Not so idle chat

[Jay Hatcher]

Greetings everyone.  I'm new at the Forge and would like to pose a question I'm struggling with.  I've been working on a game design for many months now on and off, and while there are a several different issues I'm struggling with and would appreciate input on from this great community, the one giving me the most trouble design-wise at the moment is this:

I'm trying to create a table-top style system that would play well in a chat-based environment, as I've found very few real world examples of table-top translations to chat that remained effective and fun in the long term.  I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

A chat format presents several unique challenges:

1) Lots of new players will be showing up with some regularity unless everyone eventually decides the game is broken, incoherent, or ruined by a few players who have a different agenda from the majority and use whatever power they possess to intimidate others into leaving.  This includes but is not limited to the GM's or even the site owner.  Once word of this gets around the game largely ceases to attract players, save for those few who remain and their friends.  This may or may not stem from a feeling of particular players that "I want this to be for my table-top group and don't like interruptions from others."

2) The player base can potentially be much larger than a traditional table-top setting, although this can be mitigated somewhat by the use of separate chat rooms to essentially run multiple games simultaneously.  Because of 1 above, many of these players are often new to the game and initially strangers.

3) In all the RP chats I've seen, a single player or small group of players act as a fully powered GM and often use GM-Force to make things go the way they wish, even favoring the development of their own characters at times.  They often have less difficulty kicking players out than in a table-top setting because they are dealing with strangers or are at least separated by distance (no face to face confrontation).  This allows them to quickly get rid of annoying players (those who only try to ruin the experience for others out of a strange expression of vandalism) but runs the risk of turning into a power struggle or a GM's word is law situation in which most of the other players become "annoying players" from the GM's perspective.

4) Sessions often do not start and stop at specific times, although there may be a time window when games are actively running.  Instead, it is often the case that players jump in to an already running game.

Having read Ron's essays twice and a fair number of other posts, I've been pondering some different angles of approach.

The fist thing that jumped out at me was that a Simulationist focus for the game might help the random new character issue to some degree, because if exploration of the setting, character, and/or situation is an end in itself, it is possible, although not necessarily easy, to jump right in and "fit in" to the game world.  This might help address points 1 and 4 above.  Some social interaction would obviously have to be encouraged so we don't end up with a game full of hermits, but it should be possible.  Do you agree this is workable, and what are some ways this might be accomplished or has been accomplished in the past?

Secondly, while limiting the size of chat rooms and having the option of private chat rooms for specific groups of players can help with a large player base, it does not by itself help with the fact that many of the participants may be new faces.  If the rooms are small but still run by a traditional full powered GM, we have a lot of GM's running around, many of whom may not be very experienced, we have the potential for argument about who should be GM in a particular room, and we have the potential for GM's taking over because they are on a power trip or don't otherwise know how to deal with a room with mixed experienced and new players.  If some rooms are delegated "newbie," and some "experienced," with possible levels in-between, how does one know when to move from one to the other?

The only way I could think of to deal with this was to try to create a "GM-less" system, meaning that the traditional GM roles are distributed among the players in some fashion.  As long as room sizes are not too big, this might be workable.  However, the only GM-less systems I know of, Universalis, Polaris, and Capes, are all narrativist if I recall correctly.  Would this be difficult to implement as a simulationist focused game?  I would be interested to see if a narrativist approach would work as well, as I am interested in exploring moral and ethical issues that narrativist games seem to examine so well, but something would have to be done about helping newcomers to integrate, as the "fit in to the internal consistency of the world" perspective of Simulationism may no longer apply.  Perhaps a hybrid along the lines of The Riddle of Steel?  What are some potential advantages and pitfalls of these approaches?  I would appreciate help thinking this through.

Again, sorry about the length.  This is probably not as concise or carefully laid out as it could have been, but I hope you'll forgive me as it has been a long day.

-Jay

[Adam Dray]

Hey!  Welcome to the Forge.  As a quick, relevant plug, let me invite you over to the Foundry, a MUSH dedicated to indie game play and design chat. It's at legendary.org port 7777. Hop on and introduce yourself some evening.

What chat server do you use for gaming? Understanding the context will help me a bit.

I don't think Simulationism is necessarily the best option for a chat-based game. All the quick games we've run on Foundry have been little Gamist things or little Narrativist things. I think people naturally latch onto Gamist agendas (I want to kick ass, take names, and be recognized for it) and Narrativist agendas (I want this story to be about something) pretty easily.

For an online game, you'll want it to be fairly rules-light. That has nothing to do with Creative Agenda, really. Resist the urge to pile on rule after rule or complicated dice mechanisms. We're able to play Dogs in the Vineyard with some coded objects, but it'd be very difficult to play that online without the code. It's pretty easy to get a simple dice roller though, if all you're doing is rolling a d20 or a pool of 6-siders or something.

I know that a few people are playing in long-running online Dogs games (Foundry MUSH) and long-running HeroQuest games (#indierpgs on IRC) so don't give up on table-top translations.

How to solve specific problems:

Players Coming and Going

What's wrong with having closed groups? Just support having multiple groups on the same chat server. That's the tabletop model, anyway. Players might leave the group and new ones might join, but the group itself decides when to recruit.

Or consider the LARP model. Larger groups where people are off playing independently with each other, but it's all tied together. This is close to a traditional MUSH role-play style. (Foundry isn't like this at all though, just to be clear.)

The problem with people coming and going really is story continuity. If you don't care if characters disappear or appear out of thin air -- if it doesn't matter to the fiction -- then it's easy to handle this. I'd recommend writing rules that account for people joining and leaving.

You mention that groups of people will initially be strangers. Yeah, but that isn't a new problem and it isn't insurmountable. Conventions do this all the time. You show up at a designated table and play with 4-8 people you just met and have a good time.

Bullies and Griefers

You'll always have a few assholes who try to ruin the fun for everyone. No set of game rules will fix this. This is a social contract problem. In a semi-public space like a chat server, you'll want to make the social expectations very clear to every participant, and you'll want moderators who can boot people who can't get along with others.

GMless?

I think Rune is a GMless game -- or, rather, it has a GM role that is tossed around the table. The card game Munchkin doesn't need a GM and it could be upfitted with role-playing ideas.


I think the best place to go from here is for you to tell me what kind of gaming you hope to see. Maybe an example of actual play from your table-top past that you would like to happen on your chat server. We need to get this out of theory-land into some concrete details we can chew on.

[Jay Hatcher]

Hello again everyone, sorry I wasn't able to get back to this post sooner.

Adam, I appreciate your comments and the reference to the Foundry.  I will check it out sometime soon.  You brought up some good points and asked some good questions that I would like to respond to.

As far as what chat server I use or would use, I am considering writing my own (I'm an engineer with programming background) so that it could be tailored to the needs of my game.  But as far as a basic model it would probably be IRC-ish.

Regarding Simulationism, I originally brought it up because it seemed to address the potential problem of characters dropping out and new ones popping up affecting story continuity.  If the main focus of the game is simply to explore the role of a specific character within the setting, story continuity is not as critical (though by no means irrelevant).  However, your point about chat communities being largely Gamism and Narrativism oriented is well taken.  At this time, I'm not interested in my game having a Gamist focus, though that may eventually change as I continue to develop it.  So I think the best option right now is to pursue a Narrativist orientation.  What are some games that have a Narrativism focus and have worked well in a chat format?  How are issues of story continuity handled?  You mentioned that rules can be used to account for players join and leaving.  Are there any examples available or suggestions on how this might be done?  What are the Premises of these games, or more specifically, what about these games helps new players to get involved (eg. an engaging Premise, etc)?

As far as the game being rules light, I would like some clarification.  Since I'll probably be writting my own chat server (or modifying an existing one), complex dice mechanics aren't necessarily a problem, so long as invoking a given action (via a bot or some other method) is fairly straight forward regarding what to roll.  The nice thing about a computer program is that it can roll a lot of dice very quickly and even use unusual dice types (ever heard of a d3?).  What I think you might be referring to is that the game should have fairly low points of contact, in which case I agree.

"What's wrong with closed groups?"  Absolutely nothing.  I was already leaning in this direction (as I thought I indicated) and will take your response as confirmation that this is a good, workable strategy.

On a related note, I'm aware that there will always be bullies and griefers, and that some form of chat room moderating has to exist to eject especially annoying players.  What I'm more concerned about is situations when moderators/GMs abuse their power.  I should be able to prevent a lot of this as long as I am running the site (as I'm not the type of person to show favoritism), but there will come a time when I may have to pass the torch and I'm trying to be forward thinking.  Having a large player base (which I would think is a good sign that the chat sight is doing well) with fairly small player groups (i.e. private game chat rooms) would also mean a larger number of GMs, not all of which could be easily monitored for bad behavior without a large staff (which I won't have access to).  This was my initial reason for wanting to try something GM-less, as the decentralization of power means that no one person can (easily) abuse it.  Moderation could be performed by some form of voting or motion/seconding process.  I'm not familiar with Rune and was wondering if anyone had some ideas/examples of a shared GM-style system that might work well in a chat format.

As far as examples from my table-top past, unfortunately it has been several years (my table-top experience was in college) and I have not found a group in my area that appealed to me (there aren't many).  So I was looking at on-line chat as an alternative and would like to try my hand at designing a game (I'm an engineer after all, we love to design things).  Most of my chat experience has been White Wolf's Vampire and Mage games, which failed to hold my interest for long, despite the rich and interesting settings and character possibilities.

If we are looking for something less theoretical/more concrete, I'll pose this question.  How would you do Ars Magica or Mage with a Narrativist focus and a chat friendly format?  Note that my game is not specifically fantasy (more like speculative fiction) but these are some systems that I have some experience with.

While I have been responding to Adam's reply in this post, I'm very open to other people's comments, questions, and ideas.  If anything I said is unclear or if I seem to be missing a point or three, please feel free to say so.  I know I'm not perfect and don't expect anyone to be a mind reader.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I have a reference for you to check out, which I think you'll find very thought-provoking: Code of Unaris, the only RPG I know of that is designed to be played specifically over chat, and which utilizes elements of that medium as a key part of its mechanics.

Best, Ron

[Gasten]

Hi Jay!
I have played with the idea to make a mechanic specially designed for games in a chat-environment, but I couldn't figure something out. Therefore I'm very eager to do some thinking with you, so just PM/email me with your thoughts, ok?

Some thoughts:

Why do you want a simulationistic set of rules? I mean more than to the new player to feel comfortable with? I, as a player, wouldn't want to read loads of detailed rules to understand how to resolve conflicts and optimize my character (I know that it's silly, but that's me). I mean, even if a computer runs all rolling and calculating, you still have to know the rules you play after.

And if you want a GM-less game, then you need something that will drive the plot/play forward--like in the narrativeistic style, with Keys and (ever-changing) Goals and such. At least it's my opinion, since I am very narrativistic. (You ain't thinking about those "Inn"-games now, are you?

I would also suggest that you create a IRC-Bot (or service), since it is hard to get players even to a channel in a system they already have access to, it would be even harder to make them change! (well, it is possible if you have many features that is worth the pain.)

Well, as I said: PM me if you like.

Gasten