Complex Systems > Play Focus?

[Shreyas Sampat]

Sorry for the long delay in elaborating, everyone.  I've been having computer issues.  Now, back to our regularly scheduled discussion:

Mike mentions optional-complex systems: HW's Extended Conflict (am I getting the terminology right?) comes to mind.  Only intended to be used when play focus is already present.
He also brings up the idea that some rules are intended to be used in specific play situations - in preparation, for example.  Prep rules, he posits, are an instance of complex system that does not engender focus in Actual non-prep Play.

I have an unfortunate habit of phrasing posts so that my
important question has a related but less important, to me, question attached to it.  Here, the question that I had intended to raise was What is the cause of the correlation between complexity and focus?  The concern about complex unfocused systems was only part of the larger issue.  So, Ron, you assert that these things are attached, and I agree - but what brings this about?

Chris, you make a really interesting point about AM's different subsystems creating, at different times, different kinds of play.

I think this all leads to the idea that complex systems are functional when the things they deal with are important to play, but they don't have to dominate it - a mage needs other things to do effective lab work, etc.

This in turn, with reference to Marco's post and Mike's reply:
I hold Mike's assumption that all the rules are consistently interesting (in some context) and unbroken (whatever that means.)
But these interesting rules affect play as much as artwork, and IMO, a lot more than setting text: Indiana Jones Drift in CoC play can be predicted by the ruleset.  By making combat an efficient and interesting way of dealing with Mythos creatures when no such efficient way should exist, and by making it possible to be Mythos-knowledgeable when few such people appeared in the literature, the players must change the setting so that it meshes more effectively with the rules provided.

[Mike Holmes]

I dunno, it just seems intuitive to me.

Let's say we play a little game, in which are given a ball, and 20 jacks. I could just play with the ball. But, even if the rules that came with said, "Only play with the ball unless it gets lost," I'm still going to play with the Jacks. Curiosity? Why have a toy if not to use it?

I mean, when you decide to play a game, you are committing to an activity bound by some set of rules. If we didn't use the rules then why play that game? The idea that we are committed to it means that most players are going to try and determine from the rules how to play including what characters do in play. If that doesn't come from the rules, then where? Sure, the text can say otherwise. But the text doesn't provide an acting framework in play. The system does. That framework tells the player what his potions are to an extent. To that extent players will tend to be informed as to what to do by the system.

Seems very straightforward to me.

Mike

[Marco]

Mike: Instead of balls and jacks, what if it's more like a menu and the user orders the dishes s/he likes? One might simply *try* the combat.

I think the nature of CoC play owes less to the inclusion of a combat system and more to the inclusion of many main characters, continuing characters, and cultists.

Remember that subliminals seemed very straightforward/logical to many people as well--it was empirical studies that proved they didn't work.

-Marco

[Marco]

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.

Mike

I don't think this would have "improved" play at all. It would have shifted the target of the game from one segment to another. The game as played would be *highly* divergent from Lovecraft long before it reached man-to-monster combat.

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

Analogies.

Mike: Instead of balls and jacks, what if it's more like a menu and the user orders the dishes s/he likes? One might simply *try* the combat.

Skipping combat in most games would be to go to a retaraunt and fail to order something from the entre column. Sure, you might skip a part of combat, but the whole thing? We're not saying that all rules beg to be played. Just that a preponderance is to an extent compelling. There will still be that oddball that just orders desert...

I think the nature of CoC play owes less to the inclusion of a combat system and more to the inclusion of many main characters, continuing characters, and cultists.

I agree that the things you mention also distract. Yes, an advancement system in CoC strikes me as just as odd as a combat system. Like somebody's going to live to see their Mythos rating exceed 20%. But that's the point. This sort of distraction from what play ought to be is the problem. The distraction is caused by the rules. More rules = more distraction.

Regarding my use of "Improved",  I mean, "made the game more interesting to me". As I said, nothing wrong about liking CoC as is. I just think it fails to meet the designers goals. Certainly it misses the stated goals in the book.

Remember that subliminals seemed very straightforward/logical to many people as well--it was empirical studies that proved they didn't work.

And as I cannot produce scientific evidence to the contrary, you've got me. Of course you're right in the same boat there. And we know the problems with anecdotal evidence. So, people will just have to decide for themselves what sounds more likely from the arguements as presented.

Mike