Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs

[pemerton]

Ernest Adams was primarily writing for videogame design.

That was my impression.

Currencies as a tool of game design had been well explored by videogame designers, so that element of what Vincent was writing was not new (though neither was it misleading or unhelpful!)

Vincent gets it from Ron Edwards. I don't know if Edwards gets it from video game design. He uses Champions as a principle example.

I think Vincent's most important contributions have been in the direction of "how to relate the fictional and the mechanical" which he accurately characterised in the piece you quoted as "one of the ongoing and outstanding crises in rpg design." You might recall for example that we debated awhile back the prospect of games like chess as engines of fiction. Through long contemplation of your and Vincent's arguments I now think it is right that although a game of chess produces a history, and although one can have conceits in mind for the pieces, the moves, and the board, when one plays chess one is not involved in manipulating fiction. One plays chess in the real world, as it were.

One of the unique challenges of TTRPG design is crafting rules that manipulate - are informed by and have effect in - fiction. Ernest Adams is emphatically not addressing that problem.

Yes to all this.

Here's a very good essay by Vincent; I've cut out the examples, but it's about how actions are declared and resolved:

Maybe we CAN say what our characters do. Maybe the way the dice or cards work, there's a little space where we can pause and just say it. Maybe that's even what we're supposed to do. "Always say what your characters do," the rules say, maybe. "No exceptions and I mean it." It remains, though, that we don't HAVE to, and if we don't, the game just chugs along without it. We play it lazy . . . The rules [of In A Wicked Age] say "say what your character does. Does somebody else's character act to stop yours? Then roll dice." That's what the rules say. But if, instead, you say what your character intends to accomplish, and somebody else says that their character hopes she doesn't accomplish it, and you roll dice then - the game chugs along, not noticing that you're playing it wrong, until suddenly, later, it grinds to a confusing and unsatisfying standstill and it's not really clear what broke it. If you play In a Wicked Age lazy, the game doesn't correct you . . .

So now, if you're sitting down to design a game, think hard. Most players are pretty lazy, and telling them to do something isn't the same as designing mechanisms that require them to do it. Telling them won't make them. Some X-percent of your players will come to you like, "yeah, we didn't really see why we'd do that, so we didn't bother. Totally unrelated: the game wasn't that fun," and you're slapping yourself in the forehead. Do you really want to depend on your players' discipline, their will and ability to do what you tell them to just because you told them to? Will lazy players play the game right, because you've given your IIEE self-enforcement, or might they play it wrong, because the game doesn't correct them? Inevitably, the people who play your game, they'll come to it with habits they've learned from other games. If their habits suit your design, all's well, but if they don't, and your game doesn't reach into their play and correct them, they'll play your game wrong without realizing it. How well will your game do under those circumstances? Is that okay with you?​

The challenge of how to design mechanics that will require the participants to imagine the things the game needs them to imagine, if it is to work well and be fun, is not straightforward.

 

[pemerton]

Be better!

About what? I noted that I'm an expert in several fields. I have friends and colleagues who are also experts. And I rely on them to learn truths, as they rely on me.

The idea that it is an error to rely on experts is silly.

 

[FrogReaver]

About what? I noted that I'm an expert in several fields. I have friends and colleagues who are also experts. And I rely on them to learn truths, as they rely on me.

The idea that it is an error to rely on experts is silly.

You asked if I preferred arguing from ignorance… Be better!

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well... this sentiment explain alot!

Be better!

 

[Umbran]

Well thats an obligation to reference Dunning Krueger if I ever saw one.

Mod Note:
We should endeavor to be kind to each other in this discussion.
Is the implication here kind? No. So, you can do better. Please try.

 

[Manbearcat]

I liked the post because I don't agree that many of the things you are calling problems are actually problems.

As an explicit example, you said: (no forum quote so it shows if you reply)
"If the game doesn't center these things as nexus of conflict, then there is a mismatch between design and position. One of those two need to conform to the other or we've got either a game that isn't about the character sheet position or a character sheet position that isn't in-line with the game.

This is a problem that sometimes comes up."

I don't believe that's actually a problem. To be kind i'd say it's a problem for your personal preferences. To more directly answer your question - You have a concept (preference) that things on the character sheet need to be 'central to the game' - and by that you mean more than in an 'aids roleplay' kind of sense that I spoke of in my previous post. That concept isn't universal. It's a preference. An understandable one, but still a preference.

Ok, so here are my actual preferences when it comes to character sheets (which I only interact with by proxy of player either lamenting sheet design or seeking clarification) or game design generally:

* I want designed games to say what they do.

then...

* I want those same games to do what they say.

I GM for a lot of either two things; established players that are new to a system or new players that haven't played TTRPGs.

Just like everyone (yourself included) has historically haggled over "what should be in core D&D materials" as they index things like scarce page count and the competition of content for said page count, establishing norms and foundation via what is in the basic/core set, so too do people do the same with the very important character sheet resource. Just like any other game material text, a character sheet should spend its scarce resources formalizing how the PC stuff therein concretely connects to, and directs, play.

You can absolutely have exceptions to normative design (at the system-level, at the character sheet level, etc) or even carve them out intragame (like an additional materials or a "hacking" section), but things in our world that fail to say what they do and/or fail to do what they say yield discord or dysfunction (often both) and that only increases when either (a) scaled up or (b) the built-in failure (even if intended) defies both convention and intuition simultaneously. The number of examples that we have of (b) just in the D&D space is_absolutely_staggering. And we can't even agree on what constitutes (b)! So better to firm up (b) as much as possible in a general design landscape and then carve out exceptions and make those exceptions explicit and clear (both the "what" and the "why").

So if someone wants to build a game where system mastery and gotchas in deck-building (or this conceptual game's derivative) yield a hidden meta that is purposely subverted by the instructional text...have at it. But somewhere, this purposeful subversion of the text's "say what you do and do what you say" and this hidden meta as tenets of design need to be transparently called out...or the game has a serious risk of going extinct like MtG playsets that degenerate into either (i) an extraordinarily narrow play-scape or (ii) utter lack of participants because the hidden and/or narrow meta has killed play interest (from both casual players who don't want a game to decieve them/hide what its about or hardcore players who want a diverse, dynamic play-scape).

 

[Umbran]

First, I'm a great believer in arguing from authority, given that I am an expert in several fields and know experts in several others.

"Argument from authority" and arguing from a position of expertise are not the same thing.

In making an argument from authority, one says, "I am an authority, therefore I am correct," without giving other support for the position. It is basically saying, "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

In making an argument from a position of expertise, one is an expert, and has all the required information and concepts to give support for the position. If one does not present the information and concepts, the expert/authority status does not, in and of itself, give credence to a position.

Second, in the post you replied to I didn't point to any authorities. I pointed out that certain RPGs have actually been designed by applying the methods that Vincent Baker sets out...

I think one issue at hand is that, "Baker wrote this essay" and "Baker made these games" doesn't actually show that the elements in the essay, as presented in that essay, are actionable by someone who isn't Baker.

Like, Stephen Hawking, definitely an expert on physics, wrote A Brief History of Time. It gives a conceptual overview of several cosmological ideas. It isn't actionable, however - you get some understanding, but can't actually DO anything with the concepts.

 

[Deset Gled]

Ok, so here are my actual preferences when it comes to character sheets (which I only interact with by proxy of player either lamenting sheet design or seeking clarification) or game design generally:

It's fair to say your preferences differ from mine.

It's not fair to say that your preferences are "best practices".

It's also fair to say that there is nothing in this post that justifies your position that a character sheet shouldn't include information that is not central to gameplay. Information like an extensive background that is not directly referenced in the game narrative, a sketch of the character, or some mechanical information that is unused over the course of play are still reasonable things to include on a character sheet. The fact that you don't want them there is simply another preference of yours.

 

[Umbran]

In classic D&D, when I say "I walk down the corridor, and when I get to the end of it I take my hammer and spikes out of my backpack", I am making moves in the game, changing the shared fiction, but no mechanic is invoked.

You probably have to allow for mechanics that are not invoked proximal to the action resolution.

In classic D&D, the mechanics that enabled that action declaration (acquiring the hammer and spikes as resources to use) were invoked in the past, back in town when the PC spent points of gold to establish that they had bought the hammer and spikes.

Indeed, we can even contemplate a game in which the imaginative narration part of play is entirely (or almost entirely) divorced from mechanical resolution:

First, the players and GM engage in a trick-taking game with an ordinary deck of cards - Pitch, cribbage, hearts, spades, or what have you. The score value of each trick, and who took it, and the suit of the card that finally won the trick are recorded.

Then, the GM will frame, and the players will collaboratively narrate imaginative scenes that will tell the story of the PCs trying to reach some goal - one per trick in the card game - each scene with some central conflict. Whoever won the trick for the scene succeeds in that conflict. The suit of the card that took the trick inspires how the conflict is resolved: Hearts for success through social interaction, Spades for violent conflict, Clubs for application of magic, and Diamonds for displays of skill or cleverness. The value of the trick can inspire the degree of success in the conflict resolution.

If the GM won the card game, overall, the PCs fail at achieving the overall narrative goal of the adventure. If one of the players (or the players collectively) won, they achieve their own overall narrative goal for the session.

Imaginative engagement is still core to play, roles are still taken by players. But the narrative is unknown at the time the mechanics of conflict resolution are invoked.

 

[Emberashh]

Ernest Adams was primarily writing for videogame design.

The thing Ive come to learn is that there's a recurring bias against video game designers that isn't really called for, and while you're not exactly being hostile about it, needing to otherize Adams in that way (in the quoted sentence) is an example of it.

And that becomes especially important, as the book in question is very open both about its intended audience, but also the fact that its principles are universal at the level of abstraction they exist in. Game design is game design, and (discrete) mechanics are not dependent on a specific medium.

But more than that, I've also found that what all I ever actually learned from RPGs almost all came from just reading and examining the games that I hoped did the same things I was looking to do. And it wasn't until this book that I had a way to not only quantify what a game (any game) was doing, but also a way to replicate and tweak, and especially to innovate.

I wasn't getting any of that from any RPG designer; not even the ones I find agreeable. I've never actually disagree with AngryGM for example, and I've expressed how much it felt like the Arora authors were basically speaking my thoughts back to me, but neither one really taught me much about game design.

One plays chess in the real world, as it were.

Stories still happen in the real world, however, so if a story is what one is after, Chess is a possible avenue. The implicit value judgement here is that the stories Chess generates aren't the same as a genre emulating story, and thus they're lesser.

While it is true that the stories are not the same, whether or not one is better than the other is subjective. And moreover, that value judgement also speaks to intention. Baker et al were not exactly coy about pushing genre emulation (ie, storygaming) specifically, and no matter what people may percieve, that is its own game type.

It can and has been hybridized with RPGs, but it is not the end all be all nor does it have to be.

Its fine to believe that they're the second coming and to prefer to foster a design style that will reproduce these hybrids, but you need to be honest about it, and you need to recognize that you're not espousing a universal design credo. (Generic you, if there was any doubt)

Ernest Adams is emphatically not addressing that problem.

I would argue that he is, if partially. For one, the term "the fiction" isn't very precise, and the way its being used is as a contextual chameleon; you have to rely on context clues to get what anyone's talking about and not what the actual word means or what it implies.

But beyond that, what Adams focuses on in the book is player centric design, and thats what the machinations are useful for examining. Much of what we're calling fiction problems in this topic absolutely are covered by this methodology (encumberance for example, as I related in one of my earlier replies).

Now, Adams does truly not cover what I call aesthetics, but that doesn't mean his methodology is incomplete. As I related in my combat system anecdote, the methodology can identify aesthetic issues, and IMO, they're not really all that hard to solve.

Meaning that there are design problems to solve for them that don't arise in other kinds of games.

Sure, specific mediums have unique problems. Those unique problems aren't mechanic problems, however. I'd offer up an alternative terminology in this case: a TTRPG rule book is a different product from a video game, and so they come with their own design concerns.

However, the underlying game in both are not mutually exclusive, particularly if one takes to the distinction the book makes: there's more than one broad type of mechanic. Continous mechanics are the things you're pointing to that video games hold as a unique problem. Rapid, 1:1 Gravity simulations and such that are heavily impractical, if not impossible, to utilize without a computer.

Discrete mechanics, however, are distinct from that in that they have dramatically less (all the way down to zero) computational overhead, and as such are more broadly applicable to all games, regardless of the medium. Discrete is what the book exclusively focuses on.

Something else the book talks about to prove this point (that mechanics are media independent), is that board games are often digitized 1:1, and the underlying game doesn't necessarily change just because the medium did.

Take Chess. Most of the time, there's only going to be one explicit mechanical difference that results from digitizing chess: the obligate addition of an AI to play against. Playing against a Chess AI does produce a meaningful mechanical difference in how Chess plays, but the same digital version is typically able to be played multiplayer and thus the the original experience is maintained.

RPGs are naturally more complex than Chess is mechanically, but the throughline that says something is fundamentally changing by a change in medium isn't being supported by your contentions.

(But it is when you recognize the implicit improv game that's lost as a result of digitization, hence the importance of identifying whats actually in these games)

How do we craft mechanics when the results are uncertain yet intended to fall within certain norms? What norms do we make appeal to, and what is the ideal way to make that appeal? How can we constrain it? What purposes might we conceive for such mechanics?

Here's the problem: if I have to ask what your questions mean, you're getting in your own way in terms of design.

Adams was more the sort of writer who was able to communicate concepts others had developed to a wider audience, rather than said anything especially new.

That's not surprising. When I first came across the concept it became a quest to try and find the source, and Adams book is where I stopped as it teaches how to make and use them. Knowing there's earlier material is good to know.

For example, what TTRPG designer has had to worry about .... Or the complexity of pathing, collision, and physics, in a similar light?

I have . That tends to come with the territory when you want a higher fidelity tactical combat system.

Not exactly the same problem you're relating (ie, a software engineering concern), but the underlying game elements aren't any different, especially in regards to how they interact with the chosen medium. My game uses a hybrid mapping system that combines position based combat with zones, and so by abstracting mapping in that way I have to be particular about how those elements work.

Im actually not even convinced Ive got it right so far, but the holiday weekend should prove fruitful in answering that definitively. (Itll be the first time I'm taking the system out of my proverbial simulator)

At a TTRPG table, players can imagine and continue to imagine things in the yard, so long as they like.

I think it should be considered that this is just as possible in a video game. The use of a rendered, physical/digital gamespace doesn't preclude the capability to percieve the overall "scene" as something more than its parts.

The difference comes in making those additional imagined elements a new and integrated part of the gameworld, which is where the improv game comes in.

But it should also be considered too that games have come a long way, and while the possibility space doesn't approach infinity (frankly Id dispute that tabletop approaches it), that doesn't mean they can't create satisfying emergent narratives and gameworlds.

The Shadow of Mordor/War games for example have proven how far one can go (so far) in a video game to make an explicit narrative emerge out of comparatively simpler progression and emergent mechanics.

And meanwhile other games have explored the idea of crafting and world shaping in providing the same idea for gameworld elements. Minecraft is the premiere example of that, and similar scope games like Space Engineers have also done really well in this regard.

And as I related previously (or at least thought, its a long discussion at this point), I contend that there's different kinds of stories that can be told and the genre emulating ones aren't the only ones worth looking at. Anectdotally, I can say that the most memorable moments or stories I've had in any game, tabletop or digital, couldn't have ever come out of genre emulation.

I want designed games to say what they do.

then...

* I want those same games to do what they say.

This is more or less my thoughts exactly.