System matters and free kriegsspiel

[Snarf Zagyg]

My joke was unproductive, but the above is cool?

Well, your "joke" was mocking people you don't agree with in a sarcastic manner.

Put another way, if you're engaged in a discussion (or argument) with someone, and you turn to your friend and mock the people you don't agree with, it is unlikely to help matters. As has been pointed out to you by two people now.

But yes, I should not have put in ugh, and I apologize- I was not mocking you, or "joking," but expressing a kneejerk exasperation that you keep treating all FKR games as having a single "system."

Yes, pick any FKR game. Whatever method of resolution that game uses is one of the appeals of that game. Having a rules light game is a decision made with a purpose. It will appeal to people who want the kind of game it will produce.

How the game functions will matter.

As I was saying .... your second sentence talks about the resolution system within a single game, then your third sentence discusses "rules light" games in general (that the decision to be rule lite is the system?), your fourth sentence seems to refer to the third (the rules lite, shared fiction) ...

And then your last sentence wraps back to the second- which is to say, how the game functions (the published rules) are not important; simply put, you can have the same shared fiction (the part that matters) with different resolution mechanics, and the point isn't the resolution mechanics.

But I don't think this is productive.

 

[Malmuria]

My investment in FKR over the few threads we've had on it recently amounts to, "hey, I found this blog post with some interesting and provocative ideas." I'm experiencing the collective response to be something like, "No! That blog post is objectively uninteresting!!"

That is, from what I can gather the people in this discussion who find some of these ideas interesting are not evangelists for the FKR brand, or at least I am not. My 'criteria' when I read these blog posts is that there may be an idea that is thought provoking and provides a new perspective that I could bring to my game (e.g. do I need this gigantic keeper's book for Call of Cthulhu? Here's a "Cthulhu"-themed game that's four pages. In fact, here's a short story by Lovecraft, let's just start there. etc). Whereas others are asking/demanding that whoever is in charge of this dang FKR movement to provide a thesis statement and a coherent articulation of core principles using the existing lexicon of rpg theory and vis-a-vis all other forms of rpgs on the market.

Put differently, I'm personally interested in playing an FKR game (either one of the specific games marked FKR on itch, or more likely just a game in an FKR-style). Very little that has been said this discussion gets me closer to that goal of running a successful FKR game, mostly because the criticism of these games are coming from people who have already decided that they would not like to play these games or in this particular style.

I will say part of what appeals to me, probably, is exactly the qualities that annoy other people, namely the incoherence and incompleteness of it all. In that it way its overall aesthetic is probably an extension of the "-punk" aspect of the osr, plus the youthfulness of diy spaces like itch and discord (and, certainly, that corner of the osr is not without its very serious problems! Hopefully we are more attuned to that now).

Similarly it has been posited that the fkr ideas are nothing new. Putting aside that this is a somewhat odd criticism to make of a 'movement' that makes explicit and constant reference to the 70s (19- or 18-...), it is perhaps apt in that I see, in between the lines, a gesture of forgetting and unlearning. There is something of a fascination of the hobby in its pre-1974 childhood, or to our actual childhoods, seeing in them both the core of our "play-pretend" games and also a space that had not yet been overly defined. The aim might be to recapture that exploratory mode.

Somewhat of a leap, but I'll mention I teach young people for a living, and their political sensibilities are inchoate, exploratory, sometimes predictably idealistic. One might be inclined to always ask of them, "but what is your agenda? What are your principles? But all of this has been tried before, and you are doomed to failure. You need to be practical." And of course youthful energy can be co-opted in a number of ways. On the other hand, this is to somewhat miss the point, and there is always something in their inclinations that seems essential even if they cannot always cogently articulate it.

View attachment 145170

This is my bookshelf. There are many like it, but this one is mine. There are many sorts of games here.

But what about your bookshelf full of novels? Or of history books? Could those be thought of as game books or as setting books?

I don't think that I'm inherently hostile to FKR.

I totally don't believe you! Weren't you arguing that fkr was tyrannical in its implicit micro politics?

To follow on this, I think you might be thinking that game design is about developing rules to play? That's part of it, but it's also the goals of play, the principles of play to support those goals, and the way you play. The rules are part of that third thing, but not all of it.

I'm an engineer. If you said that engineering design is just about specifying which screws hold a chair together and you'd rather just wing it with whatever you have at hand and works so you don't do design, I'd be very confused. Because just the idea of a chair is part of design -- what is it intended for, how will it be used, what shape does it need to be, how large, how strong, how pretty or utilitarian, how much can it weigh, how many do I need to make, how long will it last, how do we dispose of it, how does it need to be maintained. Screw specification is in there, as a part of how strong the chair needs to be and disposal and maintenance and even aesthetics, but that's not the entirety of design or even the barest fraction of how you design a chair.

re: invisible rulebooks. I understand them to the be the "rules" around genre. How do we know when we are reading a hardboiled noir novel vs a more conventional mystery novel? How do we know when we are listening to slowcore vs postrock? Further, as someone who teaches literary genre, I've found that you can try to enumerate key features, tropes, and styles, but that all these attempts at hard delineation, to make the "rulebooks" visible, as it were,, are less useful than to proceed through reading (or listening, or watching). In other words:

And the reason is because the design (in terms of the rules) takes a backseat to the play. That might seem bass-ackwards to you, but that's how it works. This keeps getting reiterated by the same people who are trying it out, and the response always seems to be variations of, "What about the design? What about the rules?"

yep

I started roleplaying with freeform message board roleplaying when I was 10. I have done freeform in person. I enjoy parlor LARPs. These are questions that need to have answers even if they are informal. Most freeform communities have a pretty well developed process. Sometimes there are formal guidelines. Sometimes informal, but there is a discipline to doing it well. I am looking for the discipline here.

That's interesting! Do you have any links to these guidelines and such? I believe some of this was the reference point for "OC" style games, but I missed out on that whole phenomenon, being out of the hobby for most of the current century.

Your insistence to "just do what your character would do" is true of all RPGs.

Not really related to the point you are making here, but I do notice an interesting double movement in the criticism in this discussion. There is 1) the criticism that FKR cannot be distinguished from other rpgs and, seperately, 2) criticisms of the fundamental presumptions of the role of the gm and player in fkr games. The interesting effect, for me, has been that the criticism in this discussion has moved away from FKR specifically (because, per (1), it lacks specificity) and to some of the foundational aspects of role playing games as a distinct medium more generally (for example, the digression where @overgeeked posted the definition/explanation of the core elements of an rpg as provided by the dnd 5e phb, but without explicitly marking it as such. Leading to criticisms that applied equally well to FKR--a ultra niche set of games that next to no one is playing--and 5th ed dnd, the most historically popular rpg on the market).

 

[overgeeked]

There's a difference between making fun of you and pointing out how a phrase you keep using hasn't shed any light on what would otherwise seem like something you're trying to shed light on.

There's a difference between whether something sheds light and whether your eyes are closed.

No, sorry. "Play the world" doesn't answer "what happens when I swing my axe at the orc" or any other action declaration. It's just not an answer.

It is. It's just not one you will accept. There's a difference.

I'd be less worried about the torture scene and other lines and veils type concerns, and more about the appropriate genre tropes. Even just within the Daniel Craig films, things can vary pretty significantly.

Sure. And as a responsible Referee you should cover that in your session 0.

And looking at Casino Royale, how would the card game be resolved? "Play the world" again does not answer this.

Any way you want. I've seen people bust out actual cards and play. You can also simply roll. Two players (or a player and Referee) roll 2d6 each, higher result wins.

How do we determine if Bond can outplay Le Chiffre?

Depends on the specific game. Some have traits that give you extra dice, some just roll, and some bust out the cards and play a hand.

 

[hawkeyefan]

And there's the disconnect. People playing FKR games disagree. It's just as valid as any other answer.

What would your character do? It depends on the character and the world they inhabit. Superman will react differently to Metropolis than Batman reacts to Gotham. Put Batman in Metropolis and there's a clash of contexts and expectation. Put Superman in Gotham and there's a clash of contexts and expectations. You can still turn those situations into game material, but it takes more work.

Fiction is used two ways. Your typical gamer "fiction first" as in the fiction of the in-character shared delusion play. And fiction as the source material. The source material absolutely can and does set the rules for the game.

What can my character do? It depends on the character and the world they inhabit. Can people fly? Not in Wuthering Heights...but they can in superhero fiction.

How will Batman react to Metropolis? The Fiction!

It's not an answer. The Fiction doesn't decide how Batman will react to Metropolis or anything else. The person writing the story decides. They certainly may draw upon previously established fiction related to Batman and to Metropolis....but that doesn't mean that there's a clear conclusion. One person may go one way, another may go in an entirely different direction.

When it comes to games, a mutual understanding of genre and trope and play expectations are all good things. But these are tools used to play. So we have ideas about Batman and his world and all that. But let's take an example of Batman trying to convince someone to not follow through on some scheme.

• Can Batman convince a bank robber who's grabbed a teller to drop his gun and let her go?
• Can Batman convince Joker not to drop the barrel of poison into Gotham's water supply?
• Can Bruce Wayne convince Lex Luthor not to proceed with his hostile takeover of Wayne Enterprises?
• Can Batman convince Catwoman to go straight and give up a life of crime?

These are all slightly different variations on the same basic scenario, but each has different factors that can influence the outcome. These are also scenes that could go either way; there is no certain outcome in any of them. So the fiction is not telling us how they are resolved. How a game handles that is very important to me as a player in order to understand Batman's chances of success, and for me to feel immersed in the game world and not just observing it.

Now, filtered through the general idea of FKR, there are a number of ways this could be handled. Maybe as a bonus or a penalty to the player's roll, or to the GM's opposed roll if that's how we go. Maybe roll 3d6 and keep the highest two for an advantage, or lowest two for some kind of disadvantage.

What exactly happens if Batman Succeeds? What if he doesn't? Who decides these answers? What happens if an opposed roll is a tie?

What was refreshing about it?

It was simple. It was elegant in that it did a lot of what Call of Cthulhu does with far less rules.

Other than the horrendous font, what's wrong with the label?

I didn't say anything was wrong with it; just that I'm not invested in it.

For me, the appeal is not just the ultralight systems, it's fiction first, immersive play, brains before dice, and the explicit ability to use anything as source material using "one" system. I'm fully aware that all these things exist already in the RPG space, but they haven't come together in quite the same way as the FKR. Other games do some of the same things, but not others.

This is all absolutely great. I'm glad these games are doing what you want them to do.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This might not be fair to the overall FKR, but at least the proponents of it in this thread seem to raising a steel wall when it comes to the decisions GMs are making about what happens in the fiction, how the setting is designed, and how scenarios are designed. To me those decision making processes are the most important part of any RPG design and how that process works out in play is instrumental in my decision to play or not play a given game. It feels like you guys do not think players should have any meaningful expectations about the game's content. Is that fair?

Weirdly, you answered your own question.

To clarify I favor games with a strong GM role and like many of those decisions being in the GM's hands, but I want a view into the process to tell if a game is worth my time.

Then try one. As a one-shot. You'll probably spend less time than we have here.

We all learn more by doing. Clearly, no amount of "tell" will work, so why not try "show?"

 

[Ovinomancer]

My investment in FKR over the few threads we've had on it recently amounts to, "hey, I found this blog post with some interesting and provocative ideas." I'm experiencing the collective response to be something like, "No! That blog post is objectively uninteresting!!"

That is, from what I can gather the people in this discussion who find some of these ideas interesting are not evangelists for the FKR brand, or at least I am not. My 'criteria' when I read these blog posts is that there may be an idea that is thought provoking and provides a new perspective that I could bring to my game (e.g. do I need this gigantic keeper's book for Call of Cthulhu? Here's a "Cthulhu"-themed game that's four pages. In fact, here's a short story by Lovecraft, let's just start there. etc). Whereas others are asking/demanding that whoever is in charge of this dang FKR movement to provide a thesis statement and a coherent articulation of core principles using the existing lexicon of rpg theory and vis-a-vis all other forms of rpgs on the market.

Put differently, I'm personally interested in playing an FKR game (either one of the specific games marked FKR on itch, or more likely just a game in an FKR-style). Very little that has been said this discussion gets me closer to that goal of running a successful FKR game, mostly because the criticism of these games are coming from people who have already decided that they would not like to play these games or in this particular style.

I will say part of what appeals to me, probably, is exactly the qualities that annoy other people, namely the incoherence and incompleteness of it all. In that it way its overall aesthetic is probably an extension of the "-punk" aspect of the osr, plus the youthfulness of diy spaces like itch and discord (and, certainly, that corner of the osr is not without its very serious problems! Hopefully we are more attuned to that now).

Similarly it has been posited that the fkr ideas are nothing new. Putting aside that this is a somewhat odd criticism to make of a 'movement' that makes explicit and constant reference to the 70s (19- or 18-...), it is perhaps apt in that I see, in between the lines, a gesture of forgetting and unlearning. There is something of a fascination of the hobby in its pre-1974 childhood, or to our actual childhoods, seeing in them both the core of our "play-pretend" games and also a space that had not yet been overly defined. The aim might be to recapture that exploratory mode.

Somewhat of a leap, but I'll mention I teach young people for a living, and their political sensibilities are inchoate, exploratory, sometimes predictably idealistic. One might be inclined to always ask of them, "but what is your agenda? What are your principles? But all of this has been tried before, and you are doomed to failure. You need to be practical." And of course youthful energy can be co-opted in a number of ways. On the other hand, this is to somewhat miss the point, and there is always something in their inclinations that seems essential even if they cannot always cogently articulate it.



But what about your bookshelf full of novels? Or of history books? Could those be thought of as game books or as setting books?



I totally don't believe you! Weren't you arguing that fkr was tyrannical in its implicit micro politics?



re: invisible rulebooks. I understand them to the be the "rules" around genre. How do we know when we are reading a hardboiled noir novel vs a more conventional mystery novel? How do we know when we are listening to slowcore vs postrock? Further, as someone who teaches literary genre, I've found that you can try to enumerate key features, tropes, and styles, but that all these attempts at hard delineation, to make the "rulebooks" visible, as it were,, are less useful than to proceed through reading (or listening, or watching). In other words:


yep


That's interesting! Do you have any links to these guidelines and such? I believe some of this was the reference point for "OC" style games, but I missed out on that whole phenomenon, being out of the hobby for most of the current century.



Not really related to the point you are making here, but I do notice an interesting double movement in the criticism in this discussion. There is 1) the criticism that FKR cannot be distinguished from other rpgs and, seperately, 2) criticisms of the fundamental presumptions of the role of the gm and player in fkr games. The interesting effect, for me, has been that the criticism in this discussion has moved away from FKR specifically (because, per (1), it lacks specificity) and to some of the foundational aspects of role playing games as a distinct medium more generally (for example, the digression where @overgeeked posted the definition/explanation of the core elements of an rpg as provided by the dnd 5e phb, but without explicitly marking it as such. Leading to criticisms that applied equally well to FKR--a ultra niche set of games that next to no one is playing--and 5th ed dnd, the most historically popular rpg on the market).

I'm not at all hostile to FKR. So far, it seems to have the same GM-as-central-authority that 5e has, if turned up a bit, and I like 5e, so that's not a problem. I like Cthulhu Dark's system, and it's been claimed as an FKR game (although I'm not sure anymore if anyone's still doing this). What I'm trying to elicit is what exactly makes FKR different and what are the defining traits of the approach. I can enumerate these for lots of other games - the hows and whys. I get seem to get anything for FKR except buzzphrases and generalities.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In a way, it feels like FKR is basically a complete surrender to the idea of "illusionism as principled play." I have no idea how our GM is really handling the inner workings of the fiction behind the scenes. What is determined as "meaningful" or "matters to the characters / matters to the fiction" is entirely behind an impenetrable "GM Third Wall."

One thing I would say here is that while I agree that some FKR games are like this, other FKR games very much allow player authorship of the fiction through explicit rules.

I know that's unsatisfying, but the division of authority with final authority lying with the referee (GM Third Wall) is not an absolute requirement for an FKR game.

If Tiny Frontiers leans heavily into the realm of FKR --- and everything I've read of FKR in this thread would seem to point that way --- I would find it difficult to see how FKR is viable for anything more than short-term play (mini-campaigns of 6-10 sessions), and only in circumstances where player-character actions are allowed to resonate within highly pre-framed areas of play that focus on tactical engagement.

This, I agree with. I think that most FKR games are best for short-term play (as you correctly note, mini-campaigns).

I think that it would be possible to run a full-on FKR campaign that's long term, but at a certain point, I'm guessing that there would need to be iterative rules generated by the table to allow for persistent and enriching play.

 

[Aldarc]

I totally don't believe you! Weren't you arguing that fkr was tyrannical in its implicit micro politics?

That had a lot to do with the language and rhetoric used surrounding it, particularly based on Ben Milton's framing of FKR.

 

[overgeeked]

How will Batman react to Metropolis? The Fiction!

Exactly.

It's not an answer.

Yeah, it really is. Here, let me show you...

The Fiction doesn't decide how Batman will react to Metropolis or anything else. The person writing the story decides. They certainly may draw upon previously established fiction related to Batman and to Metropolis....but that doesn't mean that there's a clear conclusion.

And there it is. Exactly. Past is prologue. There's 82 years of Batman lore to draw from. Though the few early years don't quite match up with the rest of it, there's some serious weight to the character's history. So when Batman starts acting out of character, most fans can spot it immediately. There might be things that are causing Batman to act that way the reader doesn't know yet, but unless there are unknown reasons, most fans would be right in their "that's out of character" assessment. So no, the fiction doesn't decide per se, but it does narrow the options. Thinning the field as it were. It provides expectations. Rules, if you like.

You can't have Batman suddenly start murdering people without raising more than a few eyebrows. Why? Because that's wildly out of character for Batman. Why? Because the fiction has established rules for his behavior. The fiction has established rules for how superheroes behave. We know that Batman plays the hard bad cop type in Gotham and we know that Superman plays the boyscout good cop in Metropolis. So if we put the bad cop in the good cop's city...sparks will fly. It's a situation with inherent tension. That's story and drama. Many comics have been written with less. I don't see why we'd need more to play a game of pretend.

One person may go one way, another may go in an entirely different direction.

Exactly. That's the fun of it. Not knowing. Being surprised. As PbtA games put it, play to find out.

When it comes to games, a mutual understanding of genre and trope and play expectations are all good things. But these are tools used to play. So we have ideas about Batman and his world and all that. But let's take an example of Batman trying to convince someone to not follow through on some scheme.

• Can Batman convince a bank robber who's grabbed a teller to drop his gun and let her go?
• Can Batman convince Joker not to drop the barrel of poison into Gotham's water supply?
• Can Bruce Wayne convince Lex Luthor not to proceed with his hostile takeover of Wayne Enterprises?
• Can Batman convince Catwoman to go straight and give up a life of crime?

These are all slightly different variations on the same basic scenario, but each has different factors that can influence the outcome.

Exactly. All established and defined by...wait for it...the fiction. The answers depend on the fiction. Is Batman in a hurry to get to the Joker and stop him from dumping those chemicals? Then he's just going to throw a batarang at the bank robber and be done with it. And of course Batman can't convince the Joker of anything. He's the Joker. Batman would have already thought of Lex taking over Wayne Enterprises and made sure it couldn't happen. Like not selling his majority share of the company. Batman has and will again in the future convince Catwoman to go straight...for a short time. But it won't last.

These are also scenes that could go either way; there is no certain outcome in any of them. So the fiction is not telling us how they are resolved.

No, but they are telling us what our options for resolving them are. Is Batman going to get Catwoman to permanently give up crime? Nope. Never happen. Is Batman going to convince the Joker to not murder people? Nope. Never happen.

You're putting the tension in the wrong spot to make a point. The tension in those scenes isn't whether Catwoman will go straight or whether Joker drops the chemicals. It's how long she'll be straight, what kind of team ups she and Batman have in the mean time, and what will finally make her go back on her word and start stealing again. It's in how Batman manages to save the people from death despite the Joker devising a super devious but utterly insane death trap.

How a game handles that is very important to me as a player in order to understand Batman's chances of success, and for me to feel immersed in the game world and not just observing it.

I know you hate it, but it depends on the fiction. If Batman says the right things, Catwoman will go straight for a time. No roll required. And no matter what Batman says, Joker will always drop the chemicals. No roll required. Batman only talks to Joker to stall and to hear the jokes to try on Alfred back home.

Now, filtered through the general idea of FKR, there are a number of ways this could be handled. Maybe as a bonus or a penalty to the player's roll, or to the GM's opposed roll if that's how we go. Maybe roll 3d6 and keep the highest two for an advantage, or lowest two for some kind of disadvantage.

All absolutely viable options. If you need a mechanical resolution.

What exactly happens if Batman Succeeds? What if he doesn't?

It depends on the fiction. I gave some details above.

Who decides these answers?

Generally the Referee. Some FKR games have shared authority but most are strong Referee authority.

What happens if an opposed roll is a tie?

Re-roll until there's a winner or describe what a tie would look like in the fiction. Spider-Man holding webs stopping both a train full of people and his girlfriend from falling to their deaths. That seems like a tie to me. Clearly not a win as no one is saved. Clearly not a failure as no one's dead...yet.

It was simple. It was elegant in that it did a lot of what Call of Cthulhu does with far less rules.

And that's one goal the FKR is pursuing.

 

[Malmuria]

One thing I would say here is that while I agree that some FKR games are like this, other FKR games very much allow player authorship of the fiction through explicit rules.

I know that's unsatisfying, but the division of authority with final authority lying with the referee (GM Third Wall) is not an absolute requirement for an FKR game.


This, I agree with. I think that most FKR games are best for short-term play (as you correctly note, mini-campaigns).

I think that it would be possible to run a full-on FKR campaign that's long term, but at a certain point, I'm guessing that there would need to be iterative rules generated by the table to allow for persistent and enriching play.

One interesting note, is that the Wuthering Heights game that @pemerton has linked to and recommended appears to be a recreation of the game the Bronte siblings played, using the rules from an 18thc French game that they probably had access to. But afaik, we don't know for sure what, if any, rules the siblings used for their "game." It appears to be some part collaborative worldbuilding, and then telling stories and inhabiting characters within that world. Whatever it is, it sounds like great fun!

It may sound closer to a game of ‘let's pretend’ or a creative writing exercise - and it was both of those things - but this imaginative fantasy of the Brontës' creation also had a lot in common with a modern tabletop roleplaying game.

The authors of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre were roleplaying long before Dungeons & Dragons

In 1845, two years before Wuthering Heights was published, Emily Brontë shared a train trip to York with her sister Ann…

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