andreszarta
Adventurer
Let me preface:
This is a conversation starter; a distant cousin to Why do RPGs have rules? I seek more to learn than to preach. I don't think what I'm about to write is revolutionary by any means, but maybe you can see how some of the ideas here are original? This is like a first draft.
Vincent Baker argues that when designing a role-playing game, you are adopting three stances and expressing three distinct opinions: an opinion about the theme or literary genre of your game, a perspective on role-playing games as a practice, and a position on human nature. Your 3 Insights.
Today, role-playing game designers are capable of imprinting these three stances, with varying degrees of precision and skill, into the body of their mechanics. This might or might not be a requirement of good game design. (Is it a fruitful lens?)
Of course, it is unfair to measure the pioneers of the medium, Gygax, Arneson, et al., with the same yardstick of "aesthetic excellence". Nevertheless, I believe it is discernible to see how the subtle workings of these principles were immediately visible in the design decisions of the early editions of D&D.
It is my particular contention that what we observe next is a manifestation of this phenomenon in one particular game mechanic: Rolling dice under the stat.
Gygax had specific opinions about how the probability of events external to the characters in the fiction should be modeled. A linear distribution was more suitable for simulating the events of a game of heroic fantasy. (Read The paragraph on avoiding 'goofy bell curves'). He had stances on role-playing games as a practice and the genre of fantasy adventuring.
Gygax and Arneson eventually settled in rolling 3d6 as the method for generating statistics, assuming the stance that in the population of player characters, the rogues in the adventures, abilities should follow a "normal" distribution. They had stances on role-playing games as a practice, the genre of fantasy adventuring, and human nature.
The early DMs of oD&D, we know Arneson initially in Blackmoor, Gygax many years later, and explicitly authors like Holmes, Moldvay, Cook, Metzer, responded to these two aforementioned facts, and discovered that by combining them they generated gameplay that was aesthetically desirable. Rolling dice under the statistic resulted in a range and sequence of desirable outcomes that proved to be fertile ground for roleplaying and added positively to the decision space in the game. Probabilistically elegant, easy to read, generative, etc... They had stances on role-playing games as a practice and the workings of human nature.
In what seems like a fragmented alchemy, an emergent game mechanic was born, one that was surprisingly resilient in the popular practice of D&D until the arrival of 3rd Edition, and continues to be in the OSR. (It is that 'resilience' that originally motivated this entire post.)
That's part one. See, I told you it wasn't revolutionary: That rolling under the stat is game mechanic that expresses three insights. Because it expresses three insights, in varying degrees of depth, by itself, it's a source for continuously fertile gameplay and emergence. That what it says, how it directly maps the stat to the in-fiction competence, how it transparently communicates odds to the player, generates gameplay that is qualitatively different than any other alternative. That 'it' is the opposite of arbitrary; it's filled with intentionality. It just so happened that, in this case, it was not the thinking of a single author but rather the product of a larger play culture.
Part Two is even less surprising:
We know, of course, that these opinions evolved over the years, and in their evolution, subtle changes in these foundational stances rippled into more profound transformations. In AD&D, for example, we see how Gygax abandons 3d6 generation in favor of higher statistics. He wanted to eschew the probability range higher. His argument rested on the unviability of characters generated with the original method for the kind of adventuring they would soon embark on. He subtly seemed to imply the overall inadequacy of these types of characters in other forms of traditional gaming.
Gygax's change in stance created a more heroic game and, incidentally, divided the game into two equally valid branches of fantasy adventuring: AD&D and B/X, which would go on to evolve and continue to inform roleplaying for generations.
I'm not arguing that the reason for the (already well documented) historical segmentation of the two branches of D&D was because of a change in the stat baseline. We know this to be a multifaceted phenomenon, most notably one that was economically motivated. It's not like it divided the game. Rather it created a division in the game. Specifically that in one branch our characters are slightly larger than life and, in the other, they are plain average. Do you see how the ripples of this division affect our thinking decades later? Do you see how subsequent designers bought into these respective stances? (I'm also not saying that this is THE THING. Most likely it is just one of many historical accidents of whatever you may think is 'the real thing', the real rupture. My claim is that it is traceable and discernible, which makes it valuable as evidence.)
What I'm clumsily hinting with this is that when we look at game mechanics we are not just looking at naked procedures devoid of implication. We are looking at opinions and stances people have about some or all of the three converging forces in our interactions at the table. Being more aware of these opinions, being more questioning, more discerning, more ELABORATIVE about how game mechanics express people's stances can only enhance our gaming, and for those mad enough, our designs. It gives us a useful lens to interrogate design and stand with our feet on the ground to question it. What does this mechanic say about fantasy adventuring, about roleplaying as a practice, about human nature?
..and finally, it is a useful reminder to contemporary game designers to, MOST importantly, not have your insights contradict one another.
Opinions, thoughts and criticisms to my thesis are most welcome!
This is a conversation starter; a distant cousin to Why do RPGs have rules? I seek more to learn than to preach. I don't think what I'm about to write is revolutionary by any means, but maybe you can see how some of the ideas here are original? This is like a first draft.
Vincent Baker argues that when designing a role-playing game, you are adopting three stances and expressing three distinct opinions: an opinion about the theme or literary genre of your game, a perspective on role-playing games as a practice, and a position on human nature. Your 3 Insights.
Today, role-playing game designers are capable of imprinting these three stances, with varying degrees of precision and skill, into the body of their mechanics. This might or might not be a requirement of good game design. (Is it a fruitful lens?)
Of course, it is unfair to measure the pioneers of the medium, Gygax, Arneson, et al., with the same yardstick of "aesthetic excellence". Nevertheless, I believe it is discernible to see how the subtle workings of these principles were immediately visible in the design decisions of the early editions of D&D.
It is my particular contention that what we observe next is a manifestation of this phenomenon in one particular game mechanic: Rolling dice under the stat.
Gygax had specific opinions about how the probability of events external to the characters in the fiction should be modeled. A linear distribution was more suitable for simulating the events of a game of heroic fantasy. (Read The paragraph on avoiding 'goofy bell curves'). He had stances on role-playing games as a practice and the genre of fantasy adventuring.
Gygax and Arneson eventually settled in rolling 3d6 as the method for generating statistics, assuming the stance that in the population of player characters, the rogues in the adventures, abilities should follow a "normal" distribution. They had stances on role-playing games as a practice, the genre of fantasy adventuring, and human nature.
The early DMs of oD&D, we know Arneson initially in Blackmoor, Gygax many years later, and explicitly authors like Holmes, Moldvay, Cook, Metzer, responded to these two aforementioned facts, and discovered that by combining them they generated gameplay that was aesthetically desirable. Rolling dice under the statistic resulted in a range and sequence of desirable outcomes that proved to be fertile ground for roleplaying and added positively to the decision space in the game. Probabilistically elegant, easy to read, generative, etc... They had stances on role-playing games as a practice and the workings of human nature.
In what seems like a fragmented alchemy, an emergent game mechanic was born, one that was surprisingly resilient in the popular practice of D&D until the arrival of 3rd Edition, and continues to be in the OSR. (It is that 'resilience' that originally motivated this entire post.)
That's part one. See, I told you it wasn't revolutionary: That rolling under the stat is game mechanic that expresses three insights. Because it expresses three insights, in varying degrees of depth, by itself, it's a source for continuously fertile gameplay and emergence. That what it says, how it directly maps the stat to the in-fiction competence, how it transparently communicates odds to the player, generates gameplay that is qualitatively different than any other alternative. That 'it' is the opposite of arbitrary; it's filled with intentionality. It just so happened that, in this case, it was not the thinking of a single author but rather the product of a larger play culture.
Part Two is even less surprising:
We know, of course, that these opinions evolved over the years, and in their evolution, subtle changes in these foundational stances rippled into more profound transformations. In AD&D, for example, we see how Gygax abandons 3d6 generation in favor of higher statistics. He wanted to eschew the probability range higher. His argument rested on the unviability of characters generated with the original method for the kind of adventuring they would soon embark on. He subtly seemed to imply the overall inadequacy of these types of characters in other forms of traditional gaming.
Gygax's change in stance created a more heroic game and, incidentally, divided the game into two equally valid branches of fantasy adventuring: AD&D and B/X, which would go on to evolve and continue to inform roleplaying for generations.
I'm not arguing that the reason for the (already well documented) historical segmentation of the two branches of D&D was because of a change in the stat baseline. We know this to be a multifaceted phenomenon, most notably one that was economically motivated. It's not like it divided the game. Rather it created a division in the game. Specifically that in one branch our characters are slightly larger than life and, in the other, they are plain average. Do you see how the ripples of this division affect our thinking decades later? Do you see how subsequent designers bought into these respective stances? (I'm also not saying that this is THE THING. Most likely it is just one of many historical accidents of whatever you may think is 'the real thing', the real rupture. My claim is that it is traceable and discernible, which makes it valuable as evidence.)
What I'm clumsily hinting with this is that when we look at game mechanics we are not just looking at naked procedures devoid of implication. We are looking at opinions and stances people have about some or all of the three converging forces in our interactions at the table. Being more aware of these opinions, being more questioning, more discerning, more ELABORATIVE about how game mechanics express people's stances can only enhance our gaming, and for those mad enough, our designs. It gives us a useful lens to interrogate design and stand with our feet on the ground to question it. What does this mechanic say about fantasy adventuring, about roleplaying as a practice, about human nature?
..and finally, it is a useful reminder to contemporary game designers to, MOST importantly, not have your insights contradict one another.
Opinions, thoughts and criticisms to my thesis are most welcome!
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