Game Goals

[Bankuei]

  Inherent to every game is some sort of goal or goals.  They may not all be necessary, or may be equally important, but the goals often dictate how the game works and how it is approached.  In chess, it is to defeat your opponent, while in double dutch, its to jump rope with style.
 If we take the goal of beating up monsters, obviously the most important parts of the game will be the rules on combat, getting stronger, and getting things to help you beat up monsters.  If we take the goal of  telling a good story, we need to define what is going into this good story.  Telling the story of a single hero, the reunification of a nation, the dying honor of a caste,  the saga of a family history, and the tales of a civilization falling into doom are all different types of stories.
 As many games attempt to be all things to all people, I find that many narrativist games likewise fail to define what scale of story they are trying to convey.  Obviously most of this is defined when the campaign starts, but what people have in mind as the "story" of their character may be very different.
  One person may be looking for redemption, another to restore their family, a third to solve mysteries, meanwhile the GM is also trying to tell a story.  The problem that anyone with Director stance has is that they are trying to tell their story, but so likewise is everyone else.  
 Not only is it hard to mesh these different stories, even more so when each player is given more power to control the story, but also its hard to match the rhythm of escalation/climax/resolution.    The problem lies in a basic question:  Are we trying to compete for storyline control or are we trying to compromise for everyone and can we tell a good story while doing it?
  Some in game mechanics do not match the goals they are intended for:  A more powerful character does not entail a better story.  Obviously every player wants to have their character fufill their "destiny" that sits in the player's mind while creating them(even if it is as simple as reaching 10th level, seeing Cthulu at least once before dying, etc.), so no matter the game, that is definitely an inherent goal in all rpgs.
 My question is: has anyone looked at this idea of the player's imagined storyline as a goal?  Or necessarily the means of creating it as part of the mechanics, more than a short author role specific to a character?  When we speak of shared authorship, is there any rules to make it cooperative instead of competitive, or any rules to taylor it one way as opposed to the other?

Perhaps this is too vague, but its some ideas that have been rolling around in my head.  

Bankuei

[contracycle]

Yeah, this was much like the thought I had in the Player Character Premises thread.  I definatley think there is a tacit "character destiny" effect at work, and furthermore I think that trying to meet those goals, consciously or otherwise, reqcuires a way to knit, synthesize, these into one coherent whole which is itself the narrative.

[Le Joueur]

Bankuei wrote:

Inherent to every game is some sort of goal or goals.  They may not all be necessary, or may be equally important, but the goals often dictate how the game works and how it is approached.

Personally, I think this is a flawed premise in the case of role-playing games.  I remember an interview with the creator of Sim City (a computer game).  The thing that most affected my thinking happened when the interviewer asked about the phenomenon that had grown up around this game and how it was so different from all the other computer games out there.  Sim City's creator had a very simple answer.

It's not a game.

He put it quite simply; he said Sim City was a toy, a virtual toy, but not a game by any means.  He likened it to a ball.  A ball is not a game, but many games can be played with it.  You can make up any number more games with a ball because it is a toy.  Now I am not trying to denigrate role-playing games by saying they are nothing more than a mere toys, but I do think it is clear that it is past time to get out of the 'thinking of it as a game' box.  Call it a tool, a toy, a gadget, or whatever, but I think (especially in the realm of immersive simulation) saying that role-playing games have 'goals' the same way all games do is arguable at best.

Obviously every player wants to have their character fulfill their "destiny" that sits in the player's mind while creating them, so no matter the game, that is definitely an inherent goal in all [role-playing games].

Considering the above, I do not think this is 'obvious.'  Note, I am not saying that a player cannot seek to fulfill character 'destiny,' it's the "every player" part I have a problem with.  I think its fair to say that some players do not consider destiny in any part of their minds whatsoever.  I also don't think that this is a degenerative or 'wrong' way of playing.  I just think you are looking too hard to find 'goals' in role-playing gaming.  I don't think goals are necessarily inherent in what you do with a ball, is there?

Fang Langford

[Bankuei]

  I think that games that may not necessarily have an obvious goal or winning scenario still have goals.  At a basic level, you could say that the basic goal of many roleplaying games is to be able to keep playing(not die, reach oblivion, lose one's mind, etc.)    In a game without any chance of death(chinese checkers) there is no rules for it, so that cannot be the goal of the game.
 While you could use GURPS as a tool, it is not conducive to playing narrativist games.  Story is not the goal of the game as much as simulation, and simulation of a character, not of a group, or a movement.
  All balls roll, some bounce, and most can be thrown.  Any game with certain goals can use a ball as a tool(we need something we can kick that rolls) to make the game work.  You cannot play stacking games with a ball.  Jenga will not work with a set of balls, even if magnetic.

 Rpg's have much more open sets of goals than most games, but lets say at least these goals are commmon in most: Continued play, character growth, storytelling, acheiving story goals.

Would you say there's a game that doesn't include at least one of these?

[Ron Edwards]

Bankuei,

Unfortunately, I think your list ("Continued play, character growth, storytelling, acheiving story goals") is sufficiently interpretable to cover just about any human activity, and therefore cannot be meaningfully applied to role-playing as a distinct thing.

My GNS essay is basically about this whole issue: in my opinion, role-playing is a leisure, entertainment activity ("to have fun"). The further, specified versions of fun are articulated as the GNS modes.

I think that things like "storytelling" (in its various forms) are distributed non-randomly acrosss the GNS modes and their sub-types, in very sensible ways. To say that "storytelling" or "continued play" are BY DEFINITION role-playing goals is over-stating, in my opinion. I consider that to be synecdoche, as described in the essay.

However, I think that your first post in this thread asks a lot of excellent questions about techniques and game designs for CERTAIN (not definitive) role-playing goals. Addressing that is a big issue for me.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Bankuei,

If I might, I think that the idea of Narrativist play is to allow players the opportunity to create stories that are as individual or intertwined as one likes. If I can play a cooperative Gamist game as Gareth would assert (and with which I agree, conditionally), then why is it that I must compete in telling a story? That is a bad assumption. I have personally played in games where players lessen their own character's roles in order to enhance the entire story. Just as players in a gamist game might sacrifice their character's HP in order to come out ahead.

If you want cooperation amongst the players in acomplishing your GNS goal, there are mechanical ways to make this occur. In Gamist games, you can make team up attacks more powerful than single attacks, for example. In a Narrativist game you can require that all the players take the same goal as their primary goal (leaving other stuff as sub-plots).

If you want player competition make up rules like RUNE. If you want player collaboration, make up a game that requires common goals.

What's the problem?

Mike

[Bankuei]

I think perhaps "problem" was not the word I intended.  I fully understand that many games are cooperative or competitive based on the players ability to work together or compete.  I guess the question is better phrased as,"Are certain games goals to create a cooperative story, but instead have competitive mechanics, or vice versa? If so, why?"  We can really look at all rules and mechanics as a system of story control("Did I succeed? By how much?  Who can say what happens?").

What games are better at creating cooperative stories, some competitive, simply by their mechanics and why?   Just as important, if the goal is to tell story, why are the mechanics not focused around the story, and what mechanics can create a good story(if mechanics indeed can)?

I guess its hard to narrow it down to a solid question at the moment, its fairly nebulous and large in my mind.  It struck me while looking at Story Engine, Theatrix, and the Pool that while the goal is story, that most of the rewards come in improvements to your character's growth, and many of the mechanics are based off the character in game value of stats instead of story value.  So if the goal of the game is to tell a good story, and most of these games were built on the premise that the rules should not get in the way of story, why are the rules themselves not much about supporting the story?

 While I have seen Theatrix's flowchart, perhaps its just a little too dry for me to digest.  Even then, why are character's measured in abilities and numbers?  It seems to be unrelated to the story itself, and more a hold over from D&D...

Feel free to fling random responses into this stew :smile:

Bankuei

[Le Joueur]

Bankuei wrote:

I think that games that may not necessarily have an obvious goal or winning scenario still have goals.  At a basic level, you could say that the basic goal of many role-playing games is to be able to keep playing (not die, reach oblivion, lose one's mind, etc.) In a game without any chance of death (Chinese checkers) there are no rules for it, so that cannot be the goal of the game.

I can tell I'm not getting through here.  At the basic level a ball has no goals attached to it.  This is true even though I can't think of anything that a ball can be used for that does not have a goal.  The ball still remains goalless.  That's the freedom of it.  Like Sim City, you make up your own goals because it's a toy.

While you could use GURPS as a tool, it is not conducive to playing Narrativist games.  Story is not the goal of the game as much as simulation, and simulation of a character, not of a group, or a movement.

In the ball analogy, GURPS could be a rugby ball, not terribly conducive to playing baseball.  This does not make goals inherent to balls, just to what people do with them.

A ball, as a toy, is for having fun.  That is not its goal, but its purpose.  Parcheesi has a goal, winning, its purpose it to give fun in the process.  I am saying that role-playing games are too diverse to say that they all have goals inherent to them.

All balls roll, some bounce, and most can be thrown.  Any game with certain goals can use a ball as a tool (we need something we can kick that rolls) to make the game work.  You cannot play stacking games with a ball.  Jenga will not work with a set of balls, even if magnetic.

Jenga is a game, balls are toys; how many different games can you play with Jenga?  Does that measure up to how many you can play with balls?  Or with role-playing games (taken as an entirety)?

Rpg's have much more open sets of goals than most games, but lets say at least these goals are common in most: Continued play, character growth, storytelling, achieving story goals.

Is there any point in me trying to name some examples that don't have any of these goals?  Or that don't have any goals at all?  Would you even take the effort seriously or are we at the point were we agree to disagree?

Would you say there's a game that doesn't include at least one of these?

I wouldn't even argue that something like these doesn't exist is all non-role-playing games, but I have to ask, if I am trying to convince you that role-playing games don't all have goals and are therefore more toy-like than game-like, is there any point in looking for goals in other games?

If you are asking if there are role-playing games that do not have any of those goals, would my answer make any difference to you?  I think one could clearly have a role-playing game without them (no examples even seem necessary), but I doubt I can say anything to make you agree.

Let me put it another way, if you are juggling all by yourself, not for practice, what's the goal?  I do it all the time; do I have some kind of hidden agenda?  Certainly the pleasure I evoke doing so is inherent, that's the purpose of my juggling, but not its goal.  (And before you chime in with 'to continue,' I must point out that I am not so good that that is even an issue.  I am always picking up after myself.  Were that a goal, I would be a failure, but that's not how it feels.)  I juggle Koosh balls, others use them as paperweights; role-playing games are this flexible and goalless.

I do what I like.  You do what you like; if you have a goal that's fine too, but you can't say that because you always have a goal, that all role-playing gaming is about goals.  Is that any clearer?

Fang Langford

[ This Message was edited by: Le Joueur on 2001-10-26 19:06 ]

[Mike Holmes]

Fang, that's silly. A Goal doesn't have to be a "hidden agenda" or anything so sophiticated to be a goal. As Ron points out, the traditional goal of all RPGs is to have fun. The GNS "goals" then are the things that are pursued to have fun. I'm assuming that you juggle to have fun, even when you are alone. Or at least to improve, which would be to become generally more satisfied. The "to have fun" thing could be more precisely stated as to get some sort of satisfaction from the act.

Which is what my one year old son is doing right now with his toy ball. He's just batting it around. Why? Well, I can't read his mind, but there's a smile on his face.

What Sid Mier said about Sim City is more parallel to the difference between Gamism and Simulationism (no surprise). His game is a Simulation, hence the name. It is not a Game. Or, it is Simulationist, not Gamist to make the analogy.

Mike

[Le Joueur]

Mike Holmes wrote:

As Ron points out, the traditional goal of all RPGs is to have fun. The GNS "goals" then are the things that are pursued to have fun. I'm assuming that you juggle to have fun, even when you are alone. Or at least to improve, which would be to become generally more satisfied. The "to have fun" thing could be more precisely stated as to get some sort of satisfaction from the act.

The problem with the 'for fun' goal argument is that this kind of reasoning can be used to say that everything has goals, which is patently false.  But I am not here to quibble.  I just wanted to introduce the concept of role-playing games as not being games, but something akin to a toy.

What Sid Mier said about Sim City is more parallel to the difference between Gamism and Simulationism (no surprise). His game is a Simulation, hence the name. It is not a Game. Or, it is Simulationist, not Gamist to make the analogy.

But that's just it, does a simulation have a goal the way that has been suggested in this discussion?  If games have goals, do simulations have likewise?  I believe not.  That's why I said that role-playing games were not 'games' in the way described earlier.  Since some role-playing games can be Simulationist, they are therefore un-gamelike in that way.  My only point is that thus they are not so casually ascribed goals like has been suggested.  That's all.

All this discussion is a result of me hearing someone say what sounded like, "like all games, role-playing games have these goals...."  The real question asked aside, I took 'offense' at the way this seemed to marginalize Simulationism.  (To me, simulations do not have goals the way that games do.)  Since this stems from my own opinion about the nature of the difference between simulation and game theory, I doubt that we will get any farther in this discussion.  Since I already raised the question of whether role-playing games necessarily have goals or not, my purpose is fulfilled.  Therefore, I am prepared to let this go.  Okay?

Fang Langford

[Jared A. Sorensen]

On 2001-10-27 14:49, Mike Holmes wrote:
What Sid Mier said about Sim City is more parallel to the difference between Gamism and Simulationism (no surprise). His game is a Simulation, hence the name. It is not a Game. Or, it is Simulationist, not Gamist to make the analogy.

That would be Will Wright (Sid did the Civ games). I actually got to hear Will speak a few months back -- lots of interesting things to say, some of which applied to RPGs (obliquely, of course).

I disagree that SimCity is a toy -- it has specific goals set up, or goals that can be set by the player. It's more unstructured than a game like, say, Doom, but it is a game.

[Bankuei]

  I guess to clarify what I'm saying, you're correct, the term I mean is purpose.  I think we can all agree the purpose is to have fun, what I am talking about is the means that the toy or the game is intended to provide fun.  

 What I mean is that the wood blocks cannot fufill the same purpose as a ball in the ways you can use them.  You cannot play the same games with jenga blocks as you can with balls, just as you cannot play basketball with a block(well, maybe, it just will suck to dribble :razz:).  The design is the mechanics, and the mechanics are intended to facilitate the purpose of the game, whether it be narrativism, simulation, or gamism. A toy itself has no rules, while a game does.

 Every rpg has a resolution mechanic, even if it is as simple as I say it happens, so it does.  This mechanic already indicates that there is a possiblity of things happening that are against what I'm trying to acheive in the game.  But does the specific mechanic fit in with the purpose of the game to simulate, create a story, or play as a challenging game?

 Does competing authorship help tell a good story?

 If the purpose is to create a good story, what does the mechanics do to benefit the purpose of story by making your character more powerful?  Making the player more powerful to alter the story?  

 Many systems claim that the rules "allow" you to tell a good story, but shouldn't they support you in telling a good story?

It took me a week to get it straight, but maybe this will bring it back to focus...sorry it took so long... :smile:

Bankuei

[Marco]

 Does competing authorship help tell a good story?

 If the purpose is to create a good story, what does the mechanics do to benefit the purpose of story by making your character more powerful?  Making the player more powerful to alter the story?  

 Many systems claim that the rules "allow" you to tell a good story, but shouldn't they support you in telling a good story?

I think the problem I'm having with answering this in a way that would be meaningful this is that 'good' has always been debatable and 'story' has several different meanings on The Forge.

That said:
I think a rules-system may have better luck trying to 'allow' good stories than 'support' them (This isn't to say that a given system can't greatly 'support' what your group is doing--just that it might poorly support another group who would say they're "trying to do the same thing.")

It's been my experience that 'good stories' are ones where the plot is interesting and exciting to all involved and the sense of timing is well handled. Great stories, in my experience, are those where there are literary themes at work (as well as other literary mechanics like foreshadowing, symbolism, etc.)

By literary themes I meam themes in the Lit 101 sense (and not The Forge sense) and I would extend that definition with "those themes which have emotional importance with the participants."

Because themes and emotional-resonances can change from person to person and game-session to game-session, a system which promotes theme-X at one point during the game, can actually work against desired theme-Y later on. So the creation of 'good stories' ultimately rests with the gamers, and a system can only allow it (IMHO).

Therefore, it seems to me that a game's biggest contribution to 'good stories' is the source material and that material's attention to theme and its resonance with the players (i.e. for a given genre and theme the gamers have more responsibility for a 'great story' than the mechanics).

Of course by this definiton, White Wolf's games are really good at creating 'good stories' (they have their own language, great artwork, strong thematic material), and lots of people here (myself included) found them disappointing to play.

I think Ron would say that they were miss-marketed to him with false claims of Narrativism.

I'd say I found the mechanics foggy.

But WW is a big, fairly-successful company and lots of people love their stuff--and I've played in a few *great* games in their universe (using GURPS rules :smile: )--so I think they've done their part in providing raw-meat.

As a counter example, I'd point to Call of Cthulhu which is, I think, pretty damn highly regarded in doing what it does.

-Marco


[ This Message was edited by: Marco on 2001-10-28 11:17 ]

[Le Joueur]

Bankuei wrote:

The design is the mechanics, and the mechanics are intended to facilitate the purpose of the game, whether it be narrativism, simulation, or gamism. A toy itself has no rules, while a game does.

And my point is that role-playing games don't have rules telling you what you are supposed to do with them (like toys, you can do whatever you like).  As mentioned, a game (the non-role-playing style) has, for lack of better terms, victory conditions.  You work towards a goal and then acheive it.

You can't do that in simulation.

Any goal that is involved in simulation would be like 'staying in the zone,' right?  To me this is about as ungame-like as it gets.  Some role-playing games are like simulations therefore not all role-playing games are game-like, see my point?

Every rpg has a resolution mechanic, even if it is as simple as I say it happens, so it does.  This mechanic already indicates that there is a possiblity of things happening that are against what I'm trying to acheive in the game.  But does the specific mechanic fit in with the purpose of the game to simulate, create a story, or play as a challenging game?

Now it sounds like your suffering from the idea that every mechanic has one-to-one specific purpose attachement.  In my opinion this is not so.  I believe there are a huge number of mechanics that lend themselves to many different goals, both within the GNS model and without.

Only when mechanics are brought together into a system can you actually address how well 'focused' they are.  At the 'is this one mechanic right for said focus' level, you can't really say anything without seeing how it all works together.  (Though I am not versed in it,) take the Pool for example, if I am not mistaken it uses a dice pool mechanic vaguely similar to the ones found in Shadowrun and Vampire: the Masquerade, yet as a whole, it is very Narrativist while the other two arguably are not.  Is the dice-pool mechanic Narrativist?  Alone you cannot say.  It can only be determined when the system is examined (and probably played) as a whole.

This is why I have had so much trouble with this, 'all games have purposes' talk and the fact that you have not really demonstrated that all role-playing games (despite their name) are games.  The very fact that what you seem to be eventually driving at is a problem with systems that do not do what they say they are for brings this right back up.  If you want to discuss where a specific system does not work as advertised, pick one.  Simply saying that, being games, all role-playing games should have a focused purpose overlooks years of bad design in (my opinion) a poorly understood field.

I sense some very specific complaints lurking in this discussion, to which I ask, "where's the beef?"  If some specific system fails as portrayed, let us examine it openly instead of all this prevarication.

It has been said by many people, in many places, that you can't really design a role-playing backwards from its focus to its implementation.  Trying to find a correlation between specific mechanics and their supposed purposes is likewise pointless.

Fang Langford (who is feeling a little crabby after the hell of last week)

[contracycle]

And my point is that role-playing games don't have rules telling you what you are supposed to do with them (like toys, you can do whatever you like).  As mentioned, a game

Not true.  All games have feedback loops to induce behaviour.  Pawns can only move forward, frex; you start at the back of the board.  RPG's have feedback loops too: "kill all the monsters and grab their stuff for XP's" being among the most iniquitous.  This is why system matters.

You can't do that in simulation.

Noooo.... but: the Situation has implicit goals.  Take the wargame thread, implicit in any such game will be the personal goal "survive the war".  This goal may be modified, even removed, in the course of play, but you can be confident that it is present in every character at the start of play, or at least there will be a specific reason why not.  It is so implicit it needs no stating; but its very universality suggests that it operates with much the same breadth as a metagame goal "keep playing".

This is why I have had so much trouble with this, 'all games have purposes' talk and the fact that you have not really demonstrated that all role-playing games (despite their name) are games.  The very fact that what you seem to

All games are composed of reciprocal actions.  They feature reward and penalty systems (keep playing/stop playing at simplest).  RPG's qualify.

It has been said by many people, in many places, that you can't really design a role-playing backwards from its focus to its implementation.  Trying to find a correlation between specific mechanics and their supposed purposes is likewise pointless.

Really?  Perhaps I misundretsand, would you like to exapnd on what you mean here?