Greetings Forgefolk,

In the spirit of Mike's rant, I've decided to start a new thread concerning similar issues. So my question is:

What other assumptions, presumptions, prejudices, and self-applied brainwashing can you point out in game design?

Here are some old ones that don't need arguing:

RPG's must use randomizers
RPG's must have combat systems
System doesn't matter
Players get characters; GM gets world
There can be a universal game system

And a few debatable ones:

RPG's are unique and not like other games
RPG's must have a GM
RPG's don't need goals
Social Contract is not a System
Collaborative Storytelling is not a game


This is my (partial and open) list. Let's see what you come up with.

With respect,

Joe Llama

Hi there,

I think this is an excellent thread topic. I have been collecting a slightly different school of off-the-cuff phrases, all involving values and standards of play based on cliquey or quickly-memorized fashions, rather than on anything resembling thought. They include:

I don't like [some number]-sided dice.
Cards are more 'holistic' than dice
Dice pools require "too many dice" [a recent phrase]
Single-die systems are too simplistic [about ten years ago]

The perennial favorite:
There must be attributes and skills, which are added to a roll's outcome to be compared to a target number.

And let's not forget the biggies:
I won't play a game that's not supported, in which "support" refers to a current ongoing line of published supplements.
Role-playing games are really for reading, not playing.

Best,
Ron

You just neeed the right players.
The GM should fudge die rolls if it helps the story.
Non-random mechanics don't work because you always know what will happen.
The GM comes up with the story and the player are the main characters.
The less die rolling there is, the more role-playing there will be.
The Golden Rule (If a rule is getting in the way, ignore it).
There are no winners or losers in RPGs.
Play-Balance is an important factor in character creation.
The game shouldn't place limits on what the players and GM can do.
Powergaming is not role-playing, it's "roll-playing."
The GM's job is to adjudicate disputes.
If you're not in character, you're not role-playing.
OOC/IC information should be kept separate. Not doing so is cheating.
The goal of every RPG is for the players to have fun.
A game system that deals with a certain subject (color-wise) is the best choice for playing a game about that subject (ie: BESM for anime, Deadlands for Westerns).

Simulationist resolution must be based on hard numbers, not judgment calls.

All puzzles are bad.

If there's a 30% chance of one thing happening, and a 30% chance of another thing happening, you can always add them up and get a 60% chance of one or the other happening. (Several major systems are based on this little math error.)

Players powergame because they want power.

Role playing games would have a vastly wider audience if they weren't so misrepresented and misunderstood among the general public.

A biggie that gives rise to several of the items listed by others:
Games should be fair.

- Walt

"Calculation of [ships'] positions will be assisted by the use of calculators and trigonometry." -- Space Opera RPG, 1980; vol. 2, p. 53

Adventures/modules are suitable for any character of X power level
Roleplaying games should be based around campaign play, not oneshots
Mechanics always boil down to success/failure
Power is the only reward system
"What is roleplaying" should be included in every game book
Systems must have numbers
All settings should have magic/psionics/superpowers/cybernetics AKA special abilities
It's up to the GM to find players

Chris

Oh yeah, here's another:

Exploration of setting and character is a valid goal of play.

Jared A. Sorensen wrote:
Exploration of setting and character is a valid goal of play.

Jared A. Sorensen wrote: Oh yeah, here's another:

Exploration of setting and character is a valid goal of play.

Balbinus wrote: Jared, are you suggesting that exploration of character and setting are invalid goals?

One I utter, though I know it's meaningless - "I don't like dice pools."

One I'm surprised hasn't shown up yet - "All RPGs are about telling stories."

As far as Jared's "bomb" - unless he actually wants to explain it (in an new thread, prolly), I say we just let it lie. It's not *likely* to explode . . . *much* lower probability than 30% twice.

Gordon

I'll explain it, G...but I need to take a break from sitting for awhile.

---

later...

You know what? I'm not going to explain it. There's really no point to it except for me to wave my hands around saying, "Bbbut...bbbut this is what *I* think!" Feel free to take it up with me via private email though.

joe_llama wrote: Greetings Forgefolk,
RPG's are unique and not like other games

Well, with this post I was going to do the opposite of the last one, and list all the conceptions about RPGs that I wish would go away. Except then I read Jared's post and he covered most of them. However, there is still one main thing that bugs me that has yet to be mentioned:

Raw dice mechanics do not provide game flavor.

<Edit:> That is, raw dice mechancis do not provide setting or genre flavor. Obviously they have a huge impact on the feel of the system. Big duh. :)

People are always saying things like this about the D6 Star Wars game. D6 isn't a great space opera game because of the dice *mechanics!* If that were so, what would we be implying?

That massive additive dice pools are heroic? That six sided dice are somehow better for space opera than, frex, d10s? Star Wars is a great space opera game not because of the mechancis, but because of what the designers *did* with the mechanics; the way they tied the game to the foundational elements of space opera.

The Player Character is the Player's persona in the game world

Heck, the concept of Game World bugs me these days.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Balbinus wrote: Jared, are you suggesting that exploration of character and setting are invalid goals?

Yes, he is. Or at the very least that the simple assumption that this sort of play is valid should be examined.

He's just thrown an actual bomb as opposed to my dud. Let's see if it goes off. I personally will do so from a distant bunker, as I am realtively sure that this is just representative of Jared's predelictions in play. But others may begin with the napalm, soon, as this might prove a sensitive topic.

Mike

Hi,

Em, Paganini, I have a hard time understanding your reply.

I was writing about prejudices in game design, so all of my examples are supposed to be bad examples. Maybe I miseld you to believe they are good examples, or maybe you were just giving your personal opinion in spite of the thread topic.

With respect,

Joe Llama

Ace wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote:

Balbinus wrote: Jared, are you suggesting that exploration of character and setting are invalid goals?

Yes, he is. Or at the very least that the simple assumption that this sort of play is valid should be examined.

He's just thrown an actual bomb as opposed to my dud. Let's see if it goes off. I personally will do so from a distant bunker, as I am realtively sure that this is just representative of Jared's predelictions in play. But others may begin with the napalm, soon, as this might prove a sensitive topic.

Mike

What the heck are you talking about? Exploration of charcter in setting is why I play! Other than maybe exloration of story or pure gaming is there.

A thread discussing this if there was one would be good.

Paganini wrote: I could be wrong, but I think what he's talking about is the general assumption by the masses that exploration of character and setting is the only way to role-play. It leads to one-true-wayism. It's why a lot of people dis the arty narrative type games that deal with other things.

joe_llama wrote: Hi,

Em, Paganini, I have a hard time understanding your reply.

I was writing about prejudices in game design, so all of my examples are supposed to be bad examples. Maybe I miseld you to believe they are good examples, or maybe you were just giving your personal opinion in spite of the thread topic.

Paganini wrote: In my first post I was explaining why I think that some of the preconceptions you listed actually are valid. In the second post I was offering up my own pet peeve.

Anyway, I think that RPG's are unique and not like other games.
I don't think that RPG's must have a GM.
I think RPG's do need goals.
I think that Collaborative Storytelling is not a game.

Does that help?

joe_llama wrote:

Paganini wrote: In my first post I was explaining why I think that some of the preconceptions you listed actually are valid. In the second post I was offering up my own pet peeve.

<snippage>

Does that help?

Thanks, it does help. Now I see that we have different opinions on several subjects. Good, it makes things more interesting :) Sorry, I wish I could elaborate but I'm holding any responses to a bigger thread I'm about to start very soon.

Cool! I'll keep an eye out for it. :)

I'm actually having a conversation with a guy on the LiveJournal roleplayers community, about this assumption:

"They wouldn't be role-playing games if the purpose of them weren't to play a role."

Joe.

With respect, was the purpose of this thread just to _list_ some common truisms and assumptions in gaming?

That feels somewhat pointless. We could group some assumptions together, see how they fit into GNS and so on, but as it is, this thread doesn't feel very productive. It doesn't feel like part of the 'body of work' at The Forge.

Joe.

Hi Joe,

You started the thread, so you have a certain amount of authority in determining whether it's meetings its goals and what its parameters are.

I suggest, based on how people are using it (including me), that the thread currently does well merely to identify what the pack of us see as brainwashed/unjustified claims and values about role-playing. There's obviously going to be some diversity.

I think that trying to analyze all the input while, at the same time, people continue to contribute raw material, would be very difficult in the same thread. I suggest that we look at this thread as a kind of "fermenting vat" for people to contribute to, perhaps even vent to.

As time goes by, certain patterns or insights about the issues will emerge, to readers of the thread. I suggest that new threads will spawn off based on these.

Does that work for you? As I said, you have some authority about it.

Best,
Ron

err...you mean...Joe as in Joe Llama right?

Damn!

Ralph, thanks. The two Joes messed me all up.

So, Nadav (he of the Llama), what do you think regarding the fate of the thread?

Best,
Ron

Personally, I kind of like this thread. I've been thinking along these lines for a little while now. The purpose is to take some aspect that most people, and by this I'm probably including plenty of Forge member and I am not immune either, think "well, what else?" By singling out such aspect, we can then think of a different way of doing things.

Will this lead to good games? Probably not I would say 999 times out of 1000. But it does encourage thinking differently and allowing RPGs to evolve. That one out of 1000 is worth it IMO.

Jack,

Absolutely, I can see all sorts of value in this thread. There's obviously something to be said for gathering ones thoughts. And I've learned a lot.

I've been a little irritated recently (recently? ha!) by threads on RPGnet, where so-and-so will spawn a thread that *just* creates dozens of responses. There's no debate. There's no sense that people are listening to each other. There's just 47 responses to an initial question.

I'd quite like to avoid that sort of thing, not that I'm saying that's what we're doing. =)

Back on topic, there's a huge mish-mash of preconceptions people have about the history of gaming, and how the various emphases slot together. Everyone knows D&D started it all off... but did it? How important was the early Glorantha work? What games focused on mood and theme before Vampire's 'Renaissance' popped up?

Joe.

Joe Murphy (Broin) wrote: I've been a little irritated recently (recently? ha!) by threads on RPGnet, where so-and-so will spawn a thread that *just* creates dozesns of responses. There's no debate. There's no sense that people are listening to each other. There's just 47 responses to an initial question.

I agree with you, Ron. This thread accumulates a lot of information in a very small space and allows the uncovering of points that have not yet been thoroughly discussed. I think it should stay this way, and if someone wants a deeper discussion on a specific point he could start a new thread about it.

The problem I see is that the average lifespan of a typical thread is around a week or two. This would eventually mean regression to less productive work. Then again, maybe this thread is just the Forge's monthly or seasonal "venting".

All in all, I like this thread as it is. People post their observed preconceptions and occasionally something pops up as a critical junction in gaming theory. I think this is a very productive activity. It is some sort of catalyst to Forge discussions. On its own, it has very little "meat" but it does lead to a more focused deate.

There is also a secret motive behind this thread. I'm developing a new game design theory and I want to hear opinions other than my own about various theoretical issues. I also want to do that without influencing the discussion with my own theory. Think of it as a cheap way avoid quantum theory :) Eventually I'll let it out, but for now this gives me an opportunity to hear unbiased opinion on gaming.

With respect,

Joe Llama

Joe Murphy (Broin) wrote: I'm actually having a conversation with a guy on the LiveJournal roleplayers community, about this assumption:

"They wouldn't be role-playing games if the purpose of them weren't to play a role."

Joe,

Cheers. =) Oh, how I love The Forge. I didn't flame you for 'yor dumb thread' and you didn't flame me back. Ah, reasonable debate, how we love ya. I look forward to your new theories.

I've another couple of gaming preconceptions for you, too. I'm debating initiative systems and random character generation on RPGnet at the moment, and in both cases, I made the usual Forgist point that the game system should only include elements that support the goal. There would seem to be a *broad* preconception that game systems need to improve on game systems that came before. That is, if Sorceror can't handle perception consistently, the way WW does, the designer must have forgotten something, and Sorceror can't be a complete system.

Secondly, in this age of RPG theory, many gamers feel that theory seeks to analyse and then pigeonhole their gaming style.

Here's another: players have control over their characters' pasts, but no control over their futures.

And finally, though this isn't so much a preconception, the narrativist technique with which the entire group discuss the premise/theme of the game before play, is seen as artsy fartsy. I've talked to Vampire GMs who don't feel that players can really handle such play, and feel that mood/theme is their domain.

Best,

Joe.

Paganini wrote: Well... purpose is a pretty broad term. It all depends on what you mean by that. Is playing a role required in order for a game to be an RPG? Yeah, by definition. But is playing roles the *only* reason RPGs exist? Not hardly!

Nathan (Paganini),

Please read my previous post on this thread as well as Nadav's response. That illustrates this thread's purpose, and your posts are deviating from that.

If you want to raise any issues about agreeing/disagreeing with anyone's list of assumptions, start a new thread. If you want to chit-chat at all with anyone about some post on this thread, start a new thread or send a private message.

Best,
Ron

Has any one mentioned yet (I'm too tired & roadweary to check) one of my favorite assumptions? "You can hook a character without hooking a player." Heh. Yeah, right.

Role-playing games are really for reading, not playing.

Has anyone ever actually said this?

Hi Knight,

Yup, although not in the text of a game itself. It's a very widely-held principle among game designers and publishers, especially those who are heavily-wedded to the three-tier industry structure, as well as to the "periodical" model of publishing.

I was confronted with it in very committed, no-bones-about-it form recently, during a discussion at GAMA.

Best,
Ron