Generic Framework of an RPG Game

[Joe]

Hi fellow RPGists,

I am thinking about creating a Framework to contain the basic parts of a Roleplaying Game (tabletop for my part, for I am not willing to design any PC game and like social interaction which could then be built upon with applications of the basic concepts. Do you probably know if such RPG Framework Concept exists and if not would you join with your Ideas about it?

It would speed up the basic work of thinking out what a new RPG Game has to have (like conflict resolution, character creation etc.) and then the author can focus on higher-level decisions and choose the applications for the lower-level decisions like:

• what type of conflict resolution to use (dice, cards, plain description of actions...)
• how the character shall be descripted (individual skill assignment or career or mix of both or aspects ála Fate RPG...)
• or what the amount of player contribution to the story is relevant (GM has the first and last word or all is player-oriented without any GM...)
• etc.

Joe

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Joe,

I'm glad you've posted. Can you please provide an example, any example, of an experience that you've actually in role-playing?

This is not giving information to the enemy. It is an absolutely cognitive requirement for productive discussions of this kind.

Best, Ron

[Joe]

Hi Ron,

the truth is that I have quite no first-hand experience from RPG playing. In those 10+ years that I have lived around RPGs I have only played two sessions (Lord of the Rings - a local translation), once at home (not a very good session), once in school (better but not long-lasting). Most of the time I dedicate to studying and reading various RPGs, discussing them and RPG in general in our local fora and translating for our local community.

Therefore you may find me rather a theoretist than a player, bur I consider myself pragmatical. I don't like theory for theory itself - it must have a practical application and use. As this Framework should have

Joe

[Filip Luszczyk]

Hmm, what are your reasons for working on the framework you mention?

Generally, I think your lack of actual play experience is very problematic here - i.e. regardless how much you analyze texts themselves, they are never the same thing as the process occurring at the table. It's like considering food on the basis of cooking recipes only, but without actually having tasted a dish similar enough to relate. It would be hard to derive a good advice for a cook from idealized representation in one's mind.

I can only recommend playing as many games as you can.

Also, I'm interested about your motivations for "living around RPGs" for such a long time without actually playing them. Especially that it doesn't seem like the only two sessions you played were very satisfying. I think it might be a good topic for discussion, as there are many people like you - but they rarely go into details about their approach to the hobby and, hmm, goals of non-play. Care to elaborate?

[Joe]

Hmm, what are your reasons for working on the framework you mention?

Generally, I think your lack of actual play experience is very problematic here - i.e. regardless how much you analyze texts themselves, they are never the same thing as the process occurring at the table. It's like considering food on the basis of cooking recipes only, but without actually having tasted a dish similar enough to relate. It would be hard to derive a good advice for a cook from idealized representation in one's mind.

I can only recommend playing as many games as you can.

Also, I'm interested about your motivations for "living around RPGs" for such a long time without actually playing them. Especially that it doesn't seem like the only two sessions you played were very satisfying. I think it might be a good topic for discussion, as there are many people like you - but they rarely go into details about their approach to the hobby and, hmm, goals of non-play. Care to elaborate?

HI Filip (Poland? Slovakia here ),
thx for interest in me.

Ad. game experience - yes, I agree. Nothing teaches you RPGs better than actual play. Though in a small way also thinking about it, living your life, growing up and picturing it in your mind (various situations and how you would react) can teach you something. I myself have an advantage that my dad is an opera singer so here and there I get to the Theatre and dont have problems with theatrical appearance (just like roleplaying).

What I meant here is to create the mechanical part of the RPG Game, based on a Framework. For instance using diceless resolution versus d10 resolution is a difference I can clearly see and also envision (with diceless you have to actually get to talk about what exactly you are doing in the scene, what are you trying on your opponent and how and why you want your character to succeed)

Ad. living around RPGs - I guess a new Topic would be appropriate... just suggest where and in which section as I am new here?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Joe,

All of this is the same topic! Let's keep it together in this thread.

I'm interested in your answers to Filip's questions, but I'd also like to say, please tell us more about those two sessions of role-playing that you mentioned. What were they like? What happened? Why wasn't the one session successful?

Best, Ron

[Filip Luszczyk]

(Poland? Slovakia here )

What I meant here is to create the mechanical part of the RPG Game, based on a Framework. For instance using diceless resolution versus d10 resolution is a difference I can clearly see and also envision (with diceless you have to actually get to talk about what exactly you are doing in the scene, what are you trying on your opponent and how and why you want your character to succeed)

Ok, I dig what you want to create. What I'm having a difficult time understanding is why exactly are you interested in creating it in the first place. For example when I design games I do this because there's a particular play experience I'd like to get, but there are no tools available that could be applied to facilitate it. Rarely, I'm designing for design's sake, to expand on a compelling idea - but even if I don't come back to such project, I always find the effort worthwile, as it teaches me things I can later use to create better games that I'll actually play.

So, I'd like to know the perspective you're coming from. And the answer is definitely connected with mine and Ron's remaining questions, as they provide a broader context.

[Joe]

Mainly I want to create it because I like to make structures (and Tables) and like to fiddle with such things - for me it is pure fun and also a test of my skills. And also some of my friends on local fora tend to think on new game approaches so it would be a nice addition to tools, suited for Game creation. Dont know if it is enough or not to start, but for me definitely. Something like yours "designing for design sake". :-)

I guess it would not be that difficult to collect ideas of various people from games they play as to what creates the rules for those games. And what are the ground points of these games upon to which you can build and expand them up to the limit where you cross the line to actual in-game application.

-------------

To those two sessions:

It was the Lord of the Rings Adventure game - http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=2618
One problem surely was that the adventures in it were pre-prepared and quite linear. Secondly, true, I was not much of a gamemaster then and had not todays Age, nor experience, so I had to follow it quite paragraph after paragraph.

The first session - with family members - suffered purely from unpreparedness of the players for such game (they never before played nor encountered such a game save for my brother) and therefore the lack of imagination as to what they can and before all SHOULD do with their characters. So it was like - tell them what happens, await some answers, push them a little, push them a little more, hear some crazy solutions, some normal solutions (like we break inside or kill everybody) and so on. As there were scenes happening one after another (mostly) linearly, there was little room to judge and improvise on my side (and I had no experience in it either). Therefore we soon get bored and stopped after few scenes (half an hour if I remember correctly).

The second session (starting the same adventure) was with school mates and was way better as they were more interested in it and also knew about such games here and there. We got along quite good and even when we needed to follow the story, it was ok. After that we never came back to it but I have the Character sheets (and the whole game) yet, reminding me of this day :-)

After that I bought also Shadowrun 2nd Edition and studied it, but never again had the opportunity to play with someone. I guess I also changed hobbies around during those early years, coming and going to and fro between other things and RPGs. Played on PC, surely, but never tabletop.

Then I joined our local fora and was swallowed with translation. I took Wizard's Handbook from ADnD and dived in. I translated it into Czech (not my native, but the language of the local fora - Czech Rep. is a neighbour and the languages are quite the same with different phrasing and wording but understandable for us) and even if it took like 2 years of slower or faster work, I did it.

After that I became more and more involved into tabletop RPGs, translating something here, reading some rules there and so on. Planning finally to meet the people from my local fora in a personal Con of sorts (round 30 pieces of meat) and also play some games finally.

I am interested mostly in FATE, Amber Diceless, Tri-Stat dX, Ars Magica, ICAR Rpg and some others. I prefer light-rules RPGs but if I would experience one of those heavier-rules-rpgs on my own (such as Burning Wheel for instance), I would not protest to learn.

As a GM I would prefer imagination over preparation and even diceless system over ton of different Dice (this is mostly the problem of mine to get indo d20 or DnD - never succeeded to do it or to persuade myself to stay reading the rules).

I hope you have more insides on me now and indeed this is the first longer article about my RPG history that I have written so far... Damn... after 10 years.... ;-)

Joe

[Filip Luszczyk]

Hey, that Lord of the Rings adventure game was the very first RPG I ever played, too! Well, not counting one session of a homebrew rpg-ish game derived from whatever I could find in an accidentaly bought rpg magazine, heh.

Also, looking from perspective, it was one of the worst introductory games I've ever seen. I can't think of a single thing it did right to support complete newbies having a fun time during their first session - and it taught the whole "GM tells his masterfully pre-planned story, you listen" crap. Only, the story was actually rather simplistic and uninspired, complete with the whole meeting with Gandalf mandatory checkpoint that was probably supposed to be the selling point for the players.

No wonder your games weren't very satisfying.

Back in those days, there was a pretty good introductory game available in Poland (Oko Yrhedessa by Andrzej Sapkowski), fortunately, that did a great job to cover the basics. I'm glad I've found it soon after my first experiences with that LotR adventure game.

Anyway, I think it's fascinating that you actually didn't give up after the first tries, and delved deeper into the hobby, even though there was no one to play with for all those years. So, are you able to say what actually kept you interested in RPGs?

In my case, these were probably the promises of better play experience served by the rpg magazine (which was basically the only contact with rpgs at large and the only means to learn anything about the hobby I had at the time). Also, my tinkering instinct kicked in, and instead of making some homebrew board games I switched to rpgs, for some reason (i.e. I immediately started to modify the LotR game, and riff off from what I could see in the magazine). Probably, the whole idea of immersing in a fantasy world was more compelling to me as a kid than board and computer games that offered very limited freedom.

However, I've been playing rather regularly for most of those years, and I continually felt driven to improve the experience by subsequent flawed attempts - what I've been getting from the hobby had a minimum amount of this captivating factor but for quite a long time it wasn't quite "it".

So, I wonder how it could have worked in your case, without any active hook.

[Joe]

You know, I have patience. A lot I must admit. And when I like something even if I drift from it for a time or feel that I cannot fully exploit it in the given time, I let it lay dormant until the interest (and a kicker for it) returns so it can rise from the dust and settle back on its place.

In my case it were the translations - you can imagine the almost two years work on the Wizards Handbook - and not into my own native language yet (I guess my fellow czech editor-friends from our fora were tearing their hair then ;-) ) and later the sheer community and distant electronic friendships - and a dream of playing one day never ceased to exist and actually evolved further.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Joe,

I'm glad you posted that information! It makes a big difference.

I am not sure whether you know about the body of theory developed here at the Forge, now called the Big Model. The best introduction is probably the opening pages of The Provisional Glossary. If you'd like to see the four or five articles that led to this model, the logical sequence of links can be found in the sticky posts at the top of the now-archival GNS forum. The Wikipedia entry for the Big Model is also quite good.

The Big Model concerns the activity of play, leaving the details of (say) social frameworks and (also) specific rules organization for separate discussions.

I think what you've described can be discussed in Big Model terms. Let me know whether you're interested in doing that.

[Paul T]

Joe,

Another resource you might consider checking out is this:

John Kirk's Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games PDF

A detailed work by John Kirk, designer of the Legendary Quest RPG, available at http://www.legendaryquest.com, on design patterns of RPG's, nitty gritty mechanics abstraction & design as engineering.

Cheers,


Paul

[Joe]

HI Ron,

heard a little about the Big Model, in fact I am going to listen to a Podcast from the Theory from the Closet range where it is discussed (and also I may look it in detail). Though I think it encompasses more than just the RPG Game itself and its layout and contents - it deals with social aspect and people also. Therefore it is maybe an Ancestor of what I want to work on.

Hi Paul,

yup, saw it already and in fact I began translating it (after speaking with John Kirk), some 10% or so done till now  :-).
A minor problem is that the work is unfinished and at times the references are out-of-sync (due to incompletion). Dont know if John will work on it again, I might write him a mail again and ask :-) The other problem is that I am currently involved in two other translations on RPGs (one of them is ICAR Rpg) so Time is the foremost thing I dont have (my wife could tell you... I have to translate mainly in work!!!!!!! ^_^ )

[Joe]

So, to move forward. Here I will begin defining basic parts of an RPG rules-book (not all must be a part of the particular game but these are the most commonly used ones).

Introduction to RPGs
Introductory story (if the game is tied to a setting)
Explanation of terms used throughout the book
Character creation
Game mechanics
Equipment
Monsters
Setting description
Sample stories (with pre-meade characters)
Gamemastering tips - creation of adventures and advices for playing
Index

Please expand the base if you have something and also fill in sub-cathegories for these basics.