Hey there,

First off, let me apologize that this may be quite likely the last thing I ever post here, my life recently having been turned upside down (in the good way). This is not meant to be a 'parting shot,' but a final gift. I've realized a way to make all Incoherent games golden.

I've been off the Forge for a while and a number of people have asked me why. There are many reasons:


My wife and I no longer share the goal of putting out a role-playing game together (I only kept it up while she was busy dealing with some difficult medical problems and I still had a publisher lined up); on the other hand, we very much like working together and we both love comic books (so guess what...).

I also reached a plateau of understanding where I realized there was more to designing a role-playing game than simply getting all the "System Does Matter" ducks in a row (after grammar, similar to the message hidden in the theme and metaphor of a story, role-playing games quite simply languish if they do not have that 'punch' - and I'm not talking Narrativism where you play with it - but where the game's author embeds the message in the game and only indirectly in the play). Few, if any, on the Forge show any interest in discussing that; here it seems that 'System is All that Matters.'

And there is also 'the whole GNS thing....'

About that.

I've been pondering my work here and 'money-successful' games in general. I finally concluded something after reading Ron's glossaries in his latest GNS essays. Just to be clear, I'm literally using the words of its creator, Ron Edwards, from his latest essays on the subject, rather than my own. Just some simple logic to get you thinking now that I'm gone.

Here are Ron's going definitions of GNS in short:

Ron Edwards wrote: Step On Up


Social assessment in the face of risk. As a top priority of role-playing, the defining feature of Gamist play.

Story Now


Producing, heightening, and resolving a Premise. As a top priority of role-playing, the defining feature of Narrativist play.

The Dream


Commitment to the imagined events of play, specifically in-game cause and pre-established thematic elements. As a top priority for role-playing, the defining feature of Simulationist play. See [Ron's] essay Simulationism.

The right to dream.

Ron Edwards wrote: Creative Agenda


The aesthetic priorities and any matters of imaginative interest regarding role-playing; replaces all uses of "premise" in the original essay aside from the specific creative agenda of Narrativist play (for which the term "Premise" is retained); Step On Up, The Right to Dream, and Story Now represent the creative agendas, respectively, of Gamist, Simulationist, and Narrativist play.

Premise [from the older work GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory]


The key to Narrativist Premises is that they are moral or ethical questions that engage the players' interest. The "answer" to this Premise (Theme) is produced via play and the decisions of the participants, not by pre-planning.

Ron Edwards wrote: Coherence


Any functional combination, including singletons, of GNS priorities. Please note that "coherency" is not a word.

Incoherence


Incompatible combination of GNS priorities, applies by definition to play, but often applied secondarily to game design. Abashedness represents a minor, correctable form of Incoherence.

Abashed


Game design which displays features of one or more GNS modes that, in their applications, are operationally contradictory. It is a minor form of Incoherence. However, an Abashed design is easily correctable by ignoring or altering isolated portions of the rules (minor Drift); typically, extremely coherent play can result in either of the modes involved. However, this also means that two groups will effectively be playing completely different games. See Abashed Vanillaism and my review of Little Fears.

Ron Edwards wrote: Dysfunction


Simply, role-playing which is not fun. Most Forge discussions presume that un-fun role-playing is worse than no role-playing.

Ron Edwards wrote: The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast


"The GM is the author of the story and the players direct the actions of the protagonists." Widely repeated across many role-playing texts. Neither sub-clause in the sentence is possible in the presence of the other.

El Dorado


Originally, used to indicate the search for a Simulationist-Narrativist hybrid mode of play, with the Narrativism being the main priority; more recently, it has come to mean Transition³ from Simulationist to Narrativist play without noticeable Drift in the rules-use. See Simulationism and Narrativism under the same roof and El Dorado.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hybrid


A game whose rules include facilitating elements for more than one mode of play. Observed functional hybrids to date include only two GNS modes rather than all three, and one of the modes may be considered primary or dominant, with the other playing a supportive role.

Transition³


Theoretically, shifting from one GNS mode to another (in the large sense, in terms of the overall goals of play for everyone) without Drifting the rules. Scattershot², in development, is designed with Transition³ in mind. See the Scattershot² forum with reference to threads begun by me.

Ron Edwards wrote: Congruence


Refers to play in which two or more different GNS modes may be expressed in such a way that they neither interfere with one another nor are easily distinguished through observation; the term was coined by Walt Freitag in GNS and "Congruency". I am revising the term to "congruence" in the interest of grammar.

Ron Edwards wrote: System (character creation, resolution including IIEE, reward system, metagame mechanics)


The means by which imaginary events are established during play (see the Lumpley Principle).

The Lumpley Principle


"System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." The author of the principle is Vincent Baker, see Vincent's standard rant about power, credibility, and assent and Player power abuse.

Points of Contact


The steps of rules-consultation, either in the text or internally, per unit of established imaginary content. This is not the same as the long-standing debate between Rules-light and Rules-heavy systems; either low or high Points of Contact systems can rely on strict rules. See Vanilla and Pervy, Pervy in my head, Cannot stand cutesie-poo terms, Pervy Sim, points of contact, accessibility.

Transparency


Rules design that does not call attention to the rules in operation; highly controversial. See Transparency and Transparency again.

Fang,

I must say I essentially agree with your thesis. I'd only add that covert methods for promoting drift may be even more crucial towards acheiving it's results than overt methods, i.e. transition.

From the perspective of technical play, what you say makes sense. When you take an ungraded class, the quality is often related to how the material is transitioned, not simply the nature of the material. A similiar feature seems to apply to differing modes in GNS.

So, I suppose that means I'll defend the point, until someone manges to change my mind on it.

-Mendel S.

Hello,

As far as I can tell, the single point of contention is whether 1st edition Vampire "isn't that bad," or more generally, whether a game text can be counter-productive to having fun. I think it can.

Whether anyone else thinks so, all I can say is, "Up to you."

What always puzzles me is that people who assert that incoherent game design is a good thing, because apparently it's desirable to tinker rules to taste, also assert very clearly that a game's design affects how well it plays. Seems to me that there's no need on my part to talk with them - they've taken both sides of the argument and thus can argue against whatever point is raised.

Best,
Ron

ah, Rno's just sore 'cuz somebdy proved there ain't no incoherence. all games work, just add drift rulez!

stop whining, la joueur makes a good argument, if you can't talk the points he used why answer?.

ROCK ON!
anon

--
member of the BLANK GENERATION

Hi Fang,

Glad to at least hear a last call from you here. You've provided some great stuff, and good discussion for all. On this one, I don't agree with a couple points, and unless someone cares to discuss them, I'm happy at leaving it at "My view, your view, cool".

1. Dysfunction occurs when two or more modes of GNS play are facilitated at the same time by the same game.

(snip)

3. All of the games that Ron deems Incoherent in design (because he observes that at some point the become Dysfunctional in play?), also fit the definition he gives of a Hybrid.

7. Drift is [therefore] traditionally a part of System, just not needing to be as explicit as Transition.

Here's what I get from the essay: Drift is bad when it leads to dysfunctional play. Drift (Transition) is a good thing when it leads to functional play. Pretty straight-forward.

Where I disagree with Fang is his ommision of the following observation: Games whose written mechanics reward a certain style of decision are more effective at curbing Drift towards dysfunction than those that don't reward a certain style of decision.

Incoherent games (which I believe do exist) are games that are easilly drifted to dysfunction, or ones in which the author assumes Drift or Transition will take place in a functional manner when no guidelines are provided for such Transition.

Fang isn't saying a game's design can't effect how fun it is (at least for a given person)--he's saying that 'Drift' is an innate part of System--an unavoidable part of design, intentional or not--and therefore, even if it is true that a system need be drifted for a given group to produce fun play--that is not working against the system, playing outside it, or otherwise countermanding it in any way. It is, still, playing with that system.*

The problem is that Drift is so poorly defined as to be almost meaningless. Someone (Jack?) sorta likened playing AD&D without the aging rules to re-writing Monopoly to be chess. You mention "rules tinkering." Ralph declared drift to be "work" or "effort."

This is the heavy-side of drift. The vast, vast majority of what goes on in games I've seen that would even fit the definition (as I understand it) is so much lighter as to make it absurd when they're grouped together.

Ron: I'm not arguing both sides. I'm arguing right up the middle. Take AD&D: if I figure I have to re-write the magic rules to enjoy play, yeah, I might agree that I'd be better off with another game. But if all I have to do is ditch the Psionics rules in the back of the PHB, I'm *not.* (and if someone is, cool--but that's why it's all super-duper-incredibly personal)

Tell me they're both the same thing--philosophically--and I'll look at you funny. Tell me you never *said* they were the same thing, and I'm not sure I agree with that--drift, IME gets treated implicitly as a boolean: it's either on or off.

-Marco
* I see this as very similar to the way that a traditional GM must set up situation for a game and the way that players make characters (each player then rejecting some aspect of the rules-set for some other one).

The Venn diagram:

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

Drift, as I understand it, seems to come from the GNS box and effect the rules which has effects that travels up the diagram like dominoes.

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

With system does matter, part of what we seem to be saying is that the printed book, and the rules contained therein effects play in both directions. Certain rules suggest certain GNS mode, suggest certain Exploration suggest certian Social contracts

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

Drift comes when the published social contract, exploration or GNS mode is not desired by a play group but for some reason the rules, or a portion of the rules is desired.

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

(you'll have to imagine that the black portion of these two diagrams are actually on line and it then splits into the two colored forks, indicating that the red portion is the game as written and the blue fork is how a play group varies the game rules.)

The question is how much drift does it take? Does it require so much work that you may as well start from scratch? (see the incoherent kit-bashing thread)

Marco, let's assume that your definition is right. Who ever said that drift was bad? I mean, some people like it, some people don't. Seems like a personal preference.

The question is one of design. Play and design are being mixed up here quite a lot once again. If I'm designing a game, do I want to make it such that it does not accomplish any goal? The idea being that the players can then do what it takes to make it accomplish some goal? Even if all games do require some drift, should I make mine such that it requires more than neccessary?

Actually, if you say yes, I'll agree with that, too. I mean, what is a non-system specific setting supplement, if not something that needs some drift to incorporate into a game? And that's fine. Players know what they're getting into here.

The only thing that anyone has ever said was always wrong was games that were written in such a manner as to cause confusion as to what the goal of play was. If a game indicates that it needs to be drifted, and what the likely effects of Drift are, then no problem. It's not making the required drift obvious and clear, and then making it neccessary that's problematic. What Fang would apparently call bad writing. I'd say it goes beyond that to include designers who write well, but are trying to advocate doing things that just can't be done effectively in RPGs. That is, they say, "play like this because this system will do that," and then it fails to do that for a significant number of players.

If and when Drift fixes this, it's a fine, fine thing, actually. The point is to design games that don't have severe problems that require Drift.
Because some players won't realize what needs to be done. They won't do the required Drifting, and then they'll have incoherent play.

Play can be incoherent, but not games. A particular game can tend to produce incoherency more than others, but that'll be on a case by case basis depending on the game and the group and how they employ it. Again, when drift fixes a problem in the sorts of play that a game is producing, then it's a wonderful thing.

I wouldn't say, "Don't make a game that needs to be Drifted." I'd say, "Make a game that doesn't need to be Drifted in order to make play that it tends to produce coherent." Given that incoherrent play is play that is dysfunctional by definition, and dysfunction means that games aren't (I'll stay away from "fun") engaging to the players, I can't see how one could say otherwise. Why allow for greater possibility of problematic play than one has to?


I am loathe to directly attack a theory of someone who is not there to defend it, lest I seem to be cherrypicking. So, I haven't gone into my particular objections here to Fang's post, except as they pertain to Marco's comments. If Mendel or, given that he states that he fully supports the theory, Marco want me to make that argument with them playing the part of the opposition, then I will do so upon their indication of such. I'm not enthusiastic to do so, and Ron has summed it up rather well without going into details. But I will if it's seen as neccessary.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Marco, let's assume that your definition is right. Who ever said that drift was bad? I mean, some people like it, some people don't. Seems like a personal preference.

The question is one of design. Play and design are being mixed up here quite a lot once again. If I'm designing a game, do I want to make it such that it does not accomplish any goal? The idea being that the players can then do what it takes to make it accomplish some goal? Even if all games do require some drift, should I make mine such that it requires more than neccessary?

:: snip ::

Mike

Right, Marco, we agree. Drift is not part of the definition of coherence. Never has been. Drift is sometimes a result of incoherence, but certainly not the cause of Incoherence, nor even neccessarily a symptom of it.

Basically if you have to do something to fix a game because it's "broken" for your purposes, then that's what's bad. I think that's one cause of Drift. But it's the problematic design that's a problem, not the Drifting. The Drifting is likely the solution to the problem in this case.

Mike

Hi guys,

My take on drift is:

Playing in a manner not indicated by the rules as written

recognizing that there is a definite range of drift, from small stuff("All Elves must have Elf History skill") to really big stuff ("We use the Pool for metagame stuff, but using Marvel Universe's stone system instead, and we're playing Rolemaster but utilizing TROS's combat system...").

With that, I think the problem with Incoherence and Drift is that we have a lot of games that claim to push certain agendas, and fail to back it up with usable guidelines or rules to enable that agenda. There is a big difference between Drifting cause you want to and Drifting because you have to.

For me, the most glaring example is the various Storyteller games, that give you a chapter or two extolling effectively narrativist goals, and then throwing you mercilessly into a World of Sim mechanics where the only recourse is to GM Fiat and fudge, fudge, fudge your way to Golcanda/Ascension/Functional play.

Playing according to the rules does not deliver the thematic entertainment and "Storytelling" it promises. You are forced to either ignor the chapters explaining what storytelling is about, or you're forced to ignor rules as written. This is not Hybrid play in any fashion.

To give a counter-example, TROS can be played all the way according to the rules, and will deliver the goods it promises. High Sim stuff happens, Narrativism happens, and neither shoves nor jostles the other. That's functional hybrid play. I'm not forced to have to renegotiate the Social Contract based on choosing between rules as written and "intended creative agenda" all the time.

My key point is that drift is always an option. When you MUST drift, in order to play, then we have incoherency.

Thoughts?

Chris

Marco wrote: I didn't say Drift was bad. I said it was described (often) as "effort" or "work" and had been likened to "rules tinkering" or "re-writing monopoly to be chess." (and then blinking in surprise when someone asks "why not play chess?"). The examples I can think of in my on play of "drift" don't come close to that.

As long as drift is treated like a boolean, the idea of coherent game design is, IMO, in question. How much drift is necessary?

Fang 'Le Joueur' Langford wrote: The gaming community has a long history of practicing Drift. It's so ingrained that perhaps no one ever thought to write it into their System, before. So what? That doesn't make those games 'broken,' unplayable, or Dysfunctional, simply poorly written from an era of poorly understood applied role-playing game design theory.

My key point is that drift is always an option. When you MUST drift, in order to play, then we have incoherency.

M.J. Young wrote: Call me strange; call me an outsider, someone who doesn't understand the hobby. But allow me this much: role playing games cannot reach the mass market as long as it's inherent in the design that they don't work as written. Most people expect a game to play as designed, not as adjusted by the user.

The paradox of sales is that if you give someone what they think they want, then you get the sale. But if you sell someone what they actually want, then you get the repeat business.

All too often these two things are quite different. One of the main utilities of drift, especially covertly supported drift, is that of giving the purchaser of an RPG both of them. For example, consider V:tM. The main selling point of the game is the idea of thematic play and deep moral conflicts. But the actual reason most people buy Vampire books is for the setting, and the "immersiveness" of it. Simply put if Vampire were coherent it never would have sold as well, and probably wouldn't play as well.

Ultimately the problem lies in understanding the layered elements of how the game translates through the text to the players.

To restrict this process to just the fully open level is tempting. Then indeed the game is what the game is, and is played as it is written. But this is not in practice how games are written, and trying to produce something like this is often very difficult. Especially since you must eliminate the key element of reader interpretation. By making the text transparent you can project the game as it is to the reader. Of course this projection will subsequently rely on memory and re-exposure to the text. Hence drift is inevitable, and innately part of what occurs in games. But on the other hand the risks of the lack of subtlety and directness of the single layer can be singificant. This will inevitably seem didatic and constrained. However, in the context of a game, there is a certain desirability for this as well.

Depth of translation provides a different structure, permitting more duplicity, and hence allowing the satisfaction of more readers. The risk in this case is that of overcomplexity, where the necessary drift to acheive a rapport (one of several possible ones, perhaps) is prohibitive. It is a subtle balance.

The key holy grail of this approach is that of the deep, but nearly transparent text. This provides, very clearly, one of a collection of translations, geared towards the reader. This is a powerful technique, but one that is difficult to study without accepting the depth as much as the transparency. In essence, the naive way to design is accidental depth, but lack of transparency. The more mature method is to develop transparency. But there is no easy method to reach both depth and transparency, the former must be explored.

Drift is an intrinsic part of the designer's art. In many ways, accounting and exploiting drift is a difficult but potent tool of game design. Making this explicit is one approach, but there are others as well. In the very least the eschewing of this principle leads to a poorer design space, and ultimately to misunderstand the richness of even accidental designs.
I hope that helps,

- Mendel S.

I think I get what you're saying, Mendel, but I disagree with it. Basically, game text that is more open to individual interpretation is problematic because it will inevitably lead to disfunctional play when one player's expectations are totally different from another player's. This leads to rules arguments and all sorts of bad stuff that basically prevents good role-playing.

Then again, a game using this technique may very well sell better. But sales are not what we're talking about, are they? We're talking about actual play.

Ethan,

I argue that, a game which relies upon transparency will necessarilly have drift, regardless of the transparency, and hence will have uncontrolled interpretations. This leads to almost inevitable dysfunctionality, as it requires constant back-checking to maintain that transparency.

On the other hand a game which controls drift, is far more likely to produce multiple functional attractors for interpretation. The switching between attractors is easier the more "effectively transparent" the system is, and these attractors are innately more stable, since they incorporate drift as an element. This phenomena is analogous to people realizing that there is another way to interpret / play the game, and for lack of a better term converting. This adjustment occurs frequently, and is, incidently, part of the reason facilitation is so vital to understanding actual play.

Sure some people will find a perspective and adhere to it, inspite of reduced enjoyment. But this is quite possibly disfunctional behavior on the part of the player. On a side note, it also bears mentioning that drift is frequently found in even "well-defined" games. Observing the subtle drifts found in Pinochle and Monopoly is a useful excercise, as well as that of other "pure" games. Drift ultimately is a very deep and very important concept, it is a description of how humans interact with rules. To treat it as an error is a necessarilly a naive perspective on human behavior in games.

I hope that helps,

-Mendel S.

John Kim wrote:
If you judge that "doing less" and "allowing for drift" is just as good as actually specifying how to play, then you really get to the point of saying that the perfect system is "do what you want".

I totally agree that a game that is clear about how to drift it, and what the results of such drift are, is a good thing. The question is, does a game like V:TM inform players that they may need to drift, and what the effects of such drift might be. Or does it present a lot of material that players will tend to look at as optional given that it all doesn't seem to work together.

Because the former model is fine. But I think that the problem with these games is that they are the latter. They claim to be fine as is. So when they do get drifted, players who don't like the direction of the drift, who haven't been part of chosing the direction of the drift, may (note "may", this is not absolute) become disenfranchised.

Again, it's not drift that's bad, and it's not that a game can be drifted or even needs to be drifted. It's that the game that needs to be drifted doesn't tell you what the ramifications are.

In Universalis, we present the Gimmick rule. Basically this says to the players that it's totally OK to drift the rules. But it does it in the framework of the game. Such that any player can object. In the process of which, hopefully, players will ensure that the system that results is one they like, and does what they want. The idea being that drift (or transition since this is enabled by the game) will occur, and all will remain functional.

Few other games have that sort of control over drift. Or text explaining the ramifications of drift (though I've seen that on occasion as well). The result of which is a higher tendency to produce incoherent play.

So are we agreeing or disagreeing still, Mendel?

Mike

ethan_greer wrote: I think I get what you're saying, Mendel, but I disagree with it. Basically, game text that is more open to individual interpretation is problematic because it will inevitably lead to disfunctional play when one player's expectations are totally different from another player's. This leads to rules arguments and all sorts of bad stuff that basically prevents good role-playing.

Then again, a game using this technique may very well sell better. But sales are not what we're talking about, are they? We're talking about actual play.

Mike Holmes wrote: I totally agree that a game that is clear about how to drift it, and what the results of such drift are, is a good thing. The question is, does a game like V:TM inform players that they may need to drift, and what the effects of such drift might be. Or does it present a lot of material that players will tend to look at as optional given that it all doesn't seem to work together.

Mike

Marco, when I read "inevitably" in Ethan's post, I read it to mean that in some game, somewhere it will happen. Not that it will inevitably happen in every game. And even that statement may be too much. But would you buy it if we were to replace inevitably with "likely"? Or "more likely" (really more accurate because dysfunctions like this will occur despite system sometimes?

Would you then agree?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Marco, when I read "inevitably" in Ethan's post, I read it to mean that in some game, somewhere it will happen. Not that it will inevitably happen in every game. And even that statement may be too much. But would you buy it if we were to replace inevitably with "likely"? Or "more likely" (really more accurate because dysfunctions like this will occur despite system sometimes?

Would you then agree?

Mike

I shouldn't have used italics. Marco, I didn't mean to get your hackles up. Let me rephrase: When, in a single group of players, one player's expectations are at odds with another's expectations, that group's play will be dysfunctional. I believe that to be the case, but I might be wrong. My point is that a game text that does not effectively address the players' expectations is more likely to lead to such dysfunctional play.

Is a game text such as Mendel postulates possible? I think it is. Has such a text been produced? I don't know. But I don't believe that Vampire fits the bill.

Mike,

I see drift control as a very effective work horse in game design. Of course the hard part about drift control is that an explicit method will tend to be a bit more subject to drift itself (although any method is, ultimately). I expect that there may be implicit elements in Universailis that help on that end too, alas I haven't yet managed to look it over.

I never claim Vampire acheives more than an accidental drift control, as much culturally as otherwise. The same also appears in several versions of D&D. This drift control is apparent from the ease by which people take the game with something in mind, and then immediately drift to something else. This does frustrate the consumer who wants truth in advertising, but regretably this is a minority. Ethan, I expect this answers your question on this matter too.

One thing I've been meaning to post about is how game design mimics play. Not in the sense that play can be defined by the design, as much as the processes to achieve one have strong associations to the processes in the other. I think that there is an element of drift in design. But tweaking where that comes from is a difficult task in itself.

Thank you for your time,

-Mendel S.

ethan_greer wrote: I think I get what you're saying, Mendel, but I disagree with it. Basically, game text that is more open to individual interpretation is problematic because it will inevitably lead to disfunctional play when one player's expectations are totally different from another player's. This leads to rules arguments and all sorts of bad stuff that basically prevents good role-playing.

Then again, a game using this technique may very well sell better. But sales are not what we're talking about, are they? We're talking about actual play.

M. J. Young wrote:

Fang 'Le Joueur' Langford wrote: The gaming community has a long history of practicing Drift. It's so ingrained that perhaps no one ever thought to write it into their System, before. So what? That doesn't make those games 'broken,' unplayable, or Dysfunctional, simply poorly written from an era of poorly understood applied role-playing game design theory.

I've had two threads in my mind that I've been thinking of starting for a couple weeks now, holding off until I have time to initiate something of that sort. It appears tonight that both have been started. This is one.

Long before I heard of role playing games I was a gamer--board games, card games, parlor games, trivia games, even the occasional bookcase and war games.

As a gamer, I expect the rules of the game to tell me how to play. It's as simple as that.

Sure, people adapt games. I don't. I play as close to the rules as I can manage, and if it doesn't work, it's a broken game, and I have no intention of fixing it.

Call me strange; call me an outsider, someone who doesn't understand the hobby. But allow me this much: role playing games cannot reach the mass market as long as it's inherent in the design that they don't work as written. Most people expect a game to play as designed, not as adjusted by the user.

I think Fang is saying something I've heard a lot of people say of late: that incoherence is good and sells well because it provides support for multiple goals, and players can ignore the support for those goals that don't interest them, in essence customizing the game to their own needs. I find this at least foolish. Multiverser is certainly customizable--it frequently says that the referee should use whichever of certain rules seem most appropriate and best for the circumstances of the moment, about many things. It doesn't thereby create rules that must be ignored to be able to understand or play the game. It explicitly assigns referees the task of setting some of the dials and switches, but other than in those situations in which it's this way or that way there isn't any overall "this choice won't work in this area if you made that choice in that area"--you don't have to "ignore entire chapters" to get it to work.

Incoherence is not necessary for customizability, and is an obstacle to play. Customizing incoherent games into coherent play inherently means making choices that will make the game in play unrecognizable to some players whose customization choices were contrary.

Incoherence is still bad design.

--M. J. Young

Green wrote: This is true. It has been my experience on several occasions when my idea about what a game was about was different from the group's. Even though I was willing to admit that RPGs, as a form of literature and drama, are by necessity interpretive, the group was having none of that, and my thoughts and views more or less discarded. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant experience.

Marco wrote: 1. RPG's may have rules but they are essentially a medium--that requires creative interpertation of some sort. Unlike chess. One groups play may be unrecognizable to another group without chaning a rule at all (a session when no mechancics come up is possible in many games, I don't know about Multiverser--in that event it could be mistaken for something else quite easily).

2. "Doesn't work" is poorly defined. Do you mean if you can't make out the rules you won't fix it? Does it mean that if you play GURPS you have to buy all the additional books?

John Kim wrote:
Let me take a specific example: I run a game of original AD&D, but it is set in a royal palace where the PCs are various residents. As play progresses they discover that there is some sort of mystery going on. We follow the rules exactly as written. When combat comes up, we duly roll the dice. However, for many sessions there is no combat: just dialogue with various palace members, finding clues, and wandering about. This required no rules modifications -- but I would argue that it should be considered major drift from original AD&D.

The idea that you can say you know what AD&D is supposed to be like is what I disagree with. There's nothing that mandates how often combat should come up. There's nothing that mandates that you can't play a political game. These assumptions are, IMO, like phrenologists pouring over a skull and going "there's a bump in the combat section--it must be violent."

Marco wrote: I actually specified this description as "situational drift"--and for puppet land it would, I agree, be "major" to change the situation dramatically. But not "heavy" since no effort was expended changing rules.

For AD&D, though, I don't think you can say that though. I find nothing in the description of the game that tells you explicitly where or how to play.

Marco wrote: The idea that you can say you know what AD&D is supposed to be like is what I disagree with. There's nothing that mandates how often combat should come up. There's nothing that mandates that you can't play a political game.
...
If you play so that rules sections are cut out--and construct the game so that that's intentional then, yes, I'd categorize it as drift (and for some examples, very major--for most, I think minor). But to decide what a game's base-line is when it's not specified seems very iffy to me.

Valamir wrote:

The idea that you can say you know what AD&D is supposed to be like is what I disagree with. There's nothing that mandates how often combat should come up. There's nothing that mandates that you can't play a political game. These assumptions are, IMO, like phrenologists pouring over a skull and going "there's a bump in the combat section--it must be violent."

Oh come now Marco. In the effort to make your point, you're straying into hyperbole. Virtually every rule in AD&D and virtually every variant published in Dragon, and I'd venture to guess virtually every house rule ever written had something to do with Combat. Either combat directly or with things whose primary purpose was modifying combat effectiveness (like encomberance, fatigue, and falling damage). This is way beyond someones untested assumptions.

Besides you are falling into a trap that is a pretty common one with you. Saying a game is "about" something in no way mandates that that's all it can be used for.

Besides #2, if you can't tell what a game is supposed to be like and what it looks like in play from reading the text and playing a few times, that's a whole nother category of design failure. One that Jack brings up in another thread, and one that most RPGs are guilty of.

John Kim wrote:

Marco wrote: I actually specified this description as "situational drift"--and for puppet land it would, I agree, be "major" to change the situation dramatically. But not "heavy" since no effort was expended changing rules.

For AD&D, though, I don't think you can say that though. I find nothing in the description of the game that tells you explicitly where or how to play.

Well, I don't agree, but it doesn't really matter. Regardless of what AD&D says, your point in general is true. You can write a game which has no rules or hints for situation. After all, the GM and/or players can make this up for themselves. Further, I can write a game which has no rules or hints for setting. The GM and players can create their own world however they like. For that matter, I can write a game which has no character generation system. The GM and players can make up characters however they like.

Now, I would guess that you will jump in objection to that last one. You will say that it's fine to create the whole rest of the world without any rules, but rules for player character creation are a "core" of the system. I would say that this is a common custom in some previous published RPGs, but there's no intrinsic logic to it. You just have a habit of doing things this way: i.e. certain things you always look in the book for how to do, certain things you make up for yourself.

Nor do I agree that the customary "core" parts are the hardest. Designing a complete world and characters is difficult and exactly how it is done makes a huge difference to play. Nor is playing without any of the other stuff terribly difficult. Heck, I did it when I was only nine years old.

So getting back to the question of drift...

Marco wrote: The idea that you can say you know what AD&D is supposed to be like is what I disagree with. There's nothing that mandates how often combat should come up. There's nothing that mandates that you can't play a political game.
...
If you play so that rules sections are cut out--and construct the game so that that's intentional then, yes, I'd categorize it as drift (and for some examples, very major--for most, I think minor). But to decide what a game's base-line is when it's not specified seems very iffy to me.

I could quibble about AD&D, but in general, sure -- you can make a game where you can't tell from reading it what play is supposed to be like. I guess there is a gap in terminology here. Perhaps we could say that requiring significant change for functional play is "Incoherency", while simply leaving vital elements unspecified is "Incompleteness". The literal idea of drift only really applies to Incoherent games. We need a parallel term, then, for what is done with Incomplete games to complete their functionality.

Marco wrote: But, and this is the imporant part: in the AD&D world, the intrigue game is implied. I think. There *are* castles. There are kings and dukes and thrones and successors and such. There are court wizards and deadly poison. All of that stuff goes on.

Any character, anywhere can (and likely, logically would if ascending in level) run into that. Saying that putting it in is a major departure from the concept of the game doesn't make sense to me.

Marco wrote: The way it sounds to me when you say it is is that the combat tables are an itch and that not scratching them (running combat--and lots of combat--each session) is fighting against some kind of stream. The idea that the focus on something which, I think we'd agree already does exist in the world is somehow radical leaves me confused.

Marco wrote: You liken making up a char-gen system to creating a world background. In some sense this is true. But the creation of setting is something you've always got to do--it's implicit. Even with heavily defined settings, the PC's won't find all the NPC's they meet in the book. They won't find every location detailed. You can buy products that give you detailed maps and such--but how many times will you re-use that?

Hi John,

I can agree with that: without some rules-mod, a purely aristocratic AD&D game would have some difficulties with character advancement (although a game with a heavily intrigue oriented bent that still included adventure wouldn't necessiarily). So yeah. I can agre that AD&D is "about" playing adventurers (which I still think is a big difference from Dungeon Crawls or Amassing Treasure or Leveling Up ... or Combat ... or a lot of other things I've seen people assume).

And yes--non-traditional designs can vary widely. I didn't intend to cast the net as far as apparently it came off.

Of course the idea that AD&D or Nicotine Girls would need some rules-mod to play comfortably within zones they might well wander into is pretty intrinsic to Fang's point. And for what it's worth, I think I'd have an easier time solving the adventurers-turned-politicans issues in AD&D than I would having a shoot-out at a night club go down dramatically in Nicotine Girls.

-Marco

Marco wrote: I can agree with that: without some rules-mod, a purely aristocratic AD&D game would have some difficulties with character advancement (although a game with a heavily intrigue oriented bent that still included adventure wouldn't necessiarily). So yeah. I can agre that AD&D is "about" playing adventurers (which I still think is a big difference from Dungeon Crawls or Amassing Treasure or Leveling Up ... or Combat ... or a lot of other things I've seen people assume).

John Kim wrote:

Marco wrote: I can agree with that: without some rules-mod, a purely aristocratic AD&D game would have some difficulties with character advancement (although a game with a heavily intrigue oriented bent that still included adventure wouldn't necessiarily). So yeah. I can agre that AD&D is "about" playing adventurers (which I still think is a big difference from Dungeon Crawls or Amassing Treasure or Leveling Up ... or Combat ... or a lot of other things I've seen people assume).

The thing is, I think you have an idea that certain things are the core of the system. i.e. Someone can ignore over half the rulebook text, but as long as they are still using unmodified the core -- then the game is only lightly drifted.

I see the game as a collection of parts. The more you ignore or change from what is described (or implied) in the text, the further you are from the written game. Certainly I see some things as being more central than others -- but that is a subjective judgement based on my own preferences. What I feel is the core might be different than what you feel is the core.

I certainly know that when I played original AD&D (many years ago), I would fairly regularly toss aside things which I think you regard as core. For example, I would commonly play diceless: especially at school, on trips, or at other times when dice weren't practical. However, other things like the magic item descriptions I strictly adhered to.

Sitting here now, I see three distinct types of Drift: rules ignored, rules rewritten, and rules added

Rules ignored is fairly simple a particular rules for a particular purpose is simply not used and replaced with...nothing. The D&D aging rules being a classic example of this. In the play I had participated in, these rules were simply never used and no other rules for that situation were made. In short, the situation never came up.

Rules rewritten is when there is a rule in the book covering the situation, but this rule is somehow not to the taste of the players (in many cases, just the GM) and the rule is changed. This may be lightly difted, retaining the mechanics or dice-rolling techiniques etc but with modified values for thing that use this mechanic or totally rewritten as if from scratch.

Rules added if when a situation comes up and there is no rule covering this situation, so a rule is written to cover the situation. Most of early D&D, especially the suppliments, were this-- adding classes, falling damage, hit locations, psionics, etc.

I think that we can judge the amount of drift of a game by how much is drifted and by what type. Determining by which rules were drifted and which were not is subjective opinion and doesn't help anybody.

I agree with Jack's types of drift.

*****

Marco,

I'm having trouble getting ahold of where you are going. I'm agreeing with both sides of the arguement, but not really seeing how they connect (I could just be tired).

When I think of a game (my example will be D&D3E) I think of the text and pictures. The system (little 's') is about combat if that's what the book is talking about. D&DE3 is about combat, practically every page in the book is devoted in one way or another to combat or things that relate to combat. I just don't see how it could not be considered about combat.

Do you have to have combat in your D&D3E play? No...but now we are talking about play, which is a whole different beast and can be about whatever the group damn well pleases. Play is only colored by the game system, not created by it.

*****

As far as Incoherence goes, we seem to have taken the Drift angle and that's fine. But, I'm still chewing on the square horseshoe and the chain kinda falls apart if you ditch the terms Hybrid, Congruence, and El Dorado; combine Drift and Transition; and consider games on that model.

However, I would like to say that I think Incoherence should get the boot in relation to this:

Fang wrote: Now we finally begin to reach my problem. See, 3) all of the games that Ron deems Incoherent in design (because he observes that at some point the become Dysfunctional in play¹ as implied by their texts), also fit the definition he gives of a Hybrid (note, these aren't required to be non-Dysfunctional - he even notes something about "functional Hybrids," meaning there are those which aren't).

cruciel wrote: 3. You cannot rightly identify whether or not a game is Incoherent, Coherent, or Hybrid without playing it.

I'm not ... I'm not sure I got much more to add here right now ... but yeah, I'm not *disagreeing* with anything Jack said just now--actually I'm in utter agreement (esp with the last bit about trying to make a determination about things from *which* rules were drifted being a rough call to make).

I posited "situational drift" wherein a rule isn't modified, added, or deleted--it's just made highly irrelevant by the circumstances of play. That's something I don't think Jack allowed for--but I don't see that as a disagreement. I do agree with what he said.

I allowed that AD&D is about *adventure* which, yes, is often gonna include combat. Absolutely.

As for the Incoherent design vs. Incoherent play thing? Well it is believed (by some, I think) that a given design can promote fun play (Coherent design). Not all designs, this thinking goes, *do* that.

Do they incourage dysfunctional play? I don't know? Do they just not *assist* fun play? I'm not sure--but there are some designs that are coherent ... and some that aren't. Saying those designs are incoherent doesn't seem to be much of a stretch.

However, I remain unconvinced. I suspect that one person's coherent game is another person's incohernet game. Since I don't know how to define Incoherent, I'm using: a game that must be drifted for fun play.

It's clear that some very focused games will be played with low amounts of drift. Larger rules-systems (GURPS?) will tend to have higher amounts (who uses all the rules?). Heavily disparate systems (AD&D) will tend to be higher than more centralized ones (Over the Edge).

One could make the statement that since simpler systems will tend to be drifted less, they'll lead to better play. But I'm not sure anyone *is* making that claim (Ron, IIRC, suspected The Window--a contender for the simplest system in existence--would need drifting for coherent play). So I don't know.

-Marco

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:

cruciel wrote: 3. You cannot rightly identify whether or not a game is Incoherent, Coherent, or Hybrid without playing it.

Well, yes & no. I think the example of VtM goes that the text constantly says it's about story, like they invented Narrativism or something, but in play it is more Simulationist, as you had said.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Well, yes & no. I think the example of VtM goes that the text constantly says it's about story, like they invented Narrativism or something, but in play it is more Simulationist, as you had said.

Marco wrote: No argument here--(and I dunno what VtM meant--at this point I will consider that, yes, they probably did get it all wrong and promise something they didn't deliver--I haven't the text so I can't say exactly what). But it is possible to claim to be "all about story" and still be completely simulationist ... I would say. The problem lies in what the speaker thinks story means vs. what the listener thinks it means. The whole "real life isn't a story" discussion is tied up in this.

Marco wrote: I posited "situational drift" wherein a rule isn't modified, added, or deleted--it's just made highly irrelevant by the circumstances of play. That's something I don't think Jack allowed for--but I don't see that as a disagreement. I do agree with what he said.

As for the Incoherent design vs. Incoherent play thing? Well it is believed (by some, I think) that a given design can promote fun play (Coherent design). Not all designs, this thinking goes, *do* that.

Do they incourage dysfunctional play? I don't know? Do they just not *assist* fun play? I'm not sure--but there are some designs that are coherent ... and some that aren't. Saying those designs are incoherent doesn't seem to be much of a stretch.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:
This is a heavy-handed and not very tight analogy but it's the difference between tossing someone in the deep end of the pool and actually teaching them how to swim.

In this thread, people keep saying that the proponents of the theory are saying things that they've never said.

Nobody has ever said, that only single mode gaming is the only way to coherence. Ron can be quoted in several places saying the opposite. And Marco, you're above quote is simply reading into Ron's statement things he didn't say.

Nobody has said that coherence is the only ingredient to making a game "fun" or otherwise good. Just that INcoherence is one way a game can be "non-fun". Not the only way, of course, just one.

Nobody has said that GNS is the only thing that's important in design. In fact, we're all on record saying how we feel that it's just one small part of the whole picture. And Ron will even tell you that it's not really about design at all.

So people have to stop setting up these straw men. You can say all you want that we believe these things, but it will not make it true.

You're argument seems to be, Marco, that we won't say what our arguments really are, and that you know what they really are, and that those things that we're not stating aren't true. I could as easily say that you are a terrorist sympathizer, but just not stating it, and say that you ought to be jailed because of it. Do you see how that might be offensive?

We have put out our arguments repeatedly in cogent format. If you don't think that's true, then tell us where we've failed to be clear, and we'll try to be more clear. But don't argue against things that you "suspect" that we think. Please stick to the statements that we've actually made.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
We have put out our arguments repeatedly in cogent format. If you don't think that's true, then tell us where we've failed to be clear, and we'll try to be more clear. But don't argue against things that you "suspect" that we think. Please stick to the statements that we've actually made.

Mike

I'd like to know how someone is supposed to try to design a coherent game--if armed with the definition and the tools and the concept what does one do?

Be real explicit about GM/Player power split?

Focus tightly to make sure rules can't be omitted? Make all rules explicitly optional so the game can never be said to be truly drifted? Does not using an optional rule constitute drift?

And once you have your Coherent game, what's that mean exactly? That it "does what it says it does?" (according to who, then?) That people who play it will find it fun? (all people? most people? people who 'get it?' people who like the subject matter and the specific implementation?) That it will appeal to people who will play it as the designer intended? I really wouldn't know how to explain this to someone. Surely I can't be the only guy whose a bit confused about it.

Hi Matt,

Actually the term I was questioning was "Incoherence" (although that, by nature questions Coherence.

I've seen it said that Incoherence can't apply to games (but Coherence can?)--I don't get that.

The best definition of an Incoherent game I've seen, then is "one that must be drifted for Coherent ('fun') play."

I don't know if anyone's subscribing to that--but if you subscribe to the notion of a coherent game that logically assumes an incoherent one exists--so what's the definition?

If my working defn' *is* valid, then what does drift mean? Since it seemed it could mean almost anything from playing nobles in AD&D (for some values of nobles) to a complete re-write, to not using the AD&D aging rules I was asking if it's so vauge then: "What does saying a game is coherent or incoherent actually mean?"

Also: I gave an example of a game that seemed pretty clean and focused that *I'd* have to drift to play what I wanted--that was thematically within the scope of it. It seemed a fairly strong dis-proof of my working definition of Incoherent.

-Marco

Marco wrote: I've seen it said that Incoherence can't apply to games (but Coherence can?)--I don't get that.

The best definition of an Incoherent game I've seen, then is "one that must be drifted for Coherent ('fun') play."

Also: I gave an example of a game that seemed pretty clean and focused that *I'd* have to drift to play what I wanted--that was thematically within the scope of it. It seemed a fairly strong dis-proof of my working definition of Incoherent.

I'd like to know how someone is supposed to try to design a coherent game--if armed with the definition and the tools and the concept what does one do?

Be real explicit about GM/Player power split?

Focus tightly to make sure rules can't be omitted? Make all rules explicitly optional so the game can never be said to be truly drifted? Does not using an optional rule constitute drift?

Build however you want and then play-test and look for ... what?

All of the above? More? What if I miss a piece?

And once you have your Coherent game, what's that mean exactly?

Hi Marco,

GNS essay:

In terms of design, the issue is incoherence, defined here as failure to permit any Premise (or any element of Exploration) to be consistently enjoyed.

SNIP

*Incoherent 1: the design fails to permit one or any mode of play. In its most extreme form, the system may simply be broken - too easily exploited, or internally nonsensical, or lacking meaningful consequence, to pick three respective possibilities for Gamism, Simulationism, and Narrativism.

* Incoherent 2: more commonly, the design presents a mixed bag among the modes, such that one part of play is (or is mostly) facilitating one mode and other parts of play facilitate others.

In terms of actual play, yes, one "can" bring "any" GNS focus to "any" RPG - but I argue that in most cases the effort and informal redesign to do so is substantial, and also that the effort to keep focused on the new goals as play progresses is even more substantial. This chapter discusses why that effort needs to be there at all.

SNIP

Drift is a related issue: the movement from one GNS focus to another during the course of play.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Getting anywhere? Or am I just spinning in place?

Mike

Chris,

I'm good with ya, all the way to this:

Bankuei wrote:
-Games are supposed to play in a certain way(according to design), when they fail to do what you intended(as a designer), or what they claim to do(as a player), then that is "not good" compared to ones that do.

This is no different than comparing a hammer, a saw, and a broken piece of rotted wood. The hammer and the saw, each, have their own uses, and are good at that particular use. The rotted wood, fails both as a hammer and a saw, and most anything else(except maybe firewood or mulch).

Does that clarify anything for you?

Chris

Hi Marco,

Ok, we'll drop the analogy bit for now(although I tend to use the a lot for pretty much everything, not just rpgs).

I got like 4 games I want to run--and none of them mesh directly with an existant system or setting. How does the theory apply to that (this has nothing to do with coherence as I see it, but the analogy was in your post).

With you so far. But--

You said something I don't understand:

You pointed out that my choice of game (with drift) would have nothing to do with the coherency of the game. Why did you bring that right-tool-for-the-job issue into the discussion in the first place then:

Is the game I'll likely have the best results with *unrelated* to their coherence?

Also: Does *my* requirement of drifting Mayhem to play what you might be seen as claiming to offer (robo-racers with, presumably dramatic robo races) make you guilty of selling broken merchandise?

-Marco

Hi Marco,

The initial comparison of "tool for the job" was based on the recurring theme of "What is Incoherence?".

If we're talking about a game that produces play other than what it claims, then you may find that a game serves a different GNS purpose better than what it claims("this saw is advertised as a hammer, but works better for this!"). If we're talking about a game that fails to produce any mode, then we're talking about a complete failure as a tool.

Dig?

In the first case, you may find that some game actually produces better play X than Y, although its toted as good at Y. Consider that the Window claims to support Narrativist Goals, yet pretty much gives you another version of Sim gaming. For a Sim player, the Window may be their perfect system.

Your enjoyment of the games may come from that situation. If the game is really incoherent and just doesn't fly any possible way, then it's not going to produce enjoyment without Drift.

Also: Does *my* requirement of drifting Mayhem to play what you might be seen as claiming to offer (robo-racers with, presumably dramatic robo races) make you guilty of selling broken merchandise?

::nods::

Bankuei wrote: Hi Marco,

The initial comparison of "tool for the job" was based on the recurring theme of "What is Incoherence?".

If we're talking about a game that produces play other than what it claims, then you may find that a game serves a different GNS purpose better than what it claims("this saw is advertised as a hammer, but works better for this!"). If we're talking about a game that fails to produce any mode, then we're talking about a complete failure as a tool.

Dig?

Also: Does *my* requirement of drifting Mayhem to play what you might be seen as claiming to offer (robo-racers with, presumably dramatic robo races) make you guilty of selling broken merchandise?

By no means. The Pool regularly delivers exciting combat scenes, tense political negotiations, and melodramatic emotional action, all without requiring special rules to make it happen. MH is about chaos and mayhem, and that's what the rules deliver. You can produce those very things you're concerned with, without having to create special rules for them.
Chris

Hi Marco,

sigh....

What *you* consider meeting my needs and what *I* consider meeting them could be two very different things.*

Marco wrote: What *you* consider meeting my needs and what *I* consider meeting them could be two very different things.*

But consider this: as it stands, for me, it's not coherent (i.e. fun).

Bankuei wrote: Hi Marco,

sigh....

What *you* consider meeting my needs and what *I* consider meeting them could be two very different things.*

Yes. And if you buy a cheesecake expecting it to taste like steak, will you be upset at the cook?

What I'm saying is, games should fulfill the Creative Agenda they advertise. Excusing failure by saying, "Well you can drift it" is pure bullshit. The failure is in what you claim to aim for and if you meet it or not, not in what other folks "want from it". I can want cheesecake to taste like steak all day, but that's not a failure of the cook, but a failure of me to look at what the hell I was buying.

Now if the cheesecake tastes like crap for a cheesecake, then I can get upset at the cook.

Coherency is NOT, repeat, NOT based on subjective, "what I want". It's based on "what it claims".

Chris

Matt Snyder wrote:

Marco wrote: What *you* consider meeting my needs and what *I* consider meeting them could be two very different things.*

Fine, but that your needs aren't met does not make the game incoherent. You're putting the cart before the horse.

But consider this: as it stands, for me, it's not coherent (i.e. fun).

Whoa! I thought Mike Holmes has already shown you how this is a dangerous definition of coherence. Coherence DOES NOT equal "Fun for Marco." I keep seeing you make this claim as part of your explanations. Forget coherence = fun, becaue coherence MAY NOT equal fun FOR YOU. Or for Individual X, Y, or Z. That doesn't mean that me or Individuals A, B, or C can't enjoy the hell out of the game, nor does it mean the game is incoherent because it isn't fun FOR YOU.

Marco wrote: Since I don't know how to define Incoherent, I'm using: a game that must be drifted for fun play.

Hi Marco,

At this point, you're spinning empty semantics. Read the essay, comprehend the definition. Your A, B, and C perceptions are based off of the original definition.

A- Coherency means I don't have to screw around trying to drift the game around, and then try to get everyone on the same page, makes fun easier. B- Coherency is a result of knowing what you want to do, and designing for that purpose(tool for the job). C- Intent and results match, and we can see it in the writing, as players we're not confused by incoherency.

There is no contradiction here. If you want to go into what the designer "intended", aside from what is stated in the written rules, well, let's just not wander down that path of hypotheticals...because nothing will ever come from it.

Finally, my game aside, my point still stands. If a game declares it delivers X, your complaints it fails to deliver Y are completely irrelevant. It is not Incoherent because you didn't have fun, it is not incoherent because it doesn't deliver Y. It's Incoherent if it doesn't deliver X.

Marco, I'm going to ask you to really, really review the essay and what folks have said at this point. Take some time and digest things. Further discussion without understanding is going to be pointless. You're reading a lot of contradiction where there is none, and I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I feel that everything that need be said has been said perhaps 3 times already. I'm not going to input further until I see some effort to digest being made.

Chris

Chris,

Looks like it on both sides then--I see you working double time not to understand what I'm saying.

For 'X' and 'Y' in an example of what Mayhem (or any game) does or doesn't deliver, put in real values. Tell me what:

a) you claim mayhem delivers
b) I want mayhem to deliver

And show me where you were clear in your statement of claim (a) that my (b) was outside the scope.

-Marco

Response to MJ Removed.

It all comes down to this: very, very few games make discrete claims as to what they're offering or "about" or what they do. Nicotine Girls doesn't. Mayhem doesn't (IIRC). Maybe Multiverser does--I don't know.

So when I as a reader go in, I (usually) have to decide what a game is claiming to do vs. what it isn't.

Due to my reading of words like "story" and "author" and "the pc's are the protagonists" VtM comes off as doing what it claims to. It was written as an answer to AD&D--which as has been pointed out here (and I agree) is about playing adventures (with, yes, a lot of combat). They gave you the "other stuff" to do--the polticking and the inter-relationship stuff.

They didn't have a well-defined concept of Narrativism--nor were they (I doubt) aware of the controversy around the word "story."

That's something the people here have brought to the discussion--after being disastified with their solution (and in the original essay Deadlands and 7th Sea and all those other games of a similar bent are included).

But a game text can be only partially responsible for what a reader brings to it.

Mayhem isn't "incoherent" because it doesn't satisfy me as originally written--but neither can you say it "delivers what it claims to" because it makes no clear and definite claim (or if it does, I'm asking to see it)--like VtM it has a setting and a system and a flavor. How well those mesh is a matter of opinion. I don't see how that can be seen any other way.

I've seen it said that the ultimate test is statistical. An analysis of how often it's said to work vs. how often it doesn't. I can agree with *that*--but then there'd be questions that I still think have yet to be answered (does that mean across the entire space of RPG'ers, for example? Or is just a sub-set enough?)

-Marco

Mayhem isn't "incoherent" because it doesn't satisfy me as originally written--but neither can you say it "delivers what it claims to" because it makes no clear and definite claim (or if it does, I'm asking to see it)--like VtM it has a setting and a system and a flavor. How well those mesh is a matter of opinion. I don't see how that can be seen any other way.

contracycle wrote:

Mayhem isn't "incoherent" because it doesn't satisfy me as originally written--but neither can you say it "delivers what it claims to" because it makes no clear and definite claim (or if it does, I'm asking to see it)--like VtM it has a setting and a system and a flavor. How well those mesh is a matter of opinion. I don't see how that can be seen any other way.

Well if a) GNS is a valid model, and b) coherence as described is indeed useful and valuable, and c) it is designed according to GNS and the theory of coherence, then... we know what it was intended to deliver. It is a demo or a working experiment. And therfore we can assess it as being coherent or otherwise.

If "how well they mesh is a matter of opinion" then we can do nothing. If it is instead, something that can be analysed and understand - in fact the very claim the GNS presents - then we can learn from extant mistakes and design better games in the future which are less likely to suffer those problems.

Hi Marco,

You've taken this thread way off topic. Anything Mayhem specific is going to PM.

Chris

First, Marco, your desire to drift Mayhem does not make it incoherent.

Let that sink in.

Drift is a possible sign of incoherence, but it's also a potential sign of a lot of other things. But just because you don't want to play a particular game as written does not mean that it's not coherent. This is where you keep getting confused.

Incoherent does not simply mean "not fun", it means "not fun because there are problems with play conflicting in terms of GNS.

The test for coherence in Chris's game would be if you played it as written, and saw if any problems pertaining to conflicting modes of play came about because of the rules. Now, that probably wouldn't be fun for you because you don't like the modes being promoted. But that just means it's the wrong game for you. Not that it's incoherent. Incoherence is a very tight group of problems that you're trying to make into a bigger issue.

Incoherence does not relate to preference. We accept that certain people will not like certain modes. That's not incoherence. That's simple preference. In fact, the theory here all says that you shouldn't try to make a game that satisfies all the people all the time. Because it's unlikely to work. What you need to do is to create a game that's functional for some people.

Interestingly, if a coherent game produces modes of play that you don't like, you can still drift it to fix that. Which is what you're doing, Marco. This is one of those many other reasons that people drift games.

The "do what they say" thing is being overstated. What people are trying to convey is that one source of incoherence is for a game to set up expectations of supporting certain modes of play, and then failing to do so for whatever reason. This tends to produce incoherency because people believing that the game can do these things will play in those modes. When the game fails to support that mode, then they feel let down.

Thus, if Chris' game said that it supported a hightly technical view of gear in his game, saying that it supported Sim play, he'd be lying. And then, a player expecting that would be dissapointed. This is the general concept.

However, as pointed out, it's rare that these things are stated explicitly. Actually, VTM is the classic example talking only about telling a story, and then supporting all three modes. But let's consider a game that didn't say such a thing. Like if Vampire hadn't had such promises (or if you don't think that it does). Well, does that mean that the game isn't promising anything in particular? Actually, no, the game mechanics themselves will tend to suggest modes of play. And when one player sees one thing, and another player sees another, that's when you have the potential for trouble in terms of coherence.


The game designer can't know who is going to pick up his game and play. He can't assume all that much about what the player wants in terms of mode. What he can do is present the game's modes of play in such a way that the players have an understanding of what play is supposed to look like, and how the modes are supposed to exist with each other in play. That way, he's presented one way to play that does not have the potential trouble of incoherency. If the players then want to drift the game because they don't like the modes presented, or for any other reason, well, that's fine.

It's just not a sign of incoherency.

JAGS is a pretty coherent Sim game (some currency stuff we could debate, but overall...). No matter what anybody thinks about Sim, that will remain true. You've done what you need to do there, I think. Do you have people come to you complaining that they're not sure if it's supposed to be about realistic portrayal of the world, or if it's supposed to be about winning? As opposed to complaints like complexity, or focus on realism or something? The former complaint might indicate incoherence. The latter complaint indicates preference problems (to which you ought to respond that this is not the game for them).

If GMs or players change the game to have, say, a more gamist bent, that represents their preferences, and not incoherence.

This is nothing new, and I feel that I'm repeating myself. But I'm not seeing where it's not clear.

Mike

Marco wrote: What you have already provided is a good framework for me to "roll my own" with it.
...
Could it be that "broken" is entirely a mattre or taste (or almost so? Incomprehensible incoherent (the real meaning, not the GNS meaning) rules would be almost universally broken)

Marco wrote:

By no means. The Pool regularly delivers exciting combat scenes, tense political negotiations, and melodramatic emotional action, all without requiring special rules to make it happen. MH is about chaos and mayhem, and that's what the rules deliver. You can produce those very things you're concerned with, without having to create special rules for them.

I couldn't. For me the drama in a race would come from a multi-phase resolution (which was what I suggested). For me, being a racer would mean fixing up my 'bot (gear rules). The system wouldn't handle that either.

Hi John,

My point being made is that my terminology of Broken Merchandise is based on the concept of "Game claims X, but fails to deliver X." You are correct that terms such as "exciting, fun, etc." are biased, but my point is that the Pool is NOT incoherent or broken because it "fails to give specific rules" for each of the cases in point. In other words, the rules set is flexible enough to cover all those cases without requiring special mention.

The reason for the initial comparison is that MH is based off of the Pool, with some modifications.

The major point I want to bring to the table is that "Fun for me= Coherence / Not fun for me = Incoherence" is incorrect. Incoherence is the inability to solidly deliver on any GNS mode, regardless if we're talking XYZ, or PDQ as you put it.

Chris

Playtest version is available on Yahoo Groups under MayhemPT at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indie-netgaming/files/

Mike Holmes wrote: First, Marco, your desire to drift Mayhem does not make it incoherent.

Let that sink in.


Mike

John Kim wrote:

Marco wrote: What you have already provided is a good framework for me to "roll my own" with it.
...
Could it be that "broken" is entirely a mattre or taste (or almost so? Incomprehensible incoherent (the real meaning, not the GNS meaning) rules would be almost universally broken)

Well, this is definitely true in some sense. The exact same game which one person considers fun and exciting, another person might not like. However, I am not satisfied that this means that we should simply toss up our hands and suggest that nothing can possibly be said about the quality and design of any games.

GNS is one attempted step towards understanding the variation of taste among different gamers. Thus, ideally, we would be able to say "This game doesn't work for those whose tastes correspond to XYZ -- but it is fun for those whose tastes correspond to PDQ." At present, with just three categories, I think it is pretty self-evident that it doesn't fully describe the taste preferences of role-players. Still, many people have found it useful.

Marco wrote:

By no means. The Pool regularly delivers exciting combat scenes, tense political negotiations, and melodramatic emotional action, all without requiring special rules to make it happen. MH is about chaos and mayhem, and that's what the rules deliver. You can produce those very things you're concerned with, without having to create special rules for them.

I couldn't. For me the drama in a race would come from a multi-phase resolution (which was what I suggested). For me, being a racer would mean fixing up my 'bot (gear rules). The system wouldn't handle that either.

It's a good point. I don't think it is reasonable to use language like saying that a game provides "exciting", "tense", or "fun" play without qualification -- because these describe reactions in the player which will vary based on taste. But the question is, what makes the races exciting to someone else but not to you? (Note: I haven't read Mayhem yet, but I'm interested. What's the URL?) If this is explainable by GNS, that would suggest that someone else finds it exciting perhaps because they are more inclined towards Narrativism, while you are more inclined to Simulationism. Thus, you would find it more exciting if you drifted it towards your preferred style of play.

Marco wrote: What about the fact that IMO it doesn't deliver on its claim?

Mike Holmes wrote:

Marco wrote: What about the fact that IMO it doesn't deliver on its claim?

This is why I spent all the time in the last post on this subject. "Doesn't do what it says" is also not a clear definition of Incoherence. That was my point. It can, again, be one way that a came can promote Incoherence, but it's not defining.

And perhaps Chris' game does promote incoherent play. Let's find out. What conflicting modes do you see it promoting? If you see the game promoting two or more modes in such a way as they might tend to be read such that play might tend to become problematic, then it's incoherent.

If, OTOH, you simply want a different mode than it provides, if it's just a preference, then we're not talking about a problem with Incoherence. You're example seems to me to indicate a preference problem. OTOH, maybe you feel that the game indicates to players somewhere that there will be mechanically detailed resolution, and then the game fails to put that out there. Can you point to such a problem? Or one in which using the single step resolution will conflict with other parts of the design in terms of what sort of GNS decisions the rules promote?

Mike

Marco wrote: it'd be narrativist in the sense that I'd narrate my successes for a better story

I'm sayin' that the way the success mechanic works would make me inclined to use it to set up story arcs (the defeated Thermonuclear Volley Ball Women's team captain falls in love with/vows revenge against my character)--and that tendency wouldn't work all that well with the competitive nature of the world as I see it (i.e. there'd be no thrill-of-victory due to the one-roll resolution and the fact that any degree of success is "success"--if I understand it correctly, with higher ones being dramatic over-kill).

I haven't spent a lot of time on the bidding mechanic, however if I were making goal oriented decisions in the game (and I think I would be) I'd be hoarding my dice for the big show-down--and maybe having problems with other people expending dice (and losing them to the pool) if we were team-oriented ...

It *is* a complex dynamic--but I can see several ways it could break where there'd be problems.

I'm not 100% I have the definitions right myself tho ...

And more importantly, I think that all says *way* more about *me* than the game (which is kinda my point).
-Marco

Well, we're getting into really tough territory here. Is it your preference that makes you see the potential of the system as one thing when another sees it as another. In any case, just that you've said this means that the game is slightly incoherent. But the thing is that by that standard, I'd think that almost all games would be incoherent. I mean, one could play Rune a Sim, but it would very much be missing the point of all the rules designed to determine who wins the game.

The point is that it is subjective in terms of what will work; as I said it's art. And you'll never be 100% coherent by the most stringent of definitions. But that's not the goal. We only want to be "mostly" coherent, or coherent enough.

Again, it's like Realism. You'll never get 100% there. But you sure as hell can try to achieve it to some extent. Coherence isn't binary. It's a spectrum ranging from horribly, brokenly, incoherent, to coherent enough that you really don't have to worry.

As a designer, Chris has to take your comments and decide if they're potent enough to merit change (assuming he's really concerned with coherence). Are you just not the target market, or can he make the game more coherent in a way that satisfies your particular proclivities in a consistent manner?

So I'm not sure how you seeing his game as incoherent "disproves" the idea. You've just proved the usefulness of it. Either the test deluded you into thinking that there was this other way to employ the rules (incoherent) or you're just changing it because you're adjusting it to your play preference.

Mike

I'm mulling over what you posted Mike--and a good post it is. I agree with the language and the message. That "tough territory" was where I felt I started out. It took a long time to get to the question of whether I was responsible for reading gamism into the rules (and the scale of coherence-incoherence).

I wanted to address something before responding to your post though:

Several times people have said "we shouldn't just throw up our hands and assume we can't say anything about design" (paraphrase).

I'm not, and never have been advocating that. That people like Ralph and John thought (did they? I'm not sure they were responding to *me* but it seemed like it) I *was* speaks volumes to the poorness of this mode of communication.

-Marco

Well, I think they're overstating the case. This is just one area of design, so even if it turned out to be bogus it wouldn't mean that we can't improve on designs in other ways.

But they are saying that it sounds like you're saying that there's no reason to improve games in this area. That's only, I suspect because your contention is that there's no improvement to be done. So the whole "throw up your hands" arguments are passing each other. I think we all agree that one can and should make better games. It's just a quesiton of whether or not the concept of Coherence can be used in that regard.

Mike

After taking some time off and mulling over the posts, here's my conclusion. I believe there's a lot of congruence here--although I'm pretty sure I feel the degree of variance in these things is *far* larger than Mike does (I could be wrong, however).

Mike Holmes wrote: Well, we're getting into really tough territory here. Is it your preference that makes you see the potential of the system as one thing when another sees it as another.

Hi Marco,

I'm certain that Chris feels coherence is important to his design but: if he changes his rules to assist me, someone who sees Narrativism in his design will find the gear-rules cause munchkining and maybe dislike the multi-phase combat system they'll feel shifts the game to one about combat.

PS- Marco, you might be surprised to find out that Mayhem High is strictly Sim, not Nar. It can be drifted to Nar, but there's nothing in it to "push" it that way. Plus, like the Pool, it sucks for gamist play. The only sort of "Step on up" at hand is who can be the funniest.

Marco wrote: Given this, I'd want to qualify any statements about coherence or incoherence--and specify the magnitude of the phenomena. Without that, I'm not sure the statement will lead to meaningful discourse save with those who already agree with what is being said.

cruciel wrote:
The rub seems to be that mechanic A will then fall into another priority, and then which priority do you judge the game on? Particularly slippery when there isn't a clear majority priority, but if there was a majority priority you probably couldn't call it Incoherent anymore.

Behold my off-topic post! It's short I promise.

I think I blame Sim for my difficulty with Incoherence. Seems to me, that games most often pegged as Incoherent (cough...VtM...cough) are at least largely Sim. Like an unclear addressment of the metagame priority (challenge/theme) leads to the Incoherence. No clear addressment of challenge or theme, just addressing verisimilitude (which can pop up in Gam or Nar as well) is what gets you Sim, right? As if the Sim priority isn't strong enough to guide the creative agenda once the inevitable happens and someone's challenge or theme agenda creeps into the play. Just fuel for the Conflict/Fidelity fire for me I guess.

Just a stray thought full of assumptions and babble.

Editted for clarity...sort of.

Marco wrote:
It gets even stickier: Chris feels the game doesn't push towards Nar play. He says it. He sounds sure. He's dead wrong. My proclivites mean that when I get directoral power I go around setting up plot arcs and aiming towards climaxes and advancing themes. If I don't wanna be doing that, I don't want directoral power.

So for me the game has a H-eeeuuu-ge push towards Nar play. Despite what the designer thinks.

Ah, well, yeh--I could have it wrong. The definitions are hard for me to get right.

My play would, I'm sayin', be characterized by making decisions with "what would produce the best story" in mind--and lookin' for or trying to produce a theme.

I dunno. You tell me.

Edit: I've had a hard time parsing your stuff of late. The game was never labeled in its text. Or maybe I don't get what you're talking about. The alien-in-cat thing I had to look at a couple of times to get ... and I'm not sure I completely understand what you are saying.

-Marco

Marco wrote: Edit: I've had a hard time parsing your stuff of late. The game was never labeled in its text. Or maybe I don't get what you're talking about. The alien-in-cat thing I had to look at a couple of times to get ... and I'm not sure I completely understand what you are saying.

Hi guys,

A strong consideration would be octaNe, with director stance all over the place, but still firmly Sim. Again, it can be drifted to Nar fairly easily(I know I did), but its still strong Sim. There's nothing in the rules to suggest otherwise, which isn't to say its a bad thing by any means.

The key problem in terms of determining Incoherency, as Mike and Marco both noted is that it comes out over a larger group of people than simply one person or one group. There are numerous factors that go into Coherent or Incoherent play, and its rather hard to determine whether the results are due to the game design, Social Contract of that particular group, or the amount of drift going on. All three of these factors play such a big role in acheiving Coherence or Incoherence, and are very difficult to determine without witnessing actual play, so we are left to trying to pick out the overall trend from a large enough test subject.

This isn't to say that numbers alone are the determinant, but also seeing the design operate for yourself, under a variety of conditions and people, probably plays a big, big role in understanding. I suspect folks like Ron and Jake who have demo'd from lots of different people have probably gathered an informal, but vital "index" of info regarding their particular games and what contributes to Coherent Play and what tends to screw it up.

Chris

xiombarg wrote:

Marco wrote: Edit: I've had a hard time parsing your stuff of late. The game was never labeled in its text. Or maybe I don't get what you're talking about. The alien-in-cat thing I had to look at a couple of times to get ... and I'm not sure I completely understand what you are saying.

I believe it's just a colorful way of saying that just because you claim to see something, doesn't mean that thing is really there. I can claim to see the sun turn blue, but this doesn't mean the sun really turned blue, and that we have to discuss astronomy based on the assumption that the sun can suddenly turn blue.

As far as your use of narrative power, Marco, Director stance isn't inherently Narrativist just because you can use it for that. Donjon uses Director stance and it's Gamist in orientation. Other people could use that poper differently than you do. At best, Director stance doesn't get in the way of Narrativism -- vanilla Narrativism at its finest. Your assertion is kinda like saying that dice are Narrativist because they can be used in a Narrativist way.

Contrast with Kickers, as seen in Sorcerer, which, as a mechanic, lean in a very Narrativist direction -- they're directly connected to story and theme, and the changes that happen after a Kicker is resolved are very non-Gamist, in that there's no mechanical advantage in the change, and they're not particularly Sim either -- why would a character's stats change just because they resolved a particular Situation?

You might want to check out some old threads on Narrativism and Director stance.

As for the sun being blue? I don't think that's right. I'm talking about my reaction to a rule--not any inherent property of the rule itself. I'm not saying *directoral* power is narrativst--just that my tendency is to use it that way. In that context it seemed contra was trying to tell me I was wrong about how I felt about something. If he was, I admit I'd thought better of him.

It gets even stickier: Chris feels the game doesn't push towards Nar play. He says it. He sounds sure. He's dead wrong.

xiombarg wrote:

As for the sun being blue? I don't think that's right. I'm talking about my reaction to a rule--not any inherent property of the rule itself. I'm not saying *directoral* power is narrativst--just that my tendency is to use it that way. In that context it seemed contra was trying to tell me I was wrong about how I felt about something. If he was, I admit I'd thought better of him.

My guess is he was reacting to this statement of yours, which doesn't sound like an assertion of your opinion:

It gets even stickier: Chris feels the game doesn't push towards Nar play. He says it. He sounds sure. He's dead wrong.

Call me crazy, but that sounds like you're asserting that the mechanic DOES push towards Narrativism, and not just for you. Sure, you qualify it later in the post, but there's a strong implication that your reaction is the usual reaction.

I think part of the problem here, Marco, is that when people talk about incoherence -- or anything in RPG theory -- it's a general thing. That is, when we say that a mechanic pushes toward Narrativism, we mean that most people, IN GENERAL, would find that it facilities Narrativist play. Your milage may vary, but that doesn't disprove anything -- it just proves that you're different. Special, even. ;-D

Most mechanics are GNS neutral. That's why it takes effort to avoid Incoherence.

So, returning to the topic of this thread, just because Incoherence doesn't (in a sense) exist FOR YOU, doesn't mean it doesn't exist for most people -- whether or not they recognize it.

Hi Marco,

As a game designer I'd pay much, much more attention to whether it worked *for* me, than for some random guy--and a random guy who seems to be a Simulationist, at that.

I'm sayin' that fixing the game for *me* is probably not going to get you closer to a game that will do what *you* want it to. I'm often playing in a simultionist mode. I thought (IIRC) that you were pretty much usually playing in a Narrativist mode.

Since I don't believe the game is really "Incoherent" (although by some of the standards it could be seen that way) if I were you I would make any changes I suggest that you agree with, not worry too much about what I feel your game "claims" or "promises" and build the game that plays the way you want it to.

If that means 1-phase combat and no gear, so be it.

As it presently stands, it'd be worth drifting.

-Marco

Call me crazy (I don't mind, really), but I don't think the issue with Incoherence is whether or not Marco can have Coherent play with System X. Or that Incoherence is a non-valuable term for play. Incoherent play doesn't seem to be a sketchy concept at all. It's these transitions:

I had/saw Incoherent play with System X -> System X is Incoherent
I had/saw Coherent play with System X after drift -> System X is Incoherent.

Big jumps, and part 1 has a frame of reference which part 2 does not.

Hi Marco,

Agreed in full.

Chris