What is your Game About?

[Celebrim]

I pretty much disagree with the whole premise.

First, I find games that are 'about something' make for great one shots and mini-campaigns, but really aren't that interesting in the long run because they are too one dimensional.

Second, even supposing I have a game that is about 'Hope', having a 'Hope' attribute doesn't make the game more about 'Hope' nor does having a 'Hope' attribute and mechanic necessarily mean that the game is about 'Hope'. This is pretty obvious examining existing games. In WoD, having a willpower score in no way meant that games were about resisting becoming monsterous. In practice, virtually no WoD were about that, and to the contrary examination of the monster was almost completely absent in most WoD's I was familiar with. In practice, a game master that tried to force the game to be about that would have found the willpower score to be a very great obstacle to doing so, since any player not desiring this to be a game about the descent into monsterousity (if only for the simple reason that attributes like 'willpower' and 'hope' are means of interfering with player choice) would have simply gamed around the willpower mechanic. At that point, all the willpower mechanic was was a sort of tax on the player's other attributes, the severity of which depended solely on the story teller's inclination.

Likewise, the presence of dark force points in Star Wars doesn't necessarily make the game about resisting the pull of the dark side. And for that matter, having a sane score in Call of Cthullu doesn't necessarily make the game about retaining your sanity in anything but the most mechanical sense.

My answer to this question is very simple: my game is about the player's characters. Everything that happens is simply a stage for them to work out who those characters are and every story is ultimately about them. Hense, my game is about 'Hope' if and only if one of the players wants to explore the theme of hope. I could not force my game to be about hope by including a hope mechanic if such an exploration was uninteresting to them. It's far easier to railroad the players into exploring a dungeon than it is to railroad them into exploring an idea. At most, and this is from my experience really asking to much of a game system no matter how well designed, the mechanics and setting of a game might suggest particular lines of inquiry, particular themes, and particular tropes but for the most part the focus of the story is up to the players.

 

[Celebrim]

For example, if I decide that I want to make an adventure about exploration and discovery, I have to make sure of some pretty key elements. First, there better be something to discover and somewhere to explore. But, also, I should make sure that the discovered thing will be discovered, or my adventure would suddenly be about exploration and frustration.

I could really hammer Mr. Wick because his whole attitude rubs me wrong, but I'd probably be considered rude and overly aggressive for doing so.

Instead, I'll focus on this in hopefully a more gentle way.

If something cannot fail but be discovered, then there is no exploration really going on. What you have instead is narration. Your game becomes being about you narrating to the players with that as but passive participants. If you really want your game to be about discovery and exploration, you must make the game have many features which are very unlikely to be discovered and you must be content with that.

What you really need in an adventure which is about exploration and discovery is that the players ought to be able to discover something - even if it isn't what they are looking for; and, it ought to be possible to discover everything - even if its rather unlikely to happen in any particular order. If you only hide things so well that its clear to the player that the thing was meant to be found, there really won't ever be any rush of discovery or joy pertaining to doing so. There might possibly be joy at the thing discovered, but the act of exploring and discovering will have no real meaning in your game.

 

[Storm Raven]

No, it's not.

True. It is about divine grace.

 

[coyote6]

Hmm. John Wick, lots of disagreement -- I'm having flashbacks to Pyramid Online back in the "Play Dirty" days.

John Wick definitely approaches RPGs a bit differently from others, IME; I don't know that anyone would call him "Old School".

He also has a seemingly supernatural ability to rile people up. It's too bad, because often, even when I disagree with him, there's something that can be gleaned from what he says that I can theoretically use, though it often takes someone else to illuminate what it is (for example, Imaro pointing out that having a "Hope" trait doesn't have to mean it's a numeric value).

BTW, I think I've heard the anecdote mentioned before, and IIRC, it was about someone designing their own *game* asking Wick for game design advice; it wasn't someone talking about a GURPS Survivors campaign or something.

 

[Aus_Snow]

This is pretty obvious examining existing games. In WoD, having a willpower score in no way meant that games were about resisting becoming monsterous. In practice, virtually no WoD were about that, and to the contrary examination of the monster was almost completely absent in most WoD's I was familiar with. In practice, a game master that tried to force the game to be about that would have found the willpower score to be a very great obstacle to doing so, since any player not desiring this to be a game about the descent into monsterousity (if only for the simple reason that attributes like 'willpower' and 'hope' are means of interfering with player choice) would have simply gamed around the willpower mechanic. At that point, all the willpower mechanic was was a sort of tax on the player's other attributes, the severity of which depended solely on the story teller's inclination.

(Emphasis mine.)

IIRC, Willpower is in fact a common 'stat' among all the separate oWoD games. IOW, never a defining trait in any of them.

Instead, for example, you might find 'Humanity' (along with Conscience, Courage and Self-Control) in Vampire: the Masquerade, highlighting a/the central theme, right there. I can't remember what all the others were. Er, in fact, I've never known what they all were. But I'm pretty sure about the Vamp ones at least.

So anyway, there could be more to that stuff, in the oWoD, than you might have realised, or given it credit for.

edit --- As another example, from what I can tell (with a quick search!) Werewolf: the Apocalypse has Honour, Glory and Wisdom as its 'central thematic stats', or thereabouts. I might be completely wrong of course, but they look that way. Oh sure, there is Willpower (as always) and also Rage and Gnosis, which - I gather - fuel certain abilities, and act as pointers for particular behaviour. But the other three seem key, in the same way Humanity (et al) are in V:tM.


That aside, I don't necessarily agree with Mr. Wick, about a lot of things. He seems rather presumptuous at times, even though he also happens to come up with some good stuff along the way. Ah, well.

 

[Imaro]

I pretty much disagree with the whole premise.

First, I find games that are 'about something' make for great one shots and mini-campaigns, but really aren't that interesting in the long run because they are too one dimensional.

Well I pretty much disagree with this premise, again using Mouseguard as an example, a large part of the game is exploring one's characters beliefs. Now if the beliefs of one's character could never change, adapt, evolve or grow... then perhaps it would only be great for one shots and mini-campaigns (but of course this has more to do with the design of the game than what it's about). However because Mouse Guard takes this into account, it can only become boring or stale if your players run out of ideas for their beliefs. I think you're grouping in very broad, and not necessarily applicable terms here.

Second, even supposing I have a game that is about 'Hope', having a 'Hope' attribute doesn't make the game more about 'Hope' nor does having a 'Hope' attribute and mechanic necessarily mean that the game is about 'Hope'. This is pretty obvious examining existing games. In WoD, having a willpower score in no way meant that games were about resisting becoming monsterous. In practice, virtually no WoD were about that, and to the contrary examination of the monster was almost completely absent in most WoD's I was familiar with. In practice, a game master that tried to force the game to be about that would have found the willpower score to be a very great obstacle to doing so, since any player not desiring this to be a game about the descent into monsterousity (if only for the simple reason that attributes like 'willpower' and 'hope' are means of interfering with player choice) would have simply gamed around the willpower mechanic. At that point, all the willpower mechanic was was a sort of tax on the player's other attributes, the severity of which depended solely on the story teller's inclination.

Likewise, the presence of dark force points in Star Wars doesn't necessarily make the game about resisting the pull of the dark side. And for that matter, having a sane score in Call of Cthullu doesn't necessarily make the game about retaining your sanity in anything but the most mechanical sense.

All I see here, is the assumption that if it exists as a stat it must be what the game is about... which is not in fact what is being discussed. It's akin to saying just because SWSE has a Strength stat doesn't make it about lifting things... yes that's correct. But that in no way is addressing the original statement.

What's being said is that what the game is about should, through it's stats and/or a single stat, address what it is about and make that the focus of the game for the PC's.

My answer to this question is very simple: my game is about the player's characters. Everything that happens is simply a stage for them to work out who those characters are and every story is ultimately about them. Hense, my game is about 'Hope' if and only if one of the players wants to explore the theme of hope. I could not force my game to be about hope by including a hope mechanic if such an exploration was uninteresting to them. It's far easier to railroad the players into exploring a dungeon than it is to railroad them into exploring an idea. At most, and this is from my experience really asking to much of a game system no matter how well designed, the mechanics and setting of a game might suggest particular lines of inquiry, particular themes, and particular tropes but for the most part the focus of the story is up to the players.

No you could not force your game to be about hope with just a "Hope" mechanic... however if you created a D&D character sheet and had a prominent spot where a "Hope" stat was inserted, you're telling me your players wouldn't be curious about it? Now let's take it a little further, they ask you what it's for... and you explain to them how it will feature prominently in the gameplay of the next campaign, through what it is composed of and how it interacts in major ways with their character...

Now at this point one of your players may say... "Eh, doesn't sound like something I'm interested in."... and that's fine, same as genre you need buy in and if it's not there the game will suck. However what if your group goes "Cool, let's play"... more than likely your D&D game will now be about hope, in the capacity that you have chosen to explore it in.

I see this as no different from saying we're going to play in a gothic horror setting and expecting, after everyone agrees, for players to buy in. You call that railroading but I don't see it that way.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sorry, false dichotomy. Sandbox does not equal no narrative. Sandbox just means significant chunks of the narrative control goes to the players.

And I can dungeon delving is just one more setting for a narrative, if you want it to be.

I don't think I claimed they were mutually exclusive. This isn't a zero-sum system. There's elements of narrative in most any RPG; calling out a theme merely brings this into sharper focus. If you're not looking for a narrative focus, a theme is kind of superfluous because what your game is "about" isn't as important as what your characters do or how effective in combat they are (essentially, your game is about exploration or heroic battle, so the question is answered and isn't that key).

First, I find games that are 'about something' make for great one shots and mini-campaigns, but really aren't that interesting in the long run because they are too one dimensional.

Two things.

First of all, that's only true if they don't change, or if the theme is weirdly narrow. I mean "hope" is very broad; everything from Mad Max to Star Wars to Harry Potter is about hope. Hope is not something that is necessarily one-dimensional.

Second of all, even if they are static and the theme is narrow, how long does a campaign need to last? IMXP, most groups have trouble staying together for more than a few months at a time. If it can take you through a dozen sessions or so, what more do you need? Play for four months, then re-set.

 

[thedungeondelver]

My game is about four and a half hours long, every other Sunday.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I really don't know. Maybe that's the problem.

 

[Celebrim]

(Emphasis mine.)

IIRC, Willpower is in fact a common 'stat' among all the separate oWoD games. IOW, never a defining trait in any of them.

Instead, for example, you might find 'Humanity' (along with Conscience, Courage and Self-Control) in Vampire: the Masquerade, highlighting a/the central theme, right there. I can't remember what all the others were. Er, in fact, I've never known what they all were. But I'm pretty sure about the Vamp ones at least.

Doesn't really matter. You could lump them altogether, and the same would still be true. The WoD role-playing stats were simply gamed around. The games would have largely played the same if the stat didn't exist. When that wasn't the case, as for example with 'Wraith: the Oblivion', the game as originally envisioned was more or less treated as unplayable and any gameplay that did occur (at least that I saw) was more like Planescape than a ghost story.

So anyway, there could be more to that stuff, in the oWoD, than you might have realised, or given it credit for.

Is that theoretical on your part, or have you played in multiple groups?

Stats like Humanity were simply raised to a level where it didn't interfere with role play. To that extent, the existence of the attribute on your character sheet IMO tended to make the game less about humanity than it would have been were the humanity of the vampire left to role play. Players simply assigned themselves humanity to begin with, bought an appropriate amount of willpower to maintain it, and thereafter the question of their humanity was moot - it said so right on their character sheet. That let them go about playing the Matrix/Dark Superhero/Political/Sex games that they really wanted to play.

I suspect a 'Hope' stat in a theoretical post apocalyptic game would work much the same way. "My character is filled with hope. See it says so right here. Now lets move along."