Something by way of a counterpoint.

[Cadriel]

There's never going to be a system that everyone can agree on, because people have different things that they want out of games.  For any given system, there's always going to be someone who won't be happy with everything in it.  To put it another way, if everyone who plays a system winds up having to change things in it, then it wasn't well designed.  But if only some people who play it have to change things to have a satisfactory experience, then it was well-designed for those who don't have to change it.

Well, I'm working from a different assumption of what change really means in terms of impact on a role-playing game.  The industry standard, which I am actively disgusted with and currently refuse to support, is basically to design a system that tries to be open to the needs of many gamers but fails to reach most of them because of this.  System is an extraordinarily powerful tool, and it doesn't get much respect at all.  Elements of system that subtly reflect a designer's assumptions can have significant impact on gameplay.  Take, for instance, the question within Call of Cthulhu as to whether or not Investigators should have minimum base chances of success in a handful of skills (this has changed across versions).  It really changes gameplay.  It matters, and it reflects at every level.  A part of saying System Does Matter is recognizing that everything in a system has an impact on gameplay.

The attitude that "well, if you don't like it, you can fudge it" is bogus and dead wrong.  I've found that, in reasonably well designed games, it's just not a matter of picking and choosing.  Because the games are written as a whole, the average gamer modifying elements of a system will find that a lot of the subtler bits and pieces begin to backfire.  Unless a game is completely modular, the component parts of the system are integrated and designed to be used that way, and the desired effect is not necessarily achieved when used otherwise.  In short, I don't think that most games worth playing can be fudged nearly as easily or as well as some people tend to assume; when they are run successfully in this way, the result may have more to do with the fact that the GM has an implicit system going that just overrides large swaths of the stated game.  (This is one of the things I was thinking of with the remark "Don't say you're using a set of rules if you're not going to use them."

As far as your reactions to my reactions to your manifesto go -- I'm not trying to tell you what to do with your manifesto.  I'm just giving my reactions to it.  To me, it seems that GOO's manifesto goes in one direction, and yours goes in another.  The main thing that I'd like to get across is that there is a middle ground which recognizes both manifestos as talking about styles of play that work.

--Travis

I'm not much of one for middle grounds.  I think that the GoO manifesto is precisely a lot of the attitude of the industry, and I feel that the industry will die of not making money long before the hobby goes under.  Roleplaying game designers don't make terribly much as it stands; in the future I think this will only be more so instead of less.  The hobby that survives has to be clear about what it is, and I don't think that sucking up to the GoO-style corporate standard is a part of that.

-Wayne

[Jason Lee]

Wow, the thread exploded...guess I'll talk to a bunch of people at once.

Starting with Justin,

Where does everyone get Illusionism and the Impossible Thing here?
 
What I'm reading is a statement that says the buck stops with the GM, but he works on behalf of the players' interests.  Thus, it's only encouraging Illusionism if that's what the players want.  There's nothing here that limits player input or control anywhere short of saying they can't overrule the GM.  And (in any game that has a GM), it's important that players accept his authority without constant conflict.

Perfectly legit way to interpret.  The Impossible Thing sounds pretty absolute, but I don't really take any of the theory as black and white.  It's not that an Impossible Thing text cannot have a functional interpretation, but that a dysfunctional interpretation could also be one of the valid and accessible ways to interpret the text; such that if you are predisposed to the behavior, the text would seem to support the behavior.

As far as Illusionism, the manifesto says squat directly about Illusionism.  Illusionism seems to be a pretty common way to resolve the Impossible Thing contradiction without violating the phrasing.  You get your cake and you get to eat it too, even if it is just phantom cake.  So, I think the manifesto encourages Illusionism because I see the Impossible Thing and Illusionism is a solution to the Impossible Thing.  It certainly isn't the only solution or a requirement, just a connection.

[Jason Lee]

Great post. And very clearly and well said on a number of points. I agree with your extension of the "GM has all the power" line. Yes, it would be good to say that. There are probably very definite reasons why they don't write all their text that way--but I like your version *much* better.

Thanks Marco,

I don't think it comes from misunderstandings and I don't think it comes from game books. I've seen (and everyone else has seen too, if they think about it) that behavior across a wide spectrum of situations that have no instructions nor anything to do with gaming.
 
Since I don't believe any single person actually *does* believe the impossible thing, it comes down to a GM running the game in a naive or overbearing manner ... and players deciding that's a perfect place to scratch their power-struggle itch (IMO).  
 
I agree that people can and will read into things what they want to. They'll ignore what they don't want to hear. Yes. At that point though, you have people doing what they want to regardless of instructions. Therefore, the instructions are not the cause. An excuse, perhaps. But not the cause.
 
An attempt to make the rules a less vaild excuse is fine--but here, in doing so, I think people blame the rules themselves, that loses sight of real cause of the behavior (or, at least, what I precieve it to be): the need to power-struggle.

I agree with you.  I sorta said this in my reply to Justin...but, to me, the Impossible Thing doesn't really say anything more complicated than "Try to avoid encouraging power struggles".  The player really is the problem, first and foremost, but Impossible Thing text encourages his behavior instead of something better.  Except, I do think a player could be engaging in the behavior because of ignorance instead of a desire for conflict - he just thinks that's how it's supposed to work and hasn't yet figured out why it doesn't.  I think if Impossible Thing text is sufficiently contradictory it could be to blame.  I think these players would be super easy to fix with just little decent text, but even without will fix on their own given a little time.

[greyorm]

I do believe that rules matter, but I also believe that no system can accurately map more than a few percent of the human experience; and to think anything different is, in my view, crazy. We have to understand that no system will ever be able to do everything, and we have to acknowledge that judgements will have to be made.

I think you're talking past each other here: No one is claiming that rules must cover all possibilities. The issue is "Do the rules produce what the text says they will?" not "Do the rules cover every possible base?"

When I see text that says about the rules, "Just ignore us (the rules) when we get in the way!" I see, "We (the rules) don't know what we're doing!" and I wonder about the solidity of the design -- not whether they can produce accurate results, not whether they can cover any conceivable situation, but whether they'll stand up to use in actual play -- I wonder why they are even included if they can just be ignored -- that is, why include them in the first place if they aren't important to the experience of play?

[greyorm]

Okay Raven, let me see if I've got it.

That the existence of the boilerplate doesn't say anything about System Does/Doesn't Matter (because an inferior game can still sell well and continue to sell despite better alternatives being offered).

Yep, not much to add to that. That's what I'm saying.

As such Drift is pretty much a non-issue and manifestos are pretty much a non-issue save to say where the authors stood on their work.

I agree that the GoO manifesto will make some people more comfortable using the rules to create their desired experience -- what I disagree with is that Drift is a non-issue.

I believe where the author stands on their work is important. Maybe that's being creator-centric of me, but if an author or painter is trying to say or produce a specific something with their work, and people aren't getting that out of it, then the creator has failed.

I see the same thing in game design. If the writer is trying to create a game about something, and just provides rules to do it any which way you want, then they've failed -- possibly by not having a goal for the game design in the first place.

This is part of my problem with open-ended design -- the other parts you can see in my initial response to Bruce about it (and thanks to him for his clarification of my question, BTW).

This is, I'm starting to think, a problem with our viewpoints of what games should do and accomplish -- our attitude and styles towards the development of a product. I believe in focused product, others don't. Both sides have made good arguments for why their preferred style of design should be utilized.

As such, I find myself nodding in agreement with both Travis and Wayne in regards to their respective statements about design. Not much more for me to say here on that.

[Jason Lee]

I don't really have a specific quote to pull out for this one.  Well, I did, but I seem to have misplaced it.

I guess I'm sorta talking to Cadriel, Raven, and Bruce (sorta),

The system just helps with and encourages play.  I'm not saying system doesn't matter, I am saying that it matters not dictates (no contradiction with the theory here).  The only group of players a system can be perfect for is the group that designed the game.  So, for a game to work for other people the premise has to be a little abstracted.  How open to interpretation the premise is is obviously just a design choice; Unknown Armies has a more specific premise than GURPS.  This seems to be a mini-point similar to what Bruce is saying; abstracting the premise more means it can apply to a broader consumer base, so it's conventional wisdom in the industry to do so.  There is a difference between being flexible, being wishy-washy, and being self-contradictory.  Sometime you can intend one thing and get another.

EDIT:  I think I might have put words in Raven's mouth, so I cut it out.

[ross_winn]

I do believe that rules matter, but I also believe that no system can accurately map more than a few percent of the human experience; and to think anything different is, in my view, crazy. We have to understand that no system will ever be able to do everything, and we have to acknowledge that judgements will have to be made.

I think you're talking past each other here: No one is claiming that rules must cover all possibilities. The issue is "Do the rules produce what the text says they will?" not "Do the rules cover every possible base?"

When I see text that says about the rules, "Just ignore us (the rules) when we get in the way!" I see, "We (the rules) don't know what we're doing!" and I wonder about the solidity of the design -- not whether they can produce accurate results, not whether they can cover any conceivable situation, but whether they'll stand up to use in actual play -- I wonder why they are even included if they can just be ignored -- that is, why include them in the first place if they aren't important to the experience of play?

I think that your post speaks exactly to my point. He didn't distinguish between judgement calls that deal within the internal mechanics of the system and those that do not, you did. I agree with what you are saying and would also go so far as to say that rules can be 'wrong' on several levels and still be internally consistent. Internal consistence is how I choose to judge how well a system works. More bluntly, if water flows up, it better always flow up. I also think that there are elements of a game system or rules that can be ignored if the game or story elements call for it. A perfect example of this is the Roles mechanic in Cyberpunk 2020. Many players felt this system element unfairly constrained them. The rest of the mechanics worked perfectly well without Roles and their corresponding Special Ablities. One of our other games (Mekton Zeta) used the same system without this element and worked perfectly well. So do we throw the baby out with the bathwater? I don't think it is neccesary to do so. Modification to existing systems are the baby steps we take as designers.

[M. J. Young]

I'm curious: what exactly do you think System Doesn't Matter means when someone says it? I can tell you what I think it means (every time I've heard it): "I can have fun playing any system." (I'm gonna assume the speaker is usually talking about traditional games as a pretty safe given).

Can you give me a for-instance where that *isn't* what they're saying? Back when (I'm guessing here) you thought 'system doesn't matter' what did that mean to you (that none of them were any good?).

Let me give it a crack.

I know a guy (not personally, but by way of the web) who ran a decent RPG web site and wrote articles for RPG sites and e-zines. System didn't matter to him. He would buy a game, and read the material, and then run it--but he always ran it with his own basic light rules house system. He had his own tried-and-true method of resolution, and pretty much ran the setting by the seat of his pants.

Most people who say system doesn't matter really mean that they aren't going to use the system as written anyway--they're going to do what they've always done, use the rules they already know, as it were, and do what makes sense to them within the setting. Faced with a mechanic like insanity in Cthulu or humanity in Sorcerer or opposed attributes in Pendragon, they discard it and do what they know. Thus all games play the same for them, because they don't play any game system but the thing their regular referee runs.

Now, there is a sense in which system doesn't matter for me, because if it's a gamist game I'll play gamist, and if it's a narrativist game I'll go for narrativism. I'm pretty fluid on that, and will flow with the system. But I have seen players who take a system that "doesn't work" because it doesn't do what they want and toss out everything it's trying to do so that they can use the mechanics that "work for them". That's what they mean, in most cases.

the various Sorcerer mini-games - they're obviously drawing on the same root resources, but changing one piece usually means changing a lot else

I'm not an expert, but I think this is not really a good example of this. Sorcerer provides a complete game in which all the mechanics are present to run a specific kind of game in any setting. The setting has to include the familiar setting details of time, place, and background, plus definitions of "demon" and "humanity" which are appropriate within the time, place, and background and conflict with each other. Those can be pretty much anything. The "mini-games", as far as I am aware, are all providing this "setting" information so that you can use the game engine in various worlds. Like with Multiverser or GURPS, you don't need any of them to play the game, but you are playing from the same game rules if you play with any of them. It isn't a matter of changing one of the rules; it's a matter of providing the needed definitions for play.

I'm not saying you're wrong in general about Forge games--I don't know enough to say that.

Spread spectrum seems necessary, at least at this point, for reliable success in the gaming marketplace. That will remain the case until we see laser-focused games attracting competitive attention.

This sprang from a well-informed and well-marshalled base of information about industry successes and failures; but the fact is, the lists as presented might be due to what he cites, but might as easily be due to another issue: gamers buy what they know.

It is axiomatic in this industry that you have to be in business for at least five years before anyone in the hobby will believe you will ever last two. Many game companies crank out "support" in the form of modules or splat books solely so that fans will know they are still in business and will buy their core books. It may be a horror story, but it is a well known and familiar one that game store owners will tell potential customers that the game they want is out of print or unavailable merely because they don't want to find out whether they can get it and they don't want to be committed to stocking another game line.

Multiverser has been in print since December of 1997, and was announced before that. The name is known to the Internet gaming community in vast numbers, for better or worse. One can come up with all kinds of potential reasons why it doesn't sell better. It certainly is not because the game is too narrowly focused--anyone who plays it will tell you it allows you to do anything and everything, and all relatively smoothly. We thought at first it was the price--until we discovered that the majority of web site traffic never reached the price. The best explanation is that gamers, in the main, will only buy games they've already played, and will only play games being played by someone they know, and won't buy the game if they don't need a copy.

Ask John Wick about the time five guys wearing L5R T-shirts came up to him at a con, said how much they admired his work, and then one of them bought his new book, Ork World. The others said that they didn't need copies because they'd just all use the referee's book.

We've got a "try before you buy" mentality in the gaming world, and it really hurts independent games. Once a game is established with a lot of players, it keeps itself afloat. Why is it that White Wolf's Adventure is not so successful as its several other games? Could it possibly be because White Wolf fans are all buying stuff they can use with their World of Darkness campaigns, and Adventure isn't part of that? Did Alternity really fail because Wizards/TSR can't make a successful sci-fi game, or is it because the D&D fan base is a fantasy-driven group and they couldn't transfer that to support a sci-fi game at the levels they needed for production? (I never heard a bad word about Alternity, and I've seen it on the best games list of quite a few very experienced gamers.)

Games succeed because a few people get excited about them and run them for friends, and the friends get excited and run them for other friends, and they build up a fan base. Companies have to hold out long enough for the fan base to be created, and have to figure out how to promote that. That means convincing people that they should try the game, and making sure that when they do they experience something that seems to them to be different from what they've experienced in other games, so they'll want to play it again.

And regarding The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast:

We all agree that texts which say[list=1][*]the referee has complete control of the game and[*]the players decide what their characters do[/list:o]can be read so as not to contradict. I think most of us agree that most people reading such texts will assume they know what this means.

The problem is that in bringing our own "what this means" to the text, we get different outcomes. That is, these are all valid understandings of the text:

[*]Illusionism: the referee controls everything. The players actually don't do more than provide color which the referee, telling his story, incorporates into the action. The players feel like they're involved, and feel like their decisions make a difference in the outcome, but the outcome has been predetermined by the referee, who is clever enough to roll with the punches as his players attempt to derail his story and bring about his ending in which the player characters have saved the day. If he's good, the players never know they had no control.[*]Participationism: the players recognize that the referee is telling them a story, and they're only providing color. They know that what they do won't affect the outcome one bit, but they enjoy doing it and watching how the referee handles what they do. It may get a bit dysfunctional of one or more players decides to see how far they can stretch events before the referee can't make them all fit, but assuming that the group has agreed that this is the correct mode of play, that doesn't usually happen. This is essentially illusionism by consent.[*]Trailblazing: the referee decides where the story should go and lays out all the clues; the players are committed to finding the referee's story and following it to the end. Unlike participationism, it is possible for the players to fail to reach the end if they lose the trail; however, the social contract dictates that they will not try to create their own story, but will use the powers invested in them to control their characters in an effort to make the referee's story happen.[*]Bass Playing: the referee creates the framework in which the characters act, and provides suitable foils and situations for their choices. He is in control of the world and the events around them, but is primarily there to provide support for their choices and help the story happen around them.[/list:u]
The point is (as I think I make in http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/23/">Applied Theory in the articles section) that games have to apportion credibility, and these statements don't do that. These statement in essence say, "The referee has total control of the story, and the players have total control of what the main characters in it are doing, and it's up to you to figure out how that works." All of the above interpretations, and more, are not only possible but commonly practiced by various gaming groups. The fact that Marco can read that text and "know" that it means a certain distribution of credibility only proves that Marco knows how credibility is distributed in most of the games he has played. E. R. Jones in reading such a statement decided on a different apportionment of credibility; Ron Edwards finally settled on something else.

The problem is not that people reading the text will think it conflicts. The problem is that people reading the text will think it doesn't conflict because they will read into it exactly what they think it means, which will not be the same for every person who reads it. Now, if it happens that five people in the same gaming group read that text and come up with five different understandings of the apportionment of credibility, you're going to have a dysfunctional game. If it happens that everyone agrees, either explicitly or implicitly, as to how credibility is distributed, then the game is going to work and you're not going to realize that the text didn't tell you how to do it.

That's the problem with The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast.

I hope this helps someone with something.

--M. J. Young

[Marco]

MJ, I think that's the best post I've ever seen by you. I found it very interesting.

I'm not sure System Doesn't Matter means what you say to most people--but it's an interesting take on it. I've never seen anyone do anything even approximately that severe or methodical in terms of throwing stuff out (and admit it)--but appearently I'm sheltered that way.

I also agree with, and understand your explanation of the Impossible Thing. I've never said that sort of question couldn't come up in gaming (what I said was it's miss-named, and I still think it is, clearly miss-named)--and I did assume that because games could be "based on it" that someone, somewhere, presumed that a game designer (at least) believed in the paradox ... which seemed weird to me.

But despite that, what I really liked were the four different functional modes of play that could arrise from TIT text.

It occurred to me, while reading them, that those modes might well be the reason games with that text (and a certain amount of latitude that might be called Incoherencey) do so well: There are several successful power-splits (and possibly several easily drifted-to GNS modes of play) to choose from given the framework of the rules.

Yes, there is, it seems, a failure rate (how high that is is still unclear to me), but the framework encompasses several supported success-modes that cooperative groups or simply like-minded ones can fall into. That may be the "edge" to "Incoherent games" that Raven's discussing.

-Marco

[greyorm]

Bruce, what MJ said. I don't think I can add anything to that which wouldn't merely be restating the point. Excellent examination of the issue, MJ.

Also, Marco, what MJ said (again) -- I think he explained my exact position on the TIT more clearly than I probably did for you in the PM I sent your way.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not sure System Doesn't Matter means what you say to most people--but it's an interesting take on it. I've never seen anyone do anything even approximately that severe or methodical in terms of throwing stuff out (and admit it)--but appearently I'm sheltered that way.

I think a goodly number of Freeform players that I've stumbled across, those who started out as tabletoppers and ended up playing Freeform instead, went with that method of play because they are convinced that anything other than the simplest form of Social Contract to build a good story is doomed to failure. System not only Doesn't Matter, but is Downright Interfering. Yes, I mean to say that these are Narrativists who, frustrated with system not supporting their style of play, gave up on system entirely. And, yes, some of them move on eventually to writing their own solo fiction.

I think that this group is fairly numerous, and we don't hear from them because they keep away from us here (thinking that we're posessed of a strange form of insanity). And I'm not saying that they're wrong in their choice, precisely, just that they don't understand that systems can be made that do work.

Mike

[Gordon C. Landis]

Hmm, I'm wondering how to add something to this thread - the best I can come up with is to say:

"System Doesn't Matter" is troubling not because it says "I can have fun with anything," but because it implies that there is absolutely NO connection between "fun" and "system."  Of course, "System Does Matter" can be seen as doing the same thing from it's own vantage (since I've seen far more Doesn't than Does, I personally am less likely to think that Does is exclusionary, but personal experience will vary).  Which is why I've always tried to say it as: "System may not DETERMINE, but it does MATTER."  Which is (I think) the pretty obvious full description in Ron's essay and other places System Does Matter is used, whereas it is NOT obvious (to me) in most place I see Doesn't Matter used.  In fact, I see MANY System Doesn't Matter rants that really, sincerely seem to argue that you should ignore system.

"The Impossible Thing" is troubling because it represents a failure to think through and consider the implications inherent in the statements.  In the midst of what might be otherwise crystal-clear text, we get something that we have to fuzz up the brain on to even get it to parse, and are expected to build a coherent in-game and social experience from it.  As someone already did in this thread, just taking a fuzzy issue and discussing the ways in which it IS fuzzy (GM power as a practical way to prevent getting bogged down in disputes, rather than as a way for one social creature to extert advantage in a power struggle) would be a HUGE improvement - but that rarely happens.

The Tri-Stat Manifesto (which I've read only here in this thread) is troubling beacuse it follows the exact same pattern as the Sd/dM and TiT - ideas that, while valuable, are incompletely explained and often not fully thought through, such that the really important subtleties and contradictions aren't dealt with.  They really should be - either by providing a particular solution, or by offering up the complications to the readers to sort through themselves.  Any text that says "The Game Master has full discretionary power over the game" followed by "The Game Master always works with, not against, the players", and LEAVES IT THERE, is (IMO) doing a disservice to the reader.  Full power, but never against the players?  What happens when the players disagree with you - do we apply the "Full Power" clause or "Never Against The Players" clause?  At the very least, give us some acknowledgement of the difficulties and contradictions present here, so we can work through them in a way appropriate for our group.

(Which maybe Tri-Stat does, somewhere - but many, MANY game books that I've read with such text in 'em do NOT.)

That's why *I* can agree with Wayne that the Tri-Stat text is irritating.

Gordon