[Originally mis-posted in Lumpley Games -- my bad.]

In reading a ton of great one-sheets and "Variation" proposals for everything from Sorcerer to Trollbabe to My Life with Master to Dogs in the Vineyard (and working on game ideas myself) one thing has stuck me kind of oddly with the way such things play out on the Forge.

Most... forgive me the term... most "forge games" tend to have two things going on with them that are identifiably "Part of the Game":

1. Some kind of setting or premise (something I generically call a 'setup') that creates a situation that's central to the Idea of the Game.
2. Resolution mechanics that may or may not be intrinsically tied into the *expression* of this Idea/Premise/Setup.

The trend I've noticed in responses to 'variations' on a Game is automatically assuming that 1 and 2 are linked at the hip, and that both have to exist within the variant, whole cloth, for it to be a 'true' child of the parent game. Frankly, in some cases I think that's kind of weird, but I also think it's because we've never tried to divide the two very much.

I'd like to give examples of the kinds of games I'm talking about and the different levels to which (1) is tied to (2), so as to avoid misunderstanding. If I inadvertently step on toes with the following examples, well... I can only say I certainly don't mean to -- I have the utmost respect for all these games.

Sorcerer:
1. The basic setup, regardless of other backdrop considerations, is essentially "You are someone who has a lot of power, and you're in a dysfunctional relationship. Now, something happens that tips your whole world on it's head."
2. The system within sorcerer is pretty integrally tied to this: Humanity is always THERE as part of the system -- there HAS to be stuff set up in each game to define the conditions for it's loss and gain or the Stat itself is meaningless. The dysfunctional relationship is pretty much always there in the form of demons (even in games like Urge or Schism where the bad relationship is with yourself), and that "thing that turns your world upside-down" is hard-wired right into character generation as the Kicker. Really, part of the game (since the basic book is so wide open) is the fun of putting these problems into various settings and backgrounds, but saying that it's not really Sorcerer with those elements (Humanity, Kicker) taken out is a legitimate claim.

My Life with Master:
I'm not even going to break this one into distinct points of setup and system. You can't extract the setup -- a world of Reason vs. Fear in which Love can overcome your Weariness and Self-loathing -- from the system -- one is meaningless without the other. I can totally agree with someone who says that renaming the stats to Strength, Wounds, Law, and Chaos, dropping the Master and running a Stormbringer game is really just coming up with a new game entirely.

Trollbabe:
1. The setup for the game is essentially "you're someone who is part of two different worlds -- both human and troll, and you're powerful: the kind of person who can come into a situation in which these two worlds are in conflict and really DO something.
2. The system within Trollbabe is vanilla Narrativism -- the dice/stat mechanic is simple and straightforward, the reroll/resolution system is designed to put the players in the driver's seat. However (and I'm working to illustrate this point in one project, so I might be biased), there's nothing within the System that is intrinsically tied to the Setup; obviously, anyone can disagree, but in my mind this is a great 'generic' narrative system that could be used in anything from a Western game to Lovecraft horror to friggin' Toons, if that's your bag. To put it another way -- unlike Sorcerer/Humanity -- there's nothing in the System that 'breaks' if the characters being made aren't "someone in the middle of two worlds" like the traditional Trollbabe setup -- all that's really required of the setup is that your are a character who Makes Things Happen (required because of the narrative control inherently given to the player).

DitV:
1. The setup of the game is that you're a young man or woman who essentially acts as judge, jury, and executioner to the Faithful towns on your route. Paladins and preachers both, if you like. It's genius: go buy it.
2. The system (the *core* System, not the add-on bits for doing exorcisms or the like), is designed to (beautifully) model Conflicts Between People -- starting with verbal debate or arguments, escalating from there to fisticuffs or gunplay as the situation warrants. It is, again, a genius system, but there's nothing within it that inherently *requires* a setup that involves leaders of the community handing out judgment -- what you *need* for the system to have meaning is a setup in which Conflicts Between People and the ways in which they escalate and create consequences are common and central to the stories -- that's it. In those terms, you could do a legitimate DitV-riff with any kind of drama -- West Wing, MI-5, Firefly... heck, even a soap opera.

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Great, so what's my point?

Only this: we put a lot of 'game variants' out on the Forge that tend to be an "everything and the kitchen sink" approach -- or which are criticized for *not* using that approach. "It's not a Trollbabe game if the players aren't at the crux between two different peoples," or "but... how can it be a DitV game if the PCs aren't some kind of authority and it doesn't end with the judgment on a town?"

Maybe this is a spin on the 'system matters' argument, but it all really boils down to this question -- when you're spinning off your own riff, how do you differentiate between riffing on the Game-as-a-Whole from the System -- right now, if I were going to do a DitV-riff set in the Firefly universe, I'd obviously be dropping all of the judgment stuff -- hell, most of the religion entirely -- and just focusing on the character development and conflicts, but if I posted something that said "here's a DitV-based game," I should probably expect some of the feedback to be "but... this doesn't have any Demons... no Town with a Problem you expose... it's not really DitV, is it?"

I dunno... is it? What do you call it when it's using the system OGL-style, but sticking on a completely different Theme? What's the keyword to use when you introduce something that uses a game's core mechanics WITHOUT any relation to the original game's "setup"? (And yeah, I included Sorcerer and MLwM in my examples to acknowledge that some games really can't separate one from the other.)

Sorry for the meandering post -- I'm just trying to think out loud and get some input.

Doyce wrote: Maybe this is a spin on the 'system matters' argument,
...

What do you call it when it's using the system OGL-style, but sticking on a completely different Theme?

timfire wrote: Well, this does go to the whole "System Does Matter" thing. Rules influence actual play. The games you mentioned were tailored to support very specific situations/premises/themes - what you call 'setups'.

I think I may not be fully understanding what you mean by "changing the setup." Could you give us an example of changing the setup for Trollbabe or DitV?

I'll give you what I consider to be a fairly common example of "changing the setup:" Using DnD 3e for political intrigue or social conflicts. d20 in general is set up for dungeon crawls. You get experience for killing stuff, which then gets spent on making yourself more powerful (ie, increasing levels), which then allows you to kill more stuff. You can use the basic resolution system to determine political intrigue, or to resolve social conflicts, but then what? The default system doesn't really reward that type of action. You can grant XP for that stuff, sure, but then what? You can only spend that XP on levels, which makes you more powerful for killing things, not for increasing political intrigue or social conflict.

What usually happens in the above situation is that characters end up being thinly-veiled combat machines, and at some point the players end up reverting to good ol' fashion combat.

This goes back to what I said eariler. Either the above players become disatisfied with DnD and seek out a new system, or they continue to drift towards combat-oriented play.

timfire wrote: I think I may not be fully understanding what you mean by "changing the setup." Could you give us an example of changing the setup for Trollbabe or DitV?.

Doyce,

I think you're right that DitV's conflict resolution system doesn't demand PCs-giving-judgement. But DitV's system as a whole is more than just the conflict resolution mechanic.

After all, there are town-creation rules (which explicitly generate problems derived from the Pride->Sin->Heresy progression), a system requirement that all PCs take "I'm a Dog" as a Trait or Relationship (which marks every single PC as one of the setting's designated problem solvers), and Reflection Fallout rules (which forces the end-of-session rewards to be rationalized with how and whether the problems were solved).

If you're running a space station game without all three of these components, you're talking a very significant change to the System.

hanschristianandersen wrote: Doyce,

I think you're right that DitV's conflict resolution system doesn't demand PCs-giving-judgement. But DitV's system as a whole is more than just the conflict resolution mechanic. [snip] If you're running a space station game without all three of these components, you're talking a very significant change to the System.

I've seen some pretty extreme modifications to the standard d20 system...(snip)... no one's claiming they came up with a new system.

hanschristianandersen wrote:
3 [Using some portions of the DitV system to accomplish some DitV-like goals]
|
4 [Using some portions of the DitV system to accomplish something else entirely]
|
5 [The Wild Blue Yonder]

I contend that a game stops being its progenitor somewhere around 3, and I contend that your hypothetical space station game also lives somewhere around 3.

Doyce wrote: I guess it's that 3 to 4 range that makes me uncomfortable as someone who wants to write a game that would fall in that range -- I have the utmost respect for the designers and writers of the original games and I don't know what to DO (legally, morally) in such a situation -- I don't even know that the creators do either.

I personally like the mini-supplement idea, as Ron Edwards has pioneered for Sorcerer. I could conceivably write a mini-supplement one day, if I:
1) played lots of Sorcerer
2) developed my own variant that seemed to break new ground and have lots of potential
3) wanted to do a game-publishing project as a creative experiment.

On the other hand, I will never, never design my own game, even a game "inspired by X." Why? To paraphrase Pulp Fiction, designing games ain't my business. It would take a lot of skills and experience and thought that I don't have the time or interest to acquire.

So far I haven't felt the need or inclination to publish my creations beyond posts in various internet fora, but it's nice to have outlets.

This is a bit like the situation with Quake mods, isn't it? I don't know much about them, but I gather there's a huge online community with mods varying from somebody's little pet project to massively playtested mods that approach professional quality.

timfire wrote:
Legally, as long as you legitately re-write the text, you have have no obligation towards the original author of the rules. Dice mechanics cannot be copyrighted.

timfire wrote:
But if you're writing a design that's around that 3 or especially the 4 range, why pretend it's the same thing? What's the benefit? Why not say it's its own thing?

timfire wrote: I think I may not be fully understanding what you mean by "changing the setup." Could you give us an example of changing the setup for Trollbabe or DitV?

timfire wrote: I think I may not be fully understanding what you mean by "changing the setup." Could you give us an example of changing the setup for Trollbabe or DitV?

.

On the moral question, let me suggest you contact the game designer about it.

Obviously if you're using a modified piece of this and a fragment of that and a nuance of something that's pretty common generally but one variant thereof works for you, this isn't a case of plagiarism, and although the designers might recognize their influence and you might want to acknowledge that somewhere in the text, no one expects you to get permission or anything.

On the other hand, if you were to do a variant that was that closely inspired by a particular game that it landed in the #2 or maybe #3 category, it would be worth your while at least to attempt to contact the designer and talk over with him to what degree he thinks you're copying his design, and what would or would not make him comfortable with that.

--M. J. Young

Doyce, also check out Pretender in the No Press Anthology.

It falls right in the same space relative to Otherkind as your space station game would to Dogs. I'm personally very comfortable with a) how much of it is based on Otherkind; b) how much of it isn't based on Otherkind; c) how much credit Kirt gave me; and d) how much credit he kept for himself.

Just for instance.

-Vincent

lumpley wrote: Doyce, also check out Pretender in the No Press Anthology.