http://www.livejournal.com/users/mearls/97347.html#cutid1

"Core Story"

What's the core story of YOUR game?

I take issue with "story", for more reasons than I care to go into*, in this phrase.

"Core process" seems better, but fails to indicate that it's the process in the SiS we're talking about (mainly? Exclusively?).

"Core imaginary process?"
"Core character process?"
"Core fictional process?"

*I lie, of course: 1. the "story" tar baby 2. the probably mistaken synonism with nar 3. "Man joins group, group kill monsters, take stuff, get tougher, wash, rinse, repeat" barely qualifies as a story under any recognizable description... etc etc

"Core narrative structure"?
"Archetypal narrative structure"?

It's not a process we're talking about, after all, but a structural feature of the narrative.

Why not just call it Core Plot? That's what it is, in a nutshell.

Cheese and rice. Everything has to be jargon around here.

Core Plot works. The rest of them are WAY too hifalutin'.

Cheese and rice yourself, Fred. You specifically ask for a new jargon term, then you get one you like, and then you complain about jargon?

Your proper response, and I'm speaking as moderator, is "Thank you."

Best,
Ron

Actually, I *didn't* ask for one, I proposed one.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with "core story" but the word "story" has some baggage that seems to rub some people the wrong way. To me, there's a big stylistic difference between "core story" and "archetypal narrative structure".

If someone comes to the Forge with their nifty new game, and you ask them, "What's the core story?" they're a lot more likely to understand what you're saying without needing to consult the lexicon than "What's the archetypal narrative structure?"

I don't want to get into an argument over all that, though, so as thread originator, I'd like to steer the discussion in a different direction.

Has Mike Mearls (in the article linked above) caught the concept of "What do the players DO?" properly? It seems to me that he has nailed it, but I'm interested in what the Forge thinks of his article.

He captures the concept of "What do the characters do?" properly.

An excellent article.

I'm inclined to agree with "core plot" over story but I won't fight anyone for it.

One of the things this reminded me of was my dislike for representative in-game fiction, such as that in L5R and 7th Sea. I absolutely hate this stuff, and one of the reasons I hate it is very similar to the observation that novelisations of game world pre-empt the actual play of this implied Core, and IMO the in-game fiction does the same.

I completely agree with Mearls that simply by establishing the elements of setting you are creating an implied plot. I think this happens because, erm, well one might say that they distort the imaginary space like mass does to real space, and kinda create implicit linkages between elements.

Its this sort of point of view that makes me think that certain setting elements are tantamount to system. If introducing elements into setting implies or compels, overtly or covertly, a certain pattern of play, then it governs behaviour just as much as a rule does.

It's a formula.

The name of what we are talking about is "formula."

Well, dodging the sauce and going to the meat and potatoes, it's not just setting, it's mechanics and especially, the reward system that really define the core story/process/narrative. In D&D, what do players do to get rewarded? Kill things and take their stuff. What are they rewarded with? Better abilities to kill things.

With all respect, I don't think asking "What's the core story?" is any less opaque than "What's the standard process? What's the median experience of a character?" or any one of a number of alternatives. What designer should understand and address in plain english are the questions "Who are the characters? What do they do?", with the corrolary, "What do the players do?"

PS cross post: formula is good, as long as it's understood. Genre conventions have some cross over too.

contracycle wrote: Its this sort of point of view that makes me think that certain setting elements are tantamount to system. If introducing elements into setting implies or compels, overtly or covertly, a certain pattern of play, then it governs behaviour just as much as a rule does.

I think part of the problem in the industry is that the leader (DnD) doesn't OVERTLY do this... you have to infer it from the rules and gamer culture at large... so people don't think they have to do it for THEIR game, even though they aren't using the same core story.

And you DO have to do it.

I think another part of the problem in the industry is when the core plot/formula supported by the mechanics is different from the one supported by the setting. I guess that's what mearsl is talking about with regards to Eberron in the article. The mechanics, which support adventuring (killing, looting, selling), are the same DnD mechanics, but the setting differs and does not really mesh with the mechanics.

World of Darkness has always rubbed me the wrong way exactly because of this (I admittedly only know and played V and W). The setting strongly implies a certain core plot/formula, but the mechanics are just not supporting it.

Good concept, Mike. Excellent. And I do think that whatever term comes out of this will serve well for "What do you do?" in future discussions.

I will note, however, that I think there are two phenomena here, subtly different from each other. There's the "fleshed out story" version where you have an idea of what happens that includes details, and then there's the "generic template" version. A good example of the latter version is that the Paranioa books tell you that an adventure is typically structured so:

1. Briefing Alert
2. Mission Briefing
3. Equipment
4. Visit R&D
5. Mission
6. Mission Debriefing

This answers "what you do?" with great clarity while not actually giving all of the stereotypical answers. Like when you can't find the briefing room. Or the red tape that is involved in the trip to equip and PLDC. And how R&D gives you the weapon more likely to malfunction than to work. Etc.

Put another way, you'll always experience the generic version, or something pretty close to it. You're actual experience may be very far from the stereotypical story, however. They both inform about what sorts of things can happen. But they do so in subtly different ways, IMO.

This is somewhat like similies and metaphors, actually. With the specific version, you say X will happen. With the generic version you say, something like X will happen. Gareth's aformentioned game fiction is, of course, a precise metaphor for play.

Mike

Vaxalon wrote: Core Plot works. The rest of them are WAY too hifalutin'.

I think a good term will settle out with use. You know... language is the words people use. I refuse to stress about it.

Mike's article made me realize that the question, "What do they do?" really IS important. As a result, I've tossed one game design in the dumper (no mourning, it would have landed there anyways) and I'm totally rethinking two more.

The fleshed out vs. bare bones core story intrigues me, though... are both necessary, or only the bare bones?

How about "situation?"

I realize that is a technical term already coined on the Forge, but I think that it is pretty close to the same thing, if not the same thing entirely.

Mearls has some pretty excellent points about it. Situation is a must!

yrs--
--Ben

Isn't situation a more small-scale term? I thought that referred to a specific, well... situation.

"Okhfels and his friends are trapped in a ruined city by angry tribesmen" is a situation.

"The heroes get stuck in a dangerous place" isn't, at least not as I understand it.

I have in my classic Australian way of going for the short n' curlies, used:

theme
motif
guts
onion heart
core concept
main plot
germ
and central premise of play

all interchangably and without much concern for sticking to one meaning I must admit.

Not so good with the high falutin' lingo down here. ;)

Warm regards,
Evan.

Vaxalon wrote: Isn't situation a more small-scale term? I thought that referred to a specific, well... situation.

"Okhfels and his friends are trapped in a ruined city by angry tribesmen" is a situation.

"The heroes get stuck in a dangerous place" isn't, at least not as I understand it.

The provisional glossary says that situation is "Dynamic interaction between specific characters and small-scale setting elements..." So I'm not alone in saying that situation is the specific instance.

I mean, GURPS clearly doesn't have a core story, but if I run a game, it will have a situation.

How about these:

Content
Activity Content
Action Content

So, I think that what we're talking about here is the old 'small p' premise from neolithic GNS theory - the term that was later hijacked into the world of upper-case latters as meaning "an emotionally relevant thematic question that the players answer via actual play." It's too bad that such a good word as "premise" which would fit very well is already being used to mean something that it doesn't even remotely connotate.

I'm still not sure I see the need for a special word for this, though. Is it really any better to have a "What's the Core Story of your game?" jargon question than it is to just ask "What's your game about? What do the characters do? What do the players do?"

Yeah, I very much liked the generalized premise term.

Mike

Instructions for play.


So many years of simulationist habit, avoiding blatent metagame play instructions in favour of 'natural' play just -pop- happening by itself. And because instructions would be just such a rude reminder that your playing a game.

Am I the only one whose stomach actually turned at this whole thing?

It all seems like oversimplifying to me. I read through all that blog stuff, and yes, I found the formula given (kill, get loot, power up) to be very accurate RE: D&D, but more as an indictment than a model for emulation. It was a clear and eloquent statement on how simple and cookie-cutter D&D play is, and how that's pretty much all that's supported by the rules and setting. (Of course, many people try to make the game work for other purposes, my play group included, but we can probably all agree that you have to fight uphill battle against the system to get what you want.) And the assumption that this is THE model to which "All successful RPGs" must conform, was the real stomach-turner. Even if you're fine with D&D doing that and find that fun, isn't this the freakin' Forge? Isn't this joint predicated on the idea that all games don't *have* to be like that, that there are plenty of other colors in the gaming spectrum,, lots of uncharted territory to be explored? ANd yet I see nothing but accolades heaped on a couple of guys who come around saying *this* is the One True Way to roleplay. Sorry if I'm being overly snappish, but I'm just shocked that this would go unchallenged.

And by the way, regarding novelised game fiction: it may well be that focusing on character rather than setting has negative ramifications on the game. But in that case, I say on with the characters, screw the game! To be successful *as fiction*, as a *story*, you have to focus on character. A story which "stars the setting" is no story at all, just a glorified sourcebook. Which is fine if you're honest about it and publish it as such. But I know gamers who've read the Dragonlance novels but not The Lord of the Rings. Their idea of what great literature is has been impoverished by ingrown isolationism, just like in so many other aspects of the hobby. (note: this is not a slam against Dragonlance, which I have not read. Just a more general statement that when you confine your creative stimulation to a small niche, your imagination atrophies.)

So anyway. Yes, that was a pretty comprehensive and concise statement by Mike on what D&D's core plot, or formula, or whatever, is. But isn't that pretty obvious? There's no call to apply that formula to every RPG out there (oh, sorry, only "successful" ones). If this is just a terminology thread, fine, let's call it formula, or story, or plot, or whatever, but I think the thread intent has far overstepped this goal.

Peace,

Joel:

Try reading the thread again with the spirit that many, if not most succesful games have a system with a core set of activities that are formulaic. These need not be D&D's, but D&D has an easily identifiable core, and it is the quality of having an indentifiable core formula for the activity of the characters that makes some games succesful.

I don't believe anyone is saying that copying D&D's precise core formula is desirable, or even acheivable in a sense of doing it "better" than D&D.

pete_darby wrote: Try reading the thread again with the spirit that many, if not most succesful games have a system with a core set of activities that are formulaic.

On the subject of what the PCs "do" (or maybe are meant to do) I think I would describe it as follows (for the purposes of this analysis I refer to the characters owned by the Players, not ones run by the GM):

Firstly, at least for most campaigns, they would be the centre of the "story" being built by the campaign

Now imagine that these characters are a single process. A bubble meant for a flow chart.

The GM creates the other elements of the Flowchart. These will be typically be events, be they initiated by Gods, natural disasters, things the players want to do, or the various antagonists he has at his disposal.

The player "bubble" connects to these event bubbles and by their own nature cause the event bubbles to divert in a certain way. Some of these event bubbles will then trigger the others.

It works like a sort of animated flowchart which alters itself depending on what the Player's do with their characters

Hey Joel, the idea wasn't that every game should duplicate D&D's kill and loot motif (a good word for this I think)...but that every game should have one and it should be easily articulatable in a just a couple of sessions.

This isn't really that revolutionary idea outside of the gaming hobby. In business we call it an elevator pitch...meaning that you should be able to summarize your product or service succinctly and compellingly in the duration of a short elevator ride.

A game...and yes, IMO ALL games (at least all games I'd consider well designed), should have a succinct and easily articulated thing that they do better than any other game. That thing should inform the design process and it should form the cornerstone of the marketing process as well.

That's fine but I think if the formula employed is just this endless treadmill, that's creatively stifling on the play side, and really just lazy on the design side. It really amounts to "doing the same thing over and over again." And reading the blog link, I'd say that's exactly what people were advocating. The general agreement was that a game can't be successful without some sort of "thing that you endlessly repeat," even if it isn't exactly D&D's Dungeon Crawl motif.

I guess my underlying question is, "why does the motif, formula, whatever, have to be so short-term?" What if, for example, my "motif" is something like "dramatic tension building over time to a satisfying climax?" A theme like that certainly isn't going to deliver its goods over the course of a session or two; in fact it'll take the entire campaign to deliver on its motif. Note that the campaign could be five weeks or five years; what's important is that the whole play experience has a single dramatic "arc," rather than a string of mini-climaxes or kill-loot-level drudgery.

I think this whole thread is a throwback to the old Gygax assumption that a campaign should go on forever.

Peace,

I'm not sure I follow you Joel.

I didn't get that sense at all. Perhaps you're reading into what's there.

Granted most of the thread is about D&D...and D&D *IS* about doing the same thing over and over, so pehaps that's where you're picking up the vibe from. You're clearly seeing "thing that you endlessly repeat" as being a negative and not likeing the idea that that seems what people are recommending.

Let me give you 3 examples of games that get the whole "succinct motif" thing down completely right...examples that I think should absolutely be emulated by designers wanting to design quality games.

Prime Time Adventures: Very solid and succinct motif of playing the characters of a TV series. Every session is an episode. Every game is a new season / series. Every character has issues and spotlight episodes. Would you consider this game to be a "thing that you endlessly repeat"?

Dogs in the Vineyard: Another very solid and succint motif of playing wild west paladins traveling from town to town rooting out Sin. Every session (or thereabouts) is a new town. Every town has the same progression of Pride to Sin to False Doctine to False Priesthood to Sorcery to Murder. Every town has a variety of elements who all want the Dogs to act in their favor. Would you consider this game to be a "thing that you endlessly repeat?"

My Life with Master: Very solid and succint motif about playing minions serving a mad master in a very dysfunctional family. Every game will be minions vs. master, every minion has more than humans and less than humans, every game ends with the master's death, every game involves acquiring and losing connections. Would you consider this game to be a "thing that you endlessly repeat?"


Those games clearly have a much more indie bent than the d20 Eberron game that was a large part of the blog discussion. But they illustrate what I took away from it. Which is that a clear concise message to the players about "what are your characters expected to do in this game" is a good thing.

OK, I have to confess that I'm new to the Forge and indie games in general; thus I have not played any of these games though I very much want to. So. I think the key difference between most of the examples that you mention and the D&D paradigm is that these games have a very defined progression that, when done, is done. PTA has a set number of episodes, during which the story builds, peaks, and resolves. You don't simply pile episode upon episode until you're old and gray. Sure, you can start another series once you finish the first one, but this will be just that: a new series. Thus not the same thing enedlessly repeated. Same thing with MLwM: it's even more finite than PTA. Presumably the fun of multiple MLwM games is observing the variation in how things turn out beginning with the same set of variables, similar to party games like Mafia.

Dogs in the Vineyard is a slightly different case. Again, I haven't played it, but it seems to me that the Go to Town, Hunt Sin, Repeat motif seems to be one weakness in an otherwise strong game. It may be structured so it's very fun and rewarding to do so, but in the long run, how many times is that really going to stay fun? Without anywhere to "go," a point to progress towards, the campaign either continues infinitely or peters out. That's why I'm attracted to something that does what it's supposed to do, builds engagingly, peaks satisfyingly, resolves and is DONE.

So the answer to your question is No, Yes, and No.

You are right, though, that it's easier to describe a wide variety of games in a succinct "sound bite" or "Pitch" than I had thought at first. I guess I just react negatively to the whole Modern Marketing and Mass Entertainment paradigm of "gotta say it in a sound bite." I always feel like "Why should I *have* to say it in a sound bite? What if it's more complex than that?"

As far as the connotation of the blog discussion goes, it seemed to me to have two components:

1) D&D works a certain way.

2) Don't you wish more designers caught on to this and made THEIR games work this way too?

What was really glaring to me was the complete lack of any concept that games may work a different way. D&D seemed to be equated with all roleplaying by omission.

But it may be just me. Respond if you wanna, but I'm willing to drop it.

Peace,

Its cool. I don't think we're really disagreeing so much as coming to a meeting of the minds.

Don't think of the succinct message as being a sound bite...think of it instead as being a mission statement.

And Mearls is pretty widely known in d20 circles as a primarily d20 designer, so its only natural that the responses to his remarks were very d20 focused.

I don't think I've done any damage to his central thesis, however, by applying it to other titles. But he can pop in and correct me if I've misconstrued him at all.

Valamir wrote: I don't think I've done any damage to his central thesis, however, by applying it to other titles. But he can pop in and correct me if I've misconstrued him at all.

We constantly ask designers in the IGD forum, “What do the characters do in this game,” so (to state the obvious) finding a term for this seems like a good idea.

And Contracyle and
Ben’s points work for me:

‘Situation’ – I know it’s already defined in the glossary, but I remember reading in a Big Model discussion that Situation is the interaction between Character and Setting. First off, that seems to perfectly encapsulate the question, “What do the characters do in this game (setting)?”*

And I don’t see this as formulaic at all. This concept is more about feeling out the boundaries of your game. TV example: if Battlestar Galactica is about humans in a rag-tag fleet evading Cylons, then fully resetting the series on a planet where humans and Cylons are trying to co-exist pushes way outside what we expect to see on the show.

So rather than creating a formula, you use your understanding of the game's situation to test out variations and push the story in unexpected directions ... while still staying true to everyone's expectations about "What the PCs do".

* Or rather, three questions: What type of character do you play? What setting do they exist in? What do you reward them for doing?

The only problem with "formula" and "formulaic" is that these terms have slipped from descriptive to perjorative, especially when talking about TV.... but most of my favourite TV shows are formulaic (Alias, Doctor Who, The Prisoner... in fact, most prime time TV). Jacobean drama was deeply formulaic, but very few people bitch that the conventions imposed on, say, Hamlet make it any less a unique and valuable work.