Game Rule Clarity: Monopoly vs. any RPG

[Scripty]

Thanks, Christopher. Your response was thoughtful enough to give me pause in my previous notions regarding Sorcerer. Ron has suggested that I give the game a serious consideration. I'll definitely pursue that soon.

Something that occured to me after re-reading Noon's post is that what he terms as complexity may not necessarily be complexity in the terms by which I interpreted it. Looking closer at what he's saying it seems he's speaking of onion layers of rules. A sort of exploration of a setting through a ruleset. Outside of my own observations that the difference between games like Risk and Vampire:tM may not be the complexity of their ruleset but, rather, their degree of flexibility in play, I'm also picking up a sort of "down the rabbit hole" vibe from Noon's post.

I could be wrong and my inner-Hippie could be coming out here. But I think Noon is also talking about inducing a trance state. Okay. Some people just stopped reading there. But for those who have opted to continue on...

It's repetitive of me to say that watching TV, reading a book, even surfing the net induces a trance state. Going to see a movie, when the lights turn down, it's almost programmed in us to enter a light trance state.

IMO, RPGs aren't much different and it's this trance state that helps along our suspension of disbelief, that puts us "in the zone." Here in our "RPG state" I think that what we're looking at is the game itself (or even the character) being the "focus" while the rules serve as the "ritual."

Now, before you run off and get your black robes....

I think it's important for rules to serve as the "ritual." Think of how the mood around the table changes just after two simple words: "Roll initiative." It's there and, IMO, tangible. I would also posit that this "trance" state is more important in RPGs than in other games, although other games certainly induce it to a degree. I think this is also something that Noon was touching on in his post.

But how would we fit a flexible, coherent ruleset on the back of a box with the added requirement that it is as engaging as other, more robust rulesets?

From my own studies in the matter, I would have to say repetition, repetition, repetition. That's one of the reasons that the solo game I designed wasted so much of my playtesters' time. There was one simple mechanic followed by a lot of shuffling. Once the numerous charts were committed to memory (which occured at a startlingly high rate). The game was just a series of die rolls. Only one die (a d10; sometimes used as a percentile) and one mechanic repeated endlessly. I would leave the game with playtesters and then come over 8 hours later and they'd still be playing. They wouldn't have even eaten sometimes. When I would forcibly take the game away from them, the most they would say about it was: "Man, that's addictive! Can I have it next weekend?"

But there wasn't much to it except for a series of steps that were repeated ad infinitum. Perhaps, by complexity, Noon means that the rules require a "series" of steps to resolution. I don't know.

Personally, I think such a mechanic would benefit roleplaying, but I'm unsure how to achieve it. You'd need a mechanic that was repetitive, that involved a series of non-intensive mathematical hoops to jump through. Most of all these hoops would have to be fun with a robust number of possible results (but not too many as to break the cycle). I think Unknown Armies is a pretty good example. IMO, a certain degree of math is good but, overall, math bad. I can't recall the number of Feng Shui games I've had where play was stifled by math. It's only addition and subtraction, right? Maybe to us. So, no tallying of hit points. Nothing like that. We need something simple, immediate and yet sufficiently layered to constitute a "ritual." A roll...results type thing...perhaps followed by another roll of some sort. Threes seem to work for this kind of thing. (Roll initiative...roll to hit...roll damage, anyone?) But even if it was a one roll and done ruleset, I think that would be okay as long as the results were immediate and recognizable. It's the whole BF Skinner programming thing at work...

I don't know if Sorcerer qualifies. I think the Puddle might, especially in a modified version. Questing Beast might as well. Any thoughts?

[Ian Charvill]

Scripty, I know this is somewhat avoiding the point of your post but I've often seen points similar to this made:

IMO, a certain degree of math is good but, overall, math bad. I can't recall the number of Feng Shui games I've had where play was stifled by math. It's only addition and subtraction, right? Maybe to us. So, no tallying of hit points. Nothing like that.

And would simply like to observe that Scrabble requires a fair amount of addition, and that Monopoly requires both addition and subtraction many many times over in the course of play (along with a little multiplication on the utilities).

I don't see maths as the barrier to clarity - though I am in favour of tokens rather than numbers on a page, though that may just be my outer child talking.

[Scripty]

And would simply like to observe that Scrabble requires a fair amount of addition, and that Monopoly requires both addition and subtraction many many times over in the course of play (along with a little multiplication on the utilities).

I don't see maths as the barrier to clarity - though I am in favour of tokens rather than numbers on a page, though that may just be my outer child talking.

I agree. A game like Monopoly has significantly more math (and more complicated math) than Feng Shui. I don't see math as a barrier to clarity but I do see it as a barrier to play. See, in Monopoly, the math is in support of the whole point of the game: to make insane amounts of money in order to beat the other players. That's the whole point, and math is a part of it. Now, where the math of Monopoly *breaks* with the intent of the game, IMO, is best shown by the "Income Tax" square. How many people actually tally up 10% of their worth when landing on this square or have sat at a game and waited for another player to do so? The math breaks the routine here. It breaks the rhythm. Therefore, 99% of the Monopoly games that I have played have ignored the 10% rule. We've always paid the flat fee. Now, if we were going to *get* 10% of our worth when landing on that square, I bet a more significant number of people would be whipping out calculators at the Monopoly board.

It's just my opinion but I think that excessive math can be a detriment to a roleplaying experience. I have experience to back that up (reference: Aftermath and the scientific calculators). I have sat by and watched fellow players struggle with the plusses and minuses of Feng Shui. Sure, it's simple math. Sure, I can do it in my sleep. But the simple arithmetic is breaking the rhythm of the game for me and everyone else. What that says about the state of our education is another discussion entirely.

My point is that, in terms of trance induction and maintenance, this is not a good thing. The rhythm is broken. The groove is gone. I'm not saying that math has no place in rpgs, just that we should be aware that too much math can counteract our intent.

If the math is the point, however, such as resource managing one's way through a Diablo-esque experience, that's different. But imagine if you had to stop in every room to determine how your Charisma is holding up under such dirty conditions based on a set number of modifiers and percentages. The math would knock you out of the game, because it doesn't apply to what you're doing (or doesn't seem to). Now, if the GM applied those modifiers (no more than three or so), only when your Charisma stat came into play (which is how most RPGs handle it) that would be different, IMO. But even then if you had to take the cosine of CHA times the square-root of the number of hours you had been in the dungeon and multiply that by one divided by the modifier of your appearance enhancing equipment, I think that would be math of a sufficient complexity and a sufficient quantity to cause the game to stop and break its rhythm. My experience with Aftermath was much like this.

My point was that trance states enhance the suspension of disbelief and that overly complex or overly abundant mathematic calculations can break the rhythm/focus of these rituals that maintain/support our trance-state. It wasn't a diatribe about how math is universally bad or makes games incoherent. Because neither of those is true. It was a precautionary to anyone seeking to build a game along the lines that we have discussed on this thread. Primarily, I wasn't saying that math was bad for clarity but, rather, that excessive or complex math is bad for maintaining trance-states at the table.

In my opinion, division by any number other than 2 or 10 should be completely avoided. Multiplication by any number other than 2, 5, or 10 should likewise be avoided. Addition and subtraction should occur in 2-digit number ranges, and no action should require more than three calculations of these kinds, with one being the preference.

Now, that's not a blanket model for all rpgs to follow. I can't think of a single rpg I own that does. And I don't own an RPG that I don't like. But if we're looking to market a game to "the masses" by bringing it into line with Scrabble and Monopoly, I believe those are good rules of thumb to keep in mind because, IMO, our RPG lives or dies by its suspension of disbelief, flow, and immersion in the interactive story. Breaking the trance is like interrupting someone when they're reading a good book. As a general practice, I just don't think it'll go over all that well.

Scott

P.S. For the record, I think tokens are the way to go, too. It would keep me from fiddling with my pretzels.

[Ian Charvill]

The point about how germaine the maths is to play is I think spot on, Scott.  Something else occured to me, with talking about the tokens and all.

The Chaosium collectible card game, Mythos, used token to mark sanity.  They recommended using marbles, so that when you were out of sanity, you'd lost your marbles.  I liked that game a lot, and I had it in a draw for close to ten years.  I had enough cards that three or four people could sit down and play it, so it was a self-contained thing.  But it didn't get played much, not because it was complicated to play, but because it took a few goes before you were playing it well enough to feel like there was a game being had.

Role playing games are like that squared.  Games you've run for dozens of sessions, an obscure ruling will come up, and you check the book.  I can't think of a single mainstream game like that.  It's not a question of mastery - chess is simple enough, but not simple to master - it's a question of gaining a basic understanding of all of the rules.

Incidentally, on the 10% income tax rule, either that didn't make it into the British edition or no one I've ever played with has made the least effot to enforce it.

[Callan S.]

4) Concise rules are nice, but think of it this way. Does Scrabble or Monopoly encourage you to roleplay? I will say, it is possible to do roleplay in them, if you shove it in. But do they encourage it? No? And why? Because your working with so little room there...rolling dice and walking three squares feels so restricted and is so restricted. You need more complexity before the game itself starts suggesting (in a slightly hypnotic way) that your entering another world, etc. I contend that, ironically, the more rules you have (or at least the more you deal with implications of rules), the less it feels like your entering a game and instead it feels like entering a world. So many options open up you can't consider them like you do in chess...so many options must be considered like you yourself do in the real world. I think that's important.

Now, this is just a statement from my personal experience and preference, so please take it with a grain of salt.

I'm not certain that what you're talking about is complexity. I think Monopoly discourages roleplay because it is inflexible. The system tightly defines the "if...then...that" of gameplay. In many instances, I have had similar experiences with RPGs whose rules are just as inflexible. One that comes to mind is stopping a game entirely to get scientific calculators in order to do a mass combat in Aftermath. We were still playing the game by the rules but we had definitely slipped out of roleplay.

Given that mass combat doesn't lend itself to character analysis, I'd say its more the element of mass combat that broke you out of roleplay, rather than the rules.

If your saying you couldn't do your characters moves until the battle around them was quantified by the rules then you have a point. But that's one simple rule screwing you  up, that you have to calculate the battle as you go.

I don't think it's a scale of layers and layers of rules, so much as it is a versatile ruleset that allows for a degree of flexibility in play. For instance, I think it's okay for a game to say "If PC health falls below zero, PC is out of contest, either dying or unconscious." I don't think it's necessarily okay for a ruleset to say "If you roll the square-root of your ability score your weapon falls out of your hand, five feet away from whichever side of your body on which you were holding the weapon."

The actual complexity of the rules doesn't matter...its not about being precise, its about setting up white noise to hinder playing it like chess. A similar sort of white noise to that which stops us living our RL lives like their chess.

Anyway, my assertion is two stage, and I'm actually thinking of starting a new thread on it.
1. Add more rules (or implications of rules) to give more room to move, so the player feels his PC is less like a pawn in chess.

2. Add white noise, so that the player who has just felt his PC isn't a pawn doesn't end up shooting himself in the foot by calculating all the game odds and running him like a pawn all the same. 'White noise' means a bunch of rules that set up probabilty tables so wide its just impossible to mesh ALL of them mentally and play the game like chess. Instead you play the game somewhat like you 'play' real life.

EDIT: Yes, its also somewhat like a trance state. I'd call it a 'perception overload/stop playing or just accept' tool. And as I said before, I think it could do with its own post. Sadly today I've spent a lot of time on the net already and should probably chase this up tomorrow.

[Scripty]

The actual complexity of the rules doesn't matter...its not about being precise, its about setting up white noise to hinder playing it like chess. A similar sort of white noise to that which stops us living our RL lives like their chess.

Anyway, my assertion is two stage, and I'm actually thinking of starting a new thread on it.
1. Add more rules (or implications of rules) to give more room to move, so the player feels his PC is less like a pawn in chess.

2. Add white noise, so that the player who has just felt his PC isn't a pawn doesn't end up shooting himself in the foot by calculating all the game odds and running him like a pawn all the same. 'White noise' means a bunch of rules that set up probabilty tables so wide its just impossible to mesh ALL of them mentally and play the game like chess. Instead you play the game somewhat like you 'play' real life.

EDIT: Yes, its also somewhat like a trance state. I'd call it a 'perception overload/stop playing or just accept' tool. And as I said before, I think it could do with its own post. Sadly today I've spent a lot of time on the net already and should probably chase this up tomorrow.

I think that this would be a great topic for discussion. Unfortunately, though, I don't have much to add in either direction. Certainly, overloading the senses is one way to "force" someone into a trance state. But I'm not so sure it's as effective in maintaining that state nor is it necessarily as effective the second time around. People seem to become deadened to these more jarring means of rapid trance induction, from my studies (e.g. exposure to gory violence, unexpectedly yelling in someone's face at a loud volume, rapidly flashing images in someone's field of vision (as in a rock video or some video games)).

I do think you have a good point, however. I'm just on the other side of the pasture as it were. I'm not an advocate of rules adding "white noise" (at least as you describe it) to a gaming session. That should not discourage you from exploring this idea to its fullest, however. Thanks for expanding on your earlier post. You rose many interesting topics that led me integrate two areas of interest/study that I had not properly connected in the past.

Scott

[Callan S.]

The actual complexity of the rules doesn't matter...its not about being precise, its about setting up white noise to hinder playing it like chess. A similar sort of white noise to that which stops us living our RL lives like their chess.

Anyway, my assertion is two stage, and I'm actually thinking of starting a new thread on it.
1. Add more rules (or implications of rules) to give more room to move, so the player feels his PC is less like a pawn in chess.

2. Add white noise, so that the player who has just felt his PC isn't a pawn doesn't end up shooting himself in the foot by calculating all the game odds and running him like a pawn all the same. 'White noise' means a bunch of rules that set up probabilty tables so wide its just impossible to mesh ALL of them mentally and play the game like chess. Instead you play the game somewhat like you 'play' real life.

EDIT: Yes, its also somewhat like a trance state. I'd call it a 'perception overload/stop playing or just accept' tool. And as I said before, I think it could do with its own post. Sadly today I've spent a lot of time on the net already and should probably chase this up tomorrow.

I think that this would be a great topic for discussion. Unfortunately, though, I don't have much to add in either direction. Certainly, overloading the senses is one way to "force" someone into a trance state.*snip*

Ah, now this is an important bit...it doesn't force the trance...it forces the descision of whether you go into a trance. No half assed in or out (if the technique is applied adequitely), make a descision. And if your already seated and ready for the game, its pretty stupid not to go into trance  (yet I've seen it a few times).

Anyway, I'll post what I typed up in word the other day now... :)