SD Topical Index #1

Heya,

This is my 100th post on Socratic Design. IMHO, that’s quite a feat. It gave me pause for reflection. I looked over my anthologies and thoughts, “Geez. These are really hard to use. There’s no organization here.” As I am often referring to my older posts, it can take me a long time to locate a particular entry. Therefore, with my 100th post, I am creating a topical index. I will do so on every 100th post.

So here you go. If you were hoping for an easier reference for my blog, this is probably the best you’ll ever get.

SD Topical Index 1

On Design Aids

-What is The Big 3?
-What is The Alt. Three?
-What are the Power 19? Pt.1
-What are the Power 19? Pt. 2
-Why should I post my Power 19?
-Whatever Happened to the Power 19?
-What is the System Design Checklist?
-What is the Setting Design Checklist?
-Are There any Design Outlines?

On The Big Model

-What is Character?
-What is Setting?
-What is Situation?
-What is System?
-What is Color?
-What is TITB4B and Why’s It Bad?

On Other RPG Theory

-What is Stance Theory? Pt. 1
-What is Stance Theory? Pt. 2
-Is Min-Maxing Bad?
-Which is Better, Hit Points or DPS?
-What is a GM?
-How can Magic be Used in a RPG?
-What is Chargen?
-What is the Fun Now Manifesto?

On Resolution

-What is Resolution?
-What is Narration Rights?
-What is DFK?
-What are the Different Types of Fortune Mechanics?

On Setting

-Does Setting Still Matter?
-What is Setting? Pt. 1
-What is Setting? Pt. 2
-What is Setting? Pt. 3
-What is Setting? Pt. 4
-Is There a New Blasted Sands Available?

On Writing and Designing A Game

-Why Do People Do RPGs?
-What Should I Design?
-What Should I Expect from My First Design?
-When Do I Abandon a Game?
-What is the Mathematician Syndrome?
-What are Some Common Pitfalls?
-Another Pitfall.
-What Do I Do If I get Stuck?
-What is a Sacred Cow?
-How Can My Game Better Teach Mechanics? Pt. 1
-What Else Besides Dice?
-What is Strength of Emphasis?
-When is a Concept Ready to Be a Draft?

On Publishing

-What Is It Like to Publish a RPG?
-Is Publishing Really That Painful?
-What if my Game Turns Out Crappy?
-What is a Fulfillment Service?
-What is Troy’s Twelve Step Process?
-Another Process.
-Yet Another Process.
-Where can I get Art for My Game?

On The Community

-What Is/Was The Forge About?
-What is RPG Crossroads?
-What is the (Iron) Game Chef?
-What is Diaspora?

On Rewards

-Is Character Advancement Necessary?
-Is Play Its Own Reward?

On Character Death

-When Should a Character Die?
-What is a Death Spiral?

Editorials

-What is the Future of RPGs?
-Why Design a RPG?
-What is a Heartbreaker?
-What is a Traditional Game?
-So What Are We Looking For?
-How Do I Appeal To Youth?
-A Side Rant.

Anthologies

-Socratic Design Anthology #1
-Socratic Design Anthology #2
-Socratic Design Anthology #3
-Socratic Design Anthology #4
-Socratic Design Anthology #5
-Socratic Design Anthology #6

Please, please, please report any dead links. Also, if you have any questions about any of the articles, please post them in response to this entry. I don’t check the older ones very often. Enjoy!

Peace,

-Troy

Socratic Design Anthology #6

Heya,

I haven't done an anthology for Socratic Design since 2009. It seems like yesterday to me, but a lot of time has passed since then. I figured it's time to do one, just to review what I've talked about for the last year and a quarter. Here they are:

-What is DFK?
-How Do Fortune Mechanics Work?
-What is Stance Theory? Pt. 1
-What is Stance Theory? Pt. 2
-What is TITB4B and Why’s it Bad?
-When Do I Abandon a Game?
-Is Publishing Really That Painful?
-Is there a New Blasted Sands Available?

Please report any malfunctioning links. I've often had trouble with these in the past. For reference, here are the previous Anthologies listed in order:

-Socratic Design Anthology #1
-Socratic Design Anthology #2
-Socratic Design Anthology #3
-Socratic Design Anthology #4
-Socratic Design Anthology #5

If you wish to comment on any of these posts, please go ahead and post that reply here on this article. I do go back and check my old posts from time to time, but not very often. I'll be happy to entertain any questions on any of these links here. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them!

Peace,

-Troy

How Do Fortune Resolution Mehcanics Work?

Heya,

There is some required prior reading for this article: What is Resolution? and What is DFK? If you have not read those articles yet, I would recommend doing so. Otherwise a lot of what I have to say here will lack proper context. I’m writing with the assumption that the reader has, indeed, read those articles.

All Fortune mechanics have the same four basic components: Declaring Actions, Narrating Actions, Rolling Dice and Applying Resources such as currencies, modifiers, escalation techniques, rerolls and so on. The order of these four steps, though, matters a great deal and can completely change how a game is played. There are four Fortune methods I’ll be covering here today: Fortune at the Beginning (FatB), Fortune in the Middle (FitM), Fortune in the Middle with Teeth (FitMw/T), and Fortune at the End (FatE).

Fortune at the Beginning (FatB): Fortune at the Beginning has only been experimented with. I am not aware of any large scale game production that has found a way to effectively use it. Not to say it hasn't been done at all. Daniel Solis' games "Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple", "The Leftovers", and "Happy Birthday, Robot!" feature FatB. Currently, I am experimenting with it myself. You can find an example of what I’m doing with the G.A.M.E. system over on 1km1kt.

Fortune at the Beginning works like this. First, before declaring anything, a player adds up all modifiers and resources that might affect the roll. Second, he rolls the dice. Then, after the results of the roll are revealed the player gets to decide what to do. Based on the result, the player may decline to have his/her characters act, may assign any number of successes to any number of actions, or declare what his character won as a result of the rolls. Basically, in Fortune at the Beginning, the player is rolling blind.

The advantages of this system are mostly tactical. In a dice pool system where multiple successful results are possible with the dice, the player can prioritize the actions or tasks he wants his character to complete. He or she knows which actions/tasks will be successful or which prizes he will win. FatB almost becomes a Karma system at that point. It’s not as much of a guess like it is with the other resolution systems.

FatB as opposed to Fortune at the End (FatE), decreases the amount of opportunity costs for acting. If a result shows up in the dice that the player is unhappy with, he can decline action and thus avoid outright failure. If the results are unexpectedly fortuitous, he can react by taking advantage. The order of operations basically looks like this: Apply Resources (if available)->Roll Dice->Declare Actions->Narrate Outcome. In a way FatB resembles FatE in that the dice do get to decide pass/fail, but unlike FatE the player is not locked into a specific action prior to rolling.

I feel that FatB is best suited for tactical games where characters are trying to execute a number of maneuvers in order to win against an opponent or obstacle. Games with the play philosophy of Dungeons and Dragons lend themselves well to FatB IMO. It really supports well many Gamist tendencies.

The problem with this system is, it can be a little unnatural. Rolling prior to declaring anything in the fiction or at the table is strange. You initiate a conflict or trial, but don’t talk about the results, what’s at stake, or what the characters are trying to do until the dice are rolled. It’s very strange. And honestly, I don’t think there’s a well played, widely used functional example of it yet. However, I've just recently been made aware of Daniel's games, so I'll have to give them a whirl.

As a quick aside, a FatBw/T would order its operations like so: Roll Dice->Apply Resources (if available)->Declare Actions->Narrate Outcome. More on the whole “with Teeth” idea in a bit.

Fortune in the Middle (FitM): A bare-bones Fortune in the Middle resolution system places the rolling in (surprise!) the middle of the operations. Players declare what their characters are trying to do, roll the dice, and then narrate the outcomes based on the dice. The narration in this resolution system is really key. In order for a resolution system to really be a FitM system, the narration has to have a mechanical effect on the in-game fiction. This is not saying, “I strike my opponent with my sword” after rolling a natural twenty in D&D. Hitting with a Nat-20 was something decided waaaaaaaaay before anyone said anything. In fact, it’s pre-supposed in the rules. The 20 would hit regardless of whether or not the player said anything. FitM narration is retroactive and can override anything that was said prior to the roll. Players are free to adjust their actions and tactics based on what the rolls’ results are. The dice (or cards or dominos or chicken bones or whatever) are not the final arbiter of what happens in the game’s fiction.

Bare-bones FitM systems operate like this: Declare Actions->Apply Resources(if available)->Roll Dice->Narrate Outcome.

Fortune in the Middle (both with teeth and without) really support Narrativist tendencies. It’s not exclusively so. It can support Gamist play as well, but the types of conflicts Narrativist play tends towards are very well supported by FitM. Simluationist tendencies are not so much. Simulationist play really wants things to be well defined and dedicated to supporting the reinforcement of the area of exploration. I’ll get into the distinctions between the creative agendas at a later date. For now, this information may be useful to designers who are already familiar with them.

Fortune in the Middle with Teeth (FitMw/T):

FitMw/T is where you’ll find a lot of indie game design. Hero Wars, Dogs in the Vineyard, The Shadow of Yesterday, Prime Time Adventures, and so and so on have Fortune in the Middle with Teeth systems. The key feature and key difference between with Teeth and without Teeth systems is where the Spend Currency/Apply Resources operation is located. Instead of applying modifiers, bonus dice, hero points, or whatever before the roll is made, that stuff comes after the roll is made. This is very important because it allows players to escalate the conflict, make better tactical decisions, lend a hand in someone else’s fight, or adjust their character’s actions to better suit the result.

In FitMw/T results are fluid and more subject to what the players want rather than what the rules or dice dictate. For instance, if a player in Dogs in the Vineyard is unhappy with his roll, he can escalate the conflict. If a player in Hero Wars is unhappy with her roll, she can spend a Hero Point to reroll. FitMw/T allows for ways to get around or obviate the initial roll and replace it with something else.

Fortune in the Middle with Teeth systems arrange the resolution operations basically like this: Declare Actions->Roll Dice->Apply Resources (if available)->Narrate Outcome.

The problem with this system is it can be labor and/or time intensive. If the resolution of conflicts or tasks is not what you want your game to be about, then FitMw/T may not be the best choice for your game.

Fortune at the End (FatE): This is not to be confused with the FATE engine used with Spirit of the Century. IMO, Fortune at the End is the simplest and was the most commonly used resolution system for the first three decades of RPG design. D&D/AD&D, Rolemaster, RuneQuest, CoC, Tunnels and Trolls, Boot Hill, MERP, GURPS, WoD, Rifts, Shadowrun, Deadlands, and so on and so on all used a Fortune at the End mechanic*.

In Fortune at the End, a player first declares what his character wants/is trying to do. Second, all tweaking of values, modifiers, dice pools, et cetera is done prior to the actual rolling of the dice. You figure in your attack bonus, defense modifier, saving throw, THAC0, and all that sort of stuff before the dice hit the table. Third, the player rolls the dice (reveals the cards, flips the pennies, or whatever). After the dice reveal their values, the fortune system is done. Normally, you’ll compare the values to a chart or some target number, and read your results from that.

There are two important features of a Fortune at the End system. The first is that once the dice are thrown, the players (including the GM if there is one) are unable to alter the results. The results stand and you deal with the consequences there. The second feature is that what you are rolling for is decided before you roll. There is no going back and changing your mind once the dice are counted. You can’t take your swing of the sword back after you rolled your d20. Players can’t change their minds. Fortune at the End, much as its name suggests, is final. It arranges the order of operations as such: Declare Actions-> Apply Resources (if available)->Narrate Outcome->Roll Dice.

Fortune at the End excellently supports Simulationist play and is practical for Gamist play as well. Narrativist play tendencies seem to be stifled under this system. The idea that a conflict is wrapped up independent to player-input after the roll is antithetical to most Narrativist players’ priorities.

Well, that’s just about all I have to say on this for now. Just for reference, here are the order of operations for each system in shorthand:

=FatB: Apply Resources (if available)->Roll Dice->Declare Actions->Narrate Outcome.

=FitM: Declare Actions-> Apply Resources (if available)->Roll Dice->Narrate Outcome.

=FitMw/T: Declare Actions->Roll Dice-> Apply Resources (if available)->Narrate Outcome.

=FatE: Declare Actions-> Apply Resources (if available)->Narrate Outcome->Roll Dice.

As you design your games, I hope that you experiment with all of these at some point. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Play with them and decide which one is right for your vision of how your game should work.

Peace,

-Troy

*Technically, many of the games have resolution mechanics that are abstract enough that they are easy to drift towards FitM or maybe even FatB; however, the intent of the designs strongly indicate that they are FatE.

What is Stance Theory? Part2

Heya,

In our last episode, I ran down the four main roleplaying stances and gave a brief description of each. In this installment (much shorter than the first), I’ll describe how designers can use Stance Theory when making their games.

Here’s the big thing you need to take away from Stance Theory: all it does is to say who can say what when and how much credibility what they say has. Let me unpack that.

First, is “who can say what?” All the stances except Director Stance state that the player may only make statements about a character. It does not have to be “their” character. It can be any character or all the characters or a whole group of characters. Actor, Pawn, and Author are all character-centric. Director is the only stance that permits a player to make statements about non-character things such as furniture, location, geography, foliage, the weather, and so on and so forth.

Second is “when can they say it?” Each stance has certain conditions that have to be met in order for a person’s spoken words to be added to the fiction. If you want to speak in Actor Stance, you must be acting within the motivations of your character and take in-game causality into account. If you’re not in a position to do that, then you can’t use Actor Stance until you are.

Third is “how much credibility do they have?” A person who is expected to be acting in Pawn Stance cannot suddenly narrate in an open treasure chest in the middle of the room. A person expected to be engaging in Actor Stance cannot suddenly disregard the sensibility of the Setting and past fiction just to gain a tactical advantage. Stances set up expectations that assist people in communication during roleplay.

And that’s sort of how this all relates to design. Remember, that Stance Theory is meant to be used as a tool to describe play. When we design a game, we sort of turn that on its head. Stance theory becomes a way to prescribe play. A game designer helps make the decisions about when each stance can or should be used. But instead of using that terminology (it would just go over everyone’s head), the rules you create give the players guidelines for setting up permissions and expectations of how the game should be played.

The rules imbue the participants with different levels of access or “permissions” to enter fiction into the Shared Imagined Space. In a game like InSpectres, everyone is given permission to use Director Stance powers at will. The expectation then is that the players will add clues, NPCs, locations, or whatever to the game’s fiction as they play just like the GM. Conversely, in a game like AD&D, only the DM is given permission to use Director Stance while players are ostensibly instructed to remain in Actor Stance as much as possible using their characters’ Alignments as a guide. (Granted, AD&D’s texts are horribly unclear on this at times, but go with me on this) The expectations then are the players act with within the bounds of the fictional world using only their characters abilities, knowledge, and motives while the DM gets to control everything else.

As a game designer, it is your job to write the rules so that the players know their roles and know how to play. Understanding Stance Theory provides you with a foundation of knowledge you can draw upon as you write those rules. It can help you to communicate your vision of how play should unfold through the permissions of your rules and the expectations of the players.

As you write your game, you should be cognizant of who can say what and when they can say it. And not only should YOU as the designer be aware of it, anyone who picks up your game and reads it should be aware of it. Setting up permissions and expectations is not something that should be shrouded in the text for the players to discover as they play. It’s not emergent. It should explicit and upfront.

Now, like I said, don’t use Stance terminology in your game! Don’t write, “Now the GM has Directorial Powers but the players should maintain Author Stance except in the following instances…” That would be horrible! Even people who enjoy RPG theory don’t want to read stuff like that in a game. Instead, write something like, “The GM is the one who introduces new places and items, but it is up to the players to decide how they and their characters want to react to them…”

Knowing the how the different stances work gives designers an insight into how communication during play works. Armed with that knowledge, you will be in a better position to write the rules of your game. Just remember, all of the fancy Stance labels and theory talk are just window dressing. The real meat of the matter is setting permissions and expectations for communication during play. I.E.: Who gets to say what, when do they get to say it, and who cares if they do?

Peace,

-Troy

PS: As you design and playtest your game, don’t believe for a minute that if you set the permissions and expectations that players should always speak in Actor Stance that the players will always do that. They won’t, and it’s okay. Groups will move in and out of stances as the individual situations call. That’s part of playing the game. But, there should be a default position (read: permission and expectation) for each participant explicitly stated in the rules. This way, when people aren’t sure what to do next or what they should be doing at all, the rules are there to guide them. Lapses in Stance are often used to solve a social problem, not a system problem.

What is RPG Crossroads?

Heya,

A while back I mentioned the The Neighborhood. Since that time, the website has gone through a number of very beneficial changes. Do you have an RPG company? What about a Podcast or YouTube channel? If you answered yes to any of those questions, there’s a place for you at the renamed RPG Crossroads.

RPG Crossroads is a place where I’m trying to bring together all the great, creative minds that are doing work with roleplaying games. There’s forums just for publishers to talk about their games and where their fans can ask questions and post suggestions. There are forums for podcasters to talk about their shows, promote their sites, post upcoming shows, and discuss issues facing podcasting on the Internet. Already, there’s some great conversations going on there. There’s also a forum for people who want to talk about theory or heavy issues like race and sex in RPGs.

If you want a place to meet a broad cross-section of gamers, RPG Crossroads is design exactly for that. I hope to see you there!

Peace,

-Troy

What is TITB4B and Why’s it Bad?

Heya,

Let’s start with a history review. A long time ago in a land that now seems so very far away, a man named Gary Gygax published a game named Dungeons and Dragons (1974). It was the first commercial RPG in the modern sense. What this game did was to compile rules for games that people were already playing based on another type of game: miniatures wargaming.

So let me explain what I mean in that last sentence. It’s very important. Dungeons and Dragons was NOT inventing a game. It was describing a game people were already playing. DnD did not create roleplaying, it simply catalogued roleplaying. Even more, roleplaying at the time was not what we tend to think of it today. It was much more like a miniatures war game where the object was to simulate dungeon combat, slaying a dragon, or an encounter between armed foes. The authors just assumed anyone who played the game would have this sort of background knowledge on wargaming and that explanatory text would be redundant (and more expensive to print). Therefore, it did not PRE-scribe play, it only DE-scribed play.

1975 saw the release of Boot Hill, a Western themed RPG. Props go to them for being original with their setting right off the bat. It was non-fantasy, leveless, and made the player-characters the focal point of the design, but the game was heavily geared towards the showdown and accurately simulating a gun fight. The game even touted itself as based on western miniatures. So the same basic assumptions were made- people playing Boot Hill knew how to play miniatures and just needed some extra rules for “roleplaying.”

Also, Tunnels and Trolls was released that year. It was the first in a long line of “Lord of the Rings except not because we can’t get the license” game. It did many of the things that D&D did, but it also held over the mass combat rules of miniatures and tried to be as realistic as it could be.

What DnD and these other games that were like it did accomplish in the 70’s was to make hundreds and then thousands of more people aware of what was going on. That awareness turned into participation. That participation turned into creation. But as time rolled on, the way people played these games started to change. Suddenly, people who had no background in miniature wargaming were picking up D&D, T&T, and Boot Hill and trying to play it based on their background in writing, storytelling, boardgames, make-believe, acting, imrpov, or whatever else. The core market for early RPGs suddenly expanded to whole new demographics.

DnD and these other RPGs were later supplemented by magazines such as TSR’s Dragon and RPGA’s Polyhedron published adventure modules meant to be used in a tournament format at conventions. For some people, the object of playing became to win. For others, it became a place to create stories in the English 101 sense where you have protagonists, rising action, climax, and theme. For others, it meant being true to the vision of whatever gaming background or literary background they came to the table with.

By the late 70’s it was clear that people were using RPGs to do all sorts of things that the texts did not support. In fact, it could be argued that from the very get-go, the texts did not support the play since they weren’t inventing anything, but simply describing pre-existing behaviors.

The results were threefold. The first effect was that the game texts at hand were all incomplete. They didn’t tell you how to play or what to do, they just had a bunch of text that provided resources people already familiar with how to play could use to supplement their gaming. For people who heard about this game and picked up trying to figure out how to play it, there was nothing to really grab on to. Instead, the players had to improvise and make up a lot of stuff and ignore a lot of other stuff. Imagine trying to play D&D 3.5 if the only book you had was Castle Ravenloft. That’s about what it was like. You had people all over the country playing the same title without playing the same game (make sense?). Thus, a tradition was established in RPG publishing where communicating exactly what was expected during play and providing rules that supported that play was a non-essential thing. It really didn’t matter, the thinking went, just so long as you provided really evocative tools for the players. They’ll figure it out eventually, publishers supposed.

The second effect was when publishers figured out that there were large segments of the audience who weren’t playing the game like they had envisioned, they changed their texts to try to suit everyone. A game like Bushido (1979), for instance, tried to downplay the role of miniatures-style combat and stress the importance of the people at the table and what things like honor, duty, and heroism really meant to them. But at the same time, they included plenty of combat rules, magic, and ways to introduce supernatural monsters into play even though the game wasn’t really even about that stuff. They figured that if they didn’t have it, no one would want to buy the game. This was only exacerbated in the 1980’s where we saw an explosion of RPGs trying to cater to everyone and everything all at the same time.

The third effect was that social conflict amongst the players became the norm. The tales of dysfunctional groups, incoherence, and arguments over what was the “right way” to play a game are well documented, and I don’t need to go into them here. Tournaments and conventions (especially GenCon) brought people from all over together in one place. This was great, in that ideas could be exchanged, but at the same time it brought people into conflict because they weren’t interpreting the vague rules and guidelines the same way. This problem increased in the 1990’s when GenCon, Origins, and DragonCon really started taking off. Then the Internet hit and everyone started talking to each other. This talking often consisted of a lot of arguing and belittling people for not playing “right” or whatever.

During this time, derogatory words entered the lexicon that labeled people and play styles who went against the grain. Powergamer, Grandstander, Munchkin, Rules Lawyer, Monty Hall GM, Wussy, Hack ‘n Slash, Blast ‘n Burn, artsy-fartsy-story-telling-wannabes, and turtling were enshrined as the proper way to refer to non-conformist players in dozens of advice books such as the AD&D 2e Guide to Creative Campaigning (1993).

So what was the end result? Well, people did try to come up with solutions. First was the so called, “Rule Zero.” Basically, that rule stated, “any rule you don’t like, get rid of it.” Other variations include, “Make up rules if something happens that this book doesn’t account for,” “Not everything that happens during play can be accounted for in the rules, so improvise as needed,” “It’s the GM’s call” or even worse, “The GM is God!” Sometimes they’d dress it up as much as they could such as in the AD&D1e DMG: "It is the spirit of the game not the letter of the rules, which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rulebook on you if it goes against the obvious intent of the game." Thus, game texts continued to be vague and lack focus on making rules that actually worked and actually told people how to play.

The other solution that was widely practiced was more insidious and brings us closer to the original point of this entry. During the 90’s when the first Goth wave hit, White Wolf ditched games like Ars Magica and switched to the World of Darkness titles like Vampire: The Masquerade and Mage: The Ascension. In these books, they presented the idea that the GM just needs to write out a plotline that the characters follow, using the rules only when necessary. Thus, a lot of the conflict in a group would be solved and everyone could have a nice story at the end to be proud of. The catch was, in order to get this to work right, the GM had to force the players into following the story. Since human being tend to be individualists (especially in America), this was a real problem. So instead, these games encouraged GMs to do this covertly, i.e. behind the veil. Play became based on deception and manipulation. The better a GM could hide how he was making all the choices for the players, the better a GM he/she was said to be. The problem is, all this subversive manipulation is just not a recipe for long-term success.

To communicate this style of gaming without totally turning everyone off from the get-go, a phrase was developed and presented in game texts as the proper way to play. It goes something like this, “The GM writes the story and the players decide what the characters do.”

Now, if you’ve been playing RPGs for a long time, that phrase probably makes sense to you. If you haven’t played many RPGs, that sentence probably makes absolutely no sense at all. If it does make sense, read it again. I’ll break it down.

The GM writes the story. The players decide what the characters do. If you have one, you can’t have the other. If the GM has written the story, the decisions of the characters must already be known. If the players decide what the characters are going to do, the GM could not possibly have written out the story since none of the characters had taken any actions prior to play. Those two sentences are totally and utterly incompatible. Yet that phrase, or a variation of it, is presented in numerous roleplaying texts across the spectrum as the way things are supposed to be done during roleplaying. That, right there, is “The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast.” TITB4B. Also, sometimes called “illusionism” or “railroading.”

So why is this bad?

Well, let’s look at what TITB4B causes. First, the GM has to force the players to do something. Not only that, he has to do in covert ways, basically conning them to go along with his plan without ever communicating that plan in a truthful and upfront way. That’s certainly not a sound foundational basis for a functional social group. And, as a result, it didn’t solve the problem it was trying to solve.

If the players became bored with the GM’s story, they would often try to veer off course. This caused conflict with the GM because his well thought-out and beautiful stories were being ruined by people daring to express their free will. Not only that, the GM would be caught totally off-guard and unprepared to deal with these new developments. Consequences included heated arguments, long and boring pauses in play while the GM figured out what to do, sessions cut short so the GM could prep for what was going on (usually, just more machinations to get the characters back to the original plot), or some players being left out of the game completely while those who did choose to follow the GM’s premade plans were rewarded with screen time. This can and often does lead to other social and in-game conflicts amongst the participants. Most bad experiences with RPGs can be tied to this phenomena right here.

So what can be done about TITB4B?

There have been some failed attempts to fix this. GUMSHOE (2007) for example touted itself as solving this problem for mystery games by having not only a Fortune based mechanic for clue finding but also a Karma based resolution. “Although it came up in playtest, I confess to being a little surprised by the idea that The Esoterrorists, by creating a mechanism to ensure that PCs in investigative games always get all the clues they need to start piecing the mystery together, encourages railroading. The GUMSHOE system doesn’t in fact change the inherent structure of investigative games at all. They are no more or less linear in GUMSHOE, on a structural level, than in a traditional procedural campaign using the roll-to-get-a-clue model,” wrote Robin Laws on his blog.

I have to admit I was a little surprised that he was a little surprised that his game received the same criticism previous mystery games had received since GUMSHOE does nothing to “change the inherent structure of investigative games.” I wondered it Mr. Laws had played Inspectres (2002)- a game that does change the inherent structure of mystery games and makes them non-linear, but in the comments section of his entry, he reveals that he had not.

The old paradigm was still alive: the GM writes the story (in this case a mystery) and the players play along finding the pre-arranged clues and breadcrumbs left by the GM. The fact that they could spend points to get the clues instead of whiffing endlessly on their rolls did, as Robin states, nothing to change heavy-handed, GM-centric nature of play despite being presented as a game that liberated the players from the traditional travails associated with mystery games.

However, there are several viable solutions to TITB4B. As with many things, it seems, in RPG theory, there are names for them: Trailblazing, Participationism, and Bass Play/Sandbox Play. I’ll get to these in another article which, I have a feeling, will be more pertinent to design. For now, the main thing that I hope people come away with from this article is that “the GM makes the story and the players decide what the characters do” is a nonsensical statement that should be avoided in gaming texts.

Peace,

-Troy

What is The Neighborhood?

Heya,

The Neighborhod is a new website dedicated to linking all the disperate parts of the indie-rpg movement into one place for mutual benefit. There are several key parts of this site:

1. Forums- The Forge once hosted forums for many different independent gaming companies. Now that it's in its winter stage, those forums are being phased out. I wanted to give those companies a place to go. The Neighborhood is that place.

2. News/Reviews/Editorials- Story Games, The Ogre Cave, Planet Story Games, and RPGnet have some great content, but not everyone is aware of it. I pulled in feeds from all four of these sites at The Neighborhood. I want to help promote those sites as well as add some convenience for Neighborhood users. You can keep up on all the happenings with just a few simple clicks at the Neighborhood, then when you find something you like, you're whisked off directly to the topic that interests you. It saves a lot of time and makes surveying these gaming sites a lot easier. .

3. Radio/TV- There are some terrific RPG podcasts and YouTube Channels out there. I've collected many of their feeds at the Neighborhood. I want to promote these multi-media resources and give Neighborhood users more reasons to come and interact with the publishers. I hope the Radio and TV pages will be mutually beneficial. There's probably a lot on these two pages you don't know about.

4. Links- These are a collection of publisher websites, store sites, and forums/resources for RPG players and publishers. These are really useful for finding companies and products.

If you get a chance, take a stroll through The Neighborhood. If you're a creator-owned RPG publisher, drop me a line in the Forums there and we'll get you set up with a forum all your own.

Peace,

-Troy

Is there a New Blasted Sands Available?

Heya,

Why, yes there is! For those not aware, way back in 2006-almost four years ago to the day-I posted a RTF file of a campaign setting to use as an object lesson for my thoughts on Setting. I recently re-read that file and was appalled. The amazing thing is, I get a notice in my email about once a month that someone has downloaded that file! To me, that’s amazing.

So, obviously, there is some demand for it. What I’ve done is totally reworked most of it, cleaned it up, and tried to eliminate the typos (although I’m sure there’s still a ton). It is over twice as large as it was and full of more Color and detail. At last, I have a file I can be at least a little more proud of. If you’ve downloaded the first version or are looking for a Dark Sun-inspired setting in which to play, may I introduce:

Blasted Sands (Revised Edition) at box.net
Blasted Sands (Revised Edition) at Scribd

I hope those who downloaded the older version will check this one out too. And for those who have never read my Blasted Sands setting, I hope that it inspires you. All feedback is very welcomed.

Peace,

-Troy

What Is/Was The Forge All About?

What was the Forge about? Why did it exist?

First, read this:

http://indie-rpgs.com/articles/12/

And this:

http://indie-rpgs.com/articles/13/

Then, read these:

http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=17809.0

http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=17810.0

http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=17811.0

Then, read all of that:

http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=9782.0

Finally, read this:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php?topic=30635.0

Then you will know.

Peace,

-Troy

What is Stance Theory? Part1

Heya,

Today I’m taking on another older topic- Stance Theory. This is part 1 of a two part article. In this one, I’m basically just going to define and describe Stance Theory. In the second part, I’ll try to explain how it might be useful. But honestly I think for the most part, we have left this behind as game designers. None-the-less, I am endeavoring to bring up the old ideas (old in this case meaning from the late 90’s and early 2000’s) so that fresh eyes can look at them, dissect them, and bring forth new ideas.

When it comes to Stance Theory, first and foremost, you must understand that it is describing play, not design. I think that all too often, people talk past each other when it comes to RPG theory because one person is thinking “play” and the other is thinking “design.” Play should inform design, of course, but they are not the same thing.

So what is it anyway? Well, Stance Theory is a way of describing how players (including the GM) affect the in-game events, setting, and characters (aka The Shared Imagined Space). There are four Stances that have been identified. The Provisional Glossary defines them as such:

Actor Stance: The person playing a character determines the character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have. This stance does not necessarily include identifying with the character and feeling what he or she "feels," nor does it require in-character dialogue.

Author Stance: The person playing a character determines the character's decisions and actions based on the person's priorities, independently of the character’s knowledge and perceptions. Author Stance may or may not include a retroactive "motivation" of the character to perform the actions.

Pawn Stance: A subset of Author Stance which lacks the retroactive "motivation" of the character to perform the actions.

Director Stance: The person playing a character determines aspects of the environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world separate from the characters.

Okay, that’s nice. But let’s break them down some.

Director Stance is sometimes treated as synonymous with players narrating in-game events, or worse, people think that’s the only thing Director Stance does. Director Stance *can* do those things, but players using Director Stance don’t *have* to. A player can say, “There’s some brush next to the wall, my character hides there and is unseen.” That’s Director Stance. He could also say, “Gunther looks left, then right, and finally above to make sure he isn’t being watched. He carefully creeps over to a thick patch of shrubbery next to the castle wall in the dim twilight of the evening. None of the guards atop the wall were looking in his direction.” Both are examples of Director Stance.

In Director’s Stance, the player is not regarding what the character is thinking or feeling or what the character has the power to change in the Shared Imagined Space. The Player is capable of changing the environment and circumstances around the character. If the player wants a guard on top of the wall and he is operating in Director’s Stance, he can put a guard there. If he wants bushes, there are bushes. But that’s the player’s desires, not the character’s. Those two may coincide, but that’s entirely beside the point. In Director Stance, the player is disregarding character motivation.

A player operating in Director’s Stance can basically manipulate anything in the imaginary game world. It can be characters, objects, places, the weather, or whatever. Nothing is off-limits; the power is quite broad. Additionally, the Director Stance player can base these changes off of in-game considerations or meta-game (stuff outside the imaginary world) considerations WITH OR WITHOUT offering in-game justifications for these changes. In other words, what he’s doing doesn’t necessarily have to make “sense” in the imaginary world, it just has to be acceptable at the Social Contract level. Think about the space alien scene in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” That doesn’t make any sense in the imaginary world of that movie, but it is acceptable given the nature of the crew who made that film.

Pawn Stance is sometimes seen as the default stance for Gamists. This is one thing I hardly have to spend any time on. If you’ve ever watched people play D&D using the alignment system, you’ve probably seen Gamists operating in a stance other than Pawn. Pawn Stance *can* be used by Gamists, but doesn’t *have* to be. In Pawn Stance, the player is limiting him/herself to just deciding what the character does without any special relationship to the character. It’s just a game piece in this context. The typical GM use of Palace Guards and Barmaids or other static characters is often Pawn Stance in traditional fantasy roleplay.

Author Stance is the hardest one for me to fully grasp. It seems to lie somewhere past Actor Stance but before Director Stance. It’s sort of in the middle, lacking the buy-in that Actor demands and the power that Director gives. When in Author Stance, the player is making decisions just for a character- not for the environment, circumstances, or non-character items in the imaginary game world. That’s the biggest difference from Director’s Stance: The Author cannot affect anything except a character.

Second, a player engaging in Author Stance makes his or her decisions about a character based on the meta-game. In-game/in-character motivations and conditions can be (but don't have to be) ignored at the player's choice under Author Stance. However, that doesn’t mean a player using Author Stance can go willy-nilly all over the place, making decisions for a character as he or she pleases. These decisions must make sense in-game. So, even though the player is using knowledge from outside the imaginary world as the basis for decision making, he/she must justify those decisions using logical fiction inside the Shared Imagined Space. This is another break with Director Stance. The spaceship from the Monty Python example above can only happen under Author Stance if it had been previously established that aliens existed in the Setting and were watching over the main character.

Last, but not least, is Actor Stance. It’s been my experience that Actor Stance is occasionally and wrongly associated with Simulationist Play. As if, Actor Stance was the only “right way” to play using the Simulationist Creative Agenda. It is also sometimes treated as the same thing as talking in-character or “Immersion.” But Actor Stance is SO much more.

First, Actor Stance does not care what Creative Agenda you are using. In fact, none of the stances do. One can use Actor stance as the situation demands. Second, Actor Stance prioritizes the character much more than Director and Author Stance do. Decisions made using Actor Stance are made in accordance with what the character’s motivations are AND take into consideration in-game knowledge, conditions, and events. The player is not manipulating the scenery or objects in the imaginary world, just the character from the character’s own perspective.

It is in Actor’s Stance that motivation is brought to the forefront. Actor’s Stance pursues this motivation and tries to carry it out. This is where character knowledge and player knowledge are split, and meta-game considerations are disregarded. It requires the player buy into the character as a living, breathing, free-thinking individual. The character is not a game pieces or a means to an end, but it becomes the focus of attention. Actor Stance is the expression of an intimate relationship between the real life player and the imaginary person that is being portrayed by that player. GMs often play significant NPCs (for lack of a better term) this way. That’s the most common example I can think of.

Some people define Immersion by saying it’s engaging in Actor’s Stance as often and as much as possible. I don’t really have a good definition for Immersion. A lot of talk about has gone on over the years. I don’t think Actor’s Stance is a handy synonym for it, but you should be aware that some (not all) people think of it that way.

Over the years, several problems associated with Stance Theory have arisen.

One common error that was made in the early days of hashing out Stance Theory was that it related only to “your” character. It doesn’t. It relates to any character. You can be an Author, Actor, Pawn, or Director anyone’s character or characters. The emphasis is not on the character, but on the player- i.e. what stance the player is taking toward the fiction being created in the imaginary world. Some people mistake Stance Theory as character-centric. It isn't. It's player-centric.

Another error that was made was that Stance Theory didn’t apply to GMs, or that all GMs were, necessarily, by default operating in Director Stance. This is, of course, totally untrue and can be observed in actual play. Any time the GM operates the NPCs (for lack of a better term) based solely on that NPC’s knowledge- and not his (The GM’s) knowledge- that GM is operating in Actor Stance. This happens all the time and is usually seamless during play.

Third, some believe that all roleplaying is stance. Meaning, that everything said at the table comes from one of the four stances. That’s not true. When talking about Stance Theory, we are talking about character actions and the way the imaginary world reacts to the characters, nothing else. The damage from a sword thrust is not stance. The death of a character is not stance. The effects of drowning are not stance. A majority of the things said at the table are said from a stance but not everything. When examining a piece of roleplaying for stance, look for player decisions, character decisions, and changes in the imaginary world. Don't get hung up on mechanics.

Finally, the last common mistake I want to highlight is the assumption that people do or at least should maintain a consistent stance throughout play. As if idealized play is when everyone is operating in Actor Stance or in Director Stance. This is rubbish. Players are constantly moving from one stance to another as the needs of the situation arise, and I can see no benefit (or at least, very little) from rigidly maintaining only a single stance. I’ve played in campaigns where the Social Contract strictly enforced Actor Stance (talking in character, using only character knowledge, following the character’s alignment to a T). Anyone who broke Actor Stance was immediately penalized socially if not mechanically. Play devolved into a game of “Gotchya!” and those sorts of campaigns never lasted long for me.

Well, that’s all for Part 1. In Part 2, I’ll delve into how this is relevant to RPG design (Hint: it’s really not so much anymore). Until then, take care of each other.

Peace,

-Troy

Is Publishing Really That Painful?

Heya,

The answer is yes. Over and over on podcasts and forums, you can see experienced independant RPG publishers talking about how painful the process of publishing really is. This post in an anecdote.

I was midway through my first series of DL-Quarterly. I had sent the PDF files of "Standoff!" to my printer, RapidPOD. RapidPOD was local for me. It is headquartered in Brandenburgh Kentucky, which is only a few minutes drive from where I live. I want to help the entreprenuers in my state, so I decided to work with them. The first two books, Cutthroat and Hierarchy came back fine. Shipping seemed a little slow, but I was ahead of my deadlines which made everything work out okay.

The PDF for Standoff! was a little complicated. I had very narrow margins, the book cover was mainly a big red rectangle, and I used some pretty wierd fonts. It wasn't anything a print on demand printer couldn't handle, though.

I submitted my book in April, expecing to get it back in June at the latest- plenty of time to get it before GenCon. I got a confirmation email when I uploaded the file to their site, and I thought everything was cool. I was just starting on my Master's degree and the end of the school year was coming up, so I was focussed on creating my final exams and finalizing my students' grades. You know, teacher stuff.

Anyway, June rolls by before I know it. I give the printer a call, and it turns out my file has been lost. So I upload it again, somewhat worried about getting to GenCon this year with my games. A couple more weeks pass, and I call again. RapidPod was going through some sort of management change and it might be a while before I got my books, but I was assured they'd arrive prior to GenCon which was toward the middle of August that year.

August comes. I get a box on my porch. I now what it is, and I'm relieved. I take it inside and open it up with my wife to find that all of the books are horribly miscut. The covers are nearly diagonal. Words are chopped off on half the pages and a bunch of the icons didn't print. I call up RapidPod (now Vixen Printing) and complain. They offer to resend my order, but state that from now on I'd have to order a minimum of 100 books. I was irate.

I didn't go to GenCon that year. My books arrived four weeks later. I switched printers for The Holmes and Watson Committee and finished up the first series for DL Quarterly. Then I just shut the whole thing down. The experience really turned me off from publishing for a long time. I know many have had to go through the same thing.

Don't go into this thinking it's easy. I'm proud of the work I did with Divine Legacy and my earlier work with Twilight Press. In the end, it was all worth it. I'd do it all over again without a second though. But that doesn't mean it wasn't painful. It was.

Peace,

-Troy

When Do I Abandon A Game?

Heya,

Let's deal with a heavy topic today: abandoning an RPG design. Abandoning a game can mean different things for different people. I know some designers that never commit to a design unless they know how and when they will finish it. In fact, they don't even begin designing a "game" until they have spent months designing potential mechanics and/or examining the themes they might want to consider for their design. They almost never quit on a project. Those kinds of people are rare.

I'm more in the second group. I'm willing to bet most people are. Right now, I have a Word document with over 85 sketched-out RPGs. What I mean by sketched-out is: the rudiments of Chargen, Resolution, Setting, and Advancement are planned out. There's a title and a targeted demographic. But of those 85+, I've only ever brought 1 to print: The Holmes and Watson Committee. Many designers probably have similar stories. There's a ton of games they've sketched out, written about, outlined, and dreamt of, but ultimately let it go for whatever reason. Sometimes, before the games really got off the ground.

But I want to talk about abandoning a game that is further down the line in development. This is a game where the designer has spent hours and hours writing it down. Spent hours and hours playtesting it. Spent hours and hours talking about it to friends, players, and Internet junkies. Maybe he has even published an Ashcan. This is a game that is well developed and has seen functional play at some level, BUT (and it's a big BUT) isn't achieving the kind of sustained, fun, and effectual play the designer wants.

Actually, most games that get published end up in that situation at some point. Playtesting will hum along fine, but there will be something missing or there will be some part of the mechanics that don't seem to work the right way. At this point, one of three things will happen. First, the designer will solve the problem. Perhaps he'll get some help form online forums or a blog. Perhaps one of the players will suggest a change that works out. Perhaps it will come in his sleep. Hey, it happens. However it comes, a solution presents itself and the designer jumps on it and development continues on its merry way.

Second, the designer will just publish it anyway. This is not all that desireable and is frequently the reason why the first edition of a game is quickly followed by a second.

The third eventuality is the most painful. The game is abandoned. It dies. But how does a designer make the choice to leave it and move on? It's an intensely personal thing and the designer has to take a hard look at himself in the process.

Designers are under development as much as their games are. I don't care if this is your first RPG or your thirtieth. Each game teaches you something about roleplaying and something about yourself. Publishing a game is a grueling, grueling process. Designers aren't joking when they say that. It's a personal expression of creativity, determination, and heart. The process changes you- usually for the best. And that's the important part: The Process Changes You.

When we start designing games, we have a certain skill set. Most of the first games we design are a lot like the games we enjoyed growing up. That's a good thing. But after the first one, our skill sets change, we add some new ones, and the next time around, the game is quite different from the last. Our taste, vision, and perspective change. This is a continual evolution for as long as the designer designs.

The decision to abandon a game comes when you aren't willing or you aren't able to change to suit the needs of the design. If you get to a point in your design where you are totally at a loss, where designing the game doesn't even make sense to you anymore, where you aren't willing to give up what you currently believe and currently enjoy to get it finished, it's time to leave the game behind. It can be painful because you know that the design is right there, just out of reach. But the skill set you currently possess is lacking to complete it, and there's no reconciling that.

It happens to the best of designers. Three high profile designs I can think of are Robots and Rapiers by Ralph Maza, Acts of Evil by Paul Czege, and Dragon Killer by Vincent Baker. Ralph, Paul, and Vincent know how to make games, but they got to a point in the designs of these games where they just couldn't take them any further. They had to abandon them and move on to other things. I don't presume for a moment to know what that meant to them personally. I'm sure it was difficult to some degree. But they made the choice, and as a result we have games like Apocalypse World and Blood Red Sands. So abandoning a game is not a bad thing. If it happens, it happens because it's a necessary thing.

So is that the end? No. Just because you abandon a game doesn't mean it's gone forever. Take the three examples from above. I spoke to Ralph about Robots and Rapiers about a year ago. He's filed the game away and plans to start over with it and publish it one day in the future. Vincent is returning to work on Dragon Killer after taking several years off. He learned a lot from publishing Apocalypse World and now feels he's ready to tackle the design problems for his former game. Paul has opened up Acts of Evil for anyone to develop. So it's very possible that someone, some day could publish a finished version of the game.

If you get to a point where your design requires something of you that you can't or don't want to give it, then it's okay to put it away and leave it behind. Maybe some day you'll be able to return to it. Maybe you won't. But if you chose to leave it behind, leave it behind. Abandon it. Don't let it hang over you. Move on to something else- it doesn't even have to be RPG design.

It's okay to abandon a game. And if making RPGs is really your passion, a new design that better matches your skills and interests will be just around the corner.

Peace,

-Troy

What is DFK?

Heya,

First in my retroactivist articles is DKF. DFK stands for "Drama, Fortune, Karma." In itself, that probably doesn't mean much. It was, to the best of my knowledge, originally cointed by Johnathan Tweet around 1995. The exact usage has changed some since Johnathan invented it for his game Everway. However, it was very instructional at the time and formed the basis for a lot of innovation in the years to come.

Drama, Fortune, and Karma refer to the three major types of resolution systems typically used in RPG design. Think of them as the Genuses in the Family of Resolution Systems. Each Genus has multiple species that are radically different from each other and impossible to recount in any detail here in this blog post. Each Genus has its own characteristics that help the players decide what happens and how.

What is Drama Resolution?

The Provisional Glossary defines Drama as: "Resolving imaginary events based on stated outcomes without reference to numerical values or (in some cases) statements that have been previously established (e.g. written on a character sheet)."

A definition is a good place to start but not really complete enough for understanding. Drama resolution systems are about forcing human-to-human negotiation and contact during play. In fact, negotiation becomes the centerpiece of any climactic situation, conflict of interest, or crisis. The players are expected to actively and verbally extend ideas for action within the game to advance the plot. The players must interact with each other.

This is usually accomplished through several, rather formulaic, methods. I really want to examine all the different ways these different resolution systems tackle resolving tasks and/or conflicts in their own isolated articles, so I'm just briefly going to describe what can go on during Drama Resolution here.

Most of the tinkering with Drama Resolution systems goes on in the area of assent. Just because a player states something happens, doesn't automatically make it so. Sometimes the group as a whole has to agree, sometimes just the GM, sometimes it's another player with whom the first player was interacting. It can be something as simple as Player A stating he leaps down the firepoll and Player B saying, "Okay, that's fine." Or it can require the use of currencies where Player A has to offer X number of tokens in the pot, then if anyone trumps his tokens with more tokens, that player gains narration rights unless someone trumps him and so on. Or the rules could require Player A to give all the other plays a certain number of his XP points in order to earn the right to narrate the action. However it works, the end result is that one (or more) players decides and then verbally describes how the situation resolves to the rest of the group.

What is Fortune Resolution?

This is the resolution system most of us are familiar with. The Provisional Glossary defines it as, "A method of resolution employing unpredictable non-behavioral elements, usually based on physical objects such as dice, cards, or similar."

Again, the definition is okay to start with, but needs to be unpacked some more. Let's get the obvious and boring out of the way first. Fortune mechanics can use any sort of randomizer like dice, spinners, cards, chicken bones, coins, or whatever to achieve some type of result. The key is, the result is unknown before the resolution system is put into action. There should be some mystery (i.e. unpredictability) to how the conflict, task, crisis, or action will be resolved. If there isn't, it might be Karma Resolution instead. But I think most everybody already knew that.

The key is the "non-behavioral" elements. The randomizer or whatever must be apart from the players. It can be something that they interact with, but must be something that acts or thinks impartially and independantly of the players' desires. There can be PLENTY of shenanegans that alter the result before or after the randomizer is used. In fact, those are often the most fun parts of the Fortune resolution system. But the randomizer must still remain an independant negotiator apart from the players themselves. It's almost the "invisible extra guy" at the table that mediates conflicts of interest.

There are a lot of abreviations associated with Fortune mechanics. You've probably seen things like FatB, FatE, FitM, FitMw/T or something along those lines. I'll give you a quick run-down of what they stand for but hold off on really going into detail about them until I can do an article just dedicated to Fortune Resolution.


FatB: Fortune at the Beginning

FatE: Fortune at the End

FitM: Fortune in the Middle

FitMw/T: Fortune in the Middle with Teeth

These types or "Species" of resolution systems also exist for Drama and Karma, but they aren't talked about very much. The terms above were developed by many authors over the years and discussed at length at the Forge. All this ties into IIEE, and I'll get into them more at a later date.
The thing that makes Fortune mechanics unique from the other is that it allows players to advance the action without necessarily interacting with anyone else. A roll of the die can decide if one charcter hits another and kills him, if one character successfully disarms a trap, or if the charasmatic rake woos the slutty bardmaid all without any input from the players other than the controler of the character. Fortune doesn't have to work that way, but it can work that way. Some see this as the key feature of the Genus; others see it as a drawback.

What is Karma Resolution?

Karma resolution is, "Resolution based on comparison of Effectiveness values alone." That's a very brief definition compared to Drama and Fortune. The reason is somewhat obvious- Karma is the simplest of the three. The character has a value, the conflict/task/situation has another value, and if the character's is higher, he or she succeeds.

The key feature of this method of resolution is who sets the values. Like Drama, this value is often arrived at using negotiaton among the participants. Often, it takes at least two people to make this thing work. The person playing the protagonist can't also play the opposition or the contests of the game fall flat and no one has any fun. Therefore there must be a GM or some other player/arbiter who chooses a target number for the conflict, scene, task, etc. How that number is chosen can be dealt with in a myriad of ways. The rules may suggest default values. The number could be arrived at using group consensus. It could be the result of various mathematical calculations.

Karma can seem somewhat rigid at times. Values can be strictly defined, and players can feel stymied by the fact that they can't do things at certain times. But that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Karma Resolution is. Karma is there to inspire you to achieve greatness. Your character may not be able to scale that mountain right now, so go on some quests, build up your strength and your allies and THEN come back and see if you make it to the summit to see the Guru. Karma can be used to put more emphasis on the journey of a character instead of the destination. That's a little trite, but that's been my experience.

So is this Still Relevant to Design?

I think it certainly is. Fortune is the most developed of the three resolution systems. I think designers who want to break some new ground could really do some cool innovations with Drama and Karma. Aside from that, knowing what types of resolution systems are out there makes you a better designer. Each game calls for a different set of skills, or at the very least, a refinement of the skills you already have. You need a large toolkit to maximize your skills. DFK is one of the tools. Get to know it well, and your designs will improve.

Peace,

-Troy

So What's the Future of SD?

Heya,


What's the future here? That's a very interesting question. I'll tell ya where I've been for the last few months. I'm a Gamist at heart. That doesn't mean that's the only type of roleplaying I like, but I am what I am. And honestly, to get my Gamist itch scratched the best, I've found that Magic: The Gathering does better than any RPG I've played. Ew, the enemy, I know, but I love that game. I'm fairly decent at it too. I've won a few tournaments here and there, earned a few rewards from WotC's player's network. Overall, I've had a great time with it.


However, Magic requires more money and more time than RPGs. I think it was originally intended to take less of both, but that's just not the case. With a wonderful wife getting her Master's degree and a beautiful baby daughter added to my life, I just don't have time to be heavy into Magic anymore.


But writing about RPGs is a whole 'nother matter. I've been looking over the anthologies of Socratic Design, and I've found that some of the best articles I did examined the basic principals of RPG design and play. I meant this blog to be an introductory resource for RPG theory and design, and when I've focussed on that, things have turned out best.


So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going back over the early days of RPG design theory on the 'net and the indie rpg movement in general. Over the next few months, I'm going to the best of my limited ability examine some things that were discussed, disected, and diseminated years ago that we sort of take for granted now. RPG design has come a long way in the last 10 years, but I feel that designers new to the scene have missed out on a lot of the discussion. The foundational stuff like areas of exploration and resolution systems have been so integrated into people's thinking that they just don't come up on message boards anymore. With the Winter of the Forge recently announced, I feel it is an appropriate time.


Many of these concepts are automatic and understood, or at least partially understood. And that's where I feel the loss is. Newbies to the Forge or Story Games Praxis lack familiarity with the foundational conversations that took place seven to ten years ago. The inspiration provided by those conversations rolled out a string of seminal games like Dogs in the Vineyard, My Life with Master, The Mountain Witch, Polaris, Dust Devils, and Prime Time Adventures. I feel like something has been lost since then, and I want to provide a place for those who want to re-explore or re-familiarize themselves with those concepts to do just that.


Let me say in advance, I'm no expert on these. I'm merely relating what other- more brilliant- people have said and how it applies to game design. I'm not going to take any credit for creating these concepts. I'm just bringing them up again after years of dormancy.


Expect to see new articles here soon. They'll be on topics that you likely won't see at the Forge or Story Games anymore. If you're new or maybe lost in RPG design, I hope they will prove useful to you.


Peace,


-Troy

Socratic Design Anthology #5

Heya,

It's been a long time since I've done an Anthology, and I figure it's a good way to end the year. I don't always put my entries in chronological order. I prefer to arrange them more thematically. But first, I always list my previous anthologies for anyone new to Socratic Design. If you want to know what this blog is all about, here it is (please report any dead links):

Socratic Design Anthology #1
Socratic Design Anthology #2
Socratic Design Anthology #3
Socratic Design Anthology #4

Socratic Design Anthology #5:

-What Should I design?
-What Are Some Common Pitfalls?
-Another Pitfall
-What is Resolution?
-What Are Narration Rights?
-Is Character Advancement Necessary?
-What is the Mathematician Syndrome?
-What Do I Do if I Get Stuck?
-Whatever Happened to the Power 19?

Feel free to respond to any of those entries here. There's nothing wrong with replying to an Anthology post :)

Peace,

-Troy

What is the 'Mathematician Syndrome' ?

Heya,

Today I’m talking about a design problem that might be a little more personal rather than something more broad ranging.

What is it?

The Mathematician Syndrome is a term I came up with to describe a problem I sometimes have when designing a game. I envision how a player might play the game, and like it so much, that it becomes the only way to play the game. This issue can be very subtle, and I sometimes don’t realize I’m doing it at first. However, the further and further I get into the design and play, the more apparent it is.

A game is the victim of the Mathematician Syndrome when there is a single line of play or a single method of character creation (chargen) that is clearly optimal. So optimal, in fact, than any player who chooses another line of play or character generation is squeezed out or marginalized during actual play. To try to put it more clearly: The Mathematician Syndrome, in essence, is where the designer’s vision of the game unintentionally causes there to be only one possible way to “solve” the game, and once the game is solved, playing it in any other fashion becomes fruitless and uninteresting.

This design flaw (for my own purposes, I call it a flaw) is, I think, more particular to designs intended to support Gamist or Narrativist-oriented decision making during play, rather than any other creative agenda. I say that mainly because those are the types of games I prefer to write and play. I think that since we Gamists love to figure out the optimal settings for various characters, powers, and so on. It’s in our nature to try to “solve” the mathematics of a game to gain the upper hand. At the same time, though, we find any game that allows for a perfect solution, i.e. a single best way to play, lacking enough of a challenge to keep us interested. Narrativist designers can, at times, fall into the trap of creating a game where there is only one way to address the Premise. If the players don’t take certain actions, make specific decisions at specific times, or use a currency in just a precise way, then the entire point of the game is lost. Players are channeled into playing the game like they were the designer.

How is it applied?

The best way to illustrate this is with an example, I think. I once designed a game called: Lichdom. The game begins with players creating a relationship map, goals, and needs for their character. Characters are on a quest to become liches- this is presupposed. To get there, they have to sacrifice the people and things they hold dear to achieve immortality. However, if they sacrifice too much, the character loses his or her sanity, and the player loses the game (note: I think losing in RPGs is perfectly fine, but that is a topic for another time).

There are plenty of currencies and resources for the players to draw upon. However, after playtesting, it became apparent that there is magical number of relationships that you can sacrifice to gain lichdom without going insane. I think it turned out to be 8 exactly. Six or seven with a few bad rolls were often too few to assure undead-ness and nine or ten put the character at too much risk. Especially if the dice turned on their owner. After several attempts to tweak the currencies, character generation, and reward systems, it turned out that the premise of the game made it all too easy to just figure out the optimum number of resources one had to sacrifice and then drive toward that.

The result was a game that lacked any sort of challenge or mystery. Players knew exactly what they had to do, when they had to do it, and how much it would cost them. It undercut any sense of real “sacrifice” and eliminated any emotional attachment to the shared imagined space. The game felt “dead,” which is almost ironic since it’s about liches. But that wasn’t the feeling I was going for. To fix the problem would require an entire redesign. Which I did. But didn’t solve the problem. *sigh*

Instead, I discovered Mathematician Syndrome Lite. Mathematician Syndrome Lite is when there may be two or three lines of play that are clearly optimal but they do not interfere or compete with one another. I decided that there wasn’t enough conflict in the game and since everyone had the same goal (even the GM really) which was to attain lichdom, gaming the numbers was the only challenge left. So I changed the name of the game to “Liches vs. Paladins.” Players could choose to play a warlock attempting to become a lich OR a knight trying to become a paladin by trying to stop such things. I thought this was great! Players will be actively intriguing against one another, and the GM- if I end up needing one- can just be a referee.

I kept most of the rules for making liches and created similar rules for making a paladin. Since there were two, equal and opposite paths to success, I wasn’t concerned about the math so much. I should have been. I had hoped that the players would be devising ways to thwart each other from gaining resources and achieving goals. For instance, if a warlock needed to sacrifice his apprentice upon an altar, the knight could come and resurrect the lad and turn him into a squire. Or the lich could kidnap a paladin’s squire and sacrifice him for essence. I’m not going to bore you with the details of the game, but that’s sort of how play was envisioned.

It didn’t work out that way. The liches had their own relationships and resources that were separate from the Paladins’. The paladins’ paths to advancement were separate entirely from the liches’. As a result, the players hardly interacted at all until a climactic battle at the end when all characters had reached their highest power ratings. It ended up coming down to the results of a single dice roll. Wow. Sheer luck decides the outcome. I’m sure you can guess that no one really enjoyed it.

Why is it bad?

Despite the fact that there were two optimal choices in the second iteration of the game, the net affect was basically the same. The outcome was pretty much known from the beginning. Players’ decisions were almost entirely made for them by the rules. One just had to figure out the math properly. This made it really unfun. Game play and character generation became rote and stale. We could almost predict a player’s next move. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that the two optimum paths never had to cross. They could be played concurrently without balancing each other out. Balance, in this case, meaning “proper support for the type of play you envision for your game.”

Once the proper mathematics of this type of game are discovered, the game is demystified. It’s like, “oh, so that’s how it ends.” This likely limits re-playability, and also runs the risk of de-legitimizing all the player decisions that led up to that point. It wasn’t the role-playing that mattered, it was the calculations in one’s head that made the difference. The interaction among the participants was entirely irrelevant to the game’s outcome. To me, that’s not fun. For a RPG, interaction among the participants is the essence of play- it’s why we do it. A good game will make that the most important feature of play.

Some players find it unfun if a game can be “solved.” In fact, I would venture to say that most do. Mystery, choice, challenge, and significant impact of player decisions are the key to a good roleplaying game, IMHO. The Mathematician Syndrome undercuts all of that.

How can it be avoided?

The best way to avoid the Mathematician Syndrome is playtesting. I know that’s probably the last thing you want to hear. Playtesting is one of the hardest parts of RPG design, but it is also the most necessary. In games with a significant amount of currencies and values, playtesting is the ONLY way to make sure you get the balance right. (see previous definition for balance).
First, I recommend you focus on idealized play, not mechanics. Decide what you want a session of your game to look like. Don’t worry just yet about numbers and equations. Think about actual play. What’s the pacing of your game like? How quickly do you want to move from scene to scene? How quickly should the game reach its climax? Consider those questions before you get really bogged down in the fiddly bits of your game. Once you have an idea of what play would look like around the table, you can go to setting your preliminary numbers. Those numbers- almost certainly- will be revised after your first few sessions of running the game.

Is it Always Bad?

With human beings in the realm of arts and creativity, it’s rare for something to always be bad. So, obviously, the answer is: “No.” If you want to create something, oh, like a one shot game that really packs a punch or makes a statement, then this is not a problem. In fact, it’s probably exactly what you want. There’s nothing wrong with a game that can be “solved” if that’s the exact effect you’re going for. The problem only arises when the Mathematician Syndrome shows up unintentionally in a design. If you want your game to have some longevity or re-playability, then the Mathematician Syndrome most likely is best stamped out if at all possible. Otherwise it can just kill players’ drive to stick with the game.

Peace,

-Troy

What Are Narration Rights?

Heya,

This might be one of the most important issues I ever take up on Socratic Design. I hope I can do it justice. In fact, if I’m not happy with the way this article turns out, I’ll probably do a part 2 later some time.

Defined simply, Narration Rights are the ability to describe what happens during play with the credibility that makes what was described established as fact in the game’s fiction. Okay, so maybe that’s not so simply. Let me try to rephrase. Narration Rights basically dictate who can say what matters when.

Narration Rights pass around quite frequently in all games. There are two main instances when Narration Rights and who has them are important- In-Resolution and Plot-development. Plot development is narration designed to move the characters through parts of the game where there aren’t any conflicts or challenges. Examples might be traveling on a road, describing the interior of a bar, an exposition on the history of a place/item/person, or just general description. I’m not going to talk a lot about this type of narration. Vincent does an excellent job explaining it in his Roleplaying Theory Hardcore article entitled, “Roleplaying’s Fundamental Act.” I highly recommend that article. Usually one person is designated as having Narration Rights when it comes do framing scenes or describing items/locations.

The other type of narration, the in-resolution narration, is more important and interesting to what I’m doing here at Socratic Design. If you haven’t read my post on Resolution systems previously, I recommend it. I’ll be basing a lot of what I say in this article on what I wrote there.

In-Resolution Narration Rights can exist at any of the stages in IIEE. In the beginning… Narration Rights for resolution systems were strictly allocated. In most games the non-GM players were given rights to describe what their characters did during the Intent and Initiation phases of resolution while the GM was given the right to describe what happened in the Execution and Effect parts of resolution. For instance, in AD&D you could say that your character was swinging his sword. However, if you fumbled, it was up to the GM to describe why and what the consequences were. In other games, the EE might have been left up to “non-partial” rules and sourcebooks. A good example would be Rolemaster. The players could narrate that their characters were swinging their swords, but upon rolling, the players or GM would consult a weapons table that would describe (in detail) the amount of damage, injuries, bleeding, and consequences of each strike. However, it was never left up to the players in these games to describe what came after the roll. At least not according to the rules.

Games that followed this tradition were molded in the image of Dungeons and Dragons which invented that dichotomy of Narration Rights. The dominance of that method of delineation of narration existed for decades, and really, one could even say that today most mainstream games follow it. This method is also more a feature of Task Resolution systems rather than Conflict Resolution systems, but that’s not absolute.

While giving the GM control of the final two or even the final one step of resolution has been the traditionally accepted method of allotting Narration Rights, I have a significant problem with it. First, it denies the players the ability to really see his/her character through a challenge or conflict. They have to let someone else describe what their character does or suffers. Second, it stymies group creativity when so much of the narration burden is placed on one person’s shoulders. GM burn-out is a real thing and can really poison a group’s social contract. Finally, and most importantly, strict separation of narration rights very easily can neuter the importance of success or failure. Let me explain what I mean.

Let’s take an old standby RPG example- sneaking past some guards. Specifically, let’s say the situation is that the player-character wants to get by the guards to gain entrance to a building. First, let’s take an Actual Play experience I had in a game I played once called Mechwarrior:

Player: I want to sneak past the guard to the door on the other side of the room. (Intent)

GM: That’s fine, modifier is 2. Go ahead (Initiation).

Player: Here I go! [He rolls against his character’s Sneak ability. It’s a success.] (Execution)

GM: You get past that guard, but on the other side of the divider is another guard taking a coffee break. He notices your character, what do you do? (Effect)

In this instance, the GM totally negated the roll by the player. The GM controlled both the setting and the Effects of the rolls, so he wasn’t breaking the rules. He was just simulating the break room for the guards at a military installation. The Player’s ambitions and goals were secondary to the whim of the GM or perhaps the information provided by the adventure module we were using. The roll became meaningless because no matter the outcome, a guard would have discovered the player character. One has to ask, what was the point of rolling, then? It’s a good question.

Let’s review that same situation but instead, the Player has Narration Rights over the Effect of the resolution mechanics.

Player: I want to sneak past the guard to the door on the other side of the room. (Intent)

GM: That’s fine, modifier is 2. Go ahead (Initiation).

Player: Here I go! [He rolls against his character’s Sneak ability. It’s a success.] (Execution) Sweet! My character slips past the guard and makes it through the door to the server room unnoticed. (Effect)

OR, let’s have him fail:

Player: Here I go! [He rolls against his character’s Sneak ability. It’s a failure.] (Execution) Ack! The guard notices me when I bump into a table. (Effect) I draw my taser and try to hit him before he can sound the alarm.

In both of those instances, the player’s actions, rolls, and goals are front and center in play. The GM helps facilitate the action without dictating success or failure. The dice rolls matter. They affect the play in a permanent and meaningful way.

Let’s take another- searching a room a clue in a mystery game. My experience from Call of Cthullu:

Player1: I want to pick the lock on this roll-top desk.

GM: That’s fine, roll for it.

Player1: My skill is 65. [Rolls a 75. Failure]

Player2: I look under in the wastepaper basket for anything useful.

GM: Roll a spot check.

Player 2: [Rolls an 88. Failure] Drat!

Player 3: Let me have a try at the desk. [Skill is 43. Roll is 55. Another failure]

GM: Okay. You fail to get the desk open, but on top of the desk is an open envelope. There’s an old parchment inside and…

In this instance, the GM has negated the effect of a failure. One might not think that this is as bad as the guard example, but really it almost is. There were no consequences for the failures. However, the GM had to make up something to keep the action going. Otherwise the game would have stopped. If the players had the Narration Rights to describe the outcomes and consequences of a failure, the action might not be stymied. For instance, it could turn out this way:

Player1: I want to pick the lock on this roll-top desk.

GM: That’s fine, roll for it.

Player1: Player1: My skill is 65. [Rolls a 75. Failure] Okay, I break the lockpick in the lock and suffer 2 damage but manage to get the thing open. Inside I find documents that link the businessman to the cult we discovered…

That’s not an easy thing to do in a game design. I know this from personal experience. It took me a long time to get the mechanics of The Holmes and Watson Committee right. And then it took my play group a while to get used to them. However, I have found it is much more satisfying for players (and the GM too honestly) if they get to describe what happens to their characters. The action and the fiction of the game center much more around what all the participants want to do rather than preconceived plans by one player.

Even if your game breaks down the Narration Rights to the Player gets to narrate all successes, the GM gets to narrate all failures is better than the GM gets to narrate all Executions and Effects. But even then, I feel that’s not very challenging both as a designer and a player.

Do you HAVE to do it that way? Of course not! Your vision for your game may require a more traditional method of allocating narration rights. But don’t let that be your default position because it’s easier. Challenge yourself and your play group.

Peace,

-Troy