In another thread, lumpley said:

lumpley wrote: I've got a theory.

There's Setting, System, Character, Situation and Color, right? I think that you can start a game as soon as you've nailed down three of the five. That means that a game text must provide at least three of the five to be a whole game. But I really don't think it matters which three.

You can write a game that provides Character, Situation and Color but leaves Setting and System to be set up by the group, if you want. In fact kill puppies for satan is like that.

Or you could write a game like Sorcerer, providing System, Character and Situation and leaving Setting and Color to the group.

Ars Magica provides Setting, Character and Color, with maybe some Situation too, but not much System at all. (Call me on that, I dare you.) All the WoD games are probably about the same, there.

Obviously, the thicker your game the more you can provide. (Heh. Ars Magica provides pages and pages of not much System at all.)

My only reservation is the numbering may be a bit much. Why three and not two or four? And does "nailed down" mean?

I could imagine certain forms of play where all five are undefined until play begins.

On the other side of the coin, what about nailing down all five before play begins? Is this a good idea?

A big exception I can immediately think of would be Univeralis, which is only System. It's always the exception to things.

Would GURPS by itself, being only System, be incomplete?

To make sure I'm on the same page: "alot of system" means, mechanical system detail that exists there to further actual aims of the game?

So you might say that Sorcerer has a lot of system in that it organizes alot of resoloution-detail in a way that accomplishes something specific.(Such as something I just read about using Humanity rolls to bring into effect your conscience in a situation or Will rolls to bring into effect your hatred, which just hit me as awesome.)

Wheras Ars Magica/WoD games have very little system, in that there's very few rules that do anything more than to say than "Buying dots in this means you'll succeed in relevant conflicts."?

Hmm. That "you need three" seems too entirely arbitrary for me. I mean, how are you defining a "complete game"? The only definition hinted at in the theory is a game which includes three out of the five elements... which is a bit too self referential for comfort. And, as others have brought up, there are games on the market which thousands of people certainly consider to be complete, but only provide two or (rarely) one of those elements.

In other words:

Vincent is full of it. :)
--Jeff

Jeph wrote: And, as others have brought up, there are games on the market which thousands of people certainly consider to be complete, but only provide two or (rarely) one of those elements.

Hi folks,

I think the idea needs more exploration, but I'm inclined to agree with it. I consider a "complete" game to be a game in which I can defined "what play is about" to another person. In this way, GURPS is incomplete, because it IS just a system. Universalis on the other hand makes Setting and Character part of System, something that is formally created as a part of play, not prep before play.

Chris

You need all five to play. In play, if any are missing, you'll fill them in.

Given three of 'em, my theory says, a game group can reliably fill in the other two on the fly. (Given all five, does a group feel locked down and creatively blocked? Excellent question.)

"Nailed down," "established," "given" and suchlike language: something is nailed down when the group communally gets it. How much verbiage does it take to nail something down? Variable.

GURPS, by the way, isn't where I'd want to discuss this. Here's why: I'd say GURPS Basic has far more Color in it than System. GURPS Basic + a GURPS setting book = Color, Character, Setting. The group supplies Situation and (the real meat of) System. But I don't know GURPS from a hole in the head, so don't argue with this, just write it off. Please - let's use this thread to talk about my theory, and if you really want to we can argue about how much System GURPS provides in some other thread, okay?

So anyay here's a sweet little test: play Universalis. Universalis has System + a Tenet phase. My theory predicts that once your group has created Tenets nailing down any two of Character, Setting, Situation and Color, you'll feel comfortable leaving the Tenet phase and proceeding into play. Anybody feel like confirming or refuting?

-Vincent

I don't know, Vincent. Somehow I think if you have character, setting, and color, you've got the starting point for a short story, but absolutely nothing that makes it a game.

Now, if you mean that the average gamer can create a game if you give him those three elements, sure--the average gamer can probably make a game given one of them. That's not the same thing as calling any three elements, "nailed down", a ready-to-play game.

--M. J. Young

I'm looking at this, and wondering wether we're mistaking ready to play with ready to publish.

In so much as gamers are used to providing any number of the five elements before play, but tend to view games without at least, say, three of them as "incomplete" and are reluctant to buy.

But it's a sliding scale. Check the number of folks, especially in RPGnet discussions, who back away from Sorceror when it's apparent that it doesn't come with a pre-built campaign. Or the comments on say Nobilis, or Mage, or Fudge, or Uknown Armies (but oddly, not GURPS, IME) that they're incomplete because they "don't tell us what to do."

Okay, MJ:

I don't know, Vincent. Somehow I think if you have character, setting, and color, you've got the starting point for a short story, but absolutely nothing that makes it a game.

Yikes amighty! I'm defining what's a complete, publishable game now? That's not good!

What I am saying is: if I grabbed a couple of friends and we all read Well of Souls, we could roleplay. You could too, if you wanted. I know you could.

Would it resemble HeroQuest in any mechanical or Systemic way? No. Would it fulfill the true potential of Well of Souls? Who knows. Would it fulfill our Creative Agenda? Only if our instincts were good. But could we play? Absolutely.

If you want to know what I think a game oughta have in it before you publish it, I'll tell you. At length. Waving my arms and spittling foam, no doubt; it'd be a manifesto. This thing about three fifths is just a theory.

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: If you want to know what I think a game oughta have in it before you publish it, I'll tell you. At length.

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: So anyay here's a sweet little test: play Universalis. Universalis has System + a Tenet phase. My theory predicts that once your group has created Tenets nailing down any two of Character, Setting, Situation and Color, you'll feel comfortable leaving the Tenet phase and proceeding into play. Anybody feel like confirming or refuting?

lumpley wrote: You need all five to play. In play, if any are missing, you'll fill them in.

Given three of 'em, my theory says, a game group can reliably fill in the other two on the fly.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, Vincent. You were quoted as having said,

That means that a game text must provide at least three of the five to be a whole game. But I really don't think it matters which three.

Pete wrote: What's the difference between enough prep to play an RPG and enough prep to write a short story?

Of course, what's missing is a system, but if we take Ron's view that system is the time element to apply to situation, or even the Lumpley Principle that system is merely the means of agreeing the contents of the SiS, then you can certainly supply any applicable system to those three elements and get a game.

M.J., you're right; novels aren't complete games. But that's not what the theory discusses - all it says is basically what you're saying - gamers could play in the shared imagined space of a novel. As I read it, the theory is only about Actual Play - the specific presentation of the three out of five is not at issue.

So yes, novels aren't games. But since they usually provide setting, situation, character, and/or color, you could "play" the novel according to the theory. Right? Not just gamers. People. Anybody.

M. J. Young wrote: Put another way, if all you need is three of the five elements, then every novel and short story ever written is a "complete game". Why, then, aren't billions of people who read these "complete games" playing them?

Novels are done. Teasing usable Setting, Character or Situation out of a novel is hard, I'd suggest - because the characters in a novel are used up, the situations are resolved, the setting is harvested. If your group reads a novel, you've got a good shared take on Color, and not really anything else. You'll have to put in a lot of work to rip two other things out of it. (Exception made for Harry Potter - because it's still in progress. You can play Harry Potter "right now." I myself played a ton of Star Wars back when "right now" was after the Empire Strikes Back, before Return of the Jedi.)

M.J. wrote: Perhaps the correct statement is that once three of the elements are developed to a certain level of clarity, the other two can be left relatively vague and they'll create themselves in play.

I'm not sure a game with only Setting, Character, and Situation is playable. The players still have to tack on all the rules! Such a "game" is closer to a GURPS expansion than to any complete published game I know of.

However, I could probably be convinced.

Hey Teucer. Welcome to the Forge!

All the players have to do with such a game is figure out how to agree what happens. That's easy to do on the fly, ask any freeformer.

Is it easy to do well on the fly? Probably not. Probably it's very difficult to do well - what goes wrong, typically, is that the strongest personality dominates the game. But any freeformer will tell you I'm wrong about that. Heck, I woulda told you I'm wrong about that, just a couple of years ago.

I'm rock-solid that it can be done well. But it's probably quite a trick to pull off. Nailing down Character, Situation and Setting up front is the best possible way to tackle it, though, I'd bet.

Adventures in Improvised System
Further More Adventures in Improvised System

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: I hope everybody understands, for instance, that I think that you really oughta be providing System, if you care at all how your game plays.

lumpley wrote: John, how about this: You and I sit down to play a game. We launch straight into play, but in the early game we'll strongly, perhaps exclusively, prioritize the establishment of a baseline shared vision for the game. At some point, that shared foundation will be solid, and we'll change the game to prioritize other things - saying something interesting about people, for instance, or taking the measure of one another's guts, or whatever. Make sense?

My theory is that we can begin to change our priorities before we've established a shared take on all five of Character, Situation, Setting, Color and System, but not before we've established a shared take on three of the five. We still have to agree about all five, moment to moment in play, but we can leave a couple of 'em to be negotiated at need.

lumpley wrote: Universalis makes the transition from "now we're establishing a foundation" to "now we're saying what we're saying" formal. It's thus uniquely suited to testing my theory, if anybody feels moved to do so.

John: I think you're misreading me, or something. Where on earth did you get the idea that I think that creating Setting details (eg) is "neutral" or unfulfilling?

How about this: I'll happily grant you "continuous spectrum" if you'll grant me that earlier in play, establishing a baseline shared vision is a higher priority than it is later in play, because you need to prioritize establishing a baseline less as you establish more baseline.

Please PLEASE don't read this to mean that I think that we create Setting details early in play, but less later in play. I don't mean that AT ALL. "Baseline vision" = "what the game is like to play," not "stuff in the game world."

Meanwhile, sure, I'm willing to say that Universalis has an arbitrary (but very functional) mode-shift somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Which makes it, y'know, uniquely suited to testing my theory if anybody has the urge.

-Vincent

Sorry about that. I read your text as implying that that "establishing a foundation" and "saying what we're saying" were exclusive, separate steps in a game. But it looks like we agree that they are overlapping and can be combined.

So what I would look for in this: how does less-than-3 play differ from 3-or-more play, other than the obvious point that it has less than 3 categories established and thus those will be in the process of being established?

John Kim wrote: So what I would look for in this: how does less-than-3 play differ from 3-or-more play, other than the obvious point that it has less than 3 categories established and thus those will be in the process of being established?

John: awesome.

My theory is that in pre-3 play, our highest priority will be establishing up to 3. Will play look any different? In Universalis, yes - that's the Tenet phase (I predict). In store-bought games, yes - because there is no pre-3 play, we establish 3 or more when we agree to play the game. There'll be a certain amount of "everybody get the setting? Everybody get who your characters are gonna be? Everybody get their GM / player responsibilities? Good." In off-the-cuff games, maybe it won't look any different. I don't think it necessarily will, just that it'll be characterized by us smashing together a baseline 3-of-the-5 for what follows.

Let me say, pre-3 play will happen and be done in the first minutes of the first session. Before character creation, essentially. Certainly before characters are finalized. I'm saying that a group needs to have a shared hit on 3 of the 5 before they can even make characters functionally - otherwise I come up with a character from Star Wars and you come up with a character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

Also: Henri: exactly right. When I wrote puppies, I felt that System should be left to the players' instincts. I hadn't ever seen a functional System.

-Vincent

Could it be said that with 3 of the 5 established that the other two are areas of prioritized exploration in play? Not necessarily simulationism. It could be for any agenda.