A Question Of Agency?

[robconley]

Yeah, if that sounded judgmental it wasn't intended to be. What I mean is, in the game I wrote for example, there is (or would be if I bothered to add stuff like that since I don't personally need it) an explicit statement of agenda, clearly articulating what the game expects the GM to aim for.

Articulating one's focus is always a good thing. When it was the early 2000s and the major forums where hitting their strides, it made discussion a lot easier when I said "Hey this was my focus or goal is for doing this." Which helped later when talking about sandbox campaigns in the mid 2000s as part of the Wilderlands boxed set promotions. Look if you want a campaign where characters set the direction and the freedom to go anywhere, this is why the hexcrawl format of the Wilderlands is a good thing.

Which is why in 2020 I included this in the book I just published

While D&D generally has always had some fairly general statements and 'DM Advice' bits in various core books, it never really goes very far into articulating these things. A lot of people have simply never gone back and really articulated their principles. If you played kind of typical D&D, like what 5e seems to be aimed at, there is probably not much reason to, the game's structure is built around a fairly obvious paradigm.

True but be aware that when it comes to publishing as opposed to a discussion like this. I am more focused on the nuts and bolts than the overall picture.

This section is here if you want to do (or have) X, Y, and maybe Z.

When talking to folks, I find the vast majority of campaigns are kitbashes centered around a system. Basically 75% of what they use comes from say GURPS, or D&D 5e, and rest comes from elsewhere. The common denominator is that the referee and/or group found it fun to have their campaign.

So my philosophy of publishing my system is to present in discrete chunks. I just published the Basic Rule that serves as the foundation tying everything together. The next book will be the Lost Grimoire of Magic which not present stuff like class, and spell list but material on bringing magic users to life within the setting. My focus is not on creating stories about magic-user but enabling a referee and their players to experience life as a magic-user within a medieval fantasy setting.

Since thanks to D&D, medieval fantasy is a common trope, it works out in terms of utility across the larger hobby.

It is hard to know with people who have spent a lot of time perfecting a very specific play style. I expect, based on what you have said, that you have very definite ideas and thus a set of principles you're sticking with. I see you've listed some of them. It can be helpful to see such embodied clearly in the terminology and process of a specific game in a way that is 'designed in'. There's a bit more formalism, etc.

It too nuanced as far as my goals go. Blades in the Dark assumes that players using it want to experience a heist movie. So it narrowly focuses on supporting that idea. It neither good or bad. I on the other hand focus on giving my players the experience of being characters in a medieval fantasy setting. Which could mean that they try to execute a heist, or build a castle, or explore a dungeon, or weave a basket.

So I focus on not only how my subsystems work, but why they are there. My expectation if it not relevant to the referee then don't use it.

The same way with my referee advice. I have sections in the basic rules. One is on my experience making rulings with the OD&D mechanics. The other on how to bring the world outside of the dungeon to life as a place to adventure and experience.

What I don't do is focus on collaborative storytelling because that not what I write about. What I do is talk about my experience in making this work for players of different interest and skill. For example this comment I have on coaching.

Finally so do I have a structure or not in the sense of the Fate Economy or the BiTD heist? Kinda of which I will happy to discuss but in general I found while sharing and publishing stuff it doesn't really help other people trying to use my material. Eventually I will get to writing an Axioms of Adventure as part of the series but in general I prefer to show not tell as people find that more useful in figuring out whether my material is useful to them or not.

Like my ability system, if you don't do much outside* of combat or spell-casting, if your players don't care* if they better as some things outside of combat or spellcasting. Then the sub system is a distraction and shouldn't be used.

*I avoid trying to say, imply, or judge what people ought to be doing with their hobby. It counter productive and doesn't accomplish anything. Just explain why you do what it is you do and be done with it. The reason that some of my part in the thread is a debate is because I accomplish many of the goals of player agency sketched out here, but in a different way.

And yes, I get what you are saying about your playstyle. I think that's cool! It defends itself.

Excellent and thanks.

 

[prabe]

Lovecraftian horror is a genre that that is probably best run without any system. It just needs a GM that can evoke the right atmosphere and players that are willing to go along with. It really doesn't need a task resolution mechanic; if you investigate the correct thing you succeed, because the story needs that to move forward, and if you encounter monsters you lose in one way or another because that's how these stories end.

In my experience Lovecraftian horror is something best sprinkled onto other games, like spice when finishing a dish. There are bits of it in the campaigns I run, but it's never the undiluted thing: I like my TRPGs too heroic for that to appeal to me.

 

[Manbearcat]

To be frank, I think your definition of 'game' is unnecessarily limiting and doesn't correspond to how word is actually used. Like it or not, even LARP without any rules for resolving actions is 'a game.'

I play quite a bit of board games and a lot of tabletop wargames, but ultimately I want a pretty radically differnt experience from an RPG.

What do you feel is the minimum bar for something to qualify as a game?

Three things right off the bat seem clear to me:

1) There isn't a minimum threshold of participants. Solitaire (and games like it) are games.

2) Not all activities, past-times, and/or leisure pursuits are games. Looking at Christmas Lights is not a game, but I Spy while you look at Christmas Lights is a game.

3) Calvinball (where one participant changes the rules at will to perpetually facilitate their desired gamestate, undoing the integrity of play) is not a game.


So, to me, it looks like (a) something about shape, (b) something about desire/goal, and (c) something about structure giving shape to play and aiding integrity of play with respect to desire/goal (this is essential when two parties' have designs over desire/goal that collide).

Thoughts?

 

[Fenris-77]

Do we need to define game? Seriously, I'm not sure it's all that important to the discussion. Mostly because I don't think it aids in the move from there to a definition of role playing game, which would be helpful. I mean the following is the standard def:
a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck
and that seems sufficient for the purpose.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What do you feel is the minimum bar for something to qualify as a game?

That the people who play it consider it a game.

 

[Manbearcat]

What I don't do is focus on collaborative storytelling because that not what I write about.

I think upthread you said the you feel that games like Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark fall under "collaborative storytelling games" (which presumably this has some contrast with "traditional roleplaying games")?

I've heard this before by other parties. I'm wondering why you feel this way?

Again, like my (stupidly obnoxiously WTF) long post above, I have to bin this as another misapprehension of what is happening both at the systemization level and at the actual table level (the play) of these games.

If I were forced to give these games a tighter zoom name than Story Now (which does not translate to collaborate storytelling) or Play to Find Out, it would be Protagonist Collision gaming.

Players create dramatic need-laden protagonists under system premise (eg Gods watchdogs meting out justice and upholding the Faith in a supernatural wild west that never was) > GM creates threats/obstacles to the PCs dramatic needs > these things collide and we see who is ascendant, who is broken/bulwarked/changed (and how), and who is dust.

Story emerges out of that, but the process is definitely not collaborative (in the "hey guys we're all on the same side here lets get this rock up this hill" kind of way).

 

[Manbearcat]

Do we need to define game? Seriously, I'm not sure it's all that important to the discussion. Mostly because I don't think it aids in the move from there to a definition of role playing game, which would be helpful. I mean the following is the standard def:
a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck
and that seems sufficient for the purpose.

I think it’s an interesting question detached from the present conversation. It may or may not have anything salient to add to our present conversation (can’t know that yet).

That the people who play it consider it a game.

You are consistent!

 

[Fenris-77]

I think it’s an interesting question detached from the present conversation. It may or may not have anything salient to add to our present conversation (can’t know that yet).

I think it's a pretty secondary concern for our purposes. We have enough trouble getting our crap together here without deciding that we need to proceed from first principles.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think upthread you said the you feel that games like Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark fall under "collaborative storytelling games" (which presumably this has some contrast with "traditional roleplaying games")?

I've heard this before by other parties. I'm wondering why you feel this way?

That's an interesting question.

I won't dare answer for estar but for me it's because such games... well see below.

Again, like my (stupidly obnoxiously WTF) long post above, I have to bin this as another misapprehension of what is happening both at the systemization level and at the actual table level (the play) of these games.

If I were forced to give these games a tighter zoom name than Story Now (which does not translate to collaborate storytelling) or Play to Find Out, it would be Protagonist Collision gaming.

In my little inexperienced box, collaborative story telling is about collaborating to tell a story (all rpgs do this) DUH But the games that I would label as such are ones where the player has the right to establish facts about the story other than what his character attempts to do. In a more traditional game (no better word has been given than traditional) the DM would be the one doing that and even though he might sometimes delegate to the players or a player for some specific detail into the world, the player has no expectation that typical play will consist of the ability to do such things.

Players create dramatic need-laden protagonists under system premise (eg Gods watchdogs meting out justice and upholding the Faith in a supernatural wild west that never was) > GM creates threats/obstacles to the PCs dramatic needs > these things collide and we see who is ascendant, who is broken/bulwarked/changed (and how), and who is dust.

Story emerges out of that, but the process is definitely collaborative (in the "hey guys we're all on the same side here lets get this rock up this hill" kind of way).

I don't actually have a problem with describing those games as catering more toward dramatic needs. That's a description of them we all agree on? Maybe Drama First Rpgs?

 

[FrogReaver]

I think it's a pretty secondary concern for our purposes. We have enough trouble getting our crap together here without deciding that we need to proceed from first principles.

Yea, I mean if we are going to question basic concepts like what a game is and what fairness is, we might as well forget about any kind of substantial conversation ever happening.