A word for "what do the PC's do?"

[paulkdad]

Core Plot works. The rest of them are WAY too hifalutin'.

Well, unless everyone is settled on "core plot" I think the word, "motif" does the job better.

From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
mo·tif
1 : a usually recurring salient thematic element (as in the arts); especially : a dominant idea or central theme.

[Vaxalon]

I think a good term will settle out with use.  You know... language is the words people use.  I refuse to stress about it.

Mike's article made me realize that the question, "What do they do?" really IS important.  As a result, I've tossed one game design in the dumper (no mourning, it would have landed there anyways) and I'm totally rethinking two more.

The fleshed out vs. bare bones core story intrigues me, though... are both necessary, or only the bare bones?

[Ben Lehman]

How about "situation?"

I realize that is a technical term already coined on the Forge, but I think that it is pretty close to the same thing, if not the same thing entirely.

Mearls has some pretty excellent points about it.  Situation is a must!

yrs--
--Ben

[Vaxalon]

Isn't situation a more small-scale term?  I thought that referred to a specific, well... situation.

"Okhfels and his friends are trapped in a ruined city by angry tribesmen" is a situation.

"The heroes get stuck in a dangerous place" isn't, at least not as I understand it.

[PlotDevice]

I have in my classic Australian way of going for the short n' curlies, used:

theme
motif
guts
onion heart
core concept
main plot
germ
and central premise of play

all interchangably and without much concern for sticking to one meaning I must admit.

Not so good with the high falutin' lingo down here. ;)

Warm regards,
Evan.

[Ben Lehman]

Isn't situation a more small-scale term?  I thought that referred to a specific, well... situation.

"Okhfels and his friends are trapped in a ruined city by angry tribesmen" is a situation.

"The heroes get stuck in a dangerous place" isn't, at least not as I understand it.

When Situation as a part of game text is discussed, it is usually the former, and not the latter.  For instance, MLWM has a very strong Situation set-up,  and it doesn't have any of the setting specifics that you include in your first statement.

yrs--
--Ben

[Vaxalon]

The provisional glossary says that situation is "Dynamic interaction between specific characters and small-scale setting elements..."  So I'm not alone in saying that situation is the specific instance.

I mean, GURPS clearly doesn't have a core story, but if I run a game, it will have a situation.

[Lee Short]

How about these:

Content
Activity Content
Action Content

[Paganini]

So, I think that what we're talking about here is the old 'small p' premise from neolithic GNS theory - the term that was later hijacked into the world of upper-case latters as meaning "an emotionally relevant thematic question that the players answer via actual play." It's too bad that such a good word as "premise" which would fit very well is already being used to mean something that it doesn't even remotely connotate.

I'm still not sure I see the need for a special word for this, though. Is it really any better to have a "What's the Core Story of your game?" jargon question than it is to just ask "What's your game about? What do the characters do? What do the players do?"

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, I very much liked the generalized premise term.

Mike

[Callan S.]

Instructions for play.


So many years of simulationist habit, avoiding blatent metagame play instructions in favour of 'natural' play just -pop- happening by itself. And because instructions would be just such a rude reminder that your playing a game.

[Joel P. Shempert]

Am I the only one whose stomach actually turned at this whole thing?

It all seems like oversimplifying to me. I read through all that blog stuff, and yes, I found the formula given (kill, get loot, power up) to be very accurate RE: D&D, but more as an indictment than a model for emulation. It was a clear and eloquent statement on how simple and cookie-cutter D&D play is, and how that's pretty much all that's supported by the rules and setting. (Of course, many people try to make the game work for other purposes, my play group included, but we can probably all agree that you have to fight uphill battle against the system to get what you want.) And the assumption that this is THE model to which "All successful RPGs" must conform, was the real stomach-turner. Even if you're fine with D&D doing that and find that fun, isn't this the freakin' Forge? Isn't this joint predicated on the idea that all games don't *have* to be like that, that there are plenty of other colors in the gaming spectrum,, lots of uncharted territory to be explored? ANd yet I see nothing but accolades heaped on a couple of guys who come around saying *this* is the One True Way to roleplay. Sorry if I'm being overly snappish, but I'm just shocked that this would go unchallenged.

And by the way, regarding novelised game fiction: it may well be that focusing on character rather than setting has negative ramifications on the game. But in that case, I say on with the characters, screw the game! To be successful *as fiction*, as a *story*, you have to focus on character. A story which "stars the setting" is no story at all, just a glorified sourcebook. Which is fine if you're honest about it and publish it as such. But I know gamers who've read the Dragonlance novels but not The Lord of the Rings. Their idea of what great literature is has been impoverished by ingrown isolationism, just like in so many other aspects of the hobby. (note: this is not a slam against Dragonlance, which I have not read. Just a more general statement that when you confine your creative stimulation to a small niche, your imagination atrophies.)

So anyway. Yes, that was a pretty comprehensive and concise statement by Mike on what D&D's core plot, or formula, or whatever, is. But isn't that pretty obvious? There's no call to apply that formula to every RPG out there (oh, sorry, only "successful" ones). If this is just a terminology thread, fine, let's call it formula, or story, or plot, or whatever, but I think the thread intent has far overstepped this goal.

Peace,

[pete_darby]

Joel:

Try reading the thread again with the spirit that many, if not most succesful games have a system with a core set of activities that are formulaic. These need not be D&D's, but D&D has an easily identifiable core, and it is the quality of having an indentifiable core formula for the activity of the characters that makes some games succesful.

I don't believe anyone is saying that copying D&D's precise core formula is desirable, or even acheivable in a sense of doing it "better" than D&D.

[Brendan]

Try reading the thread again with the spirit that many, if not most succesful games have a system with a core set of activities that are formulaic.

Emphasis mine.  What exactly was the problem with "formula" again?

[Lord Shield]

On the subject of what the PCs "do" (or maybe are meant to do) I think I would describe it as follows (for the purposes of this analysis I refer to the characters owned by the Players, not ones run by the GM):

Firstly, at least for most campaigns, they would be the centre of the "story" being built by the campaign

Now imagine that these characters are a single process. A bubble meant for a flow chart.

The GM creates the other elements of the Flowchart. These will be typically be events, be they initiated by Gods, natural disasters, things the players want to do, or the various antagonists he has at his disposal.

The player "bubble" connects to these event bubbles and by their own nature cause the event bubbles to divert in a certain way. Some of these event bubbles will then trigger the others.

It works like a sort of animated flowchart which alters itself depending on what the Player's do with their characters