"entire game = one system for one multi-session adventure"

[timfire]

I didn't want to drift Ron's Ronnies thread, so I thought I would bring this here.

Over there, Jared said this:

I think it's telling (in some way that I don't yet understand) that MOST of these entries and those from the last competition sound more like individual RPG "adventures" than roleplaying game titles. That's just based on the games' names. Not that there's anything wrong with that (several games I'm aware of that I admire are essentially "entire game = one system for one multi-session adventure."

To which Ron said:

I'm thinking that we have seen about 15 years of RPG publishing dedicated specifically to setting and the big picture, especially long-term, published metaplot. Sure, hundreds of adventures were published, but you and I know that they are all the same damn adventure, over and over - built on the chassis of WEG Star Wars, mediated through Shadowrun, Vampire, and AD&D2.

So most people are used to elaborate settings and some kind of authoritative vision for long-term play, but utterly unaccustomed to plain old punchy "what we're doing right now" prep and play. It's not surprising to me that they are developing that set of skills and material when given the chance, especially since a lot of recent games (yours and mine among them) often emphasize that scale, providing pretty good models or jumping-off points.

That of course is true. I think part of it is also due to the inherent time cruch of the contest, similar to the Game Chef contest. In some regards, writing for just one adventure is easier than writing for an unlimited array of adventures.

But personally, I think there's also another reason we're seeing this---I think this is the natural outgrowth of System Does Matter. The implication of SDM is that if want to see something happen, you need to right rules for it. So if you want a game that produces the perfect adventure, you need to write rules for the perfect adventure. As our collective skill and understanding has grown, we've seen more and more focused games. First it was CA-focused games. Then it was genre and play-style focesed games. The level we've arrived at now is one where we focus on individual adventures.

I'm sure that at some point things will balance out and we'll start producing more... err, broad or open games. But like Ron said, smaller scale games are the "new thing" at the moment.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[matthijs]

Apparently, this is the New Thing at the Danish "Fastaval" festival. The Danes have been focusing on scenario design for some years now, and have recently - after some diceless years - started incorporating rules in their con scenarios. As far as I've understood. I'm sure one of them can enlighten us.

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of similarities between the focus of what were previously "Freeform LARPs" and the focus of such games. This is unsurprising because each form is focusing on a limited series of events. So I think that Tabletop is learning that focus of "venue" for lack of a better word is a good thing, and the Freeform LARPers are learning that one can create specific rules that actually do support the play of the game (instead of detracting from them which is why they became "freeform" in the first place). I think a greater dialog between the groups would be a very positive thing. We each have a lot to learn from the other.

Mike

[James Holloway]

I wonder if it arises from divergent experiences in actual play. I know there are a lot of one-system groups, who use GURPS, or HQ, or d20 or whatever for every game they play, and there are a smaller number of one-campaign groups who have been playing a single campaign for years on end (there are, I gather, rather a lot of groups who aspire to this latter, but for obvious reasons it's a bit tricky).

But there are also a lot of groups where shortish campaigns are the norm and there isn't much continuity of imagined content from campaign to campaign. My group is on the border of this. Single-scenario or single-campaign games fit these play styles well. Since the campaign is going to end after a certain time, why not take advantage of that rather than treating it as a problem? Thirty seems like a good example of this mid-range type of game. Puppetland is another, as is Run Robot Red!

I have a thought that this might almost be a demographic trait, but I don't know if I ought to speculate.

[contracycle]

I do think its likely that the generally increased age of RPG gamers, and consequent reductions in spare time, have served as a pressure to more concise, focussed games.  But I also think there is an effect from the analysis of what existing games do right and wrong, that is, that this is something of a property of the current analysis.

Compare entire game = one system for one advenbture with the concept of finite games, publicly declaring the edge of the board, raising the black curtain et al.

I think it the concept of 'entire game' as used here is valid, but also importantly that characters are not limited to their systematic representation in a given game.  Therefore, I think it should be possible to build different 'entire' or 'finite' games that each address a specific topic, and which are played in sequence as a campaign, with the characters migrated through different representational systems appropriate to each game.

[Frank T]

I've been wondering about this "reduce to the max" tendency for a while now. Especially with regard to the fact that in Germany, I'm writing games for a market significantly smaller than the US market. For how many sessions of interesting play must a game provide in order for someone to be willing to spend money and effort on it? For how much diversity must it provide in order to attract a variety of players?

The September Ronny entries are a very good example if you look at those that got rated "Cheapass Approach" (my own among them). Most of these games I would really like to play once. With someone who already knows the rules and explains them to me, so I don't have to figure them out myself. I would not want to spend money on them. I would not want to invest several hours of my time in learning the rules and getting people together to play. I would (presumably) not feel an urge to play a second time within a year or so.

This may be a personal issue of mine, but I've heard others say as much. I've even heard people say it about MLWM. Frankly, it's the way I myself feel about MLWM. It's the reason I hesitate to order TMW. There is a critical limit of conciseness which is right now being explored.

(On the other hand, most of the mainstream games available at the moment are way beyond my personal critical limit of broadness. Ah well. It really is an issue of being older now, having a fulltime job and neither the time nor the nerve to study 200+ pages of setting and metaplot.)

- Frank

[Eric J. Boyd]

In addition to the time crunch of making a 24-hour RPG, I found that the premise I wanted to explore in my game Today was one that did not lend itself to extended play. Characters face their moment of crisis and succeed or fail, leading to the end of the story for that character.

Many RPGs have focused on situations that are episodic or otherwise repeatable, but I think that precludes certain types of premise. A lot of creative content is "one shot" in nature. It's good to see RPGs move beyond the straitjacket of the extended campaign, which often is cut off mid-stream anyway without any resolution. I think games like Sorcerer and DitV already moved in this direction by setting up systems that address a premise strongly in short story arcs that are repeatable if desired.

Quite frankly, I already have a lot of broad games on my shelf that I could retrofit to play a certain type of game if I wanted. But I prefer to have a game designed to directly explore the premise I'm interested in.

As to Frank's replayability issue, I would gladly spend $20 on a game that will give me several hours of memorable play for me and my friends once a year. A better investment than a night at the movies.

[Mark Woodhouse]

Itty-bitty games are the short stories of the game market. A really different form from the longer forms.

Unfortunately, they're often simultaneously (1) mechanically innovative (2) about something obscure, weird, or off-beat and (3) totally unlike conventional RPGs. Which makes them a tough sell for existing player markets, which are mostly built around the idea of repeated, long-term play with the same group of people.

I'd personally love to see themed anthologies of itty-bitty games, all built around some common structures in terms of vocabulary, physical tools used (kind of dice, cards, markers, whatever), and (broadly) procedure of play. You whip these out at a party, with non-gamers and gamers alike, and you teach the rules in 5 minutes. Next week, with a slightly different group of people, you play another game.

The RPG-boardgame convergence proceeds apace!

[John Kim]

II'd personally love to see themed anthologies of itty-bitty games, all built around some common structures in terms of vocabulary, physical tools used (kind of dice, cards, markers, whatever), and (broadly) procedure of play. You whip these out at a party, with non-gamers and gamers alike, and you teach the rules in 5 minutes. Next week, with a slightly different group of people, you play another game.

The RPG-boardgame convergence proceeds apace!

I feel I should mention the "Parlor Larp" series from Shifting Forest Storyworks, which are very easy pick-up-and-play larps for 4-8 people which are quick and include characters and scenario.  A big difference from boardgames, though, is that boardgames like Carcassone and Settlers of Catan are repeatable, whereas most RPG scenarios are not. 

Hogshead's "New Style" series were all intended for this way -- play time of around one hour, easy to pick up and play.  These include Puppetland, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Pantheon and Other Games.  I think Pantheon is one of the closest to this, with premade characters and situations. 

I've tried doing some murder-mystery party games a little more like true larps.  The problem is that it is an awful lot of work for a single-use product, even for selling.  As far as I can tell, not much work or thought goes into most commercial murder-mystery party games. 

[Mike Holmes]

All I can say, Frank, is that we sell plenty of these games. No, not as many as the games that happen to be long-term sorts, but that's a function of the independent nature of the products, and not the content. Put it this way, though, each of the games we make is likely a lot more profitable than modules for other games that are priced the same. With none of the cost overhead of the original system as it's basically included in each module in our case.

RPG gamers are used to ridiculously low prices. As Smithy says, I'd rather pay $20 for a game like MLWM and play with me and four others at $4 a head, than pay $8 for a movie per person. And I'll use it more than once eventually. It's a deal. Let's compare to D&D, however:

MLWM = $20 = 20 hour campaign (5 sessions @ 4 hours each) with 5 participants = 20 cents per man hour of fun
D&D = $200 = 2000 hour campaign (250 sessions @ 8 hours each) with 5 participants = 2 cents per man hour of fun

Now, which is more likely, that you'll play two 250 session campaigns, or that I'll play two 20 hour campaigns? And I'm being conservative in the comparison (I could point out that most D&D games don't go that long, or that most people buy even more than $200 worth of stuff especially if you include modules...etc). Basically I think that the $18 cent difference is worth it, given the improvment in quality you get with the MLWM focus - I think I pay more than that for the cost of the electricity it takes to light the house to play for each player. In any case, I can do both if I buy both D&D and MLWM. Because MLWM can be played in a 250 sesson D&D campaign's down time.

It's just absurd to question if these games are worth what they're charging. Decipher's "How to Host a Murder" produts run for only 4 hours, usually are of poor quality design, with little rules or even text, and cost around $30 or more (example: http://www.boardgames.com/howtohosmurw.html)

I think MLWM is undercharging.

Mike

[Frank T]

Ok, I shouldn't have brought the financial aspect into this. I don't care that much about money anyway, and if my money goes to one of you guys, it's certainly not wasted. The more crucial part is the commitment and effort that goes into learning and trying out a new RPG. Even if it's only a hundred pages. I have to read the thing, and learn the rules. I'll be the one in charge of the game when I get people together to play it. And as a matter of fact, we'll probably be fumbling with the rules for the first one or two sessions.

MLWM and TMW are certainly great games. But my personal resolution is that the kind of RPG I want to write and play is

• just as concise in that it guides and supports the participants in their play and focuses on clearly defined themes, but
• more broad in that it doesn't just tell the same story over and over again, but allows for a variety of stories to be told and issues to be addressed.

That's just me, of course. As long as these "One-Story-Games" sell, all's fine.

However, I don't dig the idea of "Party-RPGs" as a next step. Sure, you can strip off all the intensity and emotional commitment and creativity and power of imagination and turn it into Cluedo with funny voices, but that's not what roleplaying is about, at least not to me. In my opinion, RPGs are not for everyone. It's a nice romantic idea to get all your "none-gamer friends" to play, and there is certainly a lot of potential yet uncovered. But not just anyone is fit to play and enjoy RPGs. Unless you turn them into Cluedo with funny voices, of course.

- Frank

[Mike Holmes]

So you want a bit of replayability? I can see that. It's always a bit subjective as to what creates replayability, though. I've played MLWM several times, and with new masters and new characters, I think it's quite replayable. But for you, the potential themes might be too narrow to want to try it again soon.

So other than saying that replayability is good if you can get it in, is there some more specific guidance that can be given? I think that character variability is a start. The "Host your own mystery" stuff definitely suffers there as you only ever get one set of characters for the game. So I'd agree that having character generation is a minimum (despite being the guy who long ago proposed having only a single set as a possibility, and endorsing 1984 to win the Iron Game Chef competition with just a single set).

Anything else? I think at this point that usually it jumps straight to "you can do anything with it!" in a lot of cases. How about Sorcerer? Is that open enough?

Mike

[Mark Woodhouse]

Another variant that might work is a bit of modularity - 12 potential roles/characters, of which only 4-6 are used in any given iteration, gives a lot of variability in how the game goes. Likewise, you could vary other elements. Get all Iron Chef - theme + ingredients + contestants + judges = variety within a highly constrained format.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I think this conversation suffers a bit from confounding (a) a low (even singular) number of imagined scenarios or contexts with (b) replayability.

Most well-known games of any kind are extremely limited in their scope. It's not about "the multifarious things you can do or be," but rather about "how cool it is to do this again." The best are those which afford tremendously layered or complex options to develop through re-applying simple rules and relationships.

Like, say, Breaking the Ice.

Limited? In scope, why, yes. Tremendously. But in nuance and expression? Not at all. Same goes for The Mountain Witch and the Shab-al-Hiri Roach. Playing games like these begins from a central and very circumscribed point, up to and including their overall structure ... but what happens this time is not only various in fictional terms, but also in real-world social and thematic terms. I have played TMW multiple times now, and it's always "new."

Contrast with the typical SF or Fantasy Heartbreakers that I buy at GenCon every year, from the poor little dudes sitting lonely in their empty booths. They pride themselves on having "more" classes and races than D&D - that's their biggest, most exciting claim. More scope! More stuff! Choose from 18 character races and 25 professions! No restrictions!

But they suck. They suck because once you've made up your character, there's only one adventure to play (guy hires you, you find the thingie, guy betrays you, fight the guy for the thingie, and you win). What happens to the characters is set: improve scores, get more stuff and spells. None of this ever changes. No nuance, no outcomes of interest that will rely on what you guys do with it this time. Playing different characters or with different people simply converges toward "how it's done."

Keeping (a) and (b) conceptually separate is crucial for discussing current issues of LARP and role-playing design. One of these days, I'd really like to see the Shifting Forest guys try something a wee bit more open-ended, thematically, because their current designs are already only one little nudge away from doing so.

Best,
Ron

[John Kim]

However, I don't dig the idea of "Party-RPGs" as a next step. Sure, you can strip off all the intensity and emotional commitment and creativity and power of imagination and turn it into Cluedo with funny voices, but that's not what roleplaying is about, at least not to me. In my opinion, RPGs are not for everyone. It's a nice romantic idea to get all your "none-gamer friends" to play, and there is certainly a lot of potential yet uncovered. But not just anyone is fit to play and enjoy RPGs. Unless you turn them into Cluedo with funny voices, of course.

Hold on.  First of all, I agree with you that any of these sorts of games are not the "next step".  They are another branch, but not inherently superior to other games. 

However, you're implying here that non-gamers are opposed to intensity and creativity, which I don't agree with.  There are a lot of people who dig intensity and creativity, but are not interested in traditional tabletop RPG rules. "Party games"  like Hogshead's New Style series or Shifting Forests' Parlor Larps can be extremely intense and creative.