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Topic: What makes an RPG work for you?
Started by: Kester Pelagius
Started on: 1/7/2003
Board: RPG Theory


On 1/7/2003 at 1:59am, Kester Pelagius wrote:
What makes an RPG work for you?

Greetings,

Hope you all had a good holiday season.

That said, there was another thread here in which I was hoping to get some feedback about what other gamers thought about certain underlying game mechanics. Alas, as if often wont with good discussions, the topic sort of wandered a bit into more philosophical context than pure rule mechanics discussion. Quite interestingly so at times, too.

But there are a few fine points, if I may, I'd like to try and get your feedback on. So, to preface, in summation, and to use other gignormous words that I don't otherwise get a chance to...

What makes a game world playable?

Note I don't mean the game system itself, but the game world.

There is a distinction, IMO.

For instance from a purely rules stand point one might ask: Are Priests and Clerics merely "magic users" who must obey strict rules other spell wielding characters don't have to?

Of course if you are playing a different sort of game world, perhaps one whose setting doesn't allow for such character types, that may be a moot question.

Also some systems use their own internal methods to simulate certain affects. For instance the D&D family of games uses alignment. Yet, at times, one has to wonder if it is really necessary at all. After all what the D&D system mechanic of alignment was for, it seems, was to provide an method to allow the DM to properly reign in character types like the Priest/Cleric. Characters that have some archetypal need for codes of conduct and morality. This despite the fact most DMs probably didn't need to pay alignment much attention for any other PC type.

Of course some systems abandon such arbitrary mechanics for Piety, thus making the character's action directly linked to a personal skill. Of course such systems may also provide other mechanics such as Renown, for hero types, and Manna (ie: Magic/Spell Points) for other classes of spell caster.

But do such considerations really have any bearing on other characters, indeed on any other non-fantasy based RPG system?

When setting up a world what do you, as game author or game master, think about?

For that matter do you think game authors/game masters SHOULD bother thinking about what will effect the meta-game mechanic that defines the Game World?

I don't mean simulations of religion, or even religious organizations, political groups, or what not. But rather I am wondering what sorts of considerations are necessary for a good world mechanic to provide a fun setting?

For instance: Gamma World. It had mutants and super powers, yet it wasn't about super heroes. Yet it did have the "cleric" archetype, sort of, depending upon which edition of the game you had.

So what made it so much fun to play?

Was it the well developed world mechanic, the core rule system, or the fact it didn't have classes and alignment?

That’s the sort of think I’d like you to consider. In short: What is it that you think makes your favorite RPGs work for you?




Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

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On 1/7/2003 at 2:20am, Jared A. Sorensen wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

I think that one of the cardinal rules of game design is (more or less) as follows: Set forth a limited number of choices but allow for as much variation as possible in the application of those choices.

For RPG worlds, the best way (I think) to do this is to tell the player, "Okay...in this game you do this." Then allow them tons of choices in how to do that. With Sorcerer, this is answering the "Big Question" that the Premise asks of the players. In D&D, this is "Kill monsters, take their stuff and level up." In Magic, this is "Use a library of spells to reduce your opponent to 0 lives." What makes the game interesting are the various choices that the player makes along the way...either before the game even begins (building a deck, creating a character, choosing a "path") or during actual play.

So the question is, "What makes an RPG world work?"

Tell the players want you (the game designer) expect from them.

Give them the tools with which to fufill that goal.

Allow them the freedom to create their own tools or use existing tools in exciting new ways.

Don't pull a bait and switch ("This is what you do...No! Now THIS is what you do!").

Don't confine them to a single path (especially with an open-ended goal...then it turns into the dreaded, "You can do anything in this game...provided you do this thing, this way.").

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On 1/7/2003 at 2:25am, Jack Spencer Jr wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

I'm afraid that this topic only brings up the purely philisophical question of "What is a game world really? What do we mean or refer to when we say 'game world?'"

Sorry. That's all I've got.

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On 1/7/2003 at 4:11am, M. J. Young wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

O.K., I agree that there's a difference between what matters in a system and what matters in a game world. Obviously I create a lot of game worlds.

The starting point for me, I think, is what makes this game world interesting?. That is, why am I even bothering to make this? Once I know that, I know what it is that needs to be the focus of the materials.

For example, over on the Multiverser site we've got the free world Orc Rising. The central ideas here were something on this order: we're in a post fantasy world, in which magic is fading and probably won't play a part. Dwarfs are moving into mining and industry; humans are focused mostly on livestock and ranching and related fields such as leather; elves are expanding into communal agriculture. In the midst, in what these peoples would call the untamed wilds, live the orcs, tribal groups who war with each other. Of course, the "free peoples" are expanding their territories by "taming" the wild, cutting back the jungles for their use. In the process they encounter the orcs, people who have little or no concept of property rights beyond whether they are allowed to hunt and forage somewhere. The orcs are captured and "given the benefits of civilization" by enslaving them. This leads to growing conflict between orcs and the other peoples.

The interesting aspects here are that the "free peoples" don't see anything wrong with what they're doing; they have good reasons for everything they do. The orcs are indeed "primitive". But players will immediately see the injustice of the situation. At the same time, the orcs are primitive, and warlike; and the situation is pushing them toward war and evil. Many now believe that all humans, elves, and dwarfs must be killed to assure the survival of the orc race. Thus, it is the complexity of what people think and believe, and what they are doing because of it that made this world work; and that's where the focus of the material falls.

By contrast, we use to have a world posted called The New Ice Age. The interesting aspect of it was survival against the elements. It thus spent a great deal of time detailing what resources existed in the glaciated Northern Hemisphere, and how player characters could access these. There were people in that world--Innuits, primarily (it was set in North America)--but we didn't give much thought to the culture and religion of these people beyond how it related to their survival in the cold.

What makes a world interesting is whatever it is that interests you about it, usually. Sure, I've created worlds which I though would be interesting for one reason and the players were not interested in that and so sought some other focus for play; that just means that what interested me did not interest them, and I had to roll with what they wanted to do there. But ultimately, if you find a world interesting enough that you want to create it, there must be something about that world that interests you. If you can get to whatever that is and bring it forward, it will probably interest someone else.

--M. J. Young

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On 1/7/2003 at 6:52am, Uncle Dark wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

Hey, all.

To expand a bit on something M.J. said, I think it all comes down to focus. That is, most game (or other ficitonal) worlds can be assumed to be (to the eyes of the characters in them) as complex as our world is to us. To the players, however, the world is relatively abstract, and only what is dramtically important to the game/story is detailed.

So, if I want to run a world where the focus is on the mythic clash between cultures (like Glorantha/Hero Wars), I'm going to want a lot of detail on how the characters interact with the mythic otherworld, and other details (like the specific details of crushing vs. chopping weapons against various armor types) can be glossed over.

On the other hand, if I want to play a game centered on political intrigue, a system that facilitates social interaction and various contacts would be better (actually, Hero Wars does that pretty well, too).

So I guess that the world mechanic I would look for would be one that:
--Allows me to zoom in on one aspect of the world without increasing the complexity across the board
--Allows in-focus aspects to work smoothly with out-of-focus areas (i.e., the game must change gears smoothly)

For example: In Hero Wars, the three resolution mechanics (Ability Check, Simple Contest, and Extended Contest) allow the GM and Players to put maximum play-time into the areas they're interested in and minimum time into what they're not. A group could have a social contract rule that important social interactions are always Extended Contests, and combats almost never are, if they want to emphasize intrigueing and minimize fighting.

You can't do that in D&D. The rules themselves place a very heavy emphasis on combat, glossing over a lot of other potential areas of action. Also, the magic system has certain fundamental assumptions that may not work within all settings.

Lon

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On 1/8/2003 at 6:43am, clehrich wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

Hi.

In terms of making a given RPG world interesting, and also giving a clear sense of "what you do is this," what do you all think about deliberately genre-breaking games, i.e. games where the point is to take a given genre and show its least savory sides?

One game I was briefly involved in, but discussed a lot with the GM afterwards, was set in the Tolkien universe, but the concept was that (1) the War of the Ring never happened, although Sauron disappeared anyway on his own, and (2) the Silmarillion was essentially Elvish propaganda. The rules were very straight AD&D, with alignments irregularly applied.

The orcs, for example, had a vaguely Nietzschean concept that Sauron and Melkor/Morgoth had put them into a hell-universe in order to make them tough, and now that both were gone it was up to particular orcs to become super-beings (not killers, but superior entities). The Elves were dangerous freaks, who considered themselves racially superior.

So there was a lot of play on race, obviously. Various Elvish types (and sympathizers) would go around exterminating orcs and other "lesser beings" and claiming that this was all inherently right because orcs were Chaotic Evil. The idea was to get the players to react with disgust, challenge the whole D&D alignment framework, and recognize that the most perfect paladins constructed (a bunch of Dunedain Elf-sympathizers) were essentially Gestapo death-squads.

I don't love this game, I want to say right now. But the idea was to make the genre interesting again by breaking it ethically, rather than mechanically.

What do you people think of this sort of thing, as an approach to world design?

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On 1/9/2003 at 11:48am, Jeremy Cole wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

Well, a game world needs conflict of some description (yes, I know, duh). For my mind, the best conflicts challenge what a character finds important, his loyalties and ethics, challenging so helps define the character as a developed individual, and also as a dramatic movement (I've found doing this often cuts away the excess stuff to leave a character as "crooked as an old man's cane" or whatever). Anyhow, providing these challenges gives the questions that help a player define his character however.

To this end, the best game world is one where the players have very well defined loyalties and values, and one where these are constantly threatened. To get this working as I wanted for my game Prespiate, I've found the best thing is a very small world, with a number of often opposing factions.

Small world, lots of valued people nearby, complex relationships due to the static nature of the players (can't just go to another town), the game world I'm after.

Oh, and guns make game worlds fun too :)

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On 1/9/2003 at 11:59am, Thierry Michel wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

M. J. Young wrote:
The starting point for me, I think, is what makes this game world interesting?.


I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you mean, as opposed to a "book world", or do you mean, more generally, what makes a fantasy setting interesting ?

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On 1/10/2003 at 3:45am, M. J. Young wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

Thierry Michel wrote:
Quoting what I wrote:
The starting point for me, I think, is what makes this game world interesting?.


I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you mean, as opposed to a "book world", or do you mean, more generally, what makes a fantasy setting interesting ?


Well, I gave some examples, but I'll give some more.

I'm working on a spy scenario. What is interesting in spy scenarios, from James Bond to If Looks Could Kill, is usually the action combined with gadgets. You need to focus on creating good villains, good enemy defenses, good evil plots, and good equipment for the player character to use. You don't have to spend near as much time on a lot of other things that are interesting in other worlds.

In our evaluation demo version we've got a world called Race Wars. It in essence creates a continent about the size of Australia populated to one side by Neanderthals and to the other by Cro Magnons, and starts at a time when the island is no longer big enough to support both. What's interesting here is the variety of potential solutions to the problem--from exploration to determine whether there is other land out there somewhere, to intermarriage between what may be compatible races forming one society, to warfare giving one side dominance over the other. There doesn't have to be much focus on the primitive technology here beyond an understanding of the limits of weapons and watercraft. There are no real villains and no evil plots.

NagaWorld, the primary setting in Multiverser: The First Book of Worlds, is what it is because it is so alien to Earth. The focus there is about making something so completely different from Earth that visitors will want to explore it, and in the process will discover that there are more differences than they had imagined.

In Multiverser: The Second Book of Worlds, the key point of interest for its main world, Bah Ke'gehn, is that this place looks like all the legends of hell and is completely unlike it in every way that matters. The lives and culture and relationships of these creatures, the way their world really works, is what is interesting. The fact that they all do magic as typically as we turn on lights and watch television is interesting, but not the focus, and doesn't need as much attention beyond what it takes for the referee to cover the gaps.

In The Dancing Princess, also in The First Book of Worlds, there's an entire medieval kingdom that doesn't matter at all. We didn't name villages or create maps or anything of the sort. The module is designed to lure the player character into rescuing the princesses, which means following them through the portal into the realm of the demons. That is where the heart of the adventure lies, and that is where the description falls. Similarly, that book contains Sherwood Forest, in which what really matters are the political relationships of the world, why King Richard is missing, what it takes to get him back, who the Sherriff of Nottingham is (note that he doesn't even have a name), what Prince John is trying to do, who is on whose side. Thus the detail provided makes it possible to travel across Europe in a rescue effort, or to work out what happens if the characters successfully assassinate Prince John.

The point is, when you start to look at a world, there is something about it that makes it sound interesting to you. If you're starting a world merely because "well, I'd like to do something that's like Tolkien, only different", or "My players like science fiction, so I need robots and space ships", you don't really have anything that will make this world interesting. You're just pasting together ideas from other people's worlds. What makes Bladerunner interesting? It's got to be the androids, and their relationship to society. What makes Lord of the Rings interesting? It's really this powerful conflict between good and evil that is focused on that ring. These are features of the worlds that make the worlds interesting. If you know what makes the world interesting, that's where you focus your attention.

If there's nothing about the world that is particularly interesting, nothing that grabs you and makes you say, this world is about this, then why are you wasting your time trying to create such a world? Use any generic world of the sort, and you'll save yourself a lot of work probably with better results. If you know what is interesting about the world you're creating, then pay attention to those details and don't waste a lot of effort on the ones that don't matter.

It's certainly different if you're working on an epic novel like Lord of the Rings. In that case, you really need a lot of background and detail, because your characters are going to explore them. On the other hand, it may not be so different. As a novelist, I find that I start a world with some core ideas of what is important in them, and then figure out the details as I go. For example, I'm on the third novel in a series, one of the protagonists continuing adventures that began in the first novel. I knew when I was writing the first novel that in the second novel this character would be back to this world in the past, fighting the same enemies she's facing now; and that there would be a third novel in which she returns in the future and faces these enemies again. In the first novel I let her kill two very powerful members of the enemy; in the second novel she was defeated by them, but also discovered that there was someone more powerful behind them. All I really knew about the third novel's take on this was that she was going to be back some time around 2300 AD, and that she was going to have a climactic battle with the villain she had failed to defeat in the past. Now that I'm there, I'm creating the details of a futuristic world pretty much as I go--because they aren't important to my story, really, beyond that they give the reader the impression that we are pretty far in the future. I didn't have to spend a lot of time thinking about these, because they aren't important. I did have to spend a lot of time thinking about the major conflict that is coming, because that's the focus of the story.

Does that make any of it clearer?

--M. J. Young

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On 1/10/2003 at 8:17am, Kester Pelagius wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

Greetings All,

Another semi-long one, hope you have munchies and soda at hand.

In reading over the posts I’ve been wondering where, how, what, and mainly if I had something meaningful to contribute. Well, I’m going to toss my marbles into the pool, and hope I don’t loose them all beneath the ripples.

Jared A. Sorensen wrote: I think that one of the cardinal rules of game design is (more or less) as follows: Set forth a limited number of choices but allow for as much variation as possible in the application of those choices.

For RPG worlds, the best way (I think) to do this is to tell the player, "Okay...in this game you do this." Then allow them tons of choices in how to do that. With Sorcerer, this is answering the "Big Question" that the Premise asks of the players. In D&D, this is "Kill monsters, take their stuff and level up." In Magic, this is "Use a library of spells to reduce your opponent to 0 lives." What makes the game interesting are the various choices that the player makes along the way...either before the game even begins (building a deck, creating a character, choosing a "path") or during actual play.


Well, yes and no, no and yes. There is premise of a system and premise of the game, as I see it. Most RPGs are open ended, within strict genre labels, though as you point out they are shaped by the rules of play.

As M.J. said:

M. J. Young wrote: If there's nothing about the world that is particularly interesting, nothing that grabs you and makes you say, this world is about this, then why are you wasting your time trying to create such a world? Use any generic world of the sort, and you'll save yourself a lot of work probably with better results. If you know what is interesting about the world you're creating, then pay attention to those details and don't waste a lot of effort on the ones that don't matter.

It's certainly different if you're working on an epic novel like Lord of the Rings. In that case, you really need a lot of background and detail, because your characters are going to explore them.


One of the things that I have noticed, and wonder if anyone else has, is that a lot of the discussion currently filling up the other threads in this forum are based upon premises that rely upon preconception of how thins are, or rather should be, and thus what is reality is put through the sieve of assumption.

Some assume that myths are quite literal. I would not say that myths are literal, nor would I say they are not. Of course we assume a lot about myths, namely that they are, as presented, a representation of the thought processes of distant antiquity. A assumption that, sadly, is no more true than are the representations of royalty in the plays of Shakespeare. Yet most hold up those works as being virtually sacrosanct and, for most of us, those plays (whether seen in the theatre or the numerous movies made of the) have subtly shaped our views, and preconceptions, of what life was like. Way back when.

But how close to reality are these plays? More to the point how do we, people divorced from that reality by the distance of time, judge those who dare attempt to answer?

Which makes the following something to think about:

Uncle Dark wrote: To expand a bit on something M.J. said, I think it all comes down to focus. That is, most game (or other ficitonal) worlds can be assumed to be (to the eyes of the characters in them) as complex as our world is to us. To the players, however, the world is relatively abstract, and only what is dramtically important to the game/story is detailed.


Having pointed out that much of our own real life perceptions of what is real, in regards to both past and present, is based primarily upon what we read, heard, and see I think it is very important for a game author to establish what is and isn’t possible in a game 1) by presenting clear and concise rules that are consistent with the milieu, and; 2) understanding that the rules of play are a separate entity from the world (and thus background setting) mechanic in which a RPG is to be staged.

nipfipgip...dip wrote: Well, a game world needs conflict of some description (yes, I know, duh). For my mind, the best conflicts challenge what a character finds important, his loyalties and ethics, challenging so helps define the character as a developed individual, and also as a dramatic movement (I've found doing this often cuts away the excess stuff to leave a character as "crooked as an old man's cane" or whatever). Anyhow, providing these challenges gives the questions that help a player define his character however


Yes, but how much description should an author include?

I’ve look at a lot of games available for “free” online. Most start off by dumping pages of what are essentially short stories in your lap. (Can you say “eyes glazing over in disinterest”? I knew you could.) Short stories are fine, I have nothing against them, but IMO they have no place in a rule book. What’s more some of these “games” seem to be more concerned in presenting someone’s fiction that they are in presenting a game. I find this humorous, if understandable. After all I, too, have more short story MSS sitting around (the market is tight and there are hundreds of minnows in the waters) but would you want to suffer through them in a book that is suppose to be a game’s core rules manual?

nipfipgip...dip wrote: To this end, the best game world is one where the players have very well defined loyalties and values, and one where these are constantly threatened. To get this working as I wanted for my game Prespiate, I've found the best thing is a very small world, with a number of often opposing factions.


Intrigue. Gotta love that, right?

Sure, eventually. But up front what you need is a thumbnail outline of what the game is, how it is played, and a page or two condensing character creation.

Then jump heedlessly into the explanations of why those sinister pepperoni stealing Shadow Grimlings live in giant five story mud brick pyramids they build in dank caverns two miles beneath the Oxford Fen, which just so happens to be beneath the very people they are at war with, the surface dwelling tribe Von Daniken who…

Ok, now that I’ve rambled on, misplaced my point, time for something a little less cheeky.

Jared A. Sorensen wrote: Allow them the freedom to create their own tools or use existing tools in exciting new ways.


Tools?

What, precisely, do you mean by that Obi Wan?


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

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On 1/10/2003 at 2:03pm, simon_hibbs wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

By world mechanics, I prsume we're talking about game mechanics that are partricular to a particular world, such as Alignment in D&D, Sanity in Call of Cthulhu, Personality Traits in Pendragon. All these games have game mechanics for combat and interpersonal skills, but these partricular mechanics are novel to those games. (I think many of these mechanics are realy more to do with specific genre or sub-genre conventions than 'world' as such, but it's all the same thing from a game design point of view).

In general I find such mechanics usefull at first, but limiting in the long run. When I started playing Call of Cthulhu I thought SAn was a great idea and it helped focus the player and GM's attention on the mental state of the characters. If forces you to think about this factor. As such I think it's a usefull aid at first, but soon the limitations of such a mechanic can begin to grate. The SAN mechanic is a blunt instrument that many groups have modified heavily to suit themselves.

I think world mechanics have a place because they highlight areas of concern to the game designer, but ultimately I believe they should be kept flexible and limited in their effects.


Simon Hibbs

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On 1/10/2003 at 5:47pm, Jeremy Cole wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

Kester Pelagius wrote: Greetings All,

Yes, but how much description should an author include?

I’ve look at a lot of games available for “free” online. Most start off by dumping pages of what are essentially short stories in your lap. (Can you say “eyes glazing over in disinterest”? I knew you could.) Short stories are fine, I have nothing against them, but IMO they have no place in a rule book. What’s more some of these “games” seem to be more concerned in presenting someone’s fiction that they are in presenting a game. I find this humorous, if understandable. After all I, too, have more short story MSS sitting around (the market is tight and there are hundreds of minnows in the waters) but would you want to suffer through them in a book that is suppose to be a game’s core rules manual?


How much detail? Enough to establish the 'feel' for the world. Which I don't think ever needs to be much, at least before the campaign starts, certainly no more than 10 odd facts, which must have some sort of logical flow to be appealling.

How much does a player need to get through a game of The Dying Earth with sufficient knowledge? Fantasy world, as the sun is soon to go out, people are becoming hedonistic, and like many yours will be the life of a rogue, but a well-spoken rogue, there is great value placed on wordsmanship, and you'll be expected to speak as such. I think that would be enough for me, it'll get you through a low level game, though you'd want to pick up more as you went along.

How much more detail as you go along? Whatever aids the story. If the characters have a central location, such as a place of business of their employer, I might give the place considerable detail before the game starts, description of the level of wealth, size, colour scheme, fellow employees. All this would be used to the extent they are dramatically relevant, such as small, impoverished, dull grey and with a single girl friday (frequently paid late and rather vocal about it). I would hit the players with that at the beginning, and then to the extent that it is relevant, I would detail anything else if it came up (impoverished due to the squeeze put on by him having to save to pay the characters for whatever).

On the other hand, I use a character in most of campaigns called little hat man. That is the some total description (though it references to in group knowledge), and it works fine at telling everyone this person role in the situation. Petty administrator, in love with his tiny little empire, I never add anything else because nothing else is relevant, though its possible his life in greater detail may come up, it never has the dozen odd times he's featured.


Intrigue. Gotta love that, right?

Sure, eventually. But up front what you need is a thumbnail outline of what the game is, how it is played, and a page or two condensing character creation.

Then jump heedlessly into the explanations of why those sinister pepperoni stealing Shadow Grimlings live in giant five story mud brick pyramids they build in dank caverns two miles beneath the Oxford Fen, which just so happens to be beneath the very people they are at war with, the surface dwelling tribe Von Daniken who…


I don't know if I ever really use intrigue, if you focus players on solving it all becomes a little plot based for my liking.

I agree with the second point though, condensed world information, but I would say certainly a lot less than 2 pages. At 2 pages, most information will be forgotten, if you can get out the important stuff in 2 paragraphs, players can ask questions about the rest.

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On 1/10/2003 at 6:31pm, Blake Hutchins wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

After issuing a hearty second to Jared's view, I'd like to return to the idea of focus for a moment.

Thematic or premise-based focus in a setting entails some kind of inherent conflict as an engine to drive play, ideally something that drives the players into making conflict-relevant choices at the point of character creation. Working settings should produce, in my view, compelling characters, as characters reflect their environment. Characters with problems make for story. Setting should, at a minimum, suggest lots of lively problems and challenges for characters to adopt and nurture. In Sorcerer, the Kicker takes this a step further, putting the character into motion from the get-go, but whether detailed or sketchy, I propose settings should advance some kind of conflict to embroil characters. Further, good conflict should pose difficult choices that lead to meaningful consequences down the line.

Best,

Blake

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On 1/10/2003 at 6:32pm, Kester Pelagius wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

Greetings Simon,

To properly answer your question I am going to have to go back and do a bit of quick on-the-fly editing from a old post, as I covered this answer in depth there. For those interested click here for the original thread. Shouldn't have to, but in case you would like to see the original context there it is.

So, to recap...

simon_hibbs wrote: By world mechanics, I prsume we're talking about game mechanics that are partricular to a particular world, such as Alignment in D&D, Sanity in Call of Cthulhu, Personality Traits in Pendragon. All these games have game mechanics for combat and interpersonal skills, but these partricular mechanics are novel to those games. (I think many of these mechanics are realy more to do with specific genre or sub-genre conventions than 'world' as such, but it's all the same thing from a game design point of view).


The core mechanics are the base system mechanics.

A system's "core mechanics" covers character generation, races, maybe touches upon skills, et al, but really covers little else.

The "World Mechanics" are what delineate, define, establish, and precisely lay down the rules of play for the game environment.

Viz. whether the world is flat, floating in mists, a oblong toroidal Dyson sphere, a giant donut with a sun that pops up through its center, a curved bowl floating in a sea of wine, what have you.

There is a difference between a system's "core mechanics" and "world mechanics". It is subtle, sometimes hard to seperate, but it is there.

One lets you generate a character. The other presents the stage upon which the character is to be played.

A game's underlying rules mechanics (what constitutes the fusion of the Core and World mechanics) should derive directly from its basic premise; namely the World Mechanics. In fact when done properly the two come together so seamlessly you almost can't tell there is a difference.

A good excample are novels. All novels that make it to print generally do so because they have a strong world mechanic, meaning they allow the reader reasonable room for suspension of disbelief. Thus they seem realistic within their own environment, even if they bear no resemblance to our perceived reality. However some games systems, like Chaosium's in-house BRPS, were aimed at having a core rules mechanic which could be reworked for use with seperate and distinctive world mechanics; yet these were more than mere campaign settings as they adapted the core mechanics.


simon_hibbs wrote: In general I find such mechanics usefull at first, but limiting in the long run. When I started playing Call of Cthulhu I thought SAn was a great idea and it helped focus the player and GM's attention on the mental state of the characters. If forces you to think about this factor. As such I think it's a usefull aid at first, but soon the limitations of such a mechanic can begin to grate. The SAN mechanic is a blunt instrument that many groups have modified heavily to suit themselves.

I think world mechanics have a place because they highlight areas of concern to the game designer, but ultimately I believe they should be kept flexible and limited in their effects.


Problem is familiarity breeds contempt.

We, all of us, loved our first RPGs. Alas, the more we play them, the more they grate on us. Until, with blisters and boils from dice rolling, we come to hate this aspect or that.

But, in truth, it's that we've had too much of a good thing. Usually.

Then there are games whose designers don't seem to grasp the fundamentals of rules of play in relation to world mechanics needed to actually be reflective of the world to be played in *koff* MERP magic *koff* and the tone established in some settings.

Then again MERP could work, so long as you aren't trying to simulate the novels. Problem is most who buy such properties don't want to play in some imagined timeframe but want to play their favorite characters, in true novel fashion.

It's like SCIFI channels' Dune. I have a simple philosophy, it's called READ THE BOOK STUPID! So long as you keep that in mind, and reference it often, you wont have any problems establishing a good world. At least where established ones are concerned.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

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On 1/10/2003 at 6:39pm, Kester Pelagius wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

Greetings Blake,

Sorry, no good Blake's 7 joke comes to mind. Yeah, I know, you're just crushed. ;)

Blake Hutchins wrote: Thematic or premise-based focus in a setting entails some kind of inherent conflict as an engine to drive play, ideally something that drives the players into making conflict-relevant choices at the point of character creation. Working settings should produce, in my view, compelling characters, as characters reflect their environment. Characters with problems make for story. Setting should, at a minimum, suggest lots of lively problems and challenges for characters to adopt and nurture.


Nope, just nope.

That is NOT the domain of the rules. The rules of play are to establish the how's, why's, and whatfor's and set the stage for play. Unless you are talking about a mini one-shot game?

Otherwise this sort of thing is best left for the "module" or "campaign" reference book(s), IMO.

Of course there are games that have a meta-story. Problem is once that story has reached completion through all its arcs, so has the game. Which is why I say establishing conflict belongs in the demense of modules.

Establish the stage, then worry about what play your characters are going to act out.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

edits in red because spellchecks are no replacement for proof-reading.

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On 1/10/2003 at 8:08pm, Le Joueur wrote:
It Grabs You by the Short Hairs

Hey Kester,

Good question!

Kester Pelagius wrote: What makes a game world playable?

Note I don't mean the game system itself, but the game world.

I can see how it might seem how they're inseparable, but I take your meaning. Before I list what I write to and look for, I'd like to talk about some of the commentary so far.

Kester Pelagius wrote:
Jared A. Sorensen wrote: I think that one of the cardinal rules of game design is (more or less) as follows: Set forth a limited number of choices but allow for as much variation as possible in the application of those choices.

For RPG worlds, the best way (I think) to do this is to tell the player, "Okay...in this game you do this." Then allow them tons of choices in how to do that....

...There is premise of a system and premise of the game, as I see it. Most RPGs are open ended, within strict genre labels, though as you point out they are shaped by the rules of play.

That's what I meant; the 'feel' of a game isn't just its world, but how that 'plays.' Or how the rules bring the world to life. It strikes me as one of the hardest things in design, to make the narrow-genre 'come to life' by the action of the rules.

I want to write a wide variety of games under the Scattershot label; to do that, I need to provide both a world and the "strict genre label" set. Moreover, I have to get the Mechanix to direct things along narrow-genre lines more than a simple 'generic' game. If I don't, it diffuses the impact of what I want people to play.

Jared alludes sagely to the 'easy to learn, lifetime to master' model of game orientation. One which I am fond of as well, but more on that later....

Kester Pelagius wrote:
M. J. Young wrote: If there's nothing about the world that is particularly interesting, nothing that grabs you and makes you say, this world is about this, then why are you wasting your time trying to create such a world? Use any generic world of the sort, and you'll save yourself a lot of work probably with better results. If you know what is interesting about the world you're creating, then pay attention to those details and don't waste a lot of effort on the ones that don't matter.

It's certainly different if you're working on an epic novel like Lord of the Rings. In that case, you really need a lot of background and detail, because your characters are going to explore them.

One of the things that I have noticed, and wonder if anyone else has, is that a lot of the discussion currently filling up the other threads in this forum are based upon premises that rely upon preconception of how things are, or rather should be, and thus what is reality is put through the sieve of assumption.

That's very true and bound up in the problems I felt inherent in separating 'the world' from the narrow-genre. There are all these expectations involved, not just with the world, but with the narrow-genre; eventually, I gave up and kludged them together into the concept of Scattershot's Genre Expectations.

I don't think that's what M. J. is talking about, though. I think he's talking about the K.I.S.S. principle. I follow that religiously when working on our products (don't you wish I did that when I was writing?); I try to look at everything in terms of sine qua non (the elements of a creation that, deprived of any one of them, it ceases to be what it is). I liked the idea so much I decided to base Scattershot's Persona Development Technique on it. (Make your character as interesting as M. J. suggests a world should be.)

Kester Pelagius wrote: ...It is very important for a game author to establish what is and isn’t possible in a game 1) by presenting clear and concise rules that are consistent with the milieu, and; 2) understanding that the rules of play are a separate entity from the world (and thus background setting) mechanic in which a RPG is to be staged.

1) "Consistent...." Aye, that's the rub; like I said, I think rules need to do more than adjudicate reaching communal imagination of game events. I believe it needs to "bring the game to life" along the lines of the narrow-genre in ways both subtle and explicit. This is where I took to the 'carrot and stick' approach to offering rewards for 'reaching to the narrow-genre' in Scattershot's Experience Dice Mechanix. It gives me a lot of latitude when creating different games; I can emphasize different parts of what I think are important in a Genre Expectation by what I put in.

2) Are you differentiating between resolution mechanics and narrow-genre 'reinforcers?' One is traditionally spoken of as 'the physics' of the game world, the other is rarely spoken of at all.

Kester Pelagius wrote:
nipfipgip...dip wrote: Well, a game world needs conflict of some description. For my mind, the best conflicts challenge what a character finds important, his loyalties and ethics, challenging so helps define the character as a developed individual, and also as a dramatic movement (I've found doing this often cuts away the excess stuff to leave a character as "crooked as an old man's cane" or whatever). Anyhow, providing these challenges gives the questions that help a player define his character however

Yes, but how much description should an author include?

I’ve look at a lot of games available for “free” online. Most start off by dumping pages of what are essentially short stories in your lap. Short stories are fine, I have nothing against them, but IMO they have no place in a rule book.

...Would you want to suffer through them in a book that is suppose to be a game’s core rules manual?

I believe this stems from exactly what I'm saying about narrow-genre 'reinforcing' rules being almost unknown (as a principle). What all these products do is substitute fiction as a 'how the game should be played' in their place. I am most excited about games that practically toss out the resolution mechanics in favor of nothing but these.

As far as "conflicts [that] challenge," this is a hard thing to provide as a designer. You can make a world dynamic and filled with tension and the promise of intrigue, but you can't force a specific challenge on all players. (Well, Ron can with Trollbabe, but so far that's the exception.) I think it's important for the product to work towards a sine qua non ideal (the K.I.S.S. principle again); a game should be as "crooked" as that man's cane. A dynamic background should offer no short amount of hooks to inspire players to make characters around, but like Jared posits, it should open up as many possibilities with the least amount of components.

Kester Pelagius wrote:
nipfipgip...dip wrote: To this end, the best game world is one where the players have very well defined loyalties and values, and one where these are constantly threatened. To get this working as I wanted for my game Prespiate, I've found the best thing is a very small world, with a number of often opposing factions.

Intrigue. Gotta love that, right?

Actually, I think you mean it should be intriguing (not intrigue in the courtly sense). The game should have a certain mystique (I like that idea a lot too, so much so I applied it to both Personae and the game with Scattershot's Mystique Technique), it should seduce the customer, draw them in. It ought to make them wonder 'what might happen' and offer them 'powerful tools' to 'go in and find out.'

I think working with a player's part in terms of its obligations and drives is good, but we probably shouldn't overlook their raison d'etre, any peril their player starts them with, their métier, their preoccupations, and any other hooks that interest the player. One important, and outside of Narrativism overlooked, idea is what direction the player wants the character to go in (as opposed to simply the character's goals). Any of these can take center stage and a 'game that works' will be very evocative or suggestive of the potential choices in some of these.

Kester Pelagius wrote:
Jared A. Sorensen wrote: Allow them the freedom to create their own tools or use existing tools in exciting new ways.

Tools?

What, precisely, do you mean by that Obi Wan?

I think what Jared is talking about is back at the beginning of this post. It's his 'easy to learn, a lifetime to master' approach. Provided a game is purveyed as simply as possible (cut right down to the sine qua non) with narrow-genre 'reinforcing' rules (with possible resolution mechanics too, if needed), the simplicity of the set-up will dictate what ways the players could have their character approach the conflicts and mystiques of the game. (Original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had classes which functioned as 'super-tools' along these lines; you only had a few to choose from and the array of your party dictated what "existing tools" you had to deal with the scenarios possible within the game.)

Ultimately, I create and look for a few important things in games. One of the major failings of 'detailed setting' games is usually the biggest difference between games and stories. In stories, it isn't the rich depth of setting that interests you, it's the characters; you are cajoled into identifying with (or at least taking interest in) the central characters of the story, the setting merely exists to magnify aspects of them. In games, you are that character; no such 'identification action' is necessary. Many writers mistake the background's depth and detail for what really interests you in playing. And what exactly is that?

No knowing.

You never know how the game will turn out; if you did, and in every way, how long would it keep your interest? That's the point. "What makes a game world playable" is having something to find out. In some games it has to do with mysterious Circumstances to reveal, in others there are intense Relationships to become enmeshed with, in still others the spiral of tension is a Sequence you want to see bear fruit.

I have this list of things I break every game into. Different games focus on different things, but I've not found anything not fitting my list pretty well:

Personae

In focus, you are interested in seeing what your 'piece of the action' is about, what it can do, what'll happen to it, or who it is.


Relationships

A game centered on these, tangles you in the lives of the characters and organizations connected in them.


Sequences

Not at all limited to just plots and ultimately climactic interactions, these focus on bits that 'go the way you expect them;' the superhero beats the villain, the villain returns in force, and so on. Mission-based games focus on this, yet how many of them have rules that accentuate the Sequence of the missions? (Other than InSpectres, that is?)


Circumstances

Explore the haunted house? Solve the murder? Win the war? These are Circumstances as a focus of gaming. One problem many authors have is they mistake the Sequence of a horror movie with the Circumstances of its start (hint: the Sequence dominates).


Backgrounds

Yes, it's true, you can have games that focus on richly detailed backgrounds, but alone such Backgrounds are flat without characters with some drive to explore them. (They need something to suggest, create, or force this drive.) Likewise a detailed Background is no substitute for not having a focus for the players to pursue.


Props

Hey, some games focus on the neat things you can pick up. What they can do, what you could do with them, and what having them does to you; these are the sorts of grist for a truly Prop-heavy game.


Mechanix

Finally, there are games where it's all about the rules. This isn't as bad a thing as it sounds. I think The Pool is an excellent example; if you aren't gambling your pool are you playing it right?

From these things, I look for the direction the game wants you to go (the 'what do the characters do' stuff in ways or the 'where the story goes' junk). I find the hooks that I might build characters on, what potential drives or goals might be sought, what perils to face, and even what obligations to fulfill. I also read the tone of the narrow-genre for what kinds of Mystiques to expect and what kind of character play will take. Any of these things can motivate me to make a character and play (or a world to gamemaster).

(Dust Devils is an example of a game that drips with character where the rules thrust the Personae into focus; resolving the content of the character they start out with is what the game is all about. It may seem to follow the archetypical escalating tension Sequence common to the source material, but the timing of the resolution of the characters is under no such control. Also it plays heavily upon implied tropes internalized by the players prior to getting the game, therefore succeeding at the principle of 'Keeping It Simple Silly.')

So "what makes a game world playable" is how it, in brief passages, it grabs your attention (in one or two of these fields) and makes you want to know what'll happen.

At least that's what it is to me and what I try to create.

Fang Langford

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On 1/12/2003 at 1:41am, M. J. Young wrote:
Re: It Grabs You by the Short Hairs

Fang 'Le Joueur' Langford wrote:
Citing what Kester Pelagius wrote:
Quoting what I wrote: If there's nothing about the world that is particularly interesting, nothing that grabs you and makes you say, this world is about this, then why are you wasting your time trying to create such a world? Use any generic world of the sort, and you'll save yourself a lot of work probably with better results. If you know what is interesting about the world you're creating, then pay attention to those details and don't waste a lot of effort on the ones that don't matter.

It's certainly different if you're working on an epic novel like Lord of the Rings. In that case, you really need a lot of background and detail, because your characters are going to explore them.
....

...I don't think that's what M. J. is talking about, though. I think he's talking about the K.I.S.S. principle.

Half right, I think? I don't see how Kester's (edited) comments follow from what I said, but I'm not really saying to keep it simple per se. What I am saying is to be complicated or complex only where you need the detail, and to keep everything else as sketchy as will still support what needs to be done. As I've said somewhere, you want the game world description to be exactly as complex as it needs to be, in those areas that are going to matter in play.

For the application of this, I'll point to our Multiverser world books. They each contain one world of about fifty pages, with plenty of detail--not the same kind of detail, as one is about the strange places that cover the world and the other is about the strange people and their culture (although both include suggestions for encounters), but abundant detail. Both are designed to provide a wealth of possibilities for player characters to become involved, individually or collectively, in the events of the world. It also happens that each of them contains a world eight or nine pages in length. These worlds are completely playable as written, with everything the referee needs to run them. The eight page world, in fact, is a world with unlimited possibilities (the nine page world is primarily a linear story with guidelines for where to take it if the player doesn't take the hooks).

The point is that each world need to have the detail it needs to have; it needs to put that detail where the questions are going to be asked and need answers. I don't have to create details for a world if those details don't matter in play; the referee can invent something to fill the gap, and it won't particularly matter what.

That detail should be where the interest lies. It should provide what is needed to grasp what this world is about and have answers to the important questions. Whether it takes two pages or two thousand, when it's done the person running the world should feel like whatever questions are asked he either knows the answer or knows what sort of answer he should invent to fill the gap.

Fang also wrote: This is where I took to the 'carrot and stick' approach to offering rewards for 'reaching to the narrow-genre'....


I hope you don't mean that. The "carrot and stick" approach means putting the carrot on the end of a stick which is held out from the back of the donkey, so that the donkey keeps moving toward the carrot but the carrot keeps moving away, and he never gets any closer to obtaining the reward. Even with donkeys, they eventually figure out that they're never going to get the carrot, and they stop trying to reach it. People figure it out a lot faster.

--M. J. Young

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On 1/12/2003 at 2:50am, Le Joueur wrote:
Let's Keep It Simple

M. J. Young wrote:
Fang also wrote: This is where I took to the 'carrot and stick' approach to offering rewards for 'reaching to the narrow-genre'....

I hope you don't mean that. The "carrot and stick" approach means putting the carrot on the end of a stick which is held out from the back of the donkey, so that the donkey keeps moving toward the carrot but the carrot keeps moving away, and he never gets any closer to obtaining the reward. Even with donkeys, they eventually figure out that they're never going to get the carrot, and they stop trying to reach it. People figure it out a lot faster.

Okay, ya got me. What I use is more a trail of breadcrumbs. If you want the reward, you go along the trail. It's not a railroad, but a path well worn and taken willingly. Players may leave the path without fear of repercussions, but it's always there seducing them along the narrow-genre.

I chose the 'carrot and stick' metaphor knowing full well how wrong it is; I'm kinda waging this personal war to correct people's mistaken ideas about it (hence the overusage). Too many people have got this weird image that you offer the carrot when the subject behaves appropriately and hit them with the stick otherwise. I invoke the metaphor even incorrectly to solicit this response, thus you illustrated the correct form and beautifully. Thank you for helping in my cause.

By the way...
Sagely M. J. Young wrote: What I am saying is to be complicated or complex only where you need the detail, and to keep everything else as sketchy as will still support what needs to be done.

...each world needs to have the detail it needs to have;

That detail should be where the interest lies.

Which is the essence of the K.I.S.S. principle in world design; the idea is to keep it as simple as possible, not to oversimplify. Well said here too.

Fang Langford

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On 1/13/2003 at 10:03am, Kester Pelagius wrote:
RE: Re: It Grabs You by the Short Hairs

Greetings Fang,

Le Joueur wrote: Hey Kester,

Good question!

Kester Pelagius wrote: What makes a game world playable?

Note I don't mean the game system itself, but the game world.

I can see how it might seem how they're inseparable, but I take your meaning. Before I list what I write to and look for, I'd like to talk about some of the commentary so far.

Kester Pelagius wrote:
Jared A. Sorensen wrote: I think that one of the cardinal rules of game design is (more or less) as follows: Set forth a limited number of choices but allow for as much variation as possible in the application of those choices.

For RPG worlds, the best way (I think) to do this is to tell the player, "Okay...in this game you do this." Then allow them tons of choices in how to do that....

...There is premise of a system and premise of the game, as I see it. Most RPGs are open ended, within strict genre labels, though as you point out they are shaped by the rules of play.

That's what I meant; the 'feel' of a game isn't just its world, but how that 'plays.' Or how the rules bring the world to life. It strikes me as one of the hardest things in design, to make the narrow-genre 'come to life' by the action of the rules.

...

So "what makes a game world playable" is how it, in brief passages, it grabs your attention (in one or two of these fields) and makes you want to know what'll happen.

At least that's what it is to me and what I try to create.


I don't know about the last remark, certainly that would apply to a campaign or module, but the game world?

I'll assume you meant playing through the game world, since the game world is after all an integrated part of every campaign.

Even so this makes me wonder if a poorly written game world could then be made playable by decent campaign modules?

Is story really everything?

If so which is more important, the background story or the story that is to be discovered by the players in a pre-fab campaign module?



Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

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On 1/13/2003 at 4:04pm, Le Joueur wrote:
RE: Re: It Grabs You by the Short Hairs

Kester Pelagius wrote:
Le Joueur wrote: Good question!

Kester Pelagius wrote: What makes a game world playable?

Jared A. Sorensen wrote: I think that one of the cardinal rules of game design is (more or less) as follows: Set forth a limited number of choices but allow for as much variation as possible in the application of those choices.

For RPG worlds, the best way (I think) to do this is to tell the player, "Okay...in this game you do this." Then allow them tons of choices in how to do that....

...There is premise of a system and premise of the game, as I see it. Most RPGs are open ended, within strict genre labels, though as you point out they are shaped by the rules of play.

That's what I meant; the 'feel' of a game isn't just its world, but how that 'plays.' Or how the rules bring the world to life. It strikes me as one of the hardest things in design, to make the narrow-genre 'come to life' by the action of the rules.

...

So "what makes a game world playable" is how it, in brief passages, grabs your attention (in one or two of these fields) and makes you want to know what'll happen.

At least that's what it is to me and what I try to create.

Is story really everything?

If so which is more important, the background story or the story that is to be discovered by the players in a pre-fab campaign module?

Two issues, in reverse order: in answer to your last question, it depends. That's right, there is no single 'right answer.' In some games the background 'story' is more important, in others it's the 'story' "to be discovered" (although I'd argue the point of a background 'story' is also "to be discovered by the players"). Personal preference is king here and you cannot isolate any 'more important' quality, other then what's 'more important' to a single individual. Caveat emptor!

Now the more important problem: who brought up story? I spoke only of keeping the game to the minimum components that grab consumer interest (and enough else to 'keep it together'). That could be story, but it could be many other things. (See my post about Personae, Relationships, Sequences, Circumstances, Backgrounds, Props, and Mechanix; any one of these is good enough.) Usage of the word 'story' in this instance is only going to invite all kinds of misunderstanding (I know I don't understand); can you redefine your question ("Is story really everything?")

Fang Langford

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On 1/13/2003 at 5:04pm, Jack Spencer Jr wrote:
RE: Re: It Grabs You by the Short Hairs

Kester Pelagius wrote: Is story really everything?

This is a thorny question and I think I would have to rephrase your question to be accurate.

First of all, what is "story?" Yeah yeah there's the whole narrativist thematically satisfying yaddah yaddah, but that doesn't necessarily apply to everybody, does it? Not everyone incorporates what can called a "story" into their play. What I see is experience. Most human activity can be boiled down to the experience, which is sort of what exploration seems to be talking about, at least a little.

So the experience is the end-result of playing a RPG, so I daresay that is is very important if not the most important, although I hestitate to call it everything.

Now, the mention of "story" implies to me a specifc desired result out of the experience. I have often liked this to the description of the movie Magical Mystery Tour in the documentary The Complete Beatles:

"The Beatles along with some circus performers and some close friends travel the English countryside and filmed whatever happened.

"Nothing did."

Attention to the story seems to me to be taking pains to assure that something does happen. Something of interest to the players in some way, whatever that may be.
If so which is more important, the background story or the story that is to be discovered by the players in a pre-fab campaign module?

First, I think the mention of the pre-fab campaign module is out-of-place in this discussion since it assumes an awful lot, namely that the players are using a pre-fab campaign module which is a topic in it's own right.

I think that the most important thing about playing an RPG is the actual play of it. This is why I cannot understand people who write pages and pages of character history and world history beforehand. One common closed-minded refutal of Narrativist play is, "If I wanted to write fiction, I would just write fiction." What is writing such backstory if not "just writing fiction?"

This doesn't mean I don't like backstory, but I think that it can happen like it does in some fiction and film, where the backstory is learned slowly overtime though play.

But that's just my crazy opinion.

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On 1/13/2003 at 10:40pm, Kester Pelagius wrote:
RE: Re: It Grabs You by the Short Hairs

Greetings Le Joueur,

Le Joueur wrote: Now the more important problem: who brought up story? I spoke only of keeping the game to the minimum components that grab consumer interest (and enough else to 'keep it together'). That could be story, but it could be many other things. (See my post about Personae, Relationships, Sequences, Circumstances, Backgrounds, Props, and Mechanix; any one of these is good enough.) Usage of the word 'story' in this instance is only going to invite all kinds of misunderstanding (I know I don't understand); can you redefine your question ("Is story really everything?")


Ok, let's see... How about:

Are the interlocking series of details that serve as the foudation and corner stones of the underlying narrative, as pertains to the established game milieu, in both premise and design, really the "end all" of a given RPG's plot structure and rules of play?

I'm not sure that's the best way to put it, but it's a beginning.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

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On 1/13/2003 at 11:01pm, Kester Pelagius wrote:
RE: Re: It Grabs You by the Short Hairs

Greetings Jack,

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:
Kester Pelagius wrote: If so which is more important, the background story or the story that is to be discovered by the players in a pre-fab campaign module?


First, I think the mention of the pre-fab campaign module is out-of-place in this discussion since it assumes an awful lot, namely that the players are using a pre-fab campaign module which is a topic in it's own right.

I think that the most important thing about playing an RPG is the actual play of it. This is why I cannot understand people who write pages and pages of character history and world history beforehand. One common closed-minded refutal of Narrativist play is, "If I wanted to write fiction, I would just write fiction." What is writing such backstory if not "just writing fiction?"


I can answer this. Maybe.

It helps to establish stage dressing for what is going on in the world milieu. In my own campaign of old it began much as you describe, pretty much free form havoc with free range player characters... of course after a while every player wants a *point* to the play session. They want to know the why's and whatfore's.

What most of us fail to realize is that that is a very very GOOD thing. It means the world we have crafted has become of INTEREST to the players. Rather than penalize them, we should instead be happy to hear such questions. Alas tis not always so.

Which, to get back to my point, is how I developed my world background; as needed during play. Of course I further developed what I had so that, after a few game sessions, I had a "potential game" campaign plotted out for two months of "game time". That included thumbnail outlines of possible intrigues, wars, plagues, and various other sundries.

Alas, as often happens, most of the players did their own thing... despite the 4x4 hints of potential adventure here and there that they seemed to brush off the shrug of veteran players who have that "special" die that always rolls what they want during saves.

Then again I also have been known to throw normal creatures at them in unusual ways and, for reasons I no longer recall, the players all recoiled in fear from sight of any ship sailing black sails. Especially with red devices on them. *shrugging innocently*

Of course when I threw potential side treks at them, being unexpected, they often either never took the necessary steps to properly take the hook or were non-starters. Which is why having a lot of small minor sketchy details outlined for a world is helpful. It gives the GM greater freedom to shape a story around the players actions.

But, like you say, the long drawn out stuff that says "this and this and such and such are so" are, for my money, pointless.

However, based upon observation, I'd say the following should be a rule in every RPG manual ::

A game world must evolve of its own accord out of the actions of the players, no matter how "idiotic" ;) a GM may think they are playing their player characters.

Of course, to me, "pre-fab module" doesn't equate with "commercial off the shelf module", but I see your point. That is really what most pre-fab modules are. And, truth be told, I guess mine really weren't modules so much as they were folders and notebooks full of notes and sketchy details.

*big smile*

Then there was that Crystal Sphere I created, populated, wrote up details about the in-Sphere politics, established thumbnails of religions, outlined squadron strengths, plotted planetary orbits (and named them) and yada yada yada only to find out my players did NOT want to play Spelljammer since the pre-fab store bought stuff mostly turned them off to it.

Don't know why.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

P.S. I almost forgot the most important aspect of my game. I made use of a "Rumour Mill". Meaning I had a long list of rumors, indexed for use with a %ile roll, of information that the characters could stumble upon at any given time. My players knew this and, when new players would come into the campaign, that was one of the first things they always would wrangle the new player to do. Find out rumours, interact with the NPCs, etc. Of course this also means keying encounter tables and having sketches of possible mini-adventures and side treks ready to hand. But, for me, this worked. Most of the time.

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On 1/14/2003 at 3:37am, Le Joueur wrote:
RE: Re: It Grabs You by the Short Hairs

Hey Kester,

Kester Pelagius wrote:
Le Joueur wrote: ...Can you redefine your question ("Is story really everything?")

Are the interlocking series of details that serve as the foundation and cornerstones of the underlying narrative, as pertains to the established game milieu, in both premise and design, really the "end all" of a given RPG's plot structure and rules of play?

Absolutely. That's the whole and total sum of what the traditional game product can supply. Pretty much everything else comes from two places, simply the players themselves and then from the interaction between them and the product.

So what does this have to do with the craft of design? A couple of things, first of all, many writers stop at the point of creating 'the world' or the "story really everything." 'How to play,' or how to interact that to create a unique gaming experience, is something I struggle with all the time. I want to instruct, but I can't put it into very good words. Some of the most intriguing new designs are not at all about 'the world' but about 'how to play,' can someone who has tried it tell me if that's what goes on in The Pool?

Does that clarify my opinion?

Fang Langford

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On 1/14/2003 at 9:13am, erithromycin wrote:
RE: What makes an RPG work for you?

This may be redundant, but it's my opinion.

A game world is playable if there are things for the characters to do that players will enjoy.

- drew

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