A neotrad TTRPG design manifesto

[Pedantic]

I'd hardly consider myself an 'outsider' having become fascinated with games at an early age and being quite competitive. While we all understand the 'sportsmanlike attitude' towards competition and winning you will still find that victory, actual victory, is an important component. That may be moreso for some than for others, but you would not find the experience to be the same were there no possibility of victory whatsoever, if it was simply practice.

So, gamism is about adopting a certain 'lusory attitude' to borrow a Clearstreamism, to victory and the pursuit of victory. Thus gamist systems are concerned, PRIMARILY with win cons and providing a mix of challenging elements requiring various mixes of skill to overcome. As I said to Clearstream, its not about 'exploration' or 'finding out', it is about DOING. You could achieve everything you want to achieve in an 'N' type game without those things being difficult personal accomplishments, you could 'fail' in every way and get everything you wanted out of that game, but that will not be true of 'G' type games!

You're laying it out quite clearly right up until the bolded bit, where you're swerving into an assumption that does not follow. The actual success is not important, the evaluation of success is and the attempt to achieve it is. The game is the interesting state to be in that exists because everyone involved has constrained their actions with both a set of rules, and bound themselves to a specific goal. It cannot exist without everyone involved trying to achieve victory, but victory isn't the point of the activity. It's not even necessarily a reward, as my linked essay points out. It's a precondition for the thing itself to manifest.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You're laying it out quite clearly right up until the bolded bit, where you're swerving into an assumption that does not follow. The actual success is not important, the evaluation of success is and the attempt to achieve it is. The game is the interesting state to be in that exists because everyone involved has constrained their actions with both a set of rules, and bound themselves to a specific goal. It cannot exist without everyone involved trying to achieve victory, but victory isn't the point of the activity. It's not even necessarily a reward, as my linked essay points out. It's a precondition for the thing itself to manifest.

I ask you, why do you not play in chess tournaments (well, maybe you do, but take it as a generalized question)? I know why I don't. Because my skill level in that game is not at the level which would be required to be competitive. I mean, I've played fairly skilled people, and I'm not an incompetent player, but I wouldn't be competitive. I even like chess well enough, though it doesn't excite me enough to spend the 1000 hours of practice and study it would require to even START to compete. I certainly WILL sit down and play with friends of mine who beat me 99 out of 100 games, its still fun, but I like to play games where the issue is at least in doubt, where I CAN win. If I play Bob in a game of chess nowadays it's really a social thing and its fun to try out moves, etc. I do try to win, but I don't expect to.

My point is, winning, having the expectation that there is a serious chance of your best effort producing victory, is something which forms part of the goals of gamist play. Without that, there may be some play, but it will become perfunctory rather quickly and lose its appeal.

 

[clearstream]

The repudiation of pre-planned storylines straight away marks the difference from APs, from most D&D modules since DL, from any planning that says "After the PCs do <such-and-such>, then <this> happens" or "If the PCs attempt <such-and-such>, then <this> happens". If someone (eg @clearstream) wants to argue that, in the play of Dead Gods, there is also "finding out" (eg finding out whether or not the PCs make it all the way to the end of the adventure; or finding out whether it is PC X or PC Y who delivers the killing blow to such-and-such an opponent)

I agree with you that it was high time to repudiate pre-planned storylines, and the PtFO catchcry was valuable to that ends. I've praised many times the late Jennell Jacquays' Griffin Mountain which showed back in 1981 an approach to high-setting open-story. (Although lacked the many additional techniques later committed to game texts to really empower it.)

All that means is that we need to find some new terminology to state Baker's point.

Yes, it is time to find new terminology. Or better yet, to cast the light of PtFO over the whole of roleplaying. Because the implication that those with other creative motives aren't interested in playing to find out denies the validity of their engagment with game. One can immediately see how unreasonable the implied predeterminism is: that they know already everything important to them about how it will go down, and are playing to find out nothing at all.

I would suggest that the ESSENCE of the big 3 agenda types is:

G: Play to Win (discovery involves finding out if that is possible/happens).
S: Play to Experience (discovery involves the exploration of the material, with the exact type of material determining what is being explored).
N: Play to Find Out (discovery involves exploration of character and situation in order to illuminate the premise of play).

I think those are pretty succinct and give the best breakdown.

To me they are a car crash. Accurately it would be -

G: Play to find out the new and unusual gamestates that emerge and the new decisions and unexpected answers that will force from you.​

​

S: Play to find out where your journey through subject - guided by your noetic and emotional compass - will take you.​

​

N: Play to find out how you will resolve problematic features of human existence.​

Edwards hit the same dissatisfactions many videogamers have felt with overlaid linear narrative - stories told to them. He noticed the same lusory-duality that others noticed around the turn of the millenia, and saw its implications. All that is lusory is played to find out. And this is the opportunity offered by games.

I recently noticed the following by Wolfgang Walk, producer and narrative designer, and one of the authors of DDE (an update to MDA)

If a designer thinks of the dynamics of a game system as the antagonist of the player-subject, that perspective allows the designer to comprehend the whole experience of playing a game as a narrative. Yes, there are certain expectations we have about narratives, and good designers will anticipate those expectations when creating a great narrative experience. If the antagonist of a narrative doesn’t fulfil that role, the narrative will be boring, or at least less interesting than it might have been, and it may even fall apart.​

Walk isn't talking about shooting games or driving games or adventure games, he's talking about all videogames. One can see here the long arc of the reconciliation of ludology with narratology, found in post-classical narratology. Game is narrative, albeit a new form of narrative. One of the single most powerful things we can say about it is play to find out. That's the implication of Aarseth's "ergodic literature". You want to know how it goes, play it.

Once one appreciates game as process and play as experience, not product, one can see the destructive force of suggesting that play to find out belongs to a single creative motivation.

The fact that the focus is on the characters, and on things that the participants care about, marks the difference from gamist play. Certainly from WPM or B2, where the characters are irrelevant and interchangeable as play pieces, defined - as Gygax tells us in his PHB - by their distinctive class functions. But from any gamist play, where - as @AbdulAlhazred has posted - win conditions are established at the outset, as that towards which the players aim in the play of their PCs.

The unfortunate implication is that only N wants to focus on things the participants care about. Which is what we (or I at least) want to be just as true of G and S. The words here - "the focus is on the characters, and on things that the participants care about" - are wonderfully descriptive of neotrad play.

Play to find out is simply too fundamental to games, to glue to one set of motivations or modes. It needn't be abandoned: it can have an even stronger impact by acknowledging it's importance to all TTRPG.

 

[clearstream]

I ask you, why do you not play in chess tournaments (well, maybe you do, but take it as a generalized question)? I know why I don't. Because my skill level in that game is not at the level which would be required to be competitive. I mean, I've played fairly skilled people, and I'm not an incompetent player, but I wouldn't be competitive. I even like chess well enough, though it doesn't excite me enough to spend the 1000 hours of practice and study it would require to even START to compete. I certainly WILL sit down and play with friends of mine who beat me 99 out of 100 games, its still fun, but I like to play games where the issue is at least in doubt, where I CAN win. If I play Bob in a game of chess nowadays it's really a social thing and its fun to try out moves, etc. I do try to win, but I don't expect to.

My point is, winning, having the expectation that there is a serious chance of your best effort producing victory, is something which forms part of the goals of gamist play. Without that, there may be some play, but it will become perfunctory rather quickly and lose its appeal.

So if I tell you that you can join the tournament, but you don't play games, I just cede you all wins, your gamist agenda is satisfied?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If a designer thinks of the dynamics of a game system as the antagonist of the player-subject, that perspective allows the designer to comprehend the whole experience of playing a game as a narrative. Yes, there are certain expectations we have about narratives, and good designers will anticipate those expectations when creating a great narrative experience. If the antagonist of a narrative doesn’t fulfil that role, the narrative will be boring, or at least less interesting than it might have been, and it may even fall apart.

My instant reaction to this text is to ask how a process, the dynamics of a game system, which is how it actually unfolds as an experience in play, can be an 'antagonist'. I don't even understand this in the most basic categorical sense, it is like talking about square circles.

Then we go on to 'expectations of narratives' and it seems pretty clear that the writer is stuck in a trad mindset! He's talking about designers anticipating and creating, this is STORY BEFORE kind of thinking!

Now, I presume this is an intelligent person writing this, with at least pretensions to some degree of academic ability. So, I have to assume they are attempting to get at something. The last sentence, if I read 'antagonist' as basically 'the designer of the game's process' (which now throws light on the first sentence, he's actually talking about designers, not processes) we're again left with a fairly trad kind of statement.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree with you that it was high time to repudiate pre-planned storylines, and the PtFO catchcry was valuable to that ends. I've praised many times the late Jennell Jacquays' Griffin Mountain which showed back in 1981 an approach to high-setting open-story. (Although lacked the many additional techniques later committed to game texts to really empower it.)


Yes, it is time to find new terminology. Or better yet, to cast the light of PtFO over the whole of roleplaying. Because the implication that those with other creative motives aren't interested in playing to find out denies the validity of their engagment with game. One can immediately see how unreasonable the implied predeterminism is: that they know already everything important to them about how it will go down, and are playing to find out nothing at all.


To me they are a car crash. Accurately it would be -

G: Play to find out the new and unusual gamestates that emerge and the new decisions and unexpected answers that will force from you.​

​

S: Play to find out where your journey through subject - guided by your noetic and emotional compass - will take you.​

​

N: Play to find out how you will resolve problematic features of human existence.​

Edwards hit the same dissatisfactions many videogamers have felt with overlaid linear narrative - stories told to them. He noticed the same lusory-duality that others noticed around the turn of the millenia, and saw its implications. All that is lusory is played to find out. And this is the opportunity offered by games.

I recently noticed the following by Wolfgang Walk, producer and narrative designer, and one of the authors of DDE (an update to MDA)

If a designer thinks of the dynamics of a game system as the antagonist of the player-subject, that perspective allows the designer to comprehend the whole experience of playing a game as a narrative. Yes, there are certain expectations we have about narratives, and good designers will anticipate those expectations when creating a great narrative experience. If the antagonist of a narrative doesn’t fulfil that role, the narrative will be boring, or at least less interesting than it might have been, and it may even fall apart.​

Walk isn't talking about shooting games or driving games or adventure games, he's talking about all videogames. One can see here the long arc of the reconciliation of ludology with narratology, found in post-classical narratology. Game is narrative, albeit a new form of narrative. One of the single most powerful things we can say about it is play to find out. That's the implication of Aarseth's "ergodic literature". You want to know how it goes, play it.

Once one appreciates game as process and play as experience, not product, one can see the destructive force of suggesting that play to find out belongs to a single creative motivation.


The unfortunate implication is that only N wants to focus on things the participants care about. Which is what we (or I at least) want to be just as true of G and S. The words here - "the focus is on the characters, and on things that the participants care about" - are wonderfully descriptive of neotrad play.

Play to find out is simply too fundamental to games, to glue to one set of motivations or modes. It needn't be abandoned: it can have an even stronger impact by acknowledging it's importance to all TTRPG.

I disagree profoundly with your conclusion. Edwards seems to have STARTED at what the participants wanted! He cannot possibly be claiming that one sort of agenda uniquely addresses that, as that is the essence of agenda entirely. When we speak of agendas in that sense, and remember this is really only a discussion that is germane to PLAY, and only secondarily to game design, we are always talking about what the participants want and get out of it. So I think your reasoning is off base.

And look, if you want to insist on paving over all of the field of RPGs with a single term and render it thus into meaninglessness, nobody can stop you from using it that way. I do not believe you are proving anything or discovering anything by doing so. It was invented as a term of art by a game designer to convey an aspect of the play of his game which people seem to have profound difficulty grasping, the nature of Story Now play. It wasn't meant to imply anything about any other play. But as I said in previous posts, rerendering in different agenda contexts simply produces definitions which are radically different in their meaning. There's certainly a sense in which we do EVERYTHING WE DO "to find out SOMETHING" but I hope you can see how it becomes descriptive of nothing when used that way?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So if I tell you that you can join the tournament, but you don't play games, I just cede you all wins, your gamist agenda is satisfied?

If I tell you that you can 'join' but you will be marked as losing every game, is yours? I mean, what does 'join' mean at this point? This isn't a type of argument that can fly. Games have rules, if we are not playing BY those rules we are not playing!

 

[clearstream]

If I tell you that you can 'join' but you will be marked as losing every game, is yours? I mean, what does 'join' mean at this point? This isn't a type of argument that can fly. Games have rules, if we are not playing BY those rules we are not playing!

What is illuminated is that gamists normally want to engage with play they're interested in skillfully. Of course, they may always engage socially, jocularly, etc, but on the whole if time or ability prevent skillful engagement, they're unlikely to persevere. The same can be said of folk with any motivation.

 

[clearstream]

I disagree profoundly with your conclusion. Edwards seems to have STARTED at what the participants wanted! He cannot possibly be claiming that one sort of agenda uniquely addresses that, as that is the essence of agenda entirely. When we speak of agendas in that sense, and remember this is really only a discussion that is germane to PLAY, and only secondarily to game design, we are always talking about what the participants want and get out of it. So I think your reasoning is off base.

And look, if you want to insist on paving over all of the field of RPGs with a single term and render it thus into meaninglessness, nobody can stop you from using it that way. I do not believe you are proving anything or discovering anything by doing so. It was invented as a term of art by a game designer to convey an aspect of the play of his game which people seem to have profound difficulty grasping, the nature of Story Now play. It wasn't meant to imply anything about any other play. But as I said in previous posts, rerendering in different agenda contexts simply produces definitions which are radically different in their meaning. There's certainly a sense in which we do EVERYTHING WE DO "to find out SOMETHING" but I hope you can see how it becomes descriptive of nothing when used that way?

To the contrary, I aim to render the term as meaningful as possible. If that necessitates reclaiming it, then so be it. Far from being descriptive of nothing, it exactly describes what crucially distinguishes ludonarrative from traditional narrative.

That asserted, there is a live debate around whether games are narrative. My sense is that game scholars have moved to a shared acceptance that at least some games are. The question is whether the concept of narrative is flexible enough to encompass author/audience experiences such as the journey through an action videogame? This is particularly acute for TTRPG, where it is hard not to describe the play in terms of a narrative around the table. IIRC a post-classical narratology venn-diagram places all TTRPG into the narrative side. (That's where I place it, too.)

Even were some games not narrative, playing to find out still describes them, and one can hardly argue that we are content with (or even count as) games that are perfectly deterministic from our perspective! This may be where we must agree to disagree, and each go on with our uses of PtFO.

 

[clearstream]

My instant reaction to this text is to ask how a process, the dynamics of a game system, which is how it actually unfolds as an experience in play, can be an 'antagonist'. I don't even understand this in the most basic categorical sense, it is like talking about square circles.

Then we go on to 'expectations of narratives' and it seems pretty clear that the writer is stuck in a trad mindset! He's talking about designers anticipating and creating, this is STORY BEFORE kind of thinking!

Now, I presume this is an intelligent person writing this, with at least pretensions to some degree of academic ability. So, I have to assume they are attempting to get at something. The last sentence, if I read 'antagonist' as basically 'the designer of the game's process' (which now throws light on the first sentence, he's actually talking about designers, not processes) we're again left with a fairly trad kind of statement.

I offer the quote only for additional perspective, making no commitments to sharing the views of the author. It's possible that when they wrote it they were still in the mindset of many designers, awkwardly spatchcocking linear narrative into games. And it's equally possible that today, with further experimentation and observation, they have updated their understanding of narrative to ludonarrative.

Here's another perspective that could be helpful

...postclassical narratology is keenly interested in the part that readers and real-world experiences have to play in the co-poetic functioning of narrative and its narrativity—reconsidering the psychological and emotional iteractions between stories and audiences, and returning to the ancient debate between Plato’s Socrates and Aristotle regarding the status of narrative as mimesis.​

This gets at why I am counting all TTRPG into narrative (as in the ideal, ludonarrative.)