generic model of roleplaying gaming
David Alex Lamb
across is how to abstract from a collection of specific examples to create a
generic model that encompasses them all. A particular special case is what is
usually called domain modeling: developing a model suitable for making
precise descriptions of some particular domain of discourse. In this note I
apply some domain modeling ideas to role-playing games.
Most of the early stuff will be tediously commonplace (aside from annoying
capitalization whenever I first introduce a technical term). Down around the
*** I try to use this vocabulary to express the differences between world,
story, and game perspectives.
I'd greatly appreciate feedback on how well or poorly this captures your
understanding of what goes on.
---------------------
If you look at what happens during a role-playing game, you see several
GAMERS sitting around a table making various UTTERANCES (statements,
questions, comments, noises, speeches, ...). Some of the utterances appear to
be about a GAME WORLD, while others do not; presumably there is some rule for
telling which is which (e.g. "if you say it, your character says or does it").
Each gamer has some mental model of the game world's STATE, including both
CURRENT STATE and HISTORY ("current" states at various points in the past).
States have various COMPONENTS: CHARACTERS, geography, objects, creatures, and
relationships among them. EVENTS are changes of state; they're called ACTIONS
if initiated by a character.
Normally game state evolves future-ward: the current state becomes part of
history as events lead from one current state to another. Two major
meta-state changes are
- Filling in BACKSTORY by introducing history that never occurred during
active play. These are changes to history consistent with existing state.
- RETCONNING, when game state is restored to some earlier point in history,
with states future-ward from that point removed.
Much of the talk among the gamers fall into two categories: queries about the
game state, and statements asserting events. GAME RULES describe some
constraints on possible events, but are rarely if ever "automatic" in the
sense that a clearly-defined objective procedure exists for asserting what
events actually happen in all circumstances (objective meaning that different
people following the same procedure achieve the same results). Each person
has some AREA OF AUTHORITY where their statements are taken as rulings on
which events happen. A common case is for a GAME MASTER (GM) to have final
authority over all state changes, with PLAYERS allowed only to assert actions
attempted by their own PLAYER CHARACTERS (those that BELONG to specific
players, all others being NON PLAYER CHARACTERS). However, other arrangements
are possible; for example, a player may have designed a particular race, and
might therefore have authority over statements about its culture. A GM may
delegate to an "assistant GM" some authority over actions of selected
non-player characters or creatures. When two gamers' areas of authority
overlap, they may disagree about state changes; groups need to have meta-rules
(such as "GM decides" or "talk it out among all players") to resolve the
conflict.
All of these models, including the rules, are incomplete, in that many
hypothetically knowable things about the state are undefined. Two such models
are CONSISTENT if they agree where both are defined; if one has more details
than the other in some area, that is acceptable. One critical component of
what happens at the game table is: gamers interpret utterances to change their
own mental models of game state. A desirable quality of play is that these
mental models all be consistent (they'll never be identical).
Someone's ASSUMPTION is a rule in his/her head about possible events and game
states that is not explicit in the game rules. An ASSUMPTION CLASH occurs
when two gamers' assumptions contradict each other. For example,
"no plan survives contact with the enemy" contradicts "a well-made plan lets
us achieve our goals more easily".
States and rules vary in their level of detail. The ability to abstract away
from detail is critical to human enjoyment of the game experience: nobody
wants to focus on each step of a journey between two towns, preferring only to
spend around-the table time on "interesting" events. One level of detail is
more ABSTRACT than another if one state of the former corresponds to many
states of the latter, each detailed state mapping to one abstract state.
Operating at the abstract level mimics the detailed; the following two
procedures should reach the same result:
- start with detail 1, abstract to abstract 1, follow abstract rules to final
state abstract M
- start with detail 1, follow detailed rules to detail N, abstract to final
state abstract M (same final state as in previous procedure)
(in category theory this is called commutativity; it's easier to understand
with a diagram).
A common approach is to abstract "uninteresting" detail; "you travel two days
through the forest to the city" substitutes in seconds of real-world time a
process that would take forever at the typical detail level used in combats.
A side effect of this approach is that players assume a sudden change to more
detail must somehow be significant.
Characters can be said to have their own mental models of game state. Gamers
are FIREWALLING insofar as their utterances are based on their characters'
models rather than their own; a gamer who tried to ignore the sudden change
of detail level of the last paragraph is firewalling.
A gamer is playing IN CHARACTER if their utterances are phrased entirely in
terms known to the character: The only things they say are things their
character says, or describe actions the character takes or things within their
area of authority that would be known by their character. Some gamers can
play IMMERSIVELY, wherein their mental experience of the game is much like
being directly in the character's model of the world.
*******
Gamers perceive one game as RICHER than another when the former appears to
have detailed state (and history) that doesn't directly relate to the player
characters. This sense can arise in many ways, two important ones being
OUT-OF-WORLD and IN-WORLD narration. Out-of-world, a gamer (with appropriate
authority) may make statements about game state not perceivable to the
characters, e.g. a GM narrating back story. In-world, an authority makes
statements about character knowledge not previously part of the players'
mental models, or narrates statements by non-player characters about things
not observable by the characters.
Commonly gamers say IN-GAME and OUT-OF-GAME for IN-WORLD and OUT-OF-WORLD.
However, we need to distinguish the two because there can be OUT-OF-WORLD
factors that are IN-GAME. A blatant example: two gamers play chess to decide
which of their characters wins some palace intrigue. A more subtle one: a
player's intelligence leads to plans that their character is too dumb to think
of. Any factor influenced by a player's characteristics rather than their
characters' can be in-game but out-of-world.
A gamer can turn a connected series of events into a NARRATIVE by judicious
use of abstraction: suppressing uninteresting details, emphasizing
interesting ones, and adding interesting details consistent with the series of
events. Narratives have rules of their own which I don't want to get into;
it's sufficient to observe that this is an out-of-world, after-the-fact
process.
An authority will have many possible reasons for choosing particular events or
attempting particular actions. Three major perspectives are world-based,
story-based, and game-based decisions.
- A world-based approach chooses events and levels of detail based on the
subset of the game rules describing the world.
- A narrative-based approach chooses events and levels of detail to
encourage interesting stories.
- A game-based approach chooses events and levels of detail to provide
gamers with interesting challenges.
All three overlap significantly. The majority of events in a story- or
game-based approach might be identical to those of a world-based ones. All
three might share suppression of uninteresting detail. All three might result
in sequences of events that a talented gamer can turn into interesting
narratives. Choosing what a character should do in a given situation might
well provide interesting challenges.
The three can also conflict. Thus a world-based approach might dictate
"uninteresting" or "inappropriately challenging" events (e.g. characters may
have encounters that are too tough or too easy for them to handle). A
narrative-based approach might distort the likelihood of events so that those
making up good stories happen more frequently than they would in a game-based
approach. A game-based approach might provide challenges that don't fit
nicely into stories, or which step outside the game world. "No plan survives
contact with the enemy" could be narrative-based or challenge-based, but is
unlikely to be world-based (unless, for example, a traitor is always passing
information to the enemy).
--
"Yo' ideas need to be thinked befo' they are say'd" - Ian Lamb, age 3.5
http://www.cs.queensu.ca/~dalamb/
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
>
> I'd greatly appreciate feedback on how well or poorly this captures
> your understanding of what goes on.
I found this a little hard to read, because there didn't seem to be
many motivating examples. If you added more concrete war stories I
think it would be a lot easier to read.
> If you look at what happens during a role-playing game, you see
> several GAMERS sitting around a table making various UTTERANCES
> (statements, questions, comments, noises, speeches, ...). Some of
> the utterances appear to be about a GAME WORLD, while others do not;
> presumably there is some rule for telling which is which (e.g. "if
> you say it, your character says or does it"). Each gamer has some
> mental model of the game world's STATE, including both CURRENT STATE
> and HISTORY ("current" states at various points in the past).
> States have various COMPONENTS: CHARACTERS, geography, objects,
> creatures, and relationships among them. EVENTS are changes of
> state; they're called ACTIONS if initiated by a character.
There's an implicit assumption here that I disagree with: that there
is a unique game state that is privileged and correct. I don't think
this is right. There are a set of sources of information about the
game. For example:
o the setting description in the rulebook,
o the rules of the rpg,
o the GM's notes,
o the GM's improvisations and rulings during play,
o the players' writeups of their PCs,
o each player's understanding of their PCs' motivations,
o the actions players say their PCs are doing
and so on. Now, any and all of them can be inconsistent with one
another (and in fact usually are). So far this is much the same as
what you wrote below about incomplete models of the game state. The
difference is that I don't think there *is* a game state. The only
things that really exist are the various texts that people write and
their beliefs about them.
Instead of a game state, I think there's a process for resolving
inconsistencies when they come up. This can result in a different
decision every time, which is why I don't think that there is
necessarily a unique game state. (The players and GM are free to posit
that there *is* a unique game state, and work to create it, of
course.)
Or not: sometimes people will deliberately accept some inconsistencies
as adding to the richness of the game world, since they make forming
simple theories about what is happening harder. For example, in my In
Nomine game, God had driven the angel Gabriel insane by momentarily
sharing His omniscience with it. This is obviously an apparently
immoral act. However all of the authorities the players could consult
were in agreement that this was a wise, moral and compassionate act on
God's part. I never bothered figuring out just what the rationale was;
I introduced the inconsistency because having some inexplicable
decisions made it more plausible that God was acting over a horizon
beyond human or angelic comprehension.
> Normally game state evolves future-ward: the current state becomes
> part of history as events lead from one current state to another.
> Two major meta-state changes are
>
> - Filling in BACKSTORY by introducing history that never occurred during
> active play. These are changes to history consistent with
> existing state.
>
> - RETCONNING, when game state is restored to some earlier point in history,
> with states future-ward from that point removed.
There's another way of doing things: the boundary-condition approach.
For example, you might "know" that Malacca the Agitator raised the
plebs in revolt against the indenture system, and after six months of
civil war managed to force the Senate to abolish slavery and pass land
reform. Then, you could run a game exploring these events, subject to
the constraint that the known history must come to pass. This
restricts the set of possible consequences without completely
determining them.
> Gamers perceive one game as RICHER than another when the former
> appears to have detailed state (and history) that doesn't directly
> relate to the player characters. This sense can arise in many ways,
> two important ones being OUT-OF-WORLD and IN-WORLD narration.
> Out-of-world, a gamer (with appropriate authority) may make
> statements about game state not perceivable to the characters,
> e.g. a GM narrating back story. In-world, an authority makes
> statements about character knowledge not previously part of the
> players' mental models, or narrates statements by non-player
> characters about things not observable by the characters.
Detail only adds to richness if it's possible to combine it with other
information to trace through a web of implication and consequence. For
example, simply knowing what the major goods produced in each feudal
territory doesn't add much richness. It adds richness if the players
could use this information to figure out what good trade routes are,
or when they see that a particular good is unavailable because of
civil strife in that country. Something similar holds with character
motivations, too. Knowing a PC's family tree doesn't add to the
character's richness if it doesn't impact how the PC is portrayed
or understood.
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
Robert Scott Clark
Krishnaswami) wrote:
>David Alex Lamb <dal...@qucis.queensu.ca> wrote:
>>
>> I'd greatly appreciate feedback on how well or poorly this captures
>> your understanding of what goes on.
>
>I found this a little hard to read, because there didn't seem to be
>many motivating examples. If you added more concrete war stories I
>think it would be a lot easier to read.
>
Word.
>There's an implicit assumption here that I disagree with: that there
>is a unique game state that is privileged and correct. I don't think
>this is right. There are a set of sources of information about the
>game. For example:
>
> o the setting description in the rulebook,
> o the rules of the rpg,
> o the GM's notes,
> o the GM's improvisations and rulings during play,
> o the players' writeups of their PCs,
> o each player's understanding of their PCs' motivations,
> o the actions players say their PCs are doing
I would add "the players' understanding of the game state.
>>
>> - Filling in BACKSTORY by introducing history that never occurred during
>> active play. These are changes to history consistent with
>> existing state.
>>
>> - RETCONNING, when game state is restored to some earlier point in history,
>> with states future-ward from that point removed.
>
>There's another way of doing things: the boundary-condition approach.
>For example, you might "know" that Malacca the Agitator raised the
>plebs in revolt against the indenture system, and after six months of
>civil war managed to force the Senate to abolish slavery and pass land
>reform. Then, you could run a game exploring these events, subject to
>the constraint that the known history must come to pass. This
>restricts the set of possible consequences without completely
>determining them.
>
I'm not seeing how this is different from his "Filling in BACKSTORY".
What do you see as the difference?
>Something similar holds with character
>motivations, too. Knowing a PC's family tree doesn't add to the
>character's richness if it doesn't impact how the PC is portrayed
>or understood.
It doesn't really have much to do with the topic at hand, I think, but
I just want to take the time to agree as much as possible with your
statement.
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
> On Mon, 24 Jun 2002 13:16:04 GMT, ne...@alum.mit.edu (Neelakantan
> Krishnaswami) wrote:
> >David Alex Lamb <dal...@qucis.queensu.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >> - Filling in BACKSTORY by introducing history that never occurred during
> >> active play. These are changes to history consistent with
> >> existing state.
> >>
> >> - RETCONNING, when game state is restored to some earlier point
> >> in history, with states future-ward from that point removed.
> >
> > There's another way of doing things: the boundary-condition
> > approach. For example, you might "know" that Malacca the Agitator
> > raised the plebs in revolt against the indenture system, and after
> > six months of civil war managed to force the Senate to abolish
> > slavery and pass land reform. Then, you could run a game exploring
> > these events, subject to the constraint that the known history
> > must come to pass. This restricts the set of possible consequences
> > without completely determining them.
>
> I'm not seeing how this is different from his "Filling in
> BACKSTORY". What do you see as the difference?
Okay, suppose that in notes Malacca was active in 1000 AF, with the
revolution ending in the spring of 1001 AF. If you start the game in
999 AF, with the PCs as friends and fellow veterans of Malacca, then
you aren't filling in backstory. The predetermined events lie in the
present and future of the gameplay. This means you can't get Malacca
into a situation where he dies, for example.
Another place this comes up is in historical gaming. If the PCs in a
WWII game assassinate Hitler, then you can't use existing history
anymore. So it's reasonable to impose the condition that major
historical figures live and die more or less as history records.
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
David Alex Lamb
In article <slrnahe8b1...@h00045a4799d6.ne.client2.attbi.com>,
Neelakantan Krishnaswami <ne...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>There's an implicit assumption here that I disagree with: that there
>is a unique game state that is privileged and correct. I don't think
>this is right. There are a set of sources of information about the
>game.
You're right; I had that in the back of my mind when I wrote the later stuff
about inconsistency. I think I can reword this to avoid claiming there is one
state, because a major point later was going to be about resolving
inconsistency.
>Instead of a game state, I think there's a process for resolving
>inconsistencies when they come up. This can result in a different
>decision every time, which is why I don't think that there is
>necessarily a unique game state.
Can you give an example of what you mean? Do you mean, for example, that
players would each notice an inconsistency, and resolve it in their own minds?
Or was this something more complex?
>> Two major meta-state changes are
>> - Filling in BACKSTORY
>> - RETCONNING
>There's another way of doing things: the boundary-condition approach.
>For example, you might "know" that Malacca the Agitator raised the
>plebs in revolt against the indenture system, and after six months of
>civil war managed to force the Senate to abolish slavery and pass land
>reform. Then, you could run a game exploring these events, subject to
>the constraint that the known history must come to pass. This
>restricts the set of possible consequences without completely
>determining them.
Hmm. I definitely had in my head that states and histories are only partial,
and that "filling in" is common -- but I erred in limiting that to just
backstory. I haven't encountered the situation you described -- did you mean
setting an adventure in the "past" of a game world, where some of the future
is known to the players? I'd imagine that might be a bit delicate to run
without people feeling "railroaded".
>Detail only adds to richness if it's possible to combine it with other
>information to trace through a web of implication and consequence.
Good point. Perhaps I need to speak more about interconnections than
details.
David Alex Lamb
Neelakantan Krishnaswami <ne...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>Okay, suppose that in notes Malacca was active in 1000 AF, with the
>revolution ending in the spring of 1001 AF. If you start the game in
>999 AF, with the PCs as friends and fellow veterans of Malacca, then
>you aren't filling in backstory. The predetermined events lie in the
>present and future of the gameplay. This means you can't get Malacca
>into a situation where he dies, for example.
I should have read ahead before answering the previous note.
In my first encounter with a campaign that had the kind of "richness" I was
alluding to, there were two constraints on the future
- There was a "Day of Storms" coming when all the powerful mages disappear.
This wasn't prophesied within the game as far as I recall, but the GM
rambled on about such things occasionally.
- Certain characters had prophesies about them, and couldn't "die" until those
were fulfilled.
It sounds like the former was an instance of what you were talking about, but
the latter might have been different (and was occasionally resented by the
players, where the Day of Storms didn't upset anyone).
David Alex Lamb
By the way, can somebody tell me how the term "retcon" arose? I've induced a
meaning from the many examples of its use in this ng, but haven't seen where
the term came from.
Neelakantan Krishnaswami
>
> In article <slrnahe8b1...@h00045a4799d6.ne.client2.attbi.com>,
> Neelakantan Krishnaswami <ne...@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Instead of a game state, I think there's a process for resolving
> > inconsistencies when they come up. This can result in a different
> > decision every time, which is why I don't think that there is
> > necessarily a unique game state.
>
> Can you give an example of what you mean? Do you mean, for example,
> that players would each notice an inconsistency, and resolve it in
> their own minds? Or was this something more complex?
Currently, I am playing in an Aberrant game. My PC is defined as a
hideously deformed and monstrous character with some alien behavioral
patterns. However, I am not playing her quite as cold and inhuman as
I'd like to. Fortunately, the other players are helping me out, by
treating her behavior as more disturbing than it actually is. So the
actual things Atraxa does in play are not entirely consistent with the
way that we want her to behave. If I don't clean up my act, it would
also be reasonable for the other players to decide that Atraxa really
isn't all that scary, and change their PCs' behavior and retcon away
their old reactions.
Neither way is wrong or false.
> Hmm. I definitely had in my head that states and histories are only
> partial, and that "filling in" is common -- but I erred in limiting
> that to just backstory. I haven't encountered the situation you
> described -- did you mean setting an adventure in the "past" of a
> game world, where some of the future is known to the players? I'd
> imagine that might be a bit delicate to run without people feeling
> "railroaded".
Yes, but when it works it's also amazingly fun. It doesn't feel
railroaded because it changes the focus from "what happens next?" to
"how did this character ever wind up doing /that/?" Doing it
succesfully means giving up a fair amount of authorial power to the
players, too, since they are the ones at the sharp end. Sometimes you
crash and burn, true, but them sometimes in a linear game the PCs will
decide that their current life is crazy and end up buying a bus ticket
to Peoria.
Jason Corley ran a superhero game in which it was normal to bounce
between past and present like a superball. He might be willing
to post some more about it.
--
Neel Krishnaswami
ne...@alum.mit.edu
Congressman Thompson
> By the way, can somebody tell me how the term "retcon" arose? I've induced a
> meaning from the many examples of its use in this ng, but haven't seen where
> the term came from.
>
Just to be clear:
retcon = retroactive continuity
I can't help with the exact origin, but this phrase is littered about
rec.arts.comics.misc in almost every third post. People who are
_really_ into the content of comics can be _really_ into the continuity
of storylines, and retroactively creating/altering that continuity can
be _really_ rewarding/upsetting to them. This is the first time I've
seen retcon used outside of a comics fan context, but I'm not surprised
that it is here; the overlap between gamers and comics enthusiasts seems
natural and well-known.
thompson
Jason Corley
> Jason Corley ran a superhero game in which it was normal to bounce
> between past and present like a superball. He might be willing
> to post some more about it.
It is just about to end. I'd be happy to go into more detail on it if
people had specific questions. I've had a blast, the players report that
they have too, and everything has been just a terrific experience.
The main example I point to regarding this use of time in the game is the
sequence I call "Run, Riddler, Run". Which /began/ when we sat down to
play and I said, "You've been chasing the Riddler for weeks, and THERE HE
IS, going down off the other end of the rooftop onto a fire escape and
darting into a building, his whiny little laugh mocking you."
Because this is a Year One game, there actually /had been no Riddler on or
off-screen before this moment/. At the close of the last game session, the
characters had no Riddler in their world. And I had just announced that
they were chasing him.
This had the effect of getting EVERY PLAYER AROUND THE TABLE to sit up
straight, put down their food and start announcing what they were doing
all at once. They were /excited/. They had no idea what was going on, all
they knew was: Riddler's a punk, we bust punks, he's laughing at us.
Before I continue talking about the sequence I will now take a step back
and talk about my design process in this section of the game. I knew I
wanted a Riddler plot arc. But A) I'm terrible at riddles, and B) three of
the four players are hopeless with riddles, and the fourth is so talented
at them that we would just sit there waiting for them to come up with the
answer, and C) abstracting away guessing a riddle takes ALL the fun out of
it, and whatever else I may think about the Riddler ("Look out, world!
Here comes a guy with all the powers of an ordinary criminal except he's
easier to catch!" --- www.seanbaby.com) I always have gleeful fun reading
his adventures and I wanted the players to be as engaged as I was when
reading them.
This is a major quandary. So when I took a step back and said "what
exactly about the Riddler makes reading about him so fun", I realized that
it was just the total absurdity of him. Here was a guy who was so
tremendously smarter than everyone around him, who by a combination of bad
luck and his own predilection for cheating, had been overlooked all his
life, and now, desperate for attention, turns to costumed villainy, but to
his chagrin finds that he still keeps coming up short. The riddles weren't
that cool - it was that he was taunting the authorities (and the
vigilantes), and until the end of the plot arc, was always nine steps
ahead. Solving the riddles wasn't all that cool even in the comics.
So, I thought, I need some way to emphasize how much smarter the Riddler
is than the characters, AND to show that it avails him naught in the end.
I decided to reverse the two clauses in that sentence because I didn't
want there to be frustration that the Riddler is SO much smarter than
everyone in the group (indeed, two of the heroes in the group are not
exactly what we'd call the World's Greatest Detectives) that he seems
unbeatable. So I wanted to make it clear: you DO end up beating him,
guys. I'm just not going to tell you HOW. (And to some degree, I did not
even KNOW how they were going to beat him.)
So the way it worked, we would play out a little bit of the chase scene
(with traps and taunts and collapsing floors and abandoned warehouses
and so on), then we would flash back to the characters' lives of the four
weeks previous. Some of it had to do with the Riddler case, some of it had
to do with other investigations they were carrying out, some of it had to
do with their (crumbling, always-crumbling) personal lives, and to my
surprise, the fact that it "went before" seemed to engage the players more
(rather than less, which was my fear).
It was easy to make the chase suspenseful. "The floor starts to shift out
from underneath you as the ancient timbers creak and crack. The Riddler
makes a leap for the single remaining dangling electrical cable, and
barely catches it....but you don't have time, and the whole thing starts
to slide...two weeks ago at work you were finishing up a translation when
your boss came in. 'Are you feeling all right? You don't look so
well.'..."
But I thought that there wouldn't be much tension in the events of the
"past", especially in the Riddler plotline, because after all, they know
they're going to beat the Riddler. I was so completely wrong about this.
When the Riddler surfaced in the backstory everyone went NUTS on the
plotline, got completely excited out-of-character, talking in-character
about "we do this, we try this, what do you think about this? I think
this." and talking and talking and making plans and gathering info - I
barely could hang on! And when I revealed that their first batch of plans
had been anticipated and countered by the Riddler, they were throwing up
their hands and saying "OH! OH! We HAVE to get this guy!!" They were SO
psyched about getting him by the time I actually got around to the point
in time when they started to have successes against him. They were more
involved in the Riddler investigation than anyone else's.
Believe me, if I could have repeated this level of /player/ involvement
effectively across all games and in all sessions, I would have! The one
session I worried that we might be doing too much token play, and the
players reported that it was more immersive than anything else they'd ever
played, ever.
This is one reason I don't think that "flowchart" or "mechanical"
descriptions of gaming function. At all. Gaming is more like art than it
is like computer programming. It is more like painting than mathematics.
You can talk about art rationally but there is only so much that can be
done without starting to reference subjectivity, intent and many other
things that only happen internally to artists and audiences. Similarly
with gaming. Any attempt to pigeonhole a gaming style or gamer beyond a
very broad and somewhat unhelpful category is not going to work.
****************************************************************************
"Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to
listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome."--T.S.Eliot
Jason Corley | le...@aeonsociety.org
sNOm...@sonic.net
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, David Alex Lamb wrote:
: By the way, can somebody tell me how the term "retcon" arose? I've induced a
: meaning from the many examples of its use in this ng, but haven't seen where
: the term came from.
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/retcon.html
(Google can be -your- friend, too. Just spend a little quality
time with Google, and you'll find it really rewards your effort!)
--
Steve Saunders
to de-spam me, de-capitalize me
Wayne Shaw
<cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
>This is one reason I don't think that "flowchart" or "mechanical"
>descriptions of gaming function. At all. Gaming is more like art than it
>is like computer programming. It is more like painting than mathematics.
Though I disagree with a lot of what Jason says frequently (including
some of what he said in the paragraph following this one) I think this
paragraph could use thought from everyone. Over 25+ years of GMing,
the one thing I've learned is: I never know how things will work out.
I've put together campaigns designed to work with known traits of my
players, and had them fail miserably; I've had campaigns that had what
I thought were dreadful potential weak points that I watched like a
hawk, and while they failed, they failed for entirely unrelated
reasons to what I expected; and I've had experimental campaigns I
thought would last a few months tops, and ended up being some of my
most successful campaigns. Sometimes after the fact I could tell why;
sometimes I never did really have a clue, even after talking it over
with the players.
Gaming is, in the end, an occult art, in the most literal meaning of
the term.
John Kim
Wayne Shaw <sh...@caprica.com> wrote:
>Jason Corley <cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
>> This is one reason I don't think that "flowchart" or "mechanical"
>> descriptions of gaming function. At all. Gaming is more like art than it
>> is like computer programming. It is more like painting than mathematics.
>
>Though I disagree with a lot of what Jason says frequently (including
>some of what he said in the paragraph following this one) I think this
>paragraph could use thought from everyone. Over 25+ years of GMing,
>the one thing I've learned is: I never know how things will work out.
>Gaming is, in the end, an occult art, in the most literal meaning of
>the term.
I agree that gaming is an art. However, even arts have
mechanical descriptions of their parts. Painting might be more of
a solo art where mechanical description is used more by critics than
by painters. However, in collaborative arts like film or theater
you constantly use mechanical description like "montage", "cues",
"blocking", etc. to produce a work. I don't think gaming is in
principle any more occult than theater or film.
Using technical models doesn't mean that you know exactly
how things will work out. Just like in theater or movies, the
craft is still an art -- even an experienced professional filmmaker
with many successful movies can make a flop, and critics and others
will disagree on why or if it is a flop. Even so, I think that having
a word for "montage" is a good thing -- it helps artists and critics
discuss the art.
On the other hand, I think that trying to invent a complete
description set isn't really workable. Gamers and gaming critics
will use terms which they find useful -- even if it is different in
meaning than the original written "definition" of the term.
Wayne Shaw
Kim) wrote:
>
>Wayne Shaw <sh...@caprica.com> wrote:
>>Jason Corley <cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> wrote:
>>> This is one reason I don't think that "flowchart" or "mechanical"
>>> descriptions of gaming function. At all. Gaming is more like art than it
>>> is like computer programming. It is more like painting than mathematics.
>>
>>Though I disagree with a lot of what Jason says frequently (including
>>some of what he said in the paragraph following this one) I think this
>>paragraph could use thought from everyone. Over 25+ years of GMing,
>>the one thing I've learned is: I never know how things will work out.
>[...]
>>Gaming is, in the end, an occult art, in the most literal meaning of
>>the term.
>
> I agree that gaming is an art. However, even arts have
>mechanical descriptions of their parts. Painting might be more of
I don't disagree. That was the part I refered to in the next
paragraph that I disagreed with. However, the part I do agree with is
you can form all the theoretical models in the world, but in the end
you're limited by your inability to directly examine the process
and/or do real experimentation that means anything. At best, most
models are an approximation based on indirect observation. They're
not only not chemistry, they're not even astronomy; at best they're
psychology and at worst sociology.
John Kim
Wayne Shaw <sh...@caprica.com> wrote:>> mechanical descriptions of their parts. [...]
>
>I don't disagree. That was the part I refered to in the next
>paragraph that I disagreed with. However, the part I do agree with is
>you can form all the theoretical models in the world, but in the end
>you're limited by your inability to directly examine the process
>and/or do real experimentation that means anything. At best, most
>models are an approximation based on indirect observation. They're
>not only not chemistry, they're not even astronomy; at best they're
>psychology and at worst sociology.
I don't think the parallels are really all that apt.
The parallel to role-playing "theory" would be theater theory or
film theory -- not sociology. There is a huge difference between
these.
I would say that the best hope for role-playing theory would
be to be like Brecht or Stanislavsky -- critical theory which helps
artists question their assumptions and create new and innovative
works. I think theater benefited enormously from having those
critical theories -- they revolutionized the craft of acting, among
other things.
At worst, I would say it could be like Syd Field's three-act
model of successful movies. Here the theory encourages producers to
enforce the status quo, rejecting screenplays if they fail to fit
into the theory.
Wayne Shaw
Kim) wrote:
>
>Wayne Shaw <sh...@caprica.com> wrote:
>>John Kim <jh...@darkshire.org> wrote:
>>> I agree that gaming is an art. However, even arts have
>>> mechanical descriptions of their parts. [...]
>>
>>I don't disagree. That was the part I refered to in the next
>>paragraph that I disagreed with. However, the part I do agree with is
>>you can form all the theoretical models in the world, but in the end
>>you're limited by your inability to directly examine the process
>>and/or do real experimentation that means anything. At best, most
>>models are an approximation based on indirect observation. They're
>>not only not chemistry, they're not even astronomy; at best they're
>>psychology and at worst sociology.
>
> I don't think the parallels are really all that apt.
>The parallel to role-playing "theory" would be theater theory or
>film theory -- not sociology. There is a huge difference between
>these.
Hmmm. I think we're talking different things. I'm mostly considering
the process of handling games, I expect you're talkking the process of
constructing them.
>
Robert Scott Clark
wrote:
False dichotomy. Anything that describes one will need to also
describe the other, as there is no discrete division between the two.
>>
Wayne Shaw
<cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>False dichotomy. Anything that describes one will need to also
>describe the other, as there is no discrete division between the two.
Depends whether you think it's a useful exercise to design a campaign
without reference to the play group actually chosen; I do, as it's not
always the case that I have any idea who will be involved given the
leadtimes involved. Some things can be done usefully at that level
that are universal. On the other hand, running games can't, in my
observation, be done usefully without keeping the individual group in
mind; any generalities are too thoroughly trumped by individual
variation.
Jason Corley
This is what I meant in my original post except this says it a lot better
and more accurately.
There is a huge difference between what I do when I am making an
interesting world for eventual play in and when I am making a campaign for
a specific game.
--
***************************************************************************
"Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books,
and there is some evidence that they can't read them either." ---Gore Vidal
Jason D. Corley | ICQ 41199011 | le...@aeonsociety.org
Alailn Lapalme
hmm...in principle I agree, however...
I've run a lot of convention games and, in those situations, you never
really have a clue as to what type of gamer you'll get. My success rate
has been fairly high, with only one session I would consider a failure
or near-failure. Now, given that I run games in a rather different
style (freeform, little to no dice, player motivated), either I've been
lucky or there is a way to design a game without considering the
players. Except that I wouldn't do that for a home game.
Alain
Wayne Shaw
wrote:
I'm not sure I consider the dynamic of one-off convention single
session gaming to say much about this one way or another; people will
accept things they'd find quite annoying in an ongoing campaign in a
one-off game quite freely, and there's little time for a lot of issues
(such as spotlight hogging) to develop in full there.
John Kim
Wayne Shaw <sh...@caprica.com> wrote:
>I'm not sure I consider the dynamic of one-off convention single
>session gaming to say much about this one way or another; people will
>accept things they'd find quite annoying in an ongoing campaign in a
>one-off game quite freely, and there's little time for a lot of issues
>(such as spotlight hogging) to develop in full there.
You seem to be saying that running a one-off game is simpler
and has fewer issues -- whereas I would say that it has different
issues. There are many issues which are important for a one-off
game which are less important for a campaign. For example, I can
easily accept lack of closure in a campaign session, but it is
extremely annoying in a one-off game. Timing is critical for a
one-off.
The general question was whether theory or systemization
could help with making RPG's more successful. As I understand it,
you are sayng that general background design (i.e. game and world
design) and design of single-session games both can benefit from
some sort of technique -- but running sessions of a long-term
campaign is dominated by individual variations of players which is
too varied for theory.
I'd agree that theory is only of use within a limited range.
Just like Brecht's acting theory isn't neccessarily useful in kid's
theater, a set of RPG techniques may not be useful for a particular
group's play style. But that set is useful for other groups.
Wayne Shaw
Kim) wrote:
>
>Wayne Shaw <sh...@caprica.com> wrote:
>>I'm not sure I consider the dynamic of one-off convention single
>>session gaming to say much about this one way or another; people will
>>accept things they'd find quite annoying in an ongoing campaign in a
>>one-off game quite freely, and there's little time for a lot of issues
>>(such as spotlight hogging) to develop in full there.
>
> You seem to be saying that running a one-off game is simpler
>and has fewer issues -- whereas I would say that it has different
In practice, I think it has less meaningful issues, yes. In
particular, convention gaming is going to have less fallout for the
simple reason that if someone hasn't liked the way you've done
something, the problem exists in a vacuum; it's quite likely neither
of you will interact as player and GM again, so there's no sequalae of
any nature.
> The general question was whether theory or systemization
>could help with making RPG's more successful. As I understand it,
>you are sayng that general background design (i.e. game and world
>design) and design of single-session games both can benefit from
>some sort of technique -- but running sessions of a long-term
>campaign is dominated by individual variations of players which is
>too varied for theory.
In practice, yes.
>
> I'd agree that theory is only of use within a limited range.
>Just like Brecht's acting theory isn't neccessarily useful in kid's
>theater, a set of RPG techniques may not be useful for a particular
>group's play style. But that set is useful for other groups.
Except I'm not even particularly convinced that most theory is
particularly useful for most individual groups, barring monoculture
occurances. There are sufficient varience _within_ the group in most
cases that in practice, any attempt to handle them systematically ends
up being a custom process anyway; generalities will fail sufficiently
often that I find their utility somewhat dubious in terms of actual
run of the game.
This doesn't make the development of tools for discussing the issues
useless, as it gives the GM a language to examine his individual
situation at least, but in terms of actually impacting his ability to,
for example, deal with an entirely new playing group, I'm not
convinced much is going to help besides getting in the trenches and
feeling out the individuals involved.
Alain Lapalme
>
> This doesn't make the development of tools for discussing the issues
useless,
> as it gives the GM a language to examine his individual situation
> at least, but in terms of actually impacting his ability to, for
> example, deal with an entirely new playing group, I'm not convinced
> much is going to help besides getting in the trenches and feeling
> out the individuals involved.
>
Well, eventually, you do have to go to the trenches. However, what I've
found is that having tools to identify issues helps a lot. Yes, it does
give you a language, not only to examine the situation but to
communicate it to the players. For example, I know that the type of
home game I run is not run-of-the-mill. When a new player arrives I
have found it a lot easier to outline the style, my expectations and to
find out his/her expectations. The number of disconnects, since I
started using these "tools", has been pretty low. Low enough to
convince me that it does help.
Alain
Warren J. Dew
Over 25+ years of GMing, the one thing I've learned is: I never
know how things will work out.... Gaming is, in the end, an
occult art, in the most literal meaning of the term.
My experience has been somewhat different. While I wasn't good at predicting
what people would like and not like early on, I did find techniques that work
well, and others that don't work as well. For example, I've found that
referring to characters in the third person can help prevent character
conflicts from spilling over into player conflicts; if the problem is too much
detachment, though, encouraging first person play can help.
Over time, I've gotten pretty good at figuring what will be liked by which
players, though some who have styles more foreign to me still surprise me at
rare intervals.
Of course, I also find that running a game is, for me, very much like
programming. Both involve some art, but for success, the craftsmanship is more
important.
Warren J. Dew
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