Hi All,

On my way out to my cousins on Christmas eve, I listened to a NPR program. The theme was games: computer games, board games, old tactical wargames from the 19th century... And more. A different guest for different topics.

One of the guests was a former employee of Parker Bros, who had written a book about the founding of Parker Bros, its history and the reasons for its success. The book is called "Game Makers." The author and guest for the show was Phillip Orbanes. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591392691/qid=1072677177//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-8778266-1044856?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

The author puts the bulk of Parker Bros. success at the feet of George Parker, natural game designer and dreamer with actual drive.

One of the things Orbanes credits George with is a knack for writing game rules. George prided himself on the clarity of his writing. In Orbane's phrasing, "George knew that even though the game was published the east coast, anyone, anywhere, somebody in Los Angeles had to be able to open the box and play the game without any recourse to anything but what was printed on the pages of the rules."

This got me to thinking. RPG aren't like that. Has there *ever* been a game that either a) wasn't so contradictory that you had to feel your way along and make your choices in the fog because there were nothing solid to grab onto, or b) even if the game rules are solid, demanded a solid dose of Old School letters to the Question Guy in game magazines, or the regular use of this new fangled internet thing to get immediate clarifcation on something you couldn't figure out.

This is not a post to wrap on lack of clarity. This is a thread that asks, "Do RPGs have to be like this?" I really don't know. But I think its significant that the hallmark games of this country are damned easy to understand.

Even if we strip out the arcana and minutia fetish of a lot of AD&D style games, we're still always left with, "But I don't get the initiative system."

And books that are... well, books, as opposed to almost any other board game rules people buy for each other every Christmas.

Two things: Diplomacy I'll count as a classic. (If a game makes it to the White House, I'll call it a classic.) The rules are long, but complete. So I don't think the issue at hand is only about length. Because once you've got the rules for Diplomacy in your mind, you're done. There are couple of fuzzy spots on the map, a couple of strange circumstances can crop up, but the rules cover them.

Thus, complete and final is one of the items here on the angenda. Does the nature of RPGs deny the possibility of "complete" and "clear" rules? Maybe yes, maybe no. I don't know.

(And please, no straw man, "Not everyone gets every rule," arguement. You know what I mean. Let's move on.)

Second, I'd say the White Wolf Golden Rule is a desperate (and sad) attempt at avoiding this problem. Faced with insoluable problem of making the rules actually clear to anyone who picks up the book, Mark et al just threw up their hands and said, "but if the rules are getting in the way of your fun, just think, 'there are no rules.'"

George Parker's rules were clear, compact, comprehensible. Rules written for anyone to read and play.

Can it be done for RPGs? Has it been done? If not, why not? If so, how? If not, is it because it can't be done? Or have we simply missed something very obvious as a vital parameter for game design?

Christopher

PS I am no authority on the games racing out the door of a lot indie shops, so if something is bluntly solving the problem here, school me.

This got me to thinking. RPG aren't like that. Has there *ever* been a game that either a) wasn't so contradictory that you had to feel your way along and make your choices in the fog because there were nothing solid to grab onto, or b) even if the game rules are solid, demanded a solid dose of Old School letters to the Question Guy in game magazines, or the regular use of this new fangled internet thing to get immediate clarifcation on something you couldn't figure out.

For reference, can you recall the name of the program? Many of the NPR programs keep online archives, would be interesting to give it a listen.

I can echo Rafial's point about the teach-yourself thing. But I'm adding two caveats.

1. I've never heard anybody tell that story and it not be about basic D&D (red box in my case).

2. I can't think of a rpg I've come across in recent times that put the same effort into teaching you to play as that old red box did.

The lack of 'gateway' products out there is, I think, a real hinderance to the hobby as it stands.

The show was a Los Angeles homebrew, Talk of the City (I think), with Kitty Feldman (I think). I might be syndicated out of LA. I don't know.

I, too, taught myself RPGs out of the old D&D box. So it can be done. In part because the D&D set had no expectation of modelling "reality" (ie, the current grail of so many RPGs and so many burned dollars in the computer/video gaming world.)

I, too, think the "gateway" issue is a crucial one.

But I think the question stilll stands: what would a game be like that could be written up clearly?

Personally, I'd say the problem is one of scope. In a traditional board game, your choices are very limited; actions that the game designer did not imagine simply are not possible. In a "standard" RPG, on the other hand, your choices are nearly unlimited. It's at least implicit -- and often explicitly stated -- that you can have your character try anything.

To put it more concretely: consider, say, Risk. You want to take over a space on the map, and there's someone already there? Then you fight for it. There's no other way to do it within the rules. How you fight for it is explicitly mapped out as well, and there's no real player choice involved there, beyond what resources you want to devote to it, and when to give up trying.

Now consider an RPG. There's a room full of orcs, and you want to get in there. There's myriad ways you could do it. Straight-up fighting them is obvious, but you could also sneak in and try to do a surprise attack, try to lure them out and attack them, try to lure out just one orc and get rid of him, disguise one or more of the party as an orc and try to con them, try to con them in some other way, and so on, and so on.

The only way to have a simple set of rules which covers all the possible actions in an RPG is to abstract them to an extreme. Have actions like "attack", "con", "sneak" which cover all possible modes of attacking, conning, or trying to sneak in. Don't allow any bonus for having a "clever plan" or the like -- that's just another way for GM judgement to sneak in.

In some ways, it's a difference in scale. Consider how complex and full of edge-cases Monopoly could be if it tried to handle things at the level of detail most RPGs try for. "Okay, my mob boss is going to go send the boys over to rough up the owner of Park Place so we can convince him to sell it to me cheap..." or "I'm going to put some dead cats in the trash cans of Joe's hotel at Marvin Gardens, then call the newspaper. Let's see what that does to his asking price..."

There are such vaguely RPG-like games that can have short, clear rules... things like HeroQuest (the old board game, not the new RPG), the old TSR Dungeon game, some of the old Dragon games (e.g., "Search for the Emperor's Treasure), and Dungeoneer.

(And note as well that in a true RPG, players are not limited by/to whatever scenario the GM might have in mind. To quote Robert Plamandon's Through Dungeons Deep, "if you want to, you can have your characters stay home and paint wallpaper."

I don't know about the "scope" arguement anymore.

Games like The Pool, and even Sorcerer and HeroQuest tend to handle all things in pretty much a simple, direct and uniform way. It requires a healthy shaker of common sense to run them well though.

The questions become then:

Are the rules of The Pool clear enough for anyone to pick up and get them?

Do people "experienced" with RPGs read rules differently than other folks. (In other words, would someone reading The Pool's rules be baffled *because* he'd played a lot of RPGs, whereas someone without RPG experienece would read the Pool's rules without thinking, "where did all the rules go?"

Using discussions and thoughts on the preceding question, could the actual writing/text of Sorcerere and HQ (to use two great examples), be simpler than the published versions if the authors had not been catering to an audience with a lot of front-loaded expectations of what an RPG is? (Since of these authors tends to hang out around here *ahem* I hope he'll comment.)

What I'm getting at it this might be purely rule/mechanical issue. It might also be in how we approach what the rules are *supposed* to read like, be like.

Certainly whatever the game was, it would have to be more of a "focused" game, the kind we find around here. But given that there might be a tight design premise, ("You're making a story to decide how far your character will go to get what he wants,") how much can we strip away in term of both rules *and* text to reach a point of clarity for all to understand.

Christopher

1) I think it's a focus issue as well. A board limits the number of possibilities. Even a board game with an infinite number of possibilities still has fewer possibilities than a simple RPG.

I think of it like good software design. If you restrict the allowable inputs, then you can very easily write code to handle each and every one very specifically. The more allowable inputs, the more complex your code must be. Computers get better every day, but they still deal with a finite, definable set of inputs and ignore everything else.

In an RPG, we're told that good GMs will bend or make up rules to cover weird situations. Thus, we're not limiting the input, and we're inevitably going to come up with weird situations. Even in good old Basic D&D, there are such issues - what happens to a magic missile (or fireball) if you cast it while using a spell of breathe water? And if a power can be used once per day, does it reset after 24 hours or sunrise or what? Most of the questions I get on my game have to do with people tweaking the system or setting. "Your game doesn't tell me how to make cat people!" "There aren't any cat people in this setting." "Right, but I want to add them and you don't tell me how."

2) Anecdotally, I taught myself to RP without any outside influence using Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, so it can be done with games other than Basic D&D. Prior to WFRP, the closest to role-playing I'd done was Choose Your Own Adventure books.

3) I know for a fact that experienced gamers have more questions on my system than newbies do. Usually the questions are generated by paradigm shifts (like spending experience to buy benefits instead of hoarding it for level gain). I liken these questions to someone playing Risk asking if they can morgage North America since that's how Monopoly worked.

Many questions I get are also about the why behind the mechanic. For example, in my game you spend 10 XP for a new skill. That's clear enough for anyone to follow procedurally. But experienced roleplayers keep asking "Well, is that learning process from training or experience? Can I spend 5 and get half the skill? How good is my character if he's halfway through learning the skill? What does the experience represent before I spend it?" All of these questions are a bit like a Monopoly player asking "Why am I moving around the board in the first place? Is the Monopoly city really a squared circle? Why can't I buy Free Parking, if its free?" You just wouldn't see that asked in a board.

Board gamers expect to follow an arbitrary procedure and they don't ask these questions. Newbie gamers have no problem with this either (as long as the procedure is clearly explained). But experienced gamers hold the game's procedural elements up to some higher standard - be it games they've played in the past or their own concept of real life. Perhaps they simply realize how arbitrary mechanics are? Or perhaps they really want the System of Life, with no arbitrariness at all?

Well, had a post, but Justin just took the words right out of my mouth. Particularly with the arbitrary rules issue. So yeah, what he said. :)

-Chris

I was getting all ready to post my story, and then Rafiel posted it for me.

Well, a few tweaks. Yes, it was the blue box Basic D&D first edition (pre-dice--it had chits in the box, remember those?). I knew no one who played--didn't meet any such person for about a decade, during which time our group learned, quite on our own, BD&D1, MetAlpha, GammaWorld (3&4, I think, but Bob had those books), StarFrontiers, Traveler, and OAD&D. The biggest problem was OAD&D, because it was not at all clear that this was a different game from BD&D1--it seemed as if it should be "the rest of the game", and it's actually got a lot of compatibility problems that had to be resolved to keep play going. But once we figured out that this was actually not the same game, it all fell into place.

Of course, I was already out of college and playing with college graduates, in the main. I thought we were the target audience, really (and maybe originally we were, as mostly college students, young adults, and military people seemed to be in the original groups). So maybe part of the problem is figuring out what the target audience is, and writing something within their grasp.

Has anyone here seen/played Vincent Baker's Matchmaker? I'd bet it's on his website. It seems to me like a wonderful entry-level game, although I'll confess to not having had a chance to play it yet.

--M. J. Young

Hey M.J.,

We played Matchmaker.

Paul

1. Board gamers don't try and get in to a state of suspension of disbelief. If they did, you would get questions like "Why am I moving around the board in the first place? Is the Monopoly city really a squared circle? Why can't I buy Free Parking, if its free?"

2. Also, older roleplayers think its their god given right to question rule implementation. "The game only works if I believe and I don't believe in this/this isn't letting me believe. Therefore I have a legitimate beef!!" being their motive. Of course, game designers don't have the magical ability to brainwash the gamers into believing, no matter how good their writing.

3. Rules tend to make a threesome from what would otherwise just be the GM and the Player. This third party is the influence of a writer who is far far away and will never meet the group. It's sort of like having a second GM to operate through, who is always pretty consistant. Of course the real GM can overide the rules to various extents, but social contract, written or implimented through dirty looks, tends to dissuade that. In fact I hypothesize the reason behind there being so many rules is to help avoid the real GM overriding them, including through casual mistakes (GM Nah, you could never run that far P: But you let joe do that the other day...man I wish my speed was written down...perhaps in rules and stuff).
The fewer the rules, the more the GM can override them (for better made rules, he just needs to be smarter). What's so bad about GM override? Well a large segment of gamers, IMO, don't sit down to play 'please the GM most'.

Noon wrote: Of course, game designers don't have the magical ability to brainwash the gamers into believing, no matter how good their writing.

What's so bad about GM override? Well a large segment of gamers, IMO, don't sit down to play 'please the GM most'.

Are the rules of The Pool clear enough for anyone to pick up and get them?

Do people "experienced" with RPGs read rules differently than other folks. (In other words, would someone reading The Pool's rules be baffled *because* he'd played a lot of RPGs, whereas someone without RPG experienece would read the Pool's rules without thinking, "where did all the rules go?"

how much can we strip away in term of both rules *and* text to reach a point of clarity for all to understand.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:

Noon wrote: Of course, game designers don't have the magical ability to brainwash the gamers into believing, no matter how good their writing.

They don't? Maybe it's because many say things like "do what you like with the rules" instead of "See here, now. This is how the game is played"

What's so bad about GM override? Well a large segment of gamers, IMO, don't sit down to play 'please the GM most'.

Perhaps it would work if everyone played "please everyone else most?"

Christopher Kubasik wrote:
Games like The Pool, and even Sorcerer and HeroQuest tend to handle all things in pretty much a simple, direct and uniform way. It requires a healthy shaker of common sense to run them well though.

...

Are the rules of The Pool clear enough for anyone to pick up and get them?

...

What I'm getting at it this might be purely rule/mechanical issue. It might also be in how we approach what the rules are *supposed* to read like, be like.

Christopher

I kinda like the idea of a game like this. Short, clear, easy to pick up and run with. I don't have any time to sit and read hundreds of pages of rules or to have to constantly refer to obscure rules here and there when I'm playing (hell, I don't have time to play these days!).

The Questing Beast clocks in at 32 pages. With a smaller font it would probably be 24 and if you took out the artwork we're talking 16 pages or so. I think it's pretty clear and I think it's pretty easy to run with. But I wrote it so I might be biased (anyone think TQB is difficult or unclear?).

On the other hand ('cause there's always one isn't there?), I have a great appreciation and love for big, fat tomes of rules. The sheer impressive size of them! Thumbing through the dense pages for hours on end! But I think this is merely a symptom of nostalgia, common in many of us who grew into role-playing lugging the DMG, PH, MM, FF, and UA around in tattered duffle bags.

What do the new kids see in that? Probably nothing.

(edited to fix a mistake in the link)

Actually, James, before you posted, I was planning to chime in and point to The Questing Beast as my first pick for a game that meets these criteria.

Best,
Ron

Hi all,

Sorry I've been away for a while. Someone asked me a good question and I had to spend some time getting an answer.

The question was:

What is the purpose of the clarity I'm seeking?

Well, the real question was, is such clarity possible. (What people want to do with it is up to them.) I had no agenda beyond these following mysteries (mysteries to me at least.)

1) Are RPGS of a completely different bread of tabletop entertainment that the rules can't actually be clear, concise and jargon free?

2) If we answer yes to the preceding question, are we indulging ourselves in being a tad lazy, letting ourselves off the hook? (After all, it is common publishing practice to expect a v.2 of any game now to clean up as much as possible what wasn't clear before.)

3) Given that I'm not talking about Sim games here (the quest for modelling everything is not going to fit in *any* book as far as I can tell), and I'll take for granted someone sly could slip a good Gamist game into one slim volume, would the tools, techniques and temperaments required for Narrativist play require a manual along the line of "How to Draw?" or "Jazz for Beginners"? The truth is, the rules might be tight, but think over how much bandwidth has been spilled here going over scene framing and such. In other words, is Narrativist play, with all its best bells and whistles, less a game than a craft and art form, requiring texts and teachers? Or, and this really could be true, could a stripped down version of Sorcerer (lacking all arguments against older RPGs (which are threaded througout every page)), or The Pool, be picked up and played by people who didn't know any better. Would scene framing even need to be mentioned? Would groups find such things on their own, or not miss them if it never occurred to them? Or would/could it be built into the concise rules themselves.

4) Can the rules be written in such a manner that if and when a question does arise, the answer can found quickly, and the rule is definitive enough not to require debate, further page flipping, or wondering, "I thought it was in this section, but maybe its over in this one."



I admit, this is one of those kinds of threads that I sometimes start, and sometimes baffle people, where I don't have a point to make, a score to settle, or an agenda at hand. I heard an interview on the radio talking about well written, clear, concise game rules.* I wondered about RPG rules. I posted because this place is where you go to overturn the paradigm. I'm curious about the answers, but also curious to see what such thoughts might stir in other people's heads.

*A note about clear, concise game rules. The other night I played Scrabble with friends. Hadn't played in a long while. We started fast. We didn't check the rules, we knew *enough* to get going. But here's the deal: every time we had a question (and we had a lot), we could check the rules printed on the inside of the box cover and get the answer within seconds. No need to debate, no need to mull, no need to get on line and see if we could snag an answer off a chat room. My point is, its not simply a matter of getting the game up and running fast, it's a matter of keeping the game going once its under way. Comparing the page flipping that went on when I was playing Mage for the first time (all four of us with a copy of the rules, every eight minutes rifle through the books like competative scholars) and the Scrabble game ease and finality to a question illustrates, I think, what I'm pondering.

I really don't know the answer to these matters. I do know we're *used* to the big fat books James is nostalgic for. But is that the same thing as not having a choice in the matter?

Christopher

Damn this thread. Now I'm thinking that writing a "narrativist" game is a lot like pinpointing both the exact location and exact speed of a bullet. That is, if you find one you negate the other.

I think "non-gamers" pick up on abstract rules commonly found in narrativist games quicker than "veteran gamers". They don't have hit points and levels in the back of their mind. They probably remember cops and robbers better.

I'm way outta my league here, but I'm gonna give some gut takes on your specific points:

1) I'm not sure what you mean by "jargon" since all games have jargon. But I'm inclined to say RPGs are not that different from other games. Pictionary is a good example of a boardgame that has a lot of abstract qualities yet doesn't suffer from lack of clarity. I don't see why an RPG couldn't be just as clear, just as concise. I think any problem we're seeing stems from our own muddled notions we bring to the table.

2) Yeah, I'd say so.

3) Yes, again our waters are muddy before we start to swim. I've talked to gamers and non-gamers alike about The Pool and the non-gamers usually seem to have less trouble grokking.

4) I think so, but that's probably the absolute hardest part of designing such a game. How the hell do you make a concise and all-encompassing rule about how a person can be creative in a game that takes place entirely within the imagination?

James V. West wrote: How the hell do you make a concise and all-encompassing rule about how a person can be creative in a game that takes place entirely within the imagination?

Hi James,

Good call on the "jargon" question. I take it out of the mix.

Christopher

Andrew:

Examples, of course!

I suppose a game like this requires faith in peoples' ability to be creative while maintaining boundaries. Setting those boundaries is the tricky part for me. But I think you're right in saying that clear examples from point A to point Z are one of the keys to doing it.

Scripty wrote:
1) Core system explained in 10 pages or less (in plain English, with examples).
2) Setting explained in non-specific, non-metaplot terms in 15 pages, giving people something to play in and not memorize.
3) 10 pages of character templates.
4) 10 pages of 1-page sample campaigns or adventures.

A whole rpg in under 50 pages. Roughly an entire game the size of the Hero's Book, and (like the Hero's Book) priced at under $12.

Much like James. I have to say I'm out of my league here too, but you've raised some interesting questions, Christopher, that I think deserve some answers.

Christopher Kubasik wrote:
1) Are RPGS of a completely different bread of tabletop entertainment that the rules can't actually be clear, concise and jargon free?

Christopher Kubasik wrote:
2) If we answer yes to the preceding question, are we indulging ourselves in being a tad lazy, letting ourselves off the hook? (After all, it is common publishing practice to expect a v.2 of any game now to clean up as much as possible what wasn't clear before.)

Christopher Kubasik wrote:
3) ... In other words, is Narrativist play, with all its best bells and whistles, less a game than a craft and art form, requiring texts and teachers? Or, and this really could be true, could a stripped down version of Sorcerer (lacking all arguments against older RPGs (which are threaded througout every page)), or The Pool, be picked up and played by people who didn't know any better. Would scene framing even need to be mentioned? Would groups find such things on their own, or not miss them if it never occurred to them? Or would/could it be built into the concise rules themselves.

Christopher Kubasik wrote:
4) Can the rules be written in such a manner that if and when a question does arise, the answer can found quickly, and the rule is definitive enough not to require debate, further page flipping, or wondering, "I thought it was in this section, but maybe its over in this one."

Ian Charvill wrote:

Prince Valiant.

Pool variants seem to be getting the most press as far as lightweight (therefore accessible to the non-initiated systems), but how about something like Deep7's like of 1PGs? I have not myself personally looked at them, but they continually get great reviews, and my understanding of the design principles is that the rules basically fit on the character sheet. This certainly meets the criteria of "fast lookup" laid out above, and my understanding of the system is that it is pretty simmy, taking advantage of the fact that genres (pirates, secret agents, cowboys & indians) are ones that people understand the conventions of without need for exhaustive setting writeups or detailed rules.

Christopher Kubasik

1) Well, it's more of a sliding scale with a lot of difference in between the two types of game. Monopoly is sort of 'run spot, run' while RPG's are more in the grown ups newspaper area, in terms of the scope their supposed to be covering.

2) This is kind of a funny question...your asking that if we answer yes, we let ourselves be lazy, ie not consice, ie we write too many rules. Letting ourselves be lazy and do more work on rules! ;)

But no, I do get you. It's answering a problem with proliferation rather than concentration. Quantity, not quality.

3) This depends on the intent of the group. You see, monopoly doesn't create anything. If you tape recorded a session it really wouldn't register as art. However, an RPG session recorded, although it would be rough, would have little moments in it which are like art. If narrativism includes the desire to expand and enlarge these little moments, the manual to help it probably would have to be like 'how to draw' or 'jazz for beginers'. Otherwise people keep re-inventing the same wheels.

However, building them into concise rules? I think that would be like trying to build a guitar that played itself 'correctly' when you used it. It would exclude many of the users abilities.

4) Concise rules are nice, but think of it this way. Does Scrabble or Monopoly encourage you to roleplay? I will say, it is possible to do roleplay in them, if you shove it in. But do they encourage it? No? And why? Because your working with so little room there...rolling dice and walking three squares feels so restricted and is so restricted. You need more complexity before the game itself starts suggesting (in a slightly hypnotic way) that your entering another world, etc. I contend that, ironically, the more rules you have (or at least the more you deal with implications of rules), the less it feels like your entering a game and instead it feels like entering a world. So many options open up you can't consider them like you do in chess...so many options must be considered like you yourself do in the real world. I think that's important.

Noon wrote: 4) Concise rules are nice, but think of it this way. Does Scrabble or Monopoly encourage you to roleplay? I will say, it is possible to do roleplay in them, if you shove it in. But do they encourage it? No? And why? Because your working with so little room there...rolling dice and walking three squares feels so restricted and is so restricted. You need more complexity before the game itself starts suggesting (in a slightly hypnotic way) that your entering another world, etc. I contend that, ironically, the more rules you have (or at least the more you deal with implications of rules), the less it feels like your entering a game and instead it feels like entering a world. So many options open up you can't consider them like you do in chess...so many options must be considered like you yourself do in the real world. I think that's important.

Hi Scripty,

Great post. That's why I still think of Sorcerer rules set as a great model in for the agenda of this thread.

*The conflict resolution mechanic is simple, fun and uniform across the game.

*The Humanity loss/gain rolls evoke all the thematic tension, evoke the color of what's going on, and give the game the clear focus. But remain simple and concise.

*The use of "descriptors" for all the terms and abilities for PCs and demons are there to inspire the imagination of the players, but remain firm and playable.

I do think that if I were hired to edit the book for Parker Bros, there'd be a lot of work to be done. But this almost all comes down the fact Ron was clearly writing the book for the RPG audience and clearly with as a kind of manifesto of: "Well, dammit, what about playing this way. (Now, could it be whittled down to the size my thought experiment requires and still remain Sorcerer? I think so, but that's just a gut guess.)

(What might an example of such an massage to the rules be? Well, let's just look at "conflict resolution." (This is important to Sorcerer, but not currently explicit in the rules, as the concept developed more clearly in the hobby after the rules were published.) If I were massaging the rules, I probably wouldn't even mention it as something different than "task resolution." I wouldn't mention "task resolution" at all. Clear board game rules state what the game is, what the rules do, and how the players play. The fact that "conflict resolution" is still not very clear in RPGdom is still no reason to go on about as an issue that has to be "taught". My rule of thumb would be to always, always choose to write specificly and tightly on how *this* game is played and assume the player was going to come with me on this. I know that this isn't how most games are played... But I'd also offer most games aren't as tightly designed mechanically as Sorcerer. They encourage "playing-all-over-the-place" with the rules. The assumed people are going to "ignore the rules" for their fun to work. Sorcerer was designed to actually work. In this regard, it's got a great leg-up on The Great Parker Bros Experiment.)

"Encouraging" roleplaying, it seems to me, doesn't depend on having a kazilling rules to cover everything and a rule book the size to fit it all. That's been the model for almost all the length of the publishing history. But that' doesn't mean it needs to be that way.

All you need are rules that encourage roleplaying. The thing about the "tight focus" of a lot of Forge type games is that you by definition forgo obsessions with simulating every damned thing, and can focus on: "this game is about this, done through the use of these rules that encourage story/character/color whatnot." Thus, the rules can be set up like Sorcere: clear, tight, and specific, but not unwiedly. They encourage roleplaying not because they cover everything, but because they offer the player specific points to engage their imagination with the rules (the descriptors, bonus dice for evocotive description, the Humanity rules), and the let the players go to town.

So, at this point it seems the requirements would be 1) a simple rules set 2) a simple rules set that encourages roleplaying 3) a focused set of rules (as Monopoly or Sorcerer are focused 4) a committment in the text of the rules to describing what the player does.

(This last point seems espeically interesting to me. Most game texts go on and on about all that a PC *could* do, but finding the rules for what the player does is often a bear. I think one of Ron's greatest contributions to the hobby is his persistent demand, "Yeah, but what are the players doing?")

Christopher

Thanks, Christopher. Your response was thoughtful enough to give me pause in my previous notions regarding Sorcerer. Ron has suggested that I give the game a serious consideration. I'll definitely pursue that soon.

Something that occured to me after re-reading Noon's post is that what he terms as complexity may not necessarily be complexity in the terms by which I interpreted it. Looking closer at what he's saying it seems he's speaking of onion layers of rules. A sort of exploration of a setting through a ruleset. Outside of my own observations that the difference between games like Risk and Vampire:tM may not be the complexity of their ruleset but, rather, their degree of flexibility in play, I'm also picking up a sort of "down the rabbit hole" vibe from Noon's post.

I could be wrong and my inner-Hippie could be coming out here. But I think Noon is also talking about inducing a trance state. Okay. Some people just stopped reading there. But for those who have opted to continue on...

It's repetitive of me to say that watching TV, reading a book, even surfing the net induces a trance state. Going to see a movie, when the lights turn down, it's almost programmed in us to enter a light trance state.

IMO, RPGs aren't much different and it's this trance state that helps along our suspension of disbelief, that puts us "in the zone." Here in our "RPG state" I think that what we're looking at is the game itself (or even the character) being the "focus" while the rules serve as the "ritual."

Now, before you run off and get your black robes....

I think it's important for rules to serve as the "ritual." Think of how the mood around the table changes just after two simple words: "Roll initiative." It's there and, IMO, tangible. I would also posit that this "trance" state is more important in RPGs than in other games, although other games certainly induce it to a degree. I think this is also something that Noon was touching on in his post.

But how would we fit a flexible, coherent ruleset on the back of a box with the added requirement that it is as engaging as other, more robust rulesets?

From my own studies in the matter, I would have to say repetition, repetition, repetition. That's one of the reasons that the solo game I designed wasted so much of my playtesters' time. There was one simple mechanic followed by a lot of shuffling. Once the numerous charts were committed to memory (which occured at a startlingly high rate). The game was just a series of die rolls. Only one die (a d10; sometimes used as a percentile) and one mechanic repeated endlessly. I would leave the game with playtesters and then come over 8 hours later and they'd still be playing. They wouldn't have even eaten sometimes. When I would forcibly take the game away from them, the most they would say about it was: "Man, that's addictive! Can I have it next weekend?"

But there wasn't much to it except for a series of steps that were repeated ad infinitum. Perhaps, by complexity, Noon means that the rules require a "series" of steps to resolution. I don't know.

Personally, I think such a mechanic would benefit roleplaying, but I'm unsure how to achieve it. You'd need a mechanic that was repetitive, that involved a series of non-intensive mathematical hoops to jump through. Most of all these hoops would have to be fun with a robust number of possible results (but not too many as to break the cycle). I think Unknown Armies is a pretty good example. IMO, a certain degree of math is good but, overall, math bad. I can't recall the number of Feng Shui games I've had where play was stifled by math. It's only addition and subtraction, right? Maybe to us. So, no tallying of hit points. Nothing like that. We need something simple, immediate and yet sufficiently layered to constitute a "ritual." A roll...results type thing...perhaps followed by another roll of some sort. Threes seem to work for this kind of thing. (Roll initiative...roll to hit...roll damage, anyone?) But even if it was a one roll and done ruleset, I think that would be okay as long as the results were immediate and recognizable. It's the whole BF Skinner programming thing at work...

I don't know if Sorcerer qualifies. I think the Puddle might, especially in a modified version. Questing Beast might as well. Any thoughts?

Scripty, I know this is somewhat avoiding the point of your post but I've often seen points similar to this made:

IMO, a certain degree of math is good but, overall, math bad. I can't recall the number of Feng Shui games I've had where play was stifled by math. It's only addition and subtraction, right? Maybe to us. So, no tallying of hit points. Nothing like that.

Ian Charvill wrote: And would simply like to observe that Scrabble requires a fair amount of addition, and that Monopoly requires both addition and subtraction many many times over in the course of play (along with a little multiplication on the utilities).

I don't see maths as the barrier to clarity - though I am in favour of tokens rather than numbers on a page, though that may just be my outer child talking.

The point about how germaine the maths is to play is I think spot on, Scott. Something else occured to me, with talking about the tokens and all.

The Chaosium collectible card game, Mythos, used token to mark sanity. They recommended using marbles, so that when you were out of sanity, you'd lost your marbles. I liked that game a lot, and I had it in a draw for close to ten years. I had enough cards that three or four people could sit down and play it, so it was a self-contained thing. But it didn't get played much, not because it was complicated to play, but because it took a few goes before you were playing it well enough to feel like there was a game being had.

Role playing games are like that squared. Games you've run for dozens of sessions, an obscure ruling will come up, and you check the book. I can't think of a single mainstream game like that. It's not a question of mastery - chess is simple enough, but not simple to master - it's a question of gaining a basic understanding of all of the rules.

Incidentally, on the 10% income tax rule, either that didn't make it into the British edition or no one I've ever played with has made the least effot to enforce it.

Scripty wrote:

Noon wrote: 4) Concise rules are nice, but think of it this way. Does Scrabble or Monopoly encourage you to roleplay? I will say, it is possible to do roleplay in them, if you shove it in. But do they encourage it? No? And why? Because your working with so little room there...rolling dice and walking three squares feels so restricted and is so restricted. You need more complexity before the game itself starts suggesting (in a slightly hypnotic way) that your entering another world, etc. I contend that, ironically, the more rules you have (or at least the more you deal with implications of rules), the less it feels like your entering a game and instead it feels like entering a world. So many options open up you can't consider them like you do in chess...so many options must be considered like you yourself do in the real world. I think that's important.

Now, this is just a statement from my personal experience and preference, so please take it with a grain of salt.

I'm not certain that what you're talking about is complexity. I think Monopoly discourages roleplay because it is inflexible. The system tightly defines the "if...then...that" of gameplay. In many instances, I have had similar experiences with RPGs whose rules are just as inflexible. One that comes to mind is stopping a game entirely to get scientific calculators in order to do a mass combat in Aftermath. We were still playing the game by the rules but we had definitely slipped out of roleplay.

I don't think it's a scale of layers and layers of rules, so much as it is a versatile ruleset that allows for a degree of flexibility in play. For instance, I think it's okay for a game to say "If PC health falls below zero, PC is out of contest, either dying or unconscious." I don't think it's necessarily okay for a ruleset to say "If you roll the square-root of your ability score your weapon falls out of your hand, five feet away from whichever side of your body on which you were holding the weapon."

Noon wrote: The actual complexity of the rules doesn't matter...its not about being precise, its about setting up white noise to hinder playing it like chess. A similar sort of white noise to that which stops us living our RL lives like their chess.

Anyway, my assertion is two stage, and I'm actually thinking of starting a new thread on it.
1. Add more rules (or implications of rules) to give more room to move, so the player feels his PC is less like a pawn in chess.

2. Add white noise, so that the player who has just felt his PC isn't a pawn doesn't end up shooting himself in the foot by calculating all the game odds and running him like a pawn all the same. 'White noise' means a bunch of rules that set up probabilty tables so wide its just impossible to mesh ALL of them mentally and play the game like chess. Instead you play the game somewhat like you 'play' real life.

EDIT: Yes, its also somewhat like a trance state. I'd call it a 'perception overload/stop playing or just accept' tool. And as I said before, I think it could do with its own post. Sadly today I've spent a lot of time on the net already and should probably chase this up tomorrow.

Scripty wrote:

Noon wrote: The actual complexity of the rules doesn't matter...its not about being precise, its about setting up white noise to hinder playing it like chess. A similar sort of white noise to that which stops us living our RL lives like their chess.

Anyway, my assertion is two stage, and I'm actually thinking of starting a new thread on it.
1. Add more rules (or implications of rules) to give more room to move, so the player feels his PC is less like a pawn in chess.

2. Add white noise, so that the player who has just felt his PC isn't a pawn doesn't end up shooting himself in the foot by calculating all the game odds and running him like a pawn all the same. 'White noise' means a bunch of rules that set up probabilty tables so wide its just impossible to mesh ALL of them mentally and play the game like chess. Instead you play the game somewhat like you 'play' real life.

EDIT: Yes, its also somewhat like a trance state. I'd call it a 'perception overload/stop playing or just accept' tool. And as I said before, I think it could do with its own post. Sadly today I've spent a lot of time on the net already and should probably chase this up tomorrow.

I think that this would be a great topic for discussion. Unfortunately, though, I don't have much to add in either direction. Certainly, overloading the senses is one way to "force" someone into a trance state.*snip*