[ED&D] CA transience?

[FredGarber]

The only problem I see with your goals is that you want to recreate Edwin, for Ed's D & D.
I believe that you didn't notice the times when Edwin just made stuff up, on the fly, because of his level of skill.

Failing that, I want to find shortcuts so I can prep only what I have to and yet still have a world with some meat to it.

Edwin put years into the prep for Telvar, to the point where he can pull off a game where you never notice his improvisations.  And you want a "shortcut" to skip those years.  I'm not sure that's a do-able goal. 

I'm good with spreadsheets, and IMNSHO, the time you'll spend tinkering with them will really just give you that same "This is my world, this is how it works" experience that Edwin has.  Every time you add a variable to the sheet (or tinker with a coefficient on a pre-made sheet), then you have just nailed down some more color and ephemera about your world, and brought you one step closer to Edwin's familiarity with Telvar.

That said, go for it.  My personal holy grail is a game that provides a fun experience regardless of the competance of the players.

-Fred

[Callan S.]

I agree with Fred there on the Edwin's skill and I'll take it a bit further - was there no improvisation, or was he skilled enough that players could believe there was no improvisation? I'm talking creative denial on the players part...gah, how to describe it? Umm, how about a futurama episode, where Benders girlfriend catches him with other girls and he explains them away as his accountants. Her line "I dearly want to believe you, Bender....so I will!". Okay, bit of a negative example of creative denial, but there you go.

Now, onto something else that sticks out for me...

Now we all sat down and had Edwin describe the symbols on the door to us in detail.  Everyone contributed in guessing at what the pattern might be.  We agreed on the simplest solution, spellshifted, cast protection spells, and let Felix try touching the symbols in a certain order.  Third symbol, he got blasted.

We reconvened and tried to think of another pattern, using the first two symbols as a starting point.

This was immense fun for everyone for the first few efforts, but after several failures, I got irritated that we weren't actually roleplaying.  I'd lost all sense of the imaginary space we were working in, and was just focused on our drawings and notes about the door.  Edwin spoke up at some point to remind us how long we'd been spell-shifting and wandering up to this door and getting blasted, and that prompted some fun reactions before we got back to door-solving.

This looks like time to step on up to me, but you have immense fun briefly yet then it irritates you. The full step on up is where it's you guys, the players, looking at your own drawings and notes and using your own skills. And that's turned out to be an irritant.

Have you ever enjoyed where its purely down to you as a person, nothing to do with your character? I see it as a massive feature. Do you see it as a massive bug in the system?

[David Berg]

I agree with Fred there on the Edwin's skill and I'll take it a bit further - was there no improvisation, or was he skilled enough that players could believe there was no improvisation?

Hey, I love improv, and am pretty good at half of it. 

Providing something interesting for the players on the spot?  I kick ass at that. 

Making that "something interesting" be entirely consistent with everything else in the world, such that it continues to make sense no matter what the PCs do?  I suck at that.

Edwin, on the other hand, never ran into a "that doesn't make sense" moment.  So either he was incredibly skilled at this second attribute of improv, or he just didn't improv world content.  I don't know which was the case.

"I dearly want to believe you, Bender....so I will!"

My position on this dynamic continues to be that the ideal is when players are complicit in the necessary constructive denial but never have their conscious attention drawn to that fact.  If I have to have my character go, "Sure, Tom, I'll take that assignment," instead of saying, "You could clearly do it yourself and get all the treasure, so why don't you?" then I'm not immersed.  I'm thinking about the game from without, rather than thinking within the game.

This looks like time to step on up to me, but you have immense fun briefly yet then it irritates you.

I'm assuming that we enjoyed it because it was quality Step On Up.  But then when we ran out of ideas and it devolved into just sort of going through permutations, I didn't really feel challenged anymore. 

The full step on up is where it's you guys, the players, looking at your own drawings and notes and using your own skills. And that's turned out to be an irritant.

The fact that my reaction was, "Dammit, I came here to roleplay, let's roleplay," as opposed to, "This challenge isn't really allowing me to perform," is probably a result of the fact that I've played Sim most of my life (and even defaulted to Sim-ish values at other points in this very game, e.g. Baleford)...

Have you ever enjoyed where its purely down to you as a person, nothing to do with your character? I see it as a massive feature. Do you see it as a massive bug in the system?

Well, the whole point of the immersion in Lendrhald is that you can tackle challenges in character and it is basically down to you as a person.  The Rat Island game is a better illustration of that.  I helped figure out the timing of fighting rats vs. climbing a tower vs. pushing boats out to sea such that our party got away uneaten.  It was basically a decision-making process based solely on in-gameworld factors, and when it worked well, with no help from the GM, I felt pretty cool.

To answer your first question ("Have you ever enjoyed . . . ") more directly, if I wanted to problem-solve without Exploration I'd play Stratego.  So I guess that's a "No."

[Callan S.]

I'm assuming that we enjoyed it because it was quality Step On Up.  But then when we ran out of ideas and it devolved into just sort of going through permutations, I didn't really feel challenged anymore.

Just on this for now - it sounds like going through the permutations would only take a minute or so, given how spell shifting was handled.

So you figured out a solution (run through the permutations), but you didn't get any satisfaction from figuring out that solution. Not even a mild amount. I could understand that if it took twenty minutes to enact the solution, because that'd dilute any feeling of accomplishment. But if it took no time at all to enact the solution - yay, cracked it!

Looking at "when we ran out of ideas" have you considered that perhaps you only like challenges because they make you think up ideas? Your account is littered with places where your or others are acting as if there's an issue there and then having all sorts of ideas and/or asking about specific bits of the game world. Have you considered that perhaps you don't actually like challenges, you just like how they make you think about the game world? It'd be like liking telescopes, but really only liking them for what they let you see. Clearly the telescope is important - you can't do without it. But at the same time it isn't the most important.

[David Berg]

Just on this for now - it sounds like going through the permutations would only take a minute or so, given how spell shifting was handled.

The real-world time spent staring at the drawing and debating patterns and trying permutations until evenutally getting the door open was about 4 hours.

Looking at "when we ran out of ideas" have you considered that perhaps you only like challenges because they make you think up ideas?

Me personally?  That's my favorite way to spend my time, basically.  I tend to think up ideas whenever possible.  That said, I also enjoy plenty of activities which involve lots of competition and no idea generation.

The Rat Isle game I mentioned had a bit too much time pressure for leisurely brainstorming.  (I can't remember how "amount of out-of-game talk" was limited, I should talk to Al about that.)  There, it was more a matter of picking the best solution and organizing everyone to contribute to it quickly.  Which is sort of "coming up with ideas", but I dunno, seems very Step On Up to me for some reason.  I guess just because I assumed that my decisions would determine whether we won or lost.

Have you considered that perhaps you don't actually like challenges, you just like how they make you think about the game world?

This is, in fact, the line that Al and I are walking in our design.  As a player, I can enjoy wandering around in a neat enough fantasy world for its own sake.  Al doesn't enjoy that, but loves when his character has a room that's X wide and a javelin that can be thrown Y distance and a bookcase that covers Z percent of his body from attacks.  THEN he cares about the contents of the neat fantasy world.  I've played a few games from a similar mindset (I think) and quite enjoyed it.  In fact, at its best, I enjoyed it more than wandering.  (So, yeah, I think I like challenges, but maybe only a certain flavor.)

When Al and I began designing Lendrhald, we both agreed that it was very, very important that characters could be killed and missions could be failed, and that the only way to avoid this was player competence -- so when you keep your character alive and beat a mission, it's An Accomplishment. 

So, for the players, we figure it's Gamist play.  (The GM doesn't get to Step On Up, though.)

[Callan S.]

Hi David,

Four hours? I knew I should have asked how long instead of assumed. Can I ask a few more questions?

* Who made it last four hours? What procedures were people using that made 'Try this symbol. No? Okay, spellshift, try the next symbol?' last four hours? What were they doing and saying and rolling? Was there just alot of social chit chat mixed in with any actual procedure?
* Were they trying to really figure out the true answer behind it all rather than get it done?
* Were they playing it out in character voices and still describing all their minute physical actions?
* Was there a vibe there that it's just too crude and dream breaking to go 'This symbol? No, okay, next one...' rapidly?
* At roughly what time did you realise it could be solved by just going through the permutations?

Frankly if it was four hours, I don't think it's non gamist to be entirely fed up with the whole thing. But what stretched it out? Let's say you and others were gunning for gamism at some point. But there was also some devotion to something else, a devotion that dragged it on for four freaking hours. I'd say that devotion strangled the poor little life out of any gamism you might have been shooting for. In fact it strangled it for four damn hours, just to make sure the job was done.

Anyway, I'm kind of jumping ahead again. We'll see what your answers are and what it reveals, if you want to answer

[David Berg]

I just realized I may have skirted an issue with my last response:

When Al and I began designing Lendrhald, we both agreed that it was very, very important that characters could be killed and missions could be failed, and that the only way to avoid this was player competence -- so when you keep your character alive and beat a mission, it's An Accomplishment.

The issue of why we agreed this was important is relevant here.  And it may not be quite as simple as "so you can be proud of success."  Incentivizing players to interface closely with the gameworld is a definite advantage as well.

* Who made it last four hours? What procedures were people using that made 'Try this symbol. No? Okay, spellshift, try the next symbol?' last four hours? What were they doing and saying and rolling? Was there just alot of social chit chat mixed in with any actual procedure?

This is what I get for using an example from 7 years ago.  I dunno, man.

I'm heading out of town this weekend for a week; when I get back, I'll post about the Rat Island game, from a mere 2 years ago, and hopefully that will be better discussion fodder.

My memory of the door is that Edwin simply had a complex mechanism with few relevant clues.  The solution turned out to be something like:
Turn 2 positions to the left, turn 1 position to the right, turn 4 positions to the left, turn 7 positions to the right...
for about 11 turns.  But when we encountered the thing, we didn't know which way to turn it, or how far, or how many turns total it required.  I have no idea how we eventually figured it out; I wasn't involved.

There was definitely a lot of social chit chat.

* Were they trying to really figure out the true answer behind it all rather than get it done?

When we first saw it, I think Catherine and Jeremy tried to make some sense of the symbols and relate them to some culture or religion, but that didn't get them anywhere.  Definitely the bulk of the 4 hours was just "get it done".

* Were they playing it out in character voices and still describing all their minute physical actions?

No.  This was more typical:
*stare at chart, propose idea, try it, doesn't work -- no in-character speech*
Joel: Man, Ballinor is really sick of getting blasted by lightning by now.
*stare at chart, propose idea, try it, doesn't work -- no in-character speech* etc.

* Was there a vibe there that it's just too crude and dream breaking to go 'This symbol? No, okay, next one...' rapidly?

No, "Okay, try next one" is pretty much what happened, in between trying to figure out a pattern.

* At roughly what time did you realise it could be solved by just going through the permutations?

I think it was after we got about 6 turns in a row correct, and then there was enough to see a pattern -- at that point, we knew we'd get it by going through permutations.  Before that, we'd just been doing them anyway, and hoping.  Once we knew for sure, I think it still took another good 20 minutes.

The whole thing came off as, "Were we supposed to have some key or scroll or analogy that would have made this more do-able?"  And who knows, maybe we were.  There might have been a neat chart full of symbols in some secret room we never found.  But Edwin never told us.

Similarly, Al never told us where to find the missing half of the magic gizmo in the Rat Island game.  It was a player-initiated decision born out of desperation and curiosity to search the leper king's lair... and when we found the lair led to a winding underground tunnel, we figured the tunnel would lead to a certain part of the island and that's about it... but then we stumbled across the missing half of the magic gizmo.  If we hadn't, the game would have offered the PCs a lot fewer options for escape.  Although maybe subsequent encounters would have pointed us to the tunnel later in the game...

[David Berg]

Gack.

So, after speaking to my co-designer Al for many hours last night, a few things became clear to me:
1) I've been trying to shove Lendrhald play toward more clear and functional Gamism because it's intended to be more challenging for the players than most of what I've been playing
2) Al wants Lendrhald to make up for all the games where if he probes the world too thoroughly, he finds something inane, throws up his hands, and focuses on challenges instead

So now we're at an awkward point, where we still agree about what we like in play, but we're not sure what a realistic reward cycle for anyone else might be.

We like dungeon-crawls, we like having to think strategically, we like distinctive color, we like leaving an impact, and we like learning about medieval life from a world-designer/GM who knows more about it than we do.

Trying to design a game to accomplish all of that strikes both of us as impossible, but we're not sure where that leaves us.

It seems like the best successes of the past have been compromises between players who wanted to Step On Up and a GM who wanted to Dream -- the players only got bored occasionally while being briefed on local color, and the GM never got bored while the players crawled through dungeons, because they wanted to pay very close attention to the dungeon environments.

I'm half trying to convince Al to give up on the local color briefings in hopes of making something more clearly Gamist (which would kind of answer my what gets played? question), and half hoping an equally focused alternate direction presents itself ("we're playing Sim, dungeon-crawls are a favored technique, and look, here's an apt reward cycle").

I appreciate the feedback from everyone on this thread and the "making challenges" one.  Feel free to share any insights or suggestions in light of this latest post.  If nothing occurs to anyone, then we'll call this thread done and I'll start a new one (eventually) once my goals are refocused a bit.

Michael, I'd still love to see that Excel sheet, but no hurry.  I'll be out of town from 11/17-11/24.

[Callan S.]

Gack.

So, after speaking to my co-designer Al for many hours last night, a few things became clear to me:
1) I've been trying to shove Lendrhald play toward more clear and functional Gamism because it's intended to be more challenging for the players than most of what I've been playing
2) Al wants Lendrhald to make up for all the games where if he probes the world too thoroughly, he finds something inane, throws up his hands, and focuses on challenges instead

Hauntingly familiar situation. Several months back my friend invited me to design the system of a game world he was working on. I cooked up this nifty combat system which was rather like the lobby fight in the matrix - you'd be calculating the odds of being able to shoot dodge towards each pillar, which pillar to dodge to (they are all being worn down by gun fire), line of sight, the direction your dodging in (limiting your choices, can't dodge one way then the exact opposite way), and a bunch of other little probabilities to work out to survive.

After describing it to him, my friends first words were "Yeah, but the main problem is that the GM would have to put in alot of work so the players don't just keep going around the columns in a circle". Yeah, they would dodge from cover to cover in a big circle around their opponents - and it would be bloody hard to do so effectively, as a player. I asked more questions, trying not to set up any particular answer - and the answers kept being like the above. This is the guy who's done a ton more team sports than me - who know's, maybe he left his gamism there?

I'm not interested in compromise myself - were friends either way, so I don't want to dilute/reduce my gamist fun (that's what compromise would do) just so I can do an activity with them. It'd be nice if we had some roleplay in common that we both liked, but I share other things with them so I don't want to compromise/reduce my gamism just so we also have gaming in common too. They have various hobbies or work interests that I don't, and I wouldn't want them to reduce thier enjoyment of those so we could somehow share them. I'm kind of half heartedly working on a simulationist design (from what I understand of sim), cause I'd like it if I wrote something, and he and his sim inclined brother played it and really got coherant play. They'd be happy and the happier they are, the more it'd show me to wrap up old expectations.

But it's a pain, as the dominant RP culture out there seems to be simulationist - emphasize the priority on step on up and the responce seems to be 'If I wanted that, I'd go play chess'.

Your wrapping up the thread and this is kind of an open ended anecdote, but for what it's worth, there you go!

[David Berg]

emphasize the priority on step on up and the responce seems to be 'If I wanted that, I'd go play chess'.

Hell, that's how I feel about most Gamist games I've heard described.  I'd rather go play chess unless the exploration of Color (always), Setting (often) and Character (sometimes) is pretty high.

I'd been thinking of the Lendrhald project as High-Exploration Gamist design, and who knows, maybe I'll still do something in that direction.  I still think it'd be pretty damn cool if it could be pulled off... but I don't know whether any of my past roleplaying experience actually speaks to that or whether I've just played a lot of competitive Sim. 

[Caldis]

I'd been thinking of the Lendrhald project as High-Exploration Gamist design, and who knows, maybe I'll still do something in that direction.  I still think it'd be pretty damn cool if it could be pulled off... but I don't know whether any of my past roleplaying experience actually speaks to that or whether I've just played a lot of competitive Sim. 

I'd say the experience you described in this session was a muddled mess without any CA really predominating or fully functioning.  Edwin seemed to be aiming for sim but you and at least a few of the other gamers were aiming for gamism. 

I think your idea of a fully detailed world is one that could be a great gamist system as long as everything you design you keep the challenge in mind.  You talked about it when you mentioned gaining favor with the mayor and people were considering it when they were deciding on what equipment to take on a mission.  The trick is to make these actions challenges and have the results impact on the character.  A druid doesnt just commune with nature for the sake of it, he could be doing it to get information on the world or to strenghten his bonds with nature, he does it for something that can give him an advantage.

[Callan S.]

emphasize the priority on step on up and the responce seems to be 'If I wanted that, I'd go play chess'.

Hell, that's how I feel about most Gamist games I've heard described.  I'd rather go play chess unless the exploration of Color (always), Setting (often) and Character (sometimes) is pretty high.

Hmm, yes. But I think weve only ever had to describe them as exploration with the priority being step on up, because the RPG's weren't complete in terms of gamist design - whoever you invited to play would have to help you finish the design.

Ironically though, this probably provokes a very efficient, resource management gamist-like responce - if exploration is a feature, then it's more efficient to either focus on it entirely or go play chess. Gamism damned by efficient, real life resource management. Heh, and any explorative dream that comes from it, coming from an entirely undreamy modus operandi.

Perhaps in terms of gamist roleplay, exploration needs to just stop being called a feature of play - like a soccer ball isn't called a feature of play in soccer.

[Paul T]

The idea of building a challenge-oriented game within a heavily-detailed and consistent setting is a very interesting one. I have a question for you, as well as a suggestion.

I'd like to ask you the question first: do you need a heavily-detailed and consistent setting, or will the illusion of one suffice?

The suggestion is: have you heard of Ryan Stoughton's "TRAP" method? I don't know where there is a more up-to-date source, but there is a thread at EN World where he explains the concept. I think a structure like this might be able to provide you with what you're looking for.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=202750

Best,


Paul

[Caldis]

From what I read the link Paul provided has lots of decent suggestions, here's a few more idea I had.


The big problem I see with trying to make an internally consistent world in something like D&D is that their worlds and game systems generally have everything plus the kitchen sink.  Take magic systems for instance, D&D has several.  Divine magic with clerics, druidic magic, wizards, sorcerors, all are slightly different and add more things you have to rationalize, a tricky task if your going for the consistency you want in a game world.  Magic isnt the only place they take this approach and it's not the most damaging one to a campaign setting.  Monsters, classes, cultures, races, they always add tons and tons which makes the world much more complicated and harder to fully realize.

My suggestion is to simplify all this.  Start with a much smaller area or world and build that up into detail.  Eliminate excess complexity and work on making the area real and challenging.

- You could design it in a similar manner to a computer RTS game, where your city/culture grows and expands based on actions it takes, allow players more influence on the direction via political actions in the city which gives players a challenge to get involved in. 
- Have nearby threats that grow in power much like their own city, but that can be beaten back by player incursions into dungeons.  i.e  a nearby Orc tribe
- Maybe an economic system as well, like food production which you keep track of and is influenced by different factors like the threats
- A cultural advancement system based on research, there could be player quests related to this

Some basic ideas here but it could be a really cool game if you can figure out systems to control these aspects and ways for the players to interact with them.
 

[contracycle]

We like dungeon-crawls, we like having to think strategically, we like distinctive color, we like leaving an impact, and we like learning about medieval life from a world-designer/GM who knows more about it than we do.

Of all these elements, it is the first which is fatal, IMO.  Dungeon crawls are a weird abomination, and that is why they are hard to fit into any broader context that makes any sense.  This said I don't have an off the shelf solution available either, but I think this is where the essential problem lies.  Hence the repeating game structure of a medieval society with which the characters only interact when getting their missions or dropping off the mcguffin, while they spend all the rest of their time down a hole, solving problems that have nothing directly to do with that society - and thus, neither learning about it nor leaving an impact upon it.

I suggest the locus of the game action has to be moved into the society itself.  All of Caldis suggestions work just as well for this purpose and so I agree with all them; I also agree I don't quite know how to carry it out myself.  However there is an interesting point to be made about who the player characters should be in such a game.  To borrow from the RTS analogy, the players must be active agents, they must be power-holders in the social arena rather the dungeon.  In this regard it is worth noting observations made by Barbara Tuchman in her (excellent) book on the 14th Century 'A Distant Mirror'.  In seeking a suitably representative person from whose experiences she could use to contextualise the changes in the 14th century, she chose a count, the reason being that this layer of the feudal state had direct experience of both local and international problems.

I think a similar approach needs to be adopted for a historical or totally fictitious settings to become the real subjects of action and intention.  You don't play a grunt in an RTS, you play some sort of decision-maker, and without that shift the setting can only be backdrop.  But the dungeon crawl is completely opposed to that goal, its a different game altogether about small unit tactics.