SCAR mechanics qualities

[fabien]

I start a thread on RPG.net and someone suggest me to talk about it here instead.  It's itself an old concept I develop with some other guys on a French RPG-Creators forums.

The basic look simpler than it is, and it's very easy to confound it with the GNS.  However, SCAR is about mechanics only.  Trying to apply it to other rpg aspects lead to nowhere.  Some people can still make some links with GNS however, but this is still to explore.

SCAR is for RPG mechanics only.  That's mean that SCAR is not intend to use with other games like chess, society game or wargames.  That's mean that the goal of the game is at least to be immerge in a fictious world trying to do things that can be imagine in reality.  Pure Meta-Gaming (rolling dice for the sake of rolling dice) is disregards.  That doesn't mean that muchkins or rule lawyers are exclude by SCAR, but we had to put a limit where RPG began to be more like board games or society games.  In fact, SCAR can describe some way to get muchkins and rules lawyers doing more roleplaying.

SCAR try to describe The Perfect System.  This is a theoretical system and chance there is that it doesn't exist.  Chance there is also that many Perfect System can exist.  That's no problem neither.  But the Perfect System is theory.  In practice, rpg systems are made of tradeoff and people will have some preference with one or the other aspect of SCAR.  This is right too.

SCAR express the qualities that every RPG mechanics should consider has positive for the game.  Some people may be will not care much about some of them, for different reasons but most people will not care is a system is more that quality or more this quality.  They will care however if one quality doesn't appear at the level they want in the mechanics.

SCAR doesn't try to describe every aspect of a game mechanics.  In fact, it avoid every aspect where something can be considered as a quality by some, and as a quirk by others.  This limit a lot the scope of SCAR but also avoid war where people fight against the pros or cons of such aspect.  As said before, every quality in SCAR is at best a necessity, at least a don't care factor in making tradeoff when designing game mechanics.

So, now, here is the 4 SCAR qualities we ended up a long time ago:

Simplicity: Simplicity is how the game can be easy to learn and play.  Fluidity and Playability is other name for this one.  Some pretends they like Complexity in a game and so that Simplicity can be seen as a bad thing.  Usually, those people are either muchkins or rules lawyers, or are in fact attract by other quality such as Realism or Adaptability.  Simplicity is absolute and are good for any genre of games, although some styles are more ready to made tradeoff in this regards.

Coherence:  Coherence is often related to a specific setting.  It's the quality of rules able to sustain or even add to a specific genre or atmosphere.  This the humanity rule of Vampire, the Heroes Points of Thoan, the Dark force temptation in Star Wars, the Value/Vice opposition in Pendragon.

Adaptability:  Two aspects are included in this quality.  Adaptability refers to the capacity of a rules to adapt itself to different situations.  Low adaptability rules are rules that can only adapt to swords for example, or only in close combat situation, or just in a Med-Fan setting.
Low adaptability system can goes from system that can only be set for only a specific setting,
or just to specific genre in this setting, or even to only some specific actions or type of characters in this setting.  High Adaptability system aren't reserved to multi-genre or generic system, but also to complete system where you can play all kinds of characters, or where you aren't limit to one type of weapons or attacks, for example.  If you ask "Why can't my Mage can't do pickpocket?"  and that your answer is about the limits of the game mechanics, you are in presence of low adaptability system.  This is also an absolute aspect, although adaptability can be limit to a specific set of settings and genre.

Realism:  Realism is strongly relate to a specific setting.  Realism is about mocking physics laws with game mechanics, but to simulate correctly the Fictious World Laws in game mechanics.  For example, if the setting permits magick, a Realistic mechanics should allow
magick in this setting.  If a world permits a character to survive an nuclear explosion, the game mechanics should also allow this.  This doesn't mean necessarily more details.  You can be fuzzy and realistic and you can also put a lot of details and be completely of the track!  Realism is an important aspect of RPG mechanics, at least to avoid SOD.

OK, some observations now:

Simplicity and Realism are NOT opposed to each other.  For example, two game mechanics can have the same level of Simplicity but not the same Realism.  An easy example is if your mechanics allow 4d6 damage with a dagger, but only 2d4 with a sword, you are less Realistic than if you do the reverse.  The Simplicity of both mechanics is the same however.  However, it's true that must mechanics that favor Realism tends to make a tradeoff on Simplicity.

Simplicity and Adaptability are absolute.  There are related to a specific setting, although adaptability can be over a limit range of settings.  Realism and Coherence, on the contrary, are setting specific.  However, since a lot of similitudes exist between settings, sometime Realism can be conserved through out a good range of settings.  Coherence can also be preserved in Tailoring Systems, which are systems that can adapt themself to specific style easily (like by allowing less deadly damage, or different forms of action resolutions).  I'm pretty sure other way to preserved such qualities between different style and settings can  be found.

GNS, as I understand it, can't be applied easily to SCAR.  However, some guidelines can be set:  Simulationnist tend to prefer Realism over other qualities.  Gamers like it also but also like the multiple options given by Adaptability, giving them more ways to solve the problems (and so more challenging problems).  Narrative want the smoothness of Simple mechanics and like the sustain of Drama give by Coherent mechanics.  Realism are good also for them since SOD will often push players OOC.

OK, that's it for the moment.  So, what do you think about this?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I can see one problem with your SCAR idea at the moment. Consider GNS. GNS is about in-game decisions and one can be judged as either being G, N or S. The elements of SCAR are all scales and the problem with scales, especically the sort of things measured by SCAR is that it's a matter of opinion. You may be onto something here, but measurement that is at best, an educated guess (high or low simpicity?) may need work before it is useful.

[fabien]

I can see one problem with your SCAR idea at the moment. Consider GNS. GNS is about in-game decisions and one can be judged as either being G, N or S. The elements of SCAR are all scales and the problem with scales, especically the sort of things measured by SCAR is that it's a matter of opinion. You may be onto something here, but measurement that is at best, an educated guess (high or low simpicity?) may need work before it is useful.

You're right on this.  That's why I avoid qualities with not strictly positive aspect.   I don't think a rule is bad for you if it score low in one of SCAR.  It's bad for you however if it scores low in a SCAR quality that you find important and it's even worse for you if you want to use instead of another one that's has better SCAR score in the qualities you care about.

However, SCARE let you put some more objective judgement about games mechanics:  For example, if I compare Torg with Thoan.  I can say the Torg is a bit more Realistic and Coherent for their respective universe, but with a little less Adaptability than Thoan.  On some points, Torg is more Simple than Thoan, but the general resolution in Tohan is more simple, especially for group resolution.

If you see, although I express some judgements about Torg and Thoan, I don't express any opinion.  I just characterize both games.  Judgement is necessary, even for GNS.  And even with GNS, between two people who understand them equally, there can be some difference of opinions about if a point is more G or S, for example.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

For example, if I compare Torg with Thoan.  I can say the Torg is a bit more Realistic and Coherent for their respective universe, but with a little less Adaptability than Thoan.  On some points, Torg is more Simple than Thoan, but the general resolution in Tohan is more simple, especially for group resolution.

If you see, although I express some judgements about Torg and Thoan, I don't express any opinion...

I disagree. I would say that everything in your example is a matter of opinion. With simple name swapping, I could completely reverse your entire example and it would make as much sense (to me, at least, since I have never heard of Thoan and have nil experience with Torg) and it is quite possible for someone to have such a difference of opinion for their own reasons (whatever they may be).

The opinion factor, and that the value a given game system has in any of the categories hinges on opinion makes this whole concept a tad to mushy for use, I think.

But, uh, that's just my opinion.

[fabien]

I disagree. I would say that everything in your example is a matter of opinion. With simple name swapping, I could completely reverse your entire example and it would make as much sense (to me, at least, since I have never heard of Thoan and have nil experience with Torg) and it is quite possible for someone to have such a difference of opinion for their own reasons (whatever they may be).

The opinion factor, and that the value a given game system has in any of the categories hinges on opinion makes this whole concept a tad to mushy for use, I think.

But, uh, that's just my opinion.

What do you mean?  Do you think I pause my judgement on this too excellent games without arguments?  I used both, like both, but I can say that Torg is a little more Coherent: the game system included that make players more in touch with the special universe of Torg, like Reality Points, Reality Axioms and other similar thing.  Thoan have none of this, except for a special technology which is more part of the background than the rule system.  Torg used a less simple dice roll (re-roll on 10 and 20, put this result in a table and used the value obtain on another table) as a general resolution mechanic, than the exploded dice pool with a difficulty level that Thoan used.  However, Thoan have near Wargame level combat resolution, with wound locations, action points allocation and freshness points.  This far less simple than what Torg used.  However, this complex system is lost by the strange scale use in Thoan which often lead to some odds resolutions.  For this, Torg seems a bit more Realistic.  However, this scale permits very small attribute where in Torg, the smallest scale available is the human scale.  This is an argument for the greater Adaptability in Torg.

All those arguments can be discuss and you can disagree on some.  This is OK and happen even in very rational domain like science.  If for you, science is just a matter of opinions and that any opinions are equivalent, there is nothing we can discuss together.  If you say completely the reverse to what I said, you better give me good arguments to sustain your opinion.  I can agree on some and disagree on other.  We can even agree to disagree but I hope the discussion will bring us some stronger arguments or remove some flawed ones.

All mechanics included some degrees of each SCAR qualities.  Give me one mechanics, and I can always make one with less Simplicity, less Realism, less Coherence and less Adaptability.  That's easy.  Trying to make a better mechanics is more difficult and often involved some tradeoff on certain aspect of them.  But if you can find a "better" rule without any tradeoff on all SCAR quality, you have found a perl.  Keep it preciously!