Blow-by-blow Combat because combat... isn't important?

[DevP]

Was reading this:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=2024&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

And I got thinking. Combat in my current game does run in a relatively turn-by-turn fashion, since that's what I know; and it thusly slows things down agonizingly. I start sweating bullets when I see large sets of combat rules, especially since players expect combat to be done precisely and quickly on the fly... So, scene-based combat has a lot of draw for me.

And yet: a generalized scene-based mechanic almost makes more sense in more "epic" (I am generally thinking fantasy) worlds where combat goes on in duelish exchange. Many of my players are not combat oriented, and in any case duels are less popular in a future with deadly firearms. I want violent confrontations to be more about who has the advantage, with a strong focus on running for cover or, better yet, running away.

That is to say: I can compare the combat skills of ship captain (who doesn't have much in the way of combat training) with that of the large rogue, and clearly he will win the bout in a square fight; but this removes her chance (as a player) to take advantage of specific situations in an intelligent way. (In the actual case, she won, much to my surprise, by outsmarting her rivals.)

[Jake Norwood]

I think the real question is, "Does it add to my game?" If the answer is yes, then it needs to be so. If not, ditch it.

TROS has a whole set of mechanics used specifially for combat. It needs the bulk of them because much of the game is about the intensity and choices made by the player during combat.

Sorcerer also has specific rules for combat, but they're really more like add-ons to the core system to resolve things like damage and complex conflict resolution.

Universalis has only conflict resolution mechanics in it's untinkered form, because that's all it takes for Uni.

I think it really just falls on the focus of the game.

Jake

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

It's a real conundrum, isn't it? At least from within the box of role-playing texts.

This is one of those System Does Matter moments - I recommend checking out any of the following for combat-consideration purposes: Swashbuckler, The Riddle of Steel, The Burning Wheel, and The Dying Earth. Also check out Unknown Armies if you haven't already for a fast version of a more traditional system.

On a more generalized level, which is to say, combat is handled as a sub-topic of a resolution system that grades from simple to complex as the group sees fit at the moment, the games to check out are Universalis, Pace, Legends of Alyria, Dust Devils, Godlike, and (above all else!) Hero Wars, soon to be re-issued as Hero Quest.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

What these game suggestions are saying is that the rules need to enable that which you decide the game is about. Now, being on the fence, you seem to want the best of both worlds. This is why Ron so strongly suggests Hero Wars (Quest). In that game, basically, the GM determines if the conflcit in question is "worth" handling in detail. Usually working off player cues (heck I even ask 'em). The point being, if you want to do an epic scene that would be read postmortem as, "And then Thrignar met the fell serpent and slew it with a sword through it's skull." Then you can do that in one roll in HW. OTOH, I've had religious rituals that were handled in all the detail with which combat is usually handled in most games by using the "extended conflict" rules.

Seems to me that HW has just the sort of thing that you're looking for, IMO. Does that give you an idea as to how to accomplish what you're looking for?

Mike

[iago]

Not to self-promote too much, but you should take a look at the combat stuff we've done up for http://www.faterpg.com/">Fate.  (The revision we're working on will make it clearer that it is not, actually, "special rules only for combat", even though it's positioned that way in the current downloadable.)  We've got a turn-based, exchange-based, and scene-based set of options in the same thang, and exploring the different perspectives each offers may be of use to you in your own explorations.  You can probably read it without digesting the rest of the Fate rules, too.

[Mike Holmes]

I'll back Fred up on that one. We're going to be playing Fate soon in Indie Netgaming, and having read up on the system, I can say that it covers a lot of this from a good perspective. And I'd read the whole thing; it's worth it.

Mike

[DevP]

While pondering these problems, I was re-reading Fate, and yes, I like it a whole lot. (The notions of scene/exchange/turn-based-combat, and the rest of it too.) Also, something as simple as asking the players what they want will matter a lot. My experienced players (the combat-y ones) will want a blow-by-blow deal, while the others will be fine with a simpler task resolution.

If you're curious (I'm going slightly off topic?) I had a notion how I was going to handle combat for me...

I would begin with simply comparing the player's skill versus a rough approximation this overall battle scene should be, i.e. how much of a threat it all is. (I'm using a diceless system.) Once I know the difference between the ability and the threshold, the combat is ultimately decided, and essentially over. The difference (between ability and treshold) is how much I "owe" the player. A positive difference is a good success, and a negative difference is some major bodily harm.

Except that it remains to be narrated. So where I go from here is that I will take turns with the players and myself describing what happens. This will largely be trading blows and blocks ineffectually, until I decide to cash in the debt, and finish the fight. Again, this will have no impact on the ultimate outcome.

That said, the GM may elect to increase the player's margin of ultimate victory if he nixes the narration of a player's action or makes a minor rival's task succeed; the coverse is also true. Moreover, the difference can be modified if the player does something exceptionally clever or stupid. This would be how the player can win in a combat that she should have "lost" by the numbers. (Example: Dori versus seven Evil Witches and a Monkey: she misses the treshold by a few points, and is slated to lose. She then activates the water sprinkler system, and all the Witches are destroyed; the threshold is recalculated such that she is owed a very major victory against the poor l'il monkey.

[kamikaze]

And I got thinking. Combat in my current game does run in a relatively turn-by-turn fashion, since that's what I know; and it thusly slows things down agonizingly. I start sweating bullets when I see large sets of combat rules, especially since players expect combat to be done precisely and quickly on the fly... So, scene-based combat has a lot of draw for me.

And yet: a generalized scene-based mechanic almost makes more sense in more "epic" (I am generally thinking fantasy) worlds where combat goes on in duelish exchange. Many of my players are not combat oriented, and in any case duels are less popular in a future with deadly firearms. I want violent confrontations to be more about who has the advantage, with a strong focus on running for cover or, better yet, running away.

That is to say: I can compare the combat skills of ship captain (who doesn't have much in the way of combat training) with that of the large rogue, and clearly he will win the bout in a square fight; but this removes her chance (as a player) to take advantage of specific situations in an intelligent way. (In the actual case, she won, much to my surprise, by outsmarting her rivals.)

I think people are seeing a binary distinction between scene-based combat and blow-by-blow combat, when the reality is a greyscale.

It's easy to make a scene-based combat system that handles many different tactical choices.  Any mass combat system is a good example.  Each side's decisions produce various modifiers, and a single roll determines the result.  If you don't want a side to win or be shafted by a single roll, use a brief series of rolls, with each round providing the opportunity to change tactical choices.  With enough rolls, you pass through AD+D's 1-minute rounds, and with a bit more detail you have a blow-by-blow combat system, all the way up to _Sword's Path: Glory_, the highest achievement of detailed combat simulation.

A middle ground for a game not focused on combat, but where some combat choices are important, could be to have three rounds: Engagement, Conflict, and Resolution.  The winner of Engagement gets a bonus to Conflict, winner of Conflict gets a bonus to Resolution, winner of Resolution defeats the enemy and chooses the outcome.  If you find that you've lost one of the first two rounds, you could choose to surrender or run away, with some chance of success.

Doing without a distinct combat system is not a great choice for most games; it really is mandatory in all but a very small set of games.  Very freeform games like Universalis can get by without one only because they don't resolve *any* situation in detail, and one could argue that paying to tear up a resource is a damage mechanic.  I can't think of any playable genre where the possibility of violence isn't present.  It doesn't have to be detailed, but merely losing resources does not properly represent the possibly dire results of losing a fight; Hero Wars has special cases for combat and wounds for a good reason.

Even in _My Dinner With Andre: The RPG_, you *could* take sufficient offense at some line of argument (Andre: "The Nazis were right, you know."  You: "You racist prick, my grandmother died in the camps!") and leap across the table with a bread knife.  The game doesn't have to make a detailed resolution system for that, but a responsible game designer will include some way to determine if you kill Andre and take his stuff or if he beats you to death with a wine bottle.

Yes, I'm being a bit facetious with that example, but MDWA is perhaps the least violent game imaginable, it's not impossible there, and most games are made in much more potentially hostile environments.  Most "purely social" RPGs are equivalent to soap operas, and not a day goes by on many soaps without direct physical threats (which can presumably be backed up with force), someone getting hit on the head, or shot.  When was the last time you watched a movie which did not involve some sort of violence?  In the last fortnight, I've watched a couple of Alfred Hitchcock movies (both of which had on-screen combat), _.HACK//Sign_ (possibly the least violent thing I've watched lately), _Miller's Crossing_, _From Hell_ (very little violence on the part of the "PCs" (the police), but the threat of it, of what they intend to do if they ever catch the Ripper, is essential), _Blood Work_, _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_, and _28 Days Later_.  Doing any of those in detail without having a combat system would be impossible.

[Ben Lehman]

When was the last time you watched a movie which did not involve some sort of violence?  In the last fortnight, I've watched a couple of Alfred Hitchcock movies (both of which had on-screen combat), _.HACK//Sign_ (possibly the least violent thing I've watched lately), _Miller's Crossing_, _From Hell_ (very little violence on the part of the "PCs" (the police), but the threat of it, of what they intend to do if they ever catch the Ripper, is essential), _Blood Work_, _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_, and _28 Days Later_.  Doing any of those in detail without having a combat system would be impossible.

BL>  I disagree.

 I'm going to talk about something different as a counter-example:

 "I just read the Love Hina manga (good fodder for a HeartQuest game, btw).  When it isn't about T&A and romance, Love Hina is about studying (gotta love that Japanese education system).  The main characters do a lot of studying.  They also do a lot of test taking.  Said test-taking is pretty much the culmination of the plot -- the romantic relationships swirl around and are defined by college entrance exams.  Doing a Love Hina style game in detail without a studying and test taking system would be impossible."

 The last sentence of that statement is obviously false.  The outcome of the test shapes the events of the story, true, but that does not mean that system should be involved.  It certainly doesn't mean that system must to be involved.

Let me give this it's own line:
Just because something is important to the game, does not mean that it should necessarily be resolved by the game mechanics.

I think that this is something that is very important, and touches directly on what system does and does not do.  System does not provide for everything in the world -- it simply can't.  System does cast the focus of the game, but the presence of explicit, specialized mechanics does not -- in and of itself -- give or take away any focus.

yrs--
--Ben

[kamikaze]

When was the last time you watched a movie which did not involve some sort of violence?  In the last fortnight, I've watched a couple of Alfred Hitchcock movies (both of which had on-screen combat), _.HACK//Sign_ (possibly the least violent thing I've watched lately), _Miller's Crossing_, _From Hell_ (very little violence on the part of the "PCs" (the police), but the threat of it, of what they intend to do if they ever catch the Ripper, is essential), _Blood Work_, _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_, and _28 Days Later_.  Doing any of those in detail without having a combat system would be impossible.

BL>  I disagree.

 I'm going to talk about something different as a counter-example:

 "I just read the Love Hina manga (good fodder for a HeartQuest game, btw).  When it isn't about T&A and romance, Love Hina is about studying (gotta love that Japanese education system).  The main characters do a lot of studying.  They also do a lot of test taking.  Said test-taking is pretty much the culmination of the plot -- the romantic relationships swirl around and are defined by college entrance exams.  Doing a Love Hina style game in detail without a studying and test taking system would be impossible."

 The last sentence of that statement is obviously false.  The outcome of the test shapes the events of the story, true, but that does not mean that system should be involved.  It certainly doesn't mean that system must to be involved.

Nope.  I don't think that statement *is* false.  IMO, if you make a game that focuses on school and how well you do academically, failing to have rules (or strong textual guidelines, for freeform games) to deal with it is an absolute failure of game design.

That's my game design ethic, and yours may well be different, but if I wanted to play a Love Hina RPG, and I found one that did not deal with academics at all, I'd throw it back on the shelf in contempt, and probably give it a very public hatchet job review.  Bad game design deserves to be crushed mercilessly; it is a reviewer's public duty to expose the incompetent and get them laughed at.

If you're just running Love Hina from the manga with HeartQuest as the system, you're going to have to decide how to represent studying in the game.  You can do it by making up rules on the fly (leading inevitably to inconsistency and dissatisfied players), or writing the rules out ahead of time (somewhat better, if you're a good game designer), but you'll either have rules for it or you'll have an incomplete translation of the source material to a game.

Heh.  You picked about the worst possible example to use with me, too.  I wrote G.P.A., which was strongly influenced by the dark humor comic book Finals and my own unhappy college experience.   The essential element of the game was making sure that PCs had to study, work on passing their classes, and manage the stress from studying, and so there are mechanics for those things.  Without that, there would be no game of G.P.A.  It also has lethal gunfire (because Finals has lethal gunfire), weird science (likewise), and suicidally useless magic (because I also liked Infocom's Lurking Fear game), but what people really have to worry about when they're playing it is graduating without going insane.  It's a terrifying and emotionally brutal game to play, and can put the player under almost as much stress as the character.

Let me give this it's own line:
Just because something is important to the game, does not mean that it should necessarily be resolved by the game mechanics.

I think that this is something that is very important, and touches directly on what system does and does not do.  System does not provide for everything in the world -- it simply can't.  System does cast the focus of the game, but the presence of explicit, specialized mechanics does not -- in and of itself -- give or take away any focus.

Oh, please.  You're casting your argument in a nonexistent binary condition, and trying to use an impossible extreme to prove that intermediate states don't exist.  Nice strawman, but non-freeform systems don't have to provide for everything in the world.  They only have to provide for the things that are important.  Something is important if it has a significant effect on the characters, or reflects some vital element of the setting: studying in a game about school, magic in a fantasy game, some form of violence in almost any game about human interaction.

If a game does not cover the important elements of its setting, it is a failure.  Plain and simple, a failure.  It will distort the original setting, or if people try to play the intended setting, it will be no fun.

Some elements can be covered without specialized mechanics, but many are difficult or impossible to do without adding rules.

Of course, the attitude that you don't need to cover anything in detail in a game is quite common--it's why most free RPGs aren't worth their cover price and the time it takes to read them.  "I threw some notes together, but you have to write enough material to make a system of your own to actually use them" isn't a complete game.

[Ben Lehman]

"I just read the Love Hina manga (good fodder for a HeartQuest game, btw).  When it isn't about T&A and romance, Love Hina is about studying (gotta love that Japanese education system).  The main characters do a lot of studying.  They also do a lot of test taking.  Said test-taking is pretty much the culmination of the plot -- the romantic relationships swirl around and are defined by college entrance exams.  Doing a Love Hina style game in detail without a studying and test taking system would be impossible."

 The last sentence of that statement is obviously false.  The outcome of the test shapes the events of the story, true, but that does not mean that system should be involved.  It certainly doesn't mean that system must to be involved.

Nope.  I don't think that statement *is* false.  IMO, if you make a game that focuses on school and how well you do academically, failing to have rules (or strong textual guidelines, for freeform games) to deal with it is an absolute failure of game design.

That's my game design ethic, and yours may well be different, but if I wanted to play a Love Hina RPG, and I found one that did not deal with academics at all, I'd throw it back on the shelf in contempt, and probably give it a very public hatchet job review.  Bad game design deserves to be crushed mercilessly; it is a reviewer's public duty to expose the incompetent and get them laughed at.

Heh.  You picked about the worst possible example to use with me, too.  I wrote G.P.A., which was strongly influenced by the dark humor comic book Finals and my own unhappy college experience.   The essential element of the game was making sure that PCs had to study, work on passing their classes, and manage the stress from studying, and so there are mechanics for those things.  Without that, there would be no game of G.P.A.  It also has lethal gunfire (because Finals has lethal gunfire), weird science (likewise), and suicidally useless magic (because I also liked Infocom's Lurking Fear game), but what people really have to worry about when they're playing it is graduating without going insane.  It's a terrifying and emotionally brutal game to play, and can put the player under almost as much stress as the character.

BL>  Dude.  Remind me never to ask you to review my games...

 My point is this.  In a let us say that, for a Love Hina style game, we have three attributes: Aptitude, Strength, and Luck.  I can merely say "Big exams can be resolved via an Aptitude or Luck check."  I don't see how having an explicit, problem-by-problem resolution system is necessary.

 Further, since my main interest is in adapting systems rather than authoring new ones, it is strange (to me) say "Oh, we can't use Over The Edge for a game about college preparatory exams -- it doesn't have studying rules, after all."

 Note that I'm using very wishy-washy terminology here.  That's because I don't think that it's bad to play games that use explicit systems for the things that are important to them (heck, I'm a Riddle of Steel junkie.)  I just don't think that it is necessary to have specific extra mechanics for anything that your game will focus on.  In particular I'm not saying is "We can't use GPA to run this game -- it has too many explicit studying mechanics and so I don't want to use it for college."

 I think that the conflation between system weight and play importance is a serious trap that game designers need to avoid.  Something that is important to play can have specific mechanics, it can just use the generalized mechanics, or it can have no mechanics at all.

Let me give this it's own line:
Just because something is important to the game, does not mean that it should necessarily be resolved by the game mechanics.

I think that this is something that is very important, and touches directly on what system does and does not do.  System does not provide for everything in the world -- it simply can't.  System does cast the focus of the game, but the presence of explicit, specialized mechanics does not -- in and of itself -- give or take away any focus.

Oh, please.  You're casting your argument in a nonexistent binary condition, and trying to use an impossible extreme to prove that intermediate states don't exist.  Nice strawman, but non-freeform systems don't have to provide for everything in the world.  They only have to provide for the things that are important.  Something is important if it has a significant effect on the characters, or reflects some vital element of the setting: studying in a game about school, magic in a fantasy game, some form of violence in almost any game about human interaction.

If a game does not cover the important elements of its setting, it is a failure.  Plain and simple, a failure.  It will distort the original setting, or if people try to play the intended setting, it will be no fun.

BL>  Now it's my turn to say: Oh, please.  Allow me to create some corrollaries.
 Long-term LARPs are all about social politics.  So clearly, a LARP system that does not have social politics rules is a failure.  (Well, I think that a LARP system with a social politics engine would be dread boring -- little more than a costumed boardgame.)
 Over The Edge is about conspiracies.  The fact that it does not have conspiracy rules means that it is a failure.
 Amber is all about the rivalries within the family.  The fact that it does not have specific "rivalries within the family" rules means that it is a failure.

You are right that the first sentence in that paragraph is a strawman.  Sorry about that.

Some elements can be covered without specialized mechanics, but many are difficult or impossible to do without adding rules.

BL> So, wait, do you agree with the statement "System does cast the focus of the game, but the presence of explicit, specialized mechanics does not -- in and of itself -- give or take away any focus," after all?  Now I'm confused.

Further, I would be interested if you could elaborate -- what, in your opinion, requires specialized mechanics, and what does not?  Where is the line drawn?

Of course, the attitude that you don't need to cover anything in detail in a game is quite common--it's why most free RPGs aren't worth their cover price and the time it takes to read them.  "I threw some notes together, but you have to write enough material to make a system of your own to actually use them" isn't a complete game.

BL>  Most freeRPGs are just a good design idea and little else -- but I don't mind, I use them just for that purpose.
 That said, do you seriously claim that Over The Edge or The Pool are failures of game design?

yrs--
--Ben

[Cadriel]

I think that the conflation between system weight and play importance is a serious trap that game designers need to avoid.  Something that is important to play can have specific mechanics, it can just use the generalized mechanics, or it can have no mechanics at all.

I'm replying to this specific snippet because it seems to summarize well what you're saying, and because it's an interesting thing to have said.

And I think that, in part, you are right.  Positively, I've found that important elements don't necessarily need to be formalized in mechanics - that is, just because it's important doesn't mean you need to break out the crunchy bits for it.  I don't think it necessarily hurts to do so (provided that the mechanics function as intended), but that is not to say that it is absolutely necessary.

However, I'm of the opinion that the opposite is true.  The more formalized mechanics you give for something, the more players will react to it as an important part of the game.  If I put into my game a fairly complex bartering system, and give substantial heft in the rulebook to that system, I shouldn't really be surprised when people talk about bartering as a pretty central portion of the game experience.  I think combat is the same way:  if you cover it in depth, combat will figure pretty large in gameplay.

More than that, looking at how most RPGs are presented, I'm fairly sure that not presenting a blow-by-blow combat system and instead focusing the brunt of system detail on other matters would be a good way to alert players that the game at hand is different from most.  It might turn many off, but the positive possibility is there.

-Wayne

[iago]

Since http://www.faterpg.com/">Fate was brought up earlier (yeah, by me) as a demo of several ways to do combat, I should probably footnote where this conversation has gone since then, with another bit about the game.

We're hoping to get our next release of Fate out in the next few weeks.  That release will have a chapter that talks about what are, essentially, the combat system mechanics, but repositioned/genericized such that it becomes a system for resolving anything at all (and thus, combat becomes a specific implementation of the system).  If you were doing Fate: Love Hina, then, you'd have your whole test-taking mechanic right there -- and it would be fundamentally no different from the rules for any other task resolution in the system.

I think this is an important thing to consider as regards the topic at hand.  Mike Holmes has said in the thread that Dev was reading that kicked this one off that "RPGs do not need any special rules for combat, whatsoever."  This statement could be extended and applied to the hypothetical Love Hina game, as "Love Hina does not need any special rules for test taking, whatsoever."  If the rules that exist in the general application provide a sufficient framework for determining success or failure on a test, then that's all you need.  This is the point that Ben has been making.  In essence, if your storyline takes you there, if the GM's focus of the game is on making tests important (perhaps dropping down to a level of "blow by blow" detail on the test, to increase the sense of its importance, much as you might do the same thing for a fight that was particularly dire, or a round of diplomatic negotiations that were crucial to the fate of the world), then that is sufficient to the needs of the setting of Love Hina.

This is not to say, IMO, that system can't be provided to treat the theme of the setting specifically.  In my game Texorami!, I want to immerse people in the feelings of gambling, games of chance, hands of cards, and so I use poker dice and all of my rule mechanics flow from poker and gambling slang and punning.   Thus, system can certainly increase a sense of immersion in the "feel" of the setting, and using it as a design option is definitely something to keep in mind.  

To say it is impossible to design a game focusing on studying and test-taking that doesn't have specific and detailed rules is just as wrong as saying that specific test-taking rules can not increase the sense of immersion in the setting.  Clearly, it is possible; and clearly, system can better enhance the sense of setting.  So as a designer it all comes down to whether or not system must be introduced in order to enhance the sense of setting, in order to meet your design goals.

(Apologies if I've retreaded some of the discussion so far.)

[kamikaze]

BL>  Dude.  Remind me never to ask you to review my games...

Heh.  I typically do only two kinds of reviews: products I really like, and products I really hate; I won't review anything I feel ambivalent about.  In both cases, I'll savage them over any flaws, as well as pointing out any good features.  This made one designer, who I gave a positive but critical review to, say "He wanted to just write 'You suck!' but his editor made him go back and write more."  A proud moment for me.

 My point is this.  In a let us say that, for a Love Hina style game, we have three attributes: Aptitude, Strength, and Luck.  I can merely say "Big exams can be resolved via an Aptitude or Luck check."  I don't see how having an explicit, problem-by-problem resolution system is necessary.

Okay, that's the misunderstanding, then.  What you just said *is* a rule.  It's a very lightweight rule, using existing tools, but you have added a rule to cover that important element of the game.  So that's fine.  In a review, I'd probably complain that it's too lightweight, that exams need a specialized mechanic, an extended task, or a series of preparatory studying tasks to really feel right, but it's enough to let someone play Love Hina without feeling ripped off.

You don't need a specialized mechanic as complex as TRoS's combat system to have "rules", you just have to address the problem.

White Wolf's games typically have a chapter full of "how to do common activity X"; BRP games have "Spot Rules" to deal with special cases.  Those are sufficient.

BL>  Now it's my turn to say: Oh, please.  Allow me to create some corrollaries.
 Long-term LARPs are all about social politics.  So clearly, a LARP system that does not have social politics rules is a failure.  (Well, I think that a LARP system with a social politics engine would be dread boring -- little more than a costumed boardgame.)
 Over The Edge is about conspiracies.  The fact that it does not have conspiracy rules means that it is a failure.
 Amber is all about the rivalries within the family.  The fact that it does not have specific "rivalries within the family" rules means that it is a failure.

I'm not familiar with the rules of LARPs, but Vampire has many social rules: generation, clan, blood bonds, and the social hierarchy of Prince, etc. are all codified in the rules.  I'm sure those are all handled in the live-action rulebooks, too.  I'm also sure the management of the LARP chapters have a ton of bylaws and rules for how to organize the players, at least with the anal-retentive Seattle-local Cam wankers.

Over the Edge is, IMO, a complete failure as a conspiracy game system.  It's a passable universal system, though too simplistic for my taste, and has a neat setting book, but it has no rules support for dealing with conspiracies.  What OTE enables, as written, is having an improbable mix of characters in a surreal Burroughsian environment, but anything conspiratorial that happens is purely the result of the players fighting against the system or making up their own rules.  Compare OTE to Paranoia, Delta Green, or Conspiracy X.  It's not even on the same planet.

Amber sets up the family rivalries right from character creation.  Bidding against each other to see who will be the most badass at each trait.  Having to scrounge situational modifiers and supporters in order to get the upper hand over someone with a higher trait than you.  The trumps enabling secret dealing even across shadows.  I'm not at all a fan of the system, or some of the liberties it takes with Amber canon, but it does cover the important elements with rules.

You are right that the first sentence in that paragraph is a strawman.  Sorry about that.

Some elements can be covered without specialized mechanics, but many are difficult or impossible to do without adding rules.

BL> So, wait, do you agree with the statement "System does cast the focus of the game, but the presence of explicit, specialized mechanics does not -- in and of itself -- give or take away any focus," after all?  Now I'm confused.

Further, I would be interested if you could elaborate -- what, in your opinion, requires specialized mechanics, and what does not?  Where is the line drawn?

BL>  Most freeRPGs are just a good design idea and little else -- but I don't mind, I use them just for that purpose.
 That said, do you seriously claim that Over The Edge or The Pool are failures of game design?

I really should have been more precise, and defined some terms.  A "specialized mechanic" is a multi-step procedure, usually with its own bookkeeping.  A "simple rule" is anything stating how to use the specialized mechanics to accomplish a goal.  "Rules" are both of the above.

A system must have rules, whether simple rules or specialized mechanics, to cover all important elements of the setting.  If it does not, it is a failure of game design, because it is forcing the players to complete the game design when or before they play.

For its stated purpose, OTE is a failure, and I've never seen a true conspiracy game run with it.  It's been reasonably successful as a generic game framework; everyone I've seen use it that way has added rules for the setting.

The Pool doesn't try to simulate anything, so it's not even comparable.  I think it's fun, and I've played it a couple of times now, but it's a storytelling game (STG), not a role-playing game.  It doesn't simulate combat, for instance, but rather determines who gets to tell the story about a fight.  It has all the rules it needs to deal with storytelling.  Universalis and Baron Munchausen are, like The Pool, STGs, not RPGs.  You don't play the role of a character, you play at telling the story of a character (and you don't even identify with one character in Universalis).

The Window is a successful lightweight RPG.  It doesn't have a built-in setting, so it doesn't cover much in detail in the main book.  It does cover combat with a few rules, because, as I noted upthread, fighting or threatening to fight is universally applicable to human interaction.  Each Window setting book, whether "homebrew" or more professional one, adds rules for handling whatever's important in the setting.

In my DUDE system, there are few specialized mechanics in the main book, except for combat.  But The Alan Smithee Project adds rules for actor-character and movie-character and switching on- and off-screen.  DUDEHack and Malevolence have specialized mechanics, mostly in the powers (magic, equipment, etc.), like any exceptions-based game.

[Mike Holmes]

I think there's a valid point here, somewhere. Basically, rules weight and emphasis does create a balance of focus. That is, in Freeform, you have nothing that promotes anything specific. So emphasis comes from whatever the participants come up with as a group. As soon as you move beyond Freeform, you start to add emphasis to certain things.

This is precisely why Ron calls certain games Abashed. They don't "get in the way" of playing a certain way, yet neither do they promote it, particularly. This can be completely functional, of course, given player intention to address the themes in question.

So, for OTE, which is the poster-child "abashed" game, the idea is that the setting will be compelling enough to promote the style of play intended. And given players interested, it does a workmanlike job. But I would agree that one can go further to create interesting mechanics that actually promote the style in question.

I wouldn't go so far as to call "abashed" games "failures". They work in principle, and I think that there's a GMing style that tends towards freeform for which abashed systems are particularly appropriate. But for other styles, a system that goes the extra step is a possibility and excellent designs lay down that road.

So, yes, it's all a choice for the designer, and each system will have considerations of mechanical focus that are unique to that design. But I would also say that it's true that most designers pay little heed to these considerations, and make their assumptions on standards that may not apply to their games. So I think the best advice is for each designer to look at the particular design, and ask if each element is pertinent to the goals of the game, and if elements have been left out that could be added for greater enjoyment.

I think that too often the "less is more" attitude is one born of play of bad designs. When designs are good, then more is more. Yes, there's a point of diminishng returns that comes in quickly, and that has to be watched; nobody's suggesting that the most complicated games are the best, or that any mechanic is better than no mechanic. But, to the extent that elegance can be maintained, a game should do whatever it can to make the subject matter that it intends to address interesting.

I think this is just one of those places where a single principle isn't enough, and you have to make considered decisions at each step of the way.

Mike