Why do games have to have a 'Premise' ?

[GreatWolf]

Marco:

Excellent points.  A couple of thoughts.

1)  A game exists to provide definition and freedom.

The whole point of a game system is to provide limitations to the sort of play that is "allowed" under the game.  For instance, in Wraith, you have to play a wraith.  (Well, at least in the core rules.)  Moreover, you have to have a Shadow.  These are not negotiable.  These are part of the game.  Changing these requirements changes the basic nature of the game.

At the same time, by defining areas of restriction, a game also defines areas of freedom that are open to individual customization without changing the nature of the game.

As I'm writing Legends of Alyria I am working at explicitly communicating the areas of restriction and freedom.  So, for instance, I say "LoA is about conflicts of Good and Evil" and provide mechanics to support this.  This means that the standard dungeon crawl is outside the penumbra of acceptable options in LoA.  This helps focus the players.  (It also qualifies as a hook of the game, IMHO, and is a partial answer to Marco's question "What is cool about this game?")

At the same time, I am leaving many unanswered setting questions for LoA, as well as "blank" areas of the map and tell the players that those spaces are specifically for them.  I even give examples of what could fit into those spaces.  (e.g. the Digger Paladins that I just posted).  But that is a specifically defined area of freedom that can be used to swing your game of LoA in the direction that you would like.

The same applies to Wraith.  While I understand Jared's point about the Premise of Wraith (resolving Fetters and moving on), that is not the only possible method of play for Wraith.  The game allows for other styles of play, including the aforementioned dungeon crawl.  Personally, I wouldn't play it like that, but you could do so, if you wanted.

2)  Your question

If I had read the 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?

I think so.  At the very least, he could then begin discussing why he is using demons as a metaphor of sorts for a dysfunctional relationship or how he is wanting to model the pulp swords-and-sorcery stories for &Sword...and so on and so forth.  And by doing so, he would be answering the question "Why would someone want to play this game?"

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[greyorm]

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.

Which is a valid assumption, insofar as the players don't really realize they have different play goals that cannot be supported by one campaign, nor can verbalize their differences in a meaningful, non-argumentative fashion.

Yeah, yeah...I'll get called an elitist pig...whatever. I've been in way too many gaming groups and heard from players or GMs in other groups who, now that I look back events with a clear vocabulary for/understanding of the situation, had exactly this problem not to call black 'black.'

Most players know what they (individually) want, most don't get that a given game may not support their ideas and someone else's in the same instance of play. The standard assumption is that it is the GM's job to make everything work and let the player play. Then the GM gets frustrated when the characters are scattering themselves to the winds and lack cohesion.

More simply, if this weren't a big problem, there wouldn't be so much air-time devoted to it regularly by all types of gamers. Simply, no, most groups can't figure out what's wrong in order to begin to work it out the old fashioned way due to prexisting assumptions about the way an RPG works socially.

"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?

Be careful here, because IMO you're mixing up GNS issues with a non-GNS issue. We're not talking about lacking Narrativist Premise, thus the counter example of asking about setting development and such is off-base, IMO.

Related to that, I don't believe the "I don't know what to do with it" is as benign or desirable as you believe (ie: incoherent premise). The majority of gamers I've met have stated the following in regards to Immortal, when it comes up, "Yeah, Immortal looked cool, but I never knew what to do with it, so I shelved it." (And note that the head writer rewrote the game due in large part to this very issue: he kept hearing the same thing from the majority of gamers who wrote to him about it.)

That doesn't sound like good design to me.

When a game doesn't "click", it isn't insulting for someone to ask, "Why would I play this game? What's the point?" Frex, the recent Pixies game on the forums: ok, you play a pixie. It's wide open what you do. You're just a pixie -- that's the point of the game.

The premise of the game needs to answer, "Ok, what's cool about playing a pixie?" If YOU don't have an idea of why it would be cool to play a pixie, the consumer won't grasp it either, unless they already want to play a pixie and it already strikes them as being cool.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

The same applies to Wraith.  While I understand Jared's point about the Premise of Wraith (resolving Fetters and moving on), that is not the only possible method of play for Wraith.  The game allows for other styles of play, including the aforementioned dungeon crawl.  Personally, I wouldn't play it like that, but you could do so, if you wanted.

You could also play Chess as "House" -- the mommy (Queen) and the daddy (King) get together and have lots of kids (Pawns). You COULD. But saying, "You can do anything with it!" is like releasing a 2 hour movie of nothing but a black screen ("Now it can be any movie you want!").

When people play Monopoly or Chess or Clue or Baseball, people know what to expect. All games are like this except for RPG's. This is so freakin' bizarre to me...why are game designers so deathly afraid of design? The desire to make an open-ended toolset in the hopes that anyone can pick it up and start playing (which is ludicrous)? I just don't get it...

[Marco]

Hey Seth!

I'm not saying that a game shouldn't provide any structure--as far as what you said goes, I agree completely. I'm just saying that an extremely highly focused structure is not prima facie a good thing (Jared's not getting it aside).

I don't think that taking a Narrativist design and asking a bunch of Sim questions about it would help his design much ("Ron, if you don't include lots of setting and a list of demons people won't know what to do!"). I actually think it'd be missing the point of his game.

-Marco

[GreatWolf]

Just to be clear, Jared, I'm quite sympathetic to what you are saying, and I design in the same direction.  I'm only saying that I can see how a game that basically boils down to "You're an X in a world where A, B, and C are happening" can be satisfying to some folks.  The broad toolkit approach works for some folks.  At the same time, there is still a toolkit being provided in the game, which implies that there are boundaries to what can be accomplished by any game, even the ones that are trying to be broad.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[Walt Freitag]

Every form of creative endeavor has an annoying question that no one wants to hear.

In fiction writing it's usually "Why should I care about these characters?"

In scientific research it's "Have these results been replicated by anyone else?"

In computer software development it's "Isn't Microsoft going to include that feature for free in the next Windows release?"

In enterpreneurship it's usually "What's the market?" meaning "And who do you think is going to be willing to pay for the kewl product or service you want to provide?"

In every form of creative endeavor, those who love the craft and who care about the people undertaking it are the ones who always ask the annoying question. Because they know that if they don't ask it, the skeptical audience will, with far more devastating effect.

So it is for role playing game design. As far as I'm concerned these are all more or less equivalent:

"What's the premise?" (Short for, what type of in-play premises does your game best support?)

"What is it about your game that would make me want to play it instead of some other game?"

"What's your game about?"

"How do you envision your game being played?"

"What's cool about your game?"

Equivalent, but not interchangeable. I don't use the last phrasing because there are lots of people out there who think a game concept is cool because the dwarves wield crossbows instead of axes. In fact, I assume that the initial posted description is already supposed to convince me that the game is cool. Asking "what's cool" at that point either makes it seem that I haven't been paying attention (which is false) or that I don't think the game is cool enough (which is also false). The truth is simply that what's been presented so far probably isn't the stuff that will convince me whether the game is cool or not.

I don't usually ask "what's the premise?" because it's not clear enough what I'm asking. I don't usually ask the second question because it comes across too hostile, as though I'd only be interested in discussing the game if I think it's good enough for me to purchase, which is not true. But it's what I'm thinking when I ask the third or fourth question.

In any case, in one way or another, you have to be able to answer some form of the question "what types of in-play premises does your game best support?" or "...do you want it to best support?" in order for any further discussion to be worthwhile. If you claim that your fantasy game supports all fantasy premises equally, just like nine other fantasy game systems already on my shelf also claim to do, then one of the following must be true:

1. It doesn't support any premise any better than the games I already have. In which case, there's no reason to play the game.

2. It supports some premises better than other games do, and some not. In which case, tell me which premises it supports the best. That's all I was asking in the first place.

3. It supports all possible premises better than all other games. This is unlikely, but if you've achieved it, tell me so and make that your premise: "This game is superior to all previous fantasy RPGs in all respects." (But please be patient with me if my initial reaction is skeptical.)

- Walt

[edited to fix an egregious grammatical error]

[Marco]

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.

Which is a valid assumption, insofar as the players don't really realize they have different play goals that cannot be supported by one campaign, nor can verbalize their differences in a meaningful, non-argumentative fashion.

Yeah, yeah...I'll get called an elitist pig...whatever. I've been in way too many gaming groups and heard from players or GMs in other groups who, now that I look back events with a clear vocabulary for/understanding of the situation, had exactly this problem not to call black 'black.'

I read this a bit like saying "gamers are social misfits with poor hygine." It's an unflattering generalization (which might be where some of the insult comes in to this whole thing, Ron). I've gamed with college students and with a bunch of professionals in the 6-figure income range all of them. I've never seen a situation where I thought changing a game would help.

Be careful here, because IMO you're mixing up GNS issues with a non-GNS issue. We're not talking about lacking Narrativist Premise, thus the counter example of asking about setting development and such is off-base, IMO.

Perhaps you're right. The Onion has a section called "Justify Your Existence" where they call up bands and ask "why should anyone listen to your music." The bands usually go ... um ... (a few say "because it'll make the world a better place"). The best answer I've seen is "because it rocks." There's a lesson here about asking questions that a) the newbie reader will understand and b) being aware of our own biases when we ask them.

Related to that, I don't believe the "I don't know what to do with it" is as benign or desirable as you believe (ie: incoherent premise). The majority of gamers I've met have stated the following in regards to Immortal, when it comes up, "Yeah, Immortal looked cool, but I never knew what to do with it, so I shelved it." (And note that the head writer rewrote the game due in large part to this very issue: he kept hearing the same thing from the majority of gamers who wrote to him about it.)

That doesn't sound like good design to me.

It might not be. I don't know Immortal. Maybe it's a quirky little game designed to appeal to a small group of people--like every highly focused game is likely to be because if someone doesn't like the *way* it was focused regardless of whether you like the genere, setting, the tone, the mood, the ideas, etc. it's *useless* to you. I bet Immortal has some hard-core fans too.

I do know that if I don't like the premise of Dust Devils, it's bloody useless to me in running a Western game. [btw: I think from what I've heard of it, Dust Devils is very cool--but if I want to do a western where it turns out the PC's are robots in a West World amusement park it's just not going to get me there, I don't think--maybe I'm wrong about that.]

-Marco

[Valamir]

Well said Walt.  

I'd say that a misplaced sense of some sort of egalatarian game design political correctness does more harm then good.

Just because a particular group playing a particular way says they "enjoy" their play doesn't mean: 1) that there isn't some underlying issues they haven't confronted yet, or 2) that their enjoyment couldn't be increased by taking a critical look at their set of assumptions.

Everyone has a comfort zone of how they've gotten used to playing and associate "playing" with "playing the way I'm used to".  A good, valid, and effective motivation for alot of the questions that are asked here is to shake up that paradigm a bit.  Challenge the assumptions of a person's particular play style.  Not challenge them in the sense of trying to prove "they're doing it wrong" as I think Marco fears, but challenge them in the sense of getting them to analyse WHY they do the things they do.

In a game design sense its not enough to ask if a rule works or doesn't work.  First you have to determine what it is the rule is supposed to do.  Most people make that step automatically.  But much more important to the game design in the long run is WHY you want the rule to begin with.  Why is the question that is going to get you reassess design decision.  

Speaking from experience, the number of rules that Mike and I cut from Universalis simply because when challenged we couldn't come up with a satisfactory why could fill a rule book by itself.

Asking "what's the premise?"  Is really nothing more than a big flashing "why".  Why have you designed the game they way you have.  Why should anyone play this game rather than an existing game.  Why do you think rule X is necessary or rule Y is absent.  

Does it sometimes seem like perhaps narrativist questions are being asked of a simulationist design.  Sure...and for good reason.  Because if you can't even elucidate why you want a simulationist design to begin with than you've really put the cart before the horse in starting to work on the design.  If there are good solid "yes I've thought about that and this is what I really want" reasons for a particular design choice...than fantastic...share them with us so we can share your vision of the game and be better armed to help you with it.  But I've seen too many design choices that have been made for no better reason than "this is how all the games I've played have done it, so that's how I did it" to simply assume that every new design is backed by by such a reason.

Now maybe that comes off as elitist...as if I'm saying "prove to me that you've put enough thought into this idea that its worth my time discussing it with you"...but I can't really help that.  I think that so far, the approach has helped more then its hurt.  It may have chased a few aspirants away perhaps, but I'd rather help a few people alot than a lot of people little.

But I can only speak in that regard for myself and a few folks I know who've been helped by it.  Guys like Pale Fire would have to answer for themselves whether these questions have helped them or hurt them.

I'm sure PF has been a little bit frustrated at the times where it seems like he's taking 2 steps back for every 1 forward, and I'm sure he's now got alot more work ahead of him than he had when he first started talking about Ygg...but he'd have to answer the question for himself whether he thinks that the game he eventually winds up with will be better or worse for "grilling" he's received.  I can only assume he thinks it will be better or he wouldn't still be here talking about it....and if that's the case, then it will be well worth our effort to help him out.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

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.

I do not quite understand how the last sentence fits with the first two, nor do I think that you are representative of the more vocal Forge members in your lack of prejudice.

[greyorm]

I read this a bit like saying "gamers are social misfits with poor hygine." It's an unflattering generalization (which might be where some of the insult comes in to this whole thing, Ron). I've gamed with college students and with a bunch of professionals in the 6-figure income range all of them. I've never seen a situation where I thought changing a game would help.

There are two ideas for me to comment on here: the first is that, somehow, by calling attention to human shortcomings that exist in any social endeavor, the person doing so is being naughty and making unflattering generalizations. This is ludicrous.

I could easily redirect my statements to, for example, relationships.
Ever wonder why there are marriage counselors? Because they have more insight into the problems faced by married couples than the couples themselves do.

The eqivalent reactionary stance to the above is: "Oh, so couples are too inept to work out problems on their own?!" Hopefully you see the absurdity of such a statement.

We both know there are relationship problems which can be easily identified and corrected by someone with the vocabulary and experience to understand and explain what is happening, and offer a simple solution, yet to average Married Joe the problem is a difficult one and the solution is not so simple.

For all the same reasons you cannot simply throw psychology or counselors out the window because they "generalize" or are "insulting," you can't throw out the typical social/psychological behaviors of the average gamer.

It isn't that "Average Joe Gamer" can't understand any of the stuff thrown about on the Forge; it is that they don't KNOW ABOUT IT.

I suggest that if you read my statement as akin to "gamers are such and such," that the fault is not with my statement, but some unintentional cultural bias against "being categorized" on your part, ie: "I don't like psychologists because they tell me what I think!  But I know what I think!" or "...because they act like they're smarter than I am!"

That you appear to believe a claim that an individual might have greater insight into or ability to more effectively deal with a problem through greater knowledge of such also means that individual believes they are superior or more intelligent says more about you than anything inherently judgemental about the claim.

The key to all this is the following: "...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."

As I sated previously, most groups don't realize that the way to solve the problem is to discuss what to do, because the assumption is that the GM must simply incorporate everyone's play-style and desires as part of his job: cue typical problems.

There's no "style conflicts" occuring in the mind of the average gamer, because there's nothing to conflict: they're role-playing, nevermind that each of them may have an entirely different method for doing so, and an entirely different direction they want to explore.

So the Setting Explorationist ends up being miffed because the game is about Character Exploration: he wants to go sightseeing while his buddies want to dramatize.

The problem as they'll discuss it?
"I want more adventure, less acting! (blech)"
"But there's all these interesting intrigues happening here, why don't you get involved?"

And a long, round-about argument ensues, and it ultimately falls upon the shoulders of the bewildered GM to try and ensure everyone is getting "their turn" -- with drama for the CharExs and adventure for the SetEx, which doesn't actually ever solve the problem to the satisfaction of both types.

(Been there, done that)

The second bit is in regards to your final sentence: unlike you, I have. I've even been quite personally involved in a game in which the situation was cleared up by changing the actual game, not the people involved or their attitudes.

There's a lesson here about asking questions that a) the newbie reader will understand and b) being aware of our own biases when we ask them.

I completely agree.
So, thread focus time?

Considering that most of us who ask these questions have firmly grounded our understanding of what the heck is meant by various terminology and how that interacts with the social structure of the Forge, and considering that most of those whom we ask these questions to have NOT...is there a better presentation of the question than present, which explains what we mean when we ask without the emotional baggage we don't mean to impart to a newcomer unfamiliar with the local nuances?

It might not be. I don't know Immortal. Maybe it's a quirky little game designed to appeal to a small group of people--like every highly focused game is likely to be because if someone doesn't like the *way* it was focused regardless of whether you like the genere, setting, the tone, the mood, the ideas, etc. it's *useless* to you. I bet Immortal has some hard-core fans too.

Immortal isn't "highly focused," however, it's wide open...I've actually had arguments with the current designers that the game needs more focus on what makes it unique, because as it stands, it plays a lot like "superheroes, but different."

If I were to pin it down, the game appears to be Exploration of Setting; though one could easily do Exploration of Character. The mechanical attitudes are pure, solid early 90's Simulationism, with emphasis on doing/being/going wherever..."You're an awakened god. Go."

Which was the point of my post: Immortal is "wide open," it is one of those games with what you state is probably the preferable option in game design -- yet that is precisely why it failed: no one knew what to do with it, there was too much.

[Bankuei]

Geez, walk away for a day, and watch what happens...

On a weird note of synchronicity, I had been writing up some views last night on the ideas of premise, system, and player experience from a player's point of view as opposed to a designer's point of view.  Here's my current theory about 3 questions you need to answer to successfully communicate the concept of your game to the would-be players:

•What should I do?
 This is premise, really.  When I play this game, I (fight monsters, hunt ghosts, face my inner devils, face devils I've summoned, etc.)  Most fantasy heartbreakers and generic systems fail to do this.  Like Jesse's example of the D&D expectations of players and the GM being different, if you don't put this up front, no one has any focus as to what to do.

•What can I do?
 How do I acheive what I'm supposed to do, what do the rules say I can and cannot do?

•Why should I do it?
 The true reward of any game is play experience.  Not points for the characters, but the experience the player has with the game.  Notice that this links directly into the first question, since this is basically the core idea behind GNS theory.  "I want this type of gameplay experience, does this game provide it?"

Now, the reason I bring this up now, is that I was looking at all the rpgs that I do play, and the ones I don't, and I stepped back and wondered, "What is it these games are doing, that these other ones are not?"

The answer is that the games I play answer those 3 questions.  I know what I'm supposed to be doing, I don't need to flounder around.  Other players know what to expect when we play this game.  The rules are clear and we don't need major drift for play to run smoothly.  The experience (outcome) of gameplay is clear, I know what kind of experience I'm going to walk away with.  The reason so many people come back to D&D, is that D&D successfully answers those 3 questions and people know what to expect when they play D&D.  When you say, "Let's play GURPS!", aside from system, no one knows what the hell to expect from the game play.

Going back to the original question, "Why do games need to have premise?", well, I want to know what I'm supposed to do in your game.

"Well, you can do anything!" is a pretty empty line, since even the most crusty D&D game says,"If you don't like the rule, change it!", which really means you can do "anything" with 1st edition D&D!

So, what the question really relates, is why should I play your game as opposed to another?  What does your game offer than isn't really the same as GURPS, D&D, or anything else out there?

Imagine, if, someone came up to you and told you of a new invention, the Cabar, that is a vehicle that has 4 wheels, and runs on gasoline.  
"Why wouldn't I just get a car?"  
"Ah, but the Cabar comes in purple!"  
"Um, yeah, but I can get cars in purple too!"  
"The Cabar only comes in purple, and that makes it special!"

Now, if you told me that the Cabar only comes in ultraviolet, and can only be seen by dogs, that would be special, just perhaps not safe to drive around.

Now, this isn't to say that everything has to be massively innovative and jawbreakingly new, just that there should be a reason you went to the effort to make something new to do it.  If you invent a universal system with the goal to do what GURPS does, but better, then good for you.  But if you make a system, and don't know what it's supposed to do, how can you know how well you did it?

New isn't always better, but I can guarantee more of the same is the same, never better.  

Chris

[Marco]

In case it's not clear, I think Walt pretty much nailed it. I'm strongly advising two things (Valimir's idea of somekind of "egalatarian game design political correctness" is foreign to me):

1. Use terms that will be understood. Premise, despite posts that it has a basic, generic meaning,  is not one of them.

2. Understand that there are several ways of asking the same question and that some are more useful than others.

I do think that basically Simulationist designs get asked Narrativist questions by the more narrativistly inclined here.

Consider this: the whole nature of the thread is asking, when it's boiled down: "Does a game have to have something that makes it cool." And then there's 43+ responses that equate to "yah, probably."

This isn't exactly a revelation. It's bizarre semantic argument.  If we're doing this, why would anyone expect a new-comer to understand what the question means? There's an interesting side-bar about how much hand-holding a game "should" do (and it's couched in terms of good-design vs. bad-design ... not personal preference, which I find interesting).

A second point: Greyorm, I acknowledge the marriage counselor concept. But if the questions are coming from someone from whom Narrativist play is the preferred mode (for a clearly sim-game) then it can seem like a wiccian couple at a Promise Keeper's counseling session (to extend the analogy).

Recent Example:
Andrew Martin is a pretty polite guy (I don't see eye-to-eye with him on a number of things but he's not a reactionary jerk). In a recent thread someone's post about their system elictied non-game related advice to maybe switch jobs.

Seth: my post about not being happy about getting an incoherent game points out the difference between GNS-incoherencey and my buying a game that was *incomprehensible* to me.

-Marco

[Matt Snyder]

Wow, what a great thread. I laughed, I cried, I liked it much better than Cats. (No, actually, I DID laugh when I "rediscovered" zombo.com, especially in the context of Jared's post. I really, truly laughed my ass off, and my wife and daughter looked puzzled).

Anyway, on to something worth saying (i.e. on topic) . . .

First, I don't think this thread is JUST about "How to we come up with another way to as 'What's your game's premise?' " It contains so many great insights and ideas, that we'll learning game design in this meta-discussion. That is, the thread is NOT just a semantic argument.

Having said that, I think the thread goes on and on about the semantic argument because there's no good answer. The person who defined the term -- Ron -- plainly says he does not want another term so as to differentiate between premise and "Narrative Premise." Further, I think many Forge contributors have digested premise and the distinctions. So, very likely, the term premise ain't a going no where. But, clearly it's not an easy term to digest, and for newbies this is a hurdle. Unfortunately, it's also a touchy hurdle because reactions can vary from "I don't know" to "Go fuck your elitist selves!"

I really don't know what to say about it -- I guess I'm just illuminating the problem. Since I certainly don't have a suggestion for any alternatives, I'll accept the status quo.

I would, however, like to comment on one "alternative" (that really hasn't been offered up as a true "premise" replacement, thankfully). It's something that was touched on slightly in another post. I think "cool" is a dangerous thing.

Now, we'd all agree that "cool stuff" in a game can mean pretty much anything. However, when people actually talk about "what's cool" in in a game, they almost always refer to something that doesn't have anything to do with premise or what a game's about. That is, "cool" stuff usually misses the big picture of why a game matters. Too often cool stuff is color, as the GNS essay defines that word. Neat settings, neat gadgets, powers, whatever. Hell, sometimes "what's cool" is just a great looking book thanks to good layout or design. When Cool DOES refer to rules, very often these are really just crunchy bits or components of a rules set that have little effect on the grand scope of the game. You know, I can't think of a conversation -- outside of the Forge or talking with Forge folks at GenCon -- that involved a "Cool!" comment regarding, say, the WHAT DO YOU DO? question. Instead, it's more like, "What a COOL prestige class." Yeah, it's neat. Whatever. Doesn't change the fact that I just can't bring myself to GM D20 anymore. Perhaps even play it as a PC.

This is no small point, because I think MANY groups dive right into dysfunction because they've become enamored of a COOL game. They might all agree that Game X just is so cool! But, they DO NOT all agree HOW to PLAY Game X. I KNOW my own groups are repeat offenders of this syndrome, and the result currently is a floundering among several stop-started campaigns and lots of folks not really knowing what they want, because no one agrees or acknowledges why folks play for the reasons they do. (Actually, another thread/rant for another time.)

What I'm saying is that I think asking "What's cool?" about a game is one of those useless terms like immersion and other bad-vibe Forge terms.

Case in point: I LOVE Fading Suns. It's setting is cool beyond belief. I just love it. But, for me, the game is unplayable. (There's even a premise in there somewhere -- all that passion play stuff -- I just can't get folks to play it . . . sadly, that includes myself!)

Finally, Marco, I appreciate you sticking to your guns and offering your viewpoints. You've conversing well with a number of Forge "regulars" who have pretty well-established thoughts about this material. That I happen to agree with a lot of what many of the regulars say does not mean I want viewpoints like yours to get frustrated or forgotten.

[greyorm]

I do think that basically Simulationist designs get asked Narrativist questions by the more narrativistly inclined here.

Ok. I can not comment as I do not usually participate in design discussions.

Consider this: the whole nature of the thread is asking, when it's boiled down: "Does a game have to have something that makes it cool."

I don't think that's the nature of the thread at all.
I think the real issue of the thread is all about using critical thinking in design. This includes an understanding of an incoherent design, and then capitalization on that method of design if that is the route you choose.

A decent rephrasing of the question might be, "Why did you choose to design it this way? (ie: What features were you attempting to support? Does your design support them?)"

Greyorm, I acknowledge the marriage counselor concept. But if the questions are coming from someone from whom Narrativist play is the preferred mode (for a clearly sim-game) then it can seem like a wiccian couple at a Promise Keeper's counseling session (to extend the analogy).

This assumes, however, that the Narrativist can't relate to or understand Simulationist mindsets -- which is a poor assumption. The example you use, while I understand what you are trying to say, doesn't work for me, because Promise Keeper meetings aren't led by psychologists, they're led by clergy (and often unschooled clergy), and that's a whole different ball of wax.

A better comparison would be a Promise Keeper couple going to a Wiccan counselor; simply because the couselor is Wiccan doesn't mean they will be unable to help the couple or provide effective solutions in-line with the couple's beliefs (though, keep in mind, some of those beliefs may very well be the source of the problem, and the conflict may be unresolvable without the couple choosing to examine and alter their beliefs...that's a seperate issue, however, and one any counselor of any religion or belief has to deal with).

[talysman]

Maybe it's just something that bugs me but how come every time someone posts a new game round here the first round of replies all say what's the premise ? I can see that a premise is sometimes good in a game, but I can't see why it is essential.

Is every game that links a premise really incomplete ? Do we really have to assume gamers are so stupid that they cannot look at a game and find the premises in that game that suit their interests ?

Most commercial games don't have a premise, at least not one that is stated outright and most certainly not one which the entire game is based around. So why the desperate need to have a premise ?

I figured I'd quote Andy's post because, while the thread has concentrated on the questions raised in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs, I think we need to emphasize the very first question: why does everyone ask a new poster "what's the premise of your game?"

I think it's obvious to me, since I came to the forum looking for info on game design, but maybe it's not obvious to other new users that the forge -- or, at least, the forums where someone would post their game system -- is primarily a game designers' forum. posting a game system or one fragment of it is essentially the same as asking fellow designers for suggestions or comments.

and you can't offer advice to someone unless you know what they're trying to do.

... so maybe we need to be more careful about how we phrase the question (marco and walt, among others, raised some good points about this.) but at the same time, the answer to Andy's first question should be made clear: people ask the question not because they don't have a clue what the game is about, but because they want to make sure they know what the designer wants the game to be about. this isn't intended to offend designers, but to avoid offending them with useless advice.

that's just my two cents. now I'll go back and glean some more design tips from the conversation.