The Forge Archives

Hello everyone,

I invite you to take your favorite bag of game design theory tricks and apply them to a Forge original game: Enlightenment.

Last year Mike Holmes started a thread called Let's Make a Game!, in which the folks of the Forge collaborated on designing an rpg from the ground up.  Mechanics for it got hashed out in the thread Enlightenment (GGD Group Game Design) and further developed in Enlightenment GGD: character and setting gen. A lot of good ideas were put into this project and a sound structure was developed.  Some ideas need to be fleshed out, and the whole thing needs to be brought to completion. If you want a brief overview, read this draft based on excerpts from the above threads.

In recent weeks, there have been some discussion of applying rpg theory including GNS and other theories (The Ball, baseline/vision, and more) specifically to game design. Since Enlightenment is in the process of development, and is basically group property of the Forge as a whole, it seems like an ideal candidate for practical applications of the theories we're working with.

I propose we take a couple aspects of this game and look at them in terms of  the various theoretical tools and see both 1) what specific system elements will support the goals of the game best and 2) how the various theories may be practically applied. General thoughts outside of set theories are welcome as well.  My hope is that this will create fertile material that will help us finish the game.

One area that could use some attention next is the sequential, multiple-gm structure.  Each player has a Mentor charactor through whom they will guide the play.  The Mentor sends other players' neophyte monk characters on missions, then debriefs them when they return, either awarding Lesson points for the neophyte's character to use to raise Virtue levels, or that can be used by the Mentor's player to create in-game elements. (More specifics here.)    What are your thoughts on ways to implement this in a way that is feasible and supports the exploration of conflicting desires and spiritual aspirations in the characters that is at the heart of the game?  

What is your analysis of the game as a whole?  

Regards,
Emily Care

GNS wise? I'd say that it's very focused and coherent in supporting Narrativism.

Why do I say that? Well, let's look at the elements. Characters are made up of nothing but values, IIRC. The "resolution" system is really just a way to monitor changes of the character's values. The system does not specify which way to go on any of these decisions, making it a player choice. There's no incoherency with Sim because it's ommitted. No attempt to have in-game physics or thematic principles decide player decisions. It's not Gamist because there are no particular tactical considerations to distract from the issues. So, not at all hybrid, so no possible incoherence.

Now, that's the surface analysis. Each of these points could be individually debated. Do you want to get down to that level? Or is the basic analysis what we're looking to do here as an example? Also, do you want to look at an analysis of things other than GNS coherency?

Mike

Hi Mike,

Quote from: Mike HolmesThere's no incoherency with Sim because it's ommitted. No attempt to have in-game physics or thematic principles decide player decisions.

And all the world elements like npc's, communities and plots/events are created in relation to the passion/virtue pairs forming the moral dilemmas that the characters lives explore.  All arise from and focus attention on the internal conflicts of the characters themselves.

QuoteIt's not Gamist because there are no particular tactical considerations to distract from the issues. So, not at all hybrid, so no possible incoherence.

The goal of resolving the trait pairs could be seen as a victory condition.  A player focusing in on that aspect of it could be at odds with others more interested in exploring how the internal conflicts play out.

QuoteNow, that's the surface analysis. Each of these points could be individually debated. Do you want to get down to that level? Or is the basic analysis what we're looking to do here as an example? Also, do you want to look at an analysis of things other than GNS coherency?

I'd love to see a comparative basic analyses from various different approaches.   What else does GNS have to offer by way of design other than lack/presence of coherency?

--Em

Quote from: Emily Care
The goal of resolving the trait pairs could be seen as a victory condition.  A player focusing in on that aspect of it could be at odds with others more interested in exploring how the internal conflicts play out.

Nope. Because I don't see it creating a challenge per se, other than to create a good story. People do this all the time. They look at a mechanic and say, aha, that's like a combat mechanic or something so it's Gamist. But the question is whether there's any boost to player ego that they're doing "well" in terms of the mechanics. In this case a child could make the "right" decisions tactically (when they even exist). No tactical challenge, no Gamism. What you have here is a challenge to create story. And that's always Narrativist.

Put it this way. You're looking at a Trait Pair in the game, and the current situation. Is there some way you as a player can manipulate things so that you come out "ahead"? No, you can only try to resolve the issue at hand.

Also, some might claim that it's Sim because the player will tend to play to the strength, and therefore the system tends to produce "expected" results. But that's nonsensical again as this would require some Gamist attitude to start about picking the strength each time.

QuoteI'd love to see a comparative basic analyses from various different approaches.   What else does GNS have to offer by way of design other than lack/presence of coherency?

Very little itself, actually. That's what the recent poster failed to understand; GNS is not a complete theory on how to create games, it's just one small diagnostic tool. OTOH, the theory that supports it does say, essentially, to be rigorous in design. And there are a lot of other analytical tools that can be brought to bear other than GNS.

For example, we could look at the psychology of reward systems to see if the game is torqued up as strongly as it can be (or perhaps too strongly, something I've only just considered as a possibility). And then there's the probability analysis for the predicted outcomes, Game Theory, Engineering Design Methodology. What would you like to look at?

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesFor example, we could look at the psychology of reward systems to see if the game is torqued up as strongly as it can be (or perhaps too strongly, something I've only just considered as a possibility). And then there's the probability analysis for the predicted outcomes, Game Theory, Engineering Design Methodology. What would you like to look at?

What do you mean by too strong? What is Engineering Design Methodology and how would it apply?

--EC

May I make a request?

I'd like for Enlightenment to be more digestible; could someone post a summary of just the game?  It's a little overwhelming to try and pick it out of the long theory discussions, in much the same way that it's initmidating unweaving the tangles of Iron Game Chef.

If we're talking about trying out new ideas, i was curious about something.  Is it possible to leverage or manipulate the Social Contract as it pertains to a single game?  Can the rules system, or perhaps simply the presentation of said system be used to enhance/inhibit certain social attitudes/interactions within the play group?  This is something i've been thinking about in conjuction with the Three Levels and some stuff that Ron said in a discussion on them.  Can we design games or include elements that encourage a certain type of social interaction (as opposed to a type of play style within the GNS continuum)?

Of course, like anything other element you try to include in a game, the players can not be forced to do what you try to get them to do.

Suggested ways to manipulate the social contract include:  Specifying real-world materials (there is only one set of dice, it must be shared; everyone sits around a round table in straight-backed chairs) comes to mind, but i can't really think of any other way of manipulating the Social interaction of a game than stipulating physical stuff like where people sit or something like that.

This is something that i think could provide some incredibly interesting things in play, and i think that Enlightenment may be a good system to experiment with this.  I could be wrong, it may be the wrong direction to take.  Anybody else think this is presents and incredibly fascinating set of possibilities, or am i way off base here?

Thomas

Thanks, Shreyas. Here's a summary:

The basic premise of Enlightenment follows the adventures of monks and nuns in a monastery, and the internal struggles of the characters between the ideals of their religion versus the draws of the world.

Play starts out with the whole group of players deciding together on a general setting (a zen buddhist monastery in medieval japan? or Beguine convent in France in the middle ages? setting could be fanasy based, or made from whole cloth whatever the group likes).  A number of Passion/Virtue trait pairs are chosen (3+the number of players).  These trait pairs are the basic stats for the monastery, as well as the characters.  The 7 deadly sins of catholicism are a good example of a set of passions. They would be written: Sloth/Industry 1/5; Lust/Chastity 2/4; etc. As a passion of a given pair decreases, the matching virtue increases.  The goal of a character, and of a monastery, is to "resolve" the trait pairs, and bring them to the highest Virtue level possible.  

Characters at different developmental stages have different numbers of trait pairs.  A new monk, or Neophyte, begins play with two trait pairs and the third Worldliness/Spirituality.  W/S reflects the vows the character has made to become a devotee.  Characters acquire trait pairs over time, and rise in level as they resolve them.  A character with 2-3 trait pairs resolved can be a Mentor to Neophytes.  A character with 4-5 trait pairs resolved is considered a Priest or Priestess.  Once all pairs are resolved, the character becomes a High Priest/ess of a monastery, and may go out of play per se.

The monastery and surrounding community are created by a round-robin group process.  Players create one Neophyte character, and one Mentor level character at the start of play.  In addition to the trait pair stats, each character will have and acquire more statements associated with the trait pair. These may be events in the character's life that related to the pair such as an incident of theft associated with the pair Avarice/Generosity.  How many traits is still to be decided, but I see them as operating like kickers and hooks for the characters.  

The players will take turns guiding play for the others, using the Mentor characters as guiding "npc"s to send the neophytes on missions and tasks for the monastery that will teach them about the religion and test or affirm their resolve.  

Task resolution is handled as follows:
The player in the gm role determines the difficulty of a given task and assigns a scene rating (1=easy, 3= moderately difficult, 6=very difficult).  The acting player describes two courses of action: the worldly outcome and the spiritual oriented outcome.  An opposed roll then occurs. A number of d6's equal to the acting character's Spirituality stat, plus perhaps another Virtue, are rolled against the a number of dice equal to the character's Worldly stat. If there are more Spiritual successes in the roll, the task is accomplished and the spiritual outcome is narrated. If there are more Worldly successes, this outcome is described and the number of successes is added to the scene rating.

Example:

Quotego back to the case of Neophyte Yaffa and the tending of the sick children. the GM says this is a moderately difficult task, a scene rating of 3.

Emily says "Yaffa will attempt to ease the suffering of the children as an act of Compassion. the Spiritual effect she is trying for is a healing, the Worldly effect is that she halts her efforts when her Compassion is challenged by past
wounds."

she has Sloth/Industry 2/4, Violence/Compassion 5/1, and Worldly/Spiritual 5/1. she is trying a Spiritual, Compassionate act, so she rolls 2 dice versus 5
Worldly dice. the roll goes in favor of the Worldly (3 Worldly successes), so the scene rating increases to 6. (if any of the rolls came up as 5, this matched her Violence trait, but we'll ignore that for now.)

Emily must narrate why she halts; either she or one of the other players suggests Yaffa recognizes the child of the taxman, and she narrates accordingly. wanting to lower that scene rating, she attempts a purely Worldly act without Spiritual consequences: "Yaffa, shaken by being confronted with the child of her enemy, chooses a more menial action to give herself time to cool down: she boils water to cleanse the disease-ridden blankets. her Worldly effect is to have a good supply of clean blankets, her Spiritual failure is that she can't shake the memory of her past wounds and fails to complete her task."

she rolls 5 dice versus 1 die and gets 4 easy successes, reducing the scene rating to 2. looking at her pile of clean blankets, Yaffa's resolve is strengthened, and she sees a way around her obstacle.

"Yaffa chooses to focus on being Industrious, visiting each child in turn, wiping foreheads, giving medicine... and blocking the identity of the taxman's child from her mind. her Spiritual effect is to heal, her Worldly effect is to be so overcome by her past that she retreats into Sloth and sits in
a corner for a while."

this is 1 die Spiritual plus the 2 dice Industrious bonus, for a 3 dice against 5 Worldly dice roll. slightly better than before, and if she's lucky, she gets those two Spiritual successes and ends the scene with the children healed (and two tally-marks next to Industrious for those two successes.)

and also the next question is: how to use it in play? we raised an important point about being able to break out of a scene if the numbers rise too fast, how about this: a player can choose to put a scene on hold and return to the mentor for advice. the mentor gives the neophyte one of the
group's dogmas for spiritual inspiration and the neophyte returns to the scene. the dogma is usable once per neophyte; it acts as a dice boost, either
instead of or in addition to a trait-pair boost.

Non-monk characters will be associated with the primary characters or the monastery and be assigned a trait pair that  relates to the relationship between the nun or monk and the lay person.  For example, the beautiful young lover left by a Neophyte might have the trait pair Lust/Chastity, and appear as a statement or fact on the Neophyte's character sheet below this trait pair.

So, that's most of it as it stands, as I understood it.  The monastery's stats as a whole are tied to the stats of the monks that make it up--the monastery has each of the trait pairs of the religion, and their values are equal to that of the lowest of the order.  As the individuals resolve their issues, the whole becomes stronger.  How these stats overall affect the monastery has yet to be decided. There was some discussion of fitting the monastery into local politics by having macro-events going on: plague, bandits, religious conversion, invasion/war etc. going on in the setting that the monastery would be forced to respond to.  

--Emily Care

Quote from: Emily CareWhat do you mean by too strong?

Well, I've seen some play where a certain small part of play was so strongly rewarding that it got blown out of proportion and threatened to consume the entire game. So there might be cases where you'd actually want to torque that back, or perhaps better link some things together to distribute action.

QuoteWhat is Engineering Design Methodology and how would it apply?

I remember a friend of mine discussing certain rigorous design methodoologies used in engineering that followed a very constrained and effective set of steps. The results of which were said to be astoundingly excellent. I remember him enumerating a bit of an overview of how it worked, and thinking that it could be applied to RPG design.

Any engineers here?


Thomas, I think Ron's new supplement for Sorcerer goes down just this sort of path examining the social context of mixed sex gaming. That said, the point of this thread is not to come up with new methods, but to try to actually apply some of the ones we're aware of. Would you like to attempt a social analysis such as it might pertain to the game in question?

Mike

Quote from: LordSmerfCan the rules system, or perhaps simply the presentation of said system be used to enhance/inhibit certain social attitudes/interactions within the play group?

I think that each system does do that, even if not consciously. For example, the simple fact of gm fiat creates a  power differential that may have a profound impact on game play and social interaction between players.  

Things like requiring folks to sit in straight backed chairs or share dice could be a good way for the group to incorporate color appropriate to the setting they've chosen into their play.  This game is so modular in nature that it would make most sense for each group to come up with their own social mores.  The group that sets the game in a hedonistic OTO coven could make it a requirement to provide interesting chemicals for delectation, while the Franciscans group could ask for all players to go barefoot and dress simply.  Is that the kind of crossover you are thinking of?

Mike:  very interesting.  I'd like to see an engineering analysis of a game.  And I can see how something could become too focused.  Enlightenment hinges so much on the trait pairs, that play testing is going to be needed to see how it all hangs together.  How does this fit with the "beeg horseshoe" thread, by the way?  You said there is little sim in Enlightenment, but I see it as being strongly N with sim underpinnings to create a fabric in which to explore moral struggles.

--EC

Quote from: Emily CareI think that each system does do that, even if not consciously. For example, the simple fact of gm fiat creates a  power differential that may have a profound impact on game play and social interaction between players.  

Things like requiring folks to sit in straight backed chairs or share dice could be a good way for the group to incorporate color appropriate to the setting they've chosen into their play.  This game is so modular in nature that it would make most sense for each group to come up with their own social mores.  The group that sets the game in a hedonistic OTO coven could make it a requirement to provide interesting chemicals for delectation, while the Franciscans group could ask for all players to go barefoot and dress simply.  Is that the kind of crossover you are thinking of?

[snip]

--EC

This is sort of what i'm getting at, but i'm really going more for the idea of specific goals in social manipulation.  One of the things that real world manipulation can achieve is that you can help people get into the setting.  What i'm going for is more along the lines of strengthening/weakening friendships and stuff.  I don't know how easy this is to develop into a game, but i'm specifically aiming for the manipulation of real-world relationships from a design standpoint.  I don't know if it's possible, or even desirable, but i think it's worth exploring.  Can we create systems that produce consistent real world relational results?  And do we even want to?

Thomas

I gotta come up with a name for my theory.

Anyhow, definitely Thematic on the conflict axis. Not much support for Fidelity, however. That is, certainly the characters will seem real on the moral level, but there's not much about adhering to the non-metagame reality. That is there's no "physics model rules" (IIRC), nothing that would promote Actor Stance particularly, etc. Very little of the sort of "character type A is like this". So I think that it'll have less appeal for those looking for really Hi Fidelity play. But the Thematic stuff will be enough for a lot of people to be able to ignore that, and focus on the exploration of characters via that sort of decision.

As with any game of this sort, I think that there's potential danger in that a player who comes in with expectations for Hi Fidelity will be annoyed with players who don't adhere to that. All I can say is that the game needs some Genre Expectation type stuff built in somehow to combat that. Does the player discussion on that stuff suffice? I'm not sure.


I would say, BTW, that this game is definitely past the point where it needs a lot of analysis. It's at the point where playtesting is a far more effective means of improving the game.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesI gotta come up with a name for my theory.

Anyhow, definitely Thematic on the conflict axis. Not much support for Fidelity, however. That is, certainly the characters will seem real on the moral level, but there's not much about adhering to the non-metagame reality. That is there's no "physics model rules" (IIRC), nothing that would promote Actor Stance particularly, etc. Very little of the sort of "character type A is like this". So I think that it'll have less appeal for those looking for really Hi Fidelity play. But the Thematic stuff will be enough for a lot of people to be able to ignore that, and focus on the exploration of characters via that sort of decision.

let's not make the mistake of limiting Sim or Fidelity to physics or realism... I would agree the game is very Lo-Fi in those areas, since setting isn't even created until the first game session. but I think the Exploration in Enlightenment focuses on religious value systems. sure, these value systems can (and probably will) be used to play Narrativist... but consider these elements:

[*]the hagiography: playing out the lives of the saints to resolve disputes on which Passions and Virtues will be included in the religion;
[*]growth of the monastery: the number of neophytes increases as the original neophytes grow to mentorhood;
[*]growth of the religion: at some point, each mentor becomes an abbott/abbess of a new monastery.
[/list:u]
so, the game is not just about moral conflicts, but also about religion-building. if you were to play the (finished) game every week for a year, the end result would be a very detailed history of a monastic order and lives of the saints for an imaginary religion.

I'm thinking Enlightenment might actually work well as a set of add-on rules to other game systems, in which case the other system would take care of the Hi-Fi elements for "physics" and "society", with Enlightenment adding "religion" Hi-Fi elements. playing it as a stand-alone game will certainly be possible, once the missing elements are finished, but it will have a different feel when played that way.