"Getting It": Threat or Menace!

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi all,

I've been meaning to start this thread for about two weeks now, every since the latest round of RPG.net confusion-mania about GNS.  However, I had no idea how to approach it.  However, today two posts appeard on Forge threads that gave me an angle, so here goes:

In a lot of discussion about GNS, particularly about Narrativism, a standard response to naysayers (to those who say it doesn't exist as well as those who say it does, but it's stupid, but really aren't groking it, if their posts are any indication), is, "You just don't get it."

I'm going to be blunt.  I hate that response.  Hate.  It.  It makes my stomach curl.  When people who are told this say, "That's a useless and condescending response," I think, "Yeah.  It is."  I mean, how does it help *any* discussion to say this?

But, that said, here's the problem:  I think it's true.  Some people really just aren't getting certain notion. We talk around here of "ingraine habits," and a lot of people have them about RPGs.  Even when "experience gamers" allow for variations in styles of play and goals of play, these styls, goals, and the techniques used for them are often limited to styles, goals and techniques that have been around for 20 years and folks are just picking and choosing among rather proscribed options.

The truth is (and sorry for any lurkers reading who disagree), there are new styles, goals and techniques afoot.  Really different.  

And as Ralph and Alan noted on the RotS Negative Review thread ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9495 ) they didn't "get" how to play with the style, techniques and goals of RotS for a while.  Alan made it clear even while he was playing the game he was working unders so many old assumptions he wasn't playing the game with the same grokking really required to play it well.  There were new styles, techniques and goals that one needed to really get all the "juice" out of RotS and he didn't "get" them.

It's just really true.  There's stuff floating around in the hobby that's different, and some people aren't getting it.  Because the base assumptions about what an RPG is "supposed to be" are being turned, if not completely tossed out the window.

But what to do to explain, to be clear, to offer these new options?  "You don't get it," is useless.  I think it bothers me as a response because it reflects a collapse of faith on the person using the phrase.  It removes all responsibility to be clear, and dumps all the work on the recieving the phrase -- without any clue, new perspective or ideas on how to percieve.  At this point its a matter of a mystical revelation -- "You either get it or you don't, and until you do, I can't help you."

Then I read Jesse's post over in the Sorcerer forum on player authority.  ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9517 ).  This really struck a chord for me, because Jesse *didn't* speak in abstractions at all.  He didn't use any jargon (in the best sense of the word).  He spoke in terms of the nuts and bolts of how people usually play, and how people play with these new-fangled styles, techniques and goals.  

Anyone reading this post who hadn't gotten it before either would 1) get it and like it; 2) get it and not like it; not get it, but get enough of where it was going to either 3) ask more questions like, "How in god's name would that work?"; or say, "You know, I think I like the way I play, bye."

But there was no point where it became, "Do you accept this or not?"  Jesse simply laid out the facts: "Here's how people play with 'standard' assumptions, and the results of that play are *this*,"  and "Here's how I play with these different results."

That really clicked for me.  

Then I read Brand's really great post on page 3 of the Glorantha Cold Feet thread (it's the post that begins, "Confidence is a large part of it."): http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9417&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

I think he lays out the same kind of thinking required to explain these new styles, techniques and goals.  It's not about referencing more arcana.  It's about explaining, cleanly, the *agenda* of the new things.  And that's exactly what Jesse did so well.

When you do it this way, and the person doesn't "get it" the only real option available to him (if he's actually interested) is to ask more questions.  The common question will probably be "Why?"  (Glorantha's mythology was designed to produce this effect."  Even if the person hates the idea, he's left with, "But why?!"  And then you answer.)

I really suggest looking at these two threads in tandem and seeing how the jesse's post is an illustration of Brand's idea about explaining Glorantha -- expect Jesse happens to be introducing Narrativism.

I think there's something to be learned here.

Christopher

[Bankuei]

Hi Christopher,

I also think that this is something that can, and should be, more addressed in game texts.  A great deal of game texts fail to explain some baseline assumptions, which you're just expected to "know", which causes a lot of the problems for new players coming in with different assumptions.  

The issue for both HeroQuest and Riddle of Steel is that the baseline assumptions about "how play goes" aren't addressed in the books.  They are, at best, briefly mentioned, and actual, solid techniques for achieving those ends are absent.  So, you have folks come in and try to apply Sim/Ill techniques to mechanics that just don't work with them, and friction occurs.  

This isn't a major strike against these games, since most games fail to provide comprehensive sets of techniques for their intended play styles.  It just happens to be that more people would "get it" if the techniques were included with the core book, instead of either giving up, or having to ask around in order to get the "toolset" of techniques.

That said, I'm also a big advocate of simple, simple language when possible.

Chris

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Chris,

Yes.  Good points about the game texts.

I'd also offer, thought, that "What are we trying to get to?" is just as important as "How play goes."

A basic assumption of the System Matters crowd is, "If you play it the right way, you'll get the right results."  I'm beginning to suspect not -- and not only because of old habits.  If its something really new, and people don't know where they are trying to get to, then they can easily fall off course without knowing why.  

I think if you write a book and say, "And this is the kind of play you'll get..." you solve a bunch of problems.  1) You set the target for play, so players know where they are heading.  2) You set a target for the players to measure progress of using the rules correctly.  3)  You let people right off the bat know where the game is supposed to go and if they don't like it, they realize they shouldn't play it.  (This last one means people aren't pissed that games are "broken" when, in fact, they're trying to get it to do something it wasn't designed to do.

This notion flies in the fact of standard text writing.  Most RPG text is designed with the idea that "the players will do with it what they will -- I'm designing the lego blocks, they can build whatever they want."   Thus, spelling out the purpose of the rules, the effect of play to be expected is crazy.  The possibilities are supposed to be limitless (especially if one expects a lot of under the hood rules tweaking.)

But the System Matter guys says, "Well he can build a lot of different things, but some will better than others."  I'm saying, let's be up front about what those better than other things are.  Let's make the agenda explicit from the outset.

How to play will help as long as the actual play matches the examples. But we all know that the nature of the games can lead to all sorts of unexpected situations.  But look again at Jesse's post.  He's saying "how to play."  But without those sentences about "what to expect," the paragraphs wouldn't mean a tenth as much.  

If people are really serious about System Matters, then people have to be willing to take apart what the systems are really about  and be explicit and clear about what the results of one system or another are going to be.

This all said, I know for a fact that so much of what's been going on the last few years (with Sorcerer, Riddle of Steel, HQ and much more), is all this big brainstorming that keeps producing results from the rules that in many cases no one could fully predict.  I think that's why the game texts someimes falter: the designers had built a machine that they thought would prodce X, but didn't realize that, even cooler, if pushed in a direction they hadn't thought of, it could also do Y and, amazingly, Z!

However, there's been a lot of analysis lately. There's been a lot of actual play.  There's been a lot of comparing of notes, tweaking of rules, expermentation with new styles, techniques and goals.  I think people have a much better idea of what happens when you mix Style A with Technique B.  And, more imporantly, people *know* where they want to go.  They want result C, so they make sure to mix Style A with Technique B.  

Again, that's what I'm after. In Brand's post, he makes it clear that Glorantha was designed to produce certain results.  To explain what its supposed to do, I think, will be more productive than simply saying, "Do this," and assuming those results will be reached.  People, human players at the table, add to many variables to insure those results will be reached -- especially if they don't even know those results are the goals to shoot for.  

And, finally, and vitally, knowing if those goals are goals you want will have an awful lot to offer to players: Do I want to go to that goal or not?  That's a fair and valic question.

Christopher

[Luke]

It's funny, Ron and I talk about this every so often.

My comment here is simple corroboration-- a look from the inside: It's incredibly hard to write from the perspective of "helping someone get it." You can only see the "get it/not get it" phenomena once the game is fixed in form and out in play. Displaying that knowledge beforehand is virtually impossible.

Not that I am making excuses. I utterly fell down in this department in BW, and I have every intention of address the, "Yes, but how do you play?!" questions in an upcoming edition/book. To me, the answers were either obvious (but only to me) or I wanted the "answers" to become evident during play via use of the system (as CK's lego blocks example). It astounded me that people couldn't use the system as is and see both its intent and its fluidity. But this is very much the case.

So I agree with you both: Big ideas in plain terms.

let's push the envelope,
-L

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hey,

Thanks for the agreement.

I want to pick up on one thing you wrote.  I almost commented on it above, but feared I'd be pointing fingers without ever having put myself on the line.  But you brought it up, so I"m going for it:

"I wanted the 'answers' to become evident during play via use of the system."

I don't think you're alone in this.  Speaking not as designer, and only as a reader and player, I think this is a very common attitude among this System Matters crew.  "We designed it right, just play it, you'll see."

I no longer think this is the case.  There are just too many variable (old habits, four human beings, uncertainty about what a certain portion of text means...).  

I also think (and this is where I hesitate), there's a kind of perverse GM quality here.  It's when the GM has this whole cool "story" that the players know nothing about, and when its all over, they'll "get" it.  

I think not letting the players of a game in on where the game is going is just like that.  One is expecting them to play on blind faith instead of making the contract explicit: "This game does *this.*  Would you like to play or not?"

I think this is the mystery of the Monopoly Rules / RPG Rules thread I started.  I think now RPGs *just are that weird.*  And the only way to invoke clarity is not just in explaining the rules clearly, but to say, "This is where we're going.  By mixing these rules and techniques, and encouraging this style, you're going to get X."

Otherwise there's a whole sea of results that can be created -- and not because of any particular fault on the part of the players.  They're often doing the best they can with rules that lay down the law -- but are open to interpretation.  To set up the agenda of the rules explicitely helps everyone at the table stay on track, is honest about what the book is supposed to provide, and forms a solid contract between the designer and the buyer.

Hmmmm.  Now, whether such a rule book would need to be five volumes in length to insure all was clear, I don't know.  Would one have to say, "Many people assume X, this game is Y."  Or could we just move on to Y directly and save pages, I just don't know.

Christopher

[clehrich]

I wanted the 'answers' to become evident during play via use of the system.

I don't think you're alone in this.  Speaking not as designer, and only as a reader and player, I think this is a very common attitude among this System Matters crew.  "We designed it right, just play it, you'll see." ....I also think (and this is where I hesitate), there's a kind of perverse GM quality here.  It's when the GM has this whole cool "story" that the players know nothing about, and when its all over, they'll "get" it.  

I agree -- I think you're absolutely dead right.  I don't think it's perverse, particularly, in the sense that most game designers are GM's, and in a broader sense this is as close to writing a novel as most of us get.  But you're absolutely right that the idea is to get the players to experience one's vision of play through the magic of play.

I also agree that this is a big mistake, although it might be more so the more complex or unusual the game.  

Of course, "unusual" is a relative measure, and depends on what the readers have been reading and playing, and this is exactly the point: if you actually knew perfectly what your readers expected and had done, you really could design a system that would, in play, transport them from what they had done to what you thought your game was about.  But you don't know, and these days there's such a wide range of games that you can't even really guess.

As I found myself writing on another thread just this morning, the big difficulty here is that it's fantastically difficult to write so well that your really rather abstract, aesthetic conception is perfectly clear to everyone.  And that really does have to be the goal: "pretty good" will produce a "pretty good" sense of what you have in mind, but allow for various deep-rooted disjunctures along the way that may cause problems.

As you noted at the start of the thread, this all holds good for theory as well (as in GNS, for example).  Here there are models for great writing of theory, but it's a long slog to learn to emulate them effectively.  There are no models that I know of for truly great descriptions of the feel and sense of a game in play, i.e. ones that, if presented to someone with no experience of gaming and some gross misconceptions about what the hobby is about, would completely change their views in most cases.  We need to compose these, but it's going to be a while.

Sadly, I think the only solution here is (1) as you say, write up descriptions of what you have in mind, and stop holding your cards back for others to discover, and (2) really focus intently on writing, and learn to write extremely clearly and precisely.

Chris Lehrich

[Christopher Kubasik]

Chris,

If I may ask, what is "sad" about your two final suggestions?

Christopher

PS aside from the fact it'd be really cool to have pill people could pop to "get" the whole game right away.

[clehrich]

If I may ask, what is "sad" about your two final suggestions?....
PS aside from the fact it'd be really cool to have pill people could pop to "get" the whole game right away.

Well, that's one point, of course.  John Kim has a theory that there's a magic baseball bat out there that you can hit people with and have them suddenly "get it."  So if you're having an argument with someone who just won't see reason, you hit him with the bat repeatedly, at which point he says, "Oh, I see.  You are right and I am wrong.  Thank you for hitting me with that baseball bat."  Sadly, this magic item is clearly an Artifact or Relic, and comes with considerable disadvantages (like being eaten by Asmodeus, I believe).

Seriously, what I meant was that training oneself to write this clearly is a life's labor, not something one can just pick up.  Far too many games, indie and big-company alike, are written in a kind of scattershot "good enough" English, and if the writers sat down to write a "here's what happens" it would just be long and not really effective.  Clear writing, in any mode, is an exceptionally difficult thing to achieve, and one not taken terribly seriously by a significant number of RPG writers.

Chris Lehrich

[pete_darby]

All you have to do, and this is very, very easy, is imagine you're writing a description for your game for someone you find amazingly attractive, who, once they understand your game, will spend the next three weeks, at least, paying you to alternate playing the game with having wild sex with them.

Consumption of food may be included in that, or attendance at popular cultural events, should you feel the need.

Of course, in my case, the fact that I believe parts of that model may be entirely true certainly help to motivate me.

More seriously, thinking of it as a chore will kill it: you're trying to communicate enthusiasm, right?

And it's an incredibly good test of the system... if you can't explain coherently why a rule, or system, or whatever, is in your rulebook, in terms that an interested newcomer (not necessarily to role-playing, but certainly to your game) can understand, you think long and hard about why it's there...

The "good enough" communication starts with the assumption that we're all singing from the same hymn book, with a hope we're on similar pages. Which is okay for teaching a new hymn to the converted, but sucks at getting the faithless into church. Or something.

But if we tell ourselves it's hard to begin with, we begin to sound like my 5 year old convincing himself that tidying the room is too hard, it makes his arms tired.... just after climbing up me while I was trying to post on the internet...

Remember, for you game writers, your reward is three whole imaginary weeks of debauchery with a non-existent person!

[Paganini]

Of course Chris (Bankuei) was too polite to plug his own RPG.NET collumn "Ways to Play" which I think is a very useful plain english explanation of a lot of this stuff.

I also want to add something to Christopher (Kubasik's) post. He basically made the point there are just too many assumptions out there for players to be able to "get it" just by playing - the game text needs to help out.

I would suggest that even for people who do "get it," these things still need to be writen down, for precisely the same reasons. There are a *lot* of different ways to do things. Even if we understand what they are and how to use them, if the deisgner doesn't indicate which ones are supposed to be used it's easy for players to come to the table with different ideas. Ron's own games Elfs and Trollbabe are great examples. Ron's literall response to certain questions about these games is often "play and see." It can'be explained, actual plau will teach you. We played Trollbabe three different tims ( two of the times were multi-session campaigns) and I thought it sucked sucked sucked. I understand it better now than I did then, but I got the understanding through discussions, not through play. (And I still think Elfs sucks, BTW. Sorry Ron. :)

Edit: Just to say, I know there are a lot of people who like Elfs and Trollbabe. I didn't mean to imply that they're bad games or anything. (Well... I think Elfs is a bad game. ;) I'm just saying that the texts don't really help you understand how Ron intended them to be played. That can be problematic, even for people who "get it."

[Shreyas Sampat]

One thing I find difficult with "helping people get it" is that, often, people who get it don't know what insight it is that makes the rest of things fall into place.  This happens to me all the time - over and over again, I have posted in attempts to answer questions about things I though were patently obvious, and someone like Jonathan Walton turns around and says, "what Shreyas is hinting at is this..." and I realize that I knew that the whole time and the only reason I didn't post about it was that it didn't eeven come to mind, because it's an integral part of my understanding.

That kind of thinking makes it terrible trying to explain things.

[C. Edwards]

I just want to second Shreyas' point.

As designers, and gamers, we often internalize the experience and techniques we use to promote a certain play experience. They become translated into our own inner language and spitting them back out in a manner that is comprehensible to anyone else can be a frustrating excercise.

It's like showing someone a Rorschach inkblot. They say that they have no idea what it could be, so you add some more ink and show it to them again in the hope that it will look like SOMETHING this time. Very hit or miss.

-Chris

[Bankuei]

Hi folks,

I think it is a careful balance of setting goals and providing solid techniques towards acheiving them.  What had really struck people about Jesse's post was the techniques provided in concrete terms.  GNS gives really broad goals, it doesn't define which techniques should be applied, so naturally its hard for a lot of people to see it.  

Some games can effectively force their goals into being, particularly if it's hardwired into IIEE/resolution.  Consider the difference between Sorcerer and Inspectres.  You could use the Sorcerer resolution mechanics and play Sim, and many people end up doing that and saying, "What's so special about this game?"  You cannot use Inspectres and run Sim/Ill play, without out and out ignoring the resolution system.

The incoherence we see in many game texts comes from stating one set of goals and providing techniques that fail to deliver, or failing to provide necessary techniques to make it happen.

Chris

[John Kim]

I think it's true.  Some people really just aren't getting certain notion. We talk around here of "ingrained habits," and a lot of people have them about RPGs.  Even when "experience gamers" allow for variations in styles of play and goals of play, these styls, goals, and the techniques used for them are often limited to styles, goals and techniques that have been around for 20 years and folks are just picking and choosing among rather proscribed options.

The truth is (and sorry for any lurkers reading who disagree), there are new styles, goals and techniques afoot.  Really different.  

My big caveat about this is the idea that "old" gaming is all simple and known.  While there are people with a limited view of gaming, I think that has always been true and will be true for a long time to come.  When I read about differing experiences on rgfa in 1995-97, I found myself really stunned by how unique and varied people's games were.  I feel the same thing when I hear about freeform LARPs in Australia or Scandanavian countries.  Ron has talked about how Narrativism has been around for a long time, just not labelled as such, and I think he's right on that point.  There have always been pockets of people playing in interesting and different ways.  

To me what is great about The Forge is in how these ideas are being discussed on the net and written up into published commercial systems.   People have always run games in some intriguing ways, but there wasn't really the attitude and language to really communicate what those were, and certainly not the perception that such things could be commercially publishable.  

And as Ralph and Alan noted on the RotS Negative Review thread ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9495 ) they didn't "get" how to play with the style, techniques and goals of RotS for a while.  Alan made it clear even while he was playing the game he was working unders so many old assumptions he wasn't playing the game with the same grokking really required to play it well.  There were new styles, techniques and goals that one needed to really get all the "juice" out of RotS and he didn't "get" them.  

It's just really true.  

What makes me uncomfortable about this is what you judge a game on.  For example, I have played and run in some really great HERO System games -- not just "have fun beating up supervillians", but games with real emotional power for the players.  I think that most people just don't understand the styles, techniques, and goals which allow you to really get the juice out of it this way.  

So if you review a system, what do you assume?  Do you assume a talented GM and players who "gets it" and can run great scenarios?  Or do you assume experienced gamers with ingrained habits from other RPGs?  Or do you assume intelligent people who have never played an RPG before?  I think any of these are acceptable, but one should be consistent.  i.e. If you review The Riddle of Steel assuming gamers who "get it" -- then you should also review, say, the Action! System assuming equivalent talent and insight on the part of the GM and players.  

I tend to instead assume typical gamers.  Thus, for example, I reviewed the Lord of the Rings RPG -- and I was flamed by some fans of the game who claimed I didn't "get it".  On the one hand, I agree with them and I'm sure that a talented GM can run a very fun game of LOTR.  But I think my assumption is better for the majority of my review audience.

[Mike Holmes]

What I'm hearing, and forgive the reduction, is:

System Matters

But

Tell them why it matters along with the system. So it's easier to get.

Sounds good to me. I think that a lot of the text that we advise against that says, "This RPG isn't like other RPGs" is trying to get the agenda across to the player. I still think that it's not a good way to do it, but you can see that designer's hearts are in the right place. They know that players might not get it, but they don't know what to say most times other than, "It's not like other RPGs".

Mike