System matters and free kriegsspiel

[S'mon]

(changed my mind on reflection)

 

[Aldarc]

No, the folks here who haven't read or played FKR games are mostly just attacking something they don't understand and wildly misrepresenting it. Or reading it badly.

The FKR is trying to do much the same as the FK back in the day. Take the massively overly complicated rules and bin them in favor of some other benchmark instead. In FK it's the Referee being a trained, experienced military officer and drawing on their experience to adjudicate the probabilities or outcomes. In FKR the Referee defaults to either a) a table-shared sense of genre tropes or realism, or b) the Referee's greater knowledge of genre tropes. Much like Wesley's Braunsteins and Arneson's character getting into a duel.

So what are the overly complicated rule systems that FKR is reacting against?

It’s a bit odd to me. I feel like game design in the TTRPG space has improved drastically over the past few decades. There is a lot of elegant and intentional design. Attention to Lay-out and presentation has also improved.

 

[S'mon]

Given that there are, in fact, numerous other sources that discuss the specific issue of Free Kriegsspiel both in history (and the application to early TTRPGs) and its more recent application in indie games (usually referred to as FKR), it would probably be best to use the actual sources and definitions that the people themselves use. You could google it, or use one of any number of sources such as this one-


I think people that are making and playing FKR games would prefer that you read their games and play them than just idly speculate as to what the games might be like using terminology many of them don't use.

Your entire section on FK(R) appears to completely miss the current conversation. IMO.

So, having now read The Invisible Rulebooks it's clear that by 'invisible rulebook' she does not mean a rulebook, it's more like a guide book (guideline book? ) - "Rough Guide to Comedy Westerns" in her example. The idea is that we each hold in our head ideas about how the world works, and how genre norms operate. For FK to be functional, either the players are happy to follow the GM's lead (which IME IRL is true 98% of the time) or else everyone is already on the same page.

 

[Numidius]

View attachment 145076


I will send my own thoughts about this more directly to you in a PM. I'm a bit worried that a further thought I have is likely too political. But on your other point below...


IMHO, it's a striking use of language in how this FKR post frames rules in terms of 'servant' or 'master.' Compare, for example, this servant/master language with the language that Fate uses to describe its Silver Rule:

Where is the GM in this process? Notice how much of this entails player consent and agreement without any sort of the harsh master/slave framed language. The rules are not villainized as adversarial to the game or depicted as some sort of tyrant. It's primarily framed in terms of basic fiction-first principles.


I would likely find FKR more compelling if it was a bit more transparent about its assumptions, approaches, and ends. But as you say, a lot of how FKR is framed seems to be about giving the GM more authority.


I suspect that the FKR movement may regard the toggling of "realism" and "genre" as a feature and not a flaw.

I suppose my issue is that it would be more difficult for me to "play the world" as a player if I didn't know which aesthetic the GM would prioritize simulating in a given moment: realism or genre. This would be a case where I normally would consult the rules of the game to temper my expectations about the game's tone or sense of aesthetics.


I'm not sure if it's just 3e D&D. I suspect, much like with the OSR community, it's somewhat directed at the shift in approaches and philosophy that is generally marked by WotC-Era D&D. Also, @Campbell, noted how a lot of the criticisms and assumptions of FKR kind of threw the vast bulk of TTRPGs, mainstream and indie games alike, under the bus.

Just for your information, there is an explicitly leftist/inclusive FKR Discord server.

Play worlds, not rules... doesn't dismiss all published games. Quite the opposite: take those manuals and use them as setting. Play them.
Use the fluff, of course, maybe even the crunch (as you say) to understand tone, genre, setting "realism", but don't use it as mechanics related to the characters' sheets.
That's the point.
Fiction first and only. Even while writing char sheets, noting important stuff in plain language, not numbers (this is big feature of PbtA IMO)
Mechanics in FKR idea are all Gm-facing, though, and Gm decides when to use'em and eventually tell the player roll this, or that.

Discussions in order to be on the same page, about possible outcomes, consequences, risk... I guess that depends on table, playstyles, expectations.

More authority to the Gm? Yes, seems true to me. But also more responsability in some ways, rules are not there to take part of that "burden".
Would I be comfortable with that as a player? Not sure, actually. My previous experience tells me a big No.
But for me as a Gm is an inspiring drive to dust off the shelves classic rpgs, or buy new ones, and run them light hearted.

If players invest effort in setting knowledge, all the better.

For my style, strict FKR is still a bit too rigid, by the way.
My fixation is Players' Agency & Content Introduction; under this light, the term Referee assumes a broader meaning than just Gm decides outcomes, they even arbitrate, discuss, refine, introduction of new content.

 

[Campbell]

Play worlds, not rules certainly feels like it is throwing shade at the value of game design to me. It also seems to be saying that if you are playing games that have rules that affect play or enjoy mechanical engagement you are not interested in the fiction. At least that's what I take away from it, like rules pervert something true and good. It feels disrespectful to the entire field of play that is not FKR to me. It's saying can't you see what a waste all this energy and effort you are putting in is.

This is a genuine reaction to this. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic or arguing some point here.

 

[overgeeked]

Play worlds, not rules certainly feels like it is throwing shade at the value of game design to me. It also seems to be saying that if you are playing games that have rules that affect play or enjoy mechanical engagement you are not interested in the fiction. At least that's what I take away from it, like rules pervert something true and good. It feels disrespectful to the entire field of play that is not FKR to me. It's saying can't you see what a waste all this energy and effort you are putting in is.

Other people playing differently and expressing their preferences is not an attack on you or your preferences.

 

[pemerton]

What do reasons have to do with rules?

Hegel and Kant want to know where you live.

 

[pemerton]

No, the folks here who haven't read or played FKR games are mostly just attacking something they don't understand and wildly misrepresenting it. Or reading it badly.

Is Cthuhu Dark a FKR game?

 

[Ovinomancer]

So, having now read The Invisible Rulebooks it's clear that by 'invisible rulebook' she does not mean a rulebook, it's more like a guide book (guideline book? ) - "Rough Guide to Comedy Westerns" in her example. The idea is that we each hold in our head ideas about how the world works, and how genre norms operate. For FK to be functional, either the players are happy to follow the GM's lead (which IME IRL is true 98% of the time) or else everyone is already on the same page.

You should read other articles on that site, maybe start with the glossary, to see the context that's set in.

ETA: That's the best take you can get from that article. Even in your explanation of it you're missing the actual conflict -- if my idea of the world is one thing and yours is another, what does this mean? According to invisible rulebooks, it's the GM's take that matters. If we distill that down, then the only invisible rulebook is the GM's, and it's not shared.

 

[pemerton]

in FK you want the players 'playing the world' not 'playing the rules', just as they shouldn't be 'playing the man'.

<snip>

FK was an attempt to harness the trainers' expertise. There was also Semi-Free Kriegsspiel a bit later, which tried to get a 'best of both' and I'd say is the approach of OD&D.

I think FK is therefore best suited to real world, realistic, and hard SF type settings.

no referee is perfect, certainly no referee has perfect information, and for FK play it's important for the referee/GM to set a range of possibilities and roll the dice. This takes off a huge burden, and over time a lot of dice rolls, even if each individual one has skewed probabilities, tends to lead to better & more realistic results than the referee deciding what happens each time. A good referee knows his Clausewitz

The GM can assign 0 and 100 as probabilities, but he needs to be able to explain why (post-game, if it's a secret in-game, but normally done right away). "OK you send your infantry forward against the machine gun emplacements. They have overlapping fields of fire, artillery support, and barbed wire... your attack fails". But even then I find it's best practice to set a range of failure, eg "Most of your force is cut down in the open or stalls, seeking cover in the shell craters, but on a 6 some of your men do penetrate the enemy dugouts... roll". The FK GM needs to imaginatively consider the range of possible outcomes. It is (very) bad FK practice to decide on just one 'likely' outcome and declare that the result.

Some of what I'm putting in this post is repetition, but as this is a messageboard I hope to be forgiven by my fellow interlocutors!

My compilation of quotes from S'mon sets out (in my view) a perfectly coherent approach to playing a game. I think it is pretty consistent with what I said in my OP about Free Kriegsspiel. In that post I noted that "In the context of a RPG, there are some obvious contexts in which it is not going to be very applicable". Switching from negation to affirmation, it seems best for gameplay where:

* The context of resolution is well established - eg to the extent that it is very complex or dynamic, these don't matter to resolution (eg if it's raining, we don't need to know which way any particular rain drop is going to fall or bounce) or that complexity/dynamism can be readily incorporated (as per @S'mon's Clausewitzian incorporation of rolled results);

* The adjudicator is familiar with the context of resolution (and is at least as expert as the players);

* The parameters that need to be adjudicated are primarily or even exclusively tactical, and do not involve a high degree of evaluative or aesthetic or emotional interpretation.​

I think Free Kriegsspiel can be applicable to the sort of infantry charge that S'mon has described. Likewise, as early D&D shows, it can be applicable to the examination of some very sparse geography and architecture (ie "dungeons").

But I think it is not a very applicable resolution framework for trying to determine (for instance) whether an economy can maintain sufficient civilian morale to ensure the industrial production and the provision of soldiers necessary to prosecute a war on the scale of the First or Second World War. Nor for determining the outcome of the Vienna Conference. Nor for determining the outcome of an occupation by a military victor (contrast, say, France in 1940 to France in 1944-45; or Poland post-1945 to Japan post-1945).

The classic D&D dungeon model will break down even if we maintain a focus on architecture and furniture but shift our inquiry from something like KotB to ransacking a typical contemporary Australian or American house. Suppose the PCs are looking for a copy of a will. Does the person even have a will? If so, do they have a copy in their house, or is it with a lawyer who helped them draft it? If in their house, is it in a cupboard in the bedroom, on a bookshelf, in a kitchen drawer, hidden under a floorboard (perhaps more common in adventure fiction than real life?)? What actions do the players have to declare? Is the GM going to itemise every detail of every room - I'm looking around my room at the moment and can see around 1000 books, any of which might have a copy of my will tucked inside one of its covers. And that's before we get to the possibility of more secret hiding places. And this is not the only room in the house, and neither is it the most densely furnished.

There is also the question of consequence. In the wargame case, what matters - roughly - is who takes or holds what position with what degree of casualties and what degree of resource consumption. (In the latter case, I'm not sure how far Free Kriegsspiel resolution can reasonably be taken. It can track battlefield artillery stockpiles, I imagine, but as I said above I doubt the ability to meaningful track industrial production; nor extended sieges.) But what about the fate of any given soldier? And the fate of that soldier's family if they get news that the soldier has died? These things are not really relevant to training Prussian officers; and are not really relevant to Lewis Pulsipher-style D&D play; but can easily matter to some RPGing.

I think that early RPG designers worked some of these things out! When Classic Traveller sets the throws required to successfully avoid close inspection of papers by officials, to find an official willing to issue licences without hassle, or to avoid a dangerous incident while jumping about in a vacc suit, I don't think those can be explained on a Free Kriegsspiel model. They establish consistent frameworks for resolving certain common situations that arise in Traveller play. As I've already posted (if not in this thread, then the recent Thoughts on Apocalypse World one) these are really anticipations of PtbA-style moves: eg When you deal with an official, Throw + Admin (+5 if Admin-1, +2 per additional level of expertise): on a 10+ they do not closely inspect your papers; otherwise they do inspect them, and the referee will tell you how they respond. (As Marc Miller presents it the throw is 7+ with +2 per level of expertise, but -3 for no expertise; so my maths is the same but more cleanly presented.)

Similarly when Gygax sets the saving throw necessary to avoid poison or take half damage from dragon breath; or specifies the chance for successful divine intervention; this is not Free Kriegsspiel logic. It is establishing (i) both flavour and capability across the various classes, and (ii) a framework for level progression. The 4e paladin with Valiant Strike gaining +1 to hit per adjacent foe is a direct descendant of Gygax here - this helps define the flavour and capability of a STR paladin, as someone who valiantly hurls themself into the fray heedless of the number of foes.

I don't see any need to deprecate free kriegsspiel resolution. But nor do I see any need to assert that it can do things that it pretty obviously can't! (And I feel that the notion of trust really is unhelpful. As I've posted upthread, the only major RPG I can think of which does not rely on the GM to adjudicate fictional positioning is 3E D&D. And maybe even that is a bit unfair - my picture of 3E is as much or more from reputation than actual play experience.)