Specifically fortune orientated ones here (though quite likely it can apply to all the other types). What can they actually contribute?

I'm wondering if there are really only two things:
1. Contributing nasty results we might otherwise not have inflicted on our play.

Now we all know players will screw their own PC over more than the GM ever would. But dice/fortune systems can perform a screw over that just wasn't expected and thus isn't something the player would land on themselves. Not because they wont do themselves in that bad...the dice might even be nicer to their PC than they would be as a player. It's because the damage/combination of nastyness the dice incur is usually unexpected. This means dealing with something outside of what you would have created (in terms of nastyness), which is worth while engaging with in the same maner as you get together in a group to engage other peoples creativity and not just your own.

Anyway, I like this quote from a recent Capes actual play:

I don't think we would ever consciously have created as humiliating a defeat as the dice forced us to, and that would have been a tremendous loss

Somewhere along the line (can't remember where), somebody told me their philosophy of the importance of the I-Ching. It stuck in my mind. What I heard was this: "Random noise + human perception = startling meaning"

The fundamental act (IMHO) is not the rolling of the dice but the interpretation of the results. Particularly with an unexpected roll or sequence of rolls the players get rapidly engaged in "How does this play out in the game world?"... in creating meaning out of random noise. It's a tremendous creative resource, and an almost sure way to bypass writers block.

The well designed use of Fortune in the middle can prompt creativity. An unexpected result invites reinterpretation of the initial declared intent.

The only worthwhile use for rules I know of is to sustain in-game conflict of interest, in the face of the overwhelming unity of interest of the players. Read this to include the in-game conflicts that drive Gamist and Simulationist play too, not just the Narrativist ones.

Any rules that don't do it, you're just as well off if you ditch 'em and play freeform. Lots and lots of RPG rules don't reliably do it.

Startling or very bad outcomes are pointless, sometimes disruptive, if they don't serve the game's conflicts. Hence fudging. Very good outcomes, or even very expected outcomes, vindicate the group's use of the rules, if the outcomes serve the game's conflicts.

You know the thing that happens where a group starts out playing Ars Magica (say) by the book, but gradually rolls dice and consults the rules less and less, until the character sheets sit in a folder forgotten? At first the rules served to build the players' unity of interest, so they used 'em. Now that the group's got unity of interest, it doesn't need the rules anymore. The only thing that's going to win that group back to using rules is something better than unity of interest.

Unity of interest plus sustained in-game conflict is better than unity of interest alone.

Here's when I knew that Dogs in the Vineyard was good: I was showing Meg the dice mechanic. We played through the conflict in the book - does your brother go and shoot the woman? She knocked her brother down and took away his gun, but their back-and-forth suggested an essential follow-up conflict. Meg was psyched. She was diggin' it. Now you know that Meg and I are happy long-time freeformers, and Meg especially doesn't have any patience for noncontributing rules. She launched straight into the follow-up conflict and reached for the dice.

edit: I should say that I don't disagree with anybody who wrote before me. I just think that really taking on the question - why have rules? - requires a broader look than at the moment-to-moment.

-Vincent

Rules are also used for purposes of keeping balance and consistency.

By this, I do not strictly mean that it keeps the players on equal grounds, rules also keep the GM in check. It could be argued that a good GM does not need to be kept in line and I would agree with that most of the time, but even good GMs can have bad days and bring their spite with them into the game and be needlessly harsh to the PCs. This works the other way as well, a GM could be in a good mood and be nice to the PCs. The GM could always play favorites with certain players and not be as strict with them as they are to the other players.

Being in books, rules are always available to double-check when needed. This grants a game more consistency, for if the aforementioned GM allowed something one day that he/she did not allow during a previous meeting, players would begin to question the consistency of their world. The rules allow players and GMs to check a set of rules for the game that they are playing and enforce them in order to keep the game consistent.

Chance allows us to include a random element that will sometimes disrupt and thwart the wishes of the players. Failure is necessary in gaming and having it sometimes occur when it shouldn't and sometimes not occur when it should makes gaming more interesting. The rules obviously allow us to monitor and interpret chance in a consistent way that everyone agrees upon before playing the game.

If you're willing to talk about things in broad abstract terms, I believe the above points can be condensed into a single idea: Rules guide play in directions that they may not go if it were up to the players alone.

Speaking a bit more concretely, I think another 'purpose' or 'benefit' of rules is that they take some of the creative pressure off of the players. Rules can contribute both to the content of a game (adding setting, situation, character, etc) as well as contribute to the flow of the story/game/whatever.

In my opinion, fortune-based resolution rules in RPGs bear a close resemblance to the fortune-based rules of another human endeavour: gambling.

The psychology of gambling is complex, but it is widely accepted that gamblers display a phenomenon described by conditioning theory as "partial reinforcement extinction effect" (PREE).

PREE, more or less, means that behaviours which are rewarded only some of the time take longer to disappear than behaviours which are rewarded all of the time, if the rewards stop coming.

I believe that fortune-based rules result in a similar learning pattern in some players.



Cheers,
Roger Carbol

lumpley wrote: The only worthwhile use for rules I know of is to sustain in-game conflict of interest, in the face of the overwhelming unity of interest of the players.

I'm in general agreement with all the above.

One other possible use for die-rolling: the anticipation of the result of a roll can create suspense. For example, you have one chance to save yourself, or a colleague from a nasty fate. Everyone's going to be watching those dice as they roll.

Of course, you don't need a randomiser to generate suspense, but it's hard to narrate a risk like this into a story if the outcome is certain.

Welcome to Galwinganoon, who has said something that I think touches on what I would say. I'm actually surprised that Vincent didn't see it, but then as he says he's a happy freeformer from way back, so this probably is in a blind spot for him.

Rules serve as an authority to support the credibility of the participants. That's their function.

"I'm sorry, dude, but your character can't swim if he doesn't have the swimming proficiency. It's right here in the Wilderness Survival Guide."

Credibility settled. The character cannot swim.

"You need to roll at least a fourteen to hit that guy, and you rolled a twelve, so you missed."

Credibility settled. The character missed.

If you don't have any problem with distribution of credibility on the difficult questions, you don't need rules. Most of us do have such problems, and that's what rules are for.

Noon, I'm surprised you didn't pick up one aspect specifically of fortune-based mechanics (which seems to be the focus of your question): fortune-based mechanics can produce incredibly good results which we might hesitate to produce for ourselves without the support of the dice. Thus when a player in my Multiverser game rolls a 3 on a general effects roll, I'll often tell him that he just rolled a one in a thousand best possible result, so why doesn't he tell me what sort of absolutely unexpected over-the-top good luck might just have befallen him. I sometimes make it better than he suggests, because even with the encouragement of great dice rolls, we're often hesitant to narrate almost unbelievably good outcomes for ourselves.

--M. J. Young

Oh no, MJ, that falls tidily into what I meant by "unity of interest." Absolutely rules serve as an authority to support the credibility of the participants ... but any rules can do it, and the group can do it easily enough without rules. (Depending on the group.) That's the dear old limply pimply.

My suggestion is to move beyond the Lumpley Principle. To see what a particular set of rules really contributes, you have to look beyond how it distributes credibility. You have to figure out how it parlays inter-player agreement into in-game conflict.

And if it doesn't do that - if it doesn't do it consistently and reliably - it wasn't worth the design time. We already have more instances of that game than we could possibly want.

And yes, welcome, Galwinganoon!

-Vincent

Here's something interesting from systems thinking that has some bearing on the purpose of rules:
http://www.systems-thinking.org/uwrules/uwrules.htm

In the various diagrams, you might replace "unwritten rules" by "GM".

As an operational researcher, I get to use this kind of thing in my work.

I think there's probably many ways that systems thinking can be applied to roleplaying, not least in exploring the interaction of different roleplaying styles.

I suppose the sort of thing I use it for is to see whether I think the rules that I have written enforce the kind of behaviour I want to see.

M. J. Young wrote:
Rules serve as an authority to support the credibility of the participants. That's their function.

Hello all,

I'd like to add on a bit to what Roger had to say if I might.

My wife and I recently had a discussion similar to this, shortly after I suggested the possiblitiy that the dice just got in the way in certain games.

What we came down to were two things:

1) Responsiblity

and

2) Gambling

It's the responsibility part that strikes me as a GM, and the gambling bit that strikes me as a player. See, in the games we're used to, the GM is the final arbiter on success or failure. On win or loss. He's got the authority and responsibility to arbitrate in a fair and entertaining manner. So, in the cases of extreme gain or loss, it becomes easier to lay the authority and responsiblity on the fortune system. If I may present an example;

The scene is set as the PC watches someone fall into deep water, and for one reason or another, the PC knows that that someone will not make it back up on their own. So, the player, empathizing with their PC, announces; "I won't be able to live with myself if I don't -try- to save that poor soul. I know I might drown too, but I simply have to jump in and try to save them."

Well, now both the player and the GM have a dilemma on their hands. Unless the rescuing PC has some attribute that makes them an uber-swimmer, the PC risks death. A pretty big risk. Now, if we're playing fortuneless, then someone at that table has to make the decisions. In my particular circle of gamers, that's a decision none will want to make. No one will want to condemn the PC that made the selfless rescue attempt, but then, if if the decision is made that the PC is successful simply because no one wants the PC to die, then there's no risk, is there?

So, maybe I'm just coming full-circle to the Gambling point of view. My players enjoy a bit of a gamble now and then. And no one wants to be the one to be held responsible for great gains or losses, so we give the dice that job.

And sometimes we blame and punish our dice for our failures. :)

-Eric

Roger wrote: I think there might be something else going on, on a social level, though. Let me see if I can illustrate with a couple of examples.

With Rules
"I'm sorry, dude, but your character can't swim if he doesn't have the swimming proficiency. It's right here in the Wilderness Survival Guide."

Player's Internal Dialogue: Oh well. I guess I should have taken that proficiency.


Without Rules
"I'm sorry, dude, but your character can't swim."

Player's Internal Dialogue: The GM is a big mean jerk. C'mon, everyone can swim a bit. He just hates me.


This isn't a credibility issue, per se -- in both cases, the player agrees that the GM has sufficient credibility to make the determination.

Hi Vincent,

The only worthwhile use for rules I know of is to sustain in-game conflict of interest, in the face of the overwhelming unity of interest of the players.

Chance allows us to include a random element that will sometimes disrupt and thwart the wishes of the players. Failure is necessary in gaming and having it sometimes occur when it shouldn't and sometimes not occur when it should makes gaming more interesting. The rules obviously allow us to monitor and interpret chance in a consistent way that everyone agrees upon before playing the game.

Callan wrote: When I play with others I get something from them creatively that I couldn't have gotten on my own. Do you mean unity in that during play the players might all synchronise in terms of creativity, all wanting the same sort of thing and thus not getting much from this except a sense of group harmony? And the fortune rules can help shake that up?

Callan--of course any group can ignore any rule; but then, what's the point of having rules? They exist to establish credibility, to say who is right when there is a disagreement. Oh, but the referee is always right? No, he isn't always right, even in groups where people say that.

Going back to our guy who falls into the water. "Sorry," the ref says, "your guy drowns."

"Wait!" you say. "That's it? What about his swimming proficiency? According to the rules, he at least gets a roll to decide whether he can swim here."

Gee, the referee really wanted that water trap to kill someone, to put the players on edge with how dangerous this place really is; but the rules have just been pulled out. That is, someone is arguing that the statement the referee just made is not credible, and he is calling on the authority of the rules to give credibility to his own statement.

Can we still ignore the rule? Sure. But the very fact that the player cited the rule indicates that he believes the referee's statement is not credible, and should be negated. If we ignore the rule, then we've established that the referee has the credibility to negate rules on which we were depending when we entered play--not a good situation in most cases. Now, if the referee can explain why the rule does not apply, then we've established that the referee has the right to make interpretations of rules that might not fit our expectations. On the other hand, if the referee bows to the rules, we've established that the credibility of the players may be bolstered against the referee by citing the rules.

On the other hand, if the rules did not exist, the player's objection would not amount to more than "I didn't expect my guy to drown, and I don't like it", maybe with a bit of "it didn't happen this way last time" thrown in for good measure. That's a lot less support for his position. The ability to point to a rule that has authority gives the player considerably more credibility in this circumstance.

I'll also point to Hackmaster, in which the players are encouraged to cite rules against the referee, and can penalize the referee for his failure to adhere to them. That's a clear example of credibility being delineated by the authority of the rules.

Clearer?

--M. J. Young

MJ: you wrote "I'll also point to Hackmaster, in which the players are encouraged to cite rules against the referee, and can penalize the referee for his failure to adhere to them."

True, but it's actually even worse than that. Players are encouraged to do this, but if they cite any rule in the GMG that's not in the PHB, the GM is allowed to punish them, docking them Honor IIRC. And there are deliberately contradictory statements in the PHB and GMG, along with a statement that there are no contradictions in the game.

(Remember the boardgame 'Aggravation'?)


Vincent: I love your posts in this thread. This is a place where the Gam/Nar parallel Ron pushes can be felt in full force, I think. If you're really playing an old-school game as an exercize in Step on Up, a lot of players WILL be offended if you cheat. "Dude, his armor class is only 6. That hits!" Not following the rules robs the competition of its proposed meaning.

What I think you may be pointing to here is the Narrativist version of the same phenomenon. "Make me hurt your guy" in the way you mean it is "challenge me emotionally, morally: make me address premise 'til it hurts". And it makes the game more rewarding if it helps you do that, doesn't let you slip back into the empathetic wimpout. Just like it's like 50 times more rewarding to play in a hard-core competitive game if you know PCs can get waxed due to bad die rolls (especially when die rolls are contingent on meaningful tactical choices).

It's just a different kind of hurting - different stuff is at stake.

Hi MJ

of course any group can ignore any rule; but then, what's the point of having rules?

Hey Vincent,

Engaging description! But isn't that the same as #1, at the start of the thread? The one I gave the capes example for? Regardless, your description really underlines the potential! Thanks!

Callan wrote: But isn't that the same as #1, at the start of the thread?

Sean wrote: What I think you may be pointing to here is the Narrativist version of the same phenomenon. "Make me hurt your guy" in the way you mean it is "challenge me emotionally, morally: make me address premise 'til it hurts". And it makes the game more rewarding if it helps you do that, doesn't let you slip back into the empathetic wimpout.

Doc X, that's only true if you're playing with rules that don't reliably deliver. There's no need to ever fudge or overrule, if you've got good rules.

I wouldn't play a game where I had to sometimes ignore the rules to make it dramatic.

-Vincent

The designer of Monopoly can't help it that uncounted board gamers place the tax money in the center of the board and award it to the player who lands on Free Parking. It's not in the rules, but people play that way. That's not on the designer.

The rules exist to reinforce credibility in the direction the designer believes the game should go. In D&D, the designers don't think you should be able to hit anything at which you swing, or that you should miss everything, either. They also obviously believe that some targets should be harder to hit than others, and that some characters should have a better chance to hit than others. Thus we've got AC and combat tables based on class and level (or now adjustments to chance to hit), all of which pull together to create that. In general, the designers did not think that too many other factors should be involved, in the sense that one character might be better against one opponent and worse against another--but they did include some of that in the game, such as dwarfs get bonuses against goblins and rangers get bonuses against giant class creatures, with the result that these things impact who is the best in any given situation. All of this means that the designers have created rules that give us a particular kind of game experience if they are followed.

Of course, players could ignore that completely. The guy playing the ranger says, "Hey, this is a giant class creature and I get +3 to hit it" only to have the referee say, "I don't use that rule, it's stupid." So the authority of the rules has been invalidated by the credibility of the referee--unless of course everyone at the table gets all up in arms at this and forces the referee to give the player the advantage of his character choices, based on the authority of the rules. All of this is entirely different from the idea of the player saying, "I think as a ranger my guy should get +3 to hit ogres, because they're kind of like giants, and everyone knows that rangers hate giants and are very good at fighting against them." Then when the referee says, "I don't think so" there really isn't anything more to say about it, unless the other players press on the grounds that they think that would be cool or something.

So what kind of rules do you need? You need rules that point the players in the direction of how you want them to use their credibility--what do you want to have happen in the game. Now, sometimes really crunchy rules work well for that, and sometimes really simple rules work well for that. As we often hear around here, what do you want play to be like? Write the rules that support this. In Multiverser, there's room for a lot of crunch. If one of my players tells me he wants to develop an evasive tumbling technique that will get him out of the way of incoming missile fire, that creates the opportunity for him to roll his skill at that as a defense against that kind of attack. Anything the players want to create, the rules support. Contrast this to Legends of Alyria, where what matters is the attributes and the descriptors, ultimately amounting to which character is more focused on winning this outcome. You could describe tumbling out of the way of the attack, but that's a narrative description of an outcome, not a modifier to what happens. Alyria is great at supporting exciting head-on-head character conflict, but Multiverser is better at supporting exciting tactical play. Which do you want? Write rules that support that.

The rules then stand as the authority to which the participants can appeal, to say, "It should be played this way." They can of course overrule any and all of it, add things that work better for them, pirate it for parts, or anything else, and you can't help it. But if they say "We're playing Multiverser", everyone at the table has the right to expect that everyone is going to respect what the rule book says, unless there is credibility-based agreement to the contrary.

Am I missing the point of this thread?

--M. J. Young

lumpley wrote: Yep!

With the addition that any ol' nasty events won't do. The rules have to deliver the right nasty events, and they have to put them in the hands of the right player.

I don't think that "unexpectedness" is the key to it. I think that conflict-appropriateness is.

How about this:

If the rules provide a crap unexpected outcome - crap from the players' point of view, not the characters' - if the rules provide a crap unexpected outcome, you fudge. We all do. It's like, "the arch-villain DIES?! Screw that, roll over."

If the rules provide a crap expected outcome, you fudge. Or probably never consult the rules in the first place, like, "if you roll for that it's just gonna suck, let's skip it and go forward."

Look at roleplaying through the ages and you'll see a bunch of crappy rules providing crap outcomes, expected and unexpected, and a bunch of gamers fudging, ignoring, and deciding selectively when to consult the rules accordingly. This is exactly what Doc X said.

On the other hand...

If the rules provide a right outcome, expected or unexpected, you go with it. Good rules sometimes provide expected outcomes, sometimes unexpected - but they're never crap. There's never any need to fudge or select, because every outcome is gonna advance the game's conflicts and draw in the players' participation.

The variable that decides whether you play by the rules or fudge them isn't whether they provide unexpected results or not. All Fortune rules sometimes provide unexpected results and sometimes don't. Practically all Drama or Karma rules sometimes do, sometimes don't. What makes a set of rules worth playing by isn't its unexpectedness - it's just as I said, how well does it build in-game conflict out of inter-player unity?

-Vincent

I'm just not sure about this crap result thing. As a designer, I can think X result is the bees knees. But I have no idea what the end users think is crap...they might stick with all the other rules but get to X and screeeetch! Brake and drive around it.

I have no idea what the end users will like. So how can the rules contribute to something which isn't a crap result in their opinions? Certainly, the rules can be focused on what results I like (of course it's a very good idea to do so), but the rules wont convince end users what I like is good. Basically, in terms of what the rules can contribute, surely they can only contribute the unexpected? As a designer I'm just guessing if others will feel they deliver sweet results. Certainly as part of what they contribute, they can't make the end users come round to my way of enjoying results.

So while I'm hoping 'Ah, some groups are going to absolutely love this result' really I can only expect my design to deliver unexpected results. Or perhaps another way of looking at it is as delivering external results (not from anyone in the end user group).

The actual disjunct I'm assuming even between the designers preference and a group who really loves his rules (and sticks with them) is possitive in relatively small amounts. It adds an element of a different culture they otherwise didn't have access to. But I don't think as a designer you have much to say about this disjunct and the point where a particular group descides it just becomes a bunch of crap results.

Uh...

Nope.

I mean, I can tell the difference between crap and good. I'm counting on my players to be able to do the same.

A good RPG's rules contribute a lot more to a game than just some outcomes, expected or otherwise. They contribute a whole social dynamic. As far as I'm concerned, that's what roleplaying game design is: social dynamic design. I see something I like in my own group's social dynamic, so I build rules to get at it and make it portable to other groups.

Have you played Universalis? That's a good place to start.

-Vincent

Noon wrote: I'm just not sure about this crap result thing. As a designer, I can think X result is the bees knees. But I have no idea what the end users think is crap...they might stick with all the other rules but get to X and screeeetch! Brake and drive around it.

lumpley wrote: Uh...

Nope.

I mean, I can tell the difference between crap and good. I'm counting on my players to be able to do the same.

A good RPG's rules contribute a lot more to a game than just some outcomes, expected or otherwise. They contribute a whole social dynamic. As far as I'm concerned, that's what roleplaying game design is: social dynamic design. I see something I like in my own group's social dynamic, so I build rules to get at it and make it portable to other groups.

Have you played Universalis? That's a good place to start.

-Vincent

Uh, what can rules deliver other than potential participant satisfaction?

I dunno, is there another goal?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Uh, what can rules deliver other than potential participant satisfaction?

I dunno, is there another goal?

Mike

I still don't get it. Not at all.

One doesn't first design a car not to run people over, and then put in the intent of the design, which is a device to get people from one place to another. Not only is that not how people think about the process, it would be pointless to do. The fact is, that if/when not running people over becomes a concern (and you'd have to prove to me that it is in the case of your example, because I don't think it is), that becomes part of the intended design, part of the designers attempt to make the end user happy.

You seem to have some idea that there are some principles that exist a priori in a game design, but I just don't believe that there are. There is only the intent, to make an activity that's fun for the participants.

To think that there is something else, is to become mired in some epistemological sinkhole that leads nowhere.

Now, maybe you're talking about something that's pure genius, and we're all just not keeping up. But you'll have to do a better job of describing what it is, or...well, for me at least, there isn't much more I can say about it (and I'd suspect that's true for others as well).

Your only concrete example so far is to ask what a fortune system "contributes" to a game, before the intent. Well, nothing. It only exists to satisfy the player's desire to have a model with some unpredictability to it.

Mike

Noon wrote: ...You might know what a crap result and a good result is. But like looking at the cars physics, what are you actually handing over beyond trying to hand over your personal intent (as the intent handed over with a car isn't to run people over).

It might seem a matter of, like the car, putting it into the 'user missuse' basket. But really, intending something to give a good result and trying to get that intent across doesn't do anything in terms of mechanics. So, to really see what your making, what can rules contribute sans your intent in designing it?

Ever remember in school where the teacher would set you to describing the actions for some task. Like spreading butter on toast or something. And you might write something like 'Take the toast out of the toaster and spread the butter on it' and the teacher would take the container of butter and mash it against the bread ineffectually? Or some such error?

The exercise is about stripping intent. The intent being a reference to shared information which might very well not be shared at all.

It's basically keeping in mind the choke in communication you have between yourself and the user. You might design with good results in mind, you might intend good results. But what happens when your book goes through that choke, the choke being non shared information. That's why I'm not sure about this 'rules provide good results' thing, because of the choke. I mean, one meant a good result to happen when one said to spread the butter on the toast.

Much like looking at what result you get from saying 'spread the butter on the toast', what can rules contribute?

Callan, the answer to your question is a lot more complicated than "rules contribute unexpected results." I'm going to try to answer again, but if you don't want to hear it, that's your thing.

Rules contribute a social dynamic not native to the group.

When you roleplay, you're constructing a Situation - a Situation is a dynamic interaction of Characters with one another and with Setting elements, remember, from the glossary - and then you're resolving it into a new Situation. The Situations you construct, and then the process of resolving them into new Situations, and then the details of the new Situation - they all depend on your group's social dynamic. That is, they all depend on how, precisely, your group plays. Who says what to whom about what.

When you play by rules, they influence the way you play at any or every point: the initial construction of Situation, the process of resolving one Situation into the next, the details of the new Situation.

This is all still social. Who says what to whom about what. Short of Rolemaster's stupid crit tables, the rules don't contribute outcomes at all. They organize, constrain, and provoke the players into contributing outcomes. And setups. And intermediate steps of all kinds.

So: "the rules contribute unexpected outcomes" isn't right: "the rules provoke and constrain the players into contributing unexpected outcomes" is better. And even so it's not close to the whole picture. The whole picture is more like "the rules provoke and constrain the players into contributing all kinds of things, unexpected and expected, at every stage of the Situation-to-Situation process."

It should be very clear that yes, that includes unexpected outcomes.

NOW, all this stuff I just said?

It's old news, and it's boring.

You don't want to talk about quality and what rules can contribute to make a game good instead of crappy - that's fine, your thread. Absent quality, I consider the topic exhausted.

-Vincent

Okay, to repeat what I've already said: There are two layers of design concern that have been brought up in this thread. One is just what the rules can contribute and the second is speculating on what will be enjoyable for end users. The second is a great and huge subject and I think more than a few threads have and will tuck into the many little details of this just fine. Ie, it's a standard topic. This thread is about number one and there will be no river dancing to liven it up either. Not even a little bit, sorry.

I had thought it was being argued that number two is intrinsically part of number one. Really it was an urge to just move on to two and I wish I'd been able to mod that sooner.

Okay, looking at number one. I brought it up as an interesting clarification process. For example, weaving anti cheating (by any user) rules into a game is typically pointless and is recognised as so. They are going to choose what they use and how, so those rules don't enforce anything because if someone wants to cheat they wont embrace the rule...the rules only provide nifty results.

Then theres structural indulgence. You might like to have every part of the rules structure interfacing intimately. But that's making the assumption everyone will use what you want them to, which you don't actually have control over. If all the rules interlace but the users pick and choose as they will, you'll get lopsided results as rules that rely on other rules go out of kilter. When you starkly look at just providing results, its certainly suggests modularity. But go in with an indulgent feeling that they are going to use just what you want them too, rather than just thinking of yourself as an FX provider, and there may be probs.

Then there's a couple of almost conflicting issues about all this:
1. Users need to make their own descisions on what rules get used next...the rules can't mind read them and give them just what their hearts desire. You can't automate this descision.
2. Dice rolls can produce results we'd never think of or perhaps do to ourselves.

Number two can produce results that users will seek, but sort of because it goes against what they would have done themselves. You can't make rules that guess what they player likes and deliver it without their having to decide. But your rules do need to produce relatively unusual results and not have those results fade away by users being able to shy away from bad results (for example) with the descisions they must make. Ongoing effects but without stipulating the use of this chunk of rules or that chunk.

Dull...meh. It's just difficult to think in terms of this. Which makes it easier to skip to that second design concern I suppose.

Noon wrote: Okay, to repeat what I've already said: There are two layers of design concern that have been brought up in this thread. One is just what the rules can contribute and the second is speculating on what will be enjoyable for end users.

I had thought it was being argued that number two is intrinsically part of number one. Really it was an urge to just move on to two and I wish I'd been able to mod that sooner.

Okay, looking at number one. I brought it up as an interesting clarification process. For example, weaving anti cheating (by any user) rules into a game is typically pointless and is recognised as so. They are going to choose what they use and how, so those rules don't enforce anything because if someone wants to cheat they wont embrace the rule...the rules only provide nifty results.

Then theres structural indulgence. You might like to have every part of the rules structure interfacing intimately. But that's making the assumption everyone will use what you want them to, which you don't actually have control over. If all the rules interlace but the users pick and choose as they will, you'll get lopsided results as rules that rely on other rules go out of kilter.

When you starkly look at just providing results, its certainly suggests modularity. But go in with an indulgent feeling that they are going to use just what you want them too, rather than just thinking of yourself as an FX provider, and there may be probs.

Then there's a couple of almost conflicting issues about all this:
1. Users need to make their own descisions on what rules get used next...the rules can't mind read them and give them just what their hearts desire. You can't automate this descision.

2. Dice rolls can produce results we'd never think of or perhaps do to ourselves.

Number two can produce results that users will seek, but sort of because it goes against what they would have done themselves.

You can't make rules that guess what they player likes and deliver it without their having to decide.

But your rules do need to produce relatively unusual results and not have those results fade away by users being able to shy away from bad results (for example) with the descisions they must make.

Dull...meh. It's just difficult to think in terms of this. Which makes it easier to skip to that second design concern I suppose.

What Simon says.

Sorry.

Sure there are two factors here, the tool, and communicating the tool. Yes, sometimes the intent or benefits of using the tool aren't communicated. Communication, after all, being imperfect. But the goal of the tool is to give the player something that they can enjoy. The purpose of the communication is so that they understand the tool's use. The how, and perhaps why (though often that's left to experience).

As the man says above, sans the question of satisfying some player goal - making the game enjoyable - I have no idea what criteria to apply.

Do we do this well, trying to determine what will be fun? Well, yes and no. That is, RPGs are fun, starting with D&D. As long as you're doing as well as D&D, or even close, you're succeeding. Can one do better?

Welcome to the whole point of this website. Both in terms of better tools and better communications.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: As the man says above, sans the question of satisfying some player goal - making the game enjoyable - I have no idea what criteria to apply.

clehrich wrote: But since "enjoyable" has a number of independent criteria, not consistent from group to group, surely there are different methods of constructing rules so as to satisfy different aims.

Simply to say "they support fun" is reductionist: it denies the whole value of distinguishing among game-types, play-modes, and so forth.

Yes, if we're looking for one single goal that encompasses the value of all well-constructed rules, then "making the game enjoyable" is probably accurate. But it's also so general as to be utterly useless. [/quote[

What I'm saying is that the game designer's specific goals are important, and the rules can't be understood if that isn't taken into account. I am not saying that all games have the same specific goals to produce the same fun experience, but that the nature of the experience they are intended to provoke, whatever that may be, is important in any analysis of the rules.

This, I think, is why Callan wants to set aside the specifics of what makes a game enjoyable and focus on how, theoretically, rules might support such aims.

But you're talking about supporting aims. Callan wants to do away with any consideration of aims or intent in this discussion. How can you discuss how rules support the aim of making a game enjoyable, without any reference to the enjoyability of the game?


Simon Hibbs

simon_hibbs wrote:

This, I think, is why Callan wants to set aside the specifics of what makes a game enjoyable and focus on how, theoretically, rules might support such aims.

But you're talking about supporting aims. Callan wants to do away with any consideration of aims or intent in this discussion. How can you discuss how rules support the aim of making a game enjoyable, without any reference to the enjoyability of the game?

There are other aims, after all. If we have decided that we want narratives that emulate Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV shows, that is an aim; it is presumably dependent on the players' actually thinking this will be enjoyable, but those two things are separable.

Obviously I can only assert my understanding of other's opinions, but here goes.

clehrich wrote: I don't think this is the case. Callan wants to set aside, "in brackets" as some would put it, the specific aim of enjoyability.

Think of it as looking at what is left if you remove your opinion, as designer, of what you think will make a user happy. What are you still giving if you remove that concept from what you think your handing over. I suppose its easier to give an example, like how cars aren't designed to run people over. Yet they do.

I'm suprised to see Mike H. resisting this argument so manfully. Sure, the value of randomness is externality - but surely we can still examine where randomness is located, and where other rules than those that control randomness call for randomness to be generated.

Surely we can go beyond saying some players enjoy uncertainty in some of their models some of the time. I think this is related to the previous point about whether or not players actually use the rules that are written. And if it is true that randomness is used in a certain way in a certain context, what can that tell us about the desire so fulfilled, or where else the same solution might be applied?

Therein lies the virtue of distinguishing between process and intent. The process selected at a rules level may contradict the nominal intent. Intent can be separated from rules without ignoring the implications of rules.

I'm not disagreeing with any of that.

I'm not saying we can't look further at all the ramifications of randomness - indeed we've done this on a number of occasions in other threads.

But when asked what the purpose of these things are, I said randomness, and thought that I was being shot down on that.

That is, what I'm not sure of is whether the problem with my analysis is that I've said that the ultimate purpose of randomness is to satisfy some player need, or if it's that randomness is not the purpose at all. I'd assumed the latter. Perhaps this is all just a misunderstanding.

If what he was asking is what the ramification of certain forms of randomness are, then, by all means, that's my thing. If he's asking what else, other than randomness, one gets from fortune systems, that's where I'm at a loss.

That is, it seems to me that some people have one idea of what the problem is on a very surface level, whereas my perception was that I'm being asked something more deeply epistemological which only answer I have is "I don't know."

It's like I've been asked, what is the use of the number zero, and I've said, "Well, it's used as a placeholder in a digital system and to indicate the empty set, so that people can do math with the algorythms we have." And I've been challenged that this is the intent of zero, but not it's "purpose."

Mike

Noon wrote: 1. Contributing nasty results we might otherwise not have inflicted on our play.

2. It can add combination of events that one wouldn't have considered putting together otherwise.

Is there anything else that doesn't basically fit under the above two contribution types?

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm not saying we can't look further at all the ramifications of randomness - indeed we've done this on a number of occasions in other threads.

But when asked what the purpose of these things are, I said randomness, and thought that I was being shot down on that.

Hi Chris,

Off in some spots, very much on in others like the religion analogy. I think posters have overshot what I meant, found nothing where they've stopped at and written about that. I'll try and pin this down.


Hi all,

Okay, first lets establish something: As a designer, you can't force someone to use any particular rule. We all know that, but just to be clear it doesn't matter how good or sexy you make your rules (in your own opinion), you can't force them to use it by designing in a way that you think will please 'em.

Second, it doesn't matter if you think people will love your material...very rarely will anyone ever use everything in it you find dear about it. An example might be someone who plays TROS but doesn't use those SA thingies (or uses them in such a skewed way they're effectively not used) for whatever reason. Another example is the myriad ways early D&D was played despite its authors intent. Drift is prevalent.

So, that whole 'guess what your target audience will like' is speculative, not just in terms of 'will they buy my book' but 'will they use these spiritual attribute rules (or whatever)'. And I'm not knocking this by saying its speculative, I'm just establishing this.

It being a speculative area, I'm looking to see if at a more basic level there is something concrete rather than speculative. And I'd really prefer people to probe me or skip the thread (I've done plenty of boring threads before that people have skipped, don't worry, it wont phase me) than tell me nothing is there, now get on with what the board is really about.

So, what the hell is left if you remove the intent to make people happy? Well, actually I don't want you to remove that intent. I want you to remove, as a designer (and for the purposes of this thread) is not the intent but the thought that you can make people happy. Now, you can hope for it and should...but sans hope, what will your rules produce?

This is the trip up point. 'Without intent, rules do nothing!' seems to be the cry. Okay, time for an example: Lets look back at TROS with no SA's again. Now, I'm pretty certain it was designed to hopefully please a certain market in terms of the effect of SA's on/with the combat system. Now, say they removed the SA's because 'those SA's don't seem realistic at all!' but then have a bad time with the deadly combat.

Now, if were speculating what pleases an audience, we'd tackle this in a whole different way. But here I'm going to look at the amount of rules printed and the effect saught. Now, you have two chunks of rules to produce one result. But because you made those chunks seperate, they are vulerable to being broken up. What would happen if you combined the rules more intimately, in a smaller description so they are harder to break up. You would get that nar effect on combat more certainly than you do by having two chunks of rules that you hope the user will use both of. It's a matter of looking at what the rule should be producing and making the structure less vulnerable by being large. This is just one design rule I'm drawing. In this example, your not thinking of reducing the size of the rules because you think the audience doesn't like lots of rules. Your not even doing it because you think the audience will love SA's. Your doing it because this is the effect you want and your making it tighter to ensure that result is more likely to be produced.

So you've decided on the type of result you want to produce and with no concrete 'yeah, everyone will always use your SA rules' knowledge, you can only run off the knowledge that the more straight forward and tight the rules are to produce that effect, the more likely they will be used by everyone who uses your product (and not because everyone loves tight and straight forward rules). Again, just one design rule I'm outlining here.

Am I getting anywhere closer to a practical use for anyone here?

Note: I love TROS and I'm not knocking it. It's just handy that it's a spectacularly different game without SA's. The above isn't advice for it, for certain reasons which would convolute my point if detailed here.

Hi Simon,

I hope this covers some of your questions, because I fear that if I answer your many quoted post, it'll be readable to others in the same way frankenstien walks...kind of clunky. I don't think I'd be able to tackle it adequately for forge reading purposes.

This thread has posed great difficulties in terms of how to grasp its intent.

It seems that the core question is what do rules accomplish?

However, it is complicated by the seemingly ever-present insertion of this qualifier, what do rules accomplish given that the players are likely to ignore them all anyway?

So somewhere between the last paragraph of Mike Holmes' post and the first paragraph Chris Lerich's post, something started to form in my brain that might be a fresh approach to the question.

A role playing game, as we understand it currently here, is a cooperative creative entertainment process through which two or more individuals contribute ideas to a shared imagined space in a fashion that produces imagined events that can be expressed in narrative if desired. That is, the entire fun of the game is to create the little-s story. (The kind of little-s story we create and the reason we find it fun to do so is where creative agenda come in, which are not part of this consideration at this point.)

It is also agreed that such play, even if "free-form", is possible because of system, a set of agreed limitations and obligations within the social contract of the group involved in the activity.

Now, the sole purpose of "writing a role playing game" must be this: we have found a way to play in our social group which we find both fun and different from other ways people do this, and we wish to communicate how we do that to others so that they can have the same fun we have, or at least approach what we're doing.

Thus what rules attempt to do is codify those limitations and obligations which make the game work for the group currently using it in a form which another group can adopt into their own social contract to achieve the same outcome.

So what point do rules have if we assume the players are going to ignore them? No point at all. The entire point of writing the rules was to tell someone else "This is how we achieve the enjoyable experience we'd like to share with you." If the players don't want to follow your rules, then either

• your rules do not effectively provide them with the experience you're having;• these players don't enjoy role playing for the same reasons you do;
or• they don't really want your advice on how to play, and are going to play their way no matter what you tell them (because, probably, they think they know how to have fun role playing, and your ideas of how to do it another way and have more fun must be wrong).



What rules accomplish, if they are well written, is conveying the means of reproducing an enjoyable play experience through adjusting the social contract of another group of people. That's both what they do and how they do it. If that other group of people ignores the rules, they accomplish nothing.

Now, if Chris is right that what you're really after is connecting specific rules with what they specifically accomplish, I think that it either doesn't work that way or the answers you will get will be too narrow to be useful.

For example, I can suggest the use of an illusionist technique by which the referee has complete control of what happens next: whichever way the player has his character turn, he will go here next. I can use that technique to completely disempower a player so that he has to go through my story; combined with a couple other techniques we wind up with a thoroughly rigid illusionism in which none of the player choices matter. Conversely, I can use that technique to completely empower a player by assuring that none of his choices send him to some gaming backwater where nothing is happening and he's just wasting time. Used with certain other techniques, it can put the player character exactly where the player wants him to be, faced with the choices that should and do matter to him in this game.

So we can say that the use of dice "creates randomness and the consequential uncertainty"; but first, that's not necessarily true, since it's entirely possible to use dice in a way that only appear to create uncertainty, and second, if it does do this, that's only a means to some other desired objective in the game design. It is only in combination that individual techniques achieve specific design tendencies and outcomes.

Does this help clarify the topic at all, Callan?

--M. J. Young

I'm not sure...

So we can say that the use of dice "creates randomness and the consequential uncertainty"; but first, that's not necessarily true,

However, it is complicated by the seemingly ever-present insertion of this qualifier, what do rules accomplish given that the players are likely to ignore them all anyway?

OK, I think I get what you're saying with the particular design priciple you're now espousing, but I think you really got there the long way. I get the impression that somehow you have more principles that you think are exposed by this line of reasoning? That is, this was not your only point to make tight designs?

See, from my POV, we've been saying make tight designs for ages now, and it was a product of the idea of the intent to make a fun game for the players. That is, without looking "beyond intent" we got to this principle by looking at the intent to provide a good experience.

I think that you're seriously jaded about what happens between design and play. I think your speculation that drift is "prevalent" is incorrect. I think that there are a lot of people playing the rules as written who have little to say because play is going fine for them. IOW, the squeaky wheels are the ones that are heard most from.

But even if I'm wrong, if one player has fun as written, I'm satisfied. Further, and I say this a lot, if one does modify from the rules, it's precisely how well presented the original vision was that makes it possible to make good modifications to the rule system. Some systems even are so good as to suggest their own modifications. If people are having fun with modified versions of the rules, then I'm good with that.

Might be why we included a rule to make modifications to the rules?

I think that it's not "self-indulgent" even to assume that other people will like what you like. That is, being as it's the best indicator of what's fun that you can objectively have, it's also the best tool to objectively decide on what will be fun for others, outside of independent playtesting. And then we have independent playtesting, where the author eats his ego as he sees just where his own pecadillos are not appealing to everyone. So, in point of fact, these things are corrected in the design process to the extent humanly possible.

One can theorize til the cows come home, but in the end the best measure of success is to see the game played succesfully. By people other than yourself, if that's your intent for the design.

Can we thorize about how to do it better? Yes, that's what we do here every single day. I don't see how trying to separate the end goal of user happiness makes it impossible to do inner analysis. It doesn't we do it constantly.

Mike

Noon wrote: Think of it this way: You as a designer have this nifty result you want to give. Now, it's established that the players may ignore any rule at any time. Now, we'll say this gem of a result occurs after ten rules. Now imagine that these ten rules are like stepping stones and if you remove one, the result just does not come about. As a designer, why the heck are you putting it at the end of ten steps when you know all those steps are vulnerable to being ignored? Don't you care much about getting that result across to the users? This is one point I'm trying to convey.

M. J. Young wrote: One thing I think Multiverser does a fair amount of is explain not only what the rule is, but why it's there and what it accomplishes.

MJ, do you tend to think that such should be with the rules they explain, or in designer notes in another section? The basic issue being reference-ability vs. intent clarity.

Also, isn't there the threat that the explanation will be even more of a turn off than the rule by itself? That is, doesn't a good rule's intent become apparent by use? Just playing devil's advocate here.

Mike

Mike wrote: OK, I think I get what you're saying with the particular design priciple you're now espousing, but I think you really got there the long way.

I get the impression that somehow you have more principles that you think are exposed by this line of reasoning? That is, this was not your only point to make tight designs?

See, from my POV, we've been saying make tight designs for ages now, and it was a product of the idea of the intent to make a fun game for the players. That is, without looking "beyond intent" we got to this principle by looking at the intent to provide a good experience.

I think that you're seriously jaded about what happens between design and play. I think your speculation that drift is "prevalent" is incorrect. I think that there are a lot of people playing the rules as written who have little to say because play is going fine for them. IOW, the squeaky wheels are the ones that are heard most from.

I think that it's not "self-indulgent" even to assume that other people will like what you like.*snip*

Mike Holmes wrote: MJ, do you tend to think that such should be with the rules they explain, or in designer notes in another section? The basic issue being reference-ability vs. intent clarity.

Also, isn't there the threat that the explanation will be even more of a turn off than the rule by itself? That is, doesn't a good rule's intent become apparent by use? Just playing devil's advocate here.

Mike

M. J. Young wrote: More on that in a moment, but your point that a good rule's intent becomes apparent by use requires that the rule is used. I can't honestly say whether weapon speed factors or hit adjustments for armor type benefit OAD&D play, because I never used them. (I didn't because they were more complicated than I could manage when I made the transition from BD&D to OAD&D, and I kind of never got to them.) Telling the player what the rule is going to accomplish for him lets him know what he's sacrificing if he doesn't use it, and why he should try it before he scraps it.

Obviously I don't always do it; but I do it when I'm putting forward rules that are a bit different from what people have seen before, because particularly in those cases I must have had a reason to change it, and if I can communicate that to the reader, it might both make more sense to him and help him to apply the rule effectively.

Mike Holmes wrote:

M. J. Young wrote: I can't honestly say whether weapon speed factors or hit adjustments for armor type benefit OAD&D play, because I never used them. (I didn't because they were more complicated than I could manage when I made the transition from BD&D to OAD&D, and I kind of never got to them.) Telling the player what the rule is going to accomplish for him lets him know what he's sacrificing if he doesn't use it, and why he should try it before he scraps it.

OK, let's say Gygax had put in an explanation of why those rules exist. It seems pretty obvious to me, and I'll bet you can intuit what he would have written as well. If he had, would you actually have been more likely to use the rule? That is, even reading a rule, one gets a notion of the intent, usually. That is, one doesn't even need to play to get the basic idea.

How long did the decision take? Sounds like the kind of thing where the reader goes, "Gah, that's not going to fly" and just moves on.

It seems that I alone amongst gamers actually used those rules (I'm being facetious, please don't all pile on with the "I played em too!" posts). That is, I used them until I realized that nobody else was paying attention to them, and that I was doing all the work of making the rules work in this case. That is, it didn't seem to be adding anything for anybody except me, so I quit only when I realized that. I'm thinking it was about a year, meaning about 100 sessions at a guess (I played stupid amounts of AD&D in gradeschool).

Having been the wargamer that Gygax was more or less writing for, I guess it's obvious to me that the reason for those rules is to give a greater sense of detail to the interaction of weapons and armor, and, maybe more importantly, to make selection of weapon less simple than just looking at the damage ranges. Sans the rule for armor, everybody just grabs the baddest sword (assuming standard gamism here). AKA the longsword (especially for it's 1d12 vs large) or the two hander if you didn't mind giving up the point of AC.

You're really going to tell me that's not pretty obvious? Assuming so, then if Gygax had written that, would you have played the rule? The point being that it still seems to be the execution of the rule that's the problem (have to do an additional chart lookup for every attack). Not that it wasn't well explained.

Mike

Never having used the rule, I can't say for certain how well it worked. I do recall quite clearly that one player was rather upset that his battle axe not only didn't out-perform a long sword for damage, but was actually worse against larger targets where he would have expected it to have been better. It may be that the solution to that was in those tables I did not use, and not having taken the time to sort through them I never found it.

I'm reminded that a couple years ago I was subjected to someone's discussion of his game design (not here, on another list), in which he was making a change that made size significant in the amount of damage something could withstand. One of the players in his playtest group was very upset at this, because when he'd determined to play a fairy size was not going to make any difference, and now he was going to be considerably more vulnerable. A lot of electrons were spent trying to find ways to raise this character's durability until I suggested they were working on the wrong bit. Flies aren't a problem because they can withstand so much damage; they're a problem because you can't hit them. Give the fairy significant bonuses in the chance that someone will land a blow, and it offsets the reduced durability of the character. Numbers integrate that way in this sort of play, and most of us fail to attend to how they are integrated. All of which is to say that it might be that a rule which gave some advantage to the battle axe over the long sword would have been welcomed in my group--I just never found out whether this was that rule.

So maybe there was a sense in which it was obvious that this rule made the game "more realistic" to someone's standard; what was not obvious was whether it made the sort of differences which mattered to us, particularly at that early point in our gaming careers when we did not realize just how closely connected chance to hit and damage were. An explanation of how that worked might have helped a great deal in getting us to understand why rules like that particularly mattered.

Then again, maybe they wouldn't have.

--M. J. Young

Well, that's what I was getting at. Not that it can't help in some circumstances, but that the design has to match the player's need in the first place. That is, clarifying that the rule isn't something that the player needs doesn't make it any more likely to be used.

The question becomes how often is a rule's purpose "correct" for the player, but they can't see that in reading it, and need further clarification? Hard to say. Again, the danger is that the extra reading might put them off the whole game. You're balancing this potential benefit against people's attention spans.

Further, if you put the stuff all in design notes, instead, doesn't that allow for better context? So they can see how it all hangs together? Just as another option?

Mike

That is, clarifying that the rule isn't something that the player needs doesn't make it any more likely to be used.

Noon wrote: If you don't inform someone as to a rules purpose, aren't you trying to sucker punch them into using the rule rather than let them make an informed descision on its use?

Yeah, that's assigning a value to the act that may or may not be there. You're trying not to "fool" them, but to get them to be able to use the rules with the least amount of cognative effort on their part. Possibly under the assumption that requiring more effort will prevent the player from using the rule at all. Or any other reason.

The point is that it's done all the time and it's effective. In Monopoly, people roll two dice, and move around the board. Does it say why to roll two dice instead of one in the rules? No, yet people still play the game and have fun. All of the rules hang together in a way that is entertaining.

The "reason" for the rule is that the game board is set up with the individual monopolies about seven spaces apart, which is the average roll of 2d6. Meaning that you don't end up in a single monopoly for long (if you hit Park Place it's very unlikely that you'll also hit Boardwalk), that you tend to visit each one, and that occasionally you skip one, etc. It works well with the board to create a certain pace.

Now, would Monopoly have been a better game if the above explanatory text had been included? Again, as designers notes after the fact, I can sorta see the purpose. But my assumption, generally, is that players will try the game with the rules as written the first time out.

Now, RPGs have a history of people tinkering with them. So perhaps this isn't true. But if a person feels that they understand what's going on well enough to play with the "free parking" rule, then why should I worry? Yes, people will alter the rules of a game to make it work for them. The designers goal is not - I say again, not - to prevent them from making these adjustments. It's to provide a game that plays well with the rules as written so that either the player doesn't have to alter the rules, or, if he does alter the rules, he does so from a stable platform so that he understands as best possible what effect his changes will have.

And that has been done before sans any comment whatsoever as to why particular rules exist.

Mike

I should have been more clear. I was more addressing a design concern that may be 'Aww, if they know what this does they wont use it...better not tell them'.

That is, they may not like the result, so best not to tell them if you want it to happen.

Of course, if your not describing the purpose of a rule it doesn't mean your doing this. But there aren't many reasons to avoid describing a rules purpose. One is brevity (a very good reason and often used) and the other main one is the above reason. There's also a mixed one...don't tell them, because they're not up to absorbing that information and may avoid it because of it.

In relation to that monopoly isn't such a good example. If you stop using 2D6 in monopoly, your not really playing the game that much. How about in D&D? If I skip the grapple rules, or don't have much combat, or don't use particular skills ever? RPG's are basically a smorgasboard (sp?) of effects (delivered by rules) the users pick and choose from. Come to think of it, most RPG's do leave this to blind picking and choosing.

Basically it's a threshold thing. Sure, more information can overwhelm. But if someone steps up to an activity that involves many choices, but expects to be able to choose without being informed, its contradictory.

If, indeed, the designer intends for the rules to be optional, then he does need to state the purpose of those rules, I agree. But, in fact, I don't believe that designers do intend them to be optional. In theory, the rules are all presented together because they work well together.

The smorgasboard phenomenon comes from OAD&D's presentation of a bunch of rules that were tacked on. I agree people see it this way, because of that, and tradition has many (though I'm not sure most) "gamers" think of RPG rules as a smorgasboard. But it's long been the idea here that this is not a particularly good idea. This is just one of the many ways that incoherence is enabled in design - presenting rules to pick and choose from without any commentary on what this does to the CA. Generally a tighter design is what most folks around here would suggest. That is a design that doesn't look like a smorgasboard, but instead like a coherent set of rules.

Which is what you were saying before. Basically, if we buy into your particular design note created by your theory above, then we have to believe that a game as tight as Monopoly can be created. And lo, we have designs such as MLWM, Inspectres, and so on that would not be "themselves" if you altered even the slightest part. And neither of these has any commentary as to why the rules are the way they are. And both play very, very well.

So, yeah, if you want your rules to be a toolkit, then definitely provide the rationale for each. If, instead, your rules are meant to be played as a whole, then present the rules as a coherent whole. Like any other successful game.

Mike

I get the impression that Mike considers the toolkit-idea to be inferior, and to be avoided. It may be that I am wrong in reading him like this, but any way:

- most gamers I happen to know have experienced that the resolution system has to be stretched and hammered to cover the conflicts arising within a game. it's a fact of play with most RPGs. Most RPGs are not made to deal with a strictly framed environment, like Monopoly is, but rather to make some kind fo fictional world come to life. In this context it is sensible to consider the game system as a kind of "toolkit".

Most game designers take this into consideration when designing their games, and leave comments to indicate that they expect players to use the system as a tool. Frequently the setting is considered a toolkit too.

I believe it is sound to make your game into a toolkit, but at the same time to have some clear idea of what you want this game to be, and to communicate your vision. Making your game into a "toolkit" for the gamer makes it easier for him/her to explore it, and learn it by doing. A toolkit is meant to be used roughly. To communicate your vision is to give the gamer an insight into what this game may be, and what may be achieved when the game is played "by the book". Such visions may create enthusiasm in some gamers, while others will shrink back from such "arty-farty" ambitions.

I believe there is good to be had in both stances, and in a proper balance between them.

Tomas HVM wrote: I believe there is good to be had in both stances, and in a proper balance between them.

Hi Mike,

I take your point if your not looking to make a tool kit design. But looking at how I pictured it before; what can I do to support the effect I intended as a designer, to occur? This covers more than trying to inform.

For instance, describing how the rule works is an error detection system. The user can compare the rules purpose with the output the group has generated and check if its within the 'parameters'. For a possitive example of where something like this would help, a player might say to a designer 'Hey, this game plays really well' and then shows how he plays. The designer then might say 'Well, I'm glad your having fun but I can't take credit for helping with that fun. This is just something of your design'.

It sounds like it doesn't matter since atleast in this example they are having fun. But if as a designer you cared about the effect you wanted to get across, why publish something which is more likely to fail in that regard? Especially since users can and usually do feel free to adjust rules and don't need help with that.

Sorry, I don't get what you're saying.

I've never said that there cannot be positive effects of having notes describing the purpose of individual rules. What I'm asking is whether, on the whole, they actually produce much benefit, and whether that benefit outweighs any of the potential problems that might come along with the additional text.

I think the perfect example of the "toolkit" presented with extensive design notes along with the rules is Hero System 5th edition. I think it's a paragon of this ideal, in fact. I like it, and I've played it. That said, there are vast numbers of players who won't get anywhere near it, because of this very "feature." For anyone who wants to just read and play, Hero System 5th is a nightmare over 400 pages long. And that's sans any of the supplementary material. If you want to play a fantasy game, and get the design notes on how to do that, there'a an additional 1000 pages that cover that in the form of Fantasy Hero, Grimoires 1 and 2, and the Terakian Age (which is not so much a setting as an example of how to build a setting using the rules).

So, yes, this is the perfect toolkit approach. It's just that the perfect toolkit appeals to only a small portion of players. So, again the question becomes one of goals. If you're interested in having lots of people play your game, I think that overdoing the design notes can be really problematic. If you're trying to provide a toolkit in the first place - in which case you've accepted the limited audience already - then, as I said, of course you're going to want to include notes on everything.

I'm not seeing where anyone is disagreeing anymore, here - it seems that the consensus is to know your goal, and use the appropriate ammount of design notes to support that goal. Which principle seems to be: the more a toolkit, the more one should annote.

But if the supposition is that all games have to assume that they will be handled as toolkits, no matter the designers intent, I completely disagree. Given a game designed well to support one particular tight vision, I see no reason to put in the extra rules. It seems to me, again, that the tradition of game hacking, and the expectation that it will happen comes from early designs being poorly cobbled together, which required that people hack them to make them work. For those games that are better designed, such hacking simply isn't neccessary.

Take Hero Quest, for example. Being an inveterate game hacker myself (I often create entire systems just to play as little as one adventure), when I started playing the game, I made several changes thinking that I could instantly improve the game. Well, it turns out that the more I understand that system, the less it needs changes. To the point where, even though I don't play in the original setting, I find that I can use the system as presented with almost no changes whatsoever. In fact, any "changes" that I currently have in play could be seen as creative interpretations of the rules as written.

Basically, the game needs no hacking to play well. And, believe me, I've tested it from all angles.

Now does that mean that nobody will hack it? Of course not, the tradition still exists. But it does mean that it doens't require hacking to play, and it also means that, where people are hacking it, they have a very stable "base game" from which to make alterations. Meaning that these are more likely to be successful as well.

Nowhere in the text are there design notes.

Mike

I get what you mean and see your points. Can I just check something in terms of my last post: The assertion that a description of the rules expected results can help ensure the designers intent behind the rule comes about.

The most common form of this is just an example of the rule in action after the rule itself. This helps ensure some odd interpretation doesn't crop up 'huh...how would they get that result I see here in the example...oh, I see, that's a plus there in the rule, not a minus!'. No arguement there? Or only arguing against an over saturation of such expect result descriptions?

Well we're getting a tad tautological. Yes, anything that clarifies the use of a rule clarifies the use of a rule.

I'm not talking about clarifications like expamples, however. This is a clarification of "how" not "why." I was specifically speaking to the question of adding material that answers the question "why?" It's my contention that, in many cases, "how" suffices, and that "why" can actually be detrimental to getting people to use the rules. Not only because there's more to read, but, in fact because people may not agree with your ideas. That's not to imply that not putting a description of why a rule exists is attempting to "fool" the player into using it. It's that the player may have his own perfectly valid perspective on the reason once he's played with the rule. You, as the designer, might actually be incorrect as to why a rule works well in play, for example. At the very least the player might disagree with you.

The point is that if you observe that people use a rule and like it, then commenting on why it works is asking for people to read that and disagree with the purpose. And then not use the rule, possibly without trying it.

There are other reasons, too. For example, some readers might find the "why" stuff preachy, condescending ("Like I had to be told that!"), or defensive. Again, I'll say categorically, never ever ever compare your game to another like: "Unlike D&D, our system doesn't have unrealistic levels." It's tempting to do so, because it can actually be informative to use this tactic - you get to refer to a frame of reference that most gamers can be counted on to understand ("They'll know what I mean when I say this!") The problem is that it always reads the same, like the designer is afraid that his game isn't as good as the other, and has to defend it. A good game wouldn't need to make such a comment. And indeed this is true. (Note that Ron's attacks on other games in Sorcerer don't come off this way, but can alienate people for other reasons - like if they like D&D).

The point is that sometimes "why," even devoid of comparison, can come off as defensive. The reader may feel: "Why, when most games don't feel the need to explain themselves, does this one? If the game is really good, then just playing it will convince me of why the rules need to be there, right?"

Now, I'm not saying that these problems will occur with every design note included, or with every reader. I'm saying that I'm sure it happens occasionally at least - I've had these responses personally (especially to the comparison thing).

So, again, I'm not saying overall that these things have no place at all. They probably do in certain circumstances. Just that I think one has to give a ton of serious consideration to when and where to include notes on the "why" of a rule.

As for "how" I'd generally agree that more is better. But even here you can overdo it. The key with "how" text is to be sure to have summaries. That is, the rule should be easily referenced in a short amount of time in a way that implies everything, if not stating it all in perfect clarity. The rest of the text about the rule should point back to the summary and explain what the summary means. Such that, optimally, after reading the entirity of the rule the first time, they can just check the summary and that will trigger a rememberance of all of the clarifications on implications.

I'm a big believer in this, in part from having done it badly in the past, and having learned it the hard way. If the specifics of a rule are strewn across a couple pages, some people will not play that rule entirely correctly just based on not being able to remember it right.

Mike

I wasn't really focusing on 'why' except for toolkit design. And I don't think I hinted something like 'we do it this way because it's better than D&D'. I think self referencing is far better 'Why use these diplomacy rules when with all our combat rules you might have lots of fun concentrating there? Well, if you use diplomacy like this, you get this nifty result in your combat...yadda yadda yadda'.

I don't get the urge not to describe why the rule is there; that the user should be left to form their own, perhaps more correct opinion is pointless. They can already do that (barring some rules lawyer shouting at them about the true intent of the rule...and is that the books fault?). And that they might find it patronising or defensive; why think that when your presented with choices and then being informed about each? Surely anyone who thinks 'Bah, I've RP'ed for X years, I'll understand all the rules in this book' is headed for a fall if they expect, when buying a new book, something like D&D 'but done right' and thus they'll know it all already. As much as your (hopefully) not writing a fantasy heartbreaker, they are buying something quite different. Catering to their need to feel as if they can easily make choices in your very different toolkit system (different enough to be commercially viable), is pretty wrong headed. They can't for the same reason you've got a product that is differentiated enough from others to actual be sold and in their hands in the first place.

Regardless, on tight (non toolkit) designs its not sliding into tautology. A lot of RPG design seems to end up revolving around judgement calls rather than 'if X is greater than Y, then apply Z'. Take for example a spell that scares someone and 'causes them to run away wildly'. Well, what does that mean...would they notice a pit trap as they ran away? Would they forget a pit trap they actual saw as they past by earlier? Describing the possible spectrum of results becomes part of the rules then. The example is like a set of rules itself.

I'm agreeing with you on toolkit design. I've said that. I don't know what you're arguing with me about.

As far as non-toolkit designs, I'm telling you that in practice it doesn't work well. You can ignore my anecdotal evidence if you like.

A lot of RPG design seems to end up revolving around judgement calls rather than 'if X is greater than Y, then apply Z'.

I think I was confused on what you were refering to. So no, no more arguement from me on the tool kit Vs the streamline thing. I take your point: Streamline doesn't really need 'why' in there, since its so tight.

See, this is where you and I have always disagreed. You seem to believe that there will always, in every RPG system be some amount of unavoidable wishy-washiness that makes all RPGs sorta "toolkitty." I completely disagree. Not that there aren't judgement calls, but that the game can be designed such that those judgement calls are all within the scope of the CA projected. Meaning that as long as the player "gets it" that they'll have no problem.

I'm good. I would ask that maybe you could summarize the point of the thread again, and whether or not any headway was really made anywhere with it. I think you have some sort of overall subtle point that I, at least, am still not really getting.

Mike

The basic intent of this thread was to look at rules design in a similar way you might design a space probe designed to land on another planet. In the same way you might guess the gravity of that planet, the materials there to test, the consistancy of its surface, or even the impact of the launch and landing on your probe, it's a lot of guess work. So instead, one might look at the factors one does definately know and go from there.

We didn't progress much past the idea that you can only work from your guess of what people might like (My delivery in the thread didn't help). There may not be many concrete rule beyond guessing your audience, but I think they are strong ones like non redundant design (ie, the faster you get to the point, the more likely that point will come about). Also I think Vincents breaking up of player unity may be another.

I was in a tricky position, since I wanted to explore this difficult to think about area, but found I could only define it by exploring it myself and showing my results.

Still, it may prove an interesting design challenge: Instead of imagining your book going into the hands of a happy and ready to have fun group, imagine it's going to some real enigma group, who are a blank to you. Despite not being certain on anything about them, what could your design still deliver regardless (assume they read, write and speak your language though! :) )??