Over in the Narrativism & Force thread, I thought Henri made an insightful comment that seemed to get largely ignored.

Henri wrote: I think the answer is that the definition of Force is somewhat dependant on CA. In a Nar game like Sorcerer, it's only Force if it controls premise-relevant decisions. If I use scene framing to move the characters around, I'm influencing where they go, but I'm not making premise-related decisions. Rather I'm making the boring decisions for them, in order to "get to the bangs" and present them with the interesting decisions faster. Although it doesn't come up in Gamism much, the analagous situation would be that it is only Force if the GM affects strategically relevant decisions.

I think that the term Force has had a couple of definitions, and it doesn't need redefining. I agree with the overall principle, however. That is, in every game there are certain arenas of control of events. In D&D players control their character's effectiveness in combat through planning, for instance. TROS gives a larger emphasis on control during combat, and, more importantly makes the decisions ofwhen to fight very interesting ones for the player.

So, yes, in general you want to identify what the player's role in the game will be, given the idea of the overall design. There's this idea that the player's role is always the same from game to game, and this is just not true. Identifying what's going to be fun for the player, and adding to that until it's as interesting as it can be is the hallmark of good design I'd say (as well as not bothering to detail things that are not related).

Mike

Excellent points, Timothy!

I think this also answers some of the G/N/S questions but in a fashion which is applicable to the art/craft of game design. To push it further, I think that players prefer it when they can delegate to the game master the task of taking care of (or "controlling") those matters which are irrelevant to their enjoyment of the game.

I suspect that game design mistakes occur when the game designer builds a game which makes certain factors irrelevant to the player enjoyment and then burdens them with keeping track of them (thus, house rules develop ignoring such "bookkeeping") or encourages certain factors as important for player enjoyment and then provides them no means of articulating those factors (thus, house rules develop which borrow a means from another game). This may be one origin for heartbreaker re-doings of official systems.

Doctor Xero

Well, yes.

The glossary definition of "Force" relates it specifically to narrativism; that surprised me, and I'm not certain why it came to have that meaning, but I'm not really lobbying to change it. For several years I've been using the phrase "Illusionist Techniques" for much of what you're describing. Good use of illusionist techniques takes choices away from the players that don't or shouldn't matter to them; bad use of illusionist techniques blocks them from having impact on the things they want to do. What those things are depends very much on the creative agendum of the players.

Ron's "moving clue" technique is an excellent example of an illusionist technique that facilitates narrativist play in a mystery scenario. The idea (for those who missed it) is that in a mystery there is usually a clue that the players must be given or they cannot solve the mystery. In traditional design, the materials will say who has that clue and how it is to be discovered--but if the players fail to do that, the mystery goes up in smoke, because it can't be solved if they didn't do the right thing to get that one clue. What the moving clue does is recognize the importance of that one clue, and assure that it is delivered to the players by someone. Whoever they ask the right question, that character has the information they want. It's still only one character that has the clue--it just hasn't been determined which one has the clue until the opportunity to pass it to the players arises.

In a sense, it's only cheating if it's something to which the players would object if they knew. Simulationists and gamists would probably object to this (it's cheating), but narrativists wouldn't (so it isn't).

So yes, illusionist technique should be incorporated in ways that support the players' objectives, and not otherwise.

--M. J. Young

I think this thread is kind of missing the target by saying 'don't do the irrelevant stuff', without addressing who decides what is irrelevant. With a focus on gamism, I'll requote the last bit of Henri, here:

Although it doesn't come up in Gamism much, the analagous situation would be that it is only Force if the GM affects strategically relevant decisions.

While I agree with the general statement of providing detail where it's important (I would say provide detail where it's exciting--but that's a slightly different take) I think it assumes that a game has only a few areas of "importance."

What's important to a GURPS player (I think you'll find the answer is "it depends on the scenario so I want system with a lot breadth")?

As a super's player how do I decide what's important between Hero and Mutants and Masterminds? Are those games considered "identical" in terms of emphasis or highly variant (Identical because I'd assume they're both "sim," highly variant because they're both totally different mechanical systems)?

What's a designer to make of that?

-Marco

timfire wrote: What's important to your game? If it's important, try and give your players freedom and control over it. If not, the players might not find the game as satisfying and/or as interesting as they might otherwise. If it's not important, don't bother the player with it. Leave it to some mechanic or simple GM fiat (or something like that).

I think a perfect example of your second (and, I believe, primary) principle is in the Scarlet Wake creation thread. The author saw Kill Bill, thought it was awesome, and set out to create a game that gave the same feel. To do this, he made mechanics that ignored "reality" for the most part, in favor of replicating the "reality" of Kill Bill. I haven't seen the latest draft, but I highly doubt that he has mechanics for starvation, or much about carrying capacity, but I bet he has a ton about vivid descriptions and how to chop mooks into tiny little pieces with really cool weapons.

As an aside, I'd be in favor of changing the definition of Force to be relative to a given CA. For example:

(Gamism)
Player: Man, this is going to be tough, but I charge in and
GM: No you don't.
Player: What?
GM: Dude, there are like 20 zombies in there, you're 2nd level. You run away.
Player: But think I can do it! See, I have this feat here and these skills and I think my plan will work. I want to charge in there and try to save my unconscious friends!
GM: Forget it, it's crazy. Look, you run away and these guys will make new characters.

That would be Force in a Gamist context, with the GM removing a Step On Up decision from the hands of the player. I had a cool Narr example where the GM forces a player to follow the end of the movie Seven even when the player wanted to make a different decision, but it's redundant given the current definition of Force. I can't come up with a great Sim example outside of a GM dictating that a PC acts out of character against the player's wishes.

Jaik wrote: I can't come up with a great Sim example outside of a GM dictating that a PC acts out of character against the player's wishes.

beingfrank wrote:

Jaik wrote: I can't come up with a great Sim example outside of a GM dictating that a PC acts out of character against the player's wishes.

Whatever happens, the players can't learn anything new about the Dream?

Jaik wrote:

beingfrank wrote:

Jaik wrote: I can't come up with a great Sim example outside of a GM dictating that a PC acts out of character against the player's wishes.

Whatever happens, the players can't learn anything new about the Dream?

I'm not sure how to word this without sounding petulant or accusatory, but it sounds as though you're saying that there are no bounds to the Dream, while I believe that the Dream is defined by its bounds.

If we have established that my Character Frank is an upstanding member of the community, a good husband, a good person, and devoutly religious to boot, what will he do when some hot floozy in a bar comes on to him? I would say he turns her down politely (leaving aside why he's in a bar in the first place) and would be very surprised if the GM said "No, he's a guy and she's hot. Frank goes for it."

I could be totally off-base about what you meant, and I would love for you to expand upon it.

beingfrank wrote: The players can't believe in the Dream as much as they did, because it's been broken slightly, instead of built on.

Jaik wrote:

beingfrank wrote: The players can't believe in the Dream as much as they did, because it's been broken slightly, instead of built on.

That was what I was shooting for with my example. I think the coice of character decisions makes for a bad example, but several recent threads are stuck in my head and led me down that path.

How about Sim Force being actions which damage the framework of the Dream? Having a realistic FBI game along the lines of Without a Trace (FBI finds missing people in New York City) where a suspect suddenly hops over a 25-foot brick wall would break the physics of the world and thus believability.

Negating attempts by players to interact with or become part of the world?

"I want to go se the Elves!"
"Well, you can't they're too far away."
"What about the Gnomes, the Gnomes would be cool to visit."
"True, but they hate people, so you can't go there. Why don't you wander into this hole in the ground and kill things?"

Hmm, if we were to change the definition of Force to be CA-dependant, then would Force be a defining factor of unhappy incoherent play?

As with other things, the use of force also follows a nice four-step ladder:

- First you don't know the rules, and can't do it.

- Secondly you learn the rules, learn to respect them, and to use force according to them.

- Thirdly you master the rules, and master all use of force within the rules.

- Lastly you leave the rules behind, you become force, and flies like a dragon!

My experience is that as a game master you may use force in any situation, in relation to any decision, on any player you happen to be playing with. You may force the characters and the players alike, and get praise for it, if only you apply the force like a dragon.

A dragon is cool, wise and powerful.

If you can't be a dragon; stick by the rules, and don't challenge your players!

(by the way: I've heard about a method for dragon-acting... ;-)

beingfrank wrote: If what players what in Sim is to Explore the Dream, and learning more, and discovering things that make the Dream more real (for the values of real that you're working with) then it seemed to me that Force in this context could be blocking that. I'm not sure how that could happen. Maybe only putting players in the same situation, setting, what have you, and letting nothing new happen?