Gamist design invites repetition?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I was fiddling with some old video games when I noticed that it was doing the same thing over and over. This is not to say there isn't variety to play, but even in that variety it is repetitious. This got me thinking that gamist design may invite repetition.

Or, maybe repetition is the point, in fact. The rules for Basketball do not change, but not every game is the same. This may stem from Gamist play being all about the situation. It may be the same situation over and over, or one of several situations that get pulled out, but it's about how that situation goes.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Jack,

I've been having the exact same line of thinking on the video game project I'm working on.  However, I tweak it a little bit.

The way I break it down is this:

We give the player "tools & rules."  

For example: "You get this kind of gun, it has this kind of effect on the environment."  We give you this different kind of gun, it has this different kind of effect on the environment.  We give you a flare, it has this kind of effect on the environment."

Part of this is the effect of the player interface with game.  Console games, especially, are limited in scope compared to the feedback a GM can offer in a tabletop RPG.  (Since I'm working on a console game, I'll focus on that.)  There are a limited number of buttons and triggers to use, and for the most part they're going to do the same thing time and time again.  (This is one set of rules.)

However, by changing the tools within those rules, you get a whole different set of effects.  For example, using the sniper rifle in Halo gets you a different effect than using the plasma rifle, even though you're still using the trigger button to fire.

An "activate" button becomes a generic that let's you pull levers, active force screens, whatever.  Same rule: push this button, but you get to use what you're guy is standing in front of.

Now, a game would get pretty stale if that was all there was to it.  But there's the other half of tools & rules, and that's the environment.

Differenent guns will affect different elements of the environment in different ways.  (Hunters in Halo, for example, can be killed cleanly with single shots from sniper rifles or pistols, but plasma rifles won't get you anywhere.)  The activate buttons will do a dozen things in a given game.  The flare will: provide light, scare monsters, burn something but not others.

So we provide the players with tools and rules, and the missions are the arenas that challenge the players' use of the tools and rules.

In effect, you are doing the same thing again and again.  These are the tools and rules.  But, as you point out, there is variety.  This comes from the arena.  By mixing these two things together properly, you end up with a game where the player uses the same tools and controls again and again (which lets him get better as the game goes on), but you provide variety by changing the nature of the arena.  The best games (like Halo) provide really uniquely defined missions/arenas that really make the player forget he's doing the same thing again and again by offering such unique permutations within the arena.  

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A side note:  All games do this to some degree.  In Sorcerer, one "does the same thing" again and again.  However, the player's got his thumb on a series of really powerful "activate" buttons.  You can make a Humanity Check for an infinite number of object/action combiations, but you then still pick up your dice and drop them.  Same thing with Binding or a Willpower check.

***
(Strangely, and perhaps far too soon to say, there might be something in this thread that's leading dangerously close to an operational definition of what a "game" is... but this path might lead to madness, and I withdraw from those shadows and back into the light.)

Take care,
Christopher

[jdagna]

In reference to computer games, I think repetition has more to do with stretching gameplay than anything else.  It's very easy to program repetitive things: endless hours of arena fights can be done in a couple hundred lines, but a single expository scene might need a hundred lines of dialogue alone.

In reference to gamism, I think reference provides an ability to compare competition.  If we say that a basketball player scored 70 points in a single game, we all step back in awe because we know the rules of basketball remain the same.  If some basketball players make 10 points a shot, suddenly 70 points a game isn't impressive.  Without the common rules and playing field, you can't compare one game to another.

I think this has a lot to do with the origin of the term "munchkin."  Because D&D didn't provide a regulated playing field, you could have little kids with 40th level fighters and +20 swords, not as a result of skill but as a result of a Monty Haul DM.  And, thus organizations like the RPGA attempt to regulate the playing field to bring this element of gamism back in.

That's my take on it, anyway.

[Mike Holmes]

One could point out that many authors agree that there are only a few plots that exist. Basically, in creating any story, you're telling one of a fininte number of stories that are interesting to people. The question is one of what's important to vary to keep interest high. That is, wile the "story" in a gamist game, the why we're beating up these orcs as opposed to the last batch, will seem repetitious to the narrativist, the gamist will see talking to NPCs as repetitious. Because the one player is interested in the story varying, and the other in the challenge varying.

So, yes, all games, in all modes are repititious in what they promote in a general sense, and quite often in terms of what modes they aren't intended to address. But they are all also capable of generating variety within that repetitious framework in the areas that they do address.

Mike

[W. Don]

The question is one of what's important to vary to keep interest high. That is, wile the "story" in a gamist game, the why we're beating up these orcs as opposed to the last batch, will seem repetitious to the narrativist, the gamist will see talking to NPCs as repetitious. Because the one player is interested in the story varying, and the other in the challenge varying.

This is a nice piece of insight Mike, at least for me.

Narrativist games focus on a type of story, therefore making narrativist play repetitious in that sense. In the same way, gamist games become repetitious because they focus on a type of challenge. Or perhaps the word for it might be "focused" and not "repetitive", as the latter tends to have negative connotations.

Repitition/focus then is a logical and foregone of any coherent game you are playing. However, such repitition is not a bad thing, because the more iterations of a certain type of story or type of challenge you go through in play the more ways you can actually vary the elements within the given type.

(I realise all I've done here is echo Mike. Eeep. Brain is slow in the evenings.)

[Mike Holmes]

Or perhaps the word for it might be "focused" and not "repetitive", as the latter tends to have negative connotations.

Actually that's a good observation. I'd say that to the extent that a game seems repetitive, and not focused instead, it's not providing variation in the mode that you'd like to see it do so. That is, even small variation can seem interesting in a mode that the player enjoys, but even relatively large variations will seem insignificant in modes in which the player is uninterested.

Cool?

Example: Killin Orcs in a cave, and killing Trolls in the woods might be enough tactical variation for a player interested in that to be fascinated. But if the encounters are random, the "story" is the same - another random encounter.

I think that this is actually somewhat profound. It speaks directly to how situation provides for GNS support.

Mike

[damion]

I'm not sure this is specific to gamist designs. (duck and cover).

I can imagine a sim game like this also. (Explore a random location).  AKA Myst.

On a different note:

I think Mike might have hit on a possible trap of using GNS, facillitating one mode, but not facillitating enough variation within that mode.  I'm reminded of the 'Why Incoherence sells?' threads.  Incoherence provides plenty of variation within a mode, due to not following it to strongly. (Not that a coherenct design can't, but it might require more attention to do so).

Make sense?

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi damion,

"Make sense?"  Only kind of.

The truth is, the role of designers of a game is to create a game with lots of variety to exploit. There's really no limit to the variety of options/situations/whanot available in G, N or S.  A single game of any of these might be too limited in it's options due to the rules, but that's an issue of the rules, not the mode.

So, using an analogy (dangerous, I know), when I go to an action movie, I want an action movie.  If the movie keeps using the same damned moves again and again for every action set piece -- or only copies action set pieces from other movies -- it's going to seem repetative.

On the other hand, if I go to an actin movie that's adverstised as a action movie, and then I get a lot of contemplation of "fate" or "reality" that seems strange tacked on and not a coherent part of the movie... Well then, it seems "incoherent."

Both are problems, but for two different reasons.

I'd offer that when people want a love story, or an action movie, or whatnot, they go to go get that thing, and are satisfied when that thing is delivered with variation within the movie, and variety from other movies of its kind.

(For genre-benders like, say, "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" one is off to see an Ang Lee movie, not a HK martial-arts punch fest.  Those wanting a standard HK movie left in the first ten minutes of the film (I saw them leave myself, actually.)  They realized immediately they'd wandered into the wrong film, and took the correct action to go have fun with the way they wanted to.)

Back to games: If I want gamist play, I break out a gamist game.  The other night I played Silent Death.  I had a-fucking-laugh-out-loud-clutching-the-air-with-my-tight-fists-in-both-truimph-and-despiar-great time.  It was great gamist play because the rules provided all sorts of options for movement, attack, damage results and so forth.  That said, the fun involved had absolutely nothing to do with the dozens upon dozens of "fiction" and "setting" pages that litter the rules book.  We didn't care *who* was fighting who, we cared who'd win.

On the other hand, if I want to improvise a narrativsit tale via Sorcerer or the like, I don't need to suddenly stop the action and go into micro-managing every sword swing.

Again, in each of these, there's tons of variety--but of the right kind being sought for a night's entertainment.  Same with movies.  

And, for god's sake of course, there are elements available for G, N, and S in all three modes.  It's a matter of priority.  (I suppose this needs to be said again.  Just as a love interest in an action movie never needs to hurt the film.)

Christopher

[John Kim]

So, using an analogy (dangerous, I know), when I go to an action movie, I want an action movie.  If the movie keeps using the same damned moves again and again for every action set piece -- or only copies action set pieces from other movies -- it's going to seem repetative.

On the other hand, if I go to an actin movie that's adverstised as a action movie, and then I get a lot of contemplation of "fate" or "reality" that seems strange tacked on and not a coherent part of the movie... Well then, it seems "incoherent."  

Hmm.  I feel that this is conflating GNS mode with genre, which seems deceptive.  As I understand it, you can have a game which is in roughly the same genre but which varies in mode.  For example, I can play Pantheon in a Gamist mode -- but I could also have a Narrativist game about gods and their choices.  I don't think that broad genre (like "action movie" or "romance") determines GNS mode.  

(For genre-benders like, say, "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" one is off to see an Ang Lee movie, not a HK martial-arts punch fest.  Those wanting a standard HK movie left in the first ten minutes of the film (I saw them leave myself, actually.)  They realized immediately they'd wandered into the wrong film, and took the correct action to go have fun with the way they wanted to.)  
...
On the other hand, if I want to improvise a narrativsit tale via Sorcerer or the like, I don't need to suddenly stop the action and go into micro-managing every sword swing.

Again, in each of these, there's tons of variety--but of the right kind being sought for a night's entertainment.  Same with movies.  

Well, I would agree that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is struggling with its genre.  It's director Ang Lee was new to the martial arts genre and he wanted to merge his experience with cinematography with the tradition.  The result was a good film roughly in the subgenre of HK martial arts films that includes works like The Bride with White Hair or The Swordsman -- which have slower pacing and more attention to photography than more comedic films like Jackie Chan's.

However, other films achieve more coherent merging of action and narrative.  For example, Yuen Woo-Ping is an extremely experienced martial arts film director.  He has a deeper understanding of martial arts -- which are an ancient, very meaningful art form.  Thus, his fight sequences are fests of people punching each other, but they also are rife with meaning.  A classic example is "Tai Chi Master" (1993) which is about the invention of Tai Chi.  It is often hilarious but also quite pointed in its portrayal of the hard, unyielding Shaolin philosophy which is expressed in their martial arts -- against which the hero Junbao eventually formulates the principles of Tai Chi.  

Basically, I don't want to dismiss having action-oriented Narrativist games.  I've been mulling over one in my mind for a little while (I'll post on it later.)

[Marco]

I'm not sure this is specific to gamist designs. (duck and cover).

I can imagine a sim game like this also. (Explore a random location).  AKA Myst.

On a different note:

I think Mike might have hit on a possible trap of using GNS, facillitating one mode, but not facillitating enough variation within that mode.  I'm reminded of the 'Why Incoherence sells?' threads.  Incoherence provides plenty of variation within a mode, due to not following it to strongly. (Not that a coherenct design can't, but it might require more attention to do so).

Make sense?

It makes plenty of sense to me. It makes sense to me that a tightly focused game can have less re-play value for some groups than a more loosely focused one for some groups.

-Marco