Why do games have to have a 'Premise' ?

[AndyGuest]

Hi there,

All right already, yes, the multiple-meanings of Premise in my essay are confusing. I haven't seen a good solution for it yet (and no, extra terms are a lousy solution). We can talk about that later.

Yeah I know the problem of multiple-meaning and definitions, I work in IT supporting many different Oil&Gas based departments and they never agree on terms. ;)

Andy, the most general meaning of Premise, and the only one that a game "has" to have, is just this: ... what interests a group of people about playing a given RPG. So ipso facto, if they wanna play, there's a Premise. It is literally impossible to be interested in playing an RPG without one, even if that Premise is the most basic thing imaginable (e.g. "I like hosing Cody when he brags about his character, by strategizing better than him" - to pick one of many possible examples).

Granted, any game book you pick up will have a premise, but in many games, the premise is so dilute as to have no real meaning. For most games the premise is 'you play a character in this world' or 'you play a character in this type of world' for games without specific settings. Should such a weak premise be stated for the sake of stating a premise ?

I think the problem you're struggling with reflects a specific misunderstanding on your part. Premise is a feature of the people and not the game. Therefore, when we say that "Game X has Premise A," we are really saying, "Features of Game X prompt most people who read it to get pumped up about Premise A." That's a big difference and an important one.

Well I'm with you there, totally. If a game screams you will play this way then you can tell that the premise is to play that way. If the game can support multiple premises then that's not a problem, it can allow problems to arise (a la the comments on Werewolf and FR), but not being focused on one premise isn't a flaw.

Perhaps this is a given, but every time someone posts a new game round here that doesn't have a single, focused premise the first half dozen replies all seem to be 'what's the premise ?'.

The focus on "what's the Premise" in many game discussions at the Forge is based on the idea that a game design often benefits by identifying, as an author, what Premise or range of them you want to prompt in readers (potential players). "Anything" is non-functional; it usually leads to incoherent (which in practice = unhappy) play. Specifying to a GNS-mode (which is to say focusing Premise) is, I think, much more useful.

Again, I agree, focusing on one premise in design helps ensure that the game you produce will be focused on one way of playing the game. What I don't understand is why this is taken to be a good thing, or at least why is it taken to be a bad thing if the author doesn't focus on a premise ?

However, three things make this constraint much more relaxed than I think you're seeing. (1) Premise arises from any combination/emphasis of the five elements of role-playing, not one in particular. (2) The range of possible Premises for a given game design can be very broad (e.g. Scattershot); granted, many Forge-active authors like to focus tightly, myself included, but that's not obligatory. (3) Literally hundreds of possible focused Premises are possible, scattered all over and throughout the GNS categories - there's so much room that it's hardly a constraint at all in terms of content. Related to this last point, a game-author might "work backwards" from any number of envisioned aspects of play, in order to articulate Premise, rather than starting there.

Best,
Ron

Maybe my problem is one of just being a different type of gamer from the majority round here (I'm trying to avoid opening up any can of GNS type worms round here).

From where I sit, and in my experience (for what that's worth), most games have been designed with a thought that goes something along the lines of 'here's something I think is cool, I've made it into a game, now you take it and do what you want with it.' When I run a game this is what I like to do. I like to see how others interpret a game, that two people come up with vastly different ideas is great as far as I am concerned.

Now this can be problematic if two players are wanting to do two different things within a single campaign, but that's a campaign issue, not a game one. It's not Werewolf the Apocalypse's fault if you are trying to play an eco-warrior in my campaign of spiritual quests. It's either my fault for not making clear to you what my campaign is about or your fault for trying to play a character in a campaign that won't suit him/her.

To me a narrow, focused premise at best reduces the re-playability of the game and at worst makes the writer come across as an arrogant so and so who believes in the one true way of role-playing (tm).

[AndyGuest]

Whether or not you embrace Ron's essay and terminology, I feel that the question, "what's the point of playing your game?" is a frustrating question to try and answer, and I don't see much value in asking it.  Check that, I see absolutely no value in asking it whatsoever.

I think this might be a large part of my problem. Seeing someone post a game only to recieve a round of 'what's the premise?'s seems somehow insulting to me.

Bottom line is, there is no point to playing any game, if you get down to brass tacks.

What is a worthwhile question, OTOH, and gets closer to the meat of the matter is, "why are you writing this game?"  I think that's what the question "what's the premise" means in most cases.  As such, I question the validity of the using the word premise.  As a concept from the GNS essay it is helpful to think about.  In casual discussion of a specific game, it's less so because it can refer to so many different aspects of game theory.

A gentler way of asking what the premise is would be to ask how the author intends the game to be played, mentioning you can see several different ways and wondered which the author's preference is.

[AndyGuest]

Take the Star Trek game for example. Given the core rules (of whichever version you prefer) what is the premise. There is none. Or to be more specific there is no core premise.

isn't the core premise "what's it like to live in the star trek universe?"

sure, you can narrow the premise down and think in terms of klingons and their honor, or play an all-cadet game at star fleet academy... but in terms of what I said about premises, the game is about star trek... and in terms of what ron said, the premise that the players are excited about is also "star trek".

or, again, it could be about waiting for the pizza to arrive.

but it is definitely about something.

Yes, I agree. The premise is also to play a game but it doesn't need to be stated, it is redundant to do so. If Decipher posted their Trek system to the board would there be a round of 'what's the premise ?'. If so then why ? If not then why do other games recieve such treatment ?

[greyorm]

Andy, I believe you and those replying to you are on different pages. In an effort to try and bring you all together, the premise issue is one of, at its most simple: "What do you DO?"  All games have this.

This is, in "Immortal": "You are a reawakened god."
This is, in "Star Trek": "You live in the future (as imagined by Gene Roddenberry)."
This is, in "D&D": "You are characters in a fantasy world."

The simple act of being a game results in a premise...not a Narrativist Premise, but a premise: simply, what you are and what you can do with the game.

How's this:
Imagine using "Star Trek" to play a game where everyone is a bunch of primitives on an undiscovered planet -- now don't ever expose them to technology or the Federation or other aliens.  You play alien cave-men.  End.

Sure, you could do it, it would be a little odd, but can you see where the "Star Trek" premise is now?  "Ships, phasers, aliens, etc." The whole "Star Trek" deal is the premise.

Now each group can customize a Premise (cap. "P") that is to their liking: "We want to play Klingons" or "We want to play the stranded survivors of a crashed Starship" or "Let's blow up Cardacia" or whatever. Whether they will or not, or will even think of it, is a seperate issue.

[jburneko]

Perhaps this is a given, but every time someone posts a new game round here that doesn't have a single, focused premise the first half dozen replies all seem to be 'what's the premise ?'.

I have a very pragmatic answer with which you are free to agree or disagree but when I read the above this is what came to mind: If you can't articulate what you want your game to be about, then functionally we as group can't help you design it.  Or at least we can't help you on the level of the big picture.

We can throw a lot of additional ideas at you.  For example, we can help fill in setting gaps with "realistic" possibilities and solutions.  We can attack it from various personal preference angles.  For example, we can tell you if we think a mechanic is overly simple or overly complex based solely on what we personally like in a game.  But we can't help you make the game be the game you've always wanted to play if we don't know what that vision is.

Jesse

[AndyGuest]

Perhaps this is a given, but every time someone posts a new game round here that doesn't have a single, focused premise the first half dozen replies all seem to be 'what's the premise ?'.

I have a very pragmatic answer with which you are free to agree or disagree but when I read the above this is what came to mind: If you can't articulate what you want your game to be about, then functionally we as group can't help you design it.  Or at least we can't help you on the level of the big picture.

We can throw a lot of additional ideas at you.  For example, we can help fill in setting gaps with "realistic" possibilities and solutions.  We can attack it from various personal preference angles.  For example, we can tell you if we think a mechanic is overly simple or overly complex based solely on what we personally like in a game.  But we can't help you make the game be the game you've always wanted to play if we don't know what that vision is.

Jesse

But what if the game you've always wanted to create is as wide open as, say Werewolf ?

[AndyGuest]

Andy, I believe you and those replying to you are on different pages. In an effort to try and bring you all together, the premise issue is one of, at its most simple: "What do you DO?"  All games have this.

This is, in "Immortal": "You are a reawakened god."
This is, in "Star Trek": "You live in the future (as imagined by Gene Roddenberry)."
This is, in "D&D": "You are characters in a fantasy world."

The simple act of being a game results in a premise...not a Narrativist Premise, but a premise: simply, what you are and what you can do with the game.

How's this:
Imagine using "Star Trek" to play a game where everyone is a bunch of primitives on an undiscovered planet -- now don't ever expose them to technology or the Federation or other aliens.  You play alien cave-men.  End.

Sure, you could do it, it would be a little odd, but can you see where the "Star Trek" premise is now?  "Ships, phasers, aliens, etc." The whole "Star Trek" deal is the premise.

Now each group can customize a Premise (cap. "P") that is to their liking: "We want to play Klingons" or "We want to play the stranded survivors of a crashed Starship" or "Let's blow up Cardacia" or whatever. Whether they will or not, or will even think of it, is a seperate issue.

No I don't think you get where I'm coming from at all.

Problems have been described (such as Werewolf & FR in D&D) where the game supports so many premises that players end up dissatisfied because the game isn't focused on what they want. I maintain this is a problem of the group not describing thier specific premise for their campaign rather than any problem with the game itself.

For example if I say 'let's play Star Trek' and you bring along a Klingon warrior wanting to play a game about honour and duty, Ron brings along a Star Fleet brat wanting to play a game about Star Fleet Academy and Jesse brings along a Bajoron wanting to explore the issues of faith in gods that everyone else believes are just another form of alien, while I'm wanting to run a balls to the wall, get out there and shoot it, screw it or eat it style James T Kirk game. Is it the fault of the game that everyone has different premises that will work against each other so much that none of us enjoy the game or is it my fault for not stating what the premise of the campaign would be ?

If I said 'let's play Star Trek' and you brought along a caveman with the intent of learning how to make fire the the problem is you;ve completely missed the premise of the game, in the example above, we all have valid impressions of the game. That is my problem with saying that a game's premise is that important. A game's premise isn't important, a campaigns premise is.

If you design a game with a very narrow premise then it forces play to be of one type of campaign. That's fine but it is by no means required.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

One of the problems of a set of rules with a wide-open premise is that the rules are almost always incoherent--indeed, must be incoherent to support as wide a range of premises as Andy is describing. This interacts with Forge culture in two important ways:

[*]We are, institutionally, prejudiced against GNS incoherence.
[*]To play an incoherent game in a manner satisfying to all participants requires a certain degree of drift, and we're prejudiced against that too.[/list:u]I don't think that designing a game that requires a certain amount of drift to be playable is one of the Seven Deadly Game-Design Sins. In fact, as Jared showed in octaNe, you can anticipate the need for drift and design the necessary dials into the system. I think that's a laudable effort.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Andy,

I suggest that your phrase:
"'here's something I think is cool, I've made it into a game, now you take it and do what you want with it.'"

... is sufficient. The issue, however, is whether you (the game content) has communicated the coolness enough so that I'm inspired to do anything with it at all, regardless of whether you've specified it or kept it general.

That's what people are asking about, when they say, "What's the Premise?" They are saying, giving me what you've given is not doing the job.

That is a chronic problem in most RPGs, and I have identified a few habits that fail to solve it (e.g. piling on setting til you could plotz without linking up character and situation in any inspiring way, and many others). That's the problem people often bring to the Forge.

I agree with you that asking "How would you play" is perhaps the very best way to help people with this crucial design issue. Roy's thread about that has become a staple of Indie Design referencing, although not so much in this last month (and I recommend people start doing it more often).

Also, I suggest that a little self-reflection is in order - your sense of "insult" in regard to this question is, I think, beyond the scope of anything I can discuss.

Best,
Ron

[GreatWolf]

[quote="AndyGuest
But what if the game you've always wanted to create is as wide open as, say Werewolf ?[/quote]

But Werewolf isn't wide open.  You're playing a werewolf, specifically a particular interpretation of a werewolf.

I'm not just playing semantic games.  Work with me for a second.

Now, I'm not familiar with Werewolf, so I'm going to switch to my favorite WoD game, which is Wraith.

So, here's Wraith.  What are you?  Simple, you're a ghost.  However, this is given a certain interpretation.  Being a wraith in Wraith means:

1)  You are out of phase with the world of the living
2)  You are fighting against Oblivion (even if it's only personal Oblivion)
3)  In particular, you are fighting against your own Shadow
4)  You draw power from emotions (yours and others), as does your Shadow
5)  You have access to certain ghostly powers (defined further in the book)

Now, there's a lot that you could do with Wraith.  You could play a deep, character-focused drama that would make the players want to just die and be done with it.  You could play a game focused on interfering with the land of the living.  You could play a Doomslayer campaign around commando raids into the Labyrinth.  There are all SORTS of possibilities...but every single possibility assumes the five points that I mentioned above.

So, let's say that Mark Rein*Hagen showed up here and said, "Hey, I have this idea for a game where you roleplay ghosts."  Someone says, "So, what's the premise?"  He might answer like this:

"Well, I want a game that's wide open to a lot of different ways of playing.  What I'm really interested in doing is simulating the ghostly nature of the characters.  For example, every wraith has a dark side that embodies his own personal Imp of the Perverse, and sometimes that Imp (I'm calling it a Shadow, BTW) takes over.  But how can I have this Shadow be truly horrifying?  Any ideas on how to do this?"

Aha!  Now there is room for us to comment.  Some might say this, and others might say that.  And then finally someone would say, "Hey!  Why don't you let one of the players actually role-play the Shadow?  It'll be a little like troupe-style play from Ars Magica."  (Which is how the Shadow is handled in Wraith, which is tres cool.)

Does that clarify?  Even if the premise is "You're a ghost", that has some specific meaning in your mind which might not exist in mine.  Take Jake Norwood's thread on THIRST (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3864) as an example.  Part of what's going on over there is nailing down what "being a vampire" means.

Perhaps a better way of phrasing the question would be "What are your design objectives?"  As Jesse notes, if we know this, we can offer more intelligent comments.

We want to be helpful.  Really.  :-)

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[GB Steve]

Seems to me that talking about "the premise" is a bit restrictive. Given the wide meaning of the word and the fact thar players at the same table don't approach the game in the same way then you should probably be talking about "premises".

Take Sorcerer for example, the kicker that the player defines could be taken as their premise. This means each player can expressly have a different premise.

And then of course there are players who aren't terribly bothered what the game is about, they just want the opportunity to play thei character, show off, bully people or hang out.

As such I'm not really sure how useful it is, but then I never did get GNS either so YMMV.

Cheers,
Steve

[Jared A. Sorensen]

So, let's say that Mark Rein*Hagen showed up here and said, "Hey, I have this idea for a game where you roleplay ghosts."  Someone says, "So, what's the premise?"  He might answer like this:

"Well, I want a game that's wide open to a lot of different ways of playing.  What I'm really interested in doing is simulating the ghostly nature of the characters.  For example, every wraith has a dark side that embodies his own personal Imp of the Perverse, and sometimes that Imp (I'm calling it a Shadow, BTW) takes over.  But how can I have this Shadow be truly horrifying?  Any ideas on how to do this?"

Aha!  Now there is room for us to comment.  Some might say this, and others might say that.  And then finally someone would say, "Hey!  Why don't you let one of the players actually role-play the Shadow?  It'll be a little like troupe-style play from Ars Magica."  (Which is how the Shadow is handled in Wraith, which is tres cool.)

Does that clarify?  Even if the premise is "You're a ghost", that has some specific meaning in your mind which might not exist in mine.  

"You're a ghost." is not a premise. It's a situation. Premise is what you do. In Wraith, What You Do is resolve your fetters so you can move on and Transcend. Wraith is one of the few (only?) WW games where the Premise is in the mechanics.

Y'all know my feelings about games without premise.

They're not games. The "Star Trek the RPG is about living in the future" line doesn't make sense because "living" is not a game. Suffice it to say that I dislike any game with similarly vague, open-ended, ill-defined goals (living, learning, surviving...).

I just had a long conversation last weekend with someone who was making a game that was "about anything you wanted it to be."

Right. I suggest you just go to http://www.zombo.com.

[Mike Holmes]

Seems to me that talking about "the premise" is a bit restrictive. Given the wide meaning of the word and the fact thar players at the same table don't approach the game in the same way then you should probably be talking about "premises".

Take Sorcerer for example, the kicker that the player defines could be taken as their premise. This means each player can expressly have a different premise.

But we do talk about that Steve. The general premise of Sorcerer is "What would you do for power if you were able to summon demons?"  And by the rules of the game players are required to make Kickers, which just narrow that broad definition down to player premises.

And then of course there are players who aren't terribly bothered what the game is about, they just want the opportunity to play thei character, show off, bully people or hang out.

Well, either tha game has that as part of the premise as played, or players are playing something else (or dysfunctionally). Premise is not the only reason why people play, but it is the reason people play a particular RPG over another.

Mike

[Marco]

[*]We are, institutionally, prejudiced against GNS incoherence.
[*]To play an incoherent game in a manner satisfying to all participants requires a certain degree of drift, and we're prejudiced against that too.[/list:u]

I'm still processing all the answers but I want to jump in here.

1. I think Seth's quote is, I think, perfectly illustratively of my response to those who say "'Incoherence' just means like ... unfocused laser light. There's nothing negative implied when we say your game is 'incoherent.' "

I am not predjudiced against GNS-incoherence. I do not think that a GNS-incoherent game must be drifted to be satisfying to a group. I would feel pretty robbed if a game I brought turned out to be incoherent.

2. I think that drift is something that gets all too much air-play. A given "Drifted" can be far better than any existing 'coherent' game that's out there. Sure, some hypothetical rule-set might give a given person a better experience, and that's a good argument for making your game well known--but it isn't any kind of argument for putting rules into a game that limit the way someone wants to play it: that's just a personal choice.

3. If six people around the table want to play Werewolf in six different ways and the GM blames the game system, it assumes the players don't know what they want. I've heard the "regular joes don't think about their game and just do what's in the book" argument. Any argument based on the idea that you are smarter than your readers is, at its core, bankrupt. Assume your readers know what they want when they buy the game. If they're enthused about a given piece of it, assume that's what they want to do. If your group doesn't agree on what to do work it out the old fashioned way.

4. I recall someone saying 'I read Twilight 2000 and didn't know what to do in it' (paraphrase). This isn't the fault of the game any more than a highly focused game is "railroading" the GM and players into using its vision. It's an option in game design--arguably the preferable one.

5. If Premise is 'what grabs you about a game and makes you want to play' then it's just a way of asking "what's cool" about your game. If I had read athe description of Sorceror that Ron (for this example, a newcomer to The Forge) had posted and then answered "So Ron, I read all that about the player's setting their own goals and narrating the story and stuff ... but what's *cool* about the game? A big list of cool Demons? What stuff in the environment does it provide that I couldn't come up with myself in 10 seconds? Ron, do you have to focus on a time and place--or do you care if your game is setting-incoherent?" would I be helping him make his game?

-Marco

[greyorm]

No I don't think you get where I'm coming from at all.

You're right, I missed the second page of discussion, which clarified your position more. I was replying solely to what was on the first page.