imagined the first heroes I saw to be like gods striding across the continent.  Indeed, early heroes were rewarded the keys to the kingdom - a license to author new dungeons and monsters. The lure of instrumentality has receded further & further, which is so frustrating to me as a programmer playing computer games.

I've identified a few goals and strategies, which further distinguish my project.

* login and play - I've always appreciated that I can join & enter an online rpg immediately.  Making friends & scheduling cooperation will always carry some time-inflexibility, but computers (as does writing in general) enables more flexibility in timing.

* authentic agency - The software and the development process would accommodate player influence through multiple ritual/interface channels.  When you & your friends adventure, much more could be at stake than your convenience or stats.

I think what you describe here sounds wonderful, and I hope it is possible.  But there is a very real reason why the "lure of instrumentality" has receded so far in recent games.  The Big Model explains it perfectly.  What is the foundation of any RPG?  The Social Contract.  The problem is, in any MMORPG, there is no Social Contract to speak of.  All players are anonymous; there is no enforcement or reinforcement mechanism, positive or negative, on their behaviour, other than that which is built into the game.    Now, in a relatively small game, especially one where the setting or other elements mean that only those highly motivated for certain kinds of play experiences will participate (say, a Dune-based MUSH), this doesn't matter so much.  But in a large game, it is a crucial design question - how do you keep the jerks from ruining everyone elses game, and more importantly, driving them and their lucrative monthly subscription fees away?  Fundamentally, the more "instrumentality" the players have to change the game world, the more power the jerks have of changing it in ways that will piss people off.  So you have games like Anarchy Online, where player instrumentality has led to vast swaths of the game world (apparently, according to friends who have played) that are completely controlled by player guilds and essentially no go zones for anyone else.  Or, at the opposite end, you have World of Warcraft (WoW), where no action a player takes has any long-lasting game world effect, and the only narratives you can possibly develop are relatively minor affairs on a guild level requiring a LOT of suspension of disbelief.   And even then, how many times have I been talking with my friends in WoW and trying to do something interesting when some jerk comes up and starts dancing around and clucking like a chicken for the sole purpose of messing with our fun.  Think what that same jerk could do if he had real power in the world?  There may be some happy medium out there, but I admit I am very doubtful.  If you never plan on actually selling this game, or if the subject matter will be such that you don't foresee a wide market, you may be fine.  But don't forget the jerks of this world.  They have more money than you or I, and their sole goal in life is to ruin your fun.