Shooting Dice

Developing the Venice Chronicles

2007-06-27T16:44:00.001-07:00

With the Venice Chronicles Beta out, I thought I'd talk a bit about how it got put together. I'm oing to start with a chat about the online medium.

Those of who've been following my thoughts on RPGs know that I think that online roleplaying represent an important "parallel" hobby. People are taking roleplaying and running with it in directions that didn't really exist before because of the advantages of the online medium. Let's go over these:

Avatar Embodiment: Though it's romantic to think about the importance of raw imagination, the ability to completely disconnect your character's appearance and style from yourself is a huge advantage to those who want it. In chat games this began with the "textual avatar:" a block of descriptive text. With the advent of easy image uploading and web design we've moved to self-made graphical avatars. Combined, these two methods create a powerful vision of the character. Not only that, it's easy to refer back to, where verbal description can twist and change over time in people's imaginations.

Distant Intimacy: This sounds contradictory, but isn't. With the strong player/character disconnect, right down to physical location and OOC socializing, there's a much braver approach to certain themes: sexuality, characters' personal lives and so on. In the White Wolf chats, this struck me petty strongly, especially when settings designed to support "safer" play sometimes acted against the interests of players exploring these themes. This became apparent after being involved in a scene where a character gave birth. There was a *lot* of handwaving past the setting to make this possible.

Now you do get some cheesy and objectionable things coming out of this, as well as fringe elements like cybersex. But these aren't flaws, but examples of what the process can support. You can have dumb things in any game, but you can't have *these* dumb things happen as easily outside of online play, and these dumb things are aspects of things that can be used to construct powerful scenes.

Fluid/Negotiated Spaces: Online play usually falls into a bunch of forums/channels which are easily conceived of as "rooms" -- but they don't have set *spaces*. A room can be a vague physical location, a theme or a class of spaces. Players enter these rough templates and make them their own. The room is the basis for communication, so it always has *some* thing to direct play, even if it's just the pubs of early Usenet-based play.

Parallel Interaction: Related to this are tools that provide multiple contexts within the same space. It's easy to label OOC conversations and even take them to a parallel space, allowing people to interact on multiple levels explicitly instead of interrupting. Parallel conversations are extremely useful, especially when it comes to clear communications about scene objectives.

You can also use this to easily provide information on multiple "meta" levels by, for example, posting interior thoughts. This is a matter of choice. Back when I played on other chats I had a "play hygiene" rule where I *never* made interior thoughts exterior, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't benefit from people who didn't follow that rule.

Next: How we harness these benefits in the Venice Chronicles and how we wanted to go to the next step and allow uses to define their own level of commitment to roleplaying.

Mob United Media Introduces the Venice Chronicles

2007-06-17T21:24:00.001-07:00

Digital Service Combines Roleplaying and Next-Generation Social Networks, Begins Open Beta

Mob United Media has completed the first stage of content creation and development for Inter-Canel’s Venice Chronicles: the first application to integrate roleplaying and social networking.

Our story is set in a continuous Masquerade, incorporating inspiration from the classic La Serenissima period, when Venice was the de facto center of an empire. You portray members of one of the city’s seven ruling families, competing for power and influence over the night. And behind the masks and plots, the mysterious force of Fortuna gives rise to strange events and unnatural abilities.

Interact with story content on many levels. Live entertainers – professional actors – portray major characters. Users can delve deep into the story by interacting with them, even earning Venetian Credits (the Venice Chronicles currency) when they successfully uncover clues and add their own stories to the ongoing narrative. Videos, images and hidden web pages all reveal Venice’s secrets. Plot with other nobles or investigate the clues and fragments provided.

The Venice Chronicles contains all the features of a fully integrated social networking application, including blogs, image hosting, webcams, conferencing, chat features, friend listing tools, VOIP and advanced functions like cross-platform SMS and true telephony. All of it is bound into a converged, user friendly interface. Use the service to explore the story, use it as straightforward social network, or do something in-between. The Venice Chronicles supports users doing what they want to do – not what a GM or administrator thinks they should do.

The Venice Chronicles begins with an open Beta. Grow with us as we unlock the potential of the service. Register your own account or try one of three sample profiles at: http://www.venicechronicles.com.

Mob United Media Announces Stewart Wilson’s Æternal Legends

2007-06-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT

Mob United Media at m @ mobunited.com

Game Will Inaugurate the Mobworx Creator Owned RPG Line

Peterborough, ON, Canada: Mob United Media is proud to announce the upcoming release of Stewart Wilson’s Æternal Legends. Æternal Legends is Mob United Media’s first independent creator owned release, designed and developed using a collaborative process intended to uphold creators’ rights and refine their efforts.

The game will premiere at the Canadian National Gaming Expo, part of the FanExpo convention on August 24th, 2007. After that, it will release in print at Mob United Media’s Lulu Storefront and on OneBookshelf's sites, RPGNow and DrivethruRPG.

Æternal Legends is set in a fantasy variant of the modern world, where magic seethes beneath everyday affairs. One person in twenty is Aware, able to see the magic around them and enter secret Pocket Kingdoms. Only a few are called to be Legends: epic heroes who fight evil with strength, cunning and raw idealism. Elf, dwarf, gnome and human Legends use the mystic Spheres to defend their beliefs. Their quests can turn them into living avatars of magic – or push them to a final showdown with Da’ath, Dark Lord of the Abyss.

Inspired by classic fantasy sagas and the revival of magical stories in young adult literature, the game emphasizes the whimsy and wonder of modern fantasy. From theme to execution, it bucks the trend of cynicism without going easy on theme. Wilson’s world combines Gnostic and Cabalistic influences with enduring fantasy motifs. You’ll see familiar ideas and names, but each one has a distinctive twist. Idealism is more than just a buzzword – it’s the source of magic. Ironic anti-heroes aren’t the default, but the enemy.

Æternal Legends is the first independent release in Mob United Media’s Mobworx line. Mobworx exists to promote and develop the visions of independent creators with an emphasis on creator’s rights and ethical business relationships.

In upcoming weeks, Mob United Media will preview Æternal Legends characters, magic, artwork and more on its Livejournal, at http://mobunited.livejournal.com

Stewart Wilson: Author and Creator

Edinburgh, UK author Stewart “Digital Raven” Wilson may be best known for his contributions to White Wolf Publishing’s core World of Darkness and Werewolf: The Forsaken lines. His interest in the occult, transhuman themes and fantasy literature have blossomed in the strange but sincere world of Æternal Legends.

Malcolm Sheppard: System Design and Development

Malcolm Sheppard’s writing, design and development work runs the gamut from White Wolf’s horror and dark fantasy lines to the cyberpunk genre, open source gaming and multi-platform social networks. Mob United Media is his imprint.

Mob United Media and Mobworx are trademarks of Malcolm Sheppard and Mob United Media. Æternal Legends is a trademark of Stewart Wilson, used with permission. Use of trademarks and the mention of other companies and their products are for reference purposes and do not necessarily imply any particular business association with Malcolm Sheppard, Mob United Media or Stewart Wilson. The rights held in all copyrights and trademarks, registered and otherwise, are properties of their respective owners.

BUDO: My stealth release

2007-06-02T19:43:00.001-07:00

Mob United Media's taking some big steps in the next few days, but there's one thing I've been pretty quite about. It's a bit of an experiment, really. It's BUDO: Hard Style Wushu.

People have been pretty curious about this. What's it all about? Why did I do it? First of all, Dan Bayn's Wushu is a great game, especially for people like me, who GM a lot but are not the greatest at prep. It also hits the kind of action gaming I like. But why mess with a winning formula?

Wushu is maybe 90% of what I want -- but I wanted 100%. I'm a fan of more gritty cinematic action, where players have to make some tough decisions. Budo's a bit more strict about who your character is and what he can do. Actions are a bit risker and more strategic. Finally, there's a bit of an aesthetic difference. Wushu's all about the aesthetic of kung fu: flowing, continuous action. I wanted Budo to be a bit more "staccato" in execution. It goes for snappier, more methodical ways of doing things that I think fit the spirit of chambara, anima and manga. There's stillness, then a guy in a cool pose watching his enemy slide apart. It's the pseudo-Japan RPG I want to play. (And of course, is filled with my preconceived notions and malapropisms -- lots of those . . .)

That's why there's a more formal order of actions and Ikken Hisatsu! Ki (Chi) is divided up to force players to switch from easy to use traits to ones where they might have to apply a bit more mental "elbow grease." That ninja-musician can ninja out a bunch, but once the appropriate Ki is gone, the player has to ask himself. "Okay -- how can I kick ass with this shamisen?"

Yes, it's a bit less utterly freeform than Wushu. Some might see it as "training wheels," and that's fine. Other people will find the increased structure useful when it comes to defining characters and getting things done.

I also wanted to use Wushu as a testbed for a few different ideas related to dividing up GM power (yes, *I* wanted to do this) and finding ways for players to never be left out of the action. It joins the other systems I've experimented with over the past few years, including Codex, Ready2Run and Quick20.

(Wow; I designed or tweaked four different games this past year, not counting general OGL stuff and White Wolf contracts . . .)

Anyway, I'm taking what I learned and applying it to at least one of the games I've had on the back burner for a while. It will use a mix of things I'll take from everything: Codex's scaling, Budo's task resolution and general elegance, etc, etc. This might take some time, because, as I said, there are big things coming up.

EDIT: As with Quick20, if Wushu reaches a certain subjective sales threshold I'm going to make it bigger (and if you bought the download from RPGNow, I'll notify you if this happens so that you can update). I have a specific setting in mind that's never been done in Asian fantasy games even though it's super-obvious.

Back!

2007-05-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Many things have happened. For a while I experimented with just posting gaming stuff to my livejournal instead to save time, but I got email asking where newer updates were. So here we are -- and I'll be answering an email this time.

"Dicework" (who apologizes for his/her English -- it's a second language for him/her), writes:

I'd like to have your advice on GMing for newbies.
Over the past 2-3 years, a few friends, mostly
grown-up women (30y), asked me to introduce them to
RPG. After discussing with them, it seems it will be a
interesting challenge for me.

Well, I think it's important to see this as an opportunity. Fresh voices are sometimes hard to find in the hobby and are often devalued because of the mania for structure that infests it. The first thing to do is to listen and pick up on their ideas, not just for play, but to improve your own gaming.

I know them well (and most know each other) and I'm
pretty sure most of them will like RPG. They seem
profoundly intrigued by the hobby and interested to
give it a try. But to begin with...
...some of them won't give it a second chance: it
better have to be quite of a session!
...most won't go for a lengthy session: maximum 2
hours
...most, despite being frequent boardgamers, won't go
for a rule-heavy systems
...some even really hate math: percentages scare them
and minmaxing will too
...most won't read a lot before the session, so
settingwise it seems better to choose something
generic and loose. And, btw, we are Europeans, so, for
example, swashbuckling talk to them more than supers
(even if most enjoy Heroes and Spiderman)

I'd suggest Dan Bayn's Wushu as a first system, because you can support short sessions and it's ideal for swashbuckling adventure -- and it's a simple system. It's also available in French. At the same time though, it might not be enough. Don't discount your friends' boardgaming out of hand. This might indicate people who want to be able to apply tactics against a firmly defined threat. Fortunately, Wushu is easy to tweak for this, either by changing the core assumptions (so that players don't do when they want, when they want it, which I'm sure is probably blasphemous to Wushu lovers out there) and upping the risks. I'm tempted to plug my own variant, but I won't, because that would be kind of rude.


What can I do?...
...how to prep them?

One things that's worked well for me are "loose" pregenerated characters. You lay out the basic role and some primary traits, but fill in the rest as you go. This gives players the freedom to spontaneously define their characters' personalities while giveng them a sense of what they can accomplish. Additionally, you can ask them to fill in missing traits (or ask about it) as they go. This gradually introduces the element of character planning (since the more you choose as you go, the less is left for you to choose among trait "slots"). Character planning is one of the biger conceptual bridges to cross, since basic childhood roleplaying relies on spontaneous definition and most acting also leaves a number of things loose, for the actor to develop as "behind the curtain" facts.

When it comes to explaining roleplaying, it's better to just start the game, explain why they're here, ask who they are (as per the advice above) and explain what your objectives might be. One thing you should explain right away is that you're (including you, the GM) are a team working together to play through a fun story and that this comes first, to avoid the "blocking" behaviour you often find.

Present the game system in a hierarchy, which starts with the heavy lifting mechanics and moves into more and more detail. If there is resistance or confusion about a detail (such as modifiers or rolled initiative), then just don't bother with it and consider altering the rules to get around it.

...what systems are the best for such first-timers? I
GM RuneQuest (forget it) and FATE (a Fudge derivative)
but a friend gathers RPG, so I can easily borrow/buy
and learn anything else, even in French

I mentioned Wushu, but there's really no best answer for "first games." Some people like complex games because they gain confidence through mastering the system (this is an intentional part of D&D's design). FATE's a great game, but some elements of it are a bit fussy (like skill pyramids), but it's pretty easy to tweak.
In terms of providing a primer for traditional roleplaying, I recommend Over the Edge's system (but not the setting, which is probably a bit too specifically American and geek-culture for beginners outside of the US).
Again, I think you'll want a system that is simple, but has meaningful tactical choices. A stripped down version of D&D might do it. Keep movement rules and use a battlemap, even attacks of opportunity. Instead, you want to make the *characters* simple. Castles and Crusades with adjustments might be good as well.

...what setting?

I think you answered that when you talked about "swashbuckling." The 16th-18th centuries (or fantasy analogues) might work, which brings up Lace and Steel as a possible suggestion, too. Lace and Steel also has some tactics but not to complex a system otherwise.

...what scenario could do the job? any specific ideas?

Give them a big tour of the form, from tactical action to romance to character-driven mechanics, if the system supports it. Again, if something doesn't stick, just resolve it fast and move on. Build a bunch of loose scenes and draw them together with rough ideas of how one leads to another. You can use a hardwired flowchart too, which is basically what a D&D dungeon is, but with a short session and casual players, dungeon concepts like resource attrition and bottleneck challenges don't work very well.

...do I GM a session with only newbies or with some
veterans? how many newbies/veterans?

It's my experience that you get the most fun when there's either a mixed group who are good friends and help each other without being controlling, or going with mostly new players. Above all, you need a group whose members care about each others' fun. This should be basic to gaming, but instead, most systems and contemporary theory in North America exists to coddle selfish assholes. This is a big problem in North American gaming. New players will tend to help each other and think outside of their characters, since identification with the PC is not yet formalized in their heads (and yes, that stilted formality *also* applies to non-immersionists, for those wondering).

...any other advices?

Your friends basically already know how to roleplay. It's the idea of doing it in a tabletop game that's the thing to watch for. Your game should formalize the ways in which they enjoy roleplaying, pretending to be other people and getting narrative results from a situation. Once they've done this, then you can get together and see if you want more conventional system-compliance, which is fun, too. I think most long running groups naturally cycle between loose, custom rules and playing a game in a more"official" fashion. Restrictions can inspire people, but not consistently.

Finally, if you're running a standard RPG, do not be afraid to use your power as the GM. Everybody says that the GM is too powerful and needs controls, but people who say that have suffered under GMs with weak, snippy personalities who needed to disguise their motives and actions with lame rules excuses. Being GM lets you do lots of stuff, like:

Ask if an event was what the player really wanted.
Skip past a boring scene.
State what you'd like out of the scene at any time and invite discussion.
Ask players about their characters secret, inner lives, motivations and what they will do in the future.
Tell players to help each other decide on actions.
You have the ultimate moderation tools at your disposal. Use them and throw any rule that tells you not to in the trash.

2007-03-12T04:43:00.000-07:00

This is the cutting edge of DIY roleplaying, whether you would personally enjoy it or not.

So what are you going to do?

Selected quotes:

"Sorry, we do not accept original characters."

"A BLEACH/NARUTO/YUYUHAKUSHO Role-play community based on the movie Fight Club.
Accepting members now."

"Yeah, I said it. Ninja Car chases."

The Big Problem, in Baudrillard

2007-03-09T02:47:00.000-08:00

RPGs are a form in which the simulacrum is not the story, but the rules. The story is real, but rules have hyperreality. Thus, story is always falling apart whole rules become stronger. By "stronger," I mean that groups develop techniques for using the rules better, adapting them and otherwise making them stable, more decisive actors. Story's relative weakness comes from being understood through an ever more powerful rules simulacrum, while dealing with the instability of being negotiated by players without particular technique -- any technique is immediately lost to story itself and given over to the rules-simulacrum.

2007-03-08T12:49:00.000-08:00

My Vampire/Mage game is done for this phase, giving me a chance to look back and think about what went right, what went wrong and how to improve play in the future.

One of the problems with the game was that I didn't do enough prep for many sessions. I winged it too much. That leads to the other issue, which had to do with overactive immersion. My friends like to do a lot of talking in character, which ends up taking up a lot of time without getting to a new chunk of the plot. These problems are related because if I don't prep well, it takes more time for me to compose new events based on the characters' actions. If that takes more time, in-character talk develops more momentum, making it difficult to move things along implicitly. This is primarily an aesthetic problem and an artifact of the non-communicative style of gaming that I don't care for, but even I'm recovering from. It feels more graceful to move from scene to scene by an unfolding consensus than saying, "Hey, it might be time to move to a new scene," put out loud.

Now I made corrections for these issues toward the end, by getting off my ass and prepping more (to be fair, I've also been extremely busy with work) and trading off the abstract satisfaction for "natural" progress from scene to scene to a more efficient use of time.

One of the problems with immersion is that the longer and deeper you go, the more starkly the player/character divide shows up in certain situations. For instance, players who do not have the character's knowledge of a topic tend to talk around it and get really verbose to no good end. This can be due to the players not being hackers or military tacticians (real world fields of knowledge) or not knowing as much about an alien species as the characters (a situation where the field is fictional but has much more depth *in* the story than one would get from any text).

This is when it's time to step out of natural conversation, obviously. Traditional games are generally not great at communicating the need to switch gears like this, but should be. One of the advantages of the RPG form is that we *don't* have to suffer infodump dialogue in character. We can take it OOC and get it out of the way.

Positive elements? Well, the game was actually quite good, but readers will know that I problematize first and my own game sessions are no different in this regard. One thing that worked very well was aggressively utilizing social skills. There were several sessions where characters had a chance to use their skills to uncover social cues, judge veracity and organize people. There was one situation where the PCs were trying to get the prince to move Elysium to a new location. The Prince rolled well enough to detect that the PCs had done a halfassed job negotiating with the Keeper and was rather reserved, but other social rolls allowed characters to deal with the fallout. Better yet, it gave me the freedom to lie as various NPCs without leaving the PCs without the ability to sense it.

The story itself was fun and the climax, featuring traditional gonzo exploding statues in an art gallery, worked out just fine.

Now it's time for Steve's D&D game and time to consider the future of my Rogue/Monk.

Access to Interior Play

2007-03-04T03:47:00.000-08:00

There was a question about this a while back.

This means that your character's hidden motives, thoughts and feelings, as well as your plans for and feelings about the character must never *ever* be hidden from me. I demand total access to any information about your character and your play that I require with no justification necessary.

If you're gonna, GM, actually *GM*, is what I'm saying. The great failure of GMing as a method doesn't come when GMs have too much power. It comes when they don't use power wisely. I've seen many games where the GM has tossed railroading, lethal encounters and other brute force solutions at players, but never actually asked what the character or player were feeling.

RPGNet has a whole thread of worst sessions. Read them and you'll see people not using this power and their games failing. As far as I can tell, it's one of the the primary reasons why games fail.

Plus, many emails I've gotten from people complaining about how members of the indie/SG community weren't any fund playing in their game (and yes, I do have multiple emails about that subject and no, I'm not saying who they are) came from not using this rule or from the players not volunteering such information.

The flipside of this is that the GM must be willing to integrate queries into the session, even taking a minute of five to hash something out with an individual.

Not a new idea, but an oft-ignored one.

2007-02-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

Didn't I say so?

2007-02-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

You know, I didn't think my post a picture thing would be construed as something so threatening. Actually, I was hoping it wouldn't. I was hoping establishing that most people talking about gaming were the tip of an iceberg of groups of good friends getting together for fun would inspire some meditation on shared experiences.

That was sure naive of me.

Super Fun Angry Replies!

2007-01-03T04:46:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like the folks at Story Games had some issues with my last post. Since some of it is interesting and I'm vain, I'll quote and respond to some of it. "Lord Minx:"

The idea of TRPGs being a "medium for the activity of roleplaying" isn't especially new, IMO. Or at least my first reaction was to go "Well, duh...". But it is something that people tend to forget, especially during some discussions about gaming and what it is or isn't.

Nah, it isn't new -- but its relevance has increased in the wake of maturing technologies and social customs. But I wouldn't call it "forgotten." I'd put it in the category of "Vehemently denied until it can be conceptually warped into something less threatening." I'm not saying everybody's doing that -- but it's obvious that people *are* doing it. Are you personally doing it? How the hell should I know?

Andy Kitkowski said:

Huh. What would an internet gaming community that IS based around playing games actually look like? Not only did about 10-15 splinter events, live groups, and actual gaming meetups (including Camp Nerdly) happen because of this place, but all I see around here is stuff that relates to actual events/conditions of tabletop gaming. I mean, I founded two local RPG/gaming meetup groups in the Triangle, and participate in two others (Lost Goblin and NCSU's gaming events), but I honestly have blinders on because I cannot see how a group could be any less focused on Actual Roleplaying. Hmmm.

If you were talking about something I was interested in in this context, you'd be talking about what you did last Tuesday (or some other arbitrary day). I'm not saying, "Why oh why aren't there Web 2.0-like social tools to get gamers together?" I don't really care about people's micro-con accomplishments. Cons are useful for research and playing games you don't normally get to play, but I'm interested in roleplaying as a typical, socially integrated practice. Really Andy, I care about people who do teh Internets because they game more than people who game because they do teh Internets.

(Incidentally, my group? Every Tuesday, barring NDP meetings (*groan*) and holidays. You want something positive-cool on Story Games and Gamecraft? Here's a challenge: Post a picture of your socially functional gaming group. Not your convention peeps and not your monthly Internet meetup chums. Post a picture of people you know socially, you see face to face outside of gaming, who you game with multiple times per month. *That*'s what makes your gaming "de-geeked." It shows you doing something with your friends under the same conditions you'd go to a movie or play road hockey or something.)

What I'd like to read is not about somebody's micro-con. Look at ENWorld. ENWorld has deeply useful, convincing content because much of it springs from, "On Tuesday, X happened, when I wanted Y." There's none of the emotional front-loading and bias inherent to A Very Special Meeting of Gamers.

In any case, sure I agree with what he said there. Straightforward, not too arrogant, and it makes sense. I don't understand why he says, "must be beaten about the head with, in fact", cause it totally doesn't seem like it is needed, but hey I can roll with hyperbole, I do it all the time.

Here it is, blunter: Our world is ruled by WoW and the stuff of journalfen fanfic drama and IRC roleplaying, and that world just happens to suffer tabletop folks. What people need to be "beaten about the head with" is that the tabletop is not the essential ingredient unless it is designed to be. That means that when it comes to growing the hobby, you need to use the space of the tabletop in a distinct and effective fashion. Saying, "Oooh, there's the social element!" -- just saying it -- is weak sauce and the rhetoric of choice for many who don't want to deal with the supposedly-unpleasant implications of WoW ruling the world.

What I do not see is people celebrating the tabletop as a distinct place to be. The great body of thinking about TRPGs right now really describes a verbal/textual activity without any particular medium. And the thing is, outside of the table those funky social networking tools and communities are established enough culturally and technologically that they do not necessarily benefit from TRPG-style rules.

Actually, for Malcolm, that's the only thing that matters: That they are in any way comparable. They are both vehicles for the facilitation of the transport of matter. In one case, the matter happens to be people, so needs a design that is not alike the design for an 18-Wheeler that transports steel.

Well no: The problem is that most games *are* substantially similar designs to those in other media, or are enveloped in social conventions that are functionally equivalent to these designs. Read bad_rpers_suck on Livejournal some time. The parallels between the processes at these sites and the goals/outcomes of tabletop designs really are striking, covering everything from niche protection to conflicts between individual dramatics and "immersion" vs. narrative cohesion. Now it's quite easy to pretend fanfic folks and MMO players aren't doing what you're doing, but the fact that this called "roleplaying" is more than a cultural accident or coincidence. Really, to deny a relationship is sort of disingenuous.

I'd be convinced of more radical dissimilarities if the arguments for such weren't people just saying so vehemently and repeatedly -- the magic, mystique and sentiment-based arguments. Later on in this post I'll talk about some actual systems and how I think they argue for the table (or don't).

Buzz said:

Essentially, I think that he was getting at the same question Sheppard is posing, i.e., where is the incentive to play your TRPG if it's not giving me anything I couldn't get from, say, World of Warcraft?

It's related, but not exactly the same. Nobody's going to deny that the medium changes the activity. An exact parallel isn't important. What's important is the relationship between the distinctiveness of the experience and its relative utility -- how fun/convenient it is. WoW has lots of utility to many people, but people also value variety -- and often regard it along a bit of a different judgmental axis. But if WoW is sufficiently cool or a TRPG is insufficiently distinctive, people play WoW.

Hand in hand is what I've talked about where if one medium is close enough to a more popular medium, it argues for the more popular medium.

The irony is that, IMO, the very games and communities that Sheppard (and sometimes Baugh) are so critical of are the ones that provide (or foster the games that provide) the unique experience they're advocating. E.g., Polaris just begs to be played by people sitting around a table, sharing a social experience. Ironically, I don't think the same could be said for a lot of the d20 and WoD stuff that Sheppard and Baugh earn their living from.

There's nothing wrong at all from saying "nothing," and using that to focus your goals -- I made that clear in the post. Certainly, the WoD has little to offer itself specifically to the table, but there's no moral imperative involved. There's just a question. If you just want to design a TRPG without caring about any of that, there sure as hell isn't anything wrong with that, either. I'll be the first to admit that I get a fair chunk of change from what future gamers might call "meatspace heartbreakers."

(In the case of the WoD, there's a *huge* LARP and play-by-chat community that uses the books as sources. It works, but I do think it's very much historical serendipity, as the WoD developed alongside the maturation of the Internet. Really, my WoD work has to do with these communities, as well as the existing tabletop network, which made it in under the wire and is pretty robust. D20 material is much the same.)

As for games liked by the communities "I'm critical of," it's really a mixed bag. Are there any rules in Polaris that give an advantage to playing face to face, or is it somehow impossible to use key phrases by chat or post? This isn't snark; it's just the kind of questioning that I think needs to be done.

Right now I think the place for distinctive experience in most games is that tabletop games allow people to make fuzzy judgments using complex systems. IRC tends toward fuzziness without system and MMOs have no fuzziness except in the purely social realm. Another area has to do with props and visual aids. But these loopholes are closing as it gets easier to read electronic text and transmit images on the fly.

Right now, games with flagship systems that exploit this seem to be best suited for tabletop play. TROS' Spiritual Attributes, WoD Morality, and Adventure's Dramatic Editing are examples of conventional RPGs that have this kind of feature. They plug into complex game systems but do so based of subjective judgments. Again, I think the tabletop advantage here is drying up, but for now face to face contact is a advantage because it allows for simple common rules references (we look through the book together) and the ability to assess sentimental aspects through nonverbal and tonal cues.

As I said before, D&D's miniatures aspects also have a table advantage, but again, I don't know how long this will last, given the right electronic tools.

Merten:

As for "roleplaying", I'm kind of hoping that we could ditch the term as something that has definitive meaning. It does not. It's just a buzzword used in place of various activities that could be or could not be similar. Going with the transportation analogy, you could drive a car, walk or fly, and the only thing in common is that you get from place A to place B. The experience and the methods are different, each with unique pro's and con's.

I sympathize with this position. Things that are called "roleplaying games" do have points of connection. This kind of reminds me of discussion about folk theories. There's been interesting research about functional, imprecise areas of knowledge in other fields. One analogy I like is love. By some strict points of view, love is a category mistake describing a collection of instincts and contingent brain states that vary a whole lot between people, yet when I tell my wife I love her, it actually means something. It functions. This kind of fuzziness is how culture works. There isn't a Logos of roleplaying, but at the same time it's meaning can't be destroyed by aggressive deconstruction. Deconstruction keeps us honest about the strength of our claims, but it isn't supposed to destroy functional, folk understanding.

The rest of the thread is the usual people subtly shitting on WoW and being offended that I don't like the community with the usual venom -- bile that manages to outstrip my "rudeness" by quite a bit. I find it odd that I just can't get as angry as a few members of a "happy" and "safe" community.

Looking back on '06

2006-12-31T03:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I've had an interesting year as a gamer. I started a small games company (Mob United Media) which has made me a few thousand dollars, following its business plan without any spectacular pretenses. I've played in or ran a whole bunch of games, from several original games using house systems to D&D and the World of Darkness. I got a bunch of contracts done and topped off the year with a contract for an entirely new project (that I can't discuss, unfortunately. It's electronic, it's not targeted at gamers and it involves some fairly revolutionary ideas). Lastly, I have two original games on my plate that I'll be developing instead of writing, fulfilling my interest in promoting creator owned talent.

2006 was my first full year of full time game writing and design. In previous years writing made up a significant proportion of my income, but it was always supplemented with other money. I was in a good position to ease into my current work and haven't been confronted by any particular shocks.

But the year wasn't free of disappointments. I still find much of the so-called "gaming community" (very little of which is actually based around playing games, now more than ever) disappointing. By and large, 2006 was a year characterized by intellectual cowardice. Various communities that talked big about theory, craft and shared practice were really fronts for people to be "safe." Levi Kornelsen's GameCraft established itself as yet another forum for useless backslapping after the tradition of Story Games.

What's missing is a place where people neither engage in ad hominems nor are protected from straight-shooting critique that isn't an ad hominem. This is difficult because you have people who have identified with their own ideas so strongly that they consider any challenge to them to be a personal insult. The refusal of these people to grow the fuck up (that *is* an ad hominem, by the way) is a big problem. I expect I'll have to create some kind of community myself, but I'm not sure what format it will take.

On a personal level, I didn't do as much play outside my immediate group as I wanted to. I did get some research done at a couple of conventions but I didn't get as much chance to play games at them. Then again, that kind of play is about 50% work-related, as my weekly gaming schedule is pretty full as it is.

As for new games, my notable purchases were Promethean, True20, Savage Worlds, Truth and Justice and The Burning Wheel.

I bought Promethean for work as as a WoD completist, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised by the whole thing. Its only flaw is that its "monster type" doesn't really inform the game's fluff much. I'm thinking of introducing concepts from Promethean to my Mage game, but without creatures and golems and such. They'll just be alchemists.
True20 was pretty good, if a bit overcomplicated. Conviction as a trait isn't very interesting to me, and I wanted a more abstract magic system, but this game is designed for a big tent and there are more than enough OGL tools out there to make the system one's own. One thing I liked was Take 5. I developed it independently in 2004 and applaud its use.
Savage Worlds is slick, quick and does what it's supposed to do. That also makes it kind of uninteresting, as it lacks any big gimmicks to really grab you.
T&J is a fantastic game. It's *so close* to what I want out of a superhero RPG, but it still hangs fire on the powers. I'm admittedly a bit of an eccentric about this, as I've never liked the feel of "built" powers in most games. T&J's discussion of the genre is notable for being remarkably evenhanded and concise.
The Burning Wheel -- ah, what to say! This game is good, though the "good" is a combination of magnificent and awful that ends up with a positive balance. To avoid repeating myself, I'll just say that the overwhelming feeling I got was that the good stuff could be distilled into a superior RPG. It's one of these games that I'm far more interested in as a designer than as a player -- and not only have I intimated in the past that I think I'm not alone, I still believe it. But the games that exists will, I think, feature an uncharacteristically strong ability on the parts of players to stand behind their characters. The game has plenty of innovations (like Instincts) that support this kind of attitude and minimize the break between expectations and results that can bother players so much.

There were other games and supplements, but I can't remember all of them offhand.

This year has seen its share of iffy trends and ideas. One of them is the way Internet discourse has influenced game design. Having given it some thought over the past couple of years, I think this is one of the key unacknowledged forces behind design trends. The Internet rewards superficial novelty (picking the coolness out of the forest of text), brevity and rapid comprehension (KISS). This is the medium that invented "tl;dr." Many, many indie games feel designed around the reward cycle gained by having people talk about the game on forums, blogs and so on. Don't they tend to follow a single core concept to an extreme? Don't many of them revolve around a kind of elevator pitch, precis-or-nothing idea? Isn't there an antipathy for games that take time and effort to get comfortable with? There are exceptions (The Burning Wheel's an example), but it seems to me that these games are not really accessible for the sake of a tabletop group, but for the sake of posting about them in fora. But your comfort in posting about an RPG on the Internet is not an indication of its quality.

Anyway, we also got into "brain damage," which was Ron Edwards' borrowing of sociobiological rhetoric for gaming. Many gamers are giving Ron a pass on this as some kind of metaphor, but he's made it clear he believes it's literally true and I figure he's following a doctrine of neural Darwinism in doing so. What he has not done, however, is identified what a story is in a sociobiological context, which makes his critique kind of halfassed, even within its own rules. So Ron would do well to give the whole "just so story" on the sociobiology of the Big Model, or else it's just the arbitrary invention I believe it to be -- but *by his own standards.*

Moving from this, we've seen trends (over several years, not just 2006) in two directions, both of which harness the media utility fallacy. The first is to create games that substantially show the influence of computer games for the sake of garnering interest and ease of comprehension. D&D was like this and now, Exalted is very much like this. Story games are in fact starting to resemble traditional storytelling more and more -- that's positive in a sense, because it's a conscious mission accomplished. But the media utility fallacy is what you get when you argue for one medium using another, more popular medium. You end up with is an excellent argument for the *other* medium. The more D&D resembles WoW, the more people should play WoW, not D&D. A story game that uses stock phrases to construct a story is a great gateway to getting involved in oral storytelling, but not for using an RPG for this purpose.

It's now my opinion that "storytelling" (first WW and now the Forge), and "adventure gaming" (a term invented to distance D&D from RPGs) are both category errors founded in marketing and pretense. It is now *obvious* that recreational roleplaying is a distinct activity and not a sub-activity of wargaming, storytelling, etc. Roleplaying is even a mainstream activity now.

But the thing that the tabletop RPG community must accept -- must be beaten about the head with, in fact -- is that roleplaying, despite being one of the major new forms of entertainment of the late 20 and early 21st centuries, does not require tabletop RPGs. A tabletop RPG is a medium for the activity of roleplaying. MMORPGs, chat tools and fora are other media that support roleplaying -- the dominant media for the activity, in fact.

So the question for game designers in 2007 is this: What does your new game design offer that roleplaying in an alternate medium does not? I've asked this to many people and they invariably talk about the social element, but that's just dodging the question, as the social element often has nothing to do with the design. There are no concrete, in-design rewards for sharing meatspace. D&D currently has a good argument for this in the form of its miniatures play, which is annoying to do online because it either costs money (for special tools/MMO fees) or time (to set up webcams, house rules, etc.).

Your answer may well be "nothing," and that's OK. There's nothing wrong with designing a game for sentimental reasons. But the fact is that nowadays, we live in a world where we (tabletop hobbyists) don't control the direction of roleplaying and roleplaying doesn't even *need* our medium of choice. That's 2007.

How I handled a play issue tonight

2006-11-21T20:14:00.000-08:00

I'm running a Vampire/Mage game on Tuesday nights (it alternates every 6 sessions or so with my buddy's D&D game). This is an intensely political Machiavellian game -- on the NPC side. The PCs have acted with a mix of idealism and pragmatism regarding a conflict between the pleasant but incompetent prince (which reminds me: Nobody uses incompetence as a plot point in these games. They should.) and rude opponents who get things done.

Tensions run high. My group is also pretty immersive. A lot of play is "dramatic conversation," where people talk amongst themselves, in character, in real time, with a few shortcuts to reduce the amount of small talk." The disadvantage is that players can get really attached to particular POVs, and when the plot turns ugly, player/character separation takes a firm step.

During a discussion about a mage PC helping a vampire PC hunt, one player (not either of those contemplating the preceding) expressed some dissatisfaction with the morality rules and "with a couple of elements of the setting."

I directed things into a short break so we could chat about it. She said that she felt that the game setting didn't feel very amenable to radical change. In character, she was having a difficult time, as her PC's idealism was being sorely tested and she'd been insulted by a major NPC. There were some residual feelings there combined with a general position about how to play the game.

I'll try to break down what followed into steps:

1) First, I validated her concerns *and* I reaffirmed the frame of reference: that we're friends enjoying a social activity and it was the nature of my role to respond with real changes instead of excuses.

2) Secondly, I did *not* offer wish-fulfillment as a solution. What I did do was explain the nature of the conflict in the game. I think that it's a big deal to expose the bones of the game at hand in any situation like this. These gets right down the guts without giving details away. Players can either deal with the premise or they can't.

3) Thirdly, I responded with an immediately applicable proposal: Morality works on the honour system henceforth. I brought it to the group and people thought it was a decent idea.

I wasn't thinking about it at the time, but Mo Turkington's discussions about sockets apply here. I had a situation where the player:
* Had one socket that wasn't working for her (her interface with the morality rules, even though her PC wasn't affected at the time. Potential things affect games as much as in-game events, since they affect planning and conception).
* Had one socket that needed to be explored and defined (how much and what kind of effect her character might have).

She responded fairly well and this influenced her play as soon as we got back to it. She hit a scene in Elysium with a significant amount of bravery.

On my end, I needed to clarify, in a completely metagame fashion, what kinds of things were possible in the game. I think many GMs are so used to a mediated role (using rules and conventions) that they simply can't abandon a system-oriented approach to dealing with bumpy parts of play.

One other issue was seating. The player was seated beside me on the couch, so had the least amount of effortless face to face contact. I'm going to sit somewhere else next time.

This game is pretty emotionally intense. In any game like this it's important to demonstrate the range of possible options. Next session I'm going to do just that, speeding up changes in the setting so that she (and others) can explore the possibilities.

Guardian Heroes, Pt. 2

2006-11-19T22:41:00.000-08:00

The second session of Quick20 supers was a lot of fun. To be brief:

The game takes place in a fast and loose version of the Marvel Universe. The PCs are Team Discord: Aerobot (an robot mascot-hero that escaped from Microsoft, with the ability to shoot missiles, fly and change size), Switch (a magical teleporter who switches with objects at his destination -- a very neat power, by the way), The Manipulator (a nanite-user much like the Authority's Engineer) and John Armstrong (telepath and PR man). Th heroes were summoned by Toronto police to deal with hostages (including the mayor) at the CM Tower, held by the obscure Separatism Squad (Fleur De Lis [not other versions of this character, but a flier with forcefields and the ability to shoot sticky plasma bombs like Halo's Covenant grenades], The Great and Powerful Bong [gets people stoned and controls minds with body chemistry] and Stampeder [tough and strong]).

The PCs killed Fleur De Lis and TGAPB and after a huge, dynamic slugfest, captured Stampeder. Only a few hostages died due to henchman gunfire -- a C+ grade as far as heroism goes. Toronto's police chief gave them the privileges to coordinate a Canada-wide investigation into the origin of the Sepsquad. They checked out TGAPB's Vancouver apartment, which let them know that his powers came from a device called the "Omega Well," possessed by Stampeder. Armstrong read Stampeder's mind and learned that she was Preston Manning's secret older sister, kept in a home because she was thought to have an intellectual disability -- a source of shame, considering that the Mannings were pro-eugenics politicians back in the 30s.

They went to AB and confronted Manning with this. In subsequent conversation, he mentioned that a Flag-Smasher initially tried to hook up with Reform to provide uber-tech, but was turned away. Team Discord researched Flag-Smasher on wikipedia, then contacted Captain America. Cap (who was eating lucnh and following with his Blackberry when the team called) agreed to email confidential info about Flag-Smasher.

Quick20's combat system works well enough. The rules use the three OGL saves as stats and add a 4th (Might) for melee and strength. Superstrength adds bonus damage and lifting/pushing bennies and works OK, though closely matches characters don't do much damage because their damage saves (a la M&M, but modified) don't get to fail by much. I eventually want to add some thematic maneuvers (like "team-up"), but don't want tactical complexity. I will have to deal with relative size, range and area with more detail than the Quick20 rules.

Early on, I changed Quick20's three class system into these:

Athlete – Athletes are born or highly trained runners, jumpers and acrobats. Add +1 to Reflex. Ninja and parkour experts are both athletes. The Athlete’s special ability is Athletics. Gain an Athletics pool equal to Might + Reflex. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.
Blaster – Archers, heroes who hurl lightning and deadly gunfighters are blasters. They’re devoted to the art of ranged combat. Add +1 to Reflex. The Blaster’s special ability is Ranged Expertise. Gain a Ranged Expertise pool equal to Reflex + Fortitude. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.
Bruiser – Bruisers are pugilists, “strong guys,” martial artists and other heroes who like to get “in your face.” Add +1 to Might. The Bruiser’s special ability is Melee Expertise. Gain a Melee Expertise pool equal to Might + Fortitude. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.
Expert – Experts include scientists, detectives and others who use knowledge and deduction to achieve their goals. Add +1 to Will. The Expert’s special ability is Genius. Gain a Genius pool equal to Reflex + Will. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.
Fixer – Socialites, fences, politicians and other persuasive characters are Fixers. Add +1 to Will. The Fixer’s special ability is Grace. Gain a Grace pool equal to Fortitude + Will. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.

As I have a robot character, I've decided to use three basic "species" to include that PC and others.

Exceptional – Aliens, genetically modified humans, and magical races are examples of the Exceptional species. Exceptionals with more complex characteristics should be given powers and weaknesses. The basic profile can model members of a “mundane” alien species or human offshoot.

· +1 to a single attribute, -1 to another.
· +2 to skill any two skill checks. Choose these as if they were level-based bonuses.
· +1 to a an attack roll or saving throw. Again, choose these as if they were level-based bonuses.

Human – Humans include standard Homo sapiens as well as characters whose powers are the only thing that deviates from a humanlike set of abilities.

· Add 2 points to attributes in any combination, but at 1st level, this cannot increase an attribute higher than 4 (before class adjustments).
· Humans gain two skill, save or attack roll bonuses, or a combination of two of these. These bonuses work just like bonuses gained with additional levels in that they apply to specific instances.

Unliving – Robots, golems and undead creatures are all unliving, freed from the basic weaknesses of the flesh. This species represents the character’s core capabilities. Exceptional monsters or constructs have powers.

· Unliving characters record staggered, unconscious and dying conditions for the purpose of tracking cumulative damage, but they never suffer the effects of those conditions.
· Unliving minds are immune to telepathic powers and anything that specifically affects a living physiology, for good or ill. For example, a robot can’t be poisoned and doesn’t need to breathe, but can be harmed by acid or a smack in the head with a hammer.
· Unliving characters do not heal naturally. Only powers and external assistance can repair them.

I think this ought to encompass what I need. Right now, the challange is to change the starting power set from "whatever I made up" to a set point value. I'm also going to base the point value of powers on the "price" of an attribute (Might, Fort, Ref and Will, which normally go up by 3/level and absorb attribute, skill and save advancements,). I want to keep powers to a minimum. This isn't HERO. I want definite areas where GMs can intervene and in the pirit of Quick20, I want to keep the page count down to maybe 20.

Response to Brand Robins

2006-11-19T06:26:00.000-08:00

This is a really useful essay. One thing I think might be missing in the ideas expresed above (though this doesn't invalidate them) is the role of power. Defining a genre is a way of privileging a certain way of interpreting texts. This can be a problem because:
1) People want this power. It creates coherent communities without the organic fussiness inherent in gradual, face to face practice.
2) The idea that a genre is a subjective exercise of power (or, dare I say it, "power/knowledge") reveals its arbitary nature.
3) #2 subverts #1.

Nobody likes being told that as cool as their particular bag seems, it's still the result of arbitary statements designed to support a power structure. This is always true, too. Attempts to protect your power either lead to some form of intellectual dishonesty or some kind of openly arbitrary refusal to engage anything outside of the model. Big Model adherents were doing the former and now they do the latter. Plus, of course, people don;t want to believe that there's a corcive element in forming communities, because people want to be nice.

Power really is "the elephant in the room" in any thinking about RPGs and why you can't really dismiss an "anarchist" (or un-scare-quotey anarchist) critique. The natural defensive reaction is to accuse any such critique of nihilsm, but that doesn't work either because the anarchist perspective is about the degree to which any game supports a functional community in exchange for the coercion inherent in agendas and genres.

To my mind this is really the central question of RPGs. What's the payoff for imposing certain frameworks? How broadly applicable is the answer? For example, I can't really justify running Exalted anymore because the whole model of discourse inherent to the game is just too big a pain in the ass. I can engage in intertextual play with the game and get some cool things out of it, but I'm not gonna run it again.

A big challenge that arises from this and that applies to genre is, "To what extent are you prepared to accept critiques?" As you can see, critiques are natural. Regarding them as crazy aberrations arising from bad design just means that critics either act like assholes (because there's no reward for intellectual honesty) of end up with a forced, artificial playstyle (because the game or GMing will only support X). Any exploration of genre has to accept defiance and deviation as a normal thing.

I like what you've done. You've given the Big Model a sensible context and opened the door to a more varied set of models. But here's the thing: It doesn't change points 1, 2 and 3, which still loom large in the community. Until key members admit that there's a little bullshit going on to keep people chatting on t3h Internets, I don't see how practice will proceed from your rather admirable set of ideas.

Guardian Heroes

2006-11-13T00:02:00.000-08:00

I released Quick20 not too long ago and it's been doing pretty well. On top of that, I've started a second gaming group, so that I'm running Vampire/Mage on Tuesdays and . . . well, I was running a Ready 2 Run cyberpunk genre game, but as I'd already run one of those my heart wasn't really in it. It was doing okay, but I told the group I was going to switch games and we chatted. Eventually, we decided on a superhero game.

Now I've always had problems with the point-mongering, power-tweaking ends of these games, but I like the genre. The closest that's come to "my" supers game is Truth and Justice, but I'm the only one with a copy. I own Mutants and Masterminds, Savage Worlds, Aberrant and the MURPG. M&M is good, but takes some time to set up. SW's powers are a bit too rigid, and the MURPG requires tokens and is a very confusing read. Ready 2 Run has a rough guide to weird powers, but I'm taking a break from running it to concentrate on a number of projects that use it as an engine. (Sounds odd, but this basically means I'd rather test with one shots and short tests than have it take over my weekly game).

So I decided I might as well make my own, using Quick20 as the base. I made up Quick20 characters and made up some rough powers. Then we played. It went very, very well, so I've decided I'm going to design my supers game incrementally.

That means that instead of designing from scratch and seeing how the players take it, I'm going to add things as play demands it, then incorporate it into the system after the fact. I suspect that lots of games were designed this way, especially when people were still feeling out what you could play besides D&D.

Quick20 was designed for fantasy gaming (in 7 pages of rules, no less) and uses three classes -- Warrior, Expert and Mystic. Guardian Heroes (the supers game) is going to use five classes because when I was making characters, I came to the conclusion that superheroes need a different set of archetypes. Furthermore, I've decided that in the context of GH, classes are really packages that give characters cool comic book karma. I denied villains a special ability pool, which made them quicker to run and highlighted the characters' special, heroic resources quite nicely. After tonight, I've also decided to cut down on opposed rolls, since I'd like powers to be reliable. Powers will work more automatically unless there's a save or attack roll involved.

I started the game by making characters. I asked the players to design their heroes conceptually, and added ad hoc rules to match. I think I'm going to formalize this process a bit by making the negotiation that happened at this stage a part of the character creation process. For example, when Chad wanted an odd teleportation power, we kind of chucked ideas and limits back and forth until we hit our goal.

Anyway, I'll tell y'all how it goes as I design a bit more of the game after every session.

2006-11-03T05:24:00.000-08:00

A read of actual play threads about Burning Empires and The Burning Wheel leads me to believe that, for many people, actually *playing* RPGs is probably the least entertaining aspect. The BE Thread on RPG.Net is especially illustrative of this, as the group has apparently had one actual session since the thread started in early October, along with some awkwardness over how it actually went down.

Now I have this buddy, Rob, who likes to some up with very, very detailed campaign outlines, along with bull sessions and maps and things. I haven't actually played a game with him in about six years. This is nothing new, and is intimately familiar to people who play Hero and GURPS, which are probably the big "woulda, coulda" RPGs.

I suppose I could could crack a joke about these games being perfect for people who've been burned playing RPGs, because they are complex enough to involve you almost indefinitely without sullying the experience with play. A sufficiently high concept can do this too. Mage was rife with discussion from people with intricately detailed ideas that would never, ever get turned into real game sessions.

I think there is a significant group of RPG players who are like Rob, and somewhat like the people I've been reading about, for whom the messy, non-ideal phase of actually playing an RPG is probably the least interesting part of the experience. There's probably a market for these kinds of players for games that are probably a lot like Baldur's Gate but with strong control over the initial setup. Actually, think of it as a combination of Baldur's Gate and Civilization, mated with some kind of AI that generates stories. Player intervention would be scene and chapter-based instead of turn-based.

Failing that, someone really should design software for BW/BE.

2006-11-03T01:52:00.000-08:00

There's been some interest in the idea of rules and alienation, so I'm going to expand on that.

I was primarily thinking in terms of immersion, but at the same time I think all players have some degree of identification with their characters, so it shouldn't be foreign to anyone. All the same, one of the ideas behind immersion is playing from the point of view of the character -- generating her consciousness.

But consciousness is a fickle thing. Folk theories of consciousness either give it an essence or more recently, describe it as a form of continuity. Psychological continuity is comforting, since it gives us the image of a big spool of tape, running more or less continuously (though we all have trouble retrieving elements from time to time). The only problem is that it looks more and more like consciousness is not like this at all.

Recent neuroscience and philosophy seems to indicate that the problem is categorical, that many of the things we associate with consciousness (like long term memory) are not really the linchpin of the state, and that consciousness is probably a utility that flashes in and out at various times, using short term memory to bind things into a personal narrative. We probably spend much of our time on "autopilot" without real self-awareness. Previous essentialist ideas about consciousness could handle this because we could assume the essence was abiding somewhere, but now that things are whittled down to continuity, we don't have that comfort. In fact, continuity is probably wrong in the folk sense because there isn't really a linear narrative to grab awareness from. There's *nothing* until consciousness invents it on the spot.

I think that Sartre had a pretty good handle on this in that the reflective consciousness resembles that ad hoc process that is probably making us conscious in a strict neurological sense. Anxiety about the pre-reflection is in my mind an awareness of the limits of our consciousness and an understanding that there isn't really a meaningful "tape in the brain."
Instead, when we awaken from an automatic process or when things fail to fall into categories that we solipsistically favour, we can see our own lack of consciousness and awareness of an "Other," or at least a place where our consciousness is absent. This encompasses an intuitive awareness of death (cessation of consciousness).

Okay, let's get to the *gaming* part of this.

I think the above is pretty important when it comes to understanding what to expect out of immersion and even other kinds of gaming. Here are some points to consider:

It's impossible to maintain continuous immersion within an artificial (player-created) consciousness.
On the flipside, this does not represent a failure of immersion, because a realistic portrayal of internal life must include these gaps.
Furthermore these gaps in immersion are partly regulated by the rules. Instead of seeing rules as a way to maintain immersion, we should see them as a way to determine when immersion breaks.
Beyond immersion, you can't expect continuous, conscious play, ever. Game rules need to take the rhythm of self-awareness into consideration.

Now these gaps happen for a couple of reasons. First of all, we have points where we have to break character to pay attention to the rules. We should be comforted by the fact that this can be justified within the context of immersion simply because we can excuse these moments as moments of automatic action in character.

The second point is thornier, and that's when events don't unfold according to how we've reasoned things out. The orc isn't where we thought, magic works differently and so on. We can understand this as a moment of "annihilation," because these moments are really times when the "Other" we've constructed reveals its arbitrary and inaccurate nature. Things simply do not unfold according to the significance we place on them. That's why it's incumbent on players to embrace this break, because doing otherwise is not necessarily a problem with the rules, but a problem based in a player's stubborn solipsism.

Hey, Allen Varney!

2006-10-31T04:57:00.000-08:00

I just want to apologize for some excessive rhetoric. My point wasn't that early Enterprise and Horizon: Stronghold of Hope were objectively lousy. I just didn't care for them on the basis of theme and the focus of the content. My point was that if you (or I) don't care for something, it's best to own your subjectivity instead of looking for an error in the craft of it. If you think something sucks for no good reason (no reason you could argue to a neutral party), it's best just to 'fess up to it.

In the case of Horizon, the focus wasn't the sort of thing I liked about Mage: The Ascension, since I typically ran it in a morose, violent fashion. People shooting each other in the face over philosophical differences and all that. The book is a powerful model for playing the game in a way I don't go for and I can't fault its craft at all.

Sorry about that.

Oh, and business: I know some of you have written me/posted looking for responses. Some of you will get your wish. Please remember that this organ is only meant to have a limited amount of interactivity (I was getting swamped in livejournal). That's why it's on blogger, after all:-) The best way to contact me and get a response of some sort is to email the address in my profile.

2006-10-24T23:53:00.000-07:00

The following is mostly for my own use.

The drive for consensus can make us forget that an RPG is, at its core, a set of rules we use to manipulate signs. The tricky bit is that the rules themselves are *also* signs.

Immersion and rules are often at odds because the rules are an intermediary to direct semiotic play. Immersionists want rules that help them bridge the gap when they cannot accomplish this form of play instinctively. Example: To get the feel of of my current D&D character (Rogue 3/Monk 2) I need a way to predict what he'd be confident in attempting, something I get to know through DC benchmarks. On the other hand, the standard slate of monk weaponry is at odds with my character's core idea. He's a "scientific/alchemical fencer" for whom martial arts is a Western-style Great Work, so we don't use standard monk weapons.

Rules also *ought* to alienate immersionists at times because this kind of alienation is part of authentic experience. This is what separates real immersion from wish fulfillment. I have an existential observation on this that I may mention another time.

Freeform play divests an RPG of one frame of reference in deciding power over narrative. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. Example: If I play a freeform Harry Potter game that's strictly moderated (as opposed to Mary Sue friendly), there's no chance of my character upstaging canon characters' roles. The frame of reference is in the fiction and character interactions alone. I can't get a critical success and blow away Voldemort.

There isn't really a hierarchical process that moves from rules to the manifestation of results in the story. The rules actually means something in of themselves and are one part of a dialogue between what the story says the rules signify and what the rules say the story signifies. This instability is a big problem, but also a big opportunity. Examples: Mage: The Ascension used Sphere magic as a game mechanic to create spells that were supposed to be governed by character paradigms, but the mechanics of the Spheres imply something about the nature of paradigms themselves. In D&D, the "celestial badger" was originally shorthand from a way to create odd planar creatures without coming up with new monsters, but that level of abstraction wasn't compelling enough, so the current version of the creature is, in-game, a genuine Badger from Heaven.

Significance is a function of a player's subject position. This is individuality as constructed by personal experience. It's culturally mediated. Common culturally mediated experiences are how we understand each other and how we play the game in common, but it should be understood that this is a broad locus instead of a fixed, shared point. We can't share our imaginations because we're individuals but we can negotiate and refine the discussion about what's happening. After all, even if we could guarantee that all players visualize the same object, we could not guarantee the same associations from the object. Above all, the author of the game can't control this process. Examples: Lots and lots. Think of any time where group members realize that X is farther away from Y in space, or when a game uses a term or other bit that's unintentionally offensive or funny.

Setting can be understood as a constructed culture for the players as well as the characters. And extra level of detail here focuses mediation on experiences that players will tend to have in common, since they usually receive the setting with more uniformity than, say, their religious and political values. Example: Vampire adds another layer of culture that new players learn about as they get into the game. They form this understanding together, which strengthens future interaction as the description of a Ventrue or a Covenant is not subject to less fundamental disagreement than, say, real-life childrearing.

This whole description is inherently fuzzy and thus, probably unappealing to people who would prefer to have some easy authority over design and play. The "secret" at the heart of things is that people don't really need RPGs to *play* RPGs. RPG rules sets are really a "joyful burden," where we put strictures on the raw exercise of will upon a narrative and set up a second narrative (in the rules) in tension with the first. Games designed with the goal of destroying this tension argue for their irrelevance. Rules are meant to be somewhat burdensome and many situations where systems supposedly don't matter are really coded desires to explore that tension and bear a heavier burden.