An example from the erlier thread was The Shadow of Yesterday:

Posted By: HohoI don't really think it's that fun to look at my sheet and be like "Oh, I have the Key of the Goat-Molester! If I go smell that goat's butt, I get 2XP!" I don't really think it's that much fun to do that thing in order to cash in on the mechanical stimulus—it devalues the action's inherent value by making it a thing I get paid for.

This is part of what I don't get with this entire line of thought.

To me, the Key mechanics in TSoY are about replacing the reward cycle of D&D ... so the player is rewarded for pursuing his or her own goals, rather than only the goals of combat and loot. I don't see them as an authoring mechanic ... but maybe that's because I don't quite get what we're talking about here.

Yeah, I didn't want to elaborate because it was tangental to that thread. It's just become so much of the "New Story Game Meme" to criticise author focus mechanistic designed games that I felt the need to announce that not everyone has drunk the cool-aid on that idea.

My distaste for that Meme has several layers, some of which I've discussed at some length on Anyway which is perhaps the epicenter of this current "lead with the fiction" focus. I'm not sure how effectively I'll be able to summarize my thoughts here, but I'll give a shot at some bullets.

1) Firstly I think the entire angle (that on Anyway has been called "Lead with the Fiction" and in other places has been called "character focused") is the result of a pretty profound misdiagnosis of observed phenomenon. The phonomenon being recognized goes something like: a) there is a highly enjoyable effect in roleplaying where the act of play creates an understandable fiction where events and character action emerge organically from interacting with their environment. b) There is a certain category of games (i.e. author focused mechanistic designs) which can be played in a way that doesn't engage that enjoyable fiction effect. c) there are several examples of actual play which fell flat because the fiction was not engaged.

The misdiagnosis IMO comes when the game design is blamed as being the cause of this, rather than putting the blame where it belongs...on the players who didn't engage the fiction. Just because the game engine will progress through a story arc without *forcing* players to engage the fiction, doesn't mean that that is the proper way for players to use said game engine. Therefor, to my mind, the proper line of thought is to examine why the players were not engageing on the fictional level and address that, rather than throw out this entire evolutionary (and I would say revolutionary as well) branch of game design in favor of more "character focused" design.

This to me is pretty obvious. Doing thing A did not produce fun. I played a game, I did thing A, I didn't have fun. Therefor the proper solution would seem to be "stop doing thing A". Instead a rather faulty leap has been made suggesting that these games put a gun to your head and force you to do thing A and therefor its the game's fault.


2) On Anyway at least the focus has been on de-commoditizing game mechanics and returning to an older paradigm where the player can only interact with the world through the vehicle of their character. The idea seems to be that if you strip out all of the other rules that are apparently distracting the player from engaging with the fiction that they'll have nothing left to do BUT engage with the fiction. This solution boggles me with the extent to which it revisits nostalgia through rose colored glasses. I think story gamers have become so spoiled by several years of awesome play engendered by awesome games that we've forgotten how horrible many of our earlier game experiences had become as a result of following this paradigm. There were problems with that paradigm that much of of the author focused mechanistic designs came into being specifically to address.

3) I'm constantly bemused by the rapidity with which the broader story game community will stampede from one design meme to another. It is the nature of design communities...and "indie" styled design communities in particular, to pursue novelty by pushing the envelope. The engineer in me says chasing after the new technology before we've even begun to fully tap and appreciate the possibilities in the old technology is a habit of questionable value. Oh how quickly "scene framing, conflict resolution, stake setting" and other techniques have fallen out of favor and are now commonly disparaged by the same people who embraced them just a few years ago. I find that practice rather distasteful and disingenuous. Pursuing the new hotness is all well and good...I think gaming can sustain and benefit from a wide range of hotnesses...but there's no reason to disparage the old hotness on the way out the door.

4) The engineer in me has a profound distaste for philosophical theories being used (usually incorrectly) to justify poor or lazy design. The Fruitful Void (also, perhaps not uncoincidentally being revisted currently) was a big source of this. Its central insight (that designing too directly what your game is about can actually hinder rather than help) was promptly misused to justify any number of sloppy designs. Numerous were the occasions over the past few years where broken unfinished work was explained away as "that's the Fruitful Void"...um no...that's just the part of the game you couldn't be bothered to actually write...there's nothing fruitful about that void...its just a void.

The "Lead with the Fiction" paradigm's advice to search for non-commoditized solutions when designing for player behavior has the similar potential to be misapplied as a catch all justification for not bothering to actually design rules that work. I am anticipating the first thread where a designer comments "I don't need to have rules...I'm leading with the fiction".

Posted By: Valamir
My favorite example of a superior mechanic design in this sense is Polaris. It would be hard to imagine (and I've never experienced) actual play of Polaris that didn't engage full force with the fiction that didn't produce memorable characters doing memorable things in memorable ways...ways that are both meaningful and impactful to the players. And yet, the mechanics stand alone by themselves quite well. By simply substituting "Good things happen to my guy" and "Bad things happen to your guy" for real fictional events and characters you can use the Polaris mechanics completely effectively.

Ralph, this, to me, is proof that you don't fully understand Vincent (or Paul or mine's position). No you CAN NOT use Polaris's mechanics effectively without the fiction. When you make a declaration in Polaris without its emotional content within the context of the fiction I have NO IDEA, NONE, ZERO whether I want to go with "But only if..." or "You ask too much..." I simply can not respond in a meaningful manner without that detailing. Vincent made this EXACT point with the Raises and Sees in Dogs in the Vineyard. Without the fictional content of your Raise I have ZERO idea of whether (emotionally) I want to take Take The Blow or not.

Jesse

I think we play The Roach very differently. When I play The Roach I build characters that I am absolutely in love with. Sometimes I'm in love with them because they are so arrogant, in that charming way that only academic professors can get away with. And then I laugh my ass off through my tears of sorrow at this poor bastard as he falls to the influence of The Roach.

In fact, I wrote about it here: The Shab-al-Hiri Roach

Jesse

YES! To be clear: I am VERY MUCH talking about advocating for the character's goals. Much like in real life I very rarely know what's in my character's best interests except in hindsight.

Jesse

Hi, Sage.

I think, emotively & narratively, there's a difference between guiding your Cthulhu investigator into ruin - you know there will be ruin as a consequence of your actions - and guiding a character in a narrative game framework into self-introduced ruin. That's a wordy way of saying that I, as another player, don't care about your self-introduced drama.

OTOH, for some reason, if you start off with "I don't get along with my dad" on your character sheet and the GM is responsible for introducing the challenges this bit of drama results in, the scenes are cooler and I care about them more. I may even have an opportunity to involve myself, which makes me care about them even more.

The alternative is a bit like. . . well, let's say it's your turn to play and you're like, "I'm gonna go visit my dad, who I don't get along with" - my response will initially be, "Your character has a dad? When did that happen? When did you stop getting along with him?" and then everything you subsequently say will seem like you're just making stuff up. If the drama really has no impact on the game, I'll also wonder why I care. Heck, I'll wonder why you care too.

This is why drama that emerges via tense moments in the game, often created via the mechanics, via random chance, via an immersive setting where we're all "getting it", seems more interesting to me than drama made up by a player. If you actually have to ride off into the sunset because the game just works out that way, we're all gonna go, "Remember that time Sage had to ride off into the sunset? God damn!" But if you just make that up at the end because you think it's cool even though it has nothing to do with the game, you're gonna sound like a bit of a tool when you recount the story of that one time you narrated about your character riding off into the sunset.

Brian,

I'm not sure where you're coming from. What I'm talking about is "story role" agnostic. If you play and your characters turns out to be a villain, awesome. If you play and your character turns out to be the comic relief side-kick awesome. I'm not saying you can't enjoy your character's folly and fall. But there's a difference between playing your character with honesty and having him end up in folly and deliberately *pushing* him over the cliff because you think that's going to be emotionally "affecting".

Jesse

P.S. I just realized that "turns out" is the key phrase. It's about discovery in hindsight. As opposed to "make" where I a priori decide my guy is the villain and then use all the tools to "make" that happen.

Posted By: JesseP.S. I just realized that "turns out" is the key phrase. It's about discovery in hindsight. As opposed to "make" where I a priori decide my guy is the villain and then use all the tools to "make" that happen.

I missed this bit earlier. (Was it there? Maybe I was responding too quickly.)

I guess I get that too ... IAWA is a game where you're not sure who the heroes and villains are until later. So that makes sense to me.

But that makes all this discussion of two different kinds of mechanics seems very ephemeral.

I guess I was hoping for more concrete examples.

Brian,

I can't say with certainty because it is just a hypothetical situation but your Game 1 vs Game 2 example is certainly on the right track. I am fond of using the phrase, "I enjoy failure the most, when I want it the least."

Jesse

I have no idea if I'm playing wrong or what, but here's how I like to play my character:

* I have a list of traits that describe my character's various personality aspects. Some are "good" and virtuous and stuff I can be proud of, most are flaws that are inconvenient to play.

* The GM presents me with situations in all the usual ways -- prepared material, riffing off flags, whateva. Or I prompt the GM with something I want the character to pursue, and expect the GM to either allow it or to challenge me along the way.

* When I respond to the GM's situation with my character, my depiction of him is as consistent with his various traits as I can be. I play this way despite whatever game-level consequences may be looming as a result.

* The creativity I enjoy bringing to the table is in the portrayal of those flaws and quirks, and then watching the GM and other players take the resulting complications into account -- without judgment and entirely accepting that I'm playing my character in a principled way.

* I like it best when the inevitable out-of-character moments are clearly flagged for me so, either as player or GM, I know what voice to hear things in.

What I don't like to play, and really hate to GM:

* Players who play their characters in an unprincipled, expedient way. That is, I feel like we've all come to an agreement about how someone is going to portray their character, only to watch that agreement broken because the player wants to "win" a situation.

* Players who refuse to engage the fiction like they actually care about it. Don't really care what the motivation is for that refusal; I fucking hate it regardless. They can be scared or uncertain or have cripping stage fright -- DO NOT CARE. The result is flowing, growing timidity that is far more contagious and destructive than enthusiastic, damn-the-torpedoes play. MST3K play is the worst. I've cancelled entire game sessions on that note.

* Play that is entirely divorced from either the mechanics or the fiction. Leading with the fiction is nice and all, but sometimes mechanics prompt new fiction and that's good too.

* Total lack of character ownership. That bums me out. I've tried a few designs and doodles that try and break that mold and it just doesn't do it for me. This element for me pushes my "THIS IS NOT AN RPG" button the hardest.

Jesse,

I think you're mostly right, let me explain how I got there:

I played in a game that ran for around half a year that was just amazing, and one of the definitive moments was when one of the players, after a torrid descent into crime, had a showdown with his former mob boss in the sewers. The battle ended with the PC and the NPC dropping dead in the same round.

The player then had the option to burn a Fate Point (forget the exact name, this was Warhammer) to cheat death. The player decided not to, leaving the character dead and giving the story a fitting conclusion. It was great.

I think the key element is that the player didn't decide it was the end until the battle was done. I stand by that choice, since it wasn't deciding ahead of time that a given even was the end, it was taking a clear ending and not taking the option to escape it.

Posted By: Jesse

Posted By: Valamir
My favorite example of a superior mechanic design in this sense is Polaris. It would be hard to imagine (and I've never experienced) actual play of Polaris that didn't engage full force with the fiction that didn't produce memorable characters doing memorable things in memorable ways...ways that are both meaningful and impactful to the players. And yet, the mechanics stand alone by themselves quite well. By simply substituting "Good things happen to my guy" and "Bad things happen to your guy" for real fictional events and characters you can use the Polaris mechanics completely effectively.

Ralph, this, to me, is proof that you don't fully understand Vincent (or Paul or mine's position). No you CAN NOT use Polaris's mechanics effectively without the fiction. When you make a declaration in Polaris without its emotional content within the context of the fiction I have NO IDEA, NONE, ZERO whether I want to go with "But only if..." or "You ask too much..." I simply can not respond in a meaningful manner without that detailing. Vincent made this EXACT point with the Raises and Sees in Dogs in the Vineyard. Without the fictional content of your Raise I have ZERO idea of whether (emotionally) I want to take Take The Blow or not.

Jesse

I fully understand it Jesse...and I fully reject it. Not that the fiction isn't helpful. Not that it isn't useful. Not that it doesn't do certain things that are desireable, not that it isn't necessary for play to be fun...but necessary to the MECHANICS? No.

When there is fictional stuff in Polaris you can evaluate it...How much do you want thing X to happen...how much do you not want thing Y. You evaluate it, and you decide how much it means to you and you make your decision.

But MECHANICALLY...all you need is the relative value not the fiction that got you there.

Observe:

Heart: "I want this level 5 Good Thing to happen to my Guy"
Mistaken: "But only if this level 8 Bad Thing happens to your Guy"

I don't need to know what the good thing or bad thing is to know how to respond. If I accept I'm suffering more than I'm gaining. In actual play I'd be evaluating my relative gain vs. relative suffering based on the fiction...but its not necessary for the rules to function.

Heart: "Ok, but only if this other level 3 Good Thing happens to my Guy"

See...mechanically I know that Good Thing 5 + Good Thing 3 = Bad Thing 8. In the fiction I'd have to come up with that based on how much things matter to me in the story...but for purposes of engaging the mechanics...its just math.

Mistaken: "Ok, but only if Level 10 Bad Thing happens to some other character you love".
Heart: "You ask far too much".

I don't need to know what he asked to know that throwing another 10 units of Bad on top of the equation is asking too much.


Is this interesting? No,
Would it produce good actual play? No

But does it demonstrate that the principals on which the mechanics are grounded are fully balanced and functional even outside of the fiction? Yes.

THAT'S what makes the Polaris mechanics so profoundly good. You know they work regardless. NOW when you play and you add fiction to the mix you know you're layering fiction on top of mechanics that are fully functional. No matter what the fiction is, no matter where it goes, the rules can handle it. Because the rules are stable and functional even with no fiction at all. What every player is effectively doing in Polaris is evaluating the fiction and deciding case by case on the fly whether that thing that was said is 3 units of Bad or 5 units of Bad and reacting to that perceived balance relative to the perceived value of the good they're after. Its more complicated and more nuanced and is often a moving target as players turn formerly good things into bad and you find ways to make formerly bad things not so bad. But essentially...it still boils down to the math.

Dog's is somewhat weak in this regard because while the core of the mechanics function wonderfully, the sloppy balance between the PC's relative effectiveness and NPC's + Demonic Influence relative effectiveness has caused numerous threads worth of questions and problems. If those mechanics had been balanced against each other such that they worked perfectly well in the absence of fiction, that wouldn't have made the fiction any LESS impactful when it was added. It would have made the fiction MORE impactful because you'd avoid the times when that balance issue causes problems that disrupt the fiction.

As for the Raises and Sees aspect requring the fiction...that makes for a nice story for Vincent to talk about on his blog but its bupkiss. One can create perfectly effective play using those mechanics without ever engaging the fiction in the exact same abstract sense I did above for Polaris. Once you know the mechanics actually work...THEN when you layer the fiction on it, you really have something...and you do...because the raises / sees / and fallout rules are all perfectly functional as raw mechanics without any fiction whatsoever.

I disagree. I believe I already answered why in the post. But I'll make it clearer.

When you say "But only if your niece becomes a demon" there's a whole host of evaluating that I must do. How much do I care about my niece. How bad a fate do I think becoming a demon in this instance of Polaris play actually is...etc...etc. Ultimately, however, I assign a value to it.

It might even be a numerical value like in my abstraction. Frex: "holy cow...on a scale from 1-10 that's like 8 units of Bad"

More often its a relative value on a word scale like "holy cow...that's a whole lot of nasty"

Regardless...it has a value and that value can be compared to the value I assign the other stuff that I want to happen and from that comparison I can decide whether I'm getting a "good deal" or a "crappy deal" out of the bargain my Mistaken is making me.

That's not a VERY different game...that IS the game. Always.

I've added nothing except to shine a spot light on what is really happening at the table. All's my abstraction has done is strip away the fiction to get to the core of the system...which is a comparison of relative value between and among multiple events. And again...its not to say that the game should be PLAYED at this level. Its to say that if the mechanics CAN'T be evaluated at this level...you've got faulty mechanics.

Right...which is why I didn't do that. I just simplified the process by assuming that the Mistaken was skilled at predicting what the Heart would and wouldn't find good or bad.

Which isn't much of a stretch of a simplification if you're playing with the folks I normally do. Knowing exactly which buttons to push to make your Heart player squirm is pretty much standard operating procedure....and one we rarely get wrong.

Jesse you're completely missing the point. Which at this point is derailing this thread into a topic pretty minor to be spending this much time on.

But take a look at Apocalypse World if you don't see what I'm saying. Vincent's solution in AW is to literally design a game where there are not mechanics at all outside of the fiction. Which is a very different thing from the abstract example I'm doing here.

My point, which I've amply demonstrated is that the Polaris mechanics are first and foremost fully functional and effective on their own. Thus when fiction is added the fiction makes engaging the mechanics that much better. It isn't required to make the mechanics function at all.

IaWA is another game whose mechanics are fully functional and engageable in the absence of fiction. Thus when fiction is added the mechanics become that much better. But the fiction isn't required to make the mechanics function at all.

The list goes on, but I trust the point has been made.

My position is: Mechanics that do not function well in the absence of fiction will not function as well as they should when fiction is added. Fiction is not a substitute for unpolished mechanics.

Posted By: Jesse
Hey, Brian, this is your thread and I kind of took it over. Was there anything from all of the above you wanted to focus on?

No problem. I asked for "elaboration", with no real guidelines, so I deserve what I get. Plus, earlier, I think I was just "responding" without really thinking about my own questions.

Since you ask, however ... I'm trying to get my mind around the concepts you and Ralph are arguing here. The back-and-forth over where fiction hits the rules has muddied the waters for me. I feel like its a different question from where this thread started.

As you pointed out earlier, AP is better than nebulous theorizing. I've never played Polaris, but Ralph brings up In A Wicked Age, which helps, because it's a game I know reasonably well:

Posted By: ValamirIaWA is another game whose mechanics are fully functional and engageable in the absence of fiction. Thus when fiction is added the mechanics become that much better. But the fiction isn't required to make the mechanics function at all.

I get Ralph's point here. You can just chose which forms to roll for a conflict (say, Directly and With Love) without actually narrating anything that ties them into the scene. But the scene will be much better if you *do* narrate fiction that ties them in. The last time I played IAWA, there was a player who didn't spend much effort doing that, and it made for less interesting conflicts. You know? He'd just kind of grab the dice, and roll whatever.

So when we're talking about advocating for a character, as opposed to authoring a character, we're talking about mechanics, correct?

Jesse and/or Ralph, would you say that IAWA's mechanics promote authoring characters, as opposed to merely advocating for them, and this is makes them superior mechanics, to your way of thinking?

Or am I totally off the reservation now?

Brian, one of Vincent's own criticisms about IaWA is that it let that player just roll dice without spending the effort and, as expected, made for less interesting conflicts.

One of his goals for Apocalypse World (which we're now on session 2 or 3 of...I forget because we've had some scheduling issues) is to make that impossible. In AW that player literally could NOT do that. If he wasn't putting forth effort to describe his characters actions*...and if the GM isn't putting forth effort to describe the environment and the actions of the NPCs embedded in that environment than no one will ever get to roll dice and the game will just...stop.

I find that exceptionaly intrigueing from an experimental design let's-poke-at-this-and-see-where-it-goes perspective although I don't find it all that compelling as a solution to the problem of lack luster fictional engagement. (as noted above I think this solution brings with it more problems than it solves and I think there are other ways to solve the problem with out introducing more). But, as a fun thing to try, its a pretty cool thing in its own right.

* a key piece to this particular issue can be found in your phrase "narrate fiction". The catch phrase "Lead with the Fiction" is a bit misleading in this regard because most folks would understand "The Fiction" as being synonomous with "The Story" which is more of an author focus concern. What the catch phrase really means is "lead with the concrete details of the here and now." For the GM...what does the character see, hear and smell. For the player...what does the character think, feel, and do. Then the "story" such as it is develops organically from the intersection of those two things and will automatically have substance and gravity.

Anyone at this point who is scratching their head and thinking "wait...doesn't that sound like the whole 'Impossible Thing Before Breakfast' that we worked so hard for years to purposefully avoid" is seeing one my (several) issues with this approach as a "solution" to the identified problem.

What IaWA allows is for players to narrate fiction (i.e. high level story stuff) rather than simply narrate / advocate for their character. This IMO is a good thing...it is, after all, what we spent 5+ years at the Forge struggling to learn how to do effectively But it does allow players to fall into the bad habit of ONLY narrating high level story stuff and forget to actually advocate for their character. For some this makes the experience feel less like a Role Playing Game and more like a "story boarding workshop".

I think story boarding workshops can also be hella fun, but its also nice to have a much tighter connection to the characters as people rather than the characters as pawns in the story.


There are those who view the pendulum as having swung too far towards "story boarding workshop" and the New Meme I was criticising is a wellspring of backlash against that. A wellspring that, IMO, pushes the pendulum too far back in the other direction, which is why I felt the need to highlight my problems with it.

Posted By: ValamirBrian, one of Vincent's own criticisms about IaWA is that it let that player just roll dice without spending the effort and, as expected, made for less interesting conflicts.

One of his goals for Apocalypse World (which we're now on session 2 or 3 of...I forget because we've had some scheduling issues) is to make that impossible. In AW that player literally could NOT do that. If he wasn't putting forth effort to describe his characters actions*...and if the GM isn't putting forth effort to describe the environment and the actions of the NPCs embedded in that environment than no one will ever get to roll dice and the game will just...stop.

Talking about specific mechanics is helpful, so I appreciate the example.

I still don't quite understand it, however.

I totally get that it's better for the game if the players narrate the fiction as they engage with the mechanics. And I can also see how, in In A Wicked Age, for example, you could fail to do that. I'm sure I've done it myself. You'd just say "Okay, he's coming after you with his cleaver!" and pick up the character's dice for, say, Directly and With Violence.

I am not familiar with Apocalypse World. How do the mechanics of that game solve the problem? I'm hoping the answer is more elegant than "The rules explicitly tell you to narrate something".

Posted By: Josh RobyThis. I don't get this. What, exactly, iswrongwith an effective story-boarding game? I understand that it isn't your bag — and, frankly, it isn't mine, either — but why does everybody keep saying it's "bad design" or "incomplete" or "lacking" when what they mean isdoes not do what I like?

Josh and Tim, what are some examples of the kinds of games you'd consider "story-boarding games"?

I feel like this discussion is mostly about mechanics, as opposed to techniques, so examples of specific games will help. Or, help me, at least.

Brian,

My most story-boardy experience was Universalis: there didn't seem to be any real action, or anything happening, just kind of high level story description that was full of 'awesome' but didn't really feel that fun at the table. Interesting fictional things happened, but the mechanics and approach of the game made it feel like we were workshoping the plot for a novel, not playing a game or actually writing the novel.

Thinking back on it, playing the game felt like listening to somebody describe the awesome game they had played in.

That isn't to say that character advocation is all you need, some awareness of 'story' level stuff is great, and probably leads to better play overall. It's when the value of the story is always greater than the value of the character's goals that things start to move out of being a roleplaying game (and fall apart, in my experince).

Posted By: BWAJosh and Tim, what are some examples of the kinds of games you'd consider "story-boarding games"?

First: we're talking about a kind of game that's currently derided as "bad design" so realize that the moment I point at any game, I'm casting the cloak of "not really roleplaying" over it — and that can have a direct effect on that game's success. So no, I'm not going to name the other people who were members of the Communist party.

However, I will point at my own game, Conquer the Horizon, as an example. You play the members of an expedition to the new world, and you each take like two-minute turns discovering and exploiting features of the new world. It in no way creates anything resembling a hard-hitting character drama featuring fraught situations and tough moral choices. If anything, it creates a little fictional history of the colonization of the new world. It's fun and amusing, and it's definitely roleplaying.

Posted By: sageMy most story-boardy experience was Universalis: there didn't seem to be any real action, or anything happening, just kind of high level story description that was full of 'awesome' but didn't really feel that fun at the table. Interesting fictional things happened, but the mechanics and approach of the game made it feel like we were workshoping the plot for a novel, not playing a game or actually writing the novel.

Thanks, Sage. That makes sense to me. I haven't played Universalis, but I'm familiar with it.

There's kind of an interesting side phenomenon going on here, perhaps the ultimate result of the focus on "system matters" in the early days of the Forge.

It goes something like this: We've spent years drilling into people's head that the *procedural* aspects of game rules are important. As a crude example: its not just HOW to make a skill check but also, when, why, who, in what order, and who decides those things that matters.

As a result of this effort we now have a number of games that do a pretty good job of outlining clearly and concisely the procedures of play...this IMO is a good thing and I'll Knife Fight the hell out of anyone who says otherwise.

But here's where it get's interesting. Back in the day when procedures were sloppy or even non existant, players were smart enough to "figure it out". They'd work their way through the murk and come up with a procedural solution that allowed them to play the game.

But now...when they don't have to do all that extra work...when the work is done for them in the design...all of the sudden there's this tendency to (forgive my bluntness) forget to think. Since the procedures don't specifically say "now is the time to roleplay" they just...don't. They get so caught up in blindly following the outlined procedures of play that they neglect to do what they sat down at the table to do. The old games never made special arrangements for roleplaying...it just happened organically because that's what players wanted to do. But now...you still have players wanting to do it...but instead of making it happen organically they blink and stare and scratch their heads and say "the game doesn't let me roleplay".

I liken this to a guy who'd driven a beat up old stick-shift his entire life and who goes and buys a new car with Automatic Transmission and Cruise Control. All of the sudden he's driving like he's never driven a car before. Now that he doesn't have to worry about the clutch or holding down the accelerator on long trips its like he expects the car to be full on auto-pilot.

Note to players in Author Focused Games: You still have to drive.

Posted By: Valamir

Note to players in Author Focused Games: You still have to drive.

I have noticed this at times when I'm playing Burning Wheel or Burning Empire and we are working through mechanics we do not know. We will play through a battle without describing the often things that just happened. After a while, it flows better.

Posted By: Tim C Koppang

That may sound harsh, I know, but I don't say it to be confrontational. I really think that story-boarding leads to a disconnect in most instances. And I think it's behind a lot of the difficulties that players are experiencing when they sit down to play. They always seem to wonder why the game doesn't quite seem to work. Most of the time I want to shout, "What are you preparing?! You're always preparing! Just go!"

A friend of mine played PTA for the first time and he mentioned that it felt kind of disconnected to him (the conversation was a long time ago, so I'm paraphrasing intensely here). I asked about the brainstorming that led to the series creation and he told me that the brainstorming took over two hours.

I suggested that the play was lame because they had talked their way right past 2 or more seasons of play in creating the series history, rather than coming up with a cool premise, getting characters down and playing.

Posted By: JuddI suggested that the play was lame because they had talked their way right past 2 or more seasons of play in creating the series history, rather than coming up with a cool premise, getting characters down and playing.

Yes. Exactly. PTA is a prime example of a game that, while solidly designed, suffers from a common misconception that it's all about the planning and not about the playing. Which is of course exactly backwards. When you turn a game into a story-board event rather than a series of solid scenes grounded in story, the truth is that nothing much is really happening.

And I'm guilty of this myself at times. It's easy to get lost in high-level talk. But I have to remind myself, "just play a scene stupid."

I'm sort of with Ralph on this one. Sort of.

I agree that it's not a "problem" we need to "fix". However, encouraging "down in the mud" playing is certainly a nice feature to have in a game. A game that doesn't do it isn't broken, and it's not bad design, anymore than it's bad design not to have advancement or pacing mechanics. Have it if you think the game is better for it. Don't if you don't.

Also, I agree that AW's mechanics, as described by Ralph (I have neither read nor played it) don't really seem that effective at it. I'm not sure if the "game breaks down if you're not in the mud" thing is a bad idea. It's hardcore, but not bad. What IS bad, though, is that the game seems to be punishing you after the fact. The game breaks down because you didn't narrate the farm machinery in the beginning of the scene. Now it's too late, you can't dive behind it. You can't fix it now. I'd much rather have a mechanic that can't go forward without you describing the fiction NOW, than a mechanic that can't go forward because you didn't describe the fiction five minutes ago.

Yeah, that's my take on it, anyway.

As a tangental aside for accuracy: Simon, to be clear there is nothing in AW that prevents you from "fixing it" NOW...it just gets squirrely for all the reasons that people having different pictures in their head of what the scene looks like can get squirrely when you suddenly realize after the fact that it matters and have to revise it.

Posted By: Tim C Koppang
First, when I say movement, I mean story -- plain and simple. Things have to happen in a story. The characters have to advance, and the plot has to continue. When you're story-boarding, the opposite seems to take place. You're not creating a story, you're creating a collection of stagnate "scenes". If it was a movie, you'd have to actually make the movie in order for the story-boarded scenes to do anything. As is, they're just sort of sitting there, divorced from the context of an actual story. They are in need of movement, a common link to tie them all together. That link is roleplaying.

The other problem here is that story-boarding encourages strings of revision and discussion. Instead of stating an action and creating a shared imagined space, the players are constantly moving backwards, stuck in what can become an endless loop. That's not story. That's planning. No movement.

That's really quite the opposite of how I have experienced a game like PtA or Universalis (assuming that both fall into the category of story-boarding - I'm not familiar with this concept in the context or roleplaying games, so maybe there is some hidden meaning I don't get). When I played PtA I really got a story that was awesome - or at least much more awesome than a lot of the stories that develepod during games where we all played just one character and tried to find the adventure. What was so great about it? You could focus on all the important stuff without all the dead ends of playing out your character all the time. And what was even cooler: every time you wanted to jump into the head of a character and engage into some character-play you could just do it. So what you can actually get is the best of both worlds.

Of course you have to stop all the discussion at the meta-level from time to time. But that's pretty obvious I think. And of course it's possible.

One additional point. That the connection between a series of scenes is not shown does not imply that there is a lack of plot or that no story is developing. Good storytelling is also about what has to be filled in by the spectator. You can be mute about important situation - but everybody knows exactly what's going on.

Posted By: Tim C Koppang
Second, we have a lack of engagement, both with the characters and with the story. This is heavily related to my first point. But really, how can you engage with a story that isn't really a story in the fist place (except maybe in an abstract sort of way)? I concede that it's certainly not impossible to engage with story-boarded events, but I think it's so much more difficult that it's more of an ideal than a common product of play.

Since I disagree with your observation about the lack of movement it is not surprising, that I'm also not buying your second argument. The lack of engagement is no inherent problem of games that put a strong emphasize on meta-discussion about how to built the next scene and develop the story. I repeat what I said in the other thread: a player can be strongly involved on an emotional level while he is creating a story. I am. And watching the other players advancing the story creates a strong attachment between them and me as well as between me and the narrative.

So I don't think, that there is a problem with story-board games regarding the opportunities for creating powerful stories (quite the opposite: they seem to be made for exactly this purpose) or for engaging them on a personal level.

Posted By: JesseBecause it promotes emotional distancing on the part of the player. Basically, the player is trying emotionally impact the others in the group *without themselves having an emotional stake in the fiction*. That's the paradox. How can something affect someone else when it clearly isn't affecting you. If it's more "dramatically" interesting to have your guy kidnapped then I suggest it isn't dramatically interesting to have him get away either. I suggest the entire scene is dramatically void because there is no legitimate, for real, emotional tension among the real-world players. This is the entire thesis of of my Play Passionately project (which is sadly on hold for the moment).

Sadly? Sounds like you need to tear it up and throw it out the window, with great force. You should be relieved it's not out there, if this is what it says. I think it's the word "Drama" in "Dramatically" that is tripping you up. Replace the word "dramatically" with "comedically" and the reason for putting characters at arms length and watching them go becomes obvious. It is not funny to fall out a window and hang, terrified, from a clockface. It is not funny at all. You should avoid falling out a window and hanging from a clockface at all costs, and fight as hard as you can to keep the situation in the fiction from involving falling out a window, if you are a character advocate. Meanwhile, as a non-character advocate, me and my group will be laughing our asses off at the poor bastard that fell out a window, laughing so hard we fall off our chairs.

Plus, this:

Posted By: komradebobWhich circles back to the idea that one of the primary players in an RPG, the GM, isn't roleplaying, despite playing a role-playing game.

Which I think is a fairly daft concept.

There is a lot going on in this thread. It's difficult for me to address everything, but I want to at least try to address some major points in a general way.

First, for those of you saying that your game was a success and that you don't know what I'm talking about because it doesn't happen in your games, fine. It sounds like you're not story-boarding your way through your play sessions. It also sounds like you engage directly with the scenes that you are creating. But I'm not talking about those types of play sessions. I'm talking about the ones where the players sit around and discuss all their options without actually framing a scene, stating actions that become part of the SIS, and so on. Getting caught up in a cycle of planning and then eventually, kind of, sort of deciding as a group what should happen in a "scene" is what I'm referring to story-boarding.

What I'm not talking about is author stance vs. actor stance. Author stance is fine and dandy. It's one of my favorite play modes. And it doesn't really have any direct application to what I'm trying to explain now. Let's not confuse author stance with a lack of roleplaying.

Jan, the "connection between the scenes" that I'm talking about has to do with taking pre-narrated or planned scenes out of the ether and into the game itself. There has to be a context that is created amongst the players for a scene to matter in a story. You're referring to something altogether different -- the narrative link between two things in a story. I'm well aware that not everything has to be spelled out to matter.

Also I do not think that PtA or Universalis are story-boarding games. I think that people play them that way, but wrongly. And I think that's what leading to a lot of frustration. People leave roleplaying behind for story-boarding and wonder where all the emotional punch went. Sure, it's possible to play in this story-board mode and create something that looks like a really cool story. But why would you want to? Honestly. Why?

One more point for now. Simple negotiation at the table is not story-boarding either, in my opinion, as long as it come back around to an actual scene that flows not from abstract talk but concrete actions that become a part of the SIS.

Really? Comedy is greatest when it speaks to us most personally?

Slapstick?

Comedy of errors?

"One damn thing after another"?

Mistaken identities?

Shaggy dog stories?

I mean, just think about the many multifarious structures of comedy (and drama too) in which what you just said is completely not true in any way forever, the end.

Here's another example:

The reason Ollie is not just a bully to poor little skinny Stan is because he is ineffectual, a prissy blowhard with no more clue of what's going on than Stan has. The less ineffectual he is, the less funny he (and Stan) are together. I hope you're not suggesting that the ideal way to create this kind of comedy is for the player of the Ollie-analogue to be fighting as hard as he can to be as effective as possible while the rest of us laugh at how much he fails at it. Or is that what you are suggesting - that the player must fail at everything he tries for the entertainment of the rest of the table, and at all costs must not be permitted to join in the laughter at his character's expense?

If I have a blowhard character who screws up all the time, if that's how I've imagined and created the character in my mind, isn't it just flat a mistake to advocate to maximize his effectiveness all the time?

JD,

You're mistaking my word "advocate" for "maximize effectiveness." Notice, way back in the original post I said this was effort agnostic. My point is that your declarations for what the character does is representative for the character's goals and drives. And whatever mechanical fiddly bits you deploy are representative of his chances that it will actually work out in his favor. It's perfectly fine if your chances are 2% and you're happy that it's 2% and you you're laughing your ass off that it's only 2%.

But what makes it funny is that your poor sap of a character is actually trying for reasons we can relate to as human beings and we have some tiny hope that he might succeed, even though we know, damn, he very, very likely won't.

Jesse

Can't speak for anyone else, but I will say this:

(I don't get the Ollie/Stan reference, if there is one, so I'm imagining them as Zap Brannigan and Kiff from Futurama, just FYI)

Ollie and Stan are only funny if someone is trying to make Stan succeed. If no one is trying to make Stan succeed, what collaboration is happening? It's just group embellishment. The humor exists (which everyone can laugh at, even the person advocating for him) because Stan's going to try to succeed, and there's a chance he will.

If Stan always fails, all we're doing at the table is telling stories AT each other, not WITH each other.


"Or is that what you are suggesting - that the player must fail at everything he tries for the entertainment of the rest of the table, and at all costs must not be permitted to join in the laughter at his character's expense? "

This is exactly what I've been calling 'authoring' (not author stance): the player has decided Stan is comedy relief, and so he's just storytelling AT everyone. The only conflict in the story comes when someone wants to make Stan not the character his player thinks he is.

If I say that Stan's story is that he's a failure, I can only see a few things for the rules to do:
1. Add details to his failure
2. Give some way of mediating when someone says he's not a failure
3. Actively contradict me when Stan succeeds on a roll

Now if Ollie's player just made Ollie the kind of character that tends towards the comic, conflict can happen that's entirely in game where both outcomes are entertaining. The rules help shape the story and keep in unexpected, as well as allowing other players some input.

Ollie/Stan = Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel, aka Laurel & Hardy, a film (and theater) comedy team from the early part of the century.

Stan is a milquetoast, short, thin and perhaps slightly dimwitted (depending on the exact role - sometimes he is merely easily befuddled by everyday absurdities.) Ollie is a prissy, big, overbearing jerk, but, as I say, just as dimwitted, though unlike Stan, Ollie is never confused, he is just wrong.

Edit: A typical Stan & Ollie scene goes like this (note that I am draining the comedy out as much as possible here, "storyboarding", ha, to show the structure of who is trying to do what):

Ollie decides something needs doing. He directs Stan to do it.
Stan doesn't think it needs to be done, he ineffectually ripostes. Ollie bullies him into agreement.
Stan attempts to do what Ollie told him to do, but he misunderstood, so he fails. Ollie escalates, demanding Stan do precisely what he says.
Stan attempts again, either further misunderstanding or running into the fact that Ollie is wrong about what needs to be done, failing again.
Ollie further escalates. This repeats until Ollie says he'll do it himself. Stan tries to help. Everything that Stan has done (and all of Ollie's misunderstandings) all collapse around them in chaos.

Here is an example of their work. There are others that have fallen into the public domain that you can find on various sites.

I mean, if all this is about is someone has to say "my guy does this", and we base that on some drive or flaw or passion in the character, sure, that's fine, but that's not really what "advocacy" means to me. I can do that at arms length, look at the character, think a bit about what they'd do, and announce that. That's not advocacy to me. When I advocate for someone professionally, I fight as hard as I can to get the outcome I want. I don't just weakly say "heh heh heh, I know I won't get this but I know you want it so okay, here goes, heh heh heh". That is weaksauce, it is nothing, just showing up and taking up space. To the degree that you are advocating for a character's desires, you MUST be let down if the character fails, exactly to that degree. And that is as frustrating and not-fun for you to the same proportion as you have invested in advocating.

Posted By: sage(I don't get the Ollie/Stan reference, if there is one, so I'm imagining them as Zap Brannigan and Kiff from Futurama, just FYI)

You are so young.

JD,

This is getting very abstract. But another component of my Play Passionately project involves not deciding what "kind of" story you're telling advance. Talking about tone is okay. But saying specifically, "this is a slapstick where the jerk always gets his comeuppance" is not. Because there is another kind of comedy where the jerk actually does get what he wants and its funny for different reasons. We don't know in advance which kind of comedy were playing until we roll the dice and find out.

This is getting away from the point because I don't think this is a universal truth. I don't think the whole of my Play Passionately project is about ALL of role-playing. A few pieces are relevant globally like the social power issues I described before.

So yeah, if YOUR group pre-decides what "kind of" story you're playing and then works to make sure that target stays on track... okay fine. I'm not saying THAT'S wrong, per se. I do find it boring as all hell and have no desire to play with you, but that's preference. However, I DO think you need different game design components to make that work properly without introducing the social power grab element I spoke about.

Primetime Adventures, In A Wicked Age, Sorcerer, etc... those are HORRIBLE tools to work with if you're pre-invested in the "kind of" story your telling where "kind of" includes notions about certain guaranteed must happen outcomes.

Jesse

Posted By: JesseThis is getting very abstract. But another component of my Play Passionately project involves not deciding what "kind of" story you're telling advance.

Who said anything about deciding any of this in advance? That's a red herring. All of the decisions I describe above with respect to comedy (and much drama) can (and to some degree must) be made in the moment just as easily as any other.

I think Microscope is be exploring this kind of play.

Posted By: JDCorley
I mean, if all this is about is someone has to say "my guy does this", and we base that on some drive or flaw or passion in the character, sure, that's fine, but that's not really what "advocacy" means to me. I can do that at arms length, look at the character, think a bit about what they'd do, and announce that. That's not advocacy to me. When I advocate for someone professionally, I fight as hard as I can to get the outcome I want. I don't just weakly say "heh heh heh, I know I won't get this but I know you want it so okay, here goes, heh heh heh". That is weaksauce, it is nothing, just showing up and taking up space. To the degree that you are advocating for a character's desires, you MUST be let down if the character fails, exactly to that degree. And that is as frustrating and not-fun for you to the same proportion as you have invested in advocating.

Okay, we obviously have a definition clash on advocating. I was using advocating to mean something along the lines of: "making a character take actions to pursue their goals to the best of their ability."

This may be just me, but I've had a great time advocating for characters who I know are unlikely to get their goals, and even if they get them are unlikely to keep them for long. That's pretty much Cthluhu for you: you advocate for someone who will at best temporarily get what they desire.

I think this may all be tangled up in an issue of when you roll the dice. Making absolute unchallengeable statements about a character is fine. But a character is never about those things. Characters that are just a bunch of absolutes are bit players, worth some laughs or hatred or whatever, but not where stories really come from I think.

Posted By: Josh RobyJesse, Tim —

Can you talk about this style of play that you've identified as something you likewithoutdisparaging other styles of play as badwrongfun? I'd really appreciate it, and so would my blood pressure. :D

Ehhhh, sorry Josh, but I thought I made it clear that what I'm trying to describe is something I personally consider poor game design. By definition, what I'm saying is going to step on some people's toes. I'm not trying to be insulting. Honestly, I don't consider this a discussion about preference per se. I'm interested in solving what I perceive to be a real problem in certain play.