I'm trying a little experiment with my latest project and it's helped me clear up some issues I have been having. On a lark I thought it would be a good idea to actually write a "players contract" for the game I'm working on. The term "players contract" is something I hear tossed around and wondered if by putting these loose ideals down in writing making players read and sign a contract agreeing to them would effect the play experience.

Well I had a whole lot of difficulty coming up with the terms of the contract and it's still a work in progress but in trying to write it realized a few things.

Game rules are laws (old news I know), "player/gm advice" are principles. however most people skip the advice sections in rule books. it's my belief that principles are a far better tool then law.

The player contract as I'm writing it is a clear and defining statement of the principles for the game, how players should approach it and ultimately what purpose the game serves. It's a very direct means to address issues of principled play and from the first test seems like a very good way to make sure every player at the table is aware of these principles.

For players who would otherwise avoid "gimmicky" rules the contract provides the minor incentive in that it's printed with the rule book and will serve as a reminder of all the people you have played the game with, or maybe people sentimental enough to enjoy that sort of thing already follow gimmicky rules, I don't know.

here are a few things I'm thinking about in regards to player contracts.

Each game should likely have it's own unique contract.

How much can a game lean on a clearly stated set of principles (how few actual rules does the game need to have)?

What tools have other genres of games used to enforce principled play (warmachine's page five could be a good example, sportsmans prize support ect)

so what do you guys think about all this jibber jabber?

Just to fine-tune some of those thoughts (which sound intriguing),
you should probably read this:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=9782.0
The Infamous Five.
There are a few articles at the top of the page worth looking at, but direct your reading eye towards anything labeled "Social Contract."

Then, come back and tell me (because I'm interested) what you drafted so far.

Also, what kinds of things have you knowingly omitted in your written contract?
The reason I ask: I've been steeped in legal documents (buy/sell and mortgage contracts, especially), and absolutely nothing gets omitted. Almost to the point of absurdity. No game contract should read like a legal contract.

I think a "clearly stated set of principles" is another way of saying "system."

System isn't just about the dice.

HeTeleports wrote:
Just to fine-tune some of those thoughts (which sound intriguing),
you should probably read this:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=9782.0
The Infamous Five.
There are a few articles at the top of the page worth looking at, but direct your reading eye towards anything labeled "Social Contract." mind pointing it out for me?

HeTeleports wrote:

Then, come back and tell me (because I'm interested) what you drafted so far.

Also, what kinds of things have you knowingly omitted in your written contract?
The reason I ask: I've been steeped in legal documents (buy/sell and mortgage contracts, especially), and absolutely nothing gets omitted. Almost to the point of absurdity. No game contract should read like a legal contract.

Luke wrote:
I think a "clearly stated set of principles" is another way of saying "system."

System isn't just about the dice.

I think there's definitely something to be said for stating your game identity in the positive rather than negative sense: "You are meant to do ___" rather than "Whatever you do don't do _____" also I think it's quite good to say, "for this game the other players need you to do ____", both because this flags up people's responsibility for each other's fun, and for the actual game designer writing it, it reminds you to insure that you haven't made the various parts of the game too independent.

A big part of inspiring people to play relates to what you might call principles, in that people get the idea they are supposed to be killing dragons or solving mysteries or dealing with grief or making political alliances. Once they know that they can work from there.

So yeah, this is just another way to think about "system", but a good one! And making summaries that people can look at quickly is good for all kinds of things. Imagine if you added page number notes and made this the contents page for the book!

I think your contract is a little stuffy/daft, depending on if you take it seriously or not, and I suspect some of the contract structure takes away from it's readability. I prefer something influenced by proverbs from the bible: "do ___ not ____" or something. Basically I'd make putting the principles out clearly (so people obviously agree with them or not) the priority, before any stuff about "the undersigned" or any other fake legal structures.

Hello Tyler,

I think one issue is that usually all parties are in good will, and in good will try and forfil all of these points, but in doing so one of them gives something that just looks wacked out and alien to the point they look like they are giving an act of bad will (jeez, I seem to end up in that spot on forums often enough, actually).

It's funny how quickly, if there's any uncertainty about someones intentions, people will quickly assume the worst. No one wants to be a sucker.

Which is why I suggest adding a clause that everyone agrees to be a sucker (or however you want to put it). They will try to read good intent into everything, and hell, it's recognised amongst the group that it'd be so easy for one person to abuse that so no one has to feel like a full on sucker if it happens. Cause really the worst bit of being a sucker is feeling no one understands your position - so this clause helps everyone understand everyone elses position in trying to read good intent into everything anyone does in the group.

I like the sucker clause, how would you put it into words?

Oh I forgot to include my pondering about "principled play Vs. lawful play"

My game design background is from board and card games, when I started to work with RPGs I realized one of the largest differences was a great tolerance for exploitable rules, or stated differently RPG players are expected to understand what is appropriate behavior for the game they are playing.

Board games present a very limited scope of choices and are valued when there are as few rules that can be exploited as possible (in this case exploiting a rule means playing against the purpose/principles of the game) in other words board games are designed to stand up to "lawful play", Where the hard rules of the game naturally lead to the expected experience. board game rules would shy away from including behavior directions like "a player who cannot win should not take action to influence the eventual winner of the game." instead the rules of the game would be expected to prevent king making situations if they are undesirable. Games that do allow undesirable player behavior are often called "broken".

Role playing games seem to demand player behavior should be guided by more then the hard rules, a kind of "principled play". I think most people understand what that means. basically some "rules" are open to interpretation so they can cover a wide verity of player behaviors. Game authors have used various means to express their games principles. Some use the atmosphere of the art and prose in the book, some directly state it in the rule book posing as hard rules or advice, and some would pose as generic and deny more specific/useful principles.

A result of this difference is how player groups form and function.

I will play board games with just about anyone, however I'm more picky about who I want to play role playing games with or even what combination of people I like to have at the table. Much of the discussion I hear from role players is about problem players or how hard it is to find the right group to play with.

I think both approaches have merit and both have draw backs. I think the most sucessful games use both, rely to heavily on one and you will lose the benefits of the other. I guess the player contract is born from my background designing lawful games, forcing players to read and sign a contract forces an awareness of the principles of play that are acceptable for that game. It's a tool that i will use in some incarnation for any game that i feel needs to emphasize principle.

That's some important stuff that doesn't get talked about much in roleplay culture - I think mostly because it seems alot of roleplayers have decided all rules are principles, as you put it, rather than laws. I was in a discussion recently that seem to have mutated the idea of agreement, to something similar to if I stuff something under my shirt and walk out of a store without being molested, it's moment to moment assent. The RP example was a group of players who had agreed the GM gets final say on something, but amongst themselves without the GM, agreed to treat something as true that they had agreed the GM decides - the idea that if they go unmolested by the GM over it, it's moment to moment assent. There isn't much discussion about laws and principles in RP culture, because the majority seem to treat everything as an interpretable principle.

I will play board games with just about anyone, however I'm more picky about who I want to play role playing games with or even what combination of people I like to have at the table.

We all agree to see good intentions in what other people contribute - even if at times other people contributions seem alien or 'damaging to fun'. But the heart of the session is finding the little differences between us and enjoying those - that is the fun. More fun on top of that is great, but even if that's reduced by a strange contribution, appreciate that's a reflection of the other person. Your finding out about how they think and feel - this is fun! This is a core fun!

Also, admittely, some people could do something without good intention. You either decide to expose yourself to some risk of that, or you cannot play this game. And basically everyone there with good will appreciates that it takes some guts for you all to expose yourself to that risk - you all know none of you are being a sucker, your taking a risk for that specific fun

Here is a thought

In board gaming very few players are open to "house rules", preferring to play by the rules or to find a game that suits them better. it seems role players are far more open to playing off of "RAW" even to the point of explicitly stating in many rule books that players can and should do what feels right.

In your opinion what does this difference mean?

Does it mean there are significantly different cultures and backgrounds at play among the two groups? or does it mean RPG design has yet to advance to a point where games can be reliably counted on by the consumer?

is the personal preference clause printed in so many roulebooks a crutch?

Me? I think that people were exposed to badly written formal rules from an early age and in the desperation of youth (aren't we all a little desperate when young?) took it that 'getting it to work' was part of it actually working (as contradictory as that sentence is). This bread things like constructive denial, but without the self recognition of that denial.

So you've got a culture that, essentially, wants products that can't be reliably counted on. The flaws and the personal preference clause are all fodder for a socio political machination at the table for individuals to try and grab hold of a social activity and shape it as they want their group to behave. That last bit is hardly exclusive to RP - my partners previous book group had similar situations of power manipulation, from her accounts. I've heard the same about wedding planning and such like. Many people revel in structures with ambiguity about power and authority.

Then you have what are essentially religous visionaries, which is basically the same as above but more brrrr - they see 'how it is' in the unreliable text. No, they don't see a cool way of doing things that isn't really there but it inspired them to the cool idea - it's 'really there'. I use the term religous, because they tend to rely on the idea that if you state something exists, and no one can prove it doesn't, then that proves it does exist. Sometimes I think the fundimentalist christians reacted so much to D&D, not because of any devil worship, but because they sensed it muscling in on their turf.

Hoo boy, and now I sound a little ranty! I think there is evidence the personal preference clause is a crutch. But openly saying it tends to bring in one of the above parties. So I'd recommend not letting go of the idea if you get a bunch of dismissals straight away.

What does RAW stand for, again? :)

This thread was always on the borders between the "first thoughts" and "actual play" forums here, because it referred to techniques based on quite a general insight about games, which is probably better treated in actual play, both because the forum rules require examples, which help in this kind of communication, and because it will get on the radar of helpful and clever people who are into discussing this stuff.

With that in mind, here's my response to some of the more general stuff:

Transcending a rules structure doesn't require a rules structure to be bad. Yes the fact that they were bad forced people to overcome them, but it could be said that since the formal rules grew out of the experience, and then people budded off those rules into forming their own experiences, the rules being rubbish just clued people up to there being more to "this thing" than was in the book. Now that's a different history for you!

Now before I go any further Callan, I should probably unveil that I'm the same Josh W that you've been chatting to on the blogs, because seen as we are talking about some of the same stuff it could be weird otherwise!

The weakness you recognise in the informal rules are obviously true; if we take off the restrictions of lawyerly "Rules As Written" play, then we open up more opportunity for abusing other players, but RAW is a dodgy concept in itself because the more hardcore use of the concept means equating an rpg rules text with a computer language, ignoring that all such languages only exist as computer languages because they have a standardised interpreter! The same thing does not exist for human beings, our interpretation is always more complex and enigmatic than that, opperating more by contradiction: "So the rules work like this...[play contradicts written rules]...Ok maybe it's this instead" do you recognise that process from your own play? Setting up a hypothetical situation, going with it and seeing if it breaks? I've done it by checking play's correspondence to the rules text as we go, or by looking back afterwards and saying "oh we did that wrong". So interpreting "rules as written" means deciding if your interpretation as you've played it is identical with the existing rules text. I suspect this can be made rigorous, but that is going into "natural language processing".

Basically, your concern as to what can happen with an ambiguous text is actually what happens with every single text! The ability to change the rules is actually protection from the kind of people you mention, those who see no flexibility in the text, because it avoids the issue they so adamantly hold to, that their way is "the right way". Now as I say, it may be possible to construct a rigorous foolproof "rules as written" means of interpreting games texts, by following the distinctions they make, and it may be possible to write texts to better allow those techniques. But until then we will have people who "rules lawyer".

So on one side we have the person who uses the rules and their interpretation method to take control of the game, and on the other side there are those who just like to use "influence" of a more nebulous and social kind. We need to deal with both, unless we don't mind them doing it of course, but personally I'm too close to being either of those people myself to just let it lie; I restrain myself from changing rules mid-game for personal competitive advantage, and I'd rather like it if they stuck by that too.

But at this point I think we need to tie back together this preventative negative stuff with the stuff I mentioned before; if this is not a game about manipulating rules structures for competitive advantage, if this is not a game about political "setting the agenda" via social means, with "who's rules you use" as the score marker.

So what is it about?

Well it's about that other thing, you know, the exploration, the thing "creative agendas" are supposed to reveal. The reason we keep building games is because we want to find a way of creating stuff and imagining stuff together that is awesome in a way we intuitively get but want to nail down, and make reproducible. The "you can change the rules" clause is a recognition of what people who are reaching for that will do anyway: Tomorrow they will want to play a different game that is like yours but better! Technically I think it is a crutch that games may always need, if you still want people to be "playing your game", because the insights and experiences that they gain playing your game may well allow them to make a better game than you, just because your game has helped them. It's a crutch like inheritance is a crutch, it helps your game keep going, if only in name.

Now having said all that about the development and change of rpgs, I think that there are a certain group of people who like bending rule systems like mad. I am one of them! I used to love the Char-op boards on the D&D site even as I ran and played in campaigns of ever-evolving rules. Different challenge. Now if you just love manipulating rules systems, and to be honest finding optimum and innovative strategies can be very close to hacking the rules of the game, you will need the rules to stay still long enough for you to get a grasp on them. Or if they do change, then that itself becomes a tactical arena, with each player trying to create a rules system that they can pull in their direction more than the other persons playing. That's a fun game, but it's a different game.

I think that's about all I can reasonably put in one post, except I will add one last question: Callan, do you see any contradiction between enjoying the differences between people, and trying to standardise your experience?

This is a political machination I'll avoid as well, where I answered the OP legitimately, then somone else responds to me (not to the OP) contentiously, then I respond, back and forth and after awhile it looks like I'm just a big post hog. Everyone who responded to me (and not the OP/not on topic themselves) to begin with forgets how they participated in starting that off. Then whatever I've said can be written off as forum hog stuff (ah, storygamers...). Kind of prompting the other guy into being something that's dismissable (and thus the ideas are protected from critique because all critics are converted into forum hogs). I'm not saying this is being done conciously, but right now it is falling in exactly that direction regardless. Perhaps start a post in actual play?

On 'standardising the experience' I'm not sure anything productive happens if both parties can't humour some idea they may be wrong (we all have to put some amount of effort into trying to disprove our own hypotheses - no one else can do all of it for us - as far as I know). You sound certain I've said 'standardising the experience' and so I hesitate to enter into what looks unproductive ground.

Callan wrote:
You sound certain I've said 'standardising the experience' and so I hesitate to enter into what looks unproductive ground.

oh no worries, compared to a few other places i post this is a very tidy and polite community.

on topic:

I think the key here is to understand the difference between a principle and a rule, and to use both to create a complete game. In my thought it's a misunderstanding to think that they are one and the same, and to me it stems from the central untruth that has held role playing games back for so long.

Player's are not game designers. Game design is a remarkable skill that covers a wide breadth of disciplines, it's unreasonable to expect someone to be good at this skill without experience. Much of why people buy games is because it is quite hard to make a good one. In a board or miniatures game it's the designers job to take a strong set of fun principles and turn them into a set of rules that exercise those principles in play.

It's the designer's job to use principles, to expect normal people to be able to translate principles into functioning law is ludicrous, law is a very tricky and hamfisted tool but it is a critical component to presenting a complete game. To speak openly I don't know why hobby RPG's are usually so grievously incomplete. But I'm fairly sure it has nothing to do with RPG's needing a certain amount of incompleteness in order to function. I know they don't need to be incomplete because I have played RPG's that were complete. Games like werewolf or even scholastic's old star wars adventure sets are examples of what I consider a complete RPG's.

However it is still very important for players to know a games principles upfront! This lets them know if it's something they are going to enjoy or how they should approach the game at hand. The "contract" is a means to those ends. Some games have other rituals or means to communicate the principals, if these principles are communicated effectively they can cover and guide a wide range of player behavior, making the laws easy to follow and helping players see the reason behind them. In this way they work together to make a complete game.

I forget if I said it here (forge) but the rpg industry is a vastly different landscape then what I have experienced in traditional gaming markets (both hobby and mass), given that some of my very best experiences gaming have been with RPG's it feels so backwards for these games to be served by such anemic economy and fan base. I feel creating complete games is a step to improving the situation.

I'd say modern white wolf games have a lot what I'd call the good kind of incompleteness; there are loads of elements that are not nailed down, and are left for you to decide, and I'd like to make the distinction that they are complete in terms of functioning well, ie they don't decide everything but they decide what you want well.

But in my experience, we hacked the hell out of vampire when playing it! Maybe it's because we had two novice games designers in the group, but we found we wanted something different and made a system for the setting we thought was better. Even though it's incredibly simple, our GM at the time couldn't get his head round it (the dice pool probs threw him off) so we turned its resolution system into something more like heroquest.

Tyler.Tinsley wrote:
It's the designer's job to use principles, to expect normal people to be able to translate principles into functioning law is ludicrous, law is a very tricky and hamfisted tool but it is a critical component to presenting a complete game.

JoyWriter wrote:

Tyler.Tinsley wrote:
It's the designer's job to use principles, to expect normal people to be able to translate principles into functioning law is ludicrous, law is a very tricky and hamfisted tool but it is a critical component to presenting a complete game.

Hmm, have you changed your definition of principle here? When you are going "principle vs law = GM advice vs rules" I can totally get behind that, but I don't quite get this bit.

JoyWriter wrote:
If you are saying the GM advice is "challenge the players" and the law is "here are the limits to stop challenges would be absurd", then I can see that making the limits would be about time, experience and testing, pretty hard. But if you get given example challenges and encourage the GM to shift them a bit, making something similar but different within the heuristics given, then the game designer has helped the GM make a fully functioning part of the rules, the rules for a new challenge. That seems totally legit to me, extrapolating from a case to make a new bit of rules, expanding the game appropriately.

I think I know what your saying - there's this TV program on here where they show 'mystery items' and quite often they are tools - but they don't tell you what the tool is for. There was one which was this curly, ornate bit of fashioned wire...it was a clothes peg (an old school clothes peg). But without being told that principle, it was just an funny little object. Is that what your saying, Tyler?

To speak openly I don't know why hobby RPG's are usually so grievously incomplete. But I'm fairly sure it has nothing to do with RPG's needing a certain amount of incompleteness in order to function. I know they don't need to be incomplete because I have played RPG's that were complete. Games like werewolf or even scholastic's old star wars adventure sets are examples of what I consider a complete RPG's.

I think we are on the same page about principle, that is a very good analogy.

by werewolf I mean the very light party game usually played with a stranded deck of cards, some times called "are you a werewolf" and mistaken for a board or card game. to me this game represents the elements of role play distilled. It's rules are solid and clear, it sets an objective for the players, and the rules play directly to a resolution and the most important part of the game is your ability to play a role. how well you role play in this game is a matter of life and death!

Most role playing books are not games but designers notes and rules for making a game. Character creation rules are a whole lot like the systems used to generate a miniatures stats in a miniatures game. In a very real way the method these games are presented is exactly what makes them incomplete. This incompleteness is why it's so hard for average people to get a game together and to an extent can be blamed for how tiny the market is for RPGs. basically the role of the GM is far too demanding with incomplete games.

Ohhhh, sorry sorry! I thought you meant the whitewolfs 'werewolf: the forsaken' RPG, the guys who made vampire and mage and such. I've vaguely heard about the werewolf and peasants game - sounds like it rests heavily on bluff and perhaps a certain amount of imagined fiction can/does enter into that bluff? But I don't know about it really - my comments were about the 'werewolf: the forsaken' RPG. Okay, getting you more now - and as a minor side point, I'm now curious about those scholastic's old star wars adventure sets you mention. Never heard of them?

Can I ask, what do you think about the old pick a path books, in terms of structure? If you took the same sort of structure, but say that certain rules ask a GM to judge the players fiction and give out a set bonus (set by the book) if the GM judges the fiction warrants it, is something like that what you mean by a complete design (not specifically what you mean, but would it be one particular example of a complete design)? Or too odd a question?

Depending on how it's played werewolf has varying degrees of fiction, i have played games where each person develops the character they play in the village, and games where were not concerned with the fiction at all, however my strongest plays in the game have always revolved around the theme, i got my accuser lynched and turned the whole room away from me by calling to attention his "image of trogdor" (he was wearing a trogdor shirt) the enemy of all peasants! any veteran of the game knows excessive body hair will often get you lynched. even if you remove the fiction entirely your still trying to play the role of someone who is not holding the werewolf card.

Pick a path books would be an example of a complete game, modules for traditional rpgs are a kind of complete game though their context usually hinders an effective presentation. And that's basically what scholastic's old star wars adventure sets were, a chose your own adventure book but you also had a character sheet listing different skills and at various points your choices would have you roll some dice add your skill and your success or failure would also drive the story. This sort of thing is just one example of what I would call a complete RPG.

Tyler.Tinsley wrote:
Most role playing books are not games but designers notes and rules for making a game. Character creation rules are a whole lot like the systems used to generate a miniatures stats in a miniatures game. In a very real way the method these games are presented is exactly what makes them incomplete. This incompleteness is why it's so hard for average people to get a game together and to an extent can be blamed for how tiny the market is for RPGs. basically the role of the GM is far too demanding with incomplete games.

JoyWriter wrote:
I can agree with you here! One of my biggest objectives is to reduce needless effort on the part of the games master, or indeed the players. Having said that, I do believe that there are objectives people can have playing rpgs that cannot be met by adventure paths and "choose your own adventures". Insuring that the events have emotional resonance in that amazing personalised way cannot be done unless the structure of events actually echoes or mirrors the memories or event patterns (Will Wright calls them "schemas") that have that same resonance. In other words, many of the amazing personal experiences you attribute to rpgs may be attributed to the GM and other players working within the incompleteness of the system, adding in real dynamic structure

JoyWriter wrote:
The game you mention, although fun, and although it includes "playing a role", is constrained to the interpersonal dynamics of a lynch mob. It reminds me of what they call the "attitude of the knife" in Dune; chop of the incomplete and say it is complete because it's ended here. You definitely can do that, but I'd insure that your not cutting out those experiences that you have most valued in order ot make "rpging" accessible. How to do that? Look very carefully at what you have enjoyed most, and explore where that came from. Then don't chop those bits out! Instead support them so other people can replicate them.

Well, its so compelling to me atleast, that I was giving it time to properly form a post for it. I'm still not sure I've given it enough time, as well!

It's funny in that I slightly disagree with your post about pick a paths (or I think I do). You didn't mention anything about the bonus assigned by GM, that I mentioned. I'll call this an imagination coupling device, for this thread. I see this as pretty pivotal in order to engage an imaginative space that's typically made at the table, during play. Pick a paths engage an imaginative space that was made when the author wrote the book...its not engaging an imaginative space  that bubbles into existance upon play itself. Not that that's a vital quality to have in some galactic sense, but it is nifty (feel free to challenge this and I'll continue on it)

To keep it simple, a really basic, fairly dull imagination coupler might be like this - the play so far has been pick a path like, but then the book instructs some person  with a ref/GM job to judge the players description of his actions as to whether he gets a bonus (a set amount, determined by the book and not the GM) on a certain skill roll the book has instructed the group to make.

That way the GM references the current imaginative space that happens to exist in play at that moment, and assigns the bonus if it seems fit. It's a complete game, but it also has an imagination coupler that makes the current imagined space, part of play itself (well, to the degree the GM lets himself be influenced by the current imagined space).

What alot of traditional RPG's do is be completely loose assed and incomplete, as their means of having an imagination coupler (then the crowd utterly embraces incompleteness as the only means they percieve as accessing the imagined space). Here's a typical example
You want to do something that sounds like it involves a skill.
The GM decides if you can roll at all on the matter, or he just says you can/can't.
The GM decides the difficulty, from o to a million.
The GM decides any bonus you get, which is totally redundant given the above step.
What the fuck a passing or failing roll results in, in terms of narration or in terms of other invocations of 'mechanics' like this, is up to the GM.
Note: Most groups will defend or deny this, as they say it is not up to the GM - the group will burn the GM at the stake if he actually decides this on his lonesome, even if the text the group agreed to says he does decide it. It gets to be a lord of the flies situation.

What do you think about the imagination coupler I described before, Tyler? I know it's a dull one, but I'm keeping it straight forward. And does the second one seem familiar from traditional RPGs?

I will tell you my worst experiences at the game table have been when a game is improperly constructed from hints in a book.

Callan wrote:

What alot of traditional RPG's do is be completely loose assed and incomplete, as their means of having an imagination coupler (then the crowd utterly embraces incompleteness as the only means they percieve as accessing the imagined space). Here's a typical example
You want to do something that sounds like it involves a skill.
The GM decides if you can roll at all on the matter, or he just says you can/can't.
The GM decides the difficulty, from o to a million.
The GM decides any bonus you get, which is totally redundant given the above step.
What the fuck a passing or failing roll results in, in terms of narration or in terms of other invocations of 'mechanics' like this, is up to the GM.
Note: Most groups will defend or deny this, as they say it is not up to the GM - the group will burn the GM at the stake if he actually decides this on his lonesome, even if the text the group agreed to says he does decide it. It gets to be a lord of the flies situation.

What do you think about the imagination coupler I described before, Tyler? I know it's a dull one, but I'm keeping it straight forward. And does the second one seem familiar from traditional RPGs?

Callan wrote:

I will tell you my worst experiences at the game table have been when a game is improperly constructed from hints in a book.

I'll just argue this a little - if there are only hints in the book, then there is no proper way to construct the game. That's part of the problem - people have a bad experience and conclude that must mean it was not done the right way. Hell, that's part of my history as well.

Really there is no right way when there are 'hints' - someone just spews out what they 'see' amongst the hints and funnily enough the result of spewing something out is typically...spew. Sometimes, rarely, it's a gem.

Effectively reading and especially trying to comprehend a traditional RPG is alot like taking a halicinagenic drug and then creating stuff from the visions. Except while I'm sure some painters have taken drugs then known the visions they saw and painted were just visions, roleplayers as a culture seem to think the vision they saw really are in the text.

It's a real pain in the arse, because some of what roleplayers see are gems, but they can't distinguish that it's not in the book, so they never write down this gems properly and thus no one else gets to experience them. It's been going on for about thirty years, it seems.

It's that notion that the game was 'improperly' constructed, that keeps it going.

I pretty much agree as well. But what I want to get at is do you think an RPG has to have something like the following, or is something like a JRPG or pick a path sufficient?

To keep it simple, a really basic, fairly dull imagination coupler might be like this - the play so far has been pick a path like, but then the book instructs some person  with a ref/GM job to judge the players description of his actions as to whether he gets a bonus (a set amount, determined by the book and not the GM) on a certain skill roll the book has instructed the group to make.

i'm not sure what an rpg has to have or what qualifies something for the label. I think overall the distinction between board games, card games, miniatures, and RPG's is mostly artificial and modern hybrid products continue to blur the lines. So i don't really want to get into what is or is not an rpg,

Callan wrote:
It's just that, JRPG/pick a path books do not draw on/have a means of drawing on fiction that was made (by more than one person) during the act of play itself (play does tap into fiction made before play started, but not during). It's an interesting quality to have, where the game mechanics tap into fiction that is being made at the same time as play itself. Is that something that interests yourself as well?

Cool, we've got a nice clear tradeoff here: I want to make the most banging mod engine the world has ever seen, that not only allows people to mod the game before play begins, but during too, but in a way that is stable and plays in a way the players all want.

You want to spread the awesome experiences you have had to more people, by making it very easy for them to replicate what happened with you, through a mechanism equivalent to jrpgs or choose your own adventures.

What I'm saying is that generating a character is a bit like modding the game, "suddenly mentioning trogdor" is like modding the game, to me they are on the same continuum.

I've played jrpgs I've liked them, but I moved from computer game mods and "complete" games towards where I am now, because what I wanted got missed out. I've already been on this journey, in the opposite direction, almost:

I wanted to make more choices, and change more stuff. Now when you have choices you should also have information. Playing right in a strictly defined game can just be about "doing what the book says". But that is because the person who made the book has put hours of his life into making an experience that people will be happy with. So correctness is actually not about the rules, but the enjoyment and challenging of the people at the table, and in a game that is less complete, the objective should not be to divine the "right way" in some abstract sense, via cattle bones or psychic powers but to understand that the game designer was trying to make a game for you. He sat far away and tried to work out how to make a game fun for you, based on certain principles and objectives, and those bits he couldn't specify exactly where he was he left as options and frameworks for you, for you to decide based on your knowledge of each other.

This agreement between players and designers stops people being abusive with "designer authority", and clues up designers to the stress they are putting on players to do their job! That's why I love explicitly declaring the principles of the game, and the roles and attitudes of the players.

JoyWriter wrote:
What I'm saying is that generating a character is a bit like modding the game, "suddenly mentioning trogdor" is like modding the game, to me they are on the same continuum.

JoyWriter wrote:
This agreement between players and designers stops people being abusive with "designer authority", and clues up designers to the stress they are putting on players to do their job! That's why I love explicitly declaring the principles of the game, and the roles and attitudes of the players.

In terms of the agreement Joywriter describes and formality, I don't think that agreement has ever existed between designer and end user/players, except at a consult the cattle bones/psychic level.

The idea of that agreement, if expressed on the cover or blub, and also repeated inside, seems fine and functional. It's just never been there in an RPG product.

Ever heard the story of stone soup? It's funny, I've heard it with two inflections - one is that the two soldiers who started the pot of stone soup were conning the village. The other inflection is that the village learnt that sharing their ingrediants enriched them all.

Personally I go with con job - in a world of formal games, if a product wants to be a make your own content moddable game, it needs to say that on the cover or blurb, and in the text. However, alot of gamers seem to think that roleplay is so much about modding, they don't actually have to tell anyone it is. Even if someone hasn't roleplayed before and is joining their game, they apparently don't have to tell them. For some reason it's vital to perpetuate this bait and switch con job.

But by the same turn many gamers, like JW, may have found that wonderful sharing of ingrediants to enrich them all, in the midst of something a bit sleazy. And it might be hard to seperate the wonderful thing from the con job - it might seem if one part of it is wonderful then the whole thing is wonderful/not telling anyone in advance its about modding is wonderful. No, some of it is sleazy and missrepresentative. But we get the opposite of throwing the baby out with the bathwater - instead the sleazy bathwater is prized as much as the baby is. And that's my charitable reading - I could just read it that alot of roleplayers are basically con artists themselves and roleplay culture is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

So in terms of formality, I think in a world full of formal games, you do have to show on the cover or blurb, your selling a modable/user makes the content game, rather than a formal game. I'm saying 'have to' as in these are some of the typical duties (ones which seem to have worked fairly well for a few thousand years) involved in looking after your fellow man.

Callan wrote:
In terms of the agreement Joywriter describes and formality, I don't think that agreement has ever existed between designer and end user/players, except at a consult the cattle bones/psychic level.

The idea of that agreement, if expressed on the cover or blub, and also repeated inside, seems fine and functional. It's just never been there in an RPG product.

Tyler.Tinsley wrote:
I don't think bringing up trogdor is modding the game. none of the rules changed, and the game still played to it's natural conclusion. i think it's a very natural kind of player action for werewolf.

I'm not familiar with the rules of werewolf myself, but in terms of that what I'd be looking for now in the games procedure is the ability for someone/rest of the group to prompt play onto the next stage of the procedure. And thus move on from any crap declarations (and effectively this is the designer removing abusive stuff, by providing the rest of the players a broom, so to speak). As opposed to common RPG design, which does not offer any way of just getting onto the next procedure if someone's declaring crap. If it's 'design' to get past crap in that situation, I'm curious about whether werewolfs rules actually require such 'design' or just a prompt to get on with the next step of the procedure.

If it's the latter I wouldn't get too worked up about it, but if the former, whoo, we seriously need to get to the bottom of that! How do you think those people see those things that they find them them acceptable to support?

If you come to my game expecting us to rigidly follow every rule no matter the context or feel of the moment, I would tell you to lighten up or find a different group. There's no room for rules-lawyers at my table.

Rarely, another person participates and (horrors!) actually overtly moves the planchette, or discusses how it's being moved. That person is instantly ejected, with cries of "powergamer!" and "pushy bastard!"

Callan wrote:
Power games, yes, but stealing the credit for ideas I think is something you brought up, JW.

Callan wrote:
A recent example that seems to be pretty standard came up on RPG.net (Where I'm under the handle 'Noon'). Here's what someone said

If you come to my game expecting us to rigidly follow every rule no matter the context or feel of the moment, I would tell you to lighten up or find a different group. There's no room for rules-lawyers at my table.

Also apparently he didn't have to tell anyone this in advance if 'enough' GM's do things this way.

I'll highlight the priorities there - if someone threatens the context and especially 'feel', they get ejected. This 'feel' comes before people. People are there for the benefit of the 'feel', rather than than the feel being there for the benefit of the people.

if this is not a game about manipulating rules structures for competitive advantage, if this is not a game about political "setting the agenda" via social means....what is it about?

Imagine instead people were thinking "Someone threatens the rules and they get ejected, the rules come before people."

See? Your doing exploration of rules, they are doing exploration of colour.

Callan wrote:
Tyler, in terms of this, it's interesting to note that if people are willing to derogitorily name someone and/or eject them if they threaten 'the feel', clearly any documented agreement that's there to protect people will also be thrown out - as that's just not a priority.

Callan wrote:
No, the rules are there to protect people. You may as well try and say the laws against stealing come before people, because people are put in jail if they break that law. No, the laws are there to protect people (specifically protecting people who live in a certain way/who don't steal). People come first.

Tyler.Tinsley wrote:
rules lawyering is a possible symptom of a few thing's
A player is being competitive
A player is being idealistic
The rules are actually unclear

idealism in this situation means when a player gets picky about the rules not because they want to bend them to their benefit but because they feel the rule should be something. correct to the designers intent, the flavor of the game or “realistic” are all ideals that can lead to rules lawyering.

personally I always like to dice off when the rules get fuzzy

JoyWriter wrote: Really? I'm a little surprised you equate the rules of a game and general law. Now maybe that's hyperbole, but surely rules can exist that are not there to protect people, that are just made up to be officious? Or even just fun!

Say I make up a rule for an rpg that, for example, you have to complete a sudoku before saying anything. That's just be pulling a bad example from the air to stand in for the hoops that you often have to go through in games. That rule, by definition is not necessary to protect people, because you can just add it to any existing game.

So surely you don't need to follow all the rules to protect people!?

Tyler.Tinsley wrote:
idealism in this situation means when a player gets picky about the rules not because they want to bend them to their benefit but because they feel the rule should be something. correct to the designers intent, the flavor of the game or “realistic” are all ideals that can lead to rules lawyering.

personally I always like to dice off when the rules get fuzzy

Callan wrote:

JoyWriter wrote: Really? I'm a little surprised you equate the rules of a game and general law. Now maybe that's hyperbole, but surely rules can exist that are not there to protect people, that are just made up to be officious? Or even just fun!

Not by, atleast, my use of the word 'rule'. In some countries they call it marriage when 12 year olds are 'married' - I don't call that marriage and I wouldn't call these rules. In every other human activity like sport or boardgames, rules are there to protect first.

Callan wrote:
Just to lighten that up, I heard an anecdote from someone where they came from overseas, where jetlagged, with their baggage around them, and a massive five o'clock shadow. He was waiting outside a bank for it to open up early in the morning (his plane had come in way early). Someone gave him a $20, because he looked like a homeless person. He tried to give it back, but the guy who gave it to him refused and walked on.

This was an inadvertant con/bait and switch. Trying to give that example so as not to be a jabbing moral finger, but still calling it a con job and a bait and switch none the less. (actually since he tried to give it back, it reduces the con aspect, but go with me on this)

Given a gamist objective, yes, even the rules in solitare are protecting other people - you follow the rules so you know when you say to someone that you beat it, your not giving them the wrong impression. Outside of a gamist objective, I have no idea - the idea leaves me cold and empty.

You keep refering to rules just being for fun. The first priority, atleast in how I'm using the word 'rule', is protection - they can have a second priority (and a third, and so on), but it's a screw up in design if the first priority isn't met first. If someones just writing 'rules' 'for fun' then they are just screwing around with someone who plays with protection first in mind. It doesn't matter how much it's explained in this thread, it's screwing with them unless the document says, upfront, the 'rule' texts have been written with 'for fun' as the only priority. I'm pretty certain the massive board/card game market runs off protection first design. No, not fun first. That's not contradictory - the protection, by protecting people, protects what fun is generated. Fun cannot protect fun because it's just fun. It's not protection - fun doesn't mystically provide protection as well (except on the monkeys out of my butt principle). One type of fun often kills another type of fun - that's why so many roleplayers wrestle with GNS, because they thought they could 'do anything' in an RPG and there would be no conflict.

Mid play, it's not a question of whether they are good rules. If that's the only question that comes to mind, your disruptive to anyone who has protection as first priority. Hell, I'd say your disruptive to yourself, if you take it fun cannot provide any protection to itself.

Callan wrote:
Given a gamist objective, yes, even the rules in solitare are protecting other people - you follow the rules so you know when you say to someone that you beat it, your not giving them the wrong impression. Outside of a gamist objective, I have no idea - the idea leaves me cold and empty.

You keep refering to rules just being for fun. The first priority, atleast in how I'm using the word 'rule', is protection - they can have a second priority (and a third, and so on), but it's a screw up in design if the first priority isn't met first. If someones just writing 'rules' 'for fun' then they are just screwing around with someone who plays with protection first in mind. It doesn't matter how much it's explained in this thread, it's screwing with them unless the document says, upfront, the 'rule' texts have been written with 'for fun' as the only priority. I'm pretty certain the massive board/card game market runs off protection first design. No, not fun first. That's not contradictory - the protection, by protecting people, protects what fun is generated. Fun cannot protect fun because it's just fun. It's not protection - fun doesn't mystically provide protection as well (except on the monkeys out of my butt principle). One type of fun often kills another type of fun - that's why so many roleplayers wrestle with GNS, because they thought they could 'do anything' in an RPG and there would be no conflict.

Mid play, it's not a question of whether they are good rules. If that's the only question that comes to mind, your disruptive to anyone who has protection as first priority. Hell, I'd say your disruptive to yourself, if you take it fun cannot provide any protection to itself.

This is sliding into a pattern I've encountered before - the wall of text/swarm of points that come at it from a dozen different ways at once. In terms of practicality I think it ceases to be discussion once this happens.

I'll touch on a couple of points before wrapping up - with 'The right to dream' alot of people have focused on the 'dream' part and have kind of looked past the 'rights' part, as if insignificant. And in terms of hitting people with chess pieces, I've seen this before with roleplayers reasoning - a certain inability to distinguish what is game and what is not, and using that as reasoning that you can play a game and still hurt people. Imagine a circle, and inside it are moving a bishop diagonally, a pawn a square forward, a knight in his crooked step, checkmate, etc. Outside that circle is throwing chess pieces at the other guy. It is not a sub restriction *bopping you on the head with the crook of my cane*, it's outside the game itself!

I think traditional RPGs (and not a few indie RPGs) are broken circles - they do not completely encircle something, so what is something that's inside the game and what is outside, is blurred. Participate in them for long enough and even with games like chess, something like throwing pieces at the other guy blurs as to whether it's in the game and it's a sub set rule or it's outside the game entirely and not relevant as an example at all. This seeming inability to determine what is part of the game/inside the circle and what is outside almost makes me draw paralels with the brain damage threads. It leaves me concerned and chilled, somewhat. Hopefully it'll simply be disproved simply by delinating what is outside a circle/game and what is inside, or atleast confirming that there is an outside and inside. And so I'll leave it there - this post hog is done. Hope there are some useful parts you can take away from it, Tyler!

Hey man, I'm just trying to engage with what you said:

1- Most designers design for "protection" of players

2- Fun cannot protect fun

3- The people in your example thread do not value people properly

If you refuse to read and think about what I said, then yep, this is the end of the discussion. But I'd ask you to consider what I've said, where I'm right or wrong and come back to me in maybe a week or so. This discussion uses text, so it's entirely possible just to pause and consider, I won't mind.

When you refer to things being "outside the game", I think I agree with you; it's outside because it might happen or might not happen, the rules don't decide that. They don't say where you should play or what you should be wearing either. And because they don't refer to it, they cannot be "protecting" you in all those avenues. Because at the same time as you play a game of chess you might be hitting your opponent on the head. The game is providing no protection to the other player in that case.

I think putting too much faith in a game to protect you from the other players is the wrong focus, and too much of a strain to put on the designers, whether of boardgames or rpgs. Instead just play with people who like you or within a structured environment. If you want games to be clear, then as I've tried to emphasise that is a very different objective.

Hmm, on reflection, the distinction I made was too definitive: Taking it back to the original point, about principle and rules, I can see an affinity between sportsmanship in chess or other boardgames, and the principles you suggested right at the start Tyler.

In other words, real protection for players, (in terms of people not griefing or worse), can be associated with the game, in terms of the culture of playing attached to it. People don't just play chess by the rules, they usually learn a form of sportsmanship around it that includes things like "not insulting people for hours about their cheap tactics when they win" or "sitting down and playing the game without jumping about or being distracting as you do it".

Perhaps the problems that some rpg groups have had is that they do not have an equivalent model of socially acceptable play for rpgs, because there is sufficient difference across the divide from one type of game to another that the experience cannot be directly transferred. To be honest I suspect a role-playing game needs a much higher level of mutual respect because of the creative effort involved. In this case perhaps the "players contract" is best as a spur towards a more healthy playing culture with clear expectations of what people are here for, to head off incompatibilities like the hypothetical Rick/Callan one.

In that case I would use the first chapter of the rpg text to say exactly what principles the game is designed around and requires, sort of like stating the pre-requisites of a course. You can still make it like a contract by saying that everyone must read it and agree to it, or play can't really continue, but many people may consider this a bit preachy. I might even include it in the "what you need to play this game" section, almost as a sort of emotional equipment!

JW, I've read you through atleast twice, I wish you wouldn't keep deciding what I've done or haven't done with absolute certainty. Feel free to start a new thread in actual play, cutting and pasting from here or whatever, and I could try and get somewhere there. This isn't really our thread to tell each other to come back a week latter.