GNS and organization

[Le Joueur]

How to split up Universal games? Of the games you have listed, what kind of split would put it roughly in half? I think that would have the most utility.

How about splitting them off?  Make 'Universal Games' a division unto itself?

Just thinking out loud....

Fang Langford

[Buddha Nature]

I would like to be able to cut it down a bit.  Once I am done this weekend I think there will be upwards of 80 games in there, and that just strikes me as too much to look though with much ease.

Don't worry Ron, I am looking for a solid way to divy things up, not just one that "works."  I think there have been some good ideas so far, but to be honest nothing has struck me as overly useful other than GNS so far.  I mean we could go with terms like "transparent" (which I think is still being argued over) and freeform (which I don't even know the meaning of), but do those really help much?

Maybe length would help, I mean it would be objective, but it seems kind of dull--I mean just because a game is 217pgs it doesn't mean it is anymore complete than a 3 pager.

I could fo with extent of depth and complexity, but those are more subjective terms and subjectivity is poo-pooed at ODP.

What about supported vs. unsupported?

I still think GNS is so far the best route (but I am still very tentative as to whether or not I would use it - people could figure out what they meant in the category descriptions if it would help).

-Shane

[Buddha Nature]

How to split up Universal games? Of the games you have listed, what kind of split would put it roughly in half? I think that would have the most utility.

How about splitting them off?  Make 'Universal Games' a division unto itself?

Just thinking out loud....

Fang Langford

Already is...  Games/Roleplaying/Genres/Universal/Free Systems

-Shane

[contracycle]

Perhaps we should construct a forum in wh9ich games are rated, and then we can have endless fun fighting over the ratings.  Perhaps not the most elegant of proposals, but it would at least do some clarifying and give people something to look at in terms of wondering how GNS would be applied.  Lastly, it provides a material realisation for the theory which has the virtue of making all our tacit assumptions explicit so that, indeed, we can fight about them.

Caveat: I'm still in favour of something like: Bue Planet G3, S 9, N 2; i.e. that any game supports each axis distinctly and relatively (in this sample max was 10).

Secondly, I'm generally in favour of some sort of classification system, some sort of comparative method.  on rgfa years ago I did post a sort of "system algebra" so that you could write a whole dice resolution system in a single string.  I've forgotten almost all of it, but trying again this is how I would write the WoD mechanic:

Pool[Att+Skill](d10)! >= Dif (2-10)

Pool of dice = Attribute + skill, all d10's, compared individually against difficulty of 1-10.

Obviously this sort of thing would need to generate explicit conventions and short-forms for writing fairly complex procedures, like the die pool above, or more complex systems which invoilve discards.  Systems with lots of qualifiers end up with long strings.

[Buddha Nature]

well this is kinda like what I have been thinking about.  I am now thinking that I should just categorize based on the dice mechanic (or if diceless, say so) like "trait + roll" or "dice pool" or "percentile".  Though could also go by character creation - "point based" or "descriptor based".

Thoughts?

-Shane

[Joe Murphy (Broin)]

Speaking as a former marketing bod... *hiss hiss*

Who's your audience? What categories are they likely going to search on?

I suppose I can see some gamers favoring percentiles systems over 3d6 for whatever insane reason, but I wouldn't like to start categorising systems like Deadlands or Earthdawn. Something like the Storyteller system is attribute+skill, but points are also expended from a pool. Character creation is point-based, but there are also descriptors, and occasionally rolls. The categories get murky.

If you don't know, then p'raps allow your audience to make their own categories, with a voting system.

Or use 'keywords' rather than strict genres. Blue Planet becomes 'cyberpunk, western, future, sci-fi' or Puppetland becomes 'descriptor, surreal, puppets' etc. Like the IMDb.

Joe.

[Buddha Nature]

Well at the top of the thread I mentioned that I "work" fo the Open Directory Project @ www.dmoz.org.  _Tons_ of search engines (chiefly Google Directory) use it.  One of the chief tennants is not to have "symlinks" - don't list something in the directory multiple times (ala putting Blue Planet under cyberpunk, western, future, and sci-fi).

Anyway the major problem I am having (as is mentioned earlier in the thread) is with the Universal systems.  They have no "genres" so how can you subdivide 80+ of them so that it is easier to find what you want other than alphabetically looking through the list...

-Shane

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Anyway the major problem I am having (as is mentioned earlier in the thread) is with the Universal systems.  They have no "genres" so how can you subdivide 80+ of them so that it is easier to find what you want other than alphabetically looking through the list...

I think that you would be able to do this, aside from dice/diceless and other meaningless subdivisions like this.

Fact is, it's like was Ron said about GNS listing, too many games would go into a miscellanious category. Well, universal, or genreric if you prefer, is a "Misc." category more or less. Look at some of the one page RPG threads for other stuff on what is typical of some, especially free RPGs.

[Joe Murphy (Broin)]

My apologies, I hadn't paid enough attention to your first post. Sorry about that.

Well, categories *will* be a problem with that sort of classification system. Ack. Hmm.

A few years back, I researched 'rules light' systems and found things like Fudge. But I didn't find bump into games like Sorceror, which while possessed of _few_ rules, uses *every* rule. Thus, 'rules light' wasn't an especially helpful category.

You could hope there'll never be more than a few hundred 'Universal' systems, and as proposed earlier, use categories like 'rules light'. Perhaps you could do a little survey on here or RPGnet to see what sort of categories appeal to 'typical' gamers. RPGnet supports polls, IIRC.

Joe.

[Paul Czege]

Shane,

One of the chief tennants is not to have "symlinks" - don't list something in the directory multiple times (ala putting Blue Planet under cyberpunk, western, future, and sci-fi).

The problem you're confronting is one of trying to put a database into a flat file format. With a database, you could categorize the games by their use of Karma/Drama/Fortune mechanics, rich/sketchy setting, rich/sketchy characters, class-based, designer's name, keywords, etc., and let users sort/filter/search by the categories that are important to them. The project is forcing you to choose one set of categories, the "best" set of categories for all users, and it's simply an impossible task. My recommendation is to pick something arbitrary, like alpha categories.

If you could do each game blurb as a separate page, you could implement systematic keywording in the blurbs and provide an overview of your keywords and instructions for how to use Google to search within the site. That would basically get you database functionality. You'd be treating each game as a separate record in a database.

Paul

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Shane,

I suggest you go with the dice mechanic idea that you presented above. "When in doubt, stick with alpha taxonomy."

Best,
Ron

[Evan Waters]

Perhaps GNS classification would be useful as an addition to whatever else you've got. Group by genre or alpha taxonomy and whatever, and put things in the descriptions like "primarily Gamist, also a strong Narrative element" so people who understand the model (all three of them :) ) can use that as an additional guide to what they're looking for.