Costikyan on Games

[Ben Lehman]

Greg Costikyan made a lovely attempt at defining what a game is http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_10_01_blogchive.html#109903001917045570">in his blog

You should read the article.  Really, you just should, because if you're reading this post, you are probably interested in game design, and if you are interested in game design, you should really read the article.

Further, and less importantly, you should read the article before replying to this thread.  Because, if you haven't read it, you have no business in this thread.  There will be no one posting and saying "well, I haven't read the article yet, but..."  Go read the article.

My interpretation of Costikyan's point is this:
Games are Formalized Play

Where, by play, he means the sort of play that children do.

I think that this is a pretty good definition.  We can use this thread to argue it, but we shouldn't need to, really.

My question is this:  What implications does this have for game designers?  What is our role in the process?  Are game designers ideally those that only formalize after play is done?  Where does the creative artist come in, if at all?

yrs--
--Ben

[Alan]

My question is this:  What implications does this have for game designers?  What is our role in the process?  Are game designers ideally those that only formalize after play is done?  Where does the creative artist come in, if at all?

I don't understand what you mean by formalizing _after_ play is done.  If a game is formalized play, then a game can't exist unless the formalization is accepted _before_ play.

Game designers provide variations for specific sets of formalization, of course.  

Let me suggest a way to widen the scope of your question.  I reflect on Chris's article about rpgs as ritual and my comments on the function of roleplaying thread: play is a safe place to do things - especially dangerous things, which we don't want to do for real.  We often use rpgs to play at strategy and violence - but rogs can also be a place to play with social roles and relationships we don't dare try in real life.  

How about an rpg that dares the players to do what they would never dare do in real life?  Some already exist, but many designs might arise from an explicit understanding of this.

[xiombarg]

How about an rpg that dares the players to do what they would never dare do in real life?  Some already exist, but many designs might arise from an explicit understanding of this.

This is a good point. Really, it's sort of the an answer to the author's point in Powerkill. Tynes asks, in essence: Why do most RPGs seem to center around dressed-up versions of horrible, criminal behavior?

And the Costikyan answer is, in part: Because it's the safe way to do it. And this is a good answer. Why bother to play a game about something you can safely do for real? There are reasons you might want to do this*, but not as many reasons as you might want to play a game about something dangerous. It explains everything from dungeon crawling to the Grand Theft Auto video game series. It also explains why there isn't a game about knitting -- if you're interested in knitting, you can safely knit with no problems once you learn how.

Even more "milquetoast" play is explained by this. A stock market simulation is hardly violent, but it does mitigate the real financial risk of actually playing the stock market.

Making this explicitly concious, as Alan suggests, gets to a very important factor in play, and might cause people to think about other forms of risk -- like social risk -- rather than the usual, violence. In fact, this speaks to the heart of recent trends in indie RPGs toward "conflict resolution" without an explicit combat system, allowing other forms of fictional risk than fighting.

* I do think that another primal element of human play is imagination, which includes not just "safe versions of real things" but "possible versions of impossible things." D&D, most notably, has both pseduo-Vancian magick -- the impossible -- AND violence.

[xiombarg]

My question is this:  What implications does this have for game designers?  What is our role in the process?  Are game designers ideally those that only formalize after play is done?  Where does the creative artist come in, if at all?

To go in a different direction than Alan did, I think one of the implications for game designers is that if you're stumped for ideas, go back to looking at how children and animals play. Consider what elements make those different "games" fun. Then try to make it a little more "adult" -- fun for you, the adult designer.

If that isn't a creative step, I don't know what is.

[Callan S.]

You might want to actually go further and consider why we play.

It's to learn how to cope with life. Think of the last nature doco that showed lion cubs play fighting. The narrator always informs you their learning to kill.

We like playing because it sharpens our skills (to some degree). Rules help us sharpen, because we can not slack off in terms of those rules (I think that's why the push for realism is so vehement sometimes). Skills can be in terms of combat tactics, or other non combat areas.

And the Costikyan answer is, in part: Because it's the safe way to do it.

Because were playing like lion cubs. It doesn't mean we want to do criminal acts and want a safe way. It's because we like playing like the cubs, were just wired to enjoy things like practising the criminal arts...that doesn't mean we like the criminal arts themselves. We don't want to do it, we just want to enjoy ourselves and that just happens to involve 'crim sim'. And I'm not sure I like the term 'criminal'. I read 'violence' when it came out and thought it was funny. Reread it recently, and found it actually pretty condescending.

[simon_hibbs]

Greg's take on the relationship between games and story is also worth paying attention to. Games and story play similar roles inthat they are instructive. Games and play orriginate as strategies for learning and personal development, as do stories. There are already a lot of RPGs, in fact most of them, that simulate forms of literature.

I agree with Greg that story isn't in intrinsic or necessery component in games in general, but RPGs have a much closer relationship with story telling than most other types of games.

Simon Hibbs

[Sean]

Thanks for the link, Ben. I just posted this note at Costikyan's comment site and thought I'd re-post it here if anyone was interested in discussion:

Kendall Walton (an aesthetics professor at the University of Michigan) has written a book called Mimesis and Make Beleive in which he suggests that not only games but all art can be interpreted as a development of play. This same theme was also explored by the german philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (see his collection The Relevance of the Beautiful for discussions), but Walton argues more rigorously. Still, I recommend both books to you or anyone who's interested in exploring this subject - not only does it shed light on games, but on the sense in which games and art are interconnected conceptually and as activities.

[efindel]

You might want to actually go further and consider why we play.

It's to learn how to cope with life. Think of the last nature doco that showed lion cubs play fighting. The narrator always informs you their learning to kill.

Costikyan gets at that a bit with mentioning puppies playing.  I've seen a lot of definitions of "game" that talk about games being fun... but not all games are fun.  Definining it as play works better for me -- because while play is usually fun, it's not always fun.

Where does this become important for defining "game"?  Consider a military war game.  It's certainly considered a "game" -- but the purpose is not to have fun.  It is play, of a form, and we can talk about "playing the game".  But as Noon points out above with the lion cubs, and Costikyan implies with the puppies, play can also be a form of preparation.    A military war game is play as preparation.  Some of those involved might have fun, but it's an incidental, not a designed-in part of the game.

[clehrich]

Ben, many thanks for this link.  Very interesting!

I happen to think there's something very wrong with his thesis, but I'm having a lot of trouble thinking through why that is.  One thing I'm sure he's wrong about is Wittgenstein, but that's not really the point; it just means that he's misunderstanding why definitions are so difficult and ultimately intractable.  His main thesis, however, has nothing to do with the problem of definition.

But as to the play, game, and kittens stuff -- hmm.  My problem here, I guess, is that I don't think that kind of play is about story in the same way as RPGs are about story, but I'm not quite sure what I mean by that.

Thanks for the link, again.  Food for thought!

[Shreyas Sampat]

Chris, my intense, visceral response to your concern is that there are numerous childrens' games that are pretty clearly about story...so it must be that you are restricting your vision to too few kinds of play.

[clehrich]

Chris, my intense, visceral response to your concern is that there are numerous childrens' games that are pretty clearly about story...so it must be that you are restricting your vision to too few kinds of play.

I didn't say that childrens' games aren't about story.  I said they're not about story in the same way that RPGs are about story.  I think there is a serious mismatch here -- but as I say, I'm not quite sure why I think this.

[contracycle]

In what way are RPG's about story?

I have grown to hate the word story.  We use it as if it is an analloyed virtue but IME it means so many things to different people that it positively inhibits meanginful communication; almost every time I see the term these days I cringe.

I cannot think of a single childs game which is ABOUT story.  There are games with STORY CONTENT; there are also games that FOLLOW THE RULES OF STORY DRAMA; and there are games that can made of the art of TELLING STORIES.

One of the few games I know of that is 'about' story is Nanofictionary in which story elements (problem, solution, complication et al) are dished out and a game is made of assembling these components into an actual story.  This is an example of making a game of the telling of stories; another might be playing the broken telephone thing, although this more often done by way of social education for kids than for any interest in storey production per se.

This is becoming a standard rant on my part.  Story is a term we use with criminal imprecision, all the time, and it muddies discussion of both desired outcomes and the methods achieved, IMO.

Footnote: I agree with Costikyan 100%.  Games are learning experiences first and foremost; this is what makes Sim makes sense.  Thats why it can be a CA.

[simon_hibbs]

But as to the play, game, and kittens stuff -- hmm.  My problem here, I guess, is that I don't think that kind of play is about story in the same way as RPGs are about story, but I'm not quite sure what I mean by that.

Greg is making general points about games, not just RPGs. Yes RPGs relate to storytelling in a stronger way than, say, Wargames or Chess, but they're all still games.

I sympathise with Contracycle here though. Not all RPGs are 'about' story in the same way, and some people's CA doesn't realy have storytelling anywhere on the concious map. It's at best an incidental product of play for some poeple, but can be a key part of the concious CA for others.

To be honest I think most poeple's CA does include story. This is why so many GMs (and players) fudge their rolls, and why many games have things like Hero Points. It's because we have a strong emotional investment in our characters and what happens to them. People who would never consider cheating at Chess, or even Monopoly, will cheerfully fudge their rolls in an RPG because for most people Gamism isn't a priority. Any kind of roll fudging is instant death to Simulationism. So then only remaining justification for either fudging or Hero Point style outcome manipulation is concern with story.

We care about what happens to our characters, how events unfold. The fairness (gamism)  of that and adherence to the game rules model (simulationism) are suborned by our desire for things to happen in a pleasing way*, and that's all about story.

Sure, not everyone fudges rolls, and there are people who are dedicated simulationists and gamists. However fudging rolls is rampant in RPGdom and this is because Stroy is important to many of us when we play RPGs, in a way that it isn't in many other kinds of games.


Simon Hibbs

*Pleasing doesn't always necesserily about 'winning'. I've seen and participated in fudging that triggered horrible things happening to characters because it would lead to a fun or interesting situation. Sometimes horrible things happening to characters is what the game is all about!

[komradebob]

Simon Hibbs:

Any kind of roll fudging is instant death to Simulationism. So then only remaining justification for either fudging or Hero Point style outcome manipulation is concern with story.

On a tangent, that's part of what drives me to tears when I attempt to fathom GNS theory. There seems to be two competing definitions of Simulationsim:

1) Modelling "real world" cause and effect.

2) Emulating source material.

I tend to think of simulationism in the second sense, in which case fudging may become essential.

My problem in understanding GNS then, is that my own preferred style also seems to have very little to do with story in the Narrativism sense.

Sorry for the tangent,
Robert

[Callan S.]

Why is there a seperation here between 'bang bang, your dead' childrens play and 'bang, your dead my half brother who betrayed my clan and had me thrown out to the waste lands where I learnt of the evil plot of alkazan and fought my way back here to blah blah blah' percieved here?

C'mon, it's just the same thing with more bells and whistles. It just feels different because as we grow older we gain more perspective on the childrens play. But we usually cant encompass adult story play easily. But that's not because their really different, its just a hard ware issue on our part.