Thoughts on the role of game design - musings

[Silmenume]

This is post of musings, so if it doesn't make any sense to any one – mea culpa.

Not too long ago I wrote a post where I posited a split between Effect and Affect.  Chris Lehrich came in reformulated some thoughts and suggested different terms because the actually terms Effect and Affect are so commonly mixed up (due to closesness in spelling and subtleties in meaning) that using them presents a huge throbbing potential for continual catastrophic hyper-explosive thread crashing!  Auhhhh!  In all seriousness, he is on all accounts right.

So instead in this thread instead of Effect I shall use Impact as in "Impact on the Situation."  

Instead of Affect I shall use Result as in "Result on the player for making decisions that have Impact on Situation," that is to quote Chris Lehrich - "the emotional, intellectual, subjective impact of play upon players".  Among other things "Result" accounts for that Step on Up, Story Now, or the Dream is registered within the players.

Desire for specific "Result" (Step on Up, Story Now, the Dream) -> Impact -> Result.[/list:u]Where the "->" means "drives or guides the efforts on".  I should also note that the arrows indicate that there is a "translation" process going on.  IOW we are "translating" our desires into "actions" (Impacts) and then we are "translating" those Impacts into Results.

Thus Desire for specific "Result" drives how we try to have an "Impact" on play (Situation) so what we feel (I'm not sure "feel" is the correct word) the desired "Result."  I have had a thought that game design sits within the bracketed area of my diagram –


Desire [->] Impact -> Result.[/list:u]I suppose one could say that marketing tries to influence or works on Desire trying to convince people that purchasing and playing their game will give the purchaser X "Result", but marketing in and of itself is not part of the game design.  

We cannot directly control or directly manipulate Result, so we employ an intermediary step which is the manipulation of the SIS – the direct effects of which are called "Impact."  Game design centers on the first arrow with an eye towards "influencing" the second arrow via players having an Impact on the Situation unfolding within the SIS.

I am not certain of the usefulness of this formulation, or even if it is correct.  However, what comes to mind is a memory of a citation that was attributed to Vincent Baker (lumpley) that basically asserts that roleplay is a specialized form of dialogue.  This is where the lumpley principle comes in.  If the game process is really a specialized form of dialogue, then game design is really an attempt to direct and shape this dialogue.  Thus when someone picks up a box or a book and says, "Let's play this!" and everyone sez, "Yeah, that's cool," what they have provisionally agreed to do is engage in a type of conversation and abide by the credibility distribution system (agreed to a pre-negotiated credibility distribution system).  The game design may also attempt to limit or constrain the "conversational topics" via setting materials and mechanics.  These constraints do not have to be pre-published as Univeralis and I think Multiverser have clearly demonstrated.

Just a wild hair -

[clehrich]

So you're basically saying, if I understand you right, that the primary object of game design is to get from what the player desires to the way the player has an impact on the gameplay, with the ultimate intended result being largely outside system?

If so, I have to say that it's striking that most game design rhetoric, by which I mean what I am used to seeing in game books about what the point of the book and the system is, seems deeply focused on result.

For example, the book goes on and on about how playing the game will create a vast epic saga.  And a short tag-line version of that appears on the back.

So in your remarks here, are you saying that the idea is to pre-constrain Desire through a tag-line or whatever about Result, and then use system to get the Desire to play out as Impact?  Something like that?

I'm not quite sure where you're going with this.  You did say it was just musings, of course....

[Silmenume]

Hey Chris,

So you're basically saying, if I understand you right, that the primary object of game design is to get from what the player desires to the way the player has an impact on the gameplay, with the ultimate intended result being largely outside system?

Yes.

The first arrow is the external dialogue among the players.  Game designs profoundly affect that process.  The second arrow is entirely internal and therefore beyond the scope of system.  Designers can try to influence the dialogue such that the results of that effort (Impact) will be "translated" in a manner that matches the players' desires, but that "translation" process in only influenced, but not directed by the Impacts.

So in your remarks here, are you saying that the idea is to pre-constrain Desire through a tag-line or whatever about Result, and then use system to get the Desire to play out as Impact? Something like that?

More or less.  Desire must be constrained in some fashion, the question becomes, "Do you find these constraints interesting (Universalis) or these constraints (Tunnels and Trolls) or these constraints (Sorceror) etc.?"

Not sure what the implications of this are, but there you have it.

[Doctor Xero]

If the game process is really a specialized form of dialogue, then game design is really an attempt to direct and shape this dialogue.

You know,  this makes Robert's Rules of Order seem like a game book, with the gamist end of winning the debate of the day.

Hmmm, that seems scarily accurate, now that I think about it . . .

Doctor Xero