Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs

[Manbearcat]

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.

1) I don't know why you keep going back to "best practices" and implying that they have anything to do with my preferences (about anything). I can only assume this is a total misread of my earlier post on the subject? The concept of "best practices" has nothing to do with my preferences and is specific to a given game.

A particular game will tell you what its "best practices" are:

* Don't build an archer using a character with Dex as a dump stat and who isn't proficient in bows.

* Don't turtle when the game explicitly says "go boldly into danger" while (a) rewarding you for doing so and (b) giving you tools to manage it.

* Don't play a slow midrange deck when you're facing off against an aggro deck.

* Don't expose your neck against someone who specializes in chokes.

Etc.

2) My contention is that that discord and dysfunction tend to follow games that don't say what they do and/or don't do what they say. If its a parlor game/boardgame/TTRPG then people get confused and frustrated and either gracefully quit-out or opt-in and express their confusion and frustration with their voice/negative demeanor (either passive-aggressively or overtly) and with their play (which is some combination of game-stalling inefficient or game-wrecking awkward filled with qualitative or quantitative, unintentional misplays). If its a ball sport game or otherwise physical (like grappling or climbing), then play will tend toward being outright dangerous for the participants.

---

If we stick to TTRPGs alone, the only solve for this that I know of is a very narrow brand of heavily GM-led games where GMs control all substantive content introduction, mediate all aspects of play, and, through that, effectively own all gamestate/fiction trajectory (maintaining that via overt or covert manipulation of the gamestate/fiction as necessary). Because of this, player contribution/responsibility is mostly affectation and color while the GM moves the Ouija planchette around the board.

That is one particular solve of the kind of discord and dysfunction I'm pointing at and its for one particular brand of play.

Which is fine. Its a solve. And its a playstyle. But it would be nice if it was transparent about what it is if for no other reason than the participants involved (a) know what their commitment level entails, what their overhead and responsibilities to play are and (b) to sharpen their skills at what they're contributing while not wasting time on superfluous things. So in the above mentioned style of play, players should be working on their social confidence/subverting shyness to achieve some level of equality of performative contribution, being vigilant for GM cues, being wary and respectful of/deferential to other player contributions of color and affectation, honing their own affectation and color contribution capabilities, and having a passable knowledge of system so that you're not a liability when you do system-ey stuff (which the GM is apt to covertly manipulate if things go awry so the burden here is not too great); these would constitute "best practices".

 

[SteveC]

These forums were a healthy, interesting place 10 years ago even with vigorous disagreement. Beyond the fact that many of the most insightful and interesting posters like Crazy Jerome, Balesir, LostSoul (among many others) are long gone...its just totally dead now, murdered and mutilated beyond recognition by forms of rhetorical warfare like this.

I apologize for this tangent in advance but I just wonder if anyone knows where any of the truly older posters who've long since left have gone to. I enjoyed their discussions even if only listening to them. Any suggestions would be appreciated, and you can always feel free to message me directly so as not to further this digression.

 

[SteveC]

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.

It has been my experience that tabletop games, video games, and board games all have enough things that are different and make direct transference for design principles not always work. The best suggestion I've ever heard is takes from one of my favorite movies (Big Trouble in Little China) where you take what you want and leave the rest, sort of like a salad bar. It can be very useful to consider how game design for video games works, especially for situations where you create a tutorial for the players for a game concept, but they are very different: you don't get to save scum in tabletop games.

I have heard a lot of people talking about the mechanics in Baldur's Gate 3, for instance, with calls for adopting them into D&D. And while that makes some sense, I'm playing it now and things like the formal rest rules work great in BG3 but would cause problems at many D&D tables I've seen.

There are definitely a lot of things to take to cross pollinate between the mediums, but enough differences that there isn't a one to one correlation of principles. That's in my opinion at least.

 

[niklinna]

It has been my experience that tabletop games, video games, and board games all have enough things that are different and make direct transference for design principles not always work. The best suggestion I've ever heard is takes from one of my favorite movies (Big Trouble in Little China) where you take what you want and leave the rest, sort of like a salad bar. It can be very useful to consider how game design for video games works, especially for situations where you create a tutorial for the players for a game concept, but they are very different: you don't get to save scum in tabletop games.

Ah, but there's nothing technically preventing you from save scumming in tabletop games. Another tangent, perhaps, but I sometimes wonder about the particulars of gaming culture that make it a Thing Not Done.

 

[Emberashh]

It has been my experience that tabletop games, video games, and board games all have enough things that are different and make direct transference for design principles not always work. The best suggestion I've ever heard is takes from one of my favorite movies (Big Trouble in Little China) where you take what you want and leave the rest, sort of like a salad bar. It can be very useful to consider how game design for video games works, especially for situations where you create a tutorial for the players for a game concept, but they are very different: you don't get to save scum in tabletop games.

I have heard a lot of people talking about the mechanics in Baldur's Gate 3, for instance, with calls for adopting them into D&D. And while that makes some sense, I'm playing it now and things like the formal rest rules work great in BG3 but would cause problems at many D&D tables I've seen.

There are definitely a lot of things to take to cross pollinate between the mediums, but enough differences that there isn't a one to one correlation of principles. That's in my opinion at least.

Issue is, is that what you're calling "game design" is a much broader topic than what I'm calling game design. What I'm specifically talking about is mechanics and how they feed into an overall game.

What I am not talking about, is anything to do with a specific game medium, whether that's a video game, a tabletop game, a board game, a card game, or whatever.

(Discrete) Mechanics are universal, and thats a premise one has to accept if you're going to understand where I, and the book I'm referencing, are coming from.

And just to pick on the given example, you actually could save scum in a tabletop game. There's nothing stopping a save mechanic being implemented into one, and its actually arguable that one technically exists in any game that doesn't put some sort mechanical constraints (either in the rules or through procedure) on just reattempting any sort of chance-based mechanism.

That's a shortcoming of tabletop games that can't rely on continnous mechanics (IE, real time physics simulations, the types of mechanics unique to computer based games) to enforce that state naturally.

 

[SteveC]

Ah, but there's nothing technically preventing you from save scumming in tabletop games. Another tangent, perhaps, but I sometimes wonder about the particulars of gaming culture that make it a Thing Not Done.

I have actually had that experience once where the game session was a combination of bad rulings and a player meltdown. We just started over before things went off the rails. It was a really strange situation.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why would any of these be on the character sheet if they aren't relevant or central to play? I mean, sure, offload them elsewhere if one likes (draw a picture of this character you're imagining or write some fan-fic or a backstory on a sheet of paper). But why are they on the character sheet?

Whilst I agree with your overall point that the game mechanics should support or at least not conflict with the promised narrative and tone, the organisation of character sheet seems rather tangential to the topic. Sure, one probably shouldn't clutter the character sheet with utterly trivial stuff, but from this doesn't follow that everything on it needs to be "central to the play;" "might be useful for play occasionally" is completely sufficient reason to put it there. And of course it is pretty common that character sheet mostly just has information that is mechanical, but for many games I'd argue those are not necessarily the most important things. "Fluff" that exists on separate background/personality document or just in the players' head might actually be quite central to the play, just no mechanically so it is not on the sheet.

 

[pemerton]

of course it is pretty common that character sheet mostly just has information that is mechanical, but for many games I'd argue those are not necessarily the most important things. "Fluff" that exists on separate background/personality document or just in the players' head might actually be quite central to the play, just no mechanically so it is not on the sheet.

I think part of @Manbearcat's point, following from the Vincent Baker blog linked to in the OP, is that if that "fluff" - what Baker calls position - is an important element of play, then it should be on the character sheet. As it is a component of the character.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think part of @Manbearcat's point, following from the Vincent Baker blog linked to in the OP, is that if that "fluff" - what Baker calls position - is an important element of play, then it should be on the character sheet. As it is a component of the character.

It doesn't seem terribly important to me how exactly the information is organised.

 

[Shardstone]

The thing Ive come to learn is that glorified hobbyists really don't have all that much thats actually valuable to say about game design.

Particularly when a specific group of them have had a 20+ year standing motive to push their also very specific playstyle as the second coming.

And while Im sure that'll upset, one just has to look at the obnoxiously pretentious stuff quoted in the OP that obfuscates what its trying to say with unnecessarily verbose and jargon-laden language. Not useful in of itself, and the point even stripped of all that pretense isn't very actionable either.

If one wants to actually learn something valuable Id recommend getting ahold of Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans.

This just comes off as anti-intellectual. It's ok to talk about game design in academic terms like Baker does here. I don't see why you're so hostile towards it.