If I read the conclusion of the Aesthetics and Reality thread correctly, then Chris and Emily tried to pin down a specific tension, between two things: a Baseline, which is basically reality-as-understood-by-the-participants, and a Vision, which is the endpoint of perfect emulation of "source material" if any, or the analogue if no source material exists. (Interestingly, one could make a case for the latter as being reality as understood by the characters, but that's a different riff on the subject.)

I like this a lot and would like to pin it down to a little bit stronger frame, and then move from there to talking about the tension and balance between these two, because I think that this is where we'll find tools for aesthetic design emerging.

By a stronger frame, I mean that I think these two terms apply to a single act, and that rather than leaving them hanging in air, we can pin them down to that act and discuss them in that context only. Both terms apply to the process of conveying the game reality. I don't know if this has a place in the current understanding or not, but it means that these apply to conveying something slightly more encompassing than Setting as we dissect things... they apply to conveying the Setting, the Colour, the appropriate Situations, the physics (Rules), and the appropriate types of Characters. Conveying the game reality.

(Is that equivalent to just conveying the whole game? Not quite, because it excludes any input the designer might want to have into, for example, the social contract of play, and much of the manner of play itself. Unless you consider "the usual way people play RPGs" to be the Baseline, and the designer's Vision to be the mode of play he seeks to support. I think this is probably spurious extension of the terms Baseline and Vision, especially because that listed Baseline is, as we've established, an exceedingly fast-moving target. The question of Baseline and Vision interacts with GNS coherence, because you should tune the tension between them to support the desired GNS modes, but GNS coherence addresses more than the "realism/game realism" issue which is what Baseline and Vision are helping us describe.)

It certainly seems like the actual game reality rests somewhere on a sliding line, with Baseline and Vision as the endpoints of that line. The originating thread covered good reasons why we need both ends of the line, rather than just pinning the game reality to one and leaving the other to flop. Baseline ("realism") primarily helps make people comfortable, give them a known starting place to jump off from, and often functions in a contrasting mode - it makes the Vision more clear because the following elements contradict the Baseline. Vision ("source material or analogue of same") is the pattern of ideal things in the game designer's head which he is trying to communicate. Without Vision there's no point in buying the game book. (I postulate that even hyperrealistic settingless games of GURPS or whatever have both of these elements, it's just that in this case the Vision differs from the Baseline on only a very few points - primarily the ones concerning what kinds of stories get told.)

So far, so good. In these terms, we can recast Fang's original post about realism-based rules... if most of the game reality sits quite near the Vision, then realism-based rules tend to draw it back toward the Baseline. Whether this is good or not depends on whether your game needs a shot of Baseline (something to help make it more accessible, f'rex), or would suffer for being dragged further from the Vision by the subtle effect of those rules. Fang holds out for striving to land as close to Vision as possible, but it certainly seems like this varies per game. (Games about really alien topics like Elder Gods tend to desperately need a shot of Baseline right around the intro section, because otherwise players never "make the jump" to the game reality from their own. Usually manifests as the game never coming off the shelf and being played. Curiously, this is exactly what my poor Talislanta set suffers to this day.)

Can we do anything more with it than this? I think it's possible. Chris and Emily got the beginnings of it, with talking about issues of balance between the two, desirable tension, and even possibly reassigning the Baseline once players' comfort zones include more of the Vision than originally true.

(I can see that latter applying to supplements in particular. In fact, if the rules in a core book were high-accessibility, with a strong Baseline in realism and reality-derived physics, but the rules in its supplements were more Vision-based, this would be one design suggestion we could come out of this with right there. Also true, and perhaps more usefully within conscious design the learning curve of a game. Make the first rules people learn, the most realistic and closest to Baseline; make the extensions and corollaries more Visionary. I think that conscious design of the learning curve is one thing we will want to crack open, not necessarily in this thread, but not necessarily not.)

In terms of aesthetics, I think there's most meat on the bone of tension between Baseline and Vision, used to strengthen the game reality as a whole. You might build up that tension in a few ways... you could stress the constrasts between the Baseline and this game's vision, not only textually but coherently with the message of the entire book. Or you could play subtler games by allowing the tension between the two to increase through play. [An example of the former might be Pendragon, with its fairly straightforward Vision; the deliberate omission of an Intelligence stat helps stress the differences between Baseline expectations, and the Vision of the Arthurian world. An example of the latter would be WFRP, which - as I understand it - conveys a brutal, hostile world, which is not immediately apparent until the results of the charts start to creep out through their probabilities.)

This is far from a trivial dissection, simply because accurately conveying the game reality you desire is one of the hard parts. Communicating a Vision is often difficult, but even in those cases where it's easy, such as directly source-material inspired RPGs, the game reality necessarily diverges from the Vision (see originating thread). In those instances, it's communicating the game reality that becomes the hard part; I suspect that this problem lurks beneath the surface of it being difficult to convey the Vision as well, in many cases, and is simply one difficulty being masked by another. Look at Nobilis; the Vision is clearly, artfully presented... but the game reality, the appropriate balance between Baseline and Vision, is reasonably elusive in play.

Does anyone have any thoughts on specific guidelines as to how to convey this balance, where to choose the balance point(s), or how to increase/manipulate/make use of the tension, between Baseline and Vision in the composition of a game reality?

I'm a bit tentative about posting here, So I'm going to be probabtive rather than give my take on this. We'll see if it's profitable.

First, I'm curious as to whether Fang thinks that your take on these things as relating to Reality is really what it's all about. I think he may have had a broader meaning, but I'll leave that to him to clarify.

In any case, my general question is why do you see a need to pin the point on the spectrum after the fact? I mean, couldn't you just start with an assumption about how realistic you want it to be, and then work to that goal? Am I wrong in assuming that we're talking about a sectrum here? At one point that seems to be what you're talking about, and then at others you seem to be saying that it's two things.

Could you restate in your terms (as opposed to simply referencing Chris' and Emily's ideas) what you mean by tension? How is this not a bad thing? I mean dramtic tension is all well and good, but is that the sort of tension you see being created here?

It's been said that the Social Contract is not part of game design, and I think that's true, personally. The players come together and agree to play, and then agree what to play. It's not the game that causes this to happen. And the "how to play" seems to me to be the entirity of the text. According to the Lumpley priciple, the text exists soley to deliver the power division amongst players so that we know how the game reality is established. So what does that leave? How is this not about the game as a whole? (I fear that this will bring up shades of the last post, but I'm legitmately concerned with the answer).

Why do you feel that Vision is relatively uncomfortable? IMO, it's completely a matter of player preference as to what point on the spectrum is most comfortable. Consider Freeform play that have no "realism" mechanics at all. This is a common form of play. Why do you feel that people need to be "taken" from one point to another? Is this to convert "traditional" players? (Your point about learning curve is well taken, and I'd like to see that thread).

I like your ideas about this all being a design preference. If it's a preference, however, then why, as I asked above, should we need to set the target after simply chosing to go with our preference? I mean shouldn't our preference be out target?

This is still all very unclear to me. It's quite possible I still am just failing to see some important part of this idea that will make it crystalize. Can you help? I fear the questioning method won't help make me seem any more sympathetic, but I was unsure how else to proceed. My apollogies in advance.

Mike

No worries, Mike... many of your questions are the very ones I asked myself as I posted that.

I'll try to drill past them to help clarify things.

I do flag it as a spectrum, but it's a little bit funny as spectrums go. One end is a little bit variable ("reality" as perceived by players), the other end pretty heavily variable (your game vision and/or source material, as (a) communicated by you and then (b) interpreted by players). So it's a sliding scale with moving endpoints. You also move around on it based on when during the process of picking the game up you look. As such, part of what I wanted to raise was whether simply "picking a realism level and designing to it" was a sufficiently clear description - for us - of what's happening, or whether we would do better to pay some attention to what'll happen to the two endpoints of the scale as they shift, and where the game will land at what points in its progression, etc. Simple model vs. complex model, basically; I'm interested in what the complex model might look like and whether it offers any insights we can use.

I read much of the core of your questions to come down to whether there's any benefit in going to the complex model at all, and that's one angle I definitely am not sure about myself. This may indeed all be a waste of electrons. I think, in this as in other things (I'm a physicist by trade), that it's worth trying out the complex model, seeing whether it produces anything worthwhile in terms of additional information, and chucking it if not.

FWIW, I disagree pretty strongly about the social contract not being part of game design. GNS mode is a social contract issue, on which the game designer (if he's designing a coherent game) has a strong voice. Even the original Lumpley Principle thread seemed to divide evenly on whether the "rules" (I read that to say the designer) gets a voice at the table or not. However, I think it's also an agree-to-disagree which need not impact this thread at all, and probably speaks most strongly to styles of game design itself.

What this is getting at is, at core, ways to communicate your game vision (cf. Creative Agenda, there's a wide mishmash of concepts caught up in either term, but at heart this is the communicated entity which includes your themes, moods, GNS stance, et al). More clearly, and in such wise that people Get It.

The issue of Getting It is part of why I say that straying too far toward the Vision end is "uncomfortable." It definitely ties into the learning curve, but I think it may apply even within the context of a single game session. [It's the distinction between starting an evening's session with "You waken in your apartment, hearing a faint sussuration in the pipes, unshaven and hung over" and "You emerge from your meditative state to find that your sensory cilia, despite being kinked up from the previous annum's debacle, are trembling in a way that is suggestive of movement somewhere in your Bao Kae (apartment)." Neither is better. One is more accessible, closer to Baseline. The other might be closer to the game's Vision - these could, after all, be from the same game!] My primary reason to suggest operating closer to Baseline is accessibility, and I reiterate that lower accessibility is not none, any resistance can be overcome - but the way the game is designed will affect this resistance-to-concepts. Often (the insertion of "always" is assumed untrue but not proven either way) this seems to be a tradeoff against the vividness of the Vision end of the spectrum.

Which is where I see tension, and I think that my image of why tension in this is good has to do with the use of contrasts and foils. The tension between them is what makes it useful to use a little Baseline somewhere - the hangover a powerful sorcerer wakes up to - so as to ultimately heighten the game Vision, when he goes about his high-adventure, high-magic day. Or, less commonly, the tension also shows up when you use an aspect of nonrealism, of your Vision, to bring things down to earth. The high magus gestures vividly while chanting in Latin, and in his hands appears... his pipe, which he proceeds to knock on the heel of his boot and refill. Fantastic element used to contrast and heighten a sense of accessible realism.

This may all be a special case of dramatic tension, but I don't think so... I think it has to do with the tension generated anytime we have nonrealistic and realistic elements together in a game, whether they be aspects of the Setting, Colour, Rules, or something else.

Tension probably isn't the only way to view it, just as contrast isn't the only way to communicate either of those touches I gave above. In fact, I suspect that harmony between your Baseline and your Vision is another way to go... it builds to a different game experience instead. Times when, rather than jarring by their contrast, the realistic and the fantastic (in the generic sense meaning nonrealistic) elements of the game both help produce the same effect on the reader. Ummm, example, lessee... giving comparable in-game prices for clothes and countercharms, to help reduce the divide between the fantastic and the realistic sides of the universe.

None of my examples have to do, exactly, with the level of realism you choose, they have to do with how you communicate what realism you include, and when, and why.

Does that help clarify why I'm flailing toward a little bit better conception of the Baseline-Vision spectrum, and its uses and characteristics? I hope so - it did for me. :)

- Eric

Huh.

Well, the best "how to" stuff that I've seen is actually Fang's Genre Expectations. That is, a game should have something that serves to establish these expectations. In most games it's the text. This is certainly problematic in terms of the fact that not all players will read the book. What you often end up with is the GM saying to the player "It's like X book, but with the feel of Y movie," or somesuch.

But even though that last looks problematic, I don't think it is. That is, I think that's about all you need to get a player to the comfort zone or near enough that they'll be into it ten minutes into play.

Because the other thing is that System Matters. That is, the system will inform the player. So, not to be too redundant, but make the system make the players do the right things, and it's all good.

How do you make a system do what you want? Well that's the thousand dollar question that get's asked every day. And there are a jillion answeres. To which I can only refer you to the Indie Design forum. If we had a formula for how to do it game design would be dead already. The only thing we'd need to do is to come up with new genre's to emulate.

It seems to me that this is the "complex" model. But again I may still be missing it.

If you look at the Lumpley Principle thread, you'll find that I was the one arguing for the text to be an empowered participant. But even I had to admit that the players have to agree on the Social Contract level to commit to the text before it was so empowered. And all Ron had ever said is that GNS "bridges" the social contract level and actual play.

Put it this way, give me an example of something from a text that isn't "how to apportion credibility in play".

Mike

With respect, Eric, no, I'm not finding this especially useful.

Can you provide some examples of existing games or -- better yet -- games in progress as they relate to what you're getting at? As a game designer, I'm simply failing to see how this is practical and useful on that nitty-gritty, just-do-it level of creating a game. I had the same problem with the Deliberateness and Elegance ideas. I see concerns about aesthetics as something that just comes very naturally to me, and I'm concerned it's a method to codify "art," which is so much windmill tilting.

I acknowledge that not everyone creates "Stuff" in the same way, and therefore I may be shrugging where Fang is screaming "Eureka!" But even if that's true, I still can't see how you guys are going to put this into practice yet. (And, yes, I know that's why you're discussing it here. I just want to see some steps toward playable games.)

I think some concrete, hopefully robust, and familiar examples would go miles toward helping folks see if all this so-called "flailing" this is useful. I'd much prefer some design examples to which you're privvy to the actual intent of the designer(s).

In other words, I'm not especially interested in discussing all this as it relates to, say, Nobilis unless Borgstrom & Co. chimes in and says, "Yeah, that's how we did it." Well, maybe a bit much, but you get the idea. I'd like some support to your best guesses of a designer's intent.

Harlequin wrote: If I read the conclusion of the Aesthetics and Reality thread correctly, then Chris and Emily tried to pin down a specific tension, between two things: a Baseline, which is basically reality-as-understood-by-the-participants, and a Vision, which is the endpoint of perfect emulation of "source material" if any, or the analogue if no source material exists. (Interestingly, one could make a case for the latter as being reality as understood by the characters, but that's a different riff on the subject.)

Emily Care wrote: Matt: as I said, I don't have access to the game designer's intent. I am infering it. My apologies. This was one I thought of that I could illustrate the point with.

Okay. I'm glad this has gathered some momentum...

Matt, nobody's claiming to have insight into developers' heads. All we can do - barring personal conversations with them, or perhaps trepanning - is try to look at their work and figure out what there is in them that works, or fails to, and try to find ways to emulate that.

As for whether this helps with the design process, it's almost certainly dependent on how readily you selfanalyze during the design process, vs. the Go Do It school. I'm not writing for the Go Do It school, and won't even pretend otherwise. I know I'm guilty of a certain amount of overtheory... I ought to be working on my RPG, not on theory here. (Grin.) So, for self-professed Go Do Itters, by all means go to and don't waste your time on theory here. On the other hand, phrasing all this is helping one specific process of game design - mine - at the very least, and hopefully others too.

So.

My conception of the two endpoints is basically synonymous with Emily's; it has a lot more to do with the realistic vs. the fantastic than with overt Social Contract issues. I especially like her phrasing, "Vision must be communicated to the participants in order for them to experience it." That's bang-on with what I'm looking at here. In the moving endpoints idea, I'm looking at the spectrum as something akin to an elastic band stretched between two posts, with the posts having some, but not an incredible amount, of movement in their own right. Moving, because different groups put them in different places; moving, because their position changes over time for a given group.

Even in its "initial" role as Reality[TM], the Baseline moves, because a cop and an Arnie-movie fan will have different Baselines on guns. I'm less enamored of moving the Baseline based on group exposure to the midpoint we call Game Reality than Emily, but I'd grant it as another mode in which the Baseline does indeed move. The Vision 'moves' (differs) primarily group-to-group, but also person-to-person, due to the fact that the Vision must be communicated and interpreted.

But just because the elastic band is strung between moving targets does not mean that we can't do useful things with it - pick a spot ("what's your realism level"?), twang it for tension (use of Vision/Baseline contrasts to highlight things), or let it lie straight and use it like a pointer (use of Vision/Baseline symmetries and harmonies to convey other impressions). Mostly, pointing out that these are moving targets is tantamount to pointing out that even the simplest "pick a realism level" is not necessarily as failsafe as it might sound, but the other techniques are what have me really excited. Since I don't want to make this post too long, I hope you'll forgive if I show some concrete examples of the use of the Vision/Baseline spectrum in existing works for those last two uses - contrasts and harmonies.

Contrast Example: Ars Magica, Specific arena: Rules
Baseline and Vision are as Emily described.
Effect Desired: Focus attention on the fastastic elements - the magic system - over issues of mundane skill use.
Technique Used: Contrast between the Baseline (which, in a rules context here, would be the rules covering all actions which could be performed in medieval Europe) and the Vision (the magical society and its main acts, those being basically twofold - the use of magic, and the study of magic. Note that in my text the two get practically equal weight). The length and emphasis differences between the two sections themselves could be argued as contrast or tension between their respective associated realism-poles (Baseline or Vision), but this is something we've seen before (never mind that this construction puts Mike's Rant as part of a broader technique - his Rant remains an excellent example of the method).

However, there's a subtler rules detail used in contrast instead, which I'll single out for my example. Both the casting of magic, and the use of a skill, use basically d10+stuff, higher is better. The die varies from a 'simple die' to a 'stress die,' in both cases. Some character stat adds to the roll, in both cases. But the contrast comes in when you look at the other numbers. A good skill is five, an excellent skill seven, and more than that is definitely out of reach for your average starting PC. So an expert skill-user with good stats could roll as much as d10+12, but most of them will top out at maybe d10+8 in their specialty. In magic, however, you add not only a stat and sometimes a skill (an Affinity or Magic Theory), but also a Form and a Technique - each of which starts high and goes up very quickly compared to a skill. So a skilled magus in their area of choice could readily, at start, be looking at d10+20 or more, and will probably have d10+12 across several areas which are outside, but related to, their specialty. Players notice those numbers. Moreover, skill TNs are "must equal or beat" to do something; magic TNs are "must come within 10 to cast spell, though equal or beat is better." So magic TNs are really high, and a player casting a level-30 spell feels a real sense of accomplishment, even though in real terms that's equivalent to a skill TN of maybe 15.

The contrast between mundane actions and magical ones is played up - heightened - for effect. Player attention is concentrated on magic, which is where the designers want it. Was this intentional? You tell me. But if you spot something like this in my game, it probably is, because I'm going to go over it with a fine-toothed comb looking for this sort of thing.

Symmetry/Harmony Example: Shadowrun, Specific arena: Chargen
Baseline: North America (default setting of the game), with very familiar living conditions and lifestyles; currencies and faces may change, but capitalism and democracy remain familiar.
Vision: Magic and cyberpunk (esp. the Matrix) both run rampant as transformative forces on the world.
Effect Desired: Make "normal" characters, homo sapiens sapiens without overt toys, feel equal in cool-factor to the more fantasical options, whether they be the Elven Decker or the Combat Mage. More importantly, play up a trope of cyberpunk, that "the street finds its own uses for things," and that even high technology and, in this case, magic will find street niches which are more ordinary than they are elite.
Technique Used: Parallelism and symmetry. The game recommends the use of Archetypes for chargen, and even if many players skip to the custom rules, each Archetype is still a nice one-page spread with a colour image of the character; everybody will flip through them, guaranteed. And, subtly but tellingly, the presentation of every archetype is the same. The figure is in the same place with relation to the text, is drawn with comparable use of colour, is basically the same size, and its stat block is laid out exactly the same. By placing the fantastic elements side-by-side with the more familiar ones, with an overt intent to balance their power levels, the game also communicates the "street finds its own uses for things" concepts beautifully.

In D&D, and possibly LOTR:RPG (haven't read it), this is arguably a failure of the Vision; nobody wants to hear about the street finding its own uses for wizardry as wielded by Gandalf. As such, implications that warriors like Boromir and wizards like Gandalf are somehow equivalent come across poorly. But in Shadowrun, having magic be just one more thing that ultimately comes down to gritty bloodsports in back alleys is a theme unto itself, and so implying that everybody lives on basically the same level - the lowest one - is golden. They use graphical methods to imply direct harmony between the fantastical and the realistic types of characters, and it pays off.

Each of these is distinct from the act of simply picking a realism level; they're finer-scale manipulations of the Baseline/Vision spectrum, which take into account that there is a distinction between the two, and play with that distinction for effect.

Does that help indicate why I'm kind of excited about this? Especially when you combine that with the thoughts about learning curves which we've still red-flagged but not explored? I suspect that the choice was in neither instance perfectly conscious, at least not in these words... but at the same time, just because those designers did it "by feel" does not mean that you can't learn to do it more consistently through analysis. I think of this a lot like colour theory; you can put contrasting colours side-by-side to one effect, and complementary colours alongside one another to a very different effect, and if you know this, then when you want a hard edge, you can skip over the complementary colours and look only at the contrasting ones. Some painters will do this instinctually... but they still teach it.

- Eric

Hi Eric,

Wow. That's an awesome aplication. I dig it. The fact that one can look at how the tension plays out and is addressed in many aspects of design (rules, color, setting etc.) makes it more complex. I'm mulling that over and will say more as it comes to me.

I was careful in my post here to represent what Chris L. had originally intended by the terms, because in the other thread I realized I saw them differently, and I wanted to preserve the distinction. I think you and I are on the same page with respect to them, but let me say a little more so we can be sure.

I see baseline as an arbitrary choice. Baseline most often starts at "reality" for the simple reason that that's what everyone will assume to be true unless told otherwise. This masks the fact that that lump sum of assumptions is actually going to vary considerably from person to person, based on experience & knowledge, and also priority of what "realism" means. For Ron, human nature ringing true is most important, for someone else making sure that the physics of artillery is dead on might be what matters. Any given game could hypothetically deliver all these myriad types of realism, but it would be quite the game that could deliver them all.

So, baseline is going to be what a) the system and b) the users make of it. So, earlier today I was thinking of this line with endpoints we're talking about, with on end-point tagged on to "reality" as the primary baseline, and an infinity of other points that connect to all the possible visions out there for games. Now I see that really there are as many baseline points as vision. Really all that we are talking about is taking the many ideas about what the game world & experience are going to contain, and bridging that gap. If you don't have just one gm, but many, then the line could become a network or polygon, connecting the visions/baselines of all the participants until they align. The vision can be another point to which all of those baselines connect.

Whew. That's more esoteric than I meant to get here. The main thing I wanted to communicate is that as I see it, and this may not be the most useful way to define Baseline, it may start at "reality" as default, and then get shifted to whatever the setting/premise of the game is (ie Ars Magica, the immediate shift of the Baseline is to "Medieval Europe", the next shift is "where magic works and there are organized orders", etc.) The vision of whoever is holding the reins, or rather, all those who contribute to it, which includes game designers, gms etc. is communicated to those who are participating in the game experience, and they then give feed back on what they have to contribute. The sum is the new baseline.

So that's how I see it. How Chris presented it, I think, is that the Baseline is common perception of reality, and the Vision is the source material (genre text, period etc.) and the game exists in between all of that.

Thoughts on which is a better/more useful way to conceive of this concept?


Regards,
Em

Hi, sorry I'm late, got caught in traffic....

Thanks, Eric, for taking this ball and running with it. I'm liking where I see this going, and think it could potentially be quite useful.

A note on practicality is in order, however. I do think this addition to the Grand Unified Theory could have practical utility, for the same reason that GNS does, or Stances. The more clearly you know what you are trying to achieve, as a designer (or GM, for that matter), and the better you know what the implications of those choices are, the more efficiently and smoothly you can select the elements of game design that support these goals. Because, as we all know, system does matter.

Back to your regularly scheduled program.

I'm not particularly wedded to either the moving-point or fixed-point versions of the model, but as long as everyone seems to like moving-point, let me make a pitch for the other side.

The first point is what I've called dynamic tension. I see gaming, like any artistic form, as existing in a perpetual state of tension. This creates drama (thus dramatic tension, for example), it creates excitement, and so forth. Suppose we imagine a superhero campaign, of a relatively low power-level, just as an example.

Now on one end we have Baseline, a mutually-agreed upon general sense of what's possible, realistic, etc. You don't have to get cute about this; the point for me is just that if Baseline is our modern world, and your game happens very close to Baseline, you don't simply charge people who are firing machine-guns, nor do you seriously expect you will see a lot of people firing machine-guns. Similarly, you expect that while it is perfectly possible for someone to run blindfolded across a busy highway and not get hit, you expect that (a) it will be very dangerous and he might not make it, and (b) if he does, it'll be because a lot of people have good reflexes and powerful brakes.

On the other end, we've got Vision: "relatively low-power supers," say, a little more powerful than "Unbreakable," but a little less so than "Dark Knight Returns." Our Vision is also that it's gritty, it's violent, and that people's personal issues will tend to be more on the side of "I'm traumatized by accidentally killing that kid" than "I'm agonizing about whether my sweetie wants to marry me."

Now some have suggested that Vision is Premise, which I deny; I think that Vision may very well include Premise if there is one, but I don't know that every game is founded upon Premise. Even in Sorcerer, in a particular campaign, I don't buy that the Premise is all there is to Vision, because Demons, and Summoning, and all that is part of Vision as well, as is tone, and color, and so forth.

At any rate, the point is that the game exists in a state of tension between Baseline and Vision. When a dramatic situation comes up, it's dramatic because it's unclear which side is going to win out. For example, suppose our superhero character is Very Tough -- that's his power, it seems. So when he runs across that highway to save that baby, we've got a dramatic situation: (1) does he make it alive, unhurt, etc.? (2) does he save the baby?

Baseline is pulling toward (1) no, and thus (2) no.
Vision is pulling toward (1) yes, though maybe dinged a bit, and (2) probably yes.

So here's a thought: in the relatively low-mechanic games, how do you know when die rolls (or whatever) are required? I mean, you don't need dice to tie your shoes. So you know, I argue, because you intuitively sense a tension-point, a moment in which Baseline and Vision are pulling in different directions. This requires resolution of some sort.

As far as Baseline and Vision shifting, i.e. being moving end-points, I'm not quite sure what's being referred to. At times it seems as though we're talking about different games, at times about different runs of the same game, at times about diachronic change within a single campaign.

My push for fixity referred only to the last of these. Of course D&D and Sorcerer have Baseline and Vision in really different places, and of course two different Sorcerer campaigns may well have really different Baselines and Visions. No worries there. My argument was, and I suppose is (as I say, I'm not all that wedded to it either way), that part of what constitutes Exploration is the constant push back and forth between Vision and Baseline, to see how and where they tend to pull back. The better you know this, the less you're likely to push on the extreme outer limits of the two, I suppose, but even that doesn't strike me as necessary (just usual).

---------

Now let's talk practicality again, for a minute.

Suppose I want to design a game that's sort of like Unknown Armies but set in the Victorian era, and in which I have no intention of coming up with a whole vast back-story as UA did. My idea is to have this sort of twisted magical conspiracy stuff be (1) less coherent, and (2) co-designed by the players and GM during the course of play. [This game is called Shadows in the Fog, and a draft can be found at the WWW button below -- this is not a hypothetical example.]

Now as a designer, and as a GM, I have some problems to solve. Let's look at some of the ones that fit neatly into this sort of modeling.

Baseline: I know that the reality of the Victorian world is rather different from the reality of our world, but if I just announce that we're going to do everything "Victorian," nobody will really know what I'm talking about. So what I do is to think about what things are actually different, and importantly so, between an ordinary Victorian sense of reality and ours. I select as few of these as possible, and only the ones most important to me (because of Vision), and on these very few points I make an explicit plea for a shift of Baseline. Otherwise, I don't challenge or bend an ordinary sense of reality; in fact, I emphasize that one ought to assume that Baseline is the reality an ordinary person (i.e. a player) has come to expect, insofar as physics, color, human behavior, etc.

Thus in this case, I make clear that getting shot tends to kill you, and all that. But I do make a few points about how the law works: you can carry concealed weaponry all you like, and you can even fire it, but if you shoot somebody you'd better be of an appropriate class and/or have an enormously good reason and lots of witnesses. Similarly, I remind people that there are no telephones; on the other hand, the London mail has between 5 and 7 deliveries and pickups per day, and thus within the main part of the city you can expect that a letter mailed in the early morning will receive a response by evening. As to human nature, it may be true that Victorians wear their masks rather more strongly than modern Americans do, but don't think for a minute that the guy whose girl you just took at the ball doesn't mind, just because he was so polite and charming about it. Your ordinary notions of humanity apply: you steal somebody's girl, that somebody gets pissed off. Don't be fooled because he's better bred than you.

Vision: Now I do have a vision for this game, but (I can't stress this enough) there is no text I can point to and say, "Yeah, like that." None. I have a lot of such texts, but none of them is quite what I want. So how do I convey the sort of game I want?

First, I make some negative moves. NOT Victoriana chintz silliness with people saying "Gad, sir!" and wearing foofy clothing for the hell of it.

Second, I set a relatively far point, or rather group of them, through examples. Sherlock Holmes, Jekyll and Hyde, Poe, Huysmans, Wilde; now some history: Jack the Ripper, the Golden Dawn, the Parnell Affair, Crippen, Cream, historical Freemasonry, the Poor Law, etc.

Third, I start suggesting ways to pull toward the Vision end of the spectrum, through examples of magic, heroism, and so forth.

Fourth, I go into considerable mechanical detail about how to bend the universe through magic and manipulation of Tarot cards. This is back to Mike's Rant: by putting this in the mechanics, where little else is actually mechanically represented, we clearly emphasize that this game is largely about magic.

Dynamic Tension: If this works, the idea is that the players will now help formulate Vision by contrast to Baseline. When something happens that seems seriously out-of-kilter to Baseline, they should be able to decide, aesthetically, whether it "feels" right in the sense that it's a strong pull toward Vision where it varies from Baseline. Similarly, if somebody starts doing the whole cheese-whiz pseudo-Victoriana nonsense, it should pull so hard against Baseline (people just don't act that way, period, and never did) that the whole group more or less acts to suppress it.

Eventually, the hope is that the this balancing act will become very subtle: it only takes slight tweaks out of reality (off Baseline) to hint that something extraordinary and probably magical (toward Vision) is happening. Even the most minor occurrences start to become clues to hidden conspiracies and so forth.

Now this is admittedly a somewhat extreme example. It's deliberately so. My point is:

1. This Baseline-Tension-Vision model directly affects design.
2. System matters, and is strongly supported here.
3. Baseline is not Social Contract, nor physics, nor reality as it actually is; it's a perception based on comfort and the "ordinary," and can be tweaked a bit as desired.
4. Vision is not Genre, unless you want to limit it so; there is no established genre for SitF, since there is no example at all for SitF.
5. The excitement and interest of the game lies in Tension.
6. One can treat the endpoints as fixed, and still have this make sense.

On point 6, I suspect you can treat them as moving, but as somebody noticed, it's a lot harder to design toward a moving target.

Okay, that's more than enough for one post. I look forward to continuing the discussion....

clehrich wrote: My point is:

1. This Baseline-Tension-Vision model directly affects design.
2. System matters, and is strongly supported here.
3. Baseline is not Social Contract, nor physics, nor reality as it actually is; it's a perception based on comfort and the "ordinary," and can be tweaked a bit as desired.
4. Vision is not Genre, unless you want to limit it so; there is no established genre for SitF, since there is no example at all for SitF.
5. The excitement and interest of the game lies in Tension.
6. One can treat the endpoints as fixed, and still have this make sense.

John Kim wrote: But take Amber, for example. What is the Baseline and what is Vision? Then you have other cases: like Toon, Paranoia, or Star Wars. How would you define the Baseline for these games?

So tension here is based on how unusual the non RL elements are to the inhabitants of the world? That is, it seems to me that Baseline is what the inhabitants expect, and Vision is what we really get. Tension, then is the difference between the expectations of the inhabitants and what really happens?

Stll seems mighty nebulous to me. I'm certain I'm not understanding something.

BTW, premise is somewhat an outmoded term which is starting to be replaced by the phrase Creative Agenda becasue of the confusion it caused. But, simply stated, all games have Premises. It's the "what do you do?" of the game.

Mike

I think I can speak to this somewhat.

First off, the moving-endpoints thing really is a small part of the whole. We've been using the moving term to mean "different if you ask different (playgroups or players)" and also to mean "different from moment to moment within the same group, both due to the initial learning-curve of picking up the text, and due to a shift in the group's expectations as play progresses." Sure, these are distinct, and sure, it's hard to hit a moving target... but I think that more importance is getting assigned to this than needs to. Chris L. is quite right that the whole idea makes sense even if you treat them as stationary. I think that the "moving endpoints" refinement is of most use to us in one specific application: a caveat. We will talk about things being "nearer to the Baseline" or being "strongly indicative of the game's Vision" or what have you... but never forget that neither of these is truly a fixed point, and assume that you need some slack. Like with the idea of resiliency as discussed elsewhere, you need to assume that two groups will read your Vision differently, and try to make your Vision-dependent elements of design able to adapt to either one. Other than as used in this one caveat, "moving endpoints" will only become really useful once we have a more solid understanding of this set of terms, at which point I'll crack open stuff like the learning curve discussion and we can come at those with proper tools in hand. Moving endpoints will be a lot more relevant then, but is not otherwise (IMO) all that important to us at the current level of understanding.

The other is that I disagree slightly with some of Chris L.'s examples of Baseline, and Mike's last question lands right at the disconnect, so we certainly need to address it or get muddled.

I think the important part for me is that Baseline always refers to player comfort zones, player expectations, realism and default context as understood by the players. Never to something the characters, whether they be the PCs or the general inhabitants of the setting, believe to be the case. This ties directly to one of the primary functions of the Baseline - to be the point of contact, the accessible context, for the readers/participants. Chris, I may not even have a functional definition of the word 'hermeneutic,' but your sideline about Ricoeur still speaks to me very clearly and clicks with - and expands upon, with its thought of things as cyclical - my understanding here. This is not something we should let go by without some look at how it works into all of this. And the first thing I emerge from it feeling is that we could, perhaps, define Baseline as that subset of the game elements with which the gamers at the table can directly relate, and which require very little suspension of disbelief or immersion in the world.

It's rather circular, but the Baseline should always make sense directly, without needing the Vision explained to the reader. The Vision is the component which the game designer must impart, from his mind into theirs; the Baseline is that which they themselves bring to the table, in terms of their real-world experiences and their intuition. The designer can say, The following things work as you would expect them to; they are the Baseline. The following things violate your intuition about the way things work; they are the Vision, and I will explain them to you.

We can look at that last in context of Ars Magica, very clearly. There are two parts to the setting text in AM, and I suspect that although they are not perfectly well separated in the layout, textual analysis would reveal strong distinctions between the two ways of describing things - they do use quite a different tone of voice. Part one is where they say, "This game is set in a variant of mediaeval Europe. If you aren't familiar with mediaeval Europe, here's an overview to get you started." Part two is where they say, "Except that, because magic is real and magi, faeries, and these other elements exist, here are some ways in which the setting is not mediaeval Europe."

Putting it this way, with expectation as a strong element of the Baseline, I think we might find that games which strongly derive from source material, such as Star Wars, are a kind of a special case. Because you need to speak to two groups of people, one - fans of the source matter - for whom the tropes of that material are expected in a game about this universe; and two, the people who don't know Luke from Adam, for whom our own reality remains 'that which is intuitive' and for whom it is a much, much bigger jump to the Vision. This is probably just the single most severe instance of a moving endpoint we know, and is part of why such material is typically (a) difficult to write, and (b) difficult to do sophisticated things with. Among its other awkwardnesses, it makes playing any games with Baseline-Vision tension very difficult, when the line between them could be quite short, or extremely long, for any given group. And this is not laughable; think of my examples above, which either heighten the differences or minimize them, for effect. Putting lightsaber stats alongside sword stats could help make them more comfortable for one group, who don't go into it knowing what a lightsaber is... but it would grate on the other, for whom that's all playing around within the Baseline itself, and indeed for whom the inclusion of ordinary swords at all is a kind of failure to meet expectations.

Treating games whose Vision is internally derived is probably simpler, for now, because it lets us approach the dichotomy unclouded by the above. The same thing goes for Toon, I think... some people come at it with this merry Baseline they want to emulate, who don't need the game to have much Vision at all ("you can play these characters" may be it), while others come at it from a closer-to-home perspective, and the merry pranks come from the communicated Vision messing with their expectations of the laws of physics.

Regardless, if we stick to talking about Shadows in the Fog, Ars Magica, or other games all of whose Vision is contained in the game text and not invoked through specific outside sources, I think we can keep things clearer for now.

Which brings me back to:

Chris Lehrich wrote: So here's a thought: in the relatively low-mechanic games, how do you know when die rolls (or whatever) are required? I mean, you don't need dice to tie your shoes. So you know, I argue, because you intuitively sense a tension-point, a moment in which Baseline and Vision are pulling in different directions. This requires resolution of some sort.

...as he also wrote: ...part of what constitutes Exploration is the constant push back and forth between Vision and Baseline, to see how and where they tend to pull back.

OK, wait. Lightsabres are Baseline? How are they not part of the Vision?

If Baseline and Vision are a player thing entirely, then the Baseline for every human is their experience, right? Well, then, yes it's a "moving point" for the indivisual in terms of how "realistic" they'll see the baseline elements. But I'm not sure that's something one can worry about too much. I mean I guess it's an esthetic consideration, but in terms of the text, you're going to choose a fixed aesthetic and stick to it. No two ways about it. And that includes "elastic" Baselines, which will annoy some people as much as a hard and wrong Baseline.

What I'm saying is that we can debate the nature of this beastie all night, but in the morning we have to design a game, and there's nothing here that tells me where to put the baseline at. And there never will be.

As far as the Vision, this now seems to me to be "those elements of the game that don't coincide with our reality (baseline)". Well, these elements have even less rules about what's good and what's not. Because some people like each element and others do not.

My favorite example is FTL travel. Almost nobody balks at this one. Oh, they'll have problems with humans with Psionic powers or something else they term "soft", but then ignore the fact that FTL travel is just as "soft". Basically there's no telling what'll turn one person on and another off.

So you just have to choose. And go with what you decide sounds like a good combination of elements.

Yes, the region between Baseline (that which every player knows is possible) and Vision (that which the game tells you is possible), is the bounded region of play. But that's just saying that a game is "about something" that there's a "what you do" in each game. That the text of the game defines the "what you do" in the context of what the player knows.

It's always been a point here at The Forge that good game design entails delivering to the player the "what do you do". The term we formerly used was Premise. Now we use the less problematic Creative Agenda. Which is defined as "that which is to be explored, and how to explore it."

The whole tension issue seems concocted to provide a meaning for this whole structure. I think there's something there, but that you don't need the term's Baseline and Vision to describe it (unless I have it very wrong as to what it is). I could define this tension as the fun that one has exploring the differences between our world and the game world.

If I'm still missing it, I'm still listening.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: OK, wait. Lightsabres are Baseline? How are they not part of the Vision?

If Baseline and Vision are a player thing entirely, then the Baseline for every human is their experience, right?

Just a very quick remark; I'm trying desperately to finalize another project, and if I get into this I'll spend hours at it.

John Kim wrote: OK, it seems to me that a number of things are potentially being referred to here. I could express them like:
1) What the player expects based on reality.
2) What the player expects based on the genre.
3) What the character expects based on his world.
4) What actually happens.
Now, of course this gets pretty hairy. However, I don't think we can ignore the #1 vs #2 distinction.

Chris,

It's related to the supporting theory behind the particular detail of GNS. GNS is just one axis of specifying these game realities. I'll get back to that. But the theory basically says that the system is Rules in the Social Contract sense (the Lumpley Principle). And Rules are what we use to define what happens in the "shared imaginary space", or rather, how it can be determined. What that form is that the rules determine is called the "creative agenda". The "shared imaginary space" (and Fang first came up with that, IIRC) is obviously fictitous, and as such may resemble, well, anything that one can imagine. That will range from something somewhat similar to reality to things completely different from it. You choose one of these things, and you make the game "about" that.

Now, there are three basic sorts of Creative Agendas, G and N and S; but while that's true, it's not particularly important to discuss here. I mean, every Creative Agenda will be either G or N or S, but that's only important where it's important.

The question I would have is, what, if anything, has been presented that's not covered in this theory.

You say:

My point is simply that game design needs to recognize that RPGs float in a tension-point between one aesthetic judgment (so-called reality, a naturalized and difficult to challenge judgment) and another (genre, source material, whatever, which is easier to get at). By being aware of this tension, rather than simply trying to present one end of the spectrum, you account for and encourage dramatic tension by factoring it into the nature of the system.

Mike,

As you say, it's long since past time to discuss Fang's notion; that was another thread, some time ago. The idea I'm trying to get across has little to do with Fang's; in fact, I think we disagree fairly strongly here.

Again, as you say, most games are necessarily in the middle. This raises at least one question: are they all aware of this? I doubt that.

I'd also agree that GNS preferences will tend to encourage some approach or another to this balancing act, but I do not think that you could draw out a spectrum and "grade" GNS preferences on it. That's part of why I don't consider this to have very much to do with GNS as such.

So what's the point here? Well, I think a lot of people find that GNS is most useful diagnostically, i.e. in reference to games that have problems. Ron makes this point himself. I'm trying to analyze the way one goes about setting up a game, on purpose, from the outset. And I think that a very useful way of doing this is to think analytically about your Vision and how it relates to Baseline reality.

In particular, I think it is useful to think about where the Vision differs from Baseline, and to what extent this is important to your sense of the game's normal desired balance. I'm surprised this doesn't seem important to you: it fits very neatly into your Rant about emphasis in mechanics.

For example, suppose you are laying out a gritty reality game in which people get killed easily when they get into gunfights. So you think to yourself, how far is this sense of combat from Baseline? Not very. Is it worth special emphasis? Not a lot; perhaps just a general tone to make clear that violence is a pretty bad idea. Now when you start laying out mechanics to support the balance you have in mind, it won't even occur to you to waste time detailing a combat system down to the last newton of kickback, because you've already realized that this is not something to emphasize mechanically.

In other words, I think that using a Baseline-Vision perspective from an initial design stage would obviate the need for your Rant. In a way, I see this all as a large theoretical extension of that Rant.

Is this making sense now?

clehrich wrote: In other words, I think that using a Baseline-Vision perspective from an initial design stage would obviate the need for your Rant. In a way, I see this all as a large theoretical extension of that Rant.

Is this making sense now?

Mike Holmes wrote: If we are just saying that one ought to consider how to deliver the rules that inform the creation of the "shared imaginative space" (actually that's Ron, as it turns out), that we need to consider just how to inform that Exploration, then I totally agree. GNS is one way to consider that. There are probably others, too. If we can come up with other ways, I'm all for discussing that. But I'm not seeing what the hullabaloo is about the notion that one should design their games to deliver the desired effects. That's "System Does Matter" and we're all on board, AFAICT.

For example, suppose you are laying out a gritty reality game in which people get killed easily when they get into gunfights. So you think to yourself, how far is this sense of combat from Baseline? Not very. Is it worth special emphasis? Not a lot; perhaps just a general tone to make clear that violence is a pretty bad idea. Now when you start laying out mechanics to support the balance you have in mind, it won't even occur to you to waste time detailing a combat system down to the last newton of kickback, because you've already realized that this is not something to emphasize mechanically.

I want a game that's about people making sacrifices. The question is, "What will you give up in return for what?" And I'm interested in pushing this to be a question about giving up common decency for physical powers.

Hi Chris,

You've got your layers all bollixed up. Try this (from the about-to-be posted Gamism essay):

[Social Contract [Exploration [GNS [rules [techniques [Stances]]]]]]

Every inner "box" is an expression or realization of the box(es) it's nested in.

1. Everything occurs embedded in the Social Contract, which includes many things about play and not-play, especially the Balance of Power.

2. Exploration is the primary act of role-playing, composed of five parts with some causal relationships among them.

3. The "modes" of play (because they have to be expressed via communication and play itself, not just "felt") are currently best described as Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist play. Play (as opposed merely to hanging out with friends) cannot occur without such an agenda. I'm now using the term "creative agenda" to refer to the three modes as a concept, replacing the small-p "premise" term in the older essay.

4. Techniques of play include many different relationships among rules, people's decisions, announcements, and similar. "System" (or rather textual system) interacts with Techniques all the time, in terms of things like Currency, Resolution (DFK, IIEE), and Reward systems. Which of these is inner or outer is debatable and probably variable, although I've diagrammed it in keeping with the idea that techniques are applied within a framework of rules.

5. Actual play shifts quickly among Stances.

You're making a straw man out of GNS. I've said repeatedly that GNS is only one part of the equation.

Mike: it's the theory underlying GNS
Chris: no, it's not GNS at all
Mike: right, it's the theory underlying GNS

System Matters doesn't say that GNS is the only way to analyze a game. If you look at it, it says that this is one analytical tool. We completely agree there.

What it does say is that one ought to consider what to put into a game. GNS being one thing. Level of realism, perhaps being another. And many many others. All these things together would form what the GNS essay puts forth (in describing the underpinnings of the theory, not the theory itself) as Premise. Which has since been renamed Creative Agenda.

From the essay:

Character, System, Setting, Situation, and Color.

Character: a fictional person or entity.
System: a means by which in-game events are determined to occur.
Setting: where the character is, in the broadest sense (including history as well as location).
Situation: a problem or circumstance faced by the character.
Color: any details or illustrations or nuances that provide atmosphere.
At the most basic level, these are what the role-playing experience is "about," but to be more precise, these are the things which must be imagined by the real people. In this sense, saying "system" means "imagining events to be occurring."

Exploration and its child, Premise
The best term for the imagination in action, or perhaps for the attention given the imagined elements, is Exploration. Initially, it is an individual concern, although it will move into the social, communicative realm, and the commitment to imagine the listed elements becomes an issue of its own.

When a person perceives the listed elements together and considers Exploring them, he or she usually has a basic reaction of interest or disinterest, approval or disapproval, or desire to play or lack of such a desire. Let's assume a positive reaction; when it occurs, whatever prompted it is Premise, in its most basic form. To re-state, Premise is whatever a participant finds among the elements to sustain a continued interest in what might happen in a role-playing session. Premise, once established, instils the desire to keep that imaginative commitment going.

Still, the Vision-Baseline model does allow a number of preliminary analytical moves.

Okay. Guys, calm down. We're talking past each other.

About a week ago I lost a solid reply to Mike's query about three posts up (to a Netscape crash), and Grr-I-don't-want-to-redo-it plus lack of time anyway has prevented a repost.

I'm still shy of time, so I'll try to keep this brief, but I'll probably fail.

The primary use of the Baseline/Vision analysis seems to be in its local applications. I think my usage of the word "local" may be confusing things, stemming as it does from physics - space is locally Euclidean, a function may be locally smooth, and so on. If this word is still causing confusion after you read this post, please let me know and I'll try to define it in terms relevant to us here. If you're looking for techniques, Mike, please go back up and reread my Ars Magica and Shadowrun examples, carefully; each of those is an example of 'local' Tension.

What we're talking about with this taxonomy is just a way, one of many, in which the Explored elements relate to each other in the work. A given element can be helping to express the Vision of the work, or it can be helping in several ways (cf. the hermeneutic cycle, accessibility, et al) by being an element of the necessary Baseline. The relations of those elements to each other form the Tension of the work, as we have defined it here.

We express the idea of an overall Tension but frankly that's just an abstraction which stems from the Creative Agenda. Players perceive it, therefore it matters, but we're all of us getting bogged down discussing it. The Baseline/Vision spectrum must be incarnate in the Tension between two specific elements of the work for it to be meaningful in terms of techniques, at least right now. I used the relation between the skill-rules and the magic-rules in AM, and between dissimilar archetypes in Shadowrun, as examples of places where the Tension is being used to generate an effect on the reader.

If this relates to Premise, it is only in a building-blocks way. Perhaps a player (a) dimly understands the thematic object "The street finds its own uses for things," in a Shadowrun setting. The Archetypes section uses Tension-related technique (b) to bring this thematic element into higher relief in the reader's mind (and in the creation of his PC); alternately, one could say that the text is further communicating the Vision of the material, and is using a low level of Baseline/Vision contrast in a particular way to do so. This thematic element may become one of the building blocks of (c) a level of player-interest which crystallizes into (d) an Edwardian Premise, such as "When the street abuses an idea, is the creator responsible for that abuse?"

Does that help?

Mike, I think that the quote you provided, and the definition of Premise Ron sketched out to me by PM, have a subtle disconnect, which may be part of why we're having communications problems here; see my distinctions (c) and (d) above. This thread will not attempt to define or redefine Premise, thank you. In the above I sketched out why I feel that the Baseline/Vision thing is a characteristic of the Premise, or more precisely a characteristic of an intermediate thing with no name [a "thematic element"] which is one of the building-blocks of Premise. And as such, Baseline/Vision/Tension can be discussed separately, just as one could discuss the characteristics of the fan-belt separately from the car itself.

Chris and I are talking about adjusting the Tension on the fan belt. While this relates to GNS (the way the car is to be used), and in fact has a strong linkage (because different intended purposes for the car will indeed want different fan-belt tensions and other adjustments), we're a pair of mechanics trying to talk about (a) ways to tighten the belt, and (b) when one might want to specifically apply more, or less, tension in it, and what that would do to the car. Of course the intended use of the car (GNS mode) and the reasons people will have for driving our car (Premise) and the reactions they'll come away with after doing so (Theme) are all important; but we'll leave that for another level of discussion entirely.

Now, one more time, go back up and look at the Ars Magica and Shadowrun examples. Meanwhile, I'm dragging this thread back on topic...

If we take it as given that the game has a Baseline to hold on to, and a Vision to communicate, and that it therefore includes a lot of "baseline elements" and "vision elements," it seems obvious to me that these elements may or may not have the same role in this spectrum depending on context or usage.

However, despite this, some relationships between textual elements will have a Baseline/Vision Tension between them, and in such a relationship one of them holds up the Baseline end and one the Vision end of their string. The fact that we spotted a Tension in that relationship means that we can probably tell the roles of the two elements, right now, as well. (Sometimes you're the butch, sometimes you're the fem, but if somebody looks over and you and your girl are playing it up to tease, then odds are that an onlooker can tell which boots fit each of you at the moment.)

And you can play up that Tension to do one thing - start a bar fight? - or play it down to do something else - not piss off her aunt and cousins.

The definiton of "baseline element" and "vision element," versus the Tension between them, is sort of circular, but only sort of - you need not have set out to generate that Tension, it may have emerged just because the two of you are sitting together, dancing together, what have you. The skill rules in AM and the magic rules in same have an intrinsic relationship (sharing the same essential mechanic), so you get the choice of either play up the difference (make the magic mods higher so that it stands out) or play it down (make everything use same-magnitude dice mods to convey similarity). But you have to pick one or the other, the Tension comes with the territory.

How do we, as designers, spot places where the Tension will arise, so we can decide whether to tweak it or not? How do we look ahead and say intelligent things about the Tension-spots in our emerging game, and design for it, or are we doomed to merely use this as an editing tool? I think we can look ahead at least somewhat; take the organization of the work as a whole. If you have a "miraculous deeds" chapter and a "mundane life before you were EnNobled" or whatever chapter, think about sequencing... do you want them (a) high-Tension, by placing them bang up against each other and giving them similar systems, or (b) low-Tension, with a buffer of unrelated material and dissimilar systems? High-Tension focusses attention on the dichotomy, and helps make the overall Vision feel more estranged from reality; low-Tension hides and diffuses attention, makes the overall Vision feel more familiar. Which do I, in this game, want? That's the question we should be asking ourselves.

What I'm curious about is how we spot such instances in the first place, so as to ask it at all. Preferably in advance. Any comments?

- Eric

Harlequin wrote: Okay. Guys, calm down. We're talking past each other.

The Baseline/Vision spectrum must be incarnate in the Tension between two specific elements of the work for it to be meaningful in terms of techniques, at least right now. I used the relation between the skill-rules and the magic-rules in AM, and between dissimilar archetypes in Shadowrun, as examples of places where the Tension is being used to generate an effect on the reader.

If this relates to Premise, it is only in a building-blocks way. Perhaps a player (a) dimly understands the thematic object "The street finds its own uses for things," in a Shadowrun setting.

...

This thematic element may become one of the building blocks of (c) a level of player-interest which crystallizes into (d) an Edwardian Premise, such as "When the street abuses an idea, is the creator responsible for that abuse?"

Just to poke my nose in where it has been mentioned so many times....

Mike and company,

I kinda like where all this Vision and Baseline stuff is going. Baseline is a very clever description for things I've always struggled to talk about. While I recognize a need to talk about things 'not Baseline,' I don't think Vision is a good word for it. Vision sounds to me too much like the apex of one's 'Creative Agenda,' the real ideal of play one strives to facilitate. But yeah, there needs to be a word for all of what the Baseline isn't.

Now, on 'what Fang was going on about.' The games I started out talking about simply have an obvious disconnect between Baseline and Vision. This would be like creating d20 Sorcerer without any Humanity rules. Such a design spends a lot of time concentrating on the Baseline and then the Vision seems only like an afterthought. I'm not saying all games are like this, but all of the really good designs here on the Forge, that I've been privy to the design-process of, seem to connect Vision to Baseline in a completely unconscious and intuitive fashion. This does not help me in my deliberate design style. ("Just do it!" they say. "Do what?")

I first tried to discuss both this problem and this 'disconnect' in the worst possible way, with the worst possible terminology, in the most unfairly provocative way in "Psychotic (or is It Schizoid) Game Design." It was very shabby of me, so I cut the thread off. Somehow I managed to let myself get drawn into a furtherance of that mistake in the thread called "Aesthetics and Reality," also very poorly done of me and again I withdrew. It seems strange to me that no one seems to realize I'm still talking about the same things.

So I pondered and thought, I worked and I considered, until I came up with entirely different terms and a new analogy. This was "Elegance and Deliberateness." It really seemed to be going great guns about some of the more esoteric techniques one might employ until....

...Y'see, it wasn't just about Elegance; that would have been a ridiculous waste of time (but that seems to be how it was read). It was about Elegance and Deliberateness. The thread's topic certainly wasn't simply "System Does Matter," BECAUSE IT DOESN'T. Saying that "Elegance and Deliberateness" provides nothing new or useful is about as fair as saying the GNS just says "Play Nice" or "Don't Play with People who don't Play Like You Do." (Because that's all the GNS does say, doesn't it?)

At those times when "System Does Matter," "Elegance and Deliberateness" is just one approach to make it "matter" more. No where in that venerable document does it detail any specific ways how to make system "matter" more. "Deliberate Elegance" is more a discussion of how the different components, not just of system but of the whole game, relate to each other with their differing amounts of 'mattering.' Moreover it talks about composing the relationships between those (and their attendant "Elegances") "Deliberately" with a focus on relativity and an overall structural scope or plan. I realize I am one of the most deliberate designers on the Forge and that most people do this kind of thing completely subconsciously, but that doesn't mean discussing it is meaningless or completely implied by a more rudimentary predecessor. That strikes me like saying that there is no point in discussing conscious cinematography, that one should simply get in there and direct.

I've decided it's high past time that I finally settle down and become the resident nay-sayer, but if you please, I'll keep it in the Scattershot Forum.

Fang Langford

p. s. I'd just like to know how saying 'this is nothing new' and 'that is already in another article' are anything but making categorical statements and why I get called on such statements especially when repeated requests for explanations or citations by these other authors go unheeded.

I re-read those examples. I have the same problem with them that I did when I first read them. It is, to me, wag-the-dog design. It seems you're looking at a game and reverse-engineering its design in a way I just can't accept.

Here's why. I just plainly don't believe that the designers sat down and said, chronologically:

1) "Ok, we're making a Medieval Europe Game."

2 or 3) "It should have skills with a mechanic."

2 or 3) "It should have magic, with the same mechanic.

4) "The magic stuff should be more important than the skills!"

5) "We'll make the modifiers higher to emphasize this!"

I just don't believe it happened that way. The game had an initial spark before any conscious choice of weight between skills and techniques/forms. That initial spark may or may not have been the game's creative agenda as we define it here (it very likely was). The spark was likely something akin to: "Let's make a game of wizards in the medieval world." I just don't comprehend how the designers didn't already know magic was more important than skills from square one. That was the whole concept of the game.

(EDIT: I think you're "atomizing" Creative Agenda into discrete aspects that miss the forest for the trees. That is, I think you're improperly dismantling the creative agenda as a whole to look at components of the whole. This may be useful in analyzing games that exist, but I find it unhelpful in shaping games that don't yet exist)

Making skills "less important" via smaller modifiers than magic was a no-brainer. It's an after-the-fact detail added in. It is, to me, an obvious, unconscious choice.

The example you posed has, in a sense, the "Baseline" as the intial launchpad from which this issue (i.e "tension" between skills and magic) is then analyzed. I see this as entirely backwards. "Medieval Europe setting" is not square-one. Playing a Magus (cool!) is square one. Medieval Europe comes either simulataneously or secondly.

In other words, I cannot fathom how a designer who creates a game like Ars Magica starts with "Medieval europe" and then subsequently, consciously decides (after thinking about tension) that "Magic" should be emphasized. It's just far more likely, from where I'm sitting, that emphasized magic was the choice from the git-go (it was entirely the point of the game), and that making skills therefore less important as a means to emphasize the vision was a "well, duh" moment.

So, I'm still not seeing how this is all useful. I keep seeing, perhaps wrongly, the examples presented thus far as starting at Baseline working the analysis toward making that Baseline jive with Vision. If anything, for me as a designer, Vision is the starting point.

Case 2: Shadowrun archetype design

Here, too, I'm seeing backwards analysis, and therefore have a hard time seeing how it's applcable to future game designs of our own.

I doubt very strongly that "equitable" layout presentation of the archetypes was part of the game design process. I think this was an effect after the fact (after all, you've noticed and/or interpreted it as such after the fact), but I am highly skeptical (as a game designer and especially as a graphic designer) that the archetype page layouts were designed originally for that express purpose. I simply don't buy it. I don't think it was a problem the creators of the game acknowledged. As in: "We better make that Former Company Man have some really neato stuff so people will actually play him over the more detailed Street Mage. I know! We'll make their portraits equivalent!"

I just don't think it happened like this. More likely, the game designer and the art director were different folks, and it's very likely that the art director didn't say boo about game balance and making all the archetypes equally desirable to play.

Further, the character creation mechanics of Shadowrun reinforce equivalent characters via the "priority" creation system and Essence. I don't think graphic page layout is needed, nor sufficient to remind players that everyone's on the same level. System mattered in that regard, and System and Character mattered far more in that regard than did Color (which is what that graphic presentation amounts to).

In sum, I'm saying you and others have done a fair job presenting this Baseline & Vision as an analytical tool for existing examples, but I can't understand how it applies to sitting down and actually making a game.

Let me pose some candid questions for you guys for which I'm not seeing sufficient answers:

How is this Baseline / Vision / Tension technique sufficiently different from System Does Matter? For that matter, how is any of this discussion sufficiently different from 1) System Does Matter and 2) Creative Agenda? If it is not sufficiently different (a new outlook or explanation on those things, for example) are the new terms worthwhile? If it is different, how can it better be expressed so that designers can use the theory practically?

How is Vision discrete from Creative Agenda?

How are are the discrete design decisions (tensions) you're trying to analyze not defined as a"art", by which I mean that un-namable ability that a person does to create "stuff"?

If this is "art" (or perhaps "craft"), then at what point do discrete choices about game design become something you can't analyze -- that is, where's the mystery that is "creation?" Is there no such mystery?

If these discrete processes are not "art", then what are they?

Either way (art or not), how does this model actually help you make decisions about creating a game?

Matt - See the earlier analogy to colour theory. No, most people don't design like that. Neither example was presented as "they did it this way," and in fact they were accompanied by an explicit disclaimer that they propably weren't. Nonetheless, the games probably succeed in part because they made these kinds of good aesthetic and communicative choices. Does that make asking what those choices were, and why they work, invalid? In short, if you're the kind of person who, as a painter, would find studying colour theory obstructive, then by all means, paint. I'm writing for the kind of person who, after reading and thinking about colour theory, would eventually incorporate those ideas into their work, and paint more effectively for it.

Mike - "How is this not all of design?" Well, switching previously applied analogies, how is "tighten this fan belt" not "all of auto repair"? Of course these are aesthetic choices - we're explicitly studying aesthetic choices. Of course this about the Creative Agenda - we're explicitly talking about how you communicate the Creative Agenda. (I do feel there's a basic distinction between Creative Agenda and the Vision, because the Creative Agenda is an overall game designer's vision of his game and the Vision is simply that which is new within the game reality which the designer is trying to communicate. Vision does not include the GNS mode he wishes to support, for example. Also, you can talk about a single element as helping convey the Vision, as distinct from the Baseline, whereas by necessity everything you put down is theoretically helping convey the Creative Agenda. Maybe if you stopped mapping everything into existing terms, and thereby making subtle shifts like this, then we'd be doing better at progressing with our analysis. By my terms, Tension - along with everything else one does in a design - helps communicate the Creative Agenda, which is only somewhat more useful than Douglas Adams' quip about the planet Jupiter being heavier than a duck.)

Mike Holmes wrote: To the issue at hand, if all you're saying is that these terms help you come up with nifty techniques like the ones you point out for Ars and SR, then I lose my heart to argue with you. I mean if it's helping out, I have a strong urge to just let it go. That's the relativist streak in me.

I understand the analogy, Eric, but I find it not terribly enlightening. I am not trying to “disprove” the notion of Baseline / Vision / Tension. I am trying to understand it, and more importantly understand on a specific level how it’s useful for designing new games (not analyzing existing ones).

In your reply to Mike, you answered what you see as the difference between Creative Agenda and Vision. However, several of my questions remain, and I find your painter-color-theory analogy not informative in answering any of the other specific questions I posed.

I have already acknowledged in this thread that people design differently -- Fang doing so deliberately as he describes it, for example. I further stated that I do not design in this way. This does not bar me from discussion of the topic, and I'm amazed to find language in these forums that somehow views that with a kind of subtle sarcastic disdain (accidents of talents, as Fang called it).

But I must say that it troubles me to see such emotional responses from you. I think you’re seeing antagonism in Mike’s queries and my questions. Knowing Mike personally and from his MANY posts here on the Forge, I know that he’s not, nor am I, trying to shoot you down. We are offering serious, critical thought, and we are interested in keeping theory from being redundant and confusing for site visitors. To ask us to go away after insufficiently answering questions that you must answer (for your own sake, not to answer to "US") to make this theory useful is profoundly unhelpful to you and insulting to us.

Forge discussion is so rewarding because people generally are able to keep discussion civil and refrain from saying “leave us alone” when discussing nascent theory. It should be obvious that I’m hardly disinterested in this topic. I wouldn’t post here otherwise.

Finally, you request that the discussion get back on topic in part by addressing questions you pose in your penultimate thread. There, you said:

How do we, as designers, spot places where the Tension will arise, so we can decide whether to tweak it or not? How do we look ahead and say intelligent things about the Tension-spots in our emerging game, and design for it, or are we doomed to merely use this as an editing tool?

Matt Snyder wrote:

Harlequin wrote: How do we, as designers, spot places where the Tension will arise, so we can decide whether to tweak it or not? How do we look ahead and say intelligent things about the Tension-spots in our emerging game, and design for it, or are we doomed to merely use this as an editing tool?

...We’re asking for exactly what you are asking for! How can you, on a very specific level, make this whole idea useful in making games, and how is it anything but an analytical tool for existing designs.

Fang, I don't think either side is being sarcastic. I think we're asking the same question, but for different reasons. Mike and I are asking because we can't (yet) see the practicality in this idea. Eric and others see possibility, but no specific use as yet.

I have read your post regarding your Sim. Iron Chef design. Is the game posted in that thread on Indie Design? I'm missing something in your explanation, but I can infer some points.

Here's one of my big hurdles in dealing with this whole idea: Tension. I just don't see how it's relevant. Or, maybe more appropriately, I don't see how it's relevant in a new way.

For example, Fang, you say you've set your game deliberately in "our world," but you've included a Vision-element in having extra-dimensional duels. I'm with you so far, I think.

You then describe the 'high-contrast' between these two concepts (real world meets extradimensions), saying this is the key to design.

My response (in all seriousness, and no insult intended) is: So what? So these things contrast. How is that relevant? What is the effect on the game?

This thread and elsewhere keep highlighting such contrasts (and reduced contrasts) as somehow illuminating. I'm missing how these are meaningful. I'm waiting for another shoe to drop. What about the fact that extra-dimensional warriors clashing with the fact that this takes place in a "real-life" modern day makes the game more "YOURS." More meaningful?

In other words, I see this contrast, and I think, "Ok, it's a choice of setting and situation, one that could have gone another way, I guess (the game could have been totally set in the extradimensions, for example)."

So, in this instance, I see you getting excited about having made this choice based on Tension, but I'm seeing a not-terribly-exciting design choice based on situation and setting.

How does this make the game more interesting to me? In and of itself, this contrast doesn't do enough for me. I wanna know more about the game's Creative Agenda. What's the point? Maybe then the situation and setting stuff will matter to me more. Otherwise, it's just a sub-set of Creative Agenda, and I can't say much about it.

This is where our two "camps" keep having disconnect, I think. You are eager to see the model help you shape games. I am trying to distinquish the same, but also how it's different from models already presented.

Here's the kicker: The end result is the same, correct? That is, when finished you'll have designed a game that we could analyze using the baseline/vision/tension approach, or we could analyze it using GNS and Creative Agenda issues. Both would be valid, I think.

However, I'm seeing some disagreement because there's been at least some claims that this stuff is somehow removed from GNS and Creative Agenda. No, it's not. It's two sides of the very same coin. This is why I insist on knowing how it's sufficiently distinct. I don't think it is something NEW entirely, but it may be a new "vector" one might use to approach design. It's one that I can't see yet how it's useful, but if it is, more power to you. I'm at the point now that Ron and Mike have already reached: I don't think this is anything new, but if it helps your particular creative process, great.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't ask questions, or hold one's feet to the fire. All models deserve serious criticism, and I think this one's going to get a lot more before all's said and done.

Hey Matt,

I'm glad you have the time to consider my points. The problem is you don't seem to have heeded the intention. I find it hard to understand the point you are making because your response is both reactive and yet doesn't 'go anywhere.'

I mean, it doesn't really matter whether you think anyone is being sarcastic; if you see both sides asking the same questions, why don't you attempt answering some of them?

The main reason I pointed out that both sides are asking the same questions is because this constant challenge to "show the practical use" of the idea just appears like arguing technique to say 'I don't believe you.'

Eric has basically said, 'so what?' This thread, and the others like it aren't about 'converting people to some new idea.' There more like flags being sent up saying, 'has anyone else seen this?'

This 'broken-record' repetition of 'so?' will not get us anywhere. It doesn't have an answer. If it did, don't you think we'd have given it by now? I don't know if you intended on sounding challenging with your post, but despite evidence to the contrary, I'm trying to assume you didn't.

I think the most constructive thing you or Mike could do at this point would be to set aside the 'what practical use it has' chip-on-the-shoulder responses and go hypothetical. Just for a sec, assume that Tension has a practical use; now try to explain what that might be.

See, this might be related to my prior concept that the relationships between any identifiable game elements and any other identifiable game concepts might be a realm for intentional design alignment, but it goes a little more specific talking about the 'Tension' between that which is 'Baseline' and that which is not.

I just can't commit to this use of "Vision," it's almost as misleading as calling the 'what you do' of a game the 'creative agenda.' That was part of my IYEOW example; my literal "creative agenda" was to try to do something using "Elegance and Deliberateness." That was the 'agenda' I approached the 'creation' of the game with. Mike's and other's use of 'creative agenda' confounds the confusing nature of using "Exploration" the way Ron does. (I just can't connect "showing imaginative commitment" to the in-game material as "Exploration.")

I'm right there with you as far as the question about Tension. As far as I can tell, it sounds like it might be alternatively one of two things, either how much suspension of disbelief is needed (the likelihood of having your 'belief suspenders' snapped) or the amount that 'the fantastic' must influence play. I'm also having trouble seeing how that isn't implicit in the designer's intent for play; I mean sure, few games will have you play nothing but Baseline, but just as few would have you avoid that completely.

So it's a mix; we already knew that. It's all fine and good to choose the mix intentionally, but if this thread is entirely about 'picking a Tension level,' I imagine that's pretty much clear now; can we move on?

I know what I was getting at over in "Elegance and Deliberateness" was that 'picking the Tension level' was one of many creative choices to be made in designing a game. I went further to try and draw into the spotlight how these types of creative choices could be orchestrated. That means you pick this Tension, you do that sparseness of layout, you offer this other kind of 'what you do in the game' (or rather which of that you focus the most player-thinking on), and you leave out that kind of mechanics; now consider the potential of doing all of these following a set of ideals for the game to bring them together in a relative fashion. I can't describe any extant games that do this, or as if they do this, because I don't think I've seen any that appear to do so deliberately. And that's the catch; how many people would even consider taking deliberateness to that level?

Matt Snyder wrote: For example, Fang, you say you've set your game deliberately in "our world," but you've included a Vision-element in having extra-dimensional duels.

You then describe the 'high-contrast' between these two concepts (real world meets extra dimensions), saying this is the key to design.

My response (in all seriousness, and no insult intended) is: So what? So these things contrast. How is that relevant? What is the effect on the game?

Matt Snyder wrote: What about the fact that extra-dimensional warriors clashing with the fact that this takes place in a "real-life" modern day makes the game more "YOURS." More meaningful?

Can we try to define some of these terms more clearly?

Baseline has several possible definitions:
a) "realism" in a game setting as might be understood by anyone walking off the street.
b) reality as a referent, and of which it is an aspired to but unattainable goal to emulate by use of mechanics & system.
c) "realism" in a given instance of a game as understood by the group of individuals who are playing it.
d) whatever a group of game participants agree to be true in the setting of a game (including laws of physics etc.)

Vision:
a) genre expectations or the source material inspiration for a game. (in this definition, vision is unattainable to truly emulate, mechanics suggest it and the game itself reflects but does not every wholly embody the Vision)
b)the creative agenda of a game designer, gm or game group for a game or campaign
c) the fantastic or realism-breaking elements of a game world or setting
d) what a gm or individual members of a game group envision for the game world or narrative that the rest of the group has not yet come to know about or agreed to be true.

And perhaps some that I've missed.

Now I can see why some of these definitions are duplicative of GNS (ie vision=creative agenda) but not all. Baseline/vision specifically arose out of discussion of realism in setting (and the tensions between assumptions about this and the way mechanics are chosen and implemented in games that may disrupt the creative agenda of a game). But, I believe that a concensus has yet to be come to about exactly what b/v mean, and how they will be applied. Yes, Mike, why should we have more terms if we've got perfectly good ones that describe the same info. But if the new terms are intuitive, meaningful and help both design and clarify confusion about a sticky topic (ie realism), why the heck not embrace them? And if we think they do that, let's be clear about the def's and give concrete examples of how it does so.

I lean toward using baseline and vision specifically about setting and realism. And I can see good arguments for just using creative agenda instead of vision.

Matt Snyder wrote: My response (in all seriousness, and no insult intended) is: So what? So these things contrast. How is that relevant? What is the effect on the game?

Fang, how can I provide the specific answers you desire when I've said repeatedly I can't understand the foundation of the idea, and especially when those who DO seem to understand the idea have yet to provide the same?

Your concerns that I'm propogating the broken record by not providing the answers are absurd. It's like asking a blind man to pick out a matching suit and tie for you.

You've asked me to let it go, assume the theory is useful, and wait for some point at which specific examples of design are put forth. Will do! Let 'er rip. Surely, folks behind this line of thinking are working on games -- I'd love to see how some of those games fall in line with this design approach. How does it apply to Scattershot, for example?

Basically, all the while when I was picking 'what to include' and 'what to leave out,' I was constantly chanting 'does it contrast, does it contrast' to myself. This forms the backbone of my design criteria, not 'what gets played.' This is very much a 'deliberate designer' technique, one of the most deliberate.

You can see that it was a choice of Setting and Situation, but do you see how the concentration of mechanics also highlights the contrast? Certainly that was also 'just a System choice,' but it was chosen to follow a deliberately narrow set of design criteria that are supposed to reinforce a subtle sensation.

If you can't get past "how is this in the creative agenda," all I can say is, "it isn't."

What about the fact that extra-dimensional warriors clashing with the fact that this takes place in a "real-life" modern day makes the game more "YOURS." More meaningful?

(jumping back in with both feet...)

Here is what I see as the central difference between Creative Agenda (ne premise) and the Baseline/Vision Tension model:

Creative Agenda is where you're going. The model is a method to get there. I'm going to use Credo RPG, my still-in-progress game (not yet more than an annoying Word document, I'm afraid) as a guinea pig to see whether I can articulate this.

In Credo, everyone plays a normal human who has a very limited ability to create miracles on demand. The Creative Agenda is to build plots around the beliefs of the characters, as expressed by their miracle abilities. Now, this is a type of game that has a fairly standard Baseline: the real world, Twenty-first Century, informed by the medium of television drama (prime-time or daytime or both). The Vision is one where belief can affect the world by making the miraculous real. So, the tension point is the point at which my game design must focus: How do these miracles actually work? How will they impact society? Do I really need other stats to cover day-to-day activities?


And at this point, I'm going to wander off happily, and write another few hundred words into my WIP – that's how useful this model is for me.

Emily, first off, I agree that the terms need some explicit definition and concensus on those. So, thanks for that.

In response to my “So what?” you explained, in effect, that contrasts from tension are helpful (meaningful?) because they illuminate the potential shortcomings between what a game says it is and what it actually does. That makes sense (assumimg, of course, that I’m reading you right!).

Now, in terms of game design, can we say that high contrasts as you’ve defined them are part of a dysfunctional game? Or maybe just certain high contrasts (or tensions)? That is, if Magi weren’t a secret society in Ars Magica, then the game falls apart? And with deadly realism mechanics in a supers game, the game fails because it doesn’t emulate the supers genre with such harsh deaths?

Your explanation makes sense to me, but I’m trying to have that make sense with Fang’s approach. You’re saying here that tension can be indicative of dysfunctional rules coping with some game-reality. That, in this sense at least, contrast is bad. But, Fang is saying that contrast like this is highly desirable, and in fact his mantra when designing a recent game.

So, when is such contrast desirable? Is it not at all desirable? Is this Baseline/Vision stuff a sort of diagnostic tool, one that might be used to error-correct a game as it’s being designed? Or, is it useful in a more proactive (rather than reactive) way, as Fang seems to indicate?

Eric: hang on a minute; I'll get back to your questions (i.e. the actual topic at hand) in just a sec.

-- replies to discussion --

Ron Edwards wrote: Therefore your example, which as far as I can tell gives us only "gunfights" and "killed easily," concerns only a tad of Exploration and one consequence of System, and not much of either, and nothing about Social Contract at all. No wonder you can't see the Baseline/Vision stuff

Mike Holmes wrote: But I just think that we don't need it (and we all know why term proliferation is dangerous; some people refuse to come here as it is). Can't it suffice to say that the Creative Agenda for Ars Magica is in part playing wizards in historical Europe? And that, to get that, one ought to emphasize parts of the rules that inform the player that this is what it's about?

Matt Snyder wrote: I think you're "atomizing" Creative Agenda into discrete aspects that miss the forest for the trees. That is, I think you're improperly dismantling the creative agenda as a whole to look at components of the whole. This may be useful in analyzing games that exist, but I find it unhelpful in shaping games that don't yet exist

And he wrote: In other words, I cannot fathom how a designer who creates a game like Ars Magica starts with "Medieval europe" and then subsequently, consciously decides (after thinking about tension) that "Magic" should be emphasized. ... I keep seeing, perhaps wrongly, the examples presented thus far as starting at Baseline working the analysis toward making that Baseline jive with Vision. If anything, for me as a designer, Vision is the starting point.

If this is "art" (or perhaps "craft"), then at what point do discrete choices about game design become something you can't analyze -- that is, where's the mystery that is "creation?" Is there no such mystery? If these discrete processes are not "art", then what are they?

Emily, you've proposed that we use B/V to talk about realism and setting; I like that, but I'dd add the caveat mostly.

Now let's see if we can't get a little more precise and specific about the effects of tension and vision in actual games.

I'm going to continue the example from my last post, the Ars Magica thing, because it appears most people are reasonably familiar with the game. I'm imagining that I, the game designer of Ars Magica 18 or whatever, have decided I want to greatly increase historical realism in the game, but I don't want to lose all the fun value.

Okay, so first we need to think about Baseline. It's "historical medieval Europe," but I'm going to make a distinction within that. There's medieval Europe as players are likely to imagine it, and the're medieval Europe as my research tells me it actually was.

So at one level of the process, I'm going to set it up like this:


Baseline = Imagined Medieval Europe

Vision = Real Medieval Europe

Now the trick is going to be to figure out the tensions, because that's where play interest will tend to focus.

This suggests to me that an important example to set up early is going to be Mages and the Church. I'm going to lean on the presuppositions of AM players about how the Church behaves about magic, but then I'm going to have the Church act much more historically plausibly, creating tension and dynamism. So I'm going to send an Inquisitor to discuss some things with the Covenant. How will they react? Chances are, they're going to assume that the guy is a monster who'll burn them at the drop of a hat. But this is real Europe, so actually the guy will be very urbane and mostly concerned about keeping the peasants from getting all riled up. He's not in any way concerned about the magicians, because he knows they only do natural magic: which is legal, as Augustine and Aquinas agree. In fact, he's hoping one of them could help with his bad knees.

-------------

Okay, now we've got another twist to throw in. That bit of Baseline/Vision was pure social dynamics used as adventure design. Let's try one that's more mechanical.


Baseline = Ordinary mundane reality

Vision = Historical magic actually works


Hmm. This is going to be tricky, because you could also think about Baseline being player expectations about fantasy magic, where Vision is historical realism about magic, but that's getting unnecessarily weird.

Okay, so the first thing I need to think about is how historical magic conflicts with Baseline reality. And that's pretty subtle, actually, since you don't have fireballs and stuff like that. So I need to pinpoint a tension in order to attract player focus and attention.

Here's one: Natural Magic, as a category. Okay, the basic point is that "Art is Nature's ape," as Giambattista della Porta later put it. So when I manipulate natural forces, it's got to be something that could happen naturally without me getting involved. For example, I can make a tree grow faster, or I can make it wither and die, but I can't simply blast it out of existence. Similarly I can heal people's illnesses because people do get better, a lot of the time, but what I'm doing magically is simply making the natural process of humoral balance happen really rapidly and/or reliably.

Okay, now I'm going to push the tension: I'm going to start throwing in actual medieval notions about how nature works, and start leaning on things happening this way. So when you Creo Animalem, you can of course generate mice and insects out of straw, since that's where they come from anyway. And I can make my ship go faster by whistling at the sails, because if I blow really hard on the sails of my ship it goes faster. And I can make someone's thrown knife miss me, if we're on the deck of the ship, by tricking him into throwing at me rather than leading several feet ahead of me, since everybody knows that if the ship is going fast, the knife will fly backwards with respect to the ship.

When I start leaning on expectations about demons, having them be impersonal but intelligent forces that keep things like gravity working, the players are going to feel this tension pretty strongly. Things just aren't working quite the way they expect them to. At the same time, the fact that their sense of reality is pulling back, as it were, will keep them in line as far as not simply trying to justify why throwing fireballs is "really in the medieval paradigm," which it isn't.

----------

So I think this way of looking at things does encourage certain interesting things to happen in terms of figuring out and giving a sense of realism, even when one is dealing with a pretty radically fantastic setting.

The point being, of course, that rigorous analysis of prior works is essential to constructing new ones. If you think analysis kills "mystery," then why bother with the RPG Theory forum at all? That's what theory is, folks: a way of analyzing prior works and of thinking about the process of creating new ones. If you want to believe that artistic creation just sort of happens because some people get hit by lightning, IMO, you are deeply deluded.

[End rant]

clehrich wrote: Emily, you've proposed that we use B/V to talk about realism and setting; I like that, but I'dd add the caveat mostly.

Clerich wrote: Now the trick is going to be to figure out the tensions, because that's where play interest will tend to focus.

This suggests to me that an important example to set up early is going to be Mages and the Church. I'm going to lean on the presuppositions of AM players about how the Church behaves about magic, but then I'm going to have the Church act much more historically plausibly, creating tension and dynamism.

Emily Care wrote:

Clerich wrote: Now the trick is going to be to figure out the tensions, because that's where play interest will tend to focus.

This suggests to me that an important example to set up early is going to be Mages and the Church. I'm going to lean on the presuppositions of AM players about how the Church behaves about magic, but then I'm going to have the Church act much more historically plausibly, creating tension and dynamism.

Aha! This is the part you were talking about, Matt. It sounds to me like what Fang might allude to when he emphasizes the "contrast" between baseline and vision in his designs. What Chris, at least, is looking at here is exploiting the difference between the player's expectations and the designer's vision to "creat[e] tension and dynamism." (Good examples, by the way.)

I've been focusing on contrast in the negative sense. When mechanics (esp. realism oriented ones) contradict creative agenda.

Alright. I've been reading this thread for a few days now and apparently have critically failed my reading comprehension roll. Now I like to think of myself as a pretty literate guy, but we're talking about games here. If a concept about a game cannot be explained at a junior high school level of reading comprehension than there's something wrong with the presentation.

Let me sum up the entirety of what I understand from this thread so far.

Players sit down to the table to play. They are going to have their characters do things and they are going to have certain expectations of how those things may turn out and what sort of things are appropriate. They are going to base these expectations on their own experiences; the most foundational experiences being with reality itself and their understanding of it (with an acknowledgement that the typical 13 year old's understanding of reality differs greatly from that of the typical astro physicist). This is being called "the base line".

Ok, then the game designer throws the players a curve ball. Something about this world, this setting, this reality that violates, contradicts, or exaggerates our understanding of the "the base line". This curve ball is being called "the vision".

Ok...I have a feeling I'm missing something here because I'm having trouble figuring why it would take 3 pages to get to that point. It seems pretty straight forward. You have a world...and here's the twist. So far I'm not seeing anything which challenges my paradigm here. But sometimes there is great profundity in reexamining the simple things, so lets continue.


1) Armed with this knowledge of Base Line vs Vision and the ability to identify and distinguish between them...what do you DO with it?

Obviously you all have something more in mind than just slapping labels on things, especially when those things seem to be nothing more than the formalization of the difference between Simulation of Reality (Baseline) vs Verisimilitude (vision that departs from baseline) which is about as hoary a topic as you get when discussing RPGs.

aside: I certainly don't mean to side track things by mentioning verisimiltude, but that is, in fact, what's being highlighted by these examples. You have Ars Magica with the base line of historical medieval Europe. Then you have the Vision which makes it medieval Europe + magic. Then you have examples of design choices which focus on emphasising the Baseline vs emphasising the Vision. Which is nothing more than the choice between realism vs verisimilitude that designers have been making since the 70s.


2) Ok great. So we have a simple model with some basic terms and easy to grasp format to discuss....what?

The GNS model starts with the Social Contract, then you drill down to Exploration, then you drill down to GNS modes.

Exploration includes: Character, Setting, Situation, System, and Color.

Baseline then seems to be nothing more complicated than the fundamental assumptions about Character, Setting, Situation, System and Color that players begin with.

Vision then is the unique twist on Character, Setting, Situation, System, and Color that the game offers. The areas where the game world deviates in these areas from that Baseline.

The tension that exists between the two is then simply the reason why Exploring these elements is interesting. There isn't much point in deviating from the Baseline if the Vision isn't offering something more. That something is the tension that the players experience in attempting to adjust their expectations to the reality of the game world.


So is this not really what we're talking about? A way of digging a little deeper into the nature of Exploration and the 5 elements that define it? In the literature of the GNS model today "Exploration" and the 5 elements exists as sort of a black box to be acknowledged and referred to on the way from Social Contract to GNS.

Baseline vs Vision seems to me to be the beginning efforts of a way to break open that black box and look around inside.


Am I way off here? I hope not because if you're reading this and thinking "no that's not it at all" than I'd have to say you've failed completely to convey the purpose and meaning behind this idea and would be best served by ending this thread and coming back to the idea when you've determined how better to articulate it.

If I am on track, than I say fantastic! Sounds like an interesting avenue to examine, although I'd recommend dropping some of the more esoteric philosophizing and getting down to brass tacks a bit with it.

Moderators: this is a C. Lehrich Thread topic #1

Okay Matt,

Obviously we're having serious miscommunication on at least two levels. Let's try an deal with the 'theory level' first.

First a Rough Analogy

Let's build a car (a role-playing game).

Cars are used in three different ways (GNS): for working - cargo vans, trucks, and et cetera (Narrativism); for recreation - dune buggies, sports cars, and so on (Gamism); and for 'getting around' - 'just cars' (Simulationism).

Each car is designed for a specific purpose ('creative agenda'), giant ore-hauling trucks, Ferrari sports cars, family wagon, and the like.

Cars have certain laws they must obey in construction, minimum ground clearance, 15 MPH bumper standard, four wheels (less is legally a motorcycle), license plates, and et cetera (Baseline).

Many cars do some amazing things; rail dragsters go really fast, ore-hauling trucks carry tons of taconite, and so on. These require things that take them to the border of being cars, many aren't even 'street legal' (the questionably named 'Vision').

People are forever using cars for things other than 'how they're used' or what their 'specific purpose' is (Drift). Going four-wheelin' in the swamps with a truck uses a work car for recreation; it also creates a need for alterative equipment (gun racks, cup holders, and...you get the idea).

Since the energy crunch of the seventies hit, some cars are designed to be fuel efficient (Elegance). Now, I realize that 'stylists' design cars just superficially; they decide all of the above issues in only the most general terms. These 'styles' go to the engineers who 'make it happen' (Deliberateness).

What I'm Talking About

Take a look at modern fuel efficient cars. They're all sleek and kinda bubble shaped. It doesn't stop there; the insides are sleek and rounded too. There's nothing that says you couldn't do an interior that's all blocky and functional, but do they? No, the 'design theme' calls for all curves and rounded surfaces; it has gone to the point now where even the stereo system's face plate, one of the longest holdouts of rectangular design, has even turned into an ellipse.

Does this affect 'what you use the car for?' No and yes. No, it doesn't clearly add to 'how the car is used,' but it does make using it 'nicer' in the long run. And yes it does affect the use; think of how the 'design theme' makes the car's design seem 'polished' and is yet a product of paralleling the 'aerodynamic' needs of fuel-efficiency.

Does this affect the 'specific purpose' of the car? Again, no and yes. No, it doesn't obviously effect what the design was dedicated for. But yes it does add to the specific purpose; think all that padding in the pickup truck is for show? You obvious haven't taken it over really rough terrain; those pads prevent bruises at times and yet are 'slipped in' as just decorating elements.

Now you'd be really naïve if you think that cars are designed first for their 'use' or 'special purpose.' First comes the choice of 'what to design;' let's say it's one of those 'fun, sporty, beach cars.' This forms the foundation of the 'design theme.' Choosing to start with a pickup-style chassis and modify isn't because it's supposed to be a work car, but because the secondary connotation of how some people use trucks for four-wheelin' fun (Drift) this serves the 'design theme.' Next, they make it some obnoxious color like 'utility yellow;' why? To deliver the message, 'this is for fun!' another example of the 'design theme' at work. The bumpers are covered with the same neoprene padding as the interior; this puts forth the idea they you'll be playing on the car as much as in the car. And it just keeps on going; every choice made right down to 'use' and 'special purpose' are guided by an overall 'design theme.'

And the reason this isn't "System Does Matter" is because it covers game design elements that cannot be called system.

What You Seem to be Telling Me

I'm going to try and state your point so we can see if I'm getting that. Don't hesitate to jump in and correct me here, or else I'll never understand. Don't harbor the illusion that I am trying to mangle your opinion or make it out to be unacceptable, far from it. I value your input because, as I've said, I don't even know what I'm talking about precisely and am trying to gain that understanding. (You would do well to try this same technique, because we certainly aren't getting anywhere otherwise.)

A lot of what I'm getting out of your opinion is that 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating.' I can handle that. You've asked for an example; I've provided one and to aid in this discussion I've put up a critique about it. (I don't know why you keep speaking as though no examples have been made; go read 'em, post about 'em, let's discuss them. These challenges of "let's see some" are hollow with them right in front of you.¹)

You also tell me that you method of 'designing cars' is only to make the 'things you put in them' that directly impact their 'use' and 'specific purpose' and only. I can understand that, I once attempted to put together a Popular Science kit car (well it was a motorcycle, because it only have three wheels). The final product lacked anything that could be called polish because it was too busy being a sleek, three-wheeled car built on a Volkswagen/motorcycle chassis (with one wheel in back).

What I don't understand is why you think that because I see play as only one ingredient of a role-playing game, that I must somehow be ignoring it. Can you explain? Just because I think it important to make the passenger compartment of an electric car not resemble the one on a long-haul diesel rig means I don't care how the person will be driving them?

You also are saying that you make good cars without putting so much thought into it. Okay, so what does that tell me about this nebulous set of ideas I'm trying to understand? I've very happy that you feel you've got this problem licked without these ideas, but to borrow the tone you are projecting by repeating this over and over, 'I hope you're happy with it, now go away.'

You are likewise saying, 'this ain't new.' You know what? You could be right. Just saying, 'this ain't new' is a disservice to the discussion. Unless you present where you've seen it before, I can't know because I ain't seen it. I'm getting really disappointed in this kind of casual dismissal; 'everyone knows that' is little more than a polite insult. You want to prove it ain't new? Show me the old stuff. If I could but see this previous work, I'd gladly shut the hell up.

You state rather emphatically that what I'm discussing is clearly (to you) one component of 'creative agenda' ("What do you do in a game and how do you do it"). I just can't see that. When you decide to make that Tolkeinesque fantasy game, that tells you what kinds of 'creative agenda' to use, but is not a part of it ("What do you do in a game and how do you do it").

Next you say that the game's (little 'p') premise is "the point and purpose of the game." That's a little confusing since you just said that it was "What do you do in a game and how do you do it." I see those as two different things. A games purpose could be to highlight how you deal with dysfunctional relationships; it might deliver those as the metaphor of summoning demons. In such a game "What do you do in a game and how do you do it" is making the demons respond to the need of the characters and vice versa. Further I suppose it might have the players do this with an eye upon a higher Edwardsian Premise. But addressing this and doing it with demon summoning and tribute is not what might be "the point and purpose of the game" if the designer wants you do ponder dysfunctional relationships (via the metaphor). I'm okay with the idea that the many various choice in such a game design could be unconscious in comparison to my technique, but I doubt a designer who does so habitually will have anything to add to this discussion.

The Other Miscommunication

I guess it all boils down to the old cliché, 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.' The following even if it isn't mean-spirited, certainly isn't nice.

Matt Snyder wrote: ...If the technique's helping you, knock yourself out. Just don't claim it's new. It isn't; [I haven't, but you choose to ignore that.]

Matt Snyder wrote: ...Spend a little more time coming up with the evidence that shows how this is useful

Matt Snyder wrote: ...Please stop wearing your heart on your sleeve (getting disappointed, upset and so on). It's just not worth it,

Matt Snyder wrote: ...I've yet to see ways that it is useful. That you and Eric have both asked "dissenters" to leave you alone is not going to help you find this idea.

Valamir wrote: So is this not really what we're talking about? A way of digging a little deeper into the nature of Exploration and the 5 elements that define it? In the literature of the GNS model today "Exploration" and the 5 elements exists as sort of a black box to be acknowledged and referred to on the way from Social Contract to GNS.

Baseline vs Vision seems to me to be the beginning efforts of a way to break open that black box and look around inside.

And the reason this isn't "System Does Matter" is because it covers game design elements that cannot be called system.

What I don't understand is why you think that because I see play as only one ingredient of a role-playing game, that I must somehow be ignoring it. Can you explain? Just because I think it important to make the passenger compartment of an electric car not resemble the one on a long-haul diesel rig means I don't care how the person will be driving them?

You also are saying that you make good cars without putting so much thought into it. Okay, so what does that tell me about this nebulous set of ideas I'm trying to understand? I've very happy that you feel you've got this problem licked without these ideas, but to borrow the tone you are projecting by repeating this over and over, 'I hope you're happy with it, now go away.'

I'm getting really disappointed in this kind of casual dismissal; 'everyone knows that' is little more than a polite insult. You want to prove it ain't new? Show me the old stuff. If I could but see this previous work, I'd gladly shut the hell up.

Valamir wrote: Baseline vs Vision seems to me to be the beginning efforts of a way to break open that black box and look around inside.

If I am on track, than I say fantastic! Sounds like an interesting avenue to examine, although I'd recommend dropping some of the more esoteric philosophizing and getting down to brass tacks a bit with it.

Therefore, they fall under the Creative Agenda

where you’re (perhaps?) seeing something new and outside creative agenda to talk about,

Back to the topic:

Harlequin wrote: How do we, as designers, spot places where the Tension will arise, so we can decide whether to tweak it or not? How do we look ahead and say intelligent things about the Tension-spots in our emerging game, and design for it, or are we doomed to merely use this as an editing tool? I think we can look ahead at least somewhat; take the organization of the work as a whole. If you have a "miraculous deeds" chapter and a "mundane life before you were EnNobled" or whatever chapter, think about sequencing... do you want them (a) high-Tension, by placing them bang up against each other and giving them similar systems, or (b) low-Tension, with a buffer of unrelated material and dissimilar systems? High-Tension focusses attention on the dichotomy, and helps make the overall Vision feel more estranged from reality; low-Tension hides and diffuses attention, makes the overall Vision feel more familiar. Which do I, in this game, want? That's the question we should be asking ourselves.

What I'm curious about is how we spot such instances in the first place, so as to ask it at all. Preferably in advance. Any comments?

Another load of #2. :)

Getting back to the start, and walking through:

Harlequin wrote: If I read the conclusion of the Aesthetics and Reality thread correctly, then Chris and Emily tried to pin down a specific tension, between two things: a Baseline, which is basically reality-as-understood-by-the-participants, and a Vision, which is the endpoint of perfect emulation of "source material" if any, or the analogue if no source material exists. (Interestingly, one could make a case for the latter as being reality as understood by the characters, but that's a different riff on the subject.)

I like this a lot and would like to pin it down to a little bit stronger frame, and then move from there to talking about the tension and balance between these two, because I think that this is where we'll find tools for aesthetic design emerging.

By a stronger frame, I mean that I think these two terms apply to a single act, and that rather than leaving them hanging in air, we can pin them down to that act and discuss them in that context only. Both terms apply to the process of conveying the game reality. I don't know if this has a place in the current understanding or not, but it means that these apply to conveying something slightly more encompassing than Setting as we dissect things... they apply to conveying the Setting, the Colour, the appropriate Situations, the physics (Rules), and the appropriate types of Characters. Conveying the game reality.

(I postulate that even hyperrealistic settingless games of GURPS or whatever have both of these elements, it's just that in this case the Vision differs from the Baseline on only a very few points - primarily the ones concerning what kinds of stories get told.)

I think that conscious design of the learning curve is one thing we will want to crack open, not necessarily in this thread, but not necessarily not.)

In terms of aesthetics, I think there's most meat on the bone of tension between Baseline and Vision, used to strengthen the game reality as a whole. You might build up that tension in a few ways... you could stress the constrasts between the Baseline and this game's vision, not only textually but coherently with the message of the entire book. Or you could play subtler games by allowing the tension between the two to increase through play.

Does anyone have any thoughts on specific guidelines as to how to convey this balance, where to choose the balance point(s), or how to increase/manipulate/make use of the tension, between Baseline and Vision in the composition of a game reality?

clehrich wrote: I'm not sure that invoking high and low tensions for purposes of strange/familiar dichotomies is the way to go about it, though. What do you think we gain by doing so? It seems to me that this just adds a second level of extrapolation, without a specific result, but I may not be getting this. Could you provide an example?

Harlequin wrote: (Interestingly, one could make a case for the latter as being reality as understood by the characters, but that's a different riff on the subject.)

Just a quick note here. It has been pointed out to me that Ron seems to be away, so my remark about lack of moderation was, well, immoderate. Sorry about that.

Matt Snyder and I have had a lengthy and very valuable exchange by PM, and I think we've pretty much cleared the air between us. Hopefully now discussion can get going profitably; probably a new thread will be necessary, but for the moment let's stick to what we've got.

Matt asked for an example from the design perspective, as in, "Here's my game and here's how I did it using Baseline/Vision, and here's what specific effects that had in the design process." So, using Shadows in the Fog (see web link below), here goes.

Baseline
1. Player expectation of reality in Victorian London is to a considerable degree founded upon so-called Victoriana, i.e. romance-novel style pseudo-history with lots of people wearing complicated clothing and being pompous at each other. This is not entirely a modern phenomenon, but significantly so.

2. Player expectation of characters is very hard to pin down, but character depth does often slide into shtick.

3. Player expectation of player/character divide is pretty much absolute. Since the early D&D days when lots of crazies thought their kids would start hitting people with axes, gamers have been extremely reluctant to consider the identification with characters as valid, even for hypothesizing.

4. Player expectation of ordinary reality in terms of things like physics is pretty much valid, as Shadows in the Fog does not involve things like superpowers and ultra-tech, for example. If you get shot with a big ugly gun, you tend to die. At the same time, normal people don't shoot one another.

Vision
1. Victorian London was immensely complex, with layers upon layers of intricate class and status consciousness. If you consider how Sherlock Holmes works, he reads a person at a distance, and can instantly pick up exactly who that person is. This is strikingly different from our modern world. If you see a guy in a t-shirt and jeans, you don't know he's not an immensely wealthy banker who's on vacation today. In Victorian London, this pretty much can't happen.

2. Victorian characters are going to do what Holmes does, only not necessarily as well. When they meet somebody, they will pigeonhole that somebody instantly, as a matter of course. See Shaw's Pygmalion, for example.

3. Player-character divide is something I want to see challenged and reversed, where the players' powers (esp. Author/Director Stance) become something that the characters actually do. That is, the characters become increasingly empowered to take an Authorial stance toward their own world. This is called magic.

4. Ordinary physical reality is mostly legit, and needn't be challenged much.

Tension
For me, the whole game lives on a few of these tensions. Here are some examples:

1. The characters are divided within themselves. Each has a "mask," a way that others will perceive him or her, and also a depth which is somewhat at variance with the mask. This makes them somewhat hypocritical, and necessarily deceivers; in a broad sense, it also makes them traitors to their world. This is the very tension that will drag them into the occult, since magic in this universe is essentially a kind of treason against ordinary reality.

2. The players will seek to rewrite the universe by manipulating Tarot cards. The thing is, the Tarot card uses are essentially a direct analogy to what their magically-active characters are doing. In the game, I call this the Trump Card Analogy. In some games, you have a mechanistic magic system: a list of spells, or powers, or whatever. While eminently playable, this does not capture the feel of occultism. In other games, you try to add the flavor of occultism, but generally keep the mechanism (see Ars Magica and Unknown Armies). In Shadows in the Fog, however, the players are doing something directly analogous to what the characters are doing. Both are manipulating complex but somewhat limited sets of meaning-structures in order to create effects. Ultimately this will encourage a blurriness between player and character, but the reverse of the traditional blur: instead of the player thinking he's the character, the character starts to become a player.

I could go on at some length, but I'll cut it off there.

The point I want to make is that the tension between Vision and Baseline forces me to make a number of aesthetic choices, and in turn has pushed me toward a piece of what I consider mechanical elegance.

In order to keep the historical flavor of the game, which for me is based on extensive research, I have leaned on the tension between expectations about Victoriana and the actual Victorian world; by making this a significant issue for the characters, I encourage the player disconnect with real Victorian London to be a character issue and a source of good stories.

In order to keep the occult feel of historical magic, I have shifted the baseline rather than the vision. Usually, what you do when you want a "historical" magic system is you change the vision. Instead, I shift the baseline, making the players manipulate Tarot cards with essentially no rules about how to do this. This creates a different locus of tension.

As far as the related tension between player expectations about magic and how it works in this game at a mechanical level, this is not something I want to lean on; to do so would encourage scientism about magic, which is precisely what I don't want. So instead I go to considerable lengths about how you'll have to do some work and practice using the cards intelligently, and in essence suggest that if you can't be bothered you can't play the game. That's a harsh way to do things, but the point is that I want to eliminate this potential tension in order to shift to one I want instead.

I'm really hoping this clarifies what Baseline, Vision, and Tension mean for me, and how they contribute to game design. In my opinion, at least, the Tarot analogy thing creates an elegant and graceful mechanic, and some of the initial readers felt this very strongly. I think that whatever elegance is there comes precisely from the tension between baselines and visions with respect to magic. By that logic, this way of looking at things encourages aesthetic design rather than merely functional design.

Comments?

Hi Chris,

I waited on saying anything in this thread, simply because I wasn't sure what was being said. Now that I have a clear idea of what is being stated about Baseline and Vision, may I ask how critical or what role you feel that Tension plays in the gameplay experience? Is this Tension, as you've defined it necessary?

For example, let's say I play a game involving two warring factions in medieval history, along the lines of as much history as we know. I use TROS, or some other system that's fairly "realistic" and bar all magic. What defines the Vision, and where is the Tension between Baseline and Vision occurring?

Here, I see the Tension isn't really the draw, but rather the conflict(as defined by Situation). Likewise, consider some Fantasy Heartbreakers where there's tons of Kewl Powers, the Vision has noticible and nifty differences from the Baseline, but no conflict is really visible, as a contrast to the first.

I'm interested to get a better handle on what Tension "does" in terms of pushing play in the direction you're looking for.

Chris

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that part of the problem with dealing with this is that both Baseline and Vision are moving targets.

Bankuei wrote: ....Is this Tension, as you've defined it necessary?

For example, let's say I play a game involving two warring factions in medieval history, along the lines of as much history as we know. I use TROS, or some other system that's fairly "realistic" and bar all magic. What defines the Vision, and where is the Tension between Baseline and Vision occurring?

Likewise, consider some Fantasy Heartbreakers where there's tons of Kewl Powers, the Vision has noticible and nifty differences from the Baseline, but no conflict is really visible, as a contrast to the first.

I'm interested to get a better handle on what Tension "does" in terms of pushing play in the direction you're looking for.

(Wow. I left for a LARP quite soon after my last post, and look what happens. Chris L., quite simply and inclusively, thank you.)

There has been enough content added here that I'm just going to address facets of it in individual posts over the course of the next day or two; lots of good thoughts, here, although we still have some essential disconnects in our definitions. Chris/Bankuei, I think I have to mention that IMO b/v does indeed apply much more to the Setting than the conflict/Situation within that setting or game world. Tension is between elements of the design and its created world, not between things within that world. I like Chris L's "what if" phrasing... the Vision is the "what if" and the Baseline is the (among kids unspoken) set of assumptions we choose not to change in our "what if." The fact that we postulate a Vision which has tensions and conflicts within it is a separate issue; we could postulate a Vision of a true utopia with only the tiniest interpersonal IC tensions (boring game, but possible), and we'd have a very large B/V Tension to work with in the design, between the Baseline and this Vision.

But the main thing I wanted to address, in this case by counterexample, is the idea of associating Vision with "what the characters believe to be true" and the like. The main reason I have a problem with this is that the characters are often ignorant about their own world; the Vision elements of the game are, however, generally not.

The counterexample I thought of originally, which is why I dismissed Vision=CharUnderstanding with strong caveats at the time, was of a strongly modern/realistic game whose Vision concerned, say, psionics, but did so in such a way that the PCs remained unclear on the existence of such powers throughout, even as they used them. Even those who believed (a minority even of those who used it) probably wouldn't understand psi very well, certainly not as it is communicated in the Vision. This could be quite an interesting Gamist game if, say, the players were blindly exploring "what factors do boost psi use?" from a checklist that each GM created anew per campaign, tending to include elements like "relationship dysfunction," "lack of sleep," or even "slavic origins."

The Vision in such a game is quite clear - the psi, the lack of IC understanding of psi - and shows how, to me, the Vision has to have to do with that which is true-and-strange in their world, regardless of what a character (PC, NPC, nigh-omniscient, whoever) understands to be true. Now, rereading Chris' posts on it, I see that he intended it to be the statement about Vision=CharUnderstanding to be an included element, not the whole, of the definition of Vision, in which case I have no problem with it at all. As part of Emily's two-sets-of-four checklists (which, although their emphasis isn't where I'd have placed it, are nice summaries), it serves quite well indeed, but we should make sure it doesn't dominate our definitions.

On the other hand, I quite like the idea about a weak correspondence set between Baseline and players-playing-a-game, and between Vision and players-immersing-in-characters... though I'm not sure whether I can do anything useful with it at the moment. It touches on GNS somewhat, which makes me leery, but I'm also just too sunburnt and tired to go quite that abstract. :)

I'll talk about Chris' examples from SitF, Fang's game, and my own work and how I'm applying these things (hint: take the Shadowrun example and choose not to do what I spotted there), in a bit.

- Eric