We Need a Term

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hey. My suggestion was a "sketch game". It's the full-on Forge games I'd call "focused games". So I recognize the difference you're trying to make. And whether the "traditional games" with their big settings and bloated combat sections can do anything, they certainly think they can. And the people who play and design them think they can. (Of course I don't, what're you thinking. I just used that as to characterize that type of game.)

Sketch game is a good name because it captures the idea that the game's not intended to be a fully functional tool for any particular market segment, but rather just enough notes to get a game going if you happen to like the idea. More of a tool-box. It should be noted that this is still segment-dependent, because you have to say different things when writing for trad players or newbies. Both can have sketch games.

On the other hand, sketch is a bad term because it doesn't look like a special term. Thus it's easy to mistake for a descriptive term. If somebody figures out a suitably latin-sounding but still understandable alternative, that's good.

[timfire]

Disclaimer: As an author of what some would call a "short-form" RPG, I take this issue somewhat personally.

I question the usefulness of focusing on page count or time in development. I wrote the original draft of The Mountain Witch in under a week, and it was about 20 pages long. Does that make it a "micro"-RPG? Even though the current version is 140-something pages long? Even though the current version, rules-wise, is not much different from the original? (Also worth noting that the current draft is longer than both Sorcerer and Universalis.)

I also have to take issue with the implication that these games are somehow less than a "big" RPG. Look at chess. How many rules does it have? Yet it's one of the most sophicated games out there. You need to look at the play experience of the game itself. Some of these games (like Otherkind) *play* just like a normal RPG. The assumption that they play differently, just based on the length, is highly unreliable. Now I admit that some games do play differently, and for those I wouldn't mind a new term---as long as it was properly applied.

Personally, I think Clinton's got it with the whole "open/closed loop" thing. Eero's idea of the "sketch" is also helpful, though personally I would call those games "unfinished."

[Eero Tuovinen]

I'm with you Tim, on the prestige thing. However, I think everybody else here is, too, so it's hardly a relevant angle. Or is there somebody here who thinks that it's necessary to "warn people they're not getting a complete game" or something like that?

Personally, I think Clinton's got it with the whole "open/closed loop" thing. Eero's idea of the "sketch" is also helpful, though personally I would call those games "unfinished."

Except that not all of them are unfinished, even if some of these games go on to become focused games in their own right. One particular example is that game from a year (or two?) ago, I forget the title and the designer, that was to be released as a cd cover page. Rock'n roll against the Man, I remember it being about. That was a "micro-game" or a "sketch game", but pretty much finished. What made it different from the Mountain Witch was that the product didn't even try to offer a "complete game", whatever that is. Rather, it just gave chargen and conflict resolution, and assumed that anybody interested to play would be fully capable of imagining how play goes without advice or play examples. This is clearly distinct, I think, from the "focused game" that most Forge games are.

I think that the sketch form, as I define in the earlier post, is a worthy consideration in certain cases. Some games are actually better if you rip out the excess. Note here that I'm not talking about your game, unless you're James West, but about these short concept games. Just like Joshua. Mixing up the type of material the designer chooses to transmit (which is what I'm talking about) with the degree of finish the game has is vague, I think.

But that's that. I think I've belabored my point to death, already.

[timfire]

I'm with you Tim, on the prestige thing. However, I think everybody else here is, too, so it's hardly a relevant angle. Or is there somebody here who thinks that it's necessary to "warn people they're not getting a complete game" or something like that?

It's not an issue here at The Forge, but I have to deal with this issue all the time when talking to gamers about my game who are not familiar with Forge-games. I believe that a term like "micro" or even "short-form" to a certain extent would only add to this misconception.

Personally, I think Clinton's got it with the whole "open/closed loop" thing. Eero's idea of the "sketch" is also helpful, though personally I would call those games "unfinished."

Except that not all of them are unfinished...

That's an entirely different issue, one that I probably shouldn't have brought up.

[Josh Roby]

I question the usefulness of focusing on page count or time in development. I wrote the original draft of The Mountain Witch in under a week, and it was about 20 pages long. Does that make it a "micro"-RPG? Even though the current version is 140-something pages long? Even though the current version, rules-wise, is not much different from the original? (Also worth noting that the current draft is longer than both Sorcerer and Universalis.)

Well, even 20 pages I wouldn't call a micro-RPG.  Maybe a middle-range term -- like novellette is between short story and novel.  In any case, though, your first-draft might 'qualify' for that mid-range term, while the current version would fall under 'long-form'.  Of course I say this without any experience of Mountain Witch whatsoever.  I wouldn't use any of these terms to imply that the game, in any stage of completion, was incomplete; I'd just be talking about (a) the size of the product and (b) the compactness of the ruleset.  Which brings us to:

I also have to take issue with the implication that these games are somehow less than a "big" RPG. Look at chess. ... You need to look at the play experience of the game itself. Some of these games (like Otherkind) *play* just like a normal RPG. The assumption that they play differently, just based on the length, is highly unreliable.

I'm not saying they play differently -- in fact I said that these games all create functional play experiences -- I'm saying that, by necessity, they will approach the fabrication of that functional play experience in different ways.  If your game fits on four pages, it's not going to have rules for shifting your place in initiative order, for instance.

I have to deal with this issue all the time when talking to gamers about my game who are not familiar with Forge-games. I believe that a term like "micro" or even "short-form" to a certain extent would only add to this misconception.

This I can patently understand.  Perhaps something more akin to 'compact' or 'streamlined' or even 'Pocket RPG.'  The Bigger-Is-Better meme will disparage anything that looks short, and "therefore" deficient, when in fact Bigger may just mean more bloated.  In fact, I'd personally find "long-form" to be a bigger deterrent than "short-form" if I had to base purchase decisions on such terms.  (Tangentially, we could also probably make a term for Exalted-like RPG releases -- Encyclopedic RPGs!)

But...

If you are making games that fit the description of "smaller word count than a 300-page 8 1/2 x 11 hardbound" and you are marketing them, then you will need a way to market them that will be different than the 300-pager.  In order to discuss how to best market this kind of game as opposed to the 'traditional' game, creating a term to faciliate that conversation would be a good idea.

[TonyLB]

Those in favor of a new term:  What do you plan to do with the new term? 

Is this about finding new opportunities specifically for those types of games (like the NPA collection)?  Or is it about carving off a section of games that defy a lot of otherwise-tidy rules, then ignoring them ("Well, we're talking here about RPGs, not RPGeenies, so we'll only talk about games with an episodic, unlimited story structure")?

If the people who benevolently support the first can't see why other people fear the second, and vice versa, then maybe that's why we're bogging down in "Should!  Shouldn't!" discussions.

As someone who's had his product called "not an RPG" up and down several boards, I totally sympathize with any level of pissed-off that Tim is feeling right now.  No matter how well intentioned the labelling, no matter how wordy the disclaimers, at the point where you say "The Mountain Witch is something other than an RPG" you cross a line that I wouldn't personally cross.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I find it interesting that we're not even particularly talking about TMW (except Clinton and his moderator powers). The games we're discussing are more like The Pool or even Puppetlands. The subject of discussion: do these games differ in any fundamental way from your usual focused Forge game, therefore, do we need a word to characterize them? And what that word might be? 'Microgame' is NOT used to refer to Dust Devils or Universalis or Mountain Witch here, so any arguments for their rights go amiss.

I write literally hundreds of pages of pedagogical texts about indie games per year, and thus am always in a sore need of (especially Finnish) terminology. I wouldn't mind it if I had some commonly recognized terms to differentiate between traditional (well, that's a good one), Forge-type and perhaps even these micro-games. How else am I going to say that a game is or isn't something, if not with words? It'd be good if I had a word for both the general Forge-type games (which isn't the thread topic!) and the micro-games (which very much are). Right now I have to refer to the former as "non-traditional", while the latter has no word at all, which is a shame if they're to be developed into a semi-established form.

If you have to be politically correct, I suggest saving that for when somebody actually uses some terminology as an offensive weapon. I know I've been myself found at the RPGnet, defending the rights of Universalis to be called a roleplaying game.

[Josh Roby]

Those in favor of a new term:  What do you plan to do with the new term? 

a) the original impetus came from when I wanted to make reference to my own 'microgame' in which I'm tossing aroud a few concepts to see if they stick together.  When posting about it here, I wanted something nice and compact that said "not a game that I plan to sell on its own, something small that you could probably read right now or when you have ten minutes free, something very idiosyncratic and streamlined".  Knowing that this was hardly the first such product, I first looked for an appropriate term in the glossary, and finding none, asked the board.

b) I am a big proponent of making games smaller.  Not only do I want them 'more accessible for non-gamers', whatever that means, but I want them more accessible for me.  I don't have as much time these days as when I did when I was 19.  I can't spend hours and hours (and dollars and dollars) reading through big thick bloated games.  I want to open up a game book, read or flip past the flavor narrative at the front, and have the game hit me between the eyes: this is what the game is about, this is what the game does, this is how the game works.  Bang bang bang.  I am completely disinterested in games that try and conceal their artifice.  Towards that end, I want to investigate how to pack more game into less content (packing more content into fewer words is easy), so getting a functioning vocabulary for that is a Good Idea (tm) to my mind.

c) Microgames are different than 'traditional' games, which themselves are different than mid-range 'RPGlets', which themselves are different than mammoth encyclopaedic games.  I don't think anybody is going to argue that the Exalted line was initiated with the end goal of selling tons and tons and tons of supplements, and the rules and setting information presuppose that players will be using more than the core book.  Or look at Dream Pod 9, with its 'SilCore' and world-specific books.  These sorts of decisions change the way that the games are constituted, and I think that we can learn something interesting about all games in general by looking at the differences that are inspired by length and format constraints.

d) Marketing.  Cause the RPG "industry" sucks ass at this.  Has anybody else noticed that we format gaming books like textbooks?  The hell is up with that?  You think that might be a bit of a turnoff to the majority of humanity that didn't really like school?  If we start looking into shorter-form RPGs, it opens up lots of opportunities for different trim sizes and binding, or even completely different formats -- what would a magazine-based RPG look like?  What would a hypertext RPG look like (not an RPG on a website, an RPG written in hypertext, linking to off-site setting resources and online dierollers and discussion fora, etc etc)?  I know these have been tried before, but most of the attempts I've seen have tried to shoehorn DnD assumptions into a completely different medium.  What happens when we break down the RPG to its component parts and remap them to new media?

One of the best things I have ever learned at this site is the simple message "your roleplaying does not have to be that way" -- I just want to keep pushing and see what else roleplaying can be like.

[TonyLB]

Cool.  For those purposes I do think that microgame is better than many of the other terms (like RPGlet) which seem to take on both the question of "How is it a roleplaying game?" and "What size is it?"  "Microgame" just says to me "small, plus game."  Plus, catchy!

[Josh Roby]

See, here's my problem: I agree, 'microgame' is good for all the reasons you state.  but 'RPGeenie' is so damn cute!

Suggestions:

Microgame - incredibly short, stripped-down game expressed in ten pages or less.  Almost impossible to market on its own -- might be salable as part of a compilation.  Risus, Otherkind.

Capsule RPG - a game contained in one package, usually a book.  Little Fears, Nobilis, Primetime Adventures; lots and lots and lots of heartbreakers.

Encyclopaedic RPG - a game intentionally designed to be communicated through a multitude of supplements, and difficult to play without a significant minority of the books.  Usually produced only by corporate game publishers.  Exalted, Rifts, 7th Sea.

Modular RPG - like an Encyclopaedic RPG in terms of number of products, but with the supplements functionally optional -- the game still works as designed without including all the books. GURPS, Sorcerer.

[Addix]

Minigame? - I personally find it smooth and easy. But it's pretty much the same as microgame... To me, it evokes a certain physical shortness (say, 1-15 pages) or/and a certain quickness to read, understand, assimilate and put in practice the materials in it. It doesn't carry any specific connotation to me, perhaps since I'm very used to it.

(Note: That's a term that is extensively used in France, all kinds of games included; think it's also used quite a bit in English... But sorry to bring so specific references on the table over and over :/ )

(Note 2: What about my former "aperitif/aperitive-game"? ^^ Shorter term's "apéro/apero(game)" ^^   sorry.......... :P)

[timfire]

I find it interesting that we're not even particularly talking about TMW (except Clinton and his moderator powers). The games we're discussing are more like The Pool or even Puppetlands.

I was trying to discuss games like The Pool (sorry, I'm not too familiar with Puppetland). What makes The Pool different from, say, GURPS? If you play by the core rule book, in GURPS you have to decide on all the genre & setting stuff like you do with The Pool. What's the major difference you see?

[Josh Roby]

Minigame? - I personally find it smooth and easy. But it's pretty much the same as microgame... To me, it evokes a certain physical shortness (say, 1-15 pages) or/and a certain quickness to read, understand, assimilate and put in practice the materials in it. It doesn't carry any specific connotation to me, perhaps since I'm very used to it.

My only problem with 'minigame' is that in English, a 'minigame' is one of those little sub-games within a larger roleplaying game.  In all the Square games where you collect cards or chocobos or whatever, that has minimal impact on the larger game.  I don't want the connotation of 'subset of larger game' -- it should be able to stand on its own.

[KeithBVaughn]

I've been thinking on this today and the thoughts it brought about. Pocket Game is what I thought of. Then I thought of a game that could be physically be put in a pocket. The size came to 5.5 inches by 4.25 inches i.e. a quarter page of a standard letter size piece of paper. White paper interior with a colored piece of light cardstock for a cover. 10 sheets of paper at the most. Interior font of Times Roman at 10 point. Simply saddle stitched.

The system would have to be ultra simple and be able to be written in several quarter sized pages at most.The world of the game would be necessarily limited and useful for several scenarios but long term playability would be out of the scope of the game. Black & white artwork would be limited to the cover and maybe some maps/icons in the interior. Character sheets would be a 3 x 5 index card at the most.

I did a quick pricing (read wild guess) at $2.95 for impulse buys. Taking this idea to a friend who runs the FLGS he thought the idea could fly with a once per month release of new titles. I would need to use the same basic system and release new background with each booklet.  He also suggested a simple cardboard display to catch the customer's eye.

I envision the old Metagaming style of interesting little games with a role playing twist. I'll probably use my Alpha game concept along with a short history and scenario to beef it up.

That's all I have for right now. I'll keep cranking it around in my brain and see what I can come up with. If I come up with something to test, I'll post for some playtesters in the Connections board.

Keith

[Eero Tuovinen]

I was trying to discuss games like The Pool (sorry, I'm not too familiar with Puppetland). What makes The Pool different from, say, GURPS? If you play by the core rule book, in GURPS you have to decide on all the genre & setting stuff like you do with The Pool. What's the major difference you see?

Well, Joshua was suggesting that it's simply length and means of transmission - encyclopedic vs. micro-game, as it were. My suggestion was that what he'd want to focus on is the philosophy of design, what actually goes into the book. Traditionally you want as much shit as you can get, while The Pool largely gets by with already existing knowledge of the player, whatever that is. So that's why I suggested a completely different criteria for classification.

Of course, could be that the difference is illusionary design-wise and for marketing. But the best argument for that has been that making the difference clear by terminology will weaken the market for TMW (used for illustration purposes only). Which doesn't seem like a defensible position. If you genuinely think that there's nothing to be gained by recognizing that some games are big and some small and this can affect marketing, please argue that.

Why are we then talking about the criteria of classification, if we're really supposed to be seeking a good word for the micro-games? Because I'm not sure if the micro-game vs. capsule game vs. encyclopedic game is the real and crucial difference we actually need to capture. But if it is, then that's a good starting point. So we have two intermixed discussions here, the one about the good word and the one about the criteria of classification.

Joshua: that terminology is looking pretty good. I can imagine all kinds of uses for it, even if it's based on somewhat superficial attributes. The interesting and potentially charged thing is that there's no rpg publisher in the world who explicitly wants to be considered an encyclopedic publisher, while everybody wants very much for his game to be perceived as a modular design. This is because companies want to catch both the casual core book sales and the fanatical collectors. Even Exalted and D&D balk at being considered a collection instead of a number of optional modules. Thus it might be difficult to use the terms in objective and non-derogatory ways.

Etymology-wise, that set of words is pretty logical. I'd change 'capsule' to 'stand-alone' and 'encyclopedic' to 'collectable' just to mirror the common usage. 'Stand-alone' is a little funny, though, so 'complete' could be considered. As for your definition of 'micro-game', a page count is no good. I can't offer any better, though, so maybe it has to be left somewhat vague.