Complex Systems > Play Focus?

[Shreyas Sampat]

I've been wondering this one for a while.  Why do complex subsystems (like the WW combat system, say, or the vehicle creation rules in so many technological rpgs) focus play around themselves?  I'm not going to question the empirical observation that they do - I've experienced it myself - but I'd like to know people's thoughts on its origins.

Furthermore, is it possible to create functional, complex subsystems that don't attract play focus?  If so, how is this done?  I thow this flies in the face of the cost-benefit ratio principle, but just supposing...

My intuition here is Exploration of System exists in every game to the extent that it will create Exploration of whatever System it can find.  If a system has diversified subsystems, it will seek those out and take a look as soon as it's gotten bored with the overarching system.

[Jasper]

Well one important distinction may be rules that are intended to be used during play and those used outside of it -- unless you're considering reading the text and the GM building stuff to be its own kind of play, which it could be, but you know what I mean all the same.  Vehicle creation rules in GURPS for instance aren't anything you would whip out in the middle of a session and say: "Okay, you want to get on a random bike right?  Let's design it!"  You could do this, certainly, but it's not how it was intended to be used and not what most people would do with it (for mostly obvious reasons).  So play doesn't really focus around vehicle creation, even though it's monstrously complex and rule-full.  

This was probably an obvious point, but you did mention vehicle creation as an example.  How many games include a lot of rule that are intended to be "prep-only"?  Sim games tend to, maybe because (as above) the GM's preparations are indeed another kind of play, in which case his play is certainly focused by the rules....

Well, I'm rambling.  Just wanted to make that point.

[Mike Holmes]

Furthermore, is it possible to create functional, complex subsystems that don't attract play focus?  If so, how is this done?  I thow this flies in the face of the cost-benefit ratio principle, but just supposing...

It's simplicity itself. Just make a rule that says to only use a particlar ruleset portion when an unlikely event occurs. Like "only do combat if the meeting roll is an 18 on 3d6". Other, more play oreinted options are available. However, I'd posit that the less mechanical the decision,and the more subjective, the more play will slant to using these otherwise rare rules. Take the rules for Gambling in AD&D; purportedly a "just in case" sort of rule, their existence led to my players always having their characters go straight to the gambling dens every time they hit a city. It was often hard to get them to leave if they were on a streak.

Such a rule that only comes up rarely due to mechanics, but has complex rules will undoubtedly evince reactions like "whythehell is this part of te rules so compelx if it never comes up". Which relates to your comment about cost-benefit. So I have to ask, why ask?

Mike

[Rob MacDougall]

This was probably an obvious point, but you did mention vehicle creation as an example.  How many games include a lot of rules that are intended to be "prep-only"?

Ars Magica comes to mind, with its involved rules for magical lab work and magical item and spell-creation. You might assume that these rules would largely be employed out of session, but in my experience playing Ars (admittedly not extensive), players spent a lot of in-game time discussing items and spells they could create, and how logistically they would go about doing so. Maybe because these rules empowered the players and their characters in an obvious and tangible way (new spells! new items!), they seemed to encourage very detailed exploration of system.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

When it comes to many activities, I don't see much difference between the terms effort, focus, and priority. It's pretty hard to imagine circumstances in which they are exclusive concepts (cue argumentative examples by the score, OK, thanks guys), so it strikes me that any rules-set that (a) is pretty complex, (b) has significant consequences on some feature of the character (health, wealth, etc), and (c) is associated with a specific in-game activity will, ipso facto, result in that activity becoming a "focus of play" in terms of both attention and a disproportionate amount of time (due to the complexity).

I'm trying to hard to see whether I'm being too simplistic about this, but that seems to cover the issue prety well.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

I do question it (didn't use GURPS Vehicles).

Complex sub-systems usually (IME) exist where the game is supposed to be most *exciting* (complex hacking rules in cyberpunk, combat, driving rules in James Bond, etc.)

The focus happens because that's where the designers thought (usually correctly) the excitement/satisfaction would be.

Your test: make the rules focus on something *boring* and don't force the characters to partake.

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

The GURPS Vehicles thing is not relevant. It's not a part of the basic rules. Some people do not even own copies. It's nature as a supplement alone informs that it's an optional activity. Looked as a part of the whole of GURPS rules it is a small part. Taken as a whole, the number of rules for a given GURPS game might be tremendously large, making vehicles only a relatively small part.

And as far as anecdotal evidence, I happen to have run a GURPS game where I selected few supplements one of which was Vehicles, and play did happen to focus on vehicle creation using those rules (actually an extension of an old RPG of mine called Vector which was, essentially, Car Wars in space). But then, I intended for it to be a focus. Remember that System Matters does not mean GM's don't matter. A GM could well inform his players that, while Vehicles was there for use if player wanted, that such use was entirely optional, and was not expected to be central or even animportant part of play. The idea that the rules inform players does not mean that they are brainwashed somehow. It means that in the absence of information otherwise that players will tend to be informed that the rules preponderance indicates the sort of action to be performed in play.

And that "information otherwise" cannot be the text. Including a combat system and then saying don't use it in the text is confusing at best, and more likely competely ineffective. Ask the average WOD player.

GURPS is an interesting case, in some ways. Given it's modular nature, it almost gets away with the combat system. That is, as an attachment to the basic chargen and resolution rules, players could assume that it's been included sorta "accidentally". Basically, it's impossible to play GURPS without the combat rules being present because they are in the basic book. Given this, players may assume that they are there only for completeness sake, and not to say that combat is a focus of play. Indeed, I use GURPS precisely for this reason. Still, a bias does slip in, even if only subtly. What's that Dodge score on the character sheet for if not to dodge things in combat?

Note that as soon as the GM chooses to start including stuff from GURPS Compendium II (Combat), I garuntee that he's sending a clear message to his players that Combat is a priority.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

The GURPS Vehicles thing is not relevant. It's not a part of the basic rules. Some people do not even own copies. It's nature as a supplement alone informs that it's an optional activity. Looked as a part of the whole of GURPS rules it is a small part. Taken as a whole, the number of rules for a given GURPS game might be tremendously large, making vehicles only a relatively small part.

And as far as anecdotal evidence, I happen to have run a GURPS game where I selected few supplements one of which was Vehicles, and play did happen to focus on vehicle creation using those rules (actually an extension of an old RPG of mine called Vector which was, essentially, Car Wars in space). But then, I intended for it to be a focus. Remember that System Matters does not mean GM's don't matter. A GM could well inform his players that, while Vehicles was there for use if player wanted, that such use was entirely optional, and was not expected to be central or even animportant part of play. The idea that the rules inform players does not mean that they are brainwashed somehow. It means that in the absence of information otherwise that players will tend to be informed that the rules preponderance indicates the sort of action to be performed in play.

And that "information otherwise" cannot be the text. Including a combat system and then saying don't use it in the text is confusing at best, and more likely competely ineffective. Ask the average WOD player.

GURPS is an interesting case, in some ways. Given it's modular nature, it almost gets away with the combat system. That is, as an attachment to the basic chargen and resolution rules, players could assume that it's been included sorta "accidentally". Basically, it's impossible to play GURPS without the combat rules being present because they are in the basic book. Given this, players may assume that they are there only for completeness sake, and not to say that combat is a focus of play. Indeed, I use GURPS precisely for this reason. Still, a bias does slip in, even if only subtly. What's that Dodge score on the character sheet for if not to dodge things in combat?

Note that as soon as the GM chooses to start including stuff from GURPS Compendium II (Combat), I garuntee that he's sending a clear message to his players that Combat is a priority.

And your other points Marco are our point exactly. Yes, presumably designers understand this principle, and design more rules into sections that they think are going to be the fun parts of play. This is a good thing. It's only a bad thing when a designer includes rules for tradition sake that  do not reflect the design goals for the game. Hence my complaint that most designers include combat systems without thinking. I believe that there are many, many games that would be mch better had they not done so. Starting with Call of Cthulhu and Traveller.

Mike

[Marco]

The GURPS Vehicles thing is not relevant. It's not a part of the basic rules. Some people do not even own copies.
Mike

G. Vehicles is entirely relevant.  What makes GURPS a tool-kit *is* the informational text.

I also didn't use the initial GURPS Psionic rules which *were* in the basic book.

Or are we just *really* talking about combat systems?

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Mike, I don't know what it is, but lately you're cutting a lot of threads off at the knees with terse posts rather than addressing their points. If a thread doesn't seem immediately relevant to you, let others respond before you barrel in with a where's-the-beef post.

Marco, if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but whenever complexity gets mentioned, you post very defensively. Permit me to state here, formally: (a) complexity is often a perfect and wonderful thing in game design, and (b) no one is picking on JAGS specifically when they discuss complexity.

Both of you - if you can't get along, then get off of shreyas' thread and let the rest of us discuss his topic.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

My first post in relpy answered the questions asked, and sought to get at what I think is the underbelly of the subject. It's not dismissve, I want to really know if there's a good reason for looking at creating coplex subsystems that aren't intended to drive play. Perhaps I'm just missing it.

As for my response to Marco, well, it doesn't seem that his challenge to the overall notion is too off topic to me.

Mike

BTW, I accidentally quoted instead of editing to add more to my post previous to this one. The second includes more of my ideas, please ignore the first (or, if the moderators would, please delete it).

[clehrich]

Returning for a moment to ArsMagica, my experience with this game is that use of the lab subsystems was actually very important plot-wise.  When I was in a very long campaign of AM2, there were basically three kinds of adventures:

1. Monster stomps for vis.
2. Plot exploration and development.
3. Home at the Covenant.

The way it worked was that #1 allowed #3 to be effective (you need a lot of vis to do much lab work), and #3 allowed the PC's to gain the upper hand in #2.  The point being that the lab work was both investigative (what the hell is that weird magical object anyway?) and constructive (how can we invent a powerful spell or object to beat that bad guy?).

One of the nicest things about the lab system, I think, was that everyone had multiple characters, so sometimes your magus was deep in the books, but you were guiding some other character and having fun stomping monsters.  Sometimes the magus would have a revelation in the lab, leading to whole realms of machinations about who's telling whom how much and when.

So I think these subsystems can work extremely well if they are smoothly integrated into the game world, and if there is enough other stuff to attract play focus simultaneously.  That is, lab work is primarily number-crunching, apart from occasional discoveries adjudicated by the GM.  But it's a big part of real character development and advancement, because just tooling around adventuring doesn't really get you anywhere.

One additional point is that I think the lab system attracted play focus at times precisely because it was a matter of number-crunching, which means that it had the same fun that rule-tweaking does in Champions, but at the same time it had a genuine reason.  A magus who's efficient in the lab is using his skills, which creates a kind of analogy between the player and the character, something I have elsewhere noted as a component of elegant design aesthetics.

[Marco]

Hi Ron,

The blanket statement was made that cmplx. sub-sys's (vehicle creation was named) drive/focus play. I do question that (it's directly contrary to my experience).

My hypothesis was that if the complex sub-system concerned something *boring* (and not manditory to survival) it wouldn't drive/focus play. Lovecraft isn't about combat--but I've been exciting combat situations in Call of Cthulhu (even exciting no-win combat situations). Lovecraft also wasn't mostly about mythos-knowledgable, troop-style anti-cult detective work (CoC often is)--if his stories were about that, more pulp tropes and combat might have come in to play in them. After all, Indiana Jones shoots people in exciting situations all the time.

I don't think a Dodge score on a character sheet subtly drives play (a lot of people believe that subliminal advertising drives sales--and to many, it "makes sense that it would"--studies show it doesn't.)

Pure exploration of system has some relevance in my experience: when champs came out with vehicle rules I examined them and made a character with a vehicle. But I never played him and never went back to them.

Things that have influenced the way I play/view games:
1. Informational text. The GURPS VtM games I ran revolved around intrigue and political infighting. There was combat too, yes. And some romance. And redemption themes. Some of those had game-rules. Some didn't. I see no evidence my experience was unusual in any way (and no such animal as the 'average WOD player' actually exists to ask).

2. Artwork. Exalted comes across as anime (strongly) because of the artwork. But it seems there's much room for contention judging from the rules (see recent giant debate on RPG.net). Clearly many think a game's artwork has a *strong* influence on play (I agree with this).

3. Broken rules. It seems there's some question about what this means. I had to stop a GURPS Supers game mid-way because the system wasn't working for us. I don't mean in GNS terms (at least not overtly)--I mean as in "I can't figure out how Absorption works and I've read it 8 times and the example seems contradictory." I mean broke. Will-not-resolve-situation broke.

Essentially, I think the theory is missing something (no one ponders: "Players seem drawn to exciting game-play--would they spend equal amounts of time on boring things? How about if there were lots of rules they had the option to ignore." That to a degree is how I see the question.)

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

Marco & Mike, thanks for clarifying - I see the points now. Carry on, gentlemen, above the belt please (as always).

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Hey, Marco, I would never disagree that boring, badly designed or broken parts of rules are used, no matter how in depth they are. In fact, complesity itself can throw people off if it's not there for a good reason.

But we're assuming that each part is being presented as well as the next. The designer has to think about the effect of putting good rules in that are not the core of the game. What effect will that have? People play the combat portion of WOD games more than the designers intend precisely because it is functional and full of all sorts of nifty crunchy bits.

And it's not jut my observation, but that of others I've read, or talked to, but CoC does tend to be combat heavy.

I don't know how many times I've seen, heard of, or played in CoC games where somebody takes a shotgun or tommy-gun along on an "investigation" precisely because they are the most effective weapons. Had those details been ommitted, the game would have improved dramatically as the focus of play would have been thrown back on the investigation. Rather than the "seek and destroy" missions into which CoC adventures often devolve.

The drift to Indiana Jones style play is in part a function of trying to reconcile Lovecraft with combat. I can't think of a single example of a Lovecraft story where a firearm was used to any effect against a mythos creature (hell, I'm having trouble thinking of any uses at all; Mountains of Madness comes to mind). So what do the designers do? They make the creatures impervious, practically, to guns. Does this cause players to not take guns? No, it causes them to take dynamite (also useful for blowing up the old house so that you don't have to expalin the bodies to the authorities). The rules inform players that there will be combat, and that they can and should be prepared for it.

As always, I'm not saying that combat should not occur. That's just not it at all. I'm just saying that in this particular game, there should be no special rules for it. So that the players aren't informed that the game has any combat slant at all. Yes, combat will, of course, occur when it should. But it should be resolved in exactly the sort of manner that Library Use is. In fact, what CoC really needs are some rules to make the Library Use and Research portions of the game as interesting as they are in Lovecraft's literature.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to play a game about blowing up weird monsters. But this was not the design intent of CoC. It promotes this style of play accidentally due to it's standard inclusion of a combat system.

Mike