Power Distribution in Games

[Ben Lehman]

Read some of the things about power dynamics in this forum, and thought I would delurk and post an essay about power in RPGs, and how it relates to system, setting, and player roles.

   Before I begin, a couple of notes.
   I am unfamiliar with GNS terminology, and thus I may misuse it.  Because of this, I'm going to try to use my own terms (defined below).  If these have GNS equivalents, please let me know.  I am aware that GNS are supposed to represent play-styles, rather than systems, but here I am using them in the colloquial form to represent system design methods.
   I don't think that I'm the first person to, say, not see wargames as the baseline of RPGs.  If all of this has already been thought of, that's spiffy-cool.  I haven't read the entire archives of the Forge.  Point me to the essay.
   By "player" I mean any participant in an RPG, including the "GM" or "GMs" if the game system calls for them.
   By "power" I refer to the ability to manipulate the fantasy world of the game, either through out of game or in game methods.
   By "conflict" I mean any disagreement.

   It seems to me that wargames are often seen as the "baseline form" of RPGs, and that all the other features of an RPG are add-ons, outgrowths, or evolutions from this basic form.  I think that this view is somewhat misguided.  I think that the baseline of the RPG is the pretend games that we play as children.  You know, "I'll be a knight, you be a dragon, and then I'll kill you and save the princess."  "But I was the dragon last time!"
   The key interest, and problem, with these games is that all players have unlimited power.  While this can turn out to be really great, in the case that everyone doesn't step on each other's toes, it can also be really awful in the "I shot you" "no you didn't!" "did too" "did not" sort of way.
   I believe that all game systems, social contracts, "modes of play," and such are methods of restricting player power in assorted ways.  I don't think that restricting power is a bad thing, just that the realization makes classifying restrictions much much easier.  In fact, without an extraordinary amount of out of game trust (which restricts power in its own ways), I feel that power restrictions are necessary for an enjoyable game.
   That said, I'm going to elaborate on how various RPG modes look to this view:
   The classic "GM/player" division is a way of heavily restricting player power.  Most of the players, in such a scenario, are only responsible for a single character in the scenario, and the GM is responsible for everything else.  When a player conflicts with another player, system comes into play to resolve the disagreement.  This can be done through a number of methods.
   Most "Narrativist" games that I have seen mess with this mode of power restriction in one way or another.  Lighter Nar games allow players some control of the external world and events, through means assorted means of player power distribution, while keeping the GM essentially in charge (The Pool, say, and its Monologues of Victory).  Hardcore Nar games do away with the position of GM all-together, and modulate power over the world via some other game system (I am thinking of Universalis here).  The two keys here seem to be that power remains restricted (despite the fears of more traditional players) and that the power distribution is largely at an out-of-game level.
   Most well-designed Gamist games restrict power via the GM/player structure AND a carefully plotted out system of exactly what your character is and is not allowed to do.  For instance, if I say "my character spins around, killing everything in sight," it is a violation of Gamist principles unless my character has a "whirlwind attack" ability, in which case, it is explicitly allowed and, in fact, no one can counteract it without their own trump ability.  Two notions:
   1) A pure gamist game is wildly dull -- or, at least, it plays very much like Diablo.  Most "Gamist" players, I reckon, are thus NOT playing for purely Gamist ends.
   2) On that note, Gamism and Narrativism are NOT impossible to mix.  All you have to do is allow distributed narrative power within an explicit, power-balanced, ability system.  For instance, a player could have the power "Flashback: Spend two Story Points and set up a flashback scene that pertains the present scene."  You're just distributing narrative power to the players in a gamist way.
   Simulationism is a method of restricting player power through genre.  For instance, the old Marvel Super Heroes RPG (a good example of genre simulation) punishes players for murder and committing crimes, while it encourages players to maintain their character's "normal human" lives via rewards.  This models very well "what happens in the comics," but it is a restriction on player power.  Similarly, a game which is trying to be "realistic" restricts player power by preventing them from doing things which couldn't normally happen.  "You can't survive a 20000 foot fall!  It's unrealistic!"

   Upon reflection, there is a lot more to be done with this.  Here are some questions:
   What other methods of restricting player power are there?  How useful are they to assorted goals?
   The "system--" a broad category that covers resolution, mechanics, setting, and genre, seems to have a share of its narrative power, which can be reduced by calling upon one of the above.  For instance, a gamist limitation on a system is that it must be power-balanced and "fair."  A simulationist response is that it must fit genre.
   Could one see all games (not just RPGs) as merely highly-restricted subsets of this?  What sorts of other things could be highly restricted subsets?  Arts?  To what degree is this useful at all?
   This essay mainly addresses the distribution of power.  But it does not address the goals of play.  Is the type of power distribution linked to the goals?  How?  In what situations are what methods useful?  I think anothe short essay on this might be forthcoming from my brain.

 Thoughts?

yrs--
--Ben Lehman

[Mike Holmes]

Nice to see a returnee. :-)

I don't think that I'm the first person to, say, not see wargames as the baseline of RPGs.  If all of this has already been thought of, that's spiffy-cool.  I haven't read the entire archives of the Forge.  Point me to the essay.

...
It seems to me that wargames are often seen as the "baseline form" of RPGs, and that all the other features of an RPG are add-ons, outgrowths, or evolutions from this basic form.  I think that this view is somewhat misguided.  I think that the baseline of the RPG is the pretend games that we play as children.  You know, "I'll be a knight, you be a dragon, and then I'll kill you and save the princess."  "But I was the dragon last time!"

The notion of "baseline" as far as Wargames is historical. That is, the people who made the first published RPG, D&D, were wargamers trying to make a new and more compolicated wargame. As such, that's what they got. I could go into more detail, but as you guessed it's already been discussed to death. Do a search on "wargaming heritage" and the like.

Fortunately it's not important to the rest of your essay. We here all agree that the purpose of any rule system is to distribute power. Thus, the wargamers were affected by the "kids play" need to define things in terms of powers long before the RPG came along.

I believe that all game systems, social contracts, "modes of play," and such are methods of restricting player power in assorted ways.  I don't think that restricting power is a bad thing, just that the realization makes classifying restrictions much much easier.  In fact, without an extraordinary amount of out of game trust (which restricts power in its own ways), I feel that power restrictions are necessary for an enjoyable game.

This is refered to by various names, but one you'll see a lot is called the Lumpley Principle. It states very much the same thing. I'd search for that one, too.

BTW, I like your term Power, and use it a lot myself.

Most "Narrativist" games that I have seen mess with this mode of power restriction in one way or another.

Buzz. Wrong answer, sorry. That's one of the seven misconceptions of Narrativism. Many Narrativist games use Director Stance (which is what you're looking for). Or, by your and my favorite term, players often have power to use director stance in many of these games. But it's not at all a requirement, and not at all a one to one relationship.

Lighter Nar games allow players some control of the external world and events, through means assorted means of player power distribution, while keeping the GM essentially in charge (The Pool, say, and its Monologues of Victory).

Actually I'd call The Pool pretty hardcore. In fact we used to have a different name for what you call hardcore, "Pervy". Now we say the more politically correct "Point's of Contact" as in The Pool has rather whacky points of contact.

Hardcore Nar games do away with the position of GM all-together, and modulate power over the world via some other game system (I am thinking of Universalis here).  The two keys here seem to be that power remains restricted (despite the fears of more traditional players) and that the power distribution is largely at an out-of-game level.

Would it interest you to know that as a designer of the game that I'd place it only as a very slightly Narrativist game, if at all? And that others have said otehrwise (in ways I can't argue against too well)? All Director Stance all the time. Narrativism by Drift only. :-)

Sorcerer is an example of a Narrativist game that keeps the traditional power split entirely intact. You play the character, GM plays the world.

Two notions:
   1) A pure gamist game is wildly dull -- or, at least, it plays very much like Diablo.  Most "Gamist" players, I reckon, are thus NOT playing for purely Gamist ends.

Some people like Diablo, you know. Lot's of people play it. More than play RPGs. Why wouldn't they play Gamist RPGs? They do. It's the general opinion here that it's a completely valid way to play (and that always comes off sounding like I'm saying "It's OK to be gay;" Never sounds genuine).

2) On that note, Gamism and Narrativism are NOT impossible to mix.  All you have to do is allow distributed narrative power within an explicit, power-balanced, ability system.  For instance, a player could have the power "Flashback: Spend two Story Points and set up a flashback scene that pertains the present scene."  You're just distributing narrative power to the players in a gamist way.

Lot's of games that do this. As we can see, it's not impossible to have Director Stance in a Gamist game. See games like Pantheon.

What this is not is simultanous Narrativism and Gamism. Actually a game can have both. One simply cannot make both kinds of decisions at the same time. That's what's mutually exclusive.

Here are some questions:

What other methods of restricting player power are there?  How useful are they to assorted goals?

Nigh infinite I'd guess. At least if you look at increments.

The "system--" a broad category that covers resolution, mechanics, setting, and genre, seems to have a share of its narrative power, which can be reduced by calling upon one of the above.  For instance, a gamist limitation on a system is that it must be power-balanced and "fair."  A simulationist response is that it must fit genre.

What we usually say is that system promotes or works against certain styles of play. Thus when we say a Narrativist Game, we mean "a game that promotes the players making Narrativist decisions.

Could one see all games (not just RPGs) as merely highly-restricted subsets of this?  What sorts of other things could be highly restricted subsets?  Arts?  To what degree is this useful at all?

I'm not sure what this section refers to. Could you elaborate?

This essay mainly addresses the distribution of power.  But it does not address the goals of play.  Is the type of power distribution linked to the goals?  How?  In what situations are what methods useful?  

That's been a thousand dollar question for a while. There are some goals that seem to be linked to certain styles, but it's all very nebulous. Nobody get's very far trying to discuss it because there are an infinite number of goals.

I think anothe short essay on this might be forthcoming from my brain.

Cool.

Mike

[Emily Care]

Hi Ben,

Glad to hear from you.

Taking a cue from Mike, here's the original Lumpley Principle Thread: Vincent's Standard Rant: Power, Credibility and Assent. Try it, you'll like it.

The way you're looking at GNS seems to be that the different goals of the styles are used to restrict what participants can do.  This may be 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of another between that and what Mike said.  Coherent games, games that (mostly) do lead players to experience GNS conflicts, would both promote/discourage certain types of decisions and instances of play.  

What you might be saying, which is against canon, is that any certain distribution of directorial/gm/creative/authoritative power is implicit in any of the three styles.  It is explicitly stated that all of them can be used with any breakdown of authority. What you call power, sounds like Exploration to me from the main GNS essay.

But I'd be all for a discussion of how the different distributions work within the GNS or any other paradigm.  In my experience, sim/vanilla narrativist play(world-based exploration with emergent plot and openness to exploring theme through character) works well with a very even distribution of all types of creative power (about system/world/character/narrative etc) among players.  

I would think that gamist play(which needs a stricter definition than the one in the initial post in this thread, but then Ron is hard at work on that essay even now...), would be a heck of a lot easier with just one cook in the kitchen, I mean, gm.  

Regards,
Emily Care

[Ben Lehman]

First things first -- using GNS terminology in the essay was misguided, and I would like people to ignore the fact that I used it.
The first type of power limitation I talked about was, essentially, "Director Power Limitation" (you can only take director power if you...) not Narrativism.
The second is "Ability-based power limitation," not Gamism.
The third is "Setting and genre based power limitation," not Simulationism.

GNS represents the goals of play, rather than the apportioning of power.  GNS stance is what you do with the power, rather than otherwise.  I think.  I am still wildly confused about the model, especially the definitions of N and S, and I will be splitting that off into a thread in the GNS forum shortly.

Other responses--  Thanks, Emily and Mike!

Wargaming history:  I am aware of the history of RPGs.  What I was trying to say (rather clumsily) was that the RPG, stripped down to its most basic, is a play-pretend game, rather than a wargame.  And, given that recreational wargames are descended from "Little Wars" which is descended from imaginary play, it is also the historical roots.  ;-)

Lumpley Principle:  Cool thread!  I am definitely in the Valamir school of "system as extra player."  More on that later.

Gamism:  I have an essay boiling inside me on why Gamism is a very good thing, and a satisfying RPG play style.  It's called "the Gentleman Gamist" and it should be posted shortly to the GNS forum.  But, what I was getting at was that in-system power gaining (also known as minmaxing) is not necessarily done for Gamist ends.  This is often an assumption, and I think it is flawed.  More on that in afformentioned essay, and below.

So I have thought a bit more about what I was getting at with the post, and it is this:

We can divide a role-playing game into two things: A power-distribution method and the goal of play.

A game without a power distribution method gives all of its players infinite power, which is a problem.  Thus, almost all games have a setting which provides context as to what is possible and a system which provides resolution to disputes and possibly more, depending on how much power is invested in it.  The power distribution mechanic can be explicit, like in Universalis, or implicit, like in many games.  It can also be very weak (such as most "systemless" GM fiat games) or very strong (such as in chess.)  There are assorted ways of doing this -- many games use several.  I would like to try to enumerate them, but I do not know if they are enumerable.

Games also have goals -- usually the goal is to have fun.  The question then becomes how people should act to have fun, which I think leads into the three modes of play.  Note that there is a subtle tension here between the goals of the players and the goal of play.  The best example I can think of is go -- as a player, you play to win, but the goal of the game is to have an interesting, challenging game.  Hence, there are handicaps and other such things.  Maintaining seperate player and game goals requires a cognitive dissonance which I think might make for interesting discussion.

I think that this model can be applied to all games, not just RPGs.  It might be possible to apply it to other human endeavors, as well...

Is this more or less clear?

yrs--
--Ben

[M. J. Young]

Two quick things.

The first is that, if I understand aright, I agree that the gamist, narrativist, and simulationist models can be extended beyond role playing games. One sees the gamist and simulationist aspects frequently in wargaming (the difference between playing the game to win versus playing it to see what would happen), and to a considerably lesser degree in board games (most of which are gamist, although rarely simulationist design issues arise). Narrativism doesn't usually appear outside role playing games generally, although that may be primarily because there's not much you can do with it in a board game.

The second is that I think what you are calling "power" has come to take the term "credibility" in local usage. By "credibility" we mean whose statement of the reality within the game is taken as correct. At one point credibility was distinguished from "authority". The suggestion was that rules and possibly other printed materials such as modules were authoritative, in that those in the game could appeal to them to resolve arguments, but that the application of those rules was still determined by the distribution of credibility in play. In most games, the referee's interpretation is regarded as the most credible, that is, once the rule is read it means whatever he says it means (and if you think he's crazy, you're in essence deciding that he's not a good referee because he doesn't follow the rules in the way you understand them).

At first I wasn't going to mention this distinction; but your reference to the power levels of characters seemed a good reason to distinguish the terms--a fortieth level paladin may be a powerful character, but this doesn't necessarily give his player more credibility. Also, if you search for credibility you might find more insights into it, as I know the term has been used numerous times since it was coined.

--M. J. Young

[Ben Lehman]

The second is that I think what you are calling "power" has come to take the term "credibility" in local usage. By "credibility" we mean whose statement of the reality within the game is taken as correct. At one point credibility was distinguished from "authority". The suggestion was that rules and possibly other printed materials such as modules were authoritative, in that those in the game could appeal to them to resolve arguments, but that the application of those rules was still determined by the distribution of credibility in play. In most games, the referee's interpretation is regarded as the most credible, that is, once the rule is read it means whatever he says it means (and if you think he's crazy, you're in essence deciding that he's not a good referee because he doesn't follow the rules in the way you understand them).

At first I wasn't going to mention this distinction; but your reference to the power levels of characters seemed a good reason to distinguish the terms--a fortieth level paladin may be a powerful character, but this doesn't necessarily give his player more credibility. Also, if you search for credibility you might find more insights into it, as I know the term has been used numerous times since it was coined.

BL>  Having only read the original thread, I don't know how the term has developed, but I think that, if your second comment is true of "credibility," I am touching on a very slightly larger set of credibility.  Power is defined as "the ability to effect the fantasy world."  In that case, the player of a 40th level paladin IS granted more power than the player of a 20th level paladin -- through the operation of his character within the game system, the first player can effect the game world (through Greater Miracles which become availible at 37th level, say) in ways that the player of the 20th level character simply cannot.  The player of the higher level character simply has more power than the player of the lower level character, all other factors being equal.  Of course, the power only applies to specific circumstances, but there is nothing strange about that -- most power restrictions are circumstantial.

I think that "power" may be slightly larger than "credibility."  Credibility tracks out of game social dynamics, "power" tracks all things that effect the gameworld, inside the game or out.  You could argue that all power is actually credibility, but I think that in some extreme cases (Chess, say) this is blatantly untrue.

yrs--
--Ben

[Paganini]

Ben,

You said: "[Power is] The ability to effect the fantasy world."

And then:

I think that "power" may be slightly larger than "credibility."  Credibility tracks out of game social dynamics, "power" tracks all things that effect the gameworld, inside the game or out.  You could argue that all power is actually credibility, but I think that in some extreme cases (Chess, say) this is blatantly untrue.

You have to remember that all of this takes place in the context of Exploration. Exploration is "group imagining," right? The fictional reality is created by the collective imagination of the group.

The thing is, a group is made up of individuals. Multiple people (usually) can't simultaneously define the shared reality... there will be conflict and inconsistency. (I.e., if I say that an NPC is dead, and another player says that an NPC escapes, there has to be some way to establish which thing actually ocurrs in the shared reality... they can't both exist.)

Credibility just means "right at this instant, your imaging takes precedence and is incorporated into the fictional reality."

I'm making an assumption here for the sake of discussion that imagination takes place when it's actually expressed. Up until the point where its expressed, the imagination exists only in the mind of a single player. It only exists as part of the shared reality once it's been expressed. So, credibility simply means "your word is cannon at this instant." Credibility doesn't necessarily mean "he who speaks." It means "he who defines." The person with credibility can be different from the person who narrates, in any given instance of play. Take Donjon for example. If I'm remembering correctly, when a player succeeds at a roll he gets to define a number of Facts equal his margin of success. These Facts are defined using full director stance. The player has credibility. But... the GM does the narrating.

[lumpley]

Hi Ben.

In that case, the player of a 40th level paladin IS granted more power than the player of a 20th level paladin

I agree absolutely.  In fact, I'd say that the ONLY difference between a 40th level paladin and a 20th level paladin is that the player of the 40th level one has more power than the player of the 20th level one.

In those kinds of games, character effectiveness is the way that you can tell how credible another player's statement is.

-Vincent

[Mike Holmes]

Wargaming history:  I am aware of the history of RPGs.  What I was trying to say (rather clumsily) was that the RPG, stripped down to its most basic, is a play-pretend game, rather than a wargame.  And, given that recreational wargames are descended from "Little Wars" which is descended from imaginary play, it is also the historical roots.  ;-)

All depends on what you strip, now doesn't it?

Another way to look at it is that Games as organized activities are an ancient idea. But even they have rules. And that's what we're really talking about. Rules are what make the difference between random play, and an organized activity. And, yes all rules serve to empower the players to perform in some way in the context of the activity in question.

This is only the Social Contract as illuminated by Hobbes at work.

Certainly we feel the need for rules at an early age. So I suppose from that POV, RPGs descend from child's play (as we're all products of childhood). But only by that circuitous path, IMO.

Anyhow, the conclusion is much more important than the origin. We all agree that the point of the rules is to apportion power.

Mike

[Emily Care]

A game without a power distribution method gives all of its players infinite power, which is a problem.

Let's see, that's an interesting statement.  I  think it may have been a throw away comment, but it points to a lot of underlying assumptions about distribution of narrative power (by which I simply mean "the power to create and determine credible elements of the game world" what is being called "power" here. I do not imply anything to do with narrativism).

What is infinite power? The power to say anything and have it be instantly credible.  A game that did that would be neat.  And could be infuriating.  Well, actually any game could do that, but pretty much the only way you could play is that everyone involved could come to some agreement about what was acceptable. Which brings us to:

A game with no explicit method of power distribution distributes power equally among all participants.  

And of course, all participants will not (most likely) have access to the same resources to play. It won't be an even playing field. Some people will be better at understanding/remembering/applying mechanics, some will have social power in the group (ie they are good at getting other people to go along with them), some people will be more creative etc.  

A game that doesn't explicitly distribute power leaves determination of credibility up to the social dynamics of the group. This can cause conflict, that's one function of rules: to facilitate group concensus (the Lumpley Principle).  This is pretty much what Mike is saying too: "The purpose of rules is to apportion power."

Seems like they do so in (at least) two ways:

One is that they give a clear way to determine credibility. (reduces conflict) This is basically editorial power.

Another is to help people have ideas about and ways to interact with or create the game world that they might not have thought up on their own.
(empowers) This is creative power.

--Emily Care