Space and time in RPG setting and situation

[Lanefan]

Quite possibly.

But, if you had people make lists of the most important things they want out of an RPG experience, is "consistency" going to be #1 for many of them?

I really suspect the answer to that would vary greatly with experience.

A newer player would be more likely to rank consistency way down the list; it's not exactly the first thing one tends to think about, after all. A more experienced player, who has maybe been in a few campaigns where consistency wasn't maintained very well, would I think be more likely to rank it a lot higher - quite possibly without even realizing it; more in terms of "those campaigns were really missing something but I can't put my finger on what it was".

 

[Umbran]

I really suspect the answer to that would vary greatly with experience.

Oh, I think I know where this is going, and it isn't somewhere good...

A newer player would be more likely to rank consistency way down the list; it's not exactly the first thing one tends to think about, after all. A more experienced player, who has maybe been in a few campaigns where consistency wasn't maintained very well, would I think be more likely to rank it a lot higher - quite possibly without even realizing it; more in terms of "those campaigns were really missing something but I can't put my finger on what it was".

So... people who really know games agree with you, but all those newbs don't! Basically, appeal to authority, which doesn't really give us anything interesting to think about.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't see these as being all that opposed to each other; or, put another way, I see no reason why narrative and character-driven play can't take place within those Gygaxian constraints. All it would seem to require is that the players pay as close attention to time and space constraints as the GM.

I think it may be that we simply have different ideas of what drives characters. When I say 'character driven' I am focusing on elements of the character itself, largely outside of any consideration of setting. Takeo Takeshi is haunted by memories of his lost homeland, the Island of Shimayama. His primary motivations involve three things, loyalty to his friends the Wandering Souls, his obsession with Shimayama, and a somewhat obsessive attention to 'caring for' the orphans of the orphanage where the Wandering Souls originate. He's also a scary, brutal, psychically damaged killer. So all of those are factors in motivation and 'drive'. Specifically things which impact those areas will very likely induce him into action. From there the specifics of fiction will naturally provide the grist for the resulting narrative. If he's confronted with people who threaten the orphans, he kills them, etc. But what happens when he has to choose between his different drives? Or if an ally/friend becomes an enemy or stands in his way? These are the things we will explore.

I think, in your version of character driven we are talking about the character having some interests, possibly agendas supplied by the game or ones developed/invented by the player, which motivate them to interact with the setting in a fairly structured way. Like "I'm going to go explore the dungeon to find some treasure" and then various plans and actions and possibly motives spin off of that. It can approach the same sort of territory as my BitD character above, but I pretty much defined the above with NO regard for the setting whatsoever. That is, largely at character generation. I knew it would fit in, thematically, but in all cases you could say that the REASON Takeo did something was always one of those 'internal' drives. Furthermore, the setting in that game would never impose on the players in the sense of giving them a purely externally derived goal or problem to solve. You might bring into play, say, an Orc Tribe and use it to challenge the PCs, and then they might develop motives attached to that, like the rulers of the town want them to deal with the orcs. Again, this could approach what BitD does, like a character might be said to really love his town, so he's going to save it from those orcs.

Can Blades be played in a setting other than Doskvol? If no, then it's easy to be consistent as you're kinda locked in to using the established setting and that consistency has, one hopes, already been taken care of for you by the designers. But if yes (which seems far more likely!), then if using something else e.g. a homebrew setting then all the stuff around being consistent in presenting that setting rears its head.

Well, Doskvol is the only really developed element of the world in that game, and the rest of the world is very hostile. So you could adventure to Iruvia or whatever, but BitD basically considers those other places as kind of secondary. Of course BitD has been generalized under the rubric 'FitD'. Games like Scum and Villany, AFAIK, are basically almost the identical mechanics, simply transposed into different milieu, like Star Wars. You could certainly directly translate BitD to other settings where basically the same "warren of gangs and criminals" setup could be used. Honestly, something like Lankhmar, or Dark Sun, would be barely a lift IMHO. Doskvol has a fairly significant amount of lore though, but admittedly it is 'fit for purpose'. Still, a lot, like the entire street map of the city, is presented, along with the major power blocs, leaders, many NPCs, and a lot of general background stuff like how the police work, etc. Its not cast in stone of course, but neither is any other setting, really.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Oh, I think I know where this is going, and it isn't somewhere good...



So... people who really know games agree with you, but all those newbs don't! Basically, appeal to authority, which doesn't really give us anything interesting to think about.

In all fairness, if your experience and goal are entirely within the realm of the sort of campaigns that EGG was outlining in the 1e DMG, or the D&D LBBs for that matter, then its a perfectly understandable answer. As I am not aiming for that type of game, I have a different set of values and my experiences tell me different. Maybe I'd say some people could play a wider variety of styles, it might not hurt them, but then again it ain't really my business to tell them what to play...

 

[clearstream]

I don't see these as being all that opposed to each other; or, put another way, I see no reason why narrative and character-driven play can't take place within those Gygaxian constraints. All it would seem to require is that the players pay as close attention to time and space constraints as the GM.

Although I think it is right to say that both players and GM can be involved in establishing and upholding truths, there is another vital contrast between the modes of play. That is, whether play focuses on the inner change of the characters, or outer change in the world. Is the trek from Trilus to Pavis about how they change the world? Or is it about how they change themselves? If the latter, then what's mooted is that it makes sense to state truths in the way that they are true for the characters.

On the one hand, how could it matter to state truths in any other way? On the other, it skirts deciding on behalf of the player characters. Suppose as a player I'm told I reach a chasm too wide to jump. Perhaps I have some ideas about how to jump "too-wide" chasms? Being told it's too wide might seem disempowering, but ought I really be focused on my character's ability to jumpt a chasm (an external fact)?

A related issue exemplified by the Wand of Secret Door Detection perhaps isn't the consistency, as what it decides for my play. Suppose Jo's WoSDD finds no secret doors, but later on Addy's search reveals one. How must I as Jo feel about that? To what extent are external truths expected to impinge on me. I might feel I need to respond in some way - "This wand's no good, I better find that morokanth who sold it to me and... " and in a sense that's perfectly fine - we are off on another tangent. In another way, it seems potentially distracting and dissonant without much pay off.

Perhaps then one way to value consistency is in getting things out of the way and leaving what happens up to the player. Facts are settled rather than continually revisited. It can be useful to overturn supposed facts in the interests of challenging character commitments - but usually not for every fact.

My experience has been that what participants say - our established truths - gradually make the world we are authoring a shared space that we inhabitant, filled with things we're interested in. But what is this shared space, really? As a space woven of words it is symbolic and analogic. That which seems without is in fact within. However, when established in common it is all too possible for one author to continuously submit facts that really are without. They're imposed on other participants. This is the risk with preestablished fiction and over-emphasis on a putative consistency: from whose viewpoint? Consistent with what.

Thus, I read the OP and the earlier thread it relates to as advocating consistency with the inner world of all participants, which can be approached by thinking about each imagined truth in the way that it is true for the player characters. In a sense, submitting each candidate truth to the test of how it matters or will come to matter to all participants. I don't see that as antithetical to consistency in the sense of established truths normally being upheld. Nor ought it be antithetical to saying enough about each truth that players can decide what their characters do in its relation.

In summary then, for me one lesson from the OP is the picturing of each imagined truth in the way that it is true for the player characters. In that way character > situation > setting conveys the meaning that the situation matters because it matters to the characters, and the context for that situation - the setting - matters for the same reason. How else could it matter?

What then of the GM? In many of the games concerned, truths are categorically divvied up. GM is frequently required to create oppositional and catalytic truths. Torchbearer 2 puts it well

Descriptive details are nice, but keep in mind that the primary responsibility of the game master is to place problems in the paths of the characters. Without challenges, characters will never grow and change.

Here one sees that the truths collectively form a matrix upon which transformational-truths - the narrative of inner change of the characters - subsist. Contingent truths and those that are fluid, can only contingently and fluidly justify the transformational-truths subsisting on them. If I find out tomorrow that my WoSDD doesn't work as expected, then tomorrow I am forced to revise that truth and other truths that depend on it. And what is meant by "collectively form a matrix" is that atomic truths are not the only truths we are interested in: we're interested in meta-truths that lie atop them. Things that are true in virtue of the truths they subsist on. This creates space for multiple authors to submit truths, and in the group consenting to accept and uphold them for those to sustain their purpose of play. A final caveat comes to mind: no imagined truth is ever complete. The WoSDD might have properties as yet unrevealed.

 

[Umbran]

In all fairness, if your experience and goal are entirely within the realm of the sort of campaigns that EGG was outlining in the 1e DMG, or the D&D LBBs for that matter, then its a perfectly understandable answer.

Understandable, sure. But is the assertion actually correct? Is it something one should really assert? Not so much.

There's this huge gulf between "I prefer this" and asserting that unnamed swaths of others (or others with "experience", which sounds suspiciously like gatekeeping) agrees with you that we should resist crossing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thus, I read the OP and the earlier thread it relates to as advocating consistency with the inner world of all participants, which can be approached by thinking about each imagined truth in the way that it is true for the player characters. In a sense, submitting each candidate truth to the test of how it matters or will come to matter to all participants. I don't see that as antithetical to consistency in the sense of established truths normally being upheld. Nor ought it be antithetical to saying enough about each truth that players can decide what their characters do in its relation.

In summary then, for me one lesson from the OP is the picturing of each imagined truth in the way that it is true for the player characters. In that way character > situation > setting conveys the meaning that the situation matters because it matters to the characters, and the context for that situation - the setting - matters for the same reason. How else could it matter?

What then of the GM? In many of the games concerned, truths are categorically divvied up. GM is frequently required to create oppositional and catalytic truths. Torchbearer 2 puts it well

I think it took you a lot of words to say "Just because we agree on the fiction in relation to its significance to the player character's personality/goals/drives, and the aim of the participants in the game is to examine that relationship, doesn't make the fiction inconsistent." However, we seem to basically agree here.

I'm less sure I understand the later parts though! Instead I would just say that if something comes up which contradicts some earlier 'fact' within the fiction then participants will reinterpret things. The Wand doesn't always work. Is the owner a suspicious untrusting type who immediately suspects he was ripped off by his friend and instantly reclassifies him as an enemy? Does he doubt his conclusion and look for other explanations? Does he punish the guy when they next meet, or does he give him a fair chance to explain it?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Understandable, sure. But is the assertion actually correct? Is it something one should really assert? Not so much.

There's this huge gulf between "I prefer this" and asserting that unnamed swaths of others (or others with "experience", which sounds suspiciously like gatekeeping) agrees with you that we should resist crossing.

Sure. You and I undoubtedly have a similar perspective and I think even in my last response I kind of said that, right? I mean, that was the idea I was trying to get across. However, if you stick to a very narrow paradigm of RPG play, then Gygax's consistency is at least a useful tool. Frankly speaking, I bought my 1e DMG on pre-order before it came out, and so eagerly perused the famous 'consistency section'. Even at the time I am pretty sure I was rather skeptical of such an absolutist and narrow statement. That is, I'm not a super organized fellow, at no point in time did I even attempt to enact the sort of consistency EGG or @Lanefan are advocating. Yet my D&D campaigns were pretty successful and involved lots of players. I'd agree though that a lot of people took EGG at his word. It is notable that very few people would do so today.

 

[Fenris-77]

To answer the question from above, yes, both Blades and broader FitD games play quite well in many settings. To stick to Blades specifically, you need to be playing in a game where the factions involved aren't constantly changing based on changing geographical location, as the faction game is an integral piece. That said, this can be hacked and replaced with some else, or something similar quite easily (as the number of FitD games that cover quite a broad spectrum of Genres and subgenres attests). This isn't an ad for FitD either, just straight commentary.

 

[pemerton]

This isn't an ad for FitD either

Not that it would matter if it was!

 

[Fenris-77]

Not that it would matter if it was!

Hah, no. What I wanted was to avoid going down that rabbit hole that many threads do where folks start slinging accusations about pimping their favorite game rather than honestly replying to the topic.

Back to the topic at hand, I think we could spend some interesting and profitable time unpacking exactly what might be meant by 'advocating consistency' in terms of different games and aims.

 

[pemerton]

Hah, no. What I wanted was to avoid going down that rabbit hole that many threads do where folks start slinging accusations about pimping their favorite game rather than honestly replying to the topic.

Yep, I got what you were doing. I just wanted to use whatever authority I have as OP to authorise you to promote whatever game you want to, if you think it helps shed light on the thread premise.

Back to the topic at hand, I think we could spend some interesting and profitable time unpacking exactly what might be meant by 'advocating consistency' in terms of different games and aims.

One thought on this: leaving issues of space and time fairly relaxed - in the way that, say, many adventure films, comics and TV shows to - makes it unlikely that any literal inconsistencies are going to emerge.

Of course, this requires using resolution methods that don't depend on granular knowledge of in-fiction space and time. 4e is a version of D&D that illustrates how this can be done; many non-D&D games also illustrate possible approaches. One of my favourites for having non-granular space and time but still making place quite vibrant, and even time with deft use of Scene Distinctions, is MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.

 

[Fenris-77]

One thought on this: leaving issues of space and time fairly relaxed - in the way that, say, many adventure films, comics and TV shows to - makes it unlikely that any literal inconsistencies are going to emerge.

Of course, this requires using resolution methods that don't depend on granular knowledge of in-fiction space and time. 4e is a version of D&D that illustrates how this can be done; many non-D&D games also illustrate possible approaches. One of my favourites for having non-granular space and time but still making place quite vibrant, and even time with deft use of Scene Distinctions, is MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.

I think there's some issues of genre and system that move some knobs and dials here. Some games whether through expectations or mechanics (or both) mitigate for more rigid or specific treatments of space/time in-game. I think it's also the case that whatever conflict a game places at the forefront of play are more like to mitigate for more detailed treatment. I might call this the detail is the foreground approach to game comparison.

I think our general approaches are pretty similar of you last paragraph describes you default or common approach to this issue.

 

[Fenris-77]

To expand on the above, I think a treatment of time/space in a given game is primarily a function of whatever kind of conflict is foregrounded and how the mechanics are designed to facilitate playing out that conflict. Mechanics perhaps drives this more in some instances than desired gameplay, but probably only in systems that have tighter built-in expectations about how space/time is framed and played out.

 

[pemerton]

I think a treatment of time/space in a given game is primarily a function of whatever kind of conflict is foregrounded and how the mechanics are designed to facilitate playing out that conflict.

I'm not sure how you're intending kind of conflict.

If you mean, by "kind", to differentiate different sorts of mechanical elements or structures, then I agree: wargame-type resolution treats time and space differently from (and in a more granular fashion than), say, scene-based resolution.

If you mean, by "kind", to differentiate genres or themes, then I think I disagree. I don't think there are particular genres or themes that require, when foregrounded in conflict, a granular treatment of space or time.

Perhaps I've missed your point?

 

[Fenris-77]

So when I say 'kind of conflict' what I was indexing is that different games foreground different sorts of obstacles, challenges, and conflict. In many of those cases (combat in D&D being one easy example) the mechanics and design support that foregrounding with more nuance and detail and sometimes mechanical complexity. This obviously can look very different from game to game. In PbtA games the type of conflict that is supposed to be core is foregrounded by the choices of moves where you see some specific moves and usually a catch-all 'risky action' move - the specific moves are a clear design index to what kind of conflict is supposed to be core to the game. In D&D the additional mechanics and complexity for combat clearly indicate it's importance in terms of design. In a general sense those foregrounded types of conflict, the ones that are supposed to be front and center in terms of game play, tend to get more details, both mechanical and otherwise, and also tend to be the parts of the game that get more detailed rules in terms of granularity of time/space, although this is certainly not true of every example.

I'm very much not trying to categorize by genre here. Different games can try to capture the 'feel' of a genre in very different ways with very different levels of granularity and mechanical complexity, including treatments of time/space. If you wanted to say that this issue can be to some extent captured as a push-pull between wargame resolution and scene-based resolution I wouldn't argue though.

 

[pemerton]

@Fenris-77

I would say that, in your sense, MHRP (being a supers game) foregrounds physical combat/conflict in its resolution system. Although, notionally, all types of conflict are resolved the same, there are more powers and more SFX that deal with fisticuffs than with other sorts of conflict. (Meaning, as a result, that at least in my experience dice pools are noticeably smaller when social and emotional conflict is happening.)

But it is very relaxed about space and time which I think is one of its distinctive features, and in the context of the game a real strength. Scene Distinctions, instead, are what creates the sense of place.

 

[aramis erak]

I believe there will certainly be participants uncomfortable with shifting sands,[...]

Indeed there will be... Some of us want local setting to be relatively stable and well defined; others want the big picture stable, but don't mind undefined bits in the local context... of the 30 or so people I've run FFG's Star Wars for, only three were comfortable flipping destiny to "find the right tool" or "Have remembered item X after all..."

and the harm done to Character => Situation => Setting is oblique (only arises in theorycrafting.)

That harm is dependent upon playstyles; it's VERY real harm to immersion for some to use mechanical labels instead of character perception expressed in player-comfortable real world units. I'm one of those - abstracting to zones outside active combat? Breaks my immersion, both as player and as GM. (Moreover, those are two very different forms of immersion.

Setting truths have most likely already been established prior to character creation, in the forms already discussed elsewhere.

And yet, for certain games, setting truths are nebulous and subject to change with minimal notice. (EG: John Wick's Houses of the Blooded and Blood and Honor... any "risk" can change anything established in prior risks. B&H is a better samurai game than L5R... but L5R is easier to find suitable players for.)
The problem with abstract analysis is that many seem to forget there are multiple playstyles...
Me, I loved Blood and Honor... but then I got a player with no respect for the bounds of good taste and the "lines and veils" type agreement for the campaign. When every person can use others' characters without consent, respect is the single most essential element.

Oh, I think I know where this is going, and it isn't somewhere good...



So... people who really know games agree with you, but all those newbs don't! Basically, appeal to authority, which doesn't really give us anything interesting to think about.

His generalization, while not documentation, is something I've seen a lot, but I'm not certain it's as much experience based, but age based.

I know I and my wife both want more consistency of setting than we did in the mid 1990's. 25+ years have changed our expectations. And, sadly, also our capabilities, for maintaining continuity. It's hard to disentangle the gaming experience element from the older player element.

 

[niklinna]

To toss something in from out of nowhere:

There are cultures that reckon all movement directions and geography in absolute cardinal direcitons (NSEW). No left, right, forward, back. I think about how that might affect my ability to reckon space and it's kinda trippy.

Edit: Found a brief mention in wikipedia.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

His generalization, while not documentation, is something I've seen a lot, but I'm not certain it's as much experience based, but age based.

There's nothing to generalize here, he is simply arrogant enough to think his opinions about RPGs are 'truths' and the rest of us are fools, put plainly.

I know I and my wife both want more consistency of setting than we did in the mid 1990's. 25+ years have changed our expectations. And, sadly, also our capabilities, for maintaining continuity. It's hard to disentangle the gaming experience element from the older player element.

I don't think this is a generalization that works either. IME a greater degree of experience with a wider variety of RPGs and types of play brings a greater understanding, acceptance, and enjoyment of more types of play.

And honestly, I don't think the core underlying idea here, that somehow the time at which stuff is made up decides if it is consistent or has a certain degree of verisimilitude, can be upheld.