Is one type of gamer in a group boring?

[Zak Arntson]

I'm splitting this from the RedRavenRPG.com: I'm scared to ask! thread. I wanted to address the question, but it's not specific to the Red Raven RPG, so I'll answer it here.

Different players can use differenr rules, and it doesn't affect the overall play (other than time to roll more dice). Conflict between the players/party is a natural thing to me. Fred wants to go and batter the dark lord, Sally thinks maybe we should investigate a little first. Isn't that what roleplaying is all about? If you only have 1 type of gamer in a group, doesn't it get boring?

What we're saying with "one type of gamer" is that they have the same reason for making decisions during play. An explicit (Mike Holmes' says implicit, but maybe he was just talking about the Red Raven thread) and play-supported theory is this: Game rules best support one reason for making decisions, but the actual decision may wildly vary. The reasons have been given three broad categories:

Gamism: The player makes decisions to beat challenges. D&D's rules reward maximum XP gain through the combat. This encourages combat, since XP are the primary means of increased character effectiveness (more HP, more skills, more feats, etc).

Simulationism: The player makes decisions dictated on what would be the most plausible action in-game. To use D&D again, while avoiding a goblin horde may be the most plausible actions for a character in the role of a thief, the D&D game rewards killing them! While heading for the hills (and easier loot) might get you XP for good roleplaying, it wouldn't be nearly as much as fighting the horde. This indicates that D&D supports simulationism a bit, but not nearly as much as it does gamism.

Narrativism: The player makes decisions in order to directly address a theme. This theme is best introduced as a question without an easy answer. For example, if the theme is "When should the law bend to morality?", you'd have to significantly modify D&D's XP rewards to get the players to make narrativist decisions. You could address this by forcing the players to be Lawful Good PCs, and only provide XP when the characters are forced to make the choice between lawful and good (i.e., the law says kill all goblins, but among the captured are goblin children).

That's the condensation of the three modes of play. You can find more by reading other threads and the articles presented here at the Forge.

Now, say a player is faced with the captured goblin children and decides not to kill them. A gamist reason could be that these kills are worth zero XP. A simulationist decision might be that the action would disgust the character. A narrativist decision may be that morality trumps the law. All three examples came to the same conclusion.

I'll get back to your original post. Fred and Sally want to do two different things. How does the game system reward either action? The two could be basing their different decisions on the same "type". Sally may believe the fight would be easier with some knowledge (gamist), or her loremaster loves research (simulationist). Fred may be confident in their ability to beat the dark lord (gamist) or his character is an impatient brawler (simulationist). These are just examples, and there are tons more reasons to make the same decisions.

My thoughts (the big/little suggested to me by Clinton) are that a game does best with heavy support for one mode of play, sometimes combined with a little support for a second. D&D is big-Gamism, little-Simulationism, with its primary reward and extensive rules for winning combats, and a secondary reward for "good roleplaying" (which generally means, "acting in character").

Now when designing your own RPG, you have to consider: Why are the players making decisions? And your answer is given in the rules, especially the reward system.

That's my long answer to the short questions presented above: Isn't that what roleplaying's about? and Isn't one type of gamer boring?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hey, Zak

First, I don't think that Fruit Bat was refering to any kind of GNS disconnect, really. Doesn't look like it from the quote, anyway. Even so, within a given CA, there is a lot of diversity. I daresay there's plenty of *incompatable* diversity within a CA

As far as the big/little thing. I don't know. Exploration is the underlying activity of all roleplaying and Simulationism is prioritized exploration. I suppose then it could be argued, then, that all roleplaying has a "little" Sim in it.

So, is one type of gamer boring? Hrm.. This feels like a "Would a world where everyone was you be good or bad" sort of question. Of course diversity enriches any human interaction. I think that's a given, isn't it? But at some point diversity leads to incompatibility, for whatever reason.

[Andrew Martin]

I think a muddled and confused game text produces muddled and confused game players out of it's readers. Once the text is coherent, a sparkling pool of text, then the readers will be guided by the text in the expected behaviour the game designer wants, and so they'll gain the experience and pleasure the designer promises on the game text's back cover.

When our group is playing a well designed wargame or a boardgame, we're all either gamist or simulationist players (depending upon the type of wargame).

When our group is playing traditional RPGs (AD&D, ICE RoleMaster, ICE SpaceMaster, homebrews), we're all a mix of G, N or S players, because the game texts we use are mostly bad designs.

Similar things can be said about playing sports and other games.

[wakingjohn]

The texts people use don't determine their GNS-ness.  People choose their own and its only natural that a group would have a mixed group and also maybe good.  Furthermore people often evolve between different stances and sometimes are one of the two.  

Now I realize this isn't what the theory states but simply put the theory only illuminates a very narrow view of the landscape of gaming groups.

I think people take it on some sort of faith that it is "correct" that a game design should only focus on G N or S, but I think that past sucess (both monetarily and otherwise) of many many many many so called "Badly" designed games focus on at least two of these and do so sucessfully despite any theories otherwise.  

Now granted, whenever you get people who begin to be educated in the idea that there is gns or there are robin's archetypes or there is any other academic gaming construct it drastically changes the ways they both play and the ways they choose their gaming groups and their games.  

This is not to say its bad... just that it happens.  It seems once someone gets educated about how they are supposed to game alot of times they find game groups of the same type of gamers they are or games that .  

And this is good.

It should also be noted some people do start from the view point of liking uniformity *without* reading theory.  Good for them!

However to assume either way is better than the other ( mixed design/groups/games vs homo-design/groups/games ) seems both silly and short sighted.  

They are simply different ways to play the game.  Perhaps... to use the sports analogy, National League vs Little League (I'll refrain from labelling which I believe is which due to lack of want of crucifixion ;-).)

Of course this won't stop the two from arguing that their way is best (nothing ever does).
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Also, the game is NOT about what the designer wants.  Yes yes, system matters (some say for GNS and others say for other reasons).  But despite the system its about what the consumer wants.  What the gamer wants.  Things stopped being about what the *designer* wanted or the *artist* wanted etc a long time ago.  No longer do people care much of the artists intent.  Sure the designer always loves to think that they want it becuase its his vision, but they want it because its *their* vision.  

Point in case: Who goes to the store and gets their new rpg book "TEH BIG DUNGEONZ GAMEZ" or maybe "ANGUISH: THE GAME ABOUT ANGUISH" or whatever and sits down and says "Gee, I wonder what the designer had in mind for my game.  I had better tailor my game to suit *his* needs."  

No one does.  At least no one *I* know.  Most people buy their books and say "how will this help me run the game *I* want to run.  ANd sure they use things out of the book, but the art is molded by the reader in this case and also in most other recent cases.  

Just a few of my thoughts on the matter.

[Andrew Martin]

Hi, wakingjohn.
Welcome to The Forge!

Sorry, but I think you're both right and wrong.

Let's change the topic from RPGs to cups. Designers design cups, engineers create machines that make cups, technicians fix problems in the cup making process, cup factory line workers handle those parts of the process that the machines haven't yet been taught how to do, there delivery workers and trucks/trains/planes to deliver the cups from factory to distributor, distributor to retailer and so on - and there's people making cups on potting wheels.

When a customer comes along to a retail store wanting to get a new cup or set of cups, the retail store usually has a display of the cups on it's shelves ready for the customer to look at, examine the promotional material, try them out and hopefully purchase. So there are these cups, some are made of glass, pottery, tin, and so on; some are suited for different purposes, this cup for tea, this cup for special occasions, this cup is a promotional cup advertising a wellknown brand; and so on.

When a customer buys a cup, the customer has bought into the vision the designer has for the cup. There's no question of the customer "changing" the vision or purpose of the cup; instead it's either been bought by mistake, or the customer doesn't know their own purpose in buying the cup. In return, the cup "performs" for the customer as the designer intended, giving the user of the cup and the viewer of the cup the experience the cup designer intended all along. If it doesn't, the errant cup usually gets returned for replacement or refund, because the cup is defective in some way, like a tea cup with a chipped rim after being dropped in transit, or a handle that falls off the cup.

For most RPGs, the problem lies in poor design, which is caused by poor goal or vision. The writers of the RPG don't know what they want to have happen, so they try to make it "do everything", and offer it to customers accordingly. The customer comes along, gets excited by the vision expoused on the back cover of the game book, buys it and tries it with a group of friends over several sessions. Then the problems start happening; the rules contradict each other, the setting information says one thing, yet the rules contradict this, and the pictures with the text show several different ways entirely. The fellow players also excited by the vision on the back cover also get their own copies and start reading, and also find the same problems. They can't take back the game text to the retailer because it's exactly the same as the remaining game texts on the retailer shelves. The book isn't defective, after all.

So what do the players do? Some give up and take up another hobby or pursuit and we hardly ever hear from them ever again. Some struggle on, choosing what rules to apply and what to ignore, and eventually become all kinds of GMs and players as per the stereotypes. Some buy more and different game texts in an effort to work out whether they're mad or the game is wrong (I'm not mad, but the game must be right, because it's, like, a book?!), and become obsessive collectors trying to find the hidden meaning locked within the game texts. Some become amateur RPG designers, like most of us here, and decide to create our own RPGs, which are based on our experiences in trying to learn the first RPGs, using published game texts as components for their own creations.

All caused by muddy, confused vision or goal on the part of the designers and that poor vision or goal persisting and replicating.

What we as designers need to do, is to simply clear our vision, and express what we want to have happen in the game session, then write game text that expresses that vision through rules, graphics, lots of colour and so on, and that works with typical newcomer readers.

And the best way to do that is to test what you have, try to make it break, repair, refine, replace, enhance, remove the game text, and do it again, all the while keeping one's eyes on the goal or vision. It's exactly like any activity humans can do to to create an item.

Just my opinion.

[Andrew Martin]

And just a little addition which I only just remembered. The first RPG game text was developed from wargames rules, which themselves suffered from a vision problem: were wargames a recreation or simulation of past events or actually competitive games between players?

[wakingjohn]

Hi, wakingjohn.
Welcome to The Forge!

Thanks, but I actually just lost my old account due to a horrible hard drive crash (that caused all sorts of problems with my layout program too ugh!)  Luckily though I remembered to back that morning but alas, lost alot of other things....

Anyways,

Your analogy to cups is interesting.  I agree with it in part.  I think it is true for aspects of game design, particularly mechanics and other things that would involve engineering of either the mathematical variety or otherwise (art and coherence in both rules and text). This much is very true.  

But concerning intent, There IS huge question in whether the person simply ignores the intent of the cup designer. Sure, the designer made the cup 'smart' for what he wanted. Questions like "how does it hold in your hand, does it leak" were asked. "does it conserve heat well" etc.

But does any of that matter when the old lady takes home the cup to put her grand kids dandelions in?  Where is the designer then? She picked it because she knew it would look nice on her mantle, and had a pleasing shape for flowers, and it was her  grand kids favorite color. Her intent is the final word.  No care of the fact that the cup was originally made to do such and such or hold so and so.  And sure the 'vision' influences things, but ultimately it rides back seat to the whim of whoever has the cup.  Maybe tomorrow an artist will buy the same cup and smash it to bits and use the pieces to make a mosaic.  Does she care what the designers 'intent' was? No! She decided the intent herself.  

No one is "changing" anybody's "vision" because no one gives a flying flip about anyone else's 'vision' and to think they do is pretentious. One simply ignores whatever the "vision" was.  It's lost as soon as the person picks up the cup.  Now the cup holder might have a vision similar to the cup designer, but that's just luck.  Cups don't *hold* a inherent vision bestowed by their owner.  The vision is lost as soon as the designer gives away his work.

Designing one agenda games is for some, and Designing  games for mixed groups is for others.  Both are valid demographics.  To answer the whole point of this thread, I think that mixed groups are very interesting and less boring And that the conflict is good.  For example, some cups may have more than one intent.  

Say a mug is heavy to be a good paper weight in the office, but its also intended to hold hot drinks and also to advertise Big Jim's Office Suply Depot.  Does this make it poorly designed since it satisfies more than one intent? or maybe that makes it a better design....  


Just some more opinions and thought and stuff.... ;-D
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John E Davis
Apocrypha Gaming
*link coming soon*

[Mike Holmes]

Nothing in the theory says that only one mode per game makes for good design. If the mug is both a good paperweight, and good for drining, then great. But what if the one function was somehow able to be confused with the other, you'd have people pouring coffee on their papers...

To get away from the analogy, games with multiple modes are just fine as long as they're written such that in play players playing in the different modes don't annoy each other. This can definitely be done, and has been done a lot. So your objection doesn't go against anythning that the theory says.

All the theory says is that some games that try to support multiple modes don't do a good job at it, and this causes problems in those games for some players. Is that really all that controversial?

Mike

[Zak Arntson]

All the theory says is that some games that try to support multiple modes don't do a good job at it, and this causes problems in those games for some players. Is that really all that controversial?

Bingo. Thanks Mike. Unless I'm missing a lot of design threads, the trend after learning about GNS is, "Oh, wow! I'll support one of these modes and make a killer game!" When, in fact, the theory simply covers the reason behind making a single choice in a game. A game doesn't need to support only one decision.

The trick is making sure that you support decisions while keeping the participants happy. The incoherent gameplay comes up most often when a group of players are given a decision to make, and they have different GNS priorities that guide their decisions. One player may consistently enter situations with combat in mind, disregarding the in-game justification, because of the XP rewards. Another might push for the most realistic outcome, in many cases, opening an encounter with dialogue. The two players would get frustrated with each other, "Why do you always want to talk? We don't get XP that way!" "Yeah, but my bard wouldn't just attack the orcs without provocation!"

Design encourages decision making along a mode of play, but in most RPGs, decisions can't be forced. With the cup analogy, of course you can't predict the ways the cup'll be used, but you can encourage people to drink out of it or plant flowers in it, depending on its form.

Like Mike said, the trick in supporting multiple modes of play is keep the players happy while they're making decisions. Something that I'd like to see Red Raven accomplish. From the Red Raven's thread's XP reward chart, it looks like gamism and simulationism are the most rewarded activities, and it will be interesting to see how the two are coordinated without causing unhappy player conflicts.

Oh, and I should have really given a short answer to the two questions I brought in here.

Isn't that what roleplaying's about? Yes, it's about making decisions. When the decisions cause unhappy disruption among the players (as opposed to healthy cooperation or competition), there's a problem.

Isn't one type of gamer boring? Only if it bores the players of the game. This question hinges on the definition of "type", which would need to be further defined to further discuss it. This thread has handled 'type' meaning 'placing one GNS priority over the others'.