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I think linear is pretty much used in its common meaning - it literally describes something that occurs in a straight line from point A to point B. That it refers to gameplay structure is usually evident from context. The rest of these, yes, are jargon.
All RPGing is linear: one things happens, then another, then another, starting at A and ending at B.
But not all RPGing is "linear adventures". To be honest it's not a concept I've ever mastered, because I think applying requires drawing distinctions I'm not very sensitive to, but at a minimum I think some concept of pre-authorship of the B is involved.
Interesting analysis. The difference there seems really, really subtle to me, maybe because I think it’s important in the first structure for the environment where gameplay takes place to be inherently threatening (therefore making the key difference the fact that it is always an event that threatens the players’/characters’ interests in the first step of the second structure).
I have about three observations to make. I hope you don't mind.
First, while the differences may seem subtle to you, I think it's important to recognize how even subtle differences can cause games operating by these principles to naturally evolve in drastically different ways over the course of a session or multiple sessions. Moreover, many of the people I have seen argue that no fundamental difference exists between these sorts of play loops are often the ones I have seen complain the loudest that these games don't work like D&D (or are even capable of working at all) or that they result in badwrongfun. I find that it's helpful to see these games in action, both running and playing them, because I do agree with @Campbell that these games require different skill sets.
Second, I think that your point on the importance of an environment where gameplay transpires to be threatening describes certain modes of play in D&D, but leaves a lot out. If the gameplay takes place in a town shop interacting with a Joe Schmoe the Shopkeeper, should that scene be threatening to the players?
Third, I would say that the first prioritizes player character interactivity. This is to say, the first IME is primarily interested in highlighting some aspects that of the scene that players may choose for their characters to interact with in some way, with the GM advised to present the scene as a neutral arbiter of the game fiction with respect to the players and their characters' interests. This view comes across in the description of the play loop in the 5e PHB:
The DM tells the players where their adventurers are and what's around them, presenting the basic scope of options that present themselves (how many doors lead out of a room, what's on a table, who's in the tavern, and so on).
A threat may exist in the scene, but the fundamental role described here for GM nevertheless involves "presenting the basic scope of options that present themselves" for players.
Interesting analysis. The difference there seems really, really subtle to me
<snip>
Unless I’m missing something, it seems like the differences here could be much more succinctly explained, simply by saying that in the second type of game, the gameplay loop always starts from an immediate threat to the PCs, and action resolution is a group responsibility rather than solely up to the GM.
Whether or not the difference is subtle - personally I don't think it is, as to me the difference between playing (say) Burning Wheel and (say) 2nd ed AD&D is a very apparent one - it is profound.
In @Campbell's first structure, step 1 is the GM describing the environment. And step 3 is the GM describing how the environment changes. To get from 1 to 3, the GM "incorporates" (for lack of a better word) the players' action declarations for their PCs (step 2) into the environment (established at step 1), and thereby reasons out how the environment changes (step 3).
In @Campbell's second structure, step 1 is the GM responding to something player-authored (a PC's interest) so as to trigger a response from that player via an action declaration for their PC (step 2). And then the system (what @Campbell calls "mechanics and principles") determines the parameters within the fallout from that response is narrated, and by whom. (This is where a good chunk of the difference between systems like Dogs in the Vineyard, Sorcerer, Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel and Hero Wars is found.)
The second structure does not require any reasoning about the imagined environment. Whereas this is fundamental to the first structure.
The first structure does not require any reasoning about player-authored PC interests. But this is fundamental to the second structure.
But there is an asymmetry between structures, because the first structure locates the reasoning about environment as a precursor to step 3; whereas in the second structure the reasoning about PC interests is a precursor to step 1, whereas it may or may not figure in step 3 depending on the details of the system.
You can design a scenario or adventure for the first structure without knowing anything about the PCs who are to engage in it. Whereas that's obviously a big challenge for the second structure. (The only second-structure RPG I know of that has really tackled this challenge in a large scale way is Prince Valiant. It's not entirely successful, but it does a reasonable job. It works because many Prince Valiant PCs have very similar interests, being knights errant in an Arthurian vein.)
The concept of "fallout" has no particular work to do in the first structure. The first structure works fine if the primary focus of play is essentially procedural - who pokes which bit of the world to find out what happens next. (Which I think is fairly close to @Aldarc's notion of "interactivity".) Whereas the concept of "fallout" is fundamental to the second structure: the consequences of action resolution, established at step 3, have to change or at least bear upon the PC's interests. This is what keeps the game in motion, and generates material to allow new iterations of step 1. (Just as, in the first structure, it is changes to the environment that allow new iterations of step 1.)
There are further differences too, but the ones I've outlined are some of the more significant ones.
@Charlaquin, since I forgot to mention it, the idea of "fiction first" as a term can be summarized as "play should begin and end with the fiction."
The Book of Hanz (a primer for Fate) summarizes "fiction first" as follows:
So, what does "fiction first" mean, at least to me? It means that character actions should start with the "fiction", and be described in terms of the "fiction". Then, and only then should they be interpreted into mechanics.
"Fiction first" was a general response to the sort of play found in 3e sometimes characterized by players declaring "I want to make a Perception check" (i.e., mechanics first) rather than "My character tries looking through the trees to see if there are any signs of humanoids or creatures" (i.e., fiction first).
While I think that D&D 5e has moved more towards fiction first when it comes to ability checks - IMO, less out of a desire to pursue "Story Games" but rather a desire to pursue "OSR" - there are still a lot of "mechanics first" design elements.
PbtA games are also heavily fiction first games. The mechanics are only consulted when moves are triggered by character actions in and through the fiction, creating situations that lead to new fiction.
I played Rolemaster as my main game for 19 years, 4 or 5 of which were after I read Edwards on purist-for-system simulationism.
In that 19 years I ran two campaigns. One lasted from 1990 to 1997, the other from 1998 to 2008. The first eventually collapsed. The second was brought to a terrific conclusion (if I do say so myself). I couldn't have pulled that off without having read Edwards or other RPG authors/commentators that he pointed me to (like Paul Czege).
The idea that only someone who didn't like purist-for-system play would find Edwards insightful is just wrong. His analysis is brilliant. I was fairly active on the ICE forums around the same time I first read Edwards. The comparison in degree of insight was mindblowing. And frankly your assumption that because I like Edwards I must hate and sneer at purist-for-system RPGing is a bit insulting.
I also don't mind the odd bit of classic D&D - and certainly enjoy it more since I've been able to work out what it's about, which I was able to do by rereading Pulsipher and Gygax informed by Edwards - but it's not my favourite and I'm not very good at it. But I'm trying my hand at Torchbearer, which is unabashedly a "gamist" RPG in Edwards sense, and which I wouldn't be able to GM if I hadn't read Edwards.
As far as high-concept simulationism is concerned, Edwards in my view also explains very well why I enjoy a well-GMed session of CoC but find AD&D 2nd ed a mostly frustrating experience.
100% agree. Ron Edwards himself was also a keen fan of Champions and other non-narrativist games. Personally I found GNS very useful and I published a narrativist-supporting RPG, but I also greatly enjoy the Gamist elements of D&D (4e much moreso than 5e) and one of my last games as a GM was highly simulationist MERP/Rolemaster play.
I definitely don't see myself as an N looking down on those dirty Gs and Ss. I'm just someone who likes the games I play to pick a lane and focus strongly on that particular flavour rather than trying to have a little bit of everything.
Is it only a kicker if it's resolved as soon as its laid down?
Game session 3
GM: As you round the bend you are startled by several ravens cawing loudly in the mide of the road.
Player: (inspiration to add to backstory) Barnabus backs up terrified. He is irrationally afraid of loud ravens. The night he discovered his sister rmissing he had been startled awake by two loud ravens outside this window.
Game Session 5
GM: (introducing sideplot involving ravens and missing sisters) When the hermits hut opens you flinch as two ravens perched on his shoulder begin seemingly laughing at you.
So a few things and then a few play examples from last night’s Stonetop game. In your construct above, I’m seeing some elements that tell me that what your conceiving of isn’t a kicker.
1) Yes, there is player authorship. It’s quite interesting as well and is on its way toward being a formulation of (a) provocative situation with (b) clear antagonism (which the GM plays) that (c) addresses player-authored dramatic need and (d) kicks off (“kicker” - immediacy) and propels play. However, it’s missing some essential components.
2) “Sideplot” + “GM introduces” + lack of immediacy > propelling play + the players formulation of things appears to be heavy on color and light on conflict/antagonism. It’s good color mind you, but the amount and quality of color isn’t what does the heavy lifting here.
So last night’s Stonetop game (a hearth fantasy game about a small Iron Age Steading in a Points of Light - jargon! -setting with 4e esque mythology where the goal is to tend to, care for, and grow your little home if you can) the PCs returning triumphant from separate Adventures (the 4 PCs tend to split up with each group of 2 taking on a different Threat to or Opportunity for Stonetop).
There are a few “loose ends” (Threats and one Plan to resolve ruined armor) floating out there and Summer is about to end (so we transition a month or two to Fall and make Fall’s move and see what Threats and Opportunities spin out of that). So given the disposition of play right now, we did a series of “ask questions and use the answers” that amounts to procedurally generating Kickers.
The Judge
Look here at this little town, this candleflame in the darkness. Its very existence is an act of courage and faith. And Aratis has charged you to keep it: to settle its disputes; to chronicle its tales; to defend it from darkness and ruin. Take up your hammer, Judge. Your town needs you.
He carries with him a cursed infant taken on as an oath sworn from the immediately preceding Adventure.
So he wanted his play from this situation to be about:
* keeping his oath if he can
* resolving the child’s curse if he can
* finding it a home within Stonetop if he can
So what is the antagonism I’m playing?
* Stonetop’s suspicion (generally, but particularly of fell sorcery and curses; real or merely perceived).
* The Publicans/Elders (Sawyl and Sianna) adversarial nature toward Cullen The Judge specifically (he is the town mediator so they clash o decisions regularly) and toward the complexities of integrating new people (particularly new people who aren’t able-bodied and capable! And who are cursed to boot!).
This could have been elided and offloaded to the Steading to resolve offscreen (there are procedures for that). This could have been passed off to his Uncle Llewelyn to secretly stow the child while Cullen resolves other issues, saving the resolution of the curse for later (however, there would have been potential gamestate and attendant fiction complications related to the progression/implications of the curse that we would have made a move for Llewelyn to Muster against and saw what came of that). However, @hawkeyefan wanted Cullen to handle this personally with it being an immediate flashpoint for action (and therefore what play is about so he could personally see how it impacted his character and how his character impacted and changed Stonetop); likely some convergence of because he is Stonetop’s mediator, it’s Judge, he was orphaned and taken in, he swore an oath, his xp Trigger is Harmony, he wanted to assuage the steading’s (rightful, given recent events) fear of dark sorcery, and he was on a collision course with Sawyl and Sianna and wanted to resolve it now.
So, anyway.
The entirety of the session resolved around each of the player’s Kickers including Cullen’s above.
By end of session, we have a different Stonetop with changed NPCs, very evolved relationships and PCs, and what appears to be a powderkeg about to ignite. We’ll resolve the rest of it next week…but we stopped play with a an inquisitor from the large Town of Marshedge (secretly spying on Stonetop to see if the Steading took in refugees from a witchcraft trial that was to result in execution) falling off the back of his horse and breaking his neck as things were escalating but still under a measure of control.
So that is basically what a Kicker is and what a Kicker does. The key ingredients are player-authored, it entails all of that (a) - (d) in (1) above, it’s immediate, and it’s not a “sideplot” (there is no “plot”, GM or otherwise, so there can be no “sideplot.”).
Hopefully those distinction makes sense and clarify whether or not you agree that “Kicker” (which kicks things off and propels them forward) is an appropriate moniker.
The second '1.' - the event - can be a part of the first '1.' - the environment, but can't exist completely on its own. An event without a surrounding environment and-or context (which may well have been described earlier) takes place in a vacuum. (see below)
The two '2.'s are exactly the same thing, worded differently: the player determines and then relates what the character does, or tries to do, in response to '1.'.
There is a difference between the two '3.' points as worded: one has the GM describing changes while the other has the table determining narrative fallout. However, wording it like this is a bit disingenuous in that in the first '3.' you fail to note the GM is expected to adhere to mechanics and principles* in order to arrive at that description; while in the second '3.' someone at the table still has to describe what changes and-or happens. End result: they're pretty much the same.
* - principles here being quasi-universal things like internal consistency, fairness, integrity, etc.
Even if AW treats the setting like a background set in a movie, someone (probably the GM) at some point still has to describe what that setting is and-or looks and feels like. That description is then assumed to be built in to your second '1.' above when an event is brought forward.
So here is my suggestion, and I mean this sincerely.
Rather than assume what @Campbell has shared is somehow wrong or misguided and then working to point out how, instead assume he is correct and try and figure out why. I mean, he has actual experience with the two types of games he’s described, so I would think anyone interested in actual understanding would try and figure out why he may be right instead how he must be wrong.
Seriously… look at the two descriptions and see how they may lead to different play experiences. If you don’t quite see it, ask some questions. Don’t just leap to the conclusion that there’s no difference simply because that’s your gut reaction.
All RPGing is linear: one things happens, then another, then another, starting at A and ending at B.
But not all RPGing is "linear adventures". To be honest it's not a concept I've ever mastered, because I think applying requires drawing distinctions I'm not very sensitive to, but at a minimum I think some concept of pre-authorship of the B is involved.
Linearity of adventures refers to their structure. Is the structure one where you can only go from A to B to C in that order? If so, it’s linear. Is it one where you start from A and can choose to go to B or C from there? It’s branching. Is it one where A, B, and C are all layer for you to visit in whatever order you choose? It’s open. Again, these are just the literal meaning of these words, applied to the structure of events or locations in an adventure.
Whether or not the difference is subtle - personally I don't think it is, as to me the difference between playing (say) Burning Wheel and (say) 2nd ed AD&D is a very apparent one - it is profound.
Well, @Campbell didn’t say the two structures ate “like Burning Wheel” and “like AD&D 2e” and if they had I wouldn’t have known what that meant. But, the structures as Campbell described them seemed very similar to me.
In @Campbell's first structure, step 1 is the GM describing the environment. And step 3 is the GM describing how the environment changes. To get from 1 to 3, the GM "incorporates" (for lack of a better word) the players' action declarations for their PCs (step 2) into the environment (established at step 1), and thereby reasons out how the environment changes (step 3).
Right, which is, as I said, different from the second structure in that the second necessitates an event that directly threatens the PCs in the first step, and the third step is worked out by the group instead of just the GM.
In @Campbell's second structure, step 1 is the GM responding to something player-authored (a PC's interest) so as to trigger a response from that player via an action declaration for their PC (step 2). And then the system (what @Campbell calls "mechanics and principles") determines the parameters within the fallout from that response is narrated, and by whom. (This is where a good chunk of the difference between systems like Dogs in the Vineyard, Sorcerer, Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel and Hero Wars is found.)
Look, I can only respond to what people actually say, and Campbell didn’t say step 1 had to be in response to something player-authored, or that [whatever mechanics and principles are] determines who narrates the response. Regardless, these structures still seem fundamentally similar to me, which is not to say they couldn’t produce meaningfully different gameplay. Maybe because I am more inclined to look for points of commonality than divergence.
Eh, I think “environment” is used very broadly in the first structure. Sometimes describing the environment means a detailed breakdown of a dungeon room, sure, but sometimes it’s just informing the players that they’re being attacked by 6 orcs.
Doesn’t require it, no, but in my experience it often does incorporate it. But, yeah, that is one of the fundamental differences between the structures.
But there is an asymmetry between structures, because the first structure locates the reasoning about environment as a precursor to step 3; whereas in the second structure the reasoning about PC interests is a precursor to step 1, whereas it may or may not figure in step 3 depending on the details of the system.
You can design a scenario or adventure for the first structure without knowing anything about the PCs who are to engage in it. Whereas that's obviously a big challenge for the second structure. (The only second-structure RPG I know of that has really tackled this challenge in a large scale way is Prince Valiant. It's not entirely successful, but it does a reasonable job. It works because many Prince Valiant PCs have very similar interests, being knights errant in an Arthurian vein.)
The concept of "fallout" has no particular work to do in the first structure. The first structure works fine if the primary focus of play is essentially procedural - who pokes which bit of the world to find out what happens next. (Which I think is fairly close to @Aldarc's notion of "interactivity".) Whereas the concept of "fallout" is fundamental to the second structure: the consequences of action resolution, established at step 3, have to change or at least bear upon the PC's interests. This is what keeps the game in motion, and generates material to allow new iterations of step 1. (Just as, in the first structure, it is changes to the environment that allow new iterations of step 1.)
Unless the term “fallout” is packing a lot of baggage, this doesn’t seem like a significant difference to me. In both cases, someone is using the rules and principles to determine what happens as a result of the player input. Calling it fallout just seems like a way to emphasize the focus on character drama, but procedurally it seems like the same thing to me - from what I’ve been told so far.
First, while the differences may seem subtle to you, I think it's important to recognize how even subtle differences can cause games operating by these principles to naturally evolve in drastically different ways over the course of a session or multiple sessions. Moreover, many of the people I have seen argue that no fundamental difference exists between these sorts of play loops are often the ones I have seen complain the loudest that these games don't work like D&D (or are even capable of working at all) or that they result in badwrongfun. I find that it's helpful to see these games in action, both running and playing them, because I do agree with @Campbell that these games require different skill sets.
For sure! By observing that the differences seem subtle, I don’t mean to suggest that they wouldn’t lead to significantly different gameplay. But I can see how it could have come across that way.
Second, I think that your point on the importance of an environment where gameplay transpires to be threatening describes certain modes of play in D&D, but leaves a lot out. If the gameplay takes place in a town shop interacting with a Joe Schmoe the Shopkeeper, should that scene be threatening to the players?
I don’t think acting out interactions with shopkeepers tends to follow the gameplay structure being discussed. It’s definitely something a lot of groups do while playing D&D, but it’s also outside of the gameplay structure described in the How to Play section. Shopping and other in-town activities are also generally handled by the downtime activity rules in D&D 5e, which makes sense to me given that such activities don’t lend themselves as well to the How to Play structure.
Third, I would say that the first prioritizes player character interactivity. This is to say, the first IME is primarily interested in highlighting some aspects that of the scene that players may choose for their characters to interact with in some way, with the GM advised to present the scene as a neutral arbiter of the game fiction with respect to the players and their characters' interests. This view comes across in the description of the play loop in the 5e PHB:
A threat may exist in the scene, but the fundamental role described here for GM nevertheless involves "presenting the basic scope of options that present themselves" for players.
That description is then assumed to be built in to your second '1.' above when an event is brought forward.
