Drama, Fortune, Karma -- Is there anything else?

[Sydney Freedberg]

I'd agree with Vincent that "mechanics that reference real-world cues" (e.g. Fortune, Karma) are fundamentally different from "mechanics that only reference stuff in our heads" (e.g. Drama), and that further distinctions are secondary -- but still important.

I'm not sure it's quite "random vs. non-random" that's the key second-order distinction, though. It may be "uncertain vs. certain." In other words, if I can look at some set of factors and know before trying what's going to work and what won't, that's very different from not knowing for sure until you try. Now, the reason you can not know for sure until you try can be either "reality is undetermined" -- we'll roll dice, or draw cards, or throw pennies in a jar, and only once that happens will the outcome be known -- or "reality is unknown" -- e.g. all the factors that matter are already written on our character sheets (karma) but I can't see the other guy's, and these hidden factors will only be revealed once I've committed myself.

Whether the uncertainty comes from a card that's yet to be drawn, or a card that's already drawn but face-down, sort of straddles these two categories. If nobody looks at the card, but its position in the deck is unchanging, is that somehow less random than rolling a die? Which leads me to suspect that "certain in advance vs. uncertain" is a much more important distinction than "randomly determined vs. non-randomly determined but unknown."

Yes, this is getting kinda theological.

This is on my mind because we've been wrestling with this a bit in the Schrodinger's War GroupDesign project, where one of our self-imposed challenges was avoiding traditional dice-rolling. My personal take was that for a game about transcendant beings defined by superhuman knowledge, the theological/philosophical distinction actually does matter: Uncertain resolution that involves a random die-roll makes a very different statement about the universe than uncertain resolution that inolves a card or written-down value that's hidden. The former says "some things are random and thus unknowable, too bad" -- which nudges you to get all quantum dynamical/Taoist -- and the latter says "everything is knowable, it's just that you don't know them in this particular case that you really care about, you sorry bastard" -- which kinda twists the knife a little more, I think.

[EDIT: Hey, my 500th Forge post. On a normal forum I'd have a new stupid rank under my annoying graphic, not to mention masive speling erors. Oh well.]

[Sydney Freedberg]

Oh, wait a second. I just remembered some nail-biting Amber throne war experiences, pacing in a room waiting for the GM to finish talking to other people so I would know if I reached the castle in time, and realized you can have "resolution that only references stuff in our heads" (drama) and still have uncertainty of either variety:

Drama + "uncertainty because factors are undetermined": I narrate trying to do something, and the GM (or the group by majority vote, or whatever) decides whether they like it enough to let it happen or not. "Yeah, cool, you leap right over the rabid wallaby and grab the jewel" or "no, actually the ceiling's too low, you hit your head and fall down, stunned and helpless." (E.g. "GM Fiat").

Drama + "uncertainty because factors are unknown": I narrate trying to do something, my opponent narrates trying to do something else, but each of is speaking privately to the GM who then decides the interation. E.g. Player A says "I attack wildly" or "I weaken the north flank to reinforce the center" vs. Player B says "I'll let him attack, parry, and then riposte" or "I hit his north flank" leads to the GM saying "you lunge, but he counters and stabs you" or "your north flank collapses under enemy assault."

Whereas by contrast, if you can narrate whatever you want and know that anything you say happens in the shared imagined space, that's drama but no uncertainty.

So you have a fourfold categorization, maybe:
"Only references stuff in our heads" (drama) + certain in advance
"Only references stuff in our heads" (drama) + uncertain
"References real-world cues" + certain (karma with factors in plain sight)
"References real world cues" + uncertain (fortune OR karma with factors hidden)

[Andrew Morris]

[OOPS. Sorry Sydney, crossposted with your comments.]

Whether we define categories such that Dogs' rules fall into one, or another, or a third - that doesn't touch the experience of play at the table in any way. Define whatever and however many categories you want, Dogs' rules will do what they do.

Right, I totally agree. My position is that the classification of the rules is a useful tool for game design and discussion of game design. And, as such, I'd like to look at rules that fall outside the given categories. So let's refocus this discussion by looking at these two mechanics:

1) In a hypothetical boffer LARP, the only mechanic is that if you are hit with a weapon, your character is dead. This is way more simple than most boffer LARPs, but it'll do for discussion.

2) In a table-top game, the only mechanic is that whoever can grab the "narration rock" first narrates the outcome for a specific period of time.

Can either of these be fit within Drama, Fortune, or Karma? If not, would a fourth category such as "Skill" be appropriate and useful? Also, are there any other methods of categorizing these two examples (as well as the more traditional DFK, as well, I suppose)?

I'm sorry that this thread came to be about my opinion!

Nah, don't be. Your opinions are pretty interesting, whether I agree with them or not.

[John Kim]

So you have a fourfold categorization, maybe:
"Only references stuff in our heads" (drama) + certain in advance
"Only references stuff in our heads" (drama) + uncertain
"References real-world cues" + certain (karma with factors in plain sight)
"References real world cues" + uncertain (fortune OR karma with factors hidden)

Well, this is very different from how Drama and Karma are defined in Everway.  There, Karma was just deciding based on world logic (i.e. is this character a good enough doctor to perform the operation?) whereas Drama is deciding based on story logic (i.e. will it make for better thematic power if the operation succeeds?).  Just wanted to bring that in as far as using DFK terms could be confusing.  

The idea of "only references stuff in our heads" is, at base, preposterous.  The only way I can refer to stuff in my head is to use real-world symbols like verbally-spoken names and words.  The difference seems to be whether you refer to only verbal material, written but not formalized material, or formalized material according to game rules.  OK, let me compare three cases:

1) We're playing a short superhero freeform game with a GM, and I verbally at the start of the game "My character Sidestep has the power to teleport up to a kilometer with just a thought."  No one objects, so this is accepted.  Mostly he just pops around the room or whatnot. Later, Sidestep tries to teleport instantly to the top of a skyscraper -- and the GM rules it succeeds, remembering what I said earlier.  

2) We're playing a scheduled freeform game via chat.  I submitted a character earlier by email to the GM, in which I wrote out: "Teleport: has the power to teleport up to 1 kilometer in 1 second."  The GM writes me back saying the character is fine.  At some later point, I try to teleport to the top of a skyscraper.  The GM looks at my email, and says it succeeds.  

3) We're playing a more formal game (like Champions or GURPS), and I have a character sheet where I have written "Teleport, range 1 kilometer".  Again, I try to teleport to the top of a skyscraper and the GM rules I succeed.  

I think the verbal/informal written/formal written is a good distinction, but it isn't to me necessarily the most important.  

Dogs' rules' dice and how you treat them, the words and numbers on its character sheet and how you treat them, exactly what you're talking about, Ralph - that's what makes the experience of play at the table.

Whether we define categories such that Dogs' rules fall into one, or another, or a third - that doesn't touch the experience of play at the table in any way. Define whatever and however many categories you want, Dogs' rules will do what they do.

Obviously, the point of categorizing isn't to change how the rules work.  It is to help analyze and refer to how rules work.  You don't seem to care about Drama/Karma/Fortune, but you use other categories -- like Conflict Resolution/Task Resolution -- in your own discussion.

[lumpley]

No really, my opinions about which categorization schemes are useful and which aren't have gotten more attention than they deserve.

-Vincent

[Andrew Morris]

Okay, to keep this conversation moving toward my intended goal, I've created this thread for discussing the DFK model and whether it should be replaced, used the way it is, or changed.

Let's focus discussion on this thread on whether there are categories of resolution mechanics that are not covered by DFK and what they might be. For the purposes of this thread, let's all assume that DFK is completely valid and useful, whether we agree with that or not. Any thoughts?

[M. J. Young]

I am really fascinated by this. I don't think we've had a decent discussion about DFK in a very long time, and I'm sorry so much of it has passed without me today.

I hope to remedy that.

I'm landing between Ralph and Vincent on this, I think, and I'm comfortable there.

As a quick aside, I'm going to call Ralph's attention to the potential use of democratic drama mechanics, in which what happens is determined by some mechanism that permits all participants to vote on the outcome. I believe at this point, although it's been mentioned numerous times, it remains theoretical--no one to my knowledge has designed a game in which disagreements concerning events in the SIS are settled by vote. I mention it because this would retain a fully drama-based resolution system but provide the means to "punt".

Part of the original question is whether there are mechanics that are not drama, fortune, or karma. I'm inclined to think that there are not; but that position is based on rather broadly defining karma.

The breadth of such a definition is based on the assertion that Chess is an entirely karma-based system. There is no fortune (nothing random happens) and no drama (it doesn't really matter what anyone says about what happens). There are only the powers of the pieces and the decisions of the players. Yet we can see that at the start of play the two sides are evenly matched--all chess games should, on that basis, wind up as a draw. Where does the difference arise? It would appear that the victory goes to the one who plays the game better. Thus the ability to use tactics and strategy is decisive in the resolution of a chess game. I would maintain that this is a player skill, and that it is in essence karma resolution: who is the better player?

I can certainly see an argument for dividing the qualities of the player from the qualities of the character; however, I'm inclined to think that at some point that distinction becomes terribly fine--how do you categorize qualities of the character that only exist because of skillful choices by the player? Karma seems to me always at some level to invoke player skill. Thus I think player skill is essentially an ingredient of karma. Even in Amber Diceless, the scores of the characters are only half of the karma resolution system--the other half is the abilities of the players to manipulate the situation such that the scores that matter to the resolution are the ones in which they are strong.

Yet Vincent is absolutely right that knowing what to call a resolution system is not terribly important to knowing how to design one or how to use one. A few years back we had a major and I think unresolved debate concerning whether it was at all possible to design any resolution system that was purely one of these. You could eliminate fortune, and with significant effort you could eliminate karma, but you rarely could eliminate drama and you could not really run pure drama in any way that was interesting.

D&D actually provides a classic example.

Although it has gone through several forms, they share some features that make them hybrid systems. Follow me on this.

In a combat situation, it is immediately evident that fortune is involved. We roll our d20s to hit the monster, and if we roll high enough we get to roll our damage. No one questions whether fortune is involved; we think it is a completely fortune based system.

Yet the number that the fighter has to roll to hit the monster is probably a considerably lower number than the number the magic user has to roll for the same purpose. Further, the fighter at seventh level does not have to roll as high as that same fighter would have had to roll at first level. Similarly, a stronger fighter need not roll as high, and a fighter with a magic sword need not roll as high. These are all karma-based modifiers on the fortune mechanic.

Meanwhile, as Ralph mentioned in passing, the referee is contributing a great deal through drama here. He has in selecting the monster for this encounter essentially decided what the base target number has to be, in that the armor class of the monster is going to impact that. He has decided the circumstances in which the encounter is going to occur, which may advantage or disadvantage the players significantly--more or less so depending on which version of the game, and very importantly on how the referee determines a number of questions, such as how many can fight one opponent at the same time, or how many individual fights can be happening in this particular space. In fact, referees inherently have the power to decide whether rolls are "necessary" at all, and in many circumstances a referee will tell a player not to bother rolling damage (because the blow will be fatal) or not to bother rolling to hit (e.g., helpless opponents are hit automatically, but who decides that this opponent actually is helpless?).

Thus I think a significant part of the point of Vincent's opinion here is that it might not be possible to say, "Oh, this resolution mechanic is clearly fortune," because frankly any decent fortune mechanic is going to have other elements in it. With D&D3E it has been argued that the game engine transitions from a highly volatile fortune mechanic (in which rolls of the dice are the critical factor in combat outcomes) to a highly stable karma mechanic (in which character levels are the real deciding factor and die rolls are incidental). Trying to pigeonhole your mechanic as one of these may be a waste of effort.

Yet it is still quite valuable in considering how to design your game and in running games designed by others that there are these three distinct categories of resolution mechanics. The advantage of course is that it enables us to break out of our expectations--to avoid the silly mistakes like thinking that we've gone diceless because we draw cards to generate random numbers, or confusing resolution based on comparison of character scores with resolution based on what the referee wants to see happen. Understanding the categories is a basic step in understanding game design. It's just that you can't really use those categories as absolutes. It would be like learning that four-color printing uses yellow, cyan, magenta, and black ink, and then thinking that this means all color pictures must a patchwork of those four colors so that "four color printing" can reproduce them properly. It is useful to understand that CYMK color concept, but just because those are the colors from which all pictures are made does not mean that any one of those colors will ever be in any particular picture in its pure form. So, too, with DFK, you should understand them, but you should also understand that they almost never appear in pure form in any context.

I see that Andrew is attempting to split the subject, but as I don't yet understand the split I'm going to post this anyway, as it's all relevant to what's been written here.

--M. J. Young

[Andrew Morris]

Wow, lots to respond to here.

Part of the original question is whether there are mechanics that are not drama, fortune, or karma. I'm inclined to think that there are not; but that position is based on rather broadly defining karma.

Right, that's actually the main point of this thread. It itakes place in the context of DFK. The other thread is for saying whether DFK is good as is, needs to be changed, or should be replaced with something else entirely.

The breadth of such a definition is based on the assertion that Chess is an entirely karma-based system. There is no fortune (nothing random happens) and no drama (it doesn't really matter what anyone says about what happens).

Ahh, well, that's where our central disagreement lies. I don't see chess as a Karma system. It's not Drama or Fortune, as you explain, but it doesn't rely on the comparison of fixed scores, either. So I tihnk it's actually an excellent example of Skill resolution.

Thus I think a significant part of the point of Vincent's opinion here is that it might not be possible to say, "Oh, this resolution mechanic is clearly fortune," because frankly any decent fortune mechanic is going to have other elements in it.

Yes, I agree completely. But the fact that hybridization is the norm doesn't make the basic categories any less valuable.

It would be like learning that four-color printing uses yellow, cyan, magenta, and black ink, and then thinking that this means all color pictures must a patchwork of those four colors so that "four color printing" can reproduce them properly. It is useful to understand that CYMK color concept, but just because those are the colors from which all pictures are made does not mean that any one of those colors will ever be in any particular picture in its pure form. So, too, with DFK, you should understand them, but you should also understand that they almost never appear in pure form in any context.

This is a good analogy, and I agree with it. But defining CMYK is functionally useful to designers. Using it as a framework, one designer can talk to another and precisely define a particular color instead of saying, "Well, that green that's pretty dark, but has a hint of red, and is just a shade or two off from this other thing over here." Likewise, defining all the possible resolution categories is useful for designers, especially when discussing combinations.

[Valamir]

I can see Chess being considered Karmic, but for a different line of reasoning than MJ used.

Chess is Karmic for the same reason that Stratego is Karmic.  You compare the value of one piece to the value of the other, the higher value (or lower in original Stratego) wins.

In Chess the value of the moving piece =1, the value of the non moving piece =0.  1>0 therefor the moving piece always wins.

[Andrew Morris]

Well, except in en passant. Though if you gave that piece a temporary score of 2, it all fits.

But I thought the point of Karma was that it compared two specific values defined by the game. I mean, we can assume two relative scores about anything, but that doesn't change the fact that it's just something we've tacked on, not a part of the game itself. (Actually, the pieces in chess do have specific, non-changing scores. Pawns are 1, knights and bishops are 3, rooks are worth 5, the queen is worth 9, and the king is infinite. Of course, that's really for determining the value of particular moves, and position can change the actual importance of a particular piece.)

Anyway, we could say that a drama mechanic is Karma, using the reasoning that the speaker who is narrating has a score of 1, and all other players have a score of 0. But it's still an awkward fit, which is how defining chess as Karma seems to me.

Classification is a tricky subject sometimes, but I think we need to look at this conversation in light of what makes the most sense. Almost anything can be fit in any sufficiently broad category, but doing so lessens the value of that category as a useful tool for identification. I'm sure we'll all agree that cars and boats are both vehicles. Could we make a case that horses are too? Sure, but it's more useful to identify horses as animals, instead. They can be used for purposes of transportation, yes, but that doesn't mean they should fall into the "vehicles" category.

[Valamir]

Anyway, we could say that a drama mechanic is Karma, using the reasoning that the speaker who is narrating has a score of 1, and all other players have a score of 0. But it's still an awkward fit, which is how defining chess as Karma seems to me.

Actually, I think that's a pretty interesting direction.  As I've noted I think Karma resolution is pretty much Drama resolution plus restrictions, so the two are (in my view) pretty tightly related.  If we assume that in Drama the speaker has a score of 1...what circumstances would cause a game designer to assign a higher score to something else (i.e. create a Karmic situation)?  What circumstances would cause a game designer to allow the speaker to obtain a higher score in order to over come taht some thing else?

I think that's a pretty fruitful way of looking at Drama actually.

[Andrew Morris]

Damn, Ralph, I really want to agree with you, because you and Mike are my freaking heroes for creating Universalis, but I just can't in this case.

Look at it this way. You can make a case for every resolution mechanic being Karma, if you really want to:

Drama -- Whoever has the highest score has the right to narrate
Fortune -- Whoever has the highest score wins the task/conflict
Skill -- Whovever has the highest score (ability) wins the task

Does that mean everything is just a subset of Karma? I don't think so. Sure, maybe you can argue that's the case. But how is it useful? I could create a category -- Things -- and claim that everything is included in it. Does that help me in any meaningful way? Not at all.

[Brendan]

As a quick aside, I'm going to call Ralph's attention to the potential use of democratic drama mechanics, in which what happens is determined by some mechanism that permits all participants to vote on the outcome. I believe at this point, although it's been mentioned numerous times, it remains theoretical--no one to my knowledge has designed a game in which disagreements concerning events in the SIS are settled by vote.

Not exactly an RPG, but not exactly not one either:  witness Nomic (and the best implementation I've found, in BlogNomic).

[Valamir]

Damn, Ralph, I really want to agree with you, because you and Mike are my freaking heroes for creating Universalis, but I just can't in this case.

Heh...that's ok...acts of devout worship are not required :-)
...although...if Ron gets to be a cult leader....hmmmm...


I agree that dwelling on the embedded karmic interpretations in DFK is probably non productive.  But I think even the simple realization that, as you pointed out, all resolution can be boiled down that level, does shed some important light on overall study of resolution systems.

Ultimately D F and K are just different mechanisms for determining who has the "highest score".  Therefor, how and when the mechanism is called upon and why certain mechanisms might be chosen over others is thus more important than the identifying the mechanisms themselves.  I suspect that this is at the heart of Vincent's earlier comments.  

But yes, once we see that issue and roll the concept around a bit for the insight it can give us, there probably isn't a whole lot of additional value to be gleaned by continuing down that path.

[M. J. Young]

Ultimately D F and K are just different mechanisms for determining who has the "highest score".  Therefor, how and when the mechanism is called upon and why certain mechanisms might be chosen over others is thus more important than the identifying the mechanisms themselves.

Ultimately D F and K are different mechanisms for determining who has the most credibility in the current situation.

I don't know if that is disagreeing with what you meant or not, but I thought it was an important clarification.

--M. J. Young