So I went to GenCon last week for the first time in four years or so. And I found it a really fun experience. I had to work most of the time, but what I saw of the exhibit hall was exciting, fun, and inspiring. This is in dramatic opposition to four years ago, when, as in so many years before, I found it tedious, repetitive, and uninspired.

The big difference? A lot fewer roleplaying games.

This is not my main point, but it's getting there. My main point is something I've been chewing on for a couple of years now, ever since I played My Life With Master. And I happily admit that I am parachuting in here, and if someone can point me to some useful examples of what I'm going to describe, I'll go off and poke at them and stop bothering you.

My overwhelming response to playing My Life With Master was this: Wow, this would have been really fun were it a boardgame.

In short, the game, as do almost all RPGs -- and, really, all RPGs, but I'm hedging my bets in an academic kind of way -- relies on the participants having a reasonably advanced knowledge of narrative. I know there's this notion that by stripping away rules we're getting back to pure narrative, but I also would happily submit that many people have no interest or inclination in creating narrative, especially in an improvisational manner.

So: how do you provide narrative structure to a storytelling game? There's the Once Upon A Time approach, where the structure is the game. And then there's, uh, not a lot that I've seen.

This year at GenCon, thinking back to how My Life With Master should have been a boardgame, I realized that in all the questioning of game design people have done, the fundamental mechanic that has mostly gone unchallenged is, "A roleplaying game requires a group of players to create a consensus reality through conversation."

More specifically, what work has been done to facilitate the creation of a consensual reality by a group of players through other mechanics than conversation guided by game systems? Who has done the roleplaying board game, the roleplaying card game? Who supports the notion of storytelling through mechanics that can be supported by moving physical objects around?

When people play Monopoly, they have their favorite pieces. I would bet the majority of Monopoly sessions ever played in which someone played the little metal car included a moment in which that player picked up that piece to move it and said, "Vrooom!" or something similar. Ditto, respectively, the dog and so on.

Or Clue. Clue gives each player a character. Only a few have any implied personality -- Miss Scarlet is the femme fatale, Professor Plum is the nerdy academic, Colonel Mustard is the blustering British colonial. The others have even less meat on their bones than these meager archetypes. And yet, they are just enough of a hook for players to hang their hat on. When Miss Scarlet and Professor Plum are in the same room together, who hasn't made some flirty joke about the two of them?

This sense of play is present even in games whose story and sense of character is barely existent. And among existing roleplayers, I believe both aspects are heightened.

In my hoary and altogether meh card game Creatures & Cultists. each player makes up their own Cthulhu Mythos cult. This requires three things: Make up a cult name, a cult slogan, and a cult symbol. The rules prod you towards silliness: the Boy Scouts of Azathoth and so forth. It's minimal, but it's enough that during game sessions players will call out their slogan, make jokes about each others' cults, and generally exercise some creativity that could, faintly, be termed roleplaying.

So: What if we did that intentionally?

I had a lot of problems playing My Life With Master. It worked fine if we just sort of agreed to keep our creativity in check. But the first time one player wanted to spy on or interfere in another player's narrative, or otherwise do reasonable narrative things that the mechanics didn't cope with, the game almost fell apart. It was no longer clear who could act in what phase, or whose turn was whose. To be sure, a group of enthusiasts could make such situations work. But the evolving narrative was both mechanically rigorous and procedurally obtuse.

As I played it, I kept thinking: this would be a lot more fun as a boardgame. Each player would be on their own track of sorts, and the mechanical challenges they have to overcome would be straightforward. But other players could have clear ways of interfering, by playing cards or moving pieces or whatever. They would still tell the same stories with similar mechanics, but now any group of twelve-year-olds could pick up and play this game. There would be no GM, no complete and total reliance on improvisational storytelling. Players would still inhabit characters, roleplay characters, interact in character. But their actions would not be randomly disruptive and in need of interpretation and adjudication; they would be proscribed, channeled, and still fun to act out. The amount of freedom lost to such an approach would be more than made up for by its accessibility and fun. And unless you are only making games for other game designers to play, I believe that is a very worthwhile goal.

I always wanted to make a roleplaying game whose scenarios would be built entirely out of a deck of cards. The cards would have various colored edges, and when laid out on a tabletop from a randomly shuffled sub-deck the matching of color to color, edge to edge, would invariably produce a reasonably entertaining fantasy adventure, a sort of flowchart. Then the GM would turn all the cards over, face down, and the players would sit down to play the story, revealing one card at a time, branching as they went.

The need to create story, to advance story, and to enforce the rules of story, still seems like the biggest stumbling block of all roleplaying games. I agree with many Forge-ites that it is possible to satisfy those needs through mechanics. But I think it would be valuable to step back and ask whether the most fundamental mechanic, of consensual reality by conversation, is really the best way to go.

I suspect, quite simply, that it is not.

So:

1) Can you point me to the kind of game I'm describing? If so, I would love to play it.

2) If you have designed a roleplaying game, how could it be improved with a board and/or cards?

John,

Awesome to see you post here.  Really awesome.  I'll be starting play in an Unknown Armies-inspired game tomorrow, so - awesome.  And I'll go ahead and say "Welcome to the Forge!"  Because it's kind of a tradition, and because I seem to be the first to respond to your very interesting post.

In short - yes, I've had thoughts along those lines.  I suspect others have as well, because I doubt there's much I've thought of in terms of RPGs that didn't have some inspiration from the other folks here.  For example, look at the Shab al-hiri Roach (check the Bully Pulpit Games forum here for details) - a set progression of scenes, and cards to play that influence character actions in those scenes.  In my case, SNAP (crappy webpage in my sig to be replaced soon) takes one step towards what you speak of by taking the abstract idea of "goals" for a "scene" and turning them into stacks of poker chips that are then reduced as the scene progress, until someone finishes off their stack and achieves that goal (there are complexities with multiple goals, but the principle remains).  Progress towards the goal is visual and quantifiable, so consensual reality by conversation is at least mediated via a physical thing. 

I'm not going to pretend this a full answer, or that SNAP is a masterpiece, but as a dialogue-builder, *is* that even close to what you're speaking of? 

Developed a bit further, I've considered converting all the normally ad hoc processes of stringing together scenes and character actions into card play (which I guess is taking the Roach ideas even further).  You could then regularize an order of play (turns, which some Forge RPGs are already using), and really mediate that conversation.  The fear, of course, is that at some point you have mediated it so much that we don't have a story creation by the players, but are instead simply playing out the story that's already there in the cards.  I'd like to see more attempts at it, though.  Off hand, Clinton's City of Brass (CRN Games forum here, though maybe this actual play post is a good place to start) is another good example.  I'm sure I'm forgetting others, but for now - that's a start.

Gordon

I have a CCG called Dungeoneer.  One of the things I love about it are its Quest cards because I keep thinking, there's gotta be a way I can use this idea better.  Anyway, based on your post above I thought you'd like to see it:

The game involves having a character card with stats on it and a token piece and moving through a board randomly composed of location cards connected by doors and passageways.  As a player wanders through the board, they accumulate GLORY and PERIL in each location.  GLORY is used to play cards.  PERIL is a resource other players spend to do bad stuff to you like play monster cards.  Each player has two QUEST cards plus there is one QUEST card for the whole dungeon that anyone can try for.

To complete a QUEST, you must travel to the location specified on the card and do what the card says.  This usually involves either some kind of test (solve the riddle of the fairies), or picking up a token and carrying it to another location (rescue the maiden). When you complete a test, you level up and your new stats are already written for each level on your character card.  (There are three - combat, magic, and speed.) 

There is optional play for players to play against a single Dungeonkeeper who plays the PERIL cards, or for each character to be part dungeonkeeper, playing PERIL  earned by their opponents. 

Have fun.

Hi John, and welcome to the Forge.

The game that immediately sprang to mind when you asked about generating situation mechanically is D. Vincent Baker's as-yet-unreleased In a Wicked Age, also known as AG&G. 

I use cards to drive play in The Shab-al-Hiri Roach, along with a very rigid scene structure - events happen in a proscribed order, and certain NPCs are introduced and re-introduced at specific points during play.  Rather than lead to tepid, deterministic play, I've found that these constraints focus the game and lead to a lot of narrative creativity.  Probably not exactly what you are looking for, but many people have commented on the "board gamey" aspects of The Roach. 

Hi John, welcome to the Forge!

I don't think that the type of game you're describing yet exists.  From the perspective of a card game that is slouching towards RPG, we have the excellent Dungeoneer already mentioned.  In terms of role-playing games, we have a more complicated palette.

What you seem to be talking about is a role-playing game where every action is actively enmeshed in mechanical system -- you don't just "do shit whenever" like a normal role-playing game but take turns and take limited, mechanically significant actions.

There are a lot of games like that floating around.  Not one has made the leap to what I would consider entirely a card game or board game, but several are close.  Let me hand you a couple:

Breaking the Ice: The theme of the game is that you play a couple on your first three dates.  The game system only resolves one thing -- whether the events of the dates are causing you to gain attraction or compatability with each other.  Actions only matter for that purpose.  Additionally, the turn-structure of the game is quite rigid.

Under the Bed: The theme of the game is that you play toys protecting children from their nightmares and problems.  The game system is strictly turn-based and competitive, with the players creating shit for each other to deal with and competing to become the most favorite toy.  Play is card-based.

Capes: The color of the game is four-color, morally driven superheros.  The goals of the game are quite complicated, and difficult to express, but turn structure is rigid, and action-narration only matters in-as-much as it applies to a single, previously framed conflict.

Perfect: The color is playing criminals in a dystopian, faux-victorian society.  The game is incredibly rigidly structured, but I haven't played enough to figure out what all the resources are.

The Shab al-Hiri Roach: Another card-based game, with a mind-controlling sumerian-roach god infecting the back-biting staff at a small New England university in 1910.  Again, it has a heavy structure, and winning conditions.

There are other games, of course, that suckle from the MLWM teat: With Great Power..., Polaris, Shock:, It Was A Mutual Decision and so on.  There's been a lot of development in the direction of more rigidly structured games of late, but I don't think that there's anything you're looking for exactly.  I'd recommend looking at any one of the above games, or more, playing it a few times, digesting, and then coming back and designing exactly the game you're looking for.

Sounds good?

yrs--
--Ben

LordRahvin wrote:

I have a CCG called Dungeoneer.

Hi John -- thanks for posting this.  I'm currently designing a boardgame / RPG hybrid that uses a deck of cards to create obstacles and events for the characters in the game.  Since there is no GM/Referee, the players are more limited in the choices they can make for their characters and the overall story of the game.  Players might not have as much creative freedom as they do in many RPGs, and particularly newer storytelling RPGs, but you don't have to count on the other players keeping their creativity in check either.  Hopefully the speed of play, the lack of prep-work, and "strategic storytelling" combination will make up for not being able to have your character do anything you might imagine, or being able to work in highly personalized storylines based on the characters extensive back stories.

More specifically, what work has been done to facilitate the creation of a consensual reality by a group of players through other mechanics than conversation guided by game systems? Who has done the roleplaying board game, the roleplaying card game? Who supports the notion of storytelling through mechanics that can be supported by moving physical objects around?

John wrote: More specifically, what work has been done to facilitate the creation of a consensual reality by a group of players through other mechanics than conversation guided by game systems? Who has done the roleplaying board game, the roleplaying card game? Who supports the notion of storytelling through mechanics that can be supported by moving physical objects around?

John wrote:
The need to create story, to advance story, and to enforce the rules of story, still seems like the biggest stumbling block of all roleplaying games. I agree with many Forge-ites that it is possible to satisfy those needs through mechanics. But I think it would be valuable to step back and ask whether the most fundamental mechanic, of consensual reality by conversation, is really the best way to go.

I suspect, quite simply, that it is not.

Hello,

Roger, maybe this will help.

Traditionally, role-playing games function as a sea of unconstructed conversation, subject to unspoken rules about whose words are more important or need to be taken seriously by everyone else. Within that sea, there are islands of highly procedural, often highly quantitative activity. But in the sea, no one is really sure how to get to an island, or upon completing an island, just what that means upon launching back out into the sea. In practice, these things are accomplished through complex social re-negotiations during the "sea" part until a group hits upon its own system for doing so.

By contrast, when checking out a board game or a card game, there is no point during play when we "just talk" as part of the game's procedures, or move the pieces or cards anywhere and everywhere as we see fit. Instead, everyone knows whose "go" it is. Everyone knows how that action affects their respective situations. Everyone knows how the overall mechanic (the board, the deck, etc) is changed by this. At any given point, some instruments may be active or inactive, different people are more or less important, and so on, but there is never any need to re-negotiate it. In fact, any such negotiation is an instant turn-off.

John, I suggest checking out my games Trollbabe and It Was a Mutual Decision. Both of them fully accord with my second description above. Although the latter is more explicit about that, it's instructive to discover that Trollbabe includes no "free play" at all.

I also suggest that your experience with My Life with Master is marred by your notions and habits of role-playing, such that your group could not see certain things, but that tells more about the group than about the game. For instance, minions spying on one another, or any of the other stuff you mention, is 100% possible using the system as written. I've spent years discovering the knots in people's minds when they encounter games like this ... they insist that X "can't be done!" when of course it can ... just not by the procedures they're accustomed to doing it by. It might be useful to empty your cup a little more before being too sure about such things.

Best, Ron

Best, Ron

John wrote:
My overwhelming response to playing My Life With Master was this: Wow, this would have been really fun were it a boardgame.

John wrote:
So:

1) Can you point me to the kind of game I'm describing? If so, I would love to play it.

2) If you have designed a roleplaying game, how could it be improved with a board and/or cards?

Oooh boy, I feel like I came back home with this discussion.

First, check out Frigid Bitch by Alexander Cherry, which is also influenced by MLwM, note that there's a revised version with an actual board. Maybe Alex will pop on later and provide it.

Second, I'd suggest taking a look at the project I'm spearheading, CSI Games, which purport to be a hybrid of Competitive and Story, but begun by me trying to draw board/war/card-game elements into RPGs. For example, take a look at [URL=http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/Download.htm]Gnostigmata[URL] by John Kirk with its rules for creating a "Story Arc", [URL=http://competitiverpgs.pbwiki.com/Threads]Threads[URL] which the author, Filip Luszczyk, says could be turned into a board-game without being an RPG, and my own [URL=http://craniumrats.pbwiki.com]Cranium Rats[URL], which is also without "Free play", all interaction is governed by rules.
Most of these are still in the oven, as it were, but I hope they'll provide what you're seeking.

In fact, I too believe that talking about aspects needs to be curtailed, and that if these things truly do matter, they need to be codified mechanically. It is my own take on "System does Matter".

Oooh boy, I feel like I came back home with this discussion.

First, check out Frigid Bitch by Alexander Cherry, which is also influenced by MLwM, note that there's a revised version with an actual board. Maybe Alex will pop on later and provide it.

Second, I'd suggest taking a look at the project I'm spearheading, CSI Games, which purport to be a hybrid of Competitive and Story, but begun by me trying to draw board/war/card-game elements into RPGs. For example, take a look at Gnostigmata by John Kirk with its rules for creating a "Story Arc", Threads which the author, Filip Luszczyk, says could be turned into a board-game without being an RPG, and my own Cranium Rats, which is also without "Free play", all interaction is governed by rules.
Most of these are still in the oven, as it were, but I hope they'll provide what you're seeking.

In fact, I too believe that talking about aspects needs to be curtailed, and that if these things truly do matter, they need to be codified mechanically. It is my own take on "System does Matter".

Hi John,

More specifically, what work has been done to facilitate the creation of a consensual reality by a group of players through other mechanics than conversation guided by game systems? Who has done the roleplaying board game, the roleplaying card game? Who supports the notion of storytelling through mechanics that can be supported by moving physical objects around?

When people play Monopoly, they have their favorite pieces. I would bet the majority of Monopoly sessions ever played in which someone played the little metal car included a moment in which that player picked up that piece to move it and said, "Vrooom!" or something similar. Ditto, respectively, the dog and so on.

I think that's enough dogpiling on the new guy, everyone, regardless of his familiarity to you. Wait to see whether there's really a discussion here before posting further.

John, the next post is yours, if you'd like. Please remember that this is not a bear pit and that the above posts are not attacks that need to be defended against. Pick and choose whatever you'd like to raise or develop for further points.

Best, Ron

http://news.deviantart.com/article/21254/

Hello John Tynes,

It has been years since we spoke, buddy. Years. I agree 100% about GenCon. I had a blast, but I was doing a lot of working and networking myself. Whew.

And I think we're joining in on the Forge here at the same time.

Now. Before I overstep my bounds, I have a tendency to post a lot of ideas on forums very quickly, even before I've gotten my feet wet with everything that's been said.

So.

Let me apologize now if I jump the tracks or say something someone else has said.

Now.

I'm the sort of gamer, that no matter what I'm playing, I have a story going. When I'm playing Puerto Rico (a very rigid board game), I make jokes "in character" that involve ordering my "colonists" to toil in my sugar caves. I talk with the other "landowners" in character and I try to create a narrative based on what's going on. Sort of a geshtalt board-game RPG.

History of the World is perfect for this, as well. More abstract German games lack the themes necessary to do this all the time (Carcassone's theme is very thin), but Clue is a perfect example of talking with an accent while you play or stroking your chin while you interogate another player.

Would character cards have improved monopoly or candy land (which actually aren't games, but simulations)? Would I play them differently? Would you? It seems to me that the layering of character into our games IS happening. Dungeon Twister, Descent, Betrayal on the House on the Hill (horrible name), and Arkham Horror (the new one), all have characters with "goals" and narrative potential.

Does that mean people take advantage of it?

...

Going back to RPGs, forcing the narrative into any game is an impossibilty. Role-playing games try to encourage it, but even among the "narrative-police" of the Indie movement (that was not an insult), you still have people showing up to play "Dogs" (for instance) to just roll dice and kick butt. You can't change that with a disclaimer at the front of your book.

Gamers are going to do what they want to do. This is the first rule of publishing in this industry. A lesson, I'll bet, John Wick will agree with me on.

You can't force people to play 7th Sea the way YOU PLAY 7th Sea. You can't expect them to care about swinging from chandeliers when stabbing them produces the most immediate result.

TORG tried this too. It failed. It has cards even, come to think of it.

Your duty as a game designer is to provide the tools for fun... and if someone puts that tool in a light socket and gets shocked, so be it.

I'm probably in the minority on this, but my worst books were ones with Feats and Character Classes wedged into them. My best books were advice and toolboxes that helped people game better. They all sold equally well, but the fans seemed to always want to thank me for the L5R Survival Guide before they would ever say boo about d20 Mercenaries.

Not that any of books are any good, but you get the point.

I will forever consider myself lucky that I get to write games and hear about people using them in manner "as close to my vision as possible." And while I would love to see CCGs and Board Games take on the narrative role more seriously, Aspergers and detail-oriented math-hounds don't really see much use for gripping drama and character-driven narrative.

Everyone is just waiting for the moment when Blade kills vampires.

Again. Sorry for junping the tracks.

Just going to jump in here with a quick reference. For an actual, published example of a RPG/CCG, you may want to check out DragonStorm, a CCG about role-playing shapeshifters persecuted by necromancers. Their Download page has some demos, and rules to check out. I remember winning a starter deck, and a booster pack in a Magic:TG tournament..ooh a WHILE back. Not really going to comment on the design/playability of DragonStorm, as I never actually played it, but there's your real-world example. It had cards for characters/backgrounds, what type of shapshifter you ended up (were-wolf, dragon, etc), equipment, story goals, and scene framing for encounters. Purely as conjecture, tho, I would say that the cost of art, and printing the cards (in 1996) probably didn't help them much.

Namaste,

Hello,

This is a moderator post. Everyone shut up until John responds. Thanks.

Best, Ron

Hey folks,

Thanks for the many thoughtful posts and very specific suggestions. I'm a bit overwhelmed with links but will explore them soon and report back with comments so I can try to narrow down what I have in mind. (I'm recovering from another convention at present and the upcoming holiday weekend is on the jammed side.)

I really appreciate the response.

John wrote:
I think it would be valuable to step back and ask whether the most fundamental mechanic, of consensual reality by conversation, is really the best way to go.

I suspect, quite simply, that it is not.

John:
Having heard some of the suggestions now, what are you considering? There seemed to be few different things you wanted to talk about:

Taking Turns
Using Cards
Using a board
Accessibility

Those are all pretty interesting topics to me. Did you want to tackle them one at a time?

I'll throw one out there: Taking turns
One thig that has struck me about turn taking in non-rpgs, is that a turn needs to be relatively quick ( tying in to accessibilty, too, actually) or it needs to allow other players to interact with the turn in some fashion.
Relatively Good Turn design: Most trad boardgames. The acting player moves a few piecs an/or conducts a few actions then play moves on. Not too much interaction, but the hot potato passes. Inactive players have just enough time to prep for their turn but don't lose interest.

Relatively bad turn design: Many Igo-Yougo wargames, especially with vast amount of pieces per player. Often interaction between players is minimal and an active player can take a huge amount of time ( which I suppose alos acts against accessibility).

( All, IMO, natch!)

What implications does this then have for an rpg design that uses turns?

I dunno, but I think it's important.
Your thoughts?

That's probably enough for now. Let the man breathe. It is also possible that he wants to start a new thread, now that this one is so jam-packed.

I swear, whenever a known-name guy posts here, it's kind of obscene the way tons of people want to post in his thread, kind of like wanting to rub up against him. Understandable, I supposed, but something to self-monitor.

Best, Ron