pure visuals

[contracycle]

This is a fairly out-there thought I had a while ago and I just want to ask what people think of the idea.  This has to do with the Matrix and Aliens and their powerful visual imagery, and the way we interact with that, and whether or not it could be used for RPG purposes.

The visual systems in mammals are very well developed, and quite a lot of the brain dedicated to their use.  A huge part of our daily sense of self is located in our perception, both in content of what we see and how and at what we look.  Visual media are our dominant media, I think becuase of this direct, if you like, access to us (or perhaps exploitation of, or both).  Anyway, is there room for a more direct use of visual image in RPG?  Partly I'm thinking of the way things like MtG work very visually, albeit fairly randomly, and things like movie spinoffs - star trek tech manual and things.

Could RPG's be designed in the medium of comics? More accurately, benefit from being so designed?

At the extreme case - could you produce an RPG or supplement that had NO text?

I can, to the extent of my abilities, imitate birds, guns, voices - but I can only approximately image verbally.  I could narrate a scene at X words per second, but if I gave you a picture of it you word absorb countless tiny details in seconds.

So, maybe settings could be realised with images - interiors, exteriors, surfaces, items, gatherings, costume.  GM's could probably create personalities simply from looking at faces - more accurately, "cast" a visually realised NPC (or PC).  A portrait accompanied by caption text.  A dark and brooding castle on the hill accompanied by a deliberately ambiguous reference, ala HW, perhaps.  Splatbooks - could they be carried off through a set of images, with a grudging skimp of mechanics in the back, of people and places.

Obviously I'm, not talking about just a random set - I mean a themed, structured visualisation of the proposed game space.

OK - I know, impossibly expensive.  Lets speculate, rather - how far can you go with image?  How far can you go with image alone?  I guess this is in publishing becuase I am talking about a certain kind of object, that would have to be produced and sold - or perhaps it could be done with a website, or CD.  The point is, I mean some form of actual implementation.  In principle how far could a visual heavy model be driven, lets say.  Do people think they would find a primarily visual product specifically aimed at being an RPG setting interesting?

To an extent this might imply the presumption that the game group would use their own mechanics, that might be entirely detached from the purpose of the product.  The product is merely to realise space - not construct events or story, perhaps not even characters except implicitly as above.  Or perhaps deliberately, manic villains and foul demons in glorious technicolour or deep recess.  Place, I guess, rather than space.

Anyway, think theres any gold in those hills?

[Mike Holmes]

Someone, I think it was Jared, or maybe Clinton, was working on an idea that involved a superhero RPG where you got a blank comic book, and you filled it in as you went.

I think that one could do what you propose, but why? Or rather, why not just do all the art you propose, and have words as well?

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Gareth, if I'm reading you correctly, you're talking about all sorts of aspects of an RPG as a product: "learn to play," "prep to play," and "actually play."

Several RPGs have used comics format to illustrate or explain some aspect of the material; usually it's basically a comics story or scene with characters acting out some aspect of the rules. Guardians, a rather low-grade supers RPG, had a lot of comics pages; Champions Millenium provided a much more upscale version of the same. However, I think that's a minimal example of what you're talking about, right?

The game that's gone way farther, into all three arenas that I listed above, is Everway. I've played a lot of Everway, traditionally, with cards and at the table (as opposed to the popular and somewhat overly-seriously-mystical internet play). I think that its methods were quite strong, taken as individual units of play, and they went a long way towards establishing not only "physical" content (ie what something looks like) but also thematic content, especially multicultural issues.

Best,
Ron

[Tyrant]

Hell, Steve Jackson Games went so far as to make some books in a Comic Book format.. IE, size, pages and weight

I think they look cool and would buy them up in a hurry if I liked GURPS

The only problem here I think is content, there is only so much you can put into a small book like that

[Le Joueur]

I'm not trying to be smug here, but I sense you are reaching for something that has already been explored.

The visual systems in mammals are very well developed, and quite a lot of the brain dedicated to their use.  A huge part of our daily sense of self is located in our perception, both in content of what we see and how and at what we look.

I don't know much about other mammals, but I understand one of the current theories is that, for as visual as we are, we actually work with a 'model' of reality in our minds.  It's like this; you see a room, your mind quickly catalogs all the visual items in the room compared to a set of memorized templates (noting important differences), then you mind conjures up an 'internal image' of what the room is including many value judgements about the apparent contents.  You react largely to (and in terms of) that model.

Whole schools of thought on concepts like suspension of disbelief are built on how the mind 'can be tricked' into accepting models thus from sources less direct than personal observation.  (A lot of this kind of theory went into early experimentation into virtual reality.)  Basically, a lot of the 'hardware' in the visual cortex not only 'sees' but 'comprehends' what is seen.

This is how role-playing games can be done.  You call upon a person's internal templates, they 'visualize' the 'room' and act upon its contents (indirectly, by narration).  This has a lot to do with how we will attempt to explain the literal process of gaming in Scattershot.  The reliance on cliche, using stereotypes (and breaking them), the expectations of genre, fragmented descriptions, these are the tools that allow a participant to create in the minds of the group the imagery and action they desire.  We will describe playing upon the 'templates' to create images without pictures (much the way that radio plays do) for the participants.

Anyway, to take role-playing 'to the next level' of visual input would almost beg a similar increase in 'interactivity.'

At the extreme case - could you produce an RPG or supplement that had NO text?

So, maybe settings could be realised with images - interiors, exteriors, surfaces, items, gatherings, costume.  GM's could probably create personalities simply from looking at faces - more accurately, "cast" a visually realised NPC (or PC).

Obviously I'm, not talking about just a random set - I mean a themed, structured visualisation of the proposed game space.

OK - I know, impossibly expensive.  Lets speculate, rather - how far can you go with image?  How far can you go with image alone?  I guess this is in publishing because I am talking about a certain kind of object, that would have to be produced and sold - or perhaps it could be done with a website, or CD.  The point is, I mean some form of actual implementation.  In principle how far could a visual heavy model be driven, lets say.  Do people think they would find a primarily visual product specifically aimed at being an RPG setting interesting?

It seems to get the Final Fantasy series quite far.  The problem I see here is that you are pulling in all this visual material and hardware and not considering taking advantage of the strengths those media have for interaction.  Before this can get much farther, I guess I need to understand the finer points of the difference between what you are suggesting and something like say Jak and Daxter.

(I love the game, and so do my kids.  The graphics engine provides sumptious colorful backgrounds, there is absolutely no 'load time' between levels, and no text whatsoever, everything is explained verbally.  It's a great romp, everyone should try it.  On the other hand, it describes pretty well the limitations of the media as a role-playing mechanism; I have my thoughts on the issue, but I'd rather hear what you have in mind first.)

As an aside:

Could RPG's be designed in the medium of comics? More accurately, benefit from being so designed?

During the wave of popularity for role-playing games in Japan, many were.  Full and complete games.  (Actually in Japan virtually every kind of print communication has parallels in comic book media; their society is much more 'comics permiable.')  From what I have seen, they really clear up a lot of the 'intangibles' involved with actually running a game in the physical act.  It is our hope to release at least the Japanese Animation based material for Scattershot in exactly that form.  (And truth be know, I primarily spend my off-time, creating comic books with my wife.  She has fine art training and I am an illustrator, we both love superheroes so where's the surprise?)

Fang Langford

[contracycle]

I'm not thinking of something thats interactive in any sense - IMO the big picture is for RPG to become the storyboard mechanism of a future VR entertainment, but thats over the horizon.

'Kay - take SLA industries.  Nice game, sucky mechanics IMO.  Very Good art, very moody - in fact I'd go so far as to say - the art and the mood are the primary draws.  OK, all the text on Mr Slayer and the world of progress and whatnot is kinda interesting, but how much of that setting exposition could have been realised through imagery?

So imagine this was sitting on the shelf in the RPG store.  50 -odd pages, all of them colour plates.  You ARE buying EXACTLY what you see on the cover.  Inside we have some panning-type helicopter establishing shots - Mort from the air, Mr Slayers corporate offices from outside, various bits of the city - gleaming towers in the corporate sector, waste dirt and debris in the downtown zones.  Shiver cops on their bikes, a busy street scene.  A couple of pics of props and serials much like they already have.  Critters in their (un)natural habitat - gruseome Carrions, semi-dismembered manchines.  Furthermore, it includes common places like the BPN hall, or an operatives apartment - plus outside shot of the building.  Add portraits - show clothing, hairstyle, jewelry, colours, individuals, groups, meetings, club interiors, down-and-outs.

From this as a resource, you construct your actual game.  Possibly such a thing would need no more text than a small paragraph of maybe a dozen words or a bit more per page.  Perhaps in practical terms you would need to include more explanatory text than I am envisioning at the moment - but the idea would essentially be to divorce the setting product from the game product.

Now, you have a copy of OTE, or Fudge, or Sorcerer, or even HW.  If the game is mechanically focussed, but divorced from setting - ala Sorcerer - then the visual product is backdrop, setting, prop, aide memoire.  It sits on the coffee table... players browse it, their mental imagery is continually refreshed.  (I am talking about the exact opposite of invoking our mental abstractions, Fang).  When you say "you see a menacing figure in a dark coat" you show as much as tell.

Arguably, such a visual product would not need to be as coherent as a trad RPG setting; that would not necessarily be important.  Years ago as a kid, I had a book called Space Patrol which had a lot of pictures, and was written as if a pseudo-recruiting brochure.  All the text was "in character" but the pictures were essentially a random collection of SF book cover images.  The accompanying text merely told a story which fitted the picture - constructed a suitable story that would fit.  So a pic of two ships firing at one another would be accompanies by some text exlpaining what captain so-and-so was doing here and how this exchange came about - the case history, if you will.  I think that with a suitable set of visual props, creative players and GM's will be able to construct suitable chains of relationships and consequence to render much of the body text superfluous.

Such a product could be game generic - a "creepy cityscape" could be used for any number of games.  Several products could be place specific - place X in such a setting, place Y (but still independant of the actual RPG-as-game proper).  A western town, showing the interiors of every/most building, the approach from the hills, the banks of the nearby river, the Eagles Nest crag - again, usable by quite an array of games, assemble mechanics and backstory to taste.

I have "read" several books which appear to operate on this principle.  Anyone familiar with Gnomes IIRC, or Lady Cottingdens Book of Pressed Fairies?  They rely purely on the cool factor, they have no purpose, no intent beyond being a passive object.  But it seems to me that such a mechanism - almost a pure implementation of the conceit - could be exploited for FPG setting.

Maybe I'll be able to find a more concrete example, I shall have a look.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I think we're very much on the same wavelength here, and with a slight difference in the medium to be imitated (70s art-book, not comics), it's what I'm planning on doing with the physical design of Trollbabe.

Best,
Ron

[Tyrant]

Perhaps it's me just being "old School" but I like to see mechanics in the game...

Sure, the setting come first and foremost, and stunning visuals is key to a good game...

But laying out a game with no text? If that were the case you might as well make a bunch of one shot "silent" comics... I'm not saying it's a dumb idea by any means.. but would it sell?

For an idea like this to go anywhere the art would have to be VERY VERY top notch... by a recognized artist

My suggestion (And only that) is do it, but put some words into it too... maybe a few pages in the back of the book to layout some simple mechanics and some setting...

[Ron Edwards]

Tyrant,

Opinions differ about what "comes first" in a role-playing game, and some folks here put setting as a distinct second place rather than first ...

But more to the point, I agree with you that a pure pictures-only presentation would probably not qualify as a functional role-playing game all by itself. What I have in mind for Trollbabe, for instance, is a fairly slim and leanly-written RPG text, but with large and central visuals throughout. The pictures-only presentation that Gareth describes would be, I'd think, supplemental or "game-aid" material of some kind.

I also think that "would it sell," as a question, is a tremendously broad topic - what we can work with perhaps better is "is it functional" in terms of a role-playing text, and move into marketing, publication, and economics as a later discussion.

Best,
Ron

[Laurel]

Like it or hate it, I think the real future for "visually intoxicating" RPGs is going to be CRPGs, and not print.  When offered the opportunity to passively look at stunning graphics and use those pictures to vocalize stories, or offered the opportunity to dynamically interact with stunning graphics and give vocal commands which change the graphics themselves as well as everything else....  most gamers will choose the latter.

The strength in print RPGs lies elsewhere, and I'm very convinced that there's enough strength that print RPGs will be around for a long time.

[Mike Holmes]

Like it or hate it, I think the real future for "visually intoxicating" RPGs is going to be CRPGs, and not print.  When offered the opportunity to passively look at stunning graphics and use those pictures to vocalize stories, or offered the opportunity to dynamically interact with stunning graphics and give vocal commands which change the graphics themselves as well as everything else....  most gamers will choose the latter.

The strength in print RPGs lies elsewhere, and I'm very convinced that there's enough strength that print RPGs will be around for a long time.

I think this is actually one of Gareth's points, and one I agree with. What he is working towards is making RPGs more like the CRPG media so we can eventually merge them. Like he intimated, I have felt for quite a while now that I am now simply training myself to be a CRPG writer when they become complex enought to actually handle full tabletop-RPG effects (not long now).

That is indeed where I see the Big Picture going.

Mike

[Le Joueur]

This thread has spurred two points of curiosity for me.

Like it or hate it, I think the real future for "visually intoxicating" RPGs is going to be CRPGs, and not print.  When offered the opportunity to passively look at stunning graphics and use those pictures to vocalize stories, or offered the opportunity to dynamically interact with stunning graphics and give vocal commands which change the graphics themselves as well as everything else....  most gamers will choose the latter.

The strength in print RPGs lies elsewhere, and I'm very convinced that there's enough strength that print RPGs will be around for a long time.

What would that be in your opinion?  I am familiar with computer game designers working industriously towards blurring the line between role-playing games and their product, but the closest I see them coming would be Illusionism (sorry to use a term with such baggage, but I think it might apply no matter what the definition).  Regardless how 'flexible' the games I have seen, the more 'role-playing game' they are, the more they rely on a predetermined storyline.  Your role in those games is to master the combat engine well enough to survive the whole 'novel.'  (Granted that some require complicated resource management - something we've come to call 'monster ranching' because of games like Legend of Mana - but it still winds up being a race to see whether you 'last' for the whole story.)

In this way, I see the strength of role-playing games is that the 'purveyor of visuals' works together with the 'players' to end up with a result neither might expect.  That is one of the main reasons I stress sharing over everything in Scattershot.  No matter how advanced computer role-playing games (especially network-based ones, like Phantasy Star Online) have gotten, I have only just begun to see offering that allow customers to create, populate, manipulate, and interact with their own worlds.

Another strength I see in 'print' role-playing games is what I alluded to earlier.  The power of archetypes and fragmentary description (amplified by shared genre expectations) that can create a far more rich visual experience in the mind's eye than many computer games have, and is far more flexible.  Coupling the richness of the participants' imaginations with the feeling of 'really making a difference' in the shared experience makes 'print' role-playing games still very unattainable in comparison with those based on visuals presented by computer hardware.

As far as visual-only based supplements for role-playing games, as intriguing as it sounds, I expect they'd have an even smaller market than system-independant settings and scenarios.  The reason is similar to what happens with the Pressed Faerie Book, it only captures a small segment of the overall book market (even possibly a subset of 'coffeetable books'); a visual-only supplement could only appeal to a subset of gamers who might get a system-independant product.  On the other hand, Contracycle indirectly suggests an interesting idea; I might have to replace my copy of Faeries and use that as a visual source in my fantasy medieval games.

I think this is actually one of Gareth's points, and one I agree with. What he is working towards is making RPGs more like the CRPG media so we can eventually merge them. Like he intimated, I have felt for quite a while now that I am now simply training myself to be a CRPG writer when they become complex enought to actually handle full tabletop-RPG effects (not long now).

That is indeed where I see the Big Picture going.

Until we can solve either the 'adding compelling visuals to MUDDs and MUSHs' problem or expand on the nascent 'gamemaster toolkit' aspect of those rare 'role-playing games on the internet' (especially when it comes to 'talking for the non-player characters' when the gamemaster is doing something else), I can't see computer role-playing games even coming close to whats possible with their 'print' relatives.

(And I'm still curious about what people think about 'inspiring the imagination' to create visuals (in the mind's eye) the way they do in radio plays for role-playing games, and potentially how this can be augmented by one of Contracycle's visual supplements.  I realize that's a topic for another thread, but I don't have the time to start one now.)

Fang Langford

[contracycle]

The reason is similar to what happens with the Pressed Faerie Book, it only captures a small segment of the overall book market (even possibly a subset of 'coffeetable books'); a visual-only supplement could only appeal to a subset of gamers who might get a system-independant product.

You'd want to push it comic shops too, to go on the same shelf they keep the Geiger.

[Le Joueur]

The reason is similar to what happens with the Pressed Faerie Book, it only captures a small segment of the overall book market (even possibly a subset of 'coffeetable books'); a visual-only supplement could only appeal to a subset of gamers who might get a system-independant product.

You'd want to push it [at] comic shops too, to go on the same shelf they keep the Geiger.

That would pretty much make it 'another art book,' which brings up the question, why aren't we using those art books already?  I mean, plenty of role-playing games have 'recommended reading lists,' why don't they have 'recommended seeing lists?'

For my part, I see a big need for art in a product.  Not just for the usual 'place keeper' ("Where is that chart?" - "By the nude elf.") or as space-filler/padding (if I ever see another 1" drawing of a pile of dice...), I see the art as one of the primary ways to communicate 'the look' of the game to the customer.  As much as I don't play White Wolf's products, I have always appreciated how well the art in Vampire: the Masquerade really carries the visual 'feel' of the game.

Fang Langford

[Laurel]

For my part, I see a big need for art in a product.  Not just for the usual 'place keeper' ("Where is that chart?" - "By the nude elf.") or as space-filler/padding (if I ever see another 1" drawing of a pile of dice...), I see the art as one of the primary ways to communicate 'the look' of the game to the customer.  As much as I don't play White Wolf's products, I have always appreciated how well the art in Vampire: the Masquerade really carries the visual 'feel' of the game.

I'm of a mixed opinion.  I think that the trend of "game book as art" of which WW is a big factor in have an enormous place in the RPG world.  VtA was the phenomenon it was in no small part to the mood, tone, and visual effects of the corebook.  

However, beautiful stunning game books don't make the actual play of the game better, and in a way serve to disempower the GM and players by drawing all the focus onto the product, not what you can do with the product.  This isn't to say I don't dig a gorgeous book- I can't wait to see Godlike now that I've heard about the artwork because I'm working on a similar idea (artistically speaking, not game concept or premise) for a different project... and I have heard that the art does exactly that: conveys the premise of the game to the customer better than filler art ever would.  

I just think there's such a thing as too much focus on art and style for a game book.