The Forge Archives

This came out of my initial response to Ron's "Narrativism" essay, in one section of which he describes games that have Premise-addressing built into their mechanics but then bury it under a hefty amount of Setting, seducing players towards more Simulationist tendencies.  One of his main examples is Robin Law's Over the Edge, which Laws claims to have initially run based on a few notes scribbled on a sheet of paper, but then included the setting that later developed in the published version of the game.

Also, Ralph's recent thread about Shooting Sacred Cows made me think about the cows that follow all game designers around and tell them what "real roleplaying games" have to look like.

This caused me to think:

1. Are detailed settings one of roleplaying's sacred cows?

and a related point...

2. Are 100+ page rulebooks (most often filled with setting and subsystem mechanics) another sacred cow?

and, answering "yes" to both of those, ...

3. If I was someone interested in roleplaying, what kinds of things would provide obstacles that would keep me from actually roleplaying?

Answer A: "Detailed settings that I have to read about and digest before being able to realistically portray a character that's supposedly familiar with such a setting" (again, this isn't necessary for good roleplaying, but many beginning roleplayers have expressed this concern to me).

Answer B: "100+ page rulebooks that seem intimidating, even if I don't have to know every rule in them.  They don't seem to put me on even ground with players that have invested all the time to get to know every facet of the game.  I'm not THAT interested, frankly."

Time to load both barrels and take aim...

Here's the problem.  Game designers like designing games.  Not a huge revelation.  And, since most game designers enjoying playing games, GMing games, developing complex settings and characters, making neat mechanics to cover all aspects of what we want play to look like, and (perhaps worst of all) imagining what our games might look like as 300+ page hardbacks with gorgeous cover art, we design and design and design and design, with no end in sight.

How many times have you heard game designers saying stuff like "Well, we wanted to include information about X and Y, and a cool system for Z, but we just ran out of room in the book."  Hah!  What a crock!  We all have this sick need to publish everything cool that we come up with, whether it really supports what we're trying to do or not.  After all, some gamer out there might be bummed out because X isn't in the book, so we better make damned well sure that we said something about X, otherwise that poor gamer is not going to know what to do.

So, my current design goal is this: Atkins-Friendly RPGs.  Horrible name, I know, but descriptive.  High protein, low carb RPGs.  Or, in the words of Sum 41: "All Killer, No Filler."  None of that gratuitous setting packed in to fill up those extra 50 pages that you feel your RPG needs to give it bulk or to earn real respect.  Cool ideas DO NOT immediate translate into things that get published.  Are they really critical to the game?  No.  Stop.  Think again.  I know it's frickin' unbelievably cool, but does it really matter?

Here's the benefits:

1. Less intimidating and more accessibile.
2. Less prep-time before play begins.
3. You don't have to write those extra 50+ pages.
4. Actual writing time cut to a fraction (might take more time to decide what to include, though).
5. You can focus on presentation and clarity of communication.
6. You can afford to print your game, since it's much shorter.

Games already following this model:
-- Everything Jared ever wrote.
-- Dust Devils & Nine Worlds.
-- My Life with Master.
-- Kill Puppies for Satan.

Wouldn't that be great company to be in?

You can add PUNK to that list too. Once I make the PDF and host it on my webspace, that is. :P

Hi Jonathan,

No credit for Sorcerer? I'm the one who took the industry brunt for the team! "That little thing?" Geez, you shoulda seen them at GAMA 2001, and heard all the helpful and sorrowful advice that my vision was all well and good, but you see, only these kinds of games (gesture toward piles of typical whatnot) are what people want.

Only the heroic efforts of Liza Fulda and my native slightly-menacing cheer kept me from getting squished like a bug.

More seriously, Over the Edge is by Jonathan Tweet and all the passages you are referring to are written by him. Laws wrote a very important essay which is included in the game, but it has nothing to do with the aspects of the game which you're using here. My essay's pretty straightforward about that, I think.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron EdwardsGeez, you shoulda seen them at GAMA 2001, and heard all the helpful and sorrowful advice that my vision was all well and good, but you see, only these kinds of games (gesture toward piles of typical whatnot) are what people want.

Hopefully, the No-Press Anthology will act as a sort of Trojan horse, packing several short-form/no-filler RPGs into a book of more familiar thickness than the average PDF game.

Quote from: Ron EdwardsNo credit for Sorcerer? I'm the one who took the industry brunt for the team! "That little thing?" Geez, you shoulda seen them at GAMA 2001, and heard all the helpful and sorrowful advice that my vision was all well and good, but you see, only these kinds of games (gesture toward piles of typical whatnot) are what people want.

Sorry, Ron.  I didn't really realize that Sorcerer wasn't one of those massive tomes because...  and this is a little embarassing to admit... I don't actually own Sorcerer... or Dust Devils... or Donjon... or any of Jared's games...

Yes, I'm a bad, bad man.  Let me buy books for next semester, first.

More seriously, I realize that my point is not the same point Laws was making, but I found it very informative.  Makes me want to make really solid, really short games.  Less than 36 pages, printed on heavy stock, hardcover, maybe even full-color art, sideways-oriented, 11x8.5", like they do with children's books.  Nothing threatening about that.. Very friendly and approachable.

My initial, gut reaction to Jonathan's initial post is "what the hell are you talking about?"

This smacks of attempting a paradigm shift. When paradigms shift, they tend to swing like a pendulum. The effect is not unlike stearing a car by turning the wheel all the way to the left, then when you go to far to the left, you turn the wheel all the way to the right.

On the one hand, I do agree that murdering one's darlings is important. A game should contain what is needed to play. No more. No less.

Jonathan seems to be talking about less is more. Sometimes, however, less is most certainly less.

Quote from: Jonathan Walton1. Less intimidating and more accessibile.

The idea of accessibility is like a tissue paper umberella. Fact is, most people who would be interested in RPGs are not aware of their own potential interest or, worse, have tried a game or two, such as D&D, and believe that all roleplaying is like that and therefore are not interested.

Couple this with that most people do not learn roleplaying from the book, and the nature and size of the book diminishes in importance.

Quote2. Less prep-time before play begins.

By this, I believe, you're refering to reading the book itself before play. With a shorter book, the reading of it may indeed be shorter, but the prep time may still be considerable. I believe Ron had said something similar about his prep time. I don't have time to search for the thread a the moment, but the gist was that Narrativist play has just as much, if not more prep required as any of the other modes.

Quote3. You don't have to write those extra 50+ pages.
4. Actual writing time cut to a fraction (might take more time to decide what to include, though).
5. You can focus on presentation and clarity of communication.

These three go together and in here there is something patently false. Pascal once wrote a lengthy letter and appologized in the postscript that he did not have time to write a short one.

That is #4 is a contridiction. Actual writing time cannot be cut to a fraction if it will take more time to decide what to include. Taking time to decide what to include is writing. and to get it concisely yet clearly expressed, you might write thousands of pages to save those fifty in the final draft.

Quote6. You can afford to print your game, since it's much shorter.

This may be, but this will depend of printer's costs. I'm given to understand that many preffer numbers of pages in a multiple of some number 12 or sixteen. I don't recall. Assuming 12, if your book is 55 pages long, you book will be 60 pages long with five blank pages at the end. This, I'm sure, varies.

QuoteAnswer A: "Detailed settings that I have to read about and digest before being able to realistically portray a character that's supposedly familiar with such a setting" (again, this isn't necessary for good roleplaying, but many beginning roleplayers have expressed this concern to me).

I'm going to disagree here, too. If the setting is not, wherever you live (and many RPGs are not since the sharks have laser-guided lasers on their heads) then it will have to be learned or else having an exotic setting is just plain worthless or, well, let me see if I can explain...

From this thread

Quote from: M J YoungLet me pull out a Multiverser example. I was test-running Orc Rising, a setting rife with moral difficulties. The short version is that it's a post-fantasy world in which magic is fading and pre-gunpowder lifestyles are on the rise among elves, dwarfs, and men; these "free peoples" are destroying the jungles in which the orcs live in primitive tribes, and are enslaving the orcs they capture, because that's "better for the orcs" than living their primitive lives in the jungles (we give them the benefits of civilization, a work ethic, better living conditions, longer lives, and some of our advanced knowledge). I can drop people in this world and they turn it into a narrativist issue-driven game in minutes. However, the first player I brought there made a game of exploring how the men and elves and dwarfs were building their worlds, how the economies worked, how they traded with each other--he skirted the moral issues almost completely, getting no deeper than to buy himself a slave, inform the orc that he should consider himself free, but probably should stay with him so that there wouldn't be any questions about his status.

Emphasis mine to pull out the revelvant bit, which was unfortunately not very useful without the full context. MJ doesn't give us more information about how the player played. Was the PC a native of that world or someone from our world dropped into that one? The reason I ask is because the way this player handled slavery was from a more modern day American sensibility than a sensibility native to this world. That is, in MJ's world, Orcs were less than a human, dwarf of elf, even if, in fact, they were not (Hath not a Orc eyes? Hath not a Orc hands,..). The sentient races believed that Orcs were lesser. For the player to treat one as a more-or-less equal is out of character for the setting.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I've sort of made a roleplaying career out of being such a character. But, if the setting is not properly understood, the pandora's box that such a character should open winds up empty.

Moreover, let say we're going to play a game set in the Aztec empire. What is this world like? I don't know about you, but aside from Zigurats in a rain forest, I have no idea. There's the old saying: "write what you know." A companion saying, which I think I read in a Harlan Ellison book is "know what you write" which refers to the importance of researching your topic when writing. I suggest "know what you play" is a good guideline to follow or else any setting will be wherever you are in a fancy dress.

Jack, I don't think we're talking about the same thing, really.

I'm talking about the need for the eqivilent of "Cheap Ass RPGs" in a market totally dominated by "Axis & Allies" and other similarly complex, high investment games.  I'm talking about RPGs that you could pick up and start playing, effectively, less than a couple hours after purchasing. In most board games, you learn to play by... well, playing.  Roleplaying too, but the amount of investment most games require to get to actual play, is not usually, in my experience, "worth it" to people who are beginning roleplayers.

As for the whole "well, it's necessary to play in an exotic setting" argument.  That's my whole point.  Why do we always need an exotic 200-page setting?  Can't we trust player groups to do that for themselves?  Can't you hint at the kinds of things you're thinking about and let them make up the rest?  Or maybe even build in simple systems that will assist them in developing complex setting.

Yes, you'd still have to find someway to get the book into the hands of people who don't know they'd enjoy roleplaying.  Yes, it might take just as long to write, because of having to distill out the good stuff.  Yes, you'd probably still have to print it in multiples of 12 pages.  I don't think those are insurmountable obstacles.

Also, I said: "So, my current design goal is this..."  Not "All roleplaying games should be written in this way."  Some people will always love 200+ page games, but I don't think those people are my target audience.

Hi, Jonathon

QuoteYes, you'd still have to find someway to get the book into the hands of people who don't know they'd enjoy roleplaying. Yes, it might take just as long to write, because of having to distill out the good stuff. Yes, you'd probably still have to print it in multiples of 12 pages. I don't think those are insurmountable obstacles.

First, I'm glad you agree. I hope you can see how I thought by your numbered points that you didn't think so.

What you seem to be talking about is a heavy focus on situation. Or, perhaps that would meet your goals here. Situation is the 800 lb gorrilla because it sort of contains a coule of the other elements of roleplaying, namely character and setting. Color and system may be heavily implied, but in a big way, I think Situation = setting + character.

The trick may be to provide enough that not only tells you what to do, but inspires one to do it and to riff on it, while not providing too much which would stiffle the very thing you're trying to inspire.

Here's my sacred cow I'd like to seen slain. The belief that the ultra-light, sparse style is anymore attractive than the other options. Its not, its proven itself to appeal to a very small subset of gamers, and really only those gamers so far. For every anecdotal story about how a sparse game brought in people who never thought about gaming before I can point to other stories about how the WoD in its most baroque did similarly (or Tweet's beautiful over the Edge as a personal example).

The sparse barebones style Jonathan describes is pretty available to the cream of gaming thanks to the internet, and I don't think its proven itself as a solution to bringing in new players. Improved the theoretical, cutting edge of the hobby? Sure has. But those are too entirely different things.

So as long as we're slaying sacred cows lets start with here.

Quote from: Jack Spencer JrWhat you seem to be talking about is a heavy focus on situation. ...The trick may be to provide enough that not only tells you what to do, but inspires one to do it and to riff on it, while not providing too much which would stiffle the very thing you're trying to inspire.

That's a nice distillation of my very stream-of-consciousness post.  Yeah, I guess "roleplaying concentrate" would really just be total Situation: you hand people characters and setting and cut them loose, kinda like you do in running demos.  Or, if we're trying to encourage fuctional play, what you really need to hand them is Situation + suggested Creative Agenda(s).

I really think the vast majority of roleplayers (and especially newbies who aren't set in their ways so much) can exhibit behaviors all over the GNS spectrum, as long as you push them in the right direction.  So if you throw Situation at them and then say "so the point is to explore the 'shoot or give up the gun' question" or "try to be the first one to reach 100 gold" or "isn't it so cool? look, you're time travelers!" they'll know which direction to head in, pretty instictively (and especially if that type of play is supported by the System).

I cross-posted with Jere, but I wanted to respond to him too...

Jere, again, I think we're looking at different sides of this issue.  Are short, low-carb games commercially successful right now, to the point that they're getting a lot of press and publicity?  No, not really.  All the buzz is always about the 200-page tomes.  Even when stuff like Fudge goes to press, they pack it with 50+ pages of sample setting, just to beef it up.  But roleplayers tend to think that "more is more," not really caring if it's stuff they'll actually use in play.

But look who's publishing the short-but-sweet games.  Small indie presses with little advertising budget, who aren't usually carried by major distributers and retailers.  The only real exception I can think of is Hogshead's New Style line, and that was a pretty interesting operation that James Wallis ran there.

I really don't think that "ultra-light" games have had their place in the sun yet.  The internet is great, but it's not everything.  And, honestly, while there have been a bunch of low-carb games on the net, they haven't been of any consistent quality and rarely had the resources (graphic design, artwork, budget, advertising, extensive playtesting, pre-existing audience, etc.) that the larger companies can leverage.

So I don't think you can blame the lack of commercial success or general appeal on the format itself.

I'm in the middle about this.  On the one hand, I alway advocate very, very compressed prose; on the other, I write long posts and essays, and my game project is over 100 pages for volume 1 alone, with volume 2 looking to be double.  

I think the sacred cow of length is a sacred cow only conceptually: lots of people focus on length when it should be the last concern.

1. Huge setting, background, and whatnot information
Some love it, some hate it, but value depends on the setting and world in question.  The important question is whether this actually serves the game project, not how long it should be.  

It should be long enough to cover what needs to be covered.  Begin at the beginning, go on until the end, then stop.

Sometimes you need an enormous amount of material; sometimes, it's unnecessary; usually, you should be in between.  But do not make this decision based on any of the following:
-- how long should it be?
-- what are other games doing?
-- what seems to sell?
-- how much material do I have from my campaign?

2. Sparse/dense prose
Overcomplicated, confusing prose is easy, and sucks.
Sparse prose is difficult, and works.
Dense prose is fantastically difficult, and works for some purposes.

These go in progressive order: you take the first and trim it to the second, then squeeze it to the third.  To agree 100% with Jack, sparse prose takes more than twice as long to write as does complicated, rambling prose.

For the vast majority of games, I see no reason to take sparse prose and compact it ruthlessly.  Most readers don't like this sort of prose, because it demands considerable work from them simply to understand.  Most settings also don't go well with that sort of prose, stylistically speaking.  In general, aim for sparse.

3. Audience
This is what's getting ignored.  If your audience has wide experience with RPG settings, you can hand them something with no setting and let 'er rip.  If your audience has experience with your setting because it's close to their actual experience, you can drop almost all of the setting, focusing only on differences from "reality."  If your setting doesn't really matter much for what the game is about, you can present it very quickly and not waste time.  Often, more than one of these is true (cf. Sorcerer).

If none of these is true, you need significant background presentation.

4. Commercial considerations
Does your publisher have strong opinions about length?  Take this into account, but if everything else pushes the book to be long and they say it should be short, or vice-versa, then find another publisher.

Are you certain that your potential purchasing audience has strong opinions about length?  If so, and your book varies widely from those opinions, then you have either (1) misjudged your audience or (2) written a game that they won't buy anyway.  Rewrite the book thoroughly, or pick another audience, or consider whether you really need to make money with this anyway.  Padding or slashing to make someone else happy, be it a publisher or an audience, will lead to tears.

Sorry.  I'm feeling wordy today.

Chris Lehrich

Chris, you nailed it in one.

That's really what I was trying to say.  Ignore everything else and just read Chris' post, instead.

Sheesh :)

Quote from: Jonathan WaltonBut look who's publishing the short-but-sweet games.  Small indie presses with little advertising budget, who aren't usually carried by major distributers and retailers.  The only real exception I can think of is Hogshead's New Style line, and that was a pretty interesting operation that James Wallis ran there.

I really don't think that "ultra-light" games have had their place in the sun yet.  

Hrrrm.  There have been a lot of short-but-sweet games during the history of RPGs, some of them by fairly major publishers.  

FGU's Bunnies and Burrows (1976, 36 pages)
Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip (1977-80)
Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying (1980, 32 pages)
SJG's Toon (1984, 64 pages)
Uncle Morty Productions' Dinky Dungeons (1985, 30 very small pages)
FASA's Masters of the Universe RPG (1985)
TSR's Conan Role-playing Game (1985, 32 pages)
Reindeer Games' TWERPS (1988)
Crunchy Frog's Duel (1992, 36 pages)
TSR's Amazing Engine (1993, 32 pages)
BTRC's Epiphany (1995, 48 pages)

This is all prior to Hogshead's New Style line and other recent efforts like Land of Og, Pocket Universe, Pokethulhu, QAGS, Sketch!, and Soap.  

I tend to agree that page count is not a good indicator of newbie-friendliness.  Games like Pantheon and Soap tend to confuse non-gamers as well as experienced roleplayers, IMO.  My favorite for newbies would be something like James Bond 007.  Simple and familiar premise, characters with missions, excellent modules.  I agree that games can be made shorter and still be newbie-friendly, but I also think this is a lot of hard work.

Quote from: Jonathan WaltonJack, I don't think we're talking about the same thing, really.
As for the whole "well, it's necessary to play in an exotic setting" argument.  That's my whole point.  Why do we always need an exotic 200-page setting?  Can't we trust player groups to do that for themselves?  Can't you hint at the kinds of things you're thinking about and let them make up the rest?  Or maybe even build in simple systems that will assist them in developing complex setting.

Unfortunately, this is directly contrary to the stated goal you made earlier of reduced prep time.

Speaking of which, there have always been the equivalent of Cheapass Games in the RPG industry.  In the early days, there was Toon, TWERPS, and even Tunnels and Trolls, where monsters were abstracted to a single number.  

What we should be looking at is ways of making those 200-page settings more accessible to the new player.  

White Wolf did a spectacular job of this by building all of its games around the idea that you were an ordinary person until one day, you suddenly turned into an , and the splats themselves were made easy and accessible for new players.  This works, even though its gotten a little stale with each successive White Wolf game.  Everway allowed people to build stories around visual images, rather than textual descriptions.  Heroquest has gone a step further by distilling foreign cultures into a two page format, on the basis of what your parents or village wise person would have told you.

All three of these approaches should inform any future games with 200 page settings.