RPG Design Tensions
I don't write as much these days, partly because my subjects are of limited interest and partly because I get overwhelmed by projects that spiral out of control. For example...
I started off today wanting to write a comparison of how different roleplaying games model characters, contrasting the competing goals of clarity and flexibility. Traditional RPGs strive for clarity -- carefully detailing each allowable action and its consequences, but leaving out many options (you might be able to punch, but not kick or shove or tackle). Newer RPG designs pursue flexibility, at the cost of reducing clarity (you might have an "attack" option, but the players must collectively figure out the specifics every time you use it). I've long been frustrated by the traditional constraints of imagination, but must admit the newer, flexible approach can be harder to use in practice.
As I was trying to write that essay / journal entry, I got sidetracked by the tension between rules and narration, which might be a more generalized way of thinking about clarity versus flexibility. (Or maybe it's just another aspect of the same design challenge.) Roleplaying games have always been difficult to define, but most gamers agree that they involve some mixture of gaming and narration (or arguably narrative). RPGs set forth objectives, give players restricted options with which to achieve those objectives, and require players to narrate character actions (and their consequences). But the game and narration parts are in tension; they compete for authority -- how do players acknowledge which ideas or claims about the game world are valid? Do they rely on rules or on narration? Traditional roleplaying games give authority to the rules -- no matter what you claim a character does, or how you describe the action, the practical results are always determined by the game rules. ("Your Thunderous Retribution flying spin kick does two points of damage, and does not appear to affect your opponent.") In contrast, newer RPG designs grant authority to the narration -- the rules are not invoked unless the players agree that their described actions call for it. ("You want to intimidate a band of goblins by kicking their leader in the face with awe-inspiring martial arts? Cool, roll your Martial Arts skill against their Morale rating!") This trade off is not as clear as the clarity-flexibility conflict, but granting authority to narration is also harder to use in practice and for similar reasons.
And as I was struggling with those two ideas, I got sidetracked by a third design conflict, that of balancing game mechanics against narrative modeling. Early roleplaying games are very similar to traditional board games -- you have different playing pieces (characters) that can make different moves on the game board. In chess, knights do different things than pawns. In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, fighters do different things than magic-users. The design intention is to give players different options in the game space, *not* to model different kinds of fictional protagonists. But as RPGs became more influenced and informed by fiction, players started wanting to model what they read or watched. The traditional design response was to add new playing pieces to the game -- Conan the Barbarian is neither fighter nor rogue, so AD&D had to introduce a barbarian -- which typically leads to rules bloat and balance problems. Other design responses moved away from the game paradigm to become more simulations of the source fiction, but generally fell into two radically different approaches, based on the conflict between clarity and flexibility. Taking me back to my original essay idea, but now with much more ground to cover.
And I'm still undecided about the best approach to explore the original idea!
Maybe I'll manage to tease this out into something that makes a useful point. Someday....
I started off today wanting to write a comparison of how different roleplaying games model characters, contrasting the competing goals of clarity and flexibility. Traditional RPGs strive for clarity -- carefully detailing each allowable action and its consequences, but leaving out many options (you might be able to punch, but not kick or shove or tackle). Newer RPG designs pursue flexibility, at the cost of reducing clarity (you might have an "attack" option, but the players must collectively figure out the specifics every time you use it). I've long been frustrated by the traditional constraints of imagination, but must admit the newer, flexible approach can be harder to use in practice.
As I was trying to write that essay / journal entry, I got sidetracked by the tension between rules and narration, which might be a more generalized way of thinking about clarity versus flexibility. (Or maybe it's just another aspect of the same design challenge.) Roleplaying games have always been difficult to define, but most gamers agree that they involve some mixture of gaming and narration (or arguably narrative). RPGs set forth objectives, give players restricted options with which to achieve those objectives, and require players to narrate character actions (and their consequences). But the game and narration parts are in tension; they compete for authority -- how do players acknowledge which ideas or claims about the game world are valid? Do they rely on rules or on narration? Traditional roleplaying games give authority to the rules -- no matter what you claim a character does, or how you describe the action, the practical results are always determined by the game rules. ("Your Thunderous Retribution flying spin kick does two points of damage, and does not appear to affect your opponent.") In contrast, newer RPG designs grant authority to the narration -- the rules are not invoked unless the players agree that their described actions call for it. ("You want to intimidate a band of goblins by kicking their leader in the face with awe-inspiring martial arts? Cool, roll your Martial Arts skill against their Morale rating!") This trade off is not as clear as the clarity-flexibility conflict, but granting authority to narration is also harder to use in practice and for similar reasons.
And as I was struggling with those two ideas, I got sidetracked by a third design conflict, that of balancing game mechanics against narrative modeling. Early roleplaying games are very similar to traditional board games -- you have different playing pieces (characters) that can make different moves on the game board. In chess, knights do different things than pawns. In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, fighters do different things than magic-users. The design intention is to give players different options in the game space, *not* to model different kinds of fictional protagonists. But as RPGs became more influenced and informed by fiction, players started wanting to model what they read or watched. The traditional design response was to add new playing pieces to the game -- Conan the Barbarian is neither fighter nor rogue, so AD&D had to introduce a barbarian -- which typically leads to rules bloat and balance problems. Other design responses moved away from the game paradigm to become more simulations of the source fiction, but generally fell into two radically different approaches, based on the conflict between clarity and flexibility. Taking me back to my original essay idea, but now with much more ground to cover.
And I'm still undecided about the best approach to explore the original idea!
Maybe I'll manage to tease this out into something that makes a useful point. Someday....