Toy Quality

[Ben Lehman]

I have been thinking recently about some http://www.livejournal.com/users/benlehman/54512.html">non-resolution aspects of game design.  With luck, this will be the first post in a bit of a series which examines a lot of different design things that are outside of the resolution model of game design.

What I want to talk about today is what makes a system fun to play.  This is a very specific topic and it is, to my mind, almost entirely divorced from what makes a role-playing game fun to play.  The point about this quality is that some games have it, and some games don't, and those that do have it are fun to play divorced from anything that may be going on in the shared imagined space.  Indeed, one could imagine a terrible game (uninspiring events in the SIS) where all the participants still had fun because the mechanics brought them such joy.

(interestingly, the aesthetics of the game text -- art and layout -- could also be related here, but for this post, we'll talk explicity about the mechanics.)

I'm going to call this quality of having fun mechanics "Toy Quality," because it adds a toy-like aspect to the game -- it's fun to play with, even when you aren't doing much.  Let's look at its qualities!

There are games out there which are all toy quality-- lots of them, actually.  Chess and Go and Backgammon and Bridge and Hearts and a whole bunch more.  Another huge group of games, while having some SIS qualities, are essentially entirely devoted to toy quality (pretty much all modern board games, for one.)  One could (rightly) say that these aren't really role-playing games, but that's part of the point.  Toy quality is an appendix on a role-playing game.  It really isn't the whole.

Some games which have little or no toy quality -- Primetime Adventures and Over the Edge are two of the games that have the lowest toy quality that I can think of.  There is literally no joy in just rolling the dice and counting evens and looking for high rolls, or summing the totals, and there is no room for mechanical wiggle.  These are simple systems -- there is also room for systems with mechanical complexity at the "little toy quality" end, they just have to have no real fun in that mechanical complexity, which is more of a subjective judgement.

Let's look at some games which have high toy quality.  D&D3 has very high toy quality.  Dogs in the Vineyard has good toy quality, what with the bidding and raising.  Fist of the Assassin, Rich Forest's refinement of the http://home.centurytel.net/tribe22/shotgun.htm">Shotgun Musashi system, has such a high toy quality that Rich and I just played it straight, like a card game, for hours.  Riddle of Steel and Burning Wheel both have that toy quality in their combat systems.

I hope, by now, that y'all have some idea of what we're talking about.  Here are two theoretical questions: What are the effects of high/low toy quality in final game design?  What are the prerequisites to high or low toy quality?  Let me take a stab at those in reverse order.

I think that a certain degree of mechanical complexity is necessary for good toy quality, although not perhaps as much as it first seems.  I think the main thing is that the fundamental process of playing the game must involve reasonably difficult decisions being made by the players during the mechanical play of the game.  For instance, in Dogs, your bids shape how much victory will cost you, or how much loss you'll endure.  They are really important and, furthermore, can be strategized to a great degree.  In PTA, on the gripping hand, all important decisions you make are non-mechanical -- the actual mechanical parts of the system are reasonably simple (roll a bunch of dice.)  The game relies on the impact into the SIS to make these exchanges interesting.  So there's a thought about that question, although I'm still uncertain about it.

To address the other question, I don't think toy quality is necessary for a good game, at all.  I enjoy it when it is present, but I don't miss it when it is gone.  However, I'm thinking it might be an important key to accessing Gamism (which I still hold is more about tactical and strategic elements than about competition.)  Clearly, not all Gamist games need to have toy quality (ref: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7863">Tunnels and http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/tandt.htm">Trolls), but I think that a lot of high quality Gamist games do have it.

(This leads me to think that there are two main strands in Gamism -- the calculalated and the freeform, but that's another post.)

I welcome any thoughts, criticisms, links, "we talked about this before" references, etc.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  In terms of http://www.lumpley.com/anycomment.php?entry=156">lumpley diagrams, toy quality is entirely about the two little arrows on the right, between people and stuff.  I'm pretty sure, at least.

[LordSmerf]

I think that one of the most important requisites for high "Toy Quality" is a system that is self-referential.  That is, a system in which the choices you make now have a direct impact on the choices you can make systemically later.  For example: in Go, placing a stone here now means that it will support you when you do something later.  By the same token placing a stone in a poor position now means that you are weaker later.

The decisions you make now must have an impact on the decisions you make later.

As to the impact Toy Quality has on a game, I'm not sure about that at all...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

I think it can be important for any agenda, not just (or even primarily) Gamism.

Toy Quality is what keeps people using the rules, even when they've achieved (or think they've achieved) a level of common creativity and social agreement that would permit them to manipulate the SIS directly in a pinch.

The more they want to use the rules, the more the rules have a chance to influence and shape play.  If the rules are good rules, well suited to the goal that they purport to aim for, then they should be used as much as possible.  So Toy Quality is a direct factor in how much the system gets to support play, rather than be an adjunct to it.

[LordSmerf]

I think you may be a bit off-base here Tony.  Not about Toy Quality being important and useful to all Creative Agenda's, but about why it is important.

Toy Quality is not the only thing that makes players use the system.  For example, I don't think Capes has much in the way of Toy Quality.  I don't get urges to break out 3x5 notecards and d6's just to roll them divorced from the SIS.  On the other hand, the system in Capes totally rocks for generating intersting things within the SIS.  No matter how comfortable I get with a group, we keep using the system because it does cool things.  But these aren't cool things it does to itself, these are cool things it does to our play within the SIS.

So, while Toy Quality may, in fact, be a direct factor in the use of the rules, I believe that there are other things that are equally, if not more, of a factor.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

I think you're probably right that we're not necessarily talking about the same thing.  We're a little short on definitions.  I'll offer up a first sacrificial lamb in the great "revise-to-a-definition" tradition:

Toy Quality:  The degree to which each point-of-contact in the game system changes the rules-situation enough to force a re-evaluation of strategic options for the next point-of-contact.

By this definition Chess, Go and Hearts all have high Toy Quality.  Monopoly has medium Toy Quality (as most moves don't actually change the course of the game very much).  Gin Rummy has low Toy Quality (at least to me... but maybe I just don't know how to play, like my grandpa always said).

I think it also puts DitV at medium-to-high Toy Quality, and PtA at low.  I don't have enough of a sense about the new edition of D&D to judge.  Old-style D&D at high levels would be a very low toy-quality game ("Okay, I take twenty seven more hit points... only two hundred left.  I roll.  I hit.  The Elder dragon takes fifty three more hit points.  Next turn.")

[LordSmerf]

At the moment I have no strong objections to your current defintion.  For your edification: D&D 3.5 has a number of interesting tactical choices (Flanking, Shoving/Tripping, movement, all sorts of stuff that needs a map and figurines to properly appreciate...)

To return to my earlier point, there is some other quality of a mechanics system in which the points of contact force a reevaluation of the SIS, as opposed to the options within the system itself.  That is the quality we see in PTA and in Sorcerer and in HeroQuest.  These systems aren't fun on their own, but within the context of a game they add a lot to the mix.

Contrast this with The Burning Wheel combat system.  This is something that's fun on it's own, just check out The Areana, a forum dedicated to Burning Wheel combat without any serious SIS.  It's a tactical challenge, and a fun one at that.

So, I guess I still don't know what effect high Toy Quality has on a game.  It is possible that it is unrelated, that it's just something about the game, but I'm not really sure.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Perhaps the reason that (for instance) PTAs mechanic is still interesting, even though it has low Toy Quality (from a strict "the game is the rules" viewpoint) is that manipulating the other players is an accepted part of the game.  An additional definition:

Soap Opera Quality:  The degree to which each point-of-contact in the game system changes the SIS enough to force a re-evaluation of the emotional or thematic significance of strategic options for the next point-of-contact.

I'll offer my opinion that PtA (and Capes, for that matter) have high Soap Opera Quality.

[LordSmerf]

I don't think that future strategic options has anything to do with your "Soap Opera Quality".  I would posit instead that whatever it is, this quality is about providing something different:

Outside input.  The participants can feel a real sense of suspence, since no one can know for sure what the outcome will be.  This also allows a session to go in a direction that no one had anticipated, which allows a sense of discovery.

I don't think that it's about manipulating players or story or whatever at it's base, it's about something unexpected happening.

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Thomas:  You're not talking about my definition.  I grant you that you are probably talking about something important.  You should give it a name.

But I am talking about how the changes in the SIS can feed back into strategic changes in the game.  Since I'm not up to speed yet on PtA I'll discuss using Capes.  I hope folks will forgive me that self-indulgence.

Chess has two sides.  Those two sides will always be opposed, following a clear-cut goal.  If you say "By the way, my Queen is named Isabelle, and had a scarred childhood with a strict nurse-maid," it will not (for most games of chess) have any impact on the strategic situation.

Capes has as many potential sides to each conflict as there are characters, and many conflicts per scene.  Therefore the strategic situation is complicated by the possibility of shifting alliances and focus.  

Without impacting the rules at all, you can make a change in the SIS that causes a player to have their character defect from one side to another.  That's obviously a change in the strategic situation all out of proportion to the observable change in the dice-and-index-cards.

Likewise, Staking, Reactions and Gloating are all situations where the thematic and emotional basis in the SIS is lending disproportionate weight to certain strategic possibilities.  Therefore, effecting the SIS through narration is an indirectly strategic act.

Unlike in Chess, saying "The Red Queen you're trying to take out also happens to be the ex-wife of Atomaton's mentor, Brent Bishop," does inform the strategic options in the game.  Soap Opera Quality.

[Ben Lehman]

Tony, I'm a little unsure of your definition.  Namely, what I mean by "toy quality" is "that which is fun about the mechanics alone."  It doesn't necessarily entail strategy -- at least, not yet in my head.

Some people say that Exalted is fun just because they like rolling lots of dice.  Simply the joy of the clatter of 40 pieces of plastic, to me, is part of toy quality.

yrs--
--Ben

[LordSmerf]

Okay, I think I see what you're saying.  Something about my reading of your initial definition of the term threw me off track.

However, now that I understand what you are saying, I'm not sure what it's significance is.  A game of chess could very well be played out differently because your queen had a troubled childhood.  It would depend on the group playing.  By the same token, the shifting relationships in Capes could have no bearing on the way it's played mechanically. Or at least, that's my read...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Ben:  I think I see what you're saying.  But do you think Go, for instance, has that toy quality, absent the strategy?  I mean... it's a bunch of rocks.  I grant you that they make some very pretty Go and Chess sets, though, so maybe you're talking about the actuality of the game in the world, whereas I'm talking the abstract sense of the game as a set of potentialities...

Okay, now my head's hurting.

Thomas:  I think you're reaching, a little bit.  How many actual games of chess have been influenced by the backstory of the pieces?  Could it happen, theoretically?  Yes.  Is it a common part of the game?  No.

[Ben Lehman]

Ben:  I think I see what you're saying.  But do you think Go, for instance, has that toy quality, absent the strategy?  I mean... it's a bunch of rocks.  I grant you that they make some very pretty Go and Chess sets, though, so maybe you're talking about the actuality of the game in the world, whereas I'm talking the abstract sense of the game as a set of potentialities...

I'm not saying that strategy and tactics are not a part of toy quality.  What I'm saying is that they are not necessarily the entireity of toy quality.  Got it?

yrs--
--Ben

[LordSmerf]

Tony, yes I am definately reaching.  The next point of discussion would be whether we can develop mechanics that encourage "Soap Opera Quality" or whether it happens due to non-mechanical textual encouragment.  However, at this point I feel that we are rapidly running away with Ben's thread.  Perhaps we should take this to a different thread, or possibly PM or email...  Because it is very interesting, but it's not exactly what Ben was trying to discuss here.

Edited to add:  Ben, do you think that it would be useful to distinguish the two parts of Toy Quality that make up the "bits" or "chrome" from the parts that are mechanical?  For example, you can spend $20,000 on a Go board, and there's some joy to be had in such a thing, but that is something independent of the mechanics of the game, while still being part of the game...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Ben:  Got it.

Thomas:  You're right.  My son got a pirate-kit for an early birthday present this morning, and it's clearly incited me to acts of thread piracy.  My bad.