Brainstorming 'What is Gaming' Outside the Box

[Le Joueur]

So I made a call to action, I better back that up, right?

Okay.

I also said that the first part ought to be laden with "that's so inside the box.'  If you see any here, let 'er rip.  Got it?

Right.

First, I need to narrow what constitutes role-playing gaming to the smallest possible point.  Reduce it to the barest description.  I'm not trying to include just all that is already gaming, I'm trying to capture all that and more.  If I get this right, you won't be able to say "such and such don't do that."

This is personal opinion here, it comes straight and only from me.  I'm trying to shake up people's ideas, so its gonna be a bit bumpy.  The ultimate result is to challenge people's perceptions and generate some discussion about potential designs way beyond 'is this dice mechanic clunky' or 'what order do I put chapters in.'

Okay, here goes.  (Some of this stems from some very profound discussions we had about Impswitch - "We make Scattershot" - this weekend.)

What is gaming?

I always start with, "Well, if I were...."  I see people doing this all the time; only gamers seem to realize it can be turned easily into pleasurable activities.  I also recognize that there is some kind of 'ground rules.'  Even freeformers (by any definition) have something, even if it's simply a social contract and an unspoken "gentlemans' agreement."

After this weekend, I see a little bit more.  What we're really trying to 'sell' here is 'self-engagement systems.'  It's not a product, like a book or a movie.  It's not a service, like getting made up or hair dressed.  It's a 'do it yourself' kit for a pasttime that doesn't quite resemble anything else (completely).  Traditional board games are like this, but role-playing games have that 'if I were...' quality.

What we 'sell' is 'you are there' 'self-engagement systems.'  Anything that aids or provides that, becomes role-playing game supplements.  But plastic swords are not role-playing games by themselves.  (And just adding rules to toy soldiers is definitely 'in the box.')[/list:u]Where do we brainstorm from there?  Well, I have a hard time thinking outside of two other boxes, so you'll have to help me out here.  The first is 'property-based.'  You see a movie, read a story, or like a picture; a role-playing game helps you 'step into it' by creating a system that facilitates sorting out "what you'd do."  The other is 'baseless;' you get an 'outside the box' role-playing game and do fun stuff 'being someone else.'  It might be genre driven, but not as specific as 'property-based' products.

Now for a few examples (and remember, I tend to think years in advance).  There is a demonstrable audience for 'huggable battle proxies' both in America and in Japan.  So create stuffed animals equipped with some of the new 'responsive toy' elements being created now, and Bluetooth communications hardware.  How you role-play with the toy affects its battle performance.  Animatronics may become possible.

Let's take the whole thing on-line.  Not like

Neverwinter Nights, but sharing a heck of a lot with MMPORGs.  (Did I spell that right?)  Get something going where the core system prompts and rewards people for, not so much 'stay in character,' as 'stay out of real-life.'  And play on the connectivity of the internet for character interaction.  Do something different than traditional fantasy MUDDs and MUSHes; what about something like Neopets?

What about Japan and that scandanavian country (that escapes my memory) where they play games with their cell phones?  Games like tag and dodgeball (and theoretically Killer ala Steve Jackson Games).  They also keep pets, like tamagotchi, in their cell phones.  A few companies have come out with cell phone/PDAs this year and in about a month or so the 'tablet PC' will be offered, new and improved (think cross between Palm Pilot and laptop).  I can't even begin to speculate on the potential role-playing game applications of all this; they beggar the imagination.

And how about this just for the heck of it?  Hollywood has gotten really good at 'packaging' movies.  You get the film, video, and DVD; then there's the action figures, clothing, and related merchandise.  And so on, and so on.  What they're marketing is a static narrative product.  How would you configure a company to 'package' a 'you are there' self-engagement system?  There would be the printed stuff, the props and action figures/stuffed animals.  An internet presence, not as advertising, but to actually 'play' on.  Perhaps spin-off movies, books, and networking computer games.  And this could function as either of those 'two boxes' I described before.  The best part is that such a company (or complex of companies) could do the whole thing again, year after next.

These are just a few of my 'outside the box' ideas that have gelled.  I also have a few 'edges of the box' ideas.  Like gateway or crossover products.  My usual example is the more character-focused (the "Well, if I were..." part) card game (like Magic: the Gathering).  Or extremely easy-to-pick-up novel or comic tie-in role-playing games side-by-side with their sources.  Or plush Pokemon computer powered toys.  And so on.

Does that get the discussion started?

Fang Langford

[C. Edwards]

Some very cool ideas Fang.  I wonder though, does an idea have to be cutting edge to be "out of the box"?  Americans, at least, seem to have a love of innovative products with retro sensibilities.  Even the actual old stuff never seems to actually get old.  Vintage clothing, classic cars, some things just never go out of style I guess.

This idea is probably in the "bottom of the box", but what I want to see is an RPG utilizing the Viewmaster.  Not just some cool inspirational art or photos on those swank little cardboard disks, but even the quickstart rules, whatever else would be practical.  Heyyyyy, and maybe there could even be collectable disks with limited edition scenarios, optional rules, and pregen characters.  Hmm, I wonder if a Viewmaster can be engineered to randomize its picture selection.

I love me some Viewmaster.

-Chris

[Christoffer Lernö]

Oooo this is a great subject. Since the 90's I've read articles (in Sweden) about how traditional RPG have lost players to LARP, collectible card games and computer games.

It's easy to see the tendency (or I believe I see it anyway). LARP is more appealing to people who like to act out their characters and socialize, card games is a lot about winning but most of all having cool cards. People who'd like their cool characters more than they actually like playing hem probably like the card games more (I'm reminded of how covers and in game illustrations usually don't agree with what you can do with the rules, you all know this is something I don't like)
Finally computer games for the strategic stuff or the ones who simply want to compete.

Why? I can think of one very simple thing: accesibility.

Is it simple to play RPGs?

Nope. It takes time and effort. If you can get the same kick from sitting down playing a computer game with a lot less effort invested, why not do that?

Or if what I want to do is to act my characters, why not LARP when it's so much easier to do that and probably a whole lot less rules to get in the way?

We're talking about dysfunctional play here, and I think it's one big thing that puts people off.

You also need a solid group, but not too many, to play. That also is a requirement which is looser with the other alternatives.

If I was going to start playing RPG without knowing anything about it, wouldn't it be easier to go with the other activities which offer a much easier introduction?

With more and more material written solely for people with experience, some rules tend to become increasingly less accessible. This is a huge problem. If I want to start playing, I want to play something simple and easily accessible, something which gratifies me from the start. Something which makes me look for a deeper experience in the same vein. It shouldn't push me off to say LARPs for that, but for more profound systems or using the system in a more profound way.

When you talk about bundling RPG with other merchandize I think you're thinking in the right direction. A simple but extremely flexible game like Zak's Shadows is what we need. Kind of a "how can you play a really cool game of make-believe in this world". With a loose enough framework one could then make up minimalist setting adapted rules for almost any game or movie.

What if Final Fantasy was bundled with the Final Fantasy two page mini RPG? You could add an advertisment for the full Final Fantasy RPG with huge amounts of background material and more ideas and how to play and whatever.

These mini-RPGs could really revive the hobby. They would have two effects:

1. They could serve as introductions to roleplaying in two ways. First they are simple enough to be quickly learned and comprehended, secondly an article on RPG could actually include a complete game for the reader to try out him/herself!

2. It would promote more simple and coherent games. Obviously there still would be old-school people who still worship Rolemaster as the ultimate game if you include all the companions (I wonder how many pages that is in total), but there would also be a whole bunch on new players who think of it as make-believe first hand and a tactical strategy game secondly. And personally, I think the former group is much bigger than the second. Besides, even people in enjoying other forms of play than make-believe will have a much easier time being intruduced through simple games.
Anyway, my point is, if people are being introduced to RPGs through coherent games, that's what they will be expecting, so RPGs in general will have to raise the bar a little to fit the expectations of their new audience.

That's my thoughts anyway.

[Le Joueur]

Some very cool ideas Fang.  I wonder though, does an idea have to be cutting edge to be "out of the box"?

Not at all.  How about finding the contact point between Civil War reenactment and role-playing games (or renaissance festivals or SCA moots or Midwestern 'retreats'); strictly old school and so breathtakingly close to role-playing games, yet nobody seems to notice the correlation.

This idea is probably in the "bottom of the box", but what I want to see is an RPG utilizing the Viewmaster.  Not just some cool inspirational art or photos on those swank little cardboard disks, but even the quickstart rules, whatever else would be practical.  Heyyyyy, and maybe there could even be collectable disks with limited edition scenarios, optional rules, and pregen characters.  Hmm, I wonder if a Viewmaster can be engineered to randomize its picture selection.

Viewmaster is a good lateral 'movement idea' example and you're right about the 'edge of the box' concept.  But that kind of thing has to be a part of the 'role-playing games are ubiquitous' picture.  Even if you can't create it, have it 'ready' to pitch to Hasbro.  (It's their product right?  Disney seems to be their only supplier of Viewmaster content; who knows, they might be more interested than we realize.  A pitch isn't that expensive.  I wonder if we can create the 'café press' version that allows custom 'character sheet' disks to be ordered.)  Then when the time comes and ubiquity settles in, everyone will be clamoring for ideas (this is the ideal world folks), they might be hungry for such.  Look what Pokémon did for the sagging Gameboy market.

(And I didn't post these to impress people.  C'mon, there's this box; think outside of it with me.  This is not performance art; this is Indie Game Design.)  Part of thinking 'outside the box' is giving up the idea that, as a market, we're 'barely hanging on;' time to 'go forth and multiply.'

Fang Langford

[Le Joueur]

You also need a solid group, but not too many, to play. That also is a requirement which is looser with the other alternatives.

That's an interesting point.  But should it be an actual limiting factor?  I don't think so; I didn't used to, but after pondering Solo play for Scattershot, I'm not so sure.  Earlier in this thread, I posited solo play with huggable battle proxies to affect their combat ability.  This goes a little farther; you could be 'secretly playing' while going about in public, too.  That certainly happens with the cell phone games I mentioned.  Likewise, that is what Neopets nearly verges on now.  Even with the internet, finding someone to play with will not be that easy 24/7; why limit role-playing games to only group play?  Does the idea of role-playing games lose something if we include solo games?

What if Final Fantasy was bundled with the Final Fantasy two page mini RPG? You could add an advertisement for the full Final Fantasy RPG with huge amounts of background material and more ideas and how to play and whatever.

These mini-RPGs could really revive the hobby. They would have two effects:

1. They could serve as introductions to role-playing in two ways. First they are simple enough to be quickly learned and comprehended, secondly an article on RPG could actually include a complete game for the reader to try out him/herself!

That's my thoughts anyway.

I'll see your Final Fantasy bundle and raise you a 'what if such were designed to have a intriguing world outside of the linear narrative; one that you want to role-playing game in?'  That's what I mean about a company that launches 'you are there' self-engagement systems; 'space' is left in any 'world' for role-playing.

This is another good lateral thinking idea; it certainly should be considered when trying to license properties to base role-playing games on them.  A good portal product and entry-level idea here; good thinking!

Fang Langford

[Mike Holmes]

You also need a solid group, but not too many, to play. That also is a requirement which is looser with the other alternatives.

That's an interesting point.  But should it be an actual limiting factor?  I don't think so; I didn't used to, but after pondering Solo play for Scattershot, I'm not so sure.  Earlier in this thread, I posited solo play with huggable battle proxies to affect their combat ability.  This goes a little farther; you could be 'secretly playing' while going about in public, too.  That certainly happens with the cell phone games I mentioned.  Likewise, that is what Neopets nearly verges on now.  Even with the internet, finding someone to play with will not be that easy 24/7; why limit role-playing games to only group play?  Does the idea of role-playing games lose something if we include solo games?

))Plug Alert((

FWIW, there are huge advantages to chucking the "stable group" idea. For example, in Universalis play, people can enter the group or leave at will. There's no reason that a group always has to have the same people, or number, or, well, anything. One could even play solo, theoretically (though I think the idea sounds boring, personally). The idea is that as long as somebody shows up to play, play occurs. And that is a huge advantage. No cancellations because of lack of players. You can supplement numbers form anybody who's interested.

Also, there's the advantage of not needing to do any prep. Play can occur spontaneously, anywhere, so long as somebody's got the notes on the game and dice, etc (even that's not entirely neccessary, you can just go with pen and paper).

None of these things encourage new players, per se, I'll admit. But they do mean that you never have to miss an opportunity to play with a new player. Or give a player a bad impression of RPGs because somebody failed to show and the game had to be cancelled. And less new players can claim that their schedule makes play impossible (I've seen this excuse before).

So, I'd certainly agree that the stable group assumption is something that should be dropped in a game seeking to bring in new folks. I think that it's a good idea in general. :-)

Mike

[Christoffer Lernö]

When we talk solo games I immediately think about those solo game books. Whatever happened to them by the way?

I'm intrigued how you make that "no problem changing groups" work well. On the other hand, if we start from "make believe" then that particular game doesn't have any group requirements.

Well, so if we can make a simple game, something anyone could play, something that could be marketed as a bonus with promo mechandize for movies or such. Something which could be played alone or in a group.

Now we're talking.

[Walt Freitag]

There is no box. Or rather, you can imagine yourself to be within whatever box you wish to perceive, but when you step outside it don't think you'll be alone in some undiscovered frontier. There are hordes of people already out there who think the box you came from is part of the space outside of theirs.

The huggable battle proxy sellers and cell phone companies and toy manufacturers and board game designers and movie-ride makers and murder mystery weekend producers and LARP designers and CCG publishers and videogame console manufacturers and live theater companies and computer game designers and text IF writers and ren faire managers and virtual pet programers and historical re-enactors and media lab academics and dozens of other types are all asking the same question: how can we attract a bigger audience? People in all these areas are aware of tabletop RPGs. If they haven't made any great effort to become more RPG-like to expand their audiences, it's because they don't perceive those qualities as adding appeal to their existing craft. That doesn't mean they're right. But it suggests that going outside the box isn't enough; you have to scratch and dig for the gold once you're out there.

For a brief introduction to the wider universe of interactivity go to http://web.mit.edu/jhmurray/www/HOH.html, follow every link (warning: some are probably out of date by now), and read enough at each linked site to understand what's going on. That might take five seconds at some of the sites (IMAX 3D movies), five days at others (the Erasmatron).

Accessibility is an issue for anyone seeking an audience or customer base. Role playing (in the sense of assuming a fictional identity) is itself a huge barrier to accessibility for most people. I believe, for example, that massively multiplayer online games will will widen their audience when they dump the "RPG character" trappings in favor of walk-in worlds. Role playing gaming in the general sense doesn't always require assuming a fictional identity, but is that something you want to give up for the sake of crossover appeal?

(Contra Pale Fire, though, let me point out that LARP is not more accessible than tabletop in any of its present forms. Issues of the physical game site, costuming, game length, and group size generally make LARPs less accessible, overshadowing issues of rules complexity. Especially since even simplified LARP rules can be harder to play than tabletop rules, when referees cannot narrate effects and one is not supposed to break character to ask for rules explanations. In fighting LARPs I've seen a lot of "Hey, you're supposed to fall down, asshole" because a new player failed to recognize and react correctly to a keyword from a spell from six levels higher in a different character class.)

So as not to be a complete downer here, here are some other directions to go outside the box that you might not have thought of.

- Spectatorship. Some of the most popular games in our culture are promoted mainly by professionally played contests that attract spectators. Why not RPGs? How about a LARP "reality" TV series? (There was one that flopped a few years ago that tried to have a dungeon crawl look; all the challenges were performed in an old castle; but there was no situation.) Such a series would either require an elaborately staged LARP with real physical challenges, or perhaps an intercut simultaneous depiction of the real players playing the game (with the usual confessionals, etc. for revealing how they're approaching the game play) and a full-blown production, filmed later, of actors portraying the characters and events inside the game.

- Location based interactive storytelling. With current technology one could create a theme park in which each attraction the visitor chooses to go to gets woven into an adventure narrative. Use your visitor card to buy an ice cream cone from a stand, and you get handed a clue or a message along with your cone. Those willing to actually act on their personal story line could follow the clues right away (thus accepting a little railroading for a tighter story), while for everyone else it would be a sort of undercurrent with progress being more haphazard. (I wrote a proposal on this for a would-be theme park enterpreneur back in the 80s, and I honestly think they might have gone for it, but the whole enterprise fell through for some reason and that company never built a park.)

- Better sourcebook tools. Suppose you wanted a bedside "Storybook" for Zak's Shadows. What would it look like inside? Clearly, no lame branching story will suffice. But a list of story bit ideas, organized by current situation, might be very helpful. Start with the "Bumps in the Night" chapter that gives, say, thirty different ways to start the story. Then sections for each of many different situations that are likely to come up: "What the Unseen Scary Thing Does Next," "Uh Oh, Caught In The Act By Grownups!," "You Try To Run Away, But...," "Separated, What Now?," and so forth.

Now imagine something similar for any well-designed tabletop RPG. Now imagine doing it in computer software so that each entry is self-modifying based on a situational context inheritance system. The result, if successful: effective no-preparation GMing without that scary narrative sharing. (Actually making the software itself an effective GM would take a few more generations of development.) This isn't very far outside the box, but it conforms to a critical principle: "Make it easier, and more people will do it."

- Walt

[Christoffer Lernö]

You wrote a loot of good stuff Walt, just one thing... when you wrote about Shadows:

T- Better sourcebook tools. Suppose you wanted a bedside "Storybook" for Zak's Shadows. What would it look like inside? Clearly, no lame branching story will suffice. But a list of story bit ideas, organized by current situation, might be very helpful. Start with the "Bumps in the Night" chapter that gives, say, thirty different ways to start the story. Then sections for each of many different situations that are likely to come up: "What the Unseen Scary Thing Does Next," "Uh Oh, Caught In The Act By Grownups!," "You Try To Run Away, But...," "Separated, What Now?," and so forth.

I couldn't help but seeing this as an actual children's book complete with a picture for the story. You are like 6 years and open up the book at: "What the Unseen Scary Thing Does Next" with a few words about what has happened and a picture. Mom or Dad could be GM!

I can easily imagine this in the format of some of the books of my early childhood.

[Mike Holmes]

How about a LARP "reality" TV series? (There was one that flopped a few years ago that tried to have a dungeon crawl look; all the challenges were performed in an old castle; but there was no situation.) Such a series would either require an elaborately staged LARP with real physical challenges, or perhaps an intercut simultaneous depiction of the real players playing the game (with the usual confessionals, etc. for revealing how they're approaching the game play) and a full-blown production, filmed later, of actors portraying the characters and events inside the game.

Huh, you just accurately described the USA Network's "Combat Missions" show. Hadn't realized that the reason I was so attracted to it was becaouse of it's similarity to LARP.

Reality Shows are "I game" LARPS!

And you tried to get "Dreampark" going? I wonder how many attempts there've been. I've heard of at least two (one may hav been yours, Walt). Why is this so hard to implement?

Mike

[Le Joueur]

There is no box. Or rather, you can imagine yourself to be within whatever box you wish to perceive, but when you step outside it don't think you'll be alone in some undiscovered frontier. There are hordes of people already out there who think the box you came from is part of the space outside of theirs.

Did I say that?  Whoops.  What I may have meant was that we don't know that territory.  Some exploration is in order, trading ideas too, and we'd better not think we'll be the Spanish Conquistadors in the situation.

The huggable battle proxy sellers and cell phone companies and toy manufacturers and board game designers and movie-ride makers and murder mystery weekend producers and LARP designers and CCG publishers and videogame console manufacturers and live theater companies and computer game designers and text IF writers and ren faire managers and virtual pet programmers and historical re-enactors and media lab academics and dozens of other types are all asking the same question: how can we attract a bigger audience?

Then the order of the day would be team-building, wouldn't it?  Gosh, that'd sure get the movement 'out of our box' really going wouldn't it?

People in all these areas are aware of tabletop RPGs. If they haven't made any great effort to become more RPG-like to expand their audiences, it's because they don't perceive those qualities as adding appeal to their existing craft. That doesn't mean they're right. But it suggests that going outside the box isn't enough; you have to scratch and dig for the gold once you're out there.

I hope that's inherent in this call to action.  I'm not saying that we should convince others to emulate our product, far from it.  If anything, I'm suggesting that there may be a market for a new paradigm.

Something not necessarily role-playing games in the traditional sense (the sense that is the box in question), but a thing that all of the above, role-playing games included, could be intellectual 'subsidiaries' of.  A way of grouping products in terms of cross-over or tie-in that each grows a little in a unique way to support (as opposed to becoming more like any one thing or more like role-playing gaming).  I feel that we may have the best knothole view of what that thing might be because we spend so much time thinking of ways to "put people in the driver's seat" with self-engagement systems.

Role-playing (in the sense of assuming a fictional identity) is itself a huge barrier to accessibility for most people. I believe, for example, that massively multiplayer online games will widen their audience when they dump the "RPG character" trappings in favor of walk-in worlds. Role playing gaming in the general sense doesn't always require assuming a fictional identity, but is that something you want to give up for the sake of crossover appeal?

I certainly do.  I think the 'you have to be someone else' idea needs to be tossed out of the 'smallest possible description' I started with, just as much as the 'cannot do it alone' stuff.  (I remember many fun times where we began superhero games by writing ourselves up as characters and giving them the powers; we called it avatar play.)

You make a good question; would we still like it (as game designers and players) if people could adopt themselves as their characters?  Does it always have to be 'someone else?'

So as not to be a complete downer here, here are some other directions to go outside the box that you might not have thought of.

- Spectatorship. Some of the most popular games in our culture are promoted mainly by professionally played contests that attract spectators. Why not RPGs? How about a LARP "reality" TV series? (There was one that flopped a few years ago that tried to have a dungeon crawl look; all the challenges were performed in an old castle; but there was no situation.) Such a series would either require an elaborately staged LARP with real physical challenges, or perhaps an intercut simultaneous depiction of the real players playing the game (with the usual confessionals, etc. for revealing how they're approaching the game play) and a full-blown production, filmed later, of actors portraying the characters and events inside the game.

Heck, let's go all the way.  Professional 'players' who 'act out the part' as they play; there'd be no need for a full-blown production.  This sounds really close to that 'murder in a small town' thing I thought I heard about.  The murder was fictitious, some city inhabitants were actor-portrayed non-player characters, and the contestants had to solve the murder.  Good thinking here!

- Location based interactive storytelling. With current technology one could create a theme park in which each attraction the visitor chooses to go to gets woven into an adventure narrative. Use your visitor card to buy an ice cream cone from a stand, and you get handed a clue or a message along with your cone. Those willing to actually act on their personal story line could follow the clues right away (thus accepting a little railroading for a tighter story), while for everyone else it would be a sort of undercurrent with progress being more haphazard. (I wrote a proposal on this for a would-be theme park entrepreneur back in the 80s, and I honestly think they might have gone for it, but the whole enterprise fell through for some reason and that company never built a park.)

My partner and I are currently working on an algorithm for a console game that makes heavy use of 'moving clue' concepts to alleviate the railroaded or 'I cannot find the next widget' problem we've seen in other games.  Taken a step farther and using a multitude of storylines, we want to make it 'learn the preferences' of the user and skew towards storylines that they seem interested in.  It doesn't seem inconceivable that such a system could be wired into a park and the employees had to 'act out' the 'clues.'  Simply smashing; this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about.

- Better sourcebook tools. Suppose you wanted a bedside "Storybook" for Zak's Shadows. What would it look like inside? Clearly, no lame branching story will suffice. But a list of story bit ideas, organized by current situation, might be very helpful. Start with the "Bumps in the Night" chapter that gives, say, thirty different ways to start the story. Then sections for each of many different situations that are likely to come up: "What the Unseen Scary Thing Does Next," "Uh Oh, Caught In The Act By Grownups!" "You Try To Run Away, But..." "Separated, What Now?" and so forth.

Can we get Edward Gorey to illustrate it?  This might be a whole new approach to 'choose your own story' books, played more as a self-engagement system rather than a branched narrative.  I like it!

Now imagine something similar for any well-designed tabletop RPG. Now imagine doing it in computer software so that each entry is self-modifying based on a situational context inheritance system. The result, if successful: effective no-preparation GMing without that scary narrative sharing. (Actually making the software itself an effective GM would take a few more generations of development.) This isn't very far outside the box, but it conforms to a critical principle: "Make it easier, and more people will do it."

Joined with the 'moving clue' system I spoke of earlier and the tablet computer, you could reinvent the module (yes, I realize this is 'side of the box' stuff; we'll need that too).  I've been a big fan of tablet computers since they were speculated about back in the late seventies, using one for gamemastering would be fantastic.  This could even be turned on its head, making the gamemaster software contain the whole game, no other purchase necessary.

I wonder if we could fit this into a PDA?

A lot of good outside the box ideas as well as a good caution about what we may find out there.  Thanks a lot Walt!

Fang Langford

p. s. I suppose the next question is how to we advocate to get this stuff started?

[Paul Czege]

Hey,

...why limit role-playing games to only group play? Does the idea of role-playing games lose something if we include solo games?

It does to me. But it might be hard to explain how. It seems to me that the rewards of Narrativist play are twofold:

1) enjoyment of creative collaboration
2) player character protagonism

The thing is, character protagonism is dependent on audience interest. So solo play, a single player interacting with a game in the absence of an audience of collaborators, can't deliver either of these key rewards. I'm not denying that solo play can deliver discovery and problem solving rewards, but these are rather secondary rewards to a Narrativist.

I'd go so far as to say that even one-on-one play, with one player and one GM, is also problematic, albeit less so, because protagonism resulting from audience interest the player character is somehow less...full...when the whole of the audience is the GM who's doing the work of delivering the adversity upon which the protagonism is demonstrated. In my opinion, the minimum for meaningful Narrativism is two players and a GM.

Paul

[deadpanbob]

I'm in a hurry, and thus prone to laziness.  I didn't read the last 4 or 5 posts, but had a flash for 'at the edge of the box' roleplaying.

Deploy a full roelplaying game on PDA's with the infared hookup.  The program would handle all of the mechanics stuff, letting you know you hit, providing random descriptions of gore and what not.

The GMs version of the program would allow him/her to beam over difficulty numbers (or whatever) and individual monster stats as needed.

Cheers,

Jason

[Le Joueur]

...why limit role-playing games to only group play? Does the idea of role-playing games lose something if we include solo games?

It does to me. But it might be hard to explain how. It seems to me that the rewards of Narrativist play are twofold:

1) Enjoyment of creative collaboration
2) Player character protagonism

The thing is, character protagonism is dependent on audience interest. So solo play, a single player interacting with a game in the absence of an audience of collaborators, can't deliver either of these key rewards. I'm not denying that solo play can deliver discovery and problem solving rewards, but these are rather secondary rewards to a Narrativist.

I'd go so far as to say that even one-on-one play, with one player and one GM, is also problematic, albeit less so, because protagonism resulting from audience interest the player character is somehow less...full...when the whole of the audience is the GM who's doing the work of delivering the adversity upon which the protagonism is demonstrated. In my opinion, the minimum for meaningful Narrativism is two players and a GM.

I'm not sure I'm making myself clear.  I am not saying that henceforth all definitions of gaming are solo gaming.  Nothing so Draconian.  And I'm sure you're not suggesting that every part of every kind of gaming must be in groups.  (As has been pointed out many times, virtually all character design is done 'alone.')  So group-based Narrativism is quite welcome under a description that says nothing on whether you have to have a group or not.

Heck, I used to play a character on a Usenet group.  Nothing I posted was out of character and I even had a few true believers.  To me it was a game, a role-playing game, but I certainly didn't meet with a group of people to write the posts; I wrote all those by myself, alone.  Perhaps PBeM games are like this; would you disclude them?

I agree; gaming should be about interacting with others (otherwise you could do it with a console game), I'm just saying that not every activity in it must be with or for a live group setting.

The question is how to write that into 'you are there' self-engagement systems?

Fang Langford

[Le Joueur]

Deploy a full role-playing game on PDA's with the infrared hookup.  The program would handle all of the mechanics stuff, letting you know you hit, providing random descriptions of gore and what not.

The GMs version of the program would allow him/her to beam over difficulty numbers (or whatever) and individual monster stats as needed.

Did I mention huggable battle proxies?  Last month I downloaded the free development software so I could noodle around with an idea just like this for our Palm m105/m130 pair.  (Using that to entice my partner, I was going to do some of the Scattershot Collectible Card Game design work using this media.)

So, yeah, I like that a lot.  I'm glad you're finally taking this conversation into the design realm.  (Would that I had the time, I wish I could start a thread about the Viewmaster role-playing game that had been mentioned and suggest enlisting Contracycle's 'visual-based role-playing game ideas' for perspective.)

Fang Langford