Okay, after a productive rambling-session with Selene this afternoon, workable mechanics are starting to come together.

That's Not Roleplaying is a game of simulating (at break-neck speed) the evolution of social contract within a gaming group. Each player will take on a character. These characters will, in turn, be players within the fictional "Game-within-the-game."

Characters have four Skills: Manipulation, Artistry, Tactics and Passion. These are randomly generated, off of straight 1d6 rolls. You're stuck with them (at least until that character leaves the gaming group in disgust and is replaced by another randomly generated one).

There will be two interlacing sections of the game: "Sessions" and "Downtime". During sessions, characters actually "play" the game, accruing Satisfaction, Frustration and Authority (the variable resources of the game). During downtime, characters spend those resources to change the structure of what the game will be for the next session.

So far I've got good thoughts on Sessions. In each Session, four Tasks are created, one from each of these categories: Character, Challenge, World and Meaning. Each Task has a "baseline difficulty" which is generated in the Downtime phase. A d6 is added to each of these baseline difficulties. That gives the difficulty of the Task this session.

Each player rolls four d6 dice for their character. They then choose how to combine those with their skills in order to apply them to Tasks. Each Skill can conceivably apply to two types of Task:

• Challenge: Tactics, Passion
• Meaning: Artistry, Passion
• Character: Artistry, Manipulation
• World: Manipulation, Tactics

For each Task where you can spend a die and get a total equal to or greater than the difficulty, you get a point of Satisfaction.

For each Task where you cannot (or decide not to) get a total equal or greater, you get a point of Frustration.

For any Task where you earn a point of Satisfaction, if you are not within two points of a bid on that Task by another player, you earn a point of Frustration. So if you achieve way more than anyone else then you are Satisfied with your own performance, but Frustrated with your buddies.

Characters are going to have different skills. Those will create different agendas. If you have a 5 Tactics score, you may want a high baseline difficulty (probably 4 or more) to force people to spend up to a high number so you can more easily get Satisfaction without Frustration. But, of course, if you have a 1 Tactics score, you want a lower baseline difficulty, to make it possible for you to get Satisfaction at all.


So that's what sounds pretty solid. There are big gaps, however, that I could really use some help filling in.

How do Satisfaction and Frustration impact baseline targets?

What does a rules system do? Does it multiply difficulties, or dice, or what?

What is Authority? My intuition is that players should have opportunities to give points of their Satisfaction to other players as Authority... but when, and why? And what is Authority spent for? Does it give a player the chance to decide which dice get assigned to which Tasks (and therefore to more forcefully effect the difficulties, but from a very limited pool of resources (i.e. the dice))?

Selene has commented that very Frustrated characters should routinely take over the Authority of the GM, in order to try to work out "what's wrong with the group." That, and similar "I've seen that happen in my gaming groups a hundred times" patterns are what I'm hoping to develop in the Downtime rules.

Characters have four Skills: Manipulation, Artistry, Tactics and Passion. These are randomly generated, off of straight 1d6 rolls. You're stuck with them (at least until that character leaves the gaming group in disgust and is replaced by another randomly generated one).

Well, two answers: One is that it's not at all clear to me (yet) what a "bad set of stats" would be. Low stats help you when target numbers are low. High stats help you when target numbers are high. Either generates Frustration when they're out of synch with the target numbers, and Frustration should help you to drag those numbers toward what you want.

The second answer: If your PCP (heh... dont' do drugs, kids!) is genuinely and totally mismatched with the group, storming off in disgust is a legitimate outcome which helps further understanding of the dynamic of RPG groups. People do leave in disgust, and sometimes that's good for everyone who remains. Likewise, people do stay even when massively frustrated, and that has its own dynamic.

Does that answer your question?

Is the the game-within-a-game actually played in entirety? What I mean to say is, is the role-playing session depicted within the course of the game actually fleshed out? Or is it simply to be summarized by that a series of big 4d6 rolls?

Summarized. The most I'd want a "session" to take is five minutes. The point of the game is to explore long-term patterns, not delve into minutia.

So is this a game that people would have fun playing, or a simulation that quantifies social mechanics as you understand them?

Yes.

I'm getting that the benchmark for success in this design is that the game will successfully model dysfunctional game dialogue. You understand this thing is damned to simulationist drift, no? Soon you'll have a whole set of mechanics for adjucating how material from splatbooks gets used, and it'll snowball from there...

If you really want to turn the "meta-" dial to 11, aspects of the game could be modified in play, a la Nomic. So if I push my "system doesn't matter" agenda the system starts using d20s and discrete PCP classes, or I could push my efforts to "RPG=actor stance" and now everyone has to get into character.

Gah. I get enough disfunctional play in REAL life... why would I want to create more of it on purpose? :)

Because functional and dysfunctional play both follow distinctive patterns of social behavior, which players find very hard to perceive or communicate (even as they act exactly in accordance with them).

The mechanics of a game can bring those subconscious patterns into the light of conscious inquiry. A session of "That's Not Roleplaying" could (conceivably) actually show you how to avoid dysfunctional roleplaying in future.

Or at least give you a few laughs at the revelations.

Okay, I've read the initial post like eight times now trying to figure out where the "fun" part is. I've come to the conclusion that your current description is really, really dry.

I think tufts of color need to be attached. I guess I'm imagining straight-up lampoons of real products and recurring pointless debates. I don't know that that's what you're seeing for the game, though.