The Dead Game and RPG mortality

[Astrivian]

Reading through the various essays, something occurred to me: games can die.

To start, I need to define what I mean by "death," and by contrast "life," in terms of the GNS model.  I am drawing on Nicholas Flammel's Hermetic concept of dead metals.  In his letters, a dead object is incapable of any further change; life, therefore, was still capable of changing by some process.  A dead game is incapable of any further new change (i.e. exploration), by the players and GM (who i will collectively refer to as the participants). A dead game has reached its end.

The idea itself assumes that exploration involves new ideas and new territory.  If the participants have already exhausted the possibilities of a particular situation, there is nothing left to explore.  All that can be accomplished at this point is the review of previous experiences (essentially, reading the transcript of events). Admittedly, it is rare that participants in RPG's will have the problem of running out of ideas, but certain design elements can lead to mortality.

For better illustration of this idea, let me first refer to video games.  Consider Mario Kart.  When you first buy the game it is full of life: few tracks are unlocked, and you haven't explored anything yet.  As you play more tracks open and you continuously find new and exciting things.  However, there comes a point when you have done it all: you beat the bad guy, opened all the tracks, saved the princess, and fought others in deathmatches.  What now?  Other than the continued deathmatches with other players, there is nothing left to explore in this game.  It is now dead and, at least with me, ends up on a shelf collecting dust.  

Video games and board games suffer from a high mortality rate because of their basic limit in design.  A programer simply cannot include every possible solution and endless exploration. (Even video-RPG's suffer from death at some point. After a while, you simply cannot do anything new.) Video games are mortal for this very reason, with the possible exception of gamist model designs such as deathmatches.  

RPG's (non-videogame) seem immortal at first, and they should be.  For an RPG to die assumes the participants cannot explore any more situations or that they have simply run out of ideas; however, the limitless creativity of the imagination should prevent this from ever happening.  If the participants run out of creative ideas in an RPG, they probably aren't very well suited as participants.  This "running out of ideas" scenario is extremely unlikely but possible if the game design doesn't allow for continuous creativity.

But how does mortality affect the GNS model?  Is there a particular model particularly susceptible to mortality?  I argue yes, if it is poorly designed.  Let me start with the gamist model, since it is as close to immortal as a design can get.  By pitting every player against each other there are unlimited iterations of exploration: no two games will ever be exactly the same.  Even simple board games like chess and go demonstrate this idea.

It is simulationist and narrativist models which have potential mortality. If an RPG's design follows a simulationist perspective and does not allow for continued exploration and creation within the game, it will die.  Obviously, it requires very poor design for this to happen.  The game has to be written in such a way that: 1) there are a finite number of possibilities for character creation, 2) there are a limited number of conflict possibilities, and/or 3) there are few allowed resolutions.  

Narrativist design (not play) stands next to its own grave with shovel in hand and coffin open.  If the design slips up even a little, it falls in and is buried forever.  If narrativist designs are concerned with story, when the story ends the game dies.  Again, this situation would be a case of extremely poor design, but it is possible.  Imaginative participants can save even a poor design by adding story elements during play to extend the finite end into infinite time.  For example, if an RPG's design calls for the defeat of some evil empire, when that is done, the game is over.  The participants can continuously add conflicts so that the empire never falls, thereby saving the design from its built-in mortality.  The fatal end, however, still exists and the game will never be immortal.

As one last note, i don't believe mortality truly exists in play.  Even if participants run out of ideas (as mentioned with simulationist play) someone can save it.  To me, RPG mortality is a function of a poor design failing to allow for the full expression of participants' creativity and exploration.

[LordSmerf]

If I am reading you correctly then, while I may agree with you that specific instances of a game (Campaigns, linked sessions, whatever; which you have been calling "RPGs") can "die", I don't see that this is a problem.

If I read this correctly then My Life with Master is built to "die".  It has a very specific endgame system, and the entire course of a campaign builds to this endgame.  Once the endgame occurs, the game ends.  You can play again with new character, or even the same ones exploring new possiblities, but the game is over.

Is this a bad thing?  Is a specific thematic resolution a negative?  Am I just misreading your point?

Sure, games die.  So what?

Thomas

[Nathan P.]

Wouldn't the "life" of a game designed to support Narrativist play be a function of the endless iteration of the answers to the question posed by the premise, much in the same way a Gamist design is sustained by the endless iterations of player interaction?

[lumpley]

Here's us Narrativist designers doing our Tyrell impersonations: "...and you have burned so very, very brightly..."

Welcome to the Forge, Astrivian! My name's Vincent, what's yours?

The ideal of the ten-year campaign - it's just one of many possible ideals. As ideals go, it's not even a very good one, at least not from a point of view that values stories. Every story ends.

In fact consider that long-term Narrativist play is more like a novel and its sequels, than like one big novel. The first story ends, but spawns a second, which spawns a third... Not immortality but dynasty.

-Vincent

[Callan S.]

RPG's (non-videogame) seem immortal at first, and they should be. For an RPG to die assumes the participants cannot explore any more situations or that they have simply run out of ideas; however, the limitless creativity of the imagination should prevent this from ever happening.

I'll use another video game analogy to disagree with this presumed life: never winter nights.

So you play through it, then again as another class, and so on until you've pretty much explored everything in the supplied campaign. Then it goes on the shelf, to collect dust.

But then you fool around with the module editor and start making new modules.

Does that mean the game is alive? Well no. Your the one making the module...there will be mechanical elements of the game there that shape play, but only those few elements (assuming you don't kill them off in the way you design) survive. Bits surviving picariously.

Now imagine a P&P RPG with no campaign material in the book. It wont even have the play time you got with never winter nights. Basically most P&P RPG's are dead from the moment they are pressed. It's actually the more focused ones, the ones you identified before as having a limmited life span, the ones you can finish play on, that have some life. From this perspective, most traditional P&P games look immortal basically because they couldn't become any more dead than they already are.

[Astrivian]

Yea maybe i should clarify a bit more.  Iterations using the same premise and "endgame" that are different from one another (using different characters, as you mentioned) is one way to keep a game alive.  I think i might have come across as damning the narrativist style: this was not my intention.  If the participants can use iterations or modules, the game design is lives since it allows for these variations.  

Does that mean the game is alive? Well no. Your the one making the module...there will be mechanical elements of the game there that shape play, but only those few elements (assuming you don't kill them off in the way you design) survive. Bits surviving picariously.

Modules, the way they were described in the quote, sound like a characteristic of computer games. As far as i am aware, this is not possible with gamecube or PS2.  

Again, i think it would take some serious skill to compose an RPG that is dead from the start.  Which is why, Noon, i am not following your last point:

Now imagine a P&P RPG with no campaign material in the book. It wont even have the play time you got with never winter nights. Basically most P&P RPG's are dead from the moment they are pressed. It's actually the more focused ones, the ones you identified before as having a limmited life span, the ones you can finish play on, that have some life. From this perspective, most traditional P&P games look immortal basically because they couldn't become any more dead than they already are.

Campaign information included in a text does not condem the game to death.  If, at the end of the campaign, participants sit around at say "okay, now what?", the material should probably be broadened to allow for more iterations, variations, or completely new stories.

Let me clarify what i have in mind: game death = participants sitting aroudn with blank looks on their faces asking "now what?"  

Is this even possible with RPG's?  

To answer the "So what" remark, consider the game from a business angle.  If it gets shelved because participants can no longer play it, you've just lost your market.

[timfire]

A dead game is incapable of any further new change (i.e. exploration), by the players and GM (who i will collectively refer to as the participants). A dead game has reached its end.

The idea itself assumes that exploration involves new ideas and new territory.  If the participants have already exhausted the possibilities of a particular situation, there is nothing left to explore.  

An issue with this idea is that is totally subjective and individual.  You yourself say this: "If the particiapants have already exhausted the possibilities of a particular situation..." If I'm understandin you correctly, you're basically asking when will people get sick of playing a particular game. Who knows!  Some players will feel they have 'exhausted' a game after their first run-through. Others will never lose interest.

Your Mario Cart example illustrates this perfectly. I *LOVED* Mario Cart 64. I don't know how many times I played that game. I never got sick of it, and still enjoy playing it. Now, I realize that's just me, but that's my point. Different people have different tolerances for different things.

My point with this thread is that because the idea is so subjective, its going to be difficult for you to come up with any sort of objective conclusion.

I would also argue with your conclusion that 'dying' games are bad from a buiseness angle. [edit] Let me re-phrase that - I'm not sure that 'dying' games are always bad. [/edit] Using your example, look at the video game industry. You claim that video games suffer from high mortality rates, but the video game industry isn't hurting. I think it might even be helpful sometimes. When players get sick of their current games, it encourages them to go out and buy new ones.

[Bill Cook]

There're a few things here: exploration as a ceiling for continued play, program material (including the endgame) and some assumptions about how GNS follows a certain continuum. There's probably a hip, game theory way to say this, but here goes: new ground in application of play is limited by range of approach and requirements of investment. That's just an is thing. Structure to issue of play is innocuous outside an agenda. Is, again.

Your portrayal of GNS ascribes value to play that encourages developmental chaining. Some people like their closed song forms; others want to jam. I don't see your bais as being linked to any particular CA.

Let me clarify what i have in mind: game death = participants sitting aroudn with blank looks on their faces asking "now what?"

Is this even possible with RPG's?

Oh, brother. Surely. In my experience, the less play is prescribed, the more you risk this kind of disatisfaction.

[Callan S.]

Campaign information included in a text does not condem the game to death.

No, I don't mean that. From your mario cart example, I thought you meant life is when there is something to explore in the product. Campaign material in a game actually gives the game some life...without campaign material it's instantly dead (dead like the mario cart example).

I was trying to say that table top RPG's might seem to have unlimited life, because they can't die like this. I'm trying to say they can't die because their already dead...traditionally they rely on users to draw on the material to make something, and it is actually that something which is 'alive' in the sense of the mario cart example, not the RPG itself.

Let me clarify what i have in mind: game death = participants sitting aroudn with blank looks on their faces asking "now what?"  

Is this even possible with RPG's?  

Given that it's usually impossible to just open the book and play like you'd load up a video game and play (ie, there is content already in there, for the exploring), this 'now what?' isn't really possible. By the nature of RPG's, the 'what else can I get out of this product, exploration wise' doesn't happen. Because generally they don't have content (campagin material) to explore to begin with (or if they do, significantly less than most comp games).

To answer the "So what" remark, consider the game from a business angle.  If it gets shelved because participants can no longer play it, you've just lost your market.

Did I say so what? Anyway, I think most computer game companies bank on games getting shelved. Why would a customer buy the second game when he's still enjoying the first? There's more reason to buy it if the first is done and dead, up on the shelf. It's basically like food...if someones still eating a pie, they aren't going to be as interested in buying a second. However, if they've finished one pie, they are more ready for another.

[Joe J Prince]

I think the death of a rpg occurs on far more levels than the lack of potential in-game exploration.

The ultimate death a rpg can suffer is the dissolution of the social contract which binds the group together. Ain't nuthin' getting round this one.

Another cause of game mortality can be player/GM hostility to the system or premise of the game. They pretend it's OK but poison it from within, it's a dead game playin' as soon as a member of the group feels like this.

Boredom or frustation are the other guaranteed game-killas, especially if coinciding with PC death(s).

To me, the strength of the current Indie, New Wave or next gen rpgs is that they look beyond the Shared Imagined Space as be-all-and-end-all and focus on a specific premise and end-state. If a game is supposed to end it don't die, it concludes.

but thats just like my opinion man.
JJ