Designing for Them?

No one has yet published a game which fills the needs and desires of people looking for low-impact play. As Claire Bickell so eloquently put it, “ I haven’t experienced any systems that do work for me, only ones which suck different amounts.” And Nir Shiffer adds, “ Both in the Israeli and the Swedish gaming scenes this [low-impact play] is the majority opinion (or, because "majority" is a bitch to define, at least a very widespread preference) regardless of gender. This is why we make such heavy use of freeform and freeform half-breeds – there just isn't a fully confined system to support it yet.”

Many indie designers, even ones that I respect immensely, are frustrated by players with these sorts of desires, because low-impact players seem to reject most traditional design work, not appreciating the neat little rules that designers develop to make play more interesting. And low-impact players do this from what can seem to be an "allergy to mechanics." Often, to this type of player, system really doesn't matter, and that's antithetical to the soul of the indie design movement. Designers throw their hands up in the air and storm off in a huff. How do you design rules for people who tend to just ignore most of the rules?

Mo describes a fairly common experience: “Brand and I have had a number of discussions where I have dismantled wholecloth mechanics, or randomization or chance mechanics out of system and he has ended up saying something like: 'But then it's not really a game, is it?' To me it is. Game in an RPG context is more synonymous with the concept of play than it is with game in the sense of Risk or football.”

Still, even designers who prefer this kind of play have a hard time approaching it from a design perspective. I think Annie nails it: “It's funny... The group of players you describe is the one I fall into, but not really the one I write for. ...It's like I don't know my native language and have been working with the one that everyone else around me is speaking.”

For a while now, I've been trying to come up with a style of game design that's the opposite of the “Macho Nar Yang” design camp that emerged from The Forge. The Forge inspired a whole series of games whose major unifying trait seems to be their Social-Contract-in-a-Can, mechanics that channel and redirect what would normally be disruptive player choices (“Okay, then, I shoot you!”) to create exciting play. The mechanics of these games allow you to pick up the rules with a group of complete strangers at a convention and jump straight into the kind of balls-to-the-wall, intense inter-character conflict that usually requires the trust and comfort that comes from a lengthy shared play history. Forge-style games have traditionally encouraged individual players to make interesting, dramatic choices that keep raising the stakes of each subsequent conflict. They have not been especially good at encouraging players to be sensitive to and supportive of the desires of their companions.

Vincent recently described himself in relation to players who may prefer a more low-impact approach:

Some roleplayers think that adversity is blocking. Throw adversity at them, they feel like you're blocking their creative input. Ask them to throw adversity at you, they won't do it.

But me, I have this character who I think is cool. I want to show off how cool she is and I want your help. What that means is, I want to show what she's made of and I want you to test her to breaking; I want you to do your worst and no screwing around. I want you to destroy her, tear her down, ruin her, shatter her, gut her...

Personally, I'm not very good at playing the way Vincent describes, possibly because I don't really like it all that much. It just feels like a testosterone soap opera, and I just don't want to get into that kind of thing. I realize there's a lot of good stuff being done here, and I enjoy hearing about these games and reading about design work in this area, but it's just not where my interests are and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. I'm not being a hater. I'm not saying that kind of play is bad (though I'm sure people will feel the need to come out of the woodwork and defend it now), but it's just not for me.

Here's Thomas Robertson, with some interesting things to say:

It seems to me that we're dealing with two fundamentally different ways of approaching gaming as a hobby.

On the one hand we have the "traditional" indie movement which is about, in an important sense, universalizing play experiences. The goal is for anyone to be able to pick up (for instance) Dogs in the Vineyard and be able to have roughly the same experience as anyone else. Of course there are differences, but they're supposed to be akin to the differences of two different games of chess. Same form, different content.

On the other hand we have people who are about making play less universal. These people are about making play personal to the group. New players must be taught socially the rules of the game because those rules aren't written down, and they certainly aren't universal. This looks, to me, like the description of a lot of play in the 80's.

I think that part of the indie movement grew out of the desire to get away from that sort of play because not everyone finds it fun. But in the rush to abandon the "this sucks" extremely private (to specific groups) form of play, the indie movement left behind those who actually enjoyed what they were doing.

And WiredNavi bring up another good point, which rings true with my own experience:

I don't think that the difference between these groups is really universal experience vs. non-universal. That seems to be the effect. In my experience, though, the online freeformers really want consensus roleplaying. That is, they don't want to have conflicts between players at all, even.

The people I roleplayed with online were not interested in resolving their conflicts in a fair and interesting manner. The best game was one where everyone was riffing off of everyone else, and everyone was into everyone else's ideas to the extent that those conflicts simply didn't happen. Characters came into conflict all the time, but players avoided it.

This is in direct contrast to the indie RPG scene, which is very much about making rules for resolving conflict between the players. This is pretty diametrically opposed to what I think those players want.

I think Emily Care Boss' Breaking the Ice is a good example of a game that stands in the middle of these two competing sets of interests and tries to get both their attentions. Still, when Selene Tan and I tried to play a Shojo ninja romance version of Breaking the Ice, the rules of the game kept clashing with the kind of play we had in mind. Breaking tries to use die rolls and various pre-determined character traits to structure a couple's first three dates, but instead of us following the rules to determine where the story was going, we kept running on ahead with the story we wanted to tell, dragging the rules behind us as an afterthought. We didn't really need or want the rules to help us structure scenes, figure out what was going to happen next, or create interesting conflicts. We could do all that on our own. We were totally rocking hard on the genre tropes we were borrowing, hit the ground running, and only later thought, “Oh, maybe we should have rolled some dice by now.” Silly freeformers! How do you design to support the kind of play that Selene and I wanted to be doing? Can it be done at all?

Some answers coming in the next installment:

A New Anthem, Part 2:
Designing a Community of Practice

- Conversational Narrative
- Constraint
- Pull
- Lessons from Game Chef

So...

What's wrong with low-impact players, playing freeform?

I suppose it boils down to what kind of game you want your roleplaying game to be. Do you want it to be a dice-and-counters game, or do you want it to be a game of social interactions?

I never liked games of social interaction -- to me, they all boil down to popularity contests powered by hidden agendas and duplicity (not to put it lightly or anything).

People who play freeform are NOT cut off from support an external feedback mechanisms. They just get it from different places than RPG players do.

The Freeform RPG movement is alive and well and no more "moribund" than the RPG movement is.

I think it's completely FRUITLESS to wonder how someone can design RPG's that will appeal to the freeformers. It's like trying to design a artillery piece that will appeal to soccer moms, by reducing the bore to 37mm and putting a hitch on it that'll fit an SUV.

They Just Don't Need It.

I don't agree, Vax.

I think a lot of low-impact/freeform players would prefer to have a minimal set of rules that worked for what they want to do. It's just that they haven't found any that fit the bill.

Fred,

"The right ruleset" is part of "marketing.'

So, for that matter, is "community of practice."

But I'll stop on that one now, and see what Johnathan says.

I have been a GM in a number of rpgs without dice and written rules, and it have been lots of fun. So I guess I am one of these freeformers.

But I do believe it is possible to design games for this crowd. You just have to be very careful, and focusing on enhancing the immersion into the character and the story, without trying to direct anything.

- Anders

Jonathan: Thanks for expressing this style of play so well. This is exactly the type of play that does not interest me in any way, but I usually struggle when I try to talk about it clearly.

I think it would be awesome if someone found a way to make a good game for these players. They clearly need one.

Joshua, I think that in some ways you're kind of right, in that there are players that can steamroll a 'social' system easily (I think it's equally possible to steamroll a 'mechanical' system, but that's neither here nor there), but I think that leads into a very important aspect of this style of play, which I think Jonathan articulated fairly well:

"This group understands that most mechanics can be replaced by a solid social contract, playing with the right people, and building a strong shared history of play with the others in the group."

I don't play with people I don't trust. This isn't necessarily the sort of game you can just pick up and play with anyone.

Tangentially, I think that this is why a lot of people who gravitate to this style are often resistant to gm-less styles of gaming, because you have to trust more people more deeply in that kind of game; it's not impossible, but it can be more difficult to accomplish.

I'll concede the point, but what I've never understood is how you get to that point of trust with your fellow players -- is it done outside the game, so you only play this with folks you know? Do you play dice-and-counters first? Or is there some sort of gradation that you can employ?

So, I'm getting the impression - please correct me if I'm wrong - that this trust factor is a double-edged sword.

It permits you to do different and special things in play, but it also sets a barrier between groups; you have a trust relationship with the people you always play with, but what about those other people over there that are doing the same thing? You don't know them well enough to play with them yet.

So, thing is, I'm interested (intellectually) in seeing what this kind of play is like; I don't have a group with those practices and that trust relationship.

Can that gap be bridged?

Augh. We're too used to thinking of 'rules' as mechanisms to affect the SIS (to use an ancient term), mechanisms that decide who gets what authority to narrate which things. These people don't want rules like that; they don't want to argue at all, much less have rules to preside over such arguments. They need rules to:

A) Collate the group's playstyle so that the boundaries of play can be absorbed rapidly and comprehensively, and possibly set individual boundaries as well
B) Come to consensus rapidly and painlessly instead of apportioning authority
C) Help players suggest ways to guide narration in acceptable directions without sacrificing interest and excitement

Most freeformers in my experience want to push their own buttons instead of having others do it for them. That is, they want NGH play except when they decide to hurt themselves, and that's when. I think rules for this kind of play would have a lot of explicit flags, which are already used a lot online in character descriptions and just need to be extended farther, and some kind of story-structure guide where players can easily 'slot' new characters into good positions in existing relationship maps.

To follow up on what Peaseblossom and Nir Shiffer have said. I only game with people I trust. New games often have new faces which means each new game is often a trust exercise at the beginning on top of everything else. If the trust can't be built, a rare thing but it happens, not every group you create necessarily works even if you've gamed with everyone before, than the game usually ends one way or another.

Because gaming ends up being such a trust building exercise it also serves as a community building exercise.

Jonathon,
Given your description of the desires of these folks, I'd count myself among the group you are trying to design for. I've never done freefrom, but my games have drifted closer and closer to it over the years (I tend to systems like Everway and OTE, or my latest darling Wushu for tabletop play). I find most of the Forge style games way too "mechanical" and "in your face" for my desired style of play, and find that the emphasis on thematically reinforcing mechanics just breaks my SOD and ruins the experience of the "story" for me.

I for one would love to see a set of techniques for facilitating this kind of play, particularly for face to face tabeltop play.

John Marron

Yea! And my name only has one b in it! Well, one B and then one b. Like in the first and then in the last. And one r and then one R. And then some other letters.

Nir said:This trust also works by connection - I'm playing with two people I know and played with before and they bring in someone they've played with before. ...

Finally, the game itself is a trust building mechanism.

Huh. Is this kind of game a form of social networking? That's interesting.

Of course the problem with social network building is the whole geek fallacy thing.

http://sean.chittenden.org/humor/www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

One of the big problems I've seen with communities like this (mostly around LARPS) is that they fall prey to almost every one of the problems on that list. Those that don't get those get the ones Josh was talking about above. Though I'll note specifically that many of the people doing what Josh described aren't doing it conciously or on purpouse, it is just "the way game is" in their world.

So, if we want to build communities that get around all those problems I'm all for it: I just don't think it's going to be easy.

See, this entire thing makes like, a thousand times more sense as a social networking scheme, and I think it's more than possible to avoid or at least mitigate GSF if approached carefully.

I find the whole idea of Geek Social Fallacies to be an odd-bit of self-hatred as its mainly used in geek and gamer circles. Truth is these are behaviors of most self-identified communities and are not encessarily good or bad in themselves.

I also feel that bringing it up in this context is an attempt to deflect from the
pertinent issue of what exactly is system and how does it apply to this style of gaming.

I second Shreyas: Jere, fill us in!

The more feedback we get on this, the more likely we are to be able to avoid problems down the road.

For example: you already talked about games as trust builders. Do you have any techniques or methods for helping to build trust, or is it something that just happens?

Johnathon,

I'd like to just add my thoughts about low impact design.

I have unfocused players who are anti-freeformers. They want to be led around the game-world soaking in the color and challenge. Aside from a limited set-up effort in character creation, they want no part of author stance. At all. No 'inventing' a bar to walk into and no input or meta-control of anything outside their characters's person, much less creating their nemesis or controling npcs for the GM. And they aren't interested in exploring personal issues or being part of a 'story' except as it appears by happenstance in hindsight. Just as strongly, they don't care for counting arrows or managing resources of any kind. But they aren't free-forming and they have no specific creative agenda. They really like GURPS and D&D3, especially choosing ads and feats.

BUT they can be designed for. They want just enough system to know what they can do and nothing that will force them to do anything more than their whims lead them. As an example, D&D3 is just about right - they can (say) ignore or use the challenge rating system as they want, even within the same combat. I see this group as being made up of by mass-market gamers.

I said all of that for this...which is going to sound far simpler than I know it to be:

I think you can appeal to low impact gamers by designing in their favorite bits for them to sink their teeth into. I'm talking about equipment lists, short fiction bits, mood-evoking art, some archetypes or templates and game-world flags (like Vampire Clans.) Just enough system and pretty things to direct their individual gaming efforts into a group effort. Then SELL it. These players want to be sold. Like their favorite GMs sell them into a game. (That might read more uncharitably than I meant it when typing it up, but hopefully you all understand that I am okay with the fact that they play this way, even if I don't want to GM it.)

But I get the feeling that my view is probably too narrow. I want to see what else there is to say about low impact design. When is part 2 coming?

Chris W.

Note that I personally think that a little more examination (in creation and periodically) would produce better play, especially as regards flags and collaboration. Playing without these things leads to especially inconsistent results, in my experience.

Sorry I've not been around to be more active in these discussions, but I just returned from 2 1/2 days in DC and I'm leaving tomorrow to drive down to Tampa. Life is nuts!

I think (like Graham and Paul suggested) many of the issues that have been brought up here will be easier to discuss once I post the second mini essay, but I wanted to address the Shreyas/Alex "I don't have a group of people that I trust that way! What now?" problem.

Obviously, there are many different levels of trust here. Personally, I think trust is actually less important than a degree of personal familiarity. If you've spent a fair amount of time conversing with someone, either in person or online, you should have a fair sense of how they're going to behave in most social situations. Sure, they could still do something that shocks and surprises you, but it's less likely the more contact you've had with them ("Oh, Shreyas is just having one of his 'I hate everything and everyone' days..."). If you have a sort of personable relationship with someone, I think that's enough to play these type of games with them. I mean, it's not like Selene and I have spent hours and hours conversing online. But we've had enough little conversations that we had no problem running off on a crazy freeform rampage.

And sometimes it has to do with individual people. If you begin talking with people and a lot of things just click, if you have a lot of the same instincts and get pushed by the same buttons, it's probably easier to jump right into supporting each other in play. There's less need for a lot of socialization time. I've never played with Jess or Nir or WiredNavi or Annie before, but the way we think about play has so much in common that I'm sure we could just jump right in and have a blast. And, if you have the right kind of person, who intuitively gets what low-impact play is about, you don't even have to know them that well, honestly. Play is certainly more efficient and effective if you know the other players well, but it's not actually necessary. Like, I can imagining walking around GenCon with a sign reading "Did you heart Changeling?" and finding people I could start up a low-impact game with, all in about 10 minutes.

As for joining an existing play group, in order for that to succeed, the group really has to incorperate you into their processes. Yes, you'll probably have to adapt more to the guidelines they've already established, but, since the group wants you to enjoy the game and be a real part of the group too, they'll also have to adapt to your needs and desires. Think about joining a basketball or baseball team or an acting troupe. If it's going to be a successful working relationship, often both sides have to change the way they do things so the group as a whole can be better.

Finally, this all goes back to CAREFULLY CHOOSING WHO YOU PLAY WITH, which is actually one of the precepts of indie gaming that I most strongly agree with, even if it's not gotten as much attention of late. You're not going to be able to play these games with just anyone, even if you really want to play with them. Sometimes the mix of people or personalities or interests just won't work. And recognizing that and knowing when to walk away (or who should walk away) is one of the hardest parts. Still, I've NEVER had problems getting a group of people together for low-impact or freeform play. Those players are EVERYWHERE. I have, in the past, just drafted whoever was sitting around my college dorm lounge. I HAVE had problems recruiting groups to play Unknown Armies or Nobilis or In Nomine or Continuum, because, like Selene says, those require you to know much more backstory or system in order to play effectively.

Anyway, there's my long response to a side point. Now I have to pack for Florida. Once I get down there and get through my first few days of teaching class, I'll try to finish up the second mini essay so we can have some real content to talk about.

I'm glad you resurrected this, for whatever reason I glossed over it the first time. ("TL;DR" --- because I'm an idiot ). Between the original post and Dee's evaluation I wish there was something I could add. I think there is some way to "reach the freeformers". In fact, as Dee points out there are a ton of "mainstream" gamers that are not that far removed from what freeformers do. But this is just what I think based on a gut feeling of participating in a ton of "freeform" and near-freeform games, I can't find a line, I really can't, every time I think I find one, I am wrong and stupid. So there's got to be a way. But hell if I can think of it.