System matters and free kriegsspiel

[Malmuria]

I think I would find it helpful if someone who thinks they "get" FKR better than me would identify some of the rules-heavy systems that are the objects of its critique. As I've said, 3E D&D seems to me to be the core of it; but are there other systems that are also being had in mind?

My impression is that pre-OD&D is the goal for FKR style play; I've heard the term "Arnesonian gaming" elsewhere. Incidentally, this view would place it in specific relation to the history of dnd more so than in relation to more recent non-dnd-like rpgs. Further, my impression is that in dnd-type games there is a particular relationship between system and setting that they are trying to invert. So, rather than playing a game of 1e, or 3e, or whatever in the setting of Greyhawk, you are "playing Greyhawk." For example, see some of the quotes included in this post:

Play worlds, not rules: Juggling ideas for stone age rpg sessions

… and I don’t mean The Flintstones here. What really is driving my interest these days (in terms of roleplaying games) is to go as far back as possible with the rules. And since it&#821…

darkwormcolt.wordpress.com

• “Doing it by the book” was impossible; the book – and the game rules – hadn’t been written yet. (1)
• “I mentioned that I’ve never really ‘played D&D’; I’ve played “something called Blackmoor with Dave, something called Greyhawk with Gary, and something called Tekumel with Phil” (2)
• “We played using whatever tools we needed at that point in the campaign – RPGs, Braunsteins, miniatures, boardgames, poker, you name it.” (12)
• “There’s a lot of nonsense about the way Dave played and organized Blackmoor floating about; a lot of people are assuming that he was working to A Great Master Plan when he wasn’t. He loved to simply play, and he whipped up the game mechanics and ‘history’ / ‘timeline’ to suit the game in progress. I guess that the best way to ‘play like Dave’ is to not over-think the thing – don’t worry about how it all has to make sense somehow.

There is something resonant here even when looking at the rules-lite games of the OSR. On osr forums, there is a lot of talk of "which system" to use. e.g. quesitons like, "do I use basic fantasy or OSE or the black hack?" Sometimes there is an attempt to "match" system and setting, e.g. "what system is best for barrowmaze/stonehell/ultraviolet grasslands?" or "how do I convert Against the Giants for Into the Odd." All those games might be rules lite, but there is a certain obsession over which of those variations of dnd are 'best.'

Part of my particular circumstance is that I have players who don't bother to read rules or principles anyway, so I'm basically running all the 'game' elements on my end anyway. I played a 5e campaign this way, which was done by the book, which for some of the players amounted to them rolling a die and me doing all the math and narrating the outcome. So rather than focus on system, what I want is for my players to turn to a random page of the Ultraviolet Grasslands setting book, look at one of the beautiful illustrations, and say 'this, whatever this is, I want to play this.'

 

[aramis erak]

As a wider community we can't even agree on a definition for roleplaying. Literally the thing we do collectively as a hobby lacks even a working definition, much less a precise or definitive one.

RP is a problematic word only when one wants to use it as exclusionary.
The problem lies when the minority use jargon in external discussions.

 

[Fenris-77]

Think of it like Fate's aspects only instead of the player having to spend a Fate point to get a benefit, the benefit is persistent. If you describe your character in a way that suggests they can climb, then they can climb. If you describe your character as an office drone who's a shut in couch potato, not so much.

Why would it? What about describing your character as 'climby' involves defining the characteristics of a wall you might climb?

Exactly like most games with mechanical weight to how climby your character is. If you have STR18/+4 and expertise in athletics that only tells you about your character...relative to other characters...but tells you exactly zero about the difficulty of climbing walls.

Exactly like most games with mechanical weight to how climby your character is. You still have to ask the D&D DM those questions. The only difference is you have the rulebook to look at to estimate what you assume your DCs will be. But you still have to ask in the moment how difficult this wall is at this time in the fiction.

Why would it? I guess that's a fair question. Think of it in terms of D&D, although that isn't particularly my jam. If I have a +8 to climb, i have a pretty good handhold (har har) on my chances of climbing any given wall, especially when you add in that the basic spread of DCs is the same from DM to DM. Now that really isn't materially different than 'climby', I'll grant you, but is more grounded. By which I mean I'm comparing a number I know to a likely range of numbers. Whereas with climby I'm comparing a less-well-defined number against a complete unknown. To grant another point, in both cases I can ask the GM "how climbable does the wall of the keep look?" which is perfectly reasonable question in the vein of what are my chances rather than may I. However, the answer to that question in D&D provides me, the player, with significantly more information than it does in FKR. The language of the answer in D&D indexes DC pretty precisely even if the DC isn't mentioned, which gives the player a very good idea what the PCs chances of climbing the wall are, which is solid emulation of a PCs fictional ability to decide that same thing for himself. It seems les so in FKR, to me anyway.

A caveat: this isn't me showing my flag as a hyper-cautious player. I'm not. I drive characters like stolen cars, to borrow a phrase, but a big part of enjoying that is that the games I like don't surprise me on the mechanics side, just on the consequences and results side.

To be clear, I bet this problem clears up with time played at the FKR table, and I'm really thinking about this as a new player trying to learn a system and figure out my character. I just see a lot of scope for FKR to feel like a shallow information environment with a lot of disconnects between GM and player knowledge sets and expectations. Obviously it's not always like that, lots of people really enjoy FKR, but I'm struggling a little to figure out why not. Much as @hawkeyefan said above, the examples given really don't appeal to me, and that doesn't happen to me very often with RPGs. Anyway, just searching for clarity. Thanks for the response.

 

[pemerton]

I am going to post some sincere responses.

My impression is that pre-OD&D is the goal for FKR style play; I've heard the term "Arnesonian gaming" elsewhere. Incidentally, this view would place it in specific relation to the history of dnd more so than in relation to more recent non-dnd-like rpgs. Further, my impression is that in dnd-type games there is a particular relationship between system and setting that they are trying to invert. So, rather than playing a game of 1e, or 3e, or whatever in the setting of Greyhawk, you are "playing Greyhawk."

To me there seems to be a big difference between playing Earthsea - which has been mentioned upthread, as an example (referring to this blog) - and playing Greyhawk. To the best of my understanding, Greyhawk as GMed by Gygax is not a fully-realised fiction like Le Guin's novels. It's a megadungeon with some associated stuff that includes an Alice in Wonderland pastiche, a King Kong pastiche, etc.

I'm also not sure that "playing Greyhawk with Gary" can be prised off the fact that Gary is an experienced wargame referee and designer who brings a certain set of play sensibilities to his table (as can be seen very clearly in his DMG, among other works).

Tekumel is obviously a bit different in this respect, although personally I think it's striking how close the Empire of the Petal Throne rules adhere to "exploration of the underworld" play. I don't know if this was Barker's concession to wargaming, or reveals something about the parameters of his fictional conception - I guess Jon Peterson or Shannon Appelcline has probably addressed this question.

Part of my particular circumstance is that I have players who don't bother to read rules or principles anyway, so I'm basically running all the 'game' elements on my end anyway. I played a 5e campaign this way, which was done by the book, which for some of the players amounted to them rolling a die and me doing all the math and narrating the outcome.

This paints a particular picture of the way in which your players want to engage with their RPGing.

So rather than focus on system, what I want is for my players to turn to a random page of the Ultraviolet Grasslands setting book, look at one of the beautiful illustrations, and say 'this, whatever this is, I want to play this.

This reminded me of this and this from Ron Edwards:

Exploration and its child, Premise
The best term for the imagination in action, or perhaps for the attention given the imagined elements, is Exploration. Initially, it is an individual concern, although it will move into the social, communicative realm, and the commitment to imagine the listed elements becomes an issue of its own.

When a person perceives the listed elements together and considers Exploring them, he or she usually has a basic reaction of interest or disinterest, approval or disapproval, or desire to play or lack of such a desire. Let's assume a positive reaction; when it occurs, whatever prompted it is Premise, in its most basic form. To re-state, Premise is whatever a participant finds among the elements to sustain a continued interest in what might happen in a role-playing session. Premise, once established, instils the desire to keep that imaginative commitment going.

Person 1: "You play vampires in the modern day, trying to stay secret from the cattle and coping with other vampires." [See atmospheric, grim, punky-goth pictures]

Person 2: "Ooh! Cool!"

Person 2 might have liked the grittiness of the art, the romance of the word "vampire," or the idea of being involved in a secret mystical intrigue. Or maybe none of these and an entirely different thing. Or maybe all of them at once. It doesn't matter - whatever it was, that's the initial Premise for this person. . . .

The key to Gamist Premises is that the conflict of interest among real people is an overt source of fun. It is not a matter of upset or abuse, and it is certainly not a "distraction from" or "failure of" role-playing.

• A possible Gamist development of the "vampire" initial Premise might be, Can my character gain more status and influence than the other player-characters in the ongoing intrigue among vampires?
• Another might be, Can our vampire characters survive the efforts of ruthless and determined human vampire hunters?

. . .

Narrativist Premises vary regarding their origins: character-driven Premise vs. setting-driven Premise, for instance. They also vary a great deal in terms of unpredictable "shifts" of events during play. The key to Narrativist Premises is that they are moral or ethical questions that engage the players' interest. The "answer" to this Premise (Theme) is produced via play and the decisions of the participants, not by pre-planning.

• A possible Narrativist development of the "vampire" initial Premise, with a strong character emphasis, might be, Is it right to sustain one's immortality by killing others? When might the justification break down?
• Another, with a strong setting emphasis, might be, Vampires are divided between ruthlessly exploiting and lovingly nurturing living people, and which side are you on?

. . .

Simulationist Premises are generally kept to their minimal role of personal aesthetic interest; the effort during play is spent on the Exploration. Therefore the variety of Simulationist play arises from the variety of what's being Explored.

• Character: highly-internalized, character-experiential play, for instance the Turku approach. A possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of Character Exploration might be, What does it feel like to be a vampire?
• Situation: well-defined character roles and tasks, up to and including metaplot-driven play. A possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of Situation Exploration might be, What does the vampire lord require me to do?
• Setting: a strong focus on the details, depth, and breadth of a given set of source material. A possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of Setting Exploration might be, How has vampire intrigue shaped human history and today's politics?
• System: a strong focus on the resolution engine and all of its nuances in strictly within-game-world, internally-causal terms. A possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of System Exploration might be, How do various weapons harm or fail to harm a vampire, in specific causal detail?
• Any mutually-reinforcing combination of the above elements is of course well-suited to this form of play.

The key to Simulationist play is that imagining the designated features is prioritized over any other aspect of role-playing, most especially over any metagame concerns. The name Simulationism refers to the priority placed on resolving the Explored feature(s) in in-game, internally causal terms.​

I think this is a good explanation of the pretty wide variety of ways in which a RPGer can want to play this.

 

[pemerton]

We don't need to regulate and encode anything beyond the genre expectations and if we can't decide based on the fiction, roll 2d6. If something needs to be encoded, like say the quantity of food a horse eats in a day, instead of looking in a rule book for the answer (D&D5E says it's four pounds, btw) you look to real life as much as possible and then only if it's relevant. Does it matter right now, in this moment, exactly how much food a horse eats? If not, then it doesn't matter. Horses need to eat 1-2% of their body weight in roughage a day, for what it's worth. Unless you're talking about really small breeds of horses, they need more than four pounds of food a day. And that's part of the problem. As gamers we default to the rules rather than reality

I think it's widely recognised that the need for RPG books (especially GM manuals) to serve as mini-encyclopaedias has passed.

In a Classic Traveller session that I GMed last year, the PCs were blasting/drilling through 4 km of ice. Their available tools included a triple beam laser turret. We wanted to know how long it took them - in Traveller this matters because it goes to upkeep costs (modest), crew salaries (a bit more than modest), ship repayments if in issue (currently not for this group of collectors of used starships), and also how long I have as referee for my various NPCs spread over multiple worlds to take action "offscreen".

To work it out, we Googled up some papers reporting on using lasers to melt ice and extrapolated wildly from those.

I don't think that makes us FKRer, though. Even back before Google, playing Rolemaster, I remember using actual encyclopaedias to answer questions about (eg) animal mass and speed; and using the expertise of the engineers at the table to resolve other technical questions. (And in another recent Traveller session I remember one of the engineers at the table face-palming multiple times in response to my narration of something-or-other involving electric fields, where I was trying to reconcile some aspect of a module setting I was using with some other bit of framing I was doing!)

In ultralight games, like most FKR games, there's already more rules than you'd expect in real life.

This isn't obvious to me. In real life I have a lot of knowledge about things I'm familiar with: eg I know how many exams I can mark per hour or per day. I know that I can run about 12 km in about 1 hour, but probably not 24 km in 2 hours! I know that I can standing two-legged jump up my Town Hall steps 3 at a time but probably not 4 at a time without risking injury!

I choose these examples because they correlate to the sort of issues of personal capacity that @Fenris-77 has pointed to in relation to climbing.

How important are these sorts of things in RPG resolution? Well, in a system like 4e's skill challenges, hardly at all, because the resolution framework operates independently of these sorts of fictional details (eg I declare I'm marking all the exams, and if I succeed on an INT or CON check as seems appropriate then I get them done, otherwise something goes wrong - depending on context the failure might be narrated as me falling asleep, or getting too bored to keep going, or some external interruption like a fire alarm, which did happen to me once). The fiction has a big impact on framing, and a big impact on consequences, but not a big impact on the actual resolution process.

In a system like Rolemaster or AD&D, this sort of detail often matters a fair bit, and outcomes can turn on whether or not a character is able to deliver a performance that is above the human minimum but not necessarily at the human maximum for the endeavour in question. (The actual way RM handles this is incredibly baroque: PCs have a static movement rate, derived from PC height and the Quickness stat; they have a Sprinting skill bonus; they have a Jumping skill bonus; how those bonuses are used to derive performance is extremely unclear, with multiple published subsystems none of which is fully transparent. I think Burning Wheel is far superior in this respect, with consistent resolution rules and less attempt at feet-per-second granularity.)

This issue of individual capability is applicable to horses and starships too. In real life some horses are hungrier and/or faster than others; some vehicles and some weapons perform better than others. Both RPG rules and encyclopaedias tend to flatten out this real-life variation.

So questions like "how do I climb a wall?" aren't answered with "on page 25 you'll find the DCs for climbing various surfaces" instead you'll get "it depends on the genre and circumstances in play at the time you want to climb a wall." How do you climb a wall? You tell the Referee that you climb the wall. They will make a decision based on the relevant circumstances in the moment if it's an automatic success, automatic failure, or you need to roll. If their decision sounds off to you, ask them. They'll explain their reasoning. It's a feature, not a bug.

To me, this sounds like a stripped-back RuneQuest (or similar "reallism"-oriented system with transparent PC gen).

 

[pemerton]

I bet this problem clears up with time played at the FKR table, and I'm really thinking about this as a new player trying to learn a system and figure out my character. I just see a lot of scope for FKR to feel like a shallow information environment with a lot of disconnects between GM and player knowledge sets and expectations.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Arneson, Gygax and others found that over the course of their play sufficiently many resolution subsystems crystallised that they were able to write them down and publish them.

Marc Miller in the original Traveller rules encourages the referee to make notes of decisions made about how to resolve situations, how to adapt the published subsystems, etc, so as to maintain a consistent world that is fairly adjudicated.

My understanding of some of the FKRers is that they want to live through this sort of process themselves rather than take the benefit of someone else's having done it.

 

[Fenris-77]

My understanding of some of the FKRers is that they want to live through this sort of process themselves rather than take the benefit of someone else's having done it.

See I'd call that the game design process, which is something I do. However, it's not something I'd pay for (not that anyone said that, just saying). Nothing wrong with it at all, but what you're describing is part pf the road to a more complete RPG, not a standalone RPG system, or set of ideals, or whatever, which is very much what at least some proponents of the FKR seem to want to index. I think if you told a lot of FKR fans that they were simply working toward a 'finished' or more compete RPG they might take umbrage. IDK... maybe it's true for some and not others. Anyway, I don't have an issue with it, but it doesn't seem to encapsulate or really index at all some of the failures to communicate we've had in the tread in places.

 

[pemerton]

guess the way your play example exemplifies a really hardcore 'author stance' approach

Using the terms "author" and "actor" in Edwards' sense here, it's mostly actor stance: that is, a person (me, the player) determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have as opposed to a person determines a character's decisions and actions based on the real person's priorities, then retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them.

In order through the play as posted:

* The two character's wanted to continue more-or-less due east on the other side of both streams. Actor stance

* This was heading into the neighbourhood of Auxol, and so Thurgon kept his eye out for friends and family. Actor stance

* Thurgon asked Rufus after Auxol. Actor stance

* Aramina was not meeting Rufus's gaze. Actor stance (including knowledge of the character's own traits and inclinations)

* Thurgon answered that she travelled with him and mended his armour. Actor stance

* Aramina looked Rufus directly in the eye and told him what she thought of him. Actor stance

* I (pemerton) told the GM that I wanted to check Ugly Truth for Aramina, to cause a Steel check on Rufus's part. Not an action declaration as such - that's already happened above - but a suggestion to the GM as to how, in mechanical terms, I believe Aramina's telling Rufus what she thinks of him ought to be resolved.

* Thurgon tried to break Rufus out of his shock and shame with a Command check: he should pull himself together and join in restoring Auxol to its former glory. Actor stance, again with an indication to the GM as to how, in mechanical terms, I believe Thurgon's attempt ought to be resolved.

* Aramina tried for untrained Command, saying that if he wasn't going to join with Thurgon he might at least give us some coin. Actor stance, again with an indication to the GM as to how, in mechanical terms, I believe Aramina's attempt ought to be resolved.

* The characters continued on, and soon arrived at Auxol. Actor stance

* I tried a different approach, to avoid the Duel of Wits the GM was pushing towards. Author stance - my real world priority was not to have my character be hosed in a contest I was pretty sure he couldn't win, partly because of his stats and partly because a Duel of Wits is resolved via blind declarations and my GM is a much better tactical wargamer than me and would crush me in the declaration process.

* I'd already made a point of Thurgon having his arms on clear display as he rode through the countryside and the estate. Actor stance

* Thurgon raised his mace and shield to the heavens, and called on the Lord of Battle to bring strength back to his mother so that Auxol might be restored to its former greatness. Actor stance - having retroactively motivated my character to try an "externa" rather than conversational approach to reconciling with his mother, I decided to perform this prayer by drawing on my knowledge of my character's situation, traits and inclinations.

* I decided that this made an impact on Aramina too: up until now she had been cynical and slightly bitter, but now she was genuinely inspired and determined. Actor stance - this is a decision based on the character's traits and inclinations plus having inhabited her through the previous sessions of play, the immediately prior interaction with Rufus, and then witnessing the miracle performed by Thurgon. The key turning point was the Ugly Truth check against Rufus, in which her expression of bitterness towards Rufus had been via an account of the (relative) virtue of Thurgon and their younger brother - if you like, Aramina had persuaded herself of the truth of her own invective! Witnessing the miracle drove this home.​

I haven't tried to classify the GM's stance in playing Rufus and Xanthippe, though I suspect it was mostly author stance, with his real-world priority being to apply pressure as a BW GM is meant to do. When I'm playing BW, I don't worry about the GM's reasoning process - to use Vincent Baker's terms from Apocalypse World, I am very happy to be misled! (Ie to take the GM's narration at face value as an account of the internal cause-and-effect logic of the fiction.)

But anyway, the fact that this is all actor stance is pretty important to my own play experience, which is mostly about intense inhabitation of the character, especially their emotional experience. This is why I love Burning Wheel, because it brings this more than any other RPG I know. (I expect Sorcerer is up there too but I've never played it.) It's also why my BW character's tend not to advance as quickly as my GM's character's do when he is playing! He spends more time in Author stance, retroactively motivating his characters to take the actions that will meet his real-world priority of triggering advancement checks (think of a system a bit like the classic RQ improvement-based-on-use).

 

[pemerton]

See I'd call that the game design process, which is something I do. However, it's not something I'd pay for (not that anyone said that, just saying). Nothing wrong with it at all, but what you're describing is part pf the road to a more complete RPG, not a standalone RPG system, or set of ideals, or whatever, which is very much what at least some proponents of the FKR seem to want to index. I think if you told a lot of FKR fans that they were simply working toward a 'finished' or more compete RPG they might take umbrage. IDK... maybe it's true for some and not others. Anyway, I don't have an issue with it, but it doesn't seem to encapsulate or really index at all some of the failures to communicate we've had in the tread in places.

On the thread: I think it's a success! Look at the title. And what are we discussing 500 posts in? We're discussing system - ie (to quote Ron Edwards) a means by which in-game events are determined to occur - and how free kriegsspiel works as a system, and also what the FKR has to say about system.

On whether my description of FKR's relationship to Arneson, Gygax etc is painting FKR as play = playtesting/game design. Mabye?

But here's another thought - once again, it's Edwards, under the heading "Pitfalls of Narrativist game design":

Karaoke. This is a serious problem that arises from the need to sell thick books rather than to teach and develop powerful role-playing. Let's say you have a game that consists of some Premise-heavy characters and a few notes about Situation, and through play, the group generates a hellacious cool Setting as well as theme(s) regarding those characters. Then, publishing your great game, you present that very setting and theme in the text, in detail.

<snip most of Edwards' quote from Over the Edge, which finishes with the following - the quoted "I" is Jonathan Tweet:>

The first time I played OTE, I had a few pages of notes on the background and nothing on the specifics. I made it all up on the spot. Not having anything written as a guide (or crutch), I let my imagination loose. You have the mixed blessing of having many pages of background prepared for you. If you use the information in this book as a springboard for your own wild dreams, then it is a blessing. If you limit yourself to what I've dreamed up, it's a curse.​

All I (Edwards] see, I'm afraid, is the curse. The isolated phrases "mixed blessing" and "(or crutch)" don't hold a lot of water compared to the preceding 152 extraordinarily detailed pages of canonical setting. I'm not saying that improvisation is better or more Narrativist than non-improvisational play. I am saying, however, that if playing this particular game worked so wonderfully to free the participants into wildly successful brainstorming during play ... and since the players were a core source during this event, as evident in the game's Dedication and in various examples of play ... then why present the results of the play-experience as the material for another person's experience?​

I love this passage from Edwards, and have often referred to it before. One thing I loved about 4e D&D is that it dropped so much of the accreted karaoke of D&D - how exactly does a Sepia Snake Sigil work (compare the rules text in Unearthed Arcana to the 2nd ed AD&D PHB to the 3E PHB to see this build up of someone else's play experience as the material for our play)? What happens if I blast a fireball into a small space? Can my character jump across the wild spaces of the Elemental Chaos and grapple Ygorl? In its place it substituted crisp resolution mechanics in the form of DCs-by-level, page 42, the uniform player-side resource economy, the combat action economy, and the skill challenge framework.

My understanding of at least some of the FKRers - not the one's playing Cthulhu Dark, and frankly not Dark Empires either, but the ones who want to "play like they were playing with Gary in Greyhawk" is that they are sick of the karaoke of system to some pretty fundamental degree. They want to experience the creation of it for themselves

That's not a passion of mine - I don't want Sage Advice-style karaoke of adjudication but am happy to take useful and versatile systems off the shelf - but I'm not going to fault that passion in others.

 

[Malmuria]

Maybe FKR posts, particularly this one that has been referenced the most, slips from setting to genre without thinking enough about what the difference might be, despite areas of overlap. For example, if we are playing a Star Wars rpg, are we playing in the Star Wars universe as a setting, or are we telling Star Wars-esque stories? (This was referenced upthread as a confusion between genre and realism (though I would argue that realism is a genre)). I'm guessing that the envisioned (and perhaps never realized) fkr-style play involves turning any given novel into a setting, and then having play being driven by the invisible "rulebooks" of what sort of thing happens in that setting, as set by the genre and particularities of whatever novel(s) or historical fictions you want to play.

Anyway, I finally have gotten around to watching the show Community, several years after it aired. Of course there was famously an episode entitled "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons." Some of the relationships among the characters in this episode have already been established as toxic, so there's a lot 'wrong' with what's going, from which the comedy of the episode derives. But I thought it was an interesting representation of gm as 'playing the world' style dnd.

(cw: this episode was removed from netflix because Ken Jeong's character is "dressed" as a drow. Because netflix would never platform bigotry, no.)