I'm trying to get over some writers block at the moment ('moment' as used here could include several years, actually). Specifically for this thread, there's something I've been thinking about for awhile and that's RPG fun in ten minutes. Some post about convention play spurred that awhile ago - surely if it can be done at all, it can be done in ten minutes. Hell, even one minute, surely?

My primary aim is gamist design - one big issue is the conflict between these two goals : Writing a hard to beat system (but unfortunately by doing so, knowing how to beat it. This assuredly sucks) VS writing a system which I know isn't easy to beat.
NOTE: Most board games you can find get over this simply by pitting player Vs player - each player is an unpredictable roller coaster of variable challenge. However, where such player Vs player occurs, it squeezes out for player Vs imagined space.

One approach I've considered recently is to make the game compelling not by it having renown for it's complexity (such as a soduku or cryptic crossword has), but by having an compelling issue at its core. Then simply taking a menu of resource management mechanics and using each whenever it would seem fit for the issue, and linking them together resource map style (think relationship map, but gamist!). This still has the potential for a glaring 'short circuit' where you can simply beat it by doing X right at the start. But that's okay because the initial impulse to engage the issue in some way is met, and thus it's still a possitive outcome.

Probably causing trouble for myself without really thinking about the choice, I've aimed toward pulling resource management mechanics from D&D 3.5 for the purposes of this first attempt. They are intriguing and...yeah, I wanna beat D&D in some way.

Block. It sounded good, but it's still hits writers block. Reflecting on it now, it's because every single resource mechanic in D&D is reliant on others being there for them to provide any difficulty. Otherwise they are pretty damn simplistic when issolated from each other. Once they're like this, it's the first half of the problem from above - writing it and knowing how to beat it, as each mechanic is so transparent I can work out how to beat it as I write it. Damn it! Damn it!!

Is there something I haven't seen there - some angle I've missed? That's one question.

Okay, swinging back to the idea of a game in ten minutes - I was wondering if I'm engaging in bloat by habit. Why do I want a game that has lots and lots of rules - why couldn't the whole game be over in one roll, for example? To put it more exactly - why am I trying to write more than one roll? That's a pretty good question for any designer really - why more than just one roll? Do your goals back up/need any roll added after the first? Back to me though...

One roll can do it - sure, it defaults to gamble gamism, but that's better than this fucking writers block. The only other thing you need is to up the ante on that gamble: what you might call 'dream catcher' mechanics - ie, 'play' which is just going through procedures that are evocatively named in relation to the big issue being called upon. It's really just busy work procedure (laced with system relevant rewards to drive it), there to make you think about the issue over and over, spurring an imaginative process/dream about the issue, so the eventual gamble has a big 'ante' on it, rather than a small one.

But. I. Want. More. I want more than just a gamble. I want those chewy resource conomdrums I engage in a bunch of comp/card games. At the same time, that single roll is better than being in design limbo.

Where do I go from here? I've thought about perhaps a process where players adding rules in somewhere to make more difficulty for themselves, but ages ago I posted a design here where players could opt to make their character vulnerable to various damage types when otherwise they would be perfectly safe, and the responces around here were 'why would a player make themselves vulnerable - so it supports the gamist player by letting him penalise himself??' - so I'm not sure anyone gets the idea of adding difficulty for fun, even though my group of friends have done it while setting up PS2 timesplitter shoot em up deathmatches against comp controlled bots (set number of bots - set the weapons they can use - all 'penalising' ourselves in the name of gamist play).

I could be wrong about my assumption way up at the top - that player Vs player squeezes out player Vs imagined space. The imagined space can affect that PVP battle - it's just that again I might, as GM, be able to see the win before they can. On the other hand, the end result is still unpredictable - you don't know which player will win, even if you can see a win yourself. That might be one way to go.

Any other ideas?

PS: Any mention of THACO was pure hyperbole on my part, hehehehe - gotta have fun with something! :)

Have you considered looking into the mechanics used by Roleplay Card Games (or Card-Gamey RPGs) such as Roach or GameGame?  GameGame is more of a creativity exercise than an RPG, but most of the elements are there.

So, ten minutes and a gamist design? Sounds fun! Are you thinking a game that can be finished in ten minutes, or one that starts being fun in ten? I've done a couple of the latter ones (with perhaps one major success), but never a gamist one.

My first instinct is to go for a fast, level-based game, like the arcade games of the '80s. Get rid of having to balance the game by making it start easy and get hard with successive play - provide "passcodes" for starting play from a higher difficulty level instead of having to play through the lower levels. Make the goal of a given game level always the same, yet provide either a scenario booklet or means of writing new scenarios on the fly. Perhaps provide a way to count score, so players can compare results and try for a higher score.

Gamist design is something I've been thinking about a bit during the late seasons, so one important point about that: the challenge in a good gamist game should not route attention towards the system, like we usually see around here in gamist efforts. The setting and situation should have major impact on the game, and the game should allow the player a wide leeway of utilizing the exact fictional situation in his solutions. The challenge should not be winning a bunch of HP and an attack bonus, but winning a dragons, fangs and all. Having a game where you chat a bit about the fiction and then roll dice, without the chat affecting the roll, is pretty pointless. Or at least you should realize that in that case you need the make the results of the roll feed solidly in the fiction, because otherwise you have a disconnect between the rules and the fiction.

Given that, you need an evocative environment and situation where not only there are various possible characters and events, but also intuitive interactions between elements, so the players know what they can do in the game without being familiar with a complex rules system. I would perhaps investigate superheroes myself as a possible setting background, that provides a varied opportunity for all kinds of scenarios.

Why more than one roll? Because rolling dice is fun. The game isn't a result; its and experience. There's fun to be had in the maneuvering and using awesome skills and rolling dice. This gives a chance for tension to build up and for other variables to come into play (lack of resources, allies, additional skills, etc.).

A note on adding complexity to make a game more interesting. I understand making the challenge more difficult in order to increase the fun, like your friends do in their PS2 deathmatches. I understand adding character flaws to min/max a point build in a gamist environment. I understand adding character flaws with no other benefit in a story focused game to increase narrative conflict. But I don't believe that players will respond well to penalising themselves in a gamist setting, even though it could be argued that increasing the difficulty of the oponents is effectively the same thing as decreasing the PCs effectiveness. Given your system design goals (i.e. gamist RPG fun in 10 minutes), I do not believe that most PCs will take a penalty without a mechanical benefit associated. Mathmatically making the PC more vulnerable might be the same thing as increasing the power of the opposition, but its not psychologically the same thing.

Callan,

An RPG session is a social event in the first place - people gather together to have fun for some hours. So, there needs to be something that engages the group for some time. This is why, normally, people don't want the game to end in ten minutes - but rather to have a lot of shorter cycles that taken together fill the whole social gathering.

There's no reason a ten minute game couldn't be functional of course - only it would require different expectations from the group than an average game would. Effectively, you'd have many separate instances of play per social meeting, probably. Works for many computer and board games, so it would probably work for RPGs as well.

If you have an idea for a role-playing game that could be played out in ten minutes, and you see no need to add stuff that would make it possible to fill the whole meeting with one instance of play, go on. However, I think at this point it would be good to consider if you really need role-playing elements in it - cause, maybe you're nearing a point were actually getting rid of SIS and making a straighforward board game out of it would be a better way to go?

As for adding difficulty for fun, are you adding handicaps durng the deathmatch, or before it "officially" starts? Cause, if it's the latter, you effectively prepare the challenge for yourself to take. I think it's important to be aware when the preparatory phase of the game ends and facing the challenge starts. Cause, in the first phase adding difficulty makes a lot of sense. In the second, it would be a poor strategic choice and nothing more (unless there are some trade-offs involved).

Also, if the problem is that you can see the win before the players as the GM, why not making the game GM-less?

I suggest a following experiment:

Take one of those board or card games you enjoy. Strip it from its default color - preferably take one that doesn't have too strong color in the first place. Then, add SIS by tying every element of the game to fiction somehow (i.e. assume that every player has his own character, and whatever resources there are in the game are in fact different aspects of the character). Then, require players to narrate stuff and play for some time that way.

Observe whether the addition of SIS influences the way people play on a purely mechanical level, and why.

Then, fiddle with the rules of the game a bit, allowing for fiction to affect the situation on the board. Maybe include a GM who can move things around on his whim when he deems its appropriate. Play for a while and compare your observations.

I suppose something like this could help you in finding the right level of interplay between the mechanics and the fiction.

Writer's block? I'll cleanse that nasty Thetan for a one-time fee of $5,000.

I personally am baffled by the Forge's understanding of gamism. Whenever someone says "gamism", it seems you indie vets always go straight to this "beat the system" nonsense. Winning a game (especially a GOOD game) isn't just a matter of exploiting the rules. It's about making a series of judgement calls about HOW to exploit those rules in a given situation. There is a HUGE difference between these two. In the latter case, there is one correct answer: Half-Orc Frenzied Berzerker + Monkey Grip. In a game of DnD 3.X, the winning player is the player whose character is closest to optimal construction. The supposed "gameplay" is just a testing of this construction, but the real gameplay (the part where you win or lose) is that three or twelve hours you spend flipping through books looking at prestige classes, etc.

In a GOOD game, however, you are constantly reacting to a chaotic (in the mathematical, fractal, indeterminate sense) system of interactions. There is sometimes a "best answer" but EVERY ACTION changes the system.

Do you think you could be a little more specific about your aspirations? I'm going to go out on a limb and presume you want a game where things kill other things. You said "no PvP", but then you used the "Jee-Em" word. Do you not consider the orchestration of the "bad guys" an active, PvP situation? Or is the Dungeon Master merely interpreting the monster's mindset to "see what they would do"?

Since Eero mentioned '80's arcade games, how about a mostly or totally GMless game where the players cooperate to kill mobs of "AI-controlled" mooks, Golden Axe/Final Fight style? Every round, each player allocates their resources, and then you look at the situation and roll to see how the enemies will react (obviously in a fairly simplistic fashion -- just like we like it!). If the game variables interact with one another thoroughly and randomly, there will never be an obvious optimum answer, and certainly never a permanent one.

Tell me about your exasperation with resource management, because this is really the crux of gamism, especially once you realise that "taking an action" is the most basic resource to be spent. Perhaps this has bearing on your "choose your own handicap" idea : My local RPG think tank has for some time been enamored with the idea of "focus points", representing the character's attention, which are reallocated each round, constantly redefining a character's strengths and weaknesses as the situation changes. You put your focus points on different enemies or skills each round. Focussed on parrying? You're safe from those swordsman -- until one pulls out his throwing dagger! etc. etc.

There is of course the very basic Golden Axe resource management -- should I throw my magic pots now, or save them for the boss? But I think things can get a lot more sophisticated.

Ignore that silly poltergeist you call "writer's block" for a moment, and elucidate. I am fascinated.

P.S. I am totally stupefied by your discussion of a "compelling issue". You want arcade action for the purpose of sociopolitical commentary or something? I think all these high-fallutin indie rpg's have totally warped your brain. Go play Pac-Man or Heretic for a few hours, and come back to this poor, maimed concept we call "gamism".

My primary aim is gamist design - one big issue is the conflict between these two goals : Writing a hard to beat system (but unfortunately by doing so, knowing how to beat it. This assuredly sucks) VS writing a system which I know isn't easy to beat.
NOTE: Most board games you can find get over this simply by pitting player Vs player - each player is an unpredictable roller coaster of variable challenge. However, where such player Vs player occurs, it squeezes out for player Vs imagined space.

Reflecting on it now, it's because every single resource mechanic in D&D is reliant on others being there for them to provide any difficulty. Otherwise they are pretty damn simplistic when issolated from each other.

Why do I want a game that has lots and lots of rules - why couldn't the whole game be over in one roll, for example?

The only other thing you need is to up the ante on that gamble

Where do I go from here? I've thought about perhaps a process where players adding rules in somewhere to make more difficulty for themselves, but ages ago I posted a design here where players could opt to make their character vulnerable to various damage types when otherwise they would be perfectly safe, and the responces around here were 'why would a player make themselves vulnerable - so it supports the gamist player by letting him penalise himself??' - so I'm not sure anyone gets the idea of adding difficulty for fun, even though my group of friends have done it while setting up PS2 timesplitter shoot em up deathmatches against comp controlled bots (set number of bots - set the weapons they can use - all 'penalising' ourselves in the name of gamist play).

it's just that again I might, as GM, be able to see the win before they can. On the other hand, the end result is still unpredictable - you don't know which player will win, even if you can see a win yourself. That might be one way to go.

Several reasons people fall back onto the "multiple rolls."
1) To allow specializations. For example, in D&D, you can be specialized in *hitting* a monster (+ attack.) Or you can be specialized in *damaging* a monster. (+ damage) You always make those two rolls, and in theory they average out to be the same thing.
2) To give the illusion of control. You know why people hate "save or die" spells? It only has one roll. It really isn't any different then being hit by two fireballs that together can kill you, except you have more chances to avoid dieing, and more "control."

Dan wrote:
The question is what challenge is being addressed?  Is it "I can kill that monster with... 3 penalties!"  "Oh yeah, well I can kill it with 4!"  "Alright, kill that monster!"?

You could resolve a complex interaction in a single roll, if you go through a series of preparatory phases in which tension builds first.  This is essentially poker; a series of calculated guesses followed by a single climactic resolution.

Callan, when you say the problem is making a game you yourself know how to beat, do you mean beat the game wearing your Player hat or wearing your GM hat?

Ruminated on the thread for a few days, thanks for all the responces. I think of Ron's gamism essay where he notes a general "'oh, gamism' we all know what that means" it culture, when I see a diversity of responces on gamism. Clearly it isn't cut and dried.

I've meandered from the ten minutes idea, as you may see from my post. I think I grasped it not as a goal, but more as a pruning device, for cutting away everything that isn't important (I think 48 hour game cheifs or those french one page RPG's have similar pruning qualties). It's not a primary goal, but I am holding it close for the purposes of clarity in design.

Quoting a few people here, as an overall responce. I'm listing the understandings I'm working from - if you can find a supporting arguement against them, we can go from there. I haven't covered everyones questions, sorry - I've focused here to either figure out some shared understandings as ground work, or if needed, examine some of my understandings.

Noclue wrote: Given your system design goals (i.e. gamist RPG fun in 10 minutes), I do not believe that most PCs will take a penalty without a mechanical benefit associated. Mathmatically making the PC more vulnerable might be the same thing as increasing the power of the opposition, but its not psychologically the same thing.

Filip Luszczyk wrote: As for adding difficulty for fun, are you adding handicaps durng the deathmatch, or before it "officially" starts? Cause, if it's the latter, you effectively prepare the challenge for yourself to take. I think it's important to be aware when the preparatory phase of the game ends and facing the challenge starts. Cause, in the first phase adding difficulty makes a lot of sense. In the second, it would be a poor strategic choice and nothing more (unless there are some trade-offs involved).

The question is what challenge is being addressed?  Is it "I can kill that monster with... 3 penalties!"  "Oh yeah, well I can kill it with 4!"  "Alright, kill that monster!"?

Callan wrote:
The understanding I'm working from is that a player can only take damage or a resource hit from the SIS, if they invite it to happen...I see skateboarders falling over again and again as they try to learn their tricks, for example - they just accept it.

Callan wrote:
Finally in general, on 'why one roll' I was really aiming this at myself and just mentioning it to others as a design question as a casual after thought. I'm really surprised that people have tried to justify it to me -

My understanding is that there can't be strategy until there are stakes. I think that went wrong in that previous post - there was an assumption that if the GM's talking about the game world and even the players are, that play is happening and thus anything you do is strategy.

My issue is simply that I don't want to do a whole bunch of work only for it to be undone immediately - thats lots of work for little play. Also I don't want to invite my friends around only for it to end in a rapid anti climax (hmm, more of a social expectation though - on reflection, might be outside the area of game design). In line with the work issue, complexity doesn't equal stakes. Putting in lots of work making it complicated doesn't mean anyone has to take it up as some sort of challenge.

Another good activity for a designer is to go and play snakes and ladders - preferably with a young, excitable person. You'll find pure gamble is fun - you just forget that when the human element is removed. Err, I mean to say this as another understanding of mine.

After all, saying you can beat the monster with three penalties means nothing if nothing is at stake - it's just statistical grandstanding.

And that's it. Yeah, not complicated, but instantly no one in the whole world knows how things will turn out or what the right solution will be, because who knows when he'll miss? Any missing element makes the final solution quite different - a solution no one can be certain of!

Callan, I found your Rocks fall thread via google.  I have to say, I don't want to insult you, but I'm a bit puzzled about the way you think about gamism.  The previous thread seemed to describe a game which is either some kind of weird guessing game (I think the GM will hit me with HP damage, so I should bid mind points instead) or you seemed to be aiming for the "I'm willing to take the biggest hit, look how awesome I am" crowd.  Here you seem to be aiming more towards puzzles (at least that's what I'm inferring, from the "figure out the optimal strategy" stuff), and you express a fondness for snakes and ladders.  Maybe I'm missing something, but these games all seem to be very light on strategy.  Are you sure you want to design a gamist game?

I think there's a perception (I see it as just a perception, anyway), that if you sitting and talking with people about some fictional characters in peril, game play is happening. Speaking from my own view, no, it's flatly not. It's just alot of hot air, until stakes are on the table. The rocks fall design lets you put stakes on the table (that the whole group understands)

However, if you do treat talking with people about characters in peril as play, then it doesn't make sense to use within that 'play'.

But frankly it doesn't work - trying to do it that way is rather like trying to enforce drawbacks players have taken for points (ever tried that as GM?). If you haven't noticed the pattern in play, players will argue with this. That's because while there's even a small chance of getting out of having the drawback applied, they will try get out of it.

That's a lame result - the players don't accept losing as they keep trying to figure some arguement out of it, just like they try and argue their way out of the drawback being enforced.

That's why I don't see play happening in a group of people just talking about characters in peril. I see a great idea generating group, which is nice. But there is no play, because there will be no acceptance of losing - just a hamster wheel of denial "Oh but...", ad nauseum.

What I have seen, though, are designs where the characters had a means of escape, but choose not to take it and per chance, die. And the players can accept that because they realised escape was right there. They kept their own head under the gillotine, no one else forced it there. That's what 'rocks fall' does - it lets you head into danger, fully knowing you could have escaped it. Thus you will fully accept the results as much as it was your choice.

Then again alot of groups think they can enforce drawbacks sucessfully, and perhaps think they can enforce losing too. The 'rocks fall' design will seem entirely out of place to them, as it engages a problem they 'don't have'.

I don't understand what you mean by puzzles being light on strategy - strategy is just one big puzzle that encapsulates smaller puzzles. Unless you mean something else by strategy - as I've said, without stakes strategy doesn't exist, nothing is or can be a good or bad move because there is no stake to compare each move by. In the same light as asking whether I want to design a gamist game, you might want to reflect on your concept of gamist play and consider if you were making moves in the interest of a stake, or making moves which just seem right to make. It may have consisted more of what 'just seemed right to do', perhaps?

I don't understand what you mean by puzzles being light on strategy - strategy is just one big puzzle that encapsulates smaller puzzles.

Hi Dan,

Ah, I see where were dividing

A decision that requires strategy is one in which you must pick between several reasonable alternatives.

However, "high price low volume" is a strategy, because the alternative, "low price high volume", is one that also makes sense.  Picking one over the other because you perceive you can get better results is a strategic business decision.

I'm new around here, but I'd like to step in... Hoping you'll pardon my pitiful English.

Since DnD 3.x was mentioned in examples, do you know that original 3rd edition designers (as Mr. Monte Cook and others admitted) chose to make some options better (more rewarding) than others, but to avoid thus labeling them? This is sometimes spoken of as related to "gaining mastery of the game". This strongly relates to the above "strategy" debate, IMO.
Most DnD players either believe the game to be "balanced" or they believe "unbalanced" options to exist as the result of design mistakes - mistakes to be either rectified (via "house-rules" etc.) or exploited to break the game, depending on one's attitude (or role: DM vs player).
In appearance, it's a game of equal opportunities: be a heavy-armored "tank" fighter, or be a fast "swashbuckler" type, or be a magic-user, for all such options have merits of their own, right? Wrong. Assuming a "typical" game, with advancement up to 20th level expected, a Wizard class PC is utterly superior to a Fighter class PC, except things are easier for the Fighter at very low levels (which is marginal, since the Wizard's superiority kicks in at 3rd); a Cleric or Druid trumps them all, being greater than or equal to any other class option at just each and every experience level, 1st-20th. All of the above is not, however, readily apparent: thus the game has "strategy".
(*And, to address the most frequent concern: "better" is defined as "providing a stronger and more varied contribution to their respective team's collective effectiveness", including that Druid can replace Fighter but Fighter can't replace Druid)

On a different note, about willingfully accepting penalties in a "gamist" environment:

I believe players would gladly accept character effectiveness penalties if they were competing for a victory score, and accepting penalties yielded a score increase. Think "score" as in old arcade games.
Think old school DnD... Is the Ogre "worth" 50 XPs? Yawn... Then, what if:
o- Single handedly slaying the Ogre with your right arm tied behind your back ---> x2 XPs
o- Doing the above with just a rusty nonmagical dagger as your only weapon ---> x3 XPs
o- All of the above, but wearing no armor or protective gear whatsoever ---> x4 XPs

More to the point, drop the big thing about "XPs", that they ultimately yield an effectiveness increase in the long run: it's just "score" now. Once we get to endgame best score wins.
Crippling your own "guy" with a permanent penalty is now "rewarded" with a permanent "score mutiplier increase". To make things more interisting, start with a x0 multiplier: fully effective characters can't score. So, what about taking that cold vulnerability now? This grants me a +(x1). Way to go... I'll forget how to wield a sword, resort to dagger and be up to x2. But, wait, what? That other guy's got a pegleg?! Time to strip naked of my armor, and tie my right arm behind my butt... Oh, yeah! I'm such a risk-taker! Eat my x4 multiplier, Mr. Pegleg!

...Well, just my 2 cents.

Hi Rafu,

There was a scoring system - for example, if you bid your 50 fatigue points and only lost 25, that's pretty good. If you bid it and only lost 10, that's even better, and so on. The less you lose, the better you've done.

When I wrote that post I didn't have in mind any scoring over a series of bids - each was supposed to be judged by itself Like if you played five games of chess, you judge the outcome of each by itself. You can look at how many you won out of five if you decide to, but as chess is set out normally, you look at the result of each game in issolation to the next or previous game.

Also, when players bid their resources, it wasn't permanent. In one fight they might bid fatigue, in anther they might decide to bid nothing (making that fight just alot of pleasant imaginative talk). It was up to the player each time.

But I'm being pedantic - as much as I understand your idea, its expectations match my own! :) I like your bidding system - are you going to write a game so I can play? :)

I'm serious about that!

Well, since just after writing that post I've been sort of writing a game inside of my head... So, yeah, maybe I'm actually going to write a (very simple) game in a week or so.

Let's imagine a game.  We'll call it "Choice Master".  It might be quite similar to your "Rocks Fall" game.  In Choice Master, the players face scenes, in which they are presented with three choices.  For example:

"You come to a great chasm in the cave.  A flimsy rope bridge spans the chasm.  You may: Cross the rope bridge, try to jump the chasm, or try to climb down the chasm and up the other side."

In Choice Master 1st edition, all choices are successful.  Whichever one you choose, you get to the other side.  The description changes, but the result is the same.  I think we can agree that Choice Master First Edition isn't a good gamist design.  There are choices, but no strategy.  It doesn't really support any agenda very well.

After massive complaints from fans, the authors release Choice Master 2nd Edition.  In this edition, there's a chance of failure.  You roll a d6.  On a 1-2, the first choice will kill the character, the second choice will injure the character, and the third choice will be successful.  On a 3-4, it's the first choice that's the successful one, the second choice leads to instant death, and the third choice injures the character.  And so on.  So for our example scene, you roll a d6, and get a 2.  Players who chose to have their character cross the chasm will lose their character - the bridge breaks while the character is in the middle, and they plummet to their deaths.  Players who chose to jump the chasm will take damage to their character.  The character makes the jump, but slamming into the far wall injures them.  Characters who climb down the chasm and up the far side escape unharmed.

Choice Master 2nd Edition is still a poor gamist design.  There are choices, but all the choices are equal.  The players don't have any information with which to make a decision, so it's the same game as first edition, with the annoying addition of having to start over sometimes, and keep track of hit points.

Faced with poor sales, the authors release Choice Master 3rd Edition, in a shiny hardback.  It introduces the revolutionary concept of "progress points".  No longer will every character proceed through the choices together.  "Progress Points" will mark the relative amount of progress through the line of choices.  Now, each choice is presented with some additional statistical information:

Cross the rope bridge: 5 progress points, 1 in 6 chance of instant death.
Jump the Chasm: 4 progress points, 5 in 6 chance of losing 5 hit points.
Climb down the chasm: 1 progress point, 2 in six chance of losing 5 hit points.

Now this is a functional gamist design.  There is an element of competition (seeing who can accrue the most progress points), there are meaningful choices (gamble for high stakes, or take the safe option) and there are strategies for success (when you're behind, it makes more sense to gamble to catch up.  Losing is the same as dying.  When you're ahead, you can afford to take the safer option.  When you have lots of hit points, you can gamble with them, but later in the game, the risks become bigger). By constantly mixing up the options, the game ensures there's no obvious optimum strategy.  I think Choice Master 3rd Edition would be a hit with the fans.  (3.5 Edition would introduce character options, such as more hit points, progress point multipliers, and re-rolls, for another layer of strategy.).

Does this fit with your understaning of gamist design? Is Choice Master 3rd Edition the kind of game you're thinking of? I can see this being a functional design for 10 minutes of fun at a convention. 

Callan wrote:
Hi Dan,

Ah, I see where were dividing

A decision that requires strategy is one in which you must pick between several reasonable alternatives.

The way I'm using strategy, this isn't an example of it. For example, if all of those reasonable alternatives result in success, it wasn't a choice either, just as much as "make money" vs "don't make money" isn't a choice. If it all ends in success, there's no choice - your headed for success regardless of what you do.

Hi Simon,

I like your developmental example. But I think a fourth ed may be around the corner. Your example seems to basicly balance out - it's kind of like having accurate but weak guy who hits for 20 but has 80% accuracy and strong but inaccurate guy, who hits for 40 but has 40% accuracy. There's no point to it, because both have an average damage of 16 - there no real choice between them. The options in your example seem to balance out too, essentially equivalents of each other. What might make them unbalance is if there is a definate optimum choice before hand, and one of these choices strengthens it. But that's where the real issue is, back at that choice - how do we have an optimum choice and yet its obscured enough for some amount of play to happen (and I mean obscured from the GM as well, so he can be surprised too).

However, if all the previous choices mathematically pan out to be roughly equal, then there are no choices. This isn't terrible - I've noted, snakes and ladders is fun, and the only choice there is whether you play or not (anyone scoffing right now can prove their designer cred and go play a damn game of it). Having a bunch of balanced options (and low handling time) makes a sort of sexy, more imaginative version of snakes and ladders. Frankly I'd settle for that if A: it wasn't an effort to write up and B: The SIS comes into it somewhere, if only lightly.

You were gunning to obscure the right answer, but I think that removed a right answer as well. Are there any other methods of obscurement out there? To everyone including the GM, I mean.

Hi Aaron,

Aaron wrote: In this case, both "Success" and "Reasonable" are very holistic. Even with all the pertinent data in front of me, even with a map of the dungeon and stats of all the monsters, there might not be a final "best answer". Furthermore, the player's definition of success is flexible. The stakes are usually more complex than, "You Win!"

I think you may have pointed out a basic ambiguity in game design philosophy. Most of the treatises I have read talk about "Jigsaw Gamism" rather than "Go Gamism". I personally would hate to devote myself to creating something that would become a notch in someone's belt. At the same time, I understand the satisfaction people feel when they've glued and framed a 5,000 piece puzzle. A pretty important distinction in my opinion.

(Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here, but there's strategy even in assembling puzzles. Do you start with the edge pieces? Sort by color? "Success" is not only getting the puzzle together, but how quickly and easily you do so.)

Oh, and why stop with throwing the die? I haven't gotten this far yet, but when people get the hang of my mostly-karmic game, they can resolve ties any which way they want to. Usually, it's just a coin toss. But it can be paper football, hula-hooping, tic-tac-toe, etc., etc., and all the better if it's symbolic of the task being resolved. Make a shot in the trashcan to successfully shoot the guard. Win a staring contest to resolve the psychic battle. Eventually I'd like to get Fortune totally out of the picture.

I like this thread.  I feel like we're homing in on some essentials of Gamism. 

Callan, I see your point about Choice Master third edition.  I think it's overstated to some extent, though.  Yes, all the choices are ostensibly equal, but only assuming perfect knowledge of future choices.  If this is the only challenge that damages hit points, and you have six of them, risking losing 5 is by far the best choice.  There are correct choices, and an astute player will be able to pick up trends (there are three challenges left, hit point damage is uncommon, I'll take lots of it now, since I won't need those hit points later).  That's strategy.  To a large extent though, it's a crapshoot.  You might be wrong, and there's not much information on which to base your decision.  I think there's enough to make Choice Master third ed and ok game, but I think we can do better.

What I keep coming back to is the idea that Gamism is essentially about making the right choices.  In D&D it's about choosing the right feats and equipment, in Chess it's about choosing the right move for your turn. For those choices to be meaningful, they need to draw on a body of information.  For the game to be satisfying long term, that information needs to be complex enough to be difficult (or ideally impossible) to master.  There needs to be a difference in the amount of information the players have mastery of.  D&D is ok for this.  The rules are sufficiently complex that it takes some time to master.  Making the right choices requires drawing on your knowledge of all the different powers in the books, and how those interact with the challenges likely to be faced.  It's not perfect though, because it's relatively easy to master the entirety of the rules, and then making the right choice is no longer a challenge.  Then the game becomes snakes and ladders - which as you've noted can be a fun game, but I think it's not satisfying for very long.  Chess is a fantastic Gamist design, because the information the players have to draw on (possible future moves of their opponent) is practically infinite, and impossible to master.  It's satisfying long term because, given a sufficiently skilled opponent, making the right choice is always a challenge.

Worth noting as a dead end for Gamist design in RPGs is the idea of drawing on knowledge of the real world as it applies to the imagined situation as a way to make the right choice.  A game where the GM decides what the "realistic" outcome of your actions would be, and you attempt to make the right tactical choices by deciding what would "realistically" work, is a poor gamist design.  The challenge is intuiting the GM's perception of realitiy, which, unless you're gaming with God, is different from actual reality, and is always going to be different from your own perception of reality.  There is no "right" choice, just choices which appeal to the GM, and choices which don't.  Good gamist design requires drawing on objective, rather than subjective, information.

"Battle Ships" is another example of great Gamist design.  Given a certain amount of information, the players make choices about which square to fire on.  There are definite "right" and "wrong" choices, and the right choices are not obvious.  The players draw on their knowledge of remaining ships, definite hits, and definite misses, to postulate possible correct choices.  There are a range of acceptable choices, and it takes a long time to develop mastery of the information available.

So it seems to me that the ideal Gamist RPG is one in which there is large amounts of objective information, some of which is clearly stated, and some of which must be produced from the stated information by drawing on experience with the game, logic, and prediction of opponent's actions.  D&D fulfills this.  There are large numbers of feats, skills and weapons.  Working out which is the best choice requires remembering what has worked in the past, crunching the numbers to work out optimal bonuses, and knowing what the GM is likely to throw at you.  A wide range of choices also seems to be desirable, as a way of increasing the range of information required to make a decision. 

So what does this mean for Advanced Choice Master? I would say that the fundamental basis of the game is sound.  Look at the options, assess the information available to you, make a decision.  To increase the long-term satisfaction of the game, the designers need to increase the amount of information available to the players, and increase the range of choices.  Here are some ways of doing this:
Powers.  In Advanced Choice Master, each character has a power.  There's a list of these, and they include things like bonus hit points, regaining more hit points when resting, gaining extra progress points in certain situations, modifiers to some kinds of roll, and so on. Not only does this increase the number of choices the players have to make, it increases the information they have to draw on when making a decision.  The powers of other characters will influence their decisions.

Resting.  Sometimes the choice is between resting (and regaining hit points) and pressing on (gaining progress points).  This requires drawing on different information than other decisions, and increases the number of choices in the game.

Opportunities.  Sometimes, an opportuntiy becomes available to the character with the most progress points.  This usually carries special risks and special rewards.  If the opportunity is passed up, it's handed on to the player with the next highest progress points.  This makes every decision in the game harder, because now having more progress points is more valuable than being in the best position overall (the best combination of Progress Points and Hit Points).  Players can make a calculated gambe to expend Hit Points on sub-optimal choices, in order to gain the lead and have a chance at an opportunity.  Players faced with opportunities must weigh the risk of the choice against passing the opportunity on to their opposition.

Helping.  Characters with the same number of progress points can opt to help each other, gaining a bonus to their dice rolls.  Is this a good choice? Does helping a weaker character benefit you? How about helping a stronger one?

Initiative.  Players make decisions in order of who has the most progress points.  This means that players at the back have more information with which to make a decision.

I think Advanced Choice Master has enough complexity of information, enough information that can be drawn from the stated information, and enough choices, to be a functional gamist design, long term.  I'd play this.

What I keep coming back to is the idea that Gamism is essentially about making the right choices.  In D&D it's about choosing the right feats and equipment, in Chess it's about choosing the right move for your turn. For those choices to be meaningful, they need to draw on a body of information.  For the game to be satisfying long term, that information needs to be complex enough to be difficult (or ideally impossible) to master.

What I keep coming back to is the idea that Gamism is essentially about making the right choices.

I think instead that most RPG have relied on a kind of faux-complexity, unlike the Computer RPG's that Dan mentioned.  They can be really mechanically complex because the computer can handle the numbers, but for practical purposes there is no way we can call on that kind of computational power at the table.

I don't think we can achieve real complexity of this scale at the table; what we can create is instead a kind of indeterminacy in which actual relationships are obscure or unpredictable.  I question how much strategy exists in the most homebrew campaigns, because characters are relatively fixed, and the presented adventure or scenario is an artefact of the GM, constructed with a high degree of knowledge of the characters.  It doesn't really seem to me that a given character design or development choice is truly strategic, because the GM of a game comprising three monks is likely to present very different problems and scenarios than a GM presented with a warrior, a magician and a rogue.  Sure all my character design choices are complex, but the GM is not really playing the same game as I am, and in many respects is not playing a game at all, given that the GM has no limits on their resources whatsoever.

Simon wrote: Callan, I see your point about Choice Master third edition.  I think it's overstated to some extent, though.  Yes, all the choices are ostensibly equal, but only assuming perfect knowledge of future choices.  If this is the only challenge that damages hit points, and you have six of them, risking losing 5 is by far the best choice.  There are correct choices, and an astute player will be able to pick up trends (there are three challenges left, hit point damage is uncommon, I'll take lots of it now, since I won't need those hit points later).  That's strategy.

To a large extent though, it's a crapshoot.  You might be wrong, and there's not much information on which to base your decision.  I think there's enough to make Choice Master third ed and ok game, but I think we can do better.

Chess is a fantastic Gamist design, because the information the players have to draw on (possible future moves of their opponent) is practically infinite, and impossible to master.

Worth noting as a dead end for Gamist design in RPGs is the idea of drawing on knowledge of the real world as it applies to the imagined situation as a way to make the right choice.  A game where the GM decides what the "realistic" outcome of your actions would be, and you attempt to make the right tactical choices by deciding what would "realistically" work, is a poor gamist design.  The challenge is intuiting the GM's perception of realitiy, which, unless you're gaming with God, is different from actual reality, and is always going to be different from your own perception of reality.  There is no "right" choice, just choices which appeal to the GM, and choices which don't.  Good gamist design requires drawing on objective, rather than subjective, information.

Dan wrote:
It's my personal experience that computer RPG's that rely on systems that are too complicated for the player to understand are frustrating and unfun.  Remember, the player is the person that needs to be catered to in computer RPG design -- if the player can't understand the systems he's interacting with, he's not able to really employ strategy, and he's probably not having fun.  In my opinion, the complexity limiter is the human player, not the hardware or software.

My suspicion is that a gamist GM in this scenario is stepping up to a challenge, too -- creating a scenario that's right on the hairy edge of beatability.  If the players find it too easy or too hard, they'll likely perceive the GM as failing.  So I don't think it's right to say that they have no limits on their resources -- the limits may exist only in a social context in D&D, though.  Maybe a "cleaner" gamist design would give the GM more explicit limits?

This thread is getting pretty abstract. I'm not sure what sort of game you want to make, Callan. For a page there I thought you were going for full-on board-game level of abstraction, the sort of thing "real people" play. Now you seem to be saying that gamism doesn't have darwinian value without an element of simulationism. Having progressed this far, do you think you could very briefly refocus and restate your goal/problem for me? I want to contribute, but not to ramble.

Your bear cub illustration (I wouldn't even call it an analogy -- it really is the same thing in my opinion) is something I have thought a great deal about. I've been pondering this framework, a sort of "Maslow's Hierarchy of Gaming". I've been reading the forge for a couple of years now and have always been baffled by this talk of "finding meaning" or what-have-you in the allegedly supreme narrativist genre. Recently, however, I've found that some of my gaming friendships have elevated to the point that such things might be quite enjoyable. With people I consider less  "Self-Actualized" but still cool, I can indulge in a communal enjoyment of a shared subject matter (Let's say Indiana Jones) and its accompanying emotions, etc.

Furthermore, I have found that, even with people I don't really like, I can still enjoy playing out those basic skills which constitute my evolutionary fitness : spatial judgement, reflexes, arithmetic, etc. If I'm playing Final Fight next to a total stranger I can still enjoy myself, even if he decides to be a douche and take all the cheeseburgers. Gamism "really GETS you, right here" . . . way down in the "root chakra".

I don't agree at all that more abstract games are worse for this purpose. All games are abstractions. Even an exhaustive training simulator will sometimes teach you to rely on its unavoidable abstractions, causing you to fail in the real world. Games like chess hone very basic skills which can be generalized to a variety of life's challenges. And furthermore I'm still not convinced that your game HAS to have a finite lifespan, although I still think your ten-minute goal is totally valid.

Tell me if you posed this hypothesis : The players' captivity to the GM's conception of reality is not necessarily a design flaw if it is not central to their success. Yes/No/Sorta? Quite interesting, and perhaps crucial the discussion.

Oh, and what you pointed out as a method of extended obscurement of correct choices does introduce a degree of indeterminacy which, at a critical mass, produces a replayable game. The correct choice is always changing, and always obscured differently. Repeatedly finding it constitutes strategy. Furthermore, since the correct choice is determined by future events, it is un-knowable at the time of choosing. Yes, we can crunch numbers, find the optimal probabilities, and wear down the casino over time, but a daring gambler can win big in the short term. To me, this makes your premise of short, finite game all the more exciting.

God, this is getting abstract. Tell me, Callan, do I get to stab people?

Oh, and I don't like chess either. Also because it's too abstract, but not because I believe it hones skills that are useless, but because I can't connect with it emotionally.

For an abstract wargame, I greatly prefer Taasen. Google that biatch! I've often thought of resolving swordfights with Taasen, or making each "scene" of an RPG session correspond to one Taasen move. Also, it's much less a matter of memorizing standard maneuvers, like skilled chess players do.

Aaron wrote:
This thread is getting pretty abstract. I'm not sure what sort of game you want to make, Callan. For a page there I thought you were going for full-on board-game level of abstraction, the sort of thing "real people" play. Now you seem to be saying that gamism doesn't have darwinian value without an element of simulationism. Having progressed this far, do you think you could very briefly refocus and restate your goal/problem for me?

Tell me if you posed this hypothesis : The players' captivity to the GM's conception of reality is not necessarily a design flaw if it is not central to their success. Yes/No/Sorta? Quite interesting, and perhaps crucial the discussion.

That should have read: If that captivity is central to success, does that make the game about that captivity?

Also I didn't restate the problem - but this is from the first post: Writing a hard to beat system (but unfortunately by doing so, knowing how to beat it. This assuredly sucks) VS writing a system which I know isn't easy to beat.

To which I had the idea of attempting to throw a dice into a box from a distance (which no ones commented about, odly). I've done a short game (under 45 min) with a bit of that in it and the uncertainty was great, but need further trials. After that I've been milking ideas from people, and I perhaps sort of thought it'd eventually come round to the 'throw the dice in the box' idea.

My bread-and-butter gaming experiences are wargaming with enhanced emotional connection, so I'm all about Gamism beyond the chessboard. I understood your distinction, but after reading it several times I couldn't figure out where you wanted to go. I thought your initial question might have changed by this point (I'm still a little confused by its wording).

Okay. I understand this "platform of exploration" concept. Let me try this : your players will be rewarded for loyally enacting the fiction BECAUSE this is part of the clearly-delineated way to clearly win the game. ? I can run with this.

I'm not sure about your question. My initial reaction is that the Gamist player requires a consistent, knowable environment in which to maneuver. I bet that as long as there's a clear contract between the player and the GM it could work. I haven't tested this much, but I suspect that as long as the GM is held captive to his previous rulings it can work just fine. If a system like this were presented correctly to a Gamist player, he might even be stimulated by the challenge of probing the GM, who becomes a sort of existential fog-of-war.

"Your guy in chainmail falls in the water and drowns."
"Really. He just drowns. No save or anything. He can't, like, slip out of the chainmail."
"No, he wouldn't have time."
"Interesting. People in chainmail automatically drown."
"Yes. People in chainmail automatically drown."

If there is an easy way to keep the GM from weaseling out of his previous statements, I think this would be just fine.

And, dude, dice-throwing is awesome. I really feel dice should be de-emphasized in Gamism. In Sim and even more in Nar, dice are there almost more for a sort of "tarot card" or "casting the runes" effect. In a real Game it sucks to be disempowered. DnD can be so frustrating -- so often you get your ass handed to you for no reason but a string of crappy rolls.

I boiled myself down to the coin toss. Tails, YOU DIE! If I'm going for the trophy, I'll have no patience for this crap where we look at a big mass of d10's and then the GM says. "Ehhh . . . okay, that's good enough." Like he's reading chicken entrails. Clarity and consistency are crucial.

Beyond that, I don't think I can overstate the value of having a physical connection to my character's success. Paper Mario is fantastic.

In its current state : How do I win at your game? How might I be captive to your view of reality?

Oh, and I should have stated this explicitly. In my hypothetical game where you probe the GM and then start luring all his armor-clad enemies back to the swimming pool, I think game is about the players' captivity to the GM's reality to the same extent that your basketball game is about making baskets.

Space Quest is about using real-world knowledge as a clue to guess the designer's whims. I wouldn't call such games very good from a Gamist perspective. If SQ6 were a person I probably would have punched him a few times. Dunno how relevant that is.

Let me throw in a proposition.

Here is our game, it is based on gladiatorial combat in the Roman arena (so  Aaron can stab things).  The characters are slave gladiators, but we make sure to use the convention of 90% survivability; this allows characters to get themselves into various kinds of trouble that can ultimately get them killed (for Callans voluntary risk).  Success in the Arena allows them to buy points of Fame, which can in turn be spent to buy various forms of status, including the wooden sword and hence liberty.  Mastery of the Arena requires specialisation in one of the combat classes (myrmidon, retiarius etc) which are expressed as types of combat actions.

Play occurs in a strict and short sequence of scenes.  The first scene occurs in the gladiators pit, with the fighters gearing up, praying to their gods etc.  It lasts a specific length of time like the proposed 10 minutes.  If nobody has anything to say, you wait the 10 minutes in silence, and deal with your demons, just as you would do if it were real.

The second scene is the combats.  There are a limited and pre-generated number of combatants - creating, portraying and playing these is one of the GM's  duties.  But the GM doesn't actually fight,or specifically assign combatants.  Thematch-up is by tiering and randomness, and all the fights use individual sets of pre-generated rolls and actions assigned to that combatant.  When a fight occurs, it occurs much like it normally would in an RPG, with the GM describing the NPC's actions and the player those of the PC.  But both of them know that the GM cannot throw the fight at all, even if they wanted to.  All the players rolls are live, decisions are made in the here and now.  When two players face each other in the Arena, its direct PvP with the GM as arbiter.  To the victor the spoils.

After the fights conclude, the third scene occurs in the gladiator school, at night, after the fights.  During this scene, players may spend the points they earned during the days combat.  They and the GM (using the point expenditure) agree suitable specific realisations of general values like "patron" or "favourite" or whatever.  That is, they use the portrayal of the social life in the villa as a context for bringing on stage representative NPC's and so forth.  This scene goes on as long as the players all desire, but the GM should narrate the progress of time during the night so that people gradually drop out as they retire, or sit up talking till the cocks crow.

Play ends.  But, the whole process may be short enough that you can play several more cycles in one session.  Each cycle represents exactly one day and no play takes place outside of these specific scenes and physical contexts.  To play further you repeat cycle.

This hopefully sets a specific and detailed contest in a specific and detailed setting.  Its not free and open play sure, it does only one thing.  It uses a lot of RPG modes of narration and portrayal and scene setting, but imposes strict delineation on the possible scenes.  Most of the world exists in abstraction rather than detail; detail is used as a platform for those elements that do enter play.

What do you think?

Quite similiar to the "Golden Axe" proposal I made on the first page. It seems we have similar answers to what we perceive are Callan's issues.

I'd rather not hijack Callan's thread, though. I'm still trying to figure out just what he's driving at.

It sounds hella fun, though -- right up my alley. If you want to start a new thread I'll toss some ideas around.

Callan, if you have ideas for, like you said, proceeding constructively after a "mandatory reality-mode divergence correction", I would love to hear them. I do feel it is possible to make this realignment a positive part of the game, rather than a crippling dysfunction (as it is in basically every game in print).

I think my initial problem, where two design goals clashed, has been addressed by the throw system - I'm quite happy with it's effect in the play I account here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=24159.0

I listened to a podcast interview with Ron recently - although he talks about groups only getting story before or story after, I think I described a sort of gamist parralel problem, which might be called solution to problem before and solution to problem after, respectively. The throw system creates situations that no one would know would be coming up, meaning solution can only be made on the spot, right now in play.

Hi Aaron,

I would say that you don't make 'reality alignment' a possitive part of play - either the person wants to engage that or not. People who play sports often have to change their muscles and reflexes (usually we'd say they improve them) - those sports games don't try and make it a possitive part of play, they just require it. Step on up or don't. Same with having to change and align your sense of reality with the game, step on up to it or don't.

However, as I noted before, lingering on a failed alignment starts to say (then scream) some sort of simulationist primadonna-dom. Lingering there just seems to spotlight how the GM got his right to speak into the game world and you don't get any rights in that regard, or something yucky.

I'm thinking in a similar vein that if it takes too long to describe the overall challenge in a gamist game, ie describing all the fiddley (shared) imaged space bits, it begins to spotlight that description process.

So I'm not really answering how to make reality alignment attractive, but I am looking how it can appear to change into something non gamist and how to stop those spotlight issues.

One important point I haven't seen anyone mention is the difference between strategy and tactics.  As you point out, it is unlikely that a designer of a game will be unaware of the most successful strategies.  However, tactics can often be more fluid, and so, produce the challenge you seek.

On another note, ten minutes is quite a short period of time.  A gamer's game, if you will, requires a certain amount of time spent in thought.  Ten minutes does not leave much time for very many thought processes.  Thus, it sounds like a dangerous recipe to try to include both brevity in play time and depth in experience.