The Nature of the Game Itself

[Jack7]

I won't be finishing the Conjunction Contest in time.

I can't see any way at all I can possibly finish. And to be honest I wasn't going to compete directly anyway because of the fact that what I was putting together was far too large for the competition.

On a positive note I have ended up creating a completely different game, not simply a revision of D&D, it is an entirely different work. Though in many ways it is a kind of homage to AD&D.

Another advantage is that it has allowed me to completely revise my long running D&D campaign milieu/setting, so that when my game is finished it can encompass my old setting as well.

I thought long and hard about a sort of off-hand comment Reynard made about Gygaxian prose. I realized by looking at what I had written, after reading that comment and studying the way in which I had been writing Transformations, that I was basically, if unintentionally, merely emulating already existing versions of the game. That is I was basically writing in a style that seemed "standardized" to more modern versions of gaming manuals. I think I was doing that sub-consciously to obtain a certain cache of "relatability for the sake of relatability" to modern RPG players. To give them "what they expect in the way they expect it."

I realized after reflecting upon Reynard's observation about how Gygax had written his game in his own language (and I suspect that as far as popular culture goes it made a far greater impact than any following version of the game), and by doing an analysis of the Word Cloud thread, that my previous approach had been an idea devolved from a lack of "Visionary Emphasis" shared by most later versions of the D&D game (and indeed many other fantasy based RPGs). That is later versions of the game were developed merely with the intent of improving play at the margins and improving the mechanical aspects of play, but no newer and certainly no superior vision for the game ever developed. Not at least that could compete with Gygax's vision of the game.

I suspect this later state of affairs was very much the product of both corporate intent and the fact that later versions of the game developed basically by committee instead of being the product of individual genius and personal innovation. (Not that I'm saying Gygax was correct in all of his developments or his designs, several aspects of the systems he developed were weak or even illogical in function. Nor am I saying he did not absorb influences from various sources. But he did have a "personal vision" that far exceeded later versions of the game and this strength alone completely excelled later and basically cosmetic and mechanical improvements as far as how important his game was to the wider world, rather than just to the core RPG audience.)

In any case what I had been writing was basically crap. Just another rehashed, anemic version of the same corporate and design by committee weltanschauung that makes later versions of the game so boring, and for the most part unimaginative by comparison. (Though I do like some of the things in 4E, like the fact that the character classes for the first time strike me as truly alien, and humanoid, rather than human, and so for my game I decided to develop entirely different class professions for non-humans and humans. Class professions which function in entirely different ways. I would have bought the 4E game just to study the implications of that design theory alone.)

So I've decided to go back and rewrite the thing as I would write it, with my personal visions of magic, and God, and miracles, and Clergy, and Wizards, and Warriors (not just brawling fighters, but professional killers), and magical items, and heroism, and character types, and combat methods, and player-character identity interaction, and transferable skill capabilities, and so forth and so on. And perhaps just as, if not more importantly, to do it in my own way, and in my own style, using my own voice and mannerisms of speech and script, and not to make it merely some generic realignment of the same old corporate (by this I mean group effort) and basically visionless view of game design that has been so common recently.

I'm viewing this effort now as a real Opus, and not just "a game," as if I were developing a vision for a piece of literature (and really that was what the original game was, game-literature, literature that could be enacted and role-played) whose aim is not to design by committee in order to merely satisfy the game-mechanics, but rather to promote a "Vision of Role Play."

I am shooting for genius and innovation rather than compliance and standardization. And regardless of how ingenius my actual and finished effort is I know that I can at the very least achieve a state of true innovation rather than just incremental improvement. Then again if this is to be a product of my genius then it must be a product of my genius, I can use previous fantasy gaming ideas as inspiration and thought models, but not as blueprints or design sketches. I must build as I would build, not build as I think others expect me to build.

And I'm no longer content to build just another car.
I'm out to build a different mode and method of transport.

If the game is to be about Transformations, then I should start with the nature of the game itself.

 

[Reynard]

The RPG, especially since the explosion of PDF publishing, is a wonderful medium for a "personal vision" design paradigm (whether that is literally one person, or a small group all on the same wavelength). Many folks have already done great work with their own games, and since there's no shelf space issue to be concerned with everyone who has an RPG inside them can put one out.

The problem I see, though, is that too much "indie" RPG design is built specifically around being NOT D&D -- more particularly, being NOT CORPORATE D&D. This, i think, is too bad, because what it does is throw out the baby with the bathwater. It's as foolish as specifically designing NOT WoD -- the other juggernaut of the industry. That D&D is as popular as it is speaks to more than the success of TSR's or WotC's marketting departments. There's something in the genre, in the play, in the cultural structure of the game that makes it valuable, and worth examining through independent design. One of the reasons I love the OGL is that it allows people with a vision of what D&D would, could or should be to produce just that.

This isn't to say all RPGs should look and play just like D&D. Rather, looking and/or playing like D&D should not be an anti-goal of independent game design and development.

I wrote for Exalted for a while and contributed a sizable chunk to the Gamma World d20 PHB before real life (read: 2 kids) kind of sucked away that "spare time" I used to use to write. Recently, though, I have really considered leaping back in to the fray. i have played with other forms of game design and have a couple ideas that are well on their way to being good prototypes, but I always find myself gravitating back toward the pen and paper RPG. Now , of course, with the state of the industry -- particularly the D&D third party industry -- it doesn't look like there's really anywhere to go as a freelancer.

Uh, oh. I've started rambling. So I'll stop and just give Jack some XP.

 

[Badjak]

The interesting idea behind your post, and also in role playing games in general, is that the tools for modification of the game world are immediately at your disposal. Imagine, if you will the variety of video games that we would see if they were as available to modification and crafting. The flaw of video games is that they require an exorbitant amount of education and skill to craft games whereas role playing games, honestly, don't. Not being a Gygaxian scholar myself, I can only assume that it was that sort of pioneering of the genre, the concept that a game was being designed for the first time, around a table, by a group of friends, without any real idea about exactly what they were getting into, that is such a strong draw for people.

To be honest, these days, I'd be really interested in playing with some independent game systems as long as they had a very distinct design goal behind them that makes them interesting. One time at a party in the wee hours of the morning, some friends of mine were bored so we designed our own role playing game. It involved flipping a coin for success actions and failed actions. Players would go around the table just narrating what they wanted to have happen. If they had a success, then they could go again, until they failed. Anyway, partly because we were drunk, we ended up having a blast. It ended up being a John Woo like gun battle through a burning building and outside into an ambulance chase that involved a car chase, dodging medical gurneys, and cars. Anyway, I like the idea of stripping games down to the basics, and cutting out as much rules as you can along the way.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I won't be finishing the Conjunction Contest in time.

You and me both then.

Yeah, just too little (free) time for what has spiralled out well beyond my initial 'estimates', if that's even a slightly applicable term.

Anyway, best of luck with 'shooting for genius and innovation'! Seems I'm perhaps equally 'foolish', 'bold' or whatever it is that drives a person toward such goals. The gods only know how my own total re-imagining will end up, later this year most likely. Whatever the case, I hope yours yields the results you're after.

And, depressing though they are, I must agree with many of your conclusions regarding D&D.

That D&D is as popular as it is speaks to more than the success of TSR's or WotC's marketting departments.

Well, it's a known quantity too. It's very well established. That helps immensely, and is probably the primary reason for its ongoing success, however great that might actually even be, nowadays.

Not that there's nothing good in D&D. Of course there are good things in it. Any edition, that is. But how it would stand or fall if it were entering the market only now as a (typically) weakly advertised 'indie' game, or the like, would be extremely interesting, to say the least. Naturally, other RPGs would have started it all in this alternate reality, and so forth.

 

[xechnao]

Not that there's nothing good in D&D. Of course there are good things in it. Any edition, that is. But how it would stand or fall if it were entering the market only now as a (typically) weakly advertised 'indie' game, or the like, would be extremely interesting, to say the least. Naturally, other RPGs would have started it all in this alternate reality, and so forth.

I think Maggan (am I spelling this right?) has pointed out that in Sweden, D&D is not the most popular rpg but rather chaosium's basic. Interestingly it was the first one in the market in Sweden.

 

[Jack7]

Not that there's nothing good in D&D. Of course there are good things in it. Any edition, that is. But how it would stand or fall if it were entering the market only now as a (typically) weakly advertised 'indie' game, or the like, would be extremely interesting, to say the least. Naturally, other RPGs would have started it all in this alternate reality, and so forth.

I think Maggan (am I spelling this right?) has pointed out that in Sweden, D&D is not the most popular rpg but rather chaosium's basic. Interestingly it was the first one in the market in Sweden.

Those are interesting observations and speculations.

Maybe related to those ideas and maybe not I've decided not to write my Manuals up, though that is what I am calling them for the moment - and may settle upon that, as game manuals, but as real books.

And not now, I have far too many other more important and pressing matters to attend, but at some time in the future I hope to illustrate them myself to a degree, and have them illustrated professionally. Yet to also include things like extracts form other books and quotes in Latin, Greek, and in the fictional languages of the other world.

And eventually to have them illustrated.
They will be able to function as game manuals but I also intend them to be able to function as real world/life manuals along the lines of the Tacticon and Strategicon (though in a different manner). And maybe also as brief primers on other subject material such as myth, history, religion, languages, etc. Certainly they will at the very least include lists of real world sources to consult as inspiration. This game will not in any way seek to escape the real world, but to overlap it in many respects.

I have for years been working on the idea of creating a book which is truly multi-media and easily "programmable," so that content can change, the reader can modify the book as they desire adding and excising material, and to which they can easily include their own notations.

I also want people to be able to arrange content in any fashion they desire and find most useful.

I thought that these books would be part of that project.

But first things first, the initial Drafts.

 

[Galloglaich]

I made the Codex in the hope of bringing something back to DnD that no longer seemed to be there. I loved the innovation of the Indy RPG scene but I saw some groupthink in there too and I felt their abhorrance of all things DnD was a kind of religious fanaticsm. The core of the RPG world is still DnD, I see no reason to let it turn into just one very narrow type of game.

I think the individual vision is great, but I also think the open wiki approach to building things can extend that exponetially beyond what one individual can do. Even old Gary had his blind spots, as you pointed out. An "open source" design approach could build up the kind of "personal vision" Gary had exactly the way the Corporate Committee tore it down. Something cleverly modular, so you can plug in different character generation systems, magic systems, combat systems etc., but also something with a personality. Something you would enjoy reading just for the fun of it, the way I enjoyed reading the OEDnD DMG for hours as a kid. (or the original Call of Cthulhu book a couple years later)

I think we need to start building something for old school gamers within the OGL, set up a website, start collecting like-minded people. Lets make OGL 3.01....

G.

 

[xechnao]

I think the individual vision is great, but I also think the open wiki approach to building things can extend that exponetially beyond what one individual can do. Even old Gary had his blind spots, as you pointed out. An "open source" design approach could build up the kind of "personal vision" Gary had exactly the way the Corporate Committee tore it down. Something cleverly modular, so you can plug in different character generation systems, magic systems, combat systems etc., but also something with a personality. Something you would enjoy reading just for the fun of it, the way I enjoyed reading the OEDnD DMG for hours as a kid. (or the original Call of Cthulhu book a couple years later)

I think we need to start building something for old school gamers within the OGL, set up a website, start collecting like-minded people. Lets make OGL 3.01....

I have Cadwallon which its design was made in a way you are advocating. While it has some good ideas in implementation ends up to be a mechanic patchwork with a lot of fatigue to the point of almost unplayable.
I am not saying that it cant be done but it aint easy I think.

 

[Galloglaich]

I have Cadwallon which its design was made in a way you are advocating. While it has some good ideas in implementation ends up to be a mechanic patchwork with a lot of fatigue to the point of almost unplayable.
I am not saying that it cant be done but it aint easy I think.

Not familiar with Cadwallon or exactly how they did it, but if you did something "open source" style I would assume that would include testing it at every stage for smoothness, playability, elegance etc.

Certainly the process seems to work very well for a lot of open source software I have to use for work, for example Ubuntu ...

Ubuntu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

G.