I was wondering about a thread a month ago started by Jack Spencer Jr about "1 page rpgs."
In this thread, Ron Edwards also mentions how systems like SLUG are broken and unplayable.
The idea of "fully freeform" games was also alluded to.
I hope I'm not asking a bunch of huge, fundamentally unanswerable questions here:

-Is there any way to make something like SLUG "unbroken and playable?" I felt kind of stupid after reading the thread in question since I've played several fairly enjoyable SLUG campaigns without thinking anything was wrong.

-I think "fully freeform" gamewise means basically "make your characters whatever you want" and the gm makes up the results of anything a pc attempts. Are there any actual, well-written guidelines for running a campaign like this? I thought Heritage was more or less this kind of system but that system got pretty much torn apart in that thread.

-Many novice game designers, myself included, have tried to make a "fully freeform game." Is this kind of thing impossible, or are we just going at it the wrong way?

My opinion on the subject (yeah, I know that you asked for Ron's) is that free-form games are VERY difficult to run for long. I don't think that any of the 2-year games you hear about so often are free-form. They seen to be from the gamist and simulationist perspective. It is no coincidence that I often enjoy them as a simulationist and gamist. To create an RPG to run free-form games seems impractical to me, but I try to veiw impossible as something that hasn't happened yet. I think that you could if you wanted to, but I would think that the campaign setting would need to be well, limited and strange. I am aware that I am one of the GNS newbies who goes around pointing the philosophy at everything as a tool to condem it. However, I am also dependent on you guys to set me straight. I also may be confused as to what you mean as free-form. There are several definitions that could be called conventional but I'd like to hear what your opinion would be.

Hi Kenway,

Let's call a spade a spade, all right? You are not "confused" about my statement. You are saying, "Ron is wrong. He said SLUG is unplayable. I played it lots."

Before I launch into a clarification of my original point, I want to say that You May Be Right. I may well be wrong. However, before we work out (based on your play experience) whether I'm wrong or not, it's crucial that you understand my rationale for my claim.

Here's my call on games of this sort, which I'm pretty sure wasn't understood by many people in the original thread. Their systems do not actually facilitate play. The role-playing that occurs when using these games is actually independent of the system, being driven mainly by Drama and various Illusionist or shared-author techniques (depending on the group).

"System," in the sense of the five components of Exploration, may be thought of as "procedure of establishing the imagined events." In my experience of SLUG-like games, the system on the sheet is responsible for doing "System" (as I define it here) about 10% of the time, looking at the total number of imagined events that are established through play. The majority of the imagined events are established without using it.

Therefore it looks as if one is playing, e.g., SLUG, because that's the sheet in front of everyone, but what is really being played is a Drama-heavy system that isn't written anywhere. The SLUG system is at best tweaking very occasional and/or non-crucial elements of the imagined events.

So I am asking you, in full knowledge that you did indeed role-play with SLUG in front of you, whether you and the other participants used SLUG as the primary determinant of resolved-events during play. (I specifically refer you to the IIEE discussions as some background for answering this question.)

Best,
Ron

SInce I started the one-page RPG thread, I'll try my hand at some of these questions

Kenway wrote: -Is there any way to make something like SLUG "unbroken and playable?"

-I think "fully freeform" gamewise means basically "make your characters whatever you want" and the gm makes up the results of anything a pc attempts.

-Many novice game designers, myself included, have tried to make a "fully freeform game." Is this kind of thing impossible, or are we just going at it the wrong way?

For the second time in a month I agree with Jack. Surely the apocalypse is near.

If there are any "well-written" guidelines, they're not around here. The table-top mentality is sufficiently far from Free-form that we don't deal with it.

More importantly, what would it say? The "rules" for all Free-form are pretty much the same, as Jack points out. Make up what you want, just adhere to the details of the social contract (ofen just admonishments that a player play nice, and responsibly). Occsionally there is a GM to do vetoing to keep players in line. What more can you add? It's the freedom from rules that's the primary feature of Freeform stuff, so predictably there are not many if any. Occasionally some stuff on how often one is allowed to create (read post, in most circumstances).

Sure one can make up a good setting or other details to make the game nifty. But that's not rules, and the guidelines for writing good setting are profuse here and elsewhere.

Are we missing your point, KW?

Mike

Mike and Jack,

I agree with you, but I think that this thread includes two very different issues and they should be kept separate.

One issue concerns so-called one-page RPGs which offer - according to them - sufficient rules. It's not about Freeform vs. not-Freeform, it's about whether these games, historically, are indeed what they claim to be.

Earlier, I suggested they were not. Kenway is stating that he experienced plenty of enjoyable play using SLUG. I'm asking questions that dissect out what he really experienced and whether SLUG had anything to do with it.

The whole Freeform issue is, in my view, completely independent of that first issue. That's a different question - whether Freeform works, whether there are guidelines, etc. Yes or no to these questions has nothing to do with one-page vs. not one-page.

Best,
Ron

Thanks for the responses.
Ron was probably right in saying that I was probably trying to do 2 discussions in 1 post.
Here, I'll address what I meant about freeform games.
I'm still working on typing up my comments about SLUG + playability.

Freeform Games
Recently, I found a copy of Sean Patrick Fannon's "The Fantasy Role-Playing Gamer's Bible" and I read the brief review of Theatrix. A footnote at the bottom discussed how the author has played games where characters were generated using Hero System rules but the "numbers come into play so rarely as to make the rules almost pointless. No one cares- they're having a *grand* time!" (Direct quote)
The author briefly aludes to such freeform playing during the text, but almost always in an anecdotal manner.
I'm sure we've played freeform-type games like this of some sort.

First, I was just making sure that "freeform" meant what I thought it did (and you've all confirmed what I thought, thanks).

But I was also wondering if freeform playing is so popular, why there weren't any real "writeups" of how to play freeform. This is where the I thought one-page rpgs were attempts at freeform rules.
There ought to be freeform writeups, I think. Freeform games are probably mostly narrative in goal, but I think that a freeform guide could discuss gamist and simulationist goals as well.
As Pyron mentioned, freeform games probably don't last long, but I think they could last for several entertaining sessions if the players and gm had clear goals and a premise in mind. Rules and rewards might be developed during gameplay.
It seems that freeforming is looked down upon, but I think there might be some value.

Kenway wrote: But I was also wondering if freeform playing is so popular, why there weren't any real "writeups" of how to play freeform. This is where the I thought one-page rpgs were attempts at freeform rules.

Freeform games are probably mostly narrative in goal, but I think that a freeform guide could discuss gamist and simulationist goals as well.

As Pyron mentioned, freeform games probably don't last long, but I think they could last for several entertaining sessions if the players and gm had clear goals and a premise in mind. Rules and rewards might be developed during gameplay.

My experience is that one page RPGs are cute, but don't functionally work, because there's not enough chassis to hang the game on.

I think of the system as the engine for the game. To be able to build a successful world, you need a certain set of laws everyone agrees on. These laws have to be as immovable as the real laws of physics -- it's the grounds on how the world works. Even diceless games have a certain set of mechanics for task resolution, combat, character creation and combat. Heck, even Over the Edge, with it's nigh non-existant system, has enough room for this.

You have to ask yourself these questions:

"How do I want my characters to interact with the game physics?"
"How do I want my characters to interact with NPCs?"
"How do I want my characters to interact with each other?"
"How do I want my characters to kill something?"
"How do I want my characters die?"
"How do I want them to start?"
"How do I want them to advance?"
"How do I want them to end?"

Fatal or non-fatal? Magic or non-magic? And is the magic complicated or casual? Do you want your system to be a stand-alone generic thing or something specifically tailored to your world?

I can't imagine that these questions can be resolved -- and work successfully -- with just one page. (I assume 1 page == 500 words.) I'm sitting here with a system document that is far longer than that with just some character creation, advancement, and task resolution. I assume 10,000 words for a skeleton of all questions answered, plus character templates, skill sets, readable examples and possibly equipment for a fully-featured complete game.

Your game needs to be a complete package. "Here you go and there you are." Freeform is nice, but you need to hang it on something. Otherwise, you're just playing House.

Emily_Dresner wrote: How do I want my characters to interact with NPCs?"
"How do I want my characters to interact with each other?"

I can't imagine that these questions can be resolved -- and work successfully -- with just one page. (I assume 1 page == 500 words.)

Freeform is nice, but you need to hang it on something. Otherwise, you're just playing House.

Nobody should be denigrating Freeform here, IMO. It's just not the tabletop stuff we're (or at least I am) mostly used to. If people want to play without rules, that's fine. It's just not difficult to define the "rules" for a rules-free game. Check outr Jack's link KW, and you'll see what I mean.

While there are a jillion ways to skin an RPG cat, there's only really one way to do freeform. Most freeforms have less structure than one-page RPGs (no resolution system or character enumeration, for example), and are in an entirely other category, IMO. Not sure I want to get into that again.

Of course that's from a tabletopper's POV. The subtle differences in freeforms are probably very important to freeformers. Things like what sort of language can be used in the game, and whether you canj affect other player's characters even indirectly. Whatever. It's just that relative to tabletop, it all seems to be the same stuff. And it certainly takes less effort to design.

"OK, everyone be nice, and post about once a week" - could be the entire "rules" for Mike's Freeform RPG. Check out the real games. They aren't much more complex.

Mike

OK, freeform is threatening to take over this thread. So, I'm going to start a new thread (which will probably kill the conversation) and this thread can get back to it's original topic.

The problem with SLUG, btw is that when you sprikle salt on them they shrivel up. ;)

Oh, one more point here about Freeform. I believe that actual Freeforms last as long if not longer than most tabletop games. I know of a couple personally that have run for almost a decade at this point. Just takes dedicated individuals.

Mike

SLUG
The "SLUG" game session I most recall used a post-bomb setting like in the computer games Wasteland/Fallout.
The characters (Desert Rangers) were described to be almost exactly the same as the players (university grads).
The party declared actions like "I'll try to run around the Radiation Dogs and enter the building", "I'll shoot at Goliath", and "I kick down the door."
For each action I rolled a d100 and judged the results outlined in the SLUG rules.
I suppose the game was played with a Gamist/Simulationist perspective.

Ron, I might be missing the point of your questions though.