Hi,

Last week, I got together with Glenn W, Glenn H and Jason S to get muddy, bloody and dusty in the Mediterranean. A few years back, we'd pulled together an Agon one-shot when Jason was back for the holidays (he'd been overseas teaching English). Since the last session was so far in the past, the guys (mostly) forgave me for losing the character sheets.

I love Agon, but I have a hard time running it.  That's what I want to talk about.

The session was, well, flat. Part of the reason is definitely that I don't have the killer instinct necessary for crafting truly challenging NPCs. The Strife limit seems too low, and the die-management is too intense to field more than one NPC.

That's all small potatoes.

What Agon doesn't have, at all, is an ingrained system that promotes a vivid shared imagined space. There are moments of true sharing, where everyone gets on the same page (calling for a divine weapon is a good example - "Hera, guide my blade!")  It's all too easy to fall into the rut of position-hit-damage-position when we play. It's so easy to focus on the nuts and bolts (all of which are great), that it's easy to lose track of the act of creating a vivid verbal stage.

I have some thoughts regarding systems that do actively promote the SIS, but I want to open this topic up before that.

Thoughts?
D

Darcy,

I've never played Agon, but I have some experience with combat heavy D&D and some other stuff that provides a roughly similar sort of gaming experience, I believe.

Hence, the question: Does the game actually need more SIS than that? Why so?

Hey Filip,

Well, if you don't need a SIS, you might as well just play a board game.  That's not meant as a slam against board games; board games do some things really well (and fiddly combat happens to be one of them).  Another thing that board games do well is (for the most part) do away with a need for an imagined space -- the space is right there in front of you.

If you're roleplaying, then your play space is imagined; without it, you and the other players have nowhere to interact. By extension, if the SIS isn't vivid, the session starts to fall flat.

Yeah?
D

Essentially, yes, that's the root of my question. What you describe sounds largely like what would make a pretty enjoyable game in, say, D&D 4e.

Why doesn't this particular game defend itself as a tactical board game alone? Why do you feel it needs to be more than a board game? Why isn't any imagined space enough? Why does it need to be shared?

Would you be, otherwise, willing to play an actual board game with a very similar ruleset, but not a single word about role-playing in the manual?

Here's why I'm curious: Agon, like D&D, is marketed as a role-playing game, right? I suspect it might be all about expectations created by the label. In my experience, many people tend to accept board games and such as they all out of the box. Add an ill-defined and often confusing "rpg" label, though, and these very same people start to measure against their idealized role-playing experience, regardless of the actual type of experience intended by the designer and hopefully conveyed through the ruleset.

Oh, also, since all I know about Agon comes from reading the demo version some years ago, what is the minimum level of imagination sharing required for the rulest to function at all? Do you think you've met this level in your game?

(I find that various games labeled as "rpgs" have different prerequisite minimums. Contenders, for instance, can be played in a very boardgamey manner, with a low investment of effort into the whole "imagination sharing" business, whereas games like Beast Hunters or IAWA seem rather demanding in this regard.)

Hey Filip,

I don't want to veer off into expectation-land too much, but here's why Agon would make a pretty shitty board game: as designed, I'd have to do too much work to get ready to play.  Part of a board game's appeal is that it's ready to go out of the box.  Agon, and any edition of D&D I've ever played (mostly 1st AD&D with a smattering of 3.5) are most definitely not ready to rock when you open the book.

RPGs pay off differently than Boardgames, I think, because of the SIS.  When the SIS is really, really cooking, it's an experience like no other. The SIS doesn't come out of nothing, however -- you have to create it.

So, here's a specific instance of where I have trouble with Agon.  Let's say we're in a proper battle (actual fighting with hit rolls and stuff) It's very easy to fall into the trap of rushing on to the next step of the procedure -- the next hit roll, or calculating damage, or whatever -- without taking the time to feed and update the SIS.  That's what I'm talking about when I say there's no ingrained system for creating a vivid SIS.  The design relies on the attentiveness and discipline of the participants more or less exclusively.  Incidentally, this is probably true of most RPGs as well.

D

So, here's a specific instance of where I have trouble with Agon.  Let's say we're in a proper battle (actual fighting with hit rolls and stuff) It's very easy to fall into the trap of rushing on to the next step of the procedure -- the next hit roll, or calculating damage, or whatever -- without taking the time to feed and update the SIS.  That's what I'm talking about when I say there's no ingrained system for creating a vivid SIS.  The design relies on the attentiveness and discipline of the participants more or less exclusively.  Incidentally, this is probably true of most RPGs as well.

Darcy, I've ran Agon twice, neither time as well as I would like, but I'm learning a few things. First, I think you're underestimating the effect the combats have on Agon gameplay. Making challenges that are interesting goes a long way towards improving the experience because it forces the players to call on oaths and use tactics. To that end, fix the NPC encounters. One thing I've found is that fights that feature an NPC and several minions are more fun. Straight up minion battles are a just a slog.

Play up the oaths and the hunt for glory. Prod the players. Ask them if they are going to let the other heroes have all the glory. Remind them that these guys owe them oaths.

Lastly, you're right that the game doesn't enforce the SIS and you can easily fall into lazy "rolling to hit" play. You're going to have to watch that and demand narrative description from both yourself and the players.

Hope that helps.

Hi Darcy,

The design relies on the attentiveness and discipline of the participants more or less exclusively.

Hi,

Callan, you nailed it.

Warning: Big Model content permeates what I'm about to say. When I talk about Exploration, or nigh-synonymously, the SIS, I always stress that System is one of its five components. The SIS as a whole is best understood as imaginative engagement and communication about a fiction-in-development, including time and consequences in its fictional content.

When people say, "System is whatever happens in play," they can confuse themselves into thinking that System oversees and subsumes all of the SIS. It doesn't. System is a component, the part that introduces time and consequences into the otherwise-static features of Character, Setting, and Situation. SIS is the bigger thing.

What am I trying to say with this diagrammatic babble? I am saying that the inclination to engage with the SIS is not System-based. You literally cannot design a game which makes a person participate.

That said, it's clear that any one of the five components of Exploration, or any combination of any of them, can play an inspirational role. I'm a big proponent of Color actually being the most crucial of these, but as many of you know, I've been advocating for System to be recognized as well for a long time (as opposed to being some kind of obstructive, best-"ignored" thing). So yes, given features of a System can well be inspirational to a person already-inclined to receive that particular sort of excitement. That's why it matters.

But that is all. It matters, which I think is true. That's not the same thing as saying that a given System will instantly and automatically produce the Most-Teh-Awesome role-playing Evah (and make you, the person who brought it to the group, their Best Friend For-Evah), which I think is emphatically false.

Best, Ron

(This thread has been frustrating me, so I've been avoiding it. This morning I love the Forge, though.)

I think that Callan has fundamentally and crucially not nailed it.

It may be that Agon is a bad design match for what Darcy's group wanted it for, no harm there. But Callan's take is "you could have gotten what you wanted from Agon, if only your group had wanted it enough to put in the required extra effort."

Maybe it's true, but it's a view that rejects game analysis and design.

Hold on, and maybe it's not even true. Expecting a group to put in the required extra effort in order to get what it wants, when a game isn't well-designed to provide it - it's unsustainable. In fact it's the old familiar unsustainable thing.

Anyway, analysis and design! I'm interested to hear Darcy's thoughts about systems that actively support richer, and better-shared, in-fiction color.

-Vincent

Hi,

Just so it's been said, I think that an inclination to enrich the SIS is not a prerequisite to roleplaying, it is the prerequisite.  All the other stuff is the tools that you do it with.  I don't think that I'm disagreeing with Callan or Ron (maybe with Vincent, but I can't tell, because I'm confused by what he wrote).

Phrased differently, a play in two acts:

Act I
Me: Hi, do you want to enrich the SIS with me?
You: No, I have no interest in such piffle.

Act II
Me: Hey, wanna play D&D?
You: Yes! I will be in the garage changing the oil in my car.

This is, of course, the worst play ever; Act I is identical to Act II.

Cheers,
D

Huh! I can try to be less confusing, but no promises.

Up top you said

Darcy wrote:
What Agon doesn't have, at all, is an ingrained system that promotes a vivid shared imagined space. ... It's all too easy to fall into the rut of position-hit-damage-position when we play. It's so easy to focus on the nuts and bolts (all of which are great), that it's easy to lose track of the act of creating a vivid verbal stage.

Hi,

So I’ve been reading this thread and being a bit reluctant to participate, mostly because I don’t know for sure if my account is going to be relevant to your point Darcy.

But anyway here it goes.

Some time ago I’ve GMed Agon for a gaming group of mine. This group also has a running D&D 3.5ed campaign and two of them also play in a D&D 4ed game with me. Also I’ve played a whole bunch of successful and story/character powerful games with them, like PTA, DitV, TSoY.

(don’t know if this background is important, but here it stands).

When we play we try to focus on the point of play, so if the game requires colourful/meaningful scene descriptions like PTA or more colourful/meaningful action descriptions like DitV, we all go for it like mad dogs and make a real effort to pull it of.

However when we play games like Agon or D&D that have a very detailed combat mechanic, which can last for a considerable number of rounds when it starts, we tend to not be so colourful in our descriptions, mainly because it’s tiresome, honestly there are only so many ways to describe and attack and when you have something like 15 to 30 attack rolls in one combat it can get pretty exhausting trying to colour all of them, trying will only slow the game down and doesn’t bring all that much juice to the game it self.

Sometimes it does happen, I remember in Agon a combat we had were I created a Labyrinth has the enemy NPC and when they tried to cross it we made it just like a normal combat, the Labyrinth attacked them with falling rocks, shifting walls, pits, etc. Also in D&D 4ed, some use of powers or creatures can stir up very cinematic imagery.

But mostly there aren’t a lot of colourful descriptions during combats, just dice rolling, it’s not that we want to get the fight out of the way, we are just really involved and focused in the mechanics and tactics involved and are having fun with that. That also doesn’t mean we leave the SIS on the side, every player creates and participates in it with their characters moves and tactical options, and we can all imagine when a player uses his sword or spear and chooses to make a disarm or an attack, we just aren’t that colourful about it.

We leave most of the playacting and such to the other moments of play reaching a new island, talking to the NPCs and figuring out what’s going on, deciding a course of action to take or just having the characters kick around during refreshment scenes, and some of them are really cool, like a player I have that always made a musical-instrument-playing-gesture when we was using music for something.

So to sum up, outside of combat the players participate in the SIS with very rich descriptions of their characters actions and showing them of, however when the fighting starts the participation relies mostly in kind of dry descriptions and using their mechanical options and moves to convey what their characters are doing.

I’m not making any judgment about right or wrong styles of play or SIS input, it’s just the way we play. Is this helpful?

All the best,
D.

Vincent,

I think that Callan's wrong that it's a quality foremost of your group - yes, the design relies on attentiveness and discipline, but since your group's sitting down to play a roleplaying game, not a boardgame, I think we can and should take your intent as given.

No, that's not what I'm doing.

Darcy's original analysis is clear and plausible: Agon's rules didn't give his group the occasion to create and share vivid enough imaginary details, so their game felt flat.

I don't think there's any reason to second-guess his group and its play history, in the face of such a straightforward observation. I think it'd be great if we could move past the second-guessing and talk about the observation instead. I want to hear Darcy's thoughts about rules designed to support move vivid, and more shared, in-fiction details.

-Vincent

Hi,

(Aside: no, I haven't played Beast Hunters)

(Aside: After my little play, Vincent paraphrased what I was trying to say exactly right.)

Ok, so a set of rules that support more vivid, more shared in-fiction details you ask?  Hells, yes, I've got an example.

When we're resolving a conflict in Black Cadillacs, it goes like this: the Troopers (PCs) have an overarching goal for the conflict.  We break the resolution down into little chunks called Gos.  Each Go resolves a bit of action that will either move the Troopers closer or further from achieving their goal.  That's just the context for the rules that I want to talk about.

After the roll, the winner (Player or GM) of the Go decides whether to apply mechanical currency or to narrate the outcome of the roll.  The loser does whichever the winner doesn't.  The mechanical currency comes in three flavours: Horror, Valour and Hubris, and its assignment occurs before narration.

When narration occurs, it's constrained by three things: the declaration of intent for the Go, success or failure on the die roll, and the flavour of the currency assigned.

The currency doesn't simply serve to constrain narration; the values of the currency effect the Troopers' ability to win Gos.

So, what we end up with is a pretty good feedback loop -- we're constantly examining the levels of the currency because that's where efficacy comes from.  We make choices about currency assignement becasue they affect the new currency levels, and therefore future efficacy. Those choices end up impacting everyone's understanding of what's happening in the SIS through the narration rules.

Additionally, because this all (usually) occurs at a fairly fine scale (resolving "I shoot him in the face" as opposed to "I win the battle" during a Go), the sharing of new details tends to happen in manageable chunks.  I find that the magnitude of the stuff that's left unshared is quite fine, so that the SIS is pretty complete.

I have some things to say about the balance between sharing during Intent and sharing during Effect (IIEE), because I think different designs feed the SIS more or less in those stages of resolution.  All of this is just focusing on the proper care and feeding of the SIS during resolution!  Obviously, it happens at other times, too.

Yeah?
D

Vincent,

Darcy's original analysis is clear and plausible: Agon's rules didn't give his group the occasion to create and share vivid enough imaginary details, so their game felt flat.

Hi Vincent,

You've read me all wrong. If there was a game who's support of a potentially vivid SIS was 10 out of 10, and a group's inclination to render a vivid SIS was 2 out of 10, then it remains 2 out of 10 even though the game is amazingly supportive. It doesn't matter how supportive the game is, if people aren't inclined to use it. Or as Ron put it, you literally cannot design a game which makes  a person participate. Horse to water and all that, blah blah.

So even if a game like agon is 2 out of 10 for potentially supporting a vivid SIS, it may be the players are only inclined toward a 2 out of 10 level themselves. That's why I'm asking Darcy if the other players match his rating - cause it sounds like his own inclination is higher than a 2.

Perhaps they aren't. Perhaps their play is capped at 2 because of the games design and they are inclined to something higher - I totally grant that could be possible. That's why I'm asking.

Hi Darcy,

Your answer scares the crap out of me! You seem to be putting inclination to enrich the SIS as so much the prerequisite your putting it ahead of consent itself. Like you say both examples are the same - as in, the persons consent being present in one is meaningless and the only important thing is how much in each the SIS is enriched (that's how your measuring their similarity - ie zero enrichment in both).

I'm almost thinking if someone was sleeping near the gaming table and talking in their sleep and it was actually enriching of the SIS, that'd be the key thing for you, even though he has no inclination to play. Though listening to a sleep talker probably sounds humourous and puts off my scaryness point, but oh well.

Hey Callan,

I'll try rephrasing again, as we're obviously at loggerheads.

Content can happen in any artistic medium; content is key!

However, without a SIS, we're not roleplaying, we're engaging in another kind of art.

That's all that my play was trying to say.  This is also the fundamental sticking point between me and Filip, I think.  My expectations of "roleplaying" are just that: collaborative art that involves a SIS.  That's it - but that's a pretty broad definition.  Once you dive in, and start talking about a particular game or type of game, you have to add on to that definition.

In other words, I don't see anything to analyze with regards to expectations.  Me and my friends (and almost assuredly you and yours) are mature and intelligent enough to discriminate between roleplaying, creative writing and music.  Second guessing whether or not we're actually expecting to role-play strikes me as so much hand-wringing.

D

Hi Callan,

I totally misread your post, transposing "content" where you wrote "consent".

You're reading too much into the play.  All I was trying to say was that if you don't want to engage in the SIS, you don't want to role-play.  Consent was the furthest thing from my mind. 

Apologies for the piss-poor illustration.  It's obfuscated the point of this discussion.
D

Darcy,

Second guessing whether or not we're actually expecting to role-play strikes me as so much hand-wringing.

Hi Darcy,

Returning to my first question - when you say there is an absence of SIS, is there an absence of it, or is it just in measure to your own values that there is an absence? For example, in a game where you'd say there is an SIS, there's probably someone in the world that would say you had no SIS at all and you weren't roleplaying.

Second guessing whether or not we're actually expecting to role-play strikes me as so much hand-wringing.

Hey Callan,

Of course my expectations differ with other peoples'.  I'd take that as rote, and so should everyone else vis-a-vis their own expectations and those of others.

My assessment of my group's relative expectations, flawed and coloured by my own preconceptions and biases as it is, led me to believe that there was something to discuss here.  I'm not looking to waste anyone's time in this thread -- trust me that I thought that there was something of substance to discuss here, not merely another internet thread that amounts to "oh, theyz dontz play wellz 2gthr, suxxor"

So yeah, Glenn, Glenn, Jason and I had different expectations of how vivid the SIS would be.  Unless you want to find them in realspace and ask them, could we please take it as given that the difference is manageable enough that we can discuss the meat of the question?

Thanks,
Darcy

Darcy: yeah!

My working theory is that people most reliably say what they're imagining when someone else at the table needs them to. (It's not a complicated theory.) So in my own designs I've been trying to make sure that whenever your character starts to move, someone else at the table needs to know about it - not just for general "everybody should know about it" reasons, which aren't reliable, but in order to make their own concrete gameplay decisions.

I've been focusing on initiation and execution as the key moments for sharing, though; I've thought very little about intent and effect. Say more about those?

-Vincent

Hey Darcy,

I'm had some similar experiences with Agon, and developed a couple of techniques for (essentially) cutting off combats once it becomes clear that (a) by the math, someone is going to win eventually but (b) there is no enrichment, to either the fiction or the in-game reward system, by pursuing the current conflict to it's inevitable conclusion. Would it be helpful to you to talk about that kind of stuff in this thread?

In my own experience what I'm imagining scales, depending on how much I'm inclined to imagine. It's like when they show indiana jones flying on a plane (just before the pilot jumps out) Vs showing indiana jones traveling via red dots on a map. The former is higher detail and update to the SIS, the latter is less.