lumpley's design theory

[Jeph]

Put another way, if all you need is three of the five elements, then every novel and short story ever written is a "complete game". Why, then, aren't billions of people who read these "complete games" playing them?

But they are playing them. About a half decade ago, I'd play that sort of game all the time. Patrick and I would be swinging in his back yard. He'd say, "hey! let's play Harry Potter!" I'd go, "Cool! I'll be Harry, you be Ron." There. We just lifted Character, Color, and Setting from the books. And, like Vincent says, we'd make up the Situation and System on the fly.

You see the same phenomenon on quite a few internet message boards devoted to freeform role-playing, although it obviously takes on a slightly different form. If you wanted to, I'm sure you could do the exact same thing sitting around the table with a couple of 30-something gamer dudes.

--Jeff

[lumpley]

Novels are done.  Teasing usable Setting, Character or Situation out of a novel is hard, I'd suggest - because the characters in a novel are used up, the situations are resolved, the setting is harvested.  If your group reads a novel, you've got a good shared take on Color, and not really anything else.  You'll have to put in a lot of work to rip two other things out of it.  (Exception made for Harry Potter - because it's still in progress.  You can play Harry Potter "right now."  I myself played a ton of Star Wars back when "right now" was after the Empire Strikes Back, before Return of the Jedi.)

Perhaps the correct statement is that once three of the elements are developed to a certain level of clarity, the other two can be left relatively vague and they'll create themselves in play.

Exactly!  Exactly.  Isn't that what I've been saying?

Establishing three of the five is necessary for a complete game, but not always sufficient.  A game with three thingies established may or may not be complete.  A game with only two thingies established is not.

John, how about this:  You and I sit down to play a game.  We launch straight into play, but in the early game we'll strongly, perhaps exclusively, prioritize the establishment of a baseline shared vision for the game.  At some point, that shared foundation will be solid, and we'll change the game to prioritize other things - saying something interesting about people, for instance, or taking the measure of one another's guts, or whatever.  Make sense?

My theory is that we can begin to change our priorities before we've established a shared take on all five of Character, Situation, Setting, Color and System, but not before we've established a shared take on three of the five.  We still have to agree about all five, moment to moment in play, but we can leave a couple of 'em to be negotiated at need.

If we buy into a particular "complete" game up front, that gives us an automatic shared take on three (or more) of the five.  We don't have to negotiate a foundation, so we can get more expediently to saying what we're saying.  Again, we may still have to negotiate two of the five, but we can do that without prioritizing it.

Universalis makes the transition from "now we're establishing a foundation" to "now we're saying what we're saying" formal.  It's thus uniquely suited to testing my theory, if anybody feels moved to do so.

(Also: I hope nobody thinks I'm saying to game designers that which three you provide - or if you provide more than three - won't change your game.  I hope everybody understands, for instance, that I think that you really oughta be providing System, if you care at all how your game plays.)

-Vincent

[teucer]

I'm not sure a game with only Setting, Character, and Situation is playable. The players still have to tack on all the rules! Such a "game" is closer to a GURPS expansion than to any complete published game I know of.

However, I could probably be convinced.

[lumpley]

Hey Teucer.  Welcome to the Forge!

All the players have to do with such a game is figure out how to agree what happens.  That's easy to do on the fly, ask any freeformer.  

Is it easy to do well on the fly?  Probably not.  Probably it's very difficult to do well - what goes wrong, typically, is that the strongest personality dominates the game.  But any freeformer will tell you I'm wrong about that.  Heck, I woulda told you I'm wrong about that, just a couple of years ago.

I'm rock-solid that it can be done well.  But it's probably quite a trick to pull off.  Nailing down Character, Situation and Setting up front is the best possible way to tackle it, though, I'd bet.

Adventures in Improvised System
Further More Adventures in Improvised System

-Vincent

[Henri]

I hope everybody understands, for instance, that I think that you really oughta be providing System, if you care at all how your game plays.

I'm somewhat surprised by this comment.  As you noted earlier, kpfs specifies only Character, Color, and Situation, leaving Setting and System pretty sketchy.  In his review, Ron's only real complaint about the game was that the game did not specify a system for IIEE.

Disclaimer: I'm not attacking kpfs (which I think rules).  I'm just being curious about what appears to be an inconsistency between your theory and your game.  But perhaps you have only adopted this theoretical position since writing kpfs?

[John Kim]

John, how about this:  You and I sit down to play a game.  We launch straight into play, but in the early game we'll strongly, perhaps exclusively, prioritize the establishment of a baseline shared vision for the game.  At some point, that shared foundation will be solid, and we'll change the game to prioritize other things - saying something interesting about people, for instance, or taking the measure of one another's guts, or whatever.  Make sense?

My theory is that we can begin to change our priorities before we've established a shared take on all five of Character, Situation, Setting, Color and System, but not before we've established a shared take on three of the five.  We still have to agree about all five, moment to moment in play, but we can leave a couple of 'em to be negotiated at need.  

OK.  I'll need to consider it a bit more, but offhand, it seems like a continuous spectrum to me.  Moreover, you imply that establishing these five elements is sort of neutral -- i.e. it doesn't actually pursue the goals of play, and only "play" does (which usually means resolving situations of established characters).  

Universalis makes the transition from "now we're establishing a foundation" to "now we're saying what we're saying" formal.  It's thus uniquely suited to testing my theory, if anybody feels moved to do so.  

Well, I don't agree with this division, or at least I don't think it is universal.  For example, character creation in itself can be both a creative expression which makes a statement and an arena for displaying of one's skill.  Now, one can take that attitude of dividing up the phases, but I would consider it arbitrary.  

This reminds me of an anecdote from years back.  Chris Lehrich and I were talking about religion -- and we got to discussing about the religion in my Oneiros world, specifically the more community-oriented Morpheism.  I was curious about historical development, and we started to chat and outline what it would be like.  A friend of ours (Mark Kobrak) came in and listened to a bit of it, and he was rather offended at it.  He said, essentially, "How could this obscure bit of history possibly matter in real play?"  Our only answer to him was that it probably wouldn't, but we nevertheless found it interesting to engage in.  i.e. For us, world-creation was a part of play, while for him, world-creation was just laying the foundation for play.

[lumpley]

John: I think you're misreading me, or something.  Where on earth did you get the idea that I think that creating Setting details (eg) is "neutral" or unfulfilling?

How about this: I'll happily grant you "continuous spectrum" if you'll grant me that earlier in play, establishing a baseline shared vision is a higher priority than it is later in play, because you need to prioritize establishing a baseline less as you establish more baseline.

Please PLEASE don't read this to mean that I think that we create Setting details early in play, but less later in play.  I don't mean that AT ALL.  "Baseline vision" = "what the game is like to play," not "stuff in the game world."

Meanwhile, sure, I'm willing to say that Universalis has an arbitrary (but very functional) mode-shift somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.  Which makes it, y'know, uniquely suited to testing my theory if anybody has the urge.

-Vincent

[John Kim]

Sorry about that.  I read your text as implying that that "establishing a foundation" and "saying what we're saying" were exclusive, separate steps in a game.  But it looks like we agree that they are overlapping and can be combined.  

So what I would look for in this:  how does less-than-3 play differ from 3-or-more play, other than the obvious point that it has less than 3 categories established and thus those will be in the process of being established?

[Blankshield]

So what I would look for in this:  how does less-than-3 play differ from 3-or-more play, other than the obvious point that it has less than 3 categories established and thus those will be in the process of being established?

I suspect (not being Vincent I'm not sure how he means it) but that it's as simple as establishing 3 elements gives you better than half of what you need to play.

James

[lumpley]

John: awesome.

My theory is that in pre-3 play, our highest priority will be establishing up to 3.  Will play look any different?  In Universalis, yes - that's the Tenet phase (I predict).  In store-bought games, yes - because there is no pre-3 play, we establish 3 or more when we agree to play the game.  There'll be a certain amount of "everybody get the setting?  Everybody get who your characters are gonna be?  Everybody get their GM / player responsibilities?  Good."  In off-the-cuff games, maybe it won't look any different.  I don't think it necessarily will, just that it'll be characterized by us smashing together a baseline 3-of-the-5 for what follows.

Let me say, pre-3 play will happen and be done in the first minutes of the first session.  Before character creation, essentially.  Certainly before characters are finalized.  I'm saying that a group needs to have a shared hit on 3 of the 5 before they can even make characters functionally - otherwise I come up with a character from Star Wars and you come up with a character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer!  

Also: Henri: exactly right.  When I wrote puppies, I felt that System should be left to the players' instincts.  I hadn't ever seen a functional System.

-Vincent

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Could it be said that with 3 of the 5 established that the other two are areas of prioritized exploration in play? Not necessarily simulationism. It could be for any agenda.