I split this off from this thread because I thought it was particularly interesting topic in its own right, and only tangental to the purpose of that thread.

neelk wrote:

Valamir wrote:
If not, you extrapolating this into a whole range of "source material" that the "setting was modelled on" is actually a perfect example of the sort of bringing-in-stuff-from-the-outside, that I was talking about. I don't see any source material mentioned in the games text that would lead me to assume those archetypes exist...

I think there's a very interesting difference in how we read games.

Here's how I read games:

1. First, I skim the whole thing, to get a rough feel for the game as a whole.

2. Then, I carefully reread any designer's notes, lists of source inspirations, and chapters on how to play. I do this in order to get a feel for where the author was coming from and where he or she wants the players to go during play.

3. Then, I reread the flavor text and setting information. This is basically always written without being double-checked against the mechanics, and as such it's useful for revealing what the author wants out of play, as opposed to what the game mechanics actually deliver.

My goal, with step 2 and 3, is to learn what sorts of things that I and the other players can bring into the game from outside that will cohere with what's already there. IMO, saying "don't bring stuff in from outside" is asking for the impossible. The players always will (and indeed, must) do this; what the designer can do is give advice about good and bad places to look.

4. I read the mechanics, looking for possible inconsistencies with the impression that steps 2 and 3 gave me for what play should look like. I write potential problem areas down, and then run the game. (Note that "problems" are defined relative to what I have learned from steps 2 and 3 about the goals of play, and to what the particular group of players I have will like.)

5. In play, sometimes I learn that potential mechanics problems aren't problems in practice, and always I learn about things I didn't see that are problems in practice. At this point, the mechanics get tweaked, and step 5 gets repeated until we converge to a system that's reasonably satisfying for everyone in the group.

In Mongrel, I see a much weaker motivation for the mechanical differences between sexes than you do, because I don't put the mechanics in the driver's seat. As a reader, the side-comment about Dune is more important to me than the character creation system, because it tells me something about the systems of signifiers that Ron was drawing upon while writing the game.

Valamir wrote:
This is a fascinating process, Neel. I see in it a quite appropriate reaction to the general prominence of "system doesn't matter" (or "doesn't matter much") that is common in alot of design. It looks to me that what you're doing is recognizing that alot of games don't put much effort into making their mechanics support their setting, and so you start by analysing the setting to determine how the game should play. Then you go and compare that to how the mechanics to see how well the mechanics support this, prepared to change it as necessary where it doesn't.

I would say this process demonstrates that you believe that system does matter but have become used to having to rewire the game yourself to get it support the setting. Would that be a fair characterization?

I'd add that a game can be it's own source material, if it is presented clearly in the text.

I know color fiction and those "background" chapters take a lot of shit from some people... But truth be told, for some players and groups, they do a great job of getting on the same page for their style of play. For example, Sorcerer & Sword points potential players to a semester's worth of reading to get the game "right." If I make up my own setting that's actually unique and different, I've somehow got to cram at least enough color to inspire everybody to such a degree that they have a starting shared imaginary space to work from. After that, they'll riff together and make up their own logic and details off each other's ideas.

Christopher

Valamir wrote: In the specific case of Mongrel, however, Ron is very much a system does matter guy, so I am confident that none of the mechanics in Mongrel (making allowances for this not being a final version) are written without careful thought as to what the setting implications are.

Valamir wrote: The game is hardly in a stage of completeness at this point. I believe Ron does have plans to release the game at some point so I'm sure there will be more to come. If you'd just shelled out $10 bucks for the PDF I'd be right there with you, but color and flavor stuff is the easiest damn thing in the world to write, especially when you've got a system that pretty much demands certain assumptions in order to be consistant with the mechanics.

I'm not sure what the reluctance is to reverse engineer the setting from the system. If we believe that system does matter then clearly if we start with a setting we have to craft mechanics that consistantly support that setting. Why shouldn't the reverse be true? If you construct the mechanics first you then have to craft the setting that is consistantly supported by those mechanics.

You are, of course, correct, John. My comment was rather too flip. But I do believe it is quite easy to conceive of, although it then does require actual writing talent to record it in a form for others to read. More actual writing talent (in terms of skillful use of structure and word flow) than writing mechanics requires.

While it may be technically possible to come up with good color and flavor after-the-fact to suit a set of mechanics, I have to admit I'm skeptical. What real games have taken this approach?

Fastlane started off as "wow, mechanics using a roulette wheel!" and then, from that basic System/mechanics point, found color and flavor to match. That, in turn, helped inform later system/mechanic changes, but it's still the basic mechanic that came first.

Even there, though, the chosen color/etc. wound up informing later iterations of the design, even if the basic core remained unchanged. So it's not as if the mechanics rose fully-formed out of the muck, and just stood there unmoving as I hung Color/flavor on them.

The only other instance in the roleplaying game world that I can think of off-hand is Urbis, a d20 setting where the designer's explicit goals include, to the best of my knowledge, "if the D&D mechanics, including classes and alignments and the specific spells and whatnot, were the actual physics of a game world, how would that game world look?"

In the end, though, I'm with Ralph. System can inform/create Setting just as easily as the other way around.

Valamir wrote: In the specific case of Mongrel, however, Ron is very much a system does matter guy, so I am confident that none of the mechanics in Mongrel (making allowances for this not being a final version) are written without careful thought as to what the setting implications are.

You wrote: The other part which drives me is that I think the communal, improvisational part of play is one of the most important parts in making happy players. I think that things become "real" in an rpg when the stuff that the players create is recognized and manipulated by the other players; I see the other players at their happiest when what they make up is recognized by the others. It's a two-level pleasure, in that your status as an integral member of the play group is acknowledged, and in that the game world feels richer and more dynamic because there are more interactions going on in it. So I worry a lot about getting "stuff" bouncing from player to player.

To offer another datapoint, Crucible and Refreshing Rain were mechanics-first designs for me, with almost nothing in the way of "design for Colour".

Way back Paul Elliot looked deeply into the idea of not only making setting the basis of design, but further into the idea of a game that mechanicall really only focused on exploration of the setting. Meaning that characters are only revealed as part of the setting that they embody.

The game was going to be called The Kap, and I really wish it had been finished:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1296
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=1410

Mike

Beyond reflecting the setting, aren't mechanics part of the setting themselves?

Atleast in the names we give to mechanics, eg; unit A removes 10 points from unit B. This is then named PC hits orc for ten hit points, and suddenly just as much as orcs are a part of that setting, that mechanical transaction is part of the setting as well.

I mean, what is the difference between "The king hates all magic users" and "To hit someone with a warhammer roll 5+?". The meat of setting involves rules of how the world works. Even if its just "The people of Happyville love tulips", theres the meat of a rule there to work with (go sell tulips there?)

The only real difference is that those setting rules are fuzzy...what does it translate to? In happyville, do you get a bonus to sell tulips at a higher price? If so, what is the bonus?

So really setting in an RPG could be described as proto rules, stuff that hasn't been converted in to hard rules yet and it's up to the DIY desires of the GM and group to do so.

And the reverse is true too. Hard rules are individual effects that are yet to be converted into setting. Eg, if the king hates all magic users because he's afraid of his soldiers all being enchanted, but all soldiers have +20 to save (say that means they'll pass 99% of the time), the hard rule has yet to be converted to setting.

The latter is an example where people may prefer to change the hard rules to fit the setting. Anyway those are my thoughts, hope they are applicable. Any thoughts on their validity, anyone?

Noon wrote: Beyond reflecting the setting, aren't mechanics part of the setting themselves?

But surely, at least to the extent that a system models a set of interactions in an imagined world, they must to some extent define that world.

Even in octaNe: the mechanic of assiging narrative rights ensures that the worlds of octaNe are those in which the logic of story overrides the logic of physics to some extent. Even if you hold that the mechanics of the simulation don't define the world, merely describe it, they set the terms of interaction with the imaginary world.

Hi Neelk,

"Whoa," you might say, "my GM Herbie can run anything. The game can suck, but he can toss out what he doesn't like and then it rocks." OK, fine. Herbie is talented. However, imagine how good he'd be if he didn't have to spend all that time culling the mechanics. (Recall here I'm talking about system, not source or story content material.) I'm suggesting a system is better insofar as, among other things, it doesn't waste Herbie's time.

I think it all depends on what sort of rules they are. Authority rules (aka Natural Law rules) are the physics of the setting, and Credibility rules (aka Metaphyiscal rules) aren't.

reference thread:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10856

Do credibility rules affect how the setting is percieved by players (not PC's)? Then it's setting in as much as it determines what color sunglasses the players use, so to speak, when they see the setting. Perception distortion of a setting (even if its small), is effectively part of a setting for players, if not for PC's.

PS: Please excuse my edit that happened after you posted. I always edit! :)

Noon wrote: Do credibility rules affect how the setting is percieved by players (not PC's)?

Basically the difference between playing between under one GM and another can be marked. In this case where its handing out narration between players it can be quite similar. Of course the difference in narration is a product of each player, but the difference being allowed to be there is is product of the rules. The difference, allowed by the printed rules, causes a distortion in the perception of the SIS.

It could just be a small distortion and easy to ignore. But the principle is there. It's important to realise it can be there even if it regularly goes without note because it's small.

The question has been raised as to whether the rules are part of the setting. Neelk has answered that they are not; I'm going to challenge that from a different angle.

I assert rather that the setting is part of the rules.

I'm serious about this; it's one of the things I have learned from playing Multiverser over the past decade or so.

Rules, under the general understanding here, have authority; that means someone can appeal to them to determine what happens in the shared imaginary space, and if that individual has the requisite credibility to appeal to the rules, they define the shared imaginary space.

In this sense, "the sky is blue" is as much a rule as "a long sword does d8 points of damage against small and man-sized targets". Both define the shared imaginary space.

Thus the distinction between setting and rules is to some degree illusory.

It is not entirely illusory; after all, setting and system are two of the explorable elements. There is a degree to which all five elements--color, character, and situation being the other three--are all facets of the one thing, the exploration, the shared imaginary space. We distinguish them generally into these five categories, but the lines are always a bit fuzzy. To say that characters are not part of setting is clearly nonsense. So, too, to say that system is not part of setting is nonsense, as is saying that setting is not part of system. The five elements are all part of each other, interconnected in ways that are impossible to completely separate. They are distinct only on the most theoretical level, in that each has a core aspect which we can identify as its own center around which the others are arranged, each can be the center point around which all the others are defined and integrated, or the peripheral to any of the others.

So you can't really separate them.

--M. J. Young

But the setting as portrayed in books, can be quite different. Say the portrayed setting has mages running around blowing up things as good as the gun guys (cough, rifts, cough), but really the magic rules are quite mute. The author can make quite a distinction between setting and rules. In a way, that's like writing two RPG's, one which works by the settings 'rules' and one by the rules themselves, sans setting.

I'll adjust my stance and say rules are seperate from setting. But the results of those rules definately are part of setting. The funny thing is, you can read about the books setting in the 'fluff' text. But you can't really know it until play, where the results start to show up. Again, reading two seperate RPG's, in a way.

Noon wrote: But the setting as portrayed in books, can be quite different. Say the portrayed setting has mages running around blowing up things as good as the gun guys (cough, rifts, cough), but really the magic rules are quite mute. The author can make quite a distinction between setting and rules. In a way, that's like writing two RPG's, one which works by the settings 'rules' and one by the rules themselves, sans setting.

I'll adjust my stance and say rules are seperate from setting. But the results of those rules definately are part of setting. The funny thing is, you can read about the books setting in the 'fluff' text. But you can't really know it until play, where the results start to show up. Again, reading two seperate RPG's, in a way.

Neel wrote: I think that things become "real" in an rpg when the stuff that the players create is recognized and manipulated by the other players; I see the other players at their happiest when what they make up is recognized by the others.

I think Callan, a.k.a. Noon, was responding to me when he wrote: But the setting as portrayed in books, can be quite different. Say the portrayed setting has mages running around blowing up things as good as the gun guys (cough, rifts, cough), but really the magic rules are quite mute. The author can make quite a distinction between setting and rules. In a way, that's like writing two RPG's, one which works by the settings 'rules' and one by the rules themselves, sans setting.

It leads quite naturally into what Neel K wrote: ...this is one of the reasons I pay more attention to the "fluff" than the formal rules -- the writers are generally thinking more about what's cool and compelling in the fiction than in the rules, and that's what I want.