Not in the game I'm designing, but in my understanding of game design in general.

It's like the light finally came on. I know this is probably just the basics to most of you, but this was quite a revelation to me:

The movement in game design is not towards narrativism but rather towards having a concise and focused system. The designer decides what he or she wants from the game and builds around that. This turns all of my questions as a designer around. Rather than creating causes and hoping the appropriate effects are produced, I should be focusing on the effects that I want and work backwards to understand how to create the cause.

Instead of saying "I want to make a game with robots and machine guns," I should be asking "What about a robot and machine gun game am I most excited about?" And then focus on how to best create a game that produces that excitement in others.

I've been asking the wrong questions and that's why anytime I ask for advice I end up with a barrage of questions instead. I haven't been approaching the game in the right way. I've been trying to force the type of system I'm most familiar with to fit a game that it may not be best suited for. 

Even though this will certainly set me back in my current game design, in the long run I think the game will benefit from it. I feel like I've made some progress.

With only 47 posts? You're quick. I think at about that time, I was still trying to figure out how to cram every neat idea I encountered here into my game, without even questioning why.

More seriously, that is a very helpful realization. It's not helpful in all situations, such as where you start with a neat mechanic and you want to make a cool game around it, (Such as Alexander Cherry's Fastlane) but when you start with ideas about the fiction, then boiling it down to the important bits is a good way to do it.

:-) Congratulations

mjbauer wrote:
Even though this will certainly set me back in my current game design, in the long run I think the game will benefit from it. I feel like I've made some progress.

I had this same revelation not so long ago. It really has helped my game design a lot.

Yay, throw off that causal yoke and embrace full authorship!!!

Speaking of authorship, that may be the next speed bump. As I see it, anyway.

And then focus on how to best create a game that produces that excitement in others.

I've got to agree with that. The major focus of designing a game shouldn't be to force a character's hand. If you want to dictate a story, pick up a pen and write a story. If you want to design a game, then your aim should be to provide an environment and a ruleset that encourages player input. While you might think that a certain mechanic is neat, you should always step back for a moment and look at it from the player's perspective. Even if this mechanic seems novel to you, ask yourself these questions? Does it making the game easier to play? Is it streamlined? Is it easily understandable? And finally, does it enhance gameplay or detract from it?

Just my two cents.

Joe, thanks, but I was trying to argue against that. In a musical band, if one player goes and writes a song all by himself, it's still called music/making music. In roleplay if someone writes something that does not take input from others, it's called writing a book. It's immediately expelled from the hobby and forgoes that hobbies social support. There is no solo recource that has non compromised art, when in every other artform there is a solo recourse (well, everyone I think of has one. It seems like all of them do). The perception in the hobby as it stands is that it either has to be compromised art, or it's not roleplay at all. And I'm not sure continually compromised art is healthy.

So I would say to mjbauer, start from the idea of dictating a story. Utterly. Collaborate if you happen to want to, not because you have to if you want to keep your shiny roleplay badge.

I suppose that's really a clash of philosophy. The stance that I have is that if you want to make mechanics, it needs to fit what you predict a player to try. Incorporating a shiny mechanic in the game that doesn't enhance gameplay is like hanging a stale car freshener from your rearview window. When creating mechanics, you have to try to account for what a player might want to do, not neccesarily what you think would be cool to do. You shouldn't want to bog yourself down with mechanics if you don't have to. It doens't matter what plans you make, what mechanics you put in, because a player is going to throw a wrench in. The short reason why is because that's one of the player's jobs: To screw the GM's plans. Just like it's the GM's job to try to kill the players.

Case in point:

My brother was running a group that I was in through a 2nd edition D&D campaign in the Underdark. He had conceived this elaborate mission for us to find a way into the fortress of an enemy house. He sent some assassins from the enemy house to make the trek a bit more colorful, but our priest cast Commune with Dead and asked him for the password into the fortress. After about five minutes of him swearing because we circumvented his entire adventure because of one tiny oversight, we proceeded to mount our assault on the enemy fortress. Long story short, we ended up murdering the house soldiers until we walked through an enchanted doorway that triggered the summoning of a T'anari.

So that my point isn't lost in the example, you should stray away from creating mechanics with a story in mind because more often than not, the players will find a way to muck up your best laid plans. At the end of the day, the game is supposed to be for everyone's enjoyment, and while there is much enjoyment to be had at your expense when the players circumvent your plans, it's much better if you don't end up feeling like you've wasted your time creating mechanics unless it's applicable to something that the players would want to do anyway.

Either way though, creating a story is one thing. Designing a mechanic to make the story playable is not artistic design, it's a practical design. Artistic vision has no place in creating a mechanic for something that is supposed to work for everyone. Mechanic creation needs to be a neutral process, not something implemented to force a player's hand.

... I fear that I digress a bit. My apologies.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the OP is saying anything about restricting player freedom, or railroading them. It sounds to me like he is interested in designing mechanics that produce a flavor or feel. Personally I don't see anything wrong with this. Savage Worlds set out to make a game that felt cinematic and high energy, then they built mechanics that achieved that. Call of Cthulu tried to recapture the brutality, fear and madness of Lovecraft's stories. Their system was tailored to that setting. I would much rather play a game that has personality than one that tries to be everything to everyone. 

That might be, it's just the way it appeared to me was that he was saying that player freedom should fall to the side for the sake of making something the way you want to. The whole thing seemed like he was saying that the players' wants from the game have no bearing on it because the GM is the one putting in the work to create it.

It comes down to this. It's a game. Games are supposed to be fun. If you don't give a player the freedom to get out of a game what they wan to, then they don't have fun. Stifling the potential for players to have fun for sake of artistic vision is counter intuitive and pretentious in this medium. If you want to focus on artistic vision without regard to forcing someone's hand, then you might as well be writing a story. If you're making a game forsaking the player interaction for artistic vision, it's nothing more than egotism.

Uh, the original poster wasn't talking about GMs and players at all. He's talking about game design. He's talking about examining your goals and designing to meet those goals, rather than plugging in mechanics and hoping that they produce the kind of play he wants.

To put it another way, he's talking about the one shot, one kill school of game design, as opposed to the spray and pray school of game design.

Honestly, though I am neither moderator nor original poster, I think this thread has outlived its purpose already.

TheDeadlyPlatypus wrote:
That might be, it's just the way it appeared to me was that he was saying that player freedom should fall to the side for the sake of making something the way you want to. The whole thing seemed like he was saying that the players' wants from the game have no bearing on it because the GM is the one putting in the work to create it.

It comes down to this. It's a game. Games are supposed to be fun. If you don't give a player the freedom to get out of a game what they wan to, then they don't have fun. Stifling the potential for players to have fun for sake of artistic vision is counter intuitive and pretentious in this medium. If you want to focus on artistic vision without regard to forcing someone's hand, then you might as well be writing a story. If you're making a game forsaking the player interaction for artistic vision, it's nothing more than egotism.

Wolfen wrote:
Uh, the original poster wasn't talking about GMs and players at all. He's talking about game design. He's talking about examining your goals and designing to meet those goals, rather than plugging in mechanics and hoping that they produce the kind of play he wants.

To put it another way, he's talking about the one shot, one kill school of game design, as opposed to the spray and pray school of game design.

Honestly, though I am neither moderator nor original poster, I think this thread has outlived its purpose already.

Seamus wrote: I think we may be getting our wires crossed here. My interpretation of the OPs post was he wants to design mechanics to meet an overall feel. That isn't about freedom. Its about creating a system that produces flavor and style. every game does this to some extant. But many fail to consider how their mechanics impact the flavor. And that is what the OP was discussing I think. I can see what he means. Right now I am working on a Spy Game and Setting. Before I did anything, I sat down and asked, what are the basic elements of the spy genre. I made a list of things like Action, Suspense, Grit, etc. Ultimately I decided the system needs to be deadly, characters shouldn't be able to take a huge number of wounds, or it would be kind of silly. So I made gun combat extremely lethal. I also realized that things like tactics and position, should probably matter. So I designed my combat rules around those things. This isn't the only way to make a spy game. There are plenty of sub-genres within spy to handle other approaches. But this achieved the style I wanted for my game. PLayers who buy my game, will buy it because they want that style. I don't see how this impacts player freedom. Any mechanic you put in a game will restrict player freedom to some extent I suppose. The idea is to balance the need for players to do what they want, and have the game produce an overall feel and level of excitement that is fun.

On a separate note, I hope I'm not coming off as argumentative, that's not my intention.

Seamus wrote:
I could be wrong, but I don't think the OP is saying anything about restricting player freedom, or railroading them. It sounds to me like he is interested in designing mechanics that produce a flavor or feel. Personally I don't see anything wrong with this. Savage Worlds set out to make a game that felt cinematic and high energy, then they built mechanics that achieved that. Call of Cthulu tried to recapture the brutality, fear and madness of Lovecraft's stories. Their system was tailored to that setting. I would much rather play a game that has personality than one that tries to be everything to everyone.   

TheDeadlyPlatypus wrote:
That might be, it's just the way it appeared to me was that he was saying that player freedom should fall to the side for the sake of making something the way you want to. The whole thing seemed like he was saying that the players' wants from the game have no bearing on it because the GM is the one putting in the work to create it.

It comes down to this. It's a game. Games are supposed to be fun. If you don't give a player the freedom to get out of a game what they wan to, then they don't have fun. Stifling the potential for players to have fun for sake of artistic vision is counter intuitive and pretentious in this medium. If you want to focus on artistic vision without regard to forcing someone's hand, then you might as well be writing a story. If you're making a game forsaking the player interaction for artistic vision, it's nothing more than egotism.

Not your post, Callan's. Maybe I misinterpreted, but the way he said it made it seem like he was saying that a designer should make the game that he wants without regard to what a player might want out of it. After my fifth or sixth run-through of his posts, I thinkt hat I was probably looking at what he was sayign wrong.

That was the correct reading. Annoying, politically correct disclaimer: I don't know if the following applies or will help anyone.

I was suggesting as the default, make what you want to without compromise to anyone else/any player. Without feeling you'll be thrown out of the roleplaying club if you do so. Once that default is internalised, then consider as an author whether you want to colaborate or not. If not, that's fine, but probably best to say that on the cover/back of any roleplay game made that there is no interaction. Because, and I haven't really tendered any evidence toward this but I think it's true, continually compromising your art isn't healthy. If there's no respect for zero interaction/it's not called a roleplay game, then roleplay culture continually expects something which is unhealthy to continually do.

The main thrust is that the game can't be 'fun' for everyone, because people often have notions of fun that are, to varying degrees, conflicting. They will quite likely reduce the fun you were seeking, with any game powers they have, because their notion of fun conflicts with your intention for the game as game author. If your not ready to have your vision for the game screwed up to even a small degree in play, your not ready to write a collaborative work. And the above paragraph tries to respect that non collaboration intention for a work, rather than kicking it to the curb as being 'just writing a book' or such.

Mjbauer, when you were writing with cause in mind first, you didn't have to deal with this because you wrote causes then prayed it got the effects you wanted. Now your authoring directly in the effects you want. But when you author effects directly, by default no other player can interact. You have to actively write in the capacity for other people to be able to interact. And how much you do so depends not on some galactic code of honour for roleplay design, but instead on how much you want others to be able to.

I thought this was the next speed bump for you and this might help avoid a walk in the wilderness. I may be wrong on both accounts, as much as anyone could be wrong on a matter.

Callan wrote:
Mjbauer, when you were writing with cause in mind first, you didn't have to deal with this because you wrote causes then prayed it got the effects you wanted. Now your authoring directly in the effects you want. But when you author effects directly, by default no other player can interact. You have to actively write in the capacity for other people to be able to interact. And how much you do so depends not on some galactic code of honour for roleplay design, but instead on how much you want others to be able to.

I thought this was the next speed bump for you and this might help avoid a walk in the wilderness. I may be wrong on both accounts, as much as anyone could be wrong on a matter.

I would say that people get "chucked out of the roleplaying club" because there is this nice balance in rpgs that people are trying to preserve, that is barely found anywhere else, which is where the artistic content is only partially found in the book: There is an extent to which designing an rpg is about structuring the process of collaborative creativity! So I think there's a whole "sustain the revolution" thing going on when people start pushing rpgs as a product to be consumed, rather than a tool to help expression.

It's easy to fall back on "I'm the author, and if you don't like it don't play my game", but I would say that shouldn't be your first port of call; start with open arms, and if you need to constrain stuff to make the feel right, then by all means do, because it will often produce benefits for those playing, not to mention allow you to actually realise your vision.

Actually, that is what I would say I have learned about mechanics; they are provocations, inspirations and peacemakers, at the same time as expressing your vision:

Provocations, because they stop players just following their old routes;
"I kill him and then..."
"Dice say you don't kill him actually, he escapes"
"Oh, ok then hmmm"
or
"I go down the tavern"
"Sorry there is no tavern, but there is the longhouse"

these things force players to be creative, and the inspirations help them to do it:

"So there's a longhouse? How is that different?"
or
"Right well in that case, I'll use my contacts to hunt him down"

Peacemakers stop fights between people, because either the rules favour one side, you roll off to decide, or some other means resolves the authorial authority business.

At the same time, the provocations are restrictions to make actions fit your game's tone and dynamics, the inspiration is setting detail, random tables or questioning procedures to help people see what your game is about and how to work with it, and peacemakers favour events that move the way your game moves.

So mechanical interventions into "pure" player creativity can be really good, but each of those can be ineffective, by restricting players so much that they can see no space to be creative, by overloading them with detail, and by not letting players be adult in solving disagreements. This can often be done in the cause of realism or setting integrity, or just writing too much! Naturally they can also be underdone, in the sense that groups dysfunctions are never helped, or that people never get to see why you like robot and machine gun games!

Also, now you understand that the effect is the important thing, don't go all waterfall about it, starting from pure player needs and psychology and stuff (although it's fine and even good to mix that in), play with systems you make and discover what is good as you design. Keep your eyes open to see what is working and what is just there "cos", and even when people make mistakes that work better. That way you can reach a game specification that is different from what you planned; your own game can teach you something!

mjbauer wrote: If I create a game, with producing an effect as the goal, then I'm negating player discovery and interaction, because I'm forcing an outcome?

Callan wrote:
Yes. If you are grasping effect authorship, then you have complete control. Having complete, 100% control of course means no one else has control of what effect is produced.

IF (and let me stress that if, and respect if you don't want to) you want others to have some control over the effect, then you have to actively attack your own control. Put dice in the way of getting the effect you want, or such. The 'cause' designer doesn't have to do this, because his control over the effect is already under attack. So much so, he doesn't do much authoring. A true 'effect' designer is under no such attack - he has to provide it himself.

Also that's why I think it may be unhealthy to always compromise - if your continually putting things in the way of getting the thing you want to artistically create, then you never fully express your art. It's continually stifled. I think it's robust enough to compromise and be stiffled every so often, but even guys in bands often do side, solo projects. And it's still called 'making music'. Or maybe I'm being a mother hen and this doesn't apply - just saying it in case it looks after you.

But yeah, if your deciding the effect/goal by yourself, then your deciding it by yourself. Unless the players can potentially adjust the outcome to something other than what is your first preference for the games effect, then you have full control. But on the other hand if they can adjust the outcome to something other than what is your first preference for the games effect, then your obviously not getting the game you primarily want. Which can be stimulating if your ready for it and want it, or horrific if your not. To enjoy that you have to be ready to enjoy not quite getting what you wanted. I thinkz, anywayz.

mjbauer wrote:
I wasn't suggesting creating a game where the players have no choice. When I mentioned starting with the 'effect' I didn't mean that I was intending to design a game that's sole purpose was to create one single effect. I simply meant that I wanted to consider what types of experiences I was most interested in (experiences that I think players will enjoy) and focus my rules on those areas. Similar to the way that many games incorporate mechanics which encourage behaviors and help reinforce the setting.

Role Playing Game design is new to me, so maybe I'm not using the right terminology to try to explain myself, so I apologize if there was any confusion.