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Judgement calls vs "railroading"
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<blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7090906" data-attributes="member: 16586"><p>[MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]</p><p></p><p>Absolutely. Game mechanics and formal principles are not strictly necessary to achieve similar results. You can get there in D&D. The games I have been talking about are based on principles, techniques, and processes used in running games like D&D. It just that the game will not help you and in some cases will actively fight you. More importantly without the formalized principles on a social level the other players might fight you, particularly if there is a lack of social transparency. You have to work harder at it.</p><p></p><p>I mean you can absolutely get there on a pure role playing level through vigorous creative agreement with unspoken principles, no mechanisms or reward structures besides the social ones, and no defined player roles. It won't really be a role playing game, but it will be deeply collaborative. Social transparency and formal principles definitely help. In many ways this sort of principled free form role playing is much more flexible than any role playing game. We're just having a conversation with no constraints besides the ones you naturally impose. There are bunches of people who do this stuff online who never play role playing games. </p><p></p><p>One possible pain point with this approach is that in the face of so much unity of player interests it becomes meaningfully difficult to sustain character level conflicts of interest. It can also be socially fraught. We like these characters. We do not want to see bad stuff happen to them. In order for the fiction to be interesting it must. It can be hard to do this fairly and players can become protective of the characters they play. With no one dedicated to put pressure on the characters and sustain conflict players have a convenient release valve on the social layer to ensure tension does not become overly intense.</p><p></p><p>Another possible pain point is that this approach has a natural inclination towards story advocacy over character advocacy. When advocacy for the fictional world is distributed too much it can lead to internal conflicts of interest that create emotional distance between player and character. This is another convenient release valve.</p><p></p><p>I feel like principled free form involves somewhat less work than a game that does not help you or fights you. The game will have its own interests that tend to take priority and require more effort to fight against. It is easier to build the right sort of social environment and principles in an environment that already has a good deal of social transparency and shared player interests than in one where that might not be the case. It's also easier to build system through iteration on top of nothing than to twist and contort procedures that are already serving other interests. </p><p></p><p>This was how Apocalypse World was designed, one move at a time over a principled free form structure to only include the rules that actively serve the interests of play. Vincent Baker's home group is full of free form role players who are deeply skeptical about the need for rules. They played a lengthy Ars Magica game where they scrapped rules altogether.</p><p></p><p>There's also the bit where we value games as games, something to challenge and test ourselves against, to struggle against and provoke us to do things we would not naturally do. One of the things I want is a social environment that encourages risk taking, real tension, and reward structures that align my interests with my character's interest and the interests of the fiction we are after to make it less hard to immerse while still getting my <strong>Mastery (Challenge and Strategy)</strong> on.</p><p></p><p>Even with the right game and right principles it is still not guaranteed. It's just far less effort. There is no panacea that will lead to a compelling experience sans a functioning social layer. You can like try, but that can sometimes lead to unintended consequences and cause some damage to the social layer. In my opinion designs that attempt to resolve player conflicts tend to mask social pain points rather than meaningfully address them. </p><p></p><p>So you can get there with a game not particularly suited to it, but it is harder.</p><p>You can get there with no game at all, but it is also harder. Less hard than an ill suited game in my opinion.</p><p>You can get there with a game uniquely designed for it, but you still have to work for it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Campbell, post: 7090906, member: 16586"] [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] Absolutely. Game mechanics and formal principles are not strictly necessary to achieve similar results. You can get there in D&D. The games I have been talking about are based on principles, techniques, and processes used in running games like D&D. It just that the game will not help you and in some cases will actively fight you. More importantly without the formalized principles on a social level the other players might fight you, particularly if there is a lack of social transparency. You have to work harder at it. I mean you can absolutely get there on a pure role playing level through vigorous creative agreement with unspoken principles, no mechanisms or reward structures besides the social ones, and no defined player roles. It won't really be a role playing game, but it will be deeply collaborative. Social transparency and formal principles definitely help. In many ways this sort of principled free form role playing is much more flexible than any role playing game. We're just having a conversation with no constraints besides the ones you naturally impose. There are bunches of people who do this stuff online who never play role playing games. One possible pain point with this approach is that in the face of so much unity of player interests it becomes meaningfully difficult to sustain character level conflicts of interest. It can also be socially fraught. We like these characters. We do not want to see bad stuff happen to them. In order for the fiction to be interesting it must. It can be hard to do this fairly and players can become protective of the characters they play. With no one dedicated to put pressure on the characters and sustain conflict players have a convenient release valve on the social layer to ensure tension does not become overly intense. Another possible pain point is that this approach has a natural inclination towards story advocacy over character advocacy. When advocacy for the fictional world is distributed too much it can lead to internal conflicts of interest that create emotional distance between player and character. This is another convenient release valve. I feel like principled free form involves somewhat less work than a game that does not help you or fights you. The game will have its own interests that tend to take priority and require more effort to fight against. It is easier to build the right sort of social environment and principles in an environment that already has a good deal of social transparency and shared player interests than in one where that might not be the case. It's also easier to build system through iteration on top of nothing than to twist and contort procedures that are already serving other interests. This was how Apocalypse World was designed, one move at a time over a principled free form structure to only include the rules that actively serve the interests of play. Vincent Baker's home group is full of free form role players who are deeply skeptical about the need for rules. They played a lengthy Ars Magica game where they scrapped rules altogether. There's also the bit where we value games as games, something to challenge and test ourselves against, to struggle against and provoke us to do things we would not naturally do. One of the things I want is a social environment that encourages risk taking, real tension, and reward structures that align my interests with my character's interest and the interests of the fiction we are after to make it less hard to immerse while still getting my [B]Mastery (Challenge and Strategy)[/B] on. Even with the right game and right principles it is still not guaranteed. It's just far less effort. There is no panacea that will lead to a compelling experience sans a functioning social layer. You can like try, but that can sometimes lead to unintended consequences and cause some damage to the social layer. In my opinion designs that attempt to resolve player conflicts tend to mask social pain points rather than meaningfully address them. So you can get there with a game not particularly suited to it, but it is harder. You can get there with no game at all, but it is also harder. Less hard than an ill suited game in my opinion. You can get there with a game uniquely designed for it, but you still have to work for it. [/QUOTE]
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