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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7065739" data-attributes="member: 16586">I am going to say a couple of things that I expect to be contentious. The first will address fun's role in game design and GM decision making. The second will address playing to win and seeing games as games. I do not wish to universalize my preferences or argue that everyone should do things in the way I do them. I just believe my points will provide some fertile ground for further discussion.I do not believe you can meaningfully design a game to be fun. To the extent that a GM's responsibilities intersect with game design I do not believe a GM can meaningfully make determinations about what is fun in the moment. What I think game designers and GMs can do is design a particular experience they believe is interesting, rewarding, and their audience may enjoy overall. People enjoy and find all sorts of different things rewarding and enjoyable. I enjoy political discussions, chess, watching football, F/X dramas, and reading swords and sorcery and weird fiction novels. I find watching introspective dramas that address real world problems, software engineering, playing sports, and all sorts of analysis rewarding.When it comes down to game design I think all we can do is use our insight into the human animal, what we know about our audience, and accumulated experience and knowledge that comes from playing, designing, and running a game that we believe will provide players with a compelling experience that is rewarding sometimes, enjoyable sometimes, and frustrating in good ways at other times. That good frustration is very important because it is necessary to make things really rewarding. There is a very intricate relationship between that good sort of frustration and enjoyment that brings about a rewarding experience that has a measure of meaning to the player.I used to do a lot of raiding in World of Warcraft. It was a very rewarding experience for me, but I did not always enjoy it. Getting those kills, making meaningful progress, and all sorts of social stuff was enjoyable. Failing to make progress, missing interrupts, having to change strategies, dealing with screwups all could be frustrating experiences. The thing is they were vital to the entire endeavor. It was rewarding to learn a new boss, find a strategy that worked, and eventually execute until we get the kill. There were also bad sorts of frustration, but in the moment it all felt bad. Part of what made our skilled execution so rewarding was all the frustrating moments that happened in the interim.As a GM I do not meaningfully feel capable of determining in the moment what the difference between good frustration and bad frustration is. I have a general idea about the things the players I play with value because I ask them, but in the moment I don't really have a clue. I can't read their minds. Sometimes I will ask them if they really want to play something out in detail or ask them about how they want the fiction to go. That's where sometimes disclaim decision making comes from. I just do not believe I can have a handle on that without asking them. I also do not want to rob them of meaningful success won through blood, sweat, and tears. That's why I value honesty, the rules, and following the fiction so much. I also have an interest in seeing them actually earn things because its exciting for me. It's just as rewarding for me as it is for them.Here's where I get really contentious. I believe that roleplaying games are games where we create compelling fiction to be experienced in the moment, but they are still games. You don't win or lose at Dungeons or Dragons, but there is still winning and losing involved. You can win at a social exchange, a combat, a dungeon, or a scenario. You can win by realizing as a player what your character hoped for and what you as a player hoped for. Those small wins mean very little if there is no chance at losing, no real chance at winning, or if the GM manipulates things to their own ends. I think we very much should see role playing games as games that involve luck and skill.We are telling stories, but we are also playing games. What makes this hobby so great is we can do both at the same time. I also believe the stories are often better if we do not put designs on them, but instead experience them as they come in the same way we experience stories when we watch a good TV show or movie.</blockquote>

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