Ben's Non-Standard Rant: Rules Length is not Rules Focus

[DannyK]

I don't have TROS, and can't comment on it.  I do have Prime Time Adventures, and to me Screen Presence seems at least as important as Issues.  (Caveat: I haven't had a chance to play yet.)

Another example, not indie: every White Wolf game published has a meaty middle section chock full of powers.  Specific crunchy rules for powers, different ones for each game, often multiple levels of powers. Of course, some people will say that Vampire is just "superheroes with fangs" and that the powers are the point.

[Valamir]

I have to agree pretty much 100% with Mike's comments above.  Its not as simple as saying 20 pages of X, 5 pages of Y, therefor X is 4x more important than Y.  But quantity does give a good indication of where the designer focused their design efforts.

Now some types of rules just generally take more space to describe.  Lists of spell or skill descriptions are going to take up space by the very fact that they're a list.  But the fact that the game even HAS a list of spells and skill descriptions definitely says something about where the designer focused their attention.  

D&D3 is a perfect example of this.  Take a look at how much space character creation takes.  Its no surprise than that much of the purpose / enjoyment / and focus of the game is centered on crafting and improving ones character.  Look at the amount of space dedicated to Feats relative to racial / cultural background.  Its pretty clear that for straight up by the book D&D play that whether your character can perform a Great Cleave is more important than where he was born or what his childhood was like.

On the other hand take a game like Pendragon with its life path approach to determine the fame of your ancestors or its focus on cultures and religion to assemble your knight and you can see that the focus of that game is much more about who your kin is then what sort of armor you wear.

So a straight page count, no.

But as a general indication of what the designers of the game felt was important enough to spend time and space on...absolutely.  There is no better indication of what the designers were thinking than what they felt was important enough to write rules about.

[John Kim]

I have to agree pretty much 100% with Mike's comments above.  Its not as simple as saying 20 pages of X, 5 pages of Y, therefor X is 4x more important than Y.  But quantity does give a good indication of where the designer focused their design efforts.

Now some types of rules just generally take more space to describe.  Lists of spell or skill descriptions are going to take up space by the very fact that they're a list.  But the fact that the game even HAS a list of spells and skill descriptions definitely says something about where the designer focused their attention.

D&D3 is a perfect example of this. Take a look at how much space character creation takes. Its no surprise than that much of the purpose / enjoyment / and focus of the game is centered on crafting and improving ones character.

Well, I partly agree with that -- but I also agree strongly with Ben's original point.  The missing link here, in my opinion, is that there is a common tendency around here towards literalism in interpreting rules.  i.e. If there are a lot of rules about superpowers, then the game is about superpowers.  Conversely, the only way a game can be about the theme of responsibility, is if it has, say, a "Responsibility" stat and a bunch of rules about how that stat is used.  

This is utterly different than how we regard things in, say, literature.  There, it is understood that a book can be all about responsibility without ever mentioning the word "responsibility" or any overt discussion of anything like that.  But somehow, there is a common idea that games which have detailed superpowers are really about superpowers.  I completely disagree.  Just as a book can be about racism without ever mentioning the word, a game can be all about something without having a fat rules section explicitly noting it.  

This was exactly Ben's point that having a small (or even non-existant) rules section doesn't mean that that thing is unimportant to the game.  So, yes, D&D does have a lot of focus on creating and improving one's character.  But that doesn't mean that the only thing which it is about is the literal procedure.  

(NOTE: I'm not a fan of D&D, nor have I played it very much, so I'm reluctant to discuss it as an example.  But I do know that, say, Champions is dominated by its extensive superpowers rules.  But that doesn't mean the game is "about" superpowers.  Superpowers are symbolic.  Anyone with any critical reading of comics, from Plastic Man to the X-Men, should know this.  They externalize inner desires into physical capabilities.  Creating detailed superpowers is similarly a meaningful process.)

[M. J. Young]

I think that the "page count" approach to importance is deceptive.

Most people familiar with the game would say that bias is absolutely central to Multiverser. It is everywhere and does so much it's difficult to list in a short space. Yet the eleven pages (including picture page) its chapter occupies of the four hundred ten pages that comprise the thirteen chapters make it about one third the length of the average chapter, and the shortest chapter excepting only the nine-page introduction and three-page afterword. The four skills chapters, ranging from fifty-seven to eighty-three pages each, dwarf it.

On the other hand, bias shows up everywhere. The introduction includes a couple paragraphs on it. In the general skills chapter it is part both of learning skills and using them. Every skill listed includes two numbers that establish its bias, and character creation includes determining the biases of the character. World design includes how bias is established for the world. It is connected to everything. It really is very much central to the game--it just doesn't appear so based on page count or word count, because there is so much else in the rules.

I also thought of OAD&D. The number of pages actually devoted to combat information is very small compared to the number of pages given to spell information, even if you include all the hardcover books. Probably more pages are given over to gods than to combat, if you count the Deities & Demigods book plus the pages in Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk that provide such information. Yet the game is not about these things as much as it is about combat, in the reported experience of most players. There are many things covered in the rule books, some quite extensively, and some in more detail than combat.

Yes, these fit in Ralph's category of "lists of things", or at least many of them do. I recognize the validity in saying that lists create abundant detail that requires space to present. On the other hand, complexity is also detail requiring space to present. It's a different kind of detail, but all it says is that this part of the rules is bulky because it is complex in the detail required to make it work and that part of the rules is bulky because it is expansive in the detail required to convey the full volume of information.

So we're left with the idea that longer sections of text indicate parts of the game which are more important except when they aren't, and shorter sections of text indicate parts of the game that not important except when they are.

Sure, if you're writing a game and you find yourself adding a rather large amount of text about some aspect of play, it's worth it to ask yourself why this needs this much detail. You could provide extensive rules about character efforts to do needlepoint, but you need to ask whether such rules enhance or obscure what you're trying to communicate to the players. It may be that you're writing rules that are unnecessarily complicated or expansive because that stuff really should not matter in your game; it could be that you do need it, because it is going to be part of play and has to be covered. But the number of pages devoted to a particular subject indicates nothing other than the amount of detail the designer thought needed to be provided on that subject.

Ben is right.

--M. J. Young

[Marco]

You wouldn't argue that the game played doesn't have anything to do with the agreed to text, would you? That is, if I decide to play D&D, or JAGS, and read the appropriate text, then having read that text and decided to play that game, the text has some effect right?

Well, how does it do that? By what's in it. All I'm saying is that if there's more stuff to intereret in one section than another, if the game says to do more of one thing than another in terms of steps...then that's going to inform the player as to what it's about.

100% agreement: text does matter. Rules and mechanics matter too. The clarity of explanations matter and, I think, examples matter. In fact: one example of SA's in TRoS combat coulda cleared up the confusion.

So I think that *all* matters.

What I'm trying to add to the dialog is that I think there is a fundamental split along certain lines (which I think sort of map to your 3D model but I haven't figured out how to articulate it better than that yet) that say how certain groups of people will react to certain combinations of text and mechanics.

I think there are some trends in looking at, for example, how different people will interpret Over The Edge's mechanics: and I think that phenomena is responsible for what is currently termed Incoherence (this should really be in the GNS forum, I guess).

-Marco

[Harlequin]

Let me weigh in with another take on it.

Rules length helps dictate activity focus, but obviously does not correlate to it in a 1:1 manner, because some things are simple yet pervasive.  Their influence on activity focus could be referred to as emergent... emergent behaviour comes when a set of simple rules produces unexpectedly complex or substantial results.

I would say simply that this whole thread can be summed up by saying that emergent behaviour trumps the nonemergent behaviour of complex (lengthy) rulesets.  Thus, where this is present, rules length devoted to a subject is not a good guide to that subject's influence over the focus of play.  Ben's nonrant shows here.

When emergent behaviour is not present (or is damped), rules length, rules complexity, example text and other contextual cues exert a strong influence over activity focus; Mike's rant over combat systems shows here.

Both forms, incidentally, trump short/simple-and-nonemergent in terms of focus.  So Mike's Rant holds water because it attacks the relationship between long/complex combat rules, and short/simple rules for other acts.  And even where emergent behaviour is present (trumping the complex combat system), complexity still costs you in focus, even if it is not dominant.

- Eric

[Mike Holmes]

I don't see how anyone is arguing against anything that I've said.

Ben's claim was that there was some priniciple that was incorrect about length = focus. Since noboby thinks that there's such an absolute correllation, I'm not sure what anyone's debating about.

Now, if somebody wants to actually say that there's never any correllation between mass of rules and focus, then I'll have somebody to argue against.

Marco, I completely agree with you that people have their own biases, and that this will affect how a text informs individuals. And yes, this can change the focus from one thing to another for a given group. Is your claim that the text has no effect on what the focus ends up being ever? That there is no tendency at all for the designers intent to come across in play at all? If so, then we have something to talk about. Otherwise this is all part of my point.

Length might turn out to be, on an empirical examination, only 30% of what determines focus - I have no idea. All I've said is that it's one factor that tends to correllate with focus.

Everyone here understands the word correllate, right? That a trend in one thing is associated with a trend in another? That there are exceptions to these trends in the population examined (unless the correllation is said to be 100%)?

Again, the supposition seems so non-controversial that I'm sorta astonished that it's generated a thread at all, much less any response. And, again, we covered this all the first time around.

The point of the combat rant was not that length = focus. It was merely that many games have more focus on combat than maybe they should, due to design habit. However that focus is created.

John, the "literary critique" method of determining focus by subtext is absolutely one of those "other things" that might also affect focus. The differences in your reading of Champions and others here would be a result of the phenomenon Marco is pointing out. That is, I completely agree with the whole deconstructionism-bias-interpretation angle. Again, length is only one factor amongst many.

Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? Is there somthing about the opposition viewpoint that I'm failing to understand? That makes it an opposition viewpoint?

Mike

[clehrich]

Personally, while I'm finding all this interesting, I'm still wondering what Ben thinks about the relationship between his and Mike's Rants.

[Marco]

Marco, I completely agree with you that people have their own biases, and that this will affect how a text informs individuals. And yes, this can change the focus from one thing to another for a given group. Is your claim that the text has no effect on what the focus ends up being ever? That there is no tendency at all for the designers intent to come across in play at all? If so, then we have something to talk about. Otherwise this is all part of my point.

Mike

No. And I'm *not* disagreeing with you. In fact, I wuz right with ya the whole time.

I was trying to add to the discussion was my observation that the not only does page-count not correlate to designer's focus but that in absence of a very clear theoritically based designer's note-set which dictates focus in terms that are as moderately unambiguous as The Forge's, determining the "focus" of a game is mostly an exercise in personal philosophy past a certain obvious point (James Bond is about playing super-spies in a James Bondish universe--how much combat there 'should' be and how close each agent must come to the ideal Bond isn't really specfified by the game).

The designer's intent does define the game's text (and the clearer the designer is on their focus the clearer the game will be, I would hope)--but mostly, I think game designer's focues are not easily mapped to, for example GNS agendas.

In fact, since GNS agendas are really about what someone enjoyed in actual play I think that promoting those agendas at the technique (mechanics) level has a built-in 'level of error*'--I think it's a fine and worthy goal for a designer that wishes to do that but ultimately what the desigern controls is the *techniques* that are used to play the game.

Since those techniques can be used in the pursuit of any CA, I think the idea of CA-facilitating mechanics is more of a statistical exercise than an objective measure (hence see how OtE can be measured as Sim or Nar ... for some reason Gamist mechanics seem easier to call distinctly to me).

Basically, I think Ben's statement doesn't conflict with anything I've heard you say (like your rant about not including a combat system if the game doesn't need it)--I think it hits home concering textual analysis of a game with regards to Incoherence.

-Marco
* 'Error' is the wrong term, but I can't think of a better one right now. I don't mean the designer is making an error. I mean that giving someone a game and saying "this facilitates X" is going to, some of the time, involve the person looking at it and going, "no, for me it facilitates Y."

[Mike Holmes]

I see. And you have a valid point, generally. What I think we might need is a thread that discusses what all of the factors are, overall, that create focus in design. I'm sure the list is rather long, actually.

That said, what I'm pretty sure won't be profitable is trying to decide what's more important than what. This is one of those things that everyone has only lots of personal data on, and which is so complex that we likely will never know an answer. It's better to speak in terms of trends.

For example, it's best to say that if you want to make more of a focus of something, add more rules and text about it. Also, ensure that the mechanisms are of a sort that come into play often. And keep in mind how the reader's bias might afffect his reading. And how the gestalt of the game creates a focus (instead of looking at the elements atomically). Etc, etc.

That is, these are all valid factors in determining focus - we just aren't ever likely to come to a consensus on what's most important or anything.

Other than going to another thread to look at all of these factors, I too would like to hear from Ben.

Mike

[Sydney Freedberg]

Very small point: Ben's right, but... if the Crucial Little Rule is too small, you can read right over it and not realize it's crucial  -- maybe even not realize it's in the game at all and go play without it. Lord knows I've done this.

(Possible connection to everyone's more sophisticated points: If even one person around the table are aware of the C.L.R., s/he can convey that knowledge to the rest of the group. Thus the "rules" do indeed include the informal, unwritten knowledge transmitted orally among players. Which is fine, but nothing to count on as a designer).

So if your Crucial Little Rule is really crucial, better put have your layout put the equivalent of flashing neon lights around it.

[Ben Lehman]

Okay, I'm not going to try to respond to each of these replies individually.  In general, I am not particularly interested in arguing the nitty gritty details of this.  I am more inclined to let the rant stand on its own.

That said, I will offer some clarifications--

1)  This rant is regarding the (often mistaken) interpretation of game rules, yes.  Saying "but how else other than page length can we determine importance?" is a little sad, really.  It goes to show how little understanding of how to write RPG texts we really have that the only way we can determine if something is important is sheer weight.  Yes, this is the way a lot of people interpret RPG texts.  It is also dumb.

2)  As for Chris's question about how this fits in with Mike's Combat Rant -- Didn't you read the disclaimer?  ;-)  But, in all seriousness, I think that these rants are about different things.  Mike's is saying "don't have complexity that you don't need" and mine is saying "don't mistake rules length for importance or screen time."

3)  Sydney's last post about "the Crucial Important Rule" is right on the money.

4)  The biggest error that this is combatting is one that designers can make -- "Boy, this is really important, but it can be described elegantly in a paragraph.  I guess I'd better make the rule more complex, because it is so important."  No!  No!  I propose that rules ought to be only as complex (and thus, textually long) as they need to be, and that anything else is detrimental to game design.

I'm going to posit that textual construction of RPG rules suffers from a terrifying lack of development, and that is at the root of a lot of these interpretations and misinterpretations.  Reasonable?

yrs--
--Ben

[clehrich]

Yes, Ben, that seems reasonable to me.

One thing that occurs to me is some sort of text-structuring to put a big neon sign on the #1 Crucial Rule.  For example, give it its own chapter, even if that chapter is only one page long.  That tells you, right away, that this is important.

Of course, as you know, I haven't really been practicing what I preach here....

[Jason E Leigh]

I'm going to posit that textual construction of RPG rules suffers from a terrifying lack of development, and that is at the root of a lot of these interpretations and misinterpretations. Reasonable?

Ben:

I'll chime in here and say that being a good writer is being a good writer is being a good writer no matter what the subject matter.

Books like Elements of Style by Strunk and White are essential to anyone trying to produce a quality writtern document.

Being a successful game designer is more than just knowing the details of System and the Big Model - it means knowing how to get an idea across as concisely and impactfully as possible.

One concrete way to gain this kind of skill is practice, practice, practice.  And of course, read every other game you can get your hands on to see how others have tackled this issue (or failed to tackle it).

Great point Ben, and ultimately a good challenge to all the nascent designers on the Forge.

Thanks.

[inky]

I propose that rules ought to be only as complex (and thus, textually long) as they need to be, and that anything else is detrimental to game design.

I agree with the rest of the sentence, but I don't think the "and thus.." follows at all. Adding things like examples, strategy of usage, and the-theory-behind-the-rule don't make a rule any more complex, but they do make it both easier to understand and more clearly a significant part of the game. I'm not suggesting bulking out the section with supplemental material for the sake of doing so, but if this is really the core of the game, it seems important enough to make sure that people get it right that the rules should include a discussion of how to use it in play (and examples, if it has any possible ambiguities).