Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[Vinicius Lessa]

For the record, Civilization is my favorite video game of all time. I prefer Civ V.

Yes, but "Sid Meier Alpha Centauri" is better. If you disagree, Sister Miriam will have a conversation with you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

IMHO, it's less of an "all-or-nothing" approach when it comes to "realism." As I said before, it's fine when if you know the points you are willing to subordinate realism to other game or setting needs. However, what a person thinks a realistic game/setting/system looks like can almost feel like a Rorschach test into what "realism" matters as well as what their sense of "realistic" entails.

No argument from me. But I'll still argue that just because you don't try to focus on it with absolutely everything doesn't mean you don't genuinely care about it; it just demonstrates the combination of the limits of process and (as you say) what parts you most care about.

This sentiment here is one reason why I think that "imaginary naturalism" works as a term for what's being described, at least in part. The world will outlast the PCs and is outside of their control. The world is unmoved by and uncaring about the PCs and their dramatic needs. And in some regards the mechanics somehow are revealing of the "nature" of the world and represent a certain truth about it.

ETA: that music argument that started as mostly innocuous hypothetical went down a weirdly hostile rabbit hole.

I probably took it farther than it needed to go, but its a bit of a pet peeve with me.

 

[Umbran]

I have a story I could relate about such, but it is late. Perhaps Ill get to it tomorrow.

So, here's a game I played in recently, in which simulation of realistic world history got seriously in the way of having a successful RPG.

I was playing a larp just a month or so back, set in Berlin on the day that it got divided between East and West. There were the Science and Language characters, who were working on the issues of the C'thulhoid horrors present in Berlin (because, of course there are!), and the Military and Diplomatic characters, who were dealing with the various nations struggling for power.

The diplomatic types spent three hours of a four hour game hammering out agreements within their stated goals and limitations to prevent the division of Berlin. Hooray! Peace and diplomacy prevail!

Except, at that point, the Scientists learn there was one, and only one, way to resolve how Time is Broken, and will destroy the universe, and the only way that technical solution could happen is that Berlin be divided.

Now, normally you'd just call this railroad - the the GMs wanted the end result. In conversation with them afterwards, though, they didn't realize that's what they'd built. They just didn't think through the simulation steps and realize that their simulation had only one result that'd be acceptable to the characters (not allowing the universe to end, not dropping a nuke on Berlin, and such). It was railroad by simulation.

 

[Aldarc]

I've been mulling over this conversation about "realism," and I find it interesting that "realism" has mostly been discussed (in the pages that I've been paying attention) in terms of the mechanics. This is to say, "realism" in TTRPGs is expressed mostly in terms of how mechanics simulate the players' sense of reality. However, this is not the only way that "realism" can express itself in the game.

Here I find it interesting that many "fiction first" games - which runs the gamut of different game playstyles (from FKR to Fate) - offload the whole matter of "realism" onto the fiction rather than the game mechanics.

I have personally played many fiction-first games that had much heavier doses of "realism," IME, than in games that used mechanics to simulate "realism." But it was easy to do because the fiction outside of the mechanics (i.e., the players at the table) are doing the heavy lifting for "realism" rather than trying to use the mechanics to create a world physics-simulator engine.

 

[Pedantic]

So, here's a game I played in recently, in which simulation of realistic world history got seriously in the way of having a successful RPG.

Now, normally you'd just call this railroad - the the GMs wanted the end result. In conversation with them afterwards, though, they didn't realize that's what they'd built. They just didn't think through the simulation steps and realize that their simulation had only one result that'd be acceptable to the characters (not allowing the universe to end, not dropping a nuke on Berlin, and such). It was railroad by simulation.

This is just an argument that game design is hard, and the designers of this LARP failed to do it well, given their goal was not to incentivize a hard choice between several unacceptable outcomes. I think it's fair to say that simulation focused designs are certainly more difficult and offer more failure points, if for no other reason they necessarily must be more complicated to achieve their goals than narrative ones.

A Few Acres of Snow is an interesting, clever war game that combines area control with deckbuilding...that has a consistent, reproducible strategy that results in victory for one side every time, and thus is a failed design despite being a product of the generally accomplished Martin Wallace. It took years after the game's publication for it to really come to light, and eventually Mr. Wallace proposed a series of changes that make the game more interactive again. The game was generally well received though and the core gameplay loop went on to inspire other titles, both by Wallace, like Mythotopeia, or others, like Hands in the Sea, by Daniel Berger.

The design flaw in A Few Acres of Snow pointed out where more development was necessary for the game to achieve its goals, but isn't really evidence that the underlying design ethos or gameplay system is problematic. Just that game design is hard.

 

[Manbearcat]

My understanding of the primary difference of the S in the GDS model vs the S in the GNS model is the following:

GDS: Simulation here is primarily interested in facilitating a functional Gamist layer from moment to moment. Its about building out a working model, nailing down causal relationships, preoccupied with internal consistency so that players decision-trees are sufficiently informed to explore and resolve challenges in an imagined space.

If an “experiential quality of being there” is achieved…well sure, but that’s somewhere in the 2nd/3rd order effect of by-proxy and incidental.

GNS: My understanding here is the agenda is concerned with the sustained “experiential quality of being there” whether “there” is an imagined space underwritten by genre trapping and trope or something more akin to our material world (modern or historical).

If the execution of that primary goal facilitates another functional layer of challenge-based play (regardless of what that challenge may be), it is incidental as all focus of design and play operationalizing should be on the primary goal.

---

Ironically, the GNS version is a speculative means to its own end while the GDS version is a means to the “G” end (while embracing the by-proxy/incidental part).

That is my understanding. Specificity and breadth of focus and design goal + goal’s relationship with incidentals. Could be subtly wrong (or worse) here as its not something I’ve been preoccupied with historically, but that is my sense of things.

---

Finally, yes, you absolutely can have Sim design goals and execution that suck at creating an “experiential quality of being there” or suck at “facilitating Gamism” or suck at both.

And you can also have people that don’t actually understand what the experiential quality of being there is cognitively like because they have little to no first-hand experience and are relying on their imaginings and internalizing of genre tropes as (mistaken) cognitive shorthand. But boy will they be sure to tell you that well-designed system or someone with actual experience is wrong on the matter!

The suite of 4e Defender mechanics is the mother load of this one. I’ve grappled my whole life, I’ve been in multiple physical conflicts with 3-5 people, and I’ve played football and basketball my entire life. The integrated area/participant control suite of abilities in 4e Fighters is easily the best version of this ever on offer (amazingly managing the G, both versions of S, while facilitating the address premise of GNS N), yet the “THIS IS THE WORST/MOST RIDICULOUS/MOST VIDEO GAMEY THING EVER” refrain by a loud cohort of detractors/agitators bent on burning everything to the ground was absolutely deafening.

 

[Umbran]

This is just an argument that game design is hard

Well, yes. And there was failure here. Too much adherence to a single goal (simulation, in this case) can make it harder to make an enjoyable game, by stomping on any other goals the players might have. That's the point.

...given their goal was not to incentivize a hard choice between several unacceptable outcomes.

The person who wasn't there, and didn't speak to the writers, maybe shouldn't tell me what they were or weren't incentivized to do. I've played a bunch of games by these people, and this is the first failure I've experienced. And hard choices are in their usual toolbox.

And, maybe YOU find the division of Berlin, and the start of the Cold War as we knew it, "acceptable", but maybe don't expect that of players.

 

[Pedantic]

Well, yes. And there was failure here. Too much adherence to a single goal (simulation, in this case) can make it harder to make an enjoyable game, by stomping on any other goals the players might have. That's the point.

This is the whole thing, you're conflating a process and a goal here. The process is neutral with regard to the goal, but could complicate achieving it.

The person who wasn't there, and didn't speak to the writers, maybe shouldn't tell me what they were or weren't incentivized to do. I've played a bunch of games by these people, and this is the first failure I've experienced. And hard choices are in their usual toolbox.

And, maybe YOU find the division of Berlin, and the start of the Cold War as we knew it, "acceptable", but maybe don't expect that of players.

I don't think we're disagreeing here. You seemed to propose that the designers did not intend the players have to pick between the world ending, the division of Berlin and nuclear war, but that was the outcome of their mechanics?

So clearly the incentives created by the mechanics did not meet the design goals (or maybe those goals were insufficiently well articulated so this scenario didn't come up?) That's classic design failure, what I'm suggesting is that the next conclusion you draw (roughly "and that is the fault of attempting simulation") doesn't follow.

My follow-up example is attempting to demonstrate that design failure should not be construed as intrinsic to a game process, and that it's not necessarily surprising that even seasoned game designers run into it, because game design is hard.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My understanding of the primary difference of the S in the GDS model vs the S in the GNS model is the following:

GDS: Simulation here is primarily interested in facilitating a functional Gamist layer from moment to moment. Its about building out a working model, nailing down causal relationships, preoccupied with internal consistency so that players decision-trees are sufficiently informed to explore and resolve challenges in an imagined space.

If an “experiential quality of being there” is achieved…well sure, but that’s somewhere in the 2nd/3rd order effect of by-proxy and incidental.

No. Having been there when it was developed, I can promise you that the primary purpose was to create an imagined space that was consistent and seemed to represent world coherence; any Gamist benefits were entirely coincidental, and in fact the initial Simulationists were pretty irritated if Gamist concerns got in the way (once the setting was already chosen, which might well be chosen to make sure those two were in some alignment, but once that was done GAmism could just wait in the back of the car).

 

[pemerton]

the initial Simulationists were pretty irritated if Gamist concerns got in the way (once the setting was already chosen, which might well be chosen to make sure those two were in some alignment, but once that was done GAmism could just wait in the back of the car).

Isn't the thing that I've bolded basically the whole of @Manbearcat's point?